Cauis stared at the door leading to the antechamber for a long time after the law breakers left. The girl's unique fragrance, bright and soft at the same time, still hovered in the air, tormenting him. He scoffed at his own foolishness. He'd smelled blood better than hers. The Cullen boy was weak for craving her the way he did. She barely even smelled edible to Caius.

Aro was going soft. He didn't care how talented the human might be- the Cullens had blatantly violated the law! They should have burned and served as a warning to other vampires with similar romantic notions. A relationship with a human indeed!

The human, Isabella was her name, was no more Edward Cullen's mate than she was Jane's. The thought filled Caius with an irrational stab of jealous anger. As if she could belong to that welp! As far as he was concerned, young Edward was playing with his food. Using her to see how deeply their coven could fraternize with their natural prey. Disgusting.

If it were up to Caius alone, the whole lot of them would be wiped out. They were barely skirting the boundaries of the law even before they involved the girl, making a mockery of the Volturi by living amongst humans. But they fascinated Aro, and his brother did so love oddities. Although he was delighted by their eccentricities, Aro was no fool.

Caius wondered how far this coven who'd amassed too many talented members and broken the only law they regularly enforced would have to push before Aro took action.

If he knew Aro at all the answer was not much further.

If he had to guess, Caius would say that Aro wanted the human and the seer for himself and was simply biding his time until he could manipulate some offense to his advantage.

Would they refuse to change the girl? Although his brother had seen the human as an immortal in the psychic's thoughts, Caius didn't believe that pussy would change her. He seemed too enamored by her fragility to consider making her his equal. That, and there were too many variables with the psychic's gift for Caius's liking. It was based on decisions, he'd learned. Who was to say that young Edward wouldn't simply change his mind as soon as they left Italy?

Isabella haunted him long after Heidi had brought in their biweekly meal. Caius pounced on a girl who shared the same dark hair and fair skin as Isabella, but her features were all wrong and her blood too rich and sweet. He didn't stroke her hair the way he'd wanted to as he thought of Isabella. He did clutch her tightly to his body, however, as he sank his razor sharp teeth into the column of her throat.

Drinking from her didn't help. Neither did the next human or the one after that. Whatever was ailing him couldn't be cured by blood, leaving Caius in unchartered waters. He was irritable, even for him, and something in the vicinity of his sternum ached, of all things. He couldn't make sense of it.

Aro and Marcus gave him odd looks, the latter even smirking for the barest second at him, as he stalked irritably through the castle. They were in cahoots about something, but Caius could hardly bring himself to care. Aro was always scheming. Although Marcus's sudden return to himself was interesting.

What witchcraft is this, he thought savagely.

She was an enigma, this human. She had even ensnared Marcus with her dark eyes and bewitching scent. With his perfect recall, Caius conjured her face without meaning to at odd moments.

"There you are, brother," Aro said, as though he were suddenly delighted by Caius's appearance. "Jane has news of the newborns."

Caius lowered himself into an armchair. He had not heard of any newborns. But it was possible, however much he hated to admit it, that he was so preoccupied thinking about the girl that he'd been neglecting his duties. Even from afar she was trying to ruin him!

"What news," Caius demanded.

"Their ranks have grown, master," Jane said demurely. She was afraid of him. All of the guard were, really.

"And the rest," Aro prompted her with a fond smile. The little witch was his favorite and only needed the smallest encouragement from Aro.

"They have left a bloody trail through the Pacific Northwest region. Their creator has a grudge against the Olympic Coven," she went on. "She wants to kill the Cullen's and the human. A mate for a mate. I relayed Master Aro's message that if she fulfills her purpose, she may have clemency."

This captured Caius's attention. The Cullen's had drawn even more attention to themselves, it seemed, and now Isabella was in danger. Good god, he thought. Did everything this boy touched have to turn to shit?

"What grudge," Caius asked sharply.

"The Cullen's killed her mate for attempting to kill the human," Aro supplied. "I saw this in Edward's thoughts. James, that was his name, even bit the girl, but Edward would not allow her to change. A pity."

At Caius's outraged expression Aro sighed again, but there was the hint of a smile in his ruby eyes. He was gauging his brother's reaction but Caius was too furious to care. He had never heard something so blasphemous as to prevent the change of a mate before, even if Caius just knew that they shared no such bond, the Cullen welp clearly did not. How the devil-

"He sucked the venom out?" Marcus interrupted Caius's furious thoughts. He looked perturbed as well. Such a thing was an obvious violation of the law, and the very blackest blasphemy. Second only to the plague of the immortal children.

Aro hummed in agreement, steepling his fingers beneath his chin for dramatic affect. He was always so theatrical. If he weren't so angry Caius would have scoffed at his brother's antics.

"Is that all?" he asked Jane with no small amount of irritation.

"Yes, master. That's everything."

"Fine," he spat. "Now get out."

Jane fled at full speed from the room, the door softly closing behind her. Aro looked at him smugly. Marcus was watching him as well. Heartily sick of their amused glances, Caius snapped.

"What the hell is wrong with the two of you?" he demanded.

"Wrong?" Aro put a dramatic hand to the place where his heart once beat. "Whatever do you mean, brother?"

"Cut the shit, Aro," Caius snarled. "You've been acting strangely, even for you, and you're in on it," he said accusingly, his eyes cutting to Marcus.

Marcus raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth lifting as well.

"I'm surprised you have not figured it out yourself," he said in a feathery voice. "You are undone, brother of mine. We have, all of us, withered waiting."

Trust Marcus to speak in riddles after all these centuries of silence! Caius growled, the sound resounding through Aro's study and rattling the stained glass.

"Will one of you tell me what in the seven hells is going on around here?!"

To his immense irritation, Aro laughed giddily. His smile was shark-like, showing a row of white, razor-sharp teeth.

"I have another idea," his enigmatic brother said in a sing-song voice. "Why don't you tell us what has occupied your thoughts this last month, hmm?"

Caius gnashed his teeth, unwilling to spill his guts about the human who had haunted him worse than any ghost ever could.

"Maybe I can guess," Aro said mockingly. "But you must agree to be honest once I guess right… Is it Athendadora?"

Caius felt his eyes go black at the mention of his ex. Athenadora had no right to live after leaving him for a nomad. True mate or not, she had humiliated him with her departure, but Aro had intervened on her behalf.

No. Athenadora had been the last thing on his mind. Only Aro would bring her up now, dispelling the much more pleasant memories of Isabella… No! These thoughts were not pleasant, he had to remind himself. She had bewitched him with some power Aro had not detected. If only they still had Eleazar to sus it out.

"Not your ex-wife then," Aro smirked. "Let me see… Have you been thinking about partaking of the Carlisle's strange diet?"

"Aro," Caius snarled, tired of these games. "I demand-"

"Demand?" Aro laughed. "I don't believe that you are in a position to make demands of me right now, brother. Perhaps this will loosen your tongue on the matter, then."

Aro's expression turned serious, his eyes going dark and the manic mirth leaving his face all at once.

"Marcus has seen something in his bond-sight. It began twelve months ago and has been growing rapidly until a month ago when it came into full fruition. Can you guess what that might be?"

Marcus did not often wax poetic about the bonds he saw. Most bonds he saw were paltry and self-serving, egotistical facsimiles of true bonds. Although they argued often, the bond he shared with his brothers was unusually robust for a platonic union. But even their thousands of years could be dissapted by Chelsea's gift if she so chose.

Mate bonds, true mate bond, were the only unbreakable link in their world. In the beginning of this life, Marcus had less sense. He mourned the presence of an unknown mate for all three brothers but hadn't spoken of her in centuries.

Marcus was ever on the lookout for his own mate, however. Snapping out of his comatose state just long enough to scan the crowds of edible tourists and law breakers alike. Always searching every face that entered their home. He was still sure, after all this time, that he would find her.

He couldn't mean Isabella… The thought of her as someone else's, even his brother's, made Caius's venom boil.

"What is it," he snapped, turning his attention to Marcus, who was watching him with lidded eyes. But it was Aro, it was always Aro, that responded.

"Marcus has seen, as have I, that the lovely Isabella is the one we have waited three millennia for, dear brother."

"We…"

No, he couldn't mean it. Marcus hadn't spoken of this mysterious fourth in a thousand years. Not since Didyme had died.

"You're not serious," Caius said, his voice less angry and less sure now. "Aro, you can't possibly think-"

"Do you doubt me, brother?" Aro said seriously. "I have seen what Marcus and Miss Cullen have dutifully showed me. Our mate. The mate we have pined for. The mate we have built an empire for, has finally been delivered to us."

Caius shook his head, trying to reason with himself that Aro was wrong. So wrong. When had he ever been so mistaken before? Caius tried and failed to remember such a time. He narrowed his eyes at Aro, looking for the lie.

"She can't be. You would have never let her leave it that were true."

"I could not cage her," Aro scoffed. "That worked so well with Sulpicia, didn't it? No. Isabella hates to be confined. She would have never agreed to be ours if I had done so. Or she would have left us. I saw as much in the lovely Alice's thoughts."

He was correct that confining his own ex wife had been a terrible error in judgement. Isabella, a modern woman, would have hated it even more. What's worse, she would have likely been immune to the drugging gift of Corin, the little witch.

"Artifice!" Caius hissed. "You must think I'm a great fool, Aro, if you think I will believe that you are allowing our "mate" to be in the path of an army of newborns. Am I to also believe you would sacrifice yourself in such a way as to leave a potential mate to the tender mercies of a vengeful vampire? Preposterous!"

"To allow one's own mate to be injured, or worse, is a grave crime indeed, brother," Aro said succinctly. "Luckily, we have an entire guard at our disposal. The truce with Victoria is a ruse if you hadn't gathered as much by now. You used to be sharper, Caius. Tsk tsk."

"And who is guarding her?" Caius demanded. "It had better not be Felix…"

"Felix is an excellent guard," Aro said, mock offended. "Why-"

"He is an oaf," Caius cut him off. "He is fine in a battle, sure, but he would make a clumsy guard. I assume you told him to stay out of sight?"

"Naturally," Aro sniffed, but the noise was smothered by Caius's scoff.

"By all the gods, Aro. She'll know he's there within five minutes! And what of the animal drinkers?! It can't have escaped their attention that she's being watched by the Volturi."

"They can draw their own conclusions," Aro said dismissively. "Perhaps they think we are making sure they are upholding their end of the bargain, although I hear from Jane that Edward is trying to weasel out of it."

"That spineless-"

"In any case, she won't be human by spring. My patience does have its limits," Aro drawled.

For the first time Caius noticed the purple smudges beneath his brother's eyes, the blackness of his irises, and the extreme pallor of his skin. These were mirrored in Marcus as well, and in himself, although they'd all fed just three days earlier.

As though answering an unspoken question, Marcus chose that moment to speak.

"The strain of the mate bond grows with time and distance," he said softly. If he were human, his voice would have been gravelly from disuse. As it was, it sounded just above a whisper, although Aro and Caius could clearly hear every word. "I do not know how Isabella will be affected, if at all. She is human still."

This pierced Caius with something akin to panic. Was she in pain as he had been? Abandoning his earlier declarations that Aro, and Marcus, and Alice Cullen, were wrong,wrong wrong, Caius stood so suddenly that the chair he'd been occupying fell over backwards, breaking in several places.

"Demetri!" he called, ignoring the smug look Aro was giving him. He'd obviously orchestrated this, knowing how Caius would react, but he didn't care about that now. There would be time later, much later, to even the score, for Caius hated such machinations.

"Yes, master."

"Fuel the jet! We're leaving in twenty minutes!"

"Yes, master."

Demetri was a good guard in this way; he never questioned orders. He didn't even stay to ask which jet Caius would prefer.

"Where are you going, brother?" Aro asked, but he could hardly hide the glee in his voice. His eyes danced with satisfaction at having successfully manipulated his brother.

"Forks," he snapped.

Aro's laughter rang down the corridors as Caius flashed from the room, ready to kidnap this girl, his mate, if necessary to protect her from bloodthirsty newborns.

"I'll have Heidi equip the jet with flowers!" Aro called after him.

"Fuck you, Aro!"

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