VA Second Generation

Chapter 4

When the plane landed James was not prepared for what waited for him in the quad. To be fair I don't think I or Rhea had been either.

It wasn't that James was unpopular-there really wasn't such thing as an unpopular royal-but he wasn't the same as the other royal which hadn't made him the most popular either. He had his Moroi group which consisted of Evan Conta, Ian Rinalde, and Cole Gordon, throw me and Rhea in the mix and that was really all he needed. Of course being the Queen's son had some definate perks. Besides the obvious of deeply lined pockets, James really was never bothered by anyone, even royals worried that one wrong comment would get them on the Queen's badside for life.

So it was a bit of a shock when half the school was waiting for us in the quad. Rhea quickly hurried off with Peter but James was instantly swamped with a million people.

"James how are you holding up?"

"Oh James that must have been so traumatizing,"

"I'm here for you James if you ever want to talk,"

"Your so brave James,"

"Oh James take me right here!"

Okay so that last one might have been a bit of an exaggeration. It seemed that James's near death experience (and unbeknownst to them my actual death experience) had gathered him a veritable fan club, maybe people finally realized just how awesome he actually was. Most people didn't value that he had a brain unlike most other royals.

A little help here? He pleaded through the bond.

I shrugged and gave him a 'your on your own,' look. It was my job to protect him from physical threats and unless one of those girls started getting a little handsy I figured he'd be all right.

And I liked watching him squirm.

I weaved through the crowd until I found my people sitting at one of the tables in the quad. My Dhampirs. James may have been my best friend but there were some things that we just couldn't enjoy together. I didn't want to talk Moroi politics and he didn't want to talk combat theory so we had both developed our own little groups outside of the other.

Marcus Ivashkov and Andrea Williams were two of the most tolerable people here at St. Vlad's. Marcus and Andrea had been dating for as long as anyone could remember and I was a third wheel without ever actually feeling like a third wheel. It also helped that a mojority of my time was spent with James leaving Andrea and Marcus to do couply stuff.

Me? I didn't understand relationships. Besides a few random makeout sessions when I had a little too much to drink at parties, the most serious relationship I'd ever been in had lasted two weeks. The whole idea of commitment for a Dhampir was complicated, we were supposed to give our lives to our Moroi and we could hardly do that when we had romantic investments.

It was yet another reason why my family was so bizarre. Besides the whole miraculous conception between two Dhampirs thing it was uncommon for two Dhampirs to be married at all. Most Guardians were out on assignments but usually the ones at court didn't complicate their jobs with getting involved with someone. I just didn't see the sence in engaging in a relationship that probably wouldn't work out anyways.

Andrea hugged me like she hadn't seen me in months-which she techincally hadn't-but Marcus always the more subdued waited his turn and gave me a normal strenghted hug compared to Andrea's bone crusher. Marcus and his family had visited Court in July so it wasn't the same sense of being departed I had with Andrea.

Marcus's family was a bit abnormal in many ways. One being that his mother and father were Sydney and Adrian Ivashkov; the only Moroi and human in the civilized world to be married. It was also unheard of that Dhampirs have a royal last name, sure there were plenty of illegitimate Dhampirs running around with royal fathers but they never took the royal name and rarely even held contact. Him, his mother, his father, and his little sister Zoe had been visiting his brother Declan who had been working as a guardian at Court for two years now.