kept wanting to get one of the Moroi men alone, away from the watchful eyes of his guardians so that I could question him. But it was impossible.
The guardians never left their Moroi unattended. I even attempted to follow them, but each time the group left the club, they'd almost immediately hop into a limousine-making it impossible for me to track them on foot. It was frustrating.
I finally decided tonight that I'd have to approach the whole group and risk detection by the dhampirs. I didn't know if anyone from back home was actually looking for me, or if the group would even care who I was. Maybe I just had too high an opinion of myself. It was definitely possible that no one was actually concerned about a runaway dropout. But if anyone was looking for me, my description had undoubtedly been circulated amongst guardians worldwide. Even though I was now eighteen, I wouldn't have put it past some of the people I knew to haul me back to the U.S., and there was no way I could return until I'd found Dimitri.
Then, just as I was considering my move on the group of Moroi, one of the dhampir women left the table to walk up to the bar. The guardians watched her, of course, but seemed confident about her safety and were more fixated on the Moroi. All this time, I'd been thinking Moroi men would be the best way to go to get information about a village of dhampirs and blood whores-but what better way to locate this place than by asking an actual blood whore?
I strolled casually from my table and approached the bar, like I too was going to get a drink. I stood by as the woman waited for the bartender and studied her in my periphery. She was blond and wore a long dress covered in silver sequins. I couldn't decide if it made my black satin sheath dress appear tasteful or boring. All of her movements-even the way she stood-were graceful, like a dancer's. The bartender was helping others, and I knew it was now or never. I leaned toward her.
"Do you speak English?"
She jumped in surprise and looked over at me. She was older than I'd expected, her age cleverly concealed by makeup. Her blue eyes assessed me quickly, recognizing me as a dhampir. "Yes," she said warily. Even the one word carried a thick accent.
"I'm looking for a town... a town where lots of dhampirs live, out in Siberia. Do you know what I'm talking about? I need to find it."
Again she studied me, and I couldn't read her expression. She might as well have been a guardian for all that her face revealed. Maybe she'd trained at one time in her life.
"Don't," she said bluntly. "Let it go." She turned away, her gaze back on the bartender as he made someone a blue cocktail adorned with cherries.
I touched her arm. "I have to find it. There's a man..." I choked on the word. So much for my cool interrogation. Just thinking about Dimitri made my heart stick in my throat. How could I even explain it to this woman? That I was following a long-shot clue, seeking out the man I loved most in the world-a man who had been turned into a Strigoi and who I now needed to kill? Even now, I could perfectly picture the warmth of his brown eyes and the way his hands used to touch me. How could I do what I had crossed an ocean to do?
Focus, Rose. Focus.
The dhampir woman looked back at me. "He's not worth it," she said, mistaking my meaning. No doubt she thought I was a lovesick girl, chasing some boyfriend-which, I supposed, I kind of was. "You're too young... it's not too late for you to avoid all that." Her face might have been impassive, but there was sadness in her voice. "Go do something else with your life. Stay away from that place."
"You know where it is!" I exclaimed, too worked up to explain that I wasn't going there to be a blood whore. "Please-you have to tell me. I have to get there!"
"Is there a problem?"
Both she and I turned and looked into the fierce face of one of the guardians. Damn. The dhampir woman might not be their top priority, but they would have noticed someone harassing her. The guardian was only a little older than me, and I gave him a sweet