The Return: Shadow Souls Chapter 9

Even as Elena opened her embouchure to speak, she could feel herself elevate as if in a hurricane. For a moment she clung to the male peasant who was beingness torn from her grasp, then she just had time to sh away, Ill be corroborate, and to hear his reply, ahead she was pulled into the ordinary world of baths and manipulation and motel rooms.Ill cargo hold our secret That was what the little boy had cried to her at the last moment.And what could that mean but that he would keep their get together from the real (or ordinairy) Damon?A moment later Elena was standing in a dingy motel room, and Damon was clutching her upper arms. As he released her, Elena could taste salt. Tears were streamlined freely d experience her cheeks.It didnt considerm to make any(prenominal) difference to her attacker. Damon designmed to be at the mercy of raw desperation. He was shaking desire a little boy the first time he kissed his first heat. Thats whats movement the control away, Elena t hought fuzzily.As for herself, she snarl up as if she might faint.No She had to stay conscious.Elena pushed and twisted, hurting herself deliberately against the apparently unbreakable grip that held her.It held.The owner? Shinichi again, sneaking into Damons mind and making him do things ?Elena fought harder, pushed herself until she actu in ally could nominate screamed with pain. She whimpered once The hold broke.Somehow Elena knew that Shinichi wasnt involved in this. The true soul of Damon was a little boy held in chains for God-knew-how- umpteen a nonher(prenominal) centuries, who had never whapn cacoethes and closeness but who still had a tearful appreciation for them. The child who was chained to the rock surrounding was one of Damons deepest secrets.And now Elena was trembling so hard she wasnt sure she could stand up, and she was wondering nigh the child. Was he glacial? Was he crying like Elena? How could she tell?She and Damon were left pure(a) at each other , both breathing hard. Damons sleek hair was mussed, making him manifestation rakish as a buccaneer. His face, invariably so pale and self-composed, was red-faced with telephone line. His gists dropped to watch Elena automatically massaging her wrists. She could feel pins and requestles now she was getting back roughly circulation. Once hed looked away, he couldnt appear to look her in the centre again.Eye contact. All right. Elena recognized a weapon, groping for a prexy and finding the bed unexpectedly close behind her. She didnt have umpteen weapons right now and she needed to use all of them.She sit down, giving in to the weakness in her body, but she kept her look on Damons face. His mouth was swollen. And that wasunfair. Damons pout was a section of his most basic artillery. He had ceaselessly had the most beautiful mouth shed ever seen on anyone, man or woman. The mouth, the hair, the half-drooping lids, the heavy lashes, the delicacy of his jawlineunfair, even to someone like Elena, whod long past gotten past interest in a mortal because of some contingency of beauty. scarce shed never seen that mouth swollen, the perfect hair disordered, the eyelashes trembling because he was looking everywhere except at her and testing not to state it.Was that what youve been thinking about while youve been refusing to talk to me? she asked, and her voice was about steady.Damons fast stillness was perfection like all his other perfections. No breathing, of course. He stared at a spot in the beige carpet that by rights ought to have broken into flames.Then, finally, he lifted those huge dark eyeball to hers. It was so hard to tell anything about Damons eyes because the iris was almost the same color as the pupil, but Elena had a feeling that at this moment they were dilated so far as to be all pupil. How could eyes as dark as midnight trap and hold light? She seemed to see in them a universe of stars.Damon say, softly, Run.Elena felt her legs t ense. Shinichi?No. You should run now.Elena felt her thigh muscles relax slightly and was grateful not to have to try to prove that she could run or even crawl at this read instant. But her fists clenched.You mean this is just you being a bastard? she said. realize you decided to hate me again? Did you enjoy ?Damon whirled again, stillness into motion red-hot than her eyes could track it. He hit the frame of the window, once, pulling the lap almost comp permitely at the last instant. There was a daunt and then a thousand little echoes as the glass showered like diamonds against the darkness outside.That mightbring some people to sustain you. Damon wasnt difficult to make the words seem more than than an afterthought. directly that he was cancelled away from her, he didnt seem to care about keeping up appearances. Fine tremors ran through his body.This late, in this storm, this far away from the get rid ofice I doubt it. Elenas body was catching up with the adrenaline spurt that had allowed her to stir her way out of Damons grip. She was tingling all over and she had to work to keep it from turning into outright shaking.And they were back to square one, with Damon staring into the night and her staring at his back. Or, at least, that was where he cherished them to be.You could have just asked, she said. She didnt sock if this was possible for a vampire to understand. She still hadnt taught Stefan. He went without things that he cute because he didnt understand about asking. In all innocence and with all good intentions, Stefan left things until she, Elena, was forced to ask him.Damon, she thought, didnt usually have that problem. He overlyk whatever he wanted as casually as if choice items off of a grocery store shelf.And right now he was laughing silently, which meant that he was truly stricken.Ill constrict that as an apology, Elena said softly.Now Damon was laughing out loud, and Elena felt a chill. Here she was, trying to help him, and Do you think, he broke into her thoughts, that that was all I wanted? Elena felt herself freeze again as she mulled this over. Damon could easily have interpreted her blood while he held her immobile. But of course that wasnt all he wanted from her. Her aurashe knew what it did to vampires. Damon had been protecting her all along from other vampires who might see it.The difference, Elenas native honesty told her, was that she didnt outflow a damn about any of the others. But Damon was different. When he kissed her she could feel the difference inside her. Something she had never felt beforeuntil Stefan.Oh, God was this really her, Elena Gilbert, betraying Stefan by the simple act of not running away from this situation? Damon was being a better person than she was he was sexual congress her to take the temptation of her aura away from him.So that she could start the torture anew tomorrow.Elena had been in many circumstances where shed judged that it was scoop up for her to le ave before things got too hot. The problem here was that thither was nowhere that she could go to without turning up the heat putting herself in greater danger. And, incidentally, losing her chance to find Stefan.Should she have gone with Matt? But Damon had said they couldnt get into this Dark Dimension place, not two humans by themselves. Hed said they needed him with them. And Elena still had some doubts as to whether Damon would take the fretfulness to even drive to Arizona, much less search for Stefan, if she wasnt with him every quality of the way.Besides, how could Matt have protected her on the dangerous road she and Damon were by-line? Elena knew that Matt would die for her and thats just what he would do, too, if they came up against vampires or werewolves. Die. going Elena facing her enemies alone.Oh, yes, Elena knew what Damon did each night when she slept in the car. He put some kind of dark spells nearly her, signing them with his name, sealing them with his sea l, and they kept random creatures of the night away from the car until morning.But their greatest enemies, the kitsune twins, Shinichi and Misao, they had brought with them.Elena thought about all this before raising her head to look Damon in the eyes. look which, at that moment, reminded her of those of a ragged child chained to a rock.Youre not going to leave, are you? he whispered.Elena shook her head.Youre really not frightened of me?Oh, Im afraid. Again Elena felt that inward shiver. But she was flying somewhere now, she had draw the course, and there was no way that she could stop. Especially not when he looked at her like that. It reminded her of the fierce joy, the almost reluctant pride he always showed when they took down an enemy together.I wont become your Princess of Darkness, she told him. And you know that I could never give up Stefan.A ghost of his old mocking make a face touched his lips. Theres plenty of time to convince you to my way of thinking on those matte rs.No need, Elena thought. She knew that Stefan would understand.But even now, when it seemed the whole world was whirling around her, something rose up in Elena to challenge Damon. You say its not Shinichi. I reckon you. But is all this because of what Caroline said? She could hear the sudden hardness in her own voice.Caroline? Damon blinked as if thrown off his stride.She said that before I met Stefan I was just a Elena engraft it impossible to get the last word out. That I waspromiscuous.Damons jaw rigid and his cheeks flushed quickly as if hedbeen struck from an unexpected direction. That girl, he muttered.Shes already fixed her destiny and if it were anyone else I might beinclined to take some pity. But shegoesbeyondshesbeyondany propriety As he spoke his words slowed, and a look of bewilderment darken his face. He was gazing at Elena and she knew he could see the rupture standing in her eyes, because he reached up to brush them away with his fingers. As he did, howeve r, he stopped dead in midmotion, and, his face suddenly bemused, he brought one of his hands up to his lips, tasting her tears.Whatever they tasted like to him, he didnt seem to believe it. He brought the other hand up to his lips as healthy. Elena was openly staring at him now he should have been put out of countenance but he wasnt. Instead a kaleidoscope of expressions passed over his face, too quickly for her human eyes to catch them all. But she did see astonishment, disbelief, bitterness, more astonishment, and then finally a kind of joyful shock and a look almost as if there were tears in his own eyes.And then Damon laughed. It was a quick, self-mocking laugh, but it was genuine, euphoric, even.Damon, Elena said, still blinking back tears it had all happened that fast what is wrong with you?Nothings wrong, everythings right, he said, while raising a scholarly finger. You should never try to fool a vampire, Elena. Vampires have many senses humans dont and some we dont even know we have until we need them. Its 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 Ive 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 theyre human. But vampires are programmed to recognize the aura of a maiden. And you are unicorn-bait, Elena. I dont know or care how you got your reputation. I was fooled by it myself for a long time, but Ive finally found the truth. Suddenly he was bending over her so that she could see nothing but him, his delightful hair brushing her forehead, his lips close to hers, his dark eyes, fathomless, capturing her gaze.Elena, he whispered. This is your secret. I dont know how youve managed it, butyoure a virgin.He leaned in toward her, his lips just brushing hers, share 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 partners 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 actual sense. If Damons 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 In fluence. 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 wouldnt mind this? But Stefan had prone her the greatest honor possible by trusting in her love and her judgment. And she was beginning to feel Damons 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 ventilation 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 strong suit 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 thr oat, 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 dentition that broke her skin and claimed her blood. Before that happened she was seeing stars. And then the universe was swallowed up in Damons dark eyes.