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There isn’t a word to describe how his soul fractures and howls at the thought of it. Jealousy doesn’t cover the breadth of feeling. It’s an amalgamation of possessive zeal, rage and an uncontrollable urge to rip Alaric Saltzman to shreds.
He goes after the Gemini Coven instead.
‘You-’ she stumbles over her words, heartbeat(s) aflutter, ‘You didn’t have to do that.’
He asks her why not.
Caroline hesitates, then says, ‘I’m not the one in danger.’
Oh, his sweet, sweet Caroline, knowing her own value in his heart almost better than he does; except she fails to acknowledge the fact that he not only adores her, would burn the world for her, but wants her completely to himself—all of her. Her spirit, her heart, her body. Yes, she may not be in danger, but he had to get his anger out somehow. The enemies she considers her own were worthy enough targets.
The infants swimming in the viscous fluid of her womb are abominations in his eyes solely because they are not theirs. That would change in due course, but until then, Klaus would have to play a careful game.
Caroline would forgive him, in the end.
‘Exactly,’ he murmurs, sealing in her eyes a promise to protect the Gemini twins who were so rudely deposited within her, against her consent, to the joy of a widowed man who would use her as an incubator for children she wouldn’t even be able to call her own. ‘Exactly.’
Each of his siblings are cruel in their own ways. Selfish. Tyrannical. Klaus had never denied having a cruel streak, the type of cruel to chase young vampires from continent to continent for centuries, like a cat playing with the mouse it’s already ensnared. The type of cruel that smiled, then slowly bared it’s fangs and watched as horror bloomed behind the eyes of its victim.
Freya took time to figure out. She was still a Mikaelson—she was Freya Mikaelsdottr, chattel, slave, apprentice, heir to a legacy she never wanted; above all, she was his sister—and any blood of Esther had patience enough for a hunt. Freya, it seemed to Klaus’ eyes, was only cruel in her dispassion for others, which made her the perfect accomplice. The more she cared, the more effort she put into being loyal.
‘You could do it,’ he probes, watching her eyes flit from page to page, ‘Freya, I know you could.’
‘Why would I want to do this?’ His sister demands, outraged by the very concept, eyes sparking with a familiar defiance he’d seen time and time again from Rebekah, from Kol, from Finn, from his own reflection in the mirror; ‘The mother would never allow it.’
‘Caroline,’ says Klaus, whispering her name because it was precious, ‘is not currently their mother.’
Freya’s eyes dim. She knows who Caroline Forbes is, and what happened to her. Klaus’ rage had destroyed an entire building when it was explained to him. ‘While it would be a kindness to her, if this spell were a bird, it’d be a magpie, Klaus. You can’t rewrite the bloodline of an unborn child from the maternal side alone. It would have to be both.’
‘And?’ he says, for the first time smiling at her, watching his sister come upon the realisation of what he wants to gift himself and their family, what he wants for Caroline to birth, after all is said and done. Fuck Alaric Saltzman and whoever his wife was, damn them all to hell and give his lover her own children.
Make them his children.
‘She’d never agree,’ Freya blusters.
‘Sister,’ says Klaus, leaning over the spellbook containing salvation, ‘she doesn’t have to.’
The matter of Hope is something little discussed between Klaus and Caroline, up until he convinces her to visit him in New Orleans and Hayley walks past them with a grumpy little girl who misses her daddy.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Caroline says, hesitant to touch. Impatience rules Klaus. He gathers the whimpering baby from Hayley’s arms, then transfers her into Caroline’s, startling both women.
He agrees in a neutral voice. ‘She is.’ Hope has become distracted by Caroline’s hair, brighter and lighter than either of her aunts’, whimpers ceasing when confronted by a new face. Luckily, Caroline is a quick study.
‘Not as heavy as I thought.’
‘Hm,’ he hums. He watches Caroline’s eyes trace the line of his daughter’s brow and the bow of her cheeks, sadness flashing behind her eyes as she finds what she’s looking for in her features: him.
It only further convinces him the spell needs to be done.
One phone call. One broken lightbulb in a dim apartment complex. Two shadowed figures, the second ignorant of the first.
One misstep on a concrete set of stairs…
‘Transfer to Tulane,’ he nuzzles the rounded skin of her belly, feeling the warmth of Freya’s magic, sensitive to every minute squirm of Caroline’s body as she slowly succumbs to sleep. ‘Leave Mystic Falls behind, Caroline Forbes. Stay in New Orleans with me, in my kingdom in this city of the dead.’
‘They’re…they’re Alaric’s babies…’ she murmurs, eyes sliding closed. Klaus, settled between her naked legs, presses his lips to the bump containing their children.
Not anymore, he thinks, wondering how long it would take for someone to find the late Mr Saltzman’s body—and then wondering what to name the two newest additions to the family, young and fragile as they might be.
Yes, Caroline would forgive him.
‘Mine.’ Klaus swears to them all, ‘Always and forever—the three of you are mine.’