There was an odd sense of waking up with both extreme clarity and immense confusion intermingled. I could hear so many things, nearly everything, before I had even opened my eyes. From the sound of water dripping off the stone, to the crackle of dying fires, and wind rustling the leaves. And those were just the quiet sounds. Louder, I could also hear unfamiliar voices talking nearby, waiting for me to stir. There were sounds of them moving about, and an odd wet noise that I couldn't easily identify right away.

Then there were the smells. I had never truly taken notices of smells before, at least not seriously. Sure I had appreciated the smell of good food in my mother's kitchen growing up or turned away at the stench of old laundry left too long by a roommate at school, but I could literally smell the rock beneath me and the grass outside. I could smell the worn leather of my jacket. But above everything else, I could smell blood. Not just one type of blood either, but the blood of many.

And I needed it.

Now.

My eyes snapped open and I immediately turned to defend myself against those who nearby. I wasn't sure who they were yet, but until I did, I couldn't call them a friend or foe. In a single swift motion, I was on my feet and reaching for my stake nearby.

"I wouldn't do that..."

The moment my fingers touched the familiar silver, my skin burned as if I had stuck my hand in an open flame. I roared in pain, holding my wrist in shock and stumbling as I tried to catch my bearings. My stake was like an extension of myself, and this was practically a betrayal. It was a rejection of my very being almost.

It was only then, though, that I truly began to see. The shadows of the caves held nearly no darkness for me. I could see every bump and crack in the surfaces around me. As the figures stood to their full height, I could see them clearly as well, from the shallow color of their skin down to their red-ringed eyes.

"Dimitri, right?" I recognized the blond Strigoi speaking as the one who had turned me, but I refused to answer him. "That's what the Hathaway girl kept calling you anyways. What was her name? Rose? Something like that. Anyways, you got a last name?"

Once again, I refused to answer him, choosing to hold my ground and silence. Unfortunately, his temper seemed to have a very short fuse. Within seconds, he had me pinned on the ground with one knee pressed painfully against my throat. I gasped for breath, suddenly fearing death despite being undead. However, killing me wasn't his goal. The issue was much more about control than suffocation.

"Listen Dimitri No-Name. You might have been big and bad as a Dhampir, but I awakened you. I'm your sire and you're nothing without me, got it? You're weak without blood and you're weak without me. So until you get your act together and start recognizing who is in charge here, we're going to have problems. Got it?"

Out of stubbornness or spite, I kept my lips sealed. All it earned me was a crack against the stone floor. He was right about one thing...I really didn't have much strength. I couldn't even throw him off of me, much less fight him or the others if I managed to get to my feet.

"Got it?" The blond Strigoi, my sire, repeated.

"Got it," I finally agreed, albeit unwillingly.

"Good," he smiled, bearing his fangs fully. "Now, how about that last name?"

"Belikov."

He pulled me up and patted my back as if we were old friends, seemingly forgetting that he had pinned me down and beaten my head against a stone moments ago. "Well gang, what do you say we give Belikov his first feeding?"

With some cheers and shouts from the others, he flung an arm around my shoulder. "By the way, you can call me Nathan. Nathan Tarus, though we don't typically keep royal names around here. 'Royal blood' takes on a whole new meaning on the other side." He laughed manically at some hidden joke, shaking his head almost in pity when I didn't catch on right away.

The deeper he led me into the caves, the stronger the smell of blood grew. It became overwhelming. In the past, I remembered the smell being something that would make my stomach turn in disgust, but now my body craved it. I could feel my tongue run along my fangs, new and sharp. My muscles practically twitched in excitement. I felt almost animalistic in my desire to find and consume my prey.

The more I saw, the more my mind raced. It was almost as if my head couldn't processes everything fast enough. There were so many new sights, smells, sensations of every kind. Everything was the same as I had seen not so long ago when I had fought here with the others, but it was also completely different. I never would have noticed the thin vein of pyrite along the cave wall earlier, barely there but shining in the flicker of embers. It was fool's gold, something I was familiar with in Russia and something I knew existed here as well, at least in theory, but it certainly wasn't something you look for while fighting for your life. It also wasn't something I was paying attention to, but still... I saw it. I heard animals starting to come out from wherever they were hiding, even though it was obvious they were keeping a fair distance from us. Over the smell of blood, as tantalizing as it was, I could also start to smell the stench of death and decay starting to set in. My only solace in all of this was that my over sensory experience seemed to be a symptom of my recently "awakened" condition and it didn't seem to faze the others nearly as much as it affected me.

I could still hear the sounds of other people – Strigoi – speaking and laughing. It was almost odd to see these creatures, those that I had always seen as monsters, acting so...human. Or nearly human. Some were feeding on the recently dead. I could even identify the bodies of most of their victims, but I also couldn't deny my fascination and even desire to taste the blood of my former peers as well.

My breath started quickening though when I heard a quiet moan over the sounds of the others eating. I could also hear a faint but still somewhat steady heartbeat, unusual in this mass of people. A figure was being dragged between two people, blood dripping from his temple, and he was thrown like a sacrificial lamb before the altar in front of me.

"There you go, Dimitri. We found him unconscious and barely breathing, but we saved him for you. Fresh blood is always the best. Can't say he'll be much of a fight, but hey, at least he won't stake you while you're trying to sink your teeth in."

Several men and woman started laughing at what seemed to be an inside joke but all I could focus on was the blood dripping from the man's forehead. It was like a siren's call, blocking almost everything else out. It was nearly intoxicating just to see it, to smell it, and I hadn't even tasted it yet...

"Dimitri?"

The sound of my name pulled me from my delirium, drawing my eyes from the trail of blood to man's eyes right beside it. I recognized those eyes. They belonged to Yuri.

No. He was dead. I saw him. He died.

"What...What did they do to you Di-"

Nathan kicked Yuri to the ground, prompting me to push him to the wall in retaliation. Nathan merely rolled his eyes in annoyance before flipping me onto my back with a painful thud. I was instantly brought back to my early childhood days at the academy and the years before my growth spurt when I seemed to lose every single match against my peers.

"Trust me, Dimitri, you don't want to play with your food. Actually, scratch that. Play with your food all you want, especially the pretty ones. Just don't get attached to your food, got it?" He pulled me up again, a little more roughly than before and shoved me towards Yuri. "Let's try this again, shall we?"

Face to face with Yuri, I could see the pleading in his eyes. He didn't want to die, and I didn't want to kill him. At least not on the surface. Still, my eyes kept flickering towards the slow trickle of blood that still flowed from his head wound. The way his heart raced only made that hunger more poignant.

"Damn it, Dimitri. We aren't here for a freaking staring contest!" A second later, Nathan had swiped a finger through Yuri's wound and shoved it in my mouth, nearly gagging me in the process. I pushed him away in anger, and he backed away with his hands up in surrender and licking whatever remained on his blood-stained finger but as my mind registered the taste of Yuri's blood, nothing else mattered. Only feeding.

It was such a natural motion that I didn't even have to think, only act. One moment I was kneeling in front of Yuri, the next I was at his neck, my fangs deep in his throat as his blood pumped out in time with his heartbeats. All I had to do was drink it up. With every ounce that poured out of him, I could feel myself strengthening, the sheer power in every fiber of my being.

At one point, I pulled away, suddenly aware of just what I was doing. I wasn't sure if it was disgust or awe, but it was shock either way.

Yuri, somehow, was still hanging on, even if it was just barely. I could still see some light in his eyes as he looked up at me.

I don't know if I could have said anything to him in that moment, even if I wanted to. I felt like an animal in the throes of savagery and I'm sure any sound I made would have sounded like a feral growl.

But Yuri did speak. Gargling, choking and with blood dripping from his lips, he spoke his final words. The actual words might have been lost in the pull of death but the intent was clear. They were ones of forgiveness. And an apology for not being able to save me.

In reply, I only dove in again with more vigor, until his heart no longer pumped his blood and I had to suck him dry. I could now identify the wet sucking sound I heard earlier when I had first awoken at the mouth of the cave; it was the others feeding, feasting on blood of those who were freshly dead.

I shifted, cradling the corpse to me as I attempted to console myself by satisfying my hunger. Blood-lust over powered my pain, control overwhelmed feeling, and eventually, strength overcame my weakness.

I did get my fill, after who knows how long. The body was somehow more pale than mine by the time I was done, but all that was nothing compared to carnage I had created. I tossed it aside like an empty bottle, appalled. I had seen many bodies killed by Strigoi, and they had never looked like my first kill. I couldn't even blame Nathan for laughing at me when he caught sight of what had happened, despite the burning of anger it stirred in me. I would have shamed someone for creating such a mess too. His neck was destroyed, nearly torn apart. He looked more like a victim of a wild dog attack, not a Strigoi. And especially not from someone trained to attack and kill with finesse like I was.

"Don't worry, Newbie, your first kill is your messiest. Hunger is the best sauce they say. You'll get more practiced as you get older." He tossed me a handkerchief with the monogram NT on it, allowing me a moment to get cleaned up before speaking again. My shirt was ruined, but it might have been before I had fed. The battle had left quite a bit of damage of its own. "We're leaving today. There'll be some vans picking us up and we're going to be hitting the airport immediately after. If you have any business to take care of, I suggest you do it now. After that, we're out of here and we aren't coming back."

I didn't bother asking where we were going or what he was planning next. It didn't matter. There was only one thing that I was focused on now. As I looked out towards the exit of the cave, I knew I had one last piece of business to attend to...

There was one person that I wasn't planning on leaving behind.

Author's Note

And so comes the end of Shadow Kiss. Thank you so much for all your support guys. I couldn't have done it without you. Also, may we have one more big round of applause for Raissa? A good beta makes a world of difference!

Now, obviously we have yet to see full-on Strigoi Dimitri. I've only shown a taste of what's to come (even at the expense of poor Yuri...sorry) but I thought this might be a good way to ease us into it. We'll see much more in the upcoming books and you'll have much more information on what goes on behind the scenes in Galina's Estate.

Unfortunately, I'll need a few weeks to get things in order and start my prewrites. I'm hoping to start posting at the end of June or the beginning of July. Keep an eye on my FanFiction Profile and Tumblr for an official date, and of course, follow me as an author to be notified as soon as it posts.

For this week's Question of the Week, I thought I'd go with a fun one: What is the BEST book-to-movie adaptation you've seen and WORST book-to-movie adaptation you've seen?

I think the best book to movie adaptation I've seen is Holes. Seriously, they were killer in keeping things by the book. Plus, the casting was fairly spot on. Except for the minor detail that Stanley wasn't overweight (which would have been unhealthy for Shia at the time) it was pretty perfect. A close second would probably be Stardust. OH! and Catching Fire was pretty killer too (thank you FLaw!)

As for worst, there's MANY that could fall into that category including Vampire Academy. That one might be the one that stings the worse actually. Others include Sahara, DaVinci Code, The Giver, and (I might be shot for this one) A Walk to Remember. I think I was the only one of my friends who hated this movie but I literally laughed when she dropped that emotional bomb on him. It was just...too much for me. Even at 11. I enjoyed all these books though!

Thank you again for supporting me through this MEGA journey. We are only half way through the series and the hardest part is yet to come, but I'm so excited to go forward with you. Don't forget to favorite and follow the story and me as an author (especially now that this story is over) and please share and comment. I really do appreciate all the love! You have made my writing hobby so much more enjoyable 3