My Strength Chapter 32

The second Bella stepped foot out of the garden, her mates were by her side. Both women had bright red eyes and Bella couldn’t help but smile at seeing how gorgeous her mates looked with fresh red eyes. It was something that she had been thinking about following suit herself. If she enjoyed seeing her mates with red eyes, would her mates enjoy it as much as she would? Did she want to avoid killing humans, regardless of what they may or may not have done or what her new diet consisted of.

It was one of several topics she wanted to talk with her mates about before she talked with her parents. Her parents could wait a little longer before she talked with them. Since Bella was feeling a lot more in control of her emotions, mostly just not pissed off anymore and opting to stop holding a grudge out of spite, she figured then and there would be a good time to talk with her mates.

“Can we talk?” Bella asked after greeting her mates with a kiss; kissing was always a priority in her book and having serious conversations could wait until it was done.

“Depends on what about.” Victoria said. She was sure it was the usual ‘we need to talk, it’s not you it’s me’ thing since they were mates, but she couldn’t help but listen to that little voice that said Bella was technically still human and it could very well be that talk.

“Yes.” Zafrina answered the same time as Victoria. She, unlike the redhead, had no doubts about their relationship. She knew the three of them would always be together and what talk they needed or wanted to have would always end with them three of them together.

Bella gave the redhead a quick kiss, “It’s nothing bad, I promise.” She said with a smile, “I just want to talk about what will happen after I’m changed.” She said with a wide grin as realization dawned on Victoria’s face.

“We would definitely love to talk with you about that then.” Victoria purred, already having many scenarios running through her head on what she planned to do once her mate was no longer human; many of the plans included making sure no one was wearing any clothes.

Zafrina nearly rolled her eyes knowing exactly what the former nomad was thinking. Of course, it wasn’t like Zafrina wasn’t thinking the same thing, but at least she had the dignity to not broadcast such things where there were so many other people that could witness it. She didn’t want anyone thinking such things about her mate; only she and Victoria would allowed such thoughts about her mate. Although with a newborn sex drive, Zafrina wasn’t sure she would be able to keep their private life very private.

Zafrina had a feeling that was going to be something she would have to get used to in the future.

Zafrina started to lead the other two women towards their room as they listened to what Bella wanted to talk about. There were definitely other ears listening, ears that would relay information to her mate’s parents, but Zafrina wasn’t worried about that. Her parents deserved to know what their daughter wants and it seemed like Bella was starting to not be so upset with them.

“I want to talk about what my diet needs to be.” Bella started but was quickly interrupted by Victoria.

“Your diet doesn’t need to be anything but blood since we are, what we are.” Victoria said, emphasizing the need because she wasn’t about to let anyone dictate what her mate could or couldn’t do. “You can drink either animal blood or human blood; which one you are most comfortable with.”

“Human would be easier.” Zafrina added in a soft voice, a voice Bella was just barely able to hear. “Not unavoidable.” She quickly added before either of the other two would think she was trying to force Bella into drinking human blood if she didn’t want to. She just wanted to make sure that her human knew that animal blood wasn’t as easy to get to as it was in Forks, but not entirely unavailable, just more inconvenient.

“That’s what I wanted to talk about, more of the logistics and if I would be physically be able while there are humans working in the castle.” Bella answered. “I also wanted to know how safe it would be for me to be here, literally in the middle of the city with a lot of humans surrounding us.” Bella wasn’t exactly sure how sensitive her smell would be once she was turned but if Jasper and Edward were anything to go by, perhaps being changed in the middle of a populated city wasn’t the best or safest thing to do; regardless of how many other vampires there were.

“We will talk about all of that with you.” Victoria promised as they neared their room, “We will tell you what it’s like to be turned, what to expect when you first wake up, exactly how it feels to be a newborn and anything you else you need or want to know.”

“Everything.” Zafrina promised.

They would make sure their mate was fully informed before she was changed. Most vampires didn’t get that luxury; most were changed without their permission and without knowledge and from those, very few were lucky enough for their sire to wait long enough after they woke up to explain the laws and what had happened. Bella would get everything.

***

Caius and Athenodora stood, both sneering and lowly growling, towards Marcus who sat calmly reading doing some paperwork at his desk. The two blondes looked near ready to either destroy the room in anger or attack the man who was practically ignoring them.

Marcus wasn’t cooperating with them as far as they were concerned. Between him and Didyme, the two most emotionally stable rulers between the six of them, Marcus was the best to go because he could literally see bonds. He could see their growth, their destruction and their potential. Marcus had a lot of insight when it came to strengthening bonds and overall how to nurture them. All they wanted was for him to tell them what to do. Was that really so hard?

Marcus seemed unwilling to do anything to help them and if they lost their daughter because his unwilling to help, there would be hell to pay.

“Just tell us how to fix it.” Caius tried again with a growl in his tone, demanding his brother to help him and his mate.

“Think of it as helping your niece. Do you not want her to have a good relationship with her parents?” Athenodora tried, blackmailing was okay when it was for a good reason, right?

“I told you both, there is nothing I can do to help.” Marcus said, keeping his annoyance out of his tone. While he was annoyed that they continued to ask the same thing over and over again, he was really amused that they wouldn’t just take his answer and run with it. “All you need to do is talk with her. The bond will work itself out.” It was the same thing he had been telling them since they got back to Italy. It was also the same thing they didn’t want to hear. They wanted an easy and magical fix to make everything better, but that wasn’t how bonds work. Marcus didn’t even know what they could say to make everything up to Bella; that was something they need to figure out on their own.

“Can’t you give any advice, at all?” Caius said with a growl, throwing his hands in the air out of aggravation. If it wasn’t for the fact he knew Marcus could handle his own in a fight against him, he would have thrown Marcus’s desk through a wall in aggravation. As it was, he had to reign in his anger and put up with his brother not helping him and his mate.

“Just talk with the girl.” Marcus said, not able to hide a smirk at his siblings annoyance any longer.

“You think this is funny?” Athenodora yelled, “We are asking your help to help make up with our daughter. This isn’t a game for us, we came here wanting genuine advice and all this seems to be a joke to you.” Athenodora yelled with a growl, “Come Caius, perhaps Aro will have better insight than Marcus.” Athenodor was done with Marcus, if he didn’t want to help they would go to someone who would want to. Aro always wanted to be in everyone’s business, he would love to give pointers and suggestions long after they got their answer from him.

Athenodora turned around, fulling prepared to have to grab her husbands collar on his shirt on her way out and drag him out of the room, but paused when she heard the heartbeat on the other side of the door, just before said heartbeat knocked on the closed door. Athenodora would recognize her daughters heartbeat anywhere. There was also no way her daughter didn’t just hear her, and possible Caius since his voice tended to carry more than hers when he yelled, yelling at Marcus. Perhaps their talk was going to happen sooner rather than later.

Caius started to turn around, intent on opening the door, but Athenodora beat him to it. No one in the room dared mention the point on Caius’s face at not being able to open the door and greet his daughter first.

“Hello Bella, it’s very nice to finally see you.” Athenodora couldn’t help but mentally cringe at how her words could have been taken as insulting. But she wouldn’t take them back; it was very nice to finally see her regardless of how her tone may have put it.

Bella only smiled at Athenodora’s accusatory tone; she briefly wondered if the queen realized she sounded that way or if it was just purely an automatic tone she had no control over.

“Hey, I was kind of hoping I could talk with you two.” Bella nervously said, concerned the two vampires would be upset with her pushing them away they wouldn’t want to talk with her or they would only want to lash out at her. “Alone, please.” She added, hoping the two would say yes. She had a lot she wanted to get off her chest and the sooner she did so, the sooner she could get on with her life.

“Of course,” Caius answered for the couple, appearing next to Athenodora and opening the door wide enough for them both to stand in the doorway. “We can go to my office, it has a back office that is completely soundproof so we can have a private conversation.” Caius knew if they didn’t talk there, Aro and likely Didyme would be right outside his door trying to listen in on what was going on.

“That would be awesome.” Bella said with a grateful smile. She didn’t care about the privacy thing, everyone would find out what they talked about eventually, she was just happy they were willing to talk. And they both seemed so calmed, especially compared to the yelling she heard them both doing as she walked towards Marcus’s office without her mates. Her mates had wanted to join her, but she wanted to do this on her own. She felt it was important to have this conversation with just her parents and no ones there.