I'll never love again [1]

O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL

"He will stop at nothing until we find that damned cure, which is why he's my most valuable player at the moment. I need him focused on the task at hand."

"Well, aren't you a little evil bastard." She said and he smiled mischievously before turning back to his painting.

"Sweetheart, would you text Adrian and tell him to come? Tell him it's urgent." He pointed at his phone on the table and Nat nodded, grabbing the phone and texting the hybrid quickly. After a few minutes of complete silence, Stefan walked into the room. Nat glanced at him and she noticed his eyes were glued to the painting.

"Looks like a giant snowflake." He said loudly.

"I prefer to think of it as an expression of postmodernism." Klaus said and turned to Stefan, leaving his brush on the table. "It's my donation to the Winter Wonderland charity event." Adrian entered the room in that moment and looked at Klaus.

"You said it was urgent."

"Yes, take this to the Mystic Grill immediately." Klaus told him as he pointed at the painting.

"You want me to be a delivery guy?" Adrian scoffed and Nat glanced at him curiously. Klaus walked forward and closed the space between them.

"What I want is for you to do whatever I say." He said lowly. "Without the attitude." He added. Adrian grimaced and walked over to the painting, picking it up before he started walking away. "And be careful. It's still wet." Adrian nodded and left the room wordlessly.

"Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, you know." Stefan told Klaus and he smiled at the vampire.

"What is the point of my hybrids being sired to me if I can't maximize on the benefits of free labour?" He shrugged before narrowing his eyes. "What are you doing here?" Stefan walked down the stairs and into the room.

"Elena is sired to Damon." He told the hybrid and Nat looked at him.

"I intuited as much." Klaus replied amused.

"Which means I need to find the cure now more than ever and yet here you are, making postmodern snowflakes." Stefan retorted with a glare.

"I've delivered." Klaus told him as he walked over to the table Nat was sitting and held out his hands. She rolled his eyes and grabbed the cloth beside her and started wiping the paint off his hands. "I retrieved the Hunter's sword from Italy, which we'll use to decipher the map hidden in the Hunter's mark. You're the one who is supposed to deliver the Hunter and his mark." Nat finished wiping the paint and patted his hands lightly, hopping down on the floor and staring at Stefan.

"Well, Jeremy is the hunter and he has to keep killing vampires to complete his mark, but we can't quite figure out how to keep him from killing us." Stefan replied seriously and Klaus smirked at him.

"Sounds like quite the chore. Which is why I feel perfectly justified doing a little charity work."

"Hmm, or maybe you're lying about having found the sword." Stefan said and Nat raised her eyebrows.

"Why would I lie to you, Stefan?" Klaus said as he strode past the vampire, he and Nat following him to a vault in the other room. "We're in this together." Yeah, until they found the cure and Klaus destroys it, Nat thought. The hybrid turned the dial on the vault and opened it up, taking the sword out. "The sword acts as a cipher which we'll use to decode the marks on Jeremy's tattoo when he's killed enough vampires to complete it." He placed the sword down on the table and took a seat on the sofa, propping his feet up on the table. Nat walked over and leaned on it, staring at Stefan as he picked the sword up and examined it. "I heard you moved out of your house." Stefan looked at Nat and she shrugged innocently. "Bit of a martyr move, hm?"