Лиза Смит - The Return - Nightfall

Stefan’s heart was pounding out of his chest.

Elena daintily worried the fang she had captured.

He could feel her satisfaction as the tiny sacrificial pain turned to pleasure, because she was linked to him, and because she was one of the rarest of all breeds of humans: one who actually enjoyed nurturing a vampire, loved the feeling of feeding him, of him needing her. She was one of the elite.

Hot shivers traveled down his spine, Elena’s blood still making the world spin.

Elena let go of his fang, sucking on her lower lip. She let her head drop back, exposing her neck.

The head -drop was really too much to resist, even for him. He knew the traceries of Elena’s veins as well as he knew her face. And yet…

All’s right. All’s well…Elena chimed telepathically.

He sank twin aching fangs into a small vein. His canines were so razor-sharp by then that there was nearly no pain for Elena, who was used to the snakebite sensation. And for him, for both of them, there was the feeding at last, as the indescribable sweetness of Elena’s new blood filled Stefan’s mouth, and an outpouring of giving swept Elena into incoherency.

There was always a danger of taking too much, or of not giving her enough of his own blood to keep her — well, frankly, to keep her from dying. Not that he needed more than a small amount, but there would always be that danger in trafficking with vampires. In the end, though, dark thoughts swam away in the sheer bliss that had overcome them both.

Matt fished for keys as he and Bonnie and Meredith all crowded into the wide front seat of his rattletrap car. Embarrassing to have to park that next to Stefan’s Porsche. The upholstery in back was in shreds that tended to stick to the derriere of whoever sat on it, and Bonnie easily fit on the jump seat, which had a jerry-rigged seat belt, between Matt and Meredith. Matt kept an eye on her, since when she was excited she tended not to use the belt. The road back through the Old Wood had too many difficult turns to be taken lightly, even if they were going to be the only travelers on it.

No more deaths, Matt thought as he pulled away from the boardinghouse. No more miraculous resurrections, even. Matt had seen enough of the supernatural to last him the rest of his life. He was just like Bonnie; he wanted things to settle down to normal so he could get on with living the plain old ordinary way.

Without Elena, something inside him whispered mockingly. Giving up without even a fight?

Hey, I couldn’t beat Stefan in any kind of fight if he had both arms tied behind his back and a bag over his head. Forget it. That’s finished, however she kissed me. She’s a friend, now.

But he could still feel Elena’s warm lips on his mouth from yesterday, the light touches that she didn’t know yet weren’t socially acceptable between just-friends. And he could feel the warmth and the swaying, dancing slenderness of her body.

Damn, she came back perfect — physically, at least, he thought.

Bonnie’s plaintive voice cut into his pleasant reminiscences.

“Just when I thought everything was going to be all right,” she was wailing, almost weeping. “Just when I thought it’s all going to work out after all. It’s going to be the way it was supposed to be.”

Meredith said, very gently, “It’s difficult, I know. We seem to keep on losing her. But we can’t be selfish.”

“I can,” Bonnie said flatly.

I can, too, Matt’s inner voice whispered. At least inside, where nobody can see my selfishness. Good old Matt; Matt won’t mind — what a good sport Matt is. Well, this is one time when good old Matt does mind. But she chose the other guy, and what can I do? Kidnap her? Keep her locked up? Try to take her by force?

The thought was like a dash of cold water, and Matt woke up and paid more attention to his driving. Somehow he’d already automatically navigated several curves of the pitted, one-lane road that ran through the Old Wood.

“We were supposed to go to college together,” Bonnie persisted. “And then we were supposed to come back here to Fell’s Church. Back home. We had it all planned out — since kindergarten, practically — and now Elena’s human again, and I thought that meant that everything was going to go back to the way it was supposed to be. And it’s never going to be the same again,ever, is it?” She finished more quietly and with a little gulping sigh, “Is it?” It wasn’t even really a question.

Matt and Meredith found themselves glancing at each other, surprised by the sharpness of their pity, and helpless to comfort Bonnie, who now had her arms folded around herself, shrugging off Meredith’s touch.

It’s Bonnie — just Bonnie being theatrical, Matt thought, but his own native honesty rose to mock him.

“I guess,” he said slowly, “that’s what we were all sort of thinking, really, when she first came back.” When we were dancing around in the woods like crazy people, he thought. “I guess we sort of thought that they could live quietly somewhere near Fell’s Church, and that things would go back to the way they were before. Before Stefan—” Meredith shook her head, looking off into the distance beyond the windshield. “Not Stefan.”

Matt realized what she meant. Stefan had come to Fell’s Church to rejoin humanity, not to take a human girl away from it into the unknown.

“You’re right,” Matt said. “I was just thinking about something like that. She and Stefan could have probably worked out some way to live here quietly. Or at least to stay close to us, you know. It was Damon. He came to take Elena against her will, and that changed everything.”

“And now Elena and Stefan are leaving. And once they leave, they’ll never come back,” Bonnie wailed. “Why? Why did Damon start all this?”

“He likes to change things out of sheer boredom, Stefan once told me. This time it probably started out of hatred for Stefan,” Meredith said. “But I wish that for once he could have just left us alone.”

“What difference does it make?” Bonnie was crying now. “So it was Damon’s fault. I don’t even care anymore. What I don’t understand is why things have to change!”

“‘You can never cross the same river twice.’ Or even once if you’re a strong enough vampire,” Meredith said wryly. Nobody laughed. And then, very gently: “Maybe you’re asking the wrong person. Maybe Elena’s the one who could tell you why things have to change, if she remembers what happened to her — in the Other Place.”

“I didn’t mean that they do have to change—”

“But they do,” Meredith said, even more gently and wistfully. “Don’t you see? It’s not supernatural; it’s — life. Everybody has to grow up—”

“I know! Matt has a football scholarship and you’re going away to college and then you’re going to get married! And probably have babies!” Bonnie managed to make this sound like some indecent activity. “I’m going to be stuck in junior college forever. And you’ll both be all grown up and you’ll forget about Elena and Stefan…and me,” Bonnie finished in a very small voice.

“Hey.” Matt had always been very protective of the injured and ignored. Right now, even with Elena so recently on his mind — he wondered if he would ever get rid of the feeling of that kiss — he was drawn to Bonnie, who seemed so small and fragile. “What are you talking about? I’m coming back after college to live. I’ll probably die right here in Fell’s Church.I’ll be thinking about you. I mean, if you want me to.”

He patted Bonnie’s arm, and she didn’t shy away from his touch as she had from Meredith’s. She leaned into him, her forehead against his shoulder. When she shivered once, slightly, he put his arm around her without even thinking.