Hello everyone! I bring you another chapter...Lunch with the Volturi Wives! Haha...no, really. Enough of me trying to be amusing, I'm to tired for it to really be funny...sorry. :)
Here's your chapter.
Enjoy!
Athenadora shifted tensely in the seat next to me. Sulpicia sat on my other side with Chelsea and her mate, Afton, sitting across from us, holding hands. "Alyson…" Dora began, "You remember Makenna and Charles, don't you?"
"Yes, of course. They raised me. Why ask about them now? My life with them is over, I'm with you all now." I answered truthfully.
She smiled gently, and I smiled back. The wives of the Volturi were sorely misinterpreted. Dora and Sulpicia were the nicest people I knew, even nicer than Master Marcus. They were both blond, with the vampire eyes and pale, white skin. Athenadora was the more maternal of the two, Sulpicia being a bit freer spirit. Granted, they were still vampires, vampire queens at that, so they were just a little vain and spoiled. None of us valued humans very much, although Sulpicia had always complimented humans on their excellent fashion taste.
But I didn't understand why they were trudging up the past now, I didn't care. Nothing had meant anything to me back then. I watched Sulpicia grow bored with the silence, typical. "Dora, just tell her!" She groaned out.
"Picia, be quiet. This matter requires a more civilized handling." Athenadora said, swatting at the other wife. Sometimes I wondered if they shouldn't have belonged to the opposite husband. I'd always thought that Dora was far too regal to be Caius' wife, and Sulpicia far too impatient to be Aro's. Perhaps Master Aro had meant it to be that way, sticking controlling Athenadora with the impulsive brother. Yes, probably so. Caius always wanted to kill things. He was my least favorite master, but, luckily, I was forced to spend very little time with him and always in the company of others.
"What ever, Dora." Picia said rolling her eyes. She grabbed my hand, making me look into her blood red eyes, "We sort of kidnapped you from them."
"What?" I exclaimed. They weren't making any sense.
"Picia! You should have let me explain!" Dora took my hand from Sulpicia. "Alyson, darling, look at me." I obeyed the order, and she smiled at me, "You know we love you, right?"
I nodded, "Yes."
"And we do, but you don't really love us the way you think you do." Sulpicia said.
Dora glared at her again, and I looked at Chelsea in horror. "You messed with my head?"
The blonde vampire looked pained, "Alyson, I would never do anything like that now, but you were just another order, another rogue vampire with a gift."
I couldn't believe she would have done that to me. Sure, it made sense when you looked at it objectively as she did, but it was still hard to understand that I had once been so pedestrian to the vampire I felt was like my sister. "Is anything I felt real?" I said, barely containing my anger.
They all looked at me in a worried manner. I didn't often get angry, and we were sitting in the middle of a public mall. "Yes!" Chelsea assured me, "Yes, of course. I can only influence how you feel. I just made you want to get to know us, think we were interesting and I…" She trailed off, looking uncertainly at her mate who, as usual, shrugged.
I helped her out, "You made me think that Makenna and Charles were in my past, that I didn't need them anymore."
"Yes."
That answer angered me more than it should have. I stood, and Afton stood with me, putting himself in between me and the others, "Alyson, I know you're angry, but you must understand that it was an order from Master Aro. Chelsea didn't have a choice."
I understood that, but I didn't want to. That meant that my relationships with these vampires were based on lies. "Turn it back." I said, clenching my hands into the low quality plastic of the table in front of me.
"Alyson…" Chelsea started.
"No! I want to know what you made me feel." I remembered choosing to stay with the Volturi, but what if Chelsea messing in my head had actually ripped me out of the arms of the people who cared about me? They had tamed me. How had I hurt them?
"Do it." Sulpicia said, and being Master Aro's mate, Chelsea bowed her head.
"Yes, mistress." Chelsea murmured, and looked at me intently.
It felt like Jane was taking a crack at my head. And then I was feeling things I'd never known. I remembered the night I had been taken from Makenna and Charles more clearly:
"Who is this fascinating creature, Charles?" Master Aro said, standing in front of us like a foggy dream.
"Our daughter." He growled back, standing between the Volturi and us.
"Mother?" I had said softly in panic, my voice arching as I pressed myself to her back.
"Stay back, Rissa." My mother had hissed in reply, taking two steps backwards, which I followed closely.
"No!" Aro exclaimed, "I want to see what the young one has seen. She is so extraordinarily…familiar. Don't you think so? Felix?"
"Yes, Master Aro, she does seem familiar." The man answered.
"Please, may I see the child?" Without waiting for an answer, Aro had looked to Felix, "Bring her to me."
The big man moved to obey "No, you can't touch her. I won't let you!" Makenna had roared, crouching protectively in front of me. I clutched the back of her cloak, simpering and afraid.
"Makenna! Stand back!" Charles had yelled, grabbing Makenna by the arm, "Let. Him. See. Her." He'd growled through clenched teeth.
"Charles, no, she's our child. We can't let him hurt her." She had cried, reaching back to me.
"Makenna, stop. We're no good to her dead." Charles had whispered into her ear, and she stilled instantly, looking from me to her mate in horror.
The big man had snatched me up by my arm, and had begun pulling me to Aro. "Now, Felix, don't hurt the girl. We don't wish to cause her parents more distress." I remembered thinking about how mocking his untrustworthy tone was. When he had reached a hand out to touch me, I had pinched my eyes shut with a whimper and tried to back through the man behind me. "There, there, child." He whispered, "I only want to see as you've seen. This won't hurt a bit."
And then he had laid his pasty hand on my cheek. The entire history of my thoughts passed through his mind. At the end, we both broke away with a gasp. He pat my cheek, "Good girl. That wasn't so bad, was it?" I didn't respond, "Was it?"
"Do what he asks, Rissa." Makenna had said from Charles' arms, her voice shaking.
"Yes mother." I had said in an equally shaky voice. I looked back to the older vampire. "No, it didn't hurt."
"Very obedient. But also, very young." He stroked this chin thoughtfully, "Perhaps too young."
"NO!" Makenna had screamed, jerking in her mate's arms, who now looked like he was having a hard time holding her back, physically and mentally.
"Now, now Makenna. Surely you didn't think I would let you keep an immortal child. The Denali Coven had to suffer the loss of a mother and child, and I don't make exceptions. Alec, why don't we…"
"We didn't turn her." Charles said, looking down in shame. He was doing the one thing he knew might make Aro spare his and Makenna's lives.
Aro looked up in surprise, "Oh, you didn't? Let me see than."
Charles released my mother who snatched me back, pulling me into a tight embrace. After seeing Charles' memories, Aro had looked at me in thought, "Very well than. Felix, Demitri, escort Makenna and Charles off the property, and make sure that they stay there."
The two Volturi were instantly behind us, Felix pulling my mother from me as Alec pulled me by my hair back to Aro. My memory of that nights ends with Jane's face filling my vision and my parents screaming for me.
"They think I'm dead." I said slowly.
Sulpicia flinched, "Aro wanted you, and he knew that that was the only way they would leave you. Jane tortured you for three days straight, and they stayed for six. By the time she was done with you, you had nearly blocked out to whole experience. Chelsea used her gift on you, and you decided that you had just made Jane angry by taking so long to come to us."
"I trusted you all." I said, looking away from them all.
"We know." Afton said, speaking for the first time.
"Why do I still care for you all?" I couldn't understand why their betrayal hurt to the extent that they had lied to me, not that my life was warped, but that they had had a part in it.
Chelsea tried to touch my hand but I jerked away. "Alyson, you've grown to care for us over the years on your own, that wasn't fake. Just the way you felt when you left your parents isn't real."
"None of that really matters!" Sulpicia said, becoming anxious again, "You need to run, Alyson. Run and run far."
"Why?" I asked, wanting to hear it from them.
"My mate is going to have you killed." Sulpicia said.
"Why?" I asked, a little distressed.
She swallowed visibly, "Because your usefulness has nearly run it's course."
"My usefulness?" Unless I was fighting with Jane, I considered my gift fairly useless. "The only time I've ever used my gift to help M…Aro was when we went to Washington. And that was to just make sure that no one was going to attack us, which they didn't."
Athenadora finally took over from Picia, who hadn't gone to Washington with us, "Exactly what we needed to talk about next. You remember that there was a pair of the Cullen's that wasn't there, right?"
"Yes, I remember Aro talking about how he wished they were there. Alice and…" I couldn't remember the other name.
"Jasper." Dora said, "But it's Alice that is so important. You don't know because you've never seen her. Aro made a point of that. She looks just like you do. Aro, he believes that she is your mother…your real mother." My mother? "Aro wants her in the Volturi. Her gift is like yours but much stronger."
"He's using me as bait."
"Yes." Picia said tersely.
"He has threatened to kill you if she does not join us." Afton said, in his formal manner. "However, she does not remember her human past, like you. She would not remember you. We have estimated that you were born shortly before she was changed."
"Where?"
"Biloxi, Mississippi. In an asylum." Afton said, and Chelsea hit him for telling me.
"An asylum. So, my mother is a whack job. Fantastic." I said matter-of-factly.
"Worse, she's a vegetarian, a Cullen." Sulpicia said, like she was telling me a piece of juicy gossip.
"Picia." Dora said in reprimand, "That's all we know, but Marcus told us that Aro has decided that whether she chooses us or not, you are to die."
That shocked me above all else. I'd thought he had cared for me. And then I realized that without Chelsea's power changing my views, I didn't like Aro, and hated Jane even more than I thought.
The only thing I could think of to say came out dryly, "Well that sucks."
Did I mention that this was the longest chapter yet? Well, surprise! Hope you enjoyed my take on Sulpicia and Athenadora. (You have no idea how hard I had to work to spell their names right everytime.)
Until next time,
-Jenn
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