DPOV

I was pacing my chambers. There had been four guards stationed at my door, and Christian, Adrian and Stan had never left me out of their sight. I didn't blame them, the moment they had their backs turned, I would get out of here, find Rose and leave.

I had seen the evidence; it wasn't looking good.

I was trying to wrap my head around how someone could have taken her blade. Were we really that unobservant? Someone had come into our room and taken it, right from under our noses. I know claimings were all consuming, but we should have noticed something. Now she was going to be executed because I had claimed her.

I growled for the fiftieth time, trying to let out some of the frustration.

"Come on Dimitri, there has to be something we can do. We have to think."

I wasn't capable of rational thought right now, but Adrian was right, we needed to have a game plan when we went into the trial today.

I was grateful Adrian was here. I knew he was taking Tatiana's death hard. She and he had been close, and losing her meant losing one of the few family members that loved him and respected him. Also when this was over, he would be crowned King, and I knew he had wanted to wait at least a few centuries before he did that. But even with all of that, he was still of more use than Lissa.

Lissa had come with Christian, and she seemed shell-shocked. She was sitting in a corner of our room and was simply staring into space. She looked so small as a human next to all of us that were in Dragon form. Well all except me. They hadn't given me much choice in the matter. I was less of a flight risk when human. Christian was mostly human now when Lissa was around, but since one of his jobs was to make sure I didn't leave, I think he wanted access to his strength. Lissa was tall but very skinny, maybe that was what was making her look so small now. Rose never looked as small as Lissa does around Dragons. I could see Lissa was determined to help Rose, but she seemed almost crazed because she couldn't come up with something to help her.

"We either need to prove Rose didn't do it, or prove someone else did. So either incriminating evidence against someone else or evidence that would exonerate Rose would help."

Abe hadn't fared much better than me. He had been able to keep his cool long enough to visit her and provide her with some information and some blankets, but he had come back seething and cursing the entire Dragon race. But Abe wouldn't be Abe if he didn't work well under pressure.

"They have the blade and made a positive identification that it is indeed hers. Guards saw a dark-haired human woman come out of Tatiana's chambers and the wound inflicted by that person, was done by a flame hotter than most Dragons are capable of. It isn't looking good." I replied, my voice devoid of hope.

I had been running the evidence over in my head. Although most of it was circumstantial, the combination was very incriminating towards Rose.

"Think Dimitri. Was there anyone, anything that could serve as an alibi for you two? Anything that could prove you were in this room the entire time?" Abe had asked me the question over and over again. But the world could have burned for all we knew. Our whole attention had been towards each other.

The mark on my chest was itching as if to remind me that it was responsible for this debacle. That I was responsible.

I pulled the shirt off of my chest relieved when the cool air touched my skin and soothed the sting of the mark.

All eyes in my chambers were directed at me.

"What the hell is that?" Adrian asked as he pointed at the picture of the Dragon on my human chest.

I blushed. Although part of the point of claiming is to visualize that you have a mate, it was still a private affair, and I wasn't comfortable discussing this in front of Adrian, or Abe for that matter.

"Rose and I claimed each other."

Abe shot up from his seated position.

"You claimed her that night?"

I nodded, surprised that his voice sounded hopeful, happy even. I would have expected him to be mad or at least threaten me a bit in an overprotective gesture. But he was smiling from ear to ear.

Then he walked over to me and whacked me on the head.

"Why didn't you tell us this yesterday?"

I simply shrugged. No one had asked.

"Can anyone confirm that they hadn't been mated the day before Tatiana died?" Abe asked around the room.

Adrian stepped forward.

"I can confirm that both Dimitri and Rose didn't have a claiming mark on their body that morning. Tasha and I… walked in on them, and I had a good look at both of them. Both their human skins didn't have any mark on them."

Abe's smile grew wider and wider. And I was catching on to what this meant.

Two hours later we all walked into the courtroom together. Abe had insisted on being Rose's representative, and I knew he had a plan. As they brought Rose in in chains, I tried very hard to stick to that plan, and not level this room and take her far away.

They placed her on a rock much too large for her. Everything was much too large for her. This whole room was designed for Dragons and was filled with Dragons. Rose looked ridiculous with her petite figure amongst these giants, yet somehow she was bigger than all of them. Her aura screamed power and respect, and judging by the many guards surrounding her, they were at least acknowledging her power.

Lissa was in the room as well. So the stares were divided between Rose and Lissa. Christian stayed in his Dragon form and kept his wing around Lissa in a show of protection, although I doubt Lissa would have to worry right now.

The judge climbed on a rock a little higher than the rest and motioned for the prosecutor to start the incrimination process.

He outlined how Tatiana was found and described the wound in great detail. He also described how she must have felt in her last moment in an attempt to vilify Rose and get the crowd on his side. He said she must have been scared in the face of such a monster. Tatiana hasn't been scared a day in her life. But the description of the wound and how it must have gotten there, not the mention his over-dramatic representation of how much it must have hurt, told me a few things.

The real killer had been brutal in killing Tatiana, but took the time to make it look like Rose did it. It showed how much he or she disliked Rose as well. She wasn't just the obvious scapegoat, she had been targeted specifically. But people were all too fast in believing this lie. Mostly because they could attribute such a heinous act to someone not like them. This fit in the view most people had of a hybrid. But if a Dragon had done this, it would mean someone like us, someone amongst us was capable of such an act.

By the time he was finished, I almost believed Rose had killed Tatiana. If we were going to get her out of this, we needed to do it fast.

After the prosecutor had finished his piece, it was Abe's turn and he turned to question Rose. She was now turned towards the crowd, and although people looked down on her with disdain, she held her head up high.

"Rosemarie, how did you earn the name skeleton key?"

Rose looked shrewdly at her father. But shrugged and answered anyway.

"It was a name Snow Dragons gave me, in reference to me being able to get any secret out of them, sort of like being able to open any door."

Abe looked proud, but tried to squash his glowing pride in the face of professionalism.

"So how did you open those doors?"

Rose had a humorless smile on her face. Her voice sounded hollow when she spoke.

"I tortured them."

"Explain."

I had no idea where Abe was going with this, but I needed to trust him, I saw Rose had a similar thought, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt as well.

"I would use my blade to sever a blood vessel, I would keep the blade in, and after a certain amount of time when I knew they were losing too much blood I would transfer heat through the blade to cauterize the wound. It kept them alive long enough to talk, but the whole process is excruciatingly painful. The first few tries I killed the Dragon too fast, but I learned a lot in four months about the vascular system and which major arteries I can target and which ones I can't."

"And Snow Dragons in battle? Any particular way to kill those?"

"I mostly killed them fast, by severing their spine at the base of their neck. It kills them instantly."

"So you would say you are pretty well practiced when it came to killing Dragons? Either killing them fast or slowly?"

I was about to run over there and deck him. Letting the court know what a skilled killer she was, was not helping to prove her innocent of murder. But Rose answered anyway.

"I suppose."

"So how would you explain Tatiana? She was neither skillfully tortured for hours, nor killed quickly. If you did kill her, why would you deviate from your own method so much? If it was about simply killing her, I would have expected a cut at the base of her spine, if you wanted her to suffer, there would be many more cuts and burn wounds."

"I suppose so, but there aren't any, because I didn't kill her."

"Objection. Deviating from a killing pattern is hardly evidence to suggest the defendant is innocent," the prosecutor bellowed between the father and daughter's strange conversation.

"Yes, but it does make you wonder, doesn't it. Why not use the knowledge she has gathered to kill the Queen? Why make it look clumsy? It is neither one nor the other. Not a fast killing, nor a devised delay of death. The brutality inflicted screams inexperience, something we have determined Rose is not."

I swear I heard Tasha humph a few rows before me.

"Thank you, Rosemarie. I would like to call on my next witness. Lord Adrian the Charming."

Upon Abe's request, he stepped forward and took the spot next to Rose.

"I am sorry for your loss my Lord." Abe started off. He had said that in private, but I suppose these things are mandatory in this room.

"Thank you."

"Can you tell me when you saw Rose last prior to our beloved Queen being taken from this world?"

He was laying it on a bit thick now, wasn't he?

"I was accompanying Lady Tasha to General Dimitri's chambers. She wanted to discuss a disagreement she had with my aunt and wanted the General's opinion. When we entered, they were… occupied."

"Without delving into too much detail, could you see any discernable markings on either of them?"

"No. There were none, and I got a pretty good look at both of them. So did Lady Tasha."

I started to blush when the crowd started to murmur. Rose seemed to see the funny side of it, so did Adrian. I, on the other hand, was mortified. At least he hadn't specified how they had found us, or how we hadn't stopped when they entered.

"Thank you, my Lord. That will be all."

Adrian stepped down and I knew it was my turn next. He gently nudged me as he moved past me in an attempt at comfort.

"I would like to call General Dimitri the Honorable to the stand."

I got up from my seat and walked towards to front of the room. When I walked beside Tasha, she grabbed my arm.

"Don't do this Dimitri. Don't get dragged down with her. She is gone already, please reconsider."

I took my arm from her and stared down at her. Although I knew my other friends were concerned for me as well, none of them had tried to talk me out of helping Rose. I ignored Tasha's request and simply kept walking.

The prosecutor wasn't very happy with me being there, and protested.

"Despite his reputation, he can't testify here. His testimony isn't impartial, and he could say anything to protect her."

Abe smiled deviously at the man and he took a step back.

"The General has information I want to hear, so he will testify. You are welcome to cross-examine him."

The prosecutor puffed up a bit.

"Oh, I will."

Great.

Abe turned to me and started.

"Would you mind walking me through the events that happened after Lady Tasha and Lord Adrian left your room all the way up to the morning Rose was arrested?"

"I do mind."

Abe scowled, and I heard Rose giggle a bit behind me. I saw Adrian shake his head, but smiling underneath. I took a deep breath and started.

"When they left Rose and I… we were… intimate. Pretty much the whole day until they came to arrest her."

The prosecutor laughed.

"Sex is hardly an alibi. Besides, you must have slept during the night; even you can't keep that pace up. She could have snuck out undetected and snuck back in. You can't account for her presence the entire time."

He looked smug, but Abe looked smugger. This was what he was waiting for, and the prosecutor walked right into his little web. Abe nodded towards me and I continued.

"We didn't sleep. We couldn't even if we wanted to. Because that night, I claimed Rosemarie Hathaway as my own and she claimed me."

The whole room went silent, other than a person murmuring about us keeping him up all night with the sounds. The man seemed rather relieved it was a claiming, and I would imagine so. I don't know if I would have been able to keep it up that long otherwise. I knew I had a reputation of being invincible, no doubt he wondered if it transferred to the bedroom. Some people simply seemed shocked, no doubt that I had claimed a hybrid. Although there were no rules for claiming humans or hybrids, the consensus was that it simply wasn't done, hence there being no rules against it. But Rose was fitting in nicely, well before they arrested her for the murder of our monarch. I had no doubt most people would accept her. Also, I suspected Christian would claim Lissa at one point, so by then me claiming a hybrid would be old news. Or maybe they were shocked I had claimed anybody at all. It was no secret I had an aversion to claiming due to my father.

But the person who seemed the most shocked, mortified even, was Tasha. There was something in her eyes I couldn't quite place. She looked hurt, and angry, and maybe there was a bit of pity in her eyes as well.

Everyone knew what claiming Rose meant. I didn't have to spell it out. If I claimed her that night, there was no way she would have been capable of any other thought than to make love to me. The markings on both of us making sure of it. We couldn't be each other's alibis, but the claiming itself was the alibi. It seemed that the claiming that doomed her at first, might now be her salvation.

Once the prosecutor had regained his focus, he turned to me.

"As romantic as that sounds, there is no way to prove that that was the night you claimed her."

He looked smug again, but when he turned to Abe to gloat, Abe's smile only increased, I could see he was losing heart in his argument.

"Ah, but there is. I have a report from a physician that examined both Rose's marks as well as Dimitri's and confirmed they were no more than days old. The skin was still sensitive from the process. And Lord Adrian has confirmed that both Dimitri and Rose were unmarked when he saw them that morning. And since there were guards watching her the entire time in jail, the only possible time the claiming could have taken place was the night of Tatiana's murder."

That was it. Our entire defense. If he shot a hole it in now, if he came up with something we hadn't foreseen, we would be doomed.

He was thinking hard and you could see the wheels turning in his head.

"Markings can be small. Lord Adrian might simply not have noticed them. I doubt he would have been able to see their entire bodies when he walked in."

"Oh no I did. The whole lot!" Adrian yelled from the back, making everyone laugh.

"General Dimitri. If you please," Abe politely asked.

I stood up and removed my shirt, showing the rather sizable mark.

"Now, my dear daughter, let's show him that yours would be hard to miss as well."

Rose stood up and undid her robe. She draped the garment in such a way that her most private parts were covered, but the rest of her was showing. She kept the garment in front of her breasts and it fell down far enough to cover her vagina. She did tuck it inwards a bit so her marked leg was showing. She turned around, showing her back and her marked hip.

The room went silent again. The mark was way too big to have been missed by Adrian. I honestly think it might have been one of the biggest marks ever. I could see a few claimed females look at Rose with respect and awe and maybe a little longing. I think they remember the pain as well as the pleasure from their own claiming.

After a few moments of admiring Rose's mark, or in the case of the males, her body, she covered up again and so did I; and then the room erupted in conversation and pointing. We all knew now that Rose had to be innocent. That there is no way she could have killed Tatiana. But one person in the audience disagreed, and it came from an unlikely source.

"No. No. She obviously put a spell on him to claim her. She probably made him think he was with her, while she snuck out and killed Tatiana. We don't even know if a hybrid is as affected by a claiming as Dragons are. There is no way, Dimitri would claim anyone, let alone her!"

Tasha had stood up and was practically fuming as she pointed towards Rose.

Rose's gaze darkened before it lit with realization.

"You. It was you! You took my blade on the way out of our chambers! The hot flame, the dark-haired human, that was you in human form. You were complaining how her Majesty wouldn't change the military to include people like you. So you killed her…and blamed me!"

Tasha recoiled, and the moment she was called out I knew Rose was right. Abe turned towards Tasha having realized as well the truth in his daughter's words.

All eyes in the room turned to Tasha now, and she cringed under the scrutiny.

"Well, she is speaking rubbish of course," but her voice waivered too much. The prosecutor zoned in on her insecurity.

"Then I am sure you can tell us where you were that night, and no doubt have an alibi."

Tasha paled.

"I don't have to tell you anything. There is no evidence I killed Tatiana. I am not the one on trial here."

"Not yet, but now that Miss Hathaway is exonerated, the investigation begins again, and we usually begin with people who had arguments with the deceased. And clearly, you and Queen Tatiana didn't see eye to eye. So I will ask again. Where were you that night?"

Tasha panicked. And a panicked Fire Dragon was not a good thing. She was looking around her looking for a way out. I saw she had come to the conclusion she wasn't going to get out of this, but she wasn't going down without a fight.