His finger playfully poked me in the calf. “She’s with Aaron. And I’ve got lots of friends who aren’t royal. And friends who are dhamps. I’m not a total asshole.”
“Yeah, but did you know her parents are practically custodians for the Drozdovs?”
The hand on my leg stopped. I’d exaggerated, but he was a sucker for gossip—and he was notorious for spreading it.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Scrubbing floors and stuff like that.”
“Huh.”
I could see the wheels turning in his dark blue eyes and had to hide a smile. The seed was planted.
Sitting up, I moved closer to him and draped a leg over his lap. I wrapped my arms around him, and without further delay, thoughts of Mia disappeared as his testosterone kicked in. He kissed me eagerly—sloppily, even—pushing me against the back of the couch, and I relaxed into what had to be the first enjoyable physical activity I’d had in weeks.
We kissed like that for a long time, and I didn’t stop him when he pulled off my shirt.
“I’m not having sex,” I warned between kisses. I had no intention of losing my virginity on a couch in a lounge.
He paused, thinking about this, and finally decided not to push it. “Okay.”
But he pushed me onto the couch, lying over me, still kissing with that same fierceness. His lips traveled down to my neck, and when the sharp points of his fangs brushed against my skin, I couldn’t help an excited gasp.
He raised himself up, looking into my face with open surprise. For a moment, I could barely breathe, recalling that rush of pleasure that a vampire bite could fill me with, wondering what it’d be like to feel that while making out. Then the old taboos kicked in. Even if we didn’t have sex, giving blood while we did this was still wrong, still dirty.
“Don’t,” I warned.
“You want to.” His voice held excited wonder. “I can tell.”
“No, I don’t.”
His eyes lit up. “You do. How—hey, have you done it before?”
“No,” I scoffed. “Of course not.”
Those gorgeous blue eyes watched me, and I could see the wheels spinning behind them. Jesse might flirt a lot and have a big mouth, but he wasn’t stupid.
“You act like you have. You got excited when I was by your neck.”
“You’re a good kisser,” I countered, though it wasn’t entirely true. He drooled a little more than I would have preferred. “Don’t you think everyone would know if I was giving blood?”
The realization seized him. “Unless you weren’t doing it before you left. You did it while you were gone, didn’t you? You fed Lissa.”
“Of course not,” I repeated.
But he was on to something, and he knew it. “It was the only way. You didn’t have feeders. Oh, man.”
“She found some,” I lied. It was the same line we’d fed Natalie, the one she’d spread around and that no one—except Christian—had ever questioned. “Plenty of humans are into it.”
“Sure,” he said with a smile. He leaned his mouth back to my neck.
“I’m not a blood whore,” I snapped, pulling away from him.
“But you want to. You like it. All you dhamp girls do.” His teeth were on my skin again. Sharp. Wonderful.
I had a feeling hostility would only make things worse, so I defused the situation with teasing. “Stop it,” I said gently, running a fingertip over his lips. “I told you, I’m not like that. But if you want something to do with your mouth, I can give you some ideas.”
That peaked his interest. “Yeah? Like wha—?”
And that was when the door opened.
We sprang apart. I was ready to handle a fellow student or even possibly the matron. What I was not ready for was Dimitri.
He burst in the door like he’d expected to find us, and in that horrible moment, with him raging like a storm, I knew why Mason had called him a god. In the blink of an eye, he crossed the room and jerked Jesse up by his shirt, nearly holding the Moroi off the ground.
“What’s your name?” barked Dimitri.
“J-Jesse, sir. Jesse Zeklos, sir.”
“Mr. Zeklos, do you have permission to be in this part of the dorm?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you know the rules about male and female interactions around here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I suggest you get out of here as fast as you can before I turn you over to someone who will punish you accordingly. If I ever see you like this again”—Dimitri pointed to where I cowered, half-dressed, on the couch—“I will be the one to punish you. And it will hurt. A lot. Do you understand?”
Jesse swallowed, eyes wide. None of the bravado he usually showed was there. I guess there was “usually” and then there was being held in the grip of a really ripped, really tall, and really pissed-off Russian guy. “Yes, sir!”
“Then go.” Dimitri released him, and, if possible, Jesse got out of there faster than Dimitri had burst in. My mentor then turned to me, a dangerous glint in his eyes. He didn’t say anything, but the angry, disapproving message came through loud and clear.
And then it shifted.
It was almost like he’d been taken by surprise, like he’d never noticed me before. Had it been any other guy, I would have said he was checking me out. As it was, he was definitely studying me. Studying my face, my body. And I suddenly realized I was only in jeans and a bra—a black bra at that. I knew perfectly well that there weren’t a lot of girls at this school who looked as good in a bra as I did. Even a guy like Dimitri, one who seemed so focused on duty and training and all of that, had to appreciate that.
And, finally, I noticed that a hot flush was spreading over me, and that the look in his eyes was doing more to me than Jesse’s kisses had. Dimitri was quiet and distant sometimes, but he also had a dedication and an intensity that I’d never seen in any other person. I wondered how that kind of power and strength translated into . . . well, sex. I wondered what it’d be like for him to touch me and—shit!
What was I thinking? Was I out of my mind? Embarrassed, I covered my feelings with attitude.
“You see something you like?” I asked.
“Get dressed.”
The set of his mouth hardened, and whatever he’d just felt was gone. That fierceness sobered me up and made me forget about my own troubling reaction. I immediately pulled my shirt back on, uneasy at seeing his badass side.
“How’d you find me? You following me to make sure I don’t run away?”
“Be quiet,” he snapped, leaning down so that we were at eye level. “A janitor saw you and reported it. Do you have any idea how stupid this was?”
“I know, I know, the whole probation thing, right?”
“Not just that. I’m talking about the stupidity of getting in that kind of situation in the first place.”
“I get in that kind of situation all the time, Comrade. It’s not a big deal.” Anger replaced my fear. I didn’t like being treated like a child.
“Stop calling me that. You don’t know even know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure I do. I had to do a report on Russia and the R.S.S.R. last year.”
“U.S.S.R. And it is a big deal for a Moroi to be with a dhampir girl. They like to brag.”
“So?”
“So?” he looked disgusted. “So don’t you have any respect? Think about Lissa. You make yourself look cheap. You live up to what a lot of people already think about dhampir girls, and it reflects back on her. And me.”
“Oh, I see. Is that what this is about? Am I hurting your big, bad male pride? Are you afraid I’ll ruin your reputation?”
“My reputation is already made, Rose. I set my standards and lived up to them long ago. What you do with yours remains to be seen.” His voice hardened again. “Now get back to your room—if you can manage it without throwing yourself at someone else.”
“Is that your subtle way of calling me a slut?”
; “I hear the stories you guys tell. I’ve heard stories about you.”
Ouch. I wanted to yell back that it was none of his business what I did with my body, but something about the anger and disappointment on his face made me falter. I didn’t know what it was. “Disappointing” someone like Kirova was a non-event, but Dimitri? . . . I remembered how proud I’d felt when he praised me the last few times in our practices. Seeing that disappear from him . . . well, it suddenly made me feel as cheap as he’d implied I was.
Something broke inside of me. Blinking back tears, I said, “Why is it wrong to . . . I don’t know, have fun? I’m seventeen, you know. I should be able to enjoy it.”
“You’re seventeen, and in less than a year, someone’s life and death will be in your hands.” His voice still sounded firm, but there was a gentleness there too. “If you were human or Moroi, you could have fun. You could do things other girls could.”
“But you’re saying I can’t.”
He glanced away, and his dark eyes went unfocused. He was thinking about something far away from here. “When I was seventeen, I met Ivan Zeklos. We weren’t like you and Lissa, but we became friends, and he requested me as his guardian when I graduated. I was the top student in my school. I paid attention to everything in my classes, but in the end, it wasn’t enough. That’s how it is in this life. One slip, one distraction . . .” He sighed. “And it’s too late.”
A lump formed in my throat as I thought about one slip or one distraction costing Lissa her life.
“Jesse’s a Zeklos,” I said, suddenly realizing Dimitri had just thrown around a relative of his former friend and charge.
“I know.”
“Does it bother you? Does he remind you of Ivan?”
“It doesn’t matter how I feel. It doesn’t matter how any of us feel.”
“But it does bother you.” It suddenly became very obvious to me. I could read his pain, though he clearly worked hard to hide it. “You hurt. Every day. Don’t you? You miss him.”
Dimitri looked surprised, like he didn’t want me to know that, like I’d uncovered some secret part of him. I’d been thinking he was some aloof, antisocial tough guy, but maybe he kept himself apart from other people so he wouldn’t get hurt if he lost them. Ivan’s death had clearly left a permanent mark.
I wondered if Dimitri was lonely.
The surprised look vanished, and his standard serious one returned. “It doesn’t matter how I feel. They come first. Protecting them.”
I thought about Lissa again. “Yeah. They do.”
A long silence fell before he spoke again.
“You told me you want to fight, to really fight. Is that still true?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Rose . . . I can teach you, but I have to believe you’re dedicated. Really dedicated. I can’t have you distracted by things like this.” He gestured around the lounge. “Can I trust you?”
Again, I felt like crying under that gaze, under the seriousness of what he asked. I didn’t get how he could have such a powerful effect on me. I’d never cared so much about what one person thought. “Yes. I promise.”
“All right. I’ll teach you, but I need you strong. I know you hate the running, but it really is necessary. You have no idea what Strigoi are like. The school tries to prepare you, but until you’ve seen how strong they are and how fast . . . well, you can’t even imagine. So I can’t stop the running and the conditioning. If you want to learn more about fighting, we need to add more trainings. It’ll take up more of your time. You won’t have much left for your homework or anything else. You’ll be tired. A lot.”
I thought about it, about him, and about Lissa. “It doesn’t matter. If you tell me to do it, I’ll do it.”
He studied me hard, like he was still trying to decide if he could believe me. Finally satisfied, he gave me a sharp nod. “We’ll start tomorrow.”
TEN
“EXCUSE ME, MR. NAGY? I CAN’T really concentrate with Lissa and Rose passing notes over there.”
Mia was attempting to distract attention from herself—as well as from her inability to answer Mr. Nagy’s question—and it was ruining what had otherwise been a promising day. A few of the fox rumors still circulated, but most people wanted to talk about Christian attacking Ralf. I still hadn’t cleared Christian of the fox incident—I was pretty sure he was psycho enough to have done it as some crazy sign of affection for Lissa—but whatever his motives, he had shifted the attention off her, just as he’d said.
Mr. Nagy, legendary for his ability to humiliate students by reading notes aloud, homed in on us like a missile. He snatched the note away, and the excited class settled in for a full reading. I swallowed my groan, trying to look as blank and unconcerned as possible. Beside me, Lissa looked like she wanted to die.
“My, my,” he said, looking the note over. “If only students would write this much in their essays. One of you has considerably worse writing than the other, so forgive me if I get anything wrong here.” He cleared his throat. “‘So, I saw J last night,’ begins the person with bad handwriting, to which the response is, ‘What happened,’ followed by no fewer than five question marks. Understandable, since sometimes one—let alone four—just won’t get the point across, eh?” The class laughed, and I noticed Mia throwing me a particularly mean smile. “The first speaker responds: ‘What do you think happened? We hooked up in one of the empty lounges.’”
Mr. Nagy glanced up after hearing some more giggles in the room. His British accent only added to the hilarity.
“May I assume by this reaction that the use of ‘hook up’ pertains to the more recent, shall we say, carnal application of the term than the tamer one I grew up with?”
More snickers ensued. Straightening up, I said boldly, “Yes, sir, Mr. Nagy. That would be correct, sir.” A number of people in the class laughed outright.
“Thank you for that confirmation, Miss Hathaway. Now, where was I? Ah yes, the other speaker then asks, ‘How was it?’ The response is, ‘Good,’ punctuated with a smiley face to confirm said adjective. Well. I suppose kudos are in order for the mysterious J, hmmm? ‘So, like, how far did you guys go?’ Uh, ladies,” said Mr. Nagy, “I do hope this doesn’t surpass a PG rating. ‘Not very. We got caught.’ And again, we are shown the severity of the situation, this time through the use of a not-smiling face. ‘What happened?’ ‘Dimitri showed up. He threw Jesse out and then bitched me out.’”
The class lost it, both from hearing Mr. Nagy say “bitched” and from finally getting some participants named.
“Why, Mr. Zeklos, are you the aforementioned J? The one who earned a smiley face from the sloppy writer?” Jesse’s face turned beet red, but he didn’t look entirely displeased at having his exploits made known in front of his friends. He’d kept what had happened a secret thus far—including the blood talk—because I suspected Dimitri had scared the hell out of him. “Well, while I applaud a good misadventure as much as the next teacher whose time is utterly wasted, do remind your ‘friends’ in the future that my class is not a chat room.” He tossed the paper back on to Lissa’s desk. “Miss Hathaway, it seems there’s no feasible way to punish you, since you’re already maxed out on penalties around here. Ergo, you, Miss Dragomir, will serve two detentions instead of one on behalf of your friend. Stay here when the bell rings, please.”
After class, Jesse found me, an uneasy look on his face. “Hey, um, about that note . . . you know I didn’t have anything to do with that. If Belikov finds out about it . . . you’ll tell him? I mean, you’ll let him know I didn’t—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted him. “Don’t worry, you’re safe.”
Standing with me, Lissa watched him walk out of the room. Thinking of how easily Dimitri had thrown him around—and of his apparent cowardice—I couldn’t help but remark, “You know, Jesse’s suddenly not as hot as I used to think.”
She only laughed. “You’d better go. I’ve got desks to wash.”
I
left her, heading back for my dorm. As I did, I passed a number of students gathered in small clusters outside the building. I regarded them wistfully, wishing I had the free time to socialize.
“No, it’s true,” I heard a confident voice say. Camille Conta. Beautiful and popular, from one of the most prestigious families in the Conta clan. She and Lissa had sort of been friends before we left, in the uneasy way two powerful forces keep an eye on each other. “They, like, clean toilets or something.”
“Oh my God,” her friend said. “I’d die if I was Mia.”
I smiled. Apparently Jesse had spread some of the stories I’d told him last night. Unfortunately, the next overheard conversation shattered my victory.
“—heard it was still alive. Like, twitching on her bed.”
“That is so gross. Why would they just leave it there?”
“I don’t know. Why kill it in the first place?”
“You think Ralf was right? That she and Rose did it to get kicked—”
They saw me and shut up.
Scowling, I skulked off across the quadrangle. Still alive, still alive.
I’d refused to let Lissa talk about the similarities between the fox and what had happened two years ago. I didn’t want to believe they were connected, and I certainly didn’t want her to either.
But I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that incident, not only because it was chilling, but because it really did remind me of what had just happened in her room.
We had been out in the woods near campus one evening, having skipped out on our last class. I’d traded a pair of cute, rhinestone-studded sandals to Abby Badica for a bottle of peach schnapps—desperate, yes, but you did what you had to in Montana—which she’d somehow gotten hold of. Lissa had shaken her head in disapproval when I suggested cutting class to go put the bottle out of its misery, but she’d come along anyway. Like always.
We found an old log to sit on near a scummy green marsh. A half-moon cast a tiny sliver of light on us, but it was more than enough for vampires and half-vampires to see by. Passing the bottle back and forth, I grilled her on Aaron. She’d fessed up that the two of them had had sex the weekend before, and I felt a surge of jealousy that she’d been the one to have sex first.
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