Author's Note: I'm a die-hard Aro/Sulpicia shipper, but I thought I'd give Demetri/Sulpicia a whirl just for the fun of it. If you have a free moment, please leave a review. I would absolutely love to hear your opinion. Happy Holidays!
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Stephenie Meyer's work.
Camelot
She thinks sometimes she will forget. And if she forgets, he will be gone. Banished. A figure of sympathy, but not sorrow. Away from her.
But now they lay together. They trespass and love.
Sulpicia will not take the blame. She is faultless. He is flawless. Through the centuries they have danced their minuet, their discordant waltz of entanglement and pretense.
And kisses.
Demetri can find only one crack in their ivory edifice. One fissure running from mind to conscience. He hates to deceive his master, but she, yes, she is indifferent.
"Lancelot and Guinevere," she tells him, her pale fingers twisting in his short-cropped, coppery hair. "Let Arthur have his round table, then we can have each other."
He calls her sentimental, unrealistic. But she knows better.
"Demetri, Demetri," she whispers his name, eases his guilt until his lulled and lying in her arms.
He is her doll.
There were others before him. Strong men. Lovers. But Demetri is unique, a prince in an ivory tower. An Adonis reigning from Mount Olympus.
And yet he will never have her husband's power. He will never be his master's rival. Ever and only his shadow.
Sulpicia knows this and in the vault of her mind, where memory and shame dwells, she pities her lover.
They meet at dawn and glittering in the dew-kissed sunlight, they join.
She tells him how precious he is, speaks to him in poetry and gilded prose, inspires his naked yearning. Drives him to weave each narcissistic falsehood.
And he does so…for her.
She wonders, sometimes, if she enjoys her influence over him too much. If it has borne away the simple beauty of their illicit pleasure or made her strong.
Stronger, she thinks. I am stronger.
But sometimes she is weak.
His instinct is hardened, his appetite whetted for the hunt. And yet it is she he loves, she he will worship more than the chase.
She admires his silence, his soft frowns and sighs as her lips glide over the lined muscles of his stomach.
"I can love only you," he swears and is tormented when she does not respond.
He knows she will never love only him.
They whisper in the corridors, cross paths on the tower stairs and longingly, oh so longingly, touch trembling fingers to cool brows and open palms.
No one, she vows, will ever see. Only us.
Demetri is jealous of his master, his envy sweetened with pangs of regret and guilt. He fears her happiness with Aro, dreads the moments when she smiles and embraces her husband.
And he must always walk behind them. In the shadows. In the grey.
She is not his.
He tracks her thoughts throughout the castle, hears her move from chamber to chamber, laughing, careless, unmindful of the briars that enclose his heart.
But he comes when she calls him. He will always come.
In the grotto below the garden, she mounts him, her legs nestled against his hips, her long hair brushing his navel.
"My darling Demetri."
He calls her his mistress, his goddess, matches her rhythm with smooth thrusts and cries out as she envelopes his manhood in her velvety darkness.
"I dream of you in the dark," he murmurs, forehead pressed to her breast. Breathing in her scent, her dangerous, blood-spiced scent. Inhale. Exhale.
She accepts him. Folds him into her arms and thinks…if Aro knew, if he knew….
But he doesn't. And so she laughs.
"Lancelot and Guinevere," she tells him. And in the moment, they forget.