Wow, I'm on a roll. Sneak peak to first reviewer of this chapter.

Chapter Four

The next two weeks are uneventful. Nobody sends for me—I assume that Aro wants me to recuperate before presenting me to the entire Guard again—but Alec stops by whenever he has free time, which is a lot. He tells me that they have some of the Guard out looking for new vampires that threaten our secret, or nomads that are causing trouble, but that everyone else is on their toes, waiting in anticipation for "blood to be spilled" (his words, not mine).

I spend most of my time going through the books in the room. I finish the Rilke one in a few hours, and take a break from the poetry, finding a copy of The Cider House Rules stuck behind the bookshelf fixture, and tear through that in a matter of days.

"The ending sucks," Alec warns one night, finding me, head ducked over it, on the kitchen counter.

"Shut up," I tell him, biting my thumb nail. The romantic tension of Homer-Candy-Wally was really getting to me. "It's so good."

"I promise you, the ending's terrible."

"Shut up, Alec."

"I'm being honest here. It's awful. And isn't that inappropriate for you?"

I take a deep breath through my nose, and look up at him for the first time. "No, Alec. It's not inappropriate for me."

As soon as I'm done with that, I find myself picking up a tattered copy of The Catcher in the Rye, a first edition. My dad was obsessed with it, but he always said that I was too young to read it. He said I had "all the time in the world". Turns out he was wrong. My days are numbered. And I'm pretty sure we're in double-digits at this point.

"Holden's awful," Alec says one day, when he walks into the room to find me sitting on the bed, in sweats and a t-shirt, reading the book.

"If this is another lecture like the one with The Cider House Rules, turn around right now," I said, pointing in the direction of the door.

"You hated the ending of The Cider House Rules!" he exclaims. "You threw the book at me!"

"I don't care. I still loved the book. Get off my back, Alec."

He glares at me playfully, and I toss a pillow at him. He catches it before it can smack him the face.

"Ha," he said. "Back to The Catcher in the Rye—no, this is not a lecture. It's one of my favorites of all time. That right there"—he points—"is the best of modern literature."

I grin at him, waving the book in the air. "Modern literature? You do know that this book is sixty years old, right?"

Alec's eyebrows shoot up. "Huh. I hadn't realized."

I sit up, laughing. "No way. You're kidding, right?"

Alec sits down next to me on the bed, gently taking the book from my hands. "No, I'm not. I've been alive for almost seven hundred years, angel. Time is entirely different for me."

Believe it or not, I'm almost completely used to him calling me 'angel', even though it does still sound weird, in describing me.

"Seven hundred years?" I ask, shock coloring my tone. "What? I'm eight years old!"

Alec laughs. "I've been eighteen since 1354. It's gone by much faster than you'd think."

"Well, I'd hope so!"

He shakes his head good-naturedly. "Teenagers of the twenty-first century have no idea."

"Yeah?" I lie on my belly, and rest my head in my hands, watching him. "Enlighten me, grandpa."

Alec looks amused, but not in the cruel way that Aro always seems to be. "Grandpa?"

"Angel?"

Alec sighs. "Fine. Point taken." He lies back on the bed next to me, putting his hands under his head. "Something you need to understand is that things were very different then, on all counts. Humans were more aware of us, and there was a constant threat of proof of our existence leading to countless executions and hunts.

"The paranormal was a part of everyone's daily lives; people believed in mystical things, in witches and spells and in things coming back to get you. My village, in what is now northeastern Italy, tended to spout lies of paranormal activity, of things that did not happen, and, when our father died suddenly, the entire town's eyes were on me and my sister. They'd suspected us before; our mother had been the town's herbal doctor of sorts, and many didn't trust her medicines. She died when we were young, of an illness that swept through the village, but many still suspected Jane and I of being witches as well, although our father was a well-liked baker."

"Where were you when I had to take European History last year?" I interject, awed.

Alec sighs again. He looks at me sideways.

"Kidding," I say.

Alec shakes his head, but continues. "Soon, though, a boy in the village disappeared: we'd been friends once, before we both began to work, and never seemed to have much time to spend with one another like we used to. At first, most of everyone assumed he'd just run off, or gotten lost—but, when he didn't return for an entire week, and winter's first snow came along, the village was worried, and they didn't quite know who to blame.

"Odd things were always happening around Jane and I—sometimes, when Jane was with the other girls, helping prepare meals, or sewing clothes, unusual things would happen; the flames would duplicate in size when she merely considered tending it, and many girls who normally would never do such a thing, would poke themselves with their needles. And whenever I was in my father's bakery, things would break unexplainably, and a man once blacked out for no apparent reason. And these were such little things, but, of course, people only see what they want to see—and they saw that Jane was different, with her masculine attire and her reading, and that I was different, with my odd gift of growing things for the bakery, and the way the two of us kept to ourselves.

"And so the two of us were put on trial—we were accused of witchcraft, and killing the boy. The villagers voted, and it was final—Jane and I were sentenced to burning at the stake. But Aro found us, somehow, and turned us before we could be killed.

"The Volturi was different then as well, as you could assume. We worked hand-in-hand with the human nobility; we offered them protection, and they disposed of any humans who threatened to expose us. The system worked surprisingly well for hundreds of years, until the humans began to see that they could gain something from us—immortality. But, at the time, nobles were to keep their ears open for any gossip in the villages, whether of humans who could pose to have useful powers—those who were accused of 'witchcraft', like Jane and I—if turned, or of those who spoke of the 'red-eyed' ones."

I can't help but doubt his decision—why join the Volturi? But Alec meets my gaze, and laughs lightly, under his breath. "I know you," he says. "I know that look right there, angel." I shrug my shoulders, smiling sheepishly. "He did give us a choice, believe it or not. But back then, there really weren't many options. There weren't any larger covens like yours which with we could take refuge." He waits to see if I'll react, but I'm not offended; the way he says the word is respectfully, jealously. I feel bad for him.

"We had two choices: become nomads, the two of us, or join the Volturi," he says, when he sees my lack of reaction. He pauses. "I know you may not understand our decision, but being in the Guard was much more appealing than being alone for all of eternity. And, of course, it wasn't all my decision—Jane needed stability. She wasn't always like she is now, believe it or not. She was kind. We had a young cousin, William, whose mother died in childbirth, and Jane took care of him for three years—ever since she was thirteen. She adored him more than anything. But William's father, our cousin Thomas, wouldn't let her near him when he heard the town's gossip. Jane was heartbroken. And after we were changed, it became plainly obvious to her that we would never fall in love like she'd hoped, or have a child of her own. For Jane, this was the worst thing that could happen at the time. She's very different now. If I'd met the present Jane even five hundred years ago, I wouldn't know who she was."

We're both quiet. I can't help but think of my aunt Rose, who went through the same sort of shock when she was turned, although she hasn't exactly grown any less vain. I sit up, and pick a spot of lint off his black t-shirt. "Fuzz," I say, quietly. Alec meets my gaze, and his eyes are dark—not with hunger, but with half a millennium of sadness and loneliness. He's not happy here, and I know it just as well as he does. Alec sits up, and faces me.

His breath is cool on my face, and he smells fantastic. Like peppermint, almost. Like home. "Let me try something," I say, quietly, my heart pounding. "Don't move." Alec freezes, and he stops breathing. I lean forward, until our noses are almost touching. I pause a moment, waiting to see if he'll pull away. He knows what I'm about to do . . . but he doesn't move.

I put my hand on his chest, over his still heart, and move in closer. Our lips are almost brushing now. Alec reaches around me, curls his fingers into my ringlets with one hand, and wraps the other around my waist. Before I know it, his lips are on mine, and I'm falling on top of him, onto the towering mounds of pillows on my bed. It's slow, and gentle, but I can feel it somewhere deeper, way down inside me—that spark that everyone but my family says doesn't really exist, that everyone else always told me was a fantasy. I pull away. Alec's eyes are closed, and a half-smile pulls at the corner of his lips.

"Angel?" he says. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

Short one, I know. Which is why I'm offering the sneak peek. And even though it was short, you have to admit it was awesome. FIRST KISS, KIDS(: I'm hoping everyone doesn't think this is going too fast, romantically. I hate when, in fics, characters know each other for about a day, and then they tell each other "i love you". It makes me really, really angry. That's why I did the whole two-weeks thing. So it's been some time, at least. Two weeks is definitely enough time to start liking someone, you know?

For the SNEAK PEEK: it can't be one of those reviews that just say "Update," okay? I'm looking for two sentences minimum. And the sneak peek wont be wimpy. I'm promising at least a fourth of a scene, so probably around 100 words. It also won't be a sneak peek of Chapter Five-it'll be a sneak peek that is very sneaky, and from at least a few chapters after this one, alright? Get pumped.