L. J. Smith Kevin Williamson - The Vampire Diaries: Stefans Diaries #3: The Craving

L.J. SMITH has written a number of bestselling books and series for young adults, including The Vampire Diaries (now a hit show on the CW), The Secret Circle, The Forbidden Game, and the #1 New York Times bestselling Dark Visions. She enjoys writing in a little cabin in Point Reyes, California, or walking on the beaches surrounding it. She loves to hear from readers at info@ljanesmith.net and hopes they will visit her updated website, www.ljanesmith.net. She reads all her email and even answers what she can!

KEVIN WILLIAMSON is the show runner and executive producer of The Vampire Diaries. His credits include the critically acclaimed television series Dawsons Creek and the blockbuster horror franchise Scream.

JULIE PLEC is the coshow runner and executive producer of The Vampire Diaries. She was most recently a writer-producer of the fan-favorite television series Kyle XY.

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THE VAMPIRE DIARIES:
VOL. I: THE AWAKENING

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES:
VOL. II: THE STRUGGLE

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES:
VOL. III: THE FURY

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES:
VOL. IV: DARK REUNION

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES:
THE RETURN VOL. 1: NIGHTFALL

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES:
THE RETURN VOL. 2: SHADOW SOULS

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES:
THE RETURN VOL. 3: MIDNIGHT

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES:
STEFANS DIARIES VOL. 1: ORIGINS

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES:
STEFANS DIARIES VOL. 2: BLOODLUST

THE SECRET CIRCLE:
THE INITIATION AND THE CAPTIVE PART I

THE SECRET CIRCLE:
THE CAPTIVE PART II AND THE POWER

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I picked out a heartbeat, a single life, in the near distance.

The other noises of the city faded into the background as this one called to me. She had wandered away from her friends and left the well-worn paths.

The sun had just set over Central Park, where Id exiled myself since arriving in New York City fourteen long days ago. The colors in this expanse of wilderness were softening, sliding toward one another, shadows blurring with the things that made them. The oranges and deep blues of the sky morphed into an inky black, while the muddy ground dimmed to a velvety sienna.

Around me, most of the world was still, paused in the breath that comes at the end of day when the guards change: Humans and their daylight companions lock their doors and creatures of the night like myself come out to hunt.

With the ring Katherine gave me I can walk in the daylight like any normal, living human. But as its been since the beginning of time, its easier for vampires to hunt during the uncertain hours when day slowly becomes night. Dusk confuses those who arent equipped with the eyes and ears of a nocturnal predator.

The heartbeat I now pursued began to sound quieter... its owner was getting away. Desperate, I took off, forcing my body to move quickly, my feet to push off from the ground. I was weak from lack of feeding, and it was affecting my ability to hunt. Added to that, these woods werent familiar to me. The plants and vines were as alien as the people on the cobbled streets a quarter mile away.

But a hunter transplanted is still a hunter. I leaped over a twiggy, stunted bush and avoided an icy stream, devoid of the lazy catfish I used to watch as a child, until my foot slipped on mossy stone and I crashed through the underbrush, my chase growing far louder than I intended.

The bearer of the heart I followed heard and knew her death was close. Now that she was alone and aware of her plight, she began to run in earnest.

What a spectacle I must have made: dark hair askew, skin as pale as a corpse, eyes starting to redden as the vampire in me came out. Running and leaping through the woods like a wild man, dressed in the finery Lexi, my friend in New Orleans, had given me, the white silk shirt now torn at the sleeves.

She picked up speed. But I wasnt going to lose her.

My need for blood became an ache so strong that I couldnt contain myself any longer. A sweet pain bloomed along my jaw and my fangs came out. The blood in my face grew hot as I underwent the change. My senses expanded as my Power took over, sapping my last bit of vampiric strength.

I leaped, moving at a speed beyond human and animal. With that instinct all living creatures have, the poor thing felt death closing in and began to panic, scrambling for safety under the trees. Her heart pounded out of control: thump thump thump thump thump thump.

The tiny human part of me might have regretted what I was about to do, but the vampire in me needed the blood.

With a final jump, I caught my preya large, greedy squirrel whod left her pack to scavenge for extra food. Time slowed as I descended, ripped her neck aside, and sank my teeth into her flesh, draining her life into me one drop at a time.

Id eaten squirrels as a human, which lessened my guilt marginally. Back home in Mystic Falls, my brother and I would hunt in the tangled woods that surrounded our estate. Though squirrels were poor eating for most of the year, they were fat and tasted like nuts in the fall. Squirrel blood, however, was no such feast; it was rank and unpleasant. It was nourishment, nothing moreand barely that. I forced myself to keep drinking. It was a tease, a reminder of the intoxicating liquid that runs in a humans veins.

But from the moment Damon ended Callies life, I had sworn off humans forever. I would never kill, never feed from, and never love another human. I could only bring them pain and death, even if I didnt mean to. Thats what life as a vampire meant. Thats what life with this new, vengeful Damon as my brother meant.

An owl hooted in the elm that towered over my head. A chipmunk skittered past my feet. My shoulders slumped as I laid the poor squirrel down on the ground. So little blood remained in its body that the wound didnt leak, the animals legs already growing stiff with rigor mortis. I wiped the traces of blood and fur from my face and headed deeper into the park, alone with my thoughts while a city of nearly a million people buzzed around me.

Since Id sneaked off the train two weeks earlier, Id been sleeping in the middle of the park in what was essentially a cave. Id taken to marking a concrete slab with the passing of each day. Otherwise moments blended together, meaningless, and empty. Next to the cave was a fenced-in area where construction men had gathered the useful remains of a village they had razed to make Central Park, as well as the architectural bric-a-brac they intended to installcarved fountains, baseless statues, lintels, thresholds, and even gravestones.

I pushed past a barren branchNovembers chill had robbed nearly every tree of its leavesand sniffed the air. It would rain soon. I knew that both from living in plantation country and from the monster senses that constantly gave me a thousand different pieces of information about the world around me.

And then the breeze changed direction, and brought with it the teasing, cloying scent of rust. There it was again. A painful, metallic tang.