Elisabeth had never felt more alone in her life. She ought to be grateful. She had wealth, class, and prestige, not something easily found in 19th century Austria-Hungary. She was also rather pretty. But she was stuck in an unhappy marriage with a promiscuous man who entertained himself with drinking, opium, and most notoriously of all, other women. Now she was only 21 years old and already had four children.

She had been pressured into this marriage by her overly ambitious mother who was determined to gain a place in society. When the handsome young son of a noble took an eye to her, her mother had been overjoyed, realizing that at last her family might actually account for something in the rough-and-tumble world of Austrian politics. So Elisabeth, only fifteen years old, became the wife of Hans Dieter von Wittelsbach. It had only taken two weeks for young Elisabeth to regret her decision.

Now she sat at her beautiful mahogany desk, penning a long letter to her friend Analiese who lived far away in northern Germany. Elisabeth did not sense someone else entering the room. It was only when an iron grip crushed her shoulder; forcing her to turn around did she become aware of the tall, beautiful, yet sinister, man's presence.

Terrified, Elisabeth stared into the ruby red eyes of the man. He stared back at her without sympathy. Leaning down to her shoulder, he opened his mouth and bit straight through the light fabric covering her skin and pierced her flesh. Pain as she had never known erupted in her upper body. She opened her mouth to scream, but the evil man clamped her mouth shut. Suddenly he grabbed her by the waist, and punching through the glass window and dragged her out into the overcast day. Paralyzed by pain, Elisabeth did nothing.

"Who do you have there?" A male voice asked.

"Some woman I saw in one of those houses over there," another voice answered, presumably that of her attacker.

"So you just picked the first pretty woman you saw, and decided to turn her?" The first voice spoke again, this time rich with amusement, "That is so you, Josef."

"Did you really expect me to hold back, Tobias?" Josef questioned.

"Not really."

The entire time that the two men were conversing with one another, Elisabeth was on the ground, her body wracking with unendurable pain.

Tobias spoke again, "Where did you say you found her?"

"Those big houses over there; I think she's rich," Josef said vaguely.

"Wait." There was suddenly an urgency in Tobias's voice, "You don't mean that large mansion, do you? The one with the columns?"

"Yeah, so what?" Josef questioned.

"You idiot!" Tobias spat, "She's a noble! Everyone will notice if she disappears! I can't believe you did this!"

"How was I supposed to know she was royalty or something?" Josef barked back at Tobias, "They don't exactly advertise that!"

Tobias spoke hesitantly now, "We have to get rid of her somehow, make it look like an accident."

"There's no time for that now, when it's discovered that she's missing, the Volturi will surely hear of it—and it will be our necks. I know what we have to do," Josef said flatly.

"What—what are you doing?" Tobias looked on in horror as he saw Josef rip off the sleeve and shoulder of Elisabeth's dress, both men ignoring her screeches of pain and protest.

"Maybe we can still get the poison out," With a quick, sudden movement, Josef began ripping apart Elisabeth's shoulder where he had bitten her. In a matter of seconds, Elisabeth's white flawless skin was reduced to a meaty, mangled mess, blood spraying everywhere, along with bits of carnage pulled away by Josef's violent rampage.

"It's no use," Tobias choked out, his throat burning from thirst, "Let's just get out of here before Aro connects us to this."

"Her?" Josef jerked his head at Elisabeth and the blood covering the surrounding landscape.

Tobias spared Elisabeth one disdainful glance before saying, "With any luck, she'll be dead before the transformation can take place."

And with that the two men fled the gory scene they had created.

Three days later, Elisabeth von Wittelsbach woke up, more alone than she had ever been before in her entire life.