Years Since Past: Royal Reason

Chapter eight

He hugged me again and I buried my head in his embrace. I looked up for a moment to examine the faces of my friends. Shock? Happiness? Hope? All things I thought I'd see on their faces. Lissa being Lissa obviously knew about Dimitri's plan, Christian looked blown away- he wasn't expecting this at all, even though dhampir relationships were more out in the open these days, some people were still shocked to hear about their engagements or weddings to each other. Sydney looked strange though. She looked worried. And I knew why. The prediction was coming true. Shit. But apart from her worried thoughts she did look really happy for us. And Adrian, of course knew about the proposal because I had told him. I never thought the day would come where I would have my ex boyfriend currently rooting for my relationship with another man to succeed, but it had, and that is when I knew, once and for all, that we were friends.
I hoped he would work things out with Sydney. They're both really good for each other, I thought. He brings out the adventurer in her, and she brings out the strong man, I knew that he'd one day be, out in him.
But Sydney and I would need to get threw what's to come. My mission.

I had been away for two weeks this time. Because Lissa was normally at the court, they didn't need me as much, so I'd occasionally do outside work. The kind I would have gotten in trouble for back at St. Vladimirs. The Royal court deemed me as someone who would get the job done, no matter the consequences. Sometimes they wouldn't tell Lissa as a way to keep her in a state of plausible deniability, which meant I couldn't tell her some of my missions. Especially lately. This last one I was sent to Siberia, it was no big deal. I'd been there before, I knew the terrain, so I was ideally the best person for the job. That's when I ran into her. Sydney. She too, was on a mission. Only it was Alchesmist sanctioned. I'd been shocked but helped her anyway.

Two weeks ago...
She was on the run from something she'd stumbled upon there. She rounded a corner from a bar I was watching and bumped into me. Reflexes kicked in and she was on the ground in seconds before I knew who she was.
"Ouch." Sydney said as she rubbed her hand against her skull.
I'd pulled her up and she relayed her mission and what had happened to me. She was in some dangerous stuff and I knew I would have to help her. God knows I wasn't going to let the girl get herself killed, she was my friend and Adrian's girlfriend. If she died and I was somehow implicated that would destroy the relationship he and I had worked on building for so long. I wasn't going to lose two friends in one day so I pushed my idea of helping out onto her plate. She excepted and we went to work.

Now, in the present, she stared at me with a grin on her face. She was happy for Dimitri and me. But she was still playing the jealous girlfriend act that we had to prepare for when we returned. So many things had happened over the last few weeks and we had to put some distance between us if we were going to elude the bad guys. I kept it to myself, we both did. I didn't tell Dimitri and she didn't tell Adrian, we couldn't. We had to keep them both safe. We had to keep everyone safe. Especially Lissa. I didn't know it when I took the assignment but I had figured out that her being a spirit user was what made her at the centre of our conspiracy theory. Someone was out to get her. Again. And Adrian, Sonya and Olenska too.
Whoever was doing this. Whoever was behind what Sydney and I had discovered was after spirit. But with us around, we weren't going to make it easy.