OKAY HERE IT IS AKLKLJSLJLKGALAL!

Where Bella meets Lord Edward Cullen T-T!

Enjoy!

Chapter 8

Nothing can flush the panic that surges through my veins. Black dots swim across the pupils of my eyes as my heart pumps loudly from the bottom of my throat to the tops of my eardrums, drowning out any other sound. I look to Anaya, seeking some sort of guidance. I know that my expression is pathetic; vulnerable, but I can't help it. My first meeting with Cullen, of whom I insulted to an unimaginable degree just hours before, has come much sooner than I anticipated. I am horribly unprepared.

Wittiness, cockiness, bravery, strength. In an instant my best traits are all painted over, wiped away, leaving me with unintelligible mush for brains.

"You mustn't make him wait." Anaya shouts at me from the front of the room. Her unusual passion causes the other supply units to become uneasy. "Go. Before you upset him!" She says this as if I haven't already done so ten times over.

Everyone shifts their opinionated stares back and forth, between us. I look to Jessica for comfort as I stand. She and Angela both offer me nods of confidence and naive mumblings of "It'll be okay," and, "Good luck."

Before I am even sure of what I'm doing, I find myself at the front of the auditorium, the band bolted to my arm still shrilly sounding. I take one last look up at Anaya as I pass through the doorway, and at the last second her face contorts with jealous anger. Humans bred in Volterra are crazy, I've decided.

In what feels like an instant, I am at the end of the passage, nearing the seraglio's entrance. I reach the front desk and the same skeletal vampire attendant from before sneers, permitting me the view of his elongated fangs. He looks down and uses a small brass keypad to type in my numbers. The crude noise and flashing light from my tag stops.

He grumbles. "That there tells our lord that you have been accounted for and that you are officially on your way. So, if you don't mind...," he extends his hand toward the exit. At the end of his hand stands a proudly-postured vampire woman. She is donned in robes of white, gold, and lavender. She smiles widely at me in my approach.

"Hello. I am Madam Alice," she says.

I don't respond.

"Follow me." Her face scrunches up to participate in her giddy smile, giving off a senseless effervescence. What a strange vampire. I wonder if she's crazy, too.

Madam Alice turns to make her way down the hall.

I somehow manage to follow, traveling through the dark corridors of the castle with surprising grace this time around. As my toes slide along the cool grainy floors, a small reverberation of my resolve pulses through my body once again. The distance between Cullen and I suddenly feels wider, despite truly being closer than moments before. I cherish the peaceful unrest that accompanies the illusion, for it allows my brain the space to start working again.

As I pass through the large mouths of conjunctive hallways, I analyze my surroundings in hopes that I might find a way to escape before facing Cullen. But every window, every doorway, every hole that looks to have the capacity to fit me through it are heavily obstructed by passerby servants, handmaidens, guards, or noblemen. And all seem to take their time studying me. I curse under my breath.

Outside of Nightingale, or any supply school for that matter, humans are hard to come by—endangered, in fact—making the presence of one more of a luxury rather than a commodity. Even here, where the servants probably see humans every day, our sheer presence ignites their predatory senses. Most vampires in Volterra, including the elite's servants, know blood only through synthetic methods, or through highly expensive blood packs. The latter having grown only a bit more prevalent since cultivating humans became a legitimate practice. Ignoble vampires are strictly prohibited from killing any humans, and face severe repercussions if they do... But the elite, of course, can do whatever they please.

It makes me sick to my stomach, thinking about the inner-workings of this world. The part of the world that everyone else chooses to look past.

As strange eyes continue to scan me, and with Madam Alice on guard, I conclude that my chances for escape have dropped straight down to absolute zero. For now, anyway.

My heartbeat becomes erratic the closer I draw to the grand hall. I'm running out of time. My mind trips over itself. Telling me to run and take the leap for freedom despite the underwhelming odds; anything to get away, and to stay away, from the lord of this castle. A bead of sweat falls down the side of my burning cheeks as my eyes shift upward to take in the twin ivory staircases that the rest of us passed earlier. The ones that lead straight to Cullen so that "he doesn't have to wait too long for his meals."

Pig.

I swallow hard. The thin columns of the cases, carved intricately to look like porous bones, swirl upward with instruction, imploring me to not keep their master waiting.

I take one final look toward the huge paneled windows of the grand hall, the glass reflecting the dull oranges of dawn. I ignore the suspicious stares of the nearby curtain attendants and the expectant eyes of Madam Alice while I consider shattering a large, stained glass window and making a break for it through the courtyard. However, something holds me firmly to this spot, to this purgatory. An intrepid curiosity that is, bluntly, meaningless.

Why did Cullen decide to bring me here after everything I did?

I clench the ivory knob on the base of the handrail as my thoughts shift from a need for freedom, to a need for answers.

Almost instantly I'm climbing the stairs with a renewed sense of determination. The singeing need for answers easily replace my lukewarm fear and hesitation. I won't stop. Midway up and I'm on my own. Alice doesn't follow me and offers no words of comfort or parting as I step ever upward. Sliding my numbing fingers over the handrails, step by step, I ascend, repeating calming mantras to myself in hopes that I'll handle this event better than the last. Distribution was proof enough that I didn't know how to control my temper, and if I wanted even half of a chance at living past this day, I couldn't be rattling off insults the moment I strolled into Cullen's room.

I slow nearing the top of the intertwining staircases. I gulp when I look down, realizing that the height conquered could easily be compared to that of the Nightingale Walls. Maybe even a little higher. I refocus my eyes to the four steps left before me and a new surge of fear amplifies. I move to silence it.

Four. Three. Two. One.

At the top, I still have at least fifty yards of gaping hallway before it opens to an enormous set of doors—of which, I can only assume lead to Cullen's personal quarters. As my feet take the last steps of the journey, more cautious than before, I notice the guards—masked from the forehead down to the nose—lining each side. Their electric spears are crossed over one another in a similar fashion, and their armored bodies stand rigidly still. Each one I pass never loses face, never coughs, never speaks, never twitches. If it wasn't for the small layer of sweat glistening upon their jawlines, it would be difficult to tell them apart from sculptures.

"Okay, time to stop distracting yourself," I mutter. "You're almost there. You can do this. It'll be okay.

If Cullen wanted me tortured to death he would have left me at the fallen pit. Surely, this can't be worse than that.

The guards uncross their spears to turn and open the doors to his chambers, and a shudder of fear slithers along every surface of my body as I take in what lies before me. Pitch black darkness. The huge room that I'm expected to enter looks to be an abyss of nothing.

"Well?" A voice from behind startles me.

I turn on a dime to see a well-dressed vampire, almost exactly like Demetri from back in the Selection Hall, walking toward me. Wait, it is Demetri., Master Blood-Sucking Scumbag.

"You can't just stand there," he says, stopping short of me. He smiles in a sarcastic "you're wasting my time" sort of way.

"Why are you here?" I snap, looking him up and down.

He laughs to himself before responding, "I am the 'ensurance' policy. Here to ensure that you don't get any funny ideas."

I scowl at him before he nudges me closer to the two doors. "Don't keep him waiting, that will only lose you points, dimwit."

Reckoning that he's right, I refuse myself a snide comment to speed along the process. My fingers fidget with each other in restless ticks as I take a deep breath, solidifying my journey into the illusory emptiness that is Lord Cullen's quarters.

Each step is an eternity.

Each inch, a meter.

The echoes of my steps grow louder the closer I draw to the center of the room, while everything else becomes engulfed by eerie silence. The two doors shutting behind me, unanticipated and loud, send my heart into overdrive. Looming claustrophobia clouds my thoughts as my eyes are unable to adjust to such stagnant darkness. After minutes pass without even the slightest alleviation to the tense atmosphere, I dare to speak.

"Excuse my entrance... my lord," the last part burns my tongue, but I refrain from any other potentially insulting honorific. The last thing I need is to dig my own grave. I'll save that for the day I make a break for the tree line, laughing the entire way with my middle finger in the air. And I'll leave Cullen a note or something, telling him how I really feel about him and his haughty tribe of oversized mosquitoes.

No answer from the abyss, although I can sense down to the bone that I am sharing the room with something else. More agonizing moments pass without reprieve, putting me further on edge. I recall Demetri's presence before. Cullen had to be here. If there was back-up called for the task of corralling me into his chambers, how could he not be? When the question leaves my mind, a harnessing and lasting chill shoots its way up my spine. It is so painfully cold that I'm unable to move, frozen in place. I try to cry out but a voice as dreadful as death interjects.

"I think you have done quite enough talking, today."

Immediately I recognize the affronting octaves as belonging to Cullen, the Edward Cullen, and immediately my determined and fearless nature dissolves as if it were a pathetic facade. Following the sharp break in silence, footsteps fill my ears. Every bone in my body, every ligament, and every muscle aches with astonishing pain. Each of them has escaped my control. I can't move. And the feeling of absolute despair and hopelessness invades my mind the closer the footsteps draw.

"What is this? Why am I-," I think to myself, beginning to hyperventilate as the effects of the sensations worsen both physically and mentally.

"Don't forget to breathe," he suggests calmly. "Enduring something like this can be a bit overwhelming for humans… from what I hear."

Something like this?

He's now insanely close to me. He's towering me, watching me. And although the hints of amber brown hair have been noticeable for the last couple of steps, only now am I able to make out the faint outlines of his face. I panic at the proximity. Agony sweeps over me in the form of a tormenting, unseen demon and I let escape a silent scream.

Cullen's cupped hand finds my jaw and suddenly his lips are at my ear.

"Are you feeling faint yet?" he whispers, sending hot breaths down my neck. "This is one of many abilities that has been passed down to me as a pureblood vampire."

My eyes glaze over as he speaks. Pureblood. Only a few lines out of the entire vampire population that are gifted with certain, catastrophic abilities. All of this... is him.

"I can control the blood of any that I have tasted. I can stop it, I can expand it, I can tear it apart. I can kill you right now, Bella… without so much as sullying my hands."

It hits me; my blood halts in circulation for a split second and my whole body aches. I desperately try to cry out, to scream for help that I know will never come. My better judgment finds me amidst the sensations.

Why try anyway? Why even care?

My body relaxes, and I grasp onto the bigger picture of this horrible reality. It would be better if he killed me. That way, I wouldn't have to be the one thing I never wanted to be.

A human in a vampire's world.

My mind, now nearly consumed by rage and apathy, almost doesn't register that he called me Bella.

So, he remembers me.

"But don't worry," he says. "I won't kill you."

I will myself to look him in the eye, to see if he's serious or just that big of a blowhard, but I can't move. He releases my cheek and pulls back.

"After all, there is no point in killing those that wish for death. If death is not your weakness, then there is something else that you fear far more."

The invisible hold on my body suddenly breaks, and I crumple to the floor. Power play. That's all any of this is. Anger overshoots my judgment and I meet his dark, obsidian eyes, insubordinately. As I study them with nothing short of intense disgust, their malice intensifies. I'm not supposed to look him in the eye at all, ever.

He mumbles something, but I can't comprehend it.

Butterflies of warmth shoot from my neck down to my toes, proving that my blood is free of his fatal hold. My mind, far too lost in recovery from such pervasive manipulation, neglects the most basic of functions: listening.

"Did you not hear me?" he says. "Stand up."

My fingers curl in over the marble below me, my nails scratching and folding in on themselves. I wish I could dig them into his face. A burst of air makes itself present in my chest, yearning for release. But I bury it beneath promises of later. Now that I know he intends on letting me live, I have plenty of time to show him how I feel. I force my balance as I stand straight as an arrow, the most confident posture of my life on display for a narcissistic monster who would probably rather see me hunched over like an injured mutt. Not today.

Edward Cullen reaches for my jaw once more, insanely fast, and pulls it upward so that I am forced to look at him. I avert my gaze. He turns my face to the side, running his fingers through my hair while dropping his sights to my neck.

Then it clicks. I understand the emotion that oozes from those orbs. Blood lust. I saw it in the eyes of that vampire so many years ago, and in the eyes of all I have met thus far. I'll never forget it. An innate fear drowns out all of my other emotions as my mind connects every dot. Right now, if Edward Cullen were to destroy his inhibitions and take my blood without a kortrastet needle, the toxic mixture from his fangs would convert me into the fallen.

But... he wouldn't do that. There would be no point to any of this. Right?

His fingers catch in the knots of my hair.

"Frightened?" he asks, undoubtedly sensing my heightened reactions that have gone unchecked. "You should be. You made quite the fool of me back there."

All I can reasonably think to do is manipulate my way out of this situation. It has always worked at Nightingale. The only difference is that the one willing to punish me right now isn't some third-party babysitter... it is the one who owns me.

"I apologize," I mutter, glancing between his fangs and his chest, keeping tabs on the former for my neck's sake. "I didn't realize the severity of my actions."

He chuckles, tilting his head to the side. He doesn't believe one ounce of it.

Well, there goes that plan. The words are far from true, but the fact is I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I said those things to him. I thought I would be dead by now, another rotting corpse in the fallen pit getting split apart by fang and bone. The truth is I just wanted to go out with a bang. Should I tell him that?

"Forgive me, my lord." I grit my teeth together as I dare to look him in the eye. "Since I was certain that I would be sentenced to death, I figured that I might as well eliminate any preconceived notions about me. Apparently, I misjudged your kind and merciful nature."

I maintain my eye contact. His expression remains ambiguous until he finally smiles. I wonder if smiling means the same to him as it does to the rest of the world.

"Such sensitive creatures, you humans." He eventually pairs a phrase to his smirk. He trails his fingers from my jaw to my neck. "Perhaps letting you die instead would have solved your emotional turmoil?"

Tensing within his grasp, I fight to not answer such a goading question—one pulled from a trifling past. Instead, I flat-out ignore it.

"I kept you safe, untouched by others of my kind even when you would rebel. And this is how you repay me?" he says, a shade melancholic.

"My body may be preserved but my mind has been rotting for years." I find my voice. "I trusted you that night. When you told me everything would be okay. For the first two years I lived every day wanting to die. I mourned the death of my family alone. I suffered by waiting, thinking you would return... thinking that you meant everything that you had said to me. Once I finally accepted the truth... that the sole purpose for you keeping me alive was to be your slave, death no longer intimidated me."

Silence envelops the room and the wisp of his smile deflates to a taut, unmoving line. Sympathy? Regret? Maybe something struck a chord, if vampires have any chords to strike other than anger and violence.

"I see. But it does not warrant such irate behavior," he says icily, and my spine stiffens. "As you are aware by your being here, I don't want you—nor your blood—to go to waste. So, how can I dissuade you from your sorry attempts to flee my castle?"

I nearly laugh. "You can't. I will try until I either succeed or until you send me to Saya," I declare.

"Hm, or I could break your legs?"

A shiver of fear ripples across my forearms. He must catch the scent because he lets slip a grin. Is he messing with me?

I clear my throat. "I will never stop trying."

"Yes, well. Everyone has something they refuse to bargain with. And unfortunately, you have already shown me yours."

What?

He grabs the front of my ruby dress and pulls me closer.

"The lives of your friends."

My heart skips a beat.

Jessica... Angela… He can't…

I look him straight in the eyes with rage as tears fall freely.

"Don't you dare," I whisper. "They didn't do anything." I throw my fists against him, but he silences the attack with his fierce grip.

He states calmly, "How about we compromise?"

Compromise? This vampire is a monster.

My fists drop to each side and I swear if my nails were longer, they would be drawing blood from my own palms. Edward Cullen's hands find other prey in removing the loose strands of hair from my neck, his features falling expressionless as he watches the understanding pour over my face.

"Compliance can always be bought," he explains. "Accept and embrace your life here, and your friends will be overlooked. Continue on with your useless acts of dissent and I will see to their deaths myself. Do you understand?"

Bitterly, I nod, sobbing while failing to put at least an inch of space between him and me. There is so much that I now cannot fathom. By saving Jessica and Angela from the fallen and bringing them here, I obliterated any chance to free myself again… unless they would come with me. But knowing Jessica, there's no chance.

"Is this why you've kept me alive all this time? To just toy with me?" I ask, my words cracked by tears, and my resolve momentarily broken.

"That is the question, isn't it?"

He grabs the hair on the back of my neck and pulls down, exposing the breadth. My mind leaps to my years of night terrors; to that vampire from ten years ago; to my mother changing before my eyes into one of the fallen. I nearly forget to breathe as terror floods my veins.

He's going to turn me into one of them!

"No! You can't!" I scream as he lowers his face to the crook of my neck and shoulder, his hot breaths sending chills along my skin.

"Consider this your punishment," he says softly.

My fingers grasp at his immovable arms that have me locked against him. I pull and push with as much might as my hands can muster, to no avail.

If I am dirt, he is steel.

How can he do this? I thought we—

"I'm sorry for everything I said and for everything I did!" I blurt out anything that may stop him, regardless of sincerity. "Please don't turn me into one of them!"

Edward inhales along my neck while licking the spot that I've only ever read about in history books. The spot that vampires would bite for prime blood flow in the past, before the law of Volterra banned the conversions. It dawns on me that he has no intention of stopping.

His fangs find their target…

…and tear into my neck.

Searing pain shoots up and down my spine while hot liquid siphons from the wound. I cry out muffled screams, the burning intensifying as the warmth from my body is stripped little by little, every few seconds.

No...

Dizziness overcomes me; my limbs grow weaker and weaker by the second.

...I can't be one of them.

My thoughts fly to my home in Avignon... to that night. Watching through smoke and rubble as my mother is converted to the fallen.

I can't. I can't become that.

"Kill me please," I mutter, as my world becomes

wholly and completely black.

!

Don't worry, this DOES continue, and she is part of the zombie vamps