He kept walking, and I watched him admiringly. Natalie and her friends stared at me in awe. I might not be a god in the Dimitri sense, but with this group, Lissa and I were gods—or at least former gods—of another nature.
“Oh my gawd,” exclaimed one girl. I didn’t remember her name. “That was Jesse.”
“Yes,” I said, smiling. “It certainly was.”
“I wish I looked like you,” she added with a sigh.
Their eyes fell on me. Technically, I was half-Moroi, but my looks were human. I’d blended in well with humans during our time away, so much so that I’d barely thought about my appearance at all. Here, among the slim and small-chested Moroi girls, certain features—meaning my larger breasts and more defined hips—stood out. I knew I was pretty, but to Moroi boys, my body was more than just pretty: it was sexy in a risqué way. Dhampirs were an exotic conquest, a novelty all Moroi guys wanted to “try.”
It was ironic that dhampirs had such an allure here, because slender Moroi girls looked very much like the super-skinny runway models so popular in the human world. Most humans could never reach that “ideal” skinniness, just as Moroi girls could never look like me. Everyone wanted what she couldn’t have.
Lissa and I got to sit together in our shared afternoon classes but didn’t do much talking. The stares she’d mentioned certainly did follow us, but I found that the more I talked to people, the more they warmed up. Slowly, gradually, they seemed to remember who we were, and the novelty—though not the intrigue—of our crazy stunt wore off.
Or maybe I should say, they remembered who I was. Because I was the only one talking. Lissa stared straight ahead, listening but neither acknowledging nor participating in my attempts at conversation. I could feel anxiety and sadness pouring out of her.
“All right,” I told her when classes finally ended. We stood outside the school, and I was fully aware that in doing so, I was already breaking the terms of my agreement with Kirova. “We’re not staying here,” I told her, looking around the campus uneasily. I’m going to find a way to get us out.”
“You think we could really do it a second time?” Lissa asked quietly.
“Absolutely.” I spoke with certainty, again relieved she couldn’t read my feelings. Escaping the first time had been tricky enough. Doing it again would be a real bitch, not that I couldn’t still find a way.
“You really would, wouldn’t you?” She smiled, more to herself than to me, like she’d thought of something funny. “Of course you would. It’s just, well . . .” She sighed. “I don’t know if we should go. Maybe—maybe we should stay.”
I blinked in astonishment. “What?” Not one of my more eloquent answers, but the best I could manage. I’d never expected this from her.
“I saw you, Rose. I saw you talking to the other novices during class, talking about practice. You miss that.”
“It’s not worth it,” I argued. “Not if . . . not if you . . .” I couldn’t finish, but she was right. She’d read me. I had missed the other novices. Even some of the Moroi. But there was more to it than just that. The weight of my inexperience, how much I’d fallen behind, had been growing all day.
“It might be better,” she countered. “I haven’t had as many . . . you know, things happening in a while. I haven’t felt like anyone was following or watching us.”
I didn’t say anything to that. Before we’d left the Academy, she’d always felt like someone was following her, like she was being hunted. I’d never seen evidence to support that, but I had once heard one of our teachers go on and on about the same sort of thing. Ms. Karp. She’d been a pretty Moroi, with deep auburn air and high cheekbones. And I was pretty sure she’d been crazy.
“You never know who’s watching,” she used to say, walking briskly around the classroom as she shut all the blinds. “Or who’s following you. Best to be safe. Best to always be safe.” We’d snickered amongst ourselves because that’s what students do around eccentric and paranoid teachers. The thought of Lissa acting like her bothered me.
“What’s wrong?” Lissa asked, noticing that I was lost in thought.
“Huh? Nothing. Just thinking.” I sighed, trying to balance my own wants with what was best for her. “Liss, we can stay, I guess . . . but there are a few conditions.”
This made her laugh. “A Rose ultimatum, huh?”
“I’m serious.” Words I didn’t say very much. “I want you to stay away from the royals. Not like Natalie or anything, but you know, the others. The power players. Camille. Carly. That group.”
Her amusement turned to astonishment. “Are you serious?”
“Sure. You never liked them anyway.”
“You did.”
“No. Not really. I liked what they could offer. All the parties and stuff.”
“And you can go without that now?” She looked skeptical.
“Sure. We did in Portland.”
“Yeah, but that was different.” Her eyes stared off, not really focused on any one thing. “Here . . . here I’ve got to be a part of that. I can’t avoid it.”
“The hell you do. Natalie stays out of that stuff.”
“Natalie isn’t going to inherit her family’s title,” she retorted. “I’ve already got it. I’ve got to be involved, start making connections. Andre—”
“Liss,” I groaned. “You aren’t Andre.” I couldn’t believe she was still comparing herself to her brother.
“He was always involved in all that stuff.”
“Yeah, well,” I snapped back, “he’s dead now.”
Her face hardened. “You know, sometimes you aren’t very nice.”
“You don’t keep me around to be nice. You want nice, there are a dozen sheep in there who would rip each other’s throats to get in good with the Dragomir princess. You keep me around to tell you the truth, and here it is: Andre’s dead. You’re the heir now, and you’re going to deal with it however you can. But for now, that means staying away from the other royals. We’ll just lie low. Coast through the middle. Get involved in that stuff again, Liss, and you’ll drive yourself . . .”
“Crazy?” she supplied when I didn’t finish.
Now I looked away. “I didn’t mean . . .”
“It’s okay,” she said, after a moment. She sighed and touched my arm. “Fine. We’ll stay, and we’ll keep out of all that stuff. We’ll ‘coast through the middle’ like you want. Hang out with Natalie, I guess.”
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t want any of that. I wanted to go to all the royal parties and wild drunken festivities like we’d done before. We’d kept out of that life for years until Lissa’s parents and brother died. Andre should have been the one to inherit her family’s title, and he’d certainly acted like it. Handsome and outgoing, he’d charmed everyone he knew and had been a leader in all the royal cliques and clubs that existed on campus. After his death, Lissa had felt it was her family duty to take his place.
I’d gotten to join that world with her. It was easy for me, because I didn’t really have to deal with the politics of it. I was a pretty dhampir, one who didn’t mind getting into trouble and pulling crazy stunts. I became a novelty; they liked having me around for the fun of it.
Lissa had to deal with other matters. The Dragomirs were one of the twelve ruling families. She’d have a very powerful place in Moroi society, and the other young royals wanted to get in good with her. Fake friends tried to schmooze her and get her to team up against other people. The royals could bribe and backstab in the same breath—and that was just with each other. To dhampirs and non-royals, they were completely unpredictable.
That cruel culture had eventually taken its toll on Lissa. She had an open, kind nature, one that I loved, and I hated to see her upset and stressed by royal games. She’d grown fragile since the accident, and all the parties in the world weren’t worth seeing her hurt.
“All right then,” I said finally. “We’ll see how this goes. If anything goes wrong—anything at all—we leave. No ar
guments.”
She nodded.
“Rose?”
We both looked up at Dimitri’s looming form. I hoped he hadn’t heard the part about us leaving.
“You’re late for practice,” he said evenly. Seeing Lissa, he gave a polite nod. “Princess.”
As he and I walked away, I worried about Lissa and wondered if staying here was the right thing to do. I felt nothing alarming through the bond, but her emotions spiked all over the place. Confusion. Nostalgia. Fear. Anticipation. Strong and powerful, they flooded into me.
I felt the pull just before it happened. It was exactly like what had happened on the plane: her emotions grew so strong that they “sucked” me into her head before I could stop them. I could now see and feel what she did.
She walked slowly around the commons, toward the small Russian Orthodox chapel that served most of the school’s religious needs. Lissa had always attended mass regularly. Not me. I had a standing arrangement with God: I’d agree to believe in him—barely—so long as he let me sleep in on Sundays.
But as she went inside, I could feel that she wasn’t there to pray. She had another purpose, one I didn’t know about. Glancing around, she verified that neither the priest nor any worshippers were close by. The place was empty.
Slipping through a doorway in the back of the chapel, she climbed a narrow set of creaky stairs up into the attic. Here it was dark and dusty. The only light came through a large stained-glass window that fractured the faint glow of sunrise into tiny, multicolored gems across the floor.
I hadn’t known until that moment that this room was a regular retreat for Lissa. But now I could feel it, feel her memories of how she used to escape here to be alone and to think. The anxiety in her ebbed away ever so slightly as she took in the familiar surroundings. She climbed up into the window seat and leaned her head back against its side, momentarily entranced by the silence and the light.
Moroi could stand some sunlight, unlike the Strigoi, but they had to limit their exposure. Sitting here, she could almost pretend she was in the sun, protected by the glass’s dilution of the rays.
Breathe, just breathe, she told herself. It’ll be okay. Rose will take care of everything.
She believed that passionately, like always, and relaxed further.
Then a low voice spoke from the darkness.
“You can have the Academy but not the window seat.”
She sprang up, heart pounding. I shared her anxiety, and my own pulse quickened. “Who’s there?”
A moment later, a shape rose from behind a stack of crates, just outside her field of vision. The figure stepped forward, and in the poor lighting, familiar features materialized. Messy black hair. Pale blue eyes. A perpetually sardonic smirk.
Christian Ozera.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t bite. Well, at least not in the way you’re afraid of.” He chuckled at his own joke.
She didn’t find it funny. She had completely forgotten about Christian. So had I.
No matter what happened in our world, a few basic truths about vampires remained the same. Moroi were alive; Strigoi were undead. Moroi were mortal; Strigoi were immortal. Moroi were born; Strigoi were made.
And there were two ways to make a Strigoi. Strigoi could forcibly turn humans, dhampirs, or Moroi with a single bite. Moroi tempted by the promise of immortality could become Strigoi by choice if they purposely killed another person while feeding. Doing that was considered dark and twisted, the greatest of all sins, both against the Moroi way of life and nature itself. Moroi who chose this dark path lost their ability to connect with elemental magic and other powers of the world. That was why they could no longer go into the sun.
This is what had happened to Christian’s parents. They were Strigoi.
FIVE
OR RATHER, THEY HAD BEEN Strigoi. A regiment of guardians had hunted them down and killed them. If rumors were true, Christian had witnessed it all when he was very young. And although he wasn’t Strigoi himself, some people thought he wasn’t far off, with the way he always wore black and kept to himself.
Strigoi or not, I didn’t trust him. He was a jerk, and I silently screamed at Lissa to get out of there—not that my screaming did much good. Stupid one-way bond.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Taking in the sights, of course. That chair with the tarp on it is particularly lovely this time of year. Over there, we have an old box full of the writings of the blessed and crazy St. Vladimir. And let’s not forget that beautiful table with no legs in the corner.”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and moved toward the door, wanting to leave, but he blocked her way.
“Well, what about you?” he taunted. “Why are you up here? Don’t you have parties to go to or lives to destroy?”
Some of Lissa’s old spark returned. “Wow, that’s hilarious. Am I like a rite of passage now? Go and see if you can piss off Lissa to prove how cool you are? Some girl I don’t even know yelled at me today, and now I’ve got to deal with you? What does it take to be left alone?”
“Oh. So that’s why you’re up here. For a pity party.”
“This isn’t a joke. I’m serious.” I could tell Lissa was getting angry. It was trumping her earlier distress.
He shrugged and leaned casually against the sloping wall. “So am I. I love pity parties. I wish I’d brought the hats. What do you want to mope about first? How it’s going to take you a whole day to be popular and loved again? How you’ll have to wait a couple weeks before Hollister can ship out some new clothes? If you spring for rush shipping, it might not be so long.”
“Let me leave,” she said angrily, this time pushing him aside.
“Wait,” he said, as she reached the door. The sarcasm disappeared from his voice. “What . . . um, what was it like?”
“What was what like?” she snapped.
“Being out there. Away from the Academy.”
She hesitated for a moment before answering, caught off guard by what seemed like a genuine attempt at conversation. “It was great. No one knew who I was. I was just another face. Not Moroi. Not royal. Not anything.” She looked down at the floor. “Everyone here thinks they know who I am.”
“Yeah. It’s kind of hard to outlive your past,” he said bitterly.
It occurred to Lissa at that moment—and me to by default—just how hard it might be to be Christian. Most of the time, people treated him like he didn’t exist. Like he was a ghost. They didn’t talk to or about him. They just didn’t notice him. The stigma of his parents’ crime was too strong, casting its shadow onto the entire Ozera family.
Still, he’d pissed her off, and she wasn’t about to feel sorry for him.
“Wait—is this your pity party now?”
He laughed, almost approvingly. “This room has been my pity party for a year now.”
“Sorry,” said Lissa snarkily. “I was coming here before I left. I’ve got a longer claim.”
“Squatters’ rights. Besides, I have to make sure I stay near the chapel as much as possible so people know I haven’t gone Strigoi . . . yet.” Again, the bitter tone rang out.
“I used to always see you at mass. Is that the only reason you go? To look good?” Strigoi couldn’t enter holy ground. More of that sinning-against-the-world thing.
“Sure,” he said. “Why else go? For the good of your soul?”
“Whatever,” said Lissa, who clearly had a different opinion. “I’ll leave you alone then.”
“Wait,” he said again. He didn’t seem to want her to go. “I’ll make you a deal. You can hang out here too if you tell me one thing.”
“What?” She glanced back at him.
He leaned forward. “Of all the rumors I heard about you today—and believe me, I heard plenty, even if no one actually told them to me—there was one that didn’t come up very much. They dissected everything else: why you left, what you did out there, why you came back, the specialization, what Rose said to Mi
a, blah, blah, blah. And in all of that, no one, no one ever questioned that stupid story that Rose told about there being all sorts of fringe humans who let you take blood.”
She looked away, and I could feel her cheeks starting to burn. “It’s not stupid. Or a story.”
He laughed softly. “I’ve lived with humans. My aunt and I stayed away after my parents . . . died. It’s not that easy to find blood.” When she didn’t answer, he laughed again. “It was Rose, wasn’t it? She fed you.”
A renewed fear shot through both her and me. No one at school could know about that. Kirova and the guardians on the scene knew, but they’d kept that knowledge to themselves.
“Well. If that’s not friendship, I don’t know what it is,” he said.
“You can’t tell anyone,” she blurted out.
This was all we needed. As I’d just been reminded, feeders were vampire-bite addicts. We accepted that as part of life but still looked down on them for it. For anyone else—especially a dhampir—letting a Moroi take blood from you was almost, well, dirty. In fact, one of the kinkiest, practically pornographic things a dhampir could do was let a Moroi drink blood during sex.
Lissa and I hadn’t had sex, of course, but we’d both known what others would think of me feeding her.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Lissa repeated.
He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and sat down on one of the crates. “Who am I going to tell? Look, go grab the window seat. You can have it today and hang out for a while. If you’re not still afraid of me.”
She hesitated, studying him. He looked dark and surly, lips curled in a sort of I’m-such-a-rebel smirk. But he didn’t look too dangerous. He didn’t look Strigoi. Gingerly, she sat back down in the window seat, unconsciously rubbing her arms against the cold.
Christian watched her, and a moment later, the air warmed up considerably.
Lissa met Christian’s eyes and smiled, surprised she’d never noticed how icy blue they were before. “You specialized in fire?”
He nodded and pulled up a broken chair. “Now we have luxury accommodations.”
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