Chapter 1: Fangs and Fire in the Skyline
Consciousness returned in a slow, viscous trickle.
First came the smell—expensive linen, the ozone-tinged city air seeping through glass, and beneath that, the clean, cold scent of vampire. Then, the feel of cool silk against her bare skin. Niamh’s eyes fluttered open. The ceiling above was a dark mirror, reflecting the faint neon bleed from the windows. She tried to stretch, a languid, cat-like motion she’d performed a thousand times upon waking.
Her limbs caught, held fast.
A soft, deliberate rustle of leather to her left. Her head rolled on the pillow. Klaus Mikaelson was sprawled in a deep armchair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. He was watching her with the focused idleness of a panther watching a gazelle take its first, stumbling steps. A crystal glass of amber liquid dangled from his fingers.
“Good evening,” he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in the quiet room. “We were beginning to think you’d sleep the century away.”
Memory crashed back. The party. The flirtation—bold, challenging, a game she was so sure she was winning. Stefan’s reluctant smile. Klaus’s intrigued, piercing blue eyes. The drink Stefan had handed her, his green eyes avoiding hers. Damon’s friend, she’d thought, safe enough. She’d been wrong.
She tugged at her wrists again. Silk cords, expertly knotted, bit into her skin with a promise of pleasure, not pain. They were looped around the thick, modern posts of the bed. Her ankles were secured similarly, leaving her spread-eagled on the vast expanse of mattress.
“Comfy?” Stefan’s voice came from her other side, from the shadows near the window.
He stepped into the dim light. He looked pained, his handsome face a mask of conflicted tension. But his eyes… his eyes were dark, hungry, fixed on the exposed line of her throat, the curve of her breast.
“Stefan,” she breathed, her own power coiling within her. She let it seep into her voice, a honeyed, persuasive charm. “This isn’t you. Untie me. Let’s just talk—”
“Save your fey magic for someone it works on, darling,” Klaus chuckled, taking a sip of his drink. “We’re a little old for parlor tricks.”
The charm shattered against a wall of ancient will. A flicker of real fear, cold and sharp, cut through the arousal that was already, instinctively, beginning to pool low in her belly. She was a predator here, yes, but in a cage with two older, hungrier ones.
“You wanted to play,” Stefan murmured. He sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. His cool fingers traced a path from her ankle up her inner calf. Her skin pebbled under his touch. “You followed us. You smiled at him. You pressed your tits against my arm and told me I looked too serious for a dead man.”
“I was hunting,” she said, her voice losing its melodic pretense, becoming something grittier, more real.
“So were we,” Klaus purred. He set his glass down with a soft click and stood, beginning to unbutton his crisp, dark shirt. “The difference, sweet Niamh, is that we caught something.”
Stefan’s hand slid higher, over her knee, along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. His other hand joined it, firm, holding her open. She arched involuntarily, a soft gasp escaping her lips. This wasn’t fear anymore; it was a dark, thrilling current of anticipation. He bent his head.
His breath ghosted over her skin, cooler than a human’s. Then she felt the sharp, exquisite scrape of his fangs—a deliberate, teasing graze that made her hips jerk against the restraints. Her head fell back, a moan tearing from her throat.
“You wanted to play with monsters, sweetheart,” Stefan whispered, his voice thick with a hunger he’d long denied himself.
He bit down.
The pain was a bright, white-hot spike that instantly melted into a wave of shocking, debilitating pleasure. It wasn’t just the physical sensation—the piercing of skin, the pull of his mouth—it was the dizzying rush of her own life force being drawn out, a vulnerable, intimate theft that felt like the most profound giving. Her back bowed off the bed, a raw, choked cry ripped from her lungs. His tongue flicked over the twin wounds, soothing and stimulating in one brutal motion.
“Fuck,” she gasped, her vision swimming. “Oh, fuck, Stefan…”
From the foot of the bed, Klaus chuckled, a low, rich sound of amusement. He had shed his shirt. The city lights played over the defined muscle of his chest, the old, intricate tattoos. He was lazily palming himself through his trousers, a prominent bulge growing under his skilled touch. “Such pretty, desperate noises,” he murmured, “for someone who thought she was the hunter.”
Stefan pulled back, his lips stained dark. His eyes were pure black, vampiric lust overriding his humanity. He looked wrecked, beautiful, and dangerous. He licked his lips, savoring her taste. “She’s… potent.”
“I should hope so,” Klaus said, his voice dropping to a predatory growl. He undid his belt, the leather sliding free with a whisper of promise. “A succubus’s blood should be a vintage all its own.”
He moved onto the bed, crawling up her body with a predatory grace that stole the air from her lungs. He didn’t touch Stefan, but his presence dominated the space, the ancient, hybrid power radiating from him like heat. He loomed over her, his dirty blonde hair falling across his forehead, those blue eyes capturing hers.
“My turn,” he said, but it wasn’t a question.
He kissed her. It wasn’t gentle. It was a claiming—hard, demanding, his tongue plunging into her mouth, tasting Stefan on her lips, tasting her. She met him with equal ferocity, biting his lip, drawing a bead of blood that tasted of iron and immense, coiled power. He groaned into her mouth, a feral sound that vibrated through her entire body.
He broke the kiss, trailing his mouth down her jaw, her neck, his own fangs extending. He didn’t bite her throat. Instead, he moved lower, taking one of her nipples into his hot mouth. He sucked hard, then grazed the peak with the edge of his fang. She screamed, her body straining against the silk bonds, every nerve ending on fire. He switched to the other breast, repeating the torturous, exquisite attention.
Klaus sat back on his heels, looking down at her ravished body, her chest heaving, the bites on her breasts and thigh already beginning to gleam with a fey’s accelerated healing. “Bindings are too impersonal,” he muttered, his hands going to the knots at her wrists. “I want to feel you try to get away.”
With vampiric speed, he untied her. In the same fluid motion, he flipped her onto her stomach. Before she could even process the movement, his weight was on her, his hard cock pressed against the cleft of her ass. One of his arms hooked under her waist, hauling her hips back into him. His other hand fisted in her hair, pulling her head back.
“Stefan,” Klaus ordered, his voice guttural. “Hold her. Let her feel what she’s been asking for.”
Stefan was there instantly, his body pressed along her side, his own arousal evident against her hip. His arms wrapped around her, one across her collarbone, the other splaying across her stomach, holding her tightly against Klaus’s bulk. It was a prison of muscle and cold skin and desperate hunger.
Klaus spat into his palm, slicking himself. He didn’t bother with preamble. He positioned the broad head of his cock at her entrance and pushed.
Niamh cried out, a ragged shout swallowed by the luxurious penthouse. He was huge, and he filled her with a brutal, overwhelming stretch that burned beautifully. There was no gentle easing, no careful adjustment. He sheathed himself inside her in one relentless, deep thrust, forcing her body to accept him.
“There,” he growled into her ear, his hips flush against her ass. “There’s your monster.”
He began to move. His thrusts were hard, punishing, each one driving her into the mattress, into Stefan’s restraining embrace. It was raw, primal possession. Each snap of his hips was a statement. The pleasure was devastating, a sharp, coiling tension building with every invasion. She was being consumed, used, and her succubus nature roared in approval, drinking in the violent passion, the sheer need radiating from both ancient creatures.
“God, look at her take it,” Stefan breathed against her temple, his own control fraying. He released her waist and shoved his hand between her legs, finding her clit. His touch was rough, urgent, circling the swollen nub in time with Klaus’s pistoning strokes.
The twin sensations—the deep, filling thrusts and the sharp, focused friction—drove her toward the edge with terrifying speed. She was sobbing, pleading, a litany of “yes” and “please” and “more” falling from her lips.
“Come for us, little huntress,” Klaus commanded, his rhythm becoming erratic, harder. “Let us feel you.”
The orgasm broke over her like a tidal wave, violent and all-consuming. Her body clamped around Klaus, milking him as she screamed, her vision whiting out. The convulsions of her release triggered his. With a final, brutal drive, he buried himself to the hilt, his roar muffled against her shoulder as he pulsed hot inside her.
He stayed there for a long moment, both of them panting, slick with sweat. Slowly, he pulled out. The emptiness was acute.
Before she could even slump, Stefan was moving. He rolled her onto her back, her legs falling open, utterly spent. His face was a mask of naked need, all his brooding restraint incinerated. He looked at Klaus, a silent question in his eyes.
Klaus, still breathing heavily, waved a hand from where he now sat on the edge of the bed, watching them both with intense, possessive satisfaction. “By all means, brother. The night is young.”
Stefan didn’t need another invitation. He positioned himself between her legs, his eyes on hers. He entered her in one smooth, deep stroke, her body still sensitive and convulsing lightly from her last climax. This was different—Stefan’s pace was fierce, but it had a desperate, seeking quality to it, a hunger not just for flesh but for connection, for oblivion.
He fucked her with a focused intensity, his face buried in her neck, whispering things that were half-curses, half-prayers. She wrapped her legs around his waist, meeting him thrust for thrust, pulling him deeper. Her hands clutched at his back, her nails digging into the hard muscle.
She came again, a shorter, sharper peak, and it dragged him over the edge with her. He stiffened, his body bowing as he spent himself inside her with a long, shuddering groan that sounded almost like pain.
Silence descended, broken only by the ragged sound of their breathing and the distant hum of the city seventy stories below.
Stefan collapsed beside her, his head on her shoulder. Klaus watched from his perch, a slow, deeply pleased smile spreading across his face. He reached out a hand and brushed a strand of sweat-damp hair from Niamh’s forehead, his touch almost tender.
“See?” he said, his voice soft, dangerous. “Wasn’t that more interesting than whatever game you thought you were playing?”
Niamh turned her head, her dark eyes meeting his. Exhaustion weighed her limbs, but a fierce, defiant light still burned in her gaze. Her body throbbed, sated and used. A slow smile touched her own swollen lips.
“It was a start,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
Klaus’s smile widened. He leaned back, picking up his abandoned glass. He took a sip, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Indeed,” he said. “Just a start.”