Baby Steps

29

Destination 2 - Italy

Italian culture was truly amazing. Finally, I could see where all my favourite foods were born - or made. I had no idea where to go first. Finally, we decided to follow Mikey, who led us straight to the Tower of Pisa. We took some funny pictures, the usual trying to hold the tower up or push it straight pics before Mikey got weird with it and we decided to leave him there. It took him over an hour to find us, though, and he wasn't in a good mood at all.

After that, we went to the fountain of love. Everyone threw in coins, except me. I had Demetri and he's more than enough for me. Cory seemed strangely off before tossing his coin.

"You okay?" I asked him while the other three went to buy us lunch.

"Yeah." He sighed, "No. Look, I like Jamie a lot. I can't keep this up any longer. I tried giving her space, sending her secret admirer notes, wrote her songs. What else is left for me to do?"

"Oh, Cory." I gave him a pitiful hug, "I think I have an idea. Our next destination is France, the city of looooveeee." He smiled at my googly eyes. "Just kiss her. Take her somewhere you know she'll like and just smooch! You'll have everything in your favour; Paris, romance, the atmosphere. Just go for it."

He nodded, "I'll think about it."

The other three joined us with lots of Italian delicacies and we enjoyed lunch at the fountain.

At noon I slipped away and took a solo trip to Volterra. Got to say hello to my other family, right? The Volturi castle seemed even more magnificent in real life as in the stories Demetri told me. The courtyards were deserted since it was a sunny day and vampires preferred to remain indoors. I knocked on one of the huge front doors and waited patiently. It opened up a few seconds later, revealing a tall, muscular man.

"Human." He sneered.

I quickly fished Demetri's crest out of my pocket and held it out to him, "I'm Grace Cullen, Demetri's mate. I'm here to see Aro."

I didn't know him, but by his appearance, I took a chance and guessed his name, "Santiago?"

"How did you know...?"

"Demetri told me about the guard and described all of you." I explained, "I took a wild guess."

"Follow me, Miss Cullen." He managed a tiny smile and seemed a lot more friendly and polite.

The hallways of the castle were endless with at least ten doors on each side. Ancient paintings and portraits decorated the marble walls and only a few torches provided light. I noticed a window here and there but guessed that they never opened it because of the frequent sunny days in Volterra. We finally entered a massive throne room with three thrones at the end of it. Lucky guess who was on the thrones.

"Grace!" Aro exclaimed and shot up from his throne, followed by Marcus and Caius.

"Aro, Marcus, Caius!" I greeted them with hugs.

"What are you doing here, stranger?" I heard Felix's voice behind me, "On vacation with daring, daunting, delicious Demetri?"

I playfully hit his arm, "No, Felly. For your information, I'm here with my human friends. We planned this vacation for months."

"Tell me, Grace, how are things between you and Demetri?" Marcus asked.

I smiled and handed my hand to Aro for him to read my mind. He didn't waste any time though. I remembered him telling me once that he enjoyed my thoughts. Hopefully, he'll see what he wants to see.

"You worry too much, brother." Aro said after a minute, "Our favourite couple seem to have kicked it off at a marvellous start."

"We did hear about some kind of 'ship name' for the two of you." Caius spoke, "I honestly do not understand it but the guard keeps going around and calling the two of you Drace."