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“Yeah, that’s the thing . . . the darkness in her aura went away and into yours. Like, I’ve noticed before that you guys have a big difference in auras, but this time, I saw it happening. It was like that spot of darkness jumped out of hers and into yours.”
“Ah, well.” Father Andrew sighed. “Her end wasn’t as good, I’m afraid. She spent her whole life protecting him, though there are hints that in her old age, she started growing a little unstable too. And then . . .” “And then?” I asked. Christian was looking between the priest and me, completely lost. “And then, well, a couple months after St. Vladimir passed on, she committed suicide.”
Yet even under compulsion, it hadn’t been the electric, all-encompassing feeling I had when I was with Dimitri, that feeling that we were practically the same person and were bound by forces bigger than both of us. With Adrian, it had simply been mechanical.
The school checks them all the time. The only place guarded better than here is the Royal Court, and both places are overflowing with guardians. Stop being so paranoid.”
His eyes looked at me with pride—and a hell of a lot more. He was so close, and my whole body yearned for him, again thinking he was a piece of me I needed in order to be complete.
I focused hard on the bond, on her mind. I couldn’t take the magic exactly, but I could take the darkness it brought on. It was what I’d been doing for a while now, I realized. Every time I’d worried and wished she’d calm down and fight dark feelings, she had—because I was taking it all from her. I was absorbing it, just as Anna had done for St. Vladimir. It was what Adrian had seen when the darkness jumped from her aura to mine. And this—this abuse of spirit, using it to maliciously harm another and not for self-defense, was bringing the worst side effects of all in her. It was corrupting and
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“No,” I said. I could hear my voice cracking as I struggled to sit up. “It will happen again. I’m going to be like Anna. I’m going to get worse and worse. This time it was bloodlust and hate. I wanted to destroy them. I needed to destroy them. Next time? I don’t know. Maybe it’ll just be craziness, like Ms. Karp. Maybe I’m already crazy, and that’s why I’m seeing Mason. Maybe it’ll be depression like Lissa used to get. I’ll keep falling and falling into that pit, and then I’ll be like Anna and kill—” “No,” Dimitri interrupted gently. He moved his face toward mine, our foreheads nearly
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When I looked into his eyes, I could see without a doubt that he loved me more than anyone else in the world, that I was his salvation, the same way that he was mine. I’d never expected my first time to be in a cabin in the woods, but I realized the place didn’t matter. The person did. With someone you loved, you could be anywhere, and it would be incredible. Being in the most luxurious bed in the world wouldn’t matter if you were with someone you didn’t love.
“I love you, Roza.” He kissed me again. “I’ll always be here for you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
realized then that I didn’t have that nauseous feeling from earlier. Somehow, that feeling was an indicator of nearby Strigoi.
“There are no others,” a familiar voice said. I turned and looked into Dimitri’s face. He was alive. All the fear for him I’d held back burst through me. I wanted to throw myself at him and hold him as close to me as possible. He was alive—battered and bloody, yes—but alive.
“No,” murmured Dimitri. “Watch. Change is happening before your eyes. People are going to remember this day as a turning point.”
“Yeah? Are you afraid of my possibly insane dark side coming out?” “No, I’m afraid of your normal Rose Hathaway side coming out, the one that isn’t afraid to jump in without thinking when she believes something is right.” I gave him a dry look. “Is there a difference?” “Yes. The second one scares me.”
“I don’t think what we did was wrong,” he said softly. “I’m glad we did it. If we could go back in time, I’d do it again.”
“Really? What made you change your mind?” “Because you’re hard to resist,” he said, clearly amused at my surprise. “And . . . do you remember what Rhonda said?” There was another shock, hearing her brought up. But then I recalled his face when he’d listened to her and what he’d said about his grandmother. I tried to remember Rhonda’s exact words. “Something about how you’re going to lose something. . . .” I apparently didn’t remember it so well. “‘You will lose what you value most, so treasure it while you can.’”
“Wait. You think I’m going to die? That’s why you slept with me?” “No, no, of course not. I did what I did because . . . believe me, it wasn’t because of that. Regardless of the specifics—or if it’s even true—she was right about how easily things can change. We try to do what’s right, or rather, what others say is right. But sometimes, when that goes against who we are . . . you have to choose. Even before the Strigoi attack, as I watched all the problems you were struggling with, I realized how much you meant to me. It changed everything. I was worried about you—so, so worried. You have no
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I saw the panic in her own face, panic over me—her daughter—getting killed. I remembered Dimitri saying he’d rather die than see me dead. And if I stood there stupidly, letting the Strigoi get me, I’d fail both of them.
That meant we had rescued twelve. Six guardians—including Dimitri—had been lost. Those weren’t bad numbers considering how many Strigoi we’d faced, but when you took the difference, it really meant we’d only saved six lives. Had the loss of all those guardians’ lives been worth it?
“Is he . . . is Dimitri a Strigoi?” Mason hesitated only a moment, like he was afraid to answer me, and then—he nodded. My heart shattered. My world shattered. You will lose what you value most. . . . It hadn’t been me that Rhonda was talking about. It hadn’t even been Dimitri’s life. What you value most. It had been his soul.
“Lissa isn’t why I’m seeing ghosts. Well, she is, but not in the way you think. I see the ghosts because I’m shadow-kissed. I’m tied to the world of the dead, and the more I kill, the stronger that connection becomes. It’s why I see the dead and why I feel weird when Strigoi are near. I can sense them now. They’re tied to that world too.”
“I was there. Last fall when we took that van into Missoula. The shopping trip? You and Dimitri were talking about Strigoi, about how becoming one makes you something twisted and evil . . . how it destroys the person you used to be and makes you do horrible things. And I heard . . .” She had trouble saying it. I had trouble hearing it, and my eyes grew wet. The memory was too harsh, thinking of sitting with him that day, back when we were first falling in love. Lissa swallowed and continued. “I heard you both say you’d rather die than become a monster like that.”
“It’s not about you, okay? This time, it’s about me. Not you. All my life, Lissa . . . all my life, it’s been the same. They come first. I’ve lived my life for you. I’ve trained to be your shadow, but you know what? I want to come first. I need to take care of myself for once. I’m tired of looking out for everyone else and having to put aside what I want. Dimitri and I did that, and look what happened. He’s gone. I will never hold him again. Now I owe it to him to do this. I’m sorry if it hurts you, but it’s my choice!”
A piece of my soul had died when Dimitri had fallen. Turning my back on her now, I felt another piece die as well. Soon there wouldn’t be anything left inside of me.
“If your eyes weren’t open, you wouldn’t know the difference between dreaming and waking.”
Dimitri had taught me everything I knew, and with enhanced Strigoi reflexes, he would truly be the god I’d always joked he was. Death was a very real possibility for me.
And it was memories like that that made it so hard to comprehend this quest to kill him, even if he was a Strigoi. Yet . . . at the same time, it was exactly because of memories like that that I had to destroy him. I needed to remember him as the man who’d loved me and held me in bed. I needed to remember that that man would not want to stay a monster.
“Do you think she’ll do it? Do you think she can kill Dimitri?” Adrian took a long time in answering. “I think she can. The question will be if it kills her in the process.”
They also wanted to know about me and Dimitri as a couple. They all seemed to have figured out that Dimitri and I had been in love—and they were okay with it. I was asked about how we’d met, how long we’d been together . . .
“They all knew about me and Dimitri,” I said, wondering if I’d be saying any of this sober. “But I never told them we were together.” “You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face.” “They acted like I was his widow or something.” “You might as well be.”
I wasn’t sure if that made her lucky or not. I wasn’t sure if all the bright days I’d had with Dimitri were worth the hurt I felt now. A moment later, I knew the truth. “Of course they were.”
“You’re bonded,” I exclaimed.
And when you’re going out like you are—with a heart filled with sorrow and revenge? That’s not one of the better ways. It’ll make you sloppy. And the shadow-kissed darkness will just complicate things.”
“Why don’t you just have your bondmate heal the darkness out of you?”
“Life’s like that,” he said. “As we grow and change, sometimes things we’ve experienced before take on new meaning. It’ll happen for the rest of your life.”
This is a fantasy. You’re deluding yourself.” He was all sternness now. “Your grief has sent you here. Your man was ripped away from you, and you’ve ripped yourself away from your old friends. You’re trying to make up for it by convincing yourself that this is your family, that this is your home. They’re not. This isn’t.”
“I see him all the time. I’ve killed with him.” My stomach twisted, and it had nothing to do with the Strigoi’s proximity. Don’t think about Dimitri killing people. Don’t think about Dimitri killing people. I said the words over and over in my head, forcing myself to stay calm. “If that’s true,” I hissed back, “then I’ve got a message for you to deliver to him. Tell him Rose Hathaway is looking for him.” “I’m not your errand boy,” he said, glowering. My stake slashed out, drawing blood, and he grimaced in pain. “You’re anything I want you to be. Now go tell Dimitri what I told you. Rose
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Lissa was still reminding me a lot of how she’d been when we’d first returned to St. Vladimir’s, when spirit had been seizing her and messing with her mind. Except . . . I knew enough about myself now to realize that my anger and fixation on punishing Strigoi was being influenced by spirit’s dark side too. That meant I was draining it away from her. It should have been leaving Lissa, not building up. So what was wrong with her? Where was this short-tempered, crazy, and jealous persona coming from? Was spirit’s darkness simply growing in intensity so that it spread to both of us? Were we
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“Roza.” His voice had that same wonderful lowness, the same accent . . . it was all just colder. “You forgot my first lesson: Don’t hesitate.”
Damn. What good were terrifying powers if I couldn’t use them to my advantage?
I struggled a little but was as pinned as the Strigoi had been when the others and I had gone hunting. The universe had a sick sense of humor.
Dimitri said I was weak because I wasn’t Strigoi, but there was more to it than that. I was weak and had been subdued by Nathan and Inna because I was an addict, because I was living a life of blissful ignorance that was taking a toll on my body and my mind.
And that’s when I knew. I finally realized the problem. He’d given that same answer over and over, and each time, something about it had bothered me. I’d never been able to pinpoint it, though. Now I could. He wanted me. Wanted me in the way people wanted possessions or collectibles. The Dimitri I’d known . . . the one I’d fallen for and slept with . . . that Dimitri would have said he wanted us to be together because he loved me. There was no love here.
kissed him gently. He probably thought I was doing it for the reasons I always did, out of attraction and desire. In truth, it was a goodbye kiss. His mouth answered mine, his lips warm and eager. I held out the kiss a little longer, both to fight back the tears leaking out of my eyes and to lull him into an unsuspecting state.
I would never forget Dimitri, not for the rest of my life. And this time, I wouldn’t forget his lessons.
And as I did it, it was like piercing my own heart at the same time.
This stake was almost identical, save for a small geometric pattern running around its base. It was something guardians did from time to time if they felt particularly attached to their stake: have a design or initials etched into it.
The words came to me again: Don’t hesitate. Dimitri’s important lesson. But it hadn’t been his first one. His first had been about what to do if I was outnumbered and out of options: Run.
If I find you, I’m probably going to have to kill you. I don’t want to, but I’m starting to think there’s no way we can both live in this world.
“We can retreat and retreat and let ourselves get backed into corners forever,” she’d said once. “Or we can go out and meet the enemy at the time and place we choose. Not them.” Okay, Tasha, I thought. Let’s see if your advice gets me killed.
We were going to kill ourselves in trying to kill each other.
