Dimitri's Point of View in Frostbite (Vampire Academy) (Book 2)

Part 6

"What do you think, Rose?" Christain seemed highly amused. "Think you could take her?"

"Hard to say." Rose said.

Tasha gave Rose a crooked grin. "You're being modest. I've seen what you guys can do. This is just a hobby I picked up."

I 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.” I said. “I seem to remember you doing some damage to Neil Szelsky.” I tried to lighten up her mood. I didn’t like it when she put herself down occasionally.

To my disappointment she 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.”

We both laughed at the private joke of when Neil overly obsessed when his clothes got wrinkled or weren’t hung correctly in his closet.

Rose broke our laughter with: “Did you start learning to fight before or after that happened to your face?”

I could feel shock rising up in my chest. I knew Rose had a lack of self-control every once in a while, but to have it in front of Tasha was embarrassing.

“Rose!” Lissa hissed, cutting off my attempts to scorn Rose for her rude comment.

But as I glanced back at Tasha I was surprised to se her not even upset. And as my eyes moved toward Christian I noticed the same expression had been placed upon his face as well. Tasha regarded Rose with a level, thoughtful look.

“After.” She said. She didn’t lower her gaze or look embarrassed, though I sensed sadness coursing through her. “How much do you know?”

Rose glanced a 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.”

She had moved there and integrated herself with humans, keeping away from other vampires. I had known what she meant by “all sorts of self-defense” although Rose didn’t. I didn’t doubt that Christian and Lissa knew. Tasha had been learning how to fight with fire, which was highly against the Moroi rules. Offensive magic was punishable by law. Yet if the roles had been reversed I too would have learned how to fight with not only my fists.

Silence fell. But only for a moment before Tasha’s light mood returned as she told us all funny stories. I knew a lot of people she has spoke of as well. Some of them I heard of, but most of them I went to school with or worked with. We were all in hysterics until Tasha looked at her watch.