Chapter 3 XD Feedback is always appreciated and thanks so much to those of you who have left reviews! X


They met in the center of what Caroline now realised was some sort of basement, and an incredibly large one at that. There were no windows and the resulting stagnant aroma gave it a dungeonesque feel. The addition of the echo of the vampires unsoftened footsteps was bringing on a claustrophobic feeling despite its sheer size, the house above it must be quite the sight. Briefly she wondered if she'd live to see the sun again, let alone the house. Her palms were sweaty with apprehension and she swiped them on her jeans, which she had insisted he return to her along with her weapons, much to his amusement. She wasn't about to fight him in her underwear.

"Come on then luv, let's do this, because I'm a gentleman I'll even let you take the first shot" , he had that arrogant smile plastered across his face again and his eyes glittered eagerly.

She began to circle slowly, the vampire mirroring her movements, before taking a deep breath and darting forward, stakes clutched in both hands. She feinted a right swing and when he raised his hand to block, swung low with her left hand, leaving a slash across his midsection but receiving a devastating blow to hers in return which sent her sprawling backwards and sent the one of the stakes flying out of her hand. She sprung to her feet but before she could move he was on her again, raining down blows with brutal force. In mindless defense she stabbed and kicked at whatever was nearest to her but any hits she managed to land didn't seem to slow him. Her breathing became ragged as she blocked blow after blow and she could feel sweat begin to form on her brow. This continued for what felt like an eternity until the room spun as she was thrown backwards once more. She struggled to sit up but failed and slumped backwards once more. Clearly this up close and personal she was outmatched.

"Had enough?", She could make out his smirk through her blurry vision but it took her a moment to get her breath back to answer him.

"Not yet." Her hand whipped out as she spoke and she flung her last stake with incredible speed. She let out a sigh of relief as she watched it sink into his chest and... nothing. He didn't fall. He didn't desiccate. He scarcely blinked just reached up and yanked the stake out of his chest.

"No..," she breathed "no, how is that possible.."

He turned to her and raised an eyebrow, "Had enough now?" he enquired, letting the stake fall to the floor with a clatter. "I'm afraid your toys won't prove effective against me luv, it'll take more than that to take down an Original."

"We had a deal." She glared at him accusingly while continuing to pant heavily.

"Indeed we had luv, winner takes it all, remember?", he spread his arms and tilted his head slightly.

"You cheated." she hissed, blinking as her vision worsened, she wouldn't have to worry about that now, she was dying from her injuries.

"You asked to be unchained and have your weapons returned to you, I can't be held accountable for your poor choice in weapons now can I?"

As her answer, she passed out.


She was lying on something, something thick and irresistibly soft, like a billowing cloud. She burrowed further inside it and gave a sigh of contentment before freezing abruptly as the previous nights events came flooding back to her. Her eyes snapped open and she saw to her horror that she was in a bed with the vampire. She hastily extracted herself from the blankets and backed as far away from it as she could manage. She expected to feel agonizing pain, given the injuries that had occurred but she felt.. fine.

"Why am I not in a hospital, why am I not dead?!"

"I healed you" he replied blandly, raising himself from where he was sprawled and stretching before leaning back on his elbows to eye her impatiently.

She paused, thrown by the humanness of the gesture, she didn't know what she had expected from a vampires resting place, but the feather soft bed was not it, nor the way he sprawled across it, for some reason she pictured vampires sleeping rigid and corpselike.

"How?"

"Gave you a few drops of my blood, you didn't need much, you heal fast naturally I imagine but you were looking worse for wear. Your own fault of course, for having suggested that bloody ridiculous match in the first place."

"Vampire blood heals?"

He shut his eyes and flopped back onto the bed as he answered her, "We can discuss this later when I prepare you for our arrangement, until then I'm getting some rest, I suggest you do the same."

She curled her lip and eyed the opposite side of the bed with disgust, "I'm not sleeping with you."

He snorted and there was a brief fumbling on the bed before a blanket hit her in the face.

"Fine by me, sleep on the floor then, you hog the blankets anyway, oh and by the way you won't be able to open that door so don't bother trying, do attempt to keep disturbances to a minimum."

She glowered at him but left with no other alternative she sat on the floor, drew the blanket around her and propped herself against the wall, wrapping her arms around her knees. The blanket didn't provide any padding and it wasn't particularly comfortable but it was better than sleeping next to the vampire. Besides it was unlikely that she'd sleep now, she couldn't relax knowing where she was and gazed around the room instead. There were two doors in the room, the sturdy one the vampire had indicated as the exit there would be no point attempting to use and another which she presumed lead to a bathroom of some sort, though what use it would be to a man without functioning kidneys she wasn't sure.

The room was decorated in hues of grey and white and was sparsely furnished but what furnishings there were looked decadent. The bed dominated the center of the room, its pale grey sheets matching the curtain drawn across the wall nearest to her and two dark wooden lockers stood on either side of it. The lockers matched the dark wood of the floor visible towards the outskirts of the room, the large rectangular white rug stretching from the floor on one side of the bed to the other obscuring the rest of it from view. It looked a hell of a lot softer than floor she was seated on but moving to it would bring her closer to the vampire so she stayed where she was. The lamps on the lockers seemed to be the only source of light in the room.

Her eyes landed on the second door once more, she glanced at the vampire and when he didn't move she pushed herself slowly to her feet and threaded softly towards it, trying to make as little noise as possible. She cracked it open and slipped inside, flicking the nearest switch in the process. The spotlights on the ceiling flickered to life revealing a bathroom, as she had expected. It was almost as big as the bedroom, decorated with tiles of white and dark grey. There was a marble sink with a large mirror covering the wall above it to her right, a walk in shower and a toilet to her left and running along the back wall was jacuzzi tub with a a dark grey rim but it was the small window above it that caught her eye. She had just hauled herself onto the sill and peered outside when the vampires voice sounded behind her.

"If your thinking of climbing to freedom, bad idea luv, we're pretty high up, you wouldn't survive the fall."

He leaned in the doorway, a sheet wrapped around his waist and arms folded across his muscled chest, under the spotlights his skin positively glowed.

"Stop calling me that, my actual name is Caroline." She lowered herself back to the floor again, admonishing herself inwardly for staring. "What is yours by the way? You never did tell me and if were going to be..working together I should at least know what to call you."

"Klaus." There was that sly smirk on his lips again.

Caroline cleared her throat and continued "Right, well first things first, if I'm going to be helping you hunt vampires I'm clearly going to have to have someone fill in the gaps in my knowledge, like that stake has taken out several other vampires, yet it didn't work on you, why not?"

"First things first luv, I'm not exactly a vampire, I'm a hybrid and before I became that I wasn't just a regular vampire either, I'm an original and its like I said last night it'll take more than that to take down one of us."

She stared, stunned, "..A hybrid?"

He nodded, "I'm part vampire but I'm also part wolf, one of a kind."

She stood there in silence for a few moments absorbing it, part wolf, that meant there was more to the supernatural world than she had known, what else did she not know about? It also meant that he was more like her than she cared to admit, one of a kind.

"Why are you trusting me with this, what makes you think I won't use it against you?" She folded her arms across her chest, mirroring him and considered him curiously.

At that he straightened and leaned forward, "Its like this luv, if I suspect your planning on betraying me I'll kill you and if that doesn't scare you we've already established I followed you home the other night so if you've got anyone there that you care about I strongly suggest that if you come at me, you don't miss. Besides you help me get what I want and I'll help you get what you want."

Caroline snorted, doubtful, "And what could you possibly know about what I want?"

"Let's just say you're not the only one with a deadbeat father, and going by the hatred you deflect towards our kind I imagine the prospect of finding him and driving a stake through his chest would serve as a good incentive and given all vampires derive from the sire lines of my family I can enable you to do that."

She hesitated, "And why would you help me do that? And furthermore why do you even want to kill vampires?"

"Motivation. I reckon you hate him more than you hate me and as for the second question it's not something you need to bother yourself about for the moment," he arched an eyebrow at her, "So, deal?"

"Deal." It was an opportunity too good to pass up, and one she'd learn to stomach even him for.

"Excellent," his smirk was back in place "Now, a few weeks of hard training will be needed before we actually go after anything, you have a good aim but your hand to hand combat leaves much to be desired, as we discovered last night-"

"If you hadn't cheated you'd be six feet under by now", she interrupted, glaring.

Klaus rolled his eyes before reentering the bedroom and inserting a key into the lock and twisting, the door swung open, "Come on then, there's no time like the present to get started" he threw over his shoulder.

She bit back a snarky response and followed him deeper into the house.