Thank you for the reviews, it is very nice to be appreciated. I had an amazing week and I got two job offers!

Dimitri POV

After the night with Donovan in the alley, my emotions had become so different. Being around Rose so much had started making me feel like myself again. Bit by bit she was healing me, just like she had done when I first met her after Ivans death.

In the alley, when she told me to find something beautiful, all I could see was her.

Then I started to feel all of my emotions again, not just the guilt, anger and remorse. The smell of her hair, the way she chewed on her bottom lip when she was thinking and the desire I saw in her eyes. The depth of my love for her returned at full force, but I suspected that it never really left.

I was ashamed of my actions to her as a strigoi and how I let my guilt dominate me in the early days. My words kept pushing her away but at the same time I kept reaching out for her.

I got violent when people were saying filthy things about her and let her get away with anything she wanted. I could take her teasing me in public because after everything I did to her, it made her smile and at the time those were rare.

Especially after the first morning with her, she looked so crushed. Even now, I worry that my words keep repeating in her head.

I knew that I had gone too far that morning, but at the time I was a raw nerve who was on the verge of a panic attack. No-one should ever break the spirit of someone like Rose, I still questioned how she fell for me, the stone faced guardian.

At Sonya's house, I heard the doorbell ring and I reluctantly instructed Sydney to answer the door as I couldn't leave her alone with Sonya. Even tied up, Sonya was dangerous and Sydney was not equipped to protect herself.

I saw Abe, Janine Hathaway and Mikhail tanner walk into the room. Janine drew her stake and moved into a position to assist me if our prisoner escaped. Mikhail left the room, back to the front door.

"Ahhh Belikov, so good to see you. Have you been looking after my little girl?"

"She is upstairs resting, she hit her head while we were subduing Sonya." I nodded to Sydney to get Rose from upstairs, knowing her parents wouldn't stop worrying until they saw her.

Abe gave me a sharp nod and Mikhail returned with Adrian Ivashkov at his heels. Abe sat down and folded his arms. "Belikov, please let us know how your questioning is progressing"

"Not as well as we hoped, Your daughter has a disturbing aptitude for interrogating strigoi, but i'm afraid none of our efforts has yielded results."

Abe nodded at me. I could see Mikhail step closer towards Sonya in shock as he studied her features.

"We were planning to wait out her hunger, she might be more persuaded to talk."

"I hear that cradle robbers powers of persuasion is limited to underage students. I came to provide spirit support" Adrian said as Rose came down the stairs. I shot Adrian a glare, while I felt guilty for our actions while they were in a relationship, it was not an excuse for his rudeness.

He then stared at Rose, not looking at her face but her abdomen. "So… What's new with you?"

Rose looked stunned at him, and a little guilty. Before I could analyse this interaction, Sonya made her move. Janine, Rose and I pinned her in the chair, before we could communicate our next step, Adrian ran across the room and staked Sonya.

A bright light threw me backwards and Sonya was no longer Strigoi. It was so strange to see the transformation as a witness, rather than experiencing it first hand. It was beautiful, it was the most amazing thing that I had ever seen.

I quickly unwrapped the chains from Sonya, not wanting her to feel like she was a caged animal. She clutched Adrian tightly, similar to how I did with Lissa when I was restored. She started to scream and Adrian looked like he was going to collapse. I gently moved Adrian towards Janine while I reached for Sonya, she tried to push me away as I pulled her into a hug.

I told her that I had been restored too, she let me hold her and stroke her head while I gave her reassurances. I planned to take her upstairs so we could talk but I saw Mikhail coming closer to her, Sonya noticed too and became frantic and manoeuvred herself behind me.

"Just give her time, I'm going to take her upstairs." I said as I walked up the stairs with Sonya in my arms. I took her to her room and placed her on the bed. I sat against the wall, facing Sonya on the bed.

"Who are you?" She asked me.

"My name is Dimitri Belikov, I came to St Vladimirs over a year ago to find Rose and Vasilisa, they were missing for 2 years. I became strigoi after the battle at the school. About a month ago, Lissa Dragomir turned me back into a dhampir."

"Am I still a monster?" looked at me with big doe eyes, so innocent and sad.

"No, you have been restored like I was."

"Was that Rose Hathaway in there?" She asked suddenly, staring at me, suddenly very focused.

"Yes, Rose was instrumental in finding the key to our restoration and promised to help Mikhail for you" She lifted one eyebrow and studied my features, I showed nothing on my face, but apparently my aura was a different story.

"You're close?"

"I was her mentor at St Vladimir's" I replied

"And you love her" She finished.

I paused, "its complicated."

"More than you know" She said, but didn't elaborate further. "Who was the spirit user?"

"Adrian Ivashkov, he met Lissa last Christmas" We haven't gotten rid of him since

She raised an eyebrow at me, clearly she could tell that I didn't like him.

"Do you want to talk to Mikhail?"

"He needs to stay away from me" She avoided my eyes for a while "I changed, to stop the madness. And it did, except … it was worse. In its way. The things I did …"

I wanted Sonya to have an easier transition than I did. I wanted her to embrace Mikhail, so I told her about my experiences as a strigoi. "You were strigoi for longer than me, but I was ruthless and amassed power very quickly. Thousands of people died because of me and my actions. I changed how they hunted and developed a system to destroy people. This isn't necessarily about comparing notes, I have things that I have to forgive within myself, but I don't blame you for anything that you did."

"I don't know how you can say that". She buried her face in her hands. "I chose it. Me. I made it happen."

"I'm sure that you know that Rose is bonded to Lissa" She nodded at me. "She is able to draw the darkness from spirit away from Lissa and into herself. One time she took too much darkness and it almost took control of Rose, it took everything I had to get her to come back to me. No-one can blame you for the choices that you made, had you possessed the mental clarity, you wouldn't have made the same decision."

She mulled over my words for a while.

"Rest now Sonya, you need to sleep"

I stayed with Sonya until she fell asleep and I came downstairs to see Sydney checking on Adrian. Janine and Abe were talking together in the kitchen and Mikhail met me at the bottom of the stairs.

"Are you ok?" Sydney was looking at Adrian in awe, we all were after today's events.

His eyes fluttered open to look at Sydney. "Helloooo gorgeous, What's your name?"

Sydney pulled back in shock, not expecting that kind of response from Adrian. She resumed her alchemist demeanour and stepped away from him. "Sydney Sage" she said stiffly.

Mikhail pulled me aside. "How is Sonya?"

"She is trying to adjust while under the weight of her guilt and remorse. We have to be careful with her and give her time to gather herself." Mikhail nodded, but looked frustrated. I looked over my shoulder to check on Sydney.

"Belikov, do you think you could leave my girl alone so I can have a chance to talk to her."

My head snapped to look at Mikhail, furious at his insinuation. "I've been talking to your girl to prevent her from doing what I did to my girl. Restoration is intense and overwhelming, I pushed Rose away when I needed her most, I don't want Sonya to do that to you."

He looked at me embarrassed. "It's not easy to watch your love get comforted by someone else." I placed my hand on his shoulder and gave him a pat. I knew he wasn't just talking about himself, I knew I had leant on Lissa after my restoration.

I approached Rose's parents warily, I was technically in his current employ, but Janine Hathaway always looked poised to strike.

"Belikov, we are discussing relocating before sundown, we are a party of three moroi, four dhampir and an alchemist in the home of a former strigoi." Janine addressed me. "We are looking at accommodations in Lexington."

I looked over their plans and nodded my head in approval, after Sonya had her rest, we would relocate to a safer location and procure a much needed feeder services. We discussed the matter of when to approach Sonya regarding Lissa's sibling. I argued that it was much too early to approach Sonya. Janine went to wake up Rose lying on the patio chair, who looked like she was in Lissa's head.

"Want some"

I looked over my shoulder to see Adrian offering Sydney his hip flask.

"It's three in the afternoon" she said incredulously.

"And it's three AM somewhere else in the world, he took a swig.

"Sydney, could you help Sonya collect some things to take with her?"

Sydney paled in response.

"I promise she is no longer strigoi." she didn't look convinced. "Mikhail will accompany you"

I stopped Mikhail on his way. "She wants you to give her some time" He didn't look happy as he walked up the stairs.

"Could you please stop antagonising Ms Sage" I said to him once they disappeared upstairs.

"This is what I do all day Belikov, I flirt, I drink and I smoke"

You must be the black sheep in the family" I muttered, but not as quiet as I had intended.

Adrian was lying on the couch resting but turned his head to him. "Actually, I'll have you know that my uncle Rand takes that honour. The nicest thing my mum said to my dad was 'I wasn't as bad as his brother'." He used air quotes to emphasise his point. "By rights he should be the Ivashkov Prince, but the family deemed that he was too unsuitable."

I noticed that Janine and Rose had entered the room.

"Dimitri doesn't like mention of his father, he tends to not like people that raise a hand to women." Abe said casually. I turned to stare at Abe, I disliked any mention of my father… who also happened to be Adrians uncle.

"Are we . . . does that mean . . . are we cousins?" he exclaimed, turning towards me. Shit, there is no way I could be related to him, we are polar opposites.

I could hear a weird laugh coming from Rose and Adrian kept looking at me. "When were you going to break the news that we're one big happy family?"

I slipped down into a chair, this was a shock as I had no idea I came from the Ivashkov family, royal families seemed all the same to me. "I honestly didn't know."

Adrian threw up his hands at me. "Come on. You've got, what, two or three sisters? That guy was obviously around a lot. It never occurred to you that Rand Ivashkov might be related to another Ivashkov you knew?"

My temper flared at the mention of my sisters and my father, that arsehole didn't even think to tell his kids his last name. "He never told us his full name. He was always just Randall. We knew he was an American royal who drank too much, I didn't think that was unique to a specific family. We never asked questions. My mother liked him . . . for a while."

"He mentioned that they stopped getting along, he claimed he wasn't appreciated." Adrian said casually.

My new cousin really wants his face punched. "I didn't appreciate him almost killing my mother and threatening my sisters."

Adrian's features softened, clearly he didn't know what type of man his uncle was. "Then what happened?"

At this point I couldn't talk, I was so angry at the thought of my father hitting my mother.

"Dimitri hit him back" Rose finished for me, I could feel her coming closer and she placed a hand on my shoulder. She always could read me better than anyone. I clasped my hand over hers and gave it a squeeze, hopeful that her desire to comfort me meant something.

"How did you know?" Rose asked her father. I was waiting for this, I hadn't told Rose of my connection to her father, I hadn't had much of an opportunity or desire to.

"I've been doing business in Baia for a long time, I saw him around the town from time to time. I'm also the reason that Rand stayed away from Dimitri's family." I dropped my hand from Roses.

I had trouble digesting the fact that Adrian was my cousin. It wasn't the side of the family that I cared to think about. I never thought about whether my father had other family members, I just assumed that they would be just as bad as my father. Adrian was a drunk, smoked too much and had an annoying obsession with Rose, but he wasn't Rand.

I wondered how long Zmey had been sitting on that piece of information. I owed him a debt from a favour I asked for when I was 13 years old, when I had thrown him out of the house, I was worried that he would come back, especially when I wasn't there.

After I came home to find my father standing over my mother, close to death, my babushka told me to seek out Zmey. He made sure that my father never darkened our door ever again. On that day he said I owed him a debt, he said he would collect some time in the future.

"I'm sure you did it out of the kindness of your heart." Rose gave her father a threatening tone. I do not deserve this marvellous woman.

"The debt has been paid" Abe replied.

That was new information to me, he had recently lorded the debt over my head in addition to my carnal activities with Rose to coerce me to take the position as Rose's guardian. He hadn't needed to, I didn't want to leave Rosa and I didn't want people to think that our very public relationship was some sort of temporary fling. Roza is not that type of woman and she was owed more respect.

Sonya walked down the stairs with Sydney and Mikhail.

"Shall we go?" Said Janine

"Can I see my garden?" Sonya spoke up. I got up quickly to escort her to the garden. Rose had told me about Sonya's love of flowers, noting the similarity to my reading of westerns when I was strigoi. I didn't derive any pleasure from reading like I do as a Dhampir, but when you don't sleep, you need to do something with your time and reading is part of me.

Sonja looked around the garden, stopping to touch the petals of the flowers or run her hand over the leaves. She marvelled at the rays of the sun, feeling the warmth on her hands. I remembered the feeling of the sun on my skin as I stepped out of the van from court, it was the first time that I truly believed that I had been restored.

'It's very reassuring to feel the sun again, I used to think that my restoration was temporary' I said to Sonya.

She turned around and studied me, in a similar way that I saw Ivashkov study people, she was looking at my aura. "Your aura is swimming in darkness, I wonder if my aura looks like that?"

As I couldn't see my aura, I didn't know what she was talking about, so I remained silent. She continued her inspection of the lawn and I could see Sydney and Mikhail watching from the Patio.

I looked inside the house, the door was shut and caught Rose slapping Adrian, screamed at her mother and then ran up the stairs. Something was going on with Rose and I didn't know what it was.

I had seen Sydney and Rose whispering for the past few days, after Rose told me that she didn't want to continue our sexual relationship. Whenever I entered a room, they stopped and she would fix Rose with a look.

"Maybe you could monitor my aura, study the changes with time" Her eyes lit up, the scientist in her would like that very much.

That was all she said as she appeared to revert back to her frazzled state and wander the garden again, touching her plants.

"I don't feel like I deserve to be restored"

"I didn't either. I struggled with depression when I first returned, the weight of my guilt was crushing me. When I was a Strigoi I took Rose and kept her captive for two weeks and I turned into someone that she wasn't. I abused her and got her high on the bite while I tried to manipulate her into awakening. That was the worst thing I did by far."

Thinking about Rose in that state, so frail and weak. I almost broke her spirit, to have someone so full of life to be reduced like that, it makes me sick. After all of that, she still survived. Maybe because of the skills that I taught her, or maybe she is just a survivor.

"There is no excuse for the things that I did, so many lives… so much blood on my hands" Sonya looked at her hands like she could see this blood on her hands.

I placed my hands in hers and held them gently. "The fact that you feel remorse and guilt for your actions proves that you are no longer a monster. I made mistakes when I was restored and I felt that I wasn't capable of love, so I pushed away the one that I care for most. I'm not saying that it is easy, but each day I feel better and more like the person that I used to be."

"I don't know how to talk to Mikhail, I don't know how to face him or put what I have done behind me." I could relate to Sonya, but I didn't want her to give up hope.

"I know that he never stopped loving you and he still does. I don't want you to push people away, embrace life and all its beauty before you lose all that you hold in your heart. It's not an easy thing to do, but I'm not going to let my guilt control me anymore, I will not let my life be pointless. I was given a gift of life that I am not going to waste, my life will have love and purpose. I think I may have lost some things forever from my actions post restoration, but I refuse to let go of the rest of the things in my life. I have told Mikhail to give you some time, but please let him back into your heart and enjoy the second chance you have been given."

She stared into my eyes and squeezed my hands. "I will try." She turned to walk around the garden, stopping to look at each of her plants, clearly our discussion was finished. Adrian came out onto the porch to smoke looking guilty. Sydney and I walked into the kitchen to see Janine looking angry and bewildered, Rose and Abe appeared to be missing.

Rose came down the stairs with visible signs of crying, she avoided her mother and Adrian and moved towards Sydney.

Janine resorted to her usual business-like manner. "We have two cars, 2 guardians in each car. The sun is setting in one hour and I want to be settled." I grabbed the keys to the rental and Sydney and Rose followed me quickly, followed by Abe. What did Adrian do?

When we arrived at the hotel, Sydney assigned rooms. Rose locked herself away in her room and the spirit users went to have a chat. Mikhail and I decided to patrol the hallway in 6 hour shifts.

Before I left for my patrol Mikhail stopped me. "Do you know what happened today?"

"Not a clue, but I am going to figure it out."

A POV

I spent a lot of time with Sonya, we discussed my dream walking and healing and she showed me her telekinesis and charm making. I explained the restoration process and we talked about my recovery, she gave me advice and a charm to help with the darkness. It was nice to get insight from a spirit user who had years more experience than me or Lissa, we were like two novices bumbling their way along.

I also discovered that she was better at seeing aura's than me and had an annoying habit of prying into everyones business.

"You love Rose" She stated matter of factly.

"yeah, but Belikov got there first"

She looked at me but I felt she was looking through me. "I don't believe in soulmates, but after seeing their aura's I almost do. You must have seen them together, they shine and their aura's reach out for one another. I think you know, it doesn't matter who met whom first, it was always going to be him."

The annoying part of spirit users, we were hard to lie to.

"She's pregnant"

"I know"

"It's not mine"

"I know, the baby's aura has a golden shimmer, not something that you see in the child of a spirit user, but maybe in someone who had been bathed in spirit magic."

"My little cousin could change our world"

She stops and looks at my aura again."What did you do?"

"I lashed out, told her parents before she did"

"You'll be happier when you apologise and learn to let her go"

I smiled at Sonya "I'm sure I will"

I resolved to speak to Rose in her dreams to apologise.

D POV

I was in the hallway when Janine walked out of Rose's room and slipped into the room that she shared with Abe. I hoped that they had settled their differences. Near the end of my patrol, I went to check on Rose and she was in a deep sleep. I brushed her hair off her cheek and kissed her on the forehead.

I thought about all that I had seen today, Rose slapping Adrian and crying, Rose whispering with Sydney, Rose pushing me away all of a sudden. I knew that Rose and Adrian dated while I was strigoi and presumably they stopped dating after the court case. Adrian had made a comment and looked at her stomach.

Is she pregnant with Adrians child?

There might be a lemon coming up next...

Merry Christmas to everyone!