DPOV

After two excruciatingly long days in the hospital, we were finally back home. Of course that didn't necessarily mean that the hard part was over. Victor may be gone now, but there was still the matter of Tatianna. Without a way to expose her role in all this, it was only a matter of time before she tried something like this again.

She felt Rose was a threat to our way of life, and she wanted to see that threat neutralized.

I'm not sure how long I laid in bed that night, just watching Rose sleep. I was terrified to close my eyes for fear I'd wake up and she'd be gone. For the second time in my life I'd nearly lost her and I needed to make sure this would never happen again.

Tatianna was responsible for nearly destroying my family and I had to find a way to make her pay for it.

When we woke up the next morning, it was to the sound of some knocking incessantly on the door.

"Make it stop." Rose grumbled, covering her head with a pillow. The woman I loved was many things but a morning person wasn't one of them.

Dragging myself out of bed, I made my way over to the front door silently cursing whoever it was disturbing our sleep. Whoever it was, they were still knocking and I had to resist the urge to punch them the moment I opened the door.

"Adrian what the hell?" I asked, trying to rub the sleep from my eyes. I wasn't even sure what time it was.

"We need to talk." He said urgently, pushing his way through the door. "Where's Rose?" He asked, glancing around our quiet apartment.

"Sleeping, just like I was 30 seconds ago." I grumbled. "What's this all about?"

As the fogginess of sleep wore off, I noticed for the first time that Adrian looked pretty agitated and I suddenly didn't have a good feeling.

"It's about my aunt." He said confirming my suspicions. He didn't even bother to ask before he started raiding the mini fridge for booze and I decided to take a seat on the couch while I waited for him to finish. I could feel my patience wearing thin but before I could completely snap Adrian finally took a seat.

"I think I've found a way to expose Tatianna." He announced before taking a long swig out of the vodka bottle he was holding. I waited for him to elaborate and when he didn't I had to resist the urge to slap him.

"Well, are you going to tell me what it is?" I asked annoyed. It wasn't the brightest idea coming to someone's home at a god awful hour just to annoy them, but apparently no one ever told Adrian that.

"Right. Okay so I was having dinner with my Aunt last night, you know, keeping up appearances and everything. And my mom said something about how we should throw a celebratory dinner to welcome Rose back home. Now at first I thought it was a terrible idea, but then I got to thinking about it. What if I can somehow slip a tape recorder on me and confront my Aunt about this whole Victor business in private. Then we can use that recording and blare it over the PA system during this sham of a dinner, where we can expose Tatianna in front of the entire Moroi society."

As far as plans go, I had to admit it didn't suck.

"That's not bad….I conceded. But do you really think she'll ever admit it to you? It's no secret how important your opinion of her is, she may not be willing to say anything that might compromise that." I reminded him.

"Shit…you're probably right." He admitted, slumping back into the arm chair. "Wait a second." He exclaimed sitting back up quickly. "What if Rose does it? I mean I know it's not ideal or anything, but no one can get my Aunt all riled up like Rose can. We could use that to our benefit considering she's more likely to slip up and say something in a fit of anger…"

"No, absolutely not!" I shouted. "I don't want Rose alone with that woman!"

"That's not your call Comrade."

The sound of Rose's voice in the doorway sent both of our heads swiveling in her direction. Of course she had to pick this exact moment to decide to get out of bed early. Any other time I would have had to drag her out kicking and screaming.

"Rose, it's a bad idea." I argued, trying to make her see reason. "Think about the baby."

Her eyes narrowed and I knew she was annoyed with me for using such a low blow. I wasn't thrilled about it either, but I wasn't above doing whatever necessary to keep my family safe; even if that meant guilting her into it.

"I am thinking about the baby!" She shot back irritated. "As long as Tatianna is allowed to roam free, this baby will never be safe. She may not know about the pregnancy right now, but it's only a matter of time before she hears about it. We need to act quickly."

"She's right." Adrian piped up from the lounge chair, and I couldn't help but shoot him a dirty look. It was easy to go along with when it wasn't your fiancé and baby in jeopardy.

"I don't like it." I shook my head adamantly, but I knew it was useless. One look at the fierce determination on Rose's face told me there was no changing her mind.

Her eyes softened as she registered the defeated expression on my face.

"You don't have to like it Dimitri, but I need you to support it." She sighed, lightly stroking my cheek. I grabbed her hand to hold it there, leaning my face into her palm.

"I'm not going to change your mind about this am I?"

"Nope." She grinned, popping the P sound. I chuckled at her attempt to lighten the mood before letting out another heavy sigh.

"Fine…but remember what you promised me." I reminded her and she cut me off with a kiss.

"I know, I know, I'm thinking for two now." She rolled her eyes. I wished I could feel as confident as she was.

"Alrighty then." She smirked. "Let's go bag ourselves an Evil Queen."

RPOV

As I made my way down the hall to Tatianna's chambers, I took a few deep breaths trying to calm my nerves. I know I was the one who wanted to do this, but that didn't mean that I wasn't still nervous. There was any number of ways this thing could go wrong, and I'd really hate to let Dimitri say I told you so.

I'd never get to live that down.

When the guardian on duty led me through the door of Tatianna's sitting room, I surprised to find she wasn't alone. Sitting across from her on the large stiff couches was a beautiful young blond woman, who just happened to be human. If I'd had to guess I'd say this was the human girl Adrian had fallen in love with back at Lehigh. If Tatianna was worried about being exposed, it would make sense for her to try and play nice with Adrian for the time being and what better way than by accepting his new lady love.

Who did she think she was fooling anyway…?

"Ah Rosemarie, I'm glad you're here. I'd like you to meet Sydney Sage; she's a friend of Adrian's from Lehigh." Tatianna smiled, rising from the couch to greet me. I let her do the usual kissing of the cheek and gave her my own fake smile in return.

Hey, I still had an image to upkeep.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Sydney, I'm Rose." I tried to offer up a more genuine smile for her, but I saw a flash of recognition in her eyes when she heard my name and I had a feeling Adrian had told her about me.

"Sydney was just leaving, but perhaps you two will have a chance to get to know each other better at the dinner tonight." Tatianna suggested, and after another round of pleasantries, Sydney left the room.

'This was it' I thought as the door slammed closed behind her.

"It's such a relief to have you back safely." Tatianna smiled as I took up Sydney's previous seat across from here.

What a load of crap.

"It's a relief for me as well." I smiled falsely. "Especially given the good news!"

I watched her reaction carefully and took notice of the way she cocked her head questioningly to the side.

"The good news?" She asked warily.

"Dimitri and I are expecting." I smiled sweetly, trying to pour as much genuine excitement into that statement as possible. It wasn't that difficult considering I could barely get the words about without grinning like an idiot.

"Expecting…as in a baby?" She clarified in a tight voice. I could already see her carefully composed mask coming undone.

This is going to be easier than I thought.

"Yep." I chirped happily. "This November."

"I see." She smiled tightly. "You must be thrilled."

It didn't escape my notice that she'd yet to tell me congratulations.

Bitter Old Hag.

"Thrilled and relieved…among other things. And just think, if he had actually walked into that trap you set in Spokane, he may have never gotten a chance to find out he'll be a father."

And there it was.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" she asked, trying to cover her own ass. Well it was a little late for that one.

"Come now Tatianna, did you honestly think Victor wouldn't want to brag about his victory?" I lied smoothly. We had decided that leaving Adrian out of this was probably in everyone's best interest on the off chance this plan didn't work.

"I'm sure I don't know what you are talking about." Tatianna said sharply. I could see her frail hands shaking a bit in her lap and I knew I had her where I wanted her.

"Cut the crap Tatianna I know everything. Those guards you sent to abduct me and Frankie, they worked for Victor and Sophia recognized them. Then sending Frankie to St. Vladimir's to create a false trail. You knew Dimitri would come looking for me and you set them up for an ambush, all of them. How do you think Prince Zelekos would feel if he knew you tried to lead his only son to his death? Not to mention my father…he was on that plane as well."

I had the pleasure of watching her eyes widen a bit in fear, but there would be time to enjoy this more later. Right now I needed to get her talking.

"Rosemarie I'm not sure what Victor told you but I can assure you…" she started, but before she could finish I cut her off.

"He told me everything Tatianna. How you set up this whole thing to get me out of your hair. How angry you were about me disturbing the 'natural order'." I scoffed. "You were willing to do anything to keep my wedding from happening, including sacrificing me to the Strigoi!"

"That's not true Rosemarie, I would never…"

"Do you even know what he planned to do with me?" I shouted, cutting her off. It turns out I didn't have to work hard to fake my outrage, it was all coming pretty naturally now. "He wanted to inseminate me with his little evil Strigoi sperm! And you were going to let him!"

"No, I was never going to let it go that far!" she shouted back before slapping her hand over her mouth.

Bingo.

"What the hell does that mean?" I spat, trying to appear shocked by the news. This wasn't going to be anything Adrian hadn't already told me, but I needed to make sure she didn't know that.

With a heavy sigh she sank back into her seat, covering her hands with her face.

"You don't understand Rosemarie, what it's like to be Queen. There are certain expectations that come along with it and one of those is protecting our way of life. What you were doing, running about with that Dhamphir boy, it was uncivilized. You are of Royal blood dear, and that comes with expectations as well. My health isn't what it used to be, and I didn't spend the last 10 years grooming you and Adrian to take over my reign to let you throw it all away on some ridiculous forbidden romance. I had to do something. You left me no other choice!"

Even knowing that those words were coming, it was still a little shocking to hear. The way they sounded coming out of her mouth and the crazed way she was looking at me, it was almost too much. And thanks to all these over active pregnancy hormones I couldn't control the tears that pricked my eyes.

"How could you do this to me Tatianna? I trusted you! Our whole society trusts you!" I shouted back at her, rising to my feet. "What do you think will happen when they find out their Queen committed treason?"

She rose to her feet as well, giving me a cold glare.

"Nothing is going to happen because no one's ever going to find out. I made sure of that." she sneered.

"What the hell does that mean?" I asked, trying to goad her into more self-implication. If my father was right about his suspicions, those two guards she'd hired to help kidnap me had long since been eliminated.

"It means I haven't managed to rule this society for 20 years without knowing how to tie up my loose ends. You'll never find the proof you need and if you value your new family's life and the life of your half breed sister you will forget we ever had this conversation!"

For the longest minute of my life we both stood there glaring at one another. This bitch had a lot of nerve threatening my family this way. Had she learned nothing about me in the last few years? Rose Mazur was a lot of things and a coward wasn't one of them.

"We'll just see about that." I warned her before stalking out the door.

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