"I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so."
- Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Bonnie wakes to a hushed darkness that reveals nothing of the time of day.
She has charmed her curtains to part at the touch of the sun's rays, but the autumn sun has been steadily growing weaker so her methods aren't always fool-proof. Usually if she tarries too long, Leah will come in to open the curtains which makes Bonnie want to think that the day is still young.
But her body seems to insist otherwise. There is a weighted grogginess at her eyes that hints at a deep and overly prolonged sleep. Her limbs seem to sink into the mattress, as if they would be content to let it well up and blot out all evidence of her.
And yet there is also a strange fire in her body, a memory of scorching flames that lick at her skin, the result of mindless pleasure from the night before. And that is when she realizes that the bed covers are not the ones from her bed, nor are the curtains the ones which she has charmed into obeying her wishes.
The heat pools in her stomach before bursting like a dying star, shooting out to her extremities so that her fingers and toes feel as if they're buzzing and might spark into flames any moment.
She remembers where she spent the night. She remembers how she spent the night.
She wills her breathing to fall into a level, rhythmic pattern. It had not been so last night. Her breathing had made her sound like a wild creature, something desperate and yearning. The only comfort had been that he'd sounded the same. He had whispered her name, joined with pleas, with a repetition that seemed spell-like, as if he was trying to find the combination of words that would bind them together.
She would have told him, had her lips not been preoccupied with his, that he was wasting his energy, that she was already there against all better judgment, against all sense of propriety, that she had already made her decision to bind herself to him, if only for the night.
His earlier swagger with which he'd pulled her into bed had disappeared, evaporating with the heat that seemed to emanate from every inch of him. His fingers seemed to scorch wherever they touched and his eyes had blazed into her, wordlessly demanding something that seemed beyond what they both knew would transpire that night. Something beyond Bonnie's understanding, beyond what she was willing to offer in that moment, so she had closed her eyes to the question in his and kissed him instead.
Bonnie fixes the last pin into her hair and gives herself a cursory glance in the looking glass before stepping away. She stretches out a hand to the bell pull but stops herself. If Leah hasn't come up with the tea things after the first ring, she is probably busy.
Instead, Bonnie settles herself at the writing desk in her chambers and summons the tea things to her. Madame Pearce had left a note, her words running into each other in their haste, informing Bonnie that she is off visiting more villagers in need of her help.
And there had been no sign of him around the house.
Bonnie imagines that he has gone for a walk. His cane is missing, but his chest is still in his room. He has never joined them for tea in the morning and she supposes, with a painful clenching of her heart that she ignores, that he doesn't see any reason to start now.
"Touch me," he'd pleaded roughly, and she had complied, as if it was a sensation she had discovered only in that moment. She'd run her hands over his shoulders, her nails down his back. She'd brushed her fingers across his chest and felt their tips spark and sizzle against the fine hairs there.
He'd hissed under his breath but when she moved to pull away he'd gripped her fingers and branded them to his skin, pressing his lips against hers in an angry kiss, whispering "I'll take all you give me."
The words seemed to undo something in Bonnie and she clasped him to her tighter, stretched her neck to receive more of his kisses.
She let small drops of magic trickle from her fingers, felt them glow, felt his skin grow more heated under her touch, and his growl tore through the darkness of the room.
Bonnie shakes her head trying to focus on the task at hand. She tugs her grandmother's small chest onto her writing desk, her fingers waving the lock open, her mind barely focusing. She settles further in her seat, letting the tentative autumn sun fall on her back as her fingers rifle through the book's papers.
He'd wrapped his mouth around her fingers as if he would devour the magic from her. She knew it must have been painful, but there was no indication that it affected him other than the ferocity with which he moved, with which his eyes enveloped her, with which he finally pushed into her, his face dropping into the crook of her neck, his body pulled tight with an urgency that tried to deny they were separate entities, that begged her to envelope him also. And she had. Her body had responded to everything that his had demanded.
Her eyes run over the fading ink with her mind only half taking in what they are saying. But then a combination of words snags at her mind, and she doubles back.
And I will kill them.
Both him and his son.
Bonnie's mind quietens, narrowing in on the words. She had certainly known her grandmother was a formidable woman, even one that others feared, but this… the writing is infused with a steel and blood lust that is entirely unfamiliar to Bonnie. She flips to the next page, a frown forming on her brow. The few entries that follow are terse and disjointed, trailing notes that detail her grandmother's trip, where she's staying, the miles she covers in a day.
And then there is another entry that makes Bonnie's fingers still once more. It lists the ways to destroy a vampire. Decapitation. Immolation. But it's not these that has made Bonnie pause. It is the question that her grandmother had written at the bottom, an afterthought that had clearly needed release.
Will I have it in me to kill a child?
Bonnie swallows, pushing the diary away from her and sitting back in her chair. Had her grandmother discovered the answer to that question? Had she succeeded in her mission? Bonnie finds that she cannot draw breath easily. The knowledge that her grandmother was only trying to protect her, Bonnie, does little to ease the pain lancing through Bonnie's lungs. What a wretched decision to have fallen on her grandmother's shoulders. The thought makes her eyes burn with furious tears. She resents herself for having been the chink in her grandmother's armour, to have been the one to force such a decision on her grandmother's aging shoulders.
Bonnie scoops the journal and letters back into the chest and slams it shut before striding out of her bedroom.
Magic burns at her fingertips and eyes as she cuts across the castle's grounds. It bubbles at her throat and she barely represses the urge to throw her head back and let it out. She feels as if she is oceans away again, alone in a strange city, and opening the letter that would tell her of her grandmother's passing. Her heart had cracked then, a fissure that seemed to run through the very core of her, and now she can feel it ravaging to new depths.
Bonnie brushes at the tears that spill, hot and unceasing, from her eyes. Her boots crunch angrily against the gravel, her weighted steps trying to drown out the inexplicable, juvenile feeling of betrayal that blossoms in her against her wishes.
She makes her way around the back of the rose garden, heedless of where her feet take her. She feels like a young school girl, and that her grandmother has just thrown her a reproachful look.
You mustn't put anyone on pedestals, child.
But how was Bonnie to know that the fall would be this great? How was she to have known that she would be the cause?
Her stomach heaves, and she places a palm against the wall of the chapel building to steady herself. Her other hand rests on her stomach, as if she might be able to curb the flames of fear and horror into mere embers.
There is a crunch of gravel ahead. Bonnie lifts her head to see him standing in front of her. There is a quiet, watchfulness to his form that hints at something waiting to be unleashed.
He moves closer, the sounds of his footsteps dying away as he moves across the grass. Bonnie notices that he does not have the cane with him. His hungry eyes and the harsh lines of his face are muted under the shadow of the chapel. Still, Bonnie finds that her breath is coming short.
"Good morning." His voice is like dead leaves caught in a winter breeze.
"You feel as if you are only a dream," she says, an accusation more than anything else. She had not meant to utter the words.
He pulls his gloves off, his eyes intent on her as if he is the one who thinks she will vanish from his sight. He lifts a cool hand to Bonnie's cheek and she fights the urge to turn her face to it.
"I am real, Bonnie Bennett."
She drinks in the sight of him with a frown, watches as his lips tilt slightly with the hint of a smile.
"You don't appear to believe me." He brushes a thumb across her bottom lips, his eyes tracing its movement.
"You weren't there this morning," she says, and once again the words have slipped out without her permission.
"I…," he licks his lips, and he brushes his fingers down the line of her jaw, traces them down the side of her neck. His eyes are hooded, his lids lowered, as if he might slip into slumber at any moment. "I needed re-invigoration." His smile turns wry as his eyes find hers once more, and there is a fleeting second when she fancies she can see heat simmering in their depths before his lips capture hers in a bruising kiss.
The intensity of it pulls a gasp from Bonnie. His chuckles sneak in between her lips, and the heat of his persistent tongue clouds Bonnie's mind. He leans closer, one hand braced against the chapel wall, pushing Bonnie flush against its cold stonework. She slips her hands in between the yawning lapels of his coat, her fingers trembling across his chest.
"See?" His whispered query is a brand on the skin of her lips. "I'm real enough."
She sighs, tipping her head back, a hand finding its way to his dark curls. There is a low sound in the back of his throat, half groan, half growl, and it makes Bonnie feel as if flames are licking at her skin. And then it is his tongue on her skin, rough and hungry at the base of her throat, and the dark urgency of it pulls a moan from the pit of Bonnie's stomach. The sound of it is so unrestrained and needy that she clasps a hand over her mouth.
"No," Klaus says, straightening to pull her hand away. She stares at him, silently in awe at the way his eyes are slightly unfocused, the way his curls are in disarray - a far cry from the composed man who had provoked her by the fireside only days ago. "I want to hear you," he says, rolling his hips against hers. The gasp that slips out of her is fragmented, falling between them in desperate, staccato drips.
His fingers curve around her hips and he tugs her up, pushing them closer, pulling sounds of need from her. He laughs in slow satisfaction, biting at her lips and swallowing more of her sighs.
"You are…," she murmurs.
"Mmm?" He hums against the underside of her jaw, nips at her bottom lip, making her wriggle. "What am I?" She can feel his smile against the curve of her ear, feel his want against the curve of her belly.
His hands had been insistent even as he flashed the most innocent of smiles at her. They roamed over her breasts, to her waist, pulled at her skirts. He kissed her with amused languor, lazily persistent.
"Klaus!" She'd laughed against his lips as he moved over her, forcing her down onto the bed. She sank into the downy, satin covers as if she were floating on a cloud. Everything in the Mikaelson household was of the highest quality.
"Yes, my love?" he'd asked with mock seriousness, his fingers making quick work of her stays on her bodice.
"This isn't-" Bonnie sighed at the ceiling as she felt the bodice loosen. "We can't - oh!" She gasped at the feel of his tongue on the swell of her breasts, inflaming even through the cotton of her chemise. "Your father and Grams will be expecting us!"
"So let them expect us," he said carelessly, far more focused on licking the bud of her breast over the cotton. He nipped at it with a small growl.
She gasped, bucking up, the movement only making it easier for him to take more of her into his mouth.
"You are…"
But it was hard to form words when the heat of Klaus's mouth was invading her senses.
"Mmmmm," he murmured, rubbing a nipple between his lips, "what am I?"
"Niklaus Mikaelson," she said, her words embarrassingly breathy, "you are incorrigible."
"Only for you, darling," he had purred against her throat, and his breath tickled her, making her laugh some more.
Bonnie stiffens, and the breathless haze she's drowning in dissipates almost instantaneously. Her alarm rises to the surface in seconds and she doesn't hold back. She pushes against his chest with the full force of it.
He lands on the grass with a dull thud. He is not far. She had been fuelled by surprise more than anything else, but now she can feel anger coursing through her.
He sits up and leans back on the palms of his hands, watching her with his head tilted back, his eyes hooded. Weak strains of autumn sunlight spear through the trees around him. He looks like a sullen angel. His tone is subdued when he finally speaks.
"It's been maddening waiting for you to realise the truth."
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think :)
