Battle (The Originals Fan Fic)

ch. 9: Reigning Pain in New Orleans

Klaus took the abattoir back as his home. He had the inner circle and Hayley gathered around a dinner table, clinking his glass, standing, raising his glass. "Let us begin with a toast to our shared gift. Immortality. After a thousand years, one might expect for life to be less keenly felt, for its beauties and its sorrows to diminish with time, but as vampires, we feel more deeply than human could possibly imagine." He beckoned to some of the compelled servants. Each one of them stood around each of the vampires at the table. "Insatiable need, exquisite pain..." Each of the compelled servants pulled back their sleeves of their left arm, cutting their wrists with a blade with the right. They cut the other wrist as well, letting their blood fall into our glasses our bowls. "Our victories, and our defeats."

*

Klaus raised his glass once again. "To my city, my home again. May the blood never cease to flow."

Marcel raised his glass. "And the party never end."

Marcel and I exchanged a knowing look.

*

Flashback - Nightwalker Bar

Marcel and I sat at a table.

"I just don't get it, man," I admitted. "You know we would've stood with you till the end."

"Letting you do that would've been letting you die, and you're still my people," Marcel told me. "They're still our people. We're the ones that built this city and made it ours. You never betrayed me, and you never tried to take what was mine, like I had never done to you. If it hadn't been for you, I never would have made it this far. For now, just follow my lead. Trust me, it ain't over yet."

*

Now

I smirked, raising my glass. "To New Orleans."

Klaus raised his glass toward me. "To New Orleans."

"To New Orleans," everyone repeated.

We all took a drink.

"I understand that some of you have questions regarding the recent change in leadership, and I invited you here tonight to assure you that you are not defeated," Klaus told us. "No. My intentions moving forward are to celebrate what we have, what Marcel and Noah, in fact, took..." He stood at the head of the table between us, placing a hand on either of our shoulders. "And built into this. A true community of vampires."

Diego pointed toward Hayley, who sat across the table from Klaus, at the other head. "What about her? The wolf?"

Klaus walked around the table slowly toward him. "Had you left me finish, Diego, you would know that there is, of course, one further matter I would like to address." He walked past him, standing behind Hayley. "As I assume you know, the girl is carrying my child. Consequently, I trust you will all pay her the appropriate respect. However, I understand that some of you are concerned by this vicious rumor that I intend to use the blood of our child..." He placed a hand on Hayley's shoulder. Hayley's looked at it, unhappy. "To create hybrids. I assure you, I do not."

"Father of the year," Hayley's said sarcastically.

Klaus walked around the table again, toward his own place. "It appears I will have to earn your trust. Very well. We'll eliminate the root of your anxiety. You see, how can I sire any hybrids if there are no more werewolves alive in the bayou to turn?"

"What?" Hayley's asked. "Klaus, no."

Klaus ignored her. "So eat, drink, and be merry, and tomorrow, I suggest you have yourselves a little wolf hunt. Go ahead. Have fun. Kill them all."