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she should see what he truly was, what he could do.
She moved slowly, dazedly to the bed and sat. Then she looked up at him, her shadowed eyes
meeting his. "Tell me," was all she said.
He laughed shortly, without humor, and saw her flinch. It made him hate himself more. "What do
you need to know?" he said. He put a foot on the lid of an overturned trunk and faced her almost
defiantly, indicating the room with a gesture. "Who did this? I did."
"You're strong," she said, her eyes on a capsized trunk. Her gaze lifted upward, as if she were
remembering what had happened on the roof. "And quick."
"Stronger than a human," he said, with deliberate emphasis on the last word. Why didn't she cringe
from him now, why didn't she look at him with the loathing he had seen before? He didn't care what
she thought any longer. "My reflexes are faster, and I'm more resilient. I have to be. I'm a hunter," he
said harshly.
Something in her look made him remember how she had interrupted him. He wiped his mouth with
the back of his hand, then went quickly to pick up a glass of water that stood unharmed on the
nightstand. He could feel her eyes on him as he drank it and wiped his mouth again. Oh, he still cared
what she thought, all right.
"You can eat and drink… other things," she said.
"I don't need to," he said quietly, feeling weary and subdued. "I don't need anything else." He
whipped around suddenly and felt passionate intensity rise in him again. "You said I was quick – but
that's just what I'm not. Have you ever heard the saying 'the quick and the dead,' Elena? Quick means
living; it means those who have life. I'm the other half."
He could see that she was trembling. But her voice was calm, and her eyes never left his. "Tell me,"
she said again. "Stefan, I have a right to know."
He recognized those words. And they were as true as when she had first said them. "Yes, I suppose
you do," he said, and his voice was tired and hard. He stared at the broken window for a few
heartbeats and then looked back at her and spoke flatly. "I was born in the late fifteenth century. Do
you believe that?"
She looked at the objects that lay where he'd scattered them from the bureau with one furious sweep
of his arm. The florins, the agate cup, his dagger. "Yes," she said softly. "Yes, I believe it."
"And you want to know more? How I came to be what I am?" When she nodded, he turned to the
window again. How could he tell her? He, who had avoided questions for so long, who had become
such an expert at hiding and deceiving.
There was only one way, and that was to tell the absolute truth, concealing nothing. To lay it all
before her, what he had never offered to any other soul.
And he wanted to do it. Even though he knew it would make her turn away from him in the end, he
needed to show Elena what he was.
And so, staring into the darkness outside the window, where flashes of blue brilliance occasionally
lit the sky, he began.
He spoke dispassionately, without emotion, carefully choosing his words. He told her of his father,
that solid Renaissance man, and of his world in Florence and at their country estate. He told her of his
studies and his ambitions. Of his brother, who was so different than he, and of the ill feeling between
them.
"I don't know when Damon started hating me," he said. "It was always that way, as long as I can