For HOPE featuring Armani. Mentions Queen Bee.

A new HOPE

Rembrandt/ 1593610

For over one thousand years, he had been the monster that had haunted the nightmares of lesser men. He’d been proud of such an accomplishment. He dared not allow anything or anyone close to him. It wasn’t fear, at least that’s what he had told himself. He was a monster created by the hands of his own parents. His biological father was the Alpha of the Atlantic Pack. His mother had stolen away to have a secret affair with him while her husband had gone off on Viking Raiding Parties. The secret kept for years, it all came manifest two decades later when the Viking Mikael had sought to eliminate the pain of losing a child yet again by making his remaining children immortal. The curse of vampirism fell upon the children of Mikael and the son of Esther’s infidelity whom they called Niklaus. Niklaus was weak and sickly as a child all because Esther’s magic kept him that way. Now that he was the first of his kind, The Original Hybrid, he was a monster free to cut a bloody swath across the world. It started in the village that would eventually become Mystic Falls. Now here he was in New Orleans, Louisiana over a millenia later staring down at a small bundle in the hands of the wolf that carried her.

Hayley Marshall. He’d never given the girl a second thought. She’d turned Tyler Lockwood against him and even orchestrated the events that led to him killing his twelve hybrids. Tyler’s own MOTHER died at his hand after that because of the irritation he’d felt. Now here, after all that and a moment between them, something happened that would change his life forever. Looking back at him, swaddled in the arms of the newest hybrid was his own eyes. Hayley was looking directly into their daughter’s eyes with nothing but the pure love of a mother. Klaus was just astounded at the enormity of it all.

Elijah had told him that he’d change his mind. Elijah told him that all any of them had ever wanted was a family. Klaus shook his head, not daring to buy into the logic of his elder brother. Elijah had a clear head and focus that Klaus himself didn’t really have since all this had become well known. Klaus Mikaelson had a daughter. He was a father. He had an heir. He marveled in silence at the tiny little fingers and tiny little nose. Those sweet little lips made suckling movements as he’d seen most little children do over the years when they were sound asleep. They didn’t know they did it. Over the centuries, it never seemed like anything special to him. Now that it was his biological child. It all had seemed so much different. It was the most beautiful thing in all the world.

“Niklaus, Hayley. It’s time.” Elijah stood behind him in his finest suit. The collar of his crisp shirt was tipped in blood as were the cufflinks on his suit. He spoke in low tones because this was something that none of them had wanted to see happen. There was no other way. It had to happen like this all because of the events of the night. It had been a bloody night this night. They’d put a stop to the witch ancestors who had hated him for all these centuries. It made his own hate burn brighter knowing that they plotted against him. It made him more determined than ever to put an end to them once and for all. He was a feral animal and they knew it. NOW, they were going to experience it on levels they couldn’t even fathom.

Hayley’s tears were burning down her cheeks. Klaus slowly reached for the tiny baby wrapped in the cloth that had come from the finest weavers in New Orleans. His jaw set in rigid anger as he gently took his daughter from her mother. “Forgive me Little Wolf. There is no other way.” He spoke for the first time with actual affection to the Crescent who bore his daughter. He looked to Elijah. “Keep her safe brother. She needs you.” Klaus wasn’t a fool. He could see the affection his brother had for Hayley. No one was going to defend her more fiercely than Elijah would. Now it was his turn to ensure his daughter’s protection.

Klaus tucked his baby girl into his arms with a protective embrace. The call had gone out to his sister Rebekah. She had spent a thousand years yearning for a child. He knew that no one would love her as remotely close as he or Hayley would, but Rebekah would be damned close. Rebekah would give her life to protect Hope and there was no one he trusted more. Klaus himself had a plan for utter destruction. Neither Hayley nor Hope needed to be anywhere near what he was planning. Let whatever hell fall on him that may. He was an Alpha. He’d always protected his family over the centuries. Even in the past years his siblings had been put down by members of the Five, he came back and invoked the wrath of a curse all to protect those whom he loved the most. NOW someone was here that he loved more than that.

A thousand thoughts ran through his mind. He drove silently into the night for his meeting with his sister outside of town. HIs daughter, his HOPE was everything to him. He had put up for a curse for his siblings and would do it again if he needed to in order to protect them. HOPE was different. He would lay down his life for his daughter without hesitation. IF it meant that she would life a perfectly healthy life without pain or discomfort and that she could be in peace, Klaus would take the nearest White Oak Stake and run it through his own heart. HOPE was his little princess and would always be. Nothing else mattered but her.

He pulled up at the spot in which he was to meet Rebekah and waited in the darkness. With tears racing down his own cheeks, trembling lips whispered one small phrase. “Happy Birthday My HOPE.”