Phantom by L. J. Smith

Someone stroked her hair, and Elena nuzzled sleepily into the touch.
    “Damon?” she said, still half dreaming.
    The hand paused in its stroking and then withdrew. She opened her eyes.
    “Just me, I’m afraid,” said Stefan. He was sitting next to her on her bed, his mouth a straight, tight line, his eyes averted.
    “Oh, Stefan,” said Elena, sitting up and throwing her arms around him. “I didn’t mean—”
    “It’s all right,” Stefan said flatly, turning away from her. “I know what he meant to you.”
    Elena pulled him toward her and looked up into his face. “Stefan. Stefan. ” His green eyes had a distant expression. “I’m sorry,” she said pleadingly.
    “You have nothing to apologize for, Elena,” he said.
    “Stefan, I was dreaming about Damon,” she confessed. “You’re right, Damon was important to me, and I . . . miss him.” A muscle twitched at the side of Stefan’s face, and she stroked his jaw. “I will never love anyone more than I love you, Stefan. It would be impossible. Stefan ,” she said, feeling like she might cry, “you’re my true love, you know that.” If only she could reach out and show him with her mind, make him understand what she felt for him. She’d never fully explored her other Powers, never fully claimed them, but losing their telepathic connection felt like it might kill her.
    Stefan’s expression softened. “Oh, Elena,” he said slowly, and wrapped his arms around her. “I miss Damon, too.” He buried his face in her hair and his next words were muffled. “I’ve spent hundreds of years fighting with my only brother, with us hating each other. We killed each other when we were human, and I don’t think either of us ever got over the guilt and the shock, the horror of that moment.” She felt a long shudder go through his body.
    He sighed, a soft, sad sound. “And when we finally started to find our way back to being brothers again, it was all because of you.” His forehead still resting on her shoulder, Stefan took Elena’s hand and held it between both of his, turning it over and stroking it as he thought. “He died so suddenly. I guess I never expected . . . I never expected Damon to die before I did. He was always the strong one, the one who truly loved life. I feel . . .” He smiled a little, just a sad twist of his lips. “I feel . . . surprisingly lonely without him.”
    Elena entwined her fingers with Stefan’s and held his hand tightly. He turned his face toward hers, meeting her eyes, and she pulled back a little so she could see him more clearly. There was pain in his eyes, and grief, but there was also a hardness she had never seen there before.
    She kissed him, trying to erase that hard edge. He resisted her for half a second, and then he kissed her back.
    “Oh, Elena,” he said thickly, and kissed her again.
    As the kiss deepened, Elena felt a sweet, satisfying sense of rightness sweep through her. It was always like this: If she felt distanced from Stefan, the touch of their lips could unite them. She felt a wave of love and wonder from him, and held on to it, feeding the emotion back to him, the tenderness between them growing. With her Powers gone, she needed this more than ever.
    She reached out with her mind and emotions, past the tenderness, past the rock-solid love that was always waiting for her in Stefan’s kiss, and delved deeper into his mind. There was a fierce passion there, and she returned it, their emotions twining together, as their hands held each other harder.
    Beneath the passion, there was grief, a terrible, endless grief, and farther still, buried in the depths of Stefan’s emotions, was an aching loneliness, the loneliness of a man who had lived for centuries without companionship.
    And in that loneliness was the taste of something unfamiliar. Something . . . unyielding and cold and faintly metallic, as if she had bitten into foil.
    There was something Stefan was holding back from her. Elena