Ignoring them grew harder and harder, though. The whispers and looks increased. In animal behavior, it became so bad, I couldn"t even concentrate on my now-favorite subject. Ms.
Meissner had started talking about evolution and survival of the fittest and how animals sought mates with good genes. It fascinated me, but even she had a hard time staying on task, since she had to keep yelling at people to quiet down and pay attention.
"Something"s going on," I told Lissa between cla.s.ses. "I don"t know what, but they"re all over something new."
"Something else? Other than the queen hating me? What more could there be?"
"Wish I knew."
Things finally came to a head in our last cla.s.s of the day, Slavic art. It started when a guy I barely knew made a very explicit and nearly obscene suggestion to me while we all worked on individual projects. I replied in kind, letting him know exactly what he could do with his request.
He only laughed. "Come on, Rose. I bleed for you."
Loud giggles ensued, and Mia cut us a taunting look. "Wait, it"s Rose who does the bleeding, right?"
More laughter. Understanding slapped me in the face. I jerked Lissa away. "They know."
"Know what?"
"About us. About how you...you know, how I fed you while we were gone."
She gaped. "How?" "How do you think? Your "friend" Christian."
"No," she said adamantly. "He wouldn"t have."
"Who else knew?"
Faith in Christian flashed in her eyes and in our bond. But she didn"t know what I knew. She didn"t know how I"d b.i.t.c.hed him out last night, how I"d made him think she hated him. The guy was unstable. Spreading our biggest secret- well, one of them-would be an adequate revenge. Maybe he"d killed the rabbit, too. After all, it had died only a couple hours after I"d told him off.
Not waiting around to hear her protests, I stalked off to the other side of the room where Christian was working by himself, as usual. Lissa followed in my wake. Not caring if people saw us, I leaned across the table toward him, putting my face inches from his.
"I"m going to kill you."
His eyes darted to Lissa, the faintest glimmer of longing in them, and then a scowl spread over his face. "Why? Is it like guardian extra credit?"
"Stop with the att.i.tude," I warned, pitching my voice low. "You told. You told how Lissa had to feed off me."
"Tell her," said Lissa desperately. "Tell her she"s wrong."
Christian dragged his eyes from me to her, and as they regarded each other, I felt such a powerful wave of attraction, it was a wonder it didn"t knock me over. Her heart was in her eyes.
It was obvious to me he felt the same way about her, but she couldn"t see it, particularly since he was still glaring at her.
"You can stop it, you know," he said. "You don"t have to pretend anymore."
Lissa"s giddy attraction vanished, replaced by hurt and shock over his tone. "I...what? Pretend what?..."
"You know what. Just stop. Stop with the act." Lissa stared at him, her eyes wide and wounded. She had no clue I"d gone off on him last night.
She had no clue that he believed she hated him.
"Get over feeling sorry for yourself, and tell us what"s going on," I snapped at him. "Did you or didn"t you tell them?"
He fixed me with a defiant look. "No. I didn"t."
"I don"t believe you."
"I do," said Lissa.
"I know it"s impossible to believe a freak like me could keep his mouth shut-especially since neither of you can-but I have better things to do than spread stupid rumors. You want someone to blame? Blame your golden boy over there."
I followed his gaze to where Jesse was laughing about something with that idiot Ralf.
"Jesse doesn"t know," said Lissa defiantly.
Christian"s eyes were glued to me. "He does, though. Doesn"t he, Rose? He knows."
My stomach sank out of me. Yes. Jesse did know. He"d figured it out that night in the lounge. "I didn"t think...I didn"t think he"d tell. He was too afraid of Dimitri."
"You told him?" exclaimed Lissa.
"No, he guessed." I was starting to feel sick.
"He apparently did more than guess," muttered Christian.
I turned on him. "What"s that supposed to mean?"
"Oh. You don"t know."
"I swear to G.o.d, Christian, I"m going to break your neck after cla.s.s."
"Man, you really are unstable." He said it almost happily, but his next words were more serious.
He still wore that sneer, still glowed with anger, but when he spoke, I could hear the faintest uneasiness in his voice. "He sort of elaborated on what was in your note. Got into a little more detail."
"Oh, I get it. He said we had s.e.x." I didn"t need to mince words. Christian nodded. So. Jesse was trying to boost his own reputation. Okay. That I could deal with. Not like my reputation was that stellar to begin with. Everyone already believed I had s.e.x all the time.
"And uh, Ralf too. That you and he-"
Ralf? No amount of alcohol or any illegal substance would make me touch him. "I-what? That I had s.e.x with Ralf too?"
Christian nodded.
"That a.s.shole! I"m going to-"
"There"s more."
"How? Did I sleep with the basketball team?"
"He said-they both said-you let them...well, you let them drink your blood."
That stopped even me. Drinking blood during s.e.x. The dirtiest of the dirty. Sleazy. Beyond being easy or a s.l.u.t. A gazillion times worse than Lissa drinking from me for survival. Blood- wh.o.r.e territory.
"That"s crazy!" Lissa cried. "Rose would never-Rose?"
But I wasn"t listening anymore. I was in my own world, a world that took me across the cla.s.sroom to where Jesse and Ralf sat. They both looked up, faces half smug and half...nervous, if I had to guess. Not unexpected, since they were both lying through their teeth.
The entire cla.s.s came to a standstill. Apparently they"d been expecting some type of showdown.
My unstable reputation in action.
"What the h.e.l.l do you think you"re doing?" I asked in a low, dangerous voice. Jesse"s nervous look turned to one of terror. He might have been taller than me, but we both knew who would win if I turned violent. Ralf, however, gave me a c.o.c.ky smile.
"We didn"t do anything you didn"t want us to do." His smiled turned cruel. "And don"t even think about laying a hand on us. You start a fight, and Kirova"ll kick you out to go live with the other blood wh.o.r.es."
The rest of the students were holding their breaths, waiting to see what we"d do. I don"t know how Mr. Nagy could have been oblivious to the drama occurring in his cla.s.s.
I wanted to punch both of them, hit them so hard that it"d make Dimitri"s brawl with Jesse look like a pat on the back. I wanted to wipe that smirk off Ralf"s face.
But a.s.shole or not, he was right. If I touched them, Kirova would expel me in the blink of an eye. And if I got kicked out, Lissa would be alone. Taking a deep breath, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life.
I walked away.
The rest of the day was miserable. In backing down from the fight, I opened myself up to mockery from everyone else. The rumors and whispers grew louder. People stared at me openly. People laughed. Lissa kept trying to talk to me, to console me, but I ignored even her. I went through the rest of my cla.s.ses like a zombie, and then I headed off to practice with Dimitri as fast I could. He gave me a puzzled look but didn"t ask any questions.
Alone in my room later on, I cried for the first time in years.
Once I got that out of my system, I was about to put on my pajamas when I heard a knock at my door. Dimitri. He studied my face and then glanced away, obviously aware I"d been crying. I could tell, too, that the rumors had finally reached him. He knew.
"Are you okay?"
"It doesn"t matter if I am, remember?" I looked up at him. "Is Lissa okay? This"ll be hard on her." A funny look crossed his face. I think it astonished him that I"d still be worried about her at a time like this. He beckoned me to follow and led me out to a back stairwell, one that usually stayed locked to students. But it was open tonight, and he gestured me outside. "Five minutes,"
he warned.
More curious than ever, I stepped outside. Lissa stood there. I should have sensed she was close, but my own out-of-control feelings had obscured hers. Without a word, she put her arms around me and held me for several moments. I had to hold back more tears. When we broke apart, she looked at me with calm, level eyes.
"I"m sorry," she said.
"Not your fault. It"ll pa.s.s."
She clearly doubted that. So did I.
"It is my fault," she said. "She did it to get back at me."
"She?"
"Mia. Jesse and Ralf aren"t smart enough to think of something like that on their own. You said it yourself: Jesse was too scared of Dimitri to talk much about what happened. And why wait until now? It happened a while ago. If he"d wanted to spread stuff around, he would have done it back then. Mia"s doing this as retaliation for you talking about her parents. I don"t know how she managed it, but she"s the one who got them to say those things."
In my gut, I realized Lissa was right. Jesse and Ralf were the tools; Mia had been the mastermind.
"Nothing to be done now," I sighed.
"Rose-"
"Forget it, Liss. It"s done, okay?"
She studied me quietly for a few seconds. "I haven"t seen you cry in a long time."
"I wasn"t crying." A feeling of heartache and sympathy beat through to me from the bond.
"She can"t do this to you," she argued.
I laughed bitterly, half surprised at my own hopelessness. "She already did. She said she"d get back at me, that I wouldn"t be able to protect you. She did it. When I go back to cla.s.ses..." A sickening feeling settled in my stomach. I thought about the friends and respect I"d managed to eke out, despite our low profile. That would be gone. You couldn"t come back from something like this. Not among the Moroi. Once a blood wh.o.r.e, always a blood wh.o.r.e. What made it worse was that some dark, secret part of me did like being bitten.
"You shouldn"t have to keep protecting me," she said.
I laughed. "That"s my job. I"m going to be your guardian."
"I know, but I meant like this. You shouldn"t suffer because of me. You shouldn"t always have to look after me. And yet you always do. You got me out of here. You took care of everything when we were on our own. Even since coming back...you"ve always been the one who does all the work. Every time I break down-like last night-you"re always there. Me, I"m weak. I"m not like you."
I shook my head. "That doesn"t matter. It"s what I do. I don"t mind."
"Yeah, but look what happened. I"m the one she really has a grudge against-even though I still don"t know why. Whatever. It"s going to stop. I"m going to protect you from now on."
There was a determination in her expression, a wonderful confidence radiating off of her that reminded me of the Lissa I"d known before the accident. At the same time, I could feel something else in her-something darker, a sense of deeply buried anger. I"d seen this side of her before too, and I didn"t like it. I didn"t want her tapping into it. I just wanted her to be safe.
"Lissa, you can"t protect me."
"I can," she said fiercely. "There"s one thing Mia wants more than to destroy you and me. She wants to be accepted. She wants to hang out with the royals and feel like she"s one of them. I can take that away from her." She smiled. "I can turn them against her." "How?"
"By telling them." Her eyes flashed.
My mind was moving too slowly tonight. It took me a while to catch on. "Liss-no. You can"t use compulsion. Not around here."
"I might as well get some use out of these stupid powers."
The more she uses it, the worse it"ll get. Stop her, Rose. Stop her before they notice, before they notice and take her away too. Get her out of here.
"Liss, if you get caught-"
Dimitri stuck his head out. "You"ve got to get back inside, Rose, before someone finds you."
I shot a panicked look at Lissa, but she was already retreating. "I"ll take care of everything this time, Rose. Everything."