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Chapter Four
Klaus moved noiselessly across the cobblestones, grimacing
at the chattering roar of hooves and carts passing by. When
the Mikaelsons had arrived in New Orleans, there had been
nothing except dirt tracks, but civilization had not left their
grimy little French outpost alone. Progress marched onward,
Klaus supposed philosophically, but not everything was
an improvement . . . especially after the dizzying, skullshattering
night he had just spent.
New Orleans may have grown more cosmopolitan and
sophisticated, but the whores were just as raunchy and
wild as they had ever been. And the brand of whiskey
at Klaus’s favorite brothel, The Southern Spot, had been
almost enough to drive the residue of discontent from
Klaus’s tongue. Almost.
There had come a point when he could no longer see her
glittering black eyes, when her mocking smile no longer
broke in on his every thought. But, to his intoxicated vision,
every neck he had tenderly bitten had looked like her slender
and marble-white throat; every drop of blood had tasted of
her. Niklaus drank because oblivion could not come too
soon and, given his headache this morning, it had probably
come far too late.
The sun was high and the locals were bustling. He kept