Destined (Vampire Awakenings) (45 page)

   She had never wanted this to begin with, and now, when she had surrendered everything to him, she was acutely reminded of all the reasons that she hadn’t wanted
this to begin with
. She cursed fate, and the world, for throwing her together with someone like him. Why couldn’t she have been stuck with someone who was honest, and good, and caring, instead of a liar and a killer?

   Tears filled her eyes as she threw her toothbrush and hairbrush into a plastic zip case before heading into the bedroom. He had closed the door, and was
now
leaning against it, his eyes hooded as he watched her. She threw the bag into the bottom pocket of her bag and closed it tight. She lifted it up and finally turned to face him.

   “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked coldly.

   “You didn’t need to know.” She snorted as she shook her head and turned to gaze out the window. No, he wouldn’t think that she would need to know. “It would have made no difference anyway. You are mine Isabelle, for better or worse. We will always be together. I tried to leave you, but I couldn’t, and
we will die without each other
. Would it have made a difference if I had told you?”

   She turned back to him. “Yes. At least you would have been honest with me, now...”

   “Now nothing,” he interrupted coldly. “It makes no difference.”

   “You hurt me!” she cried before she could stop herself. Isabelle closed her eyes as she wrapped her arms around herself. She didn’t want him to know how badly he had hurt her. “That is the difference,” she whispered in a strangled voice.

   Stefan closed his eyes against the pain that flooded him. He had stayed away from her
last night
because he didn’t want to see her hatred, but the hatred seemed to be gone now, and in its place was something even more painful to him. However, there was nothing that he could do to stop it, or change it. He had tried to distance himself from his
past;
he should have known that it would be impossible, that it would catch up with him. There was nothing that he could do to change it though, nothing he could do to change what was happening now.

   “I cannot change anything.”

   “No you can’t, and unfortunately neither can I.” She met his gaze, struggling to keep herself under control. “I wish that you had never come
here
and yet...”

   Her voice trailed off as she lowered her head. “So do I Isabelle, so do I.”

   She rapidly fought back the tears that wanted to fall, but she couldn’t allow
them
. His words hurt her more than she had ever thought they would. She had found such happiness with him, had known a moment of true contentment, and now
i
t was all gone. She wasn’t entirely sure that she would change him coming here
.
U
ntil he had arrived
,
she hadn’t known
just
how lonely she
was,
but never had she
been this
hurt before. She had fought his arrival everyday of her life, but when he had arrived she
’d
realized just how much she needed him to bring her to life.

   “I will do everything I can to keep you safe. I never thought that this would happen, but there is nothing that I can do about it now, and for that I am truly sorry. You will never know how sorry.”

   She snorted slightly as she shook her head. “No, I suppose I won’t.”

   “After this is over we’re leaving Isabelle.”

   “What?” Her head shot up, her eyes wide with panic as her mouth dropped open. “I’m not leaving my home!”

   “I’m no longer welcome here.”

   “But...” Tears spilled down her cheeks as her words trailed off. It didn’t matter, if he didn’t stay than she couldn’t. The overwhelming sense of loss that descended upon her nearly threatened to swallow her whole. She
’
d lost everything that she cared about in less than a day, and she couldn’t help but blame him for everything that he had rob
bed
her of.

   He couldn’
t stay away from her any longer;
the pain that she radiated was more than he could
bear
. He reached out to grab her, but she instantly backed away, shaking her head violently. “Don’t touch me!” she cried. “Don’t ever touch me again!”

   His hands fell limply back to his sides as he took a step back. “You’ll have to forgive me eventually Isabelle.”

   “I’ll never forgive you!” she spat. “You’ve taken everything away from me! Everything! If you think that I’ll ever forgive you, you’re insane! I wish I had never met you! I wish...”

   Her voice trailed off as sobs racked her body. He reached for her again, but she quickly avoided his grasp. “You
will
forgive me,” he commanded
as if that would work
. “Now let
’
s go.”

   She shook her head in denial. Stefan’s patience snapped as he seized hold of her arm. She cried out angrily and tried to rip free of him, but he refused to relinquish his hold upon her as he pulled her angrily behind him. “Let go of me!”

   He spun around, grasping hold of her chin and jerking her head up. “I will never let go of you!” he hissed. “Realize that now. I can’t change my past, and I can’t change what is happening now
.
Y
ou had better get used to that fact, and realize that nothing is ever going to separate us, whether you wish it or not!”

   The fury and anger that radiated from
him
shook her, but she refused to back down, refused to cower like she wished too. He was a killer, and they had invited him into their homes, into their hearts. Her family had accepted him, had considered him one of them, but they had all been betrayed. “It’s not by choice!” she shouted at him.

   “Maybe not now, but it was.”

   “That was before I knew you were a monster!”

   Stefan’s eyes flashed violently, but he grit his jaw and refused to respond to her. Let her think what she would, he knew the truth, and he would be damned if he took the time to explain it to her. She had made her decision about him, and if she wasn’t going to give him the benefit of the doubt than he wasn’t going to lower himself by telling her the truth about everything. Or Ethan either.
Liam
, Sera, and the others had been a little more understanding, had actually listened to him
but not those two
.

   “Let
’
s go,” he pulled her roughly forward, ripping the door open and pulling her into the hall.

   Her eyes spit violet sparks of fury at him as she tilted her chin, ripped her arm free and hurried down the hall.

***

   Isabelle tossed her backpack onto the bed, and slumped down. The hotel was cold and dreary compared to t
he warm comfort of her room.
She
was cold and dreary. Every part of her felt deflated, and beat. She felt completely hollow, and alone. Vicky and Abby placed their
bags down and plopped
onto the large bed across from hers.

   “Isabelle...”
Abby started.

   “I don’t want to talk about it.”

   She kicked her shoes off and slumped back on the bed, turning on her side to face the wall. The sun was just beginning to set, but she took no joy in the brilliant colors that it cast across the darkening sky. She was hurt and lonely,
she
instinctively wanted to reach out for Stefan but she refused to let herself do it. He had been keeping her shut out since last
night;
she didn’t want to meet with the cold wall that he had erected around his mind
again
. The possibility that he could be hurt, that she may never see him again, had taken firm root, and she couldn’t seem to shake it. Her fear for him only added to the utter misery she was in.

   “Isabelle.” She turned slightly. Her mother was standing in front of the door, Vicky and Abby were gone
.
S
he had been so absorbed in her own unhappiness that she had never even heard them leave. “We need to talk.”

   Sighing wearily, she pushed herself up. She had been waiting for her mother to confront her about Stefan, waiting to hear her censure of him, and to tell her that he was no longer welcome at their home. “I’m sorry about all of this,” she mumbled.

   “Why? You have no need to be.”

   Isabelle shrugged as she nervously played with a lose thread on the tattered bedspread. “I know you must be angry.”

   “No Isabelle, you’re angry, not me.”

   Isabelle’s head shot up in surprise. “What?”

   Her mother sighed as she walked over to sit across from Isabelle on the bed that Vicky and Abby had vacated. “I love you sweetie, but you are a very judgmental person sometimes...”

   “I am not!” she protested.

   “Yes, you are. You’ve never fed from a human, you don’t believe in it, but you censure those around you that do...”

   “I do not!”

   “Will you let me finish,” her mother said impatiently. Isabelle locked her jaw and nodded briskly. “I know you disapprove of everyone else doing
it;
you’ve said it more than a few times. You believe they shouldn’t have to, but they never hurt anyone, and yet you still disapprove of it...”

   “They can use bags, like me.”

   “Isabelle, let me speak!” her mother snapped. Isabelle’s eyes widened in surprise, her mother hadn’t yelled at her since she was a child. “As I was saying, you are very judgmental. It is
their
lives Isabelle, they aren’t hurting anyone, and it is in our nature. It’s the way that we survive. I’ve never fed off of anyone simply because your father has supplied me, but I would have if I needed to, or wanted to,” she added quickly when Isabelle opened her mouth to protest.

   “They want to,” she continued. “Because they prefer it. It is their right to do what makes them happy, as long as they don’t hurt anyone...”

   “But Stefan did!” she cried, unable to stop herself.

   Her mother clenched her jaw as she took a deep breath. “He killed our kind Isabelle, not ones like us, but the
wrong
ones, the ones that you met at the club. Didn’t he tell you this?” Isabelle wasn’t going to admit that he had told her, but that she hadn’t seen the difference, so she remained silent. “I’m going to take your silence to mean that he did tell you, and you didn’t want to hear it, or that you never gave him a chance to tell you.”
   “He said something like that,” she muttered reluctantly.

   Her mother sniffed softly and shook her head. “Your father and the stooges have killed our kind, and they did it for me. Were they wrong?”

   “Did they do it just for power?” Isabelle retorted.

   “No, they didn’t. Are you so sure that is the only reason that Stefan did it?”

   Isabelle’s jaw clenched as she met her mother’s cloudy eyes. “That’s what Brian said.”

   “Yeah, and I’m sure that he always tells the truth. Brian isn’t like Stefan, and you know it.”

   She raised a
n
eye
brow as she stared at her mother. “And how would you know that?” she demanded.

   “Stefan told me that you and Ethan can sense that there is something wrong with him, just like you could sense it about the ones ou
tside the club. I can’t do that,
neither can your father
,
or the stooges. The only thing
we
can figure is that because the two of you were born vampires, your inherent abilities are stronger than ours. You can detect them somehow, yet you sensed nothing about Stefan.”

   “And how do you know that?” she snapped.

  
Her mother frowned at her.
“Because you would have said something to one of us, or Ethan would have
, or one of the others would have told us
.
Every
one of your siblings can sense something wrong with Brian. None of them felt it about Stefan, did you know that?”

   Isabelle was beginning to feel like a chastised child, and she wasn’t relishing the feeling. “No,” she mumbled petulantly.

   “You judged him too quickly
Isabelle;
you
’
re much too harsh on people sometimes.”

   “He killed a man!” she yelled.

   Her mother sighed softly as she clasped her hands tiredly before her. “Your father killed a
man;
does that make you dislike him?”

   “He did it to protect you!”

   “Stefan killed a hunter Isabelle. It was either him, or that man. Who would you rather
was
alive?”

   Isabelle closed her eyes as tears of self disgust and anguish welled up in her eyes. Was her mother right, had she judged
Stefan
too harshly? “Why would he kill our own kind if it wasn’t for power?” she asked in a strangled voice.