𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐄, Volturi Kings

𝐗𝐋, 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘

God, the smirk on his face. Could kill a woman with the way he looked at me sometimes. So desperate to get my attention. To keep that attention in place no matter what. I loved it. Loved the way he treated me.

"Were you?" I asked, faking disinterest.

Aro was barely amused, letting go of one of my hands to touch my cheek. "It was much better to find you than to tape a note to the back of one of the lower guards and pray they found you within the ever growing walls of this castle. They could get lost, they could never find you. My message would be lost. My plans foiled."

"Your ingenious master plan involves me? Color me impressed." I matched his smirk with one of my own. "Albeit I am glad that no guards of this Clocktower have been lost due to your schemes."

"Schemes?" He faked his surprise, smirking down at me the whole time. "Do not call them that, they may think me an evil genius. You could start an awful rumor about me, one I may never recover from. Vampires remember, I hope you know. We remember everything."

I had no reason to question him on that one. I'd had a perfect recall, but connecting the dots was still not the best. Maybe I was faulty. Or, Aro was just better at it than me.

"You wouldn't be able to put away the rumors would you." I tilted my head to the side and sighed. "Vampire King and his alleged schemes. What would you scheme for? Politics? Covering yourself?"

"Keeping secrets in this Coven is a lot harder than you think, mia amore." Aro laughed and confessed, "The party was revealed a mere few hours after I came home, as was your night with Caius."

Oh fuck. How had he not mentioned that in one of his little romantic notes? Did he really save that knowledge for seeing me in person rather than through sweet little love notes? Of course he did, he was the one and only scheming Aro Volturi. This was a part of his little plan.

"He's not well known for being quiet, unfortunately," Aro said with a laugh. "It was only a matter of time before he got drunk and told you what he really thought. He does that quite often, mostly with Marcus. Or myself. But I drag him back into the castle."

"You don't let him have his fun?"

"Gods no. He'd expose us faster than any human ever could." Aro chuckled before allowing a long pause to grow between us. He sighed to break it and confessed, "I did come and find you to propose an idea."

"Oh? What might that entail?"

"Well, I may or may not have set up a date night within the secret tunnels under this very castle," Aro admitted, face beaming with pride over his idea. "Since I have seen you so very little, I'd hoped we'd be able to spend some... alone time together."

I'd guessed that this was what he wanted. He wasn't as opposed to dating at the start. Caius had been annoyed, as had Marcus (though he refused to admit that for some reason), but Aro was almost happy. He was the spoiling type, that much was obvious.

I was highly intrigued about that secret tunnel.

"You've done a lot of work to set this up, I see. How come I haven't heard about these tunnels before? They aren't on any of the maps of the Clocktower that I've seen."

Aro smiled down at me as he explained, "They are secret for a reason, mia amore. Some secrets can only be revealed if they have a reason to be so. We would not advertise the many rooms underneath these walls to tourists. If we did, how many would believe that we ran a cult? The robes, the religion, the odd naming practices? The Italian Government would have a look, let alone the Vatican."

"Right, because you're going to take me down there and perform odd rituals that you couldn't do up here?" Aro laughed outright and put a hand over his mouth to try and stop the stream of laughter from coming out. "You, the scheming cult leader bringing down a woman to do unspeakable things with her. Your reputation precedes you."