Please, if you havent read Young Victoria, go read it first, some things may not make sense if you dont read it first. Just come back here when you've read Young Victoria. We'll still be here! :)
Alright now that that's taken care of lets get to the story! XD
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Chapter one: Denali
My feet touched the ice cold snow banks of Alaska by morning. I didn't know where to start to look for him. I searched for days trying to find his scent. The reason it was so hard to find was that it had changed so much, I had changed.
I saw thousands of men who could have been Laurent but he was the one who found me.
"Victoria?" A man asked from behind me.
I turned to see the same old Laurent from my past life, though something was different. Not the clothes or the hair, for they had changed slightly. It was his eyes. They were a strange shade of orange.
"Laurent?" I asked just to make sure it was him. He grinned at the sound of his name.
"It's been a long time." Laurent looked me over. "You haven't changed a bit."
"I wish I could say the same about you." I laughed along with him. "So I guess you found them, then huh?"
"Yes, and guess what?" Laurent's orange eyes were ablaze with excitement. "I have found my mate."
"Really?" I tried to sound optimistic about this development and tried to hide my discomfort. I was going to try and bring him back with me by taking him up on his previous offer. My conscience moved on to our next strategy about getting more information about the Cullen's.
"I want to tell you all about her." Laurent told me brightly. He grabbed my hand and we raced down to an abandoned ice field. "Her name is Irina and she is absolutely perfect. She lives here with her three sisters and the pair that adopted them. Tanya, her sister is their leader. Then there are her sisters Kate and Carmen, and the only male, Eleazar. There just like the Cullen's, Tanya even calls them her cousins." When he brought up the Cullen's, he sighed. "I guess James…."
"Yea." I tried to swallow. "They killed him."
"I'm so sorry Victoria." Laurent said as he hugged me comfortingly. It was the fist kind on non-violent contact I had experienced since….
"It's alright. He had it coming anyway."
"So how are you holding up?"
"As well as expected." I sighed. I almost let him in on my plan, almost. "So tell me more about Irina!" I said enthusiastically to get him off the subject of him.
"Well, Irina was changed some time in 1000 AD. Her creator was killed by the Volturi."
"For what?"
"She created an immortal child." Laurent whispered. We both knew about the raids the Volturi conducted to destroy the immortal children. "Tanya and the others don't speak of her, it's still too soon."
"Do any of them have special powers?" I asked just to keep him talking.
"Well, Kate can create an electric current around herself, like a defense mechanism. Eleazar can sense powers in other vampires and humans. That's why he was so valuble to the Volturi."
"He was a member of the Volturi?" I thought every one of them were there till death.
"Yea, until he met Carmen." Laurent smiled. "It's an honorary position. All of them are there because they want to be."
"What about the Cullen's?" I tried not to sound greedy in my quest for information.
"I don't know if I should tell you that." Laurent turned away from me.
"Come on Laurent." I laughed. "It's just me, Victoria. I'm not going to do anything stupid, I just want to know more about them."
"Yea, it sounds like it." He stood up and started walking away from me.
"Laurent!" I raced after him and caught his arm. "I'm sorry. It's just, losing… James…" I had to stop for a moment. "I… You're all I have left. Don't take that away from me too."
Laurent sighed. "I'm not running away from you."
"Feel's like it." I murmured. "Was it always like this?"
"Was what always like this?"
"Being around him and me, feeling like the odd man out for so long?" I clarified.
He gave me a short laugh. "Sort of, I guess. But I got used to it." He paused. "You could too. Why don't you come back with me? Tanya would love to have you."
"Thanks but no thanks." I let go of his arm. "I'm sure the Cullen's wouldn't want you hanging around with a revenge obsessed vampire."
"I'm sure they won't mind." He was literally begging me to come back.
"I'm sorry, but I really must be going." I started to back away from him. "My place isn't here. Give Irina my best."
"I'm sorry." I heard him whisper as I fled from him.
"Those filthy leeches have turned him against me!" I growled to no one in particular.
We're better off alone! My conscience consoled me. Who needs men anyway? We can do this all on our own! She was pumping me up and by the end of my long journey from Denali back to Forks she almost had me convinced.
Wait. She cautioned. Something's wrong.
I couldn't see anything out of sorts but something felt off, like I was missing something important.
I went to her house first, it was the best chance of finding her alone, and I could probably fend off Edward if he was by himself with no help from his family.
But he wasn't there. I settled on just listening for the time being. The human had gotten a fairly close look at me all those months ago. Back when everything was sane.
Her father was home, on the phone talking to an old acquaintance. I couldn't hear the girl straight away. When I located her breathing, which was all you could hear. Then I gave up on her and moved to the father.
"Yea Billy." He said. "Maybe you should come up."
"How is Bella doing?" the man on the other line asked.
"Not good." Her father whispered into the receiver. "She won't eat anything, hardly sleeps anymore because of the nightmares. I don't know what to do Billy. Maybe you should bring Jake with you tomorrow, see if he can get something out of her."
"I told you and her both to stay away from the Cullen's, they're bad news Charlie." He didn't know how right he was.
"And I told you not to bring that up anymore." Charlie growled.
Silence.
"I'm sorry." Billy was the first to apologize. "About eight then?"
"Make it six, the pre-game show starts then." Charlie still sounded angry, but trying to repress it.
"Alright, see you then." Billy said and hung up. I made my own plans accordingly.
Charlie grumbled as he slammed the phone back on its hook. There was the sound of his footsteps walking from one room to another.
"That was Billy." He told the human girl.
Silence.
"He and Jake are coming over tomorrow." He said after the uncomfortable silence. "You'll like that. You haven't seen Jake in a while."
Again, silence.
Her father gave up on talking and just turned the TV on. I heard her rise from a chair and walk up the stairs.
What was going on? I climbed the nearest tree trying to find her bedroom, there wasn't much choice. There was only one tree in the front yard that was close enough to reach the house.
I saw her getting into an old pair of sweatpants and a matching t-shirt, with her back to me. She sat down at the desk that an outdated computer sat on and turned the thing on. I'm surprised it even still worked. While she was waiting for it to come on, she started examining the papers on the desk. She kept her head down to her work. I figured she might spot me in the tree, but she would never look up.
She organized the stacks into neat piles, put them in their corresponding text book, and then pilled said books into her orange book bag.
Then she turned to face the monitor, and even in the glow from the computer screen, she looked horrible. Like someone who hadn't slept in days.
The circles under her eyes looked darker than mine, her face looked paler since the last time I saw her, and her eyes were empty, emotionless. I couldn't see there color from this distance but if I didn't know any better, I would swear she was a vampire.
No, something else was wrong. I decided to leave her to her ancient computer and head back to the vampire's house.
Gone. They were all gone. Even the reclusive female that never left the house was no where to be seen.
All their cars were gone. I couldn't even pick up their trail. It had gone cold along time ago.
If they had left, why didn't they take her with them? It made no sense. If he was willing to kill James, then why leave her here defenseless? Especially with me hanging around.
It didn't add up. I tried to understand what would have made them leave. Did someone else find out their secret?
I doubted that. Humans aren't very observant, and their survival instincts told them what their brains couldn't process: we were dangerous.
So what could it be then, and why not take her with them? She was obviously depressed by them not being here. Did they leave a forwarding address?
I decided my best bet to find out information was to go back to the school. In the limited time that I spent with them, Mrs. Cope and Jenny sounded like the town's gossips. I took to the roof and climbed into the air duct again.
"Well, I guess Swan's not coming back either." Mrs. Cope said as she laid papers on her desk. "That's four weeks now. You would think she would get over it, it's just one boy."
"I don't know if that's the case Shelly." Jenny contradicted her. "Did you see the way he acted around her? It was like they were inseparable. But, I guess if your father gets a job in L.A. you have to go."
L.A.? Why would a bunch of vampires go to L.A.?
"I just feel bad for Bella." Shelly sighed. "Her depression is getting out of control. The Chief is even talking about having her committed."
"He wouldn't do that, I'm sure she'll get over this." Jenny didn't sound as confident as her words.
They moved on to more trivial concepts so I crawled back out to the roof.
I decided to go back to her house. It would be easy to wait for her father to be deeply asleep then go and kidnap and kill her. Easy… a little too easy.
I didn't want to just kill her for the fun of it. I wanted him to suffer for what he did to me. I would track him down, bring him back here and make him watch as I tortured and killed his mate. And then, only after his many pleads for death, would I grant his wish.
I suppose, after I'm done with that, I could kill his sister, Alice. I would make James's record clean, no human or vampire would have ever escaped him, even in death.
But what was I going to do after that? There was no point to forever if I had no one to share it with. Laurent was now happy. He wouldn't want me to be hanging around, especially after I kill some of his mate's cousins.
You could go after the others. My conscience suggested.
They never did anything to offend me. I told her. Although, the blonde girl, Rosalie, got in my face that night.
She chuckled and faded away. She had become more cynical since that day as well. She only cared for my happiness now. She didn't care what line's I crossed to get it.
So I was left to my thoughts, they were my only comfort now.
LPOV.
Victoria seemed really upset when she left. I told myself. Maybe I should have gone with her.
"Hey you!" A familiar voice called out to me.
"Irina." I called out to her. Her silver blonde hair was waving gently in the slight breeze.
"Something troubles you my love." She commented after she kissed me.
"No, I'm fine." I assured her.
"Okay." She grabbed my hand. "Let's go hunting!"
I still wasn't getting the hang of this vegetarian style of hunting. I almost resented them for curbing my appetite. There wasn't a day that went by that my throat didn't burn with the thirst that I fought. But I tried to be good enough to deserve someone that Irina could be proud of.
After an hour we decided to quit for the day. It took her the same amount of time to kill two moose that it took me to even kill one.
We took off back to her family's home. It was a two story log cabin, although why vampires needed so much space never stopped amazing me. However, being a nomadic vampire before hand, I guess the whole world was my home, so I had no room to talk.
But I wouldn't trade anything for Irina and her sisters. The only sister I ever had died when I was really young. One night we even traced back our bloodlines, no pun intended.
Tanya had come from Russia, running away from her problems. I almost brought up the time that Victoria, James, and I spent in Russia, but decided against it. I didn't like talking about them, and the other's kindly respected my privacy.
Kate had grown up in the Midwest and 'died' when she went on a trip to Alaska.
Carmen and Eleazar had met each other in Italy and headed to America for no reason, then they met up with Tanya and they never looked back.
Irina was one of the origional sisters. She was a large contributor to the succubus myth in vampire culture. She was almost childlike in her enthusiasim.
I loved my new life here in Denali. There was just one problem though.
"Somone's been cheating again." Kate sang as she looked at my orange eyes.
"Kate, cut him some slack." Irina snapped at her sister. "He's only been going at it for a while now. How many human's did you kill before you fully committed?"
"That's not the same thing." Kate grumbled.
"It's fine Kate." I assured her. "Shame me into being good."
"That's right." Kate went back to reading whatever book she was reading before we came in.
Everyone went back to their own activities. I could hear Tanya and Carmen upstairs wondering what to wear tonight. The girls were all going to some concert tonight while Eleazar and I opted to stay home.
"I will never understand the obsession that some women form over lackluster human males." He muttered when they told us.
Eleazar was a thinker like me, always interested in the world around him, both human and vampiric. He had his own personal room apart from the one he shared with Carmen. His room was stacked to the brim with thousands of book's that he had collected over the years. He let me ransack his collection one day when I was literally bored out of my head. All in all a fairly nice man.
I decided tonight was the best time to try. I couldn't tell them I was leaving, they would make a big production out of it, Irina especially. Eleazar was probably the least concerned with me. Though he was happy to have another man in the house.
I loved what they had here, envied them as well because they had something that took centuries to develop, tolerance. I was kidding myself in thinking I could work with my limitations. As Kate pointed out, I cheated more often than I hunted as it was. And now that Victoria had gone out of her way to talk to me again, something that I hid from them as well, it wouldn't have taken much to convince me to go back with her.
Her trial would still be fresh by the time the girls left. I would just have to bide my time….
I picked up the book that I had started the other day. It was a french novel that for some reason reminded me of home. I turned the pages without really seeing the words.
"Were leaving!" Kate announced. I looked up to seeing her dressed in an old rocker t-shirt, beat up jeans, and black combat boots. Her hair was spiked up with too much hair gell. The others weren't dressed so dramatically. Irina looked at me, wondering if something was wrong. I gave her an easy smile as I went back to my book.
"See you soon." She said quietly.
"Goodnight." I replied.
I had to wait a while to sneek out. It's not like Eleazar was going to bed early, he never slept. I waited until he was very interested in his book.
"I'm going hunting." I called out.
"Didn't you just go with Irina?" Eleazar asked in an uninterested tone.
"Yes but I'm not quite satisfied."
"I could go with you, if you wish." He called back. He was like the father I never had. Most of the time, I was thankful for it. Now it was just annoying.
"It's alright, I'll be fine." I ran out the back way and into the forest.
So I changed the narrator, got a problem with that? LOL Just kidding! Victoria will be back for the next chapter!
