The Collateral Lust Quartet: Tainted Love
First Kiss
Bella
I've been here a month. A month since I last saw Edward, a month since I last saw Jake, or Charlie, or home.
A month in which I simply existed. It was like my depression when Edward left me; I just stopped being more than a human being, just existing as a zombie.
Until one day, I woke up.
That morning, I rolled over in my bed, and awoke to find I hadn't had nightmares. I hadn't awoken screaming my head off, so Jane and Heidi hadn't come rushing into my rooms to see if I was alright.
That morning, I felt hunger again. I felt thirst; I felt the need for company.
I felt human again.
That morning, the birds were singing outside my window and I woke up slowly to their sweet song, hearing it properly in my ears for the first time. I opened my eyes, to stare up at the canopy of my four-poster bed. It was a deep, midnight blue silk, swathing the mahogany wood of the posts, carved with the likenesses of vine leaves. The covers of my bed were the same colour as the canopy, made of velvet and swansdown, soft against my skin. They were the same royal blue, embroidered with tiny roses in a lighter blue. Directly opposite me was a bay window with a plush seat built into the wall, where I could look out of the tower I lived in, and see the rush of humanity in the Palazzo dei Priori below.
The sun was shining, as always, its warmth bouncing back off the sandstone bricks of the houses, its heat wave making the red tiles of the buildings shimmer incandescently.
I swung my legs out of bed, the skirts of my simple white nightgown falling around my legs, as I stepped onto the cool white marble of my rooms. The high ceiling ensured I didn't get too warm in the night, as I listened to the sounds of the cicadas outside, already beginning their chaotic symphonies for the day. I walked slowly to the window and leaned against the window jamb, letting the sun warm my skin and truly feel it, for the first time.
I couldn't understand my sudden transformation from zombie to living human again, but slowly the ache in my chest wasn't so bad anymore. The hole wasn't quite healing, but maybe I had grown so used to the pain that it no longer affected me as much.
I'd passed my maximum pain threshold.
I distantly heard footsteps behind me, and turned to find Aro standing behind me. I allowed my eyes to rove over his raven hair and expertly tailored black suit.
"Bella?" he murmured, walking closer slowly. Tiredly, I let myself smile slightly.
"Aro," I replied, inclining my head before I turned to look out the window once more.
I could feel his eyes on me, no doubt marvelling at my sudden change from despondent girl to an actual human being again.
But sometime, perhaps in my subconscious, I had realised I could not give up hope, I could not give up on life. Edward hadn't left me, and he would come back for me.
I wanted life, I wanted to live it, even here in this gilded cage. Despite all Edward had told me of the Volturi's cruelty, they had treated me with kindness and patience, even I had to admit that.
I knew there was a darker side to them, but that was part of who they were. They were vampires, and I couldn't forget that. They were not the Cullens, but an infinitely older and powerful family.
The leader of the Volturi had been the kindest, the most attentive of them all.
"I'll send Jane and Heidi to you," he murmured, and I felt his hand brush my hair. I couldn't hold back my shiver, despite my instinctive flinch.
What did I feel for him? How could I, when I loved Edward?
Yet I could not deny the draw that pulled me to him, from the first moment I saw his image in that portrait. I could not deny the shivers of desire that rippled through my entire being when he drew close. Why had he kept me here? Why didn't he kill me, as his laws demanded?
All questions to which I had no answers.
I felt him turn to leave, and I couldn't help but spin and reach out to him.
"Aro, wait. Thank you," I murmured, as I caught his wrist. It was cold beneath my fingers, and yes the shiver I felt was not from his chill. Cold did not create heat. "Thank you, for your kindness to me, lately."
He turned back to face me, a gentle almost maternal kindness on his face. "I desire you to be happy here, Bella."
"You've kept me here, against my will. How can you expect me to be happy here, away from all that I love?" I murmured questioningly. Aro looked at me, his enigmatic eyes revealing nothing.
"I have done nothing, Bella. You chose to remain here, you could have chosen otherwise," he replied gently.
"My only other choice was death," I replied, anger beginning to fill me. It felt…hot, almost painful after my month of frozen life. It surged through my veins, setting them alight.
"It all begins, or ends with a choice," Aro simply stated, his tone and gaze as enigmatic as his words before he turned and left the room, leaving me confused.
After Aro left, I went back to staring out the window, at the cornflower blue sky and the complete lack of clouds. After a year in Forks, I hadn't seen the sun in ages, not since that incident in Phoenix.
Its warmth rejuvenated me, brought me back to life.
A balmy breeze filtered in my window, lifting the hair hanging against my cheek, and I inhaled deeply. The scent of jasmine and roasting bread filled my nostrils, making my stomach growl. I heard Jane and Heidi's entrance like gentle puffs of wind in my ear, as I turned around to meet them.
Jane had all the appearance of a little girl on the threshold of womanhood, with long blonde hair restrained into an elegant bun on the back of her skull. Her red eyes were especially bright this morning, as she smiled innocently at me.
I wondered if she was trying to use her gift on me again.
"Good morning, Bella," she almost sang in her angelic voice. She'd greeted me like this every morning, trying to elicit a reaction from me. I wondered if her failed attempts to use her gift on me were another strategy to get me to react like an actual human being.
Jane's black lace dress floated around her as she walked towards me, her white stockings and black patent shoes completing the image of a sweet little schoolgirl. Perhaps a remnant of the human girl Jane must have been once.
"Good morning, Jane," I murmured, and saw the surprise fill her red eyes. Then she smiled again, in a friendly way as she almost glided towards me.
"It's nice to see you…" Heidi trailed off meaningfully, and I got what she meant.
"Alive?" I asked wryly, and she smirked.
Heidi was a tall, statuesque beauty with the typical pale skin of a vampire, but with long rippling waves of mahogany locks framing her classical features. She always dressed elegantly, although this morning's dress of dark green was a far cry from the scarlet dress she had worn when I first met her, on that fateful day one month ago. I quickly learned her job was to lure humans, mainly tourists, into the Volturi's home as food, pretending to be offering tours of the city.
"I was going to say talking," Heidi replied to my comment with a smile.
So began my second month in Volterra. This month was a month of reawakening, as I came back to life. It was also a month of disappointment, as I sat and waited for Edward.
Always waiting.
I was surrounded by luxury and another family that yearned to make me their own, but I always held back. Always waiting.
It seemed my life was made up of waiting for Edward to come back.
One day, I was sitting in the library of Volterra. It was my favourite place in the citadel, apart from my room. It was stocked with bookcase upon bookcase of books, some infinitely old and others new and fresh, barely touched. Sometimes I wouldn't even read, I would just wander amidst its arched windows and Gothic columns, letting the coloured rays of light from the stained glass windows play over my skin.
Over this last month, I had let anger at Edward bleed in. How could he leave me for so long?
My heart began to beat rapidly when I heard footsteps enter the library. I knew who they would belong to.
Aro.
I had promised to stay in Volterra, with him, forever. Would he change me?
Why did he want me?
Unknowingly, I had moved closer to the Volturi leader in the two months I had been here. Sometimes, at night, I would awaken from nightmares to find his concerned visage leaning over me, stroking aside my sweaty hair, murmuring to me in Italian. Heat burned me when he was near, not that I ever let on that I felt drawn to him.
I could sense when he was in the room with me, I felt every movement of his body as if it were my own.
Such connection I'd never known with anyone.
It was like I automatically began to gravitate towards him, as he was the centre of my universe.
And yet, I loved Edward. Didn't I?
I had never felt so torn, in all my life.
But maybe I was tired of waiting, of never feeling good enough, of fighting for what I wanted from one who would never fulfil it.
Perhaps, it was time to embrace the new life at my fingertips.
Maybe.
Aro
I watched Bella as she sat on one of the pews below the stained glass window. The sunlight streamed in, casting rosy tints of a dusky rose over her skin, melding with gold and blue and green. She wore a royal blue dress, of the purest silk, accentuating the slender form within it, her long brown hair loose around her shoulders.
Her head was tilted to the side, her cheek resting on her hand, her elbow supported on the stone window sill. She looked…thoughtful, but there was that painful awareness I had seen so often in her eyes when I drew near.
An awareness I longed to cultivate. I was quickly growing desperate. I had become obsessed with her.
I wanted her, soon.
Abruptly, Bella sighed and turned her head slightly. "I know you're there, Aro."
Inwardly surprised, I moved forward into her line of sight, as she swivelled in her seat to face me.
"How did you know it was me?" I asked quietly, moving closer as she looked me in the eye candidly.
"I can feel when you're close to me, as now. I feel…drawn to wherever you are. I knew it the first time I saw your portrait, in the Cullens' house," she murmured in reply, as I felt surprise and triumph soar. I was so close.
"He is not coming back for you," I said, my tone gentle but I knew the pain my words would inflict. But she had to face up to that truth if she was to become mine. She didn't outwardly flinch, but her jaw firmed.
"You don't know that," she replied coolly. "You can't."
"But I do, Bella, I do," I murmured, remembering that wonderful vision Alice had bequeathed me. Bella, at my side, forever.
Bella's eyes dropped from mine, and I could sense her sadness and her pain.
"Are you not tired of waiting for him? For the past year, all you have done is wait for him," I pressed my advantage, sensing victory. She raised painfully intense eyes to mine, awash with tears that would never now be shed.
"Maybe," she breathed, and I saw desire bleed into the sadness, overwhelming it like an abscess had been lanced. It was all I needed.
I strode to her side and knelt before her, taking her fragile, soft, warm hand in mine.
Holding it to my chest, over the Volturi crest I wore around my neck.
"Bella, ask anything of me. Anything. I only desire your happiness," I breathed, transfixed by the transformation before me. Her sorrow and her strength shone through, enhancing her human beauty as nothing else could, not even venom.
"Kiss me," she murmured, and I stared at her, shocked beyond anything.
But then the triumph welled up, as I bent my head.
Bella
I felt my breathing stutter as Aro drew near, his lips only inches from mine. My heart pounded, my pulse throbbed, my blood singing in my veins. I kept perfectly still, stiller than a statue as I felt the first touch of his ice-cold lips against my warm ones.
How could such a kiss of ice invoke such a rush of fire?
Our lips met once and clung, and I felt his groan of restraint as if it were my own. I moved forward, sliding my hand into his obsidian black hair and offering my mouth freely to him. His hand made the reciprocal motion, sliding into mine and cupping the back of my neck as I opened my lips and let him take possession.
He did masterfully, stripping away all conscious thought or direction, beyond instinct and the need to keep kissing Aro. His tongue very slowly taunted mine, teased and tempted until I gave in and joined in this heated game of thrust and parry.
My head whirled, without oxygen, as I couldn't bear to take my lips from Aro's, lest I should lose this feeling.
I felt accepted, wanted. I felt like Aro had been waiting for me, and now he had me. It felt right.
Finally though we had to part, if only for a second, long enough for our eyes to lock and for I to suck in a much needed breath. Aro's hands suddenly pulled me upright, standing abruptly as our lips met again, with greater urgency and hunger as I clung to him, and his hands caressed down my spine, torturing my skin through the silk of my dress, and settled around my waist.
Fire pooled low in my abdomen, and I wanted nothing more than to remain like this forever.
But all good things must come to an end it seems, because Aro raised his head, as we both battled against the tide of desire. If we wished, it would sweep us away forever.
However, even I could hear the sound of Caius calling for Aro.
"I have matters to attend to, Bella," he murmured to me, brushing my lips just once more.
"Go," I whispered, as if I actually held the power to keep him with me. Maybe I did.
Aro's hand caught mine and raised it to his lips as he brushed the knuckles, slowly moving backwards, allowing my hand to slip through his fingers. Our eyes never broke contact until the very last second, the very atmosphere crackling with intense lightning.
Outside it had begun to rain, reflecting my inner emotions, as the storm raged against the windows. Alone once more, I rushed out of the library.
I don't know for how long I ran, and how far, but I did it just the same.
I both wanted and feared to quench the fire in my veins, the all-encompassing desire that would overwhelm my old life and leave me in the world, alone, without all that I knew and loved.
Privately, I was astounded I didn't trip over.
Finally I reached an ancient wooden door, and I hauled it open as cool air caressed my skin and I looked out into an abandoned courtyard, shrouded by a curtain of rain, clinging to the golden sandstone like liquid diamond droplets. Entranced, I moved out into the showers of icy diamonds, letting it drench me from head to foot, as I stood there.
I had a choice before me.
Wait or live. Live or wait….
Wait, live, wait, live, wait, live….ice, fire, ice, fire, ice, fire….
My hair sodden, my dress clinging to my limbs I held out my arms, and let the rain wash away my old life and my old self. No longer would I wait, no longer would I suffer.
No more waiting.
My future, my eternity was here.
I heard movement behind me, and I turned blindly to find, to my surprise, Marcus standing in the doorway.
Gingerly, I moved towards him as he beckoned, stepping out of the cleansing rain.
"You are conflicted," he sighed in his raspy voice. It sounded as if it were seldom used. "You fight to be free of the past."
"Yes," I murmured, accepting the painful truth.
"Then know this, human. I saw the bond between you and Aro from the moment you stepped into our halls. It has the power to devastate or to remake your world, Bella," he whispered, and I nodded at his wisdom.
He placed his hand on my head, as if in blessing, before he murmured, "Remember, Bella. Do not dwell on dreams of the past, and forget to live."
And with that, Marcus melted into the shadows from whence he came.
Quietly, gravely I wandered back to my rooms, unnoticing of my wet hair and drenched gown. All I felt was the heat in my veins.
The moment I stepped into my rooms, Jane and Heidi swooped down on me with all the grace of swans in flight and all the predatory intent of lions scenting their prey.
"Where have you been?" Jane demanded. "You're soaked."
"Not out in the rain?" Heidi exclaimed, horrified. It didn't take any verbal confirmation from me to give truth to their fears. Heidi gasped, but Jane held up one elegant hand.
"It doesn't even matter. The Master has ordered that you dine with him tonight, so we need to get busy," she stated firmly, already ushering me towards my bathroom. I glanced back at her in confusion.
"But vampires don't eat," I muttered, as Jane rolled her eyes.
"But you do. Come, we only have a few hours to clean up this mess," she sighed dramatically, indicating my lank hair.
I sighed. I might have changed, but I still didn't enjoy being used as a Bella Barbie.
More soon!
Hope you're enjoying this. Seeing as I'm only using four chapters, and no I am not going to expand (I've got enough on my plate with Siren of the Twilight), I had to show Bella's development very concisely, but I also tried to show it in other ways. If you look, the language I use for Bella's point of view changes towards the end of this chapter, growing more sophisticated, as if being in Volterra begins to change her very mindset and how she thinks.
Anyway, hope you enjoy and please R&R! Final chapter: First Night up soon ;)
And yes I know I used a quote from Harry Potter, but heck it seemed to fit Marcus's advice. So sue me.
Don't….