The first week of school went by painfully slow.
As predicted, Adrian wasn't pleased to hear about the living arrangement, but knew that as unhappy as he was, I was more upset about the situation.
Lissa, Dimitri, and I slowly fell back into a routine of sorts. We would wake up and Dimitri would have a makeshift continental breakfast set up for us on the counter. Lissa and I would go to our morning classes—Fundamentals of European History and Comparative Politics Mondays and Wednesdays; Sociology 101 and Early American Studies on Tuesdays and Thursdays—we would head back to the apartment where Dimitri would have a prepared lunch waiting for us. The three of us would eat together and debrief the morning before Lissa and I would head out for our afternoon classes—Introduction to Political Theory and Intro to Law Mondays and Wednesdays; International Relations and Fundamentals of Writing Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Dimitri would meet us after our last class and take over the night Guardian shift while I would head to the gym for an hour or two before coming back to work on homework and study with Lissa before we'd go to sleep and start all over again the next day.
During the day while Lissa and I were at class, Dimitri would walk the campus looking for security threats, train at the gym, and take naps throughout the day so that he would be awake during the evening while Lissa and I slept.
Lissa made it so that we didn't have any classes on Fridays—being Queen Tatiana's favorite had some perks I supposed—so after we'd had a month to settle in, Christian and Adrian came to spend the weekend with us. Per our apartment rules, no overnight guests were allowed, so they stayed in a hotel just off of campus at night.
Even if we were allowed overnight guests, I don't think I would have been comfortable with Adrian staying in my room with Dimitri just a few yards away.
Too weird.
"So I took your advice and applied to an art school."
Adrian and I were lounging on the living room sofa watching a so-bad-it's-good made-for-tv movie. Christian and Lissa had long since disappeared into their room and Dimitri had made himself scarce in the apartment upon the boys' arrival.
I pulled away from Adrian and gave him a playful shove, "And?!"
Adrian grinned, "I was accepted yesterday. I begin in January."
I threw myself around him, "That's wonderful! I'm so excited for you! Where are you going?"
"Lyons University."
"That's just 30 minutes away!" I exclaimed.
"That was part of the appeal."
I hugged him a little tighter, "I am so proud of you!"
"Thank you for believing in me, Little Dhampir. No one has ever…really told me I had potential to be something other than a Moroi royal before."
I pulled back a little, arms resting on his shoulders, "Of course you're more than just a Moroi royal. I mean…it took a little time to break through that playboy façade of yours, but the guy underneath is pretty damn wonderful."
Adrian grinned, "He is, isn't he?"
I gave him a playful shove just as Dimitri came out of his room heading for the kitchen.
He took one look at me practically straddling Adrian and softly cleared his throat.
Was he blushing?
I slowly moved off Adrian—who was pointedly ignoring Dimitri's intrusion—and settled back in on the sofa next to him.
As if on cue, Lissa and Christian, came into the living room oblivious to the tension that was beginning to fill the space.
"What are everyone's plans for dinner?" Lissa asked excitedly, "Christian was thinking that he could whip something up and we could just stay in. What do you think?"
"I think that sounds great!" I agreed from the couch, "It's been awhile since I've had some of Sparky's home cooking."
Christian rolled his eyes as Adrian chimed in with a sentiment similar to mine, nickname and all.
Christian and Lissa made quick work of drafting up a grocery list. Dimitri, who was the Guardian on duty, put on his jacket and looked over pointedly at Adrian and I on the sofa.
I met his gaze and raised my eyebrows, "Yes?"
"I thought we set up a two Guardian protocol for off campus trips." He stated stoically.
His statement was innocent enough, which was why Christian and Lissa paid it no mind, but the words dripped with judgement and contempt.
He looked from me to Adrian and it took all of my self-restraint not to roll my eyes at him. Instead, I snapped my own Guardian mask into place.
And here I had thought we were over this.
"You're correct, Guardian Belikov. I'll go put on my shoes." I turned to look at Adrian, "Hold down the fort or come along for the ride?"
Adrian took one look at my expression and then glanced just a little to the left—presumably reading my aura—before responding.
"I'll hold the fort down. Get the oven pre-set and all that. Christian? Anything I need to prep while you're away?"
Adrian hopped off the couch and walked over to Christian to converse about oven temperatures and getting a large stockpot of water boiling.
I stood up and mechanically went to the front door retrieve my leather boots and jacket.
One of the good things about having a boyfriend who can read your aura is that he knows when you're royally pissed off and will generally leave you alone.
My Guardian partner on the other hand, had no such talent.
"Rose, you cannot let your relationship with Adrian get in the way of your Guardian duties." He stated, buttoning his jacket up in an infuriatingly nonchalant way.
"Uh huh." I muttered as I bent down to zip up my boots, not trusting myself to look at him or say anything more, "Got it."
Unfortunately, Dimitri didn't take the hint.
"Rose, I know that being in college is a wonderful experience for you, but you have to remember—"
"That I'm Lissa's Guardian first? Yeah, receiving that message loud and clear." I interrupted.
"You don't have to act like this." Dimitri said crossing his arms.
Across the room Adrian sucked in his breath.
I slowly straightened up and looked him square in the eye, "I am fairly certain I have no idea what you are talking about. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go get the car."
"Stay here with Lissa. I'll drive."
I bit my tongue so that I wouldn't say something I regretted. Oh, we would definitely have words later, but for now, we just needed to get to the grocery store in one piece.
Lissa—finally picking up that there was something unpleasant going on—went out of her way to try to engage Christian and Dimitri in conversation to help defuse the situation, but the tension remained throughout the trip.
When we got back to the apartment, things got a little better in that there were more things to keep us all occupied. I helped Adrian cut up veggies while Lissa and Christian got to prepping the chicken. Dimitri, perhaps finally understanding that he was pushing his luck with the fact that I hadn't snapped at him yet, set the table before retreating to his room until dinner.
We got through dinner relatively well, with only a handful of awkward pauses in conversation. We started clearing the table together when Dimitri decided it was time to push the issue.
"Rose, can I speak with you a moment?"
I set the stack of plates that I had been carrying down in the sink and sighed.
This wasn't going to be pleasant.
"Sure."
He motioned for me to follow him to his room and I followed. Dimitri shut the door after I entered and sat down in his desk chair. In an attempt to not meet his gaze, I took inventory of the room, realizing that I had never even glanced into this space before, let alone had been in it prior to this.
It was set up very similarly to his room at St. Vladimir's, I realized.
My face started to heat when I thought of the circumstances as to why I had been in his room at the Academy, but mid-thought, the warmth I had begun to feel had quickly died and left me feeling nothing. Not cold. Not less warm event. Just…nothing.
It was almost as if a switch in my brain had suddenly just turned off.
But I wasn't the one who had flipped the switch.
I frowned, looking around the room again trying to make sense of what had just happened when my eyes fell on Dimitri who had clearly started to say something, but stopped when he realized something was off.
"Rose…" he started cautiously, "is everything alright?"
I looked at Dimitri—at the look of genuine concern on his face which had replaced the subtle patronizing look that had had been wearing all evening—and started to panic. The only other time he had looked at me like that was the night that the darkness had taken over and he had to talk me down from my Spirit induced rage.
The night everything had changed.
"I…I don't know." I stammered, taking a few dazed steps over to his bed and taking a seat on its edge, "I came in here ready to just yell at you, but then I started looking around and I started thinking about…how familiar this room looked and then…I just…stopped feeling things."
Dimitri listened to me patiently as I tripped over my words, looking at my clenched hands that had begun to shake.
"Stopped feeling things?" He asked, slowly scooting a little closer to where I sat, "What do you mean by that?"
"I don't know. I was feeling something and then I just wasn't. Like someone turned a switch off in my brain."
"But not you?"
I looked at him for a moment before answering, "No."
We sat in silence for what felt like the slowest thirty seconds of my life before I realized how close Dimitri had gotten to me and where I was sitting.
That warm feeling started coming back and just as swiftly as last time, abruptly stopped.
I looked away from him, panic starting anew.
I needed to get out of there.
"It just happened again, didn't it?" He asked, "Rose, what's—"
"You know what? It's probably nothing. It's just been a weird couple of hours and this is probably just a result of the tension that has been between us all evening and—"
Dimitri cut me off by grabbing both of my shaking hands with his, "Rose. Something is wrong. I can tell. You need to tell me what's going on. We need to figure out what is triggering this…mind switch. What are you feeling in the moments before it happens? Is there something specific that you are thinking about?"
My eyes were only able to focus on my hands in his. My mind was racing…but at the same time wasn't. His hands were flooding me with a warmth that quickly died as soon as I registered that it was there.
I was thinking about something specific.
I was thinking about him.
Or rather, how I felt when around him and remembering our past.
I slowly withdrew my hands from his, trying to think about what I should say.
"It feels like back when I was in Siberia with you." I whispered.
Dimitri stiffened.
"Only instead of feeling drugged I just…don't feel." I continued, "But only when I'm around you."
"But you just said that you had felt angry towards me earlier." He stated, narrowing his eyes at me like he was trying to work through a riddle.
"I did. I mean, I still kind of am when I think about it." I said, the words just falling out, "But I wasn't thinking about how you pissed me off today by trying to throw my relationship with Adrian in my face, I was thinking about…"
I immediately stopped talking.
This was so not the conversation I thought we would have this evening.
It wasn't a conversation I wanted to have with him ever.
"Thought about what, Rose?" He pressed.
I hesitated, sneaking a glance at him before I responded, "About us."
Author's Note: Sorry it took so long to update! There have been some major life changes over the past few months (Starting a new job! Moving to a new city! Traveling!) and an unexpected computer crash resulting in having to buy a new laptop and an insanely difficult time trying to recover old files. It all adds up to a fun time, BUT I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who has liked and followed this story during that time and especially thank those who have taken the time to review! Those notification emails just made me work harder to recover my lost documents and please accept this looooooong chapter as a token of my gratitude for you all waiting patiently for me to get my ish together.
Things are about to get interesting.
