𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙁𝙊𝙐𝙍
ミ★ ( obsidian, act one ) ★彡

     Amias sat at his desk in Biology after lunch with a look of boredom on his face. His face was being held up by his right hand that was cupped firmly against his cheek, and his elbow leaning on the hard surface on the table. He was so bored he was sure he could actually fall asleep—and vampires don't sleep. The room slowly filled as students came in from after lunch. He had hoped that time went by quickly like it usually does, and it was times like this that he wished he could sleep away the time and the feeling of complete boredom.

     He heard her name before he smelt her scent. He could hear Angela and Mike talking to her down the hallway before he lead her into the classroom. She had walked right towards Mr. Banner's desk to hand him her sheet, and Amias looked around to see that the only seat that was left was the one beside him toward the back. Poor thing. But, he moved his things aside to make room for her.

     Amias could only curse his luck as she stood in front of the fan that blew the scent of her strawberry shampoo that was mixed with the smell of her sweet blood in his direction. Had he not had practice in his control, he would've lost his mind in the middle of the classroom, but, he chose to focus his control on squeezing his pen with the right amount of pressure to not snap it.

     He probably looked like a ravaged animal to her in that moment but he had to keep it together otherwise he would lose in control further. The poor girl was his prey while he was the predator simply because her scent was so intoxicating. He hadn't smelt it in the cafeteria due to the other people covering her own with their horrible scents; it was like a blessing and a curse that it hadn't hit him then.

     Bella walked over towards their new shared desk; she was walking slowly as if she was nervous to get closer to him. It was fair enough since she was about to sit next to the most dangerous predator—she was unaware of this, of course, but he was still an animal nonetheless. Fate was nothing short of cruel to have this happen to her. He could only imagine the newspaper article of her death.

Isabella Swan, aged 17. Cause of death: being in the wrong place at the wrong time with her mouthwatering smelling blood.

     She had been taking such little and slow steps to limit the time she would have to sit next to him that she somehow managed to step on one of her shoelaces and fall straight to the ground right beside him, snapping him out of his daze where he imaged the thought of biting into her neck.

     Carlisle and Aro would've be so disappointed in him for it if he gave in, but they would understand. A man would only handle so much. Thankfully, the girl was clumsy that it reminded him of Alice's trick. She was a person—she was the chief's daughter. She was just an innocent human girl that had just been blessed with amazing blood that was like it had been created just for him.

     There were a couple of snickers and a couple of gasps from Bella's fall, "Oh, dear." Amias winced as he looked down at the sight of the human girl that was on floor. She looked around to see that no one had moved to help her, even Mike Newton seemed to be struggling with his inner monologue if he should help her or not—he probably wanted to but didn't want to get chewed out by Jessica for doing so—Bella looked up at him, "Need a hand?"

     She quickly nodded, her dark doe eyes so wide it reminded him of a innocent puppy dog before he held a hand out to help her up. He didn't miss the gasp she felt from his cold hand but he was quick to pull away once she was up on her feet securely and she was sat safely beside him on her chair.

     Mr. Molina started discussing the lesson plan and Amias sat listening. Biology was something that Amias wasn't completely on board with, any sciences to be exact. Science technically went out the window for him when he became a vampire so he didn't care to learn about it like everyone else did in the castle—something he was beginning to regret as he sat down in the class that was teaching advanced placement of that same subject.

     He wanted everyone to discuss what phases the different samples of mitosis were in—whatever that meant. Thankfully, Edward could read his mind and figure out he really had no clue what was going on and would sneakily write the answer down on a piece of paper and show him whenever the samples got to them.

     Bella would shoot him a weird look for the constant delayed answers to the samples but didn't comment on his strange behaviour thankfully. He would catch her every now and again looking over at him, observing him like he was some sort of rare animal at a zoo.

     At first, Amias thought it was because he was acting strange that she was staring to figure out why, but then it kept happening whenever he wasn't doing anything besides listening to the nonsense that the teacher was spitting. Whatever he was saying, it wasn't computing in his head.

     He caught Bella's eyes shift over to him again and he smirked, "Do you normally stare at people this much, or am I just extremely handsome?"

     Bella blushed and looked away, her hair covering her face as she muttered out an embarrassed apology which made him chuckle. The sound of his voice and his laugh making her blush more. She had heard it briefly when he helped her up, but hearing it up close and clearer, it made her notice the way it sounded like velvet or that it had a slight accent to it caught her by surprise.

     Beyond that, the two didn't talk much besides giving the answers before that, and thankfully, the bell rang minutes later. Amias walked out of class without hesitation to return back to the Cullen home, hoping it would be enough distance to erase the smell of the Swan girl's blood from his nose.

     The next day, the Cullens and Amias sat at their unassigned-assigned lunch table again, pretending to eat. Amias had gotten used to the routine and pretending to be human again. It was almost comforting to pretend to be someone else—a good distraction from the mess that was his own life.

     The Swan girl prodded over towards her lunch table with her friends. She was slowly becoming more comfortable as well with her surroundings and was creating bonds with her friends. It was almost fascinating to watch Bella interact with the loud and proud group of people she hung around with. She was so shy and reserved but she sat beside Jessica and Lauren who would squeal and shout about every little thing.

     "Hey, Jessica?" Bella nervously asked the brunette girl beside her, who stopped nibbling on her baby carrots and turned away from her conversation with Lauren to pay attention to her, "Amias... what do you know about him?"

     Jessica's eyes brightened up like it was Christmas, and Bella had gifted her the best gift that she had been dreaming about since she was a child, "Okay, from what I know, he was born and raised in Italy. He's an only child. I believe he's a Capricorn, but, I only saw the month of his birth date." She started to list everything and Amias made a face at how much Jessica 'knew' about him despite him never telling her anything personal. "His parents died recently—apparently, it was a murder—and apparently, he has no other family. Dr. Cullen is a very distant long relative, which was why he was sent here."

     Bella looked at Amias in shock, and Amias looked away before she noticed that the vampire was listening in to their conversation.

     "M—Murdered?" Bella stammered in fear. She couldn't imagine having her parents murdered and then move across the world to a foreign place with new people to continue living her life.

     Amias turned to look at Edward, "Anything?" He asked in regards to Bella's thoughts. He wanted to know what he thought about Amias' fake past.

     Edward's eyebrows furrowed in concentration, Bella being too focused on Amias to notice the other vampire's stare that looked slightly more like a glare. He let out an annoyed sigh, "Nothing. She... must not have said anything."

     Amias chuckled, as did Emmett while everyone else simply raised their eyebrows at the news, "Maybe we didn't make your backstory scary enough." Emmett said to Amias. "I think we should've done something more hardcore if you wanted to frighten people away from you—like maybe we should've said that you're a suspect in the case!" He thought out loud to himself and Amias made a face, "But, I wonder why Edward can't read her thoughts."

"Maybe she just doesn't have any." Rosalie snipped while looking at her red nail polish that freshly coated them. They dissolve in a few hours, but it didn't mean she didn't like the look of it anyway. She was trying not to show how jealous she was that everyone was paying more attention to Bella Swan than her.

     "We've been over this: I don't know." Edward grumbled, almost annoyed that he can't read her thoughts. Carlisle always told him that his talents would grow as he got older, and they did, but there had never been a mind he couldn't read.

     Alice glanced up before she adjusted her body, "She's looking over again. Try to look human." She told them and everyone froze, almost forgetting how to look human momentarily as if they don't do it everyday.

     "Human, you say?" Emmett smirked, before reaching into his pocket and holding up his right hand, twisting his fingers to reveal that he had a snowball in his palm. His skin frozen that it hadn't melted, only morphed into a lumpy block of ice.

     "How long have you had that there?" Amias questioned him, almost astounded since no one had seen him grab it.

     His golden eyes first glanced at Jasper, then to Edward, before it landed on Alice. She had seen what he was about to do, like Edward did, and Amias has read his body language enough to see what he had planned. Without further warning, he abruptly hurled the chunk of ice at her, the small vampire girl casually flicking it away with her fingers, sending the snowball across the cafeteria, too fast for the normal human eye into the wall, shattering against it as the brick wall cracked.

     The people in the cafeteria looked at the wall and noticed the ice on the ground that was melting. It had begun melting almost instantaneously after it left Emmett's cold hands since they were no longer keeping it cool. The students looked around to find the culprit, their small minds thinking that a snowstorm had begun—like there would be one strong enough to cause damage like what Emmett had done.

They didn't look far enough, only looking at a couple of tables away or out the window. Not where the Cullens sat in the corner of the room, "Very human, Emmett." Rosalie scolded her mate, "Why don't you punch through the wall while you're at it?"

     Emmett thought it over for a second. He could possibly get over there and punch the wall and be back at the table before anybody else noticed. But they had already done enough damage to the structure of the school, and Carlisle would be disappointed in them for doing it. He simply turned to Rosalie instead and said, "It would be more impressive if you did it, gorgeous."

      Rosalie rolled her eyes while Amias grinned. Emmett liked to antagonise Rosalie when he thought that she was being too uptight, but whenever they were in the comfort of their own home, they were a really sweet pair of mates that made Amias somewhat warm up to the idea of having a mate. With being in the castle, seeing mates was rare and if they did exist, their paring was more about power and status, rather than partnership and love.

     The Cullens had pure love in all of their pairings—even Rosalie and Edward, who had somewhat of a love-hate relationship. Sometimes it made Amias jealous that there were covens who had that, instead of having their home be a minefield of games to stay the top dog for the Volturi kings.

     "You okay?" Edward asked Amias who was deep in thought. The older vampire simply nodded in response, as much as he was nostalgic about something he never had, he missed home. He missed not having to place on a facade everyday for humans that didn't deserve it. "You did well in class today, by the way—with not killing the Swan girl."

     Amias glanced over at him from the side of his eye before huffing, "She walked like a baby deer. It felt wrong to try and kill her and everyone else in the classroom because of it."

      Alice didn't say anything. She had been watching Amias' future and saw for that small moment how tempted he was to drink from her before she fell, then everything changed and she couldn't of been more secure. "So what? You kill one human. That's hardly the end of the world. You would know that." Emmett pointed out and Amias shrugged in agreement.

     "Eternity is a long time to wallow in guilt over the death of one human." Amias mumbled, "But, I'd rather not cause your family trouble during my stay here."

     Changing the subject, Alice tossed a smaller handful of ice that she had been hiding into Emmett's unsuspecting face. He blinked, as did everyone else—minus Edward—in surprise before Emmett grinned in anticipation. "You asked for it." He said as he leant over and shook his ice covered hair in her direction. The snow melting almost instantly again, flinging around the table as half ice, half liquid.

     "Gross!" Rosalie complained, laughing slightly while Alice jumped away from the ice. The rest of the family joined in, as did Amias. He could see that Alice had orchestrated the situation perfectly to perk him up, and he was thankful. Alice was a godsend.

     Amias looked over in her direction and the small pixie girl winked at him in response before she went back to laughing at something that Emmett had said.