''SO EVERYTHING IS FINE BETWEEN YOU AND MARCUS NOW?" LUNA ASKED WITH AN INQUISITIVE SMILE.

"Yes, everything is normal now," I told her as we walked down the hallway and back into the room where our friends were hanging out.

"Good. Seeing Marcus sad again wasn't fun." Luna laughed as she found herself back into the room. "He was finally getting back to the man our other Kings and the ancients promised us he used to be. Guy really took a nosedive and never got back up. Until you came around, that is."

I'd heard a lot about that deep depression he'd been in. We didn't talk about it, Marcus and I, but the people around talk. Plenty of the guards mentioned it in passing, as well as Aro and Caius. From what I could see, it made a lot of sense. Marcus is a very sensitive person and something as awful as having a wife die could plunge him into a nearly never ending depression.

Glad that was over, though. Seeing him at least okay... that's better than the alternative of what things used to be like.

"We have to get ready for the gathering," Luna complained to the group.

"It's in two weeks, girl," Renata reminded her. "We have time."

"No we don't," she denied as she laid up against the wall. "It takes forever for the seamstresses to make everyone's dresses. Her daughter and sister are helping but that doesn't change the fact that we're cutting it close."

"They've had our measurements for centuries, Luna. This family has made dresses before in under a week." Renata rolled her eyes.

"Why would you want our lovely ladies to have to rush for our dresses? Wouldn't you want the prettiest, sexiest dress to be made with love and care rather than being so worried that they could get something wrong and have only hours to fix it before the main event?"

She had a point, a good one at that. I hadn't thought about what I'd be wearing. Mine had been made, and just needed to be fitted properly. How someone managed to get my measurements? Who knows, I didn't want to think about that. All Aro would tell me is that it would look beautiful on me and that it was blue. Matched with their gold, allegedly, and also came with a pretty pair of golden high heels.

I wasn't too worried about my own dress, but the guards sure as hell should be. Two weeks for a prom dress is seen as too late, most of the good stuff is sold out! Imagine trying to make multiple dresses by hand in two weeks. What a nightmare. I'd never made clothing by hand but I was surely a bit worried for the women doing that work before the gathering.

"You should go and get that done, Renata, stressing out the humans working for the betterment of the castle's image wouldn't be very nice," I said. "Working by hand is hard enough as it is, but being in a rush always leads to some kind of issues with the work. Human error is real and working under pressure is only good when it comes to essays or homework assignments."

Renata sighed, seeing that she had clearly lost this debate on whether or not they should go get that done. They had their free time.

They actually had a lot more free time then most of the other guards at this point. Being the best of the best had its uses, which clearly they didn't get. I understood Jane and Alec, they were still young in their maturity and needed decompression time. These guys? Not so much. Renata was quite old and Luna even older. Luna was... oh lord she was nearly as old as the twins.

"The trip shouldn't take you more than an hour, we can hang out afterwards if I can get that stupid system to work," I reminded her. "Stupid computer system should just be overhauled and started from scratch at this point."

"You're still having issues with that thing? I gave you the wordiest textbooks!" Luna exclaimed.

"Yeah, that doesn't help much when the computers are old and slow. I put in an order for new ones but Marcus thinks that they're too expensive to change out every two years."

For all the things I liked about Marcus, his frugality when we are literally the richest people on the planet (no joke, the amount of money we have in pure gold, silver, and jewels is insane and the fact that nobody questions the family on it is wild) and do not need to act like we can't buy a damn country to live in if we wanted to.

Those computers... they just have to be changed out. The keyboards are old and worn out, they have to be from the mid 80s. I will not be working with 20 year old keyboards, no thank you!

"Now he knows damn well that we don't need to worry about money," Luna commented. "If he wants to spend less he can tell Caius to stop spending money on skinny jeans."

"Aro has never known how to budget," Renata retorted. "You haven't seen the state of the accounts. Our little human accountant hates him. I mean we're rich but man does not want to diversify. He insists that emeralds will always have value."

"The first synthetic diamond came out 50 years ago, if I'm correct. Soon enough we'll be putting those in our dresses instead of the natural ones," I said.

"So, we should go and get our dresses, right, Renata?" Luna asked as she pointed towards the door.

"Fine, but tell Aro that the elite guard is out of the castle. I don't need him spam calling me."

---

I WAS OVERJOYED THAT SOME OF THE RESTRICTIONS HAD BEEN LIFTED.

We were now allowed outside in the gardens and to go into the city for tasks that required it. Of course, I hadn't been given an assignment that would require it, but I saw all around me that people were happy. Now it wasn't something that Heidi could playfully tease the younger vampires over.

Though with that came the serious issue of which guards were going to be on assignment during our gathering. Plenty of them wanted to attend, as newer members of the guard needed to form social connections with others if they wanted to be fully accepted into the vampire world. The ancient vampires didn't want to miss a gathering because of their friends from other covens being in attendance.

And the Elite Guard are major gossips who need information to survive, so they were unwilling to do more than one shift. The beginning one, mostly, since some of the vampires wouldn't have arrived yet.

It was turning into a situation where Caius wondered if doing a raffle would work. Aro was less keen to this idea, knowing that someone could get stuck with two shifts. Marcus really didn't care that much as long as people were guarded in safe.

As for my opinion? I also don't care.

"Cara mia?" Caius stopped me in my tracks as I was walking down one of the main hallways of the Clock Tower. "Would you support me on my idea of a raffle?"

"Hmmm..." I hummed as I looked up at him, his eyes almost pleading for me to go along with whatever he wanted to be done. "Why do you want me to support you in this?"

"Aro said if I get your support, he will let me do it," Caius confessed as I tried to find a way to get out of his way and back to the paperwork I wanted to get done before the gathering. "Do not leave."

"Kidnapping is not the best way to get your point across," I reminded him.

"It's not kidnapping if you live here," he said with an audible scoff. "Why be so difficult right now? It is a good idea, fair for all involved. Aro is worried about things he shouldn't care about again. We have the chance to get all the guards on board with my plan if they hear you are okay with it."

"I'm not against it, I just don't really care that much." Caius rolled his eyes at me, continuing his small blockade. "Ease Aro's fears, get Marcus on board. I am busy."

That paperwork really did need to get done before the gathering. There were a few new members of the Volturi that somehow didn't get added into the books. Jasper, Wren... and two others that I haven't met yet because they're always doing runs for the castle. The paperwork for them entering was there, but their names didn't appear anywhere in the database on the stupid computer.

They had to upgrade this shit it had to be from before the turn of the century. Everyone  had the same password to get in. That's how bad it was.

Nevertheless, Caius was stopping me from being there to fix everything with the little bit of IT knowledge that I had mainly picked up from a book for college students studying new software. Thank god for vampirism or else we'd all be doomed. Actually, maybe thank god for me not being used to a world without mirrors, which these men I was dating are used to.

"The paperwork and your machines can wait, cara, I need you now." I frowned, which made him sigh. "You aren't making this easy for yourself. Just say that you're okay with it and we can move on with our nights and be happy."

"Fine, I'll go along with it, but if Aro comes asking me why then you're on the hook and I'm sending him right back to you," I told him as I pointed a single finger at his chest. "I have things to work on, many things I'd like to not plague me during the gathering. Don't bother me while I'm working again, Caius."

When  I was finally let go from his blockade, I wondered if things were going to go smoothly.