I had never been in a castle before.

I had been in numerous castle-like buildings but never in a real castle. We don't really have many of those where I come from.

When I first saw Palazzo dei Priori my jaw fell comically. I had never been out of my country and so I had never seen any construction that old in person. It was mesmerising, entirely made of stone in romano-gothic style, with a clock and a central tower, beautifully watching over the plaza like a proud father. When I glanced at Alec I could tell he was really happy with my reaction.

"You live in an actual medieval castle? That is both awesome and incredibly stereotypical. Are you sure you don't sleep in a coffin?"

My comment was met with booming laughter and he put a hand on my shoulder to guide me to the entrance.

"I don't sleep, I already told you."

He never stopped smiling at my teasing observations as we made our way through the square, his skin protected from the sun by a thick cloak. My body was aching all over and I desperately needed to sleep, the madness of the previous days finally catching up to me the closer we got to our final destination. I had napped some more in the car going from the airport in Florence to Volterra but the lack of uninterrupted sleep was beginning to get to me. Even so, as we walked through the piazza an insistent thought wouldn't leave me.

What if I try to escape now, before we go inside? Can I outrun him? Where would I go? I barely speak any Italian, he probably knows this city like the palm of his hand, could I make it out of here?

Unlikely. The space was very open and not very crowded, and even if it wasn't I knew I wouldn't even make it out of the square before he caught me. I knew it would only upset him. Still that voice in my head wouldn't leave me and when we reached the opening on the floor at the end of the street, the one that led to the inside of the building, the voice began to scream because Alec said he would go first to catch me as I fell.

He obviously had the same thought as I did because he squinted his eyes and warned me –

"Be good and follow right after me. Don't think you can escape just because I will go first."

I most likely couldn't, anyway. But it was so tempting. I watched him disappear and found myself apparently alone in that part of the street, it was too good of an opportunity. My body shook with the impulse to run as far from the castle as I could.

"Marina" I heard him call from down the opening, "come now."

What if I do run? Even if he catches me, I would have tried. Maybe I will manage, maybe I will have a miracle.

I risked it. I quit overthinking and just ran right back to where we came from, feeling a numbing thrill shooting through my body to the end of my limbs.

It was incredibly short-lived.

I barely took three steps and collided with someone just as cold and hard as Alec, but it was not him.

"And where does the lady think she is going?"

A very large man wearing a grey cloak taunted me as he held my arms. With the hood that shadowed his face I couldn't make out his features but the brightness of his crimson eyes was unmistakable even to my human eyes.

"Just getting some air."

Where I found it in myself to be funny I couldn't tell for the life of me but the man seemed to be in a good mood and chuckled darkly at my lame joke.

"None of this now, go inside like Alec told you to." He winked at me "be good."

I sighed and went back to where I saw Alec disappear, the man following closely behind me.

"I'm Felix, by the way."

Nice to meet you, Felix, thank you for nothing.

I never knew I could be so snarky if only I felt bitter enough, I was already under the impression that any extra amount of self-discovery would undoubtedly turn me into the villain of my own story.

"Nice to meet you, Felix. I'm Marina."

"We all know who you are, sweetheart."

I cleared my throat nervously.

"Wonderful."

He chuckled again and put his hand on my back to push me lightly forward.

"She ran, didn't she?" I heard Alec's voice from some distance.

"Needed some air, she said."

I didn't need to hear Alec sighing to know that he did.

"Down the rabbit hole, little Alice." Felix pushed me a little harder. I reluctantly put myself through the opening and after a second of hesitation I let go. I was met by Alec's arms quicker than I imagined I would be. He gently let me down to the floor.

"I can barely see anything."

"I'll guide you."

He did his best to guide me as we walked on the irregular surface of the floor. The stonewalls were moist and I felt very uncomfortable with the dim lighting and the humidity in the air since it was a bit chilly and I was still dressed for Rio's summer weather. I put my arms around myself to try to warm them a bit and felt a pat on my shoulder.

Felix was offering me his cloak.

"Oh, thank you so very much."

"She's all polite, isn't she? Did you train her?" He teased Alec, who smirked.

"No, they must have trained her at the shelter."

They laughed loudly and I tried not to glare at them. The things one must endure from actual demons that crawled out of hell, unbelievable .

We walked for quite a while, it felt like a journey to me. When I mentioned that to Alec he was a little impatient as he answered me.

"It's because you are so slow."

"Oh, sorry."

I heard a low laugh from Felix and he spoke to me almost sympathetically.

"We're almost there" he guaranteed.

I couldn't tell one corridor from another unless they were starkly different, like some were all wet stones and had a dungeonesque atmosphere to them and others were well lit and covered in marble. We passed by a reception at some point where a human woman greeted Alec and Felix from behind her desk before she noticed me.

"This is Marina," Felix told her, "I suppose her room is ready."

"Oh, yes. All ready. Her belongings are there as well" she said as she eyed me curiously. I had cleaned myself off to the best of my abilities at the hotel in Brazil but Alec gave me little time to check myself properly in order to be sure I was presentable, so I was not that certain that there was no more blood on me. I had the impression I still had some because the woman gulped and added while looking at me "you can wash your hair when you get there".

Did I cross the Atlantic with blood on my hair?

"Thank you, I really appreciate that."

She nodded and Alec resumed his walking, holding my hand and gently dragging me along. I noticed then that I had been walking even slower than usual, which must have been why he was annoyed at me earlier. My feet felt so heavy that I was barely lifting them to walk. I could probably crawl faster than I was walking. My whole body was weighing me down and my eyelids were losing against gravity like thick untied drapes, I was almost falling asleep even though I was standing.

"God, I'm so tired I could sleep for days" I whispered to myself but both of them could hear me perfectly.

"You may sleep as much as you want after you speak with the kings" Alec promised me and a shock travelled through my body, jerking me awake.

The seriousness of my situation hit me and I became insanely nervous.

I am going to speak with the kings of the vampire world right now, fuck. I'm not ready for that, I won't ever be .

What if I did or said something wrong and enraged them enough to get killed? What if they decided I was not all that special after all and wasted massive amounts of their time and resources?

What if it was all a lie and they never wanted me for the purposes they said they did?

I was suddenly more than awake, I was frantic. I couldn't even breathe anymore, I stopped walking and took a hand to my chest because it felt constricted.

"No, none of this" Alec held my face in his hands and tried to soothe me. "It's fine, they just want to meet you. Get yourself together."

I tried but my attempts were in vain. To have Alec scrutinising my face as I made a conscious effort to pace my breathing didn't help one bit, I felt pressured and consequently even more nervous.

"What a jumpy little thing" I almost didn't catch Felix saying with a smile.

"Marina, if you don't recompose yourself I will have to slap you."

My hands flew to his and I tried to push them off of me with no success.

"You would not dare ."

He smiled and dropped his arms.

"Of course not, my love. But see? You're all better now."

I was a little better, indeed. His words got me more angry than scared for a moment and I felt a little braver.

"Right. Yes, thank you."

"Wish I got a penny for each of her 'thank yous'."

I did glare at Felix that one time, which amused him to no end.

We kept going and with each step I felt closer to a guillotine. I clung to what Alec had said, that I could sleep after talking to the kings, because it meant that they would not make me a vampire right then. They would just meet me and talk and I would still have some time as a human. During that short remaining piece of the way to the room where they awaited us I began to realise that I didn't really know much about vampires. Alec had told me a few things, but I could count them on the fingers of one single hand. I had no idea of how one turned into a vampire, so I had no idea of what to expect regarding that, and it seemed both too late and too inappropriate to ask as the realisation hit me.

I suddenly thought about my parents. I hadn't seen them in a while and I would probably never see them again, they would think I was dead until they died themselves. It was the wrong thing to think about before appearing before vampire royalty as it turned me all shades of blue.

I just wanted to wake up in my bed in their house and have them hug me, saying it was all just a nightmare. I felt my eyes start to water but then we reached large doors that were opened for us from the inside.

When we finally entered the room we were headed to I gasped in surprise. For some reason I was expecting to meet only a handful of people, the kings and maybe a few more. Bodyguards, two or three others, not much more than that. When I glanced around dozens of pairs of red eyes met my brown ones and I was taken aback. Little bits and pieces of information clicked together in my head at that moment, Alec saying I had been watched for months before I met him, Felix saying that they all knew who I was, Alec saying they expected me to be as powerful as him after I became a vampire...

I hadn't truly realised how important these people thought I was and how much they must have anticipated meeting me.

"God, so many people."

Alec squeezed my shoulder reassuringly but quickly left me to go stand near the thrones on the other side of the room. Felix positioned himself closer to me, but near the wall. I was left standing by myself in the middle of the room, fidgeting anxiously and looking around to try and discover what I was supposed to do there.

In the midst of my tiredness and my sadness I felt a hint of embarrassment because of the awkwardness of the situation, but it was brief.

"Ah, there you are, my dear!" A dark-haired man exclaimed and clapped his hands gleefully. I turned my head to follow the sound of his voice and found him on my right, already making his way to me, gliding with effortless elegance.

I fought the urge to back away from him when I saw how strange he looked compared to the other vampires I had met so far. His black hair and black clothes were way too dark in comparison to his translucent white skin and his red eyes were oddly milky. He took my hand between his cold frail-looking ones and I didn't flinch, used as I was to the gesture from his kind at that point. He held it in silence, in apparent concentration, and that is what alarmed me. What could he be doing?

"Of course, forgive me" he answered the question in my head, which did nothing to calm me, much on the contrary. "My name is Aro, I am one of the leaders of this coven. I have a gift that allows me to access every thought you ever had through touch. I was merely checking your memories, please excuse the intrusion."

I was appalled.

Damn, without even asking. How incredibly intrusive.

His eyes flashed and it occurred to me a little too late that since he was still touching me he heard my judgement as it came to me.

"Yes, my child, I am truly sorry, but it was very necessary" he finally released my hand and I held it onto my chest protectively with my other one. "I had to be sure our secret was safe in spite of your breaching."

I paled.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know I shouldn't tell, I didn't tell many people."

He dismissed me with a careless flick of a hand.

"It is quite alright, it has been taken care of. Now, to more interesting matters..."

I tuned him off without meaning to, without even noticing I did.

"It has been taken care of."

I knew Luke had died without telling anyone else, he only left my side to go to the Starbucks where Alec probably found him. Natalia was the loose end I was actually worried about.

Oh God, I know I never pray and never worship but please just let me wake up in my bed from this nightmare. I was never nasty enough in this lifetime to go through all of this.

He was still talking to the people in the room and I shook my head to clear it. I focused my eyes on him and forced myself to listen to his words though they seemed so diffuse and distant through the fog of my exhaustion and my worries. When I managed to understand what he was saying he was telling the others in the room about what he expected from my ability after I was turned.

"Both research and speculation bring us to believe it will be a gift of physical nature, possibly of the offensive kind" he explained excitedly.

I was too uninterested. I couldn't make myself really pay attention to him, I stood there in that room surrounded by curious vampires thinking about how Alec doomed me when he saw me passing by him in June and how I wanted nothing more than to just be done with all of that. I thought about everything that was taken from me and how I hated and was in love with Alec at the same time. Time itself was frozen again for a moment and I took that opportunity to seize the extension of my life as a human.

"What was that?"

I blinked and woke up from my own thoughts. Another one of the kings had asked the question, one with white hair.

"Was it her?" A woman wondered out loud from somewhere I couldn't see, too far in the room and surrounded by darkness.

There was a low buzzing of voices speaking over each other.

"Silence" the blond one ordered. He approached me so fast I didn't even see him coming and failed to suppress a scream. He took my hand like Aro had done, only without closing his eyes.

"Uhm, have I done something?"

He stared deep into my eyes with such a serious and intense expression that I felt myself getting small. My breath caught in my throat and my back arched like he had put something unbearably heavy on my shoulders.

"You paralysed us." He released me and lifted his chin. "Do it again."

"Brother" Aro called, putting himself at his side. "She cannot control it yet."

"It is remarkable" the blonde observed and I had the impression that he did so against his will, like he didn't want to admit I was anything but dirt under his shoes.

How charming.

It was not something I felt very often, but I perceived his comment as a challenge. I found myself unusually bitter upon hearing how averse he seemed to admit that I was extraordinary in any sense and the need to prove myself bubbled inside of me like hot lava, awful and destructive.

I could not recognise myself when in the company of those creatures.

I imagined myself concentrating all that strong feeling on my hands, remembering how they all always reached for them to feel whatever power they thought I had. I had very little idea of what I was doing, I just prayed I would accomplish anything on purpose for the first time, just so I could have the perverse satisfaction of proving the mean blond man wrong.

I condemned myself in my mind, that was never me. Who was this bitter and angry person awakening from the hidden depths of my core?

I could never tell when I did it, so I watched the two vampires in front of me intently to catch any hint of a reaction. It was the only way I had of knowing if it worked.

After agonising seconds of silent seething, feeling more and more ridiculous as more time went by, every head in the room snapped back to me.

I knew I did it then.

"There you go" I whispered as I didn't trust my voice not to shake.

The blonde raised his eyebrows at me and Aro laughed with sheer delight.

"Outstanding!"

I didn't mean to, but my eyes wandered to Alec. He was smiling proudly at me and I felt like dying at the leap my heart made when I saw it.

The white-haired man eyed me warily before finally offering me his name.

"I am Caius" he said as if I had just earned the privilege of knowing it.

"Nice to meet you, Caius."

Not really, but what else can I say, right?

He nodded in acknowledgement before gliding back to his throne. I savoured his little defeat as I watched him go.

Once I pulled the cork it all came rushing out, all sorts of disgusting thoughts attacked me like vicious animals jumping from their dens to tear through me. I told myself that maybe it was not so bad to renounce everything I ever knew, all my friends and family, my college course, my town and even my country, if only I could feel that exhilarating vibration of power and victory running through my body over and over again, forever. I wondered if that was how all of those gifted vampires felt all the time and understood why they would think so little of my insignificant human problems.

Who am I anymore?

The approval from Aro was so different from what I was used to receiving from anyone but so much more addictive exactly because of that. It was unlike the love from my parents as it had to be earned and before I could help myself I wanted another taste of it. I wanted to prove myself again and feel valued not because of who I was but because of what I could offer.

It was true, it occurred to me. The horrific truth washed over me like acid rain.

Power does corrupt.


a/n: I made a playlist for this story, the link is on my profile (hope it works)