The Return: Shadow Souls

with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong, everything’s right,” he said, while raising a scholarly finger. “You should never try to fool a vampire, Elena. Vampires have many senses humans don’t — and some we don’t even know we have until we need them. It’s taken me long enough to realize what I know about you. Because, of course, everyone was telling me one thing, and my own mind was telling me something else. But I’ve figured it out, at last. I know what you really are, Elena.”

For half a minute Elena sat in shocked silence. “If you do, then I might as well tell you right now that no one will believe you.”

“Maybe not,” Damon said, “especially if they’re human. But vampires are programmed to recognize the aura of a maiden. And you are unicorn-bait, Elena. I don’t know or care how you got your reputation. I was fooled by it myself for a long time, but I’ve finally found the truth.” Suddenly he was bending over her so that she could see nothing but him, his fine hair brushing her forehead, his lips close to hers, his dark eyes, fathomless, capturing her gaze.

“Elena,” he whispered. “This is your secret. I don’t know how you’ve managed it, but…you’re a virgin.”

He leaned in toward her, his lips just brushing hers, sharing his deliberate breaths with hers. They stayed like that for a long, long time, Damon seeming enthralled to be able to give Elena something from his own body: the oxygen that both she and he needed, but acquired in different ways. For many humans, the stillness of their bodies, the silence, and the sustained eye contact, for neither of them had shut their eyes, might have been too much. It might have felt as if they had plunged themselves into their partner’s personalities too far, that they were losing definition and becoming an ethereal part of each other before one kiss had even been completed.

But Elena was floating on air: on the breath that Damon gave her — and in the literal sense. If Damon’s strong, long, slender hands had not held her shoulders, she would have escaped his grip entirely.

Elena knew that there was another way that he could keep her down. He could Influence her to let gravity have its way with her. But so far, she had felt not the slightest touch of attempted Influence. It was as if he still wanted to give her the honor of choice. He would not seduce her by any of his many accustomed methods, the tricks of domination learned over half a millennium of nights.

Only the breathing, which was coming more and more quickly, as Elena felt her senses begin to swim and her heart began to pound. Was she truly sure that Stefan wouldn’t mind this? But Stefan had given her the greatest honor possible by trusting in her love and her judgment. And she was beginning to feel Damon’s true self, his overwhelming need for her; his vulnerability because that need was becoming like an obsession to him.

Without attempting to Influence her, he was still spreading great soft dark wings all around her so that there was nowhere to run, nowhere to escape. Elena felt herself begin to swoon with the intensity of the passion they had wrought between them. As a final gesture, not of repudiation, but of invitation, she arched her head back, exposing to him her bare throat, and let him feel her longing.

And as if great, crystal bells were ringing in the distance, she felt his jubilation at her voluntary surrender to the velvet darkness that was overtaking her.

She never felt the teeth that broke her skin and claimed her blood. Before that happened she was seeing stars. And then the universe was swallowed up in Damon’s dark eyes.

10

The next morning Elena got up and dressed quietly in the motel room, grateful for the extra space. Damon was gone, but she had expected that. He usually got his breakfast early while they were on the road, preying on waitresses at all-night truck stops or early-morning diners.

She was going to discuss that with him someday, she thought as she put the packet of ground coffee in the little two-cup percolator the motel provided. It smelled good.

But more urgently, she needed to talk to someone about what had happened last night. Stefan was her first choice, of course, but she’d found that out of body experiences weren’t just to be had for the asking. What she needed to do was call Bonnie and Meredith. She had to talk to them — it was her right — but now, of all times, she couldn’t. Intuitively, she felt that any contact between her and Fell’s Church might be bad.

And Matt had never checked in. Not once. She had no idea where he was on the road, but he had better be in Sedona on time, that was all. He had deliberately cut off all communication between them. Fine. As long as he showed up when he had promised.

But…Elena still needed to talk. To express herself.

Of course! She was an idiot! She still had her faithful companion that never said a word, and never kept her waiting. Pouring herself a cup of scalding black coffee on the way, Elena dug her diary out of the bottom of her duffel bag and opened it to a fresh, clean page. There was nothing like a fresh page and an ink pen that ran smoothly to start her writing.

Fifteen minutes later there was a rattle at one window and a minute later Damon was stepping through. He had several paper bags with him and Elena felt unaccountably pleased and homey. She had provided coffee, which was rather good even if it came with dried cream substitute, and Damon had supplied…

“Gasoline,” he said triumphantly, raising his eyebrows significantly at her as he set the bags on the table. “Just in case they try to use plants against us. No, thanks,” he added, seeing she was standing with a full cup of coffee held in his direction. “I had a garage mechanic while I was buying this. I’ll just go wash my hands.”

And he disappeared, walking right past Elena.

Walking right past her, without a glance, even though she was wearing her only clean pair of clothes left: jeans and a subtly colored top that looked white at first glance and only in the brightest light revealed that it was ethereally rainbow-shaded.

Without a single look, Elena thought, feeling a strange sensation that somehow her life had just lapped itself.

She started to throw the coffee away but then decided she needed it herself and drank it in a few scalding gulps.

Then she went and stood by her diary, reading over the last two or three pages.

“Are you ready to go?” Damon was shouting over the sound of running water in the bathroom.

“Yes — in just a minute.” Elena read the diary pages from the previous entry, and began skimming the one before that.

“We might as well go straight west from here,” Damon shouted. “We can make it in one day. They’ll think it’s a feint for one particular gate and search all the small ones. Meanwhile we’ll go on heading for the Kimon Gate and be days ahead of anyone tracking us. It’s perfect.”

“Uh-huh,” Elena said, reading.

“We ought to be able to meet Mutt tomorrow — maybe even this evening, depending on what kind of trouble they cause.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But first I wanted to ask you: do you think it’s a coincidence that our window is broken? Because I always put wards on them at night and I’m sure—” He passed a hand over his forehead. “I’m sure that I must have done that last night, as well. But something got through and broke the window and got away without a trace. That was why I bought all the the gasoline. If they try something with trees, I’ll blast them all back to Stonehenge.”

And half the innocent residents of the state, Elena thought grimly. But she was in a state of such shock that not much could make an impression on top of it.

“What are you doing now?” Damon was clearly ready to get up and going.

“Getting rid of something I don’t need,” Elena said, and flushed the toilet, watching the torn-up bits of her diary swirl round and round before disappearing.

“I wouldn’t worry about the window, though,” she said, coming back into the bedroom and slipping her shoes on. “And don’t get up for a minute, Damon. I’ve got to talk to you about something.”

“Oh, come on. It can wait until we’re on the road, can’t it?”

“No, it can’t, because we’ve got to pay for that window. You broke it last night, Damon. But you don’t remember doing it, do you?”

Damon stared at her. She could tell that his first temptation was to laugh. His second temptation, to which he gave in, was to think that she was nuts.