Author's Note: Thanks for all the uplifting comments and feedback! Sorry to the reviewer who doesn't like a slow burn story... though, Vampire Academy isn't exactly the series I would recommend if you can't handle a six-book slow burn. Stay safe wherever you are, everyone!
Once inside the club, Viktoria and Nikolai wasted no time in leading me towards the dance floor.
We'd drained their stashes of vodka, taking big gulps on the walk over, ears swarming as we could hear the thumping music even from a block away. Loosened up, it was easy to lose myself in the bassline.
As much as I made fun of Dimitri for his love of 80's music, Russia wasn't so behind on the times. Every so often, I recognized songs Lissa and I had heard on nights out in Portland. The memories these songs triggered brought a smile to my face, and I leaned further into the feeling.
After a while, I felt someone tap on my shoulder. I turned to see Viktoria, who yelled over the music, "We're going to meet up with friends at the bar, come on!"
We followed Nikolai's lead, hand in hand in hand so we didn't lose each other in the tight crowd. At least, that was why I was holding onto Viktoria so intently; she and Nikolai hadn't taken their hands off each other since the second song in.
He led us over to a booth that held a group of their friends. I recognized them all vaguely, having seen them around with Viktoria and in Ivan's seminar. They were all a year younger than me, so there weren't many chances for us to have a class together outside of it.
From what she'd told me, Viktoria had done a deal of damage control among her friends to dispelling lingering rumors after my "fainting" incident in combat class. After recent events, the embarrassment felt so long ago, and none of them seemed to treat me strangely as they introduced themselves.
"I'm Rose," I shouted back at them.
"She speaks," one of the girls, Vera, joked, causing everyone to laugh. "I'm sorry, it's just that, we were all beginning to think you were Guardian Belikov's perfect match."
"I'm sorry?" I sputtered, nearly choking on my drink.
"It's just that," Nikolai said, leaning over Viktoria. "You're not really the most social dhampir of the bunch, everyone figured you were his little protégé. Aside a rare smile when he's at your lunch table, or with Viktoria, he's not exactly the most approachable guardian at school."
"They've both been through a lot," Viktoria insisted, coming to my defense. "Besides, she's super focused because she's got an important charge waiting for her back home."
"Yeah, who is that, by the way? Viktoria will never tell us," their friend Evgeny asked.
Before I had the misfortune of trying to explain away to notoriety of Lissa's name, I heard Nikolai curse underneath his breath.
Ever on high alert, I followed his gaze to a small group of dhampir boys, en route to our table. They didn't look like anyone to be worried about, but when I noticed the mirrored sour look on the faces of everyone with me, I knew I couldn't judge them off first glance.
"I figured I would see you here, Kolya," the boy in the lead said.
"Didn't know you were even in Siberia, brother," Nikolai responded in fast Russian. The boy looked to be only a few years older than us and, upon closer inspection, I could see the likeness. Clearly, with the way Nikolai was trying to quickly push the conversation to a close, it wasn't a fond relationship.
Not catching onto Nikolai's intentions, or perhaps simply ignoring them, his brother's eyes fell on me, looking me up and down in a way that left me itching to pull my dress a little higher over my chest. "You must be Rose Mazur… quite the talk of the town. No one knew Zmey had a daughter, but I can see the resemblance."
"News travels fast," I said evenly. "Can't say I came prepared with your name though."
"I'm Denis." He gestured to the friends on either side of him, "This is Artur and Lev."
"I'm sorry," Nikolai interrupted, though he clearly didn't mean the sentiment. "But when did you get back?"
"Just this morning… we had some business in Omsk and figured we'd make the trip home for the holidays."
"Hmmm," Nikolai pondered, clearly sarcastic at this point. "You look a little lighter on associates that usual. You usually travel in a pack, where's Vasiliy? Or Timosha? Are you here for the holiday or are you here to notify families?"
"What kind of business did you say you were in?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. If it was something like what my father was allegedly into, that would explain how uncomfortable they were making everyone at that table. But what was this about having to notify families?
"Getting themselves killed," I heard Viktoria say under her breath.
Denis, evidently not having heard her, gestured towards the booth we were sat in. "May I?"
Vera, Evgeny, and the rest of Viktoria's friends rose from their side of the circular booth, headed to dance and avoid the tense situation. From the corner of my eye, I saw Viktoria and Nikolai look longing at their friend's retreating backs.
Before I could scoot in for him to join me, Denis amended his statement. "Actually, why don't we dance? It'll be much more fun to tell the stories that way."
It was a trap, and I knew it. But bringing the old Rose Hathaway out for the night also meant that I was more than willing to let my curiosity get the better of me. I moved to stand and felt Viktoria grab me by the wrist.
"Rose, that's not a good idea. They're no good," she warned, eyes as harsh as I'd ever seen them. Behind her, Nikolai's showed the same ferocity.
"I can handle it," I assured her, moving to allow Denis to escort me to the dance floor.
Denis circled me like prey on the dance floor, but I didn't allow him to get too far off track.
"So what exactly is it that you do?"
"My friends and I hunt Strigoi."
My shock got the better of me, and Denis took it to his advantage, pulling me by the wrist and turning me so that I was dancing on him. I kept my moves restricted, still searching for answers.
"What do you mean? Who are your charges?"
He scoffed behind me, "We don't subscribe to that kind of lifestyle. Guardians are weak – they sell themselves to protect the Moroi and pretend they do it out of choice, rather than enslavement. The Moroi are selfish, all the magic at their fingertips and they don't even lift one to protect themselves."
"That's not true," I countered, spinning around to face him again. "It's been a while since you were in school, but Moroi are learning to use their magic offensively now."
"I thought I heard you were Ivan's student. That's, what? Two grades of Moroi among a worldwide network of schools? Everywhere else, they take dhampirs for granted. We're nothing more than sheep for them. We're expendable and under the system we just wait to be picked off, one by one, no one to remember us when we give our lives for nothing.
"I can tell you're feisty, and I know you're trained by Belikov. When you graduate, you don't have to run the course they tell you. You don't have to be like him, hell bent of dying for 'the cause'. You can join us. We keep the world safe by using our skills to actively find and take down Strigoi numbers. You could be a part of the new order."
"At what cost?" I countered, drawing closer to him as we all but stopped putting on the charade of dancing. "I heard what they said about you having fewer people with you than usual. Seems sloppy to me. Sounds like you're losing at the same rate that you're winning."
Suddenly, I felt a hand close around my wrist. I turned, expecting it to be Viktoria again, but coming directly into contact with the chest of someone who was the last person I expected to be here.
Dimitri.
"We're leaving," he told me, pulling me behind him and looming over Denis. As big of a game as he talked, he looked nervous under Dimitri's glare. "I don't want to see you around for the rest of the week. Leave her alone."
Dimitri turned, pulling me by the wrist to the door. I saw Viktoria out of the corner of my eye, mouthing I'm sorry over the music. She'd somehow escaped the notice of her brother, which stung. At least she could spend more time with Nikolai now.
We broke outside, my ears ringing as they took in the relatively quiet night around us. It was strikingly cold out, as late fall in Siberia probably tended to be. Sensing I needed more than the skimpy dress to protect me, Dimitri tossed me the dark sweatshirt I noticed bundled under his arm, something he must have brought in anticipation of my cold.
I whispered a quiet thank you, avoiding his eye contact and allowing him to gather his thoughts as I pulled the sweatshirt over my head. I had left my own jacket at the front door of the house, easy to access if he'd left in any rush. Instead, the soft sweatshirt fell to my thighs, pulling the ends of the dress up where it came to rest, and I realized that it was for the university he had attended with Ivan and Alexei. I took a surreptitious breath in, breathing in the scent of his personal sweatshirt.
Not even that could calm my attitude, however. "What? You couldn't trust me to listen to you and 'not be dumb'?" I sneered, remembering his words from earlier.
He'd begun to walk away, headed back towards the rental and expecting me to follow. At my words, he sighed, exasperated. "No, Rose. That's not it."
"What is it, then!?"
"Look, it's not you that I didn't trust."
"What is that supposed to mean, Dimitri?"
"Look, Roza…" Dimitri looked at me thoughtfully. "When you came into the house earlier… and I saw what you were wearing… I just knew that everyone was going to want to get their hands on you."
My eyebrows rose, reacting to all the hidden meanings I could derive from that one statement. "Oh really… and you thought…?"
He took a stony breath in, but diverted. "You shouldn't hang around boys like that," he said gruffly.
"Boys like what?"
"The unpromised. You have a reputation to uphold if you want to be Lissa's guardian. Boys like that… they don't have any morals or sense of honor. They jump into fights without knowing what they're getting themselves into."
"They have the training," I countered, though I knew I didn't believe it myself.
"There's more to training than what you learn in school, Rose. They get themselves killed more often than not, they're brash and reckless."
"Funny," I laughed, though we both knew there was no humor behind it. "People would've said that about me not too long ago."
Dimitri sighed, leaning against the brick wall I had come to rest on and facing me. I glanced sideways at him, and his eyes bore into mine. Instinctively, I turned to mirror him, desperate for any semblance of closeness. He didn't move away, which I was thankful for.
"What were you like as a teenager," I asked him. It was hard for me to picture to stone-faced god in front of me ever having been wild, or carefree.
Dimitri smiled at my deflection, but humored me. "Believe it or not, but I wasn't always this way. Up until the incident, I was…" he struggled to find the exact word to describe it.
"Softer?" I suggested. The antithesis to the exterior I and all my classmates had come to know on him.
"Not really, I was always serious about the job, didn't earn the top spot In my class for nothing." I rolled my eyes at him, causing him to laugh. That joyous, miraculous sound. "I guess I was just looser. I could joke around more. Alexei and I were closer back then, which is why they paired us with Ivan when we graduated. But where I retreated further into my shell after everything, he shook it off by becoming louder, more exuberant, as if a joke could erase the severity of what happened."
"You guys seem alright. What changed?"
Dimitri paused to consider my question. "I resented him for a while. I guess I just realized that my resentment couldn't change anything that happened. I could still be serious and be a good friend."
"Sometimes you need a good mix of both," I whispered, thinking about my commitment to Lissa. "Do you ever feel like we got our youths stolen away from us? Not just the two of us, I mean… dhampirs in general. It's all for a worthy cause, don't get me wrong, but maybe the unpromised are just holding onto it…"
Dimitri considered my words, smiling sadly. "You're wise beyond your years to recognize that, but it doesn't change that what they do is reckless."
"People used to say a lot of things about me back at St. Vlad's," I continued. "Even when I was young. That I was too reckless to amount to anything. That I was lucky I made a friend in a high place or else -"
Immediately, certainly, he cut off my musings, "That's not true."
I was touched by how easily he'd come to my defenses, without having known me back that. "Back then-"
"That doesn't matter," he said firmly. "What matters is now and I know you now. You work harder than any other novice at the academy because you worry about Lissa more than yourself …" Dimitri shook his head. "That's what sets you apart – you've already committed to your responsibilities better than guardians twice your age, far better than those unpromised kids who have already graduated. You've grown so much since you've gotten here and I know you're going to be one of the best, Roza."
There it was again, the sweet nickname only he had taken to calling me. I puzzled over his praise feeling, as always, like I had yet to earn it. "I don't know if I can do everything I have to."
He raised one of his eyebrows, looking impossibly cool as leaned against the wall, shrouded in his leather duster.
"I don't want to cut off my hair," I explained, feeling childish under his puzzled gaze. I moved to say as much, but he cut me off.
"This was your point from last time," it dawned on him, remembering our conversation about growing old in Oksana's garden. "You don't have to, you know? It's not required," he said with a motion to his own long strands.
"All the female guardians do, to show off their tattoos."
Dimitri stepped forward, uncrossing his arms and gently taking a lock of my hair between his fingers. He gazed at it intensely, twisting it around his finger and I stood frozen, barely breathing in the limited space between us. The world had slowed, like it often did when Dimitri and I shared a moment, any at all. He let the strand go, shaking himself out of the daze with a look of surprise and… pain?
He huffed, pushing himself off the wall and stepping back in the direction of the rental. "Don't cut it."
"But how will people see my molnija-"
"Wear it up," he whispered, a soft smile on his face. He cocked his head in the direction we were meant to go in, outstretching his hand to me. "Come on. Let's get home."
