LISSA

For the life of me, I could not understand how Rose could take exams so lightly. I knew she wasn't interested in college education as much as I was. But I also knew what depended on her passing those exams. Especially in light of how much Hans was pressuring her to do well, I just couldn't comprehend how she could honestly suggest we go to the ice cream place half an hour before our math final.

"It's like a study break," she insisted. "It's meant to increase your concentration afterwards. Sugar is good for the brain."

"All the sugar in the world won't help you if you don't actually study around the study break," I told her without looking up from my open book. I had to use these last thirty minutes. I felt that I hadn't studied half the stuff we'd covered in class sufficiently.

"Jeez. You're running the government of a race of vampires living in secret all over the world and you're doing it hands down - and then it's exam week. And Lissa has met her doom."

"Just shut up and let me study!"

The door to our classroom opened already – had I misread my watch? No, still twenty minutes to go. Concentration. Now. This chapter I needed to go over again. I buried my nose in the book, trying to do as much last-minute revision as possible. Twenty minutes later, the door opened again.

"Okay, all books away, please," the professor said before letting us enter the room. "You'll find the exam paper on your desks. You have one hour from now. Start."

I bent over the paper, pen in hand. The first few problems were easy. Just some blow-off stuff to get points if you knew nothing else. Then there was a problem that needed a somewhat lengthy calculation, but I could deal with that. The next one…

Rose was poring over her exam two desks to my right. To my relief, she was scribbling busily, so she had to have an idea about how to answer some of the problems. I turned back to my own, crossing off the assignments one by one. A small fit of panic hit me when I started on the last problem. It was a tricky one, I needed to draw a graph in order to find out the answer – would the remaining time be enough? I moved my pen over the paper furiously, trying to make the most of the time I had left. When I had finished, I allowed myself a deep breath, and checked my watch.

I still had fifteen minutes to go.

People around me were still bent over their desks, occasionally looking up with concentrated looks on their face or desperately looking for a clue to the answer. Rose had stopped scribbling, too, but she was still staring at her paper intently.

What had happened? Had I missed a question? I went over my exam again, starting at the beginning and working my way down to the last task, but I could find nothing that I hadn't done yet. I was about to start another check when the Professor called: "The hour is over. Please put your pens on the tables and turn your paper face down. The student aids will collect them."

I shot another desperate glance at my answers before turning the paper over. What had I missed? I was still poring over this when we left the classroom and Rose joined me again.

"How did it go?" she asked. "I think I did okay."

"I don't know… I think I missed something," I told her miserably.

"Why is that?"

"I was done too quickly, there must have been a task that I overlooked."

"Or maybe you're just twice as clever as the average freshman and finished the problems in half the time we did. Sounds way more likely to me." Rose was checking her phone and frowned at the display.

"I have three missed calls from Dimitri. It must be something important, or he would have waited for me to all him back," she mused.

"Call him," I said.

She dialed his number as we moved with everyone else out of the science building. After just a few seconds, Rose said: "Comrade. What's up?"

I could only hear her end of the conversation; my Moroi senses might have been able to make out Dimitri's words in a quiet surrounding, but the other students who had just taken the exam with us were babbling loudly, comparing results or commiserating.

"Yes, of course," Rose said, a confused look sneaking into her eyes.

"Yes," she said again, then she turned to me. "He wants to talk to you."

I shot her a wondering glance as I took the phone and put it to my ear. "Dimitri. How are you?"

"Your majesty. I'm well, thank you… " He was as calm as ever, but I thought I detected a slight breathlessness in his voice.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Well… there has been an incident. An accident, actually." His fumbling had me worried.

"What happened?" I exclaimed, willing him to talk faster.

"Christian and I encountered some Strigoi. Lord Ozera, I mean. I mean, Christian…"

"Are you both okay?"

"He's… we defeated the Strigoi, but one of them had a gun. Christian took a shot, but he'll be alright. I mean he's not now, but he'll be…"

"Dimitri. Just tell me! Are you okay?" I asked him sternly. Dimitri was such a composed person that his uncharacteristic absent-mindedness made me worry about him as well, but he really needed to pull it together now because I had to know about Christian!

"Yes, I wasn't injured."

"How is Christian?" Rose was watching me with worry in her eyes now.

"He's in the Court infirmary. He's been through surgery to remove the bullet, and they said all went well. I haven't seen him yet, but they say he's going to be okay."

"Okay. Don't hang up, Dimitri, I'm giving you back to Rose. We'll see you in two hours max."

I handed the phone back to Rose and signaled to Mitch, who was substituting for Serena when she was off duty.

"We need to go to Court, now," I told him when he was close enough. "Call the car, please. We won't stop at the apartment, we're going straight to Court from here."

Mitch started to protest when Rose caught up with me. She had ended the call and looked apprehensive. I brushed all of Mitch's security concerns away – we would have to make the drive without the usual troops of guardians tailing us in other cars. He and Rose talked safety all the way to the car, but once we were in, there was nothing left to do but get going, and drive to Court immediately.

Rose shot me a worried look. "Are you okay?"

"Me? Of course. I'm not the one hurt. How is Dimitri? He sounded really off."

"I think seeing another charge of his injured shook him more that he wants to admit. Losing his first charge and friend has left a scar on him," Rose said quietly.

"Did he say anything more about what they did to meet Strigoi?" I asked.

"Something about a road in the forest. I don't know," Rose said. "He said Christian would be alright. You don't need to worry. Too much," she qualified as an afterthought.

"Yeah, he said that to me, too."

"So, are you okay?"

"Yes, I told you!" I snapped.

But it was only now that I had nothing more to do but sit and wait that the heavy, icy lump that had settled in my stomach the moment the words 'Christian' and 'shot' had been mentioned in the same sentence started to develop its impact on me. No matter how often Dimitri told us that Christian would be okay, he hadn't seemed too sure of it himself, and the sound of his muddled explanation was enough to make my stomach clench up in a ball and punch me from the inside.

The rest of the drive went by in silence. I tried to empty my mind of all the catastrophic images that appeared unbidden before my inner eye. Concentrate. Stay calm. Only panic when there is reason to panic. He'll be alright. At one point, Rose took my hand comfortingly, even though I had made my best effort to keep a composed exterior. She didn't need a bond to know how I was feeling now. Also, I knew she her feelings weren't very different. She and Christian might not always let it on, but they had become close friends, and she was sharing much of my anxiety. She was worrying about him, too.

Her phone rang just as the booths at the entrance to Court came into view.

"Yes," she answered it. "No, we'll be there in a minute. Okay." She hung up. "Dimitri says he's been summoned to guardian headquarters to have a talk with Hans. He doesn't want to leave Christian alone, but I said it's okay, we're almost there. He's in room 305," Rose explained. I nodded in response.

I had the car stop in front of the palace as usual, so as not to draw unnecessary attention. It was only a short walk to the Court hospital, anyway. I set into a crisp walk, something I would do when I was cold and was warming up by walking. At the reception desk, I just nodded at the nurse sitting behind it, not wasting any time on courtesies. I took the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator, and turned into the corridor labeled 'rooms 300 to 312', Rose trailing behind me. Door number 305 was open so the nurses could see what was going on inside. I slowed down and entered the room quietly.

There was only one bed in the room, in which Christian was lying. He was sleeping, or maybe he hadn't regained consciousness after surgery yet. He looked really pale in the white hospital-issued bed linen; they had even put him into one of these weird hospital gowns. The white fabric with blue flowers on it was so unlike anything he would wear that I felt an irritated frown cross my face at the thought of someone forcing him into this.

There was a single chair under a tiny table; I pulled it closer to the bed and sat down. On Christian's left side, tubes were snaking out of his sleeve and into a steadily dripping IV bag; I took his right hand in both of mine and took to watching his sleeping face waiting for him to wake up.

...

Nurses bustled in and out of the room in regular intervals to check on him. I asked them about his injury, and they promised me he'd be alright, saying that the surgery went well and the wound wasn't all that dangerous. After that, they all had a reassuring smile for me whenever they dropped in to take a look at his vitals.

Rose had just left to look for Dimitri, when Christian finally began to stir. Blinking, he half-opened his eyes and smiled when his gaze fell on me. I was still keeping his hand firmly enclosed in mine, pressed to my cheek; I felt him returning a gentle squeeze.

"Hey," he whispered. His voice was raspy. "Is it Friday?"

"Silly," I whispered back. "Does it have to be Friday for me to come visit my injured boyfriend?"

His smile widened, and so did mine. I propped my elbows up on the bed to lean down closer to him, and gently brushed the hair out of his face. My other hand never let go of his.

Christian frowned dazedly. "Where's Dimitri?" He murmured. "Is he alright?"

"Rose is looking for him. He said he was going to see Hans. I'm sure he's okay."

I guess whatever sedatives or painkillers they must have given him made him a little dopey, because it took him a while to find his words. "Hans? Is he in trouble?"

"I don't know. But that's nothing for you to worry about now."

He looked a little unconvinced, but his eyelids had become very heavy again, and I kissed him to make him forget whatever would keep him from sleep.

He drifted in and out of consciousness for the next hour or so as the anesthetics wore off. Rose and Dimitri came back, but I told them to go home and go to bed. Rose was officially off-duty now anyway, and Dimitri looked like he had been through enough today, too. Christian told me the same thing in one of his more lucid moments, but I stayed, anyway. I put my head down beside his and must have drifted off, too, because suddenly, I opened my eyes to pale moonlight flooding in through the open blinds on the window. There was a busy hustle and bustle in the hospital corridor in front of the still-open door. I must be early vampire morning.

I was reluctant to remove my head from the side of the bed. Moving would probably make me aware of the stiffness a night spent on a chair would undoubtedly have caused. But when I felt a soft stirring in my hair, I lifted my head off my arms and found myself face to face with Christian, who had turned his head towards me and was smiling at my half-awake confusion.

"Did you stay here all night?" he asked softly. He raised his hand to caress my cheek, putting it just where I had held it half the night.

" 'f course," I slurred, my voice not yet up to its duties yet. I rested my chin on my arms, so that I was level with him on the bed. He started tidying up my hair that was all over the place from the night, tucking it behind my ears and brushing it out of my eyes and face.

"How are you feeling?" I asked him drowsily.

"I'm okay. The nurse was just here and told me I was, so don't question me."

"Smart ass," I told him, but he silenced me by gently pressing his lips on mine. It was a funny kiss because our heads were at right angles to each other, but it still felt reassuringly familiar. We broke apart at the sound of a polite knock on the frame of the open door.

"Well, you look better," Rose greeted us cheerfully. Dimitri was standing behind her, impeccably guardian-stiff as usual but still looking slightly awkward.

"Hey Rose," Christian said. I only noticed now that he wasn't half-whispering that his voice lacked strength a little. "Dimitri," he added upon seeing the tall dhampir lingering in the door. "You alright?"

"Yes," Dimitri said tersely. Rose strolled over to the windowsill and hopped up to sit on it, but Dimitri remained at the door, standing.

"I'm sorry," Christian told him guiltily.

"Is this the point where you tell me what foolishness it was you embarked on yesterday?" I asked them both accusingly. To be attacked by Strigoi, they had to have left Court for sure, and strayed off the beaten track to boot.

"It's my fault, I'm sorry," Christian said immediately. "I convinced Dimitri to go Strigoi hunting. We saw one running across the highway. It was stupid, but how could we have known the bastards get themselves guns, nowadays?"

"Um, you could have known because everyone else seems to get them recently. Appears good old hand-to-hand combat is getting out of style," Rose kindly informed him.

"She has a point there," I remarked in a scolding tone. He was an idiot to drag Dimitri into a Strigoi situation, gun or no gun.

He flopped his hands on the bed frustratedly. "It made sense then. Just not so much now…"

"There wouldn't have been any trouble if not for the gun. We already finished five, and the sixth one fired at Christian before we could do anything," Dimitri explained in a detached voice.

"The sixth!" Rose exclaimed. "Where did you guy go to run into so many Strigoi?"

"About forty-five minutes' drive from Court," Dimitri said.

"See!" Christian said. "That's why it made sense to pursue them!"

"But not you, thickhead," Rose retorted. "The guardians should have gone back there to check it out!"

"Then the guardians would have been shot!" Christian said hotly. I put a calming hand on his shoulder. "Would that be any better?"

"I don't think he would have shot a gun at a guardian," Dimitri remarked pensively. "Strigoi usually think they exceed any guardian in strength and battle skills, they're overconfident in that respect. But I think they realized that they could not get close enough to a Moroi fire user to exert their advantage. So this Strigoi decided to take you out from afar and then subdue me by hand."

"Great," Christian groaned. "Does that mean I have to expect I'll be met with gun fire every time I run into a Strigoi?"

"Hopefully not," I said, alarmed. "They don't all realize Moroi might be a threat yet, do they?"

"Well, hopefully not," Dimitri repeated me.

I took a closer look at him. Dimitri had always been difficult to read; he took great care to hide his emotions from anyone. But something must be off. I wondered if Hans had given him a hard time over having allowed his Moroi to come to harm under his surveillance. I hadn't had the opportunity to ask him what his summons to guardian headquarters had been about; maybe they had just wanted information on the Strigoi close to Court, but to be honest, that was fairly unlikely.

"What were they doing there, anyway?" Rose asked, a frown on her face. "These areas are closely watched, they had little chance of going unnoticed for any length of time."

"They didn't tell us," Christian said grumpily.

"Well, then we won't find out." Rose clapped her hands on her legs as if to give the signal for changing the topic. "When are you up and running again, fireboy?"

"They want me to stay until tomorrow and then I can go," Christian said.

"They want you to stay in bed, right here for another day and then they want you to go lie in your own bed," I specified. "And that's exactly what you will do, baby, no disregarding doctor's orders on my watch."

"Wasn't planning on disregarding anyone's orders anytime soon," Christian said quickly and probably not only addressed to me.

"What about the wedding?" Rose asked. "Will you still be able to go?"

"It's only three days away," I frowned. "You'll have to be an extra good patient and heal quickly until then, then you can go."

He grinned. "Are you my parent now?"

"Someone has to be the responsible one when you don't take care of yourself!"

"Good, no need for me to be responsible then!"

"Speaking of responsible…" Rose said. "We still have another exam today. Are we going to take it?"

I hesitated. The exam hadn't been foremost in my mind while I was still worried about Christian, but seeing him now, I was assured that he really would be alright. Taking the exam was important to me, but so was being there for Christian. I really didn't want to leave him right now.

"You can leave me alone for a few hours," Christian interrupted my thoughts. "I won't run away, I promise."

"You'd better not," I retorted. "If you so much as peek your toes out of the covers without authorization, I'll give a certain present a little try."

Our eyes met, and I couldn't contain a fit of laughter. We had seen a set of toys for certain occasions in some kind of joke article shop recently and just hadn't been able to refrain from buying it to regale Rose and Dimitri with it at some later time. Christian joined in with me, but I stopped when I saw him wince in pain.

"Oh, baby. Can we not make any jokes in your presence for the next few days?" I said in mock pity.

"No, you go on, I'll just practice the Dimitri Belikov look of no concern," he groaned.

Rose hopped off her windowsill suddenly. "Time for us to go, comrade," she said. "Looks like the heat is going up a little in here."

Dimitri finally broke his poker face for a small smile, and let Rose drag him out of the room by an arm. I turned to Christian again.

"You gave Dimitri quite a shock, I think," I told him seriously.

"I know," he replied, clearly with a bad conscience. "But honestly, how could we have anticipated this?"

"Christian, no matter what you anticipate, you should never go Strigoi-hunting on a whim. Not even guardians to that, if they go hunt them out, they're prepared."

"Okay, okay. I know it was stupid. Stop giving me a hard time about it."

"I've only just started."

He sighed overly exasperated. Then he grew serious again. "Lissa, you didn't have any second thoughts about your medication, did you?" He took my hand again. "Because you should never think you're not doing the right thing on my account. I stupidly got injured while going off on a folly, and there's nothing you should have done any differently."

I didn't know what to say to this. He'd hit the nail spot on, of course. This was what my thoughts had revolved around during the whole drive to Court: what if he was injured critically and there was nothing I could do about it as a result of my medication?

When I didn't say anything, he went on: "I'm sorry, it was a stupid idea, I know it. I'll be less reckless in the future, Lissa, I promise. And it's not your job to heal every scratch, you're the queen, you were right in saying that it was more important for you to be stable and balanced than for everyone's little whims to heal right away, I mean most things heal on their own just fine, so don't worry, you're doing everything right."

His rambling made me smile. I put my head down on his chest, somewhere I knew it was safe and I wouldn't cause him any pain, and enjoyed the feeling of him softly running his fingers through my hair.

"And you should get some rest before you take your exam. You can't have slept much last night."

"No, I'm okay."

"Come on, get some sleep. You need it."

He was probably right. With a regretful sigh, I reluctantly raised my head. I engaged him in a long, gentle kiss, and then left him with the promise to come back after my last final as soon as I could.