Chapter 1
Dimitri was resting in bed, on the brink of sleep. He rolled over to look at Tasha, his long time friend. He had grown up with Tasha, so it was only natural that they would be together. As he was starting to fall into the darkness of sleep, he was thinking of a very different person.

It had been a little over three years since he had walked away from his old life at St. Vladimir's Academy. He could barely remember some of the things that happened while there. Sometime, while sitting up at night, he could recall some things he used to do with the Princess and Rose, his Roza. He was startled from sleep by the sound of the landline ringing down stairs.

He had a fleeting thought to let it go to voicemail when it stopped ringing. He rolled onto his other side, wide awake. Something wasn't right. The phone started to ring again. He looked at the alarm clock, it read 2:38 AM. He finally got up, mostly because he didn't want to hear Tasha's drama of being woken up so early. He made it out of the room without her even flinching.

Dimitri tried to be as quiet as possible as he ran down the hall to the stairs. He came out at the front door and had to look around the living room and dining room before finding it in the kitchen. The phone stopped ringing as he went to grab it off the counter. He made a sigh of relief, and went to put the phone back onto the counter. He was almost out of the kitchen when it started to ring again, he turned around and felt his gut lurch put answered the phone.

"Beliekov residence," Dimiri said, stiffing a small yawn. He and Tasha had never married, he did not feel that attachment to her. She also pressured him to start a family, marriage didn't seem to matter to her.

There was a quiet noise on the other end, maybe crying. " He hit me,"

"Who is this?" Dimitri hissed into the phone, his stomach tying into knots again; wide awake.

"Please, help me, he is trying to find me," the woman sobbed out, trying to pull in a pull lung of air. "I told him no again, and he is trying to kill me. You are the only person I thought to call. Please."

"Roza, is that you?" Dimitri spoke calmly, comfortingly.

"You little slut," Dimitri heard from the other end. There was a squeal as if someone was being picked up by their hair. Dimitri heard some commotion on the other end, and some more painful sobbing.

Dimitri felt panic slowly over taking his thoughts. He should be there if it was actually Roza, but he was not sure. He listened closely, trying to hear any hints as to who was sobbing.

"Please. Help," Dimitri was able to make out, then at the end he heard, "Comrade."

With the last word, the phone cut out. Dimitri was on the move before he could put his thoughts in order. He was up the stairs and turning on the bedroom light; knowing that Tasha was going to wake up. He went straight over to the closet and pulled down a small duffel bag and started shoving everything he could think of in his panicked state into it.

"Dimitri, what's wrong?," came a voice behind him, he had not noticed that Tasha had left the bed and was standing behind him.

"Hey, I need to leave. Something came up," Dimitri said, looking around in the closet for his duster.

"Just come back to bed, Dimitri, we can figure everything out in the morning," Tasha purred, rubbing his upper back suggestively. He pulled back with his duster and walked around her, making sure not to touch her.

"No, Tasha, I will not wait until morning. You will have made sure I don't remember," He said in response, feeling his temper rising.

Tasha tried again, lacing her words with the faintest amounts of compulsion. Dimitri F aught it off easily enough after remembering the sounds of Roza struggling. Dimitri pulled Tasha to himself and knocked her out as nicely as possible. He picked her sagging body and carried her back over to the bed. He made sure to throw the covers back over her after checking for a pulse.

He changed into clean clothes then he grabbed his duster and pulled it on in one fluid motion. Grabbed his duffel bag and stake from the dresser and walked out of the bedroom. He locked the front door and pulled his house key off the key ring and slid it under the door. He turned on his heel and took the car that they both shared and headed towards the airport.

After they left the Academy, they moved to Portland Oregon. Tasha did not know that was the city that he had located Rose and the Princess. Dimitri found a parking stop in the long term parade and went inside.

After he had walked into the airport and bought a ticket, two hours out. He sat down and made a phone call. The first one on his list was Lissa. He dialed her number and sent a silent prayer that she had not gotten a new phone number, luck was on his side though.

"Hello, this is Lissa," Said a sleepy voice from the other end of the line, then the sound of a baby crying. " Christian, Andre woke up."

"Princess, where is Rose?" Dimitri hurriedly asked, feeling like his life depended on her response.

"Who-" Lissa started. "Dimitri, what's wrong?"

Dimitri just let the line be silent for a bit. "I need to find Roza now."

It sounded like Lissa was being handed the baby, "Her and Adrian and living right outside of court. Why?"

"I'll see you later," and he hung up the phone.

Dimitri paced until he was asked to have a seat by a security guard about an hour before the plane took off. He sat down in the corner with a book so no one would talk to him. As soon as the flight was called, he was up and at the Terminal waiting.

When he was seated, a stewardess came over to him and started to flirt quietly with his. She bent forward a number of times to show off her cleavage. After a while of him only asking for water and ignoring her advances, she walked away.

One of the stewardesses walked him to his seat, all the while checking him out. He sat down and got confortable. She treid to stick around to flirt with him, he did not pay any attention to her, she turned away. As the plane started to move, she came back over and gave one more attempt at flirting.

When the plane was up in the air, he rested his seat back and pulled out his wallet. Behind pictures of his family and Tasha, there was one of him and Rose. It was not really a nice picture of them together. It was the day of the tattooing, Rose had walked off the stage. Lissa had snapped a picture of them sitting next to each other, talking. He fell into a restless sleep, until he was woken up by the same Stewardess.

"Hey Sir, we are about to land. You need to put your seat up." She mumbled, tapping his shoulder.

As he relaxed into his seat, he felt a small churning of his gut. He was recalling how he had woken up in a new life without Rose. Tasha convinced him that he had just left her, she said that Rose had also accepted the fact that he had decided to leave.

As soon as the plane was one of the first off. He did not want to wait around for anyone to stop or prevent him from leaving. He went over to the rental area, and made an inquiry about a vehicle.

"Excuse me, Ma'am," Dimitri called out to an older woman with red hair and blue eyes. She smiled kindly. "Is there a rental car I can use?"

"Umm. . . hang on one minute," She said, typing into a computer. "Yes, only one. It has a scratch on the side, but that's all."

"I'll take it," Dimitri said, running his hand through his hair nervously, pulling in a deep breath. "How fast can I get it?"