Jessalyn was beginning to look puzzled but excited.
Blushing, she held out one smal hand to Damon, but clearly without any intention of strangling him.
"Please, you must,"Damon said earnestly, never taking his eyes off hers. "That is the only thing I ask of you: that you kil me yourself instead of cal ing your guards so that the last sight I see wil be your beautiful face."
"You're il ,"Jessalyn decided, stil looking flustered. "There have been other unbalanced minds who have made their way past the first wal of my castle - although never to my chambers. I'l give you to the doctors so that they can make you wel ."
"Please,"said Damon, who had forged his way through the last of the filmy black hangings and was now looming over the sitting princess. "Grant me instant death, rather than leaving me to die a little each day. You don't know what I've done. I can't stop dreaming of you. I've fol owed you from shop to shop when you went out. I am already dying now as you ravish me with your nobility and radiance, knowing that I am no more than the paving stones you walk on. No doctor can change that."
Jessalyn was clearly considering. Obviously, no one had ever talked to her like this.
Her green eyes fixed on his lips, the lower of which was stil bleeding. Damon gave an indifferent little laugh and said,
"One of your guards caught me and very properly tried to kil me before I could reach you and disturb your sleep. I'm afraid I had to kil him to get here,"he said, standing between one pil ar candle and the girl on the bed so that his shadow was thrown over her.
Jessalyn's eyes widened in approval even as the rest of her seemed more fragile than ever. "It's stil bleeding,"she whispered. "I could - "
"You can do anything you want,"Damon encouraged her with a wry quirk of a smile on his lips. It was true. She could.
"Then come here."She thumped a place by the nearest pil ow on the bed. "What are you cal ed?"
"Damon,"he said as he stripped off his jacket and lay down, chin propped on one elbow, with the air of one not unused to such things.
"Just that? Damon?"
"You can cut it stil shorter. I am nothing but Shame now,"he replied, taking another minute to think of Elena and to hold Jessalyn's eyes hypnotical y. "I was a vampire - a powerful and proud one - on Earth - but I was tricked by a kitsune..."He told her a garbled version of Stefan's story, omitting Elena or any nonsense about wanting to be human.
He said that when he managed to escape the prison that had taken his vampire self, he decided to end his own human life.
But at that moment, he had seen Princess Jessalyn and thought that, serving her, he would be happy with his sorry lot.
Alas, he said, it only fed his disgraceful feelings for her highness.
"Now my madness has driven me to actual y accost you in your own chambers. Make an example of me, your highness, that wil cause other evildoers to tremble. Burn me, have me flogged and quartered, put my head on a pike to cause those who might do you il to cast themselves into a fire first."He was now in bed with her, leaning back a little to expose his bare throat.
"Don't be sil y,"Jessalyn said, with a little catch in her voice.
"Even the meanest of my servants wants to live."
"Perhaps the ones that never see you do. Scul ions, stable boys - but I cannot live, knowing that I can never have you."
The princess looked Damon over, blushed, gazed for a moment into his eyes...and then she bit him.
"I'l get Stefan to go down to the root cel ar,"Elena said to Meredith, who was angrily thumbing tears out of her eyes.
"You know we can't do that. With the police right here in the house - "
"Then I'll do it - "
"You can't! You know you can't, Elena, or you wouldn't have come to me!"
Elena looked at her friend closely. "Meredith, you've been donating blood al along,"she whispered. "You never seemed even slightly bothered..."
"He only took a tiny bit - always less from me than anyone.
And always from my arm. I just pretended I was having blood drawn at the doctor's. No problem. It wasn't even bad with Damon back in the Dark Dimension."
"But now..."Elena blinked. "Now - what?"
"Now,"Meredith said with a faraway expression, "Stefan knows that I'm a hunter-slayer. That I even have a fighting stave. And now I have to...to submit to..."
Elena had gooseflesh. She felt as if the distance from her to Meredith in the room was getting larger. "A hunter-slayer?"she said, bewildered. "And what's a fighting stave?"
"There's no time to explain now! Oh, Elena..."
If Plan A was Meredith and Plan B was Matt, there was real y no choice. Plan C had to be Elena herself. Her blood was much stronger than anyone else's anyway, so ful of Power that Stefan would only need a -
"No!"Meredith whispered right in Elena's ear, somehow managing to hiss a word without a single sibilant. "They're coming down the stairs. We have to find Stefan now! Can you tel him to meet me in the little bedroom behind the parlor?"
"Yes, but - "
"Do it!"
And I stil don't know what a fighting stave is, Elena thought, al owing Meredith to take her arms and propel her toward the bedroom. But I know what a "hunter-slayer"sounds like, and I definitely don't like it. And that weapon - it makes a stake look like a plastic picnic knife. Stil , she sent to Stefan, who was fol owing the sheriffs downstairs: Meredith is going to donate as much blood as you need to Influence them.
There's no time to argue. Come here fast and for God's sake look cheerful and reassuring.