It has been a while, I know! I apologise but I have been extremely busy.

Happy Reading!

The Price

He listened as she sang, the sweet saccharine tones of a mind lost to insanity, of eyes that had witnessed too much. She'd broken upon impact, his brave bartender. Camille whose looks had been so reminiscent of the light he'd loved and lost and craved. So falsely brave and so resoundingly weak she was at the end.

She rocked, like a child, back and forth in her vigil. Her candle was lit and the prayers tumbled from her lips, a sweet song that sounded like cannon fire to his ears. So naive she was, so brave and so sweet and so broken. And yet, as he approached the blindly ardent human, it was not her loss of sanity or mind he lamented. It was the light lost, the sweet darkness he craved that had done this; once again, he nursed a battered heart.

She'd waltzed into town, a spark that lit the fire that set his kingdom ablaze.

Caroline had come to him.

It had not been a year or twenty as he'd imagined. A century had not passed, only six months. And yet in the six months since he'd last seen her, tasted her, loved her, Caroline had changed. Gone was the sweet innocence. In its stead stood a fiery blonde haired devil that took what she wanted, that saw and wanted and indulged, relished in and coveted, without pause. He'd been so struck by her presence that it had taken him a moment to realise that yes, this was Caroline.

Just not his Caroline.

Gone was the light he loved. The bright, brave girl he'd known was dead. What stood before him was a replica of a shadow, a darker and harsher and beautifully scarring beauty that set his kingdom and his heart afire.

Bonnie Bennett was dead.

As had been Stefan.

It was the latter's rejection, the latter's fall into bad habits and brown eyes that had caused her to break. Elena Gilbert had broken her heart, so Caroline had torn out her liver.

Or so she'd said.

At first, he hadn't believed her. Klaus didn't want to believe that what she said was true. The humanity he'd love was gone as she'd flipped the switch and snuffed out all light. Like some fairytale villain, she danced through his kingdom no more than a pretty siren that brought his men to their feet and led them, painted nails and blood on her lips, to their deaths.

Caroline Forbes had broken.

She had shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and her payment, her price was too high. He'd watched as she'd kindled a fire and forced himself to stand back as she'd killed his underlings one by one. Klaus had tried to compel her to turn it back on, but she'd taken to drinking vervain. The burn was nothing when her emotions were gone, a fleeting pain with a timely reward.

He'd begged and pleaded, used every trick he had in the book.

Guilt.

Negotiation.

Reason.

Force.

Logic.

Blackmail.

Compromise.

Indulgence.

He'd tried what he knew and failed.

Until now.

Jealously.

Klaus felt guilt at knowing that he was to cause for the brave blonde's demise as he carefully knelt beside the praying girl. She seemed so small and so fleeting, but she had been his friend for a time.

"I'm truly sorry, Camille," he whispered, gently stroking her hair as words tumbled from her lips and she continued to rock back and forth.

He'd had to know that he could get through to her. Klaus had to know that the girl he'd come to love was not gone. Jealously was the spark that lit the fire, that kindled the embers that would burn his city to the ground.

Caroline had fallen, shattered like glass and no matter how many lives she took, no matter how many of his men she slaughtered, it had not been enough to pull her back to herself. It had not been the king's men to put Caroline back together again, nor the king himself.

It had been a girl.

Jealously was the paste that glued her back together, that tethered her to something he could use.

Klaus gently moved his hands to wrap around Camille's neck and twisted sharply.

Even if it took a thousand Camille's, a thousand blonde haired and blue eyed beauties to bring Caroline back to him, Klaus would pay in rivulets of their blood.

Such was the price of love.

I am roughly 1/3 of the way through the next chapter of Sweet Dreams. I haven't had too much time in the past week to just sit down and relax and write, but hopefully I can have it up sometime at the end of this week or the next.

Feedback is always appreciated, so let me know what you thought of this.

Till next time ;)