Sorry, guys, if I misguided your hopes. At the last chapter, I had said that they were arriving at the court but they still didn't. They just landed at the court's runway in Pennsylvania. Not the Royal Court itself. It would still be on some following chapter (s). Several new characters are going to be introduced and maybe one of them would be in your "liking" list.

I'm giving y'all a choice for the next chapter: DPOV or RPOV?

RPOV consists the next happenings in Rose's and the gang's life while DPOV's would start from Rose and Kathy's confrontation to the jet.

Chapter Eighteen

Wardrobe Malfunction

Dimitri made the move efficient and looked at me like he was telling me something. The way his eyes darted from me to Kathy's neck… I had the impression that he wanted me to do something with the back of her neck.

Ah, I thought as I finally understood what Dimitri meant.

I tried hard to keep the smile away from my face when I summoned a needle from behind my ear then stuck it at the back of Kathy's neck. A little too hard than necessary, but not enough to impale her.

The bitch quit struggling and went a still as a stone.

We heard a scream. We looked up from our handiwork to look at a horrified-looking Camille Conta at the corner of my room.

"If you don't keep your mouth shut, I'm gonna have to bash your spine like what I did to Kathy's." I warned her with my best glare. She cowered back and didn't say anything

Dimitri made a short call to another guardian that he found the "suspects" and to help him escort them to the Headmistress. Was the Headmistress's office open at this time? I don't know was the answer. I had no idea if it was, but who cares? The only thing I cared was that the "female dog" Kathy would get the punishment she deserved. Dimitri shifted Kathy's still body until he was carrying her. I couldn't help but feel a little jealous at that. Nah, from the way he talked to her back there, I was sure he didn't have any interest in her.

A few seconds later, a guardian arrived. It was my first time to see this guardian. He was tall, but not as tall as the Russian beside me, and hot. Don't get me wrong, Dimitri is way hotter than this guy but I just couldn't help but appreciate his looks. He was what you call handsome in everyday life. His face was shaved and stubble-free, his eyes were dark green and his hair was cropped short dirty blond.

He took one look at his surroundings and shifted into guardian mode.

"What happened?" he asked Dimitri.

I heard Dimitri grunt. "Got inside in other novice's room." was his terse reply.

The other guardian shook his head and took the paralyzed Kathy away from Dimitri. Let me tell you, that kind of made me feel better.

"Kirova?" the blond guardian asked over his shoulder.

Dimitri nodded and held a hand to the frightened Camille. Camille hesitated; looking at his hand like it was a venomous cobra, and then shakily took it. She glanced at me quickly then gladly took off with the guardians.

Before Dimitri could get out, he told me, "Get some sleep Rose. We're travelling to court today."

"Sure," I called over my shoulder. But I didn't. Sleep, I mean. I killed my time packing my stuff up and picking the best clothes I had in my closet. I brought my important things with me including the trinket that sensei gave me and my Slayer stuff. I just hoped the academy's jets aren't metal-detective.

While I did that, my thoughts wandered off to Kathy. And Dimitri.

Why did Dimitri act so rashly and harshly towards Kathy? Not that I objected, but it was just weird that the perpetually pacified Dimitri Belikov would put somebody in a headlock. Not to mention a Moroi.

I would have loved to listen what'd Kirova do to Kathy but my instincts told me that I'd be better off not knowing. For some reason, I doubted my instincts.

*Hours later*

"That guardian—the one that defended that Lesdaux girl? Yeah. He brought us to Guardian Petrov and the look on his face? You should have seen it. The saying 'if looks could kill' popped into my mind. I swear if that saying had been true, I would have been roasted alive by now. It wouldn't have been too long before I'd die." Christian prattled on to Lissa. It wasn't meant for anyone else's ears but his exuberance carried his voice.

"Not true." I said out loud. "You're too stubborn to die." I told Christian and smirked.

Christian glared at me while Lissa tried her best not to laugh.

We were at the academy's jet by now and it wasn't long enough until our three and a half hours of travel would be over. I—along with the rest of the gang—was here at the academy's jet's first class section. It hadn't been easy to bribe the guardian who was guarding the door to the jet's royal section (first class—how hypocritical), but when you have the power of persuasive compulsion with a dash of wit, you get a free pass.

Our group now was chatting about the game last night. How they had fun, but not all of us were talking. It was mostly the boys. The boys were doing all the talking now? What happened to the world of girl's gossip?

I guess the world had tilted upside down because the three of us—Mia, Lissa and I—exchanged knowing looks and hid our smiles. They didn't know anything what happened last night.

It wasn't long until some guardians got inside the section we were in—checking if everything was alright. One of them was Dimitri. When he passed by our line of seats, I could sense his tension and uneasiness. I shot Christian "the look" then smiled at Dimitri. A second of holding our breaths, the boys cracked up laughing. Dimitri shot them a slightly speculative look… then memory dawned on him. I swear I saw his lips twitch to a very small smile before he ducked his head and walked away, his pace a little faster than usual.

"Love-struck people," I grumbled, making sure Christian heard it. Apparently, it wasn't only Christian who heard it, the people in our line of seats shot me both "shut up, please" looks and "you're insane" looks. The latter was from the gang and the former was from… various snub royals. I shot them my glare and they looked away at me, clearly frazzled.

I leaned back against my chair and made myself feel comfortable despite my military wool jacket. I had worn this on purpose just to annoy Lissa and Mia. I knew how much they disliked baggy military clothes, but they should give me credit—I got badges with them. Not fake ones but the real ones. Don't ask me how I got them because it would be too personal a question.

"Really, Rose." Mia sighed, exasperated. "What does that baggy jacket look like to you? A prima ballerina's tutu and flats?" Lissa made an agreeing sound from her throat. "Don't get me wrong, but I really love the shoes," The shoes I was wearing were four-inch high, studded with metal like a rocker's boots. (clothing ensemble on profile) I should admit myself; they didn't really go well with the military jacket I was wearing. "It's just that… it's just wrong for you."

I looked at Mia, confused. Or so my expression was. I got what she was saying; I was just pretending to be dumb.

"What do you have under there?" she asked me with a slightly troubled look on her cherubic face.

"Nothing," I joked but the look on her face said that she didn't appreciate that. I rolled my eyes. "Some people just don't have any sense of humor." She continued to look at me. "A shimmy," I joked again with a shake on my shoulders.

She turned on her full glare on me, which was a little weird. "I'm serious, Rose."

I rolled my eyes again. I swear if I'd do that again, I would never get my eyes back to its normal place. "You'd have to see it for yourself." I said indifferently and leaned back on my seat and closed my eyes.

It was seconds later that I heard a sharp whisper of wind. I automatically reacted; stopping the magazine from hitting me on the face with a small, insignificant motion with my hands. I opened my eyes, seeing Mia's face slightly flushed.

"Take that off or I'll force you out of it." Mia said in a deadly serious tone. I caught Lissa's gaze and she just nodded, daring me to oblige on Mia's command.

Normally, as a dominant-in-nature girl, I would've flicked off that direct order by fighting back, but I had hoped that my wearing a military jacket would provoke Lissa or Mia. It did.

So what I did was, stand up, dust off imaginary dusts on my jacket, and stalk towards the jet's rest room to pry off this tight, heavy military material off of me. I happened to walk by Dimitri—he was just standing there at the jet's rear—just near the rest room, too. I nodded at him as I brushed past him, his scent lingered on me for a while and it disappeared when I shut the rest room's door.

"Now," I said to myself and faced the rest room's not-so-big mirror. I quickly unbuttoned the jacket and started tearing off the tight material off me. I didn't know why wool was tight, I thought they'd be comfortable and fluffy, but this jacket? I think I won't consider ever wearing wool again. Or at least not to wear this jacket again.

The jet's jostling movements were helping neither my balance nor my progress on prying off the jacket. I would have torn this damn piece of cloth already but I didn't want to. This jacket didn't belong to me; it was from sensei—said it was "something special" for me. I didn't bother to question sensei's cryptic message—I was too used to them.

It was three seconds flat when the academy's jet made a little jump. With that, I lost my balance—the four-inch heels not really helping me with that. I was trained to be graceful like a cat, yes. But on foot. With heels? They were just out of the question. I should try wearing them more often. Sensei had been forbidding me to wear them when I was still on custody with him. It was bad enough to bear with his annoying lessons.

Okay, back to the present. I didn't know what happened because my world just went into a very fast blur. Even I couldn't react on time. The next thing I knew was—or heard was a thump. A loud one. I was sure it was very audible.

Curses slipped out of my lips. "Holy mother-fornicating poop." Okay, I had my swear word filter on, so that was good. I guess.

I rubbed my head where it thumped against the door and I swore again, the swear word filter off. The words were so rated PG that I, myself, didn't want to hear it.

Then I heard footsteps. I know you'd guess right who was that and what he'd say.

Cue to knock.

Knock, knock, knock. "Rose, are you alright?" Dimitri asked; worry lacing his slightly accented voice.

"No, I'm not." I pretended to grunt in effort. Well, I didn't really need to pretend to grunt. I was really tugging hard on the sleeves now.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

How many times do I have to tell you that "I am growing weary of that question", comrade? That was what I wanted to snap but held it back. My heels clicked like in the Wizard of Oz.

"Do you need help in there?" he asked in a softer tone.

I opened the rest room's door without warning and pulled him inside the claustrophobic room. "Yes, I need your help." I told him and held out my hands, looking pointedly at my sleeves.

"Oh," the place seemed to get smaller with Dimitri here. Then again, everything seemed so small with him around. He gently pulled on the sleeves but when it didn't move an inch, he pulled a little harder. This time, the jacket's sleeve moved a little. He held my arm at bay while he pulled on the sleeve with no visible effort.

My skin grazed a little with the jacket's contact but I didn't mind it. My mind was focused on the feel of Dimitri's hands on my arm.

I think I sounded like a desperate teenager. Do you agree?

When he finally succeeded to pry off the first sleeve, he looked up at me and asked, "Where'd you get this coat?"

"From my sensei." was my terse reply.

"It's very… tight."

I almost gasped. Talk about X-rated terms.

"Sorry. I hope it's not too small for you to take off." I told him, playing along. "You never got this verbal before."

He cocked his head to one side and proceeded to pull the sleeve out of my arms. It took more time for him to pull this one sleeve off but eventually, he did it. He handed me my military coat back and I swear his eyes settled on my chest for a wanton of a second before he said, "Nice outfit. Fits the weather here."

Wait—what was that? I didn't quite hear it! If I hadn't known better, I thought Dimitri just complimented me. Me—the Slayer.

"I had to wear it. I heard it gets really hot here during summer days. I'd like to do sunbathing." I had little physical antagonism towards the sun, mostly like dhampirs but the sun— without my special cream— don't fail to make me uncomfortable when I was directly under them.

"You should," Dimitri said when he glanced back to look at me. "There's a beach just a mile out of court. I could take you there if you like." He told me with a small smile.

I wide grin spread on my lips. "You don't mind?"

He shook his head. "Calling out for the rest of the week. Queen's orders." I was even more surprised that he told me that. "I don't really mind, Rose. I'd rather be out rather than stay inside—" he stopped and pursed his lips as if he had said something he hadn't meant.

I smiled at him and nodded, telling him I'd go.

I turned back to mirror and fixed my hair. He was still at the door, his dark eyes looking at my reflection. I followed where his eyes were and found that it was on my chest. Damn. If I had known that he liked my chest better, I would have worn something low-cut instead of a backless grey vest.

I smiled at him indifferently on the mirror, daring him to go out. I couldn't understand why his face was serious but he was looking at my chest. Finally, he relaxed. Kind of. And without a word, he went out, closing the door behind him.

I frowned and looked at my chest where he had been looking at.

It was still the first time too that I had seen what caught his attention.

It wasn't my chest.

It was my locket.

My heart race quickened and I looked at myself in the mirror. I had paled about four shades and sweat started to dew on the nape of my neck.

"ROSE!" someone shouted outside the door. The rest room's knob jiggled.

"Yes?" I said cautiously and I had to clear my throat before I could say something audible.

"Are you done yet?" The plane made a little floppy jump. "We're here! We have to go back to our seats within five minutes 'cause we're landing!" it was the first time I noticed that the voice was Mia's.

"I'm coming." I told her but I didn't feel like going out. "Be right there in a sec."

I did anyway.

So, did you like it?

Leave a REVIEW and if you wanna suggest, you can.

Who wants a DPOV for the next chapter? If you do, leave a review!

Love lots,

Kate :D

xx