I had no idea who had carried me to bed but I didn't really care too much. I was thankful that no one had tried to wake me because I definitely needed that sleep. I was absolutely knackered with the combination of the tough soccer game and the fight after the after party. I didn't want to say anything before but I was already tiring during the fight and luckily I didn't just collapse in fatigue. I guess that adrenaline really was incredible during the most desperate of times.
I got out of bed and took a quick shower. I felt gross since I was still wearing the clothes that I was partying and fighting in before and I stood under the shower head for at least ten minutes to sooth my tense muscles. During my time in the shower, I also mentally prepared myself for the long lectures that would undoubtedly ensue as a result of my stunt. While I may have been prepared for the lectures, I was certainly not expecting someone to sudden barge into my room and bathroom. I had barely managed to wrap the towel around my body when the door of the bathroom suddenly slammed open causing me to jump in shock.
I whirled around, prepared to hurl all sorts of profanities at the intruder but my voice was caught in my throat when I saw who it was. "Uh-oh…" I gulped and instantly clamped my hands over my ears.
"You are to report to the nurse's office as soon as you are dressed!" she screeched in fury and threw a roll of toilet paper at me in her moment of anger.
"Yes ma'am!" I squealed in fear. When I opened my eyes again, I could see the tears of joy and anger pooling in her eyes and my expression instantly softened. "I'm sorry." I whispered. "I'll be there really soon." I promised her as I gently wiped the tears from her eyes.
"You better be. Now get dressed before you catch a cold and don't forget to dry your hair properly, you awful child," she mumbled before turning on her heel and stomping out of my room. I stepped out of the bathroom and into my room, intending to get some clothes out of my drawers when I saw Joe standing at the doorway staring at me with shocked eyes.
"Seriously, what is it with people catching me in a towel today?" I grumbled and practically slammed the door in his face. I quickly got changed into a pair of combats, trainers, tank top and an oversized wide neck jumper before anyone else could suddenly barge into my room. I opened my door again to see Joe still standing there except this time, he was looking sheepish. I glared up at him and crossed my arms.
"Sorry, I was not expecting that."
"Neither was I."
"Sorry for staring."
"Apology accepted. Now do you want to tell me why Rosette just about slaughtered me on sight?"
"Martin accidentally let it slip as pay back for your stunt. His reasoning was something along the lines of, if you are going to put yourself in danger, you should at least be properly protected."
"He's referring to the bracelet isn't he?"
"Yes. We can talk more about what happened during combat. Crispin has already told me most of it. He also told me that you are a very good singer."
"Well I don't get to be rich through singing by being crap, do I?" I retorted sarcastically. "So what day is it and what time is it?" The clockwork of my mind was completely jumbled thanks to the constant switching between vampire and human schedules and it was getting a little hard trying to keep up with it.
"It's still Monday. You haven't actually been asleep for very long considering how knackered you must be. We were expecting you to sleep through the entire day but you only slept for about eight hours. It's around three thirty now."
"Eight hours is plenty of sleep." I rolled my eyes. "Three thirty… that means I have around half an hour to talk to Rosette. That should be enough for now."
"You never know, Kai. This is Rosette that we're talking about."
"You may be right about that. I should get going now." I sighed and took off for the nurse's office. I made it there within three minutes which I definitely considered a new record. I took a deep breath outside of the nurse's office and hesitated.
The door opened instantly and a hand whipped out to drag me into the office. Rosette dragged me mercilessly into her private office at the other end of the small hospital ward of St. Vlad's.
"You wretched child! Do you know how worried we've been? How dare you avoid me? I hear that you also jumped into the fight earlier. How could you be so reckless? You're a novice! Not to mention a princess!"
"Rosette!" I squealed and cut her off before she could start shouting any more secrets. "Stop for a moment, Rosette and at least let me apologise. This was why I had to emotionally prepare myself. I knew that you'd react like this."
"And I have every right to."
"I know you do, Rosette, but I won't let you destroy my lie at this school."
"Your lie… you mean the concealment of your real identity? I have no objection to that actually. I think that the longer you can hide it, the better." Rosette stated bluntly and I blinked at her in surprise.
"You… you agree with it?"
"Of course I do, Kai. I know full well of what would happen to you if the truth was revealed. We all know what would happen, but no one would be able to anticipate the way I can the emotional pain and agony you would have to suffer if that happened. Aside from Alistair, I was the one you consulted with the most regarding to the pain that you felt when others either mocked or ignored you. You may have changed for the better, Kalani, but I still don't think that you will be able to face the politics of being a royal. I think that it would best for you to gain people whom you can really trust first. Meet people who like you for who you are, not for your position. Once you manage that, even if the secret is revealed, everything will be much easier and you won't be alone."
"Oh wow… I never would've thought." I stared at her in surprise. "I would've thought that out of everyone, you'd be the one most against my decision to remain concealed. You do hate liars after all."
"Yes, but there is lying to hurt others, and lying for the greater good, and this decision will no doubt be for the latter. Not to mention, you're not technically lying to them, you're just not telling them everything. It's not like anyone has actually asked whether you're Kalani Ivashkov yet."
"You are certainly right about that. Thankfully, no one seems to have noticed yet. I think that one or two of my closer friends might have guessed that I might not really be as new to this world as I say I am, but I doubt that anyone has a single clue that there is the possibility of me being the runaway princess." I smiled grimly.
"And we should certainly keep the current situation running for as long as possible." Rosette nodded.
There was a moment of silence between the pair of us for a while before I finally managed to muster the courage to say what I needed to say. "Rosette, I sincerely apologise from the depth of my heart for what I've done to you. To all of you. It wasn't fair of me, especially since I chose to do it on the day of their funeral. None of you needed the extra stress or heart attack whatsoever. I should've at least left a note of some sort to say that I had not been kidnapped by Strigoi. Either way, I know that what I did was cruel."
"Yes, you are right about that. It was very cruel. It caused an uproar and we searched for weeks on end for you. There were professional guardians who were brought over from all over the world just to try and find you but no one ever succeeded. But, while it may have been cruel, what you were going through was much, much worse." Rosette commented and once again shocked me with her words.
"What do you mean?"
"We could all see it, Kalani. We could all see the emotional strain you were under after Ray and Amy's death. You weren't socially strong back then and to suddenly be thrown into the limelight like that wasn't fair on a ten year old child. You should never have had to endure something like what you had and it is understandable why you ran away. It was a cowardly thing to do, but perhaps it was for the better."
"Really?" I smiled nervously.
"Yes. Never in my life would I have ever imagined that someday, you would befriend four major royals and charm two other influential royals all within the same week. Nor would I have ever thought that you would take the lead in combat and help others at the same time. What you are achieving now, here at the Academy, are things that you never would've been able to achieve if you didn't leave this society. You never would've been able to grow properly. You would've been under the strain of being someone that would please everyone and you would be the target for all power mongering royals in our community. You were weak and unstable back then, Kai. But now? Now I see you as a strong, powerful young lady with full grips on how her life will turn out. You are a lady who will no longer be easily manipulated into different situations. You have found and are slowly becoming more and more as each day passes, who you want to be."
I could feel the tears prickling my eyes as she spoke and I felt pride and joy course through me at her words. She had not even seen me for that long, and yet, she could already see that I was a much stronger person now than I used to me. She could see the way that I've managed to change and she fully supported my decisions. She wasn't trying to persuade me to give up my secret; instead, she wanted me to continue keeping it.
Rosette had always been something of a second mother to me, and it really showed now. I hadn't had a mother character around me for such a long time that the full force of what it could've been like to have a mother really hit me. She must've seen something change in my aura because she suddenly wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a comforting hug.
Rosette was a spirit user as well as the head doctor at the Academy. She was also my personal doctor back when I used to get all sorts of injuries from training because I used to be quite weak despite all the extra training that I did with my parents. It seemed that back then, I never really had anything to fight for, because back then, I never really thought that it would be so easy for my loved ones to be torn away from me. It was one of Rosette's abilities as a spirit user to see other people's auras. Another ability that I recalled her possessing, was being able to sense or see someone's emotion through the colour their aura.
I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face in the crook of her neck as I basked in the warmth and comfort that she provided. While being with friends that I could trust back in San Francisco was sometimes nice when I needed the comfort, it was nothing like how I felt here. This was my true home and I was really starting to believe that. After my parents' death, I had really doubted whether I truly belonged here or not, but now that I had experienced the outside world and my other possibilities, I knew that this was it.
This was where I belonged.
This was home.
This was where I could be my real self without fear.
My friends in the human world would always hold a special place in my heart, but nothing compared to what I felt for my family here. A family that I had been so cruel to and I certainly hoped to amend my mistakes by making them proud of me. I would strive in my studies and I would be a child that my parents would also be proud of if they were still alive.
"Welcome home, Kalani."
"I never thought that I would say this but… it's good to be back." I smiled sweetly at her after I pulled away from her hug.
"You have grown so much, just like Ray and Amy. I can really see the resemblance now that you've stopped hiding behind that fringe of yours."
"What can I say? I've gotten a whole lot more socially confident." I grinned cheekily.
"Yes, I've heard that about you. You have been the talk of the Academy since the day you arrived, Kalani. Not that I knew who you really were when I heard all those things about the splendid new transfer student. I have also heard from one of the guardians who was there last week when they found you that you had killed four Strigoi. That is more than what any of the guardians had managed to achieve that night."
"I know."
"And I hear from Joseph that you managed to stake five earlier as well."
"Yeah… Wait… how did he know?"
"Guardian Jenson informed him."
"How much does Guardian Jenson know? I have a feeling that Joey told him something, but what that may be, I have absolutely no clue."
"What I don't understand is, why have you not been through the tattoo ceremony yet? You should have several markings by now to signify your strength and capabilities."
"Rosette, I was a new kid, a kid who knew almost nothing about this world. I don't really think that people would really believe that an outsider would be able to kill even one Strigoi let alone four in one night." I explained. "It was for the best that I didn't get a tattoo."
"I suppose that you do have a point." Rosette nodded in understanding. "I also hear that the bracelet is nowhere near as powerful as it used to be against your magic."
"Oh yeah… about that…" I coughed nervously and glanced in a different direction to avoid her gaze.
"Hand over the bracelet, Kalani. It needs to be fixed and the sooner we do this, the better." Rosette commanded with a stern tone.
"Yes Ma'am." I grinned and took the bracelet from my wrist.
"You should also get someone to fix that crack in your shower door."
"You saw that?"
"It was huge, Kalani, it was impossible to miss it," she scoffed began to gather power into her hands so that she could transfer the spirit energy into the bracelet in order to help keep my magic in check.
"Thanks, Rosette." I smiled thankfully at her as she handed the bracelet back to me with a weary glint in her eyes. "Would you like me to make you something that will return some of your energy?"
"What do you mean by 'make'?" she narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously. "You're not going to make something ridiculous are you?"
"I meant cook."
"You cook?"
"Well, you obviously haven't heard everything about me yet." I grinned cheekily at her. "Yes, I cook and pretty well too if I said so myself."
"Ah, finally, the infamous Ivashkov idiotic pride has shown itself. I wondered whether you would inherit the same ridiculous pride as your father."
"He did not have a ridiculous pride, it was all highly justified!" I protested.
"Says the girl with the same sense of pride in the most peculiar of things."
"I resent that." I pouted childishly which caused her to laugh. "Anyway, I'll be back soon with something delicious to eat."
"I look forward to it. I am surprised that you can cook though."
"I seemed to have somehow forced the skill. After all, I did live on my own for the past six years, there was absolutely no way that I was going to live off of take-away food." I rolled my eyes. "It would've been far too unhealthy and would make me unfit to survive in that world."
"Six years… I can't believe that it's only been six years. It feels so much longer than that." Rosette murmured. "Each day, somewhere deep down, we'd all just imagine you walking down that driveway. Each day we would all have our own individual memories of you whenever we do something. For Martin, it would be when he was signing papers, you always used to bring him a delicious cup of tea to help keep him going. For me, I was waiting for the moment you would come into the office due to an injury."
"I never forgot any of you for even a day. Everything that I did, everything that I achieved and worked for, I would always wonder how proud you would all be of me if you could see how I was. And whenever I did something that I probably shouldn't have, I would remember one of you chastising me about my error."
"And now we can see you for who you have grown into and we are so, so proud of you, Kalani." Rosette smiled wholeheartedly and wrapped her arms around me softly.
"I am glad to hear that." I smiled back and detached myself from her embrace. "I will see you soon with some food in hand."
"Thank you, Kalani."
"Rosette?"
"Yes?"
"Please remember to call me Kylie in front of others." I told her bluntly before walking out of her office.
"Ah, Kai, I was told that you would be here," A pair of twin voices chimed. I turned around to see the Dragomir twins walking towards me.
"How are you two?" I asked with a hint of concern in my voice. "You two didn't get bashed up by the Strigoi did you?"
"Not at all. Thanks to a certain little prodigy, we weren't even touched." Quinn shook his head with a small smirk.
"Thanks for saving us earlier. Lady Drozdov said that she can't thank you enough for acting so swiftly." Jacks told me with a grateful smile.
"Like I said before, I wasn't just going to stand there and do nothing when I could see the danger heading straight for her." I shrugged. "It was no big deal."
"Kai, you slayed five Strigoi in succession within one night. You got to them before the guardians could get to them. That's not a small thing."
"Listen, I don't really want to talk about this so I'm going to change the topic. What are you two doing up? It's still quite early." I asked them curiously.
"We're naturally early risers. Dan is up, but not quite awake enough to take a walk. Drew..." Quinn explained.
"Well Drew is still in bed." Jacks finished off.
"He's not a morning person?" I arched my brows in amusement.
"He's the worst morning person you'll ever meet."
"Oh really? He seemed fine yesterday… or maybe it was the day before that… oh man this is really messing with my brain!" I complained as I tried to work out the time table in my head.
"Oh yes…" Jacks smiled cheekily at me.
"Now that you mention it…" Quinn trailed off, mirroring his twin's smile.
"Drew stayed…"
"Alone…"
"At your place…"
"Right?"
I blinked at them in surprise as they started to circle me with mischievous grins on their faces. I crossed my arms and made sure to keep my expression passive so that I gave nothing away. "Yes. And?"
"Did anything…"
"Happen?"
"Do you two always have to split up the sentence?" I fired back. "Can't you each just ask one individual question?"
"But if we both have the same question in mind, we decided that it would be more fun to just share the question, just like we share everything else," they shrugged.
I stared at them in shock at their words. "You can't be serious."
"What?" they frowned.
"You can't share everything."
"Sure we can."
"No, you can't." I shook my head. "There is one thing that you'll never be able to share."
"Oh? And what's that?"
"A heart and the girl who belongs to it." I stated. "That is something that you'll never be able to share."
"Well you never know, we might."
"No, you won't. Because you'll get jealous of one another and in the end one of you will get hurt and find someone else. Or you'll both fall for different girls and won't even realise it."
"We won't get jealous," they scoffed.
"You say that now, but it's in all living things' nature to feel jealousy when it comes to love."
"We won't. We're different. We're twins."
"You will. It's because you're twins that it'll be even worse because you both think that you should be able to share everything, but when it comes to love, you'll realise that you can't." I told them sagely. "And when that finally happens and neither of you know how to deal with it, I'll be happy to listen to your troubles and feelings."
With that said, I left the pair of them feeling dumbfounded and headed for the home economics room where I could make a special tea that would revive a person's energy naturally.
9