The Original Sire [4]

Ex-Box

"Just sign here miss" the burley delivery driver spoke handing me a clipboard with a receipt attached, I did a quick signature before handing it back to him and with that, he was on his way leaving me alone.

I sighed looking at the large antique chest situated in my living room, I had it delivered from my storage unit in New York.

Kat and Nadia had brought Eden out for the day before they were to drop her at her father's house for the night as I had suggested, I needed to be alone. I had also been dodging Detective Will's calls with everything that had happened in the past few days it was easier this way, for now.

I gulped falling to my knees beside the chest, opening it up only to be assaulted with the smell of old books, freshly pressed shirts, red wine, and the French countryside, the scent was uniquely Tristan.

I ran my fingers through the contents of the box, memories coming back to me like a tidal wave.

"Thyra please stay"

"Elijah needs me"

"And what of Klaus?"

"Niklaus means nothing to me anymore you know this. Rumour has it Niklaus is close to breaking his curse, which means he will come out of hiding. It is the perfect opportunity for Elijah and me to reunite our family and make us whole again".

"He will suck you back in he always does"

"Tristan, I promise he won't"

Tristan had been right Nik did suck me back in.

Nineteen-ninety-seven was the year I left him, in the name of the family I had turned my back on our decade's long affair.

I grabbed handfuls of photographs looking through them.

That moment in Mystic fall's when I came face to face with Niklaus again after decades apart, it was as if my time with Tristan never happened. I think I always knew I would end up back in my ex-husband's arms no matter how much I pretended to hate him back then.

I smiled, cringed and laughed at the photo's in my hands, what had I been thinking with those hairstyles.

Letters from Tristan, postcards and little trinkets from the place's we traveled along with other miscellaneous items that were tied to our relationship littered the box.

From nineteen-fifty-nine to nineteen-ninety-seven I had been with the De Martel's, and the strix, well besides that brief time in the seventies that I spent with Damon Salvatore in New York and some other solo ventures.

But It was in sixty-five that Tristan and I's relationship started.

Rio de Janeiro, colorful, bright and exciting, filled with music, dancing, and laughter, my kind of place.

I spent my days lounging on Copacabana Beach and my night's dancing on the streets with the locals, it was truly paradise here.

It had been six months since Edith had suggested we come here, she had stayed here all of two months with me before she had to leave on strix business.

So here I was alone in one of the most vibrant cities in the world, well except for the bodyguards the strix had provided for me.

It had nearly been six years since Edith and her brother had found me in Italy and offered to protect me from Niklaus. I, of course, didn't need protection but they had resources who could track Nik's movements so I didn't have to, the Martel's and the strix could do all the work while I relaxed and stopped looking over my shoulder.