RoDrian

A few months ago

"What do you want?" I asked.

He studied me for a moment. "I want you to grab Vasilisa and come with me. We're going to have some fun. You'll probably want a swimsuit too." He seemed disappointed by the admission of this. "Unless you want to go naked."

"What? A bunch of Moroi and dhampirs just got slaughtered, and you want to go swimming and 'have fun'?"

"It's not just swimming," he said patiently. "Besides, that slaughter is exactly why you should go do this."

Before I could argue that, I saw my friends round the corner: Lissa, Mason, and Christian.Eddie Castile was with the group, which shouldn't have surprised me, but Mia was as well-

which certainly did surprise me. They were deep in conversation, though they all stopped talking when they saw me.

"There you are," said Lissa, a puzzled look on her face.

I remembered Adrian's arm was still around me. I stepped out of it. "Hey, guys," I said. A moment of awkwardness hung around us, and I was pretty sure I heard a low chuckle from Adrian. I beamed at him and then my friends. "Adrian invited us to go swimming."

They stared at me in surprise, and I could almost see the wheels of speculation turning in their heads. Mason's face darkened a little, but like the others, he said nothing. I stifled a groan.

Adrian took me inviting the others to his secret interlude pretty well. With his easygoing attitude, I hadn't really expected anything else. Once we had swimsuits, we followed his directions to a doorway in one of the far wings of the lodge. It held a staircase that led down-

and down and down. I nearly got dizzy as we wound around and around. Electric lights hung in the walls, but as we went farther, the painted walls changed to carved stone.

When we reached our destination, we discovered Adrian had been right-it wasn't just swimming. We were in a special spa area of the resort, one used only for the most elite Moroi.

In this case, it was reserved for a bunch of royals I assumed were Adrian's friends. There were about thirty others, all his age or older, who bore the marks of wealth and elitism.

The spa consisted of a series of hot mineral pools. Maybe once a cave or something

"Why is Mia with you?" I asked Lissa softly. We were winding our way through the room, looking for a pool that wasn't occupied.

"She was talking to Mason when we were getting ready to leave," she returned. She kept her voice just as quiet. "It seemed mean to just... I don't know ... leave her ..."

Even I agreed with that. Obvious signs of grief were written all over her face, but Mia seemed at least momentarily distracted by whatever Mason was telling her.

"I thought you didn't know Adrian," Lissa added. Disapproval hung in her voice and in the bond. We finally found a large pool, a little out of the way. A guy and a girl were on the opposite side, all over each other, but there was plenty of room for the rest of us. They were easy to ignore.

I put a foot into the water and pulled it back immediately.

"I don't," I told her. Cautiously, I inched the foot back in, slowly followed by the rest of my body. When I got to my stomach, I grimaced. I had on a maroon bikini, and the scalding water caught my stomach by surprise.

"You must know him a little. He invited you to a party."

"Yeah, but do you see him with us now?"