Black Castle 🖤 E. Mikaelson

Chapter Thirty•Four. Hexed, Poisoned & Bitten

"I don't know where the name originated from since my parents disowned me and refused to tell me about our family, but all I know is that I am an abomination." She wasn't trying to sound sad, but Derek could see it clearly on her features.

"So like a wolf on steroids?" Derek continued to look around, so when he turned back around he saw how casual she looked, completely different moments later, she just kept her arms crossed, hopefully hiding her baby bump under her baggy sweater.

"Something like that." She couldn't help but keep her eyes on him. He was tall, he was buff and he wasn't afraid to show off his muscles with his tight v-neck t-shirt. His beard was neat, his hair was brushed back and styled. He was the opposite of Elijah, and as much as she enjoyed his suits and clean look, Derek was a sight to see.
"So, if you're from New Orleans what made you come to Beacon Hills?" He changed the subject, but he couldn't stop her from staring.
"I wanted a new start, a lot of things were going on back home and I didn't want to stick around for it."
"A lot of things meaning your husband?" He looked at her hand and then looked away. He clocked her hand and remembered she was still wearing her engagement ring. She had tried taking it off plenty of times but always found herself putting it back on before the day ended so she just decided to leave it on her finger.
"Ex-fiancé, though we were married way before all of... this if that makes sense." She waved her hand in a circular motion.
"Getting divorced?" His eyebrow raised.
"A little more complicated than that." She bit her lower lip.
"What's more complicated than divorce?"
"I don't you know well enough to disclose that information." She was defensive and he didn't mean to make her feel that way.
"You're already telling me that you're some beast from New Orleans, you might as well tell me it all." His chuckle made her chest tense.
"Okay," She sighed and then slowly lowered herself down on the chair she was seated in before answering the door. "I have been a Queen back in my time, I had met the love of my life on the day of my coronation and had gotten married a thousand years ago to an Original vampire by the name of Elijah Mikaelson. His brother, Niklaus, who is an Original hybrid was completely obsessed with me and had concluded that if he couldn't have me then certainly his brother couldn't. So I was put to rest for a thousand years with a dagger in my chest. Then, their vampire hunter of a father pulled the dagger out and told me it was time to go and get my revenge. But before doing that I had shoved that same dagger in his chest and left him to rot because he was a psychotic piece of work. And I mean that in the most horrific way possible. I go to New Orleans to go and be with my one true love, only to find out that he had found another lover, quite a few since I've been gone. He decided that he was in love with this girl and didn't want to be with me, and I understood, a thousand years had passed and he was a changed person, so I let him go. Then he decided that he wanted to fight for our relationship. Then I was kidnapped and tortured for a year by a man who worked for an organization that Elijah had built for the last almost two hundred years, escaped with my memory wiped clean, made my way back to New Orleans, adopted a dog, and bought and built a house. I had gotten my memories back and agreed to marry Elijah again. I became friends with his brother, and we have been inseparable ever since. Then my heart was ripped out by the man who kidnapped me, came back to life, and realized that the girl Elijah was in love with once upon a time was the reason I was kidnapped and killed, then her husband had gotten killed by the same man, but I killed him about eleven weeks ago and I've been here ever since. Oh and Elijah said he didn't want to be with me because I killed my parents and sister over a thousand years ago because turns out, they were trying to kill me."
Derek had been staring at her when she finished up. She didn't stutter, she didn't skip a beat while explaining things to him. It was like the more she spoke about what went on in her life, the more he was convinced that she was crazy. "There is no way."
"Where did I lose you?" her eyes widened slightly because it wasn't like she was lying about what she went through. If it sounded that way and he didn't believe her, that was his fault.
"Pretty much at the very beginning." It was his turn to cross his arms, and for some reason, his height and build made him look so big in her living room. "You're telling me you are over a thousand years old?"
"Is that really surprising?" Her head tilted. It wasn't like she looked like she could be, or the way her accent sounded wouldn't have given it away, there was nothing there that could convince him.
"No, not really. What is surprising is how young you look." His laugh was light, but he became nervous. In all his life werewolves were normal to him. He didn't think there was anything else out there. But then again, he hadn't been outside of Beacon Hills to see if there were. There was a whole world he didn't know about, and the fact that Arabella could be the Queen of an entire nation once upon a time and manage to be something incredibly dangerous at the same time, it was perfectly acceptable to be bewildered.
"That's because I eat the hearts of vampires." It was a joke, but he didn't seem to think it was.
He stared at her again. And she was serious, though, vampire's hearts didn't keep her young. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, though I am sure that it doesn't keep me looking young." She finally smiled, and he smiled too, but he thought she was still crazy.
"So vampires are a thing?" He cleared his throat and faced her. Her face was serious, but she casually switched her features to make her seem relaxed. "And you were married to one?"
"Yeah, as much as witches, lycanthropes, anything you can think of." Arabella stood up again. She took a step in his direction, it was like he couldn't take his eyes off of her, something was playing on her mind and he could tell that she was waiting to ask him something.
"You have something to ask?" His right eyebrow arched. He was watching her face as if trying to remember every line, every curve of her smile, the color of her eyes, and her lips. He had to snap himself out of it after a couple of seconds but he knew why he did that.
"Yes, do you know Scott McCall?" She was casual with her question. When his eyebrows lowered he wasn't sure how to feel about answering her.
"I do, why?" His head went back a little bit.
"So he's like you as well then? It's the way you smell." She couldn't help but smile because of how uncomfortable he looked. When she mentioned how they smelled, it didn't make him relax.
"Is that a bad thing?" He looked down at his shirt for a split second and then back at her, realizing she wasn't referring to cologne.
"No," She made a pouting face as she kept her eyes on his. It was almost dreamily. "Just different. A good different."
"Hmm." He lifted his chin and then lowered it again as they stood in the middle of her living room staring at each other. It was clear that he was attracted to her, and she couldn't hide that as well. But then she remembered Elijah, she remembered Niklaus and what she had told him about how she felt toward Elijah. And it came back into play while a stranger stood in her house, staring at her while she thought about Elijah. And the only thought that came to her mind that made her think about him was the very moment Elijah would without hesitation, snap Derek's neck.
That alone made Arabella break eye contact and step back as he crossed her arms under her chest again. It was nice to be looked at the way he looked at her, but nothing good was going to come out of it. No matter how much she enjoyed it.
It was clear that she was a New Orleans six, but a Beacon Hills nine. It was a whole new experience and it was one she enjoyed fondly.
"I would like to sit here and tell you all about the universe, b-but I have to start getting ready for my doctor's appointment." She became awkward.
"Y-yeah, right. I have to get going anyway." He rubbed the back of her neck and after that, Arabella had no problem showing him to the door.
Outside the door, he took another moment to look at her again. Usually, he didn't really care but Arabella had definitely captured his attention, and that didn't happen every day. So he wondered why she was so special. She leaned on the door and softly tilted her head to watch him as he took another step back, he placed his hands in his jean pockets and started walking.
"It was nice to meet you Derek," She called after him. When he turned around again he caught her smiling. "But next time, if you want to find something out about someone, be sure to ask first, flirt later."
It was hard to hide his smile, he stopped and turned when he reached the end of the sidewalk, he was going to say that he wasn't flirting with her, but it was clear that he was. And he could have sworn that she was flirting with him as well. So he decided to not deny it, and keep it light. "It was nice to meet you too. Maybe we could do this again sometime."
"I'll look forward to you knocking on my door." She joked. It had gotten quiet between the two of them and they went their separate ways. Arabella closed the door and leaned against it. She brought her ring up to her eye level and moved her finger a little bit to watch it gleam. She loved Elijah. As she had mentioned before, he practically hung the stars in the sky for her, if he could gift her with the moon he would. But Derek captured her attention like a fish to bait. It was an exhilarating feeling, and even though she was about to get ready and head to her doctor's appointment, Derek popped into her head as much as Elijah did. Maybe he was just the distraction she needed, and she could think about that later, now, she was going to take a shower and go on with her life.