~x~ Chapter 52 ~x~

"Ali, Ali, calm down!" I squealed, holding onto him as tightly as I could and trying desperately to hold my ground as he continued to walk dragging me with him.

Luckily, Joe stepped in and shut the door before Ali could get out and I somehow manage to throw Ali onto the floor using some kind of Judo move I'd learnt a while back.

"Alster, seriously, cool it." I whispered, brushing my hands against his cheeks. "I'm fine. I'm totally fine."

"That bastard is going to be shot and torn to a million pieces, little sky," he growled. "I swear it, if I see him, he's dead. If I hear that he so much as gets within six metres of you, I'm going to stake him."

I shuddered at the idea of getting on Ali's bad side and remembered just how protective he used to be in the past. When Ali got seriously protective, he got violent and rather scarily so. He wouldn't just kill someone who hurt someone he cared about. He'd think of a way to make them suffer a million times worse than their offense. That was the kind of person Ali was and it seemed that that part of him hadn't changed.

I jumped when I felt a hand brush against my cheek and I blinked down at him. For a moment guilt and sadness flashed across his features before he became apologetic. Ali sat up, tugged me down to join him on the floor and sat me between his legs casually. His arms wound around my waist and he rested his forehead against mine.

"Sorry, I scared you, didn't I?" he murmured.

"Just a little." I admitted sheepishly with a small smile. "But I imagine that we all get pretty scary when we get that angry. You're actually burning up in anger, Alster."

"He picked the wrong girl to try and mess with, Kalster. I swear it, if he even thinks about trying anything on you again he's going to wish that he had never been born."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Alright, Alistair, have you calmed down a bit?" Aunty Jules asked him, poking him with her foot with a disapproving frown on her face.

"As much as I can be calm considering the circumstances," he scoffed. He stood, lifting me up in the process and once again I couldn't help but notice how much stronger he'd gotten over the years. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the playful gleam in Crispin's eyes and I pulled a face to hide my embarrassment.

I pushed away from Ali so that we were at a normal distance and crossed my arms. "Okay, everyone here has to swear that they won't hound after Eric Cooper."

"What do you mean?" Maria frowned.

"No unfair punishments. Nothing. You guys need to stay impartial."

"You're expecting us to be impartial to that jackass? You've got to be kidding me." Ali complained, running a hand through his hair.

"You can't randomly go up to him and kick his ass, Ali. That would look weird considering how I doubt you two have ever crossed paths before."

"The girl's got a point, Castile." Crispin pointed out.

"Jensen, you're still taking senior classes, right?" Ali turned to him. "Why don't you kick his ass for all of us?"

"No one is kicking his ass but me."

"You can't just expect us to sit back and do nothing, Kai."

"I can and I will. Otherwise you can learn the hard way like Joey and Crispin did as to how tough I can be." I stated, staring firmly at him.

"That's hardly fair," he groaned, rubbing the back of his head in frustration.

"It's fair if you want to help me protect my status."

We stared at each other for a while, neither of us willing to give up. Eventually, he gave a heavy sigh and grumbled. "I can't win against you on this, can I?"

"Not at all."

"I can't promise anything if by some chance I do bump into the guy, Kai. But I promise not to go looking for him."

"Thanks, Ali." I told him sincerely, wrapping my arms around him.

"You're one tough cookie, Kalster," he grumbled. "You were always so hard-headed when it was something you had a strong opinion about."

"I wouldn't say that I was hard-headed." I complained. "That's a little far-fetched, isn't it?"

"No, you really are rather hard-headed." Joe chuckled. "Once you set your heart on something you're impossible to budge."

"Kai, head over to Martin's office." Aunty Jules cut in before I could start a fight.

"Already?"

"He wants to keep things legitimate so you'll have to go in to give your side of the story," she explained bluntly. "Try to keep your temper when you see him, Kai."

"I'll do my best." I sighed, pulling away from Ali. "See you guys later."

"Stay safe," they echoed.

I was barely halfway towards Martin's office when an arm lashed out and someone pressed me against the wall. This time, I was startled to meet a pair of stunningly blue eyes. "Ozera, you've got to stop appearing out of nowhere." I mused.

"What did Eric do to you?" he demanded, his voice low with barely tamed fury.

"How do you know he did something?"

"He walked into the headmaster's office with a thunderous Guardian Hunt behind him. He must've done something to you."

"And why would you think that?"

"I know Eric and I know he's been after you all this time. There'd be no reason for him to try something stupid on another girl. What did he do to you?"

"It's none of your business." I retorted stubbornly.

"He tried to bite you, didn't he?" he glowered. "He did bite you." His hand reached up to hold my face, his thumb brushing against my injured lip.

"Is that what happened to the person you mentioned before? Is that what he did to her?"

His eyes darkened and he took a step back as he gave a heavy sigh. "He did a lot worse than just bite her lip."

"From your tone of voice, I can imagine." I scoffed.

"He just bit your lip?"

"I thought I asked you to drop it."

"Actually, you didn't ask. You just told me that it wasn't my business."

"Well then: Please drop it oh-great-prince-Ozera." I chimed sardonically.

"You really don't care much about my title, do you?"

"I'll acknowledge it since you don't go around flaunting it. But I don't really get the whole royal system. Just because you were born into a royal family doesn't necessarily make the person great if they haven't done anything yet."

"You're one of the few people in the world with that kind of view, Valentine."

"It's probably not that good of a thing in this society but I'll adapt." I sighed. "Listen, Ozera, I need to head over to the headmaster's office so I'll see you at dinner."

"Try not to be held back in the office for too long, Valentine." The shadow faded from his eyes and he gave another one of his heart stopping smiles.

"How the heck did he manage to keep up his popularity with the girls with you around?" I murmured under my breath as I walked away.

"Was that a compliment, Valentine?"

"Don't take notice of my random mutterings." I grumbled and stomped off to Martin's office.

Once there, I knocked on the door and waited for the beckon. His voice was tight when he called out and I opened the door hesitantly, wary of the expression on Martin's face.

"Valentine, take a seat." Martin gestured at the farthest one away from Eric. I spotted Rosette sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea in her hands. She sent me a small smile when she saw me. Once I was sat, Martin began talking again. "Valentine, are you aware of the rules in our community?"

"Uh… which ones?"

"The one regarding biting."

"It's against the rules for a Moroi to bite someone without their prior permission is probably the plainest way of saying it."

"There you have it, Cooper. Valentine certainly knows about the rule." Martin turned to face him with a deathly glare.

"Headmaster Hunt, pardon me, but I haven't bitten her. As I'd said, the cut from her lip was due to carelessness on my behalf. I lost control since she has that kind of effect on men."

Since Eric was staring at me, he didn't see the fury swirling in Martin's eyes. It was so intense that I flinched. I remembered that all my family members could be pretty scary when they were properly angry but this was more lethal than I'd anticipated. Either I underestimated my memory or Martin had gotten a little scarier over the years.

Martin closed his eyes briefly before staring at me. "Was it a mere loss of control?" he asked me.

"She didn't struggle hard enough to push me away so it must've been unexpected therefore it would only have been a loss of control on my part."

"I asked Valentine. You are to be quiet until you are addressed, Cooper." Martin glowered at him before returning his attention to me. "Well, Valentine?"

"It was undoubtedly a loss of control." I replied honestly. "It seems that Eric isn't nearly as perfect as he or anyone says he is. Eric still has a lot to learn if he got caught by none other than the headmaster. But I hadn't given my consent so he has broken a very crucial rule."

I turned to Eric to see anger simmering in his eyes and his tightened jaw. It seemed that I finally struck a nerve. Internally, I gave a smug smirk. It was damn time Eric Cooper got knocked off of his high horse.

"Even Valentine is aware of the severity of your actions in our community. You are to be suspended with a ban on all electronic devices and a ban of physical and magical training. A guardian will be monitoring and reporting you behaviour. You are suspended indefinitely." Martin stated sternly.

"Excuse me?" Eric gaped. Clearly Eric still wasn't expecting any form of punishment.

"You are suspended indefinitely." Martin repeated flatly. "You are dismissed. I'd suggest you return to your room to pack and a guardian will be waiting outside you room."

Eric's entire body stiffened and the gleam in his eyes was more than dangerous. He was plainly trying to express that this was far from over. This was going to be the first scar on his supposedly perfect record after all so it was normal for him to be so angry but it was his own fault. This was all because of his arrogance and lack of knowledge of how to back off. He pushed up from the chair and stormed out of the room, a thunderous vibe trailing behind him.

When the office door slammed shut, I breathed out a heavy sigh and sagged in my seat. "Well… that went down as well as it could've done." I commented with a small laugh in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

"You'd think that only because you missed the majority of his argument." Martin scoffed, massaging the bridge of his nose.

"I know you're not stupid but you wouldn't have, out of spite, assigned someone who knows me well as his supervisor, would you?"

"I may wish to reduce him to nothing as your friend and guardian, Kai, but I wouldn't put my friends through the hell of supervising him. As a headmaster, I wouldn't unfairly put him through the hell of being crushed to a pulp."

"Pfft, I would say the ban of socialising is quite a hell for him already, Martin."

"That's the least I could do. Had it been widely known who you really are, he'd be tried at court for what he did. For his attentions to do worse, he'd be imprisoned."

"How did you know I'd be in Aunty Jules' office?"

"I figured you'd be dragged there by then." Rosette replied with a small smile. "How was it? I hope they didn't react too violently."

"It's safe to say that it's definitely a good idea to send Eric away." I sighed. "If any of the others were to see him in the near future, who knows what they'll do? Ali is definitely a ticking bomb at the moment."

"I think Alistair is still rather hot-headed. He's gotten better at controlling his emotions on the whole, but he's still far from tamed his temper." Rosette mused. "You are the same, Kalani, as are Juliet and Maria."

"Well, I for one am glad that I'm not the only one who still hasn't gotten a good control over my temper."

"I want you to be honest with me, Kai. Was what happened with Cooper really nothing more than a slip of control?" Martin asked me sternly.

"Yes and no." I replied honestly. "It was a slip of control since he'd held back before, but the desire has always been there."

"Why did you decide to go out with him if you knew right from the start?" he demanded incredulously.

"I never went out with him." I shot back curtly. "It was an agreement to 'see him'. To give him a chance to prove that he could be the best boyfriend candidate. It was the only way I could get him off my back."

"Did you like him?"

"I didn't dislike him and he appeared charming enough. I thought he'd either stay charming and accept that I wasn't going to be a meal or give up. I regretted my choice when I realised I was wrong not long after."

"I'm not going to be a narrow minded father-figure and ban you from relationships, little sky, but in the future please choose your partners more carefully. It'd reduce the number of homicidal thoughts." Martin advised.

"I'll be more careful from now on, I promise to save you guys the heart-attacks."

"That would be appreciated, Kalani."

"I won't keep you any longer. You'll probably want to head to dinner."

"Thanks, Martin." I beamed. "See you two later."

I stood, moved to give them each a hug before leaving the office and made my way to the dining hall. I found the others gathered not far from the doors of the hall and Ingrid sped towards me when she spotted my approach.

"Kai! Have you heard? Eric's been suspended," she gushed.

"How did you know about it so quickly?" I blurted.

"Tom called me to ask to see if you'd told me anything. He wondered if you'd know about it since you and Eric were seeing each other."

"How did Tom know about it?"

"Tom is Eric's roommate."

"Eric broke a rule so now he's been suspended indefinitely." I explained vaguely.

"He ONLY got suspension?" Drew demanded furiously. "He should've gotten a lot more than that!"

"You know what Eric did?" Dan turned to him in surprise.

Drew stared at me so obviously that others noticed and centred their attention on me. They fury swirling in Drew's eyes was like fire had actually lit up in them. It was so intense that it reminded me of the anger that I'd seen in Ali and Martin's eyes. For some reason, it was as if Drew cared about me as much as my family did which was downright bizarre considering he's theoretically only known me for almost two weeks.

"Let's just say that Eric crossed a line he shouldn't have and just leave it at that." I explained to them.

"Crossed a line he shouldn't have? I wouldn't have expected Eric to be a rule breaker let alone breaking one that would lead to indefinite suspension." Roxy commented.

"You can't judge a book by its cover, right?" Drew mused, glancing at me with another on of his cryptic stares again.

"Anyway, how many people know about Eric?" I asked, ignoring Drew's stare.

"Tom was told to keep it quiet for now so I don't think that many people know about it yet."

"That's good. I don't think he needs this kind of thing spread about him considering how it's the first mark on his supposedly perfect record. Anyway, let's go in, I need dinner after all the commotion of today."

"I have an idea, we should as Guardian Valiere if we could borrow the home economics room and we should have our own dinner do." Dan suggested. "I want to try your cooking."

"Her cooking's amazing." Els squealed.

"It's not that amazing." I grumbled. "It's just simple stuff."

"Simple but delicious and there's even a homely feel to it." Els totally ignored my comment and carried on. "I still remember the stew from the first lesson. That was so good."

"I don't really mind making it again but you guys are paying for the ingredients." I told them bluntly.

"Done deal." Jacks and Quinn chimed.

"It's hardly fair that Els has tried your cooking and we haven't." Ingrid complained as we headed into the dining hall.

"How did it turn into whether it's fair or not?" I grumbled. "Anyway, who cares about that, I just want food."

I was surprised when my phone suddenly buzzed. Tugging it out of my pocket, I glanced at the screen to see who it was. Pursing my lips, I hastily scanned the text to see what was up.

~I saw Eric being escorted out of school. What happened?~ he wrote.

I gave a heavy sigh and rubbed my temple. Information had a really rapid way of spreading on way or another in this school. It was kind of ridiculous to be honest but what could I do about it? Absolutely nothing. I quickly got the most appealing food that there was and sat with the others at the table.

"Sorry, I'm just going to quickly reply to a text." I apologised to the others.

I took my phone out again and typed a quick reply. ~Eric finally went too far and got caught my Headmaster Hunt.~

~So he's been punished, huh?~

~As you saw, yeah.~

~Can I ask just what he did that was so out of line?~

~I won't talk about it by text but we could meet up and chat at some point?~

~Will you be free after dinner?~

~I haven't made any plans. I'll let the others know I won't be able to do anything.~

~How about we meet at the training room? There won't be anyone there.~

~Sounds good, see you there in about an hour.~

~Have a nice meal, Kylie.~

I tucked my phone back in my pocket and glanced around briefly. He couldn't have known that I was in dinner unless he was here as well. I glanced around until I spotted him and gave a small smile. I faced him long enough to see him return the gesture.

"So what kind of food can you make?" Jacks asked curiously.

"I can make anything that has a recipe to it." I told him honestly. "As for improvised dishes just the bog standard stuff."

"How about Chinese?" Dan requested.

"I can fry noodles and stir-fry stuff but don't ask for anything intricate."

"Then we can handle the more intricate stuff." Jacks added, gesturing at himself and Quinn.

"You guys cook Chinese food?"

"It's the only thing we specialise in," the pair of them chimed.

"The only one out of us four who doesn't know how to cook is Drew." Dan glanced at him with a grin.

"So you know how to dance and I know how to cook, it seems like we've evened back out." I teased him.

"Looks like the endless battle has begun, Valentine." Drew retorted with a smirk. "Bring it on."

"So the pride has kicked in?"

"Hey you two, you both have a competitive streak so this could go on forever." Quinn cut in.

"Unfortunately, you can't even fight it out because it'd end with too many draws." Jacks sighed.

"Hey, I seem to recall that I kicked his butt. That doesn't count as ending in a draw." I protested.

"I think it'd be pretty scary to see you two fighting properly without holding back." Ingrid murmured with a shudder.

"I think it'd be pretty painful for the both of us to fight head on." Drew mused, his eyes gleaming with amusement.

"Somehow, I don't think I ever want to test that out." I scoffed, rolling my eyes. "I'd rather not voluntarily get beaten black and blue."

"Out of curiosity, have you ever been beaten black and blue?" Roxy asked.

"Of course I have!" I squealed, recalling the times when I used to get thoroughly thrashed by Aunty Jules and Mum whenever we trained. "Everyone has to start somewhere, you know."

"It's still kind of hard to imagine." Ingrid commented.

"You're not just good at fighting. You've got all sorts crazy skills too. You're like one of those martial arts chicks." Dan pointed out. "Remember that time when you saved my ass in that game in training?"

"I'm not a 'martial arts chick' as you call it." I complained. "I just trained in martial arts for a while… Wait till you see a proper shaolin master. Now that's impressive. They would definitely kick Strigoi ass."

Jacks arched his brows in amusement. "So you're saying that we should all train with shaolin masters?"

"It would certainly discipline us better." I mused. "But I doubt most of us would last three days training under the same strict schedule as they do. I know I couldn't."

"Strict schedule?" Els asked.

"There's no time for fun at all." I explained. "Wake up early, eat well, train hard, clean the grounds, eat only a small amount and then sleep before repeating the same thing. I went to a camp for a week and couldn't make it through the whole week. Not being able to just relax or play pranks on people was really hard."

"Play pranks?" Quinn gaped. "I thought you were an honour student."

"I thought we'd been over this. An honour student wouldn't break out of school for a soccer game, would they?" I grumbled. "So when do we want to do this dinner thing? I'll ask Guardian Valiere about it."

"Then how about the day we get back from our one week trip? We can't go home until the day after and the food on the very last day is always really plain." Roxy suggested. "We could have the food party then as a last blowout before we scatter for the holidays."

"Speaking of the holidays, what are you going to do?" Drew asked.

"Probably head home." I told them honestly. With everyone off campus, I wouldn't have to hide as much when I went to my family home. It'd be a lot easier with less people around, that's for sure.