Katherine entered Caroline's room while she was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling.
"Elena?" Caroline asked with a cold, emotionless voice.
"Yes, yes," Katherine laughed and approached gracefully. "I need you to send a message."
Katherine grabbed a pillow and attacked, pressing it over Caroline's face to suffocate her — but Caroline's hand caught the pillow and pushed it back.
Katherine went into shock.
How had a human gotten out of her grip?
Before she could recover, Caroline's hand grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto the bed.
Faster than Katherine thought possible, Caroline grabbed her by the throat and shoved her hand into Katherine's chest, gripping her heart, while the other hand held her face.
Caroline's hand passed through Katherine's chest as if flesh were warm water.
The heart pulsed inside her fingers.
Hot.
Alive.
Katherine's expression was no longer that of a predator — it was pure disbelief.
Centuries of power… crushed in a second.
Caroline pulled her closer by the throat, their bodies pressed together, too close for it to be just violence.
It was domination.
It was invasion.
It was personal.
"Elena…" the voice came out low, full of venom and the desire to destroy.
Katherine tried to speak, tried to keep her arrogant smile, but the hand squeezing her heart turned her words into a broken sound.
"I–I'm not—"
Caroline's thumb pressed against her lower lip, silencing her.
An intimate gesture.
Humiliating.
Her red eyes burned.
And inside…
Caroline was still conscious.
Feeling.
Seeing.
Realizing she wasn't the one guiding the movement.
It was the other one.
The protector.
The demon.
And the demon was furious.
Because that creature had the face of Caroline's pain.
Had the face of comparison.
Had the face of insecurity.
And still carried the scent of Nik's interest.
"You're always chosen…" Caroline whispered, as if she were talking to Elena — "even when you're not in the room."
The hand holding Katherine's face slid slowly down her neck, almost like a caress…
…before tightening hard enough to crush her trachea.
Katherine's body arched against hers.
Her heart beat faster inside Caroline's hand.
Fear.
Survival instinct.
Confusion.
All mixed.
Caroline leaned her face close, her lips almost touching Katherine's ear.
"He said you were sexy."
Her fingers squeezed the heart.
An immediate physical response.
Katherine trembled.
"Bold."
Another squeeze.
Stronger.
"You walk in here with her face… lie in my bed… from now on you are her."
She threw Katherine against the mattress and climbed on top of her, pinning her wrists with one hand.
It wasn't just strength.
It was absolute control.
Every movement Katherine tried to make was anticipated.
Canceled.
The demon was not in a hurry.
It wanted her to feel.
To understand.
The other hand still inside her chest.
Feeling every desperate heartbeat.
"Look at you…" Caroline said, tilting her head, her blonde hair falling like a golden curtain — "the great Katherine Pierce… afraid."
She brought her face close to hers.
Nose to nose.
Unnecessary breaths mixing.
"Run."
The command was whispered.
But filled with power.
Pure instinct.
Predator allowing the prey to flee.
Katherine felt Caroline let her go and tried to run only to be caught again and look into Caroline's face in terror.
She saw the cruel smile of a cat playing with a mouse before killing it.
Her body stopped.
Her eyes went dead.
She surrendered to the predator.
Her own inner demon surrendered.
It almost gave control back to Katherine…
But it wouldn't let the host suffer and accepted death.
"Not yet."
Caroline's demon wanted more.
Wanted to break the image.
Wanted to rip control away from her.
The hand left Katherine's chest — and when she saw Katherine not react she attacked her body, her free hand striking her rib and ripping it out.
The scream came torn.
The cry of pain and despair.
Caroline closed her eyes for a moment.
Inside — she felt it.
The cruel pleasure that wasn't hers.
The distorted love that fueled it.
protect
The word wasn't a sound.
It was an impulse.
The demon wasn't attacking out of jealousy.
It was eliminating a threat.
But it used Caroline's wounds as fuel.
"She isn't here," Caroline said now conscious inside her own body, driving Katherine's rib into her chest, making her cry in pain — "but you are."
Her eyes burned again.
Control slipped once more.
Katherine's head was pulled back by her hair.
"I'm not sending any message."
She bit her neck and drank her blood…
The taste was horrible and even so she kept drinking and with each second Katherine grew weaker, begging to be killed — and she stopped.
She didn't drink everything.
That wasn't the goal.
Not to desiccate Katherine.
The goal was to mark.
To hurt.
And it was enough.
Caroline let go suddenly.
Pushed Katherine off the bed.
Her body fell crooked, bones still trying to mend.
"Run."
Now the voice had no coldness. No cruelty.
Katherine didn't argue.
Didn't provoke.
Didn't try to be superior.
She cried and panicked like she always did when she found something more powerful than her — all her powerful attitude gone.
Humiliated, she did what she could — threw herself out of the room at full speed through the window.
The room fell silent.
Caroline dropped to her knees.
Her hands shaking.
Katherine's blood still warm on her fingers.
"I…" she began, but her voice failed.
Inside, the demon receded.
Just accepted and defeated by Caroline.
But satisfied.
Satisfied.
Caroline placed a hand on her own chest.
Feeling both things at the same time:
The horror.
And the safety.
She hadn't lost control.
But she hadn't been entirely herself either.
The demon had left its mark on the world before going to sleep — and Caroline knew that what it had done to Katherine was what she had always wanted to do to Elena, especially when Elena tried to take Nik.
Caroline was the definitive proof of what Tessa told Nik:
The vampires of his bloodline did not depend on age.
They depended on potential.
And Caroline had a lot of potential