richellemead-vampireacademy01-vampireacademy-110824015328-phpapp02

"Your hands." He swore in Russian. I could recognize it by now, but he refused to teach me
what any of it meant. "Where are your gloves?”
I looked down at my hands. They'd suffered for weeks, and today had only made them worse.
The cold had turned the skin raw and chapped, and some parts were actually bleeding a little.
My blisters swelled. "Don't have any. Never needed them in Portland.”
He swore again and beckoned me to a chair while he retrieved a first-aid kit. Wiping away the
blood with a wet cloth, he told me gruffly, "We'll get you some.”
I looked down at my destroyed hands as he worked. "This is only the start, isn't it?”
"Of what?”
"Me. Turning into Alberta. Her…and all the other female guardians. They're all leathery and
stuff. Fighting and training and always being outdoors—they aren't pretty anymore." I paused.
"This…this life. It destroys them. Their looks, I mean.”
He hesitated for a moment and looked up from my hands. Those warm brown eyes surveyed
me, and something tightened in my chest. Damn it. I had to stop feeling this way around him.
"It won't happen to you. You're too . . ." He groped for the right word, and I mentally
substituted all sorts of possibilities. Goddess-like. Scorchingly sexy. Giving up, he simply said,
"It won't happen to you.”
He turned his attention back to my hands. Did he…did he think I was pretty? I never doubted
the reaction I caused among guys my own age, but with him, I didn't know. The tightening in
my chest increased.
"It happened to my mom. She used to be beautiful. I guess she still is, sort of. But not the way
she used to be." Bitterly, I added, "Haven't seen her in a while. She could look completely
different for all I know.”
"You don't like your mother," he observed.
"You noticed that, huh?”
"You barely know her.”