Chapter 25

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight. I don't look anything like Stephanie Meyer.

Warning: This is a Fetish Fic. If you can't or shouldn't be handling it…don't.

Story Note: Each chapter will switch POV. No standard on length. It switches when the other one wants to talk to me.

Updating: This is the last chapter. Only the epilogue left.

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EPOV

For the first time since the inspectors had arrived, Bella raised her eyes. She stared at me with unadulterated fear. I could see the effort as she slowly slid her gaze to the man sitting in the seat beside me.

She began to hyperventilate at once and tears flowed from her in rivers. She shook her head violently side to side, mouthing "No, no, no, no, no…"

"Bells? Bells? I didn't mean to scare you. I don't know if you can ever forgive me. I did everything I could to protect you…the certifications, the premier auction, even the…the…the you know." He gestured vaguely toward her chest. Bella looked down in horror before raising her eyes to him again.

"I know that could never make up for what I allowed to happen to you but I tried…Really, I did the best that I could do given this whole screwed up world!" He turned forward in his seat again and angrily ran his fingers through his salt and pepper hair and chewed on his mustache. "I thought about hiding you but it just was no use. A man in my position? I'm too close to the scum, working with them day in and day out!"

Turning back to her and finding her in the same state of distress, he softened, anger dissipating at once. "When I learned a Cullen bought you and what that meant…it was just more than I could have hoped for." He turned abruptly to me and I actually flinched with the force of emotion in his eyes.

"You may not realize this but there are people who know." He said the word with emphasis. "Not people who tell. No, I never knew you were any different from any of the rest of them until he saw you with Bells. Then he told me. He knew what a state I was in: not eating, not sleeping, barely functioning, about to loose my mind with grief. But he told me that you were different – that your whole family was different. I can't even describe the relief I felt or how grateful I am to you.

"I want you to know that you have nothing to fear from me. You don't even have to ever see me again. I can't imagine that you…" he gazed back at Bella again, tears in his own eyes. "I can't even picture a circumstance where you could forgive me so I know you probably don't want me around and that's okay. I had to tell you just once that I'm sorry and say that I love you one more time.

"Bella. I love you! I've always loved you…so much!"

He wiped his eyes and cleared his throat, attempting to erase the evidence of his outburst. "You best drive, Son. We've been sitting long enough to have drawn attention, if anyone's looking."

Completely stunned, I obeyed without thinking about it. The car slid into gear and crept down the drive toward the guard shack. Half way there I found my voice again. "Who?...How?...I don't…"

Bella's tiny voice squeaked from the back seat. "D-d-daddy?"

A chocking sob wrenched from the man's chest as he turned again to her. "Yes, baby. Yes, it's me."

Bella flung herself over the seat and into the arms of a man I never thought I'd meet. "You're her father? Oh my god! Do they know?" I looked around desperately, thankful for my tented windows. Panic was rising quickly. The risk wasn't just our way of life but our very lives and not just mine and Bella's but the lives of our whole family.

My fist came down on the steering wheel. "Are you crazy? Coming here with them like this? Do you know what you've done?"

Bella recoiled from embracing her father at my outburst and slunk back to the back seat. I gazed in the rearview mirror at her, silently apologizing for scaring her, but I was scared. Hell! We should all be scared!

"It wasn't by choice, I assure you. I know what the danger is, probably better than you. But Aro ordered me, as Chief of Police, to accompany him so that you could be legally arrested if he found anything."

"What the fuck am I going to do now?" I yelled.

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone, pushing a single button. A new wave of dread washed over me as a thousand scenarios played out in my mind. Who was he calling? Aro? Was it a trick? Were we trapped? Had I compromised my whole family?"

"It's me. Defcon 3." With no more than that he shut the phone. As we were approaching the guard tower I saw two of the guards start off on a perimeter check and Sam came out to greet us. He looked around as we pulled up. Instead of opening my door or the front passenger side he went immediately to Bella's door, opened it and pulled her out.

"Hey! What the hell - ?" He grabbed my arm and ushered us both inside quickly. Instead of the usual team of guards there was only him and us in the building now. Silently he escorted Bella and me to the back office with Bella's father close behind. Once we were all in, he shut and locked the door.

With Bella tucked safely into my side again and Sam's paws off of her I felt very slightly better and lashed out. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Sam?"

"Saving your ass…Sir," he said respectfully.

I looked from him to Bella's father and back again. "Somebody tell me what is going on right the fuck now!" I bellowed.

Bella's father spoke. "Did you know Sam has a daughter? I don't imagine you do. See, almost no one knows. Her name is Leah - a beautiful little girl of eight. She is hidden away on the rare protected ground of the Quileute reservation. He has hopes of Leah not falling to the same fate as my Bella…as all the other poor girls. And his son, Jacob – a fine, strapping young boy, only five years old – he is raising him to be different, to be like us. Jacob will know the difference, know what's right and wrong about how women are treated, because Sam is teaching him."

"It's because of your father, Sir," Sam said to me. I just stared at the two of them not understanding.

"I thought the way the world worked was great. I was young and stupid and couldn't wait to be of age and make my own purchase. I rejected the stories of my tribe, of the way things used to be. I wanted my own girl to control and use." Sam looked down in shame.

"The year I turned twenty your father hired me and some of my friends as simple security guards. I didn't see anything at first, just what he wanted us to see. But he was subtle. He's a wise man, your father, and I learned a lot just by watching how compassionate he is and how he really values people…even women.

"I've been with your family for almost twenty years now and I've never told a soul, until you bought Bella. I knew Charlie had to know."

My eyes flitted back and forth between them. There was something my brain wasn't computing. He told him? Told him what? What did my father teach Sam? What could he have seen? But most of all, what direction exactly was the danger coming from and what could I do about it?

"Had to know what, Sam? You are real close to finding yourself without a job so I suggest you explain!" Bella was shaking beside me, her fear magnified by my own.

"That the Cullens are different. You treat your women differently, not like possessions but like people."

I didn't know what to do with that information. Do I do damage control and prove that I was still Bella's master and she still my slave? She would obey any command I gave her so it wouldn't be hard to do. Or do I admit that we are different. I was torn.

"You loved me." Bella's voice ascends and hovers in the room around us.

"I did," her father nods. "I do."

"You shouldn't have come here."

"I know, Bells. Believe me, I tried not to come. But given that I had to, I knew I wouldn't be able to come without saying something to you, if given the chance. I'm sorry."

"We are in danger now." Her simple statements, holding so much truth and spoken in so soft a voice, had a far greater impact than all my yelling.

Her father shook his head. "No. No one knows except those of us in this room." He looked to me. "Sam would never betray your family. He has never."

The big man nodded in agreement. "You represent the hope I have for my own children. I can't imagine my daughter in one of those places…that auction…" He shook his big, burly head and couldn't go on.

I looked down at Bella and tried to imagine my own daughter going through what Bella had been through. Anger coursed in my veins. It was bad enough knowing that Bella had had to endure it, but my own flesh and blood? My child?

No! Absolutely not! That will never happen.

Looking back up to Bella's father I asked, "Charlie, is it? What do we do now?"

"Well, that's all up to you," Charlie answered diplomatically. He looked to Bella. "For my part, I'd just like to know that Bells is happy and safe." There was pleading in his eyes.

Bella's eyes met mine when I looked down at her. I couldn't imagine what Charlie thought seeing her, her provocative dress, her collar, the leash still held tightly in my hand keeping her close. But I also noticed the way she clung to me freely, nestled herself against me, seeking the safety and comfort she obviously felt I could give her. I wondered if Charlie noticed all of that, too.

She smiled a beautiful smile and I brushed the lingering tears from beneath one eye. "Master…" she paused then corrected herself. "Edward is more than I could have ever hoped for, Daddy. He is my world and he has saved me…" Her eyes met his then. "…In so many ways. With his help, I was beginning to remember you a little."

Charlie's breath caught and he tried to clear the emotion from his throat as he glanced down at his shoes. Once he'd regained some composure he spoke. "Do you think that…one day…you know, not now, it's too soon, I'm sure. But one day, do you think you could forgive me?"

Bella released her grasp on me and stepped toward her father. The leash still wrapped around my palm stopped her short and it was a testament to her blossoming sense of self that she tugged on it so that I would let her go. When it dropped from my hand, reluctantly, she stepped into him and put her hands on his chest.

"There is nothing to forgive, Daddy. You did what you had to do."

For what I guessed was probably only one of a handful of times in his whole life, Charlie broke down crying in great heaving sobs into the hair of his beautiful daughter as he wrapped her in his arms. Sam and I stepped away a bit to give the two of them at least a semblance of privacy.

"Sam, I'm going to have to discuss this with my father. You understand that, don't you?"

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry for betraying your family's trust but you don't know Charlie Swan. I wouldn't have said anything at all if it hadn't been for Bella."

"I know, Sam. Dad will most likely want to discuss it with you. Who else knows? The other security guards?"

"I suspect some of them do, but we don't speak of it. Since your father promoted me to head of security I've built the team with men from my tribe. We are a tight knit pack and they trust me as much as I trust them. If they know, we don't talk about it; not amongst ourselves or anyone else. Our job is to protect and we take that job very seriously."

Touched by his seemingly fierce loyalty, I clapped him on the shoulder and nodded my understanding. There was much more to discuss but it would have to wait for another time.

"Master, don't you think that the good Chief Swan could benefit from some additional tours and time spent with the security team, learning some of the excellent new techniques, equipment and advances in security and surveillance?" Bella asked.

I was caught off guard by her request for a moment but then realized that she was asking to have her father come to the compound again to see her under the guise of studying our security. I wanted to tell her yes immediately but the danger was such that I just couldn't.

"I will ask, Bella. It is a terrible risk but I will speak to Dad about it."

She merely nodded and hugged her father again before returning to my side. We all returned to the car and drove back to the house, having sufficiently recovered our emotions and facades. We entered to find the rest gathered in the living room making parting comments.

Aro was obviously pleased. "I am most impressed with your home and your discipline. You have maintained rigid standards and are a shining example to men everywhere of the perfection that can be attained when they keep a tight hold on the reins. I have no doubt of the happiness you all speak of. How could one be anything but happy with such attentiveness and obedience laid right at their feet? It is easy to see the proof of the benefits of a firm hand.

"Ah! Here's the Chief. Had a good tour? Yes? Most excellent. Then we will be off. I have…ahem…things to do," Aro said with a wink and laid his hand upon the young man who stood readily at his master's side.

My brothers and I all suppressed a shudder as the group left our home and loaded up their SUV, heading down the long driveway. The man was just creepy in the extreme. We watched them until we couldn't see them any longer, then stood patiently waiting on the porch until the message came from the security tower to Dad's phone. "All clear."

With a collective sigh of relief we all began heading silently into the house and toward our suites. Though it was only just after noon, exhaustion and escape, were our only thoughts. That is until Bella tugged on my hand and tilted her head toward my father.

I whispered in her ear as I ushered her upstairs to our room. "In due time, sweet Bella. My mind is tired and my body is wound up with tension and I have a beautiful girl in my arms whose time has come to be suckled dry, if I am not mistaken. I promise to discuss everything before the day is through, okay?"

She nodded to me, content with my answer. I could see the tiredness in her eyes as well. I had every intention to take her bed, relieve her full breasts, sleep for a few hours then ravish her senseless. Then, and only then, would I speak to my father and brothers.