AN: There have been a few issues with the site over the last month or so and I have only just learned that emails are not going out to let readers know there are new chapters. This glitch has also meant that the 'last updated' date hasn't changed when new chapters have been added, either.

It might be worth checking through the recent chapters to make sure you haven't missed any! This has been a FanFic wide disturbance so check on your other authors pages too!

If someone could let me know if they receive/don't receive an update email, I would be very grateful. Hoping the glitch is fixed!

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Marcus closed his chamber door after the Egyptian coven was safely inside. "I have prepared a room for your younger members, if they have need of it."

Benjamin watched his coven leader. He was tired and he knew Tia would be, too. "We have travelled a long way, Amun," he prompted.

"Of course," Amun agreed. Like Aro, he didn't want his young protégé to be deemed weak in any manner. "Because of the travelling ... " he added quickly.

Marcus smiled as he led away the young mated Egyptian pair. "We keep young vampires in the castle, too. I understand."

"What is this offer Aro proposes?" Amun asked the moment Marcus returned.

"I do not know, Amun, Aro has kept the full details to himself in an effort to aid discussion. He will make the decision for our coven without the other masters having an input, as you must do for yours," Marcus replied as he set to pouring glasses of wine, one for himself and one each for Kebi and Amun.

Amun accepted his glass gratefully. He enjoyed such human customs in his home, Marcus knew that. "You know more than you are letting on, Marcus, we have been friends for a very long time," Amun told his old friend.

Marcus took a seat and gestured for the others to sit with him. "Aro wishes to reach a settlement. He left you with too little after the wars between our covens and he intends to put that right."

Amun laughed. "Yes, 'nothing' is too little," he said, thinking of the devastation the Volturi caused him during the wars between their covens.

"Ah, Amun, he left you your beautiful mate, you are more blessed than you know."

Kebi smiled to the old coven master.

"I'm sorry, Marcus, that was insensitive of me," Amun replied, feeling guilty for his complaints when he still had his wife with whom to share his life.

"The guards here," Amun broached, "they seem happy."

Marcus laughed heartily. "They are happy," he said, "why wouldn't they be?"

"It is not what I was expecting," Amun admitted. He had only passed a few in the halls and when they passed the guard hall, but they all seemed to look well and be in good spirits, greeting Marcus respectfully but showing no signs of fear by his presence.

"What else would you have expected?" Marcus asked.

Amun shook his head and took a swig from his wine "I have only met the guards in conflict. Aro and Caius ... and you, in your day, ordered them fiercely. I think I expected a little more viciousness within these walls."

Marcus nodded along, it was true enough. "Battles require a particular command, do they not?" he questioned.

"I suppose so," Amun agreed.

Marcus opened his arms wide. "If that was our way with our guard at all times we would have lost them centuries ago."

Amun could suddenly see where he had been going wrong with commanding his own coven, it came as something of a revelation.

"You can never rely on a horse that is educated by fear. There will always be something that he fears more than you. But, when he trusts you, he will ask you what to do when he is afraid," Marcus said. The analogy, though very human, worked for their guards.

"Your guards trust you ... and the other masters?" Amun asked, as though it were a foreign concept.

"I believe so. They are well cared for; all of their needs are met, and then some. Why wouldn't they trust us?" Marcus asked.

Amun didn't respond, he was deep in thought.

Kebi whispered into her mate's ear. "There are no bars on these windows, Amun, the guards could leave at any time, if they so wished."

Amun smiled sadly. "Then why didn't Demetri return to us?" he asked his mate.

Amun looked aggrieved that Demetri may have chosen to stay in Volterra over his original coven, but that grievance shouldn't be confused with care. He was far more upset to have lost a member, a member with talents such as Demetri's.

Kebi had quite liked the boy but Amun's leadership wouldn't allow her to get too close to him. Seeing her mate rolling Marcus' words around his mind, she hoped they may be able to make changes to their own coven when they returned to Egypt.

…

Caius led Henri down to the dungeon level, at his insistence. "Why do you waste your days playing second to Aro?" Henri goaded the master.

Caius knew what he was doing, he wasn't taking the bait. "I don't see myself as second to Aro and I am hardly wasting my time," Caius replied easily.

"You are kidding yourself, Caius," Henri scoffed.

Yvette continued to walk behind the two men.

Caius thought it odd that she didn't speak - he couldn't get Athenodora to shut up!

"You could join the French coven," Henri offered.

"And be second to you?" Caius asked, finding the very idea preposterous.

"We are like minded fellows - we would be equals," Henri suggested, though even he couldn't keep the smirk from his face with such a false offer.

"Now who's kidding themselves?" Caius asked, laughing heartily as he collected a torch from the stairwell wall.

Yvette took the second and Henri walked ahead.

Far too important to see where you are going,huh? Caius thought sarcastically.

"Have you never considered leaving?" Henri asked, checking out the empty newborn cells.

Carlisle and Felix had done a grand job cleaning them up. The whole dungeon sparkled, for a dungeon.

"I have, but really I have no reason to leave - I love Volturi life too much. Here I have power, I have wealth, I have resources to do what I enjoy," Caius replied evilly.

Henri stopped in his tracks. "And what do you enjoy?" he wondered aloud.

"I will show you," Caius said, stalking ahead to his playroom.

"This is affectionately known as my 'playroom'," Caius said as he pushed the panelled door open.

Henri peered inside. The room was windowless and pitch black - even with Caius' torch held up at the doorway, he could see little within.

"Stay here," Henri called to Yvette, who took her place by the door. Henri followed Caius inside.

Caius lit the central fire pit which flooded the entire room with enough light for a vampire to see everything the room contained.

"This is magnificent!" Henri enthused as he looked around the torture chamber. "Do these shackles hold vampires?" he asked, lifting the huge and heavy iron chains.

Caucus took out his silver knives and allowed the light to dance on the blades. "So long as the victim has lost enough blood," he told the French leader.

"You bleed them?" Henri asked. "And, what about the blood?"

Caius smiled mischievously. "Stored in barrels, preserved with alcohol and allowed to mature - a particularly potent mix we call dungeon blood."

Caius took a small glass and let the tap of the barrel loose to fill a decent gulp worth of the sticky, tar like substance. "Would you like some?" he asked, extending the glass to Henri.

"I shouldn't ... I need to have my wits about me when I face that scheming cunt," Henri said, waving away Caius' offer.

Caius could see Henri's eyes were yet to leave the glass. "If you are referring to my co-master, I would be careful of using such terms in his presence," Caius warned gently, offering the glass again.

Take it you bastard. Aro will have an easier time if you are a little mellowed from the dungeon blood.

"Are you having some?" Henri asked.

"I will partake if you are game," Caius replied, handing the glass to Henri and taking one from the barrel for himself. Caius knocked his down in one, he was used to the taste and texture of dungeon blood and sometimes forgot what it must taste like to a first-time user.

Henri grimaced as the sticky liquid coated his throat and burned in his belly. "Whoa!" Henri exclaimed as he sunk into the floor.

Caius laughed and crouched low to keep an eye on the French leader.

It took about half an hour for Henri to come back down from the top of his high. "You know you can't fool me, Caius. There is no way on this earth that two alphas like you and Aro could ever get on peacefully," he stated, sure of his assumptions.

"We have our share of disagreements, but we are loyal to one another, regardless," Caius corrected the man. "You should remember, whilst you are here, your thoughts are not private."

"Aro won't be laying a finger on me. I'm not giving him access to my thoughts!" Henri bustled, gesticulating wildly with his arms.

"It wasn't Aro I was talking about. The creator, and his mate ... they are very powerful. They can read our minds as clearly as if you screamed your thoughts aloud," Caius told him.

That unnerved Henri and even his obstinate façade couldn't hide his fear of the creator.

"The creator lives here, permanently?" Henri asked, to which Caius nodded. Henri scoffed. "So you are below him, as well?"

"Again, no. I am below no one. The Volturi family sit outside of the coven, alongside really."

Henri started laughing, though he wasn't too sure why.

Caius knew. The dungeon blood was fading and leaving Henri with a mellow hue.

"All that bollocks about family ... "

"They are a family, Henri. With family loyalties - you would do well to keep that in mind," Caius explained, pulling Henri to his feet.

"So, they are above the law I take it?"

Caius shook his head. "No. Basileus ensures his family is lawful, as does Aro. I can attest to that," he replied confidently.

"I am afraid I am not gullible enough to believe you, Caius." Henri said, slurring as he spoke. "No one should be above the law, except maybe the creator. He is a god, he can do what he likes," Henri muttered indistinctly in reply.

"Who's going to stop him?" Caius asked. "Would you fancy the job?"

Henri looked to the floor. He couldn't say he would, he wasn't up to the task and he knew it, but it pained him greatly to admit any such failing.

Caius smirked to himself, he knew he'd won.

"I have heard rumours about this place, you know," Henri said as he staggered around the playroom, taking in the sights of Caius' torture chamber now he had use of his legs again. "There's talk from the vampire rogues that you have a prison here. I saw only empty cells."

Caius smiled as he walked to the back of his large dungeon hideout. "We do have a prison," he called over his shoulder. "Should I show you, I wonder?"

Henri followed Caius like a lost puppy being led home. "You will never find another vampire who would appreciate your work more than I, Caius."

"That's true enough," Caius replied as he brought them to a pair of wooden doors. "Open them."

Henri's face scrunched up. "These doors? It's just a cupboard!"

"Open them," Caius repeated.

Henri looked quizzically to Caius but opened the tall wooden doors. The sight that greeted him knocked him sick. "What in the name of hell is ... !" Henri sounded surprised, but Caius could tell he was also impressed.

"If you don't sever the spinal cord at the back of the neck, the victim doesn't die." Caius explained.

"How the hell did you work that out?" Henri asked, poking the closer heads to check they were real.

"I didn't - that's Aro's claim to fame," Caius explained. "These were our first inmates," he said, gesturing to the dead heads at the very top of the prison. "We spent a few days down here tearing the Romanian scum to shreds. They had lost all their blood but Aro could still access their thoughts. We had taken their limbs, their skin, their organs ... but still they were of sound mind. Well, sound enough to continue to think."

Henri appeared fascinated and Caius quite enjoyed having someone so appreciative to whom he could show off his talents.

"They couldn't speak?" Henri asked.

"We had torn out their lungs so they couldn't breathe - no breath, no speech."

Henri took to examining each dead head in turn. "But they didn't die?" he said, mainly to himself.

"We left them a few days and when we came back to dispose of the bodies they were still alive. We lost one, testing out how much spine they could lose," Caius pointed out the top two again, " and with these two we discovered the perfect balance."

"How long have they been here?" Henri asked, still awestruck by what he saw as a majesty of creation.

"Early 500s."

Henri's jaw dropped open. "And they still think?"

Caius nodded. "Apparently so," he said, though he only had Aro's word for it.

"That's brutal!" Henri insisted, though again, he sounded pleased by the brutality. "Who ends up in this hell?"

Caius closed the doors to the prison cupboard. "The creator tends to rip apart any vampires that cross him," he explained, "but anyone who pisses off Aro, or me, to such a degree that we want them to suffer ... they will end up in here. Marcus isn't so inclined, and as yet, neither are Magnus or Freyr."

Hearing the newly appointed masters' names reminded Henri of his earlier annoyance. "How did that lowly guard rise through your ranks?" he said, thinking of Magnus.

"Volturi guards are not lowly - at any level," Caius replied. He meant it too. They may be below him ... no, they were certainly below him ... but they were above any other covens' vampires, that was for damn sure!

Henri scoffed. "That depends on whether you are one of the Volturi coven or not." Henri made a fair point. To the outside world, Volturi guards were rarely challenged through a mixture of fear of reprisal and respect ... with more leaning towards fear. Guards had the freedom on missions to be as ruthless as they desired and some took that freedom to the extreme, earning the entire group to be labelled as debased.

Henri knew he'd get no further on the point with Caius, and turned his attentions to Freyr. "The woman then. How can you share your power with a woman?" he asked.

Caius guided Henri out of his playroom, locking the door behind them both. "Freyr is a warrior - before she was made a master, even before she was turned. I feel no shame in sharing my power with her," he said easily.

Caius had no issue with Freyr. Both she and Magnus had made his job far more enjoyable now they were dealing with guard issues. He bloody well loved them for that alone!

"No woman can be a warrior," Henri sneered.

Caius felt a flash of guilt for poor Yvette who must have heard what her mate had said. Caius clapped the French coven's leaders shoulder with his hand. "I would love to see you up against Freyr," he dared the man, whilst already looking forward to Freyr bringing him down.

"Anytime!" Henri beamed, perfectly content to bring the ex-guard to her knees.

If only he knew, Caius thought. "I am sure there will be time after your meeting with Aro," he said, as he began to lead Henri to the library with Yvette shuffling along behind them.