Chapter seventeen

Knight in Shining Armor

Kassandra groaned as she became conscious again. Her mind was still disconnected from the rest of her body, and her eyes blearily looked around the room. She noted that it was dark and stuffy, the air was heavy with dust, and the place reeked of mold. But she mostly focused on how completely drained of energy she felt.

She was leaning forward, and she was sure that she would've collapsed to the floor, if she hadn't been chained to the wall. Heavy shackles weighed down her wrists and were connected to chains that were bolted to the ceiling. She was hanging from her arms only, and her shoulders quickly became sore.

"You okay, Kass?"

From across the room, Ruby was tied to a chair with rope, and Kassandra pushed away the relief of seeing her alive with the complaint of how the witch got off easy. Her arms were killing her.

"I've been better," she replied, as she studied her best friend, looking to see what those damned werewolves had done to her. She could make out purplish bruises on her face, and Kassandra gritted her teeth in anger. This was Jackson's fault. It was all his fault. Already, she was planning his death, and in her head, it was drawn out for years. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

"Though, I do feel like I'm taking part in a really bad porno," she added, frowning distastefully at the chains. Once the vervain was out of her system, she'd be able to snap them like twigs.

"Hey, at least you haven't been a punching bag for the last fourteen hours," Ruby retorted, and Kassandra was blinded by rage for one second.

Whenever anyone asked her about people she was close to, Kassandra always said nobody. She always answered that she didn't care about anyone besides herself, because whenever you cared about somebody, your enemies used it against you. They harmed the people you loved. Loving was a weakness and Kassandra had always found it easier to just not care at all.

But Ruby was her friend, her best friend. She was a great friend, and Kassandra cared about her. Hell, if Kassandra hadn't been as closed up as she was, she might have even admitted to loving Ruby like a sister. And the fact that the dogs had been beating her up made Kassandra want to slaughter every werewolf on the planet.

It unnerved her, how even when she had put up the façade of not giving a damn, her enemies still managed to find her one weakness.

"Ruby…" Kassandra sighed, looking to the witch. "I- I'm… I didn't… what I'm trying to say is-"

"As much as I would love to watch you choke out an apology Kass," Ruby said, a slight smirk visible on her lips even in the dim light, "It's not necessary. You did nothing wrong."

She sighed again. That wasn't true. The last twenty four hours had been Kassandra repeatedly screwing up. The wolves went after Ruby because she defended Kassandra. They took her because Kassandra was too busy fucking Elijah to help her. And then her rescue mission, thinking about it now, was laughable. Kassandra was a fuck up by nature, she was used to this by now.

"Come on Kass," Ruby said, bringing her attention back to her. "You don't do guilt, alright? So don't even bother. We'll get a way out of this, okay?"

Kassandra nodded slightly. She didn't do guilt well. When she fucked up, she admitted it to herself, accepted it, then got over it. She didn't dwell on it. So that was what she tried to do now- get over it.

"Now how we're going to get out of this, I don't know," Ruby continued. "Because you went about 'rescuing' me in an entirely wrong way. And let's not call it rescuing, okay? Because that implies that I'm some helpless maiden locked up in a castle."

"First of all, Rubes," Kassandra said, frowning. "You haven't been a maiden in eight years." Ruby just shrugged. "Secondly, if you have a problem with my rescuing skills, I just won't bother next time."

"Hey, it's not fault you were a complete dumbass," Ruby retorted, and Kassandra glared at her.

"I wasn't a complete dumbass," she defended herself.

"Did you have any plan whatsoever?" Ruby asked skeptically.

"I had a plan," she said. "It was really easy too. Walk into the bar and start ripping out hearts until they handed you over."

"And how did that work out for you?" Ruby asked sarcastically.

"It was going just fine until that ass hat decided to inject me with vervain," she practically growled.

"And why didn't you bring Wolfsbane with you?" Ruby asked with a raised eyebrow. "You know where my secret stash of herbs is."

"Huh," Kassandra said, frowning. "That didn't even occur to me."

"Right, because you're a dumbass."

"You know what, Witchy? About five seconds away from going over there and draining you dry," Kassandra threatened.

"You just try to, Vampy," Ruby said, eyes narrowed. "You're not going anywhere right now. Not when you're strung up like a vampire chandelier."

"Don't remind me," Kassandra growled, swinging her body in an attempt to try to break the chains. The iron wasn't budging, though.

"I'm surprised Elijah wasn't a part of this rescue mission, though," Ruby said with a frown, returning to their previous conversation.

Kassandra's eyes widened at the mention of him. "And why would you think that?" she muttered.

"Well, I just thought he'd be willing to assist his fuck buddy in retrieving her witchy best friend from a pack of wolves," Ruby explained, frowning at the look on Kassandra's face.

"What aren't you telling me, Kass?" she asked slowly, eyes narrowing.

"It's no big deal," Kassandra muttered. "It's not like he would have been much help anyway."

"Kassandra," Ruby hissed. "Tell me. Now."

She sighed. "Okay, okay! Elijah did want to help me. He sort of insisted it. But I might have told him I didn't need him to be the knight in shining armor and ride in on his white horse to save the day." She bit her lip as she measured Ruby's reaction.

Her brown eyes bulged as she glared openly at Kassandra. "Why? Why? Why would you refuse help from motherfucking original, Kassandra?" she exclaimed. "What is wrong with you?"

"I thought I had the situation under control!" she shot back.

"Well, you don't," Ruby said bluntly. "You don't have anything under control. You completely dropped the ball, Kass."

"I swear to God, I'm leaving you here to rot next time," Kassandra muttered, more to herself than to Ruby.

"Will you two shut up?"

Kassandra heard footsteps stomp down stairs, and then an old door a few feet away from Ruby creaked open. And out from the shadows came Heidi, glaring daggers at Kassandra the moment she saw her.

"Werebitch," Kassandra said in a pleasant voice, her eyes icy as she stared at Jackson's fiancée. "Fancy seeing you here."

~SYH~

Elijah sighed, but despite his best efforts, he was worried about Kassandra. She hadn't answered her phone in three hours. He knew that she could just be ignoring him, but he doubted it. He had a gut feeling that she was in trouble.

And he had the strong urge to get her out of that trouble.

But Elijah knew Kassandra didn't want him too. He knew that Kassandra hated feeling like she wasn't capable of doing something. And if his gut was wrong and she wasn't in trouble, she'd hate him for trying to save the day.

But was her annoyance really worth the risk that he was right?

Elijah didn't know the exact moment Kassandra became somebody he wanted to keep in his life, for as long as possible, but she was. wasn't just because they had sex- very good sex. It was more than that. He enjoyed her- her presence, her personality. And he didn't know if he had crossed that dangerous line of having romantic feelings for her, but he cared about her. He did. It was completely terrible timing, with everything going on. But Elijah cared for Kassandra.

And Elijah Mikaelson protected the people he cared about.

~SYH~

"You know, I've been dreaming of the day I'd get to do this since all those months ago when Jackson told me he had been having an affair with a vampire."

Kassandra rolled her eyes. "Honey, if I had a dollar for every person who wanted to torture me-" she was cut off with a groan when Heidi roughly jammed a stake into her stomach.

"Hey!" Ruby exclaimed, looking alarmed as she brought Heidi's attention back to herself. "Let's not forget that I was the one who attacked Jackson."

"Ruby, shut up," Kassandra wheezed, glaring at her friend. "I heal, you don't."

"Please," Heidi said with a roll of her eyes. "If it was me, you wouldn't even be here," she said, addressing Ruby. "Anyone who takes Jackson down a peg is cool with me. I just wanted her." She glared at Kassandra.

"What, bad breakup?" Kassandra muttered, the wound in her stomach already healed.

"No, we're still engaged to be married, not that it's any of your business," Heidi growled.

She raised an eyebrow at the werewolf. "Why would you stay with a guy who cheated on you?"

"Please," she scoffed. "Like Jackson's father would let one little affair get in the way of two of the most important werewolf bloodlines uniting."

Then she looked at Kassandra with hostile eyes. "But if you weren't such a little slut," she hissed. "I wouldn't be doomed to an unhappy marriage. This is your fault."

Blood splattered against the wall as Heidi rammed her stake into Kassandra's throat. She gurgled on her own blood, the pain feeling white hot. Then Heidi pulled the stake out and her throat healed.

"Oh, there's plenty more where that came from, you little-" Heidi started to say.

"Heidi. That's enough."

Jackson pushed the door open and marched into the basement, glaring at Heidi as he walked up to them. Several werewolves walked in after him, all of them eying Kassandra warily. She smirked at them, knowing that the oldest man was Jackson's father by the way he looked at her extra hard.

"Nice for you to join us," she said, eyes hard as she stared at Jackson. The bastard couldn't even look her in the eyes. "I'd hate for you to miss the show."

Heidi gritted her teeth and went to attack Kassandra again, but a cold voice stopped her. "Heidi," a man standing at the pack leader's side, and she was sure it was her father. "Go upstairs."

"But dad-" she whined.

"Now."

She growled, her eyes flashing angrily one more time at Kassandra before she left the basement.

A sinking feeling hit Kassandra's stomach at the sight of all the important members of the pack standing before her. She knew it wasn't a good thing. It was a bad sign.

She was sure it meant that either her or Ruby were about to die. Possibly both.

An idea came to Kassandra's mind. It was merely something to get them more time, but she was sure it would work. And the reaction from Jackson would be priceless.

"You know," she drawled, eyes roaming around the room almost lazily. "I do have somebody out there who's not going to be too pleased you took me and the witch."

Jackson's father snorted. "Oh, really?" he said skeptically.

"Yeah," Kassandra said, acting as if she hadn't heard the sarcasm in his voice. "He's a bit overprotective of me. I bet he's out there, looking right now."

"And who's looking for you?" one of the werewolves asked.

"His name's Elijah. He's one of the first of my kind. Maybe you heard of him?"

The effect of her namedropping Elijah was priceless. All the men tensed, going silent instantly. They clearly knew who he was.

"And why would an original be looking for you?" Jackson spoke in a hollow voice, looking at her for the first time.

"Well, he likes having Kass around," Ruby spoke up, playing along. "She is pretty good in bed, after all. You should know that, Jackson."

Jackson went pale and his eyes widened. Kassandra smirked at him. "What can I say? I seriously moved up on the food chain when it comes to the men I sleep with."

"You're lying," Jackson breathed.

"She's not."

Kassandra's eyes widened in surprise at the sight Elijah. His eyes flickered to her for a brief second before he ripped out the pack leader's heart.

Chaos happened after that swift movement. But Elijah had the situation under control. Not even ten seconds had passed and the only werewolf left alive in the room was Jackson. He was breathing hard with fear and was lying on his back.

Elijah walked over to Kassandra, carefully sidestepping the corpses, and reached up to break the chains holding her to the ceiling. His arm wrapped around her waist to stop her from falling to the ground. When Kassandra was firmly on her own feet, he removed his arm, the tension was still tangible between them.

Kassandra removed the shackles from her wrists, her arms aching from being suspended from the ceiling. She looked to Jackson, knowing without a doubt that Elijah had left him alive for her.

She stalked towards him, much like a lioness towards her prey. She hadn't known how much she had wanted to kill Jackson until that moment. Rage was running through her veins, and even a thousand deaths wouldn't satisfy the need for revenge within her.

She bent down, crouching next to him. Her eyes never left Jackson's, as she practically forced him to look at her. She wanted to watch the light go out of his eyes when she killed him. Jackson stared back at her, almost out of defiance. Kassandra felt no reluctance to rip his beating heart out.

"You deserve this," she whispered. Then her hand plunged into his chest. With a flick of her wrist, the light went out of his eyes. Kassandra deposited his heart on the ground next to him.

When she stood up, her left hand still covered in blood, she found Elijah looking at her. There were a million things she should have said to him, and a thousand things she wanted to. But instead of speaking a word, of apologizing, of thanking him, Kassandra just nodded.

It was a small gesture, but Elijah knew exactly what it meant.

Because, sometimes, actions spoke louder than words.

~SYH~

A/N: thank you to: his last cigarette, KurisutaruAi, BarbarafromGR, Luna064, delenawolves, SomebodyWhoCares, jamiecarterannie, sPaRkzZz, Lady Syndra, and Lovely Rain Dancer for reviewing!

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~Abby :)