Told you I'd update again tonight! It's a little shorter than the others, but I feel the intensity of it makes up for it, enjoy ;3
As we entered the Volturi's main chamber I felt as if someone had just sucker punched me in the gut. Marcus was there. My huband, my mate, my love, my…my everything. Sitting there in a throne flanking my murderous brother like nothing was wrong! How, how could he? Didn't he know, didn't he care that my own brother had murdered me! And yet there he sat, still as a statue and as glorious as I still remembered him. God I could cry for the sight of him, my love. I never thought I would see him again.
Had he, like Bella's love, simply cast aside the thought of me and continued to support my brother. No, I refused to believe so. Not him, please, not him. Let it be a mistake. My whole body was trembling now as I stared at him, willing him to disappear, to make this whole thing a terribly cruel nightmare. Any moment now I was going to break into millions of pieces and sob myself into oblivion.
Bella's pain had earned my sympathies as a third party, but now, I knew what it was she felt. The ultimate betrayal of her love. My god, I couldn't even comprehend how she had survived as long as she had. It felt as though I was dying, just looking at him sitting there. Surely I would wither away into nothing in a few more seconds, the pain was that intense.
He stirred suddenly and cast a confounded gaze my way, fraught with uncertainty as his eyes searched mine. I remembered his gift and realized that unlike a direct mental attack, he could read my attachments to others. Most importantly, the love I had for him. A love I had thought I'd cast aside until this very moment.
It was Aro's voice that brought me back to reality and I tore my gaze away from Marcus's with some effort, feeling myself release a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Edward and Alice looked at me as if I'd grown a second head; even Aro seemed a bit disconcerted.
"So this is the human Edward was willing to die for," he said lightly, shaking off the tenseness of the moment. "You are quite something to see in person dear Isabella, even more…mouth-watering, now that I have you in the room," he drawled lasciviously. Rage boiled up inside of me. I couldn't look at Marcus again though I could feel his gaze scorching my body. Aro thought he knew what he was dealing with and I wanted to hurt him. Killing him would be over too quick.
My eyes scanned the room, passing over the third throne and I realized what I'd sensed was missing. I gave a derisive snort and let my gaze bore into Aro's as I felt Marcus's doing to me. "Even in the center of your underground kingdom, you're still nothing but a scared little child," I laughed drily. He blinked at this, not expecting such words from me.
"Bella, what are you doing?" Edward hissed warningly. "He'll kill you," he said. I grinned- he already had after all.
"My dear Bella- that is what they call you isn't it?" he gestured at the Cullens, "what are you talking about?"
"Your filthy whore!" I spat venomously, watching with glee as his eyes widened and his hand tightened just fractionally. "Sulpicia, bitch," I continued using her name synonymously. "You have her locked away somewhere right? Away from all the men?" I snorted. The entire room sat in stunned silence as I threw the words at him hatefully. "You can take a girl from the whorehouse, but you can't take the whore out of the girl, isn't that right-"
Between blinks I was dangling by the throat, Aro's eyes blazing up at me. Always so touchy about his precious wife. "You play a dangerous game human. I am known for my patience and yet you try it further than most would ever dare," he said, tightening just slightly around my throat.
Felix restrained Edward as he snarled at Aro, Alice likewise held back by Demetri. The rest of the room watched quietly. I knew exactly what buttons to push with Aro.
"So I'm right," I managed to choke out. He was so close. I could kill him now. Separate his head from his shoulders with a single sweep of my arm.
"Brother," a bored voice interrupted. "You let the girl rile you too far. I thought Caius was the one with the temper," Marcus drawled. I shot a glance at him, feeling the ice pour through my veins. Brother? He considered him a brother!
Aro relaxed his grip and finally seemed to realize something. "So it's true," he murmured, his face glowing like a child on Christmas day. "I can't read your mind at all, it certainly is fascinating though not so much that I'll let you live if you don't learn to keep your tongue," he said with dulcet tones, the threat coming across chillingly.
I grinned, summoning up all that had kept me alive through the years. My body was burning for revenge. "Would you like to?" I asked innocently. "I could show you my mind," I offered, disarming him with his own curiosity. "Let you know every thought I've ever had," I purred.
"You can control it?" he asked marvelously, letting me dangle from his slack grip. I nodded easily, having learned to manipulate the mental shield when I'd first come into this body. It was an area currently untapped by Bella, but she would be powerful if she ever learned to harness it properly.
I lifted a hand to either side of his head, wishing I was a vampire to crush his skull like an overripe grape between them. With a last wicked smile I blew out my shield and crushed him beneath an avalanche of hatred, rage, revenge, pain, and betrayal so strong and so sudden that he dropped me but I refused to release him as he quaked, my emotions surging.
All manner and variety of torture I'd passed the eons with by imagining just what I'd do to him when I saw him again. They flooded his mind as his hands grabbed my wrists, braceleting them as I poured in all the grief and rage that had stoked the fire of my spirit. Finally he wrested my hands from his head and dropped my own wrists as if they were on fire as he stepped away from me.
The shock of it had left him wild eyed as he stared at me, his body tensely coiled should I step near him. I merely smiled at him and he flinched back.
"You are not human," he gasped, staring at me. "You- You cannot be human…" he trailed off, age old curiosity colored his tone, but there was the taste of fear as well.
"Oh, Aro, I am so much more than that," I laughed, stepping close as he stepped back. "I am your every nightmare, every threat you ever dreamed and more, I am your death as you were mine," I intoned, lifting a hand. "You missed one of my oldest memories," I giggled slightly and he stared at my hand as if assessing the dangers. "I am your victim, as I will make you, because, brother, I am your sister."
There was a howl of pain from Marcus as he looked at me, just as wild eyed and confused as Aro had been when I released him.
"Impossible," Aro shook his head disbelievingly. "She died thousands of years ago."
I clenched my fist. "Wrong, brother, you MURDERED me!" I screamed. "You lured me away with lies and then ripped my body into pieces and burned me to ash!" I yelled at him. "And now my love sits on a throne at your knee, wrapped in the lies you have spun for him," I growled. When I had extended my shield for Aro, I had felt the manipulation of emotions from Marcus. Aro was controlling him as he did so many others. He was not here by choice and that lifted a heavy burden from my soul.
"Liar!" Aro spat. "Didyme was my sister, I would never kill her!"
"Of course you would! You've always been a heartless bastard. You couldn't stand the thought that I would take Marcus from you. He was an asset, while I was…expendable," I muttered. "It always came down to who was useful to you, and who was not. The only reason you even changed me was because you thought I might develop a useful power like your own, but I didn't. And I forgave you my humanity because of Marcus," I said quietly. "Because I had found my soul mate and I could be with him for eternity. But you couldn't stand to lose someone so useful to you," I snarled. "He was the reason you won your battles and built your armies. Input from him let you take out the chain of command with a snap of your fingers. So instead, you killed me before we could leave," I said flatly, letting the sentence hang in the silence.
"Aro, is she telling the truth?" Marcus said, standing now as he stared down at me. He was unwilling to believe in the connection I had with him even now after having thought me dead for so long.
"Marcus, understand that-"Aro began.
"Is she telling the truth!" he boomed.
"You expect him to tell you the truth after thousands of years of lies, after he has you so cocooned in illusion that you would follow him blindly," I spat, "My brother knows no such honor.
"This is getting quite interesting," Caius spoke up from his throne. "Is the girl telling the truth Aro, I must commend your ruthlessness if it is so," he grinned, clapping his hands together.
"You've stopped being interesting and are now just an annoyance," Aro clucked, looking at me. Sister or not, he'd have no problem killing me now either his gaze told me. "Look at the discontent you have sowed among my people," he chided. He reached for my throat again, this time to snap my neck without ceremony. Before he could touch me, I swept my arm up and severed his hand in one smooth move, the flesh parting like a hot knife through butter for my bone blade.
It took a second for him to register what had happened before he screeched like a harpy, not comprehending what had been done as I sliced further up, cutting from his shoulder as an entire arm dropped to the floor. Hands grabbed at me and I cut them off as well, a three thousand year old grudge sparking into a full blown inferno as I lost myself in the madness of it.
I wanted to stab him, but that would do me no good. I sliced and hacked at limbs instead. With vampire speed he dodged most of my sweeps, but I knew how he fought- where to expect him before he was there.
Finally, I found his throat. I jerked the blade and sent the skull flying from what remained of his body before I was grabbed, pinned against the cold stone covered in blood.
My blood I realized belatedly. In a room full of vampires, I'd be the only one with blood after all. There was a copious amount of it drenching the surrounding area and as the adrenaline receded I realized the damage I had taken in exacting my revenge.
Marcus's face hovered over mine and I smiled. His eyes were angry, confused and hurt as he looked at me.
"Are you truly Didyme?" he asked finally. "Is it really you my love?"
I reached a hand up and stroked the side of his face, leaving a trail of blood as I cupped his cheek. He leaned unconsciously into my touch.
"Oh my love, what has he done to you that you would doubt me even as I die in your very arms," I whispered hoarsely, the words coming out wet as I tasted blood in my mouth. I was dying again, I knew it, but I hadn't yet set fire to his body. I had not come all this way to not take my brother down with me.
"Burn him before he pieces himself together again," I begged, stroking his bottom lip. If it had been my love of him and not a grudge for his brother, would I have come back differently? When this body died, would my spirit still linger?
"I cannot," he said firmly. "He is our king."
"Please, for me," I pleaded. "I love you… Felice."
His eyes widened in shock. Felice. He had been my happiness once, something I had forgotten in my hatred. I had cast that aside with everything else and I saw the error in it. It hurt to breathe though, and so I stopped. It hurt to feel, so I stopped. It hurt to think, and so I stopped that too.
It hurt to live.
Aww poor Didyme! Getting her revenge, but at what cost? Don't worry though, this isn't the end! So review and alert ;3