"Wake up, carissima."
I groaned grouchily and hid my head under the pillow on my front while Caius laughed under his breath beside me. "I don't want to."
He rubbed my back gently. "Why of course, if you would rather stay with us rather than pay a visit to Denali, I am more than happy to-"
"Fine, I'm moving!" I snapped, rolling over him and out of his bed. Yeah, definitely not a morning person.
Lazily, I stumbled over to his mirror and quickly ruffled out my bleached hair. It was definitely looking deader than before, but maybe I just needed a haircut. Ooh, maybe a buzz cut, I'd love to see the kings' reaction to that.
"If you need clothes, I had some of your clothing placed inside my wardrobe," Caius pointed to his walk-in wardrobe on the other side of the room while still lying relaxed under his covers.
"What do you mean? 'If I need clothes'?" I drew my eyebrows together confusedly.
He gazed off into the distance. "I was always of the opinion that you look better without them."
I rolled my eyes and began working my way through his wardrobe. Sometimes, I worried about the kings a little, just from the sheer amount of completely identical clothing they owned. I eventually found the clothes he was talking about on a shelf near the back and chose myself out a pair of black high-waisted ripped jeans, a grey t-shirt, a leather jacket and the boots Alice had gotten me for my birthday. Satisfied with my outfit, I darted over to his bathroom to change and brush my teeth.
Just as I began to spit the toothpaste into Caius' sink, he appeared behind me wearing a dark grey button up shirt and a pair of black dress pants, fastening my crest around my neck after I'd taken it off temporarily the night before.
"Um, I'm trying to spit here," I mumbled and gestured to the sink.
He took a step back and allowed me to finish before adjusting the crest a little. "If any immortal dares to lay a finger on you, show them your crest and explain that you are with the Volturi," Caius instructed.
"I'll be fine," I insisted.
He simply rolled his eyes and grabbed one of my cloaks out of nowhere, pulling it around me.
"Caius, seriously, I don't need a cloak-"
"You are a Volturi, no?" he eyed me.
I sighed. "Yes."
"And the Volturi wear cloaks, am I correct?"
I pursed my lips irritatedly. "Yes."
"Then, as a member of the Volturi coven, will you wear this cloak?" he smirked.
"Yes," I looked down at my feet with a defeated expression.
He placed two fingers under my chin and lifted my head up to meet his. "That is the spirit," he chuckled, pressing a kiss to my forehead, "I will miss your constant attitude."
"I'll be back before you know it, aren't you lucky?" I laughed.
He captured my lips with his and growled into the kiss as he gripped my waist tightly. "The luckiest man alive. Take care of yourself, my love."
"I always do, I love you!" I called as I left Caius' quarters, only to be met with Demetri and Felix directly outside the door, "If it's not Tweedldum and Tweedledee, are you guys going to miss me or what?"
"Our lives are-," Felix's sentence was interrupted by his fake sniffle, "-unbearably incomplete without you, your incessant name calling and your failure to act like a sensible adult."
"Oh I know, you poor thing," I sympathised, "I don't blame you at all for the incompleteness to your life. Known fact, the world revolves around me, so without me, there's nothing for the world to revolve around."
Demetri glanced at me with an eyebrow raised. "I'm curious about your scientific reasoning."
"Tweedledee, I am beyond science, you should know this by now," I gestured wildly and continued to skip down the corridor with my black cloak billowing behind me.
Too distracted with my unnecessary frolicking through the dark stone halls, my stride abruptly ended as I slammed into something cold and hard. At first, I assumed it was a wall (I did that more often than I wanted to admit), but no, it was Marcus, who was now looking down at me with his crimson eyes amusedly.
"Well hello there, piccola," he laughed.
I blushed, embarrassed. "How long were you standing there for?"
"A while. I was curious as to how long it would take you to notice my presence, but it seems you required to walk directly into me first."
"Sorry," I guiltily gazed down at the concrete ground beneath me.
He chuckled and instantly swept me off my feet, holding me so that my legs were wrapped around his torso and his right arm was supporting my weight underneath me. My cloak was somehow so long that it reached the ground even from that height.
"Please be careful while you are in Denali. I could never bear to see you get hurt, tesoro," he gently kissed my nose.
"I'm so careful, I'm literally the definition of careful," I insisted, barely convinced of my own words.
"If you are certain," he shook his head and kissed my lips softly before placing me back down on my feet.
Aro, who was stood beside Marcus, let out a sad sigh and ran his fingers through my hair. "Life will be simply dull without you nearby, cara mia."
"You'll survive," I giggled.
He pulled me into his arms tightly and buried his face in my hair. "Stay safe, il mio amore, I would prefer it if you remained in one piece. And, I cannot believe I am asking this but, please do not get a buzz cut."
"A buzz cut, hm?" Marcus laughed at me and I hid my face in Aro's chest.
"I was tired, okay?" my muffled voice defended myself.
"And do you usually plan out rebellious hairstyles for yourself when tired?"
"Actually, brother, when dearest Eliana here is tired, that is often when the most random questions, or as she calls them 'shower thoughts', fill her sweet little head," Aro humoured.
I narrowed my eyes. "Little?"
"Correction; perfect, proportionally-sized head," he continued, "Just yesterday, she wondered scientifically how immortals can have an erection as we do not contain blood."
"Aro!" my face only became redder.
He glanced down at me, still held tightly in his arms. "Did you want an answer or not?"
I sighed. "Sure, why not?"
"Exactly the same as humans, but blood is instead replaced with venom," he explained simply.
I paused to let it sink in. "Oh, that actually makes sense, how did I not think of that?"
He shook his head with a light chuckle, "I will miss you so."
"At least it's only a few days until Bella's wedding," I placed my hand on the side of his face and he purred lightly, leaning into my palm. Wow, I would never get used to that purring.
He pressed his lips to my forehead and placed his hand on the small of my back to gesture me back down the corridor. "Stay safe, il mio amore."
"Be glad there are no bees in Alaska," Marcus teased.
I scrunched up my nose at him and followed Demetri and Felix to the elevator. "I love you!" I called dramatically as we turned a corner.
"A little dramatic, maybe?" Demetri looked at me, unimpressed.
"If anything, not dramatic enough," I retorted and hopped into the elevator, joined by the other two looming figures, Felix carrying my small suitcase, "so are you two coming?"
"I will drop you at the airport but neither of us are coming with you," Demetri replied.
"Do I know anyone who's coming?" I asked.
"Maybe you do, they are all lower guards but I don't believe you have come across them very often," he responded.
Once the annoying-elevator-that-plays-opera-music stopped at the underground garage and the three of us filed out, Felix placed my suitcase in the boot and I briefly hugged him goodbye before he dashed up the stairwell rather than using the elevator. In fairness, what with his vampiric speed and all, that probably saved him a lot of time.
As usual, Demetri drove the car to the airport while I sat in the passenger seat boredly. I watched as the sun inched away from the horizon, beginning to fill the sky with its warm light. Once we got to the airport, I opened the windows widely and began messing with the music in the car, eventually finding a song I was happy with listening to.
Demetri briefly glanced over at me confusedly. "Eli, what are you-"
His sentence was cut off when that Romanian song, 'Dragostea Din Tei', began blaring out of the speaker of the car. A few pedestrians turned to look at the car in confusion and even Demetri seemed embarrassed. At first I thought he'd be annoyed at me and turn it off as he usually did, but instead he began belt out the lyrics with me, which mostly comprised of 'ma-i-a hee', 'ma-i-a ha-ha', and 'nu ma nu ma iei', while Demetri of course could speak Romanian fluently so he sung all of the lyrics perfectly.
When we got to the runway with the car safely parked in front of the jet, I reluctantly climbed out of the car after mine and Demetri's little karaoke session.
"We'll carry this on later," I yelled into the car before slamming the door and wheeling my suitcase up to the aeroplane.
While Demetri turned the car around and drove away back to Volterra, I waved at him frantically, and I could've sworn I saw him drag his hand down his face in annoyance. Stepping into the plane, I certainly didn't expect anyone to be inside the cabin, but to my surprise there were three people with red-eyes and Volturi crests settled in the pairs of seats that faced each other. One of them had to have been the dullest-looking man I had ever come across, with short, dark grey hair, beside him was a goddess of a woman with dark skin, maybe more attractive than even Rosalie, and opposite her was another woman who had her white hair in a perfect bun at the top of her head while she concentrated on the knitting in front of her.
Confused at this bunch of people, I sat down beside the white haired woman timidly and took of my cloak to place it over the back of my chair.
"You must be Eliana," the dark-skinned woman extended her hand out, "I'm Estella."
"Nice to meet you, but you can call me Eli," I smiled.
"Eli, that's an adorable nickname," her eyes softened as she gestured to the woman knitting beside me, "this is Theresa, and this is Steve," she gestured to the man sitting opposite me.
Theresa waved and smiled humbly before averting her attention back to her knitting, while Steve extended his hand out. "Nice to meet you," he had a monotone voice as he shook my hand without any expression whatsoever.
"…okay, um, so I assume you'll be guarding me in Denali?" was my sad attempt at making conversation.
"Yes actually, there are also seven others too," Estella responded, "you are close with the Denali coven?"
"Pretty close, yeah…so, how long have you been with the Volturi for?" I asked them.
"Only 400 years, Master Aro was intrigued by my ability," she replied.
"Ability?"
To demonstrate, she closed her eyes and it looked like she was in absolute deep concentration. Once she opened her eyes again, I noticed that everything about her was the same but her face, her hair, were completely different. She looked exactly like…Caius?
"I think the term they like to use for me is a 'chameleon'," she spoke, but she even had Caius' voice, just with less short-temperedness.
My eyes widened in shock. "..whoa," I breathed, examining her face.
When I say she looked like Caius, she could've easily convinced me that it was. Somehow, she'd nailed his appearance down perfectly, his skin tone, his eyebrows, his half pinned back white hair, everything, and she even pretended to scowl at me like he often did, the only difference being the slight movements in her face.
She closed her eyes again and resumed her concentration, but when she opened them again, she had the physical appearance of Aro. "When I first met Master Aro, I managed to terrify him by doing this," she laughed in his feather-soft voice.
"I can imagine," I drew my eyebrows together in fascination.
This time she switched to Marcus, her hair now a brunette colour that went down past her shoulders. "However, when Marcus saw this, he barely reacted at all. Poor thing, he looked up briefly and tilted his head to the side, but still seemed pretty expressionless," she tutted lightly, "I'm so glad the kings met you."
One thing I noticed about her gift was that only her neck upwards seemed to change. While her head had Marcus' pale complexion, the rest of her body had her usual dark skin tone. She quickly changed her face back to her own and shot me a smug grin.
"I have been with the Volturi for close to the same amount of time as Estella," Theresa looked up from her knitting briefly, "but my ability probably shouldn't be tested in such high altitude."
"Why?" I asked curiously.
"I have the ability of gravitational manipulation, which is similar to telekinesis only more powerful and a little more risky, especially when we're thousands of feet above land," she chuckled lightly under her breath, "I am not a huge fan of my ability so I avoid using it. But Steve, however, has a fascinating ability."
"What's yours then?" I asked him.
"I have astral vision," Steve responded simply, his face barely moving.
"…astra-what?"
"Astral vision, I can see the overlapping alternate dimensions. It's quite fascinating really, how different the creatures are in these dimensions. Fortunately, these hostile creatures can see me but cannot harm me at all, so I'm completely safe," he droned, "The only other person to have seen them is Master Aro through his telepathy, it truly frightened him."
Damn, no wonder this guy seemed so dull and bored all the time. If I saw incredible alternate dimensions with a bunch of creepy aliens like that, I'd find reality a pretty damn boring place to be too.
"I saw in the throne room the other time that you have an ability too, a strong one," Estella noted.
"Yeah, any ideas as to what it could be?" I asked.
"Not a Scooby-doo, my dear," Theresa sung. Wow, why did she give off such strong grandma vibes?
"Whatever it is, it'll be much stronger than any of the Volturi guards'," Estella mused, "I don't think Eleazar has ever experienced that reaction to an ability before, so yours must be pretty deadly."
Just what I needed, an ability that is somehow stronger than the people who can see other dimensions and swap faces with whoever they please like a chameleon. I just hoped that on this trip, maybe Eleazar could enlighten me at least a little on what I was dealing with here.
⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰
Author's note: For this chapter, I think I must've spent over an hour researching different psychic abilities, and astral vision just looks like so much fun oh my lord. Things get very heated and interesting quite soon, sooner than you'd think, but I'm just so excited to progress this story.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading, be sure to leave some feedback because I love hearing your thoughts, stay safe, and ily lots!