Because Every Girl Loves to Shop - Complete

Because Every Girl Loves to Shop

"It's not that I'm disinterested, Roza," I murmur. "I'm just not into this like you are."

She nodded, trying to hide her disappointment.

'No good deed goes unpunished' I thought to myself, preparing myself to be dragged around furniture and homewares stores for the next few hours.

When we'd finally come out as a couple, it had caused a stir. The idea of two Dhampir openly dating was scandalous, to some. But over time most people had calmed down. Lissa, as Queen, had a way of bringing even the most intransigent royals around to her way of thinking. And while some Dhampir still weren't thrilled with the idea of two of their own dating, eventually Lissa had put a stop to the snide comments from that quarter via a blistering speech about tolerance and acceptance delivered to the entire Dhampir contingent at court.

That hadn't helped with some of the more practical aspects of us being together, though.

Initially, we'd each kept our own rooms in the Dhampir dormitories, alternating staying between one room and the other. But it wasn't ideal. One of us would invariably forget something we needed, and the rooms were tiny – not built to house two people. And, of course, there was the privacy issue.

I can still recall a particularly humiliating discussion with Hans about 'privacy' and 'long shifts' and 'other people needing to be able to sleep.' I'm honestly not sure which of us was more mortified to be having the discussion, he or me!

So we'd moved to stay in a furnished guest apartment in the Moroi private living areas at court, but that really hadn't worked either. We weren't close by the other Guardians, which made keeping hooked into what was going on more difficult. As the Guardians for the Queen and her boyfriend, it was critical we were kept in the loop. Also Rose had been lonely. While our Moroi neighbors had been pleasant, they weren't really our friends. Being naturally more social than I, she'd wanted to live closer to our Guardian mates.

It was actually Lissa who came to our rescue again. When the roof on one of the oldest Guardian dorm blocks had partially collapsed, flooding the entire top floor, she'd asked for a cost comparison between repair and ongoing maintenance versus a complete rebuild. There was not much in it, so a new building was commissioned. Built with more modern living in mind, the block consisted of two, four and six bedroom apartments, each with their own bathrooms, living room, kitchen, and laundry. There was also a gym, cafeteria and office spaces within the building. It wasn't luxury living, by any means, but still light and day compared to the spartan living arrangements of the older dormitory blocks.

There'd been a huge demand for the new accommodations. Almost every Guardian at court had put in a housing transfer application. In the end, Hans had been given the unenviable task of reading through the numerous requests and allocating the limited number of units. Not everyone was pleased with the selections, but I thought he'd made a pretty good fist of it. But maybe that's because he'd allocated Roza and I a two-bedroom unit of our very own on the top floor!

Hence today's mission.

Hearing about our new place, Abe had got in touch offering to pay for the furniture and other living things we would be needing. While I would have been happy with just a bed and a chair to sit and read, Rose was beyond thrilled. For the last week, every spare moment had been spent online, poring over furniture websites and talking design with Lissa. After a lot of consideration, she'd decided there were two or three stores she liked, all of which could be found at a mall a couple of hours away. She'd been desperate to bring Lissa with her for the shopping mission, but the security detail involved was prohibitive. So that found Rose and me on a Saturday morning human time, walking through the mall hand-in-hand.