Thank you, Ariana-Magdalena, mysterious person, thee-dark-enchantress and em-paige12085 for your reviews. Thank you for your compliments and thank you for pointing my mistakes out to me, which hopefully have now been rectified. I should probably tell you that I didn't have a story when I posted the first chapter, it was just a test. However, I think I've found an interesting route to take the story down, so anyways. Hope you like, and I hope you continue to review :)

Yoga is apparently therapeutic for some; my therapeutic sessions consist of my one on one training sessions with Dimitri. Kirova had made the sessions a prerequisite – without them I would have been tossed back out onto the streets at the beginning of term, without Lissa. Then again these past few weeks had been like living without her. We shared only one class together during school time and outside of that she was spending the majority of her time with Adrian. Admittedly during one of their little private meetings I had tried to use our blood bond to my advantage and get an inside look at exactly what was going on, but I couldn't get through. Usually it was quite simple to get inside of her head – but after everything I had been through in the past month, my mind, body and soul seemed to be tied up in knots.

"Rose…" his voice brought me back to the room, back the dummy's chest which my fists were currently doing a one-two-three combo against.

"What?" I asked, my voice cutting slightly. I sighed out of my fighting stance and took a step back away from the dummy. "Sorry, it's just been a long day." It had been a long day and it had all started with a bad dream.

He stood up from his chair and walked across the gymnasium, closing the distance between us. "With trials coming up, maybe we should cut back on the training sessions to one a day."

"Can't comrade, the Nazi made it crystal clear at the beginning of term that I had to jump through all her little hoops and this is one of them." Not that I wanted to end one of our sessions together – sure I would have time to study or even see more of my friends, but I would be losing out on a perfectly good hour of combat training. "Besides," I unearthed my man eating smile and took a step closer to him, so that we were almost touching. "We don't have long together before I become the world's most kick ass guardian so I would like to make the most of the time we have together."

He shook his head and turned away from me with a smile playing at his lips. "It was actually Headmistress Kirova who suggested scaling back on your sessions," He said catching me completely off guard. "She's seen the progress you've made over the last few months, the obstacles you've had to overcome." He paused, no doubt thinking back to just a few weeks ago when he and other guardians had walked in on me sprawled out across Mason's dead body, next to two decapitated Moroi and holding a blunt sword to warn off any attackers.

"Seriously, Kirova's letting me off the hook?" I asked my voice filled with disbelief. It made no sense. The old hag hated me, pure and simple. Sure I had gone above and beyond my student duties and wandered into guardian territory to protect Lissa. Suddenly it occurred to me, "Wait was it a suggestion or an order?"

Dimitri returned my gaze, "A suggestion."

"Good," I sighed in relief. "Because without you giving me Zen lessons, I would lose all my self control and beat Adrian Ivashkov to a pulp."

The smile that had been playing at Dimitri's lips miraculously vanished, his hands clenched ever so slightly. All the other guardians thought that Dimitri had mastered his control, but I knew better.

"You know," I continued before he could ask what the royal pain in my ass had done this time to get under my skin, "The…" I was about to push my luck by making another comment about us trying to be together, when the light turned off. And it wasn't in the gymnasium. A rupture of panic ripped through the blood bond I shared with Lissa.

"Rose,"

She whispered my name as she tried to open her eyes.

"Shhh, it won't hurt. For long…" An eerie male voice giggled in her ear as a finger traced down the side of her cheek.

I ripped out of her and back to myself, just as the gymnasium door slammed open. Dimitri was standing over me, his hand resting under my chin. He had probably been staring into my absent eyes waiting for me to come back to him but his eyes were now focused on Alberta.

"We're under attack." She spoke so calmly that I thought I must have heard it wrong. But the sound of faraway screams suddenly pierced through me.

I looked up into Dimitri's dark eyes for a brief moment before I took off. Running laps for several months as a warm up around the school's field had been setting me up for this moment. I ran through the school hallways taking in everything that was happening around me; the guardians standing guard at several rooms which were holding Moroi vampires, keeping them safe. My main priority was Lissa. Everything else was just background noise.

It's amazing what pure determination can do to you; I had reached Lissa's dorm in less than a minute which would have usually taken me at least two. The dorm looked undisturbed; the wooden door leading to her bedroom was closed.

"No one's coming to save you…"

My foot connected with the door before any rational thought pulsed through me. I should have taken precautions; I should have done the sensible thing and waited for backup…I should have but I didn't. The door broke away from its top hinge while the bottom section splintered into two.

"I wouldn't count on that,"

He stood up straight, his body no longer looming over my unconscious best friend. His ruby red eyes smiled as he inhaled deeply, "Mmm dhamphir!" His tongue traced his lips as his eyes scanned my body. "There's always room for a starter before the main the course."

"Well then why don't you come on over for a taster…" I grinned in spite of myself. This was no time to be bantering with a Strigoi vampire as Lissa lay unconscious less than a foot away from him, but I needed him to be distracted and I needed to protect Lissa with everything I had – even if it meant my life.

Before I could move or even blink he was across the room, his hands holding mine by my side, his mouth inches from my neck. And on instinct my knee pushed up and smashed into his stomach just as my head collided with his, making him loosen his grip on me and stagger back ever so slightly. He had obviously thought I was just another inexperienced novice – boy was he wrong.

"How'd it taste?" I asked as I freed myself from his grip. His blood red eyes no longer smiling but narrowing; watching me carefully trying to asses my next move "What's the matter? Not used to your food fighting back?" An angry snarl escaped his lips, his fist aiming for my head instead impacted with the palm of my hand. Sure I couldn't hold him back for long, but I could at least draw it out. My free hand whipped around quickly and shaped itself into a fist just before impacting against his face, knocking him to the floor which was an achievement in itself. Unlike my encounter with Natalie, I didn't hesitate. My foot pounded against his face several times, each time making widening the pool of blood on floor.

"Rose…" Lissa called out into the darkened room.

I took my attention away from the vampire below my foot and to her for just a second. A second too long as a hand gripped around my bicep, throwing me hard against one of the bedroom walls. Another Strigoi had entered the room while my attention had been elsewhere. And unlike her friend lying in a pool of blood on the floor, she had the advantage. Pinning me against the wall, she sniffed the side of my face and tightened her grip on my wrists. "You have a beautiful body…" She spoke as she studied it, a smile playing on her bloodied lips. "How would you like to be my blood whore?"

"Bite me." My biting tone matching my words.

And then she moved in for the bite.