Author's note: Wow, I am in love with the hype that this story is starting to get. Your reviews and favorites are fueling the fire that I'm currently riding on and I love it! Thanks so much! Especially Luce Elena because of your comment I got really fired up. Thank you so very much! I hope I continue to provide a good story for you guys. I kinda like this chapter so I hope you all do too! I hope I caught Strigoi-Rose correctly. You may think it's a little weird, but there is a reason for it! Let me know what you think! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Richelle Mead, the most brilliant woman in the world.
Warning: Nothing, except maybe language.
Word Count: 5,001
I guess not-so-surprising thoughts turned to Dimitri. Is this how he felt? Heart racing, stomach settling so far down it feels like it's going to drop out of my body, muscles aching, mouth full of cotton and I can't swallow. It's like there's a block of lead stuck in my throat. Did he feel alone? Scared? Worried about loved ones like I am? Did he think about me before he was turned much like I'm thinking about him.
In my minds eye, all I can see is the people I love. Lissa, Christian, mom, Zmey (yes, him), Adrian, Sydney, Jill, Sonya, Dimitri and so many more. Yes, especially Dimitri. And Lissa. All of them, I guess. In may different ways, all of them shine a light on my life. There are things that annoy me to no end about them and then there are things about them that make everything worth it. But all in all, I wouldn't trade any of my precious people for the world.
Did Dimitri think about this? Did he think about his family? About Viktoria? Olena? Sonja? Karolina? Paul and Zoya? Coo-coo grandma Yeva? Did he think about me? About how our life could have been if we were given different circumstances?
Then my mind shifts somewhere I don't expect. Back to Gerard's study. Sitting on the floor next to the door. Making that mental connection to Lissa. I could feel it. Feel it flowing through me. Building a bridge between me and Lissa.
I could feel Spirit.
At least, I think I did. That nausea I felt was akin to the nausea that I felt when I was near Strigoi as Shadow-kissed. But now it's gone and I'm surrounded by blackness. I think... I think that male Strigoi knocked me out. Or perhaps I'm only slightly conscious. Is that why I can think? And remember it? Or am I dreaming? Oh please, let this entire day of been a dream. A nightmare even!
Please don't let me turn into a Strigoi. And if that can't be done...
Let me never see those precious people again. Let me never be given the opportunity to hurt them.
"Wake up, Beautiful." I feel something cold hit my face. I jerk a little to get away but something uncomfortable, and even a little painful, pulls at my arms. I try to wiggle my fingers but they feel like they are moving through mud. It's so hard to move them. Like there's no blood flowing to them. My heart is racing, pumping hard to push blood throughout my entire body.
I open my eyes and squint in the dim light. There is a few lit candles around the room casting long shadows against the walls. I see a figure standing in front of me. The light dancing off of his face. Red eyes glowing in the darkness. Movement catches my sight. He's holding a bowl of something. Water. He holds it up to my lips and tips it back slightly. I drink thirstily.
The man watches saintly with a cold smile on his face until I'm done.
"Am I... turned?" I ask, hanging my head a little in exhaustion.
He laughs, a horrible, chilling sound like nails on a chalk board. I flinch a little at the sound. My mind traveling back to the the first time I was put into this predicament. With Mason and Eddie, Christian and Mia. All of them. All of us.
"No, my beauty. You are not. Not yet at least," he says. He runs a hand over the side of my face and I try to jerk away but I'm too weak. My stomach growls. I wonder how long I've been out.
"How long have I been," I look around the dark room. There are no distinguishing features about this dark room. "...here?"
"Three days," he says softly, still stroking the side of my face. "You've been slipping in and out of consciousness." He makes a little whining noise. "Are you okay, Beautiful? Looks like my girls had put up a little more of fight than I thought." He twirls a strand of my hair and it tickles my scalp. "You've been in and out for the last couple of hours. This is most conscious you've been."
He presses a chaste kiss to my forehead and I'm too weak to fully jerk away. But I give it my best try, which only makes him laugh with chilling softness. He places a gentle kiss on my temple and I gag a little.
"Who... are you?" I mumble, lifting my head to look back into his nasty red eyes.
He places feather light kisses along my jaw and I push myself as far away from him as possible but with being hung from the ceiling from my arms, my feet barely brush against the floor making trying to get away from him a little hard.
"My name, my sweet, is Mattias. And you, are Rosemarie Hathaway."
I pull away a little more from him. "How do you... know who I am...?"
He smiles. "Lots of Strigoi are talking about you, love. Killing Strigoi at such a young age. Being Shadow-kissed? Being one of the first to start turning our kind back into... them. Yeah, I know all about you. Heard all about you." He kisses my chin and I turn my head away. He doesn't seem perturbed. "But they never said that you would be this beautiful."
"What do you... want from me...?" I slur, shaking my head. I blink rapidly in the dim light trying to see Mattias in the darkness.
He grins. "I want to see if a Shadow-kissed can become a Strigoi." I open my mouth to do... I'm not sure. Scream? Curse him out? Aim a kick to his boys? Perhaps all of the above? I don't know but before I could, his teeth glisten in the dim light and then pierce my neck. First there is the subtle jolt of pain that is immediately replaced with a guiltily familiar pleasure. And once again my mind travels back to Dimitri.
He's here with me. He's the one who has got his hands all over me. He's the one who I'm going to be spending the rest of my life with. Not this guy. Not this Strigoi asshole. Not this Mattias guy.
I moan lightly and I feel shame. Well, maybe not really. Maybe I just think I should feel shame. And I do think I should. But I'm not sure if I actually feel it. I know I should be repulsed by what is happening. Perhaps I should even be struggling, cursing Mattias' name to all the gods. But I'm not. I can't. This just feels so good.
And the still semi-conscious part of my brain hates me for feeling good. Like somehow I should be above the endorphins that a vampires fangs send coursing through my veins. But I'm not.
And I hate it. I should be stronger. I'm Rose Hathaway.
The flicker of the candles just get lighter and lighter until I'm completely enveloped in darkness. All the soreness in my body fades. Even the rapid beating of my heart has slowed down. A bliss filled darkness, shrouded in a chill of death.
And then everything stopped.
My hunger is what awoke me. But instead of being strung up from the ceiling like a sack of raw cow hide, I'm in a nice comfy bed. But I'm curled up on my side, knees to my chest. My stomach is grumbling loudly. I'm laying as I did when I was younger, curled on my side in order to try and ease the tension on my rumbling belly. I'm hungry and thirsty. I'm parched and famished.
I curl a little bit more tightly, moaning in pain. I feel like a newborn, unable to move or really to think. All I can focus on is how hungry and thirsty I am. I slip in and out of consciousness. I hear a low whimpering every once and a while and it pulls me into reality for just a moment before I drop back out.
Something runs up and down my back, running along the bare skin of the vertebrae of my spine. From the back of my neck, all the way to my lower back. It's soothing and raises goosebumps along my skin. I shift slightly but my stomach rumbles loudly I try to compress myself even tighter. I'm not sure if I've known for a while or if this has just been first time I've really paid enough attention to care that I'm naked.
Other than my mother and Dimitri, and Lissa on a really awkward occasion where she walked in on me as I was just hopping out of the shower, no one has ever seen me naked. My mother, I had no choice over. Dimitri, I practically through myself at, shamelessly. And I'd continue to do so in a different life. While, after a long time of therapy and even longer accumulative time in an awkward silence, we were able to get passed that too.
But this person isn't... these man hands aren't Dimitri's. Not matter how hard I squeeze my eyes shut and wish it would be the man that I love. I know it's not. It's not my Dimitri.
"Who...?" I rasp, unable to open my eyes.
"It's me, my love, it's Mattias. You... definitely are unique, love. You are far more beautiful now than before." His voice is soft, pleasant in my ears. Like the soft silk sheets covering most of my body. Mattias shifts slightly. "Come here, Hannah."
"Master?" A small voice squeaks. I tense. My hunger hitting me in a fresh wave. I take in a deep breath and I can't even begin to deny; something smells amazing. I jerk into a sitting position, eyes honing in on the small burnet human standing in the doorway. Her eyes widen at the sight of me. A bit of wonder flickers across her face.
"Come here, hun," I say, my lips moving without my permission. "It's okay." Her pupils get larger, expanding until they nearly take up her whole light blue irises. She takes a step closer.
"That's it, baby girl," Mattias whispers into my ear. I don't know why. I don't understand why he's saying what he's saying. All I can do is focus on Hannah's complexion. It's like every detail is magnified by a million. I can see the slight coloring in her cheeks. The blood rushing there. Her lips part and they are red, very red. Like blood red.
Hannah steps closer. Another step. And another. And another until she's standing in front of me at the side of the bed. Her short brown hair blows gently in the night air filtering in from the window right behind her. I didn't even notice it was open. Or there for that matter.
The next thing I know, Hannah is laying across the bed and I'm buried in her neck, drinking from her veins.
And just like being bitten by Mattias. It felt good.
"Ease back, Rosemarie, you'll kill her if you don't stop," Mattias says silkily, no real concern in his voice but his words stop me nonetheless. I jerk away and scramble back, pulling the sheets up to my chest to cover myself, suddenly very aware of myself. My very naked self. I look down at Hannah, who's laying on the bed on her back, staring up at the ceiling dazedly. A happy smile on her lips.
It disgusts me.
I bring up my hand and furiously wipe the wetness from my lips, pulling it back and seeing red. I feel like I'm going to vomit. Mattias is looking over Hannah with a tilted head, a sickening amused smile on his face. That only makes me feel worse.
He looks over at me. "My, my, hungry girl. Do you feel better?" he laughs and I don't think I would say anything even if I could. It feels like that block from earlier has found it's way back into the center of my throat. Thankfully though, Mattias doesn't seem all that interested in me giving him an answer. He's too busy lovingly stroking Hannah's cheek.
"Any more and we might of had an issue, Rosemarie."
I don't respond. I pull my knees up to my chest, close my eyes and wish that all of this was just a horrible dream.
As it turns out, this isn't just a horrible dream. But an all and all a horrible, adulterated version of night of the living harem. Mattias turns out to be quite the player, having six other girls besides me and Hannah. All of them are Strigoi. All of them burnet.
"As you can guess," one of the girls, lounging on the couch with a pixie cut. "Mattias has a thing for cute brunette."
"Some of us, cuter than others," another says, standing by the glass door leading out into the back yard. She has long curly brown hair and she's tall, definitely a Moroi. Or she was before she became a Strigoi.
Just as I was a Dhampir.
"Yeah," the girl with the pixie cut says. "Some of us are prettier. But the rest of them are just bitchier." She turns a red glare towards the former Moroi. She bounces up and saunters over to me, definitely either human or Dhampir. "But ignore that bitchface. I'm Gillian. I used to be a nice girl from Southern Texas, but now I'm a bloodsucking slut in Nevada. Which I find exceedingly ironic."
Come to think of it, that is very ironic. There is like no place for them to find. Us, I tell myself, I'm one of them now. But what's more than that... am I having a genuine and calm conversation... with Strigoi? Like they and I are normal people. Not the nasty abominations that I've been led to believe my entire life and until this point have never seen anything that would go against earlier assumptions. It was only with Dimitri that I saw a slightly different side. They are capable of great desire and they, like me can remember their lives before being turned.
There is just no positive emotions. No happiness. No love. No compassion. Nothing that would allow them to be able to be anything more than monsters. And now I'm one of them. I'm not sure I can feel anything at all. I'm just numb.
"Rose," I say, feeling awkward introducing myself to a Strigoi.
The ex-Moroi turns sharply to look at me. "You? You are the Dhampir that Mattias has been obsessing about?" she looks me up and down, then outwardly scoffs. "You're nothing special."
As unreal as this entire thing is, before I can even try and think of something witty to retort to that, I'm on her. Or, my fist is. I nail her right across the cheek bone faster and harder then I expected. And the look on the ex-Moroi's face brought a tinge of pleasure shooting up my spine. And the huge grin on Gillian's face that I could see from the reflexion of the glass door only made it that much more sweeter.
"Holy shit!" Another girl yells jumping up. "She just nailed Taylor!" She lets out a loud laugh. Most of the others follow and I feel a triumphant grin slide over my face as the tall ex-Moroi, now known as Taylor, slowly straighten up.
"You're going to regret that, you bitch!" Taylor snarls jumping toward me. My finely honed Dhampir-turned-Strigoi muscles easily move me out of the way.
I tilt my head to the side, easily maneuvering away from her. I smoothly move about the large kitchen, avoiding her nearly effortlessly. I've never been to this house -at least I think it's a house, I mean, it looks like a house- but I'm able to move around it like I've been living here for years. My finger tips touch a surface, like the table or the counter, and I move around it.
I feel... graceful. Like I'm not a bull in a China shop anymore. And I'm not sure how I feel about that. A part of me never liked that everything I did in comparison to someone like Lissa was probably less than what she could do. But I also knew that it ultimately didn't matter. As a Guardian, I wasn't meant to pull the attention away from her, she's my Moroi. I'm meant to be hiding in the shadows until the Strigoi show up.
Step out. Kill them. Then move back in, almost as if I didn't exist.
Thinking that made something weird twist in my gut and I can't tell what that is anymore. But it fuels me with this feeling I've come accustom to since I began to absorb the darkness from Lissa.
Rage.
I lay my hands flat against the counter behind me, heft up my body weight smoothly and jut my leg out, as fast and as hard as I could. Taylor's head snaps back and she stumbles backward into the empty space where a fridge should be and slams into the wall before crumbling to the ground. Coughing up blood. Who's the bull in the China shop now? Because while I felt strong enough to take one on with just a single hand, I felt anything but one.
It takes me a moment to pull myself through the rage and hear the clapping around me. The other girls cheering me on, sneering at Taylor. And I suddenly feel sick again. I've had problems dealing with my aggression before and I have been known for taking it out on other, but for some reason, staring down at Taylor now, blood pouring from her face, I feel bad.
Everyone is laughing. Everyone is pointing. Calling her names. And not a single person looks even slightly willing to at least go see if she's okay. If she was a normal person -a normal Moroi- that would have seriously hurt her. A Moroi like her against a Dhampir like myself, who's had years upon years of training under my belt, she would never stand a chance. And there was some part of me, deep down inside that knew, even as a newly made Strigoi, it would have to take someone truly impressive or another ex-Dhampir to be able to beat me.
I didn't feel bad for hitting Mia. Well, later I did. But not at the time and she was an uber bitch and with months of torment under her belt. This girl just said one thing and here I am: bashing her face in with the heel of my foot. Is it because she's a Strigoi and it's my natural reaction to act out more viciously towards her than I would most others?
Or is it because I'm a Strigoi and it;s my natural reaction to act out more viciously towards her?
"Girls, girls! What are we doing?" Mattias comes stalking into the room. The girls part like the red sea so that he can stand between me and Taylor. He looks from her, a bloodied, crumpled mess on the floor, to me, standing by the counter top with what I'm sure is a really shame-filled face. I don't there is any way for a Strigoi to pull off an innocent look.
"The new dyke knocked Taylor the fuck out!" Another girl laughs and I can't help making a face. Is she insinuating that I'm a lesbian? Or that I give off a lesbian vibe? I'm not sure decking Taylor is one of the pre-qualifiers for being a lesbian. I'm pretty sure I'd have to be into girls first. Gillian notices my confused look and shakes her head, it's not important.
Mattias tilts his head slightly, stepping over to Taylor and kneeling down in front of her. "Are you okay, sweetheart?" He asks in mock kindness.
But Taylor doesn't seem to notice. She looks up at Mattias with this look of... admiration? Perhaps fascination? I'm not sure. I'm not sure it can be considered love. I'm not even sure if I know what love feels like anymore. It's only been maybe four or five days since I was in laying in bed at Gerard's house talking to Dimitri about my day and listening to him talk about him. Then we would make jokes about ourselves, and each other and the people we surround ourselves with. Well, it's more like I make fun of people and he just laughs softly on the other side of he phone.
But now I'm here. In a kitchen surrounded by the own kind.
"Didn't I tell you not to fight with people who are clearly superior to you?" Mattias asks. He says is so calmly, like he almost actually cares. "Where else am I going to find a dog as loyal as you?" The look on Taylor's face shifts slightly. She looks a mixture of shocked and hurt. And it confuses me a little. Her eyes flicker to me and she glares, baring her fangs.
I'm surrounded by Strigoi. Where I now belong.
"She was Mattias's favorite for a long time. That is, until you showed up, now he's barely got time for any of us. He's been up there in that room with you just about every second you've been here. He only left when he needed to feed but other than that, it was all you," Gillian explains as she and I head into town. Gillian is nothing like any of the other's. She's very... normal. Definitely not something that I would expect in a Strigoi.
"And why is that?" I ask.
She shrugs. "Probably because you've made a name for yourself?" She runs a hand through her short hair before grabbing the drawstrings on her hoodie. "I'm not really sure I understand that guy. He turned me about..." Her eyebrows pull together. "Maybe... two years ago? I've been building up the courage to run away ever since."
I'm a bit stonewalled by her confession. I pause and turn to her. She stops and grins at me. "What a confession."
She tugs her drawstrings again. "It's no secret. I've left like six or seven times already but he keeps finding ways to bring me back. He's got a little bit of a pimp love thing going on with us. He only turns burnets and the occasional blond. He's really weird. He won't force anything of us. He just wants to be surrounded by hot burnets, I guess. He was probably a loser in school and now wants to be surrounded by hot girls." She rolls her eyes.
"So, I'm guessing you were human before this?" I ask as we continue walking. We are in Carson City, walking around like we are part of the locals, not people out looking to drink the blood of the innocent.
Gillian gets a bounce to her step. "Yeah. I got accepted into School of the Arts in Reno. When I got to town, I ran into Mattias. And now I'm here." She shrugs, like it's no big deal but I can see the way her head drops a bit and she avoids eye contact with me. It's so hard to believe that Strigoi were once human, Moroi or Dhampir. I mean, with Dimitri, all I could see was the man that I loved. I can't really see any of them as something before they became Strigoi.
And then I met Gillian.
"So you are one of those muhh ...vampire protectors, right?" Gillian asks.
"A Dhampir, and yeah. I mean I was." I cringe at my own words. If Gillian saw the action, she pretended not to. And I'm a bit thankful, I think, for that. We're quite for a long time, walking under the city lights.
"So... you were... Shadow-kissed before this?" Gillian says, staring ahead.
I nod, eyeing her curiously. "I was. Why?"
She still doesn't look at me. The lights of the buildings reflect off of her slightly red eyes. "No reason. Just wondering if that's the reason why you're different. Or if you are suppose to be different because of it."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
She slides her hands behind her head and walks with her elbows popped out. The people walking around us mutter at the incontinence but Gillian doesn't seem to notice. "I mean... for those of us that were turned back by a Spirit user, are rumored to no longer be able to be turned back into Strigoi. I was just thinking that because you've already been touched by this Spirit thing that you would be a different kind of Strigoi."
That's a legitimate thought. "I'm not exactly sure how Strigoi are suppose to act but I don't feel very... Dhampir. I just feel like a monster."
Gillian stops and I wonder if I said something wrong. If she is going to run back to the house and tell the other girls and Mattias about what I said but when she turns to me, she has a weird look on her face. Both of us stop in the middle of the street. People begin passing us by, looking annoyed. But neither of us care. I don't think we can bring ourselves to.
"Rose," Gillian says slowly, her red eyes lower. "In my experience, although greatly less then yours, I have seen a lot of Strigoi. I have seen them when they -we- aren't hunting or fighting. We are pretty normal, only our two sides of the coin is content and enraged. We can walk around in society with almost no one being able to tell the difference other than our eyes and paleness. But anything, and I mean anything regardless of how minute it is, can set us off. Much like what happened with you today with Taylor. We are all like ticking time bombs and it takes a lot of will power not to go on a bloody rampage all the time." A dark look covers her face.
In the light now, I can see that her hair and streaks of lighter shades of brown. She looks me in the eye and holds me with an intensity that leaves me uneasy. "It's hard at first but it gets easier. Somewhat. You can't control when the blood lust hits or how hard it hits you but you can, over time and with a lot of will power, control how much it dictates your life."
It's then that I realize: she is trying to help me live as relatively normal life as I can while being a Strigoi.
"We can never get jobs. We'll never age. We can't function in society for long nor can we ever go outside when it's light out, but what we can do is enjoy life as much as we can from the way we were raised to," Gillian says solemnly. "I don't know about you, but when I was growing up, I never wanted to hurt people, no matter what. Now I don't have much of a choice. But I can still do what I almost think is right. I go after the dirt bags in the world. Do they deserve it more than other, good, hard-working people of the world, I think so but hell, I'm a creature of the night, so what the fuck do I know?" She laughs bitterly. It's a nasty, horrible sound that doesn't seem right coming from her. Not after what she just said.
She grows somber again and I still haven't found my words. She smiles lightly, it's tentative and delicate but not creepy or cruel or sly in the slightest. It looks strangely nice on her small face. "Most other Strigoi I've met only want to hurt others. No matter what. That's just never been me. I can't bring myself to want that. So, I'm just biding my time."
"For what?" I ask quietly. I barely recognize my voice.
She makes a stabbing gesture towards her heart. "Waiting for the stake with my name on it. Waiting to meet the Guardian, or Moroi, that will set me free."
Her words stir something inside of me. Something I didn't even know was still there. Something I didn't even know was possible. I think she might have given me hope.
It wasn't until nights later that, while thinking over Gillians words for the hundredth time, did I realize how simply she, a human, called vampires Moroi and Dhampir Guadians.