Infinite Bliss || Volturi Kings [1]

chapter 29

Heidi led me down the startlingly empty corridors, the sound of my flip-flops reverberating off the walls. I felt very exposed, what with my entire midriff on show due to the bikini top Heidi had chosen out and my hoodie which didn't even cover much of my skin.

"Your heart rate is increasing," she observed. "Are you nervous?"

"Nervous? Ha, no," I tried to convince myself.

"It'll be fine, it's just swimming."

"That's the thing; it's swimming. I really can't swim, and when I say that, I mean it. Do you know just how many swimming instructors I've had throughout my childhood? Every single one of them failed to teach me to float, forget about swim," I explained.

"Wow, you really can't swim?" she asked in disbelief.

"I wish I could. Once, one of my friends held a pool party and wanted me to get in the pool with her, and I had to make up an excuse about me being ill and the chlorine affecting it, I don't know, I was desperate."

"So whose idea was swimming today?" she asked.

"Aro's," I responded simply.

"Probably just wanted to see you in a bikini," she muttered under her breath almost silently.

"You actually may have a point there," I responded unexpectedly, which caught her off-guard.

Her feminine laugh echoed down the hall. "Look, put it by this way, the Masters will never let you drown or get hurt in any way. It goes against their instincts."

"They'd better not in anyway," I scoffed jokingly just as we got to the set of double-doors which I assumed led to the pool.

The stench of chlorine only had gotten stronger up until this point, which explained why the pool had been built so far away from the rest of the rooms in the castle. I turned to Heidi, expecting her to go in first.

"Go in, I can hear them in there now," she gestured me through the doors.

I was about to ask how before I quickly reminded myself about her freaky vampire hearing. Cautiously, I pushed the door open and wandered in timidly with my hands in the pockets of my hoodie. When they said swimming pool, they really did mean swimming pool.

The room was surrounded by windows which allowed the warm sunlight to stream through and reflect off the surface of the clear water. Scattered around the poolside were a few white sun-loungers, one of them occupied with what I assumed to be the kings' clothing. The three of them were already in the pool, Marcus leaning against the wall while Aro and Caius looked like they were having some kind of contest, swimming instant lengths of the pool to the point where all I saw were two blurs of movement parallel to each other.

Marcus' face lit up when he saw my hesitant figure approach. "We were unsure whether you were going to show up, tesoro," he chuckled.

The other two quickly stopped their swimming and swam over to the wall at a much more leisurely, human-like speed.

"You're lucky I actually came, I was tempted not to," I giggled, tossing my hoodie onto the pile of dark clothing and proceeding to take off my shorts before walking over to the edge of the pool and dipping my foot in, "Is the water cold?"

"Not particularly, just jump in," Caius answered.

"You're crazy," I scoffed, "I can't swim, remember?"

"So? Just take a deep breath in and jump."

"But I don't want to drown!" I whined.

"We will not let you, bellissima," Marcus reassured.