Happy New Year everyone!

Days before wedding - 4 (I thin? Who even knows anymore. I don't. Rose doesn't. Olena probably does.)

Disclaimer: You know I don't own it by now.

I lay awake for hours after my nightmare, but with the dawn finally came clarity and a sense of peace.

In a few days, I would be marrying Dimitri in Baia's beautiful church, surrounded by all our loved ones. I would be making a vow to put him and our relationship first. I, more than most people my age, understood the power of a vow. I had the tattoos on the back of my neck and the scars on my heart to prove it; both figurative and literal.

It meant choosing him in spite of all the sacrifices we had already made and would still have to. It was a promise of equal value to the one we had made to put the Moroi first- a vow that could compromise that duty if we weren't careful. It was a commitment to stand together through whatever challenges we may face- sickness or poverty, for better or worse. It was accepting that our family could never grow beyond the two of us- at least, not in blood.

Yes, I finally admitted to myself, perhaps I did want children. But I wanted Dimitri more. The path that lead to the altar was not the easy one; it never had been. But I was walking it with my eyes open and my heart unwavering. Duty, family, even death, nothing was enough to sway me from my course.

As the sun rose and bathed our bedroom in gold, illuminating every choice that lay front of me, I chose Dimitri. I chose him over anything and everything else, as I had a hundred times before, and would a hundred times more. The love we shared was worth the price we had to pay. And in the light of the rising sun, with a heart as clear as the summer sky peeking through the crack in the curtains, sleep claimed me once more.

When I awoke once more, I was alone in bed, but there was a note propped against my glass of water on the nightstand.

Wear clothes you don't mind getting dirty. We're going on an adventure.

I smiled to myself at Dimitri's choice of words. He knew that calling anything an 'adventure' was a sure-fire way to simultaneously irritate and intrigue me. I could be tricked into running the most boring of errands through that bit of wordplay.

I didn't bother showering, instead just throwing my dirty hair up into a high pony and hoping the grease was hidden. My eyes were a little dark and red from the night's troubles, but a quick swipe of concealer and mascara covered the worst of it. Anything else could be blamed on stress.

Dimitri's plans also helped as the combination of ratty denim shorts and an old tank top and sneakers brought my hot-mess vibe together. I looked more like a weary explorer than a stressed bride. I just needed an Indiana Jones hat and it could be called adventurer-chic.

When I got to the kitchen, only Dimitri and Olena were there. A plate of bacon and black bread were on the table beside a steaming mug of tea. The bottle of maple syrup next to the plate told me this was my breakfast. Olena had bought it especially for me.

"This is still warm. How did you know when I'd come down?" I asked, mouth watering at the sight of the food in front of me.

"An elephant would make less noise than you getting ready in the mornings, Roza," Dimitri teased before pulling a chair out for me and kissing my cheek.

"Damn. I hope I didn't wake anyone."

Olena smiled at me. "Don't worry, everyone else is already up. Except for Paul, but he'll sleep through anything."

"Oh." Guilt-free, I started digging into the deliciously crispy bacon. "Where is everyone then?"

"Viktoria took Lissa and Christian to the feeder," Dimitri explained. "Then she's going to show them around the town. I said we'd meet them later, but first there's a place I want to show you."

"So it is an actual adventure and not some chore in disguise?"

"Yes." He lowered his voice. "You seemed a bit out of sorts last night, so I thought it would be good to get away for it all for a bit. No wedding stress, just you and me." His lips twisted up into a smirk. " And maybe some polar bears if we're lucky."

I scowled. "You are never going to let that drop, are you?"

"Not a chance."

Dimitri stood up again and helped Olena pack the food she was preparing whilst I finished breakfast. He packed them into a rucksack along with blankets and water. He also added, with a wink in my direction, a couple bottles of beer. I knew they'd been bought for the wedding reception and that Olena would flip out if she saw him take them from the forbidden top cabinets. He was really going all out with this relaxing adventure thing. I should have known that he'd pick up on my stress, and from there would try to remedy it. He could always tell when I was down. Even with me free of the bond and the dangers of Spirit, he still made sure to keep an eye on my mental health. Better him than my old counsellor Deirdre any day.

"Will you be back for dinner?" Olena asked.

"No, I think we're meeting the others in town," Dimitri replied.

"Let me know if anything changes." She handed Dimitri the backpack. "Have fun, and watch out for the ticks. They're everywhere this time of year!"

I waited until we were safely out the front door before touching that one.

"Ticks, comrade? This does not sound relaxing."

"Not like you to be afraid of a few little bloodsuckers, Rose," he said lightly. I wondered if I was being played with again, like his earlier polar bear comment.

"I'd take a Strigoi over biting insects anytime. They're a bigger target. Have you ever tried to stake a bug? Not easy."

Dimitri shifted the pack on his shoulder and took my hand, a small smile on his face. "You won't need to. I'll protect you."

The town centre was bustling with the activity of the morning market. Dimitri led me down alleys and behind buildings to avoid being spotted by Olena's army of friends, all brandishing large wicker baskets like shields to part the crowd. If they'd caught us we would have been stuck chatting for hours. We were basically celebrities here, and our upcoming wedding meant that we were extra-hot gossip right now.

After much ducking and weaving we made it out of town and into the thick pine forest to the north. Dimitri picked out narrow trail that soon became lost amongst the trees. The sharp scent of fresh pine and the crunching of the needles underfoot triggered a million memories of Montana. It felt like home, a feeling strengthened by the knowledge that these where the woods that Dimitri had grown up in.

Dimitri's thoughts must have been similar to my own, as he began sharing stories from his childhood as we walked amongst the pines.

"Denis once dared me to try and climb one of these pine trees. I managed to shimmy up about ten metres before I stabbed my hand on a broken branch and fell off. I thought I'd broken my leg. My friends had to carry me home and it was dark by the time we got back. My mother was so mad."

"I bet. But was it worse than when you swam in the frozen lake for a dare?"

Dimitri laughed. "It was about equal. She was very glad when I grew out of accepting stupid dares to impress my friends."

"How were you when that happened?" I asked. I loved hearing about his teenage misadventures.

"14," he answered sheepishly.

"That's not bad. Still a couple of years before me."

He raised an eyebrow and gave me a look. "You accepted a stupid dare last week."

"What? Oh, yeah. The hotsauce meatloaf challenge." In my defence, that had been all Christian's fault. "So, uh, what bird is making that weird sound?" I asked, trying to change the subject from my ill-fated escapades.

Another hour passed with Dimitri telling me about the wildlife of the forest, and the legends that surrounded them. Yeva had ensured her grandchildren were raised with a thorough knowledge of Siberian folk tales, partly to ensure their good behaviour it seemed. Some of them were pretty scary to children. I wouldn't have strayed too far from the house either if I'd been told a huge bear waited to steal me away. I made a mental note to keep Lissa and Christian's kid from being exposed to those stories if they Yeva ever visited.

In these wild pine woods, each tree seeming to scratch the sky, the stories seemed almost believable. The birds were loud and the colours bright. Lichens and mosses spattered the tree trunks and turned them to gold, whilst flowers grew in patches of sunlight. This forest somehow felt older than the ones back home.

Just as the trees began to thin up ahead, Dimitri suddenly pulled me behind a large trunk. My heart pounded, visions of great murderous bears fresh in my mind. My exclamation was halted by Dimitri pressing a finger to my lips before pointing it off to our left.

"Look," he whispered. "Reindeer."

The huge animal was pawing at the ground, nibbling on the vibrant summer grasses. I could see the velvet on his antlers from here, and was shocked by the size of them. They had to be almost as wide as Dimitri's outstretched arms.

"And you said Russia wasn't the North Pole!" I could barely contain my excitement. "It's Rudolph!"

Dimitri laughed, and the sound must have carried further than our voices. The reindeer's head snapped up, eyes wide. He let out a bellow before taking off into the forest. I half expected him to fly.

"It's a good sign he was so relaxed before he noticed us," Dimitri said, releasing me from the pleasant prison created between his body and the tree. "I doubt there are any bears around."

I cracked my knuckles. "If there are, we can take them. It would look awesome on my resume."

"I'm just going to pretend you're joking." He offered his hand again and I laced our fingers together. "Come on, we're nearly there."

I noticed that we were descending a gentle slope before I saw the glitter of sunlight on water. Breaking through the treeline was like stepping into one of Adrian's Spirit dreams.

I had thought the scenery gorgeous before, but this was something else. The grass has somehow become greener, and was peppered with purple and yellow flowers. At the bottom of the valley lay a wide river banked with great flat rocks. Near the middle was a mossy island that made the water bubble around it. Even the tiny clouds in the sky looked cute and fluffy.

This place should have been in the travel book at the Rubysville library, because I had never seen anywhere so beautiful.

"This is incredible."

"Worth the hike right?"

"I'm waiting for the leprechauns to appear, because this has to be the place where rainbows end."

"There's no pot of gold I'm afraid, but the water's pretty magical this time of year. I've swum here in winter too, but the temperature is a lot nicer now."

I was hot and sweaty and my feet were aching. He didn't have to tell me twice. I'd already begun shedding layers.

"Last one to the island's a reindeer's butt!"

I lay against the sun-warmed rock and waited for my breathing to return to normal, the gentle breeze sweeping across the river helping to dry the newly formed sheen of sweat that covered my skin. Our playful race to the island had become a waterfight, and that had led to a tidal wave of passion sweeping both of our senses away. We'd crashed back onto these smooth rocks in a tangle of cold limbs and wet hair, propelled by a force stronger than ourselves.

In becoming one with each other, it was my senses sharpened to finally see the world around us with the reverence it was due. Every touch of Dimitri's fingers was mirrored by the caress of the wind, the press of his body of mine was matched by the strength of the rock below. Dim recollections of highschool physics and equal and opposite forces had rung in my mind, but something told me this was greater than science alone. This place seemed alive; the pulse of the river rang in my ears as my own heart thumped and my sighs were lost amongst the whispers of dancing reeds.

The world around me seemed sentient. The thought should have made me uncomfortable; like I was being watched by some omnipotent voyeur. But instead I felt relaxed, totally at peace. The presence was protecting us, allowing us to relax and be off-guard for once in our lives.

"This place," I said, still a little breathless. "It feels like it's alive."

"I've always felt like that," Dimitri said, "but never as strongly as I do now, with you. I've wanted to bring you here ever since that night you first asked if I missed my homeland."

I shivered. I still couldn't shake the feeling of something preternatural in the air. It drew the question out of me before I had time to consider it.

"Did you ever truly think, back then, that it could really happen? That we would ever really be together?"

"I hoped for it, more than anything, but no. I wasn't sure. It was only after the cabin that I really believed. I knew then that I'd to anything to keep you, whatever the cost."

"Would we have still made it, do you think, if the attack had never happened?"

"I'm not sure. I'd have found a new change and relocated. As much as I like to think we would have stayed together regardless, there's no way to be sure. Separated like that, anything could have happened. And that's why I wouldn't change a thing."

He took a deep, wavering breath.

"My time as… as a Strigoi will always haunt me, and I will always wish that I hadn't taken so many innocent lives. But that was the way things happened, and they led me back to you in the end. Besides, it meant that I got to fall in love with you all over again. That's something I will always be grateful for."

I looked at him then, and it was like hearing his declaration of love in the motel once more. The world seemed to rock as a realization struck me.

We were different people to who we had been two years ago. We were no longer the same people that fell in love in between sit-ups and long runs at St Vladimirs. This man in front of me was less guarded, not as invulnerable, some may say even less honourable. The vulnerability in him now was something that I had never expected before we were torn from each other, both physical and emotional. This Dimitri laughed out loud and smiled widely and sometimes cried in the night. There were even some fine lines starting to crease in the corners of his eyes.

And I would not change a thing about him.

It was then that I realised that at some point, the person I had become had fallen in love with the person he had become.

Perhaps that what real love is. Not just a feeling that endures or strengthens with time, but something that grows and changes with us, like a flower blossoming year after year.

I reached out and touched one of the creases beside Dimitri's right eye. It hadn't been there before he had been turned Strigoi. Whether it was a sign of smiling more, spending too much time outside, emotional turmoil, or even just the passage of time, I loved it. Every moment that he aged was one prize we had stolen from the jaws of death itself.

Mason's unlined face flashed in my mind's eye. Not everyone had the chance to grow old. Maybe we wouldn't either. But I had no intention of wasting any of the time we had been blessed with.

"I'm glad I didn't let my stubbornness stop me from accepting your proposal," I said. "I can't wait to be married to you."

"I know." Dimitri turned to me, opening his eyes and grinning. "And I'm glad your self-control isn't as strong as mine."

"You want to put that to the test, comrade?"

After that second romantic interlude we dug into the packed lunches with gusto. The beer had long since gotten warm but it was still good to wash down the wonderfully chunky sandwiches Olena had made for us. Mine was thickly buttered with just ham, whilst Dimitri's was bursting with lettuce and other boring healthy things. Olena had marked the wrappers with our initials and added each of our favourite flavours of crisps. How she remembered everyone's food preferences was beyond me. The last person to make me a packed lunch with so much care has been Rhea Dragomir, and the simple gesture had me feeling oddly sentimental. Maybe it was just the effect of the beer, but I found myself eager to see my own mother when she arrived the day after tomorrow.

Stuffed from our picnic feast we trekked back into town at a more sedate pace, making sure to take in every sight this incredible place had to offer. We didn't see any more reindeer, but there was some sort of small brown mammal that ran out in front of us at one point. By the time we made it to town, my stomach was growling louder than the bears Dimitri had teased me about. It had been hours since our picnic and we'd done a lot of exercise today.

Lissa, Christian and Viktoria were waiting in the market when we arrived. Lissa seemed to be haggling over the price of some trinket whilst the others watched with twin smirks. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it seemed heated.

"He's tripled the price because he knows she's royal," Vika explained quietly when we reached them. "Lissa's telling him it's rude to discriminate."

"Does he know it's the Queen he's trying to scam?" I asked.

"No. I think he'd double the price again if he did."

"Right, I'm going to sort this out." I marched over to the stall and picked up a glass dolphin like the one Lissa was heckling over. "How much for this?" I asked in Russian, trying to make my accent as authentic as possible.

He told me a price half of what he had offered Lissa, and I happily handed over the cash before dragging her away.

"Rose, what did you do that for?" She whisper-shouted, furious with me. "I almost had him."

"Does it matter? I saved us time and money."

"But it's the principle!"

Seeing that she was on the verge of tears, I decided to humour her. "Liss, these things aren't black and white. To him, it was probably perfectly legitimate to charge you more than me. These people aren't well off, and they're treated like commodities by most royal Moroi. Plus, your Russian is terrible. Like, worse than mine. That couldn't have helped."

She scowled. "I missed my junior and senior year classes because we were on the run, remember?"

Dimitri and Vitktoria took a step back and started a conversation of their own, keeping out of range of Lissa's ire. Cowards. I wasn't fazed.

"And rather than try and catch up, you spent senior year making googly eyes at Christian." I easily dodged the hand she tried to slap me with. "You know it's true."

I watched the fight drain out of her as the object of her google-eye placed an arm around her.

"Why the dolphin anyway?" I asked. "I'd have thought you'd have gone for the unicorn."

"It's for Mia," Lissa explained. "Her birthday's coming up, remember?"

"Umm..."

"She's turning eighteen next month."

It always slipped my mind that Mia wasn't even eighteen yet. She'd matured so much since leaving St. Vladimir's that she seemed older, and not following a normal school structure at Court made it even easier to forget she was technically still studying.

"Right, okay. Remind me to plan a surprise party or something."

"Rose!" Lissa exclaimed, exasperated. "Eddie's already doing that. You agreed to distract her during the daytime!"

Damn, this wedding stress had really destroyed my brain. "Then remind me to do that."

"I'll make sure she remembers," Dimitri promised, stepping back into the conversation.

I heard Christian mutter something to Viktoria that sounded suspiciously like 'she'd forget her own head if it wasn't attached,' but I chose to ignore it.

Lissa noticed and regarded me thoughtfully. "You're in a much better mood than you were yesterday. I assume you has a good time with Dimitri today?"

I looked to where he was standing next to Vika, defending my honour with a comeback that was making Christian's cheeks flare red.

"The best."

"Now who's got googly eyes?" She teased, putting an arm around my shoulders. "I love seeing you in love. I'm so happy that you and Dimitri managed to make things work."

"Me too Liss," I said. "Me too."

Okay that was a weird fluffy filler chapter but I wrote it instead of sleeping so what you gonna do. We're almost at the wedding now PHEW I'm actually gonna finish this story after like 5 years lol.

Review and Dimitri will take you on woodland adventure x