If there was one thing to know about Eliana, it was that she was really not a morning person. So when she did eventually feel Aro gently nudging her awake, she groaned, her eyes still closed, and lazily attempted to swat his arm away.
"Come now, my dear." He slowly ran his fingertips across her face, knowing that it wouldn't take long for the action to irritate her into awakening. "There is nothing gained in wasting this glorious day away in bed. And look, the sun is out!"
"I don't want to look," she grumbled bitterly. "5 more minutes."
"That is exactly what you said 6 minutes ago," he reminded her. "I gave you more than the 5 minutes you wanted, but now you need to wake up, cara mia. Besides, I'm rather intrigued to hear your explanation as to what you dreamed about last night."
Eliana squinted up at him and yawned into her palm. "What did I dream about again? And how did you-" Her brain finally processed the reason why he was even in her bed in the first place, "right, yeah."
"So?" He eagerly sat up a little and, as she began to sit up herself, he pulled her onto his lap. "I'm listening."
"Um . . . the, er," She rubbed her eyes tiredly with the heel of her palm and relaxed against him, "the . . . the teletubbies, they were part of a satanic cult . . ." She felt her face begin to heat up, ". . . to turn the planet into spaghetti."
"And . . .?" he prompted.
She rolled her eyes. "And . . . Spongebob," she winced at herself, "was trying to defeat the, er, the satanic teletubbies."
"And did he?"
She tiredly glared at him, only to find him looking back at her as though he was finding far too much amusement in her embarrassment. "No. He . . . he was turned into spaghetti."
He nodded his head in understanding. "Just as I thought. You're a weirdo."
"Hey," She shoved his chest with her shoulder, "don't be mean. No one-" She paused to yawn, "no one asked you to stay and watch with your mind-reading thing."
"If you wanted me to leave, you should have just said," he retorted. He reached for her chin and tilted her head upwards so that he could kiss her lightly. "But I know you didn't want me to. Now come on, you can't sit here all day, no matter how much I'd enjoy that."
Her quite contented expression quickly morphing into a glare, she slid off his lap and stalked towards the bathroom. "Now I remember why Caius was my favourite," she muttered.
She couldn't say she was utterly surprised when she left the bathroom to find Aro gone—he was a busy guy, after all—but what did surprise her was the presence of someone else in her room who had already made himself comfortable in her armchair.
"You know, if this coven were tight for money, you would drain most of it through your water bill," Afton remarked absently as he watched her walk across the room to replace her hair dryer. "Generally, showers should only take that long if you're banging in there." He paused for a moment, and then leant forward to peer past the door. "Did Master Aro-"
Eliana sighed exasperatedly. "No, I did not have shower sex with Aro," she responded as calmly as she could. "Let me guess: you were sent here to babysit me, weren't you?"
"I was not sent here to," he argued. "As of 12pm yesterday, I am your personal guard, responsible for ensuring you are accompanied at all times and remain out of trouble."
"So nobody sent you here, but if you didn't come, you'd be punished on the spot, got it." She sat down on the edge of the bed and played with her hands in her lap silently for only a few seconds. "So . . ."
"So . . .?" he asked. "Did you want to say something? Or are you starting meaningless conversation to fill the void of silence?"
"Meaningless conversation to fill the void of silence," she confessed. She tapped her fingernails against one of the bed posts. ". . . Can we do something?"
Afton shrugged. "Can we?"
"Are you generally unreasonable?" she questioned. "Or just around me?"
"Both," he admitted. "You are just shockingly easy to wind up. But what did you want to do?"
"What is there to do?" she countered.
"The list of things we cannot do is much shorter," he replied. "As future queen, you may decide-"
She held a finger up in front of him and grimaced. "Can we not do that?" she requested. "I've been here for no longer than a week. In fact . . ." She quickly stood up and slid to the floor towards her phone which was still plugged into the wall, "what day is it?"
Before she even had the chance to open the lock screen, Afton answered. "You leave tomorrow. Your transport has already been arranged for you."
"Oh." She placed her phone back down and stood up. "Right. Okay."
Now Afton was no expert in mating by any means, not that many people were, but even an idiot could tell that she was obviously upset about leaving, whether she'd ever choose to admit that to herself or not. He did internally question the safety of keeping her at such a distance from Volterra for a prolonged period of time, but after all that wasn't exactly his decision to make, and he didn't even want to think about what Caius would do to him if he were to speak his mind on that matter. Ever since the newly-formed bond had tampered with the blond leader's emotions, he'd become more ruthless than before, if that was even possible. Not that Eliana needed to be made aware of that.
"Come on." He stood up effortlessly and strolled towards the door, which he opened much easier than Eliana seemed to be able to. Glad that she already had shoes on, she found herself almost jogging to keep up with his long strides.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"You always seem to be grovelling about how easily you find yourself lost in this castle," Afton explained, "so now seemed as good a time as any to show you around this floor at the very least. We're currently on the ground floor, with 8 floors above us and 20 floors below, but 21 if you include the garage."
Eliana raised an eyebrow at him. "You have a garage?"
"It isn't some common household garage," he told her, "but rather akin to an indoor car park. The reason for its location on the bottom floor is that there exists a tunnel that leads out beneath Volterra directly onto a farm track, which then leads towards the motorway. It's much more convenient than driving around the city itself."
"And the other floors?" she asked.
"Plenty of things," he responded, "none of which you must know of immediately. This current floor is home to the guest rooms, for both humans and immortals, both throne rooms-"
"Hold on," she interjected, "there are two?"
Afton nodded. "The one you saw is the most commonly used one, especially for guests, but for any other meetings or trials, especially regarding the guard, the second throne room is usually used." He suddenly went quiet, and an arm was extended out in front of her so quickly that she blatantly walked into it and groaned in pain.
"The hell was that f-"
"Ssh." He held a finger to his lips. "Remain still and behind me. Don't move."
She opened her mouth to question him when the answer was provided straight to her. Someone she didn't recognise seemingly appeared out of thin air in front of them. He was quite tall and burly, undoubtedly extremely dangerous, but nothing compared to Felix anyway. He side-glanced at Afton, and then at her, but she noticed that the look he gave her was very different to that she gave Afton, sort of the look a cat would give a tiny mouse.
"Found a straggler, did you?" he laughed. "Well, I suppose "finders keepers" applies well in this instance."
She saw Afton crouch slightly and push her further behind him. "Eliana is to remain unharmed, Santiago."
"Eliana?" His eyebrows rose to the point where they nearly reached his hairline. "Damn it, dude, you could've warned me. I was literally just about to take a bite out of her too."
"Yeah." Afton finally straightened back out again and lowered his arm. "I figured. Your idiocy almost cost me my head."
Santiago scoffed. "You're the idiot for letting her wander out here."
"It's better than keeping her in her room under lock and key," Afton retorted.
"I have a name," she said from behind him.
Afton stepped to the side so that she could actually see Santiago properly. Now that there wasn't someone blocking her, she noticed that if anything he appeared taller than before. His irises evidently had been black, but were only then beginning to fade back to their original shade of crimson.
"I believe we haven't been properly introduced, huh?" He held a hand out in front of her. "The name's Santiago."
She saw Afton roll his eyes as she took his hand and shook it warily. "Eli. You can just call me Eli."
"Eli?" he repeated. "Is that spelt E-L-L-I-E or E-L-I?"
"E-L-I, not that it matters," she responded coldly.
Santiago whistled lowly. "Yep, that's Master Caius' mate, alright. And the other two, I guess. I hear you finally got it on with Master Aro last night."
"I didn't get it on with Aro," she informed him. "I didn't get it on with anyone."
Before she could get herself too riled up, Afton explained on her behalf. "She was only in an argument with Master Aro for a brief moment. That's all. And today's her last day, so I highly doubt anything could possibly happen in the space of the next 20 hours."
"Hey, I mean, things could happen though, am I right?" Santiago's grin only broadened as Eliana scowled at him.
"Oh, you-"
"That is enough of that, Santiago."
Santiago bowed his head in shame and nodded. "Yes, Master Marcus."
Marcus moved to stand beside her with an arm around her waist possessively. "You are both dismissed," he ordered.
Another simultaneous mutter of, "Yes, Master Marcus," and the pair had vanished before her eyes. She blinked a few times before exhaling deeply.
"Those two are the most goading of our guard," Marcus explained, "but unfortunately two of the most vital in their experience and skill. Caius prefers the term, "energy vampires"." He studied her expression for a short moment and then continued walking, his arm still around her. "Did they offend you?"
"No," she responded. "No. They're just . . . annoying."
Marcus hummed in agreement. "Are you and Aro on better terms then?"
Eliana sighed. "You heard, huh?"
"I hear virtually everything you say and do," Marcus reminded her, "hence I am also aware of the fact that he was your first kiss out of the three of us."
"Oh jeez, you weren't kidding when you said you can hear everything," she murmured.
"You should be glad I restrained Caius before he could intervene," he added.
"He gets jealous quite easily, doesn't he?"
"Very much so."
As they approached the same doors that led out to the gardens as the previous day, Marcus pushed it open and held it in place for her to move through before closing it behind them. While the cracks in the pavement were still damp due to the rain of the previous few days, the sun's return was very much welcome. The heat was enough for her to roll up her sleeves to keep her arms cool.
"Is something the matter, tesoro?"
Eliana looked up at him but had to shelter her eyes from the sun with her hand to do so. "Why does everyone keep asking that? I'm fine," she insisted. "I'm just . . . not much of a talker. It's not my thing."
"I understand that," he responded. "I just wanted to ensure your wellbeing, that's all. But other than that," He turned her towards him by her shoulder, "there seems to be something else on your mind."
After a moment, she shook her head. "It's nothing, it's not important."
"Those are two very different responses. If it's enough to bother you, it is important enough to me," he replied. "Now, will you tell me?"
She chewed on her bottom lip awkwardly. "I don't think it's exactly something that has much of an answer anyway," she laughed sheepishly, "and it's something I've brought up before, but . . . it's just . . ." She sighed, "I don't know a better way to put it than . . . why me? Out of anyone in the world, anyone at all . . . why me of all people?"
Marcus paused as he attempted to phrase his answer to her question. "Look at it from a different approach, cara mia. Why not you?"
"Why not me?" She found the question frankly laughable. "Let's see, what am I not? Okay, fine, I'm not particularly smart," She began to list them on her fingers, "or interesting, or funny, or good at—let's be honest—anything, nor am I anything but average, nor pretty, or-"
"That's enough," he cut in sharply. She almost jumped at the . . . very un-Marcus-like tone. His voice instantly returned to normal, only with an extra softness. "The things you listed are nothing but the nonsense that today's society has encouraged every single person to believe. Physical appearance and intelligence aren't the only important aspects of a person—but that isn't to say you don't have either-"
"Nice save," she interrupted teasingly.
"I mean it, tesoro." His expression remained completely serious as he stared into her eyes. "I truly do."
While she'd felt the overwhelming urge to kiss Aro the previous day but had resisted it, although in the end he'd kissed her anyway, for some reason she had no restraint when it came to Marcus. Due to their height difference, she reached up onto her toes in order to press her lips against his fully, yet would've pulled away mortified at herself and apologised had he not kissed her back with earnest. One of his hands slid into her hair while the other came to rest on her shoulder.
Unlike with Aro where he was able to tell when she was running out of breath, Eliana had to pull away from him a little in order to actually take a full breath. Her dazed eyes stared up at him for a long time as she recuperated.
"You . . . I didn't . . ." she panted.
"I know." He sat down on a bench that happened to be only a few metres away before pulling her onto his lap. She didn't object at all, partially due to the fact that his body temperature made the heat a lot more bearable, but also because something about his embrace, as cold as it was, was just so warm. "That entire action was the bond. You were feeling insecure, and-"
"The bonds are more emotional than I am," she commented.
Marcus tried not to chuckle. "They are heavily influenced by moods and emotions. After all, that is what allows them to grow and develop. That paired with the fact that you are human is enough to cause you to act in a seemingly irrational manner at times. I can assure you, that will become more bearable with time."
'With time.' There was still time. So much time. That little insinuation that this was a permanent arrangement, that this was her fate, that this was forever. There could be no break-ups—this didn't have an end.
"Don't let that intimidate you." He interrupted her thoughts so quickly that she jumped a little. "I think I know what you are thinking, but remember that we have all the time in the world. What happens years from now doesn't have to be thought about just yet."
With a light sigh, she nodded and let her head come to rest against his shoulder. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right."
⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰
Author's note: I feel like her first kiss with Marcus' might've come out a little rushed ahhhh but I kinda wanted it to be that way. The whole idea is that it was abrupt, a complete lapse in judgement on her part.
Also introducing Santiago. For those who unfortunately read the original version of this story, you'll actually see that a lot of his personality is the same, unlike Afton and Chelsea who I sort of reworked a little.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading, stay safe, and ily lots!
