Try as she might, it was pretty much impossible to hard to maintain an air of dignity wearing a bed sheet. It also didn't help that Mr Original Alpha was leering at her as if she were breakfast.
"Would you stop looking at me like that!" she snapped irritably, as she pulled the sheet tighter around her shoulders.
He leaned against the doorjamb, a whiskey tumbler in his hand, and smirked down at her. "And why would I do that, love, when you look so delectable?"
Caroline didn't even try to suppress the roll of her eyes. "You seriously have to work on your material, " she said, as she wondered what her next step should be. She really should have thought this through, Caroline thought, she had a funny feeling she was losing points on the werewolf dominance scale by having this conversation half naked. Why had she thought it would be such a good idea to track him down in wolf form again? Looking back on it, it seemed like a ridiculously foolhardy thing to do. Was the wolf more in the driver's seat than she thought? She bit her lip.
"Penny for your thoughts, love."
"Why did you bite Damon?" she asked, evading his question.
He shrugged. "Do I need a reason? You have met him, after all. Definitely the least personable Salvatore. I had hoped to strike a bargain with Stefan in exchange for the cure, but here you are instead." His smile became predatory. "Come to strike a bargain with the devil?"
"As if I don't already know what you want," Caroline sniffed. "You aren't exactly subtle."
He leaned forward and plucked one of her curls free from a sheet crease. His scent enveloped her, a blend of earth and blood iron, and she shuddered in response. Oh no, that did not just happen. Cool and collected, Caroline, show nothing. She suspected it was too late though, as his eyes had become suddenly thoughtful as he studied her. That worried her. She definitely didn't want him to start taking her seriously. Time to end this...whatever it was.
"Back up, cujo, haven't you ever heard of personal space?" she snapped. She pushed at his chest until he took a step back, the smirk slowly returning to his face.
"So what do you have in mind, Caroline," he asked, drawing her name out as if he got enjoyment from it.
She mentally steeled herself for what was to come. "How about you make me a proposal and I'll counter it."
He pursed his lips. "Hmmm, perhaps a variant on what I was going to propose to Stefan."
Caroline raised an eyebrow."I hadn't realised you were into Stefan like that."
I'm a thousand years old, love, there isn't much I'm not into...but no, where is the challenge in coercing someone into my bed?'
"Silly me, I forgot to factor in your enormous ego into the conversation." A smile curled his lips, emphasising his dimples, and Caroline suppressed a groan. No doubt about it, she was attracted to him. Thankfully her brain had a lot more sense than her hormones. She arched an eyebrow and gave him a disdainful look.
"So let me get this straight, coercing someone into your bed is beneath you, but coercing someone into your pack is a-ok?"
The dimples disappeared in a flash as he glowered at her. "Easy, love, you wouldn't want me to lose my temper."
"And now you're threatening me. Not really seeing the upside to being in your pack."
"You came to me, love, remember?" he countered. "Something about a cure for your friend."
Ugh, Damon, still the bane of her life. "How about a compromise?" she said aloud. "I'll give you a week to convince me that joining your pack is a good idea."
"Two weeks," he countered, without even blinking, and a suspicion reared its ugly head in her mind. Caroline ignored it. So what if she had been outmanoeuvred? She still needed the cure and she could handle two weeks.
"Deal," she said, holding her hand out in front of her to shake. He grinned and tugged as he shook it, pulling her closer. Caroline yelped as she struggled to hold onto the ends of the sheet. So not a gentleman, although what had she been expecting?
"Perfect," he said, his dimpled smile making a reappearance. He was close enough for his scent to wrap itself around her again, which she suspected was the point. Wolfie domination games. Well, if he thought she was going to make it easy, he had another thing coming!
She glared up into his eyes, cursing the couple of inches height difference. She made an inner resolution to always wear heels around this guy from now on. She wasn't an expert at werewolf stuff but she knew enough from Tyler, to know that even a perceived weakness can affect your place in the pack. Well, her place was on top, no matter what this jackass thought. Being old as dirt didn't give him a pass to push her around. He blinked down at her, and Caroline felt a moment of triumph as she caught a moment of doubt in his eyes. He stepped away, and the weight of his scent lifted. Caroline stamped down on the brief pang of regret that burbled within. His scent, however, was about to replaced by something ten times more potent.
"What the hell are you doing?" she said, a squeak seeping into her voice as he drank down the last of his whiskey and bit into his hand, filling the air with the aroma of his blood as it dripped into the glass.
"I'm giving you the cure, love." His eyes widened suggestively. "Want a taste?"
Her mouth watered, her entire body tensing with anticipation at the thought of tasting him. She gripped the doorjamb behind her and felt the oak crumble under the pressure. The tension broke as he sighed and rolled his eyes.
"Careful with the architecture, sweetheart." he said. "The contractors will not be pleased."
Caroline snorted as she straightened, glancing over her shoulder at the carpenters in the other room. Even when mentioned by name, they didn't look up. "The contractors have been compelled to within an inch of their lives and we both know it," she said. "I highly doubt you give a damn for their preferences."
He smirked as he handed over the glass, and Caroline felt her gums ache as she glanced down in the rich ruby colour of his blood. It was more than just a thirst for his blood, it was a need to possess it, own it. It was definitely some kind of hinky hybrid thing. Great, along with the furriness, she seems to have inherited a whole new slew of instincts and needs that she could barely recognise, never mind control. "Need a lift, love?" the Original said, breaking her train of thought. " Might be a little difficult to carry the glass in werewolf form - or we could invite the Salvatores over,"
"So helpful," she said dryly.
"Well, it'll give you a little more time to pack if I help this along."
She blinked. "Wait, what? I'm not packing anything! I'm staying right here."
"You promised me two weeks," he reminded her. "And as I have urgent business out of town, that means you have no choice but to accompany me."
"Can't it wait until you get back?" she protested.
"Are you breaking your word, love?" he asked flatly, eyeing the glass in her hand.
"No I'm not," she said. "You've just moved the goalposts."
"Listen, love," he purred. "An Alpha needs a pack and I'm starting my recruitment drive. If you're going to be my Beta, doesn't it make sense you should be along for the selection process?"
She pursed her lips, foregoing to remind him that she hadn't agreed to be his Beta, merely agreed to let him try and convince her. This was his opening gambit and, reluctantly, she had to admit he had won it.
"I'll need more than a couple of hours," she eventually said. "I'll be ready to go in the morning."
He grinned. "But of course, Caroline, never let it be said I can't be flexible." He pulled out his car keys. "Now, about that lift…?"
She waited until he drove away before retracing her steps to where she'd hidden her clothes. She wrinkled her nose at the dampness that had seeped into them as she shrugged them on. She definitely needed a better solution to stashing her clothes when in wolf form. Unlike Klaus, she did not have the luxury of minions trailing after her and taking care of her every need.
The blood had begun to congeal in the glass by the time she reached the Salvatore's front door, but a cure was a cure. The door opened before she knocked and Stefan eyed the glass in her hand warily.
"Blood?"
"Klaus's blood," she affirmed. "Apparently it's the cure. Arrogant ass."
Stefan took the glass from her. "We locked him up in the cellar," he explained, as he led the way in the livingroom. "The hallucinations have kicked in."
Caroline paused as they entered the room. Bonnie and Tyler had arrived since she'd been gone. "Hey guys," she said, with false cheer. "I guess you've heard the news."
"That you're part werewolf?" Tyler asked dryly. "Yeah, we got the memo. Kind of makes a lot of sense, actually, you were always a bit of an alpha bitch."
"Oh, flattery, be still my heart" Caroline returned, equally dry, as she headed for the drinks cabinet. She was definitely going to need vodka for this.
Tyler smothered a grin. "Oh c'mon, it was a good line. Admit it."
Caroline laughed, despite herself, as she poured a drink. "So do you want to hear the bad news or the bad news?"
"Give me a moment," Stefan said, before blurring from the room. Caroline threw herself onto the couch beside Elena. Bonnie, silent until now, leaned forward.
"How does it feel?" she asked.
Caroline looked down into her glass. "Weird," she admitted. "It's hard to explain but when I was turned into a vampire, everything was dialled to eleven but I was still me, you know. Now it's as if this extra door has been opened and all these other instincts have fallen out and it's like - oh, hey, this is you too. Enjoy." She shrugged. "I caught myself trying to physically intimidate an Original earlier. Which is stupid on so many levels but I couldn't help myself. It was like something inside me refused to back down."
Tyler snorted. "Oh, this is going to be hilarious," he said.
"If by hilarious, you mean I now apparently have a deathwish, then yeah, it's a laugh a minute," Caroline deadpanned.
"Deathwish?" Stefan echoed, as he reentered the room.
Elena perked up. "How is he?" she asked.
"Sleeping," Stefan said. "But the bite seems to healing and he's no longer running a fever. I left a few blood bags beside him and locked the door just in case." Elena slumped back into the seat and Caroline felt a spark of annoyance. Since when was she so worried about Damon? Stefan she could understand, because you can't pick your family, even when they're abusive scumbags, but Elena? This had better not be a sign of things to come. Damon was not their friend.
"So what happened?" Stefan asked. "Something tells me Klaus didn't just give you the cure out of the goodness of his heart. What did he ask for?"
Caroline winced. "You're not going to like this," she warned.
"That I already figured out," Stefan said, as he poured himself a bourbon. "How bad is it?"
"Not as bad as it could be," she prevaricated. "He wanted me to agree to becoming his Beta and I made a counter offer - I gave him two weeks to convince me it was a good idea."
Tyler laughed. "Well, that's a bad idea - for him, I mean. Two weeks is more than long enough for you to figure out you're not Beta material."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Caroline asked, frowning at him.
"Caroline," Tyler said slowly. "When I called you the alpha bitch earlier, I wasn't talking figuratively. Your scent screams alpha female and Klaus must know that."
"I think you're underestimating Klaus's arrogance," Bonnie said quietly, and. Caroline turned to look at her as tried to digest what Tyler had said. The witch took that as a signal to continue. "He's an Original," she said. "As far as he's concerned, he's the ultimate Alpha. I doubt he's going to take anyone else's Alpha status into consideration when he subjugates them. It's either bow down or die.
Caroline felt a shiver run down her spine. Put it like that, challenging him as she had earlier had definitely been a bad idea. "Uh, guys, I haven't told you the rest yet." As one, they turned to look at her, and she told them how he expected her to go with him on his recruitment drive.
"You can't go with him alone," Tyler said firmly. "I'm going with you."
"I can't ask you to do that, Tyler," Caroline protested.
"You're not asking, I'm volunteering," Tyler returned. "I'm not letting that ass railroad you into being something you're not before you even know what you're agreeing to."
Caroline flashed him a grateful smile. "Thanks."
He smiled back. "You'd do it for me," he said simply. "I'll pack a bag and sleep on your couch tonight. That way I'll be ready and waiting when he arrives.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Bonnie muttered.
"It's not as if I have much choice, Bonbon," Caroline said. "You remember what he did to Rose and her friend when they went behind his back and helped Katherine. I don't think he's the kind of guy who takes a broken promise well."
The witch sighed. "Be careful, Care," she warned. "Call me the moment things go pear shaped.
Caroline crossed the room and hugged her. "I promise, " she whispered into her ear, as her friends arms tightened around her.
