Richelle Mead - Spirit Bound

Lissa stayed quiet yet again, pondering the situation. I listened to her thoughts, not liking at all where they were going.

"We're leaving at six," she said at last. "Can you meet me downstairs at five thirty?" Tatiana wouldn't be thrilled when she heard about the new guest choice, but Lissa was pretty sure she could do some fast talking in the morning.

He nodded. "I'll be there."

Back in my room, I was totally aghast. Lissa was going to attempt to learn to stake a Strigoi– behind my back –and she was going to get Christian to help her. Those two had been snarling at each other since the breakup. I should have felt flattered that sneaking around me was bringing them together, but I wasn't. I was pissed off.

I considered my options. The buildings Lissa and I were staying in didn't have the kind of front-desk curfew security that our school dorms had had, but the staff here had been instructed to tip off someone in the guardians' office if I got too social. Hans had also told me to stay away from Lissa until further notice. I pondered it all for a moment, thinking it might be worth Hans dragging me from Lissa's room, and then finally thought of an alternate plan. It was late but not too late, and I left my room for the one next door to mine. Knocking on the door, I hoped my neighbor was still awake.

She was a dhampir my age, a recent graduate from a different school. I didn't own a cell phone, but I'd seen her talking on one earlier today. She answered the door a few moments later and fortunately didn't appear to have been in bed.

"Hey," she said, understandably surprised.

"Hey, can I send a text from your phone?"

I didn't want to commandeer her phone with a conversation, and besides, Lissa might just hang up on me. My neighbor shrugged, stepped into the room, and returned with the phone. I had Lissa's number memorized and sent her the following note:

I know what you're going to do, and it is a BAD idea. I'm going to kick both your asses when I find you.

I handed the phone back to its owner. "Thanks. If anyone texts back, can you let me know?"

She told me she would, but I didn't expect any return texts. I got my message another way. When I returned to the room and Lissa's mind, I got to be there when her phone chimed. Christian had left, and she read my text with a rueful smile. My answer came through the link. She knew I was watching.

Sorry, Rose. It's a risk I'll have to take. I'm doing this.

I tossed and turned that night, still angry at what Lissa and Christian were trying to do. I didn't think I'd ever fall asleep, but when Adrian came to me in a dream, it became clear that my body's exhaustion had defeated my mind's agitation.

"Las Vegas?" I asked.

Adrian's dreams always occurred in different places of his choosing. Tonight, we stood on the Strip, very near where Eddie and I had rendezvoused with Lissa and him at the MGM Grand. The bright lights and neon of the hotels and restaurants gleamed in the blackness, but the whole setting was eerily silent compared to the reality. Adrian had not brought the cars or people of the real Las Vegas here. It was like a ghost town.

He smiled, leaning against a pole covered in paper ads for concerts and escort services. "Well, we didn't really get a chance to enjoy it while we were there."

"True." I stood a few feet away, arms crossed over my chest. I had on jeans and a T-shirt, along with my nazar . Adrian had apparently decided not to dress me tonight, for which I was grateful. I could have ended up like one of those Moroi showgirls, in feathers and sequins. "I thought you were avoiding me." I still wasn't entirely sure where our relationship stood, despite his flippant attitude back at the Witching Hour.

He snorted. "It's not by my choice, little dhampir. Those guardians are doing their best to keep you in solitary. Well, kind of."

"Christian managed to sneak in and talk to me earlier," I said, hoping to avoid the issue that had to be on Adrian's mind: that I'd risked lives to save my ex-boyfriend. "He's going to try to teach Lissa to stake a Strigoi."

I waited for Adrian to join in my outrage, but he appeared as lax and sardonic as usual. "Not surprised she's gonna try. What surprises me is that he'd actually be interested in helping with some crazy theory."

"Well, it's crazy enough to appeal to him . . . and can apparently overpower them hating each other lately."

Adrian tilted his head, making some of the hair fall over his eyes. A building with blue neon palm trees cast an eerie glow upon his face as he gave me a knowing look. "Come on, we both know why he's doing it."

"Because he thinks his after-school group with Jill and Mia qualifies him to teach that stuff?"

"Because it gives him an excuse to be around her–without making it look like he gave in first. That way, he can still seem manly."

I shifted slightly so that the lights of a giant sign advertising slot machines didn't shine in my eyes. "That's ridiculous." Especially the part about Christian being manly.

"Guys do ridiculous things for love." Adrian reached into his pocket and held up a pack of cigarettes. "Do you know how badly I want one of these right now? Yet I suffer, Rose. All for you."

"Don't turn romantic on me," I warned, trying to hide my smile. "We don't have time for that, not when my best friend wants to go monster hunting."

"Yeah, but how is she actually going to find him? That's kind of a problem." Adrian didn't need to elaborate on the "him."

"True," I admitted.

"And she hasn't been able to charm the stake yet anyway, so until she does, all the kung-fu skills in the world won't matter."

"Guardians don't do kung-fu. And how did you know about the stake?"

"She's asked for my help a couple of times," he explained.

"Huh. I didn't know that."

"Well, you've been kind of busy. Not that you've even spared a thought for your poor pining boyfriend."

With all my chores, I hadn't spent a huge amount of time in Lissa's head–just enough to check in with her. "Hey, I would have taken you over filing any day." I'd been so afraid that Adrian would be furious with me after Vegas, yet here he was, light and playful. A little too light. I wanted him to focus on the problem at hand. "What's your take on Lissa and the charms? Is she close to doing it?"

Adrian absentmindedly played with the cigarettes, and I was tempted to tell him to go ahead and have one. This was his dream, after all. "Unclear. I haven't taken to charms the way she has. It's weird having the other elements in there . . . makes it hard to manipulate spirit."

"Are you helping her anyway?" I asked suspiciously.

He shook his head in amusement. "What do you think?"

I hesitated. "I . . . I don't know. You help her with most spirit things, but helping her with this would mean . . ."

". . . Helping Dimitri?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to elaborate.

"No," Adrian said at last. "I'm not helping her, simply because I don't know how."

I exhaled with relief. "I really am sorry," I told him. "For everything . . . for lying about where I was and what I was doing. It was wrong. And I don't understand . . . well, I don't get why you're being so nice to me."

"Should I be mean?" He winked. "Is that the kind of thing you're into?"

"No! Of course not. But, I mean, you were so mad when you came to Vegas and found out what was going on. I just thought . . . I don't know. I thought you hated me."

The amusement faded from his features. He came over to me and rested his hands on my shoulders, his dark green eyes dead serious. "Rose, nothing in this world could make me hate you."

"Not even trying to bring my ex-boyfriend back from the dead?"