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The sweet scent of spring air was starting to turn into the terrible heat of Italy. Humidity was quite the problem in Volterra, leaving my skin feeling sticky and gross. My mates tried to convince me that my skin was perfect and had no imperfections, but their judgement was blinded by our bond. I had at least one pimple on my forehead, and that made me annoyed beyond belief. What did I do to deserve a pimple? Had I not been a good child this year?

With my allergies flaring up, it was no wonder that I would catch something. Clinging onto whatever blankets I could get my clammy hands on, I whined at the headache that made my head throb.

Aro, Caius, and Marcus had taken some time to go over strategies for getting Caius' family out of Cain's clutches, leaving me to deal with my illness alone for the morning. I didn't blame them, of course. Aro even left me a pretty note and a few flowers, which made me sneeze. It was the effort that counted. He tried.

Suddenly, a ding on my phone (which I hadn't checked in maybe three days. Who texts the queen of Volterra anyways?) went off, alerting me to the new number that had texted me.

𝗨𝗻𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿: Yoooo! I finally bribed Jane into sending me your number! Wyd Stray?

𝗠𝗲: Dying.

𝗨𝗻𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿: I'm legally required to tell your mates if you're dying, you know that Stray? Goddamn it Stray. Why do you start to die at the worst times?

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗻 (𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲): Respond to me!

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗻 (𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲): Are you too busy dying?

𝗠𝗲: I'm sick

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗻 (𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲): Then why are your mates over here?

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗻 (𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲): Shit they noticed me

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗻 (𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲): BRB STRAY

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗻 (𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲): Planning can wait, your mates on their way

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗻 (𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲): Are you ignoring me :(

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗻 (𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲): Did you fall asleep ;(

𝗠𝗲: Tired

Putting down my phone, I shove my face into a pillow. My entire body felt sluggish and I just felt generally exhausted. Rolling around in the blankets was all I could do, groaning as my headache got worse and worse.

"Il mio amore?" Aro's voice pulled my head out of our red pillow. I must have looked awful because my mate came rushing over to our bed. "Amore? My darling, what's wrong? Your eyes are- Have you been crying-?"

"Sick," was all I could manage, almost flopping into Aro's arms. My raven-haired mate carefully stroked my back before he pulled me onto his lap, having to prop me up. I felt so drowsy that I couldn't sit up on my own. My head continued to throb as I completely fell into Aro's arms, wincing at the pain.

"Tesoro," Marcus said from the side of the bed. His hand met my forehead and Marcus hissed. "You're running a fever. Aro, get more blankets around her and make sure she's as comfortable as possible. Where is Caius-?"

"Right here." I watched as our blonde mate threw Aro a blanket, which hit me in the face. "I'm sorry, cara mia, I didn't mean for it to hit you."

"M'fine," I grumbled, allowing Aro to cover us both up in red and gold blankets. My vision started to get spotty as Marcus planted a kiss on my head, which did nothing to ease the terrible throbbing. "M'head hurts."

"I know sweetheart," Marcus crooned, his cold hand comforting against my flushed cheek. "She should see a doctor. This is not a low fever. Darling, can you walk with us or will we have to carry you?"

"We don't have any doctors in the castle right now, Marcus," Caius reminded our mate, "Got rid of most of them since the human staff wanted to keep their favorite ones for when they get ill. There are some of us that have medical degrees, but very few."

"Who?" Marcus asked as I sniffled.

"The girls." My brown-haired mate seemed to know who the girls were. "They left the tower for night classes at the local university before finally going to medical school. We were too busy with the wars that most didn't notice, but Thena told me about it. They technically still have their licenses."

"How did we not know about this?" Aro gave him a look and Marcus frowned. "Guess it was just me again."

I groaned as Aro picked me up off the bed. "Shhh, sweet Astraea. We will walk normally so you won't feel worse. Just hold onto me." He lifted my chin up, gazing into my half-lidded eyes. "Stay awake for me please. It'll only take a few minutes, I promise."

"Keep her head up, Aro," Caius snapped, which made our mate give him a frown. "Sorry."

"I'll go tell your sister and her mates that we're bringing Astraea up," Marcus mumbled before leaving the room. My heart dropped at his exit, but I knew I would see him again soon.

"Come on, amore, let's get you to a doctor."

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My mates had helped me up the stairs of the East Towers, each one peppering kisses along my jaw and down my neck. I was barely awake and lucid, mumbling things I didn't even understand myself. My thoughts remained quite barren as I was carried.

Aro opened up the dark tower doors, revealing his little sister and a woman I hadn't already met. Didyme's hand darted for my head. I gladly sighed at the way her cold hand calmed me.

"You weren't joking when you said she's running a fever," Didyme said, grabbing for something in her bag. "Just hand her over here so you three can get back to trial. Now is not a good time for breaks. I know you want to see Astraea, but she must stay in here until the work day is done, if not longer."

The three vampires turned to each other before looking down at me. Aro spoke first, "Please take care of the queen, sister."

"She means everything to us," Marcus said.

"Ti amo Astraea," Caius whispered in my ear before pulling back. He saw his best friend and smiled. "Nurse my love back to health, Thena."

"It's so sweet to have you like this," she started, patting his shoulder even though she was much shorter than he. When Caius grumbled, she continued, "Don't get like that with me, Caius, you know you won't like it when I throw that same dirty look and prissy attitude back at you tomorrow. Astraea is lucky to have you all caring about her, now shoo."

My blonde mate rolled his eyes, kissing my cheek. "Amore, please get better for us. We'll miss you so much. Ti amo, mia luce."

"Ti amo, Caius," I whispered as he started to head down the stairs. Marcus sighed before running a hand down my cheek.

"I'll come to see you after trial is over, I promised," my brown-haired mate promised. I smiled, weakly holding his hand. "Rest, tesoro."

"We will make sure our afternoons are uneventful, il mio amore," Aro crooned. "We love you so much."

"You three are the biggest saps this world has ever seen, and you've seen Afton and Chelsea, or even Renata and Santiago. You were sappy with each other, but now it's worse," the woman I couldn't seem to identify said. "Leave her to us, Aro, we'll take care of her."

"What do you think I'm doing right now, Sulpicia?" Aro gave Sulpicia a glare, but the brown-haired woman just laughed. "How did you manage to be my sister-in-soul?"

"Didyme is a darling and she likes dominant women, that's how," Sulpicia snarked, wrapping an arm around her mate. "Let's bring our new sister and queen inside, she's shivering."

Didyme nodded before swooping me out of her older brother's arms. I groaned at the change, to which Aro hissed. It seemed that my mate was going to be even more protective when I'm ill. Marcus didn't quite hiss, but he let out a noise of protest as Didyme handled me rougher than his liking. The cheery vampire batted her eyelashes before taking me inside, leaving my two mates standing outside.

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After a very, very long nap, I could manage a small walk to the bathroom, where I immediately wished I'd stayed in bed. Every part of my body was sore, which meant I would need to be careful with myself.

This sickness of mine left me unbearably weak and coughing all over the place. I was lucky that I was in a castle full of vampires because no human would want to take care of me. I was the walking plague. Not the black death, but the flu or something similar. Plague sounds worse. Who wants black patches all over their skin?

Having Sulpicia check my temperature for what felt like the 50th time during the past hour, I waited for my mates to come back. I already missed their presence. Aro's weird comments and trivia answers, Marcus' warm smile, and Caius' overprotectiveness. I missed it all. They were my other... quarters. Yeah. There's four of us, so it would be quarters. I'm only a quarter of myself without them. What an awful thing.

"Your fever is starting to go down, but I doubt you'll be ready to go outside for a few days. You need your rest," Sulpicia said.

Sulpicia Volturi was an outspoken woman with general knowledge on everything. Clearly having the same education level as the rest of our coven, the red-eyed vampire supposedly stayed here in the tower with her mates to thwart any potential attackers. These towers are the most protected because they're so precious to the coven.

This was the place you went if you needed a safe place, somewhere nobody could find you. No vampire, no human, or at least ones without some special abilities.

"Make sure that you aren't overexerting yourself while you spend time with your mates," Didyme reminded me. "No walks or anything like that. Sleep and cuddles are perfectly fine, but that is all you should be doing. Also some quality food and plenty of water."

"Many blankets as well, mia regina." Sulpicia handed me a jacket. "You're still feverish. Don't bother giving it back, you can keep it."

"Thank you."

"It's no problem. It's my job to nurse you back to health." The woman turned to face the door as someone opened it up. To my surprise, it was my cousins. "What are you two doing here? Aren't you on duty?"

"Just finished up," Astro said, making his way over to where I was laying down on the couch. "Hey, are you okay? Your mates were really worried about you, Stray. They still are. On edge and snappy."

"Caius almost bit my head off for a simple mistake," Ambrose admitted. "I thought he was going to rip my head right off my shoulders. Apparently he can do that and not kill us."

"It's why you mess with him and I don't," Astro snarked. "But seriously, are you alright?"

"I've been better." Astro ruffled my hair and Ambrose made his way over. "It's nice to have visitors. Nobody else has come up here. I don't have any friends yet."

"I'll have to introduce you to the guard later. They've been begging us to tell them about you. Apparently news about their precious queen is a demand." I laughed, letting my cousin sit on my other side. "So many vampires in this castle and now they're all wanting to see you. They've all been given strict orders by Caius to not introduce themselves. I don't think Jane and Alec would get in trouble for breaking that rule though, they're Aro's favorites."

"What's new for you two?" I asked. God, it had been too long since I'd been able to have a decent conversation with my cousins. They were the reason I came here in the first place, but my humanity made it a bit hard. Newborns are supposedly unable to control their bloodlust, but they seemed fine around me.

"Weirdly, nothing much. Mainly mate stuff for me," Astro said. "Jane and Alec are amazing, but Jane is very possessive. She glares and tortures all the unmated vampires who dare to look at me the wrong way. Alec is really cute and likes to give me presents."

"Same over here. Demetri is so possessive of me, sometimes even around Felix. Although he's also possessive with Felix. Guess some vampires are like that." Ambrose chuckled, running a hand through my hair. "Too bad you're all sick and human."

"You don't seem to have a problem with my humanity." They both shrugged.

"You've always been like a big sister to us, Stray, we could never hurt you," Astro says. "You don't make us hungry and we aren't tempted around you. I mean, feeding day is tomorrow and we're still doing fine."

"We would never hurt you," Ambrose said with a more cautious tone. "I did miss you a lot."

"I missed you too, little cousin." I silently cursed my extra raspy voice. It wasn't doing me any favors right now. "Are you sure vampires can't get sick?"

"Very sure," Didyme said from the other room.

"You won't get us sick, Stray, we can stay with you," Ambrose insisted. "We haven't heard much about what's been going on with you and the kings of the vampire world. For the most part everything that's happened has remained a mystery. We know that Caius left for like five hours at one point, but beyond that we're in the dark. Nobody has a clue what happened and the few guards that saw him left didn't hear the supposed argument."

"It was just him being stubborn. We both lost ourselves with all of the new bond stuff and... the war." It was a little known fact to the rest of the vampire world, but I knew. I knew that the Volturi were at war with Cain and whoever these Romanian people were. Honestly, they were both probably working together at this point. Although I don't think that Cain wants Caius dethroned. Their motives were tricky to understand. I'm not a vampire. "Romanians and Cain."

"They make us train for something we don't know is coming. We have no clues other than Alesia's knowledge of how they work, and even that is foggy. According to her a certain vampire can tamper with memories, although it doesn't work on some vampires with strong wills. Any human memories also cannot be tampered with, as the gift only seems to work on immortal memories," Astro said, sighing. "At least humans are safe."

"Did they use it on her?" My cousins nodded. "This isn't going to be an easy takedown. If these people have gifts like you do, who knows how powerful they've become?"

"The kings insist that they don't have enough to take us down, Astraea. We have the largest selection of powerful gifted vampires the world has ever seen. Just my mates were able to take down an entire coven by themselves. That was only after a hundred years of immortal life. We should be fine." Astro's words did nothing to calm the growing anxiety looming in my chest.

Gifted. We had the gifted vampires of the world. It was what made vampires scared of my coven. That sort of power that made people tremble, we had it, and we could use it if we played our cards right. We had to play this right, put a dent in whatever evil these people were bringing. Cain was a tyrant, a thief, and had practically assaulted my mate. That was an evil in need of some serious snuffing out. Who knows how long he's been at it, how many people he's forcibly turned.

"There's always a chance that our arrogance will get the better of us, you know that." The twins looked down at the ground. I sighed, drinking some water from my glass. "So much talk about how the Volturi are the best, but with other gifted vampire's you'll be at a disadvantage. What if there was someone who could block gifts? Imagine if all of the mental gifts this coven has didn't work because of one person? That could prove to be our downfall. You have to use more than your gifts to win a war."

"She's getting all wise on us again," Ambrose muttered under his breath.

"No, you just need a little bit of guidance from your creative cousin. Your creative, seriously sick cousin who's also a human being who cannot fight in said war." They both laughed as Didyme and Sulpicia came back into the living area. "Look, all I'm saying is to be careful. I think we know damn well that war is no pretty thing and that people die. I'm not willing for those casualties to be you two, especially when there's another way."

Bringing the glass up to my lips, I realize the true implications of my life here in Italy. Sure, I was a native Italian born woman with Greek blood, but now I was the queen of the vampire world. When there was a war, I was a player. My entire coven is now a player in a game of chess unlike any other. This board is so much bigger, with some exceptions to regular rules. One queen with less power than the three kings, who could likely take down multiple pawns in one turn. We'd killed pawns already, or they had.

I'm a human in the middle of all of this, clearly defenseless if a vampire were to attack. It's why they insist on having so many damn guards outside our door. One wrong move from a vampire and my neck gets snapped.

If this were some movie or book, the main character would be screaming that they wanted to fight. Hell, they would have already started their training. I'm not an idiot, I know that I'm a five foot something, skinny, frail, blonde, blue-eyed human girl with absolutely zero combat training whatsoever. Getting myself into a fight would be idiotic.

No, I would be sitting this one out, watching carefully in my pretty castle.

"I can't tell if someone has been giving her information on the war or if she's just smart..." Sulpicia smirked. "...But I like it either way."

"Good on you mia regina, you've met Sulpicia's impossible standards that she's been piling up and adding on to for over three thousand years," Didyme deadpanned. Sulpicia sent her mate a mischievous glare before kissing her head.

"You act like my standards aren't just to make sure my best friend has the perfect life. What are best friends for? He would be utterly lost without me," Sulpicia jokes. "So would half the people in this coven. What am I, their personal therapist?"

"Of course you are, but now you're our queen's personal doctor, so hit her up with those pain meds before your best friend comes back and bops you over the head with a metal pipe like he did last week."

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ʜᴇʟʟᴏ! ɪ'ᴍ ʙᴀᴄᴋ! ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴏɴɢᴇʀ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ᴄᴏᴍɪɴɢ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ʙᴇᴄᴀᴜꜱᴇ ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴇꜱꜱ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴀᴛ. ᴀᴛ ʟᴇᴀꜱᴛ 3ᴋ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀꜱ ᴏɴ ᴛʜɪꜱ ʙᴏᴏᴋ ᴜɴʟᴇꜱꜱ ɪ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴍᴇɴᴛᴀʟ ʙʀᴇᴀᴋᴅᴏᴡɴ.

ꜱᴏʀʀʏ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜱɪɴɢʟᴇ ʙᴏᴏᴋꜱ ᴀꜱ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ᴀꜱ ɪ ᴜꜱᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ. ɪ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴘʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍʏ ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛɪᴠɪᴛʏ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ɪɴ ᴀʟʟ ᴍʏ ꜱᴛᴏʀɪᴇꜱ ꜱᴏ ᴏɴᴇ ᴅᴏᴇꜱɴ'ᴛ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ɢᴇᴛ ʟᴇꜰᴛ ʙᴇʜɪɴᴅ ʙᴇᴄᴀᴜꜱᴇ ɪ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ꜱᴏᴍᴇ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʟʟ ᴍʏ ꜱᴛᴜꜰꜰ. ɪ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴀᴍʏ ʀᴇᴀᴅꜱ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ɪ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ, ꜱᴏ ʜɪ ʙʙʏ, ɪʟʏ.

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