So I was FINALLY able to cobble together a decent update - hope you all like it!
She's back in that forest.
The wolf is staring her down, jaws snapping as it makes its way in her direction. Her foot is bleeding and broken, and no matter how much she tries to move she just can't. There's no Demetri there to save her; she's all alone, and the werewolf aims for her shoulder, teeth sinking in as she screams in agony and terror. The scene shifts quickly, and when she opens her eyes there's no wolf but the dark streets of Seattle and the teeth aren't those of an animal, but a vampire. She just knows, by the cold ivory hands squeezing her arms, the venom coursing through her body as she screams. The other girl lies there dead and wasted, Demetri's body lies a few feet away, motionless. There's no one there to help her and she kicks and kicks, but she can't get away, forced to see the macabre sight in front of her.
This is the end for her.
Or maybe not - she's yanked out of the streets and out of her dreams as she sits up, panting and crying. There's a cold hand on her back and she darts away before realising who it is, her body relaxing. Sophia feels relief kick in, knowing that she's safe here with him, and the tears come back with a vengeance. "I am here, and you're safe," he reassures her soothingly, hand rubbing up and down her back. "You're here and I'm safe," she repeats.
"Yes. You're safe and I'm here." He holds her, and she rests her head against his cool chest till her breathing evens out. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks gently. She knows it's the healthy thing to do, to talk this out and remind herself that she's okay, but that's not what she wants right now. "Do you want or need something else?"
She needs to feel alive.
"You," she whispers, moving to sit across from him, hands moving to hold his face, "I need you." He understands what she means by that, pulling her in for a kiss as she clings onto him like a drowning woman. She needs him to make her feel alive, needs to feel her beating heart spiral out of control as he touches her. Right now, she doesn't want soft hugs and ice chips - she wants him to set her on fire inside out. "You don't have to be very careful with me," she tells him, climbing onto his lap, "please, don't be this careful with me."
"I can hurt you," he replies, pushing a lock of hair behind an ear, "Moreover, you're in shock. You need to take it easy." No. "I'm tired of feeling breakable," she snaps back, "I'm tired of feeling like I will get hurt every time I get to come along with you, and I'm tired of having you to worry about my fragility all the fucking time. I don't want you to hold back." What she wants is for him to ruin her.
"There's a fix for that, love," he tells her, fingers cupping her cheek, "but it's a very permanent one, and one you can't decide on lightly." She knows it's irreversible, and it's something she needs to sleep on. "But I understand what you want from me. From now on, less walking on eggshells than before, okay? That is the only compromise I'm willing to make because any further and I'll hurt you beyond repair." She can live with that.
"For now."
"For now," he agrees, pulling her in for another kiss. This time, the edge of his teeth dangerously skim her lips, stopping just shy of sinking into them as his hands grip her waist tighter. As he pins her body to the headboard, his fingers shift to making their way up her back at an achingly slow pace, and every touch heightens her senses. Unlike their first time, they aren't impatient and desperate with each other - he's taking his time with her, fingers pressing into her clavicle as his mouth leaves hickeys on her neck, and every nerve in her body is on fire; alert and alight. It's slightly rough and it's grounding and it feels good. "Is this okay?"
"Of course," she moves to lie down, pulling him down with her, "I want this." This isn't just about her needing a distraction from the nightmares or feeling less fragile - she wants to share her most vulnerable moments with him and yes, she wants to know that he won't leave her after seeing the mess that she is. You can choose anyone, she wants to ask, her hands tracing his battle scars, but you still choose me . This is not necessarily the right time to ask that; she doesn't want him to feel obliged to say something he may not mean. They move in sync with each other and maybe it's just the shock and trauma from what just happened earlier, but it feels so much more intense and vivid than last time.
It seems like his version of not holding back means he's extremely withholding with her, as she keeps reaching the point of release only to be rudely denied each time. "Until you're begging for it," is his answer to how long she'll have to wait. I did ask for him to ruin me, and this certainly will. This back and forth of ecstatic agony goes on for a while, and each time she has to stop herself from saying "yes" when he asks if this is the time she gives in. "You've got quite the will," he murmurs in her ear as her body arches to fit his, the feeling of pleasure a high she just can't get enough of until he pulls her back from the precipice, "are you sure you're not ready to give in?" Fuck. "No," she manages to articulate after a particularly loud moan. Glad again for us being the only ones on this floor. However, it's not long until her body's desire wins out against her will; it feels like her nails could leave marks on his diamond hard skin with the intensity of her grip.
"Okay, I'm begging you now, yes." It takes a second after the high fades that she realises how tired this just made her (and how badly she wants to do this again). "Feeling better?" Demetri asks, pulling the comforter over her as a shiver passes down her exposed back. "Well, you've ruined every other man on the planet for me, so mission accomplished," Sophia says with a sigh.
"You did ask for this, my love."
"And I want to do this again, but I have a feeling I'll pass out from exhaustion if we go for it again right now. But yes, this helped." She's still not ready to go back to sleep though. "I do have a few questions, but I don't know if you can answer them."
"Are they about my family?"
"Yes. I want to know more, but I understand that there are things you can't tell me."
"There are also some things I can tell you," he says, piquing her interest. "I can tell you about the very beginning." She might be too tired to take notes, but Sophia's attention is fully focused on the words that come out of his mouth. "The leaders of my family, the masters, they're three brothers. Not in a blood way, but their bonds have been forged through brutal wars and tumultuous change over centuries, and never has it wavered."
"I don't suppose you could tell me their names, could you?"
"Actually, I might, since I was wondering if you would accompany me home after this. The masters would like to meet you, given your involvement in my missions. Besides, I think they want to vet you."
"Vet me? What, to see if I'm going to snitch?"
"Possibly," he remarks, "but it is more regarding the personal nature of our relationship. You are aware of who and what I am, and you have met other members of the Guard. They need to make sure you're not going to be a liability to them."
"The Guard? You mean your cousins, right?"
"They're more like siblings at this point, but yes."
"I'm derailing you, sorry." The vampire chuckles, pulling her closer as the rays of dawn break through the curtains. "No, it's okay. I can't forget anything or lose focus even if I tried," he tells her, "part of the transformation is that every sense and reflex gets heightened. Regarding their names, they're Aro, Caius and Marcus. Aro is the leader of the trio, the man who essentially brought the Volturi together. He, his wife Sulpicia and his sister Didyme had linked up with a vampire named Marcus by the time they came across Caius and his wife Athenodora. The trio decided to take down the Romanian coven, a duo who had been torturing and using humans with impunity and made no effort to conceal their identity."
"The Romanians, who I so callously referred to as Dracula."
"It's a running joke in the Guard," he mentions, "we call them Dracula 1 and 2 sometimes. Unlike the character, however, they had far less regard for discretion and maintaining a civil sort of relationship with humankind. The masters, along with Jane and Alec, decided their tyranny had to come to an end." She's seen the twins in action, two horrifying miracles at work; Sophia can't imagine the terror that the two men would have felt when those two unleashed their powers. "I joined them shortly after. I was with a different family before - the Egyptians."
"You mentioned Amun." She remembers the first time she'd heard that name, but she didn't know he would have known the deity-like being personally.
"Yes, Amun and Kebi. They found me in Greece when they were on the move after their prior coven had been destroyed. Amun was a good mentor, almost like a father to me." He pauses, looking in the direction of the window. "It was a much better relationship than the one with my biological creator, even though I remember nothing of the latter."
"You don't have to talk about this if it's painful, Demetri." She can see that something happened in the process of him leaving his former family for his current, and even if he is a millennium old, emotional wounds seldom fully heal.
"It's not painful anymore, just there. Time has blurred so much for me. I do know that Amun resents me since but when the Volturi showed up, something pulled me to them. As big a separation it was, a part of me knew it had to happen. They're the only family I have known since."
"Do you ever regret it?"
"No. Sometimes I feel like some of our old customs could use updating, but never have I regretted that decision of mine. I have a purpose with them, and I have a family that has outlasted everything." She can't imagine anything else measuring up to that. "After that we moved over to Rome, where we found Felix. Chelsea had joined before us, and others like Renata, Heidi and Corin joined shortly after. Ever since then, we have resided in Volterra, and made sure that the vampire world is sufficiently concealed from humanity."
"I'm guessing there must be certain rules everyone has to follow." After all, no one manages to survive this long and hold onto their control this steadily without a solid set of rules that are regularly enforced by equally consistent enforcers. "How do you make sure everyone knows what the rules are? Are there pamphlets sent out to newborn vampires?" she adds jokingly.
"Every creator is expected to inform their newborn of the rules, who themself have been informed by their creator, and so on. Once we sent the word out to every coven and vampire who came across us, it was expected for them to toe the line. As Bree mentioned when you two first met, the Volturi don't give second chances. Failure to do so results in strict penalties."
"Which are mostly death."
"Yes."
"Have there been many covens who have been punished this way?"
"Quite a few, but all justified. They either flagrantly hunted on humans or let themselves be discovered, but a few created immortal children who were too big a threat to let go."
"People turned children into vampires?" Sophia cannot even begin to comprehend how bad an idea that would be. Little children, who have no control over themselves and are prone to tantrums and outbursts, being gifted with supernatural speed and strength and a bloodlust that they cannot control.
"Yes. Toddlers, infants, children in puberty. Some were frozen to rescue from disease or death, some simply because their parents and creators preferred they stay that way forever. They were impossible to control."
"I can imagine. They were children - they have no impulse control, they cannot control their emotions or needs and hunger."
"The carnage they wreaked was massive; I've seen villages wiped out by those little beings. And the way their creators and covens would flock to them - it was like they couldn't help themselves. Vampires who spent decades and centuries in pursuit of self preservation suddenly laid down their lives for them. We had to make an example out of anyone who did that to ensure that it would never happen again."
"How many such children have you come across?"
"Thirty two and one miscommunication." At her questioning look, he gives her a wry smile, stretching an arm out. "The last one involved the Cullens." She hasn't met the rest of the Cullens, but as far as she knows, there are no kids in that family. Then again, she's only met two of them.
"They have an immortal child?"
"Not really. They had a child, one conceived biologically. The child grew and aged like any living being, albeit at a much accelerated rate, and eventually, she stopped aging and became one of us. She's quite a medical miracle, that one. But not the first one, either."
"So half vampire, half human kids are a thing?"
"We only know of two."
"So the Cullen child and one other?"
"Yes. The reason why I was first in Boston was to check on the Cullen child, actually." Guess she has the Cullens to thank for more than one thing, then. "Technically, she isn't a child anymore, but it was her that brought me there." If only she could talk to her, talk to the family - figure out how all of this happened. It's an advancement in the vampire world and even if they do not want their secrets known to the world, they must want to catalogue such things. After all, even their memories seem to blur and fuzz over time.
"I wish I could receive dispensation from the Volturi to record all of this and enter it into whatever library system you guys must have. It's all too fascinating and important to just be left unexplored and lost to memory." His fingers run absentmindedly through her hair, a faint smile on his face.
"I think this is part of why they wish to meet you." Oh fuck, is she digging too deep? They must be wary of a human prying too much into their affairs, after all.
"Am I asking too many questions? Because I can stop and you can tell them they have nothing to worry about."
"Au contraire, mia cara. They believe your relentless curiosity might be quite the asset for us. Which reminds me - we leave in twenty four hours, so keep a notebook on you, because this is just the tip of the iceberg."
Oh, this is so much scarier than meeting the parents.
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