𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐞.
chapter ten, love of my life!

        THREE VAMPIRES OCCUPIED THE KITCHEN OF ALARIC'S RESIDENCE IN SOMBER SILENCE. One, who sported a lethal bite on his inner forearm, was observing his contaminated skin that was an angry shade of crimson. The second, was standing over him, studying the skin that was red and whose veins were tainted black. And the third, was on the other side of the island staring at the two ex-lovers.

   "So that's what a werewolf bite looks like." Katherine was the first to disrupt the silence, but the victim of the bite seemed upset at her voice. "Yep."

"It's not that bad."

   Zakiyah rolled her eyes at Katherine's ignorance. She knew the brunette wasn't trying to be insensitive, much less tone deaf, but the more she spoke the more it amplified the tragedy soon to come.

     "Will be." Damon stood up and rolled his sleeve down hiding the nasty reminder. Zakiyah couldn't help, but frown. She needed to talk to Nik about getting a cure.

"So that's it? You're just. . .going to die?"

   "Well, that depends. You know anything about a cure?" Katherine shook her head, but involuntarily turned her attention to Zakiyah. Damon followed her gaze. "Me either, but do you, England?"

     "No, but I'm sure I can find one, Day," she reassured, her eyes bright with an innocent hope that reminded Katherine of their human days. She smiled at the thought, her heart fluttering at the memories. "Then that's also another no."

     Zakiyah didn't miss the defeat that deflated his shoulders. She saw it in his eyes the simmer of hope he once had, diminish completely at her words. She hated it— letting her friend down.

  Damon grabbed his jacket off the couch, shrugging it on in silence. Katherine watched him, tension stiffening her muscles.

  "145 years and no last good-bye?" Damon shot her a glare. "You don't get a good-bye."

  He turned away from her, but casted Zakiyah a brief look over his shoulders.

    "You on the other hand," he flashed her a crooked smile. Zakiyah felt her heart crack in despair. She saw the goodness in him and hated that he was being taken away too soon in spite of his redemption. "It's a shame I couldn't get drunk with you."

  "Maybe in another life." He hummed, shaking his head and shifting his attention back to the door. He was making his way out, but Katherine zipped in front of him.

  She placed her hand on his chest. Zakiyah felt her heart stop. "No. Don't leave mad."

  "Us ending up on good terms isn't exactly on my bucket list, Katherine." Damon attempted to leave again, but the doppelgänger was stubbornly persistent.

"Klaus made me call Jenna to lure her out. There was nothing that I could do. I didn't have a choice."

"That's why I gave you the vervain. So you had a choice."

"It was her or me. I chose her."

   Zakiyah felt her heart clench. Katerina Petrova was and always will be undeniably selfish. Zakiyah could see it now despite how much she naively begged for the reality to be that of a sickening nightmare.

   "I helped you. You owed me," each word spoken was firm and vicious. The eyes of the Salvatore vampire were seering with unsaid venom. "Now when Klaus dies, you're going to walk out of here without a scratch and Elena's aunt dies. Somehow you're the only one that wins. How'd that happen?"

    "I didn't let love get in the way." Damon shook his head at her words, releasing a humorless chuckle. He looked at Katherine once more in disbelief. "Enjoy an eternity alone, Katherine."

★彡. ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.

England, 1492. . .

   "KATERINA, DARLING, YOU HAVE BEEN SILENT. What is it that prevents thy from listening to the heavens in which is your voice in itself?" Zakiyah lay beside her lover, completely naked, but hidden beneath the sheets they shared.

   The fire cackled as the flames dances along the log, their light illuminating the two girls. Katerina was observing Zakiyah and the way her curves were outlined by the light. The warm hues of orange and yellow enhanced the pigment of Zakiyah's brown skin that was practically golden. Katerina didn't realize she could fall harder for someone who was effortlessly beautiful.

     From her soft features that held an edge, to her dark eyes framed by oynx lashes that always seemed to fill with excitement in which a new day brings. To her warrior like heart that always seemed to beat for her and her smile that always made her weak to her knees— it was easy to say that Zakiyah Reed was a goddess in Katerina's eyes.

   She often questioned herself in how she managed to have captured the heart of her lover.

   "Katerina. . ." Fingertips grazed the brunette's exposed arm, arising goosebumps. There was a shift in the bed and soon the Petrova girl had her chin held up by Zakiyah's fingers. "Talk to me, please."

  Katerina frowned at the pleading tone. She didn't mean to worry Zakiyah— she just couldn't get out of her head that often made her second guess the stability of their relationship. Would her Zakiyah leave once she saw how broken she truly was?

   "My dove," the Bulgarian native blinked, having come back from her deafening thoughts. She was looking up at dark eyes filled with worry and concern. "Please, let me in."

  "I—" Katerina paused, having registered the position the two were in. Her cheeks were blanketed over in pink. "I— well—"

     She was stumbling over her words all while Zakiyah was staring down at her with a playful gleam in her eyes. Katerina tried to concentrate on what she had meant to say, but her words got lost at the tip of her tongue upon the English beauty's thumb rubbing along her bottom lip softly.

  Katerina pressed her thighs together, the action arising a bubble of laughter from the raven haired beauty. Zakiyah's legs were straddling Katerina, her other hand gently resting right below Katerina's boobs.

  The sheet had fallen off of Zakiyah's body completely, now exposing every inch of her skin that was glowing from the flames behind them. She looked celestial. She tilted her head to the right and leaned in, her long curls coming forward.

  "Speak, in clear sentences my love." Katerina gulped. Her hands rose to their own accord and rested along Zakiyah's hips. "I want you, more than anything my angel baby."

Mystic Falls, present timing. . .

    "You haven't spoken to me ever since Damon left." Katherine acknowledged with furrowed brows. The two were still in Alaric's apartment, only this time they had moved to one of his spare bedrooms. "You and Damon seem close. Shame since he'll be dead soon."

     Zakiyah looked up at Katherine, eyes narrowed. The brunette was leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed. She was watching the Reed girl who was leaning against the window with a distant look in her eyes.

  "You talk so harshly of his predicament when you know deep down you'll miss him." Katherine shrugged, taking a step further into the room. "Perhaps. Or not. The only person who I care for deep down is you."

  "Be careful, Katerina, don't let your love get in the way," Zakiyah warned, voice flat. Katherine nodded. "Oh, so this is what your silence is about."

Zakiyah didn't respond.

  "You know I will always choose myself." Zakiyah sighed. She tore her eyes away from the full moon in the sky to meet brown eyes filled with confidence and slight apprehension.

   "Perhaps. Which is why you'll always be alone." Zakiyah peeled herself from off the wall and walked towards the Petrova doppelgänger who did the same. "I couldn't possibly be alone when I have you here with me."

  "Mm, I'm sure." Zakiyah hummed, yet her eyes were darkening with an ominous storm that had Katherine on the tip of her toes. She didn't necessarily hate the new feeling of adrenaline Zakiyah arose from her new profound unpredictability.

   Rather, she enjoyed it and wanted to play along. The brunette stalked closer so that they were mere inches apart.

  "I am," Zakiyah smirked, running her tongue over her teeth. "Though I'm sure you're still afraid of the loneliness as you were back in 1492. Tell me, Katerina, did it ever go away? Or are you still battling your insecurities that remind you how quickly I could leave because I never truly cared?"

     In a blur, Zakiyah's body was slammed against the mattress. The bed groaned at the impact, the springs squeaking as Katherine adjusted herself. She was now straddling Zakiyah with her hand wrapped around Zakiyah's throat in a firm grip.

  "Never because we both know you always cared just like we both know I do for you as well." Just as fast, Zakiyah flipped the two over so that she was on top.

   She yanked Katherine's hand off her throat and put both of Katherine's hands just above her head. Katherine was breathing heavily, her eyes darkening with lust.

  "Hmm, is that so my love?" Katherine giggled, her smile becoming mischievous. Zakiyah smirked, her hips grinding along Katherine's who matched her rhythm. "Mhmm. You're so hot, 'Kiyah."

  "Am I?" Zakiyah leaned down and planted a soft kiss along Katherine's neck. The vampire gasped, at the contact that electrified her skin. Her eyes fluttered shut as Zakiyah's tongue ran along her flesh. "Mhmm."

     Katherine moaned, her back ruching slightly from the sucking and biting Zakiyah was doing to her neck. Zakiyah's lips trailed along Katherine's neck to her jaw and then finally hovering just above her lips.

  "What do you want, my love?" Katherine's eyes fluttered open, her hooded gaze enough to drive Zakiyah wild. Katherine managed to slip out of Zakiyah's hold and brought her hands to cup her lover's cheeks. "You."

   And it was in that instant, Katherine Pierce smashed her lips against Zakiyah Reed's lips who was just as quick to respond. Thus igniting a primal hunger that overtook the two in a vicious fight for dominance in a kiss that involved lip biting and tongue sucking; and two souls having been reunited as one after centuries of being pulled apart.