Chapter Seven- thanks for the lovely reviews:D so glad you're all loving this story! Should be another up later I feel:) So, more reviews much loved and cheers! x Nic

As I strolled through the recently descimated town, I was thinking- I should hate Klaus above everything else. He had literally destroyed my life.

But no, he hadn't... he had saved me from it. And for that, I was incredibly greatful.

I wasn't going to be forced into marriage with a man I didn't love, and, now thanks to Klaus again I was sure, that disgusting Viscount Thomas De Lancy, however you say it, for who really cared?

Klaus had hung him from that tree and left him to die to get me. To make me realize what a monster I had sleeping in my chest, waiting to wake up and rip into a young womans pretty white throat.

Yes, Klaus had changed and taught me well

Now I saw that very same man walking into the town hall, the occupents dead and all over the place. Quiet literally.

I followed him inside where he was going through paper documents, then he pulled one out and made a "hmmm" sound that made me ask.

"Something wrong?"

Now Klaus turned to me and chuckled. "It does not matter my Sweet." he closed the draw and tucked the paper inside his long black coat with a sigh, making me cock my head and walk over, standing before him as he looked up and met my eyes.

"Do you like it?"

I frowned. "What exactly?"

"Being around with me. I don't frighten you?"

I had to laugh at that, just had to.

"Oh you frighten me. You frighten me quite often. But yes, I rather like being in your presence."

Klaus frowned once more, looking as if he hadn't expected me to say that. "You are truly a curious monster, Claudia." he told me, raising a hand to my cheek for a moment.

He was a curious monster himself.

-FORSAKEN-

Once we had set fire to the town hall, letting it spread to the rest of the town, we left.

Our destination, according to Klaus, was New Orleans.

We rode our horses through the night, racing each other occasionally in which I won most of the time to his surprise. He hadn't let me win then.

I glanced up at the full moon now as we slowed down to a trot due to our horses tiring out. Now I glanced at Klaus, who was looking as if he was a prince or some kind of nobility from his stance, reins loose in one hand. As if he could sense my gaze, he looked over and our eyes met, making a shiver go through my body- he had that stare that could make someone run away and hide, but not me. I stared calmly back for a moment, then my head snapped forwards at the sound of voices.

We both pulled on the reins, stopping our pair of chesnut horses and listened- it was a man, a woodcutter, talking to his adolescent son on how to cut down trees.

Klaus slid off his horse, eyes hungry. I sighed and got down myself.

"Come, we need to find somewhere to rest the horses, not think about killing for once." I told him, but he merely took my hand and led me forwards at a dash, stopping us behind a few rose bushes where I saw the pair of men go into a little wooden hut where there was the smell of deer cooking on a spit inside.

"Would you like something to eat?" Klaus asked me, that smirk returning to his face. I found myself smiling. "I would love something."

He nodded, then got up, saying.

"Wait here and I'll drive them out." he now walked up to the door and knocked. The big muscled tree cutter answered now open the door, then I heard Klaus say something that made the cutter angry and walk out the house, heading towards me. Klauses smirk told me he had been invited in, for he vanished inside and as the screaming started, the woodcutter before me turned, but that was his own mistake.

As he turned his back, I dashed out and sank my fangs into his exposed neck, making him yell out in shock and pain. He was as strong as he looked, I gave him that. But I was stronger, and my hunger.

I let him drop to the floor now, wiping the corners of my mouth a little as I looked up to see Klaus dragging a womans body out, then chucked it onto the wood pile and rubbed his hands together like a job well done.

There was a snap of twig behind me now, then I remembered the son- he had escaped. Now as he went to stake me from behind, Klaus dashed past and the son screamed, making me turn to see an arm straight through his chest, a glare on his killers face as he yanked his arm out and let him drop.

"I really liked this coat." he snarled down at the body, then stalked off towards the cabin where, after a moments silence, I followed.

He'd saved my life twice now.

-FORSAKEN-

Inside, I found him sat at a washbowl on the floor, legs crosses and trying to get the blood out of his coat.

I sighed and sat next to him, taking it and then the cloth, rubbing it.

"You men have no idea how to work with clothes." I chuckled, watching most of the blood come out now. Klaus laughed a little and said.

"Claudia... I am over seven hundred years old my Sweet."

Now I dropped the coat in surprise- I hadn't imagined him to be quite that old.

"How is that even possible?" I found myself asking, feeling genuinely shocked. Born in the 11th Century-? Goodness... he had even been a knight with a sword at one point in his life.

"I am one of the oldest vampires to exist." he now said, taking the coat from me and started cleaning it the way I had showed him.

I was silent, then-

"There are more like you?"

He nodded. "I have brothers, sisters. Parents. But they are all gone now."

"I'm sorry."

"I was the one that killed them all." Klaus laughed, standing up and hanging his now cleaned coat over the heater with a fire in its center so it dried off.

"And as to why I killed them, that will come another time." he continued, then sighed and added. "Oh, I told a lie there. I do have one brother still alive."

"What is his name?"

"His name is Elijah." Klaus now sighed, pulling his black leather boots off and lying down on the medium sized duck feather lined bed. He opened an arm now, inviting me to join him. I walked over and sat on the bed, letting him pull me into his arms.

"Family is overrated." he now said into my hair, a hand playing with my necklace. I sighed and found myself saying.

"Somehow I agree there."

"Claudia... you were a wild animal in a wooden cage. You would have broken out eventually. I just, ah... helped you along a little."

"A little? You tore my parents apart..."

"And yet you do not seem to mourn them."

"I-" I went to start, but found I couldn't finish. I didn't mourn the loss of them. That was so... heartless but true. They had me chained up my whole life.

If Klaus hadn't of killed them, then I would.

"I myself am not even a pure blooded vampire." he told me as he got up and turned me over so he could stare into my eyes, but not in a way that meant he was compelling me.

"Then what are you?" I frowned, totally and utterly confused and lost. Not a vampire? Then how had he changed me-?

He climbed atop me now, pressing his lips to my neck as he said. "My mother had an affair, she was unfaithful to her husband."

Now I understood- he was the illigitimate child of the pair. But still-?

"My true father wasn't of vampire origin, but of werewolf." he now said as he moved up to my jawline.

Realization shot through me at his words.

"You are-?"

"A hybrid, yes." Klaus nodded, raising his head to see my expression that was torn between horror and a slight bout of fear. He chuckled, shaking his head a little. "Are you afraid now?"

"I think I am."

"Well don't be. I was tricked, my werewolf side forced into dormancy. I'm cursed, Claudia. And my mothers husband? He had my other family, my true father murdered. Now that sounds more like humanity than the age old Originals. And here is me- stuck between them on the dividing line between vampires and werewolves."

I listened in silence, then-

"And you are trying to break this curse?"

Klaus nodded, kissing my neck once more as he murmured. "For quite some time now. A hundred or two years ago. I got so close... but then the chance slipped away with Katerina."

"Katerina? That girl you are hunting down?"

"Yes, she made an immense mistake stopping me. And now I will not stop until I have her and she is dead..." he sounded thoughtful as he addded. "Or a century or two of torture. That sounds very fair."

I was thinking now- this wasn't even his fault really. He had been born a hybrid, not... he hadn't asked for this life, to be made a monster. It was his mothers fault for being such a cheating whore.

Maybe Klaus did have a point in all this killing, why he wanted to break the curse on him...

"I'll help you." I found myself saying now, and even Klaus frowned. "Excuse me?"

"I'll help you break this curse."

Klaus was silent, then frowned. "Do you truly mean that?"

"I do. Why would I make this up? You were born a hybrid. What you are isn't your fault."

He was silent once more, his expression blank, then he slowly came to life and said.

"Why couldn't I have met you so very long ago?"

Now I laughed a little and put my arms around his neck, pulling him to me so I could kiss him, feeling him running a hand up my chest to my neck where he moved from my mouth to my neck, kissing me there and going quietly.

"It will be a long feat, if you truly wish to help."

"Then I welcome the coming centuries." I smirked, feeling him bite into my neck once more, a hand going to my corset strings.

And what a long feat it was going to be too.

The coming centuries were going to be dark and bloody... I was sure of it.