A/N for 2020-08-10: If I was the type of writer to include trigger warnings, this is a chapter for which I would write one. So, if you're someone that needs trigger warnings, or who has visceral reactions to characters experiencing ugly things, I've included a warning and summary at the bottom of the page. This summary covers the chapter from after the first scene break, which is indicated by a centred - 0 - .

Many, many thanks to chayasara for her work on this story. Please note, I added a chunk of text after she worked on this chapter, so any errors are entirely my own.

- Erin

Alice's family, or rather, the remnants of her family as Alice saw them, crested the next peak, pausing to survey their expanded view and its possibilities for prey. Even in the airy reaches of the coast's green mountains, thick trees and mist obscured their sightlines.

"Got it!" Emmett whispered. A fat bear ambled along a distant and much lower slope. It would be well-fed on berries and salmon by now. Alice would normally smile to see Emmett delight in such sport.

Smiles were fewer these days for all of them, though.

Beside her, Jasper stood with his hand firmly wrapped around hers. Carlisle and Esme were nearby, also hunting. It was one of the times when she missed Edward least, but she still missed him.

There had been flashes of his and Bella's existence in Volterra, but there had been no solutions with these visions. Aro had been very clear on what would satisfy ransom for Edward and Bella, and Edward had been equally clear that he would refuse any of Alice's attempts to fulfill such a bargain. She couldn't know for certain, but she suspected Edward didn't trust Aro to keep his promises, so he wouldn't risk entangling more of his family without any kind of guarantee of anyone's freedom.

So she waited, her thoughts occupied by searching for Edward and Bella's futures, or any means by which they might be pried from Aro's grip. Even without her gift, she'd known that three of them would have been lucky to leave at all, not at least with the promise of Bella being turned. She had not foreseen the twisted way Aro had snatched up Edward and Bella, but once he had, she'd known what he wanted: her.

"Nothing appeals?" Jasper asked her.

She shrugged, twisting her mouth. She hunted when she had to, but school was almost done. There was no real need to participate in the human charade any more. She wasn't hungry in the way she would have been hungry before. She ate because she had to.

So when the images came in bright and almost painful flashes, Alice nearly collapsed and then curled into herself, seeing what she saw.

"Oh no!" she said. "No!" Her hand moved of its own volition, making a vice on Jasper's wrist, beginning to communicate with him the urgency of the decision that now had to be made.

- 0 -

Demetri leant back against the headboard of Bella's bed, one leg casually bent, the other extended the length of the mattress. His hand rested on his knee. "Come to bed, my Bella."

Bella had expected him to be gone by the time she returned from the bathroom. He never stayed when she went to sleep, and she didn't like the alteration of this routine. But she had told him she was tired. Tired of his company. Now she looked for reasons to avoid joining him in the bed. She tugged the maroon robe tighter around herself. June's daytime weather was warm, but the evenings remained cool. She moved to the bookshelf, a finger tugging the top edge of a book back at an angle. "Would you read to me for a little?" she asked. He had at times, and this he did well. She preferred to read by herself, but if he read, it kept at least one of his hands occupied and away from her.

"Not tonight," he said. He shifted his posture, coming to lie on his side, head propped up by his hand. He yanked back the bed covers. "Come join me." His words were a command.

Bella let go of the book's spine, watching it slip back into place. She envied it its safe and solitary space on the shelf, rather wishing she could find one for herself there or in the library. For a brief moment, her thoughts ran to the members of the Lower Order. She'd seen Marcus and one of his unnamed colleagues unpacking several large boxes of books in the lower levels. She'd shown them how to order online the week before, and well . . . the library's collection was growing rapidly, the light-eyed vampires seeming happily busy with cataloguing, shelving and in a few cases, reading their latest acquisitions. Erastus, she had noted, seemed to be able to read and work at the same time, one hand cradling a book while his other tended to the collection.

Her happy thoughts ended there, though. Returning her attention to the present and her present company, she approached the bed slowly, hands still keeping the wrap closed around her. The nightgown wasn't revealing, but Demetri's continued presence into what was her own nighttime space made her feel exposed, her skin prickling in a way for which she did not care.

When she sat down on the bed, it was with her back half-turned to him, feet dangling over the edge, not quite ready to settle. So when his hands pulled her back towards him by her waist, she gasped in surprise.

"My Bella," he murmured, rubbing his chin against the back of her neck. Her back was flush against his front, one of his hands wrapped around her stomach. "This colour suits you," he said, his voice low and husky, his hand leaving her stomach, a finger brushing down her cheek to her collar bone. Then he sat up, releasing her to do the same, moving his hands back to himself.

Bella said nothing as she righted herself. She didn't want to encourage any further touching. And where she would have discouraged or openly refused him before, now she had reason to be very wary in doing so.

"I was angry with you the other day."

Almost without thinking, her gaze flicked to the desk and then back again. A replica of her old laptop had appeared the day after his outburst. It was identical to the previous one in all aspects. He had not yet commented on the old one's destruction or the new one's appearance.

"Your new computer works well?"

She nodded. Her mind was scrambling for a way to get him out of the room. Perhaps she could fake being ill?

His finger and its companions journeyed back towards her, snaking their way into her hair. She began to breathe shallowly at this touch. It would not be difficult to pretend she wasn't feeling well.

She was just opening her mouth when he spoke again. "I think I understand now why this intimacy has been so hard for you, my Bella." His fingers twirled a lock of her hair. "Edward never showed how he wanted you."

The words thumped into her midsection, but Demetri's ignorant fingers kept making their unwanted movements over her numb flesh.

"He refused you, and he hurt you with his refusal."

Demetri was silent for a moment, only his fingers talking as he swirled them round the crown of her head, raking them down to linger at the nape of her neck.

Bella made herself continue to be still. It would not do to shudder, as her body wanted to.

"And now you are afraid that I, like him, will reject you or abandon you."

Clearing her throat, she said, "Demetri, I don't feel very well."

He chuckled. "You are nervous, my Bella. This is understandable."

"No," she said, "I think I'm coming down with something. I feel ill."

Demetri's hand cupped her cheek and his lips brushed just beside hers. "You fear rejection. Your sense of self was cruelly and unnecessarily diminished by his stupidity. I want you to know that I would never do that to you, my Bella. I will not deny you the pleasure and closeness of such intimacy."

The horror of what he meant was another hit to her stomach. It wasn't a lie anymore that she felt sick. "I don't want—"

"Oh, you do. Edward was very clear about that."

He'd—? Bella closed her eyes. The brutality of the betrayal was a fist twisting her gut. What did you expect? Edward is a vampire. You offered him up to creatures he despises. Of course he's lashing out at you.

"You must have been very hurt by that refusal to react this way."

Oh, she was hurt alright and becoming angry now, too. Edward had told Demetri all of this? She'd known that he felt betrayed by the bargain she'd made, but this? She'd never expected him to talk about this. The anger boiled over top a very full well of grief.

"Were you, Bella?" His voice suggested that not answering would not be appreciated.

"Yes."

He sounded smug when he spoke. "I was right."

Asshole.

"I'm sorry you were hurt." This seemed genuine.

She kept her eyes down, but a cold set of fingers lifted her chin.

"I will not refuse you."

Excellent. The vampire she wanted nothing to do with was offering her physical intimacy.

Then he leaned forward and kissed her, and Bella realized that his use of the future tense might be more immediate than distant. She pulled away from his lips.

"I know you are afraid," Demetri murmured, his hands circling around her back as her hands startled upwards, trying to push him away. He seemed oblivious to the reaction. "Of course you are afraid. He told you he would hurt you if you were intimate with him."

Oh my God. "I don't want—"

His mouth stopped her next objection with a kiss, pressing her down into the bed. "I would never hurt you."

The horror at what he proposed was wordless and full of fear. "Demetri, I don't want to be with you this way. I'm not ready—"

"You are ready, my love, but you are naturally anxious." His hands cupped her hips and slid upwards, fingers cradling her ribs, thumbs nuzzling her breasts over the fabric of her gown.

She shoved at him hard, gaining a few inches distance from his stony presence. "I don't want to have sex with you."

Demetri chuckled. "Set your fears aside. I will be very gentle." His hands clutched her hips as he pulled her back towards his chest. "I have had many lovers before, human and vampire alike. I know how to pleasure a woman even if she is a virgin."

Bella remembered Edward's very articulate reasons for not doing this very thing, and now Bella recalled all the ways she'd flinched at Demetri's too-rough touches, how she'd had to warn him repeatedly when he first held her arm too tightly. If he didn't kill her doing this, he would very likely nearly do so. Or she would be changed. The physical trauma James had inflicted on her was still fresh enough to make her want to quail, fight, and panic all at once.

"I will make you feel very great pleasure," Demetri murmured. His one hand began unbuttoning his shirt, the other giving himself leverage to lean over and suck at her lips. When she tried twisting her face away, he exerted more pressure, trapping her head under his mouth, his tongue pushing into her mouth.

A wave of profound dizziness made her body go slack. She heard the sound of his belt buckle and then zipper, his trousers sliding away, cold legs over hers. She didn't want to look, and she didn't need to. The salient appendage pressed into her satin-clad thigh, his arousal as subtle and soft as a sledge-hammer.

Bella's breathing kept pace with her heart. She couldn't fight him, and she couldn't run away. Her mind offered nothing else she could use against his advances beyond her words. Those had yet to sway him against his own desires. Screaming would be of no use, either, for who would come to her aid? Certainly not the members of the guard. Certainly not—and though she didn't want to finish the thought, it finished itself—certainly not Edward.

When he released her lips, her voice shook with her request. "Please, Demetri, I don't want to do this—"

"Shh." He pressed his finger to her lips. "I know you are afraid. I will be very careful, I promise."

He was going to rape her. She considered throwing those very words at him but stopped herself. He was so vain, so stuck in his own characterization, she couldn't be certain what such a truth would do. However, she did know that she would be the very convenient target of whatever feeling that provocative word might rouse. If he wanted to tell himself that he was going to be gentle, then perhaps that was better than potentially giving him permission to be violent.

Even so, she couldn't make herself comply with his wishes, and when he inched closer, her hands flailed out and tried to smack him away.

Demetri clasped her wrists gently with one of his own. He kissed them. "No, cara mia, you will hurt yourself. Breathe. Let me pleasure you."

Her arms now restrained over her head, she locked her knees together.

Demetri chuckled, making his rocky knee a wedge against her much softer ones. She resisted, using all her force to keep her thighs together. He leaned over her, whispering things she wished to unhear, his knee prying her legs apart, leaving her muscles aching and quivering with the wasted effort.

"There," he cooed, releasing her wrists and rubbing a hand over her hair. He continued to nuzzle at her neck for a long time, his murmured words incomprehensible.

"I want to see you," he said, and without waiting brought his teeth down on the top of her nightgown, neatly ripping the top seam and then using his fingers to continue the lengthening of this fissure down the garment.

Bella shivered. He was very, very cold, and the fear wracking her mind and body was rapidly unravelling the last vestiges of her self-control. Her eyes watered with tears.

"Cosi bella," he purred.

He began to kiss her jaw, each cold exhale chilling her further. He nuzzled and licked down the length of her throat, his mouth seeming to clamp onto where her shoulder and neck met. Then he growled, a low and guttural sound that made her instantly stop moving, breathing, or crying.

When he moaned her name what felt like ages later, she let herself inhale. It was the shallowest of breaths, as if too much air might draw more of his attention back to her.

Her gaze couldn't find a safe place to land. It flew from one perch to the other, clasping first at the wardrobe corner and then the ceiling pattern. Finally, some part of her brain suggested that it might be easier if she just closed her eyes. So she did. Willfully blind, her body still insisted on translating for her mind each of Demetri's unwanted and bruising touches to her lips, her breasts, her hips, and finally, to the place between her legs.

- 0 -

In the days between Demetri's last bout of questions and the current moment, Edward had allowed himself the benefit of a healthy dose of denial after the profoundest of the rage had passed.

His livid jealousy was a constant in his existence, simmering to a point that even Aro ignored it. Edward could not do so.

Demetri would not be so stupid, Edward had told himself in response to Demetri's questions. He was an arrogant idiot and an ass, but he wasn't stupid. He wanted his chance to conduct his experiment—Edward had shuddered at the phrase—and doing what he'd asked about would end any chance of successfully doing so.

However, as Jane's powers pinned Edward to the audience chamber's stone floor, his body flailing in pain, Edward saw that he had not just been wrong, he had himself engaged in the worst kind of arrogance and foolishness.

Demetri had ignored all of Bella's other wishes in this regard. How had he let himself think he would respect them with this?

Edward's muscles strained against Jane's torture, one hand slapping out against the rocky floor, wrenching his body forward by an inch in the direction of Bella's room.

"I will not have you interfering, Edward," Aro said smoothly.

Edward's other hand flapped forward, fingernails crumbling the shallow lip of the floor to dust, trying to move himself towards his goal by another fraction of an inch.

If there was any virtue to the pain, it dulled the witness his mind bore to Demetri's thoughts and muffled with Edward's own screams, the panicked breathing and words that were coming from Bella.

"Enough, Jane." Aro sighed. "Alec?"

"No!" Edward said, whether to this or to what Demetri was doing, it wasn't clear even to him, but Alec's powers, though quick, did not obscure his gift. In the absence of his own feeling, everything Demetri thought, saw, smelled, and touched was as real to Edward as if it were he assaulting Bella.

"Demetri, bring your lips to Bella's neck, please," Aro called.

No sound escaped anyone's notice in the castle, and all Aro had to do was utter these words and Demetri complied.

Edward's body, just like Bella's, became perfectly still.

That is better, Edward. You know the terms under which we operate. You had your opportunity, and now Demetri has his. If you prefer, we can test the final results of this experiment and have her change begin this way. I imagine it would be similar to your sister's transformation . . . Aro's thoughts continued from there, recalling for Edward his own memories of Rose and the horrors of her early days. Aro had not missed the permanent way she'd been marked by the rape that ended her life.

Edward lay face-down on the floor in horrified silence, watching Demetri be pulled by the sweetness of the blood right beneath his lips.

Edward heard Aro's voice in Demetri's thoughts. "Demetri, you may—"

"I desist!" Edward called.

The world returned to Edward, Alec's gift lifted from him.

"As you were, Demetri," Aro called out. "Come, Edward. I should like to see how Demetri's efforts unfold."

Edward rose slowly from the floor, his body mechanically carrying him towards Aro. With his gift, he could not black out the witness of what Demetri was doing to Bella. The other parts of him wanted to shut down and crumble at what they were being forced to see and hear, but his corporeal form moved him to stand beside Aro, a dry hand accepting the touch of his now numb one.

He endured as he could only hope she endured. Each of Demetri's movements was a torturous anticipation of mortal wounding on Bella's part.

When the rape ended, he could hear and practically feel Demetri's burning throat.

"Find the dottore, Demetri," Aro called. "It won't do to have that cause problems for you or anyone else."

And then Edward was left with no sight of Bella, listening only to her distressed breaths and muffled sobs, these etched into his memory that could forget nothing. Along with them, he carved the resolve that he would save her, at whatever cost must be paid to the monster beside him.

Aro laughed. "I look forward to that, Edward. Truly, I do. But for now, perhaps you should hunt. A reminder, though, of what will happen to Bella if you do interfere." His thoughts played out the consequences to Bella.

So warned and dismissed, Edward walked from the room like a ghost, half-wishing against his wish that he could die.

Trigger warning: Sexualized violence / assault / rape.

Chapter summary from after the first break: Bella readies herself for bed, coming out of the bathroom to find Demetri in her bed. He explains that he now understands why she's been so reluctant to be intimate with him—that Edward has hurt her repeatedly with his refusal to do so. He calmly explains that their being intimate (having sex) will bring them closer together. Bella refuses him, but he doesn't listen to her. The beginning of the assault is described, which includes kissing and then a one-sentence description of Demetri touching Bella's unclothed body. The scene then switches to Edward's perspective in the throne room, where Aro first uses Jane and then Alec to keep Edward from interfering with Demetri's "experiment." When this doesn't work, Aro threatens Edward with having Demetri change Bella. Terrified that Demetri will kill rather than change Bella, and horrified by either possibility, Edward agrees to stop trying to interfere. When Demetri's assault is over, it's clear that Bella is injured, and Aro orders Demetri to fetch the doctor. Edward resolves to find a way out for himself and Bella. Aro laughs at this resolution and then sends Edward to hunt, but not before warning him of what will happen to Bella if he again attempts to interfere with Demetri's experiment.

DISCLAIMER: S. Meyer owns Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.