Volterra is a sleepy town, he knows, full of history and architecture and beauty. The streets are familiar to him and he walks them like he has done for many years, footsteps muffled in the old stone. Shady light warms the city under a twilit sky, the shadows of tall houses smothering his silhouette and dulling the glint of his red eyes.
Dusk is his favourite time of day, the time where the humans hide themselves in their homes, doors shut tight as though it will save them from the monsters hiding under the bed. He smirks, looks at the flimsy wooden shutters and doors painted in cheerful yellows and oranges, imagines himself ripping them off their hinges. Absently, his fingers flex – but he doesn't stop walking.
The long, narrow street curves to the right. His feet flawlessly follow the curvature of the cobbled stones as he stares ahead, ignoring the smell of blood that sings to his bones. Italian blood smells familiar, homely; after all, Volterra is rarely visited by tourists and their cloying, exotic aromas.
At the end of the street, the houses thin out to expose the clock tower. The plaza underneath it is empty at night. The leering arm of the tower creates imposing shadows on the ground beneath it and mothers tell their children beware of the demons lurking in the shadows.
And it is good advice.
There, in the doorway of the tower, he can see her – or rather the lit end of her cigarette sat between her pianist's fingers. She's not the kind of girl he was expecting when he met her, this beautiful hybrid with doe eyes and a frozen heart, but she's much more interesting.
Her body is cloaked in black silk and shadows, a hood slipped over her bronze curls to hide most of her face. Her ruby red lips are pulled into a razor sharp smile. The teeth slightly bared behind it are immaculately white and straight but he's seen her hunt enough to know they're just as deadly as they are perfect.
Renesmee is exactly the kind of monster mothers should warn their children about.
"You're late, Demetri." A voice like honey, syllables sliding smoothly over her tongue.
His stride finishes when he is scant meters from her, hidden within the imposing darkness of the clock tower. This close, he can smell her. She smells like smoke and decay and parma violets. It's intoxicating, the way she is a fuse on the verge of blowing.
"I don't care," he says.
She smiles wider. Takes a puff of her cigarette. The fuse grows shorter.
"Good."
A pale hand sweeps the hood off her head. Curls spill out. He wants to take them in his hands and muse them, ruin her perfection and ruin her completely. Those big brown eyes stare knowingly at him, mocking, as she shakes her hair out. She has power and she knows it.
"Did you miss me?" she whispers hungrily, honey and violets.
He takes a step closer. "No."
Her hands are slipping the silk from her left shoulder, exposing the pale flesh of a seductress. The other shoulder shakes free of the fabric and she drops the cloak to the floor, stepping free of it and closer to him. She is scantily dressed, leather corset and little else, but she is proud.
"Jacob has asked me to return to Forks. He misses me." The name is acid dripping from her tongue. She licks her lips.
He laughs nastily. This is always her game, a little power play to establish her power but he is Demetri and he has spent a thousand years tearing power apart.
"So go back to your not-wolf, Nessie."
Those brown eyes flash like lightning and she closes the gap between them until they are chest to chest. Her torso is heaving – with anticipation or hatred, he doesn't know but it's delicious all the same – and he can feel her raised nipples through the fabric of their clothing. Her teeth are bared in a snarl, the still smoking cigarette dropped and forgotten on the floor. In this moment, she is alive and she is beautiful.
He smirks and kisses her. Utterly debauches her, in fact. He is a force of tongue and teeth and fire that is all consuming and he burns her and turns her power into mere embers compared to his raging inferno. She moans into his mouth. His hands are on her, demanding and taking and scorching, and she gives and gives and gives until she has nothing more for him – yet he takes more than she can give, moving to devour her neck with his greedy lips.
This is passion. This is corruption. This is a game of sin and he is winning.
They clash with the fury of a thousand suns, a story of destruction – because that's what they're doing. Nothing stays perfect, either the world corrodes it or it corrodes itself. Destruction and self-destruction. Honey and violets; smoke and decay. Renesmee is an angel falling from heaven and hitting every possible bump on the way down, intentionally.
"My name is Renesmee," she says. "I am so fucking tired of existing."
"Whatever do you mean, child?" Aro raises his eyebrows.
"Everything is too perfect." She scowls, arms folded. Petulant. "They cover life with rose tinted glass and expect me not to notice the way the colours aren't quite right. They tell me fire burns but always stop me from touching it. They expect me to slot into the role they've written for the happily ever after in their fairy tale but what if I don't want that?"
Her legs wrap around his hips and he slams her back into the stone wall. He's kissing her mouth again, a furious dance of not-love and it is brilliant, it is burning. She gasps at every little thrust his hips give. His hand is in her hair, grabbing a chunk of bronze strands and pulling until it is painful and it is good; the antithesis of soft kisses and tender caresses she gets from Jacob, who is waiting like a good boy in America for her to pop back into their story.
But how can she let go of this? His touch makes her want to scream as it dominates her and burns her into submission. She likes the way he hurts her, that very real promise of pain, just like she enjoys her cigarettes – not because they're relaxing, but because it's like inviting death to sit within her lungs and slumber. Hybrids are practically immortal but she likes the illusion of danger.
Perhaps that's why she doesn't sit well in Forks. It's a place where shadows hide between the trees, yes, but when she is what hides within the shadows it's lacklustre. There's no danger, only the net of safety provided by family and a small population. Fire does not do well in Forks because there is too much that it will ruin but in this place, it is only her who feels the heat searing her skin.
In Volterra, there is Demetri. He tears her apart just so he can etch himself into the linings of her bones and she likes the way he makes her hurt because he doesn't care about protecting her. Here, she walks with sin rolling off her skin and no one cares. Here, she is not the black sheep because there is no flock.
"Don't you dare stop," she moans, burning, burning. "Don't you fucking dare."
He pulls his lips away from hers, leaving her panting and needy and wanting. His lips are twisted into a nasty smile, red eyes cruel as they watch her come undone. "What would Jacob say, Renesmee, if he saw his precious Nessie now? Or your sweet mother?" He laughs. "You'd break her heart, hmm? After all, it wasn't too long ago that I came with the Volturi to kill you…"
The gasp that comes from her lips shocks her. He kisses the corner of her red lip when she frowns, a large part of him delighting in her pain. Physical pain is enjoyable, of course, but nothing is as satisfying as emotional pain.
(It's been said that the Volturi guards are sadistic bastards and it is completely true.)
"But I guess you got over that. You're a killer too now, aren't you?" At her hesitant nod, he leans in close to whisper in her ear. Her back is still against the wall; she can't move an inch and the panic in her eyes is delightful. "That human girl begged and begged for her life but you smiled and tore it away and you loved it."
"F-fuck you," she half-hisses at him. Fiery, but fading fast.
"You want to, don't you? You want me to hurt you, to fuck you until you can't remember your name. That's why you came here, little masochist, to feel the fire as it eats you. I'm the fire and you're burning and you keep coming back for more. That Jacob isn't what you crave at night. So I dare you to go home to your not-wolf and pretend you don't miss the way I make you feel. Go on," he says, stepping away from her panting body.
She slumps to the floor, a beaten ragdoll. It's amusing to see the seductress turned into this confused child. He's won the game, but it wasn't a question really. He always wins, especially when she wasn't even fighting anyway.
"I hate you," she whispers from the floor, honey soured by his sin. The violets are on fire now, the fuse is blown. Smoke and decay now, smoke and decay.
"The truth hurts, sweet cheeks."
The clock tower's clock chimes. She shouldn't be here with him, she should be at home with her family. He thinks that's what she finds exciting, though, the whole 'forbidden' aspect he provides. Tutting lightly, he bends to undo her corset and it falls to the floor in a constricting pile of fabric. She doesn't even react.
Picking the corset up, he smirks down at her. "Come on Renesmee, let's go. You'll stay in my quarters tonight."