This story was inspired by several sources: Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer, everything Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon, and Castlevania belongs to Konami.

Thank you to my wonderful editing team: anhanninen, xconfessedx, bloodofbeckie, and JaspersDestiny.


Goodbye, My Queen

Helmsley, UK, July 1998

"It's time to move." The announcement was made by Alice from her seat next to her husband and mate, Jasper. The two of them, along with the third member of their family — Carlisle, sat around a heavy wooden dining table for a family meeting arranged by Alice. "And I have found the perfect place for us," she added with a grin. Her natural enthusiasm was elevated by the visions she had been receiving since she decided to move to the small town of Forks, Washington. She was well aware that her choice of location would take some convincing on her part. Jasper had an intense love-hate relationship with the United States and would be reluctant to go back there, but her precognitive abilities had helped her to see that she would eventually get what she wanted, and that it would be the best course of action for everyone involved.

"I agree," said Jasper in his usual quiet tone. "People are beginning to become suspicious."

"Yes, I have noticed that too. Where did you have in mind, Alice?" Although he was considered to be the leader by both Alice and Jasper, Carlisle Cullen saw the two as his family and as his equals, despite having neither one related to him by blood or venom. He treasured their opinions, and while the final call was ultimately his, he would never make a decision of such importance without hearing them out first.

"Forks, Washington." Alice smiled.

"Washington?" Jasper asked, surprised. "As in Washington State?"

"Yes. And there's no point in arguing," she declared confidently.

Jasper knew that she was right. Alice would have seen the outcome of their conversation as soon as he made the choice to argue with her. She possessed precognitive abilities that carried on from her human life into her vampire existence, amplifying several times over in the process, to a point where the future was no longer a mystery to her. If she said that it was pointless to argue, then it probably was. He considered arguing anyway — the subject was a sensitive one after all — but received a frown from her and decided that he should at least listen to her reasons before making an attempt at discouraging her.

"Thank you, Jasper." Alice smiled victoriously. "It is a small town, in American terms. It has a small community hospital that would agree to take Carlisle fresh out of residency, since they are in such short supply of doctors. Also," she raised her voice slightly when she saw she was about to be interrupted, "there's a good high school that Jasper and I can attend. Jasper as Carlisle's nephew and me as Jasper's girlfriend."

Jasper groaned as soon as the words 'high school' left her mouth. In the past decade, he had found himself interacting closer to humans than he had ever thought himself capable. However, ever since he and Alice had become companions and he had adopted the vegetarian lifestyle, he still maintained a healthy — for any and all humans involved — distance from what was his natural source of food. He was able to attend college, but it was only achieved by taking a very light course load and spreading the classes to no more than two a day. However, it was not only the proximity of humans that he felt so apprehensive about, but also the unknown impact of so many emotions affecting him at the same time. Jasper's gift of manipulating the emotional climate around him had one major disadvantage; he did not only sense the emotions around him, he felt them almost as though they were his own, and it was especially hard when those emotions were far from being positive or pleasant. Jasper attempted to imagine what a modern-day high school would be like, especially emotionally, and felt a shiver run down his spine. If I thought college was bad, he thought to himself, high school is going to be hell incarnate.

"Jasper, you can do it," Alice tried to encourage him. He felt trust and confidence from both her and Carlisle, as well as the feelings of love each had for him — which, although different, were very strong nonetheless — and forcefully pushed the thoughts about high school to the back of his mind.

"What is our cover story?" asked Carlisle. He could see the struggle in the young vampire's face and knew that Jasper needed time to process everything. The best course of action in Carlisle's opinion was to engage Alice in a conversation, thus giving Jasper time to think things through. "What last name are we going to use?"

"You two are going to be Cullens for this one. I'm going with Whitlock." Alice had an unmistakable note of pride to her tone. It had been three decades since she had last gone by her married name, and she missed it.

For the sake of avoiding any and all paper trails that might lead back to them, all three members of the family had used many different aliases. While living in Stockholm, shortly after the three of them met, they had been the Cullens — two brothers and a sister-in-law — using Carlisle's human surname. Later, they moved to France and lived for several years as the Brandons — using Alice's human surname — in a small town just off the coast of Normandy. Alice had loved it so much that they still owned a cottage there, and she would vacation there with Jasper on the off years when they wanted to spend some time alone. Their stay in Berlin, under the family name of Matthew — chosen after Carlisle's middle name — had to be cut short due to a near mishap involving Jasper. They had moved several times over, using even more aliases, before settling in Helmsley, UK, seven years ago under the name of Peters. This time their family name had been chosen by Jasper, who used his brother-by-venom's name; Peter.

They hadn't been the Whitlocks in over three decades, and even then it was only for a short period of time before they had had to move, due to an unfortunate incident that neither one of them wanted to recall.

In her heart, Alice considered herself to be both a Whitlock and a Cullen. She saw Carlisle as a father figure. As she had almost no recollection of her own human father, the blond noble vampire was a source of great support as well as a wonderful role model. Jasper was her soulmate; he was one of the very few clear memories she had had from her human life. She always knew that her life would lead her to him. It had been one very long journey before she finally found him, but it was worth it in her mind. She was proud to be carrying the Whitlock name — his name — and used it in public whenever she could.

"Jasper, you are Carlisle's nephew from his much older brother," Alice continued. "Carlisle, your brother's name was... let me think." She paused for a moment. "Oh, I've got one! Edward." She smiled approvingly, satisfied with her choice of name. "Your brother was Edward Cullen. He had a son — you, Jasper — at the very early age of seventeen. The boy was given up for adoption because Edward was too young to care for him. Edward went on to marry Rosalie, who was Jasper's birth mother, several years later, but no one ever told Carlisle about Jasper. After ten years of marriage that resulted in no more children, Rosalie died in a…" Alice scrunched her nose, thinking about a possible cause of death for the woman she had just invented.

"Mugging?" Jasper suggested.

"Rosalie died in a mugging gone wrong." Alice flashed a grateful smile at her husband. "Edward never got over the loss of his beloved wife and eventually succumbed to a…"

"Lung infection."

"Lung infection. Thank you, Carlisle." Alice nodded approvingly. "On his deathbed, Edward confessed to you that he had a son, and he asked you to find him and make sure that he was doing well," she said as she continued to weave the story. Years of experience had taught all three of them that the more details their story had, the easier it would be to convince the humans that it was true. "You've spent the past three years searching, and when you found him, you learned that he had dropped out of high school and was living with a girlfriend — me — while trying to make ends meet."

Carlisle smiled when he saw the two of them look at each other with loving expressions on their faces. There was so much tenderness and love in their eyes that he couldn't help the pang of loneliness that went through him. Carlisle wanted the kind of partnership, love, and understanding that they had. There was a time in his past, a time he wished he could forget, when he thought he had found that kind of love, but reality came crashing down on him when he had asked her to marry him. He was aware that he was still bitter after all this time, still so very much hurt that he couldn't even think her name, much less say it aloud. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it other than give himself time to fill his mind with newer and happier memories.

One of the things that helped him was seeing how well Jasper and Alice interacted. Carlisle was happy to realize that whatever he might have felt — or thought he had felt — for her, it had not been real or deep. Alice once told him that there was someone out there for him, and although it was not very comforting, seeing as she had been guided by her faith and not her visions when she said it, Carlisle had nothing to lose by hoping that someday Alice would be proved correct.

"I'm guessing our foster parents were treating us badly?" Jasper asked, smirking at Alice.

She was the storyteller of the family, and he loved feeling her emotions swirl with positivity as she weaved yet another story for them.

"Very badly," Alice confirmed, with a serious expression on her face. "You left your foster family and dropped out of high school so you could work and rent a place of your own as soon as you turned eighteen. When I reached eighteen myself, you came back for me. I was living in a different foster home, but I went to the same high school as you, which is where we met and fell in love. We lived together until Carlisle found us." The warmth of Alice's smile was turned towards Carlisle this time. In a way, she thought, Carlisle did save the both of us. "He insisted that we both get back to school and finish our education."

"So why did we decide to move to Forks?" Carlisle asked. This time he was asking not only for the purpose of the cover story but also out of curiosity. What is so special about Forks? he wondered.

Alice smirked. She knew very well what Carlisle was asking, but she chose to intentionally misunderstand him. "You thought that a small town community, with good old-fashioned values, would do us both good. You didn't want to take us too far, so you didn't take us to England, where you had recently finished your residency. You got a job offer from the Forks Community Hospital and found a house with a very good price tag that was large enough to accommodate all three of us."

"I got a job offer?" Carlisle found it amusing to be the last one to learn that he had gotten job offer.

"Well, I might have already sent them your résumé, and you were asked to start as soon as you move." Jasper and Carlisle both chuckled at Alice's attempt to play coy. They knew her too well to be fooled. She rolled her eyes and poked Jasper with her elbow. "There's no harm in being prepared," she huffed.

"Of course not." Jasper smiled. "There's also no harm in teasing you a little."

Before Alice and Jasper could resort to their usual banter — one that almost always led to the two of them losing their clothes and Carlisle making himself scarce — Carlisle decided to interfere. "When are we leaving?"

"Thirty days from tomorrow," Alice answered. "I already have the letter of resignation ready for your signature on your desk."

"I'll handle the documents that we will need," Jasper stated. There had been many new advances in science in the recent decade, and Jasper had plenty of time to master the use of all of the recent inventions. As a human, he had possessed a slight tendency towards art, and in the afterlife, he found that he could use his enhanced skills to perfectly falsify documents — something that came in very handy when one lived as close to humans as the Cullens did.

"I have the list ready for you; it's on your desk," said Alice. She was aware that Jasper was practiced enough to know which documents they would need, but seeing as this would be the first time they would be attending high school, there were additional papers they would need, and Alice was nothing if not thorough.

"One last thing—" Carlisle began to ask, but was cut off by a quick response from Alice.

"Jasper and I will be posing as eighteen year-olds and you'll be starting at twenty-three this time around."

"Twenty-three? Isn't that a little young for a doc—"

"A little, but you were an exceptional student—" Alice interrupted again "—graduated from high school at fifteen and immediately went into medical school."

"Very well, then. I suppose that takes care of everything."

Carlisle wondered why Alice had decided that he should pose as young as twenty-three. Granted, it had been his age when he was turned, and it would potentially grant them more time to remain in the same location, but he sensed that there might be more to it than that. However, Alice had proved herself many times over in the past, and he had no qualms over trusting her this time as well.

o.O.o

The Cullens were very practiced at packing up and leaving. As soon as they made the decision to leave and worked out their cover story, they began to make arrangements. Subtly they began to mention their upcoming move in their conversations with Carlisle's co-workers and the few people that had interacted with them the small town of Helmsley. At first, they were only hinting at the possibility, and as the month progressed, they spoke more definitively. Alice was responsible for that particular cover story as well; Carlisle and Jasper, both of whom had posed as brothers during this period of their lives, had been called to their mother's deathbed in France, and Alice — posing as Jasper's girlfriend — decided to follow her beau. They were very meticulous, leaving as little suspicion as possible behind them whenever they left.

Alice had located several candidates for homes in Forks, all secluded and located on the outskirts of the small town. Jasper took care of the purchase once they made the decision. Carlisle contacted Forks High and made the necessary arrangements to have 'the kids' registered at the school, scheduled to attend their senior year at the beginning of the semester. Once all of the official matters had been cleared out of the way, it was time to handle the furniture. They decided that most of it would be sent into storage — Alice was especially excited at the prospect of decorating yet another house — and what was left would be shipped off to America.

As summer drew to a close, the three Cullens boarded their flight to New York with mixed feelings. Alice was excited, as usual. She could hardly keep herself from bouncing, she was so eager to get to Forks. Carlisle was somewhat sad to be leaving the land where he had spent all of his human life, and Jasper was apprehensive, as high school life was something he wasn't looking forward to.

They traveled by first class, not only because they could easily afford it, but also because there would be less passengers in their vicinity. They couldn't escape the recycled air that would cause the scent of human blood to saturate the small space, but having recently hunted made it a little easier for them. They didn't fly often, preferring to travel by land, where they could escape human company, but crossing the ocean by boat was not an option any of them liked. The journey would be long, involve too much human company, and include a pesky risk of possible exposure to direct sunlight. Contrary to the common myth, it wasn't lethal to them, but sunlight hitting their skin would reveal their inhuman nature to anyone watching them. Alice might have been able to assist in avoiding the two dangers, but it would be almost as bad of a torture as the airplane ride — and the latter was much shorter.

From New York, they continued to Seattle. This time the flight was much shorter; only four hours long. Arriving in Seattle to perfect cloudy weather, they quickly made their way through the airport, picked up what little luggage they had brought with them — the rest had either been shipped in advance or would be bought later — and made their way to a hotel where Alice had made reservations for them.

None of them needed sleep, but since both Carlisle and Jasper would need a car, they had to wait until the car dealership opened in the morning. Alice already had plans to use this opportunity to get herself acquainted with the shops and boutiques in Seattle and begin working on building up the wardrobes of all three of them. In their previous parts, Alice and Jasper had played much older roles than they would be playing in Forks, which meant, in Alice's eyes, that she had a wonderful excuse for a complete makeover. Also, she wanted to get Carlisle to dress more casually than he had been in England.

Once they were checked into their suites, they parted and agreed to meet again in the hotel lobby early the next morning. Carlisle smiled as he watched his two protégées walk down the corridor and disappear behind one of the doors. The smile was only partly happy because there was sadness mixed in as well as a growing amount of jealousy. Carlisle didn't know why his emotions were suddenly on the rise. He had lived and traveled with the both of them for nearly five decades, and while there were moments when he found himself longing for their type of connection and understanding, he was able to look past those emotions with ease. However, this was no longer the case. His emotions were slowly becoming the most prominent thing on his mind.

Carlisle was well aware that he had closed himself off emotionally after the events in Italy. It might have been over a hundred years since the last time he had set foot on Italian ground, but the emotions were still very fresh. He could still feel the burning anger and the searing force of the insult that clutched his muscles each time he recalled his last day in Volterra.

"Damn it," he cursed quietly as the scene replayed itself in his mind. It was at times like these that he wished his vampiric body could be affected by alcohol. He wished he could get really drunk and erase the images and words from his memories forever, but the perfect recall of his mind was untouchable by neither time nor chemical substance. As he sat on the balcony of his Four Seasons suite, overlooking the Puget Sound, he was thrown back into his most painful memories.

o.O.o

Volterra, Italy, 1875.

Carlisle was burning with excitement as he walked soundlessly through the castle's corridors. Had his heart not stilled more than a century ago, it would have been beating loudly as he closed the distance to his beloved's parlor.

Carlisle had met Esméralda Annette de Platte a few years ago, when she had been brought before the Volturi brothers as the last surviving member of her coven, seeking shelter. He was amazed by her beauty from the first moment he laid eyes on her. She seemed almost angelic in his eyes, with her soft caramel hair, her pale flawless skin, her hourglass figure, and the most tempting smile he had ever seen on a female. Her eyes were the bright crimson that was the norm in the vampire world, but even that did not detract from her appeal. Carlisle knew that if he could gain her affection — and hopefully her love — he would be able to show her a different diet, one that would turn the redness of her irises into a gentle hue of amber.

It had taken him several weeks to gain enough courage to approach her and introduce himself. He did it the proper way, the way he had been brought up to do as a young English gentleman. Marcus da Volturi, his closest friend, did the introductions. For Carlisle, it had been love at first sight. He loved everything about her: the pitch of her voice, the softness of her hand — he never dared touch any other part of her body — the sparkle in her eyes, which always kept him intrigued, and the way his body seemed to fill with hundreds of butterflies whenever he was in her presence.

Marcus was not happy about the situation. He saw everything that emotions hid from Carlisle; he saw the calculative glint in Esméralda's eyes, heard the deceit in her voice, noticed the not-so-innocent flirtations with other male vampires, and he knew things were about to take a turn for the worse. He wanted to warn his friend, and tried to do so on oh-so-many occasions, but to no avail. Carlisle had deemed himself in love and would hear no malice spoken of his beloved.

Many years before, when Carlisle had first arrived in Italy, Marcus was a different man. He was numb, unresponsive, and uncaring, as the loss of his mate many years before had caused him to lose interest in life. Her death was so painful, so hard, that after several years of hurting, Marcus decided that being numb was a better alternative. Everything changed soon after Carlisle's arrival. He had been the breath of fresh air that Marcus needed. His diet was so drastically different, his spirit so pure and his mind so eager to learn, that Marcus felt the numbness disperse almost immediately.

They spent days in the library together, debating over philosophy, science, art, and medicine — a subject that was particularly close to both their hearts, since Marcus had been a medicine man in his human life and Carlisle was a trained physician in his after-life. The two became almost inseparable. When his brothers didn't require his presence in the throne room, Marcus could always be found in Carlisle's company. He was so intrigued by the young vampire's passion that he had actually attempted his way of hunting. It was only a single attempt, since the taste was so foul, but in the name of science, it was a very rewarding experience. Carlisle treasured his friendship with the Volturi brother even more after their hunt. Not only was Marcus the only member of the vampire world that did not mock Carlisle's choice of diet, but he had gone so far as to try it himself!

Unlike others of his kind, Carlisle did not believe in sustaining himself by taking the life of other human beings. He was adamant not to allow himself to be defined by the lack of pulse. While the community he grew up in would label him as a demon for what he had become, Carlisle swore that he would never allow himself to become a monster as well. He had removed himself from society until he found an alternative source for sustenance: animal rather than human blood.

Once the solution was in his grasp, Carlisle worked on developing self-control and restraint. It had taken him a century to reach a level that allowed him to not only interact with humans on a daily basis but to also acquire an education he could have only dreamt about when he was human. Others might have thought his choice of profession ironic, but as a doctor, he was able to save lives rather than end them. And in his book, it was the best way to redemption he could think of.

Growing up in a very religious community, Carlisle knew that the moment he was bitten by a vampire he was probably damned to hell. His father was a pastor who preached about the evil that walked amongst the people, but Carlisle wanted to believe that his actions — even in his undead state of living — would still count when it was time to meet his maker. It was often a matter of debate between Carlisle and Marcus. Carlisle wanted to believe that even as a demon, he still possessed his soul. Marcus, on the other hand, insisted that a soul could not exist in a demon's body. Their debate was never settled, but they enjoyed the conversations they had immensely.

Unaware of the change taking place within himself, Marcus slowly began to show more and more emotion. Some of the guards would have sworn they saw something resembling a smile on his face on more than one occasion. His brothers were stunned. Aro and Caius were so used to the unfeeling, uncaring Marcus that the change was nothing short of dumbfounding. However, everything changed once Lady Esme – as she preferred to be addressed – arrived. Carlisle spent every possible moment either in her company or hunting, and as neither activity had any appeal to Marcus, the happiness that had briefly filled his existence was dimmed again as worry for his friend rose.

Marcus, like many of his kind, was gifted; he had a second sense of sight, one that allowed him to see the relations between sentient beings, be they human or vampires. With no more than a single glance, he could tell who the leader in a coven was, who was mated, and where the ties were weak enough that they could be severed. His gift only confirmed what Marcus had observed on his own, but he could do little more than observe from the background and support his friend.

o.O.o

Carlisle, in a rare decision on his part, did not tell Marcus of his plans. He knew that his one and only friend did not like the woman he loved. He held no grudge against him, hoping that eventually he would come around, but when Carlisle decided it was time to make his intentions towards Lady Esme known, he thought it best to let Marcus know after the fact. He was already nervous enough — it was not every day that a man asks a woman to marry him — that he didn't need Marcus's negative views on Lady Esme to undermine his confidence and resolve.

As the distance to his beloved's parlor grew smaller, Carlisle's anxiety grew exponentially stronger. He had never felt this way towards another woman, not even in his human life. As a pastor's only son, he had had limited choices when it came to brides. Nonetheless, his father's position had given him the opportunity to meet every eligible match in the community — yet none had sparked any interest in him. No woman he had ever seen could match his Esme in her beauty or her manners. No woman could ever take his breath away — despite the fact that breathing was unnecessary in his afterlife — the way that a single glance from his beloved could.

His mind was swirling with so many thoughts, as well as reciting the speech he had prepared, that the sounds his ears picked up were not registered or analyzed for their meaning. However, once Carlisle was standing outside the closed wooden door, he paused to take a cleansing breath and that was when he finally realized that something was out of place. There were sounds coming from inside the chamber: groans and moans, the rustle of fabric, the slick sounds of skin colliding with skin, and a distinct male voice shouting the Lord's name in vain.

Carlisle froze. His mind tried to deny the interpretation that it found for the sounds picked up by his ears. No, there must be some mistake, his inner voice insisted. He lifted his hand and knocked on her door, despite anything he might have thought he had heard, his manner did not allow him to enter a lady's parlor unannounced and uninvited. He heard Lady Esme's reply from inside the room, "Just a moment," and remained standing behind the door. There was more rustling of fabric, as well as hurried footsteps, before the door finally opened to reveal a perfectly dressed Lady Esme.

I must have imagined it, he thought as he smiled at her.

"Carlisle." If her reply was less than welcoming, he did not hear it. He only saw her eyes sparkle and attributed it to the normal sparkle he saw in them whenever they met.

"Lady Esme, may I come in?" he asked with a soft smile.

There was a short pause and she seemed to contemplate his request, but then she nodded and stepped back fast enough that Carlisle could attribute it to his imagination. "What brings you here today, Carlisle? I do not believe I would have forgotten had we made arrangements to meet."

"No, we did not," he was quick to assure. "I was hoping that you would be able to dedicate several moments of your time to me."

"Of course, please, let us sit."

"Thank you."

Carlisle waited until she was seated before he took his place across from her. He reached for her left hand and held it between his much-larger palms. "Lady Esme," he began, looking into her eyes. "You took my breath away the instant I first met you and I haven't been able to breathe right since. You have captivated my thoughts and my heart. I know with everything that I am that you are the one my soul has been searching for, my perfect other half. There is no doubt in my mind that we belong together for the rest of eternity." He slowly slid the small black box from the inside pocket of his jacket and kneeled before his beloved. "Esméralda Annette de Platte, will you marry me?" He looked up at her and presented her with the ring.

Esme slowly drew her hand from between his and her lips curved in a mocking smile. "Marry you?" Her tone sounded very cold.

Carlisle swallowed hard and nodded, a terribly ominous feeling spreading through his body.

"Marry you?" she repeated, with a roll of her eyes and a chuckle. "Marry you!" The chuckles turned to giggles.

Hurt and amazed, he rose back on his feet as she stood and crossed the room. He could not understand why she was walking towards the closed door of her closet, and he was even more confused when she opened it to reveal Sebastian — a member of the guard — standing inside, only half dressed.

Sebastian seemed to be as amused as Esme was.

"He wants me to marry him," she said to the vampire, and the two burst into laughter.

The facts slowly began to connect in his mind: the way the room smelled, the slightly disheveled appearance of Esme, the sounds he had heard before, and finally, the presence of another male in her closet.

"Oh, Carlisle, you poor fool," she said, feigning sadness. "You could never hope to satisfy a woman like me. Did you honestly think that your bland excuse for a kiss would be enough for me? What did you think I was doing all those nights when I could not 'accompany you for a stroll in the gardens'?" she quoted his invitation and Sebastian snickered.

"She's been shagging me and half of the guard," Sebastian answered with satisfaction. "And I must say, Lady Esme, you are really worth your reputation."

"Of course I am. I've had years of practice."

Carlisle felt physically sick when he saw Esme's soft caress of Sebastian's cheek. He rose to his feet and stared at the couple in front of him. He was never a man of violence, but for the first time in his life and afterlife, he believed himself capable of not only violent behavior but also hurting a female. "So these past year meant nothing to you? Was it some kind of joke? A game?" he hissed. His fists were clutched so hard that the box he held — and the ring inside it — were reduced to dust.

Esme was unimpressed and continued to smile as she answered him. "No, not a game," she said calmly. "But definitely a nice joke. You were like a lost puppy, following me around with a wishful expression on your face." She exchanged a glance with Sebastian, and they both smirked before bursting into another fit of laughter.

Carlisle knew that if he were to remain in the same room with the two other vampires another second, neither one of them would live to see another day. He pivoted on his heels and flew out of the room. He moved so quickly that even to the eyes of the vampires occupying the castle, he became almost a blur.

I can't stay in Volterra, he thought. Hell, I probably can't even stay in the same country as that lying, deceitful bitch. He was so angry that for the first time in his life he allowed himself to curse — and curse a female, at that — out loud.

Leave. Now.

Carlisle had his belongings packed in a matter of minutes. He decided to take only a small amount of clothes with him, while the rest — his books, his writings, and everything else he had accumulated in his eight and a half decades in Volterra — he would have Marcus ship to him once he was settled down into a new place. He didn't know where he was going yet. All he could think of was the need to put as much distance between himself and everything that would remind him of the complete and utter humiliation that had occurred here today.

Less than an hour after flying out of his former love interest's room, Carlisle stormed into Aro's study, succeeding in something that was almost never done before — surprising the ancient ruler.

"Carlisle, my friend, what is the matter?" Aro asked, looking at the disheveled appearance of the young golden-eyed vampire in front of him.

"I, I mean, she…" Carlisle couldn't even find the right words to tell Aro of what had happened. "I was about to, and then I saw…" He growled as his mind recited the words exchanged between him and the woman he loved.

Aro observed him with worry and curiosity combined. He had never seen his brother's confidant so distraught, so beyond himself that he couldn't find the words to speak his mind. Aro knew Carlisle to be a scholar, a man of calm mannerism and objective view. This wild creature in front of him was a complete stranger.

Giving up on trying to put his thoughts into words, Carlisle raised his hand — palm side up — for Aro to take. As soon as their skin made contact, Aro was flooded with the memories of his friend. Aro's gift allowed him to look into a vampire's mind and see every memory, every thought, and every desire said vampire ever had.

"I understand, my friend," he said calmly, releasing his hand. "May your journey be a safe one. I will make sure your belongings will be sent to wherever you ask."

"Thank you." Even in his hour of rage, Carlisle's manners were rooted too deep to ignore, and he had the utmost respect for the vampire in front of him — not out of fear, as so many of the immortal world had, but out of familiarity and knowledge.

"However, I do have one request for you."

"What is it?"

"While you may be leaving Volterra in person, do not leave it in mind. I do not believe Marcus will survive it." It was a simple request, made by a man who loved his brother.

"I promise."

Carlisle gave Aro a small bow of his head and walked out of the study. The ancient vampire watched him leave and knew that they would meet again one day. It may not be any time soon, but one day, in the future, their paths would cross again.


Thank you for reading,

Alley Cat.