Damon – POV
I hadn't slept.
Not because I couldn't. Not because I was incapable. But because I knew if I so much as stepped back into that room… if I laid beside her with all that heat still lingering between us, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself.
And I refuse to take what's mine like a thief in the night.
She may hate me. Fight me. Reject me. But one way or another, she'll come to accept this bond. Beg for it. Not because I force it—but because she chooses it.
Until then… I wait. I plan. I conquer.
I sat behind the heavy desk in what was now my strategy room, a thick map of the vampire kingdoms stretched before me, smudged with ink markings and blood-red lines. The Vampire King sat comfortably in his throne now—but not for long. Once I sever his arrogant little head from his shoulders and scatter his royal blood to the wind, the rest will fall in line.
They always do.