Soul of Shadows | Eternal Bonds: Book 2

Chapter Six

AN: So welcome to Chapter Six, everyone. Things might get a bit darker, fair warning. Hope you all enjoy and as always be sure to drop some comments as you read! Now onward and forward to Chapter Six!

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*Stefan*

I heard a soft knock on the front door.

"It's open," I managed to say. Then after a moment she entered. Emberly.

"Oh my god, Stefan!" she gasped, "What happened? Are you okay?"

"No," I replied in a broken voice.

"Talk to me," she told me.

"About three weeks ago, my younger sister, Alexandra, was murdered," I told her, "I ran away from Blackfell after her death and came to Whiteshore because I needed space. But I can't stop thinking about what happened. I just want to forget everything."

Emberly looked at me sadly and then my phone started ringing. I glanced down at the screen and saw Damien Drake flash across it. I felt like throwing my phone across the room. But I didn't.

Emberly noticed my shift in attention.

"One of your brothers?" she asked. I nodded. "You should answer it," she told me.

"He's not going to say anything that I haven't heard before," I replied. I disconnected the call, not wanting to hear another pleading voicemail from Damien. Emberly knelt down in front of me. Why did she care about me? And more importantly, what had caused me to call her?

"Talk to me," Emberly told me.

And in that moment I knew. I knew that if I wanted her to truly understand, I'd have to tell her everything. The truth. The lies. The secrets. All of it. I couldn't keep doing this. In front of her I'd been putting up a facade...a front...a lie. She didn't deserve that.

"Do you really want to know?" I asked, "Once you've been told about this, there's no going back."

"You and I literally just met, but something inside me is making me care about you, so talk to me," Emberly told me.

I took a deep breath and rested my head against the wall.

And then I told her everything. How my parents died. Marius' betrayal. What I knew of Damien and Selena's love story. Starlene and Calder growing romance. The High Council of Vampires. The Court. The Hunters. My family's lack of mortality. Alexandra's death. The overwhelming despair and anguish I felt, which had driven me to run away from Blackfell and end up in Whiteshore. The incident with Nadia. All of it. I told her everything. And when she hadn't believed me, I made my eyes turn red and my fangs pop out.

Emberly backed up in fear.

"But...but...you..." she couldn't find words, she was too shocked.

"I won't hurt you, Emberly," I assured her, "I'm not like that."

Emberly nodded.

"So you're here in Whiteshore because your sister, Alexandra, was shot and killed by Hunters?" she asked, still trying to recover from the shock.