He could feel Elijah's ire burning into him as if he was standing too close to a flame, but his older brother didn't deign to look at him. Instead, the two of them sat side-by-side on horseback, dressed to the nines in their finest riding attire. They'd said nothing since Klaus had effortlessly slipped the dagger from Elijah's chest and ordered him to get ready. Since, it had been nothing but stony silence as Elijah mulled over his emotional issues. Klaus ignored it - or at least he pretended to while, in truth, it was eating him alive to know what Elijah was thinking - so they remained as silent as statues as they awaited the queen and Elijah's new fiancee.
The thought of the woman made Klaus smile a dark, curving, mischievous smile as his horse shifted its weight and flicked its tail behind him. Elijah had attempted to subdue him by sinking him into a marriage he knew Klaus would despise, and the entire plan had backfired on him. Klaus smirked wider at the thought. Now Elijah could be the one forcibly married to someone he could never love: a human girl who would die before she could prove herself interesting. For a moment, Klaus had debated killing her on their wedding night, but no, that would be too soon. Let Elijah get used to her first, perhaps even believe he felt something for her, then Klaus could use her as an instrument if the need arose to teach his brother a lesson again. Surely the girl would be tolerable long enough to become collateral damage if he needed it.
Distantly, he heard the sound of hoofbeats and Elijah drew himself up beside him. Two horses, two riders. Only the queen and her lady, Elijah's intended, would be joining them this morning. Oh how easily he could take the life of the queen of France on this ride. With a blur and the snap of her neck, he could fell her like a sapling tree. Her blood would still be fresh on his tongue before he could get back to the palace. The other girl could be compelled to forget, and history would be made.
But then he saw her, her blond curls draining out of the back of her elegant hat and the feather on top of her head bouncing with each beat of her horse's hooves. He paid no attention to the mousier girl riding slightly behind her to the side for she paled in comparison. Klaus was reminded why he hadn't killed the queen yet - aside from the inconvenience her death would bring on a larger scale. Humanity, life, rolled off of her in waves that he could almost taste as she grew near. Even as each breath she took drew her one step closer to death, she defied that mortality in every move of her body. He was clearly and obviously intrigued by this human woman. He wanted to hold her humanity in his hand as it throbbed at his touch. He wanted to lap at her mortality like an immortal dog drinking from the fountains of youth. He had no reason other than wanting to consume her, to feel the tangibility of her existence.
Rebekah's challenge for him to feed from Anne with no compulsion was temporarily forgotten as she pulled her horse to a graceful halt, her lady-in-waiting joining her after a moment. Looking from Elijah to Klaus, her blue eyes lingering for a moment on him before she looked back at Elijah and offered a polite smile, Anne lifted her chin slightly. "Bon matin, monsieurs," she greeted them.
A shadowy grin teased at the corner of Klaus's mouth as he watched her, brazenly refusing to remove his gaze from her, and he slowly dipped his head in greeting. Simultaneously, the brothers greeted the queen, and while intentionally ignoring Klaus's eyes, Anne glanced to her side, drawing attention to the girl beside her.
"Lord Elijah, this is Constance. Constance, Lord Elijah," the queen introduced. Elijah put on his most genteel smile - something Klaus assumed was effortless for him - and bowed slightly in his saddle as Constance smiled bashfully at him. Her cheeks turned almost as red as her hair, the blush fleeing down her neck and dying on her chest. What a poor creature, Klaus thought cursorily to himself. She certainly wasn't a vision of virility, especially when compared to the queen herself, and that brought his eyes right back to the female monarch who still intentionally ignored him.
"Milord," Constance greeted Elijah in a meek voice, offering him a kind smile. Elijah politely shook his head, his brows drawing together gently as he smiled easily at her. "Please, do call me Elijah. We are to be married after all," he noted, making her blush again.
Klaus rolled his eyes at the evident awkwardness in this girl and he instantly hoped someone would get impaled on this ride so he'd have something interesting to entertain him. Elijah glanced up from his fiancee to the queen, giving her a pleasant smile that she returned in a moment, silently requesting her permission for this ride to begin. Everyone was undone by Elijah's gentility and Klaus felt his stomach roll with disgust. Anne nodded in wordless acquiescence, and Elijah turned his horse, motioning for Constance to ride beside him as they started off out into the countryside.
That succinctly left Klaus behind with the queen who seemed to be intentionally taking her time before spurring her horse onward. Finally, she looked up at him, her blue eyes watching him intently as she met his gaze. He smiled again, a private, wolfish smile only for her and she raised her eyebrows contemptuously. Her disdain did nothing to deter him, however, and even after she kicked her horse into a trot, he followed doggedly behind her.
"How are you this morning, Your Majesty?" he asked her, sardonically drawling her title, and easily catching up to ride beside her. He watched her with his intense gaze, intentionally trying to make her uncomfortable, but she didn't balk beneath his stare. On the contary, she nonchalantly ignored him as if he didn't exist, and that served to make him even more persistent. Deep down, on a level of denial, he wanted her to pay attention to him. He was an Original; he deserved every ounce of attention he could get. His power was such that he could snap her in half with little more than a thought. He was the one she should bow to, not the other way around.
But the laws of human society deigned that he obey her instead, so he kept himself in check. There was part of him that also wished to follow the rules Elijah had laid down for their family upon first arriving in this country, although he would no longer openly acknowledge the desire to garner his older brother's approval. Elijah's attempt at the forced engagement was enough to leave Klaus angry with him for far longer than a day, but he let it go for now and focused instead on the radiant humanity beside him.
"I am well," Anne replied plainly. Glancing over at him for only a moment before looking back at the trail, she flicked the reins in her hands to urge her mare into a quicker stride. Klaus instantly reacted to keep pace. "And yourself?"
He pursed his lips and shrugged his shoulders slightly, an action Elijah would chide him for since it wasn't 'proper'. "I grow bored easily with small talk," he admitted candidly, his eyes blazing as he looked over at her. "I find it woefully dull and inefficient."
Seemingly only taken aback for a brief moment, Anne shot him a look and shook her head incredulously. "Does your tongue have no guard?" she asked, her brow furrowing slightly as she looked at him. Now he had her attention, and he smirked in response.
"I have no need for pointless conversation," he clarified, "I would make a very poor politician. That is Elijah's forté."
"That you would," she agreed openly, scoffing slightly out loud. She readjusted her gloved hands on her reins and looked out across the rolling hills as they emerged from a copse of trees, following several yards back from his older brother and her lady-in-waiting so their conversation would not be overheard.
"Is that what would make you enjoy my companionship? If I lied through my teeth, spoke volumes about your beauty and your cunning and praised your weasel-like husband as the savior of the people, then I would be an acceptable conversationalist?" he suggested, his eyes sparking heatedly. He hated fitting into molds sculpted by the hands of weak-minded men.
His words ignited a familiar tension between them, a tension the horses sensed causing their ears to raise and swivel, their muscles tightening even as they ran, and Anne stiffened in her saddle. Her tongue was as quick as his, however, and she'd never been one to back down from a verbal sparring.
"Would speaking of my beauty and cunning be a lie?" she asked, her pride and her defiance peaking in the way she held herself as she looked challengingly at him. There was another tone he recognized - could it be that the queen was flirting with him? - but it was gone before the thought fully came to him, and she continued before he could respond.
"You should be thanking me instead of stultifying me," she pointed out, her eyebrows lifting slightly as she looked off down the trail and imperceptibly slowed her mount.
"What ever are you talking about?" he asked her, looking at her in mildly exasperated confusion. Sitting back in his saddle, his horse slowed and his brother and the other human woman were forgotten as he watched the queen riding beside him.
The glimmer of a mischievous look ghosted across Anne's face, and as she turned her head, her blond curls caught the breeze and danced, bouncing across the back of her neck as she fixed him with her blue eyes. The potency of her mortality flickered in her gaze like a flame waiting for him to snuff it out. The sensation was so strong, he licked his lips at the thought and tightened his grip on his reins.
"Your brother proposed the idea of your marrying one of my ladies," she clarified dispassionately. "I turned him down immediately, of course." She had glanced back toward the trail, and she took another moment to turn and look at him again, indifference on her face although her eyes burned waggishly. "You would never suit one of my ladies."
"Wouldn't I?" he asked instantly with a mixture of indignation and interest.
"Of course not," Anne countered as quickly, their words parrying like two swords clashing in the wind. She was watching him now, her eyes burning as his burned. So distracted were they that their horses had slowed to a walk and their companions had pulled off ahead to some distance. Klaus ignored the inappropriateness of their seclusion and intently watched the queen of France as she explained herself.
Waving her hand dismissively, her eyebrows arching once more, she pursed her lips. "You are too hot-blooded, too quick-tempered, too... " her eyes flickered over him, attempting a feigned disinterest and failing miserably. He could practically smell the endorphines leaking out of her now even as her face spoke of absolute disinterest. He was a wolf picking up on her scent, knowing without her admittance that the spark between them from the evening of the masquerade ball had been reignited. His eyes blazed then, knowing he'd finally attracted her attention, and a slight smirk caught the corner of his mouth as he watched her and awaited the conclusion to her sentence.
Anne's eyelashes fluttered over her eyes for a moment and she gently rolled her eyes and her head, shrugging one shoulder upward slightly before huffing quietly. "I'm afraid you would eat a wholesome girl alive," she concluded with the slight lift of her chin, her eyes carefully trained on the trail until she could no longer resist, and she turned to look at his face to judge his reaction.
Klaus felt the gentle whorl of victoriousness as he saw the way her pupils had dilated when she looked at him. Through all of her denial, he had managed to creep in anyway. His challenge with Rebekah would be easily won now. He merely had to push his advantage with this human queen.
"What do you think me: some sort of cannibal?" he asked, amusement flickering in his eyes. No, he was far more dangerous than a cannibal. He was a vampire, an Original, a latent hybrid. He was her worst nightmare. She was his prey, and she didn't even know it.
Anne scoffed, allowing a smile to grace her mouth, shaking her head as if to rid herself of the chemical reactions bursting throughout her body.
"You are worse," she declared, making him raise his eyebrows and incline his head toward her. She cast a look at him from beneath the brim of her hat, her curls rolling over her shoulders only to bounce back to her shoulder blades.
"You are the worst shade of knave," she added, and although her words should offend him, they did nothing of the sort. He read from the way her voice lilted, the way her words danced from her tongue, that she was attempting to convince herself in breathless tones as much as she hoped to convince him. If only she could speak without her throat constricting and her eyes wandering to his lips when she looked at his face...
"A handsome, passionate man is the worst sort of devil for a young, impressionable lady," she finished, nodding slightly as she raised the reins in her gloved hands and squared her shoulders. Her entire body was fighting whatever was going through her head, and Klaus found himself wildly fascinated and entertained by the show. It was his own personal play drawing through the sinews of her flesh, stretching her muscles and forcing her body to move and react to her recalcitrance.
"My brother is far better suited for the impressionable, for the pure," he noted, his smile turning into a wicked grin as he glanced to where Elijah rode near to his new fiancée. Elijah was designed for propriety and gentility where Klaus was not, and never would be. He was as much a monster as the rest of them, but his demons - if he had them - were far deeper than his siblings'.
After only a breath, Klaus returned his gaze to the queen, following the curve of her jaw to her jugular vein where he luxuriated for a moment in imagining he could see the beating of her heart from this far away. "And what sort of lady do you suppose would suit me?" he asked probingly, his blue eyes igniting with a tick of his eyebrows when she turned to look at him.
For a moment, Anne was reproachful, seemingly aghast he would even ask such a question, but they both knew it was all a show. This was a delicate, subtle dance of a woman entitled with much responsibility who was fighting her mounting attraction for a man she should not want. She shouldn't even be as alone with him as she was, so far behind his brother and her lady, but she made no urge to catch up to them.
Elijah and Constance were as much their chaperones than the other way around, and the realization caused Klaus to smile knowingly over at the queen as she pulled in a breath through her parted lips and summoned a witty retort.
Tweaking her eyebrows upward in an umbrageous masquerade, Anne fixed him with simmering blue eyes. "That remains yet to be seen."
With the phantom of a half-smile, the fabric of her dress rustled as she spurred her horse forward to catch up to his brother and companion. Klaus stayed behind for a moment, watching her ride off with a wry smile before he urged his horse forward to follow. This game of cat and mouse had just grown far more interesting to him. He'd finally wrung out, however subtly and discreetly, that the queen was subject to an attraction toward him.
He would win Rebekah's challenge. He would come out the victor as he always had.