UNKNOWN POV

I don't know when I decided that I hated the cold. Maybe it was the first licks of frostbite on my fingers, or the sun-kissed snow that fell onto my winter pelt. Either way, I distrust the chilly winds that had become my prison.

It wasn't even the seasonal change that gets me all bothered. The long nights filled with screaming and crying of the other poor souls trapped in here with the savage vampires whose immortality had been tested and proven fallible. One couldn't escape nashing teeth. Bloodlust doesn't die with you, it's here too. Maybe we should have thought twice before slaughtering the newborns, and the haunting echoes of immortal children.

This isn't Hell, it's something else altogether. Hell has order. It's God-ordained punishment for the unworthy. Where we got put is another realm, something ruled more by chaos than anyone or anything.

The people who get put here aren't guilty, but they are evil. Maybe Hell is for the ashamed and this for the inhumane. That may explain why so many vampires live here. And the only ones who seem to be having a good time are the children who were created into vampires before the age of puberty.

Grass was not green here, but a dark grey. Most of us wore grey clothes, the only show of color being the red, or pink of our eyes. Many vampires had starved, or had come here starving. Their souls had been lost by now, and they'd buried themselves deep beneath stagnant soil.

Nevertheless, I had found myself near one of the only water holes in purgatory. Glittering water pleated against my black skirts, tempting me inside the unnaturally tempered lake. It was a most kind temperature, being just the right amount of warm to release steam when my cold skin touched its edge. 

"You know, there's a feast this evening, love, you should come," Athenodora says as she plants her grimy hand on my shoulder. "Even the Children of the Moon are talking about the new humans who have been coming in. Droves of guiltless members of terrorist organizations. I would hope you still find such places your type."

They weren't, but Athenodora wouldn't care. She never did. Since the day I met her over three thousand years ago she's never thought of my opinions as anything more than that, opinions. She could shove them to the back of her mind better than anyone else in this world. I didn't think I would be finding her here so soon. So soon after the turn of the century. Maeve says it was sudden, that they'd been killed by the Queen.

So my Marcus has found a woman worthy of him. After so long.

"I will be honest with you, Athenodora, as I always have: I care not for the feasts of this world. I would rather not take part in such activities. I prefer to take my prey swiftly, from the Nazis or slavers that have found themselves here," I explain. Athenodora shakes her head and rolls her eyes.

"But those ones are old and have been here for so long. Do you seriously have no variety in your diet? You used to love to go hunting with Sulpicia and I."

I hated going hunting with Sulpicia and Athenodora. They would be so cruel. The two of them were no better than the human beings who felt no remorse for the crimes they committed against humanity. Feeding with them was like watching some torture porn movie, disgusting and unsuitable for those of moral taste.

"Old ones are just as suitable to fill my raging hunger as the rest. Most have been captured for the Immortal Children to feed on as well, so finding food no longer is a struggle. We have no need to be cruel anymore, Dora, the world will move on either way. There is no show of power in it for you, sister, and I will not make an attempt at what you do. I never have been quite like you." Standing my ground was always the best option with her, she who could manipulate with a simple sway of her hips.

"I don't believe you," she snarked.

"You don't have to, Athenodora, as long as you leave me alone. I wish for peace, nothing more. If I am to roam in purgatory, I will not do so with my nails at anyone's throat, certainly not yours."

Black hair clouded my vision as Sulpicia, the Devil herself, came into sight. She was chatting up another vampire I'd forgotten the name of. Or more, I wasn't listening when he introduced himself. Both he and Sulpicia shared the idea, or better yet, the opinion that Annalise Volturi was not the rightful Queen of the Volturi.

But unlike Sulpicia, this guy thought that he could take down all three of the kings and take the throne for himself if he so pleased. Sulpicia liked to laugh at these jokes, but I wanted to strangle him to death as if we were human whenever he said such stupid things.

"She's a gold digger, Octavius. This little human decided after only a month that she wanted to become a vampire. Who throws away their life like that at the age of seventeen unless they're in it for the money. I heard that she grew up poor. That mortal system of America, foster care, had to take her because her parents were pumped up with drugs," Sulpicia explained. "And who fucking knows what that shit, heroin, does to people? Maybe that's what's been messing with her, and in turn what's screwed the rest of us over. Athenodora and Caius had a wonderful marriage. You can't ruin three thousand years of love in an hour."

I hadn't been there to witness whatever had gone down, but Pandora had told me enough. That woman and her snooping into the minds of her children, managing to pull whatever it was that she needed and then... leaving. She'd spent far too much time with us, with everyone in our purgatory, these past few months.

You can't insert yourself and then flee.

Or maybe you can if you're the first vampire to have ever been made. I don't have much to complain about, she tells me more than she tells her own daughters. I'll have my chance, if I'm given such in her plans. Patience is everything with these things, and time. And right now all I seem to have is an excess amount of time to think my purpose in the Grand Plan over.

"Oh, that may be it, Sully." I hate when he calls her that. It makes Sulpicia seem sweeter than she actually is. A devil, really, and she should be addressed as such. "The drugs, the hard home life. It all brings out the worst in you. Maybe that was why she was so quick to believe that she was meant to be with your husband. Aro should've been able to tell through her memories that this was her plan all along. Or perhaps he was already fallen and didn't care. It's hard when the guard loves her as you say they do."

"Brats, all of those ones Aro and Caius made to serve the guard. Never once did they treat Athenodora and I with an ounce of respect and honor. The ones made less than five hundred years ago are the absolute worst. And nobody would let me slap them around to get them in their place!" Sulpicia complained with that high pitched voice of hers.

"Sulpicia, sister, join Didyme and I," Athenodora pushed. "What is the worst, Octavius, is that Marcus had fallen for it. What is he going to say when we are resurrected? When his wife is back into his arms? Will Annalise be enough to sate him then? Didyme is so much better than her. Better than all of us. She has always been a light amidst the darkness. Our coven could not survive another thousand years without her."

Holding back a sneer, I began to walk away. Walk away from the darkness that were my sisters that my brother chose for me. Why did he have to chose them for me? Why did he have to fall for such an awful woman. Damn Alexandros for not warning Caius about what Athenodora had done to Vitalis before their wedding day.

Like always, who is around me is completely out of control. I would be with these people until the end of this world, whenever that would be. There would be an ever present doom, bleakness that my gift could not turn into purity.

"Marcus is free to be with whomever he wishes," I whispered just loud enough for the rest of them to hear.

"It should not be a wife's job to control her husband. When you're dead, so is your bond. All is fair in death and vampire warfare."

Nothing more was to come of the conversation. Marcus was no longer my husband. For over a thousand years he had been a widow, he deserved someone alive and healthy to be with. Pandora would not lie about the mating bond between Annalise and the kings. She had seen everything. She's the one who told me about Jane and Alec being safe during the war.

Sulpicia and Athenodora could live in their little world of lies, but I didn't want to be deluded by my own feelings. I was happy, happier than I could have been while alive, about the bond between Anna and her mates. Maybe that is why the two of them believe me to be better than them. Don't they know? Didn't they see the look of a mate when they find their mate in a crowd?

I'd seen it before, when alive. It was a small ray of hope that vampires really do have a meaning to their life. They can find so much light within eternal hunger and darkness. A newborn, someone so controlled by hunger that they would kill at any smell of blood, could hold themselves back for only two people. A soulmate or a soulchild.

If Marcus had that... had really found that... I couldn't bring myself to be upset about it.

"You can be one cold bitch sometimes, Didyme, did you know that?"

I whipped my head around only to find Pandora's angelic face staring back. From the visions, she did have a striking resemblance to Annalise. The same face shape and lips, both with slightly curled brown hair. Though Pandora was a woman when turned, far older than most. While no lines plagued her face, her eyes and cheeks are aged.

"I don't try to be anything other than polite, Pandora." She gives a loud laugh and wraps her arm around my shoulder lovingly. "Truly, First One, I don't. They are my sisters, so I must respect them on that level. They are amongst the only things my brother gave me when he became king. Two sisters to combat my loneliness."

"Those two? The worst sisters in the history of sisters, and I've seen some bad cases. I'm ten thousand years old, Didyme, and I know that even if you may call them sister, they are not family to you. They were a duty. Times have changed, you're dead. Duty means nothing," Pandora said with a smirk.

I frowned. "I am not the same as you, First One, I still try to be the same as I was when alive. I would like to have myself the same for the plans you have for me, whatever they are."

Now it was Pandora's turn to frown. "Didyme, love, you still call me by that old name. The order in which we were made matters not anymore. The venom has thinned out enough, travelled through so many, that you may let that name go. I am Pandora, daughter of Greece and originator of the vampire genes, but first I am Pandora, just as my title suggests." She took a short pause before continuing, "My plans for you are wonderous, Didyme. You have been the best of us, the kindest and most gentle. You don't relish in horror and torture. Quite the opposite. Tomorrow you will come with me unto the spirit plane."

"The plane of spirits? I do not know if I am strong enough. I haven't fed in over three years."

"I know. Your eyes are pink. You should not do this to yourself." You know nothing you can do will make me feed. I do not have a will for it anymore. "But it is not a matter of strength, but of want and a guide. You should the second in me. You will be able to see the world as it is in this modern age."

"But why? What will we be doing?" I questioned, a little nervous about going onto the plane. 

"That patience you have for them, exercise some of that with me, please. You will know tomorrow. When the dew begins to evaporate off the branches, we will leave. Let nobody know where you rest, and allow no information about this journey to reach your sisters.

"The Grand Plan is about to begin, dear, and you'll have a front row seat."

---

Oh my. This crazy chapter is setting up for some crazy shit! How do you like Didyme? I know we didn't hear much about her in the first book. Oh, and Sulpicia and Athenodora are back and at it again. When I get to it, you'll know more about Octavius and that little reference to the prequel to this series that goes in depth into the history of the Volturi. Not canon-accurate, don't care!