Chapter One
Bella
Lions don't lose sleep over the opinions of sheep
The heat of the city flooded through me and at times I felt it was difficult to breathe. Currently, the black-out limousine's air conditioning system was the only force on this planet keeping me cool from the intense climate change. It's was almost insane to be dressed in my Forks' clothes in this heat, but I could make do with them for the time being. The heat would not bother me for much longer.
I smiled, wide and happy as Aro's cold hand folded over mine. He brought up my hand to his lips, skimming his mouth across my knuckles before finally kissing my fingers and the new ring that I wore proudly on my left finger.
After years of pining, months of fighting, we were finally together at last.
"It's just up ahead." Aro murmured, eyes flickering out the window and I turned my head in time to catch the break in landscape to find what appeared to be a castle peering over the trees.
"Welcome to your new home, Lady Isabella." Demetri said from the driver's seat. "Volterra, Italy."
Ten Years Later
In comparison, my old bedroom in the castle looked barren compared to the majesty that had been crafted into mine and Aro's shared suite. Whereas, my personal belongings had been moved into the newly furnished and renovated rooms, it was the furniture that caught me off-guard.
I had not stayed in this room for long when I was a human. A week or two, settling in and cutting last minute loose ends when I was nineteen, maybe even some cold feet about college or university, but never about Aro. Through the anxiety, the humanity, and a brief coughing fit that lasted a few days; this had been the last room I stayed in as a human, the room where I made my transition, and the room I had woken up in.
Sentiment, perhaps, I decided and walked around the room, touching table tops and bookshelves that were collecting dust. Mites spun in the air before me.
The old mattress had been taken away and burned because of the lingering blood and venom stains, but the bed frame remained, articulately carved from rich oak wood. The high ceiling vaulted and held a hundred year old chandelier made entirely out of glass crystals and fine bone. The floors were polished and the floors to the en suite bathroom were marble.
Aro had pulled out all the stops to be sure I was comfortable.
It's been empty for years though. I sighed and stopped my manic pacing about. Such a waste of a lovely view. I conceded that I would merely have the room arranged into another guest bedroom for the time being and perhaps after the festivities I could find some other use for it. However, I doubt Aro would mind if I started hording up rooms in the castle; he had hardly opposed my expanding book collection that dominated our bedroom wall. Aro enjoyed romance novels, I enjoyed mysteries.
"Would this do, Lady Isabella?" asked the human assistant I had taken with me to check out rooms.
"Yes, this will do, but for an A-list guest. I am very fond of it, and I should like to have it given to someone that can appreciate it as I do."
I caught my reflection in the full length mirror stood across from me; my moon pale skin glittering gently from the open windows and my eyes shining a dark burgundy. I meticulously picked at the sheer blouse Heidi had decided for me that morning and turned away again.
I had spent a majority of my adolescents avoiding mirrors, hating how I looked, but as a vampire, I had gained a whole new confidence and liberty of being comfortable and happy with how I looked.
"Are there any other rooms on the list?" I asked and the woman shook her head, cucumber cool and smiling cordially. "Good, then you can take the list down to the office and they'll work out the housing arrangements when everyone starts to arrive." She nodded and left a grinning, manic shell of a person. I shivered.
I had never gotten used to the human servants that the Volturi kept around, but they had their uses and for flawless work they were sometimes met with a righteous offer in return. More often than not, they were dinner, but no one likes to talk about that.
Around me, the girls—always young women, always—projected glowing smiles and broad teeth while they picked me apart with their eyes. Thoughts, particularly strong ones, were easy for me to read. Like peering through the invisible shields people held up between themselves and their minds, I could dig myself in and just read them. This woman, like few, was not interested in Aro, or my crown, or my status.
"Ugh, I wish I could pull off that skirt. It looks marvelous on her." I smiled, and cast the thought aside.
Mind reading was a skill Aro encouraged me to cultivate, but I was always more interested in my shield. As a gifted vampire, held in high status to the guard, I cemented my place when I rose from the grave after three days with three talents to tell: super-resilience to blood temptation, my shield, and mind reading.
"I'm already a superhero; I don't need to overdo it." I said and Aro did his best not to press the issue further. In fact, he did not mention it to anyone. He was contented to keep it a secret if I was, all the while thinking strong thoughts whenever I needed to focus.
"I just think it would be best for you to live out your life with all your talents. No sense in holding yourself back."
Cool air flooded the room. "Jane," I turned and smiled at her.
Over the years, Jane and I had become closer. Not exactly friends but close enough in regards to our work proximity and Jane's unwavering loyalty to Aro extended onto me.
"Isabella," she said, formally. "Demetri has arrived with guests for the celebration. Lord Aro and Lord Marcus are preoccupied with another coven at the moment."
"Thank you. I'll be right down to greet them." I nodded and darted from the room, not caring for how it may look or keeping face. I wanted to see my best friend.
When going through training as a newborn, Demetri and I had sparked up a most unusual friendship, but a friendship built on mutual interest and camaraderie. Though I was a member of the guard, I rarely left the castle for anything, let alone missions unlike Demetri. Whereas, Demetri did nothing but leave the castle, yet he had no idea how to work a computer. He had also been the only member of the guard to catch on to my mind reading tendencies, but did not voice them.
Demetri had been my attending bodyguard whenever I left the castle and I had had been his teacher into the modern world. He was like a brother to me, and Aro was not so boyish as to not see that.
I rounded the corner to the main entrance that led out to the town square. The main desk was currently empty because of shortening staff, but the door was being closed and a hail of diamond-studded skin flickered across the stone floors.
Demetri was ahead of the small group of seven vampires, wearing his trademarked black guard uniform with the Volturi crest hanging from his neck. His blond hair was windswept and disheveled, but he looked as handsome as ever. He caught my eye, just as I came in and smiled.
Elated, I lunged at him, shouting his name and Demetri caught me, pulling me up into a fierce hug.
This, I knew, was not appropriate behavior for a guard member, but over the years I had come to enjoy the looks of shock and the thoughts of those who saw guard members acting out of protocol.
"God, it's been months." I said, pulling back to look at him. "Did you bring me anything pretty?"
He laughed, gaze shifting to the coven standing behind him. "Only guests from the other side."
"Is this your mate?" One of them asked, the leader apparently, who had the kindest smile I had ever seen and stood a little taller than Demetri. His entire being read as untroubled, unbothered, but his shoulders were tense. Volterra had that effect on people.
I laughed.
"No," Demetri said, abruptly, and then looking at me, added, "Don't like your fiancé hear that. I'm not sure he will laugh."
The laughter between us and the group stretched out into a polite silence. I was hit suddenly with a wave of nervousness that crawled through me unbidden and unwelcomed. I had not met new people in the longest time, I felt novice in how to properly greet them, but I gathered myself, smiled, and out stretched my hand.
"I'm Bella," I said. "Don't let this one fool you, I am a qualified guardswoman."
The leader shook my hand, firm grip and still smiling, inciting a sense of warmth and unity as he introduced himself and his coven; family, more like it. He had claimed them as family with his words.
"They are Lord Aro's favorite guests." Demetri thought with some bitterness and I placed the name. Cullen.
"Cullen? Oh, you must be Carlisle Cullen. I have heard so much about you and your family." I said, liking the way the word sounded from my lips. Family, I had not used it in years. Only when talking about my parents, or Aro, but never in the sense of an entire coven.
Carlisle mate, Esme, stepped forward a little, smiling. "We are quite the celebrities, I'm told."
Aro had told me about his friendship with Carlisle, who had assembled, quite on accident, a very talented and large coven of vampires in the American territories.
Demetri shifted uneasily beside me, instinctually putting his body between me and whatever he issued as threatening. I followed his gaze, finding the victim of his stare down to be with a teenager with a sullen expression and bronze hair. This was Edward Cullen, the mind reader.
I nudged Demetri aside so I could meet his eyes, honey-gold like the rest of his family, a stark contrast to the Volturi's near mandatory blood red. It was an odd shift in color. Fascinating, really.
I slowly extended my shield like a bubble and stretched it over Demetri. He fidgeted once the shield was in place, happily knowing his thoughts were this own once again.
"You're probably wondering why you can't read my mind." I said deliberately and watched his progressively frustrated expression grow tense, despite his coven-mate's gentle pushing and muttering behind him. "Its okay, Aro can't either. I'm a shield."
This caused some raised eyebrows. "A shield?" Carlisle sounded curious. "My, that is a rare gift."
"I'm very proud of it. My thoughts were also my own when I was human too, but through the change, I was able to develop it." Carlisle went down the line of his family, rehashing information I already knew, such as, Edward, the mind reader; Jasper, who could control emotions; Alice, who could see the future.
"So, should be dress nice for the party?" Alice asked, stepping forward with her mate, Jasper, lingering behind her. She was a petite thing, like a ballerina that would be poised on a music box. Her goldenrod eyes were bright and excited as she spoke. "You should wear that blue dress, the darker one."
Demetri took my shoulders and made a manual effort to push me away. "Alright, well, I can hear Heidi's shoes, so I know you haven't prepared anything yet. You can all rejoin at the meeting, but first, the list."
The assistant I had sent away appeared, looking startled and clutching the list to her chest. To her credit, she said nothing, and calmly walked over, handing Demetri the housing arrangements before walking back to her desk.
"Alright, I will show you your rooms and once you're settled, Lord Aro will be holding a meeting in the throne room, nine would be the best time."
"Ah, yes, the great announcement." Edward sighed, sounding just as excited as I would have been at the prospect of shopping. I giggled.
"It is," I said, catching his attention. "A great announcement." My gaze shifted back to Carlisle and Esme. "It was great meeting you all; I hope we can talk more later."
I met Heidi on the second level, outside her workroom. "I wanted to have this fitting done as soon as possible. Please tell me you at least chose a dress for tonight."
"Yes, the dark blue one with the black accents? The one we picked up in Paris a while ago?" Heidi made a noise of approval and led me into her workroom to begin the process of measurements and tusking.
I toed off one flat pump and then the other as Heidi withdrew probably the best kept piece of clothing in the entire castle from the wardrobe it had been housed in for the last few months. "Where were you, by the way? I check the west hall but you weren't there."
"I got distracted."
I hated the why this story was originally. I wanted to purge it from my mind. How I originally wrote it the relationship between Aro and Bella was horrifically out of balance, he basically was gas lighting and grooming her like a perv and Bella was manic pixie who did whatever she wanted in a neo-gothic setting.
But it was my first completed story. My first love, so I revised it. New Year, Better Writing.
—queenchesh, 1/5/16