The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation: Unseen Read Free Page A

danger knew he would never hurt her.
    Besides, Bonnie thought pragmatically, the falcon weighing cool against her neck, it seemed like Damon was gone for good. Part of her missed him—there’d always been a special connection between her and Damon—but it might be better here without him. It was certainly calmer.
    “Matt’s here,” Stefan said, glancing up from murmuring into Elena’s ear. You could never surprise a vampire, Bonnie thought wryly.
    But now they all saw Matt working his way over to their corner of the bar. He kissed Bonnie on the cheek and handed her a small package. “Hey,” he said. “Happy birthday. Sorry I’m late.”
    “No problem,” Bonnie said, surreptitiously feeling the present to see what it was. A DVD, she thought. “Where’s Jasmine?”
    Matt grimaced. “She really wanted to come, but she’s on call for the emergency room,” he said. “She said to tell you happy birthday and she’ll take you out to lunch sometime next week instead.”
    “It’s a pretty good excuse,” Bonnie said. “You know, come to Bonnie’s birthday drinks or be ready when they need you to save lives.”
    “Since Jasmine couldn’t come,” Matt said, smiling at Meredith and Stefan, “you can tell me what happened with Celine. She’s dead?”
    That was the one problem with Jasmine, Bonnie thought, taking a swig of her drink. She’d been dating Matt for a couple of years, and everyone really liked her, but she didn’t know the truth about him, about all of them. Jasmine knew Bonnie liked fortune-telling, herbs, and “New Agey” stuff, but she didn’t know she was really a
witch
. She knew Alaric had a doctorate in paranormal studies and folklore, but she didn’t know any of
that
was real either; she just thought he was an academic. And she sure didn’t know the truth about Stefan, or Zander and his friends, or Elena. She didn’t even know Matt, not really, how he’d fought evil again and again, how strong and brave he was. She just thought he was a nice, ordinary guy.
    Maybe Bonnie needed to slow down on the champagne cocktails, because she opened her mouth and heard herself say, loudly, “Matt. How can you love Jasmine, when she doesn’t even know who you are?”
    Matt’s face stiffened, his mouth forming a tight line, and a hot flush of embarrassment ran over Bonnie. Wasn’t she
ever
going to learn to keep her mouth shut? After a moment, Matt said stiffly, “It’s safer for her this way.” His light blue gaze met hers. “I just want Jasmine to have a normal life.”
    Bonnie’s throat tightened. She remembered when she and Zander had finally told each other the truth about themselves, more than five years ago. How she’d held his hand, nervous.
Normal is overrated
, she’d told him, and they’d kissed, sweetly and honestly, everything open between them. She couldn’t imagine keeping secrets from someone she loved for so long.
    She managed to smile at Matt, although the smile felt pinched on her face, and nodded, blinking away the stinging in her eyes. “Okay,” she said in a small voice.
    There were an awkward few moments of silence.
    “Anyway,” Meredith said, with a brittle little laugh. “Since you asked …” She began to describe to Matt the battle she and Stefan had fought with Celine.
    It was a dramatic story. There were secret passages and close calls and much use of Meredith’s skills and Stefan’s vampire speed and strength before they’d even gotten close to Celine. But finally they’d tracked her down in Atlanta, evaded her vampire soldiers, and killed her with Elena’s magic blood.
    The first two times they’d told the story tonight, Bonnie had been hanging on Meredith and Stefan’s every word.
    This time, though, she politely stifled a yawn and glanced around. Everyone else was still riveted. Even Alaric, who was usually Bonnie’s compatriot in being more interested in the magical side of fighting monsters than the physical side, was asking intelligent