Jack’s lips twitched into a smile again, stiffer and more horrible, the rictus grin of a dying man. “But I had another plan. I would make Siobhan save her, and I’d make myself a vampire, too. We’d live forever, together. Strong and well.”
“Something happened, though,” Elena said. Her voice was a little warmer, Damon thought. Elena understood why someone would do terrible things for love. “Your plan didn’t work.”
Blood trickled down Jack’s chin now, and he moaned and twitched as if he wanted to wipe it away but couldn’t raise his hands. His eyes rolled from side to side, as if he were seeing something too horrible to look at directly. “I found Lucia’s poor body, she was torn apart… I was going to kill them all. I’d make more vampires, stronger, better ones, and we’d hunt down Siobhan and her kind.” He looked from Elena to Damon, his eyes pleading. “I know… we’re monsters. But when the vampires are dead, I’ll kill my creations. It was the only way I could fight them. Let me live. Let me finish.”
His own lukewarm blood running through his fingers, Damon slowly shook his head. So what if Jack thought he was a hero? He had murdered Stefan, and he deserved to die.
Elena wrapped her arms around herself. She looked young and vulnerable, but she was Damon’s strong girl. “No,” she said. “This is the end, Jack.”
Jack choked and gagged, a harsh cough tearing from his throat. “Let me make the world safe,” he said weakly, when the coughing fit finally ended, “Please. I’m not a bad man.”
He took one final rattling breath and then his chest stilled and everything was silent.
Damon took a breath of his own and stared up at the half-moon sailing high above the plaza, his chest feeling raw and painful. Jack was dead. They had their vengeance for Stefan now, and it was all over.
He had thought that it would feel better, more complete. But the flush of joy he’d felt had faded, and the ache was still inside him. Stefan was dead. He felt a slender, warm hand take his, and he turned to Elena. “We did it,” she said softly, and Damon leaned against her. The bond between them was flooding with relief, and Damon felt his slow heart speed up a bit as he held onto Elena’s hand. “We did,” he agreed, watching the soft glow of her skin in the moonlight. “Now we can go home.”
Chapter 32
Three weeks had passed since Damon and Elena killed Jack, far away in Switzerland. Since then, none of them had been able to take more than a second to focus on anything except preparing for Bonnie’s wedding. And now it was a beautiful day for the ceremony, Matt thought. They were all together, safe and whole.
The sky was blue and open, the only clouds above tiny and puffy white. Birds sang in the trees—the long trill of a warbler, the three short notes of a whippoorwill. Wild violets were blooming in the grass at their feet. Matt ran a finger around the inside of his collar, easing where it pressed against the bandage on his throat.
“Dude, if you forgot the ring, Zander’s going to kill you,” Spencer whispered to Jared beside him.
“Forget Zander, Shay will kill me first. She said I’d better learn to take a little responsibility,” Jared muttered back. “Anyway, I didn’t forget it, I just can’t find it.” He was digging through his pockets frantically, shaggy hair flopping over his forehead.
Matt resisted rolling his eyes. He was honored to be the only non-werewolf in Zander’s side of the wedding party. The werewolves were great guys for a pickup game of football or a night of barhopping, and amazing allies in a fight. For a formal occasion? Matt felt like he’d spent the last three weeks babysitting a pack of overgrown kids. The fun bachelor party had almost made up for the nightmarish tuxedo fittings, though.
“Try the inner breast pocket of your jacket,” he whispered to Jared.
Jared felt inside his jacket and immediately smiled, a big dimpled grin. “Thanks, Matt.”
“Loser,” Marcus whispered from his other side, and Jared snorted and smacked Marcus on the back of his head.
“Cut it out,” Matt whispered. The guys straightened up and stilled beside him as Zander came to join them, smiling nervously and shoving his pale blond hair out of his eyes.
A Celtic harp began to play, and the gathered audience rose to their feet.
Bonnie’s older sisters came down the path first, pretty and solemn-faced in rose pink. Then came Shay, Zander’s second-in-command, who smirked at Jared as she stepped into place beside the sisters. Meredith followed, tall, slim, and elegant, her head held high. Then Elena, her golden hair pulled back and a soft smile on her face.
The girls arranged themselves in a line in front of the minister and a hushed expectancy fell over the crowd.
They all stood and turned as Bonnie appeared, arm in arm with her beaming father. Her strapless dress was long and lacy, and her red hair shone in the sunlight. She didn’t wear a veil, but a circlet of white rosebuds, and she carried a bouquet of white roses in full bloom.
She looked like everything a bride was supposed to be, Matt thought: beautiful, excited, a little shy. Like a princess. Mostly, Bonnie looked happy.
She squeezed her father’s arm as they came up to the others, and he kissed her, let her go, and stepped back. Bonnie looked up at Zander and reached out to take his large hands in her smaller ones. He bent his head to look down at her and gave her the slow, sweet smile Matt had never seen him give to anyone but Bonnie.
Automatically, Matt glanced into the audience, looking for Jasmine, and found her seated a few rows back. Her sweet mouth curved in a private smile just for him. Something warm blossomed in Matt’s chest.
He’d miss Bonnie when she went to Colorado with Zander. But love was love was love, and, basking in the light of Jasmine’s sweet smile, he couldn’t wish for anything else for Bonnie. This, he knew, was what was going to make his friend happy.
The minister spread his arms in greeting, and the audience sat and settled. The wedding party turned their attention to him politely. Bonnie’s brown-eyed gaze was confident and steady, the sunlight making her porcelain skin glow.
“Dearly beloved…” the minister began.
Bonnie, always the baby of their group, was now so sure and poised that a flare of affection lit in Matt’s chest. He could see the skinny kid, the sassy teenager, the clear-eyed woman, all in the same person, and for a moment, he was just so grateful for her, for all of them. They’d all found someone, his little band of friends: Bonnie and Zander, Meredith and Alaric—even Elena would find her way back to Damon, he knew. And he had Jasmine.
Beloved…
As Damon sat in the front row of seats, watching the ceremony, it occurred to him that his little redbird really had grown up. She was looking lovely, too, her face tilted politely to the minister’s as she gave the appropriate responses: yes, she would have and hold, yes, she would love and honor. The overgrown werewolf boy beside her was clearly over the moon with joy, as he should be. Bonnie was too good for him.
Damon couldn’t help it as his attention drifted from little bridal Bonnie to his Elena, standing beside her. What was she thinking, his princess, behind her solemn and attentive facade? Was she wishing she and Stefan had gone through this ritual when they’d had the chance? Was she regretting all that she’d lost?
She’d loved his brother with her whole heart, and it would have been strange if she hadn’t thought of that now, mourned the life they’d lost as she watched Bonnie and Zander embarking on theirs.
Or… could Elena be thinking of him?
He probed carefully at their bond, but got only a general contentment, a warm joy at her friend’s happiness. If there was a certain wistfulness about her joy, it didn’t seem to center around anyone in particular. Not that she let Damon see, at least.
Elena had let him kiss her, in the car while they hunted Siobhan. More than that, she had drawn on his energy, charged her own Power. It had been more intimate than any of their kisses before, and he still felt an echo of that closeness.
He knew what that kiss had meant to him. The question was, what had it meant to Elena? They hadn’t talked about it. Since the night three weeks before when they’d killed Jack, they’d been cautious and polite with each other, circling each other warily in the confines of Elena’s apartment. Every once in a while, though, he’d felt the brush of her regard, turned to see Elena’s lapis lazuli eyes watching him thoughtfully and with affection.
Damon permitted himself, sometimes, to hope.
The minister said, with a smile, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” and Bonnie leaned up for Zander’s kiss, her face shining.
Damon stood with the rest as the bridal party went down the path, and then followed and joined them as waiters passed around champagne.
Bonnie’s father cleared his throat, holding his glass aloft. “My baby girl…” he began, tears in his eyes. Damon let his gaze drift around the circle of faces. Bonnie’s family was so ordinary—balding middle-management father, comfortably plump mother, two round-faced practical older sisters. His redbird was like a rare rose in a garden of dandelions.
“Like the cliché goes, I’m not losing a daughter, I’m gaining a son,” Bonnie’s father said, putting an awkward hand on Zander’s shoulder. Everyone smiled, and Damon felt a small stir of sentiment. At least they adored her, Bonnie’s plebian suburban family. They’d never quite comprehend how fiery and sweet and full of Power she was. But they loved her.