19. Dimitri
Chapter 19
Dimitri
D imitri woke to the same sense of anticipation that had greeted him every morning since Rosalie arrived at the manor. He hadn’t dared hope he would get to spend all of every day with her. The original history had only talked about the Beast and the merchant’s daughter sharing evening meals. But Rosalie always seemed so enthusiastic to see him, and he could never resist returning to find her each morning. And once he was by her side, he could never bring himself to leave just for the sake of the play they were enacting.
Being around Rosalie made him feel alive in a way he never had before. A future in Glandore was starting to feel real, and he had begun dreaming about how he would fill it.
Rosalie was still encouraging him to leave the manor, but for his own sake, not for the Legacy. She thought he should go to the capital to find his grandfather, and she had promised to get an address from her father. His heart had sunk the first time she mentioned it—he had thought they had moved past the issue of him leaving. But when she chatted away about the trip, various innocent comments made it clear she was assuming he would return. That realization changed his feelings, and he had become enthusiastic about the prospect of finding his grandfather. He was even eager to see the capital, at least once.
It was paradoxical to want to travel so far considering he could barely tear himself away from Rosalie for the night hours. But her energy was catching, and if he was going to plan a future, he needed first to establish his roots. He also needed to make sure his claim to the manor was secure.
Rosalie listened to him talk about his plans with almost as much enthusiasm as he felt. Her fire for life flowed out to everything she touched—she wasn’t the type to selfishly hoard it away.
She was particularly enthused about his thoughts on how the manor could benefit the local region. She had suggestions of her own each time the topic came up, and he appreciated her input since she knew the area and its needs far better than he did. A banked fire seemed to have taken residence in his belly, giving off a warm glow whenever he thought about how well they worked as a team.
He stretched in bed for several minutes, thinking pleasantly about his plans for the day. The night before, over the evening meal, she had expressed interest in seeing the kitchen, and he had promised to take her in the morning. They had already explored the rest of the manor—some sections many times over—but they hadn’t ventured to the kitchen.
He had slept a little longer than normal, but he didn’t think Rosalie would mind. She had stocked up on books from the library the day before, and he suspected she was happily reading while she ate her breakfast. Sure enough, when she came to her bedchamber door, he caught a glimpse of the teetering pile stacked on her bedside table.
“What?” she asked defiantly when she noticed the direction of his gaze. “I have to make up for lost time.”
He laughed. “I’m not complaining. You can read as much as you like.” He hesitated. “Did you want to keep reading now, or do you want to come see the kitchen?”
“The kitchen,” she said without hesitation, making his heart warm. Had she realized she was choosing him?
They started walking together, the glow still filling him. “Before the Legacy started cooking for us, I’d barely worked out how to use half the items in the kitchen,” he said. “It’s clearly designed to be used by a team of people with far greater knowledge than me.”
“Given the size of the main dining room, I’m not surprised,” Rosalie said. “If they really used to have so many here for meals, they would have needed a huge team to feed them.”
They descended the stairs, and Dimitri froze. The double front doors were always firmly closed, but now one of them was ajar. His hand went to the key in his pocket, but it was still there.
“Rosalie,” he murmured, but she had already seen it too. She looked at him with wide eyes.
“Go back to your room and lock yourself in,” he whispered, but she stubbornly shook her head.
“My room is the most dangerous place to be, remember?” She gave him a look that told him there was no chance he was winning the argument.
Quietly, he descended the remaining stairs. At the bottom, he paused, looking to all sides for any further sign of another person. There was none.
Walking swiftly across the large entryway, he examined the door. There was no indication of forced entry. If he didn’t know better, he would suspect it of having been left open since the day before. But neither of them had used it since their adventure in the garden. It had been closed and locked the previous day, as it had been all the days before. At least as far as he knew.
He glanced at Rosalie. “You didn’t open it this morning, did you? Or last night, perhaps?”
“I don’t have a key.” She patted her pocket. “All I have is the one for my room.” She moved a step closer to him, her voice lowering as her eyes darted around the empty entryway. “Does that mean there’s someone in here?”
“Possibly.” He wanted to believe otherwise, but it was hard to come up with any other conclusion. “Either that or they already came and went.” He looked at her more sharply. “Your room…?”
She shook her head. “Everything was normal in my room, and I didn’t hear anything in the night.”
“They still may have been and gone. There are other valuables to steal in the manor. We should…” He trailed off, not sure what to suggest.
It was a large building with an unnerving number of places where someone could be concealed. Even if they did a systematic search, they couldn’t guarantee that the places they checked remained clear. An intruder could easily move around while they were searching somewhere else. Two people just weren’t enough to effectively search the whole manor. And that was assuming they split up—something he wasn’t willing to do.
“If it’s an ordinary thief, they must surely have left by now,” Rosalie said, showing remarkable calm given the situation. “They won’t be looking for a confrontation. If it’s Jace, on the other hand…” She frowned unhappily. “I don’t think Jace will be cowering in a cupboard somewhere. He was brazen from the start, and his success with my family only seems to have made him more so.”
“He’s had a taste of wealth and power, and it’s feeding his ego.” Dimitri’s hands balled into fists. He still felt angry every time he remembered the way Jace had looked at Rosalie, let alone the way he’d talked to her.
“So the question is,” Rosalie said, “if you were Jace, where would you be?”
Dimitri suppressed his instinctive repulsion at the idea of thinking like Jace and forced himself to consider the matter objectively.
“The dining room,” he concluded. “The main one.”
Rosalie looked at him questioningly, and he shrugged. “You keep calling this a castle, but it isn’t one, so we have no throne room. That enormous dining table seems like the closest equivalent.”
Rosalie’s nose wrinkled. “You think Jace is playing at being lord of the manor? That sounds painfully accurate. Let’s try there first.”
She started in the direction of the dining hall, but he caught her arm, stopping her.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked. “You really want to confront him? We don’t know how many men he has with him.”
“What’s the alternative? Lock ourselves in our rooms and never come out again? Abandon the manor and let him have everything?”
“We could go get help.”
“Without even knowing for sure if he’s here? Who would help us when he hasn’t actually done anything to us yet?”
“You call abducting you nothing?” he asked hotly.
She shrugged. “He didn’t hurt me, so we don’t have any proof that ever happened. If we race into town and claim Jace is back, that he kidnapped me and now he’s broken into the manor, it might bring people running. But if they then find that he’s not here, it will make the whole story seem suspect. They’ll think I’m jumping at shadows and exaggerating, and next time we ask for help, they’ll be reluctant to come. We can’t go and raise an army to defend the castle until we know for sure there’s actually an invading force.”
She grimaced. “I’m sure that’s why Jace has been careful not to attract attention so far. He doesn’t want to give us evidence until he’s gotten what he wants and made it far away.”
Dimitri frowned at her words. His gut feeling told him that even if Jace got his hands on the gold, he wouldn’t be that easy to shake off. But he didn’t say it aloud.
“Maybe I should go on my own,” he said instead. “We don’t know how Jace will react if he sees you.”
“If seeing me might put him off balance, that’s a point of advantage to us. And even if not, it’s better to have two than only one. So let’s stop wasting time and find out who opened that door.”
Dimitri hesitated a moment longer, frowning at the door. Should he lock it again or leave it ajar?
With a sigh he left it, turning to join Rosalie. If their intruder had reinforcements, he’d already had ample time to get them inside. Better to leave the exit open in case whoever it was decided to leave on their own. He would rather have half the castle pilfered than lock a threat inside with Rosalie.
They walked to the main dining room in tense silence. Neither of them had spent much time in the room since it contained little beside the enormous table and an equally long sideboard. They were both familiar with its location, however, and they entered the room at the same time.
“Well, well, well,” an amused voice said slowly. “The master and mistress of the manor have finally arrived.”
Jace lounged across the enormous carved chair at the head of the table, his leg flung across one of its arms. He clapped mockingly, his eyes sliding to Rosalie and their expression darkening slightly. “Someone’s being keeping secrets, I see.”
Dimitri stepped in front of Rosalie, one arm lifting slightly in a shielding gesture. Jace’s grin in response sent a shiver down Dimitri’s back.
“I’ve been extraordinarily patient, don’t you think?” Jace drawled. “But I thought it was time to have a look for myself. So kind of you to leave the door open for me.”
Dimitri frowned. Jace had found the door open? That couldn’t be right.
Jace stood in one swift motion, stepping toward them. Dimitri retreated further down the room, sweeping Rosalie behind him as he drew his sword.
Jace ignored the weapon, speaking to Rosalie over Dimitri’s shoulder. “You’re a resourceful girl, Rose.”
Dimitri felt her shudder at the nickname.
“When your brothers brought me the coin, I didn’t know what to think. But I see you did the sensible thing after all.”
His eyes strayed to Dimitri, and he laughed. “It suits him, don’t you think?”
“What are you doing here, Jace?” Rosalie asked coldly.
Dimitri didn’t have to turn and look at her to picture the glare she was giving Jace. She had directed it at him often enough in the past.
“What am I doing here?” Jace affected surprise. “You were never a stupid girl, Rosalie.” He paused and laughed again. “Not in most areas, anyway. Surely you’ve worked it out?” He cocked his head to the side and gave her a half smile. “Isn’t that why you were keeping all this a secret?” He made a circular gesture to encompass both Rosalie’s presence and Dimitri’s changed form. “Don’t tell me you’ve been enjoying yourself playing house with a Beast?”
Rosalie stiffened behind Dimitri but said nothing.
“You are trespassing here and are not welcome,” Dimitri said coldly, keeping his blade steady. “Leave immediately, or I’ll forcibly eject you.”
“Trespassing?” Jace’s eyebrows rose. “That’s a heavy word between friends.”
“We are not friends!” Rosalie said in an impassioned voice, but he ignored her.
“The door was open,” Jace continued. “I merely came to give a neighborly visit to the newcomer in the region.”
“I’m not receiving visitors currently,” Dimitri said steadily. “I repeat: leave my property immediately. You are not welcome here.”
Jace sighed dramatically, pressing his lips together in an expression of feigned disappointment. “If that’s the way you insist it has to be.”
He shook his head before looking up at them both with a cold gleam in his eyes. “I’m afraid I can’t leave until you tell me where it is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rosalie said, but Dimitri could hear the tremor in her voice.
“Oh, I think you do,” Jace murmured with a predatory smile. “The Legacy has clearly showered you with favor. Is it so terrible to ask that you share that largesse with your friends?”
Dimitri briefly considered giving him the chest of coins just to get rid of him. But it wasn’t his to give. He had promised it to Rosalie to restore her family’s fortune, and she showed no inclination to make the offer.
If he could have guaranteed Rosalie’s safety by handing it over, he might have done it despite her disapproval. But he had a strong instinct that it would do quite the opposite. If Jace discovered how much wealth the Legacy was pouring on the manor, he would never be satisfied, and they’d never escape his attention.
Giving in to Jace’s demands wasn’t the answer. They had to take a stand and show him they weren’t victims to be exploited.
He lunged forward, his movement abrupt enough to take both Rosalie and Jace by surprise. Rosalie screamed, muffling the sound with her hand, and Jace froze, a sword tip pressed against his neck.
He remained still as his eyes found Dimitri’s, but he didn’t look alarmed. Quite the opposite.
“You don’t want to go doing that,” he said softly. “You didn’t think I came alone, did you?”
Dimitri hadn’t thought that at first, but seeing Jace alone at the table had given him hope. His men must be off searching the manor, though.
Dimitri gritted his teeth. He had explored the new marvels of the manor with Rosalie, and in his mind those spaces belonged to the two of them. The thought of Jace’s men rifling through those rooms made him surge forward slightly, his sword pressing tighter against Jace’s throat until a single drop of blood ran down his neck.
Jace clicked his fingers in response, and a stream of men poured through the door of the dining room. They arrayed themselves in a wall of muscle behind Jace, several growling as they took in the scene.
“If he kills me,” Jace said tightly, “kill them both.”
Dimitri’s sword tip wavered. He could disable Jace easily enough, but he couldn’t handle the eight men he had with him. Not alone.
A hand tugged at the back of his vest. Rosalie was trying to draw him backward. He let her, and as soon as he had stepped away from Jace, she grabbed his free arm and ran.
He knew instantly where she was heading. Unlike Jace and his men, Rosalie knew the manor. Jace might think he had them trapped inside the dining room, but he didn’t know about the second concealed door that led directly into the kitchen.
The two of them burst through into the cavernous kitchen, angry yells chasing behind them. They separated, Rosalie running down one side of the long island bench while he ran down the other. His eyes scanned the benches as he tried to find something to use against their pursuers.
A collection of knives might be of use to Rosalie, but he was better served by the longer reach of his sword. It wasn’t a weapon he needed but something to block or confuse their pursuers long enough for them to escape.
Men began to fill the room, and Dimitri’s eyes jumped to Rosalie. She was backed into the corner by the pantry—a dead end—and two of the men were bearing down on her. They had slowed their headlong approach, stalking their trapped prey at a more leisurely pace. And she was completely weaponless since the knives were all on his side.
Dimitri leaped forward, slamming his free hand onto the bench and vaulting over it. He slid along its length in a desperate bid to reach her before they did. But he wasn’t going to make it.
A poker on the far side of the substantial fireplace speared into the midst of the banked fire. Red hot coals flicked upward, perfectly aimed at the first of the men approaching Rosalie.
Several of the coals made contact, and the whole kitchen froze. The shocked silence was broken by the man’s outraged bellow, his fury quickly changing to cries of pain as the coals burned through to his skin.
Turning blindly, he ran straight into the brick corner of the fireplace. He collapsed to the ground, too dazed to keep screaming.
His companion, having barely escaped the coals himself, picked up a pitcher of water and dumped the entire contents over the injured man. His clothes sizzled, the beginning of smoldering flames extinguished, but the man gave no response. He was already unconscious.
Dimitri finally landed in front of Rosalie and dropped into a crouch, his sword raised defensively. The man with the pitcher took one look at the ugly expression on his unnatural face and backed away.
A shout from one of the other men drew his attention to the other side of the kitchen. Three of the men had been hurrying toward Dimitri’s old position, but they were all now frozen. In front of them, the air was full of floating knives. One of the men stepped forward cautiously, and a knife responded. Drawing briefly back, it flew forward, aiming for his head. The man ducked, and the blade lodged in a breadbasket behind him.
The man gulped and stepped behind one of his comrades. Another knife drew back, and all three of them turned and fled. The remaining men followed their lead, all of them streaming from the room.
Jace watched his men flee from the doorway, but he made no attempt to stop them. Instead, he stepped back, allowing them to pass.
“The Legacy is protecting something!” he called, sounding excited. “Search the manor until you find it. A double portion to whoever brings me the item of greatest value.”
The men responded enthusiastically, spilling out into the manor’s corridors. Dimitri watched them go with dismay. Facing nine at once had been too much. But it would be equally difficult to handle them if they were spread throughout the manor.
“Don’t worry,” Rosalie murmured from behind him, sounding surprisingly pleased with the situation. “The Legacy is helping us, like you said. And we know this manor better than they do.”
When he glanced back at her, the light in her eyes was almost feral.
“It’s our turn to be the hunters,” she said. “Let’s see how much they like being the prey.”
He grinned at her enthusiasm, even while he worried for her safety. But the moment’s inattention cost him. When he turned back to look at Jace, the man was gone.
Dimitri raced forward, leaping over the unconscious man and the coals and poker that were now scattered across the floor. He found the dining room empty, so he ran for the entryway, reaching it just in time to see Jace slipping out the front door.
“He’s a coward,” Rosalie said fiercely from just behind him. “As soon as he saw there was danger, he ran and left his men to take the risks for him.”
“Unfortunately, he has plenty of men,” Dimitri said.
“At least they’re spread out now.” Rosalie’s determined expression made her look fierce. “They’ll each want the reward for themselves, so they won’t be searching in packs. We just need to hunt them all down, one by one.”
Her eyes swung toward the open library door. She indicated it with an inclination of her head, raising her eyebrows at him. He nodded, moving silently toward the door.
She kept pace, leaning over to murmur in his ear. “Remember how the seats molded themselves around us?” She snorted quietly. “Actually you were perched so gingerly on the edge that you might not have felt it. It was a remarkable sensation, though. Since the Legacy is working with us, I think we should try to get one of them into a chair.”
Dimitri wasn’t sure a rose armchair was going to be enough to restrain one of Jace’s mercenaries, but it might slow the man down enough for Dimitri to handle him. He nodded.
They snuck through the door, their eyes jumping around the room. Sure enough, one of the men was in there. He was walking down the shelves, sweeping books off with one arm and letting them cascade to the floor. But he was cursing as he did it, his other arm protecting his head from the books that were springing back up off the floor and launching themselves at him.
Rosalie snickered, and if he hadn’t been wound so tautly, he would have joined her.
“The Legacy really doesn’t like them,” Rosalie muttered.
The man caught her words, twisting in their direction. His face tightened at the sight of them, and he drew a dagger from his belt.
Dimitri charged at the man, sword raised. He lunged forward as soon as he reached him, but the man dodged out of the way, slashing his knife toward Dimitri.
Dimitri barely spun out of the shorter blade’s reach, bringing his sword up to catch its length. He danced backward, just out of the man’s reach, finally remembering Rosalie’s instructions. He was supposed to be maneuvering the man toward a chair.
The man followed him, growling in frustration at Dimitri’s greater reach. Given his superior weapon and training, Dimitri was confident he could win their fight. But it might prove fatal for his assailant if it came to that, and he’d barely been in his manor a week. He didn’t want to fill it with dead bodies.
Instead, he maneuvered them both toward a cluster of chairs. Sidestepping into the middle of the chairs, he brought the man with him. His enemy was too focused on Dimitri and his sword to even notice their surroundings.
As soon as he was positioned in front of a rose chair, Rosalie darted forward from out of Dimitri’s line of sight. She ducked under the man’s knife and shoved him hard in the chest. He flailed, losing his balance and waving his knife wildly through the air.
Dimitri shouted a warning and dropped his own sword, darting forward to seize Rosalie around the waist and pull her out of reach of the uncontrolled blade.
The back of the man’s legs hit the chair, and he fell backward into it.
“Please,” Rosalie whispered, ignoring Dimitri’s hands around her waist, her eyes fixed on the man. “Please.”
Dimitri watched, fascinated, as the chair folded itself around the man, molding to his shape just as Rosalie had claimed it did. But this time, it didn’t stop there.
The man yelped in horror, his blade clattering to the ground as the chair swallowed him completely. When it stopped, only his head was showing, his terrified eyes staring at Dimitri and Rosalie from the center of a rose made of scarlet material and cushioning.
Rosalie collapsed into giggles as the muscles in the captive’s neck strained. He was clearly trying to thrash around and free himself, but he was too firmly restrained to move.
Rosalie stopped laughing and spun around within the clasp of Dimitri’s hands. Exuberance poured off her, and she threw her arms around his neck.
“See!” she crowed. “We can do this!”
Dimitri froze, his hands around her waist and her arms around his neck. He looked down at her, barely able to breathe.
She gave a soft gasp, her eyes dilating as she stared up at him.
The prisoner behind them groaned, and Dimitri cleared his throat, quickly dropping his arms from Rosalie. She stepped back just as quickly, looking away.
Dimitri stooped to retrieve his sword, looking toward the trapped man. “Don’t worry,” he said kindly. “We’ll come back and release you once we’ve dealt with the others. You won’t be rose food forever.”
Rosalie laughed again, a little more breathily this time. “Where next?” she asked.
Dimitri frowned, considering. “If they’re trying doors, someone is bound to have noticed our locked bedchamber doors and considered it significant.”
Rosalie’s eyes lit up. “In that case,” she said, “why don’t we surprise them?”
She hurried to the library door, closing it and waiting for several seconds.
“I’d like to go to my bedchamber,” she muttered before pulling it quickly open again. When a purple and gold room was revealed on the other side, she grinned triumphantly over her shoulder at Dimitri.
He smiled back, showing his teeth. “Time to go hunting.”