Chapter One: How it all began
"Rose!" Lilliths voice snapped me right back into reality. "Let's go, Rose, it's getting dark."
I looked outside, she was right, the sun was about to set.
"Yeah," I said, "It's time."
Stupid! I shouldn't get myself distracted so close to night time, but I hadn't been able to help myself. I'd just gotten of the phone with Dimitri and I just missed him like crazy! He'd been worried (as always) but I'd heard another tone in his voice, a tone filled with desire and longing. It'd been 3 months since I last saw him, Lissa and the gang. 3 months, but it might as well have been 3 years, if not longer! Even though I got a big part of my family with me, I couldn't help but wishing for the other part to be here as well.
About 2 years ago, I'd caught sign of Strigoi teaming up to kill our queen and the Royal Council. They saw it as the perfect way to create fear within our society, murdering the queen and royals, with the best wards and guardians was the best way of receiving that 'respect' and fear (in their eyes at least… but, well, you gotta give it to them. It's not a bad evil-masterplan.) When I'd informed the queen of this, she had totally lost it. She was scared to death and insisted on someone handling this case. And ya know… When you're the one bringing the mess up, you really shouldn't be surprised 'bout being the one to have to clean things up.
The queen had ordered me away from court, to Russia, where most of the Strigoi leaders had their hide-outs. But leaving court had also meant leaving Lissa and Dimitri. My lover and best friend/sister. They'd been devastated by my leaving, and they had insisted on tagging along, but there was no way Lissa, a royal moroi and last of her line, would be aloud on a dangerous mission like this. I convinced Dimitri to stay behind as well. Convincing him had been extremely hard, because I didn't just have to convince him, but myself too. There was no way, however that I'd let him come. He's an amazing fighter and a good partner on the road, but these were exactly the reasons why I needed him to stay at court. I knew no-one (well, except me of course) could protect Lissa as wel as Dimitri. Leaving her was one thing, leaving her unprotected? Not gonna happen. Not now, not ever. If she couldn't have the best (me) then she'd have the next-in-line: Dimitri. Even if it meant leaving the other part of my heart behind. This was a sacrifice I was willing to give for my sister.
I've also had a hard time leaving my brothers behind. Christian and Eddie had been about as fierce as Lissa and Dimitri about accompanying me, but just like the others, this trip was just too dangerous for them. The separation, however, didn't mean that we didn't keep touch. I called with at least one of them everyday and we tried to meet up as much as possible. Which of course wasn't a lot, but enough to keep the fire between Dimitri and me alive as well as the sisterly love for Lissa, Christian and Eddie.
They were also the only 4 people alive (well, if you don't count myself, my gang and the queen) who knew that I, Rose Hathaway, was the leader of the notorious hunting-gang.
You see, when I came to Russia, I faced my first major, pain-in-the-ass problem: I was up alone against an entire army of Strigoi. Sure, I was a great guardian, but after the Spokane-incident, there was just no way that I'd ever risk being reckless again.
I needed backup, so I travelled back to Novosibirsk, where I knocked on Tamara's door…
*flashback*
A blond girl I didn't recognise opened the door.
-"да?"
I reminded myself that I'd need to learn Russian. And fast. Not knowing the language of the land you'll be working and living in for God knows how long would be a total liability on my part. Presuming she hadn't asked me anything specific, I gave her a nod and asked her about Tamara.
-"Could I speak to Tamara, please?"
-"Okay," the girl answered in English, but with an extremely heavy accent.
Then she turned her head away from the door and yelled Tamara's name.
When Tamara entered the hall she looked at me wide-eyed.
I cringed mentally, remembering that they probably thought I was dead, but kept my guardian face in place and smiled a small smile.
-"Hey Tamara, long time no see."
She squealed and pulled me into a huge hug.
I laughed "I missed you too, Mara," I said, remembering my old nickname for her.
She seemed to remember this too and she giggled in delight as she draw me even closer to her.
Then she suddenly pulled back and looked at me with wondering, awestruck eyes.
-"You… No dead?"
Ahh, right, I forgot she didn't speak any English. That would definitely become a problem, seeing as how we needed to correspond perfectly while hunting down a Strigoi.
Not knowing how I could explain her anything, I just shook my head and asked: "Dennis?"
She nodded and guided me to the living room.
Dennis and Lev were sitting on the couch, watching TV, with another blond girl and another boy sitting next to them.
When I entered the room, I held my head right up and walked confident, because I knew that they would view that as a sign of strength and if I wanted them to follow me on this mission, I needed to win their respect again.
Not that you think I'd need to, judging from the looks on Dennis and Lev's faces when I came into view.
I smirked my trademark smirk and put my hands on my hips.
-"What? No welcome hug? I must say I liked Tamara's greeting a lot more."
That seemed to snap them out of their trance, because suddenly I was all but tackled to the floor.
-"Rose!" they yelled, and from there on, they started random rambling.
-"I don't believe it!"
-"We thought you were dead! Do you know how worried we have been?"
-"How could you disappear on us like that?"
-"What happened?"
-"GUYS!" I yelled and I gave them a stern look, but they could still see the joy in my eyes. "If you'd shut up for a minute, I would explain everything to you. Just one question at the time, please!"
-"Sorry Rose," said Dennis, "We just really missed you! You have no idea how worried we have been! Come here!" He pulled me into another bone-crushing hug.
-"He's right, Rose, don't bail on us like that again, okay?" said Lev. He had a serious expression on his face, along with a lot of relieve and happiness.
-"Rose?" said the guy on the couch. "As in Rose Hathaway?"
There was wonder and awe in his voice. What had these guys told him about me?
-"I've heard quite the stories about you."
I grinned at him. "All good, I hope? Otherwise I might be doing some asskicking tonight." I said with a playful grin at Dennis, Lev and Tamara.
The guys all laughed, along with the blond girl that had opened the door, Tamara and the other blond girl had apparently not understood a word of the conversation.
-"Now, not to be rude, but seeing as how you know who I am, care to tell me your names as well?"
-"I'm Victor, that's Lillith (he pointed to the blond haired girl on the couch) and that's Lena (the girl who'd opened the door). We've heard a lot about you, Rose. Oh, and Lillith doesn't speak any English so you'll just have to excuse her."
-"Yeah, I figured that one out already. Well then, what have you hea-"
I suddenly had this very strange feeling in my stomach, I felt nauseous, not the Strigoi-alarm-kind, but a very uncomfortable feeling. I turned to Dennis and I prayed I wouldn't get my thoughts confirmed.
-"Dennis, where's Arthur?" my voice was barely a whisper.
Dennis turned his head away from me and Tamara's eyes had started watering at the sound of Art's name, but it was Lev who answered me in with a grave voice.
-"Rose, a few weeks after you left. Well, we came past some Stigoi. 3 of them against the 4 of us. We did as you taught us to, Rose. We stuck together, I swear we did." He said, almost pleading as he saw a tear fall down my face.
-"I know you did, Lev. Please go on. I need to know." Despite the tear, my voice sounded eerily calm and collected, and he obeyed.
-"We stuck together and quickly took out one of them. She was young and unskilled, but then the other 2. Rose, they were so old and powerful and fast. We did as well as we could, but Art ignored our tactic. He ran out of our formation, straight to one of them and none of us were fast enough to give him support. He fell and in our rage we were able to stake the other two, but it was too late for Art. We buried him few days after in Baia, with his family."
-"You've done what you could, Lev," I said. I spoke almost automatically, my usual Hathaway-bravado forgotten.
I wouldn't let any harm come to the rest of them. From now on, they would be safe. They would never have to go through the pain of losing a friend again. The pain I'd endured 2 times now. I time with Mason and now Arthur. And that was without even counting the enormous pain I'd felt by losing Dimitri. In that moment I swore to myself that I would do everything in my power to train them, to be the best of the best, so that they could protect themselves properly.
-"If you'll still have me," I paused and I saw the hope on their faces. I took that as a yes.
-"Then I would be happy to hunt with you again. I'll train you to be the best of the best, because I promise to you now that I will do anything, anything in my power to protect you from the pain of losing a friend again."
Dennis translated what I'd said and now the faces of Tamara and Lillith showed the same hope, eagerness but mostly relief as the rest of them. They must've lived in bigger fear for their lives then I'd realised, but now, that would change. I was here and I planned on starting their training first thing in the morning. but first there was something else they should know…
"If you agree with me training and accompanying you guys…" I trailed of, raising my eyebrows and looking at them questioningly.
Again, Dennis translated for the 2 girls and both of them answered him something.
-"Tamara said that she'd be thrilled to have you back. She said she's missed you and would feel a lot safer if you'd be guiding us again." While he said this, Tamara smiled a huge, grateful smile at me and I didn't hesitate in answering it with a smile of my own.
-"Lillith said that she's heard a lot about you and would like to see you in action, proving your worthy of leadership. Only then she'll cast her vote." Lillith looked me straight in the eye while this was being translated and I looked back at her with no hesitation. She wanted me to prove myself capable of being a leader? Fine, why not start now. I spoke in a collect tone that held no emotion. "And I will prove myself worthy." then I gave her a nod and looked at the 2 other newbie's.
-"What do you say?" I asked. Still in that collect voice.
-"It would be my honour to fight alongside you Rose." This came from Victor and I gave him a half-smile.
-"thanks Victor. Lena?"
Lena looked at me and said with her heavy accent: "I've noticed the respect Tamara, Dennis and Lev have for you Rose. I know they could only regard you like that if you are a really amazing fighter. I also know that you would be a definite asset for our protection, but I don't know if I trust you to not just run of on them, on us again. How do I know you won't just leave us to our faith if you decide this isn't the right path for you after all?"
I kept my guardian-mask in place and thought about my answer. It was a fair question so I shouldn't hesitate about answering it, but I couldn't help but wanting to tell her to shut the hell up and move along to Dennis and Lev, because my answer involved telling them everything, and I mean everything about Dimitri.
Still… If we were supposed to be hunting the streets and solving the threats against the queen together, we needed to trust each other completely. That wouldn't happen if we didn't learn to respect and understand one another. And how could they ever understand me if they didn't know all that I'd been through. Besides, those actions are what made me become who I am today. So I decided to tell them.
I told them from mine and Dimitri's relationship, the attack at Saint-Vladimir's, Dimitri's turning, my hunting, my capture, everything till the day he was turned back into a dhampir.
I talked for a long time and somehow, we all ended up sitting on the couch with Tamara tearing up (Dennis translated while I talked) and understanding and a growing respect on the rest of the guy's faces.
When I was done I turned to Lena: "So now you know that I did not leave willingly. And definitely not intentionally without saying goodbye to everyone." While talking, my mask had disappeared (intentionally) because I wanted them to see the real me. I didn't want to hide anything from these guys.
-"Thanks for sharing this, Rose. It couldn't have been easy, but I appreciate the attempt to open up." Lena then smiled at me and I smiled a small, sad smile back. My mind still on Dimitri and how he's not with me right now. God, how I missed him!
I took a deep breath and turned to Dennis and Lev.
-"What about you guys?"
-"You've always been one of us, Rose, I'm just glad you're back." said Lev, while Dennis nodded and smiled at me.
-"One more thing, I plan on learning Russian, so while I train you, you'll have to return the favour by learning me this weird, illogical language of yours, kay?"
Lena grinned at me and said: "No problem, Rose, you'll be fluid in Russian before you even realise it."
"Good, because I plan on learning you to kick someone's ass before they even realise it before you even realise it." I grinned back.
Lena laughed and as we talked through the night, I told them the story about Mason and later on even my mission for the queen. I also learned the story of how Lily, Lena and Vic had joined the group. Apparently, they were also ex-students from St-Basils, but a year older then the rest of them. They were also drop-outs and had hunted alone for a while (also losing 2 friends of theirs) before bumping into Dennis, Tamara and Lev at Art's funeral. They'd joined them for a ride to Novosibirsk and hadn't separated since.
*End of Flashback*
From then on, I trained them everyday as hard as I could. They didn't like it in the beginning, saying that they were dying from pain, but eventually (after a lot of threatening from my part) they shut up and their muscles loosened up. They picked things up quite easily and after about a month of intense training, we started hunting at night, training 3 hours a day and chilling for the rest of the day.
It was a routine we and the more time we spend together, the more we began to regard each other as a true family. They regarded me as their leader, mainly because I was still the best fighter, (I trained an extra hour each day so I could find some new tricks. I looked at it as a personal challenge.) but also because I leaded the investigation on the Strigoi-leaders.
When we'd cornered a Strigoi, we would try to find out who he worked for, where that leader lived etc, using that tactic, we'd been able to track down 13 mansions so far. Using our amazing fighting techniques to clear those mansions out had provided us with fame.
Strigoi, Moroi and Dhampir all knew there was a hunting-group on the move. Strigoi feared them and Moroi and Dhampirs worshiped them, though they had absolutely no idea who exactly was in that group.
The only thing they knew was that the leader was a girl and the rest of the group existed of 3 other girls and 3 boys. All of them were total badasses.
The girls always dressed in a black tank top, black skinny jeans and a leather jacket, the boys the same but with a black t-shirt and the leader also with black skinny jeans and a leather jacket, but she didn't wear a tank top, she wore a black sports bra. The ones who saw her would immediately think:
'Wow!' with her long, dark brown hair, sometimes loose down to her but, sometimes pulled up in a messy bun and her well-trained, strong body with beautiful curves she sure was something to look at. However, the ones who saw her usually didn't live long enough to tell another soul about her beauty.
The only reason they knew the number of members from the group and their looks was because a couple of guardians broke into the Alchemist's records and hacked into some surveillance cameras. That was the first time they saw the group in action, though they weren't able to recognise any faces on the tape. almost like as if the group knew where the cameras would be. (which they probably did).
Only Dimitri Belikov, Vasilisa Dragomir, Queen Tatiana, Eddie Castile and Christian Ozera know the identity of these hunters. They have gotten to know the group as well, because whenever Rose met up with her beloved ones, her new family would accompany her.
They never let a family member travel alone, because they were so much stronger together then alone. And with every Strigoi 'alive' searching and longing to kill them, there really was no way that they would leave each others sight. As promised, the gang taught Rose how to speak Russian and now she was just as fluid in Russian as she was in French and Turkish. (Lissa had felt jealous that the others had another language to talk with Rose in private, so they had decided to get a language for their own: French. They spoke in French whenever they had to say something to each other that the others didn't need to know. Rose also spoke to Lissa in French when they were having a secret conversation: Lissa spoke to Rose through the bond and Rose would answer her aloud in French. That way no one knew what they were saying, which they both preferred. Rose also figured that since she was half-Turkish, she might as well learn her fathers language.).
-"Rose!" called Lilliths "Let's go, Rose, it's getting dark."
I looked outside "Yeah, it's time." I got up and got changed into my normal hunting outfit (sportsbra, skinny and leather jacket) and grabbed my weapons.
We all had a gun with silver bullets, a stake and some silver handcuffs (all sponsored by the queen).
-"Lets go kick some butt, sis!" I said with a smirk.
Lillith laughed and walked with Rose to the others before they all disappeared into the night.