Surrender

Venice, Italy, 1865, A.D.

Astra sat in one of the plush chairs that adorned her sitting room, her eyes on the fireplace as she circled one finger around the rim of her crystal wineglass, listening to the soft ring that echoed in her delicate senses. She had already changed out of her tight, constricting dress into a nightgown and robe, both of a wondrous silk—of course, Elijah had bought them for her with the intent as gifts to bribe. He had remembered her love of silk, soft to the touch and so addicting to caress. Even then, her fingers traced invisible designs on her thigh, crossed over the other.

She could hear when Elijah entered the sitting room, closing the door behind him nearly silently, but she didn't bother to look away from the fireplace.

"You should be resting," Elijah commented as he approached her chair cautiously. He was never sure what mood he would catch her in—sometimes she was almost kind, nostalgic with him, but most of the time she was snappish and angered.

"I am not tired," she mumbled back, continuing to circle the rim of the glass. It was actually a rather soft, perfect sound to listen to. Somehow, it calmed her.

"Astraea…" Elijah began, taking another step closer. He halted, of course, when Astra instinctively leaned away from him. Instead, he moved to the seat that was across from hers, angled to face both the fireplace and her chair, opening the way to conversation. "What will it take to remove your hate for me?"

"Honestly," Astra began, finally looking away from the fireplace so she could turn those striking eyes up to him. "I do not know. Some moments I feel as though I can, and I miss the times that we spent together, but then I remember that night and it is as though it spreads poison in my veins. I find myself hating you all over again."

"That night," Elijah repeated, knowing exactly the night that she was referring to. When she had discovered the truth about what she was, why Elijah had come for her to begin with. "I am eternally sorry for that, Astraea. I had always intended to tell you, but I was selfish and greedy and wanted you to remain at my side—somehow, I knew you would find out, but at the same time I never let myself be concerned because every day would pass and you remained with me. Until, one day…you were gone. And I knew I had made the greatest mistake of my life."

Astra huffed a sarcastic laugh. "Not the many Patrovas? Tell me, Elijah, did you fancy Katarina?" she asked with a smirk so sour and sly that it made her ugly. The expression was ill-suited for someone of her beauty and kind heart.

He was so regretful that he was the reason she wore such an expression.

"There will always be something within me that is drawn to the Patrova line, you know this. However, the feelings that you are referring to were not there. I did not love Katarina nor did I have any intention of going behind your back to bed another woman. Since the moment I met you, learned of your pain and your innocence, I was drawn to you so strongly, my love."

"Do not call me that, Elijah. I am not your love anymore," Astra ordered drearily as she turned her eyes down to the fireplace, placing the wineglass on the table beside her before her clenched hand shattered it.

"I have hunted for you for over a century, Astraea. You will always be my love," Elijah assured her in a soft voice, reaching for her hand that was not occupied by the wine glass, taking her long, elegant fingers in his and bringing them swiftly to his lips. To his surprise, Astra did not pull away or snap at him to release her. Instead, she released a soft, mournful sigh.

Still, she did not look at him. "You thought I would leave you if you told me the truth?"

"Yes," he whispered against her knuckles, taking in the softness of her skin. They had never seen labour while she was human and as a vampire always healed with the softness finish that he had ever felt. He loved her hands, her flesh, her body and her soul—whether it was now corrupted or not. "You make me a greedy man, Astraea."

His hold on her hand shifted, cradling it in his palm so he could turn it over to kiss the inside of her palm, along to her wrist, where her pulse throbbed gently in her veins. "Did you ever regret it? Not killing me?"

Gripping her hand just a bit tighter, Elijah's soft brown eyes looked to her broken expression. "Not even once. I regretted that I could not save you while you were human, I regretted that you died alone, and for all of these years I have regretted withholding the truth to you."

The pain in his voice drew her to look to him, her amethyst eyes glittering with unshed tears in the firelight. The feeling of his hand cradling hers was such a familiar feeling, the kisses he laid against her skin drawing ancient feelings to the surface, splitting open the scars that had grown old on her heart. He had done the same every time she had used magic and needed to be healed—of course, that was all before she had discovered why she could perform magic. There had been so many opportunities that Elijah could have confessed it all to her, and yet he never once did.

It was Nicklaus that had revealed it to her when he lost his temper after losing Katarina, unable to find her or her family line. She'd given away her baby, let the last name change and therefore lost the Patrova that could next break the curse on him. He'd raged and snapped at everyone, laying blame on anyone he saw. And of course he'd brought up Astra's true power, true purpose and why Elijah had been in Rome to begin with.

To kill her.

Before Elijah had returned to the manor, she had run. She ran and ran for so long she was amazed she could still move when she finally stopped, but even if she thought she wasn't, Astra was always running. From the day she left that manor, until the day Elijah found her in Mystic Falls, she was running. And finally he had caught her.

Now, she wasn't running anymore.

And she was so, so tired.

"Why…" she asked herself quietly, closing her eyes and shaking her head as tears slipped down her dark cheeks, glistening in the light from the flames. "Why do I still love you?" Reaching for Elijah with her free hand, she buried it deep in his hair as she leant forward to him, feeling him lean into her without hesitation. Her lips caught his for the first time in so long that it made her tremble, the feel of his silky hair making her want to stroke it, run her fingers through it. She wanted to embrace him fully, to bring him into her just as she once had all the years ago.

Elijah's hands cradled her face, cheeks warmed with emotion and her tears, meeting her lips again and again as his heart raced inside of his chest. He had been so afraid that he would never have this again, the chance to hold her, to kiss her, to tell her that he loved her.

Falling to his knees on the carpet before her, Elijah pulled her down from her seat to cradle her against his body, deepening the kiss between them as Astra's hands desperately clutched at him while her tears continued to fall freely from her eyes, painting her face with shining lines. He brushed them away, caressing from her high cheekbones to her slender neck. Cradling the supple curve of her throat in his hand, Elijah guided her head back to rest in his palm, opening her up to him and revealed to him her complete submission.

Her hair was loose, soft against the back of his hands and between his fingers. It reminded him of the silk robe she wore, slipping off her shoulders to bear the tan flesh to his eyes.

He had strived to remember her, everything about her, but he forgot just hot beautiful she was. How soft and pliable she had always been in his hands. Her lips parted from his as her chest heaved for air, her hands tracing along his features as though she, too, had forgotten.

Her robe fell to drape across the carpet, soon joined by Elijah's jacket and pristine, white shirt. Their lips met again, requited and desperate as they clothes fell away from their bodies, some salvaged and others torn beyond repair until the carpet was buried beneath them. Astra lie out before the fireplace, head tipped back as Elijah's teeth caressed along her throat, inhaling her scent deeply. His hands traced her collar, her sternum, over the soft flesh of her breasts and over the hardened flesh of her nipples, along her ribs, her waist and hips. Her flesh was so warm beneath his hands, soft and welcoming.

Laying his body out across hers, both hissed at the familiar feeling. Astra's hands buried in his hair once more, clenching it in fistfuls before her head lifted and guided his, directing his mouth to hers as her thighs lifted to cradle his body. She was no longer crying.

"I love you," Elijah gasped out against her lips, scraping his teeth across them as Astra panted for air. "I love you, Astraea," he repeated, punctuating her given name as he thrust deep into her body after so long. Astra cried out sharply as her head tossed back again, hands gripping at Elijah's head tightly as his lips descended to her breast, biting sharply at the soft flesh to leave a reddened mark.

"Elijah!"

Roman Empire, Stabaie, 78, A.D.

Elijah sat upon the bed in the room he shared with Astraea, the woman herself cradled against him as she sat in his lap. Finally, she was asleep. It was just before dawn and he had finally gotten Astraea back to their rooms to rest. Her new energy had kept her moving all throughout the night, pulling him along the streets and into dark alleys that he knew she'd once have avoided.

Thankfully, she now slept soundly, her face peaceful and having regained all of her natural colour. Watching her soft, calm expression, Elijah couldn't help the urge to reach down to brush a finger along her smooth cheek, pushing aside the hair that had fallen across her tanned flesh. He'd almost forgotten how beautiful she was as she slept—seeing her dead scared him more than he was willing to admit. Her slumbering face, so peaceful and content, soothed the fear in the same instant that it caused it to resurface in the first place.

He didn't think he could handle seeing her so pale and still ever again.

"You can put her down, you realize, Elijah?" Nicklaus asked in annoyance but was wise enough to keep his tone low. He's angered Elijah on the matter of his love too many times already, he knew that his elder brother wouldn't stand for it much longer. "She is not going to disappear."

"Oh, hush, Nicklaus," Rebekah snapped from where she was perched on the edge of the bed, her eyes on the slumbering woman as well. She was something new and fascinating to them, and she made her brother so happy. Whatever Astraea was now, why she had come back to life or who she was now, she made Elijah so happy and that was all she could ask.

The middle sibling huffed in annoyance, rather childishly, and Elijah shook his head at the hybrid's actions. Nicklaus had always had this kind of behaviour when it came to not getting what he wanted—he preferred everything to go his way and to have Astraea there, alive, threw his perceptions quite a bit.

"Yes, I could put her down," Elijah agreed before he shuffled a bit to lower his back against the wall behind him, a pillow cushioning his back, and got himself comfortable. "But I will not."

Rebekah snickered as she glanced from Elijah's playful expression to Nicklaus's cold stare. She had missed having her brother's together, and now there was another woman in the family to help break up the testosterone just a bit. "Come, Nick, let us go and alleviate your crankiness a bit," she offered, tugging on her brother's robe to draw him out of the room. Finding someone to feed on would hopefully dispel whatever was eating him.

Elijah watched them depart, leaving him contentedly alone with the woman in his arms. It was as though Astraea sensed that they were gone because she sighed in her sleep, leaning into him more heavily. Tightening his hold on her, cradling her firmly against his body, Elijah smiled softly down at her slumbering expression. "He'll come around," he whispered to her, whether she could hear him or not. "Give him time, you will see his better qualities."

Astraea's head tipped further toward his chest at the sound of his voice, drawn toward it instinctively.

It was going to be interesting, trying to teach Astraea the ways that they had to adapt to in the beginning. It would most likely be greatly overwhelming for her, her sickness had taken her time to adjust to and hide, so this would probably have the safe effect. At least she had people there for her this time—she didn't even have her parents before, trying to save them the concern of having a sick child. Elijah refused to let her suffer silently anymore, it wasn't something she should have had to do while she was human and he most certainly wasn't going to let her new life turn out the same way.

Trying to think of exactly what happened to bring her back always returned his thoughts to feeding her his blood. It had to have something to do with that, but the others who they had given their blood to heal them had never turned into the demons they became decades before. Could it be because she had died? Did the blood try and heal her from death and end up returning her to life, only…not entirely?

Believing that his blood was what had saved her made him feel overwhelmingly protective of the woman in his arms—no matter how strong she was now, she would always be the fragile, sickly woman that he had cradled in his arms after a coughing fit. He certainly wouldn't miss those fits, they had always frightened him deeply, especially when he could smell the sickness on her breath, in the blood on her lips. Even if he was required to feed her his blood, he would do so.

However, thus far she had shown no signs of her human illness. It was his hope that having fed her human blood had solved the stomach pains she had been feeling.

Shaking the thoughts of her illness from his head, Elijah relaxed back against the wall with Astraea's body draped over his.

She had expressed her continued, her strengthened, love for him only hours before and it had his heart content. He could feel no hesitation from her, even though she was stepping into completely new territory. Her love for him was apparently all that she needed as assurance in her new life—her love for him was the solid ground that she needed.

Perhaps the pure feeling of love helped her to feel less like a demon.

After all, that was what they were. Demons. There was no other way to describe themselves—beings of night and darkness, feeding on the life source of mortals. Even their true visage, hidden away when in the presence of others, was red-eyed and fanged. Astraea had been terrified of him when she had first seen his face—this also made him think about what Astraea would look like. Feeding from the man's wrist as she had, after Elijah bit it, gave no reason for her expression to change.

They would have to try and avoid the open sea when the departed—it would be easier for her if they made frequent stops on land, allowing her to feed regularly. He and his siblings didn't feed as often as they used to, but he could remember the intense cravings when they had initially been turned into the creatures they were.

He would also need to make sure that he kept an eye on any differences that she had from them. They didn't know if she would be exactly the same or a more subdued version.

Again, Elijah tried to turn his thoughts away from the topic.

They still had some time in the town before departing, they would adjust to the best of their abilities in that time and worry about anything else as they went along. For the time being, he was going to enjoy his silent moment with the woman that had, somehow, stolen his heart. It would most likely be one of the last times they were alone—there was only so much privacy one could get while on a boat.

He would have to make sure they had one more night to themselves before he was forced to share her company with Nicklaus and Rebekah.

Even with only an hour left until sunrise, Elijah let himself doze off with Astraea still in his arms. For the time being, she was safe and healthy and he was content to simply hold her as she slept. It was a privilege that he'd thought he'd lost when she died.

Seeming to share the sentiment, Astra curled herself inward and rested her forehead against his neck, inhaling his scent deeply.