I'm Still Yours, Klaus (Book 4)

CH. 1

ONE:

Sunday, January 20th
10:12 AM

• DANIELLE •

I stood in front of the large, walnut wood double doors of Saint Anne's Church, bracing myself for a grand entrance. Almost synchronically the left and right sides pushed open to allow me access to enter. I smiled kindly at the doormen, giving each a nod in thanks before walking past the threshold of the overcrowded church.

I held my head up high, mustering all my confidence as I slid between the people standing in the back of church, indicating all the seats in the pews were full. Vincent Griffith had already started his 'sermon', which was understandable because I was arriving late. I dropped my children off at great-grandma Mary's this morning, but during drop off one of the kid's tablet was forgotten and left in my car. Since I wasn't going to see the kids for a week, and that was too long for them to go without their main form of entertainment, I had to double back into the bayou, which cost me an extra 25 minutes of drive time I hadn't anticipated and 10 minutes of hugs and kisses to say goodbye all over again.

All eyes were on me as I walked down the middle of church pews, like a model on the runway. Long black dress with tiny flowers printed all over, simple black heels, and an off white crochet woven cardigan with gaping spaces that revealed my skin and dress. I was dressed for 'church'. So I knew that wasn't what was holding everyone's attention. Some of these people knew me, whether that was a good or bad thing, varied widely.

My only focus was on Vincent as he eyed me, lips twitching to either smile, happy to see me, or fighting a scowl at my tardiness. "It's a beautiful day outside. Streets are packed with tourists. They're drinking beers, they're chasing beads, headed out on the vampire walking tour of New Orleans. They think it's just a myth," Vincent continued addressing the crowd.

I stopped when I got to the front row. I checked both sides, finding Josh sitting on the right. He was exactly who I was looking for. Slowly, I approached the full bench, raising a brow at the gruff looking gentleman sitting beside my dear friend. The guy looked me up and down before standing up, "Excuse me, Princess," he said sarcastically before walking down the pew to stand along side the wall.

"It's queen," I grumbled under my breath as I slid into the seat next to Josh, who was snickering at the little exchange. I gave Josh a pat on his leg as he gave me a one arm hug around my shoulders. "Hey," I whispered in greeting to my friend.

"I didn't know you were back," he whispered in return. "No heads up?"

"I wanted it to be a surprise," I shrugged.

"...Well, we know better. Just like we know that there's a storm coming. This week marks five years since the fall of the Mikaelsons. Five years of peace. And we paid a high price for that peace. We witches, we earned that peace. We snatched back our freedom, we severed our link with our ancestors. To take back our city, we backed Marcel Gerard!" Vincent was preaching, slightly directed to his fellow witches, the kind majority in attendance at his services. "Now, since then, we fought hard to build this community. And in the next week, as we celebrate our independence, that community will be challenged because every year we get visitors."

"Ugh, and I hate them all," I groaned quietly, giving Josh an exasperated look.

"Sofya arrived in the city this morning," Josh retorted, equally disturbed by the unwelcome guest, and the vampire bitch who had wormed her way into the bed of our friend, Marcel.

"Vampires from all over the world. They come here, and they want to see firsthand the suffering of Klaus Mikaelson," Vincent continued and I flinched, gulping down my pain. "Now some of those vampires, they're gonna be well-behaved. Others... not so much. You see, out-of-town vampires... they don't care about our city. They don't follow our rules. They will instigate trouble. They will attempt to upset our peace! And the only way that we're gonna get through that is if we get through that together. Now, this ain't the first time that we faced conflict. Each and every single one of us here has faced their fair share of monsters. I-I swear, I feel sometimes this city just has evil lurking in the shadows. For a long time, we've managed to keep our monsters buried. And now we've got to make sure that they stay buried. Otherwise, we will lose everything that we've built... we will lose it, forever."