Vampire Academy: The Complete Collection (Vampire Academy, #1-6)

by Richelle Mead

“Okay,” I said, hoping I sounded reasonable and wasn’t going to lose my temper. “You’ve put up a lot of suspicious stuff here. I can see that.” Abe looked pained. It was not an expression I’d seen on him before. He didn’t lose control of situations very often. “But that’s the thing. It’s too suspicious. If I were going to murder someone, I wouldn’t be that stupid. Do you think I’d leave my stake stuck in her chest? Do you think I wouldn’t wear gloves? Come on. That’s insulting. If I’m as crafty as you claim my record says I am, then why would I do it this way? I mean, seriously? If I did it, it’d be a lot better. You’d never even peg me as a suspect. This is all really kind of an insult to my intelligence.” “Rose—” began Abe, a dangerous note in his tone. I kept going. “All this evidence you’ve got is so painfully obvious. Hell, whoever set this up might as well have painted an arrow straight to me—and someone did set me up, but you guys are too stupid to even consider that.” The volume of my voice was rising, and I consciously brought it back to normal levels. “You want an easy answer. A quick answer. And you especially want someone with no connections, no powerful family to protect them . . .” I hesitated there, unsure how to classify Abe. “Because that’s how it always is. That’s how it was with that age law. No one was able to stand up for the dhampirs either because this goddamned system won’t allow it.” It occurred to me then that I had strayed pretty far off the subj...