Chapter 7

Elena's POV

The terrace air was cold.

Distant lights dotted the garden. The night of the vampire domain always settled thick, like ink that wouldn't dissolve.

I leaned against the railing and finally breathed.

The noise of the reception was muffled behind the heavy glass doors.

I closed my eyes and tried to find stillness.

Then I heard Vicky's voice.

Very soft.

A catch in it, like crying.

I opened my eyes.

At the far end of the corridor, in the shadow, Jason and Vicky stood together.

They hadn't seen me.

Vicky's head was down, her shoulders trembling lightly.

“Jason. I shouldn't have come back, should I?”

“Every time I'm here, things go wrong between you and Elena.”

Jason was quiet.

Vicky looked up. Her crimson eyes were wet.

“I just had nowhere left to go.”

“I thought you wouldn't mind.”

Jason's hand moved.

He waited a long moment. Then reached out and pulled her into his arms.

I stood not far away. Suddenly all the sound around me went distant.

In that moment, the pain wasn't what I'd imagined.

It only grew cold, slowly.

Like the last lamp going out.

It was time to leave.

Tonight, when I got back, I'd start packing.

I turned to go.

Then the hall exploded.

The blast shattered the glass doors. Fire and screaming poured out at once.

The shock wave threw me backward, my arm slamming hard against the railing.

The reception hall erupted into chaos.

People screaming. Someone shouting to protect the elders.

Strangers burst through the smoke with guns.

Vampire hunters.

My heart seized.

My body moved before my mind did, turning to find somewhere safe to shelter.

Then in the chaos I saw Jason.

He saw me too.

Through the smoke and fire, his face changed completely.

“Elena.”

That call cut through the chaos. Clear. For me.

I froze.

For just a moment I thought I'd heard wrong.

Why would Jason call my name first?

But he was already running toward me, so fast he was barely more than a shadow.

I looked at him. My chest caught.

It was almost funny.

Even now, even like this, his voice calling my name was enough to make me waver.

I ran toward him.

My skirt tangled at my ankles. Smoke burned my eyes and throat.

But I reached out.

If his hand reached mine this time.

If he really chose me first.

Maybe I could keep lying to myself a little longer.

Tell myself he wasn't completely indifferent to me. Find some courage to go back to a loveless marriage and go on being his wife.

His hand was almost there.

And then Vicky cried out behind him.

“Jason.”

Pain in her voice.

Jason stopped.

He glanced back almost instinctively.

He turned. Just for a second.

Just a glance.

Yet that single look said everything.

Vicky stood not far away, hand against the wall, face white.

She wasn't hurt.

She was frightened.

The hand I'd reached out closed on nothing.

Through the blur I saw Vicky look over at me, her eyes cold with satisfaction, a slow deliberate smile.

My foot caught on broken glass and I went down hard.

The impact tore my palms open. The pain wiped my vision white.

Then a gunshot.

Something drove through my body from behind.

I didn't feel pain at first.

Only a sudden rigidity, and then all my strength left at once.

Blood soaked through my gown from my chest.

I heard Jason's voice.

“Elena!”

This time, real panic.

I couldn't answer.

Before my sight went dark I saw him reach me, drop to his knees, pull me up against him.

His hands were shaking.

I had never seen Jason shake.

He was always controlled, always measured, always composed.

But now he was holding me and even his voice was unsteady.

“Get the doctor.”

“Move, now.”

The elder council's people quickly secured the hall. The hunters were subdued one by one.

But those sounds were going further away.

I lay against him.

His chest cold, his arms very tight.

Like he was afraid I'd slip away.

“Elena, stay awake.”

He looked down. Blood-red eyes. For the first time: fear.

“Look at me.”

“Don't close your eyes.”

I wanted to laugh.

But blood rose in my throat and all that came out was a broken exhale.

So he remembered I was afraid of pain.

He knew I was fragile. Only human.

But the more he held me now, the more frantic the way he said my name —

the more I thought of lying alone in hospital beds after each miscarriage.

Every time I'd gotten pregnant, Jason had all but disappeared and started avoiding home. I thought he couldn't face the idea of a child with a woman he didn't love.

I'd always been too weak, and not one of those children had made it.

Looking at Jason's face, so undone, something almost like a quiet laugh rose in me.

Little ones. Did you know there was no love in that house, so you decided not to come? You were smarter than I was.

The car flew to the hospital.

Jason held me and didn't let go.

He kept talking.

The doctor was coming. I'd be fine. The bullet missed my heart. No danger to my life.

His voice went faster and faster.

By the end it was hard to tell if he was calming me or calming himself.

“Elena, can you hear me?”

“Promise me. Don't close your eyes.”

“I still have things to tell you.”

I forced my eyes open.

His face blurred in my vision.

I thought of the divorce papers in the study.

Before going out that evening I'd folded them and tucked them against my chest.

I'd planned to hand them over after the reception.

Now seemed as good a time as any.

I used what was left of my strength to reach into my blood-soaked bodice.

Jason bent forward immediately.

“What are you looking for?”

I pulled out the document. Crumpled. Stained through.

But my signature at the bottom was still there.

The color drained from Jason's face.

“Elena...”

I pressed it into his hand, my voice barely a breath.

“Jason.”

“I want a divorce.”

His fingers seized shut.

I held his gaze.

The darkness was coming.

But I held on long enough to say the last part.

“Let me go.”

Jason looked as though something had broken inside him.

His lips moved. Nothing came out.

Before the dark swallowed me, I saw those blood-red eyes with nothing left in them but desperate, unraveling fear.