RPOV

I walked away from Dimitri fully determined to make it back to town and back to Lissa. But at the gates, I stopped. I knew what was waiting for me on the other side. People looking down on me with contempt. I would live my life in servitude to Lissa. I loved Lissa. I would die for Lissa. But I couldn't help shake this feeling like I had to choose between Lissa and Dimitri. Lissa has been my oldest friend, but what I had with Dimitri was also very special.

I still felt the tingle on my lips that Dimitri had left behind. I can't believe I kissed him. I can't believe he kissed me back. I now had an answer to the question if he liked me too, but now I was asking myself different questions. Where did we stand? Did we have a future? Can I even be with anybody when I was supposed to protect Lissa?

The kiss had left me with many more questions than answers, but I wasn't regretting it. That had been the singular most amazing moment of my life and I couldn't keep smiling.

I looked down at my foot which was on the threshold of the town border. One more step and I would be back to my old life. And isn't that what I trained for these past few days? Isn't that what I am still going to see Dimitri for? So I could be better at protecting Lissa?

I briefly wonder what my life would look like if I didn't return to Lissa but instead walked back to Dimitri right now. But I shook my head. I could never abandon Lissa. Besides, this wasn't goodbye. I would still see Dimitri and hopefully the Dragon too. He too had become such an important part of my life in these past few days. I certainly had a physical attraction to Dimitri, but I was surprised to see how comfortable I was around the Dragon. If only I could fuse those two together, they would be the perfect guy.

I moved my foot and placed it over the threshold, and it was done. I had made my decision. That had been the single most difficult step I had to make in my life, but it was done now.

Of course, I regretted the decision as I moved across the town and saw the looks on people faces. Some in clear shock I hadn't been eaten by the Dragon. Some thinking I was insane coming back here after what Jesse did. And others who looked like they were wishing the Dragon had eaten me.

The guards at the palace doors looked at me a bit funny but didn't stop me from entering. I did see one leaving his post, presumably to tell Jesse I had come back. But it didn't bother me. I was heading towards Lissa, and I knew if I protected her physically, Lissa would protect me politically. Also, I felt more confident I could take them on now. I knew Dimitri could still teach me many more things, and I was thoroughly looking forward to him instructing me, but he had done a great job in a short amount of time.

I had to giggle when I thought of all the other things Dimitri could educate me in - although I'd learned a lot from those books as well.

I made my way to Lissa's private chambers and stepped inside. Again the guards at the door didn't stop me, they just stared.

I saw Lissa was sitting in her reading chair near the fire. Alberta was there covertly protecting her, but to everyone else she looked like she was mending some clothes.

The moment she saw me, Lissa dropped her book and ran over to me. She engulfed me in a hug and practically squeezed the life out of me.

"Oh my God Rose, I thought you were dead. When the Dragon took you, I was sure he had eaten you."

I pulled back and just started laughing.

"Why would he save me to eat me?"

"He saved you?"

I nodded.

"Apparently he has an allergy towards Royal pricks beating up women."

She seemed to mull that over in her head. In one sentence her whole view of the Dragon race shifted. She knew I thought my secret protector was a Dragon. She just always told me I was crazy. She had what was probably a healthy fear for Dragons. But now I was telling her, at least one of them was a better person than a human.

"So what happened? Where have you been for the last few days?"

"The Dragon took me to a knight he trusted, and he treated my wounds. Well technically his sister did, but he took care of me."

There must have been something in the way I said it because Lissa's brow lifted at the mention of the knight, but she seemed to file that away for later as all of a sudden she looked concerned.

"How bad is it?"

"What?"

At first, I thought she was asking how bad my crush on the knight was, but as she turned me around and started to trace my back, I understood she meant the wounds on my back.

"I don't feel them at all. Dimitri's sister put some goo with leaves on, and it seemed to help."

Apparently, that didn't satisfy her enough as she undid the laces on the back of my dress and revealed my bare back.

She gasped.

"Oh, that bad? I swear I am going to kill Jesse for making me hideous."

"No Rose, the wounds are gone. Not a trace of them, no scars, no nothing. Like it never happened."

I tried looking at my back, but I just kept walking in circles like a dog chasing its tail. Lissa rolled her eyes and handed me a small hand-mirror and instructed me to walk to her large standing mirror. I was able to see my back like this, and she was right. Nothing but smooth, tan skin.

"Well, that must have been some medicine."

Lissa looked skeptical, but she let it go for now.

"So tell me all about…"

"Where is she?"

The door opened with a loud bang, and a red-faced Lord Zeklos came walking in.

"You…"

He was trembling with rage. But an ever calm Lissa stepped in front of me and plastered a kind smile on her face.

"Can I be of some assistance Lord Zeklos?"

"You can hand that bitch over to me. What she did was inexcusable."

Lissa took a step back as Jesse was practically spitting on her. She, very calmly, took a handkerchief from her dress pocket and gently wiped the spit off her face.

"I agree, Lord Zeklos, and she has been punished. I assumed the absurd amount of lashes would have satiated your need for punishment."

"Hardly."

"Unfortunately, Lord Zeklos, that is not my concern. Your quarrel with my handmaiden has been settled according to our law, and I would ask you to refrain from any further attempts for additional punishment seeing as I will find it a personal offense against me. Furthermore, in the future I would like to remind you, you need to request an audience with me through the proper channels if you wish to enter my private chambers. Good day Lord Zeklos."

Lissa turned her back to Jesse, and he looked ready to blow. But Lissa outranked him, and a fight with her could harm his political career. So reluctantly he bowed and exited the room. Lissa let out a breath of relief once he had vacated the room.

"You are a lot of trouble Rosemarie Hathaway. A lot of trouble. Now tell me about this knight of yours."

We talked all through the night, and I told her everything. About Dimitri, about the Dragon, about the training and lastly about the kiss. Lissa had assured me she could find some free time for me to visit the knight. It was nice talking to her like this. Lissa and I were rarely on equal grounds, but now sitting here on her bed, my knees crossed and sitting with Lissa sideways across the bed, we were equal. Two girls, talking about boys.

It was early in the morning when I woke up. Although I had slept in Lissa's bed last night because she refused to let me out of her sight, it still wasn't as comfortable as Dimitri's bed had been, or the Dragon for that matter. Strange seeing as Lissa had the best of the best of everything.

I decided to make myself useful and started the fire in her living quarters.

Whoever had been making the fire the last few days, had done a terrible job. There were half burned logs and no residual embers from last night, so it took me a while to get the fire going again.

I had always been a pyromaniac as Alberta calls it. So from early on, it had been my task to get the fires started in the morning. And no matter how damp the wood was, or how drafty the house, I could always start a fire.

When the fire was finally lit, I felt myself relax a little. I stared into the fire, watching the mesmerizing dance of the flames across the logs. I inhaled the fresh scent of burned wood, and the fire seemed to move towards me. I exhaled, and the fire burned a little brighter. It was like I was connected to the fire. I didn't know if the fire was fueling me or I was fueling the fire, but somehow I felt the essence of the fire permeating my entire being. I felt lost in the flames. I was stretching my hands towards it. I needed to be closer, to feel its warmth on my skin, making me burn.

"Rosemarie!"

My mother's voice pulled me out of my trance, and she looked aghast. There was definite fear in her eyes.

She pulled my hands away from the fire and stared down at my wrists. I saw markings all over my wrists and ankles, and I saw my mother staring at my neck, so I assumed I had a similar markings there.

The markings looked beautiful. They wrapped around my limbs like a ribbon and consisted of weird symbols. I couldn't determine if they were meant to be representations of something or if it was some kind of language, but they were beautiful. They glowed a bright ember red and orange. They didn't hurt, per se. But I felt strangely trapped in them.

"Rosemarie, Rose!"

My mother led me further away from the fire and just kept looking at me trying to make contact.

"Mom, what are you doing here?"

And like that, the markings were gone. But I didn't care about them right now. I cared about my mother standing before me. I hadn't seen her in two years, and only a handful of times before that after she had dropped me off with Alberta when I was four.

I withdrew my hands from her, perhaps a little forcefully.

"Alberta sent word about your disappearance and then your return."

I had been back less than a day.

"Where have you been staying, that you got here so quickly."

"I have been guarding a Duchess a few towns over."

She didn't seem to understand how the information might be important to me.

"For how long?" My voice was raising an octave with each word I uttered.

"For years now."

Her tone didn't seem to reflect, shame or sorry or anything you might expect from a mother that you hadn't seen in years but had been only a few hours on horseback away. In my mind, she was half-way around the world protecting some important princess that needed her more than I did, and that it would be too far to travel to see me. At least that is the fantasy I had created in my mind. It was the only thing I could think of that would somewhat justify a mother leaving her child. But the truth is, she had been able to see me for years, she just hadn't.

Makes you wonder why this visit was so special?

I had been on death's door before. I had had a strange sickness when I was nine and it almost killed me. The doctors couldn't figure out what it had been and had told Lissa and Alberta I was likely to die. They told them it looked like a strange variant of smallpox, but no one else in the palace had gotten sick. She hadn't even made it out then. So why was she here now?

I had been staring at her for a while before I finally found my voice again.

"For years! You have been so close by for years, and didn't bother to come visit me every once in a while? It had to take me almost being killed for you to see me?"

"The Dragon almost killed you?"

She seemed outraged at that.

"No, the Dragon saved me. It was Lord dipshit that decided I needed to be punished and flogged within an inch of my life."

My mother looked confused.

Alberta stepped inside of the living quarters and stared at the both of us.

"Why don't I take Lady Dragomir down for some breakfast today? It is good for her to mingle in the crowd sometimes. Janine, good to see you again."

My mother inclined her head towards Alberta and bowed towards Lissa as she passed her by. Lissa gave me an apologetic look but had no choice but to follow Alberta.

"Okay, start from the beginning."

So I told her about Jesse and how he tried to force himself on me. I told her about the Dragon saving me and taking me to Dimitri. My mother had a peculiar look on her face when I mentioned Dimka taking me to Dimitri. I felt like I was missing something here.

"Honestly, Rosemarie, antagonizing a Royal like that, you should have known better."

I raised my hands in the air out of frustration. Even when I didn't do anything wrong, she was still blaming me for stuff.

"So I should have just let him have his way with me and lay there?"

"Of course not, but there must have been another way out of it than kicking him in the balls. Men tend to take that personally."

I scoffed at her words.

"Balls or not, he would have taken it personally anyway. He didn't like the fact I kept rejecting him and me refusing him that day meant his precious male ego was hurt. He would have retaliated no matter what I did."

I saw she was conceding on that one.

"And this Dimitri? Are you going to see him again? I don't like it, Rosemarie. I don't want to you to see him anymore. I don't trust him."

I got up angry.

"Well, I do. He has been there when I needed him. He took the time to get to know me and teach me things. He bothered to make me feel like I was more than something you left at the doorstep of an old friend when you couldn't handle the shame of not having my father in your life."

The last one got a reaction from her, and her eyes narrowed dangerously at me.

"You don't know what you are talking about Rose. But I am your mother, and I forbid you to have anything to with that Dragon or his friend. Dragons are dangerous."

"No, they are not. Dimka saved me a week ago, and there has been a Dragon watching over me my entire life."

She visibly recoiled from shock from my last statement.

"What do you mean?"

"I have always felt like someone was watching over me, ever since I was a little girl. When I was eight, I fell off a cliff and a black Dragon swooped me up before I could hit the rocks below. Ever since then, I knew it was him that was watching over me."

She just sat there and blinked. She didn't move, she barely breathed, she just blinked.

I was about to call the doctor when her eyes refocused on me, and she seemed to have regained her voice and unfortunately also her attitude.

"Just because there are some of them that helped you, doesn't mean you can trust them or any other Dragon. Stay away from them, Rose, and this Dimitri too. I don't trust him. You don't know anything about him. Who lives in a cave? What does he do for a living? And he is too old for you anyway."

"He is twenty-four years old. He isn't that old."

Her eyes narrowed again.

"I forbid it, Rose. You hear me? I forbid you to see this man again."

I scoffed at that.

"Well, luckily for me, you don't have a say in anything I do. You would actually have to be around to be able to tell me what I can and can't do. Now if you will excuse me, I have to return to my charge, and I am sure you have to as well. They seem like they can't survive without you for long."

I left a shell-shocked Janine in the doorway. And just before I was out the door she spoke again.

"Please Rose. Don't tell anyone about the markings. I know I have made a lot of mistakes as your mother, but trust me on this one. I beg of you, don't tell or show anyone these markings."

In my rage, I had nearly forgotten about the markings. I wanted to ask her what she knew of them. But that would mean I would have to talk to her like a human being. But my pride wouldn't let me. I hadn't needed my mother for anything in the last few years, and I wouldn't start now. I would find out about these markings on my own.

So instead of wanting to ask what was wrong with me and why I have these weird things keep happening to me, I walked away.