𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐘 ▸ Dimitri's love wasn't the only thing that faded. With his repudiation, hope faded for Rose. Can she find her way back to color and light when every day is silent and gray?
The daytime shift. It was better than you had reason to hope for, and you knew it—especially after the events of the last month.
After Dimitri had blithely announced his 'love had faded' your entire world had imploded. Incapable of even getting out of bed, you'd missed numerous shifts in the dead-end den for delinquent Dhampir souls, otherwise known as Guardian Records, earning you a docked payslip and Guardian Croft's ire.
And then there was Adrian. He'd stopped by the night Dimitri had torn your soul asunder. Sure, he'd used talking about Eric Dragomir as an excuse, but one thing had led to another, and you'd nearly had sex or let him feed from you—desperate to feel anything after Dimitri's words had crushed your heart. But in the end, all you'd felt was the inescapable certainty that Adrian wasn't the one for you, and that letting him believe he could be was every bit as cruel as what Belikov had done to you. So you'd ended it with him once and for all—sparking Adrian off on a drunken bender that lasted a week where he announced loudly and vociferously to half of Court that you were a bitch, blood whore, and a prick-tease.
By the time Guardian Croft had visited your dorm room to tell you if you didn't get back to your job filing then you'd be stripped of your Guardian title and privileges, life had pretty much hit rock bottom. Your love life and career were in tatters plus you were broke, and if you didn't return to work immediately, you'd also be homeless. So you'd closed your heart, buttoned your lip, and spent your time sequestered with the sequenced letters and symbols that now constituted the endpoint of your career.
Which is why you plastered a smile on your face as you listened to Lissa now.
"I know it's not what you'd hoped, but it's an active guarding position, and you'll be guarding me!" she announced buoyantly. To all intents and purposes, she sounded upbeat and positive, but her inner-dialogue through the bond told a different story.
She was worried about you. You didn't spend time with her anymore, and while she knew it was because Dimitri had regained his Guardian status and had been reinstated as her primary Guardian, it still hurt that you were never around. Which is why she'd peppered Guardian Croft with a volley of well-constructed arguments, aided by a healthy dose of compulsion, to convince him you should be appointed her daytime Guardian.
"I've arranged things with my other Guardian," she continued, sensible that you didn't even like to hear his name. "You'll be working 7:30 am to 7:30 pm—which means we can have breakfast and dinner together every day!"
You gave her an obligatory smile. She'd neglected to state the obvious—that three-quarters of the time you were on duty guarding her, she'd be asleep! But it was better than you had reason to hope for, and you knew it.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
It had been a month since you'd gone onto permanent day shift; two since Dimitri had cauterized your heart with his wily words. It never ceased to amaze you that the fleshy muscle contained within your rib cage still functioned, despite the nefarious injuries inflicted upon it by a man you still loved yet could not bear to even think about. Yet you were still standing, so perhaps your wounded heart was more hardy than you'd had reason to suspect? It was still beating, ergo you were still hurting.
