Having so much fun playing in Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy playground...

It took every bit of control Dimitri had to keep walking.

He could hear Ivan and Katya making casual conversation, comparing class schedules, and Katya offering to introduce Ivan to the other dhampirs. Ivan was completely polite and appropriate – aside from inappropriately calling her "princess" – but Dimitri's gut twisted at leaving her with him, unprotected.

"Are we done?" Malina asked quietly.

They were almost back at the dorms. He blinked, surprised, and – again – confused.

A bit of her previous bravado returned. "It's only proper that I walk you back to your room, since I asked you out."

He stopped and turned to face her. "Did I do something wrong?"

"You still like Katya," she shrugged.

"We're friends."

She didn't answer, and he realized he'd made a serious mis-step somehow. He looked around. The campus was empty and quiet, and dawn was still hours away. They had privacy, but he had no idea what to do. "Why did you ask me out?" She looked up. "You said you'd tell me."

She turned and started walking. "Last week," she said finally. "I've always noticed you, and the other girls… talk." The other girls he'd slept with. He wondered if he should deny it. "But last week in the cafeteria. The Badica twins were teasing Catherine." He thought back, placing Catherine as one of the quieter Moroi girls in their class, but wasn't sure of when Malina meant. "She's quiet, she's a little odd - she did that puppet show for parent's weekend last spring. She's not royal, she's not pretty, and I've never seen you say two words to her. But she helps me with my literature assignments and she's kind of my friend. But when the Badicas messed with her I stayed out of it. You didn't."

She stopped and Dimitri waited for her to finish. They were walking in a wide loop around the dorms. He was still confused. Standing up for the weak wasn't a desirable trait, at least not from a Russian perspective – especially a Russian royal. Dimitri had been seduced at an early age by American Western novels and loved the notion of protecting anyone who needed protecting, but he was painfully aware that this was an American view that would baffle even his guardian classmates. Was Malina making fun of him now?

She kept walking so he finally had to ask. "And?"

She wouldn't meet his eyes and he realized she was blushing. "I wished I was brave enough to stand up to them like that."

It took him a second to realize that she was afraid he would make fun of her. Was she actually saying that she wanted to be with him because he had stood up for her friend?

He couldn't quite wrap his mind around that, so he didn't try. "Do you play pool?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I'm good," he warned.

A slow smile spread across her face. "So am I."

At breakfast, everyone was talking about the Strigoi sighting. No one was hurt, not even the guardians who had tried to track her, but everyone was still shaken. She'd shown up in the middle of the night near the wards on the western side of campus and had been spotted by a lucky guardian patrol. The assumption was that she had been acting alone, but no one could remember a Strigoi being sighted near the grounds of any academy for decades, and no one was reassured by the singular sighting.

The guardians had ended the party after the sighting. Dimitri and Malina had been playing pool when everyone had been herded back into the dorms, and had been sent back to their rooms like everyone else. The watchful eyes of the guardians had kept their goodnights short and chaste – not that Dimitri had had expectations for anything else. He'd found himself genuinely enjoying Malina's company while they played, but he still couldn't figure her out.

Dimitri sat with the other novices, breakfast untouched, quiet but listening carefully to the theories being tossed around. The royals clustered together a few tables over in their usual section, getting louder around some argument Dimitri couldn't quite hear. He split his attention between the discussions at his table and theirs, and couldn't help notice that Malina was one of the most vocal. While he was watching, Ivan – who had remained silent through the debate at his table – stood up and made his way over to the novices.

Ivan seemed to consider the space next to Dimitri, then veered around the table to slide in next to Katya. He leaned down to put his head next to hers, speaking low. It was obvious - to Dimitri, anyway - that Zeklos was interested in more than Katya's high rank among the novices. Dimitri clenched his jaw and stared straight forward, distracted enough that he didn't even hear Ivan's question. Katya's voice cut through the mess inside his head. "What do you think, Dimitri?"

He covered for his preoccupation, meeting her eyes steadily and raising one eyebrow. Since he was looking right at her, he saw her bite the inside of her cheek to cover her smile. She knew him too well. "Malina is over there passionately defending your honor, sure that you're able to defend her from the imminent Strigoi invasion," Katya added, giving Dimitri a chance to catch up. "So is she right? Or should we all just go home?"

Ivan nudged her, and his lanky form next to her tiny one meant that the nudge was basically full body, shoulder to hip contact. "Don't cause trouble," he laughed, entirely too comfortable with her for Dimitri's liking. "Malina was just taking the guardian side in the debate. That's just royals talking, though. I want to hear what my new guardian friends think."

Dimitri had to take a moment. His overriding impulse was to knock Zeklos flat and save time, but that just couldn't happen yet - not without a clear reason. For the more immediate concern, he really couldn't see what all the fuss was about. It was just a sighting. He knew it was serious, and his unease from yesterday returned full force, but Sasha had been right: the wards would hold and their instructors and the school's guardians would protect them in the incredibly unlikely event that the wards were breached. As for Malina, she confused him yet again. She was championing the guardians' position? Usually the royals were quick to call for any kind of retreat.

"We're safe here," he shrugged.

Zeklos shrugged, the movement of his shoulders an eerie mirror of Dimitri's. "That's what I thought, too."

The novices, who had been oddly quiet during the exchange, cheered their agreement and launched into a new discussion of fighting techniques. Dimitri shifted uncomfortably. He and Zeklos agreed on something? Ivan raised one eyebrow at him, then turned his attention back to Katya.

A question to my Russian readers, Russian studies majors, overseas readers... Am I right about protecting the weak being an American thing (or at least something that a lot of Americans *say * is important, not that we necessarily follow through)? My friend who is very interested in Russian studies told me that, and I thought it fit so well with Dimitri's love of American Western novels that I wanted to work it into the story, but I've only been to Russia once and can't be sure that he's right. Let me know!

Thanks so much for reading! Let me know what you think so far!