She gasped at the sudden and unexpected movement. Swiftly approaching her, he knelt down before her and peered into her eyes. She trembled in spite of her best efforts. She had never been this close to a Strigoi, and the fact that it was Dimitri was that much worse. The red rings around his pupils seemed to burn into her. His fangs looked poised to attack.
His hand snaked out and gripped her neck, tilting her face up so he could get an even better look into her eyes. His fingers dug into her skin, not enough to cut off her air but enough that she would have bruises later. If there was a later.
"I know the guardians will come because Rose is watching," said Dimitri. "Aren't you, Rose?" Loosening his hold a little, he ran his fingertips over the skin of Lissa's throat, so gently... yet there was no question he had the power to snap her neck.
It was like he was looking into my eyes at the moment. My soul. I even felt like he was stroking my neck. I knew it was impossible. The bond existed between Lissa and me. No one else could see it. Yet, just then, it was like no one else existed but him and me. It was like there was no Lissa between us.
"You're in there, Rose." A pitiless half smile played over his mouth. "And you won't abandon either of them. You also aren't foolish enough to come alone, are you? Maybe once you would have--but not anymore."
I jerked out of her head, unable to stare into those eyes--and see them staring back at me. Whether it was my own fear or a mirroring of Lissa's, I discovered my body was also trembling. I forced it to stop and tried to slow my racing heart. Swallowing, I glanced around to see if anyone had noticed, but they were all preoccupied with discussing strategy--except for Tasha.
Her cool blue gaze studied me, her face drawn with concern. "What did you see?"
I shook my head, unable to look at her either. "A nightmare," I murmured. "My worst nightmare coming true."
Chapter Sixteen
I DIDN'T HAVE A PRECISE count of how many Strigoi were with Dimitri's group. So much of what I'd seen through Lissa had been blurred with confusion and terror. The guardians, knowing we were expected, had simply had to make a best guess about how many to send. Hans had hoped overwhelming force would make up for us losing the element of surprise. He'd dispatched as many guardians as he could reasonably clear from the Court. Admittedly, the Court was protected by wards, but it still couldn't be left entirely undefended.
Having the new grads there had helped. Most of them had been left behind, allowing the seasoned guardians to go on our hunting party. That left us with forty or so. It was as unusual as large groups of Strigoi banding together. Guardians were usually sent out in pairs, maybe groups of three at most, with Moroi families. This large of a force had the potential to bring about a battle rivaling that of the Academy attack.
Knowing that sneaking through the dark wouldn't work, Hans stopped our convoy a little ways from the warehouse the Strigoi were holed up at. The building was situated on a service road cutting off from the highway. It was an industrial area, hardly a deserted path in the woods, but all the businesses and factories were shut down this late at night. I stepped out of the SUV, letting the warm evening wrap around me. It was humid, and the moisture in the air felt especially oppressive when I was already smothered with fear.
Standing beside the road, I felt no nausea. Dimitri hadn't posted Strigoi this far, which meant our arrival was still--kind of--a surprise. Hans walked over to me, and I gave him the best estimate I could on the situation, based on my limited information.
"But you can find Vasilisa?" he asked.
I nodded. "As soon as I'm in the building, the bond will lead me straight to her."
He turned, staring off into the night as cars sped by on the nearby highway. "If they're already waiting outside, they'll smell and hear us long before we see them." Passing headlights briefly illuminated his face, which was lined in thought. "You said there are three layers of Strigoi?"
"As far as I could tell. There are some on Lissa and Christian, then some outside." I paused, trying to think what Dimitri would do in this situation. Surely I knew him well enough, even as a Strigoi, to calculate his strategy. "Then another layer inside the building--before you get to the storage room." I didn't know this for certain, but I didn't tell Hans. The assumption was made on my own instincts, drawn from what I would do and what I thought Dimitri would do. I figured it would be best if Hans planned for three waves of Strigoi.
And that's exactly what he did. "Then we go in with three groups. You'll lead the group going in for the extraction. Another team will accompany yours and eventually split off. They'll fight whoever's right inside, letting your group head for the captives."
It sounded so... militaristic. Extraction. Captives. And me... a team leader. It made sense with the bond, but always in the past, they'd simply used my knowledge and left me on the sidelines. Welcome to being a guardian, Rose. At school, we'd conducted all sorts of exercises, running as many different Strigoi scenarios as our instructors could dream up. Yet, as I stared up at the warehouse, all of those drills seemed like playacting, a game that could in no way measure up to what I was about to face. For half a second, the responsibility of it all seemed daunting, but I quickly shoved aside such concerns. This was what I had been trained to do, what I had been born to do. My own fears didn't matter. They come first. Time to prove it.
"What are we going to do since we can't sneak up on them?" I asked. Hans had a point about the Strigoi detecting us in advance.
An almost mischievous smile flickered on his face, and he explained his plan to the group while also dividing us into our teams. His approach tactic was bold and reckless. My kind of plan.
And like that, we were off. An outsider analyzing us might have said we were on a suicide mission. Maybe we were. It honestly didn't matter. The guardians wouldn't abandon the last Dragomir. And I wouldn't have abandoned Lissa even if there were a million Dragomirs.
So, with sneaking having been ruled out, Hans opted for a full-on attack. Our group loaded back into the eight SUVs and tore off down the street at illegal speeds. We took up the entire width of the road, gambling on no oncoming traffic. Two SUVs led the charge side by side, then two rows of three. We shot to the end of the road, came to a halt with screeching tires at the front of the warehouse, and spilled out of our cars. If slow stealth wasn't an option, we'd gain surprise by going fast and furious.
Some of the Strigoi were indeed surprised. Clearly, they'd seen our approach, but it had happened so fast that they'd had only a little time to react. Of course, when you were as fast and deadly as Strigoi, a little time was all you needed. A group of them surged at us, and Hans's "outside team" charged back, those guardians putting themselves between my group and the other going inside. The Moroi fire users had been assigned to the outside group, for fear of setting the building on fire if they went inside.