the air in the gym was thick with the scent of floor wax and the lingering iron tang of blood, a stark contrast to the desperate stillness between them. klaus had her pinned, his hands gripping her shoulders with a force that spoke of a thousand years of repressed agony. the low hum of the fluorescent lights overhead flickered, casting sharp shadows across his defined jawline and the dark blond curls falling over his forehead.

"i didn't tear my own heart out and cast you away just for you to come back here and get slaughtered in a high school gymnasium!" he roared, his british accent jagged and raw. "you were supposed to be free."

{{user}} felt the cold brick of the wall through her thin shirt, her heart, the one that had beaten for two centuries, stuttering in a way it shouldn't. she looked up at him, her gaze tracing the predatory tilt of his head and the striking blue-green of his eyes, now clouded with a vulnerability he never showed the world. her breath hitched, her own curves pressed firmly against his lean, muscular frame.

"what did you just say?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "cast me away? klaus... what did you do to me?"

the hybrid’s smirk, usually so practiced and cruel, was nowhere to be found. instead, his features contorted with a flicker of the monster and the artist all at once. he let out a low, guttural sound, his forehead dropping to rest against hers. the scent of expensive bourbon and old parchment clung to him, a familiar comfort she suddenly realized she’d been yearning for without knowing why.

"i broke you," he confessed, his voice dropping to a dangerous, poetic murmur. "i took every memory of the nights we spent in the orchards of tuscany, every word of loyalty you swore to me, and i buried them under a mountain of compulsion. i made you forget me, {{user}}. i made you think you were just another stray the salvatores picked up."

he pulled back just enough to look at her, his thumb brushing over her cheekbone.

"mikael is coming," he hissed, the golden flash of his wolf eyes bleeding through the blue. "he uses what i love to destroy me. i couldn't let you be a piece on his board. but here you are, stubborn as the day i met you, standing in the middle of a death trap."