Chapter 4
Lissa was true to her word. On my way to go see Mason I saw a safe being wheeled into Ivan's room. I laughed and shook my head as I knocked on Mason's door. After a few seconds passed and with the door still unopened I pounded my fist harder against the door. Moments later Mason emerged wearing only boxers, his fire-red hair tousled from sleep.
"Hey, Rose." He rubbed his eye and yawned.
"I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd be asleep." I kicked myself for not thinking about that. I hated when I was woken up.
"It's okay. I would've been up, but I pulled a double and covered Thomas last night. I just got done about two hours ago." Mason opened the door and ushered me in.
"You can go back to sleep, Mase." He grabbed my hand and pulled me into a tight hug.
"I've missed you, Rose." He kissed the top of my head. I sighed as I wrapped my arms around him and leaned into the hug. Mason was one of my best friends. He knew and understood me from head to toe. And despite my trying to force my feelings to be more than that of friendship, that something extra just wasn't there. Mason knew that; I had told him once we moved to court. He still thought that he could make me happy and that those feelings of love could come and grow.
"I've missed you too." I had missed him. I pulled back to look at him.
"Go back to bed, Mase. Come find me when you're up." I smiled at him, and he nodded his head. His eyes stayed closed, and I don't think that he opened them back up, not even to walk over to his bed before he swan-dived back into the covers. I shut the door quietly behind me and looked around the hallway. The gray carpet and the whitewashed walls drained any hint of personal touch. I leaned my head against the wall and took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
I gasped abruptly as I was sucked into Lissa's mind.
"Christian! I'm trying to talk to you and you're not even giving me a chance to explain!" Lissa rushed after him as he threw his hands up in the air in defeat.
"Why does it matter? You're going to do whatever you want so why bother cluing me in now?" Christian raked a hand through his hair and started to laugh.
"I mean it's all about Lissa, right? Fuck whoever or whatever else as long as Lissa's happy."
"Are you kidding me" Lissa's body shook with rage. "You must be joking. Because even if I told you I was going to take a piss right now you'd find some way to fight about it. That's all we do is fight because you are constantly picking a fight with me!" Christian turned around and rushed in front of her.
"I knew that this wasn't going to be easy, that you being elected as queen would change some things but I didn't expect it to change everything," Christian spoke in a whisper, the rage and fury pouring out of him like liquid. Lissa took a step forward so that they were toe to toe.
"What are you so afraid of? Because it must be more than just plain jealousy. Christian we never fought like this, and you never acted like this before we got here. Why does it seem like you have a problem with everything that I do?!"
"Because I do!" I felt tears swell into her eyes as he spoke. "I do have a problem with it. This wasn't supposed to be our lives! We weren't meant for this," he waved his hand around their room. "Lissa, this is all too much. I can't…I can't be in this position."
"What are you saying?" Lissa's voice shook as she spoke. I tried to push myself out of her mind, I didn't want to be here for this, I didn't want to see this. But it felt like she grabbed onto my mind and held me there.
"This is just too much Lis." His voice was barely a whisper. Tears peaked in his eyes. "I can't do this. I don't belong at court."
"Christian…you were my biggest supporter when I was going through the trails to be queen. Why are you acting like this now?" Her voice, my voice, our voice broke. Rage no longer fueled her words.
"Rose? Rose? Rose!" I was shaken out of Lissa's head by Dimitri. Literally. Whenever I snapped back into my mind, I saw Dimitri standing in front of me, his hands on my shoulders and shaking me gently.
"Rose, are you okay?" His eyes searched my face for a sign, for any sign that I was fine.
"Yeah," my voice cracked like I had just woken up. "Yeah, I'm fine," I reassured him. His fingers bit into my skin and set fires up and down my arms.
"Are you sure? I was talking to you, but I don't think you heard me." He slowly dropped his arms and took a step back.
"I'm fine," I repeated. Out of everyone why did he have to find me?
"Okay…" he didn't sound like he believed me.
"Excuse me." I moved away from the wall and started walking back to my room when I heard his footsteps come up behind me.
"Wait!" Dimitri jogged to meet me.
"Can I help you with something?" I asked as I shoved my hands into my pockets and tried to control my breathing. I always got worked up whenever I was in Lissa's head. It was like my lungs and heart got confused and parted pumping and breathing for two people.
"Um yeah. Hey, stop for a second." He grabbed my arm again and guided me towards the wall. "Rose, you're hyperventilating. Sit down." He gestured toward the floor, but I shook my head.
"I'm fine, Dimitri. What can I do for you? And I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't grab me." I rubbed my neck and met his gaze. He didn't speak for a few moments, studying my face before he spoke.
"Nothing, never mind."
"Great." I brushed past him and dared him to stop me again.
I always felt like I'd taken too much caffeine whenever I was sucked into Lissa's mind. My body felt jittery, my eyes felt like they would bug out of my skull, and I would have a crash come that was worse than a hangover. Normally I had a pretty good mental barrier put up so that I wouldn't get sucked in. But with her off her medicines and the sheer intensity of her emotions sometimes it was inevitable. I decided to lay low for the rest of my time off. Spending as much of it as I could in my room and the gym. I had changed my times so that I wouldn't run into Dimitri again. I wasn't willing or ready to explain what he had seen. Nor did I think of a convincing enough lie to tell him. Lissa kept me updated on how things were going with Ivan but hadn't mentioned anything to Christian. I knew she would tell me whenever she was ready and what came of their fight. I saw through her eyes that Dimitri was there with Ivan for all their meetings. Dimitri was accompanied by another tall guardian who Ivan referred to as, "Alexi". Ivan and Lissa spent Sunday trying to show each other their skills. Ivan failed to try to bring a plant back to life, meanwhile, Lissa grabbed a fly, smashed it, then healed it all in the same minute. Dimitri and Alexi stayed silent during the entire time they were in that room each standing like statues against the walls.
"Feel it inside of you." She would say. "It's like a ball of warmth that you can go into. And once you walk inside of it that warmth consumes you. Until that's all you're able to feel." Ivan would hang on to her every single word as she spoke.
"Lord Zeklos," Alexi started but after a glance from Ivan, Alexi stepped back against the wall and returned to his guardian stance. Dimitri's silent disapproval of everything that was going on between Lissa and Ivan was clear.
Ivan latched onto something inside of him as beads of sweat dotted his hairline.
"I'm close. But it's like there's a cage around it. It won't let me in." Ivan barely even whispered the words.
"Don't push yourself too far. That's when the darkness will latch on." Lissa warned.
"I can't do it." It sounded like his soul was broken as he spoke. "I'm not strong even to grab onto it." He confessed.
"It's okay, you might not be able to control every gift. There are some things that I still can't do." Lissa was standing in front of him as she spoke. Moving closer she rested her hand on his chest.
"Your heart's beating like a hummingbird. Calm down, take a few deep breaths." Ivan slowly opened his eyes and listened to her. Ever so slow, he started breathing air in his mouth and out of his nose. The tension in his neck and jaw left him but disappointment quickly rushed in.
"Lord Zeklos, perhaps you would benefit from a feeding?" Alexi offered.
"Yes, I think you're right. Dinner tonight? I'd love to talk to you outside of this dusty room." Ivan was shaky but still put on a good face.
"Sure, that sounds lovely." Lissa smiled back.
I was eager to get back to work. I loved the time to myself, but I missed the routine of my normal day-to-day. I liked having a schedule and places to go at certain times. I think the unpredictability of my life before court made me hunger for something more structured. Lissa still wanted me to take the night shift and honestly, it was the easiest one of all. I'd walked in on some of Lissa's guards asleep while they were on night shift before. It was one of the best shifts to have, the queen would be in one position for most of the shift, you didn't have to deal with anyone, and you had an army guarding the outsides of court while you just watched someone sleep.
"Rose, thank God you're here." Lissa pulled me from the hallway and into her room before I even got the chance to knock on the door.
"Hey, Liss. What's wrong?" She had been crying, her makeup was running down her face.
"Christian." She whispered.
"Tell me." I pulled her into a hug, and she immediately started sobbing. After a few minutes, she finally pulled back and looked at me,
"I don't understand" she started "Christian was my biggest supporter during the trials. And then as soon as I won, he started picking at everything I had done. I shouldn't address this problem with the council, I need to keep my distance from this or that. Then when I told him about Ivan he blew up. And that's one of the reasons why I waited so long to tell him. Rose, he said that the only reason why he supported me was because he thought I would fail in the first place." She smoothed her hair down and tried to control her breathing.
"I'm so sorry Lissa." I rubbed her shoulder and walked her over to the couch. '
"I mean what a dick, right? To put up a front that you believe in me only for me to find out that he never thought I had it in me to succeed…" her words dropped from her lips.
"He kept saying that he couldn't be in this position. I've never made him go to a single meeting, event, or anything! The only thing that he went to was the ball the other night and that's it. That's all I've asked of him."
"Lissa, you know how bad Christian's anxiety is. It's probably ten times worse than what he's letting on. Maybe there may not be any pressure put on him directly, but he still feels like there's some." I offered a solution, one that I knew she wouldn't accept.
"Rose you don't understand." She shook her head.
"Do I need to just listen or try and fix the problem?" I ask her. Years ago, whenever we would rant to each other we started asking one another if we were looking for a solution to the problem or if we just needed to vent about it.
"Just listen." And she dove in. She told me all about the fight that I was sucked into her head for, about what had happened after, and the days after that. She told me about how he had stormed out of their room and hadn't come back until hours later only to pack a bag and leave again.
"He won't return any of my phone calls and I have no idea where he's staying at. I could easily find out, but I don't want to give him any more ammo ya know." She talked with her hands a lot. Waving them around and fanning the air as she retold me everything.
"What am I supposed to do?" she wiped a single tear that escaped from her eye.
"Just give him space, Lissa. If he feels like the walls are closing in, then I think the best thing to do is to just let him breathe." I crossed my legs as we looked around the room. Naturally, her apartment suite was much nicer than anyone else's. It was two stories with her bedroom and a full master bathroom upstairs, with a guest bedroom and bath towards the end of the room downstairs. A large, spacious living room and kitchen joined together. Lissa was given money to redo the entire suite just for her living. White cabinets and marble countertops covered the kitchen, Lissa wanted Christian to have a nice space to cook. The living room and leather furniture and plush pillow give off some warmth. She had redone the walls, covering that migraine-inducing white with a soft lavender purple.
"Let's change the subject." Lissa perked up.
"Okay, what do you wanna talk about?" I propped my chin up with my hand as I rested my elbow on the back of the couch.
"Ivan is going to come over for dinner tonight…" Lissa led on.
"Is there something there?" I asked her.
"I feel nothing stronger than friendship for him. Christian is my soulmate." She shrugged her shoulders and let the conversation rest.
"Okay, so what's going to happen at dinner?"
"I'm hoping that if I agree to see him outside of the study room, he'll tell me more about what he knows. I know that he hasn't shared everything with me. I can feel it. He has all these resources in his hands, but he can barely latch onto any gifts. It doesn't make sense." Lissa shook her head but continued.
"I wonder if he and one of his guardians are bonded?" Lissa thought out loud.
"I don't know, but Dimitri saw he gets sucked into your head the other day," I confessed.
"WHAT?" She sprang up from her seat and practically sat on my lap.
"When? What did you say? What did you do? What did you see?" She didn't even take a breath in between each question.
"I knew you and Christian were fighting because I got sucked into the fight. With you off your medicine and your emotions that strong, it kind of just happened. But I pushed myself out as fast as I could. I didn't want to watch you two fight and I didn't see what all happened. But Dimitri was shaking me whenever I got out. He said that he had been talking to me, but I wasn't listening or anything. I just blew it off and didn't tell him anything. I've also been actively avoiding him since then." I started playing with the fringe of one of her pillows as I told her.
"Well, you can't avoid him tonight. He's guarding Ivan during dinner. I told him that he didn't need to travel with guards while he's in my quarters, but he insisted that he be there." Lissa pushed herself up from the couch and walked over to the kitchen. I threw my arms over the back of the couch and crossed them. Lissa began pulling out different serving trays.
"Shouldn't your chefs be doing this?" I teased.
"They're one their way." She laughed "But I figured I could at least have the dishes out for them."
"So, what's on the menu for tonight?" It better be some form of pasta.
"Well, since I didn't tell you about any of this and I'm still trying to make it up to you, baked ziti." She tossed her hair over one shoulder and smiled at me.
"With?" I probed.
"With garlic bread, salad, and lemon cakes for dessert."
"Gag. Everything after garlic bread should be punishable by death." I rolled my eyes and flung myself down on the couch. The soft leather sang underneath my body and modeled to it perfectly.
"Rose." I heard Lissa stop moving around in the kitchen as she spoke my name.
"Yeah, Lissa?" I closed my eyes and relaxed my body.
"What am I going to do if Christian doesn't come around?" Her voice was soft and timid. I took a few seconds to think before I spoke. Christian and I weren't always the best of friends, but we had grown close over the years.
"He will, Liss. He loves you too much." I sat up on the couch as someone knocked on her door and looked over at her.
"I hope you're right." She said more to herself than to me as she walked over and opened the door, letting in her team of chefs.
I flung more than my own share of pasta on one of Lissa's great grandmothers China plates accompanied by 2 pieces of garlic bread. I didn't want to intrude on Lissa's meeting, while dinner date. Plus, my shift didn't start for another hour and a half. Ivan and Dimitri arrived a few minutes after I had sat myself on Lissa's private balcony outlooking all the Royal Court. The sun had already started to rise, and the air around me was warming up. It was probably one of the last few days before winter took over and lashed everything in a thin layer of frost. I heard as Ivan and Lissa talked over the salad and pasta; they exchanged a few polite conversation starters. Dimitri, though he was seated at the dinner table, stayed quiet and nodded as the other spoke to one another. I watched as the sun rose above the tree line in the far distance. I often thought about the world beyond those trees. What were the humans doing? What was lifelike without that constant fear of being dragged off and turned into the living dead? Did most of them really know about us? Or did they just chalk us up to myths and fairytales.
"Mind if I join you?" Dimitri's body was leaned against the frame of the door, I had left the sliding door open instead of closing it. Damn. He was dressed nice, casually even. Jeans and a dark colored t-shirt. Black guardian boots gilded his feet and dear lord did he smell good. And of all things to tie the outfit together he wore a leather duster.
"Sure," I moved my napkins out of the chair that was next to me, and he took its place.
"You didn't want to eat at the table?" He asked nodding toward the plate of food in my lap.
"I like a view when I eat." I shrugged and racked another bite off my fork. I didn't want to look at him. For some reason as soon, I looked at him I reverted back into a teenager around a hot upperclassman. Which he technically was.
"Are you on nightshift?" He asked. He leaned his elbows onto his knees and looked over at me. Small wisps of hair that had escaped his ponytail fell onto his face, framing it nicely.
"Yup." I popped the p and stabbed another cluster of noodles with my fork.
"So am I. I think that Ivan intended to stay for a while." He scratched his chin and squinted his eyes as he looked at the sun.
"I miss the day." He whispered, more to himself than to me.
"One of the good things about nightshift is that you're up when the sun is out. And plus, Lissa stays in one spot covered by no less than a hundred other guardians. So, me being here is kinda just overkill. Unless something terrible were to happen. Then I'd kick ass and take names." I chewed in-between words and swallowed the last of the pasta. In all reality, what I said was true. There were guards at the front gates, along the walls, along the wards, in the building, in the queens' quarts, and then finally there was me. An army would have to get through every one of those stationed outside of this room before I was needed. There were a few other scenarios in which I would be the first and last line of defense for Lissa, but those were more than rare. They were almost impossible. It would have to be someone she knew turning on her, someone with a high status that would be able to get into these quarters and lure her away. Someone with power. But people with power never work or walk alone. There is always someone there, always a witness. And to pull off a job like that there would have to be no witnesses.
Dimitri chuckled at my comment and shook his head.
"I have no doubt about that. We were told that Ivan wouldn't need a guard while being in the queen's quarters."
"Yet here you are." I fanned my hand in his direction as if he just appeared out of thin air.
"Yet here I am." He repeated.
"Why?" I asked. He thought for a moment before answering. Then summed up all his thoughts into one nice and neat little word.
"Duty."
Duty. I thought. What a strange word to someone that was outside of this lifestyle. Guardians spent their entire lives being someone else's shadow. We molded our lives to fit that of our charges. Never really developing one of our own. It was something that I didn't agree with.
"Duty? You mean not having a life of your own?" I teased him.
"You're one to talk. Why are you here if your shift doesn't start for another hour?" he cocked an eyebrow up at me.
"Why do you know when my shift starts?" I sat the plate of food down on the table that was in front of us and lounged back in the cushioned chair.
"Lissa told us. Plus, Ivan asked who was sitting out here." Dimitri nodded back inside, I turned my head to see Lissa and Ivan chatting over those nasty lemon desserts.
"You didn't want dessert?" I asked. Noticing his plate still sitting on the table with only a handful of pasta picked out. No bread was touched either and the single serving plate of lemon cake was left untouched.
"I'm not a big sweets person."
"Is that from being raised in a land where vinegar was considered sweet?" I crossed my legs over one another, making myself more comfortable in the seat. I snuck another glance at him. I had been careful not to spend more than a second or two looking at him. There was hard to describe that overcame me whenever I was near him. I liked to joke with everyone, but I really liked to joke with him. I liked teasing him. And had he not caught me sucked into Lissa's mind then I would've wanted to spend more time with him. I hoped that he didn't bring up what he saw.
"You don't think vinegar is sweet?" He looked over at me and gave me a tight smile.
"Not compared to chocolate. Here in America, we have superior sweets." I puffed out my chest proudly.
"You've never had real chocolate until you've had it from Istanbul." He augured. Dimitri leaned back into the chair and folded his ankle over his knee. He picked a single blade of grass off the bottom of his boot and threw it down. Even sitting down, he was massive. The chair that swallowed me looked too little for him.
"Have you ever been?" He asked. He laced his fingers together and rested them on his stomach.
"I've never been much of anywhere." I confessed. I knew that mine and Lissa case was an unusual one. That the queen would travel most of the time. But with her being so young, so new, so everything, she was almost confined to the walls of court.
"Really? You and the Queen after traveled to the other dominions? Normally they do a tour."
"Normally, yes. But Lissa is anything but normal. We went from the academy in Montana, to the court here and that's where we've stayed. Eighteen years in Montana, 3 years at court." I wondered how many places he had been. I recalled a few report pages in his file.
"Maybe that will change with time. Ivan was knocking down the door at graduation. He had a list a mile long of everywhere we wanted to go. We didn't make it to half of them before he got caught off from his money," He chuckled and continued, "We spent about a month in Rome before Ivan realized that he was missing half of the funds for the entire trip. Rome was the second stop," he informed me "But I guess with Vasilisa being Queen you don't have those kinds of luxuries." He looked me in the eyes for the first time since he sat down. Those deep pools of chocolate melting in the rising sun.
"No," I agreed "everything is planned out, to the minute, to the second. There is about a hundred different people that travel with us at any given time. It makes going somewhere not even worth it." I hadn't said that out loud to anyone.
"I'm sorry." He sounded genuine.
"Are you two falling in love out here?" Ivan poked his head out of the doorframe and smiled at me.
"Rose, lovely to see you as always." He winked at me as he continued. "Be gentle with him Rose,"
"Gentle isn't in my nature." I teased back at him.
"You do look like a hard fu-"
"Ivan." Dimitri warned. Something about Dimitri cutting him off made me smile.
"Easy there tiger, I just came to say hello." And with that Ivan disappeared back into Lissa's apartment.
"He's fun." I stated.
"He's ridiculous." Dimitri countered.
"I think you're the ridiculous one. It's already getting hot outside and you're wearing a leather duster."
"There are very few choices that we get to have with our wardrobes, Roza. A good duster helps to tie everything together." Roza? That sounded deliciously lustful on his tongue.
"I think you're giving that hot ass coat a job that it cannot live up to. How are you going to sit there and tell me that it pulls your outfit together whenever it's supposed to be in the upper eighties today?"
"It's called fashion."
"It's maybe called fashion in Russia where you're ten years behind us, but over here we call it tacky. What did you hear about the new trend over the radio one evening?" Dimitri actually gave a laugh at that. A deep rumble through his chest.
"I saw it over basic cable one night. Not radio." Was he joking back with me? The tall, stagnant man who seemed to always be on guard?
"Oh, my apologies." I nodded and laughed. Talking to him was easy. But the silence that fell between us was easy too. It wasn't awkward or needed to be filled with small talk. There was something peaceful and devoted to it. With most of the people I was with, I gave small bouts of small talk to them to fill in the empty air around us. But when silence fell between Dimitri and I, I didn't feel the need to keep talking to him just for talking sake. We watched the sun move across the sky, watched as the city underneath us die down to that of a ghost town, watched the birds fly from one nest on top of a roof to the other. Finally, when the hour died down and I stood up I noticed that he had been watching me.
"What?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest, and standing in front of him.
"Nothing." He shrugged and offered as his answer.
"Nothing?" I countered. Dimitri stood up and stood toe to toe with me. We hadn't touched since that day in the hallway but now we were close. So, so close to each other that I could feel his breath. He leaned down, close to my ear. His lips brushed my ear and whispered, "I'm just enjoying the view, Roza."
