Slowly, she lowered her
arms, and at the same time realized that they were quivering with unreleased tension. She watched as her trembling hands let go of the branch and it hit the concrete.
“And just what were you going to do with that, redbird?”
It was Damon’s voice. Bonnie turned around without a thought for the bad dogs. Damon himself was standing on the pathway. He was smiling at her.
“
I don’t know exactly what I was going to do,” Bonnie said, feeling self-conscious, but unable to help smiling shakily back. “I guess—whatever I could.”
“But weren’t you scared?”
“I was scared to death—too scared not to do
something
. The big white dog was even more scared than I was and I had to try to use that stick. I guess I was going to jam the splintery end into the bad dogs’ noses.”
“
The bad—? Ah. Hm,” Damon said, taking a moment to look over the feral dogs sprawled and cowering on the concrete.
Bonnie looked, too.
The animals’ eyes were fairly glowing with fire, and their hair was bristled up all over their backs. But even as Bonnie stared, they seemed to cower away from her, almost as if they heard some angry voice that she couldn’t make out.
Damon turned back to her. “
You know what, redbird? I think that you’ve been very brave tonight. You were going to try to fight those . . . bad dogs . . . with only a pointed stick. And you didn’t even scream out loud.”
“Well, I was scream
ing
inloud
plenty,” Bonnie confided, pleased with the new word she had discovered. “And I never was so glad to see—or hear—anyone as when you came!” Suddenly and quite spontaneously, she threw her arms around him.
Damon squeezed her tightly for a moment
and then quickly rubbed her back, as if trying to warm her. “You’re all frozen, little redbird,” he said, his voice worried. “You can’t fly like this; you’ll ice up your feathers.”
Bonnie giggled because he sounded so serious. She looked up at him
—meaning to make some silly comment about needing a swig of antifreeze; she remembered that hipflask of his from the hospital—when suddenly everything in the world stopped.
Damon was looking down at her with an expression she had never seen before. At least, she’d never seen it directed toward her before.
His dark eyes seemed to be filled with stars, just like the brilliant stars that blazed overhead in the moonless sky.
He looked almost puzzled, as if he was wondering over her, trying to make out whether she was mostly funny or mostly . . .
something else. Something that made the breath catch in Bonnie’s throat.
He took off his jacket and
wrapped it around her, but he did it absent-mindedly, all the time looking down at her intently. Bonnie shivered once as she felt the warm leather encasing her—warm from Damon’s body heat. The jacket actually seemed to generate warmth that radiated through Bonnie all the way down to her chilly toes.
But this fact passed through her mind
only vaguely, because right now Bonnie was thinking with her heart. She felt spellbound, wrapped not just in warmth but in dizzy lightness, as if she were floating. And nothing mattered except Damon’s closeness and the wonderful way he was looking at her.
“You’re a contradictory little thing,” he murmured, almost as if he were talking to himself. “Y
ou say that you’re terrified—and I believe you—but when you’ve got something that’s more frightened than you are to protect, you try to fight off certain death with a splintered stick.”
He smiled faintly, just one corner of his mouth quirking up, and Bonnie realize with a thrill that
it was a genuine smile, not the flashy one he put on for all sorts of reasons. This was just for her, and his eyes had gone soft and velvety for her, too.
Bonnie knew that her own lips were parted in astonishment, her breath coming lightly and quickly. She had never realized . . . but then she’d never really allowed herself to imagine this. It was all like some magical dream.
“You know,” he said, very slowly and softly, as if he were puzzling out each word, “there are times when I think I’ve had enough of adventure, little redbird. When I just want to . . . come home. But . . . where is home, really? I wonder about that. Don’t you think sometimes that it’s nice to just relax . . . on your nest?”
A worry
was nagging at Bonnie, trying to be born, but she pushed it away. She did her best to answer Damon’s question. “I suppose so,” she managed at last, hearing the quiver in her own soft voice. “I . . . I think . . .”
“Don’
t think,” Damon murmured. “Redbird, don’t think. Just . . . be.”
He was holding her now, and his arms were strong and
certain and a yearning joy told Bonnie that she never wanted him to let go. She felt her eyes drift shut, but at the same time, she could sense what Damon was doing. He was bending down to her, slowly, and then his lips touched hers, so softly, so gently that it was actually a shock of sweetness to all her senses. A throb of pure heavenly bliss pulsed through her body, dissolving her so that she was all softness, all gentleness as she kissed him back. They were in perfect harmony, and they could never be out of tune. Bonnie was as captivated as a little mating songbird by the bright plumage and melody of her born nestmate.
For a long, long moment
the kiss held and Bonnie couldn’t think at all, but only feel and
be
. It was as if she were flying; there was a breathless rush and surge inside her and around her. She knew that this wondrous flight was changing her forever, that from now until eternity, she would always be a part of . . .
Wait! No!
Stop!
Bonnie’s nagging worry burst through the sweetness and the melody and flared red on the inside of her eyelids. It was as if the words themselves were dragging her back to a reality she didn’t want to remember. She only wanted to—
Elena!
Oh, my God, Bonnie thought, no longer a little mating songbird, no longer flying, only falling
. And the reality that she fell into filled her with horror.
She found that she was pushing at Damon; pushing hard at his chest with both hands. He was letting go of her but when his eyes opened, he looked at her with
bewilderment and hurt.
His leather jacket slid off Bonnie’s shoulders and fell to the ground. Neither Damon nor Bonnie took any notice of it, but
when Bonnie felt the icy chill of the wind cut into her, she knew that she was back in reality, with her heart pounding violently.
Oh, God, God, God! she thought.
She couldn’t stand for Damon to keep on looking at her the way he was, with open tenderness and hurt in his expression. She said the one word that would explain everything to him.
“Elena!”
Damon drew in his breath sharply. For an instant he just looked stunned, and then his whole demeanor changed. His eyes widened; he jerked upright as if he’d been struck a physical blow. He swallowed with a visible effort.
Bonnie
’s vision was blurred and she felt the first hot tears trickle down her cheeks. She was overcome with shame and remorse.
“
Oh,” she half-sobbed, “How could we? How could
you
?”
Damon looked rigid now.
“How could I? But I’m . . . I’m completely powerless. It was you.” He shook his head in clear disbelief. “You actually influenced me . . .”
“What are you talking about?” Bonnie’s sobs were full-blown by this time, shaking her whole body. “What did
I
do? You started talking about how even though I was frightened I tried to fight off certain death with a stick. And then you put your jacket on me—”
Bonnie glanced down at the jacket but didn’t move to pick it up. However, as she looking in that direction she was jolted by the sight of the two bad dogs still crouching on the ground; their
fierce eyes gleaming.
Damon
seemed to see them in the same instant. He made a sound of impatience and then a gesture, as of casting something away.
“Leave it!” he cried. “Off! Go away! Whatever—just get out of here right now!”
He spoke as if the bad dogs could understand him. Maybe they did understand simple commands because with flattened ears and down-curled tails, they turned and began to lope away and no invisible wall stopped them. They ran, not along the concrete path, but into the darkness across the grass and toward a stand of tall trees. In seconds, they had melted into the night.
Bonnie
watched, her heart still pounding. She felt frantic and frightened, and she knew that now there was nobody who could rescue her. She had betrayed her friend—her velociraptor sister—and she couldn’t understand how it had happened.
It wasn’t as if Elena didn’t know that Bonnie had feelings for Damon; Bonnie knew that. But Elena also knew that she could trust both Damon and Bonnie absolutely.
How could Bonnie have completely forgotten all that? How could she have done such a horrible thing?
It was so strange, but in those moments that she’d been held by Damon’s eyes, Bonnie had . . . had lost track of the connection between him and Elena. Insane as it sounded, Bonnie had somehow thought of Elena as—taken care of. As if she’d broken up with Damon and was with . . . with . . .
With who? Bonnie demanded of her own mind. You don’t even have someone to pretend about! You know that she wouldn’t get back together with Matt. And . . . okay, so it feels as if there should be some other guy, someone perfect for her, someone who loves her desperately, but that’s
Damon
, you idiot!
You and Meredith swore a blood oath that you would help her get Damon or die doing it. Back in the cemetery in Fell’s Church, you swore it. You promised.
I
am
insane, Bonnie thought. I really, truly am. I say bizarre and terrible things I don’t remember; I sleepwalk in the freezing cold; I try to steal my dearest friend’s guy. And then I make up crazy excuses for my behavior.
Maybe it would have been better if Damon hadn’t come to find me and rescue me. I swear! If those wild dogs had just . . . just come a minute earlier I would never have done such an awful thing. It’s better to be dead than a crazy traitor! Isn’t it? Isn’t it?
“Now, redbir—now, Bonnie,” Damon said from behind her, and Bonnie realized that she had her hands up over her face again and that she was sobbing quietly.
Maybe I said something terrible
just now, she thought, and she didn’t care because she was insane.
“Bonnie,” Damon said again. “Come on.” He was wrapping his jacket around her again, trying to tuck her arms into the armholes. Bonnie
let him do it. Her arms hung down limply, and the jacket made her want to shudder. The leather of it smelled like Damon now to her. And the smell made her remember that one moment—a moment that had seemed to last forever—when his lips had touched hers.
“I’m insane,” she got out, between hitching breaths. “I’m . . . I’m . . .
evil
. . .”
“Bonnie!” Now Damon sounded
more than shocked. He turned her around and Bonnie was so surprised that she let him do that, too. “Of course you’re not evil. And you’re not insane, either.”
“How can you say that after—”
“After what? That was just . . . it wasn’t what you think.”
Bonnie’s tears stopped out of sheer astonishment. She
knew
what that had been. That had been a complete, terrible, wonderful meeting of lips and souls. It had been a complete betrayal . . .
“No, it wasn’t,” Damon said, looking half exasperated and half . . . well, if she didn’t know better, she would think that it was still that tenderness that he had shown.
And besides, how could he know what she was thinking?
“Everything you’re thinking shows in your face,” Damon said, looking as if his pati
ence was being stretched. “But listen to me. Elena knows that I care about you. Of course I do. And she understands.” He fluffed Bonnie’s curls gently, almost as if he were affectionately mussing her hair. “And just for a moment, I was so glad to see you that—well, it was an impulse.” He shrugged. “We all have impulses. This time, maybe it wasn’t such a good call. But it doesn’t change how I feel about Elena. And Elena knows that—although I think it would be better if we both just forgot about it. I think you think the same thing. That we both should just forget it, yes?”
Bonnie’s breath caught in her throat again, but this time it was a different kind of wonder that had
snatched the air from her lungs. It was
amazement that Damon could be so casual, so—so brazen! And how dare he tell her what
she
thought? All she wanted was to run to Elena and bury her head in Elena’s lap and cry and beg Elena’s forgiveness. How could he imagine that she would . . . that she would want to . . . pretend to forget . . .
Bonnie blinked as Damon seemed to fade in and out of focus. Ohhh . . . She felt dizzy. Really dizzy.