A/N: Happy 2017 Klonnie fam! I should be making a syllabus but here I am starting a new Klonnie fic I've wanted to write for a while now, because I am a very responsible adult. The premise of this story is borrowed from the amazing Dramione fic, "The Dragon's Bride" by Rizzle which is published here on FF dot net. I highly recommend checking it out if you're a fan of that ship! This fic is AU after 3x18 of TVD, and I will fill in some of the gaps as the story goes along. Hope you enjoy, and please let me know your thoughts in the reviews!

Oh but you are in my blood you're my holy wine

You're so bitter

bitter and so sweet oh

I could drink a case of you darling

Still I'd be on my feet

I would still be on my feet - Joni Mitchell

His waking mind is dimly aware of two things: he's slept outside, and he's inordinately comfortable. It's barely after dawn, he can tell by the softness of the Louisiana sun and the green coolness of dew. Lulled by the dream-like, fragrant morning, Klaus keeps his eyes closed a few moments longer. It feels oddly like the morning after he broke his hybrid curse, when he woke up feeling fleshly and alive for the first time in a thousand years. There is the same serenity, the same lush exhaustion -

- only, he is not alone.

There's a soft, warm stirring beside him as his companion readjusts her position. His eyes fly open, glancing down at the pool of dark, tousled curls on his chest, and for a moment his mind goes curiously blank, registering a strange, sated feeling rising up from his bones to spread through his limbs. Vines of blooming jasmine are curled around his ankles and hers, and his muscles feel wonderfully languid, like after swimming a bright, strong current.

Then, a breeze lifts his lover's hair.

Bloody throne of Hades. His tranquility vanishes with the morning mist.

Nestled asleep naked in his arms in the middle of a Louisiana oak grove is none other than the brazen little witch who'd once almost killed him. Bonnie you-bother-me Bennett.

His mind takes advantage of his momentary shock to dredge up sly bits of memory from the night prior. There had been a wedding, Caroline Forbes and Stefan Salvatore. He recalls being terrifically bored at the reception. He'd been stabbing his crème brûlée with a fork and wondering how many of the servers he could eat before anyone noticed, when the witch had appeared before him with a glass of champagne. They'd left together-

-images meld into a kaleidoscope, each one more astounding than the next. Bonnie's head leaning tipsily on his shoulder as they made their way down Bourbon Street. A stolen kiss in the corner booth of a dim cajun cafe. Blazing down the highway in a roofless car with the little witch practically on his lap, a bottle of Moonshine shared between them. The shimmer of her periwinkle dress as she ran nymph-like through the trees, trailing laughter and beckoning him to give chase. Pearl buttons scattering like dew when he finally had her in his arms.

He can smell her now, a rich sweet scent combined with his own and with the unmistakable pungence of sex. And there's something else too, a more ethereal perfume lingering: the afterglow of magic. Klaus has the nagging feeling he's forgotten something terribly important about the events of last night, but Bonnie shifts again, her knee rising higher on his thigh, evidently as content as though she were a kitten and he a particularly warm pile of laundry.

"Mmm," she hums, nuzzling him in earnest. He hardly ever uses the camera on his phone, but just this once he wishes the device were within reach so he could immortalize this sight and brandish it as leverage for years to come.

"Rise and shine, darling," he says dryly, giving her shoulder a little shake.

Bonnie starts and raises a sleep-bleary face.

He should have delighted in watching her expressions change from confusion to shock to horror, should have relished in her frantic attempts to disentangle herself and laughed when she scooted away admonishing him not to touch her.

He should have done all this and more but his gaze stays fixed where her head had lain, and the marriage tattoo gleaming under his skin.

Jasmine surrounds them, dotting the tree trunk and roots with blossoms like stars. The fragrance drifts lazily in the air. They're both dusted in petals.

Bonnie knows it's futile, perhaps even silly, to attempt covering herself with her hands. Their mutual nudity aside, the incriminating memories swimming in her head, memories that she feels in no way equipped to process without the aid of heavy alcohol, leave no room for illusions about the nature of their night together.

She's glancing frantically around for something with which to clothe herself - a shred of her dress, some leaves, anything - when he speaks, his voice cold and accusatory. It instantly sets her teeth on edge.

"What have you done, witch?"

"Excuse me?"

Before she can blink he's risen lithely to his feet and walked over to her, pulling her up by an elbow and thwarting any attempt to cover her eyes. She averts her gaze, causing him to tighten his grip.

"Explain yourself," he hisses, shaking her for emphasis.

His closeness and the wild, sharp scent of him conjures up images from the night before that make her want to crawl into a hole and live out her days as a hermit.

"Believe me I wish I could," she mutters. "Hey-!"

He's pushed her against the tree that had sheltered them, pinning her arms over her head and peering intently down at her naked form. Little white flowers fall around them like snow. She squirms under his scrutiny but there's no heat in his gaze, none of the hunger her mind insists on recalling from the previous night. Instead he surveys her body like she's a haystack he's lost a particularly precious needle in.

"Stop that," he snaps, frowning at her attempts to give him an aneurysm.

She's gearing up to set him on fire when she spies the tattoo glistening mutely on his left shoulder, just above his heart. It's a familiar, magical symbol eked in jade-green ink and small, delicate runes that make her head spin when she tries to read them.

Her stomach drops.

"Klaus - please tell me that isn't-,"

"Oh believe me I wish I could," he mimics sarcastically, still scouring her skin for any hint of a matching mark.

He won't find it where he's looking. She knows because as soon as her eyes landed on his tattoo she'd felt the warm responsive pinprick of magic on her own skin.

"I- I think I know where mine is," she whispers in the despondent voice of someone who's found plague spots on their body.

He glowers down at her, unwilling to relinquish his hold.

"What do you think I'm gonna do?" she snaps. "Take off running through the woods?"

"As I recall, you were quite content to play Daphne and Apollo the night before," he growls.

"Yeah well, I should've made like Daphne and turned myself into a tree before you caught me, but here we are." Her own voice drips with sarcasm. Her arms hurt, and her neck is already stiff from craning to meet his eyes.

"If this is part of some plan-," he threatens.

"What plan, Klaus?" Her voice reaches a fever pitch as the reality of their situation sinks in. "You think I planned to sleep with you and get myself magically married?"

Her mind flashes to the previous evening. She'd walked up to him at the reception and offered him a glass of champagne. She can't remember why. They'd ended up in that attic shop that smelled of magic and blood and incense. There were shelves jeweled with bottles of tattoo ink. And Klaus had kissed her, laughing, as she helped him unbutton his shirt. She cringes now at the memory of her fumbling hands and his fond, warm grin.

"We went to that place together, remember?" she insists, "you got yours first, and then they - they did mine."

He blinks and she sees recollection on his face. He releases his grip so suddenly she almost stumbles.

She doesn't need to touch the mark to know it's there. She can feel it tingling, the magic woven into her cells. Bonnie turns around and sweeps her hair to the side, exposing the back of her neck.

Some small, futile part of her hopes against hope that she is mistaken. That this is all some hungover hallucination, that she'd never left the reception with Klaus, never gone to that strange shop, never let herself be marked as his wife with a spelled needle and magical ink.

Unbidden, she remembers standing just like this, under a flickering light instead of a tree, showing him her new tattoo. She'd felt as naked as she is now, that while others had seen her undressed he was seeing her unveiled, glimpsing a part of her that was dark and joyful, a secret she had told no one else. He'd claimed the skin there with his mouth, kissed away the blood, made her tremble-

He makes no move to touch her now.

The last of her hope drowns in his silence.