Dimitri smiled his rare smile. “Well . . . children do that to people.”
“I can’t imagine it happening to you,” she laughed. “You’re always so stoic. Of course . . . I suppose you’d be doing baby talk in Russian, so no one would ever know.”
They both laughed at that, and I turned away, grateful Mason was there to talk to. He was a good distraction from everything, because in addition to Dimitri ignoring me, Lissa and Christian were chatting on in their own little world too. Sex appeared to have made them that much more in love, and I wondered if I’d get to spend any time with her at all on the ski trip. She did eventually break away from him to give me my Christmas present.
I opened the box and stared inside. I saw a string of maroon-colored beads, and the scent of roses floated out.
“What the . . .”
I lifted the beads out, and a heavy gold crucifix swung from the end of them. She’d given me a chotki. It was similar to a rosary, only smaller. Bracelet-size.
“Are you trying to convert me?” I asked wryly. Lissa wasn’t a religious nut or anything, but she believed in God and attended church regularly. Like many Moroi families who’d come from Russia and Eastern Europe, she was an Orthodox Christian.
Me? I was pretty much an Orthodox Agnostic. I figured God probably existed, but I didn’t have the time or energy to investigate. Lissa respected that and never tried to push her faith on me, which made the gift that much weirder.
“Flip it over,” she said, clearly amused at my shock.
I did. On the back of the cross, a dragon wreathed in flowers had been carved into the gold. The Dragomir crest. I looked up at her, puzzled.
“It’s a family heirloom,” she said. “One of my dad’s good friends has been saving boxes of his stuff. This was in it. It belonged to my great-grandmother’s guardian.”
“Liss . . .” I said. The chotki took on a whole new meaning. “I can’t . . . you can’t give me something like this.”
“Well, I certainly can’t keep it. It’s meant for a guardian. My guardian.”
I wound the beads around one wrist. The cross felt cool against my skin.
“You know,” I teased, “there’s a good possibility I’ll get kicked out of school before I can become your guardian.”
She grinned. “Well, then you can give it back.”
Everyone laughed. Tasha started to say something, then stopped when she looked up at the door.
“Janine!”
My mother stood there, looking as stiff and impassive as ever.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I had business to take care of.”
Business. As always. Even on Christmas.
I felt my stomach turn and heat rise to my cheeks as the details of our fight came rushing back to my mind. She’d never sent one word of communication since it had happened two days ago, not even when I was in the infirmary. No apologies. Nothing. I gritted my teeth.
She sat down with us and soon joined in the conversation. I’d long since discovered she could really only talk about one subject: guardian business. I wondered if she had any hobbies. The Badica attack was on everyone’s mind, and this drove her into a conversation about some similar fight she’d been in. To my horror, Mason was riveted by her every word.
“Well, decapitations aren’t as easy as they seem,” she said in her matter-of-fact way. I’d never thought they were easy at all, but her tone suggested that she believed everyone thought they were cake. “You’ve got to get through the spinal cord and tendons.”
Through the bond, I felt Lissa grow queasy. She wasn’t one for gruesome talk.
Mason’s eyes lit up. “What’s the best weapon to do it with?”
My mother considered. “An axe. You can get more weight behind it.” She made a swinging motion by way of illustration.
“Cool,” he said. “Man, I hope they let me carry an axe.” It was a comical and ludicrous idea, since axes were hardly convenient weapons to carry around. For half a second, the thought of Mason walking down the street with an axe over his shoulder lightened my mood a little. The moment quickly passed.
I honestly couldn’t believe we were having this conversation on Christmas. Her presence had soured everything. Fortunately, the gathering eventually dispersed. Christian and Lissa went off to do their own thing, and Dimitri and Tasha apparently had more catching up to do. Mason and I were well on our way to the dhampir dorm when my mother joined us.
None of us said anything. Stars cluttered the black sky, sharp and bright, their glitter matched in the ice and snow around us. I wore my ivory parka with fake fur trimming. It did a good job keeping my body warm, even though it did nothing against the chilly gusts that seared my face. The whole time we walked, I kept expecting my mother to turn off toward the other guardian areas, but she came right inside the dorm with us.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” she finally said. My alarms clicked on. What had I done now?
That was all she said, but Mason picked up on the hint immediately. He was neither stupid nor oblivious to social cues, though at that moment, I kind of wished he was. I also found it ironic that he wanted to fight every Strigoi in the world but was afraid of my mother.
He glanced at me apologetically, shrugged, and said, “Hey, I’ve got to get, um, somewhere. I’ll see you later.”
I watched with regret as he left, wishing I could run after him. Probably my mom would only tackle me and punch my other eye if I tried to escape. Better to do things her way and get this over with. Shifting uncomfortably, I looked everywhere but at her and waited for her to speak. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a few people glancing over at us. Recalling how everyone in the world seemed to know about her giving me the black eye, I suddenly decided I didn’t want witnesses around for whatever lecture she was about to unleash on me.
“You want to, um, go to my room?” I asked.
She looked surprised, almost uncertain. “Sure.”
I led her upstairs, keeping a safe distance away as we walked. Awkward tension built between us. She didn’t say anything when we reached my room, but I saw her examine every detail carefully, as though a Strigoi might be lurking in there. I sat on the bed and waited while she paced, unsure what I should do. She ran her fingers over a stack of books on animal behavior and evolution.
“Are these for a report?” she asked.
“No. I’m just interested in it, that’s all.”
Her eyebrows rose. She hadn’t known that. But how would she? She didn’t know anything about me. She continued her appraisal, stopping to study little things that apparently surprised her about me. A picture of Lissa and me dressed up like fairies for Halloween. A bag of SweeTarts. It was as though my mother were meeting me for the first time.
Abruptly, she turned and extended her hand toward me. “Here.”
Startled, I leaned forward and held my palm out underneath hers. Something small and cool dropped into my hand. It was a round pendant, a small one—not much bigger than a dime in diameter. A base of silver held a flat disc of colored glass circles. Frowning, I ran my thumb over its surface. It was strange, but the circles almost made it look like an eye. The inner one was small, just like a pupil. It was so dark blue that it looked black. Surrounding it was a larger circle of pale blue, which was in turn surrounded by a circle of white. A very, very thin ring of that dark blue color circled the outside.
“Thanks,” I said. I hadn’t expected anything from her. The gift was weird—why the hell would she give me an eye?—but it was a gift. “I . . . I didn’t get you anything.”
My mom nodded, face blank and unconcerned once more. “It’s fine. I don’t need anything.”
She turned away again and started walking around the room. She didn’t have a lot of space to do it, but her shorter height gave her a smaller stride. Each time she passed in front of the window over my bed, the light would catch her auburn hair and light it up. I watched her curiously and realized she was as nervous as me.
“Getting better.”
“Good.” She opened her mouth, and I had a feeling she was on the verge of apologizing. But she didn’t.
When she started pacing again, I decided I couldn’t stand the inactivity. I began putting my presents away. I’d gotten a pretty nice haul of stuff this morning. One of them was a silk dress from Tasha, red and embroidered with flowers. My mother watched me hang it in the room’s tiny closet.
“That was very nice of Tasha.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I didn’t know she was going to get me anything. I really like her.”
“Me too.”
I turned from the closet in surprise and stared at my mom. Her astonishment mirrored mine. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have said we’d just agreed on something. Maybe Christmas miracles did happen.
“Guardian Belikov will be a good match for her.”
“I—” I blinked, not entirely sure what she was talking about. “Dimitri?”
“Guardian Belikov,” she corrected sternly, still not approving of my casual way of addressing him.
“What . . . what kind of match?” I asked.
She raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t heard? She’s asked him to be her guardian—since she doesn’t have one.”
I felt like I’d been punched again. “But he’s . . . assigned here. And to Lissa.”
“Arrangements can be made. And regardless of the Ozera reputation . . . she’s still royal. If she pushes, she can get her way.”
I stared bleakly into space. “Well, I guess they are friends and everything.”
“More than that—or possibly could be.”
Bam! Punched again.
“What?”
“Hmm? Oh. She’s . . . interested in him.” By my mother’s tone, it was clear that romantic matters actually held no interest for her. “She’s willing to have dhampir children, so it’s possible they might eventually make an, um, arrangement if he were her guardian.”
Oh. My. God.
Time froze.
My heart stopped beating.
I realized my mother was waiting for a response. She was leaning against my desk, watching me. She might be able to hunt down Strigoi, but she was oblivious to my feelings.
“Is . . . is he going to do it? Be her guardian?” I asked weakly.
My mom shrugged. “I don’t think he’s agreed to it yet, but of course he will. It’s a great opportunity.”
“Of course,” I echoed. Why would Dimitri turn down the chance to be a guardian to a friend of his and to have a baby?
I think my mom said something else after that, but I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear anything. I kept thinking about Dimitri leaving the Academy, leaving me. I thought about the way he and Tasha had gotten along with each other so well. And then, after those recollections, my imagination started improvising future scenarios. Tasha and Dimitri together. Touching. Kissing. Naked. Other things . . .
I squeezed my eyes shut for half a second and then opened them.
“I’m really tired.”
My mom stopped mid-sentence. I had no idea what she’d been saying before I interrupted her.
“I’m really tired,” I repeated. I could hear the hollowness in my own voice. Empty. No emotion. “Thanks for the eye . . . um, thing, but if you don’t mind . . .”
My mother stared at me in surprise, her features open and confused. Then, just like that, her usual wall of cool professionalism slammed back into place. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much she’d let it up. But she had. For just a brief time, she’d made herself vulnerable with me. That vulnerability was now gone.
“Of course,” she said stiffly. “I don’t want to bother you.”
I wanted to tell her it wasn’t that. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t kicking her out for any personal reason. And I wanted to tell her that I wished she were the kind of loving, understanding mother you always hear about, one I could confide in. Maybe even a mother I could discuss my troubled love life with.
God. I wished I could tell anyone about that, actually. Especially right now.
But I was too caught up in my own personal drama to say a word. I felt like someone had ripped my heart out and tossed it across the other side of the room. There was a burning, agonizing pain in my chest, and I had no idea how it could ever be filled. It was one thing to accept that I couldn’t have Dimitri. It was something entirely different to realize someone else could.
I didn’t say anything else to her because my speech capabilities no longer existed. Fury glinted in her eyes, and her lips flattened out into that tight expression of displeasure she so often wore. Without another word, she turned around and left, slamming the door behind her. That door slam was something I would have done too, actually. I guess we really did share some genes.
But I forgot about her almost immediately. I just kept sitting there and thinking. Thinking and imagining.
I spent the rest of the day doing little more than that. I skipped dinner. I shed a few tears. But mostly, I just sat on my bed thinking and growing more and more depressed. I also discovered that the only thing worse than imagining Dimitri and Tasha together was remembering when he and I had been together. He would never touch me again like that, never kiss me again. . . .
This was the worst Christmas ever.
TEN
THE SKI TRIP COULDN’T HAVE come a moment too soon. It was impossible to get the Dimitri and Tasha thing out of my head, but at least packing and getting ready made sure I didn’t devote 100 percent of my brain power to him. More like 95 percent.
I had other things to distract me, too. The Academy might—rightfully—be overprotective when it came to us, but sometimes that translated into pretty cool stuff. Example: The Academy had access to a couple of private jets. This meant no Strigoi could attack us at an airport, and it also meant we got to travel in style. Each jet was smaller than a commercial plane, but the seats were cushy and had lots of leg room. They extended far enough back that you could practically lie down to sleep. On long flights, we had little consoles in the seats that gave us TV movie options. Sometimes they’d even break out fancy meals. I was betting this flight, however, would be too short for any movies or substantial food.
We left late on the twenty-sixth. When I boarded the jet, I looked around for Lissa, wanting to talk to her. We hadn’t really spoken after the Christmas brunch. I wasn’t surprised to see her sitting with Christian, and they didn’t look like they wanted to be interrupted. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but he’d put his arm around her and had that relaxed, flirty expression that only she could bring out. I remained fully convinced that he could never do as good a job as me of taking care of her, but he clearly made her happy. I put on a smile and nodded at them as I passed down the aisle toward where Mason was waving at me. As I did, I also walked by Dimitri and Tasha sitting together. I pointedly ignored them.
“Hey,” I said sliding into the seat beside Mason.
He smiled at me. “Hey. You ready for the ski challenge?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll go easy on you.”
I scoffed and leaned my head back against the seat. “You’re so delusional.”
“Sane guys are boring.”
To my surprise, he slid his hand over mine. His skin was warm, and I felt my own skin tingle where he touched me. It startled me. I’d convinced myself Dimitri was the only one I’d ever respond to again.
It’s time to move on, I thought. Dimitri obviously has. You should have done it a long time ago.
I laced my fingers with Mason’s, catching him off guard. “I do. This is going to be fun.”
And it was.
I tried to keep reminding myself that we were here because of a tragedy, that there were Strigoi and humans out there who might strike again. No one else seemed to remember that, though, and I admit, I was having a
difficult time myself.
The resort was gorgeous. It was built to sort of look like a log cabin, but no pioneer cabin could have held hundreds of people or had such luxury accommodations. Three stories of gleaming, golden-colored wood sat among lofty pine trees. The windows were tall and gracefully arched, tinted for Moroi convenience. Crystal lanterns—electric, but shaped to look like torches—hung around all the entrances, giving the entire building a glittering, almost bejeweled look.
Mountains—which my enhanced eyes could just barely make out in the night—surrounded us, and I bet the view would have been breathtaking when it was light out. One side of the grounds led off to the skiing area, complete with steep hills and moguls, as well as lifts and tow ropes. Another side of the lodge had an ice rink, which delighted me since I’d missed out that one day by the cabin. Near that, smooth hills were reserved for sledding.
And that was just the outside.
Inside, all sorts of arrangements had been made to cater to Moroi needs. Feeders stayed on hand, ready to serve twenty-four hours a day. The slopes ran on a nocturnal schedule. Wards and guardians circled the entire place. Everything a living vampire could want.
The main lobby had a cathedral ceiling and an enormous chandelier hanging over it. Its floor was intricately tiled marble, and the front desk stayed open around the clock, ready to indulge our every need. The rest of the lodge, hallways and lounges, had a red, black, and gold color scheme. The deep shade of red dominated over the other hues, and I wondered if its resemblance to blood was a coincidence. Mirrors and art adorned the walls, and little ornamental tables had been placed here and there. They held vases of pale green, purple-spotted orchids that filled the air with a spicy scent.
The room I shared with Lissa was bigger than our dorm rooms put together and had the same rich colors as the rest of the lodge. The carpet was so plush and deep that I immediately shed my shoes at the door and walked in barefoot, luxuriating in the way my feet sank into that softness. We had king-size beds, covered in feather duvets and set with so many pillows that I swore a person could get lost in them all and never be seen again. French doors opened on to a spacious balcony, which, considering we were on the top floor, would have been cool if not for the fact it was freezing outside. I suspected the two-person hot tub on the far end would go a long way to make up for the cold.
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