THE QUEENS PROTEGE

CH 6

CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU.

DIMITRI

I was nervous about today. Not only was it my first class with a group of new novices, but I would be sparring in front of Rose and didn't want to embarrass myself. After my very cold shower I got dressed and walked out of the locker room. Rose was standing there waiting for me and looked absolutely stunning. Her hair was wet and pulled back into a braid and she was wearing work out pants and a hoodie. Even in casual clothes she was still the most beautiful person I have ever met.

So much for that cold shower.

I noticed she was checking me out and felt my cheeks heat up. I became a bit shy and didn't know what to say to her. Thankfully she spoke up first.

"Are you nervous about today?"

"A little, this will be my first combat class in two years. Everyone's gonna want to come for the "new guy", test me out. I'm just not sure I'm ready for that yet."

"Don't worry you won't be sparring with any of them." She interrupted me. What was that supposed to mean? I must have had a hurt look on my face because she started waving her hands dramatically.

"No no, it's not what you think. Alberta wants you to spar with Eddie." I looked at her confused.

"Sorry, let me explain. I'm sure you had something like a leaderboard at St Basil's where every novice is ranked." I shook my head. We did have one and I was on top of ours before we left.

"Today we are sparring for points. Eddie is second on the board behind me, normally we would spar, but Alberta thinks you and him are more evenly matched. She thinks you have a chance to beat him." Wow, I was a bit shocked. I knew I did ok last night against her, but not enough to beat the second ranked novice.

"So if I win the match do I get to spar with you?"

" Not quite yet,comrade." She elbowed me playfully.

"Comrade?"

"Yeah, you're from Russia, isn't that what you call each other?'

"I am and no we don't." She just shrugged her shoulders. I had a feeling that was going to be my nickname from now on.

We started walking towards the cafeteria silently. I couldn't help but check her out as she walked a little bit in front of me.

We walked in and like yesterday I felt everyone's eyes on me. We went over to the same table we ate at last night. Christian was sitting next to Lissa and they were deep in conversation. I was very happy for him because it looked like he had made a genuine friend. It gave me a bit of relief that I didn't have to worry about him as much.

We sat our bags down into two empty chairs that were next to each other and walked up to get in line to get food. Everyone was still staring at us.

"Annoying aren't they?"

"Yes. I thought maybe we would be less of a side show today."

"I hate to tell you, comrade, but you both will be the talk of the school for quite a while. These vulchers have nothing better going on in their lives, but to gossip. You should have heard what they said after the attack happened." That took me back a bit. She immediately realized what she said and stopped walking and turned around.

"Omg I'm so sorry I didn't mean to say that. Sometimes my mouth is faster than my brain."

"No, it's ok, I get it. Believe me we heard it all back at St Basil's before we left. I don't think they realized we suffered as much as everyone else." I took a second to compose myself. It was really hard on us, especially knowing that it was his parents that led the attack.

"It was just a hard time for the both of us, him more than me. It was nice to be away from it all. I tend to forget how small our world is and people, especially Royals, like to gossip. They've been talking about Christian since his parents willingly turned."

"That's got to be hard on him. I know how much people talked about LIssa after the accident." She glanced towards the table.

"It was even harder when his aunt died. She was the only family that he had left that didn't abandon him."

"Well he's in good hands with Lissa, she understands about having no family"

"That's not true, she has you and you're her family."

"And Christian has you." We looked into each other's eyes for a second like we were silently saying we understood each other.

We got our food and headed back to the table. When I sat down next to Rose, Christian looked at me with a smirk on his face. I knew exactly what he was thinking. He wanted to make a comment on how we were sitting next to each other.

"You leave any for the rest of us Rose?" Mason asked. Rose looked down at her tray, then back up. Honestly she didn't have any more food than I did. Dhampirs had a very high metabolism and needed all the calories we could get.

"It's not my fault you didn't get all you wanted before me."

"Whatever, Hathaway" Rose picked up a strawberry that was on her plate and chucked it at Mason. He picked it up and threw it back at her.

"Do I need to separate you two?" Eddie piped in and asked.

"No dad, we'll be good." Rose said as she put her hands up.

"I don't trust a word you say, either of you." Eddie pointed back and forth between the two of them. Lissa and Christian stopped talking and she looked towards me.

"Just ignore these two they are like this all the time. How are you doing today Dimitri?" Lissa asked me.

"Tired and sore, thankfully Rose was nice and took it easy on me this morning."

"Hathaway being nice, say it ain't so." Mason said dramatically.

"Don't hate because you can't handle all of this." She ran her hands up and down her body. Eddie just rolled his eyes and Mason closely watched every move she made. I got the feeling that Mason at least had a crush on Rose, if not more.

"Enough of you two now onto more important things." Eddie spoke up then turned towards me.

"I'm going to give you a bit of a warning Belikov, every senior novice wants to spar with you today."

"Thanks, Rose already warned me this morning."

"Did she happen to warn you about Stan?" Rose rolled her eyes and groaned really loud.

"No she didn't. Who is Stan and should I be worried?"

"YES, Stan is an asshole." Rose practically yelled.

"You just say that because he hates you." Mason quipped.

"No, I say that because he's an asshole to everyone and you know it."

"Mase she's right he's an asshole." Eddie turned back towards me.

"He teaches our BodyGuard theory and personal protection class. He's never been out in the field because of an injury and has a bit of a chip on his shoulder." Eddie told us.

"If he's never been in the field then why is he teaching that class?" I asked out of curiosity.

"He was injured during his trials when he was a student here. The school was at fault for it and he doesn't have any family. So Kirova felt bad and offered him a job to teach since he couldn't work out in the field."Rose explained.

"Wow, that sucks." I spoke up. It did really suck I can't imagine being injured and not able to protect Christian. Actually I would be devastated.

"Still doesn't give him the right to treat us the way he does." Rose said.

I was getting ready to say something when we heard the warning bell that breakfast was over. We all got up to dump our trays and Christian came up beside me and whispered in my ear.

"How was your morning with Rose?" He nudged me.

"Good,How was your morning with Lissa?"

"Really that's it? I saw the way you were looking at her when you two walked in together."

"What do you want me to say? We did some light exercises this morning and talked."

"Talked?"

"Yes we talked. What about you and Lissa?" His face became bright red.

"She met me at my dorm room and we've just been hanging out ever since."

"Really? That's your answer? Didn't you just give me a hard time for basically saying the same thing?"

"Hey, what are friends for?"

We finished dumping our trash, put our trays away and walked back to the table. I grabbed my bag and waited for Rose to get back. She was busy talking to Lissa. I knew Christian was waiting on her because they shared their first two classes. He had told me last night that they had changed up his schedule. Now we had one class together, the last one of the day. All four of us would be together and that put a smile on my face.

Speaking of that reason for my smile, Rose.

"Ready to get this over with?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

ROSE

Alberta had woken me up this morning to talk to me about Dimitri, which in turn made me late to meet him. Normally before breakfast I like to run by myself, but today I had Dimitri. I had a lot on my mind this morning so I didn't say much during our run. I decided to take it easy on him and just do some stretching. We had a nice talk while we sat and stretched. It was nice talking to someone that wasn't Lissa, Mason, or Eddie

Today just happened to be the first of the month and that meant it was points day. The more points you have the higher your standings. It can get very brutal when someone wants to take your spot. I was at the top and had been all year. I had many people wanting mine, but that wasn't going to happen.

We headed to combat class together and I could tell he was a bit nervous. I honestly wanted to grab his hand and squeeze it.

When we got there every novice was standing there and waiting. They all turned around and stared as we walked in. I could see them sizing him up and it pissed me off.

"Who told you that you could just stand around?" I yelled to get their attention.

"Who put you in charge, Hathaway?" Shane piped up. He was third on the leaderboard and had the ego like he was on top.

"Really Shane? Take a look at the board,whose name is on the top? That's right it's not you,it's me. So until you can beat me you will listen to me." He wanted to say something smart back, but held his tongue when Alberta walked in and stood next to me.

"You all know better, that when I'm not here, Rose is in charge. Now I suggest you get to stretching." Alberta barked. Dimitri found a free spot on one of the mats and started stretching. I started to go and line up with him when Alberta grabbed my arm to pull me back.

"So what do you think of Belikov?" I shrugged my shoulders.

"I'm not really sure. I took it easy on him and we ran and just did some stretching to work out his sore muscles."

"That's fine, I probably would have done the same thing."

"Do you really think Dimitri stands a chance against Eddie?"

"Absolutely, he gave me a run for money last night." I nodded and made my way over to the mats and stood next to Dimtiri. We finished our stretches then went into basics. Once we were done with that I went back up front to start pairing everyone off.

When I announced that Dimitri would be paired with Eddie I swear I heard gasps. I wouldn't be sparring with anyone today and would just be observing and taking notes. I heard Shane say something under his breath about that. I knew he wanted to spar with Eddie or me and wasn't happy he wouldn't get to today.

When Alberta met me this morning she told me that I was going to mentor Dimitri, which I was more than happy to do. So I decided I was going to watch and take notes on their match. I needed to see where he was in his training so I knew what we could work on.

The two of them were slow in the beginning getting a feel for each other's style. Once their match really got going everyone stopped to watch. Alberta was standing next to me and she looked pissed. I was getting ready to say something about it, but she shook her head no. So I didn't and we watched the two continue to spar. There were a couple of things I noticed that we could work on.

Dimitri was amazing to watch, he honestly looked like a God on the mat. And like a God, he won with no problem. Eddie took the loss gracefully like I knew he would. They shook hands and then noticed that everyone had been watching them.

"Alright, so you all got to see what the "new novice" can do. Now I suggest you all start worrying about yourselves and your standings. Bellikov here can easily replace any one of you on the leaderboard. Let's get back to your own matches and remember I'm watching." Alberta said with authority. After that the novices scrambled back to their mats and started to spar. Dimitri and Eddie both walked up besides us to watch the other matches.

"You did really well, Comrade."

"Thank you." He said out of breath.

"Yeah, you did really good." Eddie piped in.

"Thank you for not taking it easy on me." Dimitri said back.

"No problem, re-match tomorrow?"

"You got it." They gave each other a fist bump.

While we were watching the other matches, I noticed everyone making rookie mistakes. They were trying way too hard to prove they were better than Dimitri. I could see Alberta getting madder and madder as the matches went on. She blew her whistle to get everyone's attention.

"Everyone stop! You are making mistake after mistake and you know better. You are all seniors and soon will have the life of a Moiri in your hands. Out on the track now and run laps till class is over." She looked over to us.

"You guys don't have to run with them."

"No, I'll gladly run, I don't want to give them any more reason to hate me." Dimitri said.

"Yeah we don't mind running, do we Castile ?" I bumped shoulders with him.

"Whatever you say Hathaway."

I rolled my eyes at him and the three of us followed the others out the doors and to the track. Once on the track we noticed everyone kept looking back at us. It was really pissing me off so I nodded to the boys and took off, hoping they would get what I was hinting at. I sprinted ahead of everyone and soon the boys were running next to me. Shane quickly caught up to us and bumped into me.

"Really Hathaway?"

"What Dishman?"

"Do you enjoy getting us in trouble while you sit out and do nothing?"

"Excuse me?" I stopped running and so I could talk to him face to face. He stopped and turned around.

"You heard me the first time, Hathaway." He stepped closer and got right in my face. When he did, Dimitri came and stood next to me.

"It's not my fault Dishman that you sucked today and got yelled at by Alberta."

"You have no room to talk. I didn't see you out there today sparring with anyone."

"Is that a challenge, Dishman?"

"It absolutely is Hathaway!"

"Let's go then right here right now. First one down loses, anything goes."

"Rose, stop, he isn't worth it." Eddie grabbed me and said in my ear. The problem is that Lissa had been using too much spirit lately, plus all her emotions over Christian. It had been building up in me and there was no stopping it. Shane had pushed me over the edge and the darkness of spirit was taking over.

We all walked over to the grassy area by the track. Me and Shane stood face to face while the other novices stood in a circle around us. I could hear some whispering going on between them on who was going to win the match. But I was too focused on hurting him that I ignored it.

"Remember anything goes Hathaway." I just nodded my head and went straight for him.

He wasn't expecting me to come at him that hard and fast and I knocked him on his ass.

"That was low Hathaway."

"Hey you agreed,anything goes." With that he grabbed my hair and pulled me closer to his face.

"I heard you like it rough Hathaway." That was the last thing I remember before the darkness took over and I blacked out. Next thing I know Dimitri is laying on top of me trying to get me out of it.

"Roza, Roza, come back to me."

"Roza? What the hell is a Roza?" He chuckled at me.

"There you are." He pushed my hair out of my face and helped sit me up. It took me a minute to come back to my senses and when he did I noticed what was going on around me. It looked like a war zone, Shane was on the ground unconscious with Alberta tending to him. Eddie and Mason looked like they had been attacked by a bear and I got a good look at Dimitri. He had a red mark by his eye that would soon turn into a black eye.

What the hell had I done?