I Never Told You I Love You - Complete

Chapter 37 - Why Are You Angry?

That's one thing Rose hated about being at St. Basil's; she had no idea where to go and hide when she wanted to be alone. She didn't want to go to their room – that would be the first place Dimitri would look for her. The Dining Hall was too public. It was just too damned cold to go outside, so Rose decided to check out a place she hadn't been to so far – the library. Taking two wrong turns she finally found the place, and as she'd anticipated at 8.30 am on a Thursday morning, the place was almost empty. There were a couple of Moroi juniors sucking face in a dark corner, and a myopic Moroi librarian poring over some texts at a desk near the front.

Spotting some comfy looking chairs in the corner Rose switched her phone off, plucked a mystery from the selection of English books on offer and flopped down to read. But ten minutes later she was still on the first page and had read the opening paragraph a dozen times. Realizing her temper, and not the book, was responsible she thought she'd instead try putting her time to good use doing more research about Spirit.

Tentatively approaching the librarian, Rose outlined what she was after, also explaining she couldn't read Russian. Ignoring the computer in front of him, the librarian walked across to a wooden drawer filled with old-school filing cards.

"There's very little call for the old scrolls and documents these days," he said by way of explanation. "So we've never bothered to catalog them on the computer. We have a lot, but not all of it has been translated, and sometimes much is lost in the translation. However, if you find anything that looks promising, I can dig out the original and check the translation is valid."

Opening a door, he led her down a short hallway to another room that clearly saw little use. Lined with bookshelves containing leather-bound books and scrolls, the librarian consulted the notes he'd jotted down at the catalog, pulling seven or eight massive tomes from the shelves.

"These are the translations from St. Vladimir and Shadow-Kissed Anna," he explained. "As primary sources, they're probably of most interest to you and also the most accurately translated. I must warn you, a lot of it is repetitious or just doesn't make sense. St. Vladimir, particularly earlier on, was prone to suspicion and paranoia and much of his writing centers on this. I've also read Anna's writings, but they're less interesting. They're the superstitious ramblings of a comparatively simple and uneducated Guardian."

Rose gave him a scathing look, which eventually he interpreted correctly.

"Right - well I'll just leave you with them then," he murmured, hurrying out of the room. Still feeling very out of sorts, Rose picked up the first book and flopped onto the large saggy dark green couch that occupied the center of the room. She must have fallen asleep because when she woke up her neck was sore, she was feeling hungry, and it was dark in the room. Checking her phone she saw eighteen missed calls from Dimitri, three from Vika and two voicemails that she'd check later. It was 8:00 pm – she'd been asleep for hours.

Half inclined to stay in the library overnight, the only thing prompting Rose to leave was the thought of food. So grabbing her gym bag, and leaving the journals for another day, Rose walked back out into the library and through into the corridor.

Dimitri would be on his afternoon shift by now. They usually had him outside patrolling the wards, so there was little chance of bumping into him. Rose was still beyond angry that he'd asked her to tolerate a weekend watching Tasha throw herself at him. It was bad enough at the Ski Lodge – Dimka this and that and continuously fucking touching! If that's the way he wanted things, fine – but damned if Rose was going to sit around and watch it!

Heading to the Dining Hall, still wearing a murderous expression, Rose was able to get in and out in under five minutes without making eye contact with anyone, taking with her a plate of steaming food. You weren't strictly speaking meant to take any dishes out of the dining hall, but seeing her thunderous countenance, the door monitors decided it wasn't worth their while noticing Rose abscond with her meal.