**Chapter thirty six**

Secret love is the best kind

*Hailey*

The sun shone bright on my face, as my eyes fluttered opened. I was naked, with just Damon's shirt on. I grinned to myself, remembering last night. Damon and I were in love, and then we had pretty amazing sex. Three times.

I flipped over on my side to see Damon sleeping soundly. He looked so innocent asleep. I smirked to myself as I climbed up on top of him, and kissed him sweetly, but it gained passion as I ran my hands down his bare chest.

Damon's eyes blinked open, and he sleepily kissed me back. I laughed and pulled away, but I stayed on top of him.

"That's one hell of way to wake up." He mumbled sleepily, and I giggled.

"Well, I was bored, just waiting you to wake up." I shrugged playfully, and then Damon flipped us over.

"Why don't we fix that?" he mumbled into my neck, pulling his shirt off of me.

After round four, we moved to the shower for round five. I was glad that Elena and Stefan weren't home, because after our shower, I was lounging around the boarding house in nothing but Damon's shirt and my underwear.

"I'm hungry," I complained, as I flipped through channels on the TV, stretched out across the couch.

"So impatient." Damon's voice called out from the kitchen, the smell of bacon drifting over to me.

I just rolled my eyes and grinned, before turning back to the TV. I froze when my eyes landed on a commercial for Snuggle fabric softener. The creepy little bear was talking, and I got off the couch and ran into the kitchen.

"Hailey, are you really that impatient-" Damon stopped talking when he saw how scared I looked. I wrapped my arms around his waist, and buried my face into his chest. "What's wrong?"

"That creepy snuggle bear commercial was on," I mumbled, and Damon relaxed.

"Really?" he asked, sounding exasperated.

I pulled away and stared defiantly up at him. "That bear is the scariest thing I've seen in my entire life, and I'm in love with a vampire. You can't tell me that that thing doesn't give you nightmares." I exclaimed.

Damon turned away from where he was making me pancakes, and looked at the TV, to see the snuggle bear commercial still on. "You're right, that's pretty damn creepy." He admitted, turning back to my pancakes.

"Exactly." I said smugly, but didn't go back into the living room until the commercial was over.

I was eating pancakes on the couch with my feet in Damon's lap, when my phone rang. I answered it, only to hear Elena's frantic voice on the other line.

"Hailey? Are you okay? Damon said that you would be okay, but I've been calling you for hours-" Elena babbled, and I cut her off.

"I'm fine, Elena. Good as new." I assured her, frowning at Damon when he stole my bacon.

"You sure? Where are you?" Elena asked, and I froze.

I hadn't even thought about telling Elena about Damon and me. I had already been through lying to her about him once, and it would be stupid to do it again. But I was scared that she wouldn't approve, and would make me choose between her and Damon. I knew the answer to that question, but that didn't mean I was ready to let either of them go.

"Uh, at my house." I lied, and Damon's eyebrows shot up, but he didn't say a word.

"Do you want me to come over and keep you company?" she asked.

"No! Its fine, Elena. I'm just relaxing with Ellie. I'll probably fall asleep soon anyway." I said quickly.

"Oh, okay, that's fine. Are you sure that you're okay?" she asked, and I exhaled sharply. Lying to Elena hadn't gotten any easier.

"Peachy. Hey, guess what I found out while being possessed by the crazy bitch?" I asked, changing topics quickly.

"What?" she asked warily, seeing through my change of subject but pretending otherwise.

"I'm a fairy." I told her, and Damon's eyebrows shot up. This was news to him.

"A fairy?" Elena repeated, sounding shocked. "I thought that you were psychic."

"Me too. Trust me, I wasn't too pleased to find out that I'm Tinkerbell." I told her, sitting up.

"Technically, Tinkerbell is a pixie, Hailey." Elena told me, and I rolled my eyes.

"Whatever. I'll tell you all the details when I see you. Want to hang out tomorrow?" I asked, as Damon began to grow antsy, and his hand was edging up my leg to my thigh.

"Yeah, I'll call you. Bye." She said, before hanging up.

As soon as Elena hung up, I sat on Damon's lap facing him, and wrapped my arms around his neck. Then I kissed him, biting down on his lip gently.

"So, you're a fairy now." Damon mumbled, a hand snaking up into my hair.

"No fairy jokes." I mumbled against his lips, my breakfast forgotten.

"Aw, come on. Just one." He pleaded, pulling away. I gave him a look, and buttoned the buttons on my shirt that he managed to undo.

"If you want to have sex ever again, no fairy jokes." I told him seriously, pushing my messy hair out of my face.

Damon groaned. "You're going to threaten that whenever you want me to do something, aren't you?" he asked.

"It's my trump card." I smirked at him, before getting off of Damon.

"If it makes you feel any better, I love you." I told him with a smile. I liked saying "I love you," even if I wasn't the type of girl who usually did. I could tell Damon liked hearing it too.

"If you really loved me, you'd let me make a fairy joke." He muttered. I waved my hand at a pillow, and it smacked him across the face.

~LMF~

I felt weird, not wearing my ring. But I wasn't sure where Victoria had dropped it. Besides, I kind of liked the extra power I had. Though I would never go digging deeper into my powers, like Victoria had. I wouldn't end up like her.

It was raining, as Damon and I walked into my house a few hours later. I needed clothes and to let Ellie know that I was alive. She was my familiar, after all.

As I walked to the stairs with my hand holding Damon's, only in his shirt that I was for sure going to steal, and his boxers, my mother chose that moment to come out of the kitchen.

"Hailey, there you are. You haven't been home for days. I was worried that you were passed out in a gutter somewhere, and then what would people say-" she stopped talking when she saw Damon next to me.

"Oh, Hello Damon." my mom said, her eyes staring at our joined hands.

"Holly," he replied in a cool voice. It occurred to me then, that Damon didn't like the way my mom couldn't care less about me. It just made me love him more.

"Didn't you hear, mom? Damon's my boyfriend now." I smirked at her, before pulling him up the stairs to my room. It probably wasn't smart telling her that, in case Elena somehow found out. But I really didn't have that much control over what came out of my mouth.

Damon and I hadn't talked about our "Title." But it wasn't like before, we weren't stuck in awkward relationship limbo. We were in love now, and unless Damon personally told me that we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, I was going to refer to him as my boyfriend. He didn't pull a face or go all stiff when I called him that, so I assumed that he was okay with it.

"Your mom's a bitch." He told me bluntly, as we walked into my room.

"Join the club." I smirked, as Ellie jumped into my arms and purred. I saw her totally different now that I knew that she was my familiar.

"She didn't even care that you might be in a gutter somewhere, only what people might say. What kind of mother is that?" Damon continued, as I made an attempt to clean my room. I kicked things under my bed and put empty bottles in the trash can. You could see the floor, and that was good enough for me.

"It's really sweet, how you're all worked up about what she said Damon, but that's not even close to the worst things she's said to me. It doesn't even make the top 20 list." I said, as I changed into jeans and a t-shirt.

"She's a bitch, that's all." he shrugged, as I put on his jacket that I had stolen before my possession by Victoria.

"Is that my jacket?" Damon asked, as I pulled him towards the door.

"Mine now." I smirked at him, before kissing my boyfriend.

*Nicolai*

It was raining, as Nicolai walked aimlessly through the woods. His daylight ring felt heavy on his finger as he walked without any real destination. He didn't need it though- there wasn't a ray of sun in the sky.

He had heard through the grapevine that Victoria had come back, if only for a short amount of time- to kill the Ellis girl. And the love of his existence never thought to look for him. It hurt him, since Nicolai had spent the last century completely and irrevocably in love with her.

He knew that Candace saw him weak because of this, but she was only hateful because of what Victoria had done to Andrew Ellis. Candy's hatred had caused quite a rift between the two of them.

So now Nico walked through the woods, trying to gather his thoughts through the heartache. If he hadn't already lost the ability to turn off his humanity, he would've. Just then, a break in the woods revealed a house, a familiar house.

At the top window, he could just see a young couple kissing. A beautiful, raven-haired girl and a tall, handsome man. Nicolai's gaze rested on the girl. Hailey Ellis. The descendant of Victoria, the heir to the fairy throne. Nicolai didn't know a lot about fairies- only what Victoria had told him- but Hailey looked just liked Victoria. That's all that mattered.

Suddenly, it occurred to Nicolai. He couldn't have Victoria, but he could have Hailey.

He watched with pained eyes, as the young couple pulled away from each other, and exchanged their love for each other. Anger flared up inside of Nicolai, along with what he called jealousy. Salvatore looked at Hailey the way he used to look at Victoria. Damon really did love Hailey, his Hailey.

Nicolai swore to himself that he would have Hailey Ellis. Even if he had to turn on his allies to protect her, even if he had to kill Salvatore to get her, even if he died doing it. He would have Hailey Ellis, and then he would turn her, so that they could be together forever.

~LMF~

A/N: I actually felt really bad for Nicolai while writing this chapter. He truly loved Victoria, and then he transferred his love for her onto Hailey. I just think that it's sad, how much he loved Victoria, and how she cared for him, but didn't love him. What a bitch.

Thank you to: missxsunshine, vdemily, Carrie9586, Stefanie, kat, Kelsey, Pinkbeca, HawthorneTree, KimmyWSmith, Samantha meyers, AubreySalvatore, jacquline, and SomebodyWhoCares for reviewing!

Yay! TVD is on tomorrow and I get to see my Elijah again! :D I love him so much, not as much as Damon- of course- but just as much as Klaus.

Review!

~Abby :D