Chapter One

Blood.

So much blood, Tanya thought. The sweet scent of it coated the back of her throat with each breath- unnecessary though it was to breathe in the first place. She couldn't seem to stop herself. Venom seeped down her fangs, bitter and biting, and settled unpleasantly on her tongue, pooling until she was forced to swallow the vile liquid. It left her feeling as though she'd swallowed razorblades- leaving behind a burn so intense that her instincts begged her to bite the woman- to put the fire out the only way she knew how.

Her gaze was predatory as she looked upon the woman whose blood was taunting her- Tanya knew this. She couldn't help it, couldn't stop the way hunger and horror clashed violently with her, each fighting the other for control. It felt as though she were being torn apart inside, and it was as familiar a feeling as it was unwelcome. Tanya hated it.

In the end, horror won out. Or, perhaps more accurately, morbid curiosity seemed to override Tanya's thirst for the woman's blood. She looked awful- beaten, bloody and bruised. Her throat was grotesquely discoloured as though her sire had strangled her while they fed, which wasn't entirely uncommon among their kind. If their prey struggled, then the predator would silence. But this woman had escaped death at her sire's hand- only barely. Her breathing was nothing but a weak gurgle as she clung desperately to life.

Looking upon the scene with a clearer mind, taking in the carnage of the clearing where she lay, Tanya suspected it hadn't been a pleasant encounter. The woman was suffering greatly, and Tanya suspected that on top of the injuries she could see, there had to have been some internal damage also. Tanya couldn't be certain of course, but it was very likely given her past experiences feeding on humans. It was a wonder the woman was still breathing at all.

Violent convulsions wracked the woman's body.

Ah, Tanya thought, that's how. The woman was turning.

"You must be a friend of the Cullen's." A voice said from within the woods. It was deep. Masculine. Almost bordering on a growl. Tanya's gaze snapped up, body tense. "Your eyes are the only reason you're not in pieces right now."

She was taken by surprise as a naked man emerged from the trees. He was taller than she, his size rivalling even Emmett, which might have impressed her if not for his scent. He smelt of wood fire and the salty ocean, but beneath it there was the cloying scent of danger. Tanya couldn't describe it, not really, but it was strong, potent in a way that blood was not, and it spoke to every single one of her instincts, telling her to run, to fight, to somehow do both. It was confusing and terrifying, fight or flight raged within, and before her brain could catch up with the movement, she had dropped into a defensive crouch.

This man was not human.

"What are you?" She hissed, eyes darting frantically between him and the woman on the ground. Would she have time to grab the woman and run? She didn't think so. Her eyes searched the trees around them in a panic, wondering if there were more of them out there, watching her. Waiting for her.

"Ain't your business unless you make an enemy of me." The man flexed his arms, dark eyes hard. He nodded his chin in the direction of the woman writhing on the ground. "We managed to kill one of them who was responsible for this, but the female got away. She's..." He paused, searching for the right word, and sneered at Tanya. "Tricky. Like most of you filthy leeches."

"Right." Tanya didn't rise from her defensive position or to the bait. She didn't trust this creature. "And this one?" Tanya didn't need to specify who 'this one' was, and for a moment Tanya saw a flicker of genuine human emotion cross the man's face. It didn't last long though. As quickly as it had come, it was gone again. He looked away, his expression tight. "You know her." Tanya observed through narrowed eyes. "Who is she?"

"I knewher, yes, but because of your friends, the second her heart stops I have to destroyher." He looked back at Tanya with such hatred in his eyes that his body started to tremble. "It's their fault!"

The Cullen's? On the inside, Tanya seethed. How dare he accuse her cousins so cruelly for this girl's fate. "Carlisle and his family do not feed from humans- clearly you know this." He had mentioned her eyes after all. "I find it hard to believe that they're responsible for something so... heinous."

She couldn't look at what had been done to this woman and pass it off as having been done by one of her cousins. Of course they slipped occasionally, but this was something else entirely. This was personal. Cruel.

Evil.

"How would you know? They never told you about her, clearly." The man sneered. "Bella Swan- that was her name. She had a life, she had people who loved her, and now look at her."

Tanya narrowed her eyes. "Is. Her name is." She told him, not liking what he was insinuating. "She doesn't stop being the person that she was simply because she will be something more after her death."

This young woman's fate was affecting the man more than he was letting on. He could hide behind his anger all he wanted, and it might have been convincing if not for the fact that Tanya was as old as she was. He couldn't fool her.

"Fact remains," He muttered darkly. "They exposed her to your world and then they left."

"That's a dangerous accusation you're making against my friends- tread carefully." She hissed, rapidly losing her patience with his arrogance. "I don't take kindly to such disrespect."

He was a mere child, no matter his species. Tanya wanted to teach him a lesson in humility.

"Obviously your friends never told you they'd welcomed a human into their family. Edward loved her- that's what she told me." Scoffing, he spat on the ground at his feet, disgust twisting his young face. "No surprise to me when they up and left her behind. I warned her."

There was too much information to process, too much danger present to even attempt to really, so Tanya pushed back the ugly feelings his words evoked inside her, pushed aside her disbelief and terror at the mere suggestion that her cousins had broken the law. She had a hard time believing it. She'd known Carlisle for hundreds of years- she just couldn't fathom that he, a man who had lived with the Volturi and seen first hand how they dealt with law breakers, would do something so utterly stupid.

Even Edward, for all his flaws, would know better surely. Right? She could sense no deception from the young man before her, and that scared her more than anything.

The man shifted on his feet, and she was reminded of where she was and that the current danger was, in fact, not the Volturi at that moment, but the man in front of her. He was pulsing with danger.

"What you've told me... troubles me deeply." She admitted, slowly, cautiously straightening from her crouch. Her eyes were hard, her body tight and her muscles coiled, ready for the unexpected. "There are laws we must abide by and there are those who enforce those laws, so I will be speaking quite seriously with the Cullen's about this information." The man watched her as she began to creep forward, toward the girl still writhing in the dead grass. Their eyes never left the other, but he allowed it. "As cruel as it may sound, if what you say is true then Bella Swan's life, human or otherwise, was forfeit the moment they exposed her to what we are."

His massive body twitched as Tanya stooped down and lifted the girl into her arms, but he didn't move forward and he said nothing as she slowly began to step back, putting precious distance between them. The more the merrier as far as she was concerned.

"I don't want to have to destroy her. I loved her." Tanya could detect the hint of sadness beneath his angry words. His gaze softened as they dropped to the woman in her arms. "She didn't deserve any of this."

There was a howl in the distance and smoke tickled Tanya's nose. She tilted her head in the direction they had come from, finding that it had caught the man's attention also. He took a step toward the call, struggling with himself it seemed. There was another howl, followed by a chorus of more. It set Tanya on edge.

Was that a pack of wolves? Tightening her protective hold on the woman in her arms, she gave the young man a cautious look. Tall, solid, thick with muscle. Dangerous. Was he a Child of the Moon? She didn't think so- they didn't move in packs and clearly there were more of them out there, whatever he was. He was definitely something dangerous though, that much she was sure of. Tanya looked a little more closely at the woods surrounding her. They were shadowed by the towering trees, silent and still. She could hear and see nothing out of the ordinary and it unsettled her further. Were they watching?

"Take her with you." The man struggled with the words, his hands trembling at what Tanya assumed was the very thought of it. "Her heart stops, she becomes a danger to our people and I have to destroy her, you understand? But if you take her with you..."

Tanya appraised the young man. "My coven and I shall welcome her." She promised. "And protect her."

"Good." He nodded, his movements stiff. He was clearly as uncomfortable with the situation as she was. "The leech responsible won't give up her hunt so easily. We don't know for sure, but we suspect she's after Bella specifically. We just didn't figure it out until..." His body trembled as his words trailed off.

"Until it was too late," Tanya finished for him. "I understand."

He nodded again and, taking one last look at the woman in Tanya's arms, turned and started to jog back into the woods. He paused at the edge of the clearing.

"Thank you," He said, and Tanya could only just hear him over the rattling breath of the dying woman in her arms.

"Tanya," She supplied, understanding his unspoken request. "Leader of the Denali Coven."

Turning his head, Tanya could see the pain in the young man's eyes as they made eye contact for the last time.

"Jacob," He told her in return. "Jacob Black."

And then he disappeared into the shadows of the woods.

Tanya didn't stick around to find out just what the young man was. She wanted to get home. Back to safety, back to familiar territory, back to her sisters. Tanya was sure there was more of Jacob Black's kind out there, more brother's of his that were capable of killing her, and she wasn't very eager to run into one of them.

She somehow doubted they would be as civil to her as he had been.

Tucking the girl under her chin, Tanya began to make her way to the Cullen's residence. She expected it to be empty given what the man had told her, but there would be a blanket or a thick coat left behind that she could wrap around the girl to protect her on the journey home. A pack of wolves howled in the distance, and Tanya picked up her speed, anxious to put as much distance between her and those things as fast as possible.

xxxx

"This is bad..."

Tanya was home. Her sister's had felt her return the second she was close to the house and had run to meet her in the woods. They felt her distress, she knew, just as she felt their surprise when they realised she had returned. They'd taken one look at the twitching woman in her arms, then at their sister's dark eyes and immediately taken the girl from her without question, urging her to go hunt.

Tanya hadn't argued. She trusted her sisters with the woman's safety, and she'd needed to feed for at least the last day and a half. She'd returned to the house to find Irina had bathed and changed the young woman into clean clothes, and Kate had thrown her bloodied clothes into the burning fireplace.

It wouldn't do well to have clothes soaked in human blood lying around, Kate had told her. Especially not when it smelt as good as it had.

Currently the girl was in an upstairs bedroom that she and her sisters usually reserved for guests. She was nearing the end of her change- her heartbeat was growing weaker by the minute, and her twitching had settled somewhat. It wouldn't be long, Tanya knew. Perhaps by the end of the evening they would have a newborn on their hands. While they sat in anxious wait for the inevitability of it, Tanya explained to her sisters the circumstances in which she had returned with the young woman, and their reactions were as troubling as Tanya's had been.

Do you think it's true?

They wouldn't be so stupid, would they?

What were they thinking? A human? Really? Edward?

How could Carlisle allow this?

And finally...

Do you think that man belonged to a pack of actual werewolves?

That last thought was particularly troubling. No more so than the rest, but still.

"If this is all true, then our cousins are incredibly lucky." Kate finally said, speaking up for the first time since Tanya had explained the situation to them. "The ones who did this to the girl weren't exactly in the wrong, were they? The law is clear."

It went unsaid that she thought they were lucky the Volturi hadn't caught wind of their crimes first.

"Yes and no," Tanya said, closing her eyes as she recalled the scene of the young woman in the clearing. "I agree that the girl had to die one way or another, but Kate," She shook her head. "You didn't see what I saw. It was nothing short of torture."

"Then it was personal." Kate frowned, crossing her arms. "Just what did the Cullen's do to upset these vampires, I wonder."

"I, too, wonder the same thing. It's concerning." Irina placed a comforting hand on Kate's thigh, looking to her sister seriously. "When Ellie and Carmen return, we'll need to discuss how we will handle a newborn and the threat of the girl's sire returning to finish the job. We can't rule that out as a possibility, given what you were told."

"We are more dangerous then one lone nomad, but I agree."

"And our cousins? How are we going to deal with them?" Kate asked her. "Alice has likely seen this conversation, Tanya."

Kate was right of course. It was unlikely that Alice hadn't seen this, or at least bits and pieces. Certainly enough to know that Bella was with them and would soon be one of them. Tanya didn't want Edward deciding to come investigate for himself, because she was sure that would only make things so much worse. If they had cut ties with Bella, how was Tanya to know the circumstances of that? For all she knew, Bella Swan might not want the Cullen's interference, or maybe she would. It didn't change the fact that it was her decision, not Tanya's, not her sisters, not Alice's or Edwards.

There was also the fact that she didn't think she could stand to be around any of the Cullen's if it was true.

Tanya made the decision to call Alice, and without fail, her phone rang within minutes. Irina slipped a hand into hers as she answered. "Hello, Alice." She said. "I wish I could say it's lovely to hear from you."

"I wish I could say the same," Alice's voice was quiet and lacking it's usual exuberance. "This isn't a conversation I thought we would ever be having. Tanya, I'm so sorry you were dragged into this mess."

"This is a conversation I didn't think I would ever need to be having with you." Tanya stared down the phone in her hands, words heavy with her disappointment. She wasn't ready to acknowledge the apology or her forced involvement. Not yet. "I'm not after an explanation from you. Not right now."

"I understand." There was static in the background, a rustle of leaves. "Anything you have to say will stay between us. I'm out hunting."

"Edward isn't around to snoop through your thoughts then? What a shame." Kate sneered, looking away. "Part of me almost wants him to see all of this."

"Edward isn't here. We haven't seen him in months, Kate." Alice didn't sound upset by the jab, nor was there any anger in her words. Just fact. Almost resignation. "I won't discuss what I've seen or what you have to say with the others, and Edward has no immediate plans to return, so that won't be an issue either." Alice paused then said softly, "Seeing this conversation once hurt enough, please don't drag it out."

"The conversation hurts you, Alice?" Kate was rapidly losing her cool. "Spare a thought for your pet human before you speak of hurt."

"She was no pet! How dare you?" Alice growled, sounding as close to crying as a vampire could. "You have no idea what Bella was to us. I didn't-"

"You didn't what?" Kate snapped, not wanting to hear her pathetic excuses. "You didn't want this? You didn't mean for it to happen this way, for her to become one of us? You didn't mean for us to find out?"

Tanya was tempted to chide her sister for her words, but she found that she couldn't bring herself to stop her. She was angry as well.

"That's not... Kate, no... I didn't..."

"If you've already seen our decision, then I won't drag it out longer than necessary." Tanya interrupted, taking control and cutting Kate a look when her sister opened her mouth with what would have no doubt been a scathing response to Alice. Kate's eyes flashed, but she shut her mouth and looked away from the phone. "Bella will be safe with us, no matter how upset we may be with you. We aren't angry with her, Alice." Tanya tightened her jaw. It was taking much more restraint that she initially thought, not to simply lash out as Kate had done. "I ask that you please respect our wishes and stay away until we've decided otherwise. Breaking the law is very personal for us- I do not need to remind you why."

Fire and smoke, screaming, the crack of tearing flesh. The wail of a child...

The memories came back unbidden, and Tanya closed her eyes tight, fighting against the familiar pain that lanced her heart, against the memory of burning flesh and screaming.

"We'll stay away." Alice said after a moment, bringing her back. She sounded so sad. "May I ask something else of you, Tanya? Please. Just one last thing."

"You may, but I may not answer."

"I didn't see it. I saw nothing." Alice sounded distraught by this, and Tanya knew that she was speaking of what had happened in the woods the day Tanya found Bella. "You found her, I know only that much because I saw you rifling through Rosalie's closet and I saw you wrapping Bella in a blanket. Everything before that though... it's dark. Blank. Nothing."

Tanya's curiosity was piqued, and she had to assume that it must have been some special gift of whatever creature Jacob Black was.

"Why didn't I see?" She asked her. "What didn't I see?"

"There was..." Tanya didn't quite know how to answer her. Surely if they lived in Forks then they knew of their supernatural neighbours. "There was a young first nation's man present when I found Bella. He wasn't..."

"Human." She finished for Tanya, likely having seen the conversation. "Jacob Black, you say his name was?"

"Correct. He requested I take the girl with me," She said. "Said he cared for her."

"He destroyed the nomads responsible?"

"He and his brothers, I assume. I got the distinct impression there were more of them out there." She glanced at her sisters, questioning whether she should tell Alice about the one who he claimed had escaped. Irina gave a subtle nod. "He claimed that one got away from them- a female."

"Yes, Victoria. Her name is Victoria." Alice growled into the receiver. "I see glimpses of her, but nothing concrete. It's like she knows her way around my visions."

"Well that's not concerning at all..." Irina said slowly, raising her eyebrows and giving Tanya a look as if to ask how that was even possible. "Why is she after Bella, Alice?"

"We took Bella to watch us play a game of baseball..." Alice sighed, a rustle indicating she was likely shaking her head at that decision. Tanya could understand. It wasn't a very good decision. "This nomadic coven heard our game and wanted to join in. One of them was a hunter."

"Let me guess," Kate muttered, joining in on the conversation once more. She was unable to restrain herself. "She took an interest in the human with you."

"No, her mate did. She's not the hunter. His name was James."

Was. Past tense.

"You killed her mate and now she wants revenge." Tanya surmised, sharing a look with her sisters. That made sense. "Very well. This isn't something we'll have trouble handling." One lone vampire was easy enough to take care of if she came looking for the young woman in their upstairs bedroom. "We'll protect her, Alice. She's safe here with us."

"And we'll take care of Victoria, if need be." Irina added. "If we need assistance, we will ask for it. Do you understand?"

Thankfully Alice did understand, and took her words for what they were; an end to their conversation.

"Look after her, please." Alice whispered. "Despite what you may think, we care very much for her."

With a stiff goodbye and a promise to call when they were ready to talk, Tanya ended the call feeling just that little bit more at ease. At least they wouldn't have to deal with the Cullen's interfering. That was a relief.

"We'll take it one step at a time," Irina wrapped an arm around Tanya's shoulders and kissed the side of her head. "And we will deal with Edward and the others when we're ready to."

"Won't be any time fucking soon." Kate huffed, slouching into the couch. "Idiots."

Listening to the struggling heart upstairs, Tanya agreed.

Emotions were far too high to deal with that side of it just yet, and besides, the well-being of their new coven mate was much more important. After all, they didn't want the Volturi breathing down their necks because they had let a newborn run wild, and as far as Victoria was concerned- Tanya wasn't overly worried. If she managed to track them down at all, then she didn't stand a chance against their coven anyway. Power came with age and in numbers, and they certainly weren't lacking in either.

No, Tanya thought, they would deal with everything one step at a time, and Bella Swan came first.

A/N - PLEASE READ!

What's this!? A story? I know, I know. It's been a long time. I recently got back into the fandom, and I'm currently working on this. That being said, this is the first chapter of I dunno how many. I posted it on ff only to let my followers know I'm active again, HOWEVER, I will not be updating this story here. If you want to follow my updates and read the entire story as I post it, you'll have to head over to ao3. You can find me by searching CuriousAussie in the Twilight fandom.

Please come and say hi, leave my story some love on ao3! I'm not going to be following any alerts on fanfiction.

Thanks!