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Disclaimer: Vampire Academy belongs to Richelle Mead. I am not she.
31st May - Days until wedding- 21
"Dammit," I groaned as I hit the floor. "You win."
Dimitri smiled above me, stroking my captured wrist with his thumb. Okay, so lying on the floor with him on top was kind of a win for me too. His dark eyes stared into mine, and I felt myself getting lost in them.
"Shall we put that result down to distraction on your part?" he teased, bringing me back to my senses again.
"You want to watch your ego, buddy. It might get in the way when you're trying to fight."
He laughed as he stood up, pulling me with him. I didn't quite catch myself in time, and ended up crashing into his chest. Again, no complaints here. My fail had been expected considering I'd had about 3 hours of sleep last night.
"Maybe we should call it a day with the sparring," Dimitri suggested as I found my footing. "We still have a while before Hans gets here, though."
"I have an idea of what we could do to fill the time," I purred, triumphant as I saw lust spark in his eyes.
Dimitri's grip on my hands loosened as he struggled to regain control. "I don't think that would be wise," he said, though his voice sounded a little strained. "Hans' last warning about inappropriate contact in the workplace was very clear."
I rolled my eyes, looking around the empty gym. Nobody else was in the smaller facility this early n the morning. "Technically, we're not at work right now. Besides, there's nothing like an early-morning altercation with your boss to get your heart rate up and adrenalin pumping."
His expression turned thoughtful. "Sit down," he said, gesturing to the sparring mats we'd just vacated. "I have an idea."
I watched as he folded his long legs and sat down, graceful as ever. It still made no sense to me.
"Let me guess- you've finally run out of Zen Wisdom and are meditating in the hopes of finding more?"
He gave me a look that told me I was being 'wonderfully weird'. "Not quite." He stretched his arm up towards me. "Come on."
With a sigh, I lowered myself to the mat, sitting opposite him. His hand caught my wrist and his fingers came to rest below my thumb, firm but gentle.
"You mentioned heart rate, and I thought this might be a good exercise to help with both combat preparation as well as battle awareness." He held out his other arm; this time I rested my fingers on his pulse point. Feeling the evidence of his beating heart overwhelmed me for a second, as it so often did. I'd never take the fact that he was here, alive and safe with me, for granted.
"Your pulse rate just went up," Dimitri noted.
I figured not mentioning the real reason was probably the best idea. "Well, what do you expect? This is the most action we've had in days."
He laughed. "I fully intend to correct that as soon as we have the apartment to ourselves again."
"Good. I'll hold you to that promise," I said, bringing out the man-eater smile as I scratched my fingernails over the back of his hand. His pulse rate shot up further than I imagined mine had, and I smirked at the victory.
Dimitri cleared his throat, shifting a little uncomfortably. "Right... definitely. Yes. Um, pulse rate monitoring. It's good to practice regulating heart rate so that you remain on top form in high stress or impact situations. By taking each others' pulse, we're improving communication skills and increasing awareness of each other's bodies."
"Comrade, I think we have those last two down."
It was only then he seemed to realise what he'd said. "I meant in a combat setting, but you're right. We probably do."
"We definitely do."
His eyes darkened again, and I watched him fight to stay focussed.
"Alright. Count my pulse up to four, and I'll do the same for you. The aim is to get our heartbeats synchronised, whether that's speeding them up or slowing them down."
"I get slowing it down, but how do I speed my heart rate up without doing exercise?"
He shrugged as best he could with our connected arms. "You probably won't have to worry about that too much, since your average rate is probably higher than mine."
"Do you know how then?"
He just smiled in reply, tilting his head down as he closed his eyes. I took this as the signal to begin, and closed my eyes as well.
"One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four..."
"One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two..."
He guessed right; my heartbeat was faster. I concentrated on evening out my breathing and entering a state of complete relaxation. I even tried to channel the inner Zen I teased Dimitri about until I was bordering on meditating. It was very peaceful, actually, just sitting together like this. Of course, I could think of plenty of better ways to be spending this time with Dimitri-
"Whatever you're thinking of, don't," Dimitri said before going back to counting. I hadn't even noticed his counting speed increase, which wasn't brilliant for the purpose of this exercise.
"Oops." I cleared my mind again, focussing on counting his steady pulses and nothing else. Soon enough, our voices fell into synchrony as our heartbeats did the same. Cute. I shuffled a little closer.
We were so absorbed in our little world of heartbeats and numbers that we didn't hear the footsteps approaching.
"Do I want to know?" Hans asked in his usual grumpy tone.
Dimitri and I both stopped counting and looked up as he approached, but didn't move.
"Training exercise," I shrugged. "You took your time getting here. What was it you wanted to ask us?"
"Come to my office and we'll discuss it there."
He turned and walked back out of the gym, leaving Dimitri and I still sitting on the floor. We must have been there longer than I'd thought, since my legs had gone to sleep and didn't want to cooperate when I tried to stand up. I pushed through it though, since Hans had already disappeared.
Dimitri fell into step beside me, hand brushing against mine. Maybe he felt the same loss of connection that I did. Stupid Hans.
"So what do you think he wants us for?" I asked. "He seemed pretty worked up about something."
"I don't think it's anything to worry about. He's just been stressed lately."
"Haven't we all," I muttered. "Still, at least it's not anything we've done. He hasn't caught us making out in the janitor's cupboard lately."
His fingers caught mine. "No, we've been very good."
Looking up, I could see the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. I knew it would disappear as soon as Hans turned to face us, but I hoped that what the older Guardian had to say wouldn't kill both our smiles for the rest of the day.
We didn't actually make it to Hans' office. He told us to wait outside the door as he went to grab something, returning with a flat white box for each of us.
"Go into the changing room across the hall and put these on, then come back and show me."
"You're the last person I'd expect to be looking for cosplay buddies..." I trailed off when I saw the look on Hans' face. "Fine, I'm going." I held my hands up in surrender before taking the box.
The door Hans had directed us to was unlocked, and I looked around in wonder as Dimitri held it open for me. There was a small changing room complete with wooden benches (not metal ones that made your butt cold when you sat down), lockers and pegs hanging up along one side. On the other was a curtained off area that I assumed held a shower much cleaner than the ones I usually ended up using. The extra paperwork that came with being Head Guardian didn't seem like such a turn-off when this was a perk that came with the job.
"I knew there was a reason Hans never uses the normal changing rooms! I figured he was trying to avoid walking around and advertising small package, so maybe I was right after all. Eddie owes me ten dollars!"
Dimitri looked bemused. "Why would you make that bet- no, how would you have got the information needed to set up that bet?"
"Chill out Comrade, I haven't been sneaking peaks at Hans. He has undeniable Little Guy Syndrome, but he's not particularly short, so by process of elimination he's lacking something in the trouser department."
Dimitri either took my explanation as correct or gave up trying to understand my thought process, turning away from me to open the box. He pulled out a swath of black fabric which, on closer inspection, turned out to be shorts and a T-shirt. D. Belikov was printed on the back.
Spurred on by the prospect of free stuff, I dug into my own box. The contents were similar to Dimitri's, only the shorts were shorter and I had a tank top rather than a fuller Tee. The label declared them to be my size, but I began to doubt its reliability when I struggled to pull the pant legs over my thighs.
"Either I've put on a lot of pre-wedding weight, or these sizes are small."
After a moment of struggle, Dimitri's head popped through the neck of his shirt. There was a moment where I pitied him as he tried to unbunch the shirt, but this sympathy was replaced by much stronger responses when I took in the view in front of me.
The lycra of the shirt clung to every muscle of Dimitri's torso, better than any other clothes I'd seen him in. The fabric looked like it had been painted on. It was a moment before I regained my voice.
"Hans can shop for us more often if that is the result."
Dimitri's eyes were roaming my lycra-clad body in the same way. A knock at the door brought us both back to our senses.
"Come on out once you're done," Hans shouted through the wood.
"He's lucky these were so hard to get on, or they'd be coming straight off," I murmured to Dimitri as he opened the door. He shot me a warning look, but it just made me smirk even more.
I stepped out of the tiny locker room and put my hands on my hips, posing so that Hans could inspect what I was wearing.
His eyes narrowed. "Those are... tight. The supplier said the sizes tended to come up small, but not that small."
My gaze locked on Dimitri's abs again. "I think they're fine."
He nodded in agreement, just about managing to pull the fabric of his shirt away from his body. "It's not uncomfortable."
Something I hadn't noticed before caught my attention. It was poor Guardian form, but my eyes had been focussing elsewhere. Emblazoned on the left side of Dimitri's chest was a circle containing the Ozera crest, surrounded by a white ring and a slightly metallic copper-coloured sunburst.
I knew what that meant- the copper colour was used to represent a non-ruling monarch on official stationery and the like, and the crest obviously represented Christian. The white ring around it showed that Dimitri was the personal Guardian to one individual Moroi, not a family or a group.
What I wanted to know was what important occasion could have spurred Hans to splash out on expensive, personalised uniforms.
"Okay Hans, I know you didn't call us here just to play dress-up. What gives?"
Hans gestured for us to enter his office, and we took seats opposite his desk.
"Last week I received a letter from the Council representatives in Romania, telling me it was time for the Tournament."
"The Tournament?" I looked to Dimitri to see if he was as confused as I was, but he was nodding along as though the ominous sounding title meant something to him. Thinking back, I remembered hearing something about a tournament in class just before Lissa and I ran away. The lesson was the morning after a party, and I'd been too hung over to pay proper attention.
Seeing my questioning gaze, Dimitri explained, "Every 20 years the Council sets up a Tournament for the top Guardians across the world. Each national Council official chooses 20 of their finest to enter the Tournament, and those chosen meet at a location chosen by Court officials to take place in the competition."
"Oh, right. I remember." The lesson we'd talked about this had been the morning after a party, and I'd been too hung over to pay proper attention. Looking back, that was kind of a recurring theme.
"It's primarily a training exercise," Hans continued. "By getting together the best Guardians from all over the world, the hope is that they will share skills and experiences that can be taken away and then shared with colleagues back home." He frowned. "Why don't you know all this?"
I wasn't particularly keen on informing Hans of my frequently inebriated teenage years. "Skipped a few semesters, remember?"
"Right. Well, it's true that it isn't an overly well-publicised event. Happening only every 20 years makes it hard to follow, and very few Guardians will ever even know anyone there." Considering this was an event set up to improve communications, that sounded counter-productive. "It's mostly just a tradition now, rather than having a purpose." Stuffy elitist traditions with no real purpose. I was more than happy to leave that stuff to the Moroi."You two have been selected."
There was silence for a beat.
"Wait, what?"
Hans looked amused. "I'm not sure why you're so surprised. The two of you have ready made more kills than most will see in their lifetime, and have international reputations."
Dimitri was quick to thank Hans for his recommendation. I was just trying to hold back laughter that had threatened to break free when Hans mentioned reputations, considering I hadn't been aware of this event since I'd been too hung over to pay attention when told about it the first time.
"We are truly honoured to have been selected for this, Guardian Croft. My only concern is regarding the date of the Tournament, and whether we will be available to attend."
He'd said what I had been thinking, only much more politely.
"The Tournament will take place on the 1st and 2nd of June. We'll drive up early on the morning of the event to start at midnight, and be back on the 3rd," Hans explained.
"Hold on," I interrupted. "Aside from the fact that the 1st of June is tomorrow, we booked out the 3rd months ago. It's the only time we both have available to go buy our wedding rings." We had to go to a special jewellery store that would make up rings that would withstand the beating our lifestyle demanded of us.
"Yes, I'm aware of this. I will authorise another date for you both to leave Court to do whatever you need."
Dimitri stepped forward. "With all due respect, that won't be possible. The 3rd is the last possible date for us to do this. There must be an alternative solution."
I stared Hans down, waiting for him to compromise. Finally, a weary sigh showed he had given in.
"Fine. We'll stop on the way home so you can choose your wedding rings." He sounded so defeated it was almost comical. "You'll have an hour, and I'll tell the rest of the team that we're stopping for fuel and a rest break. Understood?"
"Yes sir," Dimitri and I replied in unison. It wasn't very long, but we'd take what we could get.
Hans handed over an envelope to each of us. "Everything you need to know is in there. I want you outside the garages tomorrow at 5am sharp, or we'll leave without you."
"And waste all the effort you went to getting these made?" I said, causing Hans to glare at me. Figuring it was for the best, I let it drop and made a mental note to just be there on time. One thing was still bothering me though. "If a load of Guardians are going off to this thing, who'll be protecting the Lissa? And Christian," I tacked on. Dimitri so didn't need to lose another charge because he wasn't there to protect him. Plus, I'd kind of miss the idiot eventually.
Hans' expression shifted back to business. "We haven't had any threat reports lately, and the short notice that Guardians will be leaving should prevent anyone from planning around that fact. The King and Queen will have as many guards as usual."
That wasn't good enough for me. "Can't you increase their detail a bit? I'd just feel happier that way." I didn't want to insinuate that I didn't trust other Guardians to do their job, but, well, I didn't.
Apparently Hans wasn't in the mood to fight with me over this. "Will an extra near guard for both the King and Queen be satisfactory?"
"Add one more to the door, and I'll make sure I get to the garages five minutes early."
"I think that's highly unlikely," Hans scoffed, "but hope springs eternal. You've got your extra Guardians, now get out of here. I have work to do."
We got out of there.
"He thinks he has it hard doing paperwork," I complained as soon as we were out of earshot. "I've barely slept in a week, and now he's dragging us to who-knows-where to compete against the best Guardians in the world. Sadly, I don't think Sleeping Lions will feature in the Tournament."
Dimitri laughed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders as we walked home.
"You could suggest it, but I don't think the Council will be too enamoured."
"And that's a shame, because playing dead is a great way to sneak attack a Strigoi," I mused.
"Only if you can hold your breath and stop your heart beating."
"Stop ruining my awesome ideas with your boring logic."
The fingers of his free hand caught my chin and tilted my face up to his so he could kiss me. The setting sun had nothing on the warmth of his lips as they moved against mine.
We walked in silence back to the palace, just enjoying these brief moments of being alone together. When Dimitri opened our apartment door, I could hear three voices talking from within. Each one had a different accent, none of them American. That could only mean one thing.
My father had arrived.
"Shit, he's already here," I whispered frantically. "How do we know he didn't introduce himself as Zmey or something even worse?!"
"Calm down Rose," Dimitri said. "Your mother is here; she can keep Abe in check. Anyway, it's not like he's a total stranger to my family. They've met before."
"That's the problem!" I hissed. "You know what they say about first impressions dying hard, and nothing dies harder than a mobster vampire!"
Dimitri caught my arm, preventing me from turning and running straight back out the door.
"It's fine, Roza. Listen- they're laughing. Abe isn't completely socially inept."
"Of course, how could I forget. He can also be very charming and a huge flirt!"
The corners of Dimitri's mouth turned down in a grimace and I thought I saw him repress a shudder. "Come on, we should be in there."
I threw my hands up. "Thank you!"
Fortunately, I turned to the corner to see Abe seated safely beside my mom on the large couch, Viktoria and Olena on the other. They were indeed laughing, and looked up as we entered.
"Ah, there's my little girl," Abe beamed.
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes, instead settling for crossing my arms over my chest in a sign of defiance. "And there you are, Old Man. I hope you've been on your best behaviour."
He laughed good naturedly. "She gets her sense of humour from me," he told Olena proudly.
"Clearly not, since that wasn't actually meant to be a joke. I hope you haven't been scaring people."
Abe feigned a look of hurt, something which wasn't very effective on a man with gold hoop earrings and a goatee.
"Of course not, kiz. Why would I scare the new members of the family?"
He'd tried to do so to Dimitri, but I guess he wasn't worried about Olena or Viktoria running off and breaking my heart. Maybe he deserved a little more credit- after all, the Mafia had strong family values. "Sometimes you do it unintentionally," I hedged.
That just made him smile even more, teeth flashing along with his jewellery. "Such a sweet child."
He stood up, and mom did the same.
"Wait, you're leaving already?" I asked. "But we just got here."
Abe kissed the top of my head and apologised. "Sorry kiz, but there's no peace for the wicked. The business that overran and kept me from coming here is unfortunately still incomplete. I took a break to stop by and meet these lovely people, and now I have a meeting to debrief some of my associates."
"Oh." I hadn't seen Abe in a while, and now that he was disappearing again, I realised I'd actually missed him a bit. I'd gotten used to having my dad around. "Well, before you go, I wanted to say that Dimitri and I have been selected for the Tournament. Feel free to use that to impress your associates." Just as I'd suspected, the name did mean something to everyone else in the room. Once again, it was just me who had been oblivious.
"Really?" Mom asked. "When did you find out?"
"Just now," Dimitri told her. "That was what Hans wanted to meet us about."
"Oh, congratulations!" Olena exclaimed, getting up to hug both Dimitri and I.
Abe just stood there looking impressed. "I can't say I'm surprised, since you two are obvious candidates. I am, however, very proud." He shook Dimitri's hand before pulling me into a hug that was only slightly awkward.
My mom was next, as Viktoria chattered excitedly to Dimitri. "When do you leave?" I heard her ask.
"Around this time tomorrow," he replied.
Mom nodded along. "Did you get given your letters?"
"Yeah, but we haven't had a chance to read them yet. Hans is giving out some more right now."
"Of course. You're supposed to receive your letter less 48 hours before the start of the event, depending on how far away you live. Your reply has to be received less than 24 hours after that so they can ask the reserve. That rarely happens, though."
Just then, my phone beeped with an incoming message from Eddie. I opened the attachment to see a picture of an envelope addressed to him, the seal of the Guardian Council embossed on the front.
"Eddie's coming too!" I exclaimed, grabbing Dimitri's arm. "This is going to be so much fun!"
Dimitri smiled wryly. "Not for everyone else, I think, with you and Eddie terrorising the place."
I dropped his arm, glaring. "We do not terrorise. We liven things up."
I was so, so pleased for Eddie. After the whole mess of him killing Tasha's bodyguard, we'd all worried that his reputation would be damaged forever. But he'd clawed his way back up the ranks with his great skill, proving to people time after time what a great Guardian he was. In a recent raid which Dimitri and I hadn't attended, Eddie had taken down almost as many Strigoi as the other 5 guys put together. He deserved this. We all did.
Abe left shortly after that, my mom going with him to give us more space to say goodbye to Vika and Olena.
"You guys are going to be amazing," Viktoria said as she stood at the bottom of the plane steps. "I'm expecting first and second place at this Tournament, so I can show off to everyone how awesome my brother and sister-in-law are.
Dimitri laughed indulgently at his little sister's enthusiasm. "Slow down there Vika, don't get your hopes up quite so high. Art Shoenburg was the last winner of this Tournament."
That didn't even dent her belief in us. "He was way old when he took part, so you two have no excuse not to be even better."
"Alright Vika, we'll do our best," I promised. "I think the winner of this wins the privilege of not doing dishes for months, so we'll be fighting our best against each other, and will hopefully win some bragging rights for you in the process."
"Fine, but you still need to win."
Olena rolled her eyes, gently pushing her daughter out of the way. "Ignore her. Do your best, learn lots, but most importantly, stay safe and have fun. We'll see you in about two weeks." She hugged me before embracing Dimitri, talking to him in Russian that I didn't attempt to translate.
"Say hi to everyone for me," I reminded Viktoria.
"I will. They'll be so excited to see you. Karolina is dying to see the dress already, and I'm sure Zoya will be even worse when she realises that you've bought it."
I could imagine the excitement of a wedding gown to a princess-obsessed 3 year old. Since she was my flower girl, I'd decided to buy a little bracelet or something to give her when I gave my bridesmaids their gifts. I would get it when Dimitri and I went to the jewellers to get our rings.
"Show them the pictures, but remind them that it looks different in real life." The lights that had flattered everyone in the bridal salon had not been so friendly to cell phone cameras- almost all our pictures had come out looking weird. The Moroi looked practically translucent, but at least we had a couple of good ones that Mia had insisted on taking before we got back in the car.
"I will, but it looks great either way," she beamed, before reaching out to hug Dimitri again. She whispered something to him before skipping up the rest of the plane steps, Olena following behind at a more sedate pace. Dimitri and I moved back to a safe distance as the jet engines fired up, and waved as the plane took off down the runway.
"What did she say?" I asked curiously as the plane's wheels left the ground and it began its ascent. Once it had banked away from us, we began heading back towards the palace.
"Viktoria was just reminding me that if I sneaked a look at your dress, she'd tell Sonya about the time I opened the door for her creepy then-boyfriend and scared him off."
He said it in such a casual way that I felt very sorry for this 'creepy' boyfriend. "Seriously? I'm so glad I never had an actual brother. Eddie's protective enough as it is!"
Dimitri shrugged. "I did the same thing Sonya would have done a couple of weeks later when she found out what a creep he was. I just saved her a lot of time and stress."
"Yeah," I scoffed. "I don't know what would be scarier- you chasing off your sister's unsuitable boyfriend, or her reaction if she ever finds out!"
He grimaced. "Sonya can be lethal when she's angry, even about something that happened years ago."
"Good," I said, satisfied. "I guess I won't have to worry about you sneaking that look, then."
"You know I wouldn't do that anyway," he said. "I can actually wait for surprises."
Looking him up and down, I was reminded of the tight-fitting shirt he'd tried on earlier, and would be wearing over the next couple of days. It was such a shame we'd be in public then, but I had a plan to make it more bearable.
"Well, you could wait until the wedding to see the whole effect..." I said, leaning closer, "or you could get a preview of certain wedding-related activities right now." I finished with my best man-eater smile.
Dimitri was suddenly in a great hurry to get back to our apartment. Guess he wasn't such a big fan of waiting for surprises as claimed to be.
So basically the Tournament is the result of my short attention span. I wanted to take a break from wedding planning stuff for a bit to liven the story up and get back in synch with writing badass Romitri rather than just fluffy Romitri (as much as I love writing fluffy Romitri). I also haven't really had a chance to write any Eddie since reading Silver Shadows, and that needs attention! Next chapter should contain a DPOV, since he's been quiet for a while.
Review and get to check out Dimitri's new uniform ;)