Only Him

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own VA. I do own this plot.

2

When Lissa had first announced her intention to attend Lehigh University after she took up the mantle of Queen, I had thought she was crazy. I had been against it and had spent several days listing out all of the things that could go wrong, starting with the stupidity of having a scheduled time outside of the wards that Strigoi could take advantage of and ending with the reminder of homework.

In the end she had gotten her way, as we both knew she would.

It had actually worked out much better than I could have hoped for. While her class schedule was unfortunately inflexible and something that couldn't be kept from the public, we—the guardians—took great care in mixing up the times we left Court to head to campus, what we were driving, and where we were staying. Not to mention the veritable SWAT team of guardians that prowled the campus while we were there, all dressed in plain clothes and doing their best to blend in with the general population.

There had been a few incidents over the past few years and I often found myself wondering what happened to the time where guardians could go years without encountering a Strigoi. As Lissa's guardian I was no stranger to Strigoi. I had gained five more molnija marks since she'd become queen and there were a few kills still unaccounted for.

Today's convoy to campus had consisted of three silver Honda—Dimitri would be so proud—Pilots. Lissa and I rode in the last one. This was an arbitrary choice, sometimes we would be the head of the procession and sometimes we would take the classic middle position. The hour and a half drive to campus was uneventful, as it usually was during the day. We could not afford to relax our guard though because of the ever-increasing threat of both humans working with Strigoi as well as Moroi radicals. There were still many Moroi living under our noses at Court who did not agree with Lissa's title. They tended to rear up at the most inconvenient moments, like during a crucial vote, but for the most part they stayed away from physical violence. Or, well, they mostly had since Jill was killed four years ago. She'd been brought back by Adrian of course, but we had really cracked down on known threats within the Moroi community since then.

Honestly, the whole gig as Lissa's head guardian (and near guardian in public settings) was nearly perfect.

Nearly.

I got to spend time with my best friend, protect her, and get into some pretty awesome parties while on duty; I could handle the occasional physical altercation with Strigoi or verbal smack downs with radicals as compensation. What I couldn't handle was Lissa's Political Science class.

As her near guard I sat beside her in all of her classes while other guardians took up positions near the exits in the classrooms and patrolled the hallways and campus. It had been easier when she was a freshman and sophomore, just completing her undergraduate requirement classes. Those classrooms held over two hundred people and, while it made keeping an eye on everyone difficult, it was much easier to blend into the crowd. In her final upper level classes I actually had to enroll along side her and participate in the classes just to keep from drawing unnecessary attention to her.

If someone had told me when I was in high school that I would be graduating college with a political science degree alongside the queen of the Moroi I would have asked them what kind of drug they were taking.

Now, however, I was actually kind of proud of myself when I wasn't busy hating my life or studying for exams. Lissa was acing her class while I was a steady C student, good considering I was technically on duty while taking exams.