373Summary:
When Lissa leaves to go to college, Rose follows, beginning a long distance relationship with Dimitri. Who knew college could be worse than high school? Jealousy, Rumors, Harassment. And to top it off, Strigoi are closing in slowly. How will Rose manage to keep Lissa safe while still keeping herself alive?
Chapter 1
RPOV (mainly going to be RPOV)
"Rose! Where are you?" Lissa yelled as she barged into my room. Our rooms were across from each other. This way I could keep an eye on her and allow both of us to have our privacy. As Queen, she had gotten two of the biggest rooms on campus, we had our own shower, a tiny living room and even a small kitchen. I'm pretty sure it wasn't even considered a room anymore, but an apartment.
"Bedroom" I sighted. Why was she always up so early? I had barely slept a few hours yet.
"Is it really necessary for five guardians to follow me all the time?!" I was head of her security while she was in college at Lehigh.
"Lissa, we already talked about this. You have to be even more careful than before…"she interrupted me, finishing my sentence in an exasperated tone. "… because you are not only one of the last Dragomir, but also the Queen. I know that, but five is too much! Can you please make it go down to three?"
I thought about it for a while. It was true that it had been hard on her, always having five tall and strong men around her, it was making hard for her to make friends. If I told two out of the five to be far guards while the other three stayed near then it could work, and she wouldn't even know they were still there.
When I looked at her I saw her pleading eyes. She had been looking forwards to a new kind of life and I felt guilty taking part of it away.
"Fine" I finally said. She squealed before hugging me tightly.
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" she said before running back to her room.
I was finally going to be able to go back to sleep. My shift started at the same time as classes which meant I could still sleep another thirty minutes. I had spent most of my night on the phone with Dimitri. Dimitri was now Christian's guardian, but since Christian didn't go to Lehigh, it was quite hard on both Lissa and I. They came to visit when they could, but it still wasn't enough, and the long distance relationship we were both having was getting harder each day.
At first, Dimitri and I had decided to write letters to each other. However, that idea was quickly dismissed; it was too big of a reminder from when Dimitri had turned Strigoi. We then opted for text messages and phone calls. He called me every night before I went to sleep. It was soothing to hear his voice last each day. In the darkness of my room I could almost imagine him next to me, whispering each word to my ear. God I missed him.
Attending a human college, we had switched back to human schedule, which made it that much harder for us to communicate. Christian had opened a center where he would teach offensive magic, and Mia had joined him shortly after. The idea still wasn't popular, but more and more Moroi were starting to sign up. Hopefully people would soon stop to criticize this.
My alarm rang, pulling me out of my sleep. I sat up on my bed, tired. I rubbed my eyes, stretched and then got out of bed. I quickly took a shower, to freshen up and to wake myself up, before heading to my closet. Since we were at college, we didn't need to wear any guardian uniform and were allowed to wear casual clothes. I usually wore jeans that allowed me to move around and fight, in case of trouble. We still hadn't encountered any, but we all knew threats could arrive any time.
Today, I had opted for a green tank top, and black skinny jeans.
After glancing one last time in the mirror, making sure everything was in place, I went to knock on Lissa's door. She was usually already gone by the time I came, but I still knocked to make sure. As I had expected, she had left.
Being Rose Hathaway, I always made sure to arrive just seconds before class started.
When Lissa saw me come in, she rolled her eyes at how close I had made it before class had begun. She took her bag away from the seat next to hers.
"You could wake up earlier you know" she said with a grin. She knew that no matter what she said, there was no way I would sleep one less minute than I could. After all, I might not get that opportunity once we were in the real life.
"Keep trying to convince me" I winked.
The professor had started his class about the Greek mythologies, when Jonathan came in. He quietly slid into the seat next to me. Jonathan was one of the other guardian assigned to Lissa. He was a few years older, allowing him to act like a student. Just like me, he had passed his guardians trial with flying colors, finishing first of his class. Even if I did finish a few points ahead of him.
"Always one step behind me" I teased when he finally sat down.
"You'll see, one day I'll be on top" he said with a wink. We were quite similar, and had become friends soon after he had been assigned to Lissa. His perverted mind usually resulted in dirty jokes on a daily basic. I had gotten used to them and even laughed at a few now.
"You wish" I whispered.
"You'll see" he continued. Until Lissa turned around glaring at him. She had been trying to listen to the professor.
"Sorry" we both said. Before opening our notebooks and starting to pay attention. Mythology and literature weren't my favorite subjects, but since it was Lissa's, I tagged along. I was bored half of the time, but surprisingly sometimes it would actually interest me. Unfortunately, today wasn't one of those days.
My mind ended up elsewhere. I thought about Dimitri again. Remembering how we had parted.
Christian and Dimitri had come to helped us move into the dorms. Christian helped Lissa and Dimitri insisted on carrying my boxes. Each of us wanted to spend as much time as possible with each other before we had to separate.
He stood next to the door waiting for me to open it. I looked into my bag, once, twice. Where were my keys? I put my bag down on the ground and started emptying it.
"What am I going to do with you?" he said teasingly.
"Found it!" I finally said rising them like a trophy. It had slipped to the bottom of my bag.
"Nice place" he said while putting the boxes down.
"Let's look around." I took his hand and started exploring my new living quarters. We walked into the living room first where there was a sofa and a TV.
"You can put your books here." I said pointing at a bookshelf.
"Roza, you know I can't…" he stopped realizing I was fantasizing us moving together. He squeezed my hand before moving us to the kitchen.
"We could cook together here" I continued. He raised his eyebrows smiling. "Right, right, I would watch you while you cook." I laughed. Clearly we both knew my cooking skills were non-existent.
We then continued our visit to the bedroom.
"And what could we do in the bedroom?" he asked with a smirk on his face.
"I'll let your imagination answer you" I said winking. We looked at each other before starting to laugh.
Finally, we made our way to the bathroom. It was quite large and a huge mirror covered the wall. Dimitri stepped behind me giving me a hug. My heart started racing as I looked at both our reflection in the mirror. He was as handsome as ever, but most importantly, he was mine. I placed my hand on his and leaned my head back onto his shoulder. We stayed there for a while, embracing the last few moments we had together. Somehow, it seemed like life wanted to keep us apart, regardless of our love.
"I have to go soon" he said, breaking the comfortable silence we had fallen into. "Christian has a meeting with his landlord in the morning to sort a few things out. We need to leave now if we want to make it before sun down."
I squeezed his hands tighter around me before nodding. We were walking towards the door when suddenly my feet stopped moving. Dimitri hadn't noticed yet and kept moving.
"Comrade" I called before he reached the door. I didn't want him to go. He turned around, facing me, before I continued. "Come back soon okay?" I felt my chest tighten as the reality finally sank in. After this, I had no idea when I was going to be able to see him again, or if I was even going to see him again. Anyone of us could die before our next meet.
I had managed to suppress the tears forming in my eyes, but Dimitri could read me like an open book.
"Oh Roza" he said as he wrapped his arms around me. "I'll be back. I promise." I tighten my grip around him. Never wanting to let go. After a while, he slowly pushed me away to look at me. He brushed a tear that had managed to slip out. "I love you Roza. Never forget that."
I pressed my lips against his softly. Trying to capture this moment and remember the feeling of his warm body close to mine. "I love you too Comrade" I said afterwards. I held his hand as we walked back to his car. Christian was already waiting there, but he was too focused on Lissa to see us coming.
After another round of goodbyes, they finally got into the car. Lissa and I both waved as the car disappeared around the corner.
It had been two months already since I last saw him, and my holidays wouldn't be until another two weeks.
As we were walking to our next class I took my phone out and texted him before putting it back in my bag.
"What did you tell him?" I heard Jonathan say behind me. He always made fun of how strange it was for me to change when I was talking with Dimitri. My words to him were soft, sweet, and even lustful, while with the others I would usually distance myself making jokes. I had never opened up to any of my new co workers and kept them at arm's-length when it came to my personal life, I wanted to keep it professional. They all knew I was dating Dimitri, but that was all they knew. Unfortunately for me that didn't stop Jonathan to keep pushing and digging to find out more.
"Just tell me, aren't partners supposed to tell each other everything?" he said with a huge smile
"Maybe I should tell my partner" I said. His eyes lit up with hope before I added "Too bad we're not partners." I teased before laughing.
"Then I guess, I'm just going to have to figure it out on my own then." That was too easy, he wouldn't back down like this if he hadn't already found… wait. I opened my bag. Fuck! How did he? I looked back at him. He held my phone in his hand ready to start snooping. I came closer to try to snatch it back, but before I got near him, he held his arm up, putting my phone out of my reach.
"Jonathan! Stop messing around! Give me my phone back!" why did he always have to use my height against me? Never mind. I hopped onto his back trying to reach my phone. He laughed as he moved the phone around. I had finally grabbed onto it when I heard someone call my name. I froze. I would recognize that Russian accent anywhere.
Author's Note
Hi there!
Please review and tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is always welcomed.