Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Academy or any of its characters. Just having a bit of fun with the characters. I own nothing but the plot and the new characters

Warning: Spoilers for Vampire Academy and Bloodlines

Chapter 2: Taken away

Almost three years earlier

Rose point of view (RPOV)

I'm feeling happy and relaxed, so relaxed you now can feel as a guardian. I'm not saying that I'm not on my guard and taking in my surroundings because I am, but just for once I'm pretty relaxed and can fully enjoy this car ride with my friends while I'm still on duty. The risk of any strigoi attacking us while Dimitri is driving the car at this speed is low.

I'm sitting in the back with Lissa and Christian and regretting that I didn't take Dimitris offer on driving the way back to Court. But at the time it seemed like a good idea to be able and sit in the back, watching him while he was driving. I didn't think about how Lissa's thoughts would affect me more when I don't have anything to distract my mind with. If I would be driving, at least I would be able to concentrate on the road. It doesn't help that she and Christian decided to be an extra cute and loving couple today. Lissa's thoughts and emotions are almost enough to drag me inside of her mind but I manage to resist. Some days the bond almost gets too much since I haven't had the chance to adjust back to how it was in school.

About two weeks ago we were attacked by a few strigoi when we were traveling from court to attend a meeting with some royals I don't remember the names of. The important was that we were attacked and Dimitri took Lissa and Christian to safety as I fended off the strigoi. The thing was that it was an ancient strigoi and I hadn't slept for thirty six hours thanks to guardian schedule and my insistence on joining that trip. He killed me and after Dimitri staked him, Lissa healed me, and we were back to where we began all those years ago. If Dorothea, Lissa's other guardian, had been there with us maybe it would have been another outcome. But as a guardian we can't think of "what if" scenarios. We only think of what happened.

"Please Liss" I exclaim when I can't stand it anymore." You're almost pulling me in!"

I probably shouldn't have shouted so high, but I couldn't help it. I needed to stop it somehow. But judging from the looks on Dimitri's and Dorothea's I really shouldn't have done it. Everyone is now on full alert. But they don't have right to tell me I'm wrong it's not like they can see, feel and sense everything that's going on inside of your best friends head. Sometimes I wish I couldn't do that either and sometimes I feel very lucky to have the ability. Is Lissa suddenly gets kidnapped it comes very handy.

"Sorry, but please can you try to block me out or something, or just don't feel the way you're feeling?" I ask knowing they can't do what I'm asking for.

"Are we a little jealous here Rosie?" Christian asks with a tone that I know is meant to annoy me and I get a little bit angry when it's actually working.

"In your dreams Sparky" I reply with the same tone, but it dies in the end when I see Dimitri tens and lock his eyes on something ahead of us.

I instantly copy his movements but relax a bit when I see what it is.

In the middle of the road stands a snowman with an orange carrot, a red scarf and two black buttons as eyes.

"Please Comrade, don't tell me that the great Dimitri Belikov is afraid of an unfinished snowman" I have to try really hard not to laugh too hard so I can continue. "I always knew I would figure out your biggest fear sometime but I thought it would be something silly as spiders as that would outweigh the fact that you can do everything else, I'm not saying that a snowman isn't silly because it might be better than the spiders."

At that comment Christian can't hold it anymore and begins to laugh out loud while Lissa has enough self-control to just smile at me. I can even see the corner of Dimitris mouth begin to rise to a half smile before he opens his mouth.

"I'm not afraid of a snowman Roza, I'm concerned over the fact that we have to get out of the car to get it away since it's so big that we can't move around it with all the snow on the roads sides."

"Oh, now I see" I replied, still with humour in my voice. "But I can go out and remove it if you're so scared of the big bad snowman"

With the sound of Christians laugh over us we decided that Dimitri and I would go outside to remove the snowman while Dorothea would stay in the car. As soon as we step out we become serious and all signs of a joking atmosphere disappears. We are in full guardian mode since we know strigoi very often lurks at these roads.

Even with our dhampir sight it's hard to see inside the dark of the woods. It's a strange contrast between the pure white snow and the hollow darkness. If I had my phone with me and we weren't in the middle of removing a snowman from a lonely and scary road I would ask Lissa to take a picture with Dimitri, me and this background. It resembles Dimitris and mine relationship. We're so different and still so close and so alike. It would be a beautiful picture.

When Dimitri and I only have a short walk left to the snowman it explodes. Snow goes everywhere as a tall man, almost as tall as Dimitri, jumps out of it. The first thing my dhampir senses notice is the red ring around the man's eyes and the paleness of his skin. A strigoi.

Shit, shit, shit, shit. This was a trap, an ambush and we had walked right into it. Before Dimitri or I had any chance to react probably fifty more strigoi emerged from the shadows of the trees at the roads sides. I guess that was going to ruin the photoshoot I had planned. One of them jerked up the back door to the car and ripped Lissa out.

I could feel her fear from the bond but also the safety of knowing that I would rescue her. Not that I had any idea of how I would do that, but I knew I had to it. I began to run towards the strigoi that held her but I immediately stopped when he began speaking.

"Stop right there or I will snap her neck, understood?"

By this time Christian and Dorothea had climbed out of the car and stood beside us. The strigoi didn't seem interested in them. Christian had a fire ball in his hand and the rest of us had our stakes ready for disposal. In my head I cursed my supervisor for the idea of transporting Lissa, the queen, the royal moroi queen, in only one car with no backup to make the strigoi believe that we were no one important. When we got out of this I would make Lissa fire him and get someone else instead, maybe Dimitri. He surely was well deserved of a promotion. Especially after this.

"What do you want?" I spat in his direction.

"What makes you so sure I want something?" He replied

"Cause if you just wanted her dead you would have killed her by now"

That was true. Strigoi was inpatient so he wouldn't just stand there with her if he wanted her dead. He had a motive that I needed to figure out. But I couldn't think of that right now, I needed an escape plan. We couldn't fight them, they were too many. We couldn't escape, they were too many. They had outnumbered us, and that was their plan of course. We needed to get them down somehow, just so we could escape, that was our only option.

An idea popped into my head, a dangerous idea but what other choose did we have? None. That was the answer. We needed to act. After one last glance at Dimitri I slowly pulled of the ring on my left hand, not the engagement ring but the ring Lissa charmed to hold the darkness away. Dimitri looked confused and his brown, deep eyes that I loved so much told me to stop. But this was our only option. There was no other way. I returned my gaze to the strigoi and said.

"But we're not afraid, we won't hide away from you like from ghosts under our beds"

All I could hope for now was that they would take the hint. And they did. At least Dimitri did. I saw his face lit up with understanding but before he could speak the strigoi raised his voice.

"Well now I think you got it wrong little dhampir" I flinched a little when he unknowingly used Adrian's nickname for me. "It's the monsters under our b…"

But he didn't get any further with his lecture. While he was speaking I had absorbed all of the darkness Lissa had but didn't want to give to me of fear it would be too much. It almost was too much without the ring and since she hadn't healed away the last wave of spirit she had given me. But I managed it. I managed to release my most effective but dangerous weapon against the strigoi. The ghosts. My head exploded in pain as I released all of the darkness inside of me in the form of ghost. It wouldn't be enough to kill all strigoi but we would manage to escape.

But all my energy was up so I couldn't escape by myself. As I fell to the ground I thought that I would just lie there until the ghost went away and then the strigoi would kill me. But I should never have thought those thoughts. Not when Dimitri was by my side. He caught me before my body even touched the ground and carried me to the car.

In the corner of my eye I saw Dorothea take Lissa from the now unconscious strigoi and take her and Christian into the car's safety. At least they would make at home now, I thought just as a hand gripped my shoulder and pulled me out of Dimitri's arms. A strigoi, I guessed but my cloudy mind wasn't in a shape good enough to form any complicated thoughts.

The ghosts must not have been able to take them all down. There had simply been too many of them, the only other time I had done something like that was in Russia and that had been with two strigoi. So I didn't exactly have measurements on how mush darkness I needed to use to get away 50 strigoi. It wasn't like it was something I used to practise on my free time.

Dimitri had his stake ready in his hand and was beginning to launch forward when we both realized something. The ghost was already gone now and the other strigoi was starting to wake up. If they got the chance they would take Lissa again and I couldn't let that happened. She was my moroi, my charge and my mission. The fact that she was the queen just made it more important that she was taken away from here. The only reason Dorothea had stayed was so Dimitri and I could get could get to the car since the strigoi was seeming pretty taken out at the time.

But soon they would wake up and the protocol would force her to drive away without us to save Lissa, to save the queen. I couldn't get to the car but I knew Dimitri could, he had no one to stop him. The only reason he hadn't done that was because of me. He would try to save me if only he had the slightest chance. And he had to live. He couldn't die. The world would be a darker world with no Dimitri. The world could manage without me but not without him, without him it would fall apart. Just like the world had done when he was a strigoi. He must realise this and that he had a chance to get to the car but he stayed anyway. For me.

"Go!" I screamed at him with tears running down my cheeks. "Go to the car! Save them, keep them save. Go!"

He stopped and just stared at me, but he had to move! Now.

"Go!" I screamed again. "I love you, Go"

I saw the tears in his eyes as he looked at me and realized what I was saying. And he understood. Like it always was with us, he understood all I wanted to say by just looking into my eyes. He understood my wishes and that he didn't have much time to decide.

"I love you"

That was all he said, but it was the most powerful words in the world. The tears now streamed free down my cheeks as he turned around and jumped into the car and turned it around to go. I could barely hear Lissa's scream in the car as they drove away.

AN: Please read! Thank you for all of your comments and follows. They are very mush appreciated :)

Before I leave you to your hopefully nice weekend I have a few questions for you. When I write I have to use some sort of measuring system. In these two chapters I've tried to not write parts with described length in them but it would make it easier if I could. So do you use meter or foot? And do you use miles or kilometres? That sort of thing. And then of course do you use Fahrenheit or Celsius? I understand that all of you use different methods, I use meter, kilometres and Celsius (but I can change it) and I know how irritating it could be to read and don't understand how warm it is or how fast the car is going.

And then for the age limit on this story, or what it is called. Right now it is T rated. But I proceed (I hope that is the right word) from how mush I was able to handle at the "T" age. But if someone disagrees please let me know and I will change it.

I will try to update every second weekend depending on how busy my schedule is. But I prefer to post well worked chapters so it might take longer time to post.

Hopefully I won't have so long author notes in the future.

Critiques are welcome as well as your opinion! :)

Have a nice day/night, wherever you are!