Grace - Elijah Mikaelson -

Chapter 75

"I'm so sorry, Gracie. This isn't about you." 

Niklaus carried Grace's unconscious body through the woods. He was out of Dahlia's earshot and when some of the adrenaline left his veins, he felt the guilt crashing down on him. But he wasn't ashamed for what he did to his siblings. They deserved every bit of it. 

He only felt guilty what he did to Grace. The woman that stood by him, that stood up to the man she so deeply loved to free him. Niklaus knew it the moment he escaped from being daggered and he heard her literally yelling at his siblings that she would bring back Hope to her friend, whatever the cost may be. He realized that she didn't spill his plan to Elijah. She was the only one who fought for him.

Still, he did punish her for nothing. Even tough he swore to never hurt her again. He already did enough to her. Sometimes he thought back to the moment he broke his curse, shortly after her broke her neck to turn her into a vampire. She looked at him with pure hatred, but there was something he saw in her - a fire that lit up brightly, a light that he felt drawn to. In the beginning, he hurt her to have his revenge on Elijah. But he didn't let her live through the sacrifice to continue that - he did it for himself, because he had this feeling that she could save his family. And she did. She turned out to be this one person he would trust his life on.

Today, he fell back into his old self. He didn't trust her with his plan. He could've told her and now he was sure that she would've stood by his side, even if it meant betraying Rebekah and Elijah. But in his rage, he trusted no one and he chose to do the same he did three years ago: hurting her because he knew that it was the only way to truly punish his brother. He could destroy what Elijah built here, his vampire community and he could even curse Hayley to the form of a beast, but still, nothing could hurt his brother in the way that knowing that his one true love was suffering. 

"Wait what I've got in store for Hayley...and Grace."

It was when he heard her name that Elijah unleashed his own sinister monster into the fight. 

"I hope that one day you will forgive me. I love you so much, Gracie." 

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and a single tear escaped his eye and fell onto her cheek. Shortly he eyed the worsening bite before placing her gently into the coffin he prepared.

Niklaus needed to finish his plan, even tough it made his hands shake in pain as he injected her another shot of vervain, so she would sleep for a while longer. Then, he closed the lid of the coffin and pushed it into the hole that some minions already dug up. It wasn't deep, Elijah would be able to free her without much effort. 

If his plan worked. If not, she would die in here alone. 

But she would die anyway, because after Dahlia found out what he was about to do first, she would kill his whole family without blinking an eye. 

There still was the mark on her arm. For a moment he thought that he would buy her time with this, that the witch wouldn't think about killing her if she knew she already suffered. 

He could tell that lie to himself for as long as he wanted, it wouldn't gain any more truth. Niklaus betrayed her in the worst way possible and he hated himself for it. 

Shaking his head, he tried to push away the guilt and concentrate on the task ahead. He bit into his wrist and let his blood drop into a glass, before placing it in front of the makeshift grave the humans were just filling with earth again. 

Niklaus took one last look at the coffin before turning around and leaving. 

What he didn't know was that Grace heard every word he said.