"When are you leaving work?" Olena asked me halfway through dinner. She was sitting opposite my mother, who was next to me, with Abe on her other side. My parents had stopped by for dinner, and to see the Belikovs. Dimitri was on my other side, on the other end of the large square dinning table. There were three people on each side.

I tried to play it cool, but this was the question I'd been dreading. "I go on desk duty next month," I told her, "And, basically, I go on maternity leave whenever I go into labour. Or if I make it to thirty-eight weeks. Whichever happens first."

"I'd put money on labour," Ben said from next to Olena, twirling his pasta with his fork. "I think it's unlikely to reach thirty-eight weeks with twins."

"How long do you get off?" Karolina asked. "I got five months when I had Zoya, but I can't imagine the guardians giving you much."

"Rose gets six months, and I have paternity leave for the first two," Dimitri answered, smiling. "They don't have a set period for new fathers, so Hans made one up when we told him it was twins."

"One month per baby, seems fair to me," Abe quiped, taking a sip of his wine.

"That's quite long though, I wouldn't have imagined you could get so much."

"Actually," my mother piped up, "That period both allows you to bond with the child, and to get back in shape. It would only take about half of that time to regain form if you sent the baby to an academy immediately, but obviously no mother wants to do that so soon. That period means you can follow a more relaxed training program, and look after the baby. Don't look at me like," she added to me. I'd been giving her a pointed look. "You spent the first seven months of your life in Istanbul with me. I have pictures to prove it."

"So, you'll be returning to work when the babies are six months old?" Olena asked. I could just tell she was working to hide her disapproval. "But how are you going rasie two children with your schedule? It will be too difficult surely." And there it was. Beside me Dimitri grimaced. I put down my knife and fork, and turned to face Olena, trying to say this as calmly as I could. I'd actually rehearsed it, just so I could make sure that my argument was sound. I didn't want to start a fight.

"I'm working out a more stable schedule with Hans and Pawel at the moment, just until the kids are a bit older." Best not to mention any future kids right now. "Same amount of hours, just less night duties. Dimitri's schedule is already much more flexible than mine, unless Christian has a business meeting on the other side of the world." Best not to mention how often that was either. "Plus, all of my colleagues are perfectly willing to swap shifts with me if I needed to. We've been thinking this through since we found out about the clinic, and that was two years ago. We have a solid plan." She didn't look all that convinced. "Look, you can't just expect me to abandon Lissa. I've been slated to guard her since I was five."

"Of course you're not going to abandon Lissa, or your duty." My mother had joined the conversation. "With careful planning the two of you can manage this."

"And what if something happens to you?" Olena said, earnestly. "You'd be leaving your children without a mother."

Dimitri and I glanced at each other. We'd both accumulated some more molnijas in the last few years. The moroi had finally approved taking the offensive against strigoi. Raids that Dimitri and I were normally involved in.

"We're not going to participate in as many raids as we used to," Dimitri told her, "But if we're needed we won't refuse to go. We just won't be volunteering for them." Most of the raids were on a volunteer basis. In fact, many of them had too many volunteers.

"That's something at least, could you pass the bread rolls?" Sonya was clearly trying to change the subject. Considering the storm that we could all sense brewing, I couldn't really blame her.

"They're really nice ones, where did you buy them?" Sonya was helped by Viktoria. They managed to start a discussion about the bread between the two of them, Ben, Savva and Paul. It was a transparent attempt. One that didn't work.

"If they are needed for the raids," Saveliy said, cutting across Ben's critic of the bread rolls. "Then they should go. I'd certainly feel better if they were watching my back." Due to the fact that his charge was situated in Vladivostok, he not only took part in the raids, but had led a few. His nine molnijas were a testament to his skill.

"And if something were to happen?" Olena asked scandalised. "The child would be left an orphan!"

"Mama, how can you expect them to abandon their colleagues?" Karolina, it appeared, was on our side.

"She's right," Dimitri said to his mother, "Neither Rose, nor I could, handle the knowledge that we were needed, and then something happened because we refused to go."

"Neither of you are invincible," Olena shot back, "There is no guarantee that you'd come back alive."

"We'd actually realised that, funnily enough," I said, getting irritated. "What with the fact that Dimitri's died once, and I've died twice!"

"It's a risk they all take." Abe had finally put in his two cents. "They know the dangers, they are fully informed of them. You talk as though you believe them to have delusions of immortality, but I can guarantee you that there is not a single guardian so stupid. As much as we want to influence our children to stay perfectly safe, they can't while they know others are in danger. That is not who they are." He turned to look at me and Dimitri, raising his glass to the two of us. "And I am personnally very proud."

"Hear, hear," my mother said. Ben looked like he agreed, but didn't want to say anything to upset his wife.

"And what about the unpromised ones?" Olena just had to bring up Denis. "They have no regard for their lives, and I know you've hunted with them."

"That is completely different," I said, furiously. "They are completely undisciplined, or they were, I don't know about now, but I only needed them to find – " I broke off, realising that Dimitri's mother and sisters still thought the reason I'd first come to Russia was to tell them about Dimitri. I glanced at Yeva, the only one who had yet to speak. The message she sent me was clear: Time to come clean Rose. Damn it.

"You needed them to find strigoi," Olena said, "And you say that you are not as reckless as them." Reckless as the unpromised? Well, I might have kept my zaney personality, and most of my plans will eventually involve the phrase 'and from there we wing it', but reckless? Not anymore.

"I didn't need them to find strigoi," I manged to get out. I didn't want to confess this. "I only needed them to find one strigoi."

"What do you mean 'one strigoi'?" Ben asked slowly. Karolina's jaw dropped, and she looked from me to her brother. She'd figured it out apparently. From the look on Viktoria's face, she had as well.

"You were hunting Dima," Viktoria breathed. She didn't sound angry, more amazed. Dimitri and I didn't say anything, but the looks on our faces must have confirmed it. Sonya gasped.

"That's like an epic love story. That should so be mad into a movie," Paul said, looking just as amazed as his aunts. "Not that I'd see it, it'd be complete chick flick, but wow. That must have been impossible for you."

"Paul," Karolina scolded, "Don't talk like that."

"What, you can't tell me that's not, like, true love or whatever!" Paul raised his hands in defence. "I'm a guy, but that doesn't mean I don't know incredible that is."

"That's not what I'm saying at all. I think that it is incredible too – "

"Incredible?" Olena said, looking shocked. "How is that incredible?"

"I was a strigoi," Dimitri exclaimed. "A monster. If Rose had managed to kill me, I would been grateful."

"Grateful to be dead? Why would you be grateful to be dead? And she knew of a way to restore strigoi, yet she still tried to kill you!"

"Yes, I would have been. She would have been too, if our roles were reversed. Don't you dare get mad at Rose. She was only fulfilling a promise to me, one we made to each other."

"Besides, I only found out about that after I failed to kill him," I shot at Olena, angrily. "Even then, chances of actually restoring him were pretty slim. You have no idea what I went through to get that information. What Lissa went through to actually make it work."

I stood up, despite the fact that dinner was only half over. "None of this matters anymore. It happened. And you can't use it to try and convince me to leave work, because I would never abandon my charge, or my colleagues. As my dad pointed out, that's just not me. This argument is over." I strode angrily from the dinning room, through the sitting room past the kids, and into mine and Dimitri's bedroom.

Once there, I collapsed on the bed, sobbing into the pillow. God damn hormones. A few minutes later, I heard the door open. I didn't bother checking to see who it was, but when she sat on the bed, and started stroking my hair, I realised it was my mother.

"I kept bursting into tears whenever I saw the Comfort add."

"The what?"

"Comfort is a fabric softener in the UK."

I sat up, brushing away the hair that was sticking to my face. "A fabric softener commercial?" I gave a watery chuckle. "I can't watch the Friends re-runs with Emma or Ben."

She jerked her head towards the door. "That husband of yours is still arguing your case. Karolina and Saveliy are helping him, so's your father, and Yeva. Paul left to watch T.V."

I put my head on her shoulder, and she just continued stroking my hair. "It'll be okay," she told me. "I have faith in you two, and so does everyone else. Olena will come around eventually." I just nodded saying nothing.

"Rose, can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"How did you fail?" my mother asked, incredulously. "I'm happy you did, but how?"

I sat up, rolling my eyes. "Bad angle with the stake. And then he kinda fell into a river, so I couldn't tell whether or not it was a bad angle." My mother just looked at me. "It's a really long story."

"Am I going to hear it?"

"Probably not in this life-time."

My mother just sighed exhasperatedly, pulling me back to her, neither of us saying anything else. I wasn't entirely sure that Olena would come around to the idea, or that she was going to be okay with the fact that I'd tried to kill Dimitri. All I could do was try and explain our situation. That, and hope. I couldn't leave Lissa. She's was practically my sister, how could I just abandon her? She needed me, she may have had Christian, and I may have had Dimitri but there were just some things that we needed each other for. How could I justify leaving?