The Unknown Variable

Chapter 10

Reaching behind him, his fingers closed around what felt like soft cotton, his head snapping around to stare at who dared interrupt his thoughts.

It was a woman, young no more than 24 years old if Klaus had to guess as he gazed at her stock still figure. Her red hair shone brightly in the morning sunlight as she seemed to regard him with little more than contempt.

He eyed her skeptically, appraising her motionless and defensive form carefully, memories from the prior night surfacing. The girl had said his boy would be angry if he heard that she had been harmed. Why? Klaus could not find himself able to answer that question.

Perhaps the girl was a friend, a family member that his son had claimed over his life as a member of the undead or perhaps she was a lover. He resented the thought that he had spent so long looking for Damon only for another to come around and attempt to steal him for themselves.

He was HIS!!! No one whether that be his sibling or a stranger would be allowed to take his little raven from him. He would not allow it!!! They would all fall at his hand for daring to approach his boy.

The boy he had spent so much time raising, protecting….loving as if he had always been his since birth. Shrugging the clothes on, Klaus allowed himself one moment of hesitation before he shot toward the woman.

He felt his pendant grow hot as it fended off what was evidently the thiefs last hail mary attempt at staying his hand. Klaus felt soft supple flesh brush against his palm as he closed it around the womans throat.

Her pulse beat rapidly against his fingers as he held her firmly in his grasp and shoved her hard against the large oak tree. The womans throat seemed to spasm under his hold as he began to squeeze. “W-wait.” she croaked at him, “Damon, h-” Klaus cut her off with a snarl, his new canines elongating at the familiarity in her tone when she said his sons name.

His choking hold relaxed slightly as he leaned forward to growl in her ear, “You’d do best to keep my sons name free from your tongue lest I tear it from your maw.”

Her gaze grew sharp at his words, electricity seeming to appear beneath her skin in mere seconds, burning wherever their flesh met. “Son!? That’s why he had the pendant?” her tone was filled with disbelief as if the words were impossible to comprehend.

Fire danced in Klaus’s eyes as her words registered, his boy hated him but trusted this common wiccan filth with the secrets of his bloodline. The secrets and protection Klaus had bestowed upon him as a young boy were meant to be kept within the family, not spread amongst commoners like this wench.

“He doesn’t know. Does he?” the woman whispered as she took in the anger and pain that flitted across Klaus’s face. “Of course, he knows.” Klaus hissed at her, his anger coming in waves as memories of him and Damon raced through his mind.

It took all of Klaus’s focus to keep himself in the present rather than be consumed by the visions of a happier time. “Then he’s angry with you.” Liberty said matter of factly, her gaze searching Klaus’s expression and posture for any hint that she was wrong. She knew she was correct though, after almost 75 years of watching Damon from both afar and nearby, she knew him.

She knew what upset him, what made him happy or sad, protective or angry. Lies, secrets were a sure fire way to piss off the normally calm and collected vampire. He did not suffer fools or those who deemed him to weak to protect himself.

As far as she knew, he had never put up with individuals who thought they knew better than him. “You sound so sure of yourself. What makes you think you could possibly know how my boy is feeling?” Klaus asked sardonically as he finally released her from her position against the coarse bark.