Destiny Rising Read online

  Now that she was no longer under his thrall, she screamed and struggled, beating against his back with her fists. Damon pinned her with one arm and expertly worked his fangs in and out of her neck to widen the bite, drinking more blood, faster. Her blows grew weaker and she swayed in his arms.

  When she went limp, he dropped her, and she landed on the forest floor with a heavy thud.

  For a moment, he stared into the dark woods around him, listening to the steady chirp of the crickets. The girl lay unmoving at his feet. Although he had not needed to breathe for more than five hundred years, he was gasping, almost dizzy.

  He touched his own lips and brought his hand back red and dripping. It had been a long time since he’d lost control of himself like that. Hundreds of years, probably. He stared down at the crumpled body at his feet. The girl looked so small now, her face serene and empty, lashes dark against her pale cheeks.

  Damon wasn’t sure if she was dead or alive. He realized he didn’t want to find out.

  He backed away a few steps from the girl, feeling oddly uncertain, and then turned and ran, swift and silent through the darkness of the woods, listening only to the pounding of his own heart.

  Damon had always done what he wanted. Feeling bad about what was natural for a vampire, that was for someone like Stefan. But, as he ran, an uncharacteristic sensation in the pit of his stomach nagged at him, something that felt more than a little bit like guilt.

  “But you said Ethan was dead,” Bonnie said. She felt Meredith flinch beside her and bit her tongue. Of course Meredith would be sensitive about Ethan’s possible survival; she’d killed him, or had thought she had. Meredith’s face was hard and guarded now, revealing nothing.

  “I should have cut off his head to make sure,” Meredith said, sweeping her flashlight from side to side to illuminate the stone walls of the tunnel. Bonnie nodded to herself, realizing something she should have guessed: Meredith was angry.

  Meredith’s call alerting Bonnie to Ethan’s disappearance had come while Bonnie and Zander were having a late dinner at the student union. It had been a sweet, easy date: burgers and Cokes and Zander gently trapping her foot between his two bigger ones under the table as he sneakily stole her fries.

  And now, here she and Zander were, looking for vampires in the secret underground tunnels beneath the campus with Meredith and Matt. Elena and Stefan were doing the same thing in the woods around the campus overhead. Not the most romantic we-just-got-back-together date, Bonnie thought with a resigned shrug. But they do say couples should share their hobbies.

  Matt, striding along on Meredith’s other side, seemed grimly determined, his jaw clenched and his eyes fixed straight ahead down the long, dark tunnel. Bonnie felt sorry for him. All the strain the rest of them felt had to be a hundred times worse for Matt right now.

  “You with us, Matt?” Meredith asked, apparently reading Bonnie’s mind.

  Matt sighed and kneaded at the back of his neck with one hand as if his muscles were strained and stiff. “Yeah, I’m with you.” He paused and took a breath. “Except . . .” He trailed off and then started again. “Except maybe some of them we can help, right? Stefan could teach them how to be vampires who don’t hurt people. Even Damon changed, didn’t he? And Chloe . . .” His cheeks were flushed with emotion. “None of them deserved this. They didn’t know what they were getting into.”

  “No,” Meredith answered, touching Matt’s elbow lightly with one hand. “They didn’t.”

  Bonnie’d known that Matt was friends with the sweet-faced junior Chloe, but she was beginning to understand that he’d felt much more than that. How terrible to know that Meredith might have to thrust a stave through the chest of someone he was falling in love with, and how much worse to know that it was the right thing to do.

  Zander had a soft expression in his eyes, and Bonnie realized he was thinking the same thing. He took her hand, his long strong fingers wrapping around hers, and Bonnie snuggled a little closer to him.

  But as they rounded a dark bend in the tunnel, Zander suddenly let go of Bonnie and stepped protectively in front of her as Meredith raised her stave. Bonnie, a beat behind the others, didn’t see the two figures entwined against the wall until they were already breaking apart. No, not entwined like lovers, she realized, but a vampire clinging to its victim. Matt stiffened, staring at them, and let out a soft involuntary sound of surprise. There was a sudden snarl and a flash of white teeth in the darkness as the vampire, a girl no taller than Bonnie herself, pushed her victim violently away. He fell to the ground at her feet.

  Bonnie stepped around Zander, keeping a careful eye on the vampire, who was now huddled against the wall. She flinched involuntarily at the vampire’s stare, the feral, fierce look in the dark eyes fixing on her, but kept going until she could kneel down next to the victim and reach to check his pulse. It was steady, but he was bleeding pretty badly, and she took off her jacket and pressed it against his throat to staunch the blood. Her hands were shaking and she concentrated on stilling them, on doing what needed to be done. Beneath the young man’s eyelids, she could see his eyes moving rapidly back and forth, as if he was caught in a bad dream, but he stayed unconscious.

  The girl—the vampire, Bonnie reminded herself—was watching Meredith now, her body tensed to fight or run away. She cringed back as Meredith stepped closer, blocking her in. Meredith raised her stave higher, aiming it at the middle of the girl’s chest.

  “Wait,” the girl said hoarsely, holding out her hands. She looked past Meredith and seemed to see Matt for the first time. “Matt,” she said. “Help me. Please.” She was staring hard at him, visibly concentrating, and Bonnie realized with a start that the vampire was trying to use Power to make Matt do what she wanted. It wasn’t working, though—she must not be strong enough yet—and after a moment her eyes rolled back and she sagged against the wall.

  “Beth, we want to give you a chance,” Matt said to the vampire. “Do you know what happened to Ethan?”

  The girl shook her head emphatically, her long hair flying around her. Her eyes were flicking back and forth between Meredith and the tunnel behind her, and she edged sideways. Meredith followed her, moving closer, the stave pressed against the vampire’s chest.

  “We can’t just kill her,” Matt said to Meredith, a slightly desperate note in his voice. “Not if there’s another option.” Meredith snorted in disbelief and angled even closer to the vampire—Beth, Matt had called her—who bared her teeth in a silent snarl.

  “Hang on a second,” Zander said, and stepped over Beth’s victim’s unconscious body, brushing past Bonnie. Before Bonnie really understood what was happening, Zander had pulled Beth away from Meredith and pressed her against the wall of the tunnel.

  “Hey!” Meredith said indignantly, and then frowned in confusion. Zander was gazing intently into Beth’s eyes, his face serious and calm. She was staring back at him, her restless eyes still now, her breathing hard.

  “Do you know where Ethan is?” Zander asked in a low, calm voice, and it felt to Bonnie as if something, some invisible blast of Power, flew between them.

  In a second, Beth’s wary face emptied of all expression. “He’s hiding in the safe house at the end of the tunnels,” she said. Her voice sounded half-asleep, disconnected from her thoughts.

  “Are there other vampires with him?” Zander asked, his eyes steady on hers.

  “Yes,” Beth said. “Everyone’s staying there until the equinox, when all Ethan’s hopes will be fulfilled.”

  Two days, Bonnie thought. The others had told her that Ethan had planned to resurrect Klaus, the Original vampire. She shivered at the thought. Klaus had been scary, one of the scariest things she’d ever seen. But could they really do it? Ethan hadn’t gotten Stefan’s and Damon’s blood, and he couldn’t do the resurrection spell without it. Could he?

  “Ask her what their defenses are like,” Meredith said, getting with the program.

  “Is he well defended?” Zander asked.


  Beth’s head jerked into a stiff nod, as if an invisible puppeteer had pulled her strings. “No one can get to him,” she said in that same sleepy monotone. “He’s hidden, and every one of us would give our lives to protect him.”

  Meredith nodded, clearly weighing the words of her next question, but Matt broke in. “Can we save her?” he asked, and the pain in his voice made Bonnie flinch. “Maybe if she wasn’t so hungry . . .”

  Zander focused in even more strongly on Beth, and Bonnie again felt a wave of Power emanating from him. “Do you want to hurt people, Beth?” he asked quietly.

  Beth chuckled, a rich, dark sound, although her face stayed blandly expressionless. That laugh was the first emotion she had shown since Zander had somehow charmed her into blankness and truth. “I don’t want to hurt—I want to kill,” she said, with a hard amusement in her tone. “I’ve never felt so alive.”

  Zander stepped back with a quick animal grace. At the same moment Meredith smoothly shot forward, shoving her stave through Beth’s heart.

  After the tearing noise of wood through flesh, Beth fell without a sound. Matt’s gasp broke the silence, a startled, pained little noise. At Bonnie’s knees, Beth’s victim stirred, his head turning from one side to the other. Bonnie automatically patted him soothingly with the hand that wasn’t keeping pressure on his neck wounds. “It’s okay,” she said quietly.

  Meredith turned to Matt defiantly. “I had to,” she said.

  Matt bowed his head, his shoulders sagging. “I know,” he answered. “Believe me, I know. It’s just . . .” He shifted from one foot to the other. “She was a nice girl, before this happened to her.”

  “I’m sorry,” Meredith said quietly, and Matt nodded, still looking at the ground. Then Meredith turned to Zander. “What was that?” she asked. “How did you get her to talk?”

  Zander blushed a little. “Um. Well,” he said, and shrugged one shoulder self-consciously. “There’s this thing some of us Original werewolves can do, if we’ve practiced. We can make people tell the truth. It doesn’t work on everyone, but I thought it was worth a try.”

  Bonnie stared up at him quizzically. “You didn’t tell me that,” she said.

  Zander lowered himself down onto his knees and faced her across Beth’s unconscious victim. His eyes were wide and sincere. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I honestly didn’t think about it. It’s just one of the weird little things we can do.”

  The unconscious guy’s bleeding seemed to have slowed, and Bonnie sat back on her heels. Zander raised his eyebrows at her, looking hopeful, and she smiled back at him. She’d have to find out what these other “little things” were, she guessed.

  “Seems like that’s something that could be pretty useful,” she said, and watched Zander’s face relax into a sunny, joyful grin.

  Meredith cleared her throat. She was still watching Matt, her eyes full of sympathy, but her voice was dry. “We should get everyone together as soon as possible. If Ethan’s still trying to resurrect Klaus, we need to come up with a plan now.”

  Klaus. The stone of the tunnel floor beneath Bonnie’s knees was suddenly freezing. Klaus was darkness, violence, and fear. They had only defeated him back in Fell’s Church by an extraordinary intervention, by Fell’s Church’s ghosts rising against him. That wasn’t something they’d be able to recreate. What could they do now? Bonnie closed her eyes for a second, dizzy. She could picture, vividly, darkness rising up from below them, thick and choking, eager to consume them. Something evil was coming.

  Chapter 3

  Elena laced her fingers through Stefan’s, thrilling at even this little touch. It felt like it had been so long since they had been alone together, so long since she’d even been close enough to Stefan to touch him. All this evening she’d found herself leaning against his side, brushing her thumb over his knuckles, wrapping her arm around his waist, tracing her finger along his collarbone: any little touch she could have. Anything to feel the simple, satisfying reality of Stefan, here with her at last.

  It was a pleasantly warm night, and there was soft moss underfoot. A breeze rustled the leaves of the forest trees all around them, and through the trees’ branches she could glimpse a sky full of stars. It had all the elements of a romantic stroll through the woods, except for the fact that they were searching for bloodthirsty vampires.

  “I don’t sense anything,” Stefan said. His hand was reassuringly tight around hers, but his dark green eyes held a faraway look, and Elena knew he was using his Power to scan the forest. “No vampires and no one in pain or afraid, as far as I can tell. I don’t think there’s anyone around.”

  “We’ll keep looking, though. Just in case,” Elena urged. Stefan nodded. There were limits to Stefan’s searching Power: someone much stronger than he was could hide from it; someone much weaker might not catch his attention. And some creatures, like werewolves, he couldn’t sense at all.

  “I know I shouldn’t be thinking about this with everything that’s going on, but all I want is to be alone with you,” Elena confessed quietly. “Things are happening so fast. If Ethan brings Klaus back . . . it feels like we might not have much time.”

  Stefan let go of Elena’s hand and touched her face lightly, his fingers brushing over her cheeks and the curve of her eyebrow, a thumb ghosting across her lips. His eyes darkened with passion, and he smiled. Then he kissed her, softly at first.

  Oh, Elena thought, and then, yes.

  As if he’d been waiting for her confirmation, Stefan’s kisses became more passionate. His hand fisted gently in her hair, and they moved backward until she was pressed against a tree. The bark was rough against her bare shoulders, but Elena didn’t care; she just kissed Stefan fiercely, hungrily.

  This is right, Elena thought. This is like coming home, and she felt Stefan’s agreement and the strength of his love. Yes, he thought, and more.

  Their minds entwined and Elena relaxed into the slow familiar spiral of Stefan’s thoughts and emotions. There was love there—solid, constant love—and there was a steady bruiselike ache of regret at the time they’d lost. Strongest of all, there was a sense of joyous relief. I didn’t know how I was going to live without you, Stefan thought to her. I couldn’t live forever, knowing you weren’t mine.

  At the thought of forever, a thrum of anxiety shot through Elena. Barring a death by violence, forever was a given for Stefan. He would go on, unaging and beautiful, always eighteen. And Elena? Would she grow old and die with Stefan eternally young by her side? She didn’t doubt that he would stay with her, no matter what.

  There were other possibilities. She’d been a vampire once, and she’d suffered, being separated from her human friends and family, divided from the living world. She knew Stefan wouldn’t wish that life on her. But it was an option, although they never talked about it.

  Her mind touched on a certain bottle tucked in the back of her closet at home, and shied away again. She’d stolen a single bottle of the water of eternal life from the Guardians when she and her friends had traveled in the Dark Dimension. Its existence, and the choice it offered her, was always at the edges of her mind. But she wasn’t ready to make that decision, to end her mortal life. Not yet.

  She was still growing, still changing. Was the person Elena was now really the person she wanted to be for the rest of her life? She was so flawed, so unfinished. Drinking the water of eternal life, or becoming a vampire, would close doors Elena wasn’t ready to shut yet. She wanted to stay human. She ached inside at that: Would she be human now? Could she be human, if she had to become a Guardian?

  All of this she considered in a private corner of her mind while most of her was focusing on the sweet sensations of Stefan’s lips and body against hers and the steady thread of love passing between them. Enough of her emotions must have broken through to Stefan, though, that he responded. Whatever you want, Elena, he thought to her, gentle and reassuring. I’ll be with you. Forever. However long that might be for you.

  She k
new that meant Stefan would understand even if she decided to live a natural life, to grow old and die. And there would be reasons to do that. Stefan and Damon had both lost something by never aging, never changing. They sensed that part of their humanity was gone.

  But how could she face someday abandoning Stefan? She couldn’t imagine dying again, dying and leaving him behind. Elena pressed her back more firmly against the rough bark of the tree and kissed Stefan harder, feeling more fiercely alive with the almost-painful contrast of sensations.

  Then she pulled back. She’d kept so much from Stefan since she’d come to Dalcrest. She wasn’t going to go down that path again, wasn’t going to love him while locking him out of parts of her life.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” she said. “You need to know everything. I can’t—I can’t hide things from you, not now.” Stefan frowned questioningly, and she dropped her gaze to her hand against his shirt as she twisted the fabric nervously. “James told me something yesterday, before the fight,” she blurted. “I’m not who I thought I was, not exactly. The Guardians chose my parents—they made me—and my parents were supposed to hand me over when I was twelve to become a Guardian. My parents refused and that was why they died. It wasn’t just a random accident. The Guardians killed them. And now after learning this, I’m supposed to become one of them?”

  Stefan looked flabbergasted for a moment, and then his face filled with sympathy. “Oh, Elena,” he said, and pulled her close again, trying now to comfort her.

  Elena let herself relax against his chest. Thank God Stefan understood that the idea of becoming one of the Guardians, those cold regulators of order, was nothing to celebrate, even if it would bring her Power.

  “I’ll help you,” Stefan said. “If you want to try to bargain your way out of it, or fight this, or go through with it. Whatever you want.”