Первородные: Восхождение

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

KLAUS WAS RESTLESS. It had taken him only a night to discover that he was not made for life in the countryside. It was boring, and the sounds from the bayou were downright disturbing. The house, with its formidable new enchantment, was obviously the best place to be when every werewolf within fifty miles was probably out for their blood. But the confinement chafed, and so he paced and complained and made his brother miserable until dawn came and Elijah sent him outside to take care of the rotting old stump near the back of the property.

It would almost certainly have to be removed, but their explorations revealed that its roots framed one of the several underground caverns that dotted the property. They had strategic value, the brothers had agreed immediately, and it would be unfortunate to lose one of them if they could help it. Klaus examined the lacework of the roots, trying to see where they gave the most support. The dead and rotting wood would not hold up forever, but if they worked carefully they could probably replace it without caving in the chamber entirely.

A strange keening came from the direction of the house, and Klaus straightened. It sounded mechanical, but he couldn’t think of anything in the house that might have made such a noise.

“I thought I might find you here,” a familiar voice said, and Klaus froze. Of course...the protection spell. Someone had stepped onto their land, and the spell had tried to warn him. He had not understood quickly enough, and the price of his mistake stood before him, watching him with haunted black eyes. “I came to see if you were all right.”

Vivianne looked more fragile than he remembered her, as if something vital were slowly being drained from her body. She wore a deep, heavy cloak of ivory wool that should have been sweltering in the heat of the day, but she pulled it close around her as if she still could not get warm enough.

Klaus found himself unsympathetic.

“You’ve seen me now,” he pointed out sharply. He slammed the trapdoor closed and turned his back on her, marching toward the house.

She followed him through the ankle-high grass, but he refused to slow down. “I saw Armand, too,” she called after him. “He said you were the one who hurt him. Your brother was in the woods the other night, and he attacked us, too. Is this all happening because of us? Klaus, is it because of...me?”

He reached the shelter of the porch, and turned so that she could see the bitterness on his face when he laughed. “You!” he exclaimed. “What could you have to do with these squabbles, Viv? What might you have done that could possibly cause all this fighting?”

She bit her full red lip, looking even paler in the sunlight than she had in the shade of the trees. “Armand wouldn’t tell me anything,” she admitted, “except that it was you he fought. But the way he looked at me, I think he knows. What we—what I did.”

Klaus shrugged nonchalantly. “If he does, he didn’t learn it from me. I don’t go about bragging about being abandoned at sunrise by the woman I had loved all night.”

Vivianne looked as if she had been slapped. “I thought it would be the best way to say good-bye,” she whispered. “I thought I had to change, and I wanted to have one last night as myself. Can’t you see what that meant to me?”

“You ‘thought,’” Klaus repeated slowly. “You ‘thought’ you had to activate the werewolf within you.” Had she changed her mind already? What a cruel twist of fate that the full moon had brought if she was so inconstant in her conviction. Another few days and she might have forgotten the whole idea. Just as she had forgotten him.

Vivianne’s black eyes glowed hopefully. “You were right all along,” she breathed eagerly, hurrying to close the gap between them. “I should never have done it. You were the only person who has ever cared about what was best for me, and I was foolish not to trust you.”

Klaus watched, amused, for the moment when she would run into Ysabelle’s barrier. Vivianne was about to lift her right foot onto the porch when she rocked back, almost losing her balance. She gaped at him in confusion. “Your aunt was here,” he told her spitefully. “She helped us guard ourselves against unwanted visitors.”

Vivianne pushed curiously at the invisible barrier, moving sideways a few steps to see how far it extended. “You need to invite me in,” she guessed, looking stunned.

Klaus deliberately misunderstood her meaning. “I don’t, in fact,” he reminded her harshly. “You’re welcome to sit out there until your new pack comes along and drags you home. I assume that if you knew where to find us, they do, too.”

Guilt was written all over her face. Elijah had gotten their house in order in the nick of time, because the Navarros had figured out where they were. Then the guilt changed to anger, and Vivianne tossed back the hood of her cloak. “I shouldn’t have bothered to worry,” she snapped. “You’re obviously exactly as you always were.”

Klaus smirked. “If you thought an encounter with one werewolf could somehow change that, love, you underestimated me.”

She stared at him, and as furious as she was there was something calculating in her look. Klaus could see her gathering her emotions back under control, and in spite of his resentment he respected her for it. She might be a fool, but she was an impressive one.

“I must have,” she agreed coldly. “When you told me you loved me, I believed it. When you said you wanted nothing more than to be with me, I believed it. When you insisted that there was no part of me”—she held her hand up to forestall his interruption—“no part of me you did not want to know, I believed it. Obviously, I underestimated your capacity for empty words.”

If he were not so furious, he would have laughed. “You chose,” he nearly shouted. “You crept out of my bed and chose to become a vicious thing that is my mortal enemy. You can’t twist that to make it seem that I never wanted you enough, when—”

“Then you do!” she exclaimed, moving as close to him as the magical barrier would allow. “You’re angry; of course you’re angry. But you meant all those things you said, and you still want me, even now.”

Klaus Mikaelson was rarely at a loss, but Vivianne’s outburst left him wordless. It was bold—he could not imagine being so brave in her position. But most of all, it was true. He had tried to drink, fuck, and fight her away, but the sight of her standing before him had brought everything back.

He still loved her, and he wanted, desperately, for her to say whatever would set him free to say so again. “Why have you really come here?” he asked, knowing that he could not answer her accusation until he had answers of his own. “I don’t believe for a second that you were worried about my health. We know each other too well for that sort of charade.”

She nodded and bit her lip again. He remembered the taste of it perfectly, and he wished more than anything that it were between his teeth.

“I made a terrible mistake the other night,” she said, her voice low with emotion. “I knew it as soon as it was done. I didn’t think I could live with half of myself locked away, but now I would give anything to seal that doorway closed. I can’t, but I will do whatever it takes to make things right with you, and that’s why I have come.” Her luscious mouth twisted up into a wry smile. “I knew perfectly well that one werewolf would hardly leave a scratch on you.”

He wanted to reply so scathingly that he would be able to see the marks his words left. He wanted to drain her where she stood, make her a vampire, and then stake her. In the red haze of his rage, he knew that he would not be so furious if she were not right.

She had done something beyond stupid, but no matter how angry he was, he did still want her. Now that she stood before him, full of remorse, Klaus found his anger slipping away. He realized his battered heart would never leave him in peace if he didn’t at least try to forgive her.

“Enough,” he told her, his voice rough with the things he would not say. “I believe that you regret what you’ve done, but that does not make it any less final. I cannot live with the uncertainty of your loyalties, Viv. This wavering between the Navarros’ side and mine has to end.”

She lifted her eyes to meet his, disbelief showing in every line of her delicate face. “I’ll end my engagement. I would not have come here if I wanted to marry another man.” Her smile was like the last flare of the sun setting, like the sight of the first stars beginning to show in the sky. “I know every part of myself now, Klaus. Mortal enemies or no, there is no part of me that does not love you.”

“Come inside,” Klaus whispered, and she burst forward into his waiting arms. He kissed her and folded her tightly against him, and then he tipped her head back to kiss her again, more deeply this time. There in the shadow of his home, with the warm breeze grazing their skin, he allowed himself to believe that it might be just that easy.

“I will break off this madness today,” she mumbled into his chest, “all of it. I can be back here by nightfall.”

He stroked her raven hair, the wheels of his mind turning. This revelation would change the political landscape of the city—if he could choose when to make this news public, it could be a powerful advantage. And the cynical, wounded part of Klaus longed to know, would she really keep her word once she had more time to think things through?

“Not today,” he disagreed, pushing them gently apart and kissing her palm reassuringly. “Viv, if you want to throw in your lot with mine, I want proof that your mind is made up.”

She frowned quizzically. “But I just said I would—”

“Not that.” He shook his head. “I need you to do as I ask, not to simply run off and do what feels best to you.” Again, he did not add, but he knew that they were both thinking it.

She looked uncertain, but not entirely unwilling. “You want me to hide this,” she translated. “You want me to lie, so that you can control how the truth comes out.”

“We have a foothold now,” he explained, as much to himself as to her. “We can use this information to carve it deeper. And if you mean what you say today, you will wait until I tell you it is time.” A week ago, he hadn’t cared about Elijah’s plans—he’d been blinded by his overpowering feelings for Vivianne. But now Elijah’s line of attack was taking a shape and Klaus found himself being caught up in making it a reality.

But most importantly of all, Klaus’s love had already blinded him once. He would not be so reckless a second time. Not even for her.