Chapter 5
I leave the bed careless of my nakedness, and I see Dimitri trying in vain not to look at me.
"You should hurry, we're already late"
"It was totally worth it, you can always say that you had problems waking me up. I'll go shower, do you wanna join?" I say with malice but his bad glares answers on his behalf. So I go in the bathroom laughing, through the door I can hear him on he phone that uses my excuse in the end. I smile, thinking to the desperation that filled me yesterday this seems just a dream that I'll have to wake up from, eventually. The good part is that this is all true, everything is starting to go in the right direction.
As I exit the shower I dress and go to the other room where I find Dimitri, completely dressed to my disappointment.
"Where should we meet her?" I ask while we go out.
"In the meeting room of the administrative office"
"How are you by the way? Did they already visit you?"
"No trace of anomalies, and you? I haven't seen you there"
"Lissa took care of it".
We walk for a while in silence before he exclaims: "About what happened earlier.." I know exactly where he wants to get, we shouldn't do this here with the risk of exposure.
"I know what you want to say, I exaggerated: we could have been easily caught especially now that we have so much attention on us" there's a moment of silence before he breathes heavily and says: "Roza, I want to be with you. We'll find a way". I am on the verge of answering when we both ear shouts not too far away asking for help, we look at each other before starting to run. We can soon see some sentinels near the wards fighting against someone, when I'm near enough I notice that they're fighting the same creatures that saved Dimitri yesterday and I can see for the first time the strength and speed they own: although they clearly have no intention to kill they're able to predict the guardians' moves and avoid them with ease. Each of them has different features: the woman despite her seeming grace tend to prefer powerful moves while the man is faster and more tactical. Dimitri tries to attack the woman from behind but he's stopped by the man who instantaneously knocks him down, one of the guardians tries to exploit the opening but before he even makes his move he's already pushed him away. I decide to join them focusing on the woman that seems the weak link but as soon as I get in her visual field she snorts exclaiming: "you again?" before blocking me and holding me by my neck.
Dimitri terrified tries to react to free me but the other one knocks him down again, followed by the other guardians.
"That's enough" says the woman without letting me go, "I think you understood by now that you're not getting anywhere" she continues referring to the battle; the other one intervenes: "we don't want to harm any of you".
"Let me go then" I answer trying to escape from her hold but obtaining the very opposite.
"No my dear backstabber, it seems we need you as leverage. I didn't want to arrive to this but if you care about the life of your friend I suggest you to take us to the queen" so this is their purpose. They've been quite clever actually, they showed to us so that we'd tell everything to the others and the queen would be forced to come here to examine the issue; the reason why they want to talk to her is a new mystery, this if they want to talk.
"We can't do this" answered one of the guardians that fell to the ground after the man's move.
"The next one will be dead, do you think that you can satisfy us now?" there was a silence from the guardians until Dimitri said to follow him, I hope that he has a plan and that he's not handing the queen to someone stronger than strigoi because of me, even if they wouldn't kill us the morois would take care of it: condemning us to death for high treachery.
We continue to walk towards our destination, the woman didn't let me go and didn't even eased the hold but I notice that we're doing a detour and I understand Dimitri's strategy. We're going to pass through the novices' field camp that at this hour will be filled with dhampir ready to fight, in fact despite their strength they'd be outnumbered.
Indeed as soon as we got there they're attached by all the teachers and even some of the braver novices of the last years, they try to react but they soon give up to the obvious: the woman finally let me go and I manage to give her a nudge that stuns her enough to be blocked by the others. It takes five guardians to contain each of them but in the end they manage to bring them to the prisons, I and Dimitri stays watching the imprisoning and then we are questioned. In the meantime Alberta reach us, the others move away under her order and she starts: "Are they the creatures you met ?".
"Yes, we were going to meet the queen when we heard someone asking for help" I expose.
"They're dangerous, the only reason why we were able to catch them is because they didn't want to kill us, they want the queen" intervenes Dimitri, Alberta nods starting to order the guardians nearby to be sure to protect the queen and arrange the journey back to court .
"All of this is ridiculous " the woman's voice silence the entire room "I appreciate loyalty but all of this just because we wanted to speak with her it's an exaggeration".
"Who are you and what do you want from us?" one of the guardians asks her, she move nearer the bars looking around as if she was evaluating an escape and then answers: "we're here to warn you of an impending danger, if you want details bring us to the queen" and after that she enlarge the space between the bars pulling them in the opposite direction and go through them followed by her husband in the adjacent cell, as if they wanted us to know that they could have done it anytime.
Some of the guardians try to attack them but Alberta voice stops them: "I'll bring you to her".
"Anyway, I'm Elizabeth".
