Author's Note: I wrote half of this chapter a week ago and the other half yesterday, so I do hope it's coherent and not too corny. ^_^ Most of my inspiration came from a lovely, haunting song by Alanis Morisette entitled "Uninvited". In my mind, it pretty much sums up Sulpicia and Aro's relationship in this story.
To all my readers and reviewers, thank you so much. You guys have been awesome. I really appreciate the outpouring of support and encouragement.
I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Stephenie Meyer's work.
Chapter Eight
Aro comes to visit her. She recognizes his measured footsteps in the hall. Hears the slight hitch in his breath.
Sulpicia waits for him, pressing into the shadows of her cell so that he must squint through the darkness to find her.
Let him think she is gone. Let him weep.
But he does not weep when he sees her. Simply folds his hands over the cell bars and sighs.
"There are consequences to our actions," he says. Sulpicia notices his expression. Etched in marble. Pained.
"Without consequence, there is no order," she replies. "I knew I was breaking the coven's laws when I left."
"And you did not think you would be caught?"
"No."
Aro tilts his head forward. In the flickering light of the firebrands, his skin is flushed, clashing with the scarlet pigment of his eyes. "I wish I could save you from such naivety."
He is playing a game. Once upon a time, Sulpicia would have enjoyed dueling with him. Taunting and teasing him. But not now. She is tired and in her weariness, she has grown hopeless.
"I would not have gone if you had tried to stop me."
"Oh, but I did." A hint of a smile touches his lips, the lips of Hades, master of death. "Did Jane hurt you much?"
Sulpicia laughs high and loud, startling even him. "I do not answer questions that are posed in jest."
Aro leans forward, the bars framing his long face. "Sulpicia." When he says her name, all pretense drops away. They are left naked and bare. She sees now why he has come.
To save her.
"You are a tortured man," she tells him, crawling from the shadows on her hands and knees like a cat. "Even now, you won't let me go."
Aro looks down on her. "What an unfortunate slight."*
She is unsure of him. Painfully unsure. And the uncertainty of it all is a poison, rushing through her veins, matching her pulse with a fervor and rhythm all of it's own.
This is weakness, she tells herself. This is certain death. Look into the eyes of the serpent. Gaze at the Basilisk and die.
He has that strange beauty of a charmer. He speaks like Socrates in the voice of a child and ends each of his sentences with a smile. And his cold breath teases her flesh. Whispers.
"You are too kind to me," she says, taking the upper hand and holding her ground firmly.
He leans on the wall opposite her. Hands clasped. Elegant. Black hair a wreath about his lithe shoulders.
"You think I am a flatterer?"
"Not at all." She skirts the edge of his question, so keenly aware that his eyes are on her.
What does he know? What does his mind sense of her that she cannot?
Desire. Her desire.
Yes, surely that is it. It is more potent than the scent of blood to him. More alluring. He has noticed her desperation, the ageless, unfed yearning that she has harbored from the prime of youth into the strange limbo of immortality.
He is tempting her even now. With a promise.
Aro raises his hand, holds his palm open. An offer. This is what he is offering her.
But she turns away. "No."
"You'd rather be alone?"
"I would rather be free."
He bides his time, present always in the back of her memory. Waiting. She knows he will grow tired. They all have. And she can outlast him. Destroy him if she must.
What he wants is a toy. A pretty plaything. Someone weak and useless.
But she has always been powerful. And she will not be his.
"You do not want me," she tells him the next evening, mocking his persistence.
I will tear you down if I must. I will destroy my body before I give it to you.
Aro remains unfazed. He has her in chains and is amused by his prisoner's defiance.
"You endear yourself to me all the more," he says, kneeling by her side, stroking her tangled hair.
"You are mad."
Now he laughs, the sound rolling from his throat in a smooth wave. "You would be dead if I hadn't saved you."
She knows this is true and the knowledge of it stings her. Cuts welts into her flesh like the tongue of a whip.
"I don't want you," she says. "I never did."
Now anger rises within him. True, unabashed rage.
"Do not lie to me." He speaks softly, lovingly, but she can tell that he is wounded. Wounded and bleeding.
But I'm not lying, she tells herself, twisting futilely in her chains. I never asked for you.
She repeats the mantra over and over. Chants it to herself until her mind is numbed. And yet somewhere, a crack appears, traveling down the mountain of her resolve.
Perhaps…perhaps I was wrong.
And her resistance flags. Crumbles.
He says there is little use in keeping her confined. Little to be accomplished. And so her frees her, snaps her chains and brings her out of the dungeon.
Sulpicia watches him closely. His face is lined. Taut and worried. A nervous pit forms in her stomach.
I've worn him out, she despairs. He is going to have me killed.
She looks at her hands. Hands which were made for combing harp strings and conjuring notes from the soul. She imagines them cracked and bleeding. Imagines them as ash.
And she says, "Please, I do not want to die."
His concern is matched only by surprise. "Of course not," he replies at length. And suddenly his arms envelope her.
They stand alone in the center of his study.
Sulpicia inhales his scent, mingled with the dust of old parchment and stale ink. Her fingers thread through his hair.
No. No.
She pulls away, more threatened by his embrace than the festering hold of any prison.
Aro catches her gaze and keeps it. "You have a decision to make, Sulpicia."
"My fate is not in my hands," she replies evenly, a hint of frost thrusting shards of indifference into her tone. For a moment, she hesitates, then adds, "what do you want from me?"
His eyebrows dart up toward his ebony hairline. "You assume much."
"I am tried." Her shoulders sag and without meaning to, she leans against him. "Let us be done with this…please."
Despite her apathy, she is stunned by the sudden look of desperation in his eyes. The agony. Once more, his arms fall about her, his cheek to her head, breathing ragged and raw.
"Do you love me?" he gasps painfully.
Her throat clenches, aching and she presses her forehead to his shoulder. This is madness…
"Yes," Sulpicia manages, the word a jagged stone.
He pauses, then, "Marry me, Sulpicia. Be my mate."
She gazes into his eyes and searches for the doom that she fears. Echoes of her own mortality.
"I don't think you unworthy," is her reply, "but I need a moment to deliberate."*
Author's Note: Good? Bad? Ugly? Let me know! As always, I'd love to hear from you. The next chapter will be drabble length, yes, drabble length, which means a quick update. Thanks so much for reading!
*These lines come directly from "Uninvited", written by Alanis Morissette for the City of Angels soundtrack, 1998.