Author's note: Thanks for supporting my work with your reviews and kudos and lovely messages! Also, I recently posted a sequel to A Pregnant Pause. It will be a series of mini-drabbles that follows Caroline raising a baby (while also raising the Originals). Happy reading!
The enormous spiked tail took aim at the pointed arch overhead, and Klaus quickly shoved Caroline away from the crumbling stone. Flicking his furious golden gaze at the enormous keystone overhead, he spied the unsettling way it had started to move with the next slap of the leviathan's tail. Quickly unfurling his leathery wings, Klaus seized Caroline and flew them away from the ballroom before the obsidian platform could crash down.
He swept them off to a fortified battlement that connected the northern turrets, carefully setting Caroline down while she gaped at her surroundings. "Where are we?"
Nodding to the dark, churning waters that bordered the fortress wall, he explained, "The River of Woe, just outside our stronghold. We're hidden from the battle for now."
"Seriously?! The River of Woe? Why can't something down here be named Shiny, Happy, Rainbow Orgasm River or something?"
Snorting, Klaus smirked, "Because then we'd never get Kol out of it and we need him watching over the Second and Eighth Circles. Otherwise, the succubi and incubi overindulge in the barbed wire chastity belts and it takes ages for human genitals to grow back, not to mention the demons would perpetually juggle ears and noses of colonizing monarchs rather than follow the specified torturing routines." At her unimpressed expression, he added, "It's also known as the Acheron River, if that helps." He wisely omitted its other names, including River of Pain and River of Lost Souls.
"Nope, it does NOT help," Caroline shivered, seemingly unable to tear her gaze from the skeleton regiment spearing tortured souls who foolishly tried to climb out of the burning waters. Several skeletons paused in their gleeful spearing to respectfully tip their bronze helmets in Caroline's direction and she smiled faintly. Such a benevolent queen.
Blue eyes widened as she seemed to get her bearings once again, she gasped, "Shit! We just left the battlefield — what about your siblings?" Fists clenched around her pizza peel as she demanded, "We have to go back and help them!"
His beast rumbled appreciatively at his queen's bravery and loyalty. He'd chosen well. "Yes, I'll need to return soon."
Caroline narrowed her gaze, tone accusing as she asked, "What do you mean 'I'? You're taking me with you, right?"
"Mikael's attack today was unexpected and I need to protect you, sweetheart." He grasped her hands, revealing, "I'm sending you off with Rebekah. But I'll come for you when it's safe." He inwardly sighed, seeing how his soothing words seemed to have the opposite effect on Caroline. His human was a fierce little warrior who would bravely face down Mikael himself and probably laugh at his broken trident. (Mikael insisted that it always was a bident, but the worst-kept secret in the hell dimensions was how he broke one of the prongs during a particularly vigorous limbo contest with the four horsemen.) It was imperative that he keep her far away from this battle.
There was only one thing he could do now to prevent her wrath. He would need to deploy one of her kind's most sinister weapons — the Journey of Repentance. He mustered his most reproachful look, gazing deep into her eyes from underneath his lashes and pursing his lips to appear both contemplative and troubled. It was a crafty technique, one that he'd seen Caroline use most effectively upon some of her more willful employees.
"Um...are you...is this a stroke? Can devil-demons have strokes?"
Frowning, he muttered to himself, "That should've worked." At her questioning brow, he begrudgingly explained, "I was performing the Journey of Repentance."
Scrunching her nose in that adorable way Caroline had when she was thinking very hard, she finally asked incredulously, "Do you mean a guilt trip?" At his uncomfortable silence, she seemed to soften, her voice lowered to a broken whisper as she said, "You're afraid. I haven't seen you like this since that first day at my restaurant." Her hands trembled in his grasp as she asked fearfully, "What will happen to you and your siblings if Mikael wins this war?"
Blood-soaked torture so savagely violent even hell itself would turn away. Mikael would force him to watch the brutal demise of his siblings, making each death last for centuries. And then there was Caroline. The things Mikael would do to her — Klaus could beg and plead for mercy and still Mikael would never relent because in Caroline he finally possessed the key to breaking Klaus.
Perhaps Caroline's life was forfeit the moment she found him in that dumpster. "We will not speak of it because it will not come to pass," he swore, embracing her with enough force that a tiny squeak escaped her lips. "Please do this for me, love," he murmured against her curls as he breathed in her familiar scent. "I need to know you're safe."
Caroline pulled back slightly, swiping at stray tears in irritation as she relented, "Fine. But the moment things are even halfway normal — whatever hell's version of normal is, anyway — you better come find me." Managing a watery smile, she sternly told him, "Because I'm still mad and nowhere near done yelling at you about kidnapping me and dragging me to hell!" And then she kissed him with every bit of fire and exquisite ferocious energy that made him stagger under the weight of every word they weren't quite ready to say.
They both looked up at the sudden whooshing sound overhead as Rebekah approached them in her favorite skull-plated chainmail with two swords drawn. She folded back her leathery wings, lightly tossing one sword for him to catch. "Here. I thought you'd appreciate an ancestral blade for this."
Klaus gripped the stygian iron, tapping his blade with a claw just to hear the soothing metallic clang. His sister knew him well — it was from his collection of prized weapons that had served him well over millennia of battles. And was that a bit of heat he saw in Caroline's gaze? She liked the way he handled his blade, he observed, his beast rumbling with pleasure. Ignoring Rebekah's impatient sigh, he curled an arm around Caroline's waist, bringing her in for another kiss that lingered. That branded.
"Nik! There's a war on! Perhaps you can resume groping Caroline after we take the hellfire throne?"
He briefly closed his eyes in irritation, knowing his sister was right. Caroline's soft hand on his cheek made him sigh, and he found himself confronted with her most determined expression. "Go," she told him, "go and win your war."
Squeezing Caroline's hand in reassurance, he nodded at his sister and told her gruffly, "Keep Caroline safe."
Waving her pizza peel at Rebekah, she cheekily told them both, "We'll keep each other safe."
At first, Rebekah was concerned that she'd broken Nik's human. Caroline seemed to be blankly staring at the black sludge of hell's eternal despair as it receded from the floor. Impatiently yanking her from the towering flames of the portal, Rebekah was pleased to see the peasants continued their glassy-eyed shopping with nary a puzzled glance in their direction. An announcement fuzzily blared overhead, regarding a pricing rollback on playpens, which Rebekah understood to be a prison for their young.
Wincing at the horrendous lights overhead that seemed to cast everything in a sickly greenish tint, Caroline asked in confusion, "Did you seriously take us through a hell portal that opened up in the middle of a Walmart?"
"Of course. Emergency hell portals can be found in all locations of these marts of cheap walls. And also Florida." A surreptitious glance about demonstrated that other rubbish goods were for purchase as well. Which made sense — after all, how many cheap walls did the impoverished actually need to buy?
"Right. That's actually one of the least-weirdest things you people have told me. So, I'm choosing not to have follow-up questions." Gesturing vaguely toward the front of the mart of cheap walls, Caroline said, "Come on — my restaurant's just down the street and I'm starving."
They made haste to Fire and Feast, drawn to the enticing aromas of simmering tomatoes and Italian herbs. When they heard the rustling of pots and pans in the kitchen, Caroline rummaged through a closet in her office, quickly tossing over rumpled garments and hissing, "We need to change out of our um...hell couture before my staff sees us!"
Rebekah watched with interest as Caroline glanced at the lap machine on her desk, adding with a sigh of relief, "Fortunately, it's Jeremy's day to open, and he likes to wake and bake, so odds are he'd take one look at my dress that's literally on fire and your creepy skull breastplate thingy and ask if it's laundry day."
Rebekah focused on her odd words, deciding that Caroline meant that her employee was mentally deficient in some way. She reached out to get a sense of Jeremy's true self, setting her powers loose in the ether. Reeling back with a grimace, she felt the beginnings of a headache, realizing that it was actually an overindulgence in chemical substances that made Jeremy so addled. Probably best not to scry too deeply into that particular human, she told herself.
The garments Caroline handed her were scratchy and uncomfortable, and judging from her restaurant's logo branded across the back, it appeared that she forced her minions to endure this peculiar torture of inferior fibers on an ongoing basis. Quite insidious. No wonder Nik was drawn to her.
She was confused when Caroline handed her a spray bottle and a towel, gesturing toward her gore-streaked chainmail and said, "Here — it's my own special blend to get out bloodstains."
Raising an eyebrow, Rebekah immediately began to work on her beloved battle gear, delighted to see the stains beginning to lift. "This is brilliant," she exclaimed, "you know, the demons have been after a proper bloodstain remover for ages. You humans certainly have your uses," she mused.
"Thanks?"
As she gleefully continued to remove the unsightly gristle of an especially stubborn ghoul, Rebekah paused to ask curiously, "Why would you require such an effective bloodstain remover?"
Pinning back her tangled curls, Caroline rolled her eyes, jerking her chin toward the cacophony of noises still coming from the kitchen. "You've never seen Jeremy try to chop garlic."
The women shared a laugh, and Rebekah was stunned to realize she didn't immediately miss being deep in the throes of battle. Of course, she worried for her brothers and knew that no victory was ever certain, but she understood that her place was with Caroline. Nik's human was very important to him. To all of them, she grumbled to herself, fondly looking over the photographs that adorned Caroline's desk. She pointed to one in which a young Caroline wore a crown and a sash that proclaimed her as 'Miss Mystic Falls'.
"You were forced to perform in these...beauty pageants as a youngling," Rebekah asked in a heated tone. She knew of these things, for the Eleventh Circle was populated by the takers, those dark souls who abused their young.
Wrinkling her brow as though confused, Caroline cautiously answered, "Um, no. My mom was really against me entering them. I kinda had to sneak around to even enter this pageant, but I couldn't pass up the prize money; even back then I knew I wanted to have my own restaurant one day."
She suddenly paused to ask incredulously, "Wait — you know about beauty pageants?"
Rebekah nodded, setting aside the blood-stained towel to shrug offhandedly, "The Eleventh Circle is overflowing with horrendous stage parents." She could see Caroline thinking hard, clearly brimming with more questions. Such an inquisitive human was quite refreshing. "Come along. I promise to answer all your tedious questions if you make me some of that prosciutto-garlic bread. And a pizza ring. With that rosemary-butter crust." At Caroline's disgruntled muttering, she tacked on hastily, "Please?"
"Fine. But no maiming Jeremy."
In retrospect, Rebekah realized she should've halted negotiations with Caroline until after she actually met Jeremy. He spoke nonsensical phrases strung together with only the thinnest understanding of human language. And if he referred to her as "babe" one more time, his life would be forfeit. She took in his vacant, brown-eyed gaze underneath a mop of floppy brunette hair and decided to compel him to work quietly on the other side of the room.
She bit back a delighted smile as her suggestion dominated Jeremy's weak will and he paused in his work as though discovering newfound clarity while stirring the marina. He immediately walked away with new purpose in his stride. But then he stopped. His head turned. And turned again. And when he finally looked at Rebekah, it was with an impossibly wide smile no human should be able to manage. It split the human's face, blood pooling at the ragged tears. It was when the glassy brown eyes suddenly shone as pitiless black voids that Rebekah finally understood.
Mikael had found them.