"Let Me See."
Climbing out of the van I squinted at the blinding daylight, narrowing my eyes at the sun. Where were you earlier?
"Rose, you should go to the doctor or let me heal you," Lissa tried to convince me again, though now it was less vehemently. She already knew my answer.
I waved her forward, avoiding touching her with my bloody hands, "I'm fine. Once you get back into the Palace, I will go home and take care of it." I wasn't looking forward to that, knowing Dimitri would be home. This was going to suck.
I gingerly opened the front door, closing it softly. Maybe he was already asleep and I could clean up and act like nothing happened. That hope was short-lived.
"What happened?" I looked across the room to find Dimitri sitting in the armchair, a book in his hand. He was waiting up for me.
I watched his eyes running up and down my body, eyes pinching in concern. I had lost my jacket in the fight leaving me in my very dirty and bloody shirt. I don't know if I could use the colour white to describe it any more.
I shrugged, angling away from him, "I'm fine. Just had a slight run-in. I'm going to shower."
Dimitri was up and in front of me in the blink of an eye, stopping my quick escape to the shower. His hand caught my arm so I couldn't turn away from him. "Rose, what happened?"
"The meeting was going fine until it wasn't. I don't know how many there were, but they came out of nowhere. We think a human broke the wards again." I sighed, memories of the fight running through my mind. "We got Lissa and the other Moroi out, and with minimal loss of guardians." That was the only thing that stopped the whole event from weighing too heavily on me. We all managed to hold our own, of the twenty guardians there, only three died.
"Are you okay?" Dimitri asked, hand grazing the collar of my shirt.
I tilted my head away from him, thankful that my hair had fallen down and covered my neck. I didn't want him to see it.
He pulled at the soaked fabric, all of the blood that covered me wasn't mine. A combination of the Strigoi I killed and one of the guardians I had helped, you couldn't tell that most of it came from the wound on my neck.
"I'm fine. I just need to shower and then sleep." I felt exhausted, the adrenaline from the fight was no longer running through my veins. When I tried to brush past him again his hands stopped me, gripping my shoulders. His hold was firm yet gentle, no doubt wary of injuries from the fight. I was sure that when I stripped out of my ruined uniform, my skin was black and blue underneath.
"Roza," His tone was low, "What aren't you telling me?" Dimitri dipped his head, trying to catch my eyes. When I refused to lift my head, his fingers curled under my chin and tilted it back.
Brown orbs stared back at me, he was confused and worried, flicking across my face searching for something.
I swallowed, "Nothing."
His eyes narrowed, "Roza." I hated when he said my name like that, using a pleading tone that I could never say no to.
I dropped my eyes, "It's nothing. I was just hurt–"
"Hurt?"
"Just a little," I assured him, but it did little to ease the frantic look in his eyes. His hands moved to my chest, searching for a wound. I winced when he would touch a tender spot.
With a sound of disapproval in the back of his throat, Dimitri quickly unbuttoned my blouse, peeling the damp material from my body. I was right about the bruises and with the blood seeping through the shirt to my skin, it didn't look much better. But without the shirt he could see the trail of blood leading up to my neck.
"Roza?" His breath caught, hand reaching to brush back my hair.
I stepped back, hands out to deter him, "Really, comrade, it's fine–"
"Let me see," Dimitri's eyes were hard, jaw set. There was no point trying to fight him on it now.
Reluctantly, I let him push my hair back to reveal a stained gauze that I had placed over the wound to stop the bleeding. The blood had dried to it, making it stick to my skin. Dimitri winced as he removed it, sucking in a sharp breath at the sight.
Two puncture marks on the column of my throat, the holes were healed enough now that they were no longer bleeding, but the skin was still angry. I had hoped to keep them hidden from Dimitri, wait a day or two before asking Lissa to heal them. She had already used her magic so much today that I didn't want to risk her using more.
I just didn't want him to see the bite and to see the exact expression he wore now. Guilt, anger, remorse and anguish. One after the other filtered across his face, eyes darkening as memories of the past returned to him.
Shaking his head, Dimitri stalked away from me and into the bathroom, I trailed after him.
"I'm sorry. I just didn't want to upset you, I–"
Dimitri spun back to face me, a cloth in his hand as he ran it under the water. His fingers curled around my wrist to pull me in front of the counter. Tentatively he wiped the wound with the cloth. "You shouldn't hide it from me."
"I know."
"I understand why. But you shouldn't." His eyes found mine again, softening as they held mine.
I took his hand between mine, nodding, "I won't do it again, comrade. I promise."
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