Finally! Chapter one of More Than My Own Life. Centered around and OC character I came up with named Caterina, and Demetri. I've always had a soft spot for him...anyways. Read and review! :D

Love,

Angie Anonymous

I can't remember much of my early life. I was blessed with an irregular, disturbingly vivid memory capacity for my species, but that far back is very hazy. Nary a kind word was said to me, but I didn't complain. I had been given a home, when all would have turned me away. What child could object to that?

That's what they called me; 'child'. Rather, in our tongue, it was 'bambina'. It was often used to insult my intelligence, to discourage me, but I knew I was smart. I was smarter than most, it seemed, because they'd kept me around this long. But 'bambina' was all that left their lips when they acknowledged me, however rare that was. For a small while, I'd even thought it was my name. I sometimes wished it was, because the Wives sometimes spoke it so delicately, affectionately almost.

But I was not 'bambina' for long. The day I turned seventeen, I became my god-given name; Caterina. God-given, because I didn't remember my parents. Not at all, not even when I tried. My saviors were all I knew, all I wanted to know.

How inhumanly beautiful they were. From the moment they'd plucked me from their doorstep, I'd known exactly what they were. I swept their faces many times over the years with my eyes, I knew ever contour. Every expression. Every infinitesimal move of the muscle; I knew it all.

Aro often said that I was born for the immortal life. How else would I have known to crawl to their doorstep, to keep myself alive long enough for them to finally answer my weakening calls? He saw my memories, vague as they were. Aro was the only one who greeted me with the smallest of smiles, who actually cared enough to talk to me. He'd promised to change me himself, the day I became of age. But when that day finally rolled around -November ninth, 1903- I found out that Aro was a heartless, black liar like his brothers.

It was well known that Marcus' mate, Didyme, had never had the experience of creating a newborn. She was eager to try her hand at it, almost as eager as Aro to see if she could succeed. And, apparently, my life was the life worth throwing away on such far-fetched whims. I was prepared, as I should have been, for the quick dispersing of venom through my veins by Aro. But when Didyme entered my chamber (flanked by Felix and Demetri, no less) instead of the raven haired savior I liked to call 'father' in my own self-conscious, I immediately grew apprehensive, and demanded to see him at once.

"Don't touch me!" I had yelled, "I want to see Aro, now."

Maybe I thought his small stretches of affection toward me upped my status a bit within the coven, but my requests were denied. With Felix and Demetri to hold me down, Didyme delivered her bites painfully slowly, unsure.

The proper way to change another person is to bite the wrists, throat, and ankles to get the venom distributed properly throughout the body. Also, it would help to monitor how much venom be injected; too much could kill, too little could fail. I was close enough to the right amount to be deemed 'vampire', but far enough away to retain my blue eyes. The ability to cry tears. That made me a freak, a nuisance, something to be disposed of.

The pain lasted all of three days. I was very rarely without a guard, -Demetri, mostly, because Felix couldn't stand the shrieking- but I never would have been able to register another life near me.

The fire coursed through my veins. It clawed at my face like a rabid wildcat, coiled in my muscles like a viper ready to strike. I could feel every individual flame lick at my face and every other inch of my skin. It tore at my eyes, and, after a while, I no longer fought to keep them open. I would gladly die a thousand times over, starving and cold on the streets, that go through that agony again.

And then, just like that, it was over.

I was first alerted at the near end of the second day, when the fire began to seep away from my hairline, gradually receding down my face. During the night, it focused only on the points where Didyme had broken my skin.

The third day was, by far, the hardest. My heart was thudding erratically, leaping against my ribs with such force I thought it may break them. It wasn't painful anymore, the thumping no longer sent surges of white-hot venom through my bloodstream, it was merely an uncomfortable sensation. I knew that, in these last few moments of humanity, I would miss my heartbeat.

By the middle of the third day, my poor heart gave one last feverish beat, and lay still.

I lay in the cold silence for a moment, adjusting. There was no pain now, no pulse in my wrists. I gasped as I ran my fingers over the skin of my arm, marveling at the hard smoothness of it. I had only ever had the pleasure of viewing a vampire's skin from afar before, always longed to touch it, and now that it was my own, it was like a drug. My fingers found my face, my cheeks, my nose, my lips, my eyelids. At that touch, my eyes snapped abruptly open.

It was bright at first, but the sunlight from outside the window dimmed considerably as I grew accustomed to my new vision. I could see every grain in the high, stone ceiling, every swath of light cast across the floor. The dust particles seemed to graze over my skin, so pronounced that I cringed away. My hands found my thick, soft curling hair and dug in deep, running all the way down to the ends. I sat up.

Demetri was still positioned in a hard, wooden chair next to my bed. He had been staring fixedly at me the whole time, while I was exploring my new body. Hid ruby eyes were as wide as globes. I glared at him.

"What?" I asked, and when he didn't snap out of it, I grew more concerned, "Demetri? What is it?"

But he was already gone, summoning Aro, Caius, and Marcus with every breath he took.

It took only moments for the brothers to converge around my bed as well. I remember their faces when they saw my eyes, saw the tears streaming down my now pale-white cheeks. Something was wrong with me. "I want to see," I whispered, so restrained it was barely a breath.

Felix pointed to the full length, wooden mirror against the stone wall.

I had swung my legs over the edge of my bed, and stood, swaying slightly with the unfound swiftness of every movement.

The girl in the mirror vaguely resembled me. Her hair fell in gentle, wave-like curls down her back. They were a dark auburn, almost black, lightening at the ends. She had the same full breasts, but she was curvier now, more voluptuous than her human counterpart. Her skin was alabaster white, yet creamy. The same large, blue eyes.

That's what was wrong with me.

The tears spilled over the azure orbs again, blurring my vision even now that it was so sharp, and defined. I turned angrily toward Aro now, a grisly snarl ripping through my throat.

"This is your fault!" I howled, pointing a slender, accusing finger in his agog face. An intrigued smile lit up his waxy skin. "How interesting, how divine!" he trilled, clapping his hands around my still outstretched fist. "We must study this! But first, we must get you fed, my dear Caterina," Aro murmured excitedly to himself, then nodded, and began to pull me down the winding staircase.

The hallways grew steadily darker as we sauntered down more stairs at Aro's elated gate. Suddenly, a large, marble desk came into view.

The beautiful woman before me raised a startled hand to her white bloused chest, over her rapidly beating heart. I could nearly feel it, every beat thudded angrily against my ears, willing me to slice that thin skin…the blood…

I drank in the scent of her, and suddenly recoiled.

It may have been that one, last shred of humanity I had been able to cling to, or maybe it was my nature. The scent of the woman's blood disgusted me.

But maybe it's just her, I thought, attempting to calm myself, Maybe it's just the girl's blood that I am not attracted to.

Yes. That must be it.

But when the scent of more humans, at least five, flooded my nostrils, they were equally as disgusting. With my newfound strength, I wrenched my hand, still balled into a fist, from Aro's grasp. He turned to me, his face excited and incredulous.

"No."

He still stared at me, and Caius let out a hiss. "I am not stalling my dinner to wait for this impotent newborn." His voice cut me like a knife, and I winced.

Aro waved him off, eyes still locked on mine. They swept hungrily over my face as he took my hand again, and dragged me into the room after Caius. I struggled to pull my hand away again, but he wrapped a forceful arm around my waist, too. A snarl tore from my lips as I clawed at him.

"Let me go!"

The five humans were cowering amidst the sea of the Volturi, their eyes wide. A woman rested on her knees, one arm curved around a screaming, squirming bundle, and the other around a small girl and older boy. The mother hugged her children close to her, curving the top of her body over them gently. Her own tears fell down her cheeks and dripped from her jaw, landing on the small one's heads.

The father was standing, one hand on his wife's back, the other shielding the children. He was scowling and yelling for us to get away, to take him and leave his family be. It was too much.

Aro swept forward, his teeth poised for the man's throat.

"NO!"

My hand found Aro's face and shoved him backward, so that I was completely in front of the family. I poised into a crouch, my arms spread wide, fingers curved into angry talons. Aro was still staring at me, his face alight with interest, but as his fingers snapped, my vision was obscured by a thick mass of swirling, black cloaks.

"Stop!" I cried, struggling with all my newborn mite. Several pairs of hands clamped down on my mouth at once, obstructing my nose. I struggled for air, and nearly laughed when I realized that I didn't really need it. So, I instinctively stilled my lungs as tears seared down my cheeks and onto the hands of my captors. They dwindled quickly, each hand falling from my face and arms as I was scooped up by a pair of stone arms, under my knees and across my back. "To her room," a bored voice ordered. And then I was taken from the room so quickly, it dizzied even me.

But the one holding me was too slow to escape before the screaming started. I closed my eyes.

If stone stairs could creak, I was sure these would. Every slow, deliberate step my handler took taunted me, every time I closed my eyes those children's tear-streaked faces paraded themselves past my eye lids. And the baby. It couldn't have been more than a month old at most, but the blood was still so potent. It was easy for me to ignore it, because the scent was not appetizing to me at all, but my throat was in flames. The baby. The girl, and the boy. They were no more than seven and twelve, at the oldest. And the girl had such pretty blonde hair. That family, that poor family, they met their demise in the bowels of hell. The mother and father had to watch their children die, or vice versa…

The door to my bedroom opened and I was set, very gently, on my bed. The door closed, and the man dressed characteristically in a black, satin cloak turned to face me.

Demetri floated silently to sit beside me on the lumpy mattress, his face tortured, but he remained statue-still. I let my blue eyes travel up to his face, and his own eyes were a deep, abyss-black. I choked back a sob.

Demetri hesitantly rested a pale hand on my small shoulder, dwarfing it with his own massive limbs. He was staring at me, an unfathomable emotion in his now dark eyes, one that I had never seen before. The tears fell, unbidden, down my freezing cheeks. And then he pulled me to him, crushing me gently to his chest. "Shh," he soothed as I wailed aloud, and I let myself bury my face in the crook of his neck. My own arms weaved themselves around his midsection, pulling me closer to him.

I don't know how long the two of us sat there, wrapped in each other's arms. Heaven knows I wasn't going to complain, and he made no move to get up and leave me. Eventually, we laid down on our sides against the bed, facing each other, our fingers laced. With my free hand, I began to stroke Demetri's dark, shoulder length hair. He smiled as I did this, and leaned closer into my hand.

"I've been waiting for you to be changed for ten years, Cat," he murmured against my wrist, where he then planted a gentle kiss. I gazed at him, confused. "What do you mean?" I asked, my eyebrows pulling gently together so that they nearly converged at the middle. Demetri chuckled.

"When I first saw you, you were seven years old, begging at our doorstep. I think that I was glad that Aro decided to keep you. Your blood was lovely to me." I winced, and he pulled me closer to him. "But I couldn't bear to kill you, to imagine the rest of my life without seeing your face." Demetri stopped his gravelly, musical voice, to stare into my eyes. He brought his free hand up to memorize the contours of my face with his finger tips. I sighed. "I love you," he breathed, nearly silently, and my eyes snapped open.

Demetri loved me. Me. He loved me. I couldn't help myself but stare into his handsome face, my jaw slightly slack in shock. It felt as if my still heart began to beat again, as I smiled, joy radiating off of every particle of my skin. I leaned forward to press my forehead to his, our lips only centimeters apart. "I love you too," I murmured, and let his lips claim mine.

I was interesting. Or, at least, Aro thought I was. I was kept around for the sole purpose of his test-dummy. He thought my aversion to human blood was a thing to laugh at, it was entertaining to him, but he found me animals to satiate my thirst, nonetheless. I often sat near him, allowing him to gaze at my eyes and study me. I was truly a vampire; freezing cold, strong, pale. But no matter how many animals I drank from, no matter how long I went without feeding, my eye color never varied. It was always the same shade of pale blue. It suited my skin color, but clashed with my dark, auburn hair in a way that made me presentable, beautiful. "Mi meraviglio di te," he would say, "You astonish me." And I would laugh.

I was careful, however, not to let him touch me. My thoughts were private as of late, very private, because Demetri spent almost all of his time with me in the solitude of my room. We had an unwavering, untouchable bond. I loved him and he loved me. We worked hard to protect it, never sharing more than a glance as we passed in the halls; he, going to do his duty to the brothers, and I going to sit with Aro. It grew tedious at times, having to hide ourselves from our peers, but both of us knew the consequences if our relationship got out.

This charade must have continued for little over a century. I was surprised how quickly time passed now; the hundred years felt vaguely like a month in human time. But, I should have known my sudden happiness would be short-lived. Had I not learned?

Deep down, I knew that Aro would no longer find me interesting, after a while. I became old news. He stopped ordering my food, and I was forced to sneak away and hunt for myself in the forests surrounding Volterra, with the help of my still loving Demetri. It felt good to call him mine, because he was, after all. We'd been together for a century now, but hiding the relationship was still key to our survival. I didn't care if Aro no longer acknowledged my existence if Demetri was by my side.

But, as I've said, I became a nuisance. And I was something to be disposed of.

I remember the night vividly, even now. I was at my window, hands folded behind my back, waiting patiently for Demetri to return from patrolling the streets with Felix. I looked up expectantly when my heavy door banged open.

Several pairs of hands snatched me up at once, roughly, around the wrists and ankles. A scream rose in my throat as they hoisted me out of the room and down the stairs. It hit the stone walls and reverberated back to our ears, making even me cringe. I let hit fall from my lips, as angry tears sprang from my eyes, and I snapped violently with my razor teeth at the arms that had formed manacles around my wrists. Anger like none I have ever experienced pulsed through my very being, making me lash out with my nails as well.

Demetri was gliding silently down the hall when we turned the corner. If there had been blood in his body, it would have drained from his face.

"What are you doing?!" he roared, flinging himself against the first guard, a snarl escaping his clenched teeth. But the stone-hard men formed an impenetrable wall around me as they ushered me forward, toward the doors. "Demetri!" I shouted as loud as I could, spotting Aro, Marcus, and Caius lurking silently in one of the many dark crevices. I snarled at them, throwing myself against the shoulders of the guards that held me. "Caterina!" I heard Demetri's terrified wail from somewhere behind me, and I turned.

Three men had him pinned to the floor, their teeth inches from his throat. I screeched, "NO! DEMETRI!, before the heavy steel doors clanged shut roughly in my face.

I stayed seated on the carved stone stairs for the whole night, my arms crossed angrily against my chest, tears falling from my eyes. Demetri's face swam in my vision, eyes both opened and closed. I sobbed against the stone, calling his name against the heavy door. But I knew that he could not hear me. And, whoever could hear me, was pointedly ignoring my voice.

The sun was just beginning to peak over the buildings of Volterra when the door swung open, and a thick piece of parchment floated from a great height to land at my feet. It seemed to be torn from a larger sheet of paper, and I grabbed at it eagerly, my interest sparked. The words were scrawled in Demetri's clean script.

"Find the Cullens. Forks, Washington. I will follow. I love you."

The Cullens? I'd heard many stories about them from Demetri and Aro himself. Not a few days ago, Demetri had finally returned from days of traveling. He told me, in great detail, of the face-off that had happened there between the strange coven -family- and the Volturi.

He had said he'd follow. When?

But even I knew better than to dismiss a direct order from Demetri, even with the hold I had on him.

I had to find these Cullens.

And so, my journey began.