29: Part Three, Chapter One
Word Count: 1535; First Published 19 April, 2019 Australian time
And as always, thanks to Ms Meyer for permission to play with her characters and mess up her sand pit.
Unbeta'd
Part Three
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Prelude
Maria looked at her seer in disgust.
"Could you not be any clearer than that? Your wisdom is supposed to guide us, instead it does nothing but confuse!"
"Mistress, I am sorry," the other vampire said, head bowed. "I can only tell you what I see—the future is not yet certain. All I can be sure of is that if this Major is united with his mate, it will spell your destruction."
"And who is his mate?"
"I don't know—I can't see. She is… shrouded, somehow. Maybe she's not even a vampire yet? I don't know."
"So, they're not together yet then."
"I don't think so. Whenever I see him close to the present time, he is still alone."
"Well then, we will have to make sure it stays that way. One or the other of them will have to be destroyed. And if you can't tell me who she is… I always did want to repay him for abandoning my army without a word."
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Chapter One – Volterra
"Fascinating!" Aro exclaimed, after letting go of the changing human's hand, allowing her to roll back to her limp position on the stone floor in front of him. He seemed almost gleeful, Marcus thought.
He was curious as to why, but not enough to pursue it. He turned away, as Aro addressed the vindictive redhead.
"You may go," he said. "My brothers and I will deliberate on the best course of action from here. Felix will show you to a room.
"Felix—take Victoria to a waiting room. Make sure she's comfortable. We might be a while." He turned to address the small crowd of Vampires who regularly attended their "court" sessions. "Everyone else is dismissed."
"Of course," Victoria began. "I'll just take the girl—" Marcus found himself hissing, for no reason he could fathom, but Aro interrupted before he could.
"No," Aro said decisively. "She stays here. It is her fate we must decide, as well as the Cullens' and the wolves'. Felix..."
Victoria obviously knew better than to question the Volturi leaders, and allowed herself to be led away, albeit with a frown.
"Well?" Caius drawled, once the room was cleared of all but the brothers and the changing—or perhaps dying—girl. "What did you find out from that self-righteous woman? And what has you so excited about the girl?"
"Oh, brothers," Aro said, "I think we may be in for some fun. Or at least a change of pace."
Caius snorted, but didn't interrupt.
"Firstly, Victoria's complaints against the Cullens may have some legitimacy. They did kill her mate, though as it was in response to an unprovoked attack, I see no harm in that. Of course, she's well within her rights to seek revenge, but there is no reason for our involvement. If it weren't for this girl's vulnerability, I doubt Victoria would have lived this long herself—they are a strong coven."
"Was it true that they were leaving the girl human after sharing our secret?"
"As to that, it's impossible to say what their intentions were, but undeniably she was still human weeks after Victoria first learned of her existence."
Now Caius hissed. "Then they were clearly in breach of the law!" he said. "And what of her assertions of their alliance with werewolves? Surely even Carlisle would not stoop to that level!"
"Well again, it's not entirely clear," Aro said calmly, "though certainly she believed it. As to the other, Victoria's memories do not give proof positive that the girl had known our secret the whole time, besides which, she appeared to me to be sick in Victoria's later memories, so it is possible they simply intended to let nature take its course, while keeping watch on her."
"Let her die naturally you mean? But then why would the boy bite her at the last minute?"
"Yes, that does rather suggest that they never intended her to die, doesn't it? Unless it was simply his bloodlust taking over due to her injuries. But that's not what it looked like in Victoria's memory. And it appears he died defending her, so I rather think they were intending to change her eventually."
The girl moaned at this, the first sound she had made since Victoria dropped her on the floor in front of them. Marcus looked at her thoughtfully. "She appears to have some awareness?" he asked, more than stated, looking back at Aro, "Surely her memories should have answered any questions Victoria's left?"
"Ah, but that is where things become truly interesting, brothers!"
"Just tell us, Aro!" Caius was becoming impatient, as usual.
"Well, Caius, for the first time in my very long life, I could not get a proper read on this girl's thoughts!"
"What?! What does that mean, a proper read?"
"Exactly what I said, brother dear. I could make out some images—and they were quite interesting, let me tell you. But certainly not enough to cover the eighteen or twenty years she seems to have lived. And no words. No context—just a few images."
He looked at them both gleefully "She has barely even begun to change yet! Look at the flush still in her cheeks! If she is almost blocking me now, imagine what she will be like when her change is complete! Marcus—what do you see in her?"
Marcus looked at the girl curiously. His gift was to see bonds, but it was not an automatic effect, like Aro's mind reading. He could turn it on or off. Looking at her now, he activated his gift. It was harder to see bonds with those who were not in the room—the further away they were, the thinner the bonds looked. But this girl practically glowed with them—except that they flickered on and off, mostly off.
"It's—interesting," he said finally.
"What?!" Caius, ever impatient.
"She is definitely mated, but she appears to have other strong bonds also. That is not so unusual in a human, they do tend to have a greater range of such bonds than vampires, but usually the few true bonds we have—mostly mating bonds—are stronger than their many. But her mating bond—I have never seen anything like it in a human, let alone one in the midst of the change…it glows with power. But—they all flicker."
"What does that mean?" Caius again. But Aro was already answering.
"It means, brothers, that her shield is protecting her—intermittently—from Marcus as well!"
"Yes, I think so. Actually, I'm only getting flickers of the bonds—mostly, I see nothing."
"But who is she mated to?" Caius asked. "Surely you could at least see that Aro? And is it human or vampire?"
"And that is where it is really interesting," Aro replied. "The images I could see in her mind—they were almost all of the same person: one Jasper Whitlock, aka the God of War," Aro ignored Caius's snort of disdain at this, to continue, "now presumed deceased." He looked thoughtfully at the girl on the floor when she moaned again. "But most curiously," he added, "in the majority of her memories, he appeared to be human, not vampire."
Marcus watched the girl curiously. How could she possibly have human memories of Jasper Whitlock? Were they from photographs? Aro did say he only saw images. But surely there couldn't be many such pictures still in existence, even if there had been many to begin with.
Her heart stuttered.
"Hmm, perhaps she is not going to make it," Caius commented. "She is not nearly far enough through the change to survive if her heart stops now."
That would be a mercy, Marcus thought, with her mate dead. But even as he thought it, he was moving. Someone with such strong bonds shouldn't die, he justified, as he bit into her wrists and behind her knees, injecting more venom. But there was something else motivating him, he knew.
As he watched the effect of the extra venom moving through her body, he turned his extra senses back on, but this time he looked at the bonds of the vampires in the room. In the short time she had been with them, each of them had already developed a bond to her. Caius's was, predictably, the weakest, while his own—more unexpectedly—was the strongest.
At the same time, he couldn't see her bonds anymore at all. As though the extra venom he had injected had strengthened her shield to make it completely opaque.
He offered his hand to Aro, showing him what he had seen.
"Well!" Aro exclaimed. "That is unexpected. It has been a long time since you have formed a new bond with someone, Marcus."
He felt himself flinch internally, deliberately avoiding any thought of why that was.
"I wonder if that effect is part of her shield?" Aro added.
Caius rolled his eyes. "Out loud, please," he growled.
"Marcus has observed new bonds, brother—ours, to her. I am just wondering if this is a defensive effect that works together with her shield." He bent down to touch her hand. "Hmm," he added, straightening up. "It seems your venom has perfected her shield Marcus. I don't see any part of her memories anymore."
A/N
I hope you all feel better!
This was necessarily short. The next chapter shouldn't be far away though.
Reviewers make me very happy, and get sneak peaks and sometimes progress updates via PM.
Congratulations to the three reviewers - disestablishmentaria, viola1701e, and Janine984 – who picked what happened here (and commented in a review)—Free cake to you! I thought it was so obvious and you'd all roll your eyes at my attempts to be slightly suspenseful, LOL! I know quite a few others were are least *hopeful* that she wasn't really dead.
But seriously - don't you trust me a little by now? I'm not going to ruin it, I promise!
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Recs
Please leave them a review, if you visit, and let them know I sent you. :)
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First, a nice little Bella/Jasper one-shot:
The Cabin by ObsidianDraconis
It's a cold winter's night and a blizzard is settling in, but Bella Swan has been searching for her missing piece a long time and she's not about to let a little cold and snow stop her now. AU Vampire Bella
s/13167648/1/The-Cabin (one shot)
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And here's a WIP I've been reading for a while, I'm surprised to see I haven't rec'ed it yet. It's Bella/Edward, but a very different set up.
Emergence by knicnort3
Swan Manor is hiding dark secrets. Humming in the night, vibrating foundation, and a mysterious hatch that leads to a cold dungeon and a glowing eye. As Bella begins to unravel the intense underground world lurking just below her feet, she must decide if she is prepared to risk everything to set a certain someone free. AU, Vampires, B/E
/s/13103235/1/Emergence
