I know the last chapter was cruel, I couldn't help it ;). Hopefully, the (slightly) speedier update makes up for it!
"No!" came a scream from behind the strigoi, just as I felt his fangs pushing into the soft, pliant skin of my neck. Just as I felt the end nearing, and the pumping of my heart thumped to the beating in my ears.
"No," Came the shout, softer, thicker this time. The voice drifted over me, lulling me that everything would be ok. I knew this man. I loved this man. I owed him my life, many times over.
I felt the strigoi twist on top of me, his fangs pulling away from my neck where they had been paused, pushing against me, mere millimetres from breaking my skin and ending my life.
Faster than lightning, yet in slow motion the strigoi pushed off me, spinning and heading towards his new target. My jumbled, emotion-filled brain slowed the image, making my arms and legs heavy, pinning me down on the ground where I lay.
I saw the strigoi take two huge leaps, standing directly in front of the man who had saved my life countless times, and who had just added another tally onto that long list. The strigoi rushed at him, moving to snap his neck in anger of his kill being stolen, but he quickly dodged the arms, stepping under them and manoeuvring to get in a shot of his own.
His sandy hair, streaked with blood and gore, fluttered as he twisted and rolled in his deadly dance.
"Vasily!" I screamed, forcing my exhausted body off the ground to help him. "What the fuck are you doing!" I couldn't help but spit the words at him, angry at how he endangered himself to save me, regardless of whether I would have done it for him.
I saw the gleam in the strigoi's eyes as he got closer to Vasily, got within range of his soft body. The body I had sparred with, danced with, taken comfort from and even kissed. The body that helped me survive, held me close when things were hard and pushed me to explore, be happy and live when they weren't. The body that had kept me alive when everything was falling around me.
"Vassily..." I screamed, the words tumbling from my mouth in a high-pitched shriek that made those fighting around me pause and look, guardians and strigoi alike, as the strigoi stepped even closer, his arms reaching out.
Vasily was tired. He had been fighting for just as long as me, longer still by protecting me when I communicated with Hans, yet he'd never complained. Never even suggested taking a break. I knew now that he had been thinking the same things like me before this battle, getting his affairs in order as if he knew. As if he knew that somehow, we would meet this situation. Somehow, we would be facing an enemy like this one when our legs were no longer swift and agile, and our arms felt like lead. When our bodies could do no more to fight.
I lurched forward, urging my limbs faster and harder to reach him, but before I could lay a finger on the strigoi, his arms surged out, neatly landing on Vasily's neck.
The crack echoed through my ears, and I knew at that very moment that it would be a sound that haunted me for the rest of my life.
I stopped dead in my tracks, as I saw his limp body fall to the ground in front of me.
There were still people fighting around me, pushing and surging against their opponents, yet I didn't see a thing. There could have been a strigoi heading straight for me and I wouldn't have noticed. All I could see was the body, the body I loved so much, lying on the floor as if he had been dropped.
A strangled cry came from deep within me, burning my throat as it pushed up, signalling to others my loss.
I suddenly noticed bodies pushing past me as I sank to the floor onto my knees, praying that he was alive despite that awful sound. I'd kept my promise to God that I'd made years ago and indeed went to church out of choice. I'd learnt to find comfort in the knowledge that there was always someone watching over me, and I'd come to look forward to Sunday's, knowing that I would get peace, time to go over my thoughts and feelings and reconnect with my soul. I might not be your typical Christian, but I'd become one of the sorts.
And now I needed the faith. I closed my eyes and prayed, probably foolish to shut my eyes in a battle, but I wasn't thinking straight.
When I opened them again, I saw figures in black ahead of me, the numbers Hans had promised would find us and boost our tired team. I hoped no others had fallen whilst we waited for the backup. I sat for what felt like hours, my knees rooted into the floor, the cold seeping in, as I watched the guardians at work. They had taken out the leader, his body was lying in a heap inches from me, and slowly, ever so slowly, they were pushing the strigoi back. The renewed fighters, wherever they had come from, were pushing them strigoi further away from us, uncovering the bodies of the fallen that had been swallowed up by the fighting masses. Uncovered strigoi and dhampir alike.
I crawled, not trusting my legs to hold out if I stood, towards Vasily's body, still hoping that he was merely unconscious. Reaching out, I gently pressed my fingers to his neck, his cold neck, desperately looking for a pulse.
The wasn't one.
Smooth, flat skin met my fingers, without the flutter of life.
He was dead.
A sob racked my body, tearing its way through my lungs as I leaned over to him, curling up into his side, feeling his scent wrapped around me. I loved his scent that smelled of pine trees and clean laundry, the scent that had comforted and supported me. I loved his soft, sandy hair that seemed to complement mine so well. I loved his strong body that competed against mine, pushing me to improve and keep up with my training. I loved him, my best friend. The one I could go to about anything, even things I couldn't tell Lissa. I loved him, and now he was gone.
My eyes were jolted open by an animalistic cry. It was loud and broken and cracked.
Did it come from me? No. My mouth was glued shut by my dehydration, sandy and sore.
I wanted to lift my head off the floor, but my body was so tired, my soul was so exhausted. I felt broken and lost without my best friend, the man that had gone through so much for me. The man who I had rejected.
I became more and more aware of deep, broken sobs getting closer to me. They definitely weren't coming from my mouth, however much I felt like crying, but the voice called out to me. The sobs hit me as if they were my own, and as they got closer, I recognised them.
His body sank down behind us, next to Vasily as I laid nestled into his body amongst the blood, gore and other fallen bodies surrounding us.
"Roza," he choked, running his hand through my hair. "Please God, no".
I forced myself to turn, to meet his face and let him see my breaths, see I was ok and not one who lost their life today. Even if I should have been.
As I shifted, I heard another deep sob break through him as he saw that I was alive, saw that I was moving.
"Oh Roza," he sobbed, jumping up and moving around to me.
As I met his eyes, he could see the desperation and loss in mine.
"Oh Roza," he whispered again. "I'm so sorry. I've been so worried".
Sitting up, I could see my communication device lying a few feet away. It must have fallen out when the strigoi pushed me to the ground.
"How long has it been?" I croaked, my throat was raspy and sore.
"It's been three hours, Roza," Dimitri whispered, and his tone conveyed all the pain and suffering he had felt in those three hours and they waited to find me, waited to find out if I was alive or dead. And yet, there was no judgement. Dimitri was not mad at me for not calling in that I was ok, he wasn't mad at me for the hell I'd put him through. He understood in the way only a true soulmate could, only someone who got you, who thought the same as you, and had known you for a very long time could. He was just relieved that he had found me now.
"I've got her," he said thickly into his earpiece. "She was with Guardian Kuznetsov. He's down."
There was a pause.
"No, no need to send a med team. She's ok I think, I'll take her in myself to get checked out".
Another pause.
"No," he whispered. "You don't need to send one for him".
The silence hung heavy in the air.
"Did we win?" I stuttered, desperate to know that his death hadn't been in vain.
"Yes Roza, we won," Dimitri said, his words soft and hard gently stroking my face as I sat before him. "If you and Vasily hadn't held the leader for so long, our team might not have managed to stake him. He was tired, and apparently, that's the only reason they managed. If it wasn't for Vasily, we would not have won today".
It didn't make it worth it, nothing would make his death worth it, but at least he'd died in honour. He'd died doing something everyone else couldn't, leaving his mark on our societies future.
"Come on," Dimitri whispered, moving forward.
He waited to lift me into his arms until I gave him a small nod, assuring him that I was ok to be moved. He hoisted me into his arms with ease, tucking my body into his.
I looked back at Vasily lying there, waiting for the team to come and deal with the fallen. His skin no longer had the hue of life in it, now it looked pale, white and well, dead. I buried my head into Dimitri's neck.
"Take me away," I whispered. "Not back to court, take me to the grounds, away from everyone. I need a distraction," and I knew he would. He would do anything I asked in a heartbeat because he loved me. He would give me the choice to choose for myself, even if it wasn't the best thing for me. And it was one of the numerous reasons I loved him.
With his powerful strides, we soon cleared the battle area, vast as it was, and entered the small glen of woods that I knew so well from my weekly running competitions. The route ran straight through them. Vasily and I often ran it together.
I slid down Dimitri's body, desperate for a distraction to keep the heart-breaking pain away, even for a few minutes or so. I ran my hands down his body, feeling the contours and grooves that showed just how fit he was, and stopped when I was knelt on the ground in front of him.
"Roza..." he challenged softly as I ran my fingers around the hem of his pants. "Roza I'm not sure this is a healthy way of dealing with things, for you or me".
"I need this," I choked out as a sliver of emotion broke through the fragile wall I had erected. I knew that once I registered this grief, there would be no holding back the wave of emotion. Once I let it out, I would be out of action, and I still had things to do. This was my way of strengthening that wall just to get through the next few hours so that I could break alone.
Dimitri seemed to recognise the look in my eyes.
"Ok," he whispered. "We're ok, your ok. I love you".
I moved forwards, releasing him from his pants and gripping him firmly at the base. Dimitri let out a groan as he realised what I was going to do.
Leaning into him, I flicked my tongue over his tip, eliciting a sharp hiss. Not waiting and teasing like usual, I took all of him in my mouth, sucking and moving until he gently tugged my hair, letting me know that he could take no more.
I stood up and he pounced, lifting me up onto his hips and striding over to a tree, pressing my back against it. He shifted my combat trousers down after undoing my belt, taking my underwear with them, and entered me in one smooth movement that made me gasp at the abruptness. The overwhelming sensation with a sting of pain was exactly what I needed.
I buried my head into his neck. "Hard," I whispered. "I need it hard".
He nodded into my hair and set up a punishing pace, each thrust wracking through my body.
"I thought I lost you, Roza," he gasped into my ear. "I couldn't find you, nobody had seen you, and when I saw you laid with him".
He paused, the words stuck in his tight throat. I could feel his tears hitting my face.
"I thought you were dead. I thought you had fallen with him".
I might be going through grief over losing someone, but so was he, in his own way. He'd truly believed he'd lost me. That leaves a mark on someone's soul.
"I'm here," I whispered as I felt tension begin to build in my stomach. "I'm here and I'm ok. I love you".
He grunted, both of us getting close, and took his hands off me, resting them against the tree and pushing me against it further. With more whispered 'I love you's', we both came, uttering the other's name as we shook from our high's, our souls merging as one and promising to be that way forever.
I used the connection to build back up my wall, brick by brick, crafted of nothing but my love for him.
After a few moments, I shifted, inching off him and dropping onto my feet.
"Please, don't mention him," I whispered, looking at the floor as Dimitri shifted his clothing back on. "I'll deal with it at home when I can".
"Don't hide from me," Dimitri uttered back. "Just don't hide it". There was fear lacing his words, but also understanding. He'd hidden his emotions from everyone for so long, even me, and was just learning how to share again. He knew first-hand the fucked up things it could do to you if you didn't share.
"I won't," I whispered, moving up close to him and running a hand across his smooth cheek. "I just can't deal with it yet".
He nodded and clasped my hand as we set off back towards the guardian headquarters.
The first thing I noticed when we neared court was the silence. There had been a plan to evacuate as many moroi as possible to a nearby, warded warehouse where there was a good deal of guardians, I knew because I had helped to plan it. The streets were empty, those moroi that were not evacuated sheltering in underground bunkers that had been build hundreds of years ago for such a situation. There were no birds singing as Dimitri and I neared the headquarters, no sounds other than our footsteps echoing on the hard concrete.
Even the guardian building was deathly quiet as we walked through the door. There was muttered conversations, but the majority of the guardians were silent. They turned to look at us as we walked through the quiet, giving us nods here and there, but no words. As if everyone had a wall built up so that they could function through these hours before they grieved in private.
"I need to speak with Hans," I muttered to the flustered receptionist sat at her desk outside his office. I leant on the wall as she made a few phone calls, and before long I was waved through.
"Hathaway," Hans grunted from where he was sat on his desk. His shoulders were slumped inwards and there were noticeable bags underneath his usually clear eyes.
"Actually, it's Hathaway-Belikova now," I muttered, thinking it was best to rip off the band-aid now rather than have him find out another way.
He paused and studied the both of us stood together.
"Then it seems congratulations are in order despite these troubling times. Is that where you have been?"
His question sent a red flush to my face.
"Er, no. We tied the not yesterday, just in case... well, in case I didn't survive today. We were... taking a walk".
Thankfully, Hans didn't question me further. If anyone knew the pressure I was under to keep my emotions at bay, for now, it was him. Despite his cool exterior, I could see the emotions warring in his eyes. He had probably sent hundreds of guardians to their deaths today, and that was never an easy decision to make despite the end result.
"I... I just wanted to check in before I go home," I said honestly, collapsing into a chair opposite him.
"I'm glad your ok, Rose," he whispered. "And I'm... I'm sorry about..."
His voice faded away as if he was scared to say the name.
"Vasily," I finished, not wanting his honour to be missed even once. "He saved my life".
"He saved us," Hans said firmly, a glint in his eye. Perhaps he knew Vasily better than I knew. Maybe he didn't say his name for as much his sanity as mine. We both needed time our position's couldn't give us.
"I've drafted in new recruits for this week," he continued, putting his guardian mask firmly back in place as if the words never came out of his mouth. "We have some final year students boosting numbers as well as family guardians accompanying visiting moroi. A lot of people have lost someone, and members of their family will be arriving for arrangements. As such, I've been able to give everyone involved with the battle today a few days off, management and ground troops. Dimitri, I've pushed back your starting date by a week. We all need a bit of time before the change. She needs you," he grunted, looking at me.
"Keep your phones on you, but other than that you are free to go. Please Rose, just go and get checked out before you go home. Just a once over".
I had been planning to go straight home to sleep, grieve and eat, but the pleading note in Hans' voice made me agree to stop off at the medical centre on my way.
With an emotion-filled nod, we turned away and headed out his office towards the med-centre. As I stepped back out onto the deserted street, I realised this battle might have affected our society more than we imagined. Perhaps the change of leadership wouldn't be the only change around here.
