The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation: Unseen by L. J. Smith, Aubrey Clark

clear blue eyes—a shade lighter than Elena’s, his mind automatically categorized, but not really so different. She raised her wrist to her own mouth and bit down, opening her vein, and the forest was flooded with the rich scent of her blood. “Here, drink,” she said, holding her arm out to him. Damon stared at her, and her mouth tightened in annoyance. “You can’t keep going without anything to eat,” she snapped. “You’re a liability like this.”
    “Well, I’d hate to be a burden,” Damon said with a shrug, taking her wrist and bringing it to his lips.
    He hadn’t tasted Katherine’s blood since she first made him a vampire, and he was unprepared for the rush of memories it brought back to him.
A delicate girl, hardly more than a child, appearing at dusk in the rooms of his father’s palazzo. Her hair was a fine light gold, shining in the candlelight as she sank into a low curtsy. Her skin was so pale that he could see the fine blue tracery of her veins when she reached out for him, and her lips were cool when he lowered his head to meet them.
    Damon’s eyes were burning when he let go of Katherine’s hand. Her pale pink lips parted in surprise, and he wondered if she, too, had just been transported back in time. His heartbeat quickened as he felt Katherine’s blood running through him, warming him and bringing him strength. It wasn’t as good as feeding on a human, but it would keep him going for a while.
    “Thank you, darling,” he said dryly.
    Katherine’s voice was light. “This whole situation should teach you not to make deals with Guardians. They’re tricky, I hear.”
    Damon was opening his mouth to answer when a sound in the distance made him pause. He cocked his head to listen and heard it again: the crackle of footsteps on dry leaves, coming toward them, fast. “They’ve found us,” he hissed.
    He pulled his Power around him quickly, fiercely concentrating on the sensation of his own form dissolving and compacting. His bones thinned and reformed within him, changing shape, his fingers spreading into wings as his toes curled into claws. He had a moment to feel grateful for Katherine’s blood: This was difficult to manage when he wasn’t feeding regularly.
    Then Damon, in the form of a crow, stretched his glossy black wings and rose past tree branches into the sky. He could feel the currents of air behind him shifting as Katherine took silent flight in the shape of a snowy owl.
    They had escaped their enemies once more, for now. But Damon knew they couldn’t keep going forever. Sooner or later, they would have to fight.
    #TVD11KatherinetheTease

    It was a warm, clear night. An almost-full moon shone overhead, and the scent of night-blooming jasmine rose up to Stefan on the balcony outside their apartment.
    But Stefan wasn’t here to appreciate the beauty of the evening. He sent out tendrils of his Power, questing, trying to sense whatever was out there. Why was he so
weak
?
    Maybe Damon was right; maybe it was worth drinking human blood regularly for the strength it would give him. Stefan drank Elena’s blood sometimes, and she drank his, but it was an act of love, not a feeding. He didn’t take enough to make him strong. He swiped his hand across his face, irritated with himself, and tried to focus.
    He couldn’t sense anything. There was an Old One after Elena, who knew the loophole in her immortality and was sending humans after her. Stefan gripped the edge of the balcony and felt the metal begin to buckle beneath his hand. Conscientiously, he forced his fingers to relax. They didn’t want to lose their security deposit.
    Was that a footstep below, too light for human ears to hear? He froze, listening. The night was alive with a thousand sounds: insects buzzing, the soft beats of a bat’s wings, the distant sound of traffic.
    Again, almost right below, a footstep on the grass. Without stopping to think, Stefan launched himself over the rail, his canines lengthening as he