Waking alone was depressing. After days of waking in her mate's strong arms, surfacing awake by herself in her miserable dorm room sucked. Especially since the boiler was, once again, malfunctioning. More than anything, Rose wanted to wake up beside her man - even though it wasn't possible.

They'd spoken about it during their trip back, Dimitri suggesting they not reappear back on campus on the same day. So Rose would be at breakfast today with Lissa, Christian, and the rest of the crew, while Dimitri would reappear sometime tomorrow evening. Rose worried about how he'd occupy himself, but Dimitri had assured Rose he had his work cut out for him washing the many sheets they'd gone through during her estrous.

Dreading meeting up with Lissa, Rose understood it was necessary. Choosing to delay it no longer, Rose picked up her cell and texted her bestie: Back on campus. Meet you at breakfast in ten? R

Seconds later, Lissa replied. Missed you, see you soon!

As she walked down to the cafeteria, Rose thought about how things had changed. A month ago, she had devoted her life to Lissa. Now she was Omega, pair-bonded and the mate of an Alpha male. Not that she regretted it. It was more that things had changed so much!

"Rose! How was the time with your mother?" Lissa asked as soon as Rose joined the table where Christian, Eddie, Mason, and Meredith were already seated. The sparkle in Lissa's eye declared she knew it wasn't the truth, but no one else paid any attention.

"It was my Mom," Rose said with a dismissive shrug. "You know what she's like. I don't really want to talk about it." Lissa nodded, with a sympathetic sigh, giving Rose the out she needed.

"It's a shame you missed the Yule Ball. That was fun but other than that, it's been quiet here," Lissa said almost consolingly. "Boring, really. Tasha left on New Year's Day, so everything has been quiet since then."

"I thought your aunt was staying until the start of school?" Rose asked Christian. Not that she was heartbroken Tasha had disappeared. Still… she wanted all the goss!

"Tash got a call they needed her back at work," Christian lied, not even trying to be convincing. "Since we got to spend Christmas and New Year's Eve together, she headed back home."

"She's pretty busy in the human world," Lissa explained with a sweet smile, a glance to Rose suggesting there was a larger story she'd share later.

"So, has much else gone on?" Rose asked.

"Not really. I honestly can't wait for Natalie to return and classes to resume," Lissa said, missing Eddie and Mason's subtle eye roll. Only Lissa would actually miss classes!


"Christian will hang out with the guys for a while," Lissa said once breakfast was over and her boyfriend disappeared with a couple of Moroi. "I've told him to make sure he's gone at least an hour. Let's go to my dorm…" Princess Dragomir wanted details, and she was determined to get them!

"Fine! But I won't spill everything," Rose warned with a grimace, relieved that Lissa's Guardian was far enough back not to hear anything. Once inside the Princess's suite, nice Lissa stepped aside, replaced by demanding, inquisitive best friend.

"So? You're Omega!?" Vasilisa asked.

"Yep," Rose said, popping the p.

"What's it like? The day you left you weren't yourself. It worried me!"

"I didn't feel like myself," Rose admitted. "I had this overwhelming urge to make a nest. It was the weirdest thing ever. You know when you're almost asleep but you can't find the perfect position to sleep in? It felt like that. I spent hours until it was just right. Even then I was agitated. I didn't calm down until Dimitri got there."

"So what happened? Where did you go? Did you have an estrous? Did Dimitri help you with that? Did he claim you?"

"One question at a time," Rose said, more than a little cranky. She'd only been apart from her mate a few hours, and it had already thrown her equilibrium! She'd tell Lissa almost everything, but she had to calm her farm and stop firing questions!

"We went to the campsite where the sophomore Novices do their outdoor survival training. There's a log cabin there for the Guardians to stay in, so we stayed there."

"And…?"

"When we got there, I made another nest while Dimitri unpacked, lit the fires, turned on the gas and cooked. We had dinner and then we made out and then he took me to bed."

"Did you…?"

"Yes."

"That's all I get? Yes?!" Lissa asked.

"It's private, Liss. And he's your Guardian!"

"I don't need all the details, but was it good? What about claiming?"

"I'm certainly not complaining, and yes." Lissa's eyes shot to Rose's neck. "Not there… Somewhere a bit more private!"

Lissa looked confused until Rose pointed at her crotch.

"He bit you down there?!" Lissa gasped. She'd spent Rose's time away reading up about Alpha and Omega, so she was now a bit more clued in about the way things worked.

"Well it had to be someplace I could hide it… It's on top hidden by my pubes. He'll mark my neck once I'm eighteen."

"So your estrous?"

"Started the next morning."

"What's it like?" Lissa asked, feeling curious. The book she'd misappropriated from the Academy library had been heavy on the facts, but light on the first-hand knowledge.

"It's really hard to explain. It was like an ache that burned inside. The only thing that stopped it was when he you know…"

"Wow… Was it like constant? The pain?"

"No. Between times I could sleep. It started out bad, but each time it got a bit better. I can't imagine going through it without a mate, though. Dimitri was amazing. He stayed with me the whole time, making sure I ate and had water—even helping me shower."

"He loves you," Lissa said with a sigh, struggling to reconcile that Rose had been claimed. An Alpha would never relinquish their mate, so Rose was all but married at seventeen years old. It was a massive change for the young woman who thought she'd be a single Guardian for the rest of her life!

"He does. And I love him."


Knowing when the Guardian shifts changed, Dimitri had successfully avoided seeing any of his peers. As far as anyone bar Alberta was concerned, he was still at Court. After spending a few hours sleeping, he waited for one group of Guardians to start their shift, while another ended, then he grabbed the garbage bag filled with the sheets from their time away and slipped downstairs to the Guardian laundry. Since there was a laundry service available to Guardians, the washing machines and dryers in the basement were rarely used. As good a place to hide out as any, Dimitri loaded the three machines before settling in to wait as they washed. While he could have sent one or two sheets through the linen service, so many additional sheets arriving in one hit would have raised awkward questions. Besides, Dimitri didn't mind the solitude of the laundry. It gave him a chance to think.

The days he'd spent with Rose off-campus had been some of the most precious of his life. His pride at claiming such a beautiful woman as his had been indescribable. That he loved Roza was certain—and she loved him, too! Her estrous had been difficult for them both, still, it had brought them closer together. Now it was a matter of getting through ten or so weeks until he was legally free to make Rose his.

After publicly claiming her, marriage was the next logical step. Rose seemed surprised when he'd suggested it, however, he wanted to protect her in every way he could. So as well as claiming Rose as his mate, he wanted the legal safeguard of being legal partners, too! Eventually, they'd need to sit down with the Princess and work out how their relationship would work in with the Royals' protection—Rose being best friends with Lissa, Dimitri hoped she'd be accommodating. And if she wasn't? Well—Roza was his mate and that meant their union came first.


Celeste had the day off, so after breakfast, she tided her room then decided to do her laundry. While she was happy to send her sheets, towels, and uniforms via the linen service, her underwear had a creepy habit of disappearing, so she saved those to wash herself. Collecting them all in a hamper she headed down to the basement. Rounding the corner, she saw Guardian Belikov with his back to the door, unloading three washers worth of laundry into the dryers above.

She smiled. Rose had been at breakfast, so if she was back on campus, it made sense Dimitri would be, too. Celeste couldn't believe no one else had questioned Rose and Dimitri leaving campus unexpectedly at the same time. Them arriving back together just confirmed her suspicions. While she had no idea how the boss had squared it with Alberta, he must have managed it, somehow. The only logical explanation was Rose being Dimitri's mate. Celeste had witnessed enough loaded looks between the two that hinted that might be the case, and she genuinely hoped it was. Belikov was a decent guy but serious; he needed someone fun like Rose.

Suspecting Dimitri might not want to be 'noticed' back on campus yet, Celeste turned and silently slipped back up the stairs. She'd go back down in an hour or two and do her washing then.


"So what happened with Tasha?" Rose asked, once Lissa was finally done grilling her about the cabin, her first time, being claimed, then her estrous.

"Christian told her off," Lissa explained with a giggle. "Just before Dimitri and I came back here on New Year's Eve, I was walking with Tasha and MacAllister back from the Guest Quarters and Dimitri was looking for you. He was walking with us and Tasha touched Dimitri and he told her off big time. He said he wasn't attracted to her and didn't appreciate her advances."

"She was over the top about it," Rose defended.

"Well… later on, Tasha told Christian how angry she was Dimitri had led her along only to embarrass her in public. It really pissed her off."

"Dimitri led her on?" Rose spluttered in an incredulous voice. "Surely, Christian doesn't think…"

"No. He told Tasha that Dimitri had been very clear he was not interested, and that she should be embarrassed, but only about her own actions! He was trying to do it lightly, but it didn't go over well. She kept pushing and when Christian said she'd acted like a sleazy sex-crazed cougar, Tasha decided she would return to Minnesota."

"I'm sorry," Rose said. While what Christian said was true, Tasha was still his closest living relative.

"Don't be. He was glad to have her leave."


The days until school resumed dragged—particularly since Rose only saw Dimitri during training with Eddie, or when he guarded Lissa. He'd reverted to his normal shifts, but even when he had an overnight shift with Lissa, Rose did not visit. It was just too risky.

With Eddie and Meredith now definitely a couple, and most Royal Moroi students still off-campus, the group hung out together; Lissa and Christian, Eddie and Meredith, Rose, and Mason. That Mason wanted it to be 'Rose and Mason,' was clear—Rose covertly circumventing his hopes for alone time by asking Chelsea to join them whenever she could. Most of their time spent ice-skating, playing in the snow, enjoying innumerable games of pool, plus lots of car-racing games on the console in the Moroi Common room, Mason never got the chance he was hoping for.

Four days before classes were due to start back, Dimitri offered to go over the next topic in their Moroi Culture text. That everyone agreed was a testament to how bored they were. Meeting in the Common Room, like before, Dimitri went through the time period between when the Pennsylvanian Court was inaugurated as the center of Moroi politics and law in the United States through to the events that ended up with the Royal Court moving from Europe to America. While Adrian had covered it last time they got together, his explanations lacked the depth of Dimitri's.

Rose found herself interested, despite herself. While Moroi, and dhampir, existed mostly outside the human realm, global events still affected their world. Dimitri explained how during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II, industrialization in Russia led to a large increase in urban middle and working classes, the population as a whole moving away from traditional agriculture-based class systems that supported Royal Moroi. Hunger, poor living and working conditions, combined with an uprise in political activism saw peasants and workers outnumbering the nobility and wealthy bourgeoisie, which in turn threatened Royal Moroi.

With growing political instability in the region, there had been pressure for the Royal Council to approve a move of Royal Court to the United States. There were branches of the twelve Royal families already situated there, as well as many Moroi and dhampir citizens. Things came to a head in 1905 with the Russian Revolution, and in 1906 the Royal Council representing the twelve Royal Moroi families voted almost unanimously to shift their seat of power to Pennsylvania. While some family members chose not to move to America, many did. Indeed, Moroi and dhampir made up an estimated five percent of immigrants to the United States in 1907, or around sixty-thousand people.

"I had no idea about any of this," Rose said wide-eyed after Dimitri finished. "Adrian left so much of that out."

"It makes little sense unless you put it in context," Dimitri said modestly. "Moroi feed on humans, dhampir are derived from Moroi. We live alongside the human world; what happens there affects us."

"I never thought I'd say this, but it's actually kinda interesting," Mason said looking at Dimitri. For some reason he couldn't put his finger on, he still disliked the Russian Alpha, yet he couldn't fault his historical knowledge or his willingness to share it.

"Guardian Belikov? Since you're scheduled to guard me every Thursday after dinner, I was wondering whether you'd be able to coach us for Moroi Studies each week? I know I speak for us all when I say how much understanding we've gained in just a few hours." Lissa was using her formal 'Royal' voice, which always sounded wanky to Rose, but if the hat fit…

"Certainly, Princess Dragomir," Dimitri replied, pleased he'd have an excuse to spend extra time with his mate. Throughout his time talking, he'd felt Rose's contentment through the bond just because they were in close physical proximity to one another. If talking history helped his girl and made her happy, he was up for it!

"Great! Let's say seven-thirty to nine-thirty each Thursday," Lissa said, pleased to have done her bit to help Rose and Dimitri spend time together, even if it was in the company of others.

"Well I don't know about you, but I'm tired," Eddie said giving a very unconvincing yawn.

"Me too. Let's walk the girls up to their dorms," Mason chimed in, earning himself an eye roll from Eddie.

"Yeah. Let's go. Thanks, Guardian Belikov. Training tomorrow at five?" Rose checked.

"I'll see you then, Hathaway. You too, Castile."


Half an hour later, Rose was changing into her warm flannelette pajamas when there was a knock at her door. Opening the door an inch, she quickly opened it further when she saw her mate in the dark hallway outside.

"Did anyone see you?" she asked urgently, closing the door and stepping into Dimitri's arms as soon as he opened them to her.

"No. I came the long way and was careful," he said before lowering his lips to hers.

They'd been back at the Academy six days, and outside normal training drills, they had no physical interaction during that time. They were both craving each other's touch.

"It's freezing in here," Dimitri grumbled, pulling Rose hard up against him and pulling his duster closed around her.

Rose shrugged. "You get used to it after the first year or two," she joked, much more interested in kissing the stubble on the underside of her mate's jaw than pondering the sub-arctic conditions of the Novice dorms. "You should have told me you were coming…" she scolded, running her hands up Dimitri's chest and around behind his back.

"I didn't plan to. But I miss you." Only Dimitri could sound dominant Alpha and loving mate simultaneously.

"I miss you, too," Rose replied, pulling his head down so their lips could meet. "How long do I have you for?"

"An hour? Maybe two? I need to be back in the Guardian dorms to be seen leaving for our five o'clock training session, and we both need some sleep."

"Ok. But can we cuddle?"

"Nothing would make me happier," Dimitri said, lifting Rose and carrying her over to her bed. Depositing Rose in the center, Dimitri discarded his duster, uniform top, and pants, leaving only his wife-beater and boxer briefs. Staring up at him from her bed, it turned Rose on. Her mate was one hell of a sexy Alpha man!

"Has anyone asked anything?" Dimitri asked, pleased by Roza's blatant assessment of him and the scent of her arousal.

"No. Lissa knows, but the others haven't noticed."

"What about Mason? He spends a lot of time watching you," Dimitri said with a soft growl. He knew the red-haired Novice was no threat—but was the principle. Whether or not Ashford knew it, Roza was spoken for, now. He didn't appreciate the young man staring at what was his!

"He can watch all he wants. You're the only man I want and love," Rose confessed.

"I know," Dimitri replied, wanting to tell his mate he loved and trusted her absolutely. He was possessive and jealous yet not distrustful. Of Rose at least.

"It's hard sleeping without you," Rose murmured as Dimitri's hands snaked around her, slipping beneath her top and pajama pants. Sliding into her panties, seconds later Rose was incapable of speaking as Dimitri's fingers found her clit and started circling it as his other hand found a breast. Adopting the same tempo in both locations, within minutes Rose was writhing beneath her lover's touch, panting as he used his fingers to pleasure her. Before he'd had the chance to slide his fingers into her wet folds Rose detonated, burying her face into Dimitri's neck to silence her joyful wails.

"I needed that," she sighed, giggling quietly once they were done. Now Tasha was no longer staying in the adjacent room, they could talk with little worry of being overheard.

"I did too!" Dimitri replied, enjoying Rose's delight through their bond.

"Now let me help you," Rose suggested, her hand wandering down Dimitri's chest until it found his painfully engorged cock. Grasping it through his boxer briefs she massaged it several times before starting to pull down his underwear. "How about I suck you off?"

Dimitri groaned. Rose's mouth around his cock in the cabin, albeit fleeting, was permanently embedded in his mind. There wasn't much he wouldn't do to experience that thrill again STAT!

"I want that too, but it's been days…" Dimitri explained, taking her hand from his cock and placing them on his balls. Rose could feel they were full and heavy. She'd probably drown if she tried to swallow! "Could we make love first?"

Rose grinned. She hadn't expected Dimitri to suggest sex, so she agreed without pause.

"Come here, Comrade," Rose said, pulling her pajama pants and panties off then peeling off her shirt followed by his wife beater. Naked together the room no longer seemed chilly.

"Roza!" Dimitri growled, climbing on top of his mate, kissing her before claiming her again.