Rose

I was beyond pissed. Lissa should NOT have told Dimitri that she feeds from me. And he had NO right to ask. Why did he care anyway? I made it to the gym in record time. It was a 24 hour gym to members only. You had to have a key card to get in. I am glad that i insisted to Lissa that I needed a membership a couple of months ago. It was late in the evening, so the gym was, thankfully, empty.

I did a couple of warm up stretches, then made my way over to the punching bags. I intended to take all of my anger out on a punching bag by pulverizing it to a pulp. As soon as my fist connected with the thick leather for the first time, I heard the door open. I fully intended to ignore whoever walked in, but then I smelled it; Dimitri's glorious aftershave.

I froze, mid-punch, and rounded on him.

"How did you get in here? And what the hell do you want?"

He flashed a key card almost identical to mine. His face void of all emotion once again. His voice was like honey when he spoke.

"Let's spar. If you win, I'll leave you alone, but I won't abandon my mission. I will protect you without interacting with you or Lissa. If I win, we talk."

My jaw went slack. Did I hear him right?

"What?"

"Spar with me. We will strike up a deal based on the winner."

"Fine." I can do this. He wasn't going to leave if I didn't. I mentally prepared myself for a fight before lunging at him, trying to get a hit on his left shoulder. He blocked. I kept trying to get any hit on him, but he just kept blocking. After I attempted landing a ton of hits on Dimitri, I faltered for a moment, almost loosing my balance. He took advantage of that and had me pinned to the mats in seconds. He was holding my wrists above my head so I couldn't swing at his face. His chocolate brown eyes found mine and held my attention. He smirked.

"I win."

"That's not fair, comrade. You're like twice my size." My anger had almost completely dissipated.

"Rose, a vast majority of people you spar with are going to be bigger than you. And I've met your mother. You are both incredibly small for dhampirs."

"I want to talk to her." I was surprised at the admission I heard myself make. I decided that it was true, even though now I wanted to talk to her for a different reason that I initially thought. At first, I wanted to talk to her because I missed her. Lissa and I had been on our own for a while now, and when Dimitri said my mother was trying to protect me, it made me miss her. I'd never admit it to anyone though. My relationship with my mother was not a good one, considering that she left me to be raised by the academy at such a young age. I resented her for choosing her job over me so many years ago.

Now, however, I wanted to talk to her to find out why she had this overbearing Russian coming to protect us. I hate that she thought that I couldn't protect myself.

After thinking about it again, I thought maybe I was wrong. Maybe I couldn't protect myself and Lissa. Dimitri had taken me down easy enough. What if it had been a strigoi? Strigoi are the worst type of vampire. They are the stereotypical undead vampires that humans have nightmares about. They kill when they take blood, they burn up in the sunlight, and they are impossibly strong, fast, and pretty much immortal. There are only three ways to kill strigoi: fire, decapitation, and a charmed, silver stake to the heart.

Just then, I realized that Dimitri was still laying on top of me, pinning me to the floor. I noted that his weight felt good against my body, but then I chastised myself. If I fell to his charm, I'd never be able to focus on protecting Lissa. With that, I brought up my mother again.

"So can I talk to my mother?"

He looked like I slapped him. Hell, I wanted to. Then he seemed to notice that I was still on the floor under him and he quickly got off of me. Finally, he replied.

"I don't know. I mean, I can't stop you from calling her, but I wasn't supposed to tell you that she was there. You weren't even supposed to know that I am here to protect you. I was supposed to just move in and make friends with you, hoping I could follow you around, unnoticed, in case you needed protection. My boss is going to kill me."

I stayed quiet while he talked. He muttered in Russian a couple of times. I assumed he was swearing. He never directed them at me, though, so I'm not sure. He continued.

"Of course, once I got here, I seen you and froze up. Then, of course, you called in Lissa and since I wasn't expecting it, she used her compulsion on me. Hell, even if I was expecting it, I'm not sure I could have kept her out of my head. I've never seen anyone with such strong compulsion. What element does she specialize in, anyway?"

"She doesn't. She never specialized. She can tap into all four elements though."

"When you knocked on my door earlier to ask me to eat pizza, I was talking to my boss. It's impossible to lie to him so I told him what happened. He seemed just as surprised at her ability with compulsion as I was. When you knocked, obviously, I cut our call short. He called me back when we were in the kitchen after having pizza." He trailed off and looked nervous. I spoke up, thinking about the kiss that infuriated me when he walked away.

"Since you don't seem to want to bring it up, I'm guessing you don't want to talk about kissing me?" I meant to sound bold, but it came out more like a whisper. His reaction caught me off guard. He sounded pissed, but I could tell his anger wasn't directed at me.

"Rose, I made a mistake. I shouldn't have kissed you. You are my charge now. I am here to protect you. Even if I wanted to, I shouldn't have done it. And then my boss called. It's like he knew that I was doing something wrong. Then, of course, I couldn't tell him that I kissed you. He was adamant about you being protected, not you being courted. If I had told him, he would've told Janine. I'm not scared of much, but with her hormones being so crazy, I don't think I'd survive her wrath if she knew I kissed you." I watched as his anger drained from his body to his words.

"What do you mean 'her hormones being so crazy'?" This time, I felt my anger bubbling.

Dimitri's face paled and he threw out some more Russian swear words. It was like he knew something that I'm not supposed to know, and he knew I was catching on. I've never known my mother to have hormones that acted crazy. I mean, I assumed she went the PMS every month like all other females, but Dimitri wouldn't know about my mother's cycle. I mentally shook myself. Ick. I never wanted to think about it. Regardless, I knew something was up.

Dimitri refused to answer me for a long while. I wanted to jump up and strangle him. I knew I wouldn't be able to though. After what seemed like forever, he spoke up.

"I need to call my boss. Wait here. I'll be back."

"Okay." I let him go. I didn't feel like arguing anymore. I laid back down on the mat and waited. I didn't realize that I'd fallen asleep.

I woke up in my bed the next morning. I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and looked around my room. How did I get home last night? I was at the gym with Dimitri. I noticed that Lissa wasn't in bed and I freaked out. Lissa must have noticed too, because she grabbed my attention over the bond.

"Rose, calm down. I'm in the kitchen with Dimitri. You fell asleep at the gym last night, so he carried you home. He was really worried about you. Come downstairs. Dimitri is an amazing cook! "

"I'm gonna grab a shower quick then I'll come down."

"Okay! "

That girl is way to perky in the mornings.

Lissa

"You okay, Lissa?"

"Yes, Dimitri. I'm fine. Rose just got up. When she realized I wasn't in the room, she freaked out, afraid you kidnapped me." I giggled at the thought.

Dimitri didn't show any emotion, but his aura showed that he was worried and a bit afraid. Is Dimitri afraid of Rose? I giggled again at the thought of this crazy tall, kick ass guardian being afraid of my best friend, Rose. He literally had to be a foot taller than her. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out a question.

"Why did you get all worried and slightly afraid when I mentioned Rose?"

He stayed quiet, uncertainty filled his aura. I explained myself.

"I seen it in your aura. As soon as I mentioned Rose, your aura lit up with a multitude of colors. It's doing it now. I haven't figured out all of the colors yet, but I am sure that I seen worry and you were slightly afraid. I also seen adoration and excitement, among other things that I don't feel comfortable discussing. What-" He cut me off.

"I have news to tell her. It's from my boss."

"Oh." That was all I could say. If he was lying, his aura didn't show it. I let the subject go. Within a few minutes, I heard Rose coming down the stairs.

"What smells like heaven down here?" She rounded the corner and noticed the food on the table.

"Dimitri cooked. We have eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, and homemade chocolate covered donuts. Come on, let's eat."

Rose made it to the table and started stacking her plate full of food within 3 seconds, flat. Dimitri didn't say much, neither did Rose. So I stayed quiet also. It was a peaceful quiet. We just sat there and enjoyed our breakfast like old friends.