She was pinning her hopes on the little redbird’s magic, he knew. Damon couldn’t help a traitorous little spark of hope himself—Bonnie was so Powerful now—but, deep inside, he knew that even Bonnie wouldn’t be able to help. The Guardians had made up their minds, and Elena was doomed.
Damon stood and paced across the bedroom to stare out of the open window. Outside, the sun was setting. The bedroom’s walls pressed in around him. He was achingly conscious of Elena, lying silent and still behind him.
Enough. He could sit by her bedside as long as he liked, but he wasn’t helping her. Damon was useless. He had to get out of here, away from Elena’s shallow breaths and the faint, dreadful scent of death that was slowly filling the room.
Damon concentrated and felt his body compact, his bones twisting and hollowing. Shining black feathers sprang from his new form. After a few moments, a sleek black crow spread his wings wide and flew through the window and out into the night.
Angling his wings to catch the evening breeze, Damon turned toward the river. Above him, dark gray clouds gathered, mirroring his emotions.
Without consciously directing his flight, he soon found himself above Stefan’s grave on the riverbank. Landing and transforming gracefully back to his natural form, Damon looked around. It had only been a few weeks since they’d buried Stefan, but grass had already grown over the earth where his younger brother lay. As Damon gazed at it, the ache in his chest intensified.
He bent and laid one hand against the ground over Stefan’s grave. The earth was dry and crumbled under his fingers. “I’m sorry, little brother,” he said. “I failed you. I’ve failed Elena.”
Straightening, he wondered what he was doing. Dead was dead. Stefan couldn’t forgive him now, as much as it pained Damon to want him to.
They’d spent so much time hating each other. Damon could admit now that it was his fault. He’d resented his younger brother for a host of reasons, beginning with the fact that their father had loved Stefan best. His hatred had intensified after that dreadful day that they’d killed each other, and through centuries of watching from a distance as Stefan suffered through his vampirism and refrained from killing humans, Damon had grown more and more bitter. Even as a monster, Stefan had been more virtuous than Damon had been as a man, and Damon had loathed him for it.
But by the time Jack came along, Damon didn’t hate Stefan anymore. Jack. Damon’s jaw tightened with hatred, and overhead, thunder rumbled in response.
Jack Daltry had pretended to be a human hunting a vicious, ancient vampire. It had all been a lie: Jack was a scientist who had created a new faster, stronger vampire race, who was on a mission to destroy older vampires. Including Stefan, Katherine, and Damon himself.
Damon hadn’t even been on the same continent when Stefan was killed. He’d come home in time for Stefan’s funeral, in time to helplessly witness Elena’s devastation. Damon rubbed at his chest with one hand, wincing at the memory of how Elena’s pain had resonated through the magical bond between them, drawing him home. That pain was how he had known Stefan was dead. Nothing else could have hurt Elena so much.
Damon and Elena’s bond was at the root of what had happened to Elena now. The Guardians had linked them to keep Damon under control. They’d rightly decided that if Damon and Elena were connected, it would prevent Damon from following his worst impulses. They’d spelled it out for him: If he fed on the unwilling, Elena would suffer. If he killed a human, Elena would die.
Fat raindrops were beginning to fall, the light brown earth of the riverbank turning a splotchy brown. Shoving his hands into his pockets, Damon spoke again, staring down at his brother’s grave. “I didn’t know,” he said quietly.
All they had wanted, what had consumed him and Elena both, was vengeance. And they had succeeded. They had tracked Jack down and Damon had killed him, had avenged Stefan’s death.
After Jack died, Elena had finally felt at peace about Stefan. She’d turned to Damon, and for the first time they could love each other, without feeling that they were betraying Stefan. Damon knew he didn’t deserve her. Whatever soul he’d once had, it had been corrupted long ago. But Elena had wanted him anyway.
They’d had two glorious weeks traveling together, enraptured with each other. Then Elena had collapsed, writhing in pain, and Mylea, the cold-faced Guardian who had bound them, arrived.
Damon had assumed it was safe to kill Jack Daltry because Jack was a vampire. It was humans who were forbidden; monsters were fair game to Damon. He’d been a fool. Jack had made himself a vampire, used science to replicate the strength and ferocity of the vampire while getting rid of a vampire’s traditional vulnerabilities to wood, fire, sunlight.
He had changed himself through mortal means. He had never died; his human life had never ended. Jack wasn’t a real vampire, just an imitation. There wasn’t a drop of magic in him. As far as the Guardians were concerned, Damon had broken their bargain. And now was paying the price.
Dying.
Damon had brought her back to Dalcrest. Something in him had made him sure that she would want to be here, among the people she loved.
They’d battled unkillable monsters, saved the world together. Part of him, maybe foolishly, hoped that, together, they could all help him save her.
But, now that they were here and nothing had changed, he was terrified that they couldn’t. Maybe Elena was beyond their reach. Damon shuddered at the thought, hunching his shoulders against the pounding rain.
“Stefan,” he whispered, looking at the rain-soaked dirt of his brother’s grave, “what can I do?” He had tried forcing his blood down her throat—she wouldn’t have wanted it, but better a vampire than gone—but when he’d finally succeeded in making her swallow, it had done nothing.
Rage rose in him, and thunder cracked overhead. Damon turned his face up toward the sky, streams of water running through his hair, soaking his clothes. “Mylea!” he shouted, his own voice sounding raw and broken beneath the steady pounding of the storm. “I surrender! Punish me, I don’t care. Anything. Just tell me what to do!” He paused and held his breath, listening and watching for some sign that the Guardians were prepared to bargain. He could feel tears running down his face, a little warmer than the raindrops. “Please,” he whispered. “Save her.”
There was no response, nothing but the sounds of the river and the rain. If the Guardian could hear him, she clearly didn’t care.
2
Meredith smoothed her hand across Elena’s forehead. It was cold and clammy, and there were dark circles beneath Elena’s eyes, startling against her pale skin. Meredith couldn’t pull her eyes away from Elena’s sleeping face, hoping against hope that something would happen, that she would suddenly crinkle her face in the half-annoyed way she always did in the mornings.
Stiffening, Meredith stared. Had there been a flicker of motion beneath Elena’s closed eyelids?
“Elena?” Meredith said, keeping her voice soft and calm. “Can you hear me?”