"Eliana, what do you think you're doing?"
Eliana awkwardly leaned against the roof of the black SUV, never breaking eye contact with Caius. She felt like a deer caught in headlights.
"I think I'm driving," she answered with sarcastic uncertainty.
Marcus was more amused by that sentence than she was happy about. "You can drive?" he asked her, failing to hide his clear scepticism.
"Yes," she said. Caius stared at her unblinking for another few seconds, long enough for her to feel like her soul was being sucked out of her body through her skull. "Don't look at me like that. I've only ever driven into a wall twice," she added quickly before sitting down in the driver's seat and closing the door.
She'd hardly begun adjusting the position of the seat properly when the door opened again. Caius glared at her. "Out."
"The least you could do is say please." She adjusted the rearview mirror slightly due to the height difference between her and every other vampire who ever drove the car. "But I'll still say no because I want to drive."
"Eliana, get out of the car before I pull you out myself," Caius warned her. "I assure you, you wouldn't enjoy that."
Eliana rolled her eyes and finally turned to face him now that she was comfortable. "Have some faith, Caius. Have a little faith. Anyway, if anyone would die in a car crash as a result of my shitty driving, it would be me, so you have nothing to worry about." Caius simply blinked at her. "I'm obviously kidding," she assured him. "Just sit next to me. That way, should I do anything stupid while driving this thing, you can yank me out of the seat and take over yourself. I'm sure Demetri doesn't mind taking another car."
As if in confirmation, Demetri nodded from where he was sitting a few metres away, halfway up a tree in a spot coincidentally her cat often liked to occupy.
Aro stood behind Caius and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Just leave her to it, brother."
She sighed in relief. "Thank you–"
"If she wrecks the car, you can make her pay for it later in whichever way you see fit," Aro concluded and — with a wink at her and her bemused expression — got into the backseat of the car, as did Marcus on the other side.
The force with which her door was closed didn't go unnoticed by her. In under a second, Caius was sitting in the passenger seat beside her, but in no way, shape or form, was he settled or comfortable. If vampires could fidget or tremble, she knew he'd be a disconcerted wreck.
Caius leaned his elbow against the windowsill and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Go."
Eliana snickered a little as she pulled out of the parking spot in front of what she supposed had been her house. "Calm down, I have this under control and — Holy fuck!"
She slammed down on the brakes so hard that the car screeched as it came to a halt. A cat she recognised as one of her neighbours' wandered past the car and across the street into the treeline.
"Good start," Aro encouraged her. From his tone, one would guess that he actually wanted her to crash the vehicle.
"I can drive," Eliana insisted. She started up the car again and began the painful task of manoeuvring through the narrow cul-de-sac. "So much for being supportive. I can absolutely drive."
Just as she began to reach for the radio, Caius pushed her hand away. "No music."
She gave him an incredulous look as she exited the roundabout onto a narrow country road that was supposed to eventually lead out onto the dual carriageway. "What? You trust me that little?"
"I trust you even less than that. Just keep your eyes on the road," he insisted. "The more you talk, the further our chances of finding ourselves caught in a multi-vehicle pile-up increase."
She spared a glance over her shoulder at the other two in the backseat. "You're not doing much to back me up here."
Aro shrugged and crossed his arms as he reclined back into the seat. "You're doing 50mph in a 30mph zone, cara mia. But other than your reckless ignorance of the rules of the road, good job!"
Eliana sneered at him through the rearview mirror. "Marcus? Anything to add?"
Marcus paused for a moment. "I was never emotionally attached to this car anyway."
"You're kidding. I passed my test last year, while you three passed yours last century!" she argued indignantly. "And I am not going at 50mph. Look, that says 47, and there's a 40mph zone up ahead."
"Have you ever even read the Highway Code?" Caius questioned.
"Of course I have!" she answered. "Cover to cover, two times. Look, that's a hidden dip sign, and I know that because — shit–"
Eliana had just slightly underestimated the dip itself. As the car followed the curve of the road down and back up again suddenly, she felt her stomach perform uncomfortable flips inside her. That bump was enough to convince her to slow down a little to a speed that was only slightly above the limit.
Caius was completely unfazed by this, but if anything had changed, it was an increase in smugness in his voice. "You were saying?"
"I'm good at driving," she affirmed. "I'm great, even."
Travelling had surprisingly taken up most of the day. By the time they reached Volterra again, it was past sunset, but that was likely due to the fact that they hadn't been able to land the plane in Pisa airport as they usually did, which added another two or three hours of driving through rush hour.
Eliana reached into her pocket for her phone and grimaced as the light the screen emitted temporarily blinded her and forced her to turn the brightness down. It was half an hour past midnight somehow, although she supposed part of her shock may have just been due to the fact that she'd slept through the entire plane journey.
She concealed a yawn behind her hand and tucked her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. "I'm going to bed," she announced.
Aro, already on a quiet phone call, nodded and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before darting off towards his office. In fairness, he'd been in and out of phone meetings all day, but it was unreasonable to expect all three of her mates to be free simultaneously for extended periods of time.
Her goodbyes for the night were brief to Caius and Marcus too, but that had been through her own decision. She didn't particularly feel like staying up any longer than she needed to, or talking, or even being held or touched at all for that matter. She sort of just wanted distance, just a little.
She closed the door to her room behind her. One of the guards had already brought her few boxes of things up and left them against the footboard of her bed. She hadn't come with much, only things that she at the time deemed irreplaceable.
She showered and dressed herself in record time before climbing straight into bed with no hesitation. That will to not speak or interact also extended to her not wanting to sit up and think too much alone either. Really, the only thing she wanted was rest.
Her phone plugged into the wall and charging, she turned over and closed her eyes.
Eliana was confused.
She'd woken up fairly normally, stirred by the sunlight streaming through the gaps in the curtains, and then sat up against the pillows, but it was as she reached for the glass of water she kept on her bedside table that her eyes made contact with Caius. The man was just sitting there very comfortably in the armchair Afton usually sat in whenever he decided to harass her out of boredom.
She paused, her glass halfway to her mouth. "What are you doing?"
Without looking up, Caius turned a page in his book. "Reading."
"Oh." She took a sip of water and placed the glass back down. "Here?"
"Yes," he confirmed.
Her brows were furrowed in bemusement as she climbed out of bed and paced over to her wardrobe. As she rummaged between hangers for something to wear, she ensured she left the door to the wardrobe open.
"Why?" she eventually asked.
She heard him turn another page. "Why not?"
"Because this isn't the library. It's my room." She left her wardrobe with a small pile of clothes in her arms. "And I have the curtains closed anyway."
"I'm a vampire," he reminded her absently. "I could read in no light at all."
"Yeah, yeah," she retorted. His tone had been arrogant, but that was nothing new to her. "Go sleep in a coffin or something." She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Ever seen What We Do In The Shadows?"
Caius sighed. "Must I?"
"The vampires there all sleep in coffins," she continued, feigning obliviousness to Caius' disinterest. "They turn into bats too. Now that's a skill you lot are missing."
"You would rather I turn into a bat?" he questioned confusedly.
"No, not exactly." She began to change into her day clothes with her back turned to him. "It would just be cool if vampires did something slightly more interesting than suck blood all day."
His tone only became more incredulous. "Months in the company of vampires, and the only lasting impression our species has left is that we bore you with our mere existence and "suck blood all day"?"
After a moment, she shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much," she replied honestly. "Why would you choose to be a vampire?"
"The heightened senses, superior physical abilities, as a vampire you take a step up in the world," he explained, ". . . and in the food chain. And that is without even mentioning immortality. You could become permanent, your existence significant."
If anything, as Caius provided his unnecessarily pompous explanation of immortality, she was internally holding back an eye roll. It was the kind of thing she was told about and reminded of frequently — the superiority vampires supposedly held over humans — but it didn't do much to ease her own thoughts, especially considering she already knew she would have to become immortal sooner or later . . .
His eyebrows creased as he watched her hands falter while she reached for the zip on her skirt. Sometimes he cursed his lack of knowledge of her thoughts, made so much worse by Aro constantly being so aware of her mind, but he found he was becoming far better at reading her. She was cryptic, often attempting to hide her emotions behind stiff expressions intended to mislead those she interacted with, but he was beginning to find he always just knew.
Just as she began to zip up her skirt herself, she felt a cold pair of hands move her hands aside and do the job for her. She caught Caius' gaze in the mirror against the wall, closing her eyes briefly as he moved her collar aside and his lips made contact with her shoulder.
"For some the experience is better, they never look back on their past life, and for some it is far worse." With the skirt zipped fully, he reached around her waist in order to button up her cardigan for her. "I cannot honestly tell you how you will feel."
She swallowed thickly and nodded her head. Will. How she will feel. Not how she would, or could. Her transformation wasn't hypothetical.
"Two years," he said. Bemused, she tilted her head to the side to glance up at him. He'd finished with the buttons now, but his arms were still resting around her waist. "You have over two years to live as a human."
Eliana was slightly taken aback by his words. "That's already been decided?"
"That decision was immediate," he responded, and then chuckled under his breath. "It was the simplest decision to make. Our laws meant your transformation would have been mandatory regardless, but out of the goodness of our hearts," She gave him a narrow-eyed look, "you've been allowed two years."
She folded her arms over herself a little. "When were you planning on telling me this?"
He seemed to hesitate for a moment. "On your birthday. It would be an exact two year countdown from then."
"And if I don't want to?" she asked. It was a question she'd been toying with in her head for the last few minutes at least.
This question caused his hesitancy to obviously increase. "Remember what we said? There are no expectations for you to uphold. Your happiness will always come first."
". . . But I don't really have a choice," she concluded, "do I?"
He was standing in front of her before she'd even had the chance to blink properly. Maybe a few months ago she would have jumped or startled even a little, but nowadays she couldn't even act surprised anymore. It was as if she'd already grown startlingly accustomed to every behavioural quirk and habit of her mates.
He placed his hand on the side of her face, cupping her cheek in his palm. The tip of his thumb idly traced the outline of her lips as his eyes bore into hers, almost as if he was searching for a specific answer himself.
"What do you want?" he asked her.
Her brows drew together. "What do I want?" she repeated him. He nodded in confirmation. "I didn't think I would get a say in this."
"You do," he responded honestly. "You always do, carina."
She paused. Being given the opportunity to make a decision for herself, that was something she noticed she was becoming worryingly less used to doing. And especially with a decision as important as that — she wasn't sure where to begin analysing the issue logically.
But she knew it was about time she made a proper and true stand for herself and what she truly wanted, for her own opinions. She had just as much control in this relationship as her mates did, age gap be damned.
She glanced up into his hazy crimson eyes. "Then yes," she said quietly, suddenly becoming hyper aware of the sound of her own voice. "I want to become a vampire."
⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰
Author's note: I present to you my bi-annual Infinite Bliss update. I've been a bit too busy being a #womaninstem to work on this for the last few months, sorry to anyone patient enough to continue reading this :(