Chapter XXIX – Loss of Faith

I had seen that look in Edward's eyes before, that fury, that darkness. It was the version of him that I feared most, and I was terrified by what would surely come next. And then it happened; the thick tension in the room imploded.

Edward crossed the room quicker than a blink, and immediately locked his hands around my captor's throat. "What did you do?" he growled in a ferocious blind rage.

"My Grace?" one guard said cautiously.

"The prince can do what he wants to whom he wants," Aro told the guard casually as he reclined in his chair and watched the scene before him with amusement.

The room fell silent except for the flailing of my captor's body as he fought for air.

"You're going to kill him!" I cried out. I had no affections for the man, but I certainly didn't want to stand there and watch him die. "Edward, stop!"

But Edward didn't stop; he didn't even appear to hear me as he used every ounce of his strength and focus to strangle my captor. My breathing hiked as I witnessed the man's face begin to blue, and his eyes redden and bulged from their sockets. The sight made me cry and beg Edward to release him, but he didn't hear those pleas either. It seemed nothing would get through to him and he wasn't going to let go until the man was dead, but then…

"Enough, son," Aro said calmly while standing and walking over to the confrontation. "Killing him is too merciful; the wall would be a far more just punishment."

Edward screamed out his rage, and then shockingly shook the man once before releasing him.

"There now; no sense in letting a nobody like this get the better of you," Aro told Edward with a pat to his back. "There's no reason to be angry anyway. The return of your concubine will do nothing to hinder your upcoming nuptials. The wedding will proceed as planned, and you will finally conceive us a legitimate heir worthy of the family legacy."

Edward finally looked at me again, and he scowled. "She will not be touched, do you hear me?" he told his father, but kept his seething glare locked on me.

"Once the bastard is born, we will have no need for her anymore," Aro disagreed. "You will have a true princess for a wife, and real child soon to follow. We'll keep the bastard baby around for backup like we did with you, but the whore's days in this palace are over."

"No!" Edward yelled at him. "You will not put her in the dungeon, and you will not touch her or order anyone else to harm her in anyway. She is mine! She belongs to me and that will never change. Do you understand me?"

"She's an unhealthy distraction," Aro argued.

"She's mine!" Edward raged. "Mine to do what I want with. From this moment on, she is nothing to you. You will not look at her, you will not speak to her, you will furthermore pretend she does not exist. Do you understand?"

The king looked shocked that anyone would speak to him in such a way, but Edward definitely wasn't sorry and he wasn't about to stay there and wait for a response. Without another word, Edward walked around his father, stepped over the injured man, and then grabbed my arm and led me out of the room.

"He's going to have me killed," I muttered the moment we got into the privacy of his chambers.

"No, he won't," Edward replied evenly.

The next thing I knew I was in his arms, and his lips were pressed hard to mine. It was one of his possessive, angry, passionate kisses, and it left me breathless. I didn't want it to end, but when he did pull away I was grateful for the opportunity to finally speak to him again.

"Edward, what is going on? What happened, why did you leave us like that?"

He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose before turning his back to me. "This has all gone to hell," he mumbled to himself.

I placed my hand on his shoulder, which he shockingly pushed off. "Bella, don't."

"Don't what? Edward, talk to me," I practically begged.

He turned to face me again. "Where's Anthony; is he safe?" he asked concerned. It felt like he was avoiding my request for disclosure, but his love for our son was the only part of him I was sure of anymore, so of course I'd answer any question about him he'd ask.

"As far as I know," I told him. "The last time I saw him he was getting into a carriage with my brother and mother."

"Did that bastard hurt you? Is the baby okay?" he then asked. He looked like he wanted to reach out and rub my stomach as he often did before, but he stopped himself and kept his distance.

"He hit me in the head, but otherwise I'm unharmed. The baby is moving as much as ever."

He nodded and looked relieved, but the stress still plaguing his features was immeasurable. "I'm going to get you out of here… I just need some time to work it out."

"So we're back there then?" I exploded. "Back to you trying to find a way to sneak me out of the palace? And what about you? What is your plan? Why did you leave the farm without a word?"

"You mean, why did I escape from my captors?" he asked mockingly.

I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. "Edward, please. We both know you weren't mistreated. We were together and happy…What changed?"

"We couldn't stay there forever, Bella, that was your decision."

I scrunched my face in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I asked you if we could stay. I asked if we could just leave all of this behind and live a simple life on the farm together for the rest of our days. You said no. You said I had a responsibility to the people."

"No, what I said was that we have a responsibility. We, as in us as a family. You abandoned us."

"I did what I thought was best," he said evenly.

"How could it be best for us to be apart? We're a family, we belong together."

He shook his head. "Not anymore."

"Not anymore," I repeated slowly, and then I remembered something. "Aro said you're getting married?"

"Princess Victoria is still here. We'll be married by the end of summer," he said emotionlessly.

I was flabbergasted. We hadn't even been apart long, and everything had already drastically changed. "You were just pretending to be happy on the farm, weren't you? To get us to trust you so you could escape."

"I was pretending?" he spat. "You have a lot of nerve accusing anyone else of feigned emotions."

"What are you talking about?" I asked clueless. Everything about the conversation was baffling me, and it wasn't getting any clearer.

"You don't really think I ever bought your devotion, do you? I'm not an idiot, Bella. You've been lying from the beginning. Ever since I met you, you've lied. Fake aliases, false backgrounds…nothing you said was true or honest, and when I was nearly murdered and kidnapped and kept as a prisoner, those lies only grew."

"That's not true, and you know it!"

"It is true! You came to me in that barn because your uncle told you to. I refused to eat, so there you were to do whatever you could to convince me. I wouldn't listen to the lectures your uncle spewed, so what did you do? Whatever you thought would get through to me."

I shook my head. "You're wrong."

"Am I? Am I really? You showed me a life on that farm, a life you knew I wanted. You played the part of loving farmer's wife, made love to me, said all the right words, but you had no intentions on seeing any of it through. I knew the truth, but I did the selfish thing and took advantage of the situation by playing along because I wanted it so badly. A part of me didn't even care that you were faking it; I honestly thought I loved you enough for the both of us. But then you ripped it all away from me and I realized just how wrong I was. You were never going to give up. As long as I was your family's prisoner you'd be there, still trying to convince me to become a terrorist like them… so I left… I left hoping it would force you to finally see the truth and give up so you can build a real life for our children."

I was absolutely appalled by his words, appalled and heartbroken. How could he think I didn't actually love him? It was offensive to me, and it saddened me beyond words because I knew he wasn't just trying to hurt me, he honestly felt that way. Edward had been pushed aside and used his entire life. His father never loved him, his grandfather died leaving him to be raised by a nanny and a mentor, both of which had ulterior motives for their affections. He had never known true, untainted love, and he couldn't see it even when it was standing in front of him. He was right about one thing - his actions forced me to finally see my mistake…

"Edward, I told you the truth in that barn. I did lie about who I was, but my love for you was never a lie. I thought you understood that…"

"What I understood was that you were every bit as brainwashed as you claimed I was. You were raised to be who you are, whether you realize it or not. You're nothing but a puppet, and your uncle, and father, and mother, and brother - they're all pulling the strings. You probably don't even know how to love. It's always been them, whispering in your ear, telling you how to think and feel."

I shook my head in denial, but he didn't stop.

"Don't stand there and look so shocked by all of this. Nothing is new. Nothing changed from the first day we fought in the barn. I stopped being so combative, but I never claimed to change, I never said a word to contradict how I felt about your rebel family and their cause. In fact, I did nothing but repeat how much I despised those terrorists. You betrayed me, not the other way around. All I wanted was to love you, but it wasn't enough…"

"Yes, of course it was enough," I tried convincing him, but he continued as if I hadn't spoken.

"Our marriage wasn't real. Our children aren't legitimate…"

"You argued with my father about how our marriage was real in the eyes of God!" I interjected strongly.

"Yeah, well God isn't listening or watching us, because if he was we would have been shown a way out of this situation already. I have prayed, day in and day out for a solution, but here we are, still forced into positions we hate. This isn't a child's fairytale with a happy ending, Bella. It's a cruel, unjust world run by merciless men, and in the eyes of those men, you and I are nothing!"

"How can you say that?" I whispered.

"How can you say anything else? From the beginning, since the moment we met, the entire world has been against us. It's time to stop fighting it. It's better for everyone this way."

That made me angry. "Don't you say that! Don't you say this is better for everyone and let yourself off the hook for this. You claim to love me, but this isn't the work of love, its selfishness. Leaving me and our children is the easy cowardly thing to do. It's better for no one except Aro, and in turn, you!"

"I'm doing this for you!" he shouted at me. "Everything I have ever done from the moment I met you, has been for you! Don't you see? If I do this, if I get married to Victoria and have children with her, you're free to do whatever you want. To get out from your family's control and figure out who you are and what you really want. I'd keep Anthony and the baby here if I thought it was better for you, and it might be, but I know you could never be separated from them so I'm making it possible for you to keep them."

"He'd never let them go," I contested. "Life's too fragile. Even if you did have a child with Victoria, that child could always die the way Caius did, and then Aro would go after Anthony again."

"That's why I promised to have more than one," he said, letting his tone soften by the burden of regret. "That was the deal. Aro swore he'd never send people after you again if I gave him new heirs. Of course, that was when he didn't know where you were; now that you're here, he's going to want to keep the baby until Victoria has her second child, but I will find a way to get you both out before that... This is your chance, Bella. Your only chance."

"You had said once that you could never be with anyone else," I challenged him.

He stared at me for a moment, and then sighed. "I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I will figure it out because it's what's best."

"What's best is for us to be together," I told him again. "We would have been fine here… If Aro was gone…"

"But Aro is not gone, and I'm not willing to allow those terrorists to assassinate him either!" he snapped, but then took a breath to calm himself again. "Besides, even if he was dead, this still wouldn't be the place for you. Power corrupts… and I don't want that to happen to you or our children."

"But you'll allow it to happen to your future children with Victoria?"

"I don't give a shit about Victoria! She's already corrupt anyway. She was born that way, and her children will be born that way as well. I know you think it's wrong, but being ruthless is the only way to run a kingdom. If you're not conniving and willing to do some dark things, people will stab you in the back and cut your throat in your sleep. It's all one sick game…a game that only ends when you're dead."

I considered what he was saying, and in a way, I understood it - he wanted to protect me and our children from what he felt was the inevitable harsh life of a royal - but he failed to see that none of that mattered. Nothing could hurt us if we stayed together. I was confident our love could see us through anything…I only needed to find a way to convince him of the same. He lost his faith in us and in me, and I needed to do whatever possible to restore it.

"Edward, I love you. I'm not lying, and I'm not confused or manipulated into false emotions. I love you, and our family needs to stay together. If you're intent on being here with Aro, then the kids and I will endure him too." I reached up to cradle his face in my hands, but the moment I touched him he squeezed his eyes shut like he was in pain. "I will do whatever I have to do to be with you. I'll be whoever you need me to be. If you say I need to be more cold and ruthless, I'll find a way to do it. We just have to stay together."

"You've always had to be the person your family needed you to be, and now you want me to be the one to change you again?" he murmured before shaking his head ever so slightly.

"I don't care about them…I only care about you, and I'll do whatever it takes," I whispered intensely back.

He pulled my hands off of his face, and then set his features in a hard mask. "It's not possible. I can't leave here…and you can't stay. Aro is right, you make me weak and I can't do the things that need to be done. As soon as I can get you out of here, that's exactly what I'll do," he said before taking one step back. "After you're gone, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure we never see each other again. I need to bury you, Bella, it's the only way any of us will survive this. I'm sorry," he said softly before turning and exiting the room.

Once again I was shocked by the turn of events. We had been faced with the end of our relationship several times before, and each time was more difficult than the last, but this was the first time I could truly see acceptance in my future. There was nowhere to go from there; someday soon he'd belong to someone else, and once that happened there was no going back for us.

I sat there silently on the bed I once shared with Edward, and stared blankly at the wall for an undefinable amount of time. Eventually someone came in and led me to a different room where I was told to make myself at home. I didn't really look at the woman who had escorted me, but I couldn't help but note how warm she was since it was such a contrast to the coldness of the palace. Thankfully the room was not a dungeon cell, but when I finally realized where exactly I was, I wished I was brought to the dungeon instead.

"Excuse me? Would you convey my request to be moved?" I asked the woman before she could leave. "Please, I'd rather be anywhere but here."

The woman, who was dressed like a handmaiden, smiled. "Don't worry, my lady, there are no more concubines residing here. The king moved his, and the prince has yet to select any new ones since returning."

I looked around at the former Room C, and couldn't help the chills that ran up my spine. Even with the room vacant, the memories of my time as a concubine crowded the space. "If there's any open rooms amongst the servant's chambers, I'd be happy to sleep there. I'd even share with someone."

"Nonsense, the prince insisted you have comfortable, spacious, and most of all, private quarters to await the birth of your baby. This is the best place for you," she said dismissively while fluffing a pillow on the couch. "All of the rooms have fresh linens on the beds, so you may sleep where you'd like. The secluded garden is well manicured, so you're welcome to fresh air whenever you need some. My name is Emily; call on me whenever you need anything."

I sighed. "Thank you, Emily."

She left me alone, only to return a short time later with some food. I asked her to stay and eat with me, but she refused and once again I was alone. I hated being alone. I had nothing to do but sit there and contemplate my life. I thought of Anthony and the rest of my family. I considered what would happen after my baby was born and where our immediate future would take us, but because I was trying like hell not to think of the end of my life with Edward, I found my mind flooded with memories of my current location. Room C. The place I had once considered to be the epitome of hell on earth. I hated being a concubine, I hated being in that room, but the more I thought about it, the more I remembered that I didn't hate the girls who once resided there with me.

"Emily, where did all the concubines go?" I asked when she came to check on me later that evening.

"Oh, you know how it goes," she said, obviously not wanting to elaborate.

"No, I don't. Why don't you enlighten me."

She hesitated, but then sighed. "I wasn't here when everything happened, but…from what I've heard, the king was very…angry when he learned of all the traitors working here. He grew suspicious of everyone, even his own concubines… There was a mass execution."

My stomach leapt into my throat. "No," I whispered.

"I heard some escaped, and a few were granted leniency and allowed to continue working here, but they were placed in much lower positions. I can't tell you any names, but if you had friends here, perhaps some are okay."

Little Bree's face flashed to my mind. "Is there any way to figure out who survived?"

"I wouldn't know, my lady…and I wouldn't dare ask either. It's just not safe for servants to ask questions these days."

"I understand," I said solemnly, and I realized I'd probably never know what happened to Bree, or any of the others I once considered closer than friends. Under Aro's rule, loss was just a common part of everyday life, and it seemed that wouldn't change even after he was gone. Edward was his father's son, as he said before, and he'd come to rule the same way which was just one more reason he didn't want me there with him.

I turned in early that night, but after multiple nightmares I woke up in a cold sweat and couldn't fall back to sleep for the life of me. Thoughts of our past, and where our future was heading - it was maddening, and I couldn't stand it a moment longer.

Since I was locked inside, I banged on the door and wouldn't stop until a guard came to open it.

"Thank you," I said to the confused guard as I walked past him.

"Hey, you can't go anywhere!" he called after me, but I refused to stop. I had no plan as to where I was going, but I quickly found myself in the royal nursery. It hadn't been Anthony's room for very long, but I felt a sense of relief there; it was the first bit of comfort I felt since the moment I was kidnapped from the farm, and I wasn't about to leave.

"Tell the king if you'd like, but the only way you'll get me out of here is by force, and you certainly don't want to risk hurting me by your force, do you?" I said to the guard while rubbing my stomach to emphasize my meaning. Aro had done a wondrous job of scaring the living daylights out of everyone about spilling royal blood; bastard or not, my unborn child was of royal blood, which meant no one would dare harm him by forcing me to do anything against my will.

The guard didn't respond verbally, he just gritted his teeth and retreated out of the room. He locked me inside to ensure I couldn't go anywhere else, but otherwise left me alone, which I was grateful.

I scanned the room with my eyes first; remembering every little detail of the room I had briefly called home, and then I felt the need to touch it all. The softness of the lavish curtains, the smoothness of the polished wood on the cradle. The cradle where my little baby once slept would furthermore belong to another woman's child…another woman's child with Edward.

It was the type of pain that threatened to devour me, and I knew I couldn't let that happen, so I pushed it away to save for another day. I couldn't fall apart, not then, not there. I needed to be strong for my baby, and I needed to find a way to get back to my son. That was the moment everything became clear and I realized exactly what I had to do…