A knock on the door startled me as I attempted to adjust the leather belt around my jeans. I'd been left in this room for over 24 hours now, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't getting boring. I'd spent pretty much that entire morning going through the wardrobe in the room and choosing out outfits. How anyone knew exactly what clothing I wanted and what size I was confused me just a little, but I wasn't complaining. I'd recognised a few items that I'd been eyeing in the shops when I went the other week, and there was even a pair of shoes I wanted a while ago but couldn't afford. I just hoped that I hadn't stolen from a vampire with identical style to me, as that couldn't possibly end well for the human girl.

I opened the door and to my surprise a very tall, crimson-eyed man stood towering above me. And it begins.

"The kings have summoned you in the throne room," he spoke with a deadpan tone.

"Do I really have to go?" I whined almost childlike before grinning at myself and my stupidity, "Surely they can wait for, like," I checked my watch "half an hour or so?"

This guy clearly looked bored as his face didn't remotely twitch despite my immaturity. Well that definitely cleared up one thing; don't ever apply for a job as a member of the Volturi guard.

He sighed dramatically before pulling a brass pocket watch out from his grey robes and studying it intently.

"I'll give you three minutes, milady. The Masters really don't take well to tardiness," he muttered. Poor guy, wow, his job looked boring.

"Fine," I gave in before turning back around to him and adding "what's your name by the way?"

"Felix," he responded simply.

So much for having a friendly conversation. After a few more seconds of painfully awkward silence, I decided to close the door and make him wait outside. I briskly hurried over to the full length mirror and finished adjusting my outfit, before ruffling my hair out. Unfortunately, I hadn't had the chance to re-dye it for months so the bleached blonde colour was fading and my darker roots were beginning to show through, but I couldn't care less. Besides, who was I trying to impress?

Grabbing my phone and stuffing it in the back pocket of my jeans, I left the room, closed the door, and began following Felix down the dimly lit corridor. After we had walked for several minutes, I looked down to realise I wasn't wearing shoes. Shit. The soles of my socks, which had been perfectly white, were now covered in some kind of grey dust. One of my biggest pet peeves was wearing white socks around as they always got destroyed, and this completely ruined my mood (not that I was in a particularly good mood to begin with). Deciding not to make a big deal out of it, I resisted the urge to turn around to grab my Nikes and continued a few paces behind Felix. I really didn't want to piss him off any more than I had to, as that guy was so tall he could kill me with a simple tap, and I had to be at least two feet shorter than him.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. The last time I'd gone down to see these people, I'd woken up several hours later in some stranger's bed, completely immobilised. And as if that wasn't enough, I didn't even have any of the Cullens with me. Speaking of the Cullens, where were they? It wasn't like them to leave without explanation, and I'd only seen Alice a few hours ago. This situation was going to be tough to deal with on my own. Not only was I slightly creeped out by these Volturi guys, and for good reason, but I also had a habit of causing awkward conversations. Maybe that was my super-rare vampire-y ability: debilitating awkwardness.

After walking for about fifteen minutes or so, we finally arrived at a large set of wooden doors. Eerie silence filled the halls, and at first I questioned if I was even in the right place. I couldn't believe how long it took just to get here, but in fairness almost everyone around the place did have creepy vampiric speed. Felix knocked a few times before opening the door and holding it open for me to walk through under his arm. At least the floors in this room were clean, so my socks could just be salvageable.

Once, I stepped in, the door quickly slammed shut, which caused me to jump out of my skin. If there was one thing I hated more than anything, it was jump scares. A quiet chuckle sounded behind me, and I turned around to where my eyes met the three kings. Did they really just laugh at me? How rude!

Aro was sat on the middle throne with his raven hair flowing down to his shoulders, holding a book which he was quick to close and place on his arm rest. He wore a spotless black suit, which emphasized the colour of his crimson eyes that appeared to light up when his gaze fixed on me. Timidly, I looked down at the floor and reminded myself of my lack of footwear, causing a blush to spread across my cheeks. Ugh, why was I like this? This was just one of many problems of being a human in a world of vampires.

"Ah, my dear Eliana, what a pleasant surprise," he exclaimed rather joyously, gesturing me forward happily with a single pale finger. This forced a smile on my lips as I was honestly terrible at keeping a straight face.

On his left was Caius' throne, and I hadn't even noticed him there until he glanced at my bare feet before nudging Aro and whispering something in his ear, causing them both to laugh just as Aro clasped his hand to his mouth. Was I really that funny? As far as I was concerned, I wasn't exactly a stroke of comedic genius, I just lacked in common sense.

Marcus had now noticed too, but he barely reacted at all compared to his brothers. So apparently the absence of my shoes was more obvious than I first thought. This was going to be a long day, considering I didn't even know where my room, or whoever's room, was, so it wasn't even possible for me to head back on my own and hide. I just hoped that I wasn't going against some kind of vampire law against not wearing shoes.

"Did you forget your shoes by any chance?" Caius asked, struggling to keep a serious appearance. I thought he was supposed to be the harshest guy around and had a bad temper, but it seemed I was wrong. Maybe behind closed doors, instead of formulating some intricate battle plans or shit like that, he just sat and poked fun at his enemies. That thought caused me to embarrassingly laugh out loud, but I was quick to straighten my face.

I looked at each of them in turn, trying to come up with some kind of valid explanation that made me sound slightly less stupid than I seemed.

"I just didn't think shoes would suit this outfit," I paused, before adding, "your corridor floors are filthy by the way." I was absolutely exasperated with myself at this point. Just shut up Eli, you weirdo, and stop making things worse for yourself.

Aro chuckled to himself quietly, clapping his hands together. "Well it's lovely to have you il mio amore." I guessed they were at it again with their weird flirty Italian. Somehow though, something inside me liked this attention. For heaven's sake, I made myself cringe with that thought.

"Please, do take a seat," he stood to the side and politely offered me his throne.

This was definitely some kind of ridiculous prank right? Maybe these guys had gotten bored of sitting here and giving orders for so many millennia that they had taken up a new hobby of manipulating people into committing crimes. On the one hand, I wanted to deny his offer and continue this conversation standing. However, I highly doubted that was an option, and I really didn't want to anger him, not without socks in anyway. Besides, maybe he was just being nice. With that, I hesitantly edged over to his throne. God, why was I so nervous? I realised I must've gone so red at this point from pointless embarrassment.

Once I had reached two or so steps away from Aro, he took my hand and sat me down where he had just been sitting. I half expected the seat to still be warm until I remembered that vampires don't have body heat. To think some of my closest friends were these people was crazy.

Marcus and Caius turned themselves slightly so they were facing me and Aro had taken my previous place in front of the thrones. This caused me to blush even more than before and I felt my skin heat up. I absolutely hated having this much attention on me, and it only reminded me of school when my teachers would pick on me for being the shy one and the whole class would turn and stare. I brushed the soles of my feet off with the back of my hand and faced Aro who was stood before me.

"Finally we can meet properly Eliana, and I do hope you feel better than you did when we last saw you," he spoke with his same feather-soft voice.

"Yeah I'm okay thanks." I responded. Nice one, give them another awkward, vague answer why don't you?

Marcus' voice sounded from my right. "We're very glad that's the case. We were all very worried about you il mio amore."

"Yes, about that, there is something we must speak about Eliana, and I feel it is something you should know as soon as possible" Aro's face had become slightly more serious than it was earlier, yet looking at him seemed to reassure me in some way.

"You see, your little incident earlier was no coincidence," he began "but instead solely due to your presence with us."

"The truth of it is, tesoro," Marcus continued, "there are bonds that exist between beings. These bonds, or ties, are invisible but connect beings together based on how they interrelate with one another. I have the ability to see these bonds that connect people's very souls together, and I can confirm that there are ties connecting you with each of us," he breathed heavily, "meaning that you are destined to be with us."

I sat there in absolute shock. At this point I was really just waiting for me to be detained for breaking some ludicrous crime these people had set me up for. Who did they think they were, talking about 'ties' and 'destinies'? This had to be a joke, it just had to. I looked up from my lap, expecting the three of them to be sniggering in the background at this point, but to my surprise Caius and Marcus had stood up from their thrones and were kneeling rather close to me with almost concerned expressions on their faces. I didn't think kings were supposed to kneel for anyone. Then it hit me: maybe this was what Alice had been laughing at earlier. The only remotely logical explanation for all of this unexplainable supernatural weirdness was that I had been set up by the Cullens and Volturi, only for a tape of this moment to be played at my 18th birthday, as if I hadn't embarrassed myself enough times already leading up to this point.

My mouth opened, and I planned to laugh, but instead only a pathetic whimper came out. To this, the three kings looked at each other with uttermost confusion, before their gazes all returned back to me. Oh my word, were they being serious? Was this really not a joke?

"S-sorry, what?" I finally managed to utter. I'd also apparently lost all ability to form basic sentences.

"I understand this is a lot to take in Eliana, and we would never mean to overwhelm you," Caius reassured.

"Wait, so you're not joking? This isn't some kind of, I don't know, messed up idea of fun?" My mind was struggling to comprehend what the hell it was I was witnessing.

Aro shook his head in response, and cupped my hands in his. These guys were either really good liars, or this was for real. But, how though? This didn't even make any sense. Why would I, the boring human girl, be mated to a bunch of super-rich, super-hot vampire overlords? I could've sworn they already had mates in anyway. Besides, I had a boyfriend back home. Sure, he wasn't quite as hot as these guys were, but I was loyal, and I'd feel terrible if I just broke up with him to move to Italy to live with a bunch of vampire kings in their vampire castle. Eli, you're getting away from yourself, and you're definitely not moving to Italy. Just breathe.

A smug smile tugged at the corner of Aro's lips before he continued. "And I know what you are thinking, but we were only married, and the legal paperwork is no longer even valid to this day. Once you arrived and Marcus confirmed our suspicions, we sent them away permanently."

Wow, it was as if he really did know what I was thinking. And only married? Was he being serious? They really just sent their wives, or ex wives, away? Just like that?

He pulled his hands away sharply. "Marriage did not mean as much to us as you may think, piccola. We have been around for many millennia after all."

Well that definitely answered one of my queries.

"So…" I murmured, "you guys are, like, my…"

"True mates, yes," Caius finished my sentence.

At this point, my breathing had become much more frantic as the news began to sink in. The room felt like it was spinning out of control, like all traces of sanity were fading away. A weight pulled down on my ribs as if I was being dragged closer and closer to the ground.

"It is okay, carissima, just breathe, I know this is a lot to take in at once," a muffled voice spoke, but I was too delirious to consciously process what was happening. This couldn't be possible, it just couldn't, it didn't make any logical sense…

More voices spoke, but they quickly became inaudible to me. The feeling of suffocation within my body was nauseating and I wanted to be sick there and then. My nails dug deeper into the arm rests while my body began to shake as if I'd been plunged into freezing water. My eyes formed a hazy image of the three figures stood in front of me as they murmured something incoherent between each other. Something uncontrollable within me wanted to reach out for them, to hold onto them as if they were the only ones who could make the pain go away, but the sane part of my brain forced me to stay tensed exactly where I was. However, the agonising pain only grew, pulling me away and isolating me from reality.

After a few moments, I gathered up all the strength I had to force myself onto my feet, which caused a sharp pain to ring through my legs. A hand reached out to grab my arm before I stumbled down the steps but I reluctantly pulled myself away, pushing at Aro as he stepped to the side so I could run for the door. I had never felt like this before, never this taken over with emotion, and I'd never been known to react like this to any situation. I just needed to leave. Nothing within me could stand being in the room with them for any longer.

Author's note: That's it for this chapter I guess. It's a little longer than the last one, and I hope you're somewhat enjoying reading this, because otherwise that does kinda make things awkward. For the next chapter or two, instead of continuing with the linear plot, I'll sorta be doing a flashback type thing to fill you in on everything that brought Eli to this moment. Please feel free to leave reviews, as I love reading your feedback. Until next time!
Rewritten [12/5/20]