Here I am, Back again! I'm so so so sorry, I know it's been like ages since I last updated, but I have been so incredibly busy, so I really, really hope - since this chapter is extra-long - that you will forgive me the annoying stress momentum of my real life!

Have fun and as always review and comment!

4. The Immortal Coven

Tranquillity.

Renesmee way lying on the woody floor, with her eyes closed and her senses heightened to a level of almost sensual sensibility to every natural impression and impulse that surrounded her. Beneath her the slightly moist grass caressed the skin of her arms, no longer clothed by her thin wool jumper; the thin hairs on her skin swaying in the cool, soft breeze of the wind. She smelled the odour of the woods, deep, dark, and yet sweet, a mixture of resin and fresh grass; a vague, nasal memory of last night's rain haunted the woods and contributed its part to this symphony of scents. She'd always loved how it smelled after it'd rained; an odour of purity, of naturalness, soaked by a smell that could only be described as wet.

Through her eyelids her mind could sense the light of the sun, and though under that forest canopy she was almost completely drowned in shadows and shade, every once in a while a single ray of sunshine managed it to penetrate through those guardians made of leaves and shone down upon her. Her ears listened, although not very closely, to the sounds made by the forest; the songs of birds, unintelligible conversations between hidden toads near a river or crickets; beneath her body the earth shook in almost unnoticed vibrations of the thousands of ants and insects. The woods were very much alive, completely unaware or untouched by its new, mysterious visitors; the chaos of daily routine, the thrumming heart of each and every single inhabitant of this wooden kingdom – they all were vibrating within the pulse of life, where chaos and harmony became one and the same.

While she rested there in the grass, she was very well aware that she was not alone. In a very close distance, Cillian sat on an old tree's stump, leaning against its hard, strangely deformed bark while he played with a little blade of grass, letting it roll through his fingers without, despite his inhuman strength, breaking it into halves. He looked as though he could be sleeping, with his eyes deliciously closed, equally enjoying the rare caresses of sunshine that made his skin shine in the brightest glory of men; but it didn't take a Vampire's senses to know that he was not sleeping after all.

His eyes, though they appeared to be closed, were yet slightly opened, leaving only millimetres for him to peek out between his eyelashes and to turn his gaze on his favourite object of interest. That god of a man he seemed to her was listening to her very own heartbeat, though unnaturally quick for a human it was, it seemed to offer him a peace, a sense of tranquillity he had not known before, he had not known existed. A small smile, dazzling and haunted by light mischief, decorated his perfect lips, and if she'd had her eyes open, she would have seen it. But, perhaps, it was better for her not to have seen it; lately, his smiles did strange things to her and to her emotional life. "Remember that I told you we would meet other Vampires?", his voice, though soft and velvet as usual, seemed rather sudden at the moment and managed it to tear her out of her dreamy state; she opened her eyes, for one moment blinded by the sudden flash of light, but then, after her eyes had adjusted to the bright sunshine again, she sat up, observing him curiously.

Since this morning, when she'd complained about their ongoing – in her opinion rather random – travelling, they had stayed in this forest, idling in the green, not even speaking to each other; they'd simply enjoyed nature's beauty and the warmth of each other's silent company. These were the first words he now had spoken to her since this morning, and the nature of those words pushed her curiosity button to the top.

"Yes?", she was painfully well aware of the high-pitched tone of her question, nervousness and excitement tightening her usually velvet, dark voice and she cleared her throat before she repeated her question quickly, forcing her voice to sound much calmer now. However, her silent hopes that her outburst of most childish anticipation had gone rather unnoticed by him weren't answered. As she smiled broadly at him, mainly to cover her infantile excitement, she could see him opening his eyes to throw a chiding look at her, before he himself stared grinning.

"Well – tonight would be the night.", he laughed rather heartlessly, if not cold, and resumed while he put his head back, "They are close by, but they know me well enough not to approach us, unless we approach them."

"Some old friends of yours?"

"Not exactly friends, no. Acquaintances.", as a response to her question he had coughed loudly as if he had choked upon the wrong words, as if deciding in the last moment to rather tell a euphemistic tale instead of the truth. His face distorted into a grimacing mixture of pain and bitter amusement, and something she would have definitely interpreted as embarrassment. The tone of his answer confused her – what's his deal with those acquaintances as he mysteriously titled them?

"Well, will you tell me about them?" she asked when he had remained silent for quite some time, fearing that this momentum of speaking-generosity had already passed away again. She was very well aware of the childishly demanding tone of her words, but curiosity had gripped her with an iron-clad grasp, and it wouldn't let go of her until her hunger for new gossip was sated. After all, when had curiosity ever killed the cat?

"What do you want to know? But trust me, there's not much to tell.", he laughed lightly, his eyes softening as he watched the sight she presented to him. She smiled at him, curiosity burning behind those mirrors of her soul; her knees pulled up against her chest, as she looked up to him, like a child listening to a story teller, eagerly waiting for the next tale to come.

A child, undoubtedly, she still was in so many ways; her eyes shining in the renewed light of anticipation and thirst for knowledge, and even the apparently most unspectacular things managed to amaze her. She appeared like a nymph, dancing barefoot in the rain at night, according to the thrumming beat of nature's rhythm, pure life radiating from her shape. A fairy being of beauty she was to him, untouched by hatred, greed or vanity, an innocent to all the darkness in his world; and out of his shadows only he dared to gaze at the light that she was – he feared to reach out to her, afraid of her light that might blind him, or dreading his own darkness to devour her brightness.

"There's Tamara – she is not very civil, I'm afraid." he began slowly, his voice bearing a slight, but noticeable note of contemptuous amusement as he went on, "She is as vain as any Immortal can be, and bitter, so full of bitterness.", he paused again, his eyes slightly narrowing as he appeared to search for the right words. Images of passed centuries seemed to flicker through his look; distorted faces, laughing, mad, screaming, crying; dancing figures of great and terrible beauty – Renesmee shuddered and looked away, assuring herself that she had just imagined things. Cillian, meanwhile, went on, drawing her attention back to his tale.

"Her companion, Gwain, also sired her. Now, there is not much affection between them any more. She has never forgiven him that he turned her, or forgave herself for being naïve and vain enough to be seduced by the idea of Beauty and Immortality that he represented to her. The only reason they still cling to each other is out of fear to face eternity without a companion.", he finished with a dry laugh that sounded more like a snorty cough, showing his contempt for his former tale's figures, who had once been – and destined to be soon again – very much alive to him. He then drew their attention towards another main character of his passed life's book, opening the picture now to a much darker chapter.

"Then, there is Sibylla, who loves to play with her food.", at this point, his eyes darkened menacingly at those words and Renesmee felt cold shivers running down her spine, not sure whether her feeling of uneasiness resulted from his words or from his sudden change of moods (could his possible affection for her be as easily turned into its opposite?), "Her two companions, Ethian and Fiann, brothers once, now rivals for her rare tokens of affection, are only one example for her cruel sense of entertainment. She is, despite all that, very sophisticated, an accomplished lady with excellent manners, which, however, makes that other side in her personality only worse."

After that he fell silent again, leaving her in cold shivers that run down her back, and she instinctively felt fear for that Lady of the name of Sibylla; she imagined herself an incredible beautiful woman, with a face of roses and ivory, but with a wicked, evil grin that rendered her once gorgeous face into a mask of obnoxious features. She wasn't sure any more whether she really wanted to meet those old friends of his, or acquaintances as he had rather claimed them to be.

"Last but not least, there is Aaron.", his words dragged her out of her thoughts, and she looked up, now listening carefully for the introduction of the last character to come, "He is the Head of the Coven, if you want. As charming as he is, he is extremely dangerous. He loves to see himself as a gentleman, a scientist – but he is a creature which only sees pleasure in the shocked and scared faces of his victims. He loves what he is and what he does, he is a true artist of death."

Renesmee shivered as she tried to picture the figure of Aaron in her mind; but no matter how hard she tried she could not get imagine him, for some reason she always saw Carlisle's mild and merciful face in her head, though she knew that this leader of the Coven had nothing in common with her grandfather. In her thoughts, that man appeared as a distorted version of Carlisle; his face grimaced into an evil grin, his eyes glistening in a red, bloody fire. She stopped thinking, closing her eyes shut, she didn't want to think of it now, didn't want her thoughts to overpower her.

Perhaps, she mused, yes, perhaps, there was not even something to fear. At this thought she threw a look over to Cillian, who, still leaning against the bark of the tress, still sitting in its wooden lap, stared onto the now torn apart blade of grass in his hands. As she watched his silent and strong features she didn't doubt for a second that he would protect her. Yes, she knew she was safe with him.

"How did you meet them?"

"Jocelynne, my Sire, introduced me to them.", he didn't look up as he answered her question, as if he had been waiting for her to ask that question, not even the least surprised that her hunger for knowledge was apparently not yet sated, "She had been close to Aaron. I believe, he was her creator. However, after her death there was a difference between them and me, and I left."

She frowned her forehead over his words; his voice had sounded strangely mysterious and cryptic at the last sentence (not that she could recall any specific moment where he had chosen, at least for once, not to speak in riddles...) and it inflamed her curiosity once more. So, hoping that his very liberal mood of giving answers today was not yet extinguished, she addressed him again.

"What was the difference about?"

Upon her question he suddenly looked up and in that moment she knew that her hopes would fail her; she had asked the wrong question, and she knew that she would not receive her answer today. Cillian gave her a long look, yet it appeared as if he was not really seeing her at all, he rather gazed at a thing in his long lost past. Then his eyes locked with hers, and she could see it now; he was thinking, considering whether or not to tell her the truth, struggling with himself whether or not to open up to her. A glance of sheer longing now burned in his red eyes, the desperate wish to share his deepest, his darkest secret with her, but then the light in his eyes ceased, and she rather sensed it that really saw it, he shied away from her again, and from the chance to trust her by revealing his own darkness.

"It was long ago, long before you came. The past is of no concern now." he finally said with a low, hoarse voice after he had cleared his throat; he then threw the blade of grass, now shredded to pieces, on the ground as he stood up, turning his back on her. Renesmee opened her mouth to speak again – it was obvious that he was avoiding to give her a straight answer to her question, and she was definitely not a person to be shushed with such a response – but, upon seeing him keeping his back turned towards her, she closed it again. She knew him enough to recognise a defeat: the conversation was over.

Renesmee sighed heavily as she stared out into the night; her sharp, brown eyes, sharper even than humans, but still not good enough to grasp whatever might have been lurking in the deep blackness of night. No matter how long she glared into the night, it was impossible for her eyes to pierce through the thick darkness – it was useless. She sighed again, impatient, disappointed, frustration straining her nerves, and yet she kept on waiting. She had never been good at waiting anyway, and even now, fully grown up, the bad habit of her childhood succeeded at taking the better of her.

A vague memory of a miniature of her impatient self crossed through her thoughts and she smiled; subconsciously she felt another picture crawl up into her thoughts, too, the russet-coloured face of a boy, of a man, who smiled at her and her impatience – her smile suddenly became heavy with bitterness and a longing to see her home again. She had been on the move now for almost a month, and after the initial regrets had faded she had hardly ever thought of home again; now, however, the sudden impact of that rather simple memory overwhelmed her so very easily. She hadn't been aware of how much she'd really missed home, or maybe she just hadn't wanted to acknowledge it.

A sudden sound behind her – a fatal foot's step which had broken the little twig on the wooden floor – made her jerk around in one single, swift movement; she believed her heart to stop dead in its tracks, fear and panic gripping her so hard she could not breathe. Was her life, short and bittersweet as it had tasted, destined to end here and now in the black depths of night, in a forest in the middle of nowhere? The mortal in her despaired at this thought; the Vampire in her growled in rebellion.

Then, out of the dark, the culprit of night, conjurer of her fear, her very own god of mischief appeared: after all, Cillian had never seem to be able to withstand the chance of giving her a fright for humour's sake.

"Don't creep up on me like that!"

"Are we a bit jumpy today?" he asked while trying to suppress the grin that soon spread all over his face, and even without having as sharp eyes as an Immortal that grin managed to mock her; then he added, his lips close to her ear, "And I wasn't creeping – I was walking, normally."

Renesmee didn't counter his words with a sneering side comment as she probably would've done in any other moment, but the winds were too sharp and chilly, the night too dark and creepy, and his voice against her ear had sounded too softly velvet and tempting to find her natural wits and front him. So, instead of answering him with a bickering comment, she simply kept on chewing on her lower lip in nervousness, shifting from one foot to another. Cillian watched her suspiciously as she fidgeted around with the buttons of her jumper, button up and button down, again and again, until he couldn't stand the tension any longer.

"Would you please relax, Little Bird? You're making me nervous."

"Me? Making you nervous?" she cried, spinning around, looking at him with wide eyes, clearly taking offence, before she turned around again, returning to staring into the night, and she added, mumbling under her breath, "I should be the one dying of nervousness!"

Cillian raised his eyebrows in surprise at her aggravated, scolding tone; usually she was always very easy-going, though from time to time even a hybrid seemed to have its bad moods. He gave her a look as if to say that she'd been perfectly driven to her deathbed by her nervousness by now, but it was a pitch black night and she was much too preoccupied by her own thoughts to notice it. Then, after she sighed again, tension radiating from her body, he looked over to her again and her nervous, stern face left him thinking.

He knew that she was scared; it didn't take a mind-reader to see what her body's tongue told him so obviously, her shoulders pulled up, her head held low, chewing her lips, her fingers expressions of her inner turmoil. For a moment he wondered, the thoughts he had thought so often this day came rushing back to him, if it was really a good idea to take her with him, to meet those old friends. She way still so very young, no matter what his eyes might wanted to tell him, eyes are easily blinded, she was still more a child than a woman, and young, so young and innocent that he feared an angry wind's push might scratch that soft, warm skin of hers.

Cillian was astonished by himself, finding himself smile affectionately at the utmost shocking idea that he cared for the young woman standing right next to him; but as he watched her silently he knew it was true. For more than two centuries he had not allowed himself to care for anybody or anything, too great was the fear, too harsh had the lesson been, that he could ever had brought himself to be touched by all those human emotions again. Yet here he stood, his heart, which hadn't beaten since his death, found itself strangely revived again in fear for the safety of the woman with the bronze hair.

"It'll be all right."

Renesmee turned her head towards him as she heard his softly whispered words, and even in the darkness of the night she could see his eyes burning in a red, feverish light she believed to have never seen before in another person's eyes. Her heart seemed to jump as she suddenly felt the ice-cold touch of his hand on hers, his fingers soft yet strong as they intertwined with hers. His gentle comfort appeared to do the trick, from one moment to another she felt the weight of a world lifted from her shoulders. She smiled at him, full of gratitude, letting her eyes tell him what he already knew: that she trusted him and would follow him to wherever he would lead her.

The first thing Renesmee noticed was the ringing, velvet sound of a woman's laughter, somewhat in the thirties, an alto voice with the sense of a trained singer, smoky yet clear, with a tempting tone at the edge of it that yet did not succeed to cover the cruelty that lurked in there. She felt herself shiver at the sound of that voice, right down to her bones, but she tried not to show it; Cillian however, though he didn't make it known, knew perfectly well of the fear that had gripped her by the first signs of what was to come. Concern fogged his mind once more, thoughts came to him, the desperate idea to just turn back around again and to leave before they would be noticed; but they would find that it had already been too late for that.

"Is it custom now, I do wonder, whether to approach old friends by creeping around like little snakes in the mud?", the words had been spoken with a small mocking tone and a charming little twang, and that voice definitely belonged to a man, an arrogant man undeniably who seemed to have been used to being served and treated as a nobleman. Renesmee was surprised to hear Cillian, who still held her hand in his, laugh lightly at this scolding, little remark, and then, as they passed the next oak her eyes were finally introduced to the little gathering of Immortals that seemed to have been waiting for them all day.

"You do know the New World, Aaron, manners of wolves and democrats." Cillian responded and moved quickly over to the man with the name of Aaron who had been undoubtedly the one who had noticed their arrival first. The leader of this Vampire Coven appeared to be a man in his forties, though it was always difficult to tell with an Immortal – he might as well have been in his sixties; he still looked as a man in his best years, he always would. Renesmee stood several feet away from them, since Cillian had let go of her hand in order to embrace his old friend, which left her with the opportunity to let her eyes wander about and soon enough her look found the other characters who had gathered on this little clearing.

A man and a woman slowly approached this scenery of welcome and Renesmee shifted her focus on to them; the man wore a dark and simple, but elegant cloak just like all the other men, and he had rather harsh yet handsome facial features; the woman next to him, however, was an even more beautified example of all Immortals she had seen before. She had very delicate features, and very dark eyes, more black than red even; she wore a fine, long dress without sleeves or straps that flattered her elegant, regal-like form. She was a ravishing, deadly beauty with her dark, red hair, as if the hell's fires cascaded down her shoulders, and Renesmee knew, she just knew, that this had to be Tamara, the vainest of her kind; and next to her walked her companion, Gwain.

Renesmee locked eyes with that Immortal woman and she felt her heart jump in fear, cold shivers ran down her back as she stared into this hard, cold, fair face – cruelty screamed out of her eyes and she assumed that this had been the woman also whose laughter she had heard from far away; a beautified aura drenched in cruelty. She looked away and her eyes instead found the three other characters, sitting a few feet away from the group, apparently completely unaware of the new guests that had just arrived; a woman with cinnamon skin and velvet black hair sat on an old tree's lump, laughing brightly as she flirted with the two quite similarly looking man sitting at her knees, staring at her with the transfixed eyes of obsessed lovers; she assumed that this had to be Sibylla and her two lapdogs Ethian and Fiann.

It was only when Cillian had finished the usual small-talk of centuries-old friends that Sibylla and her companions became aware that there were not alone any more; the woman looked up, and so did the two brothers. The Vamp locked eyes with Renesmee for a split of a second before she cast down her eyes, feeling that she – at the most inappropriate of moments, here in the midst of a more or less bloodthirsty Coven of Vampires, who were not very well known for their human kindness or mercy – started to blush.

"Dear brothers, and sisters," he added with a little smirk while bending his head down as if he were to bow to his old female friends, "I'd very much like you to meet a new friend of mine."

Cillian turned around to her, his eyes beckoning her to come closer, assuring her that it would be all right and safe for her, and with another deep breath she took the hand he'd held out to her and approached the other Vampires. She noticed that while Sibylla looked at with curious eyes and an amused smile, Tamara, being the complete opposite, and not just in looks, stared at her with bitter, hard eyes as if she was offended by the mere presence of that newcomer.

"I have the pleasure to introduce to you: Renesmee.", Cillian, who stood behind her, gave her hand a gentle squeeze, sensing her fear and nervousness, her wildly beating heart that jumped apparently at every move the Vampires made towards her. The sudden silent tension that had erupted at such an announcement was gracefully broken by Aaron and Gwain, who, as the Gentlemen they had been born and raised up to be, approached her with warm smiles and after one another they took her hand in theirs and gently lifted them up to their lips to press a soft kiss on her hand, their lips merely touching her skin. Not that those acts helped her in any way to stop her blushing, but it nevertheless managed to soothe her initial fears, she even brought herself to offer those men a small, grateful smile.

"My dear Lady, in all my centuries I have never looked upon a more beautiful face.", Gwain made a quite courteous, charming, little bow when suddenly there was a sound of a contemptuous snort and all their eyes went to the Lady who stood behind him; Tamara, however, had her eyes fixed straight and mercilessly fixed upon Renesmee. Jealousy was clearly written all over her face; and Renesmee wasn't sure whether this rather hostile feeling was directed at her companion for betraying her love for him, or directed at the newcomer who managed to win all attention and admiration, which was usually only ever granted to her.

"Hush, my dearest, that was not very civil.", Gwain laughed lightly as he walked over to his companion who still didn't avert her eyes from her newest object of hatred and contempt. He went over to her, took her porcelain face into his hands and pressed a rather harsh and lifeless kiss to her cheek – death screamed out of her eyes, a long dead love, only the ashes of it still smouldered, and bore life to a feeling swaying between lust and contempt, an obsession, an addiction. She only dared to bear his affectionate gesture long enough for his lips to leave her skin before she pushed him away; now, had he been a mortal, that little push of her hand might have killed him, but since he was not, his reaction merely erupted in the shape of a scolding smirk.

Renesmee, without exaggerating or being prejudiced, decided easily enough that she and Tamara would never be BFFs; she smiled at the thought, seeing herself surrounded by a lot of red eyes, she probably wasn't going to make a bunch of friends here anyway. She all of the sudden felt Cillian by her side again, he always seemed to know exactly when she needed him, as if he could sense her fear and nervousness, and soothe those hard feelings with a single touch of his hands. She was once again torn out of her thoughts when the man Aaron, the leader this Coven, approached her with a gentle, yet lifeless smile; his red eyes looked hungry, she mused, and instinctively she felt her muscles tense at this first sign of danger – the Immortal within her had always been her strongest defence.

"My deepest apologies, Mylady, we are not used to outsiders, in particular not to such beautiful outsiders, in particular not to mortal outsiders.", he, again, just like Gwain had done before, bowed very courteously to her, a charming smile decorating his perfect, marble lips as he said the words who betrayed her true identity. Renesmee sensed the change in the air, the initially polite amount of welcoming attention had suddenly turned into a burning interest; even Sibylla and her lovers approached her now, all of them with those deep, red eyes.

"Oh, did you find yourself a human love-bird?"

Renesmee's head flung around at the sound of that mocking question and she was confronted with Tamara whose face had, all of the sudden, broken into a menacingly wide smile. Behind her she could feel Cillian tense at those words; his hands, which were usually always so soft and careful with her, suddenly tightened around her arms, as if he considered to stand himself protectively in front of her, or maybe to keep her from running. It was a moment at the edge of the blade, tension fogging their views, and everyone waited for the other one to make the first move. One thing was clear to all of them: this momentum would decide whether this meeting would end with or without a red farewell.

Then, suddenly, the probably most unexpected sound of all penetrated the heavy silence, cut through the thick tension: laughter; honest, bright, hearty – and even more shocking to Renesmee was the fact that it was coming from no less a person than Cillian himself. She would have turned around to see for herself that she had not been mistaken, that it had been really him who'd laughed in this most inappropriate situation – after all, how wise a person could one be to laugh when faced with danger and threat? To her very surprise, however, the Immortals around joined him in his laughter, as if the fact that a being with a beating heart and blood in their midst did not jeopardise their common sense and reason, and most of all, what little was left of their humanity, at once.

"As you will very well notice, Tamara, she is not a human.", he was still shaking with laughter as he directed those words to the beautiful Lady Vampire who still glared at Renesmee with eyes so full of hatred; then he added, speaking to his other friends now, before his last words were undoubtedly directed towards Tamara again, "Not entirely. She is half and half, neither human nor Immortal – she is unique beauty and easily outshines your commonness."

There was the unmistakable sound of a deep growl, and it was no surprise that it came from Tamara; the Vampire's eyes flashed in an angry fire, darkening the threatening red colour of those orbs even more. But she did not make any moves to approach them, actions had never been her favoured weapons, when there were words which could hurt so much more easily. Instead of her, Sibylla, with her long, black hair and dark skin suddenly rushed towards Renesmee and, to all their surprise, embraced her like a sister, as if they had known each other for centuries.

"Oh, how curious a thing. Half a sister she is then? Most curious, indeed.", these were the first words Sibylla ever addressed to her; the short Vampire released her from her embrace in order to be able to look at her properly. Renesmee, who had stiffened in her embrace, still wasn't quite sure how to react to such sudden closeness and affection. She remembered what Cillian had told her about the beautiful Vampire's fetish of cruel games – suddenly, she had quite a hard time suppressing the immediate and desperate impulse to free herself put of her arms' reach.

Renesmee looked over to her companion who saw himself now attacked with myriads of questions by his old friends; the lust for a miracle, the thirst for knowledge having been unleashed in them, curiosity burning in their eyes as they questioned the usually rather restrained, silent Vampire about who the newcomer were, where he had found her and how she'd come to be. Cillian smiled, and though it was an honest smile there was still a note of a much darker feeling shining in his eyes. There was pride, an arrogant vanity glistening in his usually calm and cryptic eyes; he undoubtedly enjoyed the attention – did he just bring her here to brag with her as his new, precious toy?

"She's an abomination, that's what she is."

Tamara's words broke to the aura of curiosity and interest like a knife cutting through an old bread, slow and deliberate, with a screeching sound that foretold what was to come. All eyes went to her, but she had only ever eyes for Renesmee, who, after having been released out of Sibylla's friendly – and due to the Vampire's enthusiasm also quite painful – grip, took a step back, swallowing hard as she tried to hold Tamara's hostile gaze. The feeling in the air had drastically changed; suspicion had replaced surprise and curiosity, animosity had switched place with friendliness – one could see, one could easily sense it.

Sibylla retreated towards her two lovers, their eyes darkening in malice, as if fearing that their mistress had been threatened, always eager to prove themselves the better companions; the Coven all of the sudden appeared to form a unified line of defence – and then, from moment to another, she felt Cillian move as he pulled her behind him, his broad back protected her like a shield of the most impenetrable armour of the whole world. Renesmee's breathing became hard and flat now as she dared to look over his shoulders; and now she saw it all, sensed it all.

Renesmee was surprised at first, it all happened so fast, and she did not understand what was going on here; but then, the little pain in her left arm answered her question: she looked down only to find a little droplet of blood shining at the surface of her skin, a tiny, little scratch, but how monstrously big an effect it had. She looked up, daring to peep over Cillian's shoulders and look at the Vampires, who had, only a few moments before, smiled at her with warm, polite affection, but now abandoned those masks of gentleness and friendliness to show their true faces.

Their eyes, red as the dying sun, slowly started to loose focus, loosing its last shred of humanity and giving way to pure, wild instincts – it was as if now that the mood of polite welcome had vanished, as if Tamara's words had condemned her to be a danger it was necessary to extinguish, there was no longer a need to restrain the beasts in all of them. They were Vampires after all, and even though she was partly one of them too, she still had the beating heart of a human and a blood so sweet and warm – she saw now that it had been trap all along, and she had just happened to walk into it. There were six of them, a Coven full of strong, bloodthirsty, cruel Vampires and only two of them, or rather one and a half – they were outnumbered.

Cillian, just as if he had read her thoughts, suddenly began to growl in response – the sound terrified her, nothing human was left in it, only the wild warning of an even wilder predator. She pressed herself into his back as he shielded her from the looks of the others, and even through his layer of clothing, even through his thick, black, leather jacket, she could feel his muscles tense, awaiting the coming confrontation. There was something deeply terrifying and yet thrilling about seeing him like that – his whole posture so full of aggression and threat and yet there was an undeniable sense of protectiveness underlying it all.

She could not but feel safe with him. They were surrounded, outnumbered, they were trapped.

But she felt, she knew, she was safe with him.

"Don't come any closer."

The words that came out of Cillian's mouth hardly sounded like something he could have said; his voice sounded strangely strained and tensed, but not because of fear. Cillian was not afraid, not ever. And she could see it now, feel it now, that monster he had sought to suppress for so long, that darker side of him he had tried to hide from her – now it was all there, breathing hard, growling with a deep timbre, making him appear all tall and dark and threatening. He was a true Vampire to her eyes now; but he had nothing in common with her family – he was a true Vampire.

It was in this moment the fear came; was she afraid for her life, was she afraid for his safety – or was she afraid to finally be forced to face what she had long tried to ignore: to see the Vampire within him.

"Is that supposed to be a warning or a threat, brother?", Aaron was smiling gently and generously as he always did, but she could see the cold contempt now that underlay his question, his smile was of a lifeless nature, drenched in cruelty, like a predator trying to lure them into a feeling of safety before attacking. In the background, loud, hissing sounds could be heard and Renesmee's head dared to peep out behind Cillian's broad back; Tamara was dodging into a defensive position and there was no misunderstanding possible: she wanted to fight. Gwain, who stood next to her wore the same smile as Aaron and he would undoubtedly not trying to hold back his companion when she sought to attack – and she would attack. While the dark-haired angel Sibylla did not appear to be preparing for a fight, her lovers, however, growled in anticipation for a fight that had nothing to do with them.

Never in her whole life had she hated being half a human so much as she did now – the blood in her veins rushing in the rhythm of her scared, little, beating heart, as if it knew that it had only a few beats left to live. She knew they could smell it, how the pulse in her throat thrummed desperately, how deliciously easy a victim she would be – and she could see it in their gazes, the wild hunger screaming at her out of six different pairs of eyes. And then it all happened so fast.

Ethian and Fiann were the first one to attack them, shortly followed after by Tamara who; all three of them aimed at Renesmee, whether it was only the burning thirst that drove them to this attack, or, as in Tamara's case, whether it was this rather unexplainable hatred towards her, it was hard to tell. As they lunged at them she felt her own body response to the coming attack; the Immortal in her striving to take over, burying the human inside under all that thick layers of instincts; her muscles tensed as she prepared herself to fight – but before she could even do one step in their direction she suddenly felt the sensation of being lifted off her feet and pushed away, crashing with a rather bounce down into the earth.

When the shock of the sudden attack had worn off she looked up only to find Cillian, his back turned towards her, fighting off the monsters that had actually come for her; he was growling deep and wild as he threw himself on his former brothers, sending blows into their direction that could have broken bones, and it certainly sounded like it. She wanted to get up, get to him and help him, be at his side, fight alongside him, but then it dawned upon her: he had thrown her out of his way, thrown her out of harm's way.

It was obvious that he didn't want her to fight, that he didn't want to risk her to get hurt; his perfect, little plan, however, shattered to pieces when Tamara, unnoticed by Cillian at first, who was still distracted by the two brothers, made her way towards Renesmee. She got up only in time when the Vampire lady attacked her; she had hardly enough strength to parry her blows, with an incredible amount of difficulty did she manage to grab Tamara's wrists, stopping her from carving the eyes out of her skull. Renesmee knew she wouldn't be able to fight her off for her long; she was strong, much stronger than her, and her trainer with uncle Jasper seemed to have been erased from her mind completely.

Then all of the sudden she was gone, and she was pushed away once more: Cillian had finally fought off the two brothers long enough to deal with the lady Vampire. He shoved Tamara away from him and at first Renesmee was surprised that she didn't attack again, but then she noticed the broken body on the ground and, a few feet off, something that looked like a skull. Ethian was missing, only his corpse was to be found. Renesmee couldn't have looked away even of she had wanted to, no matter how terrible the sight was to her, she needed to watch, needed to see.

"Come on, then, what are you waiting for?", Cillian's hard, cold mocking words echoed through the night, but the Vampires in front of him could not be tempted in attacking him again – they had already lost one of their own by underestimating him, they wouldn't dare it again. Fiann, who growled aggressively at him, was held back by Sibylla; she took a long look at the corpse on the ground, but in contrast to the brother she didn't much seem to long for revenge. Renesmee felt her heart beat at double speed while she waited in the dark silence for an attack that should never come.

"Watch out, brother, or she will end up like Jocelynne."

Sibylla's words appeared atypically harsh and cold, and the smile on her lips as she said those words was of a rather cruel nature; Renesmee was drawn out of her panic-stricken mood upon this warning. Her head turned to the Coven, then her eyes rushed over to Cillian, and his body language was enough for her to read the immense message in those last words. As a response to the warning his whole body went rigid, anger and shock seemed to be quarrelling inside his soul, but she couldn't be sure, since still his back was turned towards her. For a moment, she thought he would attack again, but then he seemed to have reflected a better, fighting with his instincts, wanting to be the better man – and then, they were gone.

Renesmee didn't know how long they had been running; trees and darkness were passing them, above them the stars were glowing in a suddenly cruel light, she didn't know where they were going, or where he led her, maybe he didn't even know it himself. Cillian kept running, his hand securely wrapped around her wrist, dragging her with him, and she tumbled several times, hardly able to keep up with him.

Then, after what felt like hours he finally stopped, giving her a moment to rest; she breathed heavily, the air coming too short, too flat to calm her, she was so exhausted, tired, and just wanted to break down, allow herself to crash down onto the still moist earth and just fall into a sleep never to awake again – but what sort of nightmares would await her in her sleep? Cillian walked in circles around her, his head rushing from side to the other as if he'd just heard a potentially dangerous sound; if they hadn't just escaped a Coven of bloodthirsty Immortals she would've called him paranoid, but he was just checking whether or not they were being followed.

He seemed completely unaware of Renesmee in those first seconds, and his nervous business of checking their surroundings made her feel even more alone. It was then that the first tears came, she fell into hysterical sobs when the impact of this encounter finally settled in, she could hardly breathe as those terrible images and voices passed through her mind. Like the child she still was, she closed her eyes shut tight, pressing her palms against her ears, trying to shut out the terror that now came back to haunt her. The image of Cillian as the Vampire, so terrifying, so real, made her yelp helplessly.

Then, all of the sudden, she felt unknown, cold hands at her wrists, a muffled down voice urgently talking to her, but it made her panic even more; she shook her head, just as she had done it as a little child, trying to shut this voice out, trying to shake it off. From one moment to the other, her hands were pulled down with so much force she yelped in pain; large hands cupped her face ever so gently and then she heard him talk: as if he was Cillian, her Cillian again, and not the Vampire.

"Are you hurt, Renesmee, are you alright?"

His voice was thickened with his concern for her and it scared her even more; she opened her eyes and she saw the panic in his look, the fear that she might be hurt, that she could be in pain. The fear and concern that was written all over his face shocked her for a moment, but then his eyes softened and he sighed relieved, his head sinking low for a second as if he actually needed to catch his breath, after the moment of fear had passed.

Renesmee stared at him with, big eyes, and the tears were still burning hot in the corner of her eyes; it was in this instant, after the immediate, shocking momentum of a possible death had vanished, that she allowed her brain to recapitulate the events of this evening. Cillian looked at her intensely, his eyes rushing from left to right as if he was searching for something in her look that she just didn't seem to find.

"What happened to Jocelynne? What did they mean?", it was the first thing that come to her mind, Sibylla's warning still fresh and clear stuck in her thoughts, and she said those words rather in an act of defence, out of a stubborn impulse, trying to help herself to cope with what had just happened.

She didn't even really expected an answer, though she nevertheless hoped for it.

Cillian seemed shocked by her question, and even more so by the demanding tone of her voice, strained and hoarse from fear and tears. He didn't answer, he simply looked at her, silently begging her to leave it at that, but as he looked at her, her lips red and swollen, her eyes puffy from crying torn wide open, he knew that she couldn't. She started gripping his shirt, stared to tear at the fabric, starting to prick holes into it, as she sobbed uncontrollably and cried with always new waves of fresh tears overpowering her.

"Tell me! What happened to her? What will happen to me?"

Instead of a verbal response he simply pulled her into his embrace, and though at first she thought about rebelling against his typical behavioural pattern of avoiding to answer questions and demanding the truth from him, she was unable to deny herself the sense of comfort that his arms around her promised. She allowed herself to break down in his arms, and she cried into his icy chest, all her fears, all her anger, all her concern slowly melting down into hot tears, floating away and down her cheeks.

"Forgive me, I should never have brought you there. It was my fault.", she heard him talk, his lips close to her ear, yet seemingly so far away, muffled down by her hair; she wound her arms around him, seeking to be as close as possible to him and to the comfort he presented to her, "But I promise you, I swear, Renesmee, I won't ever let anything happen to you."

His last words made her shiver down to her very core, a thrilling feeling of safety accompanied his words and closeness now, a very atypical warmth claiming her skin, her thinking, her feelings; somehow in that moment the feeling of being in his arms did not appear new or strange, it felt surprisingly natural, it was as easy as breathing. She held on to him and to whatever warmth it was that seemed to grow inside her, warming her from the inside out, making the darkness of this world appear under the glowing shimmer of a burning light. She wanted to be burnt by the light that was him. And while she embraced him so hard she must have drawn bruises, she then wondered, whether or not she was starting to fall for him.