Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Academy.

Ch. 15 May I Have This Dance?

Dimitri finally took me out on a real date the morning after my nightmare. When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to see him looking me over instead of just cuddling up to me like he normally did.

"What?" I asked, sitting up straight immediately. "Do I look bad?"

"No," Dimitri said, stifling a slight laugh. "I think I'm going to take you somewhere special tonight."

I cocked my head at him, intrigued. "Where?"

He laughed. "I don't know yet. But I advise you to wear your dress."

"My…oh!"

I remembered the red dress that he'd given me a few days ago when we'd spent some alone time together in bed. "Why would I need to wear it?"

He smirked a little. He looked very cute when he smirked. "Because I have a feeling the place I'll take you requires formal wear."

I scowled. "I don't have any shoes to wear with my dress!"

"Oh…well, Viktoria could lend you something."

"True," I murmured, stretching and getting out of bed. I padded over to my suitcase and yanked out the dress. "Should I try it on?"

"Are you planning on changing in front of me?" Dimitri asked, a slight hopeful look in his eyes.

"If you behaved yourself for about two seconds," I teased him.

He got out of bed and wrapped his arms tightly around me. "But I've already seen you without your clothes on, Roza," he whispered flirtily, his accent a little bit stronger as he spoke to me.

I blushed furiously and looked away from him. Although the lust charm that Victor Dashkov had put on us was definitely a bad thing, that had been the closest we'd even gotten to making love. Even with the few times that we'd decided to get a little naughty with each other.

"Well, don't let this be the fourth time," I shot back at him playfully. "Turn around."

He raised his eyebrows at me. "Are you afraid of letting me see you?"

I lifted up the edge of my tank top and threw it over my head, and tossed off my sweats. I now stretched, making sure that Dimitri's eyes were on me.

He gulped as I approached him, and gave him a hard, passionate kiss. I pulled away, and slipped my dress on. "Did you see enough yet?"

He caught hold of my wrists, and murmured, "I did once."

I blushed, and then turned to change. "Now, go into the bathroom and clean up."

He put on a slight pout, but walked into the bathroom and I changed into a lacy tank top and shorts. It was still springtime in Baia, but it felt like today would be a hot one.

Since today was a weekend, all the Belikovs stayed home. Even Sonya, although she usually spent 6 out of 7 days working at the drugstore.

I looked around the house a few hours after lunch, wishing we didn't have to go home. At the same time, I knew that I missed all my friends back at St. Vladimir's, especially Lissa.

I told Dimitri softly, "I'm going to check up on Lissa, okay?"

He nodded, and I forced myself to focus on Lissa's mind. I reached out to her mind, using the bond although there were thousands of miles that lay between us.

I snapped into Lissa's mind so easily it was like I'd never left. I could've been in my own room at St. Vladimir's and just checking up on her.

Lissa's feelings hit me like a tidal wave. She desperately missed me, and wished I would come back from…wherever I was.

"Where the hell is Rose?" she asked, pacing the floor of her dorm room. I saw that Christian and Adrian were already in her room.

It was around six in the morning for them, which meant that curfew was still around four hours away. I had sort of forgotten how to run on vampiric schedule and was thrown a little off, even through the bond.

Christian was trying to calm her down from the look of things. He put his arm around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder, letting out a deep sigh.

"We don't know where she is," he said, "but she's probably fine. Don't forget, she's one of the most badass guardian novices around."

Christian was extremely blunt most of the time. He wasn't always fun to be around, but at least you knew he wouldn't mess with you. I thought he really believed I was fine somewhere and didn't want to worry Lissa even further about me.

Adrian broke in. "I spoke to her through her dreams last night. She's fine."

Hope surged up in Lissa. "Is she okay? Did you find out where she is?" Of course, she hadn't believed for a moment that I was with my mom, even if everyone else at the Academy did.

"Yeah, she's perfectly fine. She looks better than fine, actually." There was an undercurrent of bitterness that Lissa didn't pick up on in his voice. I did, though.

I felt extremely bad for him. He genuinely liked me, despite his reputation as a royal playboy, but still…he knew I loved Dimitri, so he really shouldn't have told me that he would always wait for me. It would make it harder on us both, especially now that he knew that I knew about his feelings for me.

"And…did you find out where she is?"

"I don't know where," Adrian lied smoothly. I prayed that Lissa wouldn't look at his aura and find out he was lying. "She didn't tell me, and I can't read someone's location."

She sighed, too preoccupied to notice much else around her besides feeling Christian close to her. "God, I wish I knew where she was right now. Stupid one-way bond."

"She's probably been checking up on you when she could," Adrian assured her. "And I did manage to find out that she's coming home in two days."

Lissa perked up considerably. "That's good. But I'm still mad she didn't say anything about taking off anywhere." A slight hint of petulance entered her last words.

"She'll come home soon," Adrian said. He shot a look at the clock, and then got up from where he'd been sprawled on the floor. "Well, a few hours to curfew, so I'll just leave you two lovebirds to your love birding. Night."

Lissa and Christian bade him good night. Once the door had shut behind him, Christian kissed Lissa very sweetly on the lips.

Uh oh, I thought as their kiss intensified. Time to get out before any clothes get ripped off.

I returned to myself, and glanced at the clock. 4:10 in the afternoon.

Dimitri gently tugged on my arm when I stretched my stiff limbs. "Come on, Roza. I'm taking you out. Go get changed and I'll meet you in the car in ten minutes."

Time for our date…wherever he's taking me, I thought as I quickly ran up to the guest room. I changed out of my casual clothes and into the red dress he'd given me. I frowned when I remembered I didn't have any shoes. I trotted out of the guest room and knocked on Viktoria's room, barefoot.

Viktoria opened her door, her dark hair tied up in a ponytail. "Oh hi, Rose!"

"Hi, Viktoria. Do you have any shoes I could borrow to go with this dress?"

She stepped back into her room and opened her closet. Tons of shoe boxes lay scattered about the room. "Help yourself."

It took me about five minutes to find a pair of shoes that actually fit and went with the dress. I finally decided on a pair of black two-inch heels. I struck a pose in front of Viktoria. "Thoughts?"

"You look very nice," Viktoria said with a grin. "Have fun with my brother!"

"Thanks!" I told her as I trotted back into my room and yanked my curler out of the suitcase.

A few minutes later, my hair was in perfect little curls. I briefly glanced at my reflection and ran out to the driveway to meet Dimitri.

Somehow, he'd changed into a white dress shirt, slacks, and dress shoes without having gone to our room. I'd never seen him wearing formal clothes before, and he looked so good in them!

He turned at my approach, and his eyes widened. "You look beautiful, Roza," he said, courteously bowing to me and kissing my hand.

The kiss conveyed much more than admiration, and I was glad that my curls hid my slightly rosy face.

"Where are we going?" I asked as I got into the seat next to him, and we started backing out of the driveway.

"Ob," he replied with a grin. "We're going to eat…and do something else."

I eyed our formal wear a little warily. "Ice skate?"

He laughed. "No, but you're close. It's going to take a few hours."

I closed my eyes. "Then wake me up when we get there, Comrade."

My dreams were my own this time as I slept. There were no dream visits from Adrian. I was extremely grateful that the nightmare from last night didn't pop back up again.

Dimitri woke me up two hours later, around six in the afternoon, when we pulled into a parking space with a meter. He slipped some money into the meter and I looked at the time. "We're not leaving until eleven?" I asked, cocking my head at the meter.

He laughed and held his hand out to me. "Yep. Come on, let's grab a bite to eat."

We went to a high-class Russian restaurant and Dimitri ordered for both of us. It was the first time I'd ever tasted caviar and borscht.

I eyed my plate suspiciously once the server had left. "Are you sure it's edible?"

Dimitri looked at me from his own plate, looking both amused and exasperated. "They serve it in all the expensive restaurants. I promise it's not poisoned."

Well, time to give it a try, I thought wryly as I put the spoon to my mouth. I doubted Dimitri would be happy if I demanded something else.

A strong flavor flooded my mouth, and I swallowed. "It actually tastes pretty good!" I said, spooning up more.

Dimitri laughed at my expression. "I told you so."

I made a face at him. "Don't be so smug Comrade," I grumbled, and continued until I'd finished my soup.

After dinner, we left the restaurant and walked down the street to an older-looking building.

I looked at it curiously. It was painted in bright colors, and the windows were large. There was a long line waiting to get in.

"What are we doing here?" I grumbled, staring at the line. "It's going to take forever to get in!"

Dimitri smiled mysteriously. "You'll see once we get in. It'll be worth it."

I looked at the other people in line, noting they were mostly Moroi and dhampirs. My curiosity grew. I looked up at Dimitri. "And everyone's dressed up formally." I was suddenly grateful I had dressed up.

We waited in line for about twenty minutes before we finally got into…wherever we were going. After Dimitri handed some money over to a man standing at the front door, we stepped in. I gasped as I looked around.

Inside looked like a room right out of the palaces from the tsarist days of Russia (at least, from what I'd seen in books). Elaborate chandeliers with candles hung from the ceilings, and there was gild everywhere. To our right, there was a large dining room filled with tables and booths draped with lacy tablecloths. The floor under our feet was covered with detailed tiles.

"It's a night club that's mostly for Moroi and dhampirs," Dimitri explained to me as I gazed around. To my surprise, I saw he was right. There were very few humans in sight, but plenty of Moroi and dhampirs. "There's a similar place in Saint Petersburg. The English translation of the name is Nightingale."

"This looks like somewhere right out of the tsarist days of Russia," I breathed, voicing my earlier thoughts.

"It's modeled after one of the places in the tsar's residents," Dimitri explained as he led me into the dining room.

I looked around as we entered. There was a space cleared away on the far side of the dining room, and soft waltz music played. Couples danced together there, and now I realized why Dimitri had brought me here.

"But I don't know how to dance very well!" I protested in an undertone to him as the music was paused.

"I know how to," he whispered back as we crossed the room, "and it's not a dance competition."

He had a point, I conceded to myself.

Once we reached the dance floor, he bowed to me like he had earlier. "May I have this dance, Roza?"

"Certainly, monsieur," I said with a smile as I curtsied to him, throwing in a fake French accent. My skirts rustled softly as I rose from my curtsy.

He took my hand in his, and wrapped his arm around my waist. I rested my free hand on his shoulder.

The music started again, and we were dancing.

"What are we even dancing?" I asked him as we gracefully moved around the room to the music. Although we were no Dancing With the Stars dancers, I thought we danced pretty well.

"It's a waltz," Dimitri said, twirling me and then holding me close.

"I feel like Cinderella at the ball," I murmured as we kept moving. "Or Sleeping Beauty after she woke up from her sleep. Pick any princess, and I sort of feel like them."

"You are my princess," Dimitri murmured sweetly to me.

I leaned my head against his chest, and we kept dancing. I never wanted this dance to end.

Rose and Dimitri's first date :D Enjoy reading