I am tormented by bloodlust. I feel nothing. I cannot laugh, except in taunting and killing my prey. I am wild. I cannot cry. I am out of control. The last time I felt anything was when I died . . .

The blood burned my throat like liquid fire, like metallic coffee brewed too hot. It seared through the dizzying endorphins from the fangs that had recently left my throat.

I saw everything I was losing.

It began with the little things: Westerns, John Wayne movies, the music Rose always complained about . . . then I saw my mother, my sisters, my fellow guardians . . . Lissa, Christian, the Moroi I was dying for. I watched them fade into meaningless shadows—memories of another life.

The blood was choking me but the bitter taste was less revolting. The burning was almost pleasant, almost like the thick hot chocolate I'd drunk with Rose after her first field experience fumble.

I saw her, then, and everything exploded. I was dying the most painful death anyone had ever died.

I heard her screaming. The words were nonsensical and garbled, but I knew. She needed me and I was dying.

Rose, my Roza . . . I remembered the first time I saw her, looking like an Arabian princess sacrificing blood so Lissa could live. The first time she called me 'comrade'. The training, when it was impossible and necessary to hurt her. The night Victor trapped us in our own emotions . . . and finally the way she looked last night when all our walls fell down.

Like everything else, she was fading . . . ghostly . . . an almost-invisible angel hovering in memory.

I screamed and the blood choked me. It was hard to spit the blood out, it tasted . . . good. The blonde Strigoi hovering over me grinned.

"Roza, my Roza," I muttered, and watched, fascinated, as the blood spattered from my mouth onto the pale Strigoi arm above my mouth . . . .

Then she faded into nothingness. Her memory was only a warm sensation in my chest, like the hot blood in my mouth. Roza.

My face was wet, burning like the blood had. I was crying.

I couldn't remember why I cried. I couldn't remember what love meant. My throat was parched, begging for blood.

I didn't choose this living hell. My calculating brain couldn't rationalize this: to be away from the sun, away from my Roza . . . and to feel nothing.

I shoved the Strigoi—my creator—away and wiped my tears on my bloodstained shirt. The blood smelled so, so tantalizing. My creator laughed.

I closed my eyes and reached for the memories of Roza. They were impossibly clear, impossibly emotionless, like a stunning film I couldn't relate to. I saw her as she had been with Christian—heartbreakingly beautiful and deadly, smoldering with hatred for Strigoi. I was her beloved, then, and now I am her enemy—her beloved enemy, who cannot love her or hate her, because I feel nothing except my desire for blood and Strigoi strength.

I ache to fight her, to taste her sweet blood. Nothing matters except the bloodlust. I can feel nothing, even in my memory. I understand, better than ever, why we trained our young to fight. I pray my Roza would find me with her acidic, merciful stake.

I am Dimitri Belikov.

I am Strigoi.