Mere hours ago Caroline had been…not happy but she had been the closest thing to content that was possible since leaving Klaus' side.
Now...
Now she was back in the hospital, sitting in a hard plastic chair and refusing to hold her screaming new born baby.
She kept her hands firmly clasped in her lap and shook her head, clenching her teeth whenever Jeremy came inside and asked if she would reconsider.
If she would become a mother again.
Every time she shook her head,
"Keep her away from me" she ordered and he obeyed, stepping back outside and taking Lizzie for another pram ride around the block.
Her daughter wasn't in danger of starving or life-threatening illness or death, her daughter was fine.
But if Caroline allowed herself within the vicinity of her baby girl, she wouldn't be.
She would break down in hysterical tears and beg someone to do something.
She would throw herself on Tyler Lockwood's body and beg him to survive.
But to do that would be weak and she couldn't be weak right now. Not when the war had finally begun and her enemies had struck, not when her pack would be looking to her to be the strong Arctos leader they needed and deserved.
They had found Tyler an hour after the shooting and it had been another half hour before he'd reached the hospital and surgeons had begun working frantically to try and save his life.
They'd managed to stop the bleeding but told her that there was little more they could do, the damage was too severe, Tyler's spinal cord had been torn apart by a bullet so even if he lived he would be a quadriplegic, his brain had sustained massive trauma, his face…
He had been so cute, his chiselled features, his eyes, the way he glanced down when he smiled.
In another life, Caroline might have fallen for that smile.
In this life- she was trying to determine whether his supernatural healing ability would help or hinder him. If he could eventually recover from injuries that would have killed a human or whether it would just keep him alive in excruciating agony.
Whether he would slip into a coma and die peacefully, high on morphine or whether she would have to pick up that pillow beside his bed and hold it over his nose and mouth until…
Tyler was Beta of the Arctos Pack. He was a warrior who deserved so much more, but that had been taken from him by the Labonairs.
She hears the brush of skin against wool and looks down, Tyler's fingers were twitching on the bed and she reaches over to take them in her hand,
"Your Alpha is here" she tells him, hoping she sounds reassuring and after a moment his middle finger starts moving again, bending and straightening, moving to the side to form the letter L.
"Lizzie?" she asks, before glancing at the breathing tube in his throat, "Do you want Lizzie?"
His finger taps against her skin twice and she nods, shooting a text to Jeremy and striding from the room quickly as she felt her emotions begin to seep back in.
She was in the tiny hospital cafeteria when the policemen found her,
"Ma'm?"
The flashed their badges and Caroline felt her blood go cold.
As a rule, the supernatural community avoided law enforcement as best as possible. Police asked questions that people didn't want to try and answer. They noticed things that couldn't be noticed if the secret existence of vampires, wolves, witches and whatever else was out there was to be kept hidden from the rest of the world.
"Detectives Donovan and Davies" the dark haired man offered by way of introduction,
"We have some questions for you"
She nods, "Um…It'll have to be quick, my daughter is with my friends but she'll need feeding soon"
"Of course" the blonde man smiled in a friendly manner, "We'd just like you to tell us what happened tonight, your version of events"
She licked her lips and then squared her shoulders, "We didn't hear anything, my…well our commune lives pretty deep in the forest, but we realised Tyler had been gone for a while and Jesse and Renee went to look for him, they found him still alive and called me, I called the ambulance and met it on the road. I rode with them but so far Tyler hasn't been able to tell us anything, however we did see bullet casings and I heard the paramedics describe his wounds as gsw's"
"Why didn't your friends call the ambulance immediately?" Detective Davies asked quickly and she pretended to be confused.
As if the thought is just occurring to her as something bewildering as opposed to par for the course.
They'd called her first because she was Alpha and werewolves usually wouldn't think to call emergency services. After all, how could they explain their bizarre ability to heal themselves or the peculiarities in their blood? Traditionally, werewolves would find their pack and receive what little medical treatment they could there.
She'd only called the ambulance because the alternative had been to let Tyler die.
"Tyler's my best friend" she began lying before realising it as truth, "They were in shock and wanted to let me know what was happening"
"They wanted me to be there" she adds quickly, as an afterthought, "In case I needed to say…goodbye"
She wonders if she should cry now? Burst into fake tears and make the men feel awkward enough to let her go?
She frowns slightly as she realises that she isn't feeling numb…which means…
"Oh" she sways slightly and the blonde detective reaches out and holds her upright as Jesse approaches holding her weeping daughter,
"He…uh…"
Lizzie is a heavy, warm reassuring weight in her arms, "I'm so sorry" he murmurs and she wants to bury her face in her daughter's tiny neck and weep.
But she can't because they're at war.
So she breathes the Arctos pack motto into her daughter's ear and then raises her head,
"Detectives…I have to go call Tyler's mother and then organise his funeral, if you have any further questions please call me"
"Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill Mr Lockwood?" Donovan asks and Caroline shrugs before chewing her lip thoughtfully,
"Whomever that gun is registered to?"
The two men watch as the young woman walks away, casually attired in a dress and barefoot with a baby tucked against her shoulder but still somehow with the presence of a warrior queen.
"Werewolf war?" Donovan asks and Davies nods, "Reckon so, don't know why everyone says that wolves don't use weapons. The M.O for every wolf kill I've ever seen round these parts involved a gun"
His partner nods and rubs his face, "Does she know we know?"
He shakes his head, "Doubt it, Bill was pretty damn secretive when he came to us…Still, if we can't help her directly we can still nail whichever bastard did this to the wall"
When Jenna heard Alaric go silent she knew something was wrong.
As quickly as able to while a bajillion months pregnant, she waddles into the nursery to find him clearly resisting the urge to punch the wall.
"Hey" she catches his attention and flicks on the light,
"Not in here, if you're gonna punch something do it in Jeremy's room, he already has holes in the walls from that time he stole that basketball"
Her attempt at levity doesn't work and when Alaric turns his head to face hers she sees the tears in his eyes and her blood goes cold, "Is Caroline...?"
She wants to ask, Alright? But how could she be? Jenna didn't know much about the werewolf world but from what she'd garnered from the epically grounded Elena, Caroline had given birth at barely viable stage to a baby whilst her family or pack or whatever was being hunted by arch-enemies.
"Tyler's dead" he reveals and then grips his stomach and visibly swallows back the bile,
"He was shot and left to bleed in the dirt like an animal. He's dead and now we're at war"
Jenna rests her hand on her belly, "We?" she prompts, hoping he'll realise his mistake but he only shrugs,
"Klaus declared war on the Labonair's for their encroachment onto his land. The Triple Alliance declared war all those years ago when they formed to slaughter Caroline's family. The Labonair's will want to kill anyone who stands against them and I'm just standing here pretending to be normal while my entire body is screaming for justice"
He raggedly exhales, "I have to go to her Jen, I can't leave her standing alone against the world right now. I don't know how long I'll be gone but…even if it's just for a day, I have to do something for her"
Jenna blinked in surprise, "Are you kidding me?!" she laughed in disbelief, "Rick, you just told me that there is a war going on, or like three different wars, I don't know and you want to go fight in one of them?"
She points down at her belly, "Have you forgotten about the fact that we're about to have a family?"
"You already have a family" he reminds her, "More than you know and I can't explain it but Caroline's parents gave me something to dedicate my life to, something greater than myself and Caroline reminded me of that. I owe it to her not to abandon her now"
"So you'll just abandon me and your baby instead?" she argues, "Are you…thinking straight? Rick these people killed a twenty-year old kid!"
"Tyler" he reminds her, "His name was Tyler and I'd known him my entire life. So yeah, I'm not thinking straight, I'm pissed off because twenty-year old kids shouldn't be shot dead for no good reason. Ten year old kids shouldn't have to run through miles of snow to avoid being massacred and god damn five year old girls shouldn't have to wonder if they're going to be fucking executed"
He realises he is shouting and stops, inhaling deeply and opening his eyes to face her again,
"I'm sorry" he swears but she's already turning from him and walking away, straight to their bedroom and slamming the door.
He groans and steps into the hallway, raising his head when he senses someone there.
Elena was hovering in the doorway to her bedroom, her arms crossed over herself, her long hair trailing freely down her bare flesh, looking so young and innocent in her singlet top and sleeping shorts, "Is everything…"
Alaric sighed and closed the distance between them before he slowly pulled her into a hug,
"If I don't make it back" he whispers, "There's something you should know…Caroline's mother was Elizabeth Sommers, your mom and Jenna's older sister, she didn't want me to tell you but…she's your cousin Elena"
Screaming annoyed him. He didn't know why these creatures insisted on it, after all, they were in the middle of a field miles away from human civilisation, nobody could hear them except their already dead compatriots.
He snaps the screamer's neck with an irritated huff and notes that he's now bored.
"I killed everyone" he called out, knowing that such a remark usually drew his Beta who would then strive to supply him with more amusement.
"Everyone is dead"
No response.
Hmmm.
He looks around at all the corpses and double-checks the ones with lighter hair, as far as he can see Cary isn't amongst the fallen and he's almost certain that he hadn't killed the youth.
Not yet anyway.
But if he got hungry on the way home.
Damn.
"Now I'm hungry" he announces and waits again for someone to come bring him something to do.
Again there is no response so he starts walking west, figuring if he walks in the one direction long enough he'll encounter something.
Cary tracks him after five miles and finds him sitting cross legged in the dirt, staring into a rabbit hole where a mother rabbit is crouched over her shivering babies.
He stops and waits for Klaus to acknowledge him but he never does.
Not anymore.
Cary doesn't recognise his Alpha these days, he can't associate the man in front of him with the one who brought the North East Atlantic Pack home to their traditional territory and led them for the last twenty plus years.
He remembers the man who'd honestly thought giving a kid top shelf bourbon instead of cheap beer for his first alcoholic drink was a good idea.
It was a waste of decent bourbon.
"Little love" Klaus snickered, giving a predatory grin at the mother rabbit, "Trying to protect her young when everything wants them dead"
Suddenly his Alpha frowns and leans back before quickly scrambling to his feet,
"I'm bored" he announces but Cary is almost certain he can detect a hint of confusion in his Alpha's tone and doesn't react as Klaus strides past him, disappearing into the forest but headed in the direction of the cars so hopefully one of the wolves could corral him into one.
Cary shifts and pulls out his phone, activating the flash light and squinting into the hole where the rabbits are still crouched.
Huh.
From a certain light he was certain that the fur of the mother rabbit could be the same shade of blonde as Caroline in wolf form.
Maybe.
Or maybe Klaus just hadn't been hungry enough to eat an animal.
He trudges back to the cars, suddenly exhausted and very much done despite the adrenaline that was racing through his body. He should be pumped and triumphant.
Six previously omega wolves had trespassed across their territory, scouts trying to find a clear path across Virginia and although nobody said why, it was hardly rocket science figuring out where they had been headed.
Apparently The Triple Alliance had decided to go to war against Caroline Forbes after all.
Unfortunately for them, to do so they had to go through the North East Atlantic Pack.
And they were not a pack with many fucks left to give these days.
When the Alpha suffered the pack suffered and when Klaus had lost his ability to feel emotions…
The change had started with the younger, more susceptible wolves, they'd begun showing what everyone had thought to be symptoms of depression before grasping that they weren't feeling sad, they weren't feeling anything at all.
From there it had spread until the entire pack was numb, still perfectly capable of functioning and responding to orders but otherwise, completely and utterly numb.
Cary had survived thus far but every day he found himself monitoring his reactions trying to figure out if he was becoming as lost as the rest of his family.
Wondering if he would ever truly feel anything good again.
Perhaps when the war was over.
As it was, numbness was useful right now.
It kept them from being worried about the woman who'd been- and for some of them still was- their Alpha Female.
It kept them from wondering about the baby, the tiny baby born far too early and into far too dangerous a world.
Cary jumps as his phone starts buzzing in his pocket and sees he's received messages from Tyler, he climbs to his feet and starts heading back towards the car when he opens his inbox and nearly trips over his own feet.
'This is Jesse Redding, I am the new Beta of the Arctos Pack following the slaying of Tyler Lockwood.
Tyler was gunned down in Arctos territory in what we assume was a declaration of war. Unfortunately due to the carelessness of his attackers, the police were notified and are now asking questions. We have avoided giving them any information that could lead to exposure of our community but as the gun and shells were found at the crime scene, we believe that they will dig into Tyler and Caroline's past which will lead them to Mystic Falls and Baton Rouge respectively.
Good luck'
There were pictures that followed the message, a shell and a bullet, held in the palm of a familiar looking hand.
Damn.
Visual proof.
A wolf had been killed with a gun.
A mother fucking gun.
This violated the rules of war, the code of honour between the packs.
Wolves didn't fight with human weapons, it was cowardly and weak. They attacked and they fought hand-to-hand, one-on-one honourably. The very idea of using a gun, of deliberately having such an unfair advantage over your opponent.
It was disgraceful.
It had Labonair written all over it.
He's clutching the phone so hard in his hand he's worried about cracking the back casing.
How dare they!
How dare they shit all over centuries of tradition just because they were fucking chickens who couldn't handle one female Alpha who'd just given birth and her still coming together pack!
He wants to shame them, publicly humiliate them, to have them shaved of their fur during the Full Moon and forced to hang their heads when confronted with their crime.
He wants to wipe the Labonair's from history and burn their territory to ash before salting the lands as a finishing touch.
He exhaled angrily and savours his rage with satisfaction.
So, he can still feel after all.
Good to know.
Hayley wondered what it'd be like to pick up the sugar spoon and drive it into her mother's throat.
To watch the blood pour down her body as the life drained from her eyes.
She wondered if anyone would even give a damn if she did it.
Maybe they'd give her a standing ovation?
Jackson clears his throat and shifts from his position on the other side of the table. He seemed to be sensing her thoughts and- while not in disagreement- was telling her that it wasn't the right time.
And she knew this. She knew that if she wanted to assume control of the Crescent Clan that she had two options.
One- she challenged her father to a fight and overpowered him, in which case she would have to kill him and would be vulnerable afterwards to counter challenges from his supporters or;
Two- she called for a vote and the pack could elect her to Alpha Female, her parents would be deposed and the show of popular support would have her opposition thinking twice before challenging her rule.
The second path took longer and involved a lot more quiet negotiation and paranoia that any of the people they spoke to could betray her to her parents but she couldn't bring herself to kill her parents.
At the end of the day, they were still her mom and dad.
In spite of everything.
So she huffs and shifts in her seat, wondering how much longer this meeting is going to take.
The representatives of the Triple Alliance had arrived to discuss the potential intrusion onto Arctos lands and how best to manage it.
However, the scouts they'd sent out had disappeared somewhere in Virginia and at this point they were assuming they'd been found by Klaus.
Still, Lila was smiling like the cat who'd ate the canary and for the life of her Hayley couldn't figure out why.
Until the policemen appeared in the hallway and the entire room froze in shock.
"Sorry to interrupt" one of them fake-apologised with a smarmy smile, "One of the maids let us in"
No-one responds because nobody really knows how to respond.
There were police in the formal dining room.
Lawmen in. the. room.
Humans intruding on their supernatural world.
What the fuck were they supposed to do?
Hayley eases out of her seat and edges around the table until she's next to Jackson who stands up beside her.
Jacques is gaping like a fish and Adam steps forward with a polite nod, "Gentlemen, how can we help?"
The blonde officer flashes his badge, "Detectives Donovan and Davies, we're here regarding an incident that took place in New Castle two nights ago"
New Castle?
Arctos Valley.
"What happened?" Hayley asked quickly, "Is Caroline okay?"
Lila shushes her angrily but Hayley ignores her, "Was she hurt? Attacked? Kidnapped? Is the baby…"
There's a pain in her side and she looks down to see Jackson pinching her flesh, she meets his eyes and can practically see him screaming the message for her to shut up.
Detective Donovan smiles, "Ms Forbes is fine miss, unfortunately a friend of hers was murdered, one Tyler Lockwood?"
Her pack Beta?
Not even a week after she gave birth?
Oh God.
Jacques shrugs and finally manages to find his voice, "What does this have to do with us?"
"The cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds" Davies explains, "A cold-blooded attack, from what we can tell he was jumped and shot from behind"
A werewolf was attacked and shot from behind?!
It's so far out of the realm of their normal that Hayley and Jackson can't even process it.
Werewolves surprised their opponents in battle yeah, but they didn't use human weapons or kill them on their stomachs.
Werewolves died on their backs.
It was their way.
But she senses something and looks up to see Adam is trembling with barely suppressed fury,
"And you're here because…?"
Both detectives look at him askance and their hands twitch, down to their belts where their Tasers are as if they're worried he's about to attack,
"The semi-automatic gun was left at the crime scene and even though someone had tried to scratch off the licence number we were able to identify it and trace it back to its owner and we also found fingerprints that were on file from a previous crime committed"
He strode forward and withdrew a set of cuffs, "Miss Labonair" he nodded at Hayley,
"You have the right to remain silent…"
Hayley felt all the life leave her body and fell backward into Jackson's arms, her world spinning as the detective continued to state her Miranda rights while placing one silver cuff around her left wrist and reaching for her right.
Jackson's arms are firm around her stomach and he's holding onto her for dear life, shouting at the cops, arguing with them about rights and alibis and her innocence. She staggers when he's pulled off her and slowly turns her head to see that her father has him in a headlock and is whispering frantically in his ear.
Hayley's cheeks are wet and she realises that she's crying.
She's innocent but these men are taking her away from her home and one of them pushes her head down as she tumbles into the back of their car and her pack is gathering around the driveway as the car pulls a three point turn to get out.
Disbelieving, she twists around so she can see the pack leaders have spilled out of the house and are watching as she's taken away.
And she swears her mother is smiling in sickening triumph.
Bonnie felt strange as she stepped into her grandmother's house.
Her family home, the place she had lived all her life.
It felt foreign now, as if she was visiting a relative, not coming home.
And she hadn't even been gone half a year.
Grams is in the hallway in a matter of seconds, her face taut and wary but she melts the second she sees her,
"My dear" she holds out her arms and Bonnie steps into them, hugging her tightly,
"Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" Grams demands and she quickly shakes her head,
"No I'm fine, Kol looked after me and Klaus…well, apparently he's not so angry anymore"
"Hmmm" Grams lips thinned with disapproval at the mention of Kol but she nodded with upturned lips at the mention of Klaus,
"You're right about that, the entire pack are acting like furry zombies these days, but come in child. I'll make us some tea"
Sipping on the chamomile, Bonnie reminded herself of her mission and steeled herself before addressing her Grams,
"I spoke to Lucy yesterday" she began cautiously, "And she told me that Caroline was born under a blood moon with a prophecy?"
Grams hummed but offered neither confirmation nor denial and Bonnie continued,
"I've decided that I won't stand against Caroline in the upcoming battle Grams, because to do so would be to stand against the Original family and I don't think we could win, and I'm beginning to think we shouldn't either. She was a child and we slaughtered her family, she could have asked Klaus to kill us but didn't and whatever her father's plans for world domination were, she doesn't share them all Caroline wants is to survive"
Grams sighed and put her tea cup on the table, "It's not that easy child"
Bonnie rolled her eyes, "Why not? I'm tired of being given scraps of information and having to figure out the rest for myself, tell me the prophecy! Tell me what I need to know!"
Grams shook her head, "I tell you this and you can't unlearn it, once you know you're in danger"
She sits forward, "I'm already in danger, I acted without thinking, based only on what I'd learnt after meeting Caroline and had to spend months hiding because if Kol hadn't taken me away, Klaus would have killed me. My name is Bonnie Bennett and in this world apparently that means I stand with an alliance of mass murderers and child killers. If you don't want me to help Caroline then explain to me why she is so dangerous that there are people out there willing to throw the world into war just to see her dead"
Sheila Bennett leaned forward and buried her face in her hands, her breathing loud and unsteady and for a wild moment Bonnie is terrified that she's given her grandmother a heart attack before the woman sits up and takes her hand,
"Firstly, you have to understand that vampires aren't natural, they're the result of a spell gone wrong. Dark magic created the Original family and while they play friendly neighbours and are civil to you, for nine hundred years they have been a plague on this world. Untold thousands have died at the hands of Klaus, Rebekah, Kol and Finn- Even Elijah, the most noble of men has torn apart cities and bathed in rivers of blood for his own amusement. And there have been times when our family especially was victimised by these children, when our ancestors have been tortured, abused and killed for not obeying their whims. My own grandmother was flogged to death by Klaus because she refused him a spell and yet the hybrid then expected my mother and I to forget this and play nice with him, there were even times he seduced my mother and carried her off to bed with him because he honestly thought she would recover from the grief of her mother's death. So when James Sommers came to me and offered me an alliance, I ran away and grasped the opportunity with both hands…"
She trailed off and allowed Bonnie a moment to process this, to associate the family she had seen so many times acting so normally as the monsters in the stories that parents frightened their children with.
"James Sommers?" Bonnie questioned, "I thought you lived with the Arctos Pack"
Grams nodded, "I did but I was never loyal to Bill or Liz, I was a spy- placed there by James and…he had a plan, a plan to rid the world of the Hybrid and the Originals once and for all, but to do so we needed a weapon, something capable of taking out Niklaus, something capable of killing him, or someone"
Someone?
No.
Bonnie tried to pull her hands back but Grams is grasping them, her eyes heavy with guilt,
"Elizabeth and William never knew and I would never have told them but William's bloodline was the perfect for the task, the dark magic that had cursed them all those centuries before still flowed strongly through the Forbes veins and I could channel that magic. I could spell Elizabeth's womb to create a child with the strength and the ambition necessary to destroy Klaus. An Alpha Male to match him, best him and destroy him, to take him out of the equation and weaken his siblings until they were dead and the balance of Nature could be restored"
"But I was too full of hubris, too certain of my righteousness, too eager to finally end the vampires to remember that the magic I was dealing with was dark as night…I spelled Elizabeth's womb to bear a son and dark magic, devious by its very nature, took my spell, took my intentions and twisted them, remoulding the fetus until it became female and when she was born, so beautiful, so full of false, disingenuous light, I realised my mistake. Darkness flourishes as long as vampires walk the earth, why would it ever let me create something capable of destroying them? Instead of a male to challenge Klaus, it brought out a female to match him, best him and not to destroy but to create with him"
Sheila leaned back, exhausted but finally she ground her teeth and uttered the prophecy Abigail had foreseen all those years ago,
"When the Female appears before him with her feet the colour of fresh blood he will know her, he will claim her, he will mate her and she will raise armies with her false light and Death will love her"
Bonnie is trembling now and slowly tugs her hands free, "So you're telling me…the reason I was able to detect Caroline's pregnancy, the reason she fell pregnant after only a few months is because our family…our magic is the reason she was able to procreate in the first place?"
Sheila nodded, "We tried to mould ourselves in the Originals image and cause death but in the greatest of ironies we ended up allowing life to be created where it never should have been"
This was all their fault.
Caroline had been standing in the middle of the field, staring up at the stars in the night sky and pretending that she was no-one and nothing. Closing her eyes and spinning around as if she was a little girl with nothing in the world to worry about except climbing into bed and turning off the light.
Goodnight, sleep tight and a princess kiss.
She'd had a fucking terrible day.
Tyler's body had been released to Carol Lockwood, and it was only by chance that Caroline had been in the hospital parking lot when her Beta's mother had been arranging for him to be transported back to their home in North Carolina.
Carol wanted to give her son a human burial, in a cemetery.
Caroline had told her in no uncertain terms that Tyler was a werewolf and deserved to be buried in the woods where he had run under the full moon, free in a way that no ordinary man could ever know.
Carol had stomped her foot, slapped the Alpha Female and told her that she was the reason her son was dead.
Caroline had taken a calming breath, counted to ten and then stepped up close to the grieving mother and whispered in her ear,
"I know it was you who told the Crescent Clan that Tyler and I would be meeting on Wickery Bridge that day. I know you were well aware of the danger that you put me in, I know you didn't bet on Tyler being harmed but you hoped that I would be raped or killed and thus unable to unite the Arctos Pack under my name and your son would never know the life of the Pack wolf. I know your only thought was protecting your son but it is well within my right to kill you for this, you were married to my father's Beta, you lived on our lands, you swore to abide by our rules. Tyler comes with me or you join your son in death and he comes with me anyway"
They'd buried Tyler by the river at sunset, with Caroline kneeling at the head of his grave, Lizzie lying beside her as she grabbed a handful of dirt and clenched it so that it would sink under her nails.
"He died a warrior" she told her forlorn pack, "His death will be met with war and I will soak his grave with the blood of our enemies so that he knows we honour him always. But we must never look back, 'Et deinceps usque ad novos'"
"Et deinceps usque ad novos" They echoed her cry and Renee handed her a cup of wine which she sprinkled the dirt into and drank deeply so that her Beta would always be with her. She held Lizzie up and dribbled the wine onto her lips as well.
"So that his spirit always protects you my heir" Caroline whispered, kissing her hair and draining the rest of the cup.
Her daughters scream reached her and Caroline opened her eyes and spun around towards her cabin. Strange, it didn't sound like the typical wail of hunger or uncleanliness.
Concerned, she hurries towards the wooden structure and pushes her way into the dark room.
There's just enough light to make out the man standing over her daughter's crib, pale and inhuman. He raises his eyes to hers and there's blood running down his chin,
"I'm so sorry Caroline" he whispered heartbrokenly as her daughter's scream died off.
And then he struck.