Chapter 25 — First Fight

Selene heard the rustling of leaves and immediately looked up. She jumped with terror when saw four men walking towards her.

"Did we scare you?" said the man with dark blond hair in the front.

"What do you want?" she asked, stuttering in fear.

"We have to complete the mission that Damon was supposed to do." replied the second man, with black, half-long hair, standing on the right side of the blonde.

The other two stayed to the side. One of them was terribly thin, tall and had almost white hair, the other was slightly shorter, with a dark complexion and black, slightly curly hair. Sinister smiles appeared on both of their faces. The blond man in front approached her.

"What a pity I have to kill such a lovely sorceress... You have your father's eyes." he said, touching her face.

Selene was shaking with fear. At first, there was chaos in her head, but when the blonde mentioned her father, she looked into his eyes in surprise.

"How do you..." she began, terrified.

"You really don't know?" the blonde interrupted her, slightly disappointed. "Without boasting, I sent him to the other world." he added, clearly amused.

Selene felt a great deal of anger at these words, so she raised her hand to attack the blonde, but he was faster. This demon knocked her to the ground in one move so that she momentarily passed out. When Selene woke up, she was lying under a fallen tree and the four men stood not far from her, each of them had a fireball in their hand. There were only two thoughts in Selene's mind: imminent death and a desperate cry for help.

~~~~~~

Teresa was lying on the bed in her house, trying to fall asleep early since she was very tired. Suddenly her eyes misted over and Teresa saw Selene, with four demons in front that wanted her dead. She jumped out of bed and ran to her sister's room first.

"Tess! The "chosen one" is in danger, I saw four demons...!" Teresa yelled, panicked.

Tess stopped reading immediately and tossed the book on the table and, without a word, dragged Teresa with her. In a while, both of them were downstairs, and after half an hour's drive, they were in front of Meredith Monroe's house.

~~~~~~

Selene stared in horror at her captors. Suddenly one of them, the blond one, stepped forward and raised his hand with a ball of fire in it. When he threw it at her, Selene covered her face with hands... and then she felt someone's strong arms wrap around her. Selene put hands down, revealing the face and found Damon covering her with his body. The fireball missed Selene's head by a few centimeters, hitting her savior in the arm.

"You're hurt..." she stammered, looking at him with eyes full of concern.

"It's nothing, just a scratch, will be healed soon." Damon replied with a pale smile.

Selene snuggled against him and didn't even realize how she missed his voice, soft and wonderfully velvety.

"Damon, what a surprise." the blonde guy standing in front laughed.

"I wouldn't be so happy if I were you, Salvatore. You know very well I'm stronger than all of you." Damon replied, turning to face him and leveling a deadly glare at him.

Selene, hearing that, shuddered. Now she knew the name of her father's killer.

At this time, Salvatore and the others threw their fireballs at them. Damon shielded Selene again, and one thought flashed through her mind.

"I can't lose him." she clenched her fists, tears streaming down from her eyes. Then Selene focused on her power, just like she did on the lessons with her aunt and the other sorceresses.

Not feeling the impact of the fireballs, Damon looked up and saw a thin shell spread around him and Selene. On contact with this something, the fireballs dissipated into thousands of sparks and disappeared on the surface of the coating.

"But it's definitely not me..." Damon looked at his beloved in surprise.

"This is a shield made of the power of the Elements. Meredith taught me how to make it, but I've always failed...until now," Selene replied, surprised but happy.

Salvatore and his companions stood like rooted to the ground. He cursed under his breath and strode toward them, and the rest followed right behind him like shadows. When Damon got up, ready to fight them, at first terrified Teresa emerged from behind the trees, running to Selene along with Alice. Rita, Tess, and Meredith followed, immediately standing in the way of Salvatore and his gang.

"It's getting even more interesting." Chris whispered to himself.

While the demons faced the sorceresses, Teresa stood by Selene the whole time.

"You don't even know how terrified I was to have this vision... At first I didn't know where you were, because I was never in that part of the garden. If it weren't for the fact that you used power to create the shield, I might not have found you at all." Teresa spoke up, still panicked.

"There was such a chaos in your head that I couldn't see where you were in your thoughts..." Alice added, with a clearly worried face expression.

"Sorry...I should have thought about that," Selene replied, guilt written all over her face.

"It's not your fault. I know one of them killed your father, you thought about it all the time." Alice comforted Selene, stroking her back.

"Anyway, if Damon hadn't arrived on time... Then we'd have come in vain." Teresa remarked.

Their conversation was interrupted by Salvatore's attack. Alice and Damon, on Rita's orders, stayed with Selene, and the rest fought. Tess was the best to avoid the fireballs, knocking the Johann she was fighting with to the ground. Rita took on Chris, leaving Teresa with Marco and Meredith with Salvatore, whom she fought very fiercely, knowing that he had killed Nathaniel, her sister's husband. Damon, meanwhile, introduced Selene to each individual demon.

Suddenly, Rita, Meredith, and Teresa stood in the middle of the battlefield as if bewitched, only Tess was not dull.

"Hypnosis, right?" she laughed in the demons face.

"Why is she still moving and talking?" Chris asked, confused.

"Because she is blocking my attack. This bitch is a goddamn shield!" Salvatore shouted and lunged at Tess, very angry.

But then Meredith, Rita, and Teresa recovered from their torpor, fending off his attack.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Johann asked, helping his brother get back to his feet.

"I can stretch my shield however I like." Tess said with kind of malicious smile.

Salvatore, losing his main advantage, went into hand-to-hand combat again, and Chris, Johann and Marco dutifully followed him. After about fifteen minutes, Isabelle and Johnathan appeared in the clearing.

"How are you feeling?" they asked almost simultaneously, rushing over to Selene.

"I'm fine, but they need help." she pointed at the fighting sorceresses.

Isabelle immediately headed that way, getting ready to join the fight.

"It'll be over soon," she tossed out while leaving and, being in the center of the battlefield, immediately focused her gaze on Salvatore. The demon's eyes blurred instantly.

"Illusionist!" Johann shouted in warning, pointing to Isabelle and running to his brother to help him.

Chris, hearing this information, said to his companions:

"We'd better get out of here..." and everyone nodded, agreeing with him right away. They would lose being blinded by an illusion. Johann fled first, supporting his brother. However, Marco, looking briefly in Teresa's eyes, felt something strange. He stopped halfway and looked at her, entranced. So Chris pulled him by the hand, breaking out of his lethargy and then they both dissolved into the fog.

"It's finally over." Meredith breathed with a huge relief.

"They'll come back here soon to end their mission." Damon spoke up.

"We'll be ready. And you, I guess, weren't supposed to come back." Meredith turned to him coldly.

"Aunt, he saved me." Selene stood up for him.

"He killed your mother." Meredith said through her teeth.

"Yes, but in return he saved my life. And this is the second time already. In my opinion, Damon redeemed his crime." Selene replied stubbornly.

"Besides, we'll need his help. He is a demon and knows the tactics of his kin. Plus, he really loves Selene, so will always be on our side." added Rita, looking at Meredith and using her gift, to ease her anger at least a little bit.

"You're right, his knowledge is kind of useful..." Meredith hesitated and thought for a moment. "All right, he may be around the house, but I won't allow him to meet Selene, and that's final," she decided at last, although she was apparently torn. Then she headed with Rita, Tess, and Teresa towards the house.

"Don't worry about her." Alice spoke up. "I'll cover you like I've done so far." she added with a smile.

"Selene, I want to thank you." Isabelle said to her.

"You thank me? For what?" she was surprised as listened to those words.

"For helping me to open up... Thanks to you I'm talking with Rita and the others again, but I missed her the most. Thank you." Isabelle answered, and also started walking home with her husband.

"Damon... We'll meet tomorrow, won't we?" Selene looked into his eyes, asking just to be completely sure.

"Of course." he replied, brushing his hand over her cheek, and soon disappeared behind the trees.

"Don't worry, he'll be hanging around the house and garden all night." Alice said to her. "I don't even have to read his mind to be sure of it." she added with a smile.

"Yeah, I know that." Selene replied. "Do you know why Teresa was so thoughtful?" she asked suddenly, remembering Teresa's expression.

"I 'm not really sure if I can reveal it..." Alice replied, looking at her uncertainly.

"I won't tell anyone that." Selene promised, and they both started walking slowly towards the house.

"Okay, I'll tell you, but it's our secret, ok? It's just that Teresa was intrigued by the behavior of one of these demons. I could see the memory in her mind, when this Marco was looking at her. Probably he fell under her natural, magic charm, but I think she fell in love with him too." Alice said quietly, almost in a whisper, leaning slightly towards Selene.

"Her too? Is this a season for forbidden feelings?" she sighed, genuinely worried about what had probably happened.

"Well, you know... Usually, one event involves a whole series of similar ones right after it." Alice added as they entered the house.

Selene just rolled her eyes at those words and headed to her room. The events of that evening had exhausted her effectively and all she dreamed about now was to go to bed and fall asleep. At the same time, Selene was glad that Damon had saved her and thereby softened Aunt Meredith's anger somewhat, although there was still a long way to go before he would be completely accepted by her and the rest—not counting Rita and Alice, of course, who'd been cheering them on since the very beginning. Having two allies has already been a huge success.

Selene stopped her thoughts only when her eyes closed and she became overwhelmed by sleep.