Текст книги "Первородные: Восхождение"

Автор книги: Julie Plec

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

KLAUS WAS RESTLESS. It had taken him only a night to discover that he was not made for life in the countryside. It was boring, and the sounds from the bayou were downright disturbing. The house, with its formidable new enchantment, was obviously the best place to be when every werewolf within fifty miles was probably out for their blood. But the confinement chafed, and so he paced and complained and made his brother miserable until dawn came and Elijah sent him outside to take care of the rotting old stump near the back of the property.

It would almost certainly have to be removed, but their explorations revealed that its roots framed one of the several underground caverns that dotted the property. They had strategic value, the brothers had agreed immediately, and it would be unfortunate to lose one of them if they could help it. Klaus examined the lacework of the roots, trying to see where they gave the most support. The dead and rotting wood would not hold up forever, but if they worked carefully they could probably replace it without caving in the chamber entirely.

A strange keening came from the direction of the house, and Klaus straightened. It sounded mechanical, but he couldn’t think of anything in the house that might have made such a noise.

“I thought I might find you here,” a familiar voice said, and Klaus froze. Of course...the protection spell. Someone had stepped onto their land, and the spell had tried to warn him. He had not understood quickly enough, and the price of his mistake stood before him, watching him with haunted black eyes. “I came to see if you were all right.”

Vivianne looked more fragile than he remembered her, as if something vital were slowly being drained from her body. She wore a deep, heavy cloak of ivory wool that should have been sweltering in the heat of the day, but she pulled it close around her as if she still could not get warm enough.

Klaus found himself unsympathetic.

“You’ve seen me now,” he pointed out sharply. He slammed the trapdoor closed and turned his back on her, marching toward the house.

She followed him through the ankle-high grass, but he refused to slow down. “I saw Armand, too,” she called after him. “He said you were the one who hurt him. Your brother was in the woods the other night, and he attacked us, too. Is this all happening because of us? Klaus, is it because of...me?”

He reached the shelter of the porch, and turned so that she could see the bitterness on his face when he laughed. “You!” he exclaimed. “What could you have to do with these squabbles, Viv? What might you have done that could possibly cause all this fighting?”

She bit her full red lip, looking even paler in the sunlight than she had in the shade of the trees. “Armand wouldn’t tell me anything,” she admitted, “except that it was you he fought. But the way he looked at me, I think he knows. What we—what I did.”

Klaus shrugged nonchalantly. “If he does, he didn’t learn it from me. I don’t go about bragging about being abandoned at sunrise by the woman I had loved all night.”

Vivianne looked as if she had been slapped. “I thought it would be the best way to say good-bye,” she whispered. “I thought I had to change, and I wanted to have one last night as myself. Can’t you see what that meant to me?”

“You ‘thought,’” Klaus repeated slowly. “You ‘thought’ you had to activate the werewolf within you.” Had she changed her mind already? What a cruel twist of fate that the full moon had brought if she was so inconstant in her conviction. Another few days and she might have forgotten the whole idea. Just as she had forgotten him.

Vivianne’s black eyes glowed hopefully. “You were right all along,” she breathed eagerly, hurrying to close the gap between them. “I should never have done it. You were the only person who has ever cared about what was best for me, and I was foolish not to trust you.”

Klaus watched, amused, for the moment when she would run into Ysabelle’s barrier. Vivianne was about to lift her right foot onto the porch when she rocked back, almost losing her balance. She gaped at him in confusion. “Your aunt was here,” he told her spitefully. “She helped us guard ourselves against unwanted visitors.”

Vivianne pushed curiously at the invisible barrier, moving sideways a few steps to see how far it extended. “You need to invite me in,” she guessed, looking stunned.

Klaus deliberately misunderstood her meaning. “I don’t, in fact,” he reminded her harshly. “You’re welcome to sit out there until your new pack comes along and drags you home. I assume that if you knew where to find us, they do, too.”

Guilt was written all over her face. Elijah had gotten their house in order in the nick of time, because the Navarros had figured out where they were. Then the guilt changed to anger, and Vivianne tossed back the hood of her cloak. “I shouldn’t have bothered to worry,” she snapped. “You’re obviously exactly as you always were.”

Klaus smirked. “If you thought an encounter with one werewolf could somehow change that, love, you underestimated me.”

She stared at him, and as furious as she was there was something calculating in her look. Klaus could see her gathering her emotions back under control, and in spite of his resentment he respected her for it. She might be a fool, but she was an impressive one.

“I must have,” she agreed coldly. “When you told me you loved me, I believed it. When you said you wanted nothing more than to be with me, I believed it. When you insisted that there was no part of me”—she held her hand up to forestall his interruption—“no part of me you did not want to know, I believed it. Obviously, I underestimated your capacity for empty words.”

If he were not so furious, he would have laughed. “You chose,” he nearly shouted. “You crept out of my bed and chose to become a vicious thing that is my mortal enemy. You can’t twist that to make it seem that I never wanted you enough, when—”

“Then you do!” she exclaimed, moving as close to him as the magical barrier would allow. “You’re angry; of course you’re angry. But you meant all those things you said, and you still want me, even now.”

Klaus Mikaelson was rarely at a loss, but Vivianne’s outburst left him wordless. It was bold—he could not imagine being so brave in her position. But most of all, it was true. He had tried to drink, fuck, and fight her away, but the sight of her standing before him had brought everything back.

He still loved her, and he wanted, desperately, for her to say whatever would set him free to say so again. “Why have you really come here?” he asked, knowing that he could not answer her accusation until he had answers of his own. “I don’t believe for a second that you were worried about my health. We know each other too well for that sort of charade.”

She nodded and bit her lip again. He remembered the taste of it perfectly, and he wished more than anything that it were between his teeth.

“I made a terrible mistake the other night,” she said, her voice low with emotion. “I knew it as soon as it was done. I didn’t think I could live with half of myself locked away, but now I would give anything to seal that doorway closed. I can’t, but I will do whatever it takes to make things right with you, and that’s why I have come.” Her luscious mouth twisted up into a wry smile. “I knew perfectly well that one werewolf would hardly leave a scratch on you.”

He wanted to reply so scathingly that he would be able to see the marks his words left. He wanted to drain her where she stood, make her a vampire, and then stake her. In the red haze of his rage, he knew that he would not be so furious if she were not right.

She had done something beyond stupid, but no matter how angry he was, he did still want her. Now that she stood before him, full of remorse, Klaus found his anger slipping away. He realized his battered heart would never leave him in peace if he didn’t at least try to forgive her.

“Enough,” he told her, his voice rough with the things he would not say. “I believe that you regret what you’ve done, but that does not make it any less final. I cannot live with the uncertainty of your loyalties, Viv. This wavering between the Navarros’ side and mine has to end.”

She lifted her eyes to meet his, disbelief showing in every line of her delicate face. “I’ll end my engagement. I would not have come here if I wanted to marry another man.” Her smile was like the last flare of the sun setting, like the sight of the first stars beginning to show in the sky. “I know every part of myself now, Klaus. Mortal enemies or no, there is no part of me that does not love you.”

“Come inside,” Klaus whispered, and she burst forward into his waiting arms. He kissed her and folded her tightly against him, and then he tipped her head back to kiss her again, more deeply this time. There in the shadow of his home, with the warm breeze grazing their skin, he allowed himself to believe that it might be just that easy.

“I will break off this madness today,” she mumbled into his chest, “all of it. I can be back here by nightfall.”

He stroked her raven hair, the wheels of his mind turning. This revelation would change the political landscape of the city—if he could choose when to make this news public, it could be a powerful advantage. And the cynical, wounded part of Klaus longed to know, would she really keep her word once she had more time to think things through?

“Not today,” he disagreed, pushing them gently apart and kissing her palm reassuringly. “Viv, if you want to throw in your lot with mine, I want proof that your mind is made up.”

She frowned quizzically. “But I just said I would—”

“Not that.” He shook his head. “I need you to do as I ask, not to simply run off and do what feels best to you.” Again, he did not add, but he knew that they were both thinking it.

She looked uncertain, but not entirely unwilling. “You want me to hide this,” she translated. “You want me to lie, so that you can control how the truth comes out.”

“We have a foothold now,” he explained, as much to himself as to her. “We can use this information to carve it deeper. And if you mean what you say today, you will wait until I tell you it is time.” A week ago, he hadn’t cared about Elijah’s plans—he’d been blinded by his overpowering feelings for Vivianne. But now Elijah’s line of attack was taking a shape and Klaus found himself being caught up in making it a reality.

But most importantly of all, Klaus’s love had already blinded him once. He would not be so reckless a second time. Not even for her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE COUNCIL MET every month on the night of the new moon. Klaus had discovered the location of the meeting somehow, and Elijah was pleasantly surprised to see his brother’s renewed dedication to their family’s cause. Working with Klaus was infinitely easier than working against him. Whatever had convinced him to tread more carefully, Elijah approved.

The handful of witches and werewolves in the room—the most senior, the most respected—did not look pleased to see him. They sat in a wide semicircle in the nave of a church on the eastern outskirts of the city, which had been abandoned when the congregation had grown to need a larger space. Every candle holder in the room had been put to use, and Elijah could detect the lingering smell of incense.

At a glance, he could tell that none of the councilors had expected to see him there, and Solomon Navarro and his two sons looked like they were seriously considering trying to throw him out.

“You should have died,” the broad-shouldered younger one snarled. Elijah remembered him pushing other werewolves aside to join the little skirmish that had broken out during the engagement party.

“I would have, I’m sure,” Elijah replied coldly, “if any of you were strong enough to kill me.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Ysabelle demanded, rising to her feet. Her auburn hair shone red in the candlelight, and her face was tense and afraid. Elijah suspected that her conflicting loyalties must not seem like the wisest idea now that she found herself in a room with the vampire she had helped, the werewolves who wanted him dead, and the witches who would require an explanation for all of it.

A black-haired woman, as tall as Ysabelle and similarly featured, laid a restraining hand on Ysabelle’s wrist. “It is not the first time that this vampire has come before us,” she reminded the assembly in a carrying voice. She didn’t stand, but she didn’t need to. It was obvious from the stillness that came over the room that she had a great deal of authority. “It is possible that he may have further business here.”

“What I would like,” Elijah told her, ignoring the glares from other parts of the semicircle, “is a seat at this council. I believe that it’s time my siblings and I had a voice in this city’s affairs.”

The reaction from the werewolves was so violent that for a moment Elijah thought that they had somehow changed. “He attacked us!” Armand’s reedy voice shouted above the crowd, and Elijah saw some faint cuts and bruises still healing on the young werewolf’s face.

Klaus must have beaten him quite thoroughly, Elijah decided with a satisfied smirk. He would have to make sure to tell him; it might be a small consolation to his brother. Elijah had been delighted when Klaus had told him he was giving up his pursuit of Vivianne, but he also respected how painful that decision was to make.

“A simple misunderstanding,” Elijah lied. “I find it difficult to communicate nuance to werewolves under the influence of a full moon.” He glanced at the witches, and risked a sly wink at the dark-haired one. He thought he saw her lips twitch in response. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“That misunderstanding should have cost you your life,” Louis Navarro growled. “I’m sure we could arrange to correct that oversight right now, if you would like.”

“Sit down,” the witch told him sharply, without even bothering to look his way. To Elijah’s surprise, the Navarros sat. “State your case,” she ordered, “but do it quickly. We have other matters to attend to tonight.”

Finally, he could place the powerful witch: She was Sofia Lescheres, née Dalliencourt. Her husband had been Quentin Lescheres, a werewolf who had been too far on the periphery of the Navarros’ clan to build peace on the strength of his marriage. He had died young in any case, killed in a hunting accident before Vivianne had reached a year old.

His widow was one of the main architects of the alliance with the werewolves, of course, since it involved her own daughter. But Sofia did not seem overly fond of them, and Elijah made a mental note to shake Klaus until any scraps of information about Vivianne fell out. Their own doomed romance was over, but if the girl’s mother was a key player, then Klaus might know something useful without even realizing it.

“Madame Lescheres,” he acknowledged politely, and then nodded in turn to the rest of the assembly. “It is a simple enough matter. I represent a faction of supernatural beings who reside in this city. We have been here nine years, and now we are landowners. We intend to stay, and we deserve a place among you.”

This time, there was no quelling the reaction. Shouts and accusations echoed off the vaulted ceiling, and Ysabelle Dalliencourt looked so pale that Elijah thought she might be sick. She was certainly regretting her help now, but Elijah wasn’t going to give up over some yelling.

“Who sold you land?” Sol Navarro demanded. Although it was not loud, his voice cut through the general uproar like a knife. His face was so beet-red that its scar stood out. His hands were clenched into meaty fists, and Elijah saw the wisdom of holding these meetings as far from the full moon as possible.

“I inherited it”—Elijah smirked—“from a werewolf.” He held up the deed to Hugo’s house proudly.

Sol’s eyes flashed yellow. “He was no true werewolf,” he muttered, but to Elijah’s surprise—and Ysabelle’s obvious relief—he did not press the matter.

“Just because some outcast left you his land, that doesn’t mean you belong here,” Armand chimed in weakly, but he seemed to run out of things to say beyond that.

Elijah waited, emphasizing the lack of argument with his own silence. When it was painfully clear that Armand would not go on, he shrugged. “We are here nonetheless.” He smiled coldly at the fuming werewolves. “Your entire pack has already taken a good try at killing us, and failed. What is left to do but find a way to coexist?”

“We could try again,” Louis suggested, cracking his knuckles.

Sofia Lescheres laughed, ignoring the dirty looks the Navarros and a number of her fellow witches cast her way. “As I said, wolf, we have other business to attend to tonight. We will never get to it if we are forced to waste time watching this vampire slaughter you and your family. There is no violence at these meetings by design, and so if you want to keep your place here, you will leave off these empty threats and focus on the matter at hand.”

“The matter at hand is preposterous, though,” an elderly witch argued, his palsied hands resting on a heavy, jeweled cane. “We made an arrangement with these creatures nearly a decade ago, and now this one has the audacity to barge in here and tell us it has changed.” He frowned at Elijah. “Your gratitude leaves something to be desired, vampire.”

“I will express my gratitude through strengthening this city, along with the rest of you,” Elijah told him politely. “Working together for peace and prosperity.”

“You know nothing of peace,” Armand hissed, and Elijah decided that he was starting to see why the lanky young werewolf so irritated Klaus. “You still haven’t answered for attacking us under the full moon.”

Sofia Lescheres stared at him intently, and then at his father. “What was your entire pack doing together in the woods that night, Sol?” Her tone was conversational, but her black eyes were narrowed suspiciously. “Just what was it that this vampire stumbled upon?”

It was a fair question, and from the look on the werewolves’ faces, Elijah wondered why he hadn’t thought to ask it himself. The dead man and wooden altar swam in his vision for a moment, along with a small white wolf huddled below it. Who was she that the entire pack had turned out to witness her transition? The answer that came to him was absurd, impossible...but if it was true, then the Navarros would not risk giving him a reason to share what he had seen.

“It was a misunderstanding,” Sol conceded gruffly, not quite meeting Elijah’s eyes. “The sound of the fighting carried, and more wolves arrived. Certainly, the thing got out of hand, but everyone involved has recovered. We should not speak of it again.” He glared pointedly at his two sons. Sofia steepled her fingers together, but did not pursue the question.

“Perhaps,” Ysabelle croaked, then cleared her throat and began again. “Perhaps it would help to avoid future misunderstandings such as that one—whatever it was—if we granted the Mikaelsons’ request.” She looked so nervous that it took him a moment to register that her words were supposed to help him.

Of course, things were already swinging a bit more in his favor, but he appreciated the gesture. It certainly didn’t endear her to the rest of the councilors, who murmured in various degrees of outrage.

“There is some truth to what my sister says,” Sofia mused, ignoring the angry looks that were directed toward her. “If the vampires are willing to respect the peace in this city, perhaps it is time to make them a part of it.”

“We will not only respect it, we will celebrate that peace,” Elijah added quickly, ignoring the scoffing sound that came from Armand’s direction. “We have longed for a home of our own, and an end to the violence can only benefit us. In fact”—he improvised—“we would like to throw a ball to demonstrate our enthusiastic support of the upcoming wedding. Let that be our part in the truce, to show that we will honor it as sincerely as the rest of you.”

Even Sol seemed somewhat mollified by that offer, although Armand continued to look bleak and unconvinced. “A seat among us in exchange for a party?” Louis muttered, and a few heads around the semicircle nodded in agreement.

“In exchange for peace,” Sofia emphasized. “We know now what the Mikaelsons want from us. What we want from them is their promise that there will be no more violence...and no more ‘misunderstandings.’” She raised an eyebrow at Sol, who inclined his head in agreement. “It is easier to place conditions on those who are under your roof than on outsiders. If we want to ask them to join in our treaty, then we must be prepared to invite them inside.”

“Your words are both wise and fair, Madame,” Elijah replied, gliding forward to kiss the hand she offered after a tense heartbeat. “The party is merely a sweetener to a deal that will benefit all of us in the years to come. I can think of no better way for our kinds to begin anew than to come together and celebrate such a happy occasion.”

The council rose as one, and the triumph of his success was almost dizzying. He had done it, and the Originals would never be drifters or outcasts again.