Brian nodded slowly;a sly smile curvedhis mouth as he studied David. “That’sright;you were the one whose friends were in trouble. How did that work out?”
“You’re at one of their houses,” David replied.
“Well, that’s good. Stefan and I never did believe in that soulmate crap, but I guess theremust be some truth to it.”
Isabelle’seyebrows furrowed, her mouth pursed tightly as she glanced sharply at Brian. The uneasiness in her stomach was beginning to grow by the second. Her gaze darted back to Stefan, but his face was cold and impassive as he studied David, Jack, and Ethan. His hands on her arms were just as impersonal as the rest of him. She swallowed heavily, as her gaze scanned the jagged wounds in his chest. They had already healedtightly;the only evidence of their existencewasthe dry blood on his shirt, and the jagged rips in it. Chewing nervously on her bottom lip, she looked up at him, but he still would not look at her, and he had effectively shut her out of his mind. Something was going on withhim;something that she didn’t understand, but instinctively knew wasn’t good.
“What kind of trouble?” she asked tremulously, hoping to draw his attention back to her.
“The kind that’s going to follow me here, and soon.” Brian drew her attention again as his gaze, curious and troubled, focused upon her.
David, Ethan, and Jack slid off the counter, their bodies tense as their eyes narrowed. “Then you should probably leave,” Ethan saidcoldly.
“It’s not that simple. They’ll track me here no matter what. I either leave, and Stefan faces them by himself, or I stay, and Stefan helps me.”
“We’re here,we can help” Jack said.
“You’re like pitting a lamb against a lion,” Brian snorted disdainfully.
“Brian!” Stefan hissed warningly.
“It’s true,” he retorted.
“And you’re that much stronger?” Ethan demanded.
Brian’s eyes narrowed as he met Ethan’s hostile gaze. “I could snap your neck before you could even blink.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed as they sparked red. “Enough,” Stefan said coldly, wanting to ward off a fight that would not end well.
“And you? Are you that much stronger Stefan?”
He finally turned his gazebacktoIsabelle;he couldn’t keep putting it off. Her gaze was dark and turbulent as she stared questioningly up at him. There was a sudden coldness surrounding her that had never been there before. An aura of hurtsurrounded herthat would have shredded him,if he hadn’t already steeled himself for the fact that she was going to be hurt,and he was the one that was going to do it.
He remained silent as he stared at her, his jaw locked, his eyes as cold as black ice. She didn’t know the man that stood before her, and she was beginning to realize that she never had. The feeling turned her heart to a cold lump, and caused her stomach to twist into tight knots. She refused to acknowledge it though.If she did, she knew that she would completely break down, that she would lose all control and never stop crying. Now she needed to know who he was.
“Well Stefan,” she prompted.
“Yes.”
Isabelle refused to acknowledge the agonizing pain that ripped through her as she lifted her chin slightly, her eyes narrowed. She knew where that kind of power came from, what it meant. She could smell it on Brian, feel it radiating off of him. She had smelled it on the others, but she had never smelled it on Stefan. Not once had she sensed anything wrong with him, and shewhy she hadn’t. She didn’t understand any of this, and her sense of betrayal was beginning to almost choke her.
“Why don’t you smell like him,orlike the others at the club?”
Stefan’s eyes narrowed as Brian straightened away from the door. Jack and David cast her questioning looks. “What are you talking about, what smell?” Jack demanded.
She turned to stare at them in confusion. “Don’t you smell it?” she asked.
The confusion in their eyes was her answer. She turned back to Stefan and Brian, her foreheadfurrowed as she frowned at them. “Well I do,” she said forcefully. “Brian’snowhere near as bad as the ones at the club, but you smell off, you smell different. But you,” her gaze narrowed as she stared angrily up at Stefan, loathing beganto burn through her body. “You don’t smell like that. Did you cover it upsomehow?”
Stefan shook his head as he stared at her in confusion. The fact that she could even tell that something was off with Brian was amazing. Someone of her young age, who had never fed from a human, shouldn’t be able to sense itat all. For a moment he thought that it was his blood in her, but if she had known about the ones at the club, than that wasn’t a possibility. His gaze darted to Ethan. “Do you smell it?” he demanded.
Ethan’s jaw locked as his eyes,and nostrils,flared. “Yes.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jack explodedimpatiently.
“He’s a killer,he smells of death,” Isabelle said coldly. “And so is Stefan.”
“Was,” Stefan replied, just as coldly.
