The Craving

“A mysterious Italian count with black hair and ice-blue eyes and a flair for the dramatic sweeps into the New York social scene and very quickly marries the most eligible society girl?” she said, rolling her eyes. “They ran your picture in the social pages.”

Damon at least had the grace to look sheepish.

“I always cover my tracks,” she mimicked. “There are a lot of ways to live rich and powerfully as a vampire . . . none of which involve sweeping into the New York social scene . . .”

“. . . and marrying the most eligible society girl. Fair enough,” Damon conceded. “At least I did it with style.”

We exited the prison, and the cold evening air washed over me. The stars were just beginning to flicker in the night sky, and the gaslights cast a warm glow over the street. It was a beautiful night, the like of which Bridget, Lydia, Winfield, and Mrs. Sutherland would never enjoy again—all because of me, Damon, and Katherine.

I only came to New York to escape. Escape Damon, memories of Callie, vampires, Mystic Falls, Katherine . . . and yet it all still followed me like an onerous shadow. I knew then that I’d never escape my past, not fully. Such dark things don’t fade with time—they merely reverberate through the centuries.

I could only hope that Margaret was safe somewhere, away from the hell-beast that had violently murdered her entire family.

Chapter 22

Once we had put several blocks between us and the police precinct, we stopped in the shadows of a bare maple tree. “Well, thanks for the rescue—not that I couldn’t have done it myself, eventually,” Damon said. “And now, I think I’m ready for a drink. Adieu, mes amis,” he saluted us, and spun on his heel, disappearing into the night.

“Good riddance,” Lexi muttered.

“What now?” I asked.

“You heard the man. Let’s go for a drink,” she said, grinning, and put her arm in mine. I walked with Lexi, but it felt wrong, somehow, to be able to go on with my existence so casually knowing that the Sutherlands had been murdered, and it had been partly my doing. What would I tell Margaret? She deserved to know some version of the truth, despite the fact that there would be no justice here. Creatures like the one who killed her family did not suffer consequences for their actions. Human lives were much shorter than vampire lives, but that didn’t make them less valuable. In fact, it made their lives more precious.

“So catch me up,” she said, squeezing my arm and pulling me out of my dark thoughts. “What’s been going on since you left our fair city?”

“I got married today,” I said.

Her eyes widened.

“Now I really do need a drink,” she declared. “Stefan Salvatore, you are going to be the death of me. I have heard of a lovely new place that gets its vodka straight from St. Petersburg and freezes it in a fancy little ice-bottle. . . .”

She prattled on, leading me through what I had thought was my city, but New York with Lexi was an entirely different animal. Whereas I’d stuck to the shadows and back alleys, Lexi knew her way around glittering nightlife. Soon we came to what looked like an elegant private club. Thick red carpets covered every square inch of the floor, and gold, black, and red lacquer covered everything else, including a giant carving of a firebird that hung from the ceiling.

A maître d’ came up, and after one look at Lexi, ushered us over to the most extravagant booth. It had velvet and cloth-of-gold pillows with far too many tassels to be perfectly comfortable. The strains of a piano filtered from the next room over, and I understood why she’d chosen this bar—Lexi always asked Hugo, a member of her vampire family in New Orleans, to play piano for her.

“Married?” she said as soon as we were settled in and she had ordered us something.

The image of the Sutherlands’ bloody bodies scorched my vision for a moment.

“How did you know where we were, really?” I asked, changing the subject. News didn’t travel that fast unless it was about the war. It still should have taken her at least a week to get from Louisiana to New York, whether by train or vampiric speed.

“I set one of my friends after Damon. I worried about you,” she admitted, a sheepish look on her face. “I know you can take care of yourself, but Damon is dangerous, Stefan, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

The waiter came over with our drinks. As promised, the bottle was encased in a block of bluish ice with flowers and herbs pressed inside, as fresh as the day they were frozen. I couldn’t help touching a fingertip to a blossom that was near the surface, and feeling the ridge of rime that separated it from my skin. A human’s heat would have melted the ice. A vampire’s flesh was colder, kept in a similar state of perpetual frozen perfection.

The waiter poured us each a shot in goblets carved from solid green malachite.

I put my hand over hers. “Thank you, Lexi. For everything you’ve done. I can never repay you.”

“No, you can’t,” she said cheerfully. “But you can start by telling me everything. As I said before: married?”

So I told her about my discovery of Bridget and being inducted into the Sutherland household, and Damon’s insane plans. She giggled and gasped at every detail. I guess from an outsider’s perspective, particularly a much older vampire, Damon’s machinations might seem mild in comparison.

“Oh, oh my God,” she said, unable to stop laughing. “A double wedding? You and Damon together? And no one ate the flower girl?” She waved the waiter over for another bottle of vodka. “Oh, how I wish I was there. Stefan! I didn’t even get you anything. . . .”