AN: I'm sorry for the delay guys, I'm still playing catch up with all the files I lost in computer malfunction so the next chapter may take a couple of weeks, too. Massie thanks to Doccoopper for rushing the edits through on this one for us all :)
ARO - 1280BC, JULY
Basileus descended the stairs, followed by Caius sporting a blooming hand print to his right cheek, complete with the outline of Basileus' rings. There wasn't much point trying to hide it, there was no way in heaven that every guest of the south tower hadn't heard the resounding clout the creator had offered. Aro came last and wore an imprint matching his co-master's. Neither felt the hefty slaps had been deserved until Basileus pointed out how callous their questioning was of Magnus over his dead sons, of all things! They had both shut up pretty quickly after that and taken the round of fucks the creator had offered.
The Volturi elite had spread themselves around the grand ground floor, breaking into smaller parties discussing whatever matters they felt poignant in private grouping. Caius headed straight to his mate, who was again perched on Aro's desk, smoking hash with Irina. The window behind the desk had been opened by Sulpicia to bring some fresh air into the room before they all fell into an intoxicated stupor.
"Do you want to get out of here?" Caius asked Dora, hopefully.
Dora smirked seeing the bruising to her mate's cheek. When she'd heard the strikes, she just knew Caius would have received at least one of them.
"Not particularly," she drawled, stoned. Dora hadn't wanted to go to the south tower that day, but since palling up with Irina she was quite enjoying herself. The hash helped.
Irina took the hash pipe from her new best-friend-forever and took a drag. "You aren't leaving me with them on my own, Dora."
Caius narrowed his eyes to the pretty young woman and shook his head. "Could you excuse us, Irina?" he asked, "Now."
Irina huffed and handed the pipe over to Caius before she grudgingly sought out her sisters.
Caius took a scorching, deep drag, hoping the wonder drug would calm him a little before he passed the pipe onto his mate.
"Did you know about Odi?" he asked, trying to play it cool.
He never had been able to pull off the nonchalance Aro had mastered. Caius called a spade a spade and when he spoke on any matter he could never hide what he truly thought. He sounded jealous and he knew it.
"Of course," Dora replied. "How didn't you know?" It made no sense to the woman that her mate could have missed the bond between Freyr and Magnus and Odi. "Odi is often in Freyr's chambers, that's why they come down to us in the evenings."
Caius huffed. Truth was, he knew ... of course he knew ... but it had suited him to ignore the relationship his co-masters shared with the young guard. If he were being honest, he didn't mind sharing Freyr, however, sharing Magnus with Odi had sparked a terribly strong revulsion in the young master. It was a feeling Caius could neither understand, nor control.
"If they don't want to be around the jerk why don't they just send him packing?"
Dora snorted at her mate. Fool! she thought. "It's not that they don't want Odi around, Caius," she explained, as though she were talking to a small child. "They keep things separate for your sake."
"My sake?!" He tutted into the air, although it did give him a little hope. Maybe he thinks more of me than Odi? Cais wondered, thinking of the juggernaut. There was another matter on Caius' mind in relation to the young guard. "Have you ever fucked Odi?"
Dora scowled to her husband. "Don't ask, don't tell, love - your rules."
Between the two of them, there were very few coven members that Caius and Dora hadn't known carnally. That was okay, neither were bothered by the fact. They usually shared their extra marital conquests but they both sought other sexual partners on occasion and lived by the 'don't ask, don't tell' rule as they had since the human beginnings of their relationship. Something was different this time, though, and Caius needed to know if Dora had been with Odi. Taking hold of her wrist and pulling her painfully tight, he asked again.
"Tell me," he demanded through gritted teeth.
"I haven't," Dora spat, snatching back her arm. "Will you calm down?!" Dora may not have understood why Caius was so bothered - Caius didn't understand that himself - but she quickly gathered the oozing jealousy coming from her mate wasn't actually over whether or not she had fucked Odi. "Are you seriously jealous of Magnus and his son?"
Son?! Caius pushed his fists into his stomach to prevent the whiskey from rising. Son?!
"I know I'm fucked up." It wasn't any kind of real answer, but it was the best he could formulate under the circumstances.
"You say that like it excuses you being a prat, Caius. It doesn't." Dora was her typically unforgiving self. "Just 'unfuck' yourself."
Caius shot her a tight smile. "Very helpful, thank you."
Dora pulled him back before he could walk away. "Unfuck yourself is good advice," she told her mate. "Be who you were before you became so fucked up."
"I think you've smoked enough weed today, love," Caius replied, peeling her fingers from his arm to free himself.
It would have been good advice if only it were possible to erase a few thousand years' worth of psychological damage so easily. Caius hadn't always been the twisted fool he was. But the seeds of bitterness had been sown early in his vampiric existence and Caius could barely remember a life where he didn't feel defensive and on guard.
Magnus returned from the dungeons with a barrel over his hulking shoulder. Caius knew from clear across the room which barrel it was.
"Why did you bring that one?!" he asked, dashing to the man.
"Because of its low alcohol content," Magnus replied, setting the heavy container on the floor for Sulpicia to man.
The coven made the creators special brew in three bands - the gold band was opium infused, the black band, alcoholic. The silver band that Magnus had brought still contained alcohol but only enough to preserve the blood. Getting drunk with it was impossible.
"There are children here," Magnus explained for his choice.
"And alcoholics," Basileus pointed out, looking to his middle boy.
"I'm not an alcoholic," Aro insisted. "Caius is. I'm his best mate so I like to be supportive when he goes on a bender."
"Get fucked, am I!" Caius shot back.
"You are a bit," Freyr agreed, raising her eyebrows pointedly to the man's word choice.
"They're as bad as each other," Marcus added. "Although, I suppose we don't often see them properly drunk."
"Pft!" Magnus shook his head. "We don't often see them properly sober, either."
When Caius and Aro started bitching about the scorn they were taking, Magnus noticed the state of their faces. "What happened to you?!" he asked, concerned.
"Nothing," Aro mumbled, accepting a goblet of bloodwine from his mate and turning his face from view.
Aro might have got away but Caius was closer to the juggernaut. Magnus pulled the younger master in and turned the man's face into the light. Caius complained, but it was too late. Magnus could tell what had happened. Even if he hadn't worked it out, Irina was quick to reveal all.
"Basileus slapped him," she told the overgrown master. "We all heard it."
Caius spun back to the Denali girl. "Dora's free - go back to your plotting,"
"Oh, dear!" Magnus said pointedly to Caius. They had a few long conversations coming, Magnus was sure of it. At least if he's been gobbing off to Basileus, those conversations wont all be about me and Odi.
Basileus rounded his sons towards Magnus and Marcus. "I think we're on the same page now, aren't we lads."
"All of them?!" Magnus asked in surprise. Carlisle and Eleazar hadn't done anything wrong, as far as he knew.
Marcus felt similarly. "You are on the warpath, my friend."
Basileus shrugged. He'd only had a brief word with Eleazar and Carlisle, nothing like the rounding out he'd given Aro and Caius. "I'm done with the sniping, and now they all know it."
"Two of us weren't sniping," Carlisle pointed out.
Eleazar was in a fairly mute state, still in shock from the upheaval to his life that the Denali clan had brought, but he agreed with his little brother. Basileus' main point to his eldest son hadn't been about Magnus at all, in fact. It was about the girls and more importantly, as Basileus saw it, Carmen. 'You need to get your head in the game, son,' he'd said. Eleazar still moped morosely.
"Why would you be sniping?" Aro asked his little brother. "Neither of you have a position to protect, do you?"
The coven king deftly avoided a clout from his old man. Basileus' effort caught Carlisle instead, by mistake, much to Aro's amusement.
"You said I had to play nicely with your bosom buddies," Aro pointed out to his father. "Not my brothers."
"What on earth made you choose him, Dad?" Carlisle asked, rubbing the sting from his ear where his father had caught him. "Out of all the humans you could have picked from, why him?!"
"He was special," Basileus explained, looking to his first turned son.
"Yeah, he's real special!" Carlisle hissed, shoving past his brother on his way back to the seating area.
Once everyone was re-seated, in much the way they had been before, Basileus continued. "The truth is, every single one of you are special. That's why you were chosen."
There were a good many among them who couldn't quite see how that worked.
"We were just brought back to be guards," Freyr proffered. There was nothing special about their choosing, as she saw it.
Marcus appeared offended at the very idea. "Not at all, my lady." There were very few vampires that Marcus had picked out for turning and none of them were chosen without thought, without reason.
"You two showed Marcus something special back on that beach in Ireland," Basileus explained. "And that's why he brought you here."
"And, thank heavens he did," Atia said quietly to Freyr. She couldn't imagine coven life without another woman of her age and mindset to share her days with.
"Aww, poor little Demetri," Felix cooed to his brother. "You weren't special. You were war booty."
"He was special," Aro insisted quickly. "I chose him the same as I chose you and the twins. I didn't bite him, but that doesn't make any difference." Aro offered Demetri a warm smile, wanting to be sure his son felt none of the anxiety he had previously suffered because of Felix's teasing. "I imagine had I met you as a human I would have taken you then."
The boy smiled back sadly to his father. It wasn't that he didn't believe Aro, more that he just hated to be reminded that they didn't share the same bond as Aro did with Felix - however imagined that was. Demetri had accosted Caius as soon as his backside had touched the floor for another game of cards, and had seemed excited, but being reminded of his non-Volturi venom had seen his spirits dampened.
"Dora and I weren't bitten by the Volturi either," Caius pointed out, giving the boy a supportive nudge.
"No, you weren't," Basileus agreed. "But I picked you out as special the same way Aro did Demetri. Well, not exactly the same way, but like when I met Marcus, I knew you and Dora would be part of my coven, my family."
Family. Caius had never considered himself as part of the Volturi family. Volturi elite, sure, right from the start. But never family. There had always been a distinct difference between the way Basileus treated Aro and the way he treated Caius, and Caius had felt it right from the start. Living in Aro's shadow had affected Caius' psyche massively over the years and he'd worked hard in more recent times to shake the shackles of such treatment. Caius' thoughts immediately turned to Magnus and Odi and where he fit with the juggernaut if Magnus already had a son, a proper one. I'm not being relegated again.
"What about us?" Tanya asked the creator, breaking the short contemplative silence that had fallen. "Are we special?"
"We aren't special, Tan," Irina told her sister. "We're prisoners."
Tanya was a resilient little thing, all things considered, but her sister's constant objections were starting to get to her. It wouldn't have been so bad if someone had objected to Irina in return, but the silence was deafening. From her seat at Eleazar's side, she became teary eyed.
"Eleazar," Atia pushed, gesturing to the girl. She hoped his sense of selflessness, which Eleazar undoubtedly had on a good day, would spark seeing the child upset.
His brain may have been slow processing all his thoughts about the three young girls who had been dumped in his quarters, but once he caught on to the conversation that gone on around him, Eleazar found his voice and put his own issues aside.
"Regardless of the circumstances," he told Tanya quietly. "You've ended up in the royal coven. That makes you special."
Tanya wiped at her eyes and quietly cuddled into his side.
"Hardly," Irina tutted.
Eleazar took Tanya's chin gently in one hand and forced her to face him, not her sister. "You're here, you're special." He spoke with such total certainty that it was enough for Tanya to shut out Irina's sneering.
Carmen closed her eyes for a moment and thanked whatever there was above for the minor breakthrough. Eleazar was talking to the girl, reassuring her, comforting her … we'll be okay, she thought in relief.
"But still, Dad … Aro?" Carlisle asked his father. "Really?"
Basileus smiled as he thought back to the beginnings of his family. It had been a long time since he'd found Aro and turned him. Looking around the south tower, a room full of vampires, full of family, it was strange to think how close he had come to choosing an entirely different path.
"Truth is, I didn't pick out Aro myself," Basileus told the gathering. "My father did."
That had everyone's attention!
Aro - 1280BC, July
Basileus, the ancient creator of vampiric kind, sat outside his hovel home staring into the night sky. A clear night, but nothing special. It felt as though he had seen that same night a million times, because he had, of course, and the very idea of seeing that night again sickened him to his core. He turned briefly, hearing the murmuring from his make-shift bed. The women he'd brought home were stirring in their slumber. Basileus had planned to fuck and feed the night away, but after fruitlessly fucking all three he left them, all exhausted and drunk, to sleep off their activities. He couldn't even be bothered to try and finish himself off. At least they enjoyed it, he mused. He could make out one of the women as the moonlight danced on her face. He hadn't thought to ask her name, or that of her friends. They might have told him in the course of their evening but if they had he hadn't heard them. She's attractive enough, he thought, her friends, too. If I can't keep it up with three wanna-be Aphrodite's, what's the point in carrying on?
Thing was, Basileus didn't think it was worth carrying on. He couldn't count the years he had lived by then, each new year merged into the last, a hundred days passed in a blur, a hundred years the same. With his impassable eyesight, Basileus could make out the famed Lion Gate at the main entrance to the Acropolis. He could remember the damn thing being constructed and though they still stood proud, they were passed their prime. I've been in Mycenae too long. Basileus didn't mix too heavily with the humans, but he needed to move every ten years or so if he was to remain beneath the radar. He'd been in Mycenae for fifty at least, though to be fair to him, he only used the place as a base. Those fifty years had been one long, hard attempt to end his days.
Basileus ruled out various methods of suicide before he began on his quest, knowing that though they worked for humans, such simple methods wouldn't work on him. Strangulation was out, as were drowning, and suffocation. Starving a vampire of oxygen was a pointless endeavour.
His first attempt was to try and bleed out. Biting into his own wrists, Basileus held open the wounds and watched his blood redden the ground. He'd been in his little hovel that night, the earth still glistened with his offering of the pale, discoloured vampiric blood. He'd
been greatly weakened, but still lived.
He had sunk to the depths of the ocean floor once expecting the water pressure to blow him to pieces. For his efforts he had been rewarded with a raging ache that burned his bones and a headache that had lasted three phases of the moon! He was in no hurry to try that again.
He had walked to the peaks of every mountain on earth and thrown himself from the tops. The force of the falls had left Basileus battered and bruised, even some broken bones ... but still very much alive. Unfortunately.
Silver had the power to cut his hair and graze his skin with enough force. Basileus put that knowledge to good use, sharpened silver pieces into daggers and tried to sever his own head. Regardless of the force he employed, he only ever managed to break the skin, never the tendons, never the bones, never even deep enough to leave a scar.
There was one death Basileus had avoided. Burning.
After Zeus had commanded him to gain control of the vampires he had created, Basileus had travelled the globe hunting his own creations and executing the wretched, lawless beings. He'd burnt vampires, living and dead, and it was the one thing that he feared. The agonised screams, the plumes of purple smoke, the ash that was left … such a death, though potentially quick, sickened him. He had sworn it was something he would never try, but that night, he decided otherwise. It's time.
"Will you give a beggar man a place to rest for the night, my friend?"
Basileus had been so deep in his morose that he'd missed the approach of a frail old man. The man had come close enough to tap Basileus with the branch he used to old himself up. The feeble and partially crippled individual stood only three-foot-tall in his hunched over state. Basileus didn't even bother to respond to the old man's request.
"I beg of you to let me rest here, my friend," the man asked again.
"Move on, friend," Basileus sneered. "I have no time for beggars."
"I'm a stranger in need of help, my friend," the old man explained, and for a third time, requested warm hospitality from Basileus.
It wasn't an unreasonable request. Every society has certain rules, expectations and customs. In those ancient days of the early Greeks, one never knew when the beggar knocking at the door might be a god, disguised or else watching from above, passing judgement. Hospitality toward strangers and travellers was expected and frequently given.
Still, even knowing all that, even believing in all that as his father, Zeus, King of the Gods, had taught him, Basileus refused.
The beggar man nodded to Basileus and awkwardly retreated a few steps to stand clear of the ancient creator. There was something about the nod he'd given Basileus, something about the look in his eye that had Basileus thinking twice about his inhospitality. So much so that he watched as the frail old thing hobbled away. Still, it wasn't enough for him to change his mind, simply enough for the old guy to hold his attention. He watched as the three-foot, hunched up thing stretched out his back. It clearly took some effort but he managed it, rising an extra foot in height and seemingly no longer needing his stick for balance. The stick, he held aloft in his right hand and pointed it towards the clear night sky.
A flash of light and a thundering crack blew Basileus back. He toppled over until he caught friction on the ground. Shielding his eyes from the ferocious light, Basileus peered from under his hand to make out what had befallen the old beggar man. Where his once frail, un-shoed feet stood, the ground was scorched and there stood another man. No, Basileus thought, shocked to his core, not a man ... a god.
"How dare you refuse me?!" Zeus boomed in all his glory.
Basileus stayed low to the ground but dared to raise his head to speak. "I didn't know! I didn't know it was you!"
Knowing or not was irrelevant to Zeus given the customs he expected Basileus to observe. "I taught you better than this, my son!" With a resounding blow, Zeus struck his son's face with his hand and the mighty creator of vampiric kind went down to the floor again, clutching a busted cheek.
Zeus turned away from his progeny, disgusted by what he saw. He'd been watching Basileus for a while and the degradation to which his son had subjected himself was sickening to the King of the Gods. His refusal to honour the most basic of their customs was the final nail in the coffin in Zeus' mind. His boy needed a wake-up call. He needed direction. Purpose. Zeus could offer him that ... but first he needs to feed.
The hovel in which Basileus subsisted had crumpled to the ground with Zeus' eruption, and the women the creator had bedded that night lay injured and whining like wounded prey. Zeus considered healing them and setting them free, but their bodies could be put to better use for a higher power. Pulling two of the women free from the small wreckage, one in each fist, Zeus dragged the bloodied humans to Basileus.
"You will feed," he commanded.
His voice still thundered, but the anger was already dissipating. It had been so long since he had walked the land, so long since he had seen his favoured progeny. It took so much of his strength to walk the earth and Zeus wouldn't have done it for anyone else.
Basileus considered rejecting his father's offering, but he could hear in the god's thoughts that he would be made to feed should he refuse. Starving myself hasn't achieved anything, anyway, Basileus reminded himself.
Reluctantly, he took the first woman in his arms. Her body, scraped and bruised from the hovel falling on top of her, sang to him. The blood coursing through her veins in fear, powered by the adrenalin of the peculiar circumstances in which she found herself … it took only seconds for Basileus' desire for blood to rekindle and a few seconds more for the him to drain her body of life. His eyes rolled back into his head as he felt the burn in his throat quenched for the first time in an age. Blindly, he reached out for the second woman and brought her neck to his mouth. She screamed, she fought, but it was a futile effort. Basileus sucked so hard at her throat that the veins collapsed before he'd drunk his fill. He moved to her wrists and did the same, and then the legs. By the time he'd finished, the woman's body had been ravaged by the creator's fangs. Basileus lay back in the grass and licked the last morsels of blood from his lips.
Zeus chuckled softly to himself as he took a seat on the ground beside his boy. He watched as the bruising to Basileus' face faded, aided by the blood he consumed. He would have liked for his son to have felt that swipe for a little longer, truth be known.
"I didn't save you from the war to see you live this life."
Eugh, Basileus sighed. The war! He'd heard that speech before. When Zeus had sent his creations into hiding to save them from the Great War of the Gods, he had done so with the instruction to live a good life, as far as they were able. Basileus was sure his father had left other instructions, but true of any son hearing his aged father's wise words, he hadn't been listening at the time. Opening his eyes, Basileus saw the night stars looking down at him once again. They didn't seem so bad with some fresh blood in his stomach, but still not so good that he wanted to go on seeing them forevermore.
"I said …"
"I heard what you said," Basileus replied quickly, hearing his father's tone turning dark again. "But by saving my life, you incurred a value on it. It's a value I do not know how to spend."
Zeus bobbed his head. He knew that already - that's why he had gone to earth to seek out his son.
"You shouldn't have come to me, father," Basileus said quietly. "These visits weaken you."
"Rather be weakened than spend the rest of my life watching your attempts to destroy yourself," Zeus replied. "It won't work, you know? There is no way to end your own life."
Basileus sat up and eyed his father carefully. No way to end my own life, he repeated to himself. But ... "Would you do it for me?"
"NO!" Zeus thundered, appalled once again.
Basileus ducked for cover, throwing his arms above his head in defence.
Zeus regained his self-control and forced Basileus' arms down. He took his boy's face in one hand and fixed Basileus' eyes with his own. "There is nothing on earth that will kill you, nothing. Only the fires of Hades will kill you, my son. The value I incurred," he said sternly, "is for you to spend wisely."
Basileus nodded but his soul remained hollow. For all the words in the world, Basileus was still alone. His father only ever stayed for brief moments and he spent the rest of his time alone, lonely, in his pointless existence.
Zeus stood from the ground and pulled his son up with him. "I know what you seek, son," he told his boy cryptically. "You will find him at Delphi."
"Find who?" Basileus asked. "Lykaios?!"
"No, you will not find your brother, not until you are both ready." Zeus went back to the hovel and pulled the final woman free of the wooden rubble. "You need someone, though," he called to his son. Placing healing hands on the young woman he healed her wounds, restored her to health, and lifted her into his arms. Strolling back to his son, he said, "Someone not so transient as these women you lay with."
"You said him. I will find him …" Basileus drifted off with a confused face. "I don't want a him."
"Go to Delphi, my son," Zeus instructed. "Seek the Oracle there, and you will find him."
"And this 'him' will give my days meaning?" Basileus asked, wondering if the aged god had finally lost the plot. You haven't been watching me very closely if you think some bloke is the answer to my suicidal desires.
Zeus smiled broadly. "He will fill your days and then some, my son." He stroked the pretty woman's face with one hand and watched as she awakened. He liked what he saw well enough. "I'm taking this one," he told his son, and then the two of them disappeared, leaving a somewhat bewildered Basileus in their wake.
Basileus paused his trip down memory lane when he finally noticed the expressions on the faces around him. Complete shock coming from one and all. Atia's only surprise was that her mate had told the group of such dark days after swearing her to eternal secrecy on the matter.
Aro found his voice before the others. "I didn't know you had … tested your immortality." His voice shook a little, and he hadn't wanted to say 'attempted suicide' - testing immortality meant the same thing, he reasoned. But still, the idea that the creator of their kind, the demi-God, my father could attempt … that?!
"Let's call it as we see it, son," Basileus replied. "I hadn't simply tested my immortality, I had tried very, very hard, to end my life." A shiver ran down the length of Basileus' back and he made no attempt to hide it. "We've all had dark days," he added, clapping his hands together to bring an end to the contemplative feeling in the room. "Don't make the mistake to assume yours are darker than anyone else's."
"You don't feel like that anymore though, right?" Aro still couldn't say the words - that was as close as he could get.
Aro wasn't a fool. He didn't expect to know everything about his father, even with all the years they had spent together. But to find out something so dark, to hear how close to the edge Basileus had been … it unnerved him greatly. He moaned like a bitch about his father's interference in his daily life but he wouldn't want to imagine a time when Basileus wasn't there to guide him, help him, keep him company.
"I haven't felt that way since the day I met you, son." Basileus flashed a bright smile to the room. "I fight entirely different demons these days."
Irina looked around the gathering, all hanging on the creator's every word like he was some kind of special and snorted. "It's not true," she sang out in spite.
"What's not true?" Basileus asked in return.
"Your twisted tale," Irina spat back at him. "There's no such thing as 'Zeus'. It's a fairy tale."
Alec scowled at the Denali girl. "What makes you think fairy tales aren't true?!"
Alec believed everything he read and almost everything he was told. The Greek Gods his father and grandfather had told him of were every bit as real as King Arthur and Robin Hood to Alec. He may not have experienced the truth of such tales, but he believed very much in their possibility ... so Irina's claim was fighting talk to the youngest Volturi.
"Because they are fairy tales, obviously." Irina rolled her eyes at the brat having the audacity to question her. She added a 'fucking idiot' under her breath to the boy, which Alec worked out what she'd said by reading her lips.
"Did you think vampires were true before you became one?" Alec asked, glaring daggers at Irina. His three siblings groaned in unison. That was always Alec's answer when they tried to convince their little brother that the things he read and believed in were mostly fictional. "Well?!" Alec pushed. "Did you?"
"Settle down, my darling," Sulpicia told her child, hugging him close to her chest.
Irina couldn't answer without looking like a fool, having worked out Alec's premise. She merely shrugged in reply and turned away.
Alec smiled broadly. "Shut your mouth, then." He, too, added a 'fucking idiot' in return, though Alec made no attempt to temper his volume.
Whilst Sulpicia made a wishy-washy attempt to chastise Alec's insult, Aro did nothing. Felix was only to keen to point out the injustice to his grandfather, who had recently been pointing out the vast difference in the way the Volturi children were treated, with Felix bearing the brunt of his father's discipline whilst Alec mostly walked away unscathed.
Basileus hushed Felix before his complaints could cause any trouble and turned to his youngest grandson. "Alec, that's impolite," he pointed out.
"It's a fair comment," Aro answered for the boy, knowing they all thought similarly regarding Irina.
Basileus fixed his son with stern eyes. "Not from his mouth, Aro."
"Why don't you continue, my dear?" Atia interjected, pushing her mate into restarting his story.
With a nod in return, Basileus restarted...
Theus sat in the dirt watching the evening passers-by. There was barely any breeze running through the street, it was hot and dusty ... and by the gods, he was so bored!
"Can I come in yet?" he called over his shoulder to the open doorway behind him.
No response. He heard his father's grunting, but that grunting wasn't in response to Theus, it was for the woman in his bed. Calling the man his father might have been a bit of a stretch - Theus had no idea who his father was, really. His mother said it was him, though. And the guy put up with Theus hanging around his place, so Theus reasoned he could possibly be his father, at least. Before long - though too long, had you asked the boy - a woman emerged from the doorway and patted Theus' black haired head. He thought he recognised her from the whore house, but there were so many women passing through that place and few bothered with the boy, so he wasn't entirely sure. They all looked much the same to him anyway. He could never understand what took some of the old guys so long to select the woman they would fuck.
"Can I come in n…"
"Just give me a minute, for fuck sake!"
Theus huffed at the rebuke and leaned into the door, playing with the street dust with his bare feet. He continued to watch the passers-by when one took his eye. He was right at the end of the street but Theus could already tell there was something different about him.
"Aro!" he called, rushing inside.
"What did I just tell you?" Aro answered from his bed, face down, unclothed and uncovered.
He had spent all his energy and wanted to bask in the afterglow for a while. Instead, I have the spawn of Hades bothering me. He didn't mean it. Aro quite liked the kid. Loved him even. He had denied that Theus was his when he was born, but, at only nine years old the boy was his spitting image ... it was getting harder to deny.
Theus grimaced seeing the scarring to his father's back, slash after slash of badly healed whip marks ran from his shoulders to his backside. Aro never had told him how he'd gained them, only that he wasn't a runaway slave. Theus still wondered if he might have been, though.
"But there's a rich one coming," Theus said impatiently, handing Aro his tunic and cloth belt.
Aro's eyes widened and flashed with excitement. Taking money from rich idiots was his favourite pastime; his trade, even. He sprang to life and dressed quickly, heading for the door as he tied his belt.
"I'm kind of hungry," the boy called out shyly.
Aro stalled in the doorway. He didn't have enough coin to give the kid a feed that day. It had been a slow week, work wise. "I fed you yesterday." He shoved the boy out of the single room abode by his head. "Go back to the whore house and find your mother if you want feeding again."
He watched the child leave with sunken shoulders, but the boy didn't get far before Aro called him back. "Theus!"
The boy spun on his heel hearing his name. He knew Aro wouldn't really send him back to the whore house. Not at such an hour. It wasn't safe there for Theus in the evenings since some of the visitors now deemed him 'of age'. Whatever that means, Theus thought.
"Don't bother your mother, just stay out of sight until I've I finished working this rich guy."
Theus beamed for a moment before scampering down the street to find something with which to amuse himself.
Guilt assuaged, Aro left his home and started seeking out the rich man of whom the boy had spoken. It didn't take long to find him. The stranger in town looked just that - strange. A giant of a man, dripping with importance. If Aro didn't know better he would have sworn it was Zeus himself. The rest of the street backed away as the man made his way down the dusty road.
Not Aro. Aro never backed away. Even when he sensed danger he held his ground. The rich guy looked official. Only rich officials wore the cloth draped around his shoulders. You do look weighed down by your finery, my friend. I can help you with that. Aro nodded to himself and squared his shoulders, psyching himself up for dealing with fresh meat. No one was surprised to see Aro approaching the god-like man. A few of the older guys shook their heads at his display, but others stayed to watch, with the odd one taking bets on how successful the street prophesier would be.
"Do you want to know your future, friend?" Aro called out, moving to block the stranger's path.
Basileus barely broke his stride as he pushed Aro away. "I've already visited the temple of Delphi."
"It's the temple of Apollo at Delphi, you dickhead," Aro replied under his breath. "Oh yeah," he called a little louder, rushing to get back in front of the rich stranger. "How did you get on?"
Basileus came to a halt to avoid squashing the impertinent wretch. That's when he first laid eyes on Aro. FUCK! He took a step back and looked the younger man up and down. Could it be you? he wondered, thinking on his father's words. You look like me. So much like me …
"So …" Aro tried to deflect the man's attention. The way he appraised Aro was disconcerting, to say the least! "How did you get on?" he asked again.
"It wasn't a prophesy for me, it was for a king," Basileus answered. He told Aro the prophesy he had witnessed, "Do not loosen the bulging mouth of the wineskin until you have reached the height of Athens, lest you die of grief."
Aro snorted hearing the Priestesses words. "Good to hear the batty bitch is being as clear as ever." Even though the high priestesses of Apollo were supposed to be virgins, Aro had known the current Pythia intimately and she was still, as she had been when Aro knew her, mental! But then, that made for interesting prophesies which is why she had shot right to the top!
"What's your trade?" Basileus asked.
"I sell prophesies, friend," Aro explained, stressing the 'sell'. "And mine make much more sense than the warblings of the mad women from the temple. If you want to know your future, you can buy it from me."
Aro continued with his sales patter as Basileus nodded along. He was silently running through Aro's mind to discover all he could about the man whilst he worked out if he really was the one Zeus had sent him to meet.
"I'm going to pay you for a private reading and you are going to be truthful with me."
"I'm always truthful, friend."
The glint in Aro's eye suggested otherwise. His poker face wasn't good enough to fool the creator of vampiric kind, but Basileus did feel oddly drawn to him. It wasn't just because Zeus had sent him either ... there was something else.
"Hmmm …" Basileus mused, leading Aro to his own door. "Let's see, shall we?"
Aro should have known then that something was off - when a mysterious, rich stranger rocks up in your street and shows you to your own door, your mind should start questioning what's going on. As it was, Aro was fixated on the bulging, jangling money pouches attached to the man's belt and his thoughts were concentrated on earning Theus a decent meal.
Aro leapt ahead of Basileus and tried to clear his home as he went, which basically construed of throwing everything from the two-seat table to the bed and chucking a sheet over it all.
"We should take care of payment first," Aro suggested, eyes on the pouch as he took a seat. "Those seeking the counsel of Apollo offer laurel branches, money, black ram …"
Basileus unhooked one of his money pouches from his belt and dropped it to the table with a heavy thud. "Start talking," he said, taking the free stool. It creaked under his weight and it was a little lower than was comfortable, but it would do.
Aro took Basileus' hand in his own and let his eyes roll around in his head, ever the theatric. "You are much older than you look."
"And how old do I look to your eyes?" Basileus asked, smirking to himself in the knowledge that the so-called prophesier had no chance of a true appraisal.
"Fifty …" Aro guessed cheekily. He always poked a little fun at his 'guests' knowing it knocked them off guard and he would be better able to read their responses going forward.
"Insolent brat!" Basileus boomed, pulling away his hand and making to collect the cash from the table.
"What am I saying?!" Aro cursed himself and apologised, pulling the man's hand away from the money. "Forgive me. More like Forty."
Basileus watched Aro for a moment before telling him to continue.
Aro went back to his prophesying. "You have really lived … many, many partners."
Basileus nodded to that. Only the gods know how many, he thought. "Any in particular?"
"No, I don't believe so."
Basileus scowled at that. There were some memorable encounters, they weren't all 'transient' as his father had claimed. He had to remind himself that this guy didn't really know what he was saying, he didn't even know what Basileus was, let alone his life.
"What about family?" he pushed, wondering what the false prophet could possibly come up with in response to such a question.
Aro didn't like it when his subjects were so specific. "You don't know about your own family?" he asked, head lopped to one side.
"Don't get cocky, boy …"
"Boy?!" Aro shot back, offended. "I'm twenty-eight!"
Of course, Aro had no idea how very, very young that sounded to Basileus' ears. "Well I'm knocking fifty, apparently," he replied with the same lopped head Aro had used. "Just answer me."
Leaning back in his chair, but maintaining contact with Basileus' hand, Aro fired off what he thought he knew. "No mother … a father … no wife … no children."
Scarily accurate! Basileus thought, though he tried not to give too much away by his reaction. "Siblings?"
"Of course," Aro bobbed his head. "One of each, but you aren't close." Seeing the muscles in the man's jaw tighten slightly, Aro amended his guess. "You aren't close anymore."
"Aro?" Theus' small voice broke into the one-roomed home as he peaked his head around the door.
Aro jumped up from his seat, snatching the coin pouch on his way and pushed the boy outside. "Here," he said, depositing a few coins in the child's hands. "Find someone who will feed you. I won't be much longer."
Retaking his seat, Aro apologised for the interruption.
"Is the boy yours?" Basileus asked.
"Sort of," Aro half-heartedly confirmed. "Someone has to feed the poor sod."
Basileus smiled sadly to himself. Could he take the boy's father for a vampire of his own? The child was too young to fend for himself in any meaningful way, though many tried to do that just as young as him, they rarely reached appropriate adult lives.
"His mother?" Basileus asked, hoping he wouldn't be leaving the child an orphan.
"A whore," Aro replied, quickly grimacing seeing Basileus' face turn sour. "I'm not being disparaging, friend. She is a whore. A well paid one, at that."
Seeing Basileus become contemplative again, and knowing Theus would be home soon to claim his bed for the night, Aro pushed on. "So, how did I do?"
"Not bad," Basileus said. "But I know you aren't blessed by the gods with your gift, so how are you doing it?"
Aro pulled his shoulders back, every stitch of his calm façade faded and he started to stand, slowly. He doubted he could take down such a giant of a man easily, but he would give it his best efforts if he was about to be attacked in his own home.
Basileus chuckled at Aro, who clearly had experience being called a charlatan. "Sit back down," he said, nudging Aro's stool towards him. "I've paid you handsomely and I will keep your secrets."
Warily, Aro returned to his seat, but his eyes stayed fixed on the rich stranger, wondering exactly who he was. Now he'd collected the funds to feed Theus, his mind had lost its distraction and Aro wondered what danger he was in. Are you an official? The more he looked at the man, the surer he became that he was. Some official from the temple seeking to put him out of business. He'd had trouble with them before.
"I'm merely interested in your work, boy," Basileus explained calmly, softly.
Aro kept hold of Basileus' coin pouch. "You aren't having your money back."
"If money is your motivator, have some more." Basileus untied a second purse, just as heavy as the first, and scattered the contents on the table. "Now tell me how you do it."
Aro collected the coins together. It was more than he earned in a year, more than he could hope to earn in ten years, even!
"I just guess." Aro smiled down at the coins in his lap. "Prophesying only works if you keep the details loose."
Basileus looked into the cup sat on the table. He splashed the contents to the earthen floor and took up the jug to refill it. He had expected water, so it was a nice surprise to find the jug pour with wine. Aro looked to his wasted wine on the floor. The fact that he could buy a million jugs worth with the money his recent subject had given him was irrelevant. Aro never wasted a drop of wine, ever!
"There has been a shrine here for a hundred years, a little over. The naval of the world," Basileus paused to take a swing of the cheapest, damn near rancid wine. "I've visited before, but you are the first who has the gift for seeing inside a man. Why are you out here and not in there?"
"Are you sure you've been here before?" Aro asked, smirking at the man's mistake.
"I've warned against your cheek already, boy,"
Aro held out his hands defensively. "You seem to have a limited understanding of how things work in Delphi, that's all." Aro rolled his eyes at having to explain such a basic tenant of life! "Only the priestesses of Apollo can become the Pythia, the head woo woman, if you like." He shrugged like he didn't care - he did, the injustice when Aro was so clearly gifted to prophesying stung every time he thought of it. "I make enough coin out here from guys like you."
Basileus scanned the room that Aro called home, and apparently shared with a street rat. "Not quite enough, by the looks of things."
Aro shrugged again. I'll be moving somewhere grander sometime soon, I reckon, he thought, feeling the weight of the coin in his lap.
"Let's see if I can guess about your life, shall we?" Basileus set the empty cup down on the table. "Your name is Aro, you aren't from around here and I doubt you came to Delphi to make your fortune selling prophesies on the street …" Basileus paused and decided to play with Aro a little. "So, I'll say you ran away from home, young, you ran away young. You are single. Single-ish." He ended his purposefully weak appraisal of Aro's life and looked to him expectantly, waiting for a response.
Aro whistled into the air. "Yeah, great."
"You are unimpressed?" Basileus asked, playful smile tugging at his lips.
"You heard the boy call my name," Aro pointed out. "And it's obvious by my accent I am not Delphi born. Clearly I am single." Aro spread his arms wide to his small home which bore no sign of a female touch.
"You want more?" Basileus mused, smile growing. "How about this …"
Basileus took Aro's hand. Through that simple touch he injected pictures into Aro's mind, which he narrated, telling Aro all about the future he would have with the creator of vampiric kind. Aro struggled, he pulled, he dropped to the floor, scattering money to every corner of his home. He didn't even look for where the precious coins landed, such was his fear over what he was seeing. Eventually, Basileus released Aro's hand.
"What the fuck are you?!" Aro roared, scrabbling back to the wall.
"Settle down," Basileus replied calmly.
"What the fuck are you?!" Aro raged again. He was trapped with some sort of bewitched monster, he was sure of it! "Are you a god?" Aro asked, peering up at the man from the floor. "You're a beast or a god, which is it?!"
Basileus stood and loomed over Aro for a moment, blocking out all light from the few candles that lit the room. Dragging the younger man to his feet by a hand coiled tightly around his throat, Basileus told him, "I'm a beast and a God." He sunk his fangs into the exposed flesh of Aro's neck and injected his venom deep. "And when you wake, you will be, too."
Only a short time passed before Theus returned.
"Hello, little one," Basileus said, bringing the boy inside to see his father.
Aro lay on his bed convulsing and moaning as the venom traversed his veins, changing him from human to vampire.
"What have you done to him?!" Theus asked, rushing to Aro's side.
Basileus had already been through Aro's entire life history and he had witnessed some key conversations between Aro and the boy. "Your father is my runaway slave," Basileus lied, pulling the boy back by his slight shoulders.
Theus' mouth dropped open. He knew his father had lied about those whip scars! He knew it! To the child's ears, hearing his father was a runaway wasn't as ghastly as it might have been to many others. To Theus it simply sounded like his father had had a great adventure. It was a shame he'd been caught, of course, but what an adventure he must have had, Theus thought.
"I'm going to take him with me to work off his debt but he will return for you when you are older," Basileus continued. "The shock of finding out he has to leave you for a while has made him sick." Bloody hell, that was a poor lie, Basileus thought to himself. But what else could he say to explain to the boy why his father was bouncing about the bed in clear distress.
Basileus had already collected up the scattered coins and refilled the money pouches he had given Aro. "Here," he said, passing them both to the child. "This is the money your father earned in my service. Take it to your mother, it's enough for the two of you to start a new life together."
Theus' arms dropped to his sides with the surprise weight of the purses he'd been given. He had no way of knowing how much was contained within, but going solely by the physical effect on his limbs, he assumed a lot! But still, all the money in the world and the promise of a grander life wasn't enough to tear the boy's eyes away from his father. He couldn't understand how the man could be so suddenly sick when he'd been so clearly well only an hour before.
"We will meet you at the temple in ten years' time on this very night. Will you remember that?"
Theus nodded slowly. Ten years?! That sounded like a very long time. Longer than I've even been alive! Theus knew he had no say in the proceedings. He had no say in anything. "Will you really come back?"
"On my honour, we will return for you."
Basileus ended his tale there for the moment, seeing Aro walk past him, heading to the bloodwine barrels.
"Thanks for that, Dad," Aro spat as he went.
The creator cursed himself again, for he had revealed yet more secrets to the group that weren't his to reveal.
Aro returned to his seat with the bottle of whiskey in his hand. It didn't last long, being passed around the dumbstruck gathering, but Aro made sure to get a glass full at the start and another when the bottle made its way back around to him.
"You had a son before me?" Felix asked, utterly gutted that he wasn't, in fact, Aro's 'first born'.
"As you heard," Aro said, glaring at his father. "I have no idea whether Theus was mine or not. I just looked out for him as a favour to his mother."
"Favour?" Caius repeated in question. He was one of the few who already knew of Aro's human life and he had barely looked up from his cards. "For free fucks, more like."
"Caius!" Freyr admonished.
Atia tutted into the air. "If you cannot speak civilly, you will cease to speak!"
Caius glanced in their general direction and muttered an insincere 'sorry' before nudging Demetri to play his hand. Demetri was more interested in the story by that point.
"What happened to your son, Dad?" he asked.
Aro sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. "I don't know that he was my … it doesn't matter. We went back ten years later and we met up with Theus at the temple, just like he promised," he said, sticking out a thumb in Basileus' direction. "We had planned on turning him, but when we met he introduced me to his wife and daughter. He was happy, settled." Aro found his voice becoming a little shaky with the emotion he felt and passed the story back over to his father.
"Theus' mother put the money we gave her to good use," Basileus explained. "She bought her way out of the whore house and secured Theus a trade to learn. Carpentry, wasn't it?"
Aro bobbed his head.
"We set Theus up in a villa of his own and gave him some money to see him right and then we said our goodbyes." Basileus reached over and rested a hand on his son's knee. "He had a good life, Aro."
"I know," Aro replied, voice barely above a whisper.
Aro had been the one to refuse to turn Theus on their return to Delphi. Basileus tried to insist that the boy would get over losing his family and would enjoy the vampiric existence at their side, but Aro just couldn't see it done to the boy. He had missed ten years of the kid's life and he wouldn't wish for Theus to miss out on his daughter's childhood. The girl was still a babe in arms and with the money Aro gave the young family, her future promised to be bright. Aro knew he'd made the right decision for the time. He had hardly been ready to parent teenagers when he'd turned Felix, let alone nearly eighteen hundred years before!
"When we left Delphi," Aro said, clearing his throat of the emotion he felt, "We went back to my father's farm. That's when I found Marcus lusting after my baby sister."
"She was a woman who demanded being lusted after," Marcus explained to the group with a faraway look in his eye.
Aro grimaced. Thinking of anyone lusting after his sister was … odd. No doubt it is for all brothers of younger sisters.
"Anyway," Aro said quickly to push the thoughts from his mind. "I killed my human father, it was one of the things Basileus had promised me whilst we travelled the globe, and then I turned Didyme. Marcus joined us on our travels and Didyme eventually grew to tolerate Marcus."
Aro received a cushion to the head from Marcus for his blatant lie. Didyme had loved him as a human, let alone as a vampire - they were inseparable from the moment she awoke.
"Didn't you want a mate?" Tanya asked the creator outright. She wasn't one to hold thoughts in her head for too long. "You and Atia haven't been together that long, have you?" Tanya knew Basileus had been with her mother at some point, but she wasn't privy as to when. She did wonder how the creator managed to be single for so long when he seemed so besotted with the mate he had.
"There was one," Basileus told the girl. "Xanthe." The creator shuddered thinking back to his failed relationship. "I met her when Aro and I were travelling and turned her to be my mate. It was a bad decision, I rushed things." Basileus puffed the air out of his cheeks. "One day I came home to find Xanthe trying to kill Aro, and as she was a newborn and Aro wasn't specifically trained to deal with her rampage alone, he was losing the fight. She damn near ripped of his head, until I ripped off hers and …"
"Did you love her?" Irina butted in, stopping Basileus mid-sentence.
"Xanthe?" Basileus asked. "Yes, I did."
"But you …"
"I loved Aro more." Basileus didn't need to hear Irina telling him what he'd done to her - he knew well enough and it still vexed him. "I did what any parent would do. Xanthe was a threat to my son," he explained.
"Your love appears to be quite fleeting, Basileus," Irina sneered. "You claimed to love my mother once, she said."
"I did." Basileus turned away from Irina for the moment and looked to Kate and Tanya instead. "Your mother was a wonderful …"
Irina wasn't about to give him the chance to get her sisters on side. "But you love men more?" she asked, with a snide smile.
Magnus burst out laughing at Basileus' side and quietly ribbed the creator about his illustrious past. The juggernaut's good humour was just enough to quell the anger rising in Basileus. He could have happily snapped Irina's neck. Even thinking about doing it was pleasing him at that moment. Giving Magnus a playful thump in the arm to shut him up, Basileus took up his goblet and drank down his bloodwine. He was suddenly on Caius' side about the bloodwine - alcoholic would have been much better under the circumstances.
"I'll tell you all about my love life when you're mature enough for the details, sweetheart."
Irina was annoyed. She was trying to get a rise out of the creator. She wanted him to blow up and prove her right. With a side eye glance to her sisters, both of whom seemed far too comfortable sitting with their captors, Irina pushed on in a different direction.
"So, you love your sons more than you love Atia?"
"I wouldn't say that, exactly." Basileus closed his eyes for the moment and wished to the gods that he hadn't promised his mate that he would take a back seat with the Denali girls. Atia's reasoning had been sound enough - Eleazar wouldn't take control if Basileus did it for him - but right then, as his eldest son sat gormless, watching the Irina show with everyone else, Basileus really wanted to set to the girl straight.
Magnus sensed his friend's emotions taking a nose dive and put all his efforts into picking the man back up, to no avail. "You are asking questions about things you aren't old enough to understand, young one," he answered on Basileus' behalf.
"I would bury Aro if I thought he was a threat to one of our children," Sulpicia added. "And we've been together for thousands of years. I would expect the same of him if I were a threat to them. It's called parental responsibilities, Irina."
"I've heard how Aro treats your children," Irina replied to the coven queen, getting a quick smirk into Felix, too. "It would seem you a little lacking in parental responsibility."
Magnus switched from Basileus' emotional state to Sulpicia's, stopping the queen from erupting in the manner she wished.
"Irina, just stop!" Kate called to her sister. She knew what Irina was up to. In all the years they had lived together, Kate had never seen Irina lose. Maybe the odd argument, but Irina never quit until she'd won the war.
"What do you mean?" Aro asked, the hackles rising on the back of his neck. "How do I treat my children?!"
Magnus took hold of Aro's emotions on top of Sulpicia's. With all the other emotions in the room battering him through his gift, the strain became apparent on his face.
Irina didn't answer Aro's question directly. She was getting what she wanted and was enjoying the Volturi's downfall, as she saw it. "I'm just surprised," she mused, sounding sickly sweet as she played. "From what we knew of the Volturi, Caius was the one with a penchant for cruelty yet he seems meek, and you, vicious."
Caius flashed to his feet from the floor in one fluid movement. "Fucking meek?!"
"ENOUGH!"
Magnus' roar silenced the room. Even Aro flinched, much to his own annoyance, especially as Caius noticed and did nothing to hide his smile over the matter.
A good few minutes passed by in silence whilst Magnus got himself together. It was a difficult situation for the empath - being surrounded by so many different and conflicting emotions in a relatively small space, and trying to contain any eruptions … difficult. Basileus started speaking quietly to the man as they sat together. It didn't take a genius for anyone to work out the topic of their conversation as the pair of them intermittently glanced over to Irina.
"Why do you keep looking at me?" Irina asked. Magnus had broken her stride somewhat but Irina wasn't done yet. "Just because my pretty face has turned your head, do not assume I can be so easily distracted."
Basileus had intended on ignoring the little bitch but he wasn't letting that comment go without countering. "Pretty face?" He looked the Denali girl up and down from his seat. "I am surrounded by pretty faces, it takes more than that."
"Much more than you are capable of offering," Magnus added. "I assure you."
"Dirty old men." Irina's ego was almost on par with Felix's. All men wanted her, in her eyes.
"You are a child, my dear, you have nothing to offer men like us," Basileus explained.
Atia and Freyr snickered from across the room - they knew the girl couldn't hope to turn their mates' heads. Basileus didn't find it so funny. He wouldn't stand for anyone else on the planet speaking to him the way Irina was and it went against everything he knew to just sit there and take it. Magnus winced, feeling the creator's emotions spike towards rage again.
"You will do well to show us some respect," Basileus told the girl through gritted teeth.
Irina gave a short, tinkling, and fake laugh in response, followed by a flick of her hair as she turned away from Basileus. The gesture signified quite clearly how little the man impressed her. "You won't have an ounce of my respect until you've earned it."
Atia tutted at the girl. She could see her mate was struggling to keep himself contained and thought it best to take over if she could. "That's not how it works around here, young lady."
"Yes, I find the premise that respect is earned is usually hated by people who think age or position gives them the right to be a cunt."
The room gasped in unison, most trying to work out if Irina had called Atia a cunt, or Basileus, or whether it extended to all of them. Basileus was truly ready to snap.
Atia, however, didn't even blink, "Sadly for you we are all old and highly stationed, so we doubly hate it."
Irina narrowed her eyes at the vampiric witch. Atia was always going to be the more difficult to break, Irina had already worked that out. "I'm entitled …"
"You're entitled to nothing!" Basileus boomed.
He flashed to Irina and dragged the girl to her feet by her throat. Everyone else rushed to stop him from hurting the Denali trouble maker - not so much for Irina's sake, but for her young sisters looking on hysterical at the scene.
"And if I hear you calling anyone in my coven a cunt again," Basileus growled into her ear, shaking Irina like a rag doll, "I will forget my patronage to your mother and snap your pretty little neck."
Basileus allowed Magnus and Marcus to pull him away and they all exited the south tower for a break from the tension.
Irina shoved everyone away from her, the fact that some at least were trying to offer comfort was irrelevant. She flew far across the room coughing and spluttering in true dramatic fashion.
Carmen and Atia tried to approach the girl once she had settled into quiet sobs. Again, Irina pushed them away. Kate caught Tanya's eye and nodded towards their elder sister. Neither of them really wanted to go to her, but they knew they had to. It was expected of them.
Irina smirked to herself for a moment seeing her sisters approach. Basileus had given her exactly what she needed to keep her the younger girls on her side.
"Are you okay?" Kate asked, placing a gentle hand on her sister's arm.
"Like you care!" Irina spat, shrugging off her sister's gesture. "Why are you sitting with them? Laughing with them?!"
Kate sighed to herself as Tanya fought back. "Like you and Athenodora, you mean?"
"That's different!" Irina hissed. She gave her throat a good rub for full effect. Basileus' efforts would likely not have left much of a mark but all the rubbing Irina was doing surely would - she was damn near giving her neck a Chinese burn! "Dora had nothing to do with our mother's murder. Do you have no loyalty to our mother at all?"
Both Kate and Tanya had much to say in response to that. For one, a good many of the Volturi family had nothing to do with their mother's demise, for another, they didn't blame the Volturi when their mother had broken a sacred law of their kind.
Kate wouldn't voice such things. Not then. She needed to keep her sisters calm at that moment and filled the space between them with platitudes and accessions. Tanya, however, rarely held back.
"Our mother didn't show much loyalty to us, Irina." Tanya flicked her hair out in much the same way as her sister had done to Basileus. "Why should we show her any loyalty now when we are being offered a better life?"
"A better life?!" Irina all but bawled the words back to Tanya.
The rest of the gathering were doing a good job of pretending not to notice what was going on behind them, trying to give the girls some space. Jane watched them intently, however, having never had sisters she was intrigued by their relationship. That day she had already held longer conversations with Tanya and Kate than she ever had with Felix or Demetri. She hoped they stayed in the coven … but she wouldn't miss Irina when her grandfather really did snap her neck.
"I will be leaving this place when the time's right," Irina told her sisters. "Will you be with me ... or against me?"
Tanya shook her head. "I don't want to leave …"
"With me or against me, Tanya," Irina pushed. It wasn't a question of whether she wanted to leave the coven, it was a test of loyalty. Irina rubbed at her throat again, stretching out her neck to reveal raw skin from all her efforts.
Kate gulped seeing such a sight on her sister's neck. "We'll be with you," she said quietly, and gave her little sister a nudge. "Won't we, Tan?"
Tanya looked over her shoulder to the Volturi family behind her. She wanted to tell Irina to go fuck herself and that she must be crazy to want to leave the royal coven and the life it could provide. But there was no point arguing with Irina when she was so hell bent on ruining their new life. Well, she can ruin her own life ... she's not ruining mine.
Tanya shrugged, hiding her true opinion and eventually answered, "Sure."
Irina missed Tanya's real feelings on the matter and launched straight into her modus operandi: "The Volturi may have won the battle, but they will lose the war. They are going to mess with our heads - stay away from Corin - she will make you feel happy when you aren't, tricking you into staying here. And Chelsea! She will break our bonds. They only want you Kate, they will kill me and Tanya if they get you under their spell. We have to stay together, and we have to stay strong …"
Tanya and Kate nodded along, neither listening, neither caring. Tanya's head was full of her new life, life as a Volturi princess!
"How will you convince them to let us leave?" Tanya asked, wondering if her sister's plans required anything of her that would interrupt her new princess status.
Irina smiled broadly, finally believing she had her sisters on side. "By being too much trouble to keep."
Tanya smiled back. She already knew the sort of trouble the guards caused in the coven without ejection, let alone the schemes Felix had impressed the girls with on their first meeting. You will have to do a hell of a lot to get us kicked out, she thought, still smiling. We're staying.
Kate watched her sisters stalking back to their seats and her shoulders sunk. She knew her sisters well. Irina will do anything to leave, Tanya will do anything to stay. Kate, therefore, had the deciding vote. The only thing Kate really wanted was for the three of them to stay together. She couldn't face losing either sister, not so soon after losing her mother. That said, Kate was naturally cautious and Irina wasn't presenting a strong option. Kate glanced to the window. Life out there? On our own? Life with Sasha had been chaotic enough, let alone life with Irina at the helm.
When Basileus returned, he was in a much better mood. He even apologised to Irina for his man-handling of her. Not that the Denali girl wanted his apology, she was far more interested in talking to Dora and Carlisle by that point, with plans for introducing her into coven life properly. Irina was glad of Basileus' little tantrum as it had sealed the first part of her plan - she felt it brought her sisters on side.
The second part of her plan she could take care of herself and she was going to use the two outsiders to do it. Carlisle and Dora had something in common, something neither of them ... or anyone else, for that matter ... seemed to recognise. They were inbetweeners. Neither fitted in with the other adults, and they were clearly too old to be considered youths, which left them always on the outside, always looking in.
There was resentment there, Irina was sure of it. Insecurity, too. Sasha had taught her girls how to play men, how to pick out the things that make a man tick and how to worm your way into their trust. It was how they survived in a harsh landscape with the ever-present threat of the Russian coven invading the Denalis. Irina could put that knowledge to good use with women, too. Dora and Carlisle would be easy pickings for the Denali girl.
Kate looked on as her sister batted her eyelashes to Carlisle and sucked up to Dora. She could see Irina was already putting the wheels in motion to get the three of them out of the coven. To Kate's other side sat Tanya, welded to Eleazar as if to sit further away would see him escape.
Kate's attention, like everyone else's, was soon taken up with the almost fight in front of the fireplace as Alec ever so accidentally-on-purpose spilt some of his bloodwine on Felix. Felix, naturally, launched at his baby brother before Aro caught the boy mid-air. He slammed Felix ass-first back to the floor and held him there whilst giving him a round of fucks for overreacting. Seeing his father's eye turning on him and then the clear gesture from Basileus to Alec, Aro relented and turned on his youngest next.
"You need to be more careful," Aro admonished Alec. "I have told you umpteen times …"
"See, that sounds like a lot," Alec said, interrupting his father, "but umpteen is still in the teens, isn't it, so it's not that many when you think about it."
The comment made Aro laugh, saving Alec from any further rebuke, much to Felix's annoyance. On a good day, Basileus would have let it go, but he had been so riled up by Irina, so emotional with some of his storytelling, so pissed off with Aro for treating the children so differently and causing grief between them all when there was already enough grief … he snapped! Reaching out with one hand to steady Alec, he used the other to take a swipe at the boy's behind.
"Enough!" he said sharply.
Alec yelped and sprang away from his grandfather, back to the safety of his mother.
"He was playing, Dad," Aro explained, rolling his eyes. "Felix was the one over dramatising."
"Playing?!" Felix spat. "Dramatising?!"
"See?" Basileus asked Magnus. "He's overly permissive with some, and over the top with the one."
"Recipe for disaster," Magnus agreed.
"I wasn't asking for parenting tips from either of you, thanks." Aro fetched Alec from Sulpicia and retook his seat, pulling the youngest Volturi into his lap to comfort his baby boy. "You aren't right about this just because you're older. It may just mean you've been wrong for longer."
"It may mean that," Basileus agreed with the premise. "It doesn't, though. Not in this case."
"You need to treat them fairly, Aro," Magnus added.
"I can't treat them the same," Aro replied, drawling out his words as though he were speaking to the village idiot. "Alec's half the size of Felix and he doesn't cause anywhere near as much trouble, either."
"He does, Aro," Basileus said knowingly. "It's just in a different way."
"So, you admit they are different then?" Aro said quickly, thinking he had his father.
"Of course they are," Basileus replied. "Treating them fairly does not mean treating them equally."
Felix had been quite keen to see where the conversation would go, but Basileus had lost him on that point.
"Differentiating children's discipline to the individual child's needs is fair," Basileus explained. "But you aren't doing that. You let Alec and Jane do as they please whilst coming down far too hard on Felix. Can't you see that it causes you problems?"
Aro glared at his eldest son for a moment who was enjoying the conversation again, a little too much for Aro's liking. "Felix causes me problems, that's what I see."
Basileus flopped back into his seat and shook his head. Damn bull-headed brat, he thought to his son. But oddly, he smiled. It was a smile of satisfaction, contentment. He wasn't pleased with Aro at the at moment, but after thinking on how close he had come to finding the fires of Hades and ending his life, he was pleased to have ever met him. Basileus heard his father's words again. 'He will fill your days and then some'. Aro had certainly done that! But it wasn't just Aro. Turning Aro had set forth a chain of events that had led to a whole room full of vampires for Basileus to call family. Taking his whiskey glass from the table, Basileus made an imaginary chick into the air to his own father for saving him that day, and he knew Zeus would be watching.