Love Never Dies


Act XVII: Ten Years Later

Aro

I stood in my chambers, at the very same window I had once stood at and watched Isabella Swan drive away from Volterra.

My hands were clasped behind me, beside me on a table was the diary she had left behind, atop the letters and photos of Christabelle and her son.

Everyday I thought of her.

Of Isabella.

Her final words to me still haunted my soul. I could hear her even now, but when I turned, her voice faded away and she was not there.

I yearned to hear her voice again, to hear her sing, to smell her sweet scent and hold her in my arms. If I could have dreamt, I would have dreamt of her.

All these years, I had become a true shell. Before vengeance and madness had filled at Christabelle's death, but the loss of Isabella was not the same.

I was not whole without her, I had realised.

And now, when I had finally begun to let go of my lost love, she had disappeared without trace.

Five years ago Caius had sent a hunting party to Forks, to ascertain if Isabella remained human, only to find the not only the Cullens gone but the Swans gone too.

Or rather Swan. All that remained of Charles Swan was a gravestone in the local cemetery.

Died of a heart attack, one of the locals had said. As to Isabella, it appeared she had gone south, to kinder climes.

And now I could not find her. Demetri could not track her with her shield.

I had lost her, forever.

My mental contemplations were disturbed when Caius stormed into my rooms mercilessly.

"Brother I tire of this apathy! It is time you left this room!" he said commandingly. I sighed, and left the window, going to a chair and sitting down wearily.

"Be gentle with me, Brother," I muttered mockingly, at which the platinum-haired vampire snorted.

"The time for gentility has ended, Aro. How long have you been shut up in this room? Ten years I think? It has to end," he said, coming closer, his hands held behind his back.

"Do not preach to me, Caius. Remember your place," I replied, placing a hand over my eyes. I heard his footsteps come nearer, and I braced myself for whatever he spat next.

"This is all because of the girl, isn't it? That Isabella Swan? Because you let her slip through your fingers, because you could not let go of the past?" he snarled, and I felt my temper snap. The hand I held over my eyes shot out and imprisoned his neck, squeezing with a strength I had not used for a decade.

"You know not of what you speak, Caius!" I growled, yet the truth in his words rang true. I had lost Isabella because I could not let go of the past, because I could not see beyond the physical resemblance to Christabelle, and love her for herself.

They were so different. Isabella was stronger, more sure of herself, confident where sometimes my lost love had been unsure.

What was more, she was unafraid. She had willingly followed her former boyfriend to Italy, to save his life, despite the threat to her own life. She had fallen in love with a creature of the night, and had not run for her life.

She was not afraid to give up her mortality to be with one she loved. She was not bound to the mortal world as Christabelle had been, especially not anymore.

But most of all, she had found the strength to walk away, when I would've ruined her, destroyed her love for me with my own selfish dreams.

"I will always be in her shadow in your eyes,"

How I longed to tell Isabella how she had long outshone the ghost of my love for Christabelle. She had become an obsession, and every cell in my body ached knowing she was out in the world, and not mine.

Not here, in Volterra, in my arms.

Caius's abrupt yell as he threw my restraining arm off, brought me back from my ruminations.

"Christabelle is dead, Aro! She is never coming back, so accept it," he growled at me, and I wanted to snap back, to throw him against the wall and punish him for his impudence. But a part of me knew he was right.

"I know. I know," I sighed, turning away. I felt him approach me from behind, his voice lowered into a more sympathetic tone.

Not that Caius did sympathetic well.

"Then it is time to pursue the future, Brother mine. It is there for the taking," he murmured, and I heard the soft slap of something being thrown down on the table beside me, then the creak of the door as he left.

Sighing, I turned back and then what Caius had left caught my eye.

It was a magazine, one of those ridiculous mortal ones I sometimes caught Heidi or Jane reading. But on the front, beneath the words 'Classical Review', was the legend:

A Star Is Born.

And beneath that….

Was Isabella.

True she was older, her face more mature, but it was her. And just the picture of her on the front of that magazine, in a bejewelled gown of soft lavender, her hair swept up atop her head, sent my long-dead heart beating again.

My hand trembled unconsciously as I picked it up, and gazed at her eyes in the photograph, my fingers yearningly stroking the image of her face.

Then I noticed the hard slip of paper protruding from the spine of the magazine. A ticket to a charity concert, in Florence tomorrow night.

Where my Isabella would be performing.

I glanced down, at her beautiful face and felt something of my old determination rise in me again.

I had to let Christabelle go, and soon I would, but not before I found Isabella once more. Not before I had held her in my arms, smelled her intoxicating scent and kissed her once more.

The memories of the one kiss we had shared still resonated within me, torturing me even now with fiery desire.

Isabella had fled from me once before, from the spectre of Christabelle and my own stupidity, but even she could not deny what lay between us. She loved me as I loved her, and I would be no longer denied.

I would not stop until I had her back by my side.

I sat down with the magazine in hand, and was content to wait until tomorrow night, gazing at my sweet Isabella's face.


The Next Evening…

The limousine pulled up outside the city of Florence, atop a sun-drenched hill where a large temporary stage had been set up in the open air. The scent of humans filled the air, their heartbeats pounding in my ear as I got out, surrounded by some of my Guard, keeping the human crush away as we made our way to our seats.

We had a whole row to ourselves, roped off from the others, some of whom stood, some sat, and behind us a huge crowd stretched out over the hilltop.

The stage was a circular construction, with large towering white wings like the crests of waves, bright spotlights currently flashing across the stage.

I caught a stage techie by the arm as he rushed past, gibbering in Italian into his earpiece.

Producing a hundred Euro note, I pressed a package into his hands.

"For the Signorina Isabella Swan," I said firmly, watching with satisfaction as his eyes bugged out of his head at the money, before he raised his eyes to mine.

With a slightly distasteful curl of my lip, I inclined my head and let him go before I settled back into my seat, and waited for my Isabella to appear.

Then she did.


More soon!

Next chapter will be Bella's POV.