New chapter woop! Hope you like it and tell me what you think. Reviews make me all warm and happy inside.
My alarm awoke me from a restless, Dimitri filled sleep telling me I had about an hour before I had to get on a plane and go to the Royal Court. I quickly got dressed and went to the canteen hoping to avoid two particular people: Dimitri and Lissa. Dimitri I was still angry and disappointed with, and one check of the bond told me that Lissa felt betrayed, which in turn told me my fears form last night were true – she knew about me and Dimitri. No doubt she'd told Christian too. I was going to have to do a lot of avoiding this morning.
As I thought about the ramifications of Lissa knowing I wondered if I should tell Dimitri. I guess he had a right to know that someone else knew but at the same time I knew that she wouldn't tell no matter how angry with me she was. But what if she was angry with Dimitri? There was no doubt that she figured out that my rant to her about what Dhampirs had to sacrifice was born of my feelings towards Dimitri and I had the feeling that she'd hate him for the pain he caused me.
I had a feeling that she wouldn't tell anyone no matter how angry she was with him either. Maybe she'd shout at him. I almost laughed at the thought and kind of wanted to be around when it happened. Not that it would. This was docile Lissa we were talking about.
As much as I wanted to avoid her I found myself walking towards her table once I got out of the breakfast queue. Maybe it was my protective instincts kicking in and I wanted to comfort her. She sent me a message though the bond. Not yet. I'm still trying to process it all. I'll find you when I'm ready to talk.
Relieved that she was still willing to be civil I nodded in her direction and sat with Eddie and a bunch of other novices.
"Something up between you and the Princess?" Meredith asked.
"Yeah Christian. They're looking way too cute this morning." I smoothly lied.
"You're going to have to get used to it." Eddie said. "With being her guardian and all."
"How does she know she's going to get Vasilisa?" Meredith asked no doubt hoping to be Lissa's guardian.
"Are you kidding? With the scores she got the council would be stupid to put anyone but Rose as her guardian. They're going to want only the best for the last Dragomir." Eddie covered. He knew about the bond and the fact that I was the obvious choice to protect her because of it, but no one outside our tight group of friends did. In fact the only reason Eddie knew was because of field placements.
All the stuff that happened when Victor was around hadn't been put in the portfolio of stuff he'd been given on that first day of the field placements so I'd told him. Lissa was not too long off her pills and I thought he needed to know about all that kind of stuff to be able to protect her properly. I'd asked Lissa if I could and managed to bring her round to my way of thinking. In the end the only reason I would have had to tell him that stuff was because of her experiments with Adrian because nothing serious happened.
"Little Dhampir." Adrian breathed.
"What?" I asked as Meredith oogled. Yeah Adrian was the hottest thing on legs after Dimitri but he was a pain in the ass.
"Aren't you going to say hello to Dimitri this morning? The last I heard you used to spend a lot of time with him." everyone on the table caught his double meaning but none of them took it seriously.
"Yeah I was kind of surprised when I saw you come over here." Eddie piped up. "He's sitting over there eating a bagel."
"He's on duty." I said hoping they'd let it drop.
"Rose, he's eating breakfast."
"Trust me, he's on duty." I said slightly tersely.
The rest of the people at the table shared a look to say "oh man, what did he do?". I ignored them and munched on the BLT I'd picked up and was instantly reminded of the last time Dimitri and I had lunch together. I put it down suddenly not hungry and was once again transported back to that lunch date.
After I'd picked up the BLT filling Dimitri asked:
"What kind of music do you like?"
At first I though it was kind of random but answered anyway. "Anything that doesn't make me want to kill the radio."
I laughed thinking back to when we were travelling to the Badica house. The song that was playing went something like: "video killed the radio star" and I'd silently wished something would kill the radio.
"I don't know." I mused. "Some of the chart stuff is okay I guess. I tend to steer away from main stream. I kinda like alternative and the smaller rock groups.
He seemed to file the information away in the workings of his mind and wondered if I'd be getting any presents any time soon, like, after field placements if I did really well.
"And what does the word famous Dimitri Belikov read apart from abused westerns?"
He looked at me as if to say I was unfairly convicting him of book abuse. I laughed and told him to take the western out of his duster pocket. I somehow knew there was a John Wayne movie adapted from it. As it was the book was dog-eared and the spine was bent so that it opened of its own accord where he'd last been reading it.
"What did that poor book do to deserve torture? Did John Wayne die or something?" I asked.
"John Wayne never dies." He said sagely and returned the book to the 'safety' of his pocket.
The fond memory had me crashing back to the real word where I'd finished my BLT and everyone was getting up from the table to get on the academy's private jet.
On the plane I sat a couple of rows back from Lissa, close enough to keep an eye on her and far enough away to give her some privacy. I was sat with Eddie and Meredith again only they weren't much fun as they didn't fair so well on planes. The flight wasn't long enough to warrant an in flight movie and I quickly grew bored. I squeezed passed the two sleepers and looked for a spare seat next to someone who could hold a decent, intelligent conversation.
True to my bad luck the only spare seat was with Dimitri. He was reading one of his westerns like he always used to when he was waiting for me to turn up at practice in the mornings. I had a peak at the cover. It was the one he always used to re-read every few weeks. I wondered how he didn't get bored of it. The last time we had practice he'd been reading it in fact and had been near the end. Now he was only about twenty pages in. I wondered why he hadn't spotted me – he always spotted me when he was reading. Then I remembered – he always spotted everything. He was either bluntly ignoring me or he wanted me to look at him. I sharply turned round and went back to my seat without turning back.
We landed not long after that.
We were all ushered into guest accommodation. I was in a room very similar to the one last time I was here – smart, sleek, business style with few luxuries. I was willing to bet the Moroi had rooms as good as the ones back at the ski lodge. Whatever. My stuff was already in the room but I didn't unpack anything knowing I wouldn't be staying here long. I'd follow Lissa to Leigh and live there with the other guardian she had. The communal lunch was in an hour's time and then we had the rest of the day to ourselves and could get dinner where ever we wanted it.
Although I'd wanted to avoid Lissa before breakfast I was starting to miss her. If she hadn't found out about Dimitri and I we would have met up somewhere and hung out for the rest of the day. As it was she wanted some space. I was anxious to know how she felt and so had a quick peak at the bond. Only to stay for longer than I had planned. She was letting someone into the room. That someone was Dimitri.
"What do you want?" she asked bluntly.
Dimitri looked about as surprised as I felt. I'd expected her to feign indifference when she saw him.
"I came to ask about Rose, but if this is a bad time Princess I can leave."
She moved into the room and shut the door behind him. "What do you want to know?"
"How she is. I haven't seen her since yesterday at the party."
"I'm pretty sure you know how she feels."
She looked at Dimitri trying to see what I saw in him. She thought he was pretty hot herself but she knew I wouldn't just go for looks. I'd gone for hot guys in my past but never to have a relationship with. She knew that Dimitri and I had been really close the whole time we'd known each other but beyond me telling her that he was a good mentor and sometimes funny when he let his guardian mask drop she didn't know all the much about him.
"I'm not sure I know what you mean, Princess." He said his defences going up.
"You know exactly what I mean." She snapped. "She still loves you, Dimitri. And you left her. How do you think she feels? You should find her and talk to her."
Dimitri looked shocked and asked, "How do you know?"
"Your auras, not that that matters right now. Talk to her. She misses you." She turned away from him doing a better job at being a snotty nosed royal than I'd ever seen in my entire life.
Wow. And I mean wow! Lissa had just beaten Dimitri in an argument. I hadn't even managed to do that and what I'd just witnessed was their first proper conversation besides pleasant greetings in the hall way and when he chucked us out of Adrian's room at the ski lodge. I was about to pull out of her head when Dimitri said:
"Princess…"
"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. I wouldn't betray Rose like that."
Lissa watched his face inch up the guardian mask scale. He'd been open when he had asked the first question, slipped the guardian mask on when she answered and had made it even more into the battle mode mask I figured he had as the conversation went on. But beneath that hard exterior I knew his heart had just been broken. I could see it in his stormy eyes.
I wasn't glad that he was upset and angry but I wasn't angry about it either. A part of me wanted to find him and comfort him and tell him Lissa was just angry and didn't mean half of what she had implied. But a part of me wanted him to hurt for all the pain he'd caused me over the months he'd been gone. I'd bean heart broken and I wanted him to feel that pain too. My heart was telling me I was being a selfish idiot but I ignored it and stayed in my room until the next day not even leaving for dinner. Eddie came and brought it to me instead.
"What did he do to you, Rose?" he asked.
Ever since Spokane he'd been there for me making sure people, guys especially, didn't harass me. He'd kind of taken on the role of the older brother I never had and I was grateful for it. Even now that I didn't need him so much any more he was still there for me as much as I was there for him.
Needing to talk to someone about some of my troubles I said, "He left without much of an explanation and without even saying good bye." It didn't sound like much, anyone else would have thought I was being immature, but Eddie knew how much Dimitri had helped me in his own way after Spokane and even before that.
"Rose, you could just talk to him."
"Not now. I'm not ready to talk yet." I felt a lump form in my throat but I bit it back. I'd be damned if he'd make me cry again. Eddie seemed to sense this though and pulled me into a tight hug. It didn't last long – he knew how much I hated crying and feeling like this – but it made me feel a lot better all the same.
So what'dya think? Is Chapter 7 good or bad? Let me know!
OH, if i was feeling up to it I'd make up a clever cool way to say Richelle Mead owns VA and I - sadly - do not no matter how much I wish I did. ~Fury out! ;)