This chapter is really short but there isn't much going on with Dimitri and I wanted to stick to the book lay out so here it goes.

Read/Review please if you can.

Thanks Val

Chapter 11

I was excited to be spending more time with Rose –even though I knew it was completely wrong. I just figured that even though we couldn't have any sort of relationship, aside from our professional one, and if she'd ever even be interested in me, there wasn't any reason we couldn't spend time together at the Academy.

After this –everything would change but for now, there wasn't too much harm being done by watching her and teaching her.

She really did need learn to fight also. It worried me that she didn't know how to protect herself and it killed me to think of anything ever happening to her.

She was so precious and so beautiful –I figured the sky should fall down and the Earth should stop rotating if anything ever happened to her.

I'd replayed the Jesse scene several times in my head too. It wasn't something easy to ignore. Rose was so perfect, and seeing Jesse with his hands all over her, and her half-dressed, burned me.

Rose deserved so much better.

Not me, but someone who cared a lot about her.

I knew that we could never be together.

For one, there was the whole thing about her actually wanting me back. I'd caught her looking at me, but I just figured if anything it was just admiring –or maybe a school girls crush, but nothing serious.

There was also the age difference and the fact that she was my student. I could get thrown in prison for taking advantage of a minor. Rose was seven years younger than me –and even if we waited until she graduated, it would still be frowned upon. Not only because she was so much younger and she had been my student, but relationships between guardians weren't socially accepted.

Dhampirs were the offspring of a Moroi and Dhampir or human. Their genetic combination made more Dhampirs; however, Dhampirs and other Dhampirs could not reproduce. Only Moroi could keep the Dhampir race alive, which is why we protected them. We were also a lot stronger and more muscular so we could actually protect them. An adult relationship between two Dhampir guardians would be considered a waste –we wouldn't be furthering our kind and as more Strigoi walked the Earth, Moroi numbers were decreasing but Dhampir numbers were really diminishing.

Many Strigoi had killed our kind.

The final reason why Rose and I could never be together –and perhaps the most important, the one I couldn't deal with was the fact that I was going to be Lissa's guardian and with Rose's bond, I was sure that she would be Lissa's other guardian.

If Strigoi ever attacked us –and Rose and I had a relationship –I'd put myself in front of Rose not Lissa. I would worry about protecting Roza and that wasn't fair to Lissa. She needed two guardians who were focused on her.

Rose and I could never be.

But for now –spending time together was enough for me.

Unfortunately, the Jesse incident had spread. I'd heard while I guarded some classes. From what I managed to decipher from the rumors, Rose and Lissa had been passing notes in Mr. Nagy's class and he had caught them, taken the note and read it out loud.

Lucky for Jesse, since it hadn't been his doings of spreading the word –even though there wasn't much to say, nothing had really happened.

He'd touched her, kissed her, felt her –but it was nothing, I tried to tell myself.

It wasn't like she had slept with him or let him drink blood from her.

I chastised myself for even thinking about it. Rose was my student, Rose was my student, I repeated to myself.

It wasn't making me feel better.