Lissa always found herself thinking of the day Rose died whenever she went to visit her grave.
In the years between Lissa's family perishing in the car accident and then Rose's death five years later, Lissa had become extremely accustomed to feeling Rose within her. She knew back then that even in her darkest times, Rose had always been with her. But the bond was something that the Princess hadn't known she would miss, not until it was ripped away from her.
She would never forget seeing the look of defeat and beseech in Rose's eyes before she died. Rose had clearly known at that moment that she was going to die, and yet she still managed to somehow convince Eddie to leave her and take Lissa to safety with only a look.
But the image of Rose being held several feet from the ground by her throat was ingrained into Lissa's mind. She constantly thought back and remembered the things that Rose had done while entrapped in the Strigoi's palms.
She vividly recalled Rose's pained gasps as she slowly lost her ability to breathe. She had used every single speck of energy inside her to kick out at her captor and scratch at his hands.
But nothing had worked. Obviously.
When Eddie had finally managed to tear Lissa away from the inevitable death scene, she had sat motionless in a stolen car while Eddie drove erratically through peak hour traffic. It was one of those rare moments Lissa wished that the bond went both ways so she could check on Rose.
She didn't know what would happen if Rose was hurt or if she died. Would she know? Or would she continue to think her friend is alive while her body lay lifelessly…?
It was during her deliberation that she felt it happen.
It was subtle – like having the hiccups. It took her breath away for a moment before forcing it back down her throat. Then there was nothing.
She'd looked to Eddie with tears brimming in her eyes and her fingers clutching at the sweater covering her chest. No, no, no. It can't be, she had repeated to herself over and over again.
With the bond suddenly gone, Lissa had no longer felt whole, and that feeling of the bond breaking had stayed with her always.
Eddie didn't need for Lissa to tell him. He'd already known from the moment he decided to leave Rose alone surrounded by six Strigoi that she wouldn't have made it. Hell, even Rose had known it.
But it didn't lessen the feeling of abandonment that Eddie faced daily. No matter how many times he was told that he'd "done the right thing" or "had no other choice", he always felt like he had abandoned Rose that night.
Each of Rose's friends and family had their own regrets that made them blame themselves for the events that led up to her and Mason's deaths, and those regrets began from that moment Eddie left Rose.
It had been a tense night behind the wards of their Lehigh unit. A reinforcement team had been sent from Court to relieve Eddie and Mason for the next few days, while the Alchemists had been deployed to deal with the human authorities and collect Rose's body.
But when the Guardian who had joined the Alchemists returned from the Lehigh Valley Mall car park, their night only got worse. The Guardian told them, gravely, that while they had found a body at the scene, it had been a Strigoi body. Rose's body was nowhere to be found.
There was only the one possible scenario then. Lissa had felt the bond break, she knew Rose was gone. She'd died! But then where was her body?
It was only mere hours after her death that they realised that Rose had, in fact, become something far worse than just dead.
Lissa had tried to fill the hole inside her by finding Rose. But when they did eventually track her down; it did anything but make them feel better. Lissa's obsession with finding Rose had cost Mason his life and almost ended the Dragomir line at the same time. None of them had been prepared for how they had found Rose, and to this day, the image of their high school friend with red eyes and white skin continued to haunt every single one of them.
After Mason's death, Rose had just dropped off the map entirely and Lissa had almost given up on tracking her down. She instead tried to focus on accepting the possibility that she would never see Rose again. Neither dead nor alive.
But those who had trained with Rose and knew her as a Guardian were well aware of the skills she had possessed as a Dhampir. As a Strigoi, it was feared that she would be incredibly lethal, and they didn't think for one second that she would lie low forever.
Monsters only laid low when they were planning something.
But now they had a chance to save Rose and the uncountable other lives that her restoration would ensure. Eddie needed the forefront of that plan believing that it would work. So when Lissa had expressed her doubts on the restoration, Eddie needed to reinstate every ounce of hope that Lissa had lost recently.
He prayed that a visit to see Rose would be exactly what Lissa needed.
Grand View Cemetery, Pennsylvania.
Eddie drove the SUV into the cemetery and parked up. Without a word, he walked around to assist Lissa out before instructing the Guardians accompanying them to wait by the car. Visiting the grave of a loved one was deeply personal, and with the sun shining, there was no threat of Strigoi ambushing them. They could simply remain at their vehicles and still be close enough if any danger did happen to present itself.
It was a sunny day surprisingly. There was still a cold wind, meaning Lissa and Eddie were both rugged up with warm jackets and gloves, but the sun was bouncing off of the small blanket of snow covering the grass.
The head Guardian that remained knew that if they needed him they would call out. It wasn't like they were going to be out of sight, and he understood that the Princess and her near guard were visiting friends that day. He didn't want to disrupt their time with their departed. Guardian Koehler had been part of the relief team that was sent right after Rose's death, so he knew better than most outsiders how her death had affected the Princess and Guardian Castile. He was more inclined than the others to give them the space they not only wanted, but also needed.
Lissa walked across the snow covered grass, listening to it crunch under her shoes as she unconsciously read the headstones like she always did. As she passed the assortment of graves, she clutched the flowers she'd bought in town tightly to her chest knowing she was getting closer and closer. She always got like this when she went to visit Rose's grave.
When they had first buried the empty coffin, Lissa had refused to go and visit her – because, in reality, she wasn't even really buried there.
But one day, when Lissa had been feeling particularly lost without Rose, she had given in and gone to the cemetery. Despite her body not being buried six feet under, she had realised the importance of her empty grave. They had a resting place for Rose now and she deserved to have a place where all her family and friends could go and see her when they needed to see her.
Janine had tossed up whether to bury her daughter's casket in the Court graveyard or not. But no one had wanted Rose to be just another small white headstone among the hundreds – they wanted her to have her own space. But not even the last Dragomir's devoted Guardian would be given a place among the Moroi graves.
In the end, they decided to bury Rose about ten miles from the University so that those Rose had befriended while attending the University could visit her grave as well.
To those who were unaware of the vampiric species living among them, Rose had died in a tragic car accident that had been caused by a deer jumping into her path. To avoid hitting the animal, Rose had swerved and subsequently gone off an embankment.
It wasn't the story they wanted to go with, but in order to not to raise suspicions on her death or cause an uproar among the community about speeding or drunk drivers – they had to make the accident a one-car collision. The only thing that came of Rose's death was steel barriers that stopped any cars from getting too close to the edges of the same embankment they had marked her death at.
Judging by the fresh flowers among the snow, someone had recently come to do the same thing Lissa and Eddie were doing. Lissa suspected it was Katrina – a young human who Rose had instantly connected with from their International Relations class. Katrina had kept in touch with Lissa, even after they had finished their degrees, and they regularly spoke about Rose.
Placing her own flowers beside the present ones, Lissa smiled sadly at the thought of others still missing Rose. She always had that about her, Lissa thought to herself.
Lissa looked away briefly from Rose's grave and towards Eddie as he placed his own bunch of flowers on the grave adjacent to Rose's. The idea to bury Mason next to Rose had been an easy one. No one had objected to the two having their resting places directly beside each other.
For the first time in four years, Lissa smiled looking at the engraving on the now slightly off-white headstone. There was hope now that she wouldn't have to return to this graveyard to talk with her best friend – that she would be able to do it in person once more.
G. Rosemarie Hathaway.
G. Mason Ashford.
Lissa read the names over and over again, smiling more as the realisation came to her.
Even if the tales of restoration turned out to only be tales, they would know they had at least tried. If Lissa dismissed the idea too early as impossible, she would regret not trying for the rest of her life.
Rose had given up her life for Lissa's, it was the least she could do to thank Rose for her service.
"We're going to get her back, Eddie," Lissa whispered, while the small smile on her lips strengthened. "We are going to bring Rose home and the same with Guardian Belikov."
Eddie smiled as he too looked at the engraved names of his friends. While he didn't know for certain if they could bring Rose back, he was adamant that if they did, he would make sure that she first didn't blame herself for Mason's death.
Rose would return to them as a shell of who she once was, it was up to them to help build her back up and make sure she knew she wasn't to blame for the atrocities that were committed using her body.
Maison de ville. Paris, France.
There weren't many things that could shock or surprise Dimitri anymore.
When he was a Dhampir, he had been shocked when he found out that his oldest sister was pregnant, and again when Sonja fell pregnant. But since being awakened, everything had seemed to lose its shock value. He didn't find himself being caught off guard. But this? This was truly a surprise to him.
The word seemed foreign in both of his known languages. He tried it first in English like Rose had, and then again in the Russian equivalent, and yet he still couldn't comprehend how it would even be possible.
While Gabriel had already told the story of Abe Mazur's great plan to Rose shortly after he had been awakened, Dimitri needed to hear it for himself. He needed to hear every single word that had been spoken to Rose so he could make his own verdict.
During the recitation, Dimitri had moved away from Rose's side and had begun leaning up against the counter beside the large stovetop, staring directly ahead at where Gabriel was sitting at the breakfast bar.
For a species that didn't require any other substance than blood to survive, they certainly found themselves using their kitchen more than they had ever thought they would.
"Restoration?" Dimitri asked again, trying the word on his English tongue once more. "They are planning to restore us?"
Rose responded with a smirk. "You said it, comrade. They want to return us back into the pathetic guard dogs we were years ago."
Beyond her smirk though, Dimitri knew that Rose had a deeper revulsion to the idea of being restored back into a Dhampir rather than just losing her immortality. She'd had a taste of freedom now, and she had no intention of willingly becoming something so submissive and imprisoned like a Royal Guardian again.
She would rather die than be turned back to her Dhampir self.
"How is that even possible?"
"Spirit. A stake is charmed with five instead of the four elements. Said stake, then goes through that beating hunk of muscle in your chest and goodbye to the perks of being undead," Gabriel explained, smirking as he openly enjoyed how caught off guard Dimitri appeared.
Dimitri looked between his lover and the newly awakened Guardian curiously – Gabriel appeared smug, but Rose looked downright amused. She didn't appear to care one single bit about the little mission the friends and family of her previous life had set themselves on.
"Why are you not even the least bit worried? I saw the stake in the alleyway. If he was able to get a swipe in, what's stopping an entire fleet of Guardians from bringing you down?" Dimitri growled, pointing an accusing finger at Gabriel but directing his works towards Rose.
While Gabriel didn't know whether to be offended or not by his jab, he knew deep down that everything that had happened in that alleyway had gone according to Rose's plan. She put herself in a position where he would have to make the decision on where his loyalties lay.
If he had of gone with his gut, he could have very well killed her while he had her pressed up against the brick wall. But Rose knew that when given the opportunity, Gabriel wouldn't have been able to deliver the killing blow. His loyalty to Abe Mazur had won out in the end, meaning Rose had the upper hand and she was able to play him like a puppet. If for a second she'd thought he would have been able to overcome her, she wouldn't have put herself in such a dangerous position.
"Because, Dimitri," Rose giggled, walking around the marble bench top so that she stood opposite to where Dimitri was leaning. "The spirit user has to be the one to use the stake."
Another shock had been that crucial bit of information. In an instant, the threat had dropped from a potentially serious danger to nothing more than an inconvenience to them.
"The Princess has to stake you?" Dimitri asked, humour dripping from his words.
Rose shrugged. "Or Adrian. I'm not sure who exactly they've picked for who."
Dimitri couldn't help himself. He let out a strong and loud bark of laughter that bounced around the room and made Rose light up like a child on Christmas day.
She secretly loved when he laughed. It always made him look vastly more handsome than he already was.
While a glare made her heart race and a smirk made her want to rip off her own panties for him – that smile made even the dark magic keeping her dead heart pumping stop momentarily.
That was the difference between Dimitri's smile and the human's from the club – Dimitri's could actually do damage.
"A Princess and a drunk–" Dimitri began before Rose cut him off.
"–Could do no damage at all," she laughed, dancing her fingers up the broadness of his chest and linking them behind his neck.
"Could be fun."
Dimitri normally didn't let himself get too caught up in Rose's games. But this one was the kind of game he could certainly see himself enjoying. There wasn't anything quite like terrorizing those who you had once known and ruining their grand plans.
Dimitri crushed his mouth down to Rose's with a bruising force. He now understood why Rose enjoyed playing games so much – they were an extremely powerful aphrodisiac.
Rose opened her mouth for him, allowing him full access to the cold depths past her lips. She couldn't stop the moan of desire that left her, and even Dimitri was beginning to struggle with his own control as he backed her up until she hit the counter behind them.
The night's previous quarrels had been long since forgotten about by that point. The news that Rose's prior charge and friends were planning to restore her and Dimitri were enough to make her forget she was even mad at Dimitri – and enough for Dimitri to forget entirely about Gabriel sitting on the other side of the breakfast bar, watching them.
Without breaking the powerful and urgent kiss, Dimitri crouched slightly and hooked his hands behind Rose's thighs to place her up on the breakfast bar. As he stepped into the space she made between her thighs for him, his hands began to impatiently gather up the fabric of her dress and push it up to her hips. It left her creamy flesh on full display for Dimitri.
Veering away from Rose's mouth to suckle on the skin of her throat, Dimitri locked gazes with a very docile Gabriel.
"What are you still doing here?" Dimitri growled over the sound of Rose hastily unbuckling his belt.
But Gabriel remained unresponsive, further angering the Russian vampire.
"Rose may not care about having an audience, but I'd prefer it if you fucked off."
Gabriel's eye twitched. "There are bedrooms here. You could use one," he sneered, but Dimitri found his stubbornness amusing.
Dimitri smirked at what seemed like a challenge – he loved challenges.
With a skilful manoeuvre of his fingers, Dimitri pushed aside the thin fabric that covered the most intimate part of his lover and eased two fingers into her. He rode out her slow moan with an accompanying grunt of his own.
"My house – my rules," Dimitri grinned, slowly starting to curl and pump his fingers into Rose, making Gabriel grimace. Dimitri wasn't usually one to fuck in front of others, but in order to assert what was his and who was in charge, he would gladly take Rose there and then.
But he knew that he wouldn't need to – he had already won judging by the discomfort on Gabriel's face.
"Now fuck off."
The Royal Court, Pennsylvania.
A large private plane landed on the airstrip with a gush of wind and a loud squeal of tires against the concrete. To anyone who didn't know any better, they would look at the plane and assume that it was no one of importance due to the lack of distinguishing features on it.
But to the ground crew, the plane didn't need any distinguishing marks for them to know who was going to be disembarking from the plane.
Sure enough, once the Moroi air hostess had opened the door and released the staircase, one Ibrahim Mazur stood under the high sun while buttoning up the front of his lilac suit jacket.
The slight scowl on his face could have been easily mistaken as discomfort under the sun, when in fact, it had nothing to do with the rays – they were nothing compared to the problem he had on his hands.
From the beginning of his entire endeavour, Abe had wanted to be heavily involved – but had relinquished that control to keep any Scottish heat of him. But when it had reached the two-day mark and he still hadn't heard back from Guardian Roberts, Abe began to suspect the worst.
He contacted the Moroi Embassy in Paris and was promptly told that Gabriel Roberts was missing in action – and had been for days. He'd never checked back into the Embassy after the night he told Abe he was tailing Rose and Dimitri.
Abe didn't think for a second that Gabriel was missing. If his suspicions were correct, he feared the worst for the esteemed Guardian. Abe knew that his daughter would use Gabriel's admirable loyalty to her own advantage now.
Knowing this, a timer had suddenly been put on their entire mission. If Gabriel had really been turned, he would have surely divulged everything to Rose and Dimitri. By that time, their element of surprise was ruined.
If they had any chance of restoring their souls, they needed to act on it and fast.
Sighing deeply, Abe began descending the stairs with his most trusted Guardian, Pavel, hot on his heels.
"Time to get this show on the road," he mumbled to himself, rubbing his palms together like some sort of supervillain.
