I do not own Vampire Academy or the Russian tales.

Dimitri met my eyes and we shared a thought, "How are my parents going to react to Anabelle?"

"Hey," I said as I hugged my mom. Dimitri was cooking and Anabelle was currently in her room playing. I wanted to introduce her, just in case they didn't already know. I didn't want them to freak out right when they got here.

My mom hugged me back, and then let go so my father could hug me. We were walking into the living room when Dimitri came out of the kitchen. He just put the food in the oven for the last stage.

"Hello, Dimitri," my father said.

"Mr. Mazur, Guardian Hathaway," he replied, giving a slight nod to the both of them. My mother made a face. Both of my parents have asked him many times to call them by their first names, by it's the whole "Vasilisa" thing all over again.

My mother didn't say anything, but my father did. "Dimitri, I told you to call me Abe, and I know that Janine has asked for you to call her by her first name, too."

Dimitri silently apologized, and I walked over to him grabbing his hand.

Abe nodded his head. "We both had some time off, so we thought we'd come and say 'hello'"

"Well, I'm glad you guys came. I missed you."

"We missed y-" my mom was cut off by a sweet little voice coming out of the bedroom.

"Are our special guests here?" it asked, before it showed itself.

I dropped Dimitri's hand and reached out to pick her up.

"Yeah, they're here," Dimitri said, just in case she didn't notice the strangers in front of us.

"Who's this?" Janine asked. Abe didn't looked surprised. I was assuming that he already knew when he proved me right by speaking up.

"This is Anabelle, their daughter."

"Daughter?" my mother asked. I gave my mom a look before checking Anabelle. She seemed fine with the surprise.

"Anabelle, this is your Grandma, and this is your Grandpa," I said pointing them out as if she wouldn't know the difference.

She wanted down, so I let her down. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she ran to Janine and hugged her legs. Janine didn't know what to do, but opted for patting Anabelle's back.

"Hi, gramma," she said before she went to do the same thing to Abe. Before she got to him though, he picked her up and held her in the air before holding her close. After screaming from excitement, she said, "Hi, grampa." He set her down after a minute and she came back to Dimitri and I.

"Why don't you go play in your room until dinner's ready, ok?" I asked, going on my knees so that I was at her level.

"Ok, momma. I love you," she told me.

"I love you, too," I said as I pulled her into a hug. I let go and stood up as she entered her room.

I stood up slow, scared for the reaction I was going to get from my mother. My father seemed fine, ecstatic even, with Anabelle. My mother, on the other hand, looked almost scandalized.

I was standing straight up now and Dimitri put his arms around me from behind.

"Who is she?" my mother asked. She didn't look very happy.

Abe decided to step in, "Did nobody tell you? Really? Something like this happens and you don't hear anything?"

"You know?" Janine asked Abe accusingly, not liking being out of the loop. Abe nodded. She then looked to Dimitri and I. "You didn't decide to tell me?"

"It's not like we've had her for long time. She just became our daughter about a week ago."

"I still would have liked to have known about this," she muttered, looking away.

I didn't know how to respond. Yeah, our relationship was getting better, but it wasn't like I was calling her everyday or anything like that. Abe walked over to her and put his arms around her. Not wanting to witness whatever was happening between them, I turned to Dimitri.

"See, that wasn't so bad," he whispered.

"Whatever," I whispered back, "you were as frightened as I was for their reaction."

"Yeah, you're right," he said, kissing me. "I was surprised about your fathers' reaction, though."

I though about it a little, although I had already thought about it before. "Not really, he is a mobster, after all. Also, he claims to know everything that goes on. With how big this was, I'm not too surprised."

He thought a little and nodded his head in agreement. He opened his mouth to say something until my father interrupted him.

"Is the food ready yet?"

As soon as he asked, the timer went off. Dimitri turned and walked into the kitchen to get it out of the oven.

I called Anabelle, and we all went to the table as Dimitri set down the food.

"Yummy, it smells good, daddy," Anabelle said.

Dimitri smiled and kissed her on her forehead before responding with, "Thank you, sweet heart."

My parents looked appalled by how sweet Dimitri could be. It was kind of funny.

Trying not to laugh, I picked up Anabelle's plate and held it out as Dimitri filled it with food. I did the same with both of our plates before letting my parents serve themselves.

After the whole fiasco with meeting Anabelle, dinner was nice. We talked about a bunch of nothings, and you could tell that Anabelle enjoyed it.

We had finished with dinner and hung out a while before my parents decided to leave. They both bent down to hug Anabelle, which was shocking when I saw my mother do it. After thanking us for dinner and saying one last goodbye to Anabelle, they left.

Dimitri and I tucked Anabelle in and read her a tale. It was a Russian tale that was translated into English. Dimitri had picked up a book full of them a while ago, wondering if I'd like it. I loved it and actually read the whole thing more than once. She certainly enjoyed the stories, as well. They each taught morals, as most tales do. Tonight, we read to her, "The Just Reward".

She fell asleep, then Dimitri and I headed to our room.

We were both almost completely asleep until I remembered something I wanted to do.

"Now it's time to tell your family."

How did you like it? Yes, I know. It's short, I'm sorry.

The next chapter I am planning on being longer. I'm thinking about them doing some sight-seeing in Russia, so if you have any ideas or things you would like to happen, let me know.

"But my other words at the Mastranos' had betrayed me: I have fun with him. Now, you should have fun with the one you love, but that shouldn't have been what first came to my mind. I should have said, We strengthen each other, or, He makes me want to be a better person. Perhaps most importantly, He understands me perfectly. But none of that was true, so I hadn't said those things." - Rose Hathaway