A/N : Okay, forget it. I'll never make any promises about writing within (or more than) a certain word limit. The length of the story depends on how everything goes, and sometimes, I can't get the conversation running for more than about a thousand words. So yeah, sorry to my readers who are looking forward to a longer chapter :/

And to the people who are asking about where the short excerpt has went to, it is now at Chapter 1, as I had meant for it to be an introduction from the start. So, if you want to read it again (for whatever reason), you can go to chapter 1!

Okay, another question this time. (Yes, I now know who are the people who don't read my author notes! : )

Im starting on another fanfic, which is an all human one, between Rose and Dimitri. Any ideas? And PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE SUGGEST SOME IDEAS THAT ARE NOT CLICHE. Ground rules : No school romance. I'm not kidding. I wrote so many of that it's a nightmare to write now.

Or you guys can vote... Contemporary romance, Historical romance or some Paranormal romance? (No, it's not going to be vampires, but a more... mythological one!)

Okay, that's about it. Back to Christian and Lissa!

Warning : Might have just a teensy, little bit of M-rated stuff. Just a little bit, swear to God.

Lissa had tried her best to not make a single sound for the past minute while Christian worked her sore shoulder muscles with a strength and confidence that made her want to melt onto the floor in a puddle. She had also wanted to order him to stop, but her aching muscles had different ideas. His magical fingers seemed to know exactly where to apply just the right amount of pressure to incite only pleasure, and Lissa found herself wondering if he could do that too – only at a far more intimate place.

Her face heated.

Forcing herself from entertaining those thoughts which she did not find appealing, she blurted out the first question that came to her mind. "Team four can see what you're doing." Not that she was exactly too concerned about that, but she didn't want them to suspect that something was blooming between the two of them – especially because it wasn't.

She didn't want to be labeled as 'easy' as well.

"They've left." He whispered beside her ear, even as his fingers continued on their mission to make her lose her mind. "You're the last team to try out the obstacle course today."

Then one of his fingers exerted a small force on the flesh between her two shoulder blades and she couldn't help but let loose a small moan.

Christian's fingers froze entirely.

"Don't stop," she murmured, ignoring the warning bells going off inside her head as she reached behind her head with her hand to pat his thicker and stronger one. "Please."

There was a pause. "Then you have to stop doing that." His voice sounded a little hoarse, a little throaty.

"Doing what?" She closed her eyes in bliss when his hands resumed its kneading motions, her head drooping forward as her body relaxed entirely.

"Making those breathy noises," Christian said, sounding strangely as if he was being manually strangulated.

Indignation flared. "Excuse me," she attempted to turn around to glare at him, but Christian held her head in place by gently cupping her nape with his palm, resisting the movement of her head by applying equal force on his callused fingers on her cheeks with a grunt of disapproval. "I'm not the one causing me to make that noise."

Christian did not answer.

Frustrated when he still did not allow her to glance backwards, Lissa swiveled her upper body around using her hip.

And sucked in a breath when she saw how Christian's face was bracketed with lines of tension fanning out from his eyes, his mouth a mere thin line, as if he was in pain.

"What's going on, Christian?" Suddenly concerned that he was having some sort of heart attack, she held two fingers to his pulse at his throat. "You alright?" It sounded steady enough, if not a bit erratic.

"I'm fine," He gritted out through clenched teeth, his hands dropping to his side, and Lissa noticed how his hands were fisted.

"You sure?" She frowned, confused when he nodded curtly and pushed himself to his feet from the kneeling position he was in. "Where are you going?" A sudden stab of panic.

"I'm not going anywhere," He replied, turning his back to her with that pained expression still on his face. "Just. . . give me a moment. I'll go check on your teammates."

"You're leaving me?" The sentence came out sounding shocked, disbelieving… and hurt. Lissa mentally kicked herself.

"It would seem that way," Christian answered dryly, shooting Lissa a forced smile over his back. When she just gave a huff to acknowledge his response, he almost smiled genuinely, but the pain his straining erection against the zipper of his jeans was giving him overrode any amusement he might have found in her reaction.

However, he did feel a little guilty leaving Lissa behind, along with another. . . sort of ache at the thought of her alone, just sitting there, waiting for his return. Shaking his head at the ridiculousness of that, he took a step. Then glanced back again, to see Lissa twirling a strand of hair idly around her index finger.

He blew out a breath. "I'll be back as soon as possible."

Lissa looked at him, seeming a little irritated. "Take as long as you need. It's not as if I like your company or anything."

Christian grinned then. "Don't miss me."

Lissa gave him her middle finger as a farewell.

With that settled, he took another small step. Wincing, he hoped Lissa did not notice how jerkily he was walking as he stumbled behind a relatively large tree that could shield his entire body from her view. Once he was sure that the trunk was hiding him totally, he gave a sigh of resignation and unbuttoned his jeans before reaching to close his hand over his dick.

Dimitri really wanted to strangle her sister, who stood smiling up at him sweetly, her head cocked just the slightest to make her look even more adorable.

"Fine, I'll cook," He relented, sighing softly – something he did very often in the presence of his sister. "but let me warn you, I have had two years to forget everything I know about making a good dish."

Something akin to wickedness glittered in Viktoria's eyes. "Who said anything about you making me a dish?"

Just as Dimitri was about to question what she meant exactly by that, he picked up on the slightest, muffled sound of a footstep on the soggy, forest undergrowth. With training ingrained into him so deeply that it was as much a part of him as his limbs, Dimitri reached for his stake with a lightning fast reflexes, moving in front of Viktoria with equal speed. "Who's there?" He shouted out into the clearing, aware of how little light was filtering through the thick foliage. "Show yourself!"

Viktoria poked him in his back.

"Stop that, Viktoria," he hissed to his sister. "keep quiet."

Another poke, this one seemingly more exasperated. "Do you realize," she stated calmly, loudly, "that you're squashing me?"

Dimitri decided that he had to teach his sister the meaning of 'keeping quiet'.

Then, Rose stepped out from behind a tree.

And he almost flinched from how her face bore no trace of emotion, starkly cold and beautiful as a sculpture carved out of ice.

"Dimitri," she said in what sounded to him like a bored tone, but his years of experience interrogating Strigois had him detecting the subtle undercurrents of withheld anger beneath it, "Lissa sprained her ankle and Christian sent me to find you for help."

His duty of taking care of the recruits under his charge had him pushing aside his musings about what had gotten Rose into such a bad mood. "Where is she? How bad is it?"

Rose lifted one of her shoulders in a shrug. "Last I seen her, she was at the last part of the obstacle course with Christian. And it's not that bad, it's just a little swollen."

Viktoria watched their conversation from aside where she had sidestepped to mid-convo, her eyes darting between them with undisguised interest.

Rose cleared her throat a second after he hazarded a glance at his sister to try to determine what she was thinking. "If that's all," another thread of anger that Dimitri instantly picked up on, "I'll leave you two alone." The last word was spat out.

When Dimitri said nothing – he was still wondering what the hell was wrong with her – Rose nodded tersely and pivoted on her heels, preparing to walk off.

"Wait," Dimitri called out instinctively, then wanted to curse himself for doing so. What the fuck was he going to say? "Eh, can you follow me? I. . ." Think, Dimitri! You have a brain for a fucking reason! "need someone to help carry the first-aid kit." Great, Dimitri, just great. You're an absolute, fucking genius.

Viktoria snorted beside him.

He shot her a quelling glare.

She pursed her lips.

Rose's gaze flittered momentarily to Viktoria, and her eyes narrowed by the smallest of margins before she looked back at him. And agreed. "Yeah, sure. I bet the first-aid kit is really heavy."

Dimitri felt like banging his head against the wall. But since the only thing around here that was sturdy enough to collide his head against was the rough tree trunks, he rather not end his life earlier with cerebral hemorrhage. "Yeah, it sure is," He muttered lamely, and he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Viktoria cover her mouth as she giggled.

Dimitri wondered if he could buy bed bugs.