The Last Weapon

17: Torn Alliances

Stefan's POV

Things were tense.

Supposedly, Briana had kidnapped Elena and Rose had heard just enough to tattle-tale to Damon. Nobody bothered to tell me except for Jeremy, who only came to apologize for getting me stuck in here and just happened to throw it into the conversation. I'd been so shocked I hadn't asked more about it. Maybe I could have, if I wasn't stuck in the tomb of a woman who guaranteed my eternal life, sitting here, waiting, while she stared at me with the utmost curiosity.

And lust.

And smugness.

And, to my delight, the slightest, nearly unrecognizable hint of rejection.

My heart was practically breaking my ribs to figure out how everything was playing out, and just what the hell was going on. Hey, my ribs could have been breaking and fixing themselves and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Katherine obviously sensed my distress, for she became even more smug than before; her ego was becoming so smothering that I supposed it wasn't just the fact that I was underground in a tomb that made the air quite so stuffy and thick. I felt like I had plugged all the windows, door and openings in a bathroom and took a hot shower to the point where the steam clogged the air and made it difficult to breathe.

"I can't believe that you had one of your minion 'friends' boarding in our house," I complained, flicking a glance at her and then turning away. I could tell it frustrated her how I would barely give her a second look, let alone contemplate being attracted to her like she claimed she was to me.

"Annice- or Briana, whatever you call her these days- is hardly a minion of mine," she said, practically scoffing at the idea. My curiosity peaked, but I struggled to hide it, knowing she'd try to take advantage of it.

"Oh, really? Then what is she?" I fought to keep my interest tampered down, but she plucked it out of my sentence easily, like pointing out the elephant in a small room of mice. Her eyes sparked.

"You don't know?" she asked, though it was obviously not a question. "I wonder if she's told Damon. She seems to have quite an infatuation with him, wouldn't you say? Unlike Elena, she figures out what she wants and goes after it." It was an obvious jab at me.

"What-"

"That's why I killed her little boyfriend, you know, my old butler, back a a couple centuries or so. He was before Emily Bennett. I knew she'd do anything to get him, and so I made him inaccessible." Her eyes glittered with pride, as if she'd done a favor. Crazy bitch.

"So you think she'd tell someone as plainly disloyal and impossible to confide in as Damon a secret so big even you seem to find it rather important?"

A quick flicker of intuition told me differently. There was no way a girl so secretive and cunning would tell my brother something Katherine thought was big enough to hold as an advantage over me. She had to be smarter than that. A part of what she'd said crossed my mind.

"And what do you mean, 'unlike Elena'?" She pulled something very Damon-like and cocked her brow, a snake's grin breaking her face. "Because if you're implying she doesn't know if she is attracted to him-" I winced, both of us knowing who 'him' was "-then you're wrong. She hates him. She's told me and refused to even talk about him so many times that I find it a miracle she'd even consider being an acquaintance of his."

"Oh, please," she laughed, something like Elena's but burnt with hints of deception and condescension.

I could hear it. My voice had cracked, now questioning whether Elena really did hate Damon or if she just didn't want to talk about him in hopes of keeping anything she did feel for him from me. But she wouldn't do that! I was sure of it. Elena could have problems facing her problems, but she would never outright avoid the subject or lie to me just to make sure she knew she had no feelings for him. She was too easy to read to hide something of betrayal like that. And yet...