“Hey,” she whispered, stepping forward and lightly brushing her fingers across his back. Zander jumped.
“Bonnie’s here,” he said tightly, turning around to face her. “I have to go. I’ll call you later.” He clicked the phone off.
“Who was that?” Bonnie asked, leaning forward for a kiss. Zander’s lips met hers, warm and soft. When he pulled away, though, he avoided her eyes.
“No one important,” he said. “You want pizza for dinner? Jared told me the secret of that crust he makes. Cornmeal.”
“Sounds good,” Bonnie said, but she couldn’t help frowning. “Are you okay?”
Zander looked at her then, and his face split into a smile, his sky-blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “Never better,” he said.
“Okay.” Bonnie smiled back tentatively. Zander’s gaze had skidded away from hers again, and his shoulders were stiff.
She pushed away the tickle of worry at the back of her mind. They’d all been tense since Stefan’s death. There was nothing more to it than that.
Thinking of Stefan, Bonnie sighed, and Zander turned back toward her, instantly alert. “What’s up?” he asked, his face full of concern.
“I tried to contact Stefan today so Elena could say good-bye. But I couldn’t find him.”
“Oh, Bonnie,” he said. And just as she’d known he would, he put an arm around her shoulders. Bonnie automatically snuggled into it, taking comfort in his strength. “She knows you did everything you could,” Zander went on reassuringly. “There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for her.”
But Elena had looked so broken, Bonnie thought. Nothing like the proud girl Bonnie had known since they were kids. Elena loved Stefan with everything she had, and now she was left with nothing.
Bonnie shivered and cuddled against Zander. “I love you,” she told him. Without a word, Zander pulled her even closer.
The sun was just beginning to sink behind Dalcrest’s science lab, sending long golden rays across the college’s lawns. On the branch of a maple tree overhanging the path, a large crow stretched out its glossy blue-black wings. Its gaze was fixed intently on the side entrance to the lab.
Damon shifted his talons along the branch, then smoothed an errant feather with his beak. He’d been searching Dalcrest all day, in both crow and human form.
Assuming that Jack was using medical facilities to get the supplies he needed to create his monstrosities, there were a limited number of possible locations in town. There had been no sign of Jack at the busy hospital or the quieter medical practices, most closed for the weekend. So now Damon was at campus, staking out the Dalcrest science lab. It was a long shot, he figured, that Jack would still be this close to where he was last seen, but he had to try. Stefan was dead, and all Damon could think of right now was finding the monster who’d killed him.
The campus was deserted; it was the time of year when the summer students had finally gone home and the professors hadn’t yet begun to prepare for their fall classes. But now a stocky, dark-haired man was coming out of the science lab, and Damon straightened on his branch. The man, who was wearing a pack on his back and carrying a large box, fit the description he’d gotten of Jack—right coloring, build, age—although probably a hundred other humans in Dalcrest would fit the same description. Clicking his beak thoughtfully, Damon sent out a tendril of Power to see if he could find anything that suggested the man was other than human.
Was there the tiniest shift in his aura? These vampires had learned to shield themselves, to appear human so as not to alert their prey. But here he would think he was alone, no one watching him but a bird in a tree. Now that Damon was concentrating his attention fully on this man, there seemed to be something not quite natural, something wrong shimmering through his protective mask. Damon spread his wings wide. Got you now, he thought, rather smugly, as he fluttered quietly down onto the path behind the man, shifting to his own form as he landed.
Damon’s perfectly polished black boots hit the path without a sound, but Jack whipped around immediately. Definitely a vampire.
“Hello,” Damon said, giving a blindingly bright smile. Jack’s face twitched in confusion, and Damon attacked, knocking him to the ground and sending the box flying out of Jack’s hands. “We haven’t met,” he growled, pinning Jack’s shoulders hard against the path. “But I hear you’ve been looking for me.”
Fangs extending, Damon tore at the other vampire’s throat. There had to be some way to kill him. If there was one thing Damon knew for certain, it was that every being, natural or supernatural, had a weakness. You just had to know how to find it.