Rose's and revelations (a Vampire Academy Fanfic)

One

RPOV

Dimitri turned up on my doorstep the morning after we arrived at Court. Was he seriously considering blowing our cover this early?

"Hey!" I grinned when I opened the door, "come on in," I said as I stepped aside and let him enter. I ended up sandwiched between him and the door which was now locked.

"Morning my Roza," my boyfriend beamed. Yes! My boyfriend. He'd been secretly courting me since the cabin and actually went to the extent of asking me to be his girlfriend. "I've missed you. It's no fun not seeing you first thing." I had to laugh at that.

"Aww," I got out when I recovered. "It's been three days without our trainings. Are you suffering from withdrawal?" I teased.

"Yes, I am my love." He leaned in and kissed me. As always it was full of emotion and over too soon. "So, are you willing to spend mornings back in training with me?"

"Duh!" I suggestively added, "nights too."

"We can't defile this gym," he thought about it for a minute before huskily adding, "yet."

"I didn't need reminding," I softly replied.

"Of course. I think I need it more." Another kiss drove home his point.

"I love you, you know." I spoke against his lips.

"I love you too sweetheart."

"How about that training?"

"Do you have to ask?"

"No, I guess not. I'm getting changed. I still have your spares." He chuckled at that, then again when I chucked him a set of his training clothes.

We hurriedly changed and walked out my door in each other's personal space but not touching. We were slowly dropping the facade, and it would be obliterated in a month. "Laps first?" he asked, though it was a given.

"Around the perimeter?" I suggested.

"Are you trying to put yourself on duty already?" he asked with his amusement showing on his face and in his voice.

"You know as well as I do how fallible the wards are." I whispered back and he nodded by way of answer.

"Perimeter it is. Race you?"

"Hell no!" I laughed, despite being serious. "You've got a full foot on me, and seven years extra external training. It's simply not fair."

"Aww. Fine." We kept up the banter while running and checking the perimeter, ending up in the gym. "Come here, there's a few new training tools I think you'd enjoy using," he led me to a set up of machines "for dodging and fine tuning reaction times."

"You're right. I am going to enjoy this new technology; I always thought that gym was under-equipped, second rate."

"I knew it was. Why do think I created the obstacle courses in the lead up to trials?"

"Hey!" I playfully chastised. "I just thought it was you, typically, preparing me for anything."

"Well, there was that too." My man sheepishly smiled, guilty as charged apparently. He turned the machine on and I spent a good hour with it while Dimitri used the weight machines. We switched over, then moved on to the four other new machines, spending half an hour on each. We ended with sparring and that got the other guardians attention. We were so evenly matched and took what felt like hours for either one to pin the other, we truly had to work to win a match.

"How does that happen?" One of the guardians I didn't know asked after our sixth match, Dimitri having taken me down three times and vice versa.

"How does what happen, Tanner?" Dimitri responded. Was there anyone my antisocial god didn't know?

"That even pair of combatants?"

"Simple," I responded, "he taught me everything he knows." That got a reaction from him.

"You're Rose Hathaway?! You're Princess Dragomir's best friend and bond mate? You're Belikov's prodigious student? You're the one who took Lord Christian Ozera into battle? You're the one who took out the ringleaders targeting royals? The only novice who fought-and killed- in the Saint Vlad's attack and rescue? The one Adrian Ivashkov is in love with?" he rushed out in total amazement and fascination. He had a hero worship sort of thing going on and his next words confirmed it, "you're a goddess." That made Dimitri bristle, I was his goddess.

"Yes. I am Guardian Rose Hathaway. Yes, my bestie and bondie is Lissa . Yes, Dimitri was my mentor." He was never really my mentor. Not with the lust charm two months into the school year, the connection immediately formed, and giving in three months later- almost five months before grad. "Yes, I'm the one who took Snarky Sparky into battle because he'd saved my life. Yes, I'm the one who took down Isaiah and Elena after they killed my best friend. Yes, I'm the only novice who killed in the attack, the only novice to enter the caves and kill in them. Yes, I'm the one Adrian Ivashkov thinks he's in love with, the one he's obsessed with. No, I am no goddess; I have my flaws, being a bond mate, being shadow kissed takes it's toll. It's the price I pay for being alive." And didn't Dimitri know it.

"Belikov, how can you hear her deny being a goddess when she is?" Another guardian asked.

"Because, Jones, she might be lethal in a fight but none of you have seen how lethal a bond is to the shadow kissed. I have. A bond is sometimes a bad thing." That shocked them. "The stories don't tell what it's really like for a very good reason. While it allows Rose to feel Lissa's feelings, and is practically a psychic tracking system, there are side effects that are beyond the normal persons understanding." The ghosts, the Strigoi alarm, and the darkness are just a few.

"It all comes down to the fact that I'm still connected to the land of the dead," I stated simply and Dimitri flinched. He still hated that he'd lost me before he found me.

"How you always state that so easily is beyond me, Rose." My man commented.

"Honestly, I've embraced my second chance at life. And with how many times you've had to reign me in you bloody know it." Translation: with how many times we've been on secret dates.

"You're right. I do know it." He unleashed a full smile and I had to smirk back to avoid melting. "Now. How about I take you to lunch? Show you the guardian hideouts?" Uh oh. That was a cover blower. What the hell, he'd come up with an excuse.

"Sure." The surrounding guardians gaped. "Oh, pick your chins up off the floor!" I snapped playfully at them. They recovered.

"Did you seriously just ask someone, a girl no less, to join you for lunch?" A third guardian asked.

"So? I'm used to spending at least four hours a day with Rose. That's not including the five classes of hers I had to guard."

"You mean she actually got you to talk during trainings?" Tanner questioned in disbelief.

"Do you mean, she brought me out of my books? Yes." Oh, be careful Comrade. And I thought I was going to be the one to blow our cover.

"Good god. Never saw that happening." None of them will know what hit them in a months time.

"Comrade! I'm hungry, and you know how my attitude and appetite work together." That got a soft chuckle from him. We walked out the door of the gym. "God. That was awkward."

"Which part?"

"I think the goddess part."

"You are, just not in the way people think."

"Oh, shut up!" I playfully chastised while slapping him. "How you ever keep a mask on around me I'll never know." We entered the guest housing lobby.

"I'll meet you at your room in twenty-five."

"Done."