"So...my biological father, who I saw dying, and my progeny, who to this moment I trusted unconditionally, both knew and were even part of my fiancée disappearance a week before our wedding. Is that what you are trying to tell me?" He stood up and angrily walked to the fireplace. I swallowed thickly.
"I am not trying, I am telling you." I said with a quiet voice. My entire body was numb. I was scared, no, terrified that after he had heard what I had to say, he would turn around, walk through the door and never look back. But I was determined to tell him everything. I had to. I finally could tell him. There was no reason to hide it anymore, not after what I had found out earlier.
"Fine. You are telling me what?"He turned around and moved closer to me, his expression softening a little." I saw him die, Bella. How could he be alive?" He sat next to me and I saw the quiet emotions in his eyes. I was afraid that he would pull away from me any second, so I decided to say as much as I could before that happened.
"Did you see him die? Did you actually see his dead body?" He looked at me and then slowly shook his head.
"I saw his house burning. With his whole family. My family." He turned his head so that I wouldn't see his expression. I swallowed thickly.
"Your father is alive, Nick."
" And Eric knew all about this? The whole time?" His eyes were shining with betrayal. I pursed lips.
" Don't be angry at him. He was trying to do the right thing." He stood up again and when he turned around his eyes looked like little thunder storms.
" I will decide if that's true after I've heard the entire story." His voice was not taking 'no' for an answer. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and looked through the window. It was getting dark. I looked at him again and wondered how to do this. There were so many things that I needed to tell him and I was afraid I didn't have enough time for that. I shook my head.
" What do you need to break the curse?" I asked him and looked straight into his eyes. He was surprised for a second but then his anger took over.
" What does this have to...?"
" Answer my question." I said with my best bossy voice. He looked at me with his scary/bad wolf look but I didn't even flinch. He finally gave up and just answered my question with a quiet voice.
" A vampire, a werewolf, the moonstone, the doppelganger and a...witch." He said with a bored voice and looked at me angrily. I narrowed my eyes.
" Any witch?" I always had wonder how much he actually knew. Knowing him, I would have said pretty much. I asked that question to test him. He waved his hand with annoyance.
" Yes, any witch. Can you please tell me how my father isn't dead?" He starting to lose patience so I just decided to stop beating around the bush and tell him my secret. The secret I had been keeping for 500 years. I had never thought I would stay in front of him, telling him everything.
" You are wrong." He opened his mouth to object but I didn't let him. " That day...your father not only told me a lot about his life but he also told me a lot about my life. About who I was, who I am." I paused and wondered how to form my thoughts into sentences. " When your mother turned you and your family...she didn't have enough power afterwards to put a repressing spell on you... So she asked one of the most powerful witches in the village for help. The witch agreed, thinking that she was doing something good. But I guess that some of Mikael's madness had rubbed on her because the blood that was used to seal the spell...was the witch's twin sister's." Klaus' eyes widen slightly." The witch, Asa, was powerful and very smart. She kept a stone face and planned a revenge in her head. She...made a slight change to the original spell. Too small for Esther to see but extremely important for someone who would want to break the curse."
You know that usually what seals a curse is the key to break it. That's the reason why you need the moonstone and the doppelganger. But there is something that nobody thought of because it's not...usual. What if you need not only the same blood for the ritual but also the same witch?"
" That's impossible. Asa has been dead for over 1000 years." I tilted my head to one side.
" Yes. But not before she gave birth to a child." His eyes started shining, understanding what I was trying to tell him." 500 years later...a new pair of twins was born. One of them was the doppelganger and the other one..."
" A witch." He whispered. " I need you? I need you for the curse breaking ritual? But you are not witch anymore..." His eyes darkened. " Does this mean that I will never be able to break the curse?" He slightly raised his voice.
I shook my head.
"Who said that I wasn't a witch anymore."
" You are a vampire, Bella." I decided to use the same trick I had used with the Salvatores. I stood up and concentrated ,lilting my hand on fire. Sort of.
He pulled away. His eyes wide open. He shook his head.
" This is not normal." Very hypocritical, don't you think?
" And being a hybrid is? That's not the point..."
" No, it's exactly the point. You are a witch and a vampire...that makes you a hybrid. And you claim that my father is still alive and that makes him something more than a werewolf. And all of that means that I am not as well informed about the supernatural world as I thought I was, and I'm just not going to have this." He looked at me with his little thunder storms and I somehow resisted the urge to flinch back. " I have obviously been lied to by every single person I have ever cared for. So if you don't want me to start finding everything on my own , you will sit down and tell me everything." I could only imagine what finding on his own meant.
I sat down and quietly looked at him for a few seconds. I pursed lips and tilted my head.
"When Mikael found out that you weren't his son..." I missed to mention exactly how he had found out. He didn't have to know. "...he started yelling..."
" And treating my mother to kill me, my father and then her. Yes, Bella, I was in the next room. I know all of this." I nodded.
" But Mikael had underestimated her. When she saw that there was no point in reasoning with him...she cast a numbing spell over him. It wasn't going to last for a very long time but it gave enough to run to her lover and warn him. Yeah, but he didn't listen to her. He was too proud to turn around and start running from a bloodsucker . She begged and begged...but he didn't listen. And that is when she decided to not be a silent bystander and for once to do what she wanted to, not what she had been told to. She...she used the same numbing spell on your father. He was conscious the whole time...while she made a few changes on him.
The whole time she was performing the spells she was telling him exactly what they did. She knew what her husband was able to do and she knew that your father didn't stand a chance against him on a full moon let alone on a normal night, so the first thing she did was to enable him to...shift whenever he wanted. The transformation being triggered not from the full moon but from his anger.
She knew just how strong and powerful Mikael was...so she made your father faster, stronger, bigger.
She then moved his still numb body to a safe place and with one last kiss she went home to her husband. By the time she got home, the spell had already worn off. He was waiting for her..." I paused and then said with a quiet voice." You know what happened next. Mikael burned your father's house thinking that he was in there but...he wasn't. He was nearby watching helplessly how his house along with his entire family burned.
Your father never forgave Esther for that. He continued his life alone. He quickly learned how to use his new abilities but then one full moon he accidently bit a human. He didn't give much thought as usually werewolf bite does nothing to a human. He took care of the poor man who almost died from blood loss. Over the next month your father befriended the man. It felt nice to have company after so long.
So you can imagine his surprise when on the next full moon his new friend...shifted. He was different. He behaved and looked more like your father than like the normal werewolves. He could shift whenever he wanted but he wasn't as big and strong as your father.
And even though dead...in that moment your mother created yet another of her supernatural races. A new kind of werewolves. When the man had children, they carried the werewolf gene.
Your father and those wolves are...immortal. At least as long as there are vampires around them. And this answers your previous question.
Meanwhile, Mikael, who was falling deeper and deeper in his madness, decided that you were abominations. The blood thirst was not part of his original plan, the bad parts of vampirism too. His hatred and loneliness turned him into the ultimate vampire hunter. He started gaining men, year after year more and more joined him. By 1468 he had a huge army and not only that. He had weapons. Not ordinary weapons. Killing machines. " I pursed lips. I didn't know how to tell him the rest. How to form my feelings and memories into sentences. So I decided to do something that I had never tried doing before.
I grabbed his hand and before he had the chance to ask me, I started showing him.
Flashback
" But why? Can't we just tell Nick about it?" His eyes were cold when he shook his head.
" He can't know for now. You know him. If he knows, he will try to fight them." He paused and looked through the window. " He will realize how huge Mikael's army and he will create an army of his own." He looked at Eric who was silently standing next to me. "And that would be catastrophe. A Civil war, maybe even a World war. We can't let this happen." His voice was calm, steady, just stating the obvious facts. And as much as I hated to admit it, he was right. Nick was too unpredictable.
" Why did you bring me here? What am I supposed to do?" My fists were clenched and I felt how my nails were piercing my skin. But I didn't care. I was terrified of what this man before me had to say. He looked so much like Nick and at the same time so different. There was some sort of coldness in his eyes that I didn't like.
He turned his head towards me and my breath caught in my throat. His piercing eyes were pinned to mine. I didn't have to be a witch to sense that what he was about to tell me was going to change my life forever. And I don't mean a good change.
" I want you to leave him." My eyes widen. What? I certainly was not expecting this. I did not know what to say. At first I was surprised then I thought that he was joking with me but as soon as I looked into his eyes I knew that he was dead serious.
I swallowed thickly, feeling how my throat clenched.
" Why?" I asked in a quiet voice. I had the feeling that I didn't have much of a choice. I felt like tons of stones were being placed on my chest one by one. I was suffocating. Leave Nick? No. No. No.
Just thinking about it made me feel physical pain.
His father narrowed his eyes and brought his hands together as if for a prayer.
" There is one reason." He pursed lips." I don't know how to start." I was starting to regain my composure. He looked at me. "Mikael has a lot of supernatural creatures on his side...including witches. Some of them really want to help him but most of them are there because they are forced to. A few of them are always with Mikael. They watch out for him, make protection spells etc. But the majority of witches are not with him. No, they live in their own homes, have families. They are the witches with special powers. Mikael does not need them constantly and only contacts them when their help is necessary.
This is the case with one of his most powerful witches. She has...a gift. You, child, must know better than anyone that witches feel the energy of the things around them. But this witch...she not only feel it, she, for the lack of a better word, sees the energies and is able to tell the difference between, for example, mine and yours. Once she has seen the energy of one person, she is able to trace it and find this person wherever he is. She is Mikael's tracking device. And today I was informed that he has asked for help." It took me a second to realize what he was saying.
" She has seen Nick's energy? They are coming here?" The seriousness in his eyes left no room for suspicion. He was telling the truth. My throat clenched again and I felt how my limbs went numb. Fear.
The man shook his head and I took a breath of relief. But it lasted exactly three seconds.
" Not his. Yours." A slight smile spread on my lips. He was joking, wasn't he?
" That's impossible. Why would have she seen my energy and not Nick's?"
" As I said 'see' is not exactly correct. She has to touch the person, feel him, sense him. It's not as simple as you think. It takes around a minute or two but when you have to sense a stranger even that is a long time. That's why the witch chose to 'see' your energy." I shook my head violently. What he was saying lacked logic.
" That's impossible." I repeated." The only witch that I know is my mother...No, no. You are not suggesting that..." I shook my head again and jumped off my chair. This man was crazy. What was he trying to tell me? That my mother was a part of some sick supernatural army?
" I am not suggesting anything, child. It's the truth. It's against her will. She made a deal with Mikael. As long as she helped him, he wouldn't hurt her family." He paused and then answered the quiestion I hadn't even asked yet. " There are infiltrators. They told Mikael about your wedding and he made the connection. Your family is very famous among the supernatural world. Petrova." He tilted his head.
I still couldn't wrap my head around the idea of my mother doing something like that.
Realization hit me and my eyes blurred. I had to leave him. Mikael was coming after me. If I was with Nick when he found me... The stones were crushing my chest, I couldn't breathe.
" You are destined for something greater than being another housewife, child. I need you and Nicklaus alive and I can't protect you when you are together. I need your help for something. Something greater than any of this. But the time hasn't come to tell you this." He paused." But is your choice. You can either leave and save both of your lives or...you can stay with the love of your life and get both of you and probably thousand others killed. If you leave, I will help you become the most powerful witch in the world, together we will defeat our enemies." He was talking with a dreamy voice that was scaring me. What was he talking about. I didn't ask. I couldn't take any more information. Did he call that a choice. I was feeling helpless, like I was drowning. I didn't have a choice.
All my hopes and dreams were crushed for a few seconds. Instead I was filled with darkness and sorrow that were going to be with me for the next 500 years.
End of flashback
We both took sharp breaths as the vision ended. Nick's eyes were widen. He had not expected that.
" He really is alive." I imagined what was it like to see your supposedly dead father like that. He shook his head and took both my hands in his. " Mikael is in a coffin. A witch took him down a few years ago." He didn't understand.
" No, he is not. He's been released. And even if he weren't, it wouldn't have mattered. There is a huge army of vampire hunters. Mikael is their master but they know their orders. They will attack even if Mikael was dead." He clenched his jaw but didn't let go of my hands,
" Why are you telling me this now? This isn't the first time we see each other. Why did you decide to tell me now." I took a deep breath.
" I received a phone call right before you came here." He furrowed his brows. His eyes were surprised and confused.
" Phone call? From whom?" I bit my lips, remembering his cold voice.
" Your father. He called to tell me that it was over. They are coming. There is no use in hiding anymore. "
Hey! You are welcome to give me suggestions. And what should I call Nick's father. :D