Edward called Alice and Jasper back before we took even one step toward home.
"I know!" I heard her say through the phone. "Guys, what on earth happened? I just caught a glimpse of like, the banginest party ever, and everyone's there and no one's dead, or at least I think no one's dead, if the wolves would stop messing me up I could actually see what's going on… Is it true?"
"It's true," said Edward, beaming at me while he talked to Alice. "So unbelievably true. It turns out we had a secret weapon. Bella discoivered she can stretch her shield out to cover other people. After she did that, she pretty much just talked the Volturi into self-destructing."
"And I missed it?" Alice's scream of disappointment made my ears tingle, even through the phone.
Carlisle and Tanya put Marcus back together, enough for him to talk to us. After procuring our solemn vow that we would burn him as soon as we had all the information we needed, he told us everything he knew about the Volturi, the power dynamics of the coven, what was likely to happen now that Aro was dead and so many had fled.
"The Volturi are effectively ended," he said. "Those who have survived are so deeply addicted to Corin's power that they will never want anything but to sit quietly in her presence, forevermore. I doubt there will be many of the Guard left at Volterra when Caius gets there. I have seen Aro's web grow stretched and thin, these last few centuries. Didyme always envisioned a glorious utopia, a world of peace and joy. I hope you may succeed where we have failed." His voice cracked as he said his wife's name.
"Who's Didyme?" I asked Edward, out of earshot.
"She was his wife, and Aro's biological sister," said Edward. "She was murdered long ago. Marcus tried to kill himself several times, but Aro prevented him. And then, when they found Chelsea, she used her power to keep Marcus too loyal to his coven to ever try to leave. He's been in torment for millennia, always wanting to leave, but unable to find the will. She possessed the gift of joy. She drank only the blood of animals, like us. He has never been happy a single day since losing her. He barely thinks of anything but her."
"So he wanted to die," I said musingly. "That's why he attacked Nahuel. Suicide-by-imprint."
"What does she mean by that?" Nahuel was murmuring to Emmett.
"Jake'scompletely in love with you, dude," said Emmett. Nahuel's mouth formed a perfect, surprised O. "Not in like, a gay way, I don't think. He's just got this wolf thing that makes him want to be your best friend forever and ever. And I mean, the dude's pretty cool. You could do worse for a best friend, if you're in the market for one."
Alice, Jasper and Laelia arrived at Oileáin Aonair a few hours later. Laelia recognized at once that something wonderful had happened, and that we had unfairly forced her to miss it, and she let us all know that such a thing must never happen again.
"I come too, kay?" she insisted.
"Sorry, Laelia," I said, scooping her into my arms, luxuriating in the warmth of her. "Next time."
"I not Laelia," she insisted, jutting her chin out in a way that reminded me very much of her Aunt Alice. "I Nessie."
"I suppose this is your idea," I said, glowering at Jake for giving her a nickname so completely lacking in poetry.
He shrugged. "She's always in the water," he said. "If the monster shoe fits…"
"Not Nessie, baby girl," I said, "Laeli."
"Ness...li," she said.
Eh, I thought, close enough.
"So you just threw your shield at Chelsea?" they all wanted to know, over and over again, never seeming to believe me.
"The powers a vampire brings to the next life are representative of their skills and feelings at the moment of death," said Eleazar, looking at me curiously. "How did an ordinary girl from Forks wind up with something like this?"
I thought about the mental shield I had always had—it had existed even before the move to Forks. It had protected only me, then, protected me from the absence of my father, the unmotherliness of my mother, the distance of the friends I could never quite seem to keep. But I had known, throughout the pregnancy, that I would move heaven and earth to keep my baby safe. That determination had influenced my shield, turned it into a force that could protect not just me but my family too, all these people I loved, this family for whom I would have fought, this daughter for whom I would have died. Perhaps this shield was nothing more than the supernatural expression of the post-natal hormones I'd been so worried I was lacking.
"Ordinary," muttered Edward, raising an eyebrow at Eleazar. "Bella was never ordinary."
But I was ordinary. What in all of this was unusual—the desire to protect myself and my friends, the urge to see my progeny safe? Most people possessed that in some degree. But then, the last two years of most people's lives were not like mine had been. My life had become unquestionably more dangerous since knowing the Cullens. Perhaps my shield had simply adjusted itself to suit my new and terrifying lifestyle. For two years I had thrown myself headfirst into a crucible of danger, and my shield was what had emerged when the flames died down. Not so different from Carlisle's gifts, or Jasper's or Alice's. Strong not because I was special but because the circumstances of my life had been special. I could live with that.
Two things were decided in the aftermath of the battle that wasn't a battle.
First, I was done lying to my father. There was no reason for my mom to know the full story. But my dad had already figured out some things, and he'd put up with so much pain as a result of this situation that I felt I owed it to him to share the truth. I wanted him to know what my life was. I wanted him to know Laelia.
Second, whether we liked it or not, we had just invented a vampire United Nations, and the four families—the Cullens, the Denalis, the Aonairs and the wolf pack—were at its core. We would need to reach out to as many other covens and nomads as we could. We would need to act fast; if people got the impression that the end of the Volturi indicated the end of all law, we were going to be in trouble.
But we had help from unexpected quarters. Demetri showed up on the mainland across from our island a week after the confrontation.
"What are you doing here?" said Carlisle, not uncourteously. "You should be with your family."
"I was," he said. "For a brief time. I will return to them soon, but I come to you bearing a message from Amun, and one from myself."
"What do you have to say, old friend?" said Carlisle.
"For eight hundred years I had been enslaved," Demetri said. "For eight hundred years I had not seen my father or my mother. You cannot fathom the joy of being greeted by my true father after so long a time—of being embraced by my loving mother. And I have discovered, in my father's home, a new brother, and a sister, too, whom I eagerly look forward to knowing. I cannot think to deserve this joy. You—your family—have saved me from a living hell from which I never dared hope I might escape. Indeed I did not wish to escape. You have never been under Chelsea's influence but it—it is humiliating. Your will is not your own. I was not valued. My father loved me as a son, but Aro—he loved me no more than the hand loves the tool it holds. I have been saved from this. I will be myself once more. I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I thank you, Bella, for my deliverance."
"You're, um, welcome," I said, trying not to look into his burgundy-colored eyes.
"My loyalty is forever yours," he went on. "Not the false loyalty which Aro inflicted on me, but true loyalty, the affection and gratitude of a friend who has been rendered a precious service. I offer you my services. Aro took my abilities from me against my will, but I give them to you now freely. You have only to call upon me and I will unreservedly come to your aid. As proof, I now tell you that several nomads I have met, and the Romanian and Vietnamese covens, are en route for this very place. My power does not tell me any more than that, but you should know to expect these visitors within the week. And there is one last thing. I will never again kill an innocent human. You have my solemn vow. I will live as the Aonair coven lives, with forethought and moderation. I will strive to deserve this gift you have given me."
I didn't say anything. I felt flustered. This was the scary evil Guard we'd been so afraid would track Alice and Jasper and Laelia, and here he was, plighting his eternal loyalty, his beautiful twenty-five-year-old face devoutly earnest.
"My father, Amun, has also sent you a message. He wishes it known that his own coven, though small, is not to be overlooked by those who have liberated us from the Volturi. He wishes to be a part of what shall happen next. He sends this token of his gratitude for my liberation." Demetri held out a carved wooden box, inscribed in the cover with a number of symbols and figures which I could not read. Carlisle opened the box to reveal a mirror, made of highly-polished gold with an elaborate ivory handle. "It was commissioned for him by Kebi's family, when as a human woman she sought his favor. It is said to hold the power of the sun, and eternal life, in its golden surface."
"I am honored," said Carlisle gravely. He replaced the lid on the box and bowed slightly, then hugged Demetri. "We will meet again soon, my friend."
And there was one more thing that I needed to take care of.
As soon as Demetri had gone, and Laelia was asleep for the night, I took Edward's hand and dragged him out of the house, off the island, onto the mainland, into the wilderness. After a while, he gave up on asking me where we were going.
When I was satisfied that we were far from anything living, I turned to him, pressed my whole body against his, so hard he fell over backward and lay under me, smiling darkly up in the moonlight. Our kisses up till now had been scattered and haphazard, whatever we could catch in between all the other crap we had going on.
"I'm sure tomorrow we'll have another problem to deal with," I murmured, pinning his hands to his sides and grinding my hips thoughtfully against his groin. Edward groaned ecstatically and closed his eyes. "So I think it's time to stop fucking around and start fucking, don't you?"
His lips were fluttering and I leaned closer to hear him reciting the Declaration of Independence, which I gathered must be Edward's equivalent to a bucket of ice water down the trousers, which there was no earthly reason for him to be doing right now. I reached out lazily and slapped the side of his mouth, cutting off his recitation. His eyes popped open.
"Bella, are you sure you're okay with this?" he asked breathlessly. "I know we just—"
"I need you to do unholy things to my body, Edward, and I need you to do them now."
Edward squinted at me for a moment. Then he laughed a low, sexy chuckle. His hands fell to my belt and tore in two like it was a tortilla.
"Well," he said, sliding his hands under my shirt, "it just so happens that there is something I've been waiting two excruciating years to do to you."
My eyes widened. My grip on his arms grew slack. Edward took advantage of my surprise to toss me lightly onto the ground and rip my pants off without any regard for buttons or zippers. Then he buried his face ecstatically between my legs.
We didn't return to the house until the sun rose.
My deepest thanks to all of you for doing this with me. You guys have been wonderful!
While writing the second half of this story, I developed a plot revolving around Jake, Nahuel, and Leah Clearwater. I wasn't able to include it in Living in the Sun without just totally messing up the flow, but that's okay because it actually makes more sense as a separate story! So if you want to know what's been up with Nahuel this whole time, or you need something fun to wean yourself off of this interminable series, or you just want to read about people smashing their sweaty carcasses together in various ways and moods, head over to my profile, where the first chapter has already been posted. It's called Teeth, and it's a bit more...er, grown up than the last few things I've written. What can I say, LLL and LitS represented an uncharacteristically clean phase for me. Thank god that's done and I can get back to my true calling, tawdry smut.
