Into the Ether - Complete

Spring, When New Things Grow: Part 24

"So how well do you know Belikov?" Abe asked me as we were wandering through the kitchen. He'd brought me inside on the pretext of looking at the workspaces.

"Better than I know pretty much anyone," I said confidently. "Speaking of which, you should be aware I can't cook at all, so if you genuinely want advice about how to set up your kitchen, ask Dimitri – he likes to cook."

Abe laughed.

"Point taken. I wanted to speak to you privately to ask more about your relationship with Dimitri. I'm trying to fill in the blanks about how he went from leading the team who recovered you to your boyfriend and more," he said dropping his eyes to my waist.

"What happens with this information?" I asked suspiciously. "I'm not telling you anything if it's going to be used in any way which could hurt Dimitri or my baby."

"I promise only your father, and I will hear this," Abe answered.

"And you promise it won't be used to hurt Dimitri or my baby?"

"I promise," he replied.

"Ok, well there's not a lot to tell," I said honestly. "He and I have talked about it since, and we both felt an attraction from early on, but nothing happened until the Equinox Dance. Did you hear that Victor Dashkov kidnaped my best friend, Lissa?"

"Yes it came up in the background check," he said. "I read the report about the kidnapping." I was grateful he'd admitted to having me checked out. Somehow his honesty made me feel I could trust him.

"Then you might have read that Victor put a charm on my necklace? To cause me to attack Dimitri?"

"Yes?"

"Well there was a charm, but it was a lust charm. Victor realized Dimitri and I had feelings for each other, and that's how he planned to distract us and get Lissa away."

"So that's when you were first intimate with Dimitri?" Abe asked delicately.

"No. We came close, and we both really wanted to, but Dimitri figured out the necklace was charmed and threw it out the window. At first, he told me what happened was because of the charm and he didn't have feelings like that for me. But a few days later I was injured battling Victor's daughter who turned Strigoi, and when he was carrying me to the infirmary, Dimitri finally admitted he was attracted to me but that we could never be together and we couldn't act on it."

"So how did that change?" Abe asked.

"We couldn't help it. Even though we weren't letting ourselves do anything about it, we fell in love. We told each other how we felt about half an hour before he got the news of his reallocation. He had to go to Missoula to sort things out at the bank and update his will. When he told me he was going to spend his last few days away from the Academy there, I begged to go with him. We'd fought how we felt the whole time we'd known each other, but once he was no longer my mentor, I wasn't letting him go without showing him how much I cared. We had five days together and then he was gone."

"And when he got back you were pregnant."

"Yes." I could tell he wanted to ask if Dimitri was the father, but he didn't.

"What do you know about his time away and his mission?"

"Pretty much everything."

"And did he mention anything about recently coming into some money?"

"A hundred million rubles?" I asked, lifting my eyebrows and giving him a 'yes I know about that' look. Abe looked surprised. "You'll have to speak to Dimitri about it, but yes I know about it and how he came to have it. He was hoping to give it all to his family, but he said we'll probably have to take some of it to set ourselves up in the human world. It's starting to look like the only way."