laissez les bon temps rouler//jackson kenner

prologue

My family are the Original vampires.

With everyone in the supernatural community knowing who you are it's pretty hard to stay unseen. Everyone has always wanted something from my family and me. In turn we've called very few places home.

Norway was where my parents were born as well as my oldest brother Finn and where my older sister died from plague. The rest of us were born in Mystic Falls, Virginia. Of course, at the time it was nothing more than a Viking colony.

My family was human. Although my mother dabbled in the dark arts, we were just a family trying to survive in a time when it was quite difficult to do so. And, for better or worse, we were happy. Until the night, my youngest brother was killed by our village's greatest threat.

To this day it haunts me. It was my fault. Henrik had wanted to go see the men that transformed into wolves during the full moon. My twin brother, Niklaus, and I took him out to the woods one full moon. One of the men lost control and killed Henrik. Nik and I were devastated.

After the attack my father became desperate to protect the rest of us. He forced our mother to call upon her black magic in order to make us stronger. To this day the night we turned is a vivid memory. I remember my father holding the bleeding arm of a woman in front of my face and forcing me to drink.

That's how the first vampires were born. But with this speed, this strength, this immortality, came a terrible hunger. No one felt this hunger more than Nik and me. When Nik killed for the first time, we knew what he truly was, and what I truly was.

I was with Nik when he made his first kill. The way he screamed as his bones started to crack is something I wish I could forget. My father watched in disgust and brother Elijah watched in horror. Elijah wanted to help Nik, but our father stopped him. All I could do was watch in horror as Nik transformed into a beast. That's when we all realized he wasn't just a vampire, I wasn't just a vampire. Nik and I were also part werewolf. We were the result of an indiscretion our mother had hidden from us all. An affair with a werewolf.

Infuriated by this betrayal, my father forced my mother to cast a spell that would suppress Klaus and I's werewolf sides, denying us any connection with our true selves. But the night my mother cast the spell I hadn't even triggered my curse yet. I didn't even know what was being taken from me. My mother and father denied me the right to choose, whether I trigger my curse or not. They had already taken away my choice in becoming a vampire, then they denied me the right to live my life as a werewolf.

Not long after that my mother died, so my siblings and I left Mystic Falls. It was no longer safe for us there.

We traveled around the world living a lavish life. We had the freedom that most humans can only dream of. By 1713 our family needed to flee once more this time from Europe. We weren't even sure where we were headed at the time, but we needed to get away from our father. It was always our father.

The night we sailed up New Orleans I had no idea how much the city would change our lives. It was our new home for two hundred years. We made the city what it is, but the city also left an impact on all of us. Once we left New Orleans my siblings and I would spend some time together here and there, but we never had again what New Orleans had provided. Nik and I were the only two that stuck together. I have been by his side my whole life. I have always found it hard to leave my twin brother alone.

It wasn't until recently that Nik found a way for us to reverse the curse that our mother had placed on us. We found our way back to Mystic Falls of all places, where we finally put an end to the curse that bound our werewolf sides.

I finally had my say. My choice. After a thousand years I finally triggered my curse. I found a human who was an abusive creep, a guy who wouldn't be missed. The pain I felt when my curse was triggered, is unparalleled by any other pain I have ever felt. But the freedom it gave me. Every intolerable second was worth it. Once I had transformed everything felt new again. Everything was somehow different. For the first time in my life, I was free.