A/N— How this story came to be: My role play partner and I wanted to do a crossover verse, placing Rose and Dimitri in the Bitten universe (from Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Underworld series), but the problem was we weren't sure how to free them of the things that bound them to life at court. Rose would never willingly leave Lissa—and Dimitri would feel the same way about Christian, so we had to find a plausible occurrence that would free them of their duty without bending the characters personalities or breaking with book canon. I thought about it a bit and realized the answer was a simple one—if Lissa lost her mind, then I could manipulate things in a way so that Romitri would be free. 13,196 words later, this back story was finished. I've broken it up into individual chapters for those who don't like reading long pieces in one fell swoop.
Warning: it is unedited because I generally double the length during my editing process, and by the time I was finished I was mentally exhausted from having a panicked Rose Hathaway staking my brain. ;o)
It had been over six months since the last time my best friend recognized me. For all intents and purposes, Vasilisa Dragomir, the much loved and revered Queen of Moroi society… was gone. I didn't want to face it—I stubbornly refused to accept the truth, even when it was staring me in the face with unfocused green eyes and an expression of insanity replacing the sweet, serene smile that she normally used to wear. She'd pushed herself too hard, determined to do her best for her people, and as a result, my best friend had completely lost her mind.
I hadn't been able to help her; without telling anyone she'd gone off her meds—again—and had been using Spirit behind our backs. If I'd known… I would have found a way to stop her. I would have begged and screamed and done whatever it took to make her face the truth; without the bond between us it was just too dangerous for her to use her element. I thought she understood that… I really believed that she had finally accepted it.
I'd never been more wrong in my life, and that single mistake cost me two of my best friends—I lost them both in one fell fucking swoop.
I was almost asleep when my phone rang—we'd delivered Liss and Christian to their room a few hours before and were off duty for the night, leaving them in the care of the two members of the Royal Guard who were stationed outside the door. I've replayed that night over again and again in my head, trying to unearth some small, subtle clue that Lissa might have given indicating that she was feeling… off… but the answer always remains the same. There was none. She'd been happy and giggling, excited at the prospect of visiting Jill; nothing about her had seemed unusual at all. But it had to have been. It had to have been there all along, lurking beneath the surface like a shark beneath the waves, waiting for her to be alone so it could finally break free—and I'd missed it entirely.
If it hadn't been for the caller ID, I wouldn't have known it was Christian on the other end of the phone; his voice was weak and…almost broken, telling me I needed to come immediately, but not to raise the alarm. I didn't realize it at the time, but he was trying to protect her, even after the things she had done to the Royal guard—and to him. I thought that maybe they'd had a fight and he wanted me there to act as a buffer, or that Lissa was feeling depressed and needed me there to offer support. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I'd find the room drenched in blood, with two members of the Royal Guard lying dead and mutilated just inside the door, or that Christian would be crumpled and broken, surrounded by a ring of fire that was growing weaker with each second that passed. It was his last ditch attempt to protect himself from the woman he loved; she was pacing around it's perimeter with a look of hatred in her eyes. As soon as we entered she attacked, lunging at me with the stake she'd taken off one of the guards. While Dimitri tended Christian, I did my best to distract her, trying not to hurt her as I disarmed her and wrestled her to the ground.
He'd thought I'd be able to bring her back—but I couldn't. She didn't listen to a word I said, too busy screaming out hurtful, hateful things at me—in an attempt, I suppose, to catch me off guard so she could wiggle free. I could hear Christian whispering to Dimitri but there was no way I could focus long enough to catch what he was saying; keeping Lissa pinned was harder than I'd ever imagined it could be; she had the strength of a wild animal, and in a way, I suppose that's exactly what she was. She was completely lost inside her madness, with one solitary thought on her mind—to fight her way free and finish what she'd started before Dimitri and I had walked in.
I'd learn later what had passed between the two men—Christian had told Dimitri what happened, hoping we could use it to fabricate a lie convincing enough to cover for Lissa and keep the scandal at bay. He'd been asleep when it started, but the Guards screams had alerted him. Liss had unleashed the full force of Spirit on them, just like she'd done to Jesse and the others back at Saint Vlad's. While they were screaming and clawing at their eyes, she'd latched onto a stake, stabbing them over and over again, laughing gleefully all the while. He'd tried to stop her, I guess thinking he was safe, but Lissa had turned and attacked him too. Free of her compulsion, he was able to fight back; she'd tried to go for a killing blow, but he'd been too quick for her, the blow deflecting off his sternum instead of piercing her heart. The fire had managed to keep her at bay long enough for us to get there; even in the grip of madness, she'd retained enough sense not to harm herself… at first.
Dimitri's eyes locked with mine and a sharp pain lanced through my heart; in that moment, I knew exactly what he was thinking, and from the torn expression on his face, I could tell that the realization of what we had to do was destroying him just as much as it did me. Christian needed medical help, and he had to have it soon; there was no way we could keep what had happened here a secret, no matter how much we might want to. The Queen had slaughtered two Royal Guards and almost killed her consort. Even as I nodded my head to show him I understood, my heart was shattering in a million tiny pieces, because I'd failed her. I should have been there to stop this—if I had been maybe I could have pulled her back before the Darkness gained so much strength. This was the one thing she'd truly feared—the thing I'd promised her I'd never let happen—and I hadn't been here to help her when she needed me the most.
We didn't expect Lissa to attack Christian again—I mean, I had her fucking pinned, and she seemed to be calming down, but we underestimated her—or rather, underestimated what she'd become. Christian was still in her line of vision, and all it took was one worried glance in her direction for Lissa to capture him with her gaze. I don't know for sure what she showed him, but if I had to hazard a guess I probably could; from past experience she'd shown our fellow students their worst fears—and judging by the way Christian screamed for his parents—and the way he acted after the fact—it's a pretty safe bet that she did the same thing to him too. Even after I managed to turn her head aside, he still continued to scream out in terror, so I knew she was still wreaking havoc with his head, even though the gaze had been broken. I had to stop her from hurting him, and there was only one thing I could do—though it went against everything inside me to do it. As her head smashed against the marble floor and she went limp, something inside me broke. In that moment I knew there was no going back, and that no matter what happened, things would never, ever be the same again.