Their arms were still intertwined, her focus had not left him, and she was hardly naïve. That plus his currently human body, enhanced by magic or not, meant she felt the twitch in his muscles.

With a rush of displaced air she was out of his grasp and standing at the end of her driveway. She cocked her head, face stoic even as she fought the urge to savagely grin. If her heart could still race it would be pounding.

Handicapped he may be, but he was fast. His arm fell to his side from where it had grasped air, level with where her neck had been mere seconds ago.

He met her gaze, an ancient's wrath brewing behind his eyes. A look that hardly belonged in a mortal's face.

"Caroline Forbes, even more clever than I gave you credit for." His lips curled. "And a far greater fool, if you think it's wise to oppose me."

Had she been the teenager she was posing as, a girl constructed of youthful insecurity and pride, protective fury and misguided loyalty, then perhaps his words would have goaded her. But she was not.

She was far more interested in his motives than his taunts. Knowing what she knew of him now, they made zero sense. Or at least the smokescreen of lies and misdirection that had been fed to the inhabitants of this town didn't.

So, she allowed the smile she had been suppressing to creep across her face, sharp and predatory. "Oppose?" She echoed, mental cogs turning as she pondered what cards to reveal, what bait to lure with. "This isn't me attempting to be your opposition, Klaus. If that happens, I assure you, you'll know."

There was no tell, not in his body, no twitch of an eyelid or flex of a jaw muscle. But she too was an ancient creature, one he didn't know he was facing, and there were other tells to read. Centuries of honed instinct to try to fool. Caroline knew that she had snagged a bit more of his attention.

The instant his name had crossed this blonde child's lips he had moved to silence her. Surprised by the accuracy of her guesswork and the arrogance of her challenge. Enraged that she would attempt to interfere in his plans, the culmination of a thousand years of work.

That her reflexes were quick enough to evade him was a bother. His earlier buoyant mood and curiosity quickly soured. And there was nothing friendly in his tone, when he warned her of the mistake she was making.

Children were predictable, easily riled creatures, baby vampires even more so. Full of tiresome bravado and his guise conveniently had anti-vampire weapons up his sleeves. Quite literally. But she hadn't responded in any of the dozen ways he had expected.

He turned her words over in his mind, and despite his better judgement a spark of intrigue relit. The shift in syntax and diction, the very purposeful emphasis on 'if'. Oh, it wasn't the most subtle, but it didn't need to be.

"Now, whatever happened to the girl who slammed her teacher against a chalkboard for a funny look at her friend. Hm, love?"

"Oh, she's still here." She smiled, lips pink. "If you recall I threatened you because I suspected you were a different type of predator. You're not. Good for you." A toss of one of her artfully styled curls. "The whole life, death, supernatural showdown, though? That's just business, and it's not mine."

Now, that surprised him, and he let a single, skeptical brow arch. "Forgive me, love, if I do not believe you."

Never let it be said that Maddox didn't know how to read a cue. He stepped out from the shadows of the street, an aneurysm causing the baby vampire to hunch over with a grunt. Impressive pain tolerance in one so young.

He stepped forward, about to give another order, when the bloody chit overpowered the spell. Another pulse of displaced air and she had Maddox in her hold. Her leg pinning his, his arms forced behind his back, and her other arm choking him. Unfortunately witches still needed to breathe.

There was a familiar fury rising in his gut along with a speck of begrudging respect. He had underestimated her. And now he was in the rare, infuriating position of being in a tight spot. There were still a few spells needed to properly reinforce the beleaguered history teacher he was wearing.

He eyed his adversary and saw more than an infant's calculation on her face. She knew she had him. Damn.

Though her smile had faded and there was nothing gloating in her expression.

"Look, Klaus, I actually don't want to fight with you. Whether you believe it or not I don't have any reason for quarrel."

"Then, be a good girl, and release my warlock."

Her lip quirked, looking amused rather than angered. "As a show of good faith, I will. Just one question before I go."

He narrowed his eyes, but didn't interrupt.

"The Curse of the Sun and Moon, it has nothing to do with vampires walking in the sun or wolves being unbound from the moon...does it?"

...That's what she wanted to ask?

"No, not precisely, love."

She stared at him for a long moment.

And then she was gone, Maddox stumbling toward him from the force of her light shove.

His flinty gaze shifted to his warlock, displeased.

"I hope you don't further disappoint me, Maddox."

Caroline nursed her vile drink of cheap punch spiked with cheaper liquor, and listened with half an ear to the music playing. Funny what things remained unchanged a parallel world away. Her eyebrow raised, a bolt of amusement passing through her as she watched Klaus slip in from the back. For a man who claimed only The Beatles made the 60's bearable he sure didn't seem to mind dancing along to Kula Shaker's version of Hush.

His compulsions were less amusing, but it verified who his target was tonight. Attacking the Gilbert boy? Only Bonnie and Elena would really care. She had to commend his sense of timing though. Dana announced his little shout-out and song pick (Dedicated to the One I Love, seriously?) just as Elena and her entourage finished filtering through the door.

Glancing between Elena's stricken face and Klaus' gleeful one she couldn't help but snort. Gods, he was fortunate that Elena and her friends were so oblivious.

She continued to loiter as the night's drama unfolded, carefully sticking to the shadows as she listened to their fumbling schemes and the results of Klaus' machinations.

Bonnie's magic show was impressive from a certain perspective she supposed, but to anyone with more knowledge it was all flash and no substance. And Elena and Stefan were decent actors, but the human's heart was far too steady for it to be anything but a ruse. The girl wasn't a sociopath after all, far from it with her martyr complex a mile wide.

Her eyes followed Klaus' stumbling form, Alaric's body still battered from the beating he took.

"You do know she wasn't dead, right?"

"I rarely get played for a fool, love," he retorted, not exactly shocked to be hearing her voice for the second time tonight. Though he wondered at what her play was as, despite being present, a pink shadow hovering in his periphery, she hadn't interfered at all. Not one action against him, not even a warning to her supposed friends.

He turned, casually leaning against the brick at his back as he regarded her. She had removed her hat and gloves since their last little tiff, both tucked away into the bag she was now carrying. There was an odd expression on her face as she watched him watch her.

And then she did something entirely unexpected.

She stepped toward him, heels clicking against the pavement as she stopped a foot or two away. Her head cocked.

"You know…" she started, words slow and contemplative. "I thought about your answer to my question earlier. You could have been lying sure, but 'no, not precisely,' is a rather carefully worded response.

Klaus blinked, each of their frames frozen with a hunting stillness. Surely, she wasn't about to bloody guess the truth.

"And then I wondered which half of the supposed curse was more likely to be at least slightly true and something you'd be willing to put so much effort into. Do you know what I concluded, Klaus?"

Alaric's human teeth were blunt, useless things, but he bared them as he smiled. "Regale me, love, with your revelations."

"You want the wolves. Somehow, something about this ritual benefits you personally and them as a consequence."

Caroline internally sighed. It was awkward dancing around the truth they both already knew, but she had to if she didn't want to tip her hand so soon. After all, how on earth would small town girl Caroline Forbes be able to guess he was a hybrid of all things?

He had pushed away from the wall the longer she spoke, eyes dark. "You really are too clever for your own good."

The surge of magic behind her wasn't a surprise, she had felt the warlock waiting in the wings. Now she had a decision to make. Her mysterious behavior, the little confrontations she had won, she knew as she knew her own monster's heart that Klaus was agitated. Until he had the apparent upper hand he wouldn't be comfortable.

For a fraction of a second she contemplated letting him think he had it.

A roll of her neck and she broke the man's telekinetic attempt to break it. But no, she wasn't done playing yet. He couldn't be her equal unless he could challenge her, and as he was now he simply lacked too much information.

She smirked at the flash of true surprise that the man couldn't quite hide.

"Do come see me when we can meet face-to-face, truly this time."

Always rushing off, she departed with a wink, the wind carrying back an echo of her laughter.

Once he was back in his proper form, Klaus ensured Maddox was appropriately disciplined for his failures. The rest of his temper exercised by tormenting dear Katerina. It wasn't quite enough. And Caroline had rapidly slid from nuisance towards threat. Threats were not something he would tolerate the day before the full moon.

And a few hours later, the hybrid-to-be was once more standing on the Forbes' front porch. With the full use of his senses returned to him he could hear the slow beat of a supernatural heart. A beat too slow to belong to a baby vampire. Strike one.

He was not as surprised as he could be. But then, baby vampires could not simply shrug off magic either. Strike two.

He knocked.

The slow pulse moved towards him without a whisper of another sound, not footsteps nor shuffling. Strike three.

Their eyes locked through the clear screen of the front door.

"Hello, Caroline."

With no hesitation she opened it, though she didn't step past the threshold. Instead she braced against the door, stance deceptively cavalier. Her eyes flit about his form before meeting his gaze once more.

"Klaus, I presume."

"In the flesh. Why don't you join me, love?" He motioned to the porch with a grand sweep of his arm.

Klaus' arrival, even prior to his oddly polite knocking, was very obvious. While possessing Alaric, it had taken a power clash with compulsion to realize what he was, but now? In his own body? It couldn't have been more obvious.

Her taunting invitation had paid off in spades. Seeing him, sensing him before her also served to answer her curse questions. And feeling his compulsion? She could resist it a tad too easily. His poor wolf.

She shook her head as the last dregs of his power vanished from her mind. "Seriously?"

"Well, I had to try. Although, love, you should really be more careful-"

Caroline yelped as his foot hooked around her ankle, yanking her out of the doorway.

"-where you place your feet."

The last words were hissed against her lips, his hand an iron band around her throat as he slammed her against the outer wall of the house.

Well, shit.

A dark amusement stirred inside her, she had underestimated him.

He leaned closer, using his leg and hip to pin hers, shifting his hand to trail his nose up her neck to murmur in her ear.

"You don't smell like just a vampire. Now, why is that?"

She took a breath, inhaling the scent of his skin. Copper and spice, musk and evergreens. She knew her own was iron and citrus, petrichor and oak. Her exhale was more sigh than breath.

"I think you already suspect why."

He shifted back to glare at her, and she allowed a glint of gold to encircle her pupil.

They were close enough that she felt his sharp inhale.

And then she waited for him to make his move.