A/N: Sorry for the wait after that cliffhanger, guys, but this chapter has been an emotional rollercoaster to write. I even rewrote it a couple of times because I felt quite insecure about it, and it's almost 10 000 words long, guys. 10 000 words! Ugh... So I'd very much like to know your thoughts and likes (or dislikes, but let's not go there quite yet) about it in a review, if you're up for it! That would be really amazing :)
Now hold onto your seats and enjoy that long, long ride :P
Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries or any of its characters. This is a work of fiction written for entertainment purposes, but the original characters and original storylines.
The car stopped in the middle of a muddy path, at the edge of where the forest was thickening. Civilization and daylight had disappeared a while ago, and all I could see around was a landscape of doom and gloom. I glanced at Damon anxiously, regretting my decision to agree to this "meeting". My mouth opened to tell him that I had had a change of heart, that we should go back to Mystic Falls to build an army if necessary, when the car door swung open. I flinched in surprise and stared at the chauffeur in bewilderment. A whooshing sound on my right brought me back to reality and before I could blink, Damon was standing next to the man, his entire body tensed in a protective stance. He checked out the vicinity thoroughly before giving me a quick nod. I stepped out of the car to place myself next to him and smoothed out my top as if the gesture could brush off my fear.
"I'm afraid this is as far as you can go, Sir." The man's tone was kind and polite but it made my heart sink nonetheless. The idea of Damon leaving my side in this situation was making me panic.
"I'm not going anywhere," Damon shot back, leaving no room for discussion.
"Then the terms of the invitation are null and void. I'll drive you both back to your home."
"And what exactly makes you believe I'm not going to snap your neck instead, old man?" Damon growled, stepping forward to tower him threateningly.
"Damon..." I grabbed his sleeve to tug on it, hoping it would prevent him from triggering a disaster of gigantic proportions. He didn't move but turned his head toward me, searching my face.
"I don't like this," he stated after a moment.
"Me neither."
"Are you sure you're fine with this?"
I took a quick breath as an attempt to brace myself. "Fine wouldn't be my first word choice but it's not like I have one, now am I?" I joked a bit bitterly, trying to ease up the tension. Mine or his, though, I wasn't sure. "Plus, I know you'll be here waiting for me."
I gave him a pointed look and he took the hint, winking at me from the eye the other man couldn't possibly see.
"Alright then." Damon stepped back from the chauffeur, holding his hands up in fake surrender. "Lead the way, old man."
"Please Miss, follow me." The driver went around the car and sank deeper into the forest. Before following him behind the dense curtain of vegetation, I exchanged one last look with Damon. I wrapped my hand around my belt stake and focused on the dark path in front of me before resolutely walking toward it.
Five minutes had passed since we'd left the car and the chauffeur was clearly having difficulty finding his way through the branches and bushes, even with the small flashlight he had retrieved from his pocket. I walked patiently behind him, not looking forward to meet my "pretender"as distinguished as they seemed to be, and took advantage of the slow pace to scan the surroundings as far as I could see through the darkness. I had stopped feeling Damon's presence a minute ago and was desperately trying to feel the presence of one of my other friends without success. They should be around already, but for some reasons, I couldn't spot any of them. A bad feeling clenched my stomach.
As I started to believe something had gone wrong, the man before me stopped abruptly. He turned around to face me, his face betraying his own uneasiness.
"I will not go further, Miss."
"What?"
"My employer made it clear that I needed to disappear before the two of you meet."
The information that there was only one mysterious man could have been a relief, but I was too shocked to learn that the respectable chauffeur standing there stiffly could just abandon a young woman in the dark and in the middle of nowhere to feel it.
"What about your money? You have to see your employer to get paid!" I tried as a way to keep him around, holding onto the ridiculous comfort his presence was bringing me.
"I'm sorry, Miss. Just follow the light ahead and you'll be arrived. Good luck." He gave me a weak smile and bent slightly forward as a respectful farewell before setting off back the way we had come. I thought of letting fly a right hook to the man's chin for his cowardice, but reminded myself that the human wouldn't be much help against a supernatural creature anyway, and that I could protect myself just fine. I looked at the light shining faintly through the trees and tried to spot my friends, only to fail again. I silenced the fear fluttering inside my chest and checked that my sleeve wouldn't get in the way of the weapons wrapped around my wrist. I tightened my grip around the stake in the back of my pants and took one step after another toward whoever was waiting for me.
The closer I got, the brighter the light became, casting moving shadows against the trunks. I could finally hear the crackling sound matching the dancing flames, but I wasn't able to catch a heartbeat, the sound of crumpling fabric, or even a footstep. Suddenly, I felt a presence right ahead. My breath hitched in my throat, my heart pounding loudly in my ears, until I realized the presence was familiar. The shock made my body stiffen as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice-cold water to my face. My thoughts were stuck between being relieved to actually know the mysterious sender of the letter, and being utterly furious about the secrecy and the fear it all caused me. Then it came to my mind that this information wasn't necessarily good news. What if this entire set-up was leading to the ulterior motive, the ultimate reason why she had been here all along?
I swallowed the dry lump in my throat as quietly as possible and forced myself to be alert and ready to fight. I walked to what seemed to be the edge of a clearing and was welcomed by a double line of tiki-torches leading the way. She appeared at the end of it, ethereal and oddly out of character.
"Katherine?"
Her appearance was so unusual that I had to ask. She was wearing a long light green dress, the fabric molding her curves, but its cut held something more classy and conventional than what she usually wore. The three-quarter sleeves and the v-neck of the dress were made of a darker green lace overlay, adding a sexy touch to the outfit without showing much skin. Her legs were covered as well, the lace hem at the bottom of the dress covering her feet. My brain registered that she was wearing flats though, due to my shock of finding out that she was smaller than me. I was aware that I shouldn't have been surprised by that detail, since I was well used to have to look down to meet Elena's eyes, but catching Katherine without her heels was such a rare occurrence that it had never crossed my mind they were actually the same height. She had a halo of tiny braids on the top of her head, her curls in tighter, more defined spirals than her usual hairstyle. She was beautiful. In a very surprising way. There was no trace of mischief on her face, no heartless hint in her eyes. If someone told me at this precise second that I had just met another doppelganger, I would have believed them without question.
"Good evening, Maya," she said softly, snapping me out of my awe.
I blinked a few times to make sure the scene unfolding before me was real and looked around warily. "What is all of this?"
"Well...you're not a woman easy to convince. This is the way I came up with to show you that I was willing to open up a bit."
"What?" I frowned, her words confusing me more than anything. Until realization finally hit me. "Wait a second. Is this a-"
"Date? Yes."
"What the f..." My jaw dropped in disbelief, the words dying in my throat. As I was putting the pieces of the puzzle together, anger and indignation rose inside my chest. "I can't believe this! Are you serious? Do you have any idea..?!" I trailed off to growl, teeth gritted together. I pinched the bridge of my nose with two fingers, shutting my eyes, restraining the sudden urge to strangle her. "Oh my god, unbelievable."
"You know, some people would consider this gesture to be very romantic." There was an unmistakable hint of playfulness in her voice.
"Are you kidding me?" I shouted, snapping my head up to look at her. "You threatened the people I love! The secrecy, the impending threat...the fear for their lives and my own, none of this is even remotely romantic!"
"I'll admit that I wasn't fond of that part either, since it obviously wasn't going to put you in a proper mood, but you didn't really leave me another choice. I asked you politely a various number of times, and you stubbornly refused to even consider it. What else was I supposed to do?"
"Take no for an answer?" I offered, incredulous.
An amused smile slowly rose on her lips. It was genuine though-nothing wicked. Just like the look in her eyes. To my dismay, I felt my anger slowly melt away.
"So, now that you're here...what do you say? Are you willing to give this a try?" She raised an expectant eyebrow and waited patiently for me to answer.
I gestured a hand around at the clearing before speaking. "Is this really about having a date?"
Surprise flashed over her face for a second before disappearing. "You don't trust me even a tiny bit, do you?"
A dry snort escaped me as I crossed my arms over my chest with defiance. "Do you? Trust me?"
"Judging by the weapon you were holding behind your back a second ago, I'd go with a no."
"Can you really blame me?"
"I guess not. But I do trust that you're gentlewoman enough to not stake your date."
"We'll see about that," I countered in the same playful tone that she used.
"Does it mean you agree to spend the evening with me?" She looked at me through her eyelashes, not really trying to hide the hint of victory shining in her eyes.
"Don't get carried away. For now, I just feel obliged to stay a little because of the effort you put into this."
"And you haven't seen anything yet," she announced, mysterious and a bit too proud of herself. "Follow me."
I watched, as she moved away from the lines of torches, how her gait changed from its usual sensuality to a delicate lightness without her heels, and I hesitated for a second. I still couldn't see or feel any of my friends around. Did that mean Katherine had taken the time to snap every single ones of their necks before I even got here? There was no scent of blood, either in the air or coming from her, so at least I knew they were still alive. Maybe they were standing far enough so their presences couldn't be spotted, but reasonably close so they could dash toward me if I called for help? The only one silver lining about this was that they weren't going to witness me having a date with Katherine.
"Are you coming?" she asked lightly from my right, bringing me back to reality.
I walked down the path lighted up by the torches and turned to the right to follow her, only to be met by a rather unexpected sight. There was a large campfire burning in the deepest part of the clearing, surrounded with little packages buried in the ashes. Next to it was a robust table made of raw wood, and two matching chairs. As I was coming closer, I noticed that the plates and glasses were made in the same simple style, the whole set illuminated by two old-fashioned lanterns on each side of the table. Saying that I was dumbstruck by the setting would have been the understatement of the century. None of this looked like it was the product of Katherine's taste for staging. It wasn't fancy, sexy or luxurious, but quite the opposite. It was rough-and-ready, outdated and borderline familial. Not to mention that for someone who probably only ate in expensive restaurants when she didn't drink blood, she had put herself through a lot of trouble to serve me dinner in the middle of a freaking forest.
"Did you kill a couple of campers and decide it would be a shame to waste their dinner?" I adverted my eyes from the table to arch a skeptical eyebrow at her.
"Well. You wanted to know more about me." She raised her hands to her sides as though gesturing to the place around us. "Welcome to fifteenth-century Bulgaria."
I froze. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was aware that I was staring blankly at her for longer than appropriate, but I was speechless. Why would she even do something like that? Was it a joke, or one of her twisted games? Or was she serious? I truly wondered what had gotten into her.
"You cooked?" I finally asked for lack of a clever thing to say, my voice coming a lot more surprised than I had intended.
"What's so shocking about that?"
"So many things, really... But if I have to pick just one, I'd go with the obvious. Well, most obvious. You've been a vampire for five hundred years."
"Five hundred and twenty three years."
"Right." I was half amused, half amazed that she could be picky over the number of years after living for so many centuries.
"My mother always told me that even if you have the chance of having someone around to do things for you, you're never truly independent until you know how to do them yourself. So she taught me how to cook," she declared, shrugging in a matter-of-fact way.
"So basically, you know how to stew Bulgarian food in a cauldron..."
She giggled at my comment but pretended to be annoyed shortly after and pointed one of the two chairs with a bossy finger. "Sit."
I challenged her with a look but complied with a lopsided-smile on my lips. Once I had sat down, she retrieved a bottle from behind the table.
"Wine?" She pulled open the sealed cork effortlessly and leaned the bottle toward my glass. "Well, actually, it's a rhetorical question. I forgot to bring water."
"You forgot, huh?"
"What can I say? You can't think of everything."
Before I could retort, she had already filled the two glasses and was walking toward the fire. She folded the bottom of her dress behind her legs and squatted down to take a large bowl and a plate from the ground. The gesture was so very human that it looked unreal on her. She came back and removed the foil off the dishes. After pouring some soup in both plates, she placed a smaller plate next to me with what seemed to be a pastry on it. She then sat down at the opposite side of the table and raised her glass toward me.
"To our...first date, is that it?" she teased lightly.
I faked a glare, trying my best to restrain an amused smile, and clinked my glass with hers. After taking a small sip, I eyed the food in front of me warily. The sound of a forced sigh made me look up at her.
"You're impossible, you know. I already told you twice, I believe, that if I intended to kill you, I would not choose poison."
Confused for a second as to why she was talking about poison, I remembered the ice cream and breakfast incidents. "Oh! No, it's just...I...what is it?"
A smile stretched her lips slowly, followed by a chuckle. "On the small plate next to you is a banitsa. The soup is called tarator."
"That was very helpful."
"I guess you'll have to taste to know what it is, then," she said playfully, toying with her glass of wine. I narrowed my eyes at her and took the spoon next to my plate bravely. As I swallowed some soup, I pretended that I didn't notice her scrutinizing my every feature to catch a reaction. I was surprised to find out that the soup was actually cold, and its aftertaste quite fresh.
"Cucumber?" I asked with a frown. "And garlic, definitely."
"Mmhmm."
"What's with it? Milk?"
"Yogurt."
"What else?"
"Dill and walnut..."
"You don't say."
She giggled before drinking some wine, clearly amused by my investigation. I broke off a piece of pastry and put it in my mouth. I froze, not expecting it to be savory.
"Is there some cheese in it?" I asked, holding a hand before my mouth to hide my perplexity. She laughed frankly this time.
"Sirene. Pretty much the same thing as feta. Do you like it?"
"I think I should've tasted it before the soup."
Her eyes sparkled with humor. "Agree."
"Then why didn't you tell me?" I asked in disbelief.
"What would be the fun in that?"
"Are you going to mock me all dinner long?"
"I'm not mocking you... I'm actually enjoying sharing my culture with someone else." She paused, seemingly surprised herself. "I haven't done that in a very, very long time."
She ran the little finger of her hand holding the glass over her lips, getting lost in her thoughts for a moment.
"What was she like?" I asked quietly. "Your mother."
"Hmm. Down to earth. Strong but loving..." She put down her glass and took a spoonful of soup pensively. "Contrary to the concept of parenting at that time, she spent a lot of time with us. She wanted to teach us everything, so we could take care of ourselves no matter what life would bring us."
"Us? You mean, you and your sister?" I pretended to be conversational but I felt like I was walking on eggshells, half expecting her to suddenly blow up and pin me by my throat onto the ground for broaching the subject. She tilted her head slightly, an unreadable expression on her face.
"You read my family history..." It was a statement but there was a question in her eyes. I adverted my gaze uncomfortably and stirred my soup, buying myself time to ponder if I should be honest with her about it or not.
"Elena made me read it before she gave it to you," I finally answered before holding my breath, afraid of her reaction to Elena's name.
"Of course she did." The bitterness was clear in her voice, but to my surprise, contained a lot less venom than usual. "Yes. I meant me and my sister."
"What...was her name?"
It lasted the time for her to blink but I saw pain flashing in her eyes. "Natalia."
"You're lucky. That you had a sister. I would've liked to have a sibling..."
For a second there, there was sympathy in her eyes before her expression suddenly turned into a deep frown.
"I'm not sure that being lucky to have me as a sister was her last thought when Klaus ripped her throat out."
"You say that like you're the one who killed her."
"Well, I am. If I had died obediently during Klaus' sacrifice, she would've had a long life."
I remained silent for a while, stunned that the remorseless and deadly vampire in front of me could feel guilty over the only thing she wasn't responsible for.
"You're right. It's your fault," I declared bluntly. She shot her brows up in surprise at my accusation. "You should've foreseen that Klaus would cross the entirety of Europe to slaughter your family in retaliation. I always thought you lacked of insight."
She seemed at a loss for words for a moment before a soft and incredulous giggle escaped her. "Look at you...all defensive of me."
"Oh, you wish," I replied dryly. "You're responsible for so many horrific acts that I don't see how anyone could defend you, but I don't think you should guilt yourself over this one. Klaus did this to you and your family. Not the other way around."
She stared deeply into my eyes from the opposite side of the table for a while, her gaze shining with too many different emotions for me to read. I didn't know if she was trying to decipher if I meant what I said, or if she was trying to accept my words, but I hold her stare until her features eventually relaxed, a small smile appearing on her lips.
"My mother would've liked you."
"Because I'm a good girl?" I quipped, to cover up the fact that I was taken aback by her statement and the change of subject.
"Oh, please. Good girls are bad girls that never got caught."
I laughed openly before realizing that I probably shouldn't have given away the fact that I at least partially agreed with her. Spurring on Katherine's devilish side was never a good idea.
"My mom wouldn't have liked you. Not even one bit," I admitted, smiling to myself as a memory of her passed through my mind. "She always had that ridiculously efficient radar when it comes to bad girls."
I looked up at Katherine with a playful dare in my eyes and she chuckled, not even remotely offended by what I had just said. She stood up then, in a cat-like manner, and cleared the table from its plates. She walked in front of the campfire and squatted down once more. But this time, she retrieved a tray directly from the heart of the embers. I felt the sudden urge to shout her a warning but before a word passed my lips, I remembered that her burned hands would heal instantly.
The reminder of her vampire nature made me search unconsciously the surroundings for a sign of Damon, or any other member of the gang. The sound of a tray meeting the hard wood of the table snapped my attention back to Katherine. She was staring at me warily, and I was certain that she had found out the reason why I was searching the edges of the clearing.
"Are you feeling the call of the wild?" she asked rather seriously.
"What?"
"Are you currently feeling the need to play monkey in those trees?" She rephrased her sentence like she was talking to a five-year-old.
"Wh-no!"
"Although, panther would be a much better term. Monkey does not transcribe the gracefulness that oozes from you when you surf trees." Her attitude became flirtatious as she spoke, but it was surprisingly laced with some kind of admiration-not her usual wantonness.
I frowned, torn between the offense I was feeling at her inappropriate reaction to my powers, and the discomfort her simply talking about them was bringing.
"You shouldn't be ashamed of your abilities, you know. They're remarkable. And a delight to watch," she added silkily.
"I'm not ashamed. I just don't want to talk about them," I dodged awkwardly.
"With me. Got it." Before I could confirm or deny anything, she unwrapped the tray from its foil and continued. "But be a doll and give me a warning if you're in the mood of climbing trees. I'm not exactly dressed to chase you. Well, not in that way anyway."
She flashed me a mischievous smirk and put some kind of green rolls in the new plate in front of me. I lowered my head to hide the smile betraying that I found her pun funny and took a closer look at the food.
"What is this?"
"Sarma."
I sighed and glared up at her. She giggled knowingly before grabbing her plate and sitting down on her chair. She cut one of her rolls in half and started eating. I mimicked her reluctantly.
"What about your father?" I surprised myself as much as her by asking that a bit out of the blue.
"What about my father?" she replied conversationally but her face shut down, her jaw clenching, her eyes riveted to her plate.
"What kind of relationship did you have with him?"
Her eyebrows twitched at my question, and I was sure she was going to send me to hell. I knew it was a touchy subject for her, but I couldn't help myself. I needed to test how far she would go with this display of openness. I knew I was playing with fire-a rather lethal fire-but I wanted some kind of proof that the whole ambush wasn't just another one of her mind games. She took a long sip of alcohol before finally answering.
"Strained but respectful, I guess. I think he loved us in his own way, but the community, his status, and that annoying sense of honor he had were much more important to him than his children's feelings. Which he made pretty clear when he tore my...baby from my arms and banned me from Bulgaria."
She cleared her throat and swallowed to keep the tears in her eyes from falling. I felt my heart clench with compassion for the teenage version of her that had to endure such a horrifying experience.
"I can't even imagine what you've been through," I admitted genuinely, overwhelmed by the mere thought of living anything like that myself. "The immense pain of having your child taken away...being disowned by your own father. No one deserves to be treated like that."
The silence that followed was sharp and heavy, her eyes refusing to meet mine. Instead, she grabbed the bottle of wine and poured us another round, without a doubt her way to end the conversation. After drinking half of the content of her glass, she settled back down in her chair and eventually looked up at me. The stormy and hardened expression that was on her face just moments ago had magically vanished.
"What about your dad?" she asked, the playful tone in her voice sounding a bit forced. She was trying to get back to her usual self, and I decided to make it easy for her, pretending I hadn't noticed her vulnerable moment.
"I'm afraid he was the exact opposite of yours. Happy to live, capable of seeing good in everyone, and quite the mother hen. So to speak."
"Hmm...so you take your strength, stubbornness and distant distrust after your mother." She tilted her head to the side, clearly amused.
"That would be taking a shortcut, don't you think?" I retorted. "And distant distrust, huh? Never occurred to you that it's just aimed at you?"
"Oh, we both know that's not true. But I can develop the why if you want me to."
"To think I forgot for a second there that you were a giant creeper..."
She flashed me a smug grin, took another sip of wine, and after a second of hesitation, quietly asked, "How did your parents die?"
"I thought you knew everything?" The sarcastic words had come out as a defensive reflex before I could even think them, but she didn't pick up on my taunting and kept looking at me with an attentive face. Sharing this kind of personal and intimate information was on the not to do list with Katherine, but weirdly enough, crossing that line now didn't feel as wrong. Maybe because she had shared some of her family history with me. Maybe because her parents had been murdered, just like mine.
"They were shot in an alley...for a purse and a watch."
Her gaze was so intense that it felt like she was boring right into my soul. "Did the police catch whoever killed them?"
"Yes. But it didn't bring my parents back, did it?" I couldn't help the years of anger and bitterness from leaking through my voice as I answered her. She didn't say a word but nodded slightly in understanding.
"Does it ever go away?" I asked briskly.
"What does?"
"The pain. The hole you feel every time you think about them."
She took some time to think about it. "No. With time, you think about them less often. But every time you do, the pain and absence are still vivid. Well, at least based on my five hundred years of experience... I'll give you a feedback in five hundred more."
Despite the subject, her words managed to get a chuckle out of me.
"Thanks."
"For what?" she asked, raising an impeccable eyebrow.
"For being honest and not sugarcoating it."
"Because sugarcoating is so very my style," she quipped. "You're welcome, really."
We exchanged a canny look before I finally finished the last bit of those weird little rolls she had made and placed in front of me.
"So. What do you think of sarma?" she asked, flicking her fingers toward my plate.
"Surprising. At first, the taste of the...leave thingy rolled around it is a bit repellent, but the mixture of meat and rice inside, with the onions and spices, is really good."
"Hmm, look who has a super palate too," she teased before adding with a content smile, "Glad you like it."
I purposely ignored her comment on my abilities and kept the conversation on the food. "So what is it? The thing?" I circled my finger in the air as I spoke to designate the green vegetable keeping the whole dish together.
"Cabbage leaves."
I shot my head up to look at her. "I'm so glad you didn't tell me that before I had eaten it all."
She laughed at my disgust and rolled her eyes. "Kids and vegetables these days..."
"And you know what you're talking about, Grandma."
She lowered her eyelids to slits and shot me an almost convincing piercing glare. "Ready for dessert, little brat?"
I bit back a laugh and nodded. "Yes ma'am."
She walked away toward the fire, pretending to be offended, but I heard her chuckle as soon as she turned her back to me. She retrieved another plate and a jar this time. When she removed the foil, I stared blankly at the plate before looking up at her.
"Really?" I asked, exaggerating the disbelief in my voice.
Her eyes snapped back and forth between the tray and my face, clearly confused at my reaction.
"No weird jelly or undetermined cake?" I continued. "Just crepes? I'm so disappointed."
An abrupt laugh escaped her throat at my teasing, and I realized that it was the first time I ever heard such a spontaneous sound coming out of her. It didn't deter her from pretending it didn't happen though, and she shot me an annoyed side-glance to cover it up.
"Those are palachinki. Not crepes." She slammed the jar down in front of me. "And this is not maple syrup, since we didn't have such thing in Bulgaria, so you might be disappointed by that as well," she added with a challenging glint in her eyes.
She put a few crepes in both plates and went back to her seat as I unscrewed the jar and smelled its content. It was honey. And a very strong-flavored one. I fetched a spoon on the table and dipped it in the jar to put some honey on the first crepe. I folded it then and took a bite. A moan of pleasure passed my lips before I could hold it back. When I noticed that her pupils had become noticeably darker, I hid my mouth with my free hand.
"Sorry."
"Don't be," she purred, a sultry smile on her lips.
"I just like honey."
"I noticed."
The remarkable change in her attitude made it clear that I had awakened flirtatious Katherine. I tried to think of something, anything to say that would keep this conversation out of the gutter, and the date from getting out of control in general.
"Did you love them, back in 1864?" I blurted out, astounded to find out that this was the subject that crossed my mind. But as arbitrary or inappropriate as the topic was, it efficiently shook her out of her lustful mood.
"Are we talking about the Salvatore brothers now?" The surprise and disapproval were evident in her voice.
"I guess we do," I answered awkwardly, focusing on taking another bit of my crepe without making any kind of sound. "So? Did you love them?"
"Yes. I did," she admitted reluctantly.
"Really?" I was genuinely surprised that she would just confess. "Then why didn't you tell them? I mean, why didn't you let them know that what you had together before you ran away was real? I think it might have saved you a lot of trouble..."
She sighed heavily before locking her eyes on mine. "Because people tend to not believe that you love them when you keep putting your own survival before theirs."
Her answer triggered a memory of the meeting I had with Vanessa at the Duke University, when she told me that I had been created to protect my tribe. In other words, I was supposed to put everybody else's life before my own, and yet, I had a true understanding of Katherine's fight for her own survival and all the sacrifices she had made to do so. The supernatural creature I was supposed to be seemed so different from me, and at the same time not, that it was extremely confusing. My thoughts spiraled down into a swirl of questions, flashing to every moment my alter ego had come into play, until one particular question slipped past my lips.
"How did you find me on that middle of nowhere road when I...disappeared to go surfing trees?"
She arched both of her eyebrows up. "So we're on a roll of throwing completely random topics in the conversation?"
I made a face that urged her to answer the question. She rolled her eyes dramatically.
"I answered the damn question a thousand times already! I was leaving town. Damon called to tell me that you were missing. I did a U-turn, and as I was heading back to Mystic Falls, you just popped into my rear-view mirror. Lucky shot. Period."
As I was listening to her giving me the details, flashbacks of memories I didn't know I had passed through my mind. It was foggy, but I was recalling tires squeaking before I came out of the woods, and brakes being slammed once I was on the road.
"Why were you leaving town?" I asked, a bit dazed.
"Really? Is it necessary for me to say it?"
I snapped out of the memories and gave her a clueless look.
"Oh, come on. I wooed you for months. We talked, we joked, we flirted...and out of the blue you just decided to get loose without me, and to screw a perfect stranger! No one gets away with stomping on my pride. "
There was a daring, dangerous glint in her eyes but I didn't really pay attention to it, because the answer I was looking for since the beginning of this date finally came to me.
"You're telling the truth," I realized.
"I do that quite often, yet everyone is always surprised."
I opened my mouth to retort something witty but nothing came out. Her statement was so contradictory to her personality, and yet not necessarily wrong, that it was absurdly funny. I laughed, still stunned that she was actually opening up like she had said she would, and finished my crepe for lack of anything else to say. When I raised my head from my plate to grab the honey jar, I noticed that she was staring at me with a perceptive glint in her eyes.
"So this is what the nonsense conversation of the last five minutes was about."
"Hmm?" I pretended to have no clue as to what she was referring and put a lot more attention than required on spreading honey all over my next crepe.
"You wanted to know if I was being truthful," she sing-songed knowingly.
I folded the dessert and brought it to my mouth to conceal a lopsided smile. Lying back in my chair, I looked up at her. "Maybe."
"Satisfied?" she asked in a distinguished yet playful voice.
"Maybe..."
The next minute boiled down to a silent staring contest, the atmosphere around us growing noticeably hotter. Without averting her eyes from mine, she bit into her own crepe and licked the honey from her lips, causing me to suddenly find my plate fascinating. I urged my heart to keep beating steadily, not wanting her to know the effect she could have on me, and cleared my throat to broach a much safer topic.
"Do you miss the place where you grew up?"
She laughed lightly at my obvious attempt. "Are you asking me if I miss having no running water, no electricity and no sewer system?" she teased.
"That's exactly what I'm asking."
"Well then, no. I very much enjoy hygiene and technology."
I intertwined my fingers before resting my hands in my lap and gave her an annoyed look, trying to convey that she was not going to get away with a smartass comment. She chuckled quietly and took a sip of wine.
"Even as naive and young as I was back then," she finally answered, "I knew that somewhere beyond the edges of my village, there was some place bigger, more vibrant, more thrilling, just waiting for me. I've always been a city girl, even before I was. So, to answer your question, no. I do not miss my little Middle Ages village."
"Oh, come on. Nothing?" I pushed, not buying it.
She swirled the wine in her glass with a pout on her lips, before a sudden sparkle of mischief flashed in her eyes. "Actually, yes...there is one thing."
"What is it?" I drawled suspiciously.
"The feasts." As she mentioned the memory, her face lit up with childlike glee. "Whether it was for the rose festival, a marriage or the celebration of the end of the plum harvest season, the entire village would gather around the square to dance, drink and sing all night. None of the adults were paying much attention to the kids during those nights, and my sister and I used to sneak out to join the festivities, until we were old enough to drink our way in. Probably my happiest memories..." She tilted her head pensively for a while, before snapping out of it like she had just remembered something. " Which leads me to-"
She interrupted her sentence to stand up and walk next to the campfire. She bent down to retrieve something and made her way back to the table. Putting down a long bottle made in the same light green color as her dress in front of me, she finally finished her sentence, "-to this!"
"More alcohol? Shocker," I mocked dryly.
"It's not just any alcohol. It's rakia."
"Of course it is."
She smirked at my comeback and removed the cork. "This is a very popular drink in Bulgaria. You cannot not taste it. As a proper host, I must offer you a glass of rakia as a welcome."
She then gazed at me intently to make sure I understood that this tradition was serious matter, and gestured toward my glass with the neck of the bottle to encourage me to finish my wine. I complied reluctantly and put the empty glass down in front of her. She filled both of our glasses with a satisfied expression on her face.
"Now..." She went to grab the back of her chair and lifted the massive seat effortlessly. She put it down next to me, lowering herself on it with grace, and made the corner of the table the only thing left between our bodies. "To do this properly, we need to spread a little bit of rakia on the ground."
"What?"
"It's a tradition."
She smiled and nodded softly to notify that she wasn't messing with me. I was perplexed but did what I was told. While we both poured a little bit of alcohol on the ground, she said something in Bulgarian. It wasn't just a word this time but a whole sentence, giving me the opportunity to really hear her speak in her native language. I never thought possible that speaking in Bulgarian could make her voice sound even lower and husky that it already was, and yet, added to the musical accent, the whole sound was captivating and made me forget everything that wasn't coming out of her mouth. The stare I eventually felt on me snapped me out of my awe, and I realized that she was scrutinizing me, intrigued yet amused by my reaction.
"What did you just say?" I asked, trying my best to sound detached, as if my only interest was linguistic.
"A phrase we say to honor the dead," she said, with a little smile on her lips that informed me that she didn't quite buy it.
I tensed and glanced at the ground. "That's why we..." I trailed off, pointing with a finger to the spilled alcohol.
"Yes."
I looked up at her and realized that she had done the traditional ritual without ulterior motive. I was touched by the gesture and thanked her silently.
"Now, on a brighter note, rakia is also the ultimate marriage drink," she declared, with a barely concealed flirtatious tone.
"Really?" I drawled, with as much as sarcasm I could muster.
"Really. And there's only one way to drink it on these occasions," she stated mischievously. She put down her elbow on the table and held her glass in front of my nose, as if she wanted to arm-wrestle with me. I arched an eyebrow in confusion.
"Put your elbow here." She patted a spot on the table and waited for me to follow her instructions. "Mirror my position so we can link arms and drink from our own glass."
"Are you serious?"
"Very. It's the proper way to drink it, and it's fun. Come on...unless you're afraid to have a little fun," she teased.
"With you? Definitely," I thought to myself. But since I couldn't exactly admit that, I placed my elbow on the table and crossed my arm with hers, careful not to touch a single inch of her skin. The grin on her lips was impossible to miss, since we were dangerously close to each other, and it was way too satisfied for my liking.
"Ready?"
"No, wait!" I said urgently. "I want to know what it is, first."
"Rakia?"
I didn't know if she had rolled her R's more this time, or if it was because I had heard her speak Bulgarian earlier, but the mere sound of the word made a shiver run down my spine. I clenched my jaw and ignored it.
"Yes, rakia," I answered a little too forcefully.
"It's plum liqueur."
"Is it strong?"
"Very," she replied with humor.
"Is this really a tradition, or you're just trying to make me drunk and take advantage of the situation?"
"Maybe both." She bit her lower lip before giggling brightly.
"Katerina Petrova, you're pure evil," I said after a feigned sigh, trying my best to roll my R's.
As her original name passed my lips, it suddenly came to my mind that I might have crossed a line, and the frozen features on her face made me believe that my intuition was right. The only people who used to call her by that name were her slaughtered family, or the family very responsible for that tragedy. I should have known that using it was obviously not a good idea.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"
"Say it again," she cut me off. The intensity oozing from her was almost frightening.
"What? I- "
"My name. Say it again."
I opened my mouth but couldn't force myself to speak. The uncertainty of where this was going was making me uncomfortable. I studied her for a while, trying to decipher what was happening, but her face remained impassible as she stubbornly waited for me to say her name again, her eyes transfixed on my lips. I swallowed and cleared my throat.
"Katerina Petrova," I repeated hesitantly.
The muscles in her neck flinched and her eyes darkened as they left my lips to flit over my features quickly. For a second I thought she was going to kiss me, but in a blink of an eye, she had composed herself again, any trace of her fluster gone.
"You have a very good accent," she finally said, so casually that I almost believed I had imagined her previous reaction.
I blinked in confusion. "What?"
"You roll your R's perfectly. It's quite rare for an American."
With a waggle of the glass she was holding before my eyes, she then proceeded to refocus my attention on the rakia we were supposed to drink, seduction seeping through her features again but this time in her usual playful way.
Ignoring her attempt to deflect, I cautiously asked, "so you're not mad I called you by your real name?"
"I'm not fond of people calling me by that name... But it would be a shame to not hear that accent again."
"Because I roll my R's so perfectly," I quipped with an eye roll.
"Mmhmm," she purred suggestively. "So, are you ready for that drink now?"
I was more than ready, I needed it. "Yep."
She twined her arm around mine, and I leaned a bit forward to keep her forearm from touching my skin. When she said "Go!", we both threw our heads backwards to drink the liquor in one gulp. Our elbows bumped into each other's, and I saw her glass being ripped off her lips from the corner of my eye. I choked, the alcohol burning my throat, and threw a hand up quickly to wipe off the alcohol running down my chin. When I realized she was doing the exact same thing, we both burst out laughing.
"Damn... This thing is nasty."
"Your drinking manners leave to be desired, let me tell you. I have rakia everywhere!" She brushed the fabric of her cleavage with her hand as an attempt to remove the spilled liqueur, and I shook my fingers above the ground to do the same.
"I didn't expect it to be so strong. And you're the one who insisted that we drink it like this!"
The laughter slowly faded into a significant silence, and a tiny voice in the back of my head told me that we had been staring at each other for a lot longer than appropriate. The moment dangerously looked like a kissing one. I broke eye contact and backed up to find refuge in the back of my chair.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to go home... It's getting late," I said, looking pointedly at the starry sky and the dark clearing. When I risked a quick glance toward her, I saw that enjoyment had left her face to be replaced by a slight disappointment, but she covered it up behind a seductive smile.
"Sure."
"Do you need help to clean up?" I asked, to ease an inexplicable feeling of guilt.
"No, it's fine. I'll deal with it tomorrow. Give me a minute though..." She suddenly became a blur and before I knew it, she had extinguished the campfire and the lines of torches, plunging the entire clearing into darkness.
"Hem... It would've been a good idea to keep at least one torch lighted."
I could see perfectly in the dark, but Katherine knew enough of my abilities as it was. No need to add more information to the list.
"Oh, right. Well, I guess you'll have to rely on me to get out of this forest then," she stated, not bothering hiding the amused grin since she didn't think I could see. She walked closer to me and offered me her arm. As I wondered what I had done to deserve this lie to backfire so quickly, I tried to relax the tension stiffening my entire body. I was reluctant to take her offer but I had trapped myself into keeping up this lie, so I linked my arm to hers, afraid to find out what the contact of her skin would do to me. As soon as our forearms met, goosebumps spread all over my skin. I took a sharp intake of breath and focused hard on the undefined path in front of us.
When I sank into the passenger seat of Katherine's car, I became aware that alcohol had finally taken its toll on me. I slightly opened the car window for fresh air and straightened myself up as an attempt to fight back the tipsiness.
The ride back to Mystic Falls was quiet. I had expected any kind of lasting silence between me and Katherine to be awkward, but it turned out to be everything but that. The air was heavy with untold words and most likely repressed attraction, and yet the atmosphere in the car was comfortable. It was an odd combination, but pleasant enough that none of us tried to break it, with the exception of furtive glances we both pretended not to notice during the entirety of the ride.
When we finally arrived in front of my house, she got out of the car and walked me to my porch without saying a word. If my mind hadn't been clouded by alcohol, I would have been suspicious or surprised by the gesture, but instead, a random thought suddenly popped in my mind.
"Oh my god..." I had no idea how it had made its way through my slight daze, or why I figured it out at this precise moment but I did.
"What is it?" she asked, a bit taken aback by my behavior. "Oh no. Please tell me you didn't lose your keys in the middle of the clearing..."
"He knew it was you!"
One of her eyebrows raised in a skeptical manner. "What are you talking about? Or rather who."
"Damon! He knew about the whole thing, didn't he?"
Her eyes sparkled, a knowing smile appearing on her lips. "He actually helped me plan the date."
"Wh-I...unbelievable. That asshole! I'm going to kill him."
"I believe you can only kill him if the date was awful," she suggested lightly.
There was some kind of shyness in the way she was fishing for information that made my anger toward Damon fade away instantly. I turned to the side to face her but stayed silent for a while.
"I actually had a great night," I finally admitted.
"Don't look so surprised."
"Tell that to your face," I shot back, incredulous but amused that she had the nerve to tell me that when her expression was mirroring mine.
She chuckled quietly and stepped closer to me.
"I'll admit that I expected it to be more...painful. Or boring. Maybe both." She shrugged one shoulder casually. "As you know, opening up is not really my thing. But surprisingly, I had a great night too..." There was no teasing or mischief in the last sentence she murmured.
Smoothly, she took another step that left us merely inches apart, and all I could see were her sparkling doe eyes dropping to my lips before catching my gaze again. The intensity around us caused my heart to beat quickly inside my chest, but what made me start closing the gap between our bodies was the sound of hers matching the same rhythm. She leaned toward me, parting her lips, but stopped and moved back a little just before touching mine.
I froze, the gesture bringing back memories.
"You're doing it again," I whispered hoarsely, my breath fanning her lips that were only an inch away.
She tore her gaze from my mouth to find my eyes. "Excuse me?"
"You avoid touching me. You did it when I was about to stake you. You're doing it even now, when we're about to kiss..."
She frowned slightly but didn't move an inch. Instead, she stared more deeply into my eyes.
"Well, I said after assaulting you that I would not lay a hand on you again unless you wanted me to. I'm just keeping my word."
It was my turn to frown in utter confusion. "You never said that."
"I didn't?"
"No! I would remember."
"Hmm... I must have just thought it to myself then. Well, it doesn't really matter, does it?" she brushed off casually.
It did matter, on the contrary. Because it was what made me crush my lips against hers. She took a sharp intake of breath through her nose and responded instantly by capturing my mouth. I reveled in the sensation of her plump lips stroking, sucking, the skills of her devilish mouth leaving me breathless and dizzy. I cupped her jaw with my hands as she intertwined her fingers in my hair to pull me closer, and as if it was a silent signal, our lips parted in sync to deepen the kiss. My tongue met hers quickly, searching, tasting, before dancing together. Her kiss was eager but not rushed, relishing in teasing and biting my skin, until my lungs began to scream for air. I broke the kiss reluctantly and took a slow step backwards. Her eyes never left mine as we stood, panting heavily, taking in messy hair and swollen lips. Finally, I walked to my door and unlocked it before pushing it open. Before I walked in, I looked over my shoulder to find her eyes again.
"Goodnight Katerina," I teased softly.
She stiffened for a second, surprise flashing across her face. When she realized that I had caught on the effect that my saying her real name had on her, a smirk rose on her lips as lust filled her eyes. "Goodnight Maya."