Royal blood
Chapter 1: The letter
Jasper
I held the letter firmly in my hands – but not firmly enough for it to rip. If I had been able to cry I would have been swimming in my tears. Alice was gone. She was never coming back. She was dead. She had been ripped apart and burnt. The only things I had left that belonged to her were the letter and her belongings in our – now my room.
I read the letter one more time to make sure I wasn't dreaming it all – an absurd concept seeing as I can't sleep.
Dear Jasper,
I love you. This is the reason why I'm doing this. By the time you read this I'm be long gone, so don't try to stop me. I've had a vision. There's something going on with the Volturi and I've gone to stop them. If I don't we'll all be in trouble.
There's a human amongst the Volturi. She's like a prisoner. They're keeping her with them until she turns nineteen. That's when they'll turn her. She's powerful and she controls wether there'll be a war or not.
My plan is to go to the Volturi, kidnap her and bring her to Forks. There are two outcomes that may happen. The first one is I'll get her out and we'll BOTH make it to Forks alive. The second and the one that seems more and more likely the closer I get to the Volturi is the one you'll hate. She'll make it but I won't. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
If the second one happens, you'll have to look after her. You need to do this for me. She'll need as much help as she can get and so will you. You won't need to hide the secret from her because she was raised by vampires. She knows what they can do, but she may get confused by our diet. Explain everything to her, and I mean EVERYTHING. If you do this she'll open up to you and she'll tell you what's going on with the Volturi. I can't tell you. It's not my story to tell.
I'm sorry I didn't have time to explain this all to you. I had to go. She's in danger. She could be the Volturi's white flag or their weapon of mass destruction. It's all up to you.
Love Alice,
P.S. Please look after her, please.
All I wanted to do was rip the letter up and run to Italy and kill every member of the Volturi. The only thing that stopped me from doing that was the mission Alice had left me. The girl would be arriving soon and I had to look after her.
There was a soft knock at the door and Edward's voice filled the room.
"You ok Jazz?" he asked from the doorway.
"Does it look like I'm ok?" I thought.
"No it doesn't." He walked over to where I sat, hunched over on the bed and put an arm supportively on my shoulder. "She wouldn't want you to act like this, she'd want you to live your life and help this girl, not mop around." Every member of the family had read the letter, even Jacob who was a frequent visitor thanks to Nessie.
"I know." I said after a while. "I'll be fine, I just need to hunt."
"Go." Edward said encouragingly. "Bella and I'll pick her up when her plane lands."
I got up and walked down the stairs as slowly as I could allow myself. When I entered the main room, all eyes were on me. Bella continued braiding Nessie's hair as I walked past. Jacob, who had been napping lightly at Nessie's knee, opened his eyes, looked me dead in the eyes and closed them again.
They started to whisper as I walked out the front door and headed towards the forest to hunt. My pace quickened as I head the unmistakeable sound of hooves against grass and the loud 'thud' of a heart pumping blood around a body. Venom filled my mouth as the earthy scent of the deer washed over me.
By now the deer was only a few hundred meters away. By the time it heard my approach it was too late for it to get away. I pounced on top of it like a cat before it had made it a few meters and snapped its neck as easily as if it was a twig.
My fangs sunk deep into its neck and I drained it of blood in only a few short minutes. I cast the bloodless carcass aside like a child would with an old toy and started heading back towards the house. I hadn't gone hunting because I was hungry, on the contrary, I was full, I had done it to get out of the house so I could think straight. So many emotions ran through the minds me my family. Love, grief, anger, betrayal, eagerness. I couldn't deal with it. I had to have a clear mind when I met the girl I was meant to protect and this was the only way I could have one.
By the time I re-entered the house, Bella and Edward had left to pick up the girl – I still didn't know her name – and I took their spot on the lounge and waited with the others. She would be here soon.