Chapter 8

“Stop fidgeting.” Irina hissed from her spot near the chair with Bella in it.

They were in a hotel lobby, waiting for Tanya to secure them a room; preferably two that were adjoined to make it easier for the large group. Carmen and Eleazar had gone ahead to the castle to let the Volturi know that they were to request a visit tomorrow morning. They would have gone tonight, but with all the traveling Bella had done recently, Kate didn’t want to put added stress on her human and to let her rest. Especially after the attack at the airport, they all wanted to give Bella a rest and the human was all too willing to agree.

Bella was slouched on an armchair, doing her best not to fall asleep and Kate was awkwardly sitting on the arm rest that Bella wasn’t leaning on. But the blond wouldn’t stop moving. She kept changing sitting positions, move from leaving against the backrest to leaning forward and moving her arm from around Bella’s shoulders to just having a hand on her shoulder. For a vampire, she should have been able to keep absolutely still but for the life of her, Kate couldn’t stop moving. She felt like she needed to do something, preferably beheading the redhead, but there wasn’t anything she could do at the moment but sit there and wait.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Kate muttered back. “It’s not bothering anyone.” Kate added as she moved positions again, mostly just to annoy her sister not out of any need to move again.

“It’s bothering me.” Irina said, then added more with a smirk, “You look like a child that has to go to the bathroom and is trying really hard not to have an accident.”

“Whatever.” Kate said with a sneer, moving again to rest her hand on her human’s shoulder, wondering if she would get away with giving her mate a massage, underneath her shirt of course so it would be more effective. With a quick glance around to see how many onlookers there were, Kate was sure she could slip her hands into her mates shirt from on top to give a nice massage. Purely for her mate’s pleasure of course.

“You sound like one too.” Irina muttered with a roll of her eyes, seeing where her sisters’ attention had been gathered. “Come on, Tanya has our rooms.” She said while pushing on her sister’s shoulder to give a non-too subtle motivation to move.

Kate stumbled to her feet, briefly giving her sister a glare before turning around to face her human and offer her a hand up, “Come with me milady?” Kate asked, only momentarily stopping from bowing. If her human wasn’t so tired and the atmosphere wasn’t so tense, she would have just to see if she could earn a chuckle from her mate.

Bella lazily looked at the hand and didn’t even think to not grab it. She was tired. She was bone tired. Kate was nothing but a baby koala in human form and had a habit of cracking jokes at anything that wasn’t meant to be funny and more often than not just annoyed Bella, but she was too tired to care about all that. She would have gladly let the vampire carry her to their room if she had asked.

“Sure.” Bella answered with a yawn, not bothering to be embarrassed when Kate pulled her right into her side and wrapped an arm around her waist.

They all met Tanya by the elevators, the coven leader holding a readily available elevator door open for her party. “We have two rooms right across from each other. Mine and Irina’s has a balcony that Carmen and Eleazar can enter and leave through once they come back from their visit. Kate’s and Bella’s does not.” The brief look of thanks from Kate was enough for Tanya to know that her instinct was right. She knew the warrior wouldn’t want as easy of an access to their room with the balcony, but Tanya did so their coven members could get to them. Tanya would have preferred them all together, but this would be the best of both worlds. The warrior would get the best possible protection for her mate and Tanya would keep access with her coven and not get in trouble with having guests in their room late at night.

“Have you gotten any messages yet?” Irina asked Tanya as the doors closed behind them. “I wouldn’t imagine they would be too long for just a quick message.”

“I have, they’ll be here in a couple hours; just enough time to make sure there are no witnesses for them to scale the building and enter.” Tanya answered and then eyed the human for a moment, directing her next question to the sleepy human, “When they arrive Bella, they will have information for us about what to expect, do you want to be there when they arrive or would you prefer Kate catching you up after you wake up?”

Bella was momentarily shocked. It was hard to get used to the Denali’s actually including her in everything; listening to what she wanted. She had no idea if they would actually follow through and do what she asked or suggested, but just the fact that they were asking and listening meant a lot to Bella. It was so much more than what the Cullen’s would have ever done. To top it off, she was still a kid in her societies eyes; even though she as technically eighteen and an adult. No one would listen to a kid and no vampire would ever listen to a human. She was used to being ignored and looked over when it came to opinions; but the Denali’s were different. It was nice.

“I really just want to sleep.” Bella answered as she subconsciously sagged into Kate. She was still very tired and for as much as she really wanted to know what happened and what will happen, she needed to sleep.

Kate tightened her hold around Bella, more than happy to comply, “And sleep you shall.” She said with a wide smile, more than happy to provide what her mate needed and wanted. “We can talk with them when you wake up; I’m sure the queens know that you need rest, they can wait.” She said with a calm smile.

The doors opened, allowing the group to leave at a midlevel floor; not too high for the two remaining coven members to get in but too high for any would be gawkers on the ground to look into their rooms very easily. It still wasn’t very high, considering Voltera wasn’t exactly known their skyscrapers, it would have to do.

Tanya led them to their rooms, pointing out their rooms, “Come Irina, we’ll wait in here for Carmen and Eleazar, they’ll bring you a change of clothes Bella so you can have something fresh to wear when you wake up. Kate, will you be joining us or will you stay with Bella?” Tanya asked as she opened her door, allowing Irina to pass into the room. Regardless of how far Irina went into the larger than normal hotel room, she would be able to easily hear any decisions being made; hell, she’d be able to hear anything Kate did to embarrass herself when she would finally be alone with her mate.

“I’m standing guard.” Kate said in a very serious tone, almost offended her sister would think otherwise; but she knew Tanya was just checking so they were all on the same page. “We’ll join you in your room for breakfast.”

Kate opened the door to their room with the key Tanya had tossed at her and ushered Bella into the room.

“Sleep as long as you want Bella, you’re tired and a lot has happened over the last couple days; take as much time as you need.” Tanya said as she turned to walk into her own room, “Sleep well Bella and we’ll see you later Kate.” Tanya said as she allowed her door to close behind her.

“Time for bed my little mate.” Kate said with a near gleeful smile as she ushered her into the room and closed and locked the door behind them. While the locks wouldn’t do anything to stop a passing vampire from coming in, it would stop any human trying something stupid and Kate wasn’t above doing everything she could to add protection for her mate.

“Sure grandma.” Bella muttered, only taking slight offense to the little remark so adding an insult of her own. She may be tired, but she wasn’t about to just let Kate’s little nicknames that she wasn’t really fond of go.

Kate couldn’t stop the sour look on her face, never having to deal with being called something outside of her age range because she was permanently stuck looking like a twenty-something year old. But Kate wasn’t known as a succubus without reason; she could play this game with her mate… whether or not her mate knew she was playing.

“You have a little incest kink?” Kate asked, not having to look at her mate to know she was blushing. Kate didn’t even hide the fact she was taking deep breathes to better smell her mates strengthened smell. “I can be into whatever you want dearest; but I thought you were too tired to play?” Kate asked as she literally jumped onto the bed, not caring about messing up the sheets. She made sure she turned around so she could see the amusing looks her mate was sure to send her. If she played her cards right, she would be able to snuggle her mate all night long and just day dream about all the delicious things they were going to get up to in the hopefully near future. It would be the best torture Kate had ever and will ever go through.

“Shut up.” Bella muttered as she made a beeline to the bathroom. She may not have pajamas to change into, but she could at least do her best to clean up before bed. She would shower in the morning once she had clean clothes.

When she came out of the bathroom, she had a brief moment of hope that Kate would have moved to one of the other chairs in the room and leave the bed to her. She knew it was fruitless thinking, but it was just a brief moment of hope to not have a clingy, vampire that was technically a stranger try to lie next to her while she slept. It would be Edward all over again. She wanted nothing to do with Edward; including a supposed relationship that may only have similar moments.

Kate pat the spot next to her, making sure she was more towards the middle of the bed so that Bella would have to lay next to her, “Come on now my mate, let’s get you to bed.” She said with an absolutely lecherous grin.

Bella was very proud of herself for not blushing; she couldn’t say that her mind definitely hadn’t sunk into the deepest gutter there was at Kate’s words, but at least she didn’t blush and that was really all that mattered in the end. Especially since she was trying to be serious and make Kate know about how uncomfortable she was making her. Really, she actually felt fine with Kate being there, especially since she knew the woman was there, but she wanted to draw some hard lines now so that what Edward did wasn’t even a possibility in the future. That was her goal at least and for some reason, a reason she didn’t want to think too hard on, she knew she could trust Kate to keep her word.

Bella paused in her steps and crossed her arms over her chest, letting the vampire know what she was about to say was very serious; the smirk falling off of Kate’s face let Bella know the silent message was received. “You know, before Edward and I had even started dating, he would come into my room at night and literally watch me.” Kate’s neutral look had immediately turned to anger at Bella’s words. “I didn’t know about it for the longest time, but I know vampires don’t sleep and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with someone lying next to me while I sleep and they literally can’t sleep.” Bella said, being perfectly blunt with Kate.

Kate’s emotions went from anger at Edward’s stalkerish behavior that could have easily ended in disaster for her mate, to complete sadness to knowing she wouldn’t be able to stay with her mate, to resoluteness because as much as she understood her mate may have been asking to be left alone, there was no way she could leave Bella alone in the room with vampires hunting her. But she could and would do all she could to accommodate her mate while keeping her safe, so with a heavy sigh that she did her best to make sure her human didn’t hear, she rolled out of bed.

The last thing she wanted to do was make her mate uncomfortable like Edward had; her mate deserved so much better than that.

“Sure, I get it.” Kate said with an easy smile, trying to show that her mate not wanting her near while she was her most vulnerable didn’t hurt. Kate was a warrior with a human mate, the best spot to protect her was next to her, but that’s okay. That just meant Kate would have to keep on guard to make sure she didn’t hear anything out of place, like a wondering vampire that spend too much time around here instead of passing by quickly like a normal Volturi guard would during rounds. “I’ll just stay here on the couch and keep guard then.” She said as she started to walk towards said cough, as she got close to her mate though, she paused and put a hand on Bella’s shoulder to make sure she had the humans attention, “But I will never stay someplace with you while you sleep and you not know. That’s inexcusable and downright creepy. You deserve so much better than being watch from the shadows.” She promised before making her way to the couch, “I’ll be sure to let you know when I want to stare at your sexy ass all the time so there will never be any doubt.”

Bella blushed as Kate walked towards the couch and she started towards the bed; she really shouldn’t have expected anything else. While she knew Kate was serious about both of her comments, she really should have expected the last thing she said as Kate was definitely not shy about what she wanted, Bella could also tell she could believe her. Bella was sure Kate wouldn’t even look in her direction unless she needed to because she didn’t want Bella to think she was going to act like Edward.

Once Bella was in bed, it didn’t take long for her to fall asleep. Honestly, while not the most comfortable she had ever been, she felt the safest. Even in Forks, before she actually knew about the supernatural being real, she hadn’t felt super safe because of the forest and what creatures there may be; not supernatural creatures but like bears or even raccoons that could get into mischief. But with Kate there, she knew nothing was going to happen to while she slept. She felt completely safe with blonde there, but she wasn’t about to let the woman know that; Kate would surely get a lot more intolerable if she did.

The rest of the night passed quietly. Tanya and Irina talked about mundane things, even after Carmen and Eleazar had joined them. They didn’t talk about their meeting, they kept the conversations to other topics, being respectful that Bella would want to be present and awake for those conversations. All the vampires really wanted to talk about what their plans would be when meeting with the Volturi and then possible outcomes and what to do afterwards to take care of the redhead and Cullen’s, but the Denali’s were not about to exclude their newest member. They were more than old enough to have patience… regardless of how grating it was on Kate’s nerves.

Kate opted to stay silent as she listened to her coven’s conversations. She knew that she could talk quietly enough for her mate to not hear her and for her coven to hear her, but she didn’t want to risk waking her mate. She also thought it plain rude to have a conversation right next to her sleeping mate and her mate not even be awake for it. So instead, she just came up with as many plans as she could about what the Volturi may decide to do and as many plans as she could come up with to dispose of the redhead and at the very least Edward.

She couldn’t wait for her mate to wake up so they could finally get things moving; patience wasn’t one of Kate’s best traits, but at the moment she had no choice. But the second her mate was awake, her plans to get revenge for her mate could finally start to be made; and with the Volturi approval. It would be a glorious fight.