– DIMITRI –

She had fought with me and it was like going back in time. I felt like we were in the gym again. I could tell that I had unnerved her, perhaps even scared her by approaching her in the alley, so I never countered. But her technique was still fairly strong, even if it was a bit rusty.

Her entire reaction to me had surprised and confused me though. Not so much that she had defended herself against someone she saw as a threat – history had told me that she would do so time and time again – but the fact that she saw me as a threat in the first place. She even claimed to have never met me before.

She was still fast. Very fast. By the time my senses caught up to the fact that she was actually running from me she was long gone. I had lost sight over her in the heavy crowds. She had once again vanished like a ghost. Without any idea of where to look for her now, I started back towards the hotel.

What would I tell the others? Should I even tell the others? Our sighting earlier had shaken all of us, especially when we thought we had been completely wrong. We had all faced false leads before and each time was nothing but pain. Poor Adrian had taken the news the hardest. Between drinks five and nine, all he seemed to do was repeat "I was so sure" over and over again. It was a blessed relief to us all when he finally forgot the beginning of the night after drink number eleven. If she was running from me, from us..maybe she didn't want to be found. Maybe it was better they just think it was another close call...

It didn't make any sense. Why would she deny knowing me? Why would she change her name? What would cause her to do either?

~ ROSE ~

I made it home, still running the alley scene in my mind over and over again. I analyzed everything, from the way he approached me, to what he said and how he said it. I even examined the way that we had fought. Even though I had only thought of him as some strange manifestation of the man in my daydreams, he seemed to be extremely familiar with me even if some of the minor facts – you know, like my name – were wrong.

I didn't have much time alone with my thoughts before Marie blazed through the door.

"So...did tall, dark, and handsome come find you?"

"Excuse me?"

"The extremely attractive man with the long hair and sexy accent. He was asking about you at the bar."

"AND YOU TOLD HIM TO APPROACH ME IN THE ALLEY!? Marie, he could have been a stalker for all you knew. Were you the one who told him my name too?" I was getting more and more upset by the minute but she seemed perfectly calm. It only served to piss me off more.

"Yep, and if he's a stalker, he's by far the worst one that I had ever seen."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, according to him and his friends, they haven't seen you in over two years."

That stopped me in my tracks. "Two years?"

She nodded excitedly when she heard the understanding in my voice. "Yep. That's what I thought."

"Do you think that maybe he..."

"Exactly," she agreed to my unfinished thought. "That's also why I pick up this." She slid a small paper across the kitchen counter.

I unfolded it to find a phone number written in extremely neat handwriting and underneath it was a name: Dimitri.

I was in shock. It was one thing to see a man that looked like the one in my daydreams. It was another for him to have the same name. Plus he apparently recognized me. Wrong name but still... it wasn't possible.

"You should call him," Marie offered. "Even if he doesn't know your past, he would make a nice addition to your future."

I laughed at her insinuation, but couldn't quite disagree. "I'll call him in the morning."

"It's already 4am."

"You know what I mean."

"Well, don't wait too long. Between you and me, his little group didn't look local."

I nodded with a long yawn. Marie mimicked me a moment later before suggesting we both hit the sack.

Around 1pm the next day, I was slowly typing the 10 digits into my cell, calling myself crazy the entire time. The phone only rang twice before I heard his deep voice over the line.

"Belikov." His greeting was short and sharp, almost military-like in precision.

"Um...Dimitri?"

"Roza," his voice softened dramatically, and he whispered the word as if it was sacred.

"Ivy...actually."

"Yes," He corrected himself, some of that warmth leaving. "Ivy. My apologies. What can I do for you Ivy?"

"Well, Marie – the bartender you spoke to last night – she explained a few things to me after work. I'm sorry for the way I acted in the alley."

"Please, don't apologize. I shouldn't have approached you like that. You had every right to defend yourself."

"Yeah, a dark alley in the middle of the night probably wasn't the best idea," I laughed nervously. He didn't. "Anyways...Marie said that you might, well, know some things about me. I was wondering if you'd like to try this talking thing again. Maybe over coffee, in a well-lit public area?"

"That...that would be great." He still didn't laugh, but if I listened hard I could almost hear a hint of a grin. "I'm not here for long though, would today work?"

Less than two hours later, I was in one of the many Starbucks that dotted the town. I was still blowing on my hot chocolate when the four men came in. A few customers raised their heads as they came in, and I didn't blame them. There was no way that they could go unnoticed. While Dimitri was the tallest of the bunch, the other three weren't much shorter.

I didn't need to catch their attention as they spotted me immediately. Two of them, the sandy blond and the dark haired one with the ice blue eyes, looked at me like I was a ghost. The one with eyes like emeralds looked almost...victorious? As for me, I was shocked because I recognized the trio just like I had recognized Dimitri; from my daydreams. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised, but it's not very often you meet the literal man of your dreams, and I'd done so four times in less than 24 hours.

"So let me guess," I started, shaking their hands in turn. "Christian, Eddie, Adrian, and of course Dimitri."

"Nice to see you again," Dimitri hesitated, "Ivy."

"So she's really going by Ivy now?" The dark haired one, Christian, remarked snarkily as if I wasn't here.

"Well, that is my name." I don't know why, but this guy was rubbing me the wrong way.

"Bull-"

"Christian!" Adrian interrupted, cutting off the impending argument. He looked at me strangely, almost like he was trying to get a read off of me. "Ivy, you seem a bit curious and confused. What's on your mind?"

"Well, first off, the past day has been one of the strangest ever. And trust me when I say that I've had some really odd days."

"Like what, for example?" Eddie offered.

"Well, we can start with the fact that I've seen all four of you several times before, but I've never actually met you. As far as I knew, you were odd but strangely detailed figments of my imagination and yet...here you are." The sarcasm and disbelief was thick in my voice, but I honestly didn't quite know how to handle the situation. It wasn't like there was a precedent for this sort of thing.

"Wait, what do you mean?"

"I get these...extremely vivid daydreams. They aren't quite normal. They almost feel real, like an out of body experience of sorts."

Adrian let out a laugh, which felt entirely inappropriate considering what I had just told him. "She's still bonded. She's still connected with Lissa."

I stared at him blankly. He literally made no sense to me.

"Who else do you see in those daydreams?" He prompted.

I thought for a moment. "Well, you four play a fairly significant role. Adrian less so than the others, but I've probably seen more of Christian than I'd care to admit...unfortunately."

The smug jerk looked slightly embarrassed as Adrian mocked his shame.

"You two..." I pointed to Dimitri and Eddie "...always seem to be nearby, but more like shadows than anything else. There are lots of other people, more than I can count. Who's Lissa? I keep hearing her name but I've never seen her. Most of what I hear in the daydreams doesn't make any sense."

Dimitri spoke this time. "You don't know who Princess Vasilisa – Lissa – is?"

"Should I? She feels important but I can't figure out why."

"She's your best friend. She's your charge. You've known each other since you were kids..." he met my blank stare incredulously. "You really have no idea?"

"None, but you guys should probably know something." I paused, not for dramatic effect but because it always seemed to be a big production every time I tried to explain my situation. "I don't remember anything from my childhood. I don't remember anything from before about two years ago. Doctors call it dissociative amnesia because of some traumatic episode. Hell, for all I know, you guys are right and my name is Rose rather than Ivy. I woke up one day in a park in Spokane, and that was the beginning for me."

As soon as I mentioned Spokane, all four men seemed to perk up. Christian and Eddie just grinned like idiots between each other, Adrian started laughing, and Dimitri...well for someone who looked so completely in control, he seemed to be on the verge of losing it. He actually turned from the rest of us to catch his breath, running his fingers through his hair.

"When?" he asked me desperately, "When exactly."

"January third."

A smile broke out across his face, full of hope and relief.

"Rose, the girl we are looking for, disappeared January second of the same year...in Spokane, Washington."

There was a very pregnant pause before I spoke again. There was too much here to be considered coincidence. "How did she disappear?"

Christian, Eddie, and Dimitri all looked away, suddenly unable to meet my eyes...much less answer my question. I could almost see the physical weight of guilt rest on their shoulders and while I didn't know why they felt that way, it did nothing to calm my nerves as to what could have happened.

"She was held hostage for a short while." My breath caught as Adrian offered a vague yet horrid explanation. "She was able to overpower her captors...but she lost one of her closest friends in the process. We assume that the experience was simply too overwhelming. It would be for anyone. We think she ran from the scene and nobody has seen her since. At least...not until now."

The information hit me like a freight train. The chances that I was who these people thought I was was almost certain, and perhaps that should have been a relief but it was actually terrifying. I had spent the past several years building – or rebuilding – a life around me. I gave up on ever returning to whatever life I had known before long ago when nobody came for me. Now what? Was I expected to simply return to a life that I still had no recollection of? Yet could I really walk away from this knowing that I might be able to regain my history? There was no easy answer, but I knew which option I would regret if I didn't take it.

"What's my name?"

Adrian looked slightly startled at my sudden change in subject, but Dimitri looked at me with sympathetic eyes that seemed to be filled with a depth of emotion despite his stoic face.

"Your name," he said, "is Rosemarie Hathaway."

– DIMITRI –

I could see the moment she made up her mind. Her face shifted from the scared and confused young lady I had once known to the determined woman that had been ripped away from me far too soon. My doubt as to who Ivy really was had been swept away in a moment last night, but to see her accept the possibility was almost too good to be true. I felt like I was dreaming, and I couldn't tell if I was waiting to wake up disappointed and alone. She seemed willing to at least listen to us, but I knew it would be a whole different story to convince her to return with us.

I was also concerned with the revelation that she had no memory of anything before the night after she disappeared. She didn't remember Vasilisa, who was literally ingrained into her spirit. She didn't remember her family or friends. She didn't remember me. Who knows what else she couldn't remember?

We answered questions for hours. I knew that the others had been hesitant when I had insisted we see Ivy/Rose this afternoon after her call. Hope can be cruel when it is stolen away, and none of us were ready to gamble it again. This time, luck was on our side. She started off with basic things like her birthday, how old she was,, where did she go to school. Nothing too deep, but I could already see her countenance getting heavy with the weight of simply learning who she was. There was a certain sadness in watching her take notes on what should have been her basic information.

Eventually, with a deep breath, she started delving into more complex information.

"Something's been bothering me. This girl, Lissa, you said that we've known each other since we were small children. You said she was my best friend. You also said she was something else...my charge." Her last few words came out more as a question than anything else.

My mind went blank, only to fill with several curses in my native tongue when I started to realize exactly what she was asking. Before I could speak, Eddie beat me to it.

"Rose, you said you remember nothing from before. Absolutely nothing?"

"Nope. Nothing consciously at least. You put a math question in front of me and I can figure it out, but I don't remember learning how to figure it out, I just know how to."

She looked my direction for her next words. "Same with fighting. I don't remember learning how to fight, but one day it became necessary and my body just knew what to do. Just like last night. I don't know where it came from, it's almost instinctual."

Eddie shot me a mild glare, unbeknownst to the others, when he realized that Rose and I had a small altercation last night.

Rose continued without missing a beat, tapping her head and with a humorless laugh, "It's burned up here somewhere."

Realizing that nobody had answered her initial question, I took it upon myself to do so.

"Rose, you were being trained to be a Guardian; a bodyguard of sorts. You were preparing to protect Lissa."

"She needed a bodyguard? Why?"

"She's important in our society. Very important in fact. Her full name is Princess Vasilisa Dragomir."

"Princess? Um...wow." She took in the information before her face sparked with a sudden thought. "So where are you guys from? None of you have accents...or, well, most of you don't." She shot me a playful grin and my heart jumped. It was a sudden flash to all those times we had joked during training, and every time I had taken that for granted.

Christian looked clueless as to just what she was getting at, "We live here, Rose. Well, we live at Court in Pennsylvania, but we live in the US."

"Then...how is she a Princess?"

I could see Eddie and Adrian slowly piecing together what I had feared.

"She's a Moroi Princess, the last of her Royal line." It sounded totally displaced with what I was saying, but I could hear the despair in my voice as I anticipated her reaction.

"Moroi?"

That one word seemed to solidify everything for us. We were dealing with something much more difficult that we had anticipated. It was one thing to remind her of who she was...it would be a whole different thing to convince her of what she was and an entire society and race that she would most likely view as something from a storybook.

"Crap." Christian seemed to be stunned, picking up on the full weight of the situation and saying what I'm sure we were all thinking. Adrian stared at her stunned, and Eddie just looked overwhelmed. For her part, Rose was just confused. I couldn't blame her, she literally had no idea what was happening right now.

Before our conversation could go any further, I leaned towards Adrian, breaking him from his stupor as I spoke to him privately.

"This isn't the proper place to discuss this. Perhaps we should head back to the hotel room."

Adrian looked a bit perplexed, knowing full and well that Rose wouldn't leave with four relative strangers. I rose my eyebrow, giving a silent hint and his eyes widened when he understood. He gave a small nod, almost disappointed but knowing there was no other option, before turning to Rose.

Rose glanced back and forth between us during our quiet conversation before settling on him as he cleared his throat.

"Rose. Come with back to our hotel room. We'll talk more there."

I felt a small twinge of guilt as I watched her eyes glass over under the influence of the compulsion spell. It was nothing compared to what I knew Adrian was feeling at this moment. He tossed some cash on the table and stood before she replied, already knowing she would agree.

Authors Note

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the latest chapter :) Anyone else as surprised as the boys right now? I've seen memory-loss stories in the past, but every other one I've read before, she at least knew that she was Dhampir. How do you think this will change things?

A big thanks to those of you who have been recommending this and my other stories to friends! Several of you have left a note saying that a friend referred you or that you were planning on sharing my work with someone else. You have no idea how crazy wonderful that is to me. It's such a high praise and I feel really honored. Thank you so much.

In other good news, Shadow Kiss: Dimitri's Point of View will start posting THIS Saturday night. I've been giving these two stories every spare moment of my time and I hope you are all as excited as I am. Make sure I'm listed as a favorited/followed author so you can get an notice as soon as it goes live!

Don't forget to review, favorite, and follow! Have a wonderful week!