"Just trying to find creative ways to avenge your honor, that's all."

"You just never struck me as the creative type, Mase."

We stood just outside our second-period classroom. Mason's expression was still light and joking, but there was a suggestive note in his voice when he spoke again. "Rose, when I'm around you, I think of all sorts of creative things to do."

I was still giggling about the vipers and abruptly stopped, staring at him in surprise. I'd always thought Mason was cute, but with that serious, smoky look in his eyes, it suddenly occurred to me for the first time that he was actually kind of sexy.

"Oh, look at that," he laughed, noticing how much he'd caught me off guard. "Rose gets rendered speechless. Ashford 1, Hathaway 0."

"Hey, I don't want to make you cry before the trip. It won't be any fun if I've already broken you before we even hit the slopes."

He laughed, and we stepped into the room. This was a class on bodyguard theory, one that took place in an actual classroom instead of the practice field. It was a nice break from all the physical exertion. Today, there were three guardians standing at the front who weren't from the school's regiment. Holiday visitors, I realized. Parents and their guardians had already started coming to campus to accompany their children to the ski resort. My interest was piqued immediately.

One of the guests was a tall guy who looked like he was about a hundred years old but could still kick major ass. The other guy was about Dimitri's age. He had deeply tanned skin and was built well enough that a few of the girls in class looked ready to swoon.

The last guardian was a woman. Her auburn hair was cropped and curly, and her brown eyes were currently narrowed in thought. As I've said, a lot of dhampir women choose to have children rather than follow the guardian path. Since I too was one of the few women in this profession, I was always excited to meet others-like Tamara.

Only, this wasn't Tamara. This was someone I'd known for years, someone who triggered anything but pride and excitement. Instead, I felt resentment. Resentment, anger, and burning outrage.

The woman standing in front of the class was my mother.

I couldn't believe it. Janine hathaway. My mother. My insanely famous and stunningly absent mother. She was no Arthur Schoenberg, but she did have a pretty stellar reputation in the guardian world. I hadn't seen her in years because she was always off on same insane mission. And yet…here she was at the Academy right now-right in front of me-and she hadn't even bothered to let me know she was coming. So much for motherly love.

What the hell was she doing here anyway? The answer came quickly. All the Moroi who came to campus would have their guardians in tow. My mother protected a noble from the Szelsky clan, and several members of that family had shown up for the holidays. Of course she'd be here with him.

I slid into my chair and felt something inside of me shrivel up. I knew she had to have seen me come in, but her attention was focused elsewhere. She had on jeans and a beige T-shirt, covered with what had to be the most boring denim jacket I'd ever seen. At only five feet tall, she was dwarfed by the other guardians, but she had a presence and way of standing that made her seem taller.

Our instructor, Stan, introduced the guests and explained that they were going to share real-life experiences with us.

He paced the front of the room, bushy eyebrows knitting together as he spoke. "I know this is unusual," he explained. "Visiting guardians usually don't have time to stop by our classes. Our three guests, however, have made time to come talk to you today in light of what's happened recently…" He paused a moment, and no one needed to tell us what he was referring to. The Badica attack. He cleared his throat and tried again. "In light of what's happened, we thought it might better prepare you to learn from those currently working in the field."

The class tensed with excitement. Hearing stories-particularly ones with a lot of blood and action-was a hell of a lot more interesting than analyzing theory from a textbook. Apparently some of the other campus guardians thought so too. They often stopped by our classes, but they were present today in a larger-than-usual number. Dimitri stood among them in the back.

The old guy went first. He launched into his story, and I found myself getting hooked in. It described a time when the youngest son of the family he guarded had wandered off in a public place that Strigoi were lurking in.

"The sun was about to set," he told us in a gravelly voice. He swept his hands in a downward motion, apparently to demonstrate how a sunset worked. "There were only two of us, and we had to make a snap decision on how to proceed."

I leaned forward, elbows propped up on my desk. Guardians often worked in pairs. One-the near guard-usually stayed close to those being guarded while the other-the far guard-scouted the area. The far guard still usually stayed within eye contact, so I recognized the dilemma here. Thinking about it, I decided that if I were in that situation, I'd have the near guardian take the rest of the family to a secure location while the other guardian searched for the boy.

"We had the family stay inside a restaurant with my partner while I swept the rest of the area," continued the old guardian. He spread his hands out in a sweeping motion, and I felt smug over having made the correct call. The story ended happily, with a found boy and no Strigoi encounters.

The second guy's anecdote talked about how he'd gotten the drop on a Strigoi stalking some Moroi.

"I wasn't even technically on duty," he said. He was the really cute one, and a girl sitting near me stared at him with wide, adoring eyes. "I was visiting a friend and the family he guarded. As I was leaving their apartment, I saw a Strigoi lurking in the shadows. He never expected a guardian to be out there. I circled the block, came up behind him, and …" The man made a staking motion, far more dramatic than the old guy's hand gestures had been. The storyteller even went so far as to mimic twisting the stake into the Strigoi's heart.

And then it was my mother's turn. A scowl spread over my face before she even said a word, a scowl that grew worse once she actually launched into the story. I swear, if I didn't believe her incapable of having the imagination for it-and her bland clothing choices proved she really didn't have an imagination-I would have thought she was lying. It was more than a story. It was an epic tale, the kind of thing that gets made into movies and wins Oscars.

She talked about how her charge, Lord Szelsky, and his wife had attended a ball put on by another prominent royal family. Several Strigoi had been lying in wait. My mother discovered one, promptly staked it, and then alerted the other guardians present. With their help, she hunted down the other Strigoi lurking around and performed most of the kills herself.

"It wasn't easy," she explained. From anyone else that statement would have sounded like bragging. Not her. There was a briskness to the way she spoke, an efficient way of stating facts that left no room for flourishes. She'd been raised in Glasgow and some of her words still had a Scottish lilt. "There were three others on the premises. At the time, that was considered an unusually large number to be working together. That's not necessarily true now, considering the Badica massacre." A few people flinched at the casual way she spoke about the attack. Once again, I could see the bodies. "We had to dispatch the remaining Strigoi as quickly and quietly as possible, so as not to alert the others. Now, if you have the element of surprise, the best way to take Strigoi is to come around from behind, break their necks, and then stake them. Breaking their necks won't kill them, of course, but it stuns them and allows you to do the staking before they can make any noise. The most difficult part is actually sneaking up on them, because their hearing is so acute. Since I'm smaller and lighter than most guardians, I can move fairly quietly. So I ended up performing two of the three kills myself."