The New World Part 1

Bonnie felt wide awake even before she had fully opened her eyes, as if she could somehow sense the room without them. She knew with certainty that it was Damon cradling her against his lean body just by the power radiating off of his skin. Before, the aura had been something figurative and more to do with sight, but now she could feel it on her fingertips. It surrounded her like something liquid, but nothing but him could fill her like this.

Damon felt her shift in his arms and he opened his eyes to look down at her petite form. She was so lovely, but so fragile and breakable that every touch felt like a dare. Dare he touch her here, or here, or there? He knew that, however much he wanted to hold her as tightly as he could, if we weren't careful about every movement she might break. "Good morning," he said.

"Morning?" she asked, still half-asleep and almost incoherent, "Is it really morning – have I really slept that long?" For reasons that he could not understand, the little creature seemed worried.

"Well, no," he admitted with a curl to his lips that was more self-mocking than humorous, "I'm afraid you have slept in a little, little red bird."

"What?"

"You've been..." he tried to come up with a better word for it, but found none, "...dead... for a couple of days," he saw the panicked look in her eyes, "but I've been here with you every moment since – holding you like this." He tightened his grip around her so that she was right up against his chest. He loved the feel of her there, but he did it so she would understand that he would never leave her.

She closed her eyes and a vivid image danced behind her lids. Damon bent over her, his lips at her throat, her own face frozen, a mask of surprised pain. Had it hurt, him biting her? She could not remember, everything from before seemed so dreamlike now. Before. Before what? What had he done to her, What was she now?

He tilted her face to mirror his and pulled it closer. He knew that it had worked, that now she was his forever; he knew she would taste herself in his mouth and the thought excited him. She was closer to him, the same as him, now and he would delight in showing her the many pleasures that were beyond any humans' understanding.

He had bitten her, that much was obvious, though there was no scar on the side of her neck. She was almost scared to ask him about it, afraid that she was wrong and he would feel the need to correct it. There was something dreadfully ominous about the idea of a witch-vampire hybrid and the balance of nature. As a witch, everything she had known about magic had been about the natural order, of trees and their wisdom, but as a vampire did she have any connection to that part of her left?

"What did you do?" she found herself asking, more to herself than to Damon, and he made a noise of pain that punctured the air as a pin punctures a balloon. It was strange, but now her head was emptied of any human thoughts, she could think with pristine clarity and decisiveness. It was as if becoming a vampire-witch had washed away any past worries so that she could concentrate on what was happening right at this second.

"Bonnie I..." he stopped, lowered his eyes for a fraction of a second, then continued, "Bonnie, I shouldn't have done it, but Bonnie," he ran his hand though his black-as-soot hair, "I Love you. I love you more than I love... anything, I love you..."

She was speechless, she couldn't have said a word even if she had wanted to, but she could wrap her arms around him. And she did.

Later, after she had gotten dressed, she found herself unable to venture anywhere near the windows. It was not an actual force working against her that made nearing it impossible, but instead the searing heat that seemed to sizzle her skin. The first time she tried to open the curtains, as she usually did each morning when she awoke, the afternoon sun burnt her arm with the same effect as frying pan. Her skin had blistered and turned black in places. The second time she tried, Damon forced her back into the shadows of the closet with enough force to make the whole thing shudder.

"Porca troia!" Damon swore in Italian, standing still for a moment in front of the shaft of sunlight, "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"