The Vampire Diaries: A Cage of Burning Light (Kindle Worlds Novella)

L. J. McDonald

Kindle Worlds

This
book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously.

Text
copyright © 2013 by L. J. McDonald.

This
work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds
publishing program.
All characters, scenes, events, themes, plots, and related elements of The
Vampire Diaries remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property
of Alloy Entertainment LLC / Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., its affiliates,
or licensors.

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No part
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Rights Reserved.

Published
by Kindle Worlds
Las Vegas, NV 89140

Digital
ISBN: 9781477859063

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dear
Diary,

I never thought I’d ever have to be afraid
of the light. Not like this. I mean, who ever does? No one normal, certainly.
After all, the sun’s life and normalcy. It’s the daylight. It makes everything
grow. People get depressed if they don’t see it for too long, and the most
popular vacation spots have it shining the brightest. It’s…. Well,
everything’s based on it. Our food, our myths, when we sleep, what we can see.
What we prefer to do, and how we live.

Now though, everything’s changed. Since the
bridge, I’m stronger, faster, I can heal in an instant, and if it weren’t for
the ring that Bonnie made me, the sun would burn me away to ash. All those
times I walked out in the daylight without thinking about it, and now it’s like
I’m living at the sun’s mercy.

I’m not scared though. I don’t want to be. I
just don’t want to think about it anymore. I’ll just keep telling myself that
my friend gave me this ring, and that alone is enough reason to wear it.

Sometimes, though, there is something that
scares me. Yes, I can walk around in the day with this ring, and I do, but
things have changed. I think what might scare me the most about being a vampire
is that if I never saw the sun again I’m not sure that I’d even miss it.

Elena finished the end of the page
and lifted her pen away from the paper, nibbling on the cap while she stared
out the window. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, and she really needed to
stop this. She was starting to get maudlin, and it was far too nice a day for
that, with the sun shining and the weather warmer than normal for this time of
year. It was a bit of Indian summer come to remind them of the season just
passed and well worth enjoying while it lasted. Especially now, when so much of
the world and everything in it felt new all over again.

Becoming
a vampire the way she had enriched her senses, made everything she saw and felt
so much stronger than they’d been before. Ever since she woke up in the morgue
and realized that because of Rebekah, she’d drowned in the water below Wickery Bridge, she’d had a fever bright
awareness of her surroundings, her body, and her hunger.

There was
no doubt in her mind that the hunger frightened her. It never fully went away,
and at times she found she couldn’t think of anything else. Both Damon and his
brother taught her ways of dealing with it, but the most effective so far was
Elena’s personal terror that she’d lose control. She didn’t dare let herself
forget that her humanity had been balled up and shoved into a box with a switch
on it when she woke up a vampire. She could open the box and let it out, and
did, but she could also shut that box, and her humanity would be gone. If she
were weak enough, she could give in to the vampire instincts, and once she did
there was no guarantee she’d ever want to turn that humanity switch to
On
or be able to live with herself once
she did. She wasn’t actively hungry at the moment, and she was trying very hard
not to think of where she and Damon went the night before and what they’d done
in order to make sure she wasn’t hungry. But she still remained so much more
sensitive to everything now, and the longer she sat there in the window seat,
the more she was left with the feeling that she was all twisted in on herself
inside.

She could
feel the sun through the window and discern how it warmed her skin with an
intimacy far greater than she’d known before. She could feel the dust that
floated in the air and the way it was warmed by the light, how it stroked against
her skin with the lightest of kisses when it touched her. She was pretty sure
she could even perceive the power in the ring on her hand, heavy and cold, and
yet somehow almost alive as the magic inside it kept the sun from burning her
to ash. When she held it to her nose, she could smell the faintest whisper of
Bonnie’s perfume, along with the spell components she’d used to focus her magic
during its creation.

Elena
studied the ring, slowly twisting it on her finger as she watched the shine on
the silvery metal and the glistening colours of the lapis lazuli set into the
top. The blue of the stone was streaked with gold veins, and she had to shake
herself before she found herself lost in the layers of colour she never would
have been able to see before.

She
sighed and set her pen inside her journal to mark her place before she stood up
from the window seat. She still found peace in her writing, becoming a vampire
hadn’t changed that, but she was too restless right now. She didn’t want to sit
around all day, waiting for Damon to get back from the Council meeting. She
wanted to move, wanted to feel that sunlight directly on her skin in defiance
of what it could do to her, wanted to feel the wind and smell the trees and
grass. She wanted to pretend that she was still alive and that the day was a
comforting thing instead of the threat of a death that otherwise would likely
never find her at all now.

She
wanted Damon, even wanted Stefan. She shoved the journal behind a few other
books on the nearest shelf and headed out of the room. She wanted them both,
but she was wild and restless today, and the more she thought about it, the
more she wasn’t sure that being near either man while in this sort of mood
would be a good thing.

“Probably
not,” she muttered to herself. Not while she felt as if she were about to crawl
out of her own skin. Damon would likely only encourage it, tell her it was a
natural part of settling into the reality of being a vampire. Stefan would look
at her with sad eyes and tell her to resist.

Right
now, neither of them was around. Stefan had moved out, and when Damon was away,
the boarding house was empty except for her. She’d become used to the general
creepiness of the big old house with its dark wood and antique furnishings, but
when it was quiet, the unease always started to come back.

“That’s
it, I’m getting out of here,” she muttered and headed to the front door, where
her purse hung on the heavy, old, ornate coatrack. She pulled her phone out and
tossed her hair back over her shoulder as she dialed a number and held it up to
her ear. It only rang three times before the other end was picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hey,
Bonnie, it’s me,” Elena said. “Are you busy? I want to go out for coffee. I
need to go out for a coffee. Please come with me for some coffee. I’ll buy.”

“Do you even drink coffee anymore?”

Elena
made a face, digging in the purse to make sure she had her keys. “Be nice. I
just need to get out. I feel like I’m losing my mind here today. I want to hang
out with my best friend and talk about girl stuff like we used to.”

Bonnie
laughed.
“Sounds like a plan to me. I’m
kind of in the middle of something right now, but I can meet you in a bit. Want
to get together at the Grill in maybe about an hour?”

Elena
grinned. “Sounds perfect.” She’d walk. She had the time and maybe then she’d
burn off some of this energy and be able to sit still again for a while.

“I’ll see you soon,”
Bonnie promised and
hung up.

Elena
grabbed her jacket and headed out the door, pausing only to lock it behind her.
She didn’t look back at the creepy old house turned home as she strode down the
curving driveway and out onto the street, whistling while she went. The
sunlight was just as delicious as it looked from the window, and the scent of
trees and flowers soothed her.

She felt
happy, she realized. Maybe it was part of the changes in her, more of her body
settling down into what she was now, but for the moment, she was good. It was
almost an alien feeling to her now, but she shoved that thought down. She
didn’t want to think about anything other than that she was heading to see her
best friend in the world and they were going to spend an afternoon the way they
always used to. Without caring about anything that might or might not happen,
or how both their lives had changed in ways neither of them ever expected when
they first met and giggled about their futures.

It was a
long walk into town from the boarding house, but it felt good to move and it
did serve to burn out the restlessness that had taken over her. She found she
was even smiling as she reached the edge of the downtown core, walking along
and twisting the heavy ring on her finger back and forth, watching the sunlight
shining on the silver metal and the blue of the stone.

Elena did
have half her mind on where she was going, but as she passed one store, a man
stepped outside of it and right in front of her. She walked straight into him,
jostling them both, and looked up in surprise and embarrassment. “I’m so
sorry,” she said to the tall, thin man before her. He was so close that the
rich scent of his blood filled her nose and against her will, Elena’s nostrils
flared.

The man
only stared at her, his brow heavily wrinkled and his chin scruffy with the
beginnings of a beard. He looked at her face, down at the ring she was still
twisting on her hand, and stepped back out of her way, a bland expression on
his face.

He
smelled incredibly good, better than the best steak or chocolate cake had
before what happened on the bridge changed everything. Elena’s mouth watered
and she took a step back too, swallowing both her saliva and the urge to jump
at him with her fangs bared.

“I’m
sorry,” she said again, for so many more reasons this time.

“Just
watch where you’re going,” he grumbled, and she nodded and hurried on, hands
clenched together and with the unnatural feeling that he was watching her go.

“Please
tell me he didn’t notice me looking at him like he was a cheeseburger,” she
whispered to herself and ducked down into one of the gentrified alleys that
would let her get to the Grill that much sooner. She felt like a predator
again, and she hated it.

Being out
of sight of him and any of the other people out on the sidewalk helped, and
Elena stopped so that she could draw in a deep breath of air and tip her head
back, her hair falling down her back in a cascade as she just let herself
breathe. She could smell bricks, flowers, and the varying stock of the little,
kitschy shops and cafes the town encouraged to open up in the cleaned up
alleyways. The fact that they overwhelmed the scent of human blood was
wonderful.

She could
deal with this, she reminded herself. She didn’t have to give in to everything
that she’d become or surrender her humanity. Who she was at her very core
hadn’t changed, and she wouldn’t ever let it.

Elena
smiled, feeling more balanced and herself than she had all day.

There was
the sound of a footstep behind her, nothing she thought she had any reason to
be concerned about. Nearly every turn she took in the twisting little maze of
alleyways revealed another tiny shop or cafe with little tables and chairs
crowded onto patios. She didn’t react at all, not until she felt something
sharp and pointed stab into the muscle beside her shoulder blade. Elena gasped,
turning around, but even as she did she felt dizziness spin her head, and her
knees gave out underneath her. Her enhanced senses were no kindness at all as
she slammed onto the brick covered ground, smacking her skull against it.

She
looked up, and the last thing she saw before she fainted was the man she’d
bumped into on the sidewalk, looking down at her with a bland expression that
was anything but kind.

Bonnie
hurried into the Grill fifteen minutes later than she’d planned. She’d been
reading her grandmother’s books and lost track of time, then ended up hunting
for her car keys for another five minutes.

“So much
for being psychic,” she muttered to herself as she yanked the door of the
Mystic Grill open and hurried inside, an apology to Elena on her lips. She’d
been happy when her friend called and honestly, she was glad to have this
chance to spend some time with her. She’d just got a bit distracted is all.
Elena would understand.

There
wasn’t anyone to apologize to. Bonnie paused in the center of the restaurant,
looking around at the somewhat shadowy tables, but while there were a few
customers there in the middle of the afternoon, she didn’t see any sign of
Elena.

Matt
wandered over to her, a bucket of dishes he’d just cleared balanced on his hip.
“Hey, Bon, how’s it going?”

“Hey,
Matt. Where’s Elena? Is she in the bathroom?”

He
frowned. “Elena? I haven’t seen her today. Why?”

Bonnie
frowned as well, a sudden spike of familiar worry in her gut. “Uh, don’t worry
about it. I must have beat her in.”

“Sure. I
got to get these to the back. Sit wherever you want.” He headed off in the
direction of the kitchen with his dishes.

“Right.”
Bonnie made her way to one of the tables set against the brick wall at the rear
of the restaurant and sat down in a chair where she could see the door. Elena
was just late, that was all. She wouldn’t have asked Bonnie to come here just
to bail on her with no word. She’d be along any minute now, and Bonnie would
taunt her for being late. It would be just like the old days.