A Sequel One-Shot to Living in Paradise. Elizabeth and Alexandra were raised on a remote island with Izellah as sisters. Now they're all grown up and exploring the world for the first time. One of them is finding love, the other adjusts to life as an immortal and they even find a famous face along the way but what about Eliza? What will she take home after their travels are over?
Please read Living in Paradise before reading this story! It will explain who all the character are.
Elizabeth Cullen
The waves lapped at my feet, I could feel the sand move between my toes as the water carried it away and for a moment I was back home, back on Isle Isabella and I was a toddler again, feeling the sand and water beneath my toes for the first time.
"Eliza!" my sister called, knocking me out of the trance I was in. I opened my eyes and wrapped my scarf back around me giggling when Lexi collided with me in a hug. We weren't on the hot sandy beaches of Isle Isabella where we grew up; we were on the cold, wet, rainy beaches of England. We were travelling the world. We had been to the extreme hot and the extreme cold and now we were in England. There was so much history here that I made sure it was on our bucket list. We had been in London for a week now and were supposed to leave tomorrow but I knew that wasn't going to happen. Not now. "What were you thinking about?" Lexi asked.
"Where is Ella?" I frowned looking around. She was supposed to meet us here around ten minutes ago.
"Where do you think?" Lexi asked with a laugh.
"She's going to get in so much trouble with our family," I laughed with her.
"Well you can't say she wasn't destined for it," Lexi laughed as she pulled out a bottle of blood. I snatched it off her and drank some myself.
"Hey," she laughed and pulled it straight back off me.
"Just because she was named after a princess doesn't mean she can let herself become queen. I think England will start to notice if she doesn't age," I laughed. Since arriving in London over a week ago, my biological great-niece Izellah had found her way into the arms of the Prince. I didn't think of her as my great-niece though, she was my sister just as much as Lexi was. My parents had me much later in their life time than my siblings, my siblings Renesmee and Eddie had already had their children years before I was even born. Renesmee's daughter, Sarah didn't have children when she first married her husband Nahuel, she waited to have children and it just happened to coincide with when my parents decided to have me on Isle Isabella. Izellah was born a few months after me and didn't live far at all. She came to the island a week out of the month to spend time with her grandmother, and my sister, Renesmee. Lexi was adopted just before hand and we were inseparable as children and still inseparable now. I couldn't imagine my life without Ella and Lexi. They were everything to me.
"She can just fake her death. I think it's the most romantic love story ever!" Lexi grinned at me. I rolled my eyes as I watched her drink the blood, my throat was burning because of it.
"Let's go hunting," I groaned.
"I'm fine," she grinned.
"Let's go!" I said again with a laugh and grabbed her hand. She grunted as I pulled her towards the shore line. I was stronger than her, despite her being a vampire, being a moon pool child had its advantages, I had been physically eighteen for ten years now. Lexi had only just been changed little under a year ago and still had some trouble controlling her thirst but Ella and I helped her as much as we could. I tugged her more and it caused her feet to fall under the sand and she fell, we both laughed.
"You're worse than mom. Get up," I laughed.
"Mom isn't clumsy."
"She was when she was human." I told my sister as we headed for the car. "Let's go find our niece too."
"She's with the prince I told you."
"Well she needs to hunt," I said as we reached it, the one thing about where we were in England was there weren't many forests so we couldn't get away with running back to London, we were in Southend almost an hour away from London. I had been missing the feeling of sand beneath my feet so Lexi and I decided to make a trip here. Ella had been MIA for over a day, which wasn't unusual for her. She did it all the time in the cities we stayed at, she appeared after a while. We had arranged to go to the beach three days ago so I was expecting her to show up but since she didn't I thought we would crash her party.
"They won't let us in the castle," Lexi reminded me as I started driving us back to our hotel.
"Who said anything about being let in?" I winked at her. "We're vampires. We don't need to go through the front door."
We reached Buckingham Palace in an hour, luckily there was not much traffic. I parked the car in our hotel though and we walked across, Ella was lucky that the hotel we picked was opposite the palace. Lexi and I made our way to the only spot we could get in without being seen.
"I can't believe we're doing this," Lexi laughed as we climbed one of the many well-trimmed trees. I laughed too and jumped across onto a balcony. Lexi was always the cautious one, always the one thinking of the consequences whereas Ella was the complete opposite, she did what she liked when she liked and didn't care who caught her, she'd just use her ability and they'd do anything for her anyway. I was sort of in between, I loved Ella's attitude about not caring but at the same time I wasn't an idiot like she could be. She had done some pretty dangerous stuff, especially considering she's only a hybrid and not invincible.
"We're so not dressed to be in a palace," she mumbled as she followed me across.
"It's okay, no one will see us," I laughed.
"You hope," she rolled her eyes and I opened the door to the balcony. This was Henry's room; he was the son of the current king Edward IX and first in line to the throne.
"Where is she?" I groaned.
"Have you been here before?" Lexi's eyes widened as I slumped myself down on Henry large bed. I shrugged.
"How do you think I knew which room?"
"Elizabeth Esther Cullen!" she gasped.
"What?" I laughed. "I only know because I had to find Ella the other day. You were out with your boy," I rolled my eyes.
"It isn't what you think," she told me.
"Sure," I laughed. Ella hadn't been the only one off with a boy during our stay in England. Lexi had found a cute British guy who she kept saying was a friend but I wasn't so sure.
We heard laughing in the hall outside and I shot up to hide behind the door. Lexi copied and we waited for Izellah and the prince to walk in, when they did we jumped out on them. Izellah screamed and Henry gasped and pulled Ella behind him.
"Aw such a gentleman," I giggled.
"How did you get in here?" his eyes widened and closed the door.
"Oh my god you're not allowed to do that!" Ella sighed and came out from behind Henry.
"I wish we'd got that on camera," Lexi laughed. I laughed with her and Ella folded her arms, not looking impressed.
"Come on snow we're going out to eat," I said looping my arm with hers. "We're thirsty," I said making eye contact with her so she knew what I meant. Her eyes were locked on mine and I saw her swallow as if she suddenly realised her throat was burning.
"Yep come on ladies," Lexi said and pulled us towards the window.
"You're not going out the window," Henry gasped. "We're three stories up."
"We'll be fine. Don't worry your little prince head," I grinned at him. "Just because you're not allowed to do dangerous things for the future of the monarchy, we are."
"Ella," Henry frowned at her. She walked over to him and kissed him lightly.
"I'll be fine," she said as if she was implying something.
"He knows?!" Lexi glared. Both Henry and Ella looked at her guiltily.
"You told him?" I asked.
"I love him," she shrugged.
"Oh my god," I laughed.
"I don't care what she is," He mentioned.
"Wait until our family hears about this," I giggled infectiously. "Izellah Bianca Neve in love with the future king of England who is perfectly aware that her favourite snack is blue steak."
"What's wrong with that?" Ella frowned.
"Do you want her to become queen when you're king?" I asked him. Henry looked shocked.
"I don't know, I haven't really thought about it," he frowned. "I don't want my duties or life to change Ella," he frowned.
"Oh trust me she'd love it. You know what her name means right?" Lexi asked.
"Yeah," he said with a smile to Ella.
"Come on we need to talk," I said and grabbed Ella's arm.
"Hey," she moaned and reached to kiss Henry one last time before we dragged her to the window.
"Ella!" he screamed just as we landed below with a laugh. We looked up to see him watching us. I literally saw the relief in his face when he realised we were okay.
We took off for the edge of the city, laughing as we spoke.
"I'm not sure who is going to kill you but someone is going to disapprove of this," Lexi laughed.
"Royalty in the vampire world and royalty in the human world, Cullen's sure get around don't they?" I giggled.
"Maybe you should marry their son Lexi, and then it can just keep going," I laughed.
"Ew no. Why me? Why not you?" Lexi asked.
"That would be incest, you however it won't be," I reminded her since Lexi was adopted.
"That's true but I'm still not marrying their son." She laughed as we continued to find our way out of the city.
It took us over an hour of moving at human pace to get out of the dense city, then we still had more city to get through but we could run now without getting too much attention.
By the time we got out in the open all we had was mostly deer, there were no mountain lions or exotic animals here to drink from. It beat pig's blood from a bottle any day though. I had been brought up on bottled blood but not the stuff we had to drink here; my parents would bring me back wolf, fox or jaguar.
"Are you okay Lexi?" I asked her, she was breathing deeply despite the fact she didn't need to. She nodded.
"I can smell human scents, im just trying to… separate them," she said, I could smell them too, all around the woods but they were distant, like they had been gone a while. I went over to her and wrapped my arm around her back.
"You're doing great," I told her, resting my forehead on her temple, she smiled but kept her eyes tightly closed.
"Eliza, Lexi," I heard Ella hiss as she dropped a deer. Lexi and I were in a different area of the woods but I could hear clearly what she was doing. Lexi and I immediately stood up from our moment and found Ella. Ella was pointing at something and I realised it was someone in the woods. They weren't human though. Their scent was nothing like I had ever smelt before, it was sickly sweet.
"Hey!" I called out. "Who are you?" I asked. I knew to always announce our surname to fellow vampires. The Cullen's were famous now, beyond famous, everyone knew them and everyone knew they controlled the Volturi. Our name protected us, because of this purpose Ella had started to use the surname Cullen too, this was also so we could all pass as sisters on our travels.
The girl came into view, she had hair just past her shoulders, and it was light brown and fine. Her eyes were brown and familiar and I knew she was a hybrid.
"Hello," the girl smiled at us. She wasn't scared of us, she was enthralled.
"Who are you?" I asked. I was always the 'mouth' of the group. I matured the fastest and fell into the leader role early on. When we explored the island together I knew it the best so I could take them places, and that role just kept with me after we left Brazil. The girl smirked at me, as if she was hiding some big secret.
"I think we have a few things in common," she said to us as she came closer.
"Like what?" I asked her, still cautious of who she was.
"Esther." She said the name with pure devotion. I raised my eyebrows.
"How do you know Esther?" I asked. She laughed; it was an obvious laugh, like I was saying a stupid question.
"Shes my grandmother" she answered. I studied the girl to see if I could find any signs of Esther in her face, mannerisms or physique.
"Oh my god!" Lexi gasped. I caught onto it just as Lexi did. Yes I could see Esther in her, I knew who she was. I also saw Lidiya in her, and Matthew, and Zio and Chantelle.
"What?" Ella asked.
"You're her," Lexi smiled.
"My name is Allesandra Sophia Cullen, I am pleased to make your acquaintance," she giggled wistfully.
"Allesandra?" I asked, I almost felt star struck. The entire family had heard of her resurrection ten years ago but I had yet to meet her or see pictures of her grown up. She smiled at me. "You look a lot like Nessie so I assume you're Elizabeth, you must be the mermaid and you're the same as me, a Luna Bambini hybrid," she said as she looked between us all, she stopped on Izellah.
"Wow," Lexi mumbled in awe, "sorry I thought you'd still be a child, of course you're not," she laughed, Allesandra smiled at her like a teacher would smile politely at a student.
"I'm older than you by seventy years," she winked. "But yeah I grew up," she laughed. "Dying didn't make me forever immortal as a seven year old," she said with a grin, she was talking about her death like it was last night's meal. Ordinary.
"So why are you here?" I asked I realised how rude it was but the last thing I was expecting to find in the forests of England was Allesandra Cullen.
"I came back to visit family with Avia," she mentioned. I had heard that the Cullen Volturi were in the process of moving the Volturi to America. It had always been an option and after they brought back Allesandra a decade ago they started to make the plans. Allesandra had wanted to stay in Italy but once she was grown they started to move across. Zio and Chanti had been there for a year but Matthew, Lidiya and their children were still tying things up in Italy as Zio set things up in the US.
"I'm surprised your dad even let you come here, I heard he was protective before you died, I can't imagine what he's like now," Ella mentioned.
"Insanely protective. I didn't come alone, Avia has been in Italy for the past year, and we're best friends. There are also them," she said then pointed at the two men and a woman in the tree line, I hadn't noticed them before. "I'm more immortal now than I've ever been but he still won't let go," she said with a shrug.
"How do you mean?" I asked and Allesandra went over to some fallen wood. She set it alight with only her mind before she put her hand through it and kept it there, not even flinching.
"You don't feel pain?" Lexi asked.
"I don't die, especially not to fire; I can control it and I'm immune. I'm immune to everything. Even my father's ability. Which is why I still remember burning alive when I was seven. Even my grandmother Esther can't get in my head, her powers don't work on me. Nothing does"
"Nothing? Can't you be like… dismembered?" I asked with a frown, I didn't like the thought. She pointed at me and I wasn't sure what she was doing.
"Pull my finger, try and pull it off," she laughed.
"Er no thanks," I said awkwardly. But I did lift my hand, I used my ability to try and throw her backwards but as soon as the tip of her finger touched my hand nothing happened.
"You wouldn't be able to anyway. The strongest vampire in the world couldn't dismember me. I'm invincible, call it penance for dying so young. I'm like my grandmother now, Esther can't be burned or dismembered, neither can I." she said dramatically but she was clearly not impressed by it.
"Isn't that good?" I asked.
"Sure, except my father is still paranoid about losing me. I love him, I do. He is everything to me but sometimes he drives me insane you know?" she asked waving her hand over the growing fire, it went out immediately.
"Yeah I know," I laughed with her. She changed the subject suddenly, I started to realise how abrupt she was, or just had a short attention span and got bored quickly.
"So I hear we share a name?" she smiled at Lexi, Lexi smiled slightly.
"I was told your story as a child and I saw how much it affected our family, I took the name Alexandra to honour you. I never thought you'd come back. You're the Alexandra Cullen not me." She said with a small laugh, Allesandra smiled back.
"Don't worry," she laughed. "I don't go by Alexandra anyway; even my family calls me Allesandra now. My nick name is Alle."
"Oh good," Lexi sighed.
"Besides, I'm touched… thanks," she said and grinned at her. Allesandra had a strange aura of royalty; I got the same feeling around Ella's prince. It was like she was famous and had been her whole life. She was used to it and the feeling of people bowing down to her every need. Well I suppose she was famous now. Word had spread after her resurrection, you can't kill a Cullen. They'll just come back. We were more feared and respected than ever.
"So what do you girls do for fun?" she asked.
"Ella has a boyfriend, Lexi and I have mostly been exploring," I answered her.
"Wanna show me around London? Avia is supposed to be doing it but she's gone to see her sister, she told me to look around whilst she was gone," she asked.
"Sure!" Lexi grinned and Allesandra called over her personal guards. She spoke to them in perfect Italian and they nodded before walking towards the tree line.
"Sorry, they have to come with us," she said with a small regretful smile.
"Don't worry about it. I'm used to people following me," Ella laughed. Allesandra linked her arm with Lexi and Ella's and Lexi linked hers with mine.
"Why do you say that?" she laughed.
"I'm dating the future king of England. He has guards all the time too."
"What does our family say about that? I got specifically told to avoid the royal family," Alle laughed.
"They don't know," I sniggered.
"The Cullen's don't judge, It doesn't matter who we love, they'll always accept them. No matter what," Ella said strongly.
"You hope," Alle giggled. Allesandra had only been with us a few minutes and she already felt like a friend to us, she fitted in well.
"My dad fell in love with a human, my sister fell in love with a wolf, Chantelle fell in love with the son of their worst enemy and Matthew fell in love with Death. I think we can safely say that the Cullen's are extremely accepting," I agreed with Ella, I only teased her about her relationship with the prince; I knew it truly meant something to her.
"See," Ella smiled across at me. "Thanks Beth," she grinned. I rolled my eyes at the name. I rarely got called Beth anymore, it was my childhood name and I didn't mind my family calling me it but publically I was Eliza now. I wanted a new start and a change when we left Isle Isabella. Isle Isabella was extremely special to me and it would always be my home. Leaving was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I knew that island better than anything in this world; I knew every rock, every beach, every animal and every tree. I knew where the animals slept and where the rain fell the hardest. I knew where the sun shone the brightest and where every cave and nest was. It was my home and always would be, it was where I grew up and I loved it. I always wanted to explore the world, see the places my father taught me about, know my distant family members and visit the Volturi but when the day came it was hard for me. Stepping off the boat into the big unknown world scared me, because I didn't want it to change me. I didn't want Beth to become an adult; I didn't want her to lose her innocence or her love for her island so I changed my name. Beth is the island girl, the one that loves feeling the sand beneath her toes and running bare foot up the cliffs, Eliza was a new, curious girl, someone I couldn't wait to be.
"So do you miss home?" she asked us all.
"Not really," Ella laughed, of course she wouldn't. She had Henry now.
"Sometimes," Lexi said but I knew although Lexi loved our island, it reminded her of her previous life, her siblings and her birth father. She was happy to get away from it and explore the world.
"Always," I answered with a small smile. "But I love what we're doing here."
"And what are you doing here?" Allesandra asked.
I thought about that question for a moment to myself.
What had we accomplished since leaving home?
Ella had found love, Lexi had learnt to control her craving for blood but what did I do?
I made memories that would last forever.
This was just a bit of fluff really, I really wanted just to write a small something to show you how much the girls had grown after Living in Paradise and how they had grown into their personalities.
Pictures of the girls grown up plus Prince Henry are on my blog :)
Thanks for reading!
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