Hello everyone. I AM SOO SOO SORRY about the wait. I bought a new car today (well, tonight-Jan 3) and before that, no one reviewed, so I took my time writing it. And I got a reviewer saying to me that she wanted to see the picture I was talking about- I tried once I updated the last chapter, but I can't seem to find out how. If you can send me a message, telling me where to go, step by step, I will do that. When I tried, it came out blank.

If you can review and tell me what you think, that would be awesome. I put a lot of action in it. Most of it is just telling you where they are at. Enjoy and review. I'm not getting much fee back. whats going on?

We entered the house, and Tamara was still out cold. My arms were relieved when I set her down on the couch. It was complaining of the weight and how long I was holding her. I told my arms to shut up and deal.

I sat down, and waited for her to wake up. I decided I would go Lissa and see what she was up to for a moment. I closed my eyes and went to her.

She as with Christian, Adrian, Sydney, Mia, Eddie, and of course Dimitri. The moroi were sitting down at a table, but the guardians were standing up, watching the vicinity. Adrian was as handsome as ever, and my heart felt a little pang at what happened between us. I avoided him when I left, knowing that if I went to see him, he would try and make amends. I don't want his amends, and I knew that I would have said things that I would have regret-say "how dare you cheat on me, you dirty player!" My mother was right, Adrian is a good man, and everyone makes mistakes.

When I took a look at everyone, they were all focused on Dimitri and Lissa. My gaze was on Sydney and Adrian. I was still jealous that he chose her over me, but that was quickly fading. I had Dimitri now, and my heart was putting itself back together.

"Things are going to be different without her." Mia said. "I hated her at first, because she was protecting you," Mia's eye's flickered over to Lissa, and she smiled at Lissa. "I was jealous you two had such a strong bond in friendship. But I wanted popularity. It's rather silly now that I look back at what I wanted." Mia laughed at the idiocy of her past.

Lissa was getting upset that Mia said something nice about our friendship. She didn't want to be reminded of me, because she felt bad at her outburst of anger. But mostly, she missed me. Inside myself, I felt regret. I knew I should have worked things out, but Lissa needed to get her mind cleared. She just found out about Jill, she has something dumped on her with no warning. I couldn't blame her.

"She was a strong person." Dimitri said, eyes shining with affection.

Eddie swallowed, seeming really embarrest at something. "Um, guardian Belikov….are you and Rose…?" Eddie let his question hang out in the air, but he didn't need to finish. Dimitri already knew what he was asking.

"Call me Dimitri." I guess since Eddie is a friend of mine there is no need for titles. "We are not together." He said, and to me (because I knew him) tone seemed sad.

Once again, conversation died down. "What are we going to do about the quorium law?" Lissa looked up for the first time and saw Emily and Jill on the other side of the table. They began to sit down while Lissa looked at them, startled.

"Oh…" Through Lissa's thoughts, I found out she never gave that much thought, though she knew that was certainly a problem she needed to work on. "I don't know."

"But Rose says if we don't do anything, our races could die off!" Jill intervine, talking for the first time.

"Would everyone stop talking about her? God, it's not like she is the reason we got together to talk." Lissa said, raising her voice. She was very upset at every mention of my name. She has some issues to work on, I realized.

"Why are you mad? She is your best friend." Mia said, stunned at Lissa's outburst.

"She is no friend of mine." Lissa growled.

Whao! I felt the darkness rear its ugly head. With energy, I let it leak some into me. She needed to calm down before she did something she would regret. I took a little bit, and I felt her settle down.

"What do you mean?" Eddie asked, shocked too. "I mean, you guys have been friends as long as I have known you two."

"I don't want to talk about her, okay?"

Everyone shut up, and talked about random topics. Her temper dimmed and I went back to my head, not because of bordum, but because a movement snapped me out. Tamar sturred, starting to wake up.

"Lev, can you come here?" I had a feeling Denis was still upset with me, and I didn't want to push my luck with him. He came walking down the hall and gave me a questioning look. "Can you stay with her, she is starting to wake up. I am going to get some asprin for her." From my past experience, I knew she was going to have one hell of a headache. I went to the bathroom got some asprin and a paper-cup full of water.

When I returned, she was stretching, just starting to wake up. I saw her move her hands to her head and I heard her groan.

"Can you translate for me?" I asked Lev. He shook his head.

Tamara opened her eyes and looked at me, and smiled, but her smiled dimmed, due to the pain in her head. I leaned forward and handed her the pills and water. She smiled at took them gratefully.

"Do you feel up to going back out?" Lev quickly translated for me.

She shook her head, but said something. "She said that we can go back out, and that she feels safer here."

I shook my head. "I don't want anyone to be alone." Lev translated again.

Tamara said something. "She said that she can go over to a friend's house."

I was reluctant to that, but I agreed. I wasn't sure on how good that friend was at fighting strigoi, but I had darkness in me again, and I had to get rid of it somehow.

It turned out that Tamara's friend's house was a few blocks down the road, and I knew the house and the people.

The Belikov's.

I wanted to see them, in fact, I was eager to see them. I knocked on the door, and Paul was the one who answered.

"Rose?" He asked, and he was excited to see me. "Rose! Babuska, Babuska!" Paul yelled. Olena walked to the door and had a scolding look on her face. She said something in Russian with Paul's name.

When she saw my face, I saw happiness in it. "Rose, what a pleasant surprise," her smile was radiant, but when she looked at me, she was stunned into silence. She gave me a tight hug, holding onto me a few moments longer than you would be if you were glad to see an old friend. I think she thought of me as a daughter

"What is with the outfit?"

I gave her a half smile. "Found my calling. Tamara wishes to stay here." Olena's eyes flickered over to Tamara, who was standing next to me. Olena said something in Russian with Viktoria's name in it, then she turned to me. "Would you like to come in for a few?"

Did I ever! "I'm sorry. I have people waiting for me." I said, regretting that I couldn't come in.

She smiled in understanding, but I could see sadness in her eyes. I gave her another hug. "I missed you, Olena." I said. She hugged me back, tighter. "We miss you around here, Rose."

If only she knew how much that meant to me. Having her approval of me was a big complement. Even though Dimitri and I were never technically together, I was in love with him. And I knew that if I had ever wanted them to acknowledge me as anything more, that I needed their approval. When Olena showed me her kindness, I knew that she did approve.

"Be careful out there, Rose. We love you, and I know that Dimitri did too."

For some reason, I got the impression she was talking in past tense. Wasn't she informed about her son's marculous transformation back to being dhampire? I was about to say something when I heard my name being called from the car.

Fustration must have shown on my face. I wanted-needed-to tell her that her son was back, but saying something this important, this heavy, in a door way is not right.

"Go." She said and smiled in understanding again.

"I will come back, Olena."

She smiled and I turned back, and walked to the car.

"Let's go."

We ended up patrolling the town, checking the allyways, and seeing if any came across us. I saw a creepy old abandoned building, and something in my gut told me there was danger in there. So directed my gang there.

The building had boards covering up the doorway and windows. The building looked like it was made out of stones and cement. The stones were several different shades of gray, and some of them shined, like they had glitter on them; that gave the building not only a creepy, but a creepy and enchanted feeling to it. We circled the building and it had several windows, but only eight doorways, two on each side. I thought that was dangerous. With how big the building is (200yards long and it looked like it was 50 yards tall), it could mean a stampede if there ever will be a tornado or fire warning.

"Let's knock down the doorway." Lev suggested.

I was about to disregard that, but Denis beat me to it. "No, we don't want to attract attention. Go for the window in the back of the building."

We all walked to the back of the building and Lev power kicked the boards a few times. The boards were thick, but they were no match for dhampire strength. We entered in there and dust immediately floated out of the building. I had a bad feeling about this. Worse than I would normally.

"Keep your stakes close." I whispered when we were all inside and scouting the building. "No one wonder off, keep together." The last part I said in a dangerous voice. I hoped Denis heard it and understood why.

There was lots of machinery, but I couldn't tell you what they were for. Most of them were boxes with holes in it, some medium, some huge. The huge ones are big enough for anyone to crawl through, or put a car seat in.

"Is this an old car factory?" I whispered to Denis as low as I could manage.

He nodded, not saying anything.

We peeped through a couple rooms, but there was nothing. I could see why a bunch of strigoi stayed here. It was big, and it was dark. I had a hard time seeing, and a few times I had to use Denis's flashlight that he always carried on him. It is a small black flashlight, but it put out some serious light. I bet it would blind a strigoi for a few moments; I needed to get one.

"BOOM!" I nearly jumped ten feet in the air. I was so concentrated on hearing footsteps or breathing, but a noise the echoed off the walls startled me. It was coming from the front of the building. It was as if one of those huge machines was dropped from the ceiling.

"Front of the building. Run." I said in a hasty and quiet voice.

We all ran, but I had to slow down to let them keep up with me. We had to zig-zag from room, from room taking short cuts.

Again I felt the nausea a moment too late, because I heard a body being pushed into a wall. The drywall was either rotted or the strigoi was old and powerful, because Lev was pushed into the drywall, halfway into the other room.

Fuck!

I turned around and saw the strigoi was getting ready for me; his eyes on me. He was clearly zeroing out who was leader here. I ran at him (reckless on my part), and strigoi stood his ground, waiting for me to come at him. When I was two feet away from him, I stopped dead and got ready in defense mood. I wasn't going to charge at him; I didn't know what he was capable of, or how strong he is.

He took a step towards me and I took a step back, my arms and hands out and ready to grab or punch him. My back wanted to crouch, but this strigoi was supper tall, so I needed to have a tall frame. We went into a dance, he punched, I blocked, I kick, he blocked.

Soon though, like all striogi, they got tired of waiting and dancing with the guardians and he went to fully attach me. We were a couple feet apart, so I had time to stop, drop and roll. I quickly used my thigh and abdominal muscles to bring me back up. I took out my sword, and by the time I swung it back, he was right where I wanted him to be. I brought my sword's blade to his throat and cut it. It took only one swing, and his head was off.

Huh. I must be getting used to how much muscle I must put behind it.

His head rolled, but I caught a glimpse of surprise before I could look away.

What a shame, I bet he was nice before he was turned. He had that face. Those lips could have had a gentle smile to them. I tore his shirt off and cleaned off his blood from my sword, then put my sword back.

I quickly added the stuff Sydney gave me on the body and head. And we headed back.

We were half way back to where we were when we head wood cracking, like a body was shoved up against it. Shit, they are escapting. I thought

I quickened my pace, and everyone else did as well. I heard another shove against the wood, and this time, it heard wood hitting pavement. Damn. They got out. We turned the corner, and sure enough, a doorway where wood was nailed to block anyone from entering was on the floor; though, there were pieces still nailed, but it was jagged, making it clear it was snapped off.

I ran faster, practically flying through the door, so that if the strigoi was going to do surprise attack on the side of the door opening, he would miss me by a mere millimeter.

I was a genius, because that was what the striogi did. I took out my sword, and he came at me, not realizing I held a weapon. I swiped the blade across his chest, drawing blood. He screamed in agony at the burning pain, but he got up and came at me in force. I wasn't ready for that, so he tackled me to the ground. My hands went instantly to his face, knowing that the gloves' metal would burn his skin. It did, because he screamed in pain, as well. That was my key to bring up my knee into his home plate. His breath caught, as I punched him in the nose, which blood poured out. I then pushed him off me, reached down in my thigh pocket and brought my stake out to his chest. I was about to stake him when my nausea sensor went off, another strigoi knocked me off him.

Holy Shit.

The vampire punched me in the stomach, but before I could hit him, he was pulled off of me.

Denis. Him and strigoi went into a dance, but when I went to look for the other strigoi that I was fighting for earlier, he was gone.

Damn it.

"Denis, we need to interrogate him. We have to find where the other strigoi went." Denis grunted in return. I got up, and with Lev's help, we pinned the strigoi on the floor.

"Ask him where the other went."

Denis translated and when the strigoi understood Denis, his voice was colder than ice. "He said that if he was gone, then he is going to warn others about this gang, especially you."

I smiled. "Good. I want them to spread rumors about me."

Lev looked at me like I was crazy. "If rumors get around that we are dangerous, they will be more and more afraid of fighting us. We can use their fear against them. With fear, they came make mistakes."

"Stake him, Denis." I would stake him, but I was holding him down, along with Lev. Denis was holding him down by sitting on his abdominal area.

I felt him stiffen, then go limp. Dead. We got up and I used his shirt again, and the potion.

I looked at the time from Lev's watch, and saw that it was nearly dawn. The strigoi wont be going much of anywhere right now, and I was getting tired. "Let's get out of here. The sun is rising, and I want to sleep."

The others quickly agreed. I felt no nausea, so I wasn't expecting any attacks.

We walked to Denis's house without any attacks, but I felt like someone was watching me. I ignored it, thinking it was just a civilian. We ate dinner and went to bed.

We all woke up to the sound of the door opening up. I looked up to see sunlight spilling through the door. Tamara's eyes wept across the room, seeing if she disturbed anyone. When she met my eyes, here face looked embarrassed.

"It сорры." She said, apologizing.

I waved my hand in a dismissing gesture. There was no need to apologize. I needed to get up and start my Russian lessons anyway.

I went to the other room and sat at the table and opened my computer up, starting the lesson. I don't know how long I sat there, but it was a while. I heard movement in the living room, and decided to quit. I went through three chapters in a couple hours. I felt that I had grasped it pretty well, since Tamara came in and helped me. We went out later, hunting. We didn't go back to the building, though Tamara wanted to go check it out. I told her no, and they could be waiting for us with more strigoi inside. I didn't want to take a risk and getting anyone killed.

Instead, we went to Novosibirsk and patrolled the cities. We got a hotel room, and crashed there. Tamara was glad to be back in Novosibirsk, and decided to crash at her home instead of with us at the hotel room. I wasn't at all offended; she needed to spend time with her family before we moved somewhere else; there was a good chance she wasn't going to see her family for a very long time. I wish I could go back home, because I missed Lissa, and everyone else, especially Dimitri. I still didn't want to talk to Adrian. What he did still stings, and I had a feeling it would be stinging for a while.

We went from Novosibirsk to Barnaul. Barnaul was equally as dangerous, but equally as beautiful as Novosibirsk. We spend two months there, and had fun at some of the clubs that were there when we were off duty, of course. However, we had to move to a different city; we got caught breaking and entering a store, due to chasing a gang of three strigoi. We caused quite a stir in that city, enough that many strigoi and fled to a different city or town.

We then went to Tomsk, and stayed there for four months-it was worse than Tamara had thought. I wanted to head north-west to Yekaterinburg, but Tamara said Tomsk was getting bad. I had Tamara watching the news to scout out which major city was having more frequent attacks; it was one good way to find out where most of the strigoi had fled to. We stayed there over three months, but we moved on, knowing that the strigoi were backing off and heading somewhere else.

With their training, I moved on from strength and conditioning to my ninja skills (hee hee- the ones Dimitri taught me that were badass, and I wanted them to be badass as well). They knew enough to live, but I wanted them to be good, like me. I wanted to trust them more than I already did. These guys were fast becoming a second family to me, and I would be devastated if something happened to them. It was clear to me that they quit school easily, thinking they were the best of the best. I was the one to splash cold water on them. Wahoo, point for Hathaway. My little warriors were quick learners, but they did struggle with a variety of techniques. Denis was my star, but even he had is flaws and got really discouraged over them, like everyone else.

"Don't give up," I addressed everyone in Russian, "you will get it. You guys have just learned these moves. You cannot expect to master them over night."I decided to make it personal. If I made it personal, then they would feel more comfortable. "Many moves took me weeks to a month to master." I was stretching the truth. It took me at least a week. Dimitri was very good at his teaching and showing fantastic demonstrations.

East of Tomsk was Kransnoyarsk, which was our other destination. We stayed there a little over a month, and met another set of rogue hunters like ourselves. I understood a lot of Russian by the time we met them, but I still needed Lev or Denis to help translate what they were saying. They spoke too fast for me to comprehend. Their leader, Zakhary, was someone I found myself wanting to avoid at all times. He was ruthless and obnoxious. His piercing hazel eyes made me shiver whenever he looked at me, and not in a good way. His built was average Denis and Lev, and he had dark brown hair that was trimmed. He had no manners and was obsessed killing. He was the ideal killing machine; no emotion towards them.

"What do you think we should do?" Tamara asked me. She didn't like Zakhary any more than I did, but some of his gang members had lots of potential to be amazing guardians. After they met us and saw us in action with strigoi, it was clear that Zakhary was jealous. When he learned how many of us had died, he was struck with awe and jealousy; he wanted us. But mostly, he wanted to be me. I could see it in his eyes. He thought I was a great leader, and he wanted to be just like me. I had no objections to being his mentor, but my gut told me that he would twist what I teach him, and that could kill everyone.

I would not have it. I would never let Denis, Lev or Tamara join him. They would all get killed for his reckless and careless decisions.

"We need to leave Kransnoyarsk. The more I learn about Zakhary, the more I want to strangle him," I told her, and I had a feeling she felt the same way.

Two days later, I told Denis and Lev that we had to move on. I explained to them that their reckless behavior could cause us danger and that we could come back when they moved onto another city. When I put things in that perspective, they agreed, with no hesitation. We, wanting respect, told Zakhary and his group that we were moving on. Many were disappointed, but what stunned me, was a few people wanted to come with us.

To my surprise, we moved out of Kransnoyarsk with three new memebres. Two girls and another guy; Larisa. She was a beautiful blond with blue, cunning eyes. She was irritating, but had good instincts, that she learned to have depended on. Zinaida, was the second one. We all called her Zena. She spoke no English, but she had quiet the temper (which came in very handy with fighting striogi), and she could flirt her way out of any problem, which is why we got in a lot of fights. She once tried to steal the lip gloss Dimitri had bought me.

The boy was Gabril, Ganya for short. I called him Gabe. He asked me why I called him that, and I told him that I am American, and I had a distaste for Russian nicknames. He laughed at that. I still thought Russian nicknames were weird. He reminded me a lot of Eddie with him openness and his laughter. Eddie had a one-of-a-kind laugh. It boomed, and Gab's laugh did the same. He also had Eddie's brown eyes, but had hair like me- so dark brown it appears almost black. It looked sexy, but I didn't have eyes on him.

Soon, though, all three of them found that I worked completely different than what Zakhary does. They also, if I watched their faces close enough, looked relieved and a little disappointed. I guess they liked the idea of death and extreme anger, which made me shiver in disgust. I have seen far too much death, for them to thrive on that made me think that they are no better than striogi.

Before they left, I tested them on how much they knew on standard self-defense. It turned out that they knew a lot more than Tamara, Denis and Lev, which I was grateful on. I decided that the next city, I would start their training.

From there, we went to Orenburg, and stayed there for a while, but not long. It was winter and we decided to wait until winter was over, so that we wouldn't deal with all the holiday hussel; all the while, I started our new members on training. Denis was my dummy, and Tamara helped me demonstrate. It worked out beautifully.

It went turned into February. There was still snow on the ground, but most of the stirgoi got scared and ran off, braving the bad roads. I couldn't tell you how long we have been going from city to city, because the days turned into weeks, then into months. I didn't bother keeping track. Soon, though, we moved on to Kazan, then to Moscow and then St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg and Moscow was my favorite places to visit. In fact, I wanted to stay in Moscow, because there were more guardians there. Unfortunately, that meant that we had to move out, because the more guardians there, the less strigoi there were around. At least, that is what we observed. It was also, what made us move out of St. Petersburg as well.

When ended up going back to Kazan, which was just as beautiful as St. Petersburg and Moscow, but there were a lot less guardians and a whole lot more strigoi, and these strigoi were twice as aggressive than they were back in Omsk and Novosibirsk. However, that feeling I had back in Omsk, never left; the feeling someone was watching me, and I was getting irritated and nervous. I didn't tell anyone about it, but I warned them before we left Omsk, that strigoi were watching us.

I wasn't sure what month it was, but I woke up this morning, in the warm sun, having a bad case of homesickness. I accasionally miss it, but lighty it has gotten worse. The snow was pretty much gone, and the ground was warming up, but you shouldn't go outside without a coat on. I decided to go to Lissa, wondering how she was doing. I missed her like crazy, and I was curious to see if she felt the same.

I found that she was in a fancy conference room, with the queen. Lissa was dressed to perfection as always for a meeting with the queen.

"She is where?" The queen demanded.

"Gone, and I don't care. She said something about going back to Siberia." Ah, they were talking about me. I felt a little bit of bitterness and abandonment that came through the bond.

The queen's eyebrows narrowed in frustration. Her lips were in a thin line, telling me and Lissa that she was not happy about my decision. Her hands were on her hips, shoulders back and proud. Her dark blue satin dress swayed with her as she pasted back and forth.

"Why on earth would she leave you?"

"Your majesty, if you summand me here to talk about my old guardian, I have nothing to say. Dimitri is my guardian now, and I am more than happy with him." It was true, she has grown a stronger fondness with him. She still looked up to him like she did when we first got back to Academy.

"I am not interested in Guardian Belikov. Rose and I had been meeting in private. I need to talk to her immediately." The queen's tone was not to be mistaken that she had urgent matters to talk to me with.

Damn, does that mean that I have to get back to the States sooner rather than later? I sure hope not. If so, then what should I do with my gang? Do I take them with me?

Lissa was flabbergasted with me. Rose, meeting with the queen in private? She was mostly shocked that I went willingly. She hates her though? Is she hiding something from me? She shouldn't be hiding anything from me, I'm her best friend. But if Rose is hiding something, what does she have to hide from me?

"If I may ask, what were you two meeting about?"

"Private matters. We met last year, a little bit after Guardian Belikov's return. I must talk with her. I am beginning to think she is not taking her guardian career seriously." The queen's face was in its most strictest form that I have seen yet, but something in the set of her face told me that she was worried, she has information, and she needed my help A-sap.

I felt a jolt of anger from Lissa. "Rose is the best damn guardian there is. She takes her job more seriously than any guardian in the royal guard." Lissa huffed. "Don't think for one second that she is a slacker. She has save many lives."

The queen smiled at her. "My dear Vasilisa, I know Rose is great, but if she wants to be the best, then she must prove it."

Lissa calmed down when she said that. She felt bad that she let out all of her pent up anger out on her. Before she could apologize, the queen spoke again.

"In fact, I wanted to appoint her to be the head of my guardians."

Lissa went still and felt cold all over. I was hers. She's mine. You have enough guardians as it is. Lissa thought.

"Where in Siberia did Rose go?" Queen Tatiana demanded to know. Her hands were back on her hips, showing control.

For once, Lissa didn't have to dance around the truth and she was glad about that. "I don't have the slightest idea, your majesty."

"Then I must have all my subjects keep an eye out on her." Her eyes hardened, and her shoulders-if possible- straightened even more and walked out of the conference room, ending the meeting.

I went straight back to my head in a whirl to make decision. The queen was looking of me, and something in her face told me that she had a lot of information for me, but most of all, something was horribly wrong. Lissa could be in danger, along with a lot of other people. I am going back to America. What made my decision is simple.

I am homesick. I missed Lissa and Dimitri more than anything. I needed them. The first thing I was going to do was kiss all of them senselessly; Eddie, Dimitri, Lissa, and Mia. I would consider Adrian and Sydney. Now that time passed by, I felt less bitter over what had happened.

I walked out of my room- Tamara and I shared a room- and walked over to the other room. I knocked on it, and Tamara opened it. She left me alone, knowing that I wanted to be alone when I sleep.

"Rose, what is wrong?" She asked.

"We have to leave." I was now fluent in Russian. Who knew that Rose Hathaway would one day be fluent in another language? Sure as hell not me.

I walked in and spoke to everyone. "I am being summened to the royal court."

They all gasped, but Denis recovered quickly. "Then we will all come with you."

"Yes." Tamara said. "We stick together, remember?"

I smiled at that. "I do want you to meet someone." I said, feeling shy, thinking of Dimitri.

Lev smiled. "Dimitri, I assume." I have been talking about him a little here, and a little there when something reminds me of him (which is pretty much everything here in Russia)

I smiled widely. "Yes, him especially, but someone I think, you thought you would never meet."

"Who?" They all said in unison.

"Her royal highness, Queen Tatiana." I responded with a straight face. It took all my energy not to smile.

Whatcha think? Tell me. It's not coming out the way I had envisioned, but oh well.