A.N. Okay everyone. You can put down the pitchforks.
RPOV:
Then slid it off of my finger. I got up and walked away.
I followed the familiar course to the locker room. I sat in there for a while; until I felt arms close around me. I knew whose they were, but I didn't want to face her.
"Here." Lissa said. I looked over and say my ring in her hand. I smiled at her and picked the ring up, "Want to talk about it?" I shook my head.
"Twenty questions?" She said. I didn't respond. "Okay does it involve Christian and Dimitri?" She asked. I nodded.
"Okay. Let me guess. Dimitri shows up, he makes you feel guilty, now you are wondering if you should go forward and marry Christian or go with Dimitri. Right?"
"How the hell did you get all that from one question?" Seriously how did she? She pointed to her temple. Head. Bond. "Oh." I felt stupid. After a moment of silence, we burst out laughing.
"By the way. When I heard you think, 'what had he done? He had gotten me knocked up. Sure he could be sweet, but other than that, what reason was there to love him' It took all my strength not to come slap you. He may not do much, but trust me; he is the guy for you. I remember when we first got back. Whenever you didn't know what to do, he did, and vice versa. Together, you two helped me get passed the spirit side effects." She said.
She was right. He always knew what to do when I didn't. Not only with Lissa, but also in Spokane, fighting strigoi and any other time. Together we were an unstoppable force. This thought brought a smile to my lips. I hugged Lissa and slid the ring back onto my finger. "Now. You. Me. Practice Dummies. I am going to teach you how to throw a punch." We both laughed a little more.
We had been practicing for over an hour. Lissa could now through a punch not strong enough to kill a strigoi, but strong enough to hurt them and stall until a guardian could get there. Me and her had punch the stuffing out of two of the practice dummies (literally, there were on the floor, with the material ripped and the innards poking out of the 'skin'), and were currently working on a third, when someone jabbed my sides with their fingers.
I turned, already starting the insult, "What the fuck do you… Mia!"
There standing in front of me was the moroi who had once made Lissa's and my lives hell, but now, she was a pretty good friend of mine.
"Rose! Lissa!" She exclaimed hugging us both.
"What are you doing here?" I asked her.
"Well, Jesse was pretty pissed at Arianna and wanted to come talk to her. He is in her room now. He told me to come find you guys. And remember how you were worried about me guarding the little bitch, well no more worries. I'm not going to be guarding the Zeklos's anymore." She said, rocking back and forth.
"Why…" I asked.
In response she put her right hand in my face. Sitting on her ring finger, was a ring that looked like mine, only the fire was replaced with a green. It was the earth ring. The green must stand for grass or something,
"Oh my god! What is up with guardians falling for their morois? Does this mean I am going to marry Eddie?!" Lissa shouted I knew she was joking, but Mia was confused.
"What do you mean?" In response to Mia's question, I mimicked her, showing her my ring. "Wait isn't that the Ozera ring?" Mia looked from the ring to my face and back again. "Oh my god!" She hugged me. "We are all going to be royal!!"
"Actually I won't be a Lady or a Princess." I said acting depressed.
"Why not?" Mia asked concerned. How could she live at court, and with a royal and not know I was going to be queen.
"I'm going to be the Queen." I said in the same tone.
"Oh." She said sad. Then she realized what I said, "Oh my god!"
"Oh my god!" I replied.
"Oh my god!" She said back.
"Oh your gods! We get it!" Lissa exclaimed.
We walked back to my room, since Jesse was still 'talking' with Arianna and Jade and Clarissa were asleep. We were all sitting on the bed when the door opened. In walked Christian, closely followed by the Queen. Shit.
"Rosemarie. Vasilisa. Amelia." The queen said, nodding to each of us in turn. I looked over at Christian. He was smirking, that meant I wasn't about to get my head ripped off.
"Rosemarie? May I talk to you in private?" She asked.
"Of course your majesty." I said, deciding to behave. I led her into the spare bedroom. We sat in the reading nook.
"Rosemarie…" She started.
"Please call me Rose, your majesty." I said.
"On one condition." She said, I looked up, "You call me Tatiana." She was smiling I smiled back.
"Okay, Tatiana." I said.
"Rose, Christian came to me telling me he wanted me to be his queen. At first I was horrified, then I thought about it. From what I have heard, Christian is a very nice young man, and his aunt is a wonderful woman. Even with what I had heard, I still didn't want to hand my crown down to and Ozera, but I knew it had to be done, they hadn't ruled for twelve generations.
"You must have been mad at me for assigning you to guard him. The reason I did it was I knew that if anyone could prevent him from following his parent's path, it would be the famous Rose Hathaway. You are after all, the daughter of Abe and Janine, two of the most feared names in the vampire world.
"All of the rulers have assigned the Hathaway women to the most dangerous moroi, knowing they could handle it, you especially. I assigned both you and your mother to your morois. You were assigned to Lord Ozera and she was assigned to Ibraham. Apparently, I was also playing matchmaker. Your mother and Ibraham had you. And you are about to be married to your charge." She smiled.
"Did he tell you about anything else other than the marriage." I asked.
"Yes. He told me about the twins, they are actually the reason I came." She reached into her bag; "It is a custom, for children of the king and queen, to have a certain something. I figure I should give them to you, now." She pulled two bags out of her bag. The bags were made of something like silk, only sturdier. They had drawstrings, so I assumed I should open them.
"That one is for the baby boy." Tatiana said as I opened the bag. Inside was a small box. I opened the box. Inside was a necklace.
The necklace was made with a simple black cord. It had many different lengths so it could be adjusted as he grew. There was a stone on the cord. It looked like any other stone.
Tatiana must have seen the confusion on my face, "This stone has many functions. Every queen has used it. You wear it until the child is born. This stone can be a lifesaver; it will glow, when you have two hours until you give birth. It will glow the color of the child's aura, for twins, it will glow a bright gold. Once the baby is born, you will put it on him, it will not harm him whatsoever. It will track the child's progress and will tell you what he will specialize in years before he does. Once again it will glow, red for fire, blue for water, brown for earth, yellow for air."
I smiled and returned the necklace to the box and slid that into the bag. I opened the other bag. I pulled out the box. Inside this box was another necklace. This one was almost a duplicate of the other. Instead of a stone, there were three beads: One red, one orange, and one yellow. I looked at the beads closer. On the center bead, was the carving of a fire: the Ozera crest.
"There is more." Tatiana said.
I reached into the bag again and brought out another box. This box was smaller than the others. In fact it was a ring box. I opened it and saw a ring, much like the one on my finger, only instead of fire, there was a small tornado; it was the air ring.
"Since it's line died out, I had the ring modified. It is now connected to your daughter's necklace. If she is in trouble, the necklace with signal the ring. The ring also has a lot of magic in it, a lot of spirit magic. If it glows red, think of your daughter and you will be transported to be beside her. It only glows red in a matter of life or death situation or if a strigoi is within ten miles of her. It will glow orange if she is hurt physically, you would then be able to speak to her like you speak to Lissa, through a bond. If it glows yellow, she is in emotional trouble. Which I think you know more than anyone, could be the worst kind of trouble. The ring will let you channel some of her feelings and help calm her down, like you do for Lissa."
"So basically her necklace and my ring have a bond like me and Lissa?" I asked.
"Precisely." She said. I got up and hugged her.
"Thank you." I said.
"Your welcome, Rose. I may have doubted this before, but you will be a great queen and an amazing mother,"
"Thank you, will you be staying at the Academy tonight?" I asked.
"Yes I will be. And I really must get going." She said.
"Of course." I walked her to the door.
Once she left, Christian spoke up, "Did you like the presents?"
"You knew!"
"Of course. Now let me see them." I handed him the two bags. He knew what each item did and said they were centuries old and all morois knew about them.
"Where are Lissa and Mia?" I had just realized they were not here.
"Lissa went back to her room, to 'check on Adrian' and Jesse came to get Mia. I didn't know those two were engaged." He was looking at the air ring, "Did you know all of the moroi rings were in this room tonight?"
"Really?" I asked.
"Yeah. You have the fire ring, Mia has the earth ring, you have the air ring and Tatiana has the water ring. That one will be passed down to Adrian after she dies." I yawned, "Am I boring you to sleep?" He asked with his smirk on his face.
"Yes you are!" I joked.
He pulled me onto his lap. I fell asleep in his arms.
A week later
"Okay. I know you hate this, but I want three miles each." I called out to my late morning gym class.
"Why do we need to do this?" A girl asked.
I was about to answer, but someone else answered for me "If you were in trouble and couldn't fight, what would you do?" it was Dimitri.
"You grab your moroi and take off running. Another reason is Guardian Hathaway told you. Now get moving." Dimitri said.
Once they were almost halfway around the track Dimitri turned to me, "You did listen to my lessons." He grinned and pulled me into a one armed hug.
Dimitri and me had become best friends in fact; he was going to my son's godfather.
"How are Pyro and Badass Juniors doing?" He asked.
"Fine. And by the way, they have names."
"And what are those names?"
"Well for boy names, I was thinking Apollo or Alec for the boy. If the boy's name was Apollo, I would name the girl Artemis so they would be the Greek god twins. I also like the name Ashlyn… I don't know."
"Any names that don't start with A?" He asked sarcastically.
"Nope." I said, popping the p.
"What does Christian think?"
"Well, I had a lot more names, those were the ones he liked too."
"Go with Apollo and Artemis. You can always have another child and name it Ashlyn of Alec, but you don't know if you are getting twins again." He said.
"Good point. So now that they have names, you can't call Apollo Pyro Junior and you can't call Artemis Badass Junior."
"Fine." He grumbled.
"Okay guys. Once your finished head to the locker rooms!" I called out to the class, who were almost done with their running.
I saw a glow coming from my neck. There, sitting around my neck, was the necklace Tatiana had given me, and it was glowing, just like it would. "Shit!" I yelled.
Suddenly I felt pain shoot through my body. I crumpled to the ground.
"Rose!" Dimitri knelt in front of me.
"Necklace." Was all I could manage.
"Shit!" I had explained to him what the necklace does. "Saffron! Go get your brother, tell him to meet us at the infirmary, quick!" Dimitri was taking charge.
Through my tears I saw Saffron leave the class that had gathered around me and run as fast as she possibly could towards the guest housing. Dimitri lifted me off the ground. The pain was excruciating. I blacked out.
A.N. Next chapter will either be up later tonight or tomorrow morning.