✔ The Way We Burn || Kol Mikaelson (Complete)

Chapter 36

1492, Kingdom of France, a residence on the Western coast.

Kol had always liked to take his time to plan his revenge carefully. He had never had any problems with smiling at the people he hated so that they would lower their guard. The despair on their face when they died months or even years later was only sweeter in this way.

Of course, this time, he couldn't really kill the target of his revenge since it was his older brothers. A little dead was alright. Too dead, not at all. As such, he needed to hit them where it hurt the most. Make them loose everything they held dear.

But such a thing took time and he was in no rush to make Niklaus and Elijah pay. Moreover, after Buda and a few useful spells, his siblings were unable - and unwilling - to find him.

And thus he went with Nora to the South Pole to raise penguins for seventeen years. Isolated from the rest of the world, life there had been peaceful and years had passed slowly. His only regret apart from the harsh journey had been the need to feed on animals since the conditions there were too difficult for humans to live. Even as a vampire, he had sometimes felt as if his blood was freezing - Nora's heat was always useful when it happened.

Eventually, a leopard seal bit off Sage's hand when she was visiting them and the red-haired vampire convinced them to return to civilization.

Still, even then he didn't try to meet with his siblings and was perfectly happy with simply knowing where they were so that they would never come across him and Nora while they were travelling around the world.

In order to protect themselves, Nora and he had built their own forces. Humans, vampires and witches. People who could be trusted and desired to work for them. Some merely took care of one of their houses. Others were tasked with gathering information or doing missions here and there.

Although Kol and Nora's real identities weren't known by everyone, no one dared to betray them. On the one hand, Kol and Nora protected them in exchange of their services and provided them with money. On the other hand, to be a part of these forces, one had to allow himself to be cursed. The curse itself was pretty simple and efficient. It stopped people from disclosing information about Kol and Nora even if compulsion were to be used.

After all, the very existence of vampires and compulsion originated from magic. What a vampire could do, magic could do as well. And sometimes even better. A witch only needed to know the right spell and be powerful enough.

Should someone desire to betray them, the curse would change them into a living statue. Unable to live, yet unable to die. An eternity of suffering. And while vampires couldn't reproduce, it wasn't the case for humans and witches and the curse would be transmitted to the next generation. To be free, one had to accept having their memory about Kol and Nora completely wiped out.

"Honey, how about we take a ship to America?" Nora suddenly suggested from the sofa where she was lying. "Christopher Columbus should have reached the American shore by now. Spain is bound to send more ships in a few months."

They were currently in the study of one of their French residences. The room was big and comfortable, the furniture carefully selected and of high quality. The desk was situated right in front of a huge window and not far from it were the dark brown leather sofa.

Kol lifted his head away from the parchment he had been reading, surprised. "You want to go kill America's native people?"

Nora, who was looking at him with her elbows resting on the backrest, rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Of course not. We can take our leave once we reached America and go on a jungle trek. You know, explore the tropical forest while there is no deforestation yet."