Okay, got a message from skiser saying that Chapter 6 doesn't exist - weird - so if anyone else is having the same probelm let me know and I'll try and sort it. I've had a look but live preview looks okay. I'm not a pc wizz but I'll do what I can.

Enough of tech problems and let's move onto Chapter 8 of the story...

"I heard what you said to him."

Lissa and I had been sat in an awkward silence for about twenty minutes. It was the day after she'd lashed out at him. She asked me to come over not long after lunch. I thought she would have taken longer to want to talk but I was glad all the same we were finally getting this started.

"It was pretty awesome."

"You're not angry?" she asked.

"No. You said what I can't."

"Aw, Rose – "

"No, Liss, don't." I said softly. I took a deep breath. "What do you want to know?"

"Did you keep it a secret because you could never be together if you were both protecting me?"

"Yes."

She paled and tears surfaced. I knew just from her face that she felt guilty as hell and wanted to change the situation.

"We both agreed to it." I said hastily. "I want you to have the best protection and if that's him… well then it's him."

"No, Rose! I won't do that to you."

"You don't have much of a choice. I bet he'll be re-assigned to you now that he's better."

"Rose – "

"That's a different question." I really didn't want to talk about it, him. Okay that was inevitable in this conversation but the less I had to the better. "What else do you want to know?"

"Why the hell didn't you tell me? I wouldn't have told anyone!" she burst. I could tell without the bond's help that she wasn't angry, just confused.

"I tried." I began lousily.

It was the truth at least. I'd almost told her a number of times but it was either almost curfew and she had to go or she was meeting Christian somewhere or she had something else on her mind. I wasn't trying to make it out to be her fault because I should have plucked up the courage to tell her every time I saw her. I had thought I would feel good about telling her – I hated that I'd kept a secret from her – but I felt awful. Guilty mostly.

She'd told me everything that was going on in her life and I had kept the biggest secret from her ever. I was glad I was finally telling her but I felt pretty bad at how she found out. It was supposed to be me who told her and then she probably would have shouted at me and I've taken it. I deserved that much. I kind of wanted her to shout at me like she had Dimitri only I wanted her to shout more about how I'd betrayed her and how was she supposed to trust me again.

I could feel her raging emotions. She wasn't sure whether to cry or shout or run away. Her emotions swelled within her like an angry storm at sea crashing and buffeting at her. A war was being fought within her she was trying to stay in control and stay good but a massive part of her wanted to snap and make me feel bad for what I'd done to her. Her emotions became so strong that I got pulled into her and, man, it was weird looking at myself through her eyes.

The last time this happened she was jealous of my looks and strength, both physical and emotional. This time she saw how cracked that emotional strength was and felt sorry for me. But she also looked upon me with anger and confusion. She was angry that I didn't tell her and confused as to why I didn't think I could tell her. She'd known I'd been hurting a lot since he left and had been worried about me the whole time. I thought I had done a better job at masking my emotions than that after I refused to think of him but the truth was there – I'd been rejected.

"You could have told me and I would have kept it a secret. Do you have any idea how I feel?" she asked incredulously.

I didn't tell her that I actually did. Her anger made me pull myself back to my own body and I looked down at the floor. I was just glad I was starting to get what I would call a normal, rational response.

"I've been worried about you and trying to help and only now do I find out what's really wrong with you! How do you expect me to help if I don't know what's wrong, Rose?"

"I don't expect you to do anything." I said quietly, not meeting her gaze. "It's my job to look after you."

"In my eyes you're my best friend before you're my guardian." I looked up at her. She looked more like the gentle, understanding Lissa I'd always known. "You should go and find him and tell him he's been an idiot."

"I already did that remember. Back at the party."

"Than tell him how you feel."

"No way. He's making the first move this time." I could feel Lissa's disapproval through the bond. "I don't want to find him yet. I'm still angry at him and – " I shrugged my shoulders. "Not yet."

Lissa pulled me into a huge hug and didn't let go for a long time. We stayed in a companionable silence that was easy to be in. It was good to know that our friendship still went this far, was still as strong, even after all that I had kept from her.

At four 'o' clock I had to go and do a guardian thing. All of us who had just graduated from all over the world gathered in what I assumed was a ball room but it had been dressed down and rows upon rows of chairs had been set out with a raised dais at the front of the room. It reminded me of the conference bat at the lodge after the Voda attack. I blinked back all the memories of that disastrous trip and found a seat with Eddie.

"What do you suppose this is all about?" he asked. "Our placements?"

"No. We would have heard stuff circulating by now if they had reached conclusions. Give it a few more days for that."

A hushed silence very quickly came over everyone in the room. My attention snapped to the front when the person on stage began speaking. It was Dimitri. I was still avoiding him. It didn't appear to be working out too well. He wasn't wearing his duster but it was neatly folded on the floor at the edge of the dais. He was dressed semi-smartly and looked as good as he did in the form fitting black jumper as he did on Christmas day. The girl in front of me was staring at him too much for my liking. I felt like punching her or something for checking him out but I somehow managed to keep control. I hated him remember.

"As part of you guardian protections you may have to kill Strigoi. As I'm sure you're aware we can't leave their bodies lying around for people to find. Fortunately," Dimitri said his voice wrapping around me, "There are some people who can easily help us with this. Alchemists."

He carried on talking in his calm, self assured way as he explained what Alchemists do – use chemicals to destroy Strigoi bodies – and how they operate, how to get in touch with them and so on. I figured that I'd already seen them in action in Spokane but at the time I wasn't particularly aware of what was going on. I guess I'd always wondered how we kept humans from finding bodies but I had never really thought about it until now.

Now, as he was taking and I was supposed to be learning how we kept humans from finding out about us, I wasn't really paying attention. I was too drawn to the sound of Dimitri's voice. I didn't listen to what he said because in the grand scheme of things it didn't really matter what he was saying just so long as I could hear his voice again. I'd not heard it in months and it was still the same as I remembered it to be. As I slept at night I sometimes heard his voice ghost through my mind in a dream. My mind's reconstruction hadn't done him justice. It hadn't caught the rise and fall of his voice quite right and just hearing it again sent shivers down my spine.

He caught my eyes a few times as he spoke. He was asking for forgiveness I could tell that much. I looked away each time and each time he faltered. No one else noticed but no one else knew him that way I did. No one else had a connection with him that went beyond an easy friendship. I remembered a time when we were so in sync that I didn't know where he ended and I began. But he'd ruined that. The Dimitri I knew and loved wouldn't have left me like that. He would have made us work in a way that I could still guard Lissa and have him around to hold and love me. He wouldn't have let this happen.

As soon as he stopped speaking I felt relief settle over me. He stepped of the dais and Simona took his pace.

"We're just finalising your orders and will send them to you tomorrow. If you have any questions about your charge that you do not find answers to in the pack we give you, come and see us at HQ. Dismissed."

I waited around for the rest of the day to pass. Before the qualifier I was certain that I was going to get put with Lissa – I was the obvious choice. But then Tatiana had practically vowed that she was going to make that impossible. I began pacing after a while and then lay on my bed and forced myself to sleep when I judged it was a reasonable time. Sleep came reluctantly and I heard the door open in the morning waking me up. A messenger boy of some sort had just put an ominous looking envelope on the coffee table.

I didn't move until he had shut the door behind himself. I got out of bed and slowly padded over to the table. There was a hand out about Alchemists on top of the envelope I wanted to open but leave closed at the same time. Procrastinating, I picked up the note that came with the hand out.

You looked distracted yesterday. Dimitri.

The last time he'd told me I looked distracted I was eating a BLT with him. I was pondering something that seemed so trivial now – would we have time to get a manicure and a facial before we left? Just me obviously, I was pretty sure Dimitri didn't go of that kind of thing. I wouldn't mind him giving me the facial but he would just look plain ridiculous getting one himself. I was well aware that that might be the last time I ever had one and I felt sad. I hadn't had time to pamper myself in a while – since I got beck to St. Vladimir's. Only Lissa's constant moisturiser supply ensured I didn't look like a raisin. My hand subconsciously brushed across my face.

"You'll stay beautiful." Dimitri said knowing my train of thought. He knew I liked to look good, had done since we first met. My constant complaining that my lip gloss was running out made sure of that.

I looked into his eyes and quickly looked away from the emotions in them. He was silently telling me he loved me even though he knew that he shouldn't. We couldn't put Lissa at risk like that.

"Maybe my father has anti ageing skin or something that I inherited." I joked trying to shift the atmosphere.

"You could just ask Janine to tell you about him."

"No way. She'd freak. I'd rather get to know her before I start asking about him." I said in an amazing show of truth that surprised both of us. Not the fact I'd told the truth but what the truth was.

"She regrets not knowing you."

"Me too." I said once again surprising myself.

I pulled myself out of my memory before I could get all emotional at what, who, I'd lost. I put the note aside and with a shaky hand picked up my dispatches.

My first thought was, 'ah hell'. The first piece of paper in there told me who I was guarding with. Janine Hathaway. I put that piece of paper down and took out the next one. The one that told me who my charge was.

I just stared at it for a few long seconds thinking 'this can't be right. There has to be a mistake.' Anxious to find out I picked up the phone that was by the TV and dialled.

"Guardian Hathaway." The brusque voice said.

"Hey, Mom."

"Rose! What are you calling me for?" she sounded surprised.

Normally I would have made a joke but I wanted to get to the bottom of this. "I'm your new partner."

She paused. "I wasn't aware I was being transferred."

"No. I am. They gave me your charge. What happened to your partner?"

"Requested a transfer to be closer to his family. His Mom's I'll."

"And they decided to stick me with you?" I retorted before I realised how that would sound to her.

"Orders are orders, Rosemarie." She said back in guardian mode.

"I didn't mean that, Mom. You know that. This is all just so stupid. I'm supposed to be Lissa's guardian! Not some stupid suck up royal I don't even know." I ranted. "It was always going to be me and Lissa. Especially with being shadow kissed and all. Simona wouldn't have let this happen."

"Rose, she did. You should respect her judgement. She's a great woman. A great guardian."

"Tatiana had something to do with this. She said she didn't want me to be Lissa's guardian."

"The queen works her own agenda." Mom was staying more polite and respectful than I was but I could hear the tension in her voice as well as disapproval.

"Mom what am I going to do? I can't leave Lissa with people who can't protect her. No one can protect her like I can. Not from herself." I whispered the last bit.

We'd figured out that I took darkness induced by spirit away from her and that she could heal it out of me. No one else could stop spirit's affects getting to her apart from me. Alright I could probably do it from anywhere in the world but Liss couldn't heal me from anywhere in the world. She needed physical contact. So whilst I saved Lissa I'd go crazy if she didn't heal me. Meaning whoever I was supposed to be protecting would effectively be one guardian down.

"Talk to Simona. She might be able to do something now if enough people take up your cause. I'll call her when I finish my shift. I'll do everything I can, Rose."

"Thanks, Mom." I said and hung up.

I stormed over to Simona's office and barged in without knocking. Fortunately she was only talking to a couple of other guardians but it looked to be nothing serious.

"What the hell, Simona?" I asked. My disbelief had morphed into anger on the way over and was amplified by the blackness I had taken from Lissa yesterday.

When I said that she instantly became pissed off. Whatever. I wasn't the one in the wrong here. She'd said that the last Dragomir was in good hands. My hands. Now I was stuck with some stupid royal over in Siberia? The other guardians left and I was able to talk to Simona alone.

"Rose, I didn't want this to happen."

"But it did. You're the head of the council. You could have stopped it."

"Tatiana ordered me to change your dispatches. In front of everyone else. I couldn't refuse because then they would also get in trouble. Sacked probably. If she'd told me when I was alone I would have disregarded her but the rest of the council were there. If there were plenty of good enough people to take our places we would have all told her where to shove it but there's not. Even if there was she would only order the new council to do the same thing." I still didn't look satisfied. "Rose, if we got new people in they would probably let her drop graduation to sixteen."

That was a slap in the face if ever I heard one. I stared in shock for a moment and then composed myself.

"She's not that stupid is she?"

"The royals are still scared from the attacks. You know what you saw on the ski trip." Too right I did. "If I have to sacrifice one Moroi and dhampir's happiness I'll do it to keep the rest of them safe. Understand where I'm coming from?"

I nodded. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

"There might be."

Ohhh... I'm getting the feeling everyone likes Tatiana a lot less now. And probalby me as well. Please don't kill me otherwise you won't get another Richelle Mead inspired chapter and you'll be left hanging for ever with the question: What happens next?

Richelle Mead own VA - I'm so jealous!