"Once upon another time, I knew how our story would end
And maybe I was wrong, but now the moment's gone
Were it still that other time, I'd make time itself somehow bend
But now I'm not that strong, and time keeps moving on"
-"Once Upon Another Time," Love Never Dies
The door closed with a soft thud after Marcus waved a hand at Demitri, silently dismissing him to follow the sisters. Caius had Lora pinned to the wall with one hand, Sam dangling from her feet with his other fist. Marcus's eyes flickered as he used his gift, seeing the mating bond between the two females, the strained love between Sam and Eliza, as well as the resentment festering in all three of them.
"A human just pushed a vampire across the room." Carlisle spoke first, as if he had spent the past few moments attempting to wrap his mind around that fact. "A human with two sets of memories for the same period of time, who just embraced all three kings." Esme mirrored his dumbfounded expression, nodding slowly in confirmation of his statements.
"A trinity bond." Marcus informed, though Carlisle was the only one to fully grasp that connotation.
"There has only been one trinity bond in history, a rumored one at that. Tracing back to our creation." Carlisle replied with confusion, eyebrows knitting together as he thought back to what little he knew of the history of vampires. Had Alice seen this in her vision, was that why she was so keen on having Carlisle and Edward discover the newly mated pair? They had no plans on adding to their coven, and both women struggled with only drinking from animals. They had barely begun adjusting to the new diet when the summons came to come to Volterra, no one wanting to risk a newborn in a crowded airport on animal blood. The Denali's would have taken them in if they proved able to change their diets, an occurrence that seemed unlikely now.
Aro glided over to Marcus, who nodded at Caius. "Pinning them in place will do nothing brother, they no better than to try and leave." Caius snarled in each of their faces before dropping them like the trash he perceived them to be.
"You live only because death alters perceptions." He warned, like an animal denied a hunt. Caius could not kill them, no matter how much he wished to tear them apart and feed them to the flames. If both were to perish, their relationship with Eliza would be back to square one, their little mate would be mourning the death of a false love.
"We thank you for your mercy, my king." Everyone was surprised when Esme spoke up at last, her big eyes doe like as she simpered. Did she truly have such a bleeding heart? Carlisle embraced his mate, shielding her slightly from their view.
"A guard shall escort you to your rooms." Aro dismissed plainly, yet when Samantha went to exit he stopped her, "Not you. My brothers and I would like a word with you." Lora moved to stay with her mate, but it was Esme who pried her away, wrapping her arm around the younger woman and pinning her with a pleading look.
"You think I'm a monster, that Lora is a monster." Sam challenged, rubbing her palm into the back of her neck, as if it were sore. "They say there's three versions of the truth: what you think happened, what they think happened, and what actually happened. Would you like to see my side of things?" She held out her arm, having been warned of Aro's ability beforehand.
He took her offered hand with a challenge, pulling her memory to the forefront of his mind.
Sam drove down the winding roads, it was her favorite way to go to La Push from Seattle, a quiet, dark, winding road where she could just relax and drive. Her right hand reached down to place her fingers across Eliza's thigh, she had been staring off at the road for a long while.
"Penny for your thoughts, Radimaze?" She asked with a playful lilt, breaking the silence. But instead of smiling, perhaps saying something cheeky like Sam expected, Eliza jumped out of her skin. Her eyes were wild, searching around them, bright with paranoia.
"Stop the car, Samantha!" Her voice was shaking, so Sam lessened her pressure on the gas pedal, spooked by what she saw.
"Elizabeth, what's wrong?" She slowed the car further, reaching her hand from the other woman's leg to cup Eliza's cheek. Sam gawked for a moment, doubting her own sight. Her Elizabeth had eyes of a deep brown, like the bark of the trees outside the theater where they met, but the woman before hers eyes were blue, like ice freezing over a body of water. It was like looking at a stranger, a stranger who jerked the wheel.
The car went flying, wrapping around a tree by the nose of the vehicle. The windshield shattered, a large shard embedding in her body. Pain bloomed in her chest, flowing through her limbs, weighing her down in agony. Sam was sure she was going to die when the lurching sound echoed. Lora appeared, ripping the car apart with her vampiric strength, making a straight shot towards Elizabeth, muttering mocking words that she cannot discern, before Sam lets out a whimper, stopping the vampire in her tracks. The woman is on Sam before she can even gasp, teeth tearing into her throat, filling her with venom.
Aro withdraws from the memory, curling his lip. Eliza had no memory of eye color changing, but how could she have known? It was not like she had a mirror in front of her at the time. Sam's point-of-view was an adjustment, a twist in what he perceived to have have happened. Had Eliza gone back in time, or had the whole thing been a delusion of her mind? The thoughts were not choppy like those who were not sane, if anything they had the feel of strong hindsight, of deja vu.
"Do not go near Elizabeth, let her approach you." Aro commanded, Caius sneered from his spot to the left of Aro, a silent warning.
"I love Elizabeth, I always have, but what I have with Lora…" Sam trailed off, searching for the right words. "It's like my soul is aware of Lora, when only my heart was aware of Eliza." She crossed her arms, resigned to the fact that her love for Eliza now felt incomplete next to Lora, a fact that Elizabeth would soon realize about her own bonds as well no doubt. "If she chooses you, I won't deny her of the happiness of a mate bond. But if she doesn't, then I'll stand by her side in that choice."
The words were hollow, echoing through the room. They all knew the pull of the mate bond, the all encompassing desire to make your dear heart happy, no matter the cost. It altered a vampire's very being, bleeding into the human construct of love. Eliza had to feel it, had to know what she meant to them by feeling alone, she had such a bleeding heart.
Samantha moved to exit, but paused by the door, turning back to make eye contact with Aro. "If Liza is drinking, then I suggest having breakfast food ready. She likes to cook, and I'm sure Jacob will be here by the same she wakes, that boy eats like a wild dog, he's made comments on missing home cooking." Sam's smile was wistful, no teeth, only a curl of her lips. If vampires could cry, Aro wondered if she would have shed tears over the loss of Elizabeth.
Alone in the throne room, the three brothers faced one another in a half circle. "We should summon Corin and Athenodora, perhaps she will know something of this." Athenodora had been Marcus's lover during his early years of life. By the time he helped to take the vampire world in the Volturi name, he had grown bored of her, but she remained stubbornly by his side. She was old, he could feel it in her, see it in her eyes, the ancientness of her soul. Corin had been posted at the woman's side, to keep loneliness at bay, to fill her with contentment.
But it had been nearly a century since the unofficial queen had left her tower, her haven of safety. So the three kings flitted to the tallest tower in the castle, up flights of stairs to a poshly decorated suite, though the decor was a few years out of date.
"I had been waiting for you to summon me." Dora stood on a windowsill, a story off the ground, as if she had entered the room from above. "I could smell her all the way from my tower, your mate." Her singular use of the word had the brothers frowning.
"You know then?" Caius asked, frowning. The two had danced around each other for centuries, having years of seeing each other often, and years of ignoring each other completely. He had threatened her with banishment before, just to see her smile and tell him to try and get rid of her. She was older, stronger, the only one alive who was able to bring Caius down in a fight, simply because she had trained him.
"Of the trinity bond? Of course." Athenodora smiled knowingly, quite pleased with the idea. "It's why I've watched over you three all these years." A silent guardian, content to sit in her tower and patiently wait for something that they were not even aware of.
"The broken bond…" Marcus murmured, he had seen it buried beneath her other connections. A broken, pure mate bond, with edges frayed as if it had multiple strings knit together instead of a single strand. He had never dared to ask her about it, even after it was no longer such a fresh wound. In truth it was the bond he compared all mates to, for it was pure, devout, unblemished by greed or jealousy.
"The time has come to talk about bonds, dear brothers." Her eyes were soft, her legs swinging from the window sill as she gazed beyond where anyone could view, into the past. "I once shared a mate with my sisters, Elpida and Zaren. We were of the first vampires, changed by our mate when he felt the pull of the bond. His name was Amare." Even thousands of years after the loss, Marcus flinched when he saw the bond quiver, writhe ever so slightly. Vampires never got over the loss of their mate, Dora being the prime example of this.
"What happened to your sisters?" Aro asked boldly, he was the precocious one, the one ever aware that history had a tendency to repeat itself, and he had no desire to lose his mate or his brothers.
"They wished to die, so I let them return to Amare." Her voice cracked, she cleared her throat as if she were human, "Apologies, it has been many, many years since I have spoken his name aloud." Guilt clouded her face, revealing what her words could not. She had ripped her sisters limb from limb, built the biggest fire anyone had seen, and watched them burn. When vampires met their deaths, a sickly sweet smell filled the air, it stuck to her clothes, her hair. When the kings fulfilled their duty, she thought back to her sisters, the cruelty of justice.
"And your mate?" Caius piped up then, lips curled back into a sneer. He had tried to speak of mating bonds with her before, but Dora had refused, stating that the time would come when all would be revealed.
"Killed by Time, froze him from the inside out." Her brittle words left the room with a chill in the air. "Our bodies are destroyed by fire, but ice can kill the soul." Dora did not look about, she stared ahead, out the window to the groves beyond. She lifted a dainty hand, as if she were about to be escorted down from a carriage, but it was for Aro to take.
Inside her mind, Aro was captivated by the image of her mate, the picture of vampire beauty, feral and untamed, wild and passionate. His hair was to his shoulders, a thick, deep chocolate braid that surrounded a strong chin, high cheekbones and a slim nose, skin a light shade of caramel. But the memory twisted, the man giving an animalistic smile as his eyes morphed from cherry red to glacier blue, it was as if a different soul had come to inhabit the form.
When Dora removed her hand from his, Aro said the first thought to come to him aloud, "Amare...looks like Elizabeth."
A/N: thanks to the guest who noticed I posted the 11h chapter of APoIaF instead of DoD. I originally wasn't going to include Athenodora, so let me know what you think of her thus far.