A/N: The song Vincent inspired this. I suggest listening to it.

Also, I OWN NOTHING.

Enjoy!

With Eyes That Know the Darkness In My Soul

"Starry, starry night,

Paint your palette blue and grey.

Look out on a summer's day,

With eyes that know the darkness in my soul."

Vincent | Don McLean

"I saw her again," I say as I watch my brother walk through the doorway with a young girl in tow.

Elijah frowns at me, a face he makes more often than not when I say things out of context. "Who did you see?" He asks. He sits down at his chair in the great house, the large thing nearly swallowing him with its plushness and largeness.

"That girl," I say, knowing this answers nothing.

Elijah points to the girl he guides into his lap, whose eyes are wide and frightened yet somehow calm and sedated. Compulsion is a wonderful thing. "This girl?" He asks.

I frown back at him, rolling my eyes. What thick skulls my stepfather gave my half-siblings. "No, the girl," I say, emphatic and steadily growing restless.

"I am unaware of the girl of whom you speak," is Elijah's prim reply. He always did have to sound above everybody else. It never ceases to grate my nerves. Elijah is lucky he doesn't have a dagger sticking out of his chest like the rest of our siblings.

"I told you about her," I tell him, sure of myself.

Elijah frowns once more, staring at the beautiful child sitting on his thighs, dress bunched around her. The fashion of the 1800's is something I will never understand. Corsets and hoop skirts all seem far too uncomfortable.

I watch Elijah's face ripple with bloodlust, but I can think of nothing more than the girl I saw tonight.

"You did not tell me about any girl," Elijah says sternly, and as the older brother, I should listen. But my temper runs short often.

"The girl," I hiss. "The one with straw-like hair. She runs around town with some boy. I saw her."

"London is large," Elijah replies uncaringly. He is still enraptured by the small girl's throat. I can hear her heart as it thumps quietly in her chest and I wonder if Elijah plans to kill another innocent tonight. "I see many women with blonde hair who run around with other men." Elijah looks up for a moment at me, concern in his eyes. "Why does she matter? This girl."

I say nothing for a moment, refusing to acknowledge the look Elijah gives me. He has been giving it more and more since I laid our younger sister to rest seven months ago.

Then, I give in. "She is nothing important," I say, though maybe I lie. "I have seen her, is all. Wandering the streets at night. Such a dangerous task for such a pretty thing."

Elijah's sharp teeth have now dropped. I know this is my cue to leave him be, so he can suckle the blood of this child. I should myself find sustenance, as it has been more than a day since I last tasted a drop of blood. Far too long for one as old as me.

"I will leave you, brother," I say, but Elijah does not answer as he sinks his teeth into the child's neck.

Minutes later, while I lounge in our expansive library filled with books neither of us read, I realise I no longer hear the soft her soft heartbeat.

Two Days Later

I saw her again. In the darkness, beneath the, smoggy streets of London, her hair shone like the silvery moon, blinding me. I could hear her blood as it sang in her veins. Her heart as it beat like a steady drum beneath the skin of her breast.

She was with that boy again, laughing with him as they made their drunken way through town. They sounded American, from what I could tell.

I hid in the bushes like a predator, my eyes locked on her frame. Her waist seemed small, but perhaps that was nothing more than the corset. Her body was hidden from me. Heavy cloth hung around her shoulders and made its way to her ankles.

I salivated like a wild animal until she was out of my sight.

.1.

When I return home, finding another child drained by the front door, I listen for Elijah, but hear nothing. I walk up the steps to my bedroom, the largest room in the Victorian house. There, in the centre, I see my easel, decorated with a clean and white canvas, glowing under the harsh yellow light emitted from the burning candles in my chambers.

Never before have I felt so inspired to paint. I have had the gift for longer than I can remember. I have been alive eight-hundred years, and I do not know the last time I felt such a pull to my paintbrush.

I must be sick. Or dying. Or suffering from some form of memory loss.

As I begin to paint, colours swirling together on my canvas, I notice a shape taking form. Gold hair, eyes the colour of coal, skin like powdery, white gypsum.

Though I know I should not, I continue to run my brush over the coarse cloth until I see her in her entirety. And when I pull away, hours later, as Elijah creeps up the stairs with another helpless child in his arms, I scowl.

This girl haunts me, her face—always hidden by night's black coating—comes to me in my dreams. She calls to me. But I never see her eyes. They are always too dark. Always so vacant and lost.

I must find her, this girl. Ask her name, command her to stay with me until I can release my mind of her.

This has happened to me once before, with a girl nearly as beautiful as this one. Her name was Camille and she teased me to no end. When I finally got my hands on her, I tired of her almost instantly.

I am a creature of the night. I stalk my prey until it is mine.

But there is nothing more thrilling than the chase.

Blood does not taste nearly as satisfying as the adrenaline that runs on my tongue while I speed through the midnight hours, searching for something to satisfy my aching teeth.

Two Weeks Later

Elijah walks into the sitting room just as I throw another body to the ground. My lips run red with blood.

"I take it you have yet to find this straw-haired girl?" Elijah asks with amusement.

I glower at my elder brother, my fingers itching for his dagger. "She alludes me still. I have not seen her in a fortnight."

Fourteen days. Sunset after sunset I have waited.

Nothing. I have seen nothing. Not her, not her boy.

My rational mind tells me to drop it. She must have returned to America, the land from which she came. This hurts me, though. Physically. I feel pain spin inside my head when I think this.

I am dying. That is my only explanation. It is better than Elijah's.

"You fancy her, brother," he has said more than once.

"This cannot be, Elijah," I respond. And it cannot.

But I will wait again tonight. I know I will. Because maybe I will see her again, and that small hope drives me wild with lust.

I will wait night after night until I find her. Until I can claim her as my own.

One Day Later

"Are you lost?" I ask, surprised at how calm I sound. I am shaking from the inside out, which makes me want to snap someone's neck.

I should not be reacting in his way. I feel…nervous. It angers me.

The girl before me smiles. "No, I know my way around."

Her eyes are blue, like the sky just after the sun rises. Or the shallowest parts of the ocean.

I bite my lip as the tremors increase in strength, rattling my bones. "Let me take you somewhere," I say, my throat dry and husky.

"Where do you want to take me?" She inquires.

I take a breath and instantly smell the hot blood rushing around beneath her skin. My gums pulse. My eyes darken.

"Home," I say simply, my lips curling as she blinks at me in surprise.

"I've got to get back, actually," she says, taking a step away from me.

I take one more step in her direction, already enjoying this game. "Back where?"

"Home," she says quickly.

"I can take you home."

"My home," she clarifies.

"I can make my home yours, if you wish."

"I don't wish," she says defiantly, and I see her fists clenched by her sides.

A fire spreads in my belly, a thickness pressing against my thigh. I step closer until we are separated by nothing more than the wind.

"You will let me take you to my home," I say lowly, my pupils dilating.

The girl gives me the strangest look, as if she's fighting my compulsion. I see no vervain on her, nor do I smell it. My body tenses.

"I will let you take me to your home," she says in a monotone voice, and I instantly relax.

.1.

"You will let me paint you."

"I will let you paint me."

I smirk. Never has being bad felt so fulfilling. I have spent my whole life ignoring the rules, escaping from the normalities of everyday life. I find peace in chaos, and this girl screams mayhem.

My plaything, I muse as I circle her. She looks even better in my bedroom, completely submissive.

Desire unfurls below my bellybutton as I step behind my easel and start to stroke the canvas with my brush.

"Stay still," I demand. She stops fidgeting immediately.

I start with her face. Pale, symmetrical. Beautiful.

"Take your hair down," I say, and I grin devilishly when her blonde waves crash around her clothed shoulders.

"You are breathtaking," I murmur, painting the yellow wisps of her hair.

"Thank you," she answers.

Five Weeks Later

"Are you well, brother?" Elijah asks. We sit at the table, documents spread about us in a wave of parchment paper.

"I am well, Elijah," I say, vexed. I could be upstairs with the blonde angel, and yet Elijah demanded I come to the living room to discuss arbitrary things that hold no meaning to me.

"You have kept her with us five weeks now," Elijah reminds me.

I glower. "I will keep her here as long as I wish."

"She has yet to bore you," Elijah points out.

But I know this already.

She hasn't bored me yet. If anything, waking up every morning and going into the room I have given her does nothing but increase my want for her.

"Do you plan on killing her soon?" He asks.

I blanch, though I am unsure why. It is a reasonable question. Camille suffered a long and painful death after I realised she was useless.

Why should this girl not endure the same fate?

"No," I growl, and I stand up, rushing into my bedroom where she has fallen asleep.

I watch her until she awakens, complaining about hunger.

Six Days Later

"Will you turn her?" Elijah asks another night, not looking up from the book in his hands.

I stop sketching in my notebook, my breath caught in my throat.

Truthfully, I have thought of little else. Refraining myself from sharing blood with this girl has gotten increasingly difficult. She calls to me like no one else has.

I fear that I care for her.

Not only that, but that I care too much.

She has become a part of our household. She has her own bedroom, her own clothes which I bought. Food is now stacked in the pantry for her.

I don't even know her name. Nor does she know mine.

This is purposeful, so that if something were to happen, I would have nothing but a body to mourn over, not a person.

But not knowing her name does not seem to be doing my emotions any good.

I thought of turning them off one week ago after she asked me to stay in her bed until she fell asleep. She is still under my compulsion, but I have not commanded her to like me, so I must assume her feelings for me are real.

And for a moment, that frightened me.

As I laid there, stroking her warm, smooth cheek until her breathing evened and her eyes began moving behind her eyelids, I feared I was in too deep.

I was close to snapping my fingers and making those feelings disappear, but then she sighed in her sleep. She breathed on my face, her breath scented like mint, the leaves she chews every night before bed.

And I couldn't do it. I could not snap my fingers.

I knew I was in too deep then. But I didn't care.

But then I wondered what would happen if something were to harm her. How would I react?

What lengths would I go to in order to keep her safe?

"Perhaps," I say to Elijah.

"You should turn her," he responds. "We have enemies. They will stop at nothing to destroy you."

"What would turning her prevent?" I ask, helpless at hiding the annoyance in my tone.

Elijah looks up then, eyes filled with some tender emotion. "Niklaus, there are some fates worse than death. I would hate for you to find out what they are," he says.

Later

The girl is singing to herself, her body submerged in the large tub I have placed in her bedroom. I stand by the open door, listening to her hum a song I have never heard before.

"You believe you have quiet footsteps," she says, startling me. "But they are louder than you think."

Her head turns to face me. I see her eyes shining bright blue. She is always so chipper.

"You sing beautifully," I say to her, enjoying the heat that spreads from her cheeks to her neck. I imagine it goes lower, but I do not look.

I have yet to look below her collarbone. I do not know why, exactly. Moral-something-or-other. Elijah says I am frightening him. What has stopped me from bedding a woman before?

But with this girl, I know it would be different. Strange and exciting, but emotionally heavy.

Besides, I reason with myself. She is under my compulsion. Ravishing a woman has never been a choice for me.

I will wait until I decide to stop compelling her. Then she will choose if she wishes to come to bed with me.

Though, again, I worry what might happen if I ever take away the spell I have her under.

What if she runs? I cannot allow that to happen.

She has sunk her claws into my dead heart. She would rip it from my chest if ever she left me.

"You seem sad," she says, pulling me from my waking nightmares.

I shake my head. "Worry not, love," I say. "I am perfectly content."

The American smiles shyly, and perhaps I feel another chunk of my resolve slipping. "As am I."

.1.

"I will turn her tonight," I say to Elijah as I pace our library. "I will not let harm come to her."

"And who will kill her?" He asks, and I pause, mid-step.

I hadn't thought of killing her, even though that was a very prominent part of the transition from human to vampire.

"You will," I decide.

Elijah nods. "I will."

The Next Day

When she awakens hours after Elijah snapped her neck, she looks around her bedroom, eyes wide.

She looks at me, right at me, and I know what comes next. She will remember everything I have done to her since I compelled her that night on the streets of London. She will remember that I took her from her home, from that boy she seemed to enjoy so much.

I have braced myself for her absence. Told myself that she will be okay on her own, even as a fresh-faced vampire struggling to control her bloodlust. Perhaps she will destroy a few towns before she meets someone able to help her. Or maybe she will learn by herself. Or maybe she will not learn at all, and end up destroying towns until someone slides a wooden stake in her heart.

As long as she is happy, I will be too.

But this is a lie. Absolutely.

I am selfish, the most selfish man on this earth. I crave this girl more than I crave blood. If she leaves, I will follow her. If she hates me, I will still care for her. I will be angry and devastated, but I will be unable to throw away what I feel for her.

Here, in her bedroom, watching her watch me, I know all of these things.

"You," she says, wistful. She reaches up with her slender fingers until they curl around my jaw.

I do not breathe. I do not think I can.

"What is your name?" She asks.

I am thrown aback. This is what she asks me?

"Niklaus," I say in response.

The girl sighs. "Niklaus. I'm Caroline."

My name sliding off her tongue creates a storm of want inside of me. I want to push Elijah out of the room and take this girl right here and now. She is not scared, and I could not be happier.

"Caroline," I repeat. "A beautiful name for the most beautiful girl."

She reddens, and I watch it spread below her collarbone.

Months Later

"You are a natural hunter, Caroline," I applaud, marvelling at the deer lying by my feet, its head lolled to one side, tongue sticking out of its mouth.

Caroline giggles. "Only because I have a good teacher," she says as she approaches me, panting despite the fact that she no longer requires breath to survive.

She stops a few inches in front of me, holding my gaze. Pride swells like a bubble in my chest at her praise. I have taken her hunting nearly every day since she awoke. She is a better hunter than Elijah, I believe.

Caroline's hand reaches out and caresses my cheek tenderly, wonder sparkling in her blue eyes. "You are a handsome man, Niklaus," she breathes, and if my heart were not already frozen, it would have stopped right then.

.1.

Back at the house, I notice Elijah is gone.

"Come with me." I pull Caroline's hand, ascending the stairs and stepping into my bedroom. I shut the door and pick Caroline up, throwing her to the bed in a rush of adrenaline.

Face shining with lust, Caroline smiles. "What are you doing?" She asks, coy.

"We are alone, love," I tell her. "I feel we should use this to our full advantage."

A moment later, I have ripped the clothes from her body.

"I will buy you ten new dresses," I say when she complains.

"But that was my favourite," she whines, but I silence her with a harsh kiss, shoving my tongue between her lips, swallowing her sharp gasp and feeling it sink through me.

With unsteady hands, Caroline struggles to unbutton my shirt. I sit up, smirking.

"Rip it," I say, the feral glint in her eyes hitting me like a witch's curse. I feel my lust grow beneath the cloth of my trousers, pushing against the fabric, waiting for Caroline.

"But you like this shirt," she says. "I like this shirt."

"Caroline," I warn. "I am not a patient man."

"You aren't a man at all," she counters, but before I can say anything snarky in return, the buttons of my shirt shoot off in every direction.

A harsh chill hits my chest, but it is soon replaced by Caroline's warm hands, greedily sliding around my newly exposed skin.

"I think I love your chest the most," she says, pressing soft kisses everywhere she can reach.

I grin salaciously, my own hands cupping Caroline's breasts, feeling her nipples nudge against my palms. She gasps against the hairs coating my upper torso.

"I think I love your chest the most, too," I say, massaging her flesh gently, watching with lustful eyes as her mouth drops open, a guttural moan falling from her tongue.

My erection jumps at the noise, but I hold myself steady, knowing I want to pleasure Caroline before allowing her to pleasure me.

Slowly, torturously, I release her breasts and drag my fingers down, down, down until I reach her wet heat. She gasps once more, but I lean forward and capture this one, closing my eyes as I slide the tips of my index and middle finger around her sex, enjoying it immensely when she begins bucking her hips, her body unconsciously attempting to find more friction.

"Never mind," I say against her mouth. "I definitely love this part of you more."

"Niklaus, please," she begs into our kiss, as those same two fingers run along her pubic bone, coating the hairs there with her own slick desire.

I release her lips. "Please what?" I ask throatily, ready to explode at any moment. I have taken to rubbing my length against Caroline's leg in hopes of finding some relief from the pulsating need I have for her, but it does not seem to be working as well as I'd hoped.

"Take me. Now," she whimpers.

And who am I to say no to a request like that?

Instantly I have Caroline on her back, my fingers grappling at her hips. I shove her legs apart, settling myself between her thighs.

"You want this?" I ask, pushing myself against her sex. I barely hold in my own groan when I reach my goal.

Caroline's eyes flutter closed. Her nails bite into my hips. "God ... just ... please," she cries. "More, I need more."

Using one hand, I give in, guiding myself into her warmth.

I am instantaneously surrounded by tightness and I bury my head in the crook of Caroline's neck, kissing her collarbone repeatedly as I wait for her to tell me to start moving.

I nearly laugh at myself. I have never waited for anyone to tell me to do something in all my life. I always did what I wanted, when I wanted, no matter what.

But Caroline made everything different. I had suspected this earlier, before her transition, but now it is fact.

Everything is heavier, yes, but it is also lighter at the same time. I no longer walk with a weight pressing against my shoulders, holding me down. Fear does not control me now, not with Caroline by my side day and night.

I am free, even when I am shackled this American girl.

And I do not know why. I still, months after she became a vampire, have no idea what called me to her. What continues to call me to her. Nor do I know why she decided to stay.

I am evil. I am dark. Yet she looks at me like I am goodness incarnate. Like I am her light.

"Niklaus," Caroline pants, once again dragging me from my own mind. I look down at her, her body glistening beneath my own. She looks wonderful like this, spread out just for me—hair wild, eyes dark with want. "Please."

My lips find hers as I start moving, my hips slamming into hers faster and faster and faster. Our tongues are desperate against one another as they try catching all of our moans and expletives.

Her lips are as warm as her sheath. They are plump and tinted red, even without the aid of blood.

They are mine, as well. To kiss, to nip, to lave. To love.

"God," she growls into my mouth, her teeth clamping down on my bottom lip.

I do not know when it happens, but we both unravel at the same moment, our bodies stilling.

I pull out of her, rolling onto my back and pulling her over my chest. I kiss her tangled hair, threading my fingers through.

"Ouch," she mumbles against into my skin. "I need a bath."

A smile spreads on my lips. "We both need a bath, love."

Folding her arms on my chest, Caroline leans her chin on them and stares directly at me. "Why do you call me that?"

I lower my eyebrows, unsure if I should be scared of this question. "Call you what?"

"Love," she clarifies.

"Oh," I say. "I don't know. Habit, I suppose. My mother always taught me to be a gentleman."

"You hate your mother."

I laugh. "This is true, but she was very persistent. I probably couldn't stop calling you 'love' even if I tried."

Smiling a small smile, Caroline bends her neck and kisses my shoulder. Something sparks beneath the skin where her lips touch and I blink, stars stuttering in my vision.

"I don't want you to stop," she tells me.

"Then I won't," I assure her, pecking her once more on her head. "But we really do need a bath. I don't want Elijah walking in on us," I say, sliding her off of me and standing up. "It was embarrassing enough the last time."