Chapter 25

Once I was done making the drink, I headed back to Rosette's office with two mugs in hand. One was mine to fully waken my senses since I was still feeling a little drowsy and I could feel the ache in my head, either as a result of the drinks from the party, or from being hit in the head by a Strigoi. Either way, the drink would help replenish my energy before I had to face the rest of the school about my daring escape from the Academy and my boldness of dragging others with me, especially the four royals. They might have opted to follow me out of the academy of their own free will, but it was me who gave them such an opportunity. If it wasn't for me, I didn't think that any of them would have considered the fact that it would be very easy to sneak out of the Academy if you knew the right procedures to follow. I was certainly one of the people who knew the procedures, because I knew this school almost back to front. I might have been away for six years, but having been here for a week already, most of my memories of this place had resurfaced and I could almost remember every inch of this area.

When I returned to Rosette's office, I saw that Martin was there and I mentally prepared myself for the lecture that would undoubtedly happen in a few moments' time.

"Kai." Martin stared at me for a long moment before giving a heavy sigh. "Please don't ever do that again. I'm not going to lecture you because I know that it would fall on deaf ears. It wouldn't take a genius to work out that you had everything planned to the core, even the arrival of the guardians in San Francisco."

"Well I didn't plan everything. The Strigoi attack was a surprise. I never would've expected the guardians would be so foolish as to park beside an obviously abandoned and derelict warehouse that could obviously be a hideout for a bunch of Strigoi. Surely someone in that group had thought of the possibility that they could get attacked by Strigoi in that area, especially since a week before hand, Strigoi had attacked the club due to the appearance of Moroi." I stared firmly at him as I handed Rosette her herbal tea.

"Thank you, Kalani," she smiled gratefully and took a deep breath of savour the scent of the tea before taking a small sip. I watched as comfort instantly washed over her and her shoulders relaxed and she leant back into her chair.

"Even guardians make mistakes, Kai. That's why I'm not going to give you a lecture, because from what I hear, it is your experience and knowledge of that area that saved them. Had you not immediately acted and requested for the young royals to head to a safer spot, they too would've been in range for the attack from the SUVs. Alistair knows that fact well, he just doesn't want to admit that you are no longer a princess who needs his constant guard."

"I never needed his constant guard. That would be highly patronising and while I admit that I was pretty pathetic back then, I wasn't bad enough to need constant guarding." I scoffed.

"Either way, I am here to tell you that you can no longer hide, Kai. You have to get those tattoos and to attend that ceremony."

"You're kidding…"

"No, Kai. I could excuse you for that first time, but this time, even I can't help you. It is our law and tradition and there were far too many witnesses this time. You also blatantly threw yourself in harm's way to protect a royal; that in itself calls for special acknowledgement of some sort."

"But tattoos hurt… and I'd have to get them done in front of an audience, right?"

"Yes."

"That sucks."

"Everything has a down side, Kalani." Rosette smiled softly.

"Don't you think I've learnt that by now? I mean, I do have to attend Vampire 101 lessons with Brooks for one extra lesson a week. Having normal Vamp 101 lessons with him would've been bad enough, but an extra one? That I can't deal with."

"And yet you have already survived through one, surely you can survive for long enough until you can pretend to have studied extra hard to catch up to everyone else?" Martin commented.

"You're right… I could so do that! Then I could be out of the extra lessons within weeks!" I squealed in delight. "Thanks for the amazing idea, Martin!"

"Pleasure," he inclined his head out of habit.

"Oh yeah… and um… sorry about causing the heart attack that you must've had when you were suddenly locked in your office." I smiled sheepishly.

"Yes. I was very surprised to find a note as well on my desk. You had definitely planned everything well. How did you manage to seal the door so well?"

"It was a timed sealing charm. I found a spell for it in one of the books and this one was specifically designed to last for several hours. That gave me enough time to arrive in San Francisco first before anything could be done on your end of things. It certainly seemed to work effectively."

"It did indeed; no one could work out what was keeping the door locked nor why no form of communication could reach me other than sliding a note beneath my office door. Then suddenly, the door just opened as though there was nothing wrong with it and I sent the appropriate people to guard you and to allow you to complete whatever task you had set out to do. I had faith that you had not run away as you had done six years ago."

"Probably because I had other people with me this time, right?"

"No. I believed in you. You had promised to stay here until the end unless something else happened that might change that promise. We trust you, Kai, and that is why we knew that there must've been something important for you out there that you had to do. Otherwise, you would not have been so keen on breaking out of the grounds."

"Yeah… when I got a call from my friends about the difficult situation that they were in, I just had to be there for my team. I couldn't abandon them at a moment of when they needed me the most." I smiled proudly as I remembered the splendid win that we had gained.

"Well, I shall say that I am proud of you for achieving your goal by winning that soccer tournament. Congratulations, Kai. I heard that there was a lot of foul play from the opponent."

"Unfortunately, yeah."

"And you also had your leg broken."

"Yeah."

"And your arm heavily injured."

"Yeah."

"And still you never allowed the game to end early. You never forfeited."

"I couldn't. We had to prove to Carlton that we were capable of kicking their ass. They have been too full of themselves for far too long and it was about time for us to humiliate them for good to stamp down their arrogance."

"I understand your loyalty towards your team, Kai. That's why I'm not going to give you a punishment as such. But, for appearances sake, I will punish you by making you help take care of things in the Junior Division."

"That's not a punishment. I would visit there anyway."

"I'm making it look like a punishment. Regardless of your reasons, you did break the rules, in fact, you broke several. You placed the lives of four important royals in danger."

"They -"

Martin held up his hand and cut me off. "Yes, they have told me. They followed you of their own accord and there was no serious damage."

"I wouldn't call the death of two guardians, 'no serious damage'." I murmured.

"That was not your fault, it was their own carelessness of parking somewhere that is asking for trouble. The death of the two guardians rest on all our consciences, I hope that you will not think of their deaths as your burden to bear, because it isn't."

I stared at him in surprise. How on earth did he know what I was thinking?

"You're thinking, how does he know, aren't you?"

"Yes…" I smiled sheepishly.

"It's on your face and in your nature. We all know that you have a tendency to blame yourself for everything even when it's not actually your fault. Like the problem with Marissa, you blame yourself for her expulsion right?"

"No, I blame myself for ruining her life."

"You really shouldn't do that, Kai. She made those decisions herself."

"I incited her anger."

"It's not your fault that your good qualities incite her anger. You can't just stop being who you are because of some immature child with jealousy issues."

"You're probably right about that." I nodded slowly.

"Not probably, definitely. It isn't your fault at all so don't think about it. Besides, with your most recent stunt, aside from the two guardians which was a tragic accident, there was no other harm done. The guardians whom you drugged at the gate woke up within half an hour of your escape. There was no time for the Academy to be in serious danger."

"Martin, half an hour is more than enough time for danger to swamp the place." I told him morbidly when I remembered about the incident six years ago. "Have we found out what really happened six years ago? So far as I remember, there was nothing wrong with the defences so something must've attacked the charms."

"Kalani…" Rosette cut in with a concerned tone.

"No, Rosette." I butted in, cutting her off before she could continue. "I want to know. If you have found out anything, I want to know. I'm old enough, and strong enough. You don't have to worry about putting unnecessary strain on me. Don't you think that I deserve to know? You can't shelter me forever. I'll find out eventually, one way or another."

"Kai, I want you to listen to me." Martin said sternly. "We still haven't found out what really happened six years ago. The only thing that we are all sure of; is that it wasn't an accident. It was a set up. But you have to promise me that you won't bring this up again to anyone. This is only between me as the headmaster and various lead guardians of the St. Vlad's."

"Does that include Aunty Jules and Joey?"

"Yes."

"Alright, I promise that I'll keep quiet about it." I nodded.

"Thank you, Kai."

"Don't worry about it. Even I know that if something like this is suddenly brought up, there'll be chaos throughout the school to try and work out who was the one responsible for the set up. People will start to suspect others and all sorts of trust bonds would be destroyed." I shrugged.

"Be prepared, Kai. This morning, in the Assembly, I will be announcing that a ceremony will be held in the afternoon. You will be missing your extra training session this afternoon in order to attend the tattoo ceremony."

"This morning?" I stared at him with wide eyes. "Don't I get more heart preparation time or something?"

"I'm afraid not, Kai. You've already missed the first one, you have to attend this one."

"You are only counting the kills that I made earlier right? You're not going to count the four from last week, right?"

Silence.

"Martin! You promised that that would be kept a secret!"

"I never said that. I simply said that I understood your reason for wanting to keep it a secret so I didn't pressure you into getting the tattoo. But now that all the cards are on the table, you have no more legible reasons against it."

"Sure I do, it hurts!" I protested.

"That's not a legible reason, Kai," he smirked at my feeble attempt in trying to argue with him. "I have only counted the four kills from last week and the five from earlier. I have not included the kills that you've made while being away from the Academy, or the one you made six years ago."

"Then I suppose that there is something I can be thankful for about all of this." I scoffed and downed the rest of the tea that I'd made earlier. "Before I somehow instigate an argument of some sort, I'm going to go to breakfast. Be prepared to receive death glares from me during the Assembly." I warned him as I irately slammed the mug onto the table and left the office.

"She's not happy with me, is she?" I heard Martin sigh.

"She just wants to remain as normal as she possibly could for as long as she could, Martin. You know that." Rosette told him with a soothing voice.

I smiled slightly as I remembered about the slight more than friendship relationship that went on between Rosette and Martin. I wondered whether either of them had done anything about it yet. If not, I knew for sure that I would be playing more than one prank on them to try and get them together. It was something that my parents had started and I was going to finish that task for them.

I headed back to the dorms and headed upstairs to knock on the two girls' rooms. Els opened the door with a cheerful smile and she seemed surprised to see me. "Kai? How are you awake before I was? I thought you were awful with waking up."

"I am, but I woke up so I stayed up." I shrugged casually. "Are you guys ready for breakfast?"

"Nearly, Roxy is just fixing her hair and Ingrid is getting her shoes on." Els nodded. Within a few seconds the other two girls stepped out of the room and the four of us headed down to breakfast together.

As soon as we walking into the dining hall, everyone was silent and everyone stared at us.

"This is just like last week when I first came here, except I can't tell whether this is worse or not…" I murmured to the other three.

"Just live it up, Kai. You've achieved something that would've been impossible for anyone else. Be proud of that and the fact that you haven't been expelled. I wonder what punishment we're going to get though…"

"Oh it's just me who's going to get punished." I shook my head.

"You already know?"

"I bumped into the Headmaster this morning. He's already told me my punishment."

"And?"

"I'm going to be helping out in the Elementary School for a week at least." I told them.

"That means that you won't get any free time. That sucks!" Ingrid stared at me in horror.

"Well, that's what I get for putting the lives of four royals and three valuable students at risk." I sighed and ran a hand through my still damp hair.

We got our food and went to sit on an empty table by the left wall of the hall. Conversation seemed to begin again amongst the others but then about five minutes later, there was silence again. I turned to look at the door to see the four royals walk in followed by several other jocks. I had never noticed it before because I had never gotten to the dining room before the royals had, I this time I did and I saw almost every student acknowledged the arrival of the royals in some way. I was almost expecting them all to suddenly get down and kneel or do something of the sort.

My gaze met Drew's and I gave him a small smile in greeting and a dainty little wave. He replied with a full on smile, as did the other three royals. I watched as the four of them got their food and made a bee-line for the table that I was sitting on. I saw the gobsmacked expressions on the other jock's faces as they put their trays down on their usual table which was almost in the centre of the room.

"Hey Dan, where are you going?" one of the Moroi on their table asked curiously.

"We're in need of a change of scenery and it's getting tiring to have to put up with Nick's crude comments first thing in the morning." Dan told him with a smirk directed at Nick.

"You're not going to -" Nick stared at him in shock.

"Oh we are."

"Are you leaving the group?" Nick demanded.

"We were never officially in it anyway. You just dragged us along for everything." Dan shrugged.

"So what do you say, girls? Got any room on your table for four more?" Jacks asked.

"Does it look like there is?" I arched my brows cheekily. There was an awkward silence for a moment and the twins stared at me in shock, most likely thinking that I'd just singlehandedly rejected them from the table. I gave them a smirk and stood up to walk to a neighbouring empty table. "There isn't enough room, but we can easily change that." I told them sassily and lifted the table to put it beside the one that I had been sitting on. The four guys each picked up a chair and sat down.

There was absolute silence in the hall and Nick was staring in outrage at our newly formed table. No doubt he felt threatened about his position as a popular guy. It would be far too easy to take that fame away from him after all. He walked over to me and seemed to sneer as he eyed me up and down.

"So tell me, Kylie. What did you do?"

"Huh?"

"What did you do to get them on your table?"

"O'Connor, what nonsense are you trying to spit out now?" I groaned in frustration.

"Well…" he trailed off and took a sweeping glance at Els, Roxy and Ingrid before giving a sneer. "They obviously couldn't have done anything to make those four join the table so it must've been you. What did you do? Show them a good time after you lured them out of the school? Everyone's talking about it you know? About how you seduce others to get what you want and judging from your looks, that wouldn't be hard to do. Out of this table, you're the only one with the potential to seduce a guy."

I felt my temper flare at the way he was talking about the four royals like they were nothing but lustful boys and above all, I was furious at the way he was describing Els, Roxy and Ingrid. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes for a brief moment to collect myself before giving a slow sassy grin. "Well, I certainly showed them that I could easily kick a guy's ass. I would be more than happy to demonstrate my strength again if you're volunteering to be the subject of my humiliation. But then again, I don't really have to demonstrate my strength against you again, do I? I've already beat your twice, but if you really want to try again, I'd be happy to kick your ass for a third time."

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the others who knew what I had meant were trying to hold back their laughter.

Nick's sneer became a glare and he turned to the four royals. "I guess that Kylie must really be a skilful girl in bed. What did she do? Offer her blood up to you as a payment for dragging you from your delicious meals last week?"

Shock slammed into me. I was surprised that he knew about what happened back then. No one but those who were there knew about the incident that the twins and Dan nearly bit two human girls without their consent. Then I remembered. There were two others who were there. The two Moroi girls… I didn't know what Nick did, but the only others who knew about that could only have been those two girls and the guardians who were present at the time. There was absolutely no way for the guardians to have been the ones to disclose that type of information to a brat like Nick.

"Oi you douche, those four are nothing like you. They wouldn't do something as immoral as that." I glared at him.

"Nick, you better shut your mouth before you step over the line." Dan warned him with a low threatening tone.

"Getting a little defensive are we? Something must have happened then." Nick smirked. "Did she taste good, Zeklos?"

Fury flared across Dan's eyes and a second later the twins were holding onto his shoulders and Dan's fist came in contact with my palm as I stopped him from punching Nick. Nick had stumbled back slightly in shock and for a moment, fear flashed across his eyes.

"I suggest you shut that filthy and revolting mouth of yours before I show you pure oblivion." I hissed to him.

Defiance settled in his eyes.

"How do you know what they're like? You only just got here. They're not much better than I am." Nick scowled.

"They might not have been before, but they're definitely better than you now!" I hissed with a low menacing voice. "You're nothing more than a bully. You never were, and you still aren't. So why don't you just do something about that repulsive act of yours. Stop acting so tough when you're not."

"You don't know anything."

"I know a lot more than you think." I growled. "Why don't you get out of my face before I personally do something about your foolish tough act?"

"Why don't you just try it?" he dared.

"Hey! Break it up!" a guardian commanded and stepped between us to put some distance between Nick and I. "What is going on here?"

"Nothing, Guardian." I spoke stiffly through gritted teeth.

"Nothing. It's always nothing, isn't it, Kylie? But you're just a coward who runs away from everything. You ran away from Marissa and look at what that's done to her! You've ruined her life, you know? If it weren't for you, she wouldn't be suffering right now!" he accused.

Guilt ran through me like hellfire and my anger instantly dissipated.

"You stole everything from her! I hope you're happy." Nick spat.

Before anyone realised what had happened. Nick was suddenly knocked over and lying on the floor with a slightly seared cheek as though he had just been punched with a fist wrapped with fire…

For those who have been asking for Kai's secret to be exposed, I'm sorry to say that her secret as an Ivashkov will have to stay as a secret for a little while longer. There are various things that I have planned to happen which will expose her secret. I'm sorry if this info disappoints anyone T.T