IV.
"Oh wow, this is beautiful," Bella breathed, glancing at stacks of books, stale and faded with time, bearing the smell of centuries-old inked leather mingled with musk and sweetened by spilling beeswax. Lazy spirals of sun polished the light to burnished gold, drawing quartz refractions from Aro's skin and lending a patina of auburn to her mahogany hair.
"I am glad you think so. It took me the greater part of a thousand years to accumulate this collection."
"Can I look?" she asked, her eyes alight with an academic's curiosity. In her enthusiasm, she was nearly bouncing, and Aro grinned.
"Of course, my dear. Begin on the right side—the left contains the older works, and you will likely not understand the languages." As soon as the words were spoken, Bella had scampered off between the shelves, dark hair bobbing around her shoulders, spilling her scent through the unmoving, glowing serenity.
A few moments passed, and she returned, clutching folios with eager fingers.
"What did you choose?" he asked, wondering what sort of literature an adolescent would find amidst ancient shelves and yellowing parchment.
"Shakespeare. I've never read any of the Henries," Bella said, brushing gentle hands over the spines of the Bard's British pieces. The gesture was a revealing one- a title slipped and Aro noted that it was Romeo and Juliet.
"A little romance to balance the history?" he inquired.
"Edward used to read this with me. We thought we were like them—Romeo and Juliet, I mean. It's stupid, isn't it?" Bella said, ragged flesh curling away from gnawed nails, leaving ridges as flayed as her voice. "We weren't—how could I have thought that I deserved love like this?" An impatient hand slammed onto the fabric-edged cover raising cloying clouds of dust and mildew.
Aro considered informing her that Shakespeare had intended the his oft-misquoted play as a cautionary fable or perhaps reminding her that love was left bleeding and blemished upon the pages of books, the words nothing like the emotion itself.
Instead, he found an answer slipping from his lips, unbidden and unexpected. "Marcus tells me that your bond with Edward was an extraordinary one. Regardless of outcome, the pair of you shared such belief in the strength of your feelings. Surely that should count for something." Aro faltered for a moment, the aftertaste of his speech too sweet upon his lips. Such idealism had been neatly stripped from him during three thousand years, and he could not guess what had coaxed it to the surface once more.
The mortal girl seemed soothed by his words nonetheless, the strawberry fading from her features as her pulse steadied. "Thanks. Listen, I'm sorry for telling you about all this. You shouldn't have to hear about my problems."
"My dear, I do not mind." Again, Aro was startled. This conduct was rooted in something more intimate than a lifetime of polished etiquette; Bella's willingness to trust him with her wounded heart was certainly a flattering novelty, and it enticed strange sentiments to the surface. "Why not leave Rome and Juliet with me?"
Bella grinned. "Thanks. Maybe it's better if I do that. I'm tempted to throw the book across the room."
He laughed, disentangling it from her slender fingers, the warmth and heartbeat thrumming beneath her translucent skin utterly, deliciously foreign to him. "Go ahead and take the rest of the plays with you. Return them when you like, and we can discuss your opinions then."
"That'd be really great." Once again, the cream of her skin brightened to a flustered cherry, and Aro was suddenly fascinated by this telltale flush.
With something like a hasty wave, Bella walked out of the library, books cradled in the crook of her arm, earth-coloured hair veiling a shy smile.
[-]
When the shadows lengthened into sunset, Bella left her room once more. She had picked one of her books, though she did not know which, in order to carry a deceptive prop as she sought Aro.
The corridors were oppressive with torchlight and silence, but she was almost accustomed to that. The soundless weave of the air indicated that the ancients and their court were still in the throne room; she could easily slip in and Aro would allow it. She had no reason for seeking him, of course, but Bella was drawn too tightly to his presence of late to care.
A few moments of wandering yielded results, and finally, she found herself at a familiar door. Opening it, she stepped through and walked into a crimson-smeared hell.
There were corpses, drained and still, strewn on the floor as stray blood swirled away into culverts and drains in viscous streams, but that was hardly the worst of it. The coven was not parched enough to devour—they were toying with their victims now, slowly tearing through veins and ignoring arteries, leaving mewling, half-dead humans writhing in miserable spasms on marble.
The stench of sweat and nameless, tortured fear twisted with the iron taste of blood left Bella gasping, but it was the sight of the twins, Jane and her dark-haired brother, leisurely shredding a small girl's throat that blackened her sight and sent her onto the floor, pallid and unmoving.
[-]
When bleary eyes opened, Bella saw smudged garnet that refined itself into glorious tapestries and rich frescos. The chamber itself was unfamiliar, too opulent and exaggerated to belong to anyone with the exception of Aro himself. Curving to look about, she noted that she was draped on a low couch, perhaps Roman in design, with a blanket precisely tucked around her.
"Ah, you are awake." Aro appeared, a mug clutched in his papery hands. "Please, drink this."
The tea was fragrant, vernal and smelling of spilled petals, but she could only choke down a mouthful before the questions tumbled out, and the pretty porcelain cup shattered upon stone.
"What was that? Why were you doing that? Some of those people—they were children, and you didn't need to feed on them, your eyes were still red, you weren't thirsty—you—". Sobs reduced the speech to jumbled phrases, sharp with accusation that seemed unfamiliar leaving a rose-coloured mouth accustomed only to stammering sweetness.
"Bella, Bella, that is who we are. Occasionally, we overindulge and we cannot choose which mortals are present when we do," he soothed, sitting beside her. "Their deaths are painless, and the fear lasts a minute, no more."
"I can't. I can't be like you," she whimpered, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders too tightly, a little girl trying to cocoon herself away from the yawning night.
There were tears beading her eyelashes, defiant droplets prompted by wrath and terror intertwined. In a cautious movement, Aro flicked the pads of his thumbs over her cheekbones, a comforting caress, and Bella recognized the horror of garnet-stained embraces consoling her. Then, graceful hands traced the snowy arches of her face with the reverence a sculptor reserved for his greatest work, pausing only to press a finger, light as moth-wings over her lips in a frail imitation of a kiss.
His touch unstitched her entirely, and her mortality, the salty rhythm of blood through the hollows of her heart and the air coiling through her lungs revealed her desire. Gasping and tremulous, she met his gaze and Aro smiled.
His mouth catching hers seemed natural, the precarious, gentle fall of a leaf in autumn. There was the sensation of frost until flame-edged wonder intruded, turning the kiss into a volatile, compelling thing. Her pulse throbbing in her ears, Bella did not pull away until breathlessness darkened pleasure into something foreign and dangerous.
A steadying hand caught her shoulder as nails curved through her hair.
"I think, my sweet," Aro purred, punctuating the pause with a kiss edged by teeth, "that you will find many compelling reasons to be like me."
Electricity took the place of blood, sparking across her skin as heat hazed her vision. Entwined with a creature as vicious as he was viscerally lovely, Bella suddenly, horribly understood that she had no urge to flee.
Author's Note: Guys, I hate to beg for reviews, but the number of hits and favourites that this fic has is quite disproportionate to the amount of feedback it receives. If it's not too much trouble, I'd love it if you told me what you think of the story. Good stuff, bad stuff, random stuff- I'm open to all of it. I'd especially love it if you gave me feedback about Bella's character; I've never written anything extensive about her before, and I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job with her.
Thank you to all those who reviewed the previous chapter.