It was embarrassing. Vampires were not pack animals, not like humans. He wasn’t supposed to care what happened to them. These children should be prey, and nothing more.
But being dead and coming back, fighting the jealousy phantom and letting go of the sick envy and misery that had held him captive ever since he was a human, had changed Damon. With that hard bal of hate gone from the middle of his chest, where it had lived for so long, he found himself feeling lighter. Almost as if he … cared.
Embarrassing or not, it felt surprisingly comfortable, having this connection to the little group of humans. He’d have died—again—rather than admit it aloud, though.
He clacked his beak a few times as Elena said good-bye to her professor and left the classroom. Then Damon spread his wings and flapped down to a tree next to the building’s entrance.
Nearby, a thin young man was posting a flyer with a girl’s picture on another tree, and Damon flew over to get a closer look. Missing Student, the top of the flyer said, and below the picture were details of a nighttime disappearance: no clues, no leads, no evidence, no idea where nineteen-year-old Taylor Harrison might be.
Suspicion of foul play. The promise of a reward from her anxious family for information leading to her safe return.
Damon let out a rough caw. There was something wrong here. He’d known it already—had felt something a little off about this campus as soon as he’d arrived two days ago, although he hadn’t been able to quite put his finger on it. Why else would he have been so worried about his princess?
Elena came out of the building and started across the quad, tucking her long golden hair behind her ears, oblivious to the black crow that swooped from tree to tree above her. Damon was going to find out what was going on here, and he was going to do it before whatever it was touched any of his humans.
Especial y Elena.
8
“Ugh, I don’t think there’s a single thing on the hot-lunch bar I’d ever consider eating,” Elena said to Stefan. “Half the stuff I can’t even identify.” Stefan watched patiently as she passed on to the salad bar.
“This isn’t much better,” she said, lifting a watery spoonful of cottage cheese and letting it slop back into the container for emphasis. “I thought the food at col ege would be more edible than in our high school cafeteria, but apparently I was wrong.”
Stefan made a vague sound of agreement and looked around for a place for them to sit. He wasn’t eating. Human food didn’t have much taste for him now, and he’d used his Power to cal down a dove to his balcony that morning. That had provided enough blood to hold him until the evening, when he would need to hunt again.
Once Elena final y made herself a salad, he led her to the empty table he’d spotted.
She kissed him before she sat down and a shiver of delight ran through him as their minds touched. The familiar link between them slid into place, and he felt Elena’s joy, her contentment at being with him and at their new, nearly normal, lives. Below this, a touch of excitement fizzed through her, and Stefan sent a questioning thought between them, wondering what had happened since they’d seen each other that morning.
Elena broke the kiss and answered his unspoken question.
“Professor Campbel , my history professor, knew my parents when they were in col ege,” she said. Her voice was calm, but her eyes were bright, and Stefan could sense how big this was for her. “He was a real y good friend of theirs. He can tel me stories about them, parts of their lives I never knew before.”
“That’s great,” Stefan said, pleased for her. “How was the class?”
“It was al right,” Elena said, beginning to eat her salad.
“We’re talking about the colonial days for the first couple of weeks.” She looked up, her fork poised in midair. “How about you? What was your philosophy class like?”
“Fine.” Stefan paused. Fine wasn’t real y what he meant. It had been strange to be sitting in a col ege classroom again. He’d attended col ege a few times during his long history, seen the changing fads in education. At first, his classmates had been a select number of wealthy young men, and now there was a more diverse mix of boys and girls. But there was an essential sameness to al those experiences. The professor lecturing, the students either bored or eager. A certain shal owness of thought, a shy ducking away from exposing deeper feelings.
Damon was right. Stefan didn’t belong here; he was just playing a role, again. Kil ing some of his limitless time. But Elena—he looked at her, her shining blue eyes fixed on him
—she did belong here. She deserved the chance at a normal life, and he knew she wouldn’t have come to col ege without him.
Could he say any of this to her? He didn’t want to dim the excitement in those lapis lazuli eyes, but he had sworn to himself that he would always be honest with her, would treat her as an equal. He opened his mouth, hoping to explain some of what he felt.
“Did you hear about Daniel Greenwater?” a girl asked nearby, her voice high with curiosity as she and her friends slid into the empty chairs on the other end of the table.
Stefan closed his mouth and turned his head to listen.
“Who’s Daniel Greenwater?” someone else asked.
“Look,” the first girl said, unfolding a newspaper she held. Glancing over, Stefan saw it was the campus paper.
“He’s a freshman, and he just vanished. He left the student center when it closed last night, and his roommate says he never came back to the room. It’s real y creepy.” Stefan’s eyes met Elena’s across the table, and she raised an eyebrow thoughtful y. Could this be something they should look into?
Another girl at the other end of the table shrugged. “He probably just got stressed out and went home. Or maybe his roommate kil ed him. You know you get automatic As if your roommate dies.”
“That’s a myth,” Stefan said absently, and the girls looked up at him in surprise. “Could I see the paper for a moment, please?”
