Chapter 14

The ceremony was rather short. We cremated her body there in the cavern, had a moment of silence, and then it was over. There was no need for anything fancy. Aleka would have wanted a peaceful good-bye, after the drama she went through in her last moments. So we let her rest in peace.

"So… what happens now?" Jack asked as we all walked out of the cave. I looked behind us as Kianna shut the door and shrugged.

"We should probably go home," I replied. "Kianna's got it under control here."

"I spoke with Kita, and she said she would be honored to help me set up our new monarchy," my friend assured. "You should be on your way. You have a wonderful life in Alaska awaiting you." I smiled and nodded, then opened my arms in invitation. We embraced for a short moment.

"We'll visit as often as you'll have us," I promised.

"My allies are always welcome." She smiled. "You may want to tell your friends that Aro has been overthrown. They need to hide in fear no longer." I nodded again, smiling back at her.

"My dear Kianna," Eleazer said, stepping up to her. "We would be honored if we could join you to rebuild this government. I have a few ideas you may be interested in, and Carmen could help you recruit more allies, if you wish."

"That would be most welcome," Kianna replied. "To be honest, I do not know how to rule an entire race. And I do not know the modern ways enough to rule properly. I will take any suggestions you may have." Eleazer smiled and led her away to where his wife was standing, talking about oligarchies versus monarchies and how big an army they might want. I watched after them for a moment before going out the door with the rest of my family. She was in good hands.

We stepped out into the crisp dawn air a few minutes later, and everybody sighed in relief. The battle was finally over, and we were finally free. We didn't have to worry about the Volturi's wrath any longer.

We took the side streets of Volterra all the way to the airport, nobody in any particular hurry, but needing to stay out of the light nonetheless. It seemed like so long ago that we could really breathe, really relax, and we weren't about to waste a moment of it.

We got to the airport about 30 minutes later, just before the sun came up. Luckily, Alice had planned ahead and brought everyone a hat and gloves, as well as plane tickets back to Anchorage. She probably would've brought an entire wardrobe if we hadn't been in battle 24 hours ago.

"Well, now that that's finally over," Jack said casually as we got aboard the plane, "we can start planning our second honeymoon." I smiled in anticipation.

"We can go to the Bahamas," I said, letting my hands wander over his cheekbones. "Or we can go to the Bermuda triangle again. I wouldn't mind not having to worry about our skin showing." He smiled and traced up and down my arms.

"Whatever you want," he said, kissing my jaw all the way down to my lips. I could really enjoy my time with him now, now that we weren't in the face of war.

The flight took about 14 hours in total. We took up the entire first class section, but I guess that was a good thing, considering all the humans were terrified of us. Besides, they all slept for most of the flight, and I would hate for all the vampires to wake them up by turning on a light or simply scaring them out of their wits. The werewolves slept too, of course, but we didn't scare them.

This flight wasn't like the last one. His kisses weren't urgent like when he needed to distract me; they were calm, happy. His embrace wasn't meant to be soothing as it had been before; it was loving as it had been on our honeymoon. My responses weren't desperate like when our future was unclear; they were relaxed and natural, like they were supposed to be. The one similarity between flights: he was still distracting me. The biggest difference: he didn't need to anymore.

"The plane will be landing soon," Alice whispered from behind us. "You might want to start getting your things together and prepare for good-byes." I looked at her quizzically. "We miss Forks," she explained. "We're going to leave pretty soon after we get off the plane. Now that the danger's gone, I assume there's no need for us to stick around." She raised an eyebrow. "Unless there's some big conspiracy you've managed to keep from me?" I laughed.

"I could never keep anything from you," I said. "Even if I wanted to." Then I turned around in my seat to give her a big one-armed hug. "Just promise you'll visit us soon," I murmured. "We haven't really had any time to actually hang out, with all the Volturi madness going on." She chuckled and nodded.

"I won't be gone long," she said. "Something tells me I'll be preparing another wedding here soon." A quick glance at Tanya and Marcello. "Plus, you're going to need my fashion expertise. Your wardrobe is totally out of style!" She scrunched up her nose playfully, as if there was a rotten stink in the air- other than the werewolves- and I swatted her shoulder.

"My fashion sense isn't that bad," I teased. "It's not as bad as Bella's."

"I heard that," Bella mumbled. Emmett burst into laughter.

"Don't worry little sis," he chimed in. "I think clothes will be the last thing on your mind when you get home."

"Watch it Emmett," Edward warned, kissing Bella's forehead. "Don't be a hypocrite." Emmett grunted and turned his head to look out the window. Rosalie just smiled.

We got off the plane about ten minutes later, plenty of time for Jack and me to 'get ready.' We were the first ones off, much to the relief of the humans behind us, and pretty soon we were out of the terminal saying our good-byes.

"You must come visit us soon," Tanya said to Edward, giving him a hug. I noticed that, for the first time, her voice wasn't syrupy sweet like it had been when I first saw them together. He was just a friend to her now with Marcello in her life. I could see the masked relief on Edward's face as he pulled away.

"Definitely," he agreed. "But I think for now, we'll just want to settle down into our everyday lives again. Let's enjoy it before some other catastrophe happens." Why'd he glance in my direction when he said that?

"That is probably for the best," she replied. We all hugged and wished each other luck, and then the Cullens were gone.

"We should probably get home," I murmured to Jack. "Our parents might be worried."

"How long have we been gone exactly?" he asked, looking around for some sign of a date. I paused for a moment, considering the question. How long HAD we been gone? Let's see, three days on the honeymoon, a day to get to Italy, ten days there, one more day back… I looked at my phone. Fifteen days. Exactly how long we thought the honeymoon would last.

"Our parents won't be worried," I said, sounding shocked. "We're just now supposed to be getting back from our honeymoon." When I said this out loud, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Yes, our three day honeymoon was actually supposed to end today. I pushed the thought aside. We would try again soon, and we wouldn't have the Volturi to get in the way this time. Our parents weren't going to be worried, and that was enough for me. Well, right now it was.

"Well then let's not keep them waiting," he said, taking my hand. We started to run. "I don't know about you, but I don't want them giving me crap about my honeymoon supposedly going over two weeks." I rolled my eyes.

"That may be true, but they'll probably 'give you crap' anyway when they find out we're planning another one." He frowned, his forehead creasing.

"Then we won't tell them." He waggled his eyebrows slyly. "We'll just tell them we're taking a trip with Tanya and her family." I smiled and leaned over for a moment to kiss his cheek.

"Sounds good to me," I agreed.

We parted ways after about 30 minutes to go to our separate houses and face our parents. I reached my front door a few minutes later, and hesitantly knocked.

"It's open!" my dad yelled over the TV. I chuckled. Everything was so normal here. Funny how so much had changed in the vampire world, and nothing back home seemed to have changed at all. I opened the door and walked in.

"So, you're back right on time I see," Dad said, raising an eyebrow.

"How was your honeymoon?" Mom asked, walking in from the kitchen with a plate and towel in her hands. They both stared at me expectantly. I smiled.

"Life changing," I said.