CHAPTER TWO: THE RETURN
New Orleans, Present Day
The city breathed like a living thing.
Magic crawled through its veins, old and restless, stirring as if something ancient had shifted in its sleep. In the Quarter, candles flickered without wind. Graves whispered. Witches paused mid‑spell, hands trembling.
Something had answered.
Klaus Mikaelson stood on the balcony of the compound, knuckles white around a glass he no longer drank from. His heartbeat—an old, stubborn thing—pounded harder than it had in centuries.
Elijah watched him carefully.
"You felt it too," Elijah said.
Klaus didn't look away from the night sky. "I felt him."
Rebekah stepped closer, her voice unsteady. "Nik… you're imagining things. We buried—"
"No," Klaus snapped, then stopped himself. His jaw tightened. "We believed what Father wanted us to believe."
Silence fell.
For a thousand years, there had been a name none of them spoke. A memory locked behind blood and fear.
Chris.
Miles beyond the city, deep in forgotten land, the white wolf slowed.
Moonlight poured over its massive frame, fur gleaming like frost. Each breath steamed the air. The creature's eyes—gold rimmed with something darker—scanned the horizon with calm, calculating awareness.
The wolf stepped into shadow.
Bones cracked.
Fur receded.
A man emerged.
Chris Mikaelson stood naked beneath the trees, skin marked with scars that time had failed to erase. He flexed his fingers, feeling the world—feeling everything. The pulse of magic. The distant call of blood.
And the echo of family.
"So," he murmured, voice low and controlled. "New Orleans still stands."
Memories pressed in.
Mikael's blade.
Esther's scream.
Klaus's terrified eyes watching from the trees.
Chris closed his eyes.
"I didn't die," he said softly. "I endured."
He lifted his head, gaze sharpening toward the city lights glowing faintly in the distance.
"And now," he continued, "the children who forgot me will remember."
Back at the compound, a window shattered.
Rebekah gasped.
Elijah straightened, instincts screaming. "He's close."
Klaus finally turned, fear naked on his face—raw, honest, unmistakable.
"The first of us," he whispered. "The one Father couldn't kill."
A slow, uneasy smile crept across his lips.
"And the only one who ever made me feel small."
Thunder rolled over New Orleans.
The White Alpha had returned.
End of Chapter Two