A glass of champagne clinks in Klaus' hands as he sits on his 'throne', along with the rest of his vampire crew.
"Let us begin with a toast to our shared gift- immortality," he begins his speech with a smile on his face, happy to finally have his empire back, "after a thousand years, one might expect for life to be less keenly felt, for its beauties and its sorrows to diminish with time. But as vampires, we feel more deeply than humans could possibly imagine."
He then motions as compelled waiters walk up to each vampire on the table and slit their wrists, pouring fresh blood into their glasses.
"Insatiable need, exquisite pain," he goes on, "our victories and our defeats. To my city, my home again," he holds up a toast, "may the blood never cease to flow."
"And the party never end," Marcel chimes in, pretending to be in Klaus' support, just like he had promised Rebekah he would, in order to stay alive.
"To New Orleans," Marcel's right-hand man, Diego, adds as Klaus smiles at them.
"To New Orleans," everyone else joins in as the toast completes and everyone sips on the blood in their glasses.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"I want to assure you all that even with the recent change in leadership, my intentions moving forwards are to celeb rate what we have- a true community of vampires," Klaus adds after the toast as Diego looks at him skeptically.
"And what about her, the wolf?" Diego quizzes as Klaus smiles sarcastically at him.
"Had you let me finish, Diego, you would know that there is of course, one further matter I would like to discuss," Klaus retorts as he walks up to where Hayley sat at the other end of the table.
"As many of you know, the girl is carrying my child," he states, "consequently, I trust you will all pay her the appropriate respect. Both her and Evelyn, that is."
"I mean, Evie has been around for long so she's welcome here," Diego says before trailing off, "but this girl..."
"She's family to your beloved Evie," Klaus added while glaring at Diego.
"I'll believe it when I hear it from her," Diego fired back, "were is she anyway?"
Marcel, upon noticing how close Klaus was to losing his patience, decided to jump in, saying, "she's at work. But due to Hayley's condition, who is indeed her childhood friend, she's decided to stay at the compound with us until the baby is born," Marcel informed them as Diego nodded hesitantly at his words.
"Now that we've settled that matter," Klaus cuts in, "I understand that some of you are concerned about this vicious rumor that I intend to use the blood of our child to create hybrids," he added while laying a comforting arm on Hayley's shoulder as she rolled her eyes at his words, "I can assure you all, I do not."
