✔ The Way We Burn || Kol Mikaelson (Complete)

Chapter 13

1033, Hungary

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Kol was walking at a slow pace, licking the blood on his fingers with a lazy smile while humming a melody he had heard before its musician met his death. And what a beautiful death! Fear had sweeten the blood, made it so delicious Kol had moaned when he had tasted it. Even now, hours later, he could still taste it on his fingers. Behind him was now a village full of ghosts and corpses that would soon begin to rot under the hot and glaring sun.

Immortality hadn't come alone and the burn in his throat never truly left him. Not that he tried to quench his thirst. Bloodlust was never boring and he often found himself leaving a trail of bodies behind him. Corpses torn apart and drained of blood. Red suited him well. He could even remember some women - now very dead - telling him it brought out his chocolate eyes. Who was he to deny the world such handsomeness?

The fact that it helped him cope with his raging emotions was never spoken out loud. Not with the witches he spent time with, not with his siblings, not with his mother before her death. The witches were mere acquaintances. Students or teachers, sometimes, never lovers and certainly never more. His siblings treated him like one would an untamable monster. Finn had left them as soon as he could to search for a cure. Although he might have put his search on hold, seeing as the last time Kol heard of his oldest brother, Finn was quite taken with some woman called Sage. As for Elijah, Nik and Rebekah... Well, they had forgotten him in their 'always and forever' vows. He still had asked Rebekah to come with him, but she made it clear she couldn't leave Nik alone. Alone meaning with Elijah. Poor Nik, suffering because of the truth of his birth and the curse repressing the beast inside him. Right. Poor, poor, Nik.

As for mommy dearest... Well, her strangled throat was one of the sweetest memory he had. Her body had still been warm when he had last seen her, blood spot on her face and no magic able to save her. She had coughed blood, what with Nik unable to control his strength. Oh the blood... Red, tempting, teasing, staining her clothes and face. A face caked with mud, forever stuck in a pained grimace and adorned with glassy eyes. Only fear was lacking but well, he couldn't have anything. After all, she did pay the price for her crimes and was surely still paying it in the afterlife thanks to his curse. An eternity of misery for her soul. Nothing less for the woman who killed Tatia and cursed his siblings and him to such a fate.

Before the curse, Kol had thought he knew grief, pain and anger. Never had he been more wrong. While he could now crush a human with a one flick of a finger, his mind and heart were plagued with heightened emotions. Three decades later, his grief for Henrik's and Nora's death was still raw. He still felt like missing a limb because of the loss of his magic, and the gap where Nora's soul had once been was always threatening to swallow him whole.

Yet, he was still there and had never even thought of using the white oak stake he had carved and hidden before burning the tree with his siblings. Life wasn't that bad, when he could forget the loneliness, the pain and the sorrow. There was still blood. When lost in blood, there was no pain and sorrow. There was only blood and pleasure.

There was also, he guessed, his siblings. At least when they remembered he existed. Usually when they needed help with something magic-related. Or when they wanted him to be more discreet as to not drew Mikael to them. As if his father would go after him.

An unhinged smile spread across his face at the memory of Mikael's pained face as the curse took ahold of him. Yes, the man really knew better than to bother him, though Kol would never dare to tell the truth to his siblings. At least, they still visited him when they were worried about him. Was it why Nik had lied about their mother's death? To never be alone? If so, his brother was clearly more successful than himself.