Being the last witch of her kind, Lena Ricci has been protected by Rebekah Mikaelson her whole life.
And then one day, as the two are having the time of their lives in Paris, they catch wind of the news. Rebekah's half brother has knocked up some w...
" 'cause I can sometimes treat the people that I love like jewellery "
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LENA felt very, very uncomfortable in her seat. Klaus had bought her a dress for the dinner party he was hosting that night and she sat at the opposite end of the table beside Hayley. The werewolf had her knees pulled up to her chest, resting her elbows on them and glaring angrily at the hybrid at the opposite end of the long table from her.
Hayley and Lena were the only two at the dinner table who were not vampires, neither were they immortal. They also looked the least dressed up, despite the new dress Klaus had bought Lena when he had listened to her cry herself to sleep the night before.
It was their first dinner in the Abattoir, and yet Lena wasn't feeling the tiniest bit hungry, especially not after she had walked into her new household and seen it had been littered with the dead bodies of over a dozen vampires.
Klaus' clanging of his fork against his glass brought Lena out of her own mind and she glanced over at him to see him rising to his feet. "Let us begin with a toast--" he began, smiling gently at the witch. She didn't feel like smiling back, she missed Rebekah too much. "--to our shared gift - immortality. After one thousand years, one might expect life to be less keenly felt, for its beauties and its sorrows to diminish with time, but as vampires, we feel more deeply than humans could possibly imagine--" Klaus motioned for the four human butlers he had compelled to step forward and they did. "--insatiable need, exquisite pain--" the compelled humans pushed up their sleeves and cut their own wrists with the knives Klaus had given them. Lena squeezed her eyes shut but she could still hear the blood dripping into the bowls of the vampires. "--our victories and our defeats.To my city, my home again! May the blood never cease to flow!"
"And the party never end!" finished Marcel, lifting his glass. Beside Lena, who had opened her eyes again once the butlers left, Diego lifted his glass and toasted to New Orleans, allowing the others vampires to do the same.
Hayley and Lena made eye contact. Hayley didn't even bother trying to lift her glass, but Lena tilted hers a little. She didn't want to make Klaus angry. He had already forced her away from Rebekah in order to punish his sister, she didn't dare think what he would do if she stepped out of line.
"I understand that some of you may have questions regarding the recent change in leadership and I invited you here tonight to assure you that you are not defeated. No, my intentions moving forward are to celebrate what we have, what Marcel, in fact, took and built into this - a true community of vampires."
"What about them?" asked Diego, before pointing to Hayley and Lena as he said, "the wolf and the witch?"
"Had you let me finish, Diego, you would know that there is, of course, one further matter I would like to address." Klaus had moved around the table as he spoke and now he stood behind Hayley, much to the werewolf's dissatisfaction. "As many of 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 rumour that I intend to use the blood of our child to create hybrids. I assure you, I do not."
