**Chapter 15**

Standing behind Lissa protecting her felt so great. Scenes reply the whole time of this morning's meetings. I'm glad the way I handled the situations this morning. Hand Lissa a glass of water then returned to my post. Security feed constantly in my ear giving all the feed from all over the court. That's being what being head of guardian Head Quarters means to get feed from all over court. Christian, Estavan and Dimitri have not yet returned to court from the Ozra family business trip. Out court session ends for today and will continue tomorrow. We all escorted Lissa from the building into her armour cars and drove her back to her home. She look so tired I had one of her royal guards carry her to bed. I sat with her as I got out of my jacket.

'Liss how are you feeling?' I asked her clanking on the clock the night stand on Christian side of the bed. An hour will I must go and pick Junior up from day care.

'I'm fine just tired we had such long sessions today.'

'I'll have a feeder be send over and some dinner. Maybe you'll feel better after you've fed.'

'That would be great, thanks Rose.' She said and I called in for some normal food and a feeder be send over. 15 Minutes later a feeder arrived with a trolley full of food for Lissa to choose from. She fed from the feeder then ate her food. I told her Marco will be here if she needs anything while I go and pick Junior up from day care. She nod her head and then continue to eat her food.

I drove to pick up Junior then drove home where we done his homework in reading and writing then got him to finally sit down to eat and finally gave him his bath. I also run through the shower myself and got us both dressed again. I stuffed a load of our washing into the washing machine and the rest that is already washed in the tumble drier. Now we head out the door again driving back to Lissa's place. Lissa saw Junior and was so excited and super surprised to see how big he has gotten.

'You got so big.' Lissa told him.

'Yes, your majesty.' He told her. She just looked at me so surprised.

'We are teaching him the basics already. You do know he can read and write already right.' I told her.

'What?! That is astonishing.' She said putting him on her hip as she walked around.

'And it's only his first birthday on Friday.'

'Is it a year already?'

'Yeah time does really fly huh.'

'Yes, it sure does.' I took Junior from her and let her sit down. She relax on the couch while watching a nice movie. We retreated to the monitoring room where guardian Lopez sat watching the monitors. I set Junior down with his toys and crayons and his coloring books. His toy car broke under his really tight grip and he cried walking to me showing me his now broken toy car. I taught him the difference between hard grip and gentleness. He caught on quickly and I explain to him why his toy car broke. For the next 30 minutes we worked on his hard and gentle touches.

I finally got through to him. Later he climb onto my lap and lay his little head on my shoulder and fell asleep. I lay him down for the night when Dimitri walked in. Guardian Lopez she left to return to her post as Dimitri took in his old post. We just smiled at each other. Walked closer and hugged and kissed each other hello. We monitor the screens and caught up on the last two days. Dimitri kept his promise to teach me Russian. I struggled at first, but it is starting to get the hang of most of the pronunciations. By the time I got Junior ready for day care. Got him fed and his teeth brushed, I can speak a little Russian.

Dimitri took Junior to day care and as for me a report came in of a school nearby that had a small strigoi attack last night. I send word to Eric to deploy extra guardians to the school for protection and will join them as soon as my meetings are done. I met with the count five making apologies for Eric. Almost everything is done for the new training and education for the new school year that will start in a week or two.

They gave me copies of their new curriculum to go through. We adjourn out meeting. A handful or guardians and myself drove out to the school. I gave Dimitri a call from the road talking in half Russian and half English a nice decent mix. He understands and told me to please be careful. I told him I will be then we hung up. I followed the GPS we were there in no time. We arrived at St. Marcus Academy and we all asset the damages around the school. New wards were being put in all around the school. Eric walked up to me and told me what happened. He told me the strigoi send humans over the wards to break them the protection so they can get in. Smart very smart. I left in such a rush that I still have my royal slash head of HQ jacket on.

It's a jacket Lissa designed for me. It is a black jacket with a bright red Chinese collar that is edged in gold embroidery. With black movable pants and comfortable combat boots. With a black collar shirt underneath. My jacket sleeve edges is also embroider in gold. On the edges on either side of my shoulders on my jacket is a half moon with five stars in it to indicate my ranking.

And over my breast pocket of my shirt my name; Guardian Belikov is also embroider in gold, then to round the whole look you wear a black silk tie with it. I really love wearing my new uniform it really pretty and thanks to Lissa it is now official dress for the HQ of guardians. As we move to through the school grounds towards the head masters office I saw some of the kids heads turn as we move towards the administrative building. The head master Mr Vannikov welcome us warmly. A moroi head master who clearly didn't had a feed to today.

'Thank you all for coming. This is our head guardian here at our school, guardian McLeod.' (Great a Scott.) Eric and I both turned to shake his hand.

'Do what do we owe the honor to have the head of HQ come down to our school?' McLeod asked me in his rich Scottish accent.

'Guardian McLeod, I'm here to have a hands on approach to help where I can to get this academy back up to speed. So if it takes a day or two weeks to repair everything then that is what I'll do.' He and the men in the room just nod their head show that they are impressed on my hand on approach.

'Now guardian McLeod do you have all the maps and blue prints of everything on this campus and surrounding areas?'

'Yes, ma'am in my quarters.'

'Wonderful. Head master I've you'll excuse us.'

'Please.' Eric and the other men stepped out into the hall waiting for me.

'Head master, you look exhausted.'

'I am. Parents keep calling and yelling at me for not keeping their kids safe.'

'It is not at all your fault sir. I know parents don't see it that way but you can't beat yourself up over it.'

'You're right.'

'Go have a feed then go have a nice meal and then get some rest.'

'I'll find you in the morning to give you an update what is happening around the academy.' I said. He said goodnight to me and me him. I finally joined my waiting party and we left for the guardian quarters. Turns out this school has a tunnel system running under the school. It is very scary and creepy. The school is build on a hill top but completely hidden in a very thick forest. According to the surroundings there are one cave near the base of the hill and another further south east about 10 miles from the school. Having a really good lay of the land now, I can work on a strategy. Eric and the others started working on protection plans for the school in case we have another attack here at school.

'Sorry ladies and gentle men. How many attacked the school?'

'About 20 of them.' McLeod answered in his thick Scottish accent.

'How many casualties and deaths did we have?'

'We had about 12 casualties, but no deaths.' I just nod my head, glad to hear of no more deaths.

'Okay here is what we'll do?' I said then started to lay out my plan. Informing them we still have a Romanian strigoi mobster trying to kill all form of moroi for trophies. Eric think I totally lost it.

'I've seen the work of strigoi mind more than once in my lifetime already. We need to find a lone strigoi and question him or her.'

'Now that is beyond crazy!' McLeod said looking from Eric to me then back to Eric.

'Guardian Belikov discover the strigoi mobster nest by interrogating a strigoi then stake them.' Eric informed the room.

'So you were the one that send Hans to his death?' McLeod turned on me.

'Hey.' I started to say but with cut off by Eric.

'No, she did not. She merely gave Hans the information he needed. He himself decided to go all on his own. I witness guardian Belikov here actually trying to reason with him not to go and more than once she tried to tell him that if I'm not mistaken. Yet he went.' Eric came up for me.

'My apologies guardian Belikov. I didn't mean to be disrespectful towards you.'

'All forgiven. Now let's move forward and get this academy back up where it should be. What will you do to better the protection if you don't want to follow my plan?' I asked him. He was quite for a long time. I couldn't take it anymore.

'Okay- okay. Guardian McLeod you and your men that fought last night go get some rest. We have enough new guardians here to take over all your duties for one night. The tomorrow morning we gather back here to strategist our plan of action.

'Everyone agree saluted then split up. My team effortlessly moved into all their assigned positions. I checked in on all the guardian departments. Everyone got settled fine. I went out on to start patrolling the academy grounds. My ear piece in to get security feed of all the other guardian around the grounds. Phoned Dimitri, Junior was still up. He let me talk to Junior. Junior talked to me, bringing tears to my eyes.

'Mommy loves you, my boy.' I said then Dimitri took the phone from Junior.

'Please ne safe out there honey.'

'I will, I promise. I don't know when I'll be back though. I will keep you on top of things.'

'Okay just come back in one piece not like you usually get out of a fight.'

'I will do my best. I love you.'

'I love you to, my Roza. Bye.'

'Bye.' I said then hung up. Walking about the campus grounds, I saw a group of novice students on the elementary campus that talked among themselves looking and pointing at me. I looked at my watch it was almost curfew. Walking over to them to get them to their dorm rooms in time.

'Good evening. I'm guardian Belikov and I will escort you to your dormitories.' Then you know that moment when you are about to be bombarded with a million questions. This was one of them.

'You are Rose Hathaway married to guardian to Dimitri Belikov right?'

'That is correct.'

I answered as the group move towards their dorm.

'You are now head of guardian head quarters and still part of the queens royal guard.' One novice said with sparkling eyes.

'Yes, it is.'

'Is all the stories true ma'am?' Another novice asked me.

'What stories?'

'Of you helping those moroi students escape and killing those strigoi's with a sword.'

'Yes.' I'm just glad no tails have been added to that story.

'And the stories of you being in the battle of St Vladimir killing half of the strigoi that attacked?'

'Yes, I was.' Darn kids opening old wounds for me all over again. I showed them into their dorm. Their dorm super visor took them off my hands and I returned to my duties. Walking around the perimeter with Eric and two handful of good men and woman. At day break for moroi which is everything for the human world. The whole school was buzzing. McLeod, Eric and I got planning. We finally set out checking the tunnels with large fire torches in four groups of three in all directions. My group had one court guard called Von Manrosky and Silvia Miganov, a school guardian.

They to have fire torches in their hands. We searched our end of the tunnels then got out side into the woods. We looked around and we were about a mile and a half from the school but I still had a security feed in my ear piece. It was static from the radio feed from the men in the tunnels. Silvia knew this area well so we walked the forest for about an hour when I sensed a strigoi first then the others. We hid our torches then I lay out the plan in only lip movement. We set out and jumped and pinned him to the ground from the side.

'You three are dead.' He said as I sat on his chest stepping on his arms with my feet. I burned him a long gash. He tried to break free almost have, so I burned him again. Silvia and Von also now sitting on him.

'Now that we have your attention. Who send you?'

'Fuck you bitch! I'll tell you shit!' I burned him some more then my old tactic with my stake sharp end pushing into their necks came in handy.

'Wrong answer. Now one more time with feeling. Who send you?'

'Yevan Kovranisky.'

'Where can I find him?' I asked pulling my stake out and burned him quickly a few times then push the sharp end back into his neck this time only deeper.

'Here in Pennsylvania 50 miles from here on the Washington estate out north east of here.' He spilled his guts.

'Thank you. Silvia he is all yours.' I said to her as I got up from his chest as she stake him in the heart. We got our almost our torches. I looked at his face and Von and Silvia eyes widen with shock when we finally saw who we just interrogated and staked to death. It was Hans or former head of HQ back at court. Von set Hans body alight. Of all the odds out here in nowhere to find Hans the strigoi. Watching our former boss burn to nothing. We cover the burned area with new dirt then head back to campus via the tunnels.

'We need to seal up these tunnels and fast.'

'I guess your right guardian Belikov.' Von said. Silvia agreed. We got back to the command centre and told them what we found out from our strigoi encounter. Leaving out who it was. McLeod got out a bigger area maps. We got a plan form the one I suggested Hans should have taken. I got more than four cars of guardians to join in. My group consists of McLeod, Von, Silvia and 9 other including me. As the other five cars set out to lead the small group to break away from the compound estate. So it will separate the head to stay behind that is where my group gets in.