richellemead-vampireacademy01-vampireacademy-110824015328-phpapp02

"That's the point. She abandoned me. She left me to be raised by the Academy.”
When he finished cleaning my open wounds, he found a jar of salve and began rubbing it into
the rough parts of my skin. I sort of got lost in the feel of his hands massaging mine.
"You say that…but what else should she have done? I know you want to be a guardian. I know
how much it means to you. Do you think she feels any differently? Do you think she should
have quit to raise you when you'd spend most of your life here anyway?”
I didn't like having reasonable arguments thrown at me. "Are you saying I'm a hypocrite?”
"I'm just saying maybe you shouldn't be so hard on her. She's a very respected dhampir woman.
She's set you on the path to be the same.”
"It wouldn't kill her to visit more," I muttered. "But I guess you're right. A little. It could have
been worse, I suppose. I could have been raised with blood whores.”
Dimitri looked up. "I was raised in a dhampir commune. They aren't as bad as you think.”
"Oh." I suddenly felt stupid. "I didn't mean—”
"It's all right." He focused his attention back on my hands.
"So, did you, like, have family there? Grow up with them?”
He nodded. "My mother and two sisters. I didn't see them much after I went to school, but we
still keep in touch. Mostly, the communities are about family. There's a lot of love there, no
matter what stories you've heard.”
My bitterness returned, and I glanced down to hide my glare. Dimitri had had a happier family
life with his disgraced mother and relatives than I'd had with my "respected" guardian mother.
He most certainly knew his mother better than I knew mine.
"Yeah, but…isn't it weird? Aren't there a lot of Moroi men visiting to, you know?…”
His hands rubbed circles into mine. "Sometimes.”