Part 21 – A new threat
"Caroline love" Klaus murmured as he gently nudged the vampire awake.
"It is morning love" Klaus crooned as he resumed cuddling the child in his arms.
"Few more minutes – expectant mother" Caroline groaned and Klaus chuckled.
"You need to eat love. Breakfast is almost ready and you missed Elena's arrest"
"What!" Caroline shot up and glared out Klaus.
"How could you let me miss that and go on your own" Caroline grumbled.
"We were all here, well except Stefan, everyone slept in."
"How is everyone?"
"Ravenous, I want to talk to Elijah in regard to Hayley before she comes here with her 'betrothed' and Elijah gets all sullen" Klaus rolled his eyes.
"Maybe you should hook him up with some vampire friend… help him along. As long as Hayley is there in front of him and he doesn't have anyone to distract him, moving on is going to be difficult." Caroline sighed and took in Klaus with Hope in his arms for the first time.
"Fatherhood suits you" She smiled then held out her hand for help getting off the bed.
"How are you feeling? Are the twins hungry?"
"Strangely, not since they drained your father." Caroline shrugged and put her hair up.
"See you at breakfast" She kissed Klaus on the cheek and ran her fingers tenderly through Hope's dark locks, she hissed as a sensation ran through her from the tips of her fingers to her womb and back and an image flashed before her eyes.
"Is something wrong love?"
"No… I don't think so… when I touched Hope it was like she connected to the twins… I saw a flash of something… it was a little disorientating but I am sure I saw a statue of your mother cradling someone to her and 3 young women before it… I think it was Hope and my girls."
"A future coven…" Klaus theorized.
"You guys coming to breakfast or what?" Bonnie asked popping her head in while walking past.
"So you saw our mother with someone cradled in her arms… Are you saying these 3 girls turned her into a statue?" Rebekah asked from her perch on Klaus's left.
"She said it was a flash of something. Relax Rebekah. Ester is now a vampire – a starving one at that" Hayley looked at Klaus who was picking off concrete from his fingernails after walling his mother in in an undisclosed crypt.
"Where is baby Mikaelson in any case?" Damon asked from his spot behind Hayley where he was making faces at little Hope with Jackson.
"Your basement, Kai fetched him this morning. Davina's watching him." Marcus shrugged.
"And you're okay with that" Damon asked with a raised brow.
"She's getting stronger as a witch, she can handle him"
"You clearly didn't see the look she and Kol gave each other when he came through" Damon teased.
"D isn't like that."
"Bonnie wasn't like that either, now look at her." Stefan added and earned a smack up the head from Bonnie as Marcus made a quick exit.
"Did you really have to rile him up like that?" Rebekah asked the grinning Salvatore brothers before she turned to try and find Marcus and prevent her other idiot brother from dying… again…
Patrice gave a third thoughtful 'hmmmm' as 2 young witches and an expecting vampire looked on at the former witch while he mindlessly stirred his tea.
"Dude, you haven't said anything in the 10 minutes since we told you about the vision Caroline received. Do you know something about it, is it related to a new threat?" Bonnie asked. Though she was relieved she was able to ditch Kol's questioning, she had no doubt it was going to be bloody and she had no doubt that her young witch friend was crushing hard on the little Mikaelson.
"Well, there is an old story of witch sisters from the Viking years."
"That's perfect, the Mikaelsons are Viking descendants" Caroline said clapping her hands together. She looked like she would pop any minute.
"Well these sisters were taken in when Vikings pillaged their village, one for her magic and the other to be a bride to one of their warriors. The second sister turned her back on the hardship of the first who had basically been a slave – the threat of her sister's defilement and death used to keep her in check. She fell in love and married the one you know as Mikael Mikaelson."
"Klaus's family… how un surprising" Davina huffed, the crease on her brow no doubt thinking of the youngest Mikaelson brother.
"The older sister grew hateful towards the younger and razed what was left of the encampment when her sister sailed away without a single word to her to find new land with her new husband. The sister was barren, her magic untrained and piss poor. She returned to the sister she spurned for help. Of course asking help from a blood witch requires payment."
"What was the price?" Caroline asked caressing her womb as the strange magic in her tingled.
"The first child of every descendent of Ester's bloodline starting with Ester's own first child. It makes so much sense now that I know about the Mikaelsons it was easy to fill in the blanks to the story" Patrice said clapping his hands.
"Wasn't Finn the eldest?" Bonnie asked Caroline.
"No they had a sister who they lost before Elijah was even born…" Caroline said thoughtfully.
"Not lost my lovelies, given away."
"What was the name of the blood witch?" Davina asked.
"Dahlia"
"That's why mother cursed us" Kol said quietly from his spot at the end of the table where he had been chained for dinner.
"It doesn't make sense. She cursed you so you wouldn't have to part with your first child the way she did and now she wants to make you mortal witches who can reproduce. Is your mother suffering some kind of mental ailment?" Bonnie asked from where she stood with Damon as he stoked the fire.
"What doesn't make sense is expecting your angry aunty to be alive after all these decades. Witches even bat shit crazy ones are mortal." Damon added.
"When we were on the other side mother found that Dahlia wasn't there, neither was Freya. They're still here somehow."
"I have a sister…"
"We don't know how loyal she is to our aunt" Klaus warned.
"Would you kill her without hearing her out, without trying?" Rebekah questioned.
"He has no choice. Who knows what Dahlia twisted her into?"
"Or what she might twist Hope into" Hayley sighed looking at the child asleep in the playpen.
"What was our dear mother's plan in any case?" Klaus asked Kol.
"She thought we could stand together against Dahlia, witches can only fight witches. She wanted to sacrifice Hope for her magic to strengthen us against Dahlia."
"You would harm an innocent defenseless baby?" Davina asked.
"It wasn't my choice. When you have lived as long as we have you do what you must to survive love" Marcel growled at the affectionate term and followed his very upset ward out of the Mikaelson compound.
"So what do we do? How do we fight your aunt? What do we even know about her magic?" Damon asked.
"I think we deserve a break for once." Klaus said tiredly. Hope whined in her sleep, Caroline caressed her head to calm her and hissed as her consciousness faded out.
"She will be coming in a month from now, on the night of the equinox" A voice that wasn't Caroline's spoke.
"Grams?" Both Damon and Bonnie recognized the voice instantly.
"But how?" Elijah asked fascinated as Caroline collapsed into Klaus's arms.
"We're witches, we're able to psychically connect to those who have passed. Sheila Bennet must have hijacked the connection between the 3 of them fascinating." Kol said wishing he could escape his bonds to investigate the bond himself.
"They aren't science experiments" Rebekah hissed slapping the back of her brother's head as if she had heard his wish.
"Well if it's going to take a month, I guess we should take that trip I told you about?" Damon smirked at Bonnie who rolled her eyes at him.
"Fine, just as long as you don't chicken out"
"Doing something interesting are we?" Klaus asked.
"Caroline's going to kill us… but she's too close to her due date to take a trip. We'll be back in time for the wedding." Bonnie grinned at Hayley as she and Damon almost ran out the Mikaelson home.
A/N: Hello lovelies! Thank you for all the comments and follows, I hope you enjoyed the update. I don't know who to pair Elijah with, I like Hayley and Jackson but when it comes to Elijah and Stefan... who do you pair with them... I have my Bamon and Klaroline, Kol has Davina and Rebekah Marcel... any suggestions my loves?
Love
Rogue