After running, Dimitri asked me to go to the edge of the track bleachers for today's Technique and Strategy topic, learning how to take a fall. For better or for worse, he was very professional - and stuck to very few words. After he demonstrated the technique a few times, he had me try landing on the ground from the edge of the third row. My first fall went well, but my second was somewhat less than successful and I turned my ankle painfully on the landing. I didn't feel it working right away, but, even if I didn't feel it right away, I was grateful to Adrian for the healing charm because I knew that would help with the swelling. Dimitri asked if he could take a look at it to assess the injury.

I wasn't sure I wanted his hands on me at first and I tried to protest, but he was rather insistent that I might need to go to the med clinic. I sat on the bottom bleacher and pulled off my sock and shoe, letting him run his fingers over my ankle. I was somewhat startled to find that his touch on my skin still felt like fire. I may have been wrong about my feelings for him, but I couldn't deny the physical way my body responded. My mind wandered back to the feel of his touch on other parts of my body, then the feel of his lips. I struggled to keep my breathing even and to keep my heart from pounding.

Through all of this, my mind was also struggling to rationalize the argument between my body and my heart. Did I still want Dimitri, even if I didn't love him? Could I be okay with having just a purely physical relationship with him? And how did this play into the feelings for Adrian that I was starting to feel?

Through all of this, I realized, Dimitri was trying his best to keep things professional, but his fingers seemed to linger a little longer than was necessary on my calf, especially near the sensitive spot at the back of my knee and where his thumb grazed the bottom of my thigh. He asked me to flex my ankle one more time, then looked up at me. "It looks like you might have a sprain. I think you need to go to the med clinic," he said.

"Adrian gave me a healing charm this morning," I said, "Maybe I just need to wait for it to kick in?"

Dimitri said, "Your charm may not be strong enough for this. I don't want you to make it worse by falling on it again before the doctor has had a chance to look at it."

Dimitri grabbed an ice pack for me out of the chest freezer by the track equipment shed, helped me to wrap it around my ankle, and started to walk me to the med clinic, offering me his arm to assist so that I wasn't putting weight on that leg. Being this close to his body, my breathing wanted to become shallow again. I needed a distraction. "Dimitri, do you mind if I check in on Lissa while we walk?" I said, "I can still walk fine and it will help take my mind off of the pain."

"Okay," Dimitri said, as I tuned in to her mind.

Lissa was with Adrian again, sitting at a picnic table in the middle of campus, working on auras. "I think I can almost see it," she said, as she squinted her eyes to try to focus on the golden color she had known was supposed to be around him.

Adrian offered, "Squinting into it only makes it harder. It'll get easier to see them without trying as you do it more. You have to sort of un-focus your eyes to see it clearly. Like you're looking at one of those 'Magic Eye' pictures, almost. Maybe try crossing your eyes a little bit."

Lissa crossed her eyes, trying to look as he had suggested. Suddenly, Adrian's aura came into perfect focus. It was a sparkly metallic golden shade, with grey and black sparks like solar flares popping out of him into it from every direction.

"I see it!" she said, "Does mine look like that?"

"Not exactly. You can see your own aura if you look in a mirror, though. Ours - spirit users - are always that sort of golden color. The darkness from using the spirit is kind of grey or black. You don't have a lot of darkness right now, but your aura is tinged with a little bit of yellow right now, too, just right around the edges there." Adrian pointed vaguely to the space around Lissa. "It actually shifted to the yellow when you saw my aura, showing your emotions. I haven't figured out what all of the colors mean yet, but if I had to guess, yellow is happiness. Strong emotions usually seem to turn the colors brighter - except for the emotions that come from the spirit darkness, of course. You should see what it looks like when you and Rose are together."

I realized with an odd mixture of excitement and something else I couldn't put my finger on that Dimitri and I would be walking right past the picnic table on our way to the clinic. She'd get to see what it was like when we were together sooner than she expected. I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about Adrian seeing me this close to Dimitri, especially if being close to Dimitri was making me feel desire and both spirit users could see the colors that my feelings were putting out.

Lissa asked, "Do you have a mirror?"

Adrian was wearing a polo shirt and khaki pants, carrying nothing in his hands. He laughed, turned out his pockets, which only contained a wallet, and held his empty hands up, "Do I look like I'm carrying a mirror? I've heard some girls say that they can see themselves in my pants, but I promise there's no mirror there."

Lissa looked to Christian, who had been sitting quietly at the picnic table with them as they worked. "Do you?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Nope. I don't need a mirror to know that I look good," he joked, giving her a wink and a quick kiss on the cheek.

At that, Lissa began rummaging through her book bag, looking to see if she had a mirror in it.

"Speaking of Rose ..." Adrian said, eyeing something behind Lissa. She didn't have to turn for me to know that he was seeing Dimitri helping me limp to the med clinic behind her. I quickly got out Lissa's mind from the bond.

"Dimitri," I said, "Lissa and Adrian are over there." I pointed to the picnic table. "Maybe we could see if one of them can heal me?"

"Okay, but make sure Lissa doesn't use too much," he said, "Remember that her darkness passes to you." Dimitri steered me towards the picnic table.

"Hi guys," I said, once we were close enough that they could hear me. Lissa was just pulling a small hand mirror out of her bag.

"What happened to you?" Lissa asked.

I shrugged. "I was learning how to take a fall the right way. Except, I didn't." I sat down at the table next to Lissa, facing the opposite direction. "Take the fall right, I mean. Dimitri thinks it's sprained. We were on our way to the med clinic."

Lissa grinned, saying, "This is a good chance for Adrian to practice healing. Or - did you have that charm with you, Adrian, that you could give to Rose now?"

"Actually," I said, "I'm already wearing it. Dimitri thought maybe it just wasn't strong enough for this."

"Adrian, can you try?" Lissa asked. Adrian walked around the table and kneeled on the ground in front of me, putting his hands on my calf. After a few moments, his brow furrowed in concentration and I felt some small tingles of the hot and cold feeling that often accompanied spirit healing, but not like what I would feel when Lissa did it. I saw Lissa watching him curiously as he tried to heal me.

"Wow," said Lissa, "Your darkness got darker. And Rose's sort of brightened a little for a second, too. Rose, does your ankle feel better?"

I tried bending it each way and poked at it with my finger under the ice pack. "It still hurts," I said, "but not like it did."

Dimitri, who I had almost forgotten was standing a few feet away, asked, "Can you take off the ice pack and your shoe and sock? Let's look and see." I removed the ice pack. The swelling had gone down, but it was still red. He again ran his hand along the ankle. I felt like Lissa and Adrian had new insight into what I was experiencing as Dimitri's hand passed over my bare skin. I momentarily checked the bond, to see what Lissa was seeing. My aura was a dull brownish-red with the same flares of grey she had seen in Adrian - though not as much black to the darkness as he had. What was Adrian doing that was using so much spirit? At least there were no bright colors in my aura, so hopefully that didn't raise any red flags with anyone. Dimitri's, on the other hand, was a very bright, almost shining, reddish-pink with some flashes of orange.

Lissa looked over at Christian, as he took her hand. I was surprised to see that his was also a bright pink shade with some splashes of red as he looked at Lissa, but I didn't have long to think about it because then it shifted to a dark green color as he looked at Adrian. Adrian's eyes were focused on Dimitri and me. His aura also had a more pure shade of red and some of the same green around different parts of the outside edges of the gold now, almost like a Christmas ornament.

"I think it looks better, but I wouldn't rule out getting you to the clinic," Dimitri finally assessed, letting go of my ankle. Lissa saw Adrian's aura shift back to golden with the black flares, more black than they had been before healing me.

"I could try to heal you now, Rose," Lissa offered, "just the rest of the way from what Adrian already did."

"Okay," I said, "but not too much - alright?" She nodded, and leaned down to put her hand on my ankle. The feeling was much more powerful than when Adrian had healed me, but it only lasted for a second. After she let go, I felt no pain at all.

I said, "I think I'm better now." We all looked down and saw that the swelling was gone.

"Now would be a good time for that mirror," said Adrian, reminding Lissa that she had found one. Lissa held up the mirror and looked at herself.

I hadn't told Lissa that I could pull the darkness from her, but I suspected Adrian knew it. I pulled a little, trying not to pull too much. I watched through Lissa's eyes as the flares of grey shifted out of her aura and then saw them enter mine. Lissa's eyes went wide as the whole thing happened in front of her.

Dimitri interrupted, "Rose, we were almost done with our training when you fell, so I'm going to call this good for today. We'll work on falls again tomorrow. I'll see you at our 7:30 weight-lifting."

"Okay, comrade," I said, without thinking about the nickname I'd used hundreds of times. We both winced a little. Dimitri began walk off, as I started to put my sock and shoe back on.

Lissa asked Adrian, "What do orange, green, red, or pink mean?"

Adrian looked around at all of us, including Dimitri's back as he walked away, and narrowed his eyes momentarily. "Orange," he began, "I'm not sure, but I see it often in the person I see it in now. I think that light green might be peacefulness or strength, but darker green is something different. Darker green might mean sort of selfish or greedy, I think - or maybe jealousy. Red might be a couple of different things, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. I see red in my parents when they are lecturing me about my 'bad decisions' and are starting to yell, so I think maybe that's anger, but I've seen it other times for completely different things. Pink, I have no idea, but, again, I see it often in the person who has it now. Who knows - maybe pink's similar to the red?"

"Are you mad at Rose?" Lissa asked.

"Not at all," Adrian replied, as he put his hand out across the table and laced his fingers into mine. Feeling his fingers touch mine seemed to have a calming effect on me. It wasn't exciting, per se, like I would get when I touched Dimitri, but it was just ... nice.

Lissa exclaimed, "Look at that - Rose has a little bit of light green now!" I almost wanted to cover myself, hearing my emotions were colors on display for everyone to see, even if none of them knew what they all meant. She frowned, "Oh, but now she's turned back to reddish-grey again. I'll never get these all figured out!"

For some reason, I felt the need to console her in this, even though she was exposing all of my emotions right now. "Liss, it'll be okay. You'll get the hang of it," I said.

"But I really want to," she said, "You've been able to tell my feelings - and feel them, outright - for almost three years now, and I still have no idea what you're thinking most of the time, Rose." She mentally added, I might be able to tell how Dimitri feels about you to see if he loves you, too. I shook my head. Her smile fell.

"Oh. Christian, Adrian, can Rose and I have some time alone? It's almost five, anyways. We'll meet you at dinner if you want to head over to the cafeteria." They both said yes, then Christian and Lissa said their goodbyes, and Christian headed to his dorm before dinner.

Adrian pulled me aside for a moment, looked into my eyes, and said, "Remember to leave the necklace on, okay? I want you to get better. I care about you, Rose." Adrian pulled me into a hug. I really wanted to keep the necklace on. "Think about my offer. I'll see you at dinner," he said, and walked off. I was starting to think about his offer. I was pretty sure I was developing feelings for him.

As soon as they were both gone, Lissa asked, "Why did you shake your head, Rose? Did you tell Dimitri - and he didn't love you back?"

"No," I said, putting my face in my hands, "Liss, I think I made a big mistake." I went through the story and told Lissa everything, starting with all of those times in training with Dimitri in those first few months back, all the way up to this afternoon when I talked to him in the gym after our bo staff training. I left nothing out, no matter how conflicted my emotions were, knowing I needed to share everything with her. I could feel Lissa's emotions mirroring the story as I went, relieved to finally share this all with her. I poured out my heart to her, and she listened without judgment. When I reached the end, my emotions were a roller-coaster, all the feelings I thought I'd felt and all that I'd gone through with Dimitri coming up to the surface.

"But you told me yesterday that you loved him," she said, finally, "and that he loves you. Are you sure you were mistaken?"

"I think so," I replied. "Maybe it was just the darkness making me confuse what I am feeling."

"Rose, what were you thinking and feeling when Dimitri was checking your leg earlier? Was that anger?"

I asked, "Honestly? You want to know?"

She nodded. "I want to know because I want to know you - and I want to be able to help you get a better grip on what you're feeling. And what Dimitri's feeling, if I can read his aura better. When I was looking at everyone earlier, you and Dimitri both had red when he was touching your leg, though Dimitri also had pink and orange in there. I still don't know what that red meant."

I had to hold back on telling Lissa that I was watching through the bond as she was looking at all of us, but I really should tell her the truth if it would help her learn how to use her powers better, especially since reading auras didn't add to the darkness. I covered my face and looked at her through my fingers. "I was thinking about how good his hands felt on my body and how much I still wanted him, even if I wasn't in love with him."

Lissa said, slowly, "I'd say it was lust, but Christian had that same red and pink when he was looking at me at the table, too. I don't think his feelings for me were lust, exactly, so maybe attraction? Do you still want to be with Dimitri - even if you don't love him? I mean, if that's what you want, I'm not going to judge, but it seems like a bad path to go down, especially if you were to get caught."

"I don't know ... I'm not sure I would, but would it be bad if I said 'yes'? I mean, it's like I told you, the sex was really, really good. Absolutely mind-blowing, actually - to the point where I was almost wondering how he learned how to do all of that. Part of me would really like to do that again. I know that's the way some promised guardians operate, too - just encounters with no attachments. If I'm right that Dimitri only wants me for my body, that might fit the bill. I want my heart to be a part of things, though. I'm not sure if I could do that, to just have the sex with nothing else. Especially with Adrian around."

"Put some thought into it," she said, "no need to make any decisions right now without thinking it through. It could be really awkward if the three of us are all together at court, though. Do you know if Dimitri cancelled his request for staying on at the academy? Or if he requested a different assignment at court?"

"I don't know. I'll try to find a way to ask about that when I have our training after dinner. What do you think the orange or pink in his aura is?" I asked.

"No idea," she said, shrugging, "What about Adrian? What are you feeling about him?"

"I don't really know that, either. He has been so good to me lately. Even Dimitri said that he thought Adrian was starting to care for me. I think, maybe, I'm starting to have some feelings for him, and I'm sure he wants to date me. Tatiana wanting to keep us apart complicates things, though. I don't know what'd happen if we started dating and she found out. Adrian had asked me this morning if I would go out with him on my birthday. He said he thought he could convince someone to let us go off-campus. I'm guessing that meant he'd be using more compulsion to do it, though."

"Rose, there's a couple of other things you should know about Adrian. When I was looking at his aura and he was talking about the colors, it changed when he was mentioned pink. It could've been for the right reasons, but I think he might've been hiding something. But also, I saw a lot of darkness around Adrian - much more than I did with you. Maybe too much. He has been wielding a lot of spirit and he seems a little unstable, like maybe he's at a tipping point. Even as he was saying goodbye to you, his aura seemed to gather more darkness in it. I also saw dark green - jealousy - on two people: Christian when he was looking at Adrian - which we sort of knew - and Adrian when he was looking at Dimitri with you. If he's at that tipping point, don't give him a reason to think he has a chance with you if you're not sure about it. You deserve to be happy, but you also don't want to set him over the edge by any relationship choices you make. He might do something we'd all regret."

-=o0&0o=-

Author's Notes:

I know it's hard to see what's happening with Adrian and Rose right now - and it will get worse before it gets better - but I promise that there's plenty more Rose/Dimitri romance in store for the future of this story (including seven more times when there's some fun mature Romitri content). If you've been reading this often (or trying to), I might suggest adding to your library so that you can see whenever I happen to post another update. I'm trying to post at least one new chapter every day, but real life gets in the way of storytime sometimes. If at all possible, I will do my best to get Rose out of this compulsion mess for you as quickly as possible.

I've also been trying to do a fair bit of reading of other people's stuff, so if you have something you've been writing or reading that's good (V.A. or not, but I do tend to gravitate towards the more mature content), let me know in a comment and I'll be glad to give it a look! I've gotten through quite a few and have several more on the list. 

Here's my question of the week: What fictional character do you think you are most like?

For me, I'd love it if I could say I was like someone brave or strong or wise, but life doesn't always work out like we plan. I think my personality is most like Cookie Lyon on Fox's show Empire. I charge in and say or do stupid things I shouldn't, without knowing the full consequences of what I am about to say or do (often to my own detriment), but I love my family and try to put them first, no matter what, even if it doesn't always seem to benefit them.