A/N: Hold onto your seats.


Black Swan

Chapter 33

In the darkness, I feed.

My fangs sink deep, my eyes, unadjusted to the lack of light, roll back into an even darker pitch of night as I give myself over to the thirst.

I'm intimately familiar with this ritual, with the pleasure and release of taking from one life source to sustain my own, and yet, it feels like it's the first time I'm experiencing it.

He's male; I know this instinctively. He struggles against me wildly, his hands desperately pulling and tearing at wherever they make contact with, and for one horrifying moment, I'm certain my strength will fail. I hold him close in this embrace of death I know well. My arms, although impossibly weak, wrap tightly around him, my fingers imbedding deeply into his flesh as I tune my senses to the waning beat of his heart as his blood, so hot it feels almost molten, flows into me.

I don't question what he's doing alone in the dark with me, or why the scent of soap is so unfamiliar and potent it stings my nostrils, but the thought lingers at the back of my mind as I lose myself in the medium of his blood.

This human knows Aro and Marcus, and the Volturi guard. He knows Jane and Alec. Their images, their voices, are broadcast back to me with a clarity that is foreign to me. I do not download such information from humans as I feed and yet it continues to assault me, faster and faster, amalgamating together until it becomes little more than a blur of color and rush of sound. And then only one voice rises above the rest. A voice I am not familiar with; a voice so loud and sharp it feels as if it's invaded the inside of my own head.

Stop, stop, stop! Don't kill me! I don't want to die. He's going to turn me. No, please stop!

I don't waver to give it thought. My hunger, the instinct to endure, to continue on, governs all else. I drain him of every last drop of blood, and as I take the last of him into me, all voices and visions from him cease.

For several moments after I'm still, and the only sound in the vacuity of space is my ragged breath echoing around me. The act of feeding exhausted me, and I lie, my thoughts racing, over the rapidly cooling body of the human whose life I have just taken.

Where am I? Why am I here? How did I get here? The same alarming questions plague me one after the other repeatedly, and yet no answers come. I remain in the darkness weak and confused, without sight or coherency, as if this was always my existence.

And then it begins.

In a matter of seconds, my entire body, from the depths of my soul to the surface of my skin, begins to burn. It's a fire that's so all-consuming, the magnitude of it forces me into what feels like a never-ending cycle of seizures. I don't scream; I don't have the capacity to. My brain and body appear to have disconnected, and I'm trapped in this unimaginable torment.

For what feels like an eternity of my body convulsing, my back arching violently and repeatedly off the ground, time instantly freezes, leaving me suspended in a vacuum of pain and silence.

I know this fire, this burning; it was an experience that once shaped the immortal I was to become. My memories of it, although distant, remained constant, but I don't have the strength to fight it this time, and just as I resign myself in surrender, as the first cries pass my lips, it stops.

For several minutes after I lay gasping uncontrollably, my muscles unlocking against what feels like stone beneath me, as my eyes steadily begin to adjust. I realize I'm in some kind of small, narrow room; a windowless chamber of granite blocks, the air stale and diluted with it.

"Rose! E-Edward!" My voice breaks from me sounding so hopelessly hoarse and fractured for a moment I don't believe it's my own. My arms spring out in an effort to further gain my bearings, my fingers probing for a crevice I can use to pull myself to my feet.

My legs shake and buckle like a newborn foal, but I continue, slumped against the wall for support as I take one unsteady, feeble step after another. I fall over my own feet, then laboriously pick myself up only to fall again. I hit the floor hard and awkwardly with my heart pounding furiously with the effort and my lungs raw and aching with each intake of air.

"What's wrong with me?" I moan on hands and knees, my head hanging low. I barely have the strength to raise it. "Edward? Where are you? Esme...?" I call out even as my voice clogs and loses volume; it's as weak as I can feel myself rapidly becoming, and the thirst is once more beginning to serrate my throat; my fangs slowly protracting.

Stupid human. He probably locked himself inside. I don't know why Aro is so fond of him. They're all useless.

On impulse my head snaps up, and just as I draw breath to call out, I'm blinded by a light so bright it sends me reeling backwards even as I instinctively recoil from it.

SON OF A BITCH! HOW IS SHE ALIVE!?

She's a monster! How is this possible?! Run!

What does this mean? Get her to Aro!

"Bella?" My name is spoken in a lilting French accent over a confusing onslaught of words and images.

I look up apprehensively, squinting heavily. Two male vampires stand before me, haloed in the light that's continuing to burn my eyes.

They appear to be dressed in the black cloaks of the Volturi guard.

Holy shit, she's really alive. This is huge.

She killed him. How could she kill him? She's a wraith.

Is she the antidote to werewolf venom?!

Don't touch her!

"S-stop!" I plead, clamping my hands over my ears, but it does absolutely nothing to mute this flood of information continuing to beset me.

Their voices, stark in difference, amalgamate together louder as one, but less coherent. I squeeze my eyes shut in a futile offensive against it, but again it makes no difference.

Why are they speaking like this? I cannot comprehend it.

"Can you stand?" This voice, while encompassed by the stream of others, is clear and hard, before its owner steps forward and stares down at me with ruby red eyes.

"Y-yes," I stammer in barely a whisper as my head shakes to the contrary.

I'm not touching her. She could be contagious, and I'm not risking that demon tearing my head off.

"Randolph, help her up." He instructs over his shoulder.

The second moves to stand beside him, glaring at me in open repulsion. "She looks as though a breath of wind could break her back, and if I harm her, he will kill me," he leans closer to his companion and seethes.

Edward, that bastard.

At the mention of his name, my breath draws sharply. "Edward? Where is he?"

Dead, I hope.

"Dead?!" I echo in horror, just as a grainy image of a hooded figure projects before my eyes as is gone.

Fuck, she's a telepath, as well.

"Aro will answer all questions," he answers impassively, bending down and curving a hand beneath my upper arm.

"Telepath?" I say blankly, staring at him as he pulls me to my feet, but he steadfastly avoids my gaze. "Where is Edward?!" I demand, louder this time before a wave of faintness immediately overtakes me.

"Close your mind, Phillipe!"

They're the last words I hear as the darkness again encroaches.

. . .

Marvelous, marvelous, marvelous!

I'm sure Jane will be ecstatic.

What a marvel these mates are.

The voices remain plural, but independent. One is dominant, but high-pitched and manic.

"I'm sorry, Master, she killed your pet; bled him completely dry."

"Never mind that. Isabella?"

I'm nudged roughly.

I moan faintly, struggling for the longest moment to open my eyes until I find myself staring up at a double-story, ornate marble ceiling. In confusion, I blink sluggishly as I fight to regain lucid thought.

I know this place. I've been here before.

"Master, she can—"

"Jane." A cracked sound leaves my lips before I make conscious effort to speak. My throat is raw, my entire body parched with thirst that gnaws from the pit of my stomach and burns along my flesh. "Blood..."

"Valentina."

Marvelous. Simply marvelous!

"Yes, Master, right away."

"Marvelous," I repeat weakly, my eyes dipping closed as I'm met with shrieking laughter.

Laughter that splits with two voices. Separate but joined. Sharp and subdued. I don't turn my head toward them. I can't.

"Ah, Valentina!"

"Master."

Loud clicking footsteps on a stone floor, more voices; small and bated, but unfamiliar. I struggle to grasp them.

*Non voglio morire. Dio aiutami. Dio aiutami. Dio aiutami!

I immediately catch the scent as an unmitigated growl leaves my throat.

Human.

In bone-crushing speed I wouldn't have believed I was capable of at that moment, I tear myself from the arms of the creature holding me, to the warm embrace of the only life I've known.

I'm unsure how much I drink, or how many humans I kill. I stopped counting after the fourth one was presented to me, but not long after was when the void of unconsciousness once more overtook me.

When I open my eyes again I am whole.

I wake to near silence on a plush, canopied four-poster bed in a room lavishly adorned with velvet and Italian Baroque furniture. Two lamps burn beside me, flooding the room in dim, golden light, and just as my eyes fix to the large mahogany, doubled-doored entry, it flies open.

Bella! She speaks in a tone I have never heard her utter in all the years I've known her, only her lips don't move.

Bella, my sweet Bella!

"Ja—"

In an instant, I am in her arms as she plants her lips repeatedly to my forehead. "I could kill you, you wretched thing!"

"I'm so—"

Bella, oh, Bella!

"Have you any idea what you've put us all through?"

Sweet, sweet, Bella.

"Would you shut up?!" I snap, my confusion giving way to impatience.

These voices. These incessant voices.

She draws me at arm's length, her grin wide and hedged with warmth, and that sentiment she's well known for. "You're still the same."

Still the same, but more beautiful. Rose will not be happy.

"What?—Jane! Stop speaking. I mean—Jesus, stop thinking for a moment, please!" I cannot begin to grasp what I'm hearing, or seeing, and it's beginning to agitate me.

"He passed you his gift," she says gently.

Edward.

Impossibly beautiful Edward. My Edward, but...not my Edward. It's an image of him that's fleeting, but ended abruptly and very clearly by design. But it's still enough to take my breath away.

"Where is he?" My voice falls to a whisper; I'm suddenly close to tears. "And...what happened? What...how long have I been here?" I shake my head, my confusion constant. I have no memories of arriving at Volterra. Not one.

"Oh, Bella," she whispers, her expression becoming pained. "It's..."

Five years. It's been five years.

"What?" I burst in disbelief, leaping from the bed with my heart in my throat. In panic, I whip my head aimlessly in every direction; though, I'm not sure what I'm looking for. "Five years!? How? I...I can't breathe..." I grip my chest as my gaze continues darting around the room, searching for something I know I won't find.

How could I have lost five years? It's...incomprehensible.

"Bella," Jane's immediately on her feet, her arm curving around my waist, "let's—"

"No!" I insist stubbornly, shrugging her from me. "No!—where's Edward?"

"I don't know," she admits, shying immediately away from me. "I haven't seen him in a year."

"What...?" I exclaim, my alarm swiftly turning to anger. That was not the answer I wanted to hear. "What does that mean? WHERE THE HELL IS HE?" I suddenly roar out into the enclosed room. But something is happening to me; I'm uncertain what. My skin feels like it's crawling. It's an anxiety, a restlessness and a deeply-rooted fear all in one amassing around my heart, and for a moment I'm unsure I can bear it. "Jane..." I turn to her in pleading. She has to give me something more than that. "Is he...alive?" My voice chokes over that one word with a reality I cannot conceive of.

"Yes." Her answer is matter-of-fact as she grips my upper arms in a fruitless attempt to restrain me. "He was spotted a month ago."

We'll find him, I promise. We'll find him. Oh, Bella.

Again, I'm momentarily confronted by his image. Dark red eyes, inhumanly beautiful, but with...

My breath stills.

"Bel—"

"Jane, please...stop...thinking." How can I hear her thoughts—to see them? How is this possible? And...I can barely comprehend that Edward is a vampire. "How...?" I don't elaborate. I'm not sure where to even begin.

"It's a long story," she begins, sitting me back down on the side of the bed and placing herself beside me, "but, do you remember anything? You and Edward were in Port Angeles..." She raises her brows to prompt me, as her hand falls over mine.

"I..." I turn to stare at the grotesquely elaborate gold and blood-red Damask wallpaper, knotting my brow as I force my thoughts back through time.

The images come, shadowed and obscure. Edward...Edward staring down at me, his expression—the perfect picture of heartbreak as tears ran in rivers down his cheeks. He was... begging me.

I close my eyes, hearing that broken voice echo faintly back through my memory. "I'm right here, Bella. Please...stay with me."

I was lying in his arms along the side of the road, flanked thickly by woods, with the faint sound of thunder rumbling in the distance.

*"Don't cry, you'll make it rain," I spoke, my voice rapidly fading along with my vision as I placed my hand to his cheek.

I inhale sharply, impulsively, my hand flying to my mouth. "What happened? I...I...Something terrible..."

"You were shot, Bella," she discloses tactfully. "By a vampire hunter, with bullets infused with werewolf venom. He'd been tracking you for a while."

"Oh, god..." I immediately understand the implication behind her words. Werewolf venom is a death sentence, but how...? I stare up her, my vacant expression no doubt question enough.

She shakes her head; she has no answers to offer me either. "No one knows, but you and Edward...you taught us so much..."

"What? I mean..." I wish to God she'd stop talking in riddles. "Jane, just—"

"Because of you, we know how to pass on our gifts when we turn vampires. Bella, I passed my gift to Valentina and Aro released me." She smiles warmly, her eyes glistening heavily with emotion.

"How?" I whisper. "Jane, how?"

"I turned him, Bella. But not for almost six months. He didn't want to be turned. He wanted...to die," she admits, her brow furrowing as if it still hurts her to recall.

"Jesus Christ..." I mutter as my heart stalls at the very idea of it, but, of course, he did. Carlisle warned me of that very thing. I hadn't taken him seriously back then. Perhaps if I did...

"When he was turned, he refused to be put under," she continues, her voice soft and responsive; she's skirting around my feelings. "He wanted to scream and shout and curse the world, and he did. He did..."

Whether she's aware of it or not, she's projecting it back to me. Edward writhing in a clearing on the forest floor. His entire body is rigid, his veins bulging alarmingly from his forehead and down his neck and arms, as one gut-wrenching, agonizing cry after another erupts from him.

It lasts mere seconds, but it impacts me in such a way that for one moment I'm positive I'm going to tear my own hair out. It's the tears that are unleashed on me first, though.

"Jane..." I sob, shaking my head as if my subconscious is pre-emptively warning me, but I have to know. I have to. "Show him to me."

She nods once, and without words, either audibly or mentally, she closes her eyes.

In her mind I see him, a newly born vampire with the fresh soil and debris of the forest tangled in his hair and marring his skin. He's so perfectly sublime, I'm positive I'm seeing an angel in the flesh, but his eyes, the red eyes of a vampire who feeds from humans...there's a stricken ferocity to them. A genuine malice.

It's too much. Too much...

I grip the sides of my head and bend forward. I cannot fathom it. Any of it.

Jane takes my hand and draws me closer beside her; I allow her. I'm beginning to feel... I'm not sure I can even rationalize it.

"He was born in vengeance and heartbreak, Bella," she explains, tilting her head to meet my gaze. "He's...no longer that human boy you once knew." It grieves her to tell me this, I realize, but it's more than that; what he is, hurts her as well.

I can only stare at her, because it's all I'm capable of. Then, pulling myself hastily together, I wipe my eyes dry and force myself to take a deep, resolute breath. I need answers. "Start from the beginning."

"Okay." Releasing my hand, she places hers on my shoulder, but she doesn't speak a word; audibly that is.

"I love you, too, now shut up and tell me," I say flatly.

A smile breaks across her face before it fades, and for a second or two, she appears to brace herself. "Alice saw it, but they got there...too late. You know how werewolf venom works, Bella. It's very quick," she pauses as I nod numbly. "Carlisle called me that night. I arrived the next morning, and Edward was...inconsolable. He locked himself in your room with your body and refused to come out for days. To him, you were simply asleep and he was convinced he could wake you up. He kept trying to feed you his blood. Eventually, Carlisle was forced to intervene after Alice saw the danger in what he was doing. At first, he was adamant about not being turned. He didn't care that he was aware of vampires and the danger that put him in. He simply didn't care about anything but you. It wasn't until he realized what we'd have to do to your body..." Again she pauses, and again, I nod. A vampire's body will not decompose even in death, and it's protocol to have it cremated to leave no possibility of it being discovered and falling into the hands of the humans. Only a handful of vampires are buried in coffins; Volturi royalty is one such exception. "He refused to even entertain the idea of cremating you, and so he eventually made a deal with Aro. If Aro agreed to keep your body in the crypts of Volterra, he'd agree to be turned and help the guard track down the vampire hunters. Aro agreed, but it took Edward a little longer to hold up his end of the bargain. He came back with your body. He didn't want to be away from you, but he kept delaying the date to be turned. Aro was immediately taken by him, and he awarded him a lot of allowances he wouldn't have extended to most of our kind." She breaks off to scoff to herself in open amusement. "There were a lot of put out vampires here, Bella, as you can imagine."

A genuine smile almost breaks through my expression, but I understand more than anyone how easy it is to become infatuated by Edward; I cannot blame Aro in the slightest. "Continue," I mumble, and Jane readily obliges.

"It wasn't until we heard Irina was killed by a vampire hunter that Edward finally agreed—"

"Irina...Denali?" My eyes widen in shock. The Denalis have been close with Carlisle and Esme for a century. I cannot...

She nods gravely. "Yes. It made no sense to anyone because as you know the Denali coven feeds from animals."

"Why?" I demand, but with a conceding shrug of my shoulder, I abandon it. "Continue."

"Okay, Edward wanted it to be my blood, so I took him deep into the hills of Montebradoni and turned him." She stops and gauges me closely. "Go ahead." She's aware of the questions beginning to overrun my mind.

"How did he take to it?"

"Um...not well in the beginning," she relays, subtly breaking her eyes from mine as a certain degree of culpability reflects in them. "His body kept rejecting my blood. It took a while to work out how much he could tolerate at once and we went from there. He transitioned fairly quickly once it took, however. Less than seven hours."

I bow my head, expelling a gushing breath. I'm glad to know in the very least that his suffering didn't go on for days.

"That's when we realized, Bella," she adds, her voice displaying a sudden awe. I glance up, immediately curious. "Your blood granted him incredible strength and speed, and his senses are infallible. It was something Carlisle warned Aro might happen but we were still so surprised by how powerful he is. Then there's his telepathy. There isn't human or vampire alike whose mind he cannot breach, and he can do it from up to a mile away. He can read every detail from a human's mind, even things they themselves have long forgotten. He's incredibly gifted, but, Bella...he's also a shield."

"...A what?" I utter blankly, as Alice's words drift back through my consciousness. She'd foreseen him becoming like me, but I'm not sure anyone really believed her.

"You passed it to him."

"How? I didn't turn him."

"That's how you passed it to him. You fed him your blood, but had you changed him, the blood ties between the two of you would have been too close. But because I turned him, your blood that remains in his veins to this day transferred your gift to shield to him."

I pause to reflect on it, weighing it repeatedly in my mind, but that's when I realize the contradiction. "Then how can I have his...?" The question dies on my lips. He wasn't a vampire when I fed from him, so how the hell could he have given me his gift of telepathy?

"Aro has an idea of how it happened. Did you burn again, Bella?"

"Yes. For maybe a couple of hours. I'm unsure. I was in the dark..." I'm sure it didn't last nearly as long as it felt, though.

"Because you were already a vampire, albeit a dead vampire. The moment you resurrected via Carlisle's blood, that will always exist within you, the gift through Edward's blood that gave you back your life was transferred."

I shake my head repeatedly, frustrated that it makes absolutely no sense. "Vampires don't resurrect, Jane, and yet here I sit."

She nods. "It's only a theory at this point, and Aro and Marcus are looking into it as we speak, but they believe there's something in the singer's blood that will resurrect a vampire fallen to werewolf venom. The two of you might just have discovered the antidote to our only weakness."

"And yet I lost five years and my mate is missing!" My voice rises as my anger flares, because it still feels so completely unbelievable.

"Aro believes it had a lot to do with the early days after you died when Edward continued to feed you his blood," she quickly adds in an obvious effort to placate me. "Not a lot would have reached your veins, but enough that it kept you on the cusp of life, even though to Carlisle you were dead in every sense of the word. We're hoping that if a full transfer of blood is undertaken as soon as possible, a vampire will not sleep for as long as you did. Bella...you've aged."

For a moment, I'm uncertain I heard her correctly. Aged? In the literal, human sense?

"I...I have not—what? How old am I?—five years older?" I'm aghast. That would make me twenty-two. Two years older than Edward!

"I'm not sure, but..." Grabbing both my hands, she pulls me to my feet. "Go see," she motions to the mirrored dresser on the west-facing wall in encouragement.

With my mouth agape, I stare at my own reflection for longer than I ever have in my existence. While I'm somewhat relieved to know I have only a slight maturing to my face that would at the very least put me closer in age to Edward, I do not look older than him. But there's something more that Jane failed to mention. Or perhaps she did...

My face is more refined than it ever was as a vampire.

"That second burning?" Jane drapes an arm around my shoulders and angles me to her. "It airbrushed the already airbrushed immortal." She breaks into a highly amused grin, but I fail to see how any of this is funny.

"Jane..." I complain, bowing my head to my palm for a moment. I'm beginning to feel defeated, and it concerns me. He's my mate; I should be able to feel him, but there's a void opening in my heart. "I just want...to find him."

"We will," she vows with a conviction behind her tone that gives me hope.

A small, empty smile tugs on my lips and turning fully to her, I all but fall in her arms. "I don't like this feeling. Not at all," I lament. I detest it in fact.

"Which feeling?" she enquires, as her arms immediately curl around me and hold me close.

"Not knowing where he is."

"Welcome to being mated," she murmurs in my ear, her tone alluding in some kind of emphasis.

I pull back and gaze at her for a moment. "...You?"

"I found him." A responsive smile pulls on her lips this time.

"Him?" I repeat skeptically.

"Yes, I know." She laughs lightly to herself, but her face is suddenly beaming. Whoever he is, she loves him. "He's male. Well, technically," she amends.

"And Aro released you," I question, because it's all I ever hoped for her.

"Hmm, yes," she confirms. "Valentina was more or less a test subject. We weren't even sure it was going to work. I fed her my blood once a week for two months. We had to make sure she didn't become addicted—Edward warned us of what Alice once saw when he was addicted to yours." I hum in acknowledgment even as my thoughts stray. It felt like last week, but impossibly, it was five years ago. Five years he has lived believing he'd lost his mate.

"—Jane!" I anxiously cut in.

"Yes?"

"Are you sure...he's okay?" A vampire who loses their mate experiences a pain worse than death after all, and Edward still believes I'm dead; I have to rectify it.

"Aro keep tabs on him through sightings as much as he can. No vampire can track him, Bella. His senses are implacable. You unwittingly helped me create the perfect immortal."

I immediately frown, because they're details I'm not quite ready for just yet. "How long did he stay with you?"

"Until last year. He just wanted to go it...alone." She shrugs but there is something almost helpless behind it. "I failed him."

"You couldn't have, Jane," I counter, softly. "You looked after him for me."

She smiles sadly and lowers her gaze. "I knew it was just a matter of time before he'd leave."

I can't bear it, and clearing my throat roughly, I make the decision not to succumb to emotion again. "So Aro turned Valentina and she was born with your gift?"

"Yes." Her expression immediately brightens. "That's when he released me. I met Leonardo less than a year later. Tia introduced us."

She reveals her mate to me as an involuntary smile breaks across my face. He's what the humans would call camp, and he loves her as much as she evidently does him.

"—Okay, stop!" I raise my hand to put an immediate halt to the more graphic side of her thoughts, and I'm sure if it were possible for her to blush, she would.

"Bella, you can learn to block it out. Aro taught Edward how to use his own shield against it. His telepathy is so strong, he wasn't getting a moment's peace from it."

She broadcasts him to me again, and from her expression she's doing it deliberately, but there he stands, my beautiful immortal with a fire behind his eyes I have never known.


A/N: Okay, I just want to add that this all happened for a very specific purpose. It's not something I just threw in for unnecessary drama. If I separate characters there's a reason for it. Kim, my beta, wanted me to assure everyone that it's going to be a HEA. I'm fairly certain I already said it was. I don't bait and switch, but to appease Kim, yep it's most definitely a HEA.
Hope you enjoyed and aren't too confused. Almost done with 34, so hopefully I'll update in another week.
To all of those who celebrate, I wish you a merry Christmas and happy new year. Let's pray 2021 is better than this fubar year.
Stay safe xoxo


*Final Fantasy VII – Flowers Blooming in the Church.

* I don't want to die. God help me. God help me. God help me!