easy to Damon's night-acquainted vampire eyes. Damon didn't want her on her feet too much. He knew that she still hurt and that she didn't want him to know it or to pamper her. Something inside him said, "Well, then, wait until she says she's tired and help her to sit down."
And something else beyond his control, sprang out at the first little hesitation of her foot, and he picked her up, apologizing in a dozen different languages, and generally acting the fool until he had her seated on a comfortably carved wooden bench with a back to it and a very light traveling blanket over her knees. He kept adding, "You'll tell me if there's something - anything - else you want?" He accidentally sent to her a snippet of his thoughts of possible contenders, which were, a glass of water, him sitting beside her, and a baby elephant, which he had earlier seen in her mind that she admired very much.
"I'm very sorry, but I don't think I do elephants," he said, on his knees, making the footstool more comfortable for her, when he caught a random thought of hers: that he was not so different from Stefan as he seemed.
No other name could have caused him to do what he did then. No other word, or concept, could have such effect on him. In an instant the blanket was off, the footstool had disappeared, and he was holding Elena bent backward with the slender column of her neck fully exposed to him.
The difference,he told her,between me and my brother is that he is still hoping somehow to slip in through some side door into heaven. I'm not such a moaning ninny about my fate. I know where I'm going.And I don't - he gave her a smile with all canines fully extended - give a damn about it.
Her eyes were wide - he'd startled her. And startled her into an unintentional, thoroughly honest response. Her thoughts were projected toward him, easy to read.I know - and, I'm like that, too. I want what I want. I'm not as good as Stefan. And I don't know -
He was enthralled.What don't you know, sweetheart?
She just shook her head, eyes shut.
To break the deadlock, he whispered into her ear, "What about this, then:
Say I'm bold
And say I'm bad
Say - you vanities
- I'm vainer.
But you Erinyes, just add
I kissed Elena."
Her eyes flew open. "Oh, no! Please, Damon." She was whispering. "Please! Please not now!" And she swallowed miserably. "Besides, you asked me if I'd like a drink, and then suddenly it's no drink. I wouldn't mindbeing a drink if you'd like, but first, I'mso thirsty - as thirsty as you are, maybe?"
She did the little tap-tap-tap under her chin again.
Damon's insides melted.
He held out his hand and it closed around the stem of a delicate crystal glass. He swirled the splash of liquid in it expertly, tested it for bouquet - ah, exquisite - then gently rolled it on his tongue. It was the real thing.Black Magic wine,grown from Clarion Loess Black Magic grapes. It was the only wine most vampires would drink - and there were apocryphal stories of how it had kept them on their feet when their other thirst could not be assuaged.
Elena was drinking hers, her blue eyes wide above the deep violet of the wine as he told her some of its story. He loved to watch her when she was like this - investigating with all her senses fully aroused. He shut his eyes and remembered some choice moments from the past. Then he opened them again to find Elena, looking very much the thirsty child, eagerly gulping down -
"Yoursecond glass...?" He'd discovered the first goblet at her feet. "Elena, where did you get another one?"
"I just did what you did. Held out my hand. It's not as if it were hard liquor, is it? It tastes like grape juice, and I was dying for a drink."
Could she really be that naive? True, Black Magic wine didn't have the sharp odor or taste of most alcohol. It was subtle, created for the fastidious vampire palate. Damon knew that the grapes were grown in the soil, loess, that a grinding glacier leaves behind. Of course, that process was only for the long-lived vampires, as it took ages to build up enough loess. And when the soil was ready, the grapes were grown and processed, from graft to foot-stomped pulp in ironwood vats, without ever seeing the