Title: draw yourself up from the light of the moon.
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries.
Characters: Katherine/Klaus, Katherine/Elijah, Klaus/Katherine/Elijah. (Background Klaus/Tatia, Elijah/Tatia.)
Prompt: Prize.
Rating: Explicit.
Length: 8661.
Content warnings: Explicit sexual content, mentions of death, murder and blood.
Author’s notes: I’m obsessed with Klaus and Katherine and wanted to explore what 1492 could’ve been like if he was in love with her. Set in 1492, pre-series. Title is from Robert Browning’s "De Gustibus."
Summary: Klaus promises himself he would never be a fool again. And then Katerina came along.
In another life, he could’ve had her.
Tatia had once told him that with a forlorn smile on her lips. Her heart had been snared by another, quietly hunted and given over freely. He was too slow, too quiet and timid in his courting. Elijah had ruined her because he wasn’t fast enough.
He stopped chasing her thereafter. It’s a mistake he won’t make again.
*
There were two times in his life where he thought he had been in love and once when he didn’t know he was.
The first had been a village girl, back when he had been ten and seven. She had thick, long brown hair and the brightest of blue eyes he had ever seen. She was two years older and taller, and had a talent with her hands that he had never quite imagined anyone to be capable of.
She drew the world around her as if she had created it herself. Her art had held a warmth inside of it as if it was the hearth of life. He had been envious and enthralled by her all at once.
She had been the first to break his heart. Handing it to her on a platter with his platitudes and compliments, she had spurred him by dancing and chasing another and delicately handing it right back.
He remembers how he hadn’t killed her when he had turned. It was a small mercy and a slip of gratitude for all those countless hours she had spent with him under the stars, hiding him away and giving him something to believe in.
That was his first act of kindness as the monster his mother had unleashed within him.
*
At first, he mistakens her for Tatia. It isn’t on purpose, not in the way Elijah likes to misbelieve. He innocently mistakens her for her predecessor. She’s tall and lithe, just like Tatia, but that’s where their familiarities end.
Katerina is the first person he has ever seen glide along the cobblestone. He watches her bare feet as they never touch the ground. She flies into the gardens and stays out there for hours, and all he can do is watch her from the windowsill.
"You’re still here," Elijah says. He stands in the doorframe of Klaus’ bed chambers, hands clasped in front of him. Klaus notes how he has a knowing smirk on his lips in the soft reflection. He wishes to reach out and swipe it from Elijah’s face. "Are you not visiting the village tonight?"
Clearing his throat, he pinches his lips and shakes his head. "Not tonight," he says, voice rough. He watches as Katerina takes to one of the small children of the noblemen staying overnight. She holds the little girl’s hands and gladly skips after her like she had always been born to hold a small hand in her own.
Klaus turns to look at his brother, hands clasped behind his back. His fingers curl into his palms angrily as he wears an expression of calmness. "I have unfinished business here."
Elijah chuckles, shaking his head. He unclasps his hands and sighs as he invites himself into Klaus’ bed chambers and delicately picks up the chessboard by his bedside table and lays it out on its surface.
*
The second time he had been in love had been with a woman who came up to his shoulder. Her hair was long and curly, and her eyes the warmest of browns. She had lived a thousand lives, many more than he ever thought possible.
She had scars and bruises and blemishes on her skin that he had drawn in secret with charcoal and paper and stone. She had been his to admire but never his to hold, but Niklaus had taken great pleasure in those moments where he got to hold her hand.
Tatia had been a force to be reckoned with, a storm inside of a petite woman. Her hands were rough and calloused and she held an axe better than any weathered man. He had been enthralled with her, completely possessed by her, and he had been broken when she had chosen his brother.
Elijah had taught him many things in life, and with Tatia, in that moment, Niklaus learned to never love. It would only lead to heartbreak.
*
He has never liked easy.
Wooing Katerina is proving to be more difficult than he had anticipated. With all her smiles and her curtsies, she runs from him. He walks as he follows, never quite eager to show his hand, but he learns very early that perhaps he should.
He watches on as Elijah chases her, almost on her heels before he gives and feigns a stumble. He always lets her win. She finds her safety net within a tree and laughs as she clutches to it like a buoy.
"I’ve survived yet again, my lord," she says, tugging at the skirts of her dress to curtsey once more. Her smile wars with the bright sun looming over them. He can smell the sweat at her brow and her breasts.
"It seems you have," Elijah says. His smile is warm and boyish, and even Klaus can’t help but fall for it.
Katerina only giggles, her gaze transfixed on Elijah. Klaus’ strides grow longer and footfalls heavier as he emerges, hands clasped behind his back calmly. His smile feels tight and sharp, but clearly not sharp enough if Katerina’s blush is anything to go by.
"It appears you’ve lost, brother."
Elijah looks at him from over his shoulder and licks his lips. His swallow is heavy and audible for even the human girl. "It appears I have," he says, words slightly tense. His smile drops as he looks at him. "For now, at least."
Klaus’ mouth only tightens as he smiles brightly at them both. His brother looks younger, happier than he has in centuries. He feels the desire to rip it from under him.
Katerina’s face brightens when he turns to look at her. He smiles and gives her a curtsey, a silent commendation for her efforts at outrunning the great Elijah. He wonders, briefly, if she’ll stop running. They all fall for him, moths to a flame; Klaus finds he doesn’t wish for Katerina to burn in Elijah’s hands.
"Come, Katerina," Klaus says, bowing his head slightly. It’s with a sweep of his arm that he summons her and she’s tentative and awed in her approach of him. Her heart skips several beats as he reaches out to ensnare her, touch light on her back but possessive to Elijah’s eye. "I have something much more fun for you."
"What ever could be more fun?" She picks up her skirts and prepares herself to follow, peering up at him excitedly. Katerina is a quick study, a terrain that’s unfamiliar yet all familiar at once. Her youthful face brightens in a way Tatia’s never did.
He guides her away, glancing over his shoulder to see Elijah staring wistfully at her back. It’s a game they haven’t played in so long. Klaus smirks once at his brother—just once—before he becomes enraptured by her.
She speaks Bulgarian to him all the way to the castle, and he doesn’t speak a lick of English until supper.
*
He’s quick to learn where Katerina likes to hide away. She has an almost untouchable fondness for horses.
He watches her from the distance, arms folded against his chest. It’s a station he’s taken to over the last few weeks, studying her as she brushes the mane of his horse at the mouth of his stable. His chestnut takes to her kindly, staying quiet when she approaches and letting her feed him from the palm of her hand. Klaus has always trusted his horse to have a sense for good people.
When he comes to the stable again, his lips turn into a frown. Katerina’s laughter is electrifying, but the cause of it isn’t so.
Appearing from the belly of his stable, his brother looks oddly misplaced without his books and comfortable reading chair. Elijah laughs warmly as he speaks to her loudly, informing her that she doesn’t know how to brush a horse at all. Katerina is indignant and laughs at him, and goes to great lengths to show him she knows exactly how.
He watches with anger curdling in his stomach as Elijah invites himself to stand behind her. He’s too close to be appropriate and cages her between his body and the horse. Katerina inhales audibly and giggles throatily, and she leans back into him.
Elijah’s hands come up around her as he brushes his horse’s mane. Her hand reaches up as she wordlessly invites herself to take hold of his hand, and they brush the horse together.
*
He watches her from the doorframe of his chambers as she glides along the floor like a bird. His chambers are neatly decorated and sparse, a hollow ribcage that only has room for its beating heart of books and charcoal and paintings.
She never glances at his ornate bed with the curtains neatly draping from post to post. Klaus does, glancing at it, as if the mere beating of its heart can summon her. But Katerina is enthralled with his shelves, her nose almost touching the spines of books and journals and the stones he collects and flowers he dries between pages.
Her hands are clasped behind her back to keep herself from touching anything. She tries to feign nonchalance, but he can see the sparkle in her eye and the tug of the corner of her lips.
"Do you like it?" he asks. Her heart skips before she straightens her back and looks at him, feigning a look of confusion. "My journals. They’re handmade."
"Are they?" Katerina looks at them closely, keeping her hands shackled behind her back. She eyes them curiously and studiously, interrogating the leather and ink embedded in the spines. "They’re beautiful. Do you write in them?"
"Every day," he says. He’s slow to venture into his room, footsteps quiet, his pace like that of a predator. She only glances at him, regarding him with a warm smile, and goes back to admiring his shelves.
He looks at her in her skirts, watches the way her fingers fidget behind her back. He comes to stand at her spine, too close for it to be appropriate. Reaching out, he’s gentle in ensnaring her hands in the cuffs of his. She laughs lightly, as she always does. Katerina is like a bird, tittering about, always singing some enticing lullaby he can’t help but give into.
"You can touch, Katerina," he murmurs.
She inhales and shifts her shoulders, and her fingers still and then flutter in his. He keeps her hands shackled behind her back, touch still gentle. She makes no move to pull them from him despite the invitation. He’s uncertain if she wishes to.
He leans forward and breathes her in, the scent of her perfume and spices and sweat, and hears the rush of her precious blood beneath her skin. His mouth begins to water and his fingers tighten just a touch on her wrists.
"Do you write about me?" she boldly looks at him over her shoulder, leaning slightly into him. It surprises him, the willingness she has to be near him. The arch of her brow is almost expectant, borderline arrogant.
"I do."
She smiles and blushes, the blood rushing to brighten her skin. Klaus is tempted to lean forward and lick her neck, and as he presses his chest against her back, wrists trapped in the shackle of one hand, he gently pulls her thick hair away from her shoulder.
Smelling her neck, her heartbeat races in her chest. Her lips part and her breathing shallows, and he can hear his, none too quiet for that of a seasoned predator. Tilting her head to the side, he can hear her lips part as he bows his head to the invitation of her neck.
Katerina jumps when Elijah clears his throat. Pressing his lips together angrily, Klaus turns to look at his brother haunting the doorway of his chambers. His shadow elongates and looms over them like a heavy, unwanted ghost.
Elijah’s hands linger behind his back, posture straight and stiff, and his expression appears warm to the untrained eye. Klaus can imagine his fists balling so tight his blunt, clean nails threaten to dagger skin.
"Niklaus," he says, voice warm yet sharp. Katerina will consider it kind while Klaus knows what it is: a reprimand. "I didn’t realise you had company."
He steps back from Katerina, his hand the last to leave her. She’s quick to pull her arms to her front and boldly plucks a tome from his shelf. He can’t read if she’s embarrassed to be caught.
Keeping his gaze on Elijah, he glances at Katerina from the corner of his eye. She remains tall, unwavering, almost as if she’s thriving in this very moment.
Klaus makes Elijah wait for his answer, the tension only thickening in his chambers. "I wanted to show Katerina my tomes," he says, painting on his smile.
"Rosemarie is looking for her," Elijah says. He doesn’t dare look at Katerina. "She wants to prepare her for bed. Unless you have taken the honour from her?"
Katerina clears her throat and ducks her head, skin flushing a light blood red. It’s easy to read her as a simple book now: Elijah flusters her.
She steps away from him, taking her warmth, and she walks from him without a glance back. "I should leave." She ducks her head to Elijah before she turns to him. "Thank you for entertaining me, Niklaus," she says.
Katerina leaves, composed. Klaus believes he sees her brush too closely to Elijah as she exits.
With a glance down the hallway and at her retreating back, Elijah turns to face him with his brows pinched and lips terse. "What are you doing, Niklaus?"
"Enjoying my spoils."
He only shakes his head and tuts a reprimand. Elijah invites himself into his chambers and takes a seat at his small table, pulling out a deck of cards from his breast pocket. "History won’t be repeating itself."
Klaus smirks and takes a seat opposite him. "Oh, Elijah, it’s barely started."
*
If she was any other woman, she would have avoided him. Klaus expects it. Being caught in a promiscuous position by her potential suitor is an embarrassment to any young woman, but not Katerina.
She rises earlier than usual, fluttering about the castle as they break their first meal. She insists on grooming the horses all on her own without the supervision of the stableboy. Katerina comes to life, opening up petal by petal, and he can’t help but think he made this happen. His hands had been on hers, holding her back, pressing into her pulse, and she had come to life beneath his fingers.
After she finishes with the horses, hands slightly dirtied and the bottom of her skirt covered in straw, she finds him in his reading room. He isn’t alone, and finds he doesn’t wish to be. He wants Elijah to see the display.
Despite wanting to look up, he doesn’t. He keeps his gaze on his heavy tome and pretends to read the words on the page when he’s reading her. He takes great pleasure in seeing her silhouette walk right by his brother in his chair.
She makes no attempt to be quiet. When Katerina Petrova wishes to be heard, she is loud and sharp and abrasive all at once.
Standing before him, she looms as a tantalising shadow. Her hands are clasped behind her back and he can’t help but wonder if she imagines his hands to be tying them together.
He hums and looks up at her, lips curving into a bright smile. "If it isn’t the beautiful Katerina."
She doesn’t blush, although her smile only sharpens and brightens. With hope brightening her youthful face, she smiles at him and holds out her hand. "Would you care to escort me?"
"I’d love to," he says. "But where are we going?"
"It’s a surprise," she whispers loudly, her hand still held out in offer for him to take.
He glances at Elijah and watches as his brother’s jaw sharpens. His lips only widen as he gently takes Katerina’s hand in his. Her hold on his hand is possessive and warm, and she squeezes his fingers as she tugs him from the reading room and leads him out into the open world.
The air is fresh and sharp to his senses, but what he focuses on is her. He stays a step behind her, watching her thick hair as it flutters gently in the wind. He wants to take it in his hands and tug it, but he keeps his hand in hers and his other by his side, fingers flexing in a desperate attempt to catch her scent.
She smells of Katerina: flowery perfumes, of the spices she loves so much, and of the horses. He’s pleased to not catch a whiff of Elijah’s natural scent on her.
She takes him to the very edge of the castle grounds and then beyond to the small lake. She walks as if she has ventured out into these woods he knows like the back of his own hand, her steps powerful, strides long. Not once does she stumble nor pause to wonder where to go to next.
"I like it out here," she says. She holds his hand as she stops near the lake, holding it as if it was made to stay in hers. When she pulls her hand from his, its gentle, and she begins to remove the laces of her corset.
Before he realises it—he’s stupidly stuck in place—she’s naked before him. Her legs are long and strong, her back delicate in its curve. His eyes gaze over her, taking her in as an artful masterpiece. He notes the flush on her breasts and neck and closes his eyes for a moment to hear her blood sing for him.
When he opens them again, her back’s to him. She dives into the water and disappears beneath the surface.
For a moment, he frets as the surface of the lake stills for too long, rectifying itself of her intrusion; then she emerges, pushing her long hair from her face. She stands tall out of the water, her navel disappearing beneath it. His gaze is hungry as he takes in the wet slickness of her skin and the feral beating of her heart.
He doesn’t realise he’s staring until she laughs.
"Aren’t you coming, my lord?"
Klaus strips himself of his linens, strips himself of his inhibitions, and strips himself of his power in that very moment.
He wades into the water, eyes on her. She watches him with a sharp, hungry gaze and a small smirk on her face.
As his hips disappear into the water, so do her breasts and heart as she lowers herself in to hide. Modesty looks as attractive on Katerina as boldness and arrogance, but immodesty looks like a beautiful, unblemished second skin. He can still hear her blood, murky beneath the water, but he finds himself listening more to her breathing and her little whimpers of amusement.
He circles her like a predator until she disappears beneath the water. Despite his sharp senses, he can’t quite sense her—her heart beats fast, but it’s murky at best. Fingers brushing against his ankle, she tugs on his leg and emerges behind him with a laugh.
He turns quickly, as fast as he can, and then she’s gone. He’s waterlogged by her wet scent as it drips around him. Peering down at the water, he tries to find the shadow of her, but he can’t decipher the bottom of the lake from Katerina’s silhouette.
Reemerging once more, she’s further away from him. She pulls her hair back and swipes water at him with a laugh. "Come chase me, Klaus!"
And chase he gives. What kind of gentleman would he be if he didn’t?
He swims as fast as he can behind her. She’s faster, able to cut through the water quicker. The lightness of her laugh propels her forward as his only drags him back.
She’s slightly sharper, a little more powerful, but he manages to ensnare her when’s he’s underneath the water. His arms wrap around her waist and he pulls her to the surface and flat against him.
Her hair’s over her face and she pulls it back and onto his shoulders. He holds her to him, chest to back, his hands beneath the swells of her breasts. She pants, her blood and breathing intoxicating. She wiggles and stills against him when she feels the hardness of his cock against the swell of her ass. He’s overcome with the desire to bite her; his mouth waters and his body hums to consume her and take her as his own.
He slides his hands to her breasts and her hands trap his there. Her breathing quickens and stills against him. For a moment, he frets like a boy who has something to worry about, and then she laughs lightly and squeezes his hands, a light moan escaping her lips.
His entire body feels slack and tight and hard all at once, and he’s besotted with the sound. He moves his hands to play her like a lyre once more.
Then it’s with a powerful kick she launches from him with a laugh and swims from him with a new burst of power.
Dumbfounded, he can’t help but laugh, taken aback to being a boy easily courted by the sound of a pretty girl. His lips form a smile that’s young and familiar, a smile he hasn’t worn in centuries. She swims away from him and he watches her, knowing that if he can’t catch her right now, it won’t matter. She’s his.
He gives chase, swimming as fast as he can, but Katerina remains out of reach. She teases him and brushes her fingers against his legs when she dives beneath the water. She never tires of swimming from him.
It’s Klaus who grows tired first. He throws himself to the lake’s edge, mud and dirt moulding to his body. When she leaves the lake, she leaves unscathed.
*
She spends more time in his chambers, perusing his shelf and reading his tomes of history, unknowingly written by him. He lounges on his bed with an easel in hand and sketches the slope of her nose and her sharp lips, the stubborn tilt of her jaw and her strong neck. Her shoulders carry a burden he can’t quite find, and he dips into the swells of her breasts and the hard lines of her torso to try and discover her secrets. A woman like her has plenty of them embedded on her skin; he trusts his astute eye will find them.
She never looks at her drawings. When she had first discovered his love for art, Katerina had recognised within minutes of who he had been sketching and had posed outlandishly for him.
"I’m posing for you," she’d said, tilting her head back and pushing her chest and neck out. She had moved about in a flurry, so fast he hadn’t been able to capture a moment of her in his mind.
"Did you want to look?"
"No," she’d said, shaking her head. "I like the romance of not knowing."
He offers her the invitation to see her portrait. He holds it out to her on a golden platter each time he takes inspiration of the angle of her face or the way her body is sharp against any backdrop, and she has always refused him.
Tonight’s reasoning warms him.
"I’m shy, my lord," she says with a laugh.
"Nonsense," he says, placing his charcoal down. "You’re the most beautiful woman I know."
"And thus I’m shy," she says with a smile. She stalks his bed, walking back and forth, her hands gripping the fabric of her shift. He can see the outline of her body and hear the solid beating of her heart. "You’ve seen women far beautiful than me."
"Nonsense," he says again. His eyes remain on hers as she lingers by the side of his bed. He quietly encourages her to press her knee against the edge, to cross the line he wants to cross.
She never does.
*
She touches the moonstone only once. It looks good in the palm of her hand. She looks like she belongs in the palm of his.
*
It takes him too long to realise she’s not a butterfly. She weaves a web around him, pincers snapping tantalisingly.
He chases her and keeps his footfalls light and mortal. He laughs as she teases him, circling tree after tree. She ventures beyond the castle gardens and into the nearby woods, taking to it like a rabbit running from a wolf.
"You’re not even trying!" she laughs, her voice wrapping around the thin stalks of the trees. Her hair glides behind her as her skirts whip like wings. Not once does she ever look behind her; she keeps her gaze forward, never once allowing herself the chance to trip as the tree roots rise through the earth to try and snare her.
Even when he does pick up the pace with a hint of his inhuman speed, he still can’t catch her. Her glide is supernatural and sleek while he is rough and his feet snare in the dirt and on the uneven ground.
She’s at her tree by the lake, wrapping her arms around it and hugging it to her chest. She hides her face and laughs loudly as he approaches, breathing hard and flushed from exertion. Her heart pounds distractingly in her chest.
"I’ve never run further in my life, Katerina," he says, breathing hard. It’s all an act; he had caught his breath long before they broke the boundary of garden and wood.
She laughs loudly and heaves in a breath, her fingers curling into the bark that she plucks easily between her fingers.
As he approaches, she remains hidden behind the tree. He presses his palms to the sharp bark and rests his cheek against it, watching her as she watches him. His hands press sharply against the flakes of bark, delicate and firm all at once. His breathing slows as he calms and he studies the way her eyes take him in.
She watches him as if he’s an artwork on display, and Klaus finds he doesn’t mind it at all.
Her warm eyes tilt up and she smiles. His gaze remains on her mouth.
"Isn’t it beautiful?"
When he looks up, he spies a spider’s web. "I suppose it is."
He finds he doesn’t mind seeing himself spun within its stickiness.
*
"What are you doing?"
He laughs, standing at the doorway of his chambers. His tunic is loose and he had intended to pull it free of his breeches to lounge around in his paints and stories for another few hours before he saw company, but now his hands fall away from the fabric as he eyes her.
Katerina sits at the small round table in his room, the chessboard out with the pieces at the ready. The skirts of her dress are swept beneath her legs and her feet are bare. She eyes him for a moment, nervousness stuttering her heart, and then she lets out a breath—a long, loud one, so full of life—and steadies herself.
"I wanted to play," she says. She looks down at the chessboard and then back up at him. "Elijah told me that you were the best chess master there ever was."
He chuckles, ducking his head. The line of his mouth is firm and angry, but he knows she won’t read anything into it. "Did Elijah? Hm." When he looks up at her, he finds her smile hasn’t fallen away.
"Aren’t you?" Katerina tilts her head to the side as she eyes him. She places her hands on the table, one palm over the other, and watches him patiently.
"I am," he says, puffing out his chest. Stepping into his chambers, he doesn’t bother to close the door behind him. Let Elijah hear him play with his Katerina. He had sent her to the wolf’s den, after all.
Pulling out his chair, he takes a seat and sighs. He licks his lips and looks at the board, and smiles at the black pieces that sit near him.
"He told me you favoured the darker pieces," she says, gaze still on him. She watches him closely, as if he’s the piece of art and she’s the painter scrutinising her handiwork.
He looks at her for a moment too long and then lifts his hand to hover over his pieces. She’s aligned them perfectly centre, just how he likes it.
Katerina makes the first move, and he counteracts each of them. He studies her more than he does the chess pieces, watching as her tongue darts out to lick her lips and her brows furrow as she eyes the numerous routes she can take. She always takes the smartest one, anticipating his move numerous steps ahead. He does his best to outthink her, but even in her quietness, she distracts him.
He doesn’t let her win in the end, even though she lets him pretend he does.
*
Playing chase in the gardens has become reserved for Elijah. It’s a gift he gives him, this allowance of taking her time. While Klaus doesn’t visit any villages any longer or takes to the beds he’s claimed as his own, he doesn’t let Elijah have his toys, either.
Katerina is more than happy to make their playground for chase his chambers. She moves about it as if it’s the woods, quick to scurry from one end of the room to another.
He chases her around his bed frame before he wraps his arm around her and pulls her to him. She wiggles against him, as she had done by the lake. His hands flatten against her chest, one against her belly and the other near her throat.
Her breathing shallows and her heart pounds, and he can smell the delicious wetness between her legs. Her shift is only so thin; the water at the lake had felt like a thick barrier between them, thicker than any fabric.
He doesn’t let go of her. She stands on the tips of her toes and places her hand against that on her stomach. Digging her fingers beneath his, she pulls his hand from her and places it on her bare leg.
"I suppose you’ve caught me," she says quietly. The pulse in her neck sings for him. He leans forward and briefly nuzzles his nose against her neck and hears her sharp intake of breath.
Together, they pull her shift up her body until it's trapped by his hand around her neck. Katerina’s pulse pounds sharply against his fingers before he lets her go and helps her strip herself of her armour.
She crosses the invisible boundary of his bed and sits in the very centre, sliding her underthings off her legs and tossing them to the floor as if his chambers is hers.
He’s slow to move over her, trapping her between his hands. She peers up at him and licks her lips.
"I prefer this game much more," she murmurs. His mouth is soft against her lips at first before he licks into her mouth and wraps himself around her.
She’s gentle in peeling off his clothes as he nips and sucks at her skin. His hands are greedy to learn the landscape of her as he finds lakes and quarries and forests. She’s a world he thought he had learned quite intimately five centuries ago, but she has freckles where Tatia had none and stronger hips and a toned stomach, and a birthmark on the inside of her thigh.
She straddles him like he’s one of her favoured horses and she pushes him down, grips him and tears at him like she’s lived underwater unable to breathe until he had found her and brought her to the surface. Klaus no longer feels as though he’s lost at sea when inside of her.
She curls around him, gripping his back and biting at his shoulder as she comes with a sharp cry against his skin. He holds her to him as he thrusts his hips into hers, lips pressing firmly against her skin as his teeth graze her neck. He wants to take her and bite her, but Katerina mewls beneath him like a young girl he wishes to covet.
Klaus doesn’t let the monster inside of him ruin her as Elijah had once taken his own love. He intends to be better, to be smarter—he won’t make the mistake Elijah had made. He licks at her skin and sucks until she’s bruised, and he comes with a sharp, toothless bite against her breast.
It’s a courtesy, he gives her, one he doesn’t bestow upon many, the opportunity and invitation to see him as a man and nothing more.
Katerina’s hands are gentle against his face and hair, and she traces his forehead and jawline and the slope of his nose as if she is an artist herself. And she is, in her own way; he thinks of her as his muse as his fingers itch against her skin to take charcoal to paper and draw how she looks, spent and relaxed and covered in sweat. She’s never been more beautiful.
He brushes the hair sticking to her temple away.
She’s still panting, her legs still wrapped around him. He doesn’t pull his hips away from her, still tucked away inside of her. She’s warm around him as he softens.
"Will you always chase me?"
He smiles and licks his lips, and her gaze is hungry as she watches his tongue dart out to wet them. He leans forward and brushes his nose against hers before he murmurs, "Perhaps."
He wants to tell her yes. He presses it into her mouth as he kisses her.
*
Klaus had promised himself he would never accept complacency. A wolf never does. A wolf prowls and hunts and never grows comfortable. His teeth remain sharp and his senses even more so.
He can’t quite recall when he had stopped hunting her.
*
She never sleeps overnight in his bed chambers, even when he hooks his arms around her or even ties her to the bed. It’s discomforting and aggravating, and Klaus wishes to trail after her to her chambers but never crosses the sanctuary of her rooms. He sleeps best when tucked against her and inside of her, like she had been born to be his queen. The king is always found beside his queen on the board.
He rests easy knowing she’s not in Elijah’s bed. It’s a small morsel of peace.
*
Katerina likes her extravagant dinners, and so he hosts one for her. Fabrics line the doorframes and sweep from the lowest point in the ceilings to highest point on the chandelier. It’s a dinner fit for a queen.
She skirts the boundaries of the feast, teasing him like a butterfly. He waits patiently, knowing she’ll come to him soon. They all flock to him, like moths to a flame, but this time, he doesn’t intend to burn his prey.
He waits eagerly for her to come to him with her hand outstretched and the offer to whisk her across the dance floor, but she delays him. She lingers in sight and then disappears into the arms of another man.
He wants to feel the embroidery of her gown against his fingertips and the warmth of her delectable skin against his hands. He thinks tonight is the night he’ll sink his teeth into her neck and have her moan and plead for it over and over.
Katerina is as slick as water, fluttering in and out. She teases him, wanting him to come out and hunt her, but he stays where he is, watching her fondly. He spies the poor boy, Trevor, watching after her with an open hunger to his eyes, but she pays him no mind. Every glance she gives, it’s for him.
He waits her out patiently, knowing his reward will come.
He watches with a frown set deeply into his lips as she offers Elijah her dance. Her hands are strong on his back, her body too close to his. She’s trapped in a world filled with Elijah as he is forced to watch once again.
She doesn’t choose him. They never do.
*
Tatia had once rejected him with a soft, gentle voice. Katerina makes her promises in one that’s softer against his ear. She doesn’t bother to tell him to his face that she rejects him.
No matter, he’ll ensure his rejection of her is loud and clear like a howl in the broad daylight.
*
He spends two evenings in the village, rejecting every brunette woman in sight before taking one to bed. He’d remembered how Katerina had taken to him when he had blood coating his white tunic. He thinks to get into a fight with a rowdy bunch of men in a tavern to lure her to him, but decides against it. The last thing he wants is her pity.
*
Katerina’s gaze is warm against his back as she wills him to look at her. He doesn’t. As he dismounts his horse, he keeps his gaze on his brother, clapping him on the back as he brings him close and walks to the castle without a glance back at her.
She finds him when he grants her permission. He sits in his reading room with a thick book of doomed love in his lap. His lips curve ever so slightly when he catches her scent around the corner.
Walking straight to him, she stands before him. Her skirts are a mossy green and her corset is embroidered with gold thread. It’s one of his favourite dresses of hers. He thinks she hasn’t worn it for him.
"Will you escort me to the stables?"
Klaus doesn’t look up at her. He notes her hands are clasped in front of her, fingers relaxed and knuckles not white. It makes him angry.
"I’m busy, Katerina. Perhaps Elijah could escort you."
He doesn’t look up to see her frown. He doesn’t care.
*
Katerina is a flurry of anxiety as she waits for him in his chambers. She’s in her shift, the one he likes, and she sits on his bed with a stiff back. There’s no book in her lap as he’s come to find her, no invasion of his privacy he’s come to welcome. She holds nothing of his in her cold hands.
"Klaus," she says. She stands, pulling at the fabric of her shift. "Will you please talk to me?"
Pressing his lips together, he closes the door to his chambers. He begins to shed himself of his jacket. "I’m afraid I have nothing to say."
"Please," she says.
He inhales deeply before he stops fluttering about his room and stops. He looks at her, lips tensing as she watches him curiously. Her expression is sad and regretful; he likes it.
"Please," she says. "Come sit with me. I’ve missed you. I thought you would be gone for only a day."
Jaw tensing, he watches as she remains seated on his bed. She’s slow to move to the centre of it before she’s at the headboard. She tucks herself in beneath his covers comfortably, and he can’t help but think she looks like she’s home.
He sheds himself of his clothing and forgoes his nightly drink. He pulls the linens back and slips into bed, and he enjoys how she folds into him, pressing her cheek to his bare chest and wrapping her arm around his waist.
He can’t smell a single lick of Elijah on her. It pleases him greatly to think she hadn’t sought out his brother for companionship in replacement of his.
He makes up for his prolonged stay in the nearby village and the women with brown hair not nearly as thick as hers he’d buried himself in. He pulls at her shift and has her on her back, and licks her throat until he presses his mouth against her pulse point and sucks hard until he can’t feel it anymore.
Klaus hardly lets her sleep that night. How can he? He’s home.
*
It’s easy to slip into her mind when she’s curled against him asleep. She hums lightly as she shifts against him, and he wraps his arms around her tightly. She is his favourite book to read, but he’s an impatient reader.
He slips inside of her as easily as he always has and finds her behind a red door.
Stepping inside of her chambers, the curtains are pulled back as light streams in. She wears his favourite dress of hers, one coloured with a bloodied red with golden embroidery.
He comes shoulder to shoulder with Elijah and frowns as he peers up at his brother.
"I love you both," Katerina says. She looks at the two of them, her gaze earnest. She licks her lips like she’s hungry, and Klaus can’t help but look at the way her tongue slides against her canine teeth.
Her eyes bore into his and he moves forward. He can feel her pincers working her web as she pulls him to her. From a distance, she had been dressed in a blood-red gown, but up close, she wears nothing but her shift. Her skin is flushed red as her heart pounds like a siren’s call.
Katerina slips out of it easily and stands before them naked. She keeps her gaze on his, her warm eyes open and her lips parted. Her legs are strong and muscular, her arms even more. She wears no scars. She’s perfect.
She reaches for his hand and he takes it, her skin soft as silk beneath his. In her other hand is his brother’s.
She crosses the border of her bed, her knees imprinting into the mattress. He lies against the headboard, pillows cushioning his shoulders. Elijah is behind her, a stable and strong force behind her back.
She snares their fingers and squeezes his hands, and smiles down at him. He doesn’t know when he’s shed himself of his skins, but he’s naked on her bed and can see the blemishes staining his brother’s thighs and shoulders behind her.
Elijah kisses her neck as she straddles Klaus. His hands are on her hips, mapping the sharpness of her bones and the beauty of her. He licks at the other side of her throat as he enters her, her moans and gasps music to his ears.
Elijah tugs at her and he tugs back, and Katerina grips at the two of them. She shifts her hips and his teeth graze her neck. Her nails slice into his skin as Elijah fills her.
His teeth sink into her neck in a love bite. Katerina gasps and cries out, and her nails imprint into his back. Elijah’s hands are on her stomach, pulling her to him as he thrusts. Klaus’ mouth is possessive in the taking of her. He licks at the blood on her neck and bites at her shoulder and collarbone.
Elijah sucks at her neck and never strays to conquer the territory of her. As he tears at her skin, leaving her marred and bloodied, his brother never follows suit.
He bites at the swell of her breast and peers up at her, and for once, it’s that face looking down at him.
Klaus has never understood what one was to gain from compromise until her hands were in his hair tugging him forward towards her heart. It’s murky at best and he opens his eyes to smell her rich blood in the air as he licks at the valley of her breasts.
Elijah’s mouth is on her throat, teeth sinking into her skin. When he pulls his mouth back, her skin isn’t torn but repaired.
He doesn’t share what belongs to him and only him. Not even for her.
*
Staring into the fire in his chambers, he holds a glass of liquor in his hand. Elijah paces back and forth, his bare feet noisier than a team of horses. He inhales deeply and holds it before he lets it out.
Elijah shakes his head, his heart racing wildly in his chest. Klaus thinks to tell him to control himself, but bites his lip instead.
"She doesn’t have to die," Elijah says. He stares at his profile imploringly.
Klaus ignores him. In the flames, he can see the chessboard. Elijah’s pieces are tipped over on one side and only his queen stands in line with Katerina’s king for him to claim.
"No," Klaus says, breathing in deeply. His lips curve into a smile as he watches the flames lick at one another and his chess piece moves. "She doesn’t."
*
Perhaps it’s poetry that she takes him to her lake again on the eve of her last week as a mere mortal girl. He likes to think it as theirs. It’s the first piece of land they share together, if Klaus doesn’t count claiming her as his new territory.
Naked, he lounges on the edge of the lake, wet and feigning exhaustion after another game of swim-chase. She’s won again, a true win once more. Bested by the water demoness known as Katerina Petrova, he lets the mud rejuvenate him.
His elbows dig into the soft mud of the earth, leaving an imprint he knows will be there for the rest of time. She splashes about in the water, her hair a thick mess on her head. She glistens in the dim sunlight.
Her laughter warms the woods. "Klaus, are you all right?"
He lies back in the mud playfully, slapping his hand against his chest. "I think I’m no longer for this world, my dearest Katerina."
She gasps quietly, her own hand fluttering to sit at the centre of her collarbones. He can hear her move about in the water, a quiet splashing as she wishes to not disturb her precious fish. Wading out of the lake, she’s a brief shadow cast over him before she’s an anchoring weight against his hips.
She straddles him and brushes her hands against his chest. "I think I can fix that."
He laughs against her mouth, lips warmed by her girlish laughter, and rolls them over. He takes his time in slipping inside of her and reminding her that she’s home.
*
Late at night in his chambers, he squeezes his hand and fills a small glass vial of his blood. Some tips over and slides along the glass, and he’s quick to swipe it away.
Sucking on his finger, he turns to show off his full vial of dark liquid. Elijah sits in his chair, his book on his lap. He’s stiff despite his relaxed posture. His dearest brother has been growing skittish and sullen over the last few days, and Klaus can only guess why.
"I intend to make her mine forever," he says with a smile. He lords his vial of blood over Elijah’s head before he elects to take his place in his chair opposite him. Displaying the vial on the wooden table, he sits back in his chair and crosses his arms against his chest. He regards Elijah with a smug smile. "I’ve learned from your mistakes."
Swallowing thickly, Elijah runs his tongue against his teeth. A reprimand or perhaps a plea for her humanity to be spared is on his lips, but his brother has been a slow yet successful learner in realising that his attempts to bargain for Katerina are all for naught. He had ruined Tatia; Klaus intends to not follow in his brother’s footsteps.
He knows what’s best. One day, Elijah will realise that.
"Shall we play?" He slides the deck of cards into his hands and begins to shuffle them. Elijah remains pale all throughout their games.
*
One night before her coronation and his rebirth, she lingers in his bed.
Katerina’s mouth leaves fire in its wake as she kisses the territory of his body. Claiming him as hers, she drags her tongue against the beauty spots and freckles along his skin, bestowing affection upon those mortal imperfections more than she does his clear, unmarred flesh.
He sighs and lies back, and watches her as she presses her lips over every inch of him in a quiet act of conquering. Her patience is unrivalled, almost supernatural, and he enjoys her slow, meticulous approach in frazzling him and driving him mad.
Peering up at the canopy of his bed, he threads his fingers roughly through her hair. She remains at his stomach, nuzzling his navel.
"Do you wish he was here?"
She makes a quizzical noise in the back of her throat and presses an open-mouthed kiss to his stomach. "No," she says. Looking up, her brows furrow. Tilting her head tot he side, she playfully questions, "I want you here. Are you here?"
"Of course, Katerina," he says with a soft smile. He brushes her hair away from her face and tucks it behind her ear. "Always and forever."
Her giggle is music to his ears and her mouth feels like fingers that pluck the strings of him. She doesn’t understand the meaning behind those words, the binding promise, but he has all the faith that she will.
*
His arm is around her as she sleeps quietly beside him, tucked into him and tangled in the webbing of his bed. He presses against her, feeling her warmth. Her heartbeat is a delicious lullaby and one he wishes to hold forever.
He’ll miss the scent of her humanity, the way her skin remains marred beneath his hard and possessive hands. Pressing a kiss to her shoulder, she shifts in her sleep, smiling.
"We’ll be together forever, love," he murmurs into her skin. She stirs and sighs, and he presses tightly against her back until he feels as though he has merged with her.
After tonight, they will.
*
He should’ve known her web had more flies in it than he had known. He was the only wasp.
His bed is empty, sheets in disarray. Katerina’s favourite journal is gone, undoubtedly tucked against her chest as she flees the castle grounds. His shelf is light without the weight of the moonstone as it burdens the soft skin of her palm.
He storms into Elijah’s chambers and leaves fire in his wake. His room is dark, too dark; if not for two familiar scents, he wouldn’t think Elijah here. His brother sits up in his bed and looks at him blearily.
He smells of Katerina and sex and sweat, and his anger only swells into a raging, hateful storm. He can see her now, tangled up with his brother. When he thinks back to the red door he had opened, the dream he had entered didn’t have him as the throne she sat upon. Once the smog had faded, it wasn’t his hips nor him that fit as a puzzle piece inside of her, but Elijah.
Growling low in his throat, his lips tense and his jaw tightens. The flickering embers of Elijah’s weak fire only fan the flames of is roaring one. The love bites along Elijah’s neck and shoulders have only begin to fade into his skin, disappearing as she runs further and further from them both.
"I should never have trusted you."
It’s a mistake he won’t make again.
*
She runs.
He has no choice but to follow.
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries.
Characters: Katherine/Klaus, Katherine/Elijah, Klaus/Katherine/Elijah. (Background Klaus/Tatia, Elijah/Tatia.)
Prompt: Prize.
Rating: Explicit.
Length: 8661.
Content warnings: Explicit sexual content, mentions of death, murder and blood.
Author’s notes: I’m obsessed with Klaus and Katherine and wanted to explore what 1492 could’ve been like if he was in love with her. Set in 1492, pre-series. Title is from Robert Browning’s "De Gustibus."
Summary: Klaus promises himself he would never be a fool again. And then Katerina came along.
In another life, he could’ve had her.
Tatia had once told him that with a forlorn smile on her lips. Her heart had been snared by another, quietly hunted and given over freely. He was too slow, too quiet and timid in his courting. Elijah had ruined her because he wasn’t fast enough.
He stopped chasing her thereafter. It’s a mistake he won’t make again.
*
There were two times in his life where he thought he had been in love and once when he didn’t know he was.
The first had been a village girl, back when he had been ten and seven. She had thick, long brown hair and the brightest of blue eyes he had ever seen. She was two years older and taller, and had a talent with her hands that he had never quite imagined anyone to be capable of.
She drew the world around her as if she had created it herself. Her art had held a warmth inside of it as if it was the hearth of life. He had been envious and enthralled by her all at once.
She had been the first to break his heart. Handing it to her on a platter with his platitudes and compliments, she had spurred him by dancing and chasing another and delicately handing it right back.
He remembers how he hadn’t killed her when he had turned. It was a small mercy and a slip of gratitude for all those countless hours she had spent with him under the stars, hiding him away and giving him something to believe in.
That was his first act of kindness as the monster his mother had unleashed within him.
*
At first, he mistakens her for Tatia. It isn’t on purpose, not in the way Elijah likes to misbelieve. He innocently mistakens her for her predecessor. She’s tall and lithe, just like Tatia, but that’s where their familiarities end.
Katerina is the first person he has ever seen glide along the cobblestone. He watches her bare feet as they never touch the ground. She flies into the gardens and stays out there for hours, and all he can do is watch her from the windowsill.
"You’re still here," Elijah says. He stands in the doorframe of Klaus’ bed chambers, hands clasped in front of him. Klaus notes how he has a knowing smirk on his lips in the soft reflection. He wishes to reach out and swipe it from Elijah’s face. "Are you not visiting the village tonight?"
Clearing his throat, he pinches his lips and shakes his head. "Not tonight," he says, voice rough. He watches as Katerina takes to one of the small children of the noblemen staying overnight. She holds the little girl’s hands and gladly skips after her like she had always been born to hold a small hand in her own.
Klaus turns to look at his brother, hands clasped behind his back. His fingers curl into his palms angrily as he wears an expression of calmness. "I have unfinished business here."
Elijah chuckles, shaking his head. He unclasps his hands and sighs as he invites himself into Klaus’ bed chambers and delicately picks up the chessboard by his bedside table and lays it out on its surface.
*
The second time he had been in love had been with a woman who came up to his shoulder. Her hair was long and curly, and her eyes the warmest of browns. She had lived a thousand lives, many more than he ever thought possible.
She had scars and bruises and blemishes on her skin that he had drawn in secret with charcoal and paper and stone. She had been his to admire but never his to hold, but Niklaus had taken great pleasure in those moments where he got to hold her hand.
Tatia had been a force to be reckoned with, a storm inside of a petite woman. Her hands were rough and calloused and she held an axe better than any weathered man. He had been enthralled with her, completely possessed by her, and he had been broken when she had chosen his brother.
Elijah had taught him many things in life, and with Tatia, in that moment, Niklaus learned to never love. It would only lead to heartbreak.
*
He has never liked easy.
Wooing Katerina is proving to be more difficult than he had anticipated. With all her smiles and her curtsies, she runs from him. He walks as he follows, never quite eager to show his hand, but he learns very early that perhaps he should.
He watches on as Elijah chases her, almost on her heels before he gives and feigns a stumble. He always lets her win. She finds her safety net within a tree and laughs as she clutches to it like a buoy.
"I’ve survived yet again, my lord," she says, tugging at the skirts of her dress to curtsey once more. Her smile wars with the bright sun looming over them. He can smell the sweat at her brow and her breasts.
"It seems you have," Elijah says. His smile is warm and boyish, and even Klaus can’t help but fall for it.
Katerina only giggles, her gaze transfixed on Elijah. Klaus’ strides grow longer and footfalls heavier as he emerges, hands clasped behind his back calmly. His smile feels tight and sharp, but clearly not sharp enough if Katerina’s blush is anything to go by.
"It appears you’ve lost, brother."
Elijah looks at him from over his shoulder and licks his lips. His swallow is heavy and audible for even the human girl. "It appears I have," he says, words slightly tense. His smile drops as he looks at him. "For now, at least."
Klaus’ mouth only tightens as he smiles brightly at them both. His brother looks younger, happier than he has in centuries. He feels the desire to rip it from under him.
Katerina’s face brightens when he turns to look at her. He smiles and gives her a curtsey, a silent commendation for her efforts at outrunning the great Elijah. He wonders, briefly, if she’ll stop running. They all fall for him, moths to a flame; Klaus finds he doesn’t wish for Katerina to burn in Elijah’s hands.
"Come, Katerina," Klaus says, bowing his head slightly. It’s with a sweep of his arm that he summons her and she’s tentative and awed in her approach of him. Her heart skips several beats as he reaches out to ensnare her, touch light on her back but possessive to Elijah’s eye. "I have something much more fun for you."
"What ever could be more fun?" She picks up her skirts and prepares herself to follow, peering up at him excitedly. Katerina is a quick study, a terrain that’s unfamiliar yet all familiar at once. Her youthful face brightens in a way Tatia’s never did.
He guides her away, glancing over his shoulder to see Elijah staring wistfully at her back. It’s a game they haven’t played in so long. Klaus smirks once at his brother—just once—before he becomes enraptured by her.
She speaks Bulgarian to him all the way to the castle, and he doesn’t speak a lick of English until supper.
*
He’s quick to learn where Katerina likes to hide away. She has an almost untouchable fondness for horses.
He watches her from the distance, arms folded against his chest. It’s a station he’s taken to over the last few weeks, studying her as she brushes the mane of his horse at the mouth of his stable. His chestnut takes to her kindly, staying quiet when she approaches and letting her feed him from the palm of her hand. Klaus has always trusted his horse to have a sense for good people.
When he comes to the stable again, his lips turn into a frown. Katerina’s laughter is electrifying, but the cause of it isn’t so.
Appearing from the belly of his stable, his brother looks oddly misplaced without his books and comfortable reading chair. Elijah laughs warmly as he speaks to her loudly, informing her that she doesn’t know how to brush a horse at all. Katerina is indignant and laughs at him, and goes to great lengths to show him she knows exactly how.
He watches with anger curdling in his stomach as Elijah invites himself to stand behind her. He’s too close to be appropriate and cages her between his body and the horse. Katerina inhales audibly and giggles throatily, and she leans back into him.
Elijah’s hands come up around her as he brushes his horse’s mane. Her hand reaches up as she wordlessly invites herself to take hold of his hand, and they brush the horse together.
*
He watches her from the doorframe of his chambers as she glides along the floor like a bird. His chambers are neatly decorated and sparse, a hollow ribcage that only has room for its beating heart of books and charcoal and paintings.
She never glances at his ornate bed with the curtains neatly draping from post to post. Klaus does, glancing at it, as if the mere beating of its heart can summon her. But Katerina is enthralled with his shelves, her nose almost touching the spines of books and journals and the stones he collects and flowers he dries between pages.
Her hands are clasped behind her back to keep herself from touching anything. She tries to feign nonchalance, but he can see the sparkle in her eye and the tug of the corner of her lips.
"Do you like it?" he asks. Her heart skips before she straightens her back and looks at him, feigning a look of confusion. "My journals. They’re handmade."
"Are they?" Katerina looks at them closely, keeping her hands shackled behind her back. She eyes them curiously and studiously, interrogating the leather and ink embedded in the spines. "They’re beautiful. Do you write in them?"
"Every day," he says. He’s slow to venture into his room, footsteps quiet, his pace like that of a predator. She only glances at him, regarding him with a warm smile, and goes back to admiring his shelves.
He looks at her in her skirts, watches the way her fingers fidget behind her back. He comes to stand at her spine, too close for it to be appropriate. Reaching out, he’s gentle in ensnaring her hands in the cuffs of his. She laughs lightly, as she always does. Katerina is like a bird, tittering about, always singing some enticing lullaby he can’t help but give into.
"You can touch, Katerina," he murmurs.
She inhales and shifts her shoulders, and her fingers still and then flutter in his. He keeps her hands shackled behind her back, touch still gentle. She makes no move to pull them from him despite the invitation. He’s uncertain if she wishes to.
He leans forward and breathes her in, the scent of her perfume and spices and sweat, and hears the rush of her precious blood beneath her skin. His mouth begins to water and his fingers tighten just a touch on her wrists.
"Do you write about me?" she boldly looks at him over her shoulder, leaning slightly into him. It surprises him, the willingness she has to be near him. The arch of her brow is almost expectant, borderline arrogant.
"I do."
She smiles and blushes, the blood rushing to brighten her skin. Klaus is tempted to lean forward and lick her neck, and as he presses his chest against her back, wrists trapped in the shackle of one hand, he gently pulls her thick hair away from her shoulder.
Smelling her neck, her heartbeat races in her chest. Her lips part and her breathing shallows, and he can hear his, none too quiet for that of a seasoned predator. Tilting her head to the side, he can hear her lips part as he bows his head to the invitation of her neck.
Katerina jumps when Elijah clears his throat. Pressing his lips together angrily, Klaus turns to look at his brother haunting the doorway of his chambers. His shadow elongates and looms over them like a heavy, unwanted ghost.
Elijah’s hands linger behind his back, posture straight and stiff, and his expression appears warm to the untrained eye. Klaus can imagine his fists balling so tight his blunt, clean nails threaten to dagger skin.
"Niklaus," he says, voice warm yet sharp. Katerina will consider it kind while Klaus knows what it is: a reprimand. "I didn’t realise you had company."
He steps back from Katerina, his hand the last to leave her. She’s quick to pull her arms to her front and boldly plucks a tome from his shelf. He can’t read if she’s embarrassed to be caught.
Keeping his gaze on Elijah, he glances at Katerina from the corner of his eye. She remains tall, unwavering, almost as if she’s thriving in this very moment.
Klaus makes Elijah wait for his answer, the tension only thickening in his chambers. "I wanted to show Katerina my tomes," he says, painting on his smile.
"Rosemarie is looking for her," Elijah says. He doesn’t dare look at Katerina. "She wants to prepare her for bed. Unless you have taken the honour from her?"
Katerina clears her throat and ducks her head, skin flushing a light blood red. It’s easy to read her as a simple book now: Elijah flusters her.
She steps away from him, taking her warmth, and she walks from him without a glance back. "I should leave." She ducks her head to Elijah before she turns to him. "Thank you for entertaining me, Niklaus," she says.
Katerina leaves, composed. Klaus believes he sees her brush too closely to Elijah as she exits.
With a glance down the hallway and at her retreating back, Elijah turns to face him with his brows pinched and lips terse. "What are you doing, Niklaus?"
"Enjoying my spoils."
He only shakes his head and tuts a reprimand. Elijah invites himself into his chambers and takes a seat at his small table, pulling out a deck of cards from his breast pocket. "History won’t be repeating itself."
Klaus smirks and takes a seat opposite him. "Oh, Elijah, it’s barely started."
*
If she was any other woman, she would have avoided him. Klaus expects it. Being caught in a promiscuous position by her potential suitor is an embarrassment to any young woman, but not Katerina.
She rises earlier than usual, fluttering about the castle as they break their first meal. She insists on grooming the horses all on her own without the supervision of the stableboy. Katerina comes to life, opening up petal by petal, and he can’t help but think he made this happen. His hands had been on hers, holding her back, pressing into her pulse, and she had come to life beneath his fingers.
After she finishes with the horses, hands slightly dirtied and the bottom of her skirt covered in straw, she finds him in his reading room. He isn’t alone, and finds he doesn’t wish to be. He wants Elijah to see the display.
Despite wanting to look up, he doesn’t. He keeps his gaze on his heavy tome and pretends to read the words on the page when he’s reading her. He takes great pleasure in seeing her silhouette walk right by his brother in his chair.
She makes no attempt to be quiet. When Katerina Petrova wishes to be heard, she is loud and sharp and abrasive all at once.
Standing before him, she looms as a tantalising shadow. Her hands are clasped behind her back and he can’t help but wonder if she imagines his hands to be tying them together.
He hums and looks up at her, lips curving into a bright smile. "If it isn’t the beautiful Katerina."
She doesn’t blush, although her smile only sharpens and brightens. With hope brightening her youthful face, she smiles at him and holds out her hand. "Would you care to escort me?"
"I’d love to," he says. "But where are we going?"
"It’s a surprise," she whispers loudly, her hand still held out in offer for him to take.
He glances at Elijah and watches as his brother’s jaw sharpens. His lips only widen as he gently takes Katerina’s hand in his. Her hold on his hand is possessive and warm, and she squeezes his fingers as she tugs him from the reading room and leads him out into the open world.
The air is fresh and sharp to his senses, but what he focuses on is her. He stays a step behind her, watching her thick hair as it flutters gently in the wind. He wants to take it in his hands and tug it, but he keeps his hand in hers and his other by his side, fingers flexing in a desperate attempt to catch her scent.
She smells of Katerina: flowery perfumes, of the spices she loves so much, and of the horses. He’s pleased to not catch a whiff of Elijah’s natural scent on her.
She takes him to the very edge of the castle grounds and then beyond to the small lake. She walks as if she has ventured out into these woods he knows like the back of his own hand, her steps powerful, strides long. Not once does she stumble nor pause to wonder where to go to next.
"I like it out here," she says. She holds his hand as she stops near the lake, holding it as if it was made to stay in hers. When she pulls her hand from his, its gentle, and she begins to remove the laces of her corset.
Before he realises it—he’s stupidly stuck in place—she’s naked before him. Her legs are long and strong, her back delicate in its curve. His eyes gaze over her, taking her in as an artful masterpiece. He notes the flush on her breasts and neck and closes his eyes for a moment to hear her blood sing for him.
When he opens them again, her back’s to him. She dives into the water and disappears beneath the surface.
For a moment, he frets as the surface of the lake stills for too long, rectifying itself of her intrusion; then she emerges, pushing her long hair from her face. She stands tall out of the water, her navel disappearing beneath it. His gaze is hungry as he takes in the wet slickness of her skin and the feral beating of her heart.
He doesn’t realise he’s staring until she laughs.
"Aren’t you coming, my lord?"
Klaus strips himself of his linens, strips himself of his inhibitions, and strips himself of his power in that very moment.
He wades into the water, eyes on her. She watches him with a sharp, hungry gaze and a small smirk on her face.
As his hips disappear into the water, so do her breasts and heart as she lowers herself in to hide. Modesty looks as attractive on Katerina as boldness and arrogance, but immodesty looks like a beautiful, unblemished second skin. He can still hear her blood, murky beneath the water, but he finds himself listening more to her breathing and her little whimpers of amusement.
He circles her like a predator until she disappears beneath the water. Despite his sharp senses, he can’t quite sense her—her heart beats fast, but it’s murky at best. Fingers brushing against his ankle, she tugs on his leg and emerges behind him with a laugh.
He turns quickly, as fast as he can, and then she’s gone. He’s waterlogged by her wet scent as it drips around him. Peering down at the water, he tries to find the shadow of her, but he can’t decipher the bottom of the lake from Katerina’s silhouette.
Reemerging once more, she’s further away from him. She pulls her hair back and swipes water at him with a laugh. "Come chase me, Klaus!"
And chase he gives. What kind of gentleman would he be if he didn’t?
He swims as fast as he can behind her. She’s faster, able to cut through the water quicker. The lightness of her laugh propels her forward as his only drags him back.
She’s slightly sharper, a little more powerful, but he manages to ensnare her when’s he’s underneath the water. His arms wrap around her waist and he pulls her to the surface and flat against him.
Her hair’s over her face and she pulls it back and onto his shoulders. He holds her to him, chest to back, his hands beneath the swells of her breasts. She pants, her blood and breathing intoxicating. She wiggles and stills against him when she feels the hardness of his cock against the swell of her ass. He’s overcome with the desire to bite her; his mouth waters and his body hums to consume her and take her as his own.
He slides his hands to her breasts and her hands trap his there. Her breathing quickens and stills against him. For a moment, he frets like a boy who has something to worry about, and then she laughs lightly and squeezes his hands, a light moan escaping her lips.
His entire body feels slack and tight and hard all at once, and he’s besotted with the sound. He moves his hands to play her like a lyre once more.
Then it’s with a powerful kick she launches from him with a laugh and swims from him with a new burst of power.
Dumbfounded, he can’t help but laugh, taken aback to being a boy easily courted by the sound of a pretty girl. His lips form a smile that’s young and familiar, a smile he hasn’t worn in centuries. She swims away from him and he watches her, knowing that if he can’t catch her right now, it won’t matter. She’s his.
He gives chase, swimming as fast as he can, but Katerina remains out of reach. She teases him and brushes her fingers against his legs when she dives beneath the water. She never tires of swimming from him.
It’s Klaus who grows tired first. He throws himself to the lake’s edge, mud and dirt moulding to his body. When she leaves the lake, she leaves unscathed.
*
She spends more time in his chambers, perusing his shelf and reading his tomes of history, unknowingly written by him. He lounges on his bed with an easel in hand and sketches the slope of her nose and her sharp lips, the stubborn tilt of her jaw and her strong neck. Her shoulders carry a burden he can’t quite find, and he dips into the swells of her breasts and the hard lines of her torso to try and discover her secrets. A woman like her has plenty of them embedded on her skin; he trusts his astute eye will find them.
She never looks at her drawings. When she had first discovered his love for art, Katerina had recognised within minutes of who he had been sketching and had posed outlandishly for him.
"I’m posing for you," she’d said, tilting her head back and pushing her chest and neck out. She had moved about in a flurry, so fast he hadn’t been able to capture a moment of her in his mind.
"Did you want to look?"
"No," she’d said, shaking her head. "I like the romance of not knowing."
He offers her the invitation to see her portrait. He holds it out to her on a golden platter each time he takes inspiration of the angle of her face or the way her body is sharp against any backdrop, and she has always refused him.
Tonight’s reasoning warms him.
"I’m shy, my lord," she says with a laugh.
"Nonsense," he says, placing his charcoal down. "You’re the most beautiful woman I know."
"And thus I’m shy," she says with a smile. She stalks his bed, walking back and forth, her hands gripping the fabric of her shift. He can see the outline of her body and hear the solid beating of her heart. "You’ve seen women far beautiful than me."
"Nonsense," he says again. His eyes remain on hers as she lingers by the side of his bed. He quietly encourages her to press her knee against the edge, to cross the line he wants to cross.
She never does.
*
She touches the moonstone only once. It looks good in the palm of her hand. She looks like she belongs in the palm of his.
*
It takes him too long to realise she’s not a butterfly. She weaves a web around him, pincers snapping tantalisingly.
He chases her and keeps his footfalls light and mortal. He laughs as she teases him, circling tree after tree. She ventures beyond the castle gardens and into the nearby woods, taking to it like a rabbit running from a wolf.
"You’re not even trying!" she laughs, her voice wrapping around the thin stalks of the trees. Her hair glides behind her as her skirts whip like wings. Not once does she ever look behind her; she keeps her gaze forward, never once allowing herself the chance to trip as the tree roots rise through the earth to try and snare her.
Even when he does pick up the pace with a hint of his inhuman speed, he still can’t catch her. Her glide is supernatural and sleek while he is rough and his feet snare in the dirt and on the uneven ground.
She’s at her tree by the lake, wrapping her arms around it and hugging it to her chest. She hides her face and laughs loudly as he approaches, breathing hard and flushed from exertion. Her heart pounds distractingly in her chest.
"I’ve never run further in my life, Katerina," he says, breathing hard. It’s all an act; he had caught his breath long before they broke the boundary of garden and wood.
She laughs loudly and heaves in a breath, her fingers curling into the bark that she plucks easily between her fingers.
As he approaches, she remains hidden behind the tree. He presses his palms to the sharp bark and rests his cheek against it, watching her as she watches him. His hands press sharply against the flakes of bark, delicate and firm all at once. His breathing slows as he calms and he studies the way her eyes take him in.
She watches him as if he’s an artwork on display, and Klaus finds he doesn’t mind it at all.
Her warm eyes tilt up and she smiles. His gaze remains on her mouth.
"Isn’t it beautiful?"
When he looks up, he spies a spider’s web. "I suppose it is."
He finds he doesn’t mind seeing himself spun within its stickiness.
*
"What are you doing?"
He laughs, standing at the doorway of his chambers. His tunic is loose and he had intended to pull it free of his breeches to lounge around in his paints and stories for another few hours before he saw company, but now his hands fall away from the fabric as he eyes her.
Katerina sits at the small round table in his room, the chessboard out with the pieces at the ready. The skirts of her dress are swept beneath her legs and her feet are bare. She eyes him for a moment, nervousness stuttering her heart, and then she lets out a breath—a long, loud one, so full of life—and steadies herself.
"I wanted to play," she says. She looks down at the chessboard and then back up at him. "Elijah told me that you were the best chess master there ever was."
He chuckles, ducking his head. The line of his mouth is firm and angry, but he knows she won’t read anything into it. "Did Elijah? Hm." When he looks up at her, he finds her smile hasn’t fallen away.
"Aren’t you?" Katerina tilts her head to the side as she eyes him. She places her hands on the table, one palm over the other, and watches him patiently.
"I am," he says, puffing out his chest. Stepping into his chambers, he doesn’t bother to close the door behind him. Let Elijah hear him play with his Katerina. He had sent her to the wolf’s den, after all.
Pulling out his chair, he takes a seat and sighs. He licks his lips and looks at the board, and smiles at the black pieces that sit near him.
"He told me you favoured the darker pieces," she says, gaze still on him. She watches him closely, as if he’s the piece of art and she’s the painter scrutinising her handiwork.
He looks at her for a moment too long and then lifts his hand to hover over his pieces. She’s aligned them perfectly centre, just how he likes it.
Katerina makes the first move, and he counteracts each of them. He studies her more than he does the chess pieces, watching as her tongue darts out to lick her lips and her brows furrow as she eyes the numerous routes she can take. She always takes the smartest one, anticipating his move numerous steps ahead. He does his best to outthink her, but even in her quietness, she distracts him.
He doesn’t let her win in the end, even though she lets him pretend he does.
*
Playing chase in the gardens has become reserved for Elijah. It’s a gift he gives him, this allowance of taking her time. While Klaus doesn’t visit any villages any longer or takes to the beds he’s claimed as his own, he doesn’t let Elijah have his toys, either.
Katerina is more than happy to make their playground for chase his chambers. She moves about it as if it’s the woods, quick to scurry from one end of the room to another.
He chases her around his bed frame before he wraps his arm around her and pulls her to him. She wiggles against him, as she had done by the lake. His hands flatten against her chest, one against her belly and the other near her throat.
Her breathing shallows and her heart pounds, and he can smell the delicious wetness between her legs. Her shift is only so thin; the water at the lake had felt like a thick barrier between them, thicker than any fabric.
He doesn’t let go of her. She stands on the tips of her toes and places her hand against that on her stomach. Digging her fingers beneath his, she pulls his hand from her and places it on her bare leg.
"I suppose you’ve caught me," she says quietly. The pulse in her neck sings for him. He leans forward and briefly nuzzles his nose against her neck and hears her sharp intake of breath.
Together, they pull her shift up her body until it's trapped by his hand around her neck. Katerina’s pulse pounds sharply against his fingers before he lets her go and helps her strip herself of her armour.
She crosses the invisible boundary of his bed and sits in the very centre, sliding her underthings off her legs and tossing them to the floor as if his chambers is hers.
He’s slow to move over her, trapping her between his hands. She peers up at him and licks her lips.
"I prefer this game much more," she murmurs. His mouth is soft against her lips at first before he licks into her mouth and wraps himself around her.
She’s gentle in peeling off his clothes as he nips and sucks at her skin. His hands are greedy to learn the landscape of her as he finds lakes and quarries and forests. She’s a world he thought he had learned quite intimately five centuries ago, but she has freckles where Tatia had none and stronger hips and a toned stomach, and a birthmark on the inside of her thigh.
She straddles him like he’s one of her favoured horses and she pushes him down, grips him and tears at him like she’s lived underwater unable to breathe until he had found her and brought her to the surface. Klaus no longer feels as though he’s lost at sea when inside of her.
She curls around him, gripping his back and biting at his shoulder as she comes with a sharp cry against his skin. He holds her to him as he thrusts his hips into hers, lips pressing firmly against her skin as his teeth graze her neck. He wants to take her and bite her, but Katerina mewls beneath him like a young girl he wishes to covet.
Klaus doesn’t let the monster inside of him ruin her as Elijah had once taken his own love. He intends to be better, to be smarter—he won’t make the mistake Elijah had made. He licks at her skin and sucks until she’s bruised, and he comes with a sharp, toothless bite against her breast.
It’s a courtesy, he gives her, one he doesn’t bestow upon many, the opportunity and invitation to see him as a man and nothing more.
Katerina’s hands are gentle against his face and hair, and she traces his forehead and jawline and the slope of his nose as if she is an artist herself. And she is, in her own way; he thinks of her as his muse as his fingers itch against her skin to take charcoal to paper and draw how she looks, spent and relaxed and covered in sweat. She’s never been more beautiful.
He brushes the hair sticking to her temple away.
She’s still panting, her legs still wrapped around him. He doesn’t pull his hips away from her, still tucked away inside of her. She’s warm around him as he softens.
"Will you always chase me?"
He smiles and licks his lips, and her gaze is hungry as she watches his tongue dart out to wet them. He leans forward and brushes his nose against hers before he murmurs, "Perhaps."
He wants to tell her yes. He presses it into her mouth as he kisses her.
*
Klaus had promised himself he would never accept complacency. A wolf never does. A wolf prowls and hunts and never grows comfortable. His teeth remain sharp and his senses even more so.
He can’t quite recall when he had stopped hunting her.
*
She never sleeps overnight in his bed chambers, even when he hooks his arms around her or even ties her to the bed. It’s discomforting and aggravating, and Klaus wishes to trail after her to her chambers but never crosses the sanctuary of her rooms. He sleeps best when tucked against her and inside of her, like she had been born to be his queen. The king is always found beside his queen on the board.
He rests easy knowing she’s not in Elijah’s bed. It’s a small morsel of peace.
*
Katerina likes her extravagant dinners, and so he hosts one for her. Fabrics line the doorframes and sweep from the lowest point in the ceilings to highest point on the chandelier. It’s a dinner fit for a queen.
She skirts the boundaries of the feast, teasing him like a butterfly. He waits patiently, knowing she’ll come to him soon. They all flock to him, like moths to a flame, but this time, he doesn’t intend to burn his prey.
He waits eagerly for her to come to him with her hand outstretched and the offer to whisk her across the dance floor, but she delays him. She lingers in sight and then disappears into the arms of another man.
He wants to feel the embroidery of her gown against his fingertips and the warmth of her delectable skin against his hands. He thinks tonight is the night he’ll sink his teeth into her neck and have her moan and plead for it over and over.
Katerina is as slick as water, fluttering in and out. She teases him, wanting him to come out and hunt her, but he stays where he is, watching her fondly. He spies the poor boy, Trevor, watching after her with an open hunger to his eyes, but she pays him no mind. Every glance she gives, it’s for him.
He waits her out patiently, knowing his reward will come.
He watches with a frown set deeply into his lips as she offers Elijah her dance. Her hands are strong on his back, her body too close to his. She’s trapped in a world filled with Elijah as he is forced to watch once again.
She doesn’t choose him. They never do.
*
Tatia had once rejected him with a soft, gentle voice. Katerina makes her promises in one that’s softer against his ear. She doesn’t bother to tell him to his face that she rejects him.
No matter, he’ll ensure his rejection of her is loud and clear like a howl in the broad daylight.
*
He spends two evenings in the village, rejecting every brunette woman in sight before taking one to bed. He’d remembered how Katerina had taken to him when he had blood coating his white tunic. He thinks to get into a fight with a rowdy bunch of men in a tavern to lure her to him, but decides against it. The last thing he wants is her pity.
*
Katerina’s gaze is warm against his back as she wills him to look at her. He doesn’t. As he dismounts his horse, he keeps his gaze on his brother, clapping him on the back as he brings him close and walks to the castle without a glance back at her.
She finds him when he grants her permission. He sits in his reading room with a thick book of doomed love in his lap. His lips curve ever so slightly when he catches her scent around the corner.
Walking straight to him, she stands before him. Her skirts are a mossy green and her corset is embroidered with gold thread. It’s one of his favourite dresses of hers. He thinks she hasn’t worn it for him.
"Will you escort me to the stables?"
Klaus doesn’t look up at her. He notes her hands are clasped in front of her, fingers relaxed and knuckles not white. It makes him angry.
"I’m busy, Katerina. Perhaps Elijah could escort you."
He doesn’t look up to see her frown. He doesn’t care.
*
Katerina is a flurry of anxiety as she waits for him in his chambers. She’s in her shift, the one he likes, and she sits on his bed with a stiff back. There’s no book in her lap as he’s come to find her, no invasion of his privacy he’s come to welcome. She holds nothing of his in her cold hands.
"Klaus," she says. She stands, pulling at the fabric of her shift. "Will you please talk to me?"
Pressing his lips together, he closes the door to his chambers. He begins to shed himself of his jacket. "I’m afraid I have nothing to say."
"Please," she says.
He inhales deeply before he stops fluttering about his room and stops. He looks at her, lips tensing as she watches him curiously. Her expression is sad and regretful; he likes it.
"Please," she says. "Come sit with me. I’ve missed you. I thought you would be gone for only a day."
Jaw tensing, he watches as she remains seated on his bed. She’s slow to move to the centre of it before she’s at the headboard. She tucks herself in beneath his covers comfortably, and he can’t help but think she looks like she’s home.
He sheds himself of his clothing and forgoes his nightly drink. He pulls the linens back and slips into bed, and he enjoys how she folds into him, pressing her cheek to his bare chest and wrapping her arm around his waist.
He can’t smell a single lick of Elijah on her. It pleases him greatly to think she hadn’t sought out his brother for companionship in replacement of his.
He makes up for his prolonged stay in the nearby village and the women with brown hair not nearly as thick as hers he’d buried himself in. He pulls at her shift and has her on her back, and licks her throat until he presses his mouth against her pulse point and sucks hard until he can’t feel it anymore.
Klaus hardly lets her sleep that night. How can he? He’s home.
*
It’s easy to slip into her mind when she’s curled against him asleep. She hums lightly as she shifts against him, and he wraps his arms around her tightly. She is his favourite book to read, but he’s an impatient reader.
He slips inside of her as easily as he always has and finds her behind a red door.
Stepping inside of her chambers, the curtains are pulled back as light streams in. She wears his favourite dress of hers, one coloured with a bloodied red with golden embroidery.
He comes shoulder to shoulder with Elijah and frowns as he peers up at his brother.
"I love you both," Katerina says. She looks at the two of them, her gaze earnest. She licks her lips like she’s hungry, and Klaus can’t help but look at the way her tongue slides against her canine teeth.
Her eyes bore into his and he moves forward. He can feel her pincers working her web as she pulls him to her. From a distance, she had been dressed in a blood-red gown, but up close, she wears nothing but her shift. Her skin is flushed red as her heart pounds like a siren’s call.
Katerina slips out of it easily and stands before them naked. She keeps her gaze on his, her warm eyes open and her lips parted. Her legs are strong and muscular, her arms even more. She wears no scars. She’s perfect.
She reaches for his hand and he takes it, her skin soft as silk beneath his. In her other hand is his brother’s.
She crosses the border of her bed, her knees imprinting into the mattress. He lies against the headboard, pillows cushioning his shoulders. Elijah is behind her, a stable and strong force behind her back.
She snares their fingers and squeezes his hands, and smiles down at him. He doesn’t know when he’s shed himself of his skins, but he’s naked on her bed and can see the blemishes staining his brother’s thighs and shoulders behind her.
Elijah kisses her neck as she straddles Klaus. His hands are on her hips, mapping the sharpness of her bones and the beauty of her. He licks at the other side of her throat as he enters her, her moans and gasps music to his ears.
Elijah tugs at her and he tugs back, and Katerina grips at the two of them. She shifts her hips and his teeth graze her neck. Her nails slice into his skin as Elijah fills her.
His teeth sink into her neck in a love bite. Katerina gasps and cries out, and her nails imprint into his back. Elijah’s hands are on her stomach, pulling her to him as he thrusts. Klaus’ mouth is possessive in the taking of her. He licks at the blood on her neck and bites at her shoulder and collarbone.
Elijah sucks at her neck and never strays to conquer the territory of her. As he tears at her skin, leaving her marred and bloodied, his brother never follows suit.
He bites at the swell of her breast and peers up at her, and for once, it’s that face looking down at him.
Klaus has never understood what one was to gain from compromise until her hands were in his hair tugging him forward towards her heart. It’s murky at best and he opens his eyes to smell her rich blood in the air as he licks at the valley of her breasts.
Elijah’s mouth is on her throat, teeth sinking into her skin. When he pulls his mouth back, her skin isn’t torn but repaired.
He doesn’t share what belongs to him and only him. Not even for her.
*
Staring into the fire in his chambers, he holds a glass of liquor in his hand. Elijah paces back and forth, his bare feet noisier than a team of horses. He inhales deeply and holds it before he lets it out.
Elijah shakes his head, his heart racing wildly in his chest. Klaus thinks to tell him to control himself, but bites his lip instead.
"She doesn’t have to die," Elijah says. He stares at his profile imploringly.
Klaus ignores him. In the flames, he can see the chessboard. Elijah’s pieces are tipped over on one side and only his queen stands in line with Katerina’s king for him to claim.
"No," Klaus says, breathing in deeply. His lips curve into a smile as he watches the flames lick at one another and his chess piece moves. "She doesn’t."
*
Perhaps it’s poetry that she takes him to her lake again on the eve of her last week as a mere mortal girl. He likes to think it as theirs. It’s the first piece of land they share together, if Klaus doesn’t count claiming her as his new territory.
Naked, he lounges on the edge of the lake, wet and feigning exhaustion after another game of swim-chase. She’s won again, a true win once more. Bested by the water demoness known as Katerina Petrova, he lets the mud rejuvenate him.
His elbows dig into the soft mud of the earth, leaving an imprint he knows will be there for the rest of time. She splashes about in the water, her hair a thick mess on her head. She glistens in the dim sunlight.
Her laughter warms the woods. "Klaus, are you all right?"
He lies back in the mud playfully, slapping his hand against his chest. "I think I’m no longer for this world, my dearest Katerina."
She gasps quietly, her own hand fluttering to sit at the centre of her collarbones. He can hear her move about in the water, a quiet splashing as she wishes to not disturb her precious fish. Wading out of the lake, she’s a brief shadow cast over him before she’s an anchoring weight against his hips.
She straddles him and brushes her hands against his chest. "I think I can fix that."
He laughs against her mouth, lips warmed by her girlish laughter, and rolls them over. He takes his time in slipping inside of her and reminding her that she’s home.
*
Late at night in his chambers, he squeezes his hand and fills a small glass vial of his blood. Some tips over and slides along the glass, and he’s quick to swipe it away.
Sucking on his finger, he turns to show off his full vial of dark liquid. Elijah sits in his chair, his book on his lap. He’s stiff despite his relaxed posture. His dearest brother has been growing skittish and sullen over the last few days, and Klaus can only guess why.
"I intend to make her mine forever," he says with a smile. He lords his vial of blood over Elijah’s head before he elects to take his place in his chair opposite him. Displaying the vial on the wooden table, he sits back in his chair and crosses his arms against his chest. He regards Elijah with a smug smile. "I’ve learned from your mistakes."
Swallowing thickly, Elijah runs his tongue against his teeth. A reprimand or perhaps a plea for her humanity to be spared is on his lips, but his brother has been a slow yet successful learner in realising that his attempts to bargain for Katerina are all for naught. He had ruined Tatia; Klaus intends to not follow in his brother’s footsteps.
He knows what’s best. One day, Elijah will realise that.
"Shall we play?" He slides the deck of cards into his hands and begins to shuffle them. Elijah remains pale all throughout their games.
*
One night before her coronation and his rebirth, she lingers in his bed.
Katerina’s mouth leaves fire in its wake as she kisses the territory of his body. Claiming him as hers, she drags her tongue against the beauty spots and freckles along his skin, bestowing affection upon those mortal imperfections more than she does his clear, unmarred flesh.
He sighs and lies back, and watches her as she presses her lips over every inch of him in a quiet act of conquering. Her patience is unrivalled, almost supernatural, and he enjoys her slow, meticulous approach in frazzling him and driving him mad.
Peering up at the canopy of his bed, he threads his fingers roughly through her hair. She remains at his stomach, nuzzling his navel.
"Do you wish he was here?"
She makes a quizzical noise in the back of her throat and presses an open-mouthed kiss to his stomach. "No," she says. Looking up, her brows furrow. Tilting her head tot he side, she playfully questions, "I want you here. Are you here?"
"Of course, Katerina," he says with a soft smile. He brushes her hair away from her face and tucks it behind her ear. "Always and forever."
Her giggle is music to his ears and her mouth feels like fingers that pluck the strings of him. She doesn’t understand the meaning behind those words, the binding promise, but he has all the faith that she will.
*
His arm is around her as she sleeps quietly beside him, tucked into him and tangled in the webbing of his bed. He presses against her, feeling her warmth. Her heartbeat is a delicious lullaby and one he wishes to hold forever.
He’ll miss the scent of her humanity, the way her skin remains marred beneath his hard and possessive hands. Pressing a kiss to her shoulder, she shifts in her sleep, smiling.
"We’ll be together forever, love," he murmurs into her skin. She stirs and sighs, and he presses tightly against her back until he feels as though he has merged with her.
After tonight, they will.
*
He should’ve known her web had more flies in it than he had known. He was the only wasp.
His bed is empty, sheets in disarray. Katerina’s favourite journal is gone, undoubtedly tucked against her chest as she flees the castle grounds. His shelf is light without the weight of the moonstone as it burdens the soft skin of her palm.
He storms into Elijah’s chambers and leaves fire in his wake. His room is dark, too dark; if not for two familiar scents, he wouldn’t think Elijah here. His brother sits up in his bed and looks at him blearily.
He smells of Katerina and sex and sweat, and his anger only swells into a raging, hateful storm. He can see her now, tangled up with his brother. When he thinks back to the red door he had opened, the dream he had entered didn’t have him as the throne she sat upon. Once the smog had faded, it wasn’t his hips nor him that fit as a puzzle piece inside of her, but Elijah.
Growling low in his throat, his lips tense and his jaw tightens. The flickering embers of Elijah’s weak fire only fan the flames of is roaring one. The love bites along Elijah’s neck and shoulders have only begin to fade into his skin, disappearing as she runs further and further from them both.
"I should never have trusted you."
It’s a mistake he won’t make again.
*
She runs.
He has no choice but to follow.
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