Part 3
DPOV
I soon regretted insisting Roza get some sleep whilst I worked with Alberta and any other Guardians who could be spared to help her sort out the mess left in the attack's wake.
The first reason I regretted it was because as she let exhaustion pull her under, I was left doing everything I could to stop myself yawning and joining her in the land of dreams.
The second was when she started dreaming. I'd been expecting not to see anything, but just as I could see her conscious thoughts and feel her emotions when she was awake, I had just as clear access to her when she was asleep and dreaming. Initially, it was just a nonsense mess of the last couple of days. But then, as she started to recall our time together in the cabin, the images were very clear and the accompanying emotions pulsed into me. The love. The lust. The tenderness. The affection. The trust. The need. The want. The completion. The joy. The pleasure. The nervousness. The relief. The desire. Everything she'd felt then, amplified ten fold in her sleep poured into me, almost physically bowling me over as it intensified my own emotions regarding our first time together. Her first at all. I struggled to concentrate on my task, on anything and everything being discussed and dissected around me.
As if the memory of the lust wasn't enough, her body viscerally responded, turning memory consolidation into a wet dream. I never knew the true extent of just how much I struggled with control until that moment. Trapped in a meeting with my boss and colleagues, caught in my student turned secret lover and blood bond mate's wet dream of our first time making love together, with my body as aroused as hers, I learned just how much effort it took to concentrate on the situation impacting the whole school and not give away the overwhelming love and lust invading my every thought and sense. I didn't know how hard it could be to keep my breathing level when thinking of Rose... never mind naked Roza, wet and wanting and needy Roza after release and pleasure only I could give her, the release and pleasure only I would ever give her... until now; when every breath was an absolute chore, and I was conscious each breath was at risk of coming out as a moan, groan, hiss, or whimper.
When Alberta finally released me to have a nap of my own—not willing to put her remaining team under such pressure that a lack of sleep put us more at risk than it was worth—I headed straight for my dorm and the shower therein. Food could wait—Rose and I had fed again as soon as we could after she'd taken Christian to the feeders and popped into the clinic to check in with Lissa, Olendzki sneaking in a quick assessment then shoving ibuprofen, antibacterial wash, wipes, and bandages at her.
The shower just couldn't be put off.
Rose had orgasmed in her sleep, her release causing mine. I can't ever remember a time in my life when I've come in my pants while awake, let alone so embarrassingly publicly despite my best attempt to prevent it.
Twice!
The first at the memory of the freight train of delight that was her first orgasm tonight. The second was at the recall, almost reliving, of the animalistic second orgasm of the night after we'd forged the bond.
I was out of the shower just as quickly as I'd hopped in. I could not tolerate being away from Roza longer than necessary. I slipped my sleep boxers on underneath a fresh pair of workout pants, swiftly pulling on an old St Basil's tee shirt and adding a warm jersey I knew Rose would adore as much as my duster, finishing up with said duster. I was out the door and snuggled up with Rose, only in my sleep boxers and spooning together in her tiny bed, ten minutes after Alberta dismissed me.
I might finally find some peace for the first time since Rose saw Mason Ashford's ghost as we returned to campus from the cabin—an experience I was not keen for either of us to go through again never mind any time soon.
Rose asked me to keep an open mind, but it had been difficult because I just didn't believe in ghosts, then I was confronted—from both perspectives—with the situation she'd tried to describe and explain yet struggled to. I had to accept that there was no other option.
Rose—my most precious, darling Roza, my beloved—could see ghosts. She could see ghosts and sense when Strigoi are nearby. And I'd experienced it all with her tonight.
I awoke before Rose did, my slumber the most restful and revitalising it had been in a long time. Swiftly dressing, I then grabbed a scrap of paper and scribbled a note.
I couldn't bear to wake you—you looked so peaceful.
I love you.
You know how to find me.
Yours always, D.
P.S.: Don't forget to burn this. xx
I left it partially under her pillow and pecked her lips before leaving a lingering kiss on her forehead. Everything in me was screaming not to part from her side—it physically hurt to be away from her, to not touch her—but I had to. So I did.
Every step I took to Guardian HQ was utter agony. I made a brief pit stop in the break room to make a double strength black coffee to go and whatever breakfast-appropriate finger food I could lay my hands on and stuff in my duster's pockets.
Walking through Alberta's office door I was met with the sight of the last person I wanted to see right now. If said person hadn't noticed my entrance, I'd have walked straight back out, headed for cabin and hid like a little—sixteen-year-old boy on a first date and meeting Her gun-toting, trigger-happy father—coward. I was a twenty-five-year-old, Blood Master Level 7, Strigoi-slaying, unblemished-adult-record bearing Guardian. The five foot naught mother of my mate and beloved should not leave me quaking in my boots. But she does.
Rose doesn't think I'm scared of anything—ha! She couldn't be more wrong.
Putting aside the potential damage the well-respected Janine Hathaway could do to me regarding my relationship with her only child, I greeted her appropriately and engaged in the discussions at hand, only leaving to pick up the extra—thankfully short—ward shift expected of me.
Just as I'd let myself believe I'd escaped Hathaway Sr. for a while, she caught up to me as I neared my meeting and switching point. But that wasn't what irritated me. Really. It was that she didn't talk until my shift was half over. And Rose had finally found a way to disentangle herself from her friends and was almost in my line of sight. I could feel my better half getting closer with every step we took. There was no way Roza didn't know about her mother's strange behavior, but said mother had no clue that Rose could hear her when she opened her mouth and words finally came out.
"I don't know my daughter."
I almost scoffed. So did Rose.
"What was she thinking!"
Don't tell her anything, Comrade!
I mentally snorted and rolled my eyes at Rose. Of course I wasn't about to give Janine ammunition that she could use against either of us, or both of us.
"Why would she disobey direct orders and purposely endanger a Moroi?"
Why did I?
"Because it's their fight, too. Christian had an asset—something the Strigoi weren't expecting. She used it. She knew he'd not stay put anyway. As long as she was with him, he was safer than if he'd joined in later, without her."
After a pregnant pause, Janine huffs. "I guess I'm just pissed she took the risk and we reaped the benefits... she did the right thing by doing the wrong thing—that's not supposed be possible, that's not how this industry works!"
"That's what makes Rose such a threat. She does what is supposed to be wrong but proves it was actually the best course of action." The bond we share is the prime example. The absolute embodiment of the right thing being something everyone else says is wrong.
Aww, Comrade! You're making me swoon!
She thinks that's swoon-worthy? I'll show her what it means to be wooed and what is really swoon-worthy! I don't think I have a hope in hell of waiting until after graduation to do so. I don't have much to offer her in comparison to what she deserves, but I can and will give her everything I do have to—and can—offer her.
Dimitri! You're going to cause me to knock my mother out and jump your bones right here—broad daylight and others be damned!
"They say a third of the kills in that dorm were hers alone. A third were yours. At least."
"Yes. Some others there would say over half were hers alone. That said, neither of us could have caused near as much damage without Christian's aid."
Janine hums thoughtfully, otherwise silent for a while. "I suppose. Guardian Alto claims that he had more backup precisely when he needed it in the Senior Moroi dorm than he was hoping for—because you three freed up colleagues in time."
I'm well aware of these comments; she knows that. But it is news to Rose, and she doesn't know how to process it. I'm still struggling with it, myself, truth be known.
"Just before you entered the office this morning, Petrov suggested that based on the reports of your and Rose's synchronicity and lethality last night, you and my daughter have a bond not reported or rumoured to have existed in nearly eleven hundred years. A type of bond considered a myth and even more extinct than the one she shares with the Princess."
Rose is frozen. I'm stunned. How do I respond to that? I can't deny it, but if I confirm it, I risk far too many probing, prying questions.
Janine steps in front of me and turns back to face me, studying me closely. She sees something as she shakes her head a couple of times in disbelief. "I don't just suppose you do, Guardian Belikov," she all but sneers. "I can see it with absolute clarity. Not just based on the reports from last night. But from my own observations. And right now it's as if I can literally see my daughter's eyes shining out of yours—in this very moment as we talk. I saw it in the meeting too, I just didn't realize."
You might as well tell her the basics, because she's going to harass the both of us until she gets it out of at least one of us.
I don't know how to tell Janine that she's right. But I do. I don't have a choice in the matter. "I won't lie to you, Guardian Hathaway. Yes. I do share a bond with Rose and she with me."
Disappointment battles with respect for dominance on her face as her expression. "I don't know what to say to you, Belikov. I'm disappointed that I'm right, but I respect you for your honesty with me. We know so little about it that I can't decide if I should continue to trust you with my only child's welfare or if I shouldn't, if I should feel betrayed."
It's not my voice that speaks in response. It's Rose's. And she does so while taking my left hand in both of hers, curling around my forearm and into my side. "Feel betrayed if you want to, Mom, but for once believe in me and trust me if you won't trust Dimitri."
Our eyes meet, a million silent messages passing between us that even with the bond we don't need words to understand what the other is saying. My right hand reaches across and runs through her gorgeous locks before encasing her hands which encase my left one, tugging her closer to me if that was even possible.
This is right. This is where we belong. I'm not complete without her. I never have been. I've been waiting for her, needing her, and not even knowing it until I met her.
We return our gazes to a red-faced, armed, Hathaway Sr..
"Mom, I know Dimitri only wants what's best for me. I wouldn't trust anyone else with my welfare and safety. Please trust me that this is right, it's what's best. It's everything I want and need and more. Nothing else will do. This is meant to be."
"How can you know, Rosemarie? You don't have the life experience."
"I have enough, Mom. I have enough to know that this was going to happen at some point."
Janine shakes her head again before studying us both very closely for an uncomfortably long time. "I want to know specifics about everything. Belikov," she spat out my name, and I didn't really expect anything less, "meet me in my room once your shift is done. Immediately. Rosemarie, you're coming with me, right now."
If it weren't for the fact Janine almost physically tore Rose from my side, Rose wouldn't have so willingly followed Janine. After pecking my bicep a couple of times and shooting me an apologetic look, she reluctantly let go of me and very reluctantly followed her pissed off mother back to campus.
The feeling of loss was intense, acute, and immediate. And shared by both of us.