C389 THE HUNTER'S CLAIM

"Elias, if you go into those peaks, you go alone. That is not your man anymore," Damon said, his voice low and heavy. He stood in the ash-filled clearing, holding Elara close to his side. Both of them were covered in the dust of the fallen bunker, their bodies slumped with the kind of tiredness that reaches deep into the marrow.

Aria didn't look back. She handed the sleeping baby to Elara