Vampire

I was only about three miles away, and it had been about ten minutes that I had been away when I heard her scream my name. I dropped the villager I had been drinking in my arms and ran back to where she was in less than a minute.

"What's wrong?" I asked her, taking her shaking form into my arms. It took her a minute to quiet down in my arms before she was ready to talk.

"I thought you left me," she stammered. "When I woke up, you weren't here and…"

"I would never leave you," I said, "I promise."

"You better not," she threatened, "I couldn't possibly live without you."

"You took the words from my mouth," I said, pleased that I had made her stop crying and shaking.

"I love you," she said randomly, after a minute of silence.

"I love you too," I said slowly, meaning every single word. For every word I said I gave her a kiss…as well as a kiss for the many words I hadn't spoken.

"So," she murmured, "what exactly were you doing?"

"I was…having dinner," I knew it would be pointless to lie, and sooner or later she would have to understand and face what I was.

"Who was the victim?" she asked.

"I don't know, I grabbed the first person I saw; I didn't want to be away too long in case you woke up…obviously that didn't work."

She laughed, "No, it didn't. Tell me more about your kind."

"It's not pretty," I said, momentarily wonder how she knew what I was, and then decided that now was not the time to bring that up.

"I'll be the judge of that," she said, "go on."

"Well, first and foremost, vampires drink blood; human or animal, either one works to sustain us, though animal blood isn't nearly as palatable as human blood. I've tried it before, I don't recommend it. Vampires are…well, dead. We don't have a heartbeat, we don't need air to breathe, and we don't eat human food. We have heightened senses: faster, stronger, and we can see, hear, and smell better. That's pretty much it." I said, pretty happy with how I had explained it and not gone into too much detail. "Oh, and we're immortal. The only known way to kill us is to dismember and burn our bodies." She cringed a bit at the last part, but maintained a composed face.

"That's quite a change," she said. The wind picked up then, blowing a strand of hair across her face.

"Don't worry about a thing," I said fiercely, whilst putting back the strand of her hair behind her ear. "I'm here to protect you."

"Good," she murmured; and I couldn't have agreed more. We stayed like that in perfect silence, knowing there were many words unspoken between us, but understanding that they were meant for the other. At last I understood what Aro and Sulpicia, and Marcus and Didyme were doing when they would just stare into each other's eyes for sometimes hours on end.

"What time is it?" she asked, after awhile.

I shrugged, "Close to dawn."

"Does that mean we have to leave soon?" she asked, slightly frowning.

"Unfortunately, yes," I said..

"What should I tell Didyme and Sulpicia when I get back?" she asked.

"Whatever you want," I said, laughing at the endless possibilities that would keep both of them at bay; and how it would annoy them. "Tell them what really happened, or you can make it up." I smirked, "I'm sure you have a creative imagination."

"Oh," she gasped, surprised at first and then slightly smiling. "Oh…" I laughed, not needing to be Aro to know what she was thinking.

In the silence that followed, the sun began to rise, streaking the sky with a hue of blue, yellow and pink, blending them together in a misty, foggy, ceiling. We had watched the sunset, and know we were watching the sunrise; both beautiful, both eternal, both like what Athena would be. There was something so cliché about comparing people to heavenly objects, but it was hard to find something to represent a person better. For example, I had more than enough reasons to make Athena my stars, obviously a goddess (if you could consider that to be a heavenly object), or even the sun. It was quite simply, Athena, for one thing, had gold spun hair that made the strands seem to dance and sparkle in their own sunshine; a halo; an angel. She had a bright personality, and a sometimes fiery temper. And lastly, without her, my life was obsolete; she gave me, an undead being, life, just as the sun supplied the world with energy, so it's definitely safe to say: Athena is my sun. Actually, it was better to say: Athena is my everything.

If only I had the words to express my newfound revelation to Athena, but I was not Marcus or Aro, my vocabulary, though broad, was not efficient in expressing deep emotion. Then again, if I told her everything, that might scare her, so I would simply love her to the best of my ability, and I knew that would suffice.

"You're glittering again," she murmured to no one in particular but it brought me out of my Athena-related reverie.

"Sorry?" I asked, not quite sure what she was getting at.

"No, it's okay, I like to watch." Well, if that wasn't stalker-ish I didn't know what was, but my love for her didn't let me linger on that thought for long. I had to admit; I could stare at her for awhile too and not get tired, so I guess this made us even. I wonder if she would still like me sparkling once she was changed; or worse, I wonder if she would still like me. I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind, not possibly being able to think of it.

"Ready to go?" I asked, still shaken from the thought of us being apart.

"No," she grinned, "but we should." I nodded, standing up, offering her my hand to help. She got up gracefully and then I began to put away all the candles and fold up the blanket.

"Do you want to wear the dress you came in?" I asked her, holding up the watery fabric, "or your…blanket thing?"

"I'll stay with the blanket," she said, "it's a little cool anyway." I put the dress with the blanket and resumed packing. I made the load as small as possible, since I still had to carry her as well, and then let her jump into my arms. Before I could pick up anything else, she was viciously attacking me…with her lips; while her arms were so tight around my neck it made me feel the slightest pressure of a noose. It took me five seconds to get over the initial shock, and another forty to untangle her from me.

"Where did that come from?" I asked, still bewildered.

"Nowhere in particular," she shrugged, "I just like to tempt you…maybe you'll make a mistake."

"Don't think so," I smirked, "but feel free to keep trying." She laughed, and then kissed me for a few more seconds before actually getting ready to go.

"Now remember," I said in mock sincerity, "no distractions while I'm running." I didn't add on the; if I crash then you'll probably die.

Thankfully, we made it to the castle all in one piece, to the lovely reception of a furious Aro and Marcus. After courteously putting Athena on the ground I turned to see what they were fuming about. Before they could begin to speak, before even asked, Sulpicia and Didyme were running outside and practically pounced on Athena. The gently guided her inside, even though Didyme whispered to me, "Oh, you're in trouble now." Then I paid attention to Marcus and Aro.

Aro opened his mouth to speak, and I could tell he wasn't just mad, but he was worried.

"You idiot!" Marcus interrupted, "Imbecile!" Now I was worried; Marcus could keep calm better than Aro could, and if he was angry, I shuddered to think what was coming.

"Well what the hell did I do?" I asked, still very confused.

"Last night—" Aro began, I thought he was going to ask if I had done things with Athena.

"No! I didn't have sex with her!" I shouted, not really wanting to go there. Aro and Marcus looked at me with shocked faces for over a minute.

"--Did you go hunting?" Aro finished his question, still stunned. Marcus on the other hand, was laughing hysterically and I could already hear the jokes that he would be making for millennia to come.

"Oh, hunting," I said embarrassed, "yes, I did."

"Well looks he finally did something," Marcus commented.

"Shut up," I hissed, "she's human what do you expect?"

"Sulpicia was human when we married," Aro said matter-of-factly. I scowled at both of them.

"So the great Julius Cesar conquers empires, striking fear into the hearts of enemies, but he's afraid of doing one girl," Marcus analyzed, "poor Caius has cold feet."

"At least I don't have a messed up face," I said.

"I'm very handsome," Marcus defended.

"Not anymore you aren't," I sighed, and punched him in the face. Instead of hitting me back as I would have wished, he just laughed even more.

"Now that's the Caius we know and love," Aro said, giving me a pat on the back. Well, on the bright side, I had somewhat calmed them down, on the downside, I had provided them with jokes of my love life for a long time to come.

"But, back to the situation at hand." Marcus said, going back to being serious.

"Yes…" Aro said, "You see Caius, apparently at your dinnertime yesterday, you didn't clean up. Villagers found the corpse; now their hunting vampires which means it will be more difficult for us to act, not only for our own, but against the Romanians."

"Well, it shouldn't be that hard to fix," I said, just get someone to claim that they purged all the vampires out from Italy. Aro and I systematically turned to Marcus.

"Fine," he groaned, "but you two owe me."

"Thank you," Aro said in his most overly-sweet voice. Marcus scowled and left calling for Didyme. I was quick to follow, not quite wanting to have a one-on-one conversation with Aro and all his energy. I walked down the hall, heading for my bedroom to change from yesterday's robes. I heard Sulpicia, Didyme, and Athena talking in a corner and was slightly disturbed at the snippet I heard from their conversation. It had to do with what had and hadn't happened last night…I quickly hurried past them, hoping I didn't catch any of their attention.

I changed, and then sat down at the edge of my window. For the past week I had completely shoved everything about the Romanian's out of my head while I was preoccupied with Athena. I knew I would have to tell her sooner or later, she had a right to know about complications to her safety. Though I would never push her for it, I wished she would make her decision to be changed quickly. It would just be so much easier to protect her that way, and while I was thinking on her safety, I heard feral barking outside, as some ripping and tearing of vampires.

Werewolves.

Athena.

I jumped from my room and ran straight down to where I had last seen Athena, Didyme, and Marcus together. They were still there, with Aro and Marcus just arriving at about the same time I did. It was obvious that the only real danger was the liability of Athena.

"Take her!" I said, handing her to Didyme and Sulpicia. "Take her and go far away from here!" Marcus and Aro seemed inclined to disagree, but as of right now there wasn't a better, safer, way for our mates to leave. When Aro nodded, it was sort of an official statement that that would happen. Marcus spent no time thinking about what we had decided, by drew Didyme in his arms and kissed her forcefully. Aro kissed Sulpicia as well, but what they lacked in force, was made up by the simple sweetness that one could not put into words. Last, I turned to Athena, and kissed her ever so softly, not having the strength to look into her eyes knowing it was my fault I had left her so vulnerable.

"Goodbye," I whispered, speaking for all three of us.

"It's not goodbye," she smiled, astounding all of us with her nonchalance. "It's see you later." I actually had to smile, but Didyme picked her up and ran along with Sulpicia, so that was that.

Aro, Marcus and I all stared at each other, and then we were off, each tending to our different specialties. Marcus knew the 'new' members of the Guard so he rounded them up while I went to our already trained and existing Guard. I had no idea what the hell Aro did but he better do something good.

In less than five minutes, and only three casualties thus far, Marcus, Aro and I met up in the central corridor, where the large gold doors barred the entrance of the werewolves.

"Ready?" Aro asked.

"Ready." Marcus and I said at the same time.