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With a small, soft sigh of surrender, Stefan bent his head to her throat.
It had been so long since she had been with Stefan like this. Elena’s eyes filled with tears of joy and sorrow at the familiar twin pricks of pain as his canines slid beneath her skin. His lips were gentle against her throat, and his pulse was speeding to pound in time with hers.
Elena tried to hold back the memories that were tumbling through her mind: the night she had pledged to be Stefan’s forever—sleek and elegant in his best suit, his eyes wide and wondering, greener than ever—the first night they had kissed, after Homecoming in that other world—the look of helpless desire as he bent his head to hers—the incredulity and horror in his face when she was reborn as a vampire and at first forgot who they were to each other—the pure defeat on his face as he let her claw at him. The life they’d built together. The warmth and comfort she’d found in his arms as he’d held Elena close.
Even though she kept the memories from him, Elena couldn’t help some of her emotions pouring through the careful wall they’d constructed between them. Love and tenderness and regret. Pain and joy. Guilt. Passion.
It was enough that, as he slowly withdrew his canines from her throat, Stefan cupped her face for a moment, his fingers cool against her skin. She could see nothing through the darkness, but Elena thought he was staring into her eyes. “Who are you?” he whispered, just as he had the night of the fire.
“Someone who cares about you,” Elena whispered. Please, she thought desperately, please let me save him.
Stefan’s hand lingered on Elena’s face for a moment, just a gentle brush of skin on skin, and then he was gone.
Over at the door, Elena heard a great, creaking crash, and then light appeared, flooding through the crack as Stefan forced the door open. There was a rustling, the sound of breaking branches, and finally a huge thud.
“You can come out now,” Stefan said, a dark shape against the light of the doorway.
Elena came through, squinting. It was brisk outside, although not with the heavy bone-chilling cold of the tomb, and the sun was setting. It was almost dark, really; it just seemed bright after the pitch blackness.
A huge oak tree lay across the churchyard, its branches brushing the door of the mausoleum where they had been trapped. It had been ripped out of the ground; Elena could see the great pit in the earth left by its roots.
“It was jammed up against the door,” Stefan told her.
Now that Elena’s eyes had adjusted to the evening light, she noticed the long, already healing scrapes on his arms from the tree’s branches. Stefan gazed past her, and Elena turned, following his eyes to the dent in the mausoleum’s stone façade, where the tree had slammed against it.
There was so much rage in the way the tree had been torn out of the earth and thrown against the stone tomb. Elena’s stomach twisted nervously. She might love Damon, but he had no love left for them.
It was fully dark by the time Elena slipped through her front door. She could feel her whole body relax at being home at last. The tall Victorian house where she’d lived since she was born felt clean and bright and warm, its heavy curtains shutting out the darkness. From the kitchen, she could hear the clatter of pans and smell a chicken roasting.
“Dinner in twenty minutes,” Aunt Judith called cheerfully. Elena called back an acknowledgement, staring at herself in the mirror by the door. She looked tired and disheveled, her hair matted and a streak of dirt across her forehead. There was a purpling bruise on her throat where Stefan had bitten her, twin dots of dried blood in its center, and she pulled her shirt collar up to cover it.
“You’re home!” Margaret thudded down the stairs and leaped toward Elena, catching her around the waist in a bear hug. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” Elena said, laughing. “All day long.” She bent to press her cheek against her little sister’s soft hair and breathed in the Play-Doh and baby shampoo scent of her.
Pulling away, Margaret grinned up at her. “Your friend came over looking for you,” she said. “He gave me this.” She pulled a lollipop out of her pocket and waved it in triumph.
Elena examined the candy. It was a pink rose made out of thin slivers of almost-translucent hard candy. “Pretty,” she said. “Matt gave you this?” Matt had a soft spot for Margaret, and he was always bringing her little treats.
“No, your friend Damon gave it to me,” Margaret said, and tried to take the lollipop back.
A wave of panic washed over Elena, and her fingers tightened automatically on the candy. Elena had invited him into her home. How could she have been so stupid?
“Give it,” Margaret said, pulling on the candy.
“No, wait,” Elena said, but Margaret yanked the lollipop out of her hand, pulled it out of the wrapper, and defiantly stuck it into her mouth before Elena could snatch it back.
It was wrapped, Elena reassured herself as she watched her baby sister eat the candy with evident enjoyment. Poison wasn’t really Damon’s style. If he had wanted to hurt Margaret or Aunt Judith, he would have done it more directly. No, this had just been a warning. Damon was letting Elena know that he could get to her family whenever he wanted.
“Listen to me, Margaret,” she said, squatting so that she was eye to eye with her little sister. “Damon’s not my friend, okay? If he comes here again, stay away from him.”
Margaret frowned. “He was really nice,” she said. “I don’t know why you don’t want to be friends with him.”
Was it Margaret saying this, or was it something Damon had told her to say, Elena wondered. What if Damon had used his Power to Influence her little sister? She looked into Margaret’s sky-blue eyes, trying to see if there was anything off about her, any sign that her words were not her own.
The Damon that Elena loved wouldn’t have used his Power on a child, Elena thought. He would have considered it ungentlemanly and beneath him. With a heavy, sick feeling, she admitted to herself that she didn’t know exactly what the Damon of this time was capable of.
“Meggie, can you come put the napkins on the table for me, please?” Aunt Judith called from the kitchen, and Margaret twisted out of Elena’s hands and was gone without a word.
