09 | nocturnal
done, occurring, or active at night

dedicated to bitchmafia

THE LOOK NATHAN was giving Damon could only be described as the world's most concentrated death stare. The beautiful dark-skinned vampire had locked his jaw in place, and his brown orbs were narrowed to slits so sly they appeared like two ebony scars on his face. If looks could kill, the three of us in the room standing opposite Nathan would all have died minutes ago.

I could feel the intensity of the angry stare as I stood beside Damon to prop him upright. Although we both lacked physical strength from our ordeals, my energy had come flooding back within the half hour it had taken us to return to room number 306 at The Grand London Hotel, whilst Damon was unable to heal due to the vervain pumped through his system. His eyes were still their brilliant hazel as he gave me a side-glance, yet the green-pigment of his skin effortlessly indicated the poison working its way through his system. Moreover, his usual musk had been replaced by the smell of a rotting animal. I creased my nose partially in disgust, and partially in fear of what might happen to him next. Could the dose of vervain he had been given kill him?

"Are you two just going to stare at each other all day, or are you actually going to say something?" Hannah finally broke the silence two minutes after entering the magnificent hotel room. She had been just as taken aback by the neat gold and white marble decor in the hotel room as I had been. Hannah folded her arms over her chest, hiding her cleavage from any wandering eyes in the process. She had been blessed with larger breasts, whereas my A cups were partially a curse – yet, I had accepted them as a blessing in disguise.

Nathan narrowed his eyes, walking straight past Hannah until he was stood right in front of Damon.

"You're lucky I care about her, otherwise you'd be dead, Damon," Nathan hissed at the man, barely giving me any attention as though I didn't exist. In fact, I felt transparent.

"Good to know," Damon half-joked as his body suddenly crumbled from his lack of strength. I staggered to the side involuntarily, unable to hold up his heavy body.

"Fuck it, Damon! I'm trying to be civilised here!" Nathan yelled. "Elijah might not've killed you, but I will."

"Go ahead." Damon spat out blood onto the floor, his body rapidly losing strength. I hauled him over to the bed and dropped him ungraciously on the neatly made covers.

"That's it, Da-" Nathan seethed, striding forwards towards Damon with his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles had turned white. Something came over me in a wave, and I stepped in between the two men before Nathan could inflict any damage. "Get out of my way Cora!" Nathan's dark eyes bore into mine, but he kept his distance as though I was too precious to touch.

"Nathan," I said in the calmest tone I could muster. "Calm the hell down."

"Calm down?" Nathan sneered. "Because of him, I just lost the one thing that would make me king, Cora! And I've been waiting far too fucking long for it to be thrown away like that!"

I was stunned by his words; by his sheer eagerness to become the vampire king. Did it really mean that much? Did a title really change the person he was or the capabilities he had? But then again, it was like asking why would you want to be captain of the hockey team? You wanted respect. You wanted the attention. You wanted the free captain jersey that was too ugly to wear outside school, but still made you feel slightly important.

"Nathan, please," I tried once again to calm down the vampire. Running out of ideas, I grabbed his upper arm with my hand to make sure his full attention was drawn to my disproportionate face. I didn't care what he saw in that moment - the scared girl hiding in the skin of an adult; my withered face scarred from the endeavours of the day - I was proud of the woman I was and had grown over nineteen years to be. "If this is anyone's fault, it's mine."

"That doesn't excuse him for breaking my neck!"

"For fuck's sake, you're still alive, aren't you?" I shouted back. Nathan took a step away, taken aback by my sudden outburst. He bowed his head warily as my hand fell away from his arm. "So stop fucking complaining! Damon was protecting me because he doesn't want me to be a part of this, and whatever you want me for, I'm not doing it. I appreciate what you did - I always will - but this has gone too far. All I want is the truth and not to be involved in this vampire king bullshit."

Nathan shook his head, the spark of anger slowly fading from his eyes like fog retreating from land. He placed his thumb and little finger on either side of his head, cogs spiralling in his brain to figure out a solution.

After a minute of thought, Nathan spoke up among the silence and Damon's laboured breaths as the poison worked its evil. "Here's what's going to happen," the vampire uttered, his voice much more authoritative than it had been a minute ago. "You're going to help me get the blade back for making me give it away in the first place."

"Yeah, no." Damon interrupted from his sickbed.

"I wasn't finished," Nathan stated patiently. "You help me retrieve the blade, and I will leave you alone. That's it."

"But you don't need us," I reminded him. It was true - two humans and a vampire under the heavy influence of vervain were hardly of any use when it came to facing a centuries old vampire like Elijah. We were just as useful as bad wifi. Which was not useful – at all.

Nathan rolled his eyes. "I can't do this on my own. And vampires can't kill you, Cora. Both you and Hannah know London better than any of the other vampires. And Damon's the best fighter I know."

"I still-"

"Cora, I need your help," Nathan said slowly as though he was begging. "And you don't have much of a choice anyway."

The man was beginning to get on my nerves, but I understood where he was coming from. We had cost him a lifetime's worth of hard work. He had spent decades preparing for one week, and somehow I had managed to bite my lip so hard it bled, and drawn Elijah's attention to me before I could have a chance to figure out why I had written Algrose Cemetery on a piece of old paper. In the end, I had seen something, but I didn't know what it was, and Damon wasn't in the right state for me to give him a lecture.

"But-" I protested, wanting to talk about it more, but Nathan merely cut me off once again and opened the hotel door in one smooth movement.

"I'm going to get some food," Nathan grumbled. "If any of you leave, I'll have my men - my other men - on you quicker than you can blink."

And with that, he slammed the door. I flinched at the hollow noise as it reverberated around the still room. Outside, the night was young and lights glimmered in the distance like shards of crystal. The sun scraped the horizon, finally bidding the world goodbye until it rose again in the morning. Clouds billowed overhead, obscuring the emerging moon as the multicoloured sky turned to an inky indigo.

I glanced at Damon who had moved to the head of the bed, resting his back against the backboard. His face was covered in a fresh sheen of sweat, causing the blood crusted on his face to run down the curves of his skin like daggers through flesh.

"I'll give you two some room," Hannah muttered, and without a pause she headed through the door to the other unnecessary bedroom within Nathan's abode. I smiled at her, but the door had already shut. I wanted to make sure that she was coping after yesterday, but Hannah was more independent at nineteen than my parents had ever been in their entire lives. If she didn't want to talk, she didn't want to talk.

My heart rapidly sped up at the thought of being left alone with Damon, to a rate that even calm breathing could not control.

"Give me a sec," I murmured, my short legs carrying me into the en-suite bathroom. I swiped up a small towel and drenched it with water before hurrying back to the bed. Damon had closed his eyes momentarily, and they flickered open as soon as I placed the cold cloth on his forehead.

"Cora," Damon sighed as I pressed the cold, wet material against his face. His eyes fluttered, meeting mine. Instead of the natural white surrounding his irises, there was a tint of red from sleeplessness, but the pigment only made Damon's hazel eyes more pronounced. "You don't need to do that."

His tanned hands reached up to mine and weakly pushed the cloth away. I shook my head and fought his endeavours, but his strength was still too overpowering, even with the poor condition he was in.

"Yes I do," I muttered. "You look like roadkill."

Damon laughed, his eyes falling half-closed from exhaustion. "I am roadkill."

"Don't be so generous," I chuckled, wiping away the blood clotted in his stubble. His face was finally returning to its defined self, just perhaps with a few more unhealed battle scars than before. "Can't have you looking shit for all the other women in your life."

"It might surprise you, but you are all the other women in my life," Damon responded with a gentle whisper. His lips tried to flicker upwards into a smile, but his attempt at the small gesture was fruitless and instead his smile looked like a disappointed frown.

I moved the cloth to Damon's forehead where the deepest cut had been inflicted. He hissed as the glacial material ran along the groove.

"And I would feel flattered if you were telling the truth," I uttered.

"Fuck you, ginger," Damon snorted.

"No thanks." I smiled at him bitter-sweetly.

"I didn't mean it like that," the vampire whispered, finally closing his eyes fully.

"Yeah, right," I hissed, mimicking Damon's pained expression as I finished with the gouge on his forehead. As soon as the vervain was out of his system, it would form a faded white line that was so faint, it would only be detectable if you already knew it was there. "And I don't even want to think about the amount of girls you've slept with."

Damon opened his mouth to reply, but immediately shut it.

"Coralline, I'm three-hundred-and-sixty-three," Damon muttered when I turned away to place the used towel down on the clean floor beside the bed. "So what I might've slept around, but I've only been in love once."

"Oh," is all I can say, taken aback by the direction of the conversation. He wasn't talking about me, surely? "Who was she?" I asked, intrigued.

"She was a psychopath," Damon stated blatantly.

He patted the other side of the bed for me to join him. I gulped, wondering what to do, but my body responded before my mind did. I moved over his body in one smooth action, and sat cross-legged beside him.

"Why do I get the feeling that that's your normal type?" I squinted my eyes before laughing at Damon's serious composure. I liked this side of the man - the side that didn't swear every single millisecond of the day, and smiled using his perfect white teeth.

Damon laughed briefly before a long lost pain settled across his features. "She was beautiful. She always put others before herself, which I always admired about her. Kinda like you, ginger."

I leant forwards, propping my body up with my elbows. "What was her name?"

"Sage."

"Paprika."

"What the fuck, Cora?"

"Oh, sorry I thought we were naming herbs," I muttered in a bid to lighten the sullen mood. I was well known for being weird by my friends and family, as well as using the f word as commonly as 'the' or 'and.' "Sage is a pretty name."

Damon sighed, his movements ragged as though he had been suddenly injured once again, however this wound was invisible to the naked eye. It was the kind of scar that ran so deep into the heart tissue, even the owner barely knew it was there.

"She was pretty," the male vampire huffed, yet he ended up coughing. Blood had mixed with his saliva to create a pale ruby concoction, and I scrunched my nose before picking the cloth back up to wipe the liquid away from his chin. I raised a brow, asking for more. Maybe it would let me understand him more - and decipher if what Hannah had told me was true. After all, how could Damon like me if he hated me just as much as I disliked his company and the danger that followed him like a shadow. How could a man without a heart know love?

"What happened?"

Damon licked his lips. "Just like you, she got caught up in this whole vampire shit." He paused and took a breath. "I was still young back then, and I had been naive. I thought that a vampire could fall in love with a human, but it made me weak. Alexander was my mentor at the time, so he gave her his blood and snapped her neck before my eyes. When she woke up, her innocence was gone. She was bitter, and did whatever it took to survive. She wasn't the same person I fell in love with. She later fucked me over with some vampire from Thailand. Haven't heard from her since."

"I'm sorry," I smiled. "But if it's any consolation, at least you've been in love. The only time I've been in love was with a chicken kebab from Frankie's kebab place down the road."

Damon was too tired to laugh, but a smile etched its way onto his lips.

"She didn't deserve you anyway."

Damon shook his head, ebony locks sprawling all over the pillow. "I didn't deserve her."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but that is the biggest pile of bullcrap I've ever heard," I said sternly, thinking about the situation of the ill vampire and the world I had become trapped in. I had never been so afraid in my life, yet here I was laughing and smiling with a man I barely knew and claimed (or at least Hannah claimed) he had feelings for me. None of it made sense, but I would much rather be here with Damon and Hannah than continuing my dull life at university. Adrenaline was what I thrived on, and I had never been so at ease with any other man in my life. Damon was the carbon copy of me, whether I wanted to admit it or not. We both swore too much for our own good, and had strong personalities that constantly clashed with the other people around us.

"You get some sleep."

I laid down beside Damon, his face turned towards the ceiling whilst I gazed at his tanned complexion as colour returned to his face.

I anticipated the usual nickname or rude statement from the vampire, but he surprised me with a quiet, "Night, Cora."

I smiled to myself, drowsiness causing my eyes to close as I laid beside him. "Night, arsehole."

WHEN I AWOKE, the other side of the bed was empty, the sheet sprawled over the place like a toddler who had gone wild in a toy shop. I hadn't even realised I had fallen asleep, but the morning rays scattered across my face and blurring my watery vision confirmed my suspicion that it was already morning.

The large room was flooded with light, illuminating every nook and cranny until everything seemingly glowed. The red curtains had been drawn back, the skyline of London recognisable against the grey sky. Soon I would be able to map every building from memory. Rain clouds swirled over the city, only allowing a fraction of light from the blazing sun in through the gaps in the grey. The room no longer smelt of death, but rather shampoo and shower gel that flowed from the open door to the bathroom. Warm air met me in a rush, and I greeted it.

Relieved that Nathan nor Damon weren't in sight, I clambered out of the bed and swept my red-gold locks into a high ponytail. The jumpsuit I was wearing felt sticky from sweat, but I had to deal with the thick black material until I found something else to wear that fit my toned legs and below-average stature.

"Morning, princess," A rough voice welcomed as a body moved out of the steaming air of the bathroom. The man's face and body was rid of the blood and dirt that had coated him like a second skin, and his face was cleanly shaven, leaving a millimetre of dark stubble to give him his signature timeless and chiselled outlook. Apart from the towel wrapped around his bottom half, he was naked. The chest I had bumped into multiple times was on full display, and I blushed as my eyes momentarily took in his abs and perfect physique. I quickly diverted my eyes, hoping Damon hadn't seen my stare.

Damon laughed as I glanced at my bare feet, cheeks as red as the blood I had cleaned off his face last night.

"I take it you're feeling better?" I asked, biting my lip. This time the action didn't draw blood.

"Yeah," Damon answered swiftly. I kept my eyes away from his near-perfect physique as he went to the wardrobe next to the double bed. He flung the white-painted doors open and squinted, searching through Nathan's clothes for ones that would fit. He eventually pulled out a lose white tank top and pair of black jeans that would probably end up being too short for him, as well as a pair of fresh boxers.

I flicked my hair off my shoulder from my ponytail and briefly smiled at the man. The action drew attention to my neck, and the bite marks that had scabbed over. Before, they had been hidden by a curtain of hair, but the fresh marks made Damon's face grow into a mask of anger.

In a blink, he was in front of me. He placed a hand on my chin and tilted my neck to the side to expose the twin hole marks on my neck. I gulped nervously, heart beating faster as I was hit by a wave of the vampire's musky aroma.

"Who did this to you?" He demanded and gently released his warm touch from under my chin. It was strange how searing his touch could be, especially when vampires weren't even meant to have a body temperature over room temperature.

I swallowed the lump stuck in my throat. "Elijah."

"The sick fuck!" Damon moaned, turning away from me to slam his hand down on one of the wooden bedside tables. The legs collapsed from the sheer strength of the American's blow. It crashed to the ground with a huge thud, splinters scattering across the ground until finding a part of floor without them was impossible. "He's not getting away with this."

Damon went on to punch the wall above head height, creating a dent in the plaster.

"Damon," I breathed. "Damon!"

The man responded the second time I shouted his name. His eyes were no longer their typical shade of hazel, but a much darker brown that reminded me of an endless abyss. The veins under his eye sockets popped, and although his mouth was closed, I had no doubt that his fangs had come out.

"I'm going to kill that fucking-"

"Damon!" I screamed for the last time. "Arsehole! I'm fine. It's fine."

Damon's face had calmed down slightly, and he was stood before me once more before I could step away. I was afraid of him when he was angry, because when he was angry he wasn't in control. 

"In what world is this fine, Cora?" Damon shouted in response. His tanned hand reached out to cup my chin, but I flinched away, scared by the person who stood before me. His eyes were still unrecognisable, and the black veins made my vision swim. The male was hurt by the action, but retreated slowly to give me the space I needed to calm my breathing. "He could've killed you. He could've raped you."

"But he didn't, Damon," I soothed, keeping up the calm facade I had plastered on my face. "He didn't, ok?"

Damon shook his head to tell me that it was not ok. The hazel of his irises flooded back, infiltrating the dark pigments swirling in his orbs until they returned to normal. He found the bed and sat down on the edge with a delayed sigh. His anger had dissipated in the air, but I could still feel it - taste it - as it writhed around my body like a serpent that refused to let me go from its constricting coils.

Silence. "You're not coming later," Damon stated, and I felt my jaw drop. Was he kidding? I wasn't going to sit back and let him get possibly killed retrieving a dagger that had been handed over because of me.

"I'm sorry, are you fucking kidding me?" I crossed my arms over my small chest reluctantly. "You can't tell me what to do, Damon."

The man in question furiously shook his head. "Sweetheart, this isn't up for debate. If he gets his hands on you again, he won't hesitate to do god knows what with you."

"And what about you? What if he kills you?"

"Cora, sweetheart, he doesn't have a hope in hell," Damon smirked. The kind and empathetic man I had talked to last night had diminished, and the vampire had morphed back into his arrogant self. It was one quality that completely put me off people, but for some reason is suited the tall, dark and handsome vampire.

"Arrogant fuck," I murmured so quietly I hoped he didn't hear. "Why do you even care? I'm nothing to you."

"Because I do care," Damon muttered in an almost-whisper. It sounded like he was ashamed to admit his inner thoughts. The vampire was an enclosed figure, that much I was certain about. He was like an onion that still had the papery brown skin attached to the outside. "And I don't care." About anyone other than myself, I finished the sentence in my head.

I rolled my eyes at the exact moment that the door to the room flew open and swung on its hinges. I cringed at the noise of the wooden door meeting the wall, and slunk back until I stood beside Damon who had stood up from the bed. I tensed my body, remaining as still as a statue as though it would keep me out of sight.

However, I heaved a heavy sigh of relief as Nathan entered the room followed by three other figures. The first was Hannah, whose curly hair was braided into two Dutch plaits that barely reached her shoulders. Her face was serene, and she had managed to swap her formal clothes from the night before for a pair of navy jeans and a white bandeau top.

I didn't recognise the next two people. Both strode into the room with an air of confidence, and stood beside Nathan as equals.

The first was a woman who appeared as timeless as Damon. Laughter lines surrounded the corners of her slanted eyes proudly, and her smile was as cold as ice as we made eye contact. She had very beautiful and neat features, with a wider face and the most defined cheekbones I had ever seen on a woman. Her Asian heritage was clear, and her long black hair was neatly cropped at shoulder-length.

The other person was a boy who looked no older than Hannah or myself. Unlike the woman, his smile was a lot more welcoming, with a perfect set of white teeth that looked like they had been whitened too many times successively. He had a pair of small eyes that glimmered a deep blue colour, and hair that was badly styled with gel.

"Good, you're awake," Nathan spoke harshly to Damon, who simply placed his hands on his hips and sighed like a moody girl from a coming-of-age film. "You missed breakfast, but I'd like you to meet Sonoya, head of the Beijing Clan," the handsome clan leader pointed to the Asian woman who smiled with the same iciness carried in her eyes. "And this is Harry, my second. They're going to help us tonight."

I didn't know how to react, so I simply nodded at both.

"Throw in another teenage boy with a face full of acne and someone with actual talent, and we'd have a fully functioning boy band," Damon said and clapped his hands, clearly mocking Nathan and his choice of help. From what I head learnt, Damon had been at Nathan's side for almost two hundred years, and had never been anything other than a strong fighter and sacrifice to the clan leader. Moreover, Nathan's choice of second in command - Harry - looked questionable with his stick-like physique and short attention span.

"Do I look like a boy to you?" I hissed at the comment, suddenly bitter after Damon's poor behaviour.

"Who said you were invited?"

"Unless you want an inverted ballsack, stop being a dick," I warned. "So what's the plan?"

Nathan shrugged, his quirky smile finding its way onto his face. The happy look suited him, and easily made his handsome face more rememberable. "Whenever these trials are held, there are certain events held by different clan leaders to lure out the vampire with the blade. Sonoya is going to host a feast tonight that Elijah won't be able to turn down."

I frowned. "Surely Elijah won't be stupid enough to come, let alone bring the blade with him?"

Nathan's smile grew until his full front row of teeth were showing. "Oh, he'll come. Elijah's the kind of man who doesn't trust anyone other than himself. He's one of the oldest vampires in the world; he knows how hard he is to kill. He will have the dagger on him at all times and will only give it up when he's a corpse."

"Oh, great," Hannah murmured as though she had heard my thoughts.

I swallowed at the thought of facing the man who had sucked every drop of blood from my body, but I found the courage to set my anger aside. I wasn't going to be scared by a man who couldn't kill me. He was smart, but I had three A levels and twelve GCSEs more than he did, as well as Viking blood from my mother and a report card detailing many of my violent pursuits (against dickheads). He wasn't going to get away with the torture he had inflicted on Damon, nor the psychological abuse Hannah had gone through.

I fastened my hands into fists. "Let's go get a bitch."

THE DAMORA MOMENTS IM SHAKING THEYRE SO CUTE

once again not the finest chapter but it's one of my favourites as I love my babies!

what did you all think? And what will happen at the feast?

A special thank you to DankFabio for the incredible comments, and to my love kolsmikaelson  for the comments as well as the beautiful edits she's made for this book!! ❤️

thank you so much for reading! lots of love xxx