Bad Romance

Chapter One

Uma sat at the bar in Rousseau's, in the heart of the French Quarter of New Orleans, scoffing down the largest bowl of Gumbo she had ever seen. She was in New Orleans searching for her family. She had always been curious but she had felt a recent push to find them.

All that she knew was that her mother or father had been a werewolf. Uma was brought to the orphanage, which she never knew the name of, with another girl from her pack. Andrea Labonair. They had been separated shortly after they arrived, Andrea going missing during the night. She was never found, and there were no traces of a kidnapper anywhere. Uma was fostered before Andrea went missing but mostly lived on the streets. The families she stayed with had been nothing short of abusive and she refused to let herself be another statistic of the system.

Uma hoped that being in New Orleans would bring her closer to finding her family, but she was slowly losing hope. She had yet to find any leads and, despite her best efforts, couldn't find a trace of any werewolf scents in the Streets.

Uma noticed Jane-Anne, one of the co-owners of the restaurant, making her way over to the wooden bar she was eating at. Uma glowered, wishing the witch would leave her alone. Jane-Anne had insisted on helping Uma since the day she started craving gumbo.

"Can I help you?" She snarled, glaring at the persistent woman.

"Third time this week," Jane-Anne started with a nervous laugh, trying to break the ice.

When she saw Uma's unimpressed look, she cleared her throat.

"I have some information on your family."

Uma's spine straightened and she raised her head higher. Jane-Anne walked around the bar, standing next to Uma's stool, with a map and pen.

"In the Bayou, they call the werewolves roux-ga-roux," she started, circling a small area on the map. "You head out there, you find what you're looking for."

Uma debated listening to Jane-Anne for a brief moment, before snatching the paper out of her hands and standing. Jane-Anne muttered some form of warning to the wolf-girl, placing a hand on her shoulder. Uma quickly shrugged her off, not realizing that Jane-Anne had snatched a curl from her head, quickly storming out to her beetle and starting her journey.

Uma had driven long into the night, following the wrinkled map that lay on her steering wheel. She drove as far as she could, eventually coming up to a cluster of trees stopping her. She sighed, leaning her head back on the headrest. Abruptly the map burst into flames, making the girl panic. Uma threw the map out of her car window, before getting out and stopping on the ashy paper. Looking around the wooded area, Uma felt her skin prickle. She didn't believe in coincidences. She rushed back to her car, starting it and peeling out of the bayou.

Uma had barely left the bayou when her car started stalling, before stopping. Swearing and punching her wheel she left the car and opened the hood. Smoke billowed out, making Uma groan in frustration.

"Come out, witches. I know you're there," she yelled.

She could almost taste their magic. She had always been more sensitive to magic, the smell making her nose itch.

Uma knew she wasn't as strong as she would have been on a full moon but she had too much pride, and too big an ego, to back down without a fight. The witches immerged from the forest, surrounding Uma in a circle. Uma barred her teeth and prepared to fight, but was knocked unconscious by the witch's magic before she could lunge.

When Uma awoke, she didn't know where she was. The cell she was in was dark, only lit by candles, and dirty. Dirt had caked under her nails from where she tried to scratch her way out of the concrete walls. Trapping her was like caging a wild animal, so all of the witches had been avoiding her unless necessary. Uma sat, curled up into herself, growling and snarling at anyone who got too close. While she may not have had her claws and fangs, her attacks still hurt.

Two witches walked into the cell-like room Uma had been trapped in, trying to grab her arms and drag her out. Uma snapped her teeth at the witches, who called in backup. Suddenly, she was grabbed by too many hands and dragged into the Cemetary.

When the witches stopped walking, some letting go, Uma looked around to see why. There stood a suited man that Uma quickly realized was an original.

The original stared at Uma in shock. She looked feral. Her curls tangled and matted against her scalp, her lips pulled into a snarl, almost like a feral dog before it would bite, and she was fighting against the witch's restraints.

"Who the fuck are you?" she snarled.

Elijah turned to Sophie, asking for a minute with the wolf. Sophie gestured for the witches to lead Uma and the original into Uma's cell.

"So, they've been holding you here against your will?" Elijah asked.

Uma didn't respond, choosing instead to glare at the walls of her cell and huff to herself. To say the wolf was pissed was an understatement. Elijah had seen similar anger in Niklaus with the doppelganger. After a moment of silence, Uma decided to dignify Elijah with an answer.

"They lured me out to the bayou and grabbed me. Then they did all these weird, witchy tests on me," she scoffed, not taking her eyes off the wall ahead of her. "They told me I was pregnant, with Klaus' child. I don't understand how it would be possible. Vampire's are dead."

Elijah walked closer to Uma, but she flinched back when he got too close. Elijah backed up, not wanting to send the pregnant wolf into hysteria.

"Perhaps if you knew my brother's story it might explain how this is possible. Here, if I may," Elijah asked, extending a hand.

"What are you doing?" Uma asked, glaring at Elijah.

"Relax," he muttered, sitting next to Uma. "If you open your mind to me, I can show you."

Uma hesitated, but let him place his hands on either side of her head.

"In the beginning, our family was human, 1,000 years ago now. Although our mother dabbled in the dark arts, we were largely just a family trying to survive at a time when it was quite difficult to do so... and, for better or worse, we were happy. That is, however, until one night. Our youngest brother was killed by our village's greatest threat. Men that could transform themselves into wolves during the full moon. Our family was devastated, none more than Niklaus. Desperate to protect the rest of us, our father forced our mother to call upon her black magic in order to make us stronger.

Thus, the first vampires were born, but with this speed, this strength, this immortality came a terrible hunger. No one felt this hunger more than Niklaus. When he killed for the first time, we knew what he truly was. he wasn't just a vampire."

Elijah removed his hands from Uma's head. Uma's skull throbbed as the images that Elijah sent through flashed violently through her mind.

"He was also a werewolf," Uma hummed. "That's how you trigger the curse, you kill someone."

"Niklaus was the result of an indiscretion our mother had hidden from us all, an affair with a werewolf like yourself. Infuriated by this betrayal, my father forced our mother to cast a spell that would suppress Klaus' werewolf side, denying him any connection with his true self."

"Your dad was an ass," Uma grunted, thinking about some of her equally shitty foster parents.

She doubted they would have ever turned her into a vampire, but still shitty.

Elijah let out a small laugh, barely noticeable, at Uma's bluntness.

"I'm Uma, by the way. Thought you should know your brother's baby mama's name."

Uma stood from the ground when she heard Sophie coming towards the cell, her guard back up. Elijah and Sophie discussed their plans for Marcel and Klaus, while Uma planned the witch's murder. She would kill Sophie, and she would drink her blood out of spite.