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Trust In Betrayal
In Time We Trust Trilogy: Book 3
By Michelle Hazen
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: A Well-Balanced Breakfast
Chapter 2: Communist Revolution
Chapter 3: Crossbow Special on Aisle Seven
Chapter 4: Painfully Close
Chapter 5: Blunt is the New Sexy
Chapter 6: A Gentleman
Chapter 7: Damon’s Favorite Day
Chapter 8: The Marks We Choose
Chapter 9: Something to Celebrate
Chapter 10: Truth or Dare
Chapter 11: Bumps
Chapter 12: Two-faced Truth
Chapter 13: History Repeating
Chapter 14: Thicker Than Water
Chapter 15: Lazarus
Chapter 16: Sex and Broken Things
Chapter 17: The Man I am Today
Chapter 18: Bouquet of Black Feathers
Chapter 19: Dead Ends
Chapter 20: The Legacy of Katherine Pierce
Chapter 21: Damon’s Savior
Chapter 22: Come Hell or Hard Choices
Chapter 23: Coin Toss
Chapter 24: Beautifully Blind
Chapter 25: Xbox Hero
Chapter 26: In Time We Trust
Chapter 27: Silent Answers
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Michelle Hazen
What to read next!
Chapter 1: A Well-Balanced Breakfast
DAMON
It’s been a long night: a painful fight with my girlfriend, not-so-painful makeup sex that was irritatingly interrupted by people trying to kill us, a bitch of a house fire, and a last-minute grave robbing for a nightcap.
As I steer the truck in off the street, the fluorescent lights of the 24-hour diner shine greasily against the dusty pre-dawn gloom of the parking lot. I barely notice them, though, because my eyes are already locked on the corner beyond the dumpsters where I can see the darkened taillights of my Camaro. At the sight, something loosens in my chest and I take my first easy breath in hours.
“Will you look at that?” Katherine says. “The little princess managed to stay out of trouble for a few hours on her own.”
“Not cool,” Matt warns her wearily, and Ric sends a sympathetic wince in his direction. The quarterback’s been playing referee between me and my ex-vampire ex-girlfriend ever since our group had to split up so I could circle back and repossess Silas’s cement-filled coffin from the wreckage of the boarding house.
It went more smoothly than anything usually does for us, with Katherine and Matt to stand guard—since they’re human and more likely to be spared by any stray Augustines—and Ric and me to do the heavy lifting.
The ashes of the boarding house were still hot and the place was swarming with cops, the Augustines long gone by the time we went back. Liz thought it was too dangerous to go back into what was left of the building, but after I told her that her daughter was safe, I think she would have let me get away with a triple murder and a good half-dozen acts of vandalism. A quick run through of a building with unstable floors and some wobbly rafters? No problem.
Besides, I heal fast.
Especially after Ric and I dined out on the night shift at a Jack in the Box, a super classy choice for his first post-resurrection live feed.
We’ll have the triple teenager meal, hold the screaming, please.
Now that we’re on the run, he doesn’t get the high-road blood bag option. I wanted him as far from Elena’s worried brown eyes as we could get for the first time he tried to feed on a human and make himself stop before he flipped to the obituaries page. I figured the privacy was only fair: nobody needs an audience the first time the training wheels come off.
I sling my legs out of Donovan’s truck and stretch my tired back, stealing a glance at my best friend.
Ric smirks, anticipating my little checkup glance. I roll my eyes, looking away before he sees the wash of relief in my face. He didn’t kill anyone, not even me when I had to haul him off the first human. The second, he stopped on his own. And by the third, he played the gentleman and left her for me. Not that it was much of a party, feeding with one eye open just in case he flipped personalities and decided to send me for a swim in the fryer.
Running footsteps rain across the pavement behind me and I turn in time to catch a flash of my girlfriend’s face before she’s close enough to pounce on me. I catch Elena’s hand, spinning her and then dropping her into a deep dip, my hand splayed across her lower back. She grins up at me, her eyes sparkling a little damply in the light from the diner windows.
“Why, yes, I would like to have this dance,” I purr down at her, and she giggles.
I can’t resist enjoying her for a moment, not after the ulcer-inducing moment earlier tonight when I had to chuck all our cell phones and then let her out of my sight for hours at a time with only a promise to meet at this diner at dawn. Like there’s nothing that could have gone wrong with that plan.
But thank God, all the devils, blood sacrifices, and pure dumb luck, this time nothing did.
I nuzzle the perfect line of her throat, trying to push away the memory of the livid bite marks that marred it only hours before. Drawing her slowly up to her feet, I kiss the point of her chin, her lips, her pert little nose, and then the smooth skin of her forehead as I set her back upright.
“Any bumps along the way?” I ask.
She shakes her head, her eyes still fastened on my face as if it’s the first time she’s ever seen me.
She rubs the leather of my jacket between her fingers, smiling. “I’m glad you found this,” she says softly.
“Your fault,” I murmur into her ear, which is true.
I’ve always carried a spare shirt in my car, because they tend to get blood on them at the most inopportune times. But I didn’t start to carry a spare leather jacket until I was dating Elena, who is perpetually cold, which meant I was perpetually jacket-less.
Fortunately, that also means in case of a house fire, I’m a little more well-stocked than most.
Not that it saved us a major trip to Walmart, which was shudderingly the only place open at 2 A.M. after we fled a burning building with seven people, five pairs of pants and four shirts. Any way you do the math, it doesn’t quite add up to “under the radar.”
I just wish I had another jacket for Elena, but she seems to have developed a fondness for her brother’s oversized hoodie, which she still hasn’t given back. And I’m sure not going to deny her anything that reminds her of home, since Ric and I just lit up the last one she had like a Molotov cocktail full of fanged freaks and more top-shelf booze than I want to think about.
I sling an arm around her shoulders and turn to find Matt examining the low-riding bed of his truck with a frown.
“The cement in this coffin is going to kill my rear suspension,” he mutters.
“Jus
t wait until you see what it does to your gas mileage.” Jeremy vaults up into the truck bed to fix the tarp where one rope came loose in the wind, revealing a corner of the metal casket beneath. He’s moving better than he was earlier: his leg must have just been deeply bruised, not torn or strained, which will thankfully save me having to bully him into letting me heal it.
“Thank God you brought the truck back,” Caroline says, strutting across the parking lot. “The backseat of your Camaro was not meant for three across.”
“Great to see you too, Blondie.” I blow her a mocking kiss. “You should work on your gratitude speech. Maybe lead in with world peace and wrap it up with a nod to me for going back into a burning building to save the coffin containing the asshole whose immortality spell seems determined to dig him out of the concrete we encased him in. The same asshole,” I add, waving a chiding finger at her, “whose sole goal in life is to murder your Original vampire crush, his snooty siblings, and by default, us.”
“I do not have a crush on Klaus!” Caroline protests, scowling at me. “Besides, it’s not like you did it for me. You would have probably left me to die at Whitmore if Elena didn’t make you pick me up.”
“Caroline!” Elena glares at her friend and Caroline points a warning finger at her in return.
“Don’t even start with all that reverse sire bond business. I just know a jerk when I see one, and I always have.”
“Which so explains your fascination with the werewolf boy,” Katherine says, examining her nails. “You know, what’s-his-name with the anger management classes and the great big…” she says, looking up coyly from beneath her eyelashes, “…personality.”
Caroline gasps with outrage and glares at Katherine. Stefan and Cali are the last ones to make it over from the Camaro and a corner of my brother’s mouth lifts in response to Katherine’s jibe, though he’s careful to smooth his expression before Caroline can see.
He’s moving easily now, not a hint left of his brush with desiccation earlier tonight. Fortunately, Donovan didn’t require much convincing to donate a pint or two to the cause under close supervision. Because at the time, I wasn’t into taking no for an answer and we didn’t have time to kidnap a random donor.
Cali ignores Caroline’s reaction. “Less bickering, more eating of the food,” she moans, her eyes clinging to the front of the diner.
I wince at the giant gauze square taped crookedly to her neck. “Yeah, looking like that? We’ll have three calls in to the local domestic violence hotline before we even get our menus.”
“I told you,” Stefan says, taking a step forward. “We can heal those.”
I shoot him a warning look but he’s not paying any attention to me.
I still haven’t figured out exactly what combination of the Gilbert luck and my bad karma resulted in Jeremy bringing home the only girl in three counties that Stefan has fed from, memory wiped, and had to lock in the basement in order to detox her from the vervain my squishy-hearted girlfriend never should have given her in the first place.
Cali is also the only person Stefan’s ever bitten and healed, and it makes me itchy under the collar that he’s so eager to repeat the process. Especially since Baby Gilbert is blissfully ignorant of his new girlfriend’s stay in the Dungeon Suites Di Salvatore.
“Uh, yeah,” Cali says, shoving a bit of blue-streaked dark hair back into her spiky bun. “I’ve seen how you do that, and I prefer to get my iron boost from a side of bacon, extra-crispy, if you don’t mind.”
“We would draw less attention if you were healed,” Jeremy says reluctantly, jumping down from the bed of the pickup to land lightly beside her. She makes a face at him and he shrugs one shoulder sheepishly. “Yeah, I know, it’s gross,” he agrees. He lifts a hand like he’s going to touch her bandage, and then thinks better of it. “But they take like a week to heal, and it stings like crazy the whole time.”
Cali sends a significant look at his wrist, the bandage covered by the new hoodie he quietly bought last night, leaving his own wrapped around his sister’s shoulders.
Sometimes, I really like that kid.
“Mine’s not that bad,” Jeremy argues. “And it’s easier to hide.”
Cali sticks her tongue out at him and his mouth kicks up into a smirk. I almost laugh, because she may be a Grade A pain in my ass, but she’s good for lightening Jeremy up. I wonder how long they’ve known each other, and shift my weight uneasily. Then again, if the kid would introduce me to his fucking friends now and then, I’d be more careful not to use them for midnight snacks.
“It’s our fault you were bitten,” Stefan says quietly.
My arm around Elena’s shoulder tightens reflexively against the impulse to smack him for being so melodramatic.
He ducks his head, catching Cali’s eyes, and she stills. “Please,” he whispers.
Katherine stops fidgeting and looks over at him, and Matt frowns, stuffing his hands into his pockets. His wrist is already healed, thanks to yours truly, and the fact that Stefan refused to do it and is now volunteering for Cali…
My back tenses and Elena slides an arm around my waist, petting my side underneath my jacket. I’m all for Stefan not being such a Prissy Pants about healing his donors, but there’s something about the way he always looks at Cali that stirs something dark and unsettled deep in my gut, and I can’t put my finger on what it is.
Cali shifts and clears her throat, her eyes darting around the deserted parking lot. “Fine. How much do I have to drink?”
Stefan stands a little taller, a subtle movement I doubt she noticed.
“You’ll feel when it starts to work.”
He touches the small of her back, guiding her around the bed of the truck so its silhouette shields her from any bored diner employees peering out into the night. Jeremy takes an uncertain step toward them, his shoulders hunching under his hoodie.
Katherine huffs impatiently. “I’ll be inside.”
She flounces away toward the entrance, dressed to the nines. She wouldn’t leave her house without a stuffed suitcase, not that she offered to share any of it with Elena. But I gave her three minutes and she was packed in two point seven so I tossed her and the suitcase in Matt’s truck and didn’t complain, even though I had a perfect right to.
Caroline follows her and after a moment of hesitation, so does Matt. Ric quirks an eyebrow at me and I make a dismissive noise, so he heads in, too.
Cali looks tiny against the tall tailgate of the truck, Stefan standing so close that she’s almost completely hidden by his chest. Jeremy kicks his foot restlessly against the pavement and a pebble bounces away underneath the truck.
Elena tilts her head back, nuzzling her mouth in next to my ear and sending a thrill of pleasure racing down my back.
“I offered three times to heal her,” Elena whispers. “What did he do, compel her?”
I shake my head, because I didn’t see Cali’s pupils dilate. I don’t think Elena would appreciate me bringing it up, but one of the reasons Stefan’s gotten along so well as a vampire is because girls always trust him.
Stefan turns away so she won’t see his face change and bites into his wrist. When he faces her again, she rolls her eyes and mutters something that was likely a curse. She grabs his wrist and ducks her head to it, hesitating as she figures out the best way to seal her lips over the wound.
I remember the way her face looked in the forest, when I compelled her to enjoy Stefan’s blood. That night she was almost blissful, instead of a little stiff and a lot of awkward. I wonder if Stefan’s fascination with her will wane when he realizes the magic of their bloodshare was only because she was his first.
Because he’s only ever been the villain or the hero, but with Cali, he was both at once.
Jeremy's arms are so tense I'm waiting for his fists to come tearing out of his pockets but he doesn't interfere. I watch him, wondering if it's jealousy or his Hunter instincts that are kicking in. Either one would make for a bitch of a testosterone cock
tail, and it would really fuck up my breakfast plans if I have to drag him off my brother right now.
Cali straightens back up and wipes her mouth on the back of her hand with a grimace. “Well, that was fucking weird.” Stefan’s breathing harder than she is, his head bent toward her, and she peeks up at him, a little alarmed. “You okay?”
He blinks and nods, still searching her face. She sidles out from between him and the truck, ducking her head to avoid his eyes.
“Um, thanks. For uh, that,” she says, and reaches up to her bandage, yanking it off with a quick, vicious movement.
I feel Elena wince sympathetically at the ripping sound of the tape and I press a kiss to her hair, trying to hold back a smile.
“Better?” Cali asks, turning to Jeremy and tilting her head up for his inspection.
Jeremy’s thumb rubs softly over her throat, taking away the last traces of blood. “Better,” he agrees.
“Well, is everybody ready to eat?” Elena asks, a little too brightly.
The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3) Page 1
