* Author's Notes: I'm trying something new! I outlined the next several chapters. I have a bullet list of things I want to happen in this story and usually I just write each chapter with my list in mind, but I did a full outline for the next 5, so we'll see how this goes!

Thanks a ton for the positive reviews! You may or may not be asking for Dimitri at the right time. Next chapter should be up sooner than you think.

Chapter 5

"I'm here," I said as I burst through the door, breathing a little heavily. Court wasn't huge, but I still had to run in order to make it to Christian's place just a minute shy of my shift start time. I didn't even glance at Lissa yet, focusing on unzipping my jacket. It was feeling way too warm for me to be comfortable. Finally taking a look at my charge and best friend, I noticed she was sitting on the couch way too primly for this time of hour with Christian beside her watching the news.

"Hey Lissa."

"I keep telling you this is my place. I should at least get the first greeting," Chrisitan snarked.

"And what an unlovely place it is," I said, giving him a phony smile.

I spied Dimitri slinking into his favorite chair with a cup of coffee, his duster still on. He must have gotten here not too long before I did, and I counted that as a small win. Usually when Lissa stayed over and I had to meet her here, Dimitri would always be here at least fifteen minutes before I did, even though we started at the same time.

"Morning Sparky, I see you finally gave up all pretenses of looking like you care about your appearance, but you're gonna have to do better than this to stand beside the Queen." He was wearing a pair of dark blue sweat pants and a dark gray shirt.

"Actually, Dimitri and I are headed to the gym with the others. We have a long day of training."

"How is the offensive magic thing going?" I was curious about the group of students he was training. Not too many Moroi or Dhampir knew about it, and there were only a handful of participants, but he managed to find representation from all the elements, spirit aside.

"It's actually going a lot better than expected, but we are going to have to work on our stamina, which is where Dimitri comes along," he said, nodding in the Russian's direction. One of the biggest hurdles for Moroi was their frail state. My mobster father was one of the few toned ones, but I could a little bit more definition in Christians arms. When standing, he was a little bit taller.

"I wish Rose and I could stop by and see, " Lissa chimed in. Ugh. That reminds me. Lissa had a full day of committee meetings, and I was only interested in one.

"Marie is gonna go on and on," I groaned.

Lissa narrowed her eyes in my direction. "She has good ideas," she defended.

"She has good looong ideas," Christian murmured while snickering.

Lissa crossed her arms. "She may be a little long winded, but she's passionate and I need all of the allies I can get." I would never use Marie and passionate in the same sentence, but whatever floats her boat.

"Marie Contra is very level-headed," Dimitri spoke for the first time.

"Dimitri agrees so it's settled," Lissa said with an encouraging smile. She was on a personal mission to get the stoic to be a little more comfortable and casual around her and his charge.

Deciding to start something, I huffed out a giggle. "That's because Dimitri and Marie have a lot in common if you know what I mean."

Dimitri gave a look that seemed to say 'don't start with me this morning' and I started cracking up.

Christian tried to suppress his laugh, but failed. "No heckling my guardian in my house, Rosie," he said finally coming to his defense.

Lissa rolled her eyes at me. "Well I guess that means you won't be eating any of the donuts he brought."

My smile faltered as my eyes desperately roamed around the room. "I only meant they have the same wonderful ideas," I tried to clean up my words as I tipped towards Dimitri, finally spying the delicious treats sitting in a chair slightly behind him. My hands reached out for the box only for larger, calloused, fingers to swipe them away.

My eyes met with the brown eyes belonging to those sneaky fingers. "Give them up, Comrade," I said firmly, placing my hands on my hips.

Dimitri slightly raised the top up, letting out the delicious aroma. "I bought them." He lowered the tap back down and smirked, eyes not leaving mine. Fine. Have it your way.

My hands quickly invaded his space in an attempt to snatch the box away but Dimitri was too fast. He jumped up, bringing his hands and the box behind him, and quickly sat back down.

I gasped. "You SAT on my donuts?!"

"They were mine to sit on," he replied. I could hear Christian gasping for air through his laughs. My jaw felt like it could touch the floor. How could I love someone that would sit on my donuts?

I felt liquid form at the corners of my eyes as I continued to stare at this horrible, horrible person when finally Dimitri reached into the back of his duster and pulled out the box. My eyes widened as I watched him open the lid fully and turn it towards me.

My hand reached for and finally connected with one, two donuts. "Thank you for being a decent human being," I told him.

He rolled his eyes, but was smiling and fully handed me the box. I felt a spark flow through me as our fingers slightly touched for the first time in a while. The smirk fell off his face, another look replacing it…surprise? Wonder?

My mouth opened to say something, but Lissa thankfully interrupted. "You might have to eat those on the go, Rose, we should probably be leaving now."

Like that, the spell was broken and I glanced at my phone. "Yea, we better go settle in at our first meeting," I said checking the time.

I grabbed one more donut and sat the box on the table, avoiding any finger touching.

Lissa and Christian said their goodbyes as I gave one last glance at Dimitri before opening the door.

—

"This area is home to the fifth largest Dhampir community in the US," Valentin continued. "There should be more than enough people to gauge interest and sell the program to."

The larger Dhampir retraining committee was back to discuss the things we've worked on so far. Alberta was staring at the screen with a scrutinizing expression. "You want us all to go to Richmond, Virginia?"

"We need to scope the area out and build trust with the community there before we start asking them to change their life plans and join us," Lissa chimed in. "It would be hard to really sell this without that interaction."

"Yes, but you are Queen now." Abby spoke for the first time. "It is unheard of for a Queen to visit a dhampir community, especially with their…uniqueness." I didn't know a ton about the dhampir there, but I've heard rumors about them being a very eccentric group. It was said that they heavily believed in ghosts and not because they were shadow kissed.

Lissa turned towards her with a determined look in her eyes. "I am not just the Queen of the Moroi. The Dhampirs need to see my face. They need to trust that I have an interest in doing what is best for both of our kind."

Abby proceeded with her words cautiously, "I don't disagree, but we also must consider how things would look to some of the more traditional Royals. Some are still very upset that you sit on the throne. We don't want to cause unnecessary friction and lead to more attacks." My mind flashed back to the brutal attack on Jill a couple of months ago.

"Lissa," I began, "your safety is most important to me. There is nothing wrong with sending others in your place. Besides, we don't only have to think about angered Royals but consider the logistical matters of keeping you safe from Strigoi."

Lissa wasn't convinced. "I have you and the rest of my team. I have to travel to plenty of other places. I could stand going there for a day or so. We'll use all of the discretion necessary, but I am not going to allow people to scare me from fulfilling my duties, whether they be Strogoi or Royals stuck in their ways."

I sighed. I had a feeling there was no way to win this argument. Lissa was determined to go. "Well, I guess this means we will have to come up with a security plan."

Valentin looked in my direction. "I wasn't sure if the Queen was going to come, but I made a list of things to take into consideration, specific to that area." He then turned to look at Hans. "You weren't in your office, but I slid them under your door."

"Yes, I picked it up, but I hadn't gotten a chance to look at it yet," Hans confirmed. "I'm sure it would be a solid start." He turned towards me. "Rose, you should take a look at it as soon as possible so that we can begin planning with the rest of the Queen's guard."

I agreed. "Lissa, could we possibly have someone fill in for me for this afternoon's meeting with Contra? I need to get started on this right away."

She nodded her head. "Of course. I'll have someone inform Serena."

Now that it was settled, Valentin clicked on the next slide. "How is the media going?"

Daniella spoke first, "It's on course." She passed out a booklet to everyone. "The few pages are about presenting the initiative to the Moroi."

I looked at the bold bright colors of a sample flier. "Page 22 is where we break out into the dhampir," Alberta added. "We decided on needing proper messaging to current guardians as well. Page 29 and forward focuses on our targets. We need a few more inputs from Valentin on that part, but we are close."

Lissa flipped through the pages with approval. "We're making good progress. I want us to have our new recruits within a few weeks, then we can start selling this to Moroi."

We continued working on this for another 2 hours and departed with a ton of homework.

—

After lunch and two more meetings, it was finally time for Serena to come and relieve me of duty for today. Giving a quick goodbye to Lissa, I began to head off to the guardian headquarters to speak with Hans, but first I needed to drop off all of these papers. So I high tailed it to my room.

After that little detour, I left my building and headed towards Hans. It was later in the day, and within a couple of hours dhampir would start heading towards dinner. Turning a corner, I got this weird feeling again like someone was watching.

I decided to change up my route and take the long way to the station. My suspicions of being followed were confirmed when I heard the faintest of sounds, so faint I almost felt like I hallucinated hearing them. It was time to stop second guessing myself. I sped up my pace, and turned another corner while reaching for my stake, and abruptly stopped. I nearly crashed into my tall stalker.

"You've got to be kidding me?!"

Dimitri's hand was wrapped around my wrist, just barely keeping the stake away from his chest. Seeing my enraged expression, he let go of me and promptly stepped back.

"What the hell are you doing," I demanded.

He remained poised in the midst of my tantrum, "Let me explain —"

"- How long have you been following me?!"

"-I was worried about you," he continued like I hadn't interrupted him. "You didn't seriously think I was going to let hearing that someone was stalking you go."

I crossed my arms, "Apparently you are the stalker!"

"Yea, you've caught me red handed," he deadpanned.

I swear sometimes I want to hit him. "What are you even doing here? Are you seriously shucking off your duties to follow me around."

"Christian was exhausted from training. We went to the feeders and I dropped him off at home to rest, then asked for the rest of the day off."

Remembering that I needed to talk to Hans, I began to walk off. "I don't know what you think you've heard, but you need to back off."

"How long has this person been giving you problems," he asked, walking beside me.

"I only have one problem, and it's you."

"It must have been serious for you to reach out to Guardian Gibbons and I saw you at the guest lodge this morning."

I turned my head towards him. "All you've done is confirmed that you're stalking me."

With the headquarters in visual distance, I finally slowed my pace. "Look I know that you're worried about me, but it's nothing that I can't handle. I really need to speak to Hans about an upcoming day trip, so once again, leave this alone."

By his face, I could tell he wasn't going to back down anytime soon. It was a shame that we were both stubborn. "I needed something from there anyway, I'll wait for you and walk you home and you can tell me about your stalker."

Knowing I wasn't going to win, I simply rolled my eyes and headed inside of the building.

—

At first I thought they were staring at Dimitri. As the months went by, more and more guardians became easier around him, however he still had his detractors who thought he was just biding his time waiting to strike. That the red-eyed monster would rise again and was never really gone in the first place. Even outside of all that, Dimitri had always been an intimidating person. Mason didn't call him an antisocial god for no reason. So, it was not uncommon at all for him to receive a few nervous glances.

Never being one to let others see they affected him, Dimitri always confronted the stares head on. With an impassive look on his face, he always made sure to acknowledge his agitators with a simple but dignified nod or greeting. Still, I could tell the subtleties in his expression that the attention got to him. Dimitri began to put on his mask and perform once again as we made our way down the hall to Han's office.

There was something odd about today's gawkings though. His detractors seemed less focused on him, like there was something or someone that drew their attention more. The uneasiness of their gazes persuaded me to quickly glance over my shoulder. Perhaps there was someone behind us? After confirming that it was a bust, apprehension began to grow inside of me. It started as a cool chill on the back of my neck and evolved into a flutter feeling inside of my stomach. That fluttering turned into a full buzz after watching a guardian take a look at us, and step inside of Han's office, Han's coming out immediately.

"Hey," I said, walking up to him.

"Rose, I need to ask you a question," he responded with a weary expression on his face. Something was bothering him.

"Sure, I was here to see you anyway." I gave a nervous glance to Dimitri.

"Why were Tarasov bricks and prison layout in your locker? "