The Collector

by THE PlNK PANTHER

A darkish Christmas tale set in a world in which the Cullens were not the first vampires who crossed paths with Bella, instead, she met the collector of gifted immortals and his lovely companion.

19. Il Collezionista

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.

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Warnings: Violence, implied/referenced rape, murder and/or vampires killing humans for food, death of a child. This chapter is not exactly mentally stable and might give some readers whiplash at certain points.

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Volterra: December – May

60:17 a.p., Sunday, December 26, 4020, The Castle of Volterra, Volterra, Italy

Darling Renata had a vicious right slap.

Aro's lips pulled up into a smile.

His cracked cheek burned in protest and venom freely flowed down his bitten lips, the sharp sting a bland supplement to his raging migraine, but his smile stayed put. He could still taste bubbly sweet raspberries on his lips, melting on his tongue. Aro licked his lips clean and did absolutely nothing to stop the chuckle which broke free in the steep, dark pathway between the North and the West Wing of the Castle.

It had been worth it, the kiss. She'd even liked it, enjoyed it… for a short while. Anything more, however, and Aro would have needed to collect the shattered pieces of his broken body from the floor of the North Wing.

He loved her so.

Many vampires regretted forgetting their brief human lives. Thought it a costly price. Those fools couldn't grasp what a blessing from Magic it was to forget. It certainly was a blessing for Renata.

She will never remember, for however long she will live, but her human life had left a lasting mark which had carried beyond into her immortal existence.

Perhaps one of these nights those ghostly scars will at long last fade into nothing and set her free.

Aro's hands twitched by his sides.

Touching her always made him lust for bloodshed.

Such travesty it was that Renata had come to Volterra when she had and not sooner. Aro couldn't spill the blood of humans which had been dead for decades no matter how desperately he craved for it. Could not force them to watch as he tortured their mothers and their fathers, their wives, their sons and daughters and their sons and daughters into insanity down in that hellish room watch how one by one their minds and bodies broke under the strain of irreversible damage inflicted by him, but never enough, so every one of those damned souls knew what Fate was to befall them and their own flesh and blood and then only then would he slaughter them in front of the eyes of those cursed beasts which wore human skin when there was nothing human inside them he'd run his red hands through boiling blood tear through skin through sinews crush every last inch of bone, ray of hope of salvation of divine intervention while they are screaming are slipping and rolling drowning in their own and their kin's blood and filth begging him for death death which won't come not even after he rips out their wretched tongues carves out their evil eyes burns off their fucking hands cuts off their knobs feeds them down their throats watches as they chew and choke on their own bloody flesh Stella's blade sings in his hand sweetly promises they'll burn for weeks on end-

"Master?"

Cool stone was pressing back under the skin of his palms, against his forehead.

Aro let his hands fall from the solid stone blocks down by his sides and pushed away from the wall he had, at some point, steadied himself against and saw how Demetri's concerned face morphed into startled alarm.

"Master Aro! Is that-" Demetri reeled back, eyes wide.

Aro felt a jocose smile flip back on his smarting lips, "It is nothing. A minor scratch, Demetri."

Isabella's and Renata's suitcases hit the ground, "Aro… that is… not nothing." Demetri took three mindless steps forward, before he remembered himself.

Oh well, Demetri might have a point. Aro's skull had suffered a fracture or two. And a splitting headache continuously resonated within the left side of his head, but Aro had had much, much worse. This… could barely be considered a bruise.

"What possessed her to-"

"I granted her a favour. One which I collected right after. You see, darling Renata has a nasty habit of not following through on her end, if she believes a negative prescription might apply. Infuriating woman."

Aro flashed Demetri a brilliant smile. Painful. But so worth it.

"I don't understand. But Master. You're still-" Demetri vaguely nodded, motioning to Aro's nose which, as it turned out, had not ceased bleeding venom.

"She hits so nicely, Demetri." Aro wiped away most of the liquid with his hand and tilted his head back, squeezing his nostrils tightly together. "Are you not going to ask what it was that I did to persuade her?"

From the corners of his eyes Aro saw Demetri snap his teeth together and look away.

"I… don't want to know."

Aro laughed.

And laughed.

…And laughed.

Demetri picked up his angel's blue suitcase and Renata's black one.

Somehow, by some greater power, Aro forced his loud cackles to die down so that he could speak despite the strongest urge to keep on laughing.

"Isabella will be staying in Renata's rooms for the foreseeable future."

"…What changed?"

Aro leaned forward and conspiratorially whispered, "She's afraid I won't let her out of mine. Paranoid little thing. Darling Renata generously offered hers."

He felt Demetri's eyes trace the open cracks on his face for a moment before giving a sharp nod, "Master."

Aro smiled sweetly up at Demetri and continued down the steep path to the West Wing to Caius and Dora's rooms from which Demetri had evidently very recently departed.

In fact, the persistent sting of the blow felt quite nice.

The pompous doors to Caius and Athenodora's chambers were closed.

Usually, Aro simply barged inside his brother and sister's rooms because Cai never had the decency to knock before storming into Aro's chambers. Aro felt he was obliged to return the courtesy to his dear brother whenever possible.

This time, Aro faltered.

He raised a hand and drummed his knuckles thrice on the door and the door popped open, inviting him in, permitting his sister's bewildered voice to find him from the inside, "Come in, Aro."

He'd been here… it had been close to a month. Might as well have been years. Nothing had changed. Everything was exactly as he had seen it last. Everything in their proper place.

Except for Athenodora, who was sitting on the windowsill, reading Homer's Margites.

"So polite today," she was wearing a red lace dress. Cherry red toenails were peeking from under the hem. Her platinum blond locks fell over her shoulders in lovely bright waves. Exactly the same as that night, down in the crypt.

She radiated light.

Ora turned a yellowed page.

"Do you remember how your Carlisle tried to steal this magnificent piece of priceless text from the library before he made his escape? I had it cursed, of course. It got a ton heavier with every additional step he took further away from the library. Fifty metres until the poor thing could not lift a mere book off the floor. He thought nobody saw. Adorable boy. You should have kept him, or at the very least fed the poor thing properly before allowing him to run away. He would have finally understood. Would have blamed you, initially, of course he would have, but he loved you then. He would have forgiven you. Would have thanked you. Later. When he finally came to terms with being proven wrong. I'm still mystified why you let him have his way. The longer he postpones the inevitable, the bloodier hell he'll have to go through. I know this, you know this, everyone knows this but the boy. Frankly speaking, he might hate you more for not helping when you had years of golden opportunity, and this is precisely why Cai and I never lifted a pinkie finger to aid him. Because Carly Cullen is an ungrateful brat. Adorable but ungrateful. He deserves every bit of pain that's coming for him. Deserves to be shoved down from his high tower of delusional moral superiority. Cai swears a lily of the valley will do him in. Soon. Very soon. I'm very much looking forward to how that particular event will unfold."

Aro could not find words to express what he felt at seeing her now, for there were no words capable of describing this… this… horrifically paralysing concoction of emotion flooding his soul.

"I'm told it's bound to turn into a bloody spectacle."

He'd stopped talking to her when she had brought Sulpicia home after their plotted werewolf attack. He'd locked away the last decade and a half the very moment Athenodora had dramatically burst inside the throne room carrying a convulsing, beyond-saving Sulpicia in her arms.

"I heard you laughing on your way here. You haven't laughed like that for decades, Aro." He never looked at her anymore. He hadn't noticed. She didn't deem it worthy to bother to spare him a single glance now, knowing he won't be looking back, much less meeting her eyes. He never did anymore. Why she persisted on wasting her breath to speak to him at all he did not know.

"You should laugh more often." Was this how all their conversations had gone for the last ten decades? How could he have not thought it troublesome, suspicious, alarming, to all but pretend Ora did not exist when she was staring straight at him? Standing right in front of him. Talking to him. Or rather at him. How could he have not noticed how deeply wrong that was? Why had it not made his mind wonder? He knew she was there. Heard what she said, but never acknowledged her any more than he would an actress beyond a screen or a reflection in a hallway mirror-

"Do you remember there was a time you used to laugh every night, Aro? Just like that. Well… perhaps less manic. But you've always been manic, so it is a bit of a moot point, is it not? I miss it. Hearing you laugh." Athenodora sadly admitted. "I miss you."

Another ancient page was turned, accompanied by a prolonged sigh.

"Your girl is sleeping at the moment. You just missed her. I suppose Cai wouldn't mind you joining them for a bit, if you wished to see her."

But his standing so very still, not moving an inch towards his brother and sister's bedroom, prompted his sister to look up from the pages in curiosity.

The grip on the book loosened at her surprise.

"Hello, Athenodora."

Margites fell out of her grasp and clattered to the floor.

It was impossible to draw his eyes away from her angelic face. She was so beautiful. She looked like an angel who had flown down from Heaven-

And for all that a hundred years had gone by without him looking upon her face, he could have sworn both of them had been down in Didyme's crypt only yesterday.

Ora was on her feet, however, she stopped in the middle of the room, for once distrustful of her own eyes.

Aro stalked up to her, never losing sight of her shiny red gems which were overflowing with hope. Full of disbelief, of joy, drinking him in while he did the same to her.

But he stopped as well, not quite reaching her.

For he was suffocating, nearly choking on air and he didn't even need to breathe.

She was the one to close the remaining distance between them, and it was so unexpectedly difficult to squash down the sudden, overwhelming instinct to back away from her, and stand his ground-

"What happened to your face, love?" Athenodora asked, reaching up, digging her thumb into the wound on his lower lip.

Aro knocked her hand away and both of them to the floor, his left hand found her slim neck and wrapped around it, adding to the force of the blow when the back of her head collided with the marble floor, adding several new cracks to the marble pattern— spreading a halo from her head, and over the expanse of the polished floor.

A hiss slipped over his lips, "I hate you so much." He did. There was none he hated more than Athenodora.

A single beat, and Ora's lips thinned as she smirked up at him.

"Do you? Do you really? Are you sure?" His fingers squeezed her neck harder but she kept on that infuriating smirk, kept on talking- "You have a funny way of showing how much you hate me, love. I'd even ask you to show me again, but alas, my husband's in the next room. So is our daughter. He might be okay with you… hating me- however. It means not he or she needs to listen to it happening—"

The slap across her mouth, however, shut her up at once.

Ora huffed a laugh as she worked her jaw and moved her head back up so that she was face to face with him once more, eyes full of merry amusement—

I reckon I deserved that—

"I forgave you once. You didn't deserve my forgiveness, but I forgave you anyway. And Cai too. He knew and he let it happen anyway, again and again—"

A hand softly carded through his hair—

"Aro… Didn't you know you can't rape the willing?" Ora's voice was pure honey, "And you were always willing, love," which cut him up like shrapnel. "Always."

He drew in a breath which stabbed his lungs, filled them up so violently they could not withhold the pressure, "I was drowning in grief, I was suicidal, my mind was in pieces! playing tricks on me every waking moment. I couldn't keep down the little blood I forced myself to consume. The agony of it all was ripping me apart, killing me from inside out, but never fast enough. You knew this—"

"So did your wife and she did nothing. Did you forgave your Stella too? Like you forgave Cai? When she had washed her hands clean of you and found herself someone else who was not so bloody unstable anyone could take advantage anytime?" Ora laughed, taking great delight from whatever she saw in his face, "Of course you didn't. For in that demented, warped mind of yours none of the blame did ever lie with Stella. Did it? There was nothing to forgive her, now was there?"

Aro ripped his eyes away from her laughing face.

Didyme was kneeling by them. Glaring lightening daggers at their sister.

"This time I had hidden myself away in the furthest place I could think of so none would find me! Not Sulpicia. Not my twins. Not Renata. None of the Guard. Especially not Eleazar. But you did. You found me. You are the only living person apart from Cai who truly knows how my gift works. Why I wear gloves even when I'm fine. How dangerous my gift is to everyone else but especially to myself. And yet you kept touching me. For hours. You were plotting the best way to kill my wife, so I was plotting the best way to kill my wife. For hours. You knew I would feel everything you were feeling, would have done anything you wanted me to do. Whatever fucked-up things you wanted to do to me, I let you do them to me. You wanted to hear my screams, and I screamed. I screamed so much. Until I couldn't scream anymore. Do you remember that."

Aro let go of Athenodora's neck and flew off her. "You fixed my face, but half my brain remained shattered. It took days for the damage to heal—"

"I was comforting you! You should be thanking me for distracting you from your piteous moping. From feeling sorry for yourself because another one of your whores broke your heart. Pathetic."

Contrary to Renata, his sister didn't need her hands to slap him. Her words never failed to attain the same effect, when she wanted them to.

"You say the sweetest things, sister. I see you haven't changed one tiny bit." Aro turned his back to her, heading to the door behind which Bambi was shedding her mortal shell for an immortal one.

"Stop." Athenodora called to his retreating back, but he didn't slow down and he didn't turn around.

"I said stop." His legs came to a halt without his permission.

He hated her so much. There were no words to describe the depth of his hate for her.

Ora took his hand and led him to her favourite armchair by the window overlooking the deserted, flooded Piazza dei Priori, pushed him down into the soft cushions and climbed atop his lap, pressing herself against him as close as physically possible. Her hair was soaked with her lovely vanilla scent, making his head spin.

"I won't say sorry, in case you are expecting an apology." Ora calmly let him know. "It would be a lie and I'm not sorry."

She had never been sorry. She hated what she had done, to an extent, "I never have been. Not about this."

…Just enough to be slightly perturbed, but she had never been sorry or felt true regret. Of course, this was not a secret to Aro. Nothing was a secret for him- All right. Nearly nothing. There were a few secrets his little bird locked within Renata's chambers had safely locked away in her mind from everyone but herself. Not to worry, Aro will unravel every last one of those secrets.

"I've missed you. You dumb vampire. We both missed you." Ora breathed into his neck. "We thought you won't come back this time."

"I… Ora, I was never gone."

"A hundred years, Aro! You hid away for one hundred years. Treated me less than you would a stranger." Athenodora sniffled, hugging him impossibly closer to herself. Just as tightly as he was hugging her back. Happiness and disgust of having her in his arms again after all these years warred inside him while love and hate was tearing his soul apart.

And it was unbearable.

He hugged her tighter still. Hid his face in her hair. Let his lungs fill with the sweetest of vanilla and tried to will his nausea away… "Forgive me."

"Don't fucking make me cry. Of course you're fucking forgiven. You're so bloody stupid sometimes."

Time was flowing, nowhere near as fast as it should, but eventually, Ora shrugged out of his arms, leaned back, and did a clinical assessment of the damage done to his face.

She huffed, shaking her head in wonder, "There isn't a damn thing in this world that girl won't do for you."

"No." No, there wasn't a damn thing Renata would not do for him, if Aro asked.

"She'd try to kill me, if she knew."

"Yes."

"She might even succeed."

"Yes."

"Then you better don't tell her, love."

Aro would have lost any blood or wine to Ora's floor just now, if he had drunk anything within the past hour.

"I won't."

Athenodora smiled. With her mouth and with her eyes. Her hands brushed his hair away from the left side of his face, exposing the slowly mending cracks.

"Phillippa shouldn't see you like this. Wait for your face to heal or let me." There was a question within her scarlet eyes, which softened the longer she waited, "You forgave me once. You'll find it in your heart to forgive me again." In his cold, still heart which had been broken and smashed like china so many times he'd lost count and it was a miracle his heart was still there, resting in his chest; and so it went against any logic, for him to feel the pain of a piercing, white-hot knife being forced inside it—

"Sister is begging to be boiled alive." Didyme sang into his ear, startling him. "As vampires are wont to do. You never approved, but it feels amazing, Brother. You know it feels amazing. Even if you've never done it yourself. You should have a taste. It'll take your mind off the things you cannot change. I promise you – a simple head-ripping will never give you the same power-rush again. Do it! Make Athey stew! I'd be more than happy to do it for you if not for the inconvenient aspect of having no hands…"

"Aro?" Athenodora's light brows scrunched together into a frown. "What is it?"

"Nothing. Everything is fine."

She knew he was lying but she didn't pry for she knew he was never fine. Less so in her company.

"Which one will it be then?" Athenodora prompted him to choose.

"Water or oil, Brother?" Didyme excitedly demanded. "We have plenty of other, more exciting options to choose from as well. Sodium nitrate and sodium hydroxide, Hydrargyrum, fluoroantimonic acid, deoxyribonucleic acid, plenty of that available, isn't there-"

He looked away, right at a grinning Didyme, "You."

Lovely, diabolical, blue-eyed Didyme. "Me."

Aro heard Ora's own answering grin before he saw it.

The storm outside had become willfully violent, raindrops turning into hailstones which were clashing against the reinforced glass of the window panes, louder and more dangerous as the ice increased in mass.

They must have woken Bambi up.

If he allowed himself a moment of weakness, he would find himself back in the crypt. On top of Didi's casket.

For the woman he loved and hated to the point of agony was so close to him, as if she had never left, her deceptively soft and gentle hands in his hair, fixing his face again, perfect mirror image of the last time she was filling the cracks in his face with her own venom. Licking over his bitten lips. Kissing them.

She stopped kissing his lips when they had healed, and pressed her forehead to his.

Is your head cracked inside this time as well?

"It is."

I can't help you with that.

"No. But it is nothing. Few hours and I won't feel a thing."

Hm. Delicate, greedy fingertips traced down his newly repaired skin, sank into his hair, down the back of his neck, slid underneath the collar of his shirt, where they did not belong. You shouldn't have made her hit you. I know you think it is nothing... By the looks of it, Renata seems to have been careful with you and while it's certainly nowhere near what Sully did to you—

Love… You should know better than anyone that head injury and mental illness do not mix well together.

"You confuse me for a fragile afternoon meal. I'm not."

Do you not use your head for thinking? Your eyes for seeing? Do you not feel pain? Did you not stumble and fall when you tried to get up from the floor where Sully left you? Are you not terrified of being abused and overpowered you would willingly sleep only with fragile afternoon meals, even when you know they will die in less than a blink of an eye and rip your heart out anyway? Terrified out of your mind of being abandoned by them so you kill them yourself for any misstep? Do you not eat children because you blame them for the suffering Sully put you through and because killing them makes it hurt a little less for a split second?

Are needed a moment to find his voice.

"Never hurts less. …But it fills me with joy, knowing she's rolling in her grave. A short-lived bliss, as you said."

Aro.

All of that.

It matters not to me.

I love you anyway.

Always.

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Upon entering Cai and Ora's bedroom the first thing he saw was his young friend.

She was lying in the centre of the green silk sea of the large bed, engulfed in his brother's arms. She reminded him of a Brazilian Pinkbloom Tarantula with her long, slim purple legs and black downy sweater. But tarantula's couldn't cry, and Bambi was crying silent tears all over her beautiful face, which was the palest he had ever seen. Most of the warmth of her skin had already been leeched away by venom. The intense dark blue of her eyes betrayed, perhaps for the first time, how non-human they truly were… had always been.

Caius watched him from above Phillippa's head; followed Aro's every move with sharpened attention.

Aro moved past the mint green shell armchair, which was left by the left side at the foot of Caius' spiked poster bed, and he dropped to his knees by the side of the bed.

"Why are you crying, darling? You shouldn't be losing the littlest amount of precious liquid. You need every drop." Aro switched his focus from Bambi's wet face to Cai's piercing stare, which as always seemed to see right through Aro, for an explanation.

Eventually, his brother answered, but not before lifting that heavy stare off Aro's person, and looking over Aro's head, to the door to the parlour where Athenodora had gone back to reading her cursed book.

"There was shouting next door." Cai drawled. How awful… Aro had still feebly hoped they hadn't been loud enough to wake Phillippa up but apparently— "Woke our little mermaid up."

More tears ran down her cheeks. She shifted around and pressed her face into Cai's shoulder to smother the painful sobs which rippled through her body.

Mermaid… Given the tremendous surplus of water crashing over Volterra's roofs and streets as well as half the Italy, it wasn't a bad guess, if not for the fact that mermaids were all but extinct and most certainly didn't have two legs to walk on land. Another kind of water creature then—

"I'm taller than you, Master Caius." Bambi mumbled into Cai's silk shirt, very possibly leaving a nasty and very much intentional drool spot on Cai's white shirt. "I… My daddy didn't like the fishtail people. He once said to me: 'They think the Ocean belongs to them when in truth it is them who belong to the Ocean.' …I. Friend, I'm— …Daddy also said a long dead civilisation was to blame for the fishtail people's disturbing existence, he— God… —he told me their fishtail people will go extinct very soon, just the same as their big cats will. Daddy said they… 'were wiped off the face of the earth by the Ocean for playing God but… not all. Some survived. But those who survived. They weren't human anymore.' I can't believe I remembered that. I couldn't have been older than a couple of months when he said that to me while he rocked me to sleep in the middle of the night. I—" Phillippa peeked her wet face out of Cai's shirt, "I can't— S-sorry. It feels like someone shot a bullet in my heart and it got stuck there. It's so horrible. What happened to you. I don't want anyone ever hurting you. I loathe the thought of you coming to any harm. How could anyone…" Phillippa glared at the wall by the door behind which Ora was lazily turning yellowed pages.

…Oh.

Oh, no.

They really should have been much quieter.

It was not often he did not know what to say, for what could he say when ice cold rage filled his friend's soul. There were no quick words to provide a remedy for the utter loathing for her new mother Aro saw swimming within the dangerous deep blue waters of her glacial eyes.

He should say it didn't matter, what she had overheard.

That what happened to him made no difference. That it was something which did not concern her.

…That it hadn't been as bad as it had sounded from this side of the closed door.

Aro couldn't get any of that past his lips.

It would appear he needed a day or two to convince his tongue to cooperate and act in his best interest.

Perhaps his head not splitting in two would help.

"Aro has come a long way from Seattle to see you, Phillippa." Caius put an end to the expanding silence. "Made some poor choices along the way," the left side of Aro's healed face was given a look of mild disdain. "We shall not make it more unpleasant for him than it has to be, child."

"How can you be so heartless—" Cai pressed a hand over Bambi's mouth.

"Leave it be."

Cai's lips brushed against her forehead.

The hand slid away from her mouth and both his brother's arms embraced Phillippa's waist and chest in a more comfortable looking hold.

Aro couldn't stand to watch her cry, so he let his eyes travel around Caius and Ora's bedroom.

He hadn't been here himself in such a long time. His mind had shied away from his brother and his sister's rooms even in Cai's memories.

It was a lovely room. …Objectively speaking.

He still didn't like being in here.

"It's just a room, Beloved." Didyme's ghostly arms entrapped him not unlike the ones currently around a silently crying Phillippa. And then his sister whispered into his ear-"Nothing happened to you in here."

True. But it still belonged to Athenodora.

"Why don't you think of something nice? When it was just you and me. When Athey and Cai were not yet born in faraway lands. When we were young and ambitious and the world belonged to just us two. When all I had was you and all you had was me. Think of our wedding day. When our Empire bore witness to the union of their gods and millions celebrated together with us. Or better yet, you could think of our wedding night. When we finally retreated to our rooms and you refused to let go of me. When you slid your arms around my waist and pulled me against your chest. When you kissed my neck and vowed you'd love me forever. When your lips tasted every bit of my skin your hands undressed. When you turned my red wedding dress into silk bonds and tied me to our bed and made me forget my own name. When blood lost power over us. When we reigned for two thousand years until absolute power had well and truly lost its appeal and we traded it for an untouched island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, which was every bit as much Home as the Palace had been, and watched from afar how without us our Empire fell like a bird falls without feathers. When you still watched me with that same look as you did when you stole me away from our childhood home. When I—"

"Aro. Are you well?" Caius was watching him with a great deal of caution and displaced worry. When he was not searching the room with well-grounded suspicion.

"—sold Cai for parts to the lowest bidding sailors and watched on as he was shipped away to remote seas!" Didyme yelled right into Caius' concerned face.

Phillippa flinched. And looked awfully confused as to why she had done such a thing.

Aro burst out laughing, for Cai's funny face had turned so white the colour should be called by a different name.

Fate… It had been so impossibly funny when Didi had ripped Cai up and distributed his body parts among several ships which had well and truly scattered him around the globe. Hunting down all of Caius' pieces and putting him back together had been an adventure of the century.

Aro could barely recognise the warm sound for his own laughter.

None made him laugh like this except Didi.

And wasn't there something deeply wrong with the universe that for once not sounding mad scared others more than his customary deranged cackles? At least Phillippa had stopped shedding senseless tears for him because apparently no one had told her she should be afraid when Master Aro lost his broken, out-of-tune laugh.

He reached for her hand, finally wanting to make sure the transformation was progressing exactly as it should, even if slower—

—but let it go as if it had burned him.

Didi wrapped her arms tighter around his neck, "Don't you dare even consider it. She never knew of your rules. She did not betray you. And she's not yours anymore."

"Friend?"

"You'll regret it for the rest of your long life."

Aro looked into Phillippa's confused eyes and cautiously reached for her hand again.

He tried to not see too much or rather precisely that which he did not wish to see… but as always, he saw everything.

Phillippa's heart was drumming quicker and quicker the longer he didn't let go and remained silent.

Aro was going to put Felix back together and then he was going to skin him.

There was stupidity, and then there was premeditated stupidity.

The first kind could be forgiven. The second kind… not so much.

Felix had grown too sure of his worth and Aro's leniency towards his Guard's fuck-ups. What good was a dog which bit his own Master, time and time again?

And for what? For not letting them (Felix) keep their (Felix's) own humans in the Castle anymore for the sole reason of ending the pointless and everlasting drama and fighting over the Castle's pet-humans when there were millions up for grabs outside Volterra's walls?

For not allowing Felix and the rest of the family to terrorise those unlucky ones which were hired as their secretaries to keep all of the family content— simply because there was always a living human who willingly resided in their home— something which had the wonderful side-effect of keeping the more violent edge off of those who still needed it.

Or forbidding the family and Felix to kill these willing men and women years before their natural deaths would otherwise occur for no reason other than Felix's or the Guard's (or Caius') short lived entertainment? (For it had never been of any importance how competent these humans were, all that was ever needed of their secretaries was to live in the Castle, be present and accessible to anyone who wanted a bit of human interaction without having to pretend to be anything other than their genuine immortal selves and without being met with resentment and the constant fear which always, always clung to prey.)

Because Felix fell in puppy love with a human who did not return the sentiment, and he didn't know how to deal with the rejection.

Or was it because Aro wouldn't pass his friend over when Felix made a fool out of himself in front of Aro and Cai and Marc by professing his undying love for the blissfully oblivious girl on the other side of the throne room door and requested permission to rob her of months of human life because Felix was so sure that her being a vampire would magically make her like him back and they could live happily ever af—

It was too nauseating to recall.

"You've been quite naughty in my absence, my young friend."

"Aro, about—"

"A mischievous little thing, are you not? Spilling my wine, killing my trees."

"Cutting off heads. Cooking vampires. I've been a bad, bad influence on you, Signorina Camilli, have I not?"

"Aro, no—"

"Going through my things."

Aro tsked and turned his eyes to the ceiling before he looked back down into Bambi's guilty eyes.

"Did you like what you found in there?" She looked away, but unfortunately her cheeks refused to colour.

"My top favourite as of yet – The Scaring of Catholic Priests."

"Aro—"

"Not telling on the bears. Don't you think your parents ought to know about the illegal stash of jelly candy which will be consumed right before bedtime?"

"Caius said-"

"Brother has been telling you things he shouldn't have told you."

"And pray tell what secrets, which most of the family have no idea even exist, have you spilled to our little mermaid while drunk out of your mind, brother dear?" Caius silkily asked, but behind that fine silk, razor sharp teeth gleamed, "Darling Phillippa is more of a liability by your own doing than seeing her human family again could ever come close to matching."

Aro levelled Cai with a look full of disdain.

Caius choice of response was a condescending rise of a colourless eyebrow. Bloody infuriating bastard.

Aro diverted his attention back to Phillippa who was hanging onto every word spoken between the three of them. It was apparent, however, that she was exerting too much of her strength to stay awake. They should let her give in to Morpheus Pull at the earliest convenience.

"Listen carefully, child. If you decide you want to go back home,— I won't deny you this —you can never tell Martina, Giuseppe or Leonardo the truth. Their time will run out just as fast as yours did. It is the price of knowing our secret. Your family can never know."

"You mean—" Aro felt Phillippa's heart fall and gave a firmer squeeze to their joined hands.

"We knew you would not live long, when we hired you. None of our secretaries live long. It is imperative your family never find out, for if they do, there is nothing I or Athenodora could do to save either of them short of offering this life as a stand in for death."

"No!" Phillippa vehemently denied, "Never."

"Then do not tempt Magic and keep your lovely mouth shut. Lie, deceive, mislead. Do whatever you think best. So you don't actually have to make these kinds of decisions."

Phillippa's lips parted, but soon her pale mouth closed without her saying anything, and she wiped her eyes and nose clean of tears and snot into Cai's shirtsleeve, before burrowing closer to his brother, in a more comfortable position, and let her head rest limply against Cai's chest. Her eyelids soon lost the valiant fight against exhaustion and fell shut.

Aro moved their hands into a more comfortable hold and looped his fingers through hers, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand.

"You are going to be marvellous." Aro whispered to her. "You will live a very long life, Phillippa. A life full of love. You will be so happy. Immortality has always been written in your stars, in every line of your palms. You will wear it like a crown. You'll see."

She was slipping further and further into unconsciousness, but it will take a few short minutes until then—

"I found someone special in the States. Took her home with me. You'll love her too."

"A stray kitten?" Phillippa whispered back, her lips barely moving.

Aro gasped. "How ever did you guess!"

"Daddy Caius already cautioned me to refrain from getting prematurely attached to your new pet, Master Aro. He said you might need to put her down which would make me sad for no good reason. His words, not mine." Her mouth formed an exhausted smile.

"Cai is full of shit, darling."

"We can't choose our parents."

Aro breathed out a laugh and pressed another kiss to her rapidly cooling hand.

"Sleep, child."

Phillippa breath caught in a weak smile. "Then stop making noise, friend."

Aro did shut up so that she would finally slip back under. It took less than a minute. The change took enormous amounts of energy. The biochemistry and physics behind the transformation was something out of this world. It was a miracle how the venom worked ninety nine point ninety eight per cent of the time when it should never have worked at all.

Aro loved Magic.

"Welcome back, Brother." Cai quietly greeted when it was clear Bambi had drifted off into a deep slumber. "It took twice as long for you to find your way back this time."

"It was much nicer inside my head where tragic lies were less evil than the truth."

"We took her ashes back to England. Buried the funeral urn among the graves of her blood family. We thought you wouldn't mind."

"No. I don't mind." Sulpicia would have loved to rest with her younger brothers and sisters. "She would have preferred an open field to the Crypt any night. Thank you."

Aro got up from the floor.

"You are more than welcome to stay until her Waking." Caius offered in a low voice.

"I wish to see Felix before that. I'll return shortly."

"Try not to kill him, if you can." Caius when Aro's hand turned the doorhandle.

A dark smile slipped on Aro's lips.

" …Thank you, Cai. For everything."

"Always, Brother. Always."

.

8?:93 ?.m., Sunday, December 62, 4002, The Dungeon of the Castle of Volterra, Volterra, Italy

The miniscule oxygen levels ensured the Castle's lovely, deep and dark dungeon could not be mistaken for any other random radon filled hellhole. The labyrinthine rock tunnel leading him through the dank basement level which housed the holding cells on either side of it usually tended to have a calming effect on him… set his mind at ease.

The door to the Dungeon was in a remote location, well-away from the main halls and hallways and was spelled to permit entry to only those who had been granted permission to enter the Dungeon. That being said, he'd done some additional work since Bambi had started working for the family. She was far too nosy for Aro's liking while having the infuriating knack for shaking off vampiric hypnosis. He'd never been successful in putting her under a thrall. It just… slid off her like water from a duck.

He'd been worried sick she might accidentally walk past the doors one day and see them. Decide to stick her pretty head where it did not belong and go exploring and lose her way in the underground tunnels, which were designed to mislead those who did not belong, trip down one of the numerous flights of stairs in the perpetual darkness, suffocate from lack of oxygen if she found herself too deep beneath and with no quick way back to the surface. In the end, he'd resorted to putting the Dungeon under lock and key. …The usual way.

Most everyone of the Guard had done time down here.

It did wonders to cure sudden fits of idiocy.

Today, however, Aro did not feel the calm magic of the basement.

Aro walked past empty cell after empty cell—

…until he spotted one which was occupied. How fascinating… Aro had completely forgotten about this unlucky vampire drying out in here…

His stride had never slowed down, however, and he continued to move further in the belly of the mostly empty Dungeon.

Another empty cell, empty cell, empty cell.

Empty cell, empty cell.

Emp- full cell, empty cell, empty cell, full cell, empty cell—

Aro hadn't been down here in person in such a ridiculously long time. Decades.

Because sometime during the years of purging the world of werewolves, drowning himself in wine and doing everything in his power to erase from his memory a period of his life which he could not even now recall without feeling the echo of the agony his soul had been thrown into, Aro had somehow, somewhy changed his MO of incarcerating instead of heating the fireplace with idiots for the dumb turns they took on the moronic way they had chosen to tread their immortal lives, and by doing this immense yet never once appreciated or thanked-for kindness for the Stupid, who — Fate be willing — would (and often did) see the error of their ways if given a taste for the consequences of tripping down their moronic ways led straight to the dead-end of a Volturi Cell.

Aro dearly hoped there were no other uncomfortable cuts to his golden ratio for ruling their kingdom, which he was Fated to stumble across in the coming days or weeks or months until he regained the last suppressed memory and thought. Every last irrational action. Every disproportionate punishment he'd dealt out in the past century.

Every needless execution.

But Aro's feet had at long last brought him to a stop in front of Felix's cell.

By the looks of it, dear Jane had chosen one of the most cosy dungeon cells for Felix's storage. Meaning – there was a chair on which the coffer with Felix's fat head was left on.

The fool's headless body was still zipped up inside the body bag on the floor.

The temptation to simply kill his disloyal minion and be done with this insubordination was nearly irresistible. It nearly won him over. It would be so easy. So easy. So easy. So easy. So easy. As easy as snapping a child's neck. Everything in his being called for making Felix pay with his life for touching what was his, for almost taking away Aro's young friend from him.

Contrary to what one might believe, Aro was acutely aware of the grossly rash decision to come see Felix right away, but Aro couldn't help himself. He craved to know if there was any point in trying to preserve the life of his untrustworthy servant. But one much loved by many of the Guard. By his children. Aro loathed the thought of having to take another dear person away from Alec. Especially so soon after Allegra. …And his mother. Alec did not deserve to be put through such suffering. So sadly, this was not a situation in which Aro could afford himself to be selfish.

Holding onto that thought, Aro walked inside the cell through the magically enforced tungsten bars which did not succeed in as little as causing a tickle to run though his body.

Aro paid no mind at all to the black body bag which was between the chair with the shiny coffer and just so happened to be right in the middle of Aro's direct path to it, so Aro was completely and absolutely blameless for stepping on the bag while he crossed the cell in order to get to the shiny box and if he accidentally kicked the obstacle in the ribs while he overcame the bump in his way, he too should not be held accountable.

Aro looked down at the gleaming stainless steel coffer. It was big and small at the same time. Encrusted with what on first glance seemed the most delicate flower blossoms, however, closer inspection revealed they were flowers made of snakes. The cold metal under his finger pads housed hundreds of thousands of snakes. Not his work. Not Didyme's either. Didyme had always favoured her spiders over snakes.

This one was Athenodora's.

It was beautiful. A work of art. A true masterpiece. And it made every sense why Felix's head was in there. Cai had grabbed the first coffer he saw from the closet in his rooms.

Aro hated that box.

Aro loved that box.

He wanted to destroy that box.

Yet his fingers continued to trace Athenodora's meandering snakes.

Enough.

He took his hand off the cool steel, flipped the ornate catch locks up on both sides and pulled the lid of the box open until it hit the back of the chair.

Oh.

Oh, Dear Fate.

The sight which greeted him made the migraine raging inside his head not quite as excruciating and despite the pain, his face was projecting his joy for nobody to see anyway.

He had known this, better than Bambi herself, but she had a vicious, vicious streak in her.

Because Felix's head looked dreadful!

All his raven black hair, eyebrows, his eyelashes were singed off, and there were spots on his bald scalp where skin had started to melt, and especially on the right side of his cheek. A waxy hole where Felix's ear should have been.

Felix had been through countless fights, alone and together with the Guard in the name of the Volturi, but never had he been left in such grave shape and form. This was without a shadow of a doubt the worst condition Felix had suffered in his considerably longish and eventful vampire life.

Because of a girl who didn't love him back.

Some people chose to learn the hard way.

Thinking about Alec and Demetri and the rest of the Guard who loved this massive idiot more than Felix surely deserved and how profoundly devastated they would be if Aro would listen to the insistent voices inside his head which urged him to retaliate in kind— Aro reached inside the coffer with both hands and lifted Felix's unresponsive head out of it.

A thousand years were a lot to take in at once for Aro. So much information in so little a time. On top of a migraine no less, but this was Felix. He was one of the most uncomplicated if mischievous souls inside the Castle. Frankly, basking amid Demetri's mind and now viewing Felix's life was a lungful of fresh air after getting caught in the clutches of a mind belonging to someone like Athenodora. Demetri and Felix could never hope to hold a candle to the dangerous inner world of darkness and brilliance which sucked you down in the dark, hazardous waters and blinded you with the light of a thousand suns and never released you without a struggle and never once left you unchanged, which exposed you to cruelty and evil and boundless love for your brother and for your children and for Magic Herself and for the wonder of Creation and for you but most of all to the passion which burned inside her soul with an icy flame, always, and which could give life to the most wonderful miracles seen to man and which could just as easily suck the life out of anything standing in it's path—

But this was Felix (who was slowly blinking into consciousness because his head was not inside the coffer's subduing influence anymore).

No black holes to be sucked into.

Only angry, reckless mischief. Almost-malicious mischief at its worst. Because naming a few dozens of vehicles after Aro was the worst Felix could think of doing, then Felix clearly didn't know the face of proper revenge.

Felix truly did love Bambi, the poor fool. He was in love with a slightly distorted version of her but he did love her. Phillippa? Still very much did not love Felix. Aro doubted she ever will.

Felix had not yet had the time to process Friday's events. Hard to do from a mind-suppressing box.

Aro suspected Felix will greatly regret going to the Camilli' residence for a very long time to come.

For he would have ended up unintentionally killing Bambi if it weren't for Cai and his gift of magical daggers and for pure blind luck that Phillippa had one of them at hand and that she was in a position to physically use the cursed blade on someone with Felix's height. If she'd been someone of shorter stature, someone Jane or Lily or Corin or Renata's height, even someone Isabella's height, someone whose arms might not be long enough to reach all the way around Felix's neck unnoticed and have the leverage to slice Felix's head off in one swift swing—

Aro should have never left his young friend alone. He should never have gone to Japan and left her alone in Italy. He'd been assured ten times over by Cai that nothing will happen to her here while Aro was visiting Sadami. And look how that turned out. The family had strongly wanted Aro to get out of the Castle, hoping that a change of routine and seeing an old friend would somehow work in favour of Aro finally getting better. Besides, the argument Cai had latched onto was that nothing bad had ever happened to Signorina Camilli in the Castle. And that everyone liked her. And it was true - even the vampires who came to the Castle to do business with the family quickly became enchanted by her.

Everyone but Felix had been too intimidated by Aro's increasingly frequent indiscriminate killings so any traitorous thoughts of actually harming their secretary never surfaced long enough in any of their minds to end up in disaster.

Aro had had full trust that none of the family would harm her.

He hated making mistakes. They haunted him. He should have taken her with him to Japan, should have never let her out of his sight, should have not left her here, alone, unprotected, vulnerable to well-intentioned lovesick fools who decided to take matters into their own clumsy hands behind Aro's back.

What had Aro been thinking, going to the other side of the world, leaving for weeks.

Felix's terror filled black eyes was staring holes in Aro's face—

Anything could have happened.

Felix's mouth parted in slow motion.

Anything—

"Pad… ron—"

Aro let the fat, bald head fall to the ground.

It landed with a loud, unpleasant bang.

"Aro. Padrone Aro, per fav—" the head started making noise from the floor by Aro's feet.

"Chiudi quella cazzo di bocca."

Good to know Felix could still follow direct orders for he shut up momentarily.

"Do not beg. I do not want to hear your begging. You broke into my human's home and you nearly killed her. My friend almost died. Because of you. She may still die. If she does, so will you."

Felix's head looked relieved.

If Aro were in Felix's place (Aro would never be in Felix's place) he too would wish to know if the girl he loved was dead or alive.

Phillippa might still die during the next few days, but Aro's intuition didn't believe she would. Not after seeing her with his own eyes.

If Felix was to be left alive for the sake of the family, he needed to be reminded why touching Aro's friends, why touching Aro's humans, why touching his soon-to-be youngest child— and why breaking the Law, of course, did not end without dire consequences.

Aro took one final extended look at the detached vampire on the floor before he left the same way he entered the cell — through the tungsten bars.

But how to do it?

.

16:01 p.m., Sunday, January 16, 2005, The Kitchen of the Castle of Volterra, Volterra, Italy

Bella was in the kitchen, sitting at the pink marble kitchen table and feasting upon her favourite strawberry sundae. Renata was across the room, typing something on her laptop. And maybe it was because Demetri was sitting at the same table Bella was having her delicious dinner and teaching her Italian between the bites of her sugary treat.

Bella took her time to properly enjoy the gelato melting on her tongue while she leisurely observed the vampire who was animatedly explaining the importance of rolling her Rs the proper way.

Bella liked Demetri a lot.

She swallowed her strawberry treat in her mouth and stabbed the spoon in the remaining pink ice-cream. Demetri meant well and Bella appreciated that so fucking much—

"Demetri. Stop." Demetri quieted down, "I get it. I do. My Rs are real important so that I don't sound like a fucking tourist who has glued a pocket-sized dictionary to their fucking palm! But it's fucking difficult! My tongue does not work like that."

At first Demetri had looked displeased but the longer Bella talked the more visibly concerned he became.

"Kid… You'll learn how to do it eventually, I've no doubt but… You have got to stop cursing so much."

Bella snorted and picked a Chile cherry by its stem from her glass bowl and put it in her mouth.

"Listen to me, kid. Master hates cursing. He's being uncharacteristically patient with you, but his patience isn't limitless. I suspect you are one or two fucks away from a nasty punishment."

Bella stopped chewing the flesh of the cherry and spitted out the pit in her empty cocoa mug.

"What?" Bella whispered. "Punishment? Demetri, not funny."

Demetri's face grimly stared back at her.

"Does it sound like I'm laughing?"

"You're wrong."

"I'm not wrong."

"Renata!"

Renata's fingers never paused on the keyboard, "What, Bella. I have to agree with Demetri on this one, because you don't listen to us. I've told you to rein it in for the last two weeks. Appears you prefer to learn the hard way. And you're free to do so."

This was so not what Bella wanted to hear!

A little compassion wouldn't go amiss right now!

"Phillippa poured five hundred bottles of Aro's favourite wine in the sink without any consequences whatsoever! She also threw his orange trees in the trash!" Bella whisper shouted at Demetri, "Aro never did anything to her for either of those things! What is a little bit of cursing compared to destruction of his property?"

For a moment Demetri looked stunned, as if he hadn't been aware, and perhaps he hadn't but he recovered remarkably fast—

"Master Aro gave Phillippa drugged chocolates as a Christmas present. Knowing all too well she would give half if not all of them to her little brother. Master Aro deserved each and every spilled wine bottle and he knows that."

Bella felt her jaw hit the pink tabletop. Figuratively, of course.

"What the fu-"

"Kid! I'm telling you—slow down with the f-word. You won't like the consequences."

"I will. Slow down, I mean. Not like the consequences, obviously, whatever you think they'll be. But drugged candies? Why would Aro give her drugged candies. That's… I don't even know what to call that." Didn't Aro go totally psycho on Demetri for giving marijuana to Phillippa for Christmas? All the while Aro himself had done something arguably similar but much, much worse?

"What do you understand by drugged? What did he drug them with?"

"Venom."

No way. There was no way. Aro wouldn't. He wouldn't. He… Would he?

"It makes humans act like cats on valerian. Master thinks it's funny."

Bella could do nothing but dumbly stare at Demetri's sincere face for a long time, then turned her head all the way to her left and looked to Renata who wasn't paying them any mind. Bella sadly turned back around and scooped up melted spoonful after melted spoonful of her neglected sundae. But she couldn't even stress eat properly.

The spoon clattered inside the glass bowl yet again.

"What could Aro even do to me? Kidnap me some more?" Oh, she knew there were countless unpleasant things Aro could do to her, but she refused to give form in her mind to any of them. She had enough nightmares as it was. She didn't need more.

Demetri's cool hands reached over the table and wrapped around her trembling fingers, "Master wouldn't harm you, please know that."

Bella hated how suddenly it was so much easier to suck in air into her stiff lungs.

Demetri lowered his head, trying to catch her eyes until she had no choice but to look back. "Okay, kid?"

Bella bit her lip but nodded. "Okay." And a huge smile lit up Demetri's face, making him look so much younger and happier than he usually looked. Because Demetri never smiled much. And small, sad twists of the corners of his lips did not count. He was always so serious. Bella hadn't heard him laugh once. It almost seemed like a part of his soul had died sometime during the past nine hundred years. There was no brightness there, in his bright red eyes. Was it because of Renata? Was it because Aro kept his friend locked up in the dungeons and had forbidden Demetri to visit this Felix even once? Or maybe his eyes were half-dead for another reason entirely. Bella didn't know.

Bus she smiled back. It was beyond her control to not smile back at Demetri's beaming face. If she didn't know better, she'd think Demetri was using his vampire charm on her. On second thought, he probably was using his charm on her, but it might be this was nothing more than Demetri being Demetri. Simply being his illegally hot vampire self. In any case, Bella didn't feel he was messing with her mind. Not like Aro had attempted to do—

And speaking of the devil—

The little hairs on Bella's forearms stood on end.

Demetri released her hands and leaned back just in time before Aro appeared in the kitchen doorway and—

"What the fuck are you wearing!" Bella blurted, incredulous. Her irrational fear having taken a temporary leave of absence. Because Aro was dressed in a Cornflower blue, weird- ridiculously looking dress... or a robe— No. It was a dress.

"Is that a Lord of the Rings cosplay costume?" Because Aro totally looked like a High Elf right now. In a strikingly blue floor length gown with huge long sleeves that reached to his knees—

Sense returned to Bella together with a sharp slap of Renata's open palm on the top of the table she was sitting at, and sense returned together with Demetri's deafeningly loud closing of eyelids, and sense returned together with Aro's widened black eyes and surprised expression which morphed into thin black slits and something too dark for Bella to ever think him a Light Elf anymore.

Shit!

Shit shit shit shit!

Fuck!

Oh, fucking fuckity fuck!

Bella was a fucking idiot. Without an ounce of self-control.

"This is a traditional Chinese Hanfu, young Isabella." Aro's silky tones spread through the kitchen, they seemed to wrap themselves around her neck, because it was so hard to breath again and Aro glided into the kitchen and just when Bella was sure he would go straight to her, he turned to his right and went to sit with Renata on the other side of the room.

Thank God.

The kitchen was very quiet.

Bella looked at Demetri but she acutely felt Aro's dark eyes on her face.

"A present from my first wife."

First wife?

Demetri looked just as clueless as Bella.

"I didn't know you've been married twice, Master Aro!" Renata exclaimed in shocked wonder. "Circe! What happened to her?"

"She left me." Aro hummed. Aro's eyes were still on her. And they were hungry. But hungry for what?

"She's dead now." Jesus. He must know how that sounded like.

"How did she die?" Gosh. Bella couldn't believe she had just asked that. Or that she was looking back at Aro when she categorically didn't want to do any such thing—

"By fire."

Shivers rushed down her spine.

And she couldn't look away from that horrifically beautiful face.

"Angel?"

"…yes?"

"It is unbecoming for a young lady to curse like a drunken sailor."

"Excuse you! I've never cursed like a drunk sai-" her words cut off because Demetri placed a firm hand on her wrist. And for some reason, Bella still couldn't look away from Aro. It was becoming awfully freaky.

"You are my responsibility now. I feel like I'm letting you down, angel." Aro said, not breaking eye contact. "And I feel darling Renata and dear Demetri are equally guilty of this crime."

Still looking at her with black, predatory eyes.

"The International School of Florence might provide a breath of fresh, profanity-free academic air for you, angel."

"What?" Bella couldn't believe what came out of Aro's infuriating smirking mouth just now. "Are you fucking kidding me? No! First you kidnap me and now you're sending me away?! To school?! School! Fucking school? What for!? In another city no less?! No!"

"Angel. Don't be dramatic. It's for your own good."

"No! I'm not fucking going!"

Aro did not find her amusing.

"Enough. You'll go to the school for diplomats' children or you'll go to the boarding school for nuns. Both are in Florence. The choice is yours. The International School of Florence or Istituto del Sacro Cuore."

"Renata!"

Her vampire roommate was trying not to smirk herself. But Renata's heart clearly wasn't into trying very hard. Traitor!

"You'll start on Tuesday."

"De—" A coughing fit hit Bella out of nowhere.

"You have one day to prepare."

Bella couldn't stop coughing.

Her eyes were watering but she still saw through them how Aro's head was tilted in slight, clinical curiosity.

"Best of luck, kitten."

.

13:19 p.m., Friday, February 4, 2005, The Throne Room in The Castle of Volterra, Volterra, Italy

There was something magical about the shrill soprano voice of a squealing human child.

Amongst the many other screaming human voices in the throne room, that of the chubby child stood out from the rest. The boy was running around the room, uselessly trying to find a way out. He slipped on one of many puddles of freshly spilled blood, fell to the floor and rolled to the side. His round body bounced all the way to the first step of the dais, his soft, meaty back hitting the pointy toes of Aro's black ankle boots.

Aro gave a light nudge with his left boot to the boy's soft ribs. The answering pained, high-pitched yell was a wonderful amalgamation of terror and pain.

Aro hummed. The kick had not been nearly that hard…

The blond child rolled on his lardy belly, lifted himself up on his tiny hands and knees and with surprising agility bounced back up and ran off.

This was Aro's cue.

"Corri, piccolo porcellino. Corri."

He stepped off the dais and stalked in pursuit of his fleeing meal, weaving through the Guard and their kill. The boy tripped over a detached arm belonging to a drained woman with bubble gum pink hair and fell again, emitting another panicked yell, his little heart pumping fresh, young blood and adrenaline, double the dose of adults. Which was simply…

Yummy. Aro's Dinner scattered backwards on its hunches until it hit the round wall. There were no corners in the Dinner Room to hide, to squeeze into. Nor should there be.

The boy wrapped his thick, tubby arms around his striking form and tried to make himself as small as possible. Commendable effort, but with this type of perfectly round yoga ball torso, it was a very hard thing to pull off. The child had begun to loudly cry and as a result, fat crocodile tears were now pouring down its red, snotty face.

Aro stepped over the Bubble Gum Girl. His regal and pretentious and thirty pound heavy black velvet robe dragged behind him over her corpse. From his right, Santiago ripped open someone's jugular and a gush of warm blood sprayed the right side of Aro's face. The air was so very heavy with iron that Aro closed his eyes and took a blissful moment to bask in the screams, the frantic hearts and the thick air of blood and fear and death taking place all around him.

Aro's eyes sprung wide open.

In his peripheral vision he noticed the Bubble Gum Girl was silently crying by the door. Still too afraid and shocked to approach anyone. An older tourist came to stand right next to her; he put his hand on her shaking shoulder in a paternal gesture of compassion, but she didn't seem to be able to see or feel him.

Aro lowered himself on his hunches right in front of the shivering blond child.

"Tanti saluti, piccoletto."

The child made a high-pitched squeal from fright, his face shooting up to meet Aro's expectant stare. "Giovane porcellino, che succede?"

The child tried to wiggle away from Aro but a firm hand on the boy's puffy shoulder pinned him nicely to the wall. "No, non così veloce."

"AHH! LET MEEEE GOOO! AHHHNOOOO!"

Aro cocked his head and blinked his eyes, "Lasciarti andare?"

"MOOOM! MOOOOOMMY! MO-" Aro's hand wrapped around Aro's Dinner's windpipe.

What pathetic life Aro's Dinner had led. It felt like Dear Mommy had fattened little George up just for Aro. As if she had known all along. Made him wonder why the boy's birth name was George and not 'Aro's Dinner'. Dear Mommy would look for her victim soon, if she wasn't already, but it was of no consequence. And really, Aro was doing little George an immense favour, sparing him years of abuse.

Aro let go of Aro's Dinner's throat and listened to the lovely coughing. But then!

Then Aro's Dinner tried to take leave without permission and crawl away.

And Aro let it crawl away, a bit, but dragged it back by its ankle when it was almost out of Aro's arm's reach. "Non lasciarmi."

But Aro's Dinner was a stubborn one and tried to get away yet again.

"Andrà tutto bene," Aro cooed and pulled his dinner back once more by the other ankle.

It tried to escape the opposite way. Awww… And how cute was that!

"Porcellino? Dove stai andando? Porcellino! Porcellino! Torna qui!"

Aro's Dinner's clothes were soaking up the wasted blood from all that excess crawling the piglet did on the floor. Pity Aro never had very long to play with his food when he was attending family dinner.

Standing back up to his full height, he noticed that most of the eaten were gathered around the room, mutely looking at the growing pile of their mortal casings in horror. He leaned down and snatched the child up by the sides, his fingers sinking into the warm fat-

"NOOO! DON'T EAT ME! DON'T EAT ME! DON'T EAT M-NOOOO! MOMMY—" Aro looked through the one way glass, located old Rosario's compact fruit and vegetable market on the far side of Piazza dei Priori and pulled a shiny, red apple from the vendor's produce through the closest tear in space— saw it disappear from Rosario's apple basket the same instant the apple's weight fell into his palm and his fingers closed around the round fruit, and without preamble Aro stuffed the fruit in the boy's wide, noisy mouth, "—MOmmmph!"

None of the humans were screaming anymore. The last ones were currently being drained behind him.

Aro's wriggling Dinner was soon squashed against Didyme's pink tainted glass, one hand between the child's shoulder blades, Aro's other one smashed the blond head against the reinforced glass, putting an end to the excessively energetic squirming, and possibly spilling a bit of caramel pudding flavoured blood on the windowpane.

Aro finally let his teeth bite into the thick, red neck.

While Aro sipped from his treat, he looked down upon his city's main square, eventually letting his wandering gaze drift back to Rosario's Market. To Rosario who was currently gathering persimmons for a young couple who lived three streets away from the Castle. Aro felt bad for stealing from the old human. Rosario had been selling oranges to Aro for the last five decades. And never once had the old vendor been impolite to Aro. Or looked at him wrong. Many humans were guilty of this crime, but Rosario was not one of them. And while Rosario was aware there was something not quite right with Aro after fifty years of being acquainted with him, Rosario never called Aro out on it. Aro liked him.

Aro's caramel pudding bloodshake was rapidly running out. Heidi must have gotten a kick out of snatching this one off the street for him… Aro sucked the last ounce of blood from the boy's dead body, making a mental note to visit the old human this evening and return the money for the stolen fruit. Perhaps he should purchase a box of fresh oranges. It was time to replace the old ones in his rooms.

None of the tourists were alive anymore. There were no pulsing hearts inside the Castle except for Gianna's rapidly beating one right outside the door. All the shades had taken their leave as well.

Aro threw the boy's body backwards over his head on the very top of the pile of the other thirty-nine cooling tourists.

But Aro's attention was suddenly captured by the pink glass and his breath caught in his throat.

"Oh, no…" Didyme's glass indeed had blood on it. He'd stained his beloved sister's magnificent glass window with food. Aro frantically pulled out a white handkerchief from his inner breast pocket and quickly cleaned off the blood left from George's head and the spot where his clothes had smeared the pink glass with blood not his own, as well as the tiny red handprints.

There. All better.

He spun himself around on his heel. Many of the family had already left.

The sooner you left, the bigger the chance you won't have to be the one to clean up. This task fell to those two not quick enough to make themselves scarce before becoming the last ones in the room. The pile was…

Aro supposed there was a kind of magnetic beauty to a grand pile of dead humans. He threw the bloody handkerchief over the Bubble Gum Girl's horror-filled eyes – there was no need for post-mortem dramatics. George was on the peak of the pile, just where Aro had intended to put him, like a cherry on top of a strawberry sundae Isabella loved so much.

The red apple was still glinting in the boy's mouth.

21:00 p.m., Sunday, February 6, 2005, the Castle of Volterra, Volterra, Italy

Aro was on a mission.

He hadn't seen Bambi for two whole days, ever since he had watched with tremendous relief how she snatched the impressive ginger twins all for herself at family dinner, and only then had he allowed himself to prowl after his own meal.

Today was supposed to be their first wine party since her Awakening, and Aro had been looking forward to hosting it with great anticipation, but eight o'clock had rolled around and Aro could spot neither hide nor hair of Bambi anywhere near his rooms. He felt as if everyone was avoiding his rooms for some reason as of late. Never before had she missed a single one of their parties! A single one! Never.

He'd waited an entire hour for her to show up and when that hadn't come to pass, he'd gone looking for her in Caius and Dora's rooms, thinking that perhaps Cai was not letting her, but they too had no knowledge as to where their one month old daughter had disappeared off to. Athenodora and Caius were terrible parents. They were worse than Phillippa's human mother. No wonder they had never wanted a child. Poor Bambi.

Poor, unlucky Bambi.

.

21:21 p.m., Sunday, February 6, 2005, Chiesa di San Francesco, Volterra, Italy

Aro loved Chiesa di San Francesco.

Especially he loved Chiesa di San Francesco at night.

His steps over the cold stone nave filled the darkness, instantly projecting the expanse of the church and its intricate structure inside his mind.

He sat down on a pew near the apse and slid down next to Phillippa.

She was looking straight up at the altarpiece.

And not at him.

"Do you find your God's company worthier of your unlimited time opposed to being in mine?" Aro eventually asked.

"I do." Phillippa answered without sparing him a glance.

"Ouch."

"I'm surprised you were not exorcised the moment your foot hit the holy ground of this church."

"I'm older than your God. He has no power over me."

"You are not older than God." Phillippa replied without missing a beat.

"No. I'm not." Aro admitted with a pleased smile, looking around the empty church. "This church was built on my land following my orders. The same as all the other churches in Volterra. She's mine. She knows it. She's here only because of me. She's grateful. Wouldn't you, in her place?"

Aro had always felt unconditionally welcome in Chiesa di San Francesco. And he felt welcome now.

Bambi remained silent.

"What is troubling you, my child?"

"You are."

"Ouch! Aren't you snappy today, Signorina Camilli… And here I was, under the mistaken impression you enjoyed my company as greatly as I enjoy yours."

"I love your company, Master Aro."

"Then how am I troubling you, child?"

"You do evil deeds. And I still love you. You trouble me greatly."

Silence fell over Chiesa di San Francesco, but her words still floated around them, disinterested in their short life and quicker death, pretending it did not happen. Stubborn words—

"You didn't see, too engrossed by the boy's screams, but I wanted to help that child. A stupid thing to do under any and all circumstances, I know. I know that. I knew that. I was forcibly restrained. Lectured in length to never go after another's meal, especially yours. And all I can think about ever since the day before yesterday is that every future dinner I'll be forced to attend, I'll have to witness another child's murder. It breaks my heart to see you not only killing but murdering little children. Not for the blood but for the fun of it."

Her eyes flashed in the darkness.

"I know now it is a load of utter horseshit, you preferring children's blood over that of adults. I saw you. Playing with him. I couldn't believe my eyes. And my ears. You never crave for their blood at all, do you, Master Aro? You just can't wait to snuff their lives out." Bambi still refused to look at him. "I can't believe I was so blind back then."

"You didn't want to see."

"The family didn't act as if it was something strange — what you did with the boy. Only Emil, Corin and Master Marcus looked somewhat displeased."

"They held onto their mortal conscience when they should have let go of most of it. Makes for a hard existence."

"I did the same. I held onto mine."

"Of course you did. There was never any doubt you would choose to retain yours."

"After dinner I went to ask if Emil or Corin knew why you… They couldn't tell me. What they did know was that you weren't always like this. So I went to talk to Master Marcus."

"Oh, Fate have mercy on you! However long did you have to bellow and bang on his door before Marc dragged his miserable self out of his dusty bed over dustier floor and opened the creaky door to permit you inside?"

"Four fucking hours."

"Then you should consider yourself very lucky."

"Those rooms… there is something not right with them. I had this creepy feeling someone was watching me the entire time I was there. Someone who wasn't Marcus. But it was just the two of us there. Gave me the chills."

"Sister has been visiting lately. I'm afraid Marc cannot tell."

Phillippa's eyes bore into Aro's. Her white face was glowing with confusion in the lightless space some would falsely name pitch black darkness.

"…Didyme?"

"Mhm."

"You mean your Didyme? Your dead sister Didyme. Who's dead. Has been for the last four hundred and sixty-four years."

"So? Being dead is nothing more than an alternate state of existence."

Bambi leaned back, finally! staring at him with wide, incredulous eyes. Cinsidering whether she should believe his outlandish claim about being able to sense his dead sister or not. Soon enough Aro saw her giving up and choosing to believe him. Smart girl.

"…I feel sad for Master Marcus. He must have loved her very much. Even if she was a monster."

Aro's eye twitched.

"He worshiped her. Plummeted to the bottom of the chasm when he fell for her. It is a long and difficult climb back up. But he is climbing."

"I'm glad."

"We all are. It has not even been five hundred years since her death. Do you feel how time means so little to you now?"

"I do. I feel like I have all the time in the world. Makes me feel… safe. Free… in a way I have never experienced before. There is no worry I would not wake up tomorrow. If sleep was still a thing. There is no hurry left for me. The world has stilled down to shine with brilliance and perfection. Every moment is absolute. It feels… as if time is flowing… undisturbed… but I am not a part of it. No more can time touch me."

Aro considered her words, finding them absolutely true, but it was such a self-evident truth to all vampires it hadn't warranted any serious contemplation for someone his age in more than an aeon.

"Over the centuries, knowing the minds of humans and vampires alike, I've come to an observation that five hundred years for a vampire feels somewhat similar to five years for an adult human. Or it might feel like no time has passed for us. Marc is merely taking a little bit longer to recover from his loss than most vampires would. He'll be fine. Perhaps it'll take another five hundred years until then, but he will be fine. You'll see."

"I think I will." Phillippa finally gave him a quick, sharp smile.

But soon enough it fell from her pale lips.

"I asked him why you began killing children. When you hadn't before. I thought to myself: someone in the Castle must know. I would have asked Caius but she was there."

"Child… Dora is a phenomenal vampire. She would be a wonderful mother to you, if you would let her. She is incredibly smart. And beautiful. And she's clever. Sister possesses as much magic as I do. She could teach you so many wondrous things, Phillippa, if only you would let her. Your judgement of her… it should not have been swayed by what you overheard. It's… between her and me. We've always had a… complicated relationship. Those things… those things were not meant for your ears and shouldn't have tainted the relationship between the two of you. For that — I sincerely apologise."

"Apologise? Apologise!? You have nothing to apologise for, Aro! I would never rather not have heard, otherwise I might've been tricked into believing she was a decent person! I'm so mad at her on your behalf. I can feel the rage boiling inside my chest. Things break around me whenever I let myself think in depth about— I try not to, but just one glimpse of her…" As if proving her point, the wooden pew in front of them cracked with a loud noise.

Aro leaned forward and saw a huge gap spreading through the middle of the bench.

He was impressed.

Such power to someone so young.

He pressed his hand down on the split wood letting his magic do his bidding and return the pew to its previous, untouched wholiness.

Aro reached for Phillippa's clenched fists and pulled them over to him onto his thigh, and encased them with his own gloved palms. "Friend. It has been a hundred years. I'm not worth all this rage you are piling up for her. Let it go. Hate will eat you out from inside. It's bad for the soul. Does nothing but harm to you."

"But—"

"It's in the past. You cannot change it. I cannot change it. That is impossible. No one can change the past. Not even I."

"How can you—"

"A year before my sister died, Europe was touched by a devastating draught the likes of which we had not seen for hundreds of years, if ever. October, November, December. January, February, March, April. The sky shed not one drop of water. Land was burning. Forests went up in smoke and ash. Wells ran dry. Riverbeds could be crossed on dry feet. Animals were dying. By springtime, humans were starting to die too. The heat was unbearable – for them, not for us. Thousands died from heat alone, but it was the thirst and contaminated water which claimed many more. There was no sign a lone rain cloud would drift our way during the entire summer to come. From those humans, who were not claimed by the hellish summer swelter, millions would have starved and hundreds of thousands would have died from famine during the next winter when fields of grain were scorched soil and game in the remaining woods were dead or dying, and a layer of rotting fish covered the surface of green lakes.

"The rain would have come eventually. The family could always find a human, there were still plenty around despite the draught. We would have been fine.

"It was Dora who persuaded Didyme and me to help her help them. To travel to the High Tatras and summon heavy rain clouds from thousands of kilometres away and to open them over all of Europe. Makes me sad you did not get to see, darling, for you would have loved it. Water energy flooding the entirety of continental Europe. Rain giving back life to everything it touched. Every dead inch of land. The staggering amount of raw power the three of us channelled and melded together on that night… and then unleashed into the sky during those long hours… We did not merely use magic. We became Magic. There are no words."

"You made it rain over all of Europe?"

"We did!" Aro brightly exclaimed, happiness brought on by the memory as strong as ever.

"You made it rain so millions wouldn't starve?"

"We did. She's… not all evil villain. Athenodora."

Phillippa snorted.

He sighed.

Aro will simply have to try harder.

And he had all the time in the world now to change her mind.

"Tell me— what intelligence did you bully out of our poor Marc?"

Phillippa sneaked a peek at him out of the corner of her blue eyes but remained silent.

"Bambi?"

"Master Marcus said your wife, queen Sulpicia… Marcus said she lost her mind. Shortly before the werewolf attack."

Bloody Marcus.

"Anything else?"

"Master Marcus told me that… that she turned cruel. Especially to you. I didn't want to believe him. …I might have accidentally cracked a few cherished items which had belonged to your sister. I thought he was being untruthful." Phillippa guiltily admitted.

"He started panicking. Begged for me to leave. His stupid curly head was whipping around in fear for her damned leftover junk! Most everyone is walking on eggshells around me, thinking I would bite their heads off any second. I don't understand why."

"They see you as a baby, not even two months old. And Phillippa?"

"What?" she peevishly hissed at him, blue irises glinting in warning. Aro couldn't help the answering grin, full of sharp teeth.

"Babies are dangerous. Volatile. I'm not giving you ideas by telling you this, but right now? for the next year or so? you are stronger than any in the Castle. You wouldn't necessarily win a fight, because you don't know how to fight while they do, but… your magic keeps lashing out at blameless furniture! They all saw what you did to the poker table and it was a gigantic die of volcanic glass."

"They tried to cheat."

"Everyone cheats at poker. They're afraid a similar Fate might befall their own persons. They're naturally wary."

"Nooo. No, no. Master Aro. I would never. I wouldn't do that! No. That's not me." Phillippa pleaded.

"You wouldn't. Your magic would. It's highly temperamental. And finally? They knew you before your Awakening and they're afraid you might desire to pay them back for wanting to eat you while you were a not-human."

"A what now?"

"A human. When you were a human. You heard wrong."

"You, my friend, are being unnecessarily weird." Phillippa scrunched up her nose and shook her head, "I'm not mad at them."

Bambi looked so, so guilty. "…Aro?" As she should be. Going behind his back, asking Marcus instead of Aro himself. She must have thought he wouldn't have told her anyway. Perhaps she thought he would forbid her from seeking her answers elsewhere, if she would have asked her questions directly to Aro.

"I'll make a wild guess. Marc was so freaked out you would break all of Didi's material possessions that he let slip why I despise children so much." Phillippa's gaze dropped to the back of the front pew. No question if she had found out or not. Bloody Marcus.

And Bambi was no longer trying to pretend she hadn't overstepped her bounds.

"He was very upset. About Didyme's things. And about saying too much. I've never seen him so frantic."

"Serves him right. He can't get a word past his lips for years and then he runs his mouth the moment Didi's hairbrush is threatened. Disgusting."

"Can't you let go of the hate you have for them?" Phillippa miserably pleaded. "Take your own advice. Let it go. It's madness, blaming children for their existence! They're helpless, innocent, little humans. Please."

"You would rob me of those short minutes once every month in which I can taste the sweetness of revenge on my parched tongue?"

"Friend, she's dead! Sulpicia's dead. She cannot hurt you anymore. She's probably not watching anyway and has no idea—"

"Oh, she is watching. I know she is—"

"They are children! Children! They played no part in her sinister ploy! It's not their fault, what happened to you! There had been toddlers among the tourist groups, back when I sat behind that damned desk! …You vile, selfish creature."

How horribly curious and how dreadfully unpleasant how mere words could deliver such a blunt blow, if told by the right person.

He took a moment to repeat to himself over and over that Bambi was a brand new baby and emotions were ruling her.

"I have let slide such insolence from you, poppet, but you shall not speak to me this way again. Disobey, and you'll be shown to a lovely dark cell down in the Dungeon. You've more than earned a place with your name on it down there by now. It won't matter who your new mummy and daddy are. They won't bail you out."

Phillippa scowled, her eyes full of disdain. "I feel sorry for you."

"One more jab, child, and you'll feel sorry for yourself."

Phillippa ripped her hands out of his with a frustrated cry of anguish.

After some while she turned her face skywards and opened her glazed, dark eyes to the stone ceiling.

"I want to hate you for being like this, I really do. It would be much, much easier to just hate you. Hate you for all the evil things you have done. For all the evil things you will do. But I can't manage to muster up a sole shard of hate for you, opposed to the chilling hate I have for that evil witch. My heart refuses."

A harsh contradiction to experience for one so young.

"Because I love you. I love—" Her voice gave out and she turned her head away from him, "I want to help you, but there is nothing I can do. I want you to stop, but I don't know what else I could possibly say… or do, to make you listen."

Aro took off his right glove and reached for Phillippa's deathly pale hand, which to him felt lukewarm compared to the memory of the scorching heat of her original, mortally hot-blooded touch, which was permanently burned into his mind. "I am listening, child."

"Then why can't you just stop? Why! I want you to stop. Please. Please, stop. Stop this madness. Let them grow up. Let them have a life. Please." Bambi's brilliant blue doe eyes beseechingly searched his own, droplets of venom clinging to her lashes. "Please."

"You want me to… stop. Just like that."

"I am begging you to stop. Please. Friend." Bambi was beside herself, being filled with inexhaustible energy after her Awakening yet completely powerless in putting an end to Aro's diabolical deeds. Blaming herself for being so blind and ignorant when she herself had been nothing more than one of their expendable secretaries. But how wrong she was. She'd never been ordinary. And she had so much power of which, blessedly for Aro, she knew nothing about, and he couldn't look away from those beautiful blue gems, which never should be overflowing with despair and pain because he put them in there.

"Stop killing children." His young friend whispered, searching his face for something- something which evidently was not there for her to find. Perhaps she was trying to see into his soul. Pull on some loosened heartstring of his when there weren't any for those snivelling, snotty animals.

"Caius told me I should be careful what I wished for, just before I left the Castle tonight. Because apparently nothing comes for free in this world." Phillippa moved to face him directly, folding her knees under her, right in front of him on the church pew. "So I told him that I would pay whatever price these was to pay, to which Caius snorted, as if I had said something incredibly stupid. He gave me this look. Full of pity and a dash of disdain. Then he simply said that it won't be me who would have to pay it. He seemed… resigned. Reminded me to not touch any Volterrans and to return home before dawn. And then he went back to his knitting." Bambi admitted with slight dread. She was wearing a beautifully knitted peach cardigan, obviously his brother's exquisite work. Caius was overjoyed, at long last getting to knit something other besides scarves and one colour sweaters for someone else apart from himself and Aro, because Dora would never wear anything which wasn't made from the finest silk, especially not something as plebeian as wool knit sweater.

"But I know I will never forgive myself if I didn't even ask. So I'm asking. No, I'm begging. Please, friend—"

"You shouldn't believe Cai's premonitions to be absolute. Once upon a time he also claimed that I will fall in love with a Catholic girl."

Bambi's eyes widened and Aro witnessed the lovely moment when astonishment and laughter stole into her soul.

Her lips stretched into a slow, wide grin, "And did you?"

"There are roughly one billion Catholics under the sun. This should tell you something about how precise Cai's hunches are."

"Did you fall in love with a Catholic girl, Master Aro?"

He gave a lethargic blink, averting his eyes from Bambi's twinkling blue gemstones and let them fall on the altarpiece in front of him.

"Valeria didn't want to become a vampire. I asked her every day and she would always refuse, forbidding me to ask her again but knowing I would ask her the next day anyway, hoping like a damned fool she had change her mind during the night.

"She died in her sleep on one of the very rare nights I didn't spend together with her.

"I found her in the morning. Cold. With a smile on her blue lips. I tried to wake her up. For the first time, her lips were so, so silent. How could they not be, when there was no soul hiding underneath to sing to mine. For a while I thought I'd gone deaf. But no matter how hard I tried to wake her, how long I shook her or how desperately I begged—"

Aro felt Phillippa's heavy stare on the side of his head.

"Valerian was—" Aro cut himself off, "Valeria was an extraordinary woman. She would have been an exceptional immortal."

"I'm sorry you lost her, Master Aro."

Surprise made his head shoot up to stare at his friend. He felt… Bewildered, in face of her sincerity. "You are the first person to say this to me." But this was his Phillippa. Her huge heart shouldn't come as a surprise for him anymore. "Thank you."

Phillippa's eyes lost focus, as much as a vampire could lose track of their surroundings. Her new baby teeth sank into her bottom lip. Soon, she was staring right back at him.

"I didn't want to be a vampire. Just like her."

"I know. But here you are."

"I was ready to die. I thought you would… be the one. To kill me. Not Felix. It felt so wrong, when he bit me. It was not supposed to happen that way. It was always, always supposed to be you."

"Darling… I would have done the same exact thing Felix attempted to do. Granted, I would have gone about it differently, I wouldn't have broken into your house, and I wouldn't have lost all sense to your mad blood, but I would have tried to give you immortality."

"You said you would offer to change me. You knew I'd…" Phillippa's face twitched, "…turn you down."

"I didn't care."

"So you lied to me."

"Of course I lied to you."

"Why."

"Because I'm selfish. Because you're my friend and I wanted to keep you. Because you were too young to die. Still are."

"You know who is too young to die, Aro? Children. Toddlers. Pregnant women."

"That was not me."

Poor Bambi. She'd been so sure it had been him who had drained the pregnant woman. There hadn't been any doubt in her mind.

He'd robbed her of her voice.

Aro leaned forward and softly brushed the tips of his thumbs over her cheekbones, mindful of his deadly sharp nails, and peered into her eyes, so she could see the truth in them, "Darling, it wasn't me. I could never."

She didn't want to believe him, he heard it in her soul, could see it in the perfectly smooth lines of her shell-shocked face-

"I could never."

Phillippa had her work cut out for her, it seemed.

"I…" Was he really considering— "Phillippa… I…"

…he really was, wasn't he.

Aro brushed away the tears freely flowing down her cheeks, marking them with quiet sorrow.

No baby should know how to cry.

"Look at me." Anything to spare her this kind of turmoil. "There won't be any more children in the tour groups."

"…W-what?"

"I won't needlessly kill another human child."

"What? …What? Did you— I don't. I don't belie-"

"I swear on my magic. I will not harm another human child without due cause."

Magic whirled through the church. Without noise. Without leaving any trace—

Oh, for the love of… Aro surreptitiously let his eyes quickly roam all the paintings and sculptures by the walls and was quite exasperated by the sharp grins with gleaming, pointy teeth that now were on every saint inside Chiesa di San Francesco. And all of their wide-open eyes were staring at him.

Very funny.

Magic had a dreadful sense of humour.

Virgin Mary on the wall to his left had the gall to wink at him and run her too-long tongue over her pointy canines.

Aro's grip on the side's of Bambi's face tightened. She really should not see this.

"Do you see? There is no reason for you to cry over this, poppet. No point to dread the next dinner. Heidi won't bring another child inside the Castle."

"God, that's s-such a lousy promise." Bambi sniffled, but a strangled laugh escaped her amid the horrible tears, "I can th-think of at least twenty-three loopholes on top of my h-head."

"But it counts because I meant every syllable."

"Twenty-nine now."

"Child-" Phillippa threw her arms around his shoulders and drew him into a crushing hug which—

"Thank you."

—would have cost her her head if anyone saw-

"Thank you, thank you, thankyouthankyou-" Phillippa breathed right into his ear, hugging him tighter—

"Phillippa. Not so tight."

"I didn't dare to hold any hope you would actually listen to me— It sounds too good to be true, but I'll fucking take it—"

Aro tried to free himself from the death grip of her arms but she clung to him with considerable force, not wanting to let him go, enjoying having enough strength to do something as seemingly innocent as pulling him into a hug, when it was anything but harmless. Bambi was stronger than the average vampire. And Aro, due to his age was much weaker than the average vampire, if one dismissed the staggering amount of magic permanently coursing through his veins. One thought and he became indestructible. But here and now, having a lovely conversation, not calling forth his magic, he was the squashy one.

"Child! Please… not so tight!"

One of her hands found his neck and her nose pressed just below his ear.

…Oh bloody fuck no. Panic stole inside him and Aro desperately tried to rip himself out of her arms but his struggles were utterly useless—

She took in a deep lungful of air and—

Nononononononono no no!

"Not so tight! Phi—" her lips touched the skin of his neck and there was no way he could get away, not without injuring Bambi, but it will hurt so much if he didn't get free before her lips moved apart—

"Pleasepleasepleasedon't!"

Her breath caught on his neck just as the tips of her teeth scraped against his skin and she reared back, immediately loosening her crushing hold on him, "Aro… I'm so sorry, Aro." She sounded so incredibly guilty. "I-I didn't mean to-"

Aro closed his eyes and took a very long moment to ride the pain out.

It could have been so much worse. So much worse…

Aro didn't want to dwell on it, but being bitten was excruciating, and having his venom sucked out of him—

It was about the worst physical pain a vampire could feel.

"I'm so sorry." Phillippa repeated, "I don't know what came over me. It's just that you are so… squashable—" Aro hated that word, "—compared to everyone else I've touched since my heart stopped— And you are so incredibly soft and you smell like the sweetest ambrosia— God, your blood must have been irresistible— And why do I want to smother you to death?" Bambi voiced inside the otherwise silent church, her voice thick with horror.

This is why he preferred humans over vampires.

Humans lacked one very distinctive and infuriating trait most vampires possessed.

"You are not the only one." Aro consciously shuddered, which had the immediate and desired effect of making him feel slightly better, "Stella always made fun of me for being vampire catnip. Come close enough and vampires would always try to wrap themselves around me. …One way or another."

Bambi's horrified face made him laugh aloud.

"You'll see many of my vampire friends desperately trying to go for a hug when they see me. It's absolutely ridiculous, but I must say I'm not as invincible as I used to be. And because I'm… squashy- squashier, they tend to squeeze me that much stronger than they used to do years ago. Stupid vampires." Aro petulantly added.

"God… Master Aro. I didn't know."

"Don't feel bad. Most aren't aware they are doing something profoundly odd unless it is pointed out to them."

"I'm very sorry. I promise I won't ever hug you again—"

"Child. Don't be silly. I love your hugs. That will never change. All I ask is for you to not break me."

"I won't break you, Master Aro," Phillippa sincerely promised as Aro stood from the church bench and headed to the door.

"Follow me."

Phillippa easily fell into step beside Aro, "Where are we going?"

"We are unfashionably late to our own wine party."

A huge grin bloomed on his friend's face, "It's still on?"

"Of course, it is still on."

A pearly laugh filled the darkness as she accepted his offered elbow and looped her own arm through his.

"What's the theme for this one?"

Aro grinned.

"Merlot."

.

3:30 a.m, Saturday, March 12, 2005, The Dungeon of the Castle of Volterra, Volterra, Italy

"It is a very grey Friday afternoon, and naturally the pleasantly warm and dimmed coffeehouse in one of the quieter streets inside the majestic shadow of Sacré-Cœur is more than half-full of chattering humans who have found refuge inside this low-profile coffeeshop with a hot cup of tasty beverage of their choosing as well as enjoyable company, also of their choosing, and how ever could they not? when it is one degree Celsius above zero outside this lovely hole in the wall establishment that caters to one of the most basic needs of these tasty, warm-blooded creatures. None of them notices that something is suddenly so very amiss, so immersed in their own small worlds they are. The coffeehouse smells strongly of roasted coffee beans and chocolate and honeyed almond biscuits and whiskey and wine and rum and sugar, to say nothing about the young blood living inside the patrons. With every step I take further inside this tantalising human sanctuary, I see more and more faces, but none belong to the girl I am looking for. Until I see her. She is sitting alone in the far right corner by the back wall under a bright green Calathea lutea, colloquially known as the Cigar Plant. There are other humans occupying another table on her right but none are sitting with her. Actually, none of the tables are free. Now that I have her in my sights I easily recognise her but she's grown so much in the past year. I cannot tell how young she is by her looks, but I know she celebrated her nineteenth birthday a couple of weeks ago. She looks so small under the large cigar leaves, just a slip of a girl… it's quite the fascinating paradox, don't you think? The weather outside has made this laughably easy for me, or perhaps the day of the week needs to be given some credit for the fortunate lack of empty tables in the cosy coffeehouse. I order a hot Blood Orange Rum, and with my steaming drink burning my hand raw I make my way to the back of the room where the girl is reading what I deem to be some kind of science textbook. She has a messy ginger bun on top of her head. She's wearing large, round glasses in thin gold frames which properly bring out the green in the blue of her irises—"

"YOU FUCKING SON OF A—" Felix launched at him, but Aro's foot connected with Felix's neck before his once most loyal watchdog could get one more empty bark out of his dirty mouth – or reach Aro – and threw Felix down on the ground, effortlessly breaking Felix's back with a painfully deafening bang.

Aro was by Felix's side in less than a hundred's of a blink of an eye (in truth, no time had passed at all), his hand striking down on Felix's throat and pushing down with crushing force, taking a little bit of solace in listening to Felix's agonised scream as his neck was being rapidly pulverised underneath the immeasurable force behind Aro's palm. The fool tried to break Aro's arm with his own, shove Aro away, get free… but the might of magic had no beginning nor end. Before magic, vampire strength equalled to nothing. There was no escape from the weight of eternity when it seized you within its claws… it was one of many tastes of hell – being buried under something which had no form, nor definition – and knowing deep down in your eternal soul there was no end to the torment…

No salvation.

This was how pure guilt felt like. Mixed with the intimate knowledge that there were no amends to be made which could ever be enough, no payment high enough— there was nothing you could ever possibly do to make up for your sins—

Most vampires had chosen to forsake such an inconvenient, unimportant thingy as guilt.

Forgot it existed. How it felt like. How horrendous it was.

A quick reminder in the most absolute, most potent form… It was the kind of torture which mortals would sometimes recall in their nightly terrors. How Hell had felt like. Most Immortals had forgotten all about the existence of either Hell or guilt. As if they were above such a thing as Reckoning. Ignorant fools.

Soon enough Felix's screams died down for he was on the verge of blacking out. Which was counterproductive to Aro's current objective.

Aro pulled away and rose to full hight, and looked down at the pathetic, crying mess at his feet.

"Never mention my mother."

Aro sat back down on the chair. Folded his legs. One over the other. His red clad ankle started to move on its own. He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair and he leaned his chin into his palm, drumming his red nails on his cheek.

"Where was I— Oh, yes… Louise has round spectacles in narrow gold frames resting on the bridge of her cute, freckled button nose, which properly bring out the green spots in her stunning blue eyes, almost the same shade as the Cigar Plant above her. She lifts up her drink from the table and her soft, full, red lips close around the brim of her coffee cup and she takes an absentminded sip, her undivided attention fully transfixed on the physics text resting on the table in front of her.

In few steps I am standing at her table.

'Excusez-moi? Mademoiselle? Puis-je me joindre à vous? Toutes les tables sont prises…' I ask, and Louise's head jolts up, and she looks up at me and her heart picks up speed in her chest. A blush rises up her neck and then reaches her freckled cheeks and high cheekbones and she instantly looks away from me and quickly assesses the lack of unoccupied tables for herself, likely missing how one of her hands reaches up to her lovely neck and finds the delicate gold chain and then the cross innocently hanging between the lapels of her shirt, misses how her fist closes around the cross over her white shirt, the first two top buttons undone. She draws in a steadying breath and flickers her eyes back at me long enough to stutter a quiet 'D'accord'.

Shy.

So shy.

She's so very shy.

"Merci beaucoup."

Louise's lips quirk up and a quick smile forms on her lips, so I can now see she's wearing braces.

Felix, she is such an adorable creature.

Louise softly clears her throat. Brushes a nonexistent ghost of a strand of her coppery ginger hair behind her ear. "De rien."

I dip my head in quiet thanks, even if she is pointedly ignoring me and very obviously projecting to the world that she finds her physics textbook oh so much more interesting than me.

I draw the chair out and take a seat at her table, and I divert a sliver of my attention to my wonderful Caribbean drink. Her heart is still running wild in her chest. It's the most beautiful melody to my ears. She lets out an inaudible hiss and releases her golden cross. It must have broken the skin of her palm for the air is momentarily saturated with the fragrance of ripe grapes. Grapes, Felix. Can you imagine? Oh, right. Of course you can. Silly me. But grapes! Grapes, Felix! It was so difficult to act all nonchalant because grapes! Have you met me? Dear Fate. In your memories, her scent is exactly the same. But you see… smells and tastes." Aro shook his head displeased yet fascinated nonetheless, and tsked, "To sample the real thing for myself… makes the grayscale memory come to life in vivid colour. I hadn't thought I would be so affected, honest to Fate, but there I was, a wine addict, in the presence of the essence of my own drug of choice."

Aro had never seen Felix shed a single tear. Because he never had. Until now.

Tears were streaming down Felix's face as he hung onto every word which came out of Aro's mouth.

"I look down into the glass of my hot rum like a seer looks for future inside a cup of tea leaves, and it becomes apparent to me that the physics textbook has failed to keep Louise's attention because I am put under the tangible, tickling sensation of Louise's heavy, heavy stare.

I let it continue for a long time. And then, when the time is up, without warning I look up, catch her red handed. She breaks her lovely eyes off my face and her cheeks turn deeper cherry red than they had before. To me, the whole coffeehouse is suddenly filled with the fragrance of the sweetest, sun-kissed grapes. Only that. It overshadows the other blood in the room, the coffee, the chocolate and the alcohol. I cannot smell my Hot Blood Orange Rum anymore. Only the intoxicating aroma of grapes in her blood.

An amused but nonetheless sufficiently audible exhale escapes me. I'm positive she hears it over the soft guitar strings which fills the coffeehouse with ambient background noise.

'Mademoiselle?' I will her to look at me. And she does. Of course she does. She's helpless not to.

'Oui?' Louise answers and she looks mortified.

'I'm quite positive my face has been bruised for life by your passionate staring.' I say and I can tell she wants nothing more than to be able to slide under the table and hide there for all of time.

'It has not. It's not bruised. Like, at all.' She's dying to look away. But she can't.

I give her another bashful smile and her heart misses another beat.

'But I say it is.' And for a few moments she smiles back at me, the pearly whites behind the braces shining in the warm orange light, but she catches herself much too soon and hides her nacre bright smile away. She is such a beautiful creature, but it's so transparent to me that she doesn't think she is beautiful. Like, at all.

'You reminded me of someone.'

'Did I?'

'Oui. My godfather. You look a bit like him. Or I thought you did. It's why I was staring— I didn't intend to be rude or anything. I'm really sorry if I came across that way. But you look nothing like him. I don't know why I thought you did— I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare at you. …Like that.' Louise answers. She's so incredibly shy but her shyness clearly doesn't impede her from expressing herself and I adore her for it.

I reply with a generous 'I forgive you.'

I see she knows very well that I am making harmless fun of her, but she isn't quite sure what to do with me. A slow grin stretches on my face while I hold her turquoise gaze with my own and now she really doesn't know what to do with me. Her hands are on her knees, squeezing them underneath the table and she's unconsciously stopped breathing for she is withholding her breath."

Aro would take a daring guess that the thought of murdering him had run through Felix's mind at least once during Aro's tale. But none of the family had ever seriously contemplated Aro's murder, which on one hand should be very bizarre indeed, given all the things Aro had done to them and all the occasions they had been angry at him during the centuries of knowing him, but they had never wished death on him. Never. How curious was that?

"I look back down to my hot drink and take a slow, delicious sip and I listen as she pushes out a relieved huff of air and pulls her textbook up, closer to her chest, and I have to admit she does a marvellous job of hiding behind it, because she's not held captive by my eyes anymore. At least she pretends she isn't.

I know it is not fair. I'm not even trying. I'm looking at her the same way I look at most everyone. Somehow I had thought it would pose a challenge for me for I know she's used to you. She's known you her whole life, ever since she learned how to walk. You've always been a familiar figure in her life. So she's not afraid of me… Well. She is afraid. But not because I'm a vampire.

My cocktail has more rum in it than it has any juice and it burns with a delightful heat, unique to the one hundred and sixty proof alcohol in it, and Louise is desperately trying to focus on her book but she's been reading the same sentence for the last five minutes so she is failing miserably.

'Is it any good?' I ask, vaguely gesturing to her textbook, and, naturally, her head whips up once more, and she's back to staring at me. A classic deer caught in the headlights of a car. "Your book."

She blinks behind her round lenses and tells me that 'It's very interesting. If you find physics interesting.'

'Many things catch my interest, mademoiselle.'

Louise appears to be out of her depth. She's clearly not used to being flirted with. Doesn't know how to react. What to say.

"Of course. A most fascinating subject. Physics. The phenomena which can now be explained by modern physics theories and the subsequent scientific discoveries which prove the theories right would have— and I say this in great confidence— they would have blown most minds just a couple of centuries ago. But while I admire the technological ingenuity which is attainable to the masses today, most people still have no idea how electricity works, or what it even is. Much less how to generate it. It's sad, mademoiselle. It breaks my heart. In two. All this twenty-first century publicly accessible technological advancement in its peak but throw the average person back to the Dark Ages and they'd be hard pressed to replicate the most insignificant kitchen appliance, much less something slightly more complex… an airplane, for example. Humans use their laptops, charge their mobile phones, search the web, go to work in their cars or by trains or travel large distances in planes while they have. No. Clue. how ANY of these things actually work! Most don't understand the simplest science behind any of the technology they take for granted. It's absolute madness! It drives me absolutely mad, mademoiselle."

During my expressive monologue, Louise has put up her elbows on the table and covered her mouth with her hands while she tries to smother her giggles because she is too polite to laugh in my face.

'Not everyone is smart enough to understand, monsieur. It's not their fault.'

Louise has a gorgeous laugh. It's a shame she's this self-conscious about her braces that she feels she has to hide them whenever she thinks someone could see. She must have no idea how adorable she is.

The group of people on the adjacent table quiets down and shifts their attention to Louise and me. They look startled. As food naturally ought to do. The only woman from the trio appears to be more angry than she is scared, her eyes darkening in quiet rage as she makes a quick assessment of Louise and myself. She's leaning forward, closer to us, her artificially violet lips parting to no doubt curse at me, it's written in every line of her face, her body language and micro expressions betraying her intentions, but she makes the mistake of catching my gaze first. It tells her she'll die if she makes a sound. And instantaneously she's more scared than she is angry. She looks away, anywhere but at me. Presses herself to her friend's side. Whispers into his ear— 'Je veux partir. Tout de suite. Nicolas. Tout de suite!'

Louise is still laughing at me.

The trio deserts their table in haste. The woman slips out of her seat after her friend, keeping the table between her and me and Louise at all times, giving me a wide berth.

'Mademoiselle, no…the word you should be using instead is lazy. So it is their fault.'

'No, no. It doesn't work like that!' Louise protests.

'My mind is set.'

'You, monsieur, have way too high standards for humanity.'

I grin, and decide to humour her by saying – 'Perhaps'. Because as you well know, Felix, I do not harbour any expectations when it comes to humanity's virtues. Especially those of the current era. The Era of Decadence. This is how future civilisations will refer to this one. Mark my words.

'Are you a student or is physics simply your cup of Friday night entertainment?' I cock my head in curiosity, finding myself intrigued by how truthful an answer she will give me.

'I'm a first year student at Sorbonne Université.'

'Beautiful and smart.' And she truly is. You are right to be very proud of her, Felix. Don't cry. I haven't told any of the best parts yet."

"Stop. Master, stop."

"Stop? You don't want to hear what we talked about? You don't want to know what I did to your Louise?"

Aro waited for Felix to say something, to deny or confirm. But the only thing Felix did was crawl backwards over the cold floor as far away from Aro as he could and pressed his back against the cell's bars, never once lowering his wet eyes from Aro's person.

Aro leaned back in the chair.

"Louise fidgets with her textbook. Lets her stare travel around the packed coffeehouse. To the blackish twilight on the street beyond the thick glass. But she is unfailingly drawn back to my smiling face. To my fingers which are leisurely playing with the slice of the heavenly red fruit on the edge of my glass. A rose shade colours her beautiful face. She looks up at the canopy of Cigar leaves above her head. Takes a deep breath through her nose and looks back down, a slow, sweet smile rising on her lips.

'I'm Louise.'

.

"She leads me through the back streets of Sacré-Cœur, down Rue Lamarck to her apartment building. She lives on the top floor of Number 34, but you already knew this because you bought the place for her when she was accepted into Sorbonne Université and moved to Paris.

She stops in front of the front door of the building and looks up at me. Her heart is fluttering inside her chest.

She shyly asks if I want to come up.

I tell her I can't.

Louise takes a moment to swallow the disappointment.

Louise nods. She doesn't ask why.

I pull her in my arms, close to my burning chest and I whisper in her ear that I'm sorry. I tell her I would love to come upstairs with her. I tell Louise I want to tie her to her bed and fuck her senseless until dawn. I tell her, 'I want to eat you whole.' And I mean every word.

Louise does not believe me. She thinks I'm being funny.

'Then why don't you?' Louise challenges, stubbornly staring up at me with gleeful sea green eyes.

I tell her I'm absolutely serious.

She laughs and tells me she would absolutely love for me to tie her to her bed and fuck her until dawn.

Sweet Louise.

She has no clue.

Her pupils behind her lenses are blown wide and it's so dark around us she can barely see my face. The street is so quiet at this hour and she is scared but she is thrilled by the danger more.

Louise's lips feel like satin under mine.

Louise's lips taste like Tempranillo grapes.

Her mouth like rich, aged wine.

Sweet Louise.

Her sweet mouth feels heavenly and as I kiss her, so very carefully, so very mindful of my deadly teeth I miss the moment lava hot passion had filled me up, melting my glacial insides and the fire bleeds into the kiss, because the flames are too raw and uncontainable, and the river of lava pours out of me… but perhaps I am wrong and the flames are coming from Louise. She's kissing me back with all she's got, but she's so inexperienced she soon fails to keep up… gets knocked off her feet into the river of lava I swear we are both standing in the middle of.

Did you know it was her first kiss?

But Louise is a very quick study, and the longer we kiss the more hooked on my venom she becomes. Until kissing me is her favourite thing in the world. More than a hundred times better than having her Friday night fun sitting in a coffeehouse under a Cigar Plant and reading a physics textbook with stars in her gorgeous green eyes while she sips a perfect hazelnut latte to guitar strings and is being endlessly fascinated by Maxwell's four equations.

Her soft, lovely hands are in my hair, on my face, touching my chest, my back, my stomach... Her belly is full of fluttering butterflies and it's such a blissfully wonderful feeling. It has been more than four centuries since the last time I felt butterflies in my stomach and God… it feels fucking incredible.

Her mind is running a mile a minute, trying to make sense of the deluge of lust drowning the life out of her. My hand finds its way into her red hair the other one slips under her white cotton shirt, on her flaming belly and I swear to my sister's ashes I can feel the swarm of butterflies under my palm and my mouth finds her pulsing neck, so soft under my lips, her skin more fragile under my teeth than a soap bubble, and Louise… Louise is lost in my arms. The dark is filled with her gasps and her quick breaths and the addictive sound of the blood of Christ running through her veins directly underneath my hands and my teeth and despite being so full of blood as I've been lately that I don't understand how I can crave any more of it, I do. And I'm so thirsty."

Felix was still crying, his silent tears had turned into sobs behind his palms.

Aro had never once paid any mind to Felix's human family. Why would he? Everyone had secrets they never shared with anyone else. Secrets which were just their own. Aro had had no interest in Felix's descendants. Until now.

"Unlike Phillippa, Louise doesn't have Sadami's magical daggers. Unlike Phillippa, Louise is a willing participant. Unlike Phillippa, Louise doesn't know what is about to happen. But apparently neither do I, because the light above the front door flares up before I can have a taste of her blood. Louise startles and looks up to the blinding lights right above us and then one of Louise's neighbours swims through the door, greets Louise and me with startled surprise but quickly crosses the street to his parked Porsche.

Unlike Phillippa, a guardian angel seems to be watching over Louise. The thought makes my mouth close and pull into a grin and smother a chuckle rather than bite into her neck—"

"Tell me you didn't. Please." Felix didn't sound like himself. He sounded as if someone had poured acid down his throat. Or a gallon of deer blood. "Master Aro. Please, tell me—"

"Of course I didn't. She wouldn't live past her twenty-second birthday, if I had done any of the things I wanted to do to her. I can't hold her over your head if she's dead, can I?"

Aro sprang from the chair and loomed over Felix's crouched form at his feet.

"You see, Felix. I do not need you. You are very easily replaceable. The answer to why you are still alive after putting your filthy hands on my girl is because my son cares for you very much. He's lost too many close people in too short a time to pile your death on top of his losses. Perhaps a tiny bit for you still being among us could be attributed to dear Demetri. He loves you like a brother. Your loss would be felt by all the Guard. I cannot overlook all that and follow my personal vendettas."

"None but Demetri knows about your human family which prospers to this day. You can rest assured none have any suspicion the thirty-four times great-granddaughter Louise is a very real human girl presently living in Montmartre. That she loves her Godfather Felix with all her very Catholic heart and is quite concerned she hasn't heard from him since Christmas Day. Well. That is except for me, of course—

"Forgive me… Forgive me. Please. I never meant to— I wanted to save her. You know I wanted to save her life. I thought you would let her die like all the other secretaries before her. I love her. I never intended to—it was never my intention to kill her by accident- her blood— Forgive me. I'm sorry. Aro, I'm very sorry."

"But are you. Are you really? I'm hesitant to take your word for granted, dear Felix. You broke my trust."

"I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't. I won't—I won't break the Law again. It won't happen again. I swear, Master Aro."

Felix dounded truly desperate. But-

"That is not good enough."

"Master Aro—"

"You do not touch my humans."

"You do not touchmy friends."

"I find this preposterous to have to spell it out for you but I will torch you if you ever lay a finger on my women again. If Phillippa had died… we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"One more misstep on your part and I'll make a feast out of your last descendent. Before or after your death. It is of no consequence. Her death is imminent either way— if you do not heed my words. It will happen. I promise you."

Felix stared up at him with remorse and with fear yet plenty of sparks of Capricornus rebellion.

"But alas! There is absolutely no need for such awful worry, Felix! I've made several precautions you won't harbour any misconceptions about my not being wholly sincere. You won't. You won't."

Aro smiled down at Felix, playfully clapped him on his vary cheek— "You'll understand what I mean before the day is through— Oh! Before I forget—" Aro smashed his knuckles into Felix face, easily breaking his ugly nose and sending him back to the floor, "Phillippa sends her regards."

Felix grunted something unintelligible through the explosion of pain he must be currently enjoying on the dull stone ground. "She's ached to do this since forever! More so after Christmas. I couldn't resist the compulsion. You'll have find it in yourself to forgive me, my dear Felix."

.

16:15 p.m., Friday, May 20, 2005, The International School of Florence, Florence, Italy

"Buona serata, Isabella!" Valentina, one of Bella's new human friends said as she kissed Bella's cheek before throwing her arms around Bella's neck, effectively pulling Bella into a warm human hug, and whispered into her ear, "Essere al sicuro là fuori."

Bella hugged her back, soaking up the freely-offered human contact as much as she was able.

She'd been so angry at Aro. So angry. And hurt. For sending her to school after he kidnapped her from her home. From Charlie. From her life in Forks which would have been. It'd felt as the biggest injustice. An unjustified punishment for a few 'bad' words because Aro was a fucking freak when it came to cursing. She'd never heard him say one 'bad' word to this day. It had been months. That was ridiculous. But the fact remained that she'd felt as if he'd gotten rid of her. That he'd been happy to get her out of his stupid blue hair, because she wouldn't bother him with her 'foul language' no longer. And her irrational fear of him, which she now fully suspected he could smell on her.

Fuck.

It took her a couple of months, but now… she was certain she'd have gone mad if she had only vampires for company until the Fated Christmas. Being in the presence of other humans in her classes, making friends (it'll hurt so much to cut all ties with them after Christmas rolled around, Bella knew that, everyone in the Castle knew, and Aro knew that too, of course he did, he had an ever present sadistic streak underlying his every action, something she had missed on their 'vacation' in the Olympic Peninsula but with a sinking heart, Bella had come to the painful conclusion that Aro sending her to school had been one of the kindest things he had done for Bella, apart from not incarcerating her in his chambers and letting her stay with Renata instead.

The Castle was no place for humans.

How Phillippa had not gone mad living there for almost an entire year, alone, going to sleep while knowing full well she might never see another morning, working for the Volturi, dealing with other vampires who came to see the Volturi for whatever business they had with the family, being permitted to see her own family only one weekend every month… all the while knowing she was going to die there, in the Castle, that she'd likely be eaten by one of her friends— Bella didn't get how Phillippa had done all that and not gone crazy herself).

It was nice to have some sort of normalcy in Bella's life again, even if it meant her teachers and friends knew her as Isabella Willmore and not as Isabella Swan.

She'll have to say goodbye to her fake surname at Christmas as well.

Strange. She was starting to take a liking to it. Aro had explained to Bella that it was too dangerous for her to use his surname while she was still a human. That there were too many enemies of his who would attempt to take her from him, if they knew she existed.

Perhaps it was the truth.

Mostly, Bella thought it was because it was simply not an option for her to use her own surname. So that Charlie and Renée wouldn't find her.

Aro… the thing was – you could never trust anything which slipped past those perfect, gorgeous lips. He told the truth, he lied with the truth, he omitted the truth or he withheld the truth and told pure lies. Bella could never be sure anymore which one was which.

Bella gave one last tight squeeze to Valentina and ended the hug, putting her hands on Valentina's shoulders and looking directly into her worried eyes.

"Non preoccuparti per me. Comunque non mi è permesso andare da nessuna parte da sola. Guarda?"

Bella looked over her shoulder, and there she was, leaning against her sparkling white 1953 Ferrari Europa. A slim cigarette in her hand.

Her keeper.

Valentina's eyes followed the direction in which Bella was indicating, noticing Renata instantly.

"Oh, fottimi…" Valentina breathed. "It's your sister who should be careful."

It would definitely be the case, Bella supposed. If Renata was a human. But even so…

"I've told you, the odds are astronomically small-"

"The last one was nineteen!"

"And the one before that was thirty-two. You're eighteen. Only eighteen, Tina." Bella reminded, looking back from a grinning Renata to her friend's distraught face, giving a sorrowful look to Valentina's pixie cut. "And you've cut off all your beautiful golden locks."

Their classmates and other students walked past them to their own rides. It was a late Friday afternoon and the last lesson for anyone unlucky enough to have been dealt a long Friday was finally over, and the students were finally set free.

…Until Monday.

"Of course I cut it all off! You should too-"

"Not gonna happen. Nah-ha. Nope. I'd rather die-"

Valentina pressed her palm firmly over Bella's mouth. "Shush, you!"

Bella gently guided her friend's hand away. She knew she shouldn't scare Tina with her blasé attitude. But Bella was in no danger and neither was Tina. But the fear all around the school, in the hallways and classrooms, within all of Italy… that was very real.

"Listen. Nothing will happen to you. Do you hear me? Nothing. You'll be fine. You have a bodyguard of your own." Bella's eyes shifted to the left from Renata's Ferrari and locked onto a black Mercedes and an intimidating Asian man in a black suit who was standing by the rear passenger door with his hands clasped in front of him and who might just turn out to be an assassin hired by Valentina's father and Bella wouldn't be surprised in the least. "Okay?"

Valentina bit her lip, but nodded.

"I have to go. Renata's waiting for me." Bella dropped a quick kiss to Valentina's cheek, "I'll see you Monday!" Bella backed away, waving her hand to her new friend which she'll desperately miss after this Christmas and a few other lingering classmates of hers before she dashed across the lawn to where Renata was still smoking and making teenage boys trip on flat ground. Those poor, pathetic creatures.

When Bella finally reached her 'sister', there was a heavy skittle cloud surrounding Renata.

"Want one?" Renata offered the open pack of Karelia Slims (which was already short of four) to Bella.

"…No. Aro would kill me." Bella grudgingly huffed. Fucking Renata. But Aro wouldn't blame Bella for Renata's smoking …would he?

"Suit yourself." Renata dropped the half-smoked cigarette on the school grounds and walked around the vintage car.

Bella opened the passenger door and got inside the car right in time with Renata.

Renata turned the key, the Ferrari came back to life, and they took off (nearly hitting Adrian who had walked off the sidewalk onto the road and was just standing there, gawking at the car, or was it actually Renata, he was gawking at? It was hard to tell).

The car reeked of candy smoke. Lovely candy smoke… Bella loved it. And she definitely wasn't snorting as much of the sweet air as she could-

"Aro wouldn't kill you, bambina."

"Didn't you see what he did to Demetri?" Bella still had nightmares about that day. "You were there."

"Aro overacted." Renata replied without a care. "In any case, this isn't weed. And it's me giving it to you."

"I'm pretty sure he hates any type of smoking. Even yours." Bella added as she turned on the radio and began switching radio stations in hopes of finding one which wasn't broadcasting the same three Italian songs on loop. No luck so far, but Bella wasn't a quitter.

"Jesus, girl. You shouldn't fear him so much. He's like the definition of your guardian angel."

"Kidnapper."

"Then he's the best kidnapper in the whole wide world. Has Master ever harmed you in any way?"

Well… not really. But he scared her. Constantly. "Renata. I can't help it."

"You've fallen asleep in his arms. You've had his tongue down your throat—"

"Gaah! Don't remind me!" Bella shuddered. It gave her the fucking chills just remembering that night on the lake. She'd had nightmares about that night too.

"Bella…" The exasperation in Renata's voice soon turned to perplexity, "Aro's the sweetest vampire out there. He likes you very much. You should've got over that irrational fear months ago. He's not even drinking from you, because of how scared of him you are."

"He's… not hungry, is he?" Bella squeaked. And fuck. She hadn't even considered that! And now she was feeling like shit. Because Aro could be going hungry because of Bella. As if it was Bella's fault if Aro went hungry. As if she was hoarding her blood all to herself. Not sharing. Which was fucking ridiculous. Rationally thinking, this was complete madness going through her head right now, she knew that, theoretically, but-

"Of course not. He's doing so much better. Blood-wise. Eating full meals again. Master's eyes haven't darkened a shade from scarlet in months, in case you've been too scared to look at him and haven't noticed. It's wonderful to see him eating properly." Renata happily announced. She turned her joyful face to Bella, a huge grin on her lips and winked, "You wouldn't be enough anyhow. Even if he sucked you dry."

"Jeez. Thanks." Bella put her arm on the narrow door panel and looked outside her passenger window. In the few months Bella had lived with Renata, she'd learned that getting offended by something insensitive Renata had said would be pointless. Renata mostly said exactly what she thought, all the fucking time. She had no complexes with letting the world know what was on her mind. Mostly. Another thing Bella was now sure of was that Renata was not… normal. Granted, none of the vampires she knew could be considered normal, well, perhaps except Phillippa and Emil. But Renata was less normal than most. Bella had once accidentally overheard Emil calling her a fruitcake. It fit Renata perfectly. And after all, getting offended only resulted in stunted personality growth. It was pointless from whichever way she looked.

"Is it true he's not making Heidi bring him kids anymore?" And hadn't that been relieving and at the same time horrifying to learn.

A complicated expression flickered on the right side of Renata's face. The only side Bella had a good view of. "Yes. It's true."

"Why are you making that face? Isn't that good?"

Renata did not answer straight away. Bella was about to repeat her question, but settled on waiting a little longer—

"Yes and no."

"No? Why no?" In what perverse reality not eating kids wasn't a good fucking thing!

"Don't worry about it, bambina. It's… fine. All is fine. Master is properly enjoying his meals again. It's all that matters. He deserves some fun after all these years."

Bella slowly blinked.

"…What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You really want to go to that school for nuns, don't you, Bella?" Renata drawled, smirking.

Bella spluttered.

"Fuck… Shit! I meant fudge. Fudge! No. No no no… he wouldn't. Right? Aro wouldn't do that to me- You didn't hear that! It was just your fucking imagination! Aro, I didn't say that!"

Renata was watching her with something very close to dangerous amusement shining in her aubergine eyes, in the twist of her red lips. On her entire face. Fuck. "Seriously?"

Bella groaned.

"Give me some slack… I've had a long day and I'm hungry. And the constant fear. Gosh… Everyone's so fu- so freaking scared. It's making me anxious. All of them… they act like prey. Like terrified, jumpy rabbits. It's getting on my nerves. As if every one of them will be next! Especially after the last one. Please. There haven't even been a single one in Florence."

"We can stop at a restaurant." Renata offered.

"Oh, that would be fabulous."

Bella had no desire to cook anything today.

A thought made Bella jolt up straight in her seat, "Maybe he lives in Florence. Would explain why there hasn't been one in the city yet— wait. Do you know who he is?"

"Who?"

"Il Collezionista."

Renata took her eyes off the road and looked at her funny. Without the earlier entertainment but just… stunned. Like she couldn't believe the things coming out of Bella's mouth sometimes.

Bella wasn't sure which expression she disliked more. Being quietly laughed at or being rendered speechless by Bella – in an unflattering way.

"Yeah, I know. Stupid question." Bella sank back down deeper into her seat. "You don't care at all, do you? But you have to agree it's not every day a serial killer pops out of nowhere to spread terror in the hearts of every woman and man in Italy, is it? Aren't you even a tiny bit curious? You must be."

"Why would I be curious?"

"Why wouldn't you be? Valentina's right, you know. You really do fit his victim pool."

Renata snorted. "No, I don't."

"Yes, you do!"

"I'm a vampire. I do not fit his 'victim pool'."

"But you are beautiful, single and under thirty-six— to the human eye. And you're you. You look like a dream, Renata. The Collector wouldn't know you're a vampire." Bella reached to her left and ran her fingers through Renata's long, dark, silkily soft and cool locks. "And you have your stunning long hair. Half the girls in school have chopped off theirs. They look like boys now. Well, not really but close enough."

"Silly humans."

"They're just terrified of being raped and killed and tied naked by their wrists and ankles to their beds and then left there like a mockery of pinned human butterflies for their families or friends to find in the morning."

"You're missing the obvious, Bella."

"And what's that?"

"All those human women who were killed by The Collector? – they loved every last second of it."

"What a cliché thing to say, Renata. Thirty-four. Just in the past three months."

"And all thirty-four of them invited the killer into their homes. Gladly agreed to be tied to their beds and died with euphoria singing in their veins."

"That's not what the news-"

"The media spouts disinformation. For ratings. For money. For control. And in this case they report what the police want them to report to the masses. Don't be fooled. Those women had the best night of their lives. And their lives were the price. And they readily paid it."

"I doubt they agreed to become a public exhibition of a crazy lepidopterologist's idea of a 'butterfly' collection-"

"It's called bondage." Renata smirked.

"I know what bondage is!"

Unbelievable. Renata of all people… "Fuck, you're taking the serial killer's side! I can't believe this."

"The Collector's work is not all that dissimilar to what all vampires do when we hunt our prey. To what you'll do after this Christmas. We enjoy the kill as much as we enjoy the blood. To pretend otherwise would be a shameless lie."

Bella painfully swallowed. Her throat was dry.

"But… Those women who were killed. They had no idea they were going to die, did they? When they let him inside their homes."

"Of course not. I can't imagine why any woman would trade their life for a quickie with that kinky fucker."

What a shocker.

"Well. The girls in school think he must be incredibly hot. So do the police. All the victims looked so fucking beautiful in their photos in the newspapers. Except for the chorister and the marine biologist. I didn't think they were all that pretty. But I can't imagine any of those women taking home some average looking guy. Especially knowing there is a serial killer on the loose and they fit the victimology to a tee. Those FBI profilers on the news said he's a high-functioning, intelligent psychopath. White Caucasian male, early thirties to mid-forties. Charming. Good-looking. Successful. That he inspires trust. They also said he lacks empathy and doesn't feel any regret whatsoever for committing those murders. That there is no cooling-off period for him. I mean, of course there isn't. Thirty-four women in three months? He's already more notorious than—"

"Anyone from the family bar Phillippa has at least a hundred times that—"

"—Il Mostro di Firenze. They also said that he's uncommonly well-organised and that they're no closer to catching him now than they were—"

"And someone has a crush."

"—after the first one—what?" Bella turned to gape at Renata.

"You have a crush on him, Bella! Sweet baby Jesus! Oh, I can't wait to tell Master-"

"What! I don't have a crush on The Collector! Renata! I don't! No! Fuck! Don't you fucking dare tell Aro! Fuck! I can't believe this is my life! Don't tell him! Renata…"

Renata was laughing. She shouldn't be laughing! Not about this! "Bella. There is nothing much I can do, short of making up an excuse for being preoccupied with something very, very, very important or something other or downright refusing to touch him. He'll catch on fast enough either way. Besides, I wouldn't do that to him."

Bella turned away and stared out of her window. She didn't want Aro to find out. This was embarrassing. That she had a bizarre crush on a serial killer who tied women up in their own beds, spent the night with them and then killed them without a care, left their naked bodies wrapped up in red silk ribbons, their arms and legs bound to the bedposts like butterfly wings.

"Bambina… There is no harm in him knowing."

"Just my dignity." Bella should have watched what she said around Renata. She knew she shouldn't say anything, especially with such enthusiasm, knowing it will get back to Aro sooner rather than later. She'd been successful for months. But she got carried away… Forgot for a moment there was a reason she shouldn't run her mouth.

"Master will think you're cute. He already thinks this, but he will think you more cute."

"Will he? You truly think so? Being fascinated by some serial killer when I should be terrified?"

"Aren't you, though? Aren't you scared?"

"I… Sure. Sure I am. But not nearly enough. In any case, I'm more terrified of Aro than I am of The Collector. Perhaps it's because I know I'm safe with you. Right now or when we're in the Castle. And when I'm in school I have other people around me, teachers, other students. It's perfectly safe there as well. It's impossible for The Collector to get me either at school or at home. And God knows I can't go anywhere on my own anymore. My schoolmates aren't so lucky. They're legitimately freaked out."

Her whole school was freaked out without a logical reason. Because of one man. Just like Bella was freaked out without any sane reason because of one vampire. Because by logic she should not fear Aro. She hadn't before, when she had first met him and Renata in San Francisco and it had been far better for her mental health then than fearing him now, when he lived right down the hall from Bella and Renata's rooms. It felt as if her heart would give out whenever he passed her in a hallway, when he stopped to talk with her.

Bella was sick of being scared. It had been months.

She didn't want to be scared anymore.

"Do you think I should…" …fuck.

"Should what?" Renata asked, looking in the rear mirror and evidently seeing something there which prompted her to press her stiletto down deeper on the gas pedal, and plastering Bella to her seat, and Bella thought she understood, intimately, how a magnet felt when it was pressed against a fridge's door.

"Offer Aro a drink?" This sounded so much worse spoken aloud. And it had sounded pretty awful in her head to begin with.

She'd expected Renata to laugh again, but there was no laughter, just the pleasant sound of the Ferrari's V12 engine.

Minutes went by. Renata was clearly busy thinking. What was there to think so hard about? Eventually, Renata opened her mouth, "He'd like that." And just like that, Bella's heart went nuts in her chest.

"Girl! There is no way he'll drink from you if this is how you react!"

"Why not?"

"Why would he instil more fear into you than you can handle? It won't do him any good. Nor will it benefit you, Bella."

"I've tried! Okay? I can't help it! When I think I've finally gotten over being afraid, one glance at him, and it's worse than ever."

"Bambina, until you are done being terrified of Master, he won't touch you. We want our humans willing. Otherwise, drinking from you would be no different than drinking from the usual tourist."

"I still can't get over the fact you have tourists for dinner every month. Has no one ever escaped? Or at least tried to?"

Renata laughed. And the look she threw Bella's way was worthy of Lilith. "They always try to get away. But the doors are too heavy, the hallways too identical, too endless, the windows too high up to open much less jump down from… they never stand a chance, bambina."

"Never? None has ever gotten away?"

Jesus Christ.

"Hmmm. Some fifty years ago Master let his singer go. Turned out she was expecting, but had not realised yet herself. He was so sweet about it. Took her home. Made sure she would never remember coming to the Castle. She was one extremely lucky human." Bella watched as adoration transformed Renata's face, or rather her profile, because she was looking straight ahead on the road. As she should, going two hundred kilometres per hour. Bella had long since gotten used to Renata's particular style of driving. After all Renata drove her to and from school almost every day—

"We always have a weak spot for our singers. Because they are special. They're made for us. One day you'll understand."

Bella could hardly believe this was how her life was now. Living with vampires in a freaking Castle, being driven to school fifty miles every morning and then back, dining in restaurants every other day, falling for millennia old, terrifying vampires, getting obsessed with local serial killers, as if the vampires were not enough, making friends with her ambassador schoolmates, making friends with the Volturi vampires. Learning to speak Italian. Chancing unnoticed upon her crush (from whom she was so infuriatingly and inconveniently terrified to death) with Queen Athenodora—

"Renata? There is something I've been meaning to ask you."

"You can ask me anything, dearest Odile. I'll always listen and offer you guidance."

"Renata, I'm serious."

"So am I."

Bella huffed, but Renata did sound serious. Loony, but serious. Bella supposed it'll have to do…

"You know how I can make myself completely soundless now?"

"How could I not! Experimenting with your new powers on poor bastard Demetri. I approve. One hundred per cent."

"God, you're awful. But anyway— it was night and I went down to the kitchen—"

"Stop. Where was I? I'm always in my rooms when you sleep—"

"It was roughly two weeks ago, on the night you were sick. It sounded like you were dying in the bathroom. It was impossible to sleep, Renata. It was so painful to listen to you… So I slipped out." Bella confessed while sneaking a guilty look at Renata who did not look happy. Actually, she looked pissed.

"You did what."

"I'm fucking sorry! Alright? I fucked up! I know I shouldn't have. I know. But everyone's been so friendly to me so far. I didn't think it would be a big deal. I'm really sorry, Renata."

"Don't do it again, or you and I will have a problem."

Bella frantically shook her head. "I won't. I promise."

Renata still looked pissed at Bella, but her hands eased off on the steering wheel and she was back to breathing evenly.

"Was that all you wanted to tell me?"

"What? Oh. No. No no. That's not all. So I went down to the kitchen to get myself a midnight snack. I didn't meet anyone on my way down. Nobody saw me. To my knowledge. Plus I'd used the Scenteraser Shampoo and Shower Gel Demetri gave me. I'd taken a shower a couple of hours before you returned from Rome and started throwing up in the bathroom—"

"That! That! Can't you see how inappropriate that is, Bella? Him giving you bath products! I still can't believe the idiot got away with it—"

"Jesus Christ, Renata! It wasn't a big deal! He was being nice! I asked what his friend Blair did at the Seattle branch and he said she was busy living her dream and being a mad scientist and creating the coolest stuff on the planet. I just wanted to test if any of it actually worked!"

Renata truly hated Demetri's guts. For no reason. Bella knew that now but it was so fucking awful to accept.

"Anyway! I went down to the kitchen – unseen and unheard and most likely without my scent loudly broadcasting my presence. Cause Blair's stuff actually works. I wanted to get myself a strawberry sundae with hot chocolate. There was nobody in the kitchen. Or so I thought."

Renata was patiently listening, now going over two hundred miles per hour. Didn't appear as if Renata was aware it would be instant death for Bella if the Ferrari drove off the road… And it looked as if they were going to a restaurant in Volterra instead of Colle di Val d'Elsa because they missed their turn.

Perhaps it was better this way.

"Who was in the kitchen?"

"No one. It was empty. But just as I was about to open the freezer door, I heard voices from the wine cellar."

Bella swallowed. Perhaps she shouldn't say anything. But it was something she couldn't get out of her head.

"Are Aro and Queen Athenodora friends?" Or do anything about the meek tone Bella had uttered the question in. "Aro said he considers her to be his sister, but…"

Renata frowned.

"They are quite close. I wouldn't call them friends, but I wouldn't call them not-friends either. They've known each other for several millennia. Master Caius and Queen Athenodora are Aro's real family. So is Marcus, Chelsea and Jane. And Blair."

"Huh… What about Alec? What about the Guard?"

"The Guard are not Aro's family. Not really. They fill the role of friends, some of the guard could be considered in-laws. Chelsea woke up alone. Just as Aro and Queen Athenodora had. He took her in when she was only a couple of days old. You could say he became her guardian. Her mentor. Taught her everything he knew. She stays with the Volturi because she loves him. Master is Chelsea's real family. There is no other convoluted reason why she stays with us. The Castle is her home. Alec… while Jane has always been a daddy's girl, Alec was always a mama's boy. As far as I understand it, Aro and Alec have never been particularly close. Master loves him dearly, but I believe Alec has always viewed Aro as his mother's husband, not as his father."

"That's… sad. Makes me sad to hear that."

"It is what it is." Renata quietly dismissed. She didn't sound overly sad, nor did she sound happy. She didn't sound like anything.

"You said Blair? I thought she was Demetri's friend."

"She is, but Blair is also Jane's daughter. So naturally, Aro adores her. But to be fair, Blair is awesome."

Bella grinned. "Demetri said the same thing – that Blair was awesome—"

But Renata was having none of that: "Why did you want to know if Aro and Athenodora were friends?"

Bella's smile dimmed. "They didn't sound friendly. That night. In the cellar."

"Is that so? They used to be at each other's throats, occasionally, before Aro's wife died. Their fights ceased after Sulpicia's death."

"I heard a bit of what they said. In the wine cellar."

"Eavesdropping? Nooo. How could you, Odile!" Renata laughed.

"I know I shouldn't have." Bella mumbled. She wasn't proud of herself. It was so not her business, listening in on Aro and Queen Athenodora. But her curiosity had gotten the best of her.

"You really shouldn't have." Renata agreed.

"I would have left right away, but…"

"But?"

"He sounded off. So I stayed."

Renata's head turned slightly to the side, as if considering her words. "Off in what way?"

"I've never heard him like that. He sounded… extremely uncomfortable."

"Huh. Did he? That is odd. …Is that all?"

"No. They weren't speaking in Italian. I couldn't understand any words that were said. She… Queen Athenodora… her voice was so caring, so unbelievably sweet and kind. Complete opposite to how… to how upset he was, so it took me a while to realise they were having an argument. And Queen Athenodora was slowly but surely moving closer to Aro."

Renata's profile had plunged into deep thought waters. "Perhaps they were arguing about his drinking? He still keeps inviting Phillippa up to his rooms for their lame wine parties. And she keeps going. Queen Athenodora might not like that very much. Hell, I don't like that at all and it is not my newborn daughter who Aro gets drunk every fortnight."

"I don't think they were arguing about Phillippa. Renata… he kept backing away from her. But she kept coming closer to him. At one point his back hit the wine racks and—"

Bella swallowed.

"And?"

"I heard him shout 'Non toccarmi!' He sounded so upset, Renata. Desperate to get away." Bella's insides twisted just by remembering that awful cry. "And then all hell broke loose in there. Glass breaking, wine bottles hitting the floor, smashing to bits with deafening bangs. Wooden racks splintering. Breaking. Wine barrels blowing up. Wine gushing on the floor. It sounded like they were destroying everything in there.

I didn't know what to think. My feet were rooted to the ground. I was terrified. Absolutely shell-shocked. I couldn't move. They wrecked the cellar for minutes. I thought it would never end, even when they ran out of all of the thousands of bottles in Aro's wine collection. I don't understand why nobody else heard them. No one came looking what was going on—

And then the wine cellar fell into silence.

In a single moment.

I couldn't hear anything apart from wine pouring on the ground.

I think I stood in the kitchen for about half an hour longer, but there weren't any other sounds coming from the cellar. The wine had long since stopped spilling. When I could finally convince my legs to move, I went to the cellar's door on my tiptoes. It looked… like a tornado had raved inside the room. Turned it upside down. It was a violent mess. Flooded with wine. The walls were covered in wine. The ceiling. And it reeked of alcohol. I had to hold my breath.

Both of them were gone. I don't know how they got out but they weren't there. But there were chunks of blond hair and chunks of Aro's blue hair on the shattered barrels and glass. Renata… Aro's ridiculous blue sweater was in shreds all over the room. And so was what once must have been a beige cloak which must have belonged to Queen Athenodora and possibly a part of her ivory lace dress. …I saw one of Aro's pearl earrings within the glass shards.

It was… I've never seen anything like that. So utterly broken apart.

I… I closed the door and I ran back up to our rooms.

You were still throwing up in the bathroom. So I went back to bed. Not that I could get any sleep that night after hearing— after hearing them. After seeing what they did."

Renata had slowed down to the speed limit.

She never did that.

"Thank you for telling me." Renata's face had a blank mask on it. Bella didn't think she had seen Renata so still.

Bella sniffled and nodded. Her eyes were stinging. "I saw him the next day. I couldn't tell if anything was wrong at all. He was his impeccable, jubilantly erratic, terrifying self. Smiling and laughing. I saw Queen Athenodora later on that day as well and she didn't have one blond hair out of place, she looked every bit as perfect as she always does. The cellar had been cleaned up. Not a hint left it had been completely demolished the night before. Made me wonder whether I hadn't dreamt up the previous night instead… But I had taken a few pictures of the disaster cellar with my phone so I have fucking proof—"

"Bella, you need to calm down."

"I just… I just don't understand. Why would they— Why would Queen Athenodora start a fight with Aro? Over what? In Aro's wine cellar no less? She hadn't been angry with him. Just the opposite. She seemed to have good intentions, whatever they were— And why would Aro freak out about being touched? I don't understand, Renata. I can't get that night out of my head—"

"Bella?" Renata softly interrupted. "I appreciate you confiding in me. But listen, bambina… Aro and Athenodora have a difficult relationship. I wouldn't even try to make sense of it, if I were you. We sometimes had to intervene before they went too far and got themselves killed. They've always been volatile to each other but Master loves the Queen very much, and she in turn loves Master. I'm sorry you had to witness one of their quarrels without having any context to fall back to. You saw them the next day and both Master and Athenodora were fine, weren't they?"

"They were. But—"

"You saw them dancing together at Volterra's wine festival a week ago, didn't you?"

"I did. Their Paso Doble was insane. But, Renata, you didn't hear his voice—"

"Bella. It's always been like that between Aro and the Queen. For as long as I've lived in the Castle. They have an argument — they try to kill each other. Then they sulk and lick their wounds and they pretend their fight never happened. After that they're back to laughing at each other's jokes, practicing magic together, plotting how to overthrow the Romanians. They make fun of Marcus, they talk for hours and hours in the library in some obscure language no one but Master Caius seems to understand. And then they disagree on something again. And then they yell at each other. And then Aro starts slapping her around. Sometimes it's the other way around and it is Athenodora who lands the first slap. And then either gets slapped in return. Aro starts pulling her by her hair. She pulls his twice as hard. Aro starts hitting her. She hits him back just as hard— Master has had to regrow his nails countless times, I assume Athenodora has had to regrow hers just as many— and then they both go for each other's throats. Hissing and scratching, both of them tangled in a ball on the floor like two housecats which need to be separated with a broom… It's unbelievably entertaining to watch."

Bella wiped her wet eyes with her shirtsleeve, "Enter— What's wrong with you?" Jesus fucking Christ. "How can you say that! What the hell is wrong with you, Renata!"

"Nothing's wrong with me. Aro and Queen Athenodora are both physically weak. Compared to younger vampires. They usually forgo using magic when they have their legendary catfights. If they were to use magic, we'd all have a huge problem. They could bring the whole Castle down and be the only ones left standing. They're equally matched either with or without magic. We just have to make sure they don't actually set fire to the other in the heat of the moment."

Bella could not believe this shit.

Vampires were insane.

All of them had lost their fucking minds.

It was a miracle they had survived for thousands of years if they fought among themselves like this.

"Now, if anyone else were to slap Master or the Queen around… that would be no laughing matter. They're painfully easy targets if they're caught off guard. Such violence towards Aro or Queen Athenodora would never be tolerated by anyone."

Bella dearly hoped it wouldn't. Made her sick to her soul to imagine for a second some faceless vampire hurting Aro.

"Do you trust me?" Renata asked.

"I do." Perhaps Bella was a fool, but God forgive her, but she did trust Renata.

"Good. Because I'd never allow any real harm to come to Master. I'd kill anyone who would try."

"Enough of this." Renata gave her an endlessly kind look, "Which restaurant do you want to go to?"

Bella blew her nose in a white tissue she had fished from her school bag, and replied, "I Ponti."

Bella swore to herself she will never become mad like them.

"Excellent choice."

.

---

NOTES:

Chiudi quella cazzo di bocca. - Shut the fuck up.

Corri, piccolo porcellino. Corri. – Run, little piggy. Run.
Tanti saluti, piccoletto. – Greetings, little one.
Giovane porcellino, che succede? – Young piglet, what's wrong?
No, non così veloce. – No, not so fast.
Lasciarti andare? – Let you go?
Non lasciarmi. – Don't leave me.
Andrà tutto bene. – Everything is going to be okay.
Porcellino? Dove stai andando? Porcellino! – Piglet? Where are you going? Piglet!
Torna qui! – Come back!

.

Excusez-moi? Mademoiselle? Puis-je me joindre à vous? Toutes les tables sont prises… – Excuse me? Miss? May I join you? All the tables are taken…
Merci beaucoup. – Thank you.
De rien. – Don't mention it.
Je veux partir. Tout de suite. Nicolas. Tout de suite! – I want to leave. Now. Nicolas. Now!

.

Essere al sicuro là fuori. – Be careful out there.
Non preoccuparti per me. Comunque non mi è permesso andare da nessuna parte da sola. Guarda? – Don't worry about me. I'm not allowed to go anywhere by myself, anyway. See?
Oh, fottimi… – Oh, fuck me…

.

If you have a really strong urge to murder Aro to death after reading this chapter, it is quite understandable. I won't be mad at you ...perhaps.

Reviews are welcome. ;)