The next morning, I woke up to someone beating on my door way before it was time for my alarm to go off. My automatic thought was Dimitri. Something was wrong, or we were taking a trip to some other place as a part of my 'training' but when I called 'come in' it was Landon. The moment he walked in, I rolled over, pulling my blankets up around me.

"Sleep." I groaned.

"You've got to get up in thirty minutes anyway." He told me, walking towards my bed. I heard his footfalls coming closer and closer until they stopped beside me. "I wanted to talk to you about last night."

"I want to sleep. What part of that do you not get?" I groaned, curling up into a ball. The next thing I knew, his arms wrapped around me, and he crawled into bed beside me.

"Rose…" He murmured. I'll admit, I was slightly turned on by the gesture. I pulled the covers away from my face and looked at him, meeting his sparkling green eyes.

"What about last night?"

"What happened? You ran off so fast, and you promised you'd explain. I waited up for you, but you never came home." He said. I could see the concern on his face.

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Landon. You need to understand that." I murmured.

"I know that… I'll only understand if you tell me. I'd like to know." He said. I sighed, knowing I couldn't keep it from him anymore, and he was right. I did promise to explain.

"It's too long of a story to tell you now, and I need to get ready for practice. Take a walk with me after training today?" I asked. He nodded.

"Of course." He said. I smiled.

"It'll be nice for someone else to know, so I have someone else to talk too." I said.

"You know I'm always here for you."

"I know." I murmured. He leaned forward and kissed me gently, catching me off guard. I leaned into it, welcoming his lips. After a few moments, I pushed him away. "I need to get ready."

"You're right, you're right. I'm sorry." He said, pushing himself up and out of my bed. He turned and walked towards the door. "Meet me out front after practice?"

"Sounds good." I said, nodding before he disappeared out my door. I rolled out of bed, about the time my alarm started blaring beside me. I slapped it and grabbed my gym clothes, and changed. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I ran into Adrian… and when I say ran into him, I mean I literally ran into him. As soon as it happened, I apologized, but then I remember Lissa's words from last night. "But Adrian said-." And "He understands." My skin crawled.

"You!" I growled.

"Yes?"

"You went to Lissa without telling me, you convinced her to stop taking her medicine." I accused, pointing my finger in his face.

"What are you talking about?" He asked, taking a step away from me. I shook my head.

"Don't you play dumb with me, Ivashkov. I know what happened. She told me." I snapped.

"She's not very good at keeping secrets, is she?" He asked.

"Don't pin this on her, this is your fault."

"My fault? Rose, I'm trying to help the poor girl out."

"She was doing fine before you barged in and convinced her otherwise." I said, my words coming out like venom.

"Rose, I knew what it was like being on that medication. Even without meeting up with her beforehand I knew she was suffering. Do you really want your best friend to suffer?" He asked.

"She was sane… and that was all I needed."

"Listen to yourself. That's all YOU needed. Did you ever stop to think of what Lissa wanted, of what was best for her?" He asked. I recoiled like he'd struck me with a whip.

"The medicine was the best thing for her. She was cutting herself. What if she would have cut too deep? What if she would have killed herself? What would I have then? Nothing. I wasn't going to take that chance, and I'm pissed that I'm having to take it now. Especially since I'm having to take it because of something YOU did." I snapped.

"I helped her."

"You had to stick your nose where it didn't belong." I muttered.

"I helped her." He repeated.

"You didn't do anything but fuck up something that was going perfectly fine." I snapped.

"It was going perfectly fine for you, because you were safe and sane here. She was there, alone with no one to talk to or help her, dealing with being cut off from her magic. You're not a moroi and I don't expect you to understand, but it's horrible. I'd rather be insane and free to do what I please than all bottled up and losing my mind." He said.

"This isn't about you." I snapped.

"It isn't about you either, and you need to realize that. This was about Lissa."

"I know who this is about, Adrian." I yelled, pinning him to the wall. I felt the darkness bubble out of me, but then retract as quickly as it came. The back door opened, and Dimitri stepped in to find Adrian and I in this compromising position.

"What's going on?" He asked. I stepped back, smoothing Adrian's collar of his crisp button up shirt.

"Just having a friendly chat. Sorry I'm late." I said, following Dimitri out the back door. When the door was closed, Dimitri turned to me.

"You were yelling at him for going to Lissa, weren't you?"

"You bet your sweet ass I was. He had no right going-." I cut myself off when I saw the practice dummies lined up on the track. "No way-." I started.

"I figured it was about time we got to this portion of your training. We can always circle back to combat." He said. He pulled a stake from his jacket and unwrapped it. He handed it to me and sighed.

"Be careful… don't kill yourself with it."

"You have such little faith in me." I said.

"You're wrong… I have a lot of faith in you." He said. Our conversations always took weird turns when we were alone. I think it was this undeniable attraction between the two of us, not that you'd ever get me to admit that out loud. There was something about it that just made things perfectly awkward and content between us. Was that weird? A little… yeah, I figured as much. Anyway, we walked over to the dummies, and he told me a few things about staking. He then motioned for me to try.

"Wait… you're not going to demonstrate first?" I asked, becoming nervous.

"No… I didn't think I needed to, since you're such a bad ass and all." Hearing him swear was always funny sounding because any other time he was so prim and proper. I always found humor in it. Anyway, I laughed.

"I am a bad ass, but I'd still like a demonstration." I said. He sighed.

"What's in the way of the heart?" He asked, meeting my eyes. The way he looked at me, it was hard to tell if he was talking about us or about a strigoi. The look in his eyes when he met mine always caught me off guard.

"Huh?" I asked.

"In the way of the heart… what's blocking it?" He asked again.

"Oh… Uhm…sorry. Ribs." I said.

"What else?"

"Cartilage?" I tried. He nodded.

"Yes, and to get through them, you've got to shove it in there… deep." He said. His choice of words was just asking for a witty, Rose Hathaway quip, but this was serious and I left that one alone. I nodded.

"Show me, master." I teased. He shook his head. He pulled his stake from his belt, and took stance before lunging and shoving the stake into the spot a strigoi's heart would be. He was so lithe and stealthy and yet graceful all the same. He stepped back, surveying his work before nodding proudly. I clapped and smiled at him.

"See… I've dug through the cartilage, around the rib cage, and into the heart. You've got to be rough and work it through all of that, because if you don't… you'll never actually get a clean kill, and that's always what you want to go for." He told me. I nodded. He ripped the stake out, and motioned to the other dummy. "Your turn."

"Oh boy." I muttered. I walked over to the dummy and took stance. I was going to do this, and I was going to do it right, and hopefully look dead sexy while doing it. I snickered to myself. I took a deep breath and lunged forward, digging the silver piece of metal into the dummies heart, digging around fake ribs and forcing it through fake cartilage. When I stepped back, Dimitri walked over, looking at my damage.

"Close… but not quite. You got it in there pretty deep, but I don't know that that would have reached his heart." He said. He nodded approvingly though. "That was very good for the first try. I'm impressed." I just nodded. He commented on the good things and made suggestions for the bad until we had to switch dummies because the one I was using had a gaping hole in the center of its chest. When we switched, I went to work on the new one. I dug my stake into his chest again and again, but I never seemed to quite make it. I forced and forced, but it didn't seem like it was working. When I did it, I turned my back, but Dimitri grabbed my arm, pulling me back around.

"Don't ever turn you back on an enemy until you know their dead. That'll get you killed." He said. I was caught off guard by the skin on skin contact and by the harshness of his words. I nodded once.

"Sorry…" I murmured.

"One more time, Rose. You can do this…I believe in you." He said. I spun the stake in my hand and took stance. I came up with a scenario in my head and lunged at the dummy, driving the stake through his heart. I pushed and forced and worked around ribs until I couldn't force it any further. When I stepped back, Dimitri examined it and smiled.

"Congrats, Rose." He said.

"I did it?" I asked. He nodded.

"You did it."

"Yes!" I exclaimed, jumping onto him and wrapped my arms around his neck. The moment I realized what I'd actually done, I let go and stepped back. Dimitri was laughing and smiling with me, so I hadn't crossed any of his boundaries, but I had crossed some of my own. I knew touching him in any way was a bad idea. The feel of his skin on mine was tempting and made me want to kiss him that much more. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay. You have a right to be excited. You did an extremely good job." He said.

"Thanks." I said, still slightly embarrassed about my little outburst. Regardless, I surveyed my work, looking to see how and where, and what I should do next time. He nodded approvingly as he did the same.

"We're done for the day. Very good, Rose."

"Thanks Dimitri." I said, simply before I started back inside. I knew if Landon's practice was over, I'd have to explain to him my life story. I didn't have a problem with that, but I felt like putting it off as long as I could. I grabbed a bottle of water, as I watched Dimitri move the dummies back into the shed outside. I took a deep breath before heading to the front door. When I walked out, Landon stood against the tree out front.

"Well hello there, beautiful." He said.

"Beautiful? I'm sweaty… I stink, and my hair is a mess. Beautiful isn't what I'd call this." I said. He shook his head.

"I would have to formally disagree with you, Rose." He said, walking over to me. I sighed.

"Of course…"

"Now… you wanna tell me what happened last night?" He asked, linking my arm with his. I looked up at him.

"Do you believe in coming back from the dead?" I asked. I figured I might as well start at square one.

"Uhm? Not really… I guess… I don't know. Why?"

"Because I did." He just stared at me for a second.

"I'm sorry… what?"

"When Lissa and I were younger, we were in a car accident." I said.

"The accident that killed her parents." He murmured. Everyone heard about it. It didn't surprise me that he knew.

"Yes, that same accident. Lissa was the only one to survive that accident." I told him. He just stared at me for a second.

"Please… elaborate." He said.

"Lissa is a different. She specialized in spirit instead of the other main elements that most moroi wield. Well, this enables her to do things that other moroi can't do. She heals people, and when we were all killed in that accident, she brought me back to life. It bonded us. There are all kinds of stories about Guardians and their moroi being bonded, but no one ever knew if it was true. Well, me and Lissa know it was. I can feel what she's feeling. I can locate her at any time. I can see through her own eyes as if I was her." I explained. His mouth was hanging open. He'd open his mouth to speak and then snap it shut. He did this two or three times, to the point where he looked like a fish out of water. Finally, he formed a sentence… sort of.

"So… you died?"

"I did." I murmured.

"And Lissa brought you back to life?" He asked. I nodded.

"Yes." I said.

"That's what happened last night? You were feeling what she was feeling?" He asked. I nodded.

"Yes, something was wrong with her, and I felt that. I was scared, so I went to her. That's why Dimitri took me to see her that day. She was making some bad decisions and I had to help her. She needed me. I didn't care what the others had to say about it." I told him. He nodded.

"It all makes sense now." He said.

"It does?" He nodded.

"You always seem like you're somewhere else sometimes, when you zone out, or when you're thinking deeply about something. Now I understand it's because of your bond." He said. I nodded, knowing that wasn't completely the truth. I'd never admit it to him though. "What happened when you disappeared last night? Why did she need you?" I then launched into a speech about the darkness, and what it was like, and how it affected both me and her. I told him about her cutting, and even shed a few tears, because it was the first time I'd ever laid everything out for anyone. I'd never told anyone our whole story at one time, and I felt vulnerable but at the same time, it was like a weight was lifted. He assured me it'd be okay and told me that I was strong enough to fight the darkness, just like Dimitri told me. I just agreed, and told him I'd do my best to be strong. By this time, we'd made our way to my room, lounging around. At some point we ended up falling asleep, but I didn't reject or fight it. I snuggled closer to him, and let myself drift into a peaceful sleep.

A/N: Spring Break is next week, and I'm leaving for Arkansas. If the updates come to a stop, or slow down juristically that's why. I'm sorry for this, and will definitely get back into updating regularly as soon as possible. I'm not sure if I have wireless internet where I'm going, so that's one of the only problems I see myself running into. Anyway, leave me reviews & thank you so much for reading.