It was late when Aro had come back the night previous, and at some point I must have fallen asleep because when I awoke, I was in the bedroom tucked into the covers of the massive bed my grandfather had supposedly donated to Aro just for me. When I thought about that, I started to wonder just what exactly my grandfather had in mind by giving Aro a bed. Was he really expecting something to happen between this vampire and myself or was he only wanting to make sure I had a soft place to sleep when the time came for me to brought here? I did not want to think of the previous though knowing what I did of my grandfather, it was hard to say either way.

I heard a soft sound to my right, so I turned over in the bed to see Aro sitting there in a chair watching me. I sat bolt upright, heart pounding, and all he could do was laugh at me for it. "My apologies, my love. I did not mean to startle you."

"Did you put me to bed?"

"I did. You must have still been tired because I noticed you fell asleep not long after you went back to reading. It had been a long day for you. I am not surprised."

"Were you sitting there the whole night?"

"I was."

"Doing what exactly?"

He smiled as he stood and walked over to the bed before sitting down on the edge. "Watching you sleep of course." He took a finger and pushed some hair behind my ear before dropping his hand again. I did not want him touching me right now, or ever. I was glad, hoping, he had finally figured that out.

I was a little put off by his answer to say the least. Put off and creeped out. Even if I was important to him, sleeping with a vampire watching me did not put me at ease. Sleeping with anyone watching me would not put me at ease. "Why were you watching me sleep? That's not exactly something I'm comfortable with."

"You looked peaceful. Since vampires do not sleep, I wonder what it is that must be going through your mind while you are. Though you do turn a lot. Did you sleep well? Is the bed soft enough?"

"It's fine, just don't do that anymore. Please."

"Even keeping me from you while you sleep," Aro replied sadly. "What is it that I can do to make this work? I do not believe you understand how difficult this is for me to not change you right now, but I want to give you time to make that decision on your own. It is not something that I want to force on you."

"I told you that I'll refuse," I said quietly reminding him.

"Yes, I remember, but you and I both know that you will not refuse forever. It pains you, does it not?"

"Stop acting like you can read my mind."

Aro smiled at this before taking my hand in his and kissing the top gently. His lips were cold, like ice on my skin, before he let my hand go. "You are easy to read."

Pushing off the covers, I moved my legs to the side of the bed before standing. Aro followed suit, so I asked him, "Do you mind if I have some privacy, just to get ready?" He nodded his head then exited the room slowly.

Once he was gone, I grabbed my bag and pulled out a change of clothes. Thankfully Aro had not decided on changing me into something more comfortable before putting me to bed, otherwise the conversation this morning would have went much differently. If anything, I could say that at least, for the most part, he seemed to act like a gentleman toward me. Somehow, when he was near, I knew nothing bad would happen, but that did not mean I felt ease with the situation at all. I just knew he would not harm me.

I went into the bathroom and decided to take a quick shower. I shut the door, locking it behind me though I doubted it really mattered, before starting the warm water. It was relaxing, and I closed my eyes under the stream. What would I say to my parents when I talked to them later. I would have to remind Aro about him agreeing to let me call them in case he forgot. How was I going to get into contact with Emilio. Would Aro maybe let me call him as well? For some reason, the feeling I had about that one was not as optimistic.

I stayed under the water as long as I could before deciding it was time to get out and face whatever the day had in store for me. Stepping out of the shower, I toweled off before getting dressed and doing other rather human things. Again, why would a vampire need to use the toilet? If he really did have all of this placed in here for me, he was not lying when he said he had been ready and waiting for me to return for a very long time.

Moving out of the bathroom, I put my bag back down by the door before leaving the bedroom. I saw Aro sitting at his desk reading though the book I had seen there the other day. He looked up when I entered and his face lit up. I sighed. "That book, what's so interesting about it?"

"It discusses phenomena that cannot be explained by rational means. I thought to get to know more about your own gift by studying it," Aro replied.

"I would much rather you not."

"Then think about it as research in other humans with special abilities. You see, many vampires are gifted and these come from abilities they once had as humans. Take Demetri for example. He is what we call a tracker, the best in the world by chance. As a human, he often spied on enemy camps for his military due to his vast knowledge of navigation and a hunch of intelligence on where they may be located. When he was changed, his tracking ability became known rather quickly and with practice, he honed it into what it is today."

"A tracker? What does that mean exactly?"

"It means that if we were ever in need of finding someone, all Demetri would have to do is focus in on their mind. He catches a sort of flavor and can follow it to their destination. What makes his gift so unique is that he only need meet the person once or someone else that has met the person. His ability has never once failed unless it has come up against a shield."

This was a lot of information for me to take in, but what he said had me curious. If I were to somehow escape, what he was saying is that Demetri would be able to find me wherever I went, however, it fails against a shield. Now I just needed to know what this shield was. "What's that?"

"A shield is a person, such as Renata, who has the ability to block attacks. Renata's shield is physical. As I told you yesterday, it will deter anyone from trying to physically harm the one she is protecting. I have also met one mental shield in my long life, and she was able to block abilities that affect the mind."

"So a shield is someone with that specific skill?"

"Yes.

"You said many vampires are gifted. What about you?"

"My love, the majority of us here are. It is why I picked the members of the guard I have. Their gifts are the best I have found, and they are loyal to the coven without fault."

I quickly picked up that he was skirting the question but did not press him on it. It was something that I would keep filed away for later because now I did desperately want to know what his gift was, especially if there was some sort of chance he could be using it on me. After all, what did I know about these gifts? Demetri was a tracker and he thinks that my dreams and things that I know are some sort of special phenomena. Who knows what else people could do. Maybe he really did have the ability to read minds after all. He did seem to know more than he let on at times.

I made my way over to the desk and looked over his shoulder a moment, which he allowed me to do. I read a bit on the page that he was reading and saw more notes that he had written. "What does it say?"

"Hm? My notes? It is nothing that would interest you. They are only ramblings of an old mind."

"In other words, you don't want to tell me," I said moving away from him again. "You said I could call my parents."

With a sigh, he put a marker in the book and closed it. "I did say that, yes."

I watched as he opened one of the drawers and took something out of it which made my eyes widen. "Where did you get that?" As he pulled the item out, I saw my phone in his hands. A bit of anger came over me seeing it, knowing it had been so close all this time.

"Demetri brought it by with your things. He thought it may be useful to have."

My mind jumpstarted as I began to think of all the pictures I had on there and texts from friends and my mom. Had he looked through them? Had Demetri looked through them? Unlike most people, my phone did not have a specific lock code that I used. I only swiped for mere convenience as I kept it close to me at all times anyway. "Did you look through it?"

"No. Even if I had wanted to, I do not know how to use these contraptions."

"You can't tell me that you weren't curious. You were the one saying we had much to learn about each other."

"Not as curious as you would expect me to be," Aro replied. "Are you not going to call your parents?"

Sighing, I turned on the phone which had been conveniently turned off. Someone at least knew how to operate it. When it had started up, I began to dial the number when Aro stopped me.

"Liliana."

I looked up at him. "What?"

"You will tell your parents exactly what we agreed to yesterday evening. You will be traveling in Europe and will not have the chance to contact them every day. You will do so when the chance arises. Do you understand?"

"I didn't agree to that."

Aro stood and made his way over to me. "Then you will not be calling them."

At that moment, I wanted to hit him, but I knew that would probably be a mistake considering the fact that I was the delicate one, not him. I let out a frustrated sigh before agreeing. "Fine. I'll lie."

He stood next to me as I finished dialing the number and the phone rang. My mother picked it up a moment later. "Lia, how are you? I didn't get a text from you the past two nights."

"I know. I'm sorry. A couple nights ago I was really busy with finalizing everything after the funeral and last night I fell asleep early."

"It's okay. I've been worried about you with grandpa passing and then grandma not so long after. Is everything okay? I hate that you're having to handle all of that by yourself. Is there anyone there helping you?"

"Yes, Mom. Everyone has been wonderful. Things are fine. Like I've said, I've just been busy. Nonno left me the house, so I'm going through some of the things to figure out what to do with them, but I think I'm planning on taking a holiday just to get away for awhile. Maybe travel to Europe for a few months. Nonno left me the money for it, so that's not a problem."

"Lia, I don't like the idea of you traveling by yourself. Have you talked to Emilio?"

I sighed thinking about him. "He's in college, Mom, but I have a friend that I made that I can go with."

"A friend?"

"Yes. Just a friend." The word friend came out indifferent because I did not consider Aro a friend, but it was best that my mother think that this mysterious person was. She didn't need anymore information, and she often wasn't interested either.

"Well, whatever you decide to do, be safe and call me or text me."

"I will, but I won't be able to all the time. When I have the chance, I'll update you."

"Alright. I love you."

"Love you too, Mom. I'll talk to you later."

I pressed the end call button on the phone, and Aro held his hand back out for it. "Your mother sounds nice."

"It's rude to listen in to people's conversations." At that moment, my phone beeped a few times, and I saw multiple text messages finally coming in since it had been turned off. A few were from my mom and a couple were from Emilio. "Can I call Emilio."

Aro's eyes narrowed at me when I said his name. "I do not see a reason for you to contact him."

"He's my best friend. That's reason enough. He's texted me twice about Nonna. He's probably worried about me and wondering if I'm okay."

"You may text him back and tell him that you are." After Aro spoke, he came closer to me and watched what I was typing into my phone.

I wrote back to Emilio saying that I was fine, and I would contact him again when I had the chance. Aro looking over at my shoulder and watching everything I was doing left me completely frustrated again. When I was finished, I turned around and spoke much more harshly than I meant to. "Do you seriously not trust me? You're acting like you're some sort of kidnapper who's worried I'm going to give away sensitive information about my location."

"What do you expect me to do? You do not wish to be here, yet I cannot allow you to leave nor do I want you to leave. You do not trust me, so how can you expect me to put my full trust in you? That goes both ways." Aro took the phone from my hands and placed it back in the drawer of his desk.

"I'm not allowed to leave. I'm not allowed to talk to anyone except for those you deem appropriate which is who? Your guard? Demetri, Chelsea, Renata? I can't do anything on my own outside of this room. I'm never left alone for that matter. I feel like I'm in a cage. How is this ever going to work if you don't allow me any freedom at all?"

Aro turned back to me before walking past me to the door. Seeing his face, I knew he was upset with my words, but it was how I felt. He opened the door before speaking. "Come with me. I want to show you something."

Slowly, I followed him out and we walked down the hall to the elevator before getting on it and going up to the third floor. When we exited, we continued down another corridor into a small library where he went up to a shelf and moved it aside. Behind the shelf was a hidden door which he opened and motioned for me to go through.

Behind the door was a flight of stairs which I climbed carefully, Aro behind me the whole time. When we reached the landing, there were another set of doors, one which I could feel cool air coming from underneath and another which I saw flickering lights. This was the door that opened and a woman stepped out, another vampire that I did not recognize.

"Corin," Aro spoke gently to her. "Could you give us a moment?"

"Of course, Master," was Corin's reply before she walked down the stairs Aro and I had only come up.

Once Corin was out of sight, Aro spoke to me again. He pointed to the door Corin had only come out of before he began to explain. "Through that door are two women who are very important to Caius, one of the other founders of this coven, and myself. Their names are Athenodora and Sulpicia. They are our wives."

My eyes widened at this information given what I knew about what Aro wanted from me now, but before I could speak, he cut me off.

"Please do not be surprised at this. I married Sulpicia out of convenience and neither of us feel true love towards the other, though her company has been well received through these millenia. She is a dear friend, the dearest, but my love for her is not pure as her love is not for me." He paused for a moment thinking about what to say next. "Sulpicia and Athenodora remain in this tower for their safety. Many years ago, my sister, Didyme, was murdered and the one who committed this crime was never found. Caius and I, after seeing how Didyme's death affected Marcus, as the two of them were mates, decided that we could not suffer the same way. We brought them to this room to be cared for and guarded so no harm would ever come to them."

"You made them prisoners in their home," I replied in utter disbelief.

"They are content with the situation and understand why it must be this way. We visit them often as does Corin who you just saw." Aro grasped my chin to look up at him as I had looked away toward the door. Our eyes met, and I dared not look away. "Though I should, I do not have you in this tower with them. I keep you close by my side offering you more freedom than you believe you have. If you would prefer to join them, go ahead. I doubt they would mind another companion in their midsts. Perhaps they would be better company than I."

When he let me go, he turned away and left down the stairs leaving me in front of the door to the tower room. I sat down on the landing and put my head in my hands not knowing at all what to think or what to do. Should I cry? Should I scream? The entirety of this realization was almost too much.

A/N: Title comes from the quote, "The iron chain and the silken cord are both equally bonds," by Friedrich Schiller.

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