Chapter 8: Passage

Margaret Island is a beautiful place located between Buda and Pest, in the middle of the Danube River. Preponderantly park land with several old ruins and churches and no vehicles allowed on, it's very peaceful and you feel very removed from the city even though its right in the heart of one of the busiest cities in East Europe. For that reason, its beloved by those practising yoga, bikers or joggers., especially at this time of day.

Even on this not particularly breezy day, Damon could smell the blood from afar. He didn't need to shout out Elena's name to find his way to where she was standing pressing her body onto the wall of the underpassage that went below the bridge. It looked as if she would've wanted to hole herself in.

"Is he..is he alive?" She stared at the body lying in front of her on top of a twisted bicycle wheel.

Damon stooped down beside the fallen figure instead of what he wanted, to hug her and cradle her in his arms and try to lessen her distress. "Yes, most definitely. I'll call an ambulance as soon as we get away from here."

"Damon, he was speeding past me as I was standing here. I don't even remember when I grabbed him off his bike."

"Its all right Elena," the older vampire placed his hands on her shoulders to make her look up at him, force her into some kind of connection with the world as opposed to the glazed stare. "You stopped in time," he leaned closer, attempting eye contact, "a couple of days in the hospital and he'll be good as new," he assured her of what he assumed would be important for the girl still, despite her condition.

"I am a vampire, Damon," she swallowed, her voice trembling.

"How does it feel?" He enquired pressingly, impatiently. Everybody's reaction to such turn of events could be different and he needed to know what she needed right now.

"I think..I think..oh god, I'm still hungry."

Damon sped towards her and propelled her with him about a hundred yards backwards onto the island's shore, where the river gently lapped at the stone bank, where they were further away from any path and temptation. "Drink me," he offered her his wrist, "its not the real thing, but it'll do till we can get you something else."

The newly turned vampire was looking around anxiously for something to concentrate her mind on. Her sensory perception was overloaded and she could hear voices and footsteps from as far as the other bank of the river, all unequivocally helping her in the direction her instincts would take her. She would've never thought control was this hard for a vampire. Desperate not to loose it and harm another human being, her nostrils flared before she bit into the offered hand.

Damon watched her curiously. Could you ever know how vampiredom changed a person? If anyone should be able to learn discipline quickly, it would be Elena, and yet right just now it didn't seem so. She moaned as she sucked his blood, the taste so delicious to her and all the less satisfying for making her want more, disregarding the trickle that dripped out her mouth and pooled between the hollow of her breasts. The girl closed her eyes, breathing heavily with every gulp that went down her throat, giving her strength, making him weak.

His eyes were blurring too, but the Salvatore ignored the feeling. Christina had drained him repeatedly previously and he hardly replenished any of his blood as the human gifts were for the antediluvian only, but when it came right down to it, Elena was not killing him, merely making him faint. Her need was more important to him, it always have been. And somewhere deep within him it was her closeness and touch than made him weaken and falter evermore, fuelling a fervour that made him more alive then ever despite the his physical strength leaving him.

Elena drank for what she felt was a long while and the only thing that stopped her was the fact that the bloodflow slowed to a trickle and it was getting more and more troublesome to suck it out. At the same time it registered with her that she had to lean down and hold onto her meal if she wanted more. Damon was sagging into her arms, unable to hold himself up any further, with an uncontrollable shaking going through his body.

The baby vampire let go in vexation and looked down. Damon looked a fright, noticeably thinner, his skin dry like sandpaper. Elena squeaked in shock, more sound could not come out of her mouth. His love was unconscious and yet looking anguished as he struggled trough moans to open his eyes.

She had done this. This was her mess.

Elena knelt down beside him, palm clutched to her mouth. Then she immediately took her hands off her face when she realised they became slick with blood. Was there anyone else who was so bad at controlling herself as a new vampire? Cheeks flushed as much from embarrassment as from the excess of blood at the pratfall she'd made, she panicked over having had any dignity left and how laughable her so called human principles will be now in the eyes of the person she had beside her once he woke up. She bit her lip, puzzled at her own actions. She was horrified, deeply embarrassed, worried about Damon and entirely sorry at the same time. How could she ever look into his eyes in her anguished shame? What an idiot she had been, thinking that you could just stop drinking blood and the pull of evil by simply having them as your principles?

Terrified of herself, her mind ground to a halt. She needed him so much, to tell her what to do, punish her if that was needed to stop her thirst and most of all she needed his love as he's always had for her to guide her through. Clutching his head to her chest, she lifted him up into her arms, matting his hair with blood, "Damon, please," she whispered frenziedly, rocking both of them back and forth.

It took her a while to realise that in the state he was in, it would be her who had to be the one doing something.

Tbc