Beauty to My Beast Part II

The carriage ride to Klaus' estate was awkward to say the least, him smirking at her from one side and Caroline trying to not show how scared she truly was. She silently thanked the gods that the conveyance appeared to be enhanced with magic.

She didn't know how she would have been able to stand any longer than she was forced to be with him and his smug arrogance.

They had exited the castle together, the wolves ready to shift, and with one smooth motion of his hand they turned around into the woods and fled. It was too easy for him. The war had been waging for years here, and he just calmly sent the wolves away.

They arrived at his estate, him opening the door and stepping out, offering her his hand with a flourish and she took it. Not because she was grateful for it, or she wanted his assistance in anything, but because she had heard stories of what he could do.

He had killed twelve wolves in less than a minute, they said, ripping their hearts out of their chests.

And since she wanted to keep her heart inside her body, she figured she should play along with what he wanted. Within reason.

She followed him wordlessly into the foyer, marking to her surprise that there was no one else here. "Are there not any servants?"

"I like to be alone, love. And that's your job now."

So that was why he had taken her, to be a servant to him. "Where are we going?"

"Let's call it... your room." He pushed open another door, leading her down a stairwell, and Caroline was filled with foreboding. This was a man known to kill for fun, what exactly was he planning on doing with her? Klaus grabbed her arm before opening another door and her eyes widened in shock.

"My room?"

"Well, room sounded a lot nicer than dungeon, didn't it?"

She stood in the cell in shock for a moment, the sound of a key scraping the lock breaking her out of her reverie, and she tried to use her vampire strength to force the door open, but it wouldn't budge. Magic. He was certainly powerful enough, deadly enough, to have access to all the magical powers in the realm. Of course he would have had the door spelled. "You can't just leave me in here! Hello! Hello!"

Caroline wasn't sure how long she waited for him to come back in that cell. She knew he would come back, but she felt real terror at what he was going to decide to do with her. She was completely in Klaus' power.

The door swung open rather suddenly, and she figured that if she lasted the night that that was something she would have to get used to with him. Klaus stared at her for a moment, as if sizing her up, and she glared back at him in defiance, and real anger at him locking her up, causing a smirk to spread across his lips. "Come along then."

She followed after him, trying to quell her urge to lash out at him with her tongue, or worse still slap him across his face. He sat himself at the one chair at the long table, pointing towards the bottle of champagne, and she took the hint, grabbing it and a glass, carrying it to the table end opposite him, opening the bottle with a little difficulty and pouring the liquid into the class as he spoke. "You will clean the Dark Castle, you will bring me new paints and brushes when I am drawing, you will cook my food, and launder my clothes."

"Right. Got it."

"And you will skin the children I hunt for their pelts."

She dropped the flute in shock; she had heard he was cruel, but she had never imagined that level of cruelty. He chuckled at her shock. "That last one was a quip, not serious love."

"Oh, okay then." She responded in hesitant relief, bending down to retrieve the dropped flute, noticing to her dismay that they was a small chip in the very expensive looking glass. "It's chipped." She said holding it up for Klaus to see. "You can barely see it."

"It's just a cup, don't concern yourself with it." He gave her, for the first time, a small reassuring smile, and she returned it hesitantly.

They fell into a pattern after that; Caroline cleaned the castle, cooked his meals as he asked, laundered his clothing, and tried to generally stay under his radar. He spent his time going out, hunting, making his deals. One morning, after the blood lust had nearly driven her to madness, she awoke to find a goblet filled with blood outside her door. She took it gratefully, and every morning after that, there was a fresh goblet of blood waiting outside the cell door.

For a week she lived in that cell, then one day Klaus instructed her to clean a room, and when he had finished, he had wordlessly brought in new dresses for her. She was glad; the dress she had come in was made for a princess, not a servant, and was not helping her with her duties at all.

Still, they seemed to avoid each other unwittingly. They never spoke unless it was necessary; him giving instructions, thanking her, or bidding her good morning or good night, her returning and responding to his instructions.

Caroline was lonely, she realized. She had always had someone to talk to. Her father, the maids, evn Tyler, though she didn't exactly include him in the group of people that she actually liked talking to.

She looked for an opportunity to start a conversation with him, but she knew nothing about him aside from what she had heard in rumors. And she highly doubted a good way to start talking with him would be to ask if he really killed his mother and father.

So, she looked at the things he had around the castle, the things he had collected, trying to find some clue as to what lay beneath the surface.

One day, cleaning one of the upper chambers, she found clothing fit for a young man. Some of the outfits were obviously old, but there were others still in the newer fashions, obviously newly purchased. It was the same in the next four rooms; old men's clothing in three of them, old women's clothing in another, as well as new.

She wondered at what could possibly be his purpose for having those things, and sought for an opportunity to bring it up.

A/N: So I hope you liked installment two, and didn't mind my switch of the tea cup for champagne. Part III coming soon.