Klaus’s Mercy

The classroom smelled faintly of charcoal, varnish, and cheap coffee—the trifecta of any community college art department. The air buzzed with the scratch of pencils, the murmur of brushes on canvas, and the occasional huff of frustration from students trying to turn their inner worlds into something visible.

Mercy sat in the back corner as always, her sketchbook open across her lap, a charcoal pencil gripped tight in her calloused fingers. Her eyes flicked between the blank paper and the image behind her eyes—the one that had haunted her dreams for weeks.

A man. Sharp eyes, sharper cheekbones. A mouth always on the verge of a smirk or a snarl. He never spoke in her dreams, just stood in the shadows, watching. Waiting. She didn’t know his name, didn’t know where he was from, only that he mattered. That he was the beginning of something.

So she drew him. Again.

Her fingers moved fast, almost automatically, as if memory, not thought, guided her. Shadows bloomed under the jaw. Lines deepened between the brows. The smirk—no, the threat of one—hovered on his lips. He was beautiful, in that way predators sometimes were. Dangerous. Familiar.

Her hand froze. A sharp pulse ran down her spine like a dropped needle.

She turned her head slowly. The classroom door had opened late, and someone new had walked in.

Tall. Broad shoulders under a dark wool coat. Dark blond hair, messy but elegant. Eyes like fractured gold—burning with centuries of suspicion. He scanned the room like a wolf surveying the flock and began making his way inside.

He was the man from her dreams.

Mercy snapped her gaze down to her sketchbook, heart thundering in her chest. Not real. He couldn’t be real. She was losing it again.

But when she dared to peek up, he was sitting a row in front and two seats to the left of her, already pulling out a stool, looking utterly bored. His eyes hadn’t found her yet. At least, she didn’t think they had.

She stared at the drawing. Then back at him.

Her lungs forgot how to work.

She didn’t know how long she sat like that, hands trembling over her page. The class was well underway by the time she forced herself to breathe, to keep sketching, pretending like nothing had just shifted beneath her feet.

The teacher, a wiry man named Professor Klint, droned on about composition and light theory. Most of the students had begun copying from the still life at the front of the room—a boring setup of fruit and a broken teapot—but Mercy couldn’t look away from the man sitting across from her.

He didn’t participate. Just watched. Occasionally, he’d scratch a single line onto a blank page, then pause for long stretches. Watching the class, watching the teacher.

Halfway through the session, she realized his sketchpad was still mostly empty.

Figures. Pretty face, no follow-through.

She turned back to her page.

Then she felt it—his gaze.

It crawled up her spine, heat and weight wrapped together. She looked up and locked eyes with him.

He didn’t look away.

His lips curled, slightly. That same almost-smile she’d drawn. There it was. Real. Right in front of her.

Her stomach twisted.

When the class ended, the students bolted like it was a race. Even the professor didn’t linger. Mercy stayed, as she always did. She hated crowds. Hated people. Needed the silence after so much noise.

She hoped he would leave.

He didn’t.

She kept her head down, packing up slowly, pretending to focus on the pieces scattered across her desk.

And then—

“Well, well. What do we have here?” The voice was smooth, British, and lightly mocking. “An admirer, I hope?”

Mercy froze.

He was standing behind her, hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on the sketchbook she’d left open.

She looked at the page. Looked back at him. Resigned herself to yet another conversation that would probably end badly.

“You’re finally here,” she said, quietly.

His head tilted, amusement instantly giving way to something colder. Wariness. Suspicion.

“Pardon?” he said.

“I’ve seen you. In my dreams. Over and over. Always you. Always this face.” Her words tumbled out, breathless. “I didn’t know what it meant, I still don’t, but I knew you’d come. This room. This class. You.”

His eyes narrowed. “And what, exactly, do you think that means?”

She swallowed. Her mouth had gone dry.

“I don’t know yet. But it’s not a coincidence.”

He glanced again at the drawing, then at her. “What’s your name?”

“Mercy.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s dramatic.”

She shrugged. “My foster mom named me after the virtue she said I didn’t have.”

Something flickered in his gaze.

He extended a hand, oddly formal. “Klaus.”

Of course it was. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did.

She hesitated, then shook his hand.

And the second their skin touched—

The world tilted.

A roaring filled her ears. Images slammed through her mind like floodgates breaking open—fire, screaming, blood filling a lake, a tall man with rage in his eyes, a blade in his hand. Death.

Mercy gasped. Her eyes rolled back. She jerked once, twice, then slumped against the table.

“Bloody hell—” Klaus caught her before she fell.

The moment their skin touched, something snapped inside him. Not gently. Violently.

Heat surged through his chest like someone had jammed a hot iron into his sternum. His grip locked tighter—reflexive, defensive,possessive.

His instincts—finely honed, cold-blooded—should’ve screamedtrap. But instead, they screamedprotect. Shield her. Keep her breathing.

And that only made it worse.

Because he didn’t protect people. He used them. Broke them. He certainly didn’t tremble at the idea of losing someone he’d just met.

This wasn’t magic. This wasn’t some spell or hex. This was something else.

Something older. Raw.

It coiled deep in his bones like a memory he didn’t know he had.

Her body convulsed in his grip. She was whispering now—no, chanting.

“Mikael... Mikael... he’s coming... he’s almost here...”

Klaus went still.

The name hit him like ice water down his spine, giving him whiplash.

He hadn’t heard that name spoken aloud in years. Not since—

No. It wasn’t possible.

He looked at the girl—Mercy—still twitching, eyes unfocused, muttering things she shouldn’t know.

He grabbed a pencil from the table and shoved it into her hand.

“Draw,” he snapped. “If you can see something, show me.”

Her hand moved like a puppet’s—jerky, uneven—but it moved. She scratched furiously across the paper, still not fully conscious.

And then she collapsed against the desk, pencil falling from her hand.

Klaus looked down at the drawing.

It was a man. Tall, brutal, with eyes like pits of black fire. Holding a blade.

Mikael.

He hadn’t seen that face in nearly a decade, but he’d never forget it.

Klaus’s grip on the girl tightened.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Her head lolled. She was half-conscious, lips parted, breath shallow.

Klaus stared down at her. For a long, long moment, he didn’t move.

Then he muttered, “Looks like you’re coming with me.”

“Okay,” she slurred, barely audible.

And passed out cold.