plucked her thought out of the air. “You must know that. What you’re challenging isn’t beatable. That’s the truth, maybe not in words of one syllable but as simply as I can put it without resorting to sockpuppets. Do we understand?”
Bonnie was beyond being distressed over personal things.
“It’s the town I’m worried about. Fell’s Church—”
“Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall. When you’ve seen enough of them as I have you develop an indifference. And this miserable place is hardly a dot on the map, anyway.” Bonnie looked up angrily but he had already turned on his bland face and his purring, persuasive voice.
“If you have blood to give to little brother, then you have blood to give to me,” he said, looking at her with lastpuppyintheshopeyes. “It doesn’t take much, you know.
And maybe it will persuade me . . .”
There was a word for this kind of exchange, or at least for the closest human equivalent, but Bonnie didn’t care. Despite the sharp thought, No!, that flashed across her mind, she looked up at Damon with eyes that were just as round and innocent as he ’d made his, and cornflower blue to boot. “Really? It might persuade you to stay and fight on our side?”
“It certainly would provide incentive, even if I don’t think we’d have a chance.”
“And you’d truly stay? You wouldn’t break your word a—”
“Little human, I have never broken my word.”
Bonnie didn’t take time to puzzle over this. She looked into Damon’s eyes—endless darkness there, unpierced by any ray of light—and she told herself firmly that she wasn’t going to faint. Damon was very different from Stefan, but what did it matter?
“Then do it,” she said hastily. “But do it quick, and somewhere Stefan won’t see it.
The back of my neck, maybe?”
She caught Damon staring at her. “You’d—”
“I’d do anything to help Fell’s Church. The people here are like my family. I’ve grown up with them. And this seems to be the only way I can try to help them.” Damon lifted her in his arms and turned her so that she faced away from him. But he did it slowly, as if fighting his way through molasses.
“You’re sure?” He seemed unable to believe, that after years of wooing Elena and her friends; after courting them and terrorizing them in turn, he had actually won the game.
“Yes,” Bonnie said. “Just be quick. Please.” What Bonnie was afraid of now was that Stefan and Meredith would finish too soon. Damon had hauled them into a little private clearing, so maybe there might be come excuse to make—but the whole thing would look bad. Boys made things so complicated.
“All right. I’ll make it quick,” Damon said in a dazed way. Then: “This will sting at first.”
“I know, I know.” Bonnie felt Damon’s breath on the back of her neck. He was holding up her hair, exposing her neck to the darkness. She shuddered, not because it was cold. Then she felt the touch of his lips there on her spinal cord, cooler than she would have imagined. He kissed her lightly and a wave of feeling went through her.
Damon, you let that girl go right now!
It was a voice from above like all the cliché’s for heavenly voices. It was otherworldly, like faraway bells, like silver. But its command was unnecessary. Damon had already dropped Bonnie and caught her, still falling, this time facing him.
Elena didn’t want them to.
Bonnie . . . over to . . . house . . . Damon . . . be ashamed!
Elena was fading but her meaning was clear. Damon however, did not look in the slightest ashamed.
“You’re still a baby, baby,” he told Bonnie lightly, and flicked her nose with his finger in a most insulting way. “Actually,” he went on, “I had already decided not to before she even spoke.. You’re not ripe yet. Blood always tells, and I can tell you’re not ready from here. Still—” He leaned over and graceful as a cat, licked the tiny wound on Bonnie’s chin.
She felt his tongue as a strong silkiness, not at all raspy like a cat’s tongue, leaving a coolness behind it that turned to warmth.
Bonnie groped for some response. It had to be a good one, since she’d just been rejected. But while she was still fumbling for swear words bad enough, Damon winked and said, “Don’t burst a blood vessel trying to make me too mad. After all, some day you will be ripe. And I’ve got a good memory.” And then, while Bonnie was still groping for some response, he took a step back and was gone, blending in with the darkness.
Stefan
“Bonnie? Bonnie!”
She appeared almost immediately, on her own two feet, and looking entirely unharmed. Well, maybe not entirely. She’d been crying.