Chapter 04
The next few days were agony for Klaus. Bella was walking around a lot more relaxed and less high strung due to having been given something to help her relieve herself. But secretly, Klaus wished she’d return to using her fingers because the buzzing started at the most inconvenient of times.
Such as in the middle of the night after returning home from his trip to gather information about the vampires Bella had come in contact with. While drinking from a human or during a phone call. The worst while instructing Marcel on how to handle his vampires.
At times like that, he wished he didn’t have his vampire hearing.
And for some reason, Bella stayed away from Klaus as much as possible. While it had gotten easier for her to join them for breakfast at the table, and sitting on a chair as an equal, she hadn’t made eye contact with him or had spoken to him. He did enjoy hearing her voice, though; he always kept an ear out for when she’d speak.
Although they all had been itching to feed her some of their blood to help heal her throat from the burns, they all had agreed not to. As her throat had begun to recover, her voice began to sound richer, and it never failed to bring a smile to his face.
Rebekah and Kol had started with introducing Bella to human entertainment and the idiot box. Telling her that everything she saw was fictional a story, but if you looked passed that, sometimes it was an accurate representation of how the world worked. The first day, they had a Full House marathon. Not a typical family description, but it taught Bella that family was all about love and respect for each other. And of course, having fun.
The next day, they had a Dawson’s Creek marathon. While Klaus questioned the choices of his siblings, he realized it was a good idea to show her non-supernatural focused entertainment. That there was a life without it and that it wasn’t as scary as it appeared to be. For a moment, Klaus had feared that Bella would eventually decide to turn her back to everyone, to them. To him. But if she’d do that, it would be her choice and that was the good thing about it. Not that he wanted her to leave. Quite the contrary. He wished nothing more for her to stay.
The third day, his siblings thought it was a good idea to show the human’s idea of a vampire. Or one of their ideas, anyway. They told Bella that even though she’d been surrounded by vampires for all of her life, that they were, in fact, hidden in plain sight, not known to many humans. That entertainment like this was a good thing because it taught people the wrong thing about vampires in general. Should they come into contact with a vampire, they’d think the monster wasn’t real and holy crosses would protect them. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. How embarrassing.
However, Klaus listened intently to Rebekah’s reasoning for choosing this particular series. It wasn’t because there were vampires in it, but it was because the main character, a woman, was strong, just like Bella. She was juggling ‘normal life’ – her friends, her school – with her ‘job’, hunting vampires. Over the seasons, Buffy’s ‘normal’ shifted a few times, but it was always the same. Same group of friends. Same support system.
Kol asked Bella if she could tell the difference between season one Buffy and season two Buffy and Bella nodded. After Buffy’s resurrection, she became quiet, withdrawn and engaged in behavior that wasn’t particularly her own. At that point, Cami joined in on the conversation. Klaus hadn’t realized Cami had been there. She explained to Bella that Buffy likely suffered from PTSD after her death and resurrection. She was so overwhelmed by everything that she mostly closed down and rejected help.
While Bella hadn’t died, Cami asked her if she could recognize herself in that situation. Cami sounded so hopeful, and Klaus was eager to hear what Bella had to say, but apart from her vocal ‘no’, he couldn’t listen to the rest because she wasn’t using her voice. Bless Rebekah for realizing Klaus was probably listening in. “Season two Buffy is your normal, isn’t it, Bella? You’ve been through so much crap that they forced the spark of life out of you.”
“You’ve been essentially living with PTSD and depression for all of your life,” Cami’s voice sounded, and while he couldn’t see Bella, he could practically see her roll her eyes at that.
Changing the subject, Rebekah grinned. “So, if you had to choose, who would you fancy? The angelic Angel, vampire with a soul, or Spike, the rebel? If I didn’t know any better and were a dimwitted human, I would totally fall for someone like Angel.”
“Oh, get off it, sister,” Kol laughed. “You’d be bored with someone like him in a heartbeat and break his neck.”
“Sometimes it’s nice to be courted, there’s nothing wrong with that!”
“Spike does love his Drusilla very much.”
“But he’s mental!”
“I like Spike,” Bella replied quietly. “His madness compliments his love’s madness. I think that’s beautiful.”
Of course, they decided to stop watching for the day and the buzzing resumed in Bella’s room. Day four, Klaus was glad that the batteries stopped working. Or actually, Rebekah later revealed that she had replaced the batteries with dead ones upon Elijah’s insistence. He figured they had tortured their brother long enough.
They all sat down with Cami that night, without Bella, to discuss her again. “Frankly,” Cami started as Klaus sipped on his bourbon. “She fits right in with you guys.”
“Elaborate, please,” Elijah coached her, an amused smile on his lips.
“Oh, I can make it very simple for all of you. If you weren’t thousand-year-old vampires, you would have been like her. Not that you have the same experiences, but you all suffer from a degree of PTSD, depression… mania at some point, a different view on society than regular humans… I mean, come on. Your father was abusive. What would have happened if you didn’t become vampires? More abuse. War with the werewolves. Rebekah at a risk of getting raped.”
Kol snarled at that. “Shut up, no one’s hurting Rebekah if I have something to say about it.”
“You cling to each other to hold on to your own sense of normal. You can drink each other’s blood at times, but you stick together. Survivors. You’re a thousand years old. You’ve seen enough for several lifetimes, and the only reason you aren’t behaving like her is because you are each other’s support system. And you know that eventually, things will turn around because you’ve been through it all before.”
“What else is there to do?” Rebekah said with a shrug.
“I understand we’re beyond the point of help, Camille,” Klaus said bleakly. “But can she be helped, fixed?”
“With more time and more patience, she can learn to live with it, but she will have issues for the rest of her life. She’s a bright young woman, and she’s a hoot if she feels comfortable enough to crawl out of her shell. Don’t forget, her normal is the opposite of your normal which caused her to be damaged, but if she decides to stick around with you, she’s going to be fine.”
“What if she decides to leave?”
“It is difficult to say. At least too early to tell. On her own, I think she’ll revert to what she knows and engage in risque behavior with strangers. She might function enough, but without a proper support system… I don’t know,” she replied after a moment of thought. “Plenty of people with PTSD can live healthy lives. Plenty of former cult members have successfully reintegrated into society, but Bella’s different. She’s been raised the way she’s been raised. It’s in her blood, just like it’s in yours.”
“So what do we do?”
“As crazy as it may sounds, I think having her watch television actually works somewhat. I am afraid that Buffy may have triggered something in her that needs to be monitored but try to watch some shows that are fun, fluffy and standard. Oh, Married with Children is an excellent example of a dysfunctionally functional family.”
“I’ll give her a choice tomorrow, but I think she wants to finish watching all seven seasons of Buffy,” Rebekah grinned. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep an eye on her, but maybe it’s good that something might trigger her. She needs to start showing some emotion. I want to see tears.”
“You’re so mean, sister,” Kol grinned. “But, if you want to see tears, we could pop her outside into the street and see what happens?”
“Absolutely not!” Klaus growled at his brother. “She’s not ready for that, and you know it!”
“Have her watch movies like… I don’t know. Wuthering Heights. Somersault. Shows like… Gilmore Girls, more Dawson’s Creek. Try to engage her, make her think.”
“Wuthering Heights was a book before it was a movie,” Elijah muttered.
“Does she know how to read?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you said you had an idea, and now you’re not following up on that idea?” Rebekah pointed out as she looked at Cami.
“I changed my mind over the last few days. This approach is so much better and more entertaining for all parties,” Cami said with a shrug. “If it fails, we can always fall back to that.”
“Was that all? I have a painting to get back to now that the persistent buzzing has stopped.”
~o.O.o~
Bella was waiting for him in his study when he returned. She was sitting on the sofa, fortunately still dressed and she looked alert. She got to her feet when he walked in, a big smile on her face and her hands behind her back. “Good evening, love,” he greeted her as he walked straight to his canvas. “What can I help you with?”
He heard her sit down again, and he deliberately stood with his back towards her so he could hear her lovely voice, she had no excuse now not to talk. “Could you tell me more?”
“About what?”
“Your life?”
“Now that you’re able to talk, why won’t you tell me a story?” He asked kindly as he turned around, catching the brief moment of her eyes flickering down again. “It’s only fair.”
“My life hasn’t been as ex… exit… Full as yours.”
“Exciting? Everyone has at least one story to tell,” he said enthusiastically as he sat down on the sofa next to her. “Come on, love, tell me something.”
She was quiet for a long time as if she tried to remember something worth telling. Her life hadn’t been as exciting as Klaus’, it had been more or less the same every day, and she had liked it that way. “I suppose I could tell you why Kol calls me ‘a little mooner’ sometimes…”
He had wished it would be a story from the past, but this was also a story he was interested in. “Go on then,” he smiled at her.
“Uh… on the first day after he arrived, Jacob was tasked to show him around. I didn’t know who he was and why he was in the castle because it was clear that he wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t my place to be curious about him, either. They walked in on me while I was performing a task for Edward. The first thing Kol saw was my… cushions.”
He had sort of gathered that from the little nickname. He wasn’t going to press on what type of task, as he didn’t want to know the answer. Klaus smiled at her and nodded encouragingly for her to continue.
“The second time Kol ran into me, was literally walking into me. He wasn’t watching where he was going. He said he had his eyes closed because he saw me, but he bumped into me while I was finding something on the floor on the Guard level. They said they had dropped something and wanted me to find it. His knee bumped against my cushions, and I fell over, much to the delight of the guards. Of course, I knew they liked to see that so maybe Kol had been in on it, I don’t know.”
“I doubt it, love.”
“The third time, Kol greeted me with ‘Hello, little mooner!’. I didn’t understand at first, and he had to explain it to me. Apparently it was foreign to him to see a naked girl all the time?”
“Hardly,” Klaus smiled at her, finding the story sad, but she didn’t seem to think there was something wrong with it. “Thinking back, how does it make you feel?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Now that you’re not walking around without clothes anymore, how does it make you feel?”
“Warm, but would you like me to walk around without clothes? I can do that!” she said hopeful. “Clothes can be very restricting when performing certain tasks.”
“What do you want?”
Bella thought for a moment and smiled at him before slowly crossing the space between them and put his arm around her as she cuddled up to him. She pulled her feet on the sofa and nodded. “Is this okay for you?”
“Is this what you truly want?”
“Yes.”
“No tricks?”
“No.”
“Then this is more than okay for me, love,” he smiled down at her and gently squeezed her arm. He could feel how she relaxed against him and how her breathing evened out. She was asleep within minutes, but that was alright. He felt so immensely proud of her for sharing a story and for her daring to do something that went against her training. She was speaking somewhat fluently with some pronunciation difficulties, but he was so proud of her.
Screw Cami, he thought. This girl is salvageable.
~o.O.o~
Bella followed him back to his study after breakfast the next day. He hadn’t let her go all night and barely slept himself, but he didn’t mind. She had been sleeping soundly without so much as having a nightmare or issues to deal with in her sleep. Kol and Rebekah had been discussing Buffy at the table, more specifically the curse that the vampire Angel had been under.
She had offered that the series was silly seeing as without the curse, Angel acted like Emmett and Edward, but with the curse, he was more like Elijah. Spike, however, unaffected by any curse, reminded her of the Mikaelsons. Spike didn’t have to be the bad guy, but he choose to be and most importantly, he was someone of honor, something not even Angelus had.
He liked it that she could freely engage in a discussion without fearing that there would be a consequence. More importantly, she was heard, and not ignored. She didn’t even flinch when Kol pelted her with pieces of toast because she knew that he wouldn’t hurt her. She didn’t dare to return the favor and start a food fight, but Kol was crazy enough to make her do it eventually.
“I should talk to you about a curse,” Klaus said to Bella after closing the door of his study. “One that has been in my family until recently. Would you mind if I painted while doing so?”
“I like it when you paint,” she replied as she made herself comfortable on the sofa.
“Really?”
Bella nodded. “It’s peaceful. Makes me feel calm and quiets the voices in my head.”
“You have voices in your head?” He blinked at her. “That’s new.”
“No,” she giggled. “I’m not crazy. Just the things you told me that I didn’t have to do trying to bubble to the surface… since you’re not allowing me to punish myself…”
“No, you’re not.”
“And since I’ve managed to give my hole some attention over the last few days… Watching you paint works.”
Klaus nearly spat out his sip of blood. “Your what?”
“Hole,” she muttered, blinking at his reaction. “Where the shaft goes in? Down there?” she pointed at her crotch. “There’s another one between the cushions where the rod can be inserted, but poop comes out of there too, quite unhygienic.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or to feel sad for her. Or disgusted. “Bella… you’re telling me that good old doctor Carlisle didn’t even teach you the proper names for your genitals?”
“Breasts, hole, and cushions. And there’s a pleasure spot…” she pointed to her jeans. “Right there. But I never felt that it only hurt so why it’s called a pleasure spot, I don’t know.”
“And what’s the male equivalence?” He was curious now. He was probably flying too close to the sun, but damn, his curiosity was peaked.
“Shaft, penis, lance, pole… ding dong?”
At least that sounded right enough, but he couldn’t help but laugh and shake his head. “I don’t think I’m the right person to teach you the right words, Bella, but hole and cushions? How about your pussy and your arse?”
“A pussy is a cat, and an ass is a donkey.”
She was right about that. Groaning, he turned around and started to paint. “I will have to ask Rebekah to talk to you about this,” he said with a small, amused smile on his face. It was sometimes easy to forget that no matter how much she’d been through in her life, that she still had a very innocent side of her. It kept him on his toes, but also out of his depth. “This is a conversation you should have with another woman.”
“Why?”
“It’s personal, something private. It would be wrong of me to meddle with that.”
“Why?”
“It just is.”
Bella huffed as she looked at his back and then watched his hand gently take a brush. She liked the way he held his brush. So tender, so kind. Whenever one of the Cullens would grab something it truly looked like something granite was grabbing an item but Klaus’ hands were majestic. Beautiful. “Tell me about that curse, please.”
“Of course,” Klaus said thoughtfully. “I told you how my mother turned us all into immortals, didn’t I? Through witchcraft?”
“Yes.”
“What she hadn’t anticipated that with the immortality spell, came the bloodlust. The need to drink blood to sustain ourselves. We didn’t quite know what was happening to us; I remember being in the woods and I had fed upon villagers while there was a full moon, and I tore them to pieces, I changed. I wasn’t simply an immortal; I was a werewolf as well.”
“How does that work?”
He snorted. “As it turned out, my mother was unfaithful and fell pregnant by a werewolf. She never said anything, always hid it from my father. Until that day.”
“What happened?”
“My father hated me even more, and my mother was so afraid that she used the blood of the girl Elijah had accidentally killed to bind my werewolf side with a curse. That blood was really special, as she was the first doppelganger and only the blood of a doppelganger would break the curse. Amongst some other sacrifices, but that was the rarest component.”
“Rare blood? What’s a doppelganger?”
Klaus explained it all, how it started with Tatia, then Katharina and Elena. How the curse was eventually broken and that he was no longer an immortal vampire, he was the first and original hybrid. His blood had magical properties, and as he was both vampire and werewolf, he could cure a vampire from the bite of a werewolf. Witches wanted his blood to do the bigger spells or to use it for binding spells.
Klaus was about to tell Bella about a witch ending up with his blood when she spoke. “Carlisle liked to experiment on me. When I was younger, I was often made sick, and he found a cure for it, he was the King, who could perform miracles. Carlisle was having dealings with regular vampires who could turn a human with just a bite, and he wanted to make my blood safe. I spent countless of hours in his laboratory, pleased that I could help him with his latest project.”
“What did he do?”
“Oh, injecting me with various things or transfusions of some kind, I don’t know. All I know is that he was pleased with me for being such a good girl, and after a few months, he handed me a vial of something that I had to drink. It was awful, but I did it. I was rewarded with my return to Edward and I overheard them saying something that I drank a vial that had a particular kind of blood in it with other ingredients to bind it. I didn’t quite understand.”
“I do,” he said with a low growl. He had hoped that Bella wouldn’t know about it, but she did. Of course she did, she was smarter and more observant than she had led on. “He tasked a witch to create a potion for you to drink to make your blood safe to his liking. He was afraid that the ‘different vampires’ would drain you and turn you into one of ours and take you away.”
“Yes! Exactly!” Bella smiled at him. “And no matter how often they tried, they couldn’t turn me. I have had to have many blood transfusions. They were also surprised I never died even when they drank from me. So that’s why it’s safe for you to drink, you see? Even if you aren’t able to control yourself, I’ll still be here.” She got up and approached him at his easel. “It’s okay to drink from me.” She held up her wrist again.
“Oh, love, please don’t,” he sighed as he put his brush down and lowered her arm, gently. “I know the origin of that special blood, and if you’ve been paying attention to anything that I’ve said, you know too.” She was so close to him, her scent stronger, making him long for her even more.
She thought for a moment and shrugged. “I don’t care if it’s yours. If anything, I should thank you for saving my life because if they hadn’t used your blood, I would have been dead.”
Klaus liked it how simple she seemed to make it, but it wasn’t that simple. “What if that potion did more than just make your blood safe? Magic can be quite unpredictable.”
“Like what?”
“I suppose we’ll have to find that out together,” he said with a smile. Of course he knew the answer, but he didn’t want to scare her. She had to come to her conclusions about this, and until he wasn’t sure if she could distinguish her feelings from what she had been taught, he was going to keep saying that.
And he was surely going to talk to Rebekah about teaching her some things about her body. He didn’t want to hear the buzzing ever again.
It was the middle of the night, a few days after they finished watching the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Bella had to admit, was a great show. She hadn’t been able to get to sleep and got hungry. She hadn’t eaten a lot of dinner because she was still convinced that she was gaining too much, but she was hungry.
Everyone would be asleep, so perhaps she could dare herself to go towards the noise and sneak into the kitchen to find something to eat. Something they wouldn’t miss. Maybe a pastry or a sandwich. Maybe she shouldn’t care so much about what she ate. Klaus and Kol kept telling her that she looked better, healthier, now that she had gained some weight. It wasn’t as if she was back with the Cullens, back with her family of perfectionists, and she wouldn’t ever be again.
And while she was still getting used to doing things on her own without getting in trouble, it still gave her an uneasy feeling when she did something she wasn’t allowed to do before. Such as sneaking into the kitchen and get something to eat when she’s supposed to be sleeping.
Bella tried to be as quiet as possible. The noise coming from further down the hall from the kitchen was a real distraction so her presence wouldn’t be drawn attention to, but she was still sneaking around.
She found the light switch of the kitchen and made her way to the fridge and marveled at the food in there. There was so much food, and she couldn’t choose what to pick. A slice of cake sounded great, but the cake was whole, still, and they would notice if she’d taken a slice of that. Then there was the cream pie or the cold chicken… Maybe she should just settle for a sandwich.
When she turned around to look for the bread, she bumped into someone who had been standing behind her, and she hadn’t noticed. She also hadn’t seen his face before, and she certainly didn’t like the look on his face; as if she was his midnight snack in every sense of the word. The man licked his lips in appreciation and took a step forward, pushing her back into the fridge.
Her breath hitched, and her heart missed a few beats, showing fear towards another person was not what was expected of her, and she was angry with herself for almost giving into it. She repressed the urge to scream for Klaus or Kol. Elijah, even. They were sleeping, and they’d hate to be roused from their slumber. It was the entire reason she had been trying to be quiet. They would be so mad if she woke them up.
“I have to admit, little girl,” the vampire purred once he had her cornered against the open fridge. She could feel how the cold of the machine cooled down the back of her body while the rest of it just heated up out of fear. When did she become afraid of people? Wasn’t it was she did? Just letting it happen to her? “It takes some balls to break in and head straight for the fridge to eat. Very creative.”
His breath smelled like alcohol and blood. He was a vampire. Did Klaus hold vampires in his basement? Why? Some experiment like she had been? “I—”
“Shhh,” the vampire’s eyes met hers and all of a sudden, everything was alright. Her fear had gone, and she didn’t mind him biting her neck. She wouldn’t scream because it didn’t matter, it was alright. She tried to fight back a giggle because the sensation of those teeth on her neck and the sucking sensation tickled but didn’t manage to do so.
Before she knew it, she was out of the kitchen and in the courtyard, sitting on a chair with Klaus looking her over with a worried look on his face. “He compelled her?”
“Yeah, I’m really sorry about that, Klaus… I told him the rules and… How was I supposed to know he’d get curious? Besides, I think we all would like to roam around the compound again at night.”
Klaus huffed as he turned to his former ward. “This is supposed to be a haven for her, apparently, your vampires aren’t listening to you.” He angrily pointed at Dave, the vampire Marcel found with his teeth deep in Bella’s neck. “If she wants to get herself something to eat, then she bloody well can get it without being attacked!”
“I was attacked?” Bella blinked at Klaus and rubbed her neck, finding dry blood on there, but the puncture wounds healed. “I’m all right, Klaus.”
“Stop trying to keep her away from our vampires and things will be alright,” Marcel shot at his sire. “She’s been here for months. We’ve been cooped up for that same amount of time in the basement because you’re afraid she’ll scare of the noise they’ll make in the courtyard. Time for her to get used to it.”
“Marcellus…”
“Do you want them to riot, Klaus? I have some of my nightwalkers go out the minute the sun goes down, and they come back the minute before it goes up again, but that’s not an option.”
He shook his head as he pressed the heel of his hands to his eyes. “You don’t understand. There is more to this than meets the eye…”
“What don’t I understand? That she’s a human who’s been living with vampires all her life who treated her like shit, and you want to change that? Guess what, Klaus. Not everything was rainbows and roses while I grew up with a bunch of vampires either! I seem to recall a quite bloody performance of Hamlet, for one.”
Klaus growled as he looked up at him. “I gave you every opportunity of humanity as well, an education…”
“Then do that to her as well, don’t hide her away from the rest of us. Let her interact with more vampires who are willing to interact with her on a regular level. You certainly didn’t keep me away from your army.”
“Marcel…” He hesitated and shook his head again, glancing over Bella with sadness and longing. “Fine. I’ll consider it. For now just keep them placated until I figure something out.”
Marcel smirked and let out a whistle, to signal for his vampires to come out to show their faces. “See this girl here? She’s off limits. Dave here needed a reminder of that.”
“Don’t,” Klaus said with a growl as he gently took Bella’s hand. “Come on, you don’t wish to see this.”
He sighed as he watched his boss leave with the human girl. “That girl is off limits for everything other than a chat, or face the consequences.” He grabbed a stake out of his pocket and jammed it into Dave’s chest. “However, tonight will be your night of freedom while the boss rethinks his options. Tomorrow, we’ll be back in the basement. Enjoy your night off, gentlemen.” Marcel smiled at them and watched them leave while Diego begrudgingly lifted Dave’s body and went to take care of it.
“That was not what we agreed upon!” Klaus called out.
“Lighten up, Klaus!” Marcel countered.
Klaus retrieved a washcloth out of the bathroom and started to clean up Bella’s neck. “Are you alright, love?”
“I’m all right.” She met his eyes in the dim light of his study. “I was hungry, and I didn’t want anyone to wake up. I went to the kitchen, and I don’t know.”
“You were bitten.”
“I get that, why was that so wrong?”
“You are not a snack, love. He should not have done that to you.”
Bella was quiet for a moment and let out a sigh. “I’m the only human here.”
“Yes, you are, but that doesn’t mean you’re food.”
“Okay,” she gently took over the washcloth and continued to clean herself up while Klaus watched her. “Who was that man, though?”
“Marcel?”
“Yes.”
“He is my lieutenant, my right hand,” he said, slowly calming down from his anger. Her blood smelled good, he could understand why Dave had wanted a taste, but it had been wrong. “Come to think of it… he’s a lot like you.”
“He is?”
Klaus nodded as he sat down next to her and gently pushed her hair out of her face. “He was a slave, the bastard son of the governor and when I saw him getting beaten, I took him in as my ward. Elijah thought I was a fool for doing so,” he said with a slight chuckle. “Marcel and I have had our differences, but I am proud of the man he’s become.”
“How old was he when you took him in?”
“About ten years of age.”
“Did you turn him?”
“I didn’t want to; he asked me to so I did. When he was about your age.”
She put the cloth away and scooted over a little, putting her arms around Klaus. “It must have been great for him to have you look after him, teach him things.”
“It was hard,” Klaus replied with a scoff. “We all learned from the experience; some learned more than others. He still doesn’t like Kol and Kol doesn’t quite like him either, mostly because of the fact we used to pay more attention to Marcel than him. I had unboxed Kol because I hated it that Marcel liked Elijah more. Elijah has always been the kinder one of us. I shouldn’t have been surprised that it happened.”
“Jealousy?”
“I suppose so,” he smiled at her. “Elijah has a habit of interfering with things that I do.”
“Why didn’t you box him instead of Kol? Kol is funny.”
He had to laugh at her question and nodded with a big smile on his face. “So he is. However, Kol used to be a menace and Elijah… he always made sure that he’d be missed. He has ties to the community. Always. To keep an eye out for potential trouble or find a scheme to add to our wealth.”
“He’s the brains, Rebekah’s the beauty… Kol’s the funny one… what makes that you?”
“I don’t know; you tell me.”
“You’re the Spike,” she said with a grin. “Hot, broody and a man of your word.”
“I’m not broody.”
“Yes, you are.”
“And how do you know I’m hot? It’s not as if you have a lot of source material,” he teased, pleased by how she seemed to be able to identify emotions and feelings correctly, such as his jealousy. He never in a million years expected her to call him ‘hot,’ though.
She shrugged as she made herself comfortable against him, putting her head against his chest after putting his arm around her. “I heard it’s a matter of good taste. I believe I have good taste.”
“And what do you base that on?”
She shrugged again. “By ignoring everything I was taught before coming here. It’s not easy, though. I’m constantly battling myself.”
“But that’s a good thing,” he murmured, reaching for the blanket on his sofa to cover her up. “In a way, every single person in the world is constantly at war with themselves, to make their decisions based on the situation they’re in, or the feelings they are having.”
Bella hummed a response as she snuggled even closer, putting a leg over his and made herself comfortable for the rest of the night. Klaus feared that now that she was doing better, not shaken at all by her recent experience but that was maybe because she couldn’t remember the whole situation, she was going to up and leave.
He didn’t want her to go. Even though with times like these, where she practically wrapped herself around him – in a non-sexual way, he had made sure of that when he compelled her -, making him feel somewhat uncomfortable, he wished she wouldn’t. Klaus wasn’t quite sure what would happen if she’d leave. He had managed to get to the other end of New Orleans the other day before rushing back home to her. To her scent. To bask in her nearness even though she was in her room doing god knows what.
He suspected she was feeling the pull towards him as well, why else would she like to sleep in his arms? Or did she simply feel safe with him? That was a good thing, but wasn’t it because she thought he was everyone else’s boss? Well, he was, but that wasn’t the point. Oh, this was so confusing and frustrating at the same time.
Sighing, he shifted a little to make himself more comfortable on the sofa without disturbing Bella and tried to catch a few more hours of sleep himself.
~o.O.o~
She looked up to him, as he had wanted. It wasn’t as if she could do anything else, nor did she want to, she wanted to please him, and this was exactly what pleased him. She was strapped in a chair, one of the King’s chairs in his clean white room and every part of her body was accessible. Ready.
This wasn’t right. But it was. He’d be so proud of her afterward, pleased, and she might get something to eat to keep her body functional. Peter had snuck in a cookie or two the day before, but she hadn’t touched them. It wouldn’t please Edward if she gained for this day.
It was an important day, Edward had told her, it was the celebration of something big for one of his other kind vampire friends, and he had promised her to that friend and hers. It would please him immensely if she behaved. But she always behaved. She was perfect, and she always wanted to be perfect.
“I told you; I didn’t want to see her eyes!” The vampire female whined as she looked at the naked girl in the chair. “You said you wanted to make things perfect, Edward. It’s not perfect until her eyes are covered.”
“Anything for you,” he said in a pleasant voice and smirked. “What would you like to have this one’s eyes covered with? Silk? Cotton? Jute?”
“Hmm…” Bella could feel the woman’s finger run up and down her skin. It didn’t do much to her; she wasn’t allowed to feel. However, she could feel it, and it sent shivers down her spine. She was ready for whatever they were going to do with her; it would please Edward. She would have every male inside of her or feed from her, she would remain silent and passive. “Silk will do.”
“Then I shall retrieve some silk for you, Katherine,” Bella could see him smile and then leave the room. Her heart ached for him. Where was he going? Right, he was going to retrieve something to please Katherine. She looked at the vampire and found her staring back at her.
“I should feel sorry for you,” Katherine said as she ran her finger between the lips near Bella’s hole. She wiggled a little; it felt warm and good, but the wiggling didn’t register with Katherine, and she hoped that Edward wouldn’t have seen it either, she wasn’t allowed to feel. “But I don’t. If they choose to treat you like this, I should respect that, but trust me when I say this, kiddo, not all vampires are evil. However, I’m as bad as they come, and if I were in their position, I would definitely get a human pet of my own because damn, the things I could do…” Bella saw her lick her fingers, and Katherine let out a moan. “You taste so good; I can’t wait to sink my teeth in you and watch you get fucked senseless. Are you always this impassive?”
“That one’s not allowed to speak, feel or make noise. It’s the perfect warm body for everything I desire, or, when I feel like sharing, on a day like today, the perfect warm body for entertainment,” Edward’s voice sounded, sending chills down her spine. His voice sounded evil, cold, detached. He never loved her at all, did he? Her eyes were covered, and all she could do was listen. She wasn’t supposed to hear, but she did.
“Where can I get me one?”
“Oh, Katherine, that’s adorable but that one is one of her kind, it’s been with us since it was a couple months old. Proper training does wonders.”
“Sorry for the questions, Edward. I very much appreciate this, I know the boys have had her before, but your father never showed her to me.”
“I understand. He’s not here right now.”
“You rebel.”
Bella felt how her skin got pierced with fangs on several parts of her body; she knew she was tied up, but it felt as if she was being torn apart, and it hurt. It felt as if someone was taking a chunk out of her leg and ran a knife from her hole up to her belly. Something was burning, inside of her, she could smell it, feel it as her insides felt to be on fire. She was spinning, and she had nowhere to go.
She couldn’t breathe, it was as if she was choking on something, and that was strange, as she knew the original encounter didn’t involve all of this. Someone was pulling on her hair, it was almost if it was stuck in a machine, she could feel it being yanked from her scalp at the same time as her body was being ripped apart. There was nothing she could do about it but scream.
~o.O.o~
The following weeks, Bella came out of her shell, more and more. As it turned out, she had a great sense of humor and a lot of energy. She and Kol were usually running up and down the compound together in the morning, and Rebekah kept her busy by teaching her some self-defense. It was great to see Bella blossom into the young woman she had been denied to be.
She still didn’t want anything, or at least ask for anything, insisting that she didn’t need anything, but she was getting there. Now and then, she dared to voice her own opinion as well, usually about small things, such as not being allowed to do anything such as cleaning her room or cook them a meal. They had servants for that, paid servants, so why would she have to lift a finger?
Whenever the other vampires were out and about in the compound – yes, Klaus had reluctantly agreed to it that it wasn’t fair to them to keep them hidden away – Bella tried her best to avoid them. She could usually be found in her room or with Klaus. Even when he had to interact with Marcel in the middle of the compound, she was at his side, worried that something might happen to him. She wasn’t actively there, just quietly at his side, non-intrusive and no one was batting an eye at her.
She knew self-defense now, she could help Klaus to defend himself.
He found that enticing.
Yes, Klaus realized how this girl, this broken, beautiful and delectable young woman, had him wrapped around her little finger the moment she set foot in his home. Granted, some magic may have had a hand in it, but he had never fallen this hard before. It was hard to stop himself from obsessively buying her things, from making her meaningful promises, from taking bigger steps than she could handle – from kissing her.
He had made the mistake in the past, but he had to watch himself around her, think before he acted. Klaus didn’t want to scare her off, it was important that he made a good impression, a lasting one, he wanted her to stick around.
Of course, there was always the chance that she would decide to leave and live a human, supernatural free life, but it’s all she had known. And on top of that, Marcel stuck around, why wouldn’t she?
While he had wanted Marcel to stay away from her – quite possibly because he was jealous – Elijah had persuaded him to see the other side of Marcel reaching out to her; his story was similar to hers. Marcel could be a positive influence to Bella, give his side of the story about the family that Marcel was a part of.
At first, Bella was wary of him, cautious, and only wanted to talk to Marcel with either Kol or Klaus nearby. She also realized that Marcel had been the one to have saved her from the vampire that was trying to suck her dry, but the whole ordeal had been a bit hazy. And since when was it saving? Klaus was delighted that she had gained insight into her life with the Cullens and how she should have been treated; like a fragile human being with her own will and wants.
He had been wondering for a couple of days now if he could reverse the compulsion he had put her under. Surely she knew now that offering her body, her services, wasn’t proper behavior? On the one hand, he wasn’t quite sure but on the contrary, he wanted to see if it freed her some more when it came to her feelings if she’d address them better.
Would he dare to have Elijah remove his compulsion on her? That she could trust them and that she had nothing to fear? He often wondered if he had truly compelled her because she had shown distrust in each and every one of them over the course of the last few months.
“I didn’t know your floor needed a paint job,” Bella’s voice sounded from behind him. Damn her, she had become even more stealthy in her movement than before.
Klaus looked over his shoulder to smile at her before looking down at the paint dripping from his brush. “So it seems.” He grabbed a cloth and removed the paint from the floor before turning back to her again. “What can I do for you, Bella?”
“You allow Rebekah to leave through the gates, right?” She asked as she sat down on the sofa, turning so she could look at him. “And your female vampires do the same.”
“Of course.”
“What about Cami?”
“She lives nearby and has a bar to tend to.”
“But what about the monsters outside? Hiding behind every bush or even in the gutter? What about the air? How do they survive that?”
Klaus put his brush down and sat down next to her, sighing slightly. “Haven’t you figured out by now that maybe, you’ve been lied to all your life?”
“So the outside isn’t going to kill me?”
“Well, not instantly, I suppose,” he said with a smirk. “Out there, there are people, like yourself. Tourists, people who live in New Orleans. Witches. The city never sleeps, and there’s always a party somewhere.”
“So it’s safe?”
“Of course. Granted, there are some bad seeds out there, but Rebekah has been teaching you some self-defense, hasn’t she?”
Bella thought for a moment and nodded before shaking her head. “I don’t want to leave this building. I don’t need to see outside.”
“Are you sure? There’s a lot to see out there.”
“I’m sure.”
“May I inquire as what brought you to this line of thought? I’ve not heard you talk about the outside of this building before,” he asked curiously.
She shrugged for an answer. “I guess I see people come and go all the time, wondering how it’s possible that they’re alright upon their return.”
“If you want, we can go outside together?”
“I’m not ready for that, Klaus.”
“Then what are you ready for?”
Shrugging, she crawled towards him and put his arm around her as she settled against him. “Just sitting here with you.”
