How many times have I said that I could just lie on the bed next to the fire with Dimitri in this small cabin without my mind wondering anywhere than to him? Like how I know that right at this minute, he is looking down to his bare chest where my head rests, running his fingers through my hair until it is so smooth that he just strokes it. Like how I know that at any minute, he will sigh, leaving his fingers half way through running through my hair, and kiss my head before relaxing again and taking on his original routine.

I wished that we didn't have any worries or burdens… Oh how I wished…

It was two weeks of luxury with Dimitri, mixed in with a little competition from him to me with the whole 'you'll-never-last-here', before we heard anything from anyone outside of the woods.

It was the weirdest thing when we heard a knock on the front door. I looked up at Dimitri with a confused frown. Apparently, he didn't have a clue either.

Who would drive all the way up a mountain too see us? It couldn't be Lissa, Christian or Adrian since they were running the court, or in Christian's case, being moral support for his girlfriend who was running the Court. Mia? No… She wouldn't…

Who the heck was at the door?

"What's wrong, love?" Dimitri asked as he stroked my cheek.

"The door…" I said. It was quite obvious.

"What about the door?" he asked.

I frowned. "You didn't hear…?"

"Hear what?"

There was another knock.

"That!" I exploded, I little bit loud. "Someone's knocking at the door!"

I removed myself from his arms and made my way out of the bedroom, down the short hall, and too the front door. Dimitri hovered in the bedroom doorway, looking at me like I was a little insane, which I guess I was, but I know I didn't imagine that knock.

I opened the door, to stare into air.

Dimitri walked down to me slowly. "Are you feeling alright?" he asked, concerned. He placed a hand on my shoulder and rubbed a circle with his thumb.

"I swear I heard a knock." I told him, rubbing my temples and pushing my hair out of my face, which was coming out of my loose, failed, ponytail.

"Are you sure?"

I nodded. "I'm sure of it."

He wrapped his arms around my waist. "Maybe you should call Lissa." He suggested. "It's not easy being this isolated."

I smiled and turned in his arms. "Oh you'd like that, wouldn't you?" I joked. "Me showing a weak sign? I can last here."

He smiled, letting my arms wrap around his neck. "Are you sure?" he asked lightly, tightening his hold on me and spinning me in a circle. "Are you so sure?"

I ran my hands swiftly down his bare chest before slapping it softly twice and stepping out of his embrace. "I really don't have a choice."

I walked out and back to the bedroom. What more was there to do but sit and watch the fire in a cabin with miles and miles of trees around it? Other than cutting down trees for fun…for firewood.

"If you think about it, you could go anywhere, do anything," he said from out in the hall. "What exactly are you expecting to accomplish here? What are you hiding from?"

I frowned at his tone and walked swiftly to the doorway to look at him.

"What do you mean?"

He looked at me, but said nothing.

"What do you mean I'm hiding?" I asked.

He sighed. "Roza…What's the point in being here if you're so caught up in misery about your…condition…and doing nothing about it?"

What was he getting at?

"And I'm not allowed to take a break from fixing my life again and again?"

He walked towards me slowly. "Of course you can."

"Then what are you saying?" I asked, strangely hurt by this. Of course I fight with Dimitri, but it never really lasts long, and it's over silly little things. But not once had I felt this hurt by what he has said.

"I…" he stumbled, which alone in itself is odd.

I sighed, irritated. "Well, now that you've voiced your opinion on what I'm doing wrong…I'm going for a walk."

"Roza…" he tried to reach for me as I slipped past him, but made no more attempts to stop me. He knew me well enough not to push me too far.

I needed to clear my head. Out of character, I decided. That's what that was. Probably nothing series…Maybe he was the one cracking under the isolation of being in the outdoors…

The thought made me smile.

Though that smile didn't last wrong.

I sat down and breathed in deep, enjoying the mountain air…

The shrubs around me were still, apart from one bush. I looked at it inquisitively, wondering what could be shaking it so subtly but so noticeable.

A flicker of the light was what it seemed like, but something definitely moved from that shrub to behind a thick, large tree.

I stood up slowly, not taking my eyes off that tree. But it was useless. I found there were two of them when I felt the rush of the wind on my neck, three when my toes grew numb…four when I thought about how fast my heart would be beating right now…

There were many of them.

"What do you want?" I shouted, hoping Dimitri might just hear me from up inside the house, though I doubted he would. "Who are you?"

A giggle came from a shaking bush, a childish, girly laugh. I spun towards it, and then slowly, slowly, I walked towards it.

"Who are you?" I shouted.

A girl, she couldn't be any older than seven, walked out from behind the bush, wearing pink pyjamas. At first, I thought she might have been lost out here, and made my way more quickly towards her before I broke out in a run…but the closer I got, the more I realised her soft features. Pale white skin, red underlined eyes, bruised looking eyes…

Strigoi. Strigoi child.

"Wha… It can't be." I stuttered, looking at the child.

Her pyjamas. She must have been stolen from her parents…But why would the strigoi bother with her? She was just a child!

My head quickly snapped around when four children, boys this time, all wearing something resembling sleep wear, stood behind me, smirks on their faces.

"A hiker?" the girl asked in her squeaky, high pitched voice.

Instantly, my instincts kicked in, instincts I never knew I had. "Yes." I answered. "Who are you? Are you lost?"

The boys muttered something happily behind me, and I knew that this was what they had been doing since they had first become Strigoi. Hunting hikers.

"Would you like some help?" I asked innocently. "Where are you parents?"

Only I was praying that adult Strigoi wouldn't come out of the bushes…but they didn't.

The girl smirked. "Dead."

Faster than the eye could catch, I had two boys holding either of my arms, making me crouch in an awkward way that made my back hurt.

"DIMITRI!"

I was nothing against them. I wasn't strong enough, and I didn't exactly have the correct tools for the job. "DIMITRI! HELP!"

He'd be down any second…

"Kill her now! Kill her now!" the girl shrieked as my head was pushed to one side, leaving my neck exposed.

I felt a searing pain as two sets of fangs buried themselves in my neck…

Before I fell to the muddy ground, not really comprehending anything going on around me. I was lifted off the ground and taken somewhere uphill…

Oh if only I could pass out. Pain….

I didn't know how much time had passed; only that it had. I only started to become aware of Dimitri touching the wounds on my neck when he had used a little bit of alcohol to help clear the wound. It stung, but I kept a straight face as he worked.

"I'm sorry." He said, looking through my poker face.

When he brought out a needle and string, I sighed. "What's the point? It won't heal."

"We can't leave your wound open, Rose."

I snatched the needle from him. "Well then I'd better do it. I'll be doing it the rest of my existence."

He took it back. "You won't. I'll always be there. I'll do it."

"Not always." I mumbled.

"Yes always." He argued, sticking the needle in my arm, making me tense up.

"No. It's not going to happen, Dimitri."

He didn't say anything. He would win this argument if he tried, but we both knew that. He was being the mature one by not arguing.

"Children." I said suddenly. "I didn't even think…Why would they want children?"

He shrugged.

"Does that not bother you in the slightest?" I asked.

"Of course it bothers me, Roza," he said, pulling another thread through my neck. "But what are we going to do? It's the war between Moroi and Strigoi, just that the Strigoi have some new, well, maybe they're not so new, but they're just different warriors."

"And who are our different warriors?" I asked, instantly knowing the answer when I spoke the question. He raised an eyebrow. "Us. Guardians."

He nodded.

"But we aren't so new. Until half a year ago we were the only ones fighting."

"You." He said. "What you discovered with the silver stakes…that's ours. They wouldn't have a clue that that was even possible."

"Not that they've put it to any use at all." I grumbled.

"They're trying their hardest."

"Right, of course."

He rubbed my shoulder as best he could as he pulled the last stitch through my flesh.

"Did you kill them? The children?"

He didn't say anything. He placed a dressing on my wound, kissed my forehead, and left.