I don’t know if it’s the edge I always get from being in the presence of the threat that is Katherine, or if it is just the fresh blood, but right now my mind feels more like my own than it has for days.
“We’ve known each other a long time, Katherine. So let’s not waste time with politics,” I propose. “You’re here because you need Lia to disappear so you can take control of the army she’s built, but your newly human body isn’t up to the task of offing a supervamp, so in exchange for my freedom, you want me to kill her for you.” I take a swig of blood, watching Katherine indifferently. “The answer is yes. Just tell me the plan and then get the hell out of here.”
It’s not that simple: as soon as I’m in a room with Lia, I can’t trust my own thoughts, much less my hands, but I’ll tell Katherine whatever she wants to hear and worry about getting my shit in order once she’s gone.
She crosses her arms and leans a shoulder against the wall, clucking her tongue in mild amusement. “Men. You always think it’s about brawn.” A cold little smile plays around the edges of her mouth. “Professor Maxfield and the rest of the society will be dead before sunset today, but I don’t need your help for that. You see, you’re right: I want that army for myself. But even after Lia’s gone, I’ll never be able to trust the vampires who were programmed to be loyal to her. So I’ll just save a scientist or two and call the rest a loss. All the data I need is already backed up to external servers, so within a couple of years I’ll have rebuilt the society to its current strength, only everyone will be loyal to me.”
I take a drink of blood and look bored, even as I wish there were more in the bag. “Look, you’re only telling me this because you need my help. No problem. You have it. Now give me my marching orders and scram.”
“Fine,” she snaps. “You know what I want from you, Damon? What I really want?”
“With you, the list never ends,” I drawl. “Fortunately, I’ve got nothing but time.”
“I want you to forgive me,” she says simply.
My hand clenches so suddenly that I almost burst the blood bag. This whole week has been a cruel joke, but that just took the blue ribbon for Bitch Slap of the Year, no contest.
“What, have you been going to AA?” I mock. “Maybe you napped through the important part, because before asking for forgiveness comes remorse.” I take a hard slug of blood, looking away even though there’s nothing else in the room. “Wiki that shit if you need a definition.”
Katherine’s face tightens. “You know, if you’d stop being bitter for ten seconds, you’d realize I did you a lot of favors. Not that you’d ever be man enough to admit it.”
“You may want to Wiki apologies while you’re at it because if that’s what this is, it’s an epic fail,” I say with a pointed flare of my eyes.
She pauses for a long moment, her expression softer than it has any right to be when she’s looking at me.
“I underestimated you, Damon. As a human, I mean. I thought you were just another pretty human boy on the edge of being a man, with nothing to set you apart from all the others I’d seen over the centuries. That’s what I’m sorry for. Not for giving you my blood, not for lying to you about the tomb, not even for helping Stefan save your life when it cost me the best shot I ever had at killing Klaus.”
I keep my face tightly schooled. There’s no way I’m gifting her my reaction to that, not even her crazy claims about Klaus. Because no shit she underestimated me. To Katherine, I’ve always been worth the favors I could do for her and my talents in bed and not an inch more. But to hear her admit that when she’s not angling for a favor? Is so bizarre that it’s even more startling than waking up to see Lia’s face smiling down at me after fifty years of assuming she was dead.
Katherine’s lips are stiff and she wets them the way she only does when she’s rattled enough to forget about her lipstick.
“And if that’s not good enough for you, too bad. I’m going to help you even if you won’t admit that I’ve changed, and I’m going to tell you exactly what I plan to do once you’re gone because otherwise, I know you’ll assume the worst of me and the reason why I’m taking over the Augustines.”
I shake my head. “They are an army of super vampires, Katherine. It’s not like you’re using them to sell Girl Scout cookies. I’m pretty sure I know why you want them.”
“Not this time,” she insists, dropping her voice so we can’t be overheard. “Listen, Damon, the scientists here are brilliant. Lia’s set it up so within five years, every vampire in the world will be obedient to them and living in self-sufficient societies where they have no need to risk exposure just to feed. But she’s thinking small.”
“Small?” I scoff, unable to suppress a little curiosity. “Controlling every vampire in the world? What more do you want, cold fusion?”
“I’m five hundred years old, Damon, and you’re not that far behind me. You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about what’s coming next.”
“For you? Bingo and denture cream,” I say blandly. “For me, I’m thinking the tenth tour might be the charm for another saunter through the Bordeaux wine country.”
She ignores that and pushes off the wall, taking a step closer that’s no less menacing in her new athletic shoes than it used to be in her knife-sharp heels.
“I’ve seen forests disappear and rivers run brown like sludge, farmland on every continent turn barren and empty. I’ve watched humans multiply like insects and scurry over every inch of this globe, and what’s next isn’t wine country, Damon. It’s famine and war, and you know it.” She looks down at me, going the kind of still she shouldn’t be able to manage anymore. “When food and water and fuel get scarce, humans are going to start killing each other off for what’s left. And they’ll probably bomb and burn and poison every inch of the land around them when they go.”
I arch an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, I thought we were killing the Augustines today, but I seem to have taken a sharp left turn into the Captain Planet lecture hall. Can you direct me back to the escape plan focus group, please?”
“Augustine vampires are the answer, Damon,” Katherine says. “And maybe no one younger than me ever would have thought of it. They’re self-sustaining, and they don’t even require short-distance transportation. When the world belongs to them, they’ll run anywhere they need to go, and only use boats or planes if they need to cross the ocean. We will expand until we can put the rest of the humans to sleep humanely, and keep only a small, easy-to-feed group alive to replenish the vampire population when necessary.”
The jokes that have always leapt so easily to my tongue abruptly dry up. She’s serious. She’s absolutely, insanely serious.
Katherine takes one more step forward and drops down to sit in front of me, curling her legs to the side.
“Did you think I wasn’t ambitious?” she asks quietly. “Did you think that I never wanted to do anything more with my life than compel people for money and blood and buy pretty clothes while I moved every few weeks to stay ahead of Klaus? I’m finally free to leave my mark, to make all my time on this earth worth it, and yet all I have is a single human lifespan to do that.”
Her eyes glow when she looks at me, but for once it’s not with manipulation or viciousness. It’s simple, quiet pride.
“I’m the girl who’s going to save the world, Damon. But first, I’m going to save you.”
Chapter 21: Damon’s Savior
ELENA
I’m horrified at Stefan’s plan. I really am.
I know Silas is the most terrifying weapon we could hand the Augustines, and I will never forget the moment when he told me to take off my clothes, and my body obeyed him without my permission.
But there hasn’t been a single hour that passed since Damon was taken that I haven’t thought about bartering Silas to get my fiancé back, and now that Stefan is doing it, I can only feel relief that I won’t have to make that final, terrible decision.
“Not happening,” Ric growls. “You’ll p
ull Damon out of the frying pan and throw the whole vampire race into the fire. Do you think your brother will be any safer with that psychic sociopath at the head of his own super-vampire army?”
“If we give them Silas and get Damon back for now, at least it will give us more time to build a defense. I can work the exchange so we get some more information about where their headquarters are,” Stefan says, his eyes flaring brightly. “And if I warn them about Silas’s mind control, they won’t be in too big of a hurry to wake him up.”
“Just to stall?” Jeremy scoffs. “Silas is the most dangerous supernatural creature we’ve ever seen, and your best idea is to use him to buy time?”
I’m too focused to even blink, and I still don’t see Stefan move.
He is suddenly standing toe to toe with Jeremy, Stefan’s body predator-poised as he snarls, “Time in which my brother is still alive is the most valuable thing there is. Once they kill him, there won’t be anything left to trade for.”
Ric flinches.
“Stefan!” I move to push them apart, but then my palms are empty and stinging with impact as Jeremy hurls Stefan back. There’s a crack of wood when his back hits the foyer table, but he rebounds quickly and the table shudders and doesn’t break.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Jeremy shouts. “But if we give them Silas, we might as well just hold our hands out for the handcuffs because then they’ll control all of us, not just Damon.”
Stefan’s eyes close and I can see whispers of darkness electrifying the skin beneath his lashes. His body is locked into the kind of animal stillness that reminds me achingly of Damon: the way he was in the first days after I met him, when his every quick smile spoke of danger and his presence raised the hairs on the back of my neck in warning.
“I’m sorry,” Stefan says, very quietly. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“We’ll think of something,” Ric says, shoving a hand through his hair and tossing a fast glance at me. “It’s been a shitty day, but it’s not over yet, okay?”
I can hear a car coming up the driveway, but I don’t look to see who it is. If they have the gate code, it can only be Caroline, and if Stefan wanted privacy to steal Silas’s coffin earlier, he probably sent her out on some made-up errand.
“No,” I say, and when Stefan’s eyes open, they meet mine squarely. “They’ve had four and a half days, which is all the time they would have needed to punish Damon for wiping out the society,” I explain.
I can only make myself say it out loud because I can see my own pain in Stefan’s gaze like we’re absorbing the impact together. He knows what that means as well as I do.
“The Augustines won’t keep him alive much longer.” My voice begins to waver at the end. Every second we are still here, they could already be deciding to kill him, and we won’t even know when it becomes too late.
A car door slams and there’s the soft tap of Caroline’s flat-heeled boots on the sidewalk.
“Heeey…” she calls out, ducking her head to the side to peek inside around the big paper bags she’s carrying. “Why’s the door open?”
As she catches the mood of the room, her face falls a little before she rearranges it into a perky smile.
“So, I went to the liquor store. And not a moment too soon, it looks like.” She brushes by Stefan and sets her bags on the foyer table with a clink of glass bottles, frowning when the surface wobbles a little. “Anybody need a– Hey, did you guys notice this table leg is cracked? Was it like that when we moved in? I didn’t mark it on the rental form…”
Stefan’s watching her as she bends down to check the damage, lines of strain forming at the edges of his eyes.
“Look,” Jeremy says, squaring his shoulders and ignoring Caroline, “we can stall. We’ll pretend we’re going to trade Silas, tell them what he is and that it’s his blood that makes the cure they can separate from the vampirism virus or whatever it is. They won’t hurt Damon if they need him for a bargaining chip.”
“And just leave him there?” Stefan asks, his voice going a little hoarse. He crosses his arms, but not before I see the fine shaking of his hands. “No. The last time he was at the mercy of the Augustines, Damon waited for me and I never came. I couldn’t save him then, but this time, I will. No matter what it takes.”
Caroline takes a tentative step closer to him, her brow creased in confusion and one hand lifting to touch his arm, but she doesn’t connect before he continues.
“I just waited long enough to warn you to get out of the country. I want you all far away before they wake up Silas.” He swallows once, looking at Jeremy instead of me. “As soon as I have Damon, the two of us will head down to New Orleans and warn the Originals. With Klaus’s resources at our back, we’ll be able to figure out how to take out Silas and the Augustines, and if they no longer have a hostage, we’ll have the time we need to do it.”
“Yeah, or Klaus will kill you,” Jeremy scoffs.
“Wait, we’re talking about trading Silas?” Caroline asks, going pale.
At the same time, Ric says strongly, “I can’t let you do that, Stefan.”
“You don’t have to let me,” Stefan says. “It’s already done. I rented a car yesterday night after I dropped Caroline off here. I loaded Silas into it early this morning, and I compelled a driver to take the coffin to a location that only I know about. I’ve already made the initial call to Professor Maxfield telling him I have something to trade with the Augustines. It is too late to stop me.”
Relief sweeps through me so thickly at his words that for a second I can’t respond. It’s done. We’ll get Damon back. And secretly, selfishly, I’m so glad it’s out of my hands.
“I’m sorry,” Caroline snaps, “but what exactly makes you think that you and Damon can get away before they use Silas’s mind control on you? All it takes is a little blood to wake him up and I doubt they’re going to swap you their oldest enemy for a block of concrete until you show them that Silas can be healed enough to produce the blood they need.” She widens her eyes at Stefan. “You can’t be taking yourself seriously right now.”
“I have a plan,” he says. “It’s all under control.”
“They’re vampire-hating crazy people!” Caroline squeaks. “You so do not have them under control!”
He looks at her and his jaw flexes, green eyes shining with the first hint of tears that I know he’ll never let fall. “He’s my brother.”
Pain ricochets cuttingly through my chest and my hand rises shakily to my throat. I should grab Stefan and run before anyone can stop us.
Or I should stop Stefan.
I can all but feel Damon glaring at me, I’m so certain this isn’t what he would want. He’ll raise holy hell when he hears how we got him free, break things and bellow at us until the rafters of this place are shaking. It’ll take us hours to calm him down enough to get him on a plane and safely across the ocean, if he’ll go at all. But there’s no way I’m leaving him behind to try to barter an alliance with Klaus, no matter what the circumstances are.
“No!” Caroline explodes, throwing her arms out and letting them slap down to her thighs. “No, no, no. It’s too dangerous, it probably won’t even work and hello, do you remember when you traded all our white oak stakes to Klaus to get Damon back? It’s not like he signed a freaking peace treaty, Stefan! He was still threatening to kill all of us even as you walked out the door!”
Their eyes connect and she falls silent, going stiff like he just answered a question I didn’t even know she was asking. His fingers flex as he grips his own biceps a little tighter.
“I’m sorry,” he says, just to her this time.
Ric takes a reluctant step forward, and I can tell he’s trying to decide if he can force Stefan to give up the location of Silas’s coffin.
“Pack fast,” Stefan says, looking past Ric to Jeremy. “And get them all out of here before this afternoon. The new credit card is on the kitchen table.”
He turns his back on us and heads
for the front door with stiff, determined strides.
“Stefan!” Caroline’s voice breaks before the last syllable and I turn to her, registering the tears swimming in her eyes as her shoulders sag.
The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3) Page 27
