ROSE

"So what's this about?" I asked with my arms crossed over my chest. It was just after dinner, and I was sitting in my favorite plush armchair in Lissa's study. The pink, frilly upholstery was not exactly in my taste, but it was soft enough that I could ignore Lissa's bad decorating.

Dimitri was sitting across on the love seat across from me with Christian sitting next to him. Christian had a glass of whiskey in his hand. He had tried to offer me one several times but, now that I was finally Lissa's guardian, I had matured a lot more—something I didn't think was possible after the last couple years—and I hadn't had a drink since Lissa's coronation. I refused to allow myself to be caught off guard by anything when it came to Lissa's safety. The Moroi needed her, and I was going to make sure she had a long and happy reign, even if it meant I could no longer have fun.

Lissa was sitting behind her solid oak desk. It was covered in official looking papers—decrees that needed reviewed, permits that needed signed, requests from her subjects—were stacked neatly on the desk. There were several pictures of her loved ones scattered about. Even though I couldn't see them, I knew there was one of Christian, Lissa, Dimitri, and I outside a human movie theater. Lissa had insisted that the four of us go out together at least once a month. She refused to allow being queen to keep her from being a young adult with a normal life.

At dinner, Dimitri, who spent most of the meal pushing food around his plate, had asked that the four of us talk privately after the meal. I had known for weeks now that there was something on his mind and had been trying to get him to come clean about it. I figured that's what this was.

It just irritated me that he didn't think I could handle a one-on-one conversation with him. This was definitely something that needed to be discussed, but I thought for sure he'd want the conversation to be between us. I was the only he ever shared his Strigoi past with. It hurt to think that he thought I couldn't handle this one on my own.

"Are you sure you don't want a drink, Rose?" Christian asked. His usual snarky tone had been replaced by one of complete seriousness, and I realized then that he knew what Dimitri was hiding.

The knowledge hurt, a lot. Yes, he and Christian were friends, but I was the love of his life. I was the one who stood by him through every nightmare and listened to every horror story without ever once judging him for any of it. In fact, I was the one to hold him, kiss him, and tell him everything was going to be okay. I let him cry on my shoulder when the memories became too much, and I whispered words of comfort when the images wouldn't let him sleep.

And yet, he chose to tell someone he barely knew before he was willing to tell me. Why? What could be so bad he would think that Christian could understand it better than I could?

"You told him before you told me." I stated covering my hurt with a tone of anger. "I've been dealing with your nightmares about this particular conversation for weeks and begging you to tell me what it was about, and you refuse to tell me. But you tell him?" I pointed at Christian.

I had nothing against Christian. In fact, he and I had been getting closer over the months since his aunt killed the queen and tried to frame me. I know it was bizarre. You'd think with my involvement in revealing her plot, he would hate me, but it seemed to bring us a little closer together. He was a good guy, and I liked him.

But it was frustrating to know that Dimitri went to him first when I was the one who was there for him through it all.

"Yes, Roza." Dimitri sighed. "I did, but I'm hoping after you hear what I have to say, you'll understand why."

I shook my head sitting back in the chair and crossing my legs. I doubted that I would be able to understand his motives, but I really wanted to know what had him so upset. I needed to know what he thought he couldn't tell me.

"Then talk." I said.

Dimitri sighed and rubbed his temples before getting up at going to the little drink cart sitting by the door. Christian had suggested the servants bring it in, because he knew this was going to be a difficult conversation for everyone.

Dimitri busied himself at the cart for a long few minutes, and when he finally turned around, he was carrying three large glasses of whiskey. He handed one off to Lissa, who took it with raised eyebrows. Lissa almost never drank anymore. She had learned her lesson the night she got kissed Aaron and screwed up her relationship with Christian for a while. Dimitri nodded at her before handing a glass to me. I took it unsure how I felt about this.

He knew Lissa and I were trying very hard to let go of our old bad habits. What was going on?

He returned to his spot next to Christian.

"Trust me. You girls are gonna need it."

KATYA

I woke up to a fuzzy brain and the pain of metal digging into my still sore back as I struggled to remember how I got there. The walk from my punishment cell to Marcus's room with Adam came back first, followed by the meeting with Marcus and Rebekah, and the two of them drinking my blood. My current state made more sense with that little detail.

I was always left weak and fuzzy for hour after they drank from me. It was for this reason Marcus rarely raped me after he drank from me. He liked it when I fought him. I'd be too weak for that after he drank from me.

I forced my eyes open so that I could take full inventory of myself. I figured I was in the cage, and Marcus and Rebekah were upstairs running their club.

When the bought the building, they had the basement redone to be their lush bedroom and added a few rooms for Marcus to punish those whose disobeyed them. The floor above the club was where the girls who were here willingly lived. Those rooms where small, though, and there were at least five girls crammed into one of them. Each had a mattress and a small dresser. They shared a closet and any clothes that were in it.

When I was allowed to wear clothes, they were scraps that no longer fit any of the girls, or things pulled out of dumpsters. Judging by the coldness hitting my body, I had been stripped of the privilege of wearing the thin t-shirt. A quick look up and down my body proved that I was right.

Great. I hated being such an easy target for Marcus's perverted tendencies. The least he could've done was allow me something to cover up with when he wasn't using me.

I tried to pat myself down to make sure that hadn't done anything to me while I had been knocked out, but they refused to move. In fact, the felt so heavy, I couldn't even wiggle my fingers and it wasn't just my arms. My whole body felt like someone had injected lead into my blood. I couldn't even push myself into a sitting position.

I didn't even try to look up when the door opened sometime. If it was Marcus or Rebekah, I didn't intend on giving them the satisfaction of fun, feisty Katya. They'd have to deal or just go away.

"Katya, are you awake?" Adam's voice said as the dim lights in the room got brighter.

"Adam?" I croaked. Damn, even my voice was weak. I really needed to die or get out of here.

"Yeah." He responded as I forced myself to sit up and face him. My body screamed at me to just stay still, but I didn't listen. Adam was one of the few people in this play who was actually nice to me. I wasn't going to ignore him because my body didn't want to listen.

He was wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans; the typical bouncer uniform. He was what humans would call a floater. He helped out where it was needed every night. I guess one of the bouncers hadn't shown up. Adam was carrying a tray with a couple slices of bread, eggs, strawberries, watermelon and a large glass of fruit juice on it.

"Do you have permission to give me that?" I asked knowing most times he snuck me food without permission. It was something that could get him fired if he were caught, but he didn't care. For some reason, he felt like he needed to take care of me.

"Actually, yes." He said, kneeling in front of the cage. "Marcus is going away for a couple nights, so Rebekah wants you strong enough to provide her with some entertainment."

"Lovely." I replied sarcastically. Adam opened a locked hatch on the side of the cage and slid the tray in. "And what if I don't eat it?" I said crossing my arms over my chest.

"Then I'm sure Rebekah will enjoy force feeding it to you." He replied sadly. "I'd rather you not have to go through that when you could have an enjoyable meal with enjoyable company."

If it were under any other circumstances, I would've thought he might be flirting with me, but that wasn't possible. He may have been nice, but he still worked for my captors. Until that changed, I didn't want to even consider the idea that we could be more than friends.

"Besides, I was told not to go back up until you ate everything on this tray, so can you please make my job a little easier." He stuck out his lower lip in a mock pout and I couldn't help the little giggle. "You would be keeping both of us out of trouble," This line was said with a little flutter of his eyelashes.

"Fine." I said picking up the fork and shoving eggs into my mouth. I really hated seeing him get in trouble because of me. "So, out of curiosity, did you know about the cage?" I asked around my mouthful of eggs. For some reason, I had to know the answer to that.

"I knew they were going to do something to keep you locked up, but I didn't know what." I nodded, trying to be angry with him, but finding it very difficult.

Despite the fact that he was always kind to me, I should hate this man with every fiber of my being. He may have been taking care of me, but he wasn't doing anything to get me out of here. In my mind, he should be just as bad as my captors, but I couldn't make myself feel that way.

There was something sad and lonely about him. It seemed to me that he needed a friend as badly as I did. That's why I couldn't bring myself to hate him.

"I wish I could get you out of here." He told me. "I wish I could get us both out of here."

This wasn't the first time he alluded to the fact that he wasn't here by choice. In fact, I was pretty sure he hated Marcus and Rebekah as much as I did.

"Then why are you here?" I asked unable to stop myself. Every single person who worked for those two monsters were here by choice; it was how they got away with what they did. There was no one to run to the authorities, because no one wanted to leave.

I was slowly beginning to see that Adam wasn't like that. Adam hated it here as much as I did. So why didn't he just leave? The two never forced anyone, except me, to stay against their will.

"Like everyone else here, I have nowhere else to go." He explained. "My family was killed during a Strigoi attack on our village. I just barely escaped, but the Strigoi had burned my house to the ground. I missed my chance to go to one of our vampire schools. I was starving on the street when Rebekah found me. She offered me the same things, she offers everyone. It was either accept the offer or die. I did what I had to do to survive. I regret it, every day seeing what Rebekah and Marcus do, especially to you, but if I leave, I know I'll die. Besides, if I leave, they'll be no one to take care of you."

"Don't worry about me." I said taking a bite of my toast. "I've already accepted the fact that I'm going to die by the hands of vampires. By leaving, you'd just be spending up the process."

"Which is exactly why I'm not going anywhere."

I couldn't help but smile as I continued to eat my iron rich meal. I didn't know why those words made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but I was definitely glad he was planning to stick around for a while.

We were silent for so long the beeping of his pager caused me to jump and foot in the air and nearly knock my juice over. He chuckled as he pulled the pager out of his pocket.

"They need me back upstairs." He sighed. "Can I trust you to eat all of that?"

I nodded popping a strawberry into my mouth. He smiled, stood, and headed out the door.

I continued eating my food as I realized that, for the first time since the nightmare with Dimitri began, I didn't want to die. As long as living meant seeing Adam every day.

ROSE

I held the drink in a shaking hand watching Dimitri as he drained his own glass in one long drink. Watching him, I was afraid of what he might say for the first time since he accepted that he was worthy of me. This had to be something really bad if he thought we both needed liquor to get through it, especially since he was the poster child for sobriety and making the right decisions. The fact that he was encouraging us underage young adults to drink meant this was going to bad. I wasn't sure I even wanted to hear it anymore.

Dimitri took a deep breath and began his story.

"Remember what I told you about how being Strigoi would make our sexual relationship that much more intense and amazing?" He asked me. I blushed slightly, but nodded. "Well, that was more than just a pitch. It was the truth. Despite the fact that Strigoi lose their humanity, everything else is so much more intense. Emotions are stronger and senses are heightened. They see things better than even Moroi, and their emotions…" he shook his head and covered his eyes with his hand. "Well, you saw some of it firsthand."

I nodded. "I remember when you were angry with me, you were always beyond rage, no matter how minor my infraction."

"Yes, and that's how it is with all of their emotions." He continued. "They simply choose to focus on anger, because it is the least human emotion. Anger is animalistic, so it is easier to deal with when it is as strong as it is for them, but they do feel other emotions, or at least, I did."

The sadness in my tone made me want to go to him. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and tell him everything was going to be okay. I wanted to tell him that I was here for him through anything, and we'd get through whatever it was he was dealing with. We'd get through it together.

I was on the verge of doing just that when he held up his hand.

"Don't." He said. "Not until you hear everything. Not until you know the monster you want to cuddle."

He words turned my body to ice as I stared at him. His eyes were bloodshot as if he was trying very hard not cry. This wasn't the man who I had fallen in love with, but it wasn't the monster that held me captive either. He was a broken man who truly felt like whatever he had to say was going destroy my feelings for him. I had to show him that nothing he did would ever change that. Something that I had been trying to do for weeks.

Ignoring his request, I slid myself out of the chair and went to him. I curled myself into his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck, and burying my face into the crook of it.

"Whatever it is, we will get through it. I promise." I whispered into his neck. "I'll help you get through it. I won't ever turn away from you. How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"Please Roza," He whispered back. "Don't make that promise until I've finished talking."

I simply snuggled myself closer to him. Now was not the time to argue, now was the time to listen and help him in the best way I could. He was willing to open up about this, even though it was obviously killing him, I was going to do my best to listen.

"What other emotions were you feeling?" Lissa asked from her spot behind the desk. I had gotten good enough at reading her without the bond to know that she felt as horrible as I did about what he was going through right now.

"Mostly my feelings for Rose." He answered stroking my hair. I got the sense that he was treasuring his time with me. Did he really think I wasn't going to stand by him. "My love for her, but also my lust. As you know, my transformation happened just hours after our first time. It was the most incredible thing I've ever felt as a dhampir, and those feelings lingered. I wanted to feel it, again but, as a Strigoi, I knew I shouldn't be feeling that way, so I fought it hard. Until one night a man, I don't even know his name, caught me feeding on a prostitute."

He paused and took a deep breath. I pulled away from him a little, grabbed his free hand, and placed a gentle kiss on it. I knew he needed all the support he could get, but I didn't know how else to give it to him. He smiled taking my hand in his own and rubbing it over his cheek.

"I love you, Roza." He said.

"I love you, too."

"God, I hope that's still true when I finish this story." He said, keeping my hand in his. "I was simply going to kill him to prevent him from telling others about me, but then he started begging. As a Strigoi, his pleads shouldn't matter to me, but his words caught my attention. I can still remember his words: "Please." He cried. "Don't kill me. I beg you. I'm the only person my daughter has left in the world. I'll do anything just spare me, please."

I felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over my head as I realized where this was going. My body tensed as I fought the instinct to push myself away from Dimitri and get as far from him as possible.

"You love him, and he needs you." I reminded myself as my mind shuffled through horrid images of what happened to this guy's daughter. "He wasn't himself when he did those things. Isn't that what you always tell him?" This was different, though. I wasn't sure how, yet, but I knew it was.

"You can go sit over there if you want." Dimitri said releasing my hand. "I just ask that you listen to the rest before you run away."

I didn't move from my spot on his lap. God knows, I wanted to, but he sounded so devastated that I couldn't make myself do it. Besides, I did still love him after this, didn't I?

"Just keep taking." I said slowly with little emotion. I was too stunned by the direction of this conversation to decide how I was feeling. All I knew was that I wanted him to finish, so Lissa and I could analyze everything.

"I told him to introduce me to her, and I'd consider sparing him. At the time, I didn't know what I was going to do. All I knew was that, I was about to meet a young girl who could possibly sate the lust I'd been feeling for weeks." I swallowed bile and blinked away tears as I nodded for him to continue. "But she looked so much like you, Roza."

"No." I shook my head unable to believe what he was saying. "Dimitri, I…" I started to say pulling away from him even more. He pressed his finger to my lip.

"Please, just let me finish."

I swallowed again and swiped a few tears that had escaped. What had he done to this poor girl just because she looked like me?

"Her name was Katya, and I killed her father. Then I took her home to be my play thing." He stopped and swallowed hard. If I hadn't been so lost in my emotions, I would've wondered if he two was forcing down bile or the urge to cry. As it was, my mind was going a mile a minute with images of him raping and torturing this poor girl.

Needless to say, I couldn't stay on his lap any longer. Instead, I slid to the floor where I put my head between my legs trying to control my own emotions until this was over. I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder a few seconds later and looked up to see Lissa standing there with a gentle smile.

"You can get through this, Rose. I'm right here." She pulled me into her arms a good distance away from the couch. Dimitri didn't try to come to me. I couldn't decide if I liked that or not. Part of me needed his comfort, but the other part didn't want him anywhere near me. I collect myself long enough to look back at him.

He looked like he too had been crying. Christian had a comforting had on his shoulder, but he too looked like he might be having a hard time control his dinner. Perhaps Dimitri didn't tell him as much as I thought.

"Just finish it." I said practically growled.

"I kept her locked up in a closet." Dimitri continued. "She was always naked and in shackles. I gave her enough food and water to survive and never let her out of the closet. I go to her when I needed a relief for my anger or lust. It was helping me deal with my lingering feelings for you."

The words caused more disgust to flow through me. This poor girl suffered because of me. She suffered because Dimitri couldn't let go of his feelings for me. So, on some twisted level, this was my fault, and I hated him for it. I never thought I'd say that about Dimitri, but in this moment, I hated him.

"Then I found out you were hunting me and thought maybe I could get you to join me. Then I could get rid of the cheap imitation and you and I could rule the world together." I flinched at the word cheap imitation. That poor girl. "Of course, I had to keep her around until I convinced you to make the transformation."

My body tensed as I suddenly got a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I really wasn't going to like what he said next, I could just feel it. Lissa's arms tightened around me, but I could feel her body trembling. She was just as upset about this as I was.

"What do you mean 'keep her around'?" I asked trying to keep my voice even.

Dimitri took another deep breath and slid to the floor, so we were eye level.

"Being around you all that time without giving in to my lust for you was difficult." He explained. "I needed an outlet."

My sadness suddenly became disgust and rage, and I pulled myself away from Lissa to get right in Dimitri face.

"You mean to tell me that, even though, I was lying in that bed willing to give you anything you wanted, you would go rape an innocent little girl?" I asked.

"I'm not proud of it, but yes. The whole point to get you turned on and walking away like that was to convince you to become a Strigoi. As that monster, though, I couldn't handle constantly denying myself you, so I took it out on the next best thing."

It was those last words that suddenly broke the dame. I could no longer hold the bile at bay.

"I think I'm going to be sick." I pushed myself into a standing position and ran to the trash can next to Lissa's desk. I made it just in time for my dinner to make a reappearance. I was regurgitating for five minutes or more before I realized Dimitri held my hair in a ponytail at the nape of neck and was rubbing my back with his free hand.

"Get your hands off me." I growled, jerking away from him and wiping my mouth with the back of my hands. "I don't want you touching me right now."

"Roza, please." Dimitri whispered holding his hands up in surrender. "I'm sorry."

"I don't think sorry can fix this, Dimitri." I answered shaking my head and backing away from him.

"I knew this was a bad idea." He said before walking out of the study.

I flinched as the door slammed wondering if I could ever forgive him for this.

A/N: Well, what do you guys think? I know what is happening between Katya and Adam is a little obvious, but I needed to find a way to give her some hope. Adam is what is going to keep her going until the others get there to help her. Anyway, I hope you liked. Please, review.