Lissa squeezed her hand. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
Serena still looked pained at giving up the secret information. They come first didn't always work when your loyalties were split. "I'll have to get it to you later, though. They need me here."
Serena returned to her post, bringing my mother back to Lissa. As for me, I returned to my own reality in the car, which had come to a stop. I blinked to clear my eyes and take in our surroundings. Another hotel. We should have had gold member status by now. "What's going on?"
"We're stopping," said Dimitri. "You need to rest."
"No, I don't. We need to keep going to Court. We need to get Jill there in time for the elections." Our initial goal in finding Jill had been to give Lissa voting power. It had since occurred to us that if Lissa running was mucking up the elections, the surprise appearance of her sister would likely create just as much sensation and disbelief. A genetic test would clear up any doubts and give Lissa her voting power, but the initial confusion would buy us more of the time we so badly needed to find the murderer. In spite of the random evidence my friends kept turning up, they still had no substantial theories on a culprit.
Dimitri gave me a don't lie to me look. "You were just with Lissa. Are the elections actually happening yet?"
"No," I admitted.
"Then you're getting some rest."
"I'm fine," I snapped.
But those fools wouldn't listen to me. Checking in was complicated because none of us had a credit card, and it wasn't the hotel's policy to take a cash deposit. Sonya compelled the desk clerk into thinking it was their policy, and before long, we had booked two adjoining rooms.
"Let me talk to her alone," Dimitri murmured to Sonya. "I can handle it."
"Be careful," Sonya warned. "She's fragile."
"You guys, I'm right here!" I exclaimed.
Sonya took Jill's arm and guided her into one of the rooms. "Come on, let's order room service."
Dimitri opened the other door and looked at me expectantly. With a sigh, I followed and sat on the bed, my arms crossed. The room was a hundred times nicer than the one in West Virginia. "Can we order room service?"
He pulled up a chair and sat opposite me, only a couple feet away. "We need to talk about what happened with Victor."
"There's nothing to talk about," I said bleakly. The dark feelings I'd been shoving back during the drive suddenly fell upon me. They smothered me. I felt more claustrophobic than when I'd been in the cell. Guilt was its own prison. "I really am the murderer everyone says I am. It doesn't matter that it was Victor. I killed him in cold blood."
"That was hardly cold blood."
"The hell it wasn't!" I cried, feeling tears spring to my eyes. "The plan was to subdue him and Robert so we could free Jill. Subdue. Victor wasn't a threat to me. He was an old man, for God's sake."
"He seemed like a threat," said Dimitri. His calmness was the counter to my growing hysteria, as usual. "He was using his magic."
I shook my head, burying my face in my hands. "It wasn't going to kill me. He probably couldn't have even kept it up much longer. I could have waited it out or escaped. Hell, I did escape! But instead of capturing him, I slammed him against a concrete wall! He was no match for me. An old man. I killed an old man. Yeah, maybe he was a scheming, corrupt old man, but I didn't want him dead. I wanted him locked up again. I wanted him to spend the rest of his life in prison, living with his crimes. Living, Dimitri."
It seemed strange that I'd feel this way, considering how much I hated Victor. But it was true: it hadn't been a fair fight. I'd acted without thinking. My training had always been about defense and striking out against monsters. Honor had never really come up, but suddenly, it meant a lot to me. "There was no honor in what I did to him."
"Sonya said it wasn't your fault." Dimitri's voice was still gentle, which somehow made me feel worse. I wished he'd chastise me, confirming the guilt I felt. I wanted him to be my critical instructor. "She said it was a backlash of spirit."
"It was. . . ." I paused, recalling the haze of that fight as best I could. "I never really understood what Lissa experienced in her worst moments until then. I just looked at Victor . . . and I saw everything evil in the world—an evil I had to stop. He was bad, but he didn't deserve that. He never stood a chance." Honor, I kept thinking. What honor is there in that?
"You aren't listening, Rose. It wasn't your fault. Spirit's a powerful magic we barely understand. And its dark edge . . . well, we know it's capable of terrible things. Things that can't be controlled."
I lifted my eyes to his. "I should have been stronger than it." There it was. The thought behind all my guilt, all these horrible emotions. "I should have been stronger than it. I was weak."
Dimitri's reassuring words didn't come so quickly. "You aren't invincible," he said at last. "No one expects you to be."
"I do. What I did . . ." I swallowed. "What I did was unforgivable."
His eyes widened in shock. "That . . . that's crazy, Rose. You can't punish yourself for something you had no power over."
"Yeah? Then why are you still—"
I stopped because I'd been about to accuse Dimitri of continuing to punish himself. Except . . . he no longer was. Did he feel guilt for what he'd done as a Strigoi? I was certain of it. Sonya had admitted as much. But somewhere in this journey, he had taken control of his life again, bit by bit. She'd told me that, but only now did I truly understand.
"When?" I asked. "When did it change? When did you realize you could keep living—even after all that guilt?"
"I'm not sure." If the question surprised him, he hid it. His eyes were locked with mine, but they weren't quite focused on me. The puzzle occupied him. "In bits, really. When Lissa and Abe first came to me about breaking you out, I was ready to do it because she asked me to. Then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was personal too. I couldn't stand the thought of you locked in a cell, being cut off from the world. It wasn't right. No one should live like that, and it occurred to me that I was doing the same—by choice. I was cutting myself off from the world with guilt and self-punishment. I had a second chance to live, and I was throwing it away."
I was still in turmoil, still raging and full of grief, but his story kept me quiet and transfixed. Hearing him pour his heart out was a rare opportunity.
"You heard me talk about this before," he continued. "About my goal to appreciate life's little details. And the more we continued on our journey, the more I remembered who I was. Not just a fighter. Fighting is easy. It's why we fight that matters, and in the alley that night with Donovan . . ." He shuddered. "That was the moment I could have crossed over into someone who fights just to senselessly kill—but you pulled me back, Rose. That was the turning point. You saved me . . . just as Lissa saved me with the stake. I knew then that in order to leave the Strigoi part of me behind, I had to fight through to be what they aren't. I had to embrace what they reject: beauty, love, honor."
Right then, I was two people. One was overjoyed. Hearing him talk like that, realizing he was fighting his demons and close to victory . . . well, I nearly wept with joy. It was what I'd wanted for him for so long. At the same time, his inspiring words only reminded me how far I'd fallen. My sorrow and self-pity took over again.
"Then you should understand," I said bitterly. "You just said it: honor. It matters. We both know it does. I've lost mine. I lost it out there in the parking lot when I killed an innocent."
"And I've killed hundreds," he said flatly. "People much more innocent than Victor Dashkov."
"It's not the same! You couldn't help it!" My feelings exploded to the surface again. "Why are we repeating the same things over and over?"
"Because they aren't sinking in! You couldn't help it either." His patience was cracking. "Feel guilty. Mourn this. But move on. Don't let it destroy you. Forgive yourself."
I leapt to my feet, catching him by surprise. I leaned down, putting us face to face. "Forgive myself? That's wh
at you want? You of all people?"
Words seemed to escape him. I think it had to do with my proximity. He managed a nod.
"Then tell me this. You say you moved past the guilt, decided to revel in life and all that. I get it. But have you, in your heart, really forgiven yourself? I told you a long time ago that I forgave you for everything in Siberia, but what about you? Have you done it?"
"I just said—"
"No. It's not the same. You're telling me to forgive myself and move on. But you won't do it yourself. You're a hypocrite, comrade. We're either both guilty or both innocent. Pick."
He rose as well, looking down at me from that lofty height. "It's not that simple."
I crossed my arms over my chest, refusing to be intimidated. "It is that simple. We're the same! Even Sonya says we are. We've always been the same, and we're both acting the same stupid way now. We hold ourselves up to a higher standard than everyone else."
Dimitri frowned. "I—Sonya? What does she have to do with any of this?"
"She said our auras match. She said we light up around each other. She says it means you still love me and that we're in sync, and . . ." I sighed and turned away, wandering across the room. "I don't know. I shouldn't have mentioned it. We shouldn't buy into this aura stuff when it comes from magic users who are already half-insane."
I reached the window and leaned my forehead against the cool glass, trying to decide what to do. Forgive myself. Could I? A small city sprawled before me, though I'd lost track of where we were. Cars and people moved below, souls out living their lives. I took a deep breath. The image of Victor on the asphalt was going to stay with me for a long, long time. I had done something horrible, even if my intentions were good, but everyone was right: I hadn't been myself. Did that change what had happened? Would that bring Victor back? No. And honestly, I didn't know how I would move past what I'd done, how I'd shake the bloody images in my head. I just knew I had to go on.
"If I let this stop me," I murmured, "if I do nothing . . . then that's the greater evil. I'll do more good by surviving. By continuing to fight and protect others."
"What are you saying?" asked Dimitri.
"I'm saying . . . I forgive myself. That doesn't make everything perfect, but it's a start." My fingertip traced the line of a tiny crack in the glass's surface. "Who knows? Maybe that outburst in the parking lot let out some of the darkness Sonya says is in my aura. Skeptic that I am, I have to give her some points. She was right that I was at a breaking point, that all I needed was a spark."
"She was right about something else too," Dimitri said after a long pause. My back was to him, but there was a strange quality to his voice that made me turn around.
"What's that?" I asked.
"That I do still love you."
With that one sentence, everything in the universe changed.
Time slowed to one heartbeat. The world became his eyes, his voice. This wasn't happening. It wasn't real. None of it could be real. It felt like a spirit dream. I resisted the urge to close my eyes and see if I'd wake up moments later. No. No matter how unbelievable it all seemed, this was no dream. This was real. This was life. This was flesh and blood.
"Since . . . since when?" I finally managed to ask.
"Since . . . forever." His tone implied the answer was obvious. "I denied it when I was restored. I had no room for anything in my heart except guilt. I especially felt guilty about you—what I'd done—and I pushed you away. I put up a wall to keep you safe. It worked for a while—until my heart finally started accepting other emotions. And it all came back. Everything I felt for you. It had never left; it was just hidden from me until I was ready. And again . . . that alley was the turning point. I looked at you . . . saw your goodness, your hope, and your faith. Those are what make you beautiful. So, so beautiful."
"So it wasn't my hair," I said, unsure how I was even capable of making a joke at a time like this.
"No," he said gently. "Your hair was beautiful too. All of you. You were amazing when we first met, and somehow, inexplicably, you've come even farther. You've always been pure, raw energy, and now you control it. You're the most amazing woman I've ever met, and I'm glad to have had that love for you in my life. I regret losing it." He grew pensive. "I would give anything—anything—in the world to go back and change history. To run into your arms after Lissa brought me back. To have a life with you. It's too late, of course, but I've accepted it."
"Why . . . why is it too late?"
Dimitri's eyes grew sad. "Because of Adrian. Because you've moved on. No, listen," he said, cutting off my protests. "You were right to do that after how I treated you. And more than anything else, I want you to be happy once we clear your name and get Jill recognized. You said yourself that Adrian makes you happy. You said you love him."
"But . . . you just said you love me. That you want to be with me." My words seemed clumsy, unworthy of his eloquence.
"And I told you: I'm not going to pursue another man's girlfriend. You want to talk honor? There it is in its purest form."
I walked toward him, each step ramping up the tension around us. Dimitri kept saying the alley was his turning point. For me? It was now. I stood on the precipice of something that would change my life. For the last week, I'd done a very good job of detaching myself from anything romantic with Dimitri. And yet . . . had I? What was love, really? Flowers, chocolate, and poetry? Or was it something else? Was it being able to finish someone's jokes? Was it having absolute faith that someone was there at your back? Was it knowing someone so well that they instantly understood why you did the things you did—and shared those same beliefs?
All week, I'd claimed my love for Dimitri was fading. In reality, it had been growing more and more. I hadn't even realized it was happening. I had been re-establishing our old rapport, strengthening the connection. Reaffirming that of all the people in the world—even Lissa—Dimitri was the only one who truly got me.
I'd meant it: I loved Adrian. It was hard to imagine life without him, but my other words at the Mastranos' had betrayed me: I have fun with him. Now, you should have fun with the one you love, but that shouldn't have been what first came to mind. I should have said, We strengthen each other. Or, He makes me want to be a better person. Perhaps most importantly: He understands me perfectly.
But none of that was true, so I hadn't said those things. I'd sought Adrian for comfort. His familiarity and humor were an important part of my world. And if he was in danger? I'd throw my life before his, just as I would for Lissa. Yet, I didn't inspire him, not really. He was trying. He did want to be a better person, but at this moment in his life, his motivations were more about impressing others—about impressing me. It wasn't for himself. That didn't make him bad or weak, but it made me his crutch. He would get past that, I was certain. He would eventually come into his own and be an amazing man, but he wasn't at that point of self-discovery yet. I was.
I stood in front of Dimitri now, looking into those dark eyes again, the eyes I loved so much. I placed my hands on his chest, feeling his heart beating strong and steady—and maybe a bit faster than normal. Warmth spread through my fingertips. He reached up and caught hold of my wrists but didn't push me away. The lines of that gorgeous face looked strained as he fought some inner conflict, but now that I knew—now that I knew for sure—I could see his love for me. Love mingled with desire. It was so, so obvious.
"You should have told me," I said. "You should have told me this a long time ago. I love you. I've never stopped loving you. You have to know that."
His breath caught when I said I love you, and I could see his internal struggle for control become an all-out war. "It wouldn't have made any difference. Not with Adrian involved," he said. The fingers around my hand tightened slightly as though he really might push me away this time. He didn't. "I mean it. I won't be that guy, Rose. I won't be that man who takes someone else's woman. Now, please. Let go. Don't make this any more difficult."
I ignored the request.
If he'd wanted to get away from me, he could have. I splayed my fingers, touching more of his chest, drinking in the feel of that warm contact I'd missed for so long.
"I don't belong to him," I said in a low voice, pushing close to Dimitri and tilting my head back so that I could see his face clearly. So much emotion, so much conflict as his heart tried to decide right from wrong. Being pressed against him felt like . . . completion. Sonya had said no couple could share one aura or one soul, but ours weren't meant to be apart. They fit together like a puzzle, two individuals making something greater than themselves. "I don't belong to anyone. I make my own choices."
"And you're with Adrian," said Dimitri.
"But I was meant for you."
And that did it. Any pretense of control or reason either of us possessed melted away. The walls crumbled, and everything we'd been holding back from each other came rushing out. I reached up, pulling us together for a kiss—a kiss he didn't let go this time. A kiss I didn't end by punching him. His arms encircled me as he lifted me onto the bed, one hand soon sliding along my hip and down to my leg, already half-bare, thanks to that poor tattered dress.
Every nerve in my body lit up, and I felt that desire returned in him—and then some. After a world of death, he seemed to appreciate love more. Not only that, he needed it. He needed life. He needed me—not just physically, but in the same way my heart and soul always cried out for him. What we did then, as our clothes came off and we brought our bodies together became more than just lust—even though there was plenty of that too.
Being with him after so long, after everything we'd endured . . . it was like coming home. Like finally being where—with whom—I belonged. My world, my heart . . . they'd shattered when I lost him. But as he looked at me, as his lips spoke my name and ran along my skin . . . I knew those pieces could come back together. And I knew, with absolute certainty, that waiting for this—for my second time having sex—had been the right thing to do. Anyone else, any other time . . . it would have been wrong.
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