a/n: Genny910 makes everything prettier. I just make it weird.

"This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games."

William S. Burroughs

I lay nearly naked beside Aro, on my stomach, the crisp sheets of the bed pushed down below the small of my back. His elegant, white hand lazily stroked a line from my shoulder to my waist.

He seemed enamored of my skin. Even when he wasn't touching it, he stared at it. It occurred to me that I could probably completely disarm him if I wore a backless dress or even just something sleeveless.

"I should feed soon." I let out a sigh and propped myself up on my elbows as I spoke.

"Of course," he murmured, snapping out of his daydream and sliding out of the bed.

He grabbed his shirt and dressed rather quickly, compared to his normal languid pace. It reminded me of someone fearful of exposing himself. I thought about his hands brushing mine away when I had tried to undress him and the way he lay partially covered now. I came to an unexpected conclusion: he was strangely self-conscious of his body. He was of slighter build than many men I had known and was a mere four or five inches taller than me. It made sense if you considered his age. I remembered being on a junior high class trip to Washington D.C. and visiting a colonial home in Virginia. The small staircases and doorways had surprised me until the guide had pointed out that people had been smaller as recently as a few hundred years ago. It didn't bother me but it seemed to bother him.

I smiled at him coyly and looked down at my sheet-clad body. "I don't think I have anything to wear," I told him.

He laughed. "I'll get right on it." He finished dressing and walked to the door and opened it. Renata met him within seconds. I realized with some chagrin that she must have been waiting out there this whole time. He exchanged a few words with her and closed the door.

"Renata will fetch you some clothing. You'll go eat and then keep your lesson with Marcus. I'll come for you there." He sat down on the edge of the bed to tie his shoes. I felt a tiny degree of fondness for him in that moment. Not love, not adoration, not anything I was familiar with. I considered him carefully until I realized that he was waiting for a response.

"Is that amenable to you, Isabella?" He looked at me politely.

I smiled at him sweetly. "I thought those were orders." I injected as much innocence as I could into my voice.

He laughed, that crazy, high-pitched laugh that I found both repulsive and fascinating. It was off-putting to be so close to his insane giddiness. At the same time, only someone with Aro's power could laugh like that and still be taken with deadly seriousness.

Aro saw my response and he smiled.

"I can't wait," he said, leaning over and touching me under the chin. He swept out of the room.

Renata's anxiety level had definitely abated and she was almost chummy with me when she brought me some clothes. She had brought me a necklace that Aro had given me two weeks into my new life. I made a face.

"It's not your favorite," she said, laughing.

"I think it's hideous." It was an ancient, clunky gold necklace in the shape of some kind of bird. It looked Egyptian, and I hated it.

I put it on and grimaced at Renata. If the worst part of my new life was wearing an ugly piece of jewelry, I was lucky.

"You missed our lesson yesterday," Marcus intoned. He didn't lift his eyes from his book when I arrived.

"I'm sorry, Marcus." He looked up at me with an infinitesimal smile so I knew he wasn't angry. He took in the monstrosity around my neck.

"He gave you the necklace of Hatshepsut," Marcus said, raising an eyebrow.

"What do you think?" I touched it and smiled at him. He shook his head.

"I've never liked it, but Aro worked very hard to get it so I know he thinks it's precious." Marcus pushed the book in front of him over to me.

"Did he know her?" I asked, hoping to pry into Aro's past…dalliances.

Marcus laughed. "No, she is even older than us. Aro went through quite a bit of trouble to steal her necklace. He angered quite a few of our Egyptian friends in the process. It wasn't entirely safe for us to go to North Africa for quite some time after that." Marcus seemed lost in the memory for a moment.

"It looks like a vulture," I said, looking down at it.

"It is a vulture." He pointed to the book in front of me. "We left off here at the death of Madame du Pompadour."

I started to read to him in French, pausing every paragraph to translate. Marcus didn't need to correct my pronunciation any more but he would sometimes clarify a word meaning, making distinctions between words that sometimes seemed minute and fiddly. The third time he did it, I rolled my eyes and he sighed at me.

"Isabella, I know you think I'm being pedantic, but the shades of meaning in words is important, especially here. In English, the words 'influential' and 'dominant' both express different types of power, but you can see the difference, can you not?"

I nodded, knowing that there was more of a lesson than just the connotation of French adjectives here. Marcus and I were still reading about the lives of powerful mistresses, for one thing.

"Subtlety is an important lesson to learn here," Marcus continued, the book forgotten. "Power is everything. If you are to use your gifts effectively, no one must know that you are wielding them. Your greatest weapon is secrecy."

"Forgive me, Marcus," I smiled at him as I spoke, "but you assume I have an agenda here besides just staying safe."

"My dear Isabella." Marcus clasped his hands in front of him. "I am three thousand years old and I was an intelligent man as a human. Your Cullens may have believed you to be an ambitionless child but I know better. You are new to this life and still finding your feet. When you do, you'll have the tools."

"I don't understand why you're helping me," I said in an almost whisper to Marcus. "Why would you encourage me to wield this kind of influence over your brother?"

"Would you believe that it is because it amuses me?" Marcus lifted an elegant eyebrow at me, his expression looking in that moment so much like Aro's it surprised me. Their centuries together had clearly made them alike in many ways. Marcus must have picked up more of Aro's penchant for manipulation than I had assumed at first. Now he was exercising his power through me.

"I'm not sure what to believe," I said. Marcus smiled at me like we shared a secret.

"Your lessons must be going well for my brother to be so pleased." Aro's voice came from the doorway. I felt a tingle of excitement at the sound of his smooth, feather-soft voice.

"My pupil is impressive," Marcus said, all the boredom returning to his voice.

"Well, I'm afraid I'm going to steal her from your tutelage." Aro swept in and offered me a hand. I thanked Marcus and took Aro's arm.

"Will Isabella be joining you for our audience?" Marcus seemed completely disinterested in the answer to his own question.

Aro patted my hand and smiled at Marcus. "I think that would be appropriate, don't you think?" Marcus nodded without looking up.

"It would be good for you to start learning about what we do here, Isabella."

Aro walked me back to my room. Once there he went straight to my closet and flipped through my clothes. All dresses. It made me think of Alice. She would probably approve.

He pulled out a dress very similar to the one I was wearing.

"This one will do nicely, I think." He handed it to me, appraising me openly with his eyes.

"What is the occasion?" I asked, careful to keep my voice polite.

"Your first formal presentation to the court," he answered. "Please wear the necklace." He gestured to my neck.

To punish him I changed in the bathroom.

"Lovely," he said when I came out. "If you would put your hair up, please?" When I looked at him curiously he answered. "I think it would showcase Hatshepsut's necklace nicely." I nodded, lacking a reason to argue.

I sat down at the dressing table, trying to pin my hair up. Aro sat in an armchair, watching me.

We sat like that for some time, no words, and no games. It was refreshing. I got the impression that it was an infrequent occasion for Aro to be so still and quiet.

Then his voice broke the spell. "I want you to tell me what happened with you and the Cullens."

I turned to face him. I didn't want to revisit that time, but his expression made it clear I didn't have a choice. When his waiting expression didn't soften, I turned back to the mirror, watching him that way.

"You saw the way things were when we…when I met you the first time," I said, appealing to Aro to fill in the details himself. How Aro had said that he would let us go if Edward agreed to change me, if he meant it. How I had begged him to mean it.

"Edward never agreed to change me. Alice did. The second we stepped out of here he was scheming how to get around it, how to keep me human." I blew out a breath and frowned. Another lover might have comforted me. Aro just watched, his curious eyes glittering.

"He couldn't be convinced. Edward hated himself so much. I couldn't stand that he hated what he was more than he loved me."

I turned to face Aro again. "I cut off ties with them. I told them all to stay away from me. They thought what he did was right. Carlisle, who was supposed to be so wise; Alice, who called me 'sister.' They left me and then thought I would just pick right back up where they left off. As if I wouldn't always have to worry if he would decide to leave again." I couldn't read Aro's response. I turned my face away from him again.

"Well, I have to admit to being rather charmed by your love affair with young Edward. So romantic and tragic." Aro sighed theatrically. He approached me then and put his hands on my shoulders. "Although, your heartbreak has worked out to my benefit delightfully." He bent down and put his lips on my neck. I continued to stare at our reflections in the mirror.

"Tell me about your mate." I said, keeping my gaze neutral. Aro removed his lips from my shoulder.

"What is it that you would like to know, my Isabella?" He smiled at me indulgently. "Are you interested in her personality, or are you just wondering why she tolerates me taking a mistress so openly?" His voice seemed to take on an edge, but it was so subtle I couldn't have proved it.

"I think, the latter," I said. His eyes sparkled at my honesty.

"Sulpicia is content with her life in the tower. She has her amusements, and she has little desire to be intimate with me, certainly." He said it without rancor.

"But presenting me to the court formally gives me a certain position." I was very careful to not assume too much. "Doesn't that take away from her position?"

"My mate has never had the desire to wield power. She enjoys the comforts but does not relish the complexities. She will no doubt be pleased to have someone to take her place at those rare events which require me to use her as a hostess." Aro seemed to be getting bored, and I felt conscious of a desire to keep him engaged.

I got up and sat back down on the dressing table, facing him, my feet on the stool. I pulled at the long hem of my dress, exposing my legs up to above my knees, feigning obliviousness to the way Aro's eyes watched me avidly.

"Have you had many mistresses since Suplicia stopped being interested?" I watched him move towards me slowly, his eyes on my skin. I parted my legs slightly, still covered from just above my knees up.

"A few," he shrugged, his eyes not meeting mine, distracted as they were by my actions. "No one I put in your position, certainly." He had reached where I sat. He put his hands underneath my knees and stroked the sensitive skin there delicately.

"And, in my defense, the lack of interest was mutual. After three-thousand years even the mate-bond can lose its spark if you hear everything they think." He ran his hands slowly up the backs of my legs.

"Why me, then?" I asked, leaning back to leave space between our heads as he moved closer, placing his body in between my legs. "I mean, the silence thing I get. But why give me so much status? You could have just tucked me away in a bedroom and had your way with me."

"That certainly sounds appealing," he said, pushing my hem up higher, his fingers almost at my panties. But then he stopped and stood up a little straighter.

"You underestimate yourself as always, Isabella. Your silence is appealing, I won't deny it, but your brave heart was the most intriguing."

Aro removed a hand from my thigh and tapped my chest where my quiet heart lived. "A fragile human girl who would dare to face us and tell me that I knew nothing of Edward Cullen's soul? The fierceness of your spirit, your bravery was the most appealing thing about you. I couldn't wait to see what you would do as an immortal and was only saddened that you had attached yourself to one as weak-spirited as Edward Cullen." He moved closer to me again, stopping with his mouth just inches from mine. "When I found that you had grown away from that self-loathing bore, I was thrilled that I could perhaps witness your true potential."

He leaned in the rest of the way and kissed me. I was somehow both inflamed and contented by his words. I took comfort in the safety of my position here, at least as long as I could continue to intrigue Aro.

He pulled away. "Now, I think I was in the middle of something, my dear." He slid his hands back up my legs. I leaned back, propping myself up on my elbows as he pulled off my underthings.

"You'll have to help me with this," he said, his mouth hovering between my thighs. "I don't have the benefit of your thoughts to help me."

I was struck for the first time by the vulnerability in his face. I had come to see that despite his millennia on earth he was relatively inexperienced. I was a very recent virgin, but I had seemed to take him by surprise once or twice in our recent tryst. I was surprised myself by how I'd taken to sex so enthusiastically. I wondered if it wasn't a combination of my time of fruitlessly lusting after my vampire boyfriend and my transformation. I was coming to see that I was a very different person as a vampire than I'd been as a human.

Aro's tongue coaxed a cry out of me, and my thoughts came back to where I was. There was something about our sexual relationship that made me feel as if he was oddly subservient to me. I could manipulate him with his desire, and more often than not he was servicing me. It was an unexpected thrill, this feeling of power.

His hands gripped my hips as he stroked his tongue across me. I shuddered with pleasure, as much from the action as from the power of his adoration. It was a heady experience to go from feeling rejected by my frigid teenage boyfriend to holding sexual dominion over such a frightening, powerful creature as Aro.

One of his hands joined his mouth on me as he worked to coax pleasure out of me. He pushed his fingers into me as I collapsed back onto the table, unable to support myself on my shaking arms. He brought me closer and closer as I writhed on the table.

As I came, my hips jerked up to meet him, and he seemed to murmur something, his mouth against my skin. When I regained my breath I pushed myself back up and looked at the blissful, hazy look on his face. It was as if he had been the one to experience the pleasure.

I smiled and gestured to my crumpled dress. "I think you'll have to get me a new dress." This time I changed in front of him, making eye contact with him the whole time, enjoying his reaction as I exposed myself. It wasn't the type of attraction I was accustomed to but it was enthralling nonetheless.

a/n: Thanks for reading and all your sweet reviews and tweets and such! There's one more chapter of this abomination, so, watch out!

xoxo

JuJu