The Hidden Blood (Vampire Academy)

Chapter 28

The ride back home in the car was tiring. Mariah and Damon both slept and as I looked out the window, Dimitri grabbed my hand.

I didn’t look at him, continued to stare out the window. A smile appeared on my lips that I tried to hide but was unsuccessful with. This is weird, I thought. A man, Dimitri no less is grabbing my hand. Like this is normal. Like we’re a normal couple.

I laced my fingers with his and brought his fingers to my lips.

“So, should we talk now?” I asked him wanting to get my mind off Rae.

“About what? Last night?”

A blush came to my cheeks. “We have mad crazy sex for the first time in like ever in the middle of a play ground where anyone could have seen, and that you think that topic wouldn’t come up?” I bark a quiet laugh, “Yeah, about last night.”

“Okay, what do you want to talk about?”

I sank lower in my chair, “What are your thoughts on the incident?”

“Is that really the first word that pops into your mind when you think about it?” Dimitri asked looking over at me.

“No, what comes to mind aren’t really words at all but I can recall some of the ones that I said last night if it would make you feel better,” I said smugly.

Dimitri gripped the steering wheel, assumably from reliving those tender moments. “I remember you saying my name more than enough times, thanks…”

“Hey, I wasn’t the only one saying names, ya know,” I take my hand from his and place it on his legs.

The car swerves the slightest and I hold in a giggle.

“I guess I just want to know where we stand,” I murmur after he gets the car under control. “I… I don’t really want to run away anymore.”

“I… I don’t have any words to describe how happy I would be if you stayed,” Dimitri looked over at me again and I smiled.

“Are you saying that you would like to be their father? Permanently?” I ask trying not to get my hopes up. “Along with everything that comes with it?”

“I’m saying I want to be ours kids father along with a passionate lover to their mother… I don’t know if you’re ready to get married, we never really talked about it. I don’t know about if there will be some permanent promise exchanged between us, but what I do know is that I won’t be telling you anymore lies. I won’t be pushing you away again, forcing you to run.”

His arm wraps up into my hair and rubs down my neck. “I’m not going to be without you… Ever again. I know that it was hell for you, and I’m not going to pretend to understand what that was like. But what I do know was that while you were living, being a mother to your children, I wasn’t. I didn’t. I threw myself into every fight, every life and death situation. I didn’t prove my worth like you did, I didn’t really try. I didn’t see the point without you by my side.”

A tear slips down the side of my cheek. Neither of us were best at using our words, and great at explaining our feelings, so this said a lot to me.

“How about we forget the past and start on our future?”

“I like that much!” Damon said with a big smile.

“You would!?” I asked him seeing as Mariah was awake too.

“Daddy gonna be your sol mate?” Mariah asked shyly. I needed to talk to her and see what she thought about all of this.

This was a lot to take in.

“I would like him to be, Mariah, we’ll talk about it, okay, sweetie?”

She nodded and looked out the window gloomily.

Dimtri looked rather down and I slid my fingers through his. “It’ll happen, just give her time. She didn’t really like me at first either,” I joke. “She would cry, and cry, and cry, and cry some more at first whenever she would fall into my arms. With Grandma and Rae? She was fine, but with me? Oh no, the only time she was quiet was when I was breast feeding, and then I was crying.”

Dimitri’s laugh chuckled, the laugh rumbling through his chest, hair falling into his eyes. I push it out of the way so he can drive straight, and lean my head on his shoulder as we continue to drive.

Don’t ask me why, whatever you do, don’t ask me how I figured this out, but I did. Weird things happen to a person brain when they become a mother. The pick up on the small things.

My kids were the first Dampier's ever to have abilities and drink blood. But, Lissa has been a Moroi with Magic for a very long time. And if you think about it, they would need Spirt users to stay alive, not dead. The Strigoi need Spirt users to turn them half human or whatever they are doing. But...

“What if the attack in Iowa wasn’t a coincidence?” I asked Dimitri.

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it,” I said to him quietly. “If Strigoi got a hold of Mariah and Damon, they’d be pretty much unstoppable. Before they were hard to kill, now they’re almost impossible. And if they got a hold of our kids with all the four elements into two people? They’re young, they can be manipulated, and even more so, if they need blood and the Strigoi have Spirit users. What if the attack on the school wasn’t about Lissa? What if it was about them?”

Dimitri looked down at me, “That’s not possible, Roza, what Strigoi would know about their abilities?”

“I don’t know but this feeling inside me just won’t go away…”

“Well, what’s that feeling?” Dimitri asked curiously.

I couldn’t exactly put a finger on it, but I could definitely tell it was dread, but Dimitri was right. Who else would know? There wasn’t anything to worry about.

“Roza?” Dimitri pulled me out of my thoughts and I shook my head.

“Just this feeling that something really, really bad is about to happen to me and the ones I love most.”