I was screaming bloody murder until someone started shaking me, telling me too wake up. And then I snapped my eyes open, Alec was sitting on the edge of my bed. I sat up and started shaking. He wrapped his arms around me and held me, and I kept shaking like an idiot.

I tried to remember my dream, but I couldn't think of much. I remembered being terrified, so much that I welcomed death when I thought it was approaching. I remember dad's face in flames, along with other people I'd seen on the streets, some of them from the Volturi. I remembered seeing my face, reaching out to flames, and basking in the heat, how good it felt to have my hand linger in the fire. This made me even more scared. And the shaking continued.

When I stopped, I said, "Thanks," and looked up at him.

"Yup, anytime. I'll just go now."

Wait! "Why?"

"To let you sleep," he made it sound like a question.

"Can't you stay?" I asked.

"Why?"

He was getting on my nerves. Stupid! If a girl asks you to stay, you stay! Can't you take a hint? I didn't have much to work with here.

"I don't know. Maybe if you're here, the nightmares will go away."

He had been halfway near the door, but he stopped in his tracks. My bed sat in the middle of the left wall, so both sides were open. He sat down next to me, and I sat cross-legged. I thought back and silently thanked Chelsea, a nice red-head that even know she couldn't taste it, loved bubble gum, showed me her two-room closet and lent me some pajamas; pants and a little tank top, black silk edged in pink.

He kept staring at me, and I stared back. Oh my God, I thought. I'm going to half to make the first move here! I have never done that, ever! It just plain went against the nature of boyfriends. And I had a lot of those, enough to know that the boys should always make the first move! Always!! Now I had to? Great, just perfect.

But then, all of a sudden, I was wrong. Alec brushed a few curls back out of my face behind my ear. Then, he planted his lips against mine.

I got butterflies in my stomach as I kissed him back, the good kind. I could not ever remember when I had ever gotten butterflies from kissing someone. But now, I didn't care. He held me, and I practically melted into him, I curled into his form, softly. He pulled away to let me breath and just held me.

His eyes were glowing amber. I reached out and touched his face, he was cold, but what could you expect. I lay down next to him and put my head on his chest. He started running his hand through my hair. Slowly, I drifted off in to what I hoped would be only a small piece of what I wanted for my forever.

I woke up to Alec still running his hand through my curls. I turned over to face him.

"And you never get tired."

"Nope," he said and kissed my forehead.

"We should probably be getting up."

"Now the key word there is should."

"And miss a day with more vampires, I don't think so."

"If you insist," he stood up faster than I could sit up.

"Which I do, but if you keep doing that, I'm going to get a head rush."

"Well than, why don't you get dressed and I'll wait for you."

"I like that idea," I said and he left.

Last night kept running through my head. If dad were here, he'd kill me himself, or ground me forever. Or both, maybe. I walked to the dresser Chelsea had stocked for me, a whole drawer was dedicated to a designer collection of skinny jeans, I liked Chelsea a lot. I slid on a pair of faded jeans and tight orange shirt with a brown tank top underneath. I quickly combed my hair, applied some lip gloss and slid on some shoes. Walking out the door felt good, but seeing Alec made me feel even better.

He slid his hand into mine and said, "the elders are trying to decide what to do with you, the first part is today, but are you hungry? We should get you, what do you call it?"

"Breakfast?"

"Yes, we should get something for you to eat."

"Yum, just show me a kitchen and I can do most anything, except a soufflé, I haven't mastered that yet."

"Soufflé, I got the impression you didn't know how to do anything like that," he said.

"Why would you say that?"

"I don't now I-" I cut him off with a finger over his lips.

"Shut up before you say anything else stupid."

He walked me over to a kitchen shaking his head. The fridge had only a carton of eggs, a carrot, and an onion. Easy omelet with some water. In the cupboards, I found some pasta and some canned spaghetti sauce and-why?- dried fish sticks, freeze dried. I ignored what was in the little under stocked pantry, it was too horrible to even think about, considering what I was used to.

I started with cutting the carrot very thinly, then chopping half the onion. I was impressed with myself because I wasn't crying like I normally did when I chopped onion. As I started to beat two eggs until they were frothy, I noticed something strange.

"Where did you learn to cook like that?"

"What? Now you're-wait let me guess. A French chef, yes?"

"Well no, but that's experienced cooking. Where did you learn to do that?"

"Well, we had a TV in the house, I watched cooking shows to fill the time after schoolwork and I liked reading cookbooks, I learned from some experience too." I started cooking the omelet in a pan I had to grease with an onion slice, a risky thing.

"See, even the onion thing is advanced. And it smells better than a lot of food I've smelled."

"You don't smell a lot of food?"

"We don't eat," he said, obviously annoyed with me. I was beginning to get annoyed with him, so I got right to it.

"I'm not a frail human you know, my dad taught me all about vampires. Took me hunting a couple of times, animals of course. He never approved of the human business, unless it was criminals, then that was approved of. You can't always be Superman, and I can't always be the poor little defenseless princess in the castle."

"You haven't answered my question," he said, confused. The he sighed, "Do honestly know how many human's I've been around since 1692? I used to think you all were quite the same to be honest. Frail, unstable, prone to emotional breakdowns."

"1692? As in the Salem Witch Trials 1692?" I almost choked on the last bite of omelet in my mouth.

"Yes," he looked at me from under his lashes, twirling a knife, pointed side poking his skin, which I then snatched away.

"And that's when you-" my mood dropped because I finally understood what happened. He had been almost killed by the Salem witch trials, which meant, so had Jane had been too.

"Story for another time okay?" he suddenly got defensive.

As an instinct, I too became defensive, "Well don't tell me then. If that's something you want to keep from me fine," I softened the features on my face.

He came around and kissed me, they way his lips crushed mine, I could feel tension. Tension that melted when my anger did. He wasn't mad. He just didn't ant to deal with his demons just yet. I understood that, I had my own personal demon sitting in a box beneath my bed at home…. I let him kiss me, and let any fight in me go with my disappearing tension.

"I'll tell you some other time," he whispered, pulling away.

"Oh," I whispered back.

He wrapped his arm around my waist, "Are you ready to go, the Volturi have been waiting long enough."

"Okay," I said. I was feeling a little unsure but Alec squeezed my waist, reassuringly.

We walked down the stairs and of course, Felix and Demetri were there. They grinned at us and then stopped, they obviously remembered yesterday and how Alec got mad. They were scared of him and Jane. I knew why, I pitied them.

"It's okay, you can say it. It's true now," Alec assured them.

The pair exchanged shocked glances and laughed, "Really? I actually never thought! Ha, good job Alec, don't let her go, I'd steal her!" Felix howled.

I giggled and moved a little closer to Alec. The two stepped aside and we walked in to the throne room. Someone had replaced the three thrones with a long table and chairs. Jane sat in one and then the three elder and one of, who I guessed, must have been the wives. She was pretty, flowing golden hair, and dressed as richly as everyone else in a pale pink dress. Caius pulled out her chair and then took the seat next to her. Alec and I chose to sit across from Caius and his Athenodora.

Aro began by welcoming everyone, and a special greeting to me.

"My dear ones, welcome. Welcome little Chloe." I nodded at him. "We gather to figure out what to do with our young human friend, you do realize that I have taken an unusual amount of sympathy, yes?" I nodded again. "Well then, we shall continue to discuss when and where you shall become a vampire."

"I move for her immediate transition," Caius said, "We don't want any exposure."

"Yes, but love, why? You see that Alec has found his mate, if she were changed, say today, then she wouldn't be herself for a while."

"I agree with you Athenodora," Markus said.

"You're very right, I agree with you too, my dear," Caius took hold of his wife's hand.

Aro gazed at them and then back at me. He brushed his black hair back and coughed to get the couple's attention, but they just looked in to each other's eyes. I thought that was just so sweet, really going with the love story Alec was telling me about. Finally Markus got up and picked up one of the stone benches that should have been attached to the side of the octagonal room. He lifted it, and then dropped it.

I covered my ears as the loud bang echoed three, four, five times through the whole room. As the sound reverberated off the walls, Caius and Athenodora mumbled apologies and coughed a little, fake of course.

"Now if you're done, we should continue,"

Boring ideas were proposed and I even found time between answering meaningless questions to look at the whole room and memorize it. The octagonal room was all marble, inscriptions in Latin or some other foreign language were carved in the hollow parts of each piece of the octagon-room.

I was spaced until someone was shaking my shoulder, "Chloe, Chloe, Chloe!"