I'll Be Your Last

The Calm before the Storm

The next morning, things were quiet as I stared out of one of the dining room windows. I couldn’t see much except the serene grounds around the mansion and I wasn’t even allowed to walk outside and explore that. After the hybrid attack the night Rebekah and I returned with Kol, Clarice and her family, I was restricted to the house. Only problem was, I’d been mostly restricted to the house before that incident because of the two times I’d been attacked and allegedly to protect me from Marcel.

I understood why Klaus had made such a demand on not just me but Clarice and her girls. Clarice would probably be fine with the power she had. But the girls and I? We were the most vulnerable in the house and that was new for me. At least back in Mystic Falls, I wasn’t the weakest link in the gang. Bonnie was now a human/anchor to the other side. Elena was a younger vampire than I was – not by much, but still.

Here? I was under the same orders as the kids. Maybe even less powerful than they were because while they may not be fully trained to use the considerable magic that their mother had, they still had it.

Under the same orders as the kids but in a very adult relationship. Two nights with Klaus had left me exhausted. I smiled as I slumped into the chair at the end of the table. Klaus was tireless, insatiable in bed. He did sex the way he did everything else in his life – full throttle. He made me feel beautiful, desirable. He took great pride and pleasure in working me up over and over, making me beg him for release until I was mindless and desperate. Then he’d begin again. It was the best sex I’d ever had in my life, mind-blowing and intense.

I picked up the blood bag, it was my second and it had chilled a little while I’d been lost in my thoughts, and began to suck it down. For strength. And that need for strength had me a little concerned. Would I be able to keep up with my obsessive new boyfriend? Would I disappoint him if I couldn’t?

Would I ever be able to return to the hustle and bustle of life? Feeling cut off from friends, shopping, and activity in general had me feeling blue on top of all of it.

“A penny for your thoughts, Caroline.”

I looked up to see Elijah walk in my direction looking surprisingly dressed down. Oh, he still had on his suit pants and a dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. But his shirt was wrinkled, his hair was mussed liked he’d been raking his hands through it in frustration. He looked as tired as I felt.

“Are you okay?” I had to ask.

Elijah smiled at me. “That’s one very big reason that I’m glad you’re here and with Niklaus, Caroline. Your kindness. I find you here, looking troubled, and you ask how I am.”

“I wouldn’t go all the way to troubled,” I said to him, teasing.

His smile faded as he took a seat in the chair next to me. “I wish I could say the same.”

“Was Clarice able to do a locator spell and find Hayley?”

Elijah shook his head. “No and I’m afraid of what that means.”

My heart went out to Elijah. I knew he cared about the werewolf and we all knew Tyler was using her, using Klaus’ child within her, to create the hybrids. How could either of them use an innocent life that way? And why couldn’t a witch as powerful as Clarice locate them for Elijah?

“If she can’t do a locator spell to find Hayley,” I spoke my thoughts, “then does that mean they have a witch on their end blocking it?” The only thing I could think of to prevent magic was magic.

“I believe they do,” Elijah explained. “It would take a witch of some power to prevent Clarice’s spell from working.”

I nodded. “Do you know of a witch that powerful?”