The Fates

Part XXV: The Green-eyed Monster

Aro was now synonymous with melancholy, a colourless state that drained him of the little life he had left in his immortal body. He was covered in a sheet of dust, as were all the books in his library. All were ancient, useless tomes now.

The dark room out of the blue filled with the rays of a smiling sun, it urged him to use his stiffened joints and unused muscles, creating a swirl of dust motes. His sad, pink rat eyes watched Marcus glide in cloaked in some majestic power and happiness.

He felt cheated; how had he who had everything lost all at once when Marcus had snatched one thing, he never wanted from him? Yes, how had he let that happen he wondered.

Marcus had opened the windows wide and drawn back the drapes so that their skins glittered like cubic zirconium. Aro squinted his eyes as he tried to adjust to the sudden pouring in of light.

"Close the curtains."
Marcus laughed.

"In which world? You have been cowering in here for months ever since you realised you could not live apart from her."

Aro repositioned to become a sculpture.
"Have you not done the same? Let me wallow in peace."

Marcus scoffed.

"I wanted to follow my beloved into the afterlife after she was snatched from me; you willingly parted ways with yours..."

Then for the first time in months Marcus made contact with Aro's skin. Aro gasped, then he was saddened, then he felt his soul die then he was a fury all in the space of a millisecond. He pushed Marcus' offending hand away.

"You fiend! How dare you torture me with this sight?"
Marcus smiled, enjoying Aro's pain.
"How does it feel?"

He did not have to continue. Aro knew. How did it feel to taste his own medicine? How did it feel to feel vulnerable? Was he even able to respond?

"You are selfish and I should not even help you, but if you do something now you could save yourself from my fate.

It will not be long until word gets about this manor and spreads to the reaches of the globe to our nemeses. They will choke us out by using her and we will never recover."

Marcus could see how strong Makayla's bond was to him, and it would only deepen just as her hatred for Aro would only lengthen if he remained indolent about his relationship to Makayla.

"Why do you care?" Aro wondered.

"I want what is best for her. And I am not as thoughtless as you. If our positions were reversed I would have allowed the reunion of lovers in the afterlife."

Marcus left. Aro, when his white skin had touched Marcus' equally pale hand, had seen all of his experiences that day.

He saw Benjamin inform him almost forcibly Makayla had arrived. He saw Marcus rush his decisions regarding the follow-up of the Cullen's hybrid child.

He saw him smile as he smelled her savoury scent. He saw her love for him bloom in her umber eyes. He choked as he thought of it.

He saw how they fondly embraced one another in the empty antechamber, the white flowers an audience to the lovers. His face scowled and his sharp nails clawed the arm to tatters and strips when he saw her feed him and her stuttering heart, which he heard...a confirmation of her love.

And Marcus, the idiot ate from her hands, food he would have to regurgitate to prevent ill effects on his frozen body. Human food was vexatious for their species.

Marcus did not think it but he felt love for her! He stood shakily and tore the plant beside him apart. He lifted it by the triangular, long leaves. It had been drying out in there...

SHE WAS HIS!

His heart splintered and he knelt beside the injured plant its brown blood leaking from its cracked white vessel, roots exposed.

"Didyme, have you supplicated to Nemesis for my destruction? How is it my soulmate has been born after so many a millennia?"

His head hung low.

"Katára tis moíres (Curse the fates)," he whispered to the dying house plant.

Fates be damned, he thought. It would not be too strenuous charming a mortal woman, had his wife not proved it by easily succumbing to his wiles. She submitted to his every whim and soon that girl would fall for him.

"I feel sorry for you Marcus, losing this lover will bring you to your knees, like the pitiful dog you are!"

He smirked.

"Then you will beg me just to glimpse her hand."

He was deluding himself with fantasies of delicious cruelties. He thirsted for the downfall of his own more than the mortal blood the undead quenched their bloodlust with.

A beast more feared than them awakened in him when he witnessed Marcus touching his mate. He could taste the acrid emotion, that thing that boiled blood, blurred vision and gnashed teeth.

He was losing his mind...