The Original Love Triangle

11. Damsel in Distress

Chapter 11

Klaus POV

 “I’m sorry Niklaus, I couldn’t find her anywhere,” Elijah sympathized when he came back from his search. I sat on the upholstered armchair with my head resting in my hands. I felt and heard him get closer, “Niklaus?”

I got up from sitting and pushed past him and Rebekah and started for the door, “I’m going out,”

“Nik? Come on. Nik!” Rebekah followed after me.

“Rebekah, I need to find her.” I said without looking back. I started to trudge down the street that leads to Celeste’s. Out of the corner of my eye, I could faintly make out Elijah and Rebekah’s bodies following closely behind me.

“Niklaus, might I ask where you are going?” Elijah worried.

“Celeste’s,” I said curtly, “If she won’t tell me on her own, I will find ways to make her speak.”

“Niklaus! You can’t be serious! Just tell her you are worried, but you cannot hurt her!”

I started to walk faster, “I never said I was going to hurt her, Elijah! I’m just going to warn her,”

As I turned to look back at him, ironically, we ran into Celeste. She look worried and disheveled, “Klaus, there you are! Have you seen Ariel? I can’t find her anywhere!”

“What do you mean? I thought you knew where she was!” I went ballistic.

“I knew which way she was going, not where.” I saw she was holding Ariel’s purse.

“Where did you get that?” I grabbed it out of her hands.

“I found it on the street over there.”

“Nik, can you track her using that?” Rebekah suggested.

I waited a moment and wolfed up halfway. When I caught her scent plus another of whom I fear the most in the world, I went back to my human form and dropped the bag with panic in my eyes.

“Niklaus, what’s wrong?” Elijah ran down the street after me.

“I think I know who she’s with. And where she’s at!”

“What?”

“Mikael! Mikael has her!” I shouted and headed towards the French Quarter. I frantically searched until I came to a building that was just outside of the Quarter and partially underground.  I banged on the door, until I dented it in and pounded the rest of it down. Elijah, Rebekah, and Celeste walked close behind me.

“Mikael! Come out and settle this like a real man!” I shouted, loud enough for the whole city to hear.

“Nik, how do you know it’s him?” Rebekah touched my shoulder, trying to get me to focus in reality.

“I just know okay! Rebekah, go take Celeste home, she will be killed for sure. Elijah and I can handle whatever comes” I ordered.

“Nik-”

“Just do it!” I shouted. She must have done it to help me keep my sanity because she led Celeste out of the crappy place that I realized was a bar, with an underground cellar.

“Elijah, go check upstairs, I can handle down here,” I commanded. He looked as if he were about to disagree, but obliged.

“Very smart Niklaus, get rid of all your support,” a harsh British voice greeted me.

“Father, where is Ariel?” I shouted into the darkness.

He laughed, “I am not your father Niklaus. You are merely but a bastard of the family. A disappointment.”

“Come out of the light you coward! Let’s settle this like real men!”

He stepped out into the little streak of sunlight that was being let in, “That girl you love, Ariel is it, how do you feel about her killing Finn?”

“What are you talking about? I was the one who killed him!” I was befuddled.

“After he drank her blood and his fangs disintegrated from poison in her blood that can only be vanquished if she turns.” He said nonchalantly.

“What, no! No! Bring me to her father, or I swear!” I thought back to a few days ago when she would not let me heal her. I finally understood. She was willing to suffer for me not to die. That’s the nicest thing someone had ever done, and now I may never see her again.

“You’ll what? Kill me?” he laughed cynically, “Hate to break it to you, but you are about a millennium late.”

“Not if I had this,” I showed him the white oak stake. The only stake that is able to permanently kill an original vampire.

“You would never,”

“Test me!” I pushed the sharp tip onto his chest teasingly.

“Niklaus, think about what you are doing, I thought I was your father?”

“No! I am the disappointment! The Bastard of the family!” I snarled. He threw a punch that knocked the stake out of my hand, we both lunged for it. Mikael grabbed it first and twisted my arm with his free hand, pulling my back up against his front.

“You will feel pain unlike you have ever felt pain before!” he shouted. The tip of the stake pricked my neck, making a thin line of blood trickle out.

“Go ahead do it! I have nothing left to live for!” I cried. If he did this to me what was he doing to Ariel?

Right when he started to dig the dagger in further, I heard a blood curdling scream coming from the cellar, and Elijah came rushing down the stairs with his super speed. He took one of my daggers and rammed it into Mikael’s back. Mikael fell to the floor only able to mutter, “I will kill her,” then his face went stone cold.

I sprinted down the cellar stairs where a beaten, bruised and chained up Ariel was, “Nik?” She coughed.

I ran over to her and ripped the chains off her. I took her into my arms and held her tight, “Sh, sh, sh, you’re okay. You’re okay. I love you!”

She cuddled into me, unable to say any more than, “Can you bring me to the manor.” Even that sounded dry as she tried too much from blood loss. Her still being conscious, I bit my wrists open and brought it to her.

Before she took it into her hands, I looked her in the eyes, “I told Caroline to go home. It’ll just be you, Elijah, Rebekah, and me from now on.”

The edge of her mouth curled up a teeny bit, hinting at a smile, but too weak to give one. She took my wrist and started to drink. But maybe she didn’t smile, maybe it was my imagination. I thought of that as I laid her in a bed, carefully washed and nursed her. I laid in the bed next to her, hoping to fall asleep. Right as I was about to, I someone lean in close to me, as if they knew I was in the bed.  I slug my arm around Ariel, and thought that it was just my imagination, she pulled me closer and held my hand. I kissed the back of her head, and a barely audible noise of approval and love came from Ariel.