Opal POV
The morning light was soft as it filtered through the bedroom curtains in pale ribbons, warm and gentle against my skin as I shifted beneath the blankets. The house was quiet in a way it almost never was. For once there were no heavy footsteps, no tense arguments drifting down the hallway. Stephan had already left for school, and the world outside seemed content to leave us alone for a little while.
I could hear Damon downstairs humming to himself. It was low, unhurried, and almost tender, a sound I knew he only made when he felt truly at ease. The smell of coffee drifted into the room, softened by a faint sweetness that told me he had prepared something light for me to eat. He was still trying to figure out how to balance feeding me like a vampire while remembering that I now carried two fragile lives that needed real food as well.
It was endearing in a way that tugged at my heart.
I slipped out of bed and padded downstairs. Damon was leaning against the counter with his hair tousled and his eyes bright with mischief. He had a mug in one hand and a small dish of sliced fruit beside him.
"Morning, Mrs. Salvatore," he said, his grin widening at the sight of me. "I made you something to start the day and before you ask, yes, I checked the book Sheila gave me. I'm also pretty sure even Saint Stefan would approve."
"Thank you, love," I said, stealing a piece of fruit and leaning up to brush a kiss across his cheek.
He handed me a warm cup of coffee and watched as I took a sip. His shoulders relaxed visibly once he saw I liked it.
Before we said anything else, I lifted my hand and whispered the short incantation that sealed the room from wandering ears. A soft shimmer rippled along the doorframe.
Damon raised a brow. "Privacy spell again?"
"We have important things to talk about," I said. "And I do not want Elena walking in or Stefan coming home early and hearing something he shouldn't."
Damon leaned closer and brushed a kiss against my forehead. "Then let's talk. We have all morning."
I sat beside him at the small kitchen table and placed a hand lightly over my stomach. The gesture still felt surreal. I had spent so many years frozen in a half life that the idea of carrying not one baby but two made my emotions twist inside me like a tide. Damon's hand drifted over mine, steady and certain.
"Our next appointment is in four days," he said, rubbing gentle circles across the back of my hand. "I already confirmed the time last night and before you get any ideas, I'm driving you. You're not going anywhere without me."
His tone was teasing, but the seriousness beneath it warmed me.
"I wasn't planning to leave your side," I said softly. "I waited almost a century and a half to have mornings like this again. You'll not get rid of me so easily."
He smiled at that and leaned back in his chair. "Good, because we need to figure out how to hide the bump once it starts to show for now at least until things settle down. I know you can hide your scent for a while and you can glamour small things, but six months from now we won't be able to pretend very easily and to be honest I don't want to have to hide our children."
"I know," I said. "I have been thinking about it as well. Once the babies grow larger I'll need something stronger than simple glamours. A misdirection spell might work, at least around humans. Vampires are trickier, especially older ones and I agree with you about not wanting to hide myself away. Our children deserve a chance to be seen and loved in the open."
"Let me handle the vampires," he said quietly. "You handle the magic and together we'll make it work. We can figure out when to announce your pregnancy to the town and Stephan once we get a better feel for things."
I nodded. "And the house?"
"Well if Stephan isn't alright with being an Uncle we can always move back to our home when the time comes," he said. "No one knows where it is. No one other than me has even been inside it in decades. I did however keep it clean for you."
My heart tightened at the memory of seeing those photographs he had saved. He had protected everything that mattered to us, even when he believed I was dead.
Damon reached over and curled his fingers around mine. "I am scared of losing you," he admitted. "More than I ever was before, with that said I will do whatever it takes to keep you all safe. I promise."
I cupped his cheek and kissed him gently. "You're not going to lose me. Not this time."
We sat like that for a long moment, letting the quiet settle around us. It felt good to breathe without fear clawing at the edges of my thoughts even for just a moment.
Then the doorbell rang.
Damon frowned. "Weird. No one uses the doorbell here."
The bell rang again and again. Whoever it was is sure impatient or in a rush I thought as we walked to the door.
I stood behind him as he walked to the door. He cracked it open and his posture stiffened in an instant.
Pearl and a younger woman I'm assuming is her daughter Anna stood on the porch. She talked about during the early days of being locked inside the tomb.
Both were very much alive. Both looked exactly as they had the night of the tomb's opening, well Pearl looked more healthy than before but otherwise they looked the same. However neither of them could step inside as the ward shimmered faintly between us.
Pearl's expression flickered with surprise. "You sealed your home with magic."
Damon arched a brow. "Yes, I like my front door vampire free unless I invite someone in."
Pearl's gaze shifted past him and finally landed on me. Her eyes widened, recognition cutting through her careful composure.
It looked like she had recognized me from the tomb. She'd just never known my last name.
"I expected you to be with the others," Pearl said slowly. "Why are you here?"
I stepped fully into view and met her stare with calm certainty.
"Why would I be anywhere else? Damon is my husband. He has been for more than a century."
Pearl froze and Anna's jaw nearly hit the porch.
Damon's hand found my waist wrapping around it staking his claim.
Pearl looked between us as if a puzzle she had never known existed suddenly rearranged itself in front of her.
"You're married," she repeated. "To Damon."
Damon gave a crooked smile. "Surprise."
Pearl stared at him. "You opened the tomb for her."
"Of course I did," Damon said. "Katherine took Opal from me. I thought she killed her. I thought she left her somewhere to rot. I wanted to find her body so I could bury her as my wife deserves. Then I was going to put a hot poker through Katherine's eye, stake her, and dance on her corpse."
Anna let out a soft sound of disbelief. While Pearl blinked hard.
Damon's fingers tightened on my hip. "Imagine my surprise when I found my wife in the tomb instead. Alive, but hungry and as beautiful as ever. Katherine never mattered, not then and certainly not now. The only reason I was with her back then was because she compelled me."
Pearl's face softened. I saw the memory in her eyes, the recognition of the quiet strength I had held in that stone prison. The way I had sat silently while others raged. The way I had fought desiccation with calm determination. Pearl had never known why I fought so hard. She'd never known who I belonged to or my reasons behind accepting my fate.
"I see," Pearl said quietly. "I misjudged more than one thing."
Anna stepped closer, eyes narrowed with curiosity instead of suspicion. "You survived all that time by yourself and you're his wife. This is... a lot to take in."
"I understand," I said. "It is a lot to take in for us as well."
Pearl straightened, returning to the purpose of her visit. "I didn't come here for conflict I came to inform you. The others have settled in town and I'm in control of them."
Damon scoffed. "If Frederick is with you he isn't someone you control. He's someone you chain up."
Pearl's jaw tensed, but she didn't argue.
I stepped closer to Damon. "He was unstable even before the desiccation set in let alone once it took hold. I assume he is even more volatile now and holding a grudge. He doesn't respect authority, Pearl. Not yours, not anyone's."
Pearl flinched at the truth of it. Then she nodded once, respectfully, toward me. "Thank you for your honesty. I appreciate the warning."
Damon inclined his head, though he still bristled with tension.
Pearl took Anna by the arm and stepped back from the threshold. "I will keep my people in line. See that you do the same."
Damon's smirk returned. "My people are right here, and they behave."
Pearl gave one final look at me, an almost maternal softness flickering across her face, before turning away.
Anna paused long enough to offer a small, genuine smile. Then she followed her mother down the steps.
Damon closed the door and let out a breath he had been holding since the moment he saw them.
"That felt like a warning and a threat," he muttered.
"It was both," I said. "Pearl's not cruel, but she's not naive either."
He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me close. "I don't want you anywhere near the tomb vampires."
"I have no intention of going anywhere near them," I said. "But we need to be prepared in case something happens."
We spent the next hour checking the ward lines on the property. The magic still hummed strong beneath my fingertips. No supernatural with hostile intent could pass the boundary. It was one of the smartest decisions we had made since I escaped the tomb.
When we returned to the house, Stephan was already inside waiting for us. He looked tired from school and from the constant weight of trying to keep Elena safe from a world she had no true understanding of.
"What's got you so tense?" he asked as soon as he noticed the tension in Damon's shoulders.
Damon nodded. "Pearl came to see us. She talked, we listened, you know the usual. Apparently the rest of the tomb vampires have escaped and she is the new vampire mob boss so to speak."
Stephan frowned. "Are you serious?"
"Yes, and they are one giant walking problem," Damon said. "One I would be very happy to eliminate."
Stephan rubbed the back of his neck. "We need to be careful here Damon. Pearl's claimed responsibility for them. If we provoke her..."
"She's not truly in control of all of them. She only thinks she is," I said gently. "They all will test the boundaries sooner rather than later. I can almost guarantee it."
Stephan looked from Damon to me, reading the seriousness on our faces. "Then we stay alert."
We didn't need to wait long before Damon's prediction came true.
The attack came that evening, it was sudden and violent. Damon and Stephan were talking in the living room when a deafening crash exploded through the front of the house. A heavy tree limb tore through the window, sending shards of glass spraying across the floor. The branch slammed with a crack that echoed through the halls, and I stumbled back only a step before Damon was in front of me.
A shard of wood had missed my chest by mere inches.
Damon's eyes darkened with a fury I had only seen once before. Stefan spun on his heel, already moving.
They rushed outside while I steadied myself against the wall. The ward was still intact, but the window had been fair game for anyone with enough strength and enough anger.
Outside, growls echoed off the trees as Damon rushed at the two assailants .
Frederick stood near the trees with another tomb vampire at his side, her eyes wild with hunger and vicious delight. She tried to rush the house, but the ward threw her back with a crackle of blue light. She screamed, enraged by her inability to cross.
Stephan seized the moment and attempted to stake her. She managed to fight him off at first, she even stabbed him with a branch that was on the ground missing his heart by only a few inches. But after he jammed the stake into her thigh she jumped back and then became enraged, she rushed at him in a blind fury and that's when he managed to drive the stake through her chest in one clean motion. Her body crumpled to the ground, lifeless, at his feet.
Damon and Frederick collided with the force of a storm. Damon slammed Frederick into a tree hard enough to splinter the bark, but Frederick clawed back with a ferocity sharpened by years of trapped rage. They exchanged violent blows, both fueled by anger, both too fast for the human eye to follow.
Then Frederick saw the lifeless body of his accomplice on the ground.
His eyes widened, filled with a rage that had no target strong enough to contain it. He turned and bolted into the woods, vanishing before Damon could strike him again.
Damon stood panting in the yard, his chest heaving with anger. Stephan wiped blood from his face and looked toward the house.
I stepped outside, careful not to cross the broken glass at the door.
Damon came to me immediately and cupped my face in his hands. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," I said. My voice was steady, even though my heart was still beating out of my chest.
Stephan looked at both of us, his jaw clenched. "This isn't over, is it?"
"No," Damon said. "It's not."
Frederick was gone for now, but the danger he posed lingered in the air like smoke.
Damon pulled me into his arms and held me close against his chest.
"He's going to be a problem," he said.
"He already is," I whispered.
Stephan met Damon's eyes over my shoulder. "We'll handle him. All of us."
And for the first time since I walked out of the tomb, I believed him.
It seemed like Stephan was finally starting to realize he wasn't alone.
And neither was Damon.