~ Chapter 10 ~

"I… what?" I asked Dimitri nervously. I had a lot to distract me. We had been at the Moroi Court for three weeks now. For some reason, I had expected to get off the plane in Court and immediately be handed an assignment. I wasn't expecting the endless waiting. We had a cocktail hour where interested Moroi were able to get to know and request a specific guardian, but I wasn't particularly surprised when Lissa was the only one that had come anywhere near me all night. Assigning guardians is apparently an extremely complicated process, because it still hasn't happened. My classmates and I were still eagerly anticipating our assignments, which I had recently found out that we have another 3-4 weeks before we actually get them. The guardians were usually so efficient that this was frustrating. All of the recently graduated guardians were put on a rotation at various functions of the Royal Court. I only wanted to be assigned to one Moroi and I hoped my accomplishments over rode the two years of school I missed. I was incredibly nervous that they wouldn't assign me to Lissa and that without any backup interest, I would end up filing or doing some other grunge work that I had been subjected to over the last three weeks.

I also had to hide what me and Lissa had been discussing before I came home to the apartment me and Dimitri shared. I was grateful that no one had made a fuss when we had selected joint accommodations. I had been thinking about all of that so I was sure I must have misheard Dimitri when he asked me if I wanted to go to Russia with him to meet his family.

"Will you come with me to Siberia? I really want my family to meet you. I know you'll love them! And I want you to meet them," he told me. I did want to meet his family, but that idea scared the hell out of me. What if they don't like me? Right now, we were living in the perfect bubble, but nothing would pop the bubble more effectively than a family that hated me.

"When?" I asked him.

"In a week. I already asked my mom and she said we could stay as long as we want. I was thinking two weeks. Then we'll be back before new assignments are handed out," he said to me hopefully. I knew he missed Siberia, I could see it every time he talked about it. I still think it's an Arctic wasteland, but I want to make him happy. I pushed aside my fear. For the most part, everything in our relationship had been about me. I had been so consumed by my own drama, that I failed to recognize that there were two people in this relationship. I had to do this for him.

"Okay... I'll go with you," I promised him.

"Oh thank you!" He said as he leaned towards me. He kissed me passionately, euphoric that I had agreed to this. Despite the anxiety this trip was already causing me, I was glad to be able to do something for him.

I broke the kiss and looked into the endless brown depths of his eyes, feeling comfort that as long as I had him, I could face anything. I kissed his forehead. "Come on," I said to him.

His eyebrows knit together in confusion. "What are we doing?" he asked.

"You may be content going to see your family looking like a marshmallow, but I refuse. I am going to walk into that house in the best shape of my life," I warned him. I didn't know where this unrealistic need to look perfect came from, but I wanted to look my absolute best for his family.

"Are you saying I look like a marshmallow?" he asked, pretending to be wounded.

I poked his stomach. "Must be the lack of vigorous exercise," I teased. Fortunately, he knew I was joking because it seemed like all we did was work out at the gym.

Nonetheless, we decided to go to the gym and practice. We both still needed to stay in shape and we were so used to practicing with one another that it was a comfortable routine we slipped into when we came to Court.

We had been practicing offensive and defensive maneuvers. Dimitri decided it was the last set, then we would stretch and head home. I tackled Dimitri and pinned him to the ground. He was bigger than me and stronger than me so I rarely was able to beat him like this. Before he could roll over, I kissed him. Many of our practices ended like this, so at least this was familiar territory.

"Tell me about your family," I asked him when we broke apart, something I was dying to know about. I had hear about them sporadically, but never with much detail.

"I've already practically told you everything about them. What more could you want to know?" He asked as he stretched.

"Well you've told me who your family is, but you haven't told me anything about them. I know you have three sisters right?" I asked.

"Yes. Karolina, Sonya, and Viktoria," he told me.

"What are they like?" I asked him.

"Karolina is the practical one. She is very logical and thinks things through very thoroughly before doing anything. Sonya is completely the opposite. She is wild and impulsive, but she's funny and she has a huge heart. Viktoria is like me in so many ways. She's always been closest to me, because she's the little sister and I've always been very over protective of her," he told me. He had a far off gleam in his eyes which made me think he was mentally in Siberia right now. I loved the way he adored his family. "I'm eight years older than Viktoria and I was kind of like a father figure to her. She was five the last time my father visited and she has no memories of him. I almost felt a responsibility to show her that men aren't all bad and that she deserves to be treated right by any man in her life."

"What about Sonya and Karolina?" I asked curiously.

"I was younger than them, so I didn't have much of a chance to develop big brother tendencies. Regardless, I was always defensive of them. Karolina had her first kid when she was only seventeen, but she was mature enough to handle it. She knew when to ask for help and when she got pregnant a little over a year ago, it was by the same Moroi. She wasn't one to mess around. Sonya on the other hand..." Dimitri trailed off, his face darkening. I didn't need to ask and he didn't elaborate.

We finished our stretches in silence and walked back to our apartment hand in hand. When we had first come to Court, we had attracted a lot of stares and whispers. Dhampir pairings were unheard of, especially since we couldn't reproduce with one another. Once people had realized that we were still guardians, their whispers died down, but we could still see people pointing at us as we walked.

I was grateful when we finally got back to our apartment. We showered and Dimitri got ready for duty, while I got ready to go out with Lissa. Dimitri was assigned to be Christian's guardian, but because Christian was worthless… I mean uncertain about his future, he had a permanent residence at Court. Therefore, Dimitri had to take shifts to guard the Court like he had at the Academy. He worked the same time every day and it was nice to have some regularity to his schedule. Unlike mine. I worked some nights and some days. Allegedly we're being prepared to work unique hours depending on the needs of whatever Moroi we end up guarding. I was just grateful that since we weren't actually assigned to Court as our permanent assignment, our shifts were relatively short.

When Dimitri was about to leave for work, I kissed him on his cheek. "Have a good day. I'll see you in a couple of hours," I told him, kissing him full on the lips this time. It was a short, but passionate kiss. Lissa was always teasing me about how I couldn't keep my hands to myself when I'm around Dimitri, but I couldn't help myself, and she was right. I kept waiting for the need to constantly have some type of physical contact with him to wear off, but it has yet to happen.

"Bye," he said kissing my forehead. "I'll see you tonight," he promised.

A couple of minutes after he left, Lissa started to knock on the door. I went down to open it. She looked at what I was wearing and nodded to let me know it was appropriate for whatever she had planned. She had been extremely vague as to what our plans entailed, so I dressed for comfort. I was wearing a blue diamond sundress that was made of fabric that reminded me of clouds. I had left my hair down and it fell to my lower back.

I followed Lissa out the door. The first thing we did was go shopping. She seemed to have a specific purpose in mind. She kept saying things like, "no that dress isn't appropriate for this." And "that dress isn't the right color" and "that dress isn't your style." She was on a mission and little pulled her from that.

"Lissa why are you looking for a dress for me?" I asked her curiously when I gave up on trying to understand what she was looking for.

"I'm trying to find two dresses for you Rose," she corrected me.

"Well what are they for?" I asked her. She was hiding something from me, but I couldn't figure out what. It took a lot of effort for her to hide something from me so I knew this must be big.

"Well you need a dress for when you meet Dimitri's family," she explained to me. I could see she had no intention of explaining what the second dress would be for, but that didn't mean I was willing to let it go.

"And the other?" I pressed.

I saw a mischievous smile flit across her face. "You'll find out soon enough," she told me.

I sighed and allowed her to pull me all over the shopping centers at Court in search of the perfect dresses.