He caught my hand and kissed my palm. "I had things to do."
The shadows shifted on his face, and I caught the tiniest glimpse of dried blood near his mouth. Grimacing, I rubbed it off with my finger. "So I see."
"It's the natural order, Rose. How are you feeling?"
"Better. Except..."
"What?"
I looked away, conflicted again. The look in his eyes just then was more than simple curiosity. There was concern there-only a little-but it was there. Concern for me. And yet only a moment ago, I'd wiped blood from his face-blood from some poor person whose life had been snuffed out within the last few hours, most likely.
"I was in Lissa's head," I said at last. There was no harm in telling him this. Like Nathan, he knew she was at the Academy. "And... I got pushed out."
"Pushed out?"
"Yeah... I was seeing through her eyes like I usually do, and then some force... I don't know, an invisible hand shoved me out. I've never felt anything like it."
"Maybe it's a new spirit ability."
"Maybe. Except, I've been watching her regularly, and I've never seen her practice or even consider anything like that."
He shrugged slightly and put an arm around me. "Being awakened gives you better senses and accessibility to the world. But it doesn't make you omniscient. I don't know why that happened to you."
"Clearly not omniscient, or else Nathan wouldn't want information about her so badly. Why is that? Why are the Strigoi fixated on killing the royal lines? We know they've-you've-been doing it, but why? What does it matter? Isn't a victim a victim-especially when plenty of Strigoi used to be royal Moroi?"
"That requires a complicated answer. A large part of hunting Moroi royalty is fear. In your old world, royalty are held above all others. They get the best guardians, the best protection." Yes, that was certainly true. Lissa had discovered that much at Court. "If we can still get to them through that, then what does it say? It means no one is safe. It creates fear, and fear makes people do foolish things. It makes them easier prey."
"That's horrible."
"Prey or-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Prey or predator."
His eyes narrowed slightly, apparently not liking the interruption. He let it go. "There's also a benefit to unraveling Moroi leadership. That creates instability, too."
"Or maybe they'd be better off with a change of leadership," I said. He gave me another odd look, and I was a bit startled myself. There I was, thinking like Victor Dashkov again. I realized I should just be quiet. I wasn't behaving like my usual scattered and high self. "What's the rest?"
"The rest..." A smile curved up his lips. "The rest is prestige. We do it for the glory of it. For the reputation it gives us and the satisfaction of knowing we're responsible for destroying that which others haven't been able to destroy for centuries."
Simple Strigoi nature. Malice, hunting, and death. There didn't need to be any other reasons.
Dimitri's gaze moved past me to my bedside table. It was where I took off all my jewelry at night and laid it out. All his gifts were there, glittering like some pirate's treasure. Reaching over me, he lifted up the nazar on its chain. "You still have this."
"Yup. Not as pretty as your stuff, though." Seeing the blue eye reminded me of my mother. I hadn't thought about her in a very long time. Back in Baia, I'd grown to see Olena as a secondary mother, but now... now I kind of wished for my own. Janine Hathaway might not cook and clean, but she was smart and competent. And in some ways, I realized with a start, we thought alike. My traits had come from her, and I knew with certainty that in this situation, she wouldn't have stopped planning escape.
"This I haven't seen before," Dimitri said. He'd set the nazar back down and picked up the plain silver ring Mark had given me. I hadn't worn it since I was last in the Belikov house and had set it on the table next to the nazar.
"I got it while I was-" I stopped, realizing I hadn't ever brought up my travels before Novosibirsk.
"While you were what?"
"While I was in your hometown. In Baia."
Dimitri was playing with the ring, moving it from fingertip to fingertip, but he paused and glanced over at me when I said the name. "You were there?" Strangely, we hadn't talked much about that. I'd mentioned Novosibirsk a few times, but that was it.
"I thought that's where you'd be," I explained. "I didn't know that Strigoi did their hunting in cities here. I stayed with your family."
His eyes returned to the ring. He continued playing with it, twirling it and rolling it around. "And?"
"And... they were nice. I liked them. I hung out with Viktoria a lot."
"Why wasn't she at school?"
"It was Easter."
"Ah, right. How was she?"
"Fine," I said quickly. I couldn't bring myself to tell him about that last night with her and Rolan. "Karolina's good too. She reminds me of you. She really laid into some dhampir guys who were causing trouble."
He smiled again, and it was... nice. I mean, the fangs still made it creepy, but it didn't have that sinister edge I'd come to expect. There was fondness in his face, true affection that startled me. "I can see Karolina doing that. Did she have her baby yet?"
"Yeah..." I was still a little thrown off by that smile. "It was a girl. Zoya."
"Zoya," he repeated, still not looking at me. "Not a bad name. How was Sonya?"
"Okay. I didn't see too much of her. She's a little touchy... Viktoria says it's because of the pregnancy."
"Sonya's pregnant too?"
"Oh. Yeah. Six months, I think."
His smile dimmed a little bit, and he almost seemed concerned. "I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Her decisions aren't always as wise as Karolina's. Karolina's children were by choice... I'm guessing Sonya's was a surprise."
"Yeah. I kind of got that feeling too."
He ticked off the rest of his family members. "My mother and grandmother?"
"Er, fine. Both of them." This conversation was becoming increasingly strange. Not only was it the first normal one we'd had since I'd arrived, it was also the first time he'd really seemed interested in anything that wasn't Strigoi related or that didn't involve kissing and biting, aside from some reminiscing about our early fights together-and the teasing reminders of sex in the cabin. "Your grandmother scared me a little."
He laughed, and I flinched. It was so, so close to his old laugh. Closer than I'd ever imagined it could be. "Yes, she does that to people."
"And she pretended not to speak English." That was a pretty small detail in the grand scheme of things, but it still kind of pissed me off.
"Yes, she does that too." He continued smiling, voice fond. "Do they all still live together? In that same house?"
"Yup. I saw the books you told me about. The pretty ones-but I couldn't read them."
"That's where I first got into American westerns."
"Man, I loved making fun of you over those."
He chuckled. "Yes, between that, your stereotypes about Eastern European music, and the whole 'comrade' thing, you had plenty of material."
I laughed too. "'Comrade' and the music were kind of out of line." I'd almost forgotten about my old nickname for him. It didn't fit anymore. "But you brought the cowboy thing on yourself, between the leather duster and-" I stopped. I'd started to mention his duty to help those in need, but that was hardly the case anymore. He didn't notice my lapse.
"And then you left them and came to Novosibirsk?"
"Yeah. I came with those dhampirs I was hunting with... those other unpromised ones. I almost didn't, though. Your family wanted me to stay. I thought about doing it."
Dimitri held the ring up to the light, face shadowed with thought. He sighed. "You probably should have."
"They're good people."
"They are," he said softly. "You might have been happy there."
Reaching over, he set the ring back on the table and then turned to me, bringing our mouths together. It was the softest, sweetest kiss he'd given me as a Strigoi, and my already considerable shock increased. The gentleness was fleeting, though, and a few seconds later, our kissing returned to what it usually was, forceful and hungry. I had a feeling he was hungry for more than just kissing, too, despite having fed recently. Pushing aside my confusion over how... well, normal and kind he'd seemed while talking about his family, I tried to figure out how I was going to dodge more biting without raising suspicion. My body was still weak and wanting it, but in my head, I felt more like myself than I had in ages.