I finally found my motivation in this quarantine and already began writing the next chapter.

Disclaimer- All characters belong to Richelle Mead.

I was surprised, that even after all these years, I was able to remember the location of the prison. I had hoped I'd never had to come here again, but when had anything I had ever wanted go as planned? Scanning the area behind me for the 10thtime, I released a sigh of relief seeing the fighting hadn't gotten past the line of trees. Hoping we had more of an advantage over the strigoi, I prayed that our guardians would be able to dispose of the intruders before they even made it close to the civilians of court.

The prison was located near the far end of the court, because who would want a building like that in the middle of civilian life. The problem with that was, that while the entrance of the prison faced the direction I was heading, the exit led straight into the line of trees surrounding court. And I had a really bad feeling Ethan, his brother and whoever joined into their little evil alliance would try to escape from the back.

As soon as the building came into view, I ran straight in through the front door and almost immediately tripped over something.

Or someone.

"Mikhail?" I was alarmed to see him barely moving on the floor. I was torn between staying and seeing if he was okay and wanting to dig my literal claws into the Moore brothers. One groan of pain from Mikhail made my decision easy.

I quickly made my way back to him, noticing the pool of blood collecting beneath his head. His glazed eyes barely recognized who I was.

"Oh no." No way in hell I was leaving him. He was the only person on the planet who understood what I went through to get Dimitri back; I wasn't going to leave him here.

"Mikhail, can you hear me?" All I got back was another groan in response. "Mikhail, I'm going to help you okay. I just need to see if there is anyone else who needs my help." His eyes closed again and didn't open. I ran down the hall, seeing several guards in Mikhail's state, or worse.

It wasn't until I got to where the prisoners were being held that I saw that Mikhail had it easy, because the two guards that were meant to keep watch over the holding cells had both been drained of their blood. Dimitri's fear had been correct.

I sprint as quickly as I could, noting each cell was empty. They had all escaped. I made my way back over to Mikhail, seeing him worse than when I left him. His skin had turned a sickly yellow and I could barely detect a heartbeat on him. Channeling part of my wolf strength, I scooped him as gently as I could and lifted his body onto my shoulder.

While I had spent multiple occasions at the infirmary back at the academy, the same couldn't be said to my short time at court so I had no clue where I was going. I moved as quickly and carefully as I could away from the prison, hoping to find someone who could help me.

My answer came in a group of guardians heading in my direction.

"There are guards in there that need immediate medical attention," I called out as soon as they came into earshot.

One of them asked, "Are there any prisoners left?"

"No and two guards were drained of their blood." They looked alarmed and quickly brushed past me. "Wait! Where's the infirmary?"

The same one who talked before turned and answered. "Keep going straight, it'll be just past the elementary school building."

"Stay with me Mikhail," I begged though I doubt he could hear me. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, more from the anxiousness I felt of having lost so much time helping him and partly due to the sounds of fighting I picked up getting closer and closer to where I stood. We had been prepared, but so had the strigoi.

Picking up my pace once the infirmary finally came into my view, I deposited Mikhail as gently as possible on the first available stretcher I saw. "He has a really nasty head wound and lost a lot of blood!" I told the nurse at the front desk and ran right out of there. They would be able to handle Mikhail now.

How long had I been in that fucking infirmary? In the 2 minutes it took me to leave Mikhail in there, the fighting had broken through the line of trees.

I didn't know where Ethan could be right now and my priority now was making sure no strigoi made it close to the civilians of court.

Pulling my stake from my boot, I ran full force at the first strigoi I saw. He wasn't expecting me so I swiftly dodged his hit and found his heart in seconds. Before he even dropped to the ground, I was already fighting the next one.

I knew I had my wolf side, and the 14 hours of love making from my needing period, to thank for how strong I felt right now. I felt like I could take on every strigoi here all on my own.

"Fuck!" I barked out in pain. Spoke too soon Rose.

The three strigoi I had been fighting now turned to five. I mean I know I'm good, but I didn't even think I was '1 on 5' good. Not thinking too much about it, I quickly went on the offensive, striking out at the one closest to me. She was tall and built, telling me she had been a dhampir before turning. They were always the hardest to go against, because they had the true fighting technique that former moroi and human strigoi tended to lack.

I missed her heart, but caused her enough momentary pain to temporarily push her away. The next had luckily been a Moroi and two exchanges of hits back and forth, and he was done for.

The former dhampir had recovered and the remaining four all came towards me at once. The one I had stabbed obviously wanted me dead the most and she used the distraction of her colleagues to tackle my body onto the ground. Her body landing on top of mine knocked the air out of me and she used that to moment to pin my hands underneath her knees.

I struggled and thrashed against her, but there was literally no way out of this unless I turned myself.

I felt her hot breath come close to my neck and closed my eyes, telling my body to shift. I had only just felt my claws elongate when I heard the strigoi on top of me scream out in pain. My eyes shot open to see her hair was up in flames. I quickly threw her off of me and pushed my stake through her heart.

I had my momentum back and the remainder of the strigoi, who were also on fire, were staked within the minute.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"You're welcome," Christian bit back.

I brushed the dirt off my butt and waited for Christian to explain what the hell he was doing out here.

"Uh have you ever considered getting a manicure?" Confused, I looked down at my hands to see my claws out. Taking a calming breath, they went back to their normal size. Thank god I didn't need to use them.

"What are you doing out here?"

"I wanted to help," he said matter-of-factly.

"Are you crazy? We have no idea how many strigoi are here! Where is Lissa?"

"Calm down Rosie. Lissa is fine, she's in the church right now with her guardians inside and outside protecting it. I don't care how many strigoi are out here. I'm not going to sit around when I could be of help."

"But Christian-"

"You can't stop me Rose."

"Fine!"

He gestured towards the woods. "I'm surprised to see you over here. I would have sworn you'd be on the front lines fighting."

"Yeah, but I had more important things I needed to deal with." I quickly filled Christina in on Ethan's brother killing the wolves and breaking everyone out of their cells.

"Why did the prisoners escape?"

"I don't know, do you think I should go ask them?" I said sarcastically. "I swear you ask the stupidest questions ever Christian."

"What should we do now?"

"Well as much as it pains me to say this, if I had your help, we could kill these fuckers way quicker."

"Just like we did back at the academy?"

"Hell yeah. You think you have enough juice left in you?" I asked gesturing towards his hands. He produced two fireballs, balancing just above the palm of his hands. "Calm down, Sparky, careful where you point those things."

I gestured for him to follow me as we began our own hunt for strigoi.

It was déjà vu of our battle at the academy and I hated to admit that having Christian with me was helping tremendously. Even with difficulty, I could fight off multiple strigoi, but with Christian's help, we were going through them a lot more quickly. We had just finished off another group that broke out of the line of trees. The sound near the wards seemed to be quieting down and I didn't know if that was a good thing or not. It either meant our guardians had killed off most of the strigoi, or that the latter were able to fight off the guardians to come closer to the people of court.

"Do you think they used humans to break the wards?"

I shrugged. "That or dhampirs helped them."

"What?" Christian seemed alarmed. I didn't stop moving, but still explained to Christian the best I could.

"Hans had sent multiple guardians out to town to see if they noticed any suspicious strigoi behavior, but he hasn't heard back from them in hours."

"If that's true Rose then this is going to change everything." He was right. Humans helping strigoi was unheard of, but we still saw it happen at the Badica residence. If Moroi, dhampir, or both were the ones helping the strigoi than that would truly change everything. Who could you trust, if you couldn't trust your own people?

"I'm just trying to get this whole nightmare over so I can get the hell out of this place." Christian seemed surprised. "What, you didn't think I was actually here to stay, did you?"

"I just didn't think you would leave Dimitri again?"

"Leave him?"

"You actually think he's going to come with you?" Christian didn't say it in a malicious way, he genuinely sounded curious. I knew this wasn't the time to be having this conversation, but I still grabbed onto his arm to make him stop.

"Why wouldn't he?" I was surprised to hear the nervous shrill in my voice, but I couldn't help it. Why wouldn't he come with me?

"Forget it, it was stupid of me to even say anything. You know him way better-"

"Tell me! Why do you think he wouldn't come with me?"

"You tell me Rose. Why is it difficult for you to live here at Court?"

"Because I have horrible memories from this place," I told him easily.

"Exactly, so what kind of memories do you think Russia holds for Dimitri? You had what, a couple of shitty weeks here? How many nights did he spend roaming the streets of Russia, killing innocent people?"

"He was a strigoi," I bit out.

Christian put his hands up defensively. "I know, trust me, I'm not saying it to accuse him of anything. I'm trying to show you why it could be difficult for him to go to Russia with you. Did you tell him you were leaving after all this was over?"

"Not exactly," I trailed off.

"And did he agree to come to Russia with you, if you did leave."

"He was said he was going to give our relationship another shot; that we would make it work this time."

Christian's gaze softened and he out his hands on my shoulder. "But did he say he would go to Russia?"

I am so fucking stupid, how could I have assumed he would be okay coming with me? Would I be able to live without him after all we had said and did with one another since I'd come back? I loved him and I knew even if I were to live till I was 100, I wouldn't love anyone the way I loved him.

But I couldn't stay here either. Russia was my new home.

With or without Dimitri.