Be Careful What You Wish For

Chapter Twenty-Five

1 "It...she's quite immobilised, my dear. There is no reason to be afraid," Aro told Irina, as they stood in front of that awful, frozen door at the end of the equally awful corridor of curiosities and assorted monsters.

She had absolutely no idea what was behind the other doors, nor did she care to find out. Instead, she just looked back at him with a mix of apprehension and fascination, well aware that he could hear every single one of her thoughts due to the fact that he was holding her hands. "Then why is she chained up like that, if there's no reason to be afraid?" There was no point in keeping anything to herself, but simply having a one-sided conversation where he read her thoughts and replied to them out loud was kind of strange; she felt compelled to speak.

"Hm," he made, and chuckled wryly. "That's an excellent question. The answer is that there would be reason to be afraid if she weren't chained up like that, if she weren't starved, and if you weren't this resilient." After a brief moment's hesitation, he added, "Also if I weren't here."

Arching her eyebrows, she said, "You can control her with your ability?"

He bit his lower lip and briefly raised his eyebrows. It was an oddly sheepish look. "Not completely, no, but I can hold her in check if I put my mind to it. At her full strength, however, she is more than a match for me. It cost me dearly to get her in there in the first place."

"And now you want me to go in there and bite her."

"Yes." He gave her hands a little squeeze and then cupped her face. Although this must be an illusion, his skin felt warm to the touch, so much so that she could almost pretend that her cheeks were flushed – that she still had blood coursing through her petrified veins. "She'll be too slow and sluggish to resist, and I'll use my own power to distract her as long as you're in there. It should only take you a few seconds, anyway." He cracked a dazzling smile. "I apologise for the discomfort in advance. Regrettably, but for what I believe are understandable reasons, we couldn't exactly afford to allow her to take regular baths."

Memories of home and hearth and safety in face of all this horror let Irina's thoughts wander to her sisters. Even if the Cullens had called them and assured them that all was well, the last update they'd got would have been days ago. They just had to be getting suspicious by now, no matter how easily vampires got distracted, no matter how relative their view on time might be. What if they decided to investigate? What if they turned on the TV and happened to come across footage of the Cullens' burned house, of reports about all the massacred vacationers and that one camp Jasper had lit on fire? What if-

"Irina." Aro's warm, pleasant voice gently dragged her back to the here and now. Vampires had a tendency to internal ramblings that figuratively froze them to the spot. He was, of course, smiling. It was mesmerising. How could such an ordinary face look that captivatingly beautiful? What an enviable power he had. His smile grew. "Please, don't worry about a thing. Your sisters have been informed that you have been exposed to a dangerous pathogen and that the best they can do is stay out of our way as we treat you for it. Yes, they brought up the argument that vampires don't get sick, but we asked them to trust us and to trust that we are doing everything in our power to help you. We've also asked them to take our word for it and to keep quiet about the current development until the crisis has been resolved."

In other words, they'd been intimidated into compliance and into silence, hadn't they?

He sighed, clearly exasperated. "Dear, sweet girl, if only I could make you understand that I am not a despot. I don't thrive on spreading intimidation and fear wherever I go." When she thought that he had clearly neglected to pass that particular memo to Caius, he snickered. "Well, yes, he can make rather rash decisions. He is a soldier, after all, and not accustomed to pondering his decisions for long; surely, you understand. Still, I apologise for his conduct. The threats he makes are usually uncalled for and based on his own insecurities."