Rose POV
I woke up to the face of my mother as she hovered over me. She was crying, something that I'd never seen her do, as she stroked my hair back. She was saying something but I couldn't work out what it was. I closed my eyes again, only for her to shake me.
I opened them again and tried to smile up at her but it felt like it came out as more of a grimace. I was happy though. She was here. She was here and I was finally safe. It was then that I realised that I wasn't in the dining room of the hotel, or my room there. I was somewhere else. Somewhere where there was a constant beeping that was starting to get really annoying.
I looked around, trying to work out where I was and that's why I saw him. Dimitri was sitting on a chair, his head tilted back as he slept. He looked awful; he hadn't shaved for what looked like a few days and he hard dark circles under his eyes. He was still the most handsome man that I'd ever seen though.
And that's when it hit me. I wasn't really with them. My brain was playing tricks on me again, bringing him to me when I needed him the most. The last thing I remembered was being in the dining room with Nathan. He bit me again because there'd been a breach in his security and the hotel. I'd thought that Dimitri had come for me but he hadn't.
"Go away." I murmured. "Let me sleep."
"Rose?" Janene said, her warm hands brushing my hair back. "Rose, it's okay. You're safe now."
"No." I said, closing my eyes again.
"Rose, I'm here." Janene said but ignored her and tried to block her out.
They weren't really here. I was still there, stuck in the hotel with Nathan and his pets. I felt myself moving, though it wasn't by choice. I kept my eyes closed but I felt as if I were sitting up.
"She doesn't know where she is." Janene's voice said to someone, probably Dimitri.
I felt someone holding my hand and my eyes flew open. When Dimitri had come to me before, I hadn't felt him. He hadn't touched me because he hadn't really been there. Dimitri was touching me now. I looked in to his warm, brown eyes that were filled with exhaustion and misery and I knew that he was really there.
"You're in the hospital, Roza." He said, his hand squeezing mine gently. It made sense then, how I'd suddenly been sitting up. Someone had moved the hospital bed so that I was upright.
"You're really here?" I asked.
He nodded and I couldn't hold it back any longer. I let out a choked sob before burying my face in my hands, letting my hair shield me from Dimitri's gaze. I tensed, waiting for him to wrap his arms around me and try to comfort me but they never came. I glanced up at him, the God that I had loved from the very beginning, and saw that he was broken. Tears streamed down his face as he watched me and he looked defeated.
"I am so sorry that I failed you, Roza. I'll never forgive myself for it." He said, his voice thick.
"It's not your fault." I said quietly.
"I should have been with you."
You were. I thought, desperately wanting to tell him about my dream, how it had been him that had given me strength. It wouldn't do him any good though, if anything it would just make him feel worse. "It's okay, Dimitri."
"It will never be okay, Roza." He said and turned away from me. I saw him wipe his face before he left my room, leaving me alone with my mother.
She was crying again, but wiped her tears away quickly. "You're safe now, Rose."
I nodded. "How did I get here?"
"You don't remember?" She asked. I shook my head and she told me. "We got to the hotel and when we found you, you were unconscious. We brought you home. You woke a few times, I thought that you'd remember."
"Did you kill him?" I asked.
"We don't have to talk about that now, Rose. You need to focus on getting better now."
"Did you see it?" I asked.
She nodded but didn't say anything.
"Who else?"
"It isn't important right now, Rose."
"Who else saw it?"
"Dimitri. Your father. Adriand and Christian. Alberta." She and swiped a tear away from her eye. "Are you ready for some visitors? Everyone is waiting to see you."
I nodded and she left to go and fetch them.
Adrian was the first one to come to me. He dragged the chair that Dimitri had been sleeping in up to the bed and sat beside me. "How're you feeling, little dhampir."
"Sore." I said, not meeting his eyes. "You said that you wouldn't let them see it."
"I know. I'm sorry but-"
"They've all seen it."
"It's okay, Rose. No one blames you." He said and reached out for me. I flinched and he dropped his hand. "Sorry."
I nodded. I knew that it wasn't really his fault but I couldn't bare the thought of them seeing me like that. "Thank you. For saving me."
"Any time." He said. "Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to heal you?"
"No." I didn't want him to heal me. I wanted to feel the pain.
"Do you want me to fetch you anything? Your own clothes or something to eat?"
"No."
"Shall I fetch Liss or Dimitri?" He asked.
I shook my head. "I'm tired."
"I'll let you sleep then." He said but made no move to leave. He picked up the control for the bed and pressed a button so that the bed was almost flat. "I'll just sit here for a while."
I nodded and closed my eyes.
When I woke up, Adrian was gone and Dimitri was in his place.
"Good morning, Roza."
"How long have you been sitting there?"
"An hour, maybe two."
"Why?"
"I couldn't bare to be apart from you." He said, his eyes swirling with emotion. I gave him a small smile, not entirely sure what to say. He stood up slowly and sat on the edge of the bed, his hand resting on mine. If he noticed my flinch, he didn't say anything or try to move away. "How are you feeling, Roza?"
"Okay." I lied smoothly.
"Please, Roza, don't lie to me." He said sadly. Perhaps my lie wasn't as smooth as I'd thought. "Are you in pain?"
"A little."
"I'll fetch the doctor." He said and stood up. He looked down at me for a moment as if he wanted to say something, but he didn't.
He came back a minute or so later with Dr Nikolev following.
"Dimitri tells me that you're in pain, Rose." He said with a small smile. "On a scale of one to ten, how badly does it hurt?"
Honestly, it felt as if I was lying on a bed made of broken glass but I wasn't about to tell him that. "Maybe a four."
"Which is the guardian term for an eight." He said with a small chuckle. "I've been dealing with dhampirs for a long time, Rose. I've learned to double the number that they give me." He looked down at my chart and nodded before closing it. "I'm going to give you something for the pain, that should take it right down to maybe a one. A real one, not a dhampir one."
"Thanks." I said, hoping that it would work.
Dr Nikolev went over to a cupboard and pulled out a syringe and a small glass bottle. He poked the needle in to the top of the bottle, turned it upside down and drew some of the clear liquid up in to it. He poked it in to an IV that was in the back of my hand and a delicious numbness washed over me as the drugs took the pain away.
"That should do it." Dr Nikolev said with a small smile. "I'll send the nurse to you in a couple of hours."
I nodded and smiled up at him. "Thank you."
"It might you a little drowsy but you look like you could use the sleep. You'll start to feel better soon." He said and left, his white coat flapping behind him as he walked.
My eyes started to droop and I heard Dimtri's voice as if I were under water. "Sleep, Roza. I'll watch over you."
I woke up in a room that I'd hoped I'd never have to see again. I was back in the cream room at the hotel, wearing the white sacrificial virgin dress that Nathan had given me. I closed my eyes and opened them again, praying that when I opened them again, I'd be back in the hospital.
"You're wasting your time, Rosie." Nathan's voice said from behind me. His breath ticked my neck as he spoke and the hairs on my body stood on end. "You didn't think that you'd be able to leave me so easily did you?"
I turned around to face him. "Why am I here?"
"This is how you told them where you were, wasn't it? In a spirit dream?"
"How-"
"I know all about your friend, Adrian Ivashkov. He's a spirit user, just like Vasilisa Dragomir." Nathan said. "I never imagined that it would feel so real though. It's almost as if we're not in a dream at all."
"How did you bring me here?" I asked.
"There are more spirit users out there than you know. It wasn't that difficult to find one." He trailed his fingers down my cheek. "You look like yourself again. Your wounds are healed. You're beautiful, Rosie."
I stepped away from him, only to find myself tied down to a bed.
"My friend gave me complete control of the dream, Rosie. You're mine again and you will be until I come for you." He said and laid beside me, kissing my neck.
I screamed and tried to fight him, but with my hands and legs tied down it was impossible. The edges of the room started to blur and I sighed a breath of relief.
"What's happening?" He demanded, looking around him in horror.
"I'm waking up. You may control the dream, but you don't control me." I said and then he disappeared completely.
"Roza? Roza, you're okay. You're safe." I felt Dimitri's arms around me as he whispered the words in my ear. "I've got you. It's just a dream, Roza."
Having him so close to me made my heart race, though it wasn't in a good way. I pushed him off and made myself sit up, ignoring the pain in my back. I knew that Dimitri wasn't going to hurt me. I knew that he loved me but I couldn't let him touch me.
"I'm sorry." He said and moved away from me, going to stand by the wall.
"You didn't kill him, did you?"
"Roza-"
"Tell me the truth, Dimitri, please." I said, aware of the almost begging tone in my voice.
"No." He said. "There was a complication. He managed to escape whilst everyone was otherwise occupied."
I nodded slowly, needing a moment to take that information in. I'd woken up, needing to hear Dimitri say that Nathan was dead. Needing it so that I knew the spirit dream I'd been in had actually been a nightmare. Of course, if he was alive then there was a very strong possibility that he had actually found a spirit user to bring me to him in a spirit dream. If he had a moroi working with him, no matter what the circumstances were, then I wasn't safe in here. In the hospital or in Court.
I stood up on shaky legs and pulled the leads from my chest and IV from the back of my hand.
"Roza? Are you okay?" Dimitri asked, taking a step towards me.
"I can't stay here." I said and turned turned away from him, desperately searching for my clothes but I couldn't see them anywhere. Apparently, the clothes that I'd been wearing had been thrown away because my little room in the hospital was empty. I had nothing but the little hospital gown that they'd left open at the back.
Dimitri seemed to have noticed the same thing because he gasped. It wasn't the heated gasps of our past, the ones filled with lust and want, it was pained.
I hadn't actually seen the full extent of the damage that Nathan had inflicted on me but I'd known that it was bad by the pain.
Dimitri had seen some horrors in his life but the sound that he made... it broke my heart. I turned around to face him and my heart broke even more. For him, for myself. His eyes were wide, his face was pale and his mouth hung open slightly. His hands were at his sides, clenching and unclenching as if he wanted to touch me or hit something. Knowing Dimitri, it was probably a combination of both. He'd want to comfort me but beat the living Hell out of whoever had hurt me.
He came towards me, his hands out in front of him as he made his intentions clear. He rested his hands on my shoulders lightly and gently pushed me back towards the bed.
"You have to let me go, Dimitri."
"That's not going to happen." He promised, his voice low but fierce.
"He knows that I'm here." I said, fresh tears filling my eyes. "He's not going to stop until I'm his or I'm dead. Please," I hated that I was begging but it was the only way to save him. "Please, let me go."
"Roza, my sweet, beautiful Roza. If he wants to take to you from me, he'll have to kill me first." He said and brought me in to his arms.
I tensed up as I fought the panic that caught in my throat. I breathed in his scent, hoping that it would calm but it didn't. He was too close and I needed to get away. Tears fell down my face and soaked in to his chest but he didn't seem to mind. He just held me, whispering something in Russian as he rocked me gently.
The nurse came in then. "You should be in bed, Miss Hathaway." She came over to us and pried us apart, leading me back over to the bed.
"Sorry."
"And why aren't you connected to anything, young lady? How are you supposed to get better if you won't let the medicine work?" She went about connecting all the leads back up, placing them on my chest and then reinserted the IV. She turned on Dimitri then, pointing her finger at him. "If you aren't going to help her then you're a hindrance and you'll have to go. What's it going to be?" She asked, her hands on her hips.
"I'll make sure that she behaves." He said solemnly.
"Good." She turned back to me and started taking my vitals, sighing at my blood pressure. "You need to calm yourself down, Miss Hathaway. High blood pressure is no good to you and it makes my job even harder."
I rolled my eyes, trying my best to bite back the insults that I wanted to throw at her. In my head I was screaming 'Let's see how your blood pressure is after being held hostage for a week. Being fed off of and raped'. Instead I apologised and did my best to sit still.
"I've been asked to check your wounds for infection. Normally that wouldn't be my job but Sandra called in sick, so I've been left to do the grunt work." She muttered the last part as she walked to the other side of the bed. I was facing Dimitri, my legs dangling as she pushed my gown just off my shoulders. She gasped when she saw my back. I looked over my shoulder at her and saw her take a step back as if I had the plague. "Oh, my dear girl. What happened to you?"
I looked over at Dimitri but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking down at the floor, his fists clenched. I looked back to the nurse but didn't know what to say to her. Instead, I just told her that I was fine.
"Honey, you are far from fine." She looked to Dimitri. "Are you her next of kin?"
He shook his head. "No, I'm her... No, I'm not."
"I need to speak to her next of kin. Can I trust you to keep her in the bed?"
"Yes." He said and then she left the room.
"Is it really that bad?" I asked, trying to look over my shoulder but I couldn't see anything. Dimitri wouldn't look at me, so it must have been that bad. I stood up but Dimitri stopped me.
"Where are you going?" He asked.
"To the bathroom."
Dimitri nodded and pointed to a door on the opposite side of the room. I went inside and stood in front of the mirror over the sink. I took of the papery hospital gown and turned around, using the mirror to see me back.
It really was that bad. My back looked like someone had sliced criss-crosses all over my back, except they matched the thickness of Nathan's belt. Where the buckle had hit me there were deep purple bruises and puncture marks where the prong must have pierce my skin. It looked sore and was oozing a little, but at least it wasn't bleeding.
I looked over to Dimitri and the look on his face broke my heart.