"We're going out there to get Caroline and Jeremy," Damon told Misha as he and Kol moved toward the crypt door, "If it's true that Dominic has found us, then you all need to be ready to move Klaus and the coffins the second we get back."
"And with Dominic out there waiting, just how do we plan to get out of here with two coffins and a sick hybrid?" Kaspar asked, curiously
"Don't worry. I've got something up my sleeve," Damon said, giving an assuring smile.
Kaspar rolled his eyes, but Misha only nodded before returning to Klaus' side and looking to Bonnie, producing a pocket knife from his belt.
"You heard him," the warlock said, leaning forward and slitting Klaus' right wrist, before handing the knife across the hybrid's body for Bonnie to slit the other, "We need to bleed him so we can start the healing rituals. If we hurry, we could be at least half-way done by the time they get back. He'll be out of danger then."
Meanwhile, with a deep breath and a last look to Kol, Damon threw the latch and pulled open the iron door to reveal Caroline and Jeremy standing on the other side of the threshold.
Both parties shrieked in shock and surprise upon seeing the other, but soon the shock and surprise gave way to smirks of relief and mild embarrassment.
"Oh…thank God…" Damon whispered, before reaching through the doorway, grabbing Jeremy and Caroline both by the arm and pulling them into a group hug.
"I think…" Jeremy chuckled against Damon's shoulder, "He missed us."
"I'm just glad you're both safe, that's all," Damon replied as he released his hold on them
"We thought you were both hunter nip for sure," Kol added
"Please tell us you have the compass," Kaspar said, coming from Misha's side and crossing in front of the doorway behind them
"Yeah…" Jeremy said, pulling away from Damon and turning toward the necromancer, retrieving Johnathan Gilbert's watch from his jacket pocket and holding it up, "We got it."
Kaspar smiled, then suddenly gasped, his eyes widening in pain and fear before he collapsed onto the floor to reveal Dominic standing behind him in the open doorway, holding his brother's heart in his hand.
"Then be a good boy and hand it over," the hunter said, with a cheeky smile before tossing Kaspar's heart over his shoulder.
# # # # # # #
As the morning sunlight crept through the windows of Elijah's bedroom and illuminated the skin behind her closed eyelids, Elena's mind wandered out of sleep and the first thing that entered it, was her memory of first meeting Damon Salvatore four years before and the words he had spoken to her.
"You want a love that consumes you," he had said in an intense voice, his green eyes meeting her chocolate brown, "You want passion…and adventure…and even a little danger."
Elijah certainly fit the bill in that regard—he was darkly handsome, self-deprecating and funny, but serious when he needed to be and when he looked at her a spark ignited in her that she had never felt before, burning slow and steady, threatening to consume her.
And well...'adventure' and 'danger' seemed a package deal with Elijah and his siblings and Elena had gotten more than her fair share in the years since they had first met.
And 'passion'? If their lovemaking hours earlier had been any indication, they were definitely not lacking in the passion department.
Elena was certain that if it she was still capable, she would be blushing at the memory of Elijah slowly laying her down on his bed and peeling her clothes off of her deliberately and steadily as he worshiped her body like a sacred alter.
But, if she had expected him to be gentle with her, she was sorely mistaken, as their escapades progressed and Elena found herself effortlessly moved into several different positions by her lover—each one offering a different pace and level of pleasure.
Stefan had always been so slow and sweet in their lovemaking and Elena was certain that if she had remained human and things had progressed with Damon, he would have definitely been the wild one in bed.
Elijah, though, was the perfect mixture of both.
He was slow and steady—taking his time to make her pleasure last and enjoying and savoring the magnifying connection that grew with each kiss, touch and caress—but also passionate in the way he handled her body with a firm confidence, stoking the fire in her soul that threatened to consume her flesh.
And God, the way he looked into her eyes as he moved above her…
Below her…
Within her…
Elena smirked as she slowly opened her eyes and beheld him asleep under the covers next to her, his face peaceful and relaxed in sleep.
She cocked her head for a moment as she studied him, before leaning forward and planting a quick and gentle kiss on his nose.
She then slowly pulled away, sitting up on the edge of the bed and wrapping one of the loose sheets around her.
It was just as she was getting ready to stand that she felt a hand grab her wrist, holding it firmly as the strength of its grip anchored her to the bed.
Elena smiled and bit her lip when she heard Elijah's soft, silky voice quip, "Who said you could leave my bed?"
She immediately turned and looked back over her shoulder at him, watching with seductive eyes as he slowly slid under the comforter toward her, never releasing her hand.
"I was going to come back," Elena protested with a smirk
"Oh…you were?" Elijah replied as he planted a soft kiss on her bare shoulder
"Yes. I promise," Elena said softly as he lifted his eyes to meet hers for a moment before raising a hand to caress her cheek
"Do you know how to keep that promise, Miss Gilbert?" Elijah asked, leaning closer to her, never breaking eye contact as he lowered his voice to a soft whisper, "You never leave in the first place."
Elena gave a small smile as Elijah captured her lips in a slow and sensual kiss that soon ignited in passion and she gasped, then giggled, as she felt Elijah take her into his strong arms and toss her back into the center of the bed, landing on top of her.
With a cheeky smile of his own, he methodically unwrapped the sheet like a present to reveal her naked body beneath him, then quickly lurched forward and nipped playfully at Elena's neck as he tickled her bare sides, causing her to jerk and spasm as she dissolved into laughter.
"Elijah! Stop! Ahh! Stop! I won't leave! I surrender…" Elena panted
Then, finally, with a chuckle, Elijah pulled up to face her, his hands gently pinning her forearms onto the pillows on either side of her head as he looked down into her face.
"So… you surrender?" He asked with a look of satisfaction as he lowered himself closer to her lips and their eyes met once more
"I do," Elena conceded, searching his eyes, breathless by the connection that seemed to hum between their bodies, "It seems I am your prisoner..."
"Then I am to do with you what I will?" Elijah asked, raising an eyebrow as he leaned even closer
"Yes…" Elena breathed, the intensity increasing between them as she closed her eyes and felt his face lower ever closer to hers until his nose brushed against hers seconds before he closed the distance and kissed her again.
Immediately, the fires burned between them as he released her pinned arms and she quickly brought her hands to run through his dark hair, then grasp his shoulders as he passionately trailed open mouth kisses down her neck to her collar bone and across her chest.
With the aide of vampire speed, he quickly turned them over so that they were spooning on their sides with him behind her and Elena gasped as she felt him take firm hold of the front of her throat in one hand, then her waist with the other, maneuvering her with skilled precision until he entered her body in one heated stroke.
Elena gave a small moan as he began moving slowly and sensually within her, kissing her earlobe and neck as she closed her eyes in pleasure…
# # # # #
"I said…hand it over," Dominic said in a stern tone, beckoning Jeremy to hand him the compass with his still blood soaked hand.
"Why?!" Misha said angrily, his face flushed with agony and grief as he immediately pushed through the crowd to face his brother, "You can't hope to release your soul from that compass without the caster of the original spell…"
"Ahh...hence the 'change of scenery..." Dominic said, cocking his head then scoffing, "I should have known you would take me right to Elijah. Let me venture a guess…he's found the witch to reverse the original spell that trapped my soul, am I right?"
"Actually—" Bonnie chimed in, but Misha stopped her short of revealing the little hitch in Dominic's plan—their only advantage.
"Yes. He did," Misha replied nonchalantly, "You're right. We were going to take the compass to him and we were hoping you would follow us out of town."
"Another trap?" Dominic snickered, then looked over to Klaus lying on the crypt floor, "I didn't fall for the last one. Giving me a werewolf to hold as leverage, hoping that he would turn..." he then, shifted his gaze back to his older brother as he waived a finger back and forth disapprovingly, "Tisk-tisk, Misha. "
Then he lowered his finger with a smirk as he continued, "But, I solved that problem with a little Wolfsbane."
"You could have killed him!" Kol growled, immediately stepping forward to challenge the hunter, but Damon threw out a hand to hold him back
"My intention wasn't to kill him, it was to take him out of the game and make him suffer…" Dominic replied, eyeing Kol, "He's one of the most powerful beings in this room and I needed him out of the way after his little stunt to free you all. With him out of the way-"
"You're wasting your time here, Dominic," Misha finally interjected, "We won't give you the compass."
Dominic gave a disgruntled growl before he unsheathed the long sword on his back and moved forward to cross the threshold.
"Don't insult me, Misha," he warned, a sneer crossing his face as his eyes darkened and he pointed his sword down to the dead necromancer at his feet,"If I didn't need your powers to re-ensoul me, you would be joining Kaspar on the floor with a gaping hole in your chest!"
"Don't even think about it!" Misha warned, taking a step to the side and blocking Dominic's path to Jeremy Gilbert and the compass.
It was at that moment that, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, the ground beneath the cemetery began to shake violently and the iron door to the mausoleum shut hard in the vampire hunter's face of its own free will.
"What is this?!" Caroline screamed over the commotion of cracking trees and grumbling stone outside as she leaned against Damon for support
"Misha?!" Kol cried looking over to the warlock
"It's not me!" Misha shouted, looking swiftly around the room to find the culprit as the earthquake continued, his eyes widening when he discovered the source.
"Oh…my god…" He mused in stunned surprise as he looked down to Klaus on the floor, his eyes now glowing with an amber hue, "It's..."
"Nik!" Rebekah shouted, placing her hands on his face to try and rouse her brother from the trance he seemed to be in, "Nik! Stop! Stop!"
Suddenly, the roof blew off of the mausoleum, the wind force throwing Damon, Jeremy, Caroline, Kol and Misha in different directions across the small room.
Only Bonnie and Rebekah remained where they were, anchored by their hold on Klaus, who himself remained unscathed by what was going on around him.
"Stefan!" Damon yelled through the hurricane force winds as he watched the coffins holding Katherine and Stefan's bodies slide across the room and smash against the stone crypts before the ground outside faltered and gravity brought them sliding back the other way.
When they did, the older Salvatore brother seized the opportunity and reached forward, taking firm hold of the handle on the end of Stefan's coffin before it could be pulled up into the vortex eye of the storm that now replaced the roof of the mausoleum.
And lucky for Damon, Jeremy instinctively took hold of his legs and Caroline quickly took hold of Jeremy's waist to keep the Salvatore brothers from both flying away.
Katherine, however, wasn't so lucky.
Kol tried to take hold of her coffin, but was too late and it was pulled up into the eye of the storm never to be seen again.
Meanwhile, Misha grunted as he pushed through the wind on his hands and knees to get to where Rebekah and Bonnie still held Klaus in the middle of the room.
When the warlock finally made it, he reached out and placed a hand on the hybrid's leg, the only appendage he could reach, and whispered an incantation.
"Et in corde tuo, tempestas tranquilla…"
Suddenly, Klaus' eyes flashed back to their normal color and the original fell unconscious, causing the storm to immediately fall silent, sending debris, Stefan's coffin and a disheveled Damon Salvatore hurdling to the ground.
# # # # # ##
With the promise of returning with blood, Elijah had reluctantly let Elena put on a bathrobe and head down to the kitchen.
But, just as he had closed his eyes and leaned back on the pillows, his phone vibrated on the night stand next to him.
He sat up immediately, reaching out quickly to snatch up the phone and hit the answer button when he saw Misha's name flash on the screen.
"Misha…Thank God…" Elijah said in a relieved voice, "What's the Hell happened? I thought you were going to keep in touch. You haven't returned any of my calls—no one has."
"Well…we've been kind of busy," Misha responded on the other end of the line, though the connection started to fizzle out into static, "We didn't have much of a plan there for a while and I didn't want you to worry and I definitely didn't want you to come back to Mystic Falls."
"Understood," Elijah replied running a hand nervously through his hair, "But Elena and I have been worried. Is everyone alright? What's-"
Suddenly, a loud static sound pierced Elijah's ear and he held the phone out at arms length for a moment, grimacing, before pulling the phone back to listen.
"Where are you?" Elijah asked, raising an eyebrow, "I'm picking up a lot of static on my end."
# # # # # # #
"Well…" Misha said, holding his IPhone to his left ear with one hand as he slid along on his stomach through the dark, narrow, Civil War era secret underground crawl space below the Salvatore mausoleum that led out to the outer edges of the cemetery—at least, according to Damon Salvatore, who was ahead of Misha and the rest of the pack, leading the way with a flashlight.
Suddenly, the warlock stopped and rolled on his side, keeping the phone pressed to his ear as he looked back to Rebekah and Kol crawling on their hands and knees behind him, followed by Caroline and Bonnie dragging a still unconscious Klaus, before he turned back on his stomach and took in his dank, dark surroundings.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he sighed