If you haven't finished Blood Promise, go find something else to read. I have a habit of reading books fast and retaining about 90% of the info, which is why I'm among the first to put stories out that are after the latest book. In this case, it's Blood Promise.

Usual disclaimers apply.


According to Lissa, with the agreements of Adrian, Eddie, and Christian, I could be compared to Bella Swan in the Twilight series. However, when they told me this, the first thing that I thought was how weird it was that Adrian, Eddie, and Christian had read enough of the series to be able to agree with Lissa and put in their own thoughts.

After listening to them, with Christian just piggy-backing on what they said during lunch the next day, I decided that Bella Swan (seriously? "Beautiful Swan"?) and I only had one thing in common - we were magnets for a lot of things.

Magnets for forbidden love.

Magnets for trouble.

Magnets for danger.

Magnets for reckless, stupid, rash behavior.

Magnets for injuries.

Magnets for the unnatural.

The earliest time I could think of that fit would be when Lissa and I ran away from St. Vladimir's Academy in the first place, back in our freshman year. Quickly followed by when the guardians Kirova dispatched to find us for two long years had succeeded, much to my displeasure.

Between trying to figure out spirit, the fifth, rare element that very little Moroi specialized in, my weird, psychic bond with Lissa, and my feelings for my mentor, Dimitri Belikov, whose sole purpose was to catch me up, the beginning of my senior year made my head hurt. Looking back, though, that was the easiest my life had been since freshman year.

The tug at my heart at the thought of the fallen Dimitri was more like a rough yank in which my heart was ripped out of my chest, thrown to the ground, and then stepped on. About a month after the ski trip during winter break and Mason's death at the hands of a group of Strigoi, something unusual, there had been a large attack at the academy. On a rescue mission that had been my idea, Dimitri had been caught off-guard in the one moment during the entire time he was carrying out the mission. Because my weird psychic bond Lissa allowed me to see ghosts, I had found out from the ghost version of Mason that Dimitri had turned Strigoi - they're considered the "bad vampires" of my world, so when I found out the news, I was absolutely crushed.

Strigoi are the "bad vampires" of my world, and the "good vampires" are Moroi. Strigoi are a bit like zombies - they're the living dead. They feed off the blood of humans, Moroi, and dhampirs, like me and my friend, Eddie Castile. They were created by two ways: the first was the Strigoi drinking all of the blood out if its victim, and then feeding their victim some of their own blood. This was how Dimitri was changed. The other way is specific to Moroi - when they fed on humans, they had to drain them, effectively killing the feeder. Their magic disappeared, and all Strigoi lost their souls. Moroi and dhampirs alike were taught from a very young age that if a person was turned Strigoi, the changed person was not the same person.

Moroi wielded magic, and they specialized in any one of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. My best friend Lissa Dragomir and our souvenir from the ski trip, Adrian Ivashkov, both specialized in a fifth, extremely rare element - spirit. Lissa could heal people (she brought me beck from the dead in a car crash that killed her parents and brother), Adrian could walk dreams, and both had superior control over compulsion, an ability that allowed whoever was using it to compel people to do whatever they wanted. All Moroi could use it, but it seemed to be stronger in spirit users.

The third race in our little secret world were dhampirs. I'm one of them, as is - correction, was - Dimitri. We're half vampire, half human, and act as the bodyguards of Moroi to prevent them from getting killed by Strigoi. We first showed up back when Moroi wielded magic in front of humans like it was no big deal and actually got together with them. Over the centuries, humans began to become afraid and wary of Moroi, and soon all three races were living in secret from humans. Up until just a month ago, I had believed that no human knew of our existence. I was wrong.

There were a select group of humans called Alchemists who knew about our kind and what we did. They knew different tactics that allowed them to help keep the Moroi community secret and worked for some higher-ups about whom I wasn't privy to know. I had met one in Russia in the beginning of my quest to find Dimitri and kill him, a promise we had both made back when were first falling in love. If one of us became Strigoi, the other would kill them. Hence why I dropped out of St. Vladimir's for five weeks to find Dimitri and kill him. After several tries and about a week and a half as a blood whore for Dimitri, I thought I had killed him on a bridge above the Ob River, right outside Novosibirsk. Again, I was wrong.

Turns out that I had only staked him in the chest, and not the heart. There were three ways to kill a Strigoi - decapitation, setting them on fire, and putting a silver, Moroi-magic-infused stake through their heart. If you hit them with a stake anywhere else, it wasn't lethal, but it definitely left a scar when it healed. The only way I knew Dimitri hadn't died, despite falling off a bridge a good hundred feet above the fast-moving river after being staked, was a package I got the day after I returned to St. Vladimir's. It had the stake I supposedly killed Dimitri with and a slightly cryptic note that let me know he was coming after me to kill me.

Not a great thought to have lurking in the back of your mind as you try to start going to school again for the last two and a half months.

So despite the claims of my four friends, Bella Swan and I were barely alike. Sure, we had fallen in love with someone we probably shouldn't have fallen in love with and were constantly having near-death experiences, but it was because we were magnets.

Which is why while I had promised several people that I would graduate and go to school for the next two and a half months, I felt like the magnet in me was just dragging Dimitri closer to me. He knew where to find me, and it wouldn't take long for him to show up and try to kill me here at the academy. And then, killing him was free game for anyone, though I don't think anyone besides me would kill him - I'd probably turn around and kill them myself. It was the only way I had found I could get closure from the whole ordeal.

The end of July seemed like the longest distance away from where I was standing. I was pretty sure Antarctica was closer to me than the end of July.


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