Wow! That had to be about the best response I've gotten from this story so far! I'm sorry about the cliffhanger I left you with and how long I made you wait for an update, but I tried to update as fast as I could. College has just been insane lately. I don't know how well this chapter came out, so please be sure to let me know…Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own the plot. Anything you recognize belongs to Richelle Mead.

From last chapter…

Keeping my sunglasses firmly in place, I nodded for my parents to open the double doors. As the sunlight shone around me, Christian and I stood side by side in the door opening. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, my attention was drawn directly to a certain someone's deep brown eyes widening in shock.

Chapter 7

Immediately the room was filled with whispers that spread through the crowd like wildfire.

"That's Rose Hathaway!"

"I thought she was dead!"

"Well obviously she isn't…"

I stood completely still, not because I really wanted to but because I was stunned by the shock of feelings coursing through me. Not my feelings, but my bond mate's. The shock pulled me into her head briefly and I got to see how badass we all looked from her perspective. Damn, we looked good.

It was just my luck that the two people I dreaded seeing the most were sitting in the front row of the bleachers. Of course, with Lissa wearing a prim pink blouse, grey pencil skirt, and high heels, I shouldn't have been surprised by this. She was probably afraid of wrinkling as it was. But I wasn't looking at Lissa; I was too busy staring at the god-like man beside her.

His brown hair, the soft hair I had once threaded my fingers through, was tied back at his nape. Although I was vaguely aware of him wearing a dark knitted sweater, jeans, and his usual duster, I was too busy gazing into his chocolaty eyes to notice much else. I felt a pang in my chest as I fully realized just how much I had missed him.

In his shocked state, he had completely forgotten about hiding his emotions behind his guardian mask. His lips were pressed together, his hands tightly clutching the bench he sat on, as if it would keep him from moving. His body was rigid, the emotions on display probably surprising him just as much as me.

Finally realizing that we were in a gym surrounded by hundreds of students, he snapped his mask back into place. But it was too late. He had worn his heart on his sleeve in front of the one person who knew him best and in that moment I had seen it. I had picked out the guilt, despair, desperation, and utter joy in his gaze. But most surprising of all, I had seen a fleeting glimpse of the old Dimitri, my Dimitri, and his love for me. Which only served to confuse me even more.

Love fades. Mine has.

I felt a hand link with my own and squeeze, and I looked over to Christian. He seemed to be comforting me and seeking comfort for himself at the same time. Offering a small smile, I gently squeezed back before releasing his hand. Turning back toward our large audience, I noticed Eddie standing slack-jawed in the center of the gym, holding a microphone loosely in his fingers. Leading my group into the room, I could feel every eye upon me.

"Guardian Castile," I said with a light smirk on my face.

"Rose…" He almost seemed stunned to see me. Taking me completely off guard, he reached out and pulled me into a tight hug.

"I thought you were pissed at me," I said quietly.

"Oh I am," he said, pulling back in order to look at me. "But I missed you more than anything. It's been pretty lonely without you and Christian around."

Tell Eddie…that he's never really alone, Mason had said. I could see where he was coming from now.

"You and Mia seemed pretty close, from what I saw."

A light blush tinted Eddie's cheeks as he said, "That's…complicated."

"It always is," I returned. "Would you mind if I introduced my guys to the school? After all, we are going to be around for a while."

"As long as you don't leave without saying goodbye this time."

"I promise."

Turning back to the students, teachers, and guardians in the crowd, he said, "I almost forgot to mention our additional staff that will be helping us with this threat, but I suppose they can do that for themselves." He handed me the microphone and stepped back a few paces. Looking into the sea of faces, I found myself wondering where to start.

"Well, I'm sure most of you know who I am." I paused. "I'm Rose Hathaway. I've been working in Russia for the past few years as a rogue hunter killing Strigoi. My team and I discovered a need for help here at the academy, and being that it used to be my home I couldn't say no." All of the students in the crowd seemed to be glued to my every word, but a few of the guardians looked uncomfortable at the mention of rogue hunters. It had completely slipped my mind that Eddie might be ridiculed for allowing us to help. Rogue hunters weren't seen as anything except an embarrassment to most because they were known as those who had forsaken their rightful duty of protecting Moroi.

"Let me just say that my team and I are dedicated to getting rid of this threat and we won't be going anywhere until it is handled. I'll go ahead and introduce you to my team, and then we'll get out of Guardian Castile's way." Looking over at the group of men beside me, I realized how intimidating we all must look. Skipping over Christian for the moment, I decided to start with the Dhampirs.

"I know that many of you have probably heard of when I journeyed to Russia the first time. I met these three while I was there." Pointing to each of them in turn, I introduced them to the school.

"And this," I said, moving back to Christian. "Is Christian Ozera. All of you have probably figured out by now that he is a Moroi, but he has been fighting with me for the past two years against the undead." Before handing the microphone back over to Eddie, I added, "We may look a little rough around the edges, but we are here to help you. Feel free to talk to us about anything."

"Janine and Abe will take you to a guardian meeting room," Eddie said, before taking the microphone and turning back to the crowd. As I followed my parents back to the double doors, I noticed teachers I'd had sitting in among the students, as well as guardians standing alongside the bleachers. I easily picked out my favorite, Alberta Petrov, and my least favorite, Stan Alto. Well, this was going to be interesting.

After leaving the assembly, we waited in a room that I had only had the misfortune of visiting once before, when I had been accused of failing to protect Christian during trials on purpose. I remembered how much Dimitri's presence had been a calming balm to me in that moment and how different things would be now. The room was not how I remembered it; it had been made up into a sort of headquarters, complete with a long table, chairs, a few couches, and laptops at each available seat. Pushing my sunglasses up into my hair, I looked around at the newly-transformed room before plopping down into a chair, the boys following my lead.

Suddenly the door burst open, making all of us jump out of our comfy office chairs and face the doorway. Adrian was the first person through the door, running quickly over to me and enveloping me into a hug. He swung me around in circles, making me laugh for the first time since I had left Russia.

"It's not like you haven't seen or talked to me," I said as he set me back down.

"But it wasn't the flesh and blood you," he returned.

"You kept in contact with her?" Lissa questioned from behind us. She was standing with Dimitri and Eddie, while about ten other guardians were finding themselves a seat for the show.

Adrian shrugged. "I wasn't going to lose her just because you two screwed up."

"You knew where she was the whole time?" Dimitri growled.

"She never told me where she was. I just dream walked with her to check up on her and Christian."

"You never told them?" I asked quietly.

"I figured you wouldn't want me to," he said. "Was I wrong?"

"No," I said simply before turning away from them. I plopped myself down in a chair and asked, "So what have you done to up security?" I aimed the question at Eddie since he was Lissa's head guardian and I figured he was in charge.

"We just got here an hour before you, Rose. We pulled everyone out of bed for the assembly…we haven't done anything yet."

"Well, we should probably get started on that then," I said sharply, pointing out the obvious.

"Thank you for that helpful remark, Hathaway," Stan said. "Just to clarify, you aren't better than any of us. You left your charge and shirked your duty." As much as I had promised myself I was going to try to get along with him, he was making it really hard.

"You ran halfway around the world, and all to do what? Party, drink, and maybe kill a few Strigoi on the side?" he continued. It sucked that America hadn't heard of my reputation already…although they just might have.

"You have no idea what she has been doing! She-" I cut Denis off with a wave of my hand. I think it surprised everyone just how much control I had over them.

"You ever heard of Rachel Mazur, Stan?" I saw a light click on in my mother and father's eyes.

"Who hasn't? The girl is a killing machine."

"Why thank you, Stanny Boy," I said, eliciting a glare from him. "That's an awful sweet thing of you to say." Silence echoed in the room as everyone tried to piece two and two together.

"Prove it," he finally said. I shrugged, turning my back to them. Lifting up my hair, which I had only worn down in order to drive Dimitri crazy, I showed them the back of my neck. I knew exactly what they would see; a surface of flesh covered almost completely with Molnija marks. I could remember every single person I'd ever had to kill; my conscience still held the guilt over each one even if I had done the right thing. Giving them enough time to examine it, I slowly let my hair drop and turned back around.

Slamming my palms down on the table, I asked, "You want to tell me again how I've done absolutely nothing? I've probably had more experience than you've had in the field, and Denis, Lev, and Artur have been doing this longer than Christian and I." Stan looked like he had swallowed his tongue, for he didn't dare open his mouth to berate me. "Anyone else want to tell us that we aren't good enough to be here?" May as well get this confrontation out of the way.

"You really are rogue hunters then?" I shifted my gaze to a muscular looking boy that seemed about my age. He was pretty good-looking and the Russian accent only added to it, but no one could compare to the badass god standing in the room.

"Yes."

"How is what you do so different than what we do?" I examined him carefully, but realized he was honestly curious. No one had thought to explain what we did.

"You wait for the Strigoi to come to you. You lie in wait for them to attack your charge and when they do, there's a good likelihood that you, your partner, or your charge could die. You are victims of an attack." He nodded, taking it all in. He looked pretty interested in what I was saying. A few of the other guardians in the room looked quite uncomfortable with my description of their job.

"On the other hand, rogue hunters like us go looking for the fight instead of waiting to get picked off. We set up our own trap-

"Which is normally in the form of Rose," Lev said, winking which in turn made me smirk. We left out the slutty outfit part.

"And while she distracts them, we keep them in our sights," Artur added.

"When she eventually leads them to a deserted area, using her amazing abilities," Denis said, smirking.

"We follow and infiltrate the area, effectively trapping the Strigoi with us," Christian said.

"It's a pretty easy method to use in order to get them to talk, particularly since we have certain…advantages," I finished. I decided we'd also leave out how we tortured the information out of them by using any means necessary, including Christian's fire and my ghostly abilities.

"Wow," the boy said. "You're as badass as they say you are."

I chuckled. "What's your name, kid?"

"Liev Meier," he said.

"I think I'm going to like you," I said, before turning my attention to Eddie. If I was getting all the hard stuff out of the way, I may as well do this too. "Did you bring that letter with you? The one with the stamp you didn't recognize?"

Nodding, he opened a folder at the head of the table and brought it to me. It was still folded up in the envelope, not yet allowing me to see what I dreaded.

"Rose, if it's him, we'll handle it," Christian said quietly, trying to reassure me.

My hands slightly shaking, I took out the letter and smoothed it out on the table in front of me. In the lower right-hand corner, a blood-red symbol stood out starkly against the white paper. A symbol I knew all too well.

I could feel Eddie's eyes on me as I raised my right hand and laid it next to the missive. The face of the ring that Oksana had charmed glared up at me, an almost exact match to the one on paper.

"Damn," I muttered, handing the paper to Christian. He saw the stamp and looked at me sadly before passing it to the rest of the team. As each person's eyes took in the stamp and figured out the truth, I saw a bit of sorrow enter into their expressions. It hadn't been long enough for us to get over our loss.

"It's your ring?" Eddie asked, seeing the symbol's likeness on my finger.

"We all have one. It's sort of a team logo, I guess. The symbols within the circle are our initials in Russian."

"So whose are these?" Eddie questioned, voicing everyone's thoughts.

"A man named Ion Holender," I said.

"A man who was once our good friend," Lev added, for once looking serious instead of flirtatious.

"A man who was turned Strigoi two months ago," Christian finished softly, putting his arm around my shoulders comfortingly. And completely against my will, my eyes met Dimitri's across the table.