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."
There was something dangerous in his tone, something that told me this was an unwelcome topic. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up something bad..."
"Actually...you probably wouldn't think it's bad," he said after almost a minute had passed. A tight smile formed on his lips. "You don't know your father, do you?"
I shook my head. "No. All I know is he must have had wicked cool hair."
Dimitri glanced up, and his eyes swept me. "Yes. He must have." Returning to my hands, he said carefully, "I knew mine."
I froze. "Really? Most Moroi guys don't stay - I mean, some do, but you know, usually they just - "
"Well, he liked my mother." He didn't say "liked" in a nice way. "And he visited her a lot. He's my sisters' father too. But when he came...well, he didn't treat my mother very well. He did some horrible things."
"Like..." I hesitated. This was Dimitri's mother we were talking about. I didn't know how far I could go. "Blood-whore things?"
"Like beating-her-up kinds of things," he replied flatly.
He'd finished the bandages but was still holding my hands. I don't even know if he noticed. I certainly did. His were warm and large, with long and graceful fingers. Fingers that might have played the piano in another life.
"Oh God," I said. How horrible. I tightened my hands in his. He squeezed back. "That's horrible. And she...she just let it happen?"
"She did." The corner of his mouth turned up into a sly, sad smile. "But I didn't."
Excitement surged through me. "Tell me, tell me you beat the crap out of him."
His smile grew. "I did."
"Wow." I hadn't thought Dimitri could be any cooler, but I was wrong. "You beat up your dad. I mean, that's really horrible...what happened. But, wow. You really are a god."
He blinked. "What?"
"Uh, nothing." Hastily, I tried to change the subject. "How old were you?"
He still seemed to be puzzling out the god comment. "Thirteen."
Whoa. Definitely a god. "You beat up your dad when you were thirteen?"
"It wasn't that hard. I was stronger than he was, almost as tall. I couldn't let him keep doing that. He had to learn that being royal and Moroi doesn't mean you can do anything you want to other people - even blood whores."
I stared. I couldn't believe he'd just said that about his mother. "I'm sorry."
"It's all right."
Pieces clicked into place for me. "That's why you got so upset about Jesse, isn't it? He was another royal, trying to take advantage of a dhampir girl."
Dimitri averted his eyes. "I got upset over that for a lot of reasons. After all, you were breaking the rules, and..."
He didn't finish, but he looked back into my eyes in a way that made warmth build between us.
Thinking about Jesse soon darkened my mood, unfortunately. I looked down. "I know you heard what people are saying, that I - "
"I know it's not true," he interrupted.
His