Heartbeat [Alec Volturi]

Vow

I had been filled with a biting discontent. Fretting over what I should've, could've done if only I'd been prepared for Travis and Vladimir's attack. And of all outcomes, I wondered if maybe, just maybe...Travis didn't have to die.

To distract my mind, I was finally reading the notebook Aro had gifted me before we left.

The green ink was blurred. Each turn of a page crinkled with opposition to the action, missing the warmth of its fellow abandoned pages. My fingers traced the warped paper with delicate strokes, as if the words would make more sense if I considered them from a tactile perspective. They didn't. They were simply the notations of a man, a detective obsessed with his case.

He knew my father's birthday, his preferred wine, and the way he ate his steak - medium rare. All things that I had been too young to know or to even remember. It read more like a biography than a crime log, and yet, there wasn't a single word about me. The situational spite I had for the owner of the journal jumped on this. The inspector knew intimate details about my father, but he had written nothing about his target's ten-year-old daughter.

Whatever Aro wanted me to find, it wasn't legible.

A breeze whooshed passed by me, and the deck chair dipped with a new weight behind me. It was followed by a gentle hand, tucking away the hair that had fallen on my face. I breathed in, relishing the way his existence made me feel — a collision of exhilaration and comfort. A gasoline fire – struck with a match and speeding straight to my chest and a flower bud, opening for the first time in the blink of an eye. A star exploding millions of miles away and streaking across the sky. Magnetic.

Soft lips brushed against my shoulder in greeting. When I ignored it, another grazed closer to my neck, tickling my skin and sending a shock of electricity to the corners of my mouth.

"Alec?" He hummed against my skin in acknowledgement, his arms wrapping lazily around my torso. "I'm reading," I tried to sound stern, but I gave in to his prompting, leaning back against his chest. He nuzzled his nose in the dip of my neck. His slow breaths cued the sensitive area to send a pulse through my body.

In a husky voice, he requested, "take a break." His hands interlocked with mine, giving me no choice but to relinquish the journal's pages.

"No," I mumbled, and he chuckled, a reaction that reverberated from his chest into mine.

"You really are quite stubborn, tesoro." [darling]

We were rather conservative in our behaviour around the Cullen coven, and while we were both aware that they were nearby, the distance provided by the beach still felt like a barrier. Like a closed door that we could pretend to hide behind. But even behind closed doors, we had been busy with words and shared glances rather than more physical actions. So this, was relatively bold.

The visibility in the water below severely limited any opportunity for a surprise attack, leaving the woods to be the only option for someone that wanted to get to us. And the Cullens had that covered. We were practically an island on the already small island.

Except, a sudden chill fell in the air. Alec ignored it, but the sky grew darker as if a storm were on the way. I went to stand, but Alec roughly pulled me back down. The waves crashed down below, quickly swallowing themselves back into the ocean. Each time they returned, they grew wilder and darker than before. The wind began to whip the air, and I tugged against Alec's hold again, which only grew tighter. I finally turned when he wouldn't release me.

Only it wasn't Alec anymore.

I had awoken with laboured breaths early this morning, still seeing the images my brain had forced into my unconscious mind. Rosalie was the one to bring me back to reality, having to remind me several times that Alec had gone hunting with Esme and Emmett a day earlier. She was under the impression that my worry for Alec had caused the nightmare. I chose not to correct her.