o_18vdqvms01tdp1ck54q91frg17mg2d.pdf

"Only to those who bring it to you first. Your mother isn't assaulting you. You two are just too
much alike, that's all."
I stopped walking. "I'm not anything like her! I mean…we kind of have the same eyes. But I'm
a lot taller. And my hair's completely different." I pointed to my pony tail, just in case he wasn't
aware that my thick brown-black hair didn't look like my mother's auburn curls.
He still had kind of an amused expression, but there was something hard in his eyes too. "I'm
not talking about your appearances, and you know it."
I looked away from that knowing gaze. My attraction to Dimitri had started almost as soon as
we'd met—and it wasn't just because he was so hot, either. I felt like he understood part of me
that I didn't understand myself, and sometimes I was pretty sure I understood parts of him that
he didn't understand either.
The only problem was that he had the annoying tendency to point out things about myself I
didn't want to understand.
"You think I'm jealous?"
"Are you?" he asked. I hated it when he answered my questions with questions. "If so, what are
you jealous of exactly?"
I glanced back at Dimitri. "I don't know. Maybe I'm jealous of her reputation. Maybe I'm
jealous because she's put more time into her reputation than into me. I don't know."
"You don't think what she did was great?"
"Yes. No. I don't know. It just sounded like such a … I don't know…like she was bragging.
Like she did it for the glory." I grimaced. "For the marks." Molnija marks were tattoos awarded
to guardians when they killed Strigoi. Each one looked like a tiny x made of lightning bolts.
They went on the backs of our necks and showed how experienced a guardian was.
"You think facing down Strigoi is worth a few marks? I thought you'd learned something from
the Badica house."
I felt stupid. "That's not what I—"