𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍 ; volturi kings

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXII

A low buzz dissipated as Jasmine felt a small click, and the pressure that had been gathering inside her for the past ten minutes suddenly faded away.

After the relentless strain she had endured over the last couple of days, she could finally feel a content weightlessness within her bones, and a satisfactory smile started to creep its way onto her face.

Heidi sighed theatrically, "well, that was dramatic..." She inspected the matte, dark-red nail polish that neatly covered her cuticles.

Ignoring her friend's comment, Jas turned to both Alec and Felix, "okay... what now?"

Whilst the latter stood awkwardly, looking down at himself as if his own skin were something alien, Alec looked uneasy. To say he was uncomfortable would be an understatement. He rubbed at his left wrist as a hollow feeling lay in the pit of his stomach- it was beyond strange, no longer having the weapon that he was so used to, the immediate power that he could draw from his fingertips.

He looked up at the new queen with a small, forced smile, "now you need to undo whatever it is you just did."

"No shit," she rolled her eyes at him, "what I meant was: can he actually use your ability, and for how long? Is it something temporary, that will just be returned in time or do I have to manually take it back? And if so, is that something that can be fought? Surely, I'm not the first vampire to have this gift, and I probably won't be the last."

"We could just kill any others," Demetri suggested, entering the large stone room.

"Finally!" Upon noticing the other guard's presence, Heidi immediately began to saunter out, mumbling, "too many questions and not enough champagne."

"Make that two," Alec called to her retreating figure- he attempted to crack an awkward smile, but the anxiety laced within his words was more than obvious.

Turning back to the cause of said anxiety, he spoke briskly, "are you going to undo it or what?"

"Yeah, of course, just give me a minute..." Unlike just a few moments before, she grasped onto Felix's arm, allowing the cold mist to transfer through their skin. With the raw power the gift enabled, it took her quite a while, feeling alike to one of those magic, never-ending handkerchiefs.

"I say let him simmer for a while," the blonde guard lounging by the door commented.

"Oh, shush."

"Or what?"

Jas snapped her head towards them, "will you both shut the hell up."

"Sorry..." "He started it." Both voices mumbled.

With a final annoyed glare, Jas allowed the pure pressure flowing through her veins to slowly saturate back into its original owner.

"Now," she chirped, "I think I'm going to take Heidi up on that alcohol offer."

━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━

Slumping back into the black couch in satisfaction, Jas allowed the frail college girl she'd been holding up to slip onto the floor.

"Sorry," she tonelessly mumbled when the girl's head hit the floor with an audible thump.

There were a pair of intoxicated blondes on vacation who Heidi had managed to lure in, and now here they were, nothing more than empty carcasses, choking on their final breaths in a small pool of their own blood.

Wiping at her bottom lip with her sleeve, Jasmine reached over to grab the remote from the table beside her- as the recognisable chime of the Netflix theme played, she suddenly felt a small, warm hand weakly grope at her ankle.

Lightly kicking at the creature interrupting her current binge of The Queen's Gambit, she heard a meek voice mutter "help."

Distracted by the programme playing, she scoffed, "same- Anya Taylor Joy is so hot."

"Am I interrupting something?" A confused, yet amused, voice asked from the doorway.

"Yep," Jas replied, not even needing to look up to recognise Caius' presence, "me and..." She then glanced downwards at the blonde soon-to-be-corpse beneath her legs- the girl sort of looked like a... "Riley were just watching this new thing on Netflix."

"Well, I would beware of Aro for a while- the tapestry that Riley is currently bleeding onto is about 600 years old." He gestured to the item as he perched himself onto the arm of the small sofa.

"You do know what a washing machine is, right?"

He chuckled dryly, "you are aware of my brother's tedious tendencies towards tradition, right?"

"All too well."

"You're one to complain- you're yet to deal with it for thousands of years."

"I think just a few weeks is enough for me, thanks."

He paused for a moment, "anyhow... we all wished to talk to you about something."

"Oh?"

And so, with their hands intertwined, Jas and Caius strolled along the large marble halls, ideas of the future lingering in the latter's mind.