Author's Note

This is a Volturi (Caius) romance story~  Picture of Anna on top!  Also note I started writing this when I was high school, so my writing might not be the best, especially in the beginning.  Please bear with me!  I hope to fully edit this story eventually.

Chapter 1 - Touring the Castle

A sea of red comes into view outside my window.  I wonder for a split second if we're flying across a desert, but immediately realize that it's the rooftops of Venice below, getting clearer as our plane descends.  I'm still a bit groggy from the 12 hour flight across the Atlantic. An endless reel of thoughts occupied my mind the entire time.  Is this really the only option? I tried putting a movie on to calm my nerves, but by the time it ended, I couldn't have even told you what it was about.  I couldn't focus.

My exhaustion is replaced by adrenaline as the plane lands. Now that I'm no longer confined in limbo, there's no time to waste. I quickly hop out of my seat and run straight through immigration and out of the airport without bothering to stop at the baggage claim first.  I didn't bring any luggage.  I don't need any, not for what I'm here for.

Luck seems to be on my side today because when I step outside, clouds are blocking all direct sunlight, perfect for vampire hunting.  I'm looking specifically for someone named Heidi, I heard she hangs around the airport looking for people to "tour" the old castle in Volterra.  Little do any of them know that touring that castle may be the last thing they ever do, depending on if it's a feeding day. Who would have possibly told me something like that you may ask? I had the unfortunate luck of meeting a gang of vampires that has been tormenting me for seven years.  To top it all off, they killed my entire family to make up for the fact that they couldn't kill me.  That's when I decided to come to Italy.  The assholes were more than happy to tell me how to find the Volturi, never dreaming that I actually would. I called their bluff, but that's a story for a different time. The summer after graduation, I turned eighteen and was finally able to come to Italy unaccompanied. A couple weeks after my birthday, I bought my ticket, hopped on a plane, and here I am... in Italy... trying to find a vampire.

I walk around for a couple hours with no luck. Did the time difference mess me up? I don't think so... I was sure that this is around the time they start picking up tourists, that's what it said online anyway. Maybe if it's a feeding day, tour hours are different? God I hope I don't get wrapped up in a feeding day. All I want is to talk to whoever's in charge. I almost give up searching, but figure I might as well walk around for a bit longer. What else is there to do? If worse comes to worst, they usually let people sleep at airports, right? I can try again tomorrow.

Then after another hour of walking around I finally see a huge group of tourists following a beautiful dark haired woman with extremely pale skin.  I cautiously walk up to the front of the group to try and identify the woman.  I don't know exactly what Heidi is supposed to look like, but I do know a vampire when I see one, and this woman is definitely a vampire. Relief washes over me.

"Excuse me?" I ask the woman. She swings her head around without slowing her pace.

"Yes?" she asks smiling, hardly taking her eyes off her path.

"Where is this group going?" I ask, studying her dark brown eyes. It's not hard to tell that she's wearing colored contacts.

"To the Volterra Castle!" she exclaims, "Having been built thousands of years ago, it is one of the oldest structures in Italy," she advertises.

"May I join?" I ask, trying to stay calm and collected so she doesn't sense anything weird going on with me.

"Umm," she says, looking a little conflicted, "Today's group is already full; and there won't be enough seats on the plane.  You can come back for another tour tomorrow though."  My heart drops.

"Can I sit in the aisle or something?" I ask, "I really want to see the castle, and I'm only going to be here for a few days."  I look at her with a huge smile plastered on my face, hoping my "excitement" will convince her to let me tag along.

"Who are you here with?" she asks, looking around where I'm walking.

"I'm alone," I reply.

"Do your parents know you're here?" she smiles.

Uh oh, this line of questioning isn't sounding good. "No, I ran away from home," I answer with a gulp.

"Where is home?" she asks, to which I reply the U.S. "...Fine," she finally tells me, "I suppose the more the merrier!" she smiles, giving the crowd a quick glance over. I immediately step back and join the rest of the group, hoping to get some intel on whether my instincts are right.

"What made you choose this tour over the other castles?" I ask the woman next to me. She's stout, with curly blonde hair.

"Oh, I had never heard of this castle before, actually! The guide found me in the mall and asked if I'd be interested in a free tour since they're trying to do some advertising. I just had to fill out a questionnaire, and a form giving them permission to film."

"What kind of questions were on the questionnaire?" I ask, but I can guess.

"Oh, just if I'd ever heard of the castle before, if I'd ever gone before, if anyone I know had ever gone before, just stuff like that. I'm sure they're trying to get an idea on who they should be marketing to more."

"Yeah, that's probably it," I say, my mind clouding up. There's no doubt in my mind that this is a feeding group. While I originally accepted that risk, I suddenly start getting cold feet and wonder if I should fall back and wait for tomorrow, but when I glance behind me I see a couple stuffy-looking men in the back wearing sunglasses. No doubt they're there to make sure none of the tourists leave. If anyone tries to leave at this point, their cover could be blown. I'm stuck here. But maybe in a twisted way it's for the better. I can't imagine anyone with authority would be out greeting the regular tours every single day, so I'd have no chance to talk to them. If this really is a feeding group... they'll have no choice but to give me an audience.

After walking in what feels like circles around the airport, we arrive at a huge private lot with nothing but a small black plane sitting on the rough gravel. As everyone gets on, Heidi is telling us to get comfortable and enjoy the snacks set up in every seat.  Everyone does, except me.  Apparently nobody thought to stock the aisle with bags of peanuts.  I sit on the floor in the back of the plane, resting my head in my hands waiting for take-off.  Heidi takes one look at me and frowns.

"Come with me," she tells me when I look up at her.  I get up and follow her to the front of the plane where she, the other guards, and the pilot sit.

"What's up?" I ask, curious as to why they brought me up here.  Hopefully they weren't thinking about having an early dinner; that would be a crappy way to start the day... for them.

"It's dangerous to be unbuckled when the plane takes off," the pilot says smirking, "Take a seat up here."

"Thanks," I tell him, settling into the nice leather co-pilot seat next to the light brown haired, faux-green eyed, not too bad-looking pilot. I make myself at home and pull up the small footrest.  I watch closely as he switches some levers and pushes some buttons, driving the small plane across the lot and finally up into the air.  After a few minutes, Heidi grabs a microphone and tells everyone they may unbuckle their seatbelts now.  I suddenly realize she was standing up during the whole takeoff, one of the perks of vampirism I suppose.  I lean over and watch how the pilot is handling the plane; I've always been interested knowing how people keep track of all the fancy buttons and controls, so it was kind of fun to watch. Hypnotizing even, I zone out a bit until I see somebody waving their hand in front of my face.

"Hellooooo?" the pilot asks, trying to get my attention.

"What?" I ask, snapping back into focus.

"I was just asking you where you're from," he says smirking.

"Oh," I say, my face starting to heat up a little.  "I'm from the U.S.," I answer casually.

"Where in the U.S.?"

"Minnesota," I tell him.

"Ahh," he says, "I've been there before, on... a business trip," he tells me.  I smirk, already knowing that the gang that killed my family had gotten in some trouble with the Volturi in the past.  That's probably what he was there for.

"So what's your name?" I ask, crossing my legs onto the chair and turning towards him.

"Demetri," he answers smiling.

"Demetri," I repeat, thinking, "Is that Greek?" I ask.  He looks up at me, giving me a strange look.

"How did you know that?" he asks in disbelief.  Ever since I found out about the existence of vampires I did a ton of research on mythology.  Dimitri, also known as Demeter, was the Greek goddess of agriculture, but I suppose mentioning that isn't entirely necessary.

"I'm good with names, and I'm Anna by the way," I tell him simply.

He gives me a small chuckle, "Well, it's nice to meet you Anna, and yes, I was born in Greece," he says smiling.

"Say something in Greek," I request, looking at him expectantly.

"It's been a while since I've spoken any Greek..." he lingers.

"Do it." I say again.

"Okay," he gives in, with a flash of pity on his features. Poor guy probably thinks he's granting my dying wish or something. He purses his lips together and thinks for a few seconds, before bracing himself.  Hand across his heart, he lets a mumble jumble of words flow out like a waterfall. I have no idea what he's saying, but I'm intrigued.  He ends his speech ultra dramatically, like he just finished performing Shakespeare for an audience.

I give him a blank stare with my mouth gaping open.  I definitely wasn't expecting him to say that much, and like that. It's pretty impressive, to my monolingual self. I look over at Heidi and even she looks surprised.  "Is that just your fancy way of saying 'scram kid, I've got a plane to fly!'" I say, giving the last part the same dramatic flair he had.

He lets out a laugh and shakes his head.  "Actually, those were the opening lines to Hamlet," he explains. Shakespeare definitely makes sense! There's just something about performing his stuff that has a more dramatic vibe than everything else.

"How many languages do you know?" I ask, feeling a bit more comfortable.  His English accent is completely native-sounding so he must have some sort of talent with languages.

"Greek, English, Arabic and Italian," he says.

"Dang, I can barely speak a second language let alone a fourth!"  I tell him.  I took some Spanish in school, but I'm far from fluent in it.

Suddenly I see Heidi reach up and grab the microphone once again.  I look out the window and see a huge field outside the most beautiful castle I could have ever imagined.  She tells the rest of the passengers to buckle their seatbelts because we're ready for landing.  In the meantime, my heart feels like it's running a marathon and my stomach does nervous flips as Demetri starts lowering the plane.  Oh, what have I gotten myself into?  I take a few deep breaths to try and calm myself down, but let's face it, I'm about to walk into a room full of vampires.  I'm just glad I wasn't sitting in the normal passenger seats, having to look around and face thirty people who will surely be dead in a matter of minutes.

I can feel Demetri's penetrating gaze on me, but I keep my own gaze lowered to the ground during landing.  Heidi walks out to gather the tourists outside in the field.  I just stay frozen in my seat.  I imagine things will be chaotic from here on out, and I feel a bit reluctant to leave the first encounter in a while that's been genuinely comfortable.  And it was with vampires, as ironic as that is.  I roll my eyes at myself mentally.

"Well, we better head outside," Demetri says, giving me a small smile and holding out his hand.  My hand is shaking slightly as I reach up and grab his icy cold one, letting him help me out of my seat.  I follow him out of the plane and see the tour group has already started their walk into the castle.  I take another deep breath and get ready to follow them.

"Wait," Demetri tells me, I look back at him questioningly.

"What's wrong?" I ask, thankfully my voice doesn't falter with all nerves I have.  He looks thoughtfully at me.

"Why don't we just skip this whole tour thing and go get some lunch or something," he suggests, "I can give you a tour anytime if you really want one."

I raise my eyebrows at him, shocked.  Is he actually trying to save me?  And giving up his own lunch to do so?  I'm actually surprised; I didn't think that vampires could actually be, well... nice, to a human no less.  I mean, he was friendly enough on the ride here, but I guess I didn't realize that he would actually care if I lived, you know?  I study his eyes for a few seconds, trying to find some hidden meaning, but all I see are two partially green, partially red Christmas wreath-esque eyes. I guess the venom is already starting to dissolve his green contacts, but appearances don't matter much anymore anyway since everyone is already walking to their deaths.

Then again, he could also be acting friendly to feed on me himself, and going to a secondary location for that isn't going to make this day any easier for me.

"No thanks, I came to Italy to see this castle so that's what I'm going to do!" I say, trying to sound more enthusiastic than I feel.  Disappointment spreads across his features but he starts ushering me towards the rest of the crowd where everyone is listening as Heidi talks about how revolutionary the castle's architecture is in modern day Italy.

*

To be honest, I'm barely paying attention to what Heidi is saying about the castle.  We have long since gone inside and eventually Demetri leaves my side and joins Heidi in the front of the crowd while I keep my distance behind everyone. He does a quick glance over of the group once in a while, but won't make eye contact with me whatsoever.

There is a table of delicious looking desserts set up in one of the hallways.  The man who I assume is the chef has the signature red eyes like everyone else in the castle, but nobody else seems to notice.  The last thing I am in this moment is hungry, so I wait anxiously for everyone to start moving again. Finally we move on.

"Good afternoon, Heidi, Demetri," a woman greets, standing up from her desk.  She has wavy, long blonde hair and a rosy complexion, so I know she is definitely human.  I look curiously at her, but her face is expressionless as she keeps her head down silently.  Heidi and Demetri just ignore her and Demetri opens two huge doors leading into a beautiful room with sparkling marble floors and huge white columns lining the back of the room.  I turn back curiously at their human secretary to see her stuffing her things hastily into her bag and quickly walking down the hall in the opposite direction as the doors close.  I guess it's time.

I scoot around the left side of the group to get a better view of three men sitting in what looks like thrones up front.  The one on the left has wavy, long brown hair.  He looks bored out of his mind, but he takes a keen interest in our group that's walking in.  The one in the middle has shiny, long black hair.  He is smiling like a toddler being given the whole cookie jar, but it's a lot eerier considering the circumstances.  I'm going to take a guess that he's the head honcho of this operation.  The man on the right has straight, blond, shoulder-length hair.  He just looks like he's in a bad mood.  He has his hand up to his face like he's trying to decide which one of us looks the tastiest.  His eyes freeze on my face and I gulp.  I know I have nothing to worry about, but still, if looks could kill...

There must be close to fifteen other people lined up on the right side of the three thrones.  All of them vary in age and size.  There is a brown haired boy and a blonde girl with her hair up, tight in a bun.  They keep glancing over at each other, keeping slight smirks on their faces as they watch us.  All of them look like they could tear all of us down single-handedly, but one man in particular looks like he is personally etching my death sentence into my forehead.  He's a giant, easily being the tallest person in the room, with dark brown hair and crimson eyes that are now narrowed at me.  He smiles in a way that sends chills down my spine, and not the good kind.  I look back at the blond one sitting in one of the thrones.  Yup, his eyes are still burning into my skull.  Great, now I have two admirers.

The man sitting in the middle stands up and glances over at Heidi.  "Thank you my dear Heidi, it's always a pleasure to see new people for dinner!" he says smiling.

"We get dinner?  YEAH!" a burly man exclaims somewhere closer in the front of the group.  He looks like a redheaded Hugh Jackman with a Wolverine style haircut.  He claps a few times, turning around to try and encourage others to join him.

"Oh dear, I apologize for the confusion.  Dinner will not be for you..." Head-Honcho says trailing off.  He glances at the rest of the vampires, who are now all grinning with excitement, and hunger.  I catch Demetri's gaze on me also.  It's not intimidating like the other two's, it almost looks apologetic.  "But for us!" he finishes.

Then it's like life is playing in fast forward.  The second the words come out of his mouth, every vamp runs with super speed toward their chosen victims.  Mr. Head Honcho is sinking his teeth into Wolverine's neck and I see that both Heidi and Demetri chose a victim far away from me.  The sight is repulsing; words cannot even begin to describe what it's like to see so many innocent people die at once in such a terrorizing way.  I frantically look around and see the cranky-looking blond "Mr. Important" vampire is drinking some other woman dry, also on the other side of the room.  Huh, I thought for sure he was going for me.

My relief is short-lived when I see the same giant that was staring at me before start making his way towards me.  He is walking at a normal pace instead of speed running, but for some reason that makes it a whole lot scarier.  The last thing I want to do right now is make a scene.

"Wait!" I warn as he tightly grabs my wrists together using one hand and yanks them above my head, pushing me into a stone cold wall.  He smirks at me, advertising his pearly white razors as he uses his free hand to turn my head slightly, exposing my bare neck.  My heart is beating rapidly and I feel like I'm going to throw up watching the gruesome slaughters happening everywhere I look. I should have prepared a plea in advance because my mind is now much too frantic to think straight with all the violence and deaths happening around me.

"Seriously, wait!" I push myself to yell again, this time letting more force make its way into my voice. It makes no difference as he just moves a strand of my wavy dark brown hair and bends down to my, compared to him, small 5' 5" frame.  He leans his head into the soft spot of my neck where the blood is quickly pulsing through my veins.  I softly close my eyes, bracing myself for what's about to happen as his icy cold breath chills my skin.