I woke up as soon as the dream ended. I winced, suddenly feeling the sharp pain on my side. I froze letting the pain dull away. Once it dulled, I relaxed letting out the breath I was holding.

I thought back to the dream I just had, feeling really weird about it. This was the second time I had a dream where I was crying, asking Dimitri to not do something. What that something was, I have no clue. And that kiss, it sent shivers through me. I didn't actually experience it, I saw it happen between Dimitri and I which was making me feel weird because I wanted to actually experience it. And it wasn't that I just wanted to do it in my dream, but I wanted to kiss him in real life. I wanted to know how it would feel.

I closed my eyes, willing the thought away. It was just a stupid dream making me feel like that. The want would go away by morning. It should.

I checked the time and it was 3 am in the morning. Then I realized that I was sleeping in Dimitri's room but Dimitri wasn't here himself. I wondered where he was. Was he sleeping somewhere else?

A thought suddenly came to me. What if he was with Shauna? Did he spend time at night with Shauna? He probably does. The thought really pissed me off. He should be sleeping here in his room. Not with that Shauna. I knew I was assuming things, but where else would he be?

Suddenly, I heard the room door opening causing me to close my eyes. I lay still pretending I was asleep. I didn't know who entered the room. It most likely had to be Dimitri but it could be anyone. I stayed still, waiting to see what this person would do, whoever it was.

I felt soft footsteps coming towards me. Once they reached me, whoever it was placed their hand on my cheek and I immediately recognized it as Dimitri. The rough feel of his fingers, gently caressed my cheek. I almost whimpered in protest when he removed his fingers, causing me to miss their wonderful warmth.

I felt him sigh before he sat down on the bed beside me. He sat there for quite a while doing nothing. It was making me feel anxious and I had this burning need inside me to just get up and kiss him. It was bad. Real bad.

I had no idea what was wrong with me. I've never wanted to kiss someone so badly before. And I've had many dreams where I've kissed Dimitri but none of them affected me as much as this one did. It was actually insane, this feeling.

I finally felt him move and grab the edge of the blanket, slowly pulling it off of me. I was curious to see what it was he was doing. He then grabbed the hem of my shirt, pulling it up, revealing my bandaged wound. I suddenly felt the cold hit my bare stomach, causing me to visibly shiver.

Dimitri seemed to notice as he had pressed himself closer to me, his body heat entering me, making me feel significantly warmer. He then gently placed his hand on top of the bandaged wound, probably to make sure it wasn't bleeding again. I hissed in pain, causing him to immediately pull away. I could feel his gaze fixed on my face now.

"Isabella." He quietly said, knowing I was awake. I opened my eyes, finding him leaning over me. I couldn't properly see him, but I was able to make out his features in the dark. Especially his lips. His plump, smooth, perfectly carved lips. I immediately looked away.

"Are you okay? Does it hurt?" He asked, leaning in closer to me, resting his hand on my bare stomach. I could feel my heart pounding loudly, my pulse going insane.

"A little." I responded gulping, as he lightly caressed the exposed skin on my stomach.

"Tell me if you start feeling a lot of pain, okay Isabella?" He said, as he took his other hand and placed it on my forehead, pushing my hair away from my face. His scent was really overpowering my senses now, causing me to feel light-headed, but in a good a

way. Everything about him felt so good.

"Isabella, is everything okay? You seem a little out of it." Dimitri said, sounding concerned as he leaned even more closer. I was in trouble now. He was so close, his lips inches away from mine. His scent so much more stronger and his warmth enveloping me like a fluffy blanket.

"Everything's all good." I breathed out, closing my eyes as I couldn't bear to look at him any longer. Even in the dark, he was breath taking.

"Are you sure?" He asked and I nodded my head in response, not able to speak any longer. Something was definitely wrong with me. Why was Dimitri having this strong of an effect on me? Even Kenneth never had this much of an effect on me.

"Okay, then go to sleep Isabella. You need to rest." He said, removing his hand away from my stomach, pulling the blanket all the way up over me. He then got up off the bed, walking away from me.

"Where are you going?" I asked, finally getting my voice back.

"I'm sleeping here on the couch so I don't accidentally hurt you at night." He explained as he laid down on the couch.

"Won't you be cold?" I asked, staring in the direction of the couch as I couldn't see that far into the darkness.

"I'll be fine Isabella, thanks for asking. And if I do get cold, I can go find myself another blanket. So don't worry too much about me. Worry about yourself." He said and I nodded my head, even though he probably couldn't see. But I think, I read somewhere that demons can see in the dark if they wanted to. So if he was using his night vision then he would have seen it. But I doubt he did.

"Goodnight." I said to him, before pulling the blanket tighter up to me.

"Goodnight." He replied back.

******

The next morning, I woke up to find Dimitri already awake, sitting on the couch and drawing in his sketchbook. He was so focused on his drawing, he didn't see me slowly sit up, wincing in pain. I got up off the bed, and slowly walked towards him. He surprisingly still didn't notice me.

"What are you drawing?" I suddenly asked, causing him to jump as he quickly tried to close his sketchbook. It fell to the ground in the process and lay open, facing up. I didn't get the chance to see his drawing as he immediately sprung out of the couch and snatched it off the ground, closing it shut. He then sat back down on the couch, breathing heavily.

After a few seconds of silence, I burst out laughing, even though it really hurt to do so. "Are you okay?" I asked in between my laughs and winces in pain. "What do you draw in there that makes you so secretive?"

Dimitri glared at me, not saying anything. "Well?" I asked, trying to stop laughing because of how much my side was starting to ache.

"I don't get what's so funny." He said putting his sketchbook aside.

"It's funny, how hard you just tried to make sure I didn't see what you were drawing." I said smiling in amusement, as I took a seat beside him.

"Well it's personal." He grumbled, looking away.

"Everything's personal with you." I sighed. "Are you ever going to tell me why you feel that pain and why you kill?" I asked, hoping he would finally give in.

"Nope." He said, picking his cup of tea off the table and taking a sip. "That's personal too."

"But Dimitri, I want to help stop the pain. How am I supposed to help you if you don't tell me anything?" I exclaimed in exasperation.

"That's the thing. You're not supposed to help me. There is no acceptable way for you to help stop the pain." He said, before taking another sip. "And besides, you shouldn't care about me."

"Do you honestly think this is just about helping you?" I said, turning to him in anger. "Because it's not. So stop thinking you're all that. This is about helping my people. I want to know what causes you that pain. I want to know why you've killed all the humans you have. I want to help my people. And the only way I can help my people is if I help you, according to Esther. So I'd really appreciate if you told me something." A small part of what I'd said was a lie. Yes I wanted to help Dimitri, so I could help my people. But I also wanted to help Dimitri, because I didn't like seeing him in pain.

Dimitri stared at the ground with a blank expression, before he decided to look up at me, sighing. I noticed pain in his eyes as he started talking. "It's a long story, but I guess I owe it to you and all the humans I've taken the lives of. But I'm warning you, you'll be disappointed because there is absolutely no way you can help me or your people. It's impossible so I don't even know why you're bothering with this. But I'll tell you so you can shut the hell up and stop bothering me about it. And I swear, if you speak of this to anyone, I won't hesitate in hurting you." Dimitri said with a stern look on his face.

I instantly nodded my head, anxiously waiting for him to continue on. I've been waiting to hear this story for so long that I was literally bouncing in my seat, waiting to hear it. Dimitri stayed silent for a minute, trying to put his thoughts together before he finally started.

"My mom, she... I... My family... We were happy. We had always been so happy. My parents loved me and I loved them back, very much. My parents also loved each other, quite a lot. But one day, all that love in our family was destroyed. I know that sounds dramatic and all, but it really was." Dimitri started, talking slowly as he tried to piece the story together. I sat there, listening intently and carefully to everything he said, making sure to not miss a thing.

"My mom had fell in love with a human man, causing her to cheat on my dad. I remember my dad being absolutely devastated when he heard that. I was too as my mom claimed that she never loved me or my dad, and that she only put up with us because she had to. She claimed that the only reason she married my dad was because that's what her parents wanted from her. That she had pretended to love us this whole time. I was around ten years old then. Ten in both human and demon years." He said making me narrow my eyes at him in confusion about the age thing. "I'm guessing you're confused about the age. Well you see, we age at the same pace humans do until we reach the age of thirteen. That's when our aging process really slows down." He explained, and I nodded my head, feeling horrible for both Dimitri and his dad.

"Anyways," He continued on. "My mom left us, only to return a few months later to kill my dad, which she did. She murdered him because of the human man she was in love with. He had convinced her to do it." I gasped in shock at hearing that. Was that why Dimitri killed humans, because he wanted revenge?

"You probably think that I kill humans for revenge, but no, that's not the reason." He said, practically reading my mind. "Do you know what... the... Shadows are?" He asked, hesitant in saying Shadows.

"I think so." I replied, whispering.

"Well they're basically dark, evil creatures that have been enemies with us Demon's for a very long time. They were even enemies with humans at one point. A long time ago, humans and Demons joined together and defeated the Shadows, thinking they had gone completely extinct. But there are still some that are alive and are slowly growing their population. Anyways, the human man that my mom was in love with, had been taken over by a Shadow and was being controlled by one. The Shadow inside the man had gotten my mom to falsely fall in love with him and to kill my dad. Once my mom found out, she was absolutely devastated because she never meant to kill my dad. She was just being controlled by the Shadow that was inside the human man and she actually always had loved my dad, not the man. She couldn't bear the thought of having killed her husband, the one person she truly did love and so she commit suicide." Dimitri explained, a saddened expression taking over his face. I stayed quiet, feeling guilty for being so nosy and making Dimitri tell me everything. This really was very personal and I felt absolutely horrible.

"Fast-forward thirty years, where I encountered that same man on earth and killed him. I was absolutely furious when I saw him. Well I wasn't mad at him, but the thing inside of him. The Shadow. I thought that by killing him, I'd be able to kill the Shadow inside him. But what I didn't know was that by killing the man, the Shadow would transfer from his body into mine. And from that day on, the Shadow has lived inside my body and is still inside me, to this very moment. And that's what Kenneth wanted to tell you downstairs, during dinner. That I have the Shadow inside of me and that, that's the reason why I'm so dangerous. The Shadow inside of me wants to take over me completely and control everything I do, so he can take over all of Rovana and possibly even your earth. But I'm too strong for him. All these years, I've been pushing him away but he'll take over me soon enough. I'm not as strong as I used to be." Dimitri explained in a dejected tone.

"Is that why you kill?" I asked quietly, causing him to nod his head.

"I get forced by the Shadow to kill humans. The more humans I kill, the more closer the Shadow is in taking me over completely. I had set a pattern for myself. I kill a certain amount of humans each year. Enough to keep the Shadow thinking that eventually, he'll be able to take over me completely. But not actually enough for him to fully take control of me. If I had the choice I wouldn't kill any humans at all, but if I defy the Shadow, then I get punished with pain as you've witnessed yourself. And I've defied him many times, ever since you've arrived. For some reason he wants me to kill you more than anyone else. He doesn't care if I kill others, he just wants you dead. You're apparently a huge threat to him which I don't get how. I mean what can you do? That's the reason I've been experiencing all that pain recently because I refuse to kill you, no matter what. So there you go, Isabella. That's my story." Dimitri, said turning to look towards me. "And I hope you've now realized that there's nothing you can do to help me and this whole thing was a complete waste of time."

I was in shock because of everything I had just learned all at once. It was just all too much for me to take in. I really wasn't expecting all this at all. I mean, I figured the Shadows had to play somewhat of a role in this but I wasn't expecting this.

I felt so much sympathy towards Dimitri. Everything he's ever done, all makes sense now. He really wasn't a bad person at all, just very misunderstood. I couldn't help it as I reached out and wrapped my arms around him in a hug.

I stayed like that for a few long seconds before Dimitri finally brought his hands up and around me, hugging me back as well. We stayed like that for quite a while, just holding onto each other, while I thought about everything I had just learned and tried to come to terms with it.

* * * * * * * * *