CHAPTER ELEVEN

After making our way back to the hotel, we checked out two more rooms. Abe decided to let Lissa and I take the first room, which meant that Dimitri and Christian roomed with us.

In an attempt to keep watch over him, Abe insisted that Adrian and he share a room, and Eddie stayed with them. Dana and Mikhail took the last room, along with Lissa and Christian's feeder a man named Tripp.

At the moment, Dimitri and Christian were standing outside the door while Lissa and I talked.

"Why did you leave me Rose?" Lissa asked.

I sighed, and decided that since she was here now, there was no point lying to her. "I heard a rumor that they wanted to make you Queen, and I didn't want to ruin your shot at being Queen." I answered.

Lissa rolled her eyes at me. "Rose, I could only be Queen if I was on the Council, and since I don't have a family I can't be on the Council."

"Uh, yeah. That's the thing Liss. You have a little brother or sister out there." I told her.

Several emotions flickered through the bond. Shock, disbelief, more shock, and finally anger. "That's impossible." She stated simply.

I shook my head at her and handed her Tatiana's note. She read through it, and then I watched as she crumpled the note in her hand. She held the crumpled note towards me. "This is what Tatiana left you to do?" She asked.

I nodded. "And you weren't going to tell me about it?"

"Liss, I didn't want you to miss your chance to be Queen." I answered.

Lissa turned to me, understanding in her jade eyes. "I appreciate the concern, Rose. But from now on, please don't keep secrets from me, and let me decide what is best for me."

I hugged Lissa again. "Deal, as long as you promise to forgive me."

"I forgive you, but you understand if I don't believe this is true. I mean, it must be if Tatiana told you about it, but still. I hate to think of my father like that." She said, sadness flowing from her through the bond.

"Liss," I began in an attempt to comfort her. "Your dad was still a good guy. He just had some faults."

Lissa shrugged. "I guess. Any idea where to find my little brother or sister?" She asked.

"Las Vegas. But, I'm waiting on my friend Sydney to give me some more information."

Lissa nodded but didn't say anything.

"Hey, Liss? How did you find me, anyway? Adrian told you, didn't he?" I asked her, unable to refrain any longer.

Lissa shook her head. "Not really. He just told me that you wouldn't be alone. And then he came up with that half-cocked story about finding schools and I figured he knew where you were and was just throwing them off his tail so he could come to you. So, I followed his lead."

I glanced at Lissa sideways and let out a deep breath. "You don't really think I killed the Queen, do you?" I asked her.

Lissa's face adopted a shocked expression. "Of course not, Rose! Dimitri told Adrian and I to tell the Council that we thought that you were guilty so that they would quit questioning us about your whereabouts. He said if they were certain that we thought you were guilty, they wouldn't ask us about you."

I sighed in relief. "Oh thank god. I really thought that you believed that. I was crushed."

Lissa smiled at me, and for a second it felt like old times between us. "Rose, I could never believe the worst of you."

I smiled back, but we were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come in," Lissa said over her shoulder, and Dimitri walked in, looking every bit as God-like as I always thought he did.

"Can I have a moment alone with Rose?" He asked Lissa, and she nodded.

"Sure, I'll just go and have a word with Christian." She said, shooting a conspiratorial wink my way.

She left, and Dimitri came and sat next to me on the bed.

"Rose," he started, and I could tell that I was about to get a lecture, so I hastily cut him off.

"Look, comrade. I know you're probably going to feed me some line about how I should just leave it to the rest of them to find Lissa's family and turn myself in, but I just can't. I won't be executed for a crime I didn't commit."

Dimitri arched one of his gorgeous eyebrows. "I wasn't going to say anything like that. I came because," Dimitri paused and stood up, turning his back on me.

He was breathing heavily, and my heart went out to him. Whatever Dimitri had to say was important to him.

I stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. "Dimitri," I started, and he spun around to face me, his eyes catching mine and holding them with their depths.

"Rose, I was so worried about you." He said, his eyes burning with an intensity that kept me cemented to the spot, and I was suddenly very aware of how close his face was to mine.

"Dimitri I," I started, but Dimitri made it clear he wasn't finished talking.

"I did, horrible things to you, Roza. Horrible, horrific things that I will have to remember for the rest of my life."

"And to see you like that. See you willingly give your blood just so that you could be with me," I was suddenly starting to catch on. He was telling me why he didn't love me anymore. And it seemed like my worst fear was realized, Dimitri though I was a blood-whore.

"Dimitri, I'm sorry I made you think less of me." I told him, averting my gaze to the floor.

Dimitri stamped his foot and placed a hand on my chin, lifting my face back to his. "No! I could never think less of you. It's me, Rose. I am disgusted by what I did to you. You, who came to free me. You, who loved me, even when there wasn't much to love. It's not you that is the problem. It's me. Every time I see you, I remember what I did, and I hate myself a little more."

Dimitri dropped his hand from my chin, and looked away from me. "That's why we can't be together, Rose. Not because I don't love you. I'll always love you. After what has happened, I would be a fool not to. No, we can't be together, because you deserve more."

His words were swimming around wildly in my head. How dare he? Just as I began to accept that he didn't love me anymore, he had the audacity to tell me differently.

A tear formed in my eye, and I looked at Dimitri with an unwavering glare. "Dimitri," I started and his eyes flew back to mine. "You can't do this. You can't play games with me. I don't even know why you bothered to tell me all of this, it doesn't change anything does it? You're still telling me to move on with my life, that we can't be together. So, you just wanted to cause me more pain?" With each word I was getting angrier and angrier, and my voice rose an octave or two. "What did you wake-up today and think, 'Rose's existence has been shitty lately, let me throw her bone just so that I can take it right back?'"

"Rose," Dimitri started, but I wasn't interested in what he had to say.

"Oh, no you don't! I am not finished yet! That's another thing, where do you get off deciding what's best for me? I decide what's best for me! And what was all that nonsense about you not knowing me," I began to stalk towards him, and as a response he was walking backwards, a shocked expression on his face.

"You barely know me? You barely know me? I quit school to go after you! I broke into Tarasov just so that I could find the one person who said they could bring Strigoi back, for you, and you don't know m-," at this point Dimitri cut me off, straightening himself, and cupping his hand around my neck, then pulling my lips to his. A pretty effective means of shutting me up, as it were.

I pulled away from Dimitri, and stared at him in shock. "Of course I know you Rose. But I wasn't about to tell them that." He told me with a small smile. "But, it doesn't change the fact that I don't deserve you, and so we will never be together again."

My heart fractured again, as the little flicker of hope that Dimitri's kiss had caused died out. He hadn't changed his mind, he just wanted to tell me the truth.

"How can you say that? If you loved me, it wouldn't matter." I told him in a small voice that made me cringe.

"Rose, I said that I love you. I meant that. But loving someone, and being in love with someone are two different things. I love you, you will always hold a place in my heart, that hasn't changed. But, I told you before that being Strigoi, it changed me. I can't be in love with someone. My soul is too twisted." Dimitri turned away from me, to look down at the floor, and when he looked back up at me, his expression was unreadable. "Besides, can you honestly tell me that you could just leave Adrian and come back to me? I can see it, you love him, too, don't you?" He asked.

I opened my mouth to answer him, tell him no, but then I stopped myself. The truth of the matter was, I did care for Adrian. Part of me even loved him. And I had already admitted to myself that once I got over Dimitri completely, I knew that I could see myself with Adrian, loving him completely.

Dimitri's gaze burned into mine, and I knew that he read volumes from my hesitation. Once again I moved to speak, but I was stopped cold by another voice.

"Well, Rose. Answer his question, do you love me?" My eyes flew to the doorway, where Adrian stood casually leaned up against the frame, watching Dimitri and I with interest.

Suddenly, I realized that the two loves of my life were staring at me, waiting for me to answer the question.

In light of everything going on in my life, I so did not need this right now.