Thank you so much IamTheAlleyCat for beta'ing and Ncsupnatfan for pre-reading. Thank you all for reading and reviewing xxx


Chapter Nine

Edward

I heard the footsteps moving from the plush of carpet to stone, and I knew that they were headed in my direction. I looked up from the book I had been perusing and allowed my unique sense to reach out to tell me who was coming.

He'd probably smile a little more if he stayed here and fed with us. A healthy, human heart-stopping meal would do him good. Felix's thoughts became graphic as he imagined the meal Heidi was currently retrieving for the guard and ancients.

I slammed my book closed noisily and stood just in time to greet him as he came into the library. "Hello, Felix."

"Edward." He bowed his head respectfully. "Aro asked me to inform you that Heidi will be here soon and that while you are, naturally, invited to join us, you might want to vacate the castle."

"Please pass on my thanks. I think I will take the opportunity to go to the countryside."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

Felix was unflinchingly polite and respectful to me as a guest of the ancients. His question was born out of ignorance, not malice. Despite the years I had spent in the city with the Volturi, I was still a curiosity as a vegetarian vampire. He truly thought my depression would be lifted if I was to drink a natural diet.

"Quite certain," I said.

I made my way out of the room and along the halls toward the tunnels. I passed some of the other guards as I went, and I nodded respectfully to them in greeting. Though I had been in the city for four years, I had spoken less than a handful of words to some of them. When I got to the door that would lead me to the tunnels, I saw a quartet of vampires coming in the opposite direction—Corin and Santiago accompanying Athenodora and Sulpicia to the feeding room.

I could not pass the wives with a mere nod. That would be unbearably rude to my hosts. I stopped and bowed chivalrously to them. They both smiled as they came to a halt, and Sulpicia said my name softly. "How are you?"

Sulpicia's personality suited her mate's well. Like Aro, she was inquisitive, and as the newest arrival in the castle, I was her favored subject. She was kind enough not to question me about Bella, though she knew the whole sordid tale as Aro had shared the details with the whole coven after the decision had been made by the ancients, after much discussion, to leave Bella in peace and trust in my faith that she would never share the secret of my world with other humans. It still chilled my heart that I had been so consumed by the grief at our lost love that I'd overlooked the decision to come to Aro and his gift, knowing that I had broken the cardinal rule of our kind.

Sulpicia liked to talk to me about what I was reading and, sometimes, she would visit with me in the library.

Athenodora was quieter, more reticent, like her mate. I could not read her face the way I was able to read her mind, though I made no active attempt to do that out of courtesy.

"Very well," I lied, fooling no one.

Sulpicia smiled sadly and then carried on along the hall.

I waited until they were gone, and then I hurried to the tunnels and out into the city toward my apartment. I went there occasionally to change clothes and shower, far less often than a human would need to as my body created no dirt to clean.

I also came to collect my car—a Ferrari F430 that Alice had arranged for me only a year before. It had none of Rosalie's modifications, as I hadn't seen my sister in a long time, but it was still a beauty of a car, though I was unable to appreciate it. The only thing I truly cared about now was that it would get me out of civilization fast.

I collected it from the underground parking garage and set off out of the city and into the countryside. To anyone else, the ride would have been a pleasure—the beautiful car and equally-as-beautiful surroundings—but the only thing that meant beauty to me now was far away, beyond my cursed reach.

When I reached Libbiano, I left the car and made my way to the Monterufoli reserve on foot. There was not the selection of wildlife here for me that there was in North America, but the park had an abundance of deer that I could feed on. No number of my favored mountain lions would make the meal a pleasure, so I didn't care much for the lack of better prey.

I wasn't there long before I caught the scent of a herd and followed it to a stream. I took down a buck first, a huge beast with a vast growth from antler point to point. When he was drained, I followed the path of the herd and took down a doe.

Feeling full if not sated, I made my slow way out of the park, in no hurry to return to the castle; the feeding would not be over yet. I was halfway back to Libbiano when my phone beeped with returning service. I glanced at the screen and saw I had missed calls from Rosalie and had a voicemail notification.

I deliberated before listening to the message. It occurred to me that summer break would have started in the states, and my family would be reconvening after time apart. Rosalie would no doubt be using the phone call to encourage me to return, too. I had no desire to deal with her pleas and guilt about my deserting them, tearing the family apart. She didn't understand that if I was there, I would tear them apart with my misery. They didn't need to see me suffer, and Jasper didn't need to feel it.

There was a chance this could be more, though, and that was what made me dial up my voicemail and navigate the menus to listen to the message. Rosalie's voice, strident and demanding, spoke at once, "Edward, call me back. This is important."

She didn't sound unduly concerned, though there was zeal in her voice that hadn't been there in any other conversation we had shared since I last saw her. I wondered what the meaning behind it could be, but not enough to call her back immediately. Instead, I leaned back in my seat and drew a breath, trying to summon the will to return her call. She had said it was important, but then again, Rosalie thought most things were important when they affected her, even in a small way.

The phone trilled again, and I sighed as I checked the caller ID and brought it to my ear. "Hello, Rose."

"Finally," she snapped. "What took you so long?"

"I was hunting," I said wearily.

"That's something, I suppose. Alice said last time she saw you, you were going for endurance feeding denial."

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

"You need to come home."

"Rosalie, we've been over this. My being there will help no one, least of all you. You need to accept that part of my life is over."

"Because your family is just a phase, right?" she hissed. "Something that can be left behind and ignored." I heard her draw a breath, and then she went on, sounding irritated. "Edward, your human is here."

I gasped. "Bella?"

"Who else?" she asked smugly, surely reacting to the animation in my voice.

"What is she doing there?" I asked.

They had promised me, promised that they would leave her alone. Even Alice had agreed not to look for her. She understood we had already impacted Bella's life with our unnatural influence enough. She had a new, human life now.

"We didn't go looking," Rosalie said scathingly. "As if we would. No, she stumbled across us all by herself."

"Is she okay?" I asked, longing in my tone.

"She's human," Rosalie said. "Which means she's just fine to me."

I gritted my teeth. Rosalie's bitterness at her eternal life was irritating at the best of times, but in my moment of need, it was maddening.

"Is she well?"

"Seemed it. For now, anyway. Apparently, she wasn't before. Remember how she would attract vans, nomads, and potential rapists before? Well, apparently this time it was a gun-toting robber holding up a Mini-Mart."

She sounded amused but I barely noticed it. A gun! My Bella had been at the mercy of a lunatic with a gun! How could this have happened?

"So, when can we expect you?" she asked.

"I…"

I hesitated. Did this mean I should return? To her? No. She had a new life that didn't include or need me. But for myself, did I need to see her, to reassure myself that she was okay? That was a definite yes. I had to be sure.

"There's a flight out at eleven tonight," she said knowingly. "Shall Em and I pick up at the airport."

"No."

"Edward! You can't seriously—"

I cut her off. "I will make my own way."

I heard her breathe a deep sigh of relief, and I smiled slightly as she whispered, "Thank you, Edward."

"This isn't for good," I warned her. "I am coming home for a visit, that is all."

"We'll see," she said.

"Goodbye, Rose," I said and lowered the phone to my side again.

My fingers probed my face, feeling the lips curve into a wide smile. I was going to see my Bella again. I would not talk to her, I would leave her to live in peace, but from a distance, I would be able to bask in her beauty once again.

I was going to see my love.


I did not return to the castle. I called the reception desk and left a message with the current assistant, Elenora. She promised to pass on my apologies and the news to Aro that I had been called home.

I knew she would oblige quickly. She was always eager for any excuse to approach the ancients in hopes that they would decide that was the day to decide to change her. After going back to my apartment to pack a small bag of clothes and retrieve my passport, I set out for the airport.

The journey was long and arduous. Having fed just before leaving, the scent of blood in the enclosed space of the plane wasn't such a problem. It was the slow pace that bothered me. Now, on the cusp of seeing Bella again, I was impatient. It didn't help that I had no control over anything that made the journey possible. The delay in the Tuscan airport because of a technical fault and the layover I was forced to wait out in New York were maddening. Only the fact it was the fastest route to her stopped me from leaving the airport and driving the distance.

Eventually, the plane touched down on the Portland tarmac, and I was allowed to disembark. Though I would usually have remembered my manners and let others off before myself, I was the first in the queue to leave the plane this time.

I planned to rent a car, and I made straight for the desk, but before the I reached it, a hand slipped into mine and a familiar scent reached me. Alice.

She fell into step beside me, tugging my hand to lead me to a corner where I could see Jasper waiting. He greeted me with a wry smile and murmur of my name. Alice didn't say a word at first. She dragged me into a tight hug and then leaned back and looked me in the eye. Then, her voice filled my mind for the first time in what felt like a lifetime of my solitude.

I missed you.

I smiled. "I missed you, too."

Are you ready?

"As much as I can be."

I will take you to her.

Emmett would have been maddened by our one-sided conversation, but Jasper was serene as he waited for us to finish and follow him out to the parking garage.

Only when we were in the Mercedes—which, I assumed from the strong scent, was Carlisle's latest conveyance—did Alice speak aloud. "I haven't told them you're coming."

"And Rose hasn't?"

"Oh, it was Rose," she said with a sigh. "She managed to keep that quiet. No, as far as I know, she hasn't told anyone. I thought perhaps you deserved the chance to surprise them." She looked back from the front seat to look at me. "Esme."

I felt guilty that I had hardly spared a thought for Esme or Carlisle since I set out home. My thoughts had been so consumed with Bella that the thought of seeing them all paled in comparison. Jasper caught my eye in the rearview mirror and smiled as he felt my guilt and correctly interpreted it.

I felt no need to fill the silence between the three of us. I just sat in contemplation of what was coming. Alice and Jasper's mental voices were soothing to me, peaceful after the long immersion among the Volturi.

I respected the ancients and guards, and I had friendships among them, but there were none of the bonds of love I shared with my family. And though I didn't listen to their thoughts directly, Alice's and Jasper's familiar minds were pleasant after so long.

"Shall we try her place?" Jasper asked Alice when we were within the town limits.

Alice frowned. "I guess so. She might be home."

"You don't know?" I asked. How was it that Alice, more gifted at finding a person at will than any of us, was unsure.

"We had a discussion about privacy recently," Alice said. "I've not seen Bella at all since we left Forks in fact." She smiled slightly. "I kept my word."

"Thank you, Alice."

"Bella would appreciate it, too," Jasper said with a smile. His thoughts drew my attention at once as my love's voice echoed through his memories: 'They're my emotions to feel not to be picked over by you.'

The swell of love I felt at just the remembered sound of her voice filled me like oxygen did a human's lungs after long denial. There was no face to accompany it, as Jasper was concentrating hard on the road to keep it from me. He wanted me to see her myself for the first time in person. The tone of the conversation he remembered amused me, though. She was obviously angry when she had said those things, very unlike the Bella I had known.

I supposed it shouldn't have surprised me. She'd always had a temper, especially at injustices. It seemed she was now able to express that with others as well as me.

We pulled onto a street of neat but unspectacular houses backed by the forest. I looked up and down the street, wondering which was hers. Which one she would have chosen to live her life in. I tried to guess by the cars in front of the houses, but as her truck wasn't there—perhaps the behemoth had given in to old age at last—it was hard to tell.

Just then, a door opened on a house in the middle of the street, and she appeared.

There were no words to describe the feeling that swallowed me as I saw her. Her beauty, always so immense, had grown impossibly. She was stunning. Dressed in neat jeans and a white tank top with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she trotted down her path to the street in the opposite direction to us.

"Bella," I whispered to her retreating back.

My fingers curled around the door release, and it took everything I had not to get out of the car and follow her. I wanted to be close to her, to breathe her wonderful and agonizing scent. I wanted to touch her hair, to cup her cheek, to feel her warmth. I wanted her.

"Not yet, Edward," Alice cautioned. "I know you want to talk to her and… stuff… but you need to take it slowly. Things didn't go so well when we all saw her. I think we need to give her a little warning before pouncing on her again.

"I wouldn't pounce," I said stiffly.

Jasper huffed a laugh. "Really?"

I ignored him and leaned forward through the seats, inching myself closer to Bella ever so slightly. It was futile though. She was walking away down the street, away from me.

It hurt my heart to see her go. I wanted to follow. When she turned a corner out of sight, I sighed and closed my eyes, melancholy filling me.

"Easy, Edward," Jasper said. "You're going to see her again." He paused. "Right?"

Was I? I had seen her; that was what I had wanted and needed. The right thing to do now would be to spend time with my family and then return to Volterra before I could be tempted deeper into her life again. But did I have the strength to do that?

I didn't know.

Perhaps not.


So… Edward is back now, too. It was hard to go so long without bringing him into the story, but I think the patience was worth it. I have set the scene and now we can enjoy what's coming.

Until next time…

Simaril xxx