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

Chapter 14

Trees, mountains, villages, the sky and the sun,... everything was blending together as Kol ran, his heart pounding in his chest. There was no time to think, only to run and see Nora again. She would be young, he knew, but he needed to see her, to have her in his arms and feel her warmth. To see her rosy cheeks, full of life. Not the pale face he could still remember when he closed his eyes, the blood splattered face of a woman struggling to breathe.

He left Hungary behind him and arrived in Kievan Rus, a neighboring country of Hungary and Poland. His feet sank into the snow and he narrowed his eyes to block the light of the sun. The wind whipped his face, cold and unforgiving - or at least, he guessed it was.

He entered a village and his senses were immediately assaulted on all sides. The scents of sweat, human wastes, fear, anger and lust permeated the air. Even the sweet scent of blood he could smelt didn't stop him from scrunching his nose. He tried to breathe through his mouth but quickly closed it. That was one of the thing he hated the more about the creature he had become. Heightened senses in human villages.

Still, he didn't stop and ran through the village. Nora was there. He could feel her, her soul calling his, drawing him to her.

He reached the center of the village where all the humans was gathered, crying out in anger and fear. They were waiting for something to happen, and Kol's fingers twitched as dread filled him. Not caring about his strength, he walked into the crowd and fought his way through it.

"Look at the face of the Devil! Trying to make us sinners!" a tall man said harshly as Kol reached the center of the place and froze up. The man speaking had a hard face, looking as if it was stuck permanently in a scowl. Rotten teeth could be seen through twisted lips. He was towering over a naked Nora, the young woman kneeling on the ground and her beautiful face marred by fear and a split lip. "But we will not!"

"We will not!" someone yelled back and was soon followed by other people.

"Death to the Devil!"

"It is trying to take our men!"

Nora cried and begged as the man grabbed her hair and pulled violently, pulling her head back. Her breasts bounced with the movement and her scratched knees briefly left the ground. She tried to reach for her hair but someone threw her a stone, hitting her jaw.

"We will kill the Devil!" the soon-to-be-dead man holding her yelled at the crowd.

"Kill the Devil!"

"Kill that whore!"

"Kill it!"

"Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!"

"Send it back to Hell!"

Nora was still crying and begging in that language of hers when Kol's eyes met hers. There were no relief in the two blue orbs. Barely a flicker of recognition. Only fear and fear and fear.

"Please," she sobbed, and Kol knew she was talking to him this time. "Please. Help me." Her voice broke as another stone hit her and a cold fury filled Kol. He didn't understand why she looked exactly the same as she did thirty years ago. Especially when he knew she was younger than the Nora he met and loved. The one who had loved and known him from day one. The one who could stand for herself and travel alone without fear. The one who killed two werewolves.

How could the Nora in front of him look the same than the one he knew? She wasn't a creature of the night, immortal and forced to gorge on human blood to survive.

Her fear was strong in the air, the smell of it overpowering everything else. He couldn't focus on the scent of the blood on her face, or the pounding hearts around him. Sweat, human waste... it had all disappeared and all he could smell was her fear.