A.N. - So, apparently as of this past July 11th I've been here on FanFiction for 4 years! Wow. I remember when I used to write random (and pretty bad) one shots when I first discovered this wonderful and addictive website back when I was 13. I'd like to think my writing has gotten a lot better since :)
Anyway, let's get on with this chapter. Please review and enjoy.
The sound of birds rustling in the trees above awoke her with a start. They called frantically to one another, like something awful was about to happen. The feeling of impending dread set in.
Where was Lilith?
She had to find her. She had to know if the mad, red-headed woman had gotten to her.
The woods - she was probably hiding in the woods. Maybe in her favorite climbing tree.
Belle sprinted off into the woods, frantically searching for her child.
Before she knew it, she was back home. Not the one she shared with her daughter, but her old home. The place she was born. The place that held terrible childhood memories.
It couldn't have been more than a mile away from the small village in which she and Lilith lived.
She hadn't been back since she had ran from it eight years before.
She stood face-to-face, so to speak, with the cabin she was raised in. Where the people she once called family lived. Nothing had really changed from the outside, but she knew that the same couldn't be said for the people inside. Her brothers and sisters were no longer children, but young men and women.
"Belinda?" A voice came from behind her - a woman's voice. She didn't recognize it.
She turned quickly to face the stranger and was met with familiar eyes - Sabrina's.
"Sister, you, you have to help me," she breathed heavily, frantic. Her hands shook from the adrenaline the coursed through her veins. "I need to, I need to find my daughter. I was attacked..."
Her words trailed off as she became entranced by something. A hammering noise. For a moment she though it was footsteps, but she realized it was a heartbeat. Not her own, but Sabrina's.
How could she hear it? More importantly, why was it so...alluring?
She watched carefully, focused solely on the sight of Sabrina's jugular vein pulsing. Every other thought left her head, abandoning the task at hand without her even realizing it.
"Belinda?" Sabrina said, reaching out to grab her shoulder. "Sister?"
A new, primal instinct took over her body. It was both strange and terrifying. She grabbed Sabrina's arm, watching the blood pulse though the veins in her slender wrist. Her teeth ached badly; a throbbing pain shot through her jaws. It was relentless and intensified by the millisecond.
She felt like she was no longer in control of her body, floating above herself as the monster within took over. She swallowed hard and yanked Sabrina closer and pushed her hair aside, exposing the pale skin on her neck.
"What are you doing?" Sabrina asked frantically, struggling to break away.
The monster inside Belle enjoyed the struggle, tightening her grasp on Sabrina.
She inched closer to her neck, inhaling its scent before the monster quickly decided that she was tired of waiting. Belle sunk her teeth into her once beloved sister's throat, relishing the screams that faded to whimper before they went away all together.
Her first taste of bloodlust.
She groaned and blinked open her eyes for a second, closing them again as a light burned her retinas.
Belle tried opening them again. This time the light was gone. Someone had pulled the curtains shut.
A man.
He wore a black long sleeved shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, worn jeans, and boots. His hair was dirty blonde and thinning a little on the top and in the back.
He turned to face her, his dark eyes piercing hers like blades. They were blue. "You're awake," he said. His voice was gruff and harsh like he was angry or tired, or some combination of the two. His face was pinched in frustration, showing deep lines around his eyes and mouth. He looked like he was about fifty, maybe a few years older.
"Who are you? Where," she groaned as a wave of pain washed over her. Her entire body ached, though it was mostly her head. Being knocked out wasn't by any means pleasant. "Where am I?"
She was sitting on the floor, too tried to stand up. Thick metal cuffs were locked around each wrist and the cuffs were attached to chains that were bolted into the stone wall behind her. She couldn't break them.
"So many questions," he scoffed. The man stepped closer to her, kneeling down on one knee in front of her so he could look her in the eyes directly with his icy gaze. "Well, my dear, I am Mikael. The Destroyer. The Vampire Who Hunts Vampires."
Those words made her blood run cold. So this was Mikael, the Mikaelson's domineering, tyrant of a father. The man who had ruined Klaus' life. The man who had hunted him for centuries.
She forced her back flush against the wall, trying to put as much space between them as possible.
Mikael was dead. Klaus had killed him over a year ago.
"How are you alive?"
He stood and took a few steps back, keeping his eyes locked with hers. He had the "evil villian" act down to a tee. A half-smirk played at the corner of his lips. "It's quite a long story, which I have no intention of ever telling it to you."
"Then can you at least tell me where I am? And why I'm here?" She used annoyance to mask her fear, but she could tell he saw right through it. He was intimidating and he knew it well.
"It doesn't matter where you are, only that you are here. And you are here for the sole purpose of serving as leverage against the bastard who calls himself my son. Not to mention that the monstrosity growing in you womb will add extra incentive."
If her hands hadn't been bound she would've slapped him for that. "Say whatever the hell you want to about me, but don't you ever insult my son," she growled, forgetting her fear for a few moments of strength.
Mikael chuckled, unamused. "So it's a boy? A bastard son for the bastard son. No matter. Soon, once Niklaus shows his face, you'll all be dead. I plan to kill you slowly, right in front of his eyes before I release him from his immortal coil."
"You'll have one hell of a time trying. Klaus killed you once, and I don't doubt that he can do it again," she spat venomously.
He ignored her and turned to call to someone in the other room. "Witch," he beckoned.
Like a trained puppy, David entered the room just seconds later. "Yes, sir?"
"Put her under. Just because she's here doesn't mean I have to listen to every vexatious word that comes from her mouth." He pointed finger in her direction, his daylight ring glinting in the glow of the lamps. "And when you're done send the abomination a message that we have his bitch and her unborn mutt."
David nodded solemnly. "Of course." He Approached her warily, avoiding her glaring eyes, and began to chant.
A darkness overtook her seconds later. It wasn't gradual like the other times she had been attacked by magic. It was sudden and strong, like a wave of blackened water pushing her under, drowning her, but it only took an instant. Before the blackness overtook her and she was unconscious.
Klaus sat at his desk, head down, resting on his folded hands. "How could you let this happen?"
"It wasn't our fault," Rebekah insisted. She sat in one of the chairs on the opposite side if the room beside an unusually twitchy Max.
"Really, it wasn't. I mean, I wasn't even in the room when it happened." Max kept his eyes on the floor as he spoke. He couldn't even count the number of tines Belle had been there for him, and tet he couldn't even protect her once. "I knew there was something off about that guy." He recited this mantra once again as he had done at least twenty times since she was taken.
Klaus rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you did Maxwell, but apparently that didn't stop you from letting him abduct them." He was beyond furious.
"Well arguing and pointing accusing fingers about it isn't helping anything," Rebekah said.
As he rose his head and moved to stand, a piece of singed paper appeared on his desk before his very eyes. The work of a witch. Rebekah and Max stared in awe and confusion.
Klaus took it in his hand and read aloud.
"We have the girl. If you're willing to cooperate you just might get to see her again. However, whether or not she will be alive depends on how well you obey. It would be a shame if you child were to grow up alone. A child needs parents, after all. Mothers love their children, fathers make them strong."
His face pinched tightly in blinding anger. There's only one person he'd ever met who had said that line; Klaus had heard it more times than he could count as a child.
He knew who had sent this note, who took them: his father, Mikael.