AN: Thank you all for reading and reviewing. I hope that you are safe and doing well at this beginning of a new year. Please enjoy this update. I am ver thankful for the wonderful responses I have gotten, I wasn't sure if this was going to be received well, but you all have surprised and humbled me...Thank you and remember stay safe and be good people.

Chapter 3

"What the fuck Bonnie? Your panties wet over this guy?" He hissed turning on her.

"What are you talking about Jeremy and keep it down."

"Oh, what? You don't want him to hear how unfucking believable you are? You don't want to be embarrassed? Oh 'vervain tea helps with migraines and insomnia' he said imitating her with an over exaggerated airy, frilly voice.

"You think he's impressed with your knowledge of teas? You think he really cared one fuck, or that you are something special? Oh 'a woman should have a man', he said attempting an English accent, which he murdered. "What bullshit!"

Jeremy stood inches from her, face red with anger, fists clenched, "A guy like that wouldn't want sweet ole plain Bonnie Bennett from Mystic Falls. Bonnie Bennett most likely to … to what? Do nothing but stay in sleepy Mystic Falls pretending she is better than the rest of us. So judgy and sanctimonious, but you were fucking flirting with him right in front of me. Making me look like an idiot."

"Really… nice to know how highly you think of your girlfriend. You're the one that's unfucking believable! You are such an asshole! Flirting? Flirting? Clearly you know nothing about flirting. I was talking to him, being nice to the person that let us in his home from the rain, the person who could snap if offended...so I think you ought to keep it down!. And if anyone is making you look like an idiot it is you, YOU asked for the beer." Bonnie hissed, flabbergasted and godsmack by his attitude.

"Oh really, is that so? He pretty much called me a boy by asking me if I wanted milk. To me that is him calling me an idiot and you said nothing. Fucking bullshit. Is it too damn difficult for you to back me up?"

"Jeremy lower your voice," she pleaded, ignoring his ranting.

"Fuck him and fuck you if you don't care about my feelings. You know I'm not a drinker, I like to smoke weed, that's all, but you think that is juvenile," he whined.

"I never said that. I just don't like it and when you do, you don't do shit, Jeremy. You don't work or do anything, all you do is play your games.

"Anna never had a problem with it, she thought it was cool." He spat out wanting to inflict pain. "In fact she likes to fuck after playing." He jeered, happy to see the pain float across her face. It lasted just a second, ending with the sound of the hard slap that echoed across the room, seemingly bouncing off the walls.

"You fucking bastard." She quietly hissed as she wiped away a stray tear. Something in her eyes glinted, something in her soul snapped. Bonnie suddenly felt like a boat unanchored, adrift.

"Oh, you don't like it huh? Feeling like an idiot." He said smugly, rubbing his cheek, knowing he went too far, but some perverse feeling of joy prevented him from caring. Jeremy knew he was acting like an asshole, but in that moment he owned it and he got off on it, on making her hurt, for bringing her down a notch or two, regardless of the consequences.

"How dare you? You cheated and now you bring up her name. You would humiliate me and disrespect me again by mentioning that girl's name and make me think of all tha again? Yet you swore it was nothing...a mistake, that it was over,a one and done... I can't even..."

The accented voice was cold as it startled both of them into silence. "Is everything alright?" Niklaus heard everything, he stood rigid and tense as if steeling himself from doing something he would regret.

"Yeah, bruh just lovers quarrel, you know how that is, I'm sure. The little lady gets a bit emotional sometimes at the worst times."

Niklaus put down the tray and other items in his arms then turned looking into Bonnie's eyes, blue diamonds searching green sapphires, "Are you sure it is nothing?" He directly asked Bonnie. Jeremy wrapped his arm around her pulling her close. "Tell him babe."

Sighing deeply Bonnie replied tightly, "Yeah everything is good." She said without conviction. Jeremy smiled knowing she wouldn't want to make a scene.

Niklaus nodded then threw a towel to Jeremy, hitting him rather hard for it to be a towel, but to Bonnie, he handed her a plush white robe and equally plush towel, "This is my sister's, she won't mind."

"You know...can we just use your phone to get someone to tow the car?" Jeremy asked impatiently after haphazardly drying off.

"There is no landline in the house. You are more than welcome to use my cell phone, but with this weather the reception is non existent. You are more than welcome to stay the night. It is late, it's raining again and I am sure you are tired. In the morning I will personally get you sorted out and on your way." Niklaus offered.

Jeremy groaned in frustration raking his hand through his hair, not wanting to stay overnight. Bonnie figured it was practical, making sense due to the time and it would be better to take care of things in the morning, in the light of day.

"Thank you. We were on our way to our airbnb, we can call them in the morning to let them know what happened and that we are still on our way." She explained.

"Well since it looks like we are staying, could you show us to our room, if it's not too much to ask," Jeremy interrupted now pissy and ready to pick a fight, fuck that guy and what he thinks, he thought to himself.

"Jeremy, don't be rude. And I want to drink my tea first," she countered.

"For fuck's sake, I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you took it in the room to drink."

"I will drink it in here, but you can go to the room, I know you are tired from all the driving you did." Bonnie said embarrassed and disappointed in Jeremy for acting so ungrateful and unbelievably rude. She was tired of dealing with his selfish self-centered man-child ways.

"Fine whatever!" He blurted out, ready to be away from both of them even if he didn't want her alone with the stranger. He knew Bonnie was too goody-goody to do anything to cause her sainthood to be called into question, plus the guy looked like he walked out of GQ. He wasn't the type that would want Bonnie even if he was flirty with her. Jeremy was sure he was into tall blonde model types, but it was the principle of her not coming to the room with him that irked him. It was disrespectful!

Niklaus stayed silent with his hands in his pockets for fear of snapping the young man's neck. He heard their previous conversation and he wasn't happy. This fool spoke to Bonnie as if he wanted his head separated from the rest of his worthless body. Why would a creature such as she, terrible and fierce, tolerate his impudence and waste her time with a simpleton like the poor excuse of a man that stood before him, he couldn't fathom.

"Follow me." He said tight lipped to Jeremy. Then he addressed Bonnie. "Bonnie, please enjoy your tea, there is honey, lemon and milk." Bonnie's eyes lit up, He had thought of everything. The kindness he extended overwhelmed her. "Thank you so much."

…

Bonnie sat back relaxing while sipping on her tea, it was perfect. She reflected on Niklaus, he was a very handsome man with short curly dirty blonde hair, a perfect amount of stubble and very tempting, kissable pink lips, why had she thought that, she questioned.

But there was something else about him, like he was a part of her. She felt like there was something there, maybe a kind of connection. It was weird but she felt her darkness reaching out, trying to touch and intermingle with his. He surely had a darkness and it was captivating, but it was something more than hers, like he embraced it.

She had never felt like immersing herself in the darkness before, she was scared of it, scared of being like Abby. And she had never felt a darkness like the darkness that was all over Niklaus. Yet it seemed almost familiar.

She never told anyone, not even Grams, but there were times when she was alone in the dark of her room she could hear a voice. The darkness had a voice and it was loving and always calling to her to come into it. As a child she would hide under her covers, squeezing her eyes shut, singing la, la, la...until the voice was silent.

As she grew up the voice only called out when she was stressed or angry. It seemed as if it was tied to her emotions and this scared her more because Abby was always emotional. From what she remembered of her mother she would go from happy to sad to depressed to blazing furious in a blink of an eye, so Bonnie learned to walk on eggshells around her. In fact she always walked on eggshells, always afraid of upsetting the people in her life for fear of not being loved or wanted, being left, abandoned and alone. And yet people seemed to always leave her or worse...hurt her. Maybe she was cursed.

She remembered Abby coming to her room, stroking her hair, kissing her cheek and with tears in her eyes as she told a five year old Bonnie that she should have never given birth to her, that she was cursed, unnatural and ruined. Bonnie cried herself to sleep.

Then Abby went to her bathroom, ran a tub of hot water, lit candles and while in the tub she drank a glass of vodka then proceeded to slit her wrists with her husband's straight razor.

Bonnie never told anyone what Abby said but she carried it with her, always feeling less than, willing to take the crumbs from people, willing to be the odd one out, afraid to embrace her true desires and wants.

Living in a predominantly white town, being one of a few black kids in school, having a weird family and having few friends growing up, Bonnie's insecurities were many.

Later, years later Bonnie found a letter and other documents among her father's things. The documents chronicled Abby's mental breakdown and descent into madness and her frequent stays in a number of mental institutions. Apparently Abby had a long history of mental instability beginning as a young child. The letter was from Abby to Rudy, Bonnie's father, it spoke of regret, love, fear and betrayal. Bonnie could never make sense of it and chalked it up to ravings of a delusional mind.

But now she wondered if insanity was hereditary and did it start with the voice in the darkness? The voice in her head?

...

She let her thoughts drift and center on her friends, her closest friends. Elena and Care were always her friends, since they were little, in Pre-K together, then girl scouts followed by numerous other clubs, camps and then eventually cheerleading.

And when other kids and even some adults talked in hush voices and in hidden corners about her grandmother's eccentric behavior or her father's frequent absences, her mother's untimely self-inflicted death and their overall weird family history, it was Caroline, always, and Elena, at times when it was convenient, that stuck by her, continuing to be her friend.

Caroline more than Elena had always been there to wipe her tears or defend her and she always had Bonnie's back, even getting into a fight with a girl twice her size for her calling Bonnie a 'weird motherless tarbaby', neither girl knew what it meant, but Caroline knew it wasn't nice and Bonnie cried. All it took was to see her friend's tears streaming from her emerald green eyes for Caroline to see red.

Caroline waited after school for the girl in question, she followed her as she walked home, then Caroline called to her. When the girl walked over, thinking she was going to get the best of Caroline, Caroline waited until she was at arms length then Caroline took her vintage Charlie's Angels lunchbox and smashed it against the girl's face. She hit her over the head, in her face and across the side of her face hitting her ear. Once the girl was down Caroline punched her in her ribs and stomach as she repeatedly said, "I got your tarbaby. I got your tarbaby. I don't know what it is but I bet you'll remember who's your tarbaby now."

The girl was a bloody mess, as Caroline got up off her, took the rocks out of her lunchbox, throwing them away from the girl, then she kneeled down and whispered, "You ever say anything about Bonnie again, if you even look at her the wrong way, I'll do worse."

Caroline was nine years old and she had a mean streak as big as Texas and as vicious as a junkyard dog. She didn't tell Bonnie about that little incident until just weeks before they graduated as they were going through their yearbooks and reminiscing.

...

Even when Bonnie herself felt like the stereotypical black friend from every movie in existence, it was Care that showed her that she was valued and loved. Elena tried to be a good friend, but her self-entitlement, self-importance and narcissistic behavior got in the way, but Bonnie always gave her a pass to the irritation of Caroline.

Bonnie wasn't stupid nor was she blind, she knew Elena, the real Elena, but she clung to her friendship because that is what she knew. Jeremy was what she knew and the devil she knew was better than the devil she didn't know, at least that was her rationale.

...

She was nursing her second cup of tea, lost in her thoughts when she dozed off. Niklaus walked in as silent as death, not even disturbing or displacing the air in the room, but she felt him, opening her eyes, catching him intently staring at her.

"Oh I'm sorry, she said, sitting up and wiping her face hoping she wasn't dooling.

"Never apologize for the actions of fools or for being yourself," he softly reproached as he sat in front of her on the leather sofa, he was relaxed, long lean legs stretched out and an arm lazily draped over the arm. He reminded her of a cat lounging about or more like a sleek panther or lean lion sprawled out surveying his domain.

She smiled. Not knowing what to say, she offered, "Would you like a drink?" She inquired, about to get up to go to the bar.

He lifted his hand, halting her. "I must confess. I have been drinking all night so I think I will pass. Currently my tastes are leaning towards a bolder and more acquired faire, but thank you for offering."

Bonnie inwardly shivered at his proclamation and she felt her core clinch with arousal. There was something about him. He was dangerous. He was sexy. No, as Care would say, he was sex on a stick. He was the personification of seduction.

Her arousal wafted through the air and set his senses aflame. She has no idea what she is or the power she wields, he thought to himself, with a smirk.

The silence was suffocating. "I..I think I should go to bed. It has been a long day." She said getting up from her seat. He also stood. "Niklaus-" She started.

At the same time he was saying, "Why do you allow his disrespect?"

Her heartbeat accelerated and she sat there with her mouth open not knowing what to say. Then she found her voice as he watched her intently, wondering what she would say.

"He doesn't mean to-," she started but then she stopped realizing that she was about to make up excuses for him. "I don't know. My grandmother would always say When you know better, you do better, I guess that is why." She looked at him hoping that he understood her.

"You are a stunning creature. Why do you hide behind your glasses and demure facade with soft spoken words?" His words were connecting to her and as he spoke she leaned closer to him, as he did the same.

"There is fire and shadow in your eyes." Niklaus leaned close and softly kissed each of her eyelids. It felt like the fluttering of butterfly wings and Bonnie was entranced. "The flames of dark desires sweeten your lips and I must drink from your cup." His breath was warm on her face as he spoke. Bonnie kept her eyes closed, waiting for his kiss. He brushed her lips with his, an innocent gesture of introduction, but the spark it ignited caused a flashfire to erupt in Bonnie's body.

Suddenly the kiss deepend as he pressed harder, his tongue wanting access to her mouth which she gave willingly. Now their tongues danced and twirled around each other. Nikaus was now on his knees in front of her pulling her down to him as the kiss intensified.

He was holding her back and she had her arms wrapped around his neck. She felt the wetness between her thighs and her core coiled and uncoiled. Then he bit her lips and sucked, but then he bit his and she tasted his blood in her mouth and she wanted more.

Images flooded her mind like a cyclone wrecking havoc to her equilibrium. She was falling into the darkness, this scared her, she pulled away, having to catch her breath and her reason.

…

Jeremy sat pouting in the room. His phone had one bar and was at forty percent. He tried calling Anna, but every time he got connected, heard her voice then the call would drop. He was beyond aggravated. He was horny and was ready for Bonnie to get to the room.

He was going to jerk off but he figured why should he, that is why he had a girlfriend. Besides he wanted to make sure Bonnie remembered who she belonged to and not some pretty boy out in the middle of nowhere. He would fuck her good, maybe make her beg for it. Yeah, he thought with a smile, making her beg for it would make up for her making him look like an idiot.

Jeremy took a shower then got in the bed , scrolling through his phone, looking at pictures of Anna, causing him to get hard, thinking about her tight ass.

…

"I can't do this...I don't know what came over me…" Bonnie rambled as she got to her feet, moving away from his warm body. She still wanted him and his scent and the aura around him were reaching out to her like tendrils surrounding her and drawing her in. She took another small step back.

"Please...no..," he said as he walked to her, silencing her with his index finger on her lips, "It was I who could not control myself. I overstepped my bounds, please forgive me." Niklaus let his finger caress her cheek then traced her jaw down her neck then he let his hand fall back to his side.

"There is nothing to forgive Niklaus. I wanted it. I enjoyed it," she said standing there not wanting to move further away.

"Please call me Klaus." He smiled.

Hesitantly, she tried out the name on her lips, "Klaus. I like it. Klaus thank you ..for everything."

"My pleasure."

"I should get to bed." Bonnie said shyly, hating bringing up Jeremy even if it was indirectly. She still felt a bit off as well as aroused but she figured a shower and sleep would help fix both issues.

Bonnie followed him down a hall to their room. At the door they stood facing each other, both wanting to kiss again, but deciding against it. "Thank you, again."

"Sleep well, love." Klaus kissed her cheek then walked away.

…