“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.
When Bonnie’s father finished his toast with a clumsy kiss on his daughter’s cheek, Jared raised his glass. Damon hid his smile with a sip of champagne. This ought to be amusing.
“Uh…” the shaggy-haired werewolf began. “When Zander started dating Bonnie, we all thought she was awesome, but we were, like, ‘Really?’ because she wasn’t, uh, the same kind of person we were.” The boy paused, and his eyes traveled slowly around the circle of attentive faces.
Damon could see the moment when he realized he was going to have to make this speech without using the words wolf, Pack, or Alpha. Without that, the whole lot of them were going to sound like a bunch of weirdly close-knit overgrown frat boys. Fair enough, really.
On the other side of the circle, Zander’s Beta girl—Shay, that was it—twitched, and Damon could tell she was longing to smack the boy over the head.
Jared stumbled over his words, stared down at his feet, his floppy hair falling over his eyes, and finally looked up, smiling, dimples creasing his cheeks, and launched into an anecdote about Bonnie and Zander together. There was a little more alcohol in the story, Damon thought, than Bonnie’s mother would have preferred, but his affection for them both shone through. Werewolf crisis averted.
Elena’s arm brushed his as she stepped up next to him, and they exchanged a look of perfect understanding, amusement flowing through the bond between them.
Letting his attention wander again, Damon fingered a small rounded package in his pocket.
When the toasts were over, he pulled Bonnie aside. Zander followed amiably, a glass of champagne in his hand, and Elena stayed near them, watching. The rest of the wedding guests were drifting toward the tent set up on the other side of the meadow, where a band was warming up on the dance floor.
“Congratulations,” Damon said formally. “I have a little something for you.” He handed Bonnie the small package, wrapped in black silk.
“But you already gave us a present,” Bonnie said, taken aback.
“I suppose so,” Damon said. Elena had ordered something from the registry from them both, he vaguely recalled—silver, perhaps, or some sort of kitchen appliance. These were the traditional gifts now, apparently. “But this is something for you.”
Looking intrigued, Bonnie slipped the silk away from her present. A glossy white stone shone in her hand, half the size of her palm, with glistening highlights of green and blue. In its top was deeply etched a rough representation of a wolf’s face.
“A moonstone,” Bonnie said, examining it. “They’re supposed to help keep the bond between lovers strong.” She looked touched, her eyes soft, as she ran her finger across the carving.
“It seemed appropriate. This particular one is quite old. I got it from an acquaintance in Zurich. Legend says that it gives its owner power over werewolves.” Damon couldn’t resist shooting a sly smile at Zander, but the wolf-boy only laughed.
“She’s got plenty of power over me already,” he said, and squeezed Bonnie’s hand.
“Oh, Damon,” Bonnie said, and, letting go of Zander, flung her arms around Damon’s neck.
Damon kissed her gently on the top of her head. Her red curls smelled as sweet as cherry candy. He hoped she’d be very happy.
“Behave yourself, wolf,” he said sternly, looking at Zander over Bonnie’s head. Zander tilted his head up in acknowledgment, his face open and guileless.
Elena came closer, and Damon let Bonnie go.
“Come on then, princess,” he said, holding out his hand to Elena. He nodded toward the dance floor, where the musicians had begun to play. “Let’s dance.”
Her arms around Alaric’s neck, Meredith swayed with him in time to the slow, romantic song. The cake had just been cut, Bonnie and Zander feeding each other as they laughed, a smudge of icing high on Zander’s cheek. The dance floor was emptier than it had been all night. Most of the guests were laughing and chattering as they ate. But Meredith didn’t want to be with everyone else, not even Elena, or Bonnie’s family, who she’d known for most of her life. Not now.
“Remember our wedding?” Alaric said softly, his hand firm against her back. Meredith nodded against Alaric’s shoulder. Theirs had been more formal, two hundred guests in a church instead of fifty in a meadow, but she had been as happy as Bonnie’s glowing face was right now.
“Bonnie caught my bouquet,” she remembered.
“Well, I guess that worked out, then.” Alaric grinned. He led her into a long, lazy twirl. “I hope they’re as happy as we are.”
She could smell their blood, all these guests, mixed in with the smells of hair gel and icing sugar. She’d need to go out to the woods and feed later tonight.
Alaric smoothed his hand down her back. He must have felt her stiffen. “You’re not a monster.” His heart beat steadily, a comforting sound. She pulled back a little and looked at him. Alaric’s skin was the golden tan he turned in the summer, darker freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose. He looked at her with total confidence, his brown eyes warm and trusting. “You choose not to be a monster.”
He believed everything he said, Meredith knew. He was sure she wouldn’t fall, sure she could resist the call of human blood, keep her humanity. She sighed and laid her head on his shoulder again.
“I’ll probably be like this forever,” she said. They’d found a poison to kill Jack, but in all his notes, there still hadn’t been any mention of a cure.
“We’ll find a way to fix this,” Alaric said, moving steadily in time to the music. “But even if we don’t, I’m still in. Till death do us part.”
Meredith laughed, a dry, almost painful laugh. “You’re the one who’s keeping me human. You think I’m so strong, but it’s all you.”
It was true, she thought, truer than Alaric would ever believe.
“When we cut the cake,” Alaric said. “And you fed me a piece, I looked at you, and I thought, Here. This is where I want to be forever.”
“I know,” Meredith said.
All she wanted was a human life with Alaric. Their little apartment, studying and talking, those discussions on any topic under the sun that fired them up and kept them debating late into the night. She wanted to wake up next to him and eat breakfast together, come home and kiss him hello and make dinner, go to bed together. Go on vacations. Have children. Grow older. Every day for the rest of their lives.
“I don’t want you to drink it,” she said suddenly to Alaric, and felt him tense in her arms. He knew what she was talking about. That bottle of shining effervescence, the water of Eternal Life and Youth.
She tried to put all the aching love she felt for him, for the normal human life they should have together, that sometimes felt so far out of reach. “I don’t want you to live forever. I don’t want either of us to. Till death do us part, like you said. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
Alaric ran his fingers lightly over her cheek, kissed her once, twice, soft brushes of his lips. “We’re going to find a cure,” he said, pulling her closer. “I promise.”
Bonnie kicked off her high-heeled shoes to walk in the wet grass of the meadow, hand in hand with Zander, her dearest friends around her. Elena and Damon, Meredith and Alaric, Matt and Jasmine, walking together, happy and tired. Shay, who had caught the bouquet, trailed behind, holding hands with Jared.
