Chapter 10

A/N Here we go with another chapter. This one has definite sexual references. Elijah is not yet free of seeing horns and wings.

They sat at the dining room table for a minute in silence. Then a slight frown came to Hayley's face and she looked at Elijah. "Here I sit in all this comfort, while my family is out there in the swamp," she said with a sigh. "It doesn't seem right."

"They seem to be alright. As long as neither Klaus nor Marcel send any vampires out there. You call them your family, but you also had parents. Were they part of that pack?"

"No. They didn't seem to be, but then, they didn't associate with a pack. The couple who raised me had adopted me. They knew what I was, and they carried the trait themselves, but they had never transformed. They died a few months after they told me what I was and helped me, but they never got around to telling me about the pack or about my real parents. The pack here is the closest to family I have. It contains members of the Crescent Wolf line, which I belong to biologically."

"Having family is important, even if they are not wonderful people. I try to love my siblings, try as they might to make themselves unlovable," Elijah admitted.

"I heard that," Klaus said, coming back into the room. "I don't know why you even try sometimes."

"As I said, family is important. It is to me and I know it is to you, Niklaus."

"How do you figure that? I mean, since I seem to dagger family members regularly."

"Dagger and then keep. You have kept all members, except Father, safe down through the centuries. Why? Because they are family and you care."

"In some obscure way, I do care, I admit. But I have failed Finn and Kol. We have lost them after all my efforts."

"It was not your failure. It was theirs. Mother's also. It saddens me that she felt as she did about us. Her determination to destroy us led to her demise," Elijah admitted.

"Now, on the other hand, we can rejoice in the fact that Mikael is also gone," Klaus said with an evil smile. "Let us face it, brother, our family was and is seriously flawed. Totally dysfunctional."

"Damn!" Elijah muttered, looking at Klaus.

"What?"

"You have horns again."

"I may have to lock you up."

"Perhaps."

"We'll see. What kind of horns do I have this time?"

"Antlers, actually. Elk, I believe. Try not to hit the chandelier."

"Do I have wings again?" Hayley asked, hoping that she didn't again appear dangerous to him.

The older brother hesitated a moment before looking at the woman. He feared his reaction. He felt relief when he glanced at her and saw the beautiful wings again. "Lovely wings." He gave her a smile. "Angel wings."

To Klaus he asked, "Is it possible some witch's spell is making me see these things rather than the poison being the cause? Back in Mystic Falls, Silas and a witch made you hallucinate."

"It's possible, I suppose," Klaus agreed. "Perhaps Davina could tell."

"A spell was my first guess when this started," Elijah thought aloud. "Then we switched to believing it was poison. Now, it seems possible that my first guess was correct also."

"Likely, it is both. A coincidence, perhaps."

"The witches are not supposed to practice their art in the Quarter," Hayley pointed out.

"But it has been done," Klaus said, nodding. "If we are finished with our meal, I would like you to retire to your room, Elijah. Hayley, either go to your room or downstairs with someone you choose. Until my brother is free of dangerous hallucinations, I would rather you not be alone with him. I'm going to talk to our personal little witch."

"Where is Davina, anyway?" Hayley asked. "I thought she was supposed to stay around here."

"She has gone out and about despite my orders that she remain here. She is not a very obedient girl," Klaus said.

"Be careful, Niklaus, she may be young, but she is a very powerful witch, as we well know," Elijah warned. At one point Davina had become really angry with the vampire brothers and she had made them collapse in pain on the ground. Elijah had vomited gouts of blood, a disgusting situation for him. Davina was to be handled with care.

"Could she be the cause of Elijah's problem?" Hayley asked the two men.

"I don't believe so, unless she is angry with me again," Elijah said. "She and I did get alone fairly well in the past." The girl had guarded his coffin when he had been kept in the attic of the church. She had set him free by pulling out the dagger. They had talked quite a bit and he had continued to stay there for a while. Still, at that time he knew she was dangerous and clever, as she hid from Marcel and Klaus the fact that he was free of the dagger and coffin.

"Who knows what the girl thinks?" Klaus muttered. "Please retire to your room, brother."

Elijah didn't like the fact that he could not be trusted. He also knew that Klaus could not easily confine him to his room nor anywhere else, other than by daggering him and putting him in the coffin again. Like Klaus himself, once in actual vampire mode, he was very strong and could escape most confinements.

"I have a book to read," he said, standing up. "Why not post a guard by my room who can at least sound an alarm if I come out rampaging."

"Good idea," Klaus agreed. It became obvious, when he accompanied Elijah, that he didn't trust his brother to go to his room. He even watched him sit down in his comfortable chair and pick up the vampire book.

"I feel alright for now," the older brother said. "Please go. I don't need you hovering over me like this."

"Do try not to hurt anyone while I am gone," Klaus said, turning and walking out the door.

Elijah noted that the antlers scraped the door frame and Klaus didn't seem to notice. Of course he doesn't notice. They are not really there, he told himself. With the door closed, he was alone with his thoughts. He didn't really want to be alone because he couldn't trust those thoughts.

Instead, he tried to read and to concentrate on the story of the female vampire trying to teach the new young one the tricks of the trade, so to speak. One thing he noticed in the book was that, while he himself could enjoy the normal sex act, the vampires in the book had to take a different approach. How odd, he thought, that the author had made that choice. Then his thoughts went to Hayley and how much he would like to practice different sex acts with her. Unless he misunderstood her hints, she was willing. What she had said ran through his mind over and over, and he tried to answer the question – should they or shouldn't they?

Elijah was moderately sexually active. It depended on who he was with and if the mood was conducive to such activity. He would not force himself on anyone sexually, since he was not a rapist. While his preference definitely leaned toward the females, in his centuries of existence, he had also been intimate with males. It was not uncommon for long-lived, healthy vampires to have same-sex encounters.

However, the individuals that he had actually fallen in love with were all females, from the crush he had had on a girl in his teen years to Tatia, (whom he had vied with Klaus for her attention and who had proven to be a Petrova,) to Katherine Petrova, (also of interest to Klaus,) to much-loved Celeste (dead two hundred years and not a Petrova). He had even been drawn to Elena Gilbert (who looked like Katherine because she was a Petrova descendant), and now to the spirited Hayley (apparently not a Petrova.) In between these important women, there had been uncounted females.

Of the four brothers, he and Finn had each always kept sexual liaisons to themselves, neither of them being ones to boast. On the other hand, Klaus and Kol were always ready to enthusiastically tell of their exploits with whomever. Kol was dead and on the other side. He had probably found a way to have some fun over there, too. It would not surprise Elijah to find this out.

He knew that his chance of having a long-lasting relationship was limited by the fact that, unless she was a vampire, any women he came to love died off. Even female vampires often died a real death. Finn and his beloved Sage were both gone. Elijah had long ago adjusted his thinking to believe that he would never have a permanent companion. At this point, Klaus and Rebekah, the remnants of his family, were the only loved ones still around.

And now there were Hayley and the baby girl on the way. Surely the baby carried the werewolf trait from her mother. Surely she would not be a vampire unless someone turned her. Would Klaus do something like that? Although the hybrid brother had initially rejected the idea of being a father, he had changed his mind by now. The idea of fatherhood had grown in his mind. Also in his heart? Lastly, would the baby be a hybrid? The consensus was yes.

Restless from thinking all these familial and sexual thoughts, he walked to the door and opened it. The hefty vampire Hawk was sitting on the gallery railing and turned watchful eyes on him. Hawk could not stop him from leaving if he really wanted to, but he could sound an alarm.

"You be needing to go somewhere?" the day walker asked.

"Not far. Walk with me to the end of the gallery so I can look out on the street," Elijah said. He didn't particularly want to give Hawk a hard time. The two of them went to the French doorway that opened onto one of the wrought iron galleries, or balconies, for which the French Quarter was famous. They were on the third floor with another fancy iron gallery below them providing a cover for the sidewalk on the street level. There were no crowds of people yet, but there was some activity on the street. The sun was shining, but it didn't bother either of the vampires. Early as it was in the day, music still came from one of the places where the doors stood open.

"I remember when the sidewalk paving stones were so uneven one had to walk carefully," Elijah said. "In fact, I recall when the sidewalks were wooden and muddy."

"It all modern now with good sidewalks. Don't want to be tripping up no tourists and them turning around and suing the city," Hawk said with a chuckle.

"That's true," Elijah said. He glanced at Hawk, who had neither horns nor wings, and wondered if the effect of the poison or the spell was wearing off. That would be nice. However, he still didn't trust himself.

Two women crossed the street, stopping in the middle because there was no vehicular traffic at the moment. They studied the building and they soon spotted the two men outside the third floor leaning their elbows on the railing.

"Hi, there," one of them said with a smile and a small wave.

"Hello. Nice morning," Elijah said, producing a small smile himself. He thought the women were tourists. One of them held a camera.

"Is this house yours?" the second woman asked.

"Yes."

"The ironwork of the balconies is beautiful. Do you have to paint it?" the first one asked.

"Not I personally," Elijah said and he gave them a real smile. For a moment he envisioned sipping blood from one of them.

"May we take a picture or two?"

"Be my guest." Neither he nor Hawk moved as the women took photographs, one with the camera and one with her cell phone.

In a low voice, Hawk said to Elijah, "My lady say I very photogenic. She take lots of pictures of me. Even naked."

"Was she naked or you ?" Elijah asked as he turned back toward the door. He wondered if the pictures were posted on line. He thought people should not do that.

"Both of us," Hawk laughed, following the Original.

Elijah was well aware that many of the various vampires, especially the day walkers, did not hang around the compound all the time. Some of them actually had families, lovers, human friends, jobs and hobbies, all of which they found time for when things were quiet. Despite the conflicts that seemed to center around Klaus and a few others, there was plenty of "down time." They all carried phones and could be summoned at any time.

Klaus came up the stairs and stopped in front of them. "Davina is here to talk to you. She said there was a brief time today when a witch was doing a spell, but then it stopped."

"When I saw the elk antlers?"

"Perhaps."

A sudden feeling flooded through Elijah that disconcerted him. "I can't see Davina right now."

"Why not?" Klaus demanded, frowning.

"I am feeling very … um … horny, all of a sudden," Elijah admitted with some embarrassment.

Klaus' eyes roved over his brother. "Oh, dear," he said. The words conveyed sympathy, but the expression on his face showed he found the situation comical.

"Don't laugh at me, Niklaus! This is not amusing."

Hawk, standing behind Elijah, didn't see the problem. He kept his place.

"Get in your room, brother. I'll bring Davina. If this is the work of a witch, now is the time for her to sense it. Go!"

A/N I've already got some of the next chapter written. I hope you liked this one. I really would like a couple of reviews so I know I'm writing okay. If you don't like what I wrote, go ahead and tell me.