1864

1864 Chapter 12

Damon and I finish our pancakes silently before getting up from the table. He has important business at the logging location and I have patients to tend to. We share a sweet goodbye kiss as Giuseppe enters the room.

"Step away from the vampire son," he says cautiously with something behind his back.

"Father, she isn't," Damon begins trying to diffuse the situation.

"Listen to me boy! I've seen her feed on your brother. Lie and write letters of his absence to hide the fact she murdered him."

"No father, this is Elena, not Katherine she's not a- NO! What have you done?"

Giuseppe plunged a stake through my stomach. I fell to the ground, my vision becoming hazy and dark. Damon is holding me against him crying.

"No baby, not like this. Please don't go. I'm going to help you just stay with me," he begins to tug the stake but I grasp his hand firmly.

"Don't, I'll bleed out," I mumble.

Damon is crying, really crying. His hands are covered in my blood and he is gripping my face screaming for me to stay awake. That I need to stay awake.

Giuseppe falls to the ground and crawls backwards from the scene, not believing he just staked a human.

Damon scoops me up and he's hustling towards the carriage urging me to stay with him. I'm trying my best but every second I'm slipping further and further away. I rest my eyes and my breathing becomes more and more shallow. Before I know it, he has picked me up and carried me to someone's door.

Rapping on the door loudly he urgently screams,"Miss Pearl! Miss Pearl please help us!" He's getting frustrated as he bangs on the door but eventually she comes. She's confused at first when she sees me bloody.

"Katherine?" she breathes in the scent of fresh human blood and the veins in her eyes darken.

"No. Her cousin, Elena. She's human. You have to save her."

"Boy, you must be confused, I don't have to do anything, take her away, let her die in peace."

"If you help me, I can help you when Johnathan comes for you."

"How do you know about-"

"Please Pearl, she doesn't have much time. Just trust me. I will keep my word."

She nods at him as Annabelle peers through the cracked door. Pearl gestures for him to come inside and he lays me on a wooden table. She yanked the stake out of me and I groan in pain. Then she's pressing her slit wrist to my mouth and I am guzzling hot salty copper. I can feel the torn skin knit itself back together and soon there is nothing there but a dark red splotch on my dress.

"Come. You will need to be redressed, before the town's people think I've fed on you," Pearl says to me. Anna leads me to a different room where she helps me get into one of her nurse's dresses. Damon is thanking Pearl in the next room when she cuts him off.

"How do you know about Johnathan's knowledge of vampires?"

"Long story short, I just do. Johnathan and my father are planning to raid the town of vampire's tonight. Katherine skipped town with Stefan but not before leaving a very valuable bargaining chip. Gilbert designed a device that allows him to find vampires. He will use that and capture all the vampires and lock them in a tomb to dessicate for eternity. What you will do is promise a Lockwood a moonstone and he will guarantee your freedom from the tomb."

"How do you know that? And what is the significance of the moonstone?"

"I just know and the moonstone is insignificant. But the Lockwoods don't know that. So it's valuable because they think it is. Do we have an accord?"

"We do, I will stop by later to retrieve it."

Once we are back at Damon's estate, he continues to carry me to his room to lay me on the bed. Giuseppe is nowhere to be found.

"I'll tell them you are sick today. I don't want to be anywhere near what is going to happen tonight."

"So we won't. Let's stay in tonight. You know what I miss doing with you most from the future?"

"What?"

"Watching movies. It is kinda lame that movies aren't invented yet."

"Thomas Edison is working on it. He's only seventeen right now though so it's going to be a while," he smirks.

"Though, I guess it doesn't suck that bad, we could never get through a full movie now could we?" I say seductively biting my lip.

Damon smirks and begins to unbutton his shirt. He pulls my dress over my head before tossing it on the ground. His soft lips come down unyielding on mine and I can't help but wrap my legs around him as he begins to move against me. My fingers run through his soft raven hair and I am tugging it gently at the nape of his neck. He moans into my neck before pressing more kisses along the length of my body.

"Marry me Elena," he whispers against my collarbone.

"What?"

He sits up and now he is just straddling me, "Marry me, I want to be your husband. Your life partner. The father of your kids. Marry me," his blue eyes gaze down at me earnestly and before I have registered what my lips mouth, I hear my voice say, "Yes. I'll marry you Damon." He falls back against me and we are kissing each other's smiles.