~x~ Chapter 37 ~x~
"You know, guys, four against one really isn't terribly fair." I called out casually as I stepped out of the shadows and approached them.
All four sets of eyes immediately landed on me and the Moroi smiled lustfully at me. His bright green eyes seemed to shine in the slightly darkness in the shadow of the trees and I had a sneaking suspicion that he might have been trying to charm me but it wasn't working one bit. I simply brushed his lustful smile aside. It wasn't anything I hadn't seen directed at me before, especially since I worked at a club for the past two years and this guy's smile was nothing like the intense one that Eric was capable of giving.
I stepped up to the passed out dhampir and crouched down to have a good look at him. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and poked his face a few times. He was out for the count good and proper and I grinned up at Christian. "You knocked him out good." I commented.
"He was asking for it," he scoffed. There was confusion in his eyes, as though he was asking me what I was doing here and what I was up to.
"So I saw." I shrugged and dropped him.
"What can we do for Eric's little lady?" the Moroi asked with a voice that tried to demand for my attention and I just ignored him for the moment.
I stared at the two dhampirs and tilted my head at them. Neither of them was in my year, so that explained why I didn't know their names, but I did vaguely recognise their faces. They were always sitting on the centre jock table with the jerk trying to get my attention and they were also there earlier today at the training session with the seniors.
"Were you two involved in the game of ghost earlier at lunch?" I asked curiously.
"No, we didn't have the time since Jenson sent us off for laps. Wait, how did you know about the game?" one of them blinked in surprise at me.
"I was the flag." I shrugged nonchalantly. "I didn't realise they taught dhampirs to gang up on a fellow trainee at this school. And to think I was beginning to see this place in a new light."
"They don't teach us to gang up on others," the other one told me flatly.
"Then what are you doing now?" I arched my brows at the pair of them holding onto Christian and they just stared at me, knowing that I'd caught them out. "The way I see it, you guys have two options. You can either let him go now, walk away and I'll pretend that I didn't come by here. Or, you can get your asses kicked and the guardians will hear about an unjustified fight that was entirely your fault. Which one would you guys rather?"
"Just you wait a second there. Just because you've got some tattoos doesn't mean that you can start acting all high and mighty, Kylie," the Moroi cut in and hauled me up by the shoulder forcefully so that I finally face him and acknowledged his presence.
"And just because you're a Moroi doesn't mean that you can just abuse a dhampir anyway you like." I narrowed my eyes at him dangerously. "Now either get your filthy hand off me or you won't like the consequences."
The bastard actually had the nerve to grab my chin and tilt my head up so that he could get a better look at me. "I can see why Eric was so quick to jump the bone. You really are a hot one."
"Let go of me, idiot. You don't want this."
"Oh, I think I do, little Kylie," he smirked and hooked an arm around my waist to press my body flush against his. I felt something hard press against my stomach and disgust coiled through me.
"Are you guys seeing this?" I turned to the three dhampirs who were watching warily. Christian looked like he wanted to break free and step in. The other two looked like they were having an internal debate. They looked like they felt they should step in but didn't know if it was worth the risk.
"You should just stop talking, Kylie. It's ruining the mood," the Moroi muttered and his head dipped down. I turned my head away so that instead of kissing my lips he was kissing my neck.
"Well then, I think this is plenty of proof for our lovely eye witnesses." I smirked. "You guys were watching, this is now legitimate self-defence." I stated before promptly decking the Moroi onto his sorry ass and I pressed my foot against his chest and pushed him down as he glared indignantly up at me, trying to push me off. "Now, now. I did give you two warnings."
"You're the one who invited me, you little slut!"
"Did I do that?" I pondered aloud. I turned to the three dhampirs with an inquisitive expression. "Did I?"
"Of course you didn't, you idiot!" Christian snapped at me, wondering what I was doing and finally losing his nerve.
"You didn't push me off!" the Moroi protested.
"Maybe I was just too caught up by the shock of being touched by a nasty Moroi." I told him bluntly. "It's your own fault for trying compulsion on me."
"Compulsion…" one of the dhampirs whose name I didn't know whispered.
"Jayce, seriously man, what the hell are you trying to do? Get us kicked out of school?" the other one glared and let go of Christian instantly.
"Jayce? So that's your name." I smirked down at him. "So, what's it going to be, guys? Are you going to be good and leave or do I need to tell the guardians?"
"We're leaving," the two of them replied without a moment's thought and left without looking back once.
I removed my foot from the Moroi and pulled him up by the scruff of the neck. "I don't know what you were trying to do, but you better get lost and don't let me catch you again."
"You're going to regret this, Kylie," he snarled at me before leaving. I had to hand it to him, he wasn't running so he clearly still clung to whatever bit of dignity he had left. I simply gave a scowl at his retreating figure and rolled my shoulders and neck before turning around to face Christian and the unconscious dhampir.
"So, what do we do about the passed out guy here?" I asked casually, gesturing at the dhampir.
"I say we leave him. I doubt he'd be stupid enough to report this to a teacher since he'd have to make up a story to go with why he was knocked out so easily by a novice younger than him." Christian shrugged, staring at me with wary eyes. He was most likely wondering when I was going to freak out or something.
"What?"
"How much did you hear?"
"Enough."
"And what does that mean?" he snapped.
"You've got one heck of a good control of your temper. If I'd been in your shoes, I would've thrashed all of them until they could barely walk and talk." I told him simply before glancing at my watch. "Have you had dinner yet?"
"What?"
"Have you had dinner yet?"
"No, those guys caught me before I could go."
"Then let's go to the cooking room. I doubt there'd be enough decent food left at the dining hall now." I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. Before he could protest, I simply took his hand and dragged him along with me.
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm taking you to dinner. You're a guardian in training and you obviously train yourself hard if the skill I saw last time was anything to go by and to keep up with that kind of training, you need energy and therefore you need to eat properly."
"Then why not just go to the dining hall?"
"You really want to go there with your clothes all rumpled and mud patches on your knees? It's obvious that things are said about you anyway so why give them more gossip to play with when all it does is cause uncalled for trouble?" I arched my brows at him as I glanced over my shoulder. He simply gave me a surprised and baffled look before looking away from me.
We didn't bump into anyone for the rest of the way to the home economics classroom and I smiled when I found the ingredients in the fridge. A dish instantly came to mind and I took out everything that I would need.
"How hungry are you and how much can you eat?"
"A fair amount."
"That doesn't mean anything to me."
"I usually have seconds."
"Good." I smiled at him before getting some chicken out as well. "Why don't you clean yourself up a little bit while I cook?" I suggested, pointing at the other taps in the classroom.
For a while, as I was cooking and preparing, neither of us said anything. He cleaned the mud from his hands and wiped away the mud from his trousers as best as he could. I got annoyed watching him try and gave a sigh when I realised that he was being a complete fool. I found a wash cloth and made sure it was damp before handing it to him. "It would be a lot easier if you just took your trousers off and wiped the mud off that way. The way you're doing it you're just pressing the mud deeper into the fabric."
"Take my trousers off?"
"Does it matter?" I arched my brows at him. "It doesn't matter to me so do whatever makes you feel comfortable, Christian."
I turned around again and resumed cooking and didn't look at him again until he was ready to speak. In fact, we spent the majority of the time eating in silence. Although I didn't particularly enjoy silences, I knew that he needed his time to think. Having someone catch him in that kind of a situation isn't good for anyone and the conversation that often follows that kind of event was usually not very pretty. I'd seen that kind of situation a lot back in the human school, especially about Tyce, so I was pretty used to it by now but Christian didn't know that. He had no idea what I was like and what my opinion was about people with different sexual preferences.
I did however catch him sneaking amused glances at my plate since there was so much food on it. No doubt he didn't think that a girl was capable of eating so much so it seemed that it was something that lightened the mood a little. When I was half way through the gratin dauphinois and grilled chicken with creamy mushroom sauce, he seemed to have gathered his thoughts enough to talk.
"You're a lot weirder than I'd thought," he commented.
"Is that something you say to someone who just helped kick butt for you?"
"The weirdest part is why you would step in like that. It's not going to get you any favours, you know?"
"Like I need favours. If anything, I'd rather I didn't have any at this school. Jenson asking me to help out with the senior training was bad enough."
"How did you know what was happening?"
"I heard something."
"How? We weren't exactly close to the school. The coward made sure of that when he cornered me in the woods."
"Why were you in the woods?" I tilted my head to the side.
He stared at me for a moment with an expression that told me that he didn't really consider telling me the answer. But then he sighed and I was surprised when he did. "Like you said earlier, I put in extra training to be better than everyone else. Well, apparently everyone else apart from you and the four royals. I can normally beat Dan so long as he doesn't use the elements and I can put up a decent fight against the twins but I've never won against Drew. And now you've gotten on my list of unbeatable people."
"I'm honoured." I grinned proudly.
"How are you so good?"
"I've been training since I was born and I invested in learning every type of fighting style there is out there. I've mixed some styles together and usually I just go by instinct. I'm so used to fighting by now that my body just moves without me having to actually think too hard about it."
"Sometimes, that's the best way. Overthinking in a fight is never a good thing since it would delay reaction time."
"You're not a mathematician who likes to calculate these types of things are you?" I stared at him in horror and he laughed.
"No, and I thought you were a prodigy. You don't like maths?"
"Being a prodigy has nothing to do with it. I hate it with an absolute passion. I don't see the point in it and I doubt that I ever will. I don't like anything scientific either unless it involves explosions or bizarre chemical reactions."
"Are the rumours true by the way? Did you really break out of here just to help your soccer team?"
"You make it sound like it wasn't something worth doing." I narrowed my eyes at him.
"I just don't think that it's worth getting yourself in trouble for. Breaking out of the school can't have been easy so why the effort? Why not just focus on what you have here rather than the outside world? I heard that you were invited to Eric's party as well, why miss it."
"Look, my team is my family. It's not in my morals to abandon my family, especially not when we'd been working towards that championship finals for so long." I told him bluntly. "Would you abandon Nick if he was in trouble just because you were transferred to another school? Would you forget and leave behind everything here if you were ever transferred somewhere else?"
"Of course not."
"Then don't ask stupid questions. I may have left my old life, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have any significance in my life anymore. It doesn't work that way, not with me. Those people were and always will be important to me and if they are in trouble and need my help, I won't hesitate to help them in any way I can."
"Sorry, I've offended you, haven't I?"
"Just a little." I admitted with a curt nod.
"You're a very loyal person."
"As are you if you hang around a jerk like O'Connor. I won't ask why because it's not really any of my business. You must have your reasons for staying beside him and I'm pretty sure that he's capable of not being a total pinhead. What I do care for is your sense of loyalty. I admire that."
"Thank you, Kylie. Can I call you that?"
"Of course, we're in the same class after all." I blinked in surprise at his formality towards me. "You're not one of those old fashioned type of guys, are you?"
"Sometimes," he smiled.
"Well, considering how you tried to handcuff me during out first training together, I have to say, I'm shocked."
He seemed to blush at that and stared indignantly at me. "That was so that you couldn't get away!" he protested.
"I know, I was only teasing." I grinned at him. "So, what do you do for extra training?"
"Shouldn't I be asking you that? After all, you are the one who thrashed me."
"Well, if you tell me what you do, I can tell you what you're missing in your training routine."
"Mostly, I run, but I also train with the sandbags quite a lot and I do chin ups in the woods."
"You don't have a partner to train with?"
"Not really. The guys don't usually want to be around me on their own," he told me honestly.
"Well, that's obviously one of the things you're missing out on." I rolled my eyes. "There must be someone besides Nick who doesn't discriminate against you."
"If there are, I don't know them. Why did you help me? Why didn't you just walk away and pretend you didn't see anything like everyone else does?"
"Because that's not the way I roll. Unless I knew that the person could handle themselves, I won't walk away. It'd stay on my conscience for the rest of my life if I did that." I told him seriously. "This school isn't that different to the school I used to go to out there. All the social things are still the same it seems."
"You've seen this kind of situation before?" he frowned.
"One of my best friends is gay." I shrugged nonchalantly. "Personally, I don't care. People's sexual preferences are their own business and it's not for anyone else to determine for them. Just because you're gay doesn't make you any different. It's not like you go around jumping every hot guy in sight."
"How do you know I don't?"
"I'm very good at reading people. You remind me a lot of my friend Tyce."
"Is that why you're helping me? Because I remind of your friends in the outside world?" he narrowed his eyes warily at me.
"Look." I told him with an exasperated voice that was close to annoyed. "I'm not using you as a replacement for my friends from the outside world so you better get that thought out of your mind right now before I decide to throw you out of the window."
"I'm not doing very well, am I?" he asked apologetically.
"No, you're not. But considering how discriminated against you seem to be, I can't say that I'm surprised. But if you're too cautious towards everyone who tries to become friends with you, it's no surprise that people think that there's something going on between you and O'Connor even if there isn't."
"You… you're trying to be friends with me?"
"Oh my god I've been talking to a block head." I grumbled in frustration.
"You're not disgusted or repulsed by me?"
"For a good fighter, you're stupendously lacking in self-confidence, aren't you?" I glared at him. "If I was repulsed by you, I would never have stepped in to help you in the first and would've run for the hills. Seriously, if you don't start being smart and less wary, I'm going to start hitting you until sense gets knocked in."
He just stared at me for a few moments before he suddenly burst out laughing. I just stared at him as though he'd lost him mind and carried on eating. "You really are one of a kind, aren't you? I've never had someone say that to me before. Well, except for Nick anyway."
"O'Connor said something like that to you?" I blinked in surprise. "No way."
"He wasn't always the way he is."
At the back of my mind, I found myself disagreeing profusely. Yes he really was. Even when I was a kid back then, Nick O'Connor was always the one to pick on me even though everyone else left me alone.
"He just has an incredibly odd way of showing that he cares." Christian added.
"I'll take your word for it, but that doesn't mean that I'm changing my opinion of him anytime soon. What he's said about my friends is way out of line."
"I'll agree with you on that. He doesn't usually think with his upstairs brain."
"So I've seen."
"But I promise you, he really isn't as bad as he makes himself up to be."
"Until he starts getting his act together and stops insulting my friends, I'm not changing my opinion of him."
"That's fair enough. Even as his friend, I have to admit that the cold shoulder you've been giving him is entirely his fault right from the start."
"Damn right."
"You're really good at cooking, Kylie."
"Thank you." I smiled. "I've been doing my own cooking for a while now."
"Oh? Why's that?"
"I'm an orphan."
"I'm sorry," he told me.
"It's alright, it happened a while ago." I lied.
Of course, it wasn't alright, and I'd probably never stop mourning about their death but since being back at the academy, I hadn't been as depressed as I used to be. I was slowly moving forward and accepting the fact that they were gone and never going to be back.
"Hey, I have an idea. Why don't I train with you? I'm on elementary division duty for my break out but I'll be able to put in an hour or so sometimes when you're free?"
"You'd do that?"
"Sure, why not? It gives me another sparring partner anyway." I shrugged. "It's your choice."
"To think I'd get the school's newest prodigy as a tutor. Who'd have thought?"
"If you call me that, I'll kick you out of the window." I threatened him.
"Warning heeded," he laughed. "But I'll be taking you away from your friends, won't I?"
"Hey, I offered, you let me worry about that. Besides, we see a lot of each other anyway so it's fine. We're on the same floor after all."
"Then I'll have to take you up on your offer. It'll be cool to see what you know."
"Just be prepared to get your ass whooped again, that's all I'm saying." I smirked. "Oh shit! Is that the time? I'm meant to be at the elementary division right now!"
"You go, I'll wash up." Christian laughed at me at my fluster and I stared at him as though he was my saviour.
I hastily shoved whatever was left on my plate and nearly choked in the process. "Thank you!" I told him before running out of the room and sprinting for the elementary buildings.