Forget Me Knot (Marcus Volturi)

Chapter 11: There Are No Games In War

Marcus POV

I hurried towards our room, but just as I reached the door, I could no longer sense her inside. I enter the room with a small hope of her presence, but she had already left. However, her scent lingered in the room and I couldn't help but breathe it in obsessively. I wonder what the reason was for her being in here. Perhaps, she came to see me.

I follow the scent of her to our bedroom and come to realize why she was really here. She came to collect her belongings. I feel sinking in my chest at the reality of it. I walk around the room. Her hairbrush that she left on the night table is gone. Her suitcase is also gone. Everything of hers is gone—except...her shirt. When she had left me the first night, I dressed her pillow in one of her shirts, because I felt so empty without her by my side that I needed something to keep me sane for the hours we were apart.

The flash of anger and betrayal on her face emerges into my thoughts. I made her hate me. Walking back out into the main room, I look up at the portrait of me and my Didyme. She was so wonderful, so beautiful in how she saw the world. And despite her gift, she couldn't even make herself happy—what's worse...I couldn't either.

Walking closer to the portrait, I reach up onto the mantle of the fireplace where a marble urn sits untouched. "I have made a mistake. She has run away from me and I don't think she will ever forgive me. What should I do, Didyme?" I stare at the container, waiting for an answer, but just as always...one never comes. I sit on the sofa with Didyme's urn in my lap. I stroke a thumb over her name and strangely...feel no sorrow. "Are you telling me to move on?" I chuckle lightly. "I'm trying...but I keep pushing her away. Now, she is pushing me in turn."

I stare at her painted face with a sad smile. "You should have told me that I am a terrible flirt. I would have brushed up on it." With that I feel a little lighter now. Perhaps Didyme really does want me to move forward...but it's hard to forget the woman you've loved for nearly three-thousand years, and that includes after her death.

My quiet moment is interrupted with an abrupt banging to my door. Without waiting for my answer, my brother's storm into the room with crazed eyes. "What is the matter, brothers?"

"Those Romanian bastards have Athena and Sulpicia!" Caius screams in red fury.

"They have Carena too." Aro informs me with his own narrowed glare.

"What? How?" I just saw her. I...I just spoke to her not a moment ago—and...and she's gone? I fall to the floor; my mind is racing with all the possible and horrid things they will do to Carena—my sweet and innocent Carena. That's when I sober a little. "Wait...the bond!" I gasp, immediately using my gift to check on her. She's frightened...she's hurt...but she's alive. I look to my brother's and see their bonds with their wives and a sigh of relief escapes me. "Everyone is fine...for now. Where was Corin?"

"Corin went to prepare refreshments. She said she was only gone for ten minutes. When she came back, the room was in disarray, and my Athena was gone." Caius hissed, but his eyes glossed with venom. He felt despair...an emotion that is rarely ever detected by the sadistic ruler.

"We already have Demetri on their trail. We will get them back, brother." Aro's voice carried confidently, but I knew better. Aro knew when to hide his emotions...but I could feel the anxiety building within him. Sulpicia has never left the tower, she has always been well kept and secured where Aro could always reach her. It frightened him to be out of control—it frightens all of us.

"I can't believe it...how were they able to get as far as the tower, undetected?" I could feel the blackening of my irises as my anger began to boil me. "WELL?" I spin on my heel and look towards the few guards that had followed my brothers in.