I know, I know, it's been ages since I last updated this story. I know, but I had writers block. I'm sorry.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING BUT THE PLOT.

Chapter 3

It was the middle of the Academy's night when we got back to the school, and Rose practically dragged us off the plane.

"Rose. Please tell me we're not going where I think we're going." Christian practically begged.

"We're not going where you think we're going." She tried to placate him…unsuccessfully.

"Don't lie, Rose." He glared. If he was thinking what I think he's thinking, this would break his heart. I don't know if he can handle it, seeing her again.

"I was just doing what you asked me to." She grabbed both our hands and pulled us out of our seats. "Now come." She ordered. "You can even wait outside if you want."

"Fine. And I will be waiting outside."

The whole way, Christian grumbled to himself about not wanting to go there. And I could tell why.

When we got there, the first thing Rose did was bang on the door, probably waking up half the corridor. Then the yelling started. I should've seen it coming.

"Liss, get your ass up now, I got a surprise for you!" well if the corridor wasn't awake before, then they certainly are now.

The door was wrenched open. "What, Rose?" a very messy, sleepy-looking Lissa appeared in the doorway glaring at Rose. Her hair was messed, and she was wearing nothing but a tank and shorts.

"Oh, open your eyes, Lissa." she glared for a moment more before realising Christian was there. Her eyes flashed up to his and her jaw practically hit the floor.

"Chris—"

"Don't bother, Lissa."

"I'm sorry—"

"You should be!"

"I was drunk—"

"No shit."

"Would you let me finish a—"

"No." Rose clapped her hand over his mouth.

"Proceed." She said.

"Christian, I'm sorry, I—I was drunk; I—I didn't mean to kiss him, it's just, I—I—I was so upset and I just love you so much and—" she was crying by now. "I'm so, so sorry, Christian. Please forgive me."

"He'll forgive you if you compel Kirova into letting these two back." Rose said.

"Rose?" she asked.

"Yeah?"

"I was asking Christian."

"I know. I was answering for him. Now come."

"Can this not wait till the morning? You might not be, Rose, but I'm still in school. My senior year starts in four hours. I need to sleep."

"I know you need to sleep," Rose mocked, "but these two need to go to school tomorrow, too."

"Rose. Is Kirova even up yet?"

"Pwrobably." Christian mumbled from behind Roses hand.

"Did you just lick me?" she asked, but didn't remove her hand.

"Yesh."

"Eew." She still hadn't moved her hand.

"Well from the racket you just made, she probably is awake. The whole school's probably awake." I said.

"You're welcome. Now, go get dressed. If she isn't awake, we can wait in her office and give her a nice surprise when she gets there."

"Rose, why don't you go and ask Alberta. I'll sleep and you can come and wake me up in the morning. Wow, I think that's the first time I've ever said that." The last part sounded more like it was to herself.

"I could do that, but then I wouldn't get the satisfaction of seeing both their faces at the same time."

Lissa glared for a second. "You're evil, you know that."

"Yes. Now go get dressed." She slammed the door in our face.

"Is she coming back?" I asked.

"Yes. In about one minutes time, she will come out looking perfect."

"Gawranteed." Christians muffled voice came from behind her hand. "Rre ooh goona move dat hammd?"

"Maybe." She shrugged.

"Cheeshush Gryst." He muttered to himself.

And then, right on cue, Lissa walked out looking perfect, just like Rose had said. She even had makeup on. Rose finally removed her hand from Christian's mouth.

"How do you do that?" she asked. Lissa just shrugged.

"It's a gift." She smiled angelically.

"You don't say." Lissa just laughed. Rose's head snapped up. "Oh, no, you didn't."

"Rose, I was kidding. You look great all the time. Better than me, usually." Rose glared at her for a moment before her expression softened and she laughed.

"I know. It's a gift." They both grinned and started walking. "This is Dimitri, by the way."

"Oh, hey! I heard about you." She extended a hand and I shook it. "I'm Lissa, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Lissa."

"You, too." She smiled an angelic smile and I looked over to Christian. He looked more jealous than I thought possible. I let go of her hand and he turned to Lissa with a wistful expression. She stared back for just a moment before turning back to Rose.

We walked to the guardian's dorms. Rose took us into the lounge, where there was a rota of some sort on a clipboard. She checked it quickly before leading us away. She lead us to the administration building and banged on a big wooden door. She shushed me and Christian and ushered us round the corner, out of sight from the door. I listened to their conversation.

"Rose?" someone asked.

"Hi. Is Kirova awake?"

"Rose, are you feeling okay?"

"Fine and dandy; why you ask?"

"It's four a.m. and you just asked me about the woman you more than often refer to as Headmistress Bitch."

"I have a surprise for her. And it's Queen Bitch; Kirova's Headmistress Evil—like Doctor Evil on Austin Powers."

"Whatever, Rose. I think she's in her office."

"Thank you. You need to come, too. Go straight ahead, and I'll meet you there. I'll be about two minutes."

She came towards us. She grabbed our hands again, and dragged us away. "Don't say anything unless she asks you. She's insane. She may eat you if you try anything. Be very, very careful." She whispered to us.

"Rose, she's not that bad. What she means is don't be yourselves. And don't try and burn her." Lissa added, looking pointedly at Christian, who held his hands up in surrender.

"That was one time. I swear I won't do it again."

"Don't compel them until I tell you, Liss. She might let them back of their own will. It's unlikely, but if it's gonna happen, I'd rather that than compulsion." She looked back at her friend. "She'll get less pissed that way." We stopped in front a door which I assumed was Kirova's office. Rose barged straight in, still dragging me and Christian behind her. "Surprise!" she threw her hands in the air enthusiastically.

"Rose!" Kirova yelled. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Surprise?" she threw her hands in the air, with much less enthusiasm than before.

"Rose." There was a warning note in her voice this time. Rose sighed in defeat.

"Fine. After the attack last semester, I thought there would've been a lot less casualties if Christian was here—you saw what he did in Spokane—and then I looked and found he'd left with Dimitri," she pointed to me, "and I looked in his file and saw that he'd transferred here because he's nearly as badass as me. And I thought, shit—"

"Language, Rosemarie." Rose completely ignored her and carried on with what she was saying.

"That's two people who would've helped. Like, half the guardians that died could've been save by these two. So, I went to find them. I thought it would be extra protection for if it ever happens again." She smiled angelically, and I thought about how Lissa had done the exact same earlier. Wow, I thought, these girls have more in common than you'd think, even with their bond.

"Rose. Why should these two be allowed back in? They busted out before, why wouldn't they do it again?"

"They busted out because Christian was depressed. Now he's feeling ship shape and ready to go. Plus, you'll do it anyway; I just thought it would be nice for you to do it of your own free will." She smiled a smug smile and both Kirova's and Alberta's dropped, knowing Lissa was more than capable of it.

"You wouldn't."

"Oh, no, I wouldn't; Lissa would."

"Well, what about him?" she gestured to me. "He's missed out on five months of training. He'll be behind."

"Unlikely." Rose snorted. "The reason he came here was because he was majorly badass and was going to be working with me. He can still do that—and I really doubt he's behind after only five months. I mean—three of those were summer break, so, technically, he's only missed two months of training." She had a look of smug satisfaction on her face.

"They're not coming back." Kirova stated. There was a sense of finality in her voice. Rose nudged Lissa with her elbow.

"Do your thing, Liss." She nodded and turned to the older women.

"You're going to let them back," she held the compulsion over both of them with no visible effort. Her voice was so soft it was like a lullaby, yet she sounded so confident of her abilities. "Rose will mentor Dimitri and they will go back to all their lessons."

"Yes, Princess."

"Christian, too."

"Of course."

"Good." She started to turn away, but then thought better of it. "Where do they need to go?"

"To the guidance counsellor. He'll draw up a schedule and then they can go to their lessons."

"And you're completely fine with it?"

Kirova smiled a dazed smile. "Of course, Princess."

"Thank you." She dropped the compulsion and turned to Rose. "Can I go back to bed now?" she asked.

"Liss, do you really want to go back to bed? Don't you want to spend some quality time with me?" she feigned hurt; she put a hand over her heart and whimpered.

"Oh, Rose, of course I want to…?" she seemed to leave her sentence unfinished.

"Oh…well, you go, then. I'll take these two to get their schedules." We left the office and almost immediately, Lissa got as far away as possible.

"What did she say to you?" Christian asked quietly. It took me a moment to figure out what he meant, but then I realised what had been going on in the office. Lissa had been speaking to Rose through their bond.

"She'd said she wasn't too hot on the idea of being around you for the next two hours."

"I thought it was something like that." We were standing out on the quad, and Rose had a look of intense concentration on her face.

"Umm…guidance counsellor's this way." She pointed in the opposite direction to what we were going.

We got our schedules in no time, and Rose said she was teaching my first lesson. She showed us to our dorm rooms—they were both in different buildings, since Christian's Moroi and I'm dhampir—and said she'd get changed and then come get me and take me to the lesson.

When she showed up at my door, there was still an hour left before the class started. I started to tell her when she interrupted me.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, there's still ages left until the class begins, yada, yada, yada. I need you to help me set up. It's the first lesson of the year; I need someone tall to hang the punch bags. I'm too small."

"Umm, are you sure that's appropriate attire for teaching an all-boys combat class?" she just shrugged. She was wearing a tight tank top and short shorts—the senior year was almost entirely boys; not a good combination.

"It'll be fine. I'll lay down a few ground rules…and believe me, they'll follow them." She sounded smug. She turned and walked away; I just stared as she sauntered down the hall. "You coming or what?" I snapped out of my trance and followed her.

"You good?" she asked as I reached up to attach the last hook to the bar above my head. I was standing on a small step ladder, and Rose was holding half the weight of the punching bag below me. Even with the step ladder, she wouldn't be tall enough to reach here; even I had to stretch, and I'm about a foot taller than her.

"Yeah," I grunted, hefting it slightly higher. The only reason anyone could reach these punch bags was because they had ridiculously long chains. I think it's so if Moroi decide to come in the gym, they don't hit their head; they're sometimes my height or taller—dhampirs didn't often grow this tall, but Moroi are almost always tall and super-model slim. But, still, it didn't need to be quite this high.

I got it in the hole and jumped down. I shook my arms out; I'd just hung ten punch bags along the far wall in the gym. It'd passed the time quickly and the boys were just filing into the room.

"Aite, boys." She winked as they entered; they seemed thrilled as they saw their new teacher. "Okay, let's lay down a few ground rules." She stood at the front as all the guys slouched on the floor. "First off: wipe the drool off your face; if you're gonna think about me naked, do it on your own time. Second: no, I do not do private training sessions; I have to work with big boy over there," she pointed to me, "every spare second of the day. And last: I'm not the hooker this entire school seems to think I am; you even think about touching my butt, I will personally castrate you." She finished with a dark glare at them—and a couple even looked about to wet themselves.

But there was one who just laughed. "Rose, don't be so harsh; you can't expect a group of boys to not think about touching your but when you're running and fighting. That's just evil. You can't castrate us all!"

"Fine, Eddie, I will make an exception," she went and sat on his lap, "but only because I love you so much." She kissed his cheek before jumping back up and telling them what to do for the next hour. After they'd all partnered up and left to get on with it, she walked over to me. "Looks like it's just me left, big boy. Gonna show me what you got?"

"Bring it on." We made our way to a space in the centre of the room and stood facing each other. We both leaned down into a defensive crouch simultaneously. I made the first move. She had me pinned within seconds.

"Nice try, big boy. I told you you couldn't take me."