'So . . . tired . . .' Rose felt her head slip down onto her arms as sleep crept over her mind. Abruptly, a loud explosion burst in front of her nose. Rose let out a strangled "EEP!" and looked up to see Kain standing in front of her desk, smirking, a pile of books sitting on the edge of her desk a few inches away from her head.

"Good morning, Miss Croft," Kain stated plainly. Rose yawned widely, made a huge show of slapping her face, and sat up straight, blinking rapidly.

"Good morning, Professor Kain."

"Sleep well?"

"As a matter of fact, no I didn't."

"Wonderful. Now, please tell us what you know about dragons."

Rose winced, but went over the little bit she knew and had heard. Class seemed to drag by, and finally the bell rang. Everyone stood to get up and Kain called out over the students, "Rose, if you'd please stay after class."

Everyone looked around curiously and at Rose, but didn't question. Rose waited in front of Kain's desk as everyone left. After the door had shut, Kain led her to his office and snapped his fingers. She felt the ripple of magic and saw, in his office, a small cot.

"Get some sleep, Rose," he told her, turning away to head back out. "I'll wake you when your next class starts."

She gratefully plopped down across the cot and felt sleep return quickly.

"Gods, you'd think sleep is a lover I rejected last night," she mumbled almost coherently. Kain laughed.

"For the Dark Gods' sakes, Rose, sleep."

"You know people have begun the rumors again," Rose sighed sleepily. "As soon as I broke up with my 'boyfriend'."

Kain sighed in annoyance. "I know, Rose, now sleep before I use one of my Gifts and force you to sleep."

She chuckled darkly. "So nice to know you're concerned about my well-being." She slipped into unconsciousness as sleep refused to be pushed away again. Kain looked to the stack of papers that had to be graded, then shook his head and sat down on the cot, pulling Rose's head into his lap. He let his fingers trail down her hair gently, a blank expression settling on his face as his eyes unfocused as he mused quietly to himself on what he would have to do when he returned to Nosgoth.

Rose threw the last pom-pom into the closet and sighed deeply. The extra little nap during lunch had done her good, and she had actually been able to lead the cheerleading practice because of it. She made a mental note to thank Kain later, as practice had gone well, though they hadn't been able to distract the football team since it wasn't their day to practice. She was in the equipment locker putting the last stuff away for the day.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps at the door. She straightened and turned to see one of the football players walk in slowly, cautiously looking around. When he spotted Rose, he smiled, and were she not already flushed from the workout, she would have been blushing. His smile was perfect, brilliant and melt-in-your-mouth sexy. She shook her head abruptly to rid herself of such thoughts.

"Hey, Rose."

Rose smiled as she recognized him; he was Damian, one of the lead quarterbacks. He was, as the cheerleading team put it, incredibly edible. And also single.

Aforementioned football player shut the locker door gently behind him and walked toward Rose. Rose eyed him worriedly, beginning to not like the situation. The other girls would have loved to be locked in a room with him.

"I've got a kind of query for you," he continued, moving toward her. Rose stepped back, keeping a five-foot space between them.

"And what's that?" she returned. She felt the wall hit her back and knew she was backed up into a corner. Damian placed his hands on either side of her face above her shoulders.

"Are you interested in going out sometime and getting a bite to eat?"

She looked around out of the corner of her eyes for an escape as she responded, "Actually, that's quite all right, but, uh, I'd just be a bore and I have some pretty eccentric tastes—"

"Souls and blood isn't in short supply, after all," he interrupted calmly. Rose stopped shifting and looked back at him cautiously. A malicious smile spread across his lips as his eyes turned gold and his figure grew to the proportion of Kain. Rose stared at him a moment before sighing in irritation.

"Couldn't have told me, huh?"

"No, I had to have some fun with it."

He swiftly grabbed her and pulled her into his embrace, his lips pressing down on hers as his magic shifted around him, returning him to the form of the young football player. He pressed her down, his fingers hungrily running up under her shirt across her skin. She eagerly grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head, kissing down across his chest.

About half an hour later, Rose looked up at Kain when he chuckled.

"Did I happen to mention that once the cheerleaders saw me coming in after you, they went into a small room with a peephole into here?"

As Rose stared up at him in shock, he continued, "By tomorrow, it'll be an open secret that you're sleeping with the head quarterback for the team. Me."

"But what about when you shifted—"

He just laughed, interrupting her. "Already altered their memory, Rose. You're still one step behind me."

"Yeah, well at least I'm starting to catch on to your plans."

He just smiled down at her like that was the most inane and stupid, but cute, thing she had ever said. She looked away from him.

"Hey, I had to try."

"Rose, in your own way, you are quite obliviously cute." He brought her face up and kissed her. "You will never be able to catch on my plans."

"Ooh."

The first few weeks back in school passed without incident, and the rumors surrounding Kain and her sleeping together dropped off as she continued seeing "Damian." After three weeks, though, Rose's effective 'archenemy' decided that it was about time to put Rose back into hot water again. She, along with several of the harpies of the school, started putting out rumors that while Rose was dating Damian, she was sleeping with Kain on the side.

Rose and Kain were both sitting her apartment, and she was informing him of the new rumors going around. They had attracted her way too much in the ways of unwanted attention.

Kain snorted in contempt. "I'm insulted. You're only sleeping with me on the side?"

"Agh!" Rose smacked a hand to her forehead. "That's not helping!"

He grinned impishly a moment, then his expression switched to a serious one as he pondered, "So, it seems 'Professor Kain' is going to need to have some sort of woman he's intimate with."

Rose's expression darkened and she rubbed her nose up under his chin, nibbling his neck slightly. He moved her face away from his neck, smirking down at her.

"Well, Rose, I suppose this means I'm going to have to teach you another vampiric ability."

She blinked at him, surprised. "Why?"

"Well, you obviously wouldn't be happy with me sleeping with another woman, would you?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. Then it's simply time for me to teach you 'guise'."

"Guise?" she questioned. He pushed her back, and touched over her sternum.

"The power resonates here, locked behind your ribs. You can feel it if you reach for it. It feels rather like thin plastic that stays in any shape you put it."

She closed her eyes and nodded, understanding what he was saying.

"You can take hold of that energy and swirl it about yourself like a cloak, then mold it as you will. With it, you can make yourself look like anyone or anything. And using this, we are going to make you a new identity to become a teacher."

"A teacher?" Rose's eyes opened in surprise. "Of what?"

He leaned above her, a complacent smile on his face, waiting for her to realize it. Rose blinked up at him in confusion.

"Rose, think about your mother."

"Eh? . . . Oh. An archeologist."

"Mm-hmm. You know enough from your mother to easily pose as a teacher here in that field."

"I suppose . . ."

"Now, back to training."

"Agh!"

The weeks continued to progress, and within a few nights, Rose was capable of holding the guise for a near indefinite amount of time. It was an older image of herself with less of her father in her features, and more of her mother. Diana and Becca ended up in her class, and kept insisting that Rose should meet her, but due to many good circumstances and interruptions by Kain, both vampire and crossbreed were capable of keeping such a disastrous situation from ever being in the process of being crafted.

As far as everyone knew, Ms. McKintrey was a woman who had just moved for the semester to the U.S. and had met Professor Kain in England. It was public knowledge that the two had . . . other relationships going besides a teacher-to-coworker one, and the rumors about Rose quickly died out.

Short of occasional breakdowns from Rose on the way to just too much homework, she managed to pull of the entire ordeal well. Kain didn't let up on his homework for her, though, but to Rose's annoyance.

A week before spring break finally rolled around, and during one lunch, Rose's friends all pounced on her.

"Rose, we've been thinking," Meto began. Rose looked at the looks she was being given and winced.

"Uh . . . about what?"

"We've decided what we want to do for spring vacation."

"And let me guess," Rose put in, "I'm being volunteered."

"Pretty much, yeah," Kairan agreed.

"We're going on a road trip!" Diana cried happily.

"Okay," Rose sighed. "How long?"

"Two weeks," was the prompt reply.

"All righty. I just have to go get packed. We'll be leaving at the end of school I take it."

"Of course!"

Rose sighed deeply, shaking her head, and wondered what was going to go wrong on this trip.