A/N: Welcome back, my friends! I hope you're all doing well. :) Thanks as always to all of you wonderful readers, with bonus thanks to everyone who reviewed last time: Lavendor Queen, CarlyLynn, FictionalBoysAreBetter, loulousexperiment, SphereShadow, Savage Kill, willdawg992003, Raven Okumura, Adela, kineret, and Nik1804. You guys rock! :D

This chapter starts out with Zoe and then goes back and forth between her and Ezra for a bit, because Ezra's viewpoint is needed for some crucial parts of this chapter. Also, because Rebekah has been stolen away by Papa Tunde and we need to see Ezra's reaction to that from his own viewpoint. Some of the parts in his perspective might be slightly confusing, just because there's some stuff going on between him and his wolf half that reads almost like a personality/identity disorder; I know it's a little confusing, but it's deliberate. Sort of. XD


Chapter 54

"The sun loved the moon so much that he died to let her breathe."


I woke up feeling like a completely new person; it was amazing how beneficial several hours of uninterrupted sleep could be for a person.

As I got out of bed, though, I couldn't help but notice a feeling of tension hovering the air.

Oh, great, I thought. Now what's going on?

I slipped into some jeans and a Celtic Woman t-shirt, tugged on my boots, then went downstairs. I found my brother in the courtyard with Klaus and Elijah, the three of them poring over an assortment of books that were strew across a folding table that someone had set up.

"Uh, hi guys," I said with a little wave. "What's up with the study group?"

Ezra was across the room in an instant, pulling me close and wrapping me in a tight hug. "You have no idea how relieved I am that you're awake."

"Okay," I said slowly. "Thanks, I guess. But I was just napping. Not really surprising that I'd wake up eventually."

"Well," Elijah remarked, "with someone running about doing magic that sucks away life energy, I think it's not unreasonable to have been concerned."

It took me a moment to process that. And even after turning his statement over in my mind, I was still at a loss. "Wait, what?"

"Klaus and I went to investigate the deaths of those two daywalkers," Ezra began, and I nodded because I remembered them leaving not long before I'd drifted off to sleep again. "When we got there," he continued, "we found this symbol carved onto the bodies." He handed me a scrap of paper that had been wedged between two books.

I peered intently at the little doodle on the paper, trying to place it. It took me longer than I would have liked, but eventually I realized what it was, what it represented. "Sacrificial magic?" I frowned. "But who has enough skill to pull off something like this?" Our uncle had a knack for this type of magic, but I was certain that he wasn't in town. Not yet, anyway.

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Klaus replied, tossing aside one book and picking up another. "So far," he added irritably, "we're not having much luck."

Well, okay then. Deciding to make myself useful, I started to head over and reach for a book to help in the search, then paused and slanted another look at my brother.

I hadn't realized it immediately, preoccupied as I'd been with trying to understand what was going on, but after looking at Ezra more closely...well, it was obvious that he wasn't doing so good. He was paler than normal, with shadows beginning to form under his eyes.

"Oh my God," I blurted, panic blooming in my chest. "Did someone hit you with a power-sucking spell?!"

My twin gave me an insulted look. "Z, seriously?"

I flushed in embarrassment; I knew my brother had protection spells in place against such things, and even if he didn't, such a spell wouldn't have affected him like that. He was a powerful Wiccan practitioner and by no means a pushover. But in my worry, I'd somehow forgotten that my brother was a bad-ass.

"Well, can you blame me for jumping to conclusions?" I demanded defensively, putting my hands on my hips. "I wake up to find the three of you freaking out over some sort of sacrificial power-sucking spell, and you, my beloved brother, just so happen to look like shit at the same time? What the hell else am I supposed to think?"

"Fair point," my brother conceded grudgingly. "But no, it's not me."

"At least not exactly," Klaus tacked on.

My frown deepened in puzzlement. "What do you mean, not exactly? Either he's the target of the spell or he's not; there's not a lot of in between here, Klaus."

Ezra shifted uncomfortably. "Well, uh...that's sort of the thing," he said uncertainly. "I seem to be affected by one of these spells, but not directly."

I pinched the bridge of my nose to stave off the headache I felt building. "Okay," I told them, "you guys have lost me. How can Ezra be affected by a spell that has nothing to do with him?"

"The same way I'd be affected if something like this happened to you," Ezra told me quietly.

I scowled at him, then felt all the color drain from my face as the pieces clicked into place. "A bond," I realized. "You've got a connection to whoever is being victimized by this spell."

"Looks that way, yeah."

Which left the question of who on earth Ezra was close enough with to form that sort of bond. If forced to guess, I would have said Klaus, since he and my brother had formed some sort of odd bromance-y friendship since we'd come here, but the Original hybrid was clearly not the victim of a power-leeching spell; he was just the same as always. I was about to ask my brother who he thought it was when Camille and Hayley finally returned, their arms overflowing with shopping bags.

"Sorry we're late," Hayley said by way of greeting. "Rebekah was supposed to pick us up after lunch, but she never showed up. I don't suppose you guys know where she is?"

Oh.

Oh.

Well, crap.


Ezra's entire world came grinding to a painful halt.

Rebekah was supposed to pick us up after lunch, Hayley had said.

But she never showed up.

His inner wolf rose up suddenly and powerfully, letting loose a mournful howl that echoed in his mind so loudly it was surprising he didn't black out from the force of it. He tried to force his wolf back down, feed it reassurances that everything was fine, tell it that there was nothing to worry about at all, but for once his wolf didn't let Ezra push that side of himself away into the back of his consciousness. His wolf pushed back, making it very clear that any efforts to ignore it would be futile.

Ezra didn't know how to feel about that. On one hand, he didn't feel like he was about to lose control and go on a massive killing spree. On the other hand, his wolf was very decidedly not happy, and not being able to subdue that side of himself left him dangerously at risk for a loss of control.

She never showed up.

Something about those four simple words had snapped something inside of him, setting loose a side of his wolf that Ezra had never experienced before. A fierce territorial protectiveness. In some small ways, it was almost similar to his feelings towards Zoe; a need to nurture, a need to keep her safe. But this feeling now was so much more, so much deeper than anything he'd ever felt before. It was there in every beat of his heart, in every breath he took into his lungs.

And it was centered entirely on Rebekah.

She never showed up.

Now that he knew it was her, that she was the one on the other end of that connection, it made the weakness he felt almost unbearable. Because the weakness he was feeling was hers. The helplessness coursing through him was how Rebekah was feeling, right that very moment.

Rebekah, beautiful and bold and courageous.

Helpless.

His wolf gave a menacing snarl, and Ezra didn't try to hush him. He agreed with the sentiment behind the snarl wholeheartedly. He didn't understand why he was bonded to Rebekah, didn't want to examine that connection too closely for fear of what it might really mean, but one thing he knew for certain was that Rebekah Mikaelson was far too magnificent to be the victim of some two-bit warlock trying to build their power.

So he took a deep breath and did something he'd resolved to never try again.

He closed his eyes and let his wolf lead the way.


I knew the second my brother ceded control to his wolf. I saw it in the way his posture changed, and in the way his scent changed ever so slightly; going from Ezra's normal scent to something darker, more predatory. The change became glaringly obvious when my brother opened his eyes and instead of forest green or gold, brilliant wolf blue irises shined out at me.

"Hello, wolf-brother," I said, using a nickname I had given to his wolf after I'd realized the severity of the separation between my brother's two soul-halves. It might have seemed silly, calling my brother by a different name when his wolf was in control, but I couldn't help it. Ezra wasn't entirely Ezra when his wolf was running the show. Wolf-Ezra was different. He wouldn't speak much, if at all. And he operated almost entirely on instinct. He looked at things the way a predator would, splitting people up into two simple groups: potential threats and potential prey. There was a third, more elusive group, for those he considered pack. I was pack. And, as I stood there and watched as wolf-Ezra inspected Klaus and Elijah with that cold wolf gaze and didn't attack, I realized that somehow the Mikaelsons had come to be qualified as pack, too.

Thank goodness for small miracles. A brawl between wolf-Ezra and the two Original brothers would have been massively bloody. Not to mention a waste of time when what we needed to be doing was finding Rebekah.

It hit me, all of a sudden, why Ezra had relinquished control of his body to his wolf-half.

Ezra was bonded to Rebekah. I didn't doubt that, even if I didn't understand how it had happened; his reaction to the spell and his sudden panic had erased any lingering doubts. By relinquishing control, Ezra was allowing his wolf to use that connection, that pack bond, to track down Rebekah. Ezra could have probably found a way to do it without ceding control to the wolf, but it would have taken longer. And any time lost meant that Rebekah was suffering more. So out of his worry for Rebekah, he'd done the one thing he hated most.

He'd given up control.

As wolf-Ezra shifted form from human to a great big hulking timber wolf and loped out the door, I desperately hoped that our latest rescue mission wouldn't end in disaster.


Ezra, despite relinquishing control of his physical body to his wolfside, found himself in more of a partnership with his other half than he'd expected. His wolf could have chosen to shunt him to the side, like Ezra had done to him so many times in the past. But there was no resentment from his wolf, just a strong burning need to get to Rebekah right now and make sure that she was safe. And his wolf knew that there were things Ezra could understand, just as Ezra understood that his wolf could do things that he in his normal state could not.

So he'd let his wolf change their shape, transitioning into his true wolf form so as to track her better and with greater speed. He was distantly aware of his sister and the other two Mikaelsons following after him, with Klaus peppering Zoe with questions about Ezra's sudden switch in demeanor.

He heard Zoe give answers the best she could, and he heard Klaus snap something at her when he didn't like her explanations. Before meeting the Mikaelsons, Ezra and his wolf would have turned right back around and taken a chunk of the other man for daring to take that tone with his sister. But Zoe could give as good as she got, and Klaus was his friend, his packmate. Besides, he knew that sarcasm and biting remarks were a language that both Zoe and Klaus spoke fluently and skillfully, and that getting in between one of their little spats was both pointless and unnecessary; they'd work it out themselves, somehow.

As they hurried down the street and into the docks area, Klaus and Zoe finally cut off their bickering after a stern reprimand from Elijah. Ezra would have thanked the eldest Original brother, but his wolf was too busy racing forward, paws pounding against the cold ground as they approached a series of warehouses along the waterfront.

They finally reached the warehouse where he could sense Rebekah, and for a moment he considered shifting back to human form. In the end, he decided against it. He was stronger in this shape, with claws and fangs.

And he wanted to use those claws and fangs to tear apart whoever had taken Rebekah and hurt her.


I was not thrilled when we reached the warehouse and my brother wouldn't shift back. It's not that I didn't trust whatever balance he'd struck with his wolfside, but he'd been straddling a very fine line all this time, and I was worried that this voluntary surrender of control might have lasting consequences.

Still, I decided to deal with those problems as they happened and focus on the moment. Namely, busting into that warehouse and busting Rebekah out.

We broke in to discover Rebekah trapped in a circle of salt, looking about ten times worse than what I had expected. Her body was shriveled and desiccated like a mummy, as if someone had taken Rebekah Mikaelson and sucked everything out of her. Blood, water, breath. Life.

And imagine our additional surprise when we saw Marcel and his buddy Thierry there as well. Except they clearly weren't on the same team as the dark-skinned man wielding a knife; no, Thierry was laying sprawled on the cold floor with metal spikes pounded into his body to keep him in place, while Marcel himself was pinned by the warlock, who seemed to have been in the process of carving a symbol onto the former king's forehead when we'd barged in.

Instead of looking startled or alarmed by our sudden arrival, the man only smiled. "You're early," he said to us. Then his dark gaze fixed on Klaus. "But still in time to see me destroy one of the few people you've ever given a damn about." He pressed the knife deeper into Marcel's skin, and his grin widened as Marcel let out a shout of pain, his breathing labored.

"Get away from him right now," Klaus told the other man, his tone turning deadly as recognition lit his eyes. "Or I'll give you a second death that will make your first look downright merciful."

Papa Tunde just kept on smiling. "And why should I do that? The deaths of my sons must be avenged. What better way than to destroy the one you consider a son?"

Ezra, with his eyes gold rather than wolf blue, indicating that my brother was back in complete control of himself, charged forward with a snarl. While Klaus and I had been approaching Papa Tunde, my brother in his wolf form had accompanied Elijah to try and reach Rebekah. Out of the corner of my eye, I'd seen them unable to breach the circle of salt surrounding her; some sort of boundary spell, no doubt. My brother, apparently, had taken issue with that and was going to take it up with the guy responsible.

I expected it to be over quickly. I knew my brother's capabilities in wolf form well, and getting tackled by him is like getting flattened by a Mack truck. And on top of that, he was fast. There was no way Papa Tunde should have been able to dodge, much less survive the hit.

But faster than I could blink, the warlock was flinging out a hand and chanting something, and then the next thing I knew, a silver chain had appeared out of nowhere and was wrapping itself around my brother's throat.

Ezra let out another snarl, twisting around to snap at the chain with his teeth. Klaus was there a moment later, yanking the chain apart with his bare hands and freeing my brother. Ezra wasted no time once free, and lunged again at Papa Tunde. Only to freeze when the warlock clenched one hand in a fist and Rebekah's body correspondingly became even more desiccated.

Ezra clearly felt the impact of it at once, his ears flattening back against his skull as a low whine escaped his throat. He even took a few steps backwards, away from Papa Tunde and closer to Rebekah, as if he could somehow stop the spell by being in between them.

It occurred to me that we were at a serious disadvantage.

Papa Tunde obviously had the upper-hand here. He had not only one or two, but three hostages, all of them important to us. He'd chosen well when he'd picked them; Thierry was important to Marcel, Marcel was important to Klaus, and Rebekah was important to...well, pretty much all of us. Marcel was clearly Papa Tunde's focus, though; his capture of Rebekah had served the dual purpose of providing him with a new source of power why simultaneously drawing out Marcel. Papa Tunde had know enough about Marcel to manipulate him splendidly; Marcel, deep in his grief, wouldn't have left the Abattoir for any reason...unless it was to try and save a woman he'd been very intimately involved with. Thierry, playing the obligatory best friend role, had no doubt accompanied his sire in an attempt to talk some sense into him. To no avail, of course. And with Marcel captured as a result, Papa Tunde had acquired everything he'd needed to get us all in one place. Or at least...get Klaus where he wanted him.

Because it was about Klaus, wasn't it? Klaus, who had killed this man's sons.

I probably should have been upset with Klaus for those murders, but I had a feeling that Tunde's sons hadn't fallen far from the family tree; undoubtedly they'd been just as sick and twisted as their father, and had deserved their deaths.

Just as Tunde had deserved his death, the first time around. It should have surprised me, yet another long-dead threat returning to life, but strangely I didn't feel anything about it other than resignation. Clearly, coming to New Orleans had invited the universe to pile this sort of crap on me and my brother. Assassins by the bucketful? Of course. Crazy people coming back to life? Check and double-check. Getting sucked into ridiculously elaborate revenge schemes for no apparent reason? Abso-freaking-lutely.

There were some days when I just wanted to snatch up a sledgehammer and smash everything in sight. This day was definitely heading that direction, no doubt about it.

Before I let my emotions spiral out of control, though, I took a deep breath and focused. Reaching out mentally, I could sense the magic in the circle of salt surrounding Rebekah. Needing to see it up close to get a better feel for it, I edged away from where Tunde knelt beside Marcel and went to join Elijah where he hovered nervously by the circle, as close to his sister as he could get.

"Can you break the boundary spell?" he asked me, voice hoarse with worry and stress.

I reached out a hand and met very solid resistance where I pressed against the air above the salt circle. "I can try," I told him honestly. I was good, but so was Papa Tunde. Not to mention the fact that I was out of practice and still exhausted from my most recent bout of magical mayhem. And as carefully as Tunde had put all of this together, he had to have known that the Mikaelsons had witches of their own; he would have prepared for my presence, my brother's presence. He would have made sure to use a spell that was hard to break.

Or maybe not. As I pressed harder against the invisible barrier, I got a better sense of the underlying spellwork. The deeper I looked, the simpler the spell seemed. And after a moment of thought, the simplicity actually made sense.

Rebekah had never been Tunde's focus; to him, she was just the means to an end, a battery for his magic and a lure to draw out Marcel and Klaus. So it made sense for the boundary spell containing her to be basic; he didn't care enough about what happened to her to make the circle strong.

I realized very suddenly what we had to do to break the spell.

I bolted to my feet and whirled to face Elijah. "Bite me," I said to him.

His eyes widened as he stared at me like I'd just asked him to go dancing through the French Quarter in nothing but a bright yellow tutu. "I beg your pardon?"

"Elijah." I reached out and shook his shoulders gently. "Bite me."

And still all he did was look at me in shock, his mouth even hanging open in what would have been an adorably dumbstruck look had we not been in the middle of a massive crisis.

Losing patience, I shoved my wrist into his face. "Elijah, for fuck's sake, bite me. We can break the spell using witch's blood. The magic in my blood will throw off the balance in the boundary magic and then we can get Rebekah out. So will you please just bite me already?"

He hesitated, then lowered his mouth to my wrist. Another brief pause, and then his lips were brushing against the sensitive skin of my wrist in a way that sent little shivering tingles cascading throughout my body. Then his fangs were piercing my skin, a sharp pain that gentled into a lesser ache, and I could feel my blood leaking from the puncture wounds, dripping down my wrist and along the back of my hand to splatter on the floor.

Not wanting to waste even a second, I pulled away from Elijah and spun back around to the circle of salt trapping Rebekah. I held my wrist above the salt line, and watched with immense satisfaction as the salt line hissed and dissolved when touched by my blood, the magic forming the spell evaporating in similar manner.

I wanted to be thorough, though; I wanted to be absolutely sure that this spell was broken. So I methodically worked my way around almost the entire circle, dripping my blood onto the salt until my hands were shaking and my vision grew fuzzy around the edges.

Blood loss, a clinical part of my mind informed me. You're going into shock from blood loss.

As I approached the part of the circle I'd started at, I tripped over a crack in the warehouse floor, stumbling over my own two feet as I tried to regain my footing. Elijah was there in an instant, wrapping an arm around my waist and saving me from doing graceless faceplant.

But I wasn't the one he was supposed to be rescuing.

"Your sister," I told him weakly, my tongue heavy and thick in my mouth. "You need to...get her out."

"Zoe, you look very pale and your heart-rate is-"

"Forget my heart-rate," I snapped, finding just enough energy left in myself to raise my voice and put some stop-screwing-around-you-moron into my tone. "Go get your sister so we can get the hell out of here!"

He looking at me intently for another second or two, and then he was gone, leaving my side to rush into the ruined remains of the salt circle. He brushed a gentle hand down the side of his sister's face before scooping her up in his arms. Then he was back at my side again, taking my hand in his. And then I was being pulled along as he used his vampire speed to get us out of the warehouse and away from whatever bloodbath was about to go down between our respective brothers and the warlock who'd been foolish enough to threaten the people we cared about.


A/N: So yeah, that stuff happened. XD Anyway, let me know what you thought of this chapter; good, bad, so-so? As you all know, I adore all feedback. ;) What do think of the bond between Ezra and Bekah? What do you think of Ezra's wolfside/split personality? What do you think of our group's latest rescue mission? (And Elijah biting Zoe?!) Let me know how you felt about any/all of it! :D

See you next time!