Alpha Dhampir~ On Hold

Chapter 19

Ivan Zeklos

I regretted coming back to the Court the moment I walked out into the room full of the people who were supposed to love and care for the little Rose that had graced my life and renewed it vigorously. Ever since laying eyes on the Dhampir, she had wormed her way into my heart, and I had no intentions of letting her go. I would have preferred to have stayed in Italy, rather than return to the states, but then again, the world needed to know just who my little petal was, to show all those thorns that had been in her sides that she was much more than they thought her to be.

Rose had been a wreck since she got the call from Abe, and I wasn't the only one who saw. Moira and Lucas had seen it too. Even though they were excited to see their son again, they were worried about her. They knew as much as me that she didn't want to return to the place that majority of her pain had originated from. I was furious though, I had been friends with Dmitri since we started at St Basil's, and I couldn't believe that he would treat anyone the way that he treated her, the woman who did everything, gave up everything to save him from a life of hell. Sure, before Rose had brought me back, I had heard of her. Every Strigoi on the planet had heard of the hunter Rose Hathaway from when she was in Russia hunting Dmitri down. There was a bounty for her head; all factors of the undead wanted her dead or one of them. The thought of Rose as a Strigoi made me sick, it made me wish I were a Strigoi again so I could hunt them down and end them, but that would have been a waste of the gift of life given to me.

We hadn't even been in Court for a whole day yet and I wanted to leave. I hadn't seen Moira and Lucas since Rose shooed them off to reconnect with their son. That was how selfless she was. We all knew she didn't wish to be alone without us in such a place, but instead of begging us to stay, she told us to do what we wanted. For the Ozeras to spend time with their son that they doubted that they would ever see again; and for me to spend the night with the man I had once loved. Rose wanted us to be happy before she found her happiness.

Ok, what I said before, about 'once loved', that was a lie. I wished that I no longer loved him, after everything he did and the way he acted, but I still did. My heart deeply held so much love for him still, but it also shared love for Rose. That I am this attracted to her was an intoxication, yet I would forever be her best friend and fierce protector too. My mother always told me that 'Love should always be a bundle-package', and our chemistry told me she was the one. But the chemistry I shared with the exotic desert princess was the same that I once shared with a man the very man who broke her into a million pieces.

Dmitri had told me everything during the hours we had together. No, we didn't find ourselves in a bed together, tangled under the sheets. Instead, we found the nearest pub and sat in a darkened corner and caught up on everything. He told me about finding Rose in the first place, and the love he felt for her. How he tried to fight those feelings, at least until she finished school, to the point that he had been seriously tempted to take up the Suka's offer to be a Guardian and husband for her. I shuddered at the thought, beyond relieved that he hadn't taken the offer. I told him about the attack and how I was turned. In return he told me about the attack on the Academy, something that Rose had never been able to tell me. The most she had said about that time was how Christian and she had fought with one another, working as a well-oiled team.

I could see how proud Dmitri was of Rose, he was like a father or a father-figure talking about his child's accomplishments. She had shown the teachers from the beginning that she wasn't the lazy, spiteful child they all thought she was. She was thirteen when she killed her first Strigoi, an impossible task for a novice of that age. But that hadn't stopped him from forgetting everything that they had succeeded or throwing it away, in the actions of breaking her heart.