The Inauspicious Beginnings Of A Prince
by Laura Spudzmom
Chapter 07
Carlisle moved into the room to face his son.
"Jasper, this behavior has to stop. You're using these women for your base pleasure and it's not a proper way to treat them, nor is it respectful to yourself."
Jasper plastered a supremely arrogant smirk on his face and answered.
"I don't hear them complaining and as far as respecting myself goes, I respect the hell outta myself. It took practice to reach my level of mastery, but reach it I have. You can ask anyone I've been with."
He watched anger flare in Carlisle's eyes with not a little bit of satisfaction. He found needling the vampire to be a very fun sport indeed, especially since he interrupted his real fun.
"You are out of control. I don't know why Caius has let you get to the point that you have but it stops now. I will be calling for a meeting with the Kings to speak about your deplorable actions and any possible resolutions, you can be sure."
Jasper jumped up from the couch and got right in Carlisle's face.
"What gives you the right to think that you have any say in my life? Because you don't! Caius is my Father in every way that matters! He always will be! I love him as my Father and he has raised me well! Better than you ever would have! At least he never laid a hand on me!"
Sighing, Carlisle turned his head away and nodded.
"So we come to the crux of the matter at last. You still hate me for spanking you one time?"
He looked back into his son's supremely hostile eyes.
"I am certain it would have been the first of many had I stayed. Can you really deny that? Never mind, because I know that you can't, despite what you may say today. If you're willing to beat me once, you're willing to do it again. But I'm here to tell you that you'll never lay another hand on me nor will you have a say in my life. My FATHER will see to that. He has promised me and he always keeps his word."
Carlisle nodded, head down and hands on his hips.
He looked up locking his gaze with his son's grassy green one.
"We'll see son."
With that, he took his leave, heading straight to the royal wing. It was past time to speak to the Kings.
He found them in the Royal common room, located just outside their private studies. He knocked lightly after having been announced by their receptionist.
It was Aro that bid him entry.
"Ah Carlisle, what can we do for you this morning? Is everything alright? You look out of sorts if you don't mind my saying."
Carlisle approached a chair and gestured to it. "May I?"
"Oh my, where are my manners this morning? Yes, of course, please be seated! Now, what can I do for you?"
Carlisle looked around at each of them and noticed that Caius was watching him closely, a knowing look in his red eyes.
"I am here to discuss Jasper. He is out of control and promiscuous beyond reason. This morning, I found him in the guards common room in the act of coupling with Tanya of the Denali coven.
And yesterday, when we arrived, he was very obviously coupling with the receptionist Giana in her private quarters. We all heard it upon our arrival."
He looked to Aro, who was nodding slowly as he spoke.
"It is most shameful and he must be brought to heel. He's only seventeen and has obviously been allowed to run rampant."
Caius had heard enough and rose from his chair to loom over Carlisle.
"You know nothing about how my wife and I have raised him and I consider your words a personal insult. He has healthy appetites, yes. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'll admit that he could have better judgement when it comes to discretion, but that is the only problem we have ever had with him in all of the years he's been with us."
Aro decided to step in before Caius really lost his temper and challenged Carlisle to a fight. Things would really get out of hand if that happened.
"Caius, brother, please let us speak about these things civilly."
He gestured to Caius' chair as he met his eyes with a silent plea.
Caius scoffed in disgust while shooting a look of loathing at Carlisle and then took his seat once again, draping himself in it nonchalantly while curling his lip in contempt at the whole situation.
Aro sat forward, addressing Carlisle.
"I assume, since you came to us that you have given this issue some thought."
Upon Carlisle's nod, he continued. "What solutions, if any, do you suggest then?"
"I would like for you to order him to go to Forks with our family until he reaches his legal maturity of eighteen. That will be for just under a year and certainly won't hurt him any."
Before he could say anything else, Caius shot to his feet once again.
"Absolutely not! I promised him when he first came here that he would never be made to return to your family and I mean to keep that promise. I will not break my word to him. He would never trust me again if I did and I love him too much to do that to him or to see him forced into a situation that he does not want."
He turned and pinned Carlisle with an icy red gaze.
"You tried forcing him nine years ago and look what happened then? It was quite the success wasn't it?"
Retaking his seat, he waited for someone else to speak. Aro took the initiative.
"Caius, I have been trying to address his promiscuity and lack of discretion with you for some time now. I know you don't want to see it, but it has become a problem brother. I don't mind that he engages regularly in the carnal pleasures, but he must learn to curb himself when it comes to proper decorum. It's almost as though he's proud of his conquests and doesn't mind flaunting them in the least."
He eyed Caius, waiting for his reaction and sighed when it came in the form of a wicked smirk.
"I see your point about his lack of discretion and I'm willing to strongly stress our displeasure with his choices of location, but otherwise I don't see why he shouldn't be proud of his conquests as you phrased it. He's a virile male, just entering a prime time of his life. And it isn't as though his partners aren't willing. They seek him out, not the other way around. There is nothing wrong with any of that. No, I am willing to address the only thing identified as a problem, but that is all. I refuse to have him ordered to go anywhere. He is my son. He is a Prince of Volterra. This is his home and this is where he shall stay unless he chooses otherwise."
Bella sighed as she slapped yet another mosquito. She was going to be eaten alive at this rate. Digging around in the supply bag that Charlie had brought, she called out to him.
"Dad, where's the bug repellent? Is it in the bag? Because if it is, I can't find it!"
She jumped as he answered, just behind her.
"It's right here Bells."
She spun around with her hand over her speeding heart.
"Don't do that! You nearly gave me a heart attack. Warn a girl before sneaking up."
Charlie rolled his eyes and tossed her the can, just before remembering what a lousy catch she is.
Sure enough, she caught it. With her forehead, as she dove for it.
"Oh god Bells, sorry about that honey. I forgot you can't catch worth crap."
She just nodded as she rubbed the red mark.
"It's okay. I'm pretty used to it."
She held up the can and waggled it with a small smile. "Thanks."
Charlie merely nodded and headed back out to the boat for more fishing.
After spraying herself liberally with the repellent, she decided to take a walk in the woods. It was better than hanging around the camp.
She rolled her eyes when she thought about being here in the first place.
This was Charlie's idea of Father/Daughter summer visitation time but it had always been like this with him.
He was a man set in his ways and would never change, she was convinced.
She shrugged mentally as she walked along the path.
She may as well get used to his ways because she had pretty much made up her mind that she was moving in with him come the fall.
Her mother needed time with Phil, her new baseball playing husband, and she couldn't spend time with him if she had to stay home because her daughter was there.
So Bella had decided to eliminate that obstacle by moving in with Charlie until she could finally graduate next year and leave for college.
Coming out of her thoughts, she looked at her surroundings.
Giant redwood trees dominated the landscape.
It was really beautiful if you were into those sorts of things, but if she were to be honest, she preferred the dry desert landscape she was used to in Arizona.
She continued on down the trail but the further she went, the more she felt that she was being followed. She stopped and listened but there was nothing that she could place as being out of the ordinary, so she continued on.
She spotted a beautiful bird at one point and twisted around to follow it's slow flight.
In doing so though, her foot caught in some roots and didn't twist with her and she fell with a gasp of pain, clutching her ankle.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes at herself.
God, would this vacation never end?
And what made Charlie think that anything nature related was a good idea for her?
She froze as she heard the sharp crack of a good sized twig snapping very close by, her heart picking up speed.
Jesus, what now? It would be just her luck to wind up as lunch plus snacks for some hairy creature.
She scoffed at her cynicism.
"Come on out, you may as well. Have a bite and save the rest for later." She mumbled away in her sarcasm and anger at the situation.
Little did she know, there was someone listening very carefully and he was very intrigued by this pretty girl.
He had never felt these strange feelings in the pit of his stomach and he wasn't sure what to make of things. They were strange yet they made him feel good too and he wanted to get closer to her.
He inched his way to her carefully so as not to scare her.
He knew that he scared most of the people he approached, but then again, most people that he approached….no, make that all people that he approached wound up as his dinner.
Or at least their blood did.
But he found that he didn't want that to happen to this girl. He wanted to talk to her.
And so he kept going until he was standing just feet from her, partially hidden by a tree.
He hesitated for it had been a very long time since he had spoken to anyone.
He felt his heart clench as he remembered the day those people had caught and taken his brother from him. He had been very small, but he listened to his brother and hadn't interfered.
They had agreed that if one of them was ever caught, that the other would remain hidden, and go on living their life.
He did that. But he missed his brother terribly. And he was terribly lonely. So he moved from his hiding place and spoke quietly.
"Hello."
She gasped and spun in his direction from where she sat, eyes wide with fright.
"Who are you? Where did you come from? Are you camping around here?"
Bella studied the teen boy carefully.
He looked to be around her age and his clothes were sort of ill fitting and a bit dirty but under all that, he was breathtaking, with grass green eyes and the blondest hair she'd ever seen, long and unkept as it was.
He looked down shyly and then back up at her, wringing his hands together a bit nervously.
"Well, my brother always just called me brother and that's what I called him too."
He shrugged. "That's all I know."
He cocked his head and looked at her ankle that she was rubbing. "Are you hurt?"
She nodded. "I twisted it on some roots. I should have known better than to go walking out here alone, but I was bored in the camp and I hate to fish, so….." She trailed off with a shrug.
She studied his mannerisms a little more and decided to offer him a seat so they could talk.
Patting the ground near her she smiled.
"Want to sit a while and keep me company? I'm sure my Dad will come looking for me soon, but until then I'd rather not be alone."
Crouching down, he moved cautiously to where she had patted and sat, returning her smile with a shy one of his own.
"Okay. I'll keep you company until I hear your Dad. Then I have to leave."
She grinned at him. "It's a deal."
She stuck her hand out to shake and he looked at it strangely then back at her.
She wiggled it a bit. "Come on, don't leave me hanging. You shake hands on deals and we made one."
Reaching out carefully, he took her hand and they both felt a pleasant surge at the contact.
He gasped and so did she as she gave his hand a small shake and let go.
She watched him as he gazed at his hand for just a moment, a look of wonder on his face before the most beautiful smile bloomed in it's place and he met her eyes.
Her breath hitched and she was sure that no one else on this earth would ever match his innate beauty, dirt and all.
They spoke for almost two hours about nothing at all really, neither going into details on their lives, just simply speaking until he cocked his head and told her that her Dad was on his way down the trail and that he had to leave.
She turned to look up the trail to see if she could see Charlie and when she turned back he was simply gone.
She felt a deep sense of loss then that she couldn't explain.
Shaking her head at the ridiculousness of feeling such things after one afternoon together, she pushed the feeling down deep, telling herself to forget about the strange green eyed blond boy in the woods.
She wouldn't see him again for the rest of her time there.
Carlisle moved into the room to face his son.
"Jasper, this behavior has to stop. You're using these women for your base pleasure and it's not a proper way to treat them, nor is it respectful to yourself."
Jasper plastered a supremely arrogant smirk on his face and answered.
"I don't hear them complaining and as far as respecting myself goes, I respect the hell outta myself. It took practice to reach my level of mastery, but reach it I have. You can ask anyone I've been with."
He watched anger flare in Carlisle's eyes with not a little bit of satisfaction. He found needling the vampire to be a very fun sport indeed, especially since he interrupted his real fun.
"You are out of control. I don't know why Caius has let you get to the point that you have but it stops now. I will be calling for a meeting with the Kings to speak about your deplorable actions and any possible resolutions, you can be sure."
Jasper jumped up from the couch and got right in Carlisle's face.
"What gives you the right to think that you have any say in my life? Because you don't! Caius is my Father in every way that matters! He always will be! I love him as my Father and he has raised me well! Better than you ever would have! At least he never laid a hand on me!"
Sighing, Carlisle turned his head away and nodded.
"So we come to the crux of the matter at last. You still hate me for spanking you one time?"
He looked back into his son's supremely hostile eyes.
"I am certain it would have been the first of many had I stayed. Can you really deny that? Never mind, because I know that you can't, despite what you may say today. If you're willing to beat me once, you're willing to do it again. But I'm here to tell you that you'll never lay another hand on me nor will you have a say in my life. My FATHER will see to that. He has promised me and he always keeps his word."
Carlisle nodded, head down and hands on his hips.
He looked up locking his gaze with his son's grassy green one.
"We'll see son."
With that, he took his leave, heading straight to the royal wing. It was past time to speak to the Kings.
He found them in the Royal common room, located just outside their private studies. He knocked lightly after having been announced by their receptionist.
It was Aro that bid him entry.
"Ah Carlisle, what can we do for you this morning? Is everything alright? You look out of sorts if you don't mind my saying."
Carlisle approached a chair and gestured to it. "May I?"
"Oh my, where are my manners this morning? Yes, of course, please be seated! Now, what can I do for you?"
Carlisle looked around at each of them and noticed that Caius was watching him closely, a knowing look in his red eyes.
"I am here to discuss Jasper. He is out of control and promiscuous beyond reason. This morning, I found him in the guards common room in the act of coupling with Tanya of the Denali coven.
And yesterday, when we arrived, he was very obviously coupling with the receptionist Giana in her private quarters. We all heard it upon our arrival."
He looked to Aro, who was nodding slowly as he spoke.
"It is most shameful and he must be brought to heel. He's only seventeen and has obviously been allowed to run rampant."
Caius had heard enough and rose from his chair to loom over Carlisle.
"You know nothing about how my wife and I have raised him and I consider your words a personal insult. He has healthy appetites, yes. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'll admit that he could have better judgement when it comes to discretion, but that is the only problem we have ever had with him in all of the years he's been with us."
Aro decided to step in before Caius really lost his temper and challenged Carlisle to a fight. Things would really get out of hand if that happened.
"Caius, brother, please let us speak about these things civilly."
He gestured to Caius' chair as he met his eyes with a silent plea.
Caius scoffed in disgust while shooting a look of loathing at Carlisle and then took his seat once again, draping himself in it nonchalantly while curling his lip in contempt at the whole situation.
Aro sat forward, addressing Carlisle.
"I assume, since you came to us that you have given this issue some thought."
Upon Carlisle's nod, he continued. "What solutions, if any, do you suggest then?"
"I would like for you to order him to go to Forks with our family until he reaches his legal maturity of eighteen. That will be for just under a year and certainly won't hurt him any."
Before he could say anything else, Caius shot to his feet once again.
"Absolutely not! I promised him when he first came here that he would never be made to return to your family and I mean to keep that promise. I will not break my word to him. He would never trust me again if I did and I love him too much to do that to him or to see him forced into a situation that he does not want."
He turned and pinned Carlisle with an icy red gaze.
"You tried forcing him nine years ago and look what happened then? It was quite the success wasn't it?"
Retaking his seat, he waited for someone else to speak. Aro took the initiative.
"Caius, I have been trying to address his promiscuity and lack of discretion with you for some time now. I know you don't want to see it, but it has become a problem brother. I don't mind that he engages regularly in the carnal pleasures, but he must learn to curb himself when it comes to proper decorum. It's almost as though he's proud of his conquests and doesn't mind flaunting them in the least."
He eyed Caius, waiting for his reaction and sighed when it came in the form of a wicked smirk.
"I see your point about his lack of discretion and I'm willing to strongly stress our displeasure with his choices of location, but otherwise I don't see why he shouldn't be proud of his conquests as you phrased it. He's a virile male, just entering a prime time of his life. And it isn't as though his partners aren't willing. They seek him out, not the other way around. There is nothing wrong with any of that. No, I am willing to address the only thing identified as a problem, but that is all. I refuse to have him ordered to go anywhere. He is my son. He is a Prince of Volterra. This is his home and this is where he shall stay unless he chooses otherwise."
Bella sighed as she slapped yet another mosquito. She was going to be eaten alive at this rate. Digging around in the supply bag that Charlie had brought, she called out to him.
"Dad, where's the bug repellent? Is it in the bag? Because if it is, I can't find it!"
She jumped as he answered, just behind her.
"It's right here Bells."
She spun around with her hand over her speeding heart.
"Don't do that! You nearly gave me a heart attack. Warn a girl before sneaking up."
Charlie rolled his eyes and tossed her the can, just before remembering what a lousy catch she is.
Sure enough, she caught it. With her forehead, as she dove for it.
"Oh god Bells, sorry about that honey. I forgot you can't catch worth crap."
She just nodded as she rubbed the red mark.
"It's okay. I'm pretty used to it."
She held up the can and waggled it with a small smile. "Thanks."
Charlie merely nodded and headed back out to the boat for more fishing.
After spraying herself liberally with the repellent, she decided to take a walk in the woods. It was better than hanging around the camp.
She rolled her eyes when she thought about being here in the first place.
This was Charlie's idea of Father/Daughter summer visitation time but it had always been like this with him.
He was a man set in his ways and would never change, she was convinced.
She shrugged mentally as she walked along the path.
She may as well get used to his ways because she had pretty much made up her mind that she was moving in with him come the fall.
Her mother needed time with Phil, her new baseball playing husband, and she couldn't spend time with him if she had to stay home because her daughter was there.
So Bella had decided to eliminate that obstacle by moving in with Charlie until she could finally graduate next year and leave for college.
Coming out of her thoughts, she looked at her surroundings.
Giant redwood trees dominated the landscape.
It was really beautiful if you were into those sorts of things, but if she were to be honest, she preferred the dry desert landscape she was used to in Arizona.
She continued on down the trail but the further she went, the more she felt that she was being followed. She stopped and listened but there was nothing that she could place as being out of the ordinary, so she continued on.
She spotted a beautiful bird at one point and twisted around to follow it's slow flight.
In doing so though, her foot caught in some roots and didn't twist with her and she fell with a gasp of pain, clutching her ankle.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes at herself.
God, would this vacation never end?
And what made Charlie think that anything nature related was a good idea for her?
She froze as she heard the sharp crack of a good sized twig snapping very close by, her heart picking up speed.
Jesus, what now? It would be just her luck to wind up as lunch plus snacks for some hairy creature.
She scoffed at her cynicism.
"Come on out, you may as well. Have a bite and save the rest for later." She mumbled away in her sarcasm and anger at the situation.
Little did she know, there was someone listening very carefully and he was very intrigued by this pretty girl.
He had never felt these strange feelings in the pit of his stomach and he wasn't sure what to make of things. They were strange yet they made him feel good too and he wanted to get closer to her.
He inched his way to her carefully so as not to scare her.
He knew that he scared most of the people he approached, but then again, most people that he approached….no, make that all people that he approached wound up as his dinner.
Or at least their blood did.
But he found that he didn't want that to happen to this girl. He wanted to talk to her.
And so he kept going until he was standing just feet from her, partially hidden by a tree.
He hesitated for it had been a very long time since he had spoken to anyone.
He felt his heart clench as he remembered the day those people had caught and taken his brother from him. He had been very small, but he listened to his brother and hadn't interfered.
They had agreed that if one of them was ever caught, that the other would remain hidden, and go on living their life.
He did that. But he missed his brother terribly. And he was terribly lonely. So he moved from his hiding place and spoke quietly.
"Hello."
She gasped and spun in his direction from where she sat, eyes wide with fright.
"Who are you? Where did you come from? Are you camping around here?"
Bella studied the teen boy carefully.
He looked to be around her age and his clothes were sort of ill fitting and a bit dirty but under all that, he was breathtaking, with grass green eyes and the blondest hair she'd ever seen, long and unkept as it was.
He looked down shyly and then back up at her, wringing his hands together a bit nervously.
"Well, my brother always just called me brother and that's what I called him too."
He shrugged. "That's all I know."
He cocked his head and looked at her ankle that she was rubbing. "Are you hurt?"
She nodded. "I twisted it on some roots. I should have known better than to go walking out here alone, but I was bored in the camp and I hate to fish, so….." She trailed off with a shrug.
She studied his mannerisms a little more and decided to offer him a seat so they could talk.
Patting the ground near her she smiled.
"Want to sit a while and keep me company? I'm sure my Dad will come looking for me soon, but until then I'd rather not be alone."
Crouching down, he moved cautiously to where she had patted and sat, returning her smile with a shy one of his own.
"Okay. I'll keep you company until I hear your Dad. Then I have to leave."
She grinned at him. "It's a deal."
She stuck her hand out to shake and he looked at it strangely then back at her.
She wiggled it a bit. "Come on, don't leave me hanging. You shake hands on deals and we made one."
Reaching out carefully, he took her hand and they both felt a pleasant surge at the contact.
He gasped and so did she as she gave his hand a small shake and let go.
She watched him as he gazed at his hand for just a moment, a look of wonder on his face before the most beautiful smile bloomed in it's place and he met her eyes.
Her breath hitched and she was sure that no one else on this earth would ever match his innate beauty, dirt and all.
They spoke for almost two hours about nothing at all really, neither going into details on their lives, just simply speaking until he cocked his head and told her that her Dad was on his way down the trail and that he had to leave.
She turned to look up the trail to see if she could see Charlie and when she turned back he was simply gone.
She felt a deep sense of loss then that she couldn't explain.
Shaking her head at the ridiculousness of feeling such things after one afternoon together, she pushed the feeling down deep, telling herself to forget about the strange green eyed blond boy in the woods.
She wouldn't see him again for the rest of her time there.
DISCLAIMER: Twilight and its inclusive material is copyright to Stephenie Meyer. Original creation, including but not limited to plot and characters, is copyright to the respective authors of each story. No copyright infringement is intended.