Devil in Disguise (Kai Parker)

Chapter Forty-Six: The End of the Day

The spell tore at her, ripping great hunks of her magic out, but thoughts of what would happen if Liv heard her kept Meg's mouth cemented shut.  She suffered in silence, eyes closed, for what felt like an eternity of needles being poked deeper and deeper into her skin. There were noises around her, the bangs and crashes that marked a violent fight, but she was apart from them, absorbed in the pain and Kai's pressure on her hand. Then, all of a sudden, they were both lifted and Meg felt like she had just emerged from a pool of water.

She gasped for breath, blinking in the newfound light. Her hand instinctively searched for the other again, and squeezed it almost incriminatingly tightly when she found it. "Oh, crap." she breathed.

"My sentiments exactly." Damon quipped, his sentence punctuated by the dripping of blood from his wrist, already starting to heal. Meg looked at him, and then at Kai, and saw the same blood around his mouth.

"You saved him." she said stupidly, too shocked to say anything wittier.

"Well, we couldn't let Jeremy spend eternity in the prison world, could we?" he grinned crookedly.

Meg gave a faint smile. Kai seemed struck dumb for a moment, too busy trying to catch up with everything that had just happened to pay any attention to what was happening now. Then, his eyes focussed and he looked at Meg. "Nut-Meg." he quirked an eyebrow.  

"Kai." she grinned, all thoughts of wooziness and illness vanishing from her mind.

"It seems I do have a breath to follow up on now." he noted ironically.

Meg's eyes flicked to look at Damon, whose face was contorted in disgust. But at her glance he rolled his eyes and helped Elena carry Jeremy out the room. She hadn't even noticed they were there.

"And it's time to finally answer that question," Kai continued. He hadn't looked away during her whole silent exchange with Damon.

"No time like the present." Meg shrugged, trying to act nonchalant while her heart was thudding with excitement. Any second now, she was going to lose her cool and start acting like a kid on Christmas morning.

"Hmm..." he frowned, testing the words. "Meg, I... I really... That thing, you know..."

"It's hard to get out, isn't it?" she rolled her eyes. "Just say it."

"What a day. I wake up in the morning finding that I actually cared, and by the end of the day I'm trying to figure out how to tell a girl I love her." he frowned, and Meg's grin grew.

"You said it." she said giddily. This was the moment she lost her dignity.

He frowned as he looked over his sentence, and then groaned. "Oh, crap, I did, didn't I?" he complained. "It was meant to be, like, really romantic or something."

She shook her head, leaning down by his head. "You're not the romantic type, and neither am I. It was great." she kissed him softly. "I love you too."

A slow, sleepy grin lit up his features, and he kissed her back heatedly. But they were both so tired after the spells they had done together today, and eventually, they just lay there, Kai's arm around her and her head on his chest, and fell asleep.