Rose POV

I woke up to a sudden burst of cold and in an instant i was sitting up and alert, my eyes scanning the bedroom for immediate danger. Within a couple of seconds, coherent thoughts had managed to assemble in my brain and I realised what had happened. With a sigh, I looked over to Dimitri, I bet everyone assumes he's too perfect to be a doona hog i thought dryly. It was moments like these that brought me a great amount of pleasure, these fleeting moments where he looked completely peaceful, and the most vulnerable with his hands gripping the red silk doona and stray bits of hair falling across his face. These were the moments that i knew only I witnessed, and no one could even come close to imagining.

Dimitri's lips turned up into a smile and after a couple of seconds he opened his eyes. Out of all the different Dimitri's i'd seen him be, serious, angry, distraught, lustful, sleepy Dimitri was probably my favourite. He sat up and wrapped his beautiful- and often dangerous- arms around me from behind, sending pleasant shivers across my spine. I felt him press a soft kiss on my shoulder blade and another more insistent kiss on my neck, his arms around me tightened and I knew that i would be more than happy to stay like that all day.
Shifting my body around to face him, I placed a quick kiss on his lips and smiled at soft look of disappointment in his eyes.

"When did I become the reasonable one?" I sighed, "Don't tempt me, we have to meet Lissa and Christian this morning remember?"

"Don't you worry kitten, I remember." he said with a groan. Before he could tempt me more, i wiggled out of his grip and stepped out of bed. Being a guardian of the queen really did have it's perks. This room, well, my room when we were at court, was lavish, i'd toned it down a bit when i first moved in, (seriously, who needs that many cushions?) and now it was simple, but still sending off expensive vibes. Lissa was on break from Lehigh at the moment, so it'd had gone from small, but still very comfortable, dorm room to luscious suite. Of course, having a gorgeous Russian man in my bed added to the appeal.

Dimitri was looking at me with lust as i crossed the room, I was wearing a maroon tshirt of his that only fell to the top of my thighs. I quickly showered and went on a search for my hairbrush to tame the wild, dark mane that was on my head. Dimitri showerd and I dressed in my guardian uniform, suprisingly flattering black trousers and a fitted white blouse. He left the bathroom just as i was twisting my long hair into a tight bun. Dimitri stopped in his tracks and looked at me with wonder. Raising my eyebrow, i cleared my throat.

"I will never, ever for as long as I live, get tired seeing you in those clothes" he sighed.

"Well considering I have to wear them for the rest of my life, I would hope not"

"Honestly Roza, seeing you in your guardian clothes reminds me of everything you have overcome and how far you've come, and all the things we've been through together just to get to this point."
He took my hand and pressed it between his and we stood there, not speaking but appreaciating. Dimitri was right, we had gone through a lot together, and we had come a long way. It had only been six months since i got shot exposing Tasha Ozera as Tatiana's murderer, and already life had moved on. It had been rocky at first, with Lissa becoming queen and validating Jill's DNA and the evidence against Tasha, but vampires were efficient, and the sooner everything was taken care of, the better. Of course there were still angry mutterings about the whole situation but the important people could see that it was time for change.

"Come on, we'd better go" Dimitri said as he pulled me gently towards the door. We walked down the many hallways of the court, breathing in the familiar musky scent always present wherever you were in the place. Dimitri got nods from passing guardians and I was noticing that I was surprisingly getting nods too. I had come a long way.

We entered a common room that our circle of friends often used to hang out and saw Lissa and Christian sitting together in the couch laughing at something Lissa had said. I could tell without the bond that Lissa was truly happy, and it made my heart swell thinking about the happiness we had both found. Did we still argue? Yes. Did we still have crazy amounts of stressful things to handle? You betcha. But we had both become stronger as people and were more equal than we ever had been. Both Lissa and Christian had become quite good friends with Dimitri since he was assigned to Christian, and I was glad. I knew that, knowing us, our troubles definitely weren't over and we'd still have a lot to overcome in the future, but looking around the room at the people I loved, I knew we could handle whatever was thrown at us.