Rose's POV

Dimitri and his group was moving to stake Lissa. I watched them with caution and couldn’t help wonder at the way in which they had planned the strategy. They would have surely made it even if Liss had resisted.

But everything was destroyed in the blink of an eye as I could just feel an immense force, a storm which knocked down Dimitri and Sonya. My heart wrenched as the stake fell to the floor, and with it, our last hope.

And I watched in horror as the woman of my nightmares, Tasha Ozera grappled with the man of my life, Dimitri. I could see her trying to get closer to him and Dimitri trying to stake her. But they were in a state of deadlock.

Dimitri, the skilled fighter that he was, shouldn’t have had a problem to stake her. But there was more to this than a fight for life or death. I was a fight of hearts.

I could see from Dimitri’s face that he was in a dilemma.

He had loved her once, maybe if I had not existed in his life, they would have been a couple. I could see that feeling. The feeling that you are going to kill someone who is your friend.

How could he just raise his hands to make the kill?

As much as he says, that they are not the same person. But he could see before him someone whom he had adored. Though she was a criminal, a felon, and now a Strigoi, yet she was Tasha.

But this dilemma was something which Tasha didn’t have. Her head was clear and I saw that she was focused. And as she tried to reach closer to him, I suddenly realized what she was attempting to do.

She wanted to turn him, to own him for eternity. She had still not given up on him. I saw her eyeing his neck.

This was too much for me to bear, Tasha or not, my once role model, a friend…I didn’t care anymore. I couldn’t just afford to lose Dimitri to a Strigoi again.

I just without any second thought tore apart the bottom of my wedding dress, which was nothing but a hindrance.

Picking up the fallen stake, I realized that my blood was boiling and I wanted only one blood on that stake. That blood was Tasha’s.

I heard a feral cry from myself as I jumped into their fight and I knew, we were more than a match for her. Though she had been a fighter moroi, but we were the best of our lot.

“Rose, what are you doing, it’s Tasha,” he screamed.

“I will not let this woman destroy my life ever again,” I drew my stake across her cheek. It burned her skin black and she snarled.

At that moment I realized that she had turned completely and that there was no trace of any emotion, regret or otherwise.
Well that would make it easy. She is not the same anymore.

I was enraged as I saw Dimitri faltering. What was there to think so much?

And then I suddenly realized why I was what I was and he was he.

For me, Tasha was a competitor, a barrier in my love, someone who had betrayed my trust. But for him she was a friend, a one-time lover and though she betrayed all of us, but even I knew she did it for a cause.

But the problem was with me. Could I forget everything that she had done? She had framed me in the queen’s murder. I could have been executed because of her. She lied, deceived, cheated. Finally she shot me, well though not me, yet she did try to shoot the guardians.

And I had actually planned to tell Lissa, to persuade her to release Tasha from Tarasov in a few years. But it seemed, she had found a way to help herself.

Now that she was in that look, my stake was ready and poised, focused to kill. The only thing that kept me from striking out was what Dimitri and for that matter Christian might feel.

The fear of hurting my loved one’s was even greater than the fear of Strigoi, or death.

A/N  Tasha Ozera is a Moroi and a Christian's aunt who had once been influential and strong. Dimitri had loved her once. But soon fell for Rose. She tried to take revenge by murdering the previous queen, Tatiana Ivashkov and putting the blame on Rose. Ultimately she was arrested and imprisoned.

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