"Actually Caroline,” I heard Elijah's voice from behind me. I turn to face him, “I had a talk with Rebekah and she told me that you have acquired some vervain. I trust you will tell me where you have garnered such herbs?”
Raising an eyebrow at him, “What? No.” I said. “She has to be lying. I didn’t.”
He keeps his composure, “I am asking you in a far less vigorous manner than the way she did. I expect you to speak the truth. I warned you how protective I can be when my family is involved. Knowing about vervain discerns you as a threat, Caroline.”
“Then you should know that I wouldn’t even think of messing with you! I honestly don't know what you're talking about.” I admitted. There was a hint of enmity in his eyes that warns me that I should be afraid. What are they?
Before I rapidly ran for the hills, a chuckling Klaus Mikaelson explicates the issue. “I gave it to her.” Two heads turn to the king's whereabouts, “I gave her a drink laced with vervain.” What? When was that? “She is not aware of it. I don't find this as much of an issue, brother. Nothing anyone should worry about.”
Finn approaches his brother with a pair of menacing eyes, “You clearly underestimate your night-walkers.” Night-walkers?! The younger Mikaelson displays a notion of sovereignty but the older brother does not cower. “Do you fathom the amount of rage they would be filled with after finding out that you provided their prey with an upper-hand?”
“I merely did her a favor. She is not capable of protecting herself in this town and I cannot be there to fend her against those monsters.” He retorts.
Finn is almost shouting this time, “She is human!” He lets out a frustrated breath, “You do not realize how this affects our people. Or have you forgotten that you are unable to create more hybrids ever since Mother came back? She resents you and if she learns how you risked our family again, there will be no one to stop me from ripping your head off.”
“Whoa!” I interjected. “Can you both stop?” I got in the middle of them, “Nobody is ripping anyone's head off, okay?” I stopped still in between them. If anyone's head is being ripped off, it's probably mine. I know the danger I put myself in for getting involved, but I am not just going to stand there watching them as they fight over something because of me. “Can anyone tell me what's going on?” I ask, turning my head to Elijah for an explanation.
He stands upright, fixes his suit and looks at me, “He hasn't told you.”
“Tell me what?” I ask.
His pair of relaxed eyes looks into my tensed pair, “What we are.” This is it. Somebody is finally explaining everything to me. But do I want to know? I had the chance to ask Klaus about anything through the whole interview, but I didn't. A part of me is afraid of what they might be. A part of me is scared that knowing what they are might frighten me to the point of never seeing him again.
I look over to Klaus. His expression is blank and I can't read what he is feeling this way. I swallow every ounce of fright, “No.” I glare at Klaus, “He hasn't.”
He and Elijah exchange looks as Finn stood in between them, glaring. Anyone in the room could feel the telepathic conversation exchanged between the siblings. After a very long silent while, Elijah finally speaks. “Finn, let us give them some privacy.” Finn doesn't move. “He's aware of the consequences, brother. Let him decide.”
They leave us alone. Klaus nervously gestures to the seats. I hesitate. Who wouldn't? I know that I told him before that I'm not afraid of him despite what I had witnessed, but now that I'm in this situation, I have to admit; I am scared. “I'm not going to hurt you.” His eyes look into mine in a way that implies integrity. I put my trust in him and took the seat opposite of him.
We were silent for a short while. None of us dared to speak. I mean, what do you say in a situation like this? I swallow, looking up to meet his eyes. Everything about him screams danger, but I’m deaf. Whenever I am with him, I am deaf. “I apologize for my sister. She can be very reckless at times.” He smirks at me but I don’t reciprocate. He senses my unreadable expression and acts upon it, “I fathom that you hope I get to the point?”
I make a face, “That’s the idea.”
He purses his lips and stares at me creepily. I quail. “You are aware of your friend’s capabilities?” he asks. Friend? Bonnie?
“Yeah,” I nod. “She’s a witch.” Realizations sinking in, “And you know that.” I state.
“Well, I need to, being the king and all.” He tried to sound funny, but I wasn’t buying it. What is so horrible that he needs to stall like this? “Fine,” he finally says. By the looks of his eyes and the tone of his voice, I knew that he is finally going to tell me. “I believe that you have heard about vampires.”
I gulp. Vampires?! Makes sense. The strength. The speed. Rebekah’s declaration of her thirst. I cleared my throat, “What do you mean?” He crosses his legs, shifting from his uncomfortable position. He looks stiff, tensed. I gave him a reassuring look.
He answers, “We feed from the living.” I wince as fear creep into me but I encourage him to continue. “I don’t want to get into details, but we drink blood if that’s what you are wondering about.”
I roll my eyes at him. Even in times like this, he still has the energy to play egotistical mind games. I rest my back on the chair and cross my arms, “Really?” He chuckles lightly. “How much of the stereotypical super powers are real?” There was a minute of silence as I thought, “I see you that don’t burn in the sun.”
He laughs at full volume, “I would’ve said myth but the sun does burn the others. Though it does not affect me anymore.”
Raising an inquisitive eyebrow at him, I lean to him and ask, “What do you mean it doesn’t affect you? I thought vampires are supposed to burn and turn into dust?” He laughs again, harder this time. I sigh, “What? Am I wrong? Are you confirming the whole vampires sparkle in the sun voodoo?” He continues to laugh.
Crossing my arms again as I lay back on the chair, I groan at his laughter. Is he intentionally making me make mythical guesses for him to laugh at me the whole time? He finally tones down the laughter and answers me, “My brothers and sister are vampires. Katerina is a vampire. My men are vampires.” He says, referring to the men that carried his painting.
With his last statements, I finally understood. “But you’re something else,” I blatant. This is what Bonnie meant. Klaus is more dangerous than Kol because he isn’t a vampire and he isn’t human. Then, what is he? My hands grip the handle of my seat sturdily. I watch my knuckles turn white as I wait for his confirmation.
“I am a hybrid.” I wait for him to explain what that meant. My wait didn’t come undetected. “I am both a vampire and a werewolf.”
I jump at my seat. Whoa. Walking in circles, I tried to process, “Are you saying that werewolves exist?”
He nods, “It’s a long story. We don’t have time for that form of chitchat.”
“No!” I said. “I have questions.” He sighs and waits. “What's the truth about crucifixes?”
“They’re decorative.”
I purse my lips, “Holy water?”
“Drinkable.”
“Mirrors?”
He groans, “Myth.” I fidget at my stance. Is this true? Or am I dreaming? I bit my tongue, hoping that I would awake from this nightmare. But then I tasted my own blood, and I knew that this wasn’t a dream. This is real. “Caroline,” Klaus mutters with a worried and frustrated look, “Can you please sit and calm down? And stop biting you tongue! You’ll shed your own blood.”
I swallow. Deep breaths, relax. I take back my seat, eyeing him carefully. Playing with my fingers, I murmur, “You kill people.” He doesn’t answer me, but to me, it was clear. I look around the room, reminded of Elijah’s words as he left. “Elijah’s words,” I say, reminding him of what I was referring. “By telling me all this, what does it mean?” I spit out the unthinkable, “Are you going to kill me?”
The predictable expression he had on his face shifted to one that was unreadable. His face was hard and blank. I didn’t know what that meant. This must be the game. They seduce people and kill them. This is the game and I am the target. He told me I would run for the hills. He warned me! Bonnie warned me! But I was too stubborn to listen.
His mouth open to speak, “I won’t hurt you.” A river of relief washes through me, “But there are consequences.” I stiffen. Consequences? Does he need to turn me? Do I become a living blood bag forced to serve him? What? He looks down and sighs, “There are too many terms to this agreement. And it’s getting late. Let’s talk about this some other time.” Agreement?!
“No,” I said almost immediately. He looks surprised by my reply. “You have the whole day to explain this to me. I’ll listen.”
He groans, “Caroline —”
But I cut him off, “No. I want to know, Klaus. I’ve been waiting since the night of the ball for someone to explain something to me but everybody keeps on shoving my pleas at the back. They always promise that they will explain it in due time, but they never do. And when someone is finally telling me something, I am not going to let it pass for another day! You need to tell me now.”
Sighing, he gets up from his seat, “Over lunch. You must be famished.” He walked ahead of me and waits for me to follow. I feel my stomach growl. I didn’t notice my hunger until now. It’s already noon. I stand up and follow behind him. As we exit the room, I can see Elijah, Finn and Kol by the living room. They were whispering exchanges between each other. Beside me, Klaus laughs.
I look to him over my shoulder and give him a look. He continues to laugh softly as he answers, “Kol is joking about your unusual reaction to be in the know about our secret. He finds it amusing. To me, it’s quite fascinating actually.” My eyes widen.
“Whoa. He can hear us?” I connect the recent information together and related it to popular myths. I conclude, “Can you read minds? Is that it? Are Twilight facts actually not entirely crazy?”
He laughs, “Meyer was very creative at that department, wasn’t she?” I nod, “But she was wrong at that and let me clarify that there's really no such thing as vampire venom.” He looks at me as we walked, “You see, to become a vampire, I need to feed you my blood, then you need to die. You wake up from the dead then you need to drink human blood. It's more complicated than a week-long of fire burning transition.”
We walk through a wide arch, into a large dinning room. There was a circular table in the middle and a fireplace at the middle of it all. I gasp inaudibly at the sight of Rebekah, at the corner, drinking by the neck of a tall muscular man. I swallow. Lunch? Am I their meal? I nervously look over to Klaus. He finally sensed my discomfort and said, “Rebekah, can you take that outside?”
Rebekah takes her head out of the wedge between the man's neck. She grins, with blood smeared along her lips and jaw. Slowly, a stream of blood slips from her jaw to her neck as licks the blood from her lips. Shivers went up my whole body. “Why, brother? Aren't you thirsty?” she approaches us, bringing the punctured man with him, “Would you like a sip? Or does Caroline’s blood taste nicer?” she says, looking over her shoulder to me.
Klaus glares at her. He doesn't take his eyes off her mocking pair. They kept an intense staring contest for a while. I couldn't maintain my gaze at their silent exchange when I have a man with blood streaming out of his neck in front of me. I feel my stomach turn. Klaus recognizes my discomfort, “Elijah.” In no time, the older brother interrupts their interaction.
Elijah approaches the injured man and does the hypnosis thing with his eyes. “Leave. You had too much to drink and were attacked by an animal. You remember nothing.” The man exits without another word. Nobody cared about Rebekah's disapproval. She strides out of the room, with Elijah, with slumped shoulders, clearly pissed with what happened.
“What is that?” I ask. He helps me with the chair as I sit down, “The mind control. Katherine tried to do that to me, but it didn't work.”
Klaus disappears to the kitchen and in a split second; he comes back with a silver bowl of fruits. “I trust these produce can satiate your hunger. We haven't gotten much food lying around.” I nod, taking an apple from the bowl. “Would you like anything to drink?”
I take an apple bite, “Water would be fine.” He disappears again. I sigh. I guess I kind of got to get used to that. Getting up from my seat, I search for an art to admire. Shock zips pass me as I see sketches of my face repeatedly on the sheets of paper on the corner table by the back. I gap. They were even lovelier than the one he gave me. Quickly, I place it back on the table and run back to my seat from the dining table.
In a matter of seconds, Klaus comes back with two bottles at hand — one of water and the other of red wine. Regret starts climbing up of me as I stare at his bottle. He pours himself a glass as I took a sip of my water. He sat back down, holding the wine glass between his two fingers. “The answer to your question,” he pauses, taking a sip. “It's called compulsion. As vampires, we have the ability to compel humans into doing our heart's desire.”
My eyebrows start to furrow, “And we have no way of objecting against it?” I continue to eat my apple. He shifts at his seat.
“Well, there is always a way.” He pauses for a moment as he stares at me blankly, “Like vervain.”
I scoff, “Yeah, what's the deal about that? Like for some reason, having vervain with me makes me a threat.” He doesn't respond. I finish eating my apple, “Penny for your thoughts?”
He chuckles his adorable British laugh, “Even a million of your pennies couldn't buy my thoughts, love.” I sigh.
“I tried,” I say, shrugging both shoulders.
“Vervain. It protects you from being compelled. I wanted to protect you from any vampire's influence.” I give him a quizzical look. He explains further, “I had you consume a drink laced with vervain the day you slept at the manor. It had prune juice, vervain and,” he pauses for a long while. I waited, “My blood.”
I stood up, both hands on my neck. “Are you trying to turn me?” Bewilderment flashes across my face. I remember that drink. It took my hangover away. Who knew that it was actually a step to having me turned? My stomach turn, I think I'm going to be sick.
Klaus lets out a frustrated breath. “I was trying to help. Well, you had a horrible hangover to start with. And let's not have me get started with the bruises all over you that day and the blow to your head.”
Gulping, I see my reflection at the mirror by the wall. My eyes widen at the sight of the purple bruise on my neck. Rebekah was so strong. I sigh in defeat. No matter how hard I try to fight their kind, I was always going to lose. “Have you ever done that to me?” I ask, my head turning to his direction. My hands still on my neck, “Compel me?”
I hear him swallow. He looks conflicted, but then a smile spread across his face, “Giving you vervain, a part of me also wanted to protect you from me. Because no matter what happens after today, no matter how you feel about this, you'll know that you were free to make your own choice.”
Nodding, I bite my lower lip. “I don't understand. Why me?” I give him a look, “Why did you choose me to tell all of your secrets?”
“Caroline, I've told you. There's something about you. I can't leave you alone.” He smiles, “I return to being a desperate teenage lad whenever I am around you. I want you very badly, especially now, when you're biting your lip again.”
I feel my teeth release the lip. Complete frustration envelops me. What is going on? What am I doing here in the first place? What does he want to tell me other than the fact that he's a hybrid? What more can be more shocking than that? Crossing my arms, “Honestly Klaus, why am I here? What is it about me that you want? My blood? Do you want to kill me? Cause if you do, you might as well do it now than later. I don't — I can't —” I sigh in exasperation, “Please.”
Klaus gets up from his seat, approaching me. “There’s more to me than just being a hybrid. I have needs.” I gulp as shivers flow through my spine. Blood. He’s talking about blood. “I have wants,” he says. Wants? Me? I force the ball forming to the back of my throat. I unconsciously, back up. Meters away, the wall waits silently for my end. Klaus continues to approach me. My back hits the wall. I turn my head to my right, looking down as he presses his body against mine. The walls now pressing me down. He speaks, “You are afraid of me,” he states.
My head snap to meet his, “No.” I tried to sound and look brave, but I wasn’t fooling anyone.
He laughs, “Your barely-there courage is amusing, love, but let us not kid ourselves.”
“You don’t scare me, Klaus.” I retort, “So, why don’t you just tell me the truth right now, and get things over with.”
“Just remember that you asked for this.” He takes a step back, providing a space in between our bodies. I feel every nerve of my being relax in the best way that it ever could. He starts walking, motioning for me to follow him from behind. I comply in a guarded manner. He stops, hands cracking open the creak on the wall. The creak reveals a closet filled with bottles of liquor and blood. I gulp. So, he hides his stash of alcohol and blood in a hidden closet. What a prince.
Giving him a restrained look, “Is this supposed to scare me?” I cross my arms, “I was recently strangled by your sister, and then I witnessed her draining blood from a helpless man. Klaus, you’ve honestly got to try harder than that.”
“Look harder,” he murmured.
I roll my eyes and take a step closer, then another, and another. My eyes wander the insides of the closet. I realized it then. “It’s a list of names.” I mumble to myself. I hear him agree. The names start off very ancient and old until the last ones, which were all very modern but none were familiar. I look at him in disgust, “These are all your victims?”
He laughs, “If you rather put it that way, sure, fine. But I find submissive a better term for what their service mean to me.” I gape at him in disbelief.
“These are people that you are feeding on, Klaus! Innocent people that you compel to do everything you want, innocent people that lives in this town, waiting for you to feed on them. You’re a disgusting man and —” I stop at the lost for words, “and I can’t even look at you.”
My eyes go back to the list of names. This is insane. More than a thousand women had to suffer and serve him to whatever needs and wants that he demanded. I couldn’t even imagine the pain and suffering that all those women had to go through. All the lives that was lost, all in service of this one man. No, not man. Monster.
I turn on my heels. “Caroline,” I hear him plea. Not acknowledging his requests, I continue to walk away. I can’t go through with this. He’s going to kill me. He wants me to become one of his victims and when he’s had enough, he’s going to kill me. I have too many hopes and dreams only to be of service to the needs of this monster.
I gasp in surprise when he was suddenly in front of me. “How did you —?” I allege. Shaking my head, I kept myself together. “No, don’t answer that.” I said, directing him my index finger. I swallow.
He gathers some kind of cloth from his back pocket. It was made of the expensive kind of silk. His fingers linger at the hem of the scarf for a while before he started wrapping it around my neck. I stop him, “After all that I’ve said to you, it still hasn’t gotten through to you that I don’t want your money. I don’t want your expensive gifts to be a part of my life. I don’t even want to look at it!” His face wrinkles as he has taken offense of my accusation.
Grabbing my shoulders with vampire strength, I could almost feel his fingers digging into my skin. I let out a shriek of terror as he immediately lets go. That motion left me dumbstruck. He resumes wrapping the scarf around my neck. “This shall cover your bruises precisely.” Our faces were inches apart but I felt the electricity almost immediately. “I expect that whatever we have talked about today would stay between us. It’ll be our little secret.”
I still couldn’t speak. He smirks at me, “I’ll see you soon, Caroline. I hope you get your article published.”
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