Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy #3)(45)

"Wait," I laughed. "I thought I was the one who wanted to break rules."

"I didn't say I wanted to. Just that I can see the appeal."

"You can't fool me, comrade. You want to put on a cowboy hat and keep lawless bank robbers in line."

"No time. I have enough trouble keeping you in line."

I grinned, and suddenly, it was a lot like when we cleaned the church - before the fight, at least. Easy. Comfortable. In fact, it was a lot like the old days when we'd first begun training together, way back before everything had gotten so complicated. Well, okay...things had always been complicated, but for a while, they'd been less complicated. It made me sad. I wished we could relive those early days. There'd been no Victor Dashkov, no blood on my hands.

"I'm sorry," Dimitri said all of a sudden.

"For what? Reading cheesy novels?"

"For not being able to get you here. I feel like I let you down." I glimpsed a shadow of worry on his face, like he was concerned he might have caused some irreparable damage.

The apology totally caught me off guard. For a moment, I wondered if he was jealous of Adrian's influence in the same way Christian had been. Then I realized it was completely different. I'd been giving Dimitri a hard time because I'd been convinced he could do anything. Somewhere - deep inside -  he felt the same, at least where I was concerned. He didn't want to deny me anything. My earlier bad mood had long since vanished, and I suddenly just felt drained. And stupid.

"You didn't," I told him. "I acted like a total brat. You've never let me down before. You didn't let me down with this."

The grateful look he gave me made me feel as if I had wings. If another moment had passed, I suspected he would have said something so sweet that I would have flown away. Instead, his phone rang.

Another conversation in Russian took place, and then he stood up. "All right, let's go."

"Where?"

"To see Victor Dashkov."

It turned out that Dimitri had a friend who had a friend, and somehow, despite the best security in the Moroi world, we managed to get into the Court's prison facilities.

"Why are we doing this?" I whispered as we walked down the hall toward Victor's cell. I'd really, really hoped for stone walls and torches, but the place looked very modern and efficient, with marble floors and stark white walls. At least there were no windows. "You think we can talk him out of it?"

Dimitri shook his head. "If Victor wanted to take revenge on us, he'd just do it without any warning. He doesn't do things without a reason. The fact that he told you first means he wants something, and now we're going to find out what it is."

We reached Victor's cell. He was the only prisoner currently being held. Like the rest of the facility, his room reminded me of something you'd find at a hospital. Everything was clean, bright, and sterile - and very bare. It was a place without any sort of stimulus or distraction whatsoever, which would have driven me crazy in one hour. The cell had silvery bars that looked very hard to break, which was the most important part.

Victor sat in a chair, idly examining his nails. It had been three months since our last meeting, and seeing him again made my skin crawl. Feelings I hadn't known were buried in me suddenly burst to the surface.

One of the hardest things of all was seeing him look so healthy and young. He'd bought that health by torturing Lissa, and I hated him for it. If his disease had run its normal course, he might be dead by now.

He had receding black hair, with only the slightest touch of silver. He was in his forties and had a regal, almost handsome cut to his face. He glanced up at our approach. Eyes the same pale jade as Lissa's met mine. The Dragomir and Dashkov families had a lot of intertwined history, and it was creepy seeing that eye color in someone else. A smile lit his face.

"Oh my. This is a treat. Lovely Rosemarie, practically an adult now." His eyes flicked toward Dimitri. "Of course, some have been treating you that way for quite a while."

I pressed my face to the bars. "Stop screwing with us, you son of a bitch. What do you want?"

Dimitri put a gentle hand on my shoulder and pulled me back. "Easy, Rose."

I took a deep breath and then slowly stepped backward. Victor straightened up in his chair and laughed.

"After all this time, your cub still hasn't learned any control. But then, maybe you never really wanted her to."

"We aren't here to banter," said Dimitri calmly. "You wanted to lure Rose over, and now we need to know why."

"Does there have to be some sinister reason? I just wanted to know how she was doing, and something tells me we aren't going to have a chance for any friendly chats tomorrow." That annoying smirk stayed on his face, and I decided then that he was lucky to be behind bars and out of my reach.

"We're not going to have a friendly chat now," I growled.

"You think I'm joking, but I'm not. I really do want to know how you're doing. You've always been a fascinating subject to me, Rosemarie. The only shadow-kissed person we know of. I told you before, that isn't the kind of thing you walk away from unscathed. There's no way you can quietly sink into the regimented routine of academic life. People like you aren't meant to blend in."

"I'm not some kind of science experiment."