I'm so sorry for the lateness!!! I've been busy with my assignment and exam. Just finished one exam today and more coming up in the weeks after. I will try to update asap!!

I fell in love with Adrian again~~~ Man! I hate it when I made such a perfect man out of an already perfect man that Richelle had created. I hope I didn't disappoint you guys with the long awaited Ball~~

You know the cue, read and review~~

~ Rei

Disclaimer: VA and the characters belong to the fantastic Richelle Mead.


Chapter 7: Gift and Masquerade Ball

APOV:

The next day, I was on my way to look for my little dhampir when I saw her best friend talking to the guy with the cast (What was his name again??). I hid myself around the corner and tried to listen to their conversation.

Lissa's POV:

I tried to get Rose out of bed for lunch (since she didn't wake for breakfast) but she refused.

"Liss, I'm fine. I just don't want to risk seeing him again. Every time I see him, my heart wrenched like a piece of rag. I can't face him again…"

"Alright. Can I get you anything then? You still have to eat."

"A sandwich maybe? And please don't tell the others, especially Mase. Just make an excuse for me. Please?" Rose said while giving me her pussycat eyes. She started doing that ever since we watched Shrek.

"Ok Rose. I'll be back later and don't go running off to see that Ivashkov, he's a bad influence."

"I won't even step out!" She then stood up and saluted.

I chuckled at her antics and went to meet the gang for lunch. I was down the hall when Mason stopped me.

"Lissa, have seen Rose? Haven't seen her during breakfast."

"She's in her room." I replied.

"She isn't one to skip meals, is she alright?" he said, looking worried.

I was hoping he wouldn't ask. "Uh… She's erm… down with a pretty bad flu."

"Have she been to the doctor? Is she okay now? Can I go see her?"

"No!" I yelled a little too loud. "She's fine, really. I called in the doctor last night. She just need to rest due to the meds and stuff. I'll take care of her, dun worry."

"Okay… glad to hear that." He said hesitantly and continued, "Thanks Lissa."

"Phew… close call…" I thought to myself. "You're welcome Mason. It's what best friends are for right? Let's go join the others for lunch." I gave him a smile and steered him toward the restaurant where the others are waiting.

APOV:

My little dhampir is sick? She seemed pretty well to me yesterday though. I must go check on her. I ran back into my suite and started to do my thing. She must be sleeping as I got into her dream pretty quickly. I had wanted to go in person but I didn't want to disturb her in case she's really sick, so the dream is a better choice.

I chose the Californian beach as the setting and she was standing in the sand looking at the deep blue sea. Her hair turned a shade lighter under the sunlight and it complimented her skin tone. I walked over to her and she was surprised to see me.

"What are you doing in my dream?"

"You just dreamt about me that's all." I didn't think that she will understand the dream thing I could do.

"I guess so too." And she sat down on the beach.

We didn't really talk but I was happy to be there. She didn't seem to be sick, so I guess it must be the fight between her and the Russian. When they were fighting yesterday, I was observing their aura. It was mostly crimson with a translucent glow (Dhampirs' base aura is translucent as they don't possess magic), but I can see really faint pink and green spots in the midst of red. Then their fury towards each other struck me. They loved each other and they were jealous about something. It must be me that the Russian is jealous about but Rose? I didn't know. The fact that it was bothering her made me want to ask her about it.

"Do you still love him?" I asked.

"Who? Mason? I told you we were friends."

"No, the Russian dude."

"Don't talk about that liar! I had enough of him!" she shouted at me.

"Do you want to talk about it? You'll feel better."

RPOV:

I looked at Adrian and thought for a moment. He's just a dream right, so I thought why not? I really need to get this out of my mind and he's right, talking does make me feels better. I related the entire story to him from the day he took Lissa and I back to the academy, to the day he became my mentor, the attraction, the lip gloss he got me during the shopping trip with Lissa, Natalie and Victor, the lust charm, Victor kidnapping Lissa, his confession after we saved Lissa, our first "real" kiss until the day I saw him making out with Tasha. I then realized that I was crying on his shoulders while I related the series of event that happened between me and Dimitri. But I felt relieved that I can finally let all these crap out of me. Then I heard Lissa's voice and I woke up.

APOV:

As she related the events that took place during the last 3 months, her tears were flowing down her cheek uncontrollably. It pains me to see her cry again but I didn't mind as long as she feels better. I laid her head on my shoulders as she continued talking. I wrapped one arm around her shoulders and rubbed her arm trying to comfort her. Shortly after she had finished her story, the beach started to disintegrate as she was waking up. I woke up too to find myself crying for her pains. I decided to visit her again in the dreams tonight. I had to ask her something, something else.

When I saw Lissa's golden aura this morning, I thought I had finally found my answers to my non-specialization. I had no one else but my little dhampir. I went into her dreams and the beach visualized before my eyes just like the last.

"Hey, little dhampir. How do you feel now?"

"Better. Thanks."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Your best friend, Lissa right?"

"Uh-huh"

"Has she specialized?"

"Not the usual four. We did some research and we believed that she was specialized in the fifth element, which was really rare."

"What is it?"

"Spirits."

"Spirits? What does it do?" I had thought spirits was my answer.

"She can heal anything. We discovered this ability of hers two years ago during the car crash. I died with her family but she brought me back. I'm now shadow-kissed to her and this created a bond between us that allows me to see and experience things that she sees and feels."

"That's wicked!" I exclaimed and thought about what she can do. It was totally different from me and was starting to lose hope when she continued.

"She can use compulsion too. I mean really strong compulsion. She can get people to do her biddings without any effort. It helped us a lot when we ran away from the academy one year ago."

Bingo. I had to talk to Lissa. She's the first golden being that I had come across since the day I found out about my abilities. I bet she holds all the answers to my questions.

"Thanks little dhampir, you've been a great help!" I said and gave her a hug. She pushed me into the sandy beach and ran to the shallow water. We were having a blast splashing water at each other until she woke up again.

I went to find Lissa as soon as I wake up. I found her in the café but she was with her boyfriend. I didn't want them to get the wrong idea hence I waited till she was alone. After awhile, she picked up some sandwiches from the counter (I presumed it was for Rose) and kissed each other goodbye. I followed her up the stairs and stopped her when we were alone.

"You're Lissa right? Rose's friend?"

"What do you want? And please stay away from Rose. She had enough problems on her own to have you adding on to it."

"Chill, I just wanted to be friend. But now, I'm looking for you actually. I've got a question."

"What makes you think I would answer that?"

I decided to ignore her and continued, "Have you specialized?"

"No, and I supposed I'm done here?" and she turned to leave.

"No wait! Can you see auras? It's like rings of colors around people."

"Auras? What are you talking about?"

"Well, people's aura differ from the element that they are specialized in. Fire's orange, Air's white, water's blue and earth's brown. But ours were gold."

"If that is how you pick up girls, I'm not buying what you are selling. Goodbye!"

"Wait! Rose said something about spirits and the super compulsion. I can do that too!"

"Rose?"

"Yes. She told me when I was talking to her in her dreams."

"You talked to her in her dreams?"

"Can't you do that??"

She shook her head.

"Well, I can go into people's dream and do whatever I like with it and really talk to them. I see people's aura and can compulse people without breaking a sweat. I thought you can do it too."

"Well, I can heal and compulse, but none of the dream and aura thing that you had mentioned. Look, why don't you try to get into my dream tonight and we shall see if you are really speaking the truth. I also need to get Rose her lunch."

"Tonight's the ball right?"

"Yup"

"I'll see you later, cousin." And she left.

RPOV:

The last 2 days passed in a blur, mainly because I was in my room most of the time. Lissa respected that I needed to be alone, so she brought food to the room for me. I supposed she had also done a great job keeping Mason and the others away as she was the only one I had seen for the past 2 days.

This afternoon, Lissa brought me lunch as usual and she asked me if I wanted to go to the ball tonight. I had totally forgotten about it.

"Come on. It will be fun. You need to get out of the room Rose." Lissa held my hands and begged me. I could feel her worry through the bond but I didn't feel like going out.

"Liss, I know you meant well, but it's for the better that I don't see him again. Besides, I dun have a costume either."

"Rose… you will see him eventually. Don't forget that he's one of the guardians at the academy and your trainer too. You had to learn to face him. Besides, you know that costume is no excuse when I am your best friend."

"I know I had to face him sooner or later, but I would rather choose later. I just wanted to stay away as long as I can help it."

"Please go to the ball or at least show yourself for lunch and dinner. I can't keep them away much longer. Mason had asked me about you a couple of times and I just told him you had a bad flu. Please consider it Rose."

"I'll think about it Liss. The ball is in another 4 hours right? Now just go and prepare yourself ok? I'll be fine. Don't worry." I assured her with a smile.

Sensing her defeat, she began to leave. (She had moved her stuff over to Christian's for the past 2 days to give me the space) "You'll know where to find me if you changed your mind." She said before closing the door.

I flopped back down onto the bed and started drifting to sleep. As soon as I had closed my eyes, a beautiful beach began to materialize before me. Again. For the past 2 days, I had been dreaming about Adrian and it was always the beach with the Californian sun. If it was real, he would have been fried. Not really fried as in burnt like in those cheesy vampires movie but sunlight irritated the hell out of moroi. Strigoi on the other hand, just turn to dust upon contact. I was wondering why I dreamt about him all these times coz I had only known him for less than a day. But those dreams felt real and I'm actually happy to be with him.

I was standing in the beach again and sure enough, he was there too, looking out into the deep emerald sea which reminded me of his eyes. He was topless with a pair of khaki Bermudas. I got to say he'd got quite a body for a moroi. Most moroi like Lissa and Christian, were tall and lanky but Adrian, he was pretty well built with just the right amount of muscles at all the right places. His chestnut hair was always in a mess but it was the kind of stylish bed-head messy that most people were trying to create with tons of styling product. It just looked so natural on him.

I jumped on him from the back and he flipped me into the waters. I swam deeper into the ocean and he followed in my suit. I then raced him to back to the shore, beating him only by a whisker. We lay on the sandy beach and enjoyed the sun, which was something I had not seen for awhile.

APOV:

"Are you going to the ball tonight?" I asked her.

She groaned. "Liss asked me the same thing too. I told her I'll consider but I didn't want to see him. Not if I can help it."

"But it will be fun and besides, guardians on duty had to wear a mask too, you won't even recognize him. If you are really worried, I'll get them to wear a full face mask! How does that sound?" I know I sounded really chirpy but if that makes her change her mind, I really don't mind.

She burst out laughing. "I guess that might work!" she stopped her laughter and her face turned really glum. "But I saw the masks they would be wearing; it's just a half faced."

"I'll take care of it." I said and winked at her.

I broke the dream this time and get to work. I got Kira to deliver the dress and the shoes for me (I had ordered it for her 2 days ago when I found out about the Ball), and then I called a costume supply shop to order 100 full face masks and got them to deliver within an hour. I "persuaded" the person in charge of the guardians' mask to change theirs into those that I'd ordered and went back into my room to prepare for the big night.

RPOV:

I woke up abruptly from my nap and thought about Lissa's offer. I was thinking over what she had said when I heard a knock on my door. I opened the door but there was no one there but a big red box with a note.

Thought you might need something to go to the ball with.

"Lissa is relentless isn't she?" I thought picking up the box and put in on my bed. I opened the box and picked out a maroon colored silk dress. It was a halter neck dress fully covered in front but was empty at the back all the way until my tail bone. The asymmetrical cutting of the dress was shorter in front, stopping just above my knees and extended longer towards the back, just touching the floor. There was a pair of matching lace-up heels and masks in the box. A little red bottle sat at the corner of the box so I picked it up from the box. It was a bottle of perfume. I sprayed a little into the air and smelt. It was sweet like berries, smooth like vanilla with a tinge of spiciness. I like it.

Since Lissa had made such an effort to get me my costumes, I would be letting her down if I didn't show up. I looked at the clock and saw that I still had 2 hours to spare. I hopped into the bathroom and soaked myself in the bathtub. I emerged from the bathroom an hour later and dried my hair with the hair dryer. I pulled out my straightener and started to straighten my hair. Everything falls neatly in place with the ends curling slightly inwards. I had also decided to put on some make up as well with the limited stock I have in my suitcase. Just some powder, eye liner and lip gloss. When I was done, I was already late for half an hour. I quickly pulled on the dress and it fits like a glove. Definitely Lissa. No one knows me better other than my best friend, right? I put on the mask, put on the heels (the ribbons went up to below on knee on one side and the other just slightly above my ankle) and sprayed on the perfume before heading out.

When I enter the ballroom, I had the greatest shock of my life. Every guardian was wearing a full faced mask!! "My dream come true??" I thought in my head.

I looked around, trying to find the others. Mason was easy with his cast, Eddie coz he was with Mason and Mia for her height and signature hairstyle. I scanned around for Lissa and spotted her near the centre of the room. She was gorgeous in her strapless lilac silk dress which went all the way down to the floor. Her feathery mask and long blond hair completed the angelic look and with Christian, 'the devil', beside her, it made her stands out even more from the crowd.

"It wasn't so hard." I thought to myself. I can always look for them later, so I went to get a drink for myself. I was standing near the drinks stand and saw Christian walking towards me. "Damn! He spotted me." I thought but he didn't. He got 2 drinks and left promptly. I supposed they didn't think I would show up.

A while later, the music started playing and people started dancing in the centre of the room. I saw Lissa and Christian, Eddie and… MIA?! Mason was sitting at their table since he had broken his leg. I looked around to find someone else I knew and spotted Tasha. The half-faced mask couldn't cover the long scar on her face. She walked through the dance floor to the other side of the room and dragged a 6'7 with a full-faced mask to the dance floor. Dimitri. She was smiling happily as they twirled on the dance floor. It made my heart ache. I downed my current drink and grabbed another from the table beside me. I was on god knows how many glasses when someone approached me.

"Would you honor me with a dance?"

APOV:

I spotted my little dhampir as she walked into the ballroom. She looked so stunning in that dress that makes her shines above the rest. It seemed like she's the only one with colors and the rest were black and white. (AN: Check my link in my profile for the illustration. Can't really describe it well) My eyes see no one else but her. I saw her looking around before making her way to the drinks stand. I wanted to go over but I wanted to make sure that her friends hadn't spotted her first. They wouldn't like to see me with her. A while later, the music started and people started dancing. The growing crowd blocked my view for a moment but I found her nevertheless. She was looking at somebody on the dance floor and was drinking furiously. I followed her gaze and saw what she was looking at. The guardian with his supposed girlfriend. I quickened my pace towards her before she got herself drunk. She just downed her fifth chute of champagne when I reached her. I knew she would walk away if she knew who I was so I extended my hand towards her and asked, "Would you honor me with a dance?"

RPOV:

I wanted to say no but the alcohol and fury was getting to me so I took his hand and danced with him. I felt calm the moment I took his hand and I didn't flinch when his other hand touched the bare skin on my back. I looked up and my gaze met the pairs of green eyes that I had grew so familiar with in those dreams. Adrian. Right now, I couldn't be bothered with the rumors about him; I just knew I feel comfortable in his presence at that very moment. Our eyes locked onto each other as we danced. We twirled around the dance floor like we were the only one and then he hugged me closer to him. I rested my head on his chest and inhaled his scent. There was no alcohol and no clove cigarette smoke, just him with a hint of cologne. His touch felt right, his presence made me feel safe and that nothing could tear my gaze away from him.

I felt in love…

APOV:

Our gaze met as we danced and from the look in her eyes, I knew that she knew it was me, but she didn't break away. Our eyes were locked onto each other throughout the song and the next, and the next. When I heard the current song that was playing, I felt it was made for me, for us and I hugged her closer as we danced to 'our song'.

If there were no words
No way to speak
I would still hear you

If there were no tears
No way to feel inside
I'd still feel for you

The song described perfectly what I felt toward her right now, at this very moment.

And even if the sun refuse to shine
Even if romance ran out of rhyme
You would still have my heart
Until the end of time
You're all I need
My love, my valentine

"Rose, you're all I need, my love, my valentine" I mouthed her words into her hair as I tighten my hold around her.

All of my life
I have been waiting for
All you give to me
You've opened my eyes
And showed me how to love unselfishly

I've dreamed of this a thousand times before
In my dreams I couldn't love you more

I wasn't sure at first, but I felt that she is the missing Princess that I had been trying so hard to reach in my dreams. I had finally found her. I had finally found you…

I will give you my heart
Until the end of time
You're all I need
My love, my valentine

La da da
Da da da da

And even if the sun refuse to shine
Even if romance ran out of rhyme
You would still have my heart
Until the end of time
Cuz all I need
Is you, my valentine

You're all I need
My love, my valentine

I'd finally found you. You are my Princess, my love, my valentine.

Everything was perfect…


As many have asked if Adrian and Rose will meet "mysteriously" at the ball, i don't think Adrian is one that will give up any chance to find Rose~ Please tell me what you think of this chapter! A twist is coming soon!!