PLEASE READ BEFORE BEGINNING STORY!!!!
A/N: This story has been rummaging around my head for quite a while. Before you enjoy this story (and I hope you do enjoy it) there are a few details that I'd like to explain. This universe that Bella is currently residing in is completely made up by me. When I call a certain species "Pagan" I'm not talking about the polytheistic religion practiced by most ancient peoples. I'm talking about yet another thing made up by me. I hopefully explain it well in the story, but if not just click on my profile and their will be a detailed explanation. Thank you for reading and please enjoy.
I've included a table on contents because I've finished writing this story. I'll update regularly when I remember.
Disclaimer: I do not own Bella or Edward or Jasper or Alice or Charlie or Emmett or Rosalie or Esme or Carlisle or anybody else that Stephanie Meyer came up with. But I do own quite a bit of this story so if any of you thieving bastards think to steal any of it I will find you and I will cut you… Have pleasant day.
"I know that is wrong against your bravery. But you are worth more alive than you ever will be dead. And sometimes it is wisest to hide now and fight later rather to stand now and die." – Danielle (From one of my other stories).
Table of Contents
Prologue
All The Stuff That's Important for The Plot
Chapter One
Five (or Sixty) Years Ago
Chapter Two
Time To Let Go
Chapter Three
Allegra Renee Cullen
Chapter Four
Aunts, Uncles, Grandma and Grandpa
Chapter Five
Missing Bella
Chapter Six
Denali Cometh
Chapter Seven
Juice Box Wishes and Cinnamon Roll Dreams
Chapter Eight
The Most Telling
Chapter Nine
The Things We Can't See
Chapter Ten
The Wolf's Call
Chapter Eleven
The Jacobean Era
Chapter Twelve
And the Bad News Abounds
Chapter Thirteen
The Brave Will Take Flight
Chapter Fourteen
Home
Chapter Fifteen
Past Anger, Future Discussions
Chapter Sixteen
Proposals, Both Pleasant and Un
Chapter Seventeen
B.S. = Bull… Sh!
Chapter Eighteen
Bullies and Cowards Make it Worth Our Time
Chapter Nineteen
Nap Time
Epilogue
All Those Things Important for Emotional Satisfaction
You're Perfect
Prologue
All The Stuff That's Important for The Plot
Isabella Swan (a.k.a. Melody Bird) had been asleep for the past three weeks. She would get up every once and awhile to eat or go the bathroom or shower, but she would always end up back in bed for the majority of the day. She would have found this odd if she was conscious long enough to actually wake up.
The truth was that Bella Swan was pregnant. She just didn't know it yet.
Three weeks ago was the sixtieth anniversary of the day Edward Cullen broke up with her. She really should have been over it by then, she was seventy eight after all, but for whatever reason, she still longed for her vampire beau. So, in a fit of stupidity and drunkenness she slept with her partner, knowing that he had two children from previous relationships that he cared nothing for. He was unusually fertile but Bella was drunk, all logical thinking went out the window. She was sad and sleeping with a guy she thought of as a perverted idiot seemed like a great idea.
He was much older than her (by about two thousand years) and looked somewhere between twenty five and thirty. He was a good looking guy and if she hadn't known him so well she probably would have fallen for his charm long before she actually did. Her best friend Hannah had, but that ninety five year old voyeur only got an orgasm out of the encounter. Hannah looked a lot younger than Jon, Bella's partner and father of her unborn child, not only because she was younger then him but because she chose to look younger. The youngest Bella could look was eighteen, because that was how old she was when she became Dien. But for the most part she preferred to look about twenty.
The Dien, a race of immortal, ageless people are damn near impossible to kill and that was good for Bella, because her line of work was dangerous and to be honest dying wasn't in the game plan. The traditional way of being turned into the Dien or any other Pagan specie (for there were many) was through sex. Bella was turned through an ingenious little shot that hurt like hell for about five seconds. After that nothing ever hurt, ever again. Well, physically hurt anyway.
Living a painless life was one of the many perks of being Dien. Being completely toxic was another. Bella's hair, her saliva, her skin, especially her blood was completely and utterly poisonous. Certainly things, like her blood were more toxic than others. Her saliva, for example, was only harmful if ingested in mass quantities.
When she was learning about what it meant to be Dien from the king of Tunisia, her new home land, she had to laugh when she found out about her blood. Her blood, so much sweeter than any other persons' that had caused so much trouble in her past, was now so dangerous it could melt steel. She had used her blood as a weapon on one occasion and the brutal death of her enemy kept her from doing so ever again.
She still had nightmares about the screaming.
For the most part Bella didn't regret her decision to become Dien. James, the king, had made her immortal in the most comfortable way possible. He had even let her stay at his palace while she was training. His beautiful and clumsy wife, LilyAnn, had been a surrogate mother to her and a shoulder to cry on when thoughts of Edward and the life she left behind became too much. She still visited Charlie and Renee regularly, but never stayed long. It was odd being older than your parents and Bella didn't like dwelling on the fact that while sixty years had passed for her, only five had passed for them. One year for each month. (re-read author's note or check out profile if confused)
The reason that Bella had been asleep for the past three weeks was simple. Since Dien can re-grow any limb cut or pulled off, heal any wound no matter how severe and can go months without breathing, years without eating or drinking water, they tended to live very dangerous lives. And why not? They didn't have to worry about healing; it would happen within seconds of being wounded. So why not jump off a cliff, or run into battle without a weapon or armor? It's not like it would hurt.
But Dien women were, for some reason, just as likely to have a miscarriage early on in the pregnancy as any other species. So, when the Dien body figures out that it's pregnant a hormone is released into the brain instructing it to sleep for at least a month. After a month the child has grown the gland necessary to induce immediate healing and the threat of miscarriage has passed.
Bella had one more week of sleeping before this happened, but unfortunately she wasn't going to get that week of rest. Hannah had waited as long as she could for her friend to call her and wish her a happy ninety sixth birthday. The short red head had a key to Bella's home and used it to let herself in. She had no idea Bella was pregnant but she did know what signs to look for. She had graduated with a doctorate in medicine fifty years ago when she fancied herself a doctor. That hadn't panned out quite the way she had planned. Hannah envied Bella for many reasons, but the one thing she envied most was Bella's understanding of herself. Bella knew what she wanted out of life and didn't need to dilly dally around in university to figure it out.
Hannah had met Bella when they were enlisted by the king (turned emperor) to look after his son Harold, the heir to the throne. The little guy had gotten himself in a bit of trouble, by walking off one day when he was only six months old and James decided that he needed two full time nannies/ body guards. Hannah found something of a kindred spirit in Bella and two had been best friends ever since. They had fought side by side during the war and had protected each other's back almost as much as they protected their emperor. Thankfully everything had worked out in their favor.
But it seemed to Hannah that Bella had changed after the war. She didn't want to do her job anymore, and that was an issue. The only reason that James agreed to turn Bella into a Dien was so that she could her job. The only way she could get out of her job was if her life took some sudden unexpected turn.
Like if she got pregnant. Or fell in love.
Nothing was more sacred to the Pagans than love. The only thing that all of the species had in common was the ability to know true love at first sight. Bella didn't think she would ever fall in love and she had done plenty of looking. This little fact was something that scared Bella to no end. She had a hunch that if she looked at Edward, her heart would sing and she would know for certain who her true love was. That scared her because Edward had told her he didn't love her anymore. And even after all these years and telling herself countless times that he didn't really mean it, part of her still believed him.
A less pessimistic part of her mind was influencing the dream she had been having for the past three weeks. It was dream about Edward, but not one that she woke up screaming from. It was a pleasant dream, one in which he climbed through her window at Charlie's house and told her that everything he said when he broke up with her was a lie and that he still loved her and that he would beg for her forgiveness if only she would take him back. It was a nice dream, because it gave her hope. It was also a dream that was getting increasingly steamier as time went on. They were about to race towards home plate when Hannah bound into Bella's room and started jumping on her bed.
"Arghh!" Bella moaned pulling her pillow over her head. "What do you want?!" Hannah stopped jumping and sat down on Bella's legs.
"It was my birthday yesterday and you promised that we'd go a strip club and throw pennies at the naked boys until somebody grew a pair and kicked us out," Hannah said.
Bella pushed the pillow away from her head and glared at the imp like creature currently pinning her legs to the bed. Hannah had long, straight, blood red hair that was completely natural. She dressed her short curvy figure in tight blue jeans and in shirts that were either mildly insulting or blatantly sexual. Written across her black shirt today was "Squeeze Here For Sex" in bold white lettering over both of her ample breasts. Hannah was a lot of things, subtle wasn't one of them.
"You're birthday can't have been yesterday, Hannah," Bella yawned. "It's got to be the 21st or something close to it."
"The 21st of October?"
"No, the 21st of September."
"Bella, it's that 10th of October," Hannah said, looking a little worried and confused. "I haven't heard from you since the 20th of September, if that helps. But then again, you are a terrible friend so I'm not holding it against you or anything," she added lightly.
Bella sat up. "What do you mean it's the 10th of October? It can't be the 10th of October. If it's the 10th of October than that mean I've been sleeping for the past three weeks!"
"Well, I haven't heard from you in three weeks so you probably have been sleeping that long."
"Okay, that doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't I be aware of sleeping for that long?" Bella asked. She was still deathly tired, but fear and the knowledge that Hannah would hit her kept her from falling back to sleep.
"Not if you're pregnant. Big Jane, you know the girl I went to high school with who got knocked up by her no good boyfriend when she was sixteen, fell asleep in the middle of World History and Mr. Pinto had to drive her home because she could stay awake long enough to walk. Anyway I asked her about it and she said that the four weeks she was sleeping for passed with the blink of an eye, she didn't even know she was pregnant until she woke and her mother told her."
Bella stared at Hannah for a long moment, her mind completely blank. Most of what Hannah said was useless plot related details that didn't really pertain to the issue at hand, but a few key words stuck out and made Bella stop and take notice. Like the word pregnant. She knew Jon had kids and that he had had those kids the only two times in his life that he hadn't used protection. And if Bella remembered correctly she had been too drunk to think of using a condom.
"Are you telling me that I'm pregnant?" Bella asked.
"I don't know. But I do know that after a month in bed you start showing. So get out of bed and let's have a look." Hannah got off of Bella's legs and helped her out of bed.
She stumbled over to the full length mirror in her master bathroom and moaned at the image reflected back. It was small, but there was certainly a little bump between her hips that hadn't been there three weeks ago. Bella put her hands over the bump and felt around as gently as she could manage. She couldn't feel anything baby-like and that was a relief. She didn't want to have Jon's child. He was insufferable. She only worked with him when she had to and barely talked to him when she did.
If anything she wanted to have Edward's baby. A little boy with his golden bronze hair and green eyes. She could see that precious little child in her mind's eye and she loved it, even though she knew she could never have it.
"So, who's the daddy?" Hannah asked from the doorway.
"Jon," Bella sighed. "Do you think it's too late to have an abortion?"
"Do you really want one?"
"No, but I don't want to have Jon's baby. You know what he's like. Can you imagine another one of him running around?"
"You really know nothing about Dien biology, do you?" Hannah asked.
"I came here to do a job, when I got here I learned what I had to about my anatomy, trained and then did that job. Learning the biology behind my bodily functions wasn't high on my to-do list," Bella said, sourly. She desperately wanted to go back to bed, she was so tired she'd have curled up on the bathroom's marble floor if it meant she could have a little more sleep.
"That baby is Jon's only in its creation. Here's a little lesson so listen up and don't fall back to sleep, I will hit you." Bella rolled her eyes. "Sixty percent of your body is made up of water, thirty percent is organs and blood and other stuff, the last ten percent is pure, unadulterated magic. Through sheer force of will you can make that baby into someone else's child. Not just in looks but in ability, attitude and sometimes genetics."
"Are you saying that if I wanted, this baby could be Edward's?" Bella asked.
"I'm saying that if you wanted, that baby could be mine," Hannah said.
"This baby could be Edward's right down to its genes?"
"Hell yeah. The magic might only be ten percent of your general make up, but it's damn powerful stuff, especially since you're a pure blooded Dien. There's no Siren or Nymph DNA in you screw with the power level," Hannah said, but Bella wasn't listening. She'd heard what she needed to hear.
All she needed to do now was stay awake long enough to make an educated decision about her future and the future of her baby. Her hand travel back to her baby bump and Bella knew what she was going to do. Edward might not love her, he might be really mad if he ever found out about this baby, hell he might be thrilled, she didn't know. But that didn't change her mind.
Bella wanted her baby to have bronze hair and green eyes. She wanted her baby to be remarkably gifted and smart. She wanted her baby to be Edward's with all her heart. If her baby was Edward's she wouldn't be afraid. Her baby would be wonderful, happy and good.
How could it not be, with such a dazzling father?