CHAPTER 7

I left Lissa's apartments in the early moroi morning, I was keen to avoid the general public. I knew I was going to be judged by Moroi as a blood whore and other dhampirs were a mixed bag.

The few female Dhampirs I'd seen had given me sympathetic glances but unfortunately, female dhampirs are a minority at court. I'd seen Meredith, my friend from the senior class, in the courtroom, she gave me a nod of support when I caught her eyes.

The male dhampirs reactions were entirely mixed and I felt I was getting too many appraising looks from a lot of them. The whole experience was starting to piss me off, why was I copping most of the judgement. It reminded me of the blood whore rumours

I got to my apartment, stripped off my clothes and changed into track pants and a loose shirt. I tried to sleep but I couldn't help but worry about my future. I was already in hot water following the Vegas events, followed by punching the head guardian when Dimitri was restored and then getting accused for high treason.

My chances of guarding Lissa was virtually zero.

Wanting to leave my miserable existence, I decided to go into Lissa's head for a while. Lissa was at a door I knew far too well… Dimitri's.

She was accompanied by Christian and they were waiting for the door to open. Dimitri opened the door and I could tell Lissa was shocked when she saw the ugly purple bruise surrounding his right eye.

"How can I help you prince-" Dimitri asked.

"Holy crap, what happened to you" Christian interrupted.

"Are you ok?" Lissa asked.

"I'm fine and this is was a gift from Guardian Hathaway" He replied, "Please come in".

"Rose did this?" Lissa asked. I could see that Christian had grasped that I was not the Guardian Hathaway who caused this.

"Apologies, Guardian Hathaway senior"

"Oh, that makes more sense. She was pretty mad yesterday. Can I heal you please"

"No, thank you, no need to go to the trouble for me" He replied.

She stepped forward. "I'll be blunt, it's not a good look to be sporting a black eye in public." He didn't move away but he gave her a look.

"It won't look good for Rose, being so closely associated with her" She added sweetly and placed her hands on his face after he gave her a curt nod.

"Thank you…. Lissa" He took a long pause before he said her name, like he had to correct himself from calling her princess. "Please sit down"

They sat down at his small table and chairs.

"What brings you here? Dimitri asked.

"We wanted your help in investigating the queen's murder." Lissa said. "Clearly the royal council is not going to do a thorough investigation, so I think we need to."

"A large proportion of people think Rose is guilty. I mean she is psycho enough to commit murder, just not this one" Christian added.

"I was hoping with your guardian experience that you could help us with the investigation. I mean, they framed Rose for a reason"

"The guardians would have secured and processed the scene under protocol. As a council member, you would have access to this information, but the quorum law prevents this." Dimitri got a piece of paper and pen and sat down at the table.

"First we should start with the known facts. One, Tatiana was murdered by a silver stake. Two, this was a planned murder. Three, they knew that Rose has a distinctive stake and where to find it"

"From here we can draw the following conclusion, this person went to significant effort to implicate Rose. While Rose presented a good victim to frame, she did publicly threaten the queen. Whoever tried to frame Rose did this for personal reasons, they had a grudge against Rose."

"So we need to find a person who has a grudge against Rose" Lissa responded. Lissa's mind ran through the possibilities; The Dashkov brothers, Adrian, the Russian strigoi population, anyone that was on the back end of my silver tongue.

"I think a shorter list would be people who don't have a grudge against Rose." Christian said snarkily.

"Of course, we need to keep an open mind, considering all human factors. The queen had a lot of enemies, so does Rose and the murderer has tried to take out two targets simultaneously. We are looking for someone who had issues with both Rose and the queen. We need to determine who had the means and motive."

The three of them sat back and reflected on his words.

"Means would include people who had access to the royal palace and the queen's rooms, which Rose does not have" Lissa commented.

"And finding someone who had beef with the Queen and Rose would be the motive".

Lissa thought about how only a few people knew about her stake and where she got it from. She knew that I had a small circle and wouldn't talk about my special stake to just anyone, but people who fought in the warehouse might have seen it during the battle, making it hard to narrow down the list.

"How many people do you think knew about Rose's stake?"

"Not many, mostly people close to her" Dimitri replied.

She mused that it took a lot for people to pierce my defensive walls, but once they were in I was the most loyal friend. It warmed my heart that she thought that about me. Lissa couldn't consider anyone in our close circle who would betray us.

Lissa and Christian thanked Dimitri and left.

They went to Ariana Szelsky to get council information about the investigation. Christian stayed close, but stayed to the side. He figured that his cursed family would be detrimental to Lissa.

Lissa started with enquiring about the Szelsky family. Once pleasantries were over she got down to business. Lissa knew that Ariana was impartial and fair, so she used that to sway her.

"Ariana, I am the sole member of a royal family. Do you agree that I should be entitled to access this information as head of the Dragomir family?"

Ariana agreed to make the palace security tapes available for Lissa and an official report of the investigations findings.

I pulled out of her head, I was thankful to have a friend who had my back like Liss. I drifted off to sleep, hoping for a better day tomorrow

D POV

Dimitri was called into a meeting with head guardian, Hans Croft.

"Ah Belikov, The royal council has decided that you no longer require guardian escort on the grounds at court."

I was elated, I was starting to feel like a caged animal.

"Thank you guardian Croft, Does this mean that I will be able to get back to work? I asked hopefully.

"While Princess Dragomir and Lady Opera have requested you, in fact, many female moroi have requested you as their guardian" I shuffled uncomfortably in my chair. "However, at this time, I am not able to re-instate you as a guardian."

I kept my guardian mask in place. I wasn't really surprised and didn't feel that I deserved it or anything else after that I had done. But I had made a promise to protect Princess Vasilissa.

I also didn't know what to do with myself if I wasn't a guardian. How else could I make up for the horrible things that I had done.

"I understand Guardian Croft. I still would like to help in any way I can whether that is providing information about strigoi networks, or participating in raids."

"Thank you Belikov, I think we will need to schedule more sessions to gather information from your, um, experience".

I nodded and I could tell I was dismissed.

The lack of guardians made me feel free, but I could still feel eyes watching me everywhere. I headed to the one place that I felt like I could feel like myself again, the guardian gym.

I didn't know how to process how much of a mess I was, that my life was. I wanted to be the man before the caves, the man who had so many things going for him. I just didn't feel like I used to and I didn't know whether I ever would.

I had accounts from my time as a strigoi, some that no-one could access, which meant that I didn't need a posting, but I wanted a purpose. I had transferred a large sum to my family anonymously, to make sure they would be cared for. I couldn't face them right now and didn't know when I would be able to.

I was pounding on a punching bag for over an hour when I heard someone call my name. I turned to see Guardian Mark Orlov, a friend from St Basils. He was standing with another Dhampir that I didn't know.

"I can't believe you are back, its good to see you" Orlov said. He grabbed my hand and we gave each other the standard man half hug. Over his shoulder I noticed Eddie Castile eyeing me from the treadmill, I gave him a nod.

"This is Guardian Alexi Ivanov" Orlov said, gesturing to the other dhampir. He a few inches shorter than me, with sandy brown hair and green eyes.

I nodded politely to him and shook his hand, until he spoke.

"Nice work with Hathaway, she's a hottie." He said with a smirk, my face turned cold in response and my grip on his hand hardened.

"Excuse me" My voice was so low and angry. It sounded so much like my voice when I was Strigoi. I could feel panic starting to rise in me, but I held on to my anger to keep myself in check. "You don't talk about her, ever"

Ivanov paled and tried to take a step back. "Sorry"

"Belikov, how about a spar" I released Ivanov's hand and turned to Eddie.

"Sure thing Castile, Nice to see you Orlov". I turned to Ivanov with a glare "Ivanov".

I joined Eddie at the mats and he said to me "You aren't my favourite person right now, but I know Rose wouldn't want you killing some guardian on her behalf".

"I'm not my favourite person either. Do you actually want to spar?"

Eddie nodded and we started to spar. He was very good for a new guardian, but nothing like Rosa. I could see him reaching blood master rank with time, but he had a few flaws. He telegraphed his moves too much and favoured his right side.

He got a couple of nice hits on me despite this, he was very quick on his feet. He left his left open and i capitalised with a roundhouse kick to his side, followed by an upper cut.

Eddie fell flat on his arse and I placed my fist on his chest to mimic a stake.

"Not bad Castile, you have progressed since the last time I saw you spar."

Eddie flushed in response "Thanks"

I gave him a few tips for him to correct and after a few more rounds he finally pinned me. After he helped me up I clapped him on the back. "Nice work"

We headed for the change rooms when I head someone yell "Belikov, congratulations on Hathaway. She is one hot piece of ass."

I turned quickly to see Guardian Samuels giving me a shit eating grin. I made my way for him and laid him on his arse with a punch to the solar plexus and a sweep of his legs.

Eddie pulled me back until he heard Samuel's next comment.

"Let me know when you are done with her, it sounds like that girl has stamina, I could take her for a ri-"

Eddie pinned him on the ground and was punching him in the head repeatedly. I pulled Eddie off from him, partially wanting to have a turn and also trying to prevent Eddie from getting into more trouble than he already was. He barely had guardian status at this point and I wanted him to keep it.

Other guardians had come over to break up the fight by this point, but I turned over to Samuels. He was an arrogant arsehole who I had met at court when I was guarding Ivan. He was lazy and had a very inflated opinion about himself.

I grabbed Samuels by the shirt and pulled his bloody face to mine. "Listen up Хуй, I am only going to say this once. She is a fellow guardian, who is owed you respect, not to treat her like a plaything. I have personally made sure that she is capable of kicking the Гавно out of you if you try anything."

I continued, "Guardian Castile thinks of her as his sister and doesn't take kindly to your comments. I'm sure that you can understand this and will refrain from making more in the future"

Samuels spat blood onto the floor and said "Yes" in response.

"I hope you learnt something from this sparing exercise, if you haven't I can make sure you do." I said to him with a glare and then I released his shirt. I was fairly satisfied that he would not report Eddie under fear that I would come for him.

As things were calming down, the crowd that had formed started to dissipate. One of Samuels's friends picked him up and took him to the medical centre.

I turned to Eddie "We should probably leave".

He nodded in response. As we walked out of the doors, I spotted Abe Mazur.

"Ah Belikov, its time for that chat".

I'm overwhelmed by the response to chapter 6, Thank you for the reviews!

End of Chapter 7, This chapter took longer to break and I am trying to keep a couple chapters ahead while working full time and studying.

Other story recommendations: Alice-Roza The bodyguard and her current story, The pretender. She is a prolific writer, 29 stories so far!

Feedback/review is always appreciated, it helps me know whether you are enjoying this or not.

Translations:

Хуй = Dick

Гавно = Shit