A/N- Thank you everyone for all the great reviews! I know you guys can't wait until Valentine's Day and frankly I'm really excited to write that scene myself. I've got an outline of it going right now with muse19 and I'm not even sure if I can fit it all in one chapter. I hope so. Anyway here's a surprise update because I'm in such a good mood after this week. Enjoy a chapter of Dimitri goodness!

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Vampire Academy, it all belongs to Richelle Mead.

Chapter 11: They Come First

Dimitri POV

After leaving Rose I dashed down the stairs and out of the dorms towards the front gates. Seeing me, the sentries quickly unlocked the gate so I could push through easily and help the other guardians. Now that we were all working together, we easily killed the one strigoi outside the gates, but not before he whispered "there are more" and then collapsed at our feet. Heeding the warning, Alberta deemed that it wasn't safe for us to call the alchemists yet. It also wasn't good to leave the body out in the open like this. Two younger guardians dragged the body behind a bush and covered it with some brush so we could take care of it later. Alberta made a call and when she finished she told us that she wanted some of us to continue hunting the rest of the strigoi while the rest went back to campus. I had a feeling that I wasn't going to be going back the academy.

Moments later, I found out I was right. Being considered "one of the best" meant that I was always chosen for high priority missions like this. I sighed as I trudged through the woods with Yuri and 2 others. Soon I saw the sun peeking out of the sky and cursed under my breath. I had promised Rose a perfect Valentine's Day. I didn't know when we'd get back at this point, we hadn't spotted any signs of strigoi and now that the sun was rising there was even less of a chance of us finding the strigoi. They were probably holed up somewhere. I didn't know how I'd make it up to Rose if I didn't make it back in time. She had been so moody lately. I just wanted to make her happy.

I had to do something to make sure she knew I didn't forget. To let her know that I cared enough to plan something. I thought and thought and I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to leave Roza hanging on Valentine's Day. At the very least I could give her the dress and some flowers. Maybe Ivashkov would help me, he knew about it us so it wouldn't be suspicious. And he helped me before. I took my phone out hoping I had service and texted him. Hopefully he would get it and answer. It was late in the moroi night but perhaps he'll see it in the morning. I wanted him to leave roses in Roza's room and leave the box I had set up. The dress was in there along with a note I wrote ahead of time.

Minutes later I felt my phone vibrate. I guess Ivashkov had gotten my text. We were circling the supposed strigoi hideout now, I didn't have time to check his response. I guess I just had to hope that he did what I asked. It was an old house not too far from a main road. We called to alberta for further directions. We thought we had found their hideout, but there was no way of knowing how many strigoi were inside, if there were even strigoi inside. We could have stumbled upon a human home for all we knew. Yuri called Alberta for further instructions. I hoped that she would tell us we could head back. I just wanted to go back to my Roza.

While Yuri was making the call I checked my phone. Adrian had texted me back. "Just do everything when you get back. Rose will like that best." Damn ivashkov for refusing. I didn't know who else to ask. Maybe I could ask him again. Maybe, at least he'd deliver the box. I texted him again begging him to at least get the box to Roza before 4pm today. I wanted her to have it in time for when I got back. If I got back tonight. At last Yuri got back to us from Alberta. She wanted us to wait until the sun was highest in the sky and then peer in the windows to see if the strigoi were present. If we weren't outnumbered, she wanted us to fight. It was going to be a long wait. The sun was just peering above the treeline and partly covered by clouds. We decided to take shifts resting since it was the middle of the night in the moroi world. Most have us have been up for over 24 hours now, we all should be exhausted. It was my turn to rest right now. I couldn't sleep, but I closed my eyes and thought about my Roza.

Finally it was sunny enough for us to take a look. Being the tallest I was made to search through the second floor windows. I saw 4 people on the second floor. I didn't know if they were human or strigoi but I quickly faded into the shadow of the trees so they would see me. I met up with Yuri and the others and we decided that there had to be at least 10 people in that house. I had never heard of that many strigoi working together. It was dangerous for us to try to head in with the possibility we could get trapped, but we had to eliminate the problem. We started making a plan of attack, I was wary of the time. We had wasted much of the sunlight waiting. We only had a few hours left.

"I say we attack from the exits, then it will be easy for us to escape into the sun and so they cannot get out." I said, taking leadership. The others slowly nodded their head. We all were tired and wanted to get this over with. I think some of them would have agreed to any plan. Even a suicidal one.

We started positioning ourselves at the door. I took the front with two other guardians while Yuri and the other two took the back door. We had wanted to station people by the windows but we needed to show a force of power. In the radio at the count of three, Yuri and I kicked the door down. We were right, on this floor there were 4 strigoi. Two came for us at the front and two came for us at the back. My group fought them off easily, but the other group was still struggling. I wanted to go over there and help but that would mess up our strategy. I could get caught by a strigoi in the middle. I didn't know what to do.

When we had killed the strigoi on our end I ran over to help Yuri and the others, but I didn't see the strigoi coming up behind me and I was kicked down. All I could think about right now was surviving. I had to get back to Rose. I rolled around and tried to get on my feet, great now my back hurt. It was difficult dodging the attacks being so tall. The others seemed more occupied in their strigoi than helping me with the one I was battling right now. It was almost like everyone was fighting for themselves instead of working as a unit. The strigoi was trying to intimidate me, saying he was going to turn me, that they could use a new fighters in their ranks. That wasn't going to happen. "Over my dead body." I muttered. I was going to make it back to Rose. We were fighting for who knows how long now, in the distance I could see the sun starting to set. We had to get out now.

Finally I managed to get to my feet and stake the strigoi, but not before he tripped me so as I fell atop the dead body, I felt my ankle twist and crack. I could see that the others had finished off their strigoi too, but some were injured. Many had bruises and cuts and others were limping like myself. We hurried out of the house and to the nearest road. It was almost dark now and we had to get back to the academy quickly. We didn't have a chance to explore the house before the sun set so we didn't know if there were any more strigoi that could come after us. We were in no condition to fight now.

We waited a while for the alchemists to arrive. I don't think they were expecting so many of us so we had to wait for another car to arrive. First we went to town. It was decided that some guardians had to stay in town today, so that they could check the house tomorrow before the alchemists got rid of the bodies. They didn't want one of their own to get captured and used as a blood bag. Only those that had minor scratches could stay. I was never more thankful that I twisted my ankle. This way I could go home to my Roza.

By the time the other alchemists arrived to take the guardians to town it was the midday for us, the middle of the night for humans. I had officially been awake for more than 24 hours and I was starving. Dhampirs needed a lot of food to function. We burned it off quickly. I would have been perfectly fine getting food at the academy, but the other guardians thought otherwise. They decided they wanted to go to a diner and I was in no position to object.

We sat down and got our food. People stared because we were an odd group. The alchemists were dressed like business professionals and while we guardians were dressed well, our clothes were mussed and torn up a bit making it clear we had been in a fight. The waitress we had was too flirty. She kept trying to touch my arm as she took everyone's order. It was the first time I noticed. Rose had told me that I never paid attention to these kinds of things when she was around. That was because I was always too preoccupied with watching her.

Yuri sat across from me as we ate our burgers. He was almost staring. "This was an unexpected hard day. Not like any of us ever have plans on the 14." I mentioned off hand. I nearly grumbled in response before I stopped myself. No one knew about Rose and my relationship and I wanted to keep it that way. "Yes, but today was my day off, I wanted to spend it catching up with my family." I lied, he had already caught my scowling face. I knew it wasn't like me the shirk from my duty. I had thrown myself into it after Ivan.

"You can call them now." Yuri said with his mouth full. " None of us will care." I quickly came up with an excuse, as much as I wanted to talk to my family, I didn't want to call now. If Viktoria answered the questioning wouldn't stop. "No it's alright," I said to Yuri. "It's getting late there and they should be getting to bed now anyways. I'll call later night." Yuri just looked at me with a face but didn't say anything to my shitty excuse. By now I had finished my burger and was working on my fries. We were all almost done, this way we could get back to the academy soon. Looking at my phone I saw that classes were almost done, if any of the students actually attended, and we had a long drive ahead of us.

The drive back was silent. Everyone was exhausted and satisfied with themselves after we had dinner. By the time we got back to the academy it was already 7:50 almost 8. They herded us into the infirmary, even though I wanted to dash to my room. I was going to be late for Rose. But according to Alberta, we all needed to get checked first.

The doctor checked us all out one by one. I was in the middle of the line so by the time she got to me it was already 8:30 and I was getting impatient. I was 30 minutes late for Rose now. I didn't want her to think I was leaving her. As soon as the doctor cleared me I hobbled to my room. What I suspected was right, I had twisted my ankle. I was supposed to keep off it for a day or so and not do any strenuous activities. Maybe I could get Ivashkov to heal it. He wasn't that bad at such things. I knew I couldn't ask the princess because she didn't have a good way to deal with it and it was bad to her health. Oh god by the end of this I would be owing him so much. I wonder if he ever brought the box to Rose?

I got to my room and saw that the box was gone. That was good. It meant Ivashkov had gotten my message, but it also meant Rose was waiting for me at the cabin right now! I hurried and changed into cleaner and neater clothes and hurried down the back stairs towards the woods. Thankfully no one stopped me. I ran through the woods towards the cabin as fast as I could. I was so late.

I gathered myself outside before I opened the door. Entering the cabin, I saw it was still dark, but my Dhampir vision still made it easy to move around. Perhaps Rose grew tired of waiting for me. I was an hour late. I sighed and made my way to the table to light some candles. I guess I'd have to clean everything up first, I could go find Rose later. I was disappointed. All the work I had put into this special day was ruined by strigoi. They seemed to be the stem of most of our problems. With more light in the cabin I saw that there was a figure sleeping on the bed in the corner of the room. I moved closer, and saw my Roza in the beautiful red dress I bought her sleeping away on the bed. "Oh Roza." I whispered. I reached out to brush her hair out of her face. Then she stirred. "Dimitri..." she muttered in her sleep. Was she dreaming about me?

Rose then shot up in the bed, blinking her eyes. "Dimitri?" she asked. Yes my Roza its me, I'm here. "Roza." I sighed, pulling her into my arms and hugging her tight. I kissed her gently. "Happy Valentine's Day my love."

"Happy Valentine's Day." I smiled, kissing her again and burying my face in her hair.

A/N- I hope you liked my surprise! Get excited! Valentine's Day is coming! I'm sorry I suck I writing fight scenes. I gotta work on that. It's hard doing those in first person! Also one more reviewer till the 100th on this one!

Ciao!

~Tiffany 3