Elena couldn't move. She felt numb, her limbs heavy and frozen. Her heart beat faster and faster, the rush of blood thundering in her ears, but she stayed still.
Before the fire, Klaus stretched and smiled, holding his hands out in front of him. He turned them slowly, examining them, admiring his long fingers and strong forearms.
"Unscarred," he said. He spoke softly, but his words resonated across the clearing. "I'm whole again." He tipped his head back to see the three-quarter moon high above him and his smile widened. "And back home," he said.
Ethan wriggled out of a shocked Stefan's loosened grip and dropped to his knees. "Klaus," he said worshipfully. Klaus glanced down at him with an indifferent sort of curiosity. Ethan opened his mouth to say more, his face ecstatic, but before he could, Klaus reached out, wrapped his strong, graceful hands around Ethan's jaw, and pulled.
With a terrible noise of tendons ripping, Ethan's head came away from his neck like a stopper lifting from a jar. His body slumped lifelessly to one side, abandoned. Klaus lifted up the head and held it above him as blood streamed down his arms. Around him, Ethan's followers quivered in fear, but none of them moved. Near Elena, Chloe gasped.
Stefan, his face spattered with Ethan's blood, was watching Klaus narrowly, angling his body to find a good position to attack. No, Elena thought, frightened, willing Stefan back. She hadn't forgotten how strong Klaus was. As if he'd heard her thoughts, Stefan eased back a little, darting an alert glance at their assembled troops, all watching Klaus now with horror.
Klaus gazed at Ethan's slack face for a moment, then tossed the head aside. Holding his right hand up to his mouth, he licked at Ethan's blood thoughtfully with a long pink tongue, and Elena's stomach turned uneasily. Seeing him kill Ethan so casually had been horrible enough, but there was something obscene in the thoughtless sensual pleasure he took in tasting the rivulets of blood.
"Delicious," Klaus said, his voice light. "I like the taste of human better than vampire, but that one was young and fresh. His blood was still sweet." He glanced coolly around the clearing. "Who's next?" he asked.
Then, across the firelit clearing, his eyes locked on Elena's, and his head went up like a dog catching a scent, his face changing from indifference to alertness. Elena swallowed, her throat dry, her heart still beating like a small, frantic bird trapped in her chest. His eyes were so blue, but not the kind light blue of Matt's or Zander's tropical sky blue. Klaus's eyes were like thin ice over dark water.
"You," Klaus said to her, almost gently. "I've wanted to see you again," and he smiled and opened his hands. "And here you are at my rebirth to welcome me. Come to me, little one."
Elena didn't want to move, but she staggered forward toward Klaus anyway, her feet shuffling forward without her consent, as if they were being operated by someone else.
She heard Matt's panicked whisper behind her - "Elena!" - and he gripped her arm, bringing her to a grateful halt. There was no time to thank him, though: Klaus was closing in.
"Should I kill you now?" he asked her, his tone as intimate as a lover's. "You don't seem to have your army of angry ghosts around you this time, Elena. I could finish you in seconds."
"No." Stefan stepped forward, his face hard and defiant.
Meredith came up beside him and they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, glaring at Klaus. Behind them Zander and his Pack, both wolf and human, crowded closer, staying between Elena and Klaus. Zander was staring at Klaus, his eyes wide, his hackles raised and quivering. Slowly, his lips peeled back from his teeth and the werewolf growled.
Klaus looked at them all in mild surprise, then laughed in genuine amusement. "Still inspiring devotion, are you, girl?" he asked Elena across the crowd. "Maybe you have some of the spirit of my Katherine after all."
In one smooth movement, he reached forward and picked Stefan up by the throat, then tossed him aside as easily as he might have thrown a scarecrow. Elena screamed as Stefan landed with a heavy thud on the other side of the fire and lay still.
Meredith, poised and ready, instantly swung her stave toward Klaus's head. Klaus put one hand up and grabbed the stave from midair, ripping it from Meredith's grasp without even looking at her. He flung the stave aside as casually as he had thrown Stefan's body and waded quickly through the crowd, knocking Zander's Pack and Ethan's vampires aside with a brutal, careless efficiency.
On the other side of the fire, Stefan was climbing to his feet. But Elena knew that, even with his vampiric speed, he wouldn't be able to get to Klaus before Klaus reached Elena.
Before she could blink, Klaus was standing directly in front of her, his fingers holding her jaw bruisingly tight. He tipped back her head, turning her face up toward him, forcing her to meet his icy, laughing eyes.
"I owe you a death, pretty one," he said, smiling. Elena could feel Chloe quivering beside her and Matt's hand on her arm, cold with fear but still holding tight.
"Leave her alone," Matt said, and Elena knew him well enough to know how hard he was working to keep his voice from shaking.
Klaus ignored him, his eyes fixed on Elena's. They stared at each other, and Elena tried to make her own eyes as defiant as possible. If Klaus was going to kill her now, she wouldn't go down weeping and begging for mercy. She wouldn't. She bit the inside of her cheek hard, trying to focus on the physical pain instead of her fear.
Then Stefan was suddenly there, wrenching at Klaus's arm with all his strength, but it didn't make any difference. Klaus's hand was as firm on her jaw as ever, his eyes steady on hers. The moment seemed to stretch out into years.
A new madness, more heated than Elena had seen before, bloomed in Klaus's eyes. "I will kill you," he said, almost affectionately, squeezing her face between his fingers so that Elena made an involuntary moan of pain and protest. "But not yet. I want you to be waiting for me, to think of me coming for you. You won't know when, but it will be soon."
Quickly, shockingly, he pulled her toward him and planted a soft, cold kiss on her mouth. His breath was rank, and the taste of Ethan's blood on his lips made her gag.
Finally, he opened his hand and released her. Elena stumbled back several paces, wiping at her mouth furiously.
"I'll see you again, little one," Klaus said, and then he was gone, faster than Elena's eyes could follow.
Matt caught Elena before she could fall. A moment later, Stefan's strong arms were around her, and Matt let her go.
Everyone was blinking and dazed, as if Klaus's exit had left a vacuum. The Vitale vampires were looking at one another uncertainly and, before Meredith and the rest could collect themselves enough to begin fighting again, the vampires were leaving, running away in a panicked, disorganized mob. Meredith reached for the stake in her belt, but it was too late. Frowning, she silently crossed the clearing to pick up her stave, turning it over in her hands to check for damage.
Zander, his fur bloody and bedraggled from the fight, lowered his head, and the rest of his Pack crowded around him anxiously. One of the other wolves licked quickly at his wound, and Zander leaned against him.
Chloe had not disappeared with the other vampires. Instead, she stood by Matt, biting at her lips with blunt teeth, staring at the ground. After a moment, Matt put his arm carefully around her and Chloe huddled close to his side.
Elena sighed wearily and let her head drop onto Stefan's shoulder. She could still taste Klaus's vile kiss, and tears stung her eyes.
Ethan was dead, but nothing was over. The fight was just beginning.
In a tree high above the clearing, a large black crow ruffled its feathers, eyeing the battleground below him. He had watched the fight critically, thinking that there were things he would have done differently, more aggressively. But no, this wasn't Damon's place anymore. He hadn't wanted to be seen, hadn't wanted to get involved with Elena and Stefan and all their problems. But the scent of blood and fire had led him here.
After everything, he still wanted to save Elena and Stefan, didn't he? That was what was pulling him to the fight, an almost unnatural urge to do what he was built to do: to kill. When he'd seen Klaus fling his brother aside, everything in him had tensed to attack. And when the arrogant Original vampire had dared to touch Elena - Damon's Elena, his heart still insisted - Damon had flown to the edge of the clearing, his normally slow pulse hammering with rage.
But they didn't need him, they didn't want him; he was done with them. He'd tried - he'd done his best, he'd changed - all for Elena's love, and for the friendship he'd found with his brother at last. After centuries of caring for no one but himself, Damon had suddenly been caught in Elena's world, wrapped up in the lives of a handful of mortal teenagers. He'd become someone he barely recognized.
And it hadn't mattered. In the end, Damon was still left on the outside.
Klaus was gone and they were fine. This wasn't his fight. Not anymore. Now, all he had was the cloak of night and the cold comfort of once again relying on no one but himself.
Damon was, he told himself fiercely, free.
