This is it, the night is here. I part my red thick red velvet curtain, the fabric flows down my window like freshly spilled blood. I hear the swelling notes of conversation lilt up the stairs from the entrance way. To normal human ears they would be almost indecipherable but to mine…well, you know. My heart thunders in my ears and my palms sweat. I rub them against my knee length black dress.

I planned, I plotted, I observed and still I'm stuck.

I glance at myself in the mirror and snarl at my blonde hair pinned in a bun. With a black ribbon running through the pinned strands. I grimace at the lace black off-shoulder dress, wishing that I did not do so I jump when I hear a soft knock at the door like a pinecone falling on a roof.

"Come in," I say with a depleted sigh as if there is an ocean emptying inside of me. I blush when I see Athendora walk through the room wearing a gown so ice blue her red eyes glisten like rubies.

"Aro is growing impatient," she says as she glides behind me and places her glacial cold hands on my warm shoulders.

I shudder at the chill.

"He has eternity too wait," I mock.

Athendora's lips turn up into a smirk, "Yes, while that may be so…our other guests do not. When left to mingle an argument may be bred and all of the decorating will be ruined. Fine satin and velvet ripped to shreds, the horror, I don't even want to think of the silver."

I roll my eyes, "Monsters all of you."

"You as well Hazel…remember that," Athendora breathes as she caresses my cheeks and checks my hair one last time.

The hard wad of hair on my head pulls at my roots and I have to scratch my thighs to resist touching it.

With soundless steps she waltzes down the river of stairs covered with a crimson carpet, the sultry fabric is slippery under my black heeled shoes and I have to grip the marble banister of the stairs. Before I even reach the second step the pride and arrogance of the crowd overwhelms me and I want to be sick.

My inner demon is quiet and I miss its presence. I let the wafting darkness of stubbornness overwhelm me and I steel my features, like a train heading for a tunnel with no light. In my mind a memory visits of my mother preparing me for a dinner party and an evening of practiced manners.

"Chin up," Hazel I murmur to myself.

"There she is," Caius greets with a welcoming roar.

Aro turns around, abandoning his conversation with a tall bearded man who licks his hiding lips and I know he can taste my heartbeat as if he is holding onto my dripping organ in his monster claws.

"The wait was well worth it my dear…you look simply…beastly, a radiant light amongst the chandelier of the undead," Aro compliments.

He loops his arm through mine and we saunter around the crowded room of the hall into the ballroom.

I blink my eyes, completely stunned at the aristocratic royal impersonation around me. Everyone is glittering in jewels and holding crystal glasses of what can only be blood in their hands. It is like Hell and Heaven are meeting in purgatory. I look toward the quartet playing in front of Aro's portrait playing a gothic tune that sounds like it was once heard in a cathedral during a witch burning in France and I shudder.

"So you can wear a dress," Jane quips behind me and hands me a crystal flute of blood just before the organ starts its dramatic narrative of a cursed life.

I nod, my tongue muted as I stifle a moan of pure pleasure as I sip the velvet smooth liqueur of the sweetest life fluid I have ever tasted.

"Good, isn't it?" Jane says with a proud smirk. "One of our guests from Transylvania brought it over in oak barrels…the kitchen is full of them, would you like to see?"

I nod dumbfounded at the sight of Jane wearing a red dress with a plunging neckline and a large glistening yellow stone around her pale neck guides me to the canyon of her cleavage. Her eyes are kind and her voice soft…I am intoxicated.

I look up at the ceiling of angels and demons and I feel as if I am a cloud witness to a scene of worlds meeting.

Jane takes my black satin gloved hand and drags me to the kitchen she throws me against the stone wall and my head hits the hard stone I hear a distorted "Oomf," leave my lips before my senses are invaded by the sweet elixir again. This time though I did not take a sip, lips move against mine and I realize Jane is kissing me…Jane is kissing me!

Her lips are so soft and her hips are grinding against mine, my bones are melting like water in her her grasp and I relent, my thoughts try to swim against this current of desire my hands press on her frozen breasts. Frozen both in time and touch. "Lean in and savour," my inner demon purrs. But, I can't not like this, not…Alice my heart wants Alice, however, that is a truth too vulnerable for my mind to realize.

"Stop…stop…stop…" I plead in a voice so soft, almost like a whimper and I blush in shame.

"Did I hurt you? Is that why you didn't kiss me back?" Jane asks in a voice that trembles with the possibility of me being hurt and I can also sense her fear of rejection.

"No," I say as I rub the back of my head. "I'm just not ready…"

"You are…you are ready, you're ready for her," my inner demon thrusts in my mind.

"What do you know about being ready?!" I yell.

Jane's red eyes widen.

"What?" I ask as I wipe the back of my glove and watch a dark smear stain the silk of night.

"Who are you talking to?" Jane asks.

"No one," I lie knowing it's futile. Jane has superpowers after all – painful powers that makes those with the strongest bow to fear and insubordination, she hypnotizes people into puppets using a string of pain.

I feel it, a sparking in my mind, like a jab of lightening however, I am stronger and my mind wields a silver shield of protection and I run…I run, right into Caius.

"Where are you going little dove," he murmurs.

"I-I-I."

My stutter stops on my tongue when I hear Aro announce, "Our guest of honour has arrived for the proving ceremony. For on this eve wretched blood shall be spilt by a visitor's hands and this stain shall prove her allegiance to her own kind. Come forth Hazel and prove yourself!" he calls with a thin sword hoisted over his head like a long needle. Below his feet cowers a child no more than four with blonde hair and topaz eyes, she smells of forest, fur, and something cunningly wild.

I am looking at werewolf so innocent in age and much more docile then these monsters. I look around me, plotting for an escape but the crowd of vampires have surrounded me in a horseshoe shaped crowd and at front and center there stands Jane as regal as ever, why do I feel violated? As if I have been tricked? The marble black and white squares on the ballroom remind me of a chessboard and I feel like a pawn in someone's else's game.

I want to be the queen.

The fear for the werewolf falls upon me like rain and my knees buckle. The tune of La Clare de la Lune floats around the room like mist from piano and I feel my mouth swell with a wave of bile.

Tonight I have to commit one of the most monstrous crimes of all I have to kill…I move toward Aro and pick up the thin sword that is as light as a moonbeams on my skin at midnight. I point the blade down the tip marking the child's skin, tears fill my eyes. The topaz eyes that look up at me with complete surrender and responsible acceptance are so much like Alice's I feel Aro's pride wisp against my shame like a wind. And, I press into the child's clavicle where howls used to swell from a wild heart. The child falls spurting no sound, drowning in her own blood. The crowd around me hides their noses from the spoil around them.

A part of me is lost forever, my heart howls a cry, a silent vigil of mourning for what must be.

A proud pat pets my back and I fall…sweet one of a few moons I call to you, I call to you, my thoughts whisper through my waterfall faint.