Sorry this was delayed! A friend came to me for help with a bunch of essays that needed to be looked over for a scholarship application, and the deadline for that was fixed, so I had to push this back. I don't think you'll mind the wait once you get reading, though. ;) Next update will be this Sunday, come hell or high water, and the next one's a lot of fun!

Her shoulders went taught with suspicion. It wouldn't be a Strigoi — it was midday, the sun trying to break through the clouds — so whoever it was must've had some kind of personal interest in her for reasons yet unknown.

She checked her peripherals and did as subtle a vision sweep as she could manage without turning her head. Nothing seemingly out of the ordinary. She stopped in her tracks and stooped down, pretending to adjust the zippers on her shoes to surreptitiously check behind her. No one there either. Whoever it was knew what they were doing. Hired help or a guardian, she guessed, neither of which made sense. Anyone who knew she was here had to know it was on official Royal business. Undisclosed and classified business, too. She wasn't to be disturbed, and any contact she had with her superiors back home was through email.

Undeterred, she stood and kept walking . . . and walked straight into someone, who tsked and shook his head at the contact, an unsettling smile on his face.

"If that's how they're training guardians these days, I want my money back."

Rose took a step back, defenses on high alert now, and noticed a guardian across the street. Damn. Living at Court had made her soft. Skills at that low of a level would be certain to keep stalling her placement with Lissa.

The man before her was Moroi and older, probably somewhere in his early forties. His skin was unusual for a Moroi — off-color, like someone with a dark tan was fighting an intense illness. The deep green suit under his charcoal grey coat was far too flashy for the streets of Baia and Rose, half expecting he had a gold tooth cap to match his gold hoop earrings, was disappointed he didn't. He loosened his scarf — green and gray and just as ridiculous — and grinned. He looked like a mobster who'd just gone through a rainbow candy maker at Willy Wonka's factory.

"You might break the record for the longest amount of time a woman has stared at me," he said, still grinning.

And also definitely a creep. She wasn't about to engage with him, she decided, and wordlessly pushed past him to continue walking down the street, stopping when he called out her name.

"I've been waiting for you, Rose."

She slowly wheeled around on her heel, eyebrows raised, and approached him, stopping about a few feet away. In her peripherals, she saw at least three more guardians milling about. How special was this guy?

Suddenly, between the clothes and the accent and the general weird vibe he gave off, it clicked. "Are you Zmey?"

He looked offended, though the emotion didn't go very deep. "If that's what they're calling me these days, I'll take it. . . . I prefer Abe."

"How do you know my name?" she asked, not bothering to give into his banter, as much as her blood sang for it.

"A wild American girl, responsible for the imprisonment, jailbreak, and death of Victor Dashkov, semi-responsible for the death of Queen Tatiana Ivashkov — God rest her soul — and the only one to come close to breaking the record for the highest trial score posted by a novice since Dimitri Belikov, lands in quiet, little Baia for reasons nobody seems willing to share. Call me Cheshire because I'm a bit curious."

"You can stay curious," Rose snapped, done with the theatrics. Being reminded of her eventful senior year of high school was a surefire way of shutting her down. She turned to restart her walk home.

"I'm protective of this town and its people," Abe said, catching up to her in a few long strides. "So when a stranger lands here with a return ticket dated next year, I make it a priority to find out who she is and what she's up to."

"Go ask the Queen," Rose said briskly. She looked at him sideways. The four guardians were also following them, though farther back, like they trusted Rose in case a Strigoi had figured out how to circumvent the sunlight and popped out from behind a bush. "And in any event, I've been here almost three weeks and you're just now talking to me. Doesn't make it seem like I'm much of a priority."

"I'll talk to you when I want to talk to you, little girl," Abe said tightly, stepping in front of Rose and making her stop short.

"If that's the case, old man," Rose said, unable to help herself. Something about him made her revert to her sarcastic, irritated fifteen-year-old self. "I'll give you my phone number. Call me whenever you want. Right now, though, I want to get out of the cold and not talk to you."

A buzz went off, and Abe reached into his coat pocket, pulling out his phone with a quick glance. His face shifted at whatever the notification was, and Rose had to bite her tongue to keep from asking what could possibly spook Al Capone himself. He frowned and slid the phone back into his pocket.

"I have some other business to attend to." He flashed her a smile before stepping away. "We'll talk later."

"No, we won't," Rose muttered, stalking ahead and completely ignoring the way he watched her until she turned onto the Belikovs' street.

Later, when the family found out Rose was unsettled because of her run in with Zmey, she got a lot of shoulder squeezes and reminders to be careful.

Yeva, though, just looked weirdly excited, and Rose made sure she acted like she didn't hear a word when the woman whispered to Olena at dinner about big changes coming for the American.

Abe left town a few days after he introduced himself to Rose, Yeva reported to them at dinner one night, and Zoya burst the happy bubble of relief by launching into a detailed explanation of what Halloween was and why they had to celebrate it for the fifth night in a row. Her closing argument finished with Viktor's family is doing it so why can't we? and the adults wrote it off as antics because of her crush on the boy. After dinner, Rose, in a rare display of ease with small children, promised Zoya she'd get some candy for the girl and they could make costumes out of whatever they could find in the house.

October faded into November and with it went the sun. By Unity Day, not even a week into the month, the sun was noticeably absent, rising late and setting early and generally covered by clouds. While watching Putin address the country on television with the family crowded into one room — which was weird in and of itself, being so involved with human politics, let alone non-American politics — Rose asked, to no one in particular, why the world had gone so anti-sun all of a sudden. Zoya had been the first to answer, fingers clumsily trying to braid Rose's thick hair now that Rose had finally relented to the girl and her ever-present hairbrush, and she threw a fit when her answer of Mama says it's because Uncle Dimka's coming home soon was met with shock and unhappiness. Karolina, flushed with embarrassment, sent Zoya up to her room for the inappropriate comment.

And things hummed along. Olena pulled Rose into the kitchen around the middle of the month to teach her how to make medovik, a honey cake that Aleks loved, for his Name Day. Since so few of them actually had Name Days to celebrate, Olena explained as Rose crushed scraps of cooked dough with the back of a knife, they usually just made a cake and that was the end of it. Birthdays were the big celebration in their family.

("Does Dimitri have a Name Day?" "Yes, at the end of October, but we don't celebrate it if he isn't here.")

Dimitri's actual birthday passed by without much fanfare. Rose was sure every kopeck Karolina made at the restaurant that month went to the four hours his family spent on the phone talking to him, the only sign that the twenty-sixth was any different than the day before, and she watched them from the couch with amusement, ignoring how she reread the same page twelve times because she was trying to figure out if she could hear his voice through the phone.

("I'm just curious," she told Sydney over the phone later that day. It was Thanksgiving back in the States. Sydney merely replied with an amused, "Uh huh, sure, Rose.")

She wasn't sure what possessed her to do it, but in the middle of listening to Olena and her daughters discuss tentative holiday plans during lunch one weekend, she pulled out her phone and set a reminder for the twentieth, when Dimitri and Viktoria were scheduled to come home for their nearly month long break.

Before she knew it, December and the good, thick winter snow had descended upon them.

She couldn't sleep. Snow softly pelted the window, almost loud enough for Rose's dhampir ears to pick up on. The blankets on her bed were a haphazard mess, most of them kicked off. A few weeks ago, she'd helped Sonya pull out the winter blankets. Sonya had given her first choice as thanks for helping her, something she was now extremely grateful for; much to Sonya's amusement, Rose had taken six blankets to add to the quilt she'd been sleeping under since October, citing the house getting exceptionally chilly at night as her reasoning. She'd also taken to wearing sweatpants, two pairs of thick socks, and three long-sleeved shirts to bed, a non-stop source of entertainment for everyone in the house.

Frustrated and feeling insomniatic, Rose decided facing the cold was worth the tea she knew was downstairs in the kitchen. She slipped out from underneath the tangle of blankets, quickly shoved her feet into her tapochki, and silently eased out of the room. Getting down the stairs and avoiding the creaky steps was a bit harder, so she bore most of her weight on the handrails. It'd be rude to wake others up just because she was too wound up for reasons she couldn't name.

The kitchen was barely illuminated by the cloud-covered moon, making it impossible to find the tea, but after several minutes of quiet, fruitless searching, she found a large box of hot chocolate mix. As quietly as she could, she pulled out a packet of the mix and mug from the cabinet and reached for the portable plastic water heater. She winced when she flipped the faucet on; in the sleeping house, it was lawnmower loud. At halfway filled, she deemed it good enough, and set the pitcher on its base and plugged it in.

She was about to flip it on when she heard a thump outside. Cursing herself for not bringing her stake — Strigoi attacks in towns like Baia weren't common, but they weren't rare, either — she reached for one of the knives sitting in a block on the counter, hoping a slash to the face would buy her enough time to run upstairs. Mentally, she started preparing for the worst.

The front door opened with a soft click and Rose stopped in the kitchen entrance, confused. Strigoi didn't usually care about trying to be quiet. They had bigger things in mind, like snapping necks and feeding on everyone's blood.

When a large, looming shadow signaled someone was about to enter the kitchen, she leapt out in an offensive maneuver she hadn't used in months — and it showed, because she was stopped short by big, strong hands and a soft grunt. She vaguely noticed one of her slipper flew off her foot into the living room across the hall with the kick. The person she'd almost attacked, though, held far more of her attention.

"You must be Rose Hathaway," a low, thick accent murmured, and Rose realized this stranger was holding her balance pretty well, gripping her wrist and calf in a way that said they didn't want to hurt her but they weren't about to let her get the better of them.

"A lot of people around here keep saying that," she whispered back gruffly, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

"Around here, you're almost as much of a celebrity as me," the person said said. In the low light, she could make out it was a guy talking, and she finally put two and two together.

"You must be Dimitri Belikov," she said.

"See?" he said. "Now we're even." He shifted her ankle up onto his shoulder, and with his free hand, he reached to flick the kitchen light on.

If he hadn't been holding her up, her knees would've given out. What few pictures she'd seen of him didn't do him any justice. She hated the phrase tall, dark, and handsome but in person, Dimitri Belikov wore it really damn well. He grinned when he saw the knife in Rose's hand aimed for his throat. "Though I don't think my mother would appreciate it if you damaged her knife or her son."

"My stake's upstairs."

"Rookie mistake."

"Can I have my leg back?"

That seemed to snap him out of it. "Yeah, sure." He dropped her leg and wrist, and she could feel the overextension in her hamstring warning her of hurt to come in the morning. He caught sight of her midnight adventures on the counter. "Were you making that?"

"No, Santa was." Damn her sarcastic tendencies.

"You're doing it wrong."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Then show me how to make hot chocolate the right way, Grand Master of the Kitchen."

There's the flirt monster that charmed every boy in school.

Dimitri snorted. "Don't let my mother hear you say that or I'll end up with kitchen duty on New Year's." His duffel slid off his shoulder and his two long strides across the kitchen dwarfed the decently sized room. He had to be at least six-six, Rose decided, watching him. Six-seven for sure. Maybe even six-eight, though that could be pushing it. Whatever. He was ridiculously tall and ridiculously hot and — no, she was not going down that road, she was here for purely objective observation. Getting involved with anyone past surface friendship was strictly forbidden. It would compromise her work.

But the idea of pushing him against the counter and sinking to her knees was certainly entertaining and not at all unwelcome despite how fast it appeared out of nowhere.

He pulled out a second packet from the box of mix she'd pulled from the cabinet and poured the water from the heater into the kettle sitting on the stove, topping it up in the sink. He reached for something in a different cabinet when the front door opened again; Rose turned to see a young woman about her age, long brown hair with the tips dyed in teal.

"Hi," she stage-whispered, setting her own duffel down on top of Dimitri's. "I'm Vika, but I figured you already guessed that."

"I'm Rose." Confusion rose up again, and she glanced at Dimitri. "I thought you guys weren't coming home for another few days?"

Viktoria blew her bangs off her forehead and kept her voice low. "They were worried about some threat against the school, so they sent everyone home a few days early. The kids who were gonna stay are being sent up to St. Catherine's, which is dumb, since Murmansk hasn't seen sunlight for weeks."

"They'll be fine," Dimitri murmured, eyes fixated on the kettle. Rose noticed his disposition had changed wildly when his sister walked in the room — gone was the lightheartedness she'd seen. Now there was a stoic, blank slate that betrayed nothing to her. "Nearly all of the guardians from St. Basil's are going with them to double up on security along with the standard influx of extra guardians St. Catherine's gets this time of year anyway."

Viktoria rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed. "Anyway, we're here early because of that."

Silence fell. Rose, realizing she still had a knife in her hand, slipped it back into the block and leaned against the counter, just down the counter from Dimitri, who was focused intently on the kettle, pulling it off just as it began to whistle.

"I'm going to bed," Viktoria said abruptly, grabbing her duffel and disappearing into the living room. Dimitri watched her with a look Rose couldn't define.

"I was told my mother gave you my room," he said softly when he turned back to her, breaking off chunks of a chocolate bar and dropping them in the mug. "Do you like dark chocolate?"

"Love it," she said automatically. She was trying to ignore how there were only a few inches between them without much luck. He hadn't taken his coat off, and the melted snow had yet to evaporate. His hair was dry, though, and pulled back into a ponytail that looked slightly undone, as if he'd slid a hat off when he first came inside. "And yeah, she did. You can have it while you're here, though, I'm fine with bunking with the girls or something until—"

"No, you have it. You're our guest." He reached for the kettle and carefully poured the hot water over the chocolate, melting it in the process.

"It's your room. You live here. I'm not going to make you sleep on the floor like a dog," she argued, doing her best to whisper. She crossed her arms over her chest. Their earlier conversation had been fairly loud.

"Vika sleeps on the floor regularly. It's fine."

"Stop being ridiculous. Take it."

He shook the two packets together and ripped the tops off, pouring the powder in. "It seems we're at an impasse."

"Don't tell me you speak French, too."

"I tried." He gently pressed on her hip and she moved enough for him to grab a fork out of drawer she'd been leaning against. She slid back even closer unconsciously. He began stirring the mix in. "English was the only foreign language that stuck. You're getting off topic, by the way."

"Yeah, well, it's too distract you from how I'm not going back to bed in your room."

He sighed, but it was playful, like he didn't mind arguing with her. "Roza, please."

"Roza?"

"Your name. In Russian." His brow furrowed as he mixed. "Has no one called you that yet?"

"If they have, I haven't noticed," she admitted, "But I'm pretty sure you're the first."

He hummed. "Off topic again, I see." And he flashed her a grin before brushing past her to open the fridge. He pulled out a blue plastic tub, shaking his head at the sight inside. "If a Strigoi attacks the house anytime soon, we're all going to die because I've been fattened up by the two dozen cakes my mother is going to make for this ridiculous birthday party she's insisting on having."

"She's not making two dozen cakes," Rose argued despite not having any real basis for her position.

"You say that now," he said, tone lightheartedly dangerous. He tapped her hip again, and she moved again, and this time he pulled out a spoon. She was practically hip-to-ip with when she moved back, his arm brushing hers as he worked. "We still haven't settled this room problem of ours."

"I guess we'll have to share, then," she said without thinking.

He fixed her with an incalculable stare. She met his gaze and while it was probably only seconds, it felt like it lasted an hour. "I guess we will," he settled on. He picked up the kettle and seemed surprised by how much water was left; he set it back down so he could produce a second mug and two more powder mix packets. From the other cabinet he pulled out a different kind of chocolate, breaking off several sticks of it, and was just as careful about pouring the water in his own mug.

"How are you liking Baia?" he asked conversationally.

She unfolded her arms, letting herself enjoy the lack of personal space. Even with his multiple layers, she could feel warmth radiating off him. "It's quaint. It's a nice change, to be honest."

"You live at Court now?"

She nodded. "Lissa's there, so I'm there."

He paused in his stirring for a moment. "Forgive me, I forgot you're friends with the Queen."

"Best friends," Rose corrected.

"How long have you known her?" He resumed mixing.

"Since Kindergarten. We got paired up in a writing exercise. It didn't end well. Vasilisa Dragomir and Rosemarie Hathaway seemed like a lot of work to me at the time."

"And how does something like that not end well?" he asked, reaching around Rose to gently place his fork in the sink.

"The lesson ended for me when I threw my book at my teacher and called her a fascist bastard." And if she wasn't already proud of the moment, she would forever remember his soft laugh in response.

"Why do I get the sense that part of you didn't change?" he mused aloud.

"It didn't." She watched him scoop out two generous portions of a thick, whipped cream and drop them on top of each mug of chocolatey goodness. "Lissa and I ran away when we were in high school. We only got dragged back when they found us in Portland two years later. The guardian captain took me under her wing my senior year to make sure that I caught up so I could graduate on time."

He handed her a mug. "St. Vladimir's?"

"Yeah."

"The captain there is Alberta Petrov, right?"

"Yeah." Rose tilted her head in confusion. "How did you know?"

He shrugged. "She offered me a position on the team that was tracking you and your friend down, but I declined. I wasn't ready to go back in the field."

"No shit." Her hands tightened on the mug. "Man, I feel like things would've been different if you'd been around."

"How so?" His interest seemed genuine.

She shrugged. "I don't know. I feel like a lot of stuff could've been avoided. You're a legendary fighter. Lives could've been saved." She fell silent, thoughts drifting back to Mason getting pulled into the forest as Strigoi retreated during their attack on the school during her final year.

"Maybe in another lifetime," Dimitri said, making her wonder if he'd read the report on the attack. She could feel his eyes watching her carefully. "That's creme fraiche, by the way."

She was pulled from her thoughts like she suspected he was aiming for. "What?"

"Creme fraiche," he repeated, nodding to her mug. "The white stuff."

Unable to help herself, a grin creeped across her face. "So you do speak French."

"Keep believing that," he said, putting the tub back in the fridge. "I'll make you proper hot chocolate while I'm home. This isn't even half of what I can do."

"Are you kidding me?" she asked, burning her tongue as she took her first sip too fast. It was thick and heavenly and she wanted to take a bath in it. "This is the best hot chocolate I've ever had."

"American hot chocolate is so . . . not good," he said, unable to find a better word, and she let out a loud laugh before clamping a hand over her mouth.

"Sorry," she whispered.

"You're fine," he said quietly, his own voice breathy with laughter as he cleaned up. "My family would sleep through the end of the world. But—" He reached for his own mug and started out of the kitchen, "We should probably go to bed anyway."

Rose followed him, the kitchen floor making her realize one foot was colder than the other. "I think my slipper's in the other room."

His eyes sought her feet and he barely suppressed more laughter. "That's what happens when you fail terribly at your sneak attack."

"It was a great sneak attack," Rose defended in a whisper, standing on the bottom step as he turned the kitchen light out and ducked into the living room, returning with her slipper.

"The battle cry sort of gave you away," he whispered back, grabbing his duffel as she shoved her foot back into the slipper.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said with a grin as they trekked up the stairs.

In his room, he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing when he saw the pile of blankets on the bed. "Rose, you know Baia isn't that much colder than Montana, right?"

She sniffed, setting her mug down on the bedside table she'd claimed as hers. "I'm in Siberia, you can't convince me any differently."

Pulled the top tour blankets off, he asked, "Do your feet get cold easily?"

"No."

"Then take off your socks and two of your shirts."

"What? Why?"

Had he been one of his sisters, she would've expected him to put a hand on his hip and roll his eyes. Instead, he merely shook his head. "With two people in the bed, you'll sweat to death. Trust me." When she didn't move, he added, "Who are you going to trust? You, who's experiencing her first Siberian winter or me, who's experiencing his thirtieth?"

"Thirty-first," she corrected. "Technically speaking."

"Don't remind me," he replied, making a face.

She deliberated for a minute and then relented. "Fine, you win."

Like a woman possessed, she kept her eyes locked on Dimitri's as she reached for the hem of her top two shirts and pulled them off swiftly, leaving her in a thin t-shirt that made it very clear she wasn't wearing a bra. She swelled with pride a bit at the way he swallowed hard and proceeded to make himself busy folding blankets, looking anywhere but her.

She slid under the remaining blankets and propped herself up against her pillow like she hadn't just stripped in front of — for? — him, sipping on her cooling hot chocolate and watching Dimitri fold each blanket like he had stitched them together himself. His fingers, long and most likely warm, were graceful, deftly matching corner to corresponding corner and crease straight lines. He stacked them by the door and reached in his duffel for a change of clothes, ducking out of the room without a word.

By the time he got back, she'd finished her drink and curled up under the covers, shivering from being deprived of her comfortable cocoon. Silence reigned while he flipped the overhead light off, drained his mug in three long swallows (and no, she didn't stare at his neck, that would be rude . . . oh who was she kidding?), and slipped into bed next to her. Almost instantly, the warmth of another body flooded her and she understood what he'd been trying to tell her. More blankets would've given her heat stroke. So long as he stayed next to her, she'd be just fine.

"I almost forgot," she murmured to no one in particular, watching the moonlit reflection of the snow falling against the closet on the other side of the room.

"Forgot what?" Dimitri asked after a moment, quiet and sounding almost afraid to ask.

"What it's like to sleep with someone else." After a beat, she realized with horror the implications of her words. "I mean, in the same bed as someone, not, like . . . sex."

Whatever tension already existed between them grew tenfold and Rose would later swear up and down she heard him swallow awkwardly. "I don't actually . . ."

"You've never—?"

"Nothing that was enjoyable. Not like what I think you're trying to say."

"Oh." Then: "Really?"

"Yeah. I never had a relationship get that far. Well . . . one did, but it's . . . It's a long story. Regardless, I was always on assignment."

Rose thought back to the times she used to sneak out of her dorm room to spend the night with Adrian, letting him get her drunk because you're cute when you laugh, and you only do that when you're high on Skyy, which usually ended up in their weird version of half-dressed cuddling . . . they never did anything inappropriate, not until she graduated and agreed to a real relationship. Even then, they'd had sex a grand total of three times before Sydney Sage walked into his life and they'd parted on mutual, friendly terms. There had been a couple flings in college, dates and and guys to appease Lissa more than anything. Mason — dear, sweet Mason — had tried, but when push came to shove, she'd been too nervous about actually being naked with a guy for it to go anywhere.

"I'm single," she blurted out. Then: "Oh god . . . did I really just say that?" No, no, she can't be having this conversation, this is a rabbit hole that will only lead to the destruction of her project's integrity and who knows what kind of disciplinary actions for breaking the rules—

"You did," Dimitri replied, his tone not giving anything away. She glanced at him, saw him staring at the ceiling like he was trying to memorize the paint strokes above him. She wondered if he was aware of the mere centimeters separating them — his bed really wasn't meant for two people to have lots of space.

She aimed for cool and confident and fell somewhere short of a middle schooler asking their crush out for the first time. "You probably "You probably have, like, women lined up outside your house, begging you to marry them." You need to shut your mouth, oh my god.

Could this conversation get anymore awkward? Everything had been so chill up until she'd gone and opened her big, fat mouth. She could've been just friends with this guy she's known all of an hour, a guy who's fighting skills were the stuff of campfire legends and would probably earn him a spot in guardian history textbooks, a guy she'd kill to actually have as a friend any day of the week, but no, she was trying to see if he would be down for boning, which really wasn't going to happen if her morals and ethics for her work won out—

"I don't, actually," he said with an awkward chuckle. "Not many female dhampirs around here are into relationships with other dhampirs."

She saw him link his fingers together on his stomach, above the covers, and filed away the comment for future pondering. She was here for work, after all. "So you are single."

"Yes, Rose, I am. Are you trying to get at something here?"

" . . . Possibly."

"Good."

What the fuck did he mean by that?

"I'm going to sleep."

"That's . . . probably for the best."

"Night, then."

She turned on her side, away from him.

After a few minutes, when she thought he'd fallen asleep, she heard a soft, "Good night, Rose."

She didn't sleep a wink.