PREVIOUSLY...
Anna lept from the table. "Dimtri, Vladimir and I both saw you kill your old lover. We're scared to leave you alone with our daughter."
Dimtri's eyes squeezed shut. "Please don't talk about her."
Rose stood, her eyes angry. "You've upset him!" She took his hand and teleported. Dimtri collapsed on her and she gasped. "Dimtri, what's wrong?"
Dimtri quivered. "There was a reason I killed that woman, that beast."
Rose led Dimtri to the bed and he flopped down. "I wasn't always a part of the Stogoi coven. Hundreds of years ago, I was Azrian's head guard. We were best friends, brothers in fact. But back then, the world was a much more dangerous place. The Stogoi took blood from humans right on the street. There was no secrecy whatsoever."
Rose nodded. "I'm well aware of how it was."
Dimtri stood and took Rose's hand. "The Stogoi was ruled by a queen. Her name was Tasha. She staged plenty of large-scale attacks on the court. One day, she came to fight. She and I were fighting and I was losing. Instead of killing me, she knocked me out and kidnapped me." Dimtri opened the closet door and flipped on the light. He walked all the way to the end of the closet and pulled up a wall panel. He tapped in a passcode and a door slid open. He flipped on the lights and what Rose saw horrified her. The room was part torture chamber, part sex dungeon. "When I woke up, I was here." He shivered violently. "She tortured me the first hundred years. But after that, she started to force herself on me. She forced me to love her. She forced me to tell her I loved her and I'd never leave her every time she-" He started to sob. "The worst day was when she forced me to marry her. I became her king and even more of a sex toy. But I bid my time and got most of the Stogoi on my side. One night I convinced her to let me be in control. She let me and I staked her. I was so scared it wouldn't work. She put up a fight until she died. She turned me. I didn't need to drink blood before that night. But she managed to bite me and blended our blood."
Rose pulled Dimtri out of the nightmarish room and closed it. He tried to stop crying, but it didn't work. "I'm sorry you had to see me this week, Roza."
Rose shook her head. "Dimtri, that was important to know. And nobody should ever have to keep that to themselves."
Dimtri held Rose tightly. "She stole my innocence, like I wanted to do to you. I'm so glad I didn't though."
A nasally voice growled, "My little man whore. You've moved on already?" Dimtri froze and Rose turned. A tall woman with black hair and a severely scarred face stepped from the room in the wall. "Dimka, you promised me you'd never leave me."