Only Him

Chapter 46

46

Light danced beyond my eyelids, illuminating the blackness around me into a red haze. I felt a car moving beneath me and smiled a little, shifting to rest my head against the window. Were Dimitri and I taking another road trip? The thought was a comforting one. We'd discussed it, getting away for a little while as a family, just me, him and Aleksey, once Marlen was taken care of. Despite the circumstances of our first major road trip, Dimitri and I had enjoyed the freedom of sitting behind the wheel of a car and deciding at random where the road would take us. We'd taken a few road trips since Lissa became queen, usually taking a weeks vacation once a year and just getting in the car to drive. It had taken us a lot of places. The first one had taken us to the Corn Palace, another to St. Louis and a third to Colorado. We had missed last years due to my pregnancy but I was happy to make up for it now.

I could hear the low murmur of his voice in the seat beside me as he spoke, apparently talking to me even while I was asleep.

I sighed and relaxed further, allowing the peaceful atmosphere to sink into my body and relax muscles that had been tense for days on end.

There was music playing softly in the background, I realized, and tuned in, expecting some old Prince song or equally as embarrassing eighties classic.

Instead, I caught the guitar rift to a completely modern rock song. I felt my eyebrows furrow slightly. Dimitri would never listen to this. He said it was just noise. It wasn't even country, which was his second favorite genre. I tuned in closer to the conversation.

"—wherever we want. That's the beauty of it. No more rules, no more listening to Moroi who think they're better than us. Freedom. That's what we'll have."

The receding tension in my body returned full force, like a wave crashing against the rocky shore, sinking immediately into every available space of my body.

That wasn't Dimitri's voice.

And then it all came back to me. Dimitri wasn't back from Baltimore yet, I didn't even know how the fight had gone or if the trap had even been successful. Was he even alive? And Aleksey? Where was he? I heard no signs of him in the back seat. I doubted he was quiet because in the two short car rides we'd taken with him since his birth we'd learned he was not a huge fan of the car, fussing and crying for most of it. No, we hadn't been planning a road trip at all. I'd been going back to my apartment to get his diaper cream and left him with Lissa. He'd been crying and I'd been in a hurry. I'd gotten stopped by Lord Ivashkov but had left him and gone back to my apartment.

What had happened after that? I'd found the cream, I knew. I'd known exactly where it was and been in and out of my home in five seconds.

But I hadn't gotten back to Lissa's. I had no memory of anything after exiting the guardian housing.

I registered a dull throbbing at the back of my head and had the immediate instinct to reach back and touch it but I restrained myself. Whoever was beside me, a familiar voice that I knew but couldn't quite place, hadn't realized I was awake yet.

I tuned in to what they were saying.

"I think you'd like somewhere with land. I know you're pretty social but we've both had enough ridicule from the masses for a while. What we need is distance, a place where nobody's opinions but our own matter. What do you think? No more being called a whore, a disgrace."

I knew that voice. Who was it? It was one I heard often enough to be familiar with it but not daily. And why was he being called a whore, too?

"It's one thing for Moroi to look down on us because we need them to have children, its another for your own kind to look down on you for your relationships."