I am so so so sorry for taking so long to update it's just that I didn't expect to get so much work in the holidays... So here's the next chapter and the next will be up soon ;)

Chapter 6

Rose's POV

The next morning I was searching the room to see if they any painkillers. I've really got to stop drinking whilst I'm still here; the hangovers are getting annoying.

I was interrupted by a knock on the door. I walked over and threw it open. Mornings were bad enough but mornings with hangovers were even worse, and you really didn't want to catch me if I was in the latter state.

"What?" I asked rudely to the person at the door though I couldn't actually see them because there was a huge box covering them.

They moved the box to the side slightly so they could see who it was. "Are you Rose Hathaway?" He asked.

"That's me."

"This is for you," he handed me the box and I closed the door behind me and wondered if I should have given him a tip for carrying that massive box over. Oh well, I wasn't going to run after him just to give a tip.

I gave up looking for the painkillers and was curious to what was in the box. I took the tape off and ripped open. It was filled with perfume. Why would I get a huge box of perfume? There had to be at least thirty bottles in here. Who would buy so much perfume for one person? No harm in trying them though. Bottle after bottle I opened and sniffed and by the end I don't think my sense of smell was working properly.

Lucky Lissa wasn't here otherwise she probably would've collapsed from all the smells in the room. I was half-vampire and I was suffering, imagine what a full-vampire would be smelling. Speaking of Lissa, I wondered where she was. She wasn't here in our room this morning, so where was she? I decided to look for her later; I only had a few bottles left to smell. I rummaged through the box to see if there were any left in the box and I found another box but it wasn't perfume. It was condoms and I only knew one person who would send me those. Adrian. Now I got why I had gotten all the perfume, after our little chat on the porch but why the hell would he send me condoms, it wasn't like we had anything going on.

I was going to pack them all back into the box but I thought I might as well smell the rest of them. I picked up one called Amor Amor. I sniffed it; it had a crisp sweet fragrance. There was a fruit, currant I think, and there were also some florals like Lily of the Valley and others that I didn't know. It was sweet and appealed to me. I put the little box aside since I was going to keep it even though Adrian had gotten it for me. I smelled the last five fragrances but none of them had appealed to me.

I packed up the box getting ready to take it back to Adrian's room since I didn't want the rest. I found out his room number and went over. I knocked on the door quickly, so the box wouldn't fall down, and waited. The door opened and Adrian greeted me with a shocked face, which turned into a smile when he noticed it was me.

"Little dhampir," he said cordially. "Didn't expect to see you here."

"I'm returning these." I hoisted the box toward him before he could protest. Clumsily, he caught it, staggering a bit in surprise. Once he had a good grip, he took a few steps back and set it on the floor.

"Didn't you like any of them?" he asked. "You want me to get you some more?"

"Don't send me anymore gifts."

"It isn't a gift. It's a public service. What woman doesn't own perfume? Plus the other present was just a precaution, you can never be too safe these days."

"Don't do it again," I said firmly.

Suddenly, a voice behind him asked, "Rose? Is that you?" I peered beyond him. Lissa.

"What are you doing here?"

Between my headache and what I had assumed was some interlude with Christian, I'd blocked her out as best I could this morning. Normally I would have known the instant I approached that she was inside the room. I opened myself up again, letting her shock run into me. She hadn't expected me to show up here.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Ladies, ladies," Adrian said teasingly. "No need to fight over me."

A breath of aftershave hit me, and I heard a voice: "Me too." I jumped. Spinning around, I saw Dimitri standing in the hallway. I had no idea what he was doing in the Ivashkov wing. On his way to his girlfriend's room, a voice in my head suggested.

Dimitri no doubt expected me to get into all sorts of trouble, but I think seeing Lissa there caught him off guard. He stepped past me and came into the room, looking between all three of us.

"Male and female students aren't supposed to be in each other's rooms."

I knew pointing out that Adrian wasn't technically a student wasn't going to get us out of trouble here. We weren't supposed to be in any guy's room.

"How do you keep doing this?" I asked Adrian, frustrated.

"Do what?"

"Keep making us look bad!"

He chuckled. "You guys are the ones who came here."

"You shouldn't have let them in," scolded Dimitri. "I'm sure you know the rules at St. Vladimir's."

Adrian shrugged. "Yeah, but I don't have to follow any school's stupid rules."

"Perhaps not," said Dimitri coldly. "But I have thought you'd still respect those rules."

Adrian rolled his eyes. "I'm kind of surprised to find you lecturing about underage girls."

I saw the anger kindle in Dimitri's eyes, and for a moment, I thought I might have seen the loss of control I'd teased him about. But he stayed composed, and only his clenched fists showed how angry he was.

"Besides," continued Adrian, "nothing sordid was going on. We were just hanging out."

"If you want 'hang out' with young girls, do it at one of the public areas."

I didn't really like Dimitri calling us 'young girls', and I kind of felt like he was overreacting here. I also suspected part of his reaction had to do with the fact that I was here.

Adrian laughed just then, a weird kind of laugh that made my skin crawl. "Young girls? Young girls? Sure. Young and old at the same time. They've barely seen anything in life, yet they've already seen too much. One's marked with life, and one's marked with death… but they're the ones you're worried about? Worry about yourself, dhampir. Worry about you, and worry about me. We're the ones who are young."

The rest of us just sort of stared. I don't think anyone had expected Adrian to suddenly take an abrupt trip to Crazyville.

Adrian was calm and looked perfectly normal again. He turned away and strolled towards the window, glancing casually back at the rest of us as he pulled out his cigarettes.

"You ladies should probably go. He's right. I am a bad influence."

I exchanged looks with Lissa. Hurriedly, we both left and followed Dimitri down the hall toward the lobby.

"That was…strange," I said a couple minutes later. It was stating the obvious, but, well, someone had to.

"Very," said Dimitri. He didn't sound angry so much as puzzled.

When we reached the lobby, I started to follow Lissa back toward our room, but Dimitri called to me.

"Rose," he said. "Can I talk to you?"

I felt a sympathetic rush of feeling from Lissa. I turned toward Dimitri and stepped off to the side of the room, out of the way of those passing through. A party of Moroi in diamonds and fur swept past us, anxious looks on their faces. Bellhops followed with luggage. People were still leaving in search of safer places. The Strigoi paranoia was far from over.

Dimitri's voice snapped my attention back to him. "That's Adrian Ivashkov." He said the name the same way everyone else did.

"Yeah, I know."

"This is the second time I've seen you with him."

"Yeah," I replied glibly. "We hang out sometimes." I don't know why he should care though it sort of made me happy that he did. Not just because he cared about me but in the way that he was caring because I had been hanging out with Adrian.

Dimitri arched an eyebrow, then jerked his head back toward where we'd come from. "You hang out in him room a lot?"

Several retorts popped into my head and then a golden one took precedence. "What happens between him and me is none of your business." I manage a tone very similar to the one he'd used on me when making a similar comment about him and Tasha.

"Actually, as along as you're at the Academy, what you do is my business."

"Not my personal life. You don't have a say in that."

"You're not an adult yet."

The way he said that reminded me of the conversation after the attack had happened and the Moroi were discussing what they should do. The way he said I was a child was just insulting and he was implying it again. "I'm close enough. Besides, it's not like I'll magically become an adult on my eighteenth birthday."

"Clearly," he said.

I blushed. "That's not what I meant. I meant –"

"I know what you meant. And the technicalities don't matter right now. You're an Academy student. I'm your instructor. It's my job to help you and to keep you safe. Being in the bedroom of someone like him…well, that's not safe."

I felt sort of bad for Adrian that everyone talked about him in the same way but if that's his reputation then I'm not surprised. "I can handle Adrian Ivashkov," I muttered. "He's weird – really weird, apparently – but harmless."

I secretly wonder if Dimitri's problem might be that he was jealous. He hadn't pulled Lissa aside to yell at her. The thought made me slightly happy, but then I remembered my earlier curiosity about why Dimitri had even wondered by.

"Speaking of personal lives…I supposed you were off visiting Tasha, huh?"

I knew it was petty, but hey, last time we saw each other he was telling me that he was going to take her offer. I didn't want to bring it up just in case he was just playing with me. I really hoped he was joking so I kept my mouth shut…well for the time being at least. I expected a 'none of your business' response, instead he replied, "Actually, I was visiting you mother."

"You going to hook up with her too?" I knew of course that he wasn't, but the quip seemed too good to pass up.

He seemed to know that too and merely gave a weary glance. "No, we were looking over some new data about the Strigoi in the Drozdov attack."

My anger and snarkiness dried up. The Drozdovs. The Badicas. Suddenly, everything that had happened this morning seemed incredibly trivial. How could I have stood there arguing with Dimitri about romances that might or might not be happening when he and the other guardian were trying to protect us?

"What'd you find out?" I asked quietly so nobody else would hear our conversation, I guessed it would be confidential information.

He told me what had happened when he met with my mother and I was actually genuinely surprised that he told me any of this since I was a novice and all. "Why'd you tell me this anyway? This is guardian stuff. Not the kind of thing you let novices in on."

He considered his words, and his expression softened. He always looked amazing, but I liked him best like this. "I've said a few things…the other day and today…that I shouldn't have. Things that insulted your age. You're seventeen…but you're capable of handling and processing the same things those much older than you do."

My chest grew light and fluttery. "Really?"

He nodded. You're still really young in a lot of ways – and act young – but the only way to really change that is to treat you like an adult. I need to do that more. I know you'll take this information and understand how important it is and keep it to yourself."

I didn't love being told I acted young, but I liked the idea that he would talk to me like an equal.

"Dimka," came a voice. Tasha Ozera walked up to us. She smiled when she saw me. "Hello, Rose."

There went my mood. "Hey," I said flatly.

She placed a hand on Dimitri's forearm, sliding her fingers over the leather of his coat. I eyed those fingers angrily. How dare they touch him?

"You've got that look," she told him.

"What look?" he asked. The stern look he'd worn with me vanished. There was a small, knowing smile on his lips. Almost a playful one.

"That look that says you're going to be on duty all day."

"Really? I have a look like that?" There was a teasing mocking tone to his voice.

She nodded. "When does your shift technically end?"

Dimitri actually looked – I swear – sheepish. "An hour ago."

"You can't keep doing this," she groaned. "You need a break."

"Well…if you consider that I'm always Lissa's guardian…"

"For now," she said knowingly. I felt sicker than I had last night. "There's a big pool tournament going on upstairs."

"I can't," he said, but the smile was still on his face. "Even though I haven't played in a long time…"

What the–? Dimitri played pool?

Suddenly, it didn't matter that we'd just had a discussion about him treating me like an adult. Some small part of me did know what a compliment that was – but the rest of me wanted him to treat me like he did Tasha. Playful. Teasing. Casual. They were so familiar with each other, so completely at ease.

"Come on, then," she begged. "Just one round! We could take them all."

"I can't," he repeated. He sounded regretful. "Not with everything going on."

She sobered a little. "No. I suppose not." Glancing at me she said teasingly, "I hope you realise what a hard-core role model you have here. He's never off duty."

I know that, Tasha, I don't need you to tell me that. Role model, though? Not the words I would use exactly…but close enough. "Well," I said, copying her lifting tone from earlier, "for now, at least."

Tasha looked puzzled. I don't think it occurred to her I'd be making fun of her. Dimitri's dark look told me he knew exactly what I was doing. I immediately realised I'd just killed whatever progress I'd made as an adult.

"We're finished here, Rose. Remember what I said."

"Yeah," I said, turning away. I suddenly wanted to go to my room and veg for a while. This day was making me tired already. "Definitely."

As I made my way back to my room, I couldn't help think about the future for Dimitri and me. He told me that he had taken Tasha's offer but he didn't mention it once in our conversation just now, but Tasha was implied that he was going to. I didn't really believe Tasha but after what Dimitri had said I was beginning to have my doubts. On the other hand, Dimitri could have just said that he was because I was with Adrian at the time and it came out without him thinking about it.

If Dimitri left it meant he wouldn't be Lissa's guardian anymore and she would be assigned someone else along with me. It also meant Dimitri was leaving me. Did he really not care for me that much that would just leave? At least he would have the guts to tell me he was leaving to my face instead of leaving with a goodbye.

Maybe it was because Tasha could give him children and I couldn't. I mean if I could and he wanted them I might have considered it, not that I'm the biggest fan of them, but dhampirs couldn't create children together but Moroi and dhampirs could. I wonder how the Moroi society would take it though. It was normal for a dhampir woman/girl to be impregnated by a Moroi man and they were highly looked down upon for it. But what about a Moroi woman getting pregnant from a dhampir man? A guardian as well. I didn't really know but I hoped I would never find out because I did not want Dimitri to be Tasha's guardian.

Even if he didn't want me I would still want him to stay for the sake of Lissa's safety. Sure I would want something different and that he would want me, but Lissa's safety was always my priority.

Luckily I ran into Mason to stop the babbling in my head. Unluckily it meant another man I had to deal with.

"You're mad," he said as soon as he looked at my face. He had a knack for discovering my moods. "What happened?"

Oh yeah, Mason, well Tasha Ozera is stealing my man from me and he thinks I'm a child would've been the truth but I wasn't going to tell him that just like I hadn't told him about what had happened between me and Adrian. "Some…authority problems," is what I said instead, "It's been a weird morning."

"Come on. Wasn't the deal to go somewhere…um, private today?"

"I figured you weren't drunk anymore," he joked. But his eyes looked very, very serious. And interested. "I assumed it was all off."

"Hey, I stand by my claims, no matter what." Opening my mind, I searched for Lissa. She was no longer in our room. She'd gone off to some other royal event, no doubts still practicing for Priscilla Voda's big dinner. "Come on," I told Mason. "We'll go to my room."

On the way, to make some conversation and to make him feel better as well as worked up, I told him some of the things that Dimitri had told me about what the guardians were doing. I knew I wasn't meant to tell anymore really but I knew Mason wouldn't mistreat the things I was telling him.

It worked and he had the same expression I did. I calmed him down but we heated up again afterwards as we started to make out. Shit. Why was I thinking about Dimitri while kissing Mason? Get out of my head Dimitri! As much as I tried it he wasn't budging and it wasn't fair to Mason either so I broke it off.

"Too much?" he asked. I nodded. "That's okay. We don't have to do that."

He reached for me again, and I moved farther away. "No. I just don't…I don't know. Let's call it quits okay?"

"I…" He was speechless for a moment. "What happened to the 'lots of things' you wanted to do?"

Yeah…it looked pretty bad, but what could I say? I can't get physcial with you because when I do, I just think about the other guy I actually want. You're just a stand-in.

I swallowed feeling stupid. "I'm sorry, Mase. I just can't."

He sat up and ran a handover his hair. "Okay. All right."

I could hear the harness in his voice. "You're mad."

He glanced over at me, a sotrmy expression on his face. "I'm just confused. I can't read your signals. One momet you're hot, the next you're cold. You tell me you want me, you tell me you don't. If you picked one, that'd be fine, but you eep making me think one thing and then you end up going in a completely different direction. Not just now – all the time."

It was true. I had gone back and forth with him. Sometimes I was flirty, other times I completely ignored him.

"Is there something you want me to do?" he aslked when I didn't say anything. "Something that'll…I don't know. Make you feel better about me?"

"I don't know," I said weakly.

He sighed. "Then what do you want in general?"

Dimitri, I though. Instead, I repeated myself. "I don't know."

With a groan, he stood up and headed for the door. "Rose, for someone who claims she wants to gather as much information as possible, you really have a lot to learn about yourself."

The door slammed behind him. The noise made me flinch, and as I starred at where Mason had just stood, I realised he was right. I did have a lot to learn.

So I know I said that I would be writing Emerald Green Eyes this Summer but as I said before I had a lot of work to do and I was abroad as well so I'll try and write it bit by bit whilst doing this one as well though it's a big year when I go back to school so don't expect too much, sorry =( xx