So sorry for the wait, thank you to everyone who is reading my story and thank you to all the reviewers I love them.
Chapter 18: Testing
I awoke to light kisses all over my face and after awhile I finally decided to try and open my eyes and was greeted with the best sight ever, deep chocolate eyes. I stretched and yawned and asked Dimitri what time it was.
"About 7:15 am, I figured we could have breakfast before we head over to the gym" Dimitri stated.
"Okay" I said as I yawned again.
Dimitri and I freshened up and put on workout clothes and headed for the kitchen. Celeste and Yuri were walking up the stairs just as Dimitri and I were entering the kitchen. Celeste and I sat at the kitchen counter while Dimitri and Yuri started making breakfast.
I turned to Celeste and said "I think I can get used to this".
She laughed and said "me too!"
While Dimitri was making blini, he pulled out what we would need for today like water, Gatorade and snacks. "Roza, Celeste why don't you guys get duffle bags and we will fill them up.
Once Celeste and I came back we had started filling them with towels that I had brought from our linen closet. Then we filled them with water, Gatorade and snacks. As soon as our gym bags were ready, Dimitri and Yuri put out food for everyone as well as juice and coffee. While I was not a huge coffee drinker, I had the feeling it was going to be a long day.
At 7:45am, we all went down to the gym where we found Pavel waiting for us. Pavel introduced us to the three other guardians with him explaining that they were retired guardians who continued staying here and that they were going to help with the testing today. "Why don't you start stretching and then we are going to start with a one mile run to warm up" Pavel said.
After stretching, the four of us started jogging around the track initially and then we started increasing our speed. I ran with Dimitri as I was used to keeping pace with him and Celeste ran with Yuri.
Once we finished our warm up, Pavel gavel us instructions "This is an individual five mile time test, while you are running together, do not pace yourself with anyone else." We lined up then Pavel yelled "Go."
We all raced out and after about a lap, Dimitri took the lead, I followed behind him then Celeste and Yuri. Celeste and Yuri were about half a lap behind me and I was trailing about 20 feet behind Dimitri.
Once we finished running, the guardian who timed us came over to each of us to help us with stretching after our run. Out of the corner of my eye, I could tell that Dimitri was not happy about this. I noticed the guardian helping me stretch kept looking at me like he had a question he wanted to ask me. So I started and I asked "I'm sorry, what was your name again?"
"Guardian Chris Brown" he stated.
"How long have you worked for my father?" I asked.
"About twenty years" he replied.
"So, I take it that you knew me when I was little?"
"Oh yes and you were the most adorable trouble maker ever" he laughed.
I laughed at that too "I wish I could remember".
"Maybe after being around your old home it will bring back the memories." He stated.
"Hopefully, but maybe when you have some time you could tell me about yourself and how I was when I was little?" I stated.
"I would love too." He said.
Pavel then announced that we were going to do timed sit-ups and pushups. The guardian who helped us stretch after our run was going to count our sit ups and pushups. The four of us were pretty even matched on number of sit-ups but Celeste and I dominated on pull-ups, probably because Dimitri and Yuri had more weight due to their muscular physique.
The next thing we did was stake training on a bunch of dummies. As usual, Dimitri was spot on each time, Celeste and Yuri were even matched and well I sucked at it. I tried to remind myself that I had not had a lot of training with stakes at the Academy as Dimitri had only started teaching me about a week before we left for Russia.
We moved onto weapons training where I sat out because I had no experience with guns and knives. Pavel came over to me while the others were practicing and said "Don't worry Rose, most guardians are not proficient in weapons training because it is not effective against strigoi but they are useful against humans."
"Gotcha" I said. As I watched Dimitri, Celeste and Yuri I realized that while they had some experience they would probably need more practice as well.
The last stage of our testing was sparring. Pavel explained that he wanted to test us after everything we had done because he wanted to see how we fought when we were fatigued because it would give him an idea how we would do in a battle.
Pavel explained that we could choose our sparring partner from a group of guardians but he wanted to make sure the guardian we choose was either equally matched or better than us. I was interested to see who would spar with Dimitri since he was a Blood Master 7. When Pavel asked us who wanted to go first I jumped at the chance, since I saw Max in the group and I really wanted to wipe that smirk off his face.
I raised my hand first and Pavel asked "Who do you want to spar?"
"I want to fight Max" I said. I was ready to put him on his ass. I knew Dimitri wanted to do the same thing but then it would look like my overprotective boyfriend fighting my battles.
I looked behind me and saw Pavel and Yuri chuckling and Celeste gave me a wink. And unfortunately Dimitri looked quite tense first due to the proximity I would be to Max and secondly because I think Dimitri wanted to put him on his ass as well.
I walked into the sparring ring and as Max approached me he said "Roza, are you sure you want to do this? I mean I am a Blood Master 2".
"First of all, my boyfriend is the only person who calls me Roza. My friends call me Rose and my instructors call me Novice Hathaway. You do not fit into any of those categories, so you can all me Miss Mazur" I said as I heard a few chuckles behind me.
"And secondly, I fight Guardian Belikov at least twice a day and he is a Blood Master 7 and I take him down at least once a day. So feel free to give it your best shot."
Even before we started, I noticed a small group forming around us to watch the fight. I ran through everything Dimitri had taught me, first what were his strengths as a fighter: height, weight and experience came to my mind immediately. Then I thought about what his weaknesses were: he was cocky, he was underestimating my abilities and he was playing to the crowd.
I figured that he would be going on the offense, so I was going on the defensive. I knew he was going to count on me being fatigued and try to use that to his advantaged. However, my plan was to try and tire him out. Dimitri had always said that it took more effort to hit and miss then landing a hit.
While Max wasn't Dimitri's height, but he was still much taller than me and Dimitri told me that fighting up close would put Max at a disadvantage because of his arm spam.
Max and I got into position and Pavel said "You are going to fight three times, no hits above the neck and the timer is set for 15 minutes. Okay"
We all nodded our head as we agreed. "Go" Pavel said.
As expected Max went on the offense, he charged towards me trying to hit my shoulder, but as he did that I spun so he missed me but I was able to kick him on the side of his ribs. I knew I made a good hit since I heard a hiss. Next Max tried to punch me straight on using a combination of right punch, left punch then a swift kick with his leg. I was able to defend his punches and his kick. But I saw an opening when he tried to kick me, his balance was off, so I lunged at him and he went down and I put my hand on his chest over his heart and Pavel said "Dead".
I got up off of Max and I reached my hand to help him up which he took but he had this look on his face like was really mad that I had beaten him. We got back into our stance and when Pavel said go, Max went back on the offensive. I kept deflecting all of his hits and I could see he was starting to tire out so I did a roundhouse kick which caused him to fall on his front, so I quickly dropped down on his back and simulated a stake through his back. Pavel again said "dead".
I got off of him and offered him a hand to get up but he wouldn't take it and he wouldn't even look at me. I took a minute to look around, Dimitri gave me the best smile, Yuri gave me an air fist pump and Celeste was silently clapping.
I told myself only one more takedown but I was definitely getting tired. Max and I faced off for the third time and I thought that I would go on the offense this time because Max might think I would be on the defensive again. As soon as Pavel said go, I lunged at Max and hit him in the right shoulder and then I turned around and hit his left shoulder and then kicked him in the ribs.
Max grabbed my foot that I had kicked him with and pulled my foot past him causing me to lose my balance and I landed on my back. Max was on top of me, one knee between my legs and a hand on my chest to simulate staking me. I knew Dimitri would not like the position I was in. But Pavel stepped in quickly gave a hand to get Max off of me and then Pavel helped me get up.
Pavel declared me the winner and I heard some clapping and shouting from my group but when I looked around I saw other guardians doing the same thing. I guess Max wasn't liked by everyone.
DPOV
I was a little nervous when Roza picked Max to spar with. I hoped that if she beat him maybe he would leave her alone. I just did not like her that close to him and him touching her even though it was only sparing. Plus I wanted nothing more than to take him out because of his attitude last night and due to him trying to hit on Rose in front of everyone and even in front of Pavel.
As I was watching Roza, I was making some mental notes on some moves we needed to review in our training. I took a quick glance at Pavel and realized he was doing the same thing. We had tentatively set up a meeting around 2 pm to discuss security and training.
Roza staked Max for the second time and it brought my mind back to the present. I watched Roza turning to look at us to gage how she was doing. I gave her big smile, Yuri was fist pumping the air and Celeste was clapping. I was thinking that after graduation we needed to test her for Blast Master or possibly Blood Master.
Roza had defeated Max staking him twice and he only managed to stake her once. They shook hands afterwards and I hoped that would be the end of his flirting but only time will tell. Roza came over to stand next to me and I gave her a kiss and a big hug and I whispered to her in her ear "I am so proud of you". She rewarded me with her gorgeous smile.
Celeste was up next to spar and again I saw some techniques that we could work on as I watched her fight. I took a quick look at Pavel and noticed he was writing a note about Celeste's fighting skills. And then I was looking at Yuri, I noticed he looked tense as Celeste sparred. No doubt he wanted to step in just as I had wanted to do with Roza.
Celeste did well, she staked her opponent once and he had staked her once as well, but the final was a draw as they had fought for the allotted time and neither had staked each other.
Yuri was next to spar and I was surprised at his skills. Truth be told, I had never really paid attention to him when he sparred at St. Vlad's and he and I had only sparred once or twice. He was able to stake his opponent three times but I could tell Yuri was tiring.
I was excited to have him on my team as he was a good fighter. Celeste was a good fighter as well and she is beneficial to the team as her being female she could guard areas that Yuri and I could not go. I think the whole team could benefit from increasing our endurance.
It was now my turn to spar and while my opponent was much like me tall and muscular. I was still taller and had more muscle mass. I was able to stake him three times in rapid succession when we were done, I gave him a hand up. He seemed like a kind man, not much older than me. He congratulated me on my wins and even asked if we could spar again in the future so he could get more practice. I told him yes, as I had more respect for him as he wanted to improve his fighting techniques rather than Max who was just cocky.
Once we were done with sparring Pavel said "We are done for the day and I had some food sent to your suite for lunch. Dimitri, I will see you in about an hour at 2pm to go over training and security".
"Yes, I will see you then." I responded.
The four of us headed back to the suite, Yuri and Celeste went off to their rooms on the second floor, while Roza and I went to the third floor. I noticed that there were people putting out food for lunch.
I directed Roza towards our suite and I locked the doors. We both went to the bathroom and started shedding our clothes. I turned on the shower almost to the hottest setting as I took Roza's hand and guided her into the shower with me.
While I would have loved to have some shower sex again, both of us were exhausted from our evaluations and I was due to meet with Pavel in an hour and I was starving as well as Roza as her stomach was letting us know. And I am sure Roza was sore due to sparring with Max.
I made a mental note that we should use the bath tub tonight and maybe a massage depending on how she felt. I walked out of the shower and dried myself off then wrapped the towel around my waist. I grabbed two towels for Roza as she was just finishing rinsing her hair. I gave her the towels as I went over to shave since I hadn't this morning. As before she hopped up on the counter to watch me shave, a small part of me loved the fact that she wanted to watch me shave and just wanted to spend time with me. But the other part of me was sad, as this was not an experience she had growing up, since most children would watch their father or grandfathers shave.
I finished shaving and cleaning up the mess from the sink. I then planted the softest kiss on Roza's lips and said "Come on let's get dressed and then you get fed."
Her stomach growled right on cue as we both laughed at that, I went and picked up our shredded clothing. We went into the bedroom and I put on cargo pants, a long sleeved t-shirt and boots and I pulled my hair into a pony tail at the nape of my neck. Roza dressed similar but added a zipped up hoodie and she left her hair out.
"Roza, I have a question for you." I stated.
"What is it" She said as she came over to me.
"I was thinking and it is totally up to you. I don't want to pressure you" I ranted nervously.
"Comrade, it's okay you can tell me anything" Roza said.
I said "I was thinking about turning the other bedroom into a to study for you. We could get a desk maybe a couple comfy chairs and maybe a bookshelf for my westerns."
"I think that is a great idea, we can talk to Pavel or Baba this afternoon." Roza said.
RPOV
Before either of us could say anything else my stomach made this huge rumble. Dimitri laughed and guided me out of the room and to the kitchen. There were sandwiches, salads, soups and brownies for dessert.
As I was eating, my mind began to wonder about Lissa. Just then Dimitri nudged me and I shook my head trying to get to the present.
"Sorry Comrade, I didn't mean to zone out" I said.
"Is everything okay, is Lissa okay?" Dimitri asked.
"I think everything is okay, I wasn't in Lissa's head, I just zoned out. A normal zoning out, nothing to worry about." I explained to Dimitri because he was worried about me.
Dimitri and I finished up our lunch and washed our dishes. We said goodbye to Celeste and Yuri as we headed to Pavel's office. Dimitri had his notebook with him that I know he had written some ideas to improve my training. We climbed up to the third floor and knocked on the door, it was immediately opened.
"Rose, Dimitri come on in and take a seat. Dimitri and I sat in the chairs in front of Pavel's desk as he took a seat behind the desk.
"So, we have a lot to discuss." Pavel stated. "First thing on the agenda is your schooling Rose; obviously we will be able to test your physical abilities. But for your lecture classes, Alberta has set it up so that your teachers will film the lecture and then you can watch the lecture on-line. Any assignments that need to be done will be emailed to you from your teachers. Any exams that you need to take will be monitored by Dimitri, Celeste or Yuri."
"Okay" I responded "Dimitri and I were talking and we thought we could turn the bedroom in my suite into a study area because there is really no designated space to do school work."
"That sounds like a good idea, you have the credit card from your father, so just order what you would like and let me know the delivery date and I will have guardians help with the delivery. Your father asked me to let you know feel free to make any changes to your suite, like maybe painting it. He wants you to know it is your space to do whatever you would like." Pavel said.
"Thank you" I responded" I said. "Where are Baba and my mother?"
Pavel said "Your parents have gone to his house in Moscow; he wanted to test the waters by being seen with your mother. We are tracking the amount threats to see if it is safe to have you be seen in the public."
I looked over at Dimitri and he gave my hand a squeezed and I looked down at are hands interlocked. I didn't even know that he had taken my hand and it just made me love him even more, he always knows what I need.
"Okay, let's talk about the testing from today. Dimitri here are copies of my notes so that you can go over the results with Celeste and Yuri" Pavel stated.
"Thank you" Dimitri said.
Pavel turned back to me and said "Rose, you have done an excellent job. You exceeded all of my expectations for you and I am sure this is due to Dimitri's training. My assessment for you is that we need to continue your endurance training, sparring with different guardians and also start sparring with multiple opponents. We need to begin weapons training, as the academies do not introduce them. We will do more staking and then start you with gun and knife training. How does that sound?"
"Sounds good to me, Dimitri what do you think?" I said.
Dimitri responded "That was along the same thing that I was thinking. The only other thoughts that I had was about particular moves that we needed to work on. My plan was to train Rose from 6am to 10 am, then work on schoolwork and lunch then train her again from 4om to 6pm."
Pavel stated "That sounds good I will make sure that the gym and any area you need for training is available. Guardian Brown is in charge of the gym, if you need anything let him know. I am going to leave it to you to organize her schooling, and if you need anything let me know."
We both nodded and Pavel continued "Dimitri, being a Blood Master 7, there is not much more we need to improve on, except maybe weapons training since I am sure the Academy did not give you the opportunity to train. Otherwise just keep up with your Blood Master 7 requirements and maybe spar with some of our guardians."
Dimitri and I both looked at each other and seemed to silently agree on the plan. We turned our attention back to Pavel who then handed both of us folders.
"Here are the bios of the guardians that have requested to work for Abe. The guardians that are currently working for us know that this assignment is to guard Rose. Their bios are on the left side of the folders. The bios on the right side are guardians who are interested in working for Abe, but do not know that the assignment is Rose." Pavel continued.
"I have prescreened them and think these candidates might be possible options. Please look through them and let me know tomorrow after lunch. I want four more guardians along with Yuri and Celeste and they will be living in house with you. Then I would like you to pick up four back up guardians. With everything that has happened with the recent threats plus now Tasha has escaped as well, I would feel better having extra guardians." Pavel explained.
Dimitri and I both nodded in agreement with what Pavel was saying.
"As I stated before, Rose, you will have a guardian with you at all times while in the compound and when you leave the compound you will have at least four guardians with you. All requests to leave the compound needs to go thru either me or your father for security risks, most likely we will agree to let you leave, we just want to make sure you are safe."
"Dimitri, you will be responsible for anyone on your team, in terms of training and guarding. Any last minute changes to guarding must go thru me or Abe. Any questions?"
I shook my head and Dimitri did the same.
"Great, but feel free to call me if you do have any questions."
With that we went back to our suite and started looking for furniture before we started looking at the bio's of potential guardians.
We grabbed the lap top and my new credit card and we sat on our bed and started looking for furniture stores in the area. Since most of the stores on the website were in Russian, Dimitri helped me by reading out any important information. We ended up getting a desk that was big enough for my computer and to work on any assignments. We got to comfy chairs that we thought would good on the other side of the desk. That way who ever had to monitor my exams would be comfortable.
The last piece of furniture we looked for was a bookshelf for Dimitri's western novels. We found one that was the same type of wood as the desk.
Dimitri texted Pavel when the furniture would be delivered and the paint that we had ordered and he responded that he would get guardians to move the current furniture away, then paint the room and then unpack the furniture while we were working out.
"Why don't you log into your St Vladimir's website and see if you have been sent any work yet." Dimitri stated.
"Ugh, why can't Baba just buy a library or something else that was needed and they can just graduate me?" I asked Dimitri.
"No" Dimitri stated "You are so close to graduating, let's just get you started".
"Okay" I said as I logged into my account and saw a lecture from Stan and of course there was a paper to do. I had a few other assignments to do as well. I started in on my assignments while Dimitri pulled out a western novel and started reading. We were sitting side by side and he would kiss me on my temple or on the top of my head or run his finger thru my hair. I could tell he wanted to keep our physical connection.
After a few hours, Dimitri pulled me from my work and told me it was dinner time. I looked at the time and realized I had gotten a lot of my work done. Dimitri asked "Where do you want to eat Roza?"
"I don't know where do you want to eat?" I asked.
"I was thinking let's eat dinner here than maybe movie?" Dimitri said.
"Sounds good Comrade" I said as we walked out of our bedroom "what do you want for dinner?"
"Well I ordered steaks, salads and bread from the kitchen and Celeste and Yuri are going to join us." Dimitri said.
"When did you do that Comrade, you were just reading with me as I did work." I said.
"Guardian secrets" Dimitri said as I shook my head at him.
We walked into the kitchen to find a few staff setting up the dining room. We were greeted by the staff and Dmitri and I sat down side by side as Yuri and Celeste came up the stairs and both of them sat across from Dimitri and me.
I couldn't figure out what Dimitri was doing as he wasn't dishing out the food and I was starving as my stomach reminded the table that I was. As soon as all the servers had left, Dimitri got up from the table and grabbed a bottle of wine and 4 glasses. He gave us each a wine glass and then he proceeded to fill them all, when he came to me he said "The drinking age in Russia is 18 years old."
"I like that rule"I said as everyone laughed with me. We ate dinner and talked about the testing that we had done today, most of the talking was about sparing with the guardians. When we were done with dinner, we all cleaned up and then we went into the living room and picked out a movie to watch. I was curled up with Dimitri and Yuri had an arm around Celeste's shoulders. I realized that they were trying to be close but be respectful of their jobs.
When we finished watching the movie, we all decided to go to bed. When Dimitri and I were in our bedroom, he turned me to him and encircled his arms around me and gave me a quick kiss and he said "I am going to go and meet with the guardians and I thought maybe you could start filling the bathtub for?"
"OMG that would feel good so good right now." I responded. Dimitri gave me a quick kiss and left to go downstairs. I know Dimitri talked with Pavel that he wanted the two night guardians to sit near the two entrances.
I walked into the bathroom and turned both faucets on to find the best temperature; once I found it I then put a little bubble bath. I lighted candles around the bath tub and around the bathroom. I quickly went out to the bedroom and turned off the lights, and then I went to the closet to shed my clothing and then went to the bathroom to slide into the bath tub to wait for Dimitri to return.
The water in the bath tub was so good that I moaned as I got in. Then I heard "Roza you can't moan like that, you know what it does to me."
I looked up to find my Russian God staring at me with lust in his eyes. He turned my attention to the two glasses and a bottle of wine. Dimitri said "Roza you must have read my mind" as he pointed to the candles around the bathtub. Dimitri filled a glass of wine for me and handed it to me and then he poured one for himself and set it on the ledge of the bath tub and also put the bottle on the shelf so that it was in easy reach.
"Comrade you are wearing too much clothing" I said.
"Oh, really?" He said as he took off his shirt and then his pants, it was the first time I realized he had already taken his shoes off in the bedroom. I am sure that I was drooling as I looked at his body up and down. The last thing he took off was his boxer briefs and there was a sizable bulge in them. So when Dimitri's boxer briefs were off I said "Happy Comrade".
"Very happy" he responded as he got in the tub across from me. He grabbed his wine glass and then he clinked glasses with me. We started talking about life when he asked "Have you seen how Lissa is doing? It should be about 8 am there."
"No I haven't, but if I go in to head, can you make sure I don't drown in here" I asked.
"Of course, I'll keep watch of you." Dimitri said.
I went into Lissa's head and she was in a room I had never seen it appeared to be a living room. Christian was there as well as Adrian. Lissa and Christian had appeared to be studying as they were now at court studying from there.
I could tell that the darkness was building up in her but I didn't to take any tonight as I wanted to enjoy tonight with Dimitri. But I figured I would tell Dimitri about it so I could take it from her during training.
I could tell Lissa was anxiously watching Adrian who was pacing around with a bottle of vodka in his hand. He didn't look like he had slept much lately as he had dark circles under his eyes. Adrian was asking Lissa while he was pacing back and forth "Lissa are you sure you can't get to Rose, why can't you call her?"
"Adrian as I have said, I have no way to contact her thru the bond it is only one way, and her father has given her a new cellphone but she did not give us her number and she didn't tell any of us where she was going" Lissa said.
Christian stepped in and said "Adrian, Lissa and I are going to finish our Moroi homework and then go to bed, maybe we can see you tomorrow."
"Okay, I will see you both tomorrow" Adrian said and walked towards the door.
As Adrian left I could feel a big relief in Lissa. Something was obviously going on with Adrian, maybe in the morning I could call her to see what was going on at Court. I could hear Lissa internal rant and the feelings she most had was about sex with Christian. That was my clue to get out of her head and distract myself for at least an hour.
I got out of her head and came back to the bathroom, the tub and the best thing was Dimitri. Dimitri had put his wine glass down and he had my foot in his hands and was massaging it. I moaned in agreement as Dimitri put one foot down then picked up my other foot and started massaging it. I took a sip from my wine and just enjoyed being here with Dimitri. He had asked me about Lissa, and I explained about Adrian and the darkness even though I had intended to speak with him tomorrow about it. I joked that Lissa had sex on her mind and how I knew that was my cue to get out of her head.
As I was sipping the wine, Dimitri's hands kept going higher and higher on my leg. I was torn between letting him keep massaging by body or having sex with him. As always, Dimitri could read my mind he stated "How about a massage Roza, I am sure your body must be sore after today."
"Yes, that sounds so good right now." I responded. Dimitri and I got up and dried ourselves off. I had a towel wrapped around me as Dimitri led me out into our bedroom. He went to the thermostat and turned up the temperature, then he went to the bathroom and brought out some of the candles and placed then around the bedroom.
Dimitri leaned down and kissed me passionately and I would have fallen if he wasn't holding me up. He guided me towards the bed and he had me lie on the bed and he got on next to me and took my towel and placed it on the lower half of my body to keep me warm.
He picked up one of my body lotions and squirted a small amount on his hands and then he started to rub my shoulders.