SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW ➻ DEMETRI VOLTURI

S E T T E

Softly biting her lip, Cecilia stared out the window overlooking the horizon, her head leaned against the chair she was seated in. On her lap laid Hymn to Aphrodite, though she'd been too memorised with the sky to read a single word. Still, she would have plenty of time to read during the flight, as it was over eighteen hours. Not even a private jet owned by vampires could exceed certain boundaries laid by physics.

She was seated alone at the end of the jet, the chair next to her and the two opposite empty. The Guard had taken their places three rows away from her, her back strategically turned against them. The Old Ones had secluded themselves to an even more private area.

She'd managed not to cry when her father had told her goodbye, ensuring her that he would write her letters, but when the plane started to ascend and she felt shaky not only because she was on her own with strangers, but also because she couldn't remember the last time she'd been on a plane, a single tear had escaped her eye. She'd brushed it away aggressively, feeling stupid for crying in front of the elite. That had been the only and last tear she'd shed, but her hands were still shaking.

Tearing away her eyes from the horizon and the clouds, she focused them on the book in front of her, opening it on the page she'd stayed. It was only then that she realised she'd left her dictionary in her suitcase.

She only heard him walk over to her and take a seat across of her because he wanted to. After all, he was a vampire and he could have easily done all of it in a split second and without making a single sound. She lowered her book, staring at the vampire in front of her nervously.

His eyes dipped to the letters in her book for a little moment, before finding hers again. Her heart skipped a beat, her fingers tapping the cover nervously.

"My name is Demetri," he said in perfect archaic Greek.

His voice sounded deep and smooth, luring even. She swallowed the lump in her throat. It had been a simple enough sentence, but she never really spoke Ancient Greek. She read it, translated it and even recited it, but she never actively wrote or spoke it, especially not day-to-day vocabulary. She considered it for a moment, before giving it a go. She had to try at least, right?

"My name is Cecilia," she said. She sounded more nervous than she would have liked and Edward would have cringed at her pronunciation, but the vampire in front of her smiled like she'd just given him the world. "Pleased to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine," he answered. He seemed to consider something, but then he held out his hand.

She tried to put on a brave face and placed her hand in his, the feeling of it completely unfamiliar. Though his hand was cold, it made hers feel like an electric pulse travelled through it, heating it up from the inside out. She held her breath as he placed a kiss on top of the back of her hand, his lips barely brushing the skin. Her heart hammered away in her chest, nervous and terrified at the same time. She knew it was only a common courtesy, especially with vampires who'd turned ages ago and maybe it was all the events that had happened that day, but as soon as he let go of her hand, she drew it more quickly than necessary, hiding it underneath her book.

She glued her eyes to the letters on the book, refusing to look up. She felt her cheeks redden under Demetri's stare and all of a sudden she hated her human traits. The way her heart hammered, how her breath hitched, when the blood rushing to the surface turned her skin red, all of them betraying her.

It took her a while to really lose herself in the poem again. After all, it didn't happen every day that a vampire seated only a couple of feet away stared you down while you tried to read a book written in a completely different alphabet.