A/N Thanks for all the reviews there much appreciated and one of the few things I enjoy more than chocolate so if you want me to be happy please review! :p Heres chapter 7 enjoy!
I was frozen.
There aren't many things that can completely scramble all my thoughts and paralyse me but Dimitri had always been one of them. It was what had made me so weak when fighting him as a Strigoi. Looking back, killing him as a Strigoi seemed like cake compared to having him tell his sister that he didn't love me.
"Yes I would." he reiterates. "And I did."
I wasn't exactly sure when Dimitri had got back and of how much of my rant he'd heard but I was sure he'd caught the last part and me smashing the vase. So much for all our lessons in self control. His face was a blank mask which contradicted Viktoria's openly shocked expression.
"What? Why?" Viktoria exclaims and is completely ignored when I start talking.
"We were just talking about you comrade." I say using my old nickname for him and scrambling to find a way to circumnavigate the topic of me and Dimitri. A topic I really didn't feel it necessary to tackle. After all, he'd made his choice.
"So I heard." He says bluntly not even bothering to acknowledge the small joke of his old name.
He looks me in the eye and I feel like I'm drowning. This is both a nice and very unpleasant experience. Looking into his dark brown eyes reminds me of all I've lost.
"Why would you say that?" Viktoria tries again this time we both pay attention, turning away from each other and finally breaking the eye contact. "You said you lov-" She's cut off. I would have loved to know how that sentence ended but would never find out.
I hear the cries for help just as the nausea rolls over me. It's Adrian's voice and it sounds like it's coming from down the hall. I grab my stake from the dresser beside my bed and push past Dimitri who's still standing in the door way.
I start to race down the hallway towards the sound of Adrian's cries for help only to start choking on smoke in the air and the gross smell of burning Strigoi that I recognized through fighting alongside Christian.
As I rounded a corner I came across the sight of a wall of fire blocking the path of four Strigoi and the charred body of one other. The remaining Strigoi were more cautious and had backed slightly away so as not to share the others fate. I could tell that Tasha and Christian were starting to tire from using too much power and wouldn't last much longer. Adrian, having no defensive powers of his own had backed into a corner. In one swift movement I'd pushed Tasha and Christian out of the way and towards Adrian, breaking their concentration therefore ending the fire. To be honest I'd started to worry about the hotel being burnt down.
In the same movement I'd also staked one of the Strigoi who'd been caught unaware. I heard footsteps come up behind me but couldn't risk turning around to check what was happening as I was now fighting another Strigoi. This one was very old and had once been either a human or a Dhampir. From the way he was fighting I was willing to bet that he was once a guardian.
I deliver a swift kick to the centre of his chest fighting for the opportune moment to stake him. He doesn't budge. Doesn't even flinch and instead grabs my shoulders to push me against the wall. He opens his mouth wide and I can see his fangs as he moves towards my neck. I'm trying to manoeuvre my stake enough to be able stake him.
From my new angle against the fall I can see Dimitri fighting his own Strigoi and Tasha and Christian had recovered enough to have incinerated another Strigoi and were now trying to keep out of the way. As the Strigoi moved closer I fought against his hold on me harder but couldn't break it. Again in my life I thought, this is where I die.
Then the Strigoi dropped away from me his body limp. I look down and notice the stake in his chest. It had been a perfect hit squarely in the back of the chest. I look up to see Viktoria bending down to retrieve the stake I had no idea how she'd got. As she leaned forward to reclaim her stake I her hair moved out of the way and gave me an unobscured view of the back of her neck. I was shocked to see that she had the snake like tattoo that was a guardian's promise mark. Well that explained how she'd got a stake.
In that second I remembered the queen's last decree; Guardians would now graduate at only 16. Viktoria was only one year younger than me and had been doing her second last year at an academy in Russia. It seemed ridiculous that this law would've been put into affect so fast and particularly in Russia. I made a not to ask her about it later before shooting her an appreciative smile for saving my life.
I jump back into the fray fighting with Dimitri to eradicate the last Strigoi. Usually Dimitri would have finished him already but as he still hadn't been cleared of the suspicion that he was Strigoi no-one had been willing to give him a stake.
After Dimitri landed a blow to the Strigoi's chest and he stumbled back momentarily off balance and that was all the opening I needed to drive my stake through his heart.
The Strigoi's body collapsed to the ground and I took a step back my chest heaving after all the action and adrenaline of the fight. Following being locked up for a week and then spending some more time in the boot of a car and a hotel room the physical exertion felt good.
We had a few problems now. Not only was the hallway slightly burnt from the Strigoi bonfires Tasha and Christian had made there was also the problem of five Strigoi bodies we needed to get rid of. I remembered the last time I'd killed Strigoi on my own and tried to dispose of them by leaving them out in the sun. That hadn't worked out too well and Sydney and the alchemists hadn't been very impressed when the body a Strigoi I killed was found. Actually to put it simply Sydney had been down right pissed off.
Even if I'd thought that was a good idea I'd just taken stock of my surroundings and realised that the reason the Moroi and Dimitri were back was because the sun had gone down and without a stake Dimitri couldn't protect them. This meant there was no sun to finish the bodies off. I had no idea what to do.
Before any humans could discover the bodies we dragged them back to the room. Once there we were left with another problem. We couldn't just leave them in a pile on the floor not only was it creepy but what would the cleaning lady say? We ended up piling them in the cupboard instead after I rejected the idea of Christian burning them to ashes. None of us really felt like talking and really just wanted to get some sleep. I could tell that Tasha and Christian were tired from all the energy their magic had drained and even Adrian was getting exhausted from not having drank blood in over twenty-four hours plus spending all of today out in the sun. Before we went to sleep though I had an important call to make.
I grabbed the hotels phone from its place on the dresser where the vase I'd smashed had previously been. The phone was surrounded by glass fragments which I ignored not wanting to recall the awkward situation before the attack. I dialled the number I'd memorised while in Russia.
When she picked up I said.
"Hey Sydney it's Rose. How do feel about a road trip?"
