Disclaimer: All recognisable characters belong to Stephanie Meyer.
Photograph
Caius pushed the wooden doors which lead to the throne room open causing everyone to turn their heads to him.
As soon as they saw his expression of utter anger they froze with horror and didn't move an inch, all of them praying he wouldn't turn his attention towards them.
The only one moving in the large stone room were Marcus and Aro, both of them wearing an expression of worry on their faces.
"Brother," Aro exclaimed and flitted over to him taking his hand into his own, "Is it true?"
Caius tore his hand free of Aro's grip and looked at him irritated. "Yes, it is. She is gone. No need rifle through my thoughts. Now, where are is that blasted blonde you always gush about? If she is such a brilliant tracker, as you always claim her to be, she should be able to find Anna in no time."
He looked around, his eyes searching for Rosemarie.
"She isn't here. In fact, I haven't seen her for some time. She must be somewhere around the castle." Marcus said.
"You!" Caius barked at one of the guards and the young man shrunk back in fear, "Go and get her here!"
The young man nodded hastily and disappeared. Moments later he showed on his coat-tails.
The blond woman entered the throne room looking around wary. She stepped in front of the kings and bowed her head in respect.
"You wanted to see me, Masters?"
"Yes. I want you to find Anna," Caius snapped at her while Aro raised his hand towards Rosemarie.
"Rosemarie, my dear. Where have you been all those days?"
"You want me to find your mate, Master Caius?" the blonde asked innocently, completely ignoring Aro's question and his outstretched hand, "She is gone?"
"This is none of your concern. Just find her."
"Yes, Master. I will try my best."
Behind them the Cullens, Kristina and Demitri entered the throne room. The latter eyed Rosemarie sceptical. "Then won't you need something that belonged to her to take up her scent?"
Rosemarie shot him a poisonous look before turning back to the kings and smiled sweetly at them. "I will indeed. Something she touched or wore recently would be perfect."
"I will give you something. Come along." Caius turned on his heels and walked past the visitors and out of the room with Rosemarie following close behind him.
Aro frowned at her back. The young woman had been very careful not to touch him in any way as she had walked past him to follow Caius. "How very strange," he thought, "Could it be..." but his thoughts were interrupted by Carlisle who had stepped forward and smiled gently at his old friends.
"Aro, Marcus, it is so nice to see you again despite the unfortunate circumstances that brought me and my family here."
Aro smiled widely at him. "It is indeed, my dear friend. But it seems to become a habit of ours to meet under the worst circumstances."
His eyes fell on Kristina who had so far successfully tried to hide behind Emmet. "And who might your young friend be?"
Kristina stepped around Emmet and bit her lip sheepishly. "I'm Kristina," she introduced herself quietly.
"And just what have you to do with all of this, Kristina?" Aro asked genuinely curious.
She glared at Demitri. "He dragged me here because that creep Caius told him to do so. And now I'm here instead of helping to find Anna."
"I see," Marcus murmured, smiling knowingly at Demitri who looked a bit uneasy.
"She knows," he mumbled, "Something has slipped my mouth and Master Caius ordered me to take her with us.
"Oh dear, how deplorable." Aro's smile vanished for a few seconds until Marcus tipped his index finger against the back of his hand. Suddenly he beamed at Demitri. "But then again..." het let the sentence linger in the air unfinished and looked happily from Demitri to Kristina.
"Why? is this deplorable? What does this even mean? And why do you keep calling Caius 'Master'? What kind of sect did you guys drag me in here?" her gaze desperately searched the faces in the room for answers.
But it was hopeless. Most of them she didn't even know and the ones she did know just returned her gaze with sad eyes as if to say 'I'm sorry'.
None of them moved. None of them spoke. They just stood there like statues. Kristina's heart dropped. Tears filled her eyes. She couldn't take it anymore.
"Why is no one telling me what's going on?" she cried out, her eyes overflowed and the tears streamed down her pretty face.
Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder. Marcus had moved over to her, one hand on her shoulder, the other one offering her a tissue.
Kristina took it hesitantly. "Merci," (Thank you) she sniffed.
"I think the young lady here is right. We owe her an explanation. But not here. We shall move this conversation to my study. Caius will find us there."
Rosemarie followed Caius through the corridors of the castle to his and Anna's chambers. As soon as they had entered Caius had flitted over to the dresser and had started to roam through one of the drawers.
Rosemarie looked around the room in awe. How long had she dreamed of being in here with Caius alone. And now finally...
If only he would take his attention from this stupid mortal for one second.
Finally Caius found what he had been looking for. He pulled out the flowery scarf Anna had always worn to 'add a touch of colour to all the black' as she had put it.
He closed his eyes and lowered his face inhaling her scent deeply. It was so prominent that for a moment he thought that when he opens his eyes she would be standing right beside him, quirking an eyebrow at him like she always did and ask him, with that little smile playing on her lips, just what exactly he was doing there with her favourite scarf.
But when he opened his eyes she was still gone. The only thing reminding him of her was the soft fabric in his hand.
He turned to Rosemarie and held the scarf out to her. "Here. That should suffice. She..." Before he could finish his sentence his mobile rang.
Slightly irritated he snatched it out of his pocket and looked on the caller ID. It showed 'Unknown Number'. He put the scarf in Rosemarie's hand and accepted the call.
"Yes?" he asked sharply.
"Hmmm... Caius. As polite as always," said a voice with a familiar accent on the other end, "Almost 3000 years and you haven't changed a bit."
"Vladimir," Caius growled into the phone.
"Very good. I see you remember me."
"What do you want?" Caius spat.
"I want to ask you something. Tell me, don't you miss something?"
"What are you...?" and then it came to his mind that the vampire he was looking for might not be as unknown as he had thought.
"What did you do to her? I swear if you hurt her I will..."
"Oh she is fine. Until now. Of course she is unconscious. But soon she will wake up. And then she will learn a little something about what it means to be mated to you."
Caius could see Vladimir's devilish grin before his inner eye. They were very similar to each other, he and Vladimir.
Both of them were excellent fighters, brilliant strategists and none of them was afraid of doing everything necessary to get what they wanted.
And being a Romanian, Vladimir and his companion Stefan wanted revenge. And Anna would be their key to it.
Only the thought of it made Caius sick to the core.
"I will find you. And if you so much as touch her you will pay for it!"
"I highly doubt that you will find us. As you certainly have noticed we have some aces up our sleeves. One is to make sure that none of you Italian scum can find us."
From the corner of his eye Caius caught a movement.
"You see, a certain someone was very talkative about where we would find your little mate. And so very supportive in hiding our scent to your tracker," Vladimir continued.
Caius' eyes flickered through the room. Rosemarie tried to steal away from the room. He could see the fear in her eyes.
All of a sudden everything fell into place. Anna's abduction, Rosemarie's obsession over him, her gift as a tracker, why she had avoided Aro's touch.
Caius moved in the blink of a second, flitting through the room and slamming the door shut with one hand while the other one still pressed the mobile to his ear.
He moved his body in front of the door blocking Rosemarie's way out and shot her a deadly glare. The woman shrunk back.
"I will find you, you bastard," he repeated, "And then I will make you and everyone who helped you regret the day you were born."
Vladimir only laughed at him. "We will see about that," there was a noise in the background, "Oh, I believe she wakes up. I will have to end our little conversation then, Caius. But don't you worry. I will call again. And maybe I will let you speak to her then. If she still is in the condition to speak that is."
There was a click and the line went dead.
Caius growled ferocious and slammed the phone on a table close to him. Then he turned his full attention to Rosemarie.
Panic was written all over her face as he approached her.
"It was you, wasn't it?" he snarled, "You sold my mate to the Romanians."
With every step he took towards her she made one back.
"But Caius I was only doing it for us. Don't you see that you are better off without her? She was poisoning you. Changing you! But now you are free. Free to be with someone who understands you. Someone like me."
Caius got her by the throat with a snarl and slammed her into the stone wall. Cracks appeared in the stone where her body had collided with the wall.
"She was the only one who ever understood me. Who accepted me for who I am. Who saw the man behind the monster. She was the best thing that has ever happened to me and now she is gone because of you! Where. Did. They. Take. Her?" he pressed out between clenched teeth.
Rosemarie whimpered.
Caius tightened his grip on her throat. Cracks appeared around his hand.
The blonde whimpered even more. If she had been able to cry she would have. "I don't know! I swear I don't know!" she cried. "They just paid me to cover up their scent!"
"How?"
"It's an extension to my gift. I can track people and hide scents. They told me I should let it vanish shortly after the border to Idaho and so I did."
With a look of pure hatred he released her and she sagged to the ground sobbing dryly.
"Felix!" Caius yelled. A moment later the brawny vampire appeared in the room.
"Yes Master?"
"Take that whimpering bitch to the dungeon and make sure she stays there. I will deal with her later. And then instruct Demitri and the elite of the guard to prepare to leave. We are heading to Romania."
Felix nodded, roughly pulled the still sobbing Rosemarie to her feet and hauled her out of the room.
"No! Caius, please you can't do this! Please don't send me to the dungeon!" she pleaded.
Caius slammed the door shut behind them and her cries died out.
He took a deep breath and then realised that his hands were clenched into tight fists. Slowly he relaxed his muscles.
Anna's scarf laid on the floor in the middle of the room where Rosemarie hat dropped it. Slowly he went to it, picked it up and carefully folded it to put it back in the drawer.
Then he opened the second drawer beneath it. It contained his shirts. He lifted up the first one on the right stack. On the black fabric beneath it laid a picture.
He took it out, closed the drawer and went over to one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace and sat down.
A wave of sadness washed over him as he looked at the picture in his hand. It was a Polaroid showing Anna sitting on a field of grass on a cloudy day. In her arms she held a puppy. Her hair was tousled by the wind. She didn't wear makeup and she smiled brightly into the camera.
He had taken her out to show her Tuscany a few days before she had left for university and they had come across a farm who gave away puppies.
Anna had insisted that since they couldn't get one they at least take one with them for a walk.
During the walk Caius had played around with Anna's camera and this picture had come out. Anna had told him to keep it so he had something to look at while she was gone.
'And in 6 month you can look at the real me again.' she had said.
But now the 6 months were over and he still looked at the picture instead of the real Anna.
"Anna," he whispered and his mask crumbled, leaving his face to show the pain he felt right now. He squeezed his eyes shut and hunkered over the picture. His shoulders shook as he started sobbing dryly.
For the first time in forever he wished he could cry.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. "I am going to find you, love. I promise you, I will."