THINGS WERE EVIDENTLY NOT OKAY WITHIN THE CASTLE WALLS. In fact, too many vampires understood the deep tension between their leaders and their wives. It had been the quiet- and sometimes loud- gossip of the decade.

While times like these, times in the human world full of tension, war, and general social reconstruction, were also times that vampires looked back upon their past, Marcus knew that twenty-first century vampires would not forget about this latest gossip.

The man had done his best to overhear the younger guards and gain an understanding of how much they knew. It was often mixed with clear fallacies only a young person could make up- and those made him chuckle. Not that any of them were allowed to hear that, though. It would ruin his image of being a depressing, poorly maintained vampire, and that was something he couldn't allow to slip.

Not this soon, that is.

---

ARO WONDERED WHETHER OR NOT HE WAS FIT TO RULE DURING TIMES OF GREAT POLITICAL CRISIS. He had never had these ponderings deep into the night, sitting on the roof of his expensive home. Now was a time of horrendous, terrible, and downright life-altering emotional and personal turmoil that left the ancient man truly thinking about what he needed to do next.

Always a fast thinker, often on his toes and willing to do anything- really- anything to get what his coven needed- Aro thought over the possibility that his inability to tell the full truth to both his wife who he no longer loved and the true mate that he would love eternally, would lead to his complete downfall.

He had admired the words and works of the ancient men and women of Rome. He walked down those streets as a young boy, watched his home's downfall, and the words of great and powerful philosopher's always managed to get him in a better mood. Yet, now that he sat on the tallest part of his home he felt like he was Nero, watching Rome burn while reading the philosophy of his favorite Roman philosophers.

Aro hated Nero. Right now, he hated himself more.

It wasn't until he watched a few younger guards walk out the large doors into the courtyard that Aro came down without a word and walked back inside to the library that he founded and often found better solace in. The guards had a day off, but it was far too late at night to find them inside. No, his people, the people of the great and powerful Volturi Coven enjoyed to party down by the lake at night with the humble humans of Volterra, never getting very close to any of them.

His great library of ancient and modern works was littered with small pieces of paper, no doubt created by his elite guard during their studies. Aro chuckled, picking up one to see a note with Alec's messy and distinct handwriting. It was to Anton, and quite vulgar in nature. In latin, no doubt about it. Aro commited it to memory and shrugged off the issue in his members being so vulgar. It wasn't his business right now, or rather, he was too concerned with his wife and secretary to be worried about what was said.

"I didn't realize how common it was for them to speak Latin," a familiar feminine voice came from Aro's side. "It's all over the library. The notes, that is. Do they usually do that?"

Aro couldn't speak for a moment, his heads turning to face River Acastia as she threw a few pieces of crumpled up paper into the trash. She wore a long dress that reached just above her ankles. It held a busy, but still flattering floral pattern. Her hair was tied into a ponytail, done loose enough that it would surly fall out in a few hours time.

"It's not uncommon for them to write to one another in Latin, no," he answered, his eyes darting to the edge of a bracelet she wore on her left hand. "Though they are supposed to clean after themselves. It's unbecoming of them."

"I didn't think you would be so hard on them for that." Aro didn't know if she said it in malice or not, his mind playing the possibilities of either in his head while she continued, "Caius is quite hard on them already, you know? His lectures are most often what I hear when I come past the library. It's good to have a strong way of teaching, for sure, but I see how some react to his words. They're afraid.

"You're his brother, so I don't know if he does that in front of you."

Caius was a fickle man with a heart of gold if he loved you, which he rarely did. Aro was willing to admit that to himself, in private, but Caius was a man he needed when the times got tough. He was the strong Roman general who fought in war and came out the other side. He would lead them through the ages if the Volturi were ever challenged.

"Caius says what needs to be said when some of us are too afraid to, but often he mixes it with... his own way of being. He has a softness, rarely, and it comes and goes with time." Aro rubbed his thumbs together as he picked up another note from a table. He didn't bother reading it.

"That is the kind way of putting it, I suppose," River said as she laughed, picking up a set of books and putting them back where they belonged. "I do have to ask you, since you know this place better than I do: Is Athenodora angry with me? She gives me the evil eyes whenever I walk past and I'm a bit afraid to ask her for her mail. She has businesses everywhere and she gets mail all the time from some guys in Romania. And Greece."

Aro gripped the edge of the table he was standing near and paled. She knew, Athenodora did, or at least she was smelling them out through bits and pieces of the way they acted.

Caius did not hold up his end of the bargain when they discussed this. This wasn't to go down like a lead balloon, fast, painful, and with political reprecussions. Athenodora was going to screw everything up. Despite how much the coven themselves hated that woman, if word got out that Caius was allegedly having an affair, the world of vampires could turn on them.

Nothing had happened, but nobody would know that.

"She is mean to everyone and everythning," Aro blurted suddenly, his hands shaking slightly and his eyes darting from one side of the room to the other. His voice began to tremble as he whispered, "Nothing has happened, has it?"

River laughed and asked him to repeat himself, continuing to work and speak, seemingly unaware of the way he was losing control of himself.

"Nothing has happened between you and her, or you and me, or you and Caius. Everything has been mostly normal, hasn't it? Nothing strange." His voice was slightly panicked, he couldn't keep on looking at her work with patience and desperate hope that she would look at him. River didn't notice him the way he noticed her.

Oh, how he wanted her to notice him. He wanted to implode everything and tell her, to make everything fall into place with his charisma as he usually did. But he didn't, because that wasn't rational. His feelings were pure and honest as they could come but they were not rational.

"Aro, I promise I will tell you if something happens between her and I. Honestly, I doubt it will get much worse than eye rolls and stares. I'm working for her husband and his brothers, it would be super awkward if she just, I don't know, came up and started verbally harassing me in my workplace," she laughed again before ending with, "This isn't retail, Aro. It isn't even a place where I work with other human beings. I'm a bit alone, alone with Chrissy, and that's fine."

River was fine alone. Aro felt like a fool. A fool with feelings, he was turning into a sob story an elder would tell their young fledgling after dark. The tale of the Volturi King with a mate who was fine alone.

"She wouldn't be allowed to do that. I wouldn't allow for it," Aro whispered.

When Aro finally looked back at her, she was looking right into him, staring almost through his body and back into the large set of wooden doors.

"Well, that's great! Good to have a boss who has his employee's backs. It's getting late, though, could I please do the last set of books tomorrow? I'll have a chance right after I get everyone's mail together. Marcus said he doesn't have anything for me to do tomorrow."

Aro nodded. That was the end of their conversation.

---

Hey everyone! Good news: I am not dead. I am indeed alive. I also managed to plot out the entirety of Send a Rose. I hope that people end up liking this by the end. Let me just say, shit is about to go down.