She could feel it happen, feel the resistance leave his body. He lay on the icy ground with scraps of oak leaves in his hair, staring up past her at the black and clouded sky.
Finish it, his weary voice said in her mind.
Elena hesitated for an instant. There was something about those eyes that called up memories inside her. Standing in the moonlight, sitting in an attic room... But the memories were too vague. She couldn't get a grasp on them, and the effort made her dizzy and sick.
And this one had to die, this green-eyed one called Stefan. Because he'd hurt him, the other one, the one Elena had been born to be with. No one could hurt him and live.
She clamped her teeth into his throat and bit deep.
She realized at once that she wasn't doing it quite right. She hadn't hit an artery or vein. She worried at the throat, angry at her own inexperience. It felt good to bite something, but not much blood was coming. Frustrated, she lifted up and bit again, feeling his body jerk in pain.
Much better. She'd found a vein this time, but she hadn't torn it deeply enough. A little scratch like that wouldn't do. What she needed was to rip it right across, to let the rich hot blood stream out.
Her victim shuddered as she worked to do this, teeth raking and gnawing. She was just feeling the flesh give way when hands pulled at her, lifting her from behind.
Elena snarled without letting go of the throat. The hands were insistent though. An arm looped about her waist, fingers twined in her hair. She fought, clinging with teeth and nails to her prey.
Let go of him. Leave him!
The voice was sharp and commanding, like a blast from a cold wind. Elena recognized it and stopped struggling with the hands that pulled her away. As they deposited her on the ground and she looked up to see him, a name came into her mind. Damon. His name was Damon. She stared at him sulkily, resentful of being yanked away from her kill, but obedient.
Stefan was sitting up, his neck red with blood. It was running onto his shirt. Elena licked her lips, feeling a throb like a hunger pang that seemed to come from every fiber of her being. She was dizzy again.
"I thought," Damon said aloud, "that you said she was dead." He was looking at Stefan, who was even paler than before, if that was possible.
That white face filled with infinite hopelessness.
"Look at her" was all he said.
A hand cupped Elena's chin, tilting her face up. She met Damon's narrowed dark eyes directly. Then long, slender fingers touched her lips, probing between them. Instinctively Elena tried to bite, but not very hard. Damon's finger found the sharp curve of a canine tooth, and Elena did bite now, giving it a nip like a kitten's.
Damon's face was expressionless, his eyes hard.
"Do you know where you are?" he said.
Elena glanced around. Trees. "In the woods," she said craftily, looking back at him.
"And who is that?"
She followed his pointing finger. "Stefan," she said indifferently. "Your brother." "And who am I? Do you know who I am?" She smiled up at him, showing him her pointed teeth. "Of course I do. You're Damon, and I love you."
Stefan's voice was quietly savage. "That's what you wanted, wasn't it, Damon? And now you've got it. You had to make her like us, like you. It wasn't enough just to kill her."
Damon didn't glance back at him. He was looking at Elena intently through those hooded eyes, still kneeling there holding her chin. "That's the third time you've said that, and I'm getting a little tired of it," he commented softly. Disheveled, still slightly out of breath, he was yet self-composed, in control. "Elena, did I kill you?"
"Of course not," Elena said, winding her fingers in those of his free hand. She was getting impatient. What were they talking about anyway? Nobody had been killed.
"I never thought you were a liar," Stefan said to Damon, the bitterness in his voice unchanged. "Just about everything else, but not that. I've never heard you try to cover up for yourself before."
"In another minute," said Damon, "I'm going to lose my temper."
What more can you possibly do to me? Stefan returned. Killing me would be a mercy.
"I ran out of mercy for you a century ago," Damon said aloud. He let go, finally, of Elena's chin. "What do you remember about today?" he asked her.
Elena spoke tiredly, like a child reciting a hated lesson. "Today was the Founders' Day celebration." Flexing her fingers in his, she looked up at Damon. That was as far as she could get on her own, but it wasn't enough. Nettled, she tried to remember something else.