Chapter 18:

Author's Note: Well hellooooo everyone! As promised, I managed to get a chapter up this week. This is a "filler chapter" but I added some elements in there. One follower wanted to know if Lissa ever found out the extent of Rose and Dimitri's relationship…well you are about to find out!

Thanks for all of the support!

1 Year Ago:

Lissa and I were laying in her bed on a Friday night, after a long week. On top of guarding Lissa, I had multiple patrol duties, a few guardian meetings, and my on-going training. If I was going to protect the potential future Queen, I had to make sure that I was always fully in shape.

On top of Lissa's grueling tasks with Queen Tatiana, she had to make the decision whether or not she would attend University in the fall. She had already postponed it a year but was already considering taking another year off. Being a potential heir to the throne, thanks to her new found knowledge of Jill Mastrano Dragomir, had been a lot to process. Lissa never wanted to be Queen, but the opportunity was something that excited and inspired her.

"Do you think I would make a good Queen?" Lissa asked as we stared at the ceiling.

I nodded my head. "Of course, Liss. Why would you think you wouldn't be?"

She sighed and ran her hands down her face. "I don't know, I just always thought that Andre had more of the personality to rule the country. I was always the timid younger sister."

"Andre was a less asshole version of Adrian though. I don't think we would want someone like that ruling the country."

Lissa was slightly angered by my statement, but then she quickly realized that I was right. After Andre's playboy ways, especially with Mia, it was inevitable that he shared something in common with Adrian. When Adrian wasn't committed to someone, he would sleep with nearly everyone he could get his hands on. He was the total definition of a modern-day man whore. Andre was at least not as bad. At least that is what I wanted to think.

"How have you been feeling?" Lissa responded, choosing to ignore my previous remark. I knew what she was referring to; it was my unstable emotions when it came to Dimitri. I felt pathetic letting him still get to me a month after he left and months after he ended things with me. It was still hard to accept him truly not being a part of my life.

"Better than how I was last week. Started to adjust with the aspect of him not being a part of my life. I think about him less and I don't dream about him anymore, which is good."

"Are you ever going to tell me more about your past with Dimitri?" She questioned.

I sighed, not really wanting to walk down memory lane. Lissa knew that Dimitri and I were very much in love at one point, especially to all of the extremes I went to. "What exactly do you want to know?" I said.

Lissa sat up and looked down at me, giving me a comforting smile. "I know you said the feelings slowly built up during training and the night Victor's lust charm, but I never heard anything past that."

I closed my eyes, knowing that Lissa deserved to know. I put her through hell and back when it came to Dimitri, which was unfair to her. I knew she wanted to know out of genuine curiosity and also to understand why Dimitri had this great effect on me after all of this time. "After the lust charm incident, we both tried denying what happened. He denied more than me and I made the mistake of kissing him one time during practice."

Lissa gave me a surprised look.

"Don't get your hopes up, it didn't end well. We went on that ski trip and Tasha offered him the opportunity to be her guardian and they could start a family together. I was jealous of her, angry that he didn't even take me into consideration. So, in order to move on, I tried with Mason—" I stopped, swallowing and taking a few deep breaths. Talking about Mason was still hard to this day.

Lissa shook her head, frowning. "So that is why you hated Tasha. I never knew the exact reason why you despised her, but I always knew you had your reasons."

"She is also a bitch," I stated.

We both started laughing and I sat up. "Anyways, you know how that ended up," I continued. "After Spokane, Dimitri stuck around to make sure that I was okay. During our first practice back, he told me that he said no to Tasha's offer because his heart belonged to me. We kissed, and it was so powerful, that it made me love him even more. Except, we had to continue fighting back our feelings since we would both be your guardian, our age difference, and the fact that he was my mentor."

I continued talking about the entire scenario about how Dimitri and I had to keep our distance, while constantly denying our feelings during the practices. It also didn't help that Adrian was lurking around, still attempting to get in my pants at that time point. As I droned on about my feelings and the connection Dimitri and I possessed, Lissa kept nodding her head and smiling.

After I stopped talking, Lissa stared at me wanting to bring up a question. I gave her a look, telling her that I will find out the question regardless. Sighing, she looked down at her hands. "What are you leaving out? Don't say you are leaving out nothing, Rose because I'm very well aware that there is something you are failing to tell me."

Damn, she did know me well. I looked away, not knowing how I would even bring up that moment in the cabin. It wasn't that I was scared Lissa would judge me, but I was scared to let those memories flow back into my mind. "Remember where spirit got to you a lot? When you caught that group near the edge of campus . . . "I didn't need to say anything else because through the bond I sensed the guilt Lissa felt.

"The moment where you took all that darkness away," She softly said.

"Dimitri took me to one of the old abandoned guardian cabins. I was trying to fight back the backlash of Spirit, I mean he had to totally put every ounce of weight on me to make sure I wouldn't escape. After I calmed down, I was so vulnerable. I felt weak that I couldn't fight it off alone without him. Things got intense in our conversation and before I knew it we had sex."

Lissa's mouth dropped open. Shock, but a subtle bit of happiness for me radiated through the bond, as she turned to face me. "I didn't know you lost your virginity to him. I always assumed it was Adrian," She admitted.

"We told each other that we loved each other, and we would find a way to be together. He told me he would try to get reassigned to someone at Court, so we could at least see each other during our time off. I thought I actually had a chance to be with him, but then there was an attack. You know the rest," I said, with emotion building up in my voice.

Oh, I loved him with all my heart back then. When I lost him in the cave it felt like every part of me was being ripped to pieces, that my heart was going to stop beating. Time stood still in that moment, especially when I knew that my soulmate was truly gone from me. Were Dimitri and I actually soulmates? Who knows, but it was no good now.

"I gave up the fight to be with him too easily," I admitted, feeling the burning sensation of tears forming in my eyes. "I shouldn't have ever given up on him, maybe things would be different."

"Oh Rose, that may have caused you more pain."

I felt so open and vulnerable with her. Yes, Lissa was my best friend but the subject about Dimitri always felt like something forbidden to bring up to her. Mostly because he was her assigned guardian at the time and I was afraid of her reaction. I didn't want to be judged or chastised for falling in love with my mentor. Ridiculous, I know, but it was still a fear.

I ran a hand down my face, before talking some more. "I feel like I'm still mourning the loss of Dimitri. The Dimitri I knew, the Dimitri I loved and would do anything for. This new post-restoration Dimitri is not the Dimitri I fell in love with." The tears started leaking out of my eyes and I quickly brushed them away, muffling the noise of any sobs.

Lissa quickly grabbed me and pulled me into her comforting hug. She stroked my hair and my back, trying to calm me down. "Rose, the Dimitri that you fell in love with is in still in there somewhere. I have no doubt that he will come back to you."

Present Day:

Dimitri stared at me in silence, as I made my conclusion about Hans Croft. It made the most sense that someone would be after him, considering he had been withdrawing and closing bank accounts months before his disappearance. Not to mention, a skilled guardian like Hans Croft would know how to cover every single part of his tracks so he would be untraceable.

"Are you going to just stare at me or say something?" I said dryly, looking at Dimitri's brows fury. "You know that I am right."

Dimitri climbed off my bed, muttering something in Russian. "Rose, why would he be running away from someone? He is or was the highest ranked guardian who had control over all of us. He knows better than anyone that guardians aren't supposed to run away in fear."

"So, you are saying that everything I said was bullshit?" I said, closing my laptop screen and carefully placing it next to me.

"I'm not doubting your personal conclusion, I just don't think it is the right one to make. There are a lot of assumptions you put into place," Dimitri said calmly.

"You're fucking unbelievable," I said, standing up from my bed and walking out of the bedroom. I grabbed a glass out of the cupboard and quickly filled it with water.

Dimitri followed me out of the bedroom, leaning against the doorway. He had his typical brooding expression, as his arms were crossed over his chest. "Rose, you have to see my point of view with it being caution about your conclusions."

"You know, the old Dimitri would have never shut me down the way you did now," I said, quickly chugging my glass of water. I needed to get out of here and away from Dimitri, mostly to clear my head.

The sun would set in a few short hours, but I didn't care. I started throwing on my winter boots and grabbed my winter coat, avoiding all eye contact with Dimitri. He started putting up a protest about how it isn't safe to go out there alone and we really need to talk things through a bit more. I blatantly ignored him, before grabbing a silver stake and the room key card.

"Roza, we can talk about this calmly. Don't go out there," said Dimitri, grabbing my arm.

I yanked my arm out of his grasp. "Don't call me that name. You don't make sense. You are back and forth on how you behave around me, sometimes treating me like I am your student and other times viewing me as an adult. Make up your mind for God's sake," I said through my teeth.

Dimitri didn't reply, but a scowl spread across his face. He certainly never liked being told off.

I opened up the door, but before I exited the room I turned to face him. My eyes met his as I said, "You talked about guardians not running when there is fear. Yet, you ran away to Russia for a year out of fear of being around me or the fear of loving me again. How about you take that into consideration before you shut down the idea of a guardian being fearful?"

I left before he replied.

After taking a few hours to walk around outdoors, it was starting to get dark outside. Sighing, I decided to make my way back to the hotel, knowing that I would have to face Dimitri at some point. Yeah, I was still a bit pissed off about him not even fully considering my idea—I knew I was right—but I also knew that I couldn't hold onto this grudge for too long. Mostly because I would have to spend every single day with him.

I made my way back to the room, not making eye contact with Dimitri on the couch. He was reading one of his Western novels, with the news channel turned. Any average person would think he would be a father working a nine to five job with some of his odd habits. It was the one thing that I still loved about him, how he wasn't afraid to be different.

We made brief eye contact, but he didn't look like he was going to move. So instead, I walked to the bedroom and saw that my luggage and clothes that were thrown everywhere were neatly organized on my side of the room. Smirking at Dimitri's constant need to be organized, I grabbed my shower stuff and shut the door to the bathroom.

As soon as I was done with the shower and exited the bathroom, Dimitri was sitting in his bed looking at me. My hair was dripping down my shirt, dampening the front part of it. Sheepishly, I crossed my arms over my chest forgetting that I had gotten rid of my bra. I shouldn't have been that embarrassed at the fact that I wasn't wearing a bra and you could start seeing through my shirt, especially considering that he had seen me completely naked.

"Going to apologize?" I chided, strolling to my side of the room. I threw off some of the accessory pillows on the bed and climbed into it, facing him. Dimitri gave me a long look, before looking away. "I thought I was the immature one."

"Am I not allowed to voice an opinion about whether or not I like your interpretation of the file?" asked Dimitri.

I rolled my eyes and turned over to the other side in my bed. "You are, but usually you would consider it more than a minute. You wouldn't flat out say that it was unlikely. At least that is not the Dimitri I knew."

"Because I'm not the same person I was two years ago, Rose!" He exclaimed. Dimitri ran his hands through his hair that was let down. I could see the pain on his face, as he thought back to the time when everything felt right in the world. When he didn't have to deal with the guilt of hurting so many people and hurting me. "I'm not sure if I can ever go back to the person you knew."

That reminded me of the time where I talked to Lissa about losing the Dimitri I knew and him being replaced by someone else. In the present day, there were aspects of him that felt like the old Dimitri. The cautiousness, the dedication to being a guardian, and his occasional Zen logic to me, but there was something else that was still off. There was a missing piece to him that made him not himself.

Sighing, I climbed out of bed and walked over to his. Not even asking his permission, I sat next to him on the bed. He glanced up at me briefly, before looking down at his hands resting in his lap. "What is still bothering you?" I questioned, grabbing both of his hands.

He shook his head, not wanting to say anything. After some time had passed he finally managed to say something along the lines about hurting the people he cared about, hinting towards me. I knew that he was talking about the pain and torment that still radiated in him when he was a Strigoi.

"Comrade, you really need to work on forgiving yourself."

"How do you not look in the mirror at the scars and remember what I did?" He said, with emotion building in his voice. "Every time I look at myself in the mirror I see every victim I tormented, every family I tore apart. It's unbearable."

Flicking my hair over my shoulder, I tilted my head to the side to reveal the spot on my neck. "Do you see any scars?" I whispered to him, orienting myself so I was closer to him. "I don't see them unless I try. I told you this."

Dimitri looked up and met my eyes, before staring at my neck. From his distance, he couldn't see anything, as a puzzled expression crossed his face. I leaned closer to him, suddenly seeing his eyes fixed upon the small scar on my neck. He hesitantly reached over to touch that part of my neck, suddenly sending a chill down my spine.

We stared at each other in the eyes, with my expression not changing. I saw the confliction of emotion in his eyes, with tears starting to well up. I had a feeling he was returning to the time where he fed off of me and begged me to turn so we could be together. I grabbed my hand and placed it on top of his, giving him a reassuring smile.

"I'm sorry for doubting you earlier, Rose," He whispered back to me. Dimitri removed his hand from my neck and ran a hand through my hair, immediately soothing me.

"I'm sorry for overreacting," I returned to him. "We can't argue like this, Comrade, we have to focus on our mission or we won't make it out alive."

"I know," He sighed.

"Let's just not talk about Croft until we think about the file some more," I whispered to him. I was still rather close to him, to the point where I could smell his aftershave and deodorant coming off of him. It was the same scent that I had grown so accustomed to after all of that time together.

He nodded in agreement. "Did you cut your hair because of me?" He asked me, with one of his hands resting on it.

My hair was at that awkward length below my shoulders but above my breasts. "I needed to restart my life in some ways too," I nonchalantly said. "At least I didn't opt for a pixie cut."

"Your hair is too beautiful to have into a cut like your moms," said Dimitri, before quickly snapping out of the growing intensity in this moment. "We should get some rest, so we are ready for tomorrow night."

I nodded my head, realizing that his hand still lingered there. That tingly feeling that I used to always associate with him was coming back, but I quickly moved away from him to get climb back into my own bed. Silently scolding myself for beginning to succumb to him, I yanked the covers up high to cover myself. Damn it, why did I still want him?

It was a week later, and we had no such luck obtaining intel about the Moroi and guardian disappearances. Sure, we slightly reduced the Strigoi threat by staking eight of them, but so far, we hadn't made much progress in the actual mission. The Strigoi that we had run into were naïve and recently turned, which caused them not to know anything about guardians and Moroi.

On top of the failed mission, Dimitri and I hadn't spoken much since the Hans Croft conflict and our conversation that night. If we did speak it was about what food we needed to get or the plan for that night, which never seemed to change. Our plan would consist of hunting Strigoi along the outskirts of town, near the forest until dawn, then we would sleep all day and repeat.

I guess I didn't mind consistency in this mission, but a part of me was tired of doing the same thing each night. We weren't getting anywhere, so I decided it was time to change things up, without even mentioning it to Dimitri. I guess one could say that it was a bad choice keeping something from my partner in this mission, but it was a risk I was willing to take. I was capable of handling this myself.

As Dimitri was busy doing a few things in the kitchen, I walked over to my drawer that I had finally managed to unpack. Rumbling around in the drawer, I managed to find the dress that my mother swore I didn't have a purpose for during the mission, on top of a pair of sweatpants to cover it up.

Grabbing the right bra, I went to the bathroom to quickly change into my clothes. The dress was my usual black color that was skin tight, with a plunging V-neck. As I always jokingly told Lissa (and once Mom) that if you got it, flaunt it. Might as well be putting this dress to good use to hunt down some Strigoi.

The nightclubs were considered a breeding ground for Strigoi. The crowd mostly consisted of young people in their twenties that were too drunk to be paying attention. Next thing you knew, you would be getting snatched from the Strigoi in the shadows and dragged out to alleyways. The one thing that I never completely understood was the fact that the clubs didn't have wards to protect the occasional Moroi or guardians that would enter.

I quickly pulled on my sweatpants over my dress, as well as my coat. If it were up to me I would be more dressed up than this, kitten heels and all, but I knew I needed some good pair of shoes if I was going to be potentially fighting Strigoi. Throwing on my pair of black converse, I ran my fingers through my hair and pocketed a lipstick to put on before I entered the club. I looked at myself in the mirror briefly, before grabbing my fake ID (this was actually issued by Court—just saying).

Dimitri gave me a curious expression, as he finished washing some of the dishes. "I thought we agreed that we would take the night off since it is Saturday," He said.

This was the basis of our conversations now. Ever since another one of his vulnerable moments he had pushed back, almost fearful of showing that sign of weakness to me. I still could feel the sensation of his hand touching my neck and the tingling feeling of his hand stroking my hair.

"I'm taking a walk, so I'm not stuffed up in this hotel room all night," I shrugged, with his face appearing as if he had believed my white lie. "I'm armed with two stakes, so I'm sure I'll be fine."

Dimitri put down the dish towel, staring at me for a long time. I was sure he was trying to read my facial expression to see if I was lying or not, but I had learned how to keep a poker face. That year of lying to Lissa about things, as well as hiding feelings for Dimitri to everyone else had taught me a lot. Although I was fearful, considering Dimitri at one point knew me better than Lissa.

"Have fun," He returned.

"Thanks, Comrade," I said, walking towards the door. "Do we need anything at the store? I could stop by on my way back."

"No, enjoy your walk," said Dimitri.

With that, I left the room hoping that he wouldn't be following me down the hallway. A part of me was worried that he saw right through my lie, but then again, he would have called me out as soon as I was trying to leave. Pushing those thoughts away from my head, I felt my inner coat pocket to feel the two silver stakes. I could do this alone, heck I was trained to do stuff like this alone. But why was a part of me so worried?

Getting into the local young adult club was far too easy, considering the bouncer had secretly been drinking. He did the old-fashioned drink trick where he put vodka in a water bottle. Even from a few feet away I could smell the alcohol for him and it was completely obvious he was intoxicated by his giggling state. So much for being a menacing bouncer.

As soon as I handed my coat over to one of the workers, I immediately went into full guardian surveillance mode. It was crowded, hot, and loud with the music blasting, but with all of the training I had been through I learned how to tune out all of the distractions. Everyone around me already seemed pretty wasted, especially some of the girls that looked around my age. I guess there was nothing better to do when you were young and stuck in the middle of Montana.

I had only been here for about thirty minutes and already had some very attractive human men hit on me. They were all pretty close in age to me and had that pretty boy look. If I wasn't actually looking out for Strigoi, I would have loved to tease them in return, making even allow them a dirty dance, but I was working. I needed to remain focus and not let irrelevant people distract me.

Nausea suddenly filled inside of me and I knew there must be Strigoi somewhere. Scanning around the room, I managed to see a group of very drunk girls standing near the back door. Of course, it would be one of those cliché movie moments where a girl is led into the back alleyway. I didn't break eye contact with the back door, as I made my way to that area. My nausea increased with every step closer to the back door. They were waiting out there, waiting for a stupid girl to walk outside of the doors for some fresh air.

I had a stake in my hand already, which was foolish having one out in the club. I guess I didn't think things through well enough about wearing this dress, considering I only had room to store one stake (it was my down my bra and barely secure). But no one seemed to notice or care about my silver stake, for all I know they were concentrated on getting drunk, dancing, and finding someone to hook up with.

"What are you carrying?" asked one of the girls, standing near the back door. "Is that some new accessory?" She was sipping on one of her mixed drinks while bouncing to the beat of the music.

"Um, yes. They are very popular in Europe," I quickly covered. "Has anyone gone outside recently?" I glanced towards the door, then back at the group of girls.

One of them was chugging down her drink and shrugged. "I wouldn't go out there. There are always so many people smoking and dealing drugs, it isn't the place to be caught."

I ignored them and moved towards the door, knowing that there were Strigoi waiting on the other side of the door. Who knew how young or old they would be, considering this was the traditional Strigoi method of feeding and creating more of them. As my hand was placed on the door, I suddenly felt guilt creeping into me about Dimitri.

What if I went missing? Dimitri wouldn't know I was here. He wouldn't even know where to start looking for me.

"You look like you can't make up your mind," the first girl said. "Are you deciding whether or not you should get drugs? I heard they got some good stuff from Mexico. Just be careful because they try to get more out of you, sometimes are even crazy and inject you with this drug that makes you hallucinate things."

I knew what she was referring to immediately. The Strigoi venom. The hallucinogenic effect that caused you to immediately distance yourself from reality and almost go into some fantasy land. Sadly, I had witnessed that quite a bit, but that was something I didn't want to think about.

"Yes, I'm very into that," I said, with a hint of sarcasm in my voice. Although I knew that the girls were too drunk to understand. "Has anyone gone out there yet?" asking her the same question, considering she ignored it the first time.

"Our friend, Jesse, but it was really just for a quick smoke—" started one of the girls, but I quickly exited the room before she could finish her statement.

As soon as I stepped outside I immediately knew that there would be a Strigoi present. I heard painful moans escaping around the corner and I immediately knew it had to be Jesse. I rounded the corner, holding my stake high, hoping to catch the Strigoi off guard. This appeared to be the only one around.

I jumped out behind the corner immediately yanking the Strigoi away from the girl, who immediately collapsed to the ground. There was a lot of bleeding and I knew that it was only a matter of time until she would be a goner. Tearing my eyes away from her, I gave the Strigoi a swift kick to the face causing it to tumble backward.

"Who the hell are you?" the male Strigoi snarled back at me. It looked like he was at least mid-age and he appeared to be an older Strigoi.

"Rose Hathaway and you are?" I said, not giving him a chance to respond before I took my shoe to his shoulder to at least strain his muscles. The Strigoi let out a cry, as I pressed the silver stake across his face. "Do you know anything about the attacks on Moroi and their guardians?"

He started to stand up, but I pressed down my grip further, nearly banging his head against the pavement. "I don't know who, but someone is passing along information."

"What information?" I demanded, with the stake hovering above his chest.

The Strigoi attempted to fight back, but I once again subdued him. "I'll make you a bargain if you let me get away," He quickly said, but I raised my silver stake directly above his chest. "Fine, fine. They tell us about the guardian movements, as well as if the Moroi's leave the premise. I'm not sure why, but they communicate with us."

I gave him a curious look. What would be someone's motivation to give this information to a Strigoi? What did they gain in exchange? Why would they want to kill their own people? Questions raced through my head and I was quickly spacing out, but not enough to let the Strigoi out from my grasp.

"Do you know anything about Hans Croft?" I asked, figuring it was worth a chance. His disappearance was still on my mind, especially with the information in the file.

The Strigoi grinned at me, his bright red eyes reaching mine. "He's alive, but I think that'll all you deserve to know before—"

Suddenly I felt myself being pulled away from the Strigoi with such brute force that my stake flew out of my hands. My head smashed against the wall, as three other Strigoi hovered towards me. Where did they come from? I checked the area to make sure there was only that one Strigoi before I attacked. My reflexes immediately caused me to fight back against the Strigoi but the three of them were so strong, I couldn't fight them off.

The male I subdued on the ground, stood up brushing away the dirt from him. "Foolish girl, did you really think that I wasn't surrounded by others? By the looks of it, it appears that you are still very young and naïve. I'm assuming you are a recent escapee from the Academy?"

I managed to kick one of the Strigoi holding me, but that wasn't enough to get him away. Fuck. How was I supposed to get out of this one? I hated myself for doing this without Dimitri, even thinking that I would be on my own. Hans Croft distracted me temporarily from the mission, I should have staked that Strigoi when I had a chance.

The moment of hesitation that Dimitri warned me about. The moment that could cost me my life.

"I have no use of her, kill her," said the male, turning around to walk away.

I started fighting back with as much force as I could, but I knew that there wasn't a way out of this one. One of the Strigoi's leaned forward towards me very eagerly. As he fangs neared my neck, I couldn't help but see my entire life flash before my eyes. The Academy, Lissa, Mason, Christian, Alberta, Adrian, Stan, and, of course, Dimitri. I tried to tell myself that everything would be okay, that Lissa would be safe without me, but I knew I couldn't lie to myself. Nothing was okay.

Thoughts swirled through my brain, desperately trying to find a way to reach out to her. There was nothing that could be done and the only thing I hoped was for this to be quick and easy. Closing my eyes, I felt the sharp pain of the bite into my neck.

Author's Note:

I'm sorry a cliffhanger, I know you probably hate me for it. Haha. Next chapter will contain one of my favorite scenes I have ever written. I have had this pre-written since around the time I was writing chapter 3, I believe. So be excited!

Life has been crazy and weird lately for me. I have had a lot of personal things going on in my life, that writing has become a lower priority. The issues are resolving, so I'm hoping to get some good writing in this weekend.

Hoping next chapter will come faster. :)

Anyways, hope you enjoyed! Review as always.