Blood Promise Page 0,1

the last in a royal line. I'd been slated to be her guardian when we graduated, and my decision to hunt Dimitri had pretty much destroyed that future with her. I'd had no choice but to leave her.

Aside from our friendship, Lissa and I had a unique connection. Each Moroi specializes in a type of elemental magic-earth, air, water, or fire. Until recently, we'd believed there were only those four elements. Then we'd discovered a fifth: spirit.

That was Lissa's element, and with so few spirit users in the world, we hardly knew anything about it. For the most part, it seemed to be tied to psychic powers. Lissa wielded amazing compulsion-the ability to exert her will on almost anyone. She could also heal, and that's where things got a little strange between us. You see, I technically died in the car accident that killed her family. Lissa had brought me back from the world of the dead without realizing it, creating a psychic bond between us. Ever since then, I was always aware of her presence and thoughts. I could tell what she was thinking and feel when she was in trouble. We had also recently discovered I could see ghosts and spirits who hadn't yet left this world, something I found disconcerting and struggled to block out. The whole phenomenon was called being shadow-kissed.

Our shadow-kissed bond made me the ideal choice to protect Lissa, since I would instantly know if she was in trouble. I'd promised to protect her my whole life, but then Dimitri-tall, gorgeous, fierce Dimitri-had changed it all. I'd been faced with that horrible choice: continue to protect Lissa or free Dimitri's soul. Choosing between them had broken my heart, leaving an ache in my chest and tears in my eyes. My parting with Lissa had been agonizing. We'd been best friends since kindergarten, and my departure was a shock for both of us. To be fair, she'd never seen it coming. I'd kept my romance with Dimitri a secret. He was my instructor, seven years older than me, and had been assigned to be her guardian as well. As such, he and I had tried hard to fight our attraction, knowing we had to focus on Lissa more than anything else and that we'd also get in a fair amount of trouble for our student-teacher relationship.

But being kept from Dimitri-even though I'd agreed to it-had caused me to build up a lot of unspoken resentment toward Lissa. I probably should have talked to her about it and explained my frustration over having my entire life planned out. It didn't seem fair, somehow, that while Lissa was free to live and love however she wanted, I would always have to sacrifice my own happiness to ensure that she was protected. She was my best friend, though, and I couldn't bear the thought of upsetting her. Lissa was particularly vulnerable because using spirit had the nasty side effect of driving people insane. So I'd sat on my feelings until they finally exploded, and I left the Academy-and her-behind for good.

One of the ghosts I'd seen-Mason, a friend who had been killed by Strigoi-had told me Dimitri had returned to his homeland: Siberia. Mason's soul had found peace and left this world shortly thereafter, without giving me any other clues about where in Siberia Dimitri might have gone. So I'd had to set out there blindly, braving a world of humans and a language I didn't know in order to fulfill the promise I'd made to myself.

After a few weeks on my own, I had finally made it to Saint Petersburg. I was still looking, still floundering-but determined to find him, even though I dreaded it at the same time. Because if I really did pull this insane plan off, if I actually managed to kill the man I loved, it would mean Dimitri would truly be gone from the world. And I honestly wasn't sure I could go on in a world like that.

None of it seems real. Who knows? Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's actually happening to someone else. Maybe it's something I imagined. Maybe soon I'm going to wake up and find everything fixed with Lissa and Dimitri. We'll all be together, and he'll be there to smile and hold me and tell me everything's going to be okay. Maybe all of this really has been a dream.

But I don't think so.

Chapter One

Chapter One

I was being followed.

It was kind of ironic, considering the way