AN: First of all, I'm incredibly sorry for not answering to your reviews. My exams start tomorrow so most of the time I have has been spent studying. I barely managed to write this chapter. Don't worry, I did read all of them and you have no idea how much I appreciate every single word you take the time to write. I feel humbled by the kindness you all show to me by leaving a review.

I will keep this short but I do want to say one more thing: I didn't plan for it to be this way, this chapter sort of took on a life of its own while I wrote it. I have to say, though, that of all the chapters I have written so far, this one is the one I love the most. There is just something in it that left me feeling like I really did an amazing job, whether it's the truth or not.

Fair warning: this chapter has not been beated yet. I will correct it later on so if you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out for me.


Chapter 29 – The Calm Before The Storm

They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.

-F.S. Fitzgerald-

The door slammed so hard in its frame that Damon was sure the entire building shook. He was in the bathroom of the apartment Alaric had assigned to him when they moved to Richmond – closer to the place where Klaus and Rebekah had tracked their parents – having finally found the time to shave the beard that was starting to resemble a bush on his face. He had notice that Elena seemed to like the hair on his face but it was starting to itch so he had decided to just shave it off.

As he rinsed his face, he heard heavy footsteps stomping toward where he was, followed by the sound of his bedroom's door opening – without being slammed shut, thankfully – and the thud of a body hitting his mattress. He patted his face dry before leaving the bathroom to walk into his joining bedroom. He kept thinking 'his' even though actually, Elena had been sleeping with him since the group had moved two days ago. Apparently, Alaric owned an entire building in Richmond – all fifteen floors of it – and gave an apartment to each one of them. Elena had declared the penthouse Damon's place and, when Alaric had told her that that was his apartment, she had flipped him off before dragging Damon toward what was his new home.

When he enter the bedroom, he was greeted by the sight of Elena sprawled face-down on his bed. He leaned against the doorframe for a moment, smiling at the sight of his girlfriend behaving like the drama-queen she swore she wasn't. In the past two days, he'd noticed the tension bordering on hostility brewing between her and Rick. When he'd asked what was happening, Elena had briefly explained to him the reason for their not-so-silent confrontation. Personally, he really didn't care what Alaric's reasons had been for making him confront his family – he'd had to face Klaus and the others anyway – but Elena said it was a matter of principles. Caroline had told him that this wasn't the first time the two of them butted heads so he had wisely decided to stay out of it all.

"Are you going to stand there for long?" Elena's muffled voice reached him.

He moved from his place and went to lie down to Elena's left, his back to the window that took all the left wall of their bedroom. The penthouse was all modern lines and black and white colors, an ensemble that he was starting to get used to though he missed his old-fashioned bedroom. He had to admit, though, that the window right next to their bed made for an extraordinary dawn, especially with Elena's naked body pressed to his in the morning. Before he could get side-tracked, he looked down at his girlfriend and started stroking her back with his right hand.

"What happened?" he asked her already knowing what she would answer.

"Alaric is a jerk," came the predicted answer.

He smiled, knowing she would get angry if she saw him make light of the situation. He'd learned that she could become extremely snappy when things didn't go her way.

"What did he do?" he encouraged her to vent with him.

Elena turned her head toward him, "He refuses to apologize. He says I'm been immature," she grumbled.

"I told you I don't care about what happened," he tried to placate her.

As predicted, she narrowed her eyes at him, "It's the principle of it all. He can't go around doing whatever he wants, damn the consequences," she repeated to him for what felt like the thousandth time.

He kept stroking her back in a calming manner, starting from her neck and ending at the small of her back right where the swell of her backside began. He knew that she would never give up and neither would Alaric, both of them sure of being in the right. The friendship they had, however, was stronger than most so he wasn't too worried; he was sure they would find a way to reconcile. They just needed to understand each other's point of view.

"You know you can't drag this thing forever, right?" he asked her.

Elena raised an eyebrow, "Look who's talking," she replied.

He grimaced at her words. He had to grudgingly admit that she was right. When Klaus had asked him what they were going to do with the Esther-thing, Damon had suggested sending someone to Esther's house to observe her. They couldn't formulate a plan when they knew next to nothing about her and Mikael; they didn't even know how many allies they had and if they were only ex-witches and werewolves, or if there were vampires too. After leaving command to a pleased Alaric, Damon had left the room with Elena and had done his best to avoid any and all confrontations with his family; successfully so.

For the most part, Klaus reacted exactly as Damon had imagined; he closed himself off, firmly believing that the first step to mend their relationship had to be taken by Damon. Elijah, in his typical way, kept his distance believing that Damon needed time to sort things out and come back to them for a much needed conversation. Rebekah was the one who suffered the most. He knew that she wanted to talk to him, he could see it in her eyes, but he just couldn't do this now. The only one with whom he'd talk a little had been Enzo; the younger vampire had steered clear of anything even remotely related to the Originals, catching up with Damon and assuring him that nothing had ever happened to him while in Alaric's hands.

"That's a whole different thing," he tried to excuse himself.

The way she looked at him let him know exactly what she thought about his excuse. He decided to let it go and focused on trying to get his girlfriend to relax. She was incredibly tense beneath his hand and he did not like it one bit. He had already tried to smooth things over by talking – Caroline had suggested that to him – and it hadn't worked in the least. Stefan had suggested to approach the thing more physically, maybe treat her to a nice massage to get her to relax. Damon had never given anyone a message but he figured he could try.

He stopped caressing her back and moved a lock of her hair behind her hear, "Do you want me to give you a massage?"

She lifted her head and looked at him quizzically, "Do you even know how to give a massage?" she asked him.

Damon shook his head, "Not a clue," he told her. "It can't be that hard, can it?"

Elena narrowed her eyes at him, not fully convinced.

"If you don't like it I could scratch your back?" he proposed. He had found out that scratching her back was her ultimate weak spot and he took advantage of that with no shame.

Her eyes immediately lighted up at the prospect and she immediately jumped out of bed. She moved in a blur – too fast for him to follow her movement – and she lied back on her stomach next to him changed into her PJs. She was wearing a grey t-shirt and boy-shorts, a huge smile on her face while she waited for him to start with his massage.

"I'm waiting," she sang-song with a giddy smile.

Damon shook his head at her; she could behave like a little girl on a sugar rush sometimes. He wondered if the fact that she had been turned when she was eighteen played any role in that behavior. He never really thought about the age difference between the two of them – mostly because he didn't feel it – but it was weird to think that she was older than him, yet her body was actually younger. Elena wiggled around in bed, telling him to get on with it. Damon shook himself out of his thoughts and moved to straddle her backside.

"Mmh," she murmured against her crossed arms when she felt his weight settle on her.

"Mind out of the gutter, Elena," he smiled at her. "You get a massage and nothing more," he said in a fake serious tone.

She laid her head on her crossed arms, looking at him sideways, "We'll see," she whispered to him in a sultry voice.

He tried to hide his grin and made a show of cracking his fingers – wiggling them in the air a moment later – before gripping her shoulder gently, his thumbs against her shoulder blades. He started to knead her muscles moving his thumbs in a circular motion and pressing down. Elena sighed softly; maybe this massage wouldn't be so bad. When he felt something like a knot beneath his fingers, Damon pressed down harder trying to work it out. He felt a satisfied groan come from Elena when he managed to relax her muscle. He smiled to himself happy that he was managing to give her a good massage.

"Are you ready for tomorrow?" she asked him, her eyes closed.

Damon stared at his fingers, moving a little lower on her back, "As ready as I'll ever be," he answered.

Alaric's scouts had come back that afternoon. They had confirmed that Esther and Mikael were still in the same place Klaus and Rebekah had found the first time. The scouts reported seeing both werewolves and vampires hanging around the house, though they seemed to live in two different compounds not far from the house – Esther probably wanted to avoid fights between her allies. Together with the Original Parents – he had to admit Enzo was good at finding nicknames – lived only a small group of ex-witches. While they couldn't be sure of it, they suspected those witches had talismans that would enable them to use magic.

Their plan was to attack them directly the following day. Klaus, Rebekah and Elijah would take on Mikael, keeping him occupied while Elena, Stefan, Caroline and Bonnie would protect Damon when he went to confront Esther. Alaric and Tyler, in the meantime, would take some of Jäger's members and watch out in case the vampires and werewolves decided to join in the fun. If everything went according to the plan, the whole thing would end quickly. Once he had taken down Esther, Damon only had to go and help the Originals against Mikael.

"Do you think you can win against Esther and Mikael?" Elena asked him. She didn't doubt his power but she knew that it wouldn't be easy to take on the two Originals.

Damon pressed down hard against a particularly hard spot below her left shoulder, making her purr in satisfaction, "Mikael is not the problem. Rebekah said a witch managed to desiccate him a while back so I can do the same thing. If that doesn't work, I can do to him the same thing I did to Elijah. That should immobilize him as long as we need."

She was pleased to hear him speak with such confidence, and his reasoning wasn't wrong. She had witnessed with her own eyes how Elijah had desiccated after vomiting all the blood inside his body. If they hadn't given him blood bags to replenish himself, he would have been completely neutralized. If Damon could do the same to Mikael, they were going to have something less to worry about.

"What about Esther?" she encouraged him to go on.

He frowned a little, "Technically I'm a lot stronger than her. She needs me if she wants to complete her spell to turn the Originals into humans, that means she is not strong enough to do it on her own. However, I'm sure that she has collected several talismans so she cannot be underestimated."

"What would happen if she managed to turn the Originals into humans?" she asked, curious.

Damon shrugged his shoulders, keeping his focus on his hands on her back, "Nothing good, I guess. Vampires exist through magic so if Klaus and the others were to become humans, the magic passed down through their bloodlines would literally cease to exist," he explained. "I'm not sure what that would mean for all of you but it could potentially bring you back to what you were supposed to be before becoming vampires," he said, his voice getting lower.

"Corpses," Elena finished for him.

Damon didn't say anything in reply to her, there was no need to. The next moments were spent in silence, the only sounds that of his hands kneading the muscles of her back and her gentle sighs. He couldn't help but wonder if Esther could really turn vampires into humans or if she was simply delirious. If such a powerful spell existed, why had it never been used before? He knew that there were vampires who did not like what their lives had become, vampires who wanted nothing more than to become humans again. He wondered if Elena would want to be human again or if she was fine the way she was. He knew that his love for her wouldn't change whether she was a vampire or not.

"So how do you plan on defeating Esther?" Elena asked him to break the gloomy atmosphere in the room.

Damon had already thought about it, "Well, if it comes to a direct fight between our magic, I should be definitely advantaged," Elena did not remind him that while he was more powerful than Esther, she defeated him when it came to experience; she was sure he was well aware of that. "Ideally, if I could mark her with my tattoo she would have no way of defeating me."

Elena craned her neck to look at him, a frown on her face, "What do you mean? What tattoo?"

He bent his head to the side as if she had just asked a stupid question. After a moment, his eyes widened when he realized he had never actually spoken to her about the tattoo. He supposed it was normal that such a thing had slipped his mind seeing as his life had been a rollercoaster of revelations, lately. He leaned forward until his chest pressed fully on her back, his left hand moving to her hip and the other reaching to take her right hand in his. With his thumb, he stroked the tattoo on the back of her hand.

"I never told you how this worked, have I?" he said, his lips brushing against her ear.

She shivered, his weight pressing her body against the bed making it difficult for her to concentrate. The little smirk she managed to see on his lips told her that he too was thinking of other more pleasurable activities. She reigned in those thoughts – amazed at how quickly things always escalated between them – genuinely curious about the tattoo. She had almost forgotten she even had that thing. She remembered that he'd asked a question so she shook her head left and right, their cheeks brushing against each other.

"First of all, this isn't exactly ink," he said, tracing the lines of the tattoo. "It's made with my blood and it binds you to me."

Her eyes moved to the black ink – no, blood; his blood – forever etched into her skin. The thought that all this time, she had had a piece of him marking her as his made her heart swell within her chest. Had her heart been capable of beating, she knew it would have stopped at his words. For a fleeting moment, she felt the need to mark him the same way he had marked her. Not because she was angry that he had never told her what the tattoo was, but because she wanted him marked for all the world to see that he was hers.

"How does it work?" she asked in a breath.

"As I said, vampires were created by magic. Thanks to this tattoo, I could absorb that magic. Once there was no more magic to keep them alive, they died," he told her, his voice becoming gloomy. "To werewolves I did the exact opposite. Their species was born with a specific kind of magic that allows them to turn into wolves; I overwhelmed them until their system shut down."

She had never heard such darkness in his words and she knew he still felt guilty for what he'd done. At the time, he had thought he was doing the right thing. Now he knew better. She wanted to say something to reassure him that he did not have to blame himself, that he wasn't responsible for what he'd done all those years ago, but she just couldn't focus. Every time he spoke, his voice rumbled in his chest and she could feel every minuscule vibration since his body was flush against hers.

"So if you managed to mark her, you could absorb all her magic?" even saying those words made her furious. The thought of him marking someone else with the same tattoo was inconceivable.

He nodded against her and pressed his lips against her cheek, "It wouldn't matter how many talismans she had, I would be able to absorb all her magic leaving her no choice but surrendering." He wasn't sure how they had reached this point, but he was finding it harder and harder to keep talking.

Without thinking, he rolled his hips down on hers while still straddling her. Elena trembled beneath him, the thin sweatpants he was wearing for bed and her boy-shorts left little barrier between them. He entwined the fingers of their right hands, his palm against the back of hers, while his left hand slipped under her tank top to caress her skin. Elena arched her back against him, the feeling of his warm hand against her skin causing her entire body to shiver.

"Now whose mind is in the gutter?" she tried to smirk, pushing her backside against him and feeling him harden.

Damon moan low in the back of his throat automatically pushing back against her, "The fault is all yours," he said.

With the tip of his nose, he moved her hair to the side and left an open-mouthed kiss on the nape of her neck. Elena bent her head forward to give him more space. She liked the way he was taking control of the situation just as much as she liked given up her control for once. She knew that he would never do anything to hurt her so she felt comfortable being so vulnerable with him. She brought their joined hands to her face and leaned her forehead against them, her left hand clenching the pillowcase while Damon kept moving his hips against hers. When he bit down gently on her shoulder, her eyes nearly rolled to the back of her head.

"Damon…" she whimpered, hoping he would understand her.

He kissed the spot he had just bitten, "Yeah, I got it," he murmured against her skin.

The next moment he sat up over her and quickly took off the grey shirt he had chosen to go to bed. He threw it somewhere on the floor and then brought his hands to Elena's tank top. He quickly inched it up over her head, throwing it to the side and bending down to kiss between her shoulder blades when he noticed that she had no bra underneath – she had evidently taken it off already to go to bed. He stroked her hips while he kept leaving open-mouthed kisses all over her back, delighted in the way she arched against him to offer herself up to him.

At a certain point, she started to wiggle under him as if she wanted to turn around. Damon gripped her hips firmly and looked her dead in the eye, "No. Stay like this," he told her in a commanding voice.

Elena felt her blood boil at the way he spoke to her. He had never been like this before but she couldn't say she minded it; she rather liked it to be honest. It was refreshing having found a partner that was not afraid to stand up to her; she had always been up to shaking things up in the bedroom. She didn't want to be the one always in control so, if Damon wanted to be the one calling the shots tonight, she was more than eager to let him do as he pleased. She leaned her head down, her face turned to the left so as to face the window by the side of their bed.

Damon placed another kiss on the nape of her neck and started trailing downward, his lips ghosting along her spine until he reached the small of her back. He hooked his fingers to the side of her boy-shorts and pulled them down her legs. He gripped the back of her knees and made her spread her legs a little. His hands moved up her legs, her backside and her smooth back in a long and possessive caress, his lips trailing behind. He settled back on top of her and kissed down her cheek. Elena turned her head toward him so that they could meet in a kiss. He immediately invaded her mouth with his tongue, exploring her mouth just like he always did. They kept on kissing for a while before Elena frowned and pulled back.

"Pants," she whispered against him. "Off. Now."

She felt him smile against her and then his weight on her disappeared. She heard him move around and decided to lean on her elbows while she waited for him to come back. A second later, she felt his body now blissfully naked, settling down over her. He kept his legs on the outside of hers and goose bumps appeared on her body when his hips adhered to hers. He turned her head toward his so he could kiss her again passionately. She grabbed his left hand while she felt his right slid under her body, moving lower and lower. He moaned in her mouth when his fingers trailed through her curls and found her already ready for him.

She rocked against him and bit his lower lip at the pleasure she received from his fingers on her front and his hard length pressing on her back. He moved his hand from her core to her right thigh and moved it a little to the side. He angled his hips and pushed inside her in one hard thrust. Elena moaned out loud and pressed her forehead against the mattress, the grip she had on his hand tightening. Damon set a rhythm made of slow but hard thrusts that had her seeing stars and panting loudly.

He swept her hair to the side before planting his right hand on the mattress to support himself. He trailed sloppy kisses along her neck before turning his head to the side to watch outside the window. The first time they had made love in this room, he had felt uncomfortable with having such a huge window right next to the bed. He couldn't stop thinking that, any moment, someone could look out the window of their apartment and see the two of them in bed together. Now he couldn't care less if anyone saw them.

He kept his slow but forceful rhythm and soon, he felt Elena beginning to tighten around him. A continuous stream of low moans and whimpers kept tumbling down her lips. She planted her right hand against the headboard and begun pushing back against him, near to her peak. He sped up his thrusts to help her, gripping the sheets in his right hand with so much strength he feared he was going to rip them. After a couple more thrusts, he felt Elena stiffen under him while he kept going, before she uncoiled and just let go.

"Damon!" she keened against the mattress, trembling under his weight.

He slowed down but did not stop, wanting to prolong her pleasure as long as he could. When he felt her relax, he stopped his motions and just laid on top of her careful not to crush her. He nuzzled the side of her face and pressed his nose to her hair, inhaling her natural perfume. He kissed the top of her ear and moved lower along her jaw and across her cheek. She was breathing deeply – still coming down from her high – her eyes closed.

"Perfect," he whispered before engaging her in a lazy kiss.

She opened her eyes to slits and look at him. He smiled at her blissed out expression, proud that he had been the one to put it there. He bumped his nose against hers and kissed her again. She sighed into his mouth, responding to his kiss. When they separated, Damon rolled his hips in a shallow thrust and smiled when her breath hitched and her eyes widened. He could see the lust brewing in her deep warm eyes.

"Ready?" he asked her.

She nodded with a small smile and he pecked her lips before moving. He slipped a hand underneath her, resting it against her collarbone while the other one went to grip her hip. He maneuvered around a bit and then sat up, taking her with him until her back rested against his chest. He enveloped her in his arms – one across her chest and one across her waist – while she gripped his thighs poised on the outside of hers. It was their first time making love in this position and she could say she appreciated the perks of it. She leaned her head back against his shoulder and looked up at him.

Slowly he bent down and she closed her eyes waiting for his kiss. It never came, though; instead, she felt him bite hard her shoulder. She curled her fingers scratching his thighs and before she could control herself, she felt her fangs lengthen and the veins under her eyes pulse. She tried to turn away from him to calm down, but he cupped her cheek and forced her to look at him.

He had already seen more than one vampire slipping into their true form – you don't live in a mansion full of vampires without ever seeing them – but he had never seen her. He could admit that he would probably be scared of facing her like this in a battle but here, in their bed, while they were still joined in the most intimate way possible, he saw nothing but beauty. She was simply breathtaking. The red of her eyes blended perfectly with her warm brown irises; he traced the pulsing veins under her eyes with his finger and wondered if they itched; he parted her lips with his thumb and revealed her fangs. They were smaller than others he had seen but he did not doubt they were as deadly as ever.

"Damon?" she asked in a small voice. She could not decipher what he was thinking.

He moved his eyes to hers, "Beautiful," he whispered to her.

He kissed her sweetly, careful not to cut his tongue against her fangs. He caressed her stomach until he cupped her breasts. She moaned into the kiss when he thumbed her nipples and rocked his hips forward. When he pulled away, he leaned his forehead against hers and looked her deep in the eye.

"Do you want to bite me, Elena?" he asked her.

Elena was shocked and did not know what to say.

"Is it something you want?" he pressed on.

She finally found her voice at his open expression, "Damon, you don't have to do this," she started to say.

He interrupted her before she could start giving him an out, "I'm asking because I'm willing to do this if you want," he told her. "You already have my mark on your skin," he said, bringing one of his hands to hers to stroke the tattoo. "If you want, you can mark me."

He tilted his head to the side to expose his neck. Her gums ached at the sight he was offering her, her eyes automatically zooming in on his carotid artery. She took a deep breath and felt her features shift back. When she opened her eyes, she saw him looking at her quizzically.

"If you're sure, we can do this," she told him. When he nodded at her without trace of hesitation, she went on, "But not on the neck. I don't think I can control myself, not now," she told him honestly.

He nodded at her, "Where?" his thumb kept stroking her nipple absentmindedly.

She took a hold of his right wrist and brought it to her lips, laying a gentle kiss on the underside of it, "Okay?" she asked him.

He nodded and then frowned when she pressed his wrist to her collarbone instead of biting it. She looked at him and raised an eyebrow, rolling her hips and making a shiver run up his spine at the delicious friction she provided. He was still hard inside of her and he immediately understood what she was telling him; she wanted to get to the brink of pleasure before biting him. He leaned down and kissed her deeply, resuming the movement of their bodies. He thrust deeply inside of her swallowing the deep moan that she released.

There was nothing gentle in the way he was taking her, his thrusts deep and hard and fast. She kept his right arm pressed over her chest while his free hand moved lower to cup her, his fingers setting to work to bring her to her peak. He didn't know how long he could wait. The idea of her biting into his wrist – stating her claim over him – was both terrifying and exhilarating. He couldn't help but wonder if it would hurt to feel her fangs sink into his flesh and the moment later, he realized that he didn't care. He wanted to be hers in every way possible and he knew that there was a part of her, that part that made her who she was, that wanted to bite into him so that they could be one.

That simple thought made him sped up his movements, their hips rolling together in a perfect rhythm that forced him to break their kiss. He leaned his forehead against her temple, panting heavily against her ear. He pressed her more firmly into him and squeezed his eyes when he felt that familiar tightening in his lower belly. She must have felt a similar sensation because she brought his wrist back to her lips. She didn't bite immediately but she added a certain circular motion to her hips that forced him to grit his teeth.

"'Lena," he warned her, eyes squeezed shut and his fingers digging into her stomach.

Then he felt it; the moment her fangs pierced his skin. It hurt a lot more than he had imagined, two thin but lethal razors breaking his skin and his vein to reach the source of his life. It was only a moment though, because the next he reached paradise. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and his hips snapped forward in one last thrust that must have been painful for Elena. Then he was coming and he couldn't understand anything more than that. He distantly heard a choked moan coming from someone – it must have been him – and his left arm locked around Elena keeping her to him because he needed her to anchor him or he would simply float away. His muscles trembled and he slumped forward, leaning completely into the woman in his arms.

Nothing could have prepared Elena for the moment Damon's blood hit her tongue. It was like nothing she had ever drunk before. It didn't taste like blood, but like a lightning running through her veins. It was raw power – his power, nature's power – and the sweetest ambrosia all rolled into one. She never wanted to stop drinking from him but she knew she had to. As soon as she took a gulp of his rich blood, she clenched around him wrecked by a pleasure she had never felt before. She winced when his hips snapped forward and his arm crushed her to him, but she couldn't care less with her lips fused to his wrist.

After no more than thirty seconds that seemed to last an eternity, she let his wrist go licking at it to help seal the two small wounds. Damon's body slumped forward forcing her to bear his weight. He was trembling against her back, his arm still locked around her waist. She wasn't doing much better, panting heavily and senses heightened and alert after drinking his blood. She felt like she could take on the world and win single-handedly. She could have never imagined what drinking from him would be like.

Damon couldn't move, couldn't see, couldn't speak. The only thing he could do was listening to his heart beating furiously in his chest. He wasn't even sure where he was, though he had the feeling he was still in the same position as before pressed against Elena's back. He tried to kiss her back but he didn't know if he actually succeeded. At a certain point, he had the sensation of moving and the next thing he knew, he was lying down on the bed on his right side. He felt something covering him – sheets? – and he sighed, willing his muscle to stop their random trembling.

Elena maneuvered him under the covers and laid down next to him. He still trembled, every now and then, so she moved forward into his arms to offer him as much comfort as she could. If drinking his blood had been such an experience for her, she couldn't imagine what it must have felt like for him. After a while, he slowly opened his eyes and looked at her with a small smile stretching his lips. He looked almost high.

"Hey," she whispered her voice a little unsure.

"Hey," he responded.

It seemed to her that he wanted to say something more, but he looked about ready to fall asleep. She moved closer to him and nuzzled under his chin, bringing his arm over her in a loose embrace. She kissed the underside of his chin softly before burrowing deeper into his embrace.

"Sleep," she told him. "We'll talk tomorrow morning."

She heard him say something that sounded like an 'I love you' but she couldn't be sure; his speech pattern was so slurred that she doubted anyone could have understood him. She closed her eyes to go to sleep, promising herself that the next day when they had to move against Esther and Mikael, she would do whatever she could to keep him safe. No matter what.


Let me know what you think of this chapter! We are getting close to the end now :)