Destiny Rising Page 14

  They shouldered their way through the last grove of trees, placing their feet carefully to avoid making noise. Bonnie and Alaric mouthed quiet spells, muffling their approach.

  But when they came at last into the open, they found Klaus, dressed now in the shabby raincoat Meredith remembered with a stab of terror from their encounters in Fell’s Church, his face alight with terrifying good humor, laughing. There was a huge group of vampires there, easily outnumbering their own forces, and every eye was already fixed upon them.

  In that frozen moment, Meredith could see all the vampires in sharp definition. Her brain snagged on a face and stopped in confusion. Elena. But Elena was behind her, and Meredith had never seen Elena’s face hold so much malice. Then she realized: the paler gold of the hair, the lighter blue of the eyes, the slightly mad glee in the pretty face. This wasn’t Elena. It was Katherine, somehow reborn.

  And then, just behind Katherine, Meredith saw another face she knew, and her heart froze. It couldn’t be Cristian. Her brother was human now; the Guardians made sure of that. Didn’t they?

  But there was Cristian, his face familiar only from the pictures at home, and he smiled at her intimately across the clearing, his vampire canines visible. For a fraction of second, Meredith’s hands loosened on her stave and she swayed on her feet. But then she tightened her grip again and took a fighting stance. She’d thought her family was safe, that Cristian had been returned to them. Everything was crumbling again at this very moment, but she still had a battle to fight.

  Chapter 20

  People were rushing past Elena on all sides, buffeting and banging against her, so she flattened herself against a tree. The noise was overwhelming—shouts and groans and bodies slamming together.

  Klaus’s army was too big, but her friends were holding their own. Stefan, his face a mask of fury, was grappling with a slim, fair-haired girl. When Elena caught a glimpse of the girl’s face, her heart seemed to stop for a second. Katherine.

  Elena had seen Katherine die, seen lines of fire crack her face open as she screamed. How could she be here? Katherine raised a hand and scratched at Stefan’s face, her fingers bent into claws, and he twisted her arm viciously, snarling and knocking her to the ground, where they were lost to Elena’s view.

  Meredith was sparring with a handsome, dark-haired guy whose face was vaguely familiar to Elena. They were evenly matched, each blocking the other’s blows with deadly speed and efficiency. Meredith looked tense and serious, without the gleeful expression she often had in battle.

  Matt and Chloe had squared off against a female vampire, Chloe shielding Matt with her body and yanking the vampire’s head back, trying to turn her so that Matt could stake her through the heart. The vampire snarled and twisted in Chloe’s hands.

  A wild howl came from one side of the clearing, making the hair on the back of Elena’s neck stand up on end, and her eyes shot to the horizon: the sun was hanging low and a full moon had just risen. The rest of the werewolves had changed as they fought, and now the vampires who had been battling them in human form fell back as the Pack leaped eagerly upon them. Zander and Shay, who was easily identifiable by the reddish tint of her fur, pulled a vampire down together, their heavy bodies pinning him as they tore at his flesh.

  Bonnie and Alaric were chanting in Latin, their voices steady but strained. Beside Elena, she could hear Andrés muttering softly in Spanish. She glanced at him, and his aura was so clear she could see it without even trying: a circle the color of beech leaves in spring was spreading out from him, touching on their allies in the fight. She realized that like Bonnie and Alaric, Andrés was using all the Power he could call on to protect her friends.

  They were fighting hard, but there were so many of the vampires, at least twenty. Both men and women of different races and ethnicities, but all young, all beautiful. All with a certain mad savagery in their expression that echoed Klaus’s. Their faces were wild with hate and with anticipation. They wanted to fight, Elena could tell, wanted to kill. One, a golden-haired boy who looked younger than Elena herself, high-school age maybe, wrestled a werewolf to the ground laughing, his face smeared with blood.

  Katherine is here. The words repeated in Elena’s brain as if they had significance beyond the fact that Klaus had resurrected her oldest enemy. Katherine was here . . . and Ethan had used the blood of the vampires Klaus had made to resurrect him.

  Klaus had been calling upon old friends. With a sickening twist, Elena wondered: Could these all be vampires Klaus had turned, all gathered together like some kind of vicious tribe, some kind of family? And had Klaus used their blood to resurrect Katherine, to raise his most beloved child as he had been raised?

  Through the brutally battling crowd, Klaus was coming toward her, his face gleeful. He was so handsome, she thought irrelevantly, and so terrifying. His ice-blue eyes were wide, and his golden skin glowed in the moonlight. His allies—his children—moved out of his way so that his path was effortless. Something shone in his hand. With a chill, Elena realized that he held an unsheathed dagger.

  Elena couldn’t move. She felt as if she were in a dream as Klaus came closer and closer, smiling and gliding easily through the crowd, until he was so close she could smell the coppery scent of blood on him. He took her arm rather gently, and his smile grew wider. He held her effortlessly still with his Power, and as she slid her eyes to the side, she saw Andrés, his mouth open in horror, and realized Klaus was holding him still as well. Stefan, too, was fighting against Klaus’s Power, desperate to reach Elena before it was too late.

  “Hello, pretty one,” Klaus said, his voice soft and intimate. “I think the time has come, don’t you? I’m ready to taste you.”

  The dagger’s blade flashed in the setting sunlight as he raised it to her neck. Elena, with the sharp focus of terror, saw its hilt gleaming with runes and patterns. From below the blade, a curious wry-faced beast, something like a lizard, grinned at her cruelly. And then she couldn’t see the dagger anymore, because Klaus had pressed it to her throat.

  Stefan, Elena thought. She could see him across the clearing, his face frozen in despair. Even though she was becoming a Guardian, she’d always thought things would work out so that she could be that normal, happy girl with him. His heart would break without her, she realized, and she had just a moment of pure sorrow for him and for what they could have had together.

  She felt the freezing cold blade cross her throat, and then the heat of flowing blood. Klaus leaned closer, his breath cool and rank, then suddenly pulled back. The blood had stopped, Elena realized. And she couldn’t feel the pain anymore. She was healing almost as fast as Klaus could cut her.

  Klaus’s blade couldn’t kill her. Was this because she was a Guardian? she wondered dazedly.

  Klaus growled in fury and slashed at her neck again. Elena felt a shock of pain, but again, the wound seemed to heal. The others were seeing what was going on now, although Klaus’s Power must have been holding them at bay. Elena met Stefan’s horrified eyes as Klaus shoved her away from him.

  “Your magician and witch have found a way to protect you, have they?” Klaus sneered. He glowered at Bonnie and Alaric, who both took an automatic step backward, their faces white with fear, and then he turned back to Elena. “Don’t worry, pretty one, it won’t stop me from having you.” His voice dropped to an insinuating whisper and he reached out with one finger to trace the line of Elena’s upper lip. He smiled, but his eyes were furious. “I’ll figure out a way around whatever they’ve done, believe me.”

  He raised his voice again, looking slowly around the clearing. “We like it here, my children and I,” he announced. “All the fresh, young blood—it’s a continual feast.” A ragged cheer came from some of the vampires. He smiled again, his sharp, white canines gleaming in the last rays of the setting sun, and his hand tightened around Elena’s jaw, dragging her forward. “In the end,” he said, his voice low and intimate, “not one of your friends will survive us.”

 
Klaus turned away, striding across the clearing. As he passed the Pack, frozen still and silent by his Power, he grabbed up the closest wolf in one smooth, quick move—Chad, Elena realized, recognizing his wiry frame and the white blaze at his throat—and threw him easily into a tree. Elena heard Chad’s bones crack and then the wolf collapsed limply at the bottom of the tree, motionless.

  Klaus grinned and lightning cracked across the sky. “He’s only the first. I’ll see you all soon.” He sauntered slowly and carelessly into the woods. His vampires melted into the night after him. As Klaus’s army vanished, Elena felt his Power release her at last, and she slumped to her knees. The Pack, the first to spring back into motion, raced to Chad’s side.

  Gazing across the clearing, Elena saw Stefan. He was pale and still, and as their eyes met, Elena saw a mirror of her own fear.

  Chapter 21

  Elena, oh Elena,” Stefan said, stroking her hair, feeling the urge to pull her to him and never, never let her leave his side again. “I was so afraid that I’d lost you. That I’d failed you.”

  As soon as Klaus had left the clearing, releasing the compelled stillness he’d held them all under, Stefan had raced to Elena, taking her in his arms. They were still on the battlefield, everyone nursing their wounds all around them, but he couldn’t let go of her even for a moment.

  “I’m okay,” Elena said, grasping his hand and holding it against her cheek, letting him feel how warm and alive she was. She sounded bewildered. “How can I be okay, though? Klaus cut my throat.”

  “Do you know, Andrés?” Stefan said, turning to the Guardian beside them. Behind him hovered Meredith, Alaric, and Bonnie. Bonnie was watching the werewolves across the clearing as they gathered around Chad’s body, but she lingered with the other humans, giving them some space. A few steps away, Matt and Chloe stood half in the clearing, half below the trees, murmuring quietly to each other.

  “I don’t know for certain what protected her,” Andrés said slowly.

  “You must have a pretty good idea,” Stefan said sharply. “Tell us.” He knew he should treat Andrés more gently; he was, after all, the only one who could help Elena through her transition to Guardianship. But Stefan was still terrified, feeling sick and hollowed out from the moment when he had seen Klaus draw his dagger across Elena’s throat. And he was sure that Andrés knew more than he had told them.

  “I have heard that, sometimes, Guardians who have very dangerous assignments are given special protections as well,” Andrés said. The full moon lit up the clearing and he looked pale and worn in its light. “Most commonly, they are safeguarded against death by paranormal means. The Power—the Guardian Powers—can’t make them immortal, because they have to stay in tune with nature. Elena could be run over by a car or die of disease, but, if this is what’s happened, she can’t be killed by a vampire’s bite or a spell, or”—he waved a hand in the direction that Klaus and his family had retreated—“by a magical dagger.”

  “If Klaus and his vampires can’t kill her,” Meredith said, starting to grin a wild, delighted grin, “then we have a weapon. Elena’s safe.”

  Andrés frowned. “Wait,” he said. “They can’t kill her by supernatural means. If Klaus figures that out, he could kill her with a rope or a kitchen knife.” Stefan flinched, and Andrés looked at him sympathetically. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know. It’s hard to love someone as fragile as a human.”

  A long, drawn-out howl, echoing with misery and loss, rose from the foot of the tree where Chad had fallen. The wolves had, as a Pack, raced to Chad’s side as soon as the Power holding them in place had lifted. They had been nosing at the fallen wolf’s shaggy body, whimpering and growling, trying to confirm what Stefan had known since Chad hit the ground: Chad was dead.

  Not just humans, Stefan thought bleakly. Anyone mortal is so vulnerable to death.

  “We need to take a vow,” he said, looking around at the humans’ stricken faces. “No one can know about Elena’s Powers, or about her being a Guardian. Not anyone. If Klaus finds out, he’ll find a way to kill her.” He felt sick and dizzy with panic. If Klaus found out Elena’s secret . . . He looked wildly around. With the Pack here, there were so many now who might slip and give her away.

  Meredith met his eyes challengingly. “I will never tell,” she said. “On my honor as a hunter and a Sulez.”

  Matt nodded fervently. “I won’t tell anyone,” he promised, and Chloe, her eyes wide, nodded along with him.

  Bonnie, Andrés, and Alaric all promised, too. Stefan held Elena close to him and kissed her again before, with almost a physical wrench, letting go and walking across the clearing. Approaching the circle of mourning wolves, he called softly, “Zander.” The huge white wolf had laid his head alongside Chad’s and, at Stefan’s approach, jerked his head up to snarl a warning.

  “I’m sorry,” Stefan said. “It’s very important. I wouldn’t interrupt you if it weren’t.”

  Zander pressed his muzzle to the top of Chad’s head for a moment, and then stood and left the circle of wolves. Shay moved automatically in to take his place, laying next to Chad’s body as if she could comfort the dead wolf.

  When Zander was standing before Stefan, he stiffened and then writhed, his muscles contracting and expanding. Patches of bare skin began to show between the tufts of his thick fur, and he staggered up onto his hind legs as the direction of his joints reversed with a cracking noise. He was changing back into a human, Stefan realized, and the transformation looked painful.

  “It hurts to change back when the moon is still full,” Zander said gruffly, once he was standing before Stefan in human form. His eyes were reddened with grief, and he drew his hand roughly across his face. “What do you want?”

  “I am so sorry about Chad,” Stefan said. “He was a loyal member of your Pack and a valuable ally to the rest of us.”

  Chad had been a nice kid, Stefan thought, earnest and cheerful. His chest tightened as he remembered that Chad’s death was ultimately Stefan’s fault: Klaus had come to this part of the world to avenge Katherine, who had followed Stefan. Years of Stefan’s own history, leading to the death of a skinny, friendly nineteen-year-old werewolf who had never done anyone harm.

  “It’s a risk we take when we fight—we all know it,” Zander said shortly. His usually open face was closed off: Pack mourning was not for outsiders. “Is that all?”

  “No, I need your word. Elena’s Guardian Powers are the only reason Klaus couldn’t kill her tonight,” Stefan said. “I need you and your Pack to promise not to tell anyone she’s a Guardian.”

  “Wolves are loyal,” Zander said. “We won’t tell anyone.” He turned away from Stefan and took two long strides back toward the circle of wolves, his body changing as he went.

  Huddled together at the edge of the clearing, Matt took Chloe’s hand and noticed she was trembling, a small, tight shiver running through her body. He was cold, but vampires didn’t get cold, did they?

  “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

  Chloe pressed her free hand against her chest, as if she was having trouble breathing. “It’s just that there were so many people,” she said. “It was hard to concentrate. The blood—I could smell everyone’s blood. And when the wolf died . . .”

  Matt understood. Fresh blood had leaked from Chad’s nose and mouth as he died, and Matt had felt Chloe stiffen beside him. “It’s okay,” he said now. “Let’s head back to the boathouse. You just weren’t ready to be around such a big group yet, especially with everyone’s pulses pounding from the battle.”

  Watching Chloe closely, he saw her jaw shift shape as her canines involuntarily descended. No talking about pounding pulses, he thought.

  Chloe turned her head aside, trying to hide her lowering canines, and Matt noticed something else. There was a long streak of blood along Chloe’s jaw, near her mouth. “Where’s that from?” Matt asked, hearing the sharpness in his own voice as he let go of Chloe’s hand.

  “What?” Chloe asked,
alarmed, skating her fingers over her own face. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what you mean.” She was looking away, though, avoiding Matt’s eyes.

  “Did you feed?” Matt asked, trying to calm down, to not scare Chloe. “Maybe from Chad after he died? I know it wouldn’t have seemed as bad with him in wolf form, but werewolves are still people.” And jeez, when did that become something I believed? he wondered.

  “No!” Chloe’s eyes flew open wide, the whites showing all the way around her pupil. “No, Matt, I wouldn’t do that!” She wiped roughly at her face, trying to erase the mark. “We were together the whole time!”

  Matt frowned. “Not the whole time,” he contradicted. “I lost sight of you during the fighting for a while.” Chloe knew they’d been separated. Why would she say differently?

  Chloe shook her head hard. “I didn’t feed from anyone,” she insisted. But her eyes jittered nervously away and, with a sickening swoop of his stomach, Matt realized he had no idea what to believe. Chloe sighed. “Please, Matt,” she said quietly. “I promise I’m not lying to you.” Tears shone in her big brown eyes. “I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to become something to be afraid of.”

  “You won’t,” Matt promised her. “I’ll keep you safe.” Chloe leaned her face against his, forehead to forehead, and they stayed that way for a while, breathing quietly. I will, Matt promised himself silently. I can help her.

  Chapter 22

  Stefan held Elena close to him, ran his fingers through her silky hair, and felt her heart beating against his chest. When their lips met, he could feel her fear and weariness, as well as her wonder at her new Powers. Elena was sensing his own mixture of love and fear, and his delight at the new protection Elena had. She was sending him a constant stream of love and reassurance, which he returned in kind.