Tainted | Finn Mikaelson

Chapter 5

Finn was silent for a moment.

"What was her name, Finn?" asked Katya quietly.

He blinked, as if not knowing what she meant. "I just assumed," the brunette continued, "that you fell for someone. Some woman that made you turn her into a vampire."

He assented. "Sage. She was just nineteen when I met her. I kept away, because her elder brother was a friend of mine, and out of respect for him, I refrained from getting involved with his sister. She continued to pursue me, and when her brother passed once she was twenty-four, I caved in.

"We were lovers, in secret. Niklaus and Rebekah were cruel to her, calling her a peasant because her family had no money of their own. I tried to remind them that we, too, had come from poverty. By then, their heads were practically inflated. They believed themselves to actually be royalty, when they weren't.

"Sage would pretend it did not bother her, but it did. I took pity on her, and when she asked me to turn her... I did it. I had not really wanted to, but she was so insistent, that I justified it. We had a few short years together, just her and I in my home in Tuscany. I thought she shared the ideals that I did— vampirism was a curse, and we were not to inflict that curse on anyone else.

"At the start of the twelfth century, my family and I were invited to a party hosted by a man who was a vampire hunter. Alexander, he was called. We had no idea that he'd procured these daggers that, when dipped in white oak ash, would desiccate us, leaving us as good as dead unless the dagger was removed.

"Rebekah had been in love with Alexander, and let her guard down, which led to the rest of us being daggered. I was not woken up. Niklaus found me too judgmental, as I always tried to remind him of the virtue he neglected. My siblings, apparently, were in agreement. I was not woken until recently, where I learned that nine hundred years had passed without me. My siblings had lived their lives, with Niklaus daggering the others whenever he saw fit. Mikael was dead, and somehow, our mother was alive.

"When my mother came to me that night, asking if I would aid her in removing the evil she'd created, I accepted immediately. While daggered, all I felt was darkness. Misery. Despair. I could hear, sometimes, but see nothing. Creating images in my mind was near impossible. I could not even conjure up Sage's face to bring me comfort. Breaking free was impossible, as I knew not what had happened to me. Slowly, I became more and more conscious of the fact I was trapped and paralyzed, unable to live my life, as I should have been able to. Centuries passed with only myself for company. I hated my siblings. I hated who they'd become. I wished them gone.

"My mother promised me it would be simple. I would be linked to them, and I would die at her hands, to bring the lot of us down together. I felt some slight guilt, not wishing to see their faces as they died. My mother assured me I would not. I allowed her to channel me, to link our lives. And then, like a fool, I aided my siblings in unlinking us.

"I had searched for Sage, when the spell failed the first time. I took my mother to a safe location and tried to find my lover. But the technology of the twenty-first century remained a mystery to me. I could not locate her, and I began to give up. I knew I would die soon, anyway. I figured that after nine hundred years, she would have moved on.

"She was brought to me by Niklaus and Rebekah. They knew my weakness, and they exploited it as a means to get me to give them my blood. I did it. A spell was performed that unlinked us, and I decided that if my siblings would live, then I would not be near them. Sage and I spent the day together, and I intended to ask her to come and live with me elsewhere."

Katya saw that Finn was visibly upset. "I was killed that same day. I got only a few hours to speak with Sage, to hold her, to kiss her, to have a stupid shot of tequila, which I did not even really enjoy, but drank because she seemed so happy to introduce me to it. I died, and so did she, and every vampire she ever turned.