A/N: I've had this idea in my head for some time and I've decided to go ahead and give it a shot. Constructive feedback is greatly welcome and appreciated. I do not own Twilight; enjoy!

Volturi Sister Ari

Chapter 1

(Aro's POV)

The anger that arises in me at the mere thought is utterly astounding and simply profound. I often fancy that with my age, I am beyond the petty, clouding emotions of loathing, jealousy, and hatred. After all, at the end of the day, I am a King; self-ordained and blessed by my own hands to rule the most powerful breed of creature to walk the earth. My rule is absolute and my wealth unrivaled.

At a snap of the fingers, I can have anything my stone, silent heart yearns for. To name just a few of my possessions, I have riches, exotic relics from all over the world, a lovely home, loyal guards, a perfect mate…. From the standpoint of the mortal and immortal mind, I have everything there is to have, so I should not be jealous about the outcome of a minor, fleeting incident that happened twelve years ago.

To the day.

That made me a mockery in front of nearly my whole world. A bitter sigh escaped my lips only to soon be joined by breathy laughter. "You can fool many people my darling, but you most certainly cannot fool me." My eyes looked upward from the grate in the marble floor. I had currently been spending the long night hours of the year's last day alone in the throne room, but now I had a companion, and a striking one at that. "Even after all these years, you still hold on to what happened in a tiny forest on the other side of the world?"

"It is only my nature I suppose, dear one." I was seated on my throne and when Sulpicia drew closer, I grabbed her and pulled her into my lap. Every curve of her body was familiar territory that I cherished to hold; her scent my personal brand of blissful torture. Currently she had her soft, dark blond curls down and it was simply exquisite the way they framed her youthful, angelic face. Her smile drew a matching one to my mouth and I buried my face in her neck. "As old as I am, I am forever trapped a twenty something year old hot head, it would seem." I muttered against her ivory skin.

"Darling, you are hardly what I would call hot headed." She pulled my face up so we could look eye to eye. Slim fingers wound their way into my black hair and she placed a chaste kiss on my lips. "Hot headed my love is Caius; you are just my strong, powerful, prideful lion." The way her lips twitched as she compared me to the majestic animal made me chuckle slightly.

I was rather inclined to agree with her statement as Caius was one to get riled up easily. Of course that wasn't a bad thing, if said anger was not being directed at the family. "Once again, sweetling, you are right; I can be quite the brute when pushed and tested, I do not deny that, but come the end of the day, Caius is by far the scariest member to bare the Volturi crest."

"I'm glad you see which of us the smarter one is," she dryly retorted before tugging on my hair. I complied and she pressed her warm lips to my throat, extracting a tiny moan from my vocal chords. "Now there's a sound that is ravishing music to my ears; Aro, forget about Carlisle and the Cullens and what happened all that time ago. A loss is not the end of the world." I know she meant the words to be a comfort, but they produced the opposite result. I went rigid and before I could stop it, a growl tore through the silence of the chamber.

Sulpicia ceased her flirtatious actions and gazed at me sadly. "I'm sorry, Cia, but…. My love, it bothers me. Twelve years ago, the Volturi rule was absolute and unquestionable, but we simply made poor choices and let things go too far, and in Alice's vision we were willing to die for a mistake."

"It was just an image in the head of a silly little pixie girl." Cia's tone was again soft and soothing as it eased the tension brought on by the recalling of that repulsive vision. Very little in life could get me to truly feel fear. Of course I feared death and the thought of losing my wife was a terror which came with my power; something I was also fearful of losing. That vision however… it utterly broke me once we were well away from the clearing and had disbanded from our witnesses.

In just one glimpse of the future, I had seen so much. The Cullens, their mutts, and their ragtag group had been vanquished, but the cost had been the eradication of the Volturi. I watched myself die; Caius, Marcus, the guards…. Everyone was gone in one senseless battle, leading to the almost extinction of two races. What made it all worse though was the fact that, if I had taken that course of action, the Cullen coven would have still survived in its one special member.

Renesmee Carlie Cullen; a clear image of the little hybrid darling took center stage in my thoughts. I had known when I saw her that I had made a drastic error. Even though she had been so very young, she was much larger than the child from Irina's memories, though clearly the same little girl. On my own, under the eyes of my brothers, guards, and witnesses, I couldn't bring myself to admit that things had been blown way out of proportion. Instead I had Irina killed for her false accusations and tried to bring the most talented of the group ready to oppose me into the Volturi ranks.

To this day, I still somewhat yearned for the abilities possessed by the Cullen family. Edward's mind reading, charming Alice's future sight, dear Bella's mental shield, and even Renesmee, with her budding talent and childish innocence… I longed to make them trade their Cullen lion for a Volturi 'V'. Even Emmett's brute strength and Jasper's warrior skills, along with his gift, would be great additions.

It would never happen though; that I was certain of. Carlisle and I had been friends centuries ago, but that was water under a long forgotten bridge. No doubt Alice shared with her family the vision of the fight, effectively hammering the last nail in the coffin, so to speak. The Volturi would forever be viewed as the enemy and the Cullens the heroes who got their happy ending. Suddenly Cia placed a hand on my cheek and allowed me to read her thoughts. "Darling, it is almost the New Year and all I want is for us to be happy again. Every ruler has struggles and you are only making this harder on yourself. Losing Carlisle and the Cullens as friends and allies is tragic, but life must move on. He doesn't want your power or throne so stop worrying about them." She pulled her hand away and pressed her forehead to mine. "Worry about your Queen tonight. She misses you greatly."

"Cia, dear one, I worry about you daily and I know I have been a poor husband in not fulfilling your needs of company and love. What happened though has changed me. I can accept that I made a mistake; I fully acknowledge that Carlisle and Esme are no threat to Volturi rule. What bothers me is that, if we had gone through with the fight, the Volturi would have been destroyed. In a mere handful of minutes, an entire dynasty, a house that took millennia to build would have been destroyed. The Cullens would have survived in their newest heir and we would have been nothing but ash scattered on a breeze."

Sulpicia had listened to each word carefully and when I fell silent, she shifted her position from sitting in my lap to straddling my hips. The look in her eyes was intense and I wondered what was going on in her head. "Darling what you are saying is, what bothered you the most about the fight that never happened was that there would have been no… legacy for you; for us?"

"I've not thought about it that way, but yes, I suppose that is the case. Of course I also worry about the repercussions of the confrontation. We lost so much respect and it doesn't help that those Romanian dogs were there. I worry about what they are cooking up, but we dare not go into their territory."

"Yes, yes, of course," Cia said dismissively. "Aro, that's a given and none of us will ever know true peace until Vladimir and Stefan are dead, but I'm talking only about the vision. You saw the loss of everything you loved while your enemy still had that tiny, tender root of hope. Renesmee and Jacob would have seen to it that the Cullen coven and La Push wolves were not forgotten or wiped out. You realized that in all of your power, there would be no one to uphold your kingdom or enjoy the fruits of your labor if you were to fall. There's no beneficiary for you, as it were." I could do nothing but look down in defeat.

Once again, my beautiful love was right on the mark. I had always assumed that I would live forever and get to enjoy my achievements until time's end. The vision however changed my thinking and forced me to face the grim reality that I was not exempt from the blade of death. The Cullens had learned that lesson early and had taken the necessary precautions to save their next generation.

There was no next generation for the Volturi.

"Aro." My red eyes bore into hers and I faintly recalled a time when they were the most mesmerizing shade of dark brown, akin to Bella's but much more stunning. She placed such a joyous kiss on my lips that my sour musings drowned underneath the waves of her affection. Her body sank into mine as I gripped her waist, savoring in the familiar feel of her form. A highly suggestive growl broke our lips apart, much to my displeasure. "Sorry my lion, but I need your attention on me right now."

"Rest assured, sweetling, it is." She rolled her eyes at my sly comeback, but didn't leave me. Excitement lit her irises and again I wondered what was going on in her head. She obviously had something on her mind, but my attention had been elsewhere for our kiss, so I hadn't paid attention in the least.

"Darling… you know I love you, but you also know that there is something I've longed quietly for my entire existence." I fell silent and she turned around; no longer was she straddling me, but again sitting in my lap with her back pressed to my chest. I buried my nose in her hair as she laced her fingers through my hand. I knew what she was thinking about, but I let her speak. "When you courted me, an orphan girl society cared nothing for, I was the happiest thing in the earth… but the time before you came, it was hard."

Her voice caught and she snuggled closer, if that were possible. "Aro, the night you asked me to marry you, right before you told me the secret of what you were, do you remember the secret I shared with you?" I did very well; better than her most likely given how being changed tended to rob the mind of human memories. It had destroyed almost all of Cia's accept for one. She looked up at me with misty eyes and my heart broke for her. Tenderly, I kissed her head while embracing her.

"I never wanted to get that desperate, but I did, and my body was the only thing I had to sell."

"Hush, hush, dear one; I know, I know." She gripped my coat so tightly that I could hear the threads give under the strain and tear at the smallest movement.

"When I got pregnant, I was so terrified, but as the child grew in me, the love in my heart for her grew. When I went into labor, the pain; oh Aro, I think it was worse than being changed! Still, I struggled and finally when she was out, I cried for joy." Her voice grew bitter. "Those tears of joy became tears of grief when I realized she was born dead." My coat was in shreds, but that was nothing compared to the way her words shredded my heart.

"You still wanted me, even though I had carried another man's child and had sold myself like a common dog. Your love… to this day, I still cannot capture your love in words or song. Even so, Aro, my maternal instincts are still there, and being a vampire only makes my instincts stronger. I've done my best to quell them, but after seeing so many happy mothers in Volterra, watching innocent lives fall to slake our bloodlust, and most of all, seeing sweet little Renesmee… I want to be a mother."

For many moments, I was unsure of what to say even though I quickly put two and two together and realized what she was suggesting. "Sulpicia… are you sure that you would be comfortable with this? You know what would be required of me. Not to mention, we'd have to get the approval of the rest of the family and who knows how long it may take. Edward and Isabella truly loved each other, but there were risks. When we finally confronted Joham, he said that many attempts ended in miscarriages. I don't want your heart broken again, love."

"I'm far stronger than you give me credit for, Aro. After all, it takes a lioness to keep up with a lion, does it not?"

"Fair is fair, my dear," I murmured while placing a hand on her cheek. Her thoughts briefly flooded my mind, but I willed them out; choosing instead to focus on the moment. "Love, another generation of the Volturi, I believe would make me happy, and truthfully I am most curious about the hybrids and would love the chance to watch one develop over the years… but I do not think I am father material." She smiled as she kissed my palm.

"I think you would be surprised, Aro." Barely a second of silence followed her statement before the midnight hour was tolled out in the distance by the town clock. A new year had just been born and with it, an idea that seemed both laughably absurd and shockingly simple. I had been saddened and disturbed by the fact that my family could have been completely wiped out, but was the answer to the question as simple as fathering a hybrid? I would have an heir, and Sulpicia would get the chance of motherhood; a dream she had always had yet never asked to be fulfilled, until now.

"Are you sure, my love; once we start, there is no turning back." For the first time in twelve years, her smile reached her whole face.

"Yes; Aro, I want us to have a child."

A/N: As I stated earlier, I've had this idea (of what if Aro had fathered a hybrid after seeing Renesmee) for a long time and decided it was time to write it down and see where it goes. I'll say now that it has been a long time since I read the books; I'm much more familiar with the movies, so if something is wrong, than I apologize. I do own the official guide however, so hopefully my mistake won't be too drastic.

For a timeline, in case it wasn't clear, the chapter was starting on the night of December 31, 2018 which is exactly twelve years after the confrontation. If you have any questions just PM and please be sure to read my sister's work that she has posted on our page, it's awesome. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and hopefully the next will be up soon.

Volturi Sister Ari