I don't know how long the plane ride actually took but it felt like an eternity. I couldn't stop my leg from moving impatiently as the jet pulled into the gate. As soon as the aircraft was at the gate all the guardians and I were up and waiting for the door to open. The first place we needed to get to was the shopping center that had been mentioned.

Janine and I seemed to be the leaders of this rather large group of guardians. We searched up and down the center looking for the tunnels before we finally found it.

"Belikov, Hathaway, they've escaped!" One of the guardians ran up to me holding a phone.

"Hello?" I said urgently into the phone.

"Dimitri? It's Christian. We got away but Eddie isn't doing too good. Neither… neither is Rose."

After getting the information about where they were I sat in the back seat while they drove. Rose wasn't doing too good. What did that mean? Was she hurt? Was she dying?

It seemed to take forever to get to the house, but once we did we saw Christian, Mia and Eddie sitting on the curb in front of the house. Christian and Mia both looked like they were on the verge of starvation, and I barked an order to find them a feeder. As I looked at Eddie I understood what Christian had meant about him not being so good. Someone had fed from him multiple times and he looked like he couldn't support himself. As we all rushed from the car, three guardians went and collected the three students while the rest of us continued cautiously to the house. I was almost sure that I would find Rose dead inside. She wouldn't have stayed in there otherwise. I only briefly wondered about Mason.

I stepped through the doorway first and stopped almost instantly. Rose was hunched over in the middle of the living room of the house. Two decapitated Strigoi lay not too far away, but what we all noticed was that Rose was draped over the body of Mason Ashford. She looked as if she could have been dead, but I noticed the slight movement of her body tense up as we entered the room.

She lifted her head up to look at us and my heart broke. This wasn't Rose. It was her beautiful face and her gorgeous eyes but the person behind those eyes had died. The person who looked at us now was only thinking about one thing. Keeping the body of her friend safe. The look in her eyes was fierce and primal and I saw a few guardians step back for a moment, shocked.

Janine and I continued forward and she jumped up positioning an old sword between us and the body.

"Stay back," she said, voice hollow and almost lifeless. "Stay away from him."

We took another step toward her, hoping she would recognize that she was safe.

"Stay back!" Her yell was dangerous and everyone else stopped advancing. I knew I should have too but I couldn't. I needed to get to her. To tell her that she was safe. To touch her.

"Rose," I said softly. I didn't want her to start swinging. "Drop the sword.

She glared as if preparing for battle. "Get away from us."

"Rose." I hoped she heard the pleading in my voice.

Slowly she began to look around at the other guardians, as though seeing them for the first time. She looked up at me and I saw a hint of the old Rose in her eyes briefly, then it was gone and her gaze was hollow and lifeless once more.

"It's okay," I said, feeling the weight of the world finally leave my shoulders. "Everything's going to be okay. You can let go of the sword."

She seemed to grip the hilt of the sword harder and it looked like I was losing her. "I can't," she choked out. "I can't leave him alone. I have to protect him."

"You have."

She dropped the sword suddenly and there was a collective sigh of relief around the room. Rose dropped to all fours struggling for breath, and I was at her side instantly. I held her to me and I lifted her up, thanking God that she was alive and well. I started to move her to the door but she stayed where she was clinging to me. I continued to hold onto her with one arm, and brushed her hair out of her face with my other hand. She had her head resting against my chest, and I whispered softly in Russian how much I loved her and was so glad that she was okay.

"She did that? Both of them?" said a guardian standing near the Strigoi.

"That sword hasn't been sharpened in years!" said another pointing at the sword that Rose had just been holding.

An anguished sob caught in her throat and I held her closer. After being told to get her out of the house, I squeezed her shoulder and whispered into her ear, "Come on, Roza. It's time to go."

This time, she went with me.

A/N: So there it was in all it's Dimitri glory!! I hope you enjoyed it and now that this is posted I can finally finish the last chapter from Dimitri's POV then it's on to Shadow Kiss!