[ BOOK TWO ]
Erin Gilbert's life had become one supernatural catastrophe after another, not that she should've expected any different when her sister's boyfriend and his brother turned out to be vampires.
The years of chaos that followed should have...
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THE STRONG SCENTOF coffee wafted through the air, reaching Erin's nose as she descended to the lowest level of the home. Her boot clad soles padded across the hardwood floor when her pace quickened through the living room toward the kitchen. She weaved behind the couch and made it just beside the kitchen table, before the familiar space slammed into her like a wrecking ball.
It was Erin's house. Her family's house. The same one she and Elena burned to the ground a year earlier.
Erin froze mid-step, shifting her gaze over the light walls littered in decorative images and photos of herself, Elena, Jeremy, and their parents. Every odd trinket and lamp and throw blanket remained in place, as if nothing had ever happened. As if the home hadn't been reduced to ashes along with her brother's dead body.
How was Erin back there? She couldn't have been. It didn't make sense. But there she stood, amongst the home that once held her entire life behind its walls.
"Gotta say, I certainly haven't missed this place."
Erin jumped, snapping around at the voice that sounded far too close. She laid eyes on an intruder, someone she hadn't seen in a long time. And truthfully, she never wanted to see again. Her heart hammered against her chest as she swallowed hard. "Kol," she breathed shakily.
Kol Mikaelson stood before Erin at the entrance of the kitchen, a smirk on his lips and his stare aimed her way. He appeared the same as he had the last time she saw him, the night Bonnie dropped the veil between their world and the Other Side. Not that she expected him to look any different. After all, he was dead.
"You can see me?" Kol questioned with creased brows, before his expression lifted and he smiled. "Wonderful. It worked." He stepped forward, edging around her to enter the living room.
Erin stumbled aside when he moved and watched him with wide eyes. "I don't - I don't understand. What's going on? This can't be real," she muttered out.
The last thing Erin remembered had been her bedroom in New Orleans. How she stared at the flashing screen of her television until she eventually slipped off to sleep.
That had to be it. She fell asleep and landed within a dream. A bizarre dream that consisted of her old house and the Original her siblings killed inside of it, but a dream nonetheless.
"I'm dreaming," Erin stated after a moment, keeping her gaze set on the dead Mikaelson brother. "And dreaming about you - which is weird."
