Written for the 2015 AU Week
Caroline tucked her feet a little closer to her body, uncaring of how terrible her posture was or the maid's horrified reaction should she walk in. She'd pleaded a headache that morning, unwilling to face the quiet of the manor or the routine of dressing for the day.
The drizzle outside turned the English countryside grey, the usually picturesque view dull. It matched her mood perfectly. The past month had been slow, the recovery her heart and nerves needed - if only she'd managed to actually heal.
She'd broken her betrothal, and quietly fled London. It would buy her a little time, as no one would look for her here. But all it did was delay the consequences of her choices - Tyler had cared about her, but his family would never tolerate the loss of her inheritance. It was only a matter of time before they retaliated.
Then word had arrived that Katerina was dead. The Mikaelson family had disappeared as quickly as they'd arrived, setting the Ton on their collective ears. Caroline sighed heavily, letting the chill from her window seep into her skin.
Tomorrow she'd find the energy to walk to the local church and ask for prayers for her soul. She'd seen the devil - danced with him in gilded halls, tasted the sin on his lips - and craved more. Caroline was intimately aware that monsters wore human skin, had been so careful to skirt the edges of her betrothed's choice of lifestyle.
Until Klaus.
With black malady in his veins, the hot sting of his fangs against her throat as Tyler screamed and begged. She hadn't flinched from her death - had refused to give him that - and instead of pain and death, the monster had cradled her close; had soothed her frantic pulse with his tongue until the wound from his bite had sealed. And Caroline had found herself shaken; the hot band of Tyler's nightmare's arm wrapped around her waist, his fingers tangled in her hair while he kept her close.
Fool that she was, for a moment she'd let herself relax. Then those hot lips and hotter skin had pressed against her ear. His fingers stroking down the nape of her neck with a proprietary hold that had alarmed her far more than his bite.
"As for you love, you'll be keeping this quiet." The softest press of lips against the ridge of her ear. "I can compel your silence - ensure your cooperation - but this will be more fun."
Then he'd released her, stepping back to smile with her blood staining his lips, dripping down his chin. "Breathe a word of this, attempt to run and I'll eat everyone you care about before I come for you."
"Leave her out if this," Tyler had pleaded hoarsely. "She's not part of this. What use could you have for a mere girl?"
The devil laughed. His eyes flickered over Caroline's pale face. "Bait. Such beautiful bait."
And she'd played her part. Had refused to cower before her impending death - regardless of what Tyler thought, Klaus Mikaelson would kill them both. There was no life that could sate the monster Tyler had brought into her life.
But then…
He'd had the audacity to court her. To push aside all propriety and send her gifts. Leave them on her pillow. Small, carefully drawn pictures of her, little trinkets she admired when shopping.
Klaus had been so amused by her demands to stop. Dimples bracketing that charming, lie of a smile he'd laughed at her furious whispers. "Perhaps I admire you."
Caroline lifted her chin. "You don't see people as something to admire, you see us as food. My life was bargained so you could court Katerina Petrova."
"I'm setting her up for the slaughter, which you well know; she'll die before the next moon. Considering breaking our deal?"
"You've made your threats very clear," Caroline replied, looking away from him.
"Yes, and unlike your betrothed, you seem to realize how easily I will execute them." Klaus tilted his head, studied her profile. "Yet, you return what I give you, throw my generosity in my face."
Caroline fisted her hands in her skirt, paused as she turned to leave. "I do not fear my death, which we both know approaches a little more each day, but you will not make a mockery of my life."
"Is that what you believe?"
Caroline hesitated, but didn't turn to face him. "You don't care for my feelings and you have none yourself. I will keep my end of the bargain. I want to live. But I will not let you take anything else from me."
Instead, she gave away pieces of herself.
In her bedroom, the hard line of him pressed close - his mouth open against hers, the soft seduction of his tongue, hot and slick against her own. Her day skirts and petticoats were useless barriers against the heat of him; he stripped her bare with his hands in the privacy of her room just as easily as he had with his eyes in public. There were no explanations, no soft words as he burned her alive from the inside out, his body branding hers as Klaus took and took until she was boneless.
She'd reached for the shame as he softened inside her, the guilt that should have mingled with horror as he angled her neck; fangs piercing her skin as the monster buried inside her groaned at her taste. But all she knew was a languorous greed as she felt him harden, the hard length of his erection pressing against tender muscles as his body thrust into her. That possessive, determined grip on her hair and breast as he drove her towards that nameless breaking, that terrible and wonderful heaven that numbed her to everything but him.
He spoke only when she was spent, body limp and pliant under her sheets, cold from the loss of his skin. Lips against her temple, he'd laughed at her noise of protest.
"Death is not always an ending, little love."
Caroline hadn't known if it was a threat or a promise, but something terrible sat in her chest. A knowing that whatever she'd been before - they'd changed it. Oh, he was careful with the outside world, his pretty words and gentle manners for Katerina. But he showed her his teeth and horrors, cradled her against his chest and carried her under his skin.
Caroline wished fervently that she'd hated it.
She wanted to say that her body didn't burn for him. That in the secrets of her room, she didn't slide her hands under the long cotton of her nightdress, didn't shamefully explore what he'd shown her her body was capable of feeling. The memory of him left her pressing into her mattress with hitching breaths and muffled moans.
She kept waiting for the repercussions that never came. No servant talked, no rumor caught her desperate ears. Tyler suspected nothing - knew nothing of her body's awakening, of the game she played with the devil.
Then it… fell apart.
Tyler slipped.
He confessed his double dealings. Promised her it would all be over soon. Caroline was stunned - one monster did not replace another. Worse, she'd discovered she… cared. She didn't know if she liked who Klaus was or the monster under his skin; but she was incapable of the betrayal Tyler spoke of - even if she'd committed a worse betrayal and let Klaus into her bed, slept with his skin feverish against hers.
But as she stared at Tyler, she realized that it wasn't Klaus she feared. The monster whose teeth bit into her throat was the same man who left her books on travel. Who listened when he finally coaxed her into discussing what she wanted from life.
Klaus wrecked her. He shook her faith, destroyed her beliefs and left her craving his gilded tongue, his artist's hands. And Caroline feared in the depths of her ruined heart that he'd done it on purpose.
A back up plan.
A pleasurable destruction.
Beautiful bait.
Standing before Tyler, she hadn't cried. Hadn't shaken from her epiphany, the knowledge of how thoroughly Klaus had ruined her. Instead she'd nodded, played along and planned.
Three days later she'd left Klaus a letter with everything she knew about Tyler and Mikael's plotting. Then she'd quietly, carefully escaped from the city - heading to an estate that few would know her connection to and simply waited.
If Klaus won - he'd leave. Take his sister, the brother she'd heard him mention and reign his terror across the continent. Perhaps the Americas.
If he lost, in a few weeks, she'd face the consequences - likely her death. Tyler would not forgive her betrayal, nor would the creature who hunted its own son. In the end, she'd condemned herself, but it offered some peace. For the first time in her life, she'd made the choice she could live with.
"Did you expect that I would not find you?"
Caroline turned, faced the door to her borrowed bedroom in shock. Klaus stood there, loomed at her from the doorway in a simple pair of breeches and workman's shirt. She felt her heart skip, torn between delight and alarm.
"If you lived, I did not expect you to try," Caroline said finally, brows tucked together. "I assume whatever ritual you needed was completed?"
His eyes bled yellow, a double set of fangs dropping down and her stomach leapt into her throat. Klaus smiled at her, stalked into the room. "Mikael is dead. As is your ex-betrothed and the precious Katerina."
Caroline nodded, wondered how harshly her soul was to be judged for her part. "Do now you have to tie the loose ends?"
Klaus reached for the end of her braid, tugged lightly at her hair. "Do you remember what I promised you?"
"That if I spoke about what you were, if I ran from you - you'd eat everyone I cared about before you came for me."
"Good."
Her back hit her mattress suddenly; the hem of her nightclothes, her robe shoved up past her hips and the hot stroke of his tongue against her most private area left her in shock. Hands nearly bruising on her thighs, he licked at her with rough, velvet strokes of his tongue until she cried out, until her hands fisted in his hair and her hips rolled helplessly against his lips.
Until she broke apart, body arching in supplication. Klaus lifted his head, hands smoothing down her trembling thighs until the worst of her tremors eased. Watching her from heavy eyes, he worked on loosening the ties of his shirt.
"I killed my father."
His shirt hit the floor, and Klaus worked sharply at his pants. "I broke my curse."
Naked, he crawled back to her body and shredded her gown, eyes sliding down her unfashionable slimness, the softness of her skin. "And free for the first time in five hundred years, all I can think of is a human girl - a breakable with a spine of steel. And all I can imagine is your death - how time will sink into the mortality of your bones, hollowing you out a little at a time."
"Will you kill me then?"
He kissed her breast, sucked her nipple with his mouth, rolled her flesh against his tongue until she cried out, nails clawing at his back. Klaus gave her no mercy, merely switching sides until she was begging, body clinging to his. Then he spread her open, and sheathed himself inside her with a hard thrust. Caroline sobbed for air, eyes squeezed tightly shut.
"Yes," Klaus said into her ear as he began to move, each stroke of his erection drawing a cry from her throat. "I will kill you. But first I'm going to drink - take my little human Caroline's blood. And when you're coming around my cock, I'm going to give you mine."
Caroline tossed her head, her unraveling braid a wild mess on her pillow. He laughed, kissed her jaw. "No? Being a vampire will suit your fierceness, my love."
And she opened her eyes to hold his gaze, saw the crawling death of his wolf and vampire in his eyes, hunting her. But behind the predator was the expression that made her heart pound. That touch of softness, that admiration he'd shown so unwillingly when she would not bend.
I will not let you go, his eyes told her. Time and death cannot have you. I'm stronger than both.
He bit her throat, the sharp pain of it so much more than before. She could feel the heat of her blood spilling down her back, sliding to her breasts as he took greedy mouthfuls. The pain burned but somehow, it made the pleasure more, dug into her bones and left her desperate.
Klaus lifted his head, bit at his wrist with his bloody mouth as she started to tremble around him, her eyes unfocused from the pleasure and blood loss. His blood spilled hot between her lips as pleasure engulfed her; left her chest warm as he shuddered between her thighs; thrusts stilling as she watched him with heavy lashes.
Slowly, touch tender, he brushed the blood away from her lips - licked his hand clean. Just as slowly, everything about him gentle as she watched him from the daze of her afterglow, he tangled his hands in her hair, and smiled his monster's smile.
"The things I'll show you."
Caroline felt the world wrench; died from a broken neck.
She woke hours later - a maid between her teeth, Klaus's lips at her ear, and his fingers stroking the wet heat of her.
"Welcome to death, little love."
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