"Liar!" cried Stefan. He was seething now. "I am as strong as you are,brother , and I fear nothing in the shadows or the sunlight either. And I love Katherine more than friends or family-"
"-or your duty? Do you love her enough to give that up as well?"
"Yes," Stefan said defiantly. "Enough to give up everything."
Damon gave one of his sudden, disturbing smiles. Then he turned back to Katherine. "It would seem," he said, "that the choice is yours alone. You have two suitors for your hand; will you take one of us or neither?"
Katherine slowly bowed her golden head. Then she lifted wet blue eyes to both of them.
"Give me until Sunday to think. And in the meantime, do not press me with questions."
Stefan nodded reluctantly. Damon said, "And on Sunday?"
"Sunday evening at twilight I will make my choice."
Twilight... the violet deep darkness of twilight...
The velvet hues faded around Stefan, and he came to himself. It was not dusk, but dawn, that stained the sky around him. Lost in his thoughts, he had driven up to the edge of the woods.
To the northwest he could see Wickery Bridge and the graveyard. New memory set his pulse pounding.
He had told Damon he was willing to give up everything for Katherine. And that was just what he had done. He had renounced all claim to the sunlight, and had become a creature of darkness for her. A hunter doomed to be forever hunted himself, a thief who had to steal life to fill his own veins.
And perhaps a murderer. No, they had said the girl Vickie would not die. But his next victim might. The worst thing about this last attack was that he remembered nothing of it. He remembered the weakness, the overpowering need, and he remembered staggering through the church door, but nothing after. He'd come to his senses outside with Elena's scream echoing in his ears-and he had raced to her without stopping to think about what might have happened.
Elena... For a moment he felt a rush of pure joy and awe, forgetting everything else. Elena, warm as sunlight, soft as morning, but with a core of steel that could not be broken. She was like fire burning in ice, like the keen edge of a silver dagger.
But did he have the right to love her? His very feeling for her put her in danger. What if the next time the need took him Elena was the nearest living human, the nearest vessel filled with warm, renewing blood?
I will die before touching her, he thought, making a vow of it. Before I broach her veins, I will die of thirst. And I swear she will never know ray secret. She will never have to give up the sunlight because of me.
Behind him, the sky was lightening. But before he left, he sent out one probing thought, with all the force of his pain behind it, seeking for some other Power that might be near. Searching for some other solution to what had happened in the church.
But there was nothing, no hint of an answer. The graveyard mocked him with silence.
Elena woke with the sun shining in her window. She felt, at once, as if she'd just recovered from a long bout of the flu, and as if it were Christmas morning. Her thoughts jumbled together as she sat up.
Oh. She hurt all over. But she and Stefan-that made everything right. That drunken slob Tyler... But Tyler didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered except that Stefan loved her.
She went downstairs in her nightgown, realizing from the light slanting in the windows that she must have slept in very late. Aunt Judith and Margaret were in the living room.
"Good morning, Aunt Judith." She gave her surprised aunt a long, hard hug. "And good morning, pumpkin." She swept Margaret off her feet and waltzed around the room with her. "And-oh! Good morning, Robert." A little embarrassed at her exuberance and her state of undress, she put Margaret down and hurried into the kitchen.
Aunt Judith came in. Though there were dark circles under her eyes, she was smiling. "You seem in good spirits this morning."
"Oh, I am." Elena gave her another hug, to apologize for the dark circles. "You know we have to go back to the sheriff's to talk to them about Tyler."
"Yes." Elena got juice out of the refrigerator and poured herself a glass. "But can I go over to Vickie Bennett's house first? I know she must be upset, especially since it sounds like not everybody believes her."
"Do you believe her, Elena?"
"Yes," she said slowly, "I do believe her. And, Aunt Judith," she added, coming to a decision, "something happened to me in the church, too. I thought-"
"Elena! Bonnie and Meredith are here to see you." Robert's voice sounded from the hallway.
The mood of confidence was broken. "Oh... send them in," Elena called, and took a sip of orange juice. "I'll tell you about it later," she promised Aunt Judith, as footsteps approached the kitchen.
Bonnie and Meredith stopped in the doorway, standing with unaccustomed formality.
Elena herself felt awkward, and waited until her aunt left the room again to speak.
Then she cleared her throat, her eyes fixed on a worn tile in the linoleum. She sneaked a quick glance up and saw that both Bonnie and Meredith were staring at that same tile.
She burst into laughter, and at the sound they both looked up.
"I'm too happy to even be defensive," Elena said, holding out her arms to them. "And I know I ought to be sorry about what I said, and Iam sorry, but I just can't be all pathetic about it. I was terrible and I deserve to be executed, and now can we just pretend it never happened?"
"Youought to be sorry, running off on us like that," Bonnie scolded as the three of them joined in a tangled embrace.