The greenery and parks stereotypical of the suburbs of North American cities shielded their presence well enough.
They lingered in the woods and forests around Vancouver. Marcus crouched on a branch, back against bark. It had taken Demetri much longer than usual to locate the newborn associated with their mate which was a concerning development. Aro and Caius rested in adjacent trees with Alec, Jane, and Renata nearby. Demetri indicated to the lone fire on the cold beach surrounded by several silhouettes.
Their mate sat closest to the fire with a bag of wood at her feet.
The firelight glazed her features with all the softness and warmth of summer and for once, with his vampiric night vision, he saw her entirely. The memory of her in their throne room remained stark but the image of her blurred, faded at the edges and worn away like ink on parchment wearied by time.
Marcus tugged on their bonds. Stark lines of grey bound into them, a barely there streak of empty void ate the three ribbons sprouting from her. Such a complex thing between them but the gold base of the ribbon never faded.
"She is rather close to the newborn," Caius said lowly, fury coating his words.
She sat on the newborn's lap, unbothered by any implications as she leaned further into his embrace.
Marcus narrowed his eyes and tugged on the ribbons once more. "Nothing worrying, Caius."
Caius huffed and shifted back to his sulking as they overlooked their mate immersed with her human connections. Aro was unnaturally quiet, merely a wraith in his tree without comments as he observed their mate. Marcus' fingers twitched; how he yearned to touch her, to even catch the slightest graze of fingertips against her cheek or the curl of her night-dark locks.
Sunset had passed long before they set up the bonfire on Whytecliff Beach.
Arlen struck flint against steel to a batch of dried grass they brought, a bag of wood by her feet, while everyone else set up blankets and their midnight picnic. They crowded along the fireside when it rose high enough, warding off the slight bite of cold, as they passed around their drinks and snacks, bustling around each other until they could settle down on outdoor canvas blankets and logs already set up. Vince sat on a log and Arlen lounged on his knee with her bubble tea clutched close to her chest. He wrapped an arm around her waist and used her lap as a table. Tao and Isaac sprawled over the logs beside them while everyone else laid on the blankets.
"How you could disappear without telling us anything while whisking Vince into the mix?" Elsie stretched out of the blanket after they all settled, her sweater riding up. "God, that was such a whirlwind."
"You act like that was worse than her rebel phase." Vince scoffed and brushed his hair away from his forehead. "At least she took someone with her this time."
"I remember that." Lila snickered.
"You had a rebellious phase?" Tao whirled in his seat to face Arlen. "You never told us!"
Arlen blinked, mid-sip, and waited for a moment. "I always forget some of you were too busy with school to witness the absolute mess I was but also, I wasn't rebelling. I don't have parents to vex with blatant disobedience. I graduated early and decided it was high time to live like a real person."
"I nearly had a heart attack, idiot." Vince knocked the back of her head. "Normal people don't just go swimming with sharks. That photo of you sitting on a shipwreck scared the shit out of me."
"That's on you for not seeing it coming," she shot back.
Lila snorted. "She came back from a three month trip, alone, with five tattoos and seven new piercings and an entirely new look advertising her identity as bi."
"I was out of the closet long before that."
"But you weren't advertising then." Min leaned over and poked her collarbone.
"Traitor," Arlen muttered.
"You think I learned unbuttoned to almost indecency on my own? With such elegance?" Isaac sipped at his drink and tugged at his collar. "Arlen taught me by existing."
She laid a hand on her chest. "Et tu, Brute? After I heard about the way your dates ended in detail from the other parties?"
Isaac choked on his tea and she smirked, smug.
"Okay, but where were we during this?" Tao asked as he pointed at himself, Min, and Elsie. "I don't remember this. Do you?"
Min stared at Arlen thoughtfully. "No, I don't think so?"
"University applications, finals, and your graduations," Vince answered lazily.
Isaac laid back, hands behind his neck. "Vince, Lila, and I searched all over the city for her."
"Oh, right." Min snapped. "Vince was about to lay eggs over Arlen when she disappeared for five days until she sent us a group text saying that she was in Seoul."
"I can't believe you thought a text was good enough, we thought you got mixed up in your sketchy contacts again and died with the way Vince was banging on about it," Elsie added, arm over Min's shoulders.
"They're not sketchy." Arlen rolled her eyes. "They're interesting."
"Your definition of interesting aligns with shady," Lila interjected, smirking over the bottle's lip. "So, why did you disappear?"
"Mountain climbing and sitting very prettily on the Tokyo Tower."
Isaac tipped up his bottle in a cheers motion "She's got everything in the bag."
Tao skittered to her side eagerly. "Who cares, where are your tattoos?"
Arlen rolled her eyes and pulled the entirety of her hair up into a high tail. She pushed back her baby hairs and turned her head. "Two around the ears, one below the left ear, and two between my fingers." Her hair fell back around her in waves, caught by the breeze.
"And you have so many ear piercings," Elsie noted.
She shrugged. "It's fun."
"Me too." Lila volunteered and tucked her hair behind her ears to reveal her multiple piercings. "I got the rest of them with her."
"Who cares about that?" Min exclaimed. "What about the Triads Vinny mentioned?"
"They weren't Triads." Arlen lifted up her drink. "We just went to an event with a lot of with lots of rich people and government officials."
"The Triads have infiltrated government positions before," Vince pointed out. "They all looked shady as fuck."
"You all watch way too many movies," Isaac commented. "Arlen's not the type to bring us into trouble she can't get us out of."
"What else did you do?" Min threw her legs over their log. "Besides commit crime and be chaotic?"
"We gamed for one week straight and scared the owner of the internet cafe." Vince took her drink away. "Tell them more. You could win an Oscar with the amount of melodrama you inject into everything."
She snatched his drink up. "Well, I broke my wrist beforehand but I received an ad on Instagram, reading my thoughts, while we were in Tokyo around Christmas time and you know how I feel about Christmas...it's just a capitalistic holiday with no real substance if you're not religious..."
The scent of fire clung to her clothes long after they ended their bonfire.
Vince carried her inside as she snuggled closer to his back and kept her eyes closed and he gently deposited her in her room. She picked out pajamas and headed into the bathroom. He waited outside the door to make sure she didn't fall asleep and drown herself. After the water stopped running, she stumbled out and he dropped her onto the bed.
"I'm going hunting," he said softly. "Go to sleep, stupid."
Arlen nodded sleepily and rolled over into her bed, sinking into the soft mattress, truly relaxed for the first time in months.
The doorbell to her gates rang like a funeral bell in her bedroom, waking her up.
Arlen startled among the pale blue silk pillows of her bed, a small shriek in her throat. She threw off her blanket, and stalked to the answering machine in her room with a clenched jaw and tired eyes. She loved her friends, and it was truly too bad, because whoever it was at her door, she was going to kill them.
"Who the fuck is ringing my doorbell at ass in the morning?" She continued to curse under her breath as she headed towards the security panel. The time flashed blue as she stared into the real time footage recording at the gates. The three Volturi kinds stood at the gate.
5:03am.
She didn't know what to do. Was she going to answer or pretend that no one was home? She didn't have any lights on but she was sure they could hear her heartbeat. At the same time, who did they think they were, ringing her doorbell at this time? Vince probably hadn't returned from his hunt considering he normally took around eight hours when given enough time and today was supposed to be overcast so he'd probably take extra time to fill up.
"Fucking hell." She rested her head against her door.
"Cara mia? We'd appreciate you allowing us into your home so we may discuss matters," Aro said.
Were they really still playing at the civilized monarchs who would allow her to live? Well, if they wanted to play that game, she was going to test it.
She breathed softly and her shaky finger pressed the microphone on the security panel. Maybe she wasn't all that lucid with what she was going to attempt but her brain genuinely couldn't fire a single working neuron at the moment with how tired she was.
"It is five in the morning. The sun isn't even up and I barely slept for three hours. Come back in twelve hours to talk to me and maybe I'll let you in but if you try to come in right now, I'm going to disappear again and this time I won't come back."
She shut off all communication and turned off her door and gate bells before slipping back into bed. If she woke up in their jet, she'd toss herself out of it long before they reached Volterra.
Like I said, if you are or were a regular reviewer (please tell me what username you used to review for the rewrite/before) and you want to read chapters early, I have a private tumblr that's password protected that gets chapters early along with excerpts. I always post 1 - 2 chapters ahead there. You can private message me here or on my tumblr 1800canyousavemydream (my inspiration blog).