by Julie Plec
Shadows of bare branches broke up the faint starlight that fell on his face, and Rebekah couldn’t be sure she was reading his expression properly. Luc looked almost hungry, so desperate to know her secrets that for a moment she thought she could see his fangs. It was so unlike him, so opposite of everything she had come to appreciate about his relaxed charm, that Rebekah felt herself shudder in unwelcome surprise.
But when she looked again, turning her head to see him more clearly, she could find no trace of that eagerness. She wondered if the magic that still lingered here might be playing tricks on her. Mystic Falls was too layered with pain and desire for Rebekah to trust her instincts, and the odd buzzing felt like someone was sawing at her bones.
“It’s just a tree you need. How special could it be?” Luc said.
“More than you would ever believe,” Rebekah said, rising up in her stirrups to catch her first glimpse of the roofs of Mystic Falls. “We’re going to use this tree to kill one of my brothers.”
The White Oak came into sight, standing proudly in the center of an open field, just as it had been when Esther had first performed the immortality spell. Just as it had been before Rebekah and her siblings had burned it to the ground. She had known in her heart that the tree would survive somehow, but seeing it there, so exactly the same in every detail, was disorienting. It was as if she had been dragged backward in time, as if centuries of life were nothing but a long, painful dream.
Rebekah dismounted and walked toward the tree. “Don’t you have a hundred more questions now than you did before?” she asked, letting her words drift back over her shoulder. “Don’t you even want to know which of my brothers I intend to kill?”
Before Luc could answer, a shadow at the base of the tree shifted and stretched. Rebekah immediately felt all her muscles tense, and from his silence she knew that Luc had seen it, too.
“That’s an easy question,” a voice drawled, and a man stepped out from between the tree’s gnarled roots, coming into the starlight. “Naturally you plan to kill Niklaus.”
“And should I find out who you are before I kill you?” Rebekah put the full force of compulsion into her words. The man was dressed all in black, with leather boots that came up over the knees of his breeches. A silver pin glinted softly at the throat of his full cloak. He was tall and slender with black hair that curled to his shoulders and dark olive skin. Rebekah knew at once that she had never seen him before, but he seemed to know her.
“My name is Tomás,” he responded. His tone was courteous and pleasant, but Rebekah sensed that he was answering of his own free will, not in response to any power of hers. His mind was immune to her control, and in her experience that never meant anything but trouble. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“If I’d known that,” Rebekah murmured, scanning his face for some clue to his intentions, “I might have ridden faster.”
“You might not have,” Tomás countered, as amiably as if they were old friends. “But fast or slow, I knew you would come.”
“Explain yourself,” she said. She’d thought she might be recognized in Mystic Falls, but she could hear the sound of the bayou in Tomás’s voice. He didn’t belong here, and there was no way he could have known she was coming. She hadn’t even know it herself until Marguerite had been killed.
“I’m not here to answer your questions,” he chided, and she felt her fangs click out. His voice felt like cold fingers creeping along her spine, and his eyes might have been chips of green ice. “I’m here, Rebekah Mikaelson, because I will be your death.”
He meant it—there wasn’t even the faintest shadow of doubt in her mind. He had the ease and confidence of a man who expected to succeed. For a human to seek out two vampires in the middle of the night meant he was sure of his own invincibility.
“Kill him,” Rebekah ordered through gritted teeth, and Luc leapt forward to obey.
He was fast, but Tomás was faster. His right hand flicked outward, casting a fine spray of shimmering powder into Luc’s snarling face. The vampire howled in pain and crashed to his knees. Rebekah ran to him. Luc writhed and scratched at his eyes, and she held his wrists tightly, trying to contain him, but his brute strength and desperation made it almost impossible.
“What did you do to him?” Rebekah demanded.
“This is only the beginning,” Tomás told her, his tone still light. “And tonight I’m only the messenger. You’re going to lose everything that you love, Rebekah, and then you will lose your life.”
He strolled into the night, keeping his back to Rebekah with such casual arrogance that she felt frozen in place. She held Luc’s body pinned against her own, as if by keeping him close she could protect him from whatever Tomás’s powder had done to him.
As she rocked Luc against her chest, her mind raced. Who was Tomás? And where could a mere human find the power to take down a vampire? It was a mystery that suddenly required all her attention.
She wasn’t about to lose anyone else; not that night. First Klaus had lost his last shred of decency, costing Rebekah her dearest friend and any hope she’d once had for her brother in one vicious stroke. And now there was another madman on the loose, who endangered even more of the people in Rebekah’s life. Klaus’s meeting with a White Oak stake would have to wait.
No one threatened Rebekah Mikaelson and got away with it.
CHAPTER SIX
ELIJAH AWOKE WITH a sudden, disorienting jolt. None of his surroundings were familiar, and he blinked for a moment at the strange furniture and wrong light. From outside came screams, howls, and the grinding crunch of metal against stone—the sounds of battle, which hardly narrowed things down for a man like Elijah. Then he felt the warmth of a woman by his side and he remembered where he was. But why was there violence in the Werewolves’ quarter when they were so far from the full moon?
Alejandra stirred a bit, then rolled, exposing her lovely naked body to the starlight that streamed in through the windows. She slept like she didn’t have a care in the world, and Elijah planted a kiss between her breasts, wishing he could manage such a peaceful rest.
Another scream came from outside the house, and the light that danced across Alejandra’s skin had the yellow-red glow of fire. Elijah bolted upright, warning Alejandra to stay where she was with one outstretched hand. “Shh,” he whispered.
Elijah had assumed that Klaus would avoid this part of town, but from the sound of it, Elijah had underestimated his brother’s common sense. Klaus’s vampires were charging through the streets to the south, and Elijah found himself on the edge of a war zone.
“Is that what I think it is?” Alejandra asked, her voice low and soft. “I had heard rumors—” She hesitated, biting her lower lip. “You seemed so sure the peace would hold that I ignored them.”
“It seems I was mistaken,” Elijah muttered, pulling on his clothes without lighting any lamps. Truce or no truce, he should have known that Klaus would find a way to ruin a perfectly enjoyable night. “You should be safe here until dawn if you don’t do anything to draw their attention.”
“Then you do believe it’s Klaus?” Alejandra asked, relaxing back into the tangled sheets with a meaningful sigh. Elijah could see a crease of disapproval between her eyebrows, and he deliberately looked away. “You would stay if it were anyone but Klaus. My darling, you can’t spend your entire life chasing after him.”
Elijah had certainly heard that argument before over the centuries—frequently from his own mouth. But it was his duty to stop Klaus when he began to stray down some new, dangerous path. They were family, and whatever his brother did was Elijah’s concern, whether he wanted that burden or not.
The flames in the house across the way began to subside, and Elijah could swear he heard his brother’s voice outside—and possibly... Lisette’s? Had she finally abandoned him and teamed up with his brother? He didn’t
dare look out the window to find out.
At least his brother wasn’t committed to burning New Orleans to the ground. He was just undoing a full generation of diplomacy with one ill-conceived midnight raid.
“I don’t have the luxury of ignoring him,” Elijah said, jamming one foot into its boot, then the other. He caught a glimpse of his face in the gilt-framed mirror on the far wall and looked away. “My family is a complicated matter, Alejandra. You know I would rather be here with you than out there cleaning up after Niklaus, but—”
“Don’t lie for my benefit, Elijah. I knew what I was getting into with you,” she said, her voice low but hard. She sat up, holding the sheets against her bare chest. “Your siblings dictate our entire relationship. Sneaking around so that they don’t find out, you always running off to deal with one of them...It’s as if you think them incapable of navigating the world without you. They’re powerful, nearly invincible creatures with centuries of experience to guide them. You have a choice in how you devote your energy, and I see the way you choose.”
Elijah felt his jaw clench. Even after all the precautions he had taken to keep this part of his life separate from the rest, Klaus still managed to intrude. “You’ve never had siblings, my love,” he began again, trying to sound more patient than he felt. None of this mess was Alejandra’s fault, after all. “We made a vow to remain together, to take care of each other throughout eternity. I never expected that to be easy, but it has also been our greatest strength. We need each other, even if sometimes we may wish we didn’t.”
“So Klaus needs you now?” Alejandra tossed the sheet aside in disgust and reached for her shift where it lay crumpled beside the bed. Her skin gleamed like fresh cream, and Elijah watched the curve of her back as she bent over. “I’m sure he would be pleased if you held his coat for him while he razed the Werewolves’ quarter to the ground.”
“He needs me to stop him,” Elijah growled. Klaus certainly wasn’t going to stop on his own—self-control was simply not a part of his character. “Niklaus always had it harder than the rest of us, even before we learned that our father wasn’t his. All the ugliness of that discovery has haunted him his entire life. He needs more watching, and sometimes more patience, than you would expect. There’s history here, Alejandra, that you can’t possibly understand.”
“I understand better than you think I do,” she countered, rising to her bare feet. The floorboards creaked a little beneath her weight, although the sound was muffled by a rich Oriental carpet. Alejandra’s hair curled around her like a dark halo, catching every glimmer from the light outside. “My work is about the future, and you can’t build a future by living in the past—even your siblings have realized that. Niklaus is no longer some wounded boy rebelling against his stepfather’s resentment. Rebekah isn’t that hopeful dreamer of a girl you always seem to describe. You say it’s about history, but history didn’t end the night you died. You have all continued to grow and change every night for centuries...or at least, they have.”
“Rebekah was the first of us to say we should stay together,” Elijah argued, his stubbornness getting the better of him. He didn’t want to fight with Alejandra. “She would agree with me that family comes first.”
“And imagine how much happier she would be if she didn’t,” Alejandra urged, resting a hand on his forearm. The last time she had touched him like that was only an hour ago—they’d been making love, and she’d pinned him down—but it felt almost like a lifetime. “Your sister has been trying to break free of that promise for centuries, and your brother has never even bothered to honor it. I know how much of yourself you have devoted to your family, darling, but when have they ever shown you the same kind of respect? Why does the burden always fall on you?”
“Because I can shoulder it.” Elijah frowned at the naïveté of the question. There was a shout and then the ring of broken glass. “When something is necessary and I am capable, should I sit back and complain that no one else is doing it? Would that be the attitude of a man you could respect?”
“‘When something is necessary,’” Alejandra repeated, her voice a low thrum in the quiet of the room. “Of course I would always wish you to do what is necessary.”
He stepped away from her, needing some physical distance between them in order to think properly. The sight and smell of her was intoxicating. When she stood so close, in only that thin linen shift, it was almost impossible to collect his wits enough to argue with her. If she were a witch, Elijah would have sworn she had cast some kind of spell on him, but Alejandra Vargas was human through and through.
“I’ve been alive a lot longer than you,” Elijah said after a pause, knowing that it was a position of last resort. “I think I have a better perspective on what needs to be done.”
“Or perhaps you could benefit from a fresh pair of eyes,” Alejandra suggested, her own glittering like emeralds in the faint light. “The world has changed, my love. New Orleans has changed, and humans have changed, and so have your siblings. The only thing that hasn’t changed in all that long life of yours is you.”
Elijah bristled at the accusation, but there was a splinter of truth in her stake.
“I am the foundation of my family,” he said, more to himself than to Alejandra. “I am what they need me to be.” Without Elijah, Klaus and Rebekah would have been adrift, lost inside their own immortality. Kol and Finn would be buried somewhere and forgotten. Without Elijah, everything would have fallen apart over and over again until there was nothing left.
“What about what you need?” Alejandra purred, closing the distance between them. The smell of smoke lingered in her hair, left over from her evening of work at the Southern Spot. It made him feel a little dizzy, but he inhaled even more deeply all the same. “What can I give you?” She wrapped her arms around his waist, brushing her chest against his.
She looked for a moment as though she wanted to say more, her teeth closing uncertainly on her bottom lip.
“This isn’t about me,” Elijah assured her, bringing his hands down to her hips and drawing her closer. “Niklaus’s conflict with the werewolves goes back far longer than the Collados. He can’t help but hate them, but I can get him to stand down.”
“But if everything I’ve heard is now coming true...” She trailed off and laid her head against his shoulder, looking out the window. “Well. As you say, you’ve known your brother longer than anyone.”
Alejandra stepped away from him, retrieving her gown from the back of a chair. She seemed preoccupied, and her sudden withdrawal struck Elijah like a physical blow. He certainly hadn’t taken any pleasure in arguing with her, but it was almost painful to be dismissed so abruptly.
“Tell me what you’ve heard,” he urged, reaching out to take hold of her arm, to stop her from leaving. “I want to know.”
Alejandra’s eyes flickered to the window again, and then back to Elijah’s. “I don’t really understand it myself,” she admitted, “especially in light of tonight’s raid. But there were some unusual guests at the Southern Spot this evening, and some bits of conversation, rumors have been floating around all week....I don’t have any proof, my darling, and I don’t want to be the messenger for ugly gossip.”
“There can be truth in gossip,” Elijah countered, “or it can point the way to the truth. I would rather you tell me everything, and I can decide what to believe.”
Alejandra let her gown fall back to the floorboards in a pile of soft, mysterious folds, and showed him her open palms as if in surrender. “What I’ve heard, Elijah, is that your brother is working with the wolves rather than against them. That he has a pact with Sampson Collado, and that the escalating tension between them has been nothing but a ruse.”
“A ruse to what end?” Elijah asked, shocked to hear such a dangerous strategy. “What could those two stand to gain from pretending to be enemies? Alejandra, such an alliance would never
happen.”
“Common foes make for unlikely friends,” she whispered, biting at her soft lower lip again.
“There’s no one they hate more than each other, is there?” He let the question hang in the air.
But perhaps there was one thing that could unite Klaus and werewolves, one man who could align his brother with the detested Collados.
“There is you,” Alejandra said, and in his heart Elijah knew she was right.
CHAPTER SEVEN
KLAUS TIPPED ANOTHER glass of whiskey into his mouth, setting off roars of approval from his new friends. The raid had gone even better than he had hoped, especially considering how green his soldiers had been at the outset. There had been a few minor hitches here and there, but overall his troops had swept smoothly through the quarter, planting disorder and destruction wherever they went.
The werewolves would regret harassing Klaus’s business interests, but payback wasn’t over. Now that his army had proved to be a match for the Collado pack, they could move forward with Klaus’s real agenda: clearing the werewolves out of New Orleans for good.
They had earned a celebration, and no one knew how to unwind after a fight better than a Mikaelson. Klaus had taken over the Southern Spot and his vampires had settled in with every intention of celebrating through the night.
“Did you see that one man’s face when we burst in?” José laughed, his blue eyes hazy with liquor. “You’d think he’d never seen a vampire before.”
“He didn’t expect to see any in his bedroom, I’d wager,” a former dockworker agreed, raising his glass in yet another toast.
“If not, he should have,” Klaus muttered, not bothering to raise his voice. It was ridiculous for the werewolves to think they could get away with their petty little raids and that Klaus wouldn’t retaliate.
“Isn’t it strange that they weren’t prepared at all?” Lisette asked, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. He gave her a glare—she was already on his bad side. Did she need to stir up more trouble? Ignoring his look, she continued, “Klaus, I’m serious. Don’t you think this was all a little bit...easy?”