Heartbeat [Alec Volturi]

Aggressor

Felix and Demetri had definitely left parts of the castle out of their grand tour on the day I arrived. It took me a minute to recognise the room we entered as the same place I'd first met Carlisle. Mainly because Aro was sitting at the same chess table he'd been at before. Only this time, his opponent was a truly stunning woman with skin as thin and ghost-like as his. Yet, her beauty remained undeniable, as if she'd been plucked from a queen's portrait and placed here on earth to grace us with her majesty.

Neither she nor Aro acknowledged us right away, and I took that time to take another look around before realising I'd been quite unobservant during my first visit. I'd previously identified the quarters as a combination between a library and an office, but there was a new object dead center that nixed that assumption. A giant telescope pointed towards the curtain-covered windows and stood out gloriously from the rest of the space. Yet, its newly polished exterior appeared untouched and there was no acknowledgement of it by any means.

Demetri and Felix remained in the front, open part of the floor with Issa and Libby, and I followed Prosper to stand off to the left side. I began to take in the rest of the area as we waited. In a desk near the back, my eyes landed on Caius. He was frowning, clearly bothered by the disruption our entrance caused, and his discontent only grew as his eyes passed over me. I could almost see his sarcastic commentary asking, 'what's the human done now?'.

My focus shifted from him and moved upward to the open plan of the second floor. Up on the balcony, Marcus seemed to move with the speed of a turtle as he took one look at us — also probably judging my presence. The balcony went along the outside of the rounded ceiling and the inner wall was lined with books. Looking up at the open landscape between the two levels, the roof should have been a clear giveaway that we were standing in the middle of an observatory built naturally into the castle.

Drifting my attention directly across the room, I felt myself take a quick, deep breath as I received the answer to a question I hadn't even known I was asking. Standing opposite of me was Alec and something in me sighed in relief.

I was looking at him, but he hadn't so much as glanced at me since our arrival. Beside him, his sister also didn't acknowledge our arrival, and both of them stood as stoic and intimidating as ever. However, I moved on from these factors as I finally processed an oddity about his form.

Something was off. Alec's eyes were dulled, though the illuminated colour showed that he'd recently fed. The hair on his head had an odd sort of independence that he would not appreciate if he could have seen it. It was probably best that he couldn't. There was an unnatural arrogance about the thick ebony locks and it was one of my favourite of his features, but I still made sure to tease him about it whenever I could.

The collar of his shirt moved me from his face to observe the rest of him. He must not have had a chance to return to his chambers for an outfit change because he lacked a vest or a jacket over the dark grey button-up, which was only slightly untucked on his side. This should have been my first clue. After all, he never went without the extra layer, an addition to his wardrobe that I had once called 'unnecessary fabric' because he also wore his cape over it. I spent the next half hour listening to Alec give a brief history of men's clothing. (He seemed to know a little too much about the American Wild West and I had every intention of finding out if this knowledge translated to cowboy boots in his closet).

Despite the dark colour of his shirt, two drag marks stood out on it with the brownish tint of mud. Which I knew also had to be bothering him because I'd seen him throw a shirt away because one cuff had an ink spot even a vampire would have to squint to see it. When I told him that he could just roll it up, he looked at me like I'd suggested we could casually burn down the library. He then proceeded to choose an entirely new outfit for movie night. With me and Jane. In their suite. Right outside his room. On the couch.