Before she could blink, Klaus was standing directly in front of her, his fingers holding her jaw bruisingly tight. He tipped back her head, turning her face up toward him, forcing her to meet his icy, laughing eyes.
"I owe you a death, pretty one," he said, smiling. Elena could feel Chloe quivering beside her and Matt's hand on her arm, cold with fear but still holding tight.
"Leave her alone," Matt said, and Elena knew him well enough to know how hard he was working to keep his voice from shaking.
Klaus ignored him, his eyes fixed on Elena's. They stared at each other, and Elena tried to make her own eyes as defiant as possible. If Klaus was going to kill her now, she wouldn't go down weeping and begging for mercy. She wouldn't. She bit the inside of her cheek hard, trying to focus on the physical pain instead of her fear.
Then Stefan was suddenly there, wrenching at Klaus's arm with all his strength, but it didn't make any difference. Klaus's hand was as firm on her jaw as ever, his eyes steady on hers. The moment seemed to stretch out into years.
A new madness, more heated than Elena had seen before, bloomed in Klaus's eyes. "I will kill you," he said, almost affectionately, squeezing her face between his fingers so that Elena made an involuntary moan of pain and protest. "But not yet. I want you to be waiting for me, to think of me coming for you. You won't know when, but it will be soon."
Quickly, shockingly, he pulled her toward him and planted a soft, cold kiss on her mouth. His breath was rank, and the taste of Ethan's blood on his lips made her gag.
Finally, he opened his hand and released her. Elena stumbled back several paces, wiping at her mouth furiously.
"I'll see you again, little one," Klaus said, and then he was gone, faster than Elena's eyes could follow.
Matt caught Elena before she could fall. A moment later, Stefan's strong arms were around her, and Matt let her go.
Everyone was blinking and dazed, as if Klaus's exit had left a vacuum. The Vitale vampires were looking at one another uncertainly and, before Meredith and the rest could collect themselves enough to begin fighting again, the vampires were leaving, running away in a panicked, disorganized mob. Meredith reached for the stake in her belt, but it was too late. Frowning, she silently crossed the clearing to pick up her stave, turning it over in her hands to check for damage.
Zander, his fur bloody and bedraggled from the fight, lowered his head, and the rest of his Pack crowded around him anxiously. One of the other wolves licked quickly at his wound, and Zander leaned against him.
Chloe had not disappeared with the other vampires. Instead, she stood by Matt, biting at her lips with blunt teeth, staring at the ground. After a moment, Matt put his arm carefully around her and Chloe huddled close to his side.
Elena sighed wearily and let her head drop onto Stefan's shoulder. She could still taste Klaus's vile kiss, and tears stung her eyes.
Ethan was dead, but nothing was over. The fight was just beginning.
In a tree high above the clearing, a large black crow ruffled its feathers, eyeing the battleground below him. He had watched the fight critically, thinking that there were things he would have done differently, more aggressively. But no, this wasn't Damon's place anymore. He hadn't wanted to be seen, hadn't wanted to get involved with Elena and Stefan and all their problems. But the scent of blood and fire had led him here.
After everything, he still wanted to save Elena and Stefan, didn't he? That was what was pulling him to the fight, an almost unnatural urge to do what he was built to do: to kill. When he'd seen Klaus fling his brother aside, everything in him had tensed to attack. And when the arrogant Original vampire had dared to touch Elena - Damon's Elena, his heart still insisted - Damon had flown to the edge of the clearing, his normally slow pulse hammering with rage.
But they didn't need him, they didn't want him; he was done with them. He'd tried - he'd done his best, he'd changed - all for Elena's love, and for the friendship he'd found with his brother at last. After centuries of caring for no one but himself, Damon had suddenly been caught in Elena's world, wrapped up in the lives of a handful of mortal teenagers. He'd become someone he barely recognized.
And it hadn't mattered. In the end, Damon was still left on the outside.
Klaus was gone and they were fine. This wasn't his fight. Not anymore. Now, all he had was the cloak of night and the cold comfort of once again relying on no one but himself.
Damon was, he told himself fiercely, free.
Chapter 9
Matt craned to look over Stefan's shoulder and through the creaking door of the abandoned boathouse. It was dark and musty inside, and Matt's hand tightened automatically on Chloe's.
"This should be a safe place for now," Stefan told them.
Elena and the others had headed back to campus, shaken and quiet from the fight, but Chloe had nowhere to go. "I don't know what to do now," she'd said. "I can't go back to the Vitale house. Will you help me?"
Matt had taken her hand, feeling a wave of guilty compassion wash over him. If only he hadn't trusted Ethan. The other Vitale pledges had been innocent victims, but Matt had known vampires. Why hadn't he suspected? "Wherever you go, I'm coming with you," he'd said stubbornly. So Stefan had brought them here.
Matt rubbed the back of his neck and looked around. Safe or not, the old boathouse certainly was grim-looking. Stefan had said that students didn't come here anymore, and Matt could easily believe it.
This had once been the boathouse for the Dalcrest crew team, but new docks and a boathouse had been built closer to the river. Since then, the small artificial lake this boathouse fronted had silted up. Now algae-scummed, brackish water lay shallowly across the muddy lake bottom, and the boathouse itself had been left to rot. Foul-smelling water sloshed below damp, softened wood underfoot. Above their heads, the rotting roof let in glimpses of the night sky.