𝘖𝘉𝘚𝘐𝘋𝘐𝘈𝘕 ° 𝘈𝘓𝘌𝘊 𝘝𝘖𝘓𝘛𝘜𝘙𝘐

[1] BLOOD

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A MILLENNIA, ALEC DESPISED THE TASTE OF BLOOD. He had never gone without fresh blood for more than a day, yet the sweet lingering of Aurora's blood left a bitter taste in his mouth. He had saved her, but at the cost of killing her.

He smoothed over her sweat-soaked, soot covered hair as he watched her silently twitch as the venom worked through her system. He continued to keep her sedated, blocking her sense of feeling so she wouldn't have to experience as much pain as he did. His own change, an agonizing event that occurred so long ago, was still fresh in his mind. He didn't want that for her. The possible ramifications didn't occur to him, he would find out later.

Alec had never turned a human before—there were lesser guards for that duty in the case of Aro finding potentially gifted humans, but he couldn't let his little light, his beautiful luce mia, go out—not completely. He thought it would be difficult to resist her blood, that the taste would make but any temptation was far from his mind as her heart beat only grew fainter by the second. He had to act fast and selfishly.

He wasn't sure he had done it correctly until her heart started up again, strong and fast—a sure sign of the venom burning every bit of human out of her. Some part of him mourned her for he would never see the playful shade of hazel that shifted from browns to greens and greys—an unforgettable kaleidoscope, although he was grateful that her eyes would open again in the first place. He would miss the crimson blush that colored her cheeks in her high emotions, she was always so easily angered or embarrassed. He would miss the way she looked whilst sleeping, with her guard down for once around him, she was an innocent angel who he shouldn't have been able to be so close to.

Alec glanced up at the sky, the edges rimmed red where the university fire blazed. It was time for Alec to bring Aurora to his home. He lifted her into his arms, cradling her carefully and tucking her head into his shoulder. He hoped she would like it there.

➖

When Alec Volturi strolled into the Volturi castle carrying a changing human girl in the middle of the night, looking like they had both emerged from the depths of hell by the amount of soot and pungent smell of smoke and blood covering them, there was not one single person who knew what to do.

The other guard members had noticed the witch twin had been acting odd lately, he disappeared almost every night, returning just before dawn broke. He said nothing of his travels and glared at anyone who tried to question him. He would sometimes return with unexpected things, like a violin, a DVD case, or a rolled up canvas paper he refused to show to anyone, including his twin. And his sister, Jane, had grown increasingly irritated by her brother's secretive antics, going so far as to ask Aro to inquire his whereabouts.

However, Aro was busy and the activities of his second most valuable guard member hardly concerned him when Alec was dutiful as always. There was no need to doubt his loyalties—Aro, Caius, and Marcus agreed Alec's daily excursions were healthy for the immortal teen, believing the twin needed his own independence to explore, hunt, and have his own fun outside the coven. It was certainly less creepy than when Alec and Jane walked hand in hand around the castle, popping out of the shadows ominously and scaring both humans and other vampires alike.

But when Alec returned with the human girl silently undergoing the change, it all began making sense. Alec, of all vampires, the emotionless shadow, the witch twin, had struck up some sort of relationship with a human girl. And suddenly, he was changed as well. Or maybe, he had been changing all along, and no one else had figured it out.

Jane was the first to come across her brother as he marched straight for the throne room. Word traveled fast in the castle, she knew as several underling vampires noted the mysterious girl her brother cradled and dispersed into the corridors, no doubt spreading the gossip around. She eyed the limp yet twitching girl, who was unusually silent for someone undergoing the change, but she quickly deduced Alec was behind that oddity.