A/N- And I'm back! Hi Everyone, Happy New Year!
So I'm hoping someone out there wants to help me by making pictures for my stories, or set up a tumblr page where I can post my stories?
PM me if you're interested.
Now this is just a short prologue and I'll have the next chapter up asap.
BEGINNING OF BOOK TWO
PROLOGUE
Le Coeur de Jardin- Garden District
His world was one of shadows and darkness.
Air.
That was his one comprehensible thought.
He needed air.
He couldn't breathe!
Elijah awoke with a strangled, silent gasp. His body shooting up in the bed as he struggled to get air into his lungs. His left hand pressed hard against his chest where his long dead heart lay, frantically searching for the slow rhythm that had kept him alive for centuries.
It was there but he couldn't breathe.
His right hand clutches his throat, trying to feel any blockage that would be preventing the air from reaching his lungs- nothing.
His eyes dart to his right where he sees the chocolate curls cascading across the pillow and the steady rise and fall of his fiancées back.
Katerina is breathing.
Perhaps she has taken all the air in the room?
For all her beauty, wit and joie de vivre she can be quite selfish sometimes.
He shakes his head to clear himself of that stupid thought and his eyes catch on the silver handle across the room.
The door handle leading to the rooftop.
Quickly he climbs from their bed and uses vampire speed to cross the wooden floorboards to the glass door, he pulls it open and steps barefoot onto the gravel covered roof.
The sky is roiling above him, flashes of white amidst the angry purple clouds and the distant roll of thunder.
He can feel the electricity prickling the hairs on his arms the rapidly cooling wind brushing his bare chest. He ignores this, he ignores everything in favour of standing on the very edge of the rooftop, gripping the black ironwork railing in his hands and crushing the metal as he tears it from the holding.
He can't breathe.
Why can't he breathe?
Perhaps he has forgotten how?
He is not suffocating. He is dead, he does not need oxygen in his lungs to survive but it is preferable.
Most vampires choose to continue breathing after they have transitioned out of sheer habit and because it was easier for the stolen blood in their system to be oxygenated. It required less feeding that way.
Focusing on the last medical textbook he read. Grey's Anatomy 1918 and recalls the passage on the human lungs.
Inhalation, his diaphragm should be tightening- yes he can feel it doing so, increasing the space in his chest cavity for his lungs to expand. Now, the air needed to enter via his nostrils and mouth, down his windpipe and into his lungs, from where it would pass through his bronchial tubes and finally reach the alveoli.
Exhalation- his diaphragm relaxing and the intercostal muscles would be reducing the space in his chest cavity which would force the air out of his lungs and windpipe and through his nose and mouth.
Inhalation. Exhalation…Inhalation…Exhalation.
He knows his body well. He can feel every moment of this process. He can sense that his lungs are working and the space in his chest increasing and lessening.
He is breathing.
So why does he feel as though he can't breathe?
Above him the heavens open with a fury.
A torrent of rain falls down upon him, smacking against his bare skin, soaking his hair and drenching his grey silk pyjama pants, sticking to the skin of his legs as the force of the rain drives him to his knees.
He can see the water hitting the green grass three floors down, he can see when the water freezes into hail and begins bouncing off the earth, hitting the statues in the garden.
Perhaps he should follow the rain down? Tumble off the roof and land on the earth like a fallen angel?
Perhaps the momentary death would bring back the foolish sensation of life?
"Elijah?"
He can hear Katerina's musical voice calling him from their room, she's lingering in the doorway shivering against the cold. She calls him again, troubled this time, she knows he can hear her and is choosing not to respond.
"Elijah, come inside!"
It is not a request. She is centuries younger than him, infinitely less powerful and her position in their world is dependent on his own and yet she orders him to return to her side.
The heaven unleash new fury now, lightening racing across the sky, making its momentary mark on the world, casting everything in brilliant light before the thunder chases it away with its ominous growl.
How easy it would be to go over.
There is a sigh of irritation, gentle in contrast to the angry world. The stirring of gravel and the smack of wet hair against skin.
A tender hand, warm and smooth, lays on his shoulder, the thumb caressing the dead skin, willing it back to life.
Tormented eyes are raised to meet hers, seeing nothing of the annoyance and hatred she should be feeling, instead he is shown grace and all-forgiving love.
And now, he can finally feel the air racing into his body.
With a moan of anguish at the pain and delight at the same sensation, he fell forward and she gripped him tightly with one hand, the other clinging to the railing left so that he wouldn't topple them both over the edge. He presses his head against her naked stomach and she cradles him against her,
"It is okay" she whispers, as he wraps his arms around her waist, "I have you, you're safe"
The hail retreats but the wind and rain is still buffeting them.
He doesn't fear for himself, he knows he is damned but he doesn't want to take Katerina over the edge with him.
With slow deliberate movements he climbs to his feet, lifting her with him and she holds onto his shoulders as he carries them back inside.
Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 - French Quarter
"Well?"
Celeste answered with a shriek of frustration, turning over the wooden table with the chalk markings and burnt herbs. Only by sheer miracle was Francesca able to reach out and snap up the small vial of rehydrated blood before it hit the floor.
"Are you insane?!" she demands, clutching the precious item in her hand and turning on the still panting witch,
"It cost us the lives of nine witches to get us this blood! We can't just go out and get more"
Celeste snorted and spun around, showing the woman her back as she paced to the window of the large tomb, staring out into the stormy night sky,
"It wasn't supposed to rain tonight" she commented, sneering at the rain as if it was to blame for her failure, "And Katherine wasn't supposed to be there"
Francesca curses the woman for her stupidity. Witches were far too heavily reliant on their magic, letting such attributes as logic and forethought to fall by the wayside.
"I told you, Katherine and Elijah spend every night together" she snaps, too frustrated to even enjoy the envy on the witches face,
"They won't even go to bed without each other, did you really think that Katherine wouldn't notice if he jumped off the roof?"
"It's barely one in the morning!" Celeste paces across the room and holds up the antique watch, shoving it in Francesca's face,
"And you didn't tell me that she had gone back to the Garden District!"
"Because, as I've told you all week…" she stresses that statement, pointedly reminding the witch
"We keep losing track of Katherine. She disappears for hours on end and we can't manage to find her or tail her successfully, I have my brothers on it but they can't risk her making them or we'll be getting a visit from Klaus"
"Your family has lived in this city for centuries" Celeste argues, "How hard is it to find one human woman on this side of the damn river when she doesn't stray further than ten miles from the Quarter?"
Not that hard at all.
In theory, following Katherine Pierce should be one of the easiest tasks that Francesca has ever given her brothers. They know which car she drives, she always stands out in a crowd and they know her routine.
Morning she has breakfast with Elijah either at the Garden District or Bourbon St Manor. Mid-morning she's either having coffee with a friend or at a beauty salon. Lunch time she's at one of the many restaurants across the city with Elijah and afterwards they walk hand in hand back to the Bourbon St manor where she then leaves him to go run errands. These errands vary from shopping trips to information gathering, visiting the Cauldron to buy or sell supernatural weaponry or meeting with the various factions in the city. On a normal day she headed back to the family at around seven in the evening for dinner and stayed in for the night, or if there was an event, she would head out again and could be home any time between midnight and dawn.
Katherine Pierce was one of the most well-known socialites in the city and could be found just by checking to see which theatre, cinema or bar was the popular flavour of the month or holding a premier.
Yet, for the last month, the woman had managed to fall completely off the radar for hours at a time and nobody who was noticing could figure out why.
"Could she have a secret lover do you think?" Francesca suggested, noting the vicious gleam in Celeste's eyes,
"If she's hiding from us, she's hiding from the Originals as well"
As much as the idea tickled the vindictive witch, she shook her head in defeat,
"Even I don't think she could be that stupid"
"Find out her secret" Celeste demanded in a tone that sounded suspiciously like an order,
"Perhaps we can use it to destroy them both"
Cary Boyd couldn't remember the last time he'd had a decent nights' sleep.
Perhaps a decade ago when he'd managed to get the flu on his thirteenth birthday and pretty much spent the week unconscious?
Good times.
Of course to be able to sleep you needed to feel safe.
Hard to do when you were squatting in the Bayou where any creature that wasn't out to eat you was likely to be a werewolf who'd be mighty pissed if they found you on their land.
But they hadn't caught him yet.
And they probably weren't going to for a long time.
After losing Hayley, the Crescent pack was floundering. Cary knew that Jackson was stepping into the role of Alpha but he had very little power in New Orleans. Klaus had nothing more than a basic interest in the wolves, the camaraderie of one's own species but otherwise he was busy ruling the kingdom. Elijah Mikaelson treated werewolves as if they were rabid dogs and Katherine Pierce was no help whatsoever.
Erik had been a momentary beacon of hope for the werewolves but Raina wasn't letting anyone who wasn't him near the hybrid heir.
Like hell Cary was going to let the Crescent wolves claim Erik as their own, they hadn't even been able to keep their last Alpha from getting killed, why the hell should they be trusted with the most powerful wolf since before the Massacre?
He sighs with relief as the rain finally begins to let up.
For all the water resistant material and what-have-you on his camping equipment, there was still drops of water dripping into his freaking tent and the moisture on the sides drove him crazy.
For all his werewolf strength and pride, he sure hated camping in the freaking Bayou.
And now he'd have to get the fucking fire started again which meant going outside when he just wanted to lie on his sleeping bag, stare at the orange material above him and pray for some fucking sleep!
Which would be a lot easier if there wasn't somebody moving around his campsite.
Reaching for his gun, he tucked it into his pants before unzipping the tent and climbing out.
He spots her right away, she's staring at the rapidly reviving campfire- which Cary would take as a sign of friendship…
Except for the small fact that the flames were fucking black.
The entire fire was burning onyx black, the flames undulating slowly, bringing to mind a lava lamp as they stretched up and then sank back down again.
"The humans call this hellfire" the young woman says, lifting her head and giving him a polite smile in direct contrast to the magic she's performing. He ignores his every instinct screaming for him to run and edges closer, stopping when his skin erupts in goosebumps and he starts to shiver uncontrollably,
"It also burns cold" she adds unnecessarily, "But it has its uses"
In November?!
"Who the hell are you?" he demands, trying not to look weak as he crosses his arms to try and find a little heat in his freezing body,
"Scarlet Rose" she offered her name and then let the silence fill the tense void between them, so she was either pretty confident in her powers or didn't think he was a threat.
A gentle breeze rustles through the leaves of the tree above him and several drops of water land on his head, one going down the back of his neck and he wiggled at the unpleasant sensation,
"Sorry about the storm" she apologised casually and when he met her eyes he swore he could see the lightening and thunder in those depths,
"That was you?!" he splutters in surprise.
Fuck, she was powerful then.
She shrugs, "Had to be done, there were some witches who had to be interfered with"
Curiosity gets the better of him.
"And you're here because?" he prompts and she smirks,
"Because there's a war about to break out and rip the Quarter to shreds and I'm going to help you emerge from it alive with Erik Marshall-Mikaelson as your pack's heir"
A/N- There we go.