Warnings: If you have a weak stomach this story is not intended for you. If you are under 18, please hit the back button now. This will contain lots of human drinking vampires - Bella in particular will be more of your average bloodthirsty newborn than she was in the books. Her first few months are particularly gory. You've been warned.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Chapter One

"And you, Bella?" Aro raised his eyebrows.

My breath caught in my throat while time ground to a screeching halt. For what felt like days it had done nothing but race forward, unrelenting and cruel as Alice and I raced to Volterra. My eyes left Aro's milky red ones and found Alice's, dark and unrelentingly hard, surrounded by dark purple bruises. My weak human eyes traced the planes of her beautiful face, the very face I had spent months simultaneously shoving to the dark recesses of my mind and holding preciously close to my heart.

Alice's words over the last few days haunted me. I wanted to hear her words of affection, from before the Cullens had so mercilessly abandoned me, to hear her tinkling laugh and feel her arms around me in a hug that was just a little too tight. Instead I heard her words with Charlie in the kitchen, 'If I had known – I wouldn'thave come back.' My chest constricted, but the words didn't stop there. 'If we're too late, I'm going to do my damnedest to get you back to Charlie.'

For months I had been lifeless without my best friend. Alice had gone so far as to change her e-mail address to cut me out of her life. Even now that she was back it wasn't for me, it was to save her brother. Suddenly looking at Alice, really looking instead of being blinded by relief, was too painful to bear. I tore my gaze away from her startled face and looked to Edward, my precious Edward.

The face of Adonis, hardened and smoothed into a near perfect picture of calm. Near perfect. I could see the anger in his eyes and the tension in his neck. It was the same mask of aloofness he wore when he had left me in the forest, when he had ripped everything we had built out from under me. I couldn't help but think of Jung and how utterly right he was, 'The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.'

Edward had been so wrong when he thought I could go back to being the girl who had left Arizona to release her mother from maternal obligations. I wasn't that girl anymore, I didn't even recognize her. If there was one thing I learned from Edwards malicious 'clean break', it was that there was no going back. There was no human life for me. I had not only met Edward, but I had been introduced into a whole new world where I felt, no I knew in my very bones that I belonged.

I may have been melted down, remolded into a girl I didn't recognize, but there was enough of Isabella Swan left to know that no matter the circumstances, I wanted, no needed to be a vampire. The human world had not only lost its appeal but I had lost the innocence needed to be able to live in it. Yet as a human, I could not fully join the vampiric world I was glimpsing and was left straddling the seam where mortal met immortal. I was not the danger magnet; I simply left in the limbo between which my mortal body could not survive.

The expression of forced calm never left Edward's face and I continued to study it, really study it as he watched Aro. Like this, I was not distracted by his sweet breath or dazzled by his crooked smile. No, like this I able to form coherent thoughts, come to profound conclusions that I had never been able to form in all the time we had been both together and apart. I knew what I needed, but did I know how to get it?

I had had this conversation with Edward many times. Each time the answer was the same, he vehemently refused the change. I had spoken to Carlisle as well, his answer no more heartening; he would not go against his son's wishes. Even Alice, who had just toyed with the idea hours ago, wouldn't actually change me.

The Cullen motto had always been never bet against Alice, but was I truly about to put my fragile immortal future into her metaphorically shaky hands? After all she had only come back because she thought I had died and she had only stayed to save her brother. Not one time had she taken me in her arms or just once whispered that she was sorry, because she wasn't. Alice liked me well enough, liked having another girl she could dress up and play with, but she liked me because of I was part of a pair, not an individual. I would never have a bond with her like she had with Rosalie, or even Esme.

My conclusion was as simple as it was painful; I had tried – and failed – to make Edward's family my family. They didn't see me as I thought I saw them because to them, in this one case, they were just like the humans they attempted to portray. I was the girlfriend, nice enough but temporary.

I thought maybe this conclusion would kill me; maybe that's why I had shoved it so far away for so many months. And yet, it was always there, lurking in the back of my mind just waiting for me to be ready to handle the reality.

Edward and I, however strongly we had felt for each other, were not mates. Deep down, I think we all knew it too. Edward was an addict, not to me but to the blood coursing through my veins and to the mind that refused to let him hear even a whisper of its workings. I on the other hand, had fallen in love with immortality, not the person – not Edward Anthony Mason Cullen. I had been charmed with the idea of a boyfriend, with the beautiful romance that had been written, and with the future of being a vampire. But our relationship? Everything about our relationship had been unhealthy from the start; Charlie knew it, the Cullens knew it, even I had known it.

Mortal and immortal imbalances aside, Edward and I had put each other on pedestals and been too blind to realize it. In my eyes, Edward could have done no wrong and I had practically worshiped the very air he breathed. It blinded me from seeing how he melted me down and reshaped me into his idea of perfect. Everything I had, everything I once was, was lost in an ocean of topaz. I had lost everything that had made me Isabella Swan, in hopes that one day, preferably sooner rather than later, I would undergo my transformation and awaken as Isabella Cullen – the immortal.

My eyes left the planes of the very face I had yearned with all my very being for months to see, that I had done reckless and dangerous things just to hallucinate, and traveled back to the somewhat perplexed – surprised even – crimson eyes of Aro Volturi. The leader of the immortals.

I could not help my heart fluttering, matching the feeling in my stomach. This man, who Alice had told me was over three thousand years old, had offered me – a timid, unkempt, and dirty mortal – what I had craved since I had first uttered the word vampire reverently. He offered me a place in the strongest coven on the planet without so much as a pained expression or slight pause.

I don't think he actually expected me to consider his proposal, in fact I don't think anyone expected me to. After Alice and Edward had politely declined I think everyone expected me to follow along like an obedient pet – even, perhaps especially, Edward. Eight pairs of eyes were glued to my face, waiting my response – dumbfounded that I had yet to give one. Alice looked pained and her mouth was set in a grim line, as if maybe this wasn't so surprising after our conversation on the plane.

Edward was now turned in my direction his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes sparkling dangerously. I could practically hear his thoughts shouting at me, yelling at me to open my mouth and tell Aro no like the good girl I was. I could see Jane behind him and just far enough to the right to see her wide eyes, an expression that looked so out of place after seeing her so hateful, so sadistic. Beside her and in even better view was her brother Alec who was around my height, if maybe an inch or two taller, and watched me with crimson eyes that sparkled in amusement. His mood was in stark contrast to how he had viewed me earlier, only minutes ago I had been nothing – not in a malicious way but in a way that said I had done nothing to garner any sort of response from him as opposed to the sadistic glare I had earned from his sister – now though, my initial silence and subsequent rebellion of preconceived notions had garnered his attention and his approval. There was a silent conversation in one passing glance.

Although Alec's approval was not concrete and hinged on my next few words, it was a soothing balm to my pounding heart and timid tendencies. Every vampire in the room was focused on me now, waiting for me to speak, and I knew that if I didn't have Alec there silently cheering me forward I would have stuttered out a negative response only to have Edward once again take command of my life.

But I did, Alec's unwavering gaze did not hold the surprise or the questions that every other vampire held. His gaze bolstered me, challenged me to take the reins of my own life that Aro was offering to me, and pushed me to imagine a life out from underneath the oppression of the Cullens. Immortality could be mine and I did not have to lose myself for it. Isabella Swan could undergo her change but instead of becoming Isabella Cullen, the vegetarian and perpetual student, she could become Isabella Volturi – whoever she was, whoever she wanted to be.

My eyes lingered on Alec's for only a second longer trying to convey my gratitude for his silent support before finding Aro's surprised and anxious look. His hands were clasped together, fingers tapping each other in front of his small excited smile. His enthusiasm was infectious and I found my lips curling despite Edward's bewildered and angry gaze boring holes into the side of my skull.

"Yes." My answer came out in an excited rush and I watched as chaos exploded around me.

Alice's gasp was drowned out in Edward's roar of disapproval. "No," he shouted at Aro and before I could blink I was locked in his arms in a crushing embrace. I was sure to have bruises.

Edward's mask of calm was shattered and now his fury contorted his features into a wild and feral look. His eyes were coal black and glittering, his lips pulled up and teeth bared. "She is my mate. She is not staying here."

A growl erupted from my left and my frantic eyes left Aro who was no frowning and searched out the source of the growl and was surprised to see Alec looking calm but focused. To his left Jane was crouched down, her teeth bared, and venom trickling down the right side of her mouth. Her eyes were hard onyx as she let loose another angry snarl and Edward screamed.

Suddenly Alice was yelling for Edward and my I heard my ribs crack as Edward let loose a feral scream of torment. His arms becoming crushing as his knees gave out and he dropped to the ground taking me with him. A shriek of pain left my own lips but I could not hear it under Edward's tormented screams.

I knew this was Jane, that despite her previous animosity this was her trying to protect me from Edward's crushing grip. Even though she failed to realize how utterly breakable I am I couldn't help but feel a rush of emotion, that maybe, just maybe if I survived this I would like to know her, to become her friend.

"Aro –" I heard Alice's voice but it was drowned out by Edward's ragged gasps and my own painful cries.

Edward's body went slack a moment later and I froze, my eyes wide in panic and in pain as I looked up to see his serene face. His eyes were glassy, dazed even, as if he were not mentally here. All the pain that Jane had induced had been forgotten, his ragged gasps had receded and he was not breathing at all. Edward's entire body had gone immobile.