Chapter 46: Intense Training
I woke up at some point in the middle of the night feeling cold. I reached my hand out to Dimitri's side of the bed and there was no body and no warmth, meaning his side of the bed had been vacant for a while. I opened my eyes to find it still dark except for a little light coming from the office. I reached over to Dimitri's side of the bed and picked up my phone. I checked the time and saw that it was 2:30am. I got out of bed and walked into the bathroom first, wincing when my feet hit the cold tile.
I walked into the office to find Dimitri sitting in one of the comfy chairs with his feet on the other chair and the laptop open on his lap. I stifled a laugh when I realized he was sound asleep, with his head hanging back, his mouth open and him slightly snoring.
I walked over to him, took the laptop off his lap, closed it and placed it on the desk. I started to slightly shake Dimitri's shoulder "Comrade" I whispered so that I wouldn't scare him but the only response that I got was a slight snort. I covered my mouth trying to keep myself from laughing out loud. Poor guy was obviously exhausted, I think we need to discuss a rest day for the whole team this week, especially since we will be increasing the intensity of our workouts.
"Comrade" I said a little louder and was met with a slightly louder snort. I gave up trying to hold in my laugh but he did look adorable, so I tried another approach and kissed his forehead.
"Hmm, my Roza" he responded.
"Dimitri" I said while I peppered his face with kisses.
A smile came over his face but he kept his eyes closed and said "We have to be quiet; my girlfriend is in the other room."
"Comrade!" I gasped and hit his chest as he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me onto his lap.
"Roza" he said while kissing my lips sweetly. "What time is it?"
"2:30am, what are you doing up?"
"Well, I worked on housing arrangements for St Vlad's. Since the senior female novice dorms are empty right now, our team plus half of the guardians we are taking will stay there and then the other half will stay in guest quarters where your parents and Pavel will be. Eddie still has his old room if he would like it, or he can stay with us. I figured I give him the option to decided what felt most comfortable."
"I have I told you lately, how much I love you?" I asked.
"Yes, but I won't ever get tired of hearing it again."
"I love you" I said while pressing a sweet kiss to his lips.
"Alberta asked for help with Guardian duties and trials, so I made up schedules for that and then I was just putting down some thoughts about training. Did I wake you up?"
"Sort of, I woke up because I was cold." I pouted.
"Well, we can't have that" Dimitri said as he stood up with me in his arms and carried me to our bed. I can't lie, I love the fact that he is so muscular and he makes it seem like I weigh nothing when he picks me up. I crawled in first and then he climbed in behind me spooning me and securing his arms around me. "Sleep Roza, it's going to be busy training day tomorrow."
"Great" I mumbled as I felt Dimitri laugh into my hair. But now that he was behind me with his arms encircling me, his warmth and his smell relaxed me instantly and I was asleep in no time.
"Roza"
"Roza" I heard a little louder.
"Hmm" I mumbled as I snuggled a little more into the bed.
"Out of bed now, Novice Hathaway." Dimitri said with his mentor voice. Oh God, I did not like the sound of that. I cautiously opened one eye to look around and I didn't like what I saw.
Dimitri, the boyfriend and protector had been replaced by Guardian Belikov the mentor, who I haven't really seen since before the lust charm. I looked at the time on my phone and saw that it was only 4:30am, what the hell. I know guardians work on little sleep, but Dimitri had just come to bed 2 hours ago.
"Out, Novice Hathaway, now before I drag you out." Dimitri stated.
I sat up trying to get my hair out of my face and untangled my body from the bedsheets.
"You have 5 minutes to get dressed and meet me in the kitchen." Dimitri said and then he leaned over and whispered in my ear "Your punishment begins now."
Dimitri left the room and I saw that he had put out a workout outfit for me. I quickly used the bathroom and got dressed as quickly as I could, but found I was not quite coordinated when being awoken abruptly. But I am sure Dimitri would have some guardian lesson about needing to be ready at a moments notice.
I finally made it to the kitchen to find Dimitri in workout gear with a duffle bag full of towels, water and Gatorade. If Dimitri and I end up training new recruits after I graduated, my first priority will be a lot more towels for the gym plus extra washers and dryers to keep up with what all the guardians use. And then lots of water, Gatorade and anything else we need already stocked and available in the gym versus in the kitchens and housing.
"You're two minutes late, we are adding 2 miles to your warm-up run. Let's go" Dimitri said.
Yup, Guardian Belikov was back in full force. I needed to remember to warn Vika and Eddie what they were in for. We reached the gym and it was fairly packed, but that wasn't surprising since there had been an influx of guardians and Pavel was trying to prevent too many guardians from working out during our training times.
Dimitri and I passed a bunch of guardians sparring and Pavel was standing at the edge of the mat sweating profusely since he had probably just finished his workout. I started to wonder if Pavel ever slept, he looked up and smirked when he saw Dimitri and I walking across the gym as if he knew the torture that was to be inflicted on my body.
Once we reached the track and we started stretching I stopped and turned to Dimitri "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course, Roza" Dimitri said with a more gentle voice than earlier this morning.
"Will my boyfriend be available during non-training times? You know especially when I want to complain about Guardian Belikov? Or do I need to let Lissa know about the bitching that will becoming her way?"
Dimitri laughed his rich laughter that I loved hearing and said "Yes, your boyfriend will be available during non-training times, but you still might want to let Lissa know."
Dimitri stood up and pulled me to his chest and cupped my face and said "You know I am only doing this for your benefit, I want you to pass your trials, which I have no doubt that you will. And I want you to be the best fighter you can be so that you can defend yourself should the inevitable happens. I don't plan on anything happening to me but there are no guarantees in life, especially in our world."
"Comrade" I said cupping his face.
Dimitri lightly kissed me and whispered "I'm not going anywhere Rosemarie Hathaway. Now let's warmup." He lightly slapped my ass as he guided me to the track.
We ran our 7 miles in comfortable silence and I loved the fact that he always does the same workout as me and sometimes more, unlike some of our teachers at St Vlad's who would just order us around.
By the time we finished our 7 mile 'warm-up', I was dripping with sweat. Dimitri handed me a towel and a bottle of Gatorade and said "Just drink a fourth of that right now." Then Dimitri took his own Gatorade and drank a fourth, then wiped the sweat off his face.
"Come on, let's go downstairs, the rest of the group should be here shortly." Once we reached the main mats on the first floor of the gym, I noticed it had cleared out significantly.
As guardians, we were always changing between night and day shifts, so it wasn't awkward for them to workout in the middle of the night.
"Roza, why don't you stretch and keep your muscles warm while I go to the white board to write out the schedule for Vika, Eddie and you."
I started stretching and going through the yoga positions that I could remember. About 10 minutes later, I saw Vika and Eddie walk in along with the rest of the crew. I stood up and as soon as they were close enough, I said "Just so you are aware Guardian Belikov is in charge now."
I watched as the blood drained from Eddie's face as he knew how Dimitri could be. I stifled a laugh and informed Eddie "Oh, it is so much worse than St Vlad's."
Eddie had a few choice words and Celeste and Yuri laughed behind him as they were privy to Dimitri's workouts when he ran classes.
Vika looked at us like we were crazy and asked "What do you mean Guardian Belikov is in charge and how come you are all sweaty?"
"So, because of my actions the other night, I am being 'disciplined' for that, he woke me up at 4:30 am, told me I had 5 minutes to get dressed and when I was 2 minutes late, he said he was adding 2 miles to my 5 mile run, which we just ran."
"What!" Vika exclaimed as she covered her mouth and Eddie hung his head and Yuri and Camile nodded their heads.
Just then Dimitri walked over and cleared his throat "Attention please" as he raised his hand. Everyone quieted down and as I looked around, I noticed a few more guardians than usual.
"Alright, first I would like to introduce some retired guardians who have agreed to help us with some training and sparring for the foreseeable future" Dimitri started.
"We have Guardian Brown, who has worked with Mr. Mazur for over twenty years, Guardian Balik who has 25 years of experience, of which 15 years with Mr. Mazur, Guardian Popov and Guardian Kozlov who each have 15 years of experience and 10 years with Mr. Mazur". Dimitri said as he pointed to each one in turn.
"Novice Castile and Novice Hathaway are 3 weeks away from their trials and Novice Belikov will be taking her trials in about 5 weeks. All three are great Novices and were the top novices of their class before leaving their respective schools and I just want to continue building on their current skills. I have multiple plans for the novices, the first thing that will be added into the training is mock strigoi attacks. If the three of you had remained on campus this is something that you would have participated in. The attacks will only happen in the gym because of the recent events and the attackers will be all in black and their faces covered. You will not know whether you are fighting a blast master or a blood master and this will be more realistic of strigoi attacks."
"Secondly, everyone will be increasing their workouts, we have all your numbers from when you were tested and I have listed them on the white board. The expectation over the next three weeks is that Guardians and Novices will run longer and faster, your weights and repetitions will increase and sparring will be scored by myself or one of the retired guardians helping out. And for the time being, we will only concentrate on stake training but after the novices' graduations we will resume weapons training as well as other defensive training tactics."
"I won't lie to any of you, it's going to be tough and push some of you to your breaking point. If you want out, now is the time to tell me. I think by now, most of you know that I wouldn't ask you to do something that I am not willing to do myself." Dimitri paused.
"My goal is to get the Novices ready for trials, make the team of guardians assigned to Rose as cohesive as possible and lastly, work on guardians advancing from their current blast or blood master level. Any questions?" Dimitri asked looking around our group and nobody said anything.
"Welcome to Hell Week." Dimitri said and he motioned for us to follow him to the track for our warm-up run that he and I had already done. After our warmup run, Dimitri split the group into five teams, he instructed Vika, Matt, Eddie, and myself while the other retired guardians took on the other groups.
We had to split up since there were only so many weight machines and mat space. Dimitri seemed to be having the time of his life. While he worked mostly with us, occasionally he had Matt supervise so he could check on the other groups.
Because of all the extra training, Dimitri had some of the chefs helping his mother and sisters preparing food for us because of the sheer volume of food we were taking in. We would work for three hours then break for an hour to hydrate and eat, rest for half an hour then back to training.
By the end of our training session today, I could barely climb the stairs to our floor. I noticed that I wasn't the only one exhausted, Vika and Eddie looked just as bad as I did.
Once Dimitri and I reached our room, I slowly shed my clothes on the way to the shower. I turned the water on the highest setting and it felt so good on my muscles. Dimitri joined me in the shower and massaged my sore muscles while I was under the hot steam.
Dinner was an interesting affair as Dimitri was the only one who did not seem to be affected by the intense workout from today. Eddie, Vika and I barely managed to make it through dinner without falling asleep in our food.
Dimitri kept reminding us to keep hydrated and increase our caloric intake to match the intensity of our training. As soon as dinner was over, Eddie and Vika headed downstairs and I went to our room with Dimitri following me. I collapsed on the bed on top of our covers and that was the last thing I remembered.
It felt like I had just fallen asleep when the alarm went off, which I knew was way to early even before I opened my eyes.
"Up Roza" I heard Guardian Belikov say "You have 5 minutes."
I looked at my phone and saw it was 5 am, and like yesterday he had put out some clothes for me, which I knew was his way of helping me, while punishing me at the same time. I was only one minute late today, and I made a mental note to go to bed in my workout clothes tomorrow.
Dimitri gave me Gatorade and a power bar to eat while he was getting our supplies ready in the kitchen.
"You know Comrade, if you keep this up, you won't have to worry about me passing trials, I'll be dead from your workouts." I tried to joke but by the look on his face I could tell my joke didn't go over well.
"Sorry" I said trying to make amends.
"I wouldn't do this if I didn't love you" he said kissing my forehead.
"Does this mean you love Eddie too?"
His only response was raising an eyebrow at me while he hoisted his gym bag on his shoulder.
I decided to try a different tactic and said "You know if you wear me out in the gym, I won't have any energy for our bedroom activities."
"I am sure we will survive a few days of intense training, but I will take that suggestion under advisement." He smirked at me and I felt just a tiny bit better that I might be able to wear him down.
After two days, Dimitri had circuits set up that the five groups rotated through consisting of running laps for warmups either inside or outside, weights, sparring and stake training. Celeste and some of the other retired guardians helped with cool downs whether it was stretching or yoga. Dimitri had made up binders for each team leader to keep track of everyone's training stats.
Dimitri was definitely made for this role, while he was a kick ass guardian god, he was also a great leader, teacher and mentor. It only emphasizes the fact that post-graduation I thought him being in charge of new recruits and maybe even Pavel's second in command was a good idea.
It was also sinking in that I would never be Lissa's guardian; I was more of a threat to her safety than I could ever be as a protector. At some point after graduation, her and I would need to discuss her future.
Dimitri noticed me spacing out and grabbed my attention while I was stretching before sparring. "What is it Roza?"
"I was just thinking about our future of training new guardians, well you are training new guardians and me seeing where I fit in. But I was also thinking that I needed to have a conversation with Lissa about not being her guardian."
"I have been thinking about the same thing, but for now let's just get through graduation and then we can speak with Pavel and your parents and figure out a plan."
"Okay" I said and stood up after finishing my stretches and getting ready to spar with Vika, when I was hit from behind and thrown a few feet. As I rolled into my fall and took in my surroundings, I noticed two people dressed all in black. This was the first time I had a sneak attack, Eddie and Vika had already had attacks so far. One of my attackers seemed smaller than me while the other one was closer to Dimitri's size.
I pondered who the shorter attacker could have been because I didn't remember any guardians of that size but there had been guardians arriving daily, so they could have just arrived. Unfortunately, my thinking caused a delay in my reactions and the smaller attacker got a good kick to my ribs sending me flying and knocking the wind out of me when I landed.
Once I caught my breath, I went into defense mode and just started blocking punches and kicks as I could process them, but with two different opponents, I was getting beat up fast and furious. It didn't take long for my attackers to take me down and stake me.
Dimitri helped me up and the first attacker took of their mask and it was the guardian Dimitri had sparred with when we first arrived in Baia. I shook his hand congratulating him on taking me down and then the second shorter petite attacker took their mask off and I was shocked.
"Mom?" I practically yelled.
"Yes, Rosemarie, I told Dimitri I wanted to be one of the attackers, while you are on the more petite size, not all strigoi will be bigger."
Dimitri started the post attack debrief, like he had done with Eddie and Vika "Rose, name some mistakes you think you made."
"After I was first hit, I was thrown off by Mom's size and my brain was trying to figure out who it was rather than responding to the attack."
"Yes, I did notice you hesitate" Dimitri started. "Also, since both attackers were different sizes, you can use them against each other, like throwing the smaller attacker into the larger one. Tomorrow we will train how to do that."
By the time end of our first week of intense training, even my bruises had bruises despite our fast-healing dhampir abilities. Twice I had caught Lissa healing us novices a little bit, Christian and her had been joining us for lunch dinner just to spend time together and for a break from their studying.
By Friday night, it was obvious our entire team was exhausted, Pavel had assigned other incoming guardians to my protection detail, so our team could train together and allow our guardians to rest. On top of physical training, Dimitri had also assigned everyone to start memorizing all the locations where Abe had houses and the surrounding areas.
I made the mistake of telling Lissa that I needed to buy clothes for each property so I wouldn't have to worry about taking clothes between houses. I'm sure her scream was heard back at Court, she immediately started to plan a shopping trip at Court and on the plane ride home we would shop online for anything we couldn't find at Court. And I was worried that we would not have enough time to accomplish everything I sarcastically thought to myself.
Baba had appeared out of nowhere when Lissa and I were having that conversation and they both were discussing whether a stop in NYC and Paris was necessary to accomplish the task. As I watched the two talking, I was taken back by their similarity and I looked around and saw Dimitri's and Christian's facial expression match mine. Baba then caught my eye and winked at me as if to say he might have discovered his protégé.
I wasn't sure whether this fact scared me or excited me. I knew Lissa had a natural ability to lead and we had always thought being Queen of our world was her destiny, but Queen of the underworld wasn't all that far of a stretch.
I woke up Saturday morning naturally and not by Dimitri's alarm. Even before opening my eyes I could tell that it was daylight out already and was initially alarmed but I could feel Dimitri's arms surrounding me as he spooned me from behind. I opened my eyes and realized it was very sunny in our room, indicating it was later in the morning than I think Dimitri and I had slept in since I have known him.
I lifted my head to look around for my phone and my movement caused Dimitri to wake up.
"Morning Comrade, sorry I didn't mean to wake you" I said as I turned around to face him. "What time is it? It must be late."
Dimitri used his long arm to reach for his phone on the stand behind him and said "It's just after 10 am."
"Did you forget to set your alarm or did we sleep through it?" I asked wondering why he was so calm since we were about four hours late to practice.
"No, I gave everyone the day off, we have been training so hard especially you three novices and your bodies to need some down time as well. Over training can be as bad as under training."
"How come I didn't know?"
"I did say something in front of Vika, Eddie and you, but I think you all have been so exhausted by the end of the day, that you don't retain any information. So I made sure that Matt, Yuri and Celeste reminded Vika and Eddie of no training today and the tutors are giving Lissa and Christian the day off as well. Anything you feel like doing?"
"Other than sleeping? Can we go out for lunch in the town square like we were supposed to before we ran into Adrian?" I asked hopefully.
"I'm afraid not, Roza, we don't know where Tasha and Guardian Andrews are and none of Abe's informants have seen Adrian in a few days. I'm sorry, I would love nothing more than to take you out on another date. How about when we go to St Basil's we go out on a date? Since it is such a bigger campus it has a few casual cafes as alternatives to the normal cafeteria."
"I would love that, plus you can show me where all your make out spots were!"
Dimitri chuckled "It would probably be more productive if I showed you all of Ivan's make out spots."
"Maybe you could tell me more about Ivan while we are there and show what were your favorite hangouts." I suggested.
"That would be nice, now what would you like to do today?"
"Sleep, food, sexy time, ooh and maybe some movies with Lissa and Christian. We didn't get to do that last time." I said and my stomach agreed with the idea of food.
Dimitri kissed my forehead and said "Come on Roza, let's get you fed."
Dimitri and I walked into the cafeteria grabbed some food and sat down and started to dig into the huge pile of food in front of us. Vika and Matt joined us shortly after and ten minutes later, Eddie joined us. He said Yuri and Celeste were still sleeping.
Just as the five us were finishing up, Christian and Lissa came in and they grabbed a muffin to share since they had just fed.
I suggested movies to the group and they all agreed. We didn't have the in house movie theater like we did in Turkey, but we had a big screen tv and a very comfy couch.
Dimitri spoke with the kitchen and they came up to the fifth floor and stocked our fridge with drinks and snacks as well as cooking lot's of appetizer like foods.
This day made it into my top ten of my favorite days.