Lissa POV

Regret is a negative conscious and emotional reaction to personal past acts and behaviors. Regret is often a feeling of sadness, shame, embarrassment, depression, annoyance or guilt, after one acts in a manner and later wishes not to have done so. Regret is distinct from guilt, which is a deeply emotional form of regret — one which may be difficult to comprehend in an objective or conceptual way.

I felt neither regret, nor guilt. Both were worthless emotions. What was done, was done, and no one could take it back. Yes, there are things that I probably shouldn't have done, but this wasn't one of them.

When I'd believed that Rose was dead, I'd changed. I'd had to. Always, even after she'd abandoned me, I'd always believed that she would protect me. And after she abandoned me, I was still safe. But when news of her death had reached me, the threats starting rolling in, and the attacks started coming. I could only believe that Rose had still been protecting me. That her death was the only reason the things threatening me were alive long enough to even make their threats be known.

But now, to know that she was alive and well the entire time, and that she hadn't cared at all about looking after me, I was hurt, but most of all I was angry.

How dare she leave me to fend for myself? Sure, I had dozens of guardians protecting me from even getting a paper cut, but the only one that was a match for Rose was Dimitri, and after the news of her death, the life seemed to have drained from him. His aura was dim, almost completely washed out, and even though he was still the best guardian, it was almost unbearable to be in the same room as him.

Rose was so, so selfish, hurting us both like this.

But I had a plan. I had a plan that would make everything right again. Everything would end up how they should have. This was all just one big mistake, a mistake that Rose's pride wouldn't let her fix. Well, I'd be the bigger person and fix it. I had to, for my own safety.

After Rose tore out of the house, I wiped the grin from my face and left too, albeit in a much more dignified manner. I was the Queen, after-all.

I strolled down the road the opposite way to the Belikov's place. Wouldn't want to run into anyone there that recognized me despite my disguise.

From the large purse slung over my shoulder, I pulled out a worn pair of pants that I'd stolen from the closet of whosever room I was staying in. They were far too large for me, and were very grubby. Next, I pulled on a thick sweater that was beyond ridiculous for me, but it worked to hide my slender frame and hopefully mask my gender. Lastly, I threw on a pair of unisex sports sunglasses that I'd bought on the way over here, and a black cap. I tucked my hair up under the cap.

I was as protected from the sun as I was going to get, and as best disguised as I could manage.

I continued on my way, I had to find a place to hide out in before the sun became too hot.

Once upon a time, I never would've thought of something like this, but it also would've never needed to be necessary in the first place. Rose should've never made me resort to this. How could she let me believe that she was dead for all this time? If I had of known, maybe then things would've been different. I wouldn't have had to be terrified for the past five years.

A small part of me found it a little ironic, that the main reason that I accepted this trip to Russia, was to somehow find and meet the two elusive Strigoi hunters. I'd hoped to employ the female as a guardian because of how much she reminded me of Rose.

Now that I'd found out she, in fact, was Rose, well, my plan hadn't changed. I would still offer her a place in my guardian, but I knew that I'd have to go about it differently. I couldn't just compel her, Rose had always been good at resisting it, or quickly snapping out of it, so compelling her long term would be impossible.

I kept walking down the road. I'd heard that these roads were dangerous, so they were exactly what I needed.

I found an abandoned barn behind a few scattered trees. The barn had a huge ceiling and was a faded red colour. The door was huge and I wasn't if I could even open it. I grabbed the old tattered length of rope hanging from the door and pulled. Surprisingly the door slid open quite easily, as though it got a lot of use. I ignored that thought, and entered. There was hay everywhere, lining almost every surface. Some of the hay had weird patterns staining it and the smell was awful. There were two old and stained mattresses pushed up against one of the walls.

I dropped my bag by my feet and gingerly went over to them. They didn't smell too bad but the odd coloured stains were a bit off putting. I shrugged out of the over sized top I was wearing and placed it on top of the mattress closest to me. I laid down on it, exhausted from my daylight travels.

…

"Well, well, well... What do we have here?"

A deep, husky voice woke me from my dreamless sleep. I was surrounded in darkness, unable to get my bearings. The lumpy old mattress beneath me reminded my of where I was. I rubbed my eyes as I waited impatiently to adjust to the little light. There were two inky figures standing about ten feet away from where I lay. Even in this light, it was hard to miss their crimson eyes.

I sat up, a small smile forming on my lips. This was perfect; I hadn't even needed to go looking for them, they'd found their way to me. Though this did alter the time crunch. I'd need to stall them for longer to give Rose and Dimitri more time to find me.

No problem. I'd never tried to compel a Strigoi before, so just in case it didn't work, I'd have to brush up on my sweet talking skills.

I stood up, noticing that they weren't at all concerned that I'd get away from them. I wasn't either.

I touched that place in my head that the magic dwelled, pulling what I needed to me. My voice was calm and soothing when I spoke, laced with so much compulsion, that it would fry a human's brain. "Find a chair, and tie me up. You may only blacken one eye," I said.

A space of a few heartbeats passed and the pair didn't move, they stood staring at me as I started to sweat. This had to work, it just had to.

"Now!" I commanded.

In a blink, the Strigoi had blasted off, only to be back a second later holding a chair and some rope. Delicately, they placed me in the chair and tied the ropes around my wrist and legs, welding me to the chair. But it was all so loose that I could've just stood up and been free.

"Tighter," I command. My voice is strained from the compulsion, it was taking all of my energy to keep it up. But they must've been young, for my compulsion to override their own, since Strigoi's compulsion was known to be a lot stronger than a Moroi's. Though we'd never put a spirit welding Moroi to the test.

They obeyed, and then without warning a fist shot out and hit me right on my eye. I felt tears spring forth from the pain that blasted through me. Perfect.

As a last command I said, "You will not hurt me further, only keep me here. You will not question why, it is all perfectly normal."

"Yes," they both said tonelessly.

With that, I dropped the compulsion, it was becoming too much for me. Sweat had broken out across my forehead and I felt something wet sliding over my lips from my nose.

A cold malicious look entered both their gazes at the same time. They each took a step forward, but stopped almost straight away. They stood there staring at me, their desire for my blood as clear as day, but my lasting commands kept them at bay.

It was all going swimmingly, soon Rose would save me, and we'd all be happy again.

AN; Anyone pick up on the state of Lissa's mentality?

My hands not much better, which is why it took longer to get this up here, so thank you for your patience and sorry for any mistakes I didn't catch. Huge thanks for the reviews, I'll try and reply to them this time, but we'll see how that goes :)