(Dimitri's POV)

"I know you are going, but you are the only person who is definitely going. I, on the other hand, might not be allowed to leave." This is exactly what I was afraid of before I was going to tell her. Hans may not want me to go to rescue Lissa, because I might need to stay and guard Christian here at court. Now that Vasilisa was targeted, Christian may also be at risk, and no one would want him to be under the care of slack substitute guardians, just like the mistake that was made with Lissa. We now knew she wasn't taken by strigoi, so there was no reason her guardians could have made such a big mistake. It was baffling, and even if I had to stay at court, I am determined to find out why and how the guardians didn't protect our Queen.

I am pretty apt at reading Rose's expressions, and I could tell she was going to have none of this. She will flip any second now, it was just a very Rose Hathaway thing to d—

"What!" Rose says, jumping out of her chair, proving my predictions. "What do you mean might not be allowed to go?"

I sigh. "I mean exactly that." I touch her arm gently. "Can we discuss this later please?"

Rose shakes her head but acquiesced on the sitting down part. "I want to know why you can't go and save Lissa. You have saved plenty of people and know what you are doing. I mean, if they would send one of us, it should be you over me!" She hisses.

"I think I should go," Nikolai says. "I will be somewhere in this vicinity if you need me." He then gets up and gets the hell out of here. There was no point arguing with Rose. She knew me too well and knew how to get to me. I also really don't want it all to blow up in my face. Rose could pretty much have any guy she wanted with how she looked, and I am really lucky she chose me, especially after what I had done to her in the past.

"Rose I'm going to give you some time to think over this," I say, standing up and brushing a hand over her shoulders before I walk out. Just like that. I don't turn around and look back, I just go.

I had no idea where I was headed, but my subconscious must. I found myself at the gym. There was no one at the gym at this hour, besides Nikolai. I didn't want his questions, so instead I do some punches and kicks with a boxing bag as my target. I work up from the easy stuff to more intense things, things that could kill a human or moroi on impact. Strigoi, not really, but it sure will distract them. I often got questions if I still had some strigoi speed and strength since I was more powerful since I had been turned, but the truth was, I was working really hard. Now that I had seen what those monsters could do, I wanted to be the most prepared than any guardian could be. I wanted to have the upper hand, and even more than that, I didn't want anyone to experience what I did. If that meant I would kill every single strigoi out there, so be it.

The door to the gym opens but lost in my own thoughts and skills, I promptly ignore it. Distractions. The difference between getting distracted and ignoring anything but the opponent was life or death. Let your focus slip, even for less than a second, you could be dead.

A strong pair of hands grab my shoulders and the attacker uses their leg to flip me over, moving in to pin me onto the ground with the accuracy only associated with a guardian. They then jab a practice stake into my chest.

"You're dead Comrade." A familiar voice laughs. I try to flip around but my wrists were held down by a strong force that I could only pick was trained by myself. My attacker leans forward, and I get a closer look at the most beautiful woman in my life. Tan skin, light brown eyes, and gorgeous long silky brown hair bound up into a loose bun. She hadn't even broken into a sweat pinning me down, but she has had plenty of practice at pinning me down.

I take in her smile for a second before she pins me down again. Not with her hand this time—no—with her lips. She didn't need to use any force or strength to hold me down. I would've happily stayed there all day.

Rose pulls away and extends her hands to help me stand up. I gratefully take her hands and let her help me up, in an effort to try and mask my disappointment. "Blown off enough steam yet? They need you back to help out with something." Rose asks, placing her hands on my shoulders. I grab her waist and pull her close. Her hands move off my shoulders as she wraps her arms around my neck.

"Yeah, I think I'm ready to go back," I state, pulling away from her to begin packing away the equipment.

Back in the Guardian Building, it was nearing almost complete chaos. Guardians don't typically work chaotically, so it surprises me. Rose, however, isn't so surprised. Unlike me, she didn't mind a bit of chaos and definitely did not have her books sorted in a particular order. My westerns are in a particular order, not alphabetically, by colour, size or anything like that. It is an order that no one has been able to decipher, bar Rose. I really don't understand how she gets all those tiny details about me. Though I understand her completely as well, I don't understand how we manage it, but we just do. But the moral of this, it was chaos in my mind. Rose notices and grips my arm, comforting me. At least through all the chaos, there was one thing to keep me sane.

There was some form of a meeting being conducted. Not completely in as much order as you would usually see for guardians, but it seems to be working. I think.

"What on Earth is going on?" Rose asks, astounded. I wasn't quite so sure either, so I just shook my head and shrugged. Our queries were answered shortly however—when the group was silenced. Hans, the head of guardians at court, stands up at the front.

"Okay, we need to organise who is actually going on this rescue mission. As Queen Vasilisa's Primary Guardian, Hathaway, you're on board unless you have something more important than doing your job?" Hans says, almost tauntingly. He has never liked Rose, much to my disdain. He didn't think she was worthy of working as the head of the Queen's guard, even after she had proved herself by taking a bullet for her. Rose was more loyal than any other guardian here just about, but Hans was just going to crush it with his reputation. Don't get me wrong, I completely respected the head guardian, but I thought he was a little over his head here.

Rose jumps up from where we were seated. "Of course I'm going!" She says with a look of disbelief and disgust plastered across her face. She walks up to the front, to where Hans was standing.

"So, can any of her other guardians stand up? And Lord Ozera's?" He continues. I stand up, along with nine or so other guardians. The four with Vasilisa at the time were immediately reallocated, and the new one mustn't have been alerted about this meeting.

Hans continues. "Now, Lord Ozera must stay safe, as he won't be going to Australia due to its harsh conditions, so I would only allow one of his guardians to go under these circumstances. On top of that, we can't compromise our security here at court, so we're going to have to make four guardians work." I draw in a sharp breath. That wasn't many and we didn't entirely know what we were getting ourselves into.

"I think Guardian Belikov would be our best bet because he works extremely well with Hathaway and can hopefully keep her in line. You up Belikov?" Hans asks.

I wasn't one to disagree with authority, no matter how much I disliked the person, so I just nodded. I wouldn't have let Rose go alone anyway. I would've eventually found a way to rope myself in. I walk up and join Rose at the front, locking eyes with her for a second. "Your welcome Guardian Hathaway," I whisper mockingly. I get a cute little eye roll in return, and I smile to myself as the other two guardians were chosen.

Afterwards, the four of us headed straight to the gym. Hans made it very clear that he wanted us to be able to work together as efficiently as possible. Rose and I were already up to speed with those prospects, but we had yet to work out what the other two could do. I didn't know either of them personally, but I had seen them around court. Each guarding a moroi from the Drozdov clan, both of them were only about two or three years younger than me. They certainly knew each other—obviously because of working closely together with the Drozdov family—but something about their easy banter triggered me to believe that they knew each other more than just guarding partners. It was similar to what I experienced with Rose. Either way, they worked together almost as well as Rose and I did. The male guardian was a little shorter than I was, though quite similarly built. I found it easy to adapt and work in tandem with him and made note of this for if Christian ever needed any more guardians. What amazed me, however, was how well matched the female guardian and Rose were. Her name was Guardian Valdez, and she and Rose took all of a short ten minutes before they were both in tune with each other. Of course, there were still tweaks that could be made but it was good enough to work with for now.

It was then that I realised that this team was perfect. We moved onto team exercises, and these understandably took longer to adapt to, but we were guardians and could adapt fast. Still, it took way less time than expected. I'm not sure what it was about it, but we all seemed to fit in together like puzzle pieces. After about another hour, we finally called it quits.

"That was a great practice." Rose manages to gasp out, puffed.

"It was." I agree, having caught my breath. "Guardian Valdez and...?"

"Guardian Miller, but please, call me Samuel." He replies.

"And call me Clementina." Guardian Valdez adds.

Rose laughs. "Well, I was never one to use formal names in my entire life so far, so please call me Rose." I scoff and look at her. She rarely does or has called me Guardian Belikov, besides when she was mad at me or when she was being particularly flirty.

"I'm Dimitri," I add, pushing our equipment back to the sides of the gym.

"Hey, are you guys free this evening? Maybe we could go out and get to know each other better?" Rose asks, looking at me for confirmation. I nod. I personally thought it was a great idea. The other two must've thought the same too because Rose and I left with arrangements to meet up at one of the bars near the guardian building.

Laterin the evening, Rose and I find ourselves sitting in a booth in the bar we hadarranged to meet up at. It had a good chill vibe and was designed with off-dutyguardians in mind.