To all Kathy Lesdaux haters—I think you'll like this chapter.

AND if y'all are asking when the message on the bottle will be read, my answer would be soon. I don't know when, but it was supposed to be at the last chapter, but I changed my mind 'cause I got another idea. LOL :)) I'm indecisive to when I'll put it. :D

Enjoy :D

And, oh, disclaimer—VA is not mine. It's the wonderful Richelle Mead's. :D

Chapter Twenty-three

Welcome and Unwelcome Visitors

"Stupid drunk-assed royal Moroi who can see stupid auras." I grumbled as I trudged on the muddied pavement.

I practically hated my life right now—no doubt about that. It was bad enough that my reputation was a tad bit ruined from the Strigoi attack that happened back at Missoula. But now? Adrian Ivashkov—the Adrian Ivashkov knows what and who I am! That was truly unacceptable for me, considering that I didn't even know what I was. Okay, I know what I was but I couldn't be too sure.

My sensei once had hinted my father was one of the undead—that was the only reason why I assumed that my father could be a Strigoi. What more undead beings could there be in this world?

Those thoughts made me angrier—not at myself anymore, but to my father who had sex with my mother when he was a FUCKING UNDEAD MAN! I growled silently from where I was and I swear I heard it echo.

It was a second later when I felt a presence. A very unwelcome presence. I could smell her potently sweet perfume in the air and her blood. Oh, the blood. The blood smelled different… Somehow… tainted.

I could hear her heartbeat from here and I knew that she saw me. She was hiding on the tree not too far away from me and that made it easier to take a read on her feelings. Well, if she was feeling any fear in her. I could only smell fear. Fear always smelled strong and coppery just like blood. But now, Kathy wasn't the least bit intimidated by my presence.

I couldn't smell anything from her except that she'd been with another guy (who was not her boyfriend, Jesse), and that she was wearing too many fragrant on her. For short, she smelled nasty. Just like her attitude—nasty.

I sighed on where I was and pretended that I didn't feel her presence. I walked on.

Blood wouldn't have been shed if she didn't block my way.

She stood in front of me, looking smug and slutty as a bar maid in the most slutty place in the universe.

I looked up from her, bored. Anger flashed in her eyes when she saw my indifference. She stood up more straight in front of me, and crossed her painfully skinny arms over her luckily substantial chest.

She didn't wait for me to talk. "Listen up, bitch, if you don't back away from me, you are going down." Well, that was blunt.

"Kathy, to what do I owe this pleasure?" I asked like I didn't hear her.

Her amber eyes brightened with wrath. She started to raise her hand to slap me, but thought better of it. Smart one, this Kathy. If she had proceeded to slap me, she would have guaranteed her wrist won't be much of a use soon.

My palms itched to break her neck. Or arm at the least.

Her tawny eyes bore into mine with so much hate in her eyes, it could've scared a tiger dead. Well, not really, but you get what I mean.

"Oh," she put a hand on her pouty mouth to look innocent. "You wanna play with me?" she asked.

I knew that it was rhetorical, but I answered anyway. Just to annoy her. "I know that you know full well that I do not play with amateurs, Lesadux."

Her eyes brightened more if that was even possible. I'd give it to the girl, she wasn't intimidated. Not in the least, no.

"Are you calling me an amateur?" she asked with so much venom in her voice, I couldn't help but flinch. But I didn't. I didn't show weakness. Like I had any weaknesses now.

"Of course I am. Didn't you hear what I just said?"

Kathy was taller than me by two inches or more, but she couldn't take me on a fight. Like anyone could.

Oh, come on! Give me some freaking credit over here! That was what I wanted to shout at Kathy when she raised her hands to claw me. I should have admitted a long time ago that Kathy didn't like to be talked back at. But that was what I liked about them. I liked my enemies feisty.

I felt my own eyes shift in front of Kathy. "Do not anger me more, Moroi." I said in a low voice.

Her hands froze and she stared at me like I was a monster. It was true, I am a monster. A monster with intentions.

"Do not tempt me into killing you." I continued in that dangerously low voice that I use around Strigoi. Kathy seemed to be frozen in place. She didn't even blink. Her eyes were glassy. If I couldn't hear her heartbeat race, I should have thought she was dead.

In the midst of my anger, she found her voice, but it wasn't the same haughty ones she used around me. "What are you?"

I stepped toward her and she stepped back, her eyes widening and her heart racing faster than it already was.

"What am I?" I questioned her and I felt my eyes shift again. It probably didn't look like a human's eyes now. Probably look like a cat's or a lizard's eyes. "I'm death."

Her eyes widened and the air around me was thick with her fear. I closed my eyes and inhaled, and then I felt my eyes shift again. I opened in to see that Kathy's skin had paled into a sickly color of grey.

She still had the strength and willpower to shake her head half-heartedly. "No, you're not. You're just scaring me."

A slow vicious smile crept to my lips. "I don't scare people." I told her. She backed up at the expression on my face. "I kill them." I, somehow, purred to her. Those purrs were more deadly than my growls. Almost all the Strigoi I had killed backed away from the sound of those nightmarish purrs.

Everything happened too fast for her to see then. I ran to her with my inhuman speed and wrapped my fingers around her neck, giving it s mediate squeeze. I could admit at how much I wanted to break her neck right then. She whimpered, but didn't say anything.

"Do you think I'm scaring you now?" I asked huskily to her ear.

She tried to grab my fingers and scratch me with her long nails, but I threw her to the ground. I had had enough of this Moroi's foolishness. This time, she will pay.

This time, my hands were burning. She saw them and her eyes widened like unbelievably large saucers. Her mouth opened into a perfect O and she began to scream, but I silenced her with one flick of my wrist. I had the power to silence people at my own will, but you guessed right. There is a drawback in that. The voice of the victim would be inside my head, not in the physical world where she would be heard. I never did this to anyone except to an annoying fortune teller back at Czech's faire.

She looked at me and screamed her mental lungs out. Her fear fed me. I was gaining power in her fear. To me, fear was… blood.

With an audible click, I snapped out from my blood-lust and took in my surroundings. I was breathing hard because the air smelled with thick copper.

Fear, I part of me yearned. Somebody's fearing you.

I looked at the girl who was lying in a forlorn shape in front of me. She backed away and whimpered silently.

"Shit," Did it again, didn't I?

Without any warning, the girl in front of me screamed in a high pitch, "MONSTER!"

I looked around if anybody had heard, but fortunately, we were in the middle of the dirt-pathed woods.

Kathy stood up then, all looking frightened and hysterical. Her eyes were mad at the moment, and I hoped that madness wouldn't last too long.

Kathy shook her perfect blonde wig and made insanely fast gestures with her hands. "Get away from me you fucking monster!" she backed away and made a cross with her fingers.

I eyed the crossed fingers for a second before I slapped her across her face. I needed to do it. The girl was hysterical and she needed to sober up again so that I could compel her to remember nothing of this night. Or nothing of this night that included me.

The slap was hard enough to send her propelling sideward. She tripped on her heels and she stumbled on the mud, her hair looking more brown than blonde.

I could hear her breathing raggedly as if she was holding her temper. I didn't give her any time to upset me more then. I kneeled next to her and jerked her face to my direction. I bore y gaze into her eyes and said the words that would make her forget that we met tonight.

"You didn't see me today. You don't remember anything that happened today that included me. You have not seen a monster or anything that frightened you."

She just looked at me for a moment, her gaze glazed, and then she nodded.

I knew how rude it was, but I was still more than a little mad at that little slut. I jerked her head away from me and that sent her lying on the mud again. She didn't respond after that, she just lay there for a few minutes and when her face sobered up, she went away, grumbling about her wig and her suit.

I sighed. I didn't know what I was sighing about, but it was just that. A sigh. Nothing more.

My head was throbbing a little but it was nothing compared to my guilt. I had lost my control over such a minor thing. I gave in to my blood-lust. Oh my, God, I suck.

I sighed again, but now, the sigh was from exasperation. I rubbed my eyes a little and turned back to where I had gone before.

And then I saw someone leaning against the tree. Even with my enhanced sight, his face was covered by the dark. I could see his frame though. He wasn't tall but he wasn't short either. He had the skin color that was familiar to Asian countries and he had that same sage posture almost all Asian men have back to those years when they weren't modernized yet.

I felt my body stiffen, but I managed to bow at the person like I normally did. I didn't straighten from my now, but just stayed like that while I mulled over about what he must have seen.

"Sensei, what a surprise this is."

I heard sensei move. "Yes, Rosemarie, I know what a surprise this must be to you." He said in a voice that silently told me that I was in huge trouble. "You may rise."

I swallowed. Whenever sensei comes, I always don't know about it. He had that cunning talent of his on sneaking up on people. Even on me. Especially on me.

I swallowed, took a deep breath, and rose from my bow. "Sensei, with all due respect, may I know what you are doing here in the Moroi Royal court."

I could see sensei's face now and all I could say for myself was sorry.

"I was invited by the Queen." He told me curtly.

I stayed silent in front of him. He began pacing in front of me which meant that I was really in big trouble. Sensei wasn't the one who moved when it wasn't necessary to. Sensei never got restless, but now, he was. Is.

"Yes, I am aware of that. Why are you in here? In the woods?" I asked in a slightly cautious voice.

He looked up at me from his shoes with a blank expression. "I had something to tell you."

"Oh, you didn't have to come looking for me everywhere. You know that you could use your mobile phone."

His eyes turned a little incredulous for a nano-second. He shook his head. "You know how I despise using those things." He told me and began to pace again. Okay, this was beyond weird. I knew that sensei didn't like using modernized things, but what he had to say to me must've been a very important one.

"You said you wanted to tell me something." I said slowly, noting every move sensei did. "What was it?"

He stopped on his tracks to look at me. He told me something in his language that made me more than a little surprised.

"HERE?!" I half-shrieked. I was shocked. I had been too negligent in my surroundings. I was fucking careless!

Sensei nodded, but he was feeling as grim as me. He had faith in, I knew that, but his reaction was just getting a little off-hand.

"You're scared." I said.

He didn't bother denying it. "Yes, I am." From his tone, I knew what he would be saying next. "A man who does not fear is a folly to his kin." His dark eyes searched mine. "You fear of this, Rosemarie?"

Meekly, I nodded. "I was not like this before, sensei. I was brave and—"

He cut me off by repeating the Zen lesson that he had just said. "If you do not fear, it means you are not one of us."

I didn't let him see how it stung for him to say that, but it was the truth.

"Tell me the truth, Rosemarie. Do you fear or not?" He wasn't only asking about the Strigoi situation here in Pennsylvania now. He was asking me if I could feel fear myself.

"I fear, sensei." I said, bowing my head to tell him that I was telling him the truth.

"If you fear, then there is less chance of you going to the dark side." Sensei said mysteriously. His words raised goose-bumps on my arms.

I looked at him, confused. "What does that mean?"

Instead of answering me, he asked me something. "Did you remember me telling you that 'a wise man does not fear; a man afraid does not think'?"

Truthfully, the memory was hazy. I was still about six years old when he told me that. It was also the time that he started to train me for battles. "Yes, sensei, I remembered." I said, bowing my head again.

"I had been lying."

I looked at him, surprised. For the first time, sensei admitted that he lied. For the first time again, I thought that he was telling the truth about him lying to me, too.

"There is no man who does not fear. Even the undead—they fear." He continued, and leaned against a tree.

I crossed my arms over my chest and shifted to my other foot—a motion I never did in front of sensei. "What do you mean by undead?" I didn't even bother saying sensei.

"Strigoi." Just one word, my world titled into a new one.

I hid my scowl and nodded slowly. "What do they fear?" I asked even though I already knew the answer.

"They fear you, Slayer."

I looked up at sensei, confused. He had never approved of me staying out late for Strigoi-slaying, but he just called me my title in the Moroi world.

The way he said it—he made it sound like it was…special. Like it was a compliment you give to someone who was wearing a very pretty dress at a party. Okay, the latter was a bad analogy, but still.

I didn't say anything but just inclined my head for sensei to continue.

"Follow the signs given to you, Slayer, to find your salvation."

"Why do you keep calling me that?" I asked, a little uncomfortable that sensei wasn't calling me his Rosemarie anymore.

As if he read my mind, he said, "I do not owe you anymore. Slayer is your formal title to me, but in public, I am inclined to say Rosemarie."

"Well, that's just fucked up."

Sensei looked like he was about to slap my mouth, but thought better of it. Sensei never liked swear words. Especially the "F" word.

Sensei bowed his head a little and gave out a frustrated sigh. "Follow the signs, Slayer. I am not always here to guide you." Sensei said and looked at me squarely in the eyes.

I didn't have the guts to question him further. If I did have those guts, I was sure he wouldn't answer directly anyway. "Yes, sensei, I will follow the signs."

"Bien," Sensei liked the French language and he always spoke them when he was relieved or somehow in some situation that he was reassured.

I was glad that sensei was reassured. But I wasn't.

"Have you opened votre bibelot?" he asked me, curiosity slightly gleaming on his dark eyes.

Bibelot, I racked my mental dictionary and found out that it was a trinket—a box of some sort.

"Yes, I did." I told sensei.

He had that look on his face that spoke volumes. Volumes of I didn't know what.

"Have you opened la bibelot further?"

What the heck was me talking about?

"Eh?"

"Open in further." was all he said before he disappeared.

Way to go for help, sensei.

Not much excitement in this chapter, but I think the next one will be a Slayer one.

Give me lots of REVIEWS, they make my day and it will make me write faster.

Love lots,

Kate :D

xx