Chapter 37

Adrianna POV

When I made it to the novice dorm I went through the lounge in hopes of both Emily and Stefan being in there. I didn't see them so I kept walking up to my room, after being in there for literally two seconds the door opened and the two of them came in behind me.

"What's wrong?" I didn't answer Emily's questions straight away. I went over and took a seat on my bed and waited until I calmed down enough to speak.

"Jeremy cheated on me" I finally managed to say, Emily gave Stefan a look before climbing into the bed next to me and Stefan stormed out of my room slamming the door behind him.

"Huh I wonder where he went" I was still staring at my door after Stefan left

"Dri, you told him Jeremy cheated on you. We are Stefan's best friends and he obviously loves us, don't you think he would go and confront Jeremy?"

"I don't want to think about Jeremy Em, he broke my heart"

"I know Dri" Emily put her arms around me and I cried against her.

Stefan didn't return that night and Emily spent the night in my room with me trying to cheer me up but it wasn't working.

When I woke up in the morning my face was all red and puffy and I was dreading turning up for my session with Nikolaus he would know something was wrong the minute he laid eyes on me and notice I had been crying. I set an alarm for Emily so she could wake up and go get ready for classes when she needed too before slipping out of my room and heading towards the gym.

When I made it to the gym I hesitated at the door, I still didn't want to go in but I let out a breath before opening the door and heading in. I found Nikolaus walking between the main floor and the storage room pulling out practise dummies.

"What's the plan for today?" I hoped he was distracted enough he wouldn't look my way

"Give me a sec to finish" he spoke as he went back to the storage room. I walked over to one of the bars and placed my bag on the ground near it and jumped up on the bar and began swinging around on it.

I didn't even realise he came out and when I did I stopped swinging and he was smirking at me.

"What?" I smiled at him

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing, I was bored waiting for you and since I don't know what we are doing today I didn't know if I should warm up or not" I noticed him look my way and he must have noticed my face but he didn't say anything, I figured the questions would come once we were finished.

"Alright then, come on I will explain" I jumped off the bar and followed him to the centre of the mats

"Point out where the heart is"

"Seriously?"

"Yep" he popped his p and then grinned at me. He knew I got annoyed when he popped his p's, it was one of my pet peeves and he caught on very quickly.

I walked over to the closet practise training dummy and placed my hand above the heart. "The sternum, ribs and cartilage are also in the way"

"What makes you think that was what I was going to next?"

"It was just a guess did I answer your question correctly?"

"Fine what is my next question then?" I frowned at him, I didn't even know what he was planning for today and he knew that. He smirked as he pulled out a silver stake and my eyes went wide at the sight of it causing him to laugh at me.

"Now I know what today is about I'm assuming the next question will be something along the lines of what it is, how dangerous they are excreta, excreta" I waved my hand

"Off you go then"

"You know I know this though"

"No I don't" I narrowed my eyes at him, he did know I knew this.

"Fine, silver stakes are made by Moroi charming the stake with four of the five elements. Stabbing a Strigoi in the heart with a silver stake will kill them and if a Moroi that is a Spirit user stabs them in the heart with a silver stake that has also been charmed with Spirit will turn them back to their original state. Even just cutting or grazing a Strigoi with the silver stake will cause them immense pain but it won't hurt a dhampir or a Moroi like it would them"

"Very good, except your missing one thing" I stared at him as I thought back on everything I just said. What was I missing, I thought I said everything that was important.

"No I think I said everything" he kept a straight face but I saw the humour in his eyes. "You're messing with me aren't you?"

"I am, here" he held out the stake and I took it from his him.

When it was in my hands I turned it over getting a good look at it, no one back at Court had let me even look at their stakes. They knew I liked causing trouble and figured it would be safer if I didn't get close to one. It felt cool and sleek in my hands and I noticed this one had what looked like Greek letters carved in the bottom of it but I didn't question it, I figured it meant something to him.

"It's Kostas, it was my brother's name" he spoke as I ran my thumb over the letters again. I looked up at him, I still hadn't heard the extent of what happened to his brother. The only thing I knew was that it was in an attack and he failed to protect his brother and that his brother was younger.

"What happens if you lose the stake?"

"Get a new one and have the letters engraved again, I've lost a few stakes Dri" I heard the door open behind me and I turned around curious as to who it could be, most people didn't disturb us in the morning but it was Jeremy.

"What are you doing here?"

"I want to talk to you Dri"

"Really you want to talk to me right now?" I swang the silver stake around, I noticed his eyes follow it.

"Thought you weren't allowed to use one of those yet" the rest of the junior class had began working with silver stakes a few weeks ago but Nikolaus didn't think I was ready for it yet so I had to sit out and watch or do something else.

"Nikolaus changed his mind this morning, he only just handed it over. Haven't been taught how to use it yet, you still want to talk?"

"No it's fine, I'll find you later?"

"Don't bother, I'll just see you in Moroi Culture"

"We can't talk at lunch?"

"I'd rather have an appetite" I knew I was being cold but everything was different between us now

"Fine...I really am sorry Dri" he turned his head and it was then I finally saw in the right light that he had a black eye.

"Wait..." he turned around. "Stefan did that didn't he?" all he did was nod before turning around leaving the gym.

I composed myself before I turned back around to face Nikolaus.

"What was that about?"

"Silly high school gossip, do you really want to know"

"That looked more like silly high school gossip Dri and considering Stefan gave him he black eye, he apologize for something and you pretty much threatened him with a silver stake"

"Fine he cheated on me alright? Do I get to use this on one of the dummies or are they just there to look good?" I didn't want to tell him but I knew he wouldn't let it drop if I didn't. I swang the stake around waiting for him to reply

"Dri..."

"Don't, I don't want to talk about it. Now either we talk about this session or I'm handing this back and leaving"

He scrutinized me for a few moments before speaking. "Yes you will be using it today, go for it. I will watch and see what needs to be improved"

We then spent the rest of the session with me stabbing the practise dummies while Nikolaus adjusted my hand positioning. I didn't realise it would this hard, I knew the dummies weren't made of straw but instead they were made of a substance that was meant to replicate a similar affect to stabbing a real Strigoi.

When the session was over I handed the stake over and stormed out of the gym grabbing my bag as I passed not allowing Nikolaus to ask any questions about what happened with Jeremy but before I could leave he grabbed my wrist and stopped me.

"Dri are you alright?"I didn't look up at him

"There's no point in lying"

"Dri..." he placed a hand under my chin and forced me to look at him

"Don't, you don't need to pretend to care about whether or not a boy broke my heart considering you beat me up and had a go at me because you thought boys were distracting me. So now you got your wish, I'm no longer distracted by boys" I snapped at him yanking my wrist out of his grip

"Dri you have to know I didn't mean to beat you up and yes there are times where you get distracted by boys but I certainly didn't want you to get past it like this"

"Just stop pretending to care!" I glared at him before turning around and storming out, I was just glad he didn't stop me this time

Word had gotten around about what happened between Jeremy and I, I had no idea as to who started telling everyone. For all I know it was the girl Jeremy had sex with but throughout my morning that were novices only, none of them said anything directly to me but I knew they were talking about what happened behind my back.

It wasn't until lunch began that I realised how bad word had spread, it was something all the Moroi were talking about and they didn't care if it was behind my back or in front of me. Hearing this made me lose my appetite, I didn't want anything to eat. I just sat at the table with my friends waiting for lunch period to finish and we could go off to class.

"Dri you can't seriously make him sit with them" I looked over at Belle and then looked around to what she was talking about. Jeremy was sitting at a table with some of the other royals and he looked miserable, he hated spending time with the royals it was why he spent his time with us to begin with. He didn't completely piss them off considering some day they would be stuck with each other.

"I'm not making him sit with them, I'm just not letting him sit here"

"We're here his friends too Dri"

"Then you go sit with him because I sure as hell don't want to sit with him"

"Dri I hate what he did to you don't get me wrong. None of us went to that party, we assumed he didn't either. But he made a mistake, why should we make him sit at a table that makes him miserable?"

"What so I should let him sit here with us and make myself miserable? Oh wait I'm already miserable" none of my friends say anything, I knew it must have been hard for them considering we were all friends before Jeremy and I got together but I was the one that got hurt and he was the one that fucked up so he could deal with it.

After having enough of them staring at me I stood up and left the cafeteria, I ended up stopping in the court yard near the novice dorm and I would give anything to make it so the sun was out, all I wanted to do was sit in sun and not worry about anything, believe my life hadn't been flipped on its head this year and it was only May, it really made me wonder what was going to happen when Senior year started up.

"Here" I turned my head and found James had taken a seat next to me with a plate of food.

"Why did you follow me?"

"I didn't actually, I came out from the Feeders and you were gone. I know you like to sit here, more often than not it's in the middle of the night and the sun is out"

"Why the food?"

"You're always hungry" he smirked as I took the plate from him.

"Thanks, am I wrong in not letting Jeremy sit with us?"

"No, he did the wrong thing. He shouldn't have done it, the rest of your friends..." I raised an eyebrow at him. "Sorry our friends understand that you are hurt but so is Jeremy, he understands he did the wrong thing. He just wants to be able to talk to you"

"I don't want to talk to him right now"

"I'm not saying you have to do it right now but you should"

"Why are you telling me to do this?"

"I know how you are feeling, about what Jeremy did, what everyone is saying and how you are worried it's affecting your friends as well. But it's because of your friends they're friends with Jeremy as well and you were good friends with Jeremy before the two of you dated. Are you seriously going to let that friendship go down the drain?"

"Just because you know what everyone is feeling and thinking doesn't mean you get to always be right" I frowned at him and he laughed at me.

"I'm just trying to help, I know if you lost Jeremy completely it would bother you but I also know you need time to process it Dri" that got me, he hadn't called me Dri since we became friends, it was always Adrianna

"Why did you start calling me Dri?"

"Why not, we're friends" he shrugged before laying back on the ground looking up at the stars

"We have been friends for a while now James, does this mean I can call you Jaime?" I grinned and he frowned, I knew only his mother could get away with calling him Jaime.

"Come on its time for class I will walk you to Physiology" we both stood up and headed towards the building that housed all the classrooms.

A/N: Melbourne is currently in the middle of a bad thunder storm and it makes for good writing so I'm updating a couple of chapters tonight, I will place a note at the end of all the chapters I'm uploading just so you know what has been uploaded tonight.

Moulinness thank you for reviewing, Jeremy is a good guy he just made one mistake. Now don't take this as I'm pro cheating because I'm not but sometimes people can get past it. Dri will get her happy ending eventually, I'm just not planning on ending this story anytime soon.

Gabergirl thank you for always reviewing! I know I was shocked I wrote it but it helps cover a couple of chapters before the summer break sets in and that is when things get real interesting.