Something was wrong.

Very very wrong.

"How many times have you replaced the furniture in this particular room?" There was a concerning amount of blood and splintered wood.

"The boundary spell is down." Klaus glanced around wearily, slowly inching forward, his free arm in front of me.

"Where are the kids?" I couldn't hear them.

"Don't worry, they're hiding with my cowardly children."

Klaus tensed as a blonde man stepped into the courtyard. He was holding a big ass stake.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Maverick." Klaus was uncharacteristically nervous. He pushed me behind him.

"It's Mikael, isn't it."

The man himself was watching me closely. "You're the woman who's smitten the abomination."

"Abomination?"

"He's talking about me."

"Ew. You call your son an abomination?" I stepped up to Klaus' side. I wouldn't hide behind him. "Fucking asshole."

"Crude little whore, aren't you."

"Don't insult my wife." Klaus glowered.

"What do you want?"

Lucien began to stir, and Klaus snapped his neck again, he fell limply against the floor.

"Simple. I want to end the abomination and my miserable line. Those children included. Better they don't grow up with his tainted blood coursing through their veins." Mikael twisted the white stake in his hands.

Klaus caught my arm in time to stop me. "If you lay so much as a finger on my kids, I'll tear you apart!" Never mind his Original status.

Mikael's head tilted. "You've got much more fight in you than this whelp."

"I swear to all the gods, if you keep calling him anything else but his own goddamn name, I'll-"

"Dear." Klaus quickly interrupted. "Might I remind you Mikael is still an Original. He's quite invulnerable save for that stake in his hands."

"A believer in the gods." He ignored his son and had a sort of respect in his eyes when he looked at me.

I didn't like it. "Mine are specially the wolf kind. So unless you worship Wöðen or Þórrulf, we're not talking the same gods."

"Did you just speak old norse?" Klaus gaped, momentarily shocked.

"No, those are a couple of my gods' names."

"What is Þórrulf?"

Did I just confuse the both of them? They were so off guard.

What the fuck was happening?

"You should hear his rage every storm. He's the god of thunder."

"Thor?" I don't think I've ever seen that level of bewilderment on Klaus' face. "Wöðen?"

"The king of the gods." Who else would he be? "Have you guys seriously never heard of them?"

"Odin?" Both men cast a superfluous look upward.

"My gods are older than you. How do you not know who they are?"

"The wolves must have branched off before we were born." Klaus offered. "Made the gods more appropriate for your culture."

Personally I thought all gods worked like a tulpa. They existed because a lot of people believed in them.

If what Klaus was saying was true, then when the wolves did branch off, the Norse versions of them evolved into what wolves believe in today, while still retaining their original forms for those that believe in their Norse versions.

Did that mean they split? Or did they switch back and forth depending on who was praying to them?

We've gotten so off topic. At least Mikael was distracted from his murderous intentions.

Bring up more stuff, Maverick.

Was it really that shocking?

"Then of course there's Freywolf, which does beg the question, was Freya named after her?"

"She was named after Freya the goddess." Mikael blinked.

Was it bad I felt a little vindictive that he was annoyed our gods weren't the same?

"Why didn't you name the rest of your kids after your gods, then?" Seemed like something he would do. "You know, if you respect them so much."

"I'll not explain myself to you." He seemed almost offended.

Good.

"Oooh, does that mean it was Esther that vetoed that?" I had to say, she deserved a little more credit for that one. "Klaus, you could've been named Thor, oops, sorry Niklaus."

Klaus turned toward me slightly. "You named our child after Henrik."

"You did what?!" Mikael advanced on us, and Klaus sped us to the other side of the room. "You do not deserve to memorialize him, not after you fed him to your kin!"

"Woah woah. Pause." Lucien lay forgotten, and in Mikael's path. "It was an accident. Klaus told me what happened."

"Of course the whelp lied about his role in my youngest's death."

"Show me then." If Mikael was busy giving me his memory, that could buy Klaus enough time to figure out what to do.

"You want to gain access to my mind." His lip curled.

"Hardly." I laughed humorlessly. "I'd rather not see your perception of things. I believe him."

"Maverick, you need not do this." Klaus curled an arm around me, keeping me from Mikael.

"Are we going to do this, or what? You hate him, and you'd like everyone else to feel the same. Wouldn't showing me how he brutally murdered a little boy be just the trick?"

Mikael seemed to consider it, and I knew I won, when he stepped forward with a nod.