"Maverick?!" Kol called through the compound. Freya and I sat on the ground beside a sleeping Dahlia.

Well she was trapped in her slumber.

Klaus lay immobilized not far from us.

Freya was downing a bottle of bourbon to wash the blood from her mouth. I'd needed to give her some.

"We're here." I was fucking exhausted. The early morning sun was just breaking the horizon.

He crouched down in front of us, seemingly checking for wounds. "What happened?"

"I dragged your brother's heavy ass down here is what. Freya needed two anchors to put your fucking aunt to sleep."

"She'll be out for a lot longer than a century." She lifted her bottle. "As long as Niklaus and Maverick are immortal, Dahlia will not wake."

"It's essentially tied to our life forces. I stole the idea from something a friend told me." I laid back against the cool stone floor. "Hopefully if Klaus and I are dead, that means our descendants are gone too."

"So it worked?"

"Bare-fucking-ly!" I needed to text Marcel, tell him it was off. "Your family members are some scary mother fuckers, you know that?"

Freya chuckled.

"What are we going to do about Klaus, and I'm assuming Elijah?" She gestured toward her brother's unconscious body.

"We don't have to necessarily wake them quite yet." A mischievous grin overtook Kol's features.

"We can't do that." Freya shook her head.

"Do you want to deal with them when they're awake? Because I sure don't." I'd honestly rather shove a hot poker through my foot. "But leaving them is a bad idea."

"First thing's first, let's get the two of you something to eat." Kol offered his hands to the both of us. "One of you is still relatively human and the other has a baby."

"Babies. It's plural. I'm having twins." I took his hand, lifting myself to my feet. "Apparently their hearts beat in a way that's almost in sync and I didn't hear it until Dahlia told me." Then Marcel confirmed it.

"Then I suppose a congratulations are in order."

We moved to the kitchen but something wasn't sitting right with me. What was it? Klaus and Dahlia were both down for the count. Everything had gone according to Marcel's plan.

Well almost everything.

He'd better be out of the city by now.

"Kol, are you absolutely positive that Elijah is daggered?" I sat on a bar stool.

"Yes." He leaned against the counter. "He's safely in his coffin. Which Niklaus hid in the ruins of our first house here. Why?"

"I just have this feeling."

Freya wandered to the fridge, looking about as drained as I felt. "Perhaps it's guilt. You and Klaus are married."

"No, it's not that. It's more like it's not over, but it should be, right? I mean we did everything we could."

"I wouldn't be surprised if Niklaus found a way around that blade. He was always ridiculously hard to beat." Kol mentioned it so casually.

"Wait. You mean to tell me that he can fight that thing?!" I stood.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"It's not like our daggers. He can be conscious, all it does is put him in an indescribable amount of pain."

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

That bad feeling.

I ran toward the courtyard, freezing at the sight before me.

They were gone.

Both Dahlia and Klaus weren't there, we'd left them unattended. How could I have been so incredibly stupid?!

Fuck.

Oh this was so bad. This was so fucking bad.

Freya screamed, and I rushed back to the kitchen.

Klaus stood over Kol's body, eyes dark.

Oh no. "Now, before you get mad-"

"We're already well past that, sweetheart." He was still somewhat unsteady on his feet. That was good at least.

Yeah. He must've just caught Kol by surprise.

But that did mean he was running entirely on anger at the moment. "It was to save Bennett. I wasn't expecting you to break Esther's protection like that. If you'd just stayed on the ground, then Dahlia wouldn't know about him."

I knew this wouldn't work.

"What exactly was your plan after, Hm? Did you ever intend to pull that blade out of my chest? Or were you going to wait until after our children were grown?" The blade in question was clenched in his hand, dripping blood. "Why didn't you include me in your scheme?"

"Klaus, if I'd done that, then you wouldn't have taken the poison. I needed you to believe everything was going well." Shit. Shit. Shit.

"And what of our vows, were those a lie as well?"

I swallowed thickly. "Where's Dahlia?"

"She and I made a deal, but I had a few conditions." He stepped over Kol's body. "First, I think I'll deal with Hayley. Then you, but you shall watch as I teach her exactly what it is that happens to those who betray me."

"Wait, Klaus, just wait a minute." I held my hands out in front of me defensively, and began slowly backing away. Maybe I could outrun him? "Remember I'm pregnant."

I'd never been so glad that I'd made that poor little witch leave.

Now he couldn't use her against me.

Though I didn't have Esther's protection anymore, so what stopped him from hurting me?

"Come now, don't you want to be near your adoring husband?"