The Hunters: Destiny Rising

"I think I can see better in the dark now," Elena told Stefan as she pushed back a tree branch and held it so that he could pass.

The night seemed alive with sounds and motion, from the rustle of leaves to the scurry of some sort of tiny rodent in the undergrowth. It felt so different from the last time she and Stefan had patrolled the woods together. Elena didn't know if this new awareness was directly linked to the Power she could feel spreading steadily inside her, or if knowing she had the Power just made her more alert to everything else.

Stefan smiled, but didn't answer. She could tell that he was focused on sending out his own Power, looking for vampires in the woods.

When she concentrated, she could see that Stefan's aura was a beautiful clear blue, shot with tendrils of soft gray that she thought might be the doubts and guilt that never fully left him. But the living blue was so much stronger than the gray. She wished that Stefan could see his aura for himself.

She reached out and touched it, her hand hovering right above his skin. The blue enveloped her hand, but she couldn't feel anything. She wiggled her fingers, watching Stefan's aura flow around them.

"What're you doing?" Stefan said, turning his hand to thread his fingers between hers. He still looked out at the darkness around them.

"Your aura - " Elena said, and then stopped.

Something was coming.

Stefan made a soft questioning noise and when Elena drew a breath to speak again, something dark and clammy swept over her, chilling her as thoroughly as if she'd been swept beneath an icy river.

Evil. She was sure of it.

"This way," she said urgently, and pulling Stefan by the hand, started to run through the forest. Branches slapped at her as she pushed past them, one leaving a long stinging scratch on her cheek. Elena ignored it. She could feel something tugging at her, its urgency claiming all her attention.

Evil. She needed to stop it.

Her feet slipped and skidded on the dead leaves underfoot, and Stefan caught her by the arm before she could fall, pulling her upright. She stood still for a moment, gasping to catch her breath.

Ahead, she could see streaks of a dirty rust-red cut with sickly bile-yellow. Nothing like the soothing colors of Stefan's or Andres's auras, not at all. As Elena watched, the rust-red - the color of dried, old blood - contracted and expanded around the bilious yellow in a steady pulse. Two auras, she realized - one dominating the other. Elena's sense of urgency grew.

"I can see it," she said desperately. "Something bad is happening. Come on."

They ran on. Elena could tell when Stefan's Power picked up on what she was sensing, because he suddenly sped up, pulling her on instead of following her.

A vampire was pressing his victim back against a tree; the two figures huddled together into one dark, hulking shape. The pulsating auras wrapped around them, almost nauseating to watch. Elena barely had a moment to realize she'd found what she'd been hunting when Stefan yanked the vampire off the human and snapped his neck with one efficient twist of his hands. Then he tore a branch from the tree and staked him through the chest.

The vampire's victim fell to his hands and knees with a muffled thump. His yellowish aura lost its sickly tint almost immediately, but dimmed to a thin gray as the guy slumped down into the heap of leaves beneath the tree.

Elena dropped to her knees beside him and dug out her flashlight to check him over as Stefan dragged the vampire's body - one of the Vitale pledges - away into the bushes. The victim had very short black hair and was pale, but his pulse was steady, and his breathing shallow but regular. Blood trickled from a bite on his neck, and Elena pulled off her jacket and used it to put pressure against the wound.

"I think he's okay," she told Stefan when he came back to stand beside her.

"Good work, Elena," he told her, and then inhaled deeply. "There's blood still flowing somewhere on him, though."

Elena ran the flashlight over the guy. He was wearing pajama pants and a T-shirt and his feet were bare. The soles of his feet were bleeding.

"The vampire must have compelled him out of his dorm," she realized. "That's how he ended up in the woods."

"They're getting more skilled," Stefan said. "We'll organize more patrols around campus. Maybe we can stop some of them before they catch their victims in the first place."

"For now, we'd better get this guy back home," Elena said. The black-haired guy whimpered as Stefan and Elena gently pulled him up. The grayness of his aura began to fill with agitated strands of color, and Elena could tell he was starting to wake. "It's all right," she said soothingly, and felt a whisper of Stefan's Power as he began to murmur to him, calming him for the trip back to his dorm.

She couldn't focus on helping him, though. Her skin itched and she felt a tugging deep inside. There was still something out there. Evil, close by. Elena let Stefan take the full weight of the vampire's victim and stepped away, reaching out with her Power to try to sense in what direction the evil lay.

Nothing. Nothing specific, anyway - just that heavy, dreadful certainty that something was wrong, not too far away. She strained her senses, looking and feeling for a trace of some aura.

Nothing.

"Elena?" Stefan asked. He was supporting the vampire's victim easily and giving her a questioning look.

Elena shook her head. "There's something," she said slowly. "But I don't know where." She stared out into the darkness for a moment, but there was still no clue to tell her where the oppressive feeling was coming from. "We should call it a night," she said finally.

"Are you sure?" Stefan asked. At her nod, he hiked the guy higher on his shoulder and turned back toward campus. As Elena followed him, she took one last uneasy glance around. Whatever it was, it was shielding itself from her and from Stefan better than the young vampires could.

Something old, then. And evil. Was Klaus nearby? If he wanted to, he could kill them right now, Elena realized with a dizzying flare of panic. He was stronger than Elena and Stefan were. The woods around her looked darker, more ominous, as if Klaus might be lurking behind any tree. She walked faster, sticking close to Stefan, eager to see the lights of campus ahead.

Bonnie kept hold of Zander's hand as they followed Meredith around the edge of the soccer field. They hadn't seen any vampires tonight, but the stars were incredibly bright above them.

"I like patrolling with you," she told him. "It's almost like a romantic stroll, except for, you know, the possibility of being attacked by vampires."

Zander grinned down at her and swung their clasped hands. "Don't you worry yourself, little lady," he said in a terrible imitation of a western drawl. "I'm the toughest werewolf in this here town and I'm looking out for you."

"Is it weird that I find that voice sexy?" Bonnie asked Meredith.

Meredith, striding along ahead of them, looked back to raise an expressive eyebrow at Bonnie. "Yes," she said simply. "Very weird."

A long, drawn-out howl echoed from the direction of the hills just outside of campus and Zander cocked his head, listening. "The guys haven't found anything," he said. "They're heading out to get some pizza once Camden changes back."

"Do you want to meet up with them?" Bonnie asked.

Zander pulled her closer, putting his arm around her shoulders. "Not unless you do," he said. "I thought maybe we could hang out in my room, watch a movie or something."

"Passing up food, Zander?" a dry voice said behind them. "It must be true love." Meredith whipped around, and Bonnie knew she was kicking herself for not sensing the girl coming up to them.

"Hi, Shay," Bonnie said resignedly. "Meredith, meet Zander's old friend Shay." Werewolf, she mouthed to Meredith when she was sure Shay wasn't looking.

"I hope you don't mind me catching up with you," Shay said, falling into step with them on Zander's other side. "Spencer told me you'd be patrolling over here."

"The more the merrier," Bonnie told her, very consciously not gritting her teeth.

"I'd love to get some fighting in," Shay said, rolling her shoulders. "Feels like I've been doing nothing but sitting around since I got here. Zander could tell you how restless we get when we're cooped up."

"Yeah, I've noticed," Bonnie said. Zander had sped up his pace to match Shay's quicker one, and his arm dropped from Bonnie's shoulders. She took his hand again, but found herself having to hurry to keep up.

Meredith hesitated, glancing between them, and was just opening her mouth to say something to Shay when Shay suddenly stopped.

"Hear that?" she said, and Zander, Meredith, and Bonnie all stopped and listened, too.

Bonnie didn't hear anything, but Zander smiled and nudged Shay with one elbow. "White-tailed deer on the ridge," he said.

They shared a private smile.

"What are you guys talking about?" Bonnie asked.

Shay turned to Bonnie. "The High Wolf Council divides us into Packs-to-be when we're children, and we grow up playing together. When Zander and I and the others were about fifteen, our Pack spent a week roaming the mountains near where we grew up." She grinned at Zander, and Bonnie tensed at the intimacy that was clear between them.

"Anyway," Shay went on, "on this trip, after we'd been out running with the Pack all night, Zander and I went to drink from a pond tucked away in the pinewoods. We found deer there, and we could have killed one of them easily - we were wolves right then, and it's natural for us to hunt in that form - but they just looked at us, the sun coming up behind them. And" - she shrugged - "they were beautiful. It was like that moment was just for us." She smiled, and for once, it didn't seem like she was trying to needle Bonnie. Shay was just remembering. She tipped her face into the breeze. "Smell that?" she asked Zander.

Bonnie didn't smell anything, but Zander sniffed the breeze and shot Shay another nostalgic smile. "Pine," he said. Shay grinned back, her nose crinkling.

After a moment, Meredith cleared her throat and they started walking again, scanning the area for trouble, and Zander squeezed Bonnie's hand. "So," he said. "Movie?"

"Sure," Bonnie said, distracted. She couldn't help seeing the similarities in Zander's and Shay's movements and how, even when Zander was talking to her, he had one ear cocked for faraway sounds Bonnie would never be able to hear. There was a distance between Bonnie and Zander, she thought, that they might never be able to cross.

Maybe Bonnie would never belong in Zander's world. Not like Shay.