Aro stopped his progress forward and his brows drew together in a rare frown and he said more gently, “It’s not her, brother.”

Not her? he thought.

Didyme?

He had enough presence of mind to look down, but it was not his beautiful Didyme in his arms. His body was still as a statue carved of marble as he took in the red hair, now plastered to the blood that was spilling from the corner of her mouth an thrown across her face and with a gentleness that many presence had not seen him display he let out a heaving breath that was almost a sob and brushed the red locks from the girl’s face with gentle fingers.

There was a time when he might have considered the girl in his arms beautiful, but that time had been long ago, before his wife had entered his life. Now, there was no attraction for him in the wide, unstaring, now dead green eyes and pretty features.

He continued to cradle the body in his arms for a moment, rocking it gently as he pretended for just a few seconds that this dead girl, a girl he had killed, really was his wife.

Didyme!

From the corner of his eyes he noticed that Aro, Sulpicia, Caius, and Athendora all watching him. The rest of the room had somehow emptied out, but he didn’t notice, he only noticed their looks of worry, pity, and frustration.

It was those looks that got him to drop the girl before he pushed past them quickly. Then he was gone, locking himself in his chambers yet again.

Curled up there at the footboard at the bed where he had once made love to his wife, he gripped fistfuls of his hair so tightly that his already pale knuckles turned bone white and he remembered holding Didyme in a similar manner to the way he had held the nameless girl lying dead in the counsel chambers.

He had once worshiped fate for bringing her into his life. Since her death he thought of fate as a cruel monster that had showed him beauty for only a moment to have it snatched away, leaving him longing for what he couldn’t have for an eternity.