The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Shadow Souls by L J Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

been gray and drawn before, was different now. He was usually pale, but now his fine features looked flushed—as if he had been standing in front of a bonfire and the light was still reflecting off the pure lines and elegant planes of his beloved face.
    I…did that? She remembered the first tear droplets falling, and how they had looked like blood on his face. Not like blood, she realized, but like natural color, sinking into him, refreshing him.
    She couldn’t help but hide her face again in his throat as she thought, I’m glad. Oh, I’m so glad. But I wish we could touch each other. I want to feel your arms around me.
    “At least I can look at you,” Stefan whispered, and Elena knew that even this is like water in the wasteland to him. “And if we could touch, I’d put my arm around your waist here, and kiss you here and here….”
    They spoke to each other this way for a while—just exchanging lovers’ nonsense, each sustained by the sight and sound of the other. And then, softly but firmly, Stefan asked her to tell him all about Damon—everything since they’d started. By now Elena was cool-headed enough to tell him about the incident with Matt without making Damon sound too much like a villain.
    “And Stefan, Damon really is protecting us as best he can.” She told him about the two possessed vampires who had been tracking them and what Damon had done.
    Stefan merely shrugged and said wryly, “Most people write with pencils; Damon writes people off with them.” He added, “And your clothes got dirty?”
    “Because I heard a great big crash—which ended up being Matt on top of the car,” she said. “But, to be fair, he was trying to stake Damon at the time. I made him get rid of the stake.” She added, in the barest of whispers: “Stefan, please don’t mind that Damon and I have to—to be together a lot right now. It doesn’t change anything between us.”
    “I know.”
    And the amazing thing was that he did know. Elena was bathed in the deep glow of his trust for her.
    After that they “held” each other, Elena snuggling weightlessly above the curve of Stefan’s arm…and it was bliss.
    And then abruptly the world—the entire universe—shuddered at the sound of a gigantic slamming sound. It jerked at Elena. It didn’t belong in here with love and trust and the sweetness of sharing every part of her self with Stefan.
    It began again—a monstrous booming that terrified Elena. She clutched uselessly at Stefan, who was looking at her with concern. He didn’t hear the clanging that was defeaning her, she realized.
    And then something even worse happened. She was torn out of Stefan’s arms bodily, and she was rushing backward, back through objects, back faster and faster until with a jar she landed in her body.
    For all her reluctance she landed perfectly on the solid body that until now had been the only one she’d known. She landed on it and melded into it and then she was sitting up and the sounds were the sounds of Matt rapping at the window.
    “It’s been over two hours since you went to sleep,” he said as she opened the door. “But I figured you needed it. Are you all right?”
    “Oh, Matt,” Elena said. For a moment it seemed impossible that she was going to be able to keep from crying. But then she remembered Stefan’s smile.
    Elena blinked, forcing herself to deal with her new situation. She hadn’t seen Stefan for nearly long enough. But her memories of their short, sweet time together were wrapped in jonquils and lavender and nothing could ever take them away from her.
     

    Damon was irritated. As he flew higher on his wide, black crow’s wings, the landscape beneath him unfolded like a magnificent carpet, the breaking day making the grasslands and rolling hills glow like emerald.
    Damon ignored it. He’d seen it too many times. What he was looking for was una donna splendida.
    But his mind kept drifting. Mutt and his stake…Damon still didn’t see why Elena wanted