Times Change (complete)

Chapter 27

"I understand that, but would you cheat on me if you lost your mama?"

"No, I could never do that to you Roza. I would have to be completely out of my mind to do something like that to you."

"I know that eventually either we will lose our family, or they will lose us. But I hope that none of us lose it like that when we do."

She sounded so heartbroken and disappointed that my own heart broke for her. I brought her against my chest and wrapped her in my arms which is how we stood for the longest time.

Bringing herself back to the present she asked. "So, what should we do? Do we let Jill and the rest of the world know who she really is?"

"No, she doesn't need to know yet. We need to allow her to have as much of a normal 'childhood' as she possibly can. And if we can help it we should not let this become public knowledge at least not for a while. But sooner or later we will have no other choice. For her to take the Dragomir seat on the council, everyone will have to know eventually."

"Why will she need to take the Dragomir seat? What about Lissa?"

I knew that this was going to be difficult for her to hear. So, I was just going to speak in generalizations and not specifics.

"Not long after graduation Lissa will become far too unstable to hold the Dragomir seat. Even with there being another Dragomir."

"Why?"

"Because she becomes to mentally unstable to do anything like that."

"Oh. Is there anything that can be done?"

"No she becomes so unstable... that she threatens your life."

"Oh. Is that before or after Jill becomes known?"

"Before. It is why Jill becomes known. After Lissa more or less loses her mind, the council have all the moroi from the age five to fifty-five tested. Wanting to see if Eric or any of the other Dragomir's had any more children. At one point they were even hoping that André had an illegitimate child out there somewhere. During the search is when Jill is discovered. If they hadn't found Jill, then they were going to test the dhampir next. To see if any of them held enough Dragomir DNA to take the spot on the council. You had already abolished the quorum law and enacted a law that gave dhampir with enough royal DNA, the rights to be royals if they so choose, they were not forced to do so however. You did force the law for all the royal families to accept it though. A few of them didn't like it, the Zeklos's were the most vocal against it."

"Of course." She scowled.

I was not going to tell her that I killed Lissa for threatening her life. She didn't need to know that, and I hoped that would be one of the things that I would soon forget.

Not that I was ashamed of having protected her, because that would never happen. But because I knew that regardless of how she felt about Lissa, she wouldn't want me carrying around those types of memories. She is just that protective of me.

"Well, that is all a shocker." She gave a mirthless chuckle.

"Yes, it is. But it had to be done, because they needed to find someone to fill the Dragomir seat. Now it's up to you whether or not we tell Christian the truth about..."

"Tell Christian the truth about what?" I heard none other than Christian ask from the doorway.

Roza and Addie both looked at me eyes wide and frantic, wanting to know what to do. But I still didn't know what to do, I had never been in a situation like this before.

"Rose? Please don't lie to me. If there is something that I need to know about, please just tell me. I think that I deserve the truth. I think that after everything that we've been through together, that I deserve your honesty. Whatever it is, I promise you that I will never blame you for it."