Guess what? My exams are over, yaaaay! :D

I managed to get this finished, sorry it's taken like a week, I was hoping to have it up much earlier. But I'm glad I wrote it, because there definitely needed to be another chapter between the last one and the next one.

I hope you like it :)

Bittersweet Bones

Chapter 14

by missrebecca

"No! No, no, no, no, no," Isabella chanted as Dimitri flew through the air towards her before crashing into her, sending them both sliding across the training room floor, where they slammed into the wall, sending brick dust flying into the air.

Dimitri was laughing, as was Chelsea, but Isabella felt only embarrassed. She could see the members of the guard laughing at her, rolling their eyes when they thought she wasn't looking. Her shield had come on leaps and bounds, but her combat skills were still severely lacking. She could just barely rebuff attacks, but it seemed she simply lacked the strength to catch a thrown vampire, like most of the others were able to do.

"You'll get it," Chelsea said as she gripped Isabella's hand and pulled her to her feet.

"I feel like I should be better at this," she grumbled as she dusted off her standard issue trousers.

Isabella had been a vampire for going on five years, but she felt as though she still wasn't used to it. The strength and the speed had come naturally, but it was the lack of the sleep, the blending of days that she simply couldn't work her mind around. The idea of forever, in the same body with the same mind just didn't seem possible.

"Isabella," Edward spoke from the arches doorway, calling her over to his side. Edward hadn't propositioned her again, but she saw the looks he sent her way, and she ignored them every time. The fact was, she wouldn't have minded a little intimacy, Edward had been right, it did get lonely in the castle. But whenever she considered it, there was something holding her back, she felt that somehow her heart belonged to another. Though who that other was, she had no idea.

"Yes?"

"Aro would like for you to begin work on the physical aspect of your shield."

Isabella was quiet a moment. She remembered Eleazar's suggestion that her shield might be more than simply mental, but she'd never had any indication that it would be. "But we don't even know if I have a physical aspect."

"Which is exactly why Aro would like for you to work on it."

Though she sighed she nodded. "And how do I go about doing that?"

"I would suggest that you continue to work with Chelsea and Dimitri, speak to Alec, too."

He looked at her as though that was all he was going to say on the matter, but yet he still stood in the doorway. "Was that all?" she asked. He nodded. "What, you're going to watch?"

"Of course."

She huffed as she turned back to the corner she'd been training in with Chelsea. Alec had joined Dimitri, and stood looking so small besides the towering behemoth that was the Russian. "Did you hear that?" The trio nodded. "Any ideas?"

"I have a few," Alec said. He was put forth as Jane's brother, and in the public eye they were often seen together, but within the privacy of the castle it was a very different story; they couldn't stand one another. "Tell me, what does it feel like, when you protect someone else's mind?"

Isabella thought for a moment. "I don't know how to describe it. It's like...like an elastic band or something, like I stretch it out from my mind over them and it snaps around their mine. We're not connected, they have an independent shield."

"I see, so there's no spread, it's individualised?"

Chelsea nodded. "I stood between Isabella and Dimitri, and she shielded him, but not me. It's very selective."

Alec was quiet a moment. "Interesting. I would suggest visualising that...as you say, elastic band, try and push it away from yourself, and transform it in your mind, to a stone wall."

"A stone wall?"

He nodded, "Or something equally impenetrable."

Isabella closed her eyes and tried to imagine the band that seemed to exist around her mind. But she could feel the eyes in the room zoning in on her, could imagine the other vampires glancing her way when they should be focusing on fights of their own. She couldn't stop the hairs standing up on the back of her neck, couldn't close her mind enough to do what she was trying to.

Sighing she opened her eyes. "How do you know this?" she asked.

"When my gift first presented itself, it was only effective through touch, and I couldn't turn it off. So long as I touched someone, they lost the use of their senses. Over the years I learned to recognise my gift, and was able to transform it until it acted like smoke, as a mist that enveloped others."

"Was it hard?"

Alec smiled and nodded. "Nothing worthwhile is ever easy. Just try to clear your mind."

Taking a deep breath in, she did just that. She concentrated on the tranquillity she found in the castle gardens, the silence and the peace. She blocked out the noise of the other vampires in the room, and concentrated on her breathing. Finally, she felt the snap of her shield. It seemed so obvious to her in these times, and she often wondered how she could have ever not known it was there. Concentrated she pushed it out, as though she was going to encase someone else's mind in her protection. With great effort she imagined it hovering, like a golden disk around her mind, and then imagined it stretching, becoming as a bubble to encase her whole being. Except it was made of stone; impenetrable as vampire skin.

When she opened her eyes, she knew that something had changed, she could feel it; but she had little faith that anything could work.

"How do you think this is going to work?" Chelsea asked.

Alec shrugged. "If we assume it to be like Renata, then technically, nothing should be able to get near her."

"Great," Chelsea chirped. "Dimitri!"

"I'm here, milacik," he murmured, planting a kiss on her brow, before allowing her to grab him by the arm and knee. Chelsea gestured for Isabella to move back, before throwing her lover straight for her.

Isabella attempted to brace herself; she concentrated on her shield, and on the idea that there was no way Dimitri was going to hit her. The impact of Dimitri against her sent them sprawling across the training room floor.

Edward marched towards her. "That was appalling, were you trying at all?"

Isabella barely resisted the urge to snarl her reply, "Yes. But I know he won't hurt me. None of you can. Frankly, there's no incentive."

His eyes narrowed as his thoughts whirled. When he looked around the training room, and his gaze stopped, it was obvious he had come to a decision, and that she wasn't going to like it. "Jane!" he snapped.

The small blonde came trotting over, though she looked like she wanted to be anywhere else. Alec bowed his goodbyes and left, without sparing Jane a single glance. Isabella was worried. She remembered Aro's instructions to Edward, about keeping her away from Jane. For whatever reason, he didn't trust her, and honestly, neither did Isabella. "You bellowed?" she asked.

"Yes. Isabella is in need of some incentive. Please try your best to kill her." Isabella's mouth stood wide. He couldn't be serious.

"Edward, a word?" Ignoring the looks sent their way; she took him back the arm and led him into the far corner of the room. "You want her to kill me?"

Shaking his head he removed his arm from her grasp. "No, but you need incentive, and I feel the imminent threat of death is often a good one."

She was quiet as she looked at him, into those eyes she'd once loved. "Is this some sort of...I don't know, revenge, because I turned you down?"

Edward smirked, all arrogant and self-assured. "Don't be ludicrous. You'll come back to me eventually, so long as you survive today." Then he strode away, back to where Jane and Chelsea were swiftly squaring off to one another.

When Isabella stepped into the middle of the room, she tried to centre herself, tried to remember all the lessons that Dimitri had been trying to teach her, about control and getting the upper hand. But Jane was over a thousand years old, she was sly and quick and deceptively strong. Isabella just hoped that they wouldn't actually allow Jane to kill her. She found her shield still strong, even though she'd been so distracted; she hoped it would be enough.

Jane came at her like lightning, moving fast even for vampire standards, and Isabella found herself rebuffing attacks every which way. Yet she was holding her own. A well timed kick sent Jane sprawling on her back, and suddenly Isabella thought perhaps that she could win this fight. It was that thought, however, that was her undoing. Before she could prepare herself for the return assault, she was on her back, knees pinned by Jane's as the young girl's hands were around her neck.

There was no pain, but Isabella could hear her skin cracking, fracturing like stone, her vision tunnelled.

"Listen, you little bitch. You think you're special because Edward fancies you, because Aro saved you, and everyone walks on eggshells. Well not me. You're nothing here, and if I could I would kill you right now. Watch your back." Jane's voice was acid, so incongruous with her child's visage that Isabella was rocked. The last thing she saw was Jane's smile, so sweet below such crazed eyes, before the world went black.

Let me know what you think :)