Chapter 02: Too Many Souls To Save

A/N: Once again, read meeko’s chapter 5 of Neon Light first before you read this chapter!

——————————

Sleep had not come easy to her that night. All she could think about was that there was a gorgeous man in her basement and that their kiss had been spectacular. So spectacular, in fact, that she had lost pieces of clothing without being aware of losing them in the first place.

It had taken a hot shower, her overly affectionate rabbit and yet another hot shower before she was capable of settling down for the night. She was up at 6.30 am, like any other normal day, and went on about her business. It was laundry day, so she turned on the washing machine while she switched on her coffee maker. While she was a tea enthusiast, she needed to wake up with a steaming hot cup of Joe or the rest of the day would be ruined.

Ann then started on breakfast. She remembered that she had a guest now, and that she had to make more, and decided to make pancakes. Normally she’d have some granola that she made herself with a little bit of yoghurt, but she felt like she needed to do something extra for her guest. A peace offering for flaking out on him like she had.

She freaked out, big time. For what? Sex. Meaningless sex between two very attractive people and it would have helped her out so much. She felt as if she was a bomb ready to explode. Meditation was going to suck today. Maybe some yoga would help. Or maybe… he’d try again. Oh, she wished he’d try again. The mere thought of him trying it again send pleasurable shivers down her spine. Or maybe, she should make the first move this time.

Whatever this was, she needed to get it out of her system.

She put the breakfast on a tray and made her way downstairs, realizing that she hadn’t even bothered getting out of her pyjamas and into her clothes yet. Which was only good, for what she had planned. “Good morning,” she announced herself before walking in further and setting the tray on the little side table. “Made you breakfast.”

He slowly woke, slightly disorientated for a moment before he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and remembering where he was. “I haven’t slept this well in a very long time,” he said with a yawn and sat up.

She couldn’t fight the gasp that escaped from her mouth when the sheets moved and revealing that he slept without his shirt on. Her thoughts immediately went back to their kiss and looked at him, licking her lips. “I uhm… yeah, I apologize for last night.”

“Don’t. I’m more curious as to why that happened. Even now, I…”

“Yeah,” she nodded so fast that she could have been a yo yo. “I’m not sure if we should… or shouldn’t… I don’t know.”

“I vote for should,” Kol said with a smirk. “Get it out of the way. You’re obviously tightly wound. Yeah, I heard you knocking about with your rabbit alright.”

Her face reddened. “I normally don’t do this kind of stuff. This is very out of character.”

“Maybe we share a magical connection. We’re both witches, I’ve seen stranger things.”

“Well, I haven’t.”

“We should get this over with, get it out of the way. Trust me, nothing will change between us,” he reached for her and pulled her on to the bed. “Unless you’re a virgin… that would be awkward.”

“I’m not,” she said, her face even redder at the memories. “I’m not an innocent, naive girl, Kol. It’s just that I don’t normally…” she took a deep breath to calm her nerves. “I usually want to know someone a little bit better before I hop in the bed with them.”

“Well, I have a feeling I’m going to be sticking around for a while so…” He shrugged as he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and looked at her with a big smile on his face. “And I think we’re no longer strangers after baring our souls yesterday. You know as much of me as I know of you.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“Besides, life is supposed to be fun, what fun is there in restricting yourself, conforming to normality?”

“I said, you’re right,” she grinned as she shifted a little and kissed him greedily, pushing him back onto the bed. She pressed her body against his, she could already feel his hardon pressing against her through his pants and smirked in the kiss. They were so ready for this.

Breaking off the kiss for air, she started to kiss along his jaw, nuzzled his earlobe and kissed her way down his neck. Shifting to a better position to have all access to him, she lifted his arms above his head before looking at him through hooded eyes. “Keep them there, please.”

“Why? I want to touch you, it’s not fair that you get to touch me.”

Ann smirked at that. “Because I asked nicely.” Truthfully, while she wanted to feel his hands all over her, she wasn’t sure if she was ready for that. Not after the last time. Not yet. He could touch her when she said he could. She kissed along the vein in his neck and scraped her teeth on his collarbone.

“Did-”

“Don’t spoil the mood,” she briefly placed a hand on his mouth and continued to explore his chest with her lips and fingertips. Every touch sending waves of pleasure through her body, desire growing, building up, but she wasn’t going to act upon it. Not yet.

When she reached his pants with her fingers, she opened them and then went on to tug them off of him. She wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t wearing anything underneath it. Kol did seem to be the type of guy to live dangerously. “Hmm… adventurous, I like,” she muttered when she eyed his glorious cock while she kept tugging on his pants. When she was finally victorious, she crawled back onto the bed and took hold of him. “Is it all about paying attention to this wonderful thing for you or do you take pleasure out of something else as well?”

He was slightly taken aback by her question, but couldn’t help to let out a small groan. His cock felt so good in her hand, he wanted her to stroke it, to squeeze it. Oh, for her to have it in her mouth and have her suck him dry. Completely dry. His imagination got the better of him and impatiently bucked his hips into her hand.

“Fair enough,” she kissed him as she started to move her hand up and down his shaft, giving it the occasional squeeze and tug. She wanted to melt her body into his, completely dissolve and only return to solid form once they both had reached their climax. She needed to be touched. She wanted to be touched.

She wanted him to take control, devour her as she wanted to devour him. But she was having fun stroking him, making him squirm and silently beg for more with the little noises that escaped from his lips during their kiss.

Breaking off the kiss again, she removed her hands from him and kept her eyes him as she got out of her oversized shirt that she liked to sleep in before getting rid of her soaked panties.

“Can I please touch you?” He asked huskily, jerking his head towards his arms that were still above his head. “You are so beautiful, I want to touch you like you’ve been touching me.”

“You’re so polite,” she countered playfully and nodded. Before she knew it, she was on her back and he was all over her. His lips felt divine on her skin, his hands were expertly roaming her body and she couldn’t help but let out a long moan. Her back arched into him when his fingers reached a sensitive spot, digging her nails into his back.

“Oh, I’m far from polite, darling,” he whispered in her ear. “But this is our first time, it’d be rude to be rude. I usually take what I want.” Kol could feel how his words caused her body to react to him even more, her breath hitched and she used her legs to pin him into place. Grinning softly in her ear, he continued to whisper dirty little secrets while his hand travelled to her pussy.

She let out a gasp when she felt his fingers on her lips below, exploring, caressing. She yelped when he playfully pinched one, before laughing and remembering to breathe. “That was mean!”

“I told you, I’m a very, very rude boy,” he said in a low voice before slipping one finger inside of her. She was gloriously wet, she was more than ready to take him, but he wanted to draw it out, have his way with her. Try to make her beg for him to be inside of her. “Just remember to breathe, wouldn’t want you to die on me due to oxygen deprivation.”

She let out a snort and moaned when his hand was on her breast, teasing her nipple with his fingers for a moment before setting it back down so he could steady himself as he moved his other fingers inside of her. Ann thought that the torment was done, but when his lips captured her nipple and his tongue started to circle it, she lost it. She wanted to unwind, she wanted to fly apart around him. “Fuck me.”

“Now look who’s rude,” he muttered against her breast, sending extra sensations through her body and he was loving it.

Oh, she couldn’t think. But it was rude, was it? No, it wasn’t. “Please,” she eventually moaned, untangling her legs from his body so he was free to do whatever the hell he wanted. But if he’d stop and leave her like this, she was going to kill him.

“Finally,” he let out a breath as he removed his hand from her and shifted on the bed. “I was afraid you weren’t going to tell me that.” Kol kissed her greedily as he hovered over her, his cock pressing against her thigh, leaking and begging to be inside of her. “If this is still going on after we’re done, we’re going to cast a little spell to find out what it is, okay?”

“Fine, but fuck me first!” Her desperation sounded like music to his ears.

He simply smirked at her as he stared at her face, observing her. The bed was far too small for him to actually not to fall off and he wasn’t going to hurt his head. Standing up, he pulled her up as well and lifted her up as he kissed her, wrapping her legs around him as he walked to the closest wall and pushed her against it.

She shivered with pleasure when her back came in contact with the cool wall and moaned into the kiss. Ann wrapped an arm around his neck and moved her other hand between them to grab hold of him and slowly lower herself on to him with a little assist. His lips were on her neck now, and as he started to fill her up, she couldn’t help but feel as if they were truly melting into each other.

His cock felt glorious inside of her and he felt happy to be there. Even without the strange pull they both felt towards each other, there was something about Ann that he found intoxicating, freeing, in a way. And maybe it were the effects of smelling all those different herbs in her store, that it altered his brain, not to mention hers, in some way that they’d have to deal with their urges, but if that was the case, Ann would have told him that it had happened before, wouldn’t she?

Whatever it was, he didn’t feel guilty about this at all. They were having the time of their lives and it felt absolutely fantastic. He didn’t move once he was fully inside of her, nice and snug, allowing her to get used to the feeling of him inside of her and she had a delirious look on her face.

She rocked her hips, grinding down on him from her position, to nudge him into moving and after a little shifting, and dragging a box towards them with his foot so she could stand on it, he started to thrust. Long and hard. Long and slow. Long and fast. “Breathe,” he reminded her with a grunt.

She had both her arms now wrapped around his neck and had lost all coherency. She came hard when he slightly changed his angle and hit a sensitive spot. Clamping down on him, he followed soon after.

Kol didn’t know how, but they made it back to the bed in one piece and she rolled into him after he carefully placed her on the bed. They were both still quite high from their tryst and he found it adorable that Ann was a cuddler. Pulling the covers over them, he made sure that she wouldn’t fall off the bed. “That was…”

“Wow,” Ann managed to say as she tried to crawl into him by shuffling even further towards him.

“Yes,” he nodded as he started to draw circles on her back with his fingertips. “Don’t you have a store to open?”

“Later,” she murmured and sighed happily. Yes, the need was gone, and she felt so much better. So much more relaxed. She wanted to stay like this forever. This was great.

~o.O.o~

By lunch, they had sufficiently recovered to go on with the rest of the day. Normally, Ann would have opened the shop by now, but she didn’t feel like it today. “If you’re going to stick around, we’re going to need some supplies,” she stated as she walked into the store area where Kol was eating his now cold pancakes. “Not to mention, I think you might want to pick up some personal items such as clean clothes?”

“Where do you want to get supplies? There isn’t a supermarket nearby.”

“The church sells some things. Every two weeks or so I take the bus to the nearest supermarket with a bag on wheels and stock up on the things the church doesn’t have.”

“For someone who claims not to be religious, you mention that church a lot.”

Ann shrugged. “It’s my people. My community, of course I go there a lot. Besides, some of the treats they have come straight from Norway and it’s just so good…” She grabbed a bag and her purse and grinned. “It’s time to go out and do something, Kol.”

“Are you sure I can stay in your basement?”

“For now? Sure. We’ll see when you can move up to my house,” Ann winked at him and opened the door to let him out. “You’re also going to need to stop by the pharmacy if we’re going to do what we did this morning more often. I’m on the pill, but you can’t be sure of anything these days.”

He stopped in his tracks when she said that and turned to look at her. “You want us to do that again?”

She shrugged. “It was great, why would we deny ourselves the simple pleasures in life? Besides, we seem to be getting on, so…” Suddenly she felt all insecure again. It was the way that he looked at her, maybe. But to her, it was important to communicate things like this when you had sex with someone, incase it would repeat itself. And if he was going to stay at her place, chances were that it was most definitely going to repeat.

He kissed the top of her head and smirked. “My thoughts exactly. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

~o.O.o~

It took him a bit longer than expected. Sure, gathering some of his things and going round to the pharmacy had been easily done, but he wouldn’t be doing a proper job if he wasn’t going to ask around about Ann in the witches’ community and maybe a few in the Norwegian community. And just as expected; she turned out to be harmless.

When he got back to her shop, the door was unlocked and he could enter the premises, the smell of food wafting down the stairs from her home. “I’m back, would you want me to lock the door?”

“Please,” she answered as her head popped up at the top of the stairs. “Could you put a teaspoon of Hawthorn, a teaspoon of Lavender, a small pinch of Motherworth, and a teaspoon of dried Althea in a teabag for me? In that order? Bring it to me so I can make some tea with it?”

He did as she asked and frowned. “Wait, are you alright?” Kol ran up the stairs and walked over to her, not noticing how her home looked like, but more in what state she was in. She was as pale as a sheet.

“Yeah, I have a headache, that’s all. Bad feeling about something and I can’t seem to see what’s going to happen. I would mix it myself, but I’m keeping an eye on the food here.”

“Alright,” he said as he put the bag on the counter, dropped his things and directed her to her small living room. “Allow me to make your tea, I’ll finish off dinner, you’re in no shape to do anything right now.”

“I’m fine.”

“Not until you get some color back on your cheeks. When did your headache start?”

She sighed as she relaxed into her comfy chair. “A couple of hours ago. It feels like someone’s going to make a very bad decision and I am trying to see, but I’ve never been able to see on command.”

He walked back to the kitchen after making sure that she was, indeed, comfortable and started a kettle. “Well, maybe it’s something I can help you with. I’m kinda an expert on witches.”

“I’m telling you, I’m not a witch,” she replied. “I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself. It’s getting boring and repetitive.”

“What am I supposed to do with the food?”

“Plate it! It’s done! I was trying to keep it warm long enough for you to arrive. I would have started dinner in ten minutes.”

“Where are the plates?”

Ann groaned as she got up from the chair as if suddenly remembering that he was supposed to be in the basement and not in her home. That of course, he didn’t know where everything was. She was halfway when a sudden sharp pain tore through her skull.

He was just in time to catch her as she passed out. “Ann?” Kol lifted her up and placed her on the sofa, her head on a pillow and checked her pulse. She was still alive, but she was unresponsive, unconscious. What the hell happened? He used his magic to turn off the stove and sat with her for awhile, waiting for her to wake up, but she wasn’t.

Kol couldn’t detect anything wrong with her in the first place, even his magic told him that she was healthy, complete and unconscious. There was no telling when she’d wake up. However, he was worried, and he wasn’t going to leave her out of his sight. Instead, he looked around and took in the small home.

The kitchen was part of the living room, and it looked dated. Almost as if he had stepped back in time. Sure, there were the additions of modern technology such as a new stove and a new looking fridge, but the whole atmosphere breathed ‘old’.

The living room was more of the same. One glance at it and he would have thought someone else lived here. Old furniture that you’d expect with old people. There was a new chair, that she had been sitting in before passing out, and he suspected that it was hers.

The walls were filled with photos, hiding that the wallpaper was tearing and discoloured. There were pictures of her as a young child, presumably with her parents, and then more pictures of her and her grandparents. They seemed to have loved her very much. In every picture, Ann had a big, goofy grin on her face and a naughty spark in her eyes.

The most intriguing part of the living room was the bookcase. It took up the entire back wall and the books seemed old. They smelled old. When he pulled one from the shelf, he knew that it was ancient. Wondering if Ann had read all of these, he opened the dusty book and started to read.

It was easy to mistake the book for fiction, but he’d been around journals long enough to know that this was a legitimate journal out of 1497. One of Ann’s ancestors appeared to have been in what was later known as Newfoundland when John Cabot reached the shore and claimed it for the English. It was a hysterical read, filled with plotting against the English and being banished for witchcraft.

While he had been in his box during that time, he knew that his family was back in the Old World in that period. He remembered a story Nik once told him about compelling some Italian man while they were travelling and to ask King Henry VIII of England to fund an expedition to the New World. Could this have been the same guy?

He was so focused on the story, that he hadn’t noticed that Ann had slowly started to come to. “I see how it is,” her voice sounded soft, almost as if she didn’t want to disturb her headache. “Knock the girl out and go through her stuff. Classy.”

“I’m sorry,” he said as he put the book back and made his way over to her. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been hit by a cement truck,” she said, not moving from her spot. “Like something’s gone horribly wrong. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

“What?”

Ann groaned as she pinched her eyes closed, trying to find the right words. “Some witch cast a blood spell to unlock Bella’s powers, to awaken her true self. This wasn’t supposed to happen this way. It was supposed to go gradually and ow, it hurts.”

“Are you connected to her, somehow?”

“I don’t know!” She shot at him, wishing she hadn’t as it only aggravated her head. “I don’t know, okay?” she said quietly. “I don’t know. Only that that witch shouldn’t have done what she did and that I’m now dealing with the headache from hell.”

“Anything I can do?”

“No. Did you eat yet?”

“No, I thought I’d wait for you.”

“Go eat. I’m not hungry. In fact, take it all downstairs and eat. Leave me alone,” she pulled the throw blanket off the back of the couch and pulled it over herself. “I’ll be fine.”

Kol scowled. There was no way that he was going to leave her alone like this. “Fine, I’ll just warm up the food and you go and rest,” he replied as he got to his feet and walked back towards the food and pretended to clean up and move things for a while before using his magic to heat up the food. He plated up and walked back into the living room where Ann was now sound asleep on the sofa.

He decided to send his brother a text message, asking him if something happened to Bella, but didn’t get a response where his brother was usually quick with answering messages. He sent several messages to Rebekah and Niklaus, but even they weren’t responding. They were back to their old tricks, weren’t they? Push him away, pull the bubble around them even tighter. There was no place for him among them, why did he keep deluding himself?

Deciding there and then that Kol’s only responsibility was going to be Ann from now on – he wasn’t going to be ignored, damnit, he finished eating and quickly popped down into the store to get some protective and healing herbs to burn for a speedy recovery for his new friend while he’d continue to peruse the books.

His bloody siblings were going to regret ignoring him. He was going to take the piss out of them the next chance that he got.

Untitled-1

One Comment:

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.