Predator, a vampire diaries fanfic

Predator

It was late and Elena still wasn't back from her date with Stephan, though she had said that she would be by the time the party began . The party had begun almost an hour ago and the house was crowded with guests and music equipment alike. Mat had brought his mixing tables and guests hadn't stopped arriving since seven o'clock – nearly four hours ago. Usually Bonnie would be yawning and making her excuses to leave by now, but she stood with her eyes wide open speaking quickly to Meredith, as if the words couldn't come quickly enough.

Meredith shook her head at Bonnie while keeping her eyes resolutely on Damon, her mind struggling to register so many things at once. What she was saying was kind of hard to believe, even of Damon. He had kidnapped her, the red-headed girl kept insisting, he had abused her in the worst kinds of ways. Of course, Meredith knew that Damon was capable of torture – but of rape? She hadn't thought he was capable of that.

"Are you sure?" the tall girl asked.

"As if I could have imagined it!" Bonnie whispered loudly, her voice as dry and over-used as if she had spent the night speaking continuously. Or screaming for help, Meredith thought all at once, imagining in her mind what her friend was describing. Ankles shackled to the wall of some underground prison, unable to move as he drew closer, unable to escape his hold on her body as he covered it with his own...

"Where's Elena?"

Bonnie spun in a circle once then shrugged her shoulders, "I don't know... last time I saw her..."

"No time," she said breathlessly, pulling Bonnie to her side, "We have to get out of here." It had taken a couple of moments for the implications to form, but once her brain could focus again on the world around he it seemed that she would suffocate if they were in the same room as the vampire any longer.

They had made it a foot from the door before Damon noticed that they were leaving. He knew without having to ponder it long that he could not let them leave this house or his sight – couldn't let Elena find out what he'd done. "Excuse me, but there's something I need to take care of." he told the woman he'd spent the last hour following in the hopes he could get her alone, and he moved away to follow the two girl's out of the room.

"What if he follows us out here?" Bonnie worried, trying to glance around Meredith to the door they had just exited by, "I don't know how I'll stand to see him again..."

"Where's your mobile?" Meredith asked, her eyes intent and dark.

Bonnie paused and then her shoulders fell. "In my bag," and before she could ask, "In the front hall."

"Great. Stay here, I'll find it and come straight back."

Bonnie nodded solemnly and wrapped her arms around herself. "Just be quick." And she watched as her friend disappeared into the house that was almost bursting at the seams.

Inside the house there was only noise and bodies and sweat. It smelt more and more terrible the further inside she got, more and more like a gymnasium changing room full of sweating writhing bodies. She tried to ignore the stench, but eventually she had to clench her nose between two fingers. She could still taste what lingered in the air, and she choked as she neared the front of the house.

A pail hand crept onto her shoulder like a spider made of ice and snow, "Where do you think you're going?" said a husky voice from behind her. He put emphasis on the you're as if she didn't really have a choice where she went at all – which was the truth, in a way.

"Damon." She said, trying not to let any of the fear she was feeling show in her voice.

"Meredith, what a pleasure," he said.

Bonnie turned just in time to see Meredith collapse to the floor, her eyes open wide but unseeing. The fear that stained her expression a mottled cream and white made her wide, unseeing eyes impossible to look away from. The same terror was solidifying inside of her too, but Bonnie was left not knowing what to do with it. Her insticts told her to run, even when her brain knew that she had no chance of escaping, but her legs felt like jelly and her head was light. Standing over her fallen friend stood a man clad in black from toe to neck. Only his face was visible, but that was worth more than a whole body's worth of bulging muscle.

She had only sworn once or twice in her whole life, but now her head was full of those forbidden words. Shit, Fuck, shit, shit, shit... His eyes were burning with something far darker and more violent than lust, and she knew that he didn't want just sex from her this time. Or maybe he did... she reconsidered. She should run, but her legs were frozen solid to the floor. She wanted to shout for Elena, but she couldn't, she was muted. Nothing she could have used to alert someone to her dawning peril seemed to be working as Damon smiled chillingly, his sharp white teeth glinting as he grinned.

"Come back for more?" he asked.

He was so handsome, standing there in his dark clothes and wearing that wry smile. It was really a shame that he was a monster... and she had to remember that, she had to. She couldn't allow herself to be drawn like a moth to a flame, or a moth to a venus fly trap, that was a better analogy. She knew that if she alowed him to draw her in she would never escape his clutches. She had to stay focused, it was either that or she would die—it was that simple. She hadn't come back for more, as he had suggested, but he had.

"Leave me alone, Damon. Please... I beg you..."

"Oh yes," Damon's smile grew broader, his teeth reflecting light back at her. "You have one thing right, Bonnie. You will be begging me by the time I'm through with you—maybe even before then, who knows?" He spread his arms out wide and Bonnie imagined being cadged within them. What he had in mind for her probably wouldn't be much different. "But I won't leave until I've gotten what I want." He smiled a smile that was full of wicked promises.

She held herself perfectly still as he pressed his body against her's, easily encompasing her own. Apart from doing what he said, exactly what he said, there was nothing she could do to protect herself, though it wasn't much of a sheild. Ever since the first time, she couldn't remember much about it other than how much it had hurt, she had been trying to tell herself that he would never have the chance to harm her again, mentally or phsically, but that was a dangerous line of thought to be on. She hadn't prepared—why hadn't she prepared—for something like it ever happening to her again, and she knew now that had been another in a long line of mistakes leading to this. She shoud have been more careful, but she hadn't and now she was here.

"I think it'd be best if we got you away from this party..." he looked around him as if seeing each wall for the first time.

"No..." the thought of being alone with him, truly alone, was enough to take her breath away. There would be no restraint once they were alone, and the thought of Damon, feral and knowing no limitations, was horrifying. Whatever she did, she could not leave the relative safety of this house...

"I can carry you out of here—easily." His voice was level yet threatening. Bonnie knew that he meant it, because he always meant what he said—always. If he had said he would throw her out of the window, the consequences be damned, she would have believed him.

One chance. "Ele—" She didn't get the chance to finish her shout, though what she did manage was loud enough to be heard downstairs, before her jaw was clamped tightly between two pale fingers. Tears sprung at the corners of her eyes and mixed with the eyeliner to make a soloution that was both painful and blinding. She was in Damon's grasp again, a senario that had been paguing her nightmares almost every night since the incident, and she was blind. Her eyes clamped tightly shut but she was still in pain from the makeup going into her eyes.

"Don't you fucking think about it." He growled close to her ear.

"Wvare arre you tcking me?" Bonnie's words came out jumbled, she had meant to ask where he was taking her, but he still had his fingers around her jaw and they restricted it's movement. Somehow, this more than anything made her feel vulnerable, because if she could not scream, who was there to hear her? In her relative innocense, she could not imagine what he had in store for her when they got to wherever they were going and they were alone. She didn't know what to think. Damon made no verbal responce, but she saw a muscle in his jaw jumped and his teeth ground together.

Damon took her deep into the forest, remaining stonely silent even as he hoisted her over his shoulder when it was clear that her short, human legs would not be able to keep up with his long strides between the trees. He had never felt so much like a predator as he did whenever he ventured this deep into the trees, and Bonnie had never felt so much like prey, either. He might as well be human most of the time, but here—here in the darkness he had nothing but his instinct and his hunger. Was it better? Yes and no. No, because his mind could not control his instincts, but yes, because it felt so good not to have to try anymore to be a good man.

He spoke finally. "Wait and see—it's a suprise."

She didn't like the sound of that. She knew that a suprise by his definition could be anything from a gift she had always wanted to something much darker and less pleasant. The more she thought about it, the more she worried what it might be. What if he was taking her to a slaughter house? What if he planned to take her again, in front of an audience? The thought of being made to preform was enough to bring bile up her throat. She wretched and saw that bright yellow stomach-juice had dribbled from her mouth and onto Damon's jacket, and she hoped it stained.

He peered down at her out the corner of her eye breifly before returning hos gaze to what was immediately before him. His lips pressed firmly together, as if whatever he wanted to say was having to fight it's way past them. His silence more than made up for his lack of words still, since the hungry expression in his eyes spoke volumes.

"Tell m-me."

He made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. Whatever the noise was, it only made his next words more sinister. "Well, since you seem to want to know," there was a joke that she wasn't getting, "I plan to make a meal out of you, my dear."

That didn't sound good. "A meal?" Her voice was so quiet that she could not hear it herself.

"Yes—a feast on your body. Do you know that I haven't fed properly since I came to this god-forsaken town? Do you have any idea how long it's been since I drained a body?" His smile was hungry and indulgent at the same time.

"You're—you're going to drain me? Why?"

"Let's see," now his voice was that of a bored child having to recite an age-old mantra, or something else equally tedious. "Yes, I do plan on taking your blood too. I enjoy taking blood. I'm a vampire, it's what we do. Why? Why ask that question? Shouldn't it be obvious? Blood is what makes me what I am—I need it to survive—"

She interrupted him before she lost the nerve to speak at all. "No, that's not what I meant. I meant, why me?"

He stopped moving and turned to face her fully, his eyes darkened to pools of black. "I'm a predator, Bonnie," obviously, "this is what I do." As if to demonstrate his point, Damon unceramoneously dropped her to the leafy ground and dropped onto her like an eagle from high above. "And as prey goes, you're the perfect candidate." He spoke the words so close to the skin of her neck that a fang caught and grazed her skin with each word, "Sweet—little—Bonnie."

*#*

"Now that you are going to behave and stay still," he smiled a cruel smile as he laid down on the floor beside her, "let us begin the show." He nodded towards the trees behind her and she wanted to see whatever he was he gestured towards.

She tried to move her heard, but it was just too hard. All the muscles in her body, including the ones in her neck, felt as though they were paralysed, though in truth she could hardly feel them at all. That was, after all, the place where he had taken the most blood, and it was really no wonder that it should feel numb now. Maybe it was even a blessing, since the blinding pain of the bite had faded with the rest of the feeling in her body, because the embarrassment and fear was strong enough on their own, and he hadn't fully violated her yet.

"You are delicious," he said, rolling over onto his side so he could face her directly. "Like strawberries. I think I might have enjoyed strawberries as a human, but I know I love them now." He carressed her cheek with one hand while losing the other one in her hair.

She couldn't tell him to leave her the hell alone like she wanted to. Whenever she tried to open her mouth to say something her lips remained resolutely closed. Damon had told her not to make a sound before he had taken her blood, and since that time she had not been able to speak. It wasn't even just her lips that would not work, she couldn't even humm. The compulsion to do as he said was strong and she knew, with dread, that this would remian the case until he chose to release her.

With lightening fast speed he tore the clothes from her body so that they lay in ribbons somewhere beyond her reach. She barely had time to register that she was now naked before she felt him lift her numb body up off the floor and up against a nearby oak.

"... but Oak trees were the most sacred."

She remembered telling her friends about trees once, when being related to druids had been new and exciting, and could almost feel the natural energy flowing from it into her.

Bonnie's body was pressed into the rough bark of the tree with the force of his thrust, and it hurt so much. Why of all the people to prey upon had he chosen her? Sure, she was an easy catch, but she would have thought that he would want something more of a challange. Wasn't she a bit boring, at least compared to Elena or Caroline or Meredith? Especially Meredith, with all her fighting skills. Why not Caroline or Elena? They were much more pretty than she was. Why her?

"Why me?" she asked him in an uneven voice, practically vibrating with fear over what she might have done to deserve his attention again. If she could have run, she would have, but the paralysis still had an unbreakable grip on her body. Even if he gave her a chance to escape she wouldn't have been able to move a muscle in the opporsite direction. If she could only understand what his motives were, then maybe she could persuade him to let her go.

"Are you enjoying this, Bonnie? Does it make you feel good?" His hands on her waist were so large and so strong that she bet that he could crush her hip bones if he wished to, and his fingers... his fingers were nimble and quick. With just one hand, he could bring blinding pleasure, and also blinding pain—the duality was so damned hot that it was one of his greatest weapons in his extensive arsenal, and what was worse was that he knew how to use them.

She struggled not to allow her lips to curl upwards. The last thing she wanted was for Damon to think that she wanted this, or that she was enjoying this. "You didn't... answer... my—question..." She managed to get the words out, but the tension in them would have been obvious to anyone listening.

"You are enjoying this, Bonnie, aren't you?" The pleasure in his voice was obviously more from the fact that he had been correct than because of anything else he was doing to her. His stamina was amazing she had to admit, and she also had to admit that in a dark place inside she was enjoying everything he did to her. What was wrong with her that she should feel that way?

"No," she panted, struggling to hold back the sensations that would surely show on her face if she allowed them to wash over her. She could hardly speak although she continued, "No... I am... not" Damn, she was going to have to give in any second.

His speed increased until, even when his head was only about an inch away, his outlines began to blur. But she was too terrified to feel anything more than the pain of being taken against her will. She wanted to scream, to call for help, to doing something, but she was increasingly short of breath.

"You don't have to lie to me, red-bird. We're alone—"

Her orgasm spilled over him in wave after wave of pleasure, until all she could hear was the rapid beating of her heart as it forced blood away from her brain. It was as if he had pushed a switch inside of her and control was but a myth, washed away into the sea of worries and fear. She realised, in the first moment of clear thought after the onslaught of her own body's responce, that the skin of her back no longer hurt as it should do from the friction of her movements against it.

"Mother-fanged-fucker!" Damon shouted, leaping away from her with a movement so fast that it was just a blur to her eyes. He was clutching his hand, staring down at it with a mixture of pain and suprise etched on his face. He stared around him, wide-eyed, at the forest and visibely stiffened. Did he have to avoid trees too, now, as well as sunlight?

He had blanched from her so suddenly that she had had no time to break her fall to the ground, and protect her tender flesh from twigs and the gnarled roots of the oak. Her first sound, unsuprisingly to herself, was a whimper of pain.

"What the hell did you do to me?" he shouted, obviusly in some discomfort, "What witchcraft did you use on me?"

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him, that even if this was her doing, she wouldn't be dumb enough to do as he said, but she was still sore and doubted her body could take much more abuse. She wasn't stupid, she wanted to tell him. She studied the tree that had rescued her, trying to understand how an inaminate object could do such a thing. Had she misunderstood the special relationship between witches and nature? Was it in fact more powerful than she had ever suspected?

Turning, she took her chances and ran deeper into the woods, hoping that the forest would assist her in escaping too. She ran faster than she had ever before, her feet finding nothing on the leafy floor to trip over or slow her down. She had no idea if this was Nature's doing too, but she grateful for the clear path out regardless. A competition of human against vampire in terms of speed was no competition at all, but a human with trees on her side made it one. Maybe his sun-ring would be taken from him and then he would trapped in the shadows until nightfall. She would be home by then and safe.

She swallowed down her dread about that night and continued onwards towards the road.

~#~

Neither Meredith nor Elena would answer their cells, though Bonnie had tried calling them both a number of times during the hour that she had been home. It was five o'clock and the winter sun had long since sunken beneath the horizon, leaving the sky such a dark colour that she could easily believe it was black, and the colour black reminded her of him.

Why did he always seem to wear black? So he wouldn't be seen coming up her drive from the road...

There was a knock on the front door downstairs and she jumped about half a mile into the air. She waited and listened... praying to hear any other voice... praying to god that it wouldn't be him.

Bonnie sank to the floor, clutching her head and moaning softly. Why had she not considered the possibility that he would use the front door to get to her? It was an obvious floor in her plan to keep herself safe from him, now that she thought about it, so how could she have not seen this coming? Her bedroom window had seemed like the most obvious place before, and she had hoped that if he was seeking something to vent his violent tendancies on that it would be her he came to. But what if she was wrong, and he planned to hurt her in a different way instead? How could she protect her parents from a creature that could charm them into submission before she had any chance to convince them otherwise?

Downstairs, her parent's opened the door wide and graciously invited Damon past the threshold. From what Bonnie could hear from behind the closed door of her room, he was speaking to them, or telling them something. What that something could be she had no idea, but her witches' third eye twitched in apparent alarm. She had to wonder why he kept his voice so low unless he knew that she would be listening. The next thing she heard was the front door opening, and for a few precious seconds she imagined them telling him to leave.

Did she dare look out the window to watch him leave—what if he saw her? Would that make him change his mind? It didn't take her long to make up her mind that seeing him walk away was the only way to make sure he truly left. She krept to the window and gently raised the blinds, all her concentration going into making sure that they did not rustle. She parted the plastic just enough so that she could see the path and the pavement beyond it.

And that was when she knew she was as good as damned to whatever circle of hell he had in mind for her.

A minute went by without another sound from downstairs, and Bonnie knew she had three options what to do next. She could stay huddled up here in her room, waiting until he left the house before rejoining the rest of the human race, or she could jump out her bedroom window and see how far she could run before Damon caught up with her. It would not take long before he caught her. Or, and this option frightened her the most, she could go downstairs and meet him there, just as he wanted. Was there any point in delaying the enevitable when her fate rested in his hands?

But she didn't want to, knew she couldn't, give him what he wanted. He did not have to elaberate any more than he already had... he would have her whether she wanted to be had or not. Her private parts throbbed with the memory of that first time and, even when she knew she didn't want it, she was fighting duel emotions. She wanted him to stop sexually harrassing her, and she needed him to touch her again. She squirmed, not at all sure what to do.

There was something heavy in her pocket that she had almost forgotten about—her phone. Did she dare call anyone when there was a risk that she could be overheard? With numb fingers, she pressed a sequence of buttons on her anceint handset and held the phone up to her ear. It rang, rang, rang but Elena still did not answer her call. She felt like grumbling but didn't dare make a sound if she didn't have to. With his vampiric hearing, she bet that Damon would be able to hear her from downstairs, even if she whispered. And then he would come for her. She gulped and put the phone back into her jacket.

There was a noise from below her and her head shot up as she listened hard. Muffled voices rose up, followed by two heavy thuds on hard-wood floor—her heart thudded hard and slow in her chest as she waited to hear anything else. There had to be something else, there simply had to, because her parents had to be alright. Although they were just as fragile and easy to hurt as she was, having them between her and Damon felt like a sort of protection. She just needed to hear their voices, and then she would know that they were alright—that she had something to protect her from him. She waited and waited and waited.

He made his way up the stairs, making no effort to conceel the sound of his feet on each step because he knew that she knew that he was scoming for her. He had never felt so desperate for a girl before, and this, more than anything else, brought the violence close to the surface. He did not want to be wanting her so badly, it was an addiction and a curse. He didn't want her to struggle, but he knew she would, and probably call for help, and he had ways to shut a girl up.

She wished that she hadn't chosen to hide in her bedroom since it was the worst place to be. Bonnie took her phone back out and dialled a number.

~#~

Elena put her pail hand on her hip and winked at her reflection in the mirror. This was definetly the dress, she decided. With her cute black stilletto heels this dress would blow whatever Caroline wore tonight out of the water. Her golden hair hung loose down her back and her earings glistened in the shine of the light hanging from the cieling. She loved the way the silk felt against her legs whenever she moved, and she imagined how the fabric would twist around them as Stefan twirled her on the dance floor.

"So, what do you think? Too slutty?"

Meredith looked up from where she had been staring into the slightly garish rug at the centre of the room and attempted a smile. "No, it's absolutely fabulous... Elena, have you seen or spoken to Bonnie today? I tried to call her but she wouldn't answer her phone..." For some reason she sounded as if there was something troubling her.

"I called her after I called you, but she didn't pick up. Why?" She still stood facing the mirror, but her expression had become just as distant and detatched as Elena's own. "Do you think... Elena, do you think something might be happening?"

Something had changed.

~#~

The door opened and she tucked herself deeper into the shadows under her bed. Her heart was racing, her breathing was quick and shallow, and she knew she was making too much noise. Her pulse she couldn't help, nor could she stop her breathing, but she could try not to make any other sound. "Come out, come out wherever you are..." he murmured. First he opened the wardrobe and began to pull out pieces of her clothing. She watched as he searched her room, her breath held, and prayed that he would not think to check here.

"Bonnie..." he sang, the strain evident on his face not showing at all in his voice. "Bonnie..."

She wanted to tell him to leave her alone but she knew he would not listen to her and she knew she did not have the guts to give herself up in exchange for him leaving her bedroom in one piece. There was still no sound from her parents downstairs, and she felt sick when she wondered why that would be. Had he killed her parents because of her? All because she refused to allow him access to her? Was she to blame for their murders?

His feet appeared just a few centimetres away from the bed and she felt herself freeze. She held her breath and promised the heavens that she would do or be anything if only he wouldn't think to look beneath it.

"Don't make me come and get you, Bonnie. It will be much worse for you..." His voice held amusement, as if he were a cat playing with the mouse, knowing that it's dinner was as good as gotten already. His knees bent gracefully and he reached a long fingered hand into the shadows where she lay. "Gotcha."

She fought him as pulled her out of the darkness and lay her out on the floor beneath him, but it was useless, she knew. Even when he kissed her passionately on the lips she felt nothing, only the weight of his mental demands on her mind for her body to connect with his. She would never be used to being his to do with what he liked.

"You are mine," he told her sternly, watching her struggles with annoyance on his face. "Don't ever forget who owns you..." he breathed into her ear as he made yet another mark on her body. "Since the first time I ever marked you you have been mine—all mine."

She may not have agreed to be his slave, but what slave ever did?

Bonnie felt her knees begin to wobble from fatigue and leant against the wall, all the while hoping that he did not notice. It was unlikely that he had missed anything she had done in the last forty minutes since he had ordered her to stand in this corner. Her legs bore half a dozen red cuts, all from the cane that now rested on the floor, and as she stood there they burned as if they were on fire. Despite her reluctance to do as he said she would do anything not to feel the bite on her legs again, even submit to him like he seemed to want her to. She could be submissive, she could call his master and do as she was told, she was used to it.

He smiled toothily at her, occasionally wetting his bottom lip with his tongue. She was so innocent it was delicious; his mouth watered at the idea of stripping her of it one piece at a time. He hadn't had an innocent for over five hundred years, ever since Katherine, and this was going to be so much better because she hadn't ever been truly his. Not like Bonnie was going to be, anyway. "Don't let those legs give way under you, sweetheart, you know what will happen if they do..." He swore that he could still hear the echoes of her screams bouncing off the walls above him.

~#~

"Stefan?" Elena didn't know why her voice was questioning—it wasn't likely to be anyone else other than him. Her tone was such because his voice was so strange.

"Elena, I think some thing's wrong."

"Wrong?" She glanced at Meredith and saw that the girl was giving her one of those probing looks. "What do you mean wrong? Is something wrong with you, or with Damon?" She didn't know why she cared how Damon was doing, she knew that she just did.

On the end of the phone Stefan gave a short, humourless laugh. "I don't know where Damon is, but I doubt that he is with Bonnie. I can't imagine them having too much in common." His pause buzzed down the phone. "What about Bonnie, you don't know where she is?"

~#~

"I'm bored of this game," Damon was on his feet and standing in front of her in the blink of an eye. He took a quick look at her before he continued, his voice jovial, "Let's try a different position." He moved her to her bedroom window and positioned her so that her bare chest was pressed up against the chilling coldness of the window pane. Anyone looking up at her bedroom window from outside would be able to see her naked breasts, and that thought both horrified her and her hot. How could he still make her feel these things? It shouldn't have been possible.

"Fuck!" Bonnie yelped at the feel of the freezing cold glass against her skin. She had never felt so vulnerable, cold, and embarrassed in her entire life, and as the seconds dragged by the erotic feeling grew.

Damon laughed and slapped her rear as if in admonishment for her language, all the while murmuring that she was being a good girl.

The next day, the phone rang and Damon answered. "McCullough residence, Bonnie's room."

"Damon?"

Who was this? "Who may I ask is calling?" He asked politely, his brow furrowed.

"Damon? It's Elena. What... are you doing at Bonnie's house this early?"

"You're a averagely smart girl, Elena. I'm sure you can guess."

"But... you didn't, did you?" She sounded more concerned than he would have expected. Touched a sore spot did we?

"I did. I fucked her brains out," he paused, thought about it, "metaphorically speaking of course."

"You're not going to get away with this, Damon. We're going to get Bonnie back no matter—"

"Sorry to burst your bubble, princess, but I think I already have." He disconnected the call and refocused his attention on his prisoner, who was now inching her way towards the bedroom's door.

"I've... got to go," he told Elena down the phone, his tone unhurried and casual. "Things to see, people to do—you know how it is, don't you Elena?" It was a rhetorical question, as he already knew the answer, He disconnected with a swift jab of his thumb on a button. He slowly stood, stretched muscles that didn't need to be, and cocked his head to the side as if he could not quite understand why the girl was even bothering. Didn't she know who, and what, she was dealing with? Even if she did, he would pleasure in showing her; with a lightening fast movement, he reached for her.

Bonnie gave a cry and dropped to the floor, her eyes filling with tears of pain. Dammit.

"Where are you going? I don't recall giving you permission to leave." It surprised him how easily he had taken to his role as her master. If such a thing had been proposed to him even a week ago he might have refused it, but now he realised that it was the innocence that turned him on the most. The type of body she possessed wasn't anything special but he could work around that if he had to. With the barest amount of restraint he slapped her twice on both cheeks. "I will teach you since you still don't seem to understand."

She finally looked up at him with burning eyes and asked, through lips that seemed to have swollen to double their usual size, "What lesson... what will you do... sir?" Her cheeks flushed with mortification as she mumbled the last. How had she been reduced to this? And how would she ever break free from the metaphysical chains he bound her with?

He smiled almost kindly down at her and nodded, "Good girl. You remembered." Because if she didn't remember... his smile broadened. "But you still need to be punished, don't you slave?"

She swallowed down the sudden deluge of saliva that had built in her mouth. This was the part of her training that she had always found most difficult, the total submission and lack of freewill—she wasn't stupid enough to think she had any. And she wasn't stupid enough to think that this was simply a game to him, either. He took his role seriously, and she knew that he was not pretending to want to hit her. He wanted it... he wanted it bad, she could taste it in the air.

"Yes, sir, I do." He gave her a stern look, "I need to be put in my place—ah!" He hadn't even given her the time to finish the sentence before he struck her, open-handed, on her chest. Somehow this hurt so much worse than the strike to her face.

"Bitch," he snarled suddenly, "you like this don't you?" He stopped hitting her just long enough to hear her say the words. He knew he didn't need one, not as her master, but he wanted any excuse to rip more cries from her mouth. He hadn't expected that he would enjoy her little-girl cries as much as he did, before, and he knew that it was disgusting. Even in his darkest times, when his humanity had been forced to take a permanent back seat to his lust for death, he had never consciously gone after children for his dinner, and yet the child-like pleas made his excitement grow.

"Y-y-yes, sir." She wanted to know what he had done to her parents downstairs; they were deathly silent and she worried. Would she have to call an ambulance? Somehow she doubted that her master would allow her near the phone. She also doubted that he would call human officials to the place where he was holding her captive. What to do, what to do?

A knock at the front door made both of them flinch, but Bonnie was the first to make a sound. She said, her voice unaccustomedly rough with residual sex. "Elena?"

Damon hissed like a snake about to attack and growled something too low to be understood. In one swift motion he swept from the room, still naked, leaving Bonnie equally so laying flush on the carpet wearing nothing but their combined sweat and his excess lust,

Downstairs, the door opened.

Damon grew still, and said through clenched teeth, "Go downstairs—tell her to leave. Don't talk to her other than to tell her to go and not come back, you know that I will hear you if you say anything more..." And then he would to demonstrate the things that he could do to her. He would enjoy slapping her around a bit, so he was in two minds about what he really wanted her to do.

With a shove on her bare back he pushed her towards the door.

Bonnie felt her centre throbbing, her cheeks grow hot, but she did her best to ignore the feeling as she made her way down the stairs to where Elena was peeking her hair around the door. There weren't words for the relief she felt at seeing a friendly face, but at the same time she wanted her to run away while she still could. Was she ashamed? She knew that she shouldn't be, despite the fact that she was more embarrassed than she had ever been before. She opened her mouth to tell her to leave, but paused. This was probably her last and only chance and she would be a fool to waste it.

"Elena," she whispered, ignoring the shocked look the girl was giving her nude body, instead focusing on being as quiet as she could be. She could not allow herself to be overheard, she thought. "You have to leave. I'm being... held hostage—"

There was a crashing sound from the second floor and both the girls flinched. Bonnie's face turned a deathly shade of white. Why, oh why had she not just done as she was told?

"Bonnie..." even his voice was masterful and it seemed fill the air around her with it's vibration. It felt as though all the blood was being drained from her as the beat of her heart accelerated and she waited to know what he would do next. She hadn't understood what being a submissive meant before, but now it was all that she was aware of. It was like a pressure in her chest, a coldness so bitter that to deny it felt like being bathed in an icy pool. Mentally, she knew that he couldn't make her do anything she didn't want to do, at least not from a distance, but her heart yearned for the fulfilment that cane with pleasing him.

"Bonnie... by who?" Elena looked past her to the stairs and the upper floor beyond. "Who's up there?"

The order came from inside her own head. Don't tell her that I am here, it was his voice and it was so clear that he might have been standing beside her. Tell her that you're... sick, and think you might be infectious. There was even laughter in his mental voice, and she bet that he was wearing that half-smile that was his trademark.

She wanted to tell her that it was Damon but didn't dare enrage him any more than she could help. "No one.. N-No one is here—just me. I'm sick, probably something contagious. You should go."

"Damon? Is Damon up there?"

"No!" Bonnie shouted, something she rarely did. She shut the door before she could do anything else even remotely stupid. She had already done enough, and she gulped thickly, gazing up the stairs. She had said too much and now she was going to really be punished, she knew it. If only Elena hadn't come, maybe then she would be able to bring some kind of humanity out of Damon, but now she knew she had no chance.

Up the stairs it was completely silent; she heard every creak of every step as she climbed them, every breath that came out of her, ever tick of the clock in her parent's bedroom. She felt like a mouse who knows that it is being hunted by the cat but has nowhere to hide. He would not have left her without finishing, but that knowledge made her more wary. He had had centuries upon centuries of hunting to perfect the skill and it would haven taken a vampire with a lot less experience to sneak up on her from behind. Even when she was almost absolutely sure that he hadn't followed her downstairs, she still felt the tingles at the back of her neck, as if she were being watched by something just past her shoulder.

"Damon?"

Still nothing.

"Damon, where are you?" A masculine laugh from behind her.

"Thought you would disobey me, did you?" His arms wrapped around her, holding her immobile with more strength than was really necessary. With a shove, he brought her to her knees and wrenched her head up so she would have no choice but to look into his eyes. They burned with an anger that she had never seen in them before, and it was an anger that sent excitement straight to her loins. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction he was intent on getting from her, but as she stared up at him with wide eyes she thought she understood what her best and only choice was.

She would play along until she could break free, she had no other choice.

He was very, very drunk and he sounded it. "I think you need to be taught a lesson, my dear," he said, tapping the tip of the caine against his palm just hard enough to make a loud slapping sound that was as much of a warning as the order that she do as he said, or else. She was meant to just kneel here on the floor and not try to escape when he hit her? What kind of sense did that make?

Without another word, Damon approached her and watched as she cowered. This was good, this was very good. Her subservient behaviour was natural, as natural as her fiery hair, and perfect for what he wanted to do. In a way he was glad that Elena had denied him this, because if she had allowed him this much access to her body he probably would have never had Bonnie. He preferred his women to want to please him, not the other way around.

"W-w-what kind of lesson... sir?" He had insited that she call him that since she was now all his. She didn't want to feel this excitement, but she could not deny the electricity that was running through her veins. Maybe it was fear, instead, she had no way of knowing—she didn't want to find out.

"You will not be able to move until I am finished with you," Damon told her, his voice heavy with compulsion he was using as he spoke, as he cuffed her hands to the end of the banastair; this way she would not be able to cover up her nakedness with her hands, and his eyes could roam over every inch of her skin uninterupted. He tightened the final strap and stood back to admire his work. Not bad, he had to admit.

Bonnie squirmed in her own skin. She had lost her clothes while she had been upstairs, but her nudity hadn't been such of a problem there. Here, where it was bitterly cold, she felt as though everyone in the world could see her pale pink, almost white, almost naked body, and it sent her heart racing.

"Stop." She metaphysicaly put two hands on his chest and pushed as hard as she could, though not nearly enough. If he felt the pressure he did not show it, and even smiled serenely, as if nothing she could do would ever concern him. Bonnie felt as though she were speaking to a deaf, blind, mute with the lack of reaction she got from him. Despite herself, she felt concerned that he could have poisoned himself with alcohol. Maybe that last bottle of bourbon was a bottle too much, even for a vampire with Damon's constitution, because for the first time since all this began he was in no state to chase after her if she tried to escape.

He slurred his words, "Ever since I came to this town, your innocense has captured my attention," he saw her scowling, "Don't look at me like that, you know what I mean. When I first saw you I knew that you weren't like the other girls in this town. I knew that you were the only tame one." A smile suddenly spread across his face, making him even more beautiful. "The things I want to do to you..." He leant in so close that she could smell mint under the delugé of alcohol and cigarettes.

Slowly, as if backing away from a sleeping tiger that might, at any second, wake up, she tip-toed to the door. She knew how to move silently when she had to, sometimes Elena's schemes depended solely on not getting caught, but silent was a different thing entirely when it was a vampire you were trying to sneak away from.

~#~

Thankfully, the steps were made out of a wood that was strong enough to take her weight easily and didn't make a sound that would have alerted Damon to her escape. If god be willing, she would reach the last step, cross the entrance-room to the front door, and slip out with out him noticing she was even gone. She reached the bottom and froze.

Standing infront of her was Elijah, with Elena close behind.

~#~

Damon wondered how many men around the world had awoken thinking to himself, never again, and thought it was probably a few. They all drank again despite this tortureous hangover, and so would he, probably. "Good morning..." he murmured, patting the empty bed beside him. The alcohol really hadn't done him any favours, because it was only then that he noticed that apart from him the bed was empty.

Where had... who had been with him? Vaguely he wished that he could remember, but the desire was slippery and it was impossible to grasp hold of. He knew he should care, but the light from outside was giving him the mother of all headaches and it all seemed like too much effort. Even answering the phone, when it rang a few seconds after, felt like the greatest feat ever undertaken by man or beast.

"Hello?" he murmured, but Elena was shouting so loud down the phone that he couldn't be sure her weak, human ears had heard him.

"Hold a minute, slow down. Bonnie's what?"

Elena continued her torrent of speach without a moment to take another breath.

"I'm not finished with you, but because of you Bonnie's life is in danger. Goodbye, Elena." He hung up the phone and crushed it in his hands, trying to ignore the little Damon inside his head that seemed on the brink of tears.

What had happened to Bonnie, and what did that little boy know that the older Damon didn't?

Elena fell back, her arms waving uselessly at her sides, and landed on the floor with a thud that she could feel vibrating in the floor boards at her back. She had known that there would be some kind of backlash from him, but this she hadn't expected. It was only now that she understood what she had been blind to from the very beginning—that Damon was lethal when he wanted to be, and until now he had never wanted to be that way with her. It hurt, especially after all that she had done for him, and she felt tears stinging her eyes even as she tried to hold them back.

"Please... Damon, stop..."

"Isn't this what you had in mind, Elena?" His pressed the toe of his boot into her chest and he could practically feel her ribs groaning, ready to snap. Not that he cared about her damned ribs, they could crumble into dust for all he cared—none of it mattered. He was seething with a rage he hadn't, even in all his years as an immortal, ever felt before. The things he wanted to do to her... He wanted to make her understand his pain and his fury. "Why did you do it!?" he bellowed.

"I thought... I thought that if Bonnie understood... that she would know—" Her words were cut off with a swift kick from him. Her cry of pain was so pathetic that Damon considered killing her now and ending her pain. But that wouldn't teach her a lesson, would it? He wanted her to know the mistake she had made, to remember her place as a mortal in a world built for immortal vampires.

"Listen to this, Elena, because I'm only going to say it once more," he gestured in a motion that encompassed them both. "This will never work; We will never work, Elena. I have listened to you say it a dozen times, so this time listen to me. I am done with you—Katherine—this town. But Bonnie matters to me, more than anything else ever could." he visibly gulped, his throat muscles flexing as he worked to swallow the saliva filling his mouth. "What do I have to do to convince you?"

~#~

Elijah released her from his death-grip and looked down at her, his compassionate eyes revealing that he was troubled. About what? About kidnapping her? Or about something else entirely? It was difficult to know when the rest of his face was as cold and stony as the statue of him she was sure was in a museum somewhere. She would have given anything to know what he was thinking, if only so she was not left hanging. He sighed as he gazed up at the sky.

"Don't you just love looking up at the stars?" he asked suddenly.

Huh? She thought the word but stopped herself before she could make a sound. "Yes..." It was more difficult to speak than she would have ever believed with him so close. He stood motionless, his head tilted to the sky, but it felt to her as if he was slowly but surly edging closer to her.

When she did not answer, the Original finally shifted position so he was facing her, "Have you ever... slept under the stars before?" With each word he murmured he was moving closer, just as with every one she heard she was moving back. What did he have in mind?

"Don't touch me... please..." Within moments of him turning to face her he was by her side, his arm easily fitting around her waist, his lips dangerously close to her neck. Whether it was his intention or not, his proximity sent her pulse racing and the artery in her neck throbbing deliciously. This wasn't the only thing throbbing, but she refused to acknowledge the pounding she was receiving from lower down.

"It will be better for you if you just... do as I say..." his tone now was predatory, that of the wolf rather than the man. Whether he meant for his words to sound so sultry yet threatening was unclear to her. His chest was cold when it pressed firmly against her and rock solid, like other places. Bonnie didn't want to even consider now what he might be thinking—it was just too horrible. It should not have been possible, when Damon had cornered her she had felt as though he were the ultimate predator, but she realised now that he had been only a weak representation of the real thing. As Elijah bent his head to her neck, she found the strength to ask one more thing.

"What does Elena get... because she helped you?"

"Damon." He said grimly.

~#~

"... Aren't I enough?" Elena was on the brink of tears, her delicate features tinted with red from the flush that was quickly creeping up her neck, "Aren't I what you've wanted for almost half a millennia?"

"We all make mistakes." He felt so cold towards her that his breath should have carried frost. Why did she have to make it all about her, all the bluddy time? "And thankfully I've learnt from mine, unlike little brother. I wonder how many friends you will have once they learn the truth?"

He cleared his throat. "Where... is.. she, Elena?"

"The old church." Her face crumpled and the tears flowed, her face awash with tears and shame,

"You better be gone when I come back." Was all he said as he jumped head-first into whatever trouble was coming his way; he never planned to attack, he just did.

"Why, exactly, did you want me?" Bonnie was stuck sitting in the grass outside the ruined church building, making herself as small as possible by hugging her knees to her chest, and her mind was full enough with thoughts that even the concept of getting her new jeans dirty didn't concern her. She would probably get blood on them at some point—and blood never came out in the wash, but luckily normal dirt did. "Why not Elena?" She came to you of her own free will, didn't she? If you wanted another power to draw from, why not a doppelgänger, why a witch? Why her?

Elijah cocked his head to the side like a playful puppy, and his smile was slightly twisted as if he was thinking something that left a sour taste in his mouth. "You really want to know?" He paused, as if expecting her to answer. "I wanted you—still want you—because there is something about you that is so compelling," he smiled a wolfish grin that revealed all of his pristinely white teeth, "that I simply can't stay away," he shrugged, as if he thought that this explanation should be enough to satisfy her, "There's nothing more to it than that." His words held more than their meaning; She wasn't just imagining the threat, she knew. "I'm used to getting what I want, Bonnie." And I want you.

"I know." she whispered, feeling all the blood drain from her face. I know only too well.

"You understand then, what I mean, when I say that I want you?" He paused in his pacing outside the ruin and gave her a look that was full of the burning heat of passion and icy determination. In all the time that she had known him, she had never seen this much emotion from him. "I will have you—you're mine, to do with as I please."

"What are you doing!" She couldn't help her voice rising into a shout as his hands clasped around her wrists—holding them together above her head.

~#~

"Is this what you wanted from me, Elena?" He knew he should be preparing himself for saving Bonnie, but this was the first time he had seen Elena tied up and he was loving it. Who knew that the sight of her bound, naked, chained to the bed would give him so much sexual satisfaction? He loved that he could do anything to her right now and she would be helpless to do anything about it?. But he would never do this to Bonnie, because no pleasure was good enough to make him want to inflict pain on her.

"...ease...m...eee" Her words were muffled from the piece of sponge that was stuffed into her mouth, but that was not why Damon ignored her—he just didn't care. He wasn't finished withe her yet, and until he was, she would be going nowhere without his permission. She struggled against the leather straps that held her down.

"No, I don't think so..." he said, running the tip of the caine down the inside of her thigh, making her whimper and stiffen. He was having too much fun to ever let her go. "I don't think you've learnt your lessons..." He purposefully left every sentance he spoke unended; her mind would do it for him, and sometimes that was better.

Her eyes widened. There were more?

Damon was almost out the door when Stefan appeared out of the shadows. He was wearing black, which meant that he was probably in one of his brooding moods. Great. Damon made a point of not making eye contact, or any other sign that he had noticed him standing there, but he could not help making one last quip before exiting, the moment called for it. "Your girlfriend came on to me again, brother, whatever you're doing with her must not be enough." A fist came flying at him with vampiric speed, so fast it was less than a blur, but he caught it centimetres from his face.

"Elena would never come onto you, Damon. She told me just last night how she wished you would just leave FellsChurch and never come back,"

"Did she now? That's strange." He was being purposefully evasive; Saint Stefan wasn't off his shit list either right now; he was just as bad as Elena—guilt by assosiation. Maybe he should tell him the state of the said "girlfriend" upstairs? That would shut him up. "I think she's waiting for you upstairs."

~#~

Elijah used a golden key to release her from the shackles, and caught her easily when she fell forwards into his arms.

"No more..." she mumbled into his shoulder, "... no more..." She couldn't take much more punishment, even though she knew there would be more to come. "Damon..." She whispered his name like a prayer for an angel.

"What makes you think he's coming for you?" he said cruelly. "What makes you think he even knows where you are? You would do well to remember whose hands your life is is at the moment," as if to make his point he took a breast in each hand and squeezed roughly. "Whose hands are these?"

"Yours."

Stefan went up the stairs carefully, weary now that there he might find something up here that he would not like. At least he knew that Elena was alive, he could hear her heart as it raced in her chest, and that Damon hadn't killed her, which was something. He had been so worried, after finding his brother radiating with so much furious energy, that he had feared the worst; he was relieved that Damon hadn't wanted her dead—because then she would be.

Elena? His voice in his mind was more confident than his physical voice would have been. He climbed the last step to the upper landing and stopped dead in his tracks.

Elena was up against the wall with her hair like a curtain over her hanging head. There was no blood on her pale skin, nor on her pristine clothes, but Stefan could tell that she was only partly conscious. He tried to touch her mind with his but he came upon a brick wall, or whatever the metal equillivant was. His thoughts felt the surface of this wall, trying to find a way past it, but before he succeed he realised that her stillness was more sinister than he had first believed and she was not breathing.

Bonnie felt as though she were dying a little inside as she crawled to him on her hands and knees, keeping her eyes on the floor. The marks his open hand had left on her butt seemed to grow hotter and hotter with each centimetre she moved forwards, as if her body wanted to be fed on and was sending blood straight to the surface of her skin. She knew that her sensibilities were too fragile to take much more of this abuse, but what choice did she have other than to do what she was told—exactly what she was told? If she disobayed him again, the strikes on her tender flesh would only get harder, and the blood he desired most of all would tempt him even more.

"The things I want to do to you right now..." Elijah moaned, a sound that seemed to send every molicule of air in the room vibrating with it's echo, sagging a little where he sat; he sat in a gigantic leather-and-chrome chair, so at odds with the ruined surroundings of the old church, with his knees as far apart as possible. It was an inviting pose, even she had to admit, and so she could not stop her gaze from venturing downwards to the bulge at the apex between his legs. She didn't want him, that thing, anywhere near her... but she couldn't turn away; the compulsion to stare was all she could act upon.

"Release me!" She shouted, suprising him. "I don't want to be your—" But before she could finish, a ripple of pure torture travelled from her toes to her scalp and sent her into a spasm on the floor. All the pain she had felt before combined could not equate to the pain she suffered in just that one moment—it made her numb to anything else.

"It would have been so much more pleasurable if you did not push me to do these things..." He kicked her, she saw him do it, but there was no pain in her ribs where there ought to be. There should have been something, some kind of responce from within herself, but all she felt was... satisfaction... Satisfaction? Pleasure, even? With what little magical power she had left within her, Bonnie tried to diagnose for herself what could be the problem. This wasn't right, she told herself, but she thought the words without any real conviction. Her mind knew that she shouldn't want this, but her body did all the things it usually did when in the midst of pleasure, sending tremors through her in wave after lovely wave.

"This is... not... pleasurable." She bit out the words. Why was she bothering to deny the truth? She did it because only one man was allowed to bring to this level of erotic desire, and it wasn't him.

Damon appeared in front of the old church and stopped so suddenly that the air continued on forwards without him. This was it, the place where Bonnie was being held, but the energy radiating from a point in the ground was no indication of whether she was still alive. Elijah was an Original, and his powers were obviously strong and, perhaps, limitless. How could he fight something with that level of invincibility and survive?

"Let me go!" Her voice... from very close by. There was no echo in it, which meant Elena had been telling the truth, for once. Bonnie was here.

Elijah stopped suddenly and moved back, creating a space between their flesh that hadn't been there before. His gaze on her was like fire on her icy cold, nude body and for the few seconds he gazed at her she felt as though her skin was sizzling with a fire that burned and would leave her scarred. The lingering sensation of his lips on her neck would probably stay with her forever, but she knew that if Damon ever kissed her again, his mouth would be all she would keep in her heart. "Your ex-lover is quite persistant."

Ex? no. Current? Forever.

"That's part of the reason I—" she began to say, before his slap on her cheek drove any sane thought away.

"Don't say anything you would regret, love." His tone was soft but his grip on her chin was hard. "This is only the beginning." He paused, to take one last look at her naked, vulnerable body before leaving the room at lightening speed, rendering him invisible to even her eyes. It was warmer in the quiet, un-heated room without him in it.

Bonnie sagged, partly with relief, partly with absolute exhaustion, and waited for her fate to take her forwards.

Damon tilted his head back so that he was staring up at the clear gray sky and gazed up at it, hoping that something in it's bland depths would give him insperation. What should he do next, now that he was sure that this was the place where Bonnie was being held? What was there to do against an Original? Vaguely, he was glad that Stefan and Elena had offered to help, though it still puzzled him why they would want to help him. He knew that neither of them had forgiven him for what he had done, which meant that they were probably planning something revengeful, but for now they seemed to be playing along and following directions. As long as they did that they could be useful, and as long as they had some potential he would keep them around.

Stefan cleared his throat suddenly and spoke, his growl only audible to Damon's hyper-sensitive hearing. "This is the last thing we do together as brothers, Damon. When Bonnie is safe, you will leave this town, and you will never touch Elena again, understood?" He actually sounded as if he meant it, too.

"You think I planned for things to be any different?" Damon turned from Stefan to Elena, who couldn't seem to meet his gaze. "Once Bonnie is safe, and Elijah is dead, you aren't going to see either of us again, I can promise you that, brother." He smiled at the thought of having Bonnie all to himself; there was no way he would let her out of his sight again, not without a leash of some kind anyway...

"Why are you smiling, Damon? Don't you know that Bonnie's life hangs in the balance?" Elena's voice seemed abnormally high-pitched after the low grumbling of his brother, and Damon winced in pain at the contrast. It would take some time to get used to hearing a voice like that again after spending so much time away from Bonnie.

"You two kids should stay out here—wait for me—while I go in and check things out."

Elena opened her mouth, to argue no doubt, but Stefan put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head meaningfully; Their eyes connected and in an instant an whole conversation seemed to have passed between them. Elena's fighter's stance relaxed and the heat in her eyes faded a bit. Whatever power Stefan had, it was obvious that it's effects were miraculous—Elena was silent as Damon entered the church.

~#~

Bonnie tasted something vaguely fishy on her tongue and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Good—you've stopped screaming. I knew human's were slow, but if you had kept at it for much longer I would have lost my patience." He nudged her head to the side, angling her neck so that when he finally struck he would be able to go straight for her throat. She was a tease, this fair-skinned creature, as delicate as a china doll, so he would have handle her with care until the time came to make his move. In his thousand years of life he had never felt a desire like this one to touch someone so child-like, but he was finding her young features and under-devolped body to be a temptation like nothing else had been. Was it wrong? It did not matter, he decided.

The truth was that Bonnie had only stopped screaming because the vibration of her own voice caused her throat to throb so terribly. A drink of water had never seemed so lovely as it did then, when her throat felt as though it were cracking with dryness, but the last and only time she had asked for one she had been offered blood. Back then, it seemed so long ago now, she had been more thirsty than she had ever been before, and she had thought that it was the worst. Little had she known that in just a few minutes she would be willing to take the blood that had been offered, if only to extinguish the burning in her dry throat. If this was him being patient, she shudded to think what he would be like when he was not trying to be nice.

"Are you ready to join me, Bonnie McCullough? To live forever at my side?" His voice was like warm honey, dripping off his tongue slow and smooth. Even not being able to see his face in the dark, Bonnie knew what she would see in it. His lust for her radiated from him in wave after wave of raw emotion, and bit by bit she could feel herself being swallowed up in the desire that swirled like a whirl-pool around her. Increasingly, it felt as though the more she clutched him the liklihood of her ever letting him go diminished. If only she could think clearly... if only she could think...

"I can't think..." she complained in a sigh, her head against his hard chest.

"Then don't," he told her, stroking her red hair in a way that reminded her of the waves, and of how the sea moved against the sandy shore. In, out. In, out. She found his adoration for her overwhelming. "Just feel, feel the waves as they crash over you..."

She sat up, her heart gripped and her mind frozen, her eyes narrowing. "What did you just say?" Could he have just admitted to being inside her head? Was he so sure of himself that the thought of her reacting to his words hadn't occured to him at all? Who did he think he was?

~#~

Damon was checking under tables, under moth-eaten rugs, anywhere obvious where a hidden door could be when there was a disturbance from behind him. He turned but saw nothing apart from shadows and all the places he had already checked for secret entrances. He knew enough abut the dark to know that there were things in it that would pounce the first chance they got. He could pretend to think nothing of it, just turn his back and wait for something to try and take him by surprise, but that seemed like a big waste of what little time he had to rescue Bonnie from certain doom. Instead, he turned to meet the shadows directly, daring whomever it was to make the first move.

"Who's there?" he asked the darkness. "Come out, come out whoever you are..."

~#~

"Look what you've done now," Elijah's soft, cultured accent had hardened and grown brittle, "You're babyish bawling has attracted some unwanted attention..." His voice sounded as if it would crack and break at any moment, and what would escape would be anger. He had been able to restrain himself thus far, but if Damon pushed any more of his buttons there was no telling what might happen to his lover. As fond as he was of the little red-head darling he had at his mercy, he would not pause before killing her if that was the best weapon he had at his disposal.

As if understanding this at the same moment that he did, Bonnie turned her face up to his and whimpered. She was still laid out on the floor with her clothes barely covering her bare flesh, and as thrilled as she was at the possibility of being saved, she wanted to die after seeing the murderous glint in Elijah's eye. Her whole body throbbed in time with her heart, which was still racing inside her chest as if it were never going to beat a normal rythm again.

"Damon!" she shouted as loud as she could, then curled up in a ball to await her punishment.

~#~

Elijah appeared as if by magic and Damon went flying back with the force of the blow to hs chin. Even with his superior senses, he had not seen it coming. He had expected the attack to come from the shadows in which he had sensed something watching, but the tackle had come from the doorway. Even as he fought, he was struggling not to stop moving; the power that had allowed him to come this far was draining from his with each second, and he more it left him the weaker he became. "Where is Bonnie?" he asked breathlessly, blocking another fist directed at his head. "What have you done to her?"

Is she alive? What have you done to her?

Elijah stood over Damon, smiling like this was the best thing he'd seen in centuries, looking down at him as if he had been waiting for this moment all his life. "I might have spared your life, if you hadn't come here to ruin things." The thought of the things he could be doing with Bonnie, to her right now, but was denied wound him up tighter and tighter. This one had to die if there was any chance of a future with her as his lover, it was as simple as that, and so he knew what he had to do.

"Ruin things? Ruin what, you're sadistic manipulation of my..." what was she to him?

"Friend? Lifemate? Lover? The person you care about above all other things, even your own life?" Elijah's voice was full of sarcasm, a hint of accusation, as if daring him to deny being any of these things. His hands were flexing at his sides, as if around Damon's neck, and he knew that if something did not come to interrupt soon, he would be forced to kill him before he'd had a chance to see Bonnie. Elijah wasn't a kind vampire, he hadn't been a kind man even when he was human, but he knew that he would regret taking Damon's life, if only because it would cause Bonnie pain—and hinder her preformance. What good would she be to him if she cried all the time?

"All those things. She's everything to me..." his voice trailed off as he realised his mistake. Like in a game of poker, he had played many in his centuries of immortal life, it was a faux pas to show all your cards to the other player before the game had finished. Now he was the vulnerable one. He stood as tall as he could, defiant in the face of death.

~#~

Bonnie got to her knees reluctantly, the pain was bad enough that even doing just that was a struggle, but stopped with her hands flat on the ground. While it was true that there was not any compulsion stopping her from moving, atleast not any more, the throbbing in her nether-regions made her legs go weak. The only reason she could get to all fours like this was that her bones were still solid enough to take her weight. She couldn't move an inch in any direction but down.

All the energy surrounding her, the red and the black and the yellow, made her skin crawl. So much power... it shouldn't have been possible for so much power to exist all in one place, all at the same time. The only thing she could liken it to, with her limited experience of the world, was the energy created by a thunderstorm—a really big one. She'd never whitnessed one with her own eyes, but in Scotland they had them most summers; it was where the witches drew their power, and why the Scottish witches were some of the most powerful in the world.

~#~

"Who do you think you are?" Elijah hissed, seething with a kind of rage that was as ancient and powerful as himself, kicking Damon in thr ribs once more. If the weakling vampire was human his rib-bones would be shattered into a million little pieces, he would be dead, but he healed too darn fast. It would take more than a swift kick to kill this one, but Elijah did not have any real desire to stand here, away from his prisoner, for much longer.

"Don't you—" his breath shot out of him as the orginal bastard dealt another kick to his side. He would need blood, lots of blood, and quickly if there was any chance of his body ever being the same again; his insides were not just broken—they were shattered—reduced to dust. "Don't you remember the last time I kicked your ass?"

"You're not going to be able to take her from me, I can assure you of that. Even if, by some miracle, you managed to get close enough to her, how do you plan on escaping? Do you think that I would simply allow you to take her from me?"

"You speak as if she's promised you... something."

"In a matter of speaking, yes."

What did that mean? "She wouldn't have willingly given you access, I'm sure of that. What have you done to her, Elijah? Tell me now."

~#~

The door to the chamber opened with a creak, centering her attention entirely on it. Just the sound of the creak, the enevitability it signified drove her mind to race onwards without her, leaving her feeling lost in her own skin. She wanted so much to believe that it would not be him again that she had to blink a few times before she could believe that what she was seeing was in fact real.

In the doorway, holding a big sheet of cream fabric and a rusted key, stood a young girl with wide, black eyes. Her skin was so pale that she could easily have been suffering from a disease, but somehow Bonnie did not think so. There was too much power radiating from her for her to be anything less than 100% healthy and alive. She pressed a snowy-white finger to her lips and moved forward into the room.

"You need to get out of here now," the girl said in a raspy voice. Bonnie thought about saying, like, duh, but the expression on her face was just too heartbreaking. This girl had obviously been a captive of Elijah's for far longer than Bonnie could even imagine. A twinge of sympathy squeezed her heart.

She swallowed thickly before replying. "But how? All the exits to this place are guarded."

The girl's gaze flickered towards the window high up in the wall, as if imploring Bonnie to see something obvious. Bonnie followed the girl's wavering gaze and spotted a possible exit immeadiately, though it wasn't much of an oppitunity.

"Really?" she asked.

The girl's thin arms were suprisingly strong and they lifted Bonnie up off the floor with suprising ease.

"Why are you doing this?" Bonnie asked.

"Because I can," the girl's voice did not show any strain even when she lifted Bonnie's body over her head, "And because I'd never forgive myself if I just sat back and let this," she nodded down at her rumpled clothes and wasted body, "happen to you. Trust me, once you're like this there's no going back" She continued to push upwards until Bonnie could grasp the bars of the window.

"How am I meant to squeeze through these?"

"Sorry." the girl mumured, settling her back onto solid ground. "I forgot."

"Forgot what?" Bonnie was confused.

"That you aren't like use—a vampire."

She was a vampire? But how could that be? She was weaker than a normal human.

"He starves us, feeds us bad blood." She answered the question without prompting.

You can read minds?

"Sometimes, with special cases atleast."

"Special cases?"

"I know you're a witch, my only question is... why don't you use your power? Has the master taken your magic too?"

Bonnie clambered out of the window with a helpful shove from inside the room. Her elbows and knees were grazed to the point of bleeding, but none of that mattered now that she had a shot at freedom. She could see it in the open space around her, and she could smell it in the freshness of the air. It was not until then that she realised just how smothering the atmosphere in that cell had been, and how lucky she was not to be there any more. Turning as quickly as she could while tiny pieces of stone cut into her flesh she attempted to say one last thing.

"Thanks for... for helping me..." She meant to say thanks to the girl who had helped her, but it was so dark inside the cell that she could not be sure that she would be talking to anyone. Her saviour might still be there, but it was so silent that there was no way to know for sure. If she was there, Bonnie hoped that she would know how grateful she was to be free. True, she could have used her magic to get out on her own, but she wouldn't have thought to do so on her own. She owed the mystery girl her life, but if she was gone there was no way to thank her. Bonnie gingerly got to her feet on what appeared to be pavement and tried to sort through the mess of thoughts in her head for what the best thing to do was next.

"Remember your magic..." The voice drifted up from the black. A click, and then the sound of a key turning in a lock, were the last things she heard before the door swung open and Elijah entered. He had two vampire-guards at his side, and both the men were mean-looking and savage. Even if, upon a roof of some sort, it was cold and uncomfortable, she was uncomfortable in the extreme she thanked the heavens that she wasn't down there. To be helpless and weak, in that cell... it made her shiver just to imagine what his eyes would feel like as they roamed her body. Anywhere was better than in there, she was sure of that. There was a short cry, then silence, and she knew that the girl who had helped her would be able to offer no more help.

"The witch, where is she?" Elijah's voice was as savage and mean as she had ever heard it, and Bonnie knew that if the girl wasn't dead already, that she would be momentarily. She looked down at her hands and swore she could see what appeared to be blood there, she looked up and his eyes met her's. She might have imagined that his lips had begun to shift into a smile, if not for the coldness in his voice. "I thought I had made it clear that you were to do as you were told." It could have been any of the assembled audience he was speaking to, but Bonnie knew he was speaking to her... He jumped to the window high up in the wall and reached a long arm through the opening.

He grasped her ankle and held it tightly. Why hadn't she thought to move? When he tugged on her leg he forced her to come nearer to him, and for random pointy things to embed themselves in her skin. What was the use of trying to fight him, there was nothing she could do in a physical sense that could harm him in any way... but in a meta-physical sense? The strange girl who had helped her escape before had implored her to use her magic, that command had been her last words, and it felt wrong not to take the words to heart. Summoning all the power she could, from both inside herself and her surroundings, she channelled a shock of electricity downwards through her body. Elijah released her at once with a snarl, his flesh sizzling even as he pressed it to his chest.

~#~

Damon awoke from his stupor and looked around him. He was alone, well and truly alone, without even a guard standing there to stop him from escaping. It was a bit insulting, but he would take it without arguing. Now was not the time, that was truth and he knew it. Now was the time to save Bonnie from what he imagined wood be a fate worse than hell. Although not the most traditionally pretty of her friends, she was the most alluring creature he had come across in all his years. It was unexplainable, the attraction to her he felt, but he did know that it was too strong a feeling to ignore. This connection he had, vampire to witch, pulled him to her like a titanium rope around his mid-section. He wanted this shy creature and, god-be-willing, he would have her.

~#~

She painfully got to her feet and stumbled towards the roof-edge, thinking that if he came after her again and she needed an escape she would choose jumping to her death over being his sex-slave for eternity.

Damon, she thought in a half-hearted attempt to reach him by thought alone, I love you, and I'm sorry. She figured she wouldn't need to say for what she was sorry—he would know and understand—or at least she hoped he would. Whether he was even still alive did not matter to her much, since her soul would be with him forever if she were dead or alive.

"That was a mistake," Elijah hissed through his teeth, "It will cost you your life."

She thought about telling him what she planned to do, but there was always the chance that he would try and stop her.

~#~

His neck cracked as he tested his movements by turning his head this way and that. Bonnie was here somewhere, and while he did not think Elijah would kill Bonnie so quickly, his psychic senses told him that she needed rescuing nonetheless. He had never been the kind of vampire, nor man for that matter, who stood by while someone he cared about was in danger of losing their life. Never. And Bonnie was more than just a someone, he had come to that realisation sometime while he was unconscious; she was the girl he loved. He couldn't give her up so easy, she deserved more than that, and he would never forgive himself for as long as he lived.

"Don't do anything stupid," The voice was a seething whisper from somewhere close by.

~#~

She looked over the edge of the roof with detachment, ignoring Elijah's words. It wasn't that far down really, and if she did do something stupid, like dying, all the better. Even if it meant never seeing Damon again, she bet she would prefer death to whatever Elijah had in mind. Even while contemplating suicide she cringed at the thought of the things she would be made to do as his love-slave. She might not be as innocent now as she once was, but that didn't mean she could think of the things he would make her do for him.

"Get away from that ledge now and your punishment will be less severe than you deserve."

While that was a tempting offer, she still wouldn't go to him if there was an alternative.

"Red-Bird," The voice came from down below, she turned her face in that direction, and smiled.

"Dark-knight," she answered in a voice that she barely recognised herself, so saturated was it in relief.

Elijah moved so quietly behind her that when he snatched her from behind, imprisoning her within his arms, she was taken completely by suprise; She stumbled backwards and struggled to remain in an upright position as he pulled her back towards the shattered window she had escaped out of to get up here on the roof. All she could think about was how she would be made to regret this decision to try and escape, and in which ways he would choose to punish her. She knew that he would show no mercy, and would beat her bloody. "I will make you pay for that, I will make you scream until your throat is only good for drinking..."

"Is that a promise?" Bonnie asked, somehow managing to make her voice light even when inside of her her guts were churning, all because she had found hope at last. The tension in her stomach felt like fire, burning in her chest, but if she had learned anything from Elena it was that being strong against those who wished to destroy you meant surving to live another day. As the seconds of silence slowly passed, she wondered if she wasn't being brave, just stupid. She wondered what would be there if she could glance over the ledge again, wondered if Damon would still be there and if he would tell her what to do next.

He was smiling even as he studied the wall, noting all the places in it he could use, and planned in his head how he would get up to the roof of this building without having to use the stairs; Any easy routes up would no doubt be guarded heavily. He needed to keep what he could of his strength for when he and Elijah finally faught and, ironically, this was the least troublesome way to reach the roof from the ground. Bonnie was alright, she was alive, he wasn't too late, and the possibility that he would save her seemed more and more likely every second.

As Damon leapt from hand-hold to hand-hold up the outside of the stone wall, Bonnie's heart began to flutter, Elijah could hear it. He took a large clump of her hair in his hand and tugged her backwards and away from the edge of the roof. It was in his mind to kill her right there and then, teach them both a lesson, but if he was going to kill her he would do it where Damon could see. It would serve a greater purpose that way, so he would wait until the perfect moment. With Damon gone, his prisoner would be helpless and far more likely to submit to his desires, and then he would be free to do as he wished without any kind of back-lash from him. Not that he was scared; he was an Old One and more powerful than anyone wanting to kill him.

"Please!" She screamed as he dragged her to a bed in the room, tears coming to her eyes from the pain of being jerked back so suddenly. If Elijah had known that pulling on those cherry locks would have this effect on her, make her beg and plead, he would have done this much sooner. Maybe this was the key to her subservience—pain— He wouldn't mind hurting her to get what he wanted. "Please, just stop! I'll do whatever you want, just..." He let go of her hair and leant back against the pillows.

Why was he suddenly leaving her alone?

There was nothing but stone when Damon finally reached the balcony area where he had seen Bonnie leaning over the edge, but there was a door opporsite him that seemed to have been used recently. He hadn't just imagined seeing her up here: she must be behind that door, probably in the clutches of death.

As the door rattled something inside Bonnie thawed alittle. She'd felt so cold before, increasingly as Elijah touched her bare neck, but with the hope blooming within her came a lust that she hadn't known existed. She had never wanted to touch, or be touched by, anyone as much as she did by Damon right at that moment and the feeling sent a warm gush of liquid heat through her. She'd never wanted anyone as much in her whole life. "Damon!"

"Bonnie, I'm coming for you!" Even as pain errupted inside of him from contact with the iron door, he knew the truth of his words. He would find a way of getting her back, whatever the cost to himself.

"The door's made of iron, Damon, there's no way you'll get through." The confidence in his enemy's voice was maddening. How could he be so sure that he would be able to keep him out? Hadn't anyone been able to break this damn door in all the years it has stood here? There must be a way... there must be. Looking to his right, he saw an answer.

In a flash of movement so fast she couldn't follow it with her eyes, Damon was gone and Elijah was left smirking, a wolfish, menical grin. Where had he gone? Oh god, she needed to know. Had he decided that it was too much of an effort to try and breach the iron doors? Had he decided that she wasn't worth the trouble of trying to save? What if she was a prisoner here until her life ended, whenever that may be? How could he give up on what they had? It was special, wasn't it? He had said he was coming for her, but did he mean it or were they just cheap words meant to soothe?

To her left, the thick, stone wall shook as if something much harder, much more tough, was breaking through. Elijah swore and covered her body with his. Why did she feel as though the predator was trying to protect her? Why did she feel safe in his arms? Why wasn't she trying to get to the man who stood before her, covered in dust? Why did she feel so safe exactly where she was?

She wondered if this was what prey felt like before being eaten alive.

"Bonnie—you're all right. Thank god I'm not too late... I thought..." Damon shook his head, as if clearing a thought from his mind, or dust from his hair, with the action. With deliberate slowness, as if afraid that any sudden movements would frighten her, he offered his hand for her to take and waited. He would wait as long as he had to if that's what it took to get her safe and at home and with him. He would stand here forever to see her free, but as the seconds went past he grew increasingly impatient. "Take my hand."

She tried to move, tried to reach out and touch him, but Elijah covered her body—shielding her from any bits of rock that might come her way—protecting her from what he thought was a threat. She would have felt grateful, even if she wanted more than anything to be far away, if his teeth hadn't grazed her neck as he imprisoned her beneath him with his body.

"Bonnie..." His voice was thick, as if the words he wanted to say were stuck in his throat and impossible to get out, as he stood among rumble and stared at what was before him. Seeing Elijah crouched over his beloved like that, in a feeding stance, took his breath away. Even if, in some of his darkest fantasies at least, he had been in the Original's position he felt fear for her safety, and disgust like nothing else he had ever felt. How could anyone prey upon her like that? How did anyone have that sort of darkness within them? Damon stumbled as a piece of rock caught beneath his shoe and took him off balance.

Bonnie felt afraid for more than just her own life now, and the feeling quickly smothered any relief she might have been feeling at seeing him again. Damon had come to rescue her... he had come for her, despite how the odds were stacked against him, because he loved her. She didn't need to hear him say the words; the tiny flame of desire she had felt from him before, the affection, hadn't been anything compared to this raging inferno that raised the small hairs on her arms. His need for her radiated off him in waves, crashing over her again and again, and she knew that he could feel it too.

Elijah snarled and struck her with enough force that the sound of skin against skin pierced the air and drowned out all the other noises. He didn't feel guilty about killing her, if he had, even if he would mourn her. There were plenty more where she came from—she was not unique, and he would not think about her for long. He held her by the arms to keep her in an upright position, it was like holding a life-size doll, and pressed her closely to his chest as if she were his plaything. "You will not have her," the venom in his voice came in the form of saliva, which he spit on the ground.

"Do not touch her!" His voice crackled with the heat of his rage. Damon approached them with one fist clenched, and the other clawed. If the chance came to either deliver a fatal blow or carve the heart from the chest, he would be ready when the time came. No matter the cost to himself, he would make it so his sweetheart was never preyed upon by anything, ever again. The only man that would have her was him—no one else, never.

The world was a fuzzy mess, a glowing, grey place of dusk. Numbness had come almost in the same instant as the blow, and it was spreading all over her body. She could not feel her toes, feet, legs or hands but the rest of her arm felt as though it was on fire. Her head didn't hurt any more, but her brain was firing so many thoughts all at once that it would make sense if it did. She knew what it felt like to have dark magic inside of her, and she recognised it now.

"You think you stand a chance against me? I am an Original, I am the most powerful thing you are ever likely to meet." Elijah only glanced at Damon fleetingly before returning his attention to his prisoner, who lay mute beneath him. "Return to whatever place you call home, Damon. Go home and forget that you ever heard of a Bonnie McCullough, I'm sure it won't be too difficult."

He stumbled back, as if the Original had dealt a physical blow, and felt himself grow weary all of a sudden. He found himself thinking off all the things he would rather be doing right now, and that any place was better than here. He should be wherever Stefan was, as was usual, and hopefully where Elena was. Elena. Her name inspires a warmth in him that can only be rivalled by the sun... or something even brighter... he shook his head, bringing himself back from the border of a place he didn't want to be. This was all wrong; Elena was not someone he wanted to be with, not any more. "Stop it—no—just... stop..." He clutched his head as if it might blow apart at any moment.

Bonnie could feel the compulsion Elijah was using in the air and knew that Damon could not fight it on his own. She had to do something—but what? What could she do against an Original vampire?

It was worth a try.

With his attention averted from her, at least for the time being, Bonnie positioned herself to inflict the most pain and brought her knee crashing in to Elijah's groin, quickly darting away before either of the men could comprehend what she had done. She watched as he crumpled to the ground, too stunned to do anything more than turn ridged and fall to the ground. All his talk of magic, a weapon that he could use to smite his enemies, and the most effective weapon against him was something physical.

"Well... that was anti-climatic," Damon commented, "but effective."

"I didn't know..." her voice trailed off into nothing as she tried to decide what it was she would say. There were so many things that she hadn't known she could do until recently... how could she pick just one? After a pause to think, she finished with "I could do that."

Elijah got to his feet almost normally, the pain fading as his body healed and grew stronger. Anger was always a good motivator, and he had the emotion filling him like an ocean from inside. How dare these... these weaklings, make a fool out of him? He wouldn't allow it, he wouldn't stand for it, not while he was still breathing and he could make them pay with their lives. He was the Predator, the king of beasts, and he would show these pitiful creatures why they should be afraid.

Before Damon's eyes could register the movements Elijah had moved so that he was behind Bonnie with his fangs shinning in the shadows. He knew that Bonnie could not sense him, not yet, which he knew was the point. She may be a witch, but that was only a human with a few upgrades. Her senses were worse than dull compared to his, and he knew that the Original's sense were even sharper. She stood no chance against Elijah, which was the point. "Don't," He said at last, pleading both with Elijah and any god that might be watching the show.

Bonnie felt something stir the air behind her and she knew it was not just her imagination or a stranded gust of wind. She knew and it terrified her. She was frozen in the terror, as helpless as a new-born lamb, and knew beyond any doubt that it was the wolf at her back. She caught Damon's eye and saw reflected in it a shadow that moved like a man. Even when his razor-like teeth grazed her skin she could not move, only savour every breath, thinking each time that it would be her last.

He bit down and Damon swore he could feel the tear in his own skin, too, as he watched, unable to do a thing, as Elijah took her life in great mouthfuls.

Each time Bonnie would try to speak, another wave of pain pierced her brain and sent her into a seizure that shook her entire body while keeping her ridged inside; she was only petite and each stab of agony seemed to easily engulf her world. She could still think, but with her lips numb and her head heavy her thoughts were little use to her. It meant that any spell she remembered would be useless until she could move again, and who knew when that would be, if ever. The thought of being trapped like this forever was intolerable—unimaginable yet something from her worst nightmare—and she would do anything to avoid that fate.

When Elijah at last drew away from her, what was left of her neck was blood and gore. He was more than a little tempted to finish her now, but he rarely gave his victims a chance at a quick death and he had wanted to see the anguish in Damon's eyes as he watched Bonnie fade away, knowing that he cannot save her. The whole point of torture was getting someone to break, and he intended to break Damon into pieces that could never be put back together into the vampire he was before. The lifeless form at his feet did not stir when he nudged it with his boot, and if it was not for the movement of her chest he would think she was dead already.

"What have you done?" Damon's mind was not on Bonnie's body, even when he stared at it without blinking once, and instead on the strange charge in the air. A voice in his head, not quite his own, told him to kneel by the body and take it's blood, but that was crazy. What good could it possibly do for him to drain her of whatever amount of it she had left? Surely it would only hasten her death, not save her. The voice told him that he could save her if he took a chance and turned her, but he couldn't be sure that he would not take too much. Her life was hanging by a thread as it was, and weakening her further could lead to nothing but trouble and death.

The Original's laugh was both soft and cutting. He wiped his mouth with the tip of his fingers and looked down at the crimson smear, as if it were actually interesting to him. He must have seen enough blood over the thousand years he had been on this earth, and yet he did not take his eyes from his fingers even as he replied, his tone so gentle that you would never think that he had just mortally wounded a person who had done him no harm. "Do you know, I can feel her magic running through my veins right at this moment?" He made a face that was meant to convey pleasure, though his eyes were too clean of expression to know if he felt anything at all.

Damon

He turned and searched around him for the source of the voice in his head, knowing that he hadn't just imagined it, but the only being that could have spoken was Elijah and the voice was definitely not his. He would have recognised it anywhere... it was her's.

"What is it, Damon?" Elijah's voice was deceptively even and calm. Damon didn't have to be a vampire to sense the change in the air when his interest was peaked. It was like an electric charge and it told him that if he were going to do something, he would only have one chance and one chance only. His enemy would not wait long for answers, and when he found out there were none... Damon didn't want to think about that.

Bonnie's heart raced as she tried to figure out if he had heard her silent call or not; if the ability to think was all she had left... she would use it to help Damon any way she could. Damon, she thought again, I need you to touch me.

Damon cocked his head to the side and pretended to contemplate the wall across from him as he decided what to do next. The voice sounded like her's, but that could easily be a trick. He did not doubt that Elijah had skills, and it would not be a far fetched conclusion to think that he was a mimic, too... but what if it wasn't, and it was real? How could he forgive himself if he was wrong? How could he ignore her because he was too afraid to take action? He was Damon Salvatore, he was never afraid of the consequences of his actions, and it was his prerogative to protect his interests.

He only needs to touch me, Bonnie thought with desperation as, from out the corner of her eye, she saw Elijah stir. She could see by Damon's face that he was thinking about something very hard, but unlike before his thoughts were hidden from her. Maybe he was afraid that Elijah would hear him if he attempted a connection with her, she didn't know, but whatever the reason the conduit between them was firmly closed—though hopefully only one way. She hoped that he knew that all he need do is touch her...

"What are you doing?" Elijah asked, his brow furrowed, as he watched Damon prowl. There was something odd in the way he moved, and he didn't like it. Something was going on here that he was no privy to, he could feel it in his bones. With a lightening fast movement that made it almost undetectable, Elijah reached for Damon and caught his shoulder in a vice-like grip, ignoring the hostility as he snarled.

"Get away from me!" He roared, his pupils constricting to pinpricks in his rage. He was less than a metre away from Bonnie, just about to touch her like she had told him to in his mind, and this bastard was trying to get between them yet again. With his predator's sense, he could detect how Bonnie's life force was weakening with every second that passed. He wasn't just imagining it, either. He could feel it—she was fading away.

"There's nothing you or I can do," Elijah said, lazily, moving closer with each word, his eyes shining with anticipation for a meal. He was confident now that there would be no other outcome than what he had planned all along; how could things be any different that how he imagined, his meal was practically already dished up, ready for him to eat. Damon had no chance in hell to stop him from taking exactly what he wanted: Game over.

With what was left of his energy, Damon through his body forwards the last few inches and caught her with his fingertips. It was so close, because his body refused to move any closer, and his arms only stretched so far.

The change in the energy of the space around him was immediate and overwhelming. Elijah stumbled backwards with the force of it. His skin prickled with static and he shivered, something he rarely did because he never felt the cold. It was not the temperature to cause it though; the power he felt coming from Damon left his own in the shadows. He shouldn't have allowed him to touch her, something he knew now, because the witch's soft flesh had given the vampire hope. Next time he would not make the same mistake.

Damon snatched his hand away from Bonnie the moment the jolt had passed through him. He felt wild suddenly, and a compulsion that was not his own forced him to turn around with his arms raised as if he were trying to break up the fight himself. As if. There would be no rest for him until the Original is well and truly gone.

Elijah had his arms outstretched now, too, but his gesture did seem to mean surrender. When Damon didn't make a move, either to attack or to lower his arms, he smiled as if he had a secret. "I'm glad you have chosen not to kill me," he said the words with laughter in his voice, as if the thought of Damon fighting him was a joke, "it saves me the trouble of watching. You can't kill me Damon, accept that and move on..." His voice trailed off into nothing. Damon stood holding something sharply bright in his hands, and it buzzed like electricity. It was electricity, and yet Damon did not seem to even notice he held it imprisoned in his palms. "How is it possible..."

Please, Damon... please. She had thought the words to him in desperation, and knowing that he had something to do with that emotion made a breath-taking pain bloom inside him. He hated to be the reason for her distress, he hated himself, but he thought he hated Elijah more. He had done this, this was his fault. If he didn't exist then Bonnie would not be in danger. It was because of him that Damon had felt his whole world begin to crumble. It was because of all this that his rage was so powerful. A stream of some white power shot out of his trembling hands and hit Elijah square in the chest, turning him ridged like a statue.

Damon didn't stick around to appreciate the sight of Elijah twitching on the ground, but instantly rushed over to Bonnie's prone form instead; She was so pail and motionless that she could have easily been dead. He could still feel her power, but that could easily just have been the remnants of his attack on Elijah, so he could not be sure. He touched her hand with his and she took a quick breath before becoming completely still again. "Oh, Bonnie, darling please..." He could not believe that he was too late... but he could not shake the feeling that it was because of him she was lifeless. How much of her remaining strength had he stolen in order to defeat Elijah? Had he taken so much from her that she would never recover? He could not remember how much life he had taken in all his years as a vampire, he knew it must be a lot, and never had he felt as if any of those lives mattered—until now. She does this to him—makes him see the world as better place than he had ever imagined it could be, before.

Bonnie wanted to tell him all that she was feeling, that it hurt to resist the pull into darkness, but she was too exhausted to speak. Her mental voice was faint inside her head, and growing more so each second. Unlike Elena, she had never died before. She didn't know what to expect. Would there be a bright light to go into, or would her soul just melt into the inky blackness of infinity without so much as a sign? Right now, she felt like the latter was a more likely destination even when she'd always preferred to believe that there was something else out there. This can't be it, she thought desperately, this can't be all there is.

Before he could remember not to, Damon put his hand on her chest and tried to feel for any sign of life he might have missed. He still had power in his hands, he had forgotten, but it only took a fraction of a second for him to be reminded of it as her motionless body came alive again. He could even hear the crackle as the current passed through her in wave after wave. What had he done?

Damon

The voice was back in his head and he jumped with sudden awareness of the other mind he felt besides his own. "Bonnie?" he said, shaking her so hard it made her neck click. He had thought she was dead... that she should be dead... "Talk to me, Bonnie!" He was suddenly desperate to hear her voice again, even if it was only in his mind.

Blood...

She has lost a lot of blood...

Blood... Vampire

How can he consider it? How can she? He was almost absolutely confident that it was her voice in his head, but he had never thought about turning her and he never would. It was the wrong thing to do, but wasn't it wrong for her to die, while he did nothing. "But you'll become like me," he whispered as if she could hear him, "a Predator... you don't know what it means... you're always alone..."

"I'll have you... forever..." This time the voice came to him through his ears. Her eyes were opened just a slit, but still aware and full of that spark in her he loved. Physically she was awake, or at least it seemed, but mentally? He didn't want to do this and then have her hate him until eternity. "Please, Damon, please... I'm dying, I can feel it, but you can stop it. I know you can, you know you... please, Damon, please..."

"I hope to hell you mean this." Enough of her blood had been taken to begin the transformation, but to finish it Damon would have to feed her his own blood. Without it she would die for real, which was worse than anything he could imagine. With the tip of a fang he cut the veins on his wrist and offered it for her to take, willing the blood from his body to replace her's.

He brought her to his home and laid her down on his bed. She was breathing, but she was no longer alive—a predator instead, like him. If Elena knew what he's done... he shook his head. There were much more important things for him to worry about than her reaction. She didn't matter any more; this whole situation might have started with her, but it would not end with Elena. This would not end ever now the prey is the predator.

THE END