Shadow Rose

21

"I wonder," Aro started, as he and his brothers stood in front of the captured vampires with the Volturi guards surrounding the room, the Cullen family were also present, "if you all considered the consequences of the actions you have committed." There were thirty vampires that were kneeling in front of the kings,seventy-eight have been killed.

It has been an hour after the attack, after the kings found out that their mate was taken from them. The guards had kept their enemies in the dungeon until the kings cooled down a bit to face them. In all honesty, Aro didn't want to face them, he wanted to kill them slowly, he wanted to find his mate. He couldn't even look at Carlisle, he couldn't get himself to say the words to his friend that he had failed his daughter.

He had promised to keep her safe.

She was suppose to be safe.

Safe with the Volturi.

Safe with him and his brothers.

They had picked up Athenadora and Sulpicia's scent in the garden. Aro had vowed that they will meet their fate; Caius had went on a destructive rampage in his art room, cursing and screaming, ranting about all the different ways he was going to make the two ex-queens and anyone who helped them suffer while Marcus had went back into the state that he was in when Didyme was killed. Marcus kept checking on the bond, he hadn't said much about it, only that she was still alive. For now.

"I would prefer that the questions that myself and my brothers ask, is to be answered," Aro stated, his red eyes grew darker by the second. He turned to the Cullen family. "Carlisle and Esme Cullen, the parents of our mate. Edward, Rosalie, Alice, Jasper and Emmett Cullen, the coven siblings of our mate; and Felix-" he turned to the Volturi guard who was ready to kill them" -is our mate's soul-brother. Her name is Allison, and I do believe, that the attack had been some ploy to capture her, am I correct?"

When none of them said anything, Aro mentally sighed. So this is how they're going to play it? It didn't matter, they will speak or Edward would just give him what he is hearing in their heads.

"They were told that the queens needed to get the human that took you away from them," Edward said after a minute of silence. Aro's dark eyes moved over to the Cullen. "They were recruited; they're not all from the same coven."

"Hmm." Aro moved his attention back to the vampires.

Caius growled. "Recruited to committ a crime that is punishable by death."

Aro watched as some of the vampires had different emotions flicker through their eyes. Funny how when they were facing death they grew scared, yet, that didn't cross their minds when they attacked. Allison had been terrified, Aro had felt that. So have Marcus and Caius.

"We weren't all recruited at once," a female said. "They came to us at different times. We don't know them personally but they do know a member of each of the covens."

Never assumed Sulpicia and Athenadora had known a lot of vampires outside the Volturi and their allies, Aro thought to himself.

"Sulpicia and Athenadora had contact with one member of each coven?" Marcus asked.

Aro was excellent at being observant, he had watched the thirty vampire's faces in front of him change and he noticed Edward frown.

"Sulpicia and Athenadora gave us a reason to fight but they weren't the ones who recruited us," a male with British accent said, sneering at Aro.

"Then who did?" Caius demanded.

None of them said a word. Aro always hated when criminals do this, if he could, he would wish for all the criminals that came before him to speak all of the truth.