Once I woke up it took me a while to finally open my eyes. Thank God it was Saturday today or there's no way I could make it through a whole day of classes without either falling back to sleep or throwing up. And I somehow remembered Dimitri telling me he had cancelled morning training today, which I was incredibly grateful for.
It was lunchtime by the time I had finally dragged myself out of bed. I looked in the mirror and was horrified with the way I looked, my hair looked like a birds nest was resting on the top of my head, and I had makeup smeared down my face which I clearly hadn't deemed important enough to take off last night.
I stepped into the shower and stood under the hot stream of water before finally finding the strength to wash my hair and scrub my face and body, hopefully washing away any remnants of last night. Don't get me wrong, I had a great night with Adrian, and with Dimitri at the end, no matter how awkward my next encounter with him may be. It's Jesse that ruined it for me, my forearm was still sore from where he had held my wrist, but nothing I couldn't ignore. I knew he was an asshole, but that was really next level.
I threw my hair into a messy bun on the top of my head, slipped on some workout leggings and a sports bra underneath a hoodie, ready for my training with Dimitri straight after lunch. I surprisingly wasn't too worried about seeing him after last night, we'd been in worse situations and came out of the other side fine. Knowing him he'll act as if nothing happened, and maybe I'm thinking too far into it, maybe nothing actually did happen.
I finally plucked up the courage to leave my dorm, and reluctantly made my way over to the cafeteria, where I picked up two chocolate doughnuts and joined Lissa, Christian, Eddie and Adrian at our usual table. Lissa gave me a smile when I sat down opposite her and asked, 'So Rose, how are you feeling? I heard you were pretty wasted last night.' Christian gave me a mocking smirk to which I replied with a scowl.
'I'm fine thanks Liss, feeling a bit tired but I'm sure running laps with Dimitri will wake me up.'
Adrian raised his eyebrow to that and said, 'Oh yeah, I'm sure Guardian Belikov will really wake you up.' Luckily no one took notice of his comment.
Once I had finished my second doughnut and cleared all the bacon off Lissa's plate, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. I looked up to see Dimitri towering over me. He was wearing his long leather duster and his long hair was tied up at the nape of his neck. I am forever tempted to run my fingers through his hair, but obviously have to stop myself, due to the obvious fact that he's my mentor, and nothing more. 'Ready for training Rose?' I nodded and got up from my seat around the table, saying goodbye to the others as I got up. As I turned my back, Lissa spoke to me through the bond saying 'Good luck Rose.' Almost sarcastically. I rolled my eyes and said 'Thanks Liss.' Over my shoulder, this made Dimitri frown in my direction. Although he knew about the bond and what it could do, he still didn't fully understand it.
Dimitri and I walked to the gym side by side in silence, my shoulder occasionally brushing his arm. We started training by running laps around the track. It was going well, I'm pretty sure I was even beating my last time. That is until a group of moroi guys walked past the track, one of them being Jesse Zeklos and his group of idiot followers. 'Hey Rose!' he shouted. 'I much preferred seeing you wearing that dress last night, although I wouldn't mind making you sweat.' Making all the other guys around him laugh. I stopped running immediately, making Dimitri stop dead too, I turned straight around towards the group of boys, mumbling things along the lines of 'Moroi piece of shit.' But before I could get close enough to cause any real damage, Dimitri stepped in my way and pointed towards the gym doors. 'Inside, now.'
I thought about what I should do for a moment before sighing in defeat and walking back to the gym, Dimitri following close behind me, most likely making sure I didn't run back and beat the crap out of those guys.
Once we were inside I turned to face him. 'Sorry you had to see that Comrade, he's a jerk.' Although I liked to act like a joker a lot of the time, in reality I wanted nothing but Dimitri's respect, and I feared he would doubt me if he saw people taking the piss out of me.
He looked angry, but apparently not at me. 'You have absolutely nothing to Apologise for Rose. It's them who should be apologising to you. But seeing as that's not going to happen any time soon, why don't we spar? I think we could both do with letting off a little steam.'
That's not the reaction I was anticipating, but I was eager to spar with him again. We stood opposite each other and he nodded approvingly when he saw me get into the correct sparing stance. I knew he was expecting me to attack first, which is exactly why I went on the defence and waited for him to attack first. He went for a punch to my right side which I managed to block, followed quickly by a kick to my legs which I managed to dodge, but lost my footing slightly while doing so, however managing to stay on my feet. After a while of me blocking his blows, I suddenly changed tactics by stepping right up close to him and hooking my leg around the back of his and pulling, he was almost twice the size of me, so it was hard work bringing him down. He also used this to his advantage and managed to twist as we fell to the floor so I ended up underneath him. We both placed our practice stakes onto each other's chest at the same time, declaring each other dead at the same time.
I dropped my steak to my side and brushed some loose hair from my face while saying, 'Does this mean we're both dead?'
'I guess so' He replied. 'It was clever using your size and speed against me when you stepped closer, although it would be dangerous stepping so close to a Strigoi, however, you managed to pull it off.'
I smiled up at him. 'Sure, I did ok, but I'm still dead.'
He smiled down at me, 'That may be true, but so am I.'
It was then that the position we were laid in finally dawned on me. I was lying flat on my back with him lying directly on top of me, his legs were positioned on either side of mine, I could even feel the pressure of them against me. My breath caught in my throat as I looked up at him, only to see him gazing down at me, I couldn't quite identify the emotions that were running through his eyes, but pride was certainly one of them. His features then softened as he lifted his hand and brushed a loose curl of hair from my face, and tucked it behind my ear. His fingers tangled into the ends of my hair where it had completely fallen out of the bun I put it in earlier. My eyes moved down to his lips without even telling them to, when I looked back up, his eyes flickered back up to mine too. That's exactly when his phone went off. He sprang up off me as if I was a Strigoi about to take a chunk of his neck. He stood looking down at me for just a moment before he snapped himself out of whatever trance he was in and answered his phone.
While he was talking to whoever it was on the phone I slowly stood up, I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear my head. What the hell had just happened? When I looked up at Dimitri again he was just putting his phone down.
'I'll have to cut our training short today Rose, I've been asked to cover someone's shift, starting in 5 minutes.' What a relief.
I smiled at him as normally as I could. 'That's ok, I could really do with some more sleep anyway, see you tomorrow though?' I asked.
His guardian mask was firmly in place by this point, so he only nodded. 'Sure, I'll see you tomorrow morning. And, I'm sorry Rose.' He didn't specify what he was sorry for, but I know he was feeling guilty for losing control, if that's what you wanted to call it.
I didn't want him feeling guilty so I just replied. 'I'm sorry too.' I then left the gym as quickly as I could. Breathing a sigh of relief as soon as I was out in the fresh air. I really hoped this isn't how things were going to be with him from now on. I've always seen Dimitri as more of a friend than a mentor, but I was starting to realise that he may have to be either one or the other, being both just wasn't working.
So there we have Chapter 4, I really hope you all enjoyed it. And as always please feel free to review with any suggestions you think could help me improve. Thanks again for reading!
