✅️ Gemini Runaway

Never Truly Gone

It was the middle of the night where Nik and I ventured into the space that the witches attempted to kill our children a few months ago. I was wearing a red leather thrown over a tan tea shirt jacket, dark blue with some black combat boots. My hair was thrown up in a messy ponytail. He paused in his steps searching around for the werewolves that were apparently supposed to be here. "Where is she? Where is this witch who dares craft moonlight rings without my permission?"

He looks around to find Cassie, and is startled when he finally hears a voice call out to him. "Niklaus. I've been expecting you."

The three of us followed her inside and sat down at a table with three chairs. She poured tea looking at Nik and I. "I must offer my condolences on the tragic loss of your child."

"Wasn't it your coven who threatened her life?" He asked her when she slides over two cups of tea to us. "Is that tea your idea of a peace offering?"

The witch asked him back. "Chamomile has lots of healing properties. Did you know that it is also a flowering plant?"

Klaus points out to her while I took a few sips of the tea sensing off about the woman across from me. "I did. The plants grew wild near my boyhood home. But, neither the tea, nor your botanical musings explain the reason why you've taken it upon yourself to forge new moonlight rings."

Cassie smiled looking my way. "I assumed that was obvious. An alliance between the wolves and the witches would restore balance to our home."

Nik was still suspicious. "Well, that's a lofty goal for a teenage girl."

"Long ago, the witches and the wolves were at peace. Then came the vampires. A plague made flesh, a curse on this earth. You have no humanity, and so you punish those who do. Witches have a coven, werewolves have a pack, and so we are a constant reminder of everything that you have forsaken. Creatures such as you will always hate the living, and so we will always have to defend ourselves. The rings level the playing field. If we are united, nothing can stand against us." Cassie explained tapping the sides of her tea cup.

Klaus tries to keep his cool. "It's an ambitious strategy. But allow me to offer a few words of advice, if I may be so bold? New Orleans is a vicious place, and your enemies are everywhere. Behind your back, before your eyes. You will need to remain vigilant against those who would seek to destroy you, some of whom you may never see coming."

"I see you seem to be attracted to the bad boys, Raelyn." The Cassie witch with the short black hair raising a brow at me.

"How exactly do you know my name?" Giving her a confused look I didn't understand considering I didn't introduce myself or anything.

She smiled while taking a sip of her tea. "I've heard the rumors of an ex witch who was born a siphon and was turned into an abomination herself. Half witch and half vampire. Something like that should exist."

"Chamomile. It's the same tea my mother made. How I loathed it." Nik interrupts our silence.

Cassie seems amused. "Would you have preferred mint?"

He leaned back in his chair beginning to rant off about how much he didn't like his mother. "You know, she was insane, my mother. No, it's true. She believed we were abominations. "A curse on this earth, stretched out over generations," is how she put it. But, she was the true monster. She changed her children, stole our innocence, made us vampires, condemned us to an eternity of bloodlust, and then acted as if we were to blame."

"Cassie, was it? His mother had attempted to kill me in a ritual to wipe out her children she claimed to be monstrous from the face of the planet. So I must agree with him that his mother was not someone who considered others' wishes." I glared at her sitting my tea cup down clutching my hands into fists.