Song: I lived (One Republic)
Hope POV
“Hello, my littlest wolf.”
“Dad?”
Was this real?
Please.
Please let this be real.
“I’m really here, princess.”
Hope lost all hesitation and threw herself into his arms.
The moment she touched him, she knew it wasn’t an illusion.
And she burst into tears.
That feeling was still there.
That sense of safety she had always felt whenever she was near him.
She felt as though nothing could touch her.
It was something she had missed terribly these past few years—with the endless hunt for monsters, the absence of her family, and that unbearable loneliness.
She didn’t know how long she cried.
She only knew that when she finally stopped, she was sitting on the couch with her head resting on her father’s shoulder.
In the distance, she could hear the sound of hammering.
And she knew her wife had given them a little privacy.
“How can you be here?
I thought you couldn’t come back,” she asked, her voice rough from crying.
“It seems your ex decided that the rules of the afterlife were meant to be broken.
He found a way to use the bond between parent and child as a conduit to your magic.
When that magic became strong enough, I was rather politely kicked out of the afterlife.
They even gave me a body to speed up the process.
Purgatory wasn’t particularly charming either.”
Hope listened, but something he said made her frown.
“You were in Purgatory?
Then what was all that nonsense about finding peace?” Hope exclaimed, both incredulous and thoroughly irritated with her father.
Klaus truly had a gift for annoying people.
“If I’d known, I would have found a way to bring you back myself,” she said.
“Hope, what kind of father would I be if I had let you waste your life on a crusade like that?
You had a life to live.
And as your father—even if I had far too little time with you—I couldn’t let you do that,” he said.
“Couldn’t let me?” Hope shot back.
“It was my choice.
How many people in this family have come back from the dead?
And yet you decided that Klaus Mikaelson had to stay gone?”
Her voice broke.
“I was alone.
Alone.
They were all gone, and I felt like a burden, like the person who had destroyed this family.”
Tears welled in her eyes.
“I needed you!”
“Hope…” Klaus began.
But she was already gone.
Using her vampire speed, she fled before he could say another word.
As she passed through the hideout, she caught Jinx’s alarmed gaze.
Hope gave her a small nod, silently telling her that she needed to be alone.
Then she left.
Jinx POV
Watching her wife leave in that state, Jinx wanted nothing more than to follow her and comfort her.
But she also knew she had to respect Hope’s choices.
So instead, she simply sent a wave of love and tenderness through their bond.
When she felt Hope’s response, she relaxed and returned to her work.
With all the books Hope had brought her, she already had ideas for improvements she wanted to make.
At least, she was about to resume working when she sensed someone standing behind her.
“She’ll come back.
She’s a little upset, but I can still feel her happiness.
She’s really glad you’re back,” Jinx said without looking up from her project.
“She has her mother’s kindness,” Klaus replied, “but she has my temper as well.
There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her.
She is the only person capable of bringing out the humanity in the monster I am.”
As he spoke, he casually picked up one of Jinx’s inventions and began turning it over in his hands.
“You’ll understand, then, that even if you are her soulmate, I will hunt you to the ends of the earth if you hurt her.”
Jinx pushed her goggles up onto her forehead and finally looked at him.
“Oh, you’re a good father.”
She grinned.
“I love her.
If I hurt her, I’d deserve to be tortured to death.
So I’m going to do my best to make her happy.”
Then she pointed at the device in his hands.
“But, father-in-law, you should really throw that away.”
Klaus glanced down at the object, which had begun blinking.
“That’s a bomb,” she added casually.
At those words, Klaus looked at the bomb for a moment before tossing it into the empty space beyond the platform.
It exploded.
Instead of looking alarmed, he flashed her a broad smile.
“Do you have any more?”
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Jinx was starting to like him.
Hope POV
Hope started running.
She kept running until she realized where her feet had carried her.
A forest outside Piltover.
A smile spread across her face, and she began to shift.
Moments later, a white wolf was racing through the trees.
She felt free.
For the first time since becoming a vampire, she felt truly happy.
She was married to her soulmate, and she was still struggling to process that fact.
Yes, she was happy.
But she was also angry.
After all, she had wanted the chance to propose herself.
She would have planned something romantic—something Jinx would have loved.
That moment had been stolen from her.
The thought irritated her.
She was also overwhelmingly happy that her father had returned.
She had missed him so much.
For so long, she had believed she would never see him again because of her immortality.
She had resigned herself to living without his presence, without his love.
And now he was here.
It was incredible.
More than she had ever imagined she deserved.
Yet bitterness still lingered.
How had she ever believed he was at peace?
This was Klaus Mikaelson, for heaven’s sake.
He had ruined countless lives for his own amusement.
He was the Great Evil.
She should have known better.
But she hadn’t wanted to believe otherwise.
The guilt she carried over his sacrifice had been too great.
She already bore the weight of her mother’s death.
Her father’s death had been the final straw.
If she had known he was suffering in the afterlife, she never would have returned to the school.
She would have searched for a way to resurrect him.
She wouldn’t have killed Malivore.
She wouldn’t have met Landon.
She wouldn’t have become friends with Lizzie and Josie.
But it would have been her choice, damn it.
In truth, she wasn’t angry with her father.
He had wanted her to have a life filled with experiences.
And before becoming the Tribrid, she had lived a remarkable one.
She had loved and lost.
She had hated and forgiven.
She had witnessed wonders.
She had fought and lived to tell the tale.
Becoming a vampire had been forced upon her by circumstance, but she didn’t regret it.
Because she had lived.
Now, she intended to embrace her immortality fully.
She owed that to her mother.
To her father.
To her family.
Now to Jinx.
And to herself.
For the first time in a long while, she felt light.
Then she felt a sharp pain in her paw.
She looked down and saw blood.
Did someone just shoot me?
Hope barely had time to send a feeling of calm and amusement through the bond to Jinx before she leaped aside.
She watched in slow motion as the bullet buried itself in the tree just behind her.
This hunter has talent, she reluctantly admitted.
But what had she done to deserve being shot at?
Then she remembered that she was currently a wolf and immediately felt ridiculous.
A hunter, a prey.
All the pieces were in place.
Well,
If this person wanted a target, she was going to give them one.
And make them work for it.
It took only a few seconds for her wound to heal.
Over the next several minutes, she toyed with the shooter.
Sometimes she would remain perfectly still for a while.
Other times, she would vanish entirely and reappear at the most inconvenient moments.
She had already seen who was shooting at her.
Little by little, she had closed the distance to the shooter’s position.
It was a woman.
Young—perhaps in her twenties.
She carried herself like an aristocrat, and her clothing confirmed it.
Almost certainly one of Piltover’s wealthy elite.
Hope disliked the way Piltover had abandoned the Undercity.
But she also understood that people should not be judged for the actions of their parents. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Oh, she knew that lesson well.
She had spent years suffering because of the hatred people felt toward her father.
She wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
As much as she cared about Alaric, he had made her feel ashamed of her lineage.
And she resented him for that.
Unfortunately, that anger had surfaced when she became a vampire.
Now, she refused to deny the pride she felt in being a Mikaelson.
It was her family.
Her heritage.
After playing with her prey long enough, Hope approached the shooter from behind.
“Where is that damn animal?” she heard the woman mutter.
The woman must have sensed her presence because she spun around abruptly.
But it was already too late.
Her rifle was knocked flying.
Hope pinned her to the ground with a single paw.
To the woman’s obvious shock, she couldn’t move at all.
She stared up at the wolf with terror in her eyes.
Before the woman could resort to any desperate measures, Hope shifted back into her human form.
Thankfully, she had learned how to transform without losing her clothes, or the situation would have become very awkward.
“So, do you think it’s funny to shoot at me?” Hope asked, giving her a cold look.
“Y-you’re human!?
Oh my God, I almost killed you.
Oh my God.
I’m so sorry!
I didn’t know!”
That was not the reaction Hope had expected.
The woman seemed genuinely horrified.
It wasn’t exactly what she imagined from a Piltover aristocrat.
When it became clear the woman had no intention of stopping her apologies, Hope burst out laughing.
The woman fell silent and stared at her curiously.
“Well, you have a decent excuse since I was in my other form.
But you should be more careful,” Hope said.
“But this is my family’s private estate, and it’s a hunting ground.” the woman muttered.
Hope smiled.
“Sorry.
I didn’t know it was private property.
Where’s the boundary?”
“If you keep going that way, you’ll see marker stones.
That’s the edge of the estate.
Beyond that is unclaimed land.”
Suddenly, an idea came to Hope.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Caitlyn.
Caitlyn Kiramman.”
Ah.
Like the Kiramman on Piltover’s Council.
“And you?” Caitlyn asked quickly, as if expecting Hope to either flee or start apologizing the moment she heard the name.
Hope knew the types of reactions powerful families inspired.
People either ran from them, hoping not to anger them and suffer the consequences.
Or they tried to get close and benefit from the connection.
Or they hated them and made sure everyone knew it.
If Jinx had met Caitlyn under these circumstances, she probably would have chosen the third option.
But Hope wasn’t Jinx.
She hadn’t lived through the wounds Piltover had inflicted upon Zaun.
“My name is Hope Mikaelson.
Can you tell me how I might acquire that unclaimed land?”
She was Caitlyn’s equal.
A Mikaelson.
And no one would convince her otherwise.
⸻
An hour later, Hope returned to the Undercity.
She certainly hadn’t missed the suffocating smell.
But the moment she entered the city, she remembered something terrifying.
She had left Jinx alone with Klaus Mikaelson
She had left them alone.
No, she didn’t think Klaus would try to kill her wife.
What frightened her was the possibility that they might actually get along.
Oh my God!
Oh my God!
What have I done?
She never should have left them alone.
The Demon of Zaun and the Great Evil.
If they didn’t set the city on fire, it would be a miracle.
She loved them both, but she wasn’t blind.
Her anxiety began to rise.
As she hurried toward the hideout, she spotted a plume of brightly colored smoke rising from the docks in the distance.
That was never a good sign.