richellemead-vampireacademy01-vampireacademy-110824015328-phpapp02

I glanced at Aaron, who had suddenly turned shy with me there. "How are Abby and Xander
dealing with that?”
"Okay. Embarrassed. They think it's stupid." Then he realized who he was speaking to. "Oh. I
didn't mean—”
"Whatever." I gave him a tight smile. "It is stupid.”
Wow. I was stunned. The rebellious part me of loved any story where people "fought the
system." Only, in this case, they were fighting my system, the one I'd been trained to believe in
my entire life.
Dhampirs and Moroi had a strange arrangement. Dhampirs had originally been born from
Moroi mixing with humans. Unfortunately, dhampirs couldn't reproduce with each other—or
with humans. It was a weird genetic thing. Mules were the same way, I'd been told, though that
wasn't a comparison I really liked hearing. Dhampirs and full Moroi could have children
together, and, through another genetic oddity, their kids came out as standard dhampirs, with
half human genes, half vampire genes.
With Moroi being the only ones with whom dhampirs could reproduce, we had to stay close to
them and intermingle with them. Likewise, it became important to us that the Moroi simply
survived. Without them, we were done. And with the way Strigoi loved picking off Moroi, their
survival became a legitimate concern for us.
That was how the guardian system developed. Dhampirs couldn't work magic, but we made
great warriors. We'd inherited enhanced senses and reflexes from our vampire genes and better
strength and endurance from our human genes. We also weren't limited by a need for blood or
trouble with sunlight. Sure, we weren't as powerful as the Strigoi, but we trained hard, and
guardians did a kick-ass job at keeping Moroi safe. Most dhampirs felt it was worth risking
their own lives to make sure our kind could still keep having children.
Since Moroi usually wanted to have and raise Moroi children, you didn't find a lot of long-term
Moroi-dhampir romances. You especially didn't find a lot of Moroi women hooking up with
dhampir guys. But plenty of young Moroi men liked fooling around with dhampir women,