The creature fell, whimpering, to the grass, and the uselessness of its intervention made Elijah irrationally angry. He grabbed the mort-vivant by the nape of her neck and yanked her away, ignoring the feeling of his own flesh being torn out by her teeth that refused to let go. He held the monster away from him for a moment, watching the undead witch swallow her piece of Elijah’s shoulder with revolting pleasure.

Still seething with anger, he reached out to seize her heart, but her attention shifted from her grisly feast just in time to see the movement. She caught his hand in both of hers, grinning to reveal blood-and-tissue-smeared teeth, and he felt like a human slamming his fist into a stone wall. Elijah had come to take his disproportionate strength for granted over the centuries—all of the Originals had—and the shock of impact was an unpleasant reminder of how heavily he relied on his own curse.

There shouldn’t be anything walking the world with so much strength. Not the morts-vivants, and not the Mikaelsons, either. Elijah knew that to the ordinary, mortal population of New Orleans there might not be much difference between the two—he did, after all, survive by draining human blood. Maybe the two unnatural species should just wipe each other out and leave the world to those who would die on their own.

A clenched fist appeared in the center of the mort-vivant’s chest, holding her heart triumphantly out toward Elijah. The witch’s body went slack, and he released his grip on her neck. Rebekah stood before him, still holding the gory organ, her porcelain skin streaked with the blood of a dozen more like it.

- The Originals: The Loss, Chapter 30