Author's Note: Ugh, transition chapters. Why are they so persistently obstinate? Unfortunately, both this chapter and the next will be dreaded transition chapters, shifting the conflict from Sulpicia vs. Aro to Sulpicia vs. everyone else. However, I do have some plans for more Volturi drama, including the arrival of an OC to shake things up as far as marital harmony goes.
As always, I want to extend my most sincere thanks to all those who have read/reviewed/favorited. You guys rock!
Next chapter will be drabblish. With any luck, I'll have it posted soon. Take care!
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Stephenie Meyer's work.
Chapter Twelve
A shift occurs in the house of Volturi. Old stones shake the dust of slumber, slide and crumble and so become dust themselves. Upright pillars forsake the strength of ages and tremble. All that was once supported now plunges, plunges and shatters.
And vampire sensibilities, so attuned to subtle change, recoil in the face of revolution.
Aro arrives home with his bride on the cusp of twilight. He alights in the closed courtyard with Sulpicia and his brothers, all of whom have suffered the indignity of being packed into the same, tight coach.
Mimicking the feudal majesty of lost decades, the guards await their master in the shadow of the castle. Jane stands to the front, her expression docile. Resigned.
Alec looks glum. Demetri pale. And Felix, with his brooding eyes and massive shoulders, is thoughtful.
To think it was not a fortnight ago that they were dragging Sulpicia back to the tower. Merciless. Mocking.
And oh, how they tormented her.
There is a moment of breathless bracing. Grimacing as the storm clusters beyond the horizon.
Change is heartless.
Didyme and Athenodora, the setting sun lending their glittering skin a tawny hue, are the first to greet their new sister.
"My dear." Didyme folds her arms around Sulpicia's shoulders and tucks her chin over the nape of her neck. "Had I but known that your differences would one day set you apart."
Quiet confusion flitters across Sulpicia's face, but she suppresses it. "You mean, then, that I shall be distinguished. Separate." She squints uncomfortably. "It must be hard for you to accept me now."
"Never." Didyme holds her sister at arm's length and surveys her with the practiced scrutiny of a parent. Wistful motherliness darkens her burgundy eyes. "We are so happy to have you, Athenodora and I."
Hearing her name, Caius's wife shuffles forward and curtsies shyly. She is a perfectly delicate creature. Flaxen-haired. A dove with a fluting voice.
Sulpicia looks dismissive. "We shall talk…later."
And there is a moment, a breath of time, where the air becomes strained, a fleeting instance of unease.
Aro does not noticed it. He is resplendent with joy, his usual whimsy heightened by triumph and no little pride. He bows to his sister and to Athenodora, taking his wife's hand in a great display of affection. The flow of thought between them is uninterrupted, and he revels in their new intimacy.
Sulpicia is beginning to trust him.
Take me inside, husband. I despise being watched. And yes, they are watching me…judging.
A broad smile shows each and every one of Aro's sharp teeth. He is a confidant master of ceremonies, unfazed by the attention, enchanted by it. Sulpicia has not yet learned to ignore what discontent teems below the surface of the coven. He knows she feels Caius and Marcus, their eyes ever keen and disapproving. He knows she disdains the soft presence of the wives and is revolted by the very notion of completing their trio.
Always the odd number. The thirteenth sitter at an already crowded table.
But Sulpicia does not understand…does not know, that he too has long been the uneven addition to his own triumvirate. And she does not understand what comfort their union brings to him…
Passing through the courtyard with his new wife, he pats little Jane on the head and acknowledges they rest of the guard with a nod.
"We must try to be more of a family," he says. And Sulpicia's hand tightens in his, her nails all too sharp.
She is sitting on a shelf of rock, one arm pressed to her breasts, feigned modesty giving her the air of fierce Diana. A length of tepid water slithers down her back. Light echoes with the voices of Venetian castrati dart upwards to the cavernous ceiling.
The old Roman bath is a place of fine music. Of supreme weakness and errant thoughts and flesh rendered crimson in the alluring glow of shaded candles.
As a guard, Sulpicia had never been permitted the luxury of enjoying the ancient baths, housed sensibly as they were in the deeper recesses of the Volturi stronghold. Now she is welcomed. Privileged. Enclosed.
Flat frescoes, paintings of white-robed Romans and olive branches and she-wolves, stretch across the arched ceiling. She is surprised to find the place invigorating, not claustrophobic…at least until Aro appears.
Her husband stops at the edge of the large, tiled pool, removes his robe of Orient silk and slips into the water with unabashed grace.
Sulpicia watches as his body slices through the bath. His lean legs propel him forward, one arm thrown back casually to part the water. His hair is liquid night.
She looks away…suddenly embarrassed by his nudity.
This is not mine.
Aro turns, his stomach taut and slightly obscured by the undulating waves. He treads water lazily. "Such a mask you wear. If only I could find an artist to chisel its like from marble."
And he beckons to her, sweeping one hand through the water and raising ripples.
"Do not flatter me," Sulpicia replies, reluctantly sliding from her perch into the bath. She does not wish to be troubled…wishes instead to be left alone, to savor the moments which were once hers but now belong to him. "You said we ought to be a family. It is a fallacy, don't you see? A falsehood. I have no need for family."
"No." Aro reaches for her, but she evades him. "I suppose not…haha, not after you drained your niece."
Her expression stiffens and then collapses into anguish.
Aro's smile fades. "Forgive me. Ah, Sulpicia, forgive me!" Again, he tries to catch her in his arms, but only succeeds in grasping her wrist.
Her flesh is slick and she slips away.
"Have you considered," she says, regaining her composure with difficulty, "what you will do with me now?"
Aro frowns. Ducks his head under water in a poor pantomime of drowning. "Are you so unhappy here?"
"Do not ask questions you can answer. I have said this before. Aro, do you see how I was in Egypt? There is much to be said for solitude." And Sulpicia throws her head back, her eyes seeing past the frescoed ceilings to Cleopatra's cities. The land of the asp. Of the martyred lover.
Blood in the Nile.
She is torn from her reverie by Aro, who has at last captured her and pinned her against the mosaic wall of the bath.
"Please." Sulpicia will not look at him. His moist breath streams across her face, causing all the tiny hairs along her neck to rise.
"You were never meant for life in a coven," he says calmly.
Sulpicia acknowledges the truth with a nod. "You see now what I am and I asked you if you would have me still…still…"
"Still I would." His lips are intrusive, pressing kisses to her flesh, driving her to places of abandon and wild, wild music.
And she has no control.
"Your guards hate me," Sulpicia insists, her body stiff and unwilling even as his knee pushes at her thighs. "I was one of them and now I am not. They cannot reconcile the change in their minds."
"Time, my dear. They will in time."
"Your brothers…I hear their concern. It is a heartbeat, unmeasured. They do not see me as you do."
Aro smiles wryly. "Never mind my brothers. We have had such quarrels before."
But Sulpicia will not be comforted. Placing her hands on his chest, she pushes herself back and away from her husband, at last clawing her way out of the pool and onto the rock shelf once more.
Aro's expression is one of youthful felicity. He floats away, granting her the space she desires, while his gaze remains intent on her body.
The body that is now his, Sulpicia thinks and a fluttery sort of panic overcomes her.
"I have never belonged here," she says. "You must know that…Aro, you must."
But the smile never leaves his face. At length, Aro stands, the water running in rivulets down his torso, down his clever fingers.
"Then I will build you a labyrinth," he says, bracing his hands on her legs, his face so very close to hers. "And you may run and hide and live as you please. You see, I can deny you nothing."
Sulpicia says nothing, even when he takes her roughly, invading what was once hers and only hers.
Because now, yes now, she is his.
And never…never, never again will he let her alone.