Frostbite

I smiled and touched her hand. I had absolute faith in her. "I know."

We talked for most of the evening. When the time came for my usual practice with Dimitri, I parted ways with her. As I walked away, I pondered something that had been bothering me. Although the attacking groups of Strigoi had had many more members, the guardians felt confident Isaiah had been their leader. That didn't mean there wouldn't be other threats in the future, but they felt it'd be a while before his followers regrouped.

But I couldn't help thinking about the list I'd seen in the tunnel in Spokane, the one that had listed royal families by size. And Isaiah had mentioned the Dragomirs by name. He knew they were almost gone, and he'd sounded keen on being the one to finish them. Sure, he was dead now…but were there other Strigoi out there with the same idea?

I shook my head. I couldn't worry about that. Not today. I still needed to recover from everything else. Soon, though. Soon I'd have to deal with this.

I didn't even know if our practice was still on but went to the locker room anyway. After changing into practice clothes, I headed down into the gym and found Dimitri in a supply room, reading one of the Western novels he loved. He looked up at my entrance. I'd seen little of him in these last few days and had figured he was busy with Tasha.

"I thought you might come by," he said, putting a bookmark between the pages.

"It's time for practice."

He shook his head. "No. No practice today. You still need to recover."

"I've got a clean bill of health. I'm good to go." I pushed as much patented Rose Hathaway bravado into my words as I could.

Dimitri wasn't falling for any of it. He gestured to the chair beside him. "Sit down, Rose."

I hesitated only a moment before complying. He moved his own chair close to mine so that we sat directly across from each other. My heart fluttered as I looked into those gorgeous dark eyes.

"No one gets over their first kill…kills…easily. Even with Strigoi…well, it's still technically taking a life. That's hard to come to terms with. And after everything else you went through …" He sighed, then reached out and caught my hand in his. His fingers were exactly like I remembered, long and powerful, calloused with years of training. "When I saw your face…when we found you in that house…you can't imagine how I felt."

I swallowed. "How … how did you feel?"

"Devastated … grief-stricken. You were alive, but the way you looked … I didn't think you'd ever recover. And it tore me apart to think of that happening to you so young." He squeezed my hand. "You will recover-I know that now, and I'm glad. But you aren't there. Not yet. Losing someone you care about is never easy."

My eyes dropped from his and studied the floor. "It's my fault," I said in a small voice.

"Hmm?"

"Mason. Getting killed."

I didn't have to see Dimitri's face to know compassion was filling it. "Oh, Roza. No. You made some bad decisions…you should have told others when you knew he was gone…but you can't blame yourself. You didn't kill him."

Tears brimmed in my eyes as I looked back up. "I might as well have. The whole reason he went there-it was my fault. We had a fight…and I told him about the Spokane thing, even though you asked me not to…."

One tear leaked out of the corner of my eye. Really, I needed to learn to stop that. Just as my mother had, Dimitri delicately wiped the tear off my cheek.

"You can't blame yourself for that," he told me. "You can regret your decisions and wish you'd done things differently, but in the end, Mason made his decisions too. That was what he chose to do. It was his decision in the end, no matter your original role." When Mason had come back for me, I realized, he'd let his feelings for me get in the way. It was what Dimitri had always feared, that if he and I had any sort of relationship, it would put us-and any Moroi we protected-in danger.

"I just wish I'd been able to … I don't know, do anything…"

Swallowing back further tears, I pulled my hands from Dimitri's and stood up before I could say something stupid.

"I should go," I said thickly. "Let me know when you want to start practice again. And thanks for … talking."

I started to turn; then I heard him say abruptly, "No."

I glanced back. "What?"

He held my gaze, and something warm and wonderful and powerful shot between us.

"No," he repeated. "I told her no. Tasha."

"I …" I shut my mouth before my jaw hit the floor. "But…why? That was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. You could have had a baby. And she … she was, you know, into you…."

The ghost of a smile flickered on his face. "Yes, she was. Is. And that's why I had to say no. I couldn't return that…couldn't give her what she wanted. Not when…" He took a few steps toward me. "Not when my heart is somewhere else."

I almost started crying again. "But you seemed so into her. And you kept going on about how young I acted."

"You act young," he said, "because you are young. But you know things, Roza. Things people older than you don't even know. That day …" I knew instantly which day he referred to. The one up against the wall. "You were right, about how I fight to stay in control. No one else has ever figured that out- and it scared me. You scare me."

"Why? Don't you want anyone to know?"

He shrugged. "Whether they know that fact or not doesn't matter. What matters is that someone-that you-know me that well. When a person can see into your soul, it's hard. It forces you to be open. Vulnerable. It's much easier being with someone who's just more of a casual friend."

"Like Tasha."

"Tasha Ozera is an amazing woman. She's beautiful and she's brave. But she doesn't-"

"She doesn't get you," I finished.

He nodded. "I knew that. But I still wanted the relationship. I knew it would be easy and that she could take me away from you. I thought she could make me forget you."

I'd thought the same thing about Mason. "But she couldn't."

"Yes. And, so … that's a problem."

"Because it's wrong for us to be together."

"Yes."

"Because of the age difference."

"Yes."

"But more importantly because we're going to be Lissa's guardians and need to focus on her-not each other."

"Yes."

I thought about this for a moment and then looked straight into his eyes. "Well," I said at last, "the way I see it, we aren't Lissa's guardians yet."

I steeled myself for the next response. I knew it was going to be one of the Zen life lessons. Something about inner strength and perseverance, about how the choices we made today were templates for the future or some other nonsense.

Instead he kissed me.

Time stopped as he reached out and cupped my face between his hands. He brought his mouth down and brushed it against my lips. It was barely a kiss at first but soon increased, becoming heady and deep. When he finally pulled away, it was to kiss my forehead. He left his lips there for several seconds as his arms held me close.

I wished the kiss could have gone on forever. Breaking the embrace, he ran a few fingers through my hair and down my cheek. He stepped back toward the door.

"I'll see you later, Roza."

"At our next practice?" I asked. "We are starting those up again, right? I mean, you still have things to teach me."

Standing in the doorway, he looked over at me and smiled. "Yes. Lots of things."