*Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Academy, Richelle Mead does!*

Rose's POV

The longest three days of my life were finally gone. Viktoria was going to be here one more day, then I could have Dimitri all to myself. I was thrilled at the idea of it. Not that I didn't love having Viktoria here, but I was craving some alone time with Dimitri. I had never had sex before, but I wasn't scared anymore. I had found the right person, and I knew I wanted to be with him forever. I could tell he felt the same way. Hell, if Viktoria hadn't been here, we probably would have had sex days ago. I wanted it so badly, but at the same time, I wanted to spend time with Viktoria

I knew Dimitri felt the same way when he offered to cancel our after-school practices while Viktoria was here. I refused. I needed to keep training so I wouldn't go soft. As the only female novice, I have a lot to live up to even if no one knows I'm a girl. Instead, I dragged Viktoria with us to these trainings. She would practice with us. She wasn't as good as Dimitri and I were, but she absorbed our moves and techniques quickly.

On the third day, we skipped the morning practice, because we had been up extremely late the night before. Viktoria had begged us to watch a movie with her. She picked a scary movie that I had never heard of. I honestly can't tell you what it was about, because I didn't see most of. The second there was blood on the screen, I pretended I was scared so I would be able to cuddle into his chest.

I kept trying to let him know I could handle a little more comfort. Eventually, he got the message and he brought his lips to mine. We spent the rest of the movie entrapped by each other's lips.

Viktoria didn't even notice, because she was actually paying attention to the movie. It was an amazing two hours. We wouldn't have realized the movie was over if Viktoria hadn't thrown a pillow at us. I glanced at the clock. It was 1:00 in the morning.

"Can we skip the morning practice? Please Comrade," I begged him.

He studied me for a moment, before nodding. "I suppose it would be better to cancel practice rather than have you fall asleep during it again," he said with a smile.

"Hey! That was one time and I was exhausted. I had had to do that project for Stan's class because I reached my detention limit that week," I reminded him. He grimaced. He had had to write fake reports to say that I had indeed served my detentions with him. It had happened a couple of days ago.

We were both too tired to carry on the conversation. I kissed him lightly before heading back to my dorm room. I snuck in quietly, careful not to wake up Christian.

I didn't even bother changing into pajamas. I was woken up by a loud knocking on my door. I grumbled and got out of bed to see who was at the door. When I opened the door, Viktoria was standing there with a disapproving look on her face.

She took one look at me and sighed. "Do you know what time it is?" She asked me, slightly annoyed.

I shook my head. I had thrown my alarm clock against the wall, so it had stopped showing time around 5:00 in the morning.

"It's 8:00. You've missed half of your first period class," she chastised.

I looked at her, suddenly feeling awake. I quickly wrapped myself up and threw on some clothes and headed for class.

When I got to the gym after school, Viktoria delivered some bad news. Unfortunately, Dimitri had a meeting to go to, so he was going to be late to our practice if he made it at all. That left me and Viktoria to train on our own. We took it pretty lightly. We ran a couple of laps and lifted some weights.

We tried sparring, but Viktoria was too keyed up to concentrate on the exercise. She was practically jumping up and down the entire time.

"Okay Viktoria, spit it out. What are you so excited about?" I asked her when we were doing some cool-down stretches.

"Nothing. I'm just sad to be going home so soon. I've been so happy to see Dimka that I don't want to go home yet.," she lied. I could tell she wasn't being honest with me. I mean, her words were true, but that's not why she was so excited.

"That's not it. It's something else," I guessed. What could she possibly be so excited about?

"Well I might be upset that someone didn't tell me today was a very special day," Viktoria admitted grudgingly.

My eyes widened and I couldn't look her in the eyes. "What could that be?" I asked her innocently. I was trying to convince myself that she didn't know what today was. There was no way she could know.

"I am absolutely distraught that one of my best friends doesn't love me enough to tell me today is her birthday," Viktoria said dramatically.

"How did you figure that out? I never told Dimitri when my real birthday is, and the school records have a different birthday on file," I asked her.

I could see her trying to come up with a believable excuse. She was spared having to answer me by a knock on the door.

I looked at her surprised. Who the hell would knock on a public gym door.

She shrugged. "It might be my brother," she said trying to seem calm. I could see her excitement bubbling below the surface. This is what she had been waiting for.

I walked over to the door cautiously. I didn't like surprises. Both Viktoria and Dimitri were well aware of that. I had intentionally not told them about my birthday, because I didn't want anything from them.

Just from having Viktoria's friendship and Dimitri's love, I was the happiest person in the world.

I opened the door and saw Dimitri standing in the door way.

"Hi," I said happily. Then I took in his expression. He looked more excited than Viktoria if that was possible. "Why did you knock on the door? It's the gym, usually you just come right in," I asked him slowly, trying to put together the pieces to this puzzle.

That's when I first noticed the person behind him. I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.

My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe this.