"What do you mean she's not here?" Janine Hathaway demanded the guardians that stood infront of me. Her emotionless mask had finally cracked at the mention of Rose's action of staying in the cave. The only thing she had dreaded the most, came true.

Dimitri was in some kind of trance. His mind raced through all the moments he had ever spent with Roza. The first practices. The first moment he had actually held her hands the day they bled and he was the one to clean her wounds. The long conversations that had brought them closer and finally, the night in the cabin. The first time they had made love.

He lost precious time with her. He had pushed her away hundreds of times, giving her the same old excuse – the age difference and how they were going to be Lissa's guardian. By now, he didn't care about Lissa. Rosa was the person that filled his thoughts.

"Well she is now strigoi's meal probably." A guardian, whose name Dimitri didn't care about made everyone in the hall glare at him. This new guardian shrugged a should as if what he was talking about was the weather. "It is true. They get them to eat them. We lose them. It's our job anyway"

Dimitri reacted like some primal animal on his way to attack a prey. He grabbed the man's windpipe and lifted him a couple of inches off the ground. He looked directly into his eyes with nothing but hate. "She is no meal. And you better shut your mouth unless you do want to become strigoi's dinner. She risked her life back there for people like you and-"

"Who's no one's meal?" Adrian's voice cut Dimitri's menace and with that he dropped the guy to the floor, leaving him gasping for air.

Janine Hathaway was the first to speak. "Rose. She was..." just then she broke into tears. Finally the words that had being told to her before made their way to her brain and now broken heart.

Adrian's confusion look turned into a look of terror and shock. His little dhampir was unbreakable, you could even say she was bad ass at everything she did and wouldn't fail. But now she had. "You're saying Rose is… dead?" he choked on the last word. He couldn't even bring himself up to say that word and Rose's name in the same sentence.

And so it all began again. They told him how things went back then in the caves. When they finally got to the end of the story, saying how she was brave and had no fear to go back in the caves to save Dimitri, Adrian glared in his direction sending unspoken accusations to him.

It was a constant reminder of how Dimitri had failed in his own promise. He got caught and bitten by a strigoi and thanks to him, Rose was now gone. She had given him a second chance at life, but he did not want a life where she wasn't in it. The emotions he felt –sadness, guilt, anger—were enough to make the wheels in his head start working.

"I'm going back in to see if she's really dead." Dimitri said to no one in particular. That silenced everyone in the room again.

He needed to see if she was really dead. If she was, that would be the end of him. But if her body wasn't in the caves that only meant one thing.

They took her.

Lissa was waiting for Adrian in his bedroom. Christian was sitting on floor resting his back on the bed, Lissa next to him. They had their fingers laced and her head laid between his cheek and shoulder. Since she heard the rumors of the guardians going back to the caves to rescue the moroi and novices, she had been worried to death for Rose.

Christian had spent an hour trying to calm her down and reassure her that Rose had killed many strigoi the night before and knew how to take care of herself. He repeated those worse for, God, he didn't even know how many times. With his other hand he lifted her chin to check on her.

Her eyes showed concern, she seemed older in some way. But still as beautiful as an angel, he thought. He caressed her cheek with the back of his fingers and gave her a small peck on the lips.

That small act made Lissa smile. She wanted to get lost in Christian's eyes and lips. She pressed her lips against his to kiss him. His lips were made for hers, she thought. It was God's perfect present. The kiss had deepened and they were lost in each other's mouth but the door creaked as it opened.

Lissa was the one to pull away quickly with a shade of red on her cheeks. Adrian chuckled humourlessly and closed the door behind him. Christian's jaw muscles tighten praying to God to please give him some self control.

"Did they come back? Is Rose outside?" she asked too eagerly and shoot upwards, walking to the door. Adrian was now serving himself some alcohol and sighed as he poured the liquid in a glass.

"Yes and no." he said.

Lissa looked like a beautiful statue, motionless but she slowly turned around to face Adrian's back. "What do you mean?"

He repeated what he had been told like a broken record. "She went back to save that Belikov" he said bitterly. Lissa broke down and was now on her knees sobbing. Christian wrapped his arms around her tightly and rested his chin on top of her head.

"Why are you so damn calm Ivashkov?" Christian asked and if looks could kill, Adrian would be dead by now.

Adrian finished his drink in one sip and sighed. "I have an idea."

Sorry. I was feeling uninspired and been busy with uni. I'll try add more stuff to the next one.

:)