I tried to stand up as gracefully as possible but still fell back onto Marcus' lap regardless, earning a chuckle. "I'm off to the guard's movie night."
"You are not required to befriend the guard, carissima, you are above them," Caius said irritatedly.
"But they're nice people. Besides, what else am I supposed to do with myself all day long, hm? Hate to remind you but I'm the only woman around here besides the female guard members, and that bitchy receptionist who glares at me every time I walk past," I raised an eyebrow.
"The receptionist you speak of will become dessert very soon. All I am saying is that you do not have to befriend them if you do not wish to. But, movie night?" he seemed confused.
"You will find that the guard's so-called 'movie night' can be quite the entertainment, brother," Marcus chimed in.
"Wanna come?" I tilted my head back to look up at him.
"I don't see why not," he smiled, pressing a kiss to my forehead and taking my hand.
Aro groaned. "Again, brother? You spent last night with Eliana."
"You snooze, you lose," I giggled, pressing a chaste kiss to Aro's lips as I felt a little bad for him before following Marcus' lead back out of the room.
We walked hand in hand in silence for most of the way, the candles along the walls providing the only source of dim lighting. I stopped just before we reached the corridor my room was on.
"Do you mind if I change? This is just really uncomfortable," I gestured to my dance clothes.
"Of course," he beamed as I held his hand and led him into my room.
One cool thing about living in a castle was the room service. Every day at about midday, while I was out doing whatever, one of the human maids would come in to tidy up a little, take out my laundry, and leave snacks as I was the only human around. I'd bumped into them once or twice before, and they were so lovely honestly, you'd never expect it in a vampire castle. This time, they'd left an apple and some chocolate chip cookies, which I moved to the side to eat later.
I quickly ran over to my wardrobe and pulled out a random hoodie and sweatpants. "I'll be quick," I called over my shoulder to Marcus, locking the door to the bathroom.
Once I came back out dressed in clean clothes, I noticed he was sat on the edge of my bed, examining my iPod confusedly. I threw my dance clothes in the laundry basket and sat down beside him.
"How do these devices work?" he asked.
"Well, you need a speaker or headphones for it to work, but you turn it on like this," I pressed the on button, "and you can basically scroll through and choose anything," I explained.
"It really is fascinating how far human technology has come," he mused.
"I can imagine," I smiled, taking his hand, "leggo."
He stopped just as we got to the door of my room. "Don't you need shoes?"
"Eh, if I walked around without shoes before, I can do it now," I laughed.
When we got to the guard quarters, the setup was the same as last time, and everyone was sat in pretty much the same seats. I tried to look around to decide where to sit but it was confusing trying to navigate through a bunch of vampires zooming around in a blur.
"Eli!" Chelsea leapt up and threw her arms around me, much to Marcus' amusement, "Come sit."
I awkwardly sat down in the same seat as I had done before beside Chelsea. Marcus pulled a chair between me and Renata, his cold hand encasing mine endearingly.
"What movie options are there tonight?" I asked.
Santiago laughed. "Dude, you missed the voting, but Titanic won by a landslide."
Titanic? Last time, that movie made me cry like a baby. In my defence, I was on pain medication when I watched it, so I was a little delirious.
"Leonardo DiCaprio is to die for," Renata groaned, slamming her hands on the table.
"Oh my word, yes, wow he's the fittest guy I've ever seen," Chelsea agreed.
Afton growled. "I'm right here, you know."
"Fine, he's the second fittest," Chelsea cuddled Afton. God, they were a cute couple.
"But come on," Renata added exaggeratedly, "every girl would die for him."
"I don't know about that, dude," Santiago shook his head.
"Are you a girl, Santiago? Or should I say…Tina?"
He seemed taken aback. "N-no but-"
"Then pipe it," she sneered, "Jane, do you think Leonardo DiCaprio is hot?"
"I would say he is a relatively attractive man, yes," Jane nodded.
"Chelsea?" Renata fixed her gaze on her.
"Second fittest man on the planet," she shrugged.
"Eli? Opinions on Leonardo DiCaprio?"
Now this put me in an awkward situation. Sure, Leonardo DiCaprio was hot, but I knew my mates got easily jealous as it is, without me adding to it with my many celebrity crushes. Marcus looked at me with a grin, clearly finding how stressed I was at this situation hilarious.
"I mean…he's hot, yeah," I spoke hesitantly.
"Oh, come on, that's it?" she was majorly unimpressed by my answer, "Even Jane gave a better response than that."
"Okay fine, Leonardo DiCaprio is so fit, and his hair in this film is adorable. Happy?" I giggled.
"Not as adorable as my hair, I hope," Marcus murmured in my ear.
"Not even close," I responded.
Corin instantly darted over to where I was sat with a bag of M&Ms in hand. She thrusted them to me, simply said "Heidi", and sat back down again.
"Thanks," I called.
"What are they?" Marcus examined the bag in my hand.
I turned around to face the table. "M&Ms, they're so good, ugh," I moaned as I stuffed a handful in my mouth.
"Not this again," Santiago muttered.
"Don't be like that, Tina," Renata laughed at his distraught face, "last time was funny."
"What happened last time?" Marcus asked curiously.
"Well, basically Santiago took some M&Ms from me and threw one at Demetri's head, Demetri thought it was me and stormed over angrily, I explained it was Santiago, and Demetri crushed the rest of the M&Ms in Santiago's hair," I explained.
"Oh."
"I kept finding pieces in my dreads for days after," Santiago frowned.
"You asked for it, what were you thinking? Did you really think Demetri was going to let you off for that?" I laughed.
"Dude, you ratted me out."
"It was better you than me," I shrugged.
He growled angrily, shaking his fist, and I laughed at him, knowing he couldn't do anything to me, especially with Marcus in the room. "Try me bitch," I joked.
"You're so annoying, Eli."
"Likewise," I smiled tauntingly.
I glanced at Marcus, who seemed far from impressed at this exchange between us. He shot death glares at Santiago, which prompted us both to shut our mouths before anyone said anything they regretted. Right on cue, the movie began playing, causing the guard to let out a series of whoops and cheers. See, that's the fun thing about guard movie night; the guards are so forced to act mature that, behind closed doors, they're a bunch of children at heart.
About fifteen minutes in, Afton pulled Chelsea onto his lap, and Marcus did the same to me, surrounding my waist and pulling me backwards so I was sat facing forwards with his chin resting on my right shoulder. For such a cold person, quite literally, his embrace was the warmest thing I could ever experience, and I felt safe in his arms. From what I could see around the room, the only couples were me and Marcus, Afton and Chelsea, and another pair of guards who were cuddled together on a beanbag.
Things got pretty interesting once we got to the car scene. I'd always been shy around love scenes, and this one was no exception. I looked down at the ground, my cheeks becoming redder, to which Marcus chuckled and softly kissed my neck. The rest of the guard began whistling and calling out immaturely, making fun of the three couples in the room, including us.
Afton seemed unbothered, his smile only becoming smugger as Chelsea instinctively hid her face in his side. He looked over at me and raised his eyebrows up and down tauntingly, as if I wasn't being made fun of enough already.
"Marcus?" I whispered, "Can you please throw an M&M at Afton? Preferably his head, but whichever body part works, as long as it hurts."
He laughed quietly. "And why would I do that? He is innocently watching the film with Chelsea."
"So, that's a no?"
In response, he shook his head with a humoured expression. "It would not be a good image if anyone found out the Volturi have been crushing human food on their guard's heads."
"Fine, Santiago? Can you do the honours?" I leant over the table with the half full bag of chocolate in my hand.
He simply took a handful from the bag, materialised beside Afton, and crushed them on top of his head. A few chunks landed in Chelsea's hair as well, causing her to scowl at me. The guard all gasped at the scene of Afton covered in food before erupting in applause, including Marcus, while Santiago bowed proudly and sat back down in his seat.
"Eli, my hair!" he shook his head over the ground while pieces of chocolate flew in all directions.
"Your issue, not mine," I held my arms up with my palms facing outwards.
With the whole M&M attack on Afton, I hadn't even noticed that Renata had been swooning over the love scene, her crush on Leonardo DiCaprio getting the better of her.
"That level of admiration is…admirable," Marcus remarked while he glanced pointedly at Renata, who was almost drooling at this point in her little fantasy world.
"Hm, now you know how I feel about you then," I whispered, leaning back into him further as he tightened his hold on my waist.
"Get a room, stop canoodling in here," Afton whispered across the table.
"I could say the same to you, sir Afton," I countered.
"Ssh!" Alec hissed from the other side of the room. Now that was disturbing. Was everyone listening to my conversation? My private conversation?
"Canoodling?" Marcus asked.
"Like, kissing, cuddling, generally cringey couple stuff, etc." I responded.
"I would not say we are 'cringey'. Am I not allowed to show you how much I love you around others?" he murmured, kissing my neck while his hands moved to just under my breasts. I fought with myself to hold back from allowing a moan to escape me.
"Stop. Please," Santiago groaned, annoyed.
"Just for that comment,"
I spun around to face Marcus better and pressed my lips against his, while he pulled me so that I was sat straddled on his lap with his hands gripping my waist. I could feel everyone's eyes fixed on us but I didn't let it affect me, instead melting into him.
"I just want to watch Titanic!" Santiago complained.
Turning my head to face him, Marcus tucked my head under his chin and purred quietly. "May I remind you that we are watching a romance film here?" I snarked at him.
"But I didn't ask for a live demonstration, dude!"
"Fine, fine, I'll stop," I reluctantly turned around so I was sat sideways on Marcus' lap.
The rest of the movie was relatively uneventful, except from the fact that almost every girl in the room plus Demetri had venom tears pooling in their eyes when Jack died. What was quite hilarious was Jane's snort when older Rose threw the necklace off the ship at the end of the film. Once the whole movie was over and I'd finished my M&Ms, everyone stood up from their seats and stretched unnecessarily. Marcus took my hand in his larger one.
"You seem tired, tesoro," he spoke, pulling me into his side.
"I'm fine, really," I insisted, "let's head back to my room."
He followed my lead back out of the guard quarters and down the corridor pretty much in silence. His arm snaked around my waist, and I couldn't help but stare at his perfect jaw line and chiselled cheekbones. Ugh, why was he so perfect? Without warning, his gaze snapped over to me, causing me to blush and hide my face with my hair. He didn't say anything to cause me further embarrassment, instead enveloping me in his arms tightly.
"Fancy seeing you here, cara mia," Aro strolled over joyously out of nowhere, his arms spread open.
"Brother, you could hear her heartbeat from metres away," Marcus remarked.
He ignored Marcus' statement. "How was the film? What did you watch?" he asked happily.
"Titanic," I replied.
"Such a sad film, a perfect example of the rarity of happy endings," he shook his head, "I was wondering if you would like to spend the remainder of this evening with me?" he asked eagerly.
"Sure, why not?" I answered, before turning back around to Marcus and kissing him softly, "goodnight Marcus."
"Do enjoy the rest of your evening, tesoro," Marcus smiled as Aro took my hand and led me back down the corridor.
Author's note: I know, I know, I changed the cover again. But this time it was only so that it will match the cover to the potential sequel, yeet. Anyways, not much to say this time, thank you so much for reading, be sure to leave some feedback because your comments are the best honestly, stay safe, and ily!