I was nestled nicely into my bed prepared to do nothing today. It was my first day off in a few weeks that I actually got to enjoy, I had been traveling with my best friend, Valissa Dragomir. Over that time my days off all landed on the days we were traveling. Lissa had felt horrible but I reminded her of the Guardians mantra 'They come first.' She argued back that even though they were my days off, I didn't treat them as such because I still acted as her shadow. "You still seem like you're near guard, you don't relax. I swear I think you've forgotten how to relax. I told you if you want to take a weekend off to spend time with Dimitri back at court then do it! I have more than enough guards." I heard that speech so many times while we were gone.

My boyfriend, Dimitri Belikov, was assigned to Lissa's boyfriend Christian Orzera, it seemed like a pretty good deal at first. Dimitri and I would be able to work together and still see each other outside of work, but it was times like this when Christan was needed at court and couldn't get away to travel with us. He had tried to send Dimitri with us as another guard for Lissa for my sake, but he argued that if he was Lissa's guardian again then we would always be trading shifts and would never actually get to spend time with each other, so there was no point. "Besides doesn't absence make the heart grow fonder?" He said with a half smile and a glint in his eye that I'm pretty sure meant 'just think how great the sex will be when you get back.' No matter how much that thought excited me I couldn't help but think about another time when we were apart again not by choice. I knew he saw it on my face and his expression faltered a little. A few weeks before my 18th birthday our school was attacked by the most evil creatures of vampire races.

You see there are three kinds of vampire races in my world. There are Mori which are vampires like any others that you would hear of except they aren't pure evil, well most of them, they drink blood, sleep during the day except the sunlight doesn't cause them to burn it is simply irritating and weakens them, Mori also have magic. All Mori have basic control of the four elements Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. Most Mori specialize in one element Lissa's boyfriend, Christan specialized in fire, and other friends of ours specialized in water. Lissa and Adrian, my ex-boyfriend, specialized in Spirit, a new element that until recently hadn't been widely known, and until recently those who specialized in Spirit were told that they never specialized and probably never would. Not specializing was a sign of weakness in the Mori community. In the past the Mori used to share their gifts with the Human world, lending a hand whenever needed but as time went on the Mori started to hide their gifts from the Humans and now the Mori stay completely hidden from the humans world. Back when the Mori helped the humans they also had relationships with them which resulted in my kind, Dhampirs. Dhampirs are the perfect mix of Vampire and Human DNA. Mori are usually super model slim, very pale, and would stick out among human whereas Dhampirs look much more like humans and can blend in easily with humans. Plus we don't have to worry about hiding those annoying fangs. Dhampirs are strong too, stronger than Mori, which makes us the perfect bodyguards. And that's exactly what we're bred and trained to be. In our world we're called guardians.

But there is one kind of vampire race that are literally Pure evil. They're called Strigoi and they are seriously the walking dead, and no I don't mean the Zombies from the show The Walking Dead, I literally mean dead men walking. There are two ways to become Strigoi, for Mori if you willingly drain a human or Dhampir then you instantly become Strigoi. For a Dhampire to become a Strigoi willingly or not you have to be drained of blood and die and then fed blood to 'awaken' this also can be done on Mori but it was rare. That's what happened to Dimitri though, he was taken during the rescue mission after the battle at St. Vlad's and was turned Strigoi.

I spent weeks after that traveling all over Russia hunting Dimitri down. I had dropped out of school and pretty much given up any chance I would ever have to be Lissa's guardian after we graduated. Hell I had given up even graduating and getting my promise mark. There was no way even if I accomplished my mission that I could even get a desk job at court. It was necessary though. After being back at the academy for a while Dimitri had convinced the Headmistress to let me go on a shopping trip with Lissa, her cousin Natalie, and Natalie's dad Victor Dashkov, as a 'training exercise' of sorts. During the drive Dimitri talked about if he ever turned into a Strigoi that he would want someone to kill him. So when I found out what happened, that's what I had set out to do.

I thought I had killed him in Russia only to find out that when I got back to St. Vlad's that he was still alive, and he was still Strigoi. I had learned while still in Russia that there was a possible way to return Strigoi to they're natural state using Spirit. Lissa had promised me after we graduated that we would find the Spirit user who had supposedly done this and would try to save Dimitri. Which we did, although it involved some pretty illegal stuff. Like breaking Victor Dashkov out of the very prison we had worked so hard to send him to after he kidnapped Lissa, almost killed Christian, and placed a lust charm on me and Dimitri. The lust charm, in the end, did more good than harm as it brought to light Dimitri and I's feelings for each other.

Once he was restored to his Dhampir state he had refused to see me, telling me 'love fades, mine has', I figured out pretty quickly though that it wasn't that his love for me had faded, it was his guilt of what he did to me when he was Strigoi. I had just started to make progress with him when I was arrested for high treason, for murdering Queen Tatiana. I didn't do it of course but who did, did a Really good job of framing me. It had been well known that I didn't like the Queen and that she didn't like me. The day before she was murdered I had charged into a Royal council meeting and said some pretty nasty things, to make things worse as I was being dragged out I called her a sanctimonious bitch. I know not my best moment but it had made me feel better. It was only too easy after that point for person who did murder the Queen to frame me. They had gone as far as stealing my stake from my room to use as the murder weapon. It didn't look good for me from an evidence standpoint so to give me more time my friends and Dad, Abe Mazur a 'mobster' of sorts, broke me out of prison and sent me on the run with Dimitri and my alchemist friend Sydney Sage.

They had originally brought me to boring small towns until we discovered that there was another Dragomir child. The illegitimate child of Lissa's Dad, Eric Dragomir, but another Dragomir none the less. Finding this person meant that Lissa could get her Quorum and take her rightful place on the Royal council. So that's what we set out to do. While we searched for the Dragomir child, I had convinced Adrian to nominate Lissa for Queen. It had to be kept secret from Lissa until the nomination so she wouldn't have time to say no. Sure enough she accepted the nomination calmly and coolly, that is until behind closed doors. She had been furious with Tasha, Christian, and Adrian, as they were the ones that nominated her, but she went on with the tests anyway.

It wasn't our intention to actually get her elected as Queen, we actually didn't think she would win. While Lissa was participating in the tests to run for Queen the rest of my friends and family worked to solve the late Queens murder and prove me innocent, and that's just what they did. Well they tried to, I had uncovered the last piece of evidence from another alchemist, a description of someone trying to obtain alchemist records. What I didn't expect, was that the description matched someone completely different from who I had thought was the murderer. It was Tasha Orzera. She had pretty much given herself up too when I showed up and revealed the truth. She held Mia at gun point trying to use her as an escape but when Mia broke free Tasha had fired a few shots and would have hit Lissa, had I not been using the bond to know what she was thinking. I jumped in front of her taking a bullet in the chest. Getting shot is not a fun thing, and you would think Lissa could just heal me and there would be no problem right? Wrong. Because of the crazy stunt Tasha had pulled, court went into lock down and I was taken off to surgery.

I had nearly died but managed to come back without the help of spirit, which in turn broke the bond I had with Lissa. I still had some of my shadow kissed powers though, I had found that out the first time we had traveled out of the wards, because the bond was gone I figured the rest of my shadow kissed side effects were gone too so I wasn't really prepared for the mob of ghosts that hit we the second we left the wards. I immediately put my mental shields back up and started to wonder if I could still sense Strigoi. That question was answered when Lissa and I were in New York for a weekend.

Flashback

It was my day off and thankfully we weren't traveling. I decided to walk around the city by myself and find a gift to bring back to Dimitri. I had gotten a little turned around and ended up in some alley when that prickling nausea came over me. I had little time to react before I was jumped by two Strigoi. After everything I had been through in the past year, two Strigoi were nothing to me. I took them down effortlessly, thanking my paranoid mindset to always have my stake on me. I picked up the shopping bags and my purse that I had dropped, and pulled out my phone to call the only alchemist's number I had.

"Where are the bodies?" She said sounding some what irritated.

"How about a 'Hey Rose. Hows it going?' Why do you always think I'm calling about cleaning up bodies?"

"Rose..." She said my name in a way that seemed to explain everything about me.

"Okay you're right, but you're the only alchemist whose number I actually have/enjoy talking to."

"You lost the number to headquarters didn't you?" She was talking about the business card that had the number to the alchemist's headquarters so I could just call them and they could send out a team instead of bugging Sydney all the time.

"No...I just forgot to program it into my phone and I don't have it on me at the moment." I so totally lost it.

"Rose...Just tell me where they are."

"Okay." I gave her a location and she told me that there would be someone there in a few minutes to take care of it.

"Oh and Rose?" She said before hanging up.

"Yes?"

"I'm e-mailing you the number for headquarters, put it in your phone this time!"

"You got it General." I said calling her a nickname Dimitri and I had given her while we were on the run.

"Goodbye Rose"

"Later Syd"

When I got back to the hotel Lissa and I were staying in I decided not to tell her about the Strigoi. This wasn't something she needed to worry about.

End Flashback

I had my laptop next to me on the bed queued up with the first season of Game Of Thrones. I was a little disappointed when I found out that Christian had to leave court this weekend which meant more time away from my Russian God. So I settled in for a day filled with 7 Kingdoms, White Walkers, and a Very spoiled prince. I had just finished the season and was about to start season two when someone knocked on my door. I groaned as I walked over to answer it. I was surprised when I opened the door to find my Dad standing there holding a garment bag. "What are you doing here Old Man? Aren't you supposed to be back in Russia?" I asked "I had some business to take care of here and I thought I would stop by once I was done." He replied not elaborating on what kind of 'business' it was. I was thankful, I had no wishes to know what Zmey really got up to. "Well I missed you Old man." I said hugging him. It still felt a little awkward to hug him. I had only met him almost a year ago, even then I didn't know he was my father until a few weeks later when I got back from my adventures in Russia. He hugged me back quickly placing a kiss on top of my head before pushing me back into my room. "I missed you too Kizim, now hurry up and get ready. We're going out to dinner, oh and wear this. There are shoes and jewelry in there too." I took the garment bag that he held out to me with hesitation. "Ummm, how about lunch tomorrow instead? This is my first real day and night off in a while and I really didn't want to do anything tonight."

"I can't to do lunch I leave early tomorrow morning." He said steering me into my bathroom. "I'm giving you twenty minutes." He said and shut the door. I stood there for a moment, a little stunned. Abe's behavior was odd but then again this Abe we're talking about. Everything about him was odd. I unzipped the garment bag to find one of the most beautiful dresses I had ever seen. It was floor length strapless with a train. The bodice was a sweetheart neckline and was covered in what I was sure was real rubies and diamonds and looked like a corset. The skirt flowed out smoothly and had a small slit on the leg but it only went up to the knee. Nothing like what Adrian had once mentioned he wanted to put me in. Also in the bag were ruby earrings, a thick bracelet encrusted with diamonds and rubies to match, the shoes were in a satin shoe bag with a note attached. I opened the note not surprised to see it was from Lissa.

Rose,

As a gift for the past few weeks here's a dress I had custom made for you. Yes I realized you wont be able to kick butt in it That's The Whole Point! You need to relax a little and no holing up in your room watching Game of Thrones does not count. Go out in public and have some fun!

Love,

Lissa

Ps. The bodice is a corset with a sown in bra so no need to worry about the girls falling out. ;)

Pps. I hope you enjoy the shoes. They are so you, you know before you went all boring on me. ;)

I shook my head recalling when we went on the shopping trip and I only purchased practical items. She called me boring but I knew I was just growing up. I pulled out the shoes and laughed to myself. They were definitely me before I got 'boring'. They were at least 5in and were sparkly red. I pulled my phone out from where I had stashed it in my sports bra and sent a quick text to Lissa thanking her for the gift. I started to hurry when I realized I only had 15 min left. I had put my hair up in a sock bun last night after I showered so when I took it out, it fell in perfect waves. I applied extra eyeliner than normal giving myself a slightly smokey look. I applied some blush then chose a killer red lipstick. I rarely wore makeup now-a-days but tonight seemed like a goodnight to try a little. I stepped into the dress thankful that the corset was a zippered one. I don't think I could ask Abe to lace it up for me, that would just be awkward. Once I had the dress on securely I slipped on the bracelet and shoes. I stuck the earrings in and finally looked in the floor length mirror. I looked HAWT, I don't mean to sound egotistical but Dayum.

I walked out to my living room where my father sat. His eyes widened in surprise. "Wow Rose you look beautiful. Come on lets go show you off to everyone else I want them to be jealous of how beautiful my daughter is." He smiled and stood. "Oh I almost forgot" He said and handed me a long rectangular box. I opened it and found a black clutch nestled in the tissue paper. The clasp on top also happened to be a ruby. I guess that was the theme tonight. "Dad...thank you, I love it." He smiled.

"I'm glad. It's also big enough to hold your phone along with your stake." I grinned slipping my phone in there as I walked back into my bed room to get my stake that I left in the bedside table. I re-emerged and smiled at him, "Ready to go?" I asked.

He nodded and held the door open for me, we took the elevator down because there was no way I was going to walk down stairs in 5in heels. We decided to walk to the restaurant because it was such a nice night out. When we got to the massive courtyard I was not prepared for what I saw. There in a horseshoe around the fountain was a large orchestra that started playing once the conductor saw us. I stood there in shock. They were playing my favorite song from swan lake, then from behind the orchestra out walked my Russian God. My eyes widened and I went to look at Abe but he must have retreated to somewhere else. Then I realized, all my damn friends had set me up. Those fuckers would get it later. Dimitri walked up to me dressed smartly in a suit, his hair pulled neatly into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. His brown eyes were glowing with happiness. When he reached me he took my hands in his and got down on one knee. My heart leaped to my throat and I felt tears brimming my eyes.

"Roza, We have been through so much together and apart. You saved me when I was lost and you helped me forgive myself for everything. Now I'm asking you to become my wife, my world, my life, to be the last thing I see when I go to sleep and the first thing I see when I wake up. Become my everything."

"You are my everything and I couldn't imagine any part of my life without you." I said smiling. He grinned and slipped the ring onto my finger. I pulled him up and crashed my lips to his. This kiss was nothing like we'd ever shared before, it made me feel whole. Like things were finally falling into place. We broke apart when I heard a squeal from behind me I turned to see Lissa rushing towards me with the rest of my friends and parents not far behind. Lissa attacked me in a hug squealing about how she was so excited and that she couldn't wait to help me plan the wedding. There was an exchange of hugs and handshakes for a few minutes before I finally spoke up. "So who's brilliant idea was it to tell me that my boyfriend wasn't going to be here this weekend?" They all got kind of quiet avoiding my gaze when Christian spoke up. "It was me. Lissa helped plan the whole thing but we all knew that you would try to spend your entire day locked in a room with him, especially after how long you guys have been apart. I blushed and glared at him at the same time. Sure that kind talk was fine any other time Not with my parents around. Dimitri coughed in surprise and tried really hard to avoid my dads gaze. I'm pretty sure they already knew we were having sex, but I doubt they wanted to hear about it. I sighed "Christian, while I'm slightly annoyed at you for lying to me, thank you. This was a very wonderful surprise."

"Well what do you say we go and get some dinner?" Lissa said "I had the royal chefs whip up and extra extravagant meal tonight."

"I'm in!" I said almost immediately. Everyone shook their heads at me. "What? I didn't really eat today I was too busy watching Game of Thrones." Lissa turned to Sonya and Mikhail looking smug. "I told you she'd be doing that all day. Pay up." She demanded holding out her hand. They both groaned put pulled out the money they owed her anyway. I shook my head at them and followed as we all moved to the Palace dining hall.

And I walked hand in hand with Dimitri I knew that anything else the world threw at us would be nothing compared to what it took us just to get here.