I'm sorry. But life was hectic this past year. I graduated high school, moved states, dealt with personal issues, and had my aunt move into our tiny, tiny house. Besides that the words just weren't speaking to me. I know, that's pathetic but that's my strongest excuse. The characters were nonexistent in my head. I have a Wattpad story that also suffered. I started writing it to maybe get the words flowing again and it turned out to make it worse. But I swear this story will go on. I just don't want to give any of you a promise I probably won't keep. Please forgive me and hope you enjoy this long-awaited chapter.

Back in his room Dimitri began questioning his sanity.

The fact that he was so quick to defend her was alarming but what had just transcended in the hallway was insane to say the least. 'And by God! Calling her that!' Dimitri's only reassurance was that she neither knew Russian nor had she registered the words.

Dimitri shook his head as if to dispel the thoughts of how lovely Rose had looked during dinner, laughing as if she had not a care in the world. He readied himself for bed: washing and changing his dinner outfit for only pajama pants, but could not sleep quite yet.

He tossed back the sheets of the most luxurious bed he had ever slept in and started pacing. The problem with pacing, however, is that while his feet were entertained, his mind was not. Dimitri kept seeing the visions of Rose walking up to him in the morning, the light of the sun as it passed the window pane in his room and graced her face with the external light it needed to shine.

Because there truly was an internal light as well and it was may haps brighter than the feeble and fleeting light of the sun. The shine of the moon in the hallway was perhaps the most beautiful he had ever seen her. She looked so vulnerable there in the hallway surrounded by books-'That's it!' Dimitri reasoned.

He could stop thinking about Rose by burying himself in books. Then he would be able to sleep. He crossed to the door and wrenched it open so hard he was surprised the door hadn't come off its hinges. He passed over the threshold and went up to the books. He realized that he could not see the titles of the books. So Dimitri ran back inside to his room, lit a candle and hurried back to the books. He hadn't realized how close the books were to Roza's door and Dimitri was tempted to check on her. 'For what?,' He thought, 'There is nothing wrong with her and besides it is not only un proper but also not your job!' He chastised himself. He shook off the thoughts and turned back to the books. He passed the candle close enough to the spines of the books that he could read them, far enough away that the books wouldn't catch on fire. He came across one that sounded and looked interesting and turned back to go to his room. Dimitri was crossing the threshold, trying to balance the book and candle at the same time already reading the book when a noise that chilled him to the bone, despite the heat of the night.

Coming from Rose's bedroom, a scream like nothing he had ever heard before. A blood-curdling scream.

'It sounds as though someone were murdering Rose.' As soon as the thought ran through his head, he rushed to Rose's bedroom door, eyes widening in terror. He reached the door, yanked it open and was halfway inside before the book he had been holding thumped to the ground and the candle sputtered out. Not that Dimitri noticed.

Dimitri also did not take in his surroundings: the dark wood paneled walls, the books covering all the wall space that would have been free had Rose been a normal girl, the vanity, the half-open armoire where clothes were spilling out. He only noticed pillows; more than he thought necessary, and the princess bed with the red and black curtains, red and black sheets and blankets, and Rose in the middle of the enormous bed.

He didn't hesitate, though he should've. Any gentleman would have. 'Unless a woman like Rose is thrashing and screaming.' The wayward thought was only one of two that were overtaking his brain, the other being: 'Must save Roza', from what he was unsure of but she was hurting and he would not allow that. He finally made it to the bed. He wondered exactly how big the bedroom truly was. His sense of direction was somewhat skewed, being completely focused on Rose. He went to shake her shoulder, the shoulder that shouldn't be bared to him under any circumstances, that should be better hidden under a thick flannel robe instead of a flimsy, nearly transparent nightgown. But she thrashed and turned away form him before he could. Dimitri was practically on the bed himself, though he wasn't deliberately conscious of this fact. Rose turned toward him again and he caught her shoulders to hold her down. All the while Rose was screaming and crying. The sight of tear tracks down her cheeks almost did him in. He hated it when any woman cried for any reason, but it seemed more so when Rose was involved. He didn't quite understand the hold that she had on him so soon after them meeting merely a day.

The thought stopped him short for one second. It had only been 24 hours, 1440 minutes, 86400 seconds, since he had first met her. It was astonishing that he couldn't stop thinking about her, in any aspect.

Dimirti wasn't sure what made him look down at Rose but when he finally tuned back into the real world he noticed that Rose's and his bodies lined up perfectly, and that her eyes were not really dark brown but rather a hazel that changed colour depending on the light.

Then he realized that her eyes were open. He tried to scramble back off the bed but she somehow got her hands around his shoulders and held him down against her with surprising strength. Dimitri opened his mouth to tell her to let go. But Rose was quicker. " Stay. Please. Read me back to sleep. Otherwise I'll have nightmares again."

Dimitri couldn't say no.

***Time Lapse******

The sun hit his eyes bright and early the next morning. Dimitri wasn't sure if the sun was what woke him up though. He tried to move his arm to rub at his eyes to help him wake up but he couldn't move it. Speaking of, he couldn't really take deep breaths either. He looked down and saw a mess of dark brown hair that was turning caramel thanks to the sun.

'Oh crap...'

Dimitri's entire thought process grinded to a screeching halt. All of his neurons were consumed by that one thought. He was going to die. That was the next course of action his brain tried to process when Rose started moving. She snuggled closer to him and sighed, what sounded to Dimitri anyway, a content sigh.

Then her body froze. Dimitri imagined that her amazing mind was coming to the same conclusion that his did. He was going to die. Rose's father was going to kill him despite the fact that nothing actually happened last night. However, they were caught in an extremely compromising position, not so much for him but for Rose. During this time and age, her reputation and virtue was all a woman had. And when she came from small towns such as this one, it became even harder to prove either of those.

Rose however wasn't freezing due to terror on either of their parts. No, she was frozen because she realized that it wasn't a dream. Rose backed away slightly but before she knew it Dimitri was halfway across the room and opening the door. "Wait. Are you going to come down to breakfast?" Rose inquired.

Dimitri looked back over his shoulder and sighed. He couldn't deny either of them the other's company. "Yes Rose. I will change and then go down to breakfast." Rose grinned. Dimitri bid a hasty retreat to his bedroom across the hall and Rose hurried to the basin in her room behind the Chinese folding screen. She washed up and stood at her armoire debating what she was going to wear. She couldn't very well dress in one of her old day dresses for Dimitri. At the thought of his name, a feeling that she had only felt once before; the night before; traveled from her chest to her stomach. It felt as though butterflies or pterodactyls, giant winged ancient creatures that had long ago walked (or in the case of the pterodactyls flown) the earth that Rose had learned about in one of her many books, had descended into her stomach and were dancing around. She suddenly remembered talking with Lissa once of how Christian made Lissa feel. Lissa had described it as though butterflies were having a ball in the pit of her stomach. Rose couldn't help but draw parallels to the situation she was in right now. Dimitri made her feel these flutterings in her stomach, made her feel safe when his arms went around her and held her tight as they had this morning.

She finally settled on a beautiful emerald green day dress with an empire waist and lace edging. She loved that dress and hoped that Dimitri did too. She heard the door outside open and hurried to put her slippers on and dashed put of her room. She nearly ran into Dimitri, who was turning around. Dimitri and Rose locked eyes and she felt the flutterings again. However, this time they were worse. No, not worse. Stronger. They were stronger. Dimitri also felt the tingling feeling he had felt last night but he tried to suppress. They finally broke eye contact and started down the stairs.

I'm sorry for the short chapter. Originally it was going to be really long but that's all in my notebooks which are still back in the previous state. I don't actually have much in the new house. We are eight people living in a two bedroom apartment/ attic in New England... yeah we are kinda uncomfortable right now. The only things that my family has right now is what we bought when we got here, which wasn't much and we left everything else back in the previous state we lived in. We weren't able to rent a moving truck so... I mean, I know how I want this story to go but I might change / add to the chapters I will (hopefully) put up before I get the notebooks back. Just goes to show you that you can't leave your notebooks where you can't get to them.