(After reading the excerpt of "The Rise", the first book in the Originals' book series, and being woefully disappointed, I felt the need to somehow repair what had been wronged. Or at least to repair my wounded heart after reading that travesty.

Note: this fic is not intended to be historically accurate and is purely a work of fiction. Just go with it.)

"I'm bored. I want to leave."

"Do pretend to be interested in the event, Niklaus," Elijah genteelly ordered him, straightening his dress coat and drawing himself up to his full height. His brown eyes cut across the crowd, absorbing every detail in the room from the decadent chandelier consuming the ceiling down to the threadwork on every lady's gown. Raising his eyebrows slightly, he glanced somewhat patronizingly over his shoulder at his younger half-brother. "Our position within the nobility of France will engender our family with an amalgam of protection from our cannibalistic father," Elijah noted, his gloved hands dropping to his waist where he laced his fingers together and stood peacefully at the edge of the room. Elijah fit in perfectly with this sort of society, with his prim composure and his decorum leaking out of his pores.

Klaus, on the other hand, was quite capable of fitting in but had never seen much point. His strength exceeded these fragile humans a hundredfold, and he found no need to pretend to be one of them. Elijah had explained it several times over the centuries, but he still found it quite boring. He would fit in as much as he believed necessary, or entertaining, at the time. His dirty blond hair was half-pulled back and tied into a velvet band to keep it from his eyes, and his dark-colored apparel coupled with an exorbitantly expensive, laced shirt had been hand-picked by Elijah. Not that Klaus couldn't dress himself: that was yet another task which better suited his brother's taste.

Fiddling with the fluff of lace around his right wrist, Klaus cut his eyes to his sister who had already inserted herself into the crowd. Her blond curls bounced merrily, her blue eyes glittering with a mixture of glee and mischievousness as she was swept through the crowd by a particularly average nobleman whose name Klaus couldn't care to call to memory. His blue eyes narrowed, darkening as he watched through the dancers, his eyes seeing none of them around his sister.

Lifting his chin to motion toward their sister, he leaned conspiratorially closer to Elijah although the other man could easily hear him thanks to their heightened vampire senses. "Bekah seems to be enjoying herself with that sod," he commented, an edge of bitterness in his tone as he glared at the pair dancing near the center of the massive dancefloor. Elijah glanced over, catching sight of Rebekah after a moment, and smiled slightly.

"She certainly does," he agreed, ignoring Klaus's simmering beside him.

Drawing himself up, Klaus crossed his arms behind his back and raised one eyebrow. "I could eat him for sport," he growled, a dark smile curving his lips into a wolfish smirk.

"I've heard that before," Elijah countered with an entertained smile, his eyes scanning the crowd again, memorizing every detail. After a moment, he looked back at his brother. "Rebekah understands the importance of our position here."

Klaus breathed audibly out through his nose as he watched the dancing, not in the mood to join. He didn't need Elijah's coaching right now, or rather, he wasn't in the mood for it. He'd heard it a thousand times. They understood one another, and he understood his role as well as the rest of them, he simply wasn't in the mood to be spoken to like a child. Bored and irritable, he shifted his weight and looked around the room once more, narrowing his eyes as he intentionally ignored Rebekah and her dull dancing partner.

Curiosity and suspicion replaced the aggravation in his eyes as he didn't see their fourth companion. "Where is Kol?"

The girl's back slammed roughly into the ornate wall of the hallway, her raven curls capitulating from the pins struggling to hold them up as the force collapsed her topknot. Her dress was bunched up around her waist, the expensive fabric crumpling and crinkling as her fingers crushed it in pleasure. Her head arched backward and her chin thrust upward as she struggled to contain a euphoric moan.

"Saperlipopette!" she cried breathlessly, her voice bouncing then dying in the deserted hallway. Her dress rustled and shifted, releasing a tousled brown head of hair and the wolfish grin of none other than Kol Mikaelson.

"Enjoying yourself, darling?" he asked her, pushing himself smoothly up from his knees and grabbing her by her corseted waist, pulling her against him as she released the fabric of her dress and grasped his shoulders.

"Don't stop, mon cher, please. Don't stop," she begged him, her hips writhing impatiently against his. Her hands slipped from his shoulders, quickly moving to his pants to unlace them. Her fingers slipped in her impatience, but he made it easier for her by arching his hips back so she could more easily reach, his mouth capturing hers as she worked.

He helped her release his pants and then hooked his hands beneath her thighs, hoisting her effortlessly up the wall as she wrapped her legs around him. Holding her weight with one hand and the pressure of his hips, he used his other hand to guide her hair out of the way, pushing her head toward her shoulder as she moaned delightedly into his ear.

The veins sprouted from his eyes, the pressure building up beneath his eyelashes, and his fangs slid out a moment before he sank his teeth into the tender skin of her neck. She gasped in a mixture of pain and passion, but she was caught up in his thrall and couldn't escape. The taste of her blood, hot and embued with the heady hormones released during sex, was as euphoric as the feeling of her body accepting his, and he viciously bit down harder. Her human body couldn't handle the concoction of sensations and she went over the edge, her fingers digging into his tunic as she orgasmed.

"Qu'est ce que se passe?!" exclaimed a distinctively male voice, his French accent strong with surprise and dismay.

Kol extracted his fangs from the girl's neck in a moment, straightening as he supported her against the wall. Her gasps of pleasure choked in her throat, strangling as she struggled to contain her orgasm as her feet fell to the floor. She hastily shoved her dress down to cover herself, her cheeks erupting brightly in embarrassment. Kol deftly covered himself, not bothering to wipe the blood from his chin, as he narrowed his eyes and focused on the man standing a few yards from their tryst in the hallway.

The man was portly and dressed in the clothes of an exalted butler. His face was shrewd and drawn so he resembled a gassy, perturbed polecat. Kol had seen enough of his kind to recognize a pompous servingman when he saw one. Instantly, a bright grin lit his face and he stepped back so he was standing closer to the middle of the hallway with his arms held out slightly from his sides. Angry French ranting erupted from the man as Kol mockingly faced him, but the Original was unaffected.

"I must admit, I'm not that familiar with the native tongue yet, old chap," he commented with a cheeky smile. Glancing over at his companion, he offered her an amused smile, but she was embarrassedly staring at the floor, her cheeks growing redder. Kol frowned, pouting exaggeratedly, and looked back at the man as he advanced on them, yelling something in French about disgrace.

Reaching out, Kol planted a hand on the man's chest, effectively stopping him in his tracks. His eyes grew serious even though he continued to smile. The servant looked up, frowning in consternation, and Kol caught his gaze, his pupils dilating and spinning as he worked the art of compulsion on the man's soggy mind.

"I'm going to need you to forget that last part, darling," he commented off-handedly to the man, "Well, the blood part anyway. The rest of it…" He motioned between himself and the girl who was now watching him with wide eyes, confusion and fear covering her face. "Do remember that, please." His grin widened and he released the man, leaving him standing dumbly in the middle of the hallway, before turning to the girl. She shrank away from him, her eyes wide and baleful, unsure what he would do to her.

Her blood trickled down the side of her neck, staining her collarbone and the lacy frill at the top of her dress. Reaching up, Kol cupped the side of her face and smiled, his eyes dark and swirling as he looked down at her.

"What… what are you?" she stammered, her ecstasy from only minutes before now turned into fear of the unknown.

He smiled brilliantly at her, his dark eyes looking like the blackest night in the dim hallway. "That doesn't matter now. What does matter is that you're going to forget," his eyes were twisting, the pupils absorbing every speck of light in the room and captivating her. She went limp against the wall, captured by his gaze.

"You will forget I fed on you," he spoke conversationally, reaching into the breast pocket of his tunic and withdrawing a handkerchief. Dabbing at her neck, he took her hand and made her hold the fabric, guiding her hand to clean herself up. "Surely you tripped and cut yourself while cleaning," he noted.

"I cut myself while cleaning," she repeated, her voice dull and monotone as she repeated the thoughts he was fabricating in her mind.

"Don't forget the fun we had though, darling," he reminded her, smirking irascibly as he stepped back and straightened his clothes.

Leaving her standing like a statue against the wall, he turned back to the hallway and smirked at the man who was just coming out of the haze of his compulsion. Patting the man on the inside of his shoulder, Kol sidestepped him in one smooth motion and departed at a leisurely pace down the hallway. Behind him, the reprimanding commenced as the Original vampire smiled, pleased with himself, and disappeared.