“Caius, what is the meaning of this.”
My head snapped up at her words, a deep anger filling my entire body as I looked upon Bella’s quivering form, frightened at Athenodora’s sudden intrusion. What right does she have to interfere? I thought furiously, I had never in our long lives together have I even attempted to restrict her from her conquests, even as I should.
“Nous parlerons de cela en privé, ma sœur.” Knowing this will become a battle of wills between us, I give her a stern look conveying to her my seriousness on this mater.
“I wish to discuss it now,” she say with an evil glint to her eye. “This human reeks of your scent. Tell me, Caius, have you copulated with her?”
“Vous êtes hors de la ligne, Athenodora!”
“It’s alright Caius, I can send the guard away if you wish, are you embarrassed, mon frère?”
A long, low growl rises from the depths of my chest as my fist curled into claws. Rising from my chair I cast a sly look to Bella who looked humiliated and terrified. This did nothing to quell the anger my body was straining to contain and I am lost in the thought of removing that bitches head when I hear Sulpicia let out a very undignified snort in an attempt to hid her mirth and Aro whispering to my sister, “C‘est peut-être été un peu trop, ma chère.”
I might have known better, this was Aro’s idea from the start, but how did Athenodora know of these knew developments so quickly? Aro never once spoke to her since her arrival and Aro couldn’t have know of this outcome before now? Aro was a sneaky chien but smart, he knew by not introducing Athenodora as my sister it would ultimately force my hand. It was that or let the girl think I was married, and that simply wouldn’t do.
“Why would I be ashamed,” I told the room, rising to my full height, making sure my head was raised high. “I have formed a connection with Isabella. Elle est à moi, ma sœur.”
The blond daughter of Carlisle scoffed, “Yeah, cause we hadn’t noticed.”
“Rosalie!” Esme hissed, she out of all the Cullens was the most easily tolerated.
“Really how interesting.” My sister replied with a knowing smirk, mocking me for amusement was not something she could do abundantly, so this once I let her be. Though would have hoped it would have come at a different expense. Her jockey in front of the brothers and Isabella was not something I would abide for long.
“Marcus,” Aro called. “What do you see.” His bored face picked up from his daily weeding of the dust motes from his robe and scanned the area with dead eyes. It was fleeting glance and I very much doubt that Bella could have picked up on it hadn’t Aro brought her attention to it. In lue of voicing his findings, he held out a thin bony hand and Aro jumped at the change to take it.
“Hmm.” He hummed thoughtfully with a smile. “Come molto interessante. Tale forte legame in un breve lasso di tempo, come molto interessante.” Aro was speaking to himself, and no other. He has found himself completely enraptured by my little human, and anything regarding her was his immediate business, even me.
“Thank you, Marcus.” He sang happily.
“How about for the rest of who don’t speak French or Italian or whatever the hell your speaking. How about telling me what the hell is going on, since it is my head on the spit and not yours!” If not for the stressful situation I would have laughed and I found it difficult not to, even if it wasn’t appropriate. There are very few people in this life I have ever come across that could shock Aro. Never in my existence at his side seen the mans eyes widen so much as they did when my Isabella bit into us.
The Cullens gasped, and Sulpicia and Athenodora looked on in admiration and reverence. Bella quickly realizing the magnitude of her words started to tremble slightly as she whispered a quick, “I’m sorry.”
Aro’s tinkling laughed filled the room, “My dear girl, you have nothing to apologize for. Forgive me if I scared you with my silence but it is very rare that I am shocked to quite a state such as this.”
“I can’t believe I said that.” Bella muttered quietly and the blond and the psychic replied in unison. “Neither could I.”
The aroma of Isabella’s blush wafted to my nose, a sinuously sweet nectar that I could not wait to partake in.
“Forgive me, mon agneau. But if you would care to we could speak of this in private.” She nodded in acceptance, but her ferocity was still written plainly across the soft skin of her brow.
Aro laughed again. “Mon, mon frère, une fougueuse un, en effet. Vous allez avoir les mains pleines.”
“Molto pieno.” Marcus supplied. And for the second time this evening I thought I would be picking Aro up off the marble floor near his throne. I couldn’t help but to chuckle lightly at Aro’s expression, I had never seen him quiet so flustered. My little human was quite the entertainment around my gloomy brother.
“Well,” Aro said, clapping his hands together in amusement. “before it can found out that a vampire can or cannot die of a heart attack. Isabella, let me introduce you to Athenodora,” he paused and Isabella’s heart rate accelerated. “Caius’s younger, blood sister.”
~~*CD*~~
Watching the astoundingly beautiful woman with features so close to Caius’s own I couldn’t help the inadequacies that tugged at me. When I had first met the Cullens, or Rosalie as I should say, I never thought I would met a more beautiful woman. Alice in her demure little package was almost more liken to my style of beauty but Rosalie in all her glamour always made me secretly wish that I could half of what she was one day. But now in the face of two more woman that I could never live up too I felt uneasy under their burgundy colored scrutiny.
Having that same female accuse you of having sex with her… well whatever he was to her was just the last straw. This was one of the few times in my life since meeting the supernatural that I was glad I was not endowed with super strength for I would have surly torn her to shreds by now.
My human mind rationalized that there was no way to kill a vampire the in my current condition, but that didn’t stop the mental trickle of a million ways I could persuade Jasper or Emmett to do it for me. I wanted to rip her throat out, but as soon as the thought hit me I felt guilty. What if she is his intended or worse, his wife in this situation I would be seen as the harlot not him. My guilt gave way to anger and then of course to hurt. Had he just used me to get me here, the gifted woman that Aro wanted for a seat on his guard. I nearly growled out loud, it should be Caius who’s punished, I wasn’t the one who walked up behind him for random sniffing.
“Well, before it can found out that a vampire can or cannot die of a heart attack. Isabella, let me introduce you to Athenodora,” He paused long and dramatic. “Caius’s younger, blood sister.”
I balked, feeling exceptionally stupid and incredibly guilty for hating a woman I barely knew. But pulling up my grown up panties, I gave a shy smile and curtsied - or as well as I was able to anyway.
“It is lovely to meet you, Isabella. I’m sorry if I frightened you in anyway, but I so rarely get to pick on my brother, that I simply couldn’t help myself.”
But now that the air is clear of my false misgivings, I couldn’t help but blush tomato red at my earlier outburst. I knew Alice must have sensed it when she giggled, and all my previous thoughts of buying her a new sports car, if I were ever able, went out the window. I would buy the ungrateful pixie nothing. So there.
Her face screwed up as her eyes clouded over in the obvious vision, and she frowned. “That’s not nice, Bella.” I just shrugged. Serves her right. Meddler.
“Well, I don’t know about you, Isabella, but I feel it is time to retire for the evening. So lets get you settled before you turn into a pumpkin or something as equally unattractive.” Aro said, coming down to meet me once again from his throne.
The Cullens chuckled whiled I stared at him like a doctor to a patient in a rubber room. A fleeting question crossed my mind, Do vampires suffer mental deformities? He seemed intelligent enough the first time I met him.
His thin paper like hands drew mine to his face where he laid a chaste kiss to each wrist. “I truly welcome you, Isabella.” With a beaming smile he left me there, confused and with more questions than before.
“Come on, Bella.” Alice said pulling on my arm. Looking around I noticed that besides her and Rosalie, we were the only ones of the visiting party still standing there. The others, I guessed went off to their respective rooms. Caius, after sharing what seemed like a few heated words with his sister, looked to me and smiled. It was a thing of beauty. I had seen Caius smirk, frown and growl, but never had I seen him smile and all I could say was he should do it more often. It brightened his entire face and sent bouts of warmth to my core.
He made to start in my direction, but Aro stopped him with a clear of his throat. “Caius,” he called, waiting for him to turn. “I do hate to interrupt you, but could I have a word.”
“Oui, donnez-moi un instant.” He replied.
“Molto bene. Sarò nel mio ufficio.” He said nodding to Caius. “Goodnight, fair Isabella.”
“Goodnight.”
Caius turned back to me and I wanted to throw a fit like a child that I couldn’t have my answers straight away, but I schooled myself as he approached. Moving a misguided hair behind my ear, he bent down and whispered with a delicious tickle. “We will finish this later, mon Isabella.” I felt a sharp point tug at my earlobe, before a strangled moan fell from my mouth.
“Mmmm.” he purred. “Délicieux.”
And then he was gone as well.
I stood there with a familiar burn flooding my cheeks and an even more familiar ache throbbing in my lower region. I couldn’t believe I let him do that to me again.
“Wow.” Alice sighed and I jumped, totally haven forgotten that she was there.
“Shit, Alice, you scared the life out of me.” Too that she just giggled while throwing her arm around me in a sister/friend fashion and leading me down the long stony corridor to our wing of the castle.
At my laugh my little Tinkerbelle friend turned to look at me, a red color pencil hanging from her mouth and a black one behind her ear. “What’s so funny.”
I shook my head as I laughed harder thinking all the while what a fool I had been. “I’m sorry, Alice.” I said between the gulps of air I had taken in to stabilize myself. “I’m just… sorry. I haven’t been much of a friend.” By the time my choked up blabber finally left my mouth a tear was making a hot path down my cheek. Her cool finger wiped away as she shook her head.
“Don’t be silly, Bella. You’ve had a lot happen to you since the whirlwind romance between you and Edward and there has to be some allowances made for that. But,” she stopped her smirk fully forming into one of those blinding smiles and held a promise of my nightmares to come. “If you really want to make it up to me.”
I groaned and even before I could ask her what new terror awaited me, she squealed. Long and loud and nearly earsplitting. So much so Rosalie and Emmett flew through my door a moment later, looking for some kind of threat when the only threat to my life was bouncing happily on the bed, clutching her prized creation to her chest, I didn’t even want to know what was on that page. I would cross that creaky bridge when I got there.
After assuring them I was fine and that I didn’t need one to three vampires watching me while I slept and possibly spewed incoherent and embarrassing things from my lips the Cullen family disperse from my room.
With a heavy but contented sigh I happily threw myself back among the abundance of down pillows. As I lay there finally in the peace and solitude of my room, my mind started to drift to what I would do with this new life I had been granted and how I wanted to start my future. It was not yet said when or how my change would come about, only that it was inevitable and in the very near future. Personally I only had a few things to take care of in a responsible fashion before taking my leap into immortality, but those sparse few things were going to be painfully grave work.
Saying goodbye to my parents was not something I had intended to do for many years to come, preferably when they were so old and decrepit that I would be happy to see them go, but life is not like that, is it. It sounded cruel even to myself, but parents all over the world had to deal with burying their young before their time and I knew my strong parents would muddle through it. Honestly, I think Charlie would take it the hardest, not because of our recent connection after all these years, but rather because his mind set is so closely related to mine. I truly am my father’s daughter and I knew that even with his responsible, do-right outside that my father was a warm pile of goop from within.
Finally sleepy enough to sleep and having worked through a few things that were greatly bothering me I rolled over and shut the bedside lamp off. Nestling down in my covers I waited for sleep to grip me but as my eyes started to close my mind jumped to sliver snow hair and wondered where he was.
No comments:
Post a Comment