I turned away from the door, trying to control the emotions that I knew were showing on my face. I knew that Dimitri had likely already seen me, just as I knew he had time to prepare, knowing that it would be logical that I'd be with Lissa. I took a couple of deep breaths, tuning out the conversation I could hear Lissa and Tasha having across the room.
Once I was certain my emotions were controlled, and my face was blank, I grabbed Lissa's crown and turned to face the room again. Lissa was sitting on the couch across from me, and Tasha was next to her. I didn't see Dimitri in my direct eye line, but I knew he was still in the room. I refused to look around to find him, but a moment later, I felt a tingling on the side of my head and knew that Dimitri was staring at me.
I took another deep breath and crossed the room. I knew I looked good in my dress with the way that it accentuated my curves and supported my breasts, pushing them up slightly to enhance my cleavage. Even Jill looked good in her dress, despite her more petite figure.
When Lissa saw me approaching, she started to wrap up her conversation with Tasha, keeping it brief. Tasha took the hint.
"It was great seeing you both," Tasha said, standing. "And it was great meeting you, Jill. Maybe we'll pop into one of your lessons with Christian. See how much you've learned. We'll be staying at Court for a bit."
Jill smiled and nodded.
I couldn't help myself. "We?"
Tasha nodded. "Yes. You remember Guardian Belikov from the Academy, right?"
I gritted my teeth and forced a smile. "Yes."
I remembered him all too well.
"He's my guardian now and will be staying at Court as long as I am."
I didn't have to look to know that Dimitri crossed the room to be by Tasha's side as she moved towards the door. Tasha paused and looked back.
"We'll see you downstairs."
Lissa smiled and thanked Tasha. The second the door shut, I collapsed against the couch, trying not to cry.
"Do you need to scream it out?" Lissa asked softly.
I nodded.
"Any preferences?"
I shook my head.
A moment later, I heard the opening notes of "Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson playing through Lissa's phone. I stood from the couch as the song continued, singing along, my voice raising with each line. By the time we got to the chorus, Jill was screaming the song along with us.
When the song was over, Lissa and I collapsed back onto the couch and sighed.
"Are you okay?"
I smiled. "I will be. Now, let's go get you married."
The ceremony flew by and seeing Lissa's radiant face as she married Christian was a memory I'd never forget. As Lissa and Christian walked back down the aisle together, officially Mrs. and Mr. Vasilisa Dragomir, I felt Dimitri staring at me again and ignored him in favor of following Lissa and Christian, with Jill right behind me and Eddie next to her.
I wasn't able to avoid Dimitri for long though. When I reached the helicopter pad, Lissa and Christian were already waiting with their guardians. Tasha and Dimitri were also there. I put as much distance between myself and Dimitri as possible, which wasn't much.
Once the helicopter landed, Lissa and Christian were the first to board. One of Lissa's guardians took the front passenger seat, next to the pilot, while Lissa and Christian sat in the seats back-to-back with the front seats, so that they could see the rest of us. The third seat next to them was left empty, and when I climbed in next, I took the bucket seat across from Lissa. There was another bucket seat across the small aisle from me and two more that backed up against each of those chairs. Behind that were two more sets of back-to-back bucket chairs, and then, along the back row of the helicopter, there was another set of three seats.
Jill and Eddie climbed in, taking the second set of forward-facing bucket seats in the back of the cabin. Three of the guardians climbed all of the way in the back of the copter so that they also had a view of the whole cabin. That left one of the guardians and Tasha and Dimitri still to board. We'd have one empty seat (not counting the empty seat next to Lissa and Christian), and I was hoping that Tasha and Dimitri would take the far bar bucket seats but had no luck. Dimitri ended up sitting right behind me while Tasha took the seat across the aisle from him. The remaining guardian took the bucket seat across the aisle from me.
As we took off, Christian shot me a smirk. "Rose, where's your boyfriend?"
I didn't have to look behind me to know that Dimitri was listening; I could tell by the way the chair creaked, and I shot Christian a glare. Neither Lissa nor I had told him about me and Dimitri, but he wasn't dumb. He had eventually figured it out.
"You know he's not my boyfriend," I hissed.
He started counting off on his fingers. "You've gone on more than five dates with him."
I rolled my eyes. "Those weren't dates. We had sex a few times. We're nothing more than friends with benefits."
"Sounds like dating to me," Christian said.
Lissa spoke in my head. By that definition, we'd be dating too.
I laughed and smiled at Lissa. She wasn't wrong. It was necessarily a secret that Lissa and I had fooled around before, and neither of us was ashamed of our sexuality, but it also wasn't something that we widely broadcasted. Christian looked confused until Lissa leaned over and whispered in his ear what she had told me. His smile told me that he knew exactly what he was doing.
The flight to Court was less than thirty minutes, and thankfully, the rest of the flight passed in mostly silence. As we flew over the grounds, we could already see people lining up and flooding the grounds for the reception. It was being held in Court's largest ballroom, and the helicopter was planning on landing behind the palace, a short distance to the ballroom.
"We'll see you soon," Lissa called as she and Christian disappeared into the palace. A few guardians trailed behind him while others stayed with Jill. Even without the quorum law in effect, she was still well protected. Lissa wouldn't stand for anything less.
The walk to the ballroom was a short one, and within minutes of us arriving, the DJ was announcing Christian and Lissa. Most of the reception was a blur with my time split between dancing with Lissa and Jill and fulfilling various maid of honor duties.
A couple of hours later, Lissa pulled me away from what I was doing and pushed me onto the dance floor once again. As the opening notes of "Death By A Thousand Cuts" by Taylor Swift played, I shot her look.
In an instant, I was reminded of how our "scream it out" sessions started.
It was a couple of months after moving to Court, and Lissa had once again found me in my room, crying over Dimitri. I cycled through the five stages of grief regularly, never actually hitting the "acceptance" stage. As I talked to Lissa that day, I quickly became angry. Lissa suggested playing a few songs and screaming the lyrics to them; a way to get our emotions out.
She pulled up a list of breakup songs on her phone and played one at random, which happened to be "Death By A Thousand Cuts".
Ever since then, we had regular scream sessions, cycling through various songs, and something told me that Lissa had requested this song just for me.
We sang the song together, screaming "Cause the morning comes, and you're not my baby" to each other. Others joined in with our dancing and singing, but we ignored them. Over Lissa's shoulder, I caught Dimitri looking at me, and for the first time all night, I didn't look away.
"My heart, my hips, my body, my love
"Tryna find a part of me that you didn't touch
"Gave up on me like I was a bad drug
"Now I'm searching for signs in a haunted club
"Our songs, our films, united we stand
"Our country, guess it was a lawless land
"Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand
"Paper cut stings from our paper-thin plans
"My time, my wine, my spirit, my trust
"Tryna find a part of me you didn't take up
"Gave you so much, but it wasn't enough
"But I'll be alright, it's just a thousand cuts."
My eyes stayed locked on Dimitri's, and I was breathless from dancing and singing by the time I finished the second verse. He was the first to break the stare, and I smiled. It was the part of the song that I had loved the most the first time Lissa played it for me, and knowing that Dimitri was in the room listening only made me want to scream as loud as possible.
The ceremony wrapped up after a few hours and Lissa and Christian had a receiving line to greet. Guardians tried to move the line along as quickly as possible, and it was nearly creeping into the new day by the time I made it back to my apartment that night. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit my pillow and wanted to smash my alarm when it went off at six the next morning.
I got up and dressed in my gym clothes before making my way downstairs to the palace weight room and sparring area. It was used exclusively by the guardians of the royal guard, including Jill's guardians. When I reached the room, I was expecting it to be empty but was surprised to see someone in there. A moment after walking in, I realized that someone was Dimitri.
He turned at my entrance, and I ignored him as I filled up my water bottle. I was determined to complete my workout this morning. Lissa and Christian were leaving for their honeymoon this afternoon and I was going with them as one of the guardians. There was no telling if I'd be able to get a workout in for a couple of weeks.
"Rose," Dimitri greeted. When I didn't answer, he added, "Are you really going to ignore me?"
"I have nothing to say to you," I snapped.
I threw myself into my workout, attempting to ignore Dimitri. An hour went by, and I started my cool-down stretches.
"Let's spar," Dimitri said from behind me, making me flinch.
"No."
"What are you afraid of?" he taunted.
My control snapped. "You want to spar? Fine. Let's go."
I walked onto the sparring mat and took my place at one end. Our sparring methods hadn't changed much, even though he was still as hard to read as ever. Dimitri's moves hadn't changed much either, and we were still well-matched. Our spar went on for what felt like hours before I finally managed to break through by feinting in one direction. I dragged Dimitri down, throwing all my weight into it and succeeding. I pinned Dimitri to the ground, my legs straddling his waist. I held him long enough to prove that I had won and made the mistake of looking into his eyes. They were dark with pride and lust, and pinning him down brought back too many memories of our time at the Academy. Shaking myself out of the trance, I started to release his hands when Dimitri surged up and kissed me.
My lips felt like they were on fire as I kissed him back and my grip on his arms slackened enough that Dimitri was able to break free. A moment later, I felt his hands on my hips, and the shock of his touch made me break the kiss. I came back to myself a moment later and scrambled off of Dimitri.
"Don't do that!"
"Don't kiss me back then," he said, the hint of a smirk on his lips as he stood.
The conversation was like déjà vu, only with our roles switched. I had said the same thing to him years ago in the Academy's training room.
"You don't get to do that. And you're with Tasha," I said. Dimitri took a step toward me, not saying anything, and I backed up. "Don't fucking touch me."
I left him standing in the middle of the gym and tried not to run as I left, not looking back once.
