But things would be different for Meredith and Alaric. And if Elena and Damon could find out Siobhan’s secrets, if they could somehow find a cure for this artificial vampirism that infected Meredith, they would never have to make that choice. Meredith and Alaric would both be human again and could grow old together. She knew that was what Meredith would choose, if she had the chance.

Elena straightened her shoulders and walked more swiftly down the hall, the heels of her boots clicking determinedly. She didn’t want to leave Meredith’s side, not when she was suffering. But if Elena’s mission was successful, then perhaps Meredith’s suffering could end.

Chapter 20

The street lamps threw pools of light onto the dark sidewalk, and Bonnie and Zander walked from shadow to light to shadow, hand in hand. The day had been hot, but in the fifteen minutes or so since they’d left Meredith and Alaric’s apartment, it had gotten chilly. It felt like it was going to rain, and Bonnie shivered.

She snuck a peek at Zander out of the corner of her eye as they went, but his face was shadowed, the lights shining off his white-blond hair, and she couldn’t read him.

“Poor Meredith,” she said, hesitantly. Why did she feel so awkward talking to him suddenly? This was Zander.

“Mmm-hmm,” Zander said, not looking at her. He was gazing straight ahead, intently, a tiny crease between his eyebrows, as if he was thinking hard.

He’d barely said anything at Meredith’s, hanging back when he should have been participating, helping. She opened her mouth to say something—anything—and closed it again. She squeezed his hand instead, but he didn’t seem to notice.

They turned and began to walk past the botanical gardens toward home. A breeze blew Bonnie’s hair across her face, and the warm smell of summer roses came through the fence, a heavy, seductive scent. It could have been such a romantic moment that tears rose in Bonnie’s eyes. On a night like this, everything should be perfect.

Bonnie stopped dead under a streetlight.

“What is it?” asked Zander, coming to a halt beside her.

“ ‘What is it?’ ” Bonnie mimicked. She was furious suddenly, adrenaline pumping through her. “You’ve been acting like a total weirdo for days! And now you’re not even talking to me?”

Zander blinked. “What?” His face was washed out by the pale light, his gorgeous blue eyes looking gray.

“Don’t you ‘what’ me!” Bonnie snapped. “God, Zander, I thought you were braver than just blowing me off. If you want to break up with me, just do it.” Hot tears were beginning to stream down her cheeks, and she could feel her nose starting to run. She was an ugly, messy crier, and she hated it. “You’re being a jerk,” she said thickly, letting go of Zander’s hand to wipe her eyes with her arm.

“Bonnie—no,” Zander sounded desperate. “I don’t want to break up with you. I—this isn’t the way I planned it.” He took her hand again, tightly, and pulled her farther down the sidewalk, then through the gate to the botanical garden.

The scent of the roses was even stronger here, almost dizzying. Leaves brushed against Bonnie’s arms as Zander led her to a bench beneath an arch of climbing white roses.

“What’s going on?” Bonnie asked, sitting down, wiping at her eyes again. Fallen rose petals dotted the bench, and she flicked some of them off. A soft rumble of thunder came from far away.

Zander dropped to his knees in the dirt at her feet. “I don’t want to break up with you, Bonnie. I want to marry you.”

All the air rushed out of Bonnie’s chest. She opened her mouth to say something, but all she could do was squeak. Yes. Yes.

She reached forward and pulled him toward her. Zander shuffled closer, still on his knees. Their lips met, and a warm thrill shot through her. Here you are. This was the Zander she’d been looking for, his lips quirking into a smile and his eyes wide and loving and fixed on her, seeing her again.

“Wait,” he said, breaking the kiss. “I’ve got—I’ve been carrying it around, waiting for the right time.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box.

It was a ring. An amazingly gorgeous ring, shiny and bright, one big round-cut glittering stone on a golden band. “Will you?” Zander asked, holding it out.

“Okay,” Bonnie said. She was still breathless, but she could speak now, and she was absolutely sure. She was smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. There was nothing she wanted more than to marry Zander. “Okay. I’d love to marry you.”

She was purely, blindingly happy. And behind that white glow of joy was a contented planning hum: have to call my mom, bridesmaids—Elena and Meredith and my sisters all look good in blue, big fluffy white dress.

But Zander didn’t slide the ring onto her finger. He stayed on his knees looking up at her. “I need to tell you something first.” He licked his lips nervously and reached out to take her hand again. “The Pack has to leave Dalcrest. I want you to come with us.”

Bonnie felt her mouth drop into an O of surprise. “What? Come where?”

Running his free hand through his hair, Zander sighed and sat back on his heels. “I’ve tried to find a way out of it. I didn’t want to have to tell you unless it was definite. I appealed to the High Wolf Council, but they said we’d been here a lot longer than they’d originally planned. They’ve cut me a lot of slack because I’m the Alpha and I wanted to stay, but now they say there’s trouble in Colorado and they want us there.”

“There’s trouble here!” Bonnie said indignantly.

“I know. But it’s Pack stuff. In the end, I’m sworn to them, and I have to do what they say. The whole Pack has to go where we’re needed.” He squeezed her hand tightly and looked back up at her, his eyes pleading. “Come with us. Marry me. I don’t want to lose you, Bonnie.”

Bonnie couldn’t breathe. And it wasn’t with the happy surprise of a few moments ago. Instead her throat seemed to be closing up. She felt like she was going to die.

Colorado. Colorado was really far away.

The first tiny drops of rain hit her arms, one cold drop and then another. Wind blew through the rose arch and showered damp white petals down over Bonnie. One hit her face, a delicate blow, and she peeled it off her own cheek, soft and wilted.

It was beginning to rain more steadily, and the cold raindrops loosened Bonnie’s tongue and let her start thinking again. “I can’t. Zander, I can’t.” He was staring at her, his eyelashes wet with rain. “I love you, but how could I leave here with everything that’s going on? Meredith’s a vampire. Stefan’s dead. My friends need me here.”

Zander leaned closer, put a hand on Bonnie’s knee to steady himself. “I need you,” he said softly, almost whispering.

Rain plastered Bonnie’s hair against her forehead and ran down her cheeks, feeling almost like tears. “Please, Zander, I can’t.”

Zander’s eyes closed for a second, long pale eyelashes fanning against his cheeks, and then he opened his eyes, let go of her hand, and stood. “I understand,” he said, his voice flat. “I’ll go tomorrow, okay? I don’t want to make things tense for everybody. Some of the guys can stay and patrol for a few days, until Damon and Elena are back.” Standing above her, he seemed impossibly tall. Bonnie couldn’t get a good look at his face, but his hands were clenched tightly. He backed away from her for a few steps, then turned and headed for the gate out of the botanical gardens, walking slowly with his head down.

Water was running down her arms, soaking her clothes. A white rose petal clung limply to the back of her hand, and Bonnie stared at it numbly, seeing the curve at its base, the line of brown at its edge. There was a terrible ache in her chest. Bonnie realized she was feeling her heart break.

Chapter 21

It had rained all night and through the day, and now it was late afternoon, the cloudy gray sky gradually getting darker. Damon drove his gleaming black car down the highway and let his Power loose around him, trying to sense if anything supernatural lurked in the woods on either side of the road. There was nothing, just the gentle hum of nondescript human minds from the cars on the road and the towns they swept by.

“There’s just a trace,” Elena said from the passenger seat beside him. She leaned forward and peered out through the windshield. “It’s very faint, but I think she kept heading north.”

They’d been on the road all day. Elena swore they were following slight signs of Siobhan’s aura. Damon couldn’t see them himself, but he trusted her. She’d always been clever. Terribly, frighteningly young, but clever. And he could feel her intentness coming through the bond between them, the careful way she scanned their environment, her excitement when she caught a glimpse of Siobhan’s aura trail. Sitting so close to her, he was more aware of her emotions than ever.

And now he was feeling something else from her. Hunger. He was about to comment, when she stretched, and said, “Let’s get something to eat.”

Damon felt his mouth twitch up into the beginnings of a smile—he’d read her so well—and he took the next exit. He drove a little farther, until they came to a likely looking diner. They pulled into the parking lot and climbed out, glancing up at the sullen glow of the low-hanging sun through the clouds. It would be evening soon, and it didn’t feel like they were getting much closer to their goal.

Crossing to the other side of the car, he opened Elena’s door for her. “Come on, princess,” he said. “The quest will wait while you have a cheeseburger.”

Inside the diner, gingham tablecloths covered each table, folk art pictures of roosters and ducks hung on the walls, and a child’s toy—an Etch-a-Sketch, Magic 8 Ball, or game—sat on each table.

“Aw, this is charming,” Elena said as the waitress, wearing a ruffled apron, led them to a table for two.

“The word you’re looking for is cloying,” Damon told her. The waitress glanced back at him, and he shot her a blinding smile.

Elena ordered a sandwich and iced tea, but Damon didn’t feel like eating. Human food gave him no nourishment, and there was nothing on the menu he was in the mood to sample. There was a low ache of hunger in his stomach, though, and he ran his tongue over his sensitive canines. He could last a little longer before he hunted, he supposed. He wasn’t desperate enough yet for fur or feathers in his mouth. “Just coffee, please,” he told the waitress.

“Want to play checkers while we wait?” Elena asked, stacking the red and black pieces across the miniature game board sitting on their table.

“Checkers?” Damon said with slight distaste.

“Sure, it’ll be fun.” Elena said. Damon hesitated for a split second, and Elena’s eyes widened. “You don’t know how to play checkers?”

“You’d be amazed how often it doesn’t come up,” Damon said dryly.

“Still,” Elena said. “You’re more than five hundred years old. You never learned? Five-year-olds can play checkers.”

“They didn’t when I was five,” Damon snapped. He felt ridiculously embarrassed—it wasn’t like he wanted to play a child’s game. “I can play chess.”

“I suppose that is much more suave and creature-of-the-night,” Elena agreed thoughtfully. “Come on, let me show you. Checkers is easy.”

There was a teasing glow in her eyes, and Damon couldn’t resist her. The checkers clicked together as she stacked them, and he took a moment to bask in the warmth coming through the bond between them. She still loved Stefan, he knew it, but she cared for Damon, too. “Go ahead,” he told her. “Whatever you want.”

Elena shot him a quick, triumphant grin. “Okay,” she said brightly, laying the checkers out on the board between them, black ones in front of Damon, red ones in front of herself. “So, you move diagonally forward, only on the dark squares. And if you’re next to one of my pieces and there’s an empty space on the other side, you can jump over it, and capture it. When you get to my side of the board, your piece gets kinged and can move forward and backward. You win if you get all my pieces off the board.”

“I see.” Damon sat back and regarded the board thoughtfully, pushing back the little swell of glee inside him so that Elena wouldn’t feel it through their bond. This game was just Alquerque, which had already been old when he was a child, only played on a chessboard. “I think I can handle it.”

Elena went first, and Damon bided his time for several moves. Then she jumped two of his pieces, sitting back with a smirk. “And that’s how you do it,” she said, pleased with herself.