The first thing I register is the smell—copper and leather and something ancient. Then the pain, my whole body screaming as if I've been put back together wrong. I bolt upright, gasping, and nearly impale myself on the fangs of the blond man looming over me. 'Easy, little one,' he murmurs, but there's nothing gentle about how his golden eyes track my pulse. The memories crash in—the warehouse, the laughing men, the bomb. I should be dead. The man tosses me a familiar locket. 'Your mother gave me this the night she died.' My breath catches—that locket vanished with her body. Behind him, three pale figures materialize from the shadows. The woman snarls, 'Niklaus, what have you done?' just as I notice my reflection in the window. My eyes are glowing yellow. The blond man—Klaus—positions himself between me and the others. Every muscle in my body tenses for a fight I don't understand.