Hello back from the deaaaad!

thanks to garglyswoof and accidental-rambler for their help and for beta'ing this! It's a Salem AU and I hope you'll like it! (I would looooove to know what you think! I just love reviews, almost as much as I love pasta!)

It's smut! it's about witchcraft! it has a really strong-minded Caroline and worshiper Klaus! Hope you'll like it

She lies, dying, under her eyes, rocks hitting her stomach repeatedly, as if the shame of being shredded of her title and name was not enough.

"Do you plead guilty?" the magistrate screams, his hand in the air, ready to let the next stone fall.

"I am not a witch," she burbles out.

"You are already guilty of adultery, fornication and prostitution, witnesses saw you use your powers to seduce men into your marital bed."

"I am innocent."

There's a moment of stillness, a second of doubt floating over the crowd and the magistrate's head. But he lowers his fingers, and the stone falls - a pebble, really, that shouldn't be enough to kill her, to make the blood gurgle out of her mouth this way. Her body cracks with a cry.

An exclamation of disgust breaks the silence. The Magistrate shakes his head, babbles about disposing of the body, that justice has been done.

He doesn't know how accurate he is.

Her sister's skin is void of color but for the red staining her lips and cheeks. It draws a smile on the white canvas.

She had been a young witch who'd wanted everything the Devil had to offer. Justice is dubious, but the ones who preach it always think it's right. But Caroline can tell, there has been 12 innocent victims before her. As soon as a woman dares to open her mouth, she is accused of witchcraft.

Her corpse is still warm when the executioners take the body, to drop it in a hole on the outskirts of the town, in the forest, like a pathetic dead animal the hunter just finished scalping. She'll meet dried and black dirt there, corpses rotted by the plague, criminals hanged for a piece of bread, and everyone who didn't deserve a proper funeral.

Another man is smiling darkly, enjoying the show as the spectator and the main actor, the disruptive element launching the tragedy.

"You're far from discreet, Damon," Caroline reprimands, slowly, carefully as to not let the wanderers hear her, her hands neatly crossed on her stomach ass he's learnt to. "It was useless and irrational, therefore dangerous."

"She was collateral damage," he simply answers, "and she would have talked, eventually."

"Was she collateral damage, or a liability?"

He just shrugs, as if he didn't kill one of their own.

"I am getting tired of you acting impulsively, Damon, and the elders will tire too. We certainly do not need this type of attention on us right now."

"The plague is eating every yokel in this godforsaken town, it's our time to shine."

Caroline smiles, the smile she gives with sweet pleasure, especially to Damon Salvatore, the words tumbling out of her mouth like bees' stings, "Always ready to step into the light, Mr. Salvatore, even though you did nothing to belong there." She crosses her hands behind her back, a little nod, the smile still plastered on her face. "Like a rat, just eating the leftovers."

"Elegant. Especially coming from a former leftover."

She loses her smile, and she hates it; Damon's always had a snake tongue. But she's not afraid to bite back anymore. "I am the only one left willing to leave you some leftovers, so be careful."

Caroline gives him a nod, not interested in hearing anything from him anymore. His brother, Stefan, is too much of a bore because of his own guilt-ridden conscience, but Damon is merely a cockroach troubling her business, and too pestilential to be crushed under her boot.

The queen bee , the first and most powerful among the hive, responsible for the Black Death roaming the streets of Mystic Haven, masticating flesh and bones, for the blood flowing directly to their master's den.

There's no more time and space to loathe herself for it, now. She's been deceived too many times to count and had to fight until her nails and teeth were permanently stained with blood to be where she is today.

It demanded sacrifices, and wounds – being married to a man she despises, ugly and plump like a pig, and hands as such, forgetting her own happiness and future – to be the most powerful bee in the hive.

She is the most powerful woman in Mystic Haven, if not the most powerful being, and it not only comes with richness flowing on her neck and cheeks like liquid gold, but a sword, too, above her head, ready to fall.

Perhaps Caroline sharpens her own doom as she sees him from the corner of her eye, and he's smirking at her.

"If it isn't our great Doctor Mikaelson!" she hears Damon say, his smile displaying his teeth, like a wolf watching his prey.

Niklaus Mikaelson is a liability , he's been floating around Caroline like a lost pup for quite some time, and even more so since he came back from his trip to the motherland.

But she recognizes a darkness in him he's not even trying to hide, and Caroline is intrigued. More than that, she can feel her cheeks blossom with red and warmth when she sees him, like a little girl. This infatuation is enough for her to smile back, inviting him to take the few steps separating them. She dismisses Damon with a jerk of her hand, and for once, he agrees, leaving her with a nod.

"Lady Saltzman." Klaus greets, as Caroline flinches at the words.

"Please, call me Caroline."

His eyes widen before he looks at the floor, licking his lips. "That would be improper," he adds, teasing.

Caroline smiles, remembering how indecorous his last letter was. "Are we really going to pretend that our talks are anything but improper, doctor?"

She could be killed for this, hung by a thick rope because she dared to desire another man.

And what a desire , it was a torment of the flesh when his fingers were so deep within her, just like his gaze, lighting up every nerve in her body and his body pressed against hers like they could possibly melt. He hadn't even let her reach completion when he pulled out his two fingers, licking them clean and whispering on her flesh, "delicious."

She also risks the elders' wrath with this game. The pleasure of the flesh is not forbidden to them, but caring is.

Not that she cares, it would be too big of a word for what she feels for Niklaus. As she's grown older, her heart has grown colder, from whatever shaped her and is now simmering in her veins – power. She seeks it, relentlessly, like a hunter after a fawn mixed with a hint of revenge.

Interest , that what she feels for Niklaus. At his apparent coldness, as if he's hiding something. Perhaps it's a reflection of her own secrets, maybe she sees more than she should in his smirk.

She feels the need to crack open the surface, like scraping a painting to see the model's true face. And if she can be sexually pleased by doing so, she might as well enjoy it. He indeed has talented fingers and tongue.

Intrigued , since she saw him leaning against the red wall of the brothel, on top of the hill, biting into an apple, as the flame of the lamp by the door flickered, shadowing his traits. He was as graceful as a dancer, but with the hardness of a soldier – a peculiar gait. He was like an old tree, which despite its imposing figure, remains a victim of the wind that makes it undulate.

She had blood on her hands, that night. Caroline was coming back from the Tree of the Hanged; a busy night. And there he was, biting into the forbidden fruit, next to the house of sin. The light flickered, and she could have sworn she saw amber eyes directed at her. His shadow looked taller, larger, two horns seemed to be outlined in black ink.

In the dawning light of day, and much closer, she doesn't see horns, just blue eyes and dimples. She realises how far more dangerous it might be.

"Then you should call me Niklaus." He wets his lower lip, in a gesture that makes her melt, "Caroline."

She finds herself smiling and she lowers her head to hide it. She is meant to be steel, made of iron, with a heart as hard as the bones surrounding it. The elders, the beehive, need her to be.

But in the privacy of her room, she watches her hands, as if shadows of blood were engraved in them, she tries to scratch them away – she is madness , just a cruel companion of power.

She died. That day in the woods, when she slit his throat with a smile.

Caroline gets back from her own thoughts when Klaus stops their walk with a hand on her arm, "I need to speak with you, Caroline," his gaze darkens, obscures, "about the illness striking the city."

That's what he is here for. The disease, its cure. Ignoring that the first sting came from the person in front of him.

She nods.

Caroline decides it would be more private in her own house, and she pretends to bring the dear doctor to her ill husband to extinguish the whispers.

"How are you, Lord Saltzman?" Klaus tries only to seem polite, or he's perhaps intrigued by another medical mystery. Klaus didn't seem to care when his fingers were roaming her thighs. He asks when he sees him, immobile, watching his glass figurines. Caroline leaves him here all day long, looking at horses, fishes made of glass.

Alaric Saltzman can't move, speak or even think by himself since she thrust her familiar down his throat. The praying mantis scrabbled his flesh, rending him speechless, immobile, a drooling, useless man.

That's something she doesn't regret. It allows Caroline to talk on his behalf, to run the town. A woman with a man's voice and power.

"As you can see, my husband is still fragile," she simply answers. She asks Bonnie to bring Alaric to his bed and to give him his medication. Bonnie nods with a little smile on the corner of her lips. She was the one who introduced her to witchcraft, and has been her confidant ever since. She'll do as she is told, and give him the dark and thick drink to get him to sleep.

Klaus and Caroline settle in the living room, the latter asking for her maids to bring a cup of tea for Doctor Mikaelson and herself before dismissing them with a jerk of her hand.

She grabs the cup of tea, brings it to her nose, enjoying the smell of luxury she couldn't afford when she had only been Caroline Forbes.

Klaus is drinking her in, his cup disregarded as he looks at her lips, at her long fingers around the cup.

"What is the matter?"

Klaus leans back in his chair, crosses his legs, and a smile draws on his face. Devilish, knowing, and dangerous. He always looks at her as if there was something more behind her skin, in her flesh and bones, as if he can see the tornado forming when she bats her lashes. Madness rings in her mind, she thinks she can see black gums in his smirk, but with a blink, they're gone. "I know what you are," he states, as if it is written on her forehead.

She doesn't need an entire second to put down the cup, fold her hands on her knees, and bring back her composure. But it still sends a jolt of fear through her body.

"And what am I?" She says, without a tremor in her voice.

"The disease," he starts, and she thinks for a second that he's going to stop there, to point at her and name her The Plague. He wouldn't be wrong. "Is not natural, is it?"

Caroline knows he is not waiting for an answer, but she squints her eyes, pretending to try to comprehend him.

"The witches. I heard about them. Rumors, whispers from the villagers, words that there are witches here."

She keeps her face impassive, but she is pinching her palm, hiding her hands in the folds of her black skirt.

"The Dark Arts." Klaus brings his face closer, his elbows on his knees, "You practice."

"Are you implying – "

"You are a witch."

She breathes in. He leans back in his chair again. The movement seems anodyne, but his nonchalance rings a bell, it's almost as if he already won the prize and killed the prey. A witch , he'd said, it's the key to the puzzle. Caroline tries to keep a blank expression.

She's been accused of many things, some titles close to the truth. She is blind to it all, because the biggest label scares them, invincible, invisible, she controls those mouths. But if they knew, she would be hanging at the city gates, at the mercy of an angry mob.

Klaus is cocking his head to the side, studying her. She feels like an insect in a glass cage, and he is a scientist, looking at a mystery before he autopsies it. He wets his lips - again, anodyne, but he looks like an animal ready to eat his prey.

So, Caroline is thinking.

About ways to kill him: a knife, hidden not far, but she would have to stand and run. She can't possibly strangle him, not in this dress. But there's this nagging voice, mocking, you won't kill him , and she sees herself, a knot around her neck – or his.

He stands, and Caroline jolts back.

He takes a long stride, so calmly it seems provocative, to stand close to her. His leg is brushing hers and that's all she can think about, the cat eating the little bird.

But she must be mistaken, because when he kneels before her, she's not sure what role he plays. His eyes are round, amazed. He could be the bird, she could be the cat. "Teach me," he mutters, lowly enough that it sounds like a secret.

These two words reverberate in her bones, and his caresses at her ankle make them tremble.

"Teach me everything you know." He draws his hand up along her legs, "Another science." He grabs her heel, gets rid of her shoe, and softly kisses the curve of her foot. "The books," he begins, before licking the outline of her anklebone, "are not enough."

Klaus kisses the side of her knee, and her feverish appetite begs her to run her fingers in his hair and bring his mouth up. He folds her heavy skirt in his hand, and gazes up. Klaus takes her hand, wants her to keep her skirt up her thighs, so he can appreciate the length of them. He glides one finger at the hem of her stockings. "I've read that you need to give something," he says, "to him. What did you give?"

He opens her legs further apart, glides between them and his lips linger on her thigh. He waits for her to answer, and for a second, Caroline asks herself if it's not some new torturous way to make her talk. She wants his lips on her skin like a blank canvas needs paint. She knows his lips are paintbrushes eager to color her skin pink with pleasure.

"I - " is the only thing she can say before she bites her lower lip.

"Your soul?" Klaus adds. "You know, religious men pretend that having a soul means suffering," a bite in her flesh accentuates his words, "to keep it clean and neat." A sweep of his tongue. He goes higher and higher, Caroline lifting her skirt higher. He hooks her underwear, brings it down like a caress, like it's a bridal veil, and licks his way up until he's facing her pink cunt. "I disagree. I think that whoever made us made sure we had access to this tiny bit of soul, right", and he spreads her sex like a flower, flicks at the erect clit, "there."

Caroline moans, lets her head fall back, her skin pink and her voice cracked from desire, "Klaus - "

"It's like a spell," Klaus kisses her sex, takes in her scent and her raucous voice, "to hear you moan, my love."

Her knuckles are white, squeezing at her voluminous skirt, her stays suffocating her, her blood thumping too loudly. She's flesh, bones and cum under his hands.

Klaus flicks at her clit and murmurs, lips not close enough to her swollen sex, "So you didn't give it away," he starts, gazing at her bitten rosy lips, "your soul." He outlines her slit with his thumb, "Can I?"

Caroline jerks her head to look at him and nods. She can't think of anything else, she wants his lips on her, kissing, biting, she wants his tongue, his flesh. She surrenders.

"They promise paradise, peace, happiness. I believe orgasms are just a foretaste of what's awaiting us." Klaus' voice is filled with desire and a fervid hunger that makes Caroline's head turn. He takes a taste, with a languid stroke, dragging a deep moan out of her.

He buries his face and mouths at her cunt. Swiftly but with the strength of a tornado, Klaus brings her to her most animalistic self. He curls his tongue around her clit, shattering her. She moans, she lets her fingers grip his hair. Klaus' sounds while he licks her are torturous, begging her to come. She takes it all in, feels the strokes of his tongue like a paintbrush, precise. He adds a finger, and another, his tongue painting her imploring flesh.

It feels like an eternity but it's only a matter of seconds before she feels herself falling over, sobs filling her mouth.

Her eyes are closed and she's breathing as if she hadn't been before. Klaus is still between her thighs, trailing open-mouthed kisses along her inner thighs , bringing her down from her high.

He's drawing incomprehensible doodles on her thigh with his thumb, his gaze up, waiting for her to say something. He still wears his smirk - a lush smile, slick smeared over his lips - when she answers him.

"Klaus" is all she says, before she puts her foot on his chest and pushes him down. Her orgasm might have blurred her thought for a second, but the descent sobered her. Klaus lets himself fall, his back on the floor, and his hand on her ankle.

"Caroline" he wants to repeat with the same gravity she had, but he can't. His voice is hoarse and his thoughts sparse.

Caroline straddles him, a hand on his cheek, as if she was trying to tame him, a laugh bubbling out of her lips. That's why she gave everything to Him. For power, possibilities, in a world where woman are meant to be as pure as a wedding dress, or wanton enough to show her barely covered thighs on top of the hill in the brothel. Caroline, she wants everything. She wants the respect of the married woman, she wants the freedom of the whore, and she wants the power of the man.

"What did I give to Him?" she echoes Klaus' question. With a flick of her wrist, the knife comes flying into her hand. She's surprised to see him unafraid when she brings the blade to his throat, her other hand pulling his hair. His gaze snaps to hers but there's no fear in it, his eyes are round and amazed. Caroline wants him to be afraid, because fear and respect are two confusing notions, and only one of them is reachable for a woman, so she wants fear. "I took a life to have what I wanted. I killed a man," even without fear in them, she finds herself scrutinizing his eyes because she likes what she sees.

She's drawing a red line on his throat, and Klaus gulps. "Will you be ready to give as much?"

He doesn't hesitate, and she's surprised by the resignation in his nod. She puts the knife in his hand, but she keeps hers around his. They're both holding the weapon when she brings it to her heart.

Caroline raises an eyebrow, challenging, mad, perhaps. The blade pointing at her heart, ready to tear it out.

Klaus bites his lip, he tightens his fist around the handle.

Caroline scolds herself for the amount of trust she's giving him. He could kill her, but it's an aggressive question, the knife in his hand, and he answers unpredictably, but perfectly, when he tears the fabric of her gown. She falls forward, her hand near his face, and she brings the other to his neck to reciprocate the caress he's giving on her collarbone.

Klaus cuts the strings of her stays before he cups her neck to bring her mouth to his, stroking, dominant, a battle between them.

The knife is forgotten, as the warmth of his lips seeps into her bones, and his hands explore her skin even more thoroughly than she had before.

He molds her breast, and the fabric of her shift is an inconvenience, so she gets rid of it, leaving her chest bare, her petticoat pooling at her feet.

His fingers trail fire in her flesh, drawing on her skin to finally settle on her breast, to caress the roundness of it, and to flick her nipples.

Caroline gets rid of his jacket and shirt in haste, she wants to feel his skin against hers.

He raises his shoulders to help her, and she flattens her hand on his chest before kissing the curve of his neck. She could bite, she could kill, but all she thinks about is his hands on her breast and hips, waiting to take more. Caroline does want more, so she scrapes her nails down his chest, hooks her finger in the hem of his pants.

"I am willing to give anything," she hears him snarl, but she doesn't know if he's talking about witchcraft or something more. It could be a plea or a promise, and both possibilities are propitious enough that she wants to dive in.

Klaus slides his hand around her neck, bringing her closer to murmur: "Give me everything."

There's no gentleness anymore, Caroline scrapes, bites and strokes. His pants are thrown away, Caroline's petticoat and shift torn beyond repair. His fingers are stroking her inner thighs, before brushing her slit. She's more than ready, hot and wet, she wants more than his fingers and promises.

She lays a hand flat on his chest while she caresses his cock with her other one.

Klaus' gaze is fixed on her cunt and how she guides him to her entrance. They both moan when she takes him in. Her hands next to his face, she moves. Languidly, it reminds him of a mermaid undulating with the waves. Caroline shifts her head to the side, she delicately grazes his shoulder, only to bare her neck, an invitation for him to kiss the curve. He does, whispering prayers and worshipping her skin, her hair and sex. His hand follows the sways and slides down her back until it's on the curve of her ass, moving with her.

Skin to skin, Klaus listens to every sound as if they were spells consuming him. It's not new, but this truthfulness is. He wants to kiss her, he wants everything from her, even if it means turning to dust under her fiery eyes and claws.

He pulls her hair, bringing her mouth to his, biting, stroking. His heart might end up in one of her jars, he would be the one to hand it to her.

Caroline moans his name, and Klaus keeps the sound in his mind. The lust between them is palpable, thick, it's sweat, cum and skin.

She flutters, her whole body jerking in the haze of pleasure, and she needs more to finally fall. She raises her chest up, losing the warmth of his skin, but gaining a view of his sweaty body, and the same amazed eyes - it makes her smile, and she rolls her head back.

She takes one of his hands resting on her hips and brings it to her cunt, to her clit. "Klaus," and he understands. He brings his fingers to his mouth to lick them, before he plays with her clit. Caroline's head jolts back, nodding, so close to completion.

"Come, Caroline."

The knot is tight, ready to snap, his two fingers playing her. She doesn't hear anything but her own breathing, she feels his skin underneath her fingertips, and his cock inside her. Caroline trembles.

Maybe she says his name, maybe she says nothing. She feels the numbness of the after, her limbs heavy, a doll in his arms as she falls back on his chest as he mutters her name, coming in turn. Her breaths are hasty, uncoordinated with Klaus', but she enjoys hearing them, trying to fall in rhythm with him.

She rolls off of him, stays lying on the floor next to him, panting.

"I could kill your husband," Klaus whispers, a sneaking idea, poisonous but tasteful.

She should feel outraged by his words and by the way he says them, as if it was a simple solution, but she simply rolls on her side to look at him, "No," she answers, and sees the disappointment in his eyes, because he knows she'll never be his. She doesn't want to tell him that married or widowed, she'll never truly be his, not now, "I still need him."

She could have imagined, once upon a time, a life with him. The doctor's wife, with their kids and simple life, but she's tasted so much more, she'll forever be greedy.

Klaus doesn't look at her. His jaw is set, his eyes hard. She finds herself wanting to comfort him, to tell him that it's always been him - but it's saying too much - so she simply brushes her hand on his cheek and kisses him, tenderly, trying to convey every feeling she has, and perhaps even more she's hidden. Interest. She lied to herself.

"What can I do, then?"

"You can kill Damon Salvatore," Caroline answers with a smile.