The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3)
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Authors: Michelle Hazen
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Trust In Betrayal
In Time We Trust Trilogy: Book 3
By Michelle Hazen
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: A Well-Balanced Breakfast
Chapter 2: Communist Revolution
Chapter 3: Crossbow Special on Aisle Seven
Chapter 5: Blunt is the New Sexy
Chapter 7: Damon’s Favorite Day
Chapter 8: The Marks We Choose
Chapter 9: Something to Celebrate
Chapter 14: Thicker Than Water
Chapter 16: Sex and Broken Things
Chapter 17: The Man I am Today
Chapter 18: Bouquet of Black Feathers
Chapter 20: The Legacy of Katherine Pierce
Chapter 22: Come Hell or Hard Choices
DAMON
It’s been a long night: a painful fight with my girlfriend, not-so-painful makeup sex that was irritatingly interrupted by people trying to kill us, a bitch of a house fire, and a last-minute grave robbing for a nightcap.
As I steer the truck in off the street, the fluorescent lights of the 24-hour diner
shine greasily against the dusty pre-dawn gloom of the parking lot. I barely notice them, though, because my eyes are already locked on the corner beyond the dumpsters where I can see the darkened taillights of my Camaro. At the sight, something loosens in my chest and I take my first easy breath in hours.
“Will you look at that?” Katherine says. “The little princess managed to stay out of trouble for a few hours on her own.”
“Not cool,” Matt warns her wearily, and Ric sends a sympathetic wince in his direction. The quarterback’s been playing referee between me and my ex-vampire ex-girlfriend ever since our group had to split up so I could circle back and repossess Silas’s cement-filled coffin from the wreckage of the boarding house.
It went more smoothly than anything usually does for us, with Katherine and Matt to stand guard—since they’re human and more likely to be spared by any stray Augustines—and Ric and me to do the heavy lifting.
The ashes of the boarding house were still hot and the place was swarming with cops, the Augustines long gone by the time we went back. Liz thought it was too dangerous to go back into what was left of the building, but after I told her that her daughter was safe, I think she would have let me get away with a triple murder and a good half-dozen acts of vandalism. A quick run through of a building with unstable floors and some wobbly rafters? No problem.
Besides, I heal fast.
Especially after Ric and I dined out on the night shift at a Jack in the Box, a super classy choice for his first post-resurrection live feed.
We’ll have the triple teenager meal, hold the screaming, please.
Now that we’re on the run, he doesn’t get the high-road blood bag option. I wanted him as far from Elena’s worried brown eyes as we could get for the first time he tried to feed on a human and make himself stop before he flipped to the obituaries page. I figured the privacy was only fair: nobody needs an audience the first time the training wheels come off.
I sling my legs out of Donovan’s truck and stretch my tired back, stealing a glance at my best friend.
Ric smirks, anticipating my little checkup glance. I roll my eyes, looking away before he sees the wash of relief in my face. He didn’t kill anyone, not even me when I had to haul him off the first human. The second, he stopped on his own. And by the third, he played the gentleman and left her for me. Not that it was much of a party, feeding with one eye open just in case he flipped personalities and decided to send me for a swim in the fryer.
Running footsteps rain across the pavement behind me and I turn in time to catch a flash of my girlfriend’s face before she’s close enough to pounce on me. I catch Elena’s hand, spinning her and then dropping her into a deep dip, my hand splayed across her lower back. She grins up at me, her eyes sparkling a little damply in the light from the diner windows.
“Why, yes, I would like to have this dance,” I purr down at her, and she giggles.
I can’t resist enjoying her for a moment, not after the ulcer-inducing moment earlier tonight when I had to chuck all our cell phones and then let her out of my sight for hours at a time with only a promise to meet at this diner at dawn. Like there’s nothing that could have gone wrong with
that
plan.
But thank God, all the devils, blood sacrifices, and pure dumb luck, this time nothing did.
I nuzzle the perfect line of her throat, trying to push away the memory of the livid bite marks that marred it only hours before. Drawing her slowly up to her feet, I kiss the point of her chin, her lips, her pert little nose, and then the smooth skin of her forehead as I set her back upright.
“Any bumps along the way?” I ask.
She shakes her head, her eyes still fastened on my face as if it’s the first time she’s ever seen me.
She rubs the leather of my jacket between her fingers, smiling. “I’m glad you found this,” she says softly.
“Your fault,” I murmur into her ear, which is true.
I’ve always carried a spare shirt in my car, because they tend to get blood on them at the most inopportune times. But I didn’t start to carry a spare leather jacket until I was dating Elena, who is perpetually cold, which meant I was perpetually jacket-less.
Fortunately, that also means in case of a house fire, I’m a little more well-stocked than most.
Not that it saved us a major trip to Walmart, which was shudderingly the only place open at 2 A.M. after we fled a burning building with seven people, five pairs of pants and four shirts. Any way you do the math, it doesn’t quite add up to “under the radar.”
I just wish I had another jacket for Elena, but she seems to have developed a fondness for her brother’s oversized hoodie, which she still hasn’t given back. And I’m sure not going to deny her anything that reminds her of home, since Ric and I just lit up the last one she had like a Molotov cocktail full of fanged freaks and more top-shelf booze than I want to think about.
I sling an arm around her shoulders and turn to find Matt examining the low-riding bed of his truck with a frown.
“The cement in this coffin is going to kill my rear suspension,” he mutters.
“Just wait until you see what it does to your gas mileage.” Jeremy vaults up into the truck bed to fix the tarp where one rope came loose in the wind, revealing a corner of the metal casket beneath. He’s moving better than he was earlier: his leg must have just been deeply bruised, not torn or strained, which will thankfully save me having to bully him into letting me heal it.
“Thank God you brought the truck back,” Caroline says, strutting across the parking lot. “The backseat of your Camaro was
not
meant for three across.”
“Great to see you too, Blondie.” I blow her a mocking kiss. “You should work on your gratitude speech. Maybe lead in with world peace and wrap it up with a nod to me for going back into a burning building to save the coffin containing the asshole whose immortality spell seems determined to dig him out of the concrete we encased him in. The same asshole,” I add, waving a chiding finger at her, “whose sole goal in life is to murder your Original vampire crush, his snooty siblings, and by default, us.”
“I do not have a crush on Klaus!” Caroline protests, scowling at me. “Besides, it’s not like you did it for me. You would have probably left me to die at Whitmore if Elena didn’t make you pick me up.”
“Caroline!” Elena glares at her friend and Caroline points a warning finger at her in return.
“Don’t even start with all that reverse sire bond business. I just know a jerk when I see one, and I always have.”
“Which
so
explains your fascination with the werewolf boy,” Katherine says, examining her nails. “You know, what’s-his-name with the anger management classes and the great big…” she says, looking up coyly from beneath her eyelashes, “…personality.”
Caroline gasps with outrage and glares at Katherine. Stefan and Cali are the last ones to make it over from the Camaro and a corner of my brother’s mouth lifts in response to Katherine’s jibe, though he’s careful to smooth his expression before Caroline can see.
He’s moving easily now, not a hint left of his brush with desiccation earlier tonight. Fortunately, Donovan didn’t require much convincing to donate a pint or two to the cause under close supervision. Because at the time, I wasn’t into taking no for an answer and we didn’t have time to kidnap a random donor.
Cali ignores Caroline’s reaction. “Less bickering, more eating of the
food
,” she moans, her eyes clinging to the front of the diner.
I wince at the giant gauze square taped crookedly to her neck. “Yeah, looking like that? We’ll have three calls in to the local domestic violence hotline before we even get our menus.”
“I told you,” Stefan says, taking a step forward. “We can heal those.”
I shoot him a warning look but he’s not paying any attention to me.
I still haven’t figured out exactly what combination of the Gilbert luck and my bad karma resulted in Jeremy bringing home the only girl in three counties that Stefan has fed from, memory wiped, and had to lock in the basement in order to detox her from the vervain my squishy-hearted girlfriend never should have given her in the first place.
Cali is also the only person Stefan’s ever bitten
and
healed, and it makes me itchy under the collar that he’s so eager to repeat the process. Especially since Baby Gilbert is blissfully ignorant of his new girlfriend’s stay in the Dungeon Suites Di Salvatore.
“Uh, yeah,” Cali says, shoving a bit of blue-streaked dark hair back into her spiky bun. “I’ve seen how you do that, and I prefer to get my iron boost from a side of bacon, extra-crispy, if you don’t mind.”
“We would draw less attention if you were healed,” Jeremy says reluctantly, jumping down from the bed of the pickup to land lightly beside her. She makes a face at him and he shrugs one shoulder sheepishly. “Yeah, I know, it’s gross,” he agrees. He lifts a hand like he’s going to touch her bandage, and then thinks better of it. “But they take like a week to heal, and it stings like crazy the whole time.”
Cali sends a significant look at his wrist, the bandage covered by the new hoodie he quietly bought last night, leaving his own wrapped around his sister’s shoulders.
Sometimes, I really like that kid.
“Mine’s not that bad,” Jeremy argues. “And it’s easier to hide.”
Cali sticks her tongue out at him and his mouth kicks up into a smirk. I almost laugh, because she may be a Grade A pain in
my
ass, but she’s good for lightening Jeremy up. I wonder how long they’ve known each other, and shift my weight uneasily. Then again, if the kid would introduce me to his fucking friends now and then, I’d be more careful not to use them for midnight snacks.