AN: So, yeah… I'm starting a new story! This one is based off of the lore from Nalini Singh's Guild Hunters series. So basically, it's angel!Klaroline. Story title and chapter titles come from Of Monsters and Men, a very good band.

Part I Dark Water

Inky blackness, as dark as the furthest depths of the ocean. Klaus had once swam there, pulled his wings in tight to his body, and dove, just to see how far he could go. He had seen the monsters that mortals only imagined existed, and they had run from him.

But the dark didn't last long. It was a gradual gradient, inky black to murky blue that became crystalline, until it reached the sky with an explosion of red and orange and gold and it reminded him of watching sunsets in the Refuge. So many eons had passed that his memory was very nearly gone, but he could still remember those sunsets.

And here it was, mirrored in a young angel's wings.

"It's an honor, Archangel."

Her head was bowed in supplication, showing that she had been trained well by Lexie in Refuge. She folds her wings back neatly, and Klaus' fists clench. He has no interest in a child new from the Refuge, only in those wings.

"Niklaus," Elijah says, his voice wary; Elijah is ever wary around him these days, as all the other Archangels are. As they should be. "This is Caroline. She has come here to be one of Katerina's ladies."

This news doesn't surprise Klaus. Elijah's consort is known for her great appreciation of beauty, and Caroline's wings are works of art. Now that they've been folded back, he can see that the girl herself is lovely as well, though innocent in a way that Katerina never was. Wide blue eyes watch him with something almost like awe, while blonde curls fall down her back. He notes all this with the jaded eye of one that has seen much beauty.

Caroline is indeed pretty, but he's seen more attractive.

Except for those wings.

Elijah nods at the girl, and she curtsies prettily and leaves once more to join Katerina and the other ladies, an Klaus is once again afforded the view of her wings, with their contrasting colors, and he wonders if he would feel the ocean in those feathers, were he to run his fingers through them.

"I would have her," he says to Elijah after a moment.

"She is little more than a child," Elijah replies, with that ever wary gaze. It amuses Klaus and makes his lips quirk

"She is grown enough that Lexie's nurturing presence is no longer needed," he replies, and Elijah scoffs at that.

"We both know a century is hardly enough time to call one an adult, Niklaus," Elijah shoots back, his gaze falling on the girl with consideration. Katerina is running her fingers through the girl's hair while speaking to another one of her ladies, this one a contemporary of Katerina's named Rose.

A pretty bauble for Elijah's consort… except the girl isn't luxuriating in Katerina's touch as one might expect – it's said by many that to be touched by Katerina is akin to being touched by Heavan, a foolish concept if ever Klaus had one. But Caroline's gaze is avid, that of someone that is listening and remembering.

Perhaps more than a pretty bauble, then?

"She is grown enough to make her own choices," he says to Elijah at last, when, as though she can feel his gaze, Caroline turns toward him, those innocent blue eyes catching with his for a quick moment, when he sees her breath catch, before she turns away once more.

"You seek to seduce her from my court, then?" Elijah demands, not looking particularly pleased at this thought, and his stance is almost protective. He has never seen his fellow Archangel like this before, not unless Katerina was involved.

"It's always better to get them when they're fresh. Give them time, and all of those tiresome loyalties form."

Klaus sips the fine wine that he and Elijah share, and then considers the girl once more. She doesn't look at him again, but the tension in her shoulders say that she is very much aware of his gaze on her.

He lets out a chuckle and ignores Elijahs' startled look.

BTS

"The Archangel Niklaus" – Caroline brushes through her mistress' hair and contemplates her next words. She's new to the court, but she has already heard the stories of how displeased Katerina gets if she feels one has stepped outside their position – "he is…"

"Intimidating? Frightening?" Katerina's dark eyes meet Caroline's in the mirror above her dressing table, and a smile dances on her lips. "Insane?"

"It's not my place to make such accusations," Caroline replies, letting her lashes fall demurely, and Katerina laughs a full laugh and touches her fingers to Caroline's wrist.

"I didn't bring you here just to be a bauble for my entertainment, Caroline" – when Caroline's eyes flash up to Katerina's, the brunette meets her gaze seriously – "I knew your mother."

The mention of her mother makes Caroline tense, memories rushing through her of blood and death and her wings flare. She reminds herself that they are not shackled anymore, that they've grown strong in the decades since…

"I am not my mother," she says at last, knowing the words could get her punished, but needing her mistress to know that if she expects another Elizabeth, she will be disappointed.

"I know" – gaze still serious, Katerina's fingers stroke along the skin of Caroline's hand – "that's what I'm counting on."

Caroline swallows and then begins to braid the dark hair, uncertain what to say next.

"I saw the way he watched you, and I saw the way you didn't watch him. Niklaus covets that which he deems beautiful, and I've never seen wings more beautiful than yours" – Caroline freezes but briefly in her braiding, and hopes that Katerina won't notice – "be very careful with him, Caroline. He is not capable of love as Elijah is, as most of the other Archangels are. He has… evolved beyond such basic needs."

Everyone needs love, Caroline thinks, but then she pushes such fanciful thoughts away. They are words she wishes were true, but she knows they aren't. Her own history is proof of that, drenched in blood as it is.

"Beyond my wings there is nothing special about me. His interest will pass," Caroline says at last as she finished the braid and steps back from her mistress, keeping her head bowed. Katerina's touch under her chin makes her raise her head, and meet dark eyes.

"I think you are very good at convincing others of just that, Caroline," Katerina replies at last, and Caroline feels almost as though the other woman can see to the very soul of her. "I think you will be a very good addition to our court."

"I very much hope so," Caroline replies, and finds that, much to her surprise, she actually means the fervent words.

Lies have always fallen much more easily from her lips, so to find herself speaking the truth is a wonderful thing.

BTS

Her thoughts are elsewhere when she makes her way to her room. She always feels lighter somehow, when she's been with Katerina. Unlike others, she knows it's not because of the brunette's touch – though that is pleasant, and makes Caroline think it's probably what a mother's touch is meant to be, though she couldn't say for certain.

She's never known a mother's touch.

No, Caroline feels lighter because of the trust Katerina seems to put in her. She knows how the others view her – young and weak, made in her mother's image – but Katerina sees beyond that. It makes Caroline hope that perhaps, someday, she'll be more than the pretty fledgling with the unusual wings.

If she could change them, she would. Get rid of the pretty feathers and be left with nothing but plain. They are the single extraordinary thing about her, and she wishes with all her heart she could chance that.

Shackles holding her in place and maddened muttering. Feathers stripped away and promises that she would show him…

She's not sure how long she stands outside her door lost to memory before she feels the gaze. Dark and heavy and she recognizes its weight, because she sat through the entire meal with it weighing upon her back. She slowly turns around, and there he is, watching her with that dark gaze.

The Archangel Niklaus.

"Good evening, Little Fledgling," he says, and he straightens from where he leans on the wall. His prowl is like that of a wildcat, and Caroline can feel her heart thumping in her chest. Her time spent at Refuge had kept her sheltered, but she no longer has the protection of childhood, and this man is very, very dangerous.

"Archangel," she replies, backing into her door until the handle digs almost painfully into her back, but he doesn't stop his prowling. Not until he's mere inches away from her, his gaze on the wings that flare out behind her.

"So very lovely," he murmurs, and his fingers reach out, pausing just before touching feather. "May I?"

Caroline may be young, but she is no fool. Though he phrases it as a question, there is no request in Klaus' words. Here is the Archangel that everyone fears, and being so close to him makes her shiver – not in fear, but in awareness – and she curses herself a hundred kinds of fool for feeling such things.

"Of course, m'lord," she says, and Klaus closes the rest of the distance to her wings, burying his fingers in feathers.

The contact sends a jolt through Caroline, an she closes her eyes to keep from screaming. The contact makes her muscles clench, because it goes against her every instinct, and she has to breathe deeply through her nose to keep herself in the here and now.

Chains holding her in place, the blue sky through the open window, and if she could just reach it… her wings are weak, but she is desperate…

"How intriguing."

It takes her a moment, to realize that the fingers that lift her chin are the same ones that had stroked her feathers, and then she is looking into his bright blue eyes, and they are searching her face. She wishes she knew what answers he searched for, for then she could hide them from him.

"What shadows are you hiding, Caroline?" he asks, and his words make her fear, because no one, not even Lexie, knows the darkest parts of her. And this man, with his appearance of light, but his soul of dark, would only use them to hurt her.

"I hide no shadows, m'lord," she replies, carefully easing herself away from his grip, and twisting the handle of her door, so that it began to swing inwards.

"Call me Klaus. M'lord is so… formal."

"You're an Archangel. They're meant to be formal."

The door is open enough so that she can slip through, and she does so, closing it quickly behind her. He says nothing, though she knows he could have stopped her retreat in a second. She rests her head on the door, and listens as his steps fade down the hall.

He is only to be in Elijah's territory for three days.

Surely she can survive three days.

BTS

"You've been haunting my pet."

The smile Klaus forces onto his face is exactly that – forced – and done only out of respect to Elijah. It is no secret that he and Katerina have never gotten along. Their history is long and drenched with blood and betrayals that Klaus will never forgive.

But this is Katerina's home, and both of them know that, for now, she is untouchable. So she sits across from him and pours herself tea, and then her eyes drift across the room, to where Caroline sits with the other ladies-in-waiting. Klaus finds his own gaze drawn there as well; a gaze that Caroline studiously ignores, though he can tell by the stiffening of her shoulders that she is aware of it.

"She is an interesting bauble," he says after a moment. Her wings have remained carefully folded behind her, as though that might somehow reduce his interest. He wants to tell her that such thoughts are foolish now that he's seen the shadows that haunt her eyes.

Klaus hates mysteries, but he does so love to solve them.

"What would it take for you to give her up to me?" Klaus asks after a moment, because he only has one day left in Elijah's territory, and Caroline has so delicately managed to avoid his presence, surrounding herself with the other ladies and evading him when evening falls. He had thought to seduce her away from Elijah's court with stories of his own, but such a thing is hard to achieve when he can't get a moment alone with her.

Katerina doesn't immediately reply, and so Klaus' gaze is drawn from the young angel to her Mistress, who is watching him with a calculating expression. That has ever been Katerina; calculative to the very core. It reminds him of why he had once allowed her in his court… and why later, he had sworn death upon her should she ever return.

"More than even you could afford," Katerina says at last, sipping her tea, a smirk dancing around her lips. "She is a gem I am quite determined to keep at my side."

"To forge in your image?" Klaus shot back, and for some reason the thought of Caroline, who looked to be created from light despite those shadows that danced in her gaze, becoming like this calculating, cold woman makes everything within him rebel. He knew he erred, that some of what he felt must have shown in his expression, because a cool victory entered Katerina's eyes, setting his teeth on edge.

Oh, but galls you, doesn't it?" she asks, and that moment they are not Archangel and Archangle's Consort. No, they are Niklaus and Katerina, with millennia of blood and enmity between them, ever trying to one up the other. "It galls you, to know that I, of all people, have a loyalty you so covet."

"Do you?" Klaus shoots back, reigning in his own emotion, because it wouldn't do to give Katerina the edge, nor is losing control something he is used to. He hasn't allowed himself to be so affected in… well, in centuries. "Remember, Katerina, that which I covet, I always get."

"Or you break it," Katerina replies, cold anger in her eyes, and now it's Klaus' turn to smirk in victory, because she is remembering exactly what he is capable of, and he thinks she was a fool to have ever forgotten it in the first place.

"Or I break it," he agrees.

When that annoying, unexpected part of him rebels at the thought, he is certain that this time, no sign of it shows in his expression.

BTS

She was distracted when she made her way down the hall, not at all paying her surroundings the attention she usually did. That was the only excuse she could give, for why she turns the corner without checking, and comes up short when she saw the man contemplating the door to her chambers.

She turns, planning on leaving once more, but his voice whips across the hall, freezing her in place.

"I know you're there, Fledgling."

She clenches her hands into fists and considers ignoring him. Except Klaus isn't someone you simply ignore, so she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and turns back toward him.

"You keep it locked," he comments, still surveying the entrance to her room. She takes slow steps until she's at his side. When he merely looks down at her, she takes another step and unlocks her door. This time, when she swings it open, he doesn't allow her to escape, instead sliding inside after her.

He pauses at the threshold, and Caroline knows what he sees.

Nothing.

There is a divan and a small table with a spare chair, but otherwise the sitting room that they have entered into his empty.

"It's rather… bare," Klaus muses, looking around.

Caroline shrugs uncomfortably. His tones says that it isn't at all what he expects of Katerina's prized bauble. She doesn't know how to explain it to him, that she spent her earliest years with nothing, and so trinkets mean very little to her now that she's reached adulthood. Such things are just tiny little weights that keep her from being able to run as easily as she would like.

Even if she did know how to put it in words, she wouldn't explain it to him.

"What do you want of me?" she asks him instead, and Klaus chuckles, a rich sound that sends prickles of awareness down her spine. Her wings flare out at the sound, and the movement draws Klaus' eyes to them. It makes her aware, that this is the first time he's looked at her wings rather than her face since she saw him, and she doesn't quite know what to do with that revelation.

His gaze is intent as he steps closer to her, and it takes all of Caroline's considerable will not to back away, but she knows such a sign of intimidation would just amuse him.

"So very beautiful."

"It's rumored you have an obsession with unusual wings."

Caroline winces as the words fall from her lips, because she hadn't meant to blurt the words out. But she needed to distract him somehow, and his presence in her room set her so on edge that she lost the lies that usually fell so easily from her lips, leaving her awkward and unsure how to react around him.

"They are quite correct," Klaus replies, his voice amused, and she swears there's laughter dancing in his eyes. Caroline lets out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. It catches again when he reaches out once more and runs his fingertips over the edge of her feathers. He quirks his head at her stiffened muscles and hums thoughtfully. "You dislike being touched."

"Wings are a sensitive thing," Caroline replies automatically. They are words she has echoed a hundred times, whenever anyone noticed her dislike of any sort of contact with her wings. It wasn't a sentiment that was entirely unheard of amongst angels, and most others weren't usually as quick to touch each other as Klaus was.

As though he has a right to her.

"I am not as unfair as some would claim," he informs her when she remains stiff and unreceptive. He takes a step back from her and flares his own wings out. "You can touch as well."

She has seen them before, of course she has. It's impossible to hide an angel's wings, and with his apparent obsession with her own, she had taken the opportunity to survey his as well. They are white, mottled through with brown. Simple, really, but there is a sort of beauty in that simplicity, and she finds that she has reached toward them before she realizes what she's doing. Her fingers drift against the feathers, and the soft feel of them between her fingers has her recoiling almost immediately.

"They're very nice," she says, clasping her hands in front of her, to keep from touching again. He notices the reaction, and his answering smirk is wicked.

"Quite plain, wouldn't you say?" he asks, turning his head and stroking his fingers through his wing, tugging a feather that had bent out of place. It's one of the brown ones, and he holds it out to her. She reaches out hesitantly an accepts it, running her fingers over the edge. His gaze goes to hers once more, a dark, covetous look shadowing his eyes. "Not at all like yours."

Caroline finds herself tucking her wings back, her fingers stilling on his feather, and Klaus lets out a regretful sigh as his view of them is reduced.

"I have a trophy room," he tells her, finally looking back at her eyes. He plucks his feather from her hand and then uses it to tuck her hair behind hear ear. Caroline swallows as his fingers drift against the sensitive skin on the shell of ear, and then trail down until they carefully tilt her chin towards him. "You should come and see it."

"If m'lady ever asks me to come to your lands with her, I'll be sure to take the opportunity."

It seems a safe enough thing to say, because Caroline knows that even now that she's Elijah's consort, Katerina has never stepped a foot in Klaus' kingdom since she left it. Though Klaus has never come right out and said she was unwelcome, the sentiment was there.

"Ah, innocent Fledgling," Klaus murmurs, and he leans downs, his lips mere inches from hers. "Or is it willful ignorance? We both know that I'm not asking you to visit with your mistress."

He leans down further, his lips brushing against hers, but not engaging in actual kiss. Just a light brushing that sends jolts of awareness through Caroline that leave her more breathless than if he had pressed her against the wall and kissed her as…

Well, as Caroline hasn't been kissed before.

She had known this was coming. Katerina had commented on Klaus' interest in her, had told her that he had spoken to Elijah.

"He will never allow you to fly free, Fledgling. You'll be an ornament for his court until he tires of you, and then you'll become a trophy for his wall."

The thought makes Caroline's throat grow tight. She can all but feel the shackles closing around her wings, can feel her freedom flying away – as she had been unable to fly for so long. A sob is caught in the back of her throat, but she refuses to show such weakness in front of Klaus, and determinedly forces the sob back and steps away from him, putting on her most polite of smiles, the one she always uses to hide her true thoughts from Katerina's other ladies.

"Thank-you, m'lord. But I am loyal to my mistress."

Klaus' expression closes off at her words, or perhaps it's in response to her own expression, but he doesn't step away from her.

"You hardly know your mistress," he tells her, and there is a flash of anger in his eyes before it's replaced by a remote superiority – the eons old Archangel pitying the foolish Fledgling.

It angers Caroline, and sharp words fall from her lips before she can stop them.

"My loyalty is not for sale!"

Silence reigns, and it feels like her snarl echoes in the room around them. Caroline takes another step back, because she has heard the stories of Niklaus. Of how old he was. So old that…

"You are brave, Little Fledgling."

She has closed her eyes, but doesn't feel the sharp cut of the blade of fire it's rumored the Archangel can summon with a mere thought. She finally braves opening her eyes, only to find that Klaus is no longer in front of her. He has moved to the small table, where she keeps a decanter of wine for visitors. He pours a goblet and holds it out in offer. She accepts it with number fingers, but she's relieved to see they don't shake.

"I haven't be spoken to like that in… well, if I was ever spoken to like that I'm afraid I don't recall it," he muses, pouring himself another goblet. His gaze was actually perplexed as he tries to recall a memory far older than Caroline, on that has been lost to time.

And insanity?

She searches his expression for the sign of the insanity they say is creeping up on him, but she cannot find it.

"Do you really believe you will never tire of Elijah's court?" he asks, swirling the wine in his goblet contemplatively. "For all that Katerina is filled with ambition, Elijah is staid. Reliable. You will grow tired of his lack of intrigue."

"I have no interest in intrigue," Caroline replies, and the brow he raises as he sips from his goblet tells her that her response was spouted far too quickly.

"Now that, Little Fledgling, we both know is a lie."

"What interest have I for intrigue, Archangel?" she asks after taking a fortifying drink of wine. It's thick with a hint of fruit, Caroline's favorite vintage. "As you like to say, I am a fledgling. Playing games at my age will likely get me killed."

Klaus sips from his own wine, and sprawls on the divan, and motions for her to join him. She hesitates a moment, but something in his eyes tells her that she's coming close to pushing him too far on this day.

So she perches lightly on the edge, careful not to touch him. Klaus lets out a low noise of frustration and tugs her closer, running a finger down her arm.

"One might thing you fear me, Little Fledgling," he remarks, his touch leaving heated sparks in its wake.

"I do," Caroline replies, her voice little more than a whisper, but she doesn't look away from him, nor does she move away. She isn't sure if it's fear holding her in place, or desire, but she's sure that neither bodes well for her.

He is a man to be feared, and she is playing a dangerous game, daring to get so close to him.

"And if I didn't wish you to?"

Caroline says nothing in response to the question. Klaus' hand has moved from her arm to trace her lips, but she's not so foolish as to believe that he actually meant his words. Klaus thrives on fear. It was how his position with the Cadre was maintained; his hold of power utterly undisputed.

One didn't become an Archangel by being known for kindness, after all.

Klaus finally laughs, the sound sending yet more shivers down Caroline's spine. It was both musical and terrifying.

"Well, I will grant Katerina this – she didn't bring a fool to her court. But back to matters of loyalty. You say your loyalty isn't for sale, but everyone has a price, Little Fledgling. All you need do is name yours."

Safety.

The thought flies across her mind, but she would never say it to him. For all that it should be easy to supply, Caroline has no doubt it's not one he is able to pay. She could swear she can see all his dark edges and corners, each sharpened by eons of power and the insanity he flirts with, and while a life in his court might be filled with intrigue, there would never be any safety.

"A lady to serve, where I can make my home," she says instead, because Klaus wasn't like Elijah. He had no consort, and so no lady that she could call her mistress.

"What if I were to give you the ladies instead?"

Caroline laughs at that, the thought of a fledgling holding such a high rank in Klaus' court far too bizarre for her to keep the laughter in.

"You shouldn't make promises you have no intention of keeping, Archangel."

BTS

"You are in a foul mood."

Klaus says nothing as Elijah sits across from him. He is to leave in mere hours, and his mood is soured by the knowledge that he will be leaving alone.

"I thought you would be looking forward to returning home. You always tell me how many more amusements your court holds."

Klaus just barely refrains from sighing, because of course Elijah would choose this of all days to become talkative.

"I do not return to my own court, but travel first to Kol's," he says in response, almost absent-mindedly. His gaze was caught by wings of endless ocean and rising sun across the room. Caroline was very determinedly not looking at him, and he tries to will her to look at him, to no avail.

He had gone to her rooms to seduce her to his court, and instead had very nearly promised her far more than her worth. He had made a fool of himself over a pair of pretty wings.

"Your attempts were unsuccessful," Elijah remarks, and there is more amusement in his eyes than Klaus has probably seen in centuries. Katerina, it appears, has been gossiping.

Klaus might have made a comment on that matter, but Caroline chooses that moment to finally look across the hall, her ocean gaze clashing with his own and holding for several moments before he sees her swallow and she looks away. A reminder, that swallow, that though she has turned him away, she was by no means immune to him. It makes him smirk, and imagine the feel of her feathers between his fingers.

And then he sees the brown feather tucked into her braid, and he almost laughs in victory. Game on, Little Fledgling. After all, Klaus has lived eons, and is by no means impatient.

He turns back to Elijah, whose own amusement has faded in the wake of his mercurial mood.

"For now."

End Part 1

AN: And here is the first part. If I follow my basic outline, I'm looking at 4-5 parts to this story. Let me know what you think.