03 | keta
an image that inexplicably leaps back into your mind from the distant past

dedicated to kolsmikaelson 💞

I don't think a gif has ever been more perfect for cora and damon ;)

THE STREETS OF London were alive with people as they crowded the overflowing pavements, and sauntered down alleyways before a heavy night out. I envied their freedom, and tugged at my gums with my teeth as I stared out of the taxi window. The night had claimed the world in a ravenous shadow, and red lights pried at my eyes from all directions. Luminescence wasn't foreign to the city, and it was the only thing that made the shadows shrink away.

"You look nice," Damon commented sourly as he gazed out of the opposite window. I had refused to give him eye contact no matter how much he watched over me like a hawk stalking its prey from above. Eventually he had given up, smirking at the mundane world around him.

I balled my hands into fists around the silver material of my long dress. Fortunately, my previous self had left the garment in Damon's hotel room, although I hadn't questioned why in fear that I would reveal something about my past I didn't want uncovered.

"Don't lie," I hissed, tearing my eyes away from the busy London streets to glare at Damon whose full attention was back on me.

"What?" Damon raised a thick eyebrow. "Silver suits your ginger hair, princess."

I rolled my eyes silently, and crossed my arms over my chest already frustrated by the conversation. The Taxi driver appeared as equally displeased. "You know you basically kidnapped me, right?"

"Hate to break it to you sweetcheeks, but you're not a kid."

"No, I'm not a baby goat."

Damon's mocha eyes narrowed to slits. His ebony tresses were slicked back, and he had taken the liberty to shave the overgrown stubble his tanned skin sported this morning. The blood-stained tank top had been exchanged for a black suit and crisp white shirt. The smart demeanour didn't suit him at all, and I was tempted to mess up his hair just to piss him off.

"That isn't funny," He commented sourly. "Look, can you at least take this seriously? It might surprise you, but I don't want you getting hurt."

"I've already been hurt, arsehole," I retorted, unable to keep the bitterness from my tone.

"It's asshole."

"I'm not American, idiot."

Damon nodded his head with a quirk of his lips. "In case that wasn't obvious from your accent, your terrible sense of humour, even worse taste in guys, and the fact that you're way too violent for your own good, I know." I blinked at the man before hauling myself upright in the seat and sealing my lips shut. I had always been easily frustrated, but Damon made the feat a lot easier with his perfect looks and incredibly annoying arrogance. "Just don't go talking to strangers, Cora."

"Hypocritical much."

"This isn't a joke," Damon replied sincerely, his voice cracking. "If you want to be their next meal, then by all means, go for it. But I'm not going to let that happen. Before you were compelled, we were close."

The mention of my past made my heartbeat exhilarate until each unique thump had merged into one. My fingers stung as I began clutching the soft material of my dress too tightly. "Fine, then. I want you to tell me everything. Again." Damon had attempted to explain the previous three weeks in a short summary earlier, but my brain seemed to have shut down during those crucial five minutes.

Damon raised his dark brows, but I managed to keep my strong façade as his hazel eyes bore deeper and deeper into my soul by the second. "Like what?"

"Like how the fuck I managed to forget eight days of my life," I retorted, narrowing my eyes to slits. The dress I was wearing felt more like a coffin than the soft material as my heart rate hit its maximum. I was intrigued, to the point that I was hyperventilating.

"You're going to hate me for this."

"You must be joking because I already hate you." My eyes narrowed further, fingernails digging into my palms until they cut tiny ruby crescents into my skin.

"Feeling's mutual, princess," Damon stated calmly as he tensed his jaw. "Look, all that I can guess – and trust me I am guessing because you are fucking with my head, ginger – is that a vampire compelled you to forget everything about our world. And like I said, our king died last night, and I didn't see you for eight whole days, which I'm guessing is when you were, well, compelled. Meaning that someone had you do their bidding during then, and made you forget everything about vampires afterwards."

"Weren't you worried?"

Damon shook his head, fighting the smile that threatened to distort his lips. "About your ginger ass? No. We met three weeks ago, in that fucking alleyway. I had just arrived from Washington with the rest of my clan, and I went to sightsee. However, I was an idiot and got lost, but you showed up and guided me back home. We met for a few drinks after that, and-"

"Oh God, please do not say I slept with you," I commented through gritted teeth, gripping the edge of the rough taxi seat as we swerved around yet another treacherous corner.

Much to my relief, Damon shook his head. "Don't worry, sweetcheeks, I know you're as innocent as a dandelion. Aside from breaking my nose, kicking me in the balls twice, and almost killing me on numerous occasions."

I felt my cheeks heating up, blushing red under the pathetic layer of foundation I had attempted to apply. Life had not granted me with many gifts, and the ability to apply make-up was certainly not one of them. Moreover, Damon was right. I hadn't had sex, even after three months with my first (and only) boyfriend, and one night stands were not my forte.

"So we were friends?" I wasn't one to make friends quickly. My trust issues made it almost impossible, and I had only ever surrounded myself with the people I had known since reception. However, university had sculpted me into a much more confident version of myself, and branching out had grown easier in the past year – but Damon was certainly at the bottom of my list of people I would typically befriend.

"You could say friends, but it was more a love hate relationship, Cora. You knew I was leaving in a month, and I guess you just couldn't resist this face. And although I can't fill you in on everything because I only know parts, I do know that I wasn't the only vampire you befriended," Damon continued, his features clouding over."But that made you a target. A human in the vampire world can easily be controlled. We just have to figure out who compelled you to forget, before the clans begin yet another civil war over the death of Alexander."

My stomach lurched one final time before the taxi pulled to a stop, my seatbelt barely keeping me in place as the vehicle broke harshly and my fragile body was jolted forwards. Strands of my red-gold hair fell into my mouth, and I cursed as my hands touched the back of my head to find the delicate hairstyle I had taken half an hour to create (as an excuse for Damon to give me some space) falling apart.

"Alexander?"

"The king."

"You are seriously beginning to make me question my sanity," I scoffed, in a bid to lighten the dull mood that had settled over us. As good looking as Damon was, he had an untrustworthy appearance to his features. It was something I had seen in many of the fuckboys at my old school.

"But surely there's a way you can break the compulsion?" I asked as I flipped my hair behind my shoulder, salvaging the neat strands as they began to knot behind my head in red-gold clumps. Damon shot me a daring look as his slid out of the right side of the taxi, paying the driver with a ten-pound note before sliding open my door to let me out.

Damon shook his head unceremoniously. He offered a hand to aid me out of the vehicle, but I refused, confident as my silver heels met the pavement outside an exquisite hotel.

"I'm afraid that in order to undo your compulsion, you have to become a vampire. And in order to become a vampire, you have die," He commented quickly as though he was holding his breath.

My heart skipped a beat. "That's not happening."

"I know it isn't, sweetheart. Not when I'm the one protecting you."

I picked up the skirt of my maxi dress to keep it away from the murky puddles littered across the walkway. "That's what concerns me."

"You know," Damon muttered, his eyes falling on the sign outside the magnificent white marble building that read 'The Grand London Hotel,' as though he had seen it one thousand times before. "You really should respect your elders."

I bit my tongue as Damon held out his arm for me to take. As much as I fought the urge not to, attending a party not knowing what to expect was a daunting proposition, and I slid my arm through his without a second thought. My handsome accomplice hadn't murdered me yet – in fact, he had killed for me – which was the only reason I found myself trusting him.

"You might be older, Damien, but you have the mental age of a two-year-old."

"Damon. And yeah, over three hundred years older," Damon commented casually, persistently ignoring the glare I was giving him. Instead, he lead me inside the Hotel, hauling me up the steps until I could hear the loud music elegantly reverberating through the walls of the building. My heels elevated me one inch taller than my five-foot-three height, but I was still a head smaller than the male who kept insisting that he was protecting me. I felt tiny, and my body instinctively moved closer to Damon's bulging arm as we neared a set of open double doors. Swallowing my nerves, I smiled at the man at the door, his suit matching Damon's smart attire.

"Ok, game plan. Don't look anyone in the eye. Don't talk. Don't bleed, or do something stupid like last time and get a fucking paper cut from a napkin. Keep your head down. And hold on."

"So," I bit my lip, my nude lipstick bitter against my tongue, "basically act dead?"

"Everyone else in there is dead," Damon replied without haste. "Can't hurt. Although, I must say you're doing a terrible job."

My escort bowed his head to the man at the door, the corridor beyond empty as the music echoed off the walls into a chasm of gold-studded walls.

"Personally, I've never had to act dead before." I gazed around, my dread growing with every step as the classic music grew louder and louder. "What's the deal with this party anyway? Are you seriously dressing up fancy to celebrate someone's death? If this was my funeral, I'd be seriously pissed off."

This made Damon chuckle, the white of his teeth showing through his precious façade. He had attempted to fill me in about the affair two hours ago, but it was like grasping at straws. I hadn't given him much time to explain, either, too eager to grab a coffee from the nearest coffee shop, as well as picking up my dietary essentials from the Sainsbury's Local around the corner, with Damon monitoring my every move as though I was an ex-convict. I had shut him down every time he had attempted to start a conversation, and when we returned to the Hotel I had hidden from my past, applying too much make-up before removing it and starting again. Yet, my curious self had gotten the better of me, and although getting answers from Damon was as tantalising as drawing blood from a stone, I knew who he was to me. A friend. An alias. Someone I had shown the city, and had kept me company whilst I battled my university deadlines through our lengthy Winter break.

He had opened up to me about his past - as well as the scars it had left on him. Half Italian and half American, Damon's father had migrated across seas on a US vessel, with the aim to ship goods back to his country. At the age of eight, Damon lost his sister to an unknown disease, and his father quickly followed. Soon after he turned twenty-five, Damon Harrison-Altera took the wrong turn down an Italian street at night and ended up being recruited by the ruthless leader of a vampire army. After five years, Damon broke free of his allegiance with the army, and sought out his mother and other sister. They moved back to the United States, settling for home in the Capital, Washington DC. He had watched his mother die from cancer at the age of fifty-three, and his sister grow old until her skin was so wrinkled he barely recognised her. Then Damon had met him - and that was where the conversation had come to an abrupt end.

Furthermore, from what I had gathered, Alexander had been the King from the Tokyo clan, and had ruled for the previous three decades. Every decade, the vampire clans gathered and challengers would produce an offering in a ritual that produced enough blood to stain each street of London a deep crimson. It was not merely a fight to the death - it was a cunning challenge that only the wisest and oldest vampires ever seemed to win.

"This isn't to celebrate his death," Damon chuckled as we eventually reached the end of the corridor. The music was now horrifically loud, pounding against my eardrums as the once-peaceful music changed to an fast-paced piano piece. We rounded the arch indented in the exquisite hallway, my mouth falling away at the sheer enormity of the room before me. Gold snaked up the sides of the grand hall, which was larger than our family home back in Southampton. A mass of bodies had accumulated in the hall, every man dressed in a suit and tie; every woman clothed in beautiful dresses of bright and vibrant pigments. I suddenly felt out of place in my long, silver dress. A few pairs of eyes shifted to our position at the doorway, my arm linked with Damon's much stronger one, but they swiftly moved away with disinterest.

"He was already dead." Damon shrugged his shoulders as if he did not care. "And would you look at that. Fashionably late as usual."

My brows pulled together. "So why are we here, then?"

"Tradition," Damon stated. "It's the beginning of the ritual."

"And you're, what?" I began, ticking through the options, but with my limited knowledge I came away with only one solution. "Oh God. Please do not tell me you're taking part."

"Hell no," Damon laughed. "We missed the beginning anyway, and I'm not even the head of my clan-" The man paused as we walked into the crowd, my eyes automatically wandering around to look for a food table, craving a sausage roll. He stopped in his tracks, causing my heart to skip a beat from nerves. I could hear each thump, and the further we got into the huddle of bodies, the louder it grew. "Speaking of which."

Damon lead us straight towards the far corner, where the lights did not reach, shrouded by an impressive curtain of red silk. I couldn't make out what - or who - my accomplice was talking about until the shadows began to move, unveiling a beautiful dark-skinned man and three other men who wore identical black attire.

I couldn't stop my mouth from dropping, unable to take my eyes off the leader as he moved with a pristine elegance only dancers had acquired over years of practice. His movements were seamless, and his close-cropped hair gave him an ominous outlook. Subtle cheekbones gave way to the slender shape of his full lips, almond eyes staring intently at Damon.

Abruptly something snapped at the back of my head, the rest of the world falling away. Startled, the room before me was carved out into darkness, the guests vanishing one by one until I could no longer feel Damon's presence on my arm. I moved the limb, only to feel it empty. Sweat began to bead on the forehead, glacial and freezing my bones until my body was numb. The tables were empty of glasses, and the music died with one high-pitched note.

Fear crept through my veins, and I turned my body in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc. My red-gold hair spun around me in a curtain, tickling my face. My face furrowed, confused until I glanced down at my hands. Slathered in ruby blood, they felt sticky as I moved them.

They were covered in blood, and my dress was no longer silver.

I stifled a scream, blinking rapidly as the real world snapped back before me, my arm back in Damon's as though I had never left.

"Hey, Cora," A deep voice muttered as my hearing returned. My eyes wandered to the beautiful man from earlier, his mocha irises intent as they stared into my soul. I felt my insides stir; I recognised that gaze. And alike Damon the night we had met, he knew my name and his face was a blank canvas.

Damon slowly removed my arm from his, my confidence dissipating as he held out a hand to the man before him. In contrast to Damon's unkempt tresses and tie-less white shirt, he was the epitome of smart, and undoubtedly the leader of the Washing DC clan.

Damon outstretched a tanned hand, swallowing hard and clenching his jaw. His nervous look only made me feel more uneasy. "Nathan," The man stated, staring at the male opposite him - Nathan - whilst he refused to shake Damon's hand. Damon stiffly withdrew the gesture, placing his hands on his hips as though I didn't exist. "Look, I'm sorry, ok, let's just talk about thi-"

Nathan waved a hand to cut him off. Damon's movements immediately grew disjointed, bracing himself. But he wasn't prepared when Nathan lurched forward at inhuman speed, slamming Damon's head against the wall, causing his nose to bleed profusely.

"Yes, let's talk, Damon," Nathan stated bitterly.

I stepped forward to intervene, but Nathan simply pushed me away, his threatening and angered look sending a shiver down my spine. My heart jumped to my throat as the handsome man's arm pressed against Damon's windpipe. And in a blink, the pair were gone.

IM SO SO SORRY ABOUT THE SLOW UPDATES

but i'm really sorry if this story seems confusing, tbh it's turning out very differently to how I originally planned, but I already love the characters and the direction its going in. this was my fill in the gaps chapter so its pretty much action and hot stuff from here on out ;)

what does everyone think of Damon?? ;)  and Nathan?

and who's your favourite character so far?

thank you so much for reading!! I might not be able to update until June, due to exams, but I will be writing chapters over the next two months and will hopefully be able to update about four towards the end of June if I hold them back :) also the solar veins playlist is up on my Spotify - the link to my account and playlists is in my bio x

lots of love xxx