Page 70 of Legacy of Roses

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.”

Chapter 20

Rosalie

Logically Rosalie knew she should feel afraid. But facing Jace and his men on her home turf, and with Dimitri by her side, was entirely different from facing Jace and his men alone in the woods. She was sick of feeling weak and pathetic where Jace was concerned. Even if he had already escaped, she was going to make sure she stripped him of his followers.

She waited for Dimitri to follow her through to her bedchamber and then carefully closed the door behind them, shutting off their view of the library. Once again she waited a few seconds, allowing the connection between her bedchamber and the library to be severed.

A scratching sound reached her ears, as if someone was in the corridor outside her room, attempting to pick the lock. She twisted the key to unlock the door from inside, seizing the handle and thrusting the door open with all the force she could muster.

It collided with something—or someone—on the other side with a satisfying thud. She pulled it closed and thrust it open a second time, once again whacking whatever was on the other side. Something heavy fell to the floor, and she realized hermistake. The heavy bulk she had just felled was now lying across the doorway, blocking the door from opening.

She stepped back and let Dimitri put his shoulder against it, heaving it open inch by inch. He stopped as soon as there was room for them to slip through, and they both looked down at the groaning man lying on the floor. Blood poured from his nose.

Dimitri hauled the man up and used the rope from her curtains to bind his wrists and feet. When he’d finished, he shoved the man into the closest storage cupboard.

His efforts didn’t go unnoticed, however. A second man was kneeling a short way down the corridor, making the same lock picking attempt on Dimitri’s door. As Dimitri wrestled the bound man into the cupboard, the second man advanced toward them, growling.

Before he reached them, yet another man arrived, running forward with a yell to join the lock-picker.

Rosalie looked from Dimitri to her bed chamber door. “The library?” she asked.

He grinned and nodded.

She closed the door, the required pause allowing time for the two men to approach closer. Just before they reached attack range, she whispered, “The library, please,” and pulled the door open.

She and Dimitri ran through, and the men barreled after them, not immediately noticing the strangeness of the room on the other side. But after they had sprinted several yards into the library, they slid to a stop, looking around in confusion.

Their trapped companion tried to call a warning, but the sight of him only dazed them further. As they stared at him, open-mouthed, Dimitri and Rosalie sprang forward in unison. Each of them shoved one of the men hard enough to send him staggering forward straight into one of the rose chairs. Withinseconds, they had both been completely absorbed except for their heads.

“Thank you,” Rosalie said aloud.

“I thought you said the Legacy couldn’t hear us.” Dimitri gave an amused shake of his head.

Rosalie shrugged. “It can’t. But it still seems polite to say thank you.”

She quickly tallied in her head. “That’s five men down. Six if we count Jace.” She looked at the two closest men. “He abandoned you all, you know. Ran for it as soon as it got dangerous.”

The men shouted angrily at her, their voices overlapping, but she merely strode away. Dimitri followed her out of the library into the entryway, closing the door behind him and muffling the angry yells.

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