Disclaimer: everything Twilight belongs to Stephany Meyer, I just borrowed her characters and spun my own story. No copyright infringement was intended.

Yes, I'm back. It took me longer than anticipated to finish this instalment of the trilogy. As promised it's completely prewritten and will post in weekly increments. Where Twilesque dealt with all things human, Parallax will deal with the vampire world. I hope that everyone will enjoy the labours of my imagination.

Thanks go out to Lorraine Bubbleybear for being my rock, even when the characters stopped talking to me and a couple of imaginary bank directors stopped the flow of the story; needless to say they were unceremoniously hacked from the storyline. The second person who deserves thanks is Chandrakanta for finding time in her busy schedule to weed out my mistakes. The banner of this story was made by Bubbleybear and myself.

Enjoy reading, Pien

PARALLAX

Chapter 1 What is and what was

EPOV

Bella stood at the bow of the boat as an avenging angel, her eyes on the horizon. She looked magnificent. My mind wandered over everything we had done since Italy. We had actually worked apart a lot. She had been busy helping Esme get out of her funk. Our link was a godsend; we could confer even if she was in Forks and I was in Seattle. And we had to do that a lot, because I had been to Seattle a lot. I had to go to manage the money, or so Bella thought. In reality I had been planning our honeymoon. I had bought the island near Malaysia, then I had contracted the build of our accommodations. We needed great accommodations; to power those and everything in it we needed solar panels and wind turbines. I ordered a little harbor on the side of the lagoon, and bought a great motor yacht. Next on the agenda was hiring a local contractor who would build everything I wanted, within my timeframe. I ordered the materials myself, although under an alias with an architectural background.

I found a reputable firm that had fallen on hard times; because they absolutely refused to interact with corrupt government employees, their building licenses didn't come through. They had enough clout still to have access to manual laborers who could tackle this super green, self sufficient house. I got a nice surprise when he called me back fairly quickly; he had surveyed the island and told me it was, in fact, an atoll, the top rim of a vast caldera: a dormant volcano. He measured the earth's activity, and even though it was a very rough set of data, he advised me not to use solar panels, which he couldn't place out of sight, but a geothermal generator. He could hide such a generator partially in the lagoon, the rest inside a giant rock situated on the shore of the lagoon. I had to stop calling the lagoon that; it was the caldera of our volcano.

While I travelled to and from Seattle, Bella tried to clear up the frozen atmosphere in the house. We conferred regularly, but finally Bella decided to plant one of the subliminal messages. During the crisis week we stayed at the tree house; one night we were cuddling on the couch while watching a movie when my cell phone rang. It was the standard ringtone; a look at the screen showed a foreign number. I answered hesitantly.

"Edward, how nice to get you right away, can we talk freely?"

It was Marcus. I felt Bella kicking my power into high gear, and I quickly listened out for any creature with enhanced hearing capability. With my power on steroids, my range was a little short of ten miles. Bella had hopped up from the couch and activated the dispersion field she had bought at theairport. Any listening device inside the field could not be activated or scrambled. Thus assured of our privacy, we settled side by side on the couch and told Marcus to continue.

"Well, I call because of the vampire royalty book Bella found for me. Also because of the evidence you recorded from Aro's mind. As you might have concluded, I am the official vampire king. I should say one of the vampire royal council. Sadly, I never got every detail on vampire royalty. My sire was destroyed before he could instruct me on the facts. I knew I was royalty, and as such changed with the motive to ensure that the royal line was upheld. At the time of my change a large rebellion had moved in and was trying to destroy all royals. When I was sure I could control myself, I went home and turned my brother. Caius had been five years my junior when I was changed; he had taken over taking care of my human family. I instructed my wife in all the knowledge I had on vampire royalty, and told her to tell only my eldest child when he reached adulthood. I wanted the knowledge of vampire royalty to live on in my line. But only the most direct branch, vowing them to total secrecy. After all I had to make sure the secret was kept safe.

"If anything, I needed a fellow royal I could trust. The vampire world was in a civil war, several royal lines fighting each other, destroying as many out of each line as possible. Caius and I went into hiding until it fizzled out. It fizzled out because nobody knew what the fight was about anymore. By that time every ancient had been destroyed, and the rest of the vampire world simply didn't have the knowledge about the leaders of their world. Then we made ourselves known and drove out the impostors trying to usurp all power. From then on we ruled together. Didyme joined the council when we mated; we discovered she's of one of the royal branches. I always thought that made our mating extra special, but we never researched it.

"Okay, now I read the book, which, by the way, isn't from the thirteenth century, it's from about a ninth, almost tenth. I say that because there is a large genealogical tree in it which stops around that date. Diverting, sorry, I know a lot more about the Vampire Royal Tree now. The most important fact in it is that the royal line only runs through firstborns. Only when the firstborn is vampirized before he or she has a human family of their own will the second born take over the line. The direct family is still royal, but their offspring are not. If the main line in a family is lost, because there are no siblings when the royal dies, and he or she has no family of their own, then the line is followed back up until the last generation where multiple siblings were there and then the second born line will take over.

"As you see, Royal Vampire genealogy is desperately complicated, and I'll need help to construct every line in a millennium old family tree. But the most important thing is that I now have proof that Aro, even though he is from a royal line, can't ever be the ruler of our kind. He was a third born. And he can only make a claim if both the first and second born of a branch have been vampirized or have died. His eldest sister was Didyme; she was vampirized before she had a family of her own. But his second elder sister was not; she lived a long and happy live, with seven children who survived. Thus removing his royal status when she died."

"Marcus, that's a lot to take in over the phone, and you're right, it makes for a lot of work if all chronicling of the Royal branches has stopped around 1000 AD," Bella told Marcus.

"And even if this is all very interesting, right now, I'm sorry, Marcus; I have to sort out my coven first. Bella and I are now able to enter the subconscious mind. I must say that it's a little too chaotic for me, but Bella thrives there. She was able to sabotage some signs there, signs which seemed to be some kind of subliminal message to whoever's mind we were in. She can easily overwrite them with more positive messages, but it made it crystal clear that somebody is trying to sabotage this gathering of vampires as a coven, and stimulating the family with me and Bella as subservient members."

"I see, you're right, that must take precedence over a possibly long search for a reincarnation. But I'm adamant that, at least, you two will be active members of my search team. We don't want any questions of loyalty. I just wanted to keep you apprised of my research."

"Please keep doing that. Some of our coven will be an excellent help in the research department. My mind goes to Carlisle and Jasper especially. We can't, however, give you any idea yet who will help you, besides ourselves. Bella and I need complete solitude to go over all information we gathered, and work out a plan. Do you have a way we can contact you without blowing your cover? I mean, we might need your help deciphering any of Aro's memories."

"Of course, dear boy, you and your exquisite mate can count on me. You can text me on this number; the phone is always off unless I'm here, in my sanctuary. It actually never leaves here. I've made it a habit to take a walk every day; Aro scoffs about it, but accepts my idiosyncrasies. I take them to feel close to Didyme, at least that's the cock and bull I've fed him. It's partly true of course; I definitely come here to feel closer to her. I just don't take walks to do so. Ah, well, I truly took walks for a few centuries, just until Aro got bored sending guards loyal to him after me. As soon as he left me to my walks, I started construction on this place. That took me another few centuries. The knowledge gathered here took the rest of the time, and is ongoing.

"To get back to contacting me, text this phone. I'll check it every day; that means I'll call you back within a maximum of twenty hours. Mostly I'm here during the nights. As you can understand, daytime walks are out of the question in sunny Italy. Call me at night and you'll probably reach me immediately. If you have total privacy with the advantage of technology we can even make it a conference video call.

"I've got to go. Demetri just texted me on my official phone; some deviants from the south of your country have been brought in to be judged. My presence is required. I wish you both a lot of luck rooting out the nasties of your coven. Speak to you soon. Goodnight."

"Have a good day, Marcus, we'll speak soon." We spoke in unison. The phone-call ended with Marcus' delighted laughter about our obvious link.

"Edward, I somehow have the feeling that Marcus is lonely. Every chance he gets he talks our ears off."

I chuckled and nodded. The rest of the night we passed in each other's arms, softly kissing and talking. We made provisional plans, but ultimately we decided to wait for everything to pass. The human trials and Christmas were all too close to execute even the smallest plan to clean up the workings of the coven.

Firstly, Christmas passed with an appropriate blow up from Alice; for being surprised at her gag gifts, mostly. It seemed everybody had commissioned Bella to buy Alice's gifts, thus thwarting her power completely. We had a very nice night after she stormed out insulted. Bella completely blew me away with her personal gift for me. I was so incredibly grateful for the promise we both made: to stay out of each other's surprise area in our minds. Her reaction to La Bella Isla was satisfactory as well. Of course she thought I had gone overboard, but she never voiced it. She had had the same initial idea: give us the freedom to be ourselves. I build us a private sanctuary; she gave us the world to explore. The best was her follow up gift to us both. Her own motorcycle with trailer.

I noticed a trend in her gifts; she subtly pushed me toward a new image. Every gift had the same theme: steampunk. Her comment was that I embodied steampunk: old hardware with new function. I didn't object, because each and every item she got me was utterly beautiful. I liked them a lot.

We had a few very nice days, while we were waiting on the trials, driving the southwestern loop. We started in Olympia and went as far south as San Francisco, as far east as Salt Lake City, then returned back to Washington. For humans it would have taken more than a week. We planned it right, and drove the long boring highway bits during the nights. It freed up a lot of time, so we could take our time on the loops near Springfield and Salt Lake City. The freedom that traveling on the bikes gave us was exhilarating, especially the nighttime drives. I drove circles around Bella, really putting the sports bike through its paces. Bella refused to race me as she said her bike was made for touring, plus she had the trailer. The sunny days we had around Salt Lake didn't give us any problems as Bella had taken great care in choosing our biking gear; not a piece of skin was on display. Sadly we had to hurry back after Salt Lake because we got a call about the trials, and we were expected to testify two days later.

After those animals were all convicted, which was very satisfying, we decided to leave the family to stew about the future and go on our honeymoon. And that's where we were now, closing in fast to our very own piece of paradise, or so I hoped. My eternal home stood magnificently at the bow, suddenly bouncing on the balls of her feet; a glance in the distance showed me the outline of our paradise looming on the horizon. I knew the course I had to take to safely maneuver the ship into the natural harbor, both for the safety of the ship, as well as the coral reef surrounding the atoll. The island grew bigger and bigger, and I veered to the left, following the instructions the contractor had sent me. Although the lagoon looked completely closed off, on the left side it had an opening big enough for this ship. Because of all the water movement through that channel it had become a natural shipping lane.

Because I knew what to look for, I could now see our house glint between the trees. But if you didn't know you wouldn't see it at all until you're docked in the lagoon. Everything looked completely pristine, uninhabited. Bella's excitement was palpable, but her demeanor had gone through a subtle change while she was looking over the ocean. It looked like she had truly stepped into the supernatural world, although I didn't know if that was the case as she had closed the mental part of the link, which was her way of telling me that she needed a bit of privacy. We needed to be careful and take our time alone when we needed it. Constantly being in each other's minds was great, but everybody needs time to themselves to reflect. Bella had made me aware of that fact, and I understood completely. We agreed that if one of us closed the link, the other would only break through in an emergency.

While I was admiring my beautiful mate we had reached the opening in the lagoon and I carefully steered the ship to its dock. Suddenly my mind was flooded with superlatives from Bella; she was flipping through them all, trying to find a word to describe her first impression of our paradise. A second track was cataloguing everything she saw. As usual, her observations were more than astute; she actually saw the camouflaged door in the big rock housing the geothermal generator. I was very impressed at the job the human contractor had done in such a short timeframe; a big bonus would be going his way. If he hadn't sent me pictures of everything he'd done, I wouldn't have spotted the house hiding between the trees. Where the white, coral sand beach was the widest he had planted a thick fringe of adult palm trees against the jungle like forest. They hid the big stainless steel uprights lifting the living quarters of the house into the trees. I designed it like that, to give it the feel of a treehouse. But unlike our sanctuary in Forks, this house had a rather roomy ground floor. It housed a garage for jet skis and quads. But more importantly, it held the quarantine cages for any wildlife imported to the island.

That was the last, and most difficult, endeavor I had undertaken to make this a true self sufficient island for a pair of humanitarian vampires. I managed to acquire breeding rights for several species of big cats; one of my aliases with a conservationist background did, actually. The atoll consisted of the big island and three smaller ones. Each of the smaller ones was big enough for a breeding pair with its immature offspring, half of the offspring would be distributed around the world; because they would grow up without human contact they could be set out in the wild. The other half would be transplanted to the large island, becoming dinner to us eventually. We would have to monitor everything carefully, and visit at least once a year to ship out some of the almost mature kittens, and put the rest on the main island. At the moment we had six cats in quarantine: a pair of Bengal tigers, a pair of black jaguars, and the fastest of cats, a pair of cheetahs. Furthermore the big island, as well as the three smaller ones, were stocked up on prey animals.

The big island now sported a very large herd of Eld's deer, a Thai species comparable with white-tailed deer. The three smaller islands each had a herd of hog deer, another Asian species of deer. All islands were also stocked with monkeys. The contractor had spotted a lot of birds; the islands were probably a beloved resting place in the middle of an ocean crossing. But my proudest acquisition was our dinner during our honeymoon; I didn't want to keep them. A vicious pack of gray wolves, which should have been destroyed, was captured inside a Native American village. They almost succeeded in taking the Chief's young daughter after terrorizing the cattle and pets from the tribe. We had eight wolves to sate our thirst during the honeymoon. The cats were a long term endeavor; none would be drained this time. But all carcasses we left would be dumped at one of the smaller islands. It would be a waste to leave all that meat to rot.

The last thing on the ground floor of our house was the substation of the geothermal generator, the bit that distributed the electrical energy created over the house. Bella still stood frozen on the dock, looking around, trying to find where to go. She walked at a leisurely pace to where the dock jutted out from the beach; there in the sand was a flagstone path to the edge of the jungle, about three-hundred feet to the right of the house. Her curiosity piqued higher still. Slowly turning around she locked her gaze with mine, it was the first time we made eye contact since we boarded our ship. Her excitement crackled through the link, and I became just like her. We were two little kids on the verge of a big adventure. Bella's eyes lit up even more at hearing my assessment. She turned around and sped along the path. I was rooted to the spot, watching her run like a cat along the path, rapidly closing in on the house.

Bella's lithe form disappeared between the trees, which jolted me out of my stupor. As fast as I could I ran after her, wanting to see her with my own eyes when she saw the house for the first time. I caught up with her just as the imposing stainless steel and red wood structure showed through the trees. Bella gasped, her mind categorizing the house as a floating mansion. It took her a while to fully understand the way it was constructed; because the 'legs' were of polished stainless steel, they acted like mirrors and almost disappeared from view, making the living quarters seem to float between the trees. The outside was clad in a red wood, which I knew was harvested from the island, most probably teak, and stood in sharp contrast to the greens and browns of the surrounding jungle.

Suddenly the scent of the cats registered with Bella, her reaction almost feral. I could only just catch her, holding her, invading her mind ruthlessly and planting a stop sign as big as I could think up in her subconscious. Soothing her back to reason, I mentally explained why the cats were there, that they were all endangered cats, breeding pairs who would inhabit the smaller islands, That that their offspring would ultimately help repopulate the dwindling stock in the wild. Bella's eyes grew wide with awe, taking it all in. A smirk appeared when I told her that half of the offspring would be our dinner eventually. That smirk became a full blown grin when I told her about the pack of renegade wolves that would sustain us right now. She flitted into the ground floor garage and gave a quick view around, pointing to the jet skis and quads enthusiastically, but her attention was riveted on the quarantine cages in the back. Her thoughts showed that she didn't want to freak the beautiful animals out, deciding to watch from a safe distance. I agreed; I already had decided to tranquilize them from a distance when we needed to move them to their personal islands.

I watched Bella looking at the cats for about fifteen minutes in complete silence, frozen to her spot. The only movement found was in her face, depicting all her emotions; from tenderness to raw lust.

Again, without any warning, Bella flitted to the stairs in the garage part of the ground floor; I was hot on her heels. We emerged in the living room taking up the entire second floor of the house. A large fireplace dominated the middle of the room, surrounded by comfortable couches and rugs. A grand piano sat facing one of the floor to ceiling windows. Somehow we kept silent, only communicating through the link, but the squeal resonating through our mental space was deafening. It was obvious Bella agreed with my vision of a great house. Diagonally across from where we ascended was another set of stairs, leading us to the third floor. No speed this time, Bella ascended the stairs, touching the walls and trimmings reverently. She came out in the bedroom, dominated by the extra large canopy bed, made out of the same wood as the outside of the house. While the stairs came up to one side of the room, the other three walls each had double doors. The bedroom had no windows, only a big skylight. Bella was skipping around the room, even climbing on and bouncing on the bed. The bedroom made her, once again, ecstatic.

Her spacial feelers noticed the rounded corners of the room; curious, she walked over to the opposite door. Opening it up, she froze on the threshold. Through her eyes I surveyed the bathroom; it was stunning, circular, and full of luxury. Again no windows, but instead a skylight to let the light in. I designed it this way, to make more wall space and to use direct light instead of the subdued light coming through the trees. My mind was assaulted by a very lusty daydream from Bella; this time I welcomed it. From her I welcomed everything I could get. We were making use of all possibilities in the shower, from the cuddling wall to the multiple shower heads. Next we moved to the grand Jacuzzi, utilizing the water jets to great effect. But even as one of her tracks had no trouble in completely distracting me, one of the other tracks worked out the geometrical puzzle of the top floor.

She bolted to the other two rooms, giving the closet a cursory glance to make sure it's circular. She froze again on the threshold of the library. At the moment only a few of the bookcases were filled. I hadn't had time to buy a lot of our favorites, so I went with the top one hundred for each of us. In the middle of the circular room, underneath the skylight, were two of the most comfortable looking chairs I'd ever seen. A quarter of the wall space was fitted out with a large computer-monitor, and an electronic blackboard. Between the reading chairs stood a small table holding a laptop. Bella was scanning the approximately one hundred and fifty books on the shelves, as about half of our top favorites overlapped. Excerpts of several books floated through her mind, just like it did through mine that first day we met.

My concentration drifted from her mind, coming back to my own. I was suddenly acutely aware of my physical state. Bella's daydream had garnered the attention of my body; my jeans were straining to contain my rock hard cock. Every fiber of my body was vibrating at our frequency. I simply had to have her; I had to have her now!

Bella slowly turned away from the books, scanning my body from the toes up. When her gaze fell on my barely contained cock, she licked her lips. She broke the silence between us for the first time in almost a day, taunting me.

"Mmmmhh... Edward, you look positively feral. Now are you going to catch me?"

I was locked in place until she flew out of the room, down the stairs, and into the jungle in a second flat. I tore my clothes off and flew after her. I would catch up with her... I needed her badly; she was MINE.

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Next week we hear from Bella again. Teasers for this story can be found in the FB group Bubbleybear & Pienuniek's Storynook. groups/769231999887800/

Next week we will start with recommendations again. See you then. Pien