Sorry about the hold up, i would have posted it friday but i only just got my electricity back. Stupid storms...

Anyway so yeah, here be chapter 11. Yeah...it is about 1k words less then i'd originally intended, but i thought that was the right place to hit the stopped.

Answers:
1)Other the the shower, there was no other motivation to Rose's not-sleeping-with-Dimitri brat attack.
2)I couldn't leave them in that god-for-saken mansion, jeez. I hate it as much as Dimka does.
3)I can't tell you if Lissa and Christian are gonna have kids yet, you'll have to wait and find out :P

okay, that's that.

Enjoy! xxx :]

ADRIAN POV

Sitting on my bed with Mia at my feet I waited. I had to tell Belikov she was alive. No matter how bad I wanted him to go crawl up in a corner and die, I had to tell him. I felt the tug in the back of my mind as we were both sucked into my little two-chairs-on-patio setting.

"Finally," I muttered, sitting down on a chair.

"What do you want?"Belikov growled, taking a seat next to me. He had a very annoyed display of facial features.

"Rose is alive." I said, cutting straight to the point.

"I know." He said curtly. Guess he had that seem feeling I used to have.

But now I had something more certain then a 'gut feeling'. "I spoke with her,"

"I slept with her," he said, sounding as serious as he would if he were still a teacher talking to a student.

"She…wait, what?" he…slept with her? But…what?

"I'm with her at the moment. Well…not right now, but I'm with her." He sounded both cheerful and irate.

"You found her?" my eyes widened in disbelief. I wanted to be the person to find her. "How?"

He contemplated something for a minute before saying. "I really don't know," liar. He frowned, trying to make himself look convincing. "I just woke up in a room and she was there." God this man was so obviously lying.

I went to open my mouth and begin ranting on about how he needed to tell us everything he knew, but when I opened my mouth a startled gasp flew out and I was ripped back into reality.

"Mia! What the…who are you?" two tall men were standing at the end of my bed. Men certainly wasn't the word to describe then. "Strigoi…" I breathed as one of them flew at me.

"Which academy did you graduate from?" he hissed into my ear.

Rose said something about them leaving Saint Vlad's alone.. "Saint Vladimir's. so back the fuck off, so is she."

He released me and Mia, cussing silently under his breath. "Everyone's from fucking Saint Vlad's. I recon we should kill the dhampire and get on the way we used to." They took off out the door.

"Why'd they leave?" Mia was breathing hard with a dazed look on her face.

"Rose." Was all I said. She'd technically just saved both mine and Mia's lives.

"But Rose…but she didn't do any…we've got to get her out, Adrian. I don't give a fuck if you don't come with me, I'm going to get her out." She flung herself up, looking very tough.

"Oh, is that so? May I ask how exactly you plan on breaking into a mansion full of strigoi all by yourself? Not to mention that you don't even know where that mansion is." I admired her enthusiasm, but acting on impulse wasn't the right thing to do.

She frowned, slumping back down on the bed. "We need a game plan. You're going to find out where she is, Adrian. And I'll organize the search party. Shouldn't be hard, I don't know anyone that wouldn't want to help Rose. The only reason she needs help is because she saved us."

I sighed loudly. "Mia, she…she doesn't want to be helped." I was rather hoping I wouldn't be telling anyone that, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

"She what? Bull-fucking-shit why the hell would Rose, Rose of ALL people want to not be saved from a mansion of strigoi?"

"She's got Dimitri. They're treating her fine. And her being there keeps uncountable amounts of Moroi safe from harm." I wasn't planning on telling anyone that Dimitri was with her either.

"Bull…" she trailed off, letting all of the information sink in. "Say what? Dimitri found her?" her eyes widened. "I don't believe it!" she looked a little jealous.

"Calm down Mia. I'm with you on that one, trust me." I muttered.

"Finally," I muttered, sitting down on a chair.

"What do you want?"Belikov growled, taking a seat next to me. He had a very annoyed display of facial features.

"Rose is alive." I said, cutting straight to the point.

"I know." He said curtly. Guess he had that seem feeling I used to have.

But now I had something more certain then a 'gut feeling'. "I spoke with her,"

"I slept with her," he said, sounding as serious as he would if he were still a teacher talking to a student.

"She…wait, what?" he…slept with her? But…what?

"I'm with her at the moment. Well…not right now, but I'm with her." He sounded both cheerful and irate.

"You found her?" my eyes widened in disbelief. I wanted to be the person to find her. "How?"

Our last conversation decided to play itself through my head again. "I spoke with her," "I slept with her," rub it in why don't he. Geez.

ROSE POV

I woke up with a huge grin on my face just as Alex was walking in the doro to tell me it was tiem to get up

"Good morning Master Alex," I chirped cheerfully, sitting up under the covers. I looked onto the figure heading for me, and quickly realized it wasn't Alex. "Oh, what is it you need, Jeremy?"

He chuckled lightly, sitting down on the bed next to me. "You even look glamorous in the mornings. Why do you look so cheerful?"

I quickly pushed all of the teasing I'd packed ready for Dimitri down to my toes, switching back into pet mode. "I look glamorous because that is the way the Master wishes me. And I haven't a blue of what you mean about me looking any more cheerful then any other morning. If you do not require anything, then I'm must ask you to leave. I must get ready for the day." I felt like such a tool talking like that.

He grinned widely, sliding a little closer to me, causing me to shudder and slide a little further away. "Today is your lucky day. Everyone's gone out except for me, you, Stephanie, and Alfonse."

"What about Dimitri?" my voice broke on his name.

Jeremy frowned. "Yeah his here somewhere to." He muttered. Guess he didn't like Dimitri very much. "Anyway. Master Alex told me that I must let you dress yourself in what you want today. Then Stephanie, me, and you are going to go shopping."

I grimaced. Shopping sounded awesome, and dressing in what I wanted to sounded even better. Shopping with strigoi on the other hand…well, that was another story. "What about Dimitri?"

"He can't be trusted."

"I'm not going without him." I crossed my arms over my chest.

He glared me down, contemplating something. Something that seemed to be working out very well for him. causing me to jump to the conclusion that he was going to try and drag me out.

"I'll kick and scream." He didn't seem worried about that. "I'll leave the mansion," that didn't seem to worry him much either. "I'll tell Master Alex you harassed me." That had a little more affect, but he didn't seem too worried. "I'll tell him you raped me." That struck a nerve. Alex had forbidden any sexual contact between the strigoi and myself unless I'd approved.

"Fine. You can bring him." he muttered, standing up and walking over to the cupboard. "These are the clothes you can select from for today. Dress when you're ready." He stomped his way out of the room, causing me the giggle a little. I new that last one would work.

I walked up to the cupboard he'd opened and had a look inside. "YES!" I squealed, ripping about fifteen different shirts, shorts, jeans, and dresses out of the cupboard and hurling them onto the bed. No more glamorous princess dresses!

I heard soft but fast moving footsteps rushing down the hallway and turned to face the door. A few seconds later Dimitri literally knocked the door down, stake in hand and ready to fight. Oh…okay, so I guess I shouldn't start screaming over clothes.

"What's wrong?" he asked, still not relaxing his stance as he's eyes flicked furiously around the surroundings. "I heard you screaming,"

"Sorry," I murmured, turning back to the clothes sprawled all over the bed. "Jeremy showed me I had new clothes. New clothes that aren't embarrassing to wear! Oh, and we're going shopping. Go get dressed in something."

"We're leaving the mansion?" he was excited about this, but I hadn't thought of it that way.

"Err, yeah I guess. Alfonse and Jeremy are coming too, though." His eyes brightened and he sprinted back down the hallway. He was almost as excited as I was…

I flitted back over to the closet, pulling out all of the remaining clothes and tossing them onto the bed. There was no way in hell that I was going to be dressing plain today. Technically, it would be night, which meant that I could dress up like whatever I wanted and no-one would really give adman.

Wicked.

Once I was finished searching through the clothes, I decided I was going to dress stereotypical. The look I was going for was sort of punk slash slut. Not so much the slut, maybe bitch was a better word…

Anyway, I picked out a little black mini skirt that looked revealing, but I bent over in the mirror a few times to make sure I wasn't giving anything out to the public eye. The mini skirt had a few pink skulls on the left side, and too the right a few little metal chains hung down halfway to the middle of the skirt. I selected a tiny cropped black singlet that revealed mostly all of my stomach, and then put a blood red singlet over the top of it, which fell down to cover everything above my belly button. Then I put some boots on that looked a lot like the ones with the silver daggers in them.

I left my hair to wave along my back, and decided to use some of the fancy shirt-cross necklaces that I'd wear every other day. With makeup I settled for a bit of eyeliner, some mascara and blood red lip stick.

Sure, it wasn't my usual style, but it looked pretty mad.

"Sweet," I muttered, spinning around in the mirror again. I saw the door open in the reflection as Dimitri stepped through, dressed in his usual training gear sort of things. Loose gray sweatpants and a nicely fitted black T-shirt. What was new, though, was that he also had a little black rope tied around his neck, on the end of it was a cross like mine, and a rose.

"Wow," he muttered, walking up behind me. "This doesn't look like the usual you. The skirt nad boots do, but I thought you'd go for something a little smaller for the top…" he trailed off as I lifted the red top up, revealing the little black singlet thing. "I see,"

His arms snaked around my waist and I leaned my head back into his shoulder. "I love you," I sighed, kissing his neck a little. God I wish I didn't act all pissed off and bratty last night, it was such a stupid retaliation. "Sorry about last night."

He grinned briefly before locking lips with me. He's lips started off eager, but slowed into a more…I dunno, romantic I guess. We stayed standing like that, just kissing for a little while before he lifted me up and walked us over to the bed. I was going to protest and say now wasn't the time, but Jeremy walked in.

"You two ready?" he's tone was flat and emotionless, and he didn't look at me once. He just stood there, glaring at Dimitri with a murderous look in his eye…

Jealousy. I'd seem that look in Adrian's eyes a thousand times, every time he saw Dimitri. Jeremy…liked me. Oh that was so wrong…a strigoi, into a dhampire. I shuddered. I had a sickly feeling that put the nauseous feeling I constantly had living here, surrounded by strigoi to utter shame.

"Yeah, let's go." I peeked up at Dimitri and laughed. "Soon, actually. I've got to fix my lipstick, and Dimitri needs to wash his face and neck." It looked like someone had bitten Dimitri on the neck, and it looked like he'd bitten someone and had a bunch of blood smudged around his mouth.

Once we were all cleaned up, and I managed to fend Dimitri off, we went downstairs to meet the other two. Alfonse, I guessed, was a very short man with red hair. And he looked very annoyed…and Jeremy looked plain old pissed off.

"Okay, we can go now." I chimed, trying to lighten the mood. It seemed so stupid to be trying to cheer a strigoi up. Jeremy wasn't really all that bad…he was just creepy and undead. At least now I knew why he was always the first one to pick up a conversation with me, and why he was always the one handing me my wine glasses of blood.

Without a sound, they stood up and walked towards the door. The night outside was brilliant. The moon was full and the stars were bright. And, I got to see the outside of the house for the first time.

It was surrounded by trees, obviously. It was bigger then it looked from the inside, and it was all a creamy white colour, just like the inside of the house. How boring… boring it may have been, it was still gorgeous.

What was even more gorgeous was the slick black stretch limo parked out the front. Music was blaring from the inside, and they weren't Dimitri's crappy old songs. The song coming from the car was 1,2 step by Ciara, and hearing it made me wanna start dancing for no good reason.

"Holy shit," I muttered, stumbling over to the limo in a hypnotized, or drunk, sort of manner. "You guys kick ass!" I nearly fell over as those words left my lips. I just complimented a strigoi…complimented a strigoi without any sort of sarcasm…that was new for even me.

Dimitri realized that too, and burst out laughing. "Strigoi hugger," he chuckled as I glared. Strigoi hugger…what the fuck? Ohh, like a tree hugger.

Shit. What if he was right? What if I started liking strigoi, started liking and protecting them…no. that wasn't possible. No way would I ever try and protect any strigoi, no matter how desperate and in need I was.

Hopping into the limo, Jeremy and Dimitri soon followed. It was like heaven…luxury leather seats, sick as sound system, huge plasma TV with a Nintendo WII connected to it, and my personal favorite part of the vehicle, the mini bar. Better yet, the Smirnoff inside the mini bar.

On my third can, Jeremy spoke up. "No more until we're on our way back, you can't be totally wasted until we've finished shopping, or you'll have no fun." He's voice was lighter then before, no doubt lighter with amusement. Probably anticipating what I'd be like when I couldn't see right and couldn't walk straight.

"Fine." I skulled the rest of the can and chucked it in the trash before strutting back over to Dimitri and dropping myself in his lap. "Hey sexy," I snuggled into his chest. Sure as hell wasn't drunk, but I wasn't exactly…sober, either.

Dimitri laughed silently, sending vibrations throughout my entire body. "Didn't stop her soon enough." He kissed my hair softly before resting his cheek in the same spot his lips had touched. Sitting there in that position with him felt so amazingly perfect.

I felt safe. Like everything was going to stay the same, but be perfect. I was being optimistic, I guess. Living with the strigoi wasn't that bad now Dimitri was here…it was actually kind of nice. I didn't have to take care of anyone, I didn't have to study. I didn't have to train, but I still did anyway. But the best part was that me and Dimitri didn't have to hide our feelings for each other.

We could be together without judgment.

"I love you, Dimka." I sighed, giggling a little at his nickname. Dimka sounded so strange to me, but it was cute. Which was why it was so strange to me. Calling someone as deadly as Dimitri a cute little name like 'Dimka' just didn't seem right.

He kissed my hair again, whispering "I love you too, Roza."

When we got there I was all hyped up about the shopping, because they'd given both me and Dimitri credit cards with our names on them. We could buy whatever to hell we wanted!

"We have to go meet up with a friend, stay around these parts." Alfonse said, taking Jeremy and walking down the road.

"Cool," I chirped. "I want feel sick while we're shopping now." The further they walked to less nauseous I felt. Wow, that was new.

"Still feeling strigoi in your stomach, eh?" he asked, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards an electronic store.

"Yep. Why are we going in here?" I was thinking more along the lines of clothes and makeup shopping…

"I want to get a computer, so I can talk to others." That wasn't a bad idea. I could email Lissa! I'd have my best friend back…in a way, I guess.

"Smart one," I turned around and froze. "Oh hell yeah…" apparently, while we were living in that mansion with no contact to the outer world, they'd updated in everything.

Bouncing off towards the IPod and music section like a kid in a candy shop where everything was free, Dimitri headed for the computers.

It was greedy, sure, but since I couldn't pick between black and red, I took both. After I got the IPods, I went and got a large IPod dock and portable speakers. I also bought spare headphones, just incase I broke them, which seemed likely.

Heading away from the music I made my way towards the cell phone section. There, I bought a purple hip-top twist and an I Phone.

After that, I joined Dimitri, who was still in the computer section. I was quicker then him, immediately picking out a black and red laptop that had an inbuilt webcam and microphone.

Once Dimitri finally purchased himself a laptop similar to mine but a less colorful, silver version, I dragged him next door to a computer game and CD store. I took one of every CD that was a band a recognized, and headed over for the computer games.

There, I brought about thirty different games just for the hell of it.

When I walked to the front desk, joining Dimitri, I saw the panic flaring up in his eyes.

Something happened.

"What is it? More strigoi?" I hissed under my breathe, just loud enough for him to hear.

He shook his head slightly, pulling out his tiny little pony-tail so his hair covered to back of his neck. And his molinja marks. "Guardians,"

It took me several moments to work out what the big deal was, but when I did I was Justas panicky as him.

They'd probably kill Alfonse and Jeremy, we'd get blamed, or accused of running away, and Saint Vlad's would be attacked again.

"Shit." I muttered, intertwining our fingers. "We have to go…err, right after I get these…" it was stupid, but I didn't want to leave without them.

"Hey," a sweet female voice chimed. Sure didn't sound like a guardian. "You're…" I turned around and found myself facing at a very stunned Moroi girl. She was no older then eight, and had platinum blonde hair with black streaks running through it. "Rose Hathaway. Aren't you?" she finished her sentence.

Stupid fucking fame. "Nope, wrong person kiddo," I lied, trying to cover up.

She reached into her bag, pulling out a folded photo. She unfolded it and walked over to me, the two guardians trailing after her. She held up the picture to me, and it was like looking in a mirror. "Yes, you are." She grinned at me.

At the bottom of the photo my name was printed. "Okay, so maybe I am. What's it matter?" I sighed, giving up on it. Why'd I have to go and get famous…

"You saved us all, and we thought you were dead. Why are you hiding? Or are you still with the strigoi? Did you like, break out just now?" wow that girl could talk.

"I'm not hiding, yes I am still there and no I'm not breaking out I'm shopping." I don't know why I answered the question, but I did.

"You're shopping? So they let you leave the house? Why don't you run away? Do you like living with them?" questions…

"Okay, that's to many questions." I turned around, grabbing the games and stuff I'd just bought and heading for the door.

"Wait!" she called, running over too the retreating me and Dimitri with her guardian pals following her. "were those strigoi down that alley way with you?"

Shit. "Two males?" please, please no…

She pursed her lips and nodded. "They attacked, and now they're dead. Sorry about that…"

"For fuck sakes, now we're all fucked!" I screeched, trying to get at her. Dimitri wrapped his arms around me though, restricting me. And her guardians jumped in front of her, pushing her back. What the fuck was I doing? Trying to attack a Moroi, had I lost my mind? "Oh shit…" I muttered, relaxing. "I'm so sorry. I really don't know what came over me."

Dimitri released me, holding onto only my hand. The girl's guardians didn't relax as much, though.

"What…Rose, what do we do now?" Dimitri muttered.

"Do you know how to get back to the mansion? Cause I sure as hell don't…" why didn't I pay attention to where we were going?

"No…" he sighed, but I could tell he was thinking.

A course of action based on 'will's' and 'must's' formed in my head. "We have to get a lot of guardians, make an army, and then we have to attack them. We have to kill them all before they attack the academy. We'll find it now that we know where we are and what it looks like. And then we'll be free. We can go get charges, hopefully, or we could just go work at the royal court. No more strigoi…"

Dimitri nodded. "Agreed." He turned towards the eavesdropping guardians and asked "What's the name of this place?"

"This is Lewistown, Montana. And, we're going to help you." The blonde guy said, easing out of his protective stance at last.

"Okay. We need the help and thank-you." I turned to Dimitri. "All this time, there's been forty or so strigoi living in Montana. No wonder they managed to attack us so frequently." It was idiotic. Turning back to the Moroi girl and her guardians, I asked "What element are you?" was worth a try asking.

"Fire, why?" she replied.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-one. Why?"

Holy shit. she didn't look a thing like twenty-one. "Are you brave enough to help kill off the strigoi?"

She blinked a few times, surprised. "Err, how?"

"You use fire, and strigoi are flammable. You'd be deadly."

She stood still, staring at me with a curious expression. "Okay." She said after several minutes, pulling out a small pink cell phone.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"We're going to need a lot more then four guardians and one fire users to take on forty strigoi. So, I'm calling help."

***

About an hour later, cars were pulling up everywhere. Guardians and fire using Moroi started packing up the main street, so we had to move out further in the direction we'd originally come from. We had more then enough people to take out all forty or so of the strigoi, and we were still waiting for more.

It annoyed me a little when Alberta sowed up, telling me and Dimitri that we shouldn't be there and that we should go rest in a hotel or something. It annoyed me even more when the others started agreeing with her. And it annoyed to the max when we were forced back into that limo and were driven off to the academy.

"Why are they sending us back? I don't even have school here anymore, I missed graduation!" I grumbled, pulling open the door to the mini fringe in the mini bar.

"Because we aren't needed, Rose." Dimitri said in a firm, perfectly clam and un-irritated voice. He was already slipping back into guardian mode already. Perfect…

Pulling out three can's I slammed the door shut and slumped back down on the seat on the other side of the car to him, ignoring his open arms. "When we get to the academy it'll be like it used to be, won't it?" I sighed, cracking open the can. "We'll have to hide."

"No, Roza, we won't. Remember, you told everything because you needed to go. They know now, so they will have to deal with it." He shook his arms, hinting that he wanted me with him, not opposite him.

I chucked him a can and he opened it. I took my spare can and my open can and went to sit on his lap again, snuggling in close to him once more. "I'd forgotten about that. It doesn't matter, anyway. We're out of school now. Well, I am. So they can't keep me there."

"That's right," He smiled; glad to see me happy again. "They can't."

"You know what I recon we should do?"

"What's that?"

I straightened up a little, trying to show him that I was being serious. "If we can't get jobs working security at the royal court, or if we can't get on as Lissa's guardian's, I think we should be lone hunters. Go around looking for strigoi, you know. Like when I was looking for you."

"Why?" he sounded confused, but not disapproving.

"Because you get to be free. No-one's there to give you orders and you never have to look out for anyone. If you screw up that's your problem, you don't endanger anyone else."I sighed, remembering what could have been good old days. Could have been, if I wasn't under the impression that I was hunting down the only tie I had to this world. "Sure, it's lonely. But it wouldn't be with the both of us." I finished off my can and cracked open the next. All serious talking would end, soon.

He sighed into my hair. "Roza, they'll hire us somewhere at the royal court and you know it. But, if they do not, then I see no reason why we can't go off like that. I think it actually does more help hunting them down, rather then standing and waiting."

"Thank-you, Dimka." I giggled again at the cuteness of his nickname. "I love you." I said as the car came to a stop inside the grounds of Saint Vladimir's academy.

"I love you too." He whispered into my ear.