Stefan fought back the turmoil of emotions clawing to break free as he turned back to them. They met his gaze, anger evident in every inch of their bodies. “Now I’m going to talk to Liam and Sera. I would suggest that you rethink staying here, and leave with Isabelle.”
“We’re not going,” Jack replied coldly.
He nodded briskly as he turned away from them. Brian moved quickly away from the door. “Stefan.” He turned back to meet Ethan’s steady stare. “When this is over, you’re leaving.”
He showed no sign of the hurt those words caused as he kept his face completely impassive. “Isabelle will have to come with me.”
Ethan’s eyes flashed as his jaw clenched. “You son of a bitch,” he hissed. “Why didn’t you stay the hell away from her?”
Stefan flung the door open, slamming it so hard against the wall that the glass shattered from the window, and the plaster cracked and broke. He didn’t bother to close it as he strode down the steps and into the field.
CHAPTER 21
The door swung open but Isabelle didn’t bother to look at him as she threw the last of her clothes into a backpack. He hadn’t come back to the room last night, a fact she was extremely grateful for. She didn’t want to talk to him now; she didn’t want to see him now. Most of her anger had faded; all she had left was a sense of loss, hurt, and betrayal. If he had just told her the truth, just told her about his past, then maybe she could understand. All she knew now was that he had been a killer, and judging by the amount of power that he possessed, he must have enjoyed it, and done a lot of it.
She couldn’t forgive herself, or him, for the fact that she had given everything to a man that she didn’t even know. The worst part of it was that there was nothing she could do about it. They were bound together now, without him she would die. She couldn’t even leave, couldn’t go anywhere without him. Her life was irrevocably tied to his.
“You’re mother has rented hotel rooms for you, and your younger siblings,” he informed her coldly.
She didn’t answer him as she moved to the bathroom to finish packing the rest of her things. She didn’t know how to fight against the hopelessness that she felt. Didn’t know how to fight against him, and what he was to her. Didn’t know how to change what had become her future. She still loved him, she truly did, but she could never trust him, never put her faith in him again. She didn’t want to live the rest of her life like that. It was far too long of a time to be with someone that she didn’t trust, and that had hurt her this badly. It was so very unfair.
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 it was all gone. She wasn’t entirely sure that she would change him coming here. Until 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 robbed 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. You 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 viole
ntly, 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 the 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. She 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 an eyebrow 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 outside 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.
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
She knew that her mother wasn’t going to tell her anymore than that. She opened her eyes and wiped the tears from them. “If you were satisfied with his answer, than why did you tell him that he had to leave?”
“I didn’t, and neither did your father, or the stooges.”
“Then why does he want to leave?” she demanded.
Her mother smiled softly as she shook her head. “I have two sets of twins Isabelle, but neither of them is as alike as you and Ethan. Both of you are very set in your ways, and your judgments of people. Both of you will do anything to make sure that the other isn’t hurt. Your anger also gets the best of both of you on many occasions.”
“Oh,” Isabelle said softly. “But he brought these people to our home!” she cried, unwilling to get rid of her anger, and convictions yet. Unable to be so completely wrong. “He has driven us out of our homes and placed all of us in danger!”
“Brian did that.”
“Brian is his friend!”
“Was his friend Isabelle, they haven’t been friends in awhile, but you probably didn’t take the time to learn that either.”
Isabelle hung her head as shame and despair rushed through her. She recalled the things she had said, the things that she had done, and she truly hated herself. She was beginning to realize that she may have been completely wrong. That she had completely misjudged the entire situation. She had said that she would never forgive Stefan, now she was beginning to wonder if he would ever forgive
her. But he had lied to her, he had deliberately kept his past from her, she clung to that fact as a last, desperate line, for her rapidly fading anger.
“You trust him?” she asked in a choked voice.
“I do.”
Tears flowed down her face. If her mother trusted him, and Stefan had told her everything, then she was completely wrong. Oh God, he must hate her! She hated herself. “Why didn’t he tell me whatever it was that he told you?”
“Did you give him a chance?”
Isabelle shook her head as tears streaked down her face and she began to sob. “He must hate me!” she almost wailed.
“He could never hate you Isabelle.”
“I told him I hated him!”
Her mother sighed loudly and came to sit beside her; she rested her hand gently on her shoulder. “You were angry at him, confused, and blindsided. He’ll understand.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“He will. He loves you Isabelle, he knows all your faults, and all of your good points already. He knows that you anger quickly, and that you just as quickly get over it. He will understand Isabelle.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “I love him with everything that I have. Yet I was so quick to throw that all aside when I thought that he had lied to me, and in a way he did lie to me. He kept a lot hidden from me.”
“Isabelle, you need to talk to him. Sometimes the past is just something that people only want to forget. You need to put your judgments aside, and realize that everyone has faults, even you.”
“I know I do,” she whispered miserably.
“And you have many wonderful qualities too, don’t ever forget that. Stefan loves you for all of them. Just like you love him for all of his faults and qualities, and I’m sure that he has many too.”
“He is bossy, and arrogant, and highhanded, and commanding,” she mumbled. “He didn’t even consider letting me stay at home.”
“Of course not,” her mother replied laughingly. “Your father had my bag packed before I could count to ten. In this situation Isabelle, it’s not even worth putting up a fight. They’re main concern is our safety. You would have better luck talking to a wall than you would of changing their minds. You have to pick your battles, this is not one you will win, trust me on that fact.”
Destined (Vampire Awakenings) Page 29