The Vixen & the Fox II

Chapter 268

Caroline was collapsed on the floor, crying as she gripped her hair. It'd been a week from hell, whatever had happened to her, she didn't like it, she didn't like what had happened, or how it was making her feel and worse.

As a vampire everything had been heightened in Caroline, and there were times she felt a little overwhelmed by her own existence in the way her emotions as a teenager could, but she had levelled out a lot in the last ten years. Her first decade of vampirism and she was calm, not perfect, but she was calm. She had found a center in her vampirism because she embraced the moreness of life, there was just so much more she could appreciate as a vampire; whether it was about herself or life itself. Ironic, it was ironic that she found her life in her death, she found so much more in death than she ever had in life and it was freeing; in that cliché Bella Swan way. Of all the cliché Swan characters to be, Caroline could equate herself to Emma Swan or Elizabeth Swann, no, the character who described how Caroline found her life in death best was Bella Swan. Which was humiliating but she was right about how she had never felt more alive than when she was dead.

However, the enhanced life, and the senses, and the general moreness in her life, it was painful to feel so unbalanced. Caroline had found a center in her life, with Klaus, the girls, her mom, the Mikaelsons, and now it was all falling apart.

She felt like the monster she had always been since her death, there was a ravenous hunger burning her throat, aching in her fangs, the way her skin crawled and how the incessant heat of want burned through her core and body. It ached. Part of her wondered if this was how Klaus felt as a hybrid, or how Hayley felt, but she couldn't. it was humiliating, she didn't even trust herself around the girls, or kids, and it hurt. It felt like there was a whole other part of her which yearned to break free now, to run wild, to mate, fuck, destroy, wreak havoc, and it didn't feel like her.

And worse... sickeningly worse, she wanted to just roll over and 'present' herself to Klaus; which was not a great feeling, because it popped up at the most inappropriate times! Like when she had been talking to her mom in the hospital wing with Keelin, or when she was trying to teach, or when she was checking in on Davina, or just picking up the girls from Hayley.

She couldn't deal with this, she couldn't, she didn't entirely know what was wrong with her, and the Skulk was running tests on her blood, but she didn't know what was wrong with her!

And that scared her, a lot.

The Skulk had thus far figured out that whatever had happened to her was linked with Lycanthrope wolves and not the wolves like Klaus and Hayley. Which had them doing more research on the venom of the other wolves; off notes from Kingmaker and Triad, there were also references to the magic used, but there wasn't a stabilizing factor. Vincent had mentioned offhandedly doppelgänger blood was probably the stabilizer which had prevented Caroline from dying; like she should've. Autopsies on what remained of Lucien and Aurora had revealed as much, according to Jo. Lycanthrope venom was different than the curse of wolves; it was more biological, where Hayley and her pack produced something more like magic.

Caroline though didn't get the full science behind it because while she understood the science angle, it was the magic where she lost knowledge. Kol and Freya were the family witches, and Caroline got basics of connection and what animated her as a vampire, but she didn't get magic, it didn't make sense to her, it was a culture she would never understand. Even when the Quads explained it to her she didn't get it. And it was the magic of whatever had happened which had saved her, but she wasn't like Klaus and Hayley, and it scared her, it scared her a lot. She had gotten used to the monster she was, not this.

"Caroline," a voice called and she turned, wiping her nose and tears, the snot and tears was spilling over at this moment. She was stunned to see Stefan there, it'd been a week and Caroline had been keeping her distance from everything living. Klaus was always patient with her, even when she would bite him wanting some sort of mark on him to stake a claim.