He had circled the witches’ quarter for hours, skulking, eavesdropping, and tailing, and finally had narrowed it down to a single street, and then a single mansion. Now he hesitated, though, trying to decide what to do with his discovery. Somehow he had imagined that Viv would be sitting in a lighted window, gazing longingly out into the street when he arrived, but of course she was not. It was unreasonable to knock on the door, but it would be irrational to stand outside of a young woman’s house with the hope that she might leave it.
If she was home at all. She might be out somewhere, just as he would be, normally. She was probably out with her depressingly serious fiancé, in fact. His hands clenched, his nails biting viciously into his paint-streaked palms. Armand Navarro might be pretty useless, but even he would have the sense to steal a kiss from Vivianne on a hot summer night in New Orleans. She would probably feel obligated to allow it, and let him put his stupid paws all over her.
Klaus caught sight of a flash of white movement in the courtyard, and he scaled the latticed fence and dropped down on the other side before his heart could even skip its next beat. It was her, stealing carefully toward the house. She seemed to have just snuck in through the back gate. Out without her parents’ knowledge, he guessed—Viv was definitely his kind of girl. The nickname suited her, as vivid as she was.
She was watching the ground, placing her feet carefully on the damp grass to avoid stumbling in the dark, and the soft smile on her face made him wish that it were for him. Then she looked up and froze, her whole demeanor changing. Instead of joy at the sight of him, she looked afraid. The thought of her fearing him gave him a strange, secret thrill, but in the next moment she glanced nervously at the house, then quickly back to Klaus. She gestured at him and then at the gate, urging him silently to leave.
She wasn’t afraid of him at all, only afraid to be caught by people who would have expected her to be in her bed, sleeping. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had prioritized her reputation above him. It was maddening, and it was indescribably attractive.
Of course, leaving was not an option. Instead he crossed the distance between them faster than her eyes could follow, positioning his body between hers and the elegant manor house. “I came only to talk.” He offered her his most dazzling smile to apologize for the lie, but she didn’t look in a mood to be charmed.
“I have nothing to say to you,” she whispered urgently. “Go now, before you’re seen out here.”
“I ask only a few minutes of your time, Mademoiselle,” he persisted. He would not let her pass, but he noticed that she did not especially try. Perhaps curiosity was finally winning out over her well-bred stubbornness. “If you’d prefer, we can go inside, away from prying eyes and gossiping tongues.”
She was silent for longer than he would have liked, considering the options he’d left open to her. “Five minutes,” she agreed at last, her tone terse and businesslike in spite of the concession. “We can use the drawing room. No one will notice us in there. I left that door there unlocked.” He stepped aside, and she ran lightly across the grass. It crossed his mind that she might attempt to trick him and escape into the house, but when she reached the door she turned, and he could see the outline of an irrepressible smile on her lips. “Come into my home, Niklaus,” she said, as formally as a person could sound while whispering.
He had already reached the interior hallway while her hand was still reaching for the doorknob, and he held the door open for her with a courtly flourish. Her smile widened, and she dipped her head to conceal it as she joined him inside the house.
It had been smart to visit—Klaus was very nearly irresistible in person.
Vivianne lit a candelabra, and then turned to him expectantly. Klaus flashed her his most charming smile, then stepped forward and reached for her hand to kiss it. “I said five minutes,” she reminded him, stepping back out of his reach, “but I would certainly appreciate it if you took less.”
“I don’t believe that you truly would, Vivianne,” Klaus disagreed. “I don’t believe that a woman of your spirit and intelligence could possibly be happy in the life that has been laid out for you here, and I think that you understand on some level that meeting me is an opportunity for much, much more.”
An emotion flashed through her black eyes, and Klaus felt sure it was recognition. “It may have been laid out for me since birth, but that does not make it an unworthy life,” she countered. The words were persuasive, but her voice was not, and Klaus studied her face carefully. How could someone as clever and high-spirited as she was become so placid and docile at the thought of being used as a pawn? “It’s an honor to help bring the fighting and death in this city to an end.”
Someone had told her that, he knew, and probably had repeated it often. Klaus stepped closer to her, feeling drawn toward her in a way he could not quite describe. If she was torn she would not show it. “It is your life, my lady,” he told her, “not some abstract honor.”
“My life,” she repeated, a shadow falling across her pale face. He lifted a hand to her cheek almost without realizing it, but she stepped away from him again, her shoes making no sound on the thick blue rug of the drawing room. He let his hand drop back to his side, tingling with the false hope of contact. “It must seem so insignificant to you. We live and die in no time at all, compared to your kind.”
“That’s not true.” His voice was heavy with honesty. If that was the reason she’d kept herself so aloof from him, then he needed to make her understand that wasn’t the case. “A year is still a year to me; a lifetime is a lifetime. Having had more than a few of my own makes them no less vivid or important to me.”
“And yet you end them, left and right, in order to sustain those lives of yours.” Her mouth turned downward in disapproval. “I have no wish to get involved with your kind, however well-meaning you might be tonight. I want to end bloodshed, not befriend a creature who must survive by it.”
It took him a moment to even understand what she meant, and when he did he struggled to remain composed. The comparison between the nameless people he drained for food and her shining, crackling bonfire of a life was so ludicrous that it was all he could do not to laugh. But her moral qualms about his existence were apparently a real concern for her, and so he tried to remain serious.
“My kind are not what you think. I’m not what you think—yes, I must kill to live, but you make me want to be different. After decades of emptiness, you make me feel complete. I feel I have known you my whole life, Vivianne, and I can understand you as no one else can,” he said. He lifted her chin with one hand until her endless, unfathomable eyes met his, and she did not recoil from his touch. He could feel the delicate line of her jawbone through the warm, supple flesh that stretched across it. “I know you have a kind and willing heart, and I also know you long to be free.”
Her eyes closed for a long moment, and Klaus held his breath. “I remember when you first came to this city,” she said finally, and he frowned in surprise. He released her, the heat of her skin lingering on his own. Whatever he had expected to hear, it wasn’t that. Her eyes opened, but she looked everywhere but him. “You destroyed whatever peace was left in the city. Until now.”
She must have been a child, he calculated frantically. Surely she had been afraid of the rumors that had spread on his arrival. And it was true that he had taken it upon himself to control the werewolf population for the first couple of years—her father’s family. That had perhaps been rash, although there was certainly no shortage of the beasts in New Orleans. It was past time for his little massacre to be forgiven and forgotten. “Vivianne, do you know why Elijah and Rebekah and I came here?”