Chapter 1

There was once a girl who met a man who made her his queen. They shared a love the singers wrote ballads of and a true companionship that many envied, but time was their ruin. Time passed too slow causing the king to fall into his own madness and when the queen tried to help him, he pushed her away. The love they shared was never the same until she left one day and when the king finally noticed, it was too late. This is the story of that queen and the king who lost her.

Amunet Semenya had never thought herself beautiful though most people told her that she was. She was humble in her beginnings, but prone to blush when someone in her village praised her for her beauty. In what was meant to be her very long life, these qualities would serve her well, but they were not the ones that attracted the man who would love her. For Aro Voltari would love her the second his eyes looked down at her from a place she couldn't see, but that first sight would be based solely on the beauty he saw that graced her features. By the time he'd first laid eyes on her, Aro had already been dead for many centuries, and king for just as long. He had been dead in more then one way though, for he had been alone all that time, and in that way forced to watch as his brothers found happiness he couldn't. That had all changed though when Amunet had entered his sights and then for the first time in those centuries, Aro felt something. It started as a pounding in his chest that made him sway as he stood among the poplar trees watching her and as it increased there was a great harmony within him. Because he knew what he had found there that day. A queen to fit his lonely stature as a king and he set his sights on bringing her home. It was a pounding Aro had heard tell of before, but never experienced. He didn't need any other explanation other then the one he was feeling within the hollow of his chest. This woman was meant to be his queen. He would no longer be the one left lonely while his brothers spent their days with their own mates. He would have a mate now, the one with him from this moment until eternity, and on that day Aro promised to never take his eyes off of her. And for the rest of that day, he didn't. As he watched her after seeing her that first day, Aro found that he couldn't call her a mere woman. She was a goddess reborn in his eyes. She reminded him of that, of the goddesses he had prayed to in his youth, and their union made sense to him even more in that moment. Because he had become a king, a much of a living god as he had ever aspired to while living, and it seemed only fitting that his queen have the look of a goddess. Aro promised to worship her as one as he made plans for their future in his head that day his eyes playing the future for only him to see even before it had happened. It became so constant that soon Aro found it happening every time he looked at her.

Amunet was so pale that her skin very much matched his even before she had become a vampire. The only life he saw was the pink hue of her cheeks. The way they blushed in her modesty and the way she bit her lip in her humble way when someone dared call her beautiful. That was not the thing that sparked his vigor, for Aro found he watched the very shape of her the most, and that he was mesmerized by the thought of cradling her waist in his hands. Of drawing her close to dip his head to caress her neck then to kiss her lips that were somewhere between pink and red and spoke of human life to him. Amunet reminded him of the etchings he kept in his solar back at the palace. The way she appeared as a thing of beauty, of radiance in this place where she stood out in the scarce surroundings where she existed. Aro spent long nights gazing at her after laying eyes on her for the first time. He would watch her from outside her window with a ghost's invisible gaze. Sometimes, he would be so sure that she had seen him, but then her eyes wouldn't be truly looking at him. It left Aro with the need to reach out to her, to claim her, and ask her to come away with him. He didn't know how to do it though as his nights watching her went on. He watched her often as she brushed her long flowing ebony hair and sometimes, when she looked out her window, he could swear her green eyes were looking into his red ones. Aro watched her for a long time mostly because he was unsure how to make her his.

"Tonight, I will take her, and we will enter our eternity" thought Aro on what would be her final night as a human finding it had to be the last because he couldn't wait anymore to reveal himself to her.

"This will be her last sleep" thought Aro when he found her sleeping her cottage dim in the twilight the only light that of the moon. She lay on her back, her hair splayed out on her pillow, and letting his body hover over hers, he watched her.

"She finally sees me" thought Aro when her eyes opened at his presence, he was prepared to keep her from screaming, but it never came as she simply gulped down huge intakes of air as she took in the sight of him.

"Hello" whispered Amunet the word so simple as she looked up into his eyes finding the red strangely comforting and that as she looked into them there was no way she could scream. The pounding in the center of her chest wouldn't let her.

Amunet was transfixed by this mysterious man who had come upon her while she dreamed. She kept looking at him and seeing something that she couldn't comprehend as he watched her just as intently as she did him. And yet at the same time, she had questions. So many that she didn't know how to voice them or why she was not in that moment, but it was as if her voice had left her. There was nothing else for her to consider, but the very moment they were sharing. Instead, she focused on the cold touch of his hand as he touched her cheek, and Amunet felt as she started to tremble.

"Mia Regina" whispered Aro seeing as she didn't understand his meaning. Aro couldn't say anymore, he found he was too transfixed by the sight of her, and leaning close, he kissed her. He wasn't surprised when she touched him for the first time. He had expected her to push him away but had hoped she wouldn't. His wish was granted, for her hands never reached to part them, but merely touched his chest in a moment of meek exploration.

Aro found he liked the look of her far better after their kiss. Somehow, she had become all the prettier after his lips had kissed her. Her eyes were wide open after, looking into his with a strange fascination that made him want to give her a second kiss. He didn't though as he took that moment to merely look at her finding her completely enticing. She was breathing so heavily now, her lips perfectly kissed, and ready to do so again by the way they were parted in the perfect pucker. Aro found it took all his strength not to kiss her again as much strength as it took not to feed. She was in a state of completely confused passion. Her hands were still on his chest and it was then that Aro realized he too was breathing heavy. As a vampire, it wasn't necessary for him to really breath at all, but just kissing her had made it so he had no choice.

"You have spelled me" whispered Amunet in that moment allowing his hands to touch her. It was just as he had thought it would be. His hands fit perfectly around the shape of her hips and he knew it would be just as he had pictured. She would mold so perfectly against him and he found himself thinking of that as he touched her in that moment.

"What is your name?" said Amunet on a gasp as she adjusted to the cool stone of his touch. Her response enticed him. He found he wanted to explore the depths of this thing that existed so suddenly between them. Aro allowed his hands to leave her hips, letting them slide tenderly over the skin of her arms to the delicate slope of her neck, and he thought about it then. Aro considered changing her then, but as quaint as her cottage was, he found it wasn't right for that special moment between them. He wanted her to be in the safety of the palace when he made her as he was, but then he found himself quite distracted. By the slope of her eyes as she looked at him still asking him the same question, but without words.

"I am king of a race of beings far advanced from what you are now, but I ask of you that you join me in that race. Join me and we'll have eternity. Let me make you my queen" said Aro his voice sounded different in that moment though he didn't understand why as he watched as her confusion only deepened as she began to consider what he was offering her.

As she considered the greater viewings of the life this man could give her there was only one answer that she could give. While part of her was afraid, another was excited at the life that could be waiting for her, and then there was another that found this was what she had been waiting for. A love meant to withstand the length of time and space. He was offering her that now and she saw as he waited for her to answer his query. In the end, Amunet found she always came back to one thing that made her decision for her, and it rested at the center of her heart. It was that pounding that told her the choice she should make. Eternity was a very long time, but something told her that this was her chance at something that they wrote about in songs. Amunet wanted that as she felt that pounding, it was always getting stronger, and she knew this may be the only option she would ever have at love.

"I have to go with this man" thought Amunet suddenly looking at her hands as they still rested on his chest. For a moment, she wondered if he felt the same pounding at the center of his soul that she felt, but when she looked into his eyes the answer was already there. It was in the way he looked at her. As if he didn't know what this was anymore then she did. It soothed something as she looked into the red of his eyes. Because this man could be her soulmate. The one she'd searched for, but never found even though so many told her that she was beautiful. They only wanted her for that alone though and in this man, she sensed he wanted her for more then her beauty, and her god given abilities. That more then anything else helped her make up her mind.

"I'm well passed my best days…even beauty will wear on me. Nineteen years old is too old not to be married. This may be my last chance" thought Amunet, finding more then anything that she didn't want to wait anymore, but that she wanted to learn to love this mysterious thing before her now.

In the year 1635 very, little was possible for her. She was expected to marry and birth children, but Amunet wanted something beyond the limits of her time.

"I want to be more then a woman. I want love and respect and someone who treasures me. He already looks at me that way" thought Amunet her mind already made up even as she was going over all the reasons for her decision.

"Please, mia regina, enter unto the next life with me" whispered Aro in that moment making her realize that he had been patiently awaiting her answer all this time. There was something about the way he said it that caught her from her thoughts. Because she didn't need to think anymore as her hands reached out to touch him as he had her. Suddenly, her hands were holding his face, and Aro was taken aback. Because he had seen his brothers and their mates together this way. He had hoped someday to be this way with another and now, he was. They were as lovers and he knew what her answer would be before she had fully given it.

"Kiss me again" whispered Amunet in answer and Aro did as she asked slanting his mouth over hers and when he did, he saw as her eyes closed in their soft way. Their kiss surprised the both of them. It wasn't like their first kiss, but something far different in the way that they moved within it. In the midst of it, Aro found he had no choice, but to gather her into his arms. He could take her now and as their lips were still moving together, Aro carried her from her cottage, and they left that life to walk together in another. Amunet barely felt anything at all as he carried her off that night. She felt his arms as they supported her, his lips as they stayed always connected in that way, and then the feel of the breeze as it whirled around them as he took her away. Amunet didn't question him though as he did so, not until he finally finished kissing her, and she looked up to find herself somewhere else altogether. Her cottage was gone and there was only a city miles ahead of them. That city would be her home for the rest of eternity. Amunet saw Volterra for the first time under the shade of night as it sparkled under the stars. She entered the palace of the Voltari on the arm of its king and after that night he made her his queen. Aro led her to his bedroom without ceremony. He knew that everything else could wait. His brothers, the guard, all due ceremony for the crowning of his queen, it could wait. Now, he only wanted to have his beloved to himself where he could claim her and be claimed in return for all eternity.