Fighting For Hope (The Hybrid and The Wolf - Book 3)

Chapter 22 - Ashes to Ashes

Seconds later, I heard a gasp as Freya woke up and I went to the truck to comfort my crying daughter.

~*~*~

It was morning now and I was holding Hope while looking down at Klaus' desiccated body, Freya stood behind me and I turned my head when I heard a whoosh. It was Elijah.

"Nina," he sounded relieved to see me.

"Elijah," I greeted him.

He walked closer to us. "I thought--Marcel said that Klaus stole the Crescent Curse from him."

I furrowed him in confusion. "What?"

"I was afraid you had suffered his wrath."

I looked around the woods for a moment before I realized what had happened last night when I was fighting Hayley.

"No," I shook my head, tears threatening to spill. "Jackson . . ."

That's why it felt like I was turning, because I was feeling what Jackson was going through, Klaus had cursed him. Which means that all the Crescents are cursed as well, because of the Unification Ceremony. But why wasn't I? Was it because I'm a hybrid and my vampire side prevented the curse from taking effect?

"What are you doing here, Nina?" Elijah asked me.

"I came here with Klaus," I told him, still processing what happened to my brother.

Now it was his turn to be confused. "I don't understand."

"I helped him, Elijah," I told him. "I was with him when he attacked Jackson and the wolves."

"You attacked your own people?" He was shocked.

"They're not my people anymore!" I snapped.

Freya cleared her throat to interrupt us. "Well, my adage holds. Nothing good ever happens in a clearing in the woods."

"Nothing good ever happens when my brother is concerned," Elijah said as he glanced at me and walked closer to Hope and I. "With one exception. How is she?"

"She's a Mikaelson, she's resilient," I told him as she cried. "Shh, baby. It's okay."

Elijah walked towards Dahlia's unconscious body.

"When I woke, they were like this," Freya informed her brother.

"Klaus told me to dagger him," I revealed, causing Elijah to look at me with surprise. "He knew your plan wouldn't work, so he had to enact one of his own."

"Yes, Camille said the same thing. According to him, our ingredients were incorrect. Niklaus infiltrated Dahlia's mind. You didn't break her heart," he looked at Freya. "We needed the blood of the witch she loved the most and you are not that witch, that honor goes to our beloved mother."

"So we need Esther's blood. Well, that's impossible. I killed her," Freya told us.

"One incarnation."

"Your mother is buried in New Orleans," I told her. "Klaus wants us to revive the original body."

~*~*~

We were now back at the compound, I had taken Hope to her room and when she fell asleep, I went back downstairs to join the Mikaelsons and Marcel. I was happy to see Rebekah in her original body, I had missed her but she was still pissed at me for siding with Klaus.