December 2020
"Odette." A soft voice echoed through the air. Odette looked around but couldn't not find the source. Her hands frantically searching the ground for some kind of clue in the pitch black. Her fingers touching the cool floor but then paused at a warm liquid. Odette knew what the familiar liquid was, it was her very life line. How she survived. She could smell its metallic scent in the air and almost taste its sweetness on her tongue. For once the thought of blood repulsed her.
"Odette." The voice whispered closer this time. Odette turned around, landing on her back. The warm liquid seeping onto her bare skin. Odette squinted at a light that began swelling from a distance. It was brighter and brighter until she had to shield her eyes from its harshness. When she opened them, her heart turned. The cool garden bench was under her and the flowers in bloom.
Her body was wrapped in a white fabric, much like a toga. But there where no blood stains. "Odette." The voice was behind her. Odette whipped around and her hands flew to her mouth at the blonde man who stood there.
"Caius." She breathed out, her hands shaking. "Caius!" She jumped off the bench and into his arms. "My god." She cried. A wetness ran down her cheek and as she pulled away she used her hands to wipe off the water. Was it raining? She wondered as she look up at the clear sky. No, she was crying. Odette looked back up a Caius for reassurance and all he did was smile. "How do I live without you?" Her voice trembled and her lip quivered.
Caius took her hand and it was warm. Odette looked into his crystal blue eyes and squeezed his hand back. "I'm sorry for all that I had done, Odette." Odette went to speak but he cut her off and gently grabbed her other hand. "I was not a good man, in life. I did many regrettable things." His hand went up and he wiped a tear away from under her swollen eyes. "You were never one of them." His fingers moved a brushed a piece of hair behind her ear and then rested on her cheek. "I wish I had fought for you."
"I wish I had stayed." She whispered. "Right here on this bench. I wish I hadn't ran that night." Caius embraced Odette, holds her close to his chest. The sound of his heartbeat so rhythmic and soothing. Caius places his lips on her nose and then on her lips, and in a flash he was gone.
"No. No! No!" Odette screamed, that metallic scent was back and the sticky feeling of blood raised from her feet to her ankles and upward before she was engulfed in it.
"Odette!" Odette's eyes fluttered open, the light blinding. Aro stares down at her and she reaches for his pink lips, pulling him down by his shirt collar and kissing him. There was no life there. No love. "As much as I love this, my light, vampires do not usually faint. I would be lying if I said I wasn't concerned."
"I'm fine, Aro." Odette sighed and sat up. Aro assisted her, holding her shoulders up. "I just haven't fed in a while is all." Her fake smile stained her teeth as her hand ran across his jaw line.
"Don't lie to me." Odette was almost caught of guard. Had he read her? Had her plan failed? "You had a vision. Didn't you?" He asked. Odette stood up and poised herself as she sat on their bed.
"Vision? I think you're a little stressed out, my love." Odette pulled Aro closer to her by his dress shirt. Her red coated smirk made her intentions clear to the vampire in front of her. Her legs wrapped around his waist and she pulled his lips closer to hers, but not touching. "Let me relax you, Aro." He shuddered under her touch and at the way she said his name.
The distraction had, obviously, worked. Aro had let go of Odette's little fainting episode. Now? Odette felt filthy and vile for touching him. It felt like barbed wire around her thighs and like boa constrictors around her throat. The whole time in her head she was apologizing to him. To Caius.
"Lord have mercy on me." She whispered as water ran over her skin, the shower washing away all of his kisses. "Where did we go so wrong, Aro?" In the steam on the shower on the glass, Odettes fingers traced a small sun in the fog. Then a streak through it. Then a cloud over it. Her sunshine had clouded over, her love had gone cold and dark. Deep down Odette always knew that she would love him. She'd love him. She'd love him. She'd love him. She'd hated herself for that.
