Ryan fiddled with his sleeve again and Elena caught his wrist.
"Relax. It'll be okay."
"What if I'm not enough?"
"You're my son now. You don't have to worry about being cast aside ever again because you can't measure up to some insane goal that's impossible for you to meet." Elena cupped his cheek and smiled at him. "I love you, Ryan. I may not have given birth to you, but you are my son, both by blood and by love, and I'm never going to turn my back on you, even if for some bizarre reason my aunt and brother take to disliking you."
"I probably sound pathetic, don't I?" He tried to smile, but it fell flat.
"You sound like someone who endured terrible abuses before now and has to learn to trust, but you never had a reason to before now, so it's difficult. But, I'm going to remind you every day if I have to that you've got people that love you and you're not alone, not anymore." Elena hugged him tightly, rubbing his back.
"She's right, Ryan," Elijah said as he walked into the room. "You've got family in us now and to us, family is always and forever."
"Thank you." Ryan hung his head and sighed heavily.
"What's wrong?" Elena asked softly.
"I'm taking up so much of your time. You and Elijah don't have time to yourselves because you're so focused on me, on trying to help me."
"You're not a burden or in the way. You're my son, our son, and what sort of parents would we be if we ignored your needs because we wanted to focus solely on each other?" Elena gave a half smile. "Besides, we made a promise and staying busy keeps us from breaking that promise."
Her son, her baby, her boy. Her heart broke all over again for the pain he'd endured to make him feel this way about himself and she hated Malivore for what he did to this beautiful man. He had so much potential, so much to offer, but because he couldn't give what Malivore wanted, the creature just threw him away.
Elijah tilted his head, listening. "They just pulled into the driveway."
Ryan stiffened and Elijah clapped him on the back. "Jenna has accepted me into Elena's life and I can assure you, I've done much worse things in my life than you have and with much less reason, something I'm now trying to work on and work through, so I can be the sort of man Elena deserves. So, yes, she might find the circumstances odd, but she'll see that you're a good man."
"He's right." Elena stepped back, then turned to Elijah. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him lightly on the lips.
Elijah returned the gesture, then said to Ryan, "Come. Let's introduce you to your mother's family."
When they reached the front sitting room, Ryan shifted from one foot to the other and clasped his hands in front of him, twisting them together tightly.
"Breathe, sweetheart." Elena guided him over to a sofa and pulled him down beside her.
A few moments later, Elijah ushered Jenna and Jeremy into the room.
"Please, take a seat." He gestured to the sofa across from Elena and Ryan as he took his place on the other side of Ryan, resting his arm across the back of the couch to place his hand on Elena's shoulder.
"Okay, what's going on?" Jenna demanded, her gaze going from Elena to Ryan.
"Aunt Jenna, I'd like you to meet my son, Ryan Gilbert-Clarke. Yes, he is biologically mine and no he's not from the future."
"What?"
"He's my son. Blood related and everything."
"How?"
"He was created centuries ago, but I used the magic that came from Silas and Amara dying to free him from his abusive father and since he needed to have someone be his parent, I bound him to me, making him my son."
"Your son." Jenna blinked owlishly.
"He was all alone, with only some sorry excuse for a creator lording their connection over him as his family. After I got to know him, I grew to love him and then I had all this power at my disposal, so I gave him a family. I made him my son."
"He's actually your son."
"He is."
"Wow. Um, this wasn't what I was expecting to hear tonight, but if you say he's your son, then welcome to the family, Ryan Gilbert-Clarke. Our family is small and dysfunctional, but we love each other and do our best to be there for each other."
"Doesn't make it any less of a good family," Ryan said softly. "I wouldn't fit into a perfect family anyway, no matter how hard I tried."
"Hey, nice to meet you, Ryan." Jeremy smiled at him and Ryan relaxed a little.
"How old are you?" Jenna asked.
"I'm not sure, exactly. I didn't keep track of my earliest years and my father," Elena squeezed his leg lightly and he corrected himself, "former father wasn't one to share information with someone he deemed a failure once it became clear I couldn't give him what he wanted."
"Which was what?" Jenna's brain started kicking into gear then, the psychiatrist in training wanting to know more about the clearly damaged man sitting across from her.
"He'll answer that when he's comfortable with you knowing," Elena cut in, knowing that the turn the conversation was taking was no where near what Ryan was ready for. No one wanted to reveal to complete strangers that their father had forced them into sexual activity before they were ready. Having the body of a man didn't mean that Ryan was a man when these events occurred. He was just a boy, wanting to please his father.
"I'm sorry, Ryan. I didn't mean to pry."
"It's okay. It's just difficult to talk about, now that I'm in a position to process what he actually did to me." Ryan linked and unlinked his fingers several times, staring at his hands as he did so.
"You know what? People like that, people who don't care who they hurt just so long as they get what they want, they shouldn't be allowed to have children, or be anywhere near kids for that matter. In fact, they need to be forced to go through what they put those children through." Jenna leaped to her feet and started pacing.
"Aunt Jenna, we're working on making sure his former father can't hurt him or anyone else ever again. It'll take some doing, and a lot more magic, but we're going to find a way to make him pay for the damage he caused," Elena vowed.
"Good." Jenna sat down once more and her expression turned curious. "How did you two meet, anyway?"
"The spirits of nature led me to him and then I rescued him."
"I'm guessing there's a lot more to the story." Jenna raised an eyebrow at her niece.
"There is, but it's his story to tell." Elijah stood up. "Now, I believe we promised dinner. The catering staff is getting antsy about the food getting cold."
Ryan sighed in relief at having some of the attention taken off of him for a moment as they made their way to the dining room.
Elena rubbed his back and smiled up at him as they walked.
"How do you think things are going?" he asked, then swallowed thickly.
"I think it's going great." Elena wrapped her arm around him, giving him a squeeze. "Just keep being honest, but don't feel like you have to tell them anything you're not comfortable revealing, and pretty soon, Jenna and Jeremy will love you as much as I do."
"Okay." Ryan nodded once.
Elena kissed his cheek and smiled up at him. "They're just surprised that I sprang a fully grown man on them as my son, is all."
"I don't feel like a fully grown man."
"How do you feel?"
"Like a kid who's spent their entire life afraid of their father and trying and failing to get away from him."
"You're free now, sweetheart and you don't have to be afraid of him ever again."
When they reached the dining room, Elijah pulled a chair out for Elena, then gestured for Ryan to sit on one side of her while he took the other.
After the servers set out the meal, Jeremy started telling a story of something that happened at The Grill the other night when a student from a rival school tried starting something.
"So when this guy starts picking at the girls and calling them names, Tyler just picks this guy up over his shoulder and tosses him out the door. Wham! You should have seen his face!" Jeremy attempted to mimic the hapless human's shocked expression, but wound up laughing. "Then Tyler says, 'Just be glad it wasn't Caroline you messed with. She'd really teach you to respect women.'"
"Caroline, your vampire friend?" Ryan looked at Elena, one brow raised.
"Yeah, Caroline's a vampire and she's got a temper, especially when it comes to guys treating women badly," Jeremy explained.
"Too bad it wasn't her that he met. I'm sure he'd never mistreat another woman as long as he lived, if he managed to survive the encounter." Ryan smirked as if imagining a human man trying to disrespect a vampire woman and what she could do to him.
"Okay, I definitely like you," Jenna said with a grin.
Ryan gave her a shy smile and ducked his head. Elena rubbed his back just in case he was getting a little overwhelmed with getting positive attention from his new relatives and he nodded once at her gratefully.
"Aw, Elena, he's adorable. He'll be beating the girls off with a stick!"
"I don't date." Ryan shrank in on himself just a little.
"Or guys, whichever you're into, I don't care, just so long as everyone is of age, consenting, and human-ish." Jenna shrugged.
"I um, I don't date anyone. Maybe if the right person came along I'd reconsider, but for now, no. I'm not into anyone."
"He's one of those people where it'll be he'll date only if he clicks with someone and we'll be the ones beating people off him until he's ready."
"Okay. So we'll keep everyone off him unless he tells us he likes one of them. Then, we'll make sure this person is good enough for him." Jenna seemed to get that there was something there that no one was saying and decided to try to lighten it up so he didn't feel like everyone was focused on him in a bad way.
"Speaking of dating, Anna and I broke up."
"Oh, no! What happened?" Elena worried how this might affect her brother. Was he in a good enough place mentally to handle a break up?
"We just realized we weren't a good fit. We're still friends, because we still care about each other. We just have different goals out of life and her mother doesn't trust Gilberts."
"I'm sorry. I thought I'd done enough to soften Pearl towards you."
"Don't feel bad, Elena. Yeah, I like her and I wish things had worked out, but I don't really wanna be a vampire, at least not right now. Maybe later, but I'm too young and she needs someone willing to commit to the life, which I can't do, even for her."
"Very mature." Elena nodded.
"We did agree that should I agree to turn later, we'd revisit this, since we do get along so well, but since I'm not ready, we've decided that being friends is what's best for both of us."
When the servers came out and cleared away their cleared dinner plates, then brought out dessert, the hair on the back of Elena's neck stood on end.
"Looks like I'm just in time."
Elena's blood froze in her veins when she heard that voice. She knew it all too well. The voice of the man she'd come back to save. The voice of her killer.