Notes: Years 0-10 are cross-posted in the VA10thanniversaryproject collection. Please check out the other stories in that collection :) Enjoy!

Five Months or there abouts

December 24, 1991

Moroi Royal Court- Poconos, Pennsylvania, USA

"My dearest Janine,

Although neither of us celebrate Christmas, some sentimental part of me couldn't help sending you this card and gift. I wish that circumstances were different between us, but for the sake of your child, our child, this distance is necessary. I would worry too much for you and the child if anyone knew I was its father.

I hope that you won't be confined to court for long. I can't imagine you sitting behind a desk every day for years on end.

The necklace is a nazar. Local superstition holds that it will ward off evil. May it keep you and our child safe.

-I.M."

Janine Hathaway ran her fingers over the smooth nazar bead, a parting gift from the man she loved. She was twenty, and in a few short months, her child would be born. She ran her hand across her lower abdomen, still astounded by the life growing inside her. A child.

She had no idea how to raise a child. Her mother had died years ago and her aunt was a blood whore in Scotland, so were several of Janine's cousins. They were hardly role models for parenting.

Janine was a guardian, sworn to serve the Moroi, and she planned for this child's life to be the same. Still, what if the child could have more?

No. Sadly there was nothing more for dhampirs than serving the Moroi as guardians.