A/N: Happy Monday!

Thanks so much for all your wonderful thoughts.

Betad by the lovely Michelle Renker Rhodes. (But all remaining mistakes are mine).

Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest is all mine.


Chapter 12 – Bellaria, Be Not Afraid

When I pulled up in front of the Seattle Central Library, the afternoon clouds were hovering even lower, so low and so close that as I sat still in my car and gazed numbly up at the sky, I was sure that if I stretched up enough, I could touch them. I could feel them like soothing cotton balls between my fingers, both tangible and real. The threat of rain had quickly magnified into a promise of an imminent downpour, the heavens as obscure as the shadows in my mind, the murky haze camouflaging the corners, the thoughts lurking…the pieces threatening to come together. They were pieces which had been gathering from the very first moment of my first encounter with Mr. Edward Masen.

Perhaps their story has roots in a true tale...perhaps a young knight once fell in love with a young, beautiful, intelligent noblewoman...

...two lovers who lived, loved...and lost...

"No!" I growled, dropping my head and banging it repeatedly on the steering wheel as I tried desperately to keep the haze in place.

when she didn't want to face something, she behaved like an obtuse coward refusing to acknowledge that which was right in front of her…

"No," I repeated to myself through clenched teeth. "There has to be another explanation."

In your dreams, you will hear this…you must understand your dreams, my lady…and believe them…

Bella, I never claimed him as the stuff of legend. I proposed his love is...

Her name is…Bellaria…

"Hey Lady, you can't park there!" The traffic officer yelled after me as I rushed into the library.

Are you sure you want to learn the tale…because if you do, you may learn things which cannot be unlearned...

Her name is…Bellaria…

I fisted my hair hard to chase away the thoughts, making stars dance before my eyes as I scrambled onto the library elevator. It was packed, just as it had been last Sunday afternoon. Floor by floor, my hands fisted and unfisted at my sides. I squirmed around anxiously in a corner. Then realizing that all eyes were on me, I forced myself to stand still.

whispers abounded of demon knights roaming the castle and walking through flames unscathed…

They hid in the castle strongholds, filled the deep moats with all manner of creatures, raised the drawbridges…and for all their noble greatness, their names couldn't even be recalled as little as a century later…

Bellaria…

When we finally reached the tenth floor, I pushed my way out of the elevator and ran toward the reference desk.

It's signed…ESOM…

"May I help you?" The elderly, gray-haired librarian on duty smiled pleasantly at me from her swivel stool behind the desk. I managed a tight smile in return; although, from her startled expression, it fell quite flat.

"Yes, hi. I'm looking for a librarian who helped me last week. She had some expertise on a topic I was researching, and I really need her to assist me with the rest." The desperation in my voice was audible.

"Why sure, honey. Why don't you give me her name, and I'll see if she's working today?"

"Her name was Esme. She was here last Sunday."

The librarian frowned. "Esme? I don't think we have an Esme working on this floor. Are you sure you were here on the research floor?"

"I'm sure."

"Okay. Then are you sure her name was Esme?"

"Yes, I'm sure," I repeated, blood now pounding between my temples. My hands fluttered nervously.

Swiveling around in her stool, the librarian addressed another librarian behind the desk. "Mary, do you know if there's an Esme working on one of the floors?"

Mary, who looked to be about in her mid-fifties, responded absently while working on her desktop. "No, Judy. I've never heard of an Esme working here. Why?"

"This young lady is looking for someone by the name of Esme, who helped her here last week."

Mary frowned our way before standing and walking to us. "No. There's no Esme. What did she look like? It's probably someone else."

I swallowed back the panic rising to my throat. "She had long, dark hair and dark eyes, fair skin, and she looked about early to mid-thirties. And she was very pretty," I added, "about my height, I'd say."

"Well, except for the age, you've just described yourself, honey," Mary chuckled. "But no, there's no one working here who fits that description."

"Maybe she means Clara," Judy suggested, "over in fiction. She's got long, dark hair and dark eyes."

"No," Mary disagreed, "Clara is really tall, taller than my husband." She grinned, unaware of the terror her words sent up my spine. "Are you sure she was more on the petite side?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure."

"Are you sure she had dark hair and dark-"

"YES!" I snapped. "Yes, she had dark hair and dark eyes," I clarified with forced composure. Still, my voice shook. "She was petite, and…I suppose she may have looked a bit like me."

"We have no one here like that," Mary insisted. "What do you need help with? Maybe one of us can-"

"No." I fisted my hair again, trying to stop the ever-increasing tingling in my fingers. "It has to be her."

"Honey, I'm sure we can help," Judy persisted.

"She showed me an old book," I murmured, "with a poem from the Middle Ages."

"Well, do you remember the title of the book or of the poem? Any one of us can search for it in our database."

Reluctantly, I gave her both titles, and with another pleasant though much more wary smile, Judy the librarian entered the information into her desktop. "Don't worry, we'll find it for you," she reassured me. Then, her brow furrowed. "Actually, it says here that this particular book is archived in the National Archives of London." Mary moved closer to the screen and peeked over Judy's shoulder. They both looked up at me. "We don't have it here. We never have."

"That can't be right," I breathed, shaking my head almost violently. "I looked through the book here last week. Esme helped me."

Mary appeared on the verge of losing her patience. "Sweetheart, that's not possible. That book is over five hundred years old, and we would never keep it here. Now, if there's something in there that you need for your research, we'd be happy to help you contact the National Archives in London and formally request-"

"Where's Esme?" I hissed, stepping closer to the counter and gripping the edges fiercely. My fingers tingled like lightning bolts poised to strike. "I know she's here."

"We told you, there is no Esme here," Judy replied coldly, all attempts at civility gone. "Now if you continue with this, we're going to have to call security."

I backed up slowly, both Mary and Judy's eyes on me threateningly now. Then I turned around and ran.

Too bewildered to stand and wait for the elevator, I ran down the ten flights of stairs. All the while, as I sprinted downward, bumping into patrons on their way up and ignoring their protests, I fought against the hysteria welling up inside me, sending my heart rate soaring and closing off my lungs, making the tips of my fingers sting and burn. When I reached street level, I kept running. I left behind my car, only wanting to escape the inescapable, cutting through narrow streets and alleys. Except…that flight led me right into him.

By this point, I wasn't surprised. Instead, I shoved his chest with all my might while the wind whistled around us and thunder rumbled so loudly that Seattle's citizens, used to storms, began seeking shelter. They left the usually busy streets as deserted as a ghost town.

"What did you do to me?" I howled in a strangled voice. "What the fuck did you do to me?"

I tried to shove him again, but he wrapped his fingers around my arms and pulled me in close. And despite everything, despite the bewildered part of me, even the part of me that hated him…the part of me that craved him, that needed him like air, was a million times stronger.

"I'm sorry," he said, his warm breath fanning over my face, his bright green eyes swimming in agony. "I'm sorry, my love. I wish there was another way."

"Where is she?" I demanded.

"Where's who?"

"Esme! Where's Esme?"

"Bella, I don't know who Esme is."

"The librarian!" I shrieked. "The one who helped me find the poem by ESOM, and The Verse for Bellaria!"

"Esme?" he frowned. Then something flickered in his eyes, and as he looked away from me, he shook his head. "My God, Esme."

"I don't know what that means!"

As his gaze swept back to me, his nostrils flared, and he pulled me in closer. "Yes, you do. You refuse to see what's right before you. You're closing yourself off to it. That's why I told you what I did yesterday, so that could stop torturing the both of us! You need to accept this now!"

"I have no idea what the fuck you want me to accept!"

"Yes, damn it, you do!" He spoke through clenched teeth, shaking me hard enough to show me that, like Mary the librarian, he'd reached the end of his patience. But not hard enough to hurt me – never hard enough to hurt me. "Yes, you do," he repeated in a quiet voice that belied the fire in his gaze. "You feel me in your heart, in your blood, and in every corner of your mind, and you know. You know that my name has been written indelibly upon your soul since the very beginning, just as yours is written upon mine."

With those words, all the air in my lungs escaped me, and I shut my eyes, dropping my head. "It's impossible," I said much more weakly. "It's imp-"

"So damn stubborn," he hissed. Then without warning, Edward slid his hands through my hair, wrapped his fingers around the nape of my neck, and pulled my mouth up to his.

And despite all the confusion and the anger and the resentment rumbling throughout my every limb, when he put his mouth on mine, when he breathed his scent and his life and his heat into me, I was home. All my resistance evaporated, and I responded hungrily because yes, somehow, my soul was his soul. My blood was his blood. How that was possible, I had no idea, but I knew that much to be true.

My arms slid around his neck, and as I melted against him, a sound of pure, undeniable relief erupted from deep within his chest. When he exhaled my name in a strangled whisper, I deepened our kiss because I was lost and found - lost in him, in the heat of our kiss, and found in my own sense of relief. So lost that I didn't immediately get that when he breathed my name over and over, he wasn't saying 'Bella.'

"Bellaria…"

With a horrified gasp, I pulled away.

Edward looked startled, his eyes wide and unblinking. When he finally blinked out of his daze, his eyes darkened exponentially, now almost wild in their indignation.

"Christ's love, open your eyes! See what is right before you!"

"I can't possibly be her!"

"Oh, but you are!" he roared, stepping toward me. "You are Bellaria! YOU ARE MY WIFE!"

I staggered backward yet another step, bewildered by the vehement fury in his tone. The wind suddenly stopped, and as Edward and I faced each other in the middle of the alley, only my heavy breaths were audible. It was like one of those perfect silences that came right before a raging storm. And abruptly, the skies opened, and a blinding, wrathful flood of fury pounded over us.

This time, when he closed the distance between us, he pulled me flush against his hard chest and forced me to hold his frenzied gaze. "Stop this!"

"I can't!"

"Yes, you can! You have the ability, and you have pieces. Now put them together for your sanity as well as for mine, and for your safety!"

"I don't know who or what you are, but I am Bella," I cried. But there was no true conviction behind my words. And abruptly, all Edward's fury left him in a rush as well.

"If you can't accept who you are, there is no way you will ever understand what I am."

Rain pelted against my cheeks and mixed with my tears, and I dropped my head in defeat. Again, he cradled the nape of my neck, and I closed my eyes.

"I don't know what to believe."

"Believe you are Lady Bellaria of Castle Swein," he said softly. "Believe that your mother was Lady Resmae of House Swein."

"My mother was Renee Cullen. She died when I was a child."

"Lady Resmae was descendant of Rena of Pompeii, who herself was descendent of a great line of sorcerers-"

"You mean witches," I snorted.

"-as far back as biblical times. She did not know this until the birth of her daughter, just as Lady Resmae did not know until your birth, as you would have known upon the birth of our-"

"Stop!" I cried. "Don't go there. Please, don't go there."

Gently, with his finger under my chin, he lifted my eyes back to him.

"Bellaria, hear me," he begged. "Throughout the ages, it has been the birth of a girl child which has opened your descendant's eyes so that the power might manifest itself. There was something in the birth...we're not sure what. But they were ancient times, and there was simply no other way to know. No records kept. However, now…" he cradled my face between his hands, "Jasper, Emmett, and I, we have studied and recorded the history for you. You were born Lady Bellaria of House Swein, yet you never had the chance to fulfill your destiny; therefore, you were reborn as Bella Cullen. And unless you fulfill it now-"

"How the hell am I supposed to believe all this?"

"My Bellaria, hear me and believe me, I beg of you." His thumbs caressed my cheeks. "Almost one thousand years I've awaited your return."

It boggled the mind - everything he claimed, those things which he implied. They were impossible to believe, yet impossible not to. I was being told that the Earth was flat, that all the planets revolved around the Earth…that reincarnation existed…in me.

"If all this is true, then how-"

"Hello, Bella."

The two words were spoken behind me, but just as quickly as I heard them, the person who spoke them was in front of me. It took me the next couple of seconds to realize that it wasn't he who'd moved, but rather me. I'd been picked up and set behind Edward so quickly, so fluidly, that I hadn't even felt it. And now, Edward was crouched in front of me, his arm bent behind him and wrapped around me like an iron beam, immovable when I tried to pull away and look past him to the vaguely familiar man before us both.

"Jake?"

He grinned as if pleased by my recognition, completely unfazed by the downpour.

"You remembered me. I feared our time together had been too short for-"

"Mongrel, you will stay away from my wife." A growl so deep and rumbling emanated from Edward's chest that it raised every fine hair on my neck.

Jake grinned. "Has she chosen then?"

"She made her choice centuries ago; your master knows this," Edward seethed.

Jake laughed. "She must make the choice again; you know this."

"And your master knows how she will choose. That's why he sends you, a half-witted new creation of his instead of appearing himself."

"How do you know for sure that I am not him?" Jake snarled.

"Because he is a coward. He always has been, and he always will be. And now, he sends you to your death."

"Wait, what's going on? Jake…what are you doing here?" I asked.

He turned his gaze to me, reaching out a hand. "Why, I'm here for you, Bella. All you have to do is say you choose me."

Edward's arm tightened around me. "Bellaria, that is not Jake," he snarled.

"Then who-"

The next few minutes will always be a blur.

Something – something that moved too quickly for my eyes – grabbed Jake. All I saw were flashes before two indistinguishable shapes moved like lightning before me, but not in one direction and downward the way lightning moves, rather side to side, up and down, diagonally and in circles. They crashed together and thunder emanated from them. Then they came apart and continued their dance. And all the while, Edward remained crouched before me as I watched in horrified fascination.

When the two lightning bolts stopped for a split second, I recognized one.

"That's Emmett," I breathed. "Edward, what…what in the actual…fuck?"

Suddenly, Edward wasn't in front of me - nor holding me - anymore.

More flashes of lightning appeared, exploding together like thunder while actual thunder rolled above us and disguised the ear-splitting battle – because I couldn't deny that it was a battle. When a deafening thud hit the concrete side of a building, it reverberated through my limbs. It shook through the streets like a seismic quake. Fragments of brick flew in all directions. At first, I thought lightning had actually struck the side of the building, but when the dust cleared, all my blood ran cold.

The Edward of my dreams, of my visions, the beautiful, wrathful god of my nightmares held Jacob prone against the broken wall. Except…it wasn't Jacob. Then abruptly, it was. His face shifted over and over, from Jacob to someone I didn't recognize to…to the most horrendous and disfigured beast I could've ever dreamed up in the worst of my already impossible dreams.

"Garwalf," I breathed, recalling Rena's description of her husband, Iacobus. "Shapeshifter...warewolf."

And as my mind tried to make sense of the senseless, the beast's head went rolling. In the next moment, his body fell to the ground.

Again, Edward moved like a flash in front of me, fighting with other formless, shapeless beasts. When a gush erupted into the air like a geyser, I thought one of the city's old water mains had broken. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that the water gushing wasn't white…and that it wasn't water. It splattered back to the ground with a legless torso and a torso-less pair of legs falling with it.

Strangely enough, it was that sight which accomplished what I hadn't been able to accomplish in weeks. My mind stopped racing. For the next few minutes, while I stood there doing nothing but watching, I don't think any real, tangible thoughts went through my head. I was, in the truest sense of the word, totally and completely dumbfounded.

But it didn't last long.

A strange sounded erupted above me, like the whistling sound an object makes as it cuts through the air.

Moving my eyes upward, I saw a handful of lightning bolts heading straight for me. In my thoughtless, mindless condition, the only thing I could come up with was the mathematical impossibility of half a dozen lightning bolts striking the same spot at the same time.

"No! Bellaria! BELLA!" Edward roared. In the fraction of a second that I moved my eyes away from the bolts and to him, I saw him reach for me only to be pulled back by a half dozen sets of arms.

It was instinctual, the same as when you reach for someone you see is about to fall even knowing you'll be too late, and that there's nothing you can do anyway. That's how I reached for Edward, with both hands and with my fingers outstretched. The pulse that raced through my spine rushed through my veins and converged into the tips of my fingers. The arms wrapped around Edward's torso and the bodies connected to those arms disintegrated. The force of the pulse sent me reeling on my ass and out of the trajectory of the falling lightning bolts. When those bolts hit concrete, Edward, Jasper, and Emmett were on them in an instant.

Stunned beyond movement or comprehension, I exhaled through narrowed lips and brought my hands up in front of me, turning them over from side to side.

"What the actual-"

"Bella, watch out!"

Edward shoved me hard, so hard it knocked all the wind out of me as I went skidding across the pavement and stupidly tried to stop my momentum with my hands. I screamed as I felt the skin of my palms scrape off. With a thud, my head hit the concrete.

A few seconds or an entire lifetime may have transpired. Spread out on the ground, I moaned and whimpered. My eyes crossed from the searing pain radiating to every corner of my skull. The world spun before me in an excruciating, blinding blur. My palms were on fire. Yet despite the agony, I managed to sit up. Unable to use my palms, I pressed my wrists to my head to quell the pain. Then, I opened my eyes.

The rain still fell in mystifying sheets, but now…now my vision was clear, and I saw it all as if a veil had been lifted.

In the destruction of the alley before me, Edward, Emmett, and Jasper were waging war with at least a dozen men. But men was the wrong word for what the things were. There was nothing human about them, not in the way they moved, not in the way they rammed into one another and shred concrete walls into dust yet emerged unscathed, not in the snarls and howls that filled the air, not in the spider-like way they climbed walls, not in the heights they jumped…and not in the way Edward tore off their limbs and split their torsos.

Yet as quickly as he, Jasper, and Emmett finished them, more would appear. They were humans at first, perfectly normal humans who crossed the alley or peered down from the windows of one of the buildings surrounding us. Then one of the things would grab them, lunge forward or scale the side of the building and...scratch, or bite. In the next seconds, the unfortunate human was no longer human.

When there were only a handful left, four of them jumped to the top of a roof as if jumping an Olympic hurdle.

"Go!" Edward ordered Jasper and Emmett. "I have this one!"

Emmett and Jasper jumped up to the roof while Edward bent the last one against a large garbage bin. The thing shifted from man to beast, from Jacob's face to another. And I sat there and watched it all. I watched Edward snarl and twist his lips. I saw his eyes darken. I watched him open his mouth and bare his teeth while the thing emitted an inhuman, high-pitched howl. I watched the thing's head fall limply to the side, eyes open and unseeing

The entire fight lasted about five minutes, yet it felt as if I sat there for decades, for centuries watching the thing's limp, pitched head, its terror-filled and glazed eyes, and its blood trail down its arm then cascade to the ground like the leaves from the cherry blossom trees earlier in that beautiful, peaceful medieval garden. It ran like a stream and seeped into the covered sewers. The rain washed away the rest. I vaguely wondered how the remainder of the scene would be explained to the Seattle Police Department.

And all the while, in the background, the sound of his drinking and swallowing filled my ears.

Swallowing thickly myself, and unable to put it off any longer, I forced myself to look.

As if feeling my eyes on him, Edward stopped and slowly swiveled his head, meeting my gaze as he released the thing and allowed it to fall to the ground. He straightened out over his long legs, his eyes neither black nor green but bright red and glowing like a crimson vision from an unimaginable dremen. Blood streaked his clothes, his face, his arms…his blindingly white teeth. With his red eyes on me, and with careful, deliberate movements, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shook it off over the concrete. The sound of the blood splattering reverberated through my bones.

Are you sure you want to learn the tale…because if you do, you may learn things which cannot be unlearned...

As if stuck in some slow-motion horror film, my head moved deliberately from side to side. My lips parted on an equal parts protracted and fathomless breath. I filled my lungs. I prepared them. It must've all clued in Edward to what was coming next.

His eyes filled with their own kind of horror, and when he spoke, his voice was ridiculously soft and soothing.

"No, Bellaria. No, my beloved. I beg of you, do not be frightened of me. Don't scream. Please, don't scream." He rushed forward as the first sound crossed the threshold of my lips. "No, Bella, no!"

Then, everything went black.


A/N: Thoughts?

I've wanted to clear something up since the beginning, but I couldn't until now:

These are not Stephanie Meyers' vampires. The wolves/shapeshifters aren't hers either. In other words, none of these supernatural dudes are canon Twilight. They're my own little beings. :)

Chapter Song Recs:

Tremble for my Beloved by Collective Soul

Cry, Little Sister by G Tom Mac (I mentioned this one last chapter, and the lyrics are a bit freaky, but the tune for these past two chapters is perfectly haunting). ;)

See you all next Monday. :)