ASTRA KNOCKED ON THE FRONT OF THE VOLTURI 'CASTLE' AS SHE LOOKED AROUND TO SEE IF CONNER HAD FOLLOWED HER. A chill went up her body as a breeze blew by and she silently cursed herself for not changing clothes while she was at the hotel. She knocked on the door again and finally a raven haired man answered. "What do you want?"

"I'm here to see the kings." she replied as she studied him. She noticed that he looked very similar to Jane, and so she assumed that this was her twin.

"Why do you need to see the kings, human?" The boy sneered at her. She wasn't surprised that he had a similar personality to his sister. It seemed that they both had bad attitudes, not that she could blame them. Their village had truly treated them terribly.

   "Can you just tell them that I'm here? Or take me to them?" she asked in exasperation, the cold was starting to get to her and she was tired from all the walking she had done.

"Follow me." he said as he allowed her to walk inside. He was curious about the human. It wasn't everyday that they came alone to the lions den. He eyed the gun in her hand and opened his mouth to speak, but Astra beat him to it.

"I don't have anywhere to put the gun, and I'm not getting rid of it so don't even ask." Astra replied. The vampire just gave her an emotionless stare and then began walking down a hallway. She followed closely behind him, and tried to memorize the way back. She was positive she was never going to figure out where everything was in the castle, it was too big and there were too many hallways and rooms. They walked for what felt like hours before the ebony haired vampire stopped at a doorway.

   "This is their office. Go ahead. Knock." he said as he noticed her hesitation.

   "I changed my mind, I'll just go find a different place to stay." Astra nervously said. She didn't know where the sudden anxiety had come from. Just a couple of hours ago, she was threatening to kill somebody, but now she didn't even want to knock on a door.

   "Here, I'll do it for you." the vampire said with a tight smile. He knocked on the door and it was instantly opened by Aro. The other two kings were standing not too far behind him. He glanced at the vampire, that Astra wished she knew the name of, before looking at the blonde girl, "Astra! What a lovely surprise. I thought you were leaving for the day..." he stated.

"Something came up." Astra began, "I couldn't stay there. I'll try to go back tomorrow." she said. She noticed that Caius had narrowed his eyes at her words and she reminded herself to not tell them about Conner. It would cause too many issues and she was afraid that they might try to kill him.

"Please, come in and we can discuss it some more." Aro suggested. "Thank you, Alec, for bringing her to us. You can leave now." Alec nodded at his words and Astra watched as he flashed away in the blink of an eye. She turned to look at the three kings, and noticed that they had moved out of the way to let her enter the room. She walked in and looked around in curiousity. She noticed that there were books everywhere. There were stacks on the table, as well as a bookshelf behind a desk.

"Do you guys like to read or something?" Astra questioned.

   "We've had a long life," Marcus began, "It's allowed us to collect thousands of books. This is where we keep our most important ones." Astra nodded at his words as she took a seat in a couch that was set off to the side of the room. She tucked her legs off to the side and got comfortable. The three kings took it upon themselves to try to pile in next to her, causing her to have to put her legs down. She had Caius on her left, and Marcus on her right. Aro was sitting on the otherside of Marcus with a displeased expression on his face.

   Caius grabbed Astra's wrist, and she was suddenly painfully aware of the reason she had came back early. "Why do you have a gun?" he enquired with a barely hidden note of concern in his voice.

   "Oh, no reason." she answered as she grabbed the gun with her opposite hand and tucked it underneath her right leg.

   "You didn't have a gun on you whenever you left." Marcus commented as he put his hand underneath Astra's face and made her look towards him. She found herself becoming enraptured in his eyes, "Why are you lying to us?" he questioned.

   "Astra. Give me your hand." Aro demanded from the other side of Marcus. Astra immediately moved her face out of Marcus' hand and looked towards the raven haired king, who looked back at her with a small frown.

"I'd rather you not look through all of my thoughts and memories, thank you very much." she voiced as she shook her head side to side.

    Aro sighed, "I don't want to do it without your permission, but you're refusing to tell us something important." He paused, gathering his thoughts, "If you will tell us, I won't violate your privacy, but you can't expect us to not be concerned when you come in here armed with a loaded gun, knowing very well that it can't harm us."

   "I wouldn't want to hurt you guys anyways." she said, "But it's really not important. The situation was handled."

   "Was it handled with your fist?" Caius asked as he softly touched her knuckles that were starting to turn to a blue-ish color. She flinched at the contact and retracted her hand.

   "It's okay. It's handled." she repeated. She was starting to feel smothered by all the questions, but she couldn't help but feel thankful that they were concerned about her. It had been too long since someone other than her brother had wanted to take care of her.

   Aro sighed deeply. He didn't want to invade her thoughts without her permission, but he was starting to become highly concerned. They had let her leave for a couple of hours, and then she shows up looking like she had been trying to protect herself. "My love, please give me your hand."

   Astra sighed as she looked into Aro's pleading eyes. She slowly nodded her head and leaned over Marcus to allow him to enter her thoughts. He eagerly grasped her hand and Astra watched as his eyes glazed over. A few seconds later, he let go. "This Conner boy, does he mean a lot to you?" He asked slowly, even though he already knew the answer.

"That's the boy you dreamt about last night." Caius commented in anger.

   "He did mean a lot to me. He used to be a very good friend of mine, and even a sort of boyfriend at one point. But, he showed his true colors today. You saw everything. You already know." Astra replied. She ignored Caius' comment, and hoped he wasn't thinking about going to find him.

   "Yes, I saw." Aro said, "But I would like it if you would tell Caius and Marcus about it yourself. If I have to tell the story, then I might go hunt him down before I even finish."

   "Please don't. If he ever bothers me again, I'll kill him myself. I don't need you guys to run to my rescue." Astra said. She hated how soft she was being around them , she didn't want them to think that she was some damsel in distress. Her parents had raised her better than that.

   "Did you love him?" Marcus asked. Caius growled at his question, causing Astra to roll her eyes at his animal like antics.

She moved her gaze to the brunette vampire and shook her head, "No, I didn't love him. Not in the way that you're thinking anyways. We were just friends for the longest time, and then just a couple of days ago, we decided to admit our feelings to each other."

    "So you like him?" Caius asked.

"I did." Astra honestly answered, "But those feelings left the second he decided to call me a whore."

A low growl rumbled in Caius' chest, causing shivers to go through Astra's body due to the vibrations. She turned to look at him and noticed that there was a fiery anger in his eyes. She almost flinched at the intensity in them. At this point she was wondering if he could have more anger issues than herself. "I'll kill him." he promised.

"You won't." Astra replied, "He doesn't deserve to die."

   "Yet you threatened to kill him." Aro commented.

   "That's besides the point." Astra shot back as she turned to glare at him for a moment before turning back to Caius. "Please, don't kill him."

Caius simply put a hand on her cheek for a moment and stared into her eyes before standing up. "I'll be back." he said. He didn't give Astra a chance to say anything before he flashed out of the room. She cursed underneath her breath and stood up.

Marcus gently grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down. "Leave him. He's probably just going to blow off some steam."

   Astra relented and continued to sit next to Marcus in silence. A few seconds later, Aro moved to sit where Caius had previously sat. Astra raised her eyebrow at him, but otherwise didn't comment. It seemed the three of them had an obsession with being close to her, and she didn't know if she should be flattered or worried.

"When am I going to get to meet some of the other vampires that live around here?" She questioned curiously.

"After dinner tonight, I can arrange for you to meet some of them." Aro replied.

"Speaking of dinner, what are you guys going to be eating. From what I've heard, you guys don't actually eat food."

"We won't eat anything." Marcus replied, "We just want to spend time with you."

A flush crept up the blonde's face, "Oh." She cast her gaze to her fingers and avoided their eyes. Usually all she did was hook up with people, she had never had a real relationship.

"Masters." Alec appeared before them again. "There's someone at the door demanding to speak to Astra." He said with an impassive look on his face, he looked at the said girl for a moment before continuing, "He claims to be her brother."

authors note : wow this was bad

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