The next morning we all gathered to the couch's to continue. Thankfully, Rose seemed to be in higher spirits than she was yesterday. Another good thing, I still had my balls attached when I woke up this morning. I glanced around and saw that everyone was still in their pajama's obviously not bothering to get dressed for another day reading. I sighed through my nose in annoyance, with all this time away I'll be behind on training.

Mental note: do macho sit ups tonight

Abe was the first one to speak. "Well I'll read since no one else seems willing to." His gruff words contradicted with the enthusiastic tone he spoke them in. No one spoke so he cleared his throat and began.

Chapter 12

The next day I got called in early to help guard the ski resort. Which I didn't really mind, except for the fact that it meant I couldn't see Tasha. My mind was lingering on last night. The way she felt right in my arms-

"What the fuck?!" Vika's surprisingly clear voice cut off Abe.

"Viktoria! Watch your mouth or I'll wash it out for you!" Mama's sharp voice threatened in Russian.

Vika had the grace to look properly chastised, "Sorry, Mama." Of course she sent me a glare once Mama's back was turned. Abe cleared his voice pointedly before continuing loudly.

the way she sent trembles in my body whenever she laughed. And that hair, which was dark and thick. It wasn't as soft as Rose's

Roza laughed haughtily, "Who's is?" Abe didn't even blink as he plowed on, ignoring Rose.

but that didn't stop me from wanting to run my fingers through it. As I arrived at the west gate, three guardians stood there like statues. The night air was chilly and it was a wonder how they could stand there without shivering. I nodded to one of them, giving him the okay to leave. I took his place in the snow, facing the ski slopes without saying a word to the other guardians. I had never seen them before, and they didn't look to friendly either.

I felt my lack of sleep catch up with me, the hours I spent worrying on whether or not Rose was going to disembowel me weighing me down. I leaned back into the couch trying to find a comfortable position and felt my eyelids flutter closed. I drifted away to the droning of Abe's voice. My peaceful dream consisted of Rose (sans knives) and-

Ouch, dammit women.

I peered around blearily after the sharp blow Rose delivered to my ribs. Rose was glaring at me out of the corner of her eyes. "Pay Attention." Her voice was deadly calm and I gulped down before refocusing on Abe's dull voice. Christ, for such an interesting and dangerous man his voice was as dull as Father Andrew's sermons.

Laughing covered in snow Rose and Mason started to walk back to the ski lodge hand in hand.

Suddenly it wasn't hard to stay awake.

But not before Rose leaned in and kissed him.

Rose glanced at me guiltily and I prickled under Adrian's pitying look.

My whole world shattered before my eyes. It wasn't just a sweet and short kiss either, it was long and desirable. Just like it had been in the gym when Rose kissed me. Seeing this, Mason and Rose's kiss, set me on edge. How could she do something like that when she had made it clear how much she cared about me in gym.

"Dimitri-" Roza began but I held up my hand to cut her off. I didn't have a right to be upset over this, I had pushed her into his arms.

"Roza, milaya," I placed my hand on her cheek, marveling in the way she leaned into me. "You don't have to explain to me, I pushed you away. It's only fair that I suffer the consequences." Even as I spoke I felt the old pain from the image that was burned into my brain.

Did she have to kiss him for so long?

Stop. Focus, Dimka.

I started to feel queasy and weak at the knees. It felt like a stake had been plunged into my heart. It must have showed on my face because one the guardians turned to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Are you alright?"

I stared at him with as much control as I could master. "Fine."

Tasha came a short time after to retrieve me. I embraced her in a hug before we walked back inside. I let one tear slip before I hastily wipe away.

Rose pressed her face into the crook of my neck; staring up at me with pain filled eyes. "I'm so sorry. Hearing that I hurt you enough to make you cry, makes me regret everything that happened even more than I did. If that's possible."

I smiled down at her softly, "You're so compassionate, Roza. You feel so much, and that's what I love the most about you. But I don't want you to wallow in the past. Look towards the future. Our future."

"Aw!" Sydney turned to Adrian and smacked his arm.

"Ouch, Syd! What was that for?"

"Why can't you be sweet like Dimitri?!" Sydney questioned exasperatingly.

"Seriously?" Adrian exclaimed, he stared at her disbelievingly but she just shrugged and Abe took the opportunity to steal back his spotlight.

"Can we please get back to the book now?" Abe sighed loudly.

Janine rolled her eyes and said, "Go ahead Abrahim, their listening now." Abe, satisfied that he had our attention picked up the book and started where he left off.

Rose had hurt me bad, whether she knew it or not. But I didn't want to ruin whatever relationship she had created with Mason. I had vowed her anymore, and that meant letting her go. No matter how much it hurt me.

Babushka gave me a knowing look.

Honestly, I love that women but she just gives me the creeps.

But if she wanted to date someone else, then two could play at that game.

"It's not a game! You both are idiots, can't you see you're perfect for each other!" Vika burst out, gesturing exasperatedly towards the book.

"Uh Vika, we know." Rose and I shared a glance.

She waved her hand at Rose impatiently, "I know I know, I'm talking to them. The old yous."

Hello? Anyone home in that brain of yours. I thought sarcastically. Obviosuly irritated Abe began reading again, ignoring Rose's noise of protest when he – yet again – interrupted her.

After a long night of talking and laughing with Tasha I finally went to bed. I refused to recap on what happened between Rose and Mason. She must never know that I knew. If she did she would feel bad and hurt poor Mason's heart. I had to forgive her; she was a kid.

I winced at that statement.

I'm digging my own grave.

She had a lot of growing up to do. A loud knock pulled me out of my dream. Answering the door in only my pajama bottoms Janine Hathaway stood there stiff and guardian like. "There has been another strigoi attack."

This sprung me into action. Grabbing whatever outfit I picked first I put it on and was soon in Janine's room. It was filled with guardians milling around, moving in and out, and discussing strategy. Soon we were all crammed and huddled in one spot.

Janine and the rest of us stood, trying to get as much information about the attack as possible. Something moved on my left side and as I glanced over my eyes caught Rose's. She quickly turned away from me, leaving me with confused and hurt feelings.

"I was trying to make it easier for you, you asked me to leave you alone." Rose's small voice floated to me over the sound of Abe's voice.

I murmured to her, hoping not to draw an audience. Again. "I know, I'm sorry. I was confused, I wanted to move on but at the same time I couldn't bear it."

She nodded understandingly, "I mean you already know what I was thinking at the time. I just hope you know, that even when I was angry or hurt I didn't want you to leave. Or us to stop being us. And I want you to remember that for the future too."

I kissed her cheek, "I love you, milaya."

"Oh Comrade, I love you too." I felt warmth spread through my body when she spoke those four magical words.

Maybe I won't need that ticket to hell after all…better keep it though. Just to be safe.

We had learned that eight moroi had been killed along with their five guardians. Three moroi were missing. Either dead or turned strigoi. The attack hadn't really happened near here; it had been somewhere in California. Nonetheless, a tragedy like this couldn't help but reverberate within the moroi world, and for some two states away was far too close. People were terrified. "There had to be more than last time," said Janine.

"More?" exclaimed one of the other guardians. "That last group was unheard of. I still can't believe nine stigoi managed to work together…you expect me to believe they managed to get more organized still?"

"Yes." Janine snapped.

"Any evidence of humans?" Someone else asked.

Janine hesitated then as all the eyes turned to her. "Yes. More broken wards. And the way it was all conducted…it's identical to the Badica attack." Her voice was hard, but there was a kind of weariness in it too. It wasn't physical exhaustion, though. It was mental. Strained and hurt over what had happened. It was a hard and ugly matter to discuss- but at the same time, she was tackling it without hesitation. It was our duty to.

I saw people around the room look at Janine with newfound admiration and respect. However I was happy to see Rose in particular looking at her mom proudly.

Humans. Identical to the Badica attack. Ever since that massacre, we'd extensively analyzed the oddity of such a large group of strigoi teaming up and recruiting humans. We'd spoken in vague terms about it. But no one had seriously talked about this group – the Badica killers – doing it again. Onetime was a fluke – maybe a bunch of strigoi had happened to gather and impulsively decided to go on a raid. It was horrible, but we could write that off.

But now it looked as though that group of strigoi hadn't been a random occurrence. They'd united with purpose, utilized humans strategically, and had attacked again. We now had what could be a pattern: strigoi actively seeking out large groups of prey. Serial killings, we could no longer trust the protective magic of wards. We couldn't even trust sunlight. Humans could move around in the day, scouting and sabotaging. The light was no longer safe.

I spotted Sydney shudder delicately, "I still can't believe humans would help those monsters." I winced slightly and was happy to see no one noticed it. Hearing Sydney's malice towards the strigoi brought back the terrible guilt I feel from the time when I was one of those monsters.

Monster. Who am I kidding? I don't need a ticket to hell. The devil will probably send someone to drag me down there by my balls.

Lissa spoke up then, "People do terrible things sometimes. Moroi, dhampir, and human." Lissa quickly leaned back into Christian, her expression making it clear that she was done sharing for today. I had almost forgotten she was here until she spoke, she'd been pretty quiet the last day or two.

While I was pondering this Tasha decided we hadn't had enough of her fantastic commentary and added her piece to the conversation. "Yeah yeah, people do bad things. But let's be honest here, the bad people are the fun people. Dimitri agrees with me don't you, Dimka?" Her voice turned creepily sultry at the end.

I gave her a cold glance, "I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. Abe," He turned to face me. "Please continue."

I remembered the day Rose and I had seen the Badica house, she whispered almost in fear,

"Rose? In fear? No!" Christian said dryly.

this changes everything, doesn't it? Janine flipped through some papers in a clipboard. "They don't have forensic details yet, but the same number of strigoi couldn't have done this. None of the Drozdovs or their staff escaped. With five guardians, seven strigoi would have been preoccupied – at least temporarily – for some to escape. We're looking at nine or ten, maybe."

I had suspected this. Strigoi working in groups was something everyone of us feared. Even the tough guardians like Janine.

"And you, Dimka." Vika stated confidently. I gave her a weak smile, I had failed once. When it really counted.

"Janine's right. And if you look at the venue…it's too big. Seven wouldn't have covered it." I said.

The Drozdovs were one of the twelve royal families. They were large and prosperous, not like Lissa's dying clan. They had plenty of family members to go around, but obviously, not so much anymore.

I looked around the room, trying my best to avoid Rose. Every guardian looked keyed up and ready to go out there and kill every Strigoi in sight. And if it weren't for Janine's voice of reason, that would be the exact thing that'd happen. We discussed the attack more, how the Drozdovs had been having a belated Christmas party in a banquet hall when they were attacked.

"First Badicas, now Drozdovs," Muttered one guardian. "They're going after royals."

Every guardian in this room knew he was right. But I refused to let Rose live in fear for the next couple of days. And taking a quick glance over at her told me that she was scared for not only her life but for Lissa's as well.

"That's sweet, Comrade." Rose said adorably, her eyes big and her cheeks flushed.

I gave her a quick peck. "I'll always protect you, milaya. You know that."

"They're going after moroi." I said flatly. "Royal. Non-royal. It doesn't matter." After a while of discussing and getting nowhere the group dispersed. That's when Rose decided to leap up off the sofa and push her way towards Janine. I quickly moved out of the room. Deciding to head where everyone else seemed to be going. I walked slowly to the banquet hall. I never particularly liked the way moroi handled things. They only discussed and cowered in fear. Unlike us guardians who took action the minute it's handed to us. By the time I got to the banquet hall people were still piling in. Although it was pretty packed. Despite the businesslike atmosphere, you could tell this room had been designed for things other than meetings about massacres and defense.

The moroi piss me off, they're mostly all vain pretty boys.

I glanced among the sea of heads and found Rose's in the back. Despite me wanting to avoid her I decided against it. I wanted to show her that I still cared about her, even if she was leaving me fore someone else.

"Are you deranged? Her leaving you? You've got that completely backwards. Honestly Dimitri, did you leave your brain in Russia?" My sister continued to rant, some switching to Russian to deliver more insulting remarks. I just rolled my eyes, silently agreeing with her but too fed up to deal with admitting that.

At least I haven't lost all my pride. Yet.

I sat down on the other side of Rose, my leather coat draping around me as I settled in my chair, heart beating fast. I saw Rose glance in surprise form the corner of my eye. Although I didn't acknowledge her. Guardians were rare at these kind of gathering. Most were too busy doing damage control. So I could only imagine how confused she was. The meeting kicked off then. Everyone was eager to talk about how they thought the moroi should be saved, but really, two theories got the most attention.

"The answer's all around us." Said one royal. He stood by his chair and looked around the room. "Here. In places like this lodge. And St. Vladimir's. We send our children to safe places, places where they have safety in numbers and can be easily guarded. And look how many of us made it here, children and adults alike. Why don't we live this way all the time?"

"Plenty of us already do." Someone shouted back.

The man waved that off. "A couple of families here or there. Or a town with a large moroi population but those moroi are still decentralized. Most don't pool their resources – their guardians, their magic. If we could emulate this model…" He spread his hands out. "…we'd never have to worry about strigoi again."

Tasha snorted. "Oh God, not that idiot again."

"And moroi could never interacte with the rest of the world again," Rose muttered. "Well, until humans discover secret vampire cities sprouting up in the wilderness. Then we'd have lots of interactions." I knew she was right, although I didn't acknowledge that.

"C'mon Comrade! You gotta give me something." Rose whined loudly.

I hid my smile and shrugged indifferently. "Sorry Roza." She huffed and turned away.

"The problem is simply that we don't have enough guardians." This plan's advocate was some women from the Szelsky clan. "And so, the answer is simple: get more. The Drozdovs had five guardians, and that wasn't enough. Only six to protect over a dozen moroi! That's unacceptable. It's no wonder these kinds of things keep happening."

"Where do you propose getting more guardians from?" asked the man who'd been in favor of moroi banding together. "They're kind of a limited resource."

She pointed to where I and a few other novices sat. "We've got plenty already. I've watched them train. They're deadly. Why are we waiting until they turn eighteen? If we accelerate the training program and focused more on combat training than bookwork, we could turn out new guardians when they're sixteen."

I grumbled at that. Seeing Rose fight in the gym was proof that they were strong and skilled but not enough to take down strigoi. I leaned forward, placing my elbows on my knees and rested my chin in my hands. "Not only that, we have plenty of potential guardians going to waste. Where are all the dhampir women? Our races are intertwined. The moroi are doing their part to help the dhampirs survive.

"Doing their part? Geez, I didn't know sex was such a chore." Adrian grumbled dryly.

Tasha grinned, "You and I think alike, Mr. Ivashkov."

Adrian grimaced, "That. Is a terrifying thought."

"Why aren't these women doing theirs? Why aren't they here?" I tensed at that, she was referring to blood whores. This hit a sore spot in my heart, I was born and raised in a blood whore community. My mom had been one, and they weren't as bad as everyone made them up to be. A long, sultry

Tasha gave me knowing look, like we were sharing a secret. I gave her a withering glance in return.

laugh came as an answer. I'd recognize that voice anywhere. Tasha Ozera.

Rose tensed.

Damn Dimka, why do you have to be such a lovers' boy? You're writing your own obituary, you dumbass.

Glancing at the moderator, she asked, "May I?" He nodded. The Szelsky woman sat down; Tasha stood up. Unlike the other speakers she strode right up to the podium, so she could be clearly seen by everyone. "Those woman aren't here, Monica, because they're too busy raising their children – you know, the ones you want to start sending out to the fronts as soon as they can walk. And please don't insult us all by acting like the moroi do a huge favor to the dhampirs by helping them reproduce.

"I'd sure like to help you reproduce, Dimka." Tasha drawled provocatively, I shuddered nervously.

Maybe it's different in your family, but for the rest of us, sex is fun. The moroi doing it with dhampirs aren't really making that big of a sacrifice." I straightened up at the sound of Tasha defending dhampirs and particularly blood whores. That didn't happen very often and I praised her for that.

"Woohoo, team Tasha everyone." Rose muttered sarcastically.

"And the reason we're waiting for these guardians to turn eighteen is so that we can allow them to enjoy some pretense of a life before forcing them to spend the rest of their days in constant danger. They need those extra years to develop mentally as well as physically. Pull them out before they're ready, treat them like they're parts in an assembly line – and you're just creating strigoi fodder."

There were a few gasps in the crowd at Tasha's callous choice of words. But she went on. "You create more fodder still if you try making the other dhampir women become guardians. You can't force them into that life if they don't want it. This entire plan of yours to get more guardians relies on throwing children and the unwilling into harms way, just so you can – barely – stay one step ahead of the enemy. I would've said it's the stupidest plan I've ever heard, if I hadn't already listened to his." She gestured to the first speaker, the one who had wanted moroi compounds. Embarassment clouded his features.

"Enlighten us then, Natasha," He said. "Tell us what you think we should do, seeing as you have so much experience with strigoi."

A thin smile played on her lips, but she didn't rise to the insult. "What do I think? I think we should stop coming up with plans that involve us relying on someone or something to protect us. You think there are too few guardians? That's not the problem. The problem is that there are too many strigoi. And we've let them multiply and become more powerful because we do nothing about them except have stupid arguments like this. We run and hide behind the dhampirs and let strigoi go unchecked. It's our fault. We are the reason those Drozdovs died. You want an army? Well here we are. Dhampirs aren't the only ones who can learn to fight. The question, Monica, isn't where the dhampir women are in this fight. The question is: where are we?"

Tasha was shouting now, most people couldn't take their eyes off her. Monica Szelsky looked less awed, and she fixed her gaze on Tasha. "Surely you aren't suggesting the moroi fight alongside the guardians when the strigoi come?"

"No. I'm suggesting the moroi and the guardians go fight the strigoi before they come."

A guy in his twenties shot up. He untied an expensive sweater from around his waist and draped it over the back of his chair. "Oh," he said in a mocking voice, speaking out of turn. "So, you're going to just give us clubs and stakes and send us off to do battle?"

Tasha shrugged, "If that's what it takes, Andrew, then sure." A sly smile crossed her pretty lips.

Rose, who had just begun to relax again, jumped as if somebody shocked her. I resisted the urge to hit myself in the head repeatedly with the palm of my hand.

"But there are other weapons we can learn to use, too. Ones that guardians can't."

The look on his face showed how insane he thought the idea was. He rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

Her smile turned into a full-fledged grin. "Like this."

She waved her hand and the sweater he'd placed on the back of the chair burst into flames. He yelped in surprise and knocked it to the floor, stamping it out with his feet. There was a brief, collective intake of breath throughout the room. And then…chaos broke out.

"Well…" Abe drawled, "That was intense. Who wants to read next?"

Vika groaned, "Ughhh. I will, but lunch first. That chapter was way too long."