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Our shadow-kissed bond made me the ideal choice to protect Lissa, since I would instantly know if she was in trouble I'd proorgeous, fierce Died it all I'd been faced with that horrible choice: continue to protect Lissa or free Di between the an ache inwith 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 co I'd kept my romance with Dimitri a secret He was ned to be her guardian as well As such, he and I had tried hard to fight our attraction, knoe had to focus on Lissa et in a fair amount of trouble for our student-teacher relationship

But being kept froreed 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 explainedmy 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 ht of upsetting her Lissa was particularly vulnerable because using spirit had the nasty side effect of driving people insane So I'd sat on s until they finally exploded, and I left the Acadeood

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 one So I'd had to set out there blindly, braving a world of hue I didn't know in order to fulfill the promise I'd made to myself

After a feeeks onI was still looking, still floundering-but deterh I dreaded it at the same time Because if I really did pull this insane plan off, if I actually ed to kill the one froo on in a world like that

None of it seems real Who knows? Maybe it isn't Maybe it's actually happening to sooing to wake up and find everything fixed with Lissa and Diether, and he'll be there to s to be okay Maybe all of this really has been a dream

But I don't think so

Chapter One

I was being followed

It was kind of ironic, considering the way I'd been following others for the last feeeks At least it wasn't a Strigoi I would have already known

A recent effect ofshadow-kissed was the ability to sense the undead-through bouts of nausea, unfortunately Still, I appreciatedsysteht wasn't an insanely fast, insanely vicious vah of those recently and kind of wanted a night off

I had to guess my folloas a dhampir like me, probably one fro a little less stealthily than I would have expected of a dhaainst the pave on, and once, I'd caught a brief gli ht, a dhampir was the most likely culprit