**For the sake of this fanfic, Didyme is still alive, it just makes the dynamic of the wives better for what I imagine - so don't complain!**
All that was on offer were dresses, long chiffon or silk things that were very flowy and mostly transparent, I chose the one with the highest neck. The sleeves were long and billowing with elastic cuffs, once I'd put it on it reminded me heavily of an old-fashioned nightgown.
I had tossed and tuned all night, very little sleep had come to me, my mind was too active. Aro had left me alone as soon as he had seen me eat a whole slice of toast, and once he had gone, I had abandoned eating. I had searched the room, tried every draw, every window, scrutinised the view of the gardens to see if I could work out which wall was the perimeter. Was an escape route possible? I had started to guess not when I realised Aro had locked the bedroom door, he must have assumed I would try to leave, how else to contain me than trapping me.
Demetri had come in expecting me to be asleep, but instead found me perched at Aro's desk, reading through random documents regarding a case of nomads tracking through Mongolia. "It's morning," he says as if to inform that I hadn't noticed the sun streaming in through the cracks in the curtains. "I'm here to take you to the day room," he said after a moment of silence.
That had been the order for me to get ready, I had forgone any kind of washing, noticing that Demetri stepped forward as soon as I turned in the general direction on the bathroom. Thankfully he gave me some space to get changed, not that I was sure if that would have bothered me much. So many random people had inspected my naked form recently that the novelty had worn off, vampires especially would most likely be disgusted by my lack of perfection.
The day room Demetri had referred to was out of Aro's main chambers and up one floor. Although its name suggested that it would be designed to relax in the sun and full of windows allowing natural light to wash over the selection of couches and settees it was muffled in shadow. Lamps were lit on every table, but all the thick curtains were closed.
"What a treat!" the voice was like a tinkling of bells to my ears; I had never heard a voice so perfect before. It belonged to one of the two women who had appeared from the shadowy depths, they were goddesses.
The first had hair like spun gold, even in the dim lights it shone beautifully, she was about my height but her feet were clad in a delicate pair of incredibly higher heels, I could just make out the point of a stiletto under the flowing material of her dress. She wore a long chiffon gown too, but it barely looked sewn, it draped around her like it was part of her own body. Her face was even worse, I struggled to meet her eyes which were an uncomfortable shade of red set between a perfectly straight nose, her eyebrows arched perfectly above her long lashes and her soft pink lips were pulled up into a curious smile but perfectly sculpted smile. She was unbelievably beautiful! To her left was the second woman, she had long black hair, so dark it looked stained by ink but was equally as lustrous and radiant as her companion. Her features were softer and younger, she looked no older than me, but vampirism had defined her features brilliantly, giving her an awe of maturity. She also wore a dress, hers was strapless and looked modest in comparison to the blonde, the blush pink complemented her dark hair and gentle features, her smile was wide and seemed genuinely interested in whatever was about to occur.
"Dem, thank you for bringing her to us, we have been ever so excited to see...meet my brother's curiosity," the dark-haired woman smiles, her voice was like pure joy, even Demetri smiled.
"You are most welcome Mistress Didyme, Afton will be staying, Master Aro has requested it," Demetri's words were final, and he swiftly left the room. Another vampire was stood by the door, still as a statue he must have been Afton, just waiting in case anything went wrong.
"Please, Celestine sit down," Didyme waved a hand towards one of the sofas and as if to make me more comfortable she herself took a seat opposite. I followed tentatively, some of my wounds aching as they stretched while I repositioned myself. "We've been so excited to finally meet you, haven't we Dora?"
The blonde joins the other woman across from me and nods her head. "Very rarely doesn't anything so exciting happen, I can't think of another time when the castle has been so energetic. Although, you did keep Aro away for an unnerving length of time...he never leaves Volterra without just cause."
"Finding your mate is just cause," Didyme says, and I imagined she would've rolled her eyes if she had been human. "And then of course you gave us all a terrible scare when you went missing!"
"We are so very glad that you were found safely, our brother is a changed man now, it'll be interesting to see how you both develop together," Dora says, and I shift uncomfortably in my seat. I was sat bolt upright; they both held such perfect posture it was making my back hurt trying to mimic them.
"Sorry...but who are you?" I ask after a moment of silence and they share a look with matching smiles.
"Do forgive us Celestine, where are our manners?" Didyme gestures a hand to herself. "My name is Didyme, I am Marcus' mate and wife, and this is Athenodora, or just Dora, Caius' wife."
I was slightly taken aback; Marcus and Caius were married? Caius didn't look like a man who could be married to such a beautiful yet seemingly kind woman. If I were to create a wife for his she would be harsh, lots of angles and hard lines, beautiful too but not nearly as soft and delicate as Athenodora was.
"Are you not Caius' mate too?" I direct my question to Dora, and she smiles sweetly.
"No dear, we are just married, a mutual love is all we share, unfortunately no magical fate binds our souls together, but we are both very happy together," her smile was unwavering even though her words made my palms sweat.
Magical fate binding souls together. Was that the technical term meant by 'mates'? Was my soul bound to Aro's?
"You've scared her Dora," Didyme playfully scolds. "Don't worry Celestine, you won't fall asleep and wake up madly in love. We all understand that this has been a very difficult time for you, Aro will be patient, he only wants the best for you after all."
Didyme could tell by my sudden frown that I wasn't happy with her answer, I was struggling to see how Aro was doing what was best for me. I looked down at my hands twisting together in my lap, the cuffs of wounds around my wrists screamed as an obvious reminder of what had happened when I went "missing". I tugged at the sleeves of my dress to cover the wounds, it seemed silly, but such obvious scars made me feel even more insignificant in the presence of such unhuman beauty.
"It will take time," Dora says and spins around on the sofa to flick her legs over the arm and rest her head in Didyme's lap. Her dress slipped down her legs showing off what suddenly seemed like miles of perfect marble flesh. Her heels were indeed flimsy, the straps were so thin I wasn't sure how they would ever stay secured if she tried to walk. "But now, we want to get to know our new sister," she smiles. "We will teach you the ropes, as they say," she snickers, "and we can answer questions if you have them?"
A million questions popped into my head. General questions about vampires, lots of questions about Aro, the Volturi, the guard members, the Cullen's...
"Did you say Aro was your brother?" I aim my question at Didyme, I focused on her face, the shape of her eyes, the curve of her mouth and even the colour of her hair were similar.
"We all refer to each other as brother or sister within the coven, we've lived with each other long enough that we are truly a family, but yes, Aro is my biological brother as well."
"How does that work? Were you made into vampires at the same time?" I ask.
"Not quite, Aro was changed first and he came back for me later, the details are lost in history, but I do know that Aro had met Marcus by that point, because I haven't spent a single day as a vampire without him." Her smile was glorious, just mentioning her mates name, even though they must have spent years and years together.
"How old are you exactly?" I ask nervously, part of me desperately didn't want to know. I'd kissed Aro, I basically stripped him in my living room, what happened if he was hundreds of years old.
"Its remarkably difficult to keep track of such a trivial thing as age, Athenaodora here is only nine hundred years," Didyme chuckles and strokes the blonde's hair watching me with careful red eyes. "You must understand that we are an old coven, that Aro, Marcus, Caius and myself have been around for a long...long time, it must be close to three thousand years, give or take a few hundred."
I almost felt my jaw hit the floor. Three thousand years. Nausea settled over me at the thought, I'd kissed a man that was three thousand years old. I remembered that I had had a fleeting thought once about how many other women a man like Aro may have pursued as he was several years older than me and incredibly wealthy, handsome and successful...now I knew he was still incredibly wealthy, unfortunately still handsome, successfully ruling the vampire race and had been undead for three millennia.
"Celestine, are you alright dear?" I couldn't focus enough to hear which one of them had spoken. My heart beat was rushing through my ears at break-neck speed and my vision had started to blur at the corners. A cold pairs of hands gently touched my cheeks and lifted my face up, the stark contrast of her cold skin against my warm flesh seemed to snap me out of the sudden light-headedness. "My, you took quite a turn there," Dora strokes her hand over my cheek again before dropping it to my shoulder. "Afton, please fetch us some water?"
I tried to shimmy away from Dora, but her hand remained persistent on my shoulder and held me still until Afton placed a jug of water and a glass on the coffee table next to us. "Here," Dora passes me a full glass and I take it from her if only to make her loosen her steely grip. She moves back unearthly quickly to her lounging position, returning her head to Didyme's lap where the dark-haired vampire returns to softly playing with her golden locks.
"You can't really be that old?" I frown and take a sip of the water, still feeling slightly light-headed from shock, I could see fainting around here wouldn't be out of the ordinary.
"There are many things humans are naive to my dear," Didyme smiles from her sofa. "But don't fret, they will all be made clear to you."
"What else should I know? Is there a certain time of night you all turn into bats or sleep upside down?"
The replying laughs made the hair all over my body stand on end, it was like a symphony of perfection, if someone could record it, I doubted many people would believe it was real. "We don't need to sleep, and we certainly don't turn into bats!" Dora sneers the last word, her face contorting into a look of disgust.
"It'll be easier to understand once you are one of us. When turned you lose the human perception of time which makes the lack of sleep completely manageable, in fact, you realise that sleep was just an inconvenience and if anything shortens the limited time humans already have," Didyme says.
"I am not becoming a vampire," I snap, my voice rising my louder than I anticipated.
"I'm afraid you don't have a choice my dear," Didyme's smile falls to a more neutral expression as she continues. "Once a human knows about our existence then it is the law that they are either changed or killed, so you will not be allowed to stay human for long."
I suddenly thought of Bella, Edward was a vampire and Bella knew, did she also know that she would be turned into a vampire? How long had she known? "I would prefer to be killed," I state simply, and Dora rolls her eyes from Didyme's lap.
"Don't be petty Celestine, it'll do you no favours."
"I didn't choose to be here!" I seethe.
"You think I did either?" she counters. "Caius took a liking in me and I was changed without so much as a word of consultation. It took decades for me to earn my place as his equal, you should just be grateful that Aro is more accustomed to modern ways of thinking thanks to his gift. He will respect you more than a vampire of his age should."
"How do you change into a vampire then?" I ask.
"A human must be bitten by a vampire; it takes approximately three days for the change to take place. The venom effectively alters all of the human cells, which is why it is such a painful process, and then one simply wakes up, frozen in time with impenetrable skin, exceptional strength and beauty that compares to none."
"You never know," Didyme smiles softly again. "You may prefer being a vampire, Aro believes you will manifest a gift."
"Are many vampires gifted?" I ask.
"Aro must have told you about his gift, yes?" I nod in reply. "Marcus is gifted, he has the ability to see relationships between people, and I have a gift of happiness," Didyme presents me with a beaming smile and I suddenly I can't stop my lips twitching up.
"Stop it!" I frown and Didyme's smile softens again.
"Aro mentioned that he was unable to see your thoughts, perhaps that gives you some immunity to my gift too?" Didyme ponders.
"We have many gifted members of the guard too," Dora pitches in, she'd turned her head away from me and closed her eyes, obviously enjoying her relaxing position. "Maybe we would get Jane and Alec to test that theory?"
Didyme hisses and pushes Dora's head away. Too fast for my eyes to follow Dora is suddenly on her feet and Didyme glares at her. "Don't say such things Athena," she grits, the other version of Athenodora's name must only be used when she's being told off because it causes the vampire to grimace in response.
"It was only a suggestion," Dora pouts and turns to sit on the sofa again.
"What do Jane and Alec do?" my mouth had gone dry despite taking regular sips of water. I was beyond grateful that Aro couldn't read my mind, but from Didyme's response to Dora I could only imagine that Jane and Alec's gifts were even worse than the total invasion of every private thought.
"Jane provides the illusion of pain, its agonising and until she relents you are trapped entirely within an inferno, of cause, its not real, purely a mind game," Dora says.
"And Alec is her...antidote as such," Didyme says, sharing a look with Dora before continuing. "He can remove all of your senses, it's like...nothing, if anything it's worse than the pain because at least then you are aware of who you are and that you are still alive."
I force myself to swallow, would Aro take Dora's suggestion and test these gifts on me? It was hard to envisage them in reality; my mind was still struggling to come to terms with vampires and now some vampires had superpowers!
"How do you know what they feel like?"
"Oh, I don't," Dora shakes her head. "Caius forbid me to try, but Didyme was so fortunate, and now the knowledge of what they can achieve is enough for me to be content with not experiencing it first-hand."
I shivered, if my potential gift wasn't what they thought it was an I ever had to experience the horrors the wives just described then I would show Aro my real attempt at drowning myself in the bathtub.
I half opened my mouth to ask another question but both women were suddenly on their feet and I twisted to see Caius, Marcus and Aro making their way through the dreary shadows towards us. "Marcus," Didyme chirps and welcomes him with a kiss it certainly wasn't chaste but strangely I couldn't make myself look away, the vampire returns her greeting with a bright smile and swiftly moves them both back to the sofa Didyme had just vacated.
Dora curtseys softly before greeting Caius with a slightly more extravagant welcoming kiss, his arms were around her immediately, finding gaps in the fabric of her dress.
I didn't look up high enough to meet Aro's gaze, I hope he didn't expect a kiss every time he walked into a room.
Caius and Dora took their places, Caius sitting in a chair with Dora draped across him, they looked painfully perfect together. Didyme and Marcus were equally as sickening, their hands entwined and a mutual comfortableness that radiated off them in waves. Didyme was smiling and every time I caught a glimpse of her happy face, I struggled to fight my own desire to smile along with her.
Aro took a seat next to me, he didn't leave much room for escape, positioning himself so that I was sandwiched between his body and the armrest. I was grateful for my choice in dress, from my neck all the way to my ankles I was guarded by fabric, so Aro's hand didn't feel nearly as cold or annoyingly alluring when buffered by the layer of chiffon that covered my knees.
"I trust you had a pleasant morning Celestine?" he asks, and I make a point of not answering him. His hand flexes over my knee, the slight pressure a warning.
"We were only just getting settled brother," Didyme responds for me, I peered up to see that she wasn't looking in our direction but instead was transfixed on the profile of Marcus' face as she softly combed her fingers through his hair.
"You'll have plenty of time to get to know each other better," Aro says, the grip of his hand relaxing slightly again my knee.
"An eternity," Dora shoots me a glance, but I couldn't work out what it meant. Was she trying to encourage me that her and Didyme's company wouldn't be that bad? Or was it a dig at my human days ending and the inevitability of my soon-to-be vampirism? Either way I glared at her in reply. I would not allow anyone to change me into a vampire, Aro could screw himself if he thought he could magically change my opinion of him and force me to fall in love with the bonds of fate bullshit tying us together.
"We were just explaining some of the guard's gifts," Didyme says casually, planting words for Aro to guide a conversation.
"Ah yes," Aro's voice was excited. "I will introduce you to them soon, once you are stronger. It'll be beneficial for you to get to know what everyone does and how we organise ourselves as a coven and a guard."
"The guard aren't in the coven then?" I ask, immediately regretted asking my question, responding to him was detrimental to my cause. My original plan had to continue ignoring him but my curiosity overpowered my stubbornness.
"No, they only guard the coven," he replies. "We are the coven," he extends an arm around. It was only for me the gesture, no one else required a visual aid and neither did I really, but a small part of me was grateful that Aro was still partially pretending to act somewhat human. When he was oddly still and unmoving in the hospital it had made me nervous, I'd gotten too used to thinking he was normal. "Are now you belong to that as well."
I swallowed thickly, I didn't want to be a vampire, I didn't want to be part of their coven, I wanted to rewind and never meet Aro. I wanted to return to Forks, I didn't even care to go to university anymore, I would happily live a normal human life stuck forever in my quaint little town constantly damp from rain and forever living off take-out and fish.
"She will only be a member of the coven once you marry her, brother," Caius sighs as if he had spoken those words to Aro before.
Marriage!
Aro's hand returned a slight pressure to my knee and I flinched. "No," I shake my head.
"Ideally I would prefer it if you agreed while you were human, but if it takes longer then I will be just as happy to marry you after the change," Aro looks at me and I continue shaking my head. I could feel my heart rate increasing again, the familiar rush of blood in my ears, tears suddenly welled in my eyes and his face softens slightly.
"I think Celestine and I will retire," Aro announces and Caius 'tsks' in response.
"How the mighty fall," the blonde vampire snickers his eyes briefly catching mine before he draws Dora's lips down to meet his and they act as if they have the room.
"Come," Aro rises and offers a hand. My eyes were still lingering on Caius and Dora, Dora's dress was almost completely off, and I forced myself to look away.
Ignoring Aro's hand I winced slightly as stood, I'd nearly forgotten the burns until they stretched painfully when I moved. His hand rested into the small of my back and guided me back towards the door.
"See you tomorrow Celestine," Didyme calls after us and I cringe. A whole other day surrounded by perfectly formed vampire women who were brainwashed into thinking an eternal life as a housewife was heaven.