Caroline closed her eyes to gain a bit of courage but every second that she waited for that bravery to come was another second that she was spending in bed with him so she latched on to a sparkle of something other than terror and moved her foot, the instant it touched the floor she sneaked the other from under the sheet and slid away from him without making a sound.

Caroline looked back, he was still sleeping so she stopped breathing and reached for the doorknob, she then gasped daring to hope for an escape but that feeling dissipated as fast as the whooshing sound startled her.

"Why are you leaving?" he whispered closely behind her.

Caroline turned around shaking. "I thought that you were sleeping…"

"I was." Damon smiled hugely at her. "You left me very tired last night."

Caroline panicked in her mind, she remembered kissing him but also asking him to stop once things escalated and she felt uncomfortable, that was also the last memory that she had about what really happened in her bedroom.

"You're amazing once you give in." he leaned over to kiss her.

Caroline stepped back melting against the door. "I don't want you to touch me."

"Don't be silly." he tilted his head and delivered a perfect sly side-look at her.

"I'm serious Damon, I don't remember what happened last night but I know that you did hurt me and I don't want you to touch me again." she tried sounding resolute enough. "I want to leave."

"We had dinner and you were wearing that stunning red dress, then we came here and I ripped that thing off your body with a very sexy move…" he explained inching again closer to her. "And then we kissed and you were very in the mood… you remember that, don't you?"

Caroline covered her eyes with her hand, it was all so foggy and strange but a fickle of an image surfaced above all the confusion. "There was something wrong with your face…" she stared back at him scared.

"It was your first time and you were all girly nervous." he moved his hand to stroke her collarbone. "That's all."

Caroline slapped his touch away. "I'm serious, don't touch me. I remember telling you no. I remember asking you to stop, I remember telling you that I didn't want this." Instantly he hardened his face taking her back to the last memories that she had of their night.

"Don't make a scene Caroline." he warned her.

"What are you?"

He sighed without patience so Caroline quickly turned around and tried to leave the room but painfully he pulled her hair to haul her back to him and then pushed her towards the bed.

Caroline was shoved against it with such strength that she hit the wall and only then bounced back to the mattress, still she tried reacting and defensively hugged her knees expelling a small gasp when his eyes became black and horrible veins formed across his face.

Damon smiled showing fangs that descended and walked smugly to the bed. "I'm a handsome vampire and I think that you find me really hot." he held his hands in front of his bare chest with a cocky attire.

Caroline had no idea what he was, just that she was terrified of him. "What did you to me last night?"

He found support for a knee on the bed before he crawled to her with a predator look on his eyes. "You are all the same, first you want the rough sex with the stud then you pretend victim…" he rolled his eyes. "We had fun and that's all you need to remember for now."

Tears filled Caroline's eyes. "I don't…"

"You don't know? Don't understand? Don't this, don't that..." he sighed annoyed before cupping her chin. "That's ok Caroline, I didn't expect that much from someone like you but your blood tastes sweeter than anything I ever tasted…" he dropped his voice. "The rest I can teach you later, it's not that hard to please me."

Caroline tried another desperate escape from the bed but he easily yanked her back to him, his strength was an unfair weapon and she hit her head hard against the mattress as he pinned her to the bed with a chocking hand around her throat.

She looked at him dizzy from the small battle and from the sick feeling rising inside of her.

He on the other hand smiled like he was straight out of a dream. "Are you going to be a good girl now?"

"Get out of my house." she tried fighting the hand keeping her down.

"Once invited in, forever close to the heart." he moved a hand down to caress her leg.

Caroline kicked and shrieked under him. "Stop Damon, I don't want you to do this."

"Do what?" he inched his vamped face closer to hers.

Caroline chocked because he closed his hand a little, the air wasn't reaching her and she closed her hand around his, feebly fighting that excruciating grip.

"If you promise to be a good girl, I will reward you with a little air."

Caroline closed her eyes once which made Damon open his hand, she coughed in pain and harshly tried to get her breath back.

Damon twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. "I think that I like you better with straight hair."

She wasn't even here, that's how it felt, that she was still dreaming and that all this was just an agonizing product of her imagination.

Damon kept on caressing her body covered with a short nighty. "Do you like the sexy little thing that I chose for you?"

Caroline blinked releasing a single tear that rolled down her face, it wasn't a dream, he was real and this was really happening to her.

Damon kissed her lips before widening his eyes. "Are you going to stop fighting me now?"

"Yes." she answered without emotion.

"Are you going to do everything that I tell you to do?"

"Yes."

He smiled pleased. "Good… you are going to be a good pet." he took her wrist so that he could feed from her.

Caroline didn't fight him now, she didn't want him to bite her but the scream she could hear in her mind wasn't coming out and she didn't understand why, she just didn't know what was happening to her...


Caroline numbly brushed her hair, the memory came fluid this morning and it was stuck on repeat, that first morning with Damon was a concealed memory for so long but right after she was turned it became a movie that wouldn't stop playing in her mind and sometimes Caroline wasn't sure what was worse, the ignorance that was uncovered after she was turned or what happened later that couldn't be hidden by compulsion.

There was a pause in her deadened mind-replay because a knock on the door announced someone and Caroline went to see who it was.

"Good morning." Klaus greeted her with a big effortless smile.

"Good morning Klaus." Naturally she tried to be nice but she didn't have a smile for him, specially this morning when she was so entrenched in her painful thoughts.

"I came to escort you to breakfast." he kept his smile, it was a given for him that she wasn't going to give him the gift of a smile that easily.

"I'm not very hungry." she tried weaselling her way out of a big gathering.

"I waited for the others to end their loud meal so we will have the dining room all to ourselves."

She reacted favourably and nodded. "Give me a second."

Caroline went back inside of the bedroom to leave her brush and to pick up a long cardigan instead, during that small task Klaus glanced inside and spotted that she had covered all the mirrors that existed inside of the room, it intrigued him immensely but Klaus kept the question for later.

When they were going down the staircase Klaus was attentive to another detail, she had her eyes fixated on the statues ornamenting the big foyer. "Do you like them?" he asked as they passed one of them.

"They are breathtaking." she truly loved them.

"I bought them from some unknown artist a few years ago." he informed her but only smiled when she went ahead of him in the hallway.

No one was at the table but the same seats they had taken during dinner were ready for them.

Caroline had a variety of items to choose from but she kept it strictly to a cup of coffee and the smallest portion of grapes while Klaus enjoyed his coffee and Eggs Benedict.

"I heard them talking about you more than once back at the Salvatore house, they said that you only came to the city a couple of centuries ago." Caroline wasn't sure about his origins at all.

"We were all born in England but the plague harvested one of my siblings early on, wanting to save the rest of the family my father decided to bring us all to the New World where we all stayed until we were turned. Every one of us has paved the four corners of the world at least twice until Henrik came to San Francisco to study in the local University…" he chuckled softly. "He wouldn't stop talking about the advanced bio-medical research that they were doing here and he wanted to be a part of it."

Caroline wasn't sure if she should take her inquiry any further so she went back to her coffee and the silence prevailed for a little longer until she decided to take the smallest leap to end it. "You said that he was killed... how did that happen?"

"He landed right in the middle of a turf war between the few vampires living in the city at the time and a few idiots trying to kill them. When the vampires learnt that he was an Original they tried making him a leader but my adolescent baby brother was everything but that, he and his small group of fighters ended up killed."

Again she was quiet but not because she was afraid of asking more questions but out of respect.

Klaus picked up his coffee with a reminiscent look in his eyes. "We arrived too late to save him but we killed everyone involved in his death and I went after their families and slaughtered them all." his eyes and voice darkened. "Not even their dogs dodged my wrath during that week."

Caroline gulped down. "But... the slayers still exist." she sealed her lips unwilling to over talk.

"A few other idiots thought that it was a good idea to call us all a bunch of conceited and elitist idiots. From one daft to another it really didn't sit well with us."

"The world is full of idiots."

It wasn't remotely a joke, she sounded so strict that he shouldn't chuckle but Klaus found her funny. "Then I shall never run out of work." he waited impatiently for a smile.

Caroline only shoved a grape into her mouth and chewed on it without much willpower.

Klaus glared at her. "I have wit oozing out of every inch of my skin."

"Ok." she kept the information like it was a simple weather broadcast.

He pushed away his plate frustrated. "Consequently a group of pirates and outlaws decided to form a Council to officially defend the interests of vampires worldwide. As far as the Mikaelsons are concerned, the Council is only the crowd filling the arena while us, the gladiators fight to the death but something that could have drifted us exponentially apart united the siblings and we decided to live together since then, after all we are a family and we shouldn't be scattered around the world like strangers."

"You seem close, like a true brotherhood." she voiced what appeared to her.

"Kol chose the name after a book series that he liked and the name lingered with us."

"It's very known by everyone." she considered adding the gruesome tales of his killings as well but surely Klaus remembered every kill in detail so she would be wasting a perfect opportunity to be quiet, she lifted her eyes wondering what to say next but a natural reel was caused by his eyes, he was looking intensely at her and she recoiled away instantly from that concentration. "Is it ok if I go outside to the garden?" she asked uncomfortable with his stare.

"It's not that you ask me." he clarified before reaching for his ringing phone. "In this house you are a guest and you are free to go anywhere you want, therefore you are by all means allowed to step outside of the property as well." he made sure to add that bit.

She sighed once he exited the room, it took time to get used to that and she was just starting to feel the ground around her, it was too soon to go out to quicksand areas but the garden was nice and she started looking for it, after a few confusing turns she had the growing feeling that she was getting lost when thankfully she found some help in the hall that led to the kitchen.

"Sage…" she approached the woman relieved.

The red-haired turned to her holding two huge cookbooks. "Hi." she beamed at her. "Oh, I like your hair today."

Caroline only did something simple as holding one side of her hair with a pin but it was nice to hear the comment. "You said that I could use the things that were in the guest bedroom."

"Of course, they are mostly things that Rebekah buys and then decides that she doesn't like anymore but when we have time, I am taking you shopping for new clothes and shoes and everything else." Sage assured her.

"I'm ok." Caroline dreaded the idea of receiving anything else from the family without paying them. "Do you need help?"

"Yes." Sage held the two open books for her. "Which cake looks better to you?"

Caroline frowned with the two perfect images before her. "They both look very delicious."

"I wanted luscious." Sage turned the books back to her. "Finn loves chocolate cake but after five centuries of marriage it's very hard to surprise him."

Caroline looked at Sage bewildered.

The other raised her eyes from the books. "I know what you are thinking, what took me so long to marry him..." she shrugged. "I suppose I just really loved the idea of being betrothed and I didn't want to move things along for many centuries."

"So you've been with Finn for longer than that?" Caroline went after Sage as the other headed for the kitchen.

"I was his girlfriend back when we were still human but before that happened I was promised to another man, only that my heart belonged to Finn and he was in love with me so we started to meet in secret." Sage smiled enchanted with the warmth her memories brought to her. "At first we made plans to run away because my family arranged for the other wedding and my father would never agree with such a scandalous twist of grooms but then Elijah found out that we were in love and he helped us."

"I don't mean to pry but how did he help you?" Caroline was loving the pretty story so much.

"He told Nik and then the three of them beat up my unwanted suitor, leading to a soft decline of his intentions to marry me." Sage perkily brought her shoulders together. "Once I was free Finn asked for my hand in marriage and I latched on to that hand never letting it go again."

"You had a beautiful destiny cut out for you."

"I was lucky." Sage lowered her voice with a soft smile, she also felt blessed. "So which cake are we baking today, the dark chocolate cake with mint or the dark chocolate cake with orange?"

"I like the mint option." Caroline answered sincerely.

Sage clapped agreeing with her and quickly grabbed two bowls, one for her and one for Caroline. "I will work on the Fondant while you do the rest."

Caroline picked up an egg. "Are you going to trust your valuable cake on a basket case?"

Sage grabbed a bag with flour. "I have a gift for the kitchen but not always things turn out the way I want them to be, yet you know what I've learned with time? That even the sad slightly burnt cover hides a beautiful glowing cake inside and that sometimes all that it takes is to carefully chip away that damage."

"What if it's so ruined that it can't be saved?"

"With a little help everything is possible." Sage started filling the table with everything that they would need for the cake. "You are making the cake and I'm making the cover."

"You're helping me so that I don't have to do it alone." Caroline admired the gorgeous white egg in her hand.

"You just need to start somewhere." Sage waited for her without pressuring her. "Take your time with it, no one is expecting the cake for dinner so if it doesn't work out we'll think of something else for dessert."

Caroline pushed her nails down on the middle of the egg cracking it open, Klaus was probably right and they were all crazy to the core but strangely among their waywardness she found calmness.


Klaus followed the smell coming from the kitchen, Sage was the one with the golden touch and they often sneaked a taste of her culinary abilities before it reached the dining table but instead of his sister-in-law, Klaus was presented with Caroline leaning against the counter and admiring a stunning cake.

"That looks ravishing." Klaus was very struck by the beauty of it himself.

"I made it with Sage." Caroline said proudly.

"I can see that." Klaus said with a chuckle and a hand motioning towards her face.

Caroline moved away from him fast and looked startled by his action.

"You have a bit of flour on your cheek…" Klaus explained his sudden motion.

Caroline swept her cheek with her hand choosing not to apologize this time, the reaction was an instinct that she couldn't stop.

"I was on my way to the garden." he quickly tried going around the scratchy moment.

"I got sidetracked before I found my way there, and I was lost before that." she looked at him hopeful that he would keep her company despite her aversion to be touched when she wasn't prepared for it.

"There's a passageway just at the end of the hallway that will take us there." he agreed to show her the way.

Caroline tried to memorize the path this time and she was so concentrated in counting how many steps she was taking that she stopped when the sun hit her foot, for a moment she forgot that she had a ring but when she didn't ignite into a massive fire she ventured outside eager to have the sun warming her.

In the gazebo she sat right on the place that was bathed by the sun whilst Klaus sat across her, picking for himself the darker spot where the sun wasn't reaching him at all.

"This is my favorite place in your house so far." If she could, Caroline would spend all of her time in here.

"We all have our preferences, while Finn spends a great deal of his time around the garage and the expensive cars, Elijah dedicates his attention to the library. Kol doesn't spend much time home, he prefers all things related to Bonnie." Klaus made a big circle with his hand. "We are all very appreciative that he spends most of his nights at her house because they are very loud."

"I found them sort of... adorable." Caroline couldn't quite touch what she liked about them so much.

"Bonnie came to San Francisco during a summer with her father and his new family, she was stuck in a bad vacation with the new wife of her father and their twelve-year old son so one night she made her way out of the hotel and went to a Club..." Klaus didn't bother ending the tale.

Caroline motioned her head once. "She met Kol and the rest is history."

"For the longest month no one could explain why this human was living at our house and reading Elijah's books."

Caroline almost motioned a smile, it was warming to know that not all humans were easy bait for vampires. "He seems to adore her..." she could tell that by the way that Kol looked at Bonnie.

"Adoration or devotion, I'm not sure which. I just know that my brother only has heart eyes for her."

"What about you Klaus? In the midst of such a big family you look pretty lonely to me."

"That would be Elijah, the eternal bachelor."

She folded her legs across the stone seat. "Someone like you with so much wit can't find a girl?"

"I'm not entirely sure about your sense of humour yet." he dropped his chin low but kept his eyes on her.

"I don't have one, there's no pulse to it... like everything else." she stated how dead she felt.

He bent over resting his elbows on his legs. "Do you have any family left Caroline?"

"No, my mother died when I was still human." she looked away from him.

"How were you turned?"

Caroline steered her eyes back to him taken by the blunt question but he looked serious enough to expect a swift answer. "I tried leaving Damon once, when I found out that vervain existed and that I could use it to fight his compulsion. I was finally able to tell him that it was over and to walk away so I left the mansion ready to start over without him in my life and I went back to my old apartment…" she stopped to gather her breath but the words got mixed up with her pain and she couldn't talk anymore.

"I'd like to show you the Temple now." Klaus stood up without doubt and smiled with dimples at her. "I didn't finish the tour of the house the other day."

She frowned. "I'm trying very hard not to make wrong assumptions here…"

"Well, you are free to stay here and enjoy the beautiful day but I have to leave in a few and I would like to complete that tour now, after all, it's very hard to complete this heavy task that I've given myself, the one of making you smile that is, when you still expect me to keep some dark secret side of me hidden from you."

"Why is it so important for you that I see you a certain way?"

He answered with another question. "Does it bother you that when I look at you I see everything that is not there at sight?"

"Yes." Although her reply was immediate, there was a flick of emotion that she hadn't foreseen.

"Then we cannot focus on that until you stop trying to examine to exhaustion everything that I am and what I could possibly be hiding from you. You need to step away from your cautious mistrust for one second and you need to listen carefully."

Caroline's breath picked up steam and she looked at him puzzled as he neared her.

"You said that you didn't remember who you were and I know that you are being honest about it, at some point the pain became so unbearable that you just turned it all off but Damon didn't want that… no, he enjoyed inflicting pain and he took pleasure knowing that you felt it… I know..."

Caroline stood up hastily. "Don't even, you don't know how it was like so didn't try to analyze something that you didn't go through. I don't need to listen to educated guesses of how bad I had it, I was there so I know it. Not you."

"Damon kept bringing your emotions back, day after day, so that you felt it all…"

"Stop it." she said with clenched teeth.

But not only Klaus kept going he also kept his eyes steady on hers. "So you stopped existing entirely, you were just a shallow corpse who felt pain when he wanted you to, who pretended to have pleasure when he demanded…"

She turned her back on him. "I don't want to keep listening to this, I want you to go."

"Every time that you successfully turned your emotions off, Damon's sire bond commanded that you had it back on so that he was in control and never you."

Caroline bit her lip hard feeling the tears pooling at her eyes.

Klaus steadily kept his voice low, unwavering. "You were trapped in this endless bash that pushed every bearable border until you broke down and you broke down every single day." he came around so that he stood in front of her.

"Why are you doing this?" she gushed out between heavy tears.

With the slowest, most gentle move he touched her wet cheek. "When was the last time that these were real?" he whispered.

Caroline pressed her stomach, the ache was eating everything inside of her, it didn't allow her to breath or to cry without feeling like she was being torn apart and she cave in with a bigger jolt of tears that grew of intensity.

He didn't maintain his touch on her but he kept the small intimacy by keeping his body close to hers and his voice was caring as he carried on. "Do you want to know where that Caroline you once knew is hiding? It's right there under all that suffering, she's the one who through it all kept you from disintegrating and she's the one who stopped you from taking your life when the thought became the only possible cure for that torment."

"She died the day that she met Damon." Caroline voiced her deepest most confident assurance.

Klaus shook his head. "No, she's staring right back at me with an emerging will to push a stake into my heart so that I finally go quiet about things that I don't understand and with a pleading will that I go back to the charming prick that I was at breakfast." he gave her one final nudge.

The pain wasn't as overwhelming as before and she gradually gained control over her tears, the throbbing inside of her faded slowly into something entirely new and unexpected and Caroline looked up at him with nothing but anger. "You are a son of a bitch, you know that?" she accused him with a fire that she consciously assumed extinguished in her.

His lips curved into a magnificent grin. "You are probably right because my mother was quite the strumpet."

Caroline dried her tears and the last sniffle came with a feel that she hated him for pushing her like this.

Clearly aware of it Klaus explained himself. "My biggest forte as an assassin is the way I can foreseen what's in the mind of my prey, I'm not a hero Caroline but I know that you are not looking for one. At the best of odds I'm the devil willing to provide some help with my unique abilities but you need to lower your guard." With that he walked away and he only felt her presence again when he was near the room he wanted to show her earlier.

Silently Caroline walked inside of a big chamber that was only lit by thousand of candles, in the middle of the vast room there was a small stand with a heavy sword on top of an iron formation and behind it, forming a line at the back of the room there were thousands of knifes and blades of every sorts, shapes and sizes.

As her eyes drifted further she noticed that behind those weapons there was also a glass casing that was complete with guns and blue bullets, if she ever doubted that the civilized family who gathered together for normal dinner moments was a highly trained group of killers, it surely felt dense to doubt it now.

"There's a tangible intensity inside of this room that I can't explain, I never felt anything like it before." she searched for Klaus.

He was standing right next to the main appeal in the room, the ancient sword that he kept from his human days. "The Vikings believed that when we take a life with a blade the soul of our kill stays in that blade, so in order to give it peace I must clean the blade with a precise ritual."

Straight away she looked at a few daggers that still had blood in them.

"Obviously I judged that a few didn't deserve such a benevolent fate." Again he held nothing back from her.

"Have you ever spared anyone that you were decided to kill from the start?"

"When the slayers realized that we were winning the war, they became creative and found other ways to infiltrate the house." Klaus walked over to a particular sword that he removed from the wall. "They enlisted the help of a vampire who frequented my house regularly, I caught him just as he was trying to kill Rebekah but during our fight she stepped in and begged me to save his life because she was in love with him."

"If you didn't kill him… whose blood is that?"

"I didn't kill Marcel that day but I wounded him, the sword is reserved for the great kill whenever I go face to face with him again."

Caroline's chin fell a little. "Marcellus Gerard?" she knew him to be the leader of the rebels, the one who relentlessly fought the Brotherhood and tried to kill them all.

"Marcel escaped that day and became our biggest nemesis, he has been turning humans and he trains them himself, their battle strategies are improving with time so it all just makes things entertaining for me." he returned the sword to its rightful place. "I haven't spared anyone since day."

"Klaus…" Caroline chewed the inside of her lower lip not sure how to tell him what she had to, however her chance would be delayed because Finn rushed inside of the room looking for Klaus.

"We found a nest." he informed his brother.

Without a second to waste Klaus left taking the big sword with him and Caroline could only stay behind thinking of a good way to tell him what she knew.


The hours went by slowly and Caroline didn't have much to keep busy, it was strange not having a list of things to do every day and breaking that routine so abruptly so she divided her time between a walk in the garden, a little reorganization of his office and a careful inspection of every painting in the house.

When she was done with her art appreciation Caroline sat down right in the middle of the staircase, she rested her elbows on top of her knees and her chin in her hands and glanced at the door.

It would take another hour for the door to move and before she made anything out of it a big red blur rushed down the staircase.

Finn welcomed a worried Sage with a kiss.

"Are you all right?" she sprinted her hand across his face.

"You know that Nik does all the killing." he joked resting his forehead against hers. "I'm only there to drive."

Sage laughed softly and relieved that he was ok, she knew that they were excellent fighters but a lover's heart is always a restless one.

Caroline watched it all from the staircase exactly as she was before and it surprised her that there wasn't a big sigh coming from her as she witnessed the romantic meeting, nevertheless what even surprised her more was that the couple left before Klaus arrived.

In fact, where was his welcoming party?

Caroline straightened herself, no one was waiting for him, not even Elijah, who she hadn't seen all day but still…

The movement by the door alerted her to Klaus entering the house and she was affected by what her eyes saw, his face was all smeared with dry blood and his shirt was full of stains and small cuts, the sword was still dripping with blood that he trailed the floor with and he stopped by the staircase bemused to see someone upon his arrival.

"Are you hurt?" Caroline awkwardly asked the first thing that came to mind.

"No…" Klaus made a circle with the sword on the floor like he was uneasy with the situation.

"That's good." The awkwardness was here to stay and Caroline clasped her lips uneasily.

"Yes…" he dropped his eyebrows and licked is lips, obviously he didn't get the question asked frequently.

Caroline stood as soon as he started walking and she shot after him curious to see what he was going to do next, he went straight to the Temple and once there she stayed behind while he knelt in front of the iron piece located in the middle of the room.

"You can come closer if you want to." Klaus informed her.

Respectfully she knelt next to him without talking, her big blue eyes were sponges taking everything from the way that he used the oil storaged inside of a small bottle to clean the sword to the way that he seemed to be saying an inner prayer as he did so.

It was so out of the ordinary to ever picture Klaus Mikaelson actually paying respect to his kills but then again it really wasn't, if she thought about it meticulously, he was born in a different time when rituals and beliefs were important and he had this deep connection to his family which meant that he was detached only from the things that didn't cause any interest in him and he reported his kills with a wise ancient feel to it, like old Samurais did, there was almost honor in it and Caroline found that unique, however she was actively explaining the behavior of a murderer.

With skill Klaus turned the sword around and used the cloth to clean the rest of the blood, when he was done he took the sword with both hands and left it on the small stand with a tiny nod of his head, through it all Caroline wasn't making a single sound to disrupt the ritual.

Aware of her kindness Klaus turned his head to look at her. "They gave a good fight." he told her.

"Klaus... I need to tell you something." she paved her way.

"How were you turned?" he asked her again.

Caroline breathed out the smallest sigh. "You are very persistent…"

His smile appeared which was bizarre to watch taking into consideration that his scruff was all red-ish from the dried blood.

"Damon broke into my house the day after I left him and after he forced me to drink his blood, he snapped my neck." she was able to tell him without all that pain hovering over her like before. "After that I was irrevocably sired to him and my real inferno started."

"I wish I hadn't taken his heart out, I should have used a sword which would allow me to keep his soul forever." he said in a low truly sorrowful voice.

"I wouldn't want to be in here if Damon's soul was around to haunt me." she had enough grim memories of him as it was.

"I wouldn't want to trade Damon's soul for that."

"For what Klaus?" she was resilient as well.

"Your company, sweetheart." he simply said.

Caroline wanted to call him out on a lie but wanting his company was also a sin she could see herself committing, she liked talking to him and that he listened without a monumental dirty purpose behind it.

As she landed her eyes on the sword, she was offered a better look at it and what a sight it was, none of the amazing art distributed around the house resembled the intricate lines that formed the art on the hilt and like a little kid asking for permission she slowly guided her stare towards him, when he nodded with a smile she touched the lines lightly.

"What does it mean?" she knew the significance was important.

"It's the symbol of my father's clan." he rested his hand over hers so that he could guide her fingers.

They slid down a single line and then as he made her outline a small circle she realized there was a drawing that stood out among all the other lines combined together. "A wolf?" she asked unsure.

"My father was an Alpha." he said wrapping his free hand around the blade and turning the sword around.

On the other side Caroline distinctively could tell that there was the letter M carved into the steel of the hilt.

"My other father was Mikael, the one I hated and who execrated me back."

Caroline outlined every single line in the hilt, then she moved her fingertips down the sword and touched the cold steel like she was absorbing history and a bit of every kill that he ever made, just as she was gliding her finger down she cut herself on the blade and hid her bleeding finger in her mouth. "It's sharp." she complained with her finger pressed against her lips.

"Do you know how to handle a sword?" he asked her amused.

Caroline shook her head.

"Would you like to learn?"

She slowly nodded positively.

"Tomorrow then, today I'm weary and in need of a long relaxing bath." he stood up ready to leave for his bedroom.

"Klaus, before you go I really need to tell you something."

He waited by the door for her earnest words.

"Damon had a side-business that no one knew about and he was selling guns to the rebels." Caroline stood up to be on the same level than Klaus. "And he met with Marcel more than once so I know for a fact that he was financing the slayers."

Klaus nodded without much of a reaction. "I'm going to have a very long bath…" he easily smiled at her. "Save me a seat at dinner."

Caroline was confused. "Don't you have anything to say about what I just told you?"

"It doesn't change anything between us, love."

She frowned severely at him. "I could have important information that could help you in this war."

"That's not why you are here, Caroline." he said already from the hallway.

She crossed her arms with a huff, he was seriously playing with her emotions.

Caroline froze, emotions...

When was the last time she had those, when was the last time she cried with jarring pain or that she burst out in anger?

She looked around the room harbouring so many souls, maybe hers wasn't lost after all.


With a single shake, all of her curls bounced back into place and as he stepped closer to her on the balcony he couldn't help the nippy remark.

"For someone who keeps all of her mirrors hidden, you surely look perfect." he complimented her on the chosen dress, yet simple the elegant light-grey number left no flaws at display.

"There's been enough introspection for one day already." she asked him for a break.

"Agreed." he handed her a glass of the same thing that he was drinking.

Caroline sipped on the blood relishing too much on the fine taste of it.

"Today was a good day." he decided to call it a wrap.

"I haven't smiled." she impassively placed a damper on his optimistic label.

He lifted his eyes from above the rim of his glass. "I meant overall." he grumbled.

She motioned her head in a nod. "And here I was… thinking that you were the type who never gives up."

Klaus squinted at her but she was on her way down the staircase already, he desperately tried to catch a glimpse of her face in any reflection but the frames didn't give away any signs of it, until realization hit him like a fist across the face. "Was that a joke?" he asked walking after her fast. "Caroline?" he called without a response.

Damn it, he could almost swear that she was having a rebellious giggle inside of her.


Soundtrack:

Glory Box – John Martyn