Yay! Chapter 2! Who's ready for it? And sorry it's late! I promised a chapter every day, and darn it if you don't get one everyday!
Okay, in this chapter, I thought I'd throw in a little information before the facts. This is where everything starts becoming MINE. I'm sure you'll be able to tell the original characters from mine. At least, I hope so. This was a long time in the making people. Don't steal them. If you want to use anybody, or even the idea, just PM me. I probably won't mind if you have even the slightest hint of originality in there.
Plus, FLUFF! All this an more in; Chapter 2!
Chapter 2.
Risika Harlequin and Aza Haequin were awakened from their cambers by another one of their Coven. The two frowned when the stuttering vampire came in, head-bowed and his face red.
"M-M-Miss Risika…" the messenger said, and Risika groaned, turning and groping for the source of a pale green glow on her night table. Her ivory hand turned green as she gripped the clock firmly, pulling it towards her, and in the motion pulling herself from under the massive amount of covers she'd buried herself. Aza was already awake, shaking his crimson-black-tipped hair back into mild conformity. Risika glanced her bleary green eyes towards the equally bleary green letters and moaned. The numbers were flashing '12:18'
"What the /hell/ do you want at an hour like this?" the extremely irritable female-vampire growled, sitting up in her bed. She was wearing a pale-black nightgown, mostly covered by the covers spilled around her, and had plain-black hair. Around her neck was a small blue collar with a silver 'R' hanging from a tiny clasp.
"M-Ma'am… The V-Vampire of Minds, Miss D-Dawn, retrieved me to r-relay a m-m-message." Aza was up, wearing pair of jeans to bed. He was clearly younger than Risika, in vampire age and in appearance.
"Giovanni, get on with it. What the heck did Dawn wake me up at midnight for?! She may not need sleep, but I DO!" Risika growled, getting thoroughly ticked-off now.
"Erm, well M-M-Ma'am…"
"Giovanni. Now. Tell. Me. Now."
"S-S-She said that the Black-Winged V-Vampire was missing. N-N-N-Nikias is missing." If there was ever a silence so thick you could but it with a butter knife, this was it. The poor messenger-vampire looked so nervous he was shifting from foot to foot, trying to hold still but not being able to do it under the piercing gaze of Risika. She was slowly grinding her teeth together, and she glared towards Aza. The other vampire looked to her in turn, and the two had a moment of silent connection before Aza turned back to Giovanni.
"Risika is going to change. Gather the Coven. Call them all together. I don't care if you have to wake the whole damn city to do it." He growled out, and then turned to stalk out onto the deck of the room. Giovanni managed to catch a peek of Aza outside. The red-haired vampire was illuminated with bright gold, and his hands were crackling flames. Severely scared now, Giovanni fled from the room, sprint down the hallway to grab onto a phone in the corner of two hall-ways. It was old-styled, just like this entire mansion. He swallowed painfully, and then began quickly speaking into it.
--x--x--x--x--
Just as he had ordered, Aza walked into the Main Chamber to see the entire Coven of Light spread out below him. The Coven was something his Mother had put together, since her younger days.
Risika was his mother, and one of the Original Five Vampires. As her first Fledgling and created in her younger years, Aza might as well had been one of the Original Five himself. And as such, he had a nice pull in the Coven.
The Coven of Light was he and Risika's Coven of vampires. It was basically a collection of new-changelings they'd picked up over the few thousand years, but something always happened to the vampires. Just as it had to Aza, something about being around Risika and the male-vampire mutated something in the other vampire's DNA. Every member of the Coven of Light, all 48 of them, was gifted. A select few had the Sight, ability to see the Past, Present, or Future, sometimes even a combination of two or all of them. Some could read minds. Others, like the wolves, could shape-shift. Then, there were those that were a member of the Council. There were 13 Council members, he included. Risika was not a member of the Council, but rather the Leader of everything when it came to the Coven.
She chose the Council members, was the one who decided who to pick to join the Coven, and kept their existence a secret. A secret from both the Humans and Volturi.
"Coven!" Risika barked; moving swiftly down the aisle towards the Council members. Behind him there were 11 people seated. The best of the best, the most gifted and powerful Coven members, the members of the Council. With one of the most important missing. In order, they were; Aza, Adrianna, Dawn, Nikias (who was missing), Payne, Rayne, Kiki, Torrent, Harley, Kian, Carly, Nickolas and Connor.
Below where the other 30-some members of the Coven, looking outright spooked and wondering why they were called, and why Risika was in such a bad mood.
"Today, Nikias left without notifying me." The entire room went still. Leave was not granted from the Coven's main-area unless authorized by Risika. Leaving without permission was something that would often piss her off beyond belief.
"Does anyone know where he is? Did he speak to anyone? Dawn doesn't even know, and she is his partner." Risika hissed, the red-cloak draped over her shoulders flittering as she turned sharply, eyes streaming over the Coven. Hesitantly, a young-male vampire whose gift was to Shape-Shift into a crow spoke up.
"He talked to me ma'am. We were hunting, when he said he… he picked up traces of Victoria." Risika snarled, and turned to slam her fist into the Council table, which split straight down and crumbled.
"Where?" she growled, facing the crow again. His eyes were wide.
"I-In Washington. Forks. Forks Washington."
According to Jacob later, I fell asleep exactly where I'd been crying, right into his shirt. I woke up flustered, embarrassed, and more tired than when I'd managed to pass out on his shirt. Jacob had lifted me up and taken me too his bedroom, then put me on his bed. Personally, I thought the thing was huge, but remembering how Jacob looked sprawled across it made me sleepily grin and turn over as he left the room.
I'm assuming Charlie was called, because he didn't show up at La Push with armed escorts behind him. How Jacob managed to convince Charlie to let me sleep at his house is something I don't think I'll ever understand. I know for a face it would have never been possible with Edward.
The only down effect of all that sleep was I woke up at about Midnight. Once I was sure that sleep wasn't coming back, I tossed the huge blankets off of me from Jacob's bed, and moved quietly through the house on bare-feet. I was nearly as quiet as Jacob, or… Edward. I bit my lip at the surge of emotions that hit me, considering I could hear Billy and Jacob snoring, from his room and the Living Room sequentially.
It was a comical sight to walk into the Living Room and see Jacob sprawled out on the couch. He fit that maybe a little better than his bed, but was still far too big. His face and stomach were down into the cushions, and his feet and arms hung off each end.
"Typical male." I laughed quietly, noting, with a scarlet blush, that Jacob was sleeping in shorts and shirtless. Luckily for the pure decency of me in the house, he was wearing shorts and not boxers. With another quiet laugh that spread to a grin on my face, I opened their front door, relieved that Jacob's thunderous snoring combined with Billy's drowned out the squeak of protest it made.
The outside air was cool and bit hard at my bare-feet. I shivered. Even in summer, Forks was pretty cold. I shivered violently again, but soon got use to the chill. The sky was unusually clear, considering what a storm we'd had last night, and the moon was full, huge, and round. I sat there, elbows-on-knees, watching it. The moon wasn't really going anywhere, but the way the sun made the craters and valleys shine captured my attention and forced me to stare at it, and suddenly, My Lullaby came into mind, the one Edward had written for me.
I began to hum it, finding it fitting of my mood. The lullaby calmed me, and I didn't even notice the absence of the loudest snoring until Jacob was standing right behind me.
"Isn't that the song that the vampire wrote?" he sleepily growled, and I jumped up to my feet, whirling around. I really needed to get friends I could hear.
"Jake! Don't scare me like that!"
"Sorry. But, is it?"
"Yeah. He wrote it while I was sleeping. It's called Bella's Lullaby."
"How befitting." He snorted. I glared.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Oh, nothing. It's only when you were asleep and exposed he would actually look at you is all." Jacob replied with a shrug.
"And that's supposed to mean?"
"Nothing Bella. It's the truth. You don't deserve someone who can only stare at your neck all the time. You really don't." I glanced up to Jacob with a shy look, but hopefully an angry look. He didn't have the right to talk about Edward like that. Edward hadn't only looked and thought of my… blood. I hoped at least. Jacob moved to sit beside me, and the sudden chill of the night was replaced by his warmth. I instinctively scooted closer. Jacob seemed to enjoy this and put an arm around my shoulder. I was mildly shocked, but he was even more so when I didn't push his arm away. Instead, I just let my body rest against his, since the were-wolf was rather comfortable.
We sat there in silence for a moment before I looked back up at Jacob.
"So, if I don't deserve Edward, who do I deserve?" I asked. He looked down, black eyes glinting in the moonlight.
"Bella, you could have anyone you wanted." He said with a laugh, and then glanced back towards the moon. I frowned.
"What if I didn't want anyone else but Edward?"
"Then I'd have to change your mind." Jacob whispered, and my heart-pounded as his face came closer to mine. The second his lips touched mine, my eyes automatically kissed, and I felt electric shocks course through me. It was nothing like kissing the cold, marble lips of Edward. Jacob was alive under my kiss, and he didn't freeze up like Edward. Instead, he pressed himself a little more firmly when I responded. It was a change I really didn't expect. And finally, my eyes opened to watch Jacob. I wanted to watch him. Instead, I caught a flurry of black on my peripheral vision and broke away quickly. There, standing in the moonlight, was an ivory-skinned man with great black wings behind him, the source of the flurry I'd seen. I saw Jacob's nose wrinkle up and heard his chest rumble, and knew automatically this winged-man was a vampire. The vampire smiled, holding up his pale hands and spoke.
"No, please, don't stop on my account."
