Thirty-Two to One
"I am in fear, in awful fear, and there is no escape for me."
Dracula, Bram Stoker
Klaus hung up on Stefan and wanted to fling his phone as far as he could just to have the satisfaction of hearing it smash. However he resisted the urge and turned his anger inside of himself, just as he always did. Anger was what fueled him, it's what kept him alive.
He called one of his hybrids instead.
"Klaus, they attacked us. They had wolfsbane grenades, some of us are down." Todd said, as soon as he answered.
"Never mind that, they'll recover in time. Listen to me. I want you to bring me the doppelgänger - alive."
"Where is she?"
"The Salvatore boarding house. Damon will be with her. Stefan too for all I know."
"What do you want us to do if we find the vampires?"
Klaus thought about it for less than a nano-second. "Kill them."
Damon was stewing after his call with Katherine. He wondered where Stefan was, because when he found out he was going to rip out his heart and feed it to him.
He was worried too. Klaus was alive and more of a danger now to them than he ever was.
He walked up the stairs and left Elena, whose worried look he couldn't deal with right now. He marched into his room and slammed his door.
Elena sat down with her hands pressed between her knees. She didn't know what to do. She was worried about Damon, and truly scared about Klaus' next move.
She wondered where Stefan was and what he planned to do now he free from his compulsion. Why hadn't he come home to explain what was going on? It wasn't because he was afraid of Damon. She knew the two of them would probably crack each other's heads for a while and break some furniture, then when the dust settled she would finally get her chance to find out why he had done what he did.
There had to be far more to it than Stefan gaining his freedom. She was certain he would have stayed forever indentured to Klaus if it had guaranteed her and Damon's safety.
What did it mean that he had his humanity back, but had not returned to her?
Katherine's call had unsettled her as well, just as everything about that woman did. Damon had used Katherine to keep her safe - but how had Katherine used him? Because it was inevitable she had in some way. Was she still stringing him along? To what gain?
Elena's own feelings for Damon were always somewhat clouded by her doppelgänger. It made her deeply uncomfortable that he had been in love with Katherine so long - a woman who could pass for her at a moment's notice. Something about that felt wrong. It put a distance between them that sometimes seemed insurmountable.
She wanted to ask Damon about it, but to do so would be tantamount to admitting she had feelings for him (even though apparently that was now obvious to everyone).
She sighed. Only five minutes ago they had shared another 'moment'. She felt her resolve crumbling and her heart leading her head. What would have happened if Katherine hadn't called?
So many questions. So many uncertainties.
Perhaps she should just go home. Her real home that was. Sometimes she missed the life that she and Jer had shared. Even the days when they just squabbled over chores. They were simpler times. Happy times.
But there was no going back. She had chosen this path a long time ago.
She got up and returned to the room she now called her own.
Damon put on some music to distract him and opened the fifty year old malt he had been given as a gift. He only drank it during celebrations, or times of stress - the balance of which seemed unfairly weighted towards the latter.
His mind wandered to Katherine as he sipped at his liquor. If he was honest, he couldn't entirely bring himself to regret the years he waited for her. She was dynamic and beautiful, and had a fire inside her that had fueled his devotion. He'd have followed her to the ends of the earth, to hell and back. It was love. Or so he thought.
Until now.
Elena.
When he thought of her, his stomach flip-flopped. He had never felt this way about anyone before. It made a mockery of what he had previously believed was love. Sometimes thinking of her brought him actual physical pain. He stayed up night after night analyzing a conversation, a note, or a look they had shared - just to decide that he wasn't going mad and that she felt the same way. When she touched his skin, it felt warm for hours afterwards.
He had turned to booze, other women, anger, depression and denial, but none of his usual go-to's had worked this time. She was under his skin for good.
He downed his drink and reached for the bottle. So this was to be his last round? Typical. Everything about that woman signaled the end - even when it came to his damn whisky. She was driving him mad. Just having her in his house was torture.
Sullenly he added ice to his glass to make the drink last and that was when he heard a downstairs window smash.
His head snapped up.
They had come for her.
Elena called Caroline and left her a voicemail asking her to ring as soon as she could. She then called Bonnie who said Jer had just left her house and returned back home. She said they were both safe and sound, but they were also worried about her. Bonnie promised to work on finding a spell that meant the boarding house was once again safe under Elena's guardianship.
Elena decided that there was nothing that could be done right now about Klaus. Ric would want to know everything about what had gone on today, but it could wait until the morning. Right now she was tired and scared, so she turned to what she knew would calm her down. School work.
She plugged in her headphones and tapped at her laptop. Suddenly she heard the muffled sound of breaking glass somewhere in the house.
She removed her headphones and frowned. Had Damon smashed another whisky glass? Suddenly her phone beeped with a text message.
Are you in your room? Hide. I'm coming for you.
Her heart skipped a beat. Was Damon overreacting? Since she had died, anyone could enter this house without an invitation. If Klaus had sent his hybrids after her, she was in trouble. No, they both were. Damon definitely wasn't overreacting.
The room she was in was big, but it wasn't exactly kitted out with hiding places. Her choices were the classic ones - under the bed, or in the closet. She choose the former.
She grabbed the stake and the single wolfsbane grenade she always kept in her room, and her cell. She got down on her knees and shimmied under the bed, switching her phone to silent as she did so. She texted Damon.
Yes, I'm in my room. Be careful. Don't take any risks.
She then had an additional thought and sent a new message.
Leave without me if you can.
She received a message straight back.
I won't leave you.
Damon went into his bathroom, which had earlier that day served as a grenade making factory. He cursed the fact that they had made so few. Well there was no time now to construct more, he would have to make do with what was left - which was just two.
He opened the antique wooden chest that was in his room, slid out the drawer and broke it into kindling. He went to his bed and ripped off the pillowcase and stuffed it with what he had. He wished it was more. He checked his cell was safe in his back pocket, then went to his window. Tying the pillowcase firmly to his belt, he carefully looked outside. Six hybrids that he could see. Another three looked like they were hidden in the tree line. Another two were moving across the open ground and making for his front door. From this angle he couldn't see which window had been broken, but he had to assume others were already making their way inside the house.
He slid his window open and climbed carefully onto the balcony.
Elena was lying under the bed wondering how the hell it was going to help her. If the hybrids broke in, they weren't exactly going to take a quick look around and say 'she's not here', and then leave. Hiding was not going to protect her. She crawled back out.
If Klaus was crazy enough to try a full scale attack on this house, then clearly he had numbers on his side. They were in trouble. Even Damon's strength had its limits.
She was no damsel in distress; she was a smart and capable woman with a phone and a laptop.
She opened up the screen and logged into Skype. Jer's face was the first she saw. She turned the sound down very low.
"Hey Elena. Wassup?" He said. She put her finger over her mouth indicating he should be silent. He frowned. He immediately knew something was wrong. Elena mouthed 'Get help.'
"Where are you?" He mouthed back.
"Boarding House."
"What's happening?"
"Hybrids."
"Shit."
She nodded. Yes, shit. Big time.
"Shall I get Ric?" He asked.
She looked away suddenly, hearing the sound of people running in the hallway.
"Too many. No time. Got to go. Send help."
She switched off Skype, quickly wrote and sent two emails. She knew she would have to stop using the laptop any second and be silent. The hybrids were part vampire and would have the additional good hearing that came with that.
On her phone she texted Damon. Help on its way.
Damon didn't receive the text, he was too busy traversing his rooftop. Elena's room was six windows down from his. He had to move fast and silently if he was to get there without getting the attention of the lookouts in the trees. He had his back against the slopping roof and he was walking as fast as he could without disturbing the tile.
He was moving too fast, and slipped on moss. A tile worked free and he had to watch with horror as it tumbled to the ground and smashed noisily. He froze, but it was too late. He was spotted.
The hybrids were fast and they were strong. The vampire inside them allowed them to jump great to heights, and the wolf inside them gave them speed, balance and ferocity. Three of them climbed up the walls as though they were not even obstacles.
He was surrounded and outnumbered. He slipped his pillowcase open as they positioned themselves on the roof around him, and armed himself with a stake.
The first one to attack was a woman, she ran at him lightly across the tile and when he leapt over her head, she leapt up too, turned and grabbed his throat with such savagery, that he knew their orders were to kill him. His back hit the tile and smashed a hole in the roof the length of his body. He took her down with him though and smacked the stake into her throat. He pulled it out again, keeping it in his hand. She gurgled in her death throes and he kicked her violently over the side of the roof.
He didn't have time to hear the sickening thud of her body hitting the floor before the next one was on him. This one landed like a wolf over his body on all fours, and tried to bite him. He got a healthy knee-shot into the man's groin before distracting him with the stake on one hand, then thrusting his other into the man's chest cavity and ripping out his heart.
The final hybrid stayed poised to strike. He was a large African-American, and seemed brighter than the others. He waited patiently for Damon to get to his feet. The internal beams of Damon's roof were now exposed and it would take very little for him to fall through the hole in the tile and smash through them. Damon moved back from the hole, hoping that the large man in front of him would make the mistake of assuming that the damage was not that bad.
He did not. The hybrid leapt over the hole and landed carefully, punching Damon so far across the roof that he overshot the area he had originally planned to climb down from into Elena's window. Damon lay momentarily senseless. He knew that the phone in his back pocket was smashed. Communication with Elena was cut off.
The hybrid was on him already biting at him. Damon barely had time to come to his senses and hold him at arms' length. This hybrid was terrifyingly strong. His large hands moved up through Damon's arms and pushed them aside. He head-butted the vampire and whilst Damon shook his head free of the daze, he snapped Damon's arm. Damon cried out and the hybrid pushed his hand into Damon's chest. It was the last thing he did. With Damon's good hand he stuck the stake into the back of the hybrid's neck. When he fell to one side Damon took a wolfsbane grenade and thrust it into the mans' face.
The hybrid slid sideways off the edge of the roof. Damon panted. His chest began to heal fast; his rib bones were brittle but mended quickly, but his broken arm would take longer to mend. It was time he didn't have. He could hear from the hole in the roof that the hybrids were inside the house and methodically ransacking the place. He hoped to God that Elena was well-hidden. He pulled his broken arm in close to his body with his good one, and took off back towards her window. Climbing down off the roof would be tricky. He had to find another way in.
When he got to where he thought the window was. He decided that to drop in would be easier than to climb. His chest hurt like a bitch as he stamped heavily on the roof, breaking a new hole in the tile. His attention was taken by the fact that four other hybrids had now climbed up on the roof and were stalking their way over to him.
Elena jumped up from her seat on the bed and looked at where the bits of dust on the ceiling were falling down above her head. Someone was trying to break through. She had a fifty-fifty chance that it meant rescue. She didn't like those odds.
She looked to the door. She had already considered dragging every bit of furniture that was in the room against it, but that would hold back the hybrids for no time at all, and the noise of doing it was more likely to give away her location quicker. They were in the room next to hers now, she had run out of time. She clutched the wolfsbane grenade in one hand and her stake in the other and briefly closed her eyes. If she was going to die today, she hoped it would be quick. Maybe Damon could still get away. Maybe.
Chunks of ceiling plaster were falling into the room and suddenly a foot kicked through. She pulled the pin on her grenade and kept her hand on the detonator. She crouched. Make your body a smaller target. Punch hard and fast. She could barely her internal thoughts over her own heartbeat.
More hybrids were running up the stairs. She knew they were leaving the room next door. She watched as a second foot in the ceiling hole joined the first. She tightened her grip on the weapons in her hands. The body in the ceiling dropped through it like liquid and landed like a cat on her floor. Damon's eyes found hers and barely had time to smile before the hybrids shouldered her door and were inside.
"Get down!" Elena shouted to Damon, who sped into the farthest corner of the room. Elena hurled the grenade into the heart of the three hybrids now in her room. It exploded in the face of one, who fell immediately to the floor. The two behind him covered their eyes and screamed. Damon had their hearts ripped out before they knew what had hit them. Elena ran over to him, he took her hand and they clambered over the fallen bodies and on to the landing.
"Stay close." He hissed as four hybrids on the stairs and two more on the landing came at him. Elena cowered behind him, still clutching the stake in her hands. Damon kicked out at the woman who came at him. He immediately went under as two more from the stairs jumped him too in a mass of snarling yellow-eyed sinew and muscle.
One of the hybrids on the stairs took the opportunity to grab Elena. It was the last thing he did. She plunged her stake into his heart. Damon's pillow case had fallen from his belt and a grenade rolled her way. She reached for it, but another hybrid had her up on his shoulder and half way down the stairs before she could touch it. As she bumped down the stairs she reached out to Damon. He saw her through a blackened eye as one of the hybrids re-broke his arm, another kicked in three of his ribs.
No. She would not be taken from him. Not today. Not ever.
Elena thumped, scratched, kicked and wriggled in the arms of her captor. He was almost at the front door when she felt herself falling towards the ground. She rolled free of her captor's body wondering what had happened. She looked up and found herself staring into Damon's eyes. His bloody hand was suddenly in hers and she was being lifted to her feet. Two hybrids came into the room and again they were surrounded as the recovered ones on the landing leapt down. She looked at Damon. He was battered, bruised and weaponless - coated in blood that may or may not be his own. He didn't hesitate. He smashed his coffee table and they both grabbed wood from it and stood back to back.
As the first hybrids came at her, she felt Damon's arms either side of her head, his body pressed against her front as he staked both of them behind her. She was still in shock, when he lifted her high up, and slid her over his shoulder so she was facing the other way. She dropped to her feet on the other side of his back. She could feel his spine pressing against hers. She was shaking, but she brandished her stake. Look like you mean it. Alaric had told her. Never let them know you are scared.
With two of their number dead at their feet, the hybrids hissed, spat and feigned, but did not make their attack. Damon and Elena circled on the spot back-to-back. Eventually a hybrid ran forward to attack Elena. Damon dipped back under her arm, spinning her out of harm's way at the end of one of his hands almost like they were dancing, he grabbed the hybrid by the ear using his hand with the broken wrist. He put the hybrid down and plunged his hand into her chest, ignoring the shooting pains that ripped through his body. Elena, wide eyed, was pulled back into his arms before the hybrid she had been spun towards could get a grip on her. Damon held her by her waist and she faced him nose to nose. He barely had time to see the anxiety in her eyes, before two of the others launched at him. He dipped Elena backwards, and she went with it, trusting him all the way. Over the top of her he grabbed one hybrid by the throat and threw him into the other. He righted Elena and told her to run.
Both of them raced outside, hand in bloody hand. Damon was blinking because something sticky kept oozing into his eye. Out in the driveway, Elena was breathing hard. She was clutching at his fingers and he felt her hair blow into his face. He pulled her in close against him so her back rested against his chest. He whispered in her ear, as the hybrids still outside and those on the rooftop began to close in on them.
"When I tell you to, you run, and you don't look back."
"No!"
"Do it, Elena!" He begged angrily, casting his eyes around the hybrids who were slowly circling and drawing ever closer. "Do it for Stefan. Keep yourself alive."
"I'm not leaving you! For Stefan or for you." She said, her voice both stubborn but scared.
"Don't argue with me!" Damon said desperately. "I'll give you as much time as I can. But you have to run fast."
Hot, angry tears sprang from her eyes, and she said again firmly. "I'm not leaving you."
The air filled with a low growl that came from the ten or so hybrids emerging from the windows of the upper floors and the door of the house, from the forest to their right. The sound built and built, until they began to howl. The pack was growing and it was unstoppable.
Time slowed down for Damon. At that precise moment he could feel the air lifting every tiny hair on his skin. Elena's hand in his felt like the softest silk he had ever touched, the thumping of her heart the rhythm of his world. He could smell the lavender from his garden and the iron in the blood that seeped down his face. He could hear his broken bones mending inside of him. Elena's hair blew across his face once again and he could count every single strand. On the back of her neck, he could pinpoint each individual bead of perspiration.
He was going to die here today. He was going to die for her and it didn't matter. If this is what his time on this planet had been for - this very moment - then he was glad for every second of suffering, for every bad decision, every experience of anger and hurt that lead him to this very time and place. This gave his life meaning.
He took a deep breath and breathed in her scent. She interwove her hand with his - her fingertips touching his grazed knuckles which had not healed because he was growing weaker.
"I love you." He whispered and then the wolves leapt.
"RUUUUUUUUNNNNNNN!" He let go of her hand and pushed her away, pulling up his broken body and fighting like the demon he was, because her life depended on it.
Eventually, he couldn't keep the biting teeth at bay any longer, he was slipping under. His body wasn't recovering from the punishing bruising it was taking. All he could feel were the hits to his broken rips and gut that were slowly taking him one step closer to the finishing bite that would see him dead.
This was it. This was the end. Did he last long enough for her to make it to the trees? Why could he smell her blood? Had he failed her?
He swung his final punch with his blackened knuckles making contact. He was going down.
And then it stopped, it all just stopped. There was light again. And the whistling, thudding sounds he had heard suddenly became clear to him as bullets. A helicopters' searchlight found him. He raised his bruised hand with its slowly mending broken wrist to shade his eyes from the light.
"Is he okay?" Ric asked Caroline as Damon walked away and sat on the stoop of his house, away from the group who had come to save his and Elena's lives.
"I think he just wants some time alone." She said. "He's still upset because I told him I would give Elena my blood to heal her - he'd done enough."
"That gash on her leg looked nasty." Ric said.
"If it hadn't have been for him, she wouldn't have been here to bleed." Caroline said with a telling look. She folded her arms and walked away to chat to Bonnie. Ric looked over to Damon with concern. He toyed with what to do, but decided to leave him.
Caroline and Bonnie walked over to the Sheriff. Her men were arresting the last of the hybrids, subduing them using a combination of methods which her daughter's boyfriend had advised them on. Tyler had stayed away from the attack, but had warned Caroline that it was going to happen. Something inside him meant he could not bring himself to take action against the other hybrids.
"Thank goodness Jeremy called me." Sheriff Forbes said. "We were nearly too late." She gave her daughter a meaningful look. "This is still a good town. This 'Klaus' will be dealt with." She said fiercely. "Carol agrees with me." Caroline nodded.
"This is our town." Mayor Lockwood said into the back of the police van before the deputy got to shut the door on the assembled, beaten, hybrids inside. "You're not welcome here." She added, and slammed the door shut herself.
Jer had hold of his sister and wouldn't let her go.
"I thought I'd lost you! When you sent me that email, I've never been so worried."
"I needed you to know how much I love you."
"I know, Elena, I know." He kissed her on the head and finally let her go. Caroline's blood had healed her and she could walk properly again. Elena looked herself up and down, she may be whole, but she was soaked in blood and hardly any of it was her own.
She looked over to Damon, sat quietly away from them all. Jer caught her gaze and nodded as if able to read her thoughts. "Go to him." He said simply.
Damon sat on his stoop watching the swelling on his hands finally disappear. He flexed his fingers and felt the rawness in his wrist. He felt empty. Truly empty. He was supposed to be dead.
When he felt her hand on his shoulder he didn't respond. She felt puzzled. "Damon?" She said softly.
"Leave me alone, Elena."
She removed her hand as if she had been stung. She opened her mouth to speak, then she closed it again.
"Just go." He said.
"But I wanted to thank you."
"I did what anyone would have done."
"That's not true." She said, shocked that he would even think that.
The helicopter had now left, the coroner had loaded the last of the bodies and the police cars had all pulled away. Jeremy and Ric hovered in the distance watching them, but Caroline and Bonnie steered them both into their cars and in no time all the activity was over, leaving only blood stains and silence.
Damon stood up and walked past her. "Go back to your own home. You can't sleep here." He walked into the house and she knew she had just been dismissed. She felt her temperature rising. Why was he being like this? She got to her feet and ran after him.
"Can't, or won't?" She found him stood in the bloody wreckage of his house. He faced away from her. "Why don't you want me here?" She asked him. He remained silent. She put out her hand and turned him around. "Damon, why don't you want me here?" She repeated.
"Because I can't do this any more!" Damon cried out. "You make me feel dead inside."
She raised her fist to her mouth in utter shock. He slowly turned away again, but she captured his hand and wouldn't let it go. When he refused to turn around again, she moved through the broken wood and glass and faced him. She put her hands on his bloody face, a mirror to where they had been this afternoon when Stefan had called. "I make you feel 'dead' inside?" She asked him, incredulous.
He looked at her, his blue eyes the shade of a storm now past.
"No!" She said refusing to have that. She stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed his lips gently. He didn't react. He looked into the middle distance over her shoulder. She didn't let his face go. She reached up and kissed him again, this time her lips gently parting. As she pulled away the delicate skin of her lips stuck to his, and softly pulled away. His eyes flicked to hers. As soon as he met her eyes, his barriers fell away. He could take her concern, her sadness, her worry - but not her pity.
He turned and walked away.
"Damon!" She shouted as he walked slowly up the damaged staircase, stepping over the broken banisters. "Damon!" He suddenly sped with vampire speed to his room and attempted to shut the busted door.
Elena walked up the stairs and sat down outside his door, which was slightly ajar. She could see he was sitting on the end of the bed. His room was relatively unscathed. He seemed numb.
She sat down with her back against the wall and talked through the gap in the door.
"'I won't leave you.' That's what you said to me. Well Damon, I don't care if you want me here or not, because I won't leave you. I won't. So don't ask me to."
She didn't expect a reply. The minutes ticked by. She felt bone tired, she rolled her head back against the wall and looked at the ceiling. The night had come quickly and she sat in the darkness with him sat on the other side of the door also in the gloom. She took a peak through it now and saw the moonlight casting a ghostly light in his room.
She drew up her knees and rested her head on them. That's when she heard it. He was wrecking his room. The cry he made sounded like his soul was being ripped apart. She got to her feet, opened the door and stood there with a horrified look on her face as he flung everything everywhere. He smashed it all. He tore his feather pillows in half. When he began to try and tear his mattress apart that he had already tossed at the wall, she ran into the room, and grabbed him, flinging her arms around him to stop him. She held him still like that as white feathers settled around them like dust in the moonlight.
Eventually he turned and went to push her away, but she looked up at him and gripped his shoulders. "I won't leave you." She repeated again. "I won't leave. So don't ask me to." He said nothing, his body seemed to slump in her hands. The mattress slid to floor with a thump and a poof of feathers rose up into the air. She took his hand and lead him, calmer now, to the bathroom through the wreckage of his smashed up room.
She let his hand go and leaned over the bath. She switched on the faucets and let the water run. She filled the bath and poured a generous amount of foaming bath salts in. The hot steam rose into the air with delicate swirls. She ran her hand through the water and evenly distributed the bubbles. She turned the faucets off and turned to him. She began, hands shaking, to undo what was left of his ripped and bloody shirt. He didn't move as she carefully slid the fabric over his shoulders. When she saw his naked chest she winced. It was covered in red welds. She let her fingers lightly touch his ribs. "So much pain..." She whispered so low only a vampire would have been able to discern the words.
She undid his belt and unzipped his fly. She tried to feel as dispassionate as a nurse with her patient, or a mother with a child, but this was Damon - and although he had made damn sure she caught him as naked as many times as was possible, she still felt her hands shake as she pushed the pants from his hips. When they hit the floor he didn't even step out of them. She bent down and lifted up his legs one at a time, her hand on his calf, and removed the pants. She picked up them up and carefully folded them, lying them over a wrecked chair in the bathroom. She was delaying what she knew had to be done. She hoped it was too dark for him to see the heat in her cheeks. She tried to switch her emotion off, but being here in the dark with him so close, damaged and vulnerable, it was impossible.
She pulled his briefs down quickly without really looking at him and again he didn't move when she touched him. She repeated the process of helping him step out of them as she had his pants. Blushing heavily as she bent down, her eyes stayed firmly averted. She raised herself up carefully lifted his arm and putting a hand on his back, and made him take a step towards the tub.
"Climb in." She said, guiding him to the edge. He got in and slowly sat down. He didn't move. She reached for the natural sponge and sat down beside the tub on her knees. She dipped the sponge in the water and let it soak up the bubbles and warm water then very gently ran it across his chest.
"Shhh..." She soothed, as she washed away the blood. "Shhh...there now." She said, her voice wavering.
Slowly and gently she dipped the sponge into the hot slick water and moved it across him, watching as the rivulets of water run down his chest, arms and back. She picked up his hands and ran the sponge down to his fingertips. Gently and slowly she bathed every part of him above the water's surface. She was especially careful when cleaning the blood from his face. She ran the sponge through his hair, and almost cried when she saw how much blood ran down his face. The water she was now a pale pink color from his own blood. She blinked away the tears she was silently crying and continued her work. Her hand dipped below the surface and she let the sponge run over his outstretched leg, knee, shin and down to his foot. She stood up in order to reach his other leg and repeat the process, but as she reached over him, she looked at his face and saw how lost he was. She pulled her hand back out of the water, and stopped what she was doing. She put the sponge down on the side of the tub, then pulled her own top over her head.
She felt her hair fall over her naked shoulders. She slipped open the fly of her jeans and pushed them off. Before she lost her nerve she undid her bra with shaking hands and placed it on the floor. She lowered her panties. She slowly straightened her back and looked at the man in the tub, who's eyes did not move from the spot in front of him where they had been fixed for the past few minutes. She moved over to the tub and carefully stepped in it, it was only then that he looked up, when he could feel her ankles between his legs. He moved so that his knees were bent to make room for her and she lowered herself into the rose pink water. She sat there, her breasts peaking above the surface of the water, she pushed her shoulders back and looked at him. Finally he met her eyes. It was as though he had only just noticed she was in the room with him.
The moonlight reflected off the bubbles and the surface of the water, giving each an ethereal quality.
She reached for the sponge and offered it to him. He took it, but looked at her with hesitation. She offered him a tiny smile, then that faded away with her returning shyness. He moved and the water surged as he suddenly shifted onto his knees. With his left hand he suddenly swept up her hair so that it exposed her neck. With his right hand, he dipped the sponge in the water and ran it across her back.
Her eyes flicked up to his chest as he leaned across her. He was so close, she could feel her heart beat wildly. He sat back down and ran the sponge gently from shoulder to shoulder, watching as the the bubbles slid down her heaving chest. He flicked his eyes up to her. She reached out to touch his face.
"Why do I make you feel dead inside?" She asked him, pained.
"Because you don't love me." He replied.
But she did.
As the words left his mouth, she found herself rising up out of the water and moving into his arms. He leaned back and had one hand on her back and the other gripping her behind. His lips slid against hers as the water moved over their bodies and mingled their blood. He lifted her up in his arms and climbed out of the bath, her half wet hair stuck to both of them. She held on tight around his neck. His skin was slippery, but warm. He put her onto her feet, and before she knew it she was being wrapped in a huge fluffy white towel. He began to rub her dry. She stopped him by reaching up and taking the towel from him and opening it. It was the first time her he had really looked at her. She let the towel drop to the floor and enjoyed his eyes traveling over her glistening skin. She admired his body too, now fully restored and gleaming in the moonlight, his erection standing proud. He stepped towards her and took her into his arms and then they were kissing. Kissing as though nothing else mattered.
She made love to him on the broken mattress lying on the floor with its innards spilling out. Feathers drifted over their bodies as they touched each other.
"Never let me go." She breathed into his ear as he moved inside her. He turned her over and she rode him, his hands ran over the her ass, pulling her down onto him as she moaned. Her speed increased. Her hands rested on his abdomen, as she rose and fell with his movements.
"Oh God!" She panted with desire.
She threw her head back and feathers settled in her dark hair like snow. She sighed from her heart as she came. Her body curving into a sensual S shape as she contracted against him, making him spill into her with his own cry.
She immediately fell down onto her side and he looked at her, his eyes glinting like diamonds as he pulled a feather from her hair. She took his hand in hers as he held the feather, and brushed her cheek across it like a cat. He smiled. She let his hand go and he blew the feather into the air.
Later that week when Damon finally got around to checking his email, he found one in his inbox from Elena. He clicked on it with curiosity.
If I die today, I want you to know that I love you too. I always will.