Klaus collects the pieces of his chessboard one by one. With a world to conquer before him, there is one conversation yet to have.
"You never answered my question."
Caroline's shoulders went tight. "That could be because you didn't deserve an answer."
Klaus moved into step with her, hands clasped behind his back. He seemed unconcerned with her dismissal, the rage tightening the press of her lips. Instead, he considered the backdrop of the woods.
"You fit here."
"I grew up here," Caroline ground out, picking her way through the trees.
"As did I," Klaus shrugged. "But I do not belong among these woods, nor do I fit among these landscapes."
Caroline heaved out a breath, stopped. "Is there a point to this? Will you be offering to bury me here next?"
"For a creature so filled with light, you are delightfully morbid," Klaus demurred, watching her from laughing eyes. "I like it."
His words struck a cord, left her mouth dry for reasons she didn't understand, a strange echo silencing the wildlife. His head canted, eyes narrowing as his gaze flickered around them. "A trap, sweetheart? Here I thought you'd have learned from the last time you played bait."
"No," she said firmly, continuing forward hoping to leave him behind. "And don't call me that."
"Would you prefer your name then, Caroline?" He drawled, caressed the syllables so his words were almost a physical touch.
"To be clear, I'm not helping you." Her words were harsh. "Elena is my friend. I care about her. Whatever your plan - whatever game your playing, no."
Klaus was in front of her so quickly, her hands slammed into his chest. The heat of him burned her palms as she backed away. He let her, brows tucking together. "What is it I see in you, little Caroline Forbes, that I have not yet killed you?"
"Should I know?" Caroline queried, eyes wary as he watched her with the wolf in his gaze. "I'm just a baby vampire."
"Yes," Klaus agreed moving back into her space. "You shouldn't be more than a passing thought. I've ruined beauty that surpasses yours; sowed seeds of discourse and mistrust that felled kingdoms built on the bone and blood of the faithful."
"Why are you telling me this?" Caroline demanded, pressing her weight into her heels to keep from flinching.
"I've recently gained possession of doppelgänger blood."
"No," Caroline breathed, hands fisting.
Klaus smiled, the monster sharpening the angles of his face. His dimples cut deep even as his eyes bled gold. "Did you imagine my patience for the annoyance of your friends would last forever? The Salvatore brother's plan are childish at best, inept at worst."
"Elena is my friend." Caroline growled. "I will not let you hurt her."
"You cannot stop me," Klaus said coolly. "However, she is quite safe, and she will live many years. Could the Salvatore brothers guarantee that?"
"So you've taken her freedom, for what? An army you can call your own, because that worked out so well previously."
"Freedom is an illusion," Klaus told her, eyes glittering. "The weak will always be prey, Caroline. There is always someone stronger willing to take. Lucky for you, I admire your loyalty, but even you can only push me to far, sweetheart."
"I don't want your life," Caroline ground out. "To only see hurt and jagged edges; to only look for nightmares behind people's eyes."
"Then keep your sunshine heart, Caroline," Klaus said with iron in his gaze. "With your monster teeth and your black veins; do you think that time will dull what is between us? In a thousand years, I will still covet you."
"There is nothing between us," she snapped, chin angling stubbornly as she blatantly lied. "How can there be? You've stolen my best friend, you changed my boyfriend in a caricature of yourself and you've threatened everyone I care about. What could I possibly be attracted to?"
Klaus smiled, dimples bracketing the knife blade of his lips. "Let's see, shall we?"
The world changed beneath her feet. Bark bit suddenly into her spine, and Caroline froze at the blatantly sexual way his hips pressed against her pelvis with her thighs hitched around his narrow hips. She rotated her wrists, gaze narrowed as he held them easily with one hand. The other was tracing along her collarbones with hot fingertips, skating along the line of her throat.
"What are you doing?" Her voice was alarmed, a touch breathless.
"Attraction is fascinating. The sudden meeting of eyes; the brush of hands and a skittering gaze," Klaus said lowly, eyes flickering to her uncertain gaze. "The sharp bite of fangs in your wrist, the pull of shared blood."
Caroline froze, stomach flipping at the burn of his expression, those delicate touches along her skin. Narrowing her eyes, she shook her head. "Physical attraction. So what?"
He laughed against her jaw, slid his lips lightly against her flushed throat. "Oh, Caroline. What I would give that this was only physical and that this pull between us so easily dismissed. I want you with your steel spine and heart."
"You want a toy," she said instead, voice a rasp as he licked her skin. "Someone you can control."
His laughter felt like teeth.
"I can hear your heartbeat, Caroline. The way it pulses in your throat. Is it arousal or fear, love, that pushes your borrowed blood through your veins?" Klaus' lips peeled away from the strong line of his teeth, gaze tracing down her lips to her throat. "Which frightens you more? The attraction? The ease at which you pull bits and pieces that I've buried for centuries to the surface? Perhaps it's your curiosity, this niggling thirst for more that tugs you my direction. The truth of what I am repels even as it attracts you, little love. Do you think I cannot read the secrets behind your eyes? You want me. The ancient destroyer, the artist, the conqueror. You just haven't forgiven yourself for it yet."
She shook her head, lip tucked tightly between her teeth. Her heart was wild in her throat and his words teased the monster's hunger she'd tried so hard to push down. Her nails bit into his fingers as he smiled at her, and she clenched her stomach muscles tightly to keep from rolling against the heat of him so tempting between her thighs. She should have been furious, angry at his presumptions and his manhandling. Instead she trembled with the effort not to demand more, to tilt her head back and beg.
"You don't want me," Caroline told him, voice harsh. "I won't be another game for you."
"It's a dangerous, sweetheart, to tell a man what he wants." His lips brushed her ear, voice a velvet temptation. "I think of Tyler touching you with his clumsy hands and lips, and I want to peel flesh and muscle from bone. I wonder at little sounds you make, the smell of your skin glistening with sweat and I've fantasized. How do you like to be touched, Caroline? Do you prefer a little domination, to be bent and twisted as your lovers please? I long to pin you to my bed, teeth at your shoulder and take until we both bleed, until your bones melt and your voice hitches as you beg."
His teeth grazed her ear and Caroline shuddered, breath catching hot in her chest. Arousal stroked through her veins, heavy heat low in her belly. The hold on her hands kept her pinned, and she didn't know if they were free if she'd have pulled him closer or pushed him away.
"Would you touch yourself for me, slide these delicate hands along the soft curves of your body?" Klaus continued, voice rough and low. "Do you touch yourself thinking of me? Would you show me what you want, take your own orgasm and let me lick the slickness from your fingertips?"
Her lashes fluttered as she fought not to lean into him and everywhere they touched too hot. His eyes gleamed from under his lashes, a low rumble in his chest as he slid a hand down her side. His hand brushed under her skirt, pressed possessively into the curve of her butt and hitched the wet heat of her panties against the straining edge of his cock. She moaned, teeth digging hard into her lip to mute the noise. He licked behind her ear and her spine arched, hips and breasts pressing against him. Klaus encouraged the movement with another one of those noises, his hand hooking under her thigh to help her find a better angle. Her breathing turned ragged, lip raw between her teeth as she strained against his hold,.
"Physical attraction can lead such chemistry, love," Klaus said, voice wicked. "Shall we see?"
His mouth gave her no mercy. His tongue and teeth teased her mouth open. Each stroke of his tongue against hers, the tease of his breath against her skin as he caged her between his body and wood turned her arousal hotter. Her body throbbed everywhere they touched and her lungs hammered for air she no longer needed. Klaus bit at her chin, then dipped his head and licked the line of her throat until he reached the curve of her shoulder. Blunt teeth sank into her skin until she the while, he rolled his hips into the dampness of her panties, finding her clit with each pass. She felt wild in her own skin, monster clawing for more and more, the high pitched whine catching in her throat as her thighs clenched tightly against his hips. He rumbled in pleasure as his bones groaned against her hold, and it didn't matter that she couldn't demand for more with her hands. He seemed to read each twitch, each pressed of her heel against his ass as he tortured her throat and collarbones with his teeth until she was thrashing against his hold.
She came with his blunt teeth against her shoulder, her heels digging bruises into his spine as his hand pressing tightly against her hip. She heaved for air, body trembling as he let her hands fall to her sides. He made no move to lower her to ground, hand instead hitching her thighs higher against him and she shuddered as he rubbed firmly against her. She bit down hard on the tip of her tongue. Two fingers lifted her chin, held her gaze to his. "Listen to me, Caroline. Elena will live well cared for, somewhere the Salvatores will never find her. I will build my army, and destroy anyone who comes after my family. The supernatural world will be changing and the sooner you accept this, the easier your life will be."
"Why are you telling me this?" Caroline asked voice shaky. "Why any of this?"
"I will need a comparison, years from now, when you come to me. When I have you naked and slick against my sheets." Klaus curved his hold to her jaw, held her when she tried to tilt her head. "Do you feel how hard my cock is Caroline? My pants are wet from the heat of your arousal, and all I can think about is how easy it would be to tear your flimsy knickers aside and thrust us both to orgasm. But I'd never settle for one once I am instead you or less than everything. So this is just a taste, a bite. And later, when I take my rather painful erection in hand, that hitching moan of yours will be very helpful."
Caroline's lips parted, face flushed. She knew he could feel the tremble that ran down her spine, the way her thighs tightened around him. His smile was bladed and hot, an invitation for her to ask.
"Arousing, isn't it, the idea that I'll come with your name on my lips. Wishing it was the feel of you wrapped around me like a vice instead of my hand." His smile faded, eyes glittering. "This is not the end, Caroline."
She took a deep breath, and carefully pushed against his shoulder. "It has to be."
He bit her lip, soothed it with his tongue, until her mouth opened under his; until her hands dug into his arms. Her tongue was greedy against his, nails sharp against his skin as she rolled against him for just a bit more. For a moment, she let herself feel drunk on it; him, his taste, the feel. She couldn't help herself. He pulled back slowly, let her chase his lips until she realized what she'd done and pulled back with a shudder.
"A century, a decade. What is time to the immortal?" Klaus asked, the steadiness behind his eyes shaking her. "You will find me, Caroline."
"My life is not a game," Caroline said, tone hard even as it shook. "I won't live my life looking over my shoulder."
"You have no idea what your life is worth to me, but the day you understand is the day you accept this." He set her down carefully, fingers steadying her as her knees wobbled before he stepped away from her. "My life will not be on hold for you, love. Find me when you're ready for what I'm offering."
"Which is what?"
"Everything."