! ! ! IMPORTANT ! ! !

I just realised I did something really stupid. As you may have noticed, this story has less chapters than it did earlier. That is becuase I somehow managed to opst the worng chapter, noit just once, but twice, leaving a huge gap between chapters 4 and '5'. Chapter 5 was, in reality, chapter 8.
So please forgive me my idiocy, and read these chapters in the right order this time. Maybe chack back and see how the last chapter ended.

If this is your first time reading this story, then ignore the message above and carry on as though I did it right the first time :P

"Anya! Wake up already!"
I groaned, rolling over and stuffing my head under the pillow. Sophia would go away in a minute.

"Anya! If you don't open this freaking door in 5 seconds, I'll knock it down!" I heard my mom shout.

As it was, I heard Summer approach, and heard the lock turning slowly. Times like this her Earth/metal manipulation powers really sucked.

I heard the door slam against the wall and something heavy landed on me.
"Ow! Sophia, get the hell off me!"

She did, and a second later the blanket disappeared.

I cracked an eye open to see my mom standing by my bed, blanket in hand. Sophia stood a little way behind her, looking wary.

"Mo-om. Just 5 more minutes, please." I begged.

She shook her head. "Not a chance. You'll miss the plane, and then you'll be stuck in one of Stan's lectures on your first day. And, Aleks will be all alone in a place he doesn't know..."

I shot out of bed, stumbling to my drawers.
"Okay, give me 5 minutes!"

In a new record for me, I was out of the bathroom, fully dressed with hair and makeup done in 12 minutes. As I pounded down the last flight of stairs with my backpack bumping along behind me, I heard the boys cheer.
"Wow, Anya. When did 5 minutes seem to take twice long?" Ash asked.

"Since I have to spend it with you." I countered, and bent down to pull on my boots. I shoved my silver-plated pocket knife into the left one, and stood right in front of the door, tapping my foot impatiently.
"Well? Aren't we going, then?"

As we were about to board the plane, Marina and Mason and Jet and Lily said goodbye to their parents. They wouldn't be coming with us, as Sydney wasn't really welcome at St. Vladimir's, and she didn't want to go anyway. Mia and Eddie had work to do, but they would come and visit first.

Eventually, we were all on the plane. I sat at the window seat on my own, knowing I'd be no fun during the rest of the flight. Sophia came and sat down next to me for a moment, and I allowed her to compel me to fall asleep.

"Anya. We're here."
I opened my eyes to see Sophia leaning over me, and I fought off the lingering effects of the compulsion-sleep.

I quickly checked my hair in the reflective door of the plane as we got off, and after running a hand through it, was satisfied.

As I looked around the familiar landing strip of St. Vlads, I felt a strange swirl of apprehension.
Changes.

I turned to Sophia.
"It feels like that plane door just slowly shut on a piece of my soul."

She laughed. "Oh, stop being so melodramatic."

As we got closer to the administrative buildings, we began to see more and more people, until there was a definite crowd of people, all bowing slightly when they saw Lissa and Christian.

I smiled at a few of my novice friends as we tried to reach the front desk, and once all the admin was done, we had half an hour before we had to get to our dorms.

We all made out way onto the quad, and spent the last few minutes with our parents.
But the whole time, I was scanning the steady stream of people coming from the front gates.
Some people came up to us to say hi to Sophia and me, and some came to suck up to the Queen.

I was just giving a dirty look to one such Royal snob when I heard a bunch of girls on my left giggling.
"Have you seen him? He's so hot."

"I know. I just want to jump him right there."

I rolled my eyes at how shallow and pathetic they sounded, when I heard my name called by one voice that made my heart soar.
"Asya!"

I spun around, and saw a familiar smile. A tall Dhampir was pushing his way through the crowd towards us, surrounded by girls who were shamelessly checking him out.

"Sasha!" I shouted, running the few paces to meet him.
He swept me up in a huge bear hug, and I held him just as tightly. I breathed in a lungful of his delicious scent before releasing him, Aleks still holding my wrists.

"I missed you, Asya." He told me in Russian.

"Why didn't you get here earlier, then?" I countered.

He laughed, an amazing sound that made my heart skip.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting. It must have been torture."

I slapped his arm, before dragging him over to my friends and family, ignoring the jealous looks from the girls around us. And by ignoring, I mean acknowledging the fact with a small, smug smile on my face.

My mom was the first to greet him.
"Hey, Aleks. Didn't expect you to turn up here."

"Me neither. It happened very fast."

"See, I told you there were easier ways of getting here than stowing away in my suitcase."
I stifled a laugh as I remembered leaving Russia at about 6 years old. When it came time for me to go, we were plotting on hiding him in a suitcase until we got onto the jet. It failed miserably.

Mom hugged Aleks, and he towered over her.
"Aleks, you got so tall! Seriously, do they put something in the water in Baia?"

Aleks grinned, looking down on her.
"Well Rose, I'll bring you a bottle if you want some."

Mom glared. "Cheeky boy. You're on my turf now, this is America, I could sue."

Aleks turned to dad. They shook hands.
"Aleksandr."

"Mr. Belikov, sir."

I rolled my eyes. When we were younger, Aleks would just call him 'Dimka', and we'd both run around, begging him to play Strigoi whilst we tried to 'stake' him. But around when we turned 13, something changed, and dad started to treat him almost like my boyfriend or something. It was as annoying as it was amusing.

Aleks reached into his pocket and pulled out a white envelope, handing it to dad.
"This is from Olena."

After dad thanked him, I pulled Aleks over to my friends.
"Everyone, this is Aleksandr Kozlovski. Introduce yourselves, because I can't be bothered."

As everyone greeted individually, I had to poke Marina in the side, hard.
"Quit drooling. He's totally off-limits."

She blushed, looking at the ground.
"Sorry. He's just so hot, and charming, and he has that accent..." She trailed off, paling under my death glare, whilst Sophia laughed.

"It's okay, Marina. You don't have to tell Anya why he's so hot..." I elbowed her in the side as Aleks came back over to me, just one of the Head Guardian shouted that we had to be in the lobby ready to go to our dorms in 5 minutes.

The Dragomirs and I turned to our parents.
I hugged Lissa and Christian goodbye, before turning to my own parents.
"Bye, Papa."

Dad scooped me up in a huge hug, and kissed my cheek.
"Bye, Milaya. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. Stay out of trouble."

"Comrade, she's my daughter too. That's never gonna happen."

"Well, we can always hope." He said lightly, before letting go of me.

I wrapped my arms around mom, and she held me tightly. True, sometimes we clashed, but with our similar personalities, it was bound to happen. The fact I had some of my dad's traits as well helped sometimes, but my so-called 'Rose logic' mixed with 'Zen life lessons' pissed her off. Even she couldn't compete with that.
"Seriously though. Don't start any fights, unless you're told to by a Guardian. And that includes me, and what you think I'd say if I was there. Annoy Stan for me, and pay attention in class so you can rub your perfect A in his face. Have fun, baby."

"I will, mom."
After giving me one last squeeze, she released me, leaning into dad.

By now, people were making their way through the double doors into the main admin building. With a final wave to our parents, we all filed in.

After another few minutes of pushing and shoving, the Lead Crony, or dorm matron, eventually got us all to shut up.

"Okay, students. This year, you will be allowed to choose you own dorm rooms."
A general whisper of excitement washed through the crowd."
"However, the rules are as follows. 1) Male/female pairings are strictly forbidden."

There was a sigh of disappointment. Did people seriously think they were going to get away with that?"

"2) Every Moroi must have a Novice in their room to protect them."
This was nothing new to us. After the attack on the school during my mom's time, this was common practice. Also, Lissa had tried to lessen the segregation of Moroi and Dhampirs, so this had been her idea.

"3) Only once all the Moroi have a novice assigned to their room may the remaining Dhampirs pair with other Dhampirs."

Since Moroi had learned to fight for themselves, they could occasionally step in to save their Guardian's life. This had meant that the number of Dhampirs had gone up, as well as the fact that Moroi/Dhampir long-term relationships were more acceptable now. On top of this, more female Dhampirs were choosing to become Guardians, and still have children, influenced by none other than my mom.

The number of Moroi attending St. Vladimir's had been dropping for a while, mostly due to the attack where so many Moroi were killed. Parents thought that having so many Dragomirs in one place was like a Strigoi magnet, so avoided the risk. It was a great school for novices, though, with ties to great Guardians such as Castile, Belikov and Hathaway.

The number of Moroi and Dhampirs were at an all-time high, and Strigoi were less of a threat. But still, all this meant that there were currently more Dhampirs than Moroi at St. Vladimir's. Not by much, but still there.

The first people began to sign their names on the list, but my group hung back. We all had our rooms pretty much sorted, anyway.
When we reached the front of the queue, I was pleased to see that there were plenty of decent rooms left. The Moroi's names were already printed on the sheet, with blank spaces next to them, all the vampire had to do was sign to show they were happy with the choice.

I wrote my name down next to Sophia's, and Lily next to Summer. Marina chose to be on her own- she was a nightmare to share a room with. She always stayed up late, snored ridiculously loud, and got up at a hideous hour in the morning to do her hair and makeup. She was the only novice I knew that ended the day looking as perfect as what they did first thing.

I could hear the boys joking about who had to 'put up with fire-crotch', and to decide they flipped a coin. Mason lost, and signed his name next to Ash Ozera. Aiden was to be sharing with his friend Sam, as they were 3 years below us.

After that, there wasn't much room on the boy's list- only one 5th floor room left, and a few 3rds and a 1st. None had Moroi assigned to them., since most Novices tried to get into Moroi rooms, hoped it would help them get an assignment.

Jet turned to Aleks.
"You want to share a room? I mean, as long as you don't snore or anything."

Aleks smiled. "I'd like that. I don't really want to be on my own, since it's my first time out of Russia."

I smiled to myself as we left the hall.
This was going to be an interesting year.

Sorry for any confusion this chapter mix-up may have caused. Everything should be fine from now on... I hope...