Noonday Sun: A Post-Breaking Dawn Twilight Fanfiction

Chapter 24, Volterra

Chapter 24, Volterra

Marcus

I stared at the gray castle walls. I wasn't interested in seeing anything else. At least the castle walls showed some small signs of change over the ages of my life. I could tell the passage of time by the grains of rock that broke slowly off the walls. One grain might take a decade, but I watched. The grains were as chalky as my granite skin, and they fell more often now than they had a hundred years ago.

I moved rarely. Feeding time, when the humans arrived. But I wasn't interested enough to do more than lunge and feed.

The humans were all the same. Screaming fear-filled animals that needed draining. They held no interest for me. They were bugs, easily squashed, and just as easily discarded. The humans came, drawn here by Heidi or some other member of the guard. I fed. The guard dragged their drained bodies away.

Aro made sure the secret was guarded. I cared little for guarding secrets. Neither did I have interest in Aro's collection of living oddities. My mind was buried in the past.

I could see the shape of Didyme in the falling grains of granite. She had been my companion for 237 years. Years that shone at me from the past. I had no interest in the present. No interest in the future. Didyme no longer lived.

We had brought our wives for one of Aro's acquisition maneuvers. It was before we had acquired Jane and Alec. She had been killed by a vampire defending his immortal child. I hadn't seen him slip by the guard. He had ripped off her head and lit her on fire while I was fighting another vampire. He did not survive.

I shifted. I had been too angry. He hadn't suffered enough. This uncomfortable memory was moving me past boredom. I watched a different rock. Another grain was about to drop.

There was some movement in the room behind me. I could detect his familiar steps. Demetri had returned from tracking down one of the witnesses to the Cullen event. That whole mess had been created by Caius's need for admiration. It would take years to kill all the vampires that had watched the humiliation.

Chelsea was in her standard position. She kept the guard attached to us. Her ability was binding and loosening bonds between vampires.

Two other members of the guard were standing in a corner quietly talking. I didn't care to listen. The rest of the guard referred to them as witches.

The small vampire called Jane could torture a vampire with her glance. The equally diminutive Alec had a gift that was subtler but more powerful. He could disable a whole army of vampires by making all their senses numb. They couldn't see, hear, smell. As if they were standing in nothing. Jane and Alec rarely left. They were well fed here, and Aro felt defenseless without them.

I'd been with him since our creation, so I knew his every mood, could decipher his every thought. I didn't need a gift like his to know what he was thinking. Just then, he was thinking about his unmet desire to have Edward and Alice as members of the guard. I knew that because of his frequency in discussing plans to acquire them with Caius.

The Cullens were never alone. Caius had almost been killed by a werewolf, so he feared the Cullen guard dogs. We would not return to fight the Cullens. They would be drawn here.

Naomi had been told to watch the half immortal child, Nessie. She had watched carefully over the years. The guard dog called Jacob never left the child alone—ever. I knew Aro had felt frustrated.

Finally, the moment had come. The guard dog left the child alone with humans. Humans were no match for Nedra and Naphtali.

Aro had sent them to fetch her. He might not have another chance. Aro watched through the eyes of Naomi by holding her hand and whispered the events to Caius as they unfolded. Her visions were real time, unlike Alice's. Aro lusted after Alice's gift, the ability to see the future. I listened with bored disinterest.