~x~ Chapter 51 ~x~

Thankfully, I didn't bump into anyone on the way to Rosette's office and I managed to straighten my clothes a little before entering. She was at my side in an instant before I even stepped through the door and I had a sudden sense of déjà vu. I vaguely recalled that she'd done something similar when I first saw her again on Monday.

"Martin has already texted me the vague outline. What happened, Kalani?" she demanded, sitting me down on the bed in front of her.

Her finger found my lip and a small stab of pain coursed through me. "It's just a cut, Rosette."

"It's fang made."

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine, Kalani. You look confused, agitated and angry."

I stared at her in surprise before giving her a wry smile. "You're reading my aura again, aren't you?"

"Of course I am. It's the only way to get the truth out of you. It was the same back then and it looks like that hasn't changed."

"It's nothing to worry about." I tried to reassure her.

"Kalani, Martin found you being pressed against the wall by a senior Moroi who was about to sink his fangs into your neck. I highly doubt that this was with your permission." Rosette told me flatly. "I understand that you don't want to worry us, Kalani. But you've got to let us get concerned about something like this. Don't try to bear everything on your shoulders like before. It's not healthy."

"Sorry…" I murmured, leaning forward to rest my forehead against her shoulder. "I just don't know what happened."

"Tell me about it, Kalani. We were all surprised that there was so much talk about you and Eric Cooper being together. He just didn't seem like your type."

"Why does everyone seem to know what my type is?" I questioned, giggling.

"Because we know you and we know what you're like. We know what kind of person you can't stand and I would say that Eric Cooper falls into that category." Rosette scoffed.

"You know, when I think about it, you're right."

"So how did you two turn into an item?"

"We're not together." I sighed wearily, wondering just how many times I've had this conversation now.

"Of course not! I'd have examined your head if you told me you two were still together after what he tried to do."

"No, I meant that we were never together."

Rosette pushed me away till we were at arms' length and she just stared at me. "Explain."

"We weren't a couple. We weren't going out. We just had some kind of a compromise. We were seeing each other so that he could prove that we were good for each other and until I found someone that I actually liked, we would keep the compromise going."

"He managed to coerce you into something like that?"

"I guess so."

"That's not like you, Kalani."

"I know."

"So what happened?"

"I have no idea." I admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of my head. "I guess I just thought that he'd be just like any other guy and back off once he got that initial satisfaction of getting me. I just thought that his fascination would be over after a few days. It was like that with most of the guys who used to pester me."

"Adolescent boy fascination, huh?" she sighed. "Some things never change."

"Did you have a lot of admirers too when you were at school?" I asked curiously.

With a blush on her face, she gave a small nod. "But they were mainly fascinated about my Spirit rather than getting to know me."

"I guess we both know how that feels." I grumbled.

"Martin mentioned that you were hurt, show me."

"Its fine, Rosette. It's just minor stuff that won't take longer than a day to heal."

Rosette pinned me with a stern stare. "Kalani, show me your wounds and let me disinfect them at least."

Giving a resigned sigh, I removed my top and showed her my back. From her sharp intake of breath, I could only guess that the scratches were harsher looking than they felt. "I'm sure it looks worse than it really is. I don't feel a thing." I reassured her.

"It's probably just the blood smudges that make it look so horrible," she murmured. "This is out of line, Kalani."

"It's alright. I'll whoop his ass for trying such a thing on me."

"You are taking this far too lightly."

"I'm not. That's why I told him I can't keep our compromise anymore."

"He deserves more than that for this. I know that teenagers can get a little… frisky sometimes but it is ridiculous for a Moroi to draw blood like this in plain sight."

"Rosette, in this school 'plain sight' means nothing depending on who you are." I scoffed. "I would say for people like Eric, public display of affection is almost expected of him just because that's the way he is."

"But you are not that type of person, are you?"

"I wouldn't shove it people's faces. But a chaste kiss every now and then isn't a problem for me. Pushing me up against the wall like that however is."

"This is probably one of the shortest relationships I've ever heard of."

"It wasn't a relationship." I corrected bluntly. "Besides, I've seen people get together for a day and then break up by the end of it. We live in one heck of a quick paced world, Rosette."

"So it seems," she sighed as she finished off disinfecting my back. "Though you and Prince Ozera seem to be taking your sweet time."

I coughed in shock and spluttered. Swirling around, I gaped at her.

"What?" I squealed.

"Kalani, I can read your aura remember? You are clearly affected by him."

"That doesn't mean anything!"

"Maybe not, but you do care about him, no?"

"Ozera is different. Considering the way things have turned out, it'd be hard not to be affected by him."

"What do you mean by 'the way things have turned out'?"

"Well, as everyone's seen already, he's interested in me because I don't make sense. He wants to know what I'm hiding and that in turn means he randomly pops up out of nowhere and we end up being alone to talk quite a few times."

"You two do seem very close, Kalani."

"I suppose we are." I pondered aloud. "We seem to understand each other somewhat effortlessly so that makes a lot of things easier for us to talk about."

"Do you think something is likely to happen?"

"I'm not one for trying to predict the future, Rosette. Anything could happen."

"Then let me rephrase: do you want something to happen?" she asked, staring at me seriously.

I sagged a little under her persistent gaze and bit my lower lip. "There is chemistry," I whispered, "I can't deny that. But with everything that's going on and my secret, I kind of just want to take it a day at a time without over analysing my feelings too much. If my heart swings towards him, then let it, if not, then oh well."

"Prince Ozera is a wonderful guy, Kalani. He will not be single forever."

"Rosette, if we're so good for each other, then we'll get together eventually perhaps. But right now, it wouldn't be fair for either of us considering I'm still hiding such a big secret from him."

"Alright, I won't push it." Rosette sighed. "I just don't want you to regret it."

"I think I would regret it more if I were to start something now and then he found out the truth half way through. He's been pretty open with me as to what he thinks about the Ivashkov princess. He'd probably feel betrayed if he were to find out while we were in a relationship who I really am. It wouldn't be fair on him at all."

"You've grown to be a lot more outspoken about your consideration for others, Kalani," she complimented with a warm smile as she brushed her hand through my hair. "You used to be considerate, but you'd never be able to say it out loud. You'd leave it for others to try and figure out your strange actions and by then they end up misinterpreting your intentions."

"I didn't mind it too much. Sure it was a little lonely sometimes but since I had such wonderful people with me, I didn't feel too bad. Besides, Ali made sure that I never felt too lonely."

"Ah yes, Alistair has certainly changed." Rosette sent me a teasing smile.

I tilted my head to the side in confusion, wondering why she would suddenly bring that up now. "I thought we had already established that?"

"I am saying that his impression of you has changed."

"I know that too. He's finally come to terms that I'm not just a pipsqueak who needed taking care of."

"Kalani, you're avoiding the point. You know exactly what I mean but perhaps you have yet to admit the realisation to yourself."

I just stared blankly at her. Damn it. Rosette always could read me like an open book more than anyone else partly due to her aura reading skills but also due to her natural perceptiveness. I was sure my face went through several shades of red and couldn't help hiding behind my hands. "Is it that obvious?"

"I'm not sure if the others have noticed it just yet but I am sure that Alistair has begun to realise it himself. He doesn't look at you as a kid anymore."

"Neither do I." I mumbled from behind my hands.

"You don't?" she teased.

"How can I when he's got all these muscles that just about scream masculinity?" I complained, throwing my hands up into the air. "I mean, I always knew that he was a guy but… but now he's a man, Rosette. He understands responsibility now. Ali has matured a lot over the years."

"So you've noticed?"

"I've been noticing it for the past few days like it's the end of the world. I feel so… so conscious of everything all of a sudden and it's driving me nuts! Before, I could tell him anything, but I obviously can't talk about something like this with him."

"Kalani, don't over think it. Like you said earlier, just let your heart move naturally rather than over analysing it too much. Unfortunately, it is a female habit to over analyse emotions just a little too much." Rosette advised me with a motherly tone. "Don't let the fact that you'd known him in the past affect you too much. Don't let it cloud how you might feel now."

"I'll try not to…" I trailed off quietly. "But it's not going to be easy. When I'm with Ali, it's just so damn easy to slip back into the past and be as carefree as we were back then. But then out of the blue in between our casualness there'd be the odd moment of intensity."

"Just try your best not to stress over it. The last thing Alistair would want is for you to become stressed out because of the slight change in behaviour."

"You probably wouldn't find two people hating stress more than Ali and I do." I laughed, stretching out on the bed to release the tension in my muscles. Turning to my side so that I could see Rosette, I gave her a wide beaming smile. "What would I do without you, Rosette?"

She laughed softly the way she always used to and patted my head gently. "Most likely you'd over think a lot of things and worry too much to the extent that your mind imploded."

I couldn't help but grin at that. "You're probably right about that. I remember that for a while after I ran away, the first year was really tough. I was trying desperately to become comfortable with myself, to prove to myself that I was really strong enough to make it through my decision. The number of times I fell ill in that first year due to worrying too much can't be counted on one hand. It was pretty ridiculous so I slowly managed to break out of that habit."

"You used to get ill because of thinking too much?"

"Yeah," I admitted sheepishly. "I think they have a name for that kind of fever but what it might be I have no idea."

"That's silly of you, Kalani."

"I can't exactly control when I'm struck by illness. It just happens."

"What are you going to do about Alistair?"

I pursed my lips and thought about it carefully. "Nothing," I said eventually. "I won't run away from it but I don't want the chemistry to kill our friendship."

"Kalani, neither you nor Alistair would allow something like that to happen. You'll both be able to sense the change when the time comes and if it should ever get to the point where it's putting a strain on your relationship, you two will fix it."

"I should hope so." I sighed. "Anyway, enough about me. You and Martin still haven't budged an inch."

"It's only been a week."

"Rosette, it's been at least eleven years. At least." I corrected pointedly. "I won't pressure you guys any more than this if you really hate it. But I don't want to never see you two get together. That will just be too sad. I want you two to be happy, and even still, I have never seen either of you smile brighter than when you're together."

"With the exception of the day you returned." Rosette rectified.

"Fine, besides that." I scoffed. "Either way, it'd be ridiculous for the two of you to remain single for the rest of your lives just because you're both too shy to take a step forward."

"Kalani, he has a school to run and I have students to take care of. We can't just decide to stop working one day and go out."

"No, but you can in the evenings." I reasoned. "I know that both of you care about your work, but I also know that you know how to rest and most of the evenings neither of you work."

"But what will others think? If we spend time together here at the school, people will notice."

"Somehow, I don't think people will care too much. If anything, they'd probably all be cheering for the fact that you two have finally gotten together. Seriously, I bet even elementary school kids could sense the chemistry between you two." I scoffed.

"You're exaggerating."

"I'm not."

"Elementary kids?"

"I'm serious. They're surprisingly perceptive, you know?"

"I'll take your word for it," she sighed in defeat. "You do spend a lot of time at that division, Kalani."

"What can I say? I love little Trace too much. He's just too damn adorable. If think if Jacks and Quinn hadn't decided to wise up, I just might have considered adopting the little kid to be my brother."

"You two sure do seem to have a strange attachment to each other since the first moment."

"Trace kind of reminded me of me, I suppose. When I first met him, he was scared to approach the other kids and join in with the fun. He's got a whole lot of sadness in him having lost his mother and all and he's got a really big heart. Trace is a lovely kid."

"Without intentionally having favourites, Trace has always been the centre of Alistair's attention since the day he arrived. It seems that you two still have the same likes as before."

"Apparently so." I grinned. "Rosette, I have a favour to ask."

She looked surprised for a moment before her brows furrowed in concern. "What is it?"

"Could you go to Martin's office and calm him down? I have a feeling that he'd be seething with rage and attempt to tear Eric to shreds."

Her lips pursed and her gaze hardened. "Kalani, Martin should tear Eric to shreds."

"Martin is supposed to be impartial as the Headmaster. I understand that he will enforce strict consequences on Eric for breaking the rules but he has to remain impartial. Can you tell him that I'm perfectly fine because I am and discreetly remind him that I am not the Ivashkov princess right now?"

Rosette looked pensive for several moments and for a moment I thought that she was going to refuse, but then I saw her gaze falter and I knew that I had made my point. Rosette of all people would know just how furious Martin would be and the sanctions he would impose would be too much bearing in mind that I was supposed to be just a simple dhampir in training.

Eventually, she gave a heavy sigh and nodded. "I had better go now. Enough time has already passed and no doubt Martin will have done his worst. I do hope that Eric wouldn't suspect after this ordeal."

"I doubt Martin would let anything crucial slip."

"Let's hope so. We don't need anyone else knowing about your identity, let alone Eric Cooper, especially after what he's done."

"I totally agree with you on that. While you do that, I think I'm going to head off to dinner."

"Try to stay away from being injured, Kalani. A girl's body should be taken care of."

"That would make perfect sense in the human world but here where there are so many female dhampirs training to be guardians? I just can't agree with you on that, Rosette."

"Just try," she insisted emphatically.

"Alright, I promise to try." I gave in when I heard the motherly tone of hers.

I pulled her in for a tight hug and I could barely feel the scratches on my back as she wrapped her arms around me. I sent her a reassuring smile as we headed off in different directions in the hallway outside of her office and made my way to the dining hall since it would be dinner time right about now.

I was surprised when Joe suddenly grabbed arm and tugged me away when he spotted me. Thankfully, there wasn't anyone around so it wouldn't look suspicious but I was somewhat worried about the thunderous expression on his face. I silently braced myself for a lecture and knew that I would be getting the same treatment from the others as soon as they heard from Martin about what he had seen.

Joe dragged me straight to Aunty Jules' main office and I was surprised to see Maria and Crispin already waiting there.

"Are you alright?" the three of them chimed as soon as I walked in and Joe shut the door firmly behind him.

I slapped my hand to my face, cursing at the situation. I should've known that this would happen when Martin caught Eric. If Rosette had known before I even stepped into his office, of course the others would've heard about the incident as well.

"I'm fine." I reassured them.

"This is worse than how Jensen found you, Kai." Joe narrowed his eyes at me. "Has he been progressing in that direction right from the start?"

"Joey, its fine. I guess he just sort of lost patience since he seems so used to getting what he wants right off the bat and I wasn't cooperating."

"It isn't fine, little sky, when you are found with scratches on your back and a bleeding lip." Joe corrected. "Did you know that he was aiming for your blood?"

I stayed silent for a while since I didn't want to answer them. Now that I thought about it, Eric did seem oddly interested in biting me right from the start. I recalled how he seemed to always linger on my neck more than necessary and I remembered having to tell him to back off and that I wasn't into that kind of thing.

Joe swore and pushed his hand through his hair. "Why didn't you say anything, little sky?"

"It didn't seem that out of the ordinary. All Moroi lads are interested in biting a dhampir girl from school. It's second nature to them. Remember when you first found me? Remember how I punched Jacks, Quinn and Dan? That was because they were less than a second away from feeding from them."

"It may not be out of the ordinary to have the curiosity." Aunty Jules cut in. "But it's one thing to have the curiosity and another to actually try to make it happen."

"Why didn't you say anything? You must've known that something was wrong the moment you caught on that he wanted to bite you." Maria asked.

"I… I guess I just shrugged it off for a while as a lads' thing. Like how human boys would try and get girls into bed, this was just something normal…"

"It's not normal, Val." Crispin tried to explain to me. "Cooper's interest in you isn't normal. You'd begun to realise that yourself."

"What's this?" Aunty Jules pinned me with a steely glare. "You'd noticed that something was off and you didn't back away straight away!"

"Aunty Jules, please don't shout." I told her placatingly. "I'd rather no one else heard this conversation."

"Skylar, why didn't you leave him as soon as you sensed something was off?"

"Because I needed a justified reason."

"Being creeped out by him isn't reason enough?"

"For Eric Cooper? No. He'd need something more than that."

"So you just waited until he pushed it too far? Is that it?" Maria demanded furiously.

"I didn't think enough about it until everyone started questioning it." I protested. "I thought I'd be able to handle him just like any adolescent guy out there."

"This might be an insensitive question, Val, but why didn't you just strike him as soon as you realised what he was doing?"

"I didn't know what he was doing until it was too late. I was about to hit him when Martin stepped in and yanked him away."

Crispin gave me an unconvinced stare and Joe caught it straight away. "Tell us the truth, little sky. What the hell happened earlier?"

"You weren't about to hit him away, were you?" Crispin thought out loud. "You were waiting for someone to step in because you couldn't fight him off just like when I found you by the statue the other day."

"This happened before?" Aunty Jules asked sharply. "Why don't I know about this?"

"It was only a few days ago." I tried to justify.

"A few days are more than enough time to notify me of these things," she snapped. "You are for all intents and purposes a dhampir in training here therefore you are under my protection and I am responsible for your wellbeing. That means being notified when something is amiss and being caught helpless and needing help is certainly something that needs to be reported to me."

I was startled when the door suddenly slammed open. I whirled around to see who it might be to see a somewhat scarily furious Ali storming towards me. He turned me around and lifted my shirt up to inspect my back. He swore loud and colourfully and turned on his heel. Instincts rushing forth, I grabbed him before he could disappear out of the office and most likely towards Martin's to beat the crap out of Eric.