I do not own the content of Stephanie Meyer's the "Twilight Saga".

Chapter 5: 1663

TW/CW: Rape, Murder, Death

Rape is in the 2nd paragraph (TLDR: Carlisle's mother died in childbirth and his father is a sick monster) skip this paragraph if you need to.

Vail POV: 1663 AD London

Tonight is Carlisle's first raid.

When I turned into a vampire, I stayed around London, stalking my father and trying to decide how I would murder him. Which ways I wanted to torture him to have his death be slow, painful, but still have the control not to break and drain him. I knew I would have to be patient and wait a few years for the thirst to wan. Those years would also help me learn human torture techniques. I wanted to savor this death more than any other murder I might commit.

Then, my father did the unthinkable. After preaching the fear of God into the poor folk of London, he went to his home and raped my mother. She had been in mourning for me, thinking I died and she had been in a melancholy for months. My father had had enough. He came home in a rage and slapped her across the face, shouting that she was a wife first and foremost and had to do her marital duties in accordance to god's will. She sobbed the entire time he took her. I couldn't watch and I was too new to save her. If I went in to try, the smell of her blood would make me mad with thirst.

It was one of the lower points of my life, not the worst, but definitely top 5.

This unholy union is what brought me Carlisle, though. It also brought my mother peace, finally. She had tried to take her life before but my father always caught her. By bringing Carlisle into the world, she opened herself to the plague of women during this time. Death by childbirth. It was Carlisle who saved her by killing her. She was now free and her death brought me grief and relief simultaneously. She was finally safe from my father, safe from me, and free from this life that had ultimately been too cruel for her.

I was worried Carlisle, without the influence of our mother's softness, would turn into a monster like our father. He did not. Where our father would lead witch hunts and vampire hunts and murder innocent people, Carlisle was more precise. More careful. More kind. He knew better than to argue the cases our father made, for fear he would be burned at the stake as a sympathizer, but he didn't accuse the innocent.

In the end, his intelligence lead him to a nest of real vampires. So here we are, with me in the shadows, watching my brother lead a mob of angry citizens to the London sewers where the urchins of my kind exist. The ones with no humanity left. I knew the other humans would all be massacred but I don't care about them.

Tonight is my chance to have Carlisle turn into a vampire.

I have to be incredibly careful though. I need to watch to make sure the vampires bite him, not break his neck or drain him too quickly. It's an incredibly dangerous game that I'm playing but I need Carlisle away from our deranged father and I need his companionship in my life.

My selfishness knows no bounds.

The wretches in the sewers hear the humans and they chuckle to each other that dinner has come to them for once instead. Within seconds, they are on the human horde with a vengeance and dozens of humans lie dead or dying in the street. My focus is entirely on my brother and I don't miss the dawning horror in his face when he realizes he greatly miscalculated vampire strength, speed, and ferocity.

One of the vampires turns towards Carlisle and shifts his body forward. I am milliseconds behind him as he races for Carlisle. He gets the lightest bite in before I rip him off and throw him into the neighboring building. He's older than me, I have to play this carefully.

His snarl echos through the air and before the dust settles I'm on him again, my teeth sinking into his shoulder to rip his arm off. With an ear splitting metallic shriek it separates from his body. I throw it into the Thames with a sigh. I'll have to find that piece later to burn and the Thames is fucking disgusting.

The male roars in rage and moves to shove me off but I quickly jump and catch the edge of the roof and lift myself up, looking for a vantage point to leap down on him. His eyes track me as I lightly pace the edge of the roof, waiting for him to make a mistake. He bares his teeth and then twists to dart towards the river, probably to try and retrieve his missing limb. The second I have his unprotected back facing me, I leap from the roof. Not a direct jump at him because he will anticipate that, but more of an arch to land on the other side of him.

When the sound registers with him, he whirls around but finds the space behind him empty. Before he has the chance to track my scent from above him, I land in front of him and my teeth are at his neck. His hands find my hips and he shoves me away from him, but with me comes his head. Like that, our dance is over.

Well, not quite, I have to burn the pieces and find his arm to burn as well. It's quick enough work, though unpleasant. The reek of the Thames has nothing on the instinct chilling reek of a vampire's corpse burning. We, who hardly ever die, leave quite the stench in death.

I take his body outside of London and burn him in an empty field. He should be gone before the humans wake and London will never be haunted by this specific urchin ever again.

I make my way back into the city and scent my brother out. He crawled away from the scene of the massacre, the broken bodies who bear the mark of exsanguination. I follow the trail of his blood, the scent of it making me so thirsty, and hold my breath as I get closer. Underneath a pile of peelings in a potato cellar, Carlisle is already lost to the pain of the transformation. Yet he is utterly silent. If it weren't for his heart hammering like a war drum in his chest, I'd fear him dead.

I leave the cellar and circle the city, scenting out the nest of vampires and listening to any threats that might come for my brother. The vampires are pleased. They left no witnesses for the Volturi to punish them for and they got their thirst slaked. I have no clue what the hell a Volturi is but if it's enough to scare these vampires, I should probably make sure I don't leave messes behind either.

On my second loop, I sense another vampire following me, lightly. Not exactly charging me, but definitely keeping me in their scent range. I slow down and look over my shoulder, then stop dead.

She is the singular, most beautiful thing I've ever seen. So much so, I'm quite literally gobsmacked. She has raven black hair that cascades down her back, an angular fae like face, and a delicate nose that points up at the end. Her lips are pillowy and full, their color is the brightest rose red. Her face is soft, soft cheek bones that leads into a soft jaw. I follow the smooth line of it down to the column of her pretty neck that trails into a curvy, beautiful body. Most of which is hidden by the aristocratic, noble dress she's wearing. The finest I'd ever seen.

I've never seen anything so perfect.

She races up on me and I'm still frozen in shock. I don't move, I don't run, I merely watch her descend upon me like an angel of death. Within seconds she's on me and, with a feral snarl, she punches me and I launch through the air and land hard on the ground. She pounces on me in the next second, straddling my waist and screaming at me as she wraps her hands into my hair to yank my head back and expose my neck.

"You bloody bitch, you killed him! You killed Thomas!" She shrieks and leans into my neck, presumably to rip my head off.

Before she gets the chance, I wrap my arm around her waist and flip us over so I'm hovering over her. My teeth bare themselves as my survival instincts kick in and I growl at her. She snaps at me as I snatch her hands and pin them beside her face. She slams her head into my face and the sound is like a clap of thunder echoing through the field.

"Lord, will you stop fighting me?"I snap.

Her eyes narrow and she snatches one of her hands from my grip then backhands me with it. I go flying and hit a tree a couple dozen yards away. By the time I recover she's up and running towards me again.

Despite my best efforts, this little vicious dance of ours is making me burn. She's deadly beauty and I want to kiss her as much as I want to kill her right now.

She is moving towards me at blinding speed and when she's mere feet away she springs at me. Before I know what I'm doing, I've caught her, spun around and pinned her to the tree. She only gets the quickest look at the resolve and desire on my face before I kiss her. She freezes in shock for a moment before she hesitantly kisses me back.

When her lips part under my kiss, I deepen it. Tasting her mouth, inhaling her citrusy scent, and drinking her in. It's utter heaven. With a moan she catches my lip between her teeth and I press myself closer to her. I release her hands and run my own down her bodice, tracing her curves with my fingertips. Each caress of her lips hits my nerves like lightning. I've been kissed, but never like this before.

Her own hands are tracing me, delicately going up to my waist and traveling higher. When they reach my shoulders, she shoves and I am once again airborne before crashing to the earth. She saunters over to me as I lay on the ground, utterly baffled. Her expression is haughty and twisted with distain. So very different from 3 seconds ago when she was moaning into my mouth.

"The next time you put your mouth on me without my consent will be the last time, do you understand me?" She sneers at me.

It was either kiss her or kill her, but I get her point.

I nod.

"You still owe me a life for Thomas', I plan to collect on a later date." I guess she decided not to kill me then.

She's starts sprinting away and I call out after her,

"WAIT! I didn't get your name!"

Faintly, on the wind, drifts the name that would become more important to me than my own.

Moira.