“Can I stake that one next time?”
He picked up his coat and put it on. It was long and brown, made of distressed leather. It looked very much like a cowboy duster, though he’d never admit to it. He had a secret fascination with the Old West. I didn’t really understand it, but then, I didn’t get his weird musical preferences either.
“I don’t think that’d be healthy,” he said.
“It’d be better than me actually doing it to
her
,” I grumbled, slinging my backpack over one shoulder. We headed out to the gym.
“Violence isn’t the answer to your problems,” he said sagely.
“She’s the one with the problem. And I thought the whole point of my education was that violence
is
the answer.”
“Only to those who bring it to you first. Your mother isn’t assaulting you. You two are just too much alike, that’s all.”
I stopped walking. “I’m not anything like her! I mean . . . we kind of have the same eyes. But I’m a lot taller. And my hair’s completely different.” I pointed to my ponytail, just in case he wasn’t aware that my thick brown-black hair didn’t look like my mother’s auburn curls.
He still had kind of an amused expression, but there was something hard in his eyes too. “I’m not talking about your appearances, and you know it.”
I looked away from that knowing gaze. My attraction to Dimitri had started almost as soon as we’d met—and it wasn’t just because he was so hot, either. I felt like he understood part of me that I didn’t understand myself, and sometimes I was pretty sure I understood parts of him that he didn’t understand either.
The only problem was that he had the annoying tendency to point out things about myself I didn’t
want
to understand.
“You think I’m jealous?”
“Are you?” he asked. I hated it when he answered my questions with questions. “If so, what are you jealous of exactly?”
I glanced back at Dimitri. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m jealous of her reputation. Maybe I’m jealous because she’s put more time into her reputation than into me. I don’t know.”
“You don’t think what she did was great?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. It just sounded like such a . . . I don’t know . . . like she was bragging. Like she did it for the glory.” I grimaced. “For the marks.”
Molnija
marks were tattoos awarded to guardians when they killed Strigoi. Each one looked like a tiny
x
made of lightning bolts. They went on the backs of our necks and showed how experienced a guardian was.
“You think facing down Strigoi is worth a few marks? I thought you’d learned something from the Badica house.”
I felt stupid. “That’s not what I—”
“Come on.”
I stopped walking. “What?”
We’d been heading toward my dorm, but now he nodded his head toward the opposite side of campus. “I want to show you something.”
“What is it?”
“That not all marks are badges of honor.”
FIVE
I
HAD NO IDEA WHAT DIMITRI was talking about, but I followed along obediently.
To my surprise, he led me out of the boundaries of the campus and into the surrounding woods. The Academy owned a lot of land, not all of which was actively used for educational purposes. We were in a remote part of Montana, and at times, it seemed as though the school was just barely holding back the wilderness.
We walked quietly for a while, our feet crunching through thick, unbroken snow. A few birds flitted by, singing their greetings to the rising sun, but mostly all I saw were scraggly, snow-heavy evergreen trees. I had to work to keep up with Dimitri’s longer stride, particularly since the snow slowed me down a little. Soon, I discerned a large, dark shape ahead. Some kind of building.
“What is that?” I asked. Before he could answer, I realized it was a small cabin, made out of logs and everything. Closer examination showed that the logs looked worn and rotten in some places. The roof sagged a little.
“Old watch-post,” he said. “Guardians used to live on the edge of campus and keep watch for Strigoi.”
“Why don’t they anymore?”
“We don’t have enough guardians to staff it. Besides, Moroi have warded campus with enough protective magic that most don’t think it’s necessary to have actual people on guard.” Provided no humans staked the wards, I thought.
For a few brief moments, I entertained the hope that Dimitri was leading me off to some romantic getaway. Then I heard voices on the opposite side of the building. A familiar hum of feeling coursed into my mind. Lissa was there.
Dimitri and I rounded the corner of the building, coming up on a surprising scene. A small frozen pond lay there, and Christian and Lissa were ice skating on it. A woman I didn’t know was with them, but her back was to me. All I could see was a wave of jet-black hair that arced around her when she skated to a graceful stop.
Lissa grinned when she saw me. “Rose!” Christian glanced over at me as she spoke, and I got the distinct impression he felt I was intruding on their romantic moment.
Lissa moved in awkward strides to the pond’s edge. She wasn’t so adept at skating.
I could only stare in bewilderment—and jealousy. “Thanks for inviting me to the party.”
“I figured you were busy,” she said. “And this is secret anyway. We aren’t supposed to be here.” I could have told them that.
Christian skated up beside her, and the strange woman soon followed. “You bringing party crashers, Dimka?” she asked.
I wondered who she was talking to, until I heard Dimitri laugh. He didn’t do it that often, and my surprise increased. “It’s impossible to keep Rose away from places she shouldn’t be. She always finds them eventually.”
The woman grinned and turned around, flipping her long hair over one shoulder, so that I suddenly saw her face full-on. It took every ounce of my already dubiously held self-control not to react. Her heart-shaped face had large eyes exactly the same shade as Christian’s, a pale wintry blue. The lips that smiled at me were delicate and lovely, glossed in a shade of pink that set off the rest of her features.
But across her left cheek, marring what would have otherwise been smooth, white skin were raised, purplish scars. Their shape and formation looked very much like someone had bitten into and torn out part of her cheek. Which, I realized, was exactly what had happened.
I swallowed. I suddenly knew who this was. It was Christian’s aunt. When his parents had turned Strigoi, they’d come back for him, hoping to hide him away and turn him Strigoi when he was older. I didn’t know all the details, but I knew his aunt had fended them off. As I’d observed before, though, Strigoi were deadly. She’d provided enough of a distraction until the guardians showed up, but she hadn’t walked away without damage.
She extended her gloved hand to me. “Tasha Ozera,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Rose.”
I gave Christian a dangerous look, and Tasha laughed.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It was all good.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he countered.
She shook her head in exasperation. “Honestly, I don’t know where he got such horrible social skills. He didn’t learn them from me.” That was obvious, I thought.
“What are you guys doing out here?” I asked.
“I wanted to spend some time with these two.” A small frown wrinkled her forehead. “But I don’t really like hanging around the school itself. They aren’t always hospitable. . . .”
I didn’t get that at first. School officials usually fell all over themselves when royals came to visit. Then I figured it out.
“Because . . . because of what happened . . .”
Considering the way everyone treated Christian because of his parents, I shouldn’t have been surprised to find his aunt facing the same discrimination.
Tasha shrugged. “That’s the way it is.” She rubbed her hands together and exhaled, her breath making a frosty cloud in the air. “But let’s not stand out here, not when we can build a fire inside.”
I gave a last, wistful glance at the frozen pond and then followed the others inside. The cabin was pretty bare, covered in layers of dust and dirt. It consisted of only one room. There was a narrow bed with no covers in the corner and a few shelves where food had probably once been stored. There was a fireplace, however, and we soon had a blaze going that warmed the small area. The five of us sat down, huddling around its heat, and Tasha produced a bag of marshmallows that we cooked over the flames.
As we feasted on that gooey goodness, Lissa and Christian talked to each other in that easy, comfortable way they always had. To my surprise, Tasha and Dimitri also talked in a familiar and light way. They obviously knew each other from way back when. I’d actually never seen him so animated before. Even when affectionate with me, there’d always been a serious air about him. With Tasha, he bantered and laughed.
The more I listened to her, the more I liked her. Finally, unable to stay out of the conversation, I asked, “So are you coming on the ski trip?”
She nodded. Stifling a yawn, she stretched herself out like a cat. “I haven’t been skiing in ages. No time. Been saving all my vacation for this.”
“Vacation?” I gave her a curious look. “Do you have . . . a job?”
“Sadly, yes,” Tasha said, though she didn’t actually sound very sad about it. “I teach martial arts classes.”
I stared in astonishment. I couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d said she was an astronaut or a telephone psychic.
A lot of royals just didn’t work at all, and if they did, it was usually in some sort of investment or other moneymaking business that furthered their family fortunes. And those who
did
work certainly didn’t do a lot of martial arts or physically demanding jobs. Moroi had a lot of great attributes: exceptional senses—smell, sight, and hearing—and the power to work magic. But physically, they were tall and slender, often small-boned. They also got weak from being in sunlight. Now, those things weren’t enough to prevent someone from becoming a fighter, but they did make it more challenging. An idea had built up among the Moroi over time that their best offense was a good defense, and most shied away from the thought of physical conflict. They hid in well-protected places like the Academy, always relying on stronger, hardier dhampirs to guard them.
“What do you think, Rose?” Christian seemed highly amused by my surprise. “Think you could take her?”
“Hard to say,” I said.
Tasha crooked me a grin. “You’re being modest. I’ve seen what you guys can do. This is just a hobby I picked up.”
Dimitri chuckled. “Now
you’re
being modest. You could teach half the classes around here.”
“Not likely,” she said. “It’d be pretty embarrassing to be beaten up by a bunch of teenagers.”
“I don’t think that’d happen,” he said. “I seem to remember you doing some damage to Neil Szelsky.”
Tasha rolled her eyes. “Throwing my drink in his face wasn’t actually damage—unless you consider the damage it did to his suit. And we all know how he is about his clothes.”
They both laughed at some private joke the rest of us weren’t in on, but I was only half-listening. I was still intrigued about her role with the Strigoi.
The self-control I’d tried to maintain finally slipped. “Did you start learning to fight before or after that happened to your face?”
“Rose!” hissed Lissa.
But Tasha didn’t seem upset. Neither did Christian, and he usually grew uncomfortable when the attack with his parents was brought up. She regarded me with a level, thoughtful look. It reminded me of the one I sometimes got from Dimitri if I did something surprising that he approved of.
“After,” she said. She didn’t lower her gaze or look embarrassed, though I sensed sadness in her. “How much do you know?”
I glanced at Christian. “The basics.”
She nodded. “I knew . . . I knew what Lucas and Moira had become, but that still didn’t prepare me. Mentally, physically, or emotionally. I think if I had to live through it again, I still wouldn’t be ready. But after that night, I looked at myself— figuratively—and realized how defenseless I was. I’d spent my whole life expecting guardians to protect me and take care of me.
“And that’s not to say the guardians aren’t capable. Like I said, you could probably take me in a fight. But they—Lucas and Moira—cut down our two guardians before we realized what had happened. I stalled them from taking Christian— but just barely. If the others hadn’t shown up, I’d be dead, and he’d—” She stopped, frowned, and kept going. “I decided that I didn’t want to die that way, not without putting up a real fight and doing everything I could to protect myself and those I love. So I learned all sorts of self-defense. And after a while, I didn’t really, uh, fit in so well with high society around here. So I moved to Minneapolis and made a living from teaching others.”
I didn’t doubt there were other Moroi living in Minneapolis—though God only knew why—but I could read between the lines. She’d moved there and integrated herself with humans, keeping away from other vampires like Lissa and I had for two years. I started to wonder also if there might have been something else there between the lines. She’d said she’d learned “all sorts of self-defense”—apparently, more than just martial arts. Going along with their offense-defense beliefs, the Moroi didn’t think magic should be used as a weapon. Long ago, it had been used that way, and some Moroi still secretly did today. Christian, I knew, was one of them. I suddenly had a good idea of where he might have picked up that kind of thing.
Silence fell. It was hard to follow up a sad story like that. But Tasha, I realized, was one of those people who could always lighten a mood. It made me like her even more, and she spent the rest of the time telling us funny stories. She didn’t put on airs like a lot of royals did, so she had lots of dirt on everyone. Dimitri knew a lot of the people she spoke of— honestly, how did someone so antisocial seem to know
everyone
in Moroi and guardian society?—and would occasionally add some small detail. They had us in hysterics until Tasha finally looked at her watch.