Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Academy (unfortunately) and have used its characters and general plot in order to create this story. I have also kept the same sort of structure as the original story and include some of the original lines, and I AM NOT taking credit for Richelle Mead's work. This is my take on how the story could have gone with hopefully a few more things expanded on and explained. I also wanted more involvement of spirit and a more badass Rose, so...here it is.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed/favourited/followed!
Chapter Four
We didn't have the entire commons' attention this time, thank God, but a few passing people had stopped to watch the action. Vultures. The lot of them.
"What the hell?" asked Doll Girl, clearly pissed.
Being up close to her now, I was able to get a better look at what she really looked like. She had the same slim build as most Moroi but in no way the usual height, which was partly what made her look so young. The tiny, brightly coloured dress she wore was indeed lovely—reminding me that I did, in fact, dress in second hand clothes from a thrift-shop while we were away and was now wearing the same (now too small) clothes that I had bought two years previously —but closer inspection led me to think it was a designer knockoff. That made me feel heaps better.
I refocused on the situation, crossing my arms across my chest and pulling the shirt tighter across my chest and arms, exposing the muscle there. "Are you lost, little girl? The elementary school's over on west campus."
Her cheeks flooded with colour as did much of her neck and she took a hesitant step back almost automatically. "Don't you ever touch me again. You screw with me, and I'll screw with you right back."
Hah, what an opening that was.
No, Lissa told me through the bond while shaking her head slightly. She knew I was only seconds away from unleashing any number of hilarious comebacks. So instead I opted for simple brute force, so to speak. Just to make sure the message well and truly got through her small, and obviously thick, skull.
"And if you mess with either of us again, I'll break you in half. If you don't believe me, go ask Dawn Yarrow about what I did to her arm in ninth grade. You were probably at nap time when it happened." I'd also tell her to ask the strigoi I killed, but a) that would be spilling the beans, and b) she can't exactly ask them as, well, it isn't as if there is anything left of them after I was done.
The incident with Dawn hadn't been one of my finer moments. I honestly hadn't meant to break any bones when I pushed her into that tree. Still, the incident had given me a dangerous reputation, in addition to my smartass one. The story had literally gained legendary status around the school, and I liked to imagine that it was still being told around campfires late at night. Judging from the look on this girl's face and the way the colour receded out of her face, it was.
One of the patrolling staff members strolled by right then, casting suspicious eyes at our little meeting. Clearly, they knew my reputation too.
The girl sent a hesitant look in the direction of the teacher and she backed off, taking Aaron's with her. "Come on," she said, tugging at his arm.
"Hey, Aaron," I said cheerfully, remembering he was there. It was so easy for him to blend into the background. "Nice to see you again."
He gave me a quick nod and an uneasy smile, just as the girl finally managed to drag him off. Same old Aaron. He might be cute, but aggressive he was not.
I turned back to Lissa. "You okay?" She nodded. "Any idea who I just threatened to beat up in your honour?"
"Aww, my Knight in Shining Armour. And not a clue." I started to lead her toward the lunch line, but she shook her head at me. I've gotta go see the feeders, she told me through the bond.
A funny feeling settled over me. I'd gotten so used to being her primary blood source that the thought of returning to the Moroi's normal routine of feeding off of random humans seemed strange and almost unsettling.
Daily feedings were part of a Moroi's life, something I hadn't been able to offer her while living on our own. It had been an inconvenient situation, one that left me weak and unprepared on feeding days and her weak on the days in between. I know I should have been happy and not feeling...like this.
I forced a smile. "Sure."
We then proceeded to walk into the feeding room which was placed conveniently next to the cafeteria. It was set up with small cubicles, dividing up the room's space in order to offer privacy, much like a hospital would be. A dark-haired Moroi woman greeted us at the entrance and glanced down, flipping through the pages of her clipboard. Obviously finding what she needed, she made a few notes and then gestured for Lissa to follow her. Me she gave a puzzled look (dhampir did not usually accompany moroi when they were feeding), but she didn't stop me from entering. There was no rule against it.
She led us to one of the cubicles where a plump, middle-aged woman sat leafing through a fashion magazine full of models that would kill for the moroi's slim body shape.
She looked up at our approach and smiled. In her eyes, I could see the dreamy, glazed-over look most feeders had. The same one I have had a lot in the past two years. She'd probably neared her quota for the day, judging from how high she appeared to be.
Recognizing Lissa, though I don't know how, her smile grew. "Welcome back, Princess."
The moroi left and Lissa sat down in the chair beside the woman. I sensed a feeling of discomfort in her, only a little different from my own. This was weird for her too. The feeder, however, had no such reservations.
Disgust poured into me as I saw her ecstatic smile. It was an old instinct, one that had been drilled into me ever since birth. Human feeders, those who willingly volunteered to be a regular blood source, were essential to Moroi life, but at the heart of it were still drug users – addicts to Moroi saliva and the rush it offered with each bite.
The feeder tilted her head, giving Lissa full access to her neck. Her skin there was marked with scars from years of daily bites. The infrequent feedings Lissa and I had done and the occasional use of spirit had thankfully kept my neck clear; my bite marks never lasted more than a day or so.
Lissa leaned forward, her fangs biting into the feeder's flesh. The woman closed her eyes, making a soft sound of pleasure. I swallowed, watching Lissa drink. I couldn't see any of the blood flowing into her mouth, but I could imagine it. A surge of longing and jealousy welled up inside me and, not for the first time, I was glad that the bond wasn't two-way. I had to avert my eyes and clenched my hands while I mentally scolded myself.
What's wrong with you? Why should you miss it? You only did it once every day or so for the last two years. You aren't addicted, not like this. And you don't want to be. It doesn't feel that good.
But I couldn't help myself. I couldn't help the way I felt as I recalled the bliss and rush of the bite. It was always especially great after I had watched what was left of the life drain away from the eyes of the strigoi I had killed. Although they had been monsters, they had been once been moroi, dhampirs and unsuspecting humans. The waste of life always got to me and a good hand scrubbing and Lissa's bite had always helped me forget, at least for a little while, what I had done. Lissa would then drag me to the nearest tattoo parlour to get my marks. I had stopped protesting and had just gone with it after a while.
Lissa finished and we went to join the line to pick up lunch. It was short, since we only had fifteen minutes left, and I strolled up and began to load my plate with French fries and some rounded, bite-size objects that looked vaguely like chicken nuggets. I had no idea and with how hungry I was, I didn't really care. Lissa only grabbed a yogurt. Moroi needed food, as dhampirs and humans did, but rarely had an appetite after drinking blood.
"So how'd classes go?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Okay. Lots of stares. A lot of stares. Lots of questions about where we were for the last two years. Whispering. Stuff like that."
"Same here," I said. The attendant checked us out, and we walked toward the tables. I gave Lissa a sidelong glance. "You okay with that? They aren't bothering you, are they? I don't need to threaten anyone else?"
"No—it's fine." The emotions coming through the bond contradicted her words. Knowing I could feel that, she tried to change the subject by handing me her class schedule. I looked it over.
1stPeriod Russian 2
2ndPeriod American Colonial Literature
3rdPeriod Basics of Elemental Control
4thPeriod Ancient Poetry
—Lunch —
5thPeriod Animal Behaviour and Physiology
6thPeriod Advanced Calculus
7thPeriod Moroi Culture 4
8thPeriod Slavic Art
"Nerd," I said. "If you were in Stupid Math like me, we'd have the same afternoon schedule." I stopped walking. "But why are you in elemental basics? That's a sophomore class."
She eyed me."Because seniors take specialized classes."
We fell silent at that. All Moroi wielded elemental magic. It was one of the things that made them different to Strigoi. Moroi viewed magic as a gift. It was part of their souls and connected them to the world. They had once used their magic openly, averting natural disasters and helping with things like food and water production. They didn't need to do that as much anymore, but the magic was still burned in their blood. Academies like this all provided classes to help Moroi control the magic and learn how to do things with it. Students also had to learn the rules that surrounded magic, rules that had been in place for centuries and were strictly enforced.
All the Moroi had small talent in each of the elements (earth, water, fire, and air) but when they got to be around our age students "specialized" with one element growing stronger than the others. Not specializing was like not going through puberty. And Lissa…well, Lissa couldn't exactly tell anyone about the additional element of spirit.
"Is Ms. Carmack still teaching that? What she'd say about it?"
She looks at me sarcastically before rolling her eyes. "She says she's not worried. She thinks it'll come."
We let the subject drop.
We started moving again, scanning the tables as we decided where to sit. A few pairs of eyes looked up at us with blatant curiosity.
"Lissa!" came a nearby voice. Glancing over, we saw an energetic Natalie waving at us. Lissa and I exchanged looks. Natalie was sort of Lissa's cousin in the way Victor was sort of her uncle, but we'd never hung out with her all that much. She was too...bouncy.
Lissa shrugged and headed in that direction. Why not?
She really had to learn to stop communicating through the bond. Someone's bound to notice eventually.
I followed reluctantly. Natalie was nice but also one of the most uninteresting people I knew. Most royals at the school enjoyed a kind of celebrity status, but Natalie had never fit in with that crowd. She was too plain, too uninterested in the politics of the Academy, and too clueless to really navigate them anyway. This was both good and bad.
Natalie's friends eyed us with a quiet curiosity, but she didn't hold back. She threw her arms around us as we stepped up to the table. Like Lissa, she had jade-green eyes (only slightly lighter), but her hair was jet black, like Victor's had been before his disease greyed it.
"You're back! I knew you would be! Everyone said you were gone forever, but I never believed that. I knew you couldn't stay away. Why'd you go? There are so many stories about why you left!" Lissa and I exchanged glances as Natalie prattled on. "Camille said one of you got pregnant and went off to have an abortion, but I knew that couldn't be true. Someone else said you went off to hang out with Rose's mom, but I figured Ms. Kirova and Daddy…"
On and on and on she chatted, flashing her shiny white fangs as she spoke. I smiled politely, letting Lissa deal with the onslaught of words until Natalie asked a dangerous question.
"What did you guys do for blood?"
The table then quietened and those around regarded us questioningly. Lissa froze, but I immediately jumped in, the lie coming effortlessly to my lips.
"Oh, it's easy. There are a lot of humans who want to do it."
"Really?" asked one of Natalie's friends, wide-eyed.
"Yup. You find 'em at parties and stuff. They're all looking for a fix from something, and they don't really get that a vampire's doing it: most are already so wasted they don't remember it anyway. And if that's not an option you have the bums on the street that are already so drugged that they don't even blink at a vamp chompin' on their neck." I then simply shrugged in as cool and confident a way as I could manage. It wasn't like any of them knew any better. "Like I said, it's easy."
Natalie accepted this and then launched into some other topic. Lissa shot me a grateful look. It wasn't a full lie though. Whenever I spent the first few days clearing the new areas of strigoi we had to find...alternative blood sources...from unreliable people.
Ignoring the conversation again, I took in the old faces. Mason, who was sitting with a group of novices, caught my eye and I smiled. Near him, a group of Moroi royals sat, laughing over something. Aaron and the small, blond girl sat there too.
"Hey, Natalie," I said, turning around and cutting her off. She didn't seem to notice. "Who's Aaron's new girl?"
"Huh? Oh. Mia Rinaldi." Seeing my blank look, she asked, "Don't you remember her? Like, at all?"
"Should I? Was she here when we left?"
"She's always been here," said Natalie. "She's only a year younger than us."
I shot a questioning look at Lissa, who only shrugged. No idea either she told me, once again communicating through the bond. It was a habit she really needed to get out of.
"Why's she so pissed at us?" I asked. "Neither of us even know her."
"I don't know," answered Natalie. "Maybe she's jealous about Aaron. She wasn't really anybody before you guys left. She got really popular really fast once she started dating Aaron, though. She isn't royal or anything —"
"Okay, thanks," I interrupted. "I don't really—"
My eyes lifted up from Natalie's face just in time to see Jesse Zeklos just as he passed by our table. Ah, Jesse. I'd forgotten all about him. I liked flirting with Mason and some of the other novices, but Jesse was put in an entirely different category. I flirted with the other guys simply for the sake of flirting. You flirted with Jesse in the hopes of getting at least a bit naked with him. He was a royal Moroi, and he was so hot, he should have worn a 'warning: flammable' sign. He met my eyes and grinned.
"Hey Rose, welcome back. You still breaking hearts?"
"Are you volunteering yours?"
His grin widened. "Let's hang out sometime and find out. If you ever get parole."
He kept walking, and I watched him (and his nice ass) admiringly. I did a quick mental check to make sure I wasn't drooling – I wasn't. Natalie and her friends stared at me in awe. I might not be a god in the Dimitri sense, but within this group, Lissa and I were gods of another nature.
"Oh my gawd," exclaimed one girl. I didn't remember her name. "That was Jesse."
"Yes," I said, smiling. "It certainly was."
"I wish I looked like you," she added with a sigh.
Their eyes fell on me. Technically, I was half-Moroi, but my looks were pure human. I'd blended in well with humans during our time away, so much so that I'd barely thought about my appearance at all (though it was still good by human standards). Here, among the slim and small-chested Moroi girls, certain features—meaning my larger breasts and more defined hips—stood out. I knew I was pretty, but to Moroi boys, my body was more than just pretty: it was sexy in a risqué way. Dhampirs were an exotic conquest, a novelty all Moroi guys wanted to "try."
It was ironic that dhampirs had such an allure here, because slender Moroi girls looked very much like the super-skinny runway models so popular in the human world. Most humans could never reach that "ideal" skinniness, just as Moroi girls could never look like me. Everyone wanted what she couldn't have.
Lissa and I thankfully got to sit together in our shared afternoon classes but didn't do much talking. At least out loud and with so many words. The stares she'd mentioned certainly did follow us, but I found that the more I talked to people, the more they warmed up. Slowly and gradually they seemed to remember who we were, and the novelty—though not the intrigue—of our crazy stunt wore off.
Or maybe I should say, they remembered who I was as I was the only one talking. Lissa stared straight ahead, listening but neither acknowledging nor participating in my attempts at conversation. I could feel anxiety and sadness pouring out of her.
"All right," I told her when classes finally ended. We stood outside the school, and I was fully aware that in doing so, I was already breaking the terms of my 'agreement' with Kirova. "We're not staying here," I told her. "I'm going to find a way to get us out."
"You think we could really do it a second time?" Lissa asked quietly.
"Absolutely." I spoke with certainty, again relieved she couldn't read my feelings. Escaping the first time had been tricky enough. Doing it again would be a real bitch, not that I couldn't still find a way especially with spirit and my darkness to aid us if needed.
"You really would, wouldn't you?" She smiled, more to herself than to me. "Of course you would. It's just, well. . ." She sighed. "I don't know if we should go. Maybe—just maybe we should stay."
I blinked in astonishment. "What?" Not one of my more eloquent answers, but the best I could manage. I'd never expected this from her. Especially after feeling her fear earlier.
"I saw you, Rose. I saw you talking to the other novices during class, talking about practice. You miss it."
"It's not worth it," I argued. "Not if…not if you…" I couldn't finish. She'd read me to easy. I really had missed the other novices. Even some of the Moroi (cough, Jesse, cough). But there was more to it than just that. It was the possibility of learning more, becoming better than what I was. Relinquishing the dependence I had on the darkness when it came to fighting strigoi and protecting her life.
"It might be better," she said, sensing my hesitation. "I haven't had as many…you know, things happening in a while. I don't feel like anyone is following or watching us."
I didn't say anything to that. Before we'd left the Academy, she'd always felt like someone was following her, like she was being hunted. I'd never seen evidence to support that, but I had once heard one of our teachers go on and on about the same sort of thing. Ms. Karp. She'd been a pretty Moroi, with deep auburn air and high cheekbones. And I was pretty sure she'd been crazy. At least until I realised what I was seeing was not crazy, but darkness growing on a spirit user without a bond mate to take it away.
"You never know who's watching," she used to say, walking briskly around the classroom as she shut all the blinds. "Or who's following you. Best to be safe. Best to always be safe." We'd snickered amongst ourselves because that's what students do around eccentric and paranoid teachers. The thought of Lissa acting like her always bothered me. It was no way to live. No matter what it does to me I'll always take the darkness away.
"What's wrong?" Lissa asked, noticing that I was lost in thought.
"Huh? Nothing. Just thinking." I sighed, trying to balance my own wants with what was best for her. "Liss, I guess we can stay…but, there are a few conditions."
This made her laugh.
"I'm serious." Words I didn't say very much, if at all. "I want you to stay away from the royals. Not like Natalie or anything but the power players. You know who I'm talking about."
Her amusement turned to astonishment in a second. "Are you serious?"
"Sure. You never liked them anyway."
"You did."
"Not really. I liked what they could offer. All the parties and stuff."
"And you can go without that now?" She looked sceptical.
"Sure. We did in Portland and all the places before that."
"What about the clubs you went to while hunting strigoi?"
"That was business, not pleasure." I smirk at her. Though, of course, I had to...blend in at times.
Her eyes wandered off, not really focused on any one thing. "Here… here I've got to be a part of that. I can't avoid it."
"The hell you do. Natalie stays out of that stuff."
"Natalie isn't going to inherit her family's title," she retorted. "I've already got it. I've got to be involved, start making connections and all that. My brother—"
"Liss," I groaned, starting to get a headache. "You aren't Andre." I couldn't believe she was still comparing herself to her brother.
"He was always involved in all that stuff."
"Yeah, well," I snapped back, "he's dead now."
Her face hardened. "You know, sometimes you aren't very nice."
"You don't keep me around to be nice. If you want nice, there are a dozen following sheep in there that would eagerly rip each other's throats out to get in good with the 'Dragomir princess'. You keep me around to tell you the truth, and here it is: Andre's dead. You're the heir now, and you're going to deal with it however you can. And for now, that means staying away from the other royals and staying safe. We'll just lie low. Coast through the middle and so on."
She sighed and touched my arm."Fine. We'll stay and we'll keep out of all that stuff. We'll 'coast through the middle' like you want. Hang out with Natalie, I guess."
To be perfectly honest, I didn't want any of that either (she made her distaste clearly shown through the bond). I wanted to go to all the royal parties and the wild festivities. However we'd only started going to them after our, well Lissa's, family died. Andre should have been the one to inherit her family's title, and he'd certainly acted like it. Handsome and outgoing, he'd charmed everyone he knew and had been a leader in all the royal cliques and clubs that existed on campus. After his death, Lissa had felt it was her family duty to take his place – therefore the parties.
I'd gotten to join that world with her. It was easy for me, because I didn't really have to deal with the politics of it. I was just a pretty dhampir, one who didn't mind getting into trouble and pulling crazy stunts. I became a novelty; they liked having me around for the thrill of it. At the time I didn't realise my deep desire to just live was caused by already having died.
Lissa had to deal with other matters, of course. The Dragomir's being one of the twelve ruling families. She'd have a very powerful place in Moroi society once she graduated and turned eighteen, and the other young royals wanted to get in good with her. Fake friends tried to schmooze her and the other royals could bribe and backstab in the same breath.
This cruel culture had eventually taken its toll on Lissa. She had an open, kind nature, one that I loved, and I hated to see her upset and stressed by silly royal games. She'd grown fragile since the accident, and all the parties and fun times in the world weren't worth seeing her hurt.
"All right then," I said finally. "We'll see how this goes. If anything goes wrong, anything at all, we leave. No arguments whatsoever. Are we clear?"
She nodded.
"Rose?"
We both looked up at Dimitri's towering form. I hoped he hadn't heard the part about us leaving.
"You're late for practice," he said evenly. Seeing Lissa, he gave a polite nod."Princess."
As he and I walked away from her and towards the gymn, I worried about Lissa and wondered if staying here was the right thing to do.
I felt nothing alarming through the bond as I kept walking, but then her emotions began to spike all over the place. Confusion. Nostalgia. Fear. Strong and powerful, they flooded into me, and I felt the pull just before it happened. It was exactly like what had happened on the plane. Her emotions grew so strong that they 'sucked' me into her head before I could stop them. I had thought we were getting better at this.
She walked slowly around the commons, toward the small Russian Orthodox chapel that served the school's religious needs. Lissa had always attended mass regularly where as I had a simple, standing arrangement with God: I'd agree to believe in him—just—so long as he let me have a well deserved sleep in on Sundays.
But as she went inside, I could feel that she wasn't there to pray. She had another purpose, one I didn't know anything about. Glancing around, she verified that neither the priest nor any worshippers were close by. The place was empty. This pleased her. And this, of course, confused me.
Slipping through a doorway in the back of the chapel, she climbed a narrow set of creaky stairs up into the attic. Here it was dark and dusty with the only light being what came through a large stained-glass window that fractured the faint glow of sunrise into tiny, multicoloured gems across the old, worn floor.
I hadn't known until that moment that this room was a regular retreat for Lissa. But now I could feel it, sense her memories of how she used to escape here to be alone and to think. The familiarity of the place. I felt the anxiety in her ebb away ever so slightly as she took in her surroundings and part of her darkness slowly began to seep into me, due to our connection as per usual. She relaxed even more as she climbed up into the window seat and leaned her head back against its side, entranced by the calm silence and the light.
Moroi could stand some sunlight, unlike the Strigoi, but they had to limit their exposure. Sitting here, she could almost pretend she was in the sun, protected by the multicoloured glass.
Breathe, just breathe, she told herself. It'll be okay. Rose will take care of everything. She always does.
She believed that passionately, like always, and it helped her relax further.
"You can have the Academy but not my window seat."
She sprang up, heart pounding as a voice cut through the silence. I shared her anxiety, and my own pulse quickened. "Who's there?"
A moment later, a shape rose from behind a stack of broken wooden crates, just outside her field of vision. The figure stepped forward, and in the poor lighting, familiar features materialized. Messy black hair. Pale blue eyes. A perpetually sardonic smirk.
Christian Ozera.
"Don't worry," he said. "I won't bite. Well, at least not in the way you're afraid of." He chuckled at his own joke. Though, it was in poor taste.
Lissa didn't find it funny either. She had completely forgotten about Christian in our time away and so had I.
No matter what happened in our world, a few basic truths about vampires remained the same. Moroi were alive; Strigoi were undead. Moroi were mortal; Strigoi were immortal. Moroi were born; Strigoi were made. And Moroi were good; Strigoi were evil.
There were two ways to make a Strigoi. Strigoi could forcibly turn humans, dhampirs, or Moroi with a single bite. Or, Moroi tempted by the promise of immortality could become Strigoi by choice if they purposely killed another person while feeding. Doing that was considered dark and twisted, the greatest of all sins. Moroi who chose this dark path, although gaining eternal life, lost their ability to connect with elemental magic and other powers of the world. That was why they could no longer go into the sun.
That is what had happened to Christian's parents. They are Strigoi.