Alpha Dhampir~ On Hold

Chapter 25

Tatiana Ivashkov

I sat there listening to all the charges, not that they were new, except for the attack that just happened before the trial. I was trying to pay attention, but my mind went to the past. My past. I had never married and never had children, all the love I had in this world went to my family. But if you were outside the family, I would appear like a cold fish, no feelings, no love. I knew that Rose saw me that way, and I had only myself to blame for that. For years I had hated her, believing that she was corrupting Princess Vasilisa, the last of the Dragomir line. That was until five years ago when Adrian had found their little Rosie at the Ski Lodge.

I remember I was sitting in my chambers, looking over family albums, crying over a picture of my niece Rose when she was only three years old. She was the cutest child, always had a smile on her face. The day that she and her mother Janine disappeared, killed us all. My nephew Nathan and his family were devastated, as were the Badica's, Rose's family from her father's side. There were so many of us affected by the situation, Janine's sister and her husband had been destroyed by the news that they had willingly turned Strigoi. Well, that's what we were led to believe, the dark truths of our past finally began to come to light the moment Adrian found our little Rose again.

Crying over the photo, my assistant, Anna walked into the room, my nephew's hysterical voice screaming from the phone. I ripped it from her and called out to Adrian, hoping to calm him down.

"Adrian, what is the matter?"

Adrian couldn't talk, he had broken down, the sobs racking through the line. "She... she's alive!" he kept repeating it over and over, like a broken record. Groaning, I felt a migraine coming along, so rubbing my temples, I let him cry, whatever it was, all out before trying to get him to talk again.

It took over ten minutes, but finally he was calm enough to communicate. His voice was wrecked, it sounded like he had smoked an entire packet of cigarettes, which wouldn't have surprised me. "Aunt Tati, I found her! After all this time, I have found our little Rosie!"

His words took my breath away. It couldn't be. After all these years, it couldn't have been a coincidence, here I was reminiscing over her and now she has been found? Gripping the phone like it was a life-raft; I took a moment to breath before speaking.

"Where? Where is she Adrian?"

He hadn't sounded like a little boy in so long, but now, he was. He was the little boy who had lost his best friend, his little cousin who he had vowed to protect. "At the Ski Lodge! But Aunt, you hate her, you have a personal vendetta against her, one that is un..."

I jumped up, pacing the room. The only person under the age of eighteen that I had a problem with was Rosemarie Hathaway, the Novice Guardian that had risked Princess Vasilisa's life by taking her away from the Academy. That's when it hit me... Hathaway, that was the maiden-name of Janine's mother; Arianna; my niece, the first child of my late brother Alexandru.

I had publicly and privately... my own niece, the light that was our lives before she and her mother disappeared, feared to be dead. NO!

It took Adrian a couple of days to get me in contact with the Academy's head Guardian and Headmistress, Kirova. Getting in contact with them, I was told the truth. Rose had never risked Vasilisa's life, she had been compelled by a teacher to take her away, but when that didn't work, Vasilisa who hadn't felt safe at the time, begged her. Rose's love for the woman she saw as a sister won in the end, and the two teens ran for it. I had always thought Rose to be irresponsible, but in the end, she was quite the opposite. The fights that had been started in Rose's name, were never started by her, but by Vasilisa. While on the run, Rose had killed fourteen Strigoi, and three right after regaining consciousness after the car crash that had killed Vasilisa's family, as well as Rose, which we found out later. Rose was the only novice that was known to have killed before graduation, and that wasn't including Natalie, the daughter of Victor who willingly turned so they could force Vasilisa to heal Victor. Then there were the two strigoi in Spokane. When Adrian had called me saying that Rose and four of her friends had disappeared, I was petrified, I couldn't sleep or drink until they were found. Sadly, only four returned, Mason Ashford, a dear friend of Rose died, trying to help her. There were yet two more kills to go on my little Rosie's records.