Children Of The Damned

Damon

Waking up the next morning with Ana in my arms, snuggled against my chest, was something akin to a dream. I didn’t want to move for fear that I may wake her.

With what had passed between us, it was almost hard to believe that the rogue vampire had nearly killed her last night. But I knew that was something I would never be able to forget, even if I lived to be one thousand years old.

I knew that he must have been watching her the entire time we were at the party in order to have been able to attack her as soon as she walked away from the safety of a crowd; as soon as I had been foolish enough to leave her alone.

I also knew that I would be letting her out of my sight for even a minute until this vampire was caught and killed.

But for now, Ana slept, oblivious to the world around her, and I couldn’t help but let myself feel happy.

___________________________________________________________

Eliana

I opened my eyes and found my face nuzzled against Damon’s bare chest. I kissed the skin there and looked up to find that he had been watching me sleep.

“Good morning,” I said, stretching and letting my arms wrap around his neck.

“Good morning,” he echoed, pulling me against him and kissing my forehead.

“Hmmm.” I pressed my lips against his, running my fingers through his hair.

My stomach growled, ruining the morning.

“Did I work up your appetite?” he asked, laughing.

“Shut up!” I said, playfully smacking his shoulder. “Yes,” I laughed.

“How does a ham and cheese omelet sound to you?”

“You cook?”

“I learned a few things over the years. Plus, I do actually eat human food, so it’s good to know these things.

I was wearing his shirt, and I pulled on his sweatpants before we went down to the kitchen.

“Good morning, Damon…and Ana,” Stefan said. He was sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper.

I blushed furiously. What had he heard.

Almost as if he knew what I was thinking, he said, “Don’t worry. By the time I got home, you two were asleep. So, how early did you guys decide to ditch the party and have your own little celebration here?”

“Right after the rogue vampire tried to kill Ana,” Damon said nonchalantly. I winced.

“Ana? What happened?” Stefan asked, looking up from the paper for the first time to look at me. I could tell he was making an inspection of my person, looking for signs of an attack.

“Damon gave me some of his blood to heal me, so I’m fine. But I went for a walk around the Lockwood property and as soon as I got to the end of the path by the lake, he just came out of nowhere and attacked me. If Damon hadn’t come when he did, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you right now.”

“Damon, this is serious. Why didn’t you come and find me?”

“I wanted to get her cleaned up, Stefan,” Damon replied as if Stefan had asked the most asinine question on the face of the planet.

“I was a bit of a mess. I’ll probably have to burn my clothes.”

“But you’re okay now?”

“Yes.” More than okay, actually, I thought to myself.

“Well, what do you propose we do about all this?” Stefan asked Damon, who was already going about in the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and various cupboards, getting breakfast ready. The coffee was already brewing.

“I say what I have always said. Let’s kill the little fucker.”

“Well spoken,” Stefan stated in a disapproving tone.

“I thought so.”

It was hard to watch him move around shirtless and not go to him. There was an art to the way he moved, like watching the way a body in it’s prime moved. The muscles in his arms and shoulders tensed and un-tensed as he reached for things on shelves, picking things up and putting them down.

I forced my eyes to look away, and I sat at the table with Stefan, my fingers running over the smooth metal of my locket.

“So, how long have you two been tracking this vampire?” I asked.

“How did you know about that?” Damon asked, freezing in mid beat of the eggs.

“Lucky guess…no, Damon, I just happen to know that’s something you would do. I take it it’s not like you to sit back and do nothing.”

Stefan laughed at that. “So much for you being a mystery guy.”

“He’s never been good at hiding things from me.”

“She’s a mind reader, I swear she is,” Damon said, pouring the egg and ham mixture into a pan on the expensive looking stove.

“So, I know you might like this very much,” Stefan began, “but we are going to need to keep a very close eye on you until we find out more about this vampire.”

“Or, you could just pick a night to use me as bait, and then you could catch him and stake him before he has a chance to hurt anyone else, since he obviously didn’t meet his goal of killing me last night.”

“That’s an incredibly foolish idea,” Damon interjected, his eyes burrowing into mine.

“Have you got any better ideas?” I waited for a moment, and when he didn’t offer up a reply, I said, “I didn’t think so.”

“Absolutely not. I am not going to put you in danger again.”

“Damon, you didn’t put me in danger in the first place. I walked right into it all on my own. I was stupid, and it was my fault. End of story. Stop beating yourself up about something that wasn’t even your fault to begin with.”

Damon’s eyes furrowed, but he didn’t argue. Instead he presented me with a large plate of eggs and ham, and a cup of coffee.

“Thank you,” I said, kissing his cheek before he went over to help himself to what was left in the pan.

“I never thought this would actually happen,” Stefan said, looking at the two of us. “But I’m glad it did. Maybe Damon won’t be such an ass anymore.”

I just laughed.

___________________________________________________________________

My parents hadn’t even noticed that I wasn’t in my own bed last night. It was all too easy to sneak back up into my room, take a shower, and change into my own clothes.

While the hot water pounded on my back, I considered my options. Certainly, the vampire wasn’t going to give up now, not when he had failed in his goal of killing me. If anything, we had just pissed him off even more.

I didn’t want anyone to get hurt just because he couldn’t get to me.

Damon would never approve, but I wanted to make this all stop as soon as possible. I wanted us to be together, to be happy, without having to look over our shoulders every day and night.

When I got out of the shower, changing into jeans and a long sleeved black shirt and a powder blue sweater, my phone rang.

Unknown Number

I picked my phone up from off the desk and answered it. “Hello?”

“Hello, Eliana.”

I felt like I had lost the ability to breathe when I heard that familiar voice over the phone.

“How did you get this number?”

“Did you know how easy it was to compel Matt to tell me all about you? Tell me, why did you feel you needed to run away without so much as a forwarding address?”

“Why are you doing this?” I said, and my voice sounded strangled in my ears.

“I missed you, love. And I’ll be seeing you.”

He hung up the phone.

I was shaking so hard I had to sit down before my legs gave out on me.

One thing was for sure. I couldn’t tell Damon about this.