Vulnerable

Chapter 32

Chapter 32: Can I Have This Dance

{D. K}

Dakota had pulled aside a handsome boy with curly hair and envious hazel eyes. "You look ravishing, my love."

Klaus' voice had startled the boy more so than Dakota who was drinking from his wrist to avoid getting blood on his white dress shirt. "I'm busy." She dismissed him, licking her lips of the blood that stained them.

"This is a ball love, please refrain from killing the guests."

Her brown eyes seemed to be filled with multiple colors and the gold eyeshadow she was wearing accentuated the small flecks of color in her iris. "Don't boss me around. I don't tell you how to kill your family, don't tell me how to eat my meal."

"I've upset you," Klaus acknowledged, looking annoyingly dapper in his suit. "—so I understand why you have ill feeling towards be at the moment, but—"

"If everyone could gather please," Elijah announced, effectively cutting off his brother from explaining himself to Dakota.

Dakota side stepped Klaus, giving him a whiff of the perfume that assaulted his nose with its elegance. "You've made me lose my dinner," She spoke lowly, her eyes following the teenager who quickly walked down the steps and dispersed into the crowd of people. "That was very rude of you."

Klaus followed her down the stairs, almost reaching her when Kol subtly grabbed his arm to keep him in place beside his other siblings.

"Welcome," Elijah begins, holding a flute of champagne in his hand while he used the other to hold onto the railings decorated with fairy lights. "Thank you for joining us. Whenever my mother brings our family together like this, it's tradition for us to commence the evening with a dance. Tonight's pick is a century's old waltz, so please find yourself a partner and join us in the ballroom."

Dakota's own glass of champagne was stolen from her hand by Damon as he offered her a hand. "Would you like to dance?"

"No, but it's not like you'll give me a choice." Dakota pouted as Damon set her full flute on the table.

Damon nodded, pulling her body close to his own. "Are you still angry at me for accidently stabbing you?"

Dakota led the waltz, her heeled feet gliding gracefully against the freshly polished wooden floors that she picked out. "You're not worth the calories I burn wasting my time hating you."

"So, that's a no?"

"Yes, that's a no."

"Good," He quipped. "Since that's all cleared up, I've been researching some stuff for you."

Dakota peered over at him trying to keep her voice down so others wouldn't interrupt their conversation. "I didn't ask you to do anything."

"I know," Damon smirked, his blue eyes sparkling. "—but I did anyway and I know where your brother is."

For a split second Dakota stopped dancing, nearly screwing up the surrounding dancers. Quickly recovering, her face was much more tense and her body couldn't seem to be as relaxed as she was a few moments prior. "Where?"

"Some small town in California, I wouldn't have looked further into it if I hadn't seen their body count."

"That bad?"

"Almost as bad as Mystic Falls." Damon stared at Dakota closely as their feet danced across the polished wood. "You know for someone who's flipped the switch, you're not as murder-y as I expected."

Dakota smirked at him, her eyes filled with mischief. "Maybe my flip isn't switched."

Before Damon could question her, she spun into the arms of another man. "I was hoping we'd get a chance to dance with one another."

"You again?"

Klaus' lip quirked up in a small, half-smile. "You know, there was a time where you enjoyed my company."

"That was before you lied to me."

"That was wrong of me, and I apologize. I will do anything it takes for you to forgive me. I love you Dakota and I do not plan on loosing you because I neglected to inform you that your husband was my insolent little brother."

The fire in his blue eyes made Dakota's stomach fill with butterflies, a feeling she hadn't experienced since she was human. "Let's go outside." Klaus and Dakota discretely moved off the dance floor and went outside, the air was nippy but vampires didn't get cold. "You didn't lose me," Dakota sighed as she began petting the white horse that stood on the street curb, still harnessed to his carriage.

"Yes I have, deep down inside I can feel it. When you realized that Kol was my brother, a piece of you was taken away from me."

Dakota paused, staring blankly at the horse before her. "You're right, you did lose a piece of me. My trust, but you can gain it back."

Klaus' eyebrows closed in, his eyes staring deeply into the woman before him. "You lied too didn't you, that's why your forgiving me so quickly."

Dakota scoffed, running her fingers through her hair that was beginning to fall. "I didn't lie, I just didn't know. I thought I had flipped the switch, but I found out that the witches had to use a strong emotion, one that connected with a living person that could be fed off of."

Klaus stepped closer to her, eager to understand where she was going. "Fed off of?"

"The night Bonnie opened your mothers coffin, she had help from the other side. But in order for the witches to help Bonnie and not lean over to dark magic, they needed an emotional tether to but a blanket over nature for a few moments."

"Is that is even possible?"

Dakota shrugged. "Evidently so, for a few minutes the witches blinded nature using my emotions to do so. While they fed off my emotions, it took mine away from me so it felt like I flipped the switch. I'm not sure how they did it , but then again I wouldn't since I don't really understand witches and their spells. All I know is, the only reason the Original witch would be alive right now, is because she's up to something."

"All my mother wants is to reunite my family, so we can be one again."

"Maybe she's lying, because I know for a fact that the witches wouldn't go through that much trouble to resurrect a witch that's the reason for vampirism. Witches hate vampires." Dakota and Klaus had started walking back into the mansion, knowing that people hadn't really noticed that they were missing. "I'm saying is be careful because I don't have a good feeling about her being back."

"You say that as if you care about me."

Dakota stopped walking up the steps, her hands holding onto the dress so she wouldn't trip on the fabric. "I love you Klaus, of course I care about you."