Chapter 03
1701
For the next two years, Myriam spent her time with the Mikaelsons, and it was strange how at home she felt among them. She joined Kol on some of his adventures around the town and towns close by, and she and Klaus spent a lot of time together in his study as he painted. Myriam even allowed him to paint a portrait of her, as he had done of her mother. Rebekah loved to go shopping with Myriam, always wearing the latest fashion and she even involved her in the social circles she moved. And Elijah… well, she appreciated his fast knowledge of history, but he was different from Kol, Klaus, and Rebekah. She didn’t like his energy at all.
Myriam couldn’t get used to feeling like a princess. Never in a million years would she have thought to have the life she was leading now, and all of this because she wanted to save a woman from being attacked. However, for the last couple of months, she had to flee the house a couple of times when emotions were heightened, anxiety levels rose, and their paranoia was through the roof.
She had sent her demons out to see what was going on, but they couldn’t find anything that could be remotely responsible for her family’s behaviour. And Mikael wasn’t getting close at all. One of her demons had located him in Germany. There were still plenty of countries between them and him, and they had plenty of time to move if needed. As long as they didn’t attract any attention, it was going to be alright.
But of course, Mikael on the same continent as them meant that he was getting too close.
Kol was sent to France on an errand for Elijah, which meant that Myriam and Klaus could spend more time together, but on this particular evening, she found herself in the sitting room with Elijah, Klaus, and Rebekah, and the three of them had a serious look on their faces. “Who died?”
“No one,” Elijah replied with a pleasant smile on his face. Myriam didn’t trust it. Why had she stopped telling her demons to listen in on conversations between the siblings? Now she didn’t know what was going to happen! “We have the feeling that soon we’ll have to find ourselves a new place of residence and that situations can get out of control. Don’t you think we haven’t noticed you leaving the house whenever tensions run high in this home, it’s a good thing; you’re mortal, and we could kill you if we aren’t in control.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that some underlying threat?” she questioned.
“Not at all, but we believe that it’s for your best interest if you travel ahead to the area we wish to settle next. It won’t be without its dangers, of course, but you’ll be a lot safer.”
Myriam was not sure if she should be relieved with what she was hearing. While it appeared they were concerned for her safety, they were well aware she was capable of defending herself – even if they hadn’t seen her actually practice her abilities yet. Turning her gaze to the one in the room that she’d grown to trust the most, she wanted more explanation. “Niklaus?”
“How would you like to go to the New World, love?” he asked kindly. “It would have been better to travel as a family, but we still have some business to attend to here.”
“Then I can wait!”
Klaus sighed and shook his head. “I wish it were that simple, but it is not. We need to secure our tracks because we know our father is growing closer. I don’t want you to get involved in this if we can avoid it so please go ahead and set up our next home for us.”
Myriam then barked out a laugh. “This is the reason why you sent Kol away, isn’t it? Because you know it would be harder to convince me with him around,” she shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
“Mikael is no joke,” Rebekah said, a bit of force in her voice. “And yes, ducky, we are well aware that you can protect yourself, but we don’t want any harm to come over you. Please. They usually send a compelled human over to where ever they want to go next, that they’re willing to send you ahead means that you’ve gained their trust.”
“When will you join me in the New World? Are you giving me your word that you will join me and that you’re not simply sending me away on my own?”
“Of course,” Rebekah smiled at her. “The New World is beautiful, filled with wonders. Elijah, Nik, myself and Kol were born there. There are a lot of opportunities that we don’t have on this continent. Just imagine; you’ll be in charge of getting us a home, and you can do whatever you wish.”
Myriam glanced between the three and the brothers avoid her gaze. “I sense you withholding something from me. Something important. I understand the need to go ahead, but there is more involved. If you want my cooperation willingly, speak.”
“There are three options of landing in the New World at short notice. One is in Charleston, South Carolina. Now the issue with that port is the colour of your skin. You’re only a little too dark to pass off as completely white. Over here it doesn’t matter; slavery is different over here, but over there…”
“What is wrong with the colour of my skin?” Myriam blurted. “Why is that important to anyone?”
“Most of the New World is being built with slaves from Africa. Black people. Slavery is abolished here by now, but two hundred years ago there were black slaves in most of Europe,” Rebekah explained. “But in the New World… they’re going a little back in time because they can’t get the manpower from the Old World to build a new civilisation.”
Myriam blinked as she sat back in her chair, taking in the information in silence. Her jaw clenched in her barely restrained anger. “What other options?”
“There’s a port in Florida. Florida has a very nice climate, warm, like Spain… and it’s a Spanish Colony.”
“Pass.”
Rebekah smiled then. “I somehow knew you were going to say that, but them lot didn’t want to believe me,” she said as she pointed at her brothers. “The last one is a very recent port, everything is still in development, and it will be lovely to settle there.”
The young witch stared back at them, waiting for the catch. “What is it?”
“Rumors go that they will get slaves in a few years, and they currently have Native slaves. Your skin might still be a bit too dark to be accepted. However, the issue is that the ship leaves from France.”
“It’s a French colony, requiring their citizenship laws,” she realised. “A woman alone travelling that far is unheard of, no matter how well off she is.”
Elijah nodded as he stared at her, gaging her reaction. “Yes. From what we’ve been able to determine in our research for all the viable options before coming here tonight is that you would need to be married. At least on paper.”
“Not for real, though, right? You can make false papers?”
Rebekah looked at her brother before turning back to Myriam. “While the papers may be false, to them they won’t be. You will be married to them, and you’ll have to act married. Play the part.”
Myriam let out a delirious bout of laughter until tears peaked out from the corners of her eyes. “You all must certainly be jesting! And who do you expect me to marry? Is this another reason why you have Kol running to France? To have him set up a marriage for us? While he and I have been intimate, we would never be able to fool any officials that well.”
“No, but you and Niklaus will,” Elijah replied.
That shut her up. “Now I hadn’t believed it possible for a vampire to be deranged, but you sir have just convinced me. I haven’t even been able to convince him to court me. And now you want us to play married?”
“Listen, we thought about it to be Kol, but everyone who knows about us knows that he’s… low on the pecking order, sort to speak. With your false marriage to Niklaus, it will give you status, especially on top of your family name. It will protect you in the social circles, and it will get you things done,” Rebekah explained. “We will know it’s not real, but it has to appear real to the officials.”
Myriam stood and turned to Niklaus with her hands on her hips. “And you agreed to this madness?!”
“Not without a few temper tantrums,” Klaus looked up at her. “But we want you on a ship as soon as possible, and those three are the most viable options. You could still choose to go to Florida.”
“I hate Spain and Spaniards,” she hissed. “I will only do to Florida what I did to my blood in Florence if a single one were to lay a finger on me. I will never agree to that if one of you were not to go with me.”
Elijah smiled as he waited for her to take several calming breaths. “So, it’s risking potential slavery in the Carolinas, or marry Niklaus to go to Nouveaux-Orléans. If you can come up with another option by tomorrow afternoon…”
“Yes! We wait!”
“Sweetheart,” Klaus rose to his feet and gently put his hands on her shoulders, looking at her with a small smile on his face. “This can’t wait,” he said quietly. “I give you my word that we will join you as soon as we possibly can. You can leave some of your pets behind if you wish, to keep an eye on us if that would make you feel better.”
She stared back at him, lifting her chin in defiance. “And what of you and I? You arrive, and we become strangers? Back to this strange in between of something that you continue to deny yourself?”
He opened his mouth to say something, closed it and then sighed, hanging his head in shame. “Please, for the family.”
“And you question why I’m so resistant for this option,” she whispered. “I’ll be in my room.”
Klaus wanted to go after her, but Elijah stopped him. “Allow her some time to think about this.”
He narrowed his eyes at his brother before pulling back his fist and punched him in the face. “I told you, she wasn’t going to like it!”
Rebekah sighed as she spoke over her shoulder. “There wasn’t an option that was going to be appealing no matter. She’s been after Nik since her arrival. It’s been no secret she fancies him, but she wants her affection reciprocated. You cannot fault her for that.”
“I am not worthy of her, Rebekah!”
“So you keep saying, but who are you to judge your own worth? For God’s sake, Niklaus, there’s this woman who loves you for who you are, and who we all like! Yes, she’s mad for the big bad Niklaus Mikaelson, the big bad wolf! Besides, she’s just as insane as you are. You’re made for each other!”
He continued to shake his head, stepping away. “If she doesn’t want to transition, then what is the point?” he questioned. “She’s mortal now if she doesn’t want to transition, she’ll grow old and die. Perhaps I’ve been holding off to see if she will ever decide on that because Kol’s been harassing her about changing and she has refused to answer.”
“Maybe you should ask her instead? She seems to answer questions from you that she won’t from him. How do you know she’s not waiting for you to ask her to change for you?” Rebekah suggested. “And truly, Nik, you need to stop thinking you’re not worthy of being loved by someone other than the random whore or us.” She then pushed him towards the hallway. “Forget what Elijah said, go talk to her.”
He hesitated as he looked back at his sister before agreeing and slowly made his way up to Myriam’s room at a human pace. When he reached her door, he stood and stared at it, losing time as he attempted to build up the courage to face her again. To say what needed to be said. That he wasn’t ready yet, but he was interested. Just, not yet.
Knocking on the door, he rested his head against the hardwood, waiting for a response. He heard her movement pause and closed his eyes. “Myriam. Please, let me in so we can speak.”
She opened the door and looked at him. “You’ve been standing at my door for nearly half an hour.”
He blinked back at her. “I hadn’t realised. I am sorry…”
She stepped away from the door to allow him room to get inside before she continued to look at her trinkets to sort them from occupied to unoccupied.
He looked around once inside, unsure how he felt to find her luggage pulled out and many of her clothes beginning to fill them. “I, um…I need to apologise for what happened downstairs earlier. It was not my intentions for it to go the way it had.”
“It’s fine,” she said with a sigh, not looking at him. “I’ve always wanted to go to the New World and to travel ahead of you to make things in order is the best chance I’ll ever get to actually get there. Even if it means that we have to appear to be married while nothing is going on between us.”
Klaus’ eyes shot up to her. “That’s what I came to speak to you about. About what you asked of me.”
“I’d rather not have you do that,” she said softly, knowing full well that he was going to let her down and break her heart. If she even had a heart left. She had felt it tighten in her chest during their conversation downstairs and it hadn’t let up since.
He shook his head, swallowing his nerves away. “No, I need to. Otherwise, it may never be done. But before I say what I need to, I need an answer from you to give you yours. Do you ever intend to transition someday?”
She nearly dropped one of her trinkets upon that question and looked at him in shock before composing herself. “Kol has been preparing me for such an inevitability since we left Florence three years ago.”
Klaus stared her down, his eyes demanding an honest answer. “That doesn’t say whether you would ever complete the transition if it were offered to you.”
“I hope that whenever I end in that situation that it will be by choice, not by accident. But I’m 21 years old, Klaus. I am still young. At this point, I value my humanity too much.”
“I was not much older than you when this life was forced upon me by my parents,” he pointed out. “Sometimes we don’t have that option. You cannot predict the future.”
“Yes, it was forced upon you. I have a choice. Unless you’re not giving me a choice,” Myriam said as she grabbed one of her trinkets, it was empty, but still. “You wish to take away the choice?”
He turned away, running a hand over his mouth, trying not to lash out his frustration on her. “No, I do not. But accidents happen, sometimes things aren’t quite so accidental. We have many enemies out there, and while our name does give you protection amongst the humans, it also leaves you vulnerable to others. You wonder why I’ve been resistant to your advances? Everyone we’ve loved has left us. So forgive me when I am reluctant to admit to being afraid of gaining another weakness.”
“You’re sending me to the New World by myself to prepare a home for you to come home to with only your word!” Myriam shot at him. “Words can be broken, I am at risk of you abandoning me, just while I have found my family!”
“I’d be risking just the same!” he roared back at her. “You’d leave me. You can die and leave me alone in this miserable life. Why have I fought this? Because history repeats itself!”
She barked out a laugh. “You’d still have your family. I’d have no one.”
He shook his head. “You are mortal. You’d eventually die,” he reasoned. “Yes, you are a part of our family and would always be considered so, but what you are asking of me – emotions change. So yes, I am infatuated with you Myriam, but I don’t know what to do. If you were not to transition, to not spend this eternity with me, then what is the point? You can’t even tell me that you would change to be with me.”
“You haven’t been listening. As of this moment, I would still prefer to remain mortal, I want to experience the arrival in the New World with my human feelings instead of everything overwhelming me. And once you arrive, I will have my affairs in order and then you—”
“I’m not asking you to change right this moment, Myriam,” he interrupted wearily.
“And then you can turn me. And I will go through the transition.”
Klaus stood silently, staring across the room from her, separated by her bed. He wasn’t sure how to feel by her sudden agreeance. Nodding briefly, he looked around again. “Okay, um… So we will figure out how to make this work, but it will take time. I am not the easiest creature when it comes to change.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I do wish to transition, Klaus. But only when we’re in the New World. Together. So that I know that you won’t abandon me and you’ll know that I’ll be waiting for you. I’m not the easiest to live with either, you know.”
“No, you aren’t, love,” he admitted with a small smile. “However, to more current events. We do need to tend to official matters before you depart for the boat from La Rochelle. I can have Elijah compel the official, or you and I can go in person to handle the paperwork ourselves before you depart,” he said before hesitating again.
“Does that mean you’ll be travelling with me for three months to La Rochelle?”
“For that, yes. It would be necessary. But the voyage to the New World is far longer and more dangerous. I know we just discussed, passionately, about you transitioning, but I want you to board with several vials of my blood in case you fall ill or injured.”
“Blood will go off within a day if not properly stored,” she said as she looked around to find the vials she had spelt. “I spelt these to preserve just about anything, and a demon is guarding them.” She came prepared. She had spelt the vials maybe a year prior, in case all hell broke loose and she’d had to leave. Kol had already offered to fill the vials, but it hadn’t been necessary at that point. The demon wasn’t attached yet, but she remembered Kol telling her that Klaus valued his blood and never gave it away freely, so it would be a security measure he’d appreciate.
Klaus slowly made his way closer with a smile. “Of course you did, but I would expect nothing less of you.”
“You’d be surprised how prepared I am for many situations,” she smiled up at him as he came closer to her. “I’m a woman of many talents.”
“Of that, I have no doubt, but one day I will properly court you as you requested – even if we are already married by the French courts. No one but those necessary would need to know until we announce it ourselves. Come to it on our terms.”
“There aren’t going to be falsified papers, are there?”
“Elijah’s intention would have produced falsified ones, but if we go and do this, then it gives us time to accept it, true or false. Remember; eventually, it won’t matter to the humans in a century as nearly everyone will be dead. It will just make it much more official for now. Especially since we won’t be able to compel officials in the New World. They may be smarter. We know there are supernaturals there and vervain does exist, just not sure how abundant,” he spoke his thoughts.
“I’ve been doing things the wrong way round my entire life, Klaus, it doesn’t matter to me,” she gently rubbed his arm. “As long as you won’t take off with anyone else because that would make me extremely angry and I won’t hesitate to make your life miserable in any way that I know.”
He let out a chuckle then. “You were taught by my brother, I’ll make sure I’ll toe the line.”
She raised a brow, pulling back. “Is that so? When you have such a willing partner you’re about to wed? How inappropriate!”
“That was a joke, love,” he smiled at her. “Perhaps in my early days, I paid for what I needed… sometimes, but no longer.”
“Good,” she nodded. “Now, are you going to help me pack or will I have to do this myself, husband-to-be?”
~o.O.o~
Myriam had to admit, it had been easier to share a carriage with Kol two years ago than it was currently with Klaus. While Klaus had a more natural presence, there was this tension between them and him still refusing her affections. Upon arrival in La Rochelle, a package was waiting for her that she had been waiting on for a long time. One of Klaus’ compelled vampires had retrieved it for her in Florence, and the papers were all in her name.
Which was strange, seeing as she told her father to sign it over to her mother. But it was proof that she was a Medici, and that she owned multiple buildings in Italy and France. That she had wealth of her own. It was what the French magistrate would need for her to prove that she was a real person. Included in that package was a filled pouch with gold coins and she had never seen that much currency in one place.
It took five minutes for her to become Myriam Envie Mikaelson. No longer Myriam du Mer, and thank God not Myriam d’Medici. Klaus then made sure she got onto the ship and waited until the ship sailed before running back to Cadiz.
There was some bad weather on their journey to the New World, and it took them three months to reach Port de Mardi Gras in Louisiana. From there, it would be a quick carriage ride to Nouveaux-Orléans. She had barely left her quarters on board the ship because the men on it were rowdy and mostly drunk and she didn’t want to out herself as a witch. She had her quarters protected by her demons, some dark objects, and spells, and she only came out when it was time to have dinner.
Once she arrived in Nouveau-Orléans, she was detained for a while as for some reason her paperwork got lost, and they didn’t believe that she was married and wealthy because of her skin colour. She hated the New World already. She ended up paying the officials 1/8th of her gold coins on her person before she was allowed passage.
Some wooden houses had already been built by Native slaves, and she hated to see them being treated so poorly. One helped her to get her belongings inside her designated home, and she attached a demon to him to help him out. Not to harm him, but to do good. The demon wasn’t too happy with it until she threatened to harm the demon and cast it straight into the fiery pits of hell. No demon ever wanted to go there, it’s why they had their own plane to live on, so they could move freely between layers of existence.
The first thing she did before unpacking was to make sure her home was secure. She had no idea for how long she’d be on her own, and she had promised Klaus to stay safe. She attended the town meeting, with the leader welcoming everyone and telling them the laws and where to find furnishings for their homes, but since there wasn’t a lot of manpower, people were going to have to wait for their things.
Myriam was already determined to make her own bed. How hard could it be? Surely she could call upon spirits who had been woodworkers before they died so they could teach her how to make things herself? Or perhaps that was unbecoming of a woman. Was she honestly supposed to sit still and be pretty instead of helping build a civilisation?
She went out the following day, exploring the area. There were a lot of wild herbs growing nearby, including patches of vervain. Knowing that her family was going to need safety upon arrival, she planned on telling one of her demons to set fire to it one day soon. There was a morass area on a day’s ride on horseback, back and forth, and nobody really came there, not from what she could tell. It was going to be easier to do her more complicated spells in that area instead of in the midst of a colony that was being built with so many Catholic civilians.
Oh, she sat through Sunday masses, because Klaus had told her to blend in. She joined a women’s society where they made quilts where she was miserable and thinking of ways to kill them all to keep herself entertained. But she was never fully accepted. And it was because of two things; she was the subject of the rumour mill for not having produced a husband after six months of being in Nouveaux-Orléans. Then the men started to accost her and hurt her. And the second part was still the colour of her skin. How could someone with a darker skin be well off? Surely she must have stolen her wealth or worse.
After being hurt so many times over the years that she was by herself, she had gone through every vial of Klaus’ blood, and she decided to stay out in the marsh, as for as long as she had lived there, she hadn’t seen a single soul there. She’d be living in peace, waiting for her husband and her family to come. She’d been through worse, she could handle the bugs with a few spells and with a few branches she had made a roof over her head. No one would miss her, in fact, she was convinced that they’d all be glad to be rid of her.
Until her family would arrive. And they’d all be sorry.
1703
After feeding on the entire crew of their vessel out of anger and anxiety, they drifted the rest of the way to New Orleans, compelling a small boarding crew to take their belongings to shore. Klaus was very eager to find his wife, mainly because the demon she had put with him talked to him in his dreams, that she wasn’t doing well and that her situation had become dire. Earlier he had told him that she had run out of his blood. Klaus had never intended to stay away from her for this long, but perhaps he had underestimated the danger she’d be in.
After being directed to their home, he could tell that she wasn’t there. Her trinkets were there, likely to protect the house, but he could tell that she hadn’t been home for a very long time.
“Nik,” Rebekah called out nervously from around the back of the house. “She has a horse that is also missing.”
Anger rising, he balled his fists before heading over to the nearest house and knocked on their door. When a man opened, Klaus grabbed him and pushed him up against the wall. “Where is my wife?!”
The plump man stared at him confused and looked around. “Who?”
“Myriam Mikaelson, where is she?” He demanded, slamming the man against the wall again.
He groaned as he glanced back towards the house. “I have no knowledge. I last saw the single woman two moons ago. She took off on her horse with her satchel and has not returned. My wife believes she does voodoo in the woods.”
“Where!”
“I do not know! No one goes near the woods near the whole moon! It’s not safe! I am sorry, but she is probably dead from the beasts!” he cried out.
“Niklaus,” Elijah warned him. “We do not kill our neighbours on our first day in.”
He turned to his brother. “Myriam…I should have come with her. She asked of me…”
“We’ll find her,” he said assuringly. “We’ll split up and cover more ground that way.”
“Let him go, Nik. Compel the good man and thank him for his non-information,” Rebekah sweetly said as she walked to her brother and caressed his back. “We can always come back and take a bite out of him later.”
“If she’s dead, this city will drown in blood.”
“Yes brother, we know,” she smiled at him. “Go on, compel him.”
He did as he was told before the three of them split up. At some point he was physically stopped and couldn’t go further, knowing that it was the demon guiding him. “Take me to Myriam then,” he said softly. “I allow you to move my body.” Klaus was propelled forward then, taking a few turns and then stopping again as a horse walked towards him, seemingly without a rider, but he could smell her, and her blood.
“Myriam,” he breathlessly said as he helped her off the horse and pulled her to the ground with him. It was clear that the wolves had tried to make a meal out of her, and from what he could tell she put up a good fight. Unfortunately, they got her too. He bit his wrist and held it to her mouth. “I’m here, love, drink. Please drink.” Her heart was already beating far too weak for her to survive this, but she needed to have his blood inside of her otherwise he’d lose her forever.
And he wasn’t prepared for that. That wasn’t their agreement. “Drink, sweetheart. There you go…”
“Klaus?” she sputtered as her eyes fluttered open. “Am I dreaming?”
“No. I’m here now. Just sleep, and all will be well,” he whispered, pulling her closer to himself. “I will bring you home and get you cleaned up, and you will be good as new.”
She shivered in his hold and closed her eyes. “I waited for you.”
“I know, love. I know,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her hairline. “Conserve your strength right now and rest. I’m not leaving your side.” He had found her just in time. Hearing her heartbeat fade was painful, but she was going to return. Her wounds had already started to heal, and while he felt bad for her horse, he wanted to get her home as fast as he could. He would take the saddlebags, but that was it. He merely had to wait until she faded completely. “Rest love, you’ll feel better when you wake up,” he whispered, and then she let go.
Elijah and Rebekah had returned from their search and were hoping that their brother had had more luck. Rebekah’s heart sank when her brother walked into their home with a dead Myriam in his arms. “Oh no!”
“I found her just in time,” Klaus said as he put her down on the bed and used his speed to clean her up and have her in a change of clothes. “But those wolves are going to pay.”
“Wolves? That’s going to get interesting,” Elijah mused.
“I will kill them all,” Klaus said as he looked at his brother. “And you won’t stop me.”
Elijah wanted to deny him but seeing the girl as she continued to heal he knew it would be fruitless to stop him. “Let us focus on Myriam for now. Her transition will be hard enough, and from what people have been whispering, I do not doubt the humanity she told you she wanted to keep until we arrived was not easy.”
“What did you learn?”
“That at first she was accepted like any new arrival and that she was participating in women’s clubs. It was frowned upon that she, as a woman, made her own furniture for her home as the slaves were working tirelessly to make sure everyone would get what they requested,” Elijah replied with a smile. “She built everything in this house herself, and I believe she had plans to extend the property but was stopped by the council. They had started to get doubts about her status.”
“I should have come with her,” he said again.
“I don’t believe she used her pets or her magic to help her along. After all, in a small community she’d easily been found out as a witch,” Rebekah added to her brother’s story. “It started to become a little suspicious that she often went to the marsh, though. Nobody dared to venture there.”
Klaus sighed and nodded. “Very well. Let’s get settled and make sure our brothers are safe while we wait for Myriam to come back to us so she can tell her story herself.”
Rebekah peered out of the window, taking notice of the curious neighbours. “I do not believe the neighbour was compelled enough. It seems he remembered enough to tell others of our arrival and her disappearance. Even with her turning, she may have to play decrepit for some time to the public. She won’t be happy at all.”
“And Niklaus, you’ll have to try to remain calm and collected when dealing with these humans, we do not wish to draw attention to ourselves,” Elijah told him. “It’s too early to get involved or to start murdering this colony. We need to get established first.”
“Then you deal with them! I’m covered in her blood because they drove her to hide in the woods instead of her home!”
He nodded as he headed outside the home and closed the door behind him. “We’d like to thank you for your concern for my sister-in-law, but I can assure you that we have been able to find her and she’s now resting.”
One woman from the gathering eyed him. “No one who dared to go to the morass on a whole moon has ever been found alive.”
Another shushed her. “I wasn’t even sure to believe she really had a husband as she claimed.”
“My sister-in-law was nowhere near that place when we found her. Rest assured, she is alright. And as for her marital status, she is married to my brother. We merely had some more business to attend to in France before we made the journey across the sea ourselves. Unlike some, we are a family who values women as equals to ourselves. Myriam was more than equipped to travel ahead and make sure our home was made.”
Many men sneered as they turned away, while the women whispered among themselves. The one who questioned her status from being in the marsh still stared at Elijah, sceptical of his story.
“Again, I wish to thank you for your concern. It’ll be lovely getting to know you all once we’ve settled.”
“Then I suppose she should be well enough for tea and quilting tomorrow, no?” The woman challenged.
“I said that she was found, and not in the marsh, however, she did have some wounds on her that require healing. Besides, I’m fairly certain that my brother wishes to spend a couple of days alone with his wife,” he said with a wink. “The poor bastard has been needing to help himself for the last few years!”
“There are plenty of girls around for that! No need for a wife!” One man laughed, earning a disgruntled glare from the pudgy woman beside him.
Elijah sighed and shook his head. “Should my brother, or myself, learn from Myriam if she was treated poorly, or taken advantage of, then those who are responsible for her misfortune will be held accountable. Myriam Mikaelson is not only a Mikaelson but the sole heir of the Medici fortune. Which you likely didn’t believe, or she may not have told you. Unlike her family, though, she’s not forgiving,” he said in a low voice. “I shall ask her if she wishes to join you for tea and quilting, but don’t be surprised if she chooses to be with her family that she had to miss for so long.”
The crowd began to break up, whispers of concern and nervousness spread between them as the names mentioned by Elijah were repeated, with warnings to stay away. The last to leave was the woman, and she was slow in her walk, haughty as she continued to believe she was better than any other in the village.
Elijah walked back inside and saw the concerned look on his sister’s face. “Oh, don’t worry, Rebekah, I believe that only one person knows that Myriam was attacked by wolves and she might know that because she’s one herself,” he smiled at her. “I believe I saw a brief flash of yellow eyes when she walked away.”
“You just had to use the Medici name. Myriam is going to kill you.”
“It’s what she should have done in the first place!”
“And no one would have believed her!”
“Zut Alors!” Myriam moaned as she tiredly rubbed her eyes. “Even in my dreams, you are loud!”
Klaus lifted his head from beside her, the exhaustion having caught up, grasping her hand. “How are you feeling, love? What do you remember?”
She felt hurt all over, weighing her down but she also felt that she wasn’t hurt. She looked at Klaus before realising where she was, and she did remember that she was in the marsh and had abandoned her home. “I’m dreaming?”
He smiled and shook his head. “You’ve asked me that already, but no. You are not.”
“Then I am dead.”
“If you don’t ingest some human blood in the next 24 hours you will be. You’re not dreaming, love. You’re awake, and we are here.”
Myriam managed to sit up then, blinking as she took in who was present in their home and then looked at Klaus again. “You’re here.”
“I am,” he smiled at her. “Now what do you remember?”
“I was too late getting out of the swamp. The moon was already filled before I realised… Was I attacked? Perhaps two days ago? I can’t remember, it’s fuzzy. Do I want to remember?”
“Perhaps it’s better if you don’t,” he said as he sat up to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I am sorry it took us so long to get to you.”
She then looked at him, truly looked at him and noticed he was covered in blood. “Is that…”
“Yours?” he asked as he followed her gaze. “Yes, sorry love, I only thought about cleaning yourself up and didn’t think about doing the same for myself. You would have been dead if your demon hadn’t guided me to you.”
Myriam was quiet as she looked around again, ignoring Rebekah and Elijah watching her from the opposite end of the room. She reached up to her neck and couldn’t find her necklace that held a few ornaments for her demons. “I have to find my necklace. If they aren’t broken, then they won’t be free, ever. I need my necklace.”
“Don’t worry about your trinkets, love,” he replied calmly. “You can still have your demons to play with once you transition. Your magic, however, will be gone, but you will gain strength, stamina and heightened senses.”
“I know what it entails to be a vampire! I’ve lived with you all for nearly four years until you sent me here! To die!” she snapped at him.
“We didn’t know about the wolves!” Klaus countered in the same tone of voice as she had used on him.
Her eyes turned back to his, her lip curling back. “It was wolves…mon Loulou?”
“And if you turn, I promise, we will get them all and slaughter them,” he replied darkly.
“I want to kill them,” she growled. “But first, what was that outside? If I have to attend another one of those dreadful functions, you won’t have your father to fear. I will kill you myself.”
“Sweetheart, you won’t have anything to worry about. You can do what you wish.”
“From what I saw is they were nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. If they had truly cared for you as if you were one of their own, they would have organised a rescue party for you,” Elijah spoke. “However, we need to tread with caution; Nouveaux-Orleans is still a colony in the midst of being populated and grow as a settlement. You can’t kill anyone as of right now, as it would decimate the population and it would become suspicious.”
Myriam stood and began to pace the length of the room with agitation. She could not help but rub at her gums that begun to ache. “I had to have been set up. I have never stayed for the moon because of the stories. I’m not that naive, and I was out of Klaus’ blood. And my blasted mouth hurts!”
“Did you drink or eat anything from someone who gave it to you before going into the morass?”
She started to shake her head. “I don’t think so, no. But the last few days are a blur. I remember afternoon tea…”
Elijah smirked then. “I know just the right person for you to have for your first meal, Myriam. She challenged me and asked if you’d come for tea and quilting tomorrow.”
“That’s fucking Valerie,” she growled. “She’s supposedly the healer of this town after her husband passed a month after we arrived here. She’s one of the heavy influencers and had it out for me since the beginning. She lives a few doors down. Can’t miss it, she has beds of flowers around her home.”
“That hideous house surrounded by vervain. Just lovely,” Rebekah complained.
“Be grateful it’s around her house now, it used to grow in the wild and I had my demons take care of it,” she replied. “Although I could ask them to set it alight now…”
“Which would be irresponsible seeing as it will be suspicious and we are the only new arrivals,” Elijah replied.
“So would the woman’s death,” Rebekah pointed out. “We need someone for her to transition, but less conspicuous. We can work up to the troll’s demise.”
“I might want to hog tie her and have her bleed out in a bathtub,” Myriam said as she kept rubbing her gums. “I’m hungry.”
Klaus smiled, pulling her over. “I know you are. And you will have her blood for your demons and your appetite as I am certain you will gain a certain taste for your victims. Come, I’ll take you out farther where we can find someone for you.”
“It’s nearly sunrise, Niklaus,” Elijah pointed out.
“Oh!” Myriam wrestled herself out of Klaus’ embrace and looked for her box of trinkets. Out of the box came a pouch and she looked through it to find the prettiest she’d made. “Not to worry! I come prepared!”
There was a small pout on Klaus’ face, but he said nothing as he watched her slip the ring on her finger. He glanced at his siblings and their confused looks, shaking his slightly to avoid any comments.
“Let me guess, Kol?” Rebekah said eventually.
“He always believed I’d make a great vampire and wanted me to be prepared,” she said proudly as she then realised that he wasn’t there. “Speaking of Kol, where is he?”
Elijah sighed and had hoped that she wouldn’t notice. “After we sent you away, Kol returned and threw a major tantrum that lasted for months. It eventually lead to Mikael tracking us down and he wasn’t willing to go. We had to put him back into his box.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Free him.”
“We will, in time, when we’ve settled and that we know that we are safe and that we are able to keep him under control.”
“He’s out of control because you should have told him!” Myriam blurted. “You should have included him in the decision, and he would have come quietly, even agreed to all of this! This doesn’t seem like a family when Elijah Mikaelson makes the final say. Did you agree to this Rebekah? Niklaus?”
They both didn’t know where to look. “Kol is less agreeable than you may think,” Rebekah replied quietly.
She was hurt by the response, blinking as she stepped away from her sister. “I never saw this person you speak so poorly of, and when he is let out and takes his revenge on you, I will enjoy watching every second of it. Take me away from here Niklaus, please.”
He scooped her up and ran outside with her to the outskirts of the colony before setting her down again. “I’m sorry, love.”
Myriam sighed as she closed her eyes. “You were in agreement with him, I know.”
“The way that Kol was… it was impossible to reason with him without you there. It was a risk Elijah had been willing to take.”
She looked up at him, filled with annoyance. “Everything is about Elijah? Kol is your brother too. It was a risk sending me here alone and look what happened. I’m in transition because you all took your time coming. You were supposed to be here months ago! I’ve waited and hoped for your arrival! Just to stop hearing the whispers about the invisible husband I claimed to have! You made a promise!”
“We ran into some unanticipated trouble along the way, but love, I am here now, and I’m not going to let you out of my sight again, unless if you wish to be out of my sight for reasons beyond my comprehension,” he said calmly. “I am here. And once you’ve transitioned and adjusted, we shall prove everyone wrong. You will be seen with me. Elijah already promised the colonists that if we find out who has wronged you in any way, that there will be consequences, and that is true. You should not have been outcast.”
“Are you going to undagger Kol?”
“Not now, sweetheart. Perhaps next year, once we’ve assimilated into the colony?”
“I will remind you of that.”
“I hope that you do.”
She gave him a smile and turned to look around. “Alright, so I eat a human, I become a full vampire, then we can go home and go to bed, no?”
“Of course, you can rest if you want to. After all, you have appearances to keep up now,” Klaus smiled at her.
“That’s not quite what I had in mind Niklaus,” she frowned at his avoidance. “It’s been nearly 3 years, and I’ve kept my promise to you.”
“As have I,” he admitted before looking away from her in shame. “Admittedly, it’s only half the promise. I didn’t abandon you. I came for you. The rest… I’m ashamed to admit that it’s still a work in progress.”
She walked ahead, away from him as she could begin to pick up the scent of her own blood lingering on his clothes. “Just how long do you plan to have me wait? After all, we are married. Should I not get something out of this arrangement? Because that is what it is at the core. An arranged marriage. Something I had truly avoided after my mother died and having nothing,” she argued and stopped to turn and face him. “I’m just like your Katerina Petrova if you think of it. The way she arrived after she was ousted by her family. Only I have no ulterior motives against you, and you don’t need my blood for a ritual.”
“You are nothing like Katerina!”
“Then why deny me at every turn?! We are here for me to transition! That was your condition I remember,” she pointed out. “As soon as we come across a human and I drink, that excuse is gone. What is your next one? Elijah? Kol?”
“No.”
“What then!”
“Your adjustment period, love. The time where you learn to deal with your heightened senses and emotions. And once you’re through that, we’ll see what happens then.”
“Klaus!”
“You could still leave me! Once you’re through all of that, you could change your mind like a switch, and you could still leave me!”
She threw her arms up in exasperation. “What do I have to do Klaus? To prove to you that I’m dedicated? I was here, trusting you to come to me. For three human years, and you can’t do the same.” Myriam turned and walked away again in search of a human as the hunger truly began to fill her with pain and make her tired. “Even now, I’m going through the transition to be with you for eternity. Like you asked. What more do you want?”
He remained silent as he watched her walk towards one of the vagabonds that were on the outskirts of town. While they hadn’t been here before, they had gone through the long and painful process of seeing colonies grow, and there were always vagrants out of town. He’d have preferred it if she had a clean human to have her first feed from, but Elijah was correct; the colony was still too small. There was a chance that Myriam would kill her first meal, and that would have been suspicious.
“Should I put you under a spell? What?”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” he replied, a small smile on his lips. Yes, he was aware that he wasn’t being fair and that he was denying himself – and Myriam – a lot of good things, but she was fragile right now. And would be until she’d come out of her adjustment phase. He had often wondered what it would be like to live like husband and wife.
As expected, Myriam did not let her victim live. In fact, she appeared to have no intention of trying. Letting it go, she walked past Klaus towards the village, keeping her eyes on his. “I’m going home now. I suppose I will expect you for supper, husband,” she murmured before disappearing.
He walked over to the body of the person that she had killed and ripped it to shreds, throwing his body parts as far away as he could, to release some of his frustration with himself, but also with his very demanding wife. He then made his way back home, hoping to find some alcohol in the home.
Upstairs Myriam could be heard moving things around, occasionally items thrown from the bedroom to another across the hall. Rebekah sighed as she noticed her brother return. “First marital crisis?”
“Stay out of it, Rebekah.”
“Let me guess, it’s about everything else that comes with marriage? Love. Affection. Something you haven’t been working on for the past 3 years because you were too busy freaking out about Mikael.”
Elijah came down the stairs seemingly defeated and at a loss for a resolution. “It appears your room is across the hall now. She’s in the process of removing everything she’s collected for you and – relocating it. What happened?”
“Nik won’t open his heart to her and give her everything she needs,” Rebekah mused. “Maybe we should undagger our brother so he can teach Nik how to do it.”
Klaus growled at his sister. “She just transitioned. She may not realise it, but she needs some time to acclimate!”
“She has been lonely for three years, Nik! All she wants is affection and for her husband to love her, but you’re incapable of that, aren’t you?”
“Rebekah,” Elijah warned her upon seeing his brother’s angry face.
“Transitioning or not, she has had these feelings for a very long time. As a human. And you do know that now that she’s a vampire, those feelings will only be amplified.” Rebekah pointed out, ignoring her brother. “Give it to her, Nik. And allow yourself to be happy!”
Elijah was unable to defend Klaus because she was right and looked back at him. The lack of sound from behind him had him grimace as he turned to find Myriam at the top of the stairs. “I was aware of that as well,” she shrugged. “No matter. His things are in the small room, and I am going to go find my pendants that the wolves made me lose.”
“Wouldn’t it just be lovely if they were found by the colonists?” Rebekah suggested a broad smile on her face.
“Exactly why I need to get them back.”
“Ugh, you’re no fun. Very well, ducky, I’ll come with you.”
