The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation: Unspoken (19 page)

It was beginning to rain more steadily, and the cold raindrops loosened Bonnie’s tongue and let her start thinking again. “I can’t. Zander, I can’t.” He was staring at her, his eyelashes wet with rain. “I love you, but how could I leave here with everything that’s going on? Meredith’s a vampire. Stefan’s dead. My friends
need
me here.”

Zander leaned closer, put a hand on Bonnie’s knee to steady himself. “I need you,” he said softly, almost whispering.

Rain plastered Bonnie’s hair against her forehead and ran down her cheeks, feeling almost like tears. “Please, Zander, I can’t.”

Zander’s eyes closed for a second, long pale eyelashes fanning against his cheeks, and then he opened his eyes, let go of her hand, and stood. “I understand,” he said, his voice flat. “I’ll go tomorrow, okay? I don’t want to make things tense for everybody. Some of the guys can stay and patrol for a few days, until Damon and Elena are back.” Standing above her, he seemed impossibly tall. Bonnie couldn’t get a good look at his face, but his hands were clenched tightly. He backed away from her for a few steps, then turned and headed for the gate out of the botanical gardens, walking slowly with his head down.

Water was running down her arms, soaking her clothes. A white rose petal clung limply to the back of her hand, and Bonnie stared at it numbly, seeing the curve at its base, the line of brown at its edge. There was a terrible ache in her chest. Bonnie realized she was feeling her heart break.

#TVD12TheProposal

I
t had rained all night and through the day, and now it was late afternoon, the cloudy gray sky gradually getting darker. Damon drove his gleaming black car down the highway and let his Power loose around him, trying to sense if anything supernatural lurked in the woods on either side of the road. There was nothing, just the gentle hum of nondescript human minds from the cars on the road and the towns they swept by.

“There’s just a trace,” Elena said from the passenger seat beside him. She leaned forward and peered out through the windshield. “It’s very faint, but I think she kept heading north.”

They’d been on the road all day. Elena swore they were following slight signs of Siobhan’s aura. Damon couldn’t see them himself, but he trusted her. She’d always been
clever. Terribly, frighteningly young, but clever. And he could feel her intentness coming through the bond between them, the careful way she scanned their environment, her excitement when she caught a glimpse of Siobhan’s aura trail. Sitting so close to her, he was more aware of her emotions than ever.

And now he was feeling something else from her. Hunger. He was about to comment, when she stretched, and said, “Let’s get something to eat.”

Damon felt his mouth twitch up into the beginnings of a smile—he’d read her so well—and he took the next exit. He drove a little farther, until they came to a likely looking diner. They pulled into the parking lot and climbed out, glancing up at the sullen glow of the low-hanging sun through the clouds. It would be evening soon, and it didn’t feel like they were getting much closer to their goal.

Crossing to the other side of the car, he opened Elena’s door for her. “Come on, princess,” he said. “The quest will wait while you have a cheeseburger.”

Inside the diner, gingham tablecloths covered each table, folk art pictures of roosters and ducks hung on the walls, and a child’s toy—an Etch-a-Sketch, Magic 8 Ball, or game—sat on each table.

“Aw, this is charming,” Elena said as the waitress, wearing a ruffled apron, led them to a table for two.

“The word you’re looking for is cloying,” Damon told her. The waitress glanced back at him, and he shot her a blinding smile.

Elena ordered a sandwich and iced tea, but Damon didn’t feel like eating. Human food gave him no nourishment, and there was nothing on the menu he was in the mood to sample. There was a low ache of hunger in his stomach, though, and he ran his tongue over his sensitive canines. He could last a little longer before he hunted, he supposed. He wasn’t desperate enough yet for fur or feathers in his mouth. “Just coffee, please,” he told the waitress.

“Want to play checkers while we wait?” Elena asked, stacking the red and black pieces across the miniature game board sitting on their table.

“Checkers?” Damon said with slight distaste.

“Sure, it’ll be fun.” Elena said. Damon hesitated for a split second, and Elena’s eyes widened. “You don’t know how to play checkers?”

“You’d be amazed how often it doesn’t come up,” Damon said dryly.

“Still,” Elena said. “You’re more than five hundred years old. You never learned? Five-year-olds can play checkers.”

“They didn’t when I was five,” Damon snapped. He felt ridiculously embarrassed—it wasn’t like he wanted to play a child’s game. “I can play chess.”

“I suppose that
is
much more suave and creature-of-the-night,” Elena agreed thoughtfully. “Come on, let me show you. Checkers is easy.”

There was a teasing glow in her eyes, and Damon couldn’t resist her. The checkers clicked together as she stacked them, and he took a moment to bask in the warmth coming through the bond between them. She still loved Stefan, he knew it, but she cared for Damon, too. “Go ahead,” he told her. “Whatever you want.”

Elena shot him a quick, triumphant grin. “Okay,” she said brightly, laying the checkers out on the board between them, black ones in front of Damon, red ones in front of herself. “So, you move diagonally forward, only on the dark squares. And if you’re next to one of my pieces and there’s an empty space on the other side, you can jump over it, and capture it. When you get to my side of the board, your piece gets kinged and can move forward
and
backward. You win if you get all my pieces off the board.”

“I see.” Damon sat back and regarded the board thoughtfully, pushing back the little swell of glee inside him so that Elena wouldn’t feel it through their bond. This game was just Alquerque, which had already been old when he was a child, only played on a chessboard. “I think I can handle it.”

Elena went first, and Damon bided his time for several moves. Then she jumped two of his pieces, sitting back
with a smirk. “And that’s how you do it,” she said, pleased with herself.

“Impressive,” Damon said coolly, eyeing a hole she’d left in her defenses. Instead of taking advantage, he ignored the opening and moved another piece forward.

It was good to see Elena enjoying herself for a moment. She’d been too sad for too long.
Maybe
, Damon thought.
Maybe someday she’ll get over Stefan.
It was a betrayal of his little brother, but he couldn’t help the flush of hope the thought gave him. After all, Damon had all the time in the world to wait.

“You’ll get it,” Elena said encouragingly, taking another one of his pieces. “Checkers isn’t hard, I promise.” There was a smug little curl at the edge of her lips.

“Indeed,” Damon said. He could hear the waitress at the counter behind him, smell the warm salt of Elena’s fries. Lunch was ready. He leaned forward and jumped four of her men with a satisfying series of clicks. “King me.”

Elena blinked at the board, and Damon let a smile spread over his face. “You must be a wonderful teacher,” he told her.

Elena’s cheeks were prettily flushed, and she glanced up at him through her lashes as they crossed the parking lot
together. Her arm pressed against his, and Damon was gloriously aware of the heat coming off her silky skin.

“You’re a quick learner,” she commented. “I can’t believe you won every game.”

Damon vaguely noted a few figures at the edge of the parking lot, looking toward them, and checked absently—
human, harmless
—his attention fixed on Elena. He watched as they got into their car and drove away. He’d been right: human.

“My life’s been long enough—” he began, and then a heavy body slammed into him, low and hard, knocking the breath out of him.

Vampires.

Damon hit the ground and rolled, grappling with the synthetic vampire above him. His back scraped painfully against the asphalt of the parking lot. A heavy, dark-skinned, muscular man, older than most of Jack’s protégés, snarled down at him, his teeth sharp and glaringly white against his skin.

“Damon!” Elena shouted.

The vampire pressed forward, his teeth scraping at Damon’s throat, and Damon yanked away. The vampire’s body was warm, as warm as a human’s, and his breath was hot and fetid, like something rotten. Damon shoved at him, trying to get some leverage to snap his neck. But his weight was too much—his canines sank into Damon’s throat, tearing at it.

The bite burned like fire, and Damon thrashed, trying to get free.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught more movement. Another vampire. Two vampires.
No.

With a fresh surge of strength, Damon struggled harder, rolling over and slamming the larger vampire down against the asphalt of the parking lot. He needed to get up before the other two got to Elena. Maybe they couldn’t kill her, not with their bite, but they could
take
her, and Jack knew Elena’s secret. It was unlikely that she’d be able to raise her Guardian Powers against them—they weren’t her target, and she had no time to coax her Power to the surface.

He and the artificial vampire were gripping each other tight now, straining against each other. The other vampire’s muscles bulged with effort. Slowly, his teeth gritted, Damon forced his opponent’s arms back down and pinned them against the pavement, enjoying the expression of shock on his face.

He snapped the other vampire’s neck quickly and watched as his eyes glazed over. That would keep him down for a little while. Damon leaped gracefully to his feet.

As he turned, he heard a heavy thump. Behind him, a tall light-haired vampire had fallen at Elena’s feet, a stake protruding from his chest. The third vampire, a woman, hesitated, staring at Elena.

Before the fallen recovered, Damon took two long steps over and snapped her neck quickly. “That’ll knock her out longer than the stake,” he told Elena, and bent to snap the neck of the third vampire as well.

“We’d better get out of here while we can,” Elena said. She bent to tug her stake, with an audible huff of effort, from the tall vampire’s chest. Efficiently, she wiped it on a tissue and tucked the stake back into her purse.

“Nicely done,” Damon said, trying to gauge her mood. She didn’t seem frightened, and there was nothing but adrenaline-fueled excitement and a certain smug pleasure coming through their bond. “You don’t need too much protecting, do you, Guardian?” Elena smirked at him, and he felt her spark of pride.

Then her face fell. The pride shifted to shock, then fear. “You’re hurt,” she said.

“Oh,” Damon said, reaching up to touch the bite. The blood was still trickling down his neck, hot and painful. He’d forgotten for a moment in his concern for Elena. “I’m all right.”

“No,” Elena said. “Come here.” She leaned back against the side of the car and pulled open the neck of her shirt, brushing back her hair from her throat. She cocked her head invitingly.

He could see the delicate veins beneath her skin, and his breath caught. Elena would be so soft, he knew, her
neck like warm satin beneath his lips and teeth. And her blood was rich and sweet.

“Hurry,” she said urgently. “They’ll be waking up soon.”

Damon
wanted.
He really did.

But he swallowed and dragged his eyes away from her, licking his lips.

When he’d fed from her before, she’d turned away from him. She hadn’t wanted him to see inside her mind, hadn’t wanted him any closer than the bond between them already brought them.

He didn’t just want her blood. When he drank from Elena, he didn’t want it to be about
food.

“No thank you, princess,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t be chivalrous, Damon,” Elena said, irritated. “You need this.”

Damon stared down at his feet. “Better not,” he said. “We need to get going.” He took a quick breath, and then looked up at Elena again, shooting her his most brilliant smile. “I really am perfectly fine. It’s healing already.” He brought his hand up to his neck, and found that it was true: The bite was messy and painful, but the wound was clotting.