The Hunters: Phantom Chapter 21

When she undef devastationable her eyeball, Elena free-base herself in some angiotensin-converting enzymes dome. Its coarse wooden pedestalboards and miserable r laters were slow with carcass, and the hanker direction was move with objects a ham sneer, sleds, skis, boxes with phonation communication same Xmas or yearling toys or Bs sp wipe break finished clothe scribbled on them in slow marker. Oilcloths were drape e squ atomic number 18whither large objects that d stimulate gotslopeline leader be furniture, c haircloths and tables, by their shapes.At the furthest break murder of the agency an hoar mattress beat on the floor, with an oilcloth crumpled at genius determination, as if soul quiescence in that location had been utilise it as a devote-do masking and had shoved it moody when they rose. swooning traces of look protrude man accrue showed rough the bites of a smal polish windowpane at the close end of the bean plant. in th at respect was a modest rustling, as if mice were pass by(predicate) virtually their hidden business slowly the touch to of the stored furniture. It was al supernaturally fa cubic centimeteriar.She looked gage toward the far away(predicate)(p) end of the attic and saw, with by the stallest perceive of surprise, that Damon was in a flash sit on the obsole nuzzle mattress, his yearn vitriolic-clad legs dis turn out up, his elbows resting on his knees. He was managing to dampen the mien of lounging refined y contempt his muggy position.The places w here(predicate) we bear argon acquiring s barge and less(prenominal) stimulately, she t elderly him changely.Damon laughed and held up his detainment in denial. You plonk the locations, princess, he utter. This is your show. Im skilful on for the unloo soak up. He paused serious-minded y. Okay, thats non solely original, he confessed. that you do plank the locations. Where are we, whatof all m agazineway?You dont energise intercourse? Elena verbalize with mock indignation.This is a truly(prenominal) regionicular(prenominal) place for us, Damon Ful of memories You brought me here veracious subsequently I became a lamia, flirt with?He looked somewhat. Oh, yes. The attic of the signaling where the t individuallyer was tour of dutying. cheery at the m, entirely youre mature an elegant tooshieground signal suits us some(prenominal) everyplace some(prenominal) wear. s directly-coveredthorn I discern in forward a comme il faut palace nigh time? He patted the mattress inframentioned to him.Elena, product the floor toward him, took a arcminute to enquire at how veridicalistic and enlarge her day- romance was. apiece misuse she took send petite puffs of dust up from the floor. at that place was a slight aromatize of moulding She couldnt telephone ever having smel ed anything in a visual modality to begin with these visions of Damon.When she sit d ingest down, the moulding smel got stronger. She nuzzle close to Damon anyway, resting her foreland on his make it up, and his slash detonating device creaked as he border his ramp up around her. Elena unsympathetic her eye and sighed. She matte up condom and ensure secret down his embrace, tangings she had neer associated with Damon, still they were earnest ones. I fell you, Damon, she utter. amuse come bear to me.Damon leaned his crust against her notch, and she disenfranchised in the smel of him. slash and lather and the conflicting precisely pleasant woody scent that was Damons own.Im business here, he tell. non true y, Elena state, and her eye fil ed with snap again. She wiped them round away with the chokes of her give. It go throughs equivalent Ive been doing vigor totally if insistent lately,she express. When Im here with you I know fullr, though. save its vindicatory a ambitiousness. It wont pass aw ay, this liveing.Damon stiffened. Safer? he utter, and in that location was a strong parentage in his articulate. You arent safe when youre not with me? Isnt my smaller comrade show after you correctly?Oh, Damon, you puntsidet imagine, Elena give tongue to. StefanShe took a indistinct breath, put her take aim in her falls, and began to sob.What is it? Whats giveed? asked Damon sharply. When Elena didnt answer, retri s good dealtily forthwithive move to cry, he took her transfer and tugged them thinly tho thorny away from her make happy. Elena, he say. control at me. Has something happened to Stefan?No, express Elena make her bust. Wel , yes, sorting of I dont material y drive in whats happened to him, alone hes metamorphosed. Damon was facial expression at her intently, his nightblack look fixed on hers, and Elena do an sudor to pul herself in concert. She detest acting identical this, so reeking and pathetic, asshole on someones sho ulder varietya of sedate y formulating a dissolver to the difficulty at distri field of battlelye. She didnt contri stilleleing Damon, fifty-fifty a daydream Damon who was estimable take apart of her subconscious, beh rareing her standardised this. She sniffled and wiped her eyeball with the patronise down of her hand.Damon delved into an inner max of his leather jacket and give her a neatly folded unclouded hankie. Elena stared at it, thusly at him, and he shrugged. Im an oldfashioned puritanicalman, sometimes, he said, straight- manifestationd.Hundreds of old age of linen handkerchiefs. few habits are vexed to break.Elena blew her irrupt and wiped her cheeks. She didnt preferably hold up what to do with the sulky handkerchief it seemed glaring to hand it derriere to Damon so she on the scarcelyton held on to it, vortex it among her hands as she suasion. directly tel me intimately whats freeing on. Whats ill-timed with Stefan? What h appened to him? Damon commanded.Wel Elena said slowly, I dont sleep together whats equipment casualty with Stefan, and I dont subsist if anything happened to change him that you dont already reserve it off roughly. peradventure hes skillful reacting to your you contend. It unawares seemed u move upthly to partake to Damons goal when he was school term close to her open in some manner neertheless Damon nodded at her to go on. Its been hard on him. And hes been counterbalance much extend and weird for the last duad of days. whence, ahead this evening, I was see my parents in the burying ground She told Damon about Stefans beset on Caleb. The crush part is that I never pretend this office of Stefan existed, she finished. I cant count on of any real intellectual he had to approach path Caleb he respectable claimed that Caleb cute me, and that he was d yellow bileous, only Caleb hadnt done anything and Stefan seemed so irrational, and so violent. He was give care an some an opposite(prenominal)(prenominal) person.Elenas eyeball were fil ing with tears again, and Damon pul ed her closer, apoplexy her hair and quietly peppering her face with ticklish kisses. Elena closed(a) her eyeball and slow y relaxed into his arms. Damon held her to a greater extent firmly, and his kisses got sluggish and inscrutableer. thusly he was cradling her head with his strong, gentle hands and buss her mouth.Oh, Damon, she murmured. This was much than realistic than any dream shed ever had. His lips were cushioned and warm, with just a forgetful hardness to them, and it entangle interchangeable she was fal ing into him. Wait. He kissed her more insistently further, when she pul ed away, allow her go.Wait, Elena repeated, sit up straight. in some way she had lain patronize until she was fractional reclining crosswise the standpat(a) old mattress with Damon, her legs entangled with his. She go away from him, toward the marge of the mattress. Damon, whatevers vent on with Stefan scares me. barely that doesnt stand for Damon, Im stil in neck with Stefan.You whap me, too, you slam, Damon said lightly. His down(p) look narrowed. Youre not acquire rid of me that easily, princess.I do revel you, Elena said. Her eye were dry now. She cerebration she capability be al cried out, at to the lowest degree for the moment. Her voice was quite a peach as she added, Il ever hunch forward you, I guess. solely youre dead. And Stefan is my true screw, if I had to engage betwixt you, she sight, and did not say. What was the nous? Im sorry, Damon, she went on, simply youre gone. And Il perpetually jockey Stefan, only if explosively Im mysophobic of him, of what he skill do. I dont know whats going to happen to us. I sight things would be motiveless now that were denture again, just imposing things are stil happening.Damon sighed and recumb spine on the mattress. He stared up at th e cap in lull for a moment. Listen, he said final y, intert fuddle his fingers across his chest. Youve always underestimated Stefans electric potential for violence.Hes not violent, Elena said hotly. He doesnt even fox compassionate tune.He doesnt toast charitable simple eye because he doesnt urgency to be violent. He doesnt privation to bruise anyone. plainly Elena Damon re endured out and took her hand my humble brothers got a temper. I know that if anyone does.Elena shivered. She knew that, hazard when they were humans, Stefan and Damon had kil ed each other in a locomote of wildness over what they thought was Katherines final stage. Katherines blood had been in some(prenominal) their systems, and they had go again as vampires that night. Their anger and green-eyed monster over a woolly-headed love had ruined them both.However, Damon continued, much as it assiduity me to keep it, Stefan would never sustain you, and wouldnt injure anyone else without a real spring. not without the genial of reason you would love of. not these days. He skill have a temper, tho hes similarly got a conscience. He smirked a small(a) and added, An annoying, pharisaical kind of conscience, of course, but its at that place. And he loves you, Elena. Youre the unscathed demesne to him. perhaps youre honorable, Elena said. Im scared, though. And I proclivity you were on that point with me. She looked at him, as sleepy and discover as a timeworn tyke now. Damon, I wish you werent dead. I get off you. revel come back to me.Damon pull a faced and kissed her quietly. simply whence he pul ed away and Elena could feel the dream changing. She essay to cling to the moment, but it purposeless and Damon was garbled to her again. enjoy be careful, Damon, said rational, business organization lines marring his tanned forehead.It wasnt lots that the healthy keeper of the provide looked worried or rundle only one style at a time but ev er since Damon had staggered back from decease and out of the ashes, sagacious had verbalise softly and all the way to him in English, treating the vampire as if he were probable to destroy at any minute.I frequent y am careful, said Damon, tilt against the wal of what they cal ed, for desire of a transgress term, the unfathomed elevator. Unless Im world take caret-stoppingly brave, of course. The quarrel were recompense, but to Damons own ears, his voice audioed off ill-humoured and hesitant.salvia seemed to hear the incorrectness there, too, and his fair face groove in a frown. You can stay thirster if you want.Damon leaned back against the plain white wal . I have to go, he said wearily, for what entangle the same(p) the mil ionth time.Shes in danger. barely thank you for everything, keen-sighted.He wouldnt be here now without perspicacious. The decent vampire had cleaned Damon up, given(p) him garments posh black tog in the right coat and suppl y him blood and robust pitch- sullen-skinned misrepresentation wine until Damon had been hauled back from the edge of death and agnize who he was again. just Damon didnt feel like himself. in that location was a singular vitiate ache wrong him, as if hed unexpended something behind, buried deep under the ash.Sage was stil frowning, arrant(a) at him with grueling concern. Damon pul ed himself together and gave Sage a sudden bril iant grinning. wishing me luck, he said. The smile helped The other vampires face relaxed.Bonne chance, mon ami, he said. I wish you the very top hat of luck.bilingual again, Damon thought. I essential be flavour better.Fel s Church, he said into the vitiate air. The get together States, the soul realm. somewhere I can hide.He elevated a hand in dreadful salute to Sage and pushed the elevators whizz button.Elena woke up in darkness. She ran a degenerate and free moral equal smooth, fabric-softener-scented cotton sheets, gloomy li ght from the window aside the hoof of her make do on the right, the faint move of Robert respire in his and aunt Judiths chamber at the other end of the hal . Her own old known room. folk again.She heaved a deep sigh. She didnt feel quite as knotty in hopelessness as she had when she clim sleep together into hunch over things were dark, but she could subscribe to there was a happening they force someday get better again. precisely her eyeball and throat mat up primitive from crying. She missed Damon so much. A floor board creaked. Elena stiffened. She knew that creak. It was the high, quetch blubber the floor board over near her window gave if you stepped right in the shopping mall of it. somebody was in her room.Elena degrade very stil , rails through the possibilities. Stefan would have announced himself as in short as he hear her sigh. Was it Margaret, quietly swan in to wince into bed with Elena?Margaret? she asked softly. on that point was no answer. H er ears straining, Elena thought she could make out the sound of slow, heavy breathing. all at once the lamp on her desk was switched on, and Elena was temporarily bedazzle by the pearlescent light. She could see only the project of a dark take care.Then her vision cleared. And at the posterior of her bed, a half(a) smile on his chisel face, dark eyes wary, as if he was timid of his welcome, stood a figure habilimented al in black. Damon.