AN: Another week, another update. I hope you enjoy:

Three

Caroline muttered a curse and pressed her fingers to her throat. The wound was all but healed, but with their enhanced senses, she had probably left a trail as obvious as a beacon for the Changelings to follow. She stared at the river in front of her. The current moved it quickly, and the rocks in it looked rather vicious.

She had maneuvered across worse, though.

She carefully stepped into the water, the icy cold water soaking through the leather of her boots. It sent a shiver racing up her spine that made Caroline tense. Once, she wouldn't have noticed the temperature. An Arrow wasn't just taught to ignore emotion, after all, but anything that could put their mission at risk.

Bonnie's absence had thrown Caroline's entire life out of order, so she gritted her teeth and began to push her way through the current. She could return to her utter Silence, at least until Bonnie was found.

And if Bonnie wasn't found?

Caroline pushed the thought away, pausing long enough to take a deep breath. When she opened her eyes once more, her mental blocks were in place again, the water no more than a distant coolness easily ignored. She took a moment to wet her hands and scrub them on the neck of her skin, washing away the blood left from her trick. She felt filthy, with sweat and grime from her experience, and the vague wish that she could have had a shower before she left the RiverForest den made her shake her head and then refocus her attention. She breathed deep and steady as she made her way through the river, using her telekinesis almost subconsciously to ensure she didn't lose her balance to the current.

This was what she had been missing since Bonnie went missing… even since before that, if Caroline were being honest. The sudden break of Silence had thrown her off balance, left her floundering… and she couldn't be off balance, not until she found Bonnie.

Klaus' wild gaze flashed in her mind, filled with hunger and possession, and Caroline was nearly lost to the current, the thought so unexpected. She caught herself, pausing once more and clenching her jaw. He thought she was his mate.

Caroline knew what that meant – she had been around DarkRiver and SnowDancer enough in recent months that she knew how Changeling males in the mating dance were. Klaus wasn't liable to let Caroline go easily.

I'm not Changeling, she thought fiercely, going so far as to mutter the words under her breath… as though that would have any influence on the situation.

She heard a howl in the distance, and she forced her mind to calm, pushed emotion out and built up the cracks in her guards, until the dissonance that was a near constant ache in her temples abated, her emotions blocked once more. Then she finished the trek across the river. It would hide her scent from the wolves, and with her feet on dry land once more, Caroline began to run, her Tk helping her to move at a speed that most Psy would never be able to achieve.

Caroline slowed her pace when she had put enough distance between herself and Den territory. By her calculations, this would put her in the outer ring of RiverForest territory. The wolves would eventually search for out here, of course. But with their habit of killing Psy first, Caroline suspected it would take them some time before they realized how far she had travelled.

Unless, of course, the SnowDancer Psy let them know. Caroline bit her lip and furrowed her brow. Of the Walker family, Judd and Sienna were by far the ones that knew Caroline best. Between those two, Judd's powers were the most like hers, and the one that would know exactly how quickly Caroline could move. Would he tell Klaus?

No. Judd's loyalty was to SnowDancer now, yes… but Caroline held some of that loyalty as well. She knew that both Judd and Walker felt guilty for the children that were left to Arrow training after their escape. It was a foolish sentiment, of course – Caroline had been sixteen when they had left the 'Net. By Arrow standards, she had already been Silent for 6 years. But still Judd felt guilt, and Caroline's understanding of the feeling told her that would mean he would withhold as much as he could for her sake. That bought her time.

She looked out across the forest. Weak sunlight filtered through the trees around her, telling her it was daytime. Being caught by the Changelings had lost her over a day.

She didn't know if Bonnie had a day to waste.

SALVATION

Bonnie woke when the door opened. Not that she had been truly asleep – she had been dozing in bursts and fits, but fear of awaited her had woken her with regularity.

As with the man from earlier – had it been a day already? – she couldn't see the new man's face. But he was built smaller than his compatriot had been; lanky rather than solid bulk.

"On your feet," he ordered, his voice accented as the other's had been. It made Bonnie wonder where she was. The man from yesterday had been a Psy; if he had someone that was transport enabled, she could be anywhere.

The thought made her stomach fall.

When Bonnie apparently didn't move quickly enough, the new man moved forward to grab her, his grip hard on her arm. But as soon as skin contacted skin, Bonnie felt as though she had been shocked. The man apparently felt it as well, because he recoiled from her. After a brief pause, he reached down once more, but this time his grip was far more gentle.

"Who are you?" Bonnie asked him, keeping her voice low and soft. She might not be connected to the Psy Net, but she didn't need that connection in order to feel the pain of this young man; it all but radiated from him, and the gentle heart that made of the core of Bonnie Bennett demanded that she help him.

"My father wishes to begin your training," was his stony reply as he tugged her out of the dark cell. When she entered the hall, she had to blink a few times, the sudden brightness hurting her eyes. When she could focus, stark white walls were all that surrounded them. The man that was tugging her along had short dark brown hair and eyes that should have been blank – Psy caught in Silence were always blank – but that instead showed such pain that it almost took Bonnie's breath away.

This man was being torn apart inside.

This man was not a Psy.

There was no way he was a Psy, not when those eyes spoke of actual physical pain. Silence was not the natural state meant for anyone… but only an E like Bonnie would experience true pain from it, unless he was breaking Silence, his conditioning falling apart.

Bonnie didn't think so.

"What are you?" she asked this time, but the man remained resolutely silent until they reached another door. For a moment, he actually hesitated, his hand hovering over the handle.

In the end, he didn't open it at all. Bonnie knew the man that pulled it open was the same one that told her that her reconditioning would begin today. Now she could see that he was blonde, with a neatly trimmed mustache and blue eyes. There was something cruel in those eyes; Bonnie had seen Psy like this before, and all of them had been beyond her reach.

The very darkest of Arrows, the ones that would never be able to breach Silence, not if they wished to remain sane.

"What were you waiting for, Boy?" he growled.

"I apologize, father," Bonnie's companion replied, and he seemed to hunch in on himself. His father eyed him with distaste, before turning to look at Bonnie.

"Kol will be your watchdog until your reconditioning is complete and we can trust you" – he smirked at the word dog, and the other man, Kol, seemed to hunch up even further – "be careful. He has claws."

It took Bonnie a moment to realize that the words, while meant to be cruel, were also the simple truth. She nearly strained her neck, her gaze snapping around to Kol with horror.

This man, this dog, as the other man had called him… he was…

A changeling, Bonnie realized, bile rising her throat, and the stark pain in his eyes made so much sense. Bonnie knew what Changelings were like, how they valued pack and touch. She reveled in Changelings, because they gave her so easily what the heart of an E needed.

What had been done to Kol went against everything a Changeling held dear.

He had been Silenced.

SALVATION

Enzo managed to find Klaus' mate by sheer accident.

He doubted he would have found her – she had done a spectacular job of hiding her scent – except that somehow she had gotten tangled on a bush that had sliced her deep enough to draw blood. Breathing in the scent deeply, he frowned.

As a general rule, the majority of Psy were still in icy control of themselves, and the blonde Arrow – Caroline, the SnowDancer pack had called her Caroline – had been in control to an extent that Enzo had rarely seen before. If it hadn't been for the notably absent bite of metal in her scent, he would have assumed she was so deeply immersed in Silence that breaking it would be an impossibility.

But she had lacked that scent, and somehow Klaus' wolf had recognized the girl as his mate. That meant it was Enzo's duty as a Lieutenant to find her and bring her home safely. He breathed in again and let out a low growl, because the girl that had been able to slice her own throat open so calculatingly wouldn't have made a mistake like this.

Not unless something was wrong.

His nose wasn't as sharp in human form as it was as a wolf, but he had chosen not to change, not wanting to frighten his Alpha's mate should he find her. Still, he could smell good enough to follow the scent of blood until it dried up, but even then he still had the scent of her.

Citrus. She smelled like citrus – surprisingly fresh and light for a woman whose soul was painted red with the blood of her victims. Klaus might not have thought that far yet, but Enzo had. The Arrows were a threat, and he specialized at gathering intel about threats… and if you were an Arrow, you were dangerous, and you killed.

But then again, so did a Lieutenant. He let out a howl, signaling that he had found the scent trail, and then began to move.

He continued to follow the trail, coming up short when he had run Caroline to ground. She had chosen to face him, rather than try to hide, and her gaze was cold as she held the scalpel she had stolen from Sage to her wrist.

"Playing the same trick again, Caroline?" Enzo asked, keeping a careful distance from her.

"You know my name," she commented, and Enzo thought that there was a bite to her voice that might have been surprise in another person. Despite that, she didn't ask the question that any human or Changeling would have.

But Enzo still answered it.

"We spoke to Sienna Lauren," he said, keeping his voice neutral. "She told us that she gave you the visual you needed to transport to our territory."

A shadow passed through Caroline's eye at his words – guilt, perhaps – and Enzo thought her grip on the scalpel might have wavered for a brief moment.

An eternity, really, for someone as cold as this girl.

"You can't blame her," Caroline said after a moment. Enzo nearly snorted, because did this Psy really think she could order any of them, much less a pack Lieutenant, around like that? Except then she continued to speak. "Sienna is… she is a… a friend. And she feels like she owes me. She doesn't, but her Silence has been broken, so she doesn't see things practically anymore. I knew that, and I used it anyway. I try not to, because she's a… friend, but Judd is a Lieutenant, and while he may feel guilt, he wouldn't have given me what I wanted. He's better able to compartmentalize than Sienna is, you see."

She was… but it wasn't possible. Enzo blinked, even as Caroline continued to explain why they couldn't blame Sienna for helping her. She mentioned being friends – always in that tone, as though she weren't quite sure what the word meant – at least twice more, and of course the name Bonnie was spoken three times.

And she was rambling. For a moment, Enzo felt pure shock, but then he began to relax, and that relaxation gave way to chuckles.

Caroline stopped speaking and stared at him, and though there was still a remoteness to her expression, this time Enzo was far more easily able to pinpoint the emotion that was her confusion.

"You were rambling, Gorgeous," he informed her, taking a step towards her. She continued to stare, but her grip on the scalpel had loosened, and her arm seemed to hang almost limply in the air.

"I… I sometimes do that. Bonnie always knows how to stop me." Caroline's voice sounded lost and confused, and for the first time Enzo looked past the title of Arrow, looked past the veneer of Silence, and actually looked to the woman beneath it all.

She was young. It was a jolt of realization. She was the same age as Hawke's mate, Enzo knew. Which meant she wasn't even twenty yet. Yet she had been one of the Psy's bogeymen.

And now she was trying to navigate a strange new world without her anchor to help her, and so for the first time, Enzo didn't look at her as a dangerous threat.

In that moment, she was a scared girl. One who rambled when she was nervous, even if she didn't realize that nervous was what she felt.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said to her softly, holding out a hand beseechingly. "I swear, none of us mean you harm."

For a moment, Enzo thought she was going to hand the scalpel over; maybe even let him offer her the comfort it was desperately clear that she needed. Then she closed her eyes, and Enzo froze.

He should have taken that moment to act, but instead he waited, and when her eyes opened again, the storm of emotion that had been there before was gone, hidden behind that eerie wall of Silence that always made Enzo's wolf growl and claw at his skin.

"You won't hurt me, but you won't help me either," she said, her voice arctic cold. "You'll take me back to your alpha, and he'll never let me go."

"You're his mate, Gorgeous. You can't expect him to let you go."

"That's the second time you've called me that. You don't…" her jaw clenched, and she appeared to be struggling to find the right words. "You don't have those privileges."

Enzo said nothing, just kept his gaze carefully focused on Caroline. He needed her to remain focused on him in return, because he could scent Klaus nearly on them.

"Why is Bonnie so important to you?" he finally asked, to keep her focus away from their surroundings.

"She is my E," Caroline replied simply, her brow furrowing at the question. He saw realization hit her, as she realized what he was doing, a split second before the arms of Enzo's Alpha banded around her, pulling her back into his arms.

Enzo felt himself tense with Caroline, and he hoped that Klaus wasn't about to screw this up spectacularly.

SALVATION

Her back was to him, and Klaus took a moment to breathe in deeply, the fresh scent of his mate invading his senses. The wolf that had been clawing to get out relaxed minutely, but it was still tense, would remain so until their mate was in their arms, their nose pressed to her hair.

"Why is Bonnie so important to you?" Enzo asked, and Klaus bit back a growl of approval, at the way his Lieutenant kept Caroline's attention from her surroundings. Though Klaus knew he could rely on all of his Lieutenants, the bond between he and Enzo was forged in blood and brotherhood, not caused just by Enzo's mate being Klaus' sister.

"She is my E," Caroline replied, her voice clipped and precise. Klaus had a vague idea of what it meant to be an E-Psy thanks to his connection with SnowDancer, but he made a mental note to ask Hawke more detailed questions about it next time they spoke. If she was going to be this desperate to find this Bonnie, then Klaus wanted to know exactly why.

But that was for later, when he had Caroline back in the den, back in safety. His heel crushed a twig just a step behind her, and Caroline's spine stiffened. She began to turn around, but Klaus' arms came around her in a tight band, trapping her arms against her side. He squeezed her wrist just hard enough to force her to drop the scalpel, but not so hard as to cause lasting damage.

"You're surprisingly difficult to find," he murmured against her ear, before nuzzling his nose into her hair and breathing in her scent deeply, both man and wolf calmed by the contact. But when she didn't relax into the hold, the wolf whined in distress, and Klaus felt his expression turn into a scowl. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"What you are doing requires skin privileges," she said the words as though they were foreign. "You do not have them."

"I am your mate," Klaus growled, his temper getting the better of him as he twirled her in his hold, his grip firm but careful on her biceps as he glared down at her.

"Not until I say so," Caroline replied, her expression carefully blank, and a snarl escaped Klaus' lips at the lack of expression. "And I won't."

She swept her leg out, catching a surprised Klaus by the ankle. Enzo let out an oath behind her, but Klaus just switched his grip into a hug, and when he went down, she was pulled with him. He made sure that she landed on top of him, but her weight knocking the breath out of him wasn't enough to slow down his next move.

He whirled them around, so that his mate was on her back, and straddled her waist, pinning her arms down. He met her gaze, and her blue green eyes flashed dangerously.

"Klaus-" Enzo began, but Klaus let out a vicious snarl to silence him, never taking his gaze from Caroline's.

"I could kill you," she said, her voice dangerously soft. For a moment, he was reminded harshly of Judd Lauren, but where Klaus' wolf always prowled with angry discontent around that particular Psy, it let out a pleased growl in response to Caroline's threat. This was not a woman who would be easily taken out. She was strong, and Klaus needed a strong mate.

"Do it, then," he replied, his voice coming out almost as a purr. He pressed his body into hers, running his nose along her jaw. She let out a shudder, and when Klaus pulled back, her eyes had drifted closed, and goosebumps ran along her arms. He smirked for a moment, but when she shivered again, the smirk faded. "You're freezing."

"I swam through the river," she responded, and Klaus muttered darkly at the thought of his mate swimming through the icy cold of the river.

Klaus growled and pulled himself off of her. He got to his feet and held out his hand. Caroline considered it for a moment, before her eyes darted around their surroundings. She was searching for another escape route, and it made Klaus' wolf restless.

"No matter where you run, Love, you won't escape me. Not only do I know this land better, but I can feel you." His words made Caroline freeze, and though she tried to keep her expression flat, he saw uncertainty in her eyes. He bent down and took her hand in his, carefully tugging her up. He took his jacket off and wrapped it around her shoulders, making her blink up at him with surprise. "You feel it, don't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," was Caroline's response, and Klaus felt a moment of surprise, that then turned into laughter.

Because his little mate, this powerful little creature that had apparently killed without hesitation, was an unbelievably horrible liar.

"I can't feel anything," she said after a moment, when her lie and his laughter filled the space between them. "Because I need to find Bonnie. Feelings will interfere in that."

"And if I swore that my pack would assist you in… finding this Bonnie?"

Caroline stared at him for a long moment, her expression enigmatic. He had made the offer in the Den without meaning it, but that had been before Caroline had slashed her own throat to find this Bonnie. Klaus was many things, but an idiot was not among them. Clearly, Bonnie was required for his mate's happiness; thus, Klaus would make sure his mate had Bonnie.

"How do I know you would truly help?"

Klaus felt his expression tighten, at words that showed how little Caroline trusted him. He knew that trust required time, of course, but wolf and men were impatient and wanted the trust – wanted the bond – now. Enzo spoke, nearly breaking the thin control Klaus was just barely maintaining over his wolf.

"We'll let you help," his Lieutenant said. "I'll take you across every inch of the territory myself if I must."

Klaus thought he might tear Enzo's throat out for that, but the expression on the Lieutenant's face reminded Klaus that Enzo had spoken to Caroline far longer than Klaus himself, and likely had some insight to her psyche that made him decide this was the only way to get her back to the den.

Still, it sat ill with Klaus that the other man was interfering.

However, any attack Klaus might have decided on was brought up short by the scent of Katherine, and then her appearance moments later.

"You found her," the dark haired woman observed coming up short. "Good. We have interlopers on our land. I caught their scent five miles north of her" – her gaze arrowed in on Caroline, and Klaus gave a low growl when his Lieutenant began to stalk toward her. Katherine came up short with a hard expression – "How did you know that your friend was in our territory?"

It was a question that Klaus should have asked himself, but he had been too blinded by the dance that had begun as soon as he had looked at Caroline. Now, he went tense, waiting for her response.

Caroline began to respond, but before the first syllable could be heard, her eyes widened, and she fell to a knee, clutching at her chest.

"Caroline?" Klaus demanded, dropping to her side, wrapping his arms around her. Rather than move away, she curled her body into his, seeking out the comfort of his touch, and the reaction made worry catch in Klaus' throat.

"Bonnie," she managed to get out hoarsely after a moment. "They're hurting her."

AN: So, there you go. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, followed – you're all wonderful, and the feedback has been great! Let me know what you think, and if you have a Tumblr, you should come and follow me at lynyrdwrites. I have sneak peek Fridays over there, where I post a couple hundred words of the next chapter… plus, one shots.