A/N: hello I am back with a new chapter. hope you guys enjoy.

just to clarify the story will progress and will have flashbacks as it progresses. I would really appreciate some feedback... Thank you


Her hands trembled, fear gripped her, like a growing vine twisting around and choking her. Panic muddling her thoughts and her cognizance. How had she gotten here? Why was this happening? Two unanswered distressing questions running in her mind on a loop. Caroline felt sweat bead her forehead, a sense of unease and uncertainty wrestled inside her, jeopardising her lucidity. As if a scream lodged in her scratchy throat, something bubbling to spill and stain but the control was crucial and requisite for her life.

"Stitch." She called out and the assistant, a stubby old man, who had more sense and composure than her, a proclamation of him being well acquainted with such a bizarre scenario, handed the needle holder and stitch. He assisted her as if all was as it was meant to be.

An occurrence rather quotidian and prevailing as opposed to aberrant.

At least, he had honoured his word of providing the essentials for "fixing" the old man. She did not know the dying man's story, but she could easily discern her curiosity would not be appreciated.

Hence giving in, she soundlessly stitched and patched even as she felt her own nerve endings unravelling.

TTTTT

Taking off the makeshift scrubs she exited the room wanting to escape the stench of blood and povidone iodine.

The grass under her feet crunched, alerting him and he twisted around to gaze at her. The storm blue irises cautiously observed, she felt pinned and cornered, as if sequestered like a prey by a wild beast.

"I need to wash." Her words echoed in the silence of starry night, with a gentle breeze blowing in the wilderness. The farm was vast and deserted, except a few men keeping watch.

A man of few words he nodded and led her to a stable. Two stalls had two majestic animals, the rest of the stalls were empty and a sink on one side. His scent, woodsy and masculine teased her senses. The air of mystery blended with danger, frightened her but she kept the fear well concealed.

Cold water eased her sensory overload. The operation, her abduction and his ever dominant presence stole the tranquil she had conditioned herself to achieve. A sigh of a brief respite, a moment's peace was too valuable, because she knew this chaotic disaster was far from over.

A splash of water on her intriguing face, and a few wet strands curling around captivated him. He wasn't a nescient to beauty, in fact he was an admirer, a connoisseur and had seen many such women in his life, yet her simple blue-green eyes and blonde hair entranced him. This odd fascination with the noble-minded doctor puzzled him. His eyes refused to look away, as time stood still, for some stolen moments.

She fanned herself, a rather plain habit, transfixed him.

TTTTTTTTTTT

Storms and lightning, both around them and in his eyes, and yet that distant expression betrayed nothing. The air tense around them smelled like moist soil as rain began pelting outside.

"I did what you wanted. Please let me go. I.." she took a risk, two steps towards him, "I won't tell anyone. Just let me go." Yet again like a fool she was searching for some compassion but only witnessed indifference.

He took two steps closer, her scent incited something primal. Shocking him, stupefying him. Unamused by the shift he felt within him, he yanked her arm and locked her in an empty stable stall.

Caroline was at first stunned into silence, her hands pricked by the hay stack and then she was clawing at the metal bars with the same hands. "You can not do this, you hear me. You can not cage me like an animal."

The iron bars rattled and so did her control, verging on the edge, as if she was teetering on a cliff, with waves crashing below, she screamed and begged.

"Let me go. You can not do this to me. You can not keep me like this." She kicked the door.

He curled his hands into fists, battling for control, but what exactly was he fighting, compassion, desire or fury or maybe all of it.

"You can not fucking keep me locked in here. Help! Help! Help! Can anyone hear me." Futility thrashed inside her. Caroline knew no one would come to her aid and yet hope was brutal, it made one do inane things. "I can't stay here. Let me go. Let me go."

The fight in her dimming slowly, maybe the exhaustion took over. Klaus hadn't predicted that the doctor was a fighter. A rebel under that neatly pinned bun and pristine white clothes, perhaps the contrast enthralled him.

She slid down, defeated and he found himself crouching down, looking at her face, a wall of metal bars separating them but the chasm stretched wider. "I will not let you go. You knew that.." He disliked the curls that defied the orderliness of that tidy bun, tucking them behind her ears. "The moment you got into that ambulance."

The contact electric leaving a trace of embers on her pores, discombobulated Caroline just watched his blue eyes turn obsidian in the dark of night. "Maybe. Maybe I wanted to be wrong." A lone stubborn tear fell.

"Kindness does not always kill others, sometimes it takes your own life, Doctor." He murmured.

Caroline watched him walk away taking with him

the cruelty that was hope and it still was devastating.

TTTTTTTTTT

He fucking abhorred double crossers and liars. Klaus's fist pummelling into his face each time harder and faster. Selling

your loyalty for money was something he could not comprehend, maybe because money had never held any appeal for him or perhaps because his Uncle had made sure it didn't.

Rob and Marcus pulled him away, "Enough, mate. Stop. Go get your damned wound checked." Marcel urged. "He got you good."

"He blindsided me. I am going to fucking kill Jason. Get this scum out of my face." Rob and another man hauled away the worker who had sold them out at Jason's provokation.

Jason Harris, his uncle's protege in the making before Ansel had unfortunately diverted his energies towards Niklaus, was hell bent on destroying them and maybe he would be successful one day and get them all out of the hell hole Ansel called family.

TTTTTTTT

The chilly spring breeze did little to soothe the fire that had scorched her. A flame, an adoration and affection for one who had no need or use for it. Last night had been something she had yearned for, secretly craved for, something same to either of them and contrary too. She had made love to her husband and he had fucked her.

Romanticising their encounter was what she had left, holding onto a desperate hope. She abhorred love, abhorred her heart for falling for one who didn't possess one for her. Oh she knew he had a heart, she had seen how he safeguarded his family, sadly he just didn't think of her as his.

"I never thanked you for Nik." Rebekah's low voice cut through her self pity.

Caroline could only nod.

"I have been unnecessarily mean to you. I am sorry, Caroline. But I always thought you'd destroy him…"

Tears impotent and insignificant pooled, "How can someone who is trying to mend their own pieces break someone else."

Rebekah's hand offered support as she squeezed her arm. "You're so strong. No one can tell what you're hiding." She saw admiration in her sister in law's face. A wave of nausea struck Rebekah and she instantly pulled back.

"You too." Astonished Rebekah looked at her brother's wife. "How far along are you?" Caroline asked, not to distress her but out of genuine concern.

"Thirteen weeks. Please don't tell Nik. He'll kill me if he finds out."

"It's not my secret to tell." Wind whipping the loose strands of Caroline's hair in her face.

On a strange impulse Rebekah hugged her, "Thank you." before walking back from the terrace to her room.

TTTTTTTT

A curse woke her up, her eyelids fluttered adjusting to the dim light in her room. "Klaus?" She called. Half expecting him to grunt in reply she sat up. The sight of blood had her rushing to his side.

"What happened?" She almost tripped in his arms, instantly pulling herself together and she sat on the bed by his side. His white shirt was smudged with blood. Worry and fear, not for herself but for the man she loved jostled her.

"What did you do?" Gently she helped him out of his jacket and shirt. Nimble fingers traced the wound, which was cracked open at one side. He groaned in pain and she felt it too. "How can you be so careless? Your wound is gaping on one side."

He watched her rummage for the first aid kit. She was a wood nymph in moonlight in a flowing white robe and dammit was he that bladdered, that he was penning poems on his wife. "Wife," he scoffed and shook his head.

Even the slightest of movements shot ache through his wound. Her curious eyes found his, mindful and sensitive to the temptation that encompassed them.

"Here." The cotton tip burned his skin, causing another hurt groan to escape from his lips, then a different hurt enveloped him as she blew on it. "Do you not care what happens to you? This could have been worse." He turned, peculiarly affected by her solicitude.

"If not for yourself, you should have thought about me." A pale substitute to the words she ached to utter but petrified of winding up with a shattered heart. "I meant,... You were badly injured and at the hospital you almost lost your life…."

Her ministrations, flared the desire he harboured for her, fanned a flame into a wildfire metastasizing leaving ashes as it spread. He snatched the hand that was both blunting and aggravating the throb.

He knew she deserved tenderness and flowers. She deserved affection and adoration. A strong woman with a gentle heart, a kind heart disguised as a formidable force, but then again maybe her kindness, was the potency that had begun uprooting the rot inside him. Bit by bit tearing out the fester that resided within his black soul.

He kissed her fingertips. Softened, she could only gaze when he leisurely kissed each finger in succession. Warmth, she had needed and craved and he was giving it to her.

Even as he kissed her he was gentle, giving more than taking. Pleasuring and arousing. A hushed groan and a soft moan, they were opposites in every sense and yet they fit, so perfectly, a beautiful lost piece finally finding its niche.

TTTTTTTTTTT

Forgotten threats and forgone ultimatums wanted to surface, she shut herself to them.

He dampened his own disquietude, losing himself in the haven she was. Her sighs and moans echoed, as he showered her with the affection she desired only from him and had once promised he shall never have.

A jerky movement and Klaus hissed again.

Concerned, she murmured,"Wait." And he tore his mouth from hers. "You need to heal properly before …. " He nodded in understanding and stood. She saw he intended to sleep on the couch.

And just like that her heart smashed to smithereens, but wasn't she the one who had vowed to never surrender.

"Do not for a second think this marriage holds any merit, we might share a room but ….I only agreed to marry you because…." She ripped the veil out of her hair.

Pity, dressed in the white dress she looked magnificent, with the veil highlighting her purity. He downed a drink and tugged away the tie that smothered him and left him breathless. The lack of air in his lungs had nothing to do with his new ravishing wife.

"Because you did not want to die. Do not harbour any delusions, Doctor. This marriage just served a purpose for both of us." He stalked her, like a wolf cornering a rabbit. His breath, hot on her face, could he hear the staccato of her heartbeat? Could he see how he evoked terror?

"And I am hardly tempted." He was the monster she had yelled at him to be, a ruthless assassin, a murderer, but she had also made him a liar.

With a last look of anger at her for making him forget what he had vowed to himself he left.

TTTTTTTTTTT

"You should take the bed. Your wound." When did they start walking on eggshells around each other? The awkwardness and tension was affecting her too much.

"No need."

"Klaus…. Please… for once would you just do what I want." He felt the emotion in her voice, and lately he had not been able to resist it. Grabbing his pillow he lay on the bed, watching as she took the couch.

"Did you take your medicine?"

"Yes, doctor." He grumbled like a petulant child and she smiled. Progress, they were making progress, even though it wasn't something life changing but he had honoured her request. Maybe just maybe there was actual hope.

TTTTTTTTTT

Sleep had evaded him. The wound in his heart, the memories of his past tormented him more than the one that was a hole in his shoulder. She was penetrating his defences. Like a poison diffusing drop by drop in his blood, slowly reconstituting molecule by molecule and taking over.

She was out cold. He lifted her and deposited her in their bed. Their, sounded foreign, an anomaly for what this relationship was. A product of a deal, exacted on both ends to satisfy a means.

He tucked her and traced the unruly tresses away from her face, his knuckles feeling the softness of her cheek. A caress stemming from his thirst for her.

Dangerous and fatal. His sentiments for her, were they a culmination of his propensity for self-destruction or was it something else?

He couldn't be and do what she deserved and wasn't that what was truly despairing? But he was addicted, kept coming back, selfish and unmindful. Like a maddened moth dancing around the flame until it was incinerated, evanescing from existence.

TTTTTTTTTT

please leave a review if you like it.