Hello! I've had quite a substantial break from and I've put my other story Friends Never Say Goodbye on hiatus for now. However, I am starting this new story: Fading. I'll be sure to update a lot quicker and my chapters are longer too, so please read and review! Thank you!

Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Academy; it all belongs to the fabulous Richelle Mead.

BelikovsRoza1697

Chapter One

I rolled over and slammed my hand on the snooze button of my alarm. I'd had trouble sleeping the previous night and the last thing I needed was the incessant ringing of the bell in the infernal machine on my dressing table. I slowly opened my eyes, yawned and groaned, moving my limbs and wincing at the clicks my joints made. I sat staring out of the window, the moon shining brightly. I must've forgotten to close the curtains last night, why was that? I frowned and walked over, looking at the people milling around below on campus, staying well away from the wards in the forests-

Aha.

That was it. I'd returned to my dormitory after leaving practise and gone to the window to close it, when I saw Tasha Ozera making her way back to her room in the wards with none other than my personal god: Dimitri. Everything was flooding back now, broken curtain rail as I'd pulled on it too much in angst to cover the sight before my eyes. The matron was going to absolutely love me. This was the fourth thing I'd broken since my arrival back at the academy. I'd been back for around half a year now and those six months had been jam-packed with a hell of a lot of action.

Lissa, my best friend and bond mate, and I went on the run for two years after I was advised to bring her out of the academy for her safety. We'd lived in a handful of places, but Portland was where we were found by guardians. Lissa's a moroi, a vampire who wields one of five elements: water, fire, earth, air and spirit. She's a spirit user and she can heal people, even from the brink of death. She's also pretty awesome at compulsion, which is another thing moroi can do. Moroi are the one of three types of vampires in our world. Moroi are one of two of these types who have fangs and subsist on a mixture of blood and food, but mainly blood. Moroi use feeders to get blood. They're usually addicted to the bite of a moroi or strigoi, as their saliva contains endorphins which drive most people mad and dulls the pain of the bite.

There are two types of moroi too: royal and non-royal. There are twelve royal families: Badica, Conta, Dashkov, Dragomir, Drozdov, Ivashkov, Lazar, Ozera, Szelsky, Tarus, Voda and Zeklos. Lissa's a Dragomir and she's the very last one. That's pretty special and it gives her the title of Princess. The oldest of each family is the Prince/Princess. The queen on the throne at the moment is Queen Tatiana Ivashkov, so the oldest in the rest of her family is the Prince/Princess. Lissa's parents and brother were killed in a car crash, leaving her alone. I was in that car crash too, but she saved me from death with her powers.

She's doing pretty well and that's probably, in part, down to her boyfriend and fellow royal moroi, Christian Ozera. He's a fire user and a social outcast, because his parents willingly turned strigoi and were killed by his aunt, Tasha and guardians. Tasha recently came to live at the academy for a while to visit her nephew. She's been here for a while and, even though I like her immensely, I also can't help envying her. You see, her and Dimitri are really good friends and you can tell that she has the biggest crush on him. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't return it, but I can't help the clawing feeling inside my stomach whenever I see them together.

I'm another type: dhampir. Dhampirs usually take on the job of guardians, who protect the moroi with their lives. Dhampirs have a pretty good tolerance to sickness and are a lot more athletic than moroi, but we don't have elements. There are other dhampirs who don't become guardians however. Some of them end up as blood whores, who are basically prostitutes for moroi (and big sources of prey for strigoi) who are drunk from during sex. That's considered pretty low in society, as I found out after returning to the academy. I'd let Lissa drink from me when she needed blood while we were on the run and this was discovered when we returned.

The final type of vampire is strigoi, who are the enemy of the moroi and dhampir species. They have fangs, but they don't eat or sleep. They live on blood and prey on moroi and dhampir to stay alive. They either drain them to kill or swap blood with them to turn them strigoi too. Some moroi actually turn themselves strigoi by draining another moroi. Strigoi are what I'm trained to kill and the creed 'They come first' always reminds me of that.

All the dhampirs at the academy are learning how to kill strigoi effectively and we have classes to help us. But since I missed a lot during my two years absence, I was assigned a mentor to fill me in on what I missed. And that was the moment I fell in love.

Dimitri Belikov is an amazing guardian who is famed for being both godlike and undefeatable. Despite this, he doesn't hang around the other guardians and sees them as nothing more than colleagues. I like to think that I'm one of his few real friends, but I know he doesn't count me as that. I'm pretty sure he counts me as more than that. It was about a month ago when Lissa's uncle, Victor Dashkov, kidnapped her and tried to force her to heal him from his terminal disease. He had these ideas about reshaping the moroi government by becoming king, but he knew he wouldn't make it to the next elections so he tried to get Lissa to use up all her power to heal him. She started after being emotionally blackmailed and tortured by his moroi guards, but she didn't get to finish as Dimitri, Christian and I managed to save her just in time. However, to get Dimitri and I out of the way while kidnapping her, he put a lust charm on us. We were pretty close to following it all the way through but Dimitri noticed the necklace Victor had bought me was causing our lust and he threw it out the window, cutting it off. Since then, our relationship has been on edge a lot. He denied returning my feelings for him, but after I pressed him, he finally admitted that he loved me, but knew we couldn't be together. There's a pretty big age gap between us: seven years. But from the way he looks at me, I'm pretty sure that's not the biggest thing he worries about. The reason for that is that we're both going to be guardians for Lissa when she graduates.

But I'm constantly reminded by my peers that it might not happen if I don't work hard. She's a high priority moroi and I'm determined to be the perfect guardian for her. I worry a lot about her, despite having a bond with her. That's another thing: when she saved me from death, a mental bond was forged between us and I can see what she's thinking and doing whenever I like. It doesn't work both ways though and I often see her getting it on with Christian, which is something I deeply resent.

Lissa doesn't worry about the same stuff that I do. She's free to live her life as she pleases, her only concerns being pleasing the queen to the best of her ability and making sure that she's safe. But that's a job a lot of other people do too, like me.

I washed and tied my hair up into a smart ponytail. I dressed in my usual changing clothes and jogged down to the gyms to meet my instructor.

Pushing open the thick wooden double-doors, I wandered in, the remainders of sleep making me a little dazed at the bright lights hanging down from the roof. I searched the room for Dimitri, running my sleepy eyes lazily over the punch bags and iron bars drilled into the walls for chin ups. I remember Mason and I trying to have a go at them when we were in elementary school; I'd been pretty good, but I'd let go accidentally and come crashing down onto the floor, ending up with five stitches to my head. The room actually seemed a lot bigger today and I realised that this was because Dimitri had cleared all the practise mats from the floor and opened up all the fire exit doors. I spotted a figure sitting on the floor, a cowboy duster draped on the floor beside him. I grinned and strolled over,

'Morning Comrade, what's with the redecoration?' I folded my arms and peered down at him. He was a stealthy 6'7'' and even sitting down, he was excessively tall. He was reading a book and upon closer inspection, it seemed to be written in Cyrillic, which made sense, seeing as his native language was Russian. He stood up with one fluid motion and looked around. His hair wasn't tied up today, so his chin-length brown locks moved as he surveyed the room.

'I don't know. There must be some sort of function this week. It was like this when I got here.' He shrugged and rested his book on a chair in the corner. Damnit, that was sure to mean an hour of boredom for the novices. The last one had been an interview with a guardian who continually fell asleep whenever Stan asked him questions. Though comical, it wasn't my idea of fun.

'Brilliant.' I rolled my eyes, gaining a small smile from Dimitri. I sat down on a free chair, 'Do you know when it's happening?'

'Nope, just a guess.' He smiled and dragged over another chair, sitting opposite me. I looked up and met his chocolate brown eyes; I kept my gaze steady despite feeling a blush colour my cheeks. It really was amazing how he could captivate me so. It wasn't often when I didn't think about him and I could tell it was the same for him. Around him, I could let go of any worries from the outside world and just revel in the ease of being with someone who understood me perfectly. I let my mind wander back to the evening of the lust charm, how his fingers ran over my skin, how the electricity ran through my veins when he kissed me, and how-

'Rose!' I looked up, ready for action, only to meet the Dimitri's grin. He rarely smiled and I was happy to see him do it today, even though it was at my own expense. I exhaled and straightened,

'What?'

'I said, you can miss practise today,' he smiled, 'You deserve a break.' He mirrored me, sitting up straight and retrieving his book from the chair next to him. I sighed exasperatedly, usually this would be something that I'd jump at, but I knew his ulterior motives. Ever since my friend, Mason, died after a strigoi attack, I'd been given the sympathetic look by every guardian who passed me. I had appreciated it for the first few days, but now it was getting ridiculous. Dimitri had also cut some of our practises to give me time to adjust; I wasn't happy about that either at first, but I had to admit the time off had given me the opportunity to recover from my first two strigoi kills and the loss of a good friend. Mason had also had a crush on me, which I had occasionally used to get information or help from him. The whole time I'd been attracted to Dimitri, so leading him on right up till his death made me feel pretty shit. Eddie had assured me that he would've died blissfully unaware, but now since I'd started seeing his ghost, I'd realised though he wasn't aware whilst alive, he certainly knew now.

That's another thing about me: because I'm shadow-kissed (revived from the dead by Lissa), it means I can see the ghosts of the dead. I think it's to do with some kind of half-connection with the land of the dead, but whatever it is, it causes me to see Mason.

'Dimitri, I told you. I'm okay now, I want to start practise again, and I want to get my routine back, it's better for me to heal this way.' I pleaded, placing my hand over the book and lowering it from his gaze.

'Rose… when I lost Ivan…' he paused. Ivan was his first charge and his best friend, but he was killed while Dimitri was off-shift. I could see the pain behind his eyes flash whenever he spoke of him and it pained me to have made him bring it up. '… It broke me. I needed a lot of time to recover. I understand that you want to busy yourself; I know it might cast the illusion that you'll feel better, but it really won't. You have to relax until you feel that you can move on. Can you move on yet?' he raised an eyebrow, knowing that he'd got me with that. Sighing, I shook my head,

'No… I guess not.' I said dejectedly.

'Exactly. Now accept this day off and have some fun.' He teased, gently moving my hand away.

'What will I do instead? I was hoping to practise… you've ruined my schedule, Comrade…' I muttered, annoyed. I stood and went to get my bag, trying to think up something to do with my free time. I couldn't get to sleep now; I'd been up too long. I turned as he spoke behind me,

'Schedule? When would you ever make a schedule?' after not receiving a reply, he paused and tried again, 'I have nothing to do either… I uhh… we could maybe…?' he questioned, even though I wasn't entirely sure what he was asking. I turned around, a smile playing on my lips,

'What's that?' I teased, watching him awkwardly run his hand through his hair.

'We could maybe… I don't know… do something?' Not quite a clear invitation but I still nodded, walking over. An hour, maybe more if he could get me out of class, of just Dimitri and me? I couldn't think of anything else better than that.

'Sure. What do you suggest?' he paused, before smiling to himself and taking my hand,

'Come with me.'

He took me to his room, walking next door to retrieve something from his wardrobe. I collapsed onto his bed, looking around. It hadn't changed since the night of the lust charm; he still had minimal furniture and decoration. Every room had the basics: bed, shower, one chair, television, computer, lamp, sink and toilet. Once the person moved into the room, it was up to them to decorate it how they chose. In my room, I had smuggled in some paint from art and set about trying to change my wallpaper to a more exciting colour than eggshell. I'd painted one wall blue, planning on continuing for the rest, but I ran out of paint. I had to resort to painting each wall a different colour so it would match. Of course, by 'match', I mean, look slightly better than all green walls and one blue one. I also used a noticeboard to pin photos of my friends and I. I had some special ones reserved for my bedside table though, for example, there was one of Lissa and I dressed for a Halloween party when we were about 13.

Dimitri's was completely different on the other hand. I moved from my resting place and wandered around the room. I was right: he had nothing but the basics. Had he even been in his room very much since he came here? The bathroom had towels and one of his shirts draped over the doorknob, but besides that, his room was set to default. I returned to the bed, lying down and leaning over to retrieve the thick brown folder from his bedside table. It was a file, which I supposed was the closest to a photograph that he could find. I wondered whose file it was; Tasha appeared in my mind and I glared, flicking open the first page. Hell, I'd rip it up and draw on her photo. I saw a pen on the side and grabbed it, picking up the photograph. Pressing the nib to her thick brown hair, I—

Hey, wait what? Brown hair?

I stopped and pulled back; that wasn't a picture of Tasha. That was a picture of me. I felt a blush rise to my cheeks; he kept my file by his bed. I took the opportunity to read through the comments by my teachers, laughing at the whole paragraph Stan dedicated to reviewing me. I was so engrossed by reading through the file that I declined to notice Dimitri return.

He stood in the doorway, watching me for a few moments, before I looked up and was cut off,

'Uhh… hey, Comrade, whatcha got there?' I smiled innocently, returning the file to his table. He rolled his eyes and planted a large cardboard box in front of me, sitting beside me. He tapped the lid,

'I know you want to get back to practising again. You'll find it easier to move on if you do what I did,' he smiled softly and removed the lid, pulling it towards him. I peered in and saw stacks of photos and other memorabilia, presumably from when he was at school. 'After Ivan died, I collected all the things that reminded me of him and I put them in here. It helped me to move on…' he said solemnly and I placed my hand over his. Mild surprise grabbed me when he didn't move away, but I realised we were away from the public eye; this time was our own. I shuffled closer to him and grinned as he wrapped his arm around my waist. I lived for these moments, just him and me, together. We didn't need to speak, our connection was strong enough and we didn't need words to express our love for one another. It was an established thing between us; we didn't need to constantly remind one another about it.

I was new to this feeling, but already it was conquering my mind. My previous jealousy towards Lissa and Christian's relationship had disappeared months ago. Ever since I realised that I was attracted to Dimitri, I became aware of feelings that had never been apparent to me before. It really was a miracle.

He'd meant the box to be a representation but I pulled it to me, pulling out the photographs and flicking through them. They had aged and some of the corners had been bent and worn away due to someone repeatedly looking through them. I ran my fingers over the top to clear away the dust that had gathered over time. Two faces were revealed and I immediately recognised Dimitri, his brown hair almost the same length as it was today; the other face must've been Ivan. He had short cropped black hair and bright green eyes and he was grinning at the camera. I flipped to the next one and saw that it was of Ivan and a girl who looked startlingly like Dimitri. She looked pretty young and Ivan was holding her up and grinning at her. Her hair and eyes were the exact same shade as Dimitri's and I realised that it must be one of his sisters. I turned to him,

'Who's this?' I asked softly, resting my head on his shoulder. He had been looking over anyway and answered, a degree of nostalgia in his voice,

'That's my youngest sister… Viktoria.' He took the photo from my hand and sighed. I knew he missed his family, especially seeing as they were on the other side of the world. He'd been away from them for at least a few years and I remember a similar reminiscent look to his features when he'd described how he'd saved them from his father many years ago. He returned it to the stack, searching through until he'd found another picture. He showed me and I took it, peering at all the figures in it. There were six people all gathered around a baby wrapped up in blankets. The baby had been caught mid-yawn and Ivan could be seen in the background, as enchanted as everyone else. I also recognised Viktoria again, along with three other women who all resembled Dimitri greatly. It was only after seeing them did I notice Dimitri standing with Ivan. He spoke up,

'My mother, my sisters Karolina, Sonya and Viktoria, me, Ivan and that's Karolina's son, Paul…' he informed, touching the face of each person as he said their name. I handed the photo back and smiled,

'You really miss them, don't you?' he nodded, looking down.

'Every day…' I lifted his chin up and pressed my lips to his. He returned the photos to the box and returned it to the room where it came from. I lay back against the headboard and leant against him when he returned, lying with me.

'Are you going to go back and visit them?' I asked, feeling a slight sense of worry nag at me. If he left, I'd have literally nothing to do but watch Lissa and Adrian practise spirit. Adrian Ivashkov was a moroi spirit user too and ever since he'd arrived at the school, in between flirting with me and making a mockery of the academy's strict code of conduct, he'd been sharing his knowledge of spirit with Lissa. Adrian could walk people's dreams and have a conversation with people in them. He could also read people's auras and tell what they are feeling. He's always telling me that I have too much black in mine: darkness. Darkness is the negative impact of Lissa using spirit. It affects her mood and makes her depressed, so naturally I take it from her through the bond so that she doesn't have to suffer its ill effects. Instead, it passes on to me and I have to deal with it. Dimitri's had a pretty good track record of calming me down whenever I've been in a spirit-induced tantrum and that's probably because he's so special to me.

'Not any time soon. I have my own family here for now.' He smiled and kissed my forehead. I paused, blushing furiously,

'You consider me family?' I swear I might've died right then and there.

'Of course… I love you.' He replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. I relaxed and rested my head on his chest,

'I love you too... even though everyone else would think its wrong,' I sighed happily, 'I don't care… this is just perfection…' I felt him move and he sat up, facing me. Hesitantly, he kissed me and, as it got more passionate, he tangled his hand in my hair, the other holding my waist firmly. It was going to happen, I realised. This was it, no distractions, no stupid common sense to kick in and kill the moment. We were going to go the whole way. He pulled away for a moment to check the corridor for anyone who might walk in on us and then he locked the door, returning to me. Clothes were discarded in the corner and he proved how much he really did love me.

Sadly, we couldn't share the moments after for very long because I had a lesson to go to and he told me that this time he couldn't excuse me from it, despite me pleading. I took a quick shower, dressed and tied my wet hair into a tight ponytail, having no time to hurry to my room and dry it. I kissed Dimitri goodbye and ran to Stan's class. He folded his arms at my lateness but shrugged it off soon after, expecting no less from me. My mind drifted back to the notes he wrote in my file, key words being 'insolent', 'disrespectful' and 'uncontrollable'. Oh, I could be controlled alright, just not by him, I grinned.

'Today we'll be joining with the moroi classes,' Stan droned, 'We will be having an incredibly gracious visit from a well-known and respected guardian. I hope you'll all show her the respect she deserves.' Two good things there: Lissa and I would be watching it together and there was going to be a female guardian, which made a change from all the testosterone that was in the air. I looked forward to a woman coming in and kicking some male guardian's ass, it might prove how not all renowned guardians had to be male. We lined up and walked to the gym, but I left the sad excuse for a line when I saw Lissa. I ran to her and grinned, my spirits up considerably since leaving Dimitri's room,

'Heya!' I called, alerting her to my presence and joining her with her class.

'Hey,' she replied, looking at my hair in confusion, 'wash your hair in the fountain?' she teased. I touched my wet hair, blushing,

'Yeah, I took a quick shower. Practise was cancelled.' I smiled, effortlessly lying. She frowned and my heart beat frantically in my chest. She'd seen something, she'd heard something. She knew and she was going to by so angry at my deception. I stared wide-eyed, expecting the worst.

'You said your shower was broken. That's why you borrowed mine last week, remember?' she wasn't angry, just confused. Thank god.

'Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you. The matron came around and finally got the janitor to fix it.' It was sort of true, he said he was going to have a look at it next week, but it was unlikely he'd actually follow through. I could hardly tell her that I showered in my mentor's room, she'd surely guess then. She nodded, accepting that as good reason and we walked to the gym in comfortable silence. I sat down with her and looked at the empty space in front of me. In a few short minutes, the guardian was going to come through and show everyone just how brilliant women can be at this job. I grinned pointedly at Stan, knowing that this guardian, even if she wasn't as famous as everyone was saying she was, would still be a hundred times better than him. I saw Dimitri slip in and join the other guardians at the back of the room. He didn't look at me, though I knew he was aware of my presence, just as I was of his.

The room was silent as she entered, followed by two guardians flanking her. I looked up, grinning expectantly as Lissa gasped. She must've recognised her; clearly, this woman was a real professional. However, when my eyes fell on her familiar brown eyes, I gasped too.

'Hello everyone, my name is Guardian Janine Hathaway and I am your guest speaker.'