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EPOV
7th July 2048
"Take the deal, Edward." Sarelle's voice was distant.
I can't do this, how can I do this? I don't want to. I thought as my head moved in a slow, unbelieving nod. This couldn't be happening.
"Oh no. I want to hear you condemn her, your first love." Aro's stare lingered on me, a sickly concoction of satisfaction and bloodlust. He was power hungry and my words had the ability to satiate him, so strong was their meaning.
My teeth grit together, a battle to hold myself together, to hold the words in. It was the only way forward and yet it was the one way I wished had never come into fruition. I couldn't lose her, not again, not like this. I had finally been able to have her, hold her, see her smile every day. How would I be able to go back to life without that?
I glanced at Bella on my right. Her eyes were fixed on me, the gold glinting with something that had never been there before, fire. Fire for her fury. Fire for her own determination to survive. A fire that had always been innate to Sarelle and had been the passion I adored her for. It seemed Bella was finally ready to fight for her own life. That sense of self-preservation had finally kicked in.
My eyes flashed to Sarelle and I felt my dead heart clench when I saw her eyes fixed forward. She had shut down. She knew what was coming.
As I said the words, her head gave an infinitesimal nod and I felt as is my heart clench, recoiling from the knowledge that I would have to leave her in this room. Alone. As she had been all those years ago when she made her bargain and paid the ultimate price. And again I could do nothing to stop it. It was decided. It was inevitable.
As the Volturi guard burst from their silence my head filled with noise, but even then all I saw was her. All I heard was the shaky breath she released.
"Sarelle, please. I'm sorry. I..." I didn't know what I could ever say to take those words back, but I knew when this was all over I'd spend forever trying.
"Don't," she snapped and for a horrifying moment I wondered if I'd misread her certainty. I'd thought she'd taken the punishment to gain Aro's trust but could I have been wrong?
"Now is time to take your leave." Aro said with authority, "let's hope we meet under better circumstances in future."
I won. The mantra echoing in Aro's head was absolute. And in his mind, nothing could change it.
Bella turned for the door as soon as Aro spoke. I searched for her thoughts but the voice I'd grown so used to throughout our lives together had vanished. For the first time since her turn, she'd shut me out.
"Edward, come on. Think of Renesmee. She'll be worried about us. They all will be."
I felt myself split in two. The man she'd met in Forks all those years ago yearned to go with her. She'd brought me back from the brink of abyss and built me back up. She'd seen past what I was and the danger I posed, and she'd made me remember I was more than a monster.
But as always there was the part of me that belonged to Sarelle. Ever present and all consuming. With her there was no monster, I was just a man who loved a girl and had done throughout the ages.
"Not yet, Bella."
As I looked at her now, I knew I might never know which of them I loved more, but I did know I loved the type of love I had with Sarelle more than that I had with Bella. There was no shame, no guilt, over the man I had been at my worst. There was no comparison between us. With Bella that would always be there, and it would always eat away at me.
"Edward? Please don't do this," The part of me that loved Bella felt the pull of our distance, but it wasn't enough. Not this time.
"I said not yet," I didn't mean for the words to sound as harsh as they did but the onslaught in my head was overwhelming. I just needed a moment to think. One second without the buzz of voices, so I could fix this.
The door slammed as Bella left and with her the part of me that knew I should have followed. Bella was safe. Sarelle wasn't and in this moment that was my only priority.
"You only do more damage, Edward." Caius drawled with pleasure.
I ignored his tone as I reached for Sarelle. Relief spread through my bones a I felt her skin against mine. To stand beside her throughout everything and no be able to hold her had been torture.
"May we have a few moments?" I asked but I didn't care what the answer was.
"You may use the room over there." Aro replied with a bored sigh.
Our footsteps echoed across the stone floor as Sarelle followed behind me. I counted the steps with anticipation, just seconds and we could be alone. Out of Aro's sick gaze.
I wretched open the ornate wooden door, pulling Sarelle towards me with an urgency I hadn't felt since our meeting on the cliff. Her body moulded against my own, her supple curves yielding to my hands. The memory of her taste tormented me.
It took all my self-control to pull my mouth from hers, "don't do this," I urged as I held her face in my palms.
"You promised me you'd never leave, remember? We promised each other forever."
Her unusual eyes grew wide, seeking an answer to the mess we were in.
"What else do you think can be done? Do you think they'll listen to reason? Be bribed to leave us be?"
I floundered under her questions. After all that had happened, I hadn't thought about how we would get out. All I could think was how I could protect her, keep her out of Aro's grasp. I knew Aaron was what was keeping her here but there was an entire Volturi guard between me and him. All I could hope was that the others would be here soon. That somehow they'd know to come.
I watched with despair as Sarelle shrank away from me. I knew she was strong but it was this strength that scared me now more than anything. I had seen it in her eyes the day she left me in Belmore and I saw it again now.
"What if they did Edward? What would that solve? You'd still be with Bella and we'd still be what we are. You won't give her up and you won't let me move on. So I'm solving the problem for you. I'm taking myself out of the equation. I'm no good for your life."
It wasn't the words she spoke or the coldness in her eyes that caused me to cower. It was the determination in her voice. She had chosen our future for me and I feared nothing I could say would change her mind.
"You have to let me go," she pushed.
"No. I love you. You're everything to me, Sarelle. I need you." I rested my forehead against hers, savouring the way her scent surrounded me. Her soft waves rippled down around her shoulders, tickling my fingertips as I held her hands in mine.
"No. You don't," she said weakly as she pulled away. Taking with her my heady dreams of our future together. "You think you do, but you don't. Not really. Because if you needed me, and I was everything to you then you wouldn't need Bella."
"Sarelle…" Her words struck me like lightning. I knew my relationship with Bella had always been difficult for her, but I hoped I had shown her over these past few days that she was the one I saw my forever with. Whenever I was with Bella, Sarelle was the one I was thinking about. When she kissed my lips, it was Sarelle I felt. When she pulled me close, I couldn't help but feel disgusted at myself.
"Don't do that. All you have to do, Edward, is say goodbye, turn around, and never look back."
If she thought it would be that easy, she didn't know how much she meant to me. That reality hurt more than anything she could say. I never wanted her to think she was disposable, replaceable, when it couldn't be further from the truth.
"For once Sarelle, be selfish. Just come with me and save yourself. That's all I wish." I pressed, hoping to appeal to her sense of survival. She had ran from the Volturi most her vampiric life. I just needed her to find that fight again. Whether she ran with me or not, I didn't care. I just needed her to want to escape. To fight for a life beyond these walls.
For a moment I thought I had gotten through but as her face hardened before me I felt my heart sink.
"You know what I wish, Edward." She spat, her eyes aglow with a rage I had never seen. "I wish I'd never asked you to keep that promise in the meadow. And more than that, I wish you'd broken it. Because maybe if you had we wouldn't be here."
"How can you say that?" I shook my head back and forth mechanically, trying to clear it. She waited without any sign of impatience.
"I knew when I left back then that it would hurt to let you go, but I wanted you to be happy. I just didn't think it would take you 50 years, less than a lifetime, to replace me!"
"I didn't…" I started but she cut me down.
"Yes, you did. Because if you hadn't then we wouldn't be here. If you loved her even a fraction less than me then you wouldn't have been playing the two of us for the past year. Professing your love for me while you ran back to her every time."
"You promised forever, Sarelle." I wanted to sound angry but it just came out as begging.
"Not this forever," she said with disdain "Not how it is now. I wanted the man I fell in love with at fifteen. The one who would never lie, or cheat. The one who was devoted to the life we had together, no matter what stood in its path."
"I'm still that man," I tried to sound strong but it just sounded like a plea.
She took a deep breath and stared, unseeingly, at the ground for a long moment. Her mouth twisted the tiniest bit. When she finally looked up, her eyes were different, harder – like the liquid gold had frozen solid.
"No you're not, I don't think you have been from the minute you met her. You're not my Edward anymore and I've been a fool to think you ever could have been." She spoke the words slowly and precisely, her cold eyes on my face, watching as I absorbed what she was really saying.
There was a pause as I repeated the words in my head, sifting through them for their real intent.
"You need to leave, Edward."
I stared, uncomprehending at our entwined hands. The eternity ring I'd given her still sat on her finger. Forever and eternity etched in silver. They had become our mantra, was I just suppose to forget all of that? It couldn't have all just meant nothing?
"The only way I'll leave is with you by my side." I was surprised by how calm I sounded. It must have been because I was so numb. I couldn't believe what she was saying. I didn't want to believe it.
"So be it." She stared at me without apology. Her eyes were like topaz – hard and clear. I felt like I could see into them for miles and miles, yet nowhere in their bottomless depth could I see any contradiction to the words she'd spoken.
She turned away from me as she spoke again, "Felix, Alec. If you would please escort Mr Cullen off the premises and back to his wife."
Arms wrenched me from the room and I fought against their pull. I could see the way her hands clenched at her sides, the eternity ring glinting in the light.
"Sarelle, don't do this, please. I love you," She just stared ahead of her and I could see from her resolve that she already had.
In what felt like forever, she turned slowly towards me but I didn't recognise the girl before me. Never had she looked so distant. "It's not enough, Edward."
For the third time in fifty years my heart broke. The first, when I lost her Belmore. The second, when Rose and Emmett returned from Volterra and told me she had vanished. And now, the worst of them all because I had seen the love extinguish from her eyes.
"Don't. Don't do this," My voice was just a whisper now; awareness beginning to seep through me, trickling like acid in my veins.
"Goodbye, Edward."
Time moved slowly as Felix and Alec pulled me from the room. I didn't register the pain as Felix's fist connected with my face. Or the sharp agony as Jane joined in the fray. All I saw was Sarelle walking slowly towards Aro, each step more certain that the last. And that was the last thing I saw before Alec's darkness robbed me of my sight.
"You bastards! If you hurt her!..." I shouted desperately. I was frantic.
"It's her choice, Cullen. She's ours now," Alec said with a sly smile.
"And I for one am certainly looking forward to getting to know her a little better..." Felix drawled. A growl rumbled in my chest.
"You dare touch her and I'll turn you to ash," I hissed.
"I'd like to see you try." Felix barked with laughter as I tried to stand. I knew my legs where useless but I would crawl to her if I had to.
"Farewell. We suggest you leave as soon as you can stand." Alec threw over his shoulder as they passed back through the doors.
"Edward." A small voice rang in my eyes. The soft scent of freesias drifted through the smell of ancient dust and stone.
"Don't Bella, please.."
"Edward...I..."
"I'm sorry, I just can't do this now. I just can't… I'm sorry."
Bella pulled me closer, placing an undeserving kiss into my hair. "Everything is going to be OK. I promise."
The doors burst open before us. They came to us instantly. All except Aslo.
"You promised you wouldn't leave her side." He hissed darkly. He didn't wait to hear my reply and even if he had I wouldn't have known what to say. Words would never be enough.
A/N: Thanks for reading!
