Chapter 11

It seemed that I wasn't totally unlucky today because I managed to avoid anyone in my year and found a patrolling Guardian to ask for help. I took a cautious survey around me before leaving the shadows and running up to the Guardian.

"Um… hi, I'm doing this wacky exercise as part of training and I was wondering whether you could tell me where I might find the people on this list." I ask him and handed him the aforementioned list.

"Ah, you must be one of the ones being chased. Guardian Maxwell did mention something about an entire year group having a chase," he chuckled.

"Yes, he decided to drop the bombshell five minutes before the chase." I grumbled. "When I headed to practice today, I definitely was not anticipating to be chased by the majority of my year."

"He left it until the last second? Wow that's unfortunate. What's the prize?"

"Skipping out on the assault course on Saturday and laps." I sighed.

"No wonder they're going all out, most people don't like the course."

"It can't be that bad."

"Just you wait and see," he shook his head. "I don't know if I'll be able to help all that much but I should be able to help you get Johnson and Brent's signatures. The both of them are on gate duty but Brent is switching in five minutes."

"So I have five minutes to get to the other end of the school?" I stared at him in shock. I blinked and then groaned. "Thanks for the help." I smiled gratefully before taking off for the front gates as fast as I could while sticking to the shadows as much as I possibly could. I managed to make it there in record time and I was completely out of breath when I neared the gate. I struggled not to let my knees buckle from the harsh sprint I just made and stumbled towards them. "Um… are you two Guardian Johnson and Guardian Brent?" I asked breathlessly.

"Yes, who's asking?" they frowned at me in caution.

"I'm Kylie Valentine and I'm apparently supposed to gather your signatures as a part of my training exercise." I told them and retrieved the rolled up slip from my hair.

"Jenson and Maxwell's game of chase right?" one of them laughed. "You look completely out of breath kid."

"I sprinted all the way here after finding out you two would be here from another Guardian." I gave a small exhausted smile. I was leaning my hands on my knees when I sensed something and my guard shot up. I only managed to narrowly dodge at the last second and I whirled around to see a vaguely familiar face. I searched my memory and I remembered that he was the dhampir guy who hung around with Nick. "Christian right?" I asked with a barely recovered breath.

"Just my luck to bump into you, now I won't have to worry about random elements attacking me," he grinned.

"Yet another disadvantage that I seem to have compared to the other two." I sighed. "This game is so unfair."

"You're doing pretty well for being able to avoid us for so long."

"Yep and I'm going to keep avoiding you guys right up to the end. It seems that I have somehow accumulated a reputation and I'd rather not ruin it now."

"Well, it seems that we're at a standstill now. I don't really want to run laps after all this or do the assault course."

"Neither do I." I grinned. "So what are we going to do?"

"There are a couple of options," he smirked at me and made another lunge. One thing I was not expecting was a pair of fucking handcuffs! I froze in surprise when I felt the metal around my wrist and the click of the handcuff locked. The other end led to Christian's wrist.

"You're joking me, you got handcuffs?" I stared at him in disbelief. "Just how drastic are you people?"

"Trust me, compared to what some of the others have planned to attempt, this isn't that bad," he laughed. I tried to jerk away from him but only succeeded in dragging him along as well.

"Well this sucks." I groaned and stubbornly stood my ground when he tried to drag us back to the training room. "Now we're still stuck. What do you intend to do now smartass?"

"Knock you out and carry you back," he shrugged and made a move. I somehow managed to use the handcuffs to my advantage and prevented movement of one of his arm. Using that same arm I grabbed his wrist, holding it firmly I curled my leg around his and forced him down to the ground.

"Sorry but your luck runs out now." I smiled apologetically and knocked him out with a single punch. Then I immediately checked to make sure I didn't break anything and sighed in relief.

"Well that sure is a compromising position to catch you in Valentine. Didn't know Christian was your type," a voice chuckled and I looked up to see Drew Ozera walking up to the gates with a slip in his hand.

"Ah so you guys really do have to do the annoying signature hunt as well." I commented. "This game absolutely sucks. Now I'm stuck with pretty boy here until I find a way to get these cuffs off."

"Cuffs?"

I held my hand up for him to see. "Hm… out of curiosity, how hot can your flames go?"

"You just want me to break you out don't you?"

"Yep." I grinned.

"Looks like poor Christian still has a lot to work on, being knocked out like that with only one hit is going to damage his ego by a lot," he sighed as he stepped closer.

As he squatted down and lifted my arm so that he could start melting the chain of the handcuffs, I found myself admiring him. I wasn't sure why I did that, it wasn't the first time that I'd seem someone handsome or my age. But there was something about him that made him stand out. Even without him having to move or speak I could tell that he held an air of charisma around him. I knew without a doubt that he knew how to use it, but I had yet to see him flaunt it. I found the way he moved with a confident, yet not overly so, posture alluring.

He was close enough that I could vaguely smell the traces of sweat from hard work and something about that sent my hormones into overdrive and I felt my body tingle ever so slightly. I drifted my gaze away from his concentrated expression to his hair since I felt that it would be the safer option. His hair was neither long nor short but somewhere in between and it was completely dishevelled and slightly windswept which was probably the result of running away from the rest of our year. While both our hair was red, mine was more of a flaming coppery red colour. My hair was vibrant and somewhat similar to the sun with far too many colours in it to count. It probably didn't help that I had highlights put in not long ago. His hair on the other hand was more of a rich mahogany colour with traces of red. The way his hair was so thick made me want to run my hands through it just to see if it's as soft as it looked.

I blinked when I realised my own thoughts and looked away from him completely and focused on the Guardians at the gate. It seemed that they were changing shift now so I really did get here just in the nick of time. I noticed the Guardians watching us and they seemed to have some sort of an all-knowing smirk on their faces. One of them even sent me a wink when we made eye contact which caused me to blush.

After a couple of minutes longer, which felt like forever to me, the chains finally became weak enough for me to break them by tugging really hard. I walked over to the Guardians to get my slip back while Drew got his signed by the new Guardian who took over the shift. I took a glance at his slip and saw that he only had one signature left to get. I still had four. Damn it he was beating me by a mile.

"I ran past Drozdov and Lazar talking in a classroom a moment ago. If we go there now we should still be able to catch the both of them. You have no idea who they are and where they would be right?" Drew asked me.

"Bull's-eye." I smiled gratefully. "Thanks for the signatures."

"No problem, good luck with remaining uncaught until the end," the Guardians smiled.

"Thanks." I nodded and followed Drew's lead since I had no idea where to go.

We were walking in a comfortable silence for a little while before he broke it. "What was Marissa talking about this morning at breakfast when she confronted you?"

"What'd you mean?" I frowned in confusion.

"She mentioned you screaming this morning. Is that true?"

"Wow, seems like I'm not the only nosy one." I teased, trying to evade the topic.

"Does it have anything to do with why you were so bad in combat training?"

I just stared at him as we walked. "Are you stalking me or something? How did you notice I wasn't totally with it?"

"I just happened to see you get hit by Roxana and if I was stalking you, I'd know what Marissa had meant about a scream."

"Why do you want to know?"

"I'm curious to know what made you scream and from your defensiveness, I guess that it's true."

"Yeah it's true but I think she's exaggerating when she said that I woke up the whole school."

"Marissa is probably known as the queen of exaggeration," he scoffed.

"Basically I had a pretty bad nightmare and it affected me in training. It won't happen again." I shrugged nonchalantly.

"A vampire nightmare or just a normal nightmare?"

"A vampire one."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

That made me stop walking for a moment. Just who the heck was this guy? I knew that he was probably just being nice but I honestly couldn't understand why he seemed so concerned. There was even a hint of genuine worry in his tone of voice which surprised me. This guy was a major royal and not just by name but by achievements as well. He probably had a hundred things he had to worry about so why was he caring about some nightmare I had?

He noticed that I'd stopped so he stopped too and turned to give me a puzzled glance.

"I'm sorry, I know you're probably just being nice and everything but do you mind not asking questions like that because it's confusing me to hell." I told him sheepishly and gave an apologetic smile.

"What do you mean?"

"Well… with the way you seem to ask these questions you're either an emotional psychiatrist or for some reason you've decided to get involved with my wellbeing and frankly it's confusing me a lot because I don't know why."

"Does one need to have a reason for being worried about someone else?" he tilted his head to the side ever so slightly and not once did his gaze leave mine.

"Well no but it's just really confusing alright? I've only known you for three days -"

"The same goes for Roxana, Elizabeth and Ingrid."

"Roxy and Els actually." I corrected him before thinking it through. "They prefer to be called that instead."

"I am not that close to them so I think it would be a bad idea. I wouldn't want to cause them any trouble indirectly."

"Oh and it's perfectly fine to cause me trouble?" I arched my brow. I couldn't help it; it had become a reflex over the years.

"You're different because you cause as much talk as I do and you can handle whatever they throw at you. That can't be guaranteed with those three," he sighed. "I'm sorry if I've scared you but I've been told far too many times that I'm too straightforward in many aspects. This being one of them."

"I'm not scared as such, just confused as to why we somehow manage to slip into these kinds of conversations like we've known each other for a long time." I told him after carefully choosing my words. "I somehow end up getting swept up by your pace before I realise it."

"It's the same for me. I've rarely ever felt confused before and so it seems that the feeling is mutual. I seem to confuse you as much as you confuse me."

"Well then I guess now we're even." I laughed and started walking again.

"You've just skilfully evaded my question about that nightmare of yours," he commented.

"Pfft, obviously not skilful enough since you're asking me about it again." I scoffed. "Before you ask, sorry but I'm not going to tell you what the nightmare was because it strikes far too close to the heart for me to talk about it."

Once again we were walking in a comfortable silence and once again it was him who broke it.

"When was your first kill?" he asked with a somewhat hushed voice. He probably remembered that I wanted to conceal my ability to kill Strigoi and so he spoke with a quieter and softer voice so that it wouldn't echo through the halls. I appreciated his observation but I was taken aback by his question. At least… that was until I remembered that that was the question I didn't answer the other night when we seemed to be playing twenty questions.

"You really do seem to enjoy this game of questions don't you?" I arched my brow at him again.

"You seem like a complicated person so it seemed that the only way to get to know you is through questions," he shrugged casually. "Will you answer it this time?"

Well he obviously remembered that this was the last question too. I thought about it for a long moment before looking him straight in the eye and telling him a false answer. "Three years ago when I was thirteen."

The truth was that it wasn't my first kill. Any Guardian who was involved in coming to my family's aid would've known that my first kill was when I was ten. However, in part it was sort of the truth in a very roundabout way. I made my first kill of a Strigoi when I was ten as an Ivashkov, but I'd made my first kill as my alias when I was thirteen. I realised that I could probably argue with myself for days about whether or not it was a lie so I decided to stop and drop the internal argument.

"Thirteen…" he repeated and looked ahead instead of holding my heavy gaze. He seemed to think about that for a long moment and his expression was unreadable so I had no hint about what he could've been thinking which was frustrating. "I think you've probably set a record there Valentine."

"Hm… only the records will know." I shrugged.

"Why didn't you get the tattoos for your kill? You killed what? Three? Four Strigoi that night and Guardian Maxwell was a witness to at least one of the kills. They would've said that you would be getting tattoos so why haven't you gotten any?"

"Because I didn't want any." I told him simply. "Do you think that these people are going to believe a mere outsider who had been brought up around humans would be capable of staking the number of Strigoi that I had managed? They wouldn't believe it. They would barely believe the fact that I managed to beat you four in a fight even though an entire class stood and watched it. I doubt that they would believe a dhampir novice could take down four Strigoi in a row. I managed to cause enough commotion as it is; I didn't think I needed the tattoos as well."

"I see your point," he nodded in understanding.

"Has anyone in the academy made a kill before?" I asked curiously.

"You mean a novice?"

"Yeah."

He seemed to think about it as he raked through his memory. Then sadness seemed to flash through his eyes for a brief moment. "Existing students or dropouts?"

"There've been dropouts already?" I frowned, feigning ignorance. But I felt my heart pick up the pace ever so slightly at his question. It was obvious that he was recalling the incident six years ago, the horrible incident when a bunch of Strigoi breached out defences and killed one of the best Guardians around.

"There has been one in our year, six years ago."

"Wait… then that means the dropout was really young, how the heck did they manage it?"

"I don't know but the academy never found her and they still haven't," he sighed.

"How many people in our year have actually encountered Strigoi?"

"Less than half. There have been stories, but actually encountering them? Almost less than half. But if you count the incident six years ago then pretty much everyone here has encountered Strigoi. Back then we were kept locked in the dorms for safety while the elder ones, some of the ones who were about to graduate joined in the fight."

"That sounds really horrible…" I trailed off with remorse.

"You don't seem to be so bad with the question game either considering you were complaining about my questions not long ago," he teased in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"What can I say? I'm a little curious about the history of this school." I smiled innocently. "So out of curiosity, when did you first crash into a Strigoi?"

He seemed pensive for a moment. "Last year."

"What happened?" I frowned. "Did anyone get killed?"

"Lucky there were only two so only the Strigoi were killed. I was on holiday with my family at one of our houses in the mountains. It was just after the end of a party we were hosting for my dad's welcome home gathering. It was just an excuse to throw a party really and none of us minded. It was after most people had gone to bed that it happened. Two Strigoi suddenly broke in and some of the guests who saw ran wild. Guardians swarmed the area to ensure the safety of the guests, a lot of whom were royals. It was the first time I fought a Strigoi and the Guardians aren't joking when they said that first encounters with a Strigoi is never pleasant and the chances of actually being able to take them down are very slim. They were right. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get it right even after the training I'd done here at the school. After a while, I managed to defend myself well enough when a Guardian appeared and staked him."

"Have you had any more encounters since then?"

"Just twice and you were there that second time. You saved their lives you know? The girls I mean."

"It seems that one of the Dragomir twins crashed in at the right time because that was what alerted me to the danger." I smiled. "And then I didn't think, I just acted before the Strigoi could bite that girl."

"You have no idea how shocked the Guardians were to sudden see that Strigoi collapse." Drew told me with a wry smile. "We were damn lucky that we weren't attacked in that split moment of surprise."

"How many more Strigoi were out there? I mean… the Guardians took a little while before managing to get into the changing rooms. I'd manage to get rid of two more Strigoi before they got in."

"There were two more out there that they had to deal with. Not to mention they also had a shrieking girl on their hands."

"Oh yeah… there were two of them weren't there?"

"How did you know to use silver stakes?"

"There seems to be a couple of Guardians out there who seem to freelance and I got the tip from one of them on one of my nights in fighting them. I started out only staking them with wooden ones and then burning their bodies."

"How many have you staked?"

"You want the truth?"

"Yes."

"I don't know." I told him seriously.

"You're sixteen and you've lost count on how many you've staked?" he stared at me in shock. "I didn't realise that there were so many of them out there."

"I think it might've had something to do with the areas that I pass at night. There are a few vampire bars around so I guess that's probably the reason."

"Vampire bars…" he frowned in confusion for a moment before realisation dawned on him.

"Do you want to explain that to me by any chance? I don't understand how just by having a bunch of sane vampires would bring around a bunch of insane vampires."

"Strigoi get stronger by drinking Moroi blood. Do you know what vampire bars are?"

"No… should I?" I tilted my head in feigned ignorance.

"For dhampirs, there are several 'occupations' they could have. And occupation is a very loose term. They could become guardians, take a normal job of some sort, or become what we call blood whores."

"Are those the people who live in whore houses?"

"I guess so…" he shrugged. "I don't really know since I've never met one. I'm curious to know how you know about compulsion. You mentioned it when we were still on the plane."

"The freelance guardians I met in the city taught me a couple of necessary things to defend myself against vampires with magic."

"No wonder then, I wondered how you could've stayed unbitten and fairly unharmed if you've associated yourself with vampires more than any other human raised kids."

"I've been curious about another thing. From what I've read so far, it seems that royals would get assigned the top Guardians. Also, not that many Moroi take combat training alongside dhampirs, so why are you four well known royals taking combat class?"

I had been curious about this for the past couple of days now. I remembered there not being any royals in combat class back when I was still here at the academy. There were barely any Moroi at all in class. So what changed? And when?

9