It was what seemed like a long night of memorizing people's names and putting on a façade that was to mask the confusion. "Help me out of this Alec." I said as I couldn't reach the zipper. He let it down a few inches and then I unzipped the rest and changed into a pair of yoga pants, blouse and TOMS.
"Holding up alright?" He asked.
I nodded as I heard a yelp from Mac's room. That dog was so spoiled that it wasn't even funny. The dog had his own room in the castle and he was pampered. Aro loved him to death that's why. I walked in and there was Jane trying to play with him but I think her idea of playing was inflicting pain on him. I hollered at her and threw my shield around Mac and she flew to the wall. She became infuriated and came right for my throat and I had her in a head lock by the time Alec came in. "Don't you ever dare touch my dog or me with your grimy bitch hands." I said. "Or I will finish you off." I threatened.
"Isabella, put her down." Alec pleaded. He was honestly scared that I would kill his sister.
"You said you were going to talk to her, but you didn't do it fast enough." I said as I threw her to the ground and grabbed Mac. "Do it now." I seethed to him and walked passed him with Mac in my arms.
"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR DAMN MIND?" I heard Alec yell to Jane.
"Alec, you have to understand…" Jane said in an innocent voice.
I walked downstairs and let Mac roam free until he scratched at the throne room door then I let him out in the garden passing the west wing construction zone. There was a new sculpture being constructed in the west wing garden of myself that Alec insisted on having. He says I'm a gift from Zeus himself.
"Isabella!" A voice called. I turned and there was Dr. Cullen.
Carlisle's Point Of View:
I couldn't believe that Bella didn't remember us. Edward was so excited to be engaged to her and when he found that invitation for this party in the mail for us, he was devastated; it was as if he had had his heart ripped out all over again. He felt she had played him and everything was an act, but after tonight I don't think that is the case. The lavish party was over and Edward had left after Alec and Bella walked down the marble stair case together with smiles on their faces, it was too much for him.
Esme and I had gone back to the hotel while the rest of my family headed back to their previous destinations. Alice and Jasper in Alaska and Rosalie and Emmett headed back to Isle Esme. "You don't think the Volturi made her forget us so Alec could have her?" Esme suggested as she took out her earrings and put them back into their case.
"I don't know what to think, I think I'm as devastated as Edward right now, she was my favorite." I admitted.
Esme smiled. "She was mine too; she never whined about clothes or gave off attitude." She laughed as she unzipped her dress.
I laughed with her as I slid on a pair of jeans. "I don't know what to think about this situation."
"Maybe we should spend some time with the Volturi just too kind of investigate." Esme suggested.
"That might be a good idea." I sighed, "But one whiff of suspicion that we are snooping we will be killed, you realize that right?"
"I'll be on my best behavior." My wife vowed.
I smiled and kissed her forehead. "I know you will, I was more saying it for my own wellbeing." She giggled at that and kissed my neck. "I will call Aro to see if they have a room available." I said and grabbed my cell phone and dialed the castle.
Aro of course had my old room still the way it was when I left it and was more than welcome to have Esme and I stay for a bit. "Thinking about rejoining us old friend?" Aro asked as I carried in mine and Esme's suitcases.
"No Aro." I said with a small smile, "Purely a social visit." I told him.
"Pity." Aro said and walked away. "Gianna will you show you to your room." He called from down the corridor.
I looked to the receptionist and told her I was okay, that I remembered where my room was. "You're going to screw everything up." I heard a voice yell in a hushed tone as we walked down the housing corridor. "If you continue to beat on her and be rude to her pet, she will leave and she'll go running off to her other dog, then that dog will remind her of Cullen." The voice was Alec and I looked to Esme who had a small smirk. We paused at the door and each of us on either side of the door.
"Alec, I don't mean to I swear, she's just so annoying, I know you love her but I don't like her, at all." Jane's voice said.
"Wait a second…" Alec muttered and I hear his weight shift from sitting to getting up. My eyes were wide and so were Esme's and we ran from the door and slammed my old door as I heard Alec open the door. Esme's back was to the door and she smiled as she looked at me. I winked at her and she walked deeper into the room.
"Just as you left it my butt." Esme muttered. The place was a bit of a mess.
"He was right; this is exactly how I left it." I told her
"You, my dear old husband a slob?" She smiled surprised.
"Oh yeah, we'd go through house cleaning people like they were water, once they were finished cleaning, someone would eat them." I shrugged. Esme shrieked back a bit at the thought and I looked out the window to the sun coming up and looked out to the east wing of the garden. Reading out in the garden was my favorite part of being a part of the Volturi. The gardens were always lush because they hired gardeners to create the lush and exotic greenery. One of the reasons I fell in love with Esme. She had the green thumb, it reminded me of my favorite things, reading and researching in the garden. "Just ask Edward, for the few years we were together before you, he'd go nuts cleaning up after me." I laughed.
After a few minutes of watching the sun come up from the window I suggested, "Come for a stroll with me in the garden."
"I'll meet you down there; I'm going to clean up a bit." She said quite disgusted as she didn't know where to put the suitcase exactly. I laughed at her situation.
"You don't have to…" I said. "I could get a new room I'm sure."
"No, no, this will give me the opportunity to look for clues to his new Carlisle I haven't quite met yet." Esme said happily and I just laughed at her. I grabbed my reading tablet from my carryon bag from the plane and walked out of the room and down the same stairs Alec and Bella walked down late last night. Out the French doors I entered the West Wing of the garden and there was what seemed like construction going on for a new statue. In front of the block of marble there was a plaque that read Isabella Gilbert a true gift sent from Zeus himself. I rolled my eyes at that and kept walking around till I reached the East Wing of the gardens and as I was walking saw Isabella and a dog running around. Well it was more like the dog running around and Bella just walking after it. She adjusted her sunglasses that were on her face and I watched them for a bit before I called to her.
Bella's POV
"Dr. Cullen, what are you still doing here?" I asked politely.
"I actually just arrived." He smiled.
"Are you staying with us for a bit?"
"Just until your wedding." He said placing a second hand on his reading tablet and holding it to his chest in front of him.
"Is it your whole family?"
He smiled, "No, just me and my wife." He squinted from the sun.
"Oh right Esme wasn't it?" I asked.
He looked up to me squinting from the sun but with a smile. "Yes."
"I'm sorry for my rude actions last night; I'm not sure how to react to the situation." I said honestly.
"I understand and so does my family, no apology necessary." Dr. Cullen emphasized.
We walked around following Mac around as he went to the bathroom and ran around getting out the energy. There was a human following us but keeping their distance, they were hired, or compelled for that matter to clean up Mac's bathroom left overs. "He's a keeper." Dr. Cullen explained.
"I would like to think so. Aro loves him." I said. "He's like a child to me."
"Most dogs are like children to people who don't have actual children of their own." He said, his medical knowledge spilling out at once. "As a matter of fact, if you ever want children feel free to take some of mine, they are driving me up the wall." He said with a smile.
I laughed, "Are they all biologically yours?" I asked. I've met covens where they've changed all of their children once they were changed.
"No, everyone is spread across the timeline of America." He said like a proud father.
"Tell me about them?" I asked as we sat down on a bench as Mac flipped over on his back to sun bathe.
Dr. Cullen gave a slight sigh. "Well, there is Edward, who was there last night but had to leave due to a situation. I changed him in 1918; the poor kid was dying from the Spanish Flu that had just broken out in Chicago and wiping out towns in Illinois. His father died from it, but his mother on her death bed pulled me aside and told me to change him. She somehow knew my secret and told me if it was the last thing I did was to let her baby, her only child live to see another day, to be married and happy living in one form of another."
He told the story with such pride. "If I could cry I think I might be," I laughed as I swallowed back a dry sob. Dr. Cullen laughed with me.
"I changed my wife next; she had jumped a cliff in a suicide attempt from losing a child." He said with deep regret. "Rosalie was after her. Esme and I decided that Edward needed a mate; he had been lonely since I found a mate for myself. We were hunting in Rochester New York and we found her beaten and raped by her at the time fiancé Royce King. She hated me for changing her for a period of time; she doesn't necessarily like the life she was given… If I had to pick out of all my children who hates me the most for what I am and did, it would be Rosalie."
"And her husband Emmett?"
"Emmett was the last person I changed." He said. "Rosalie was hunting and found that Emmett was attacked by a grizzly bear. She carried him for hundreds of miles with blood all over him. Emmett reminded her of her human best friend's little boy that she longed to have one day. She was born to be a mother. Vera was her best friend's name, and Rosalie always envied her in a way for the husband that she would kiss when he got home from work, and the little boy that would run around the house." He smirked at a thought coming on. "In a way when Rosalie brought Emmett to me to change, she got both a child and a husband. Emmett is immature when it comes to certain categories. He is a cuddly as a teddy bear or little Mac over here. He might look tough but he's all mush inside!"
"You said that Emmett was the last person you changed?" I asked.
"Yes, Alice and Jasper found us." Dr. Cullen said. "Jasper was changed during the civil war. He was a Confederate major in the war. He came upon three women who were vampires and they were creating a new born army. Since Jasper had the experience of war, the woman who was his 'mate' at the time made him the head of the uprising of newborns. I would go into detail of that experience but I think it could be better explained if Jasper explained it to you. Alice, well Alice doesn't have any memory of how she was changed, or her human life, all she knows is her parent put her in an institution in 1920, but she was attacked by a vampire. Her power is to see the future and when she woke, she was alone and she saw Jasper coming, she saw him go to an empty diner in Philadelphia. He didn't know that's where he was headed but Alice found him and together they met me and my family in 1950." Dr. Cullen finished.
"That's very exciting Dr. Cullen, you've been blessed with a beautiful family." I said.
"Please, call me Carlisle." He asked.
"I'm sorry, but I have orders to call all unfamiliar visitors their title and last name." I said. It was a part of the Volturi unwritten hand book.
"Unfamiliar? I just told you my coven's story, surely we are friends now."
I smiled, "I am familiar with your coven Dr. Cullen, but you never told me your story."
He smiled and laughed, "Ah I guess you got me there."
"So what's your story?" She asked.
"Born and raised in London in 1643." He said with a small smile. "My father was a clergyman, I never had a mother, she passed while I was being born. My father hunted for werewolves, witches and vampires claiming he was attempting to rid the world of evil and sin. Of course, back then there weren't a lot of vampires around; it was mostly the main members of this fine establishment." Dr. Cullen said looking up to the castle. "Therefore my father was a murdered innocent citizens of London. Now of course I didn't know that when my father started to age and had me take his place in the church, I wasn't has headstrong as my father, but once night when I was out for a raid, I had found there was vampires living in the sewers and sure enough they were waiting for me in a sewer somewhere in London and I was attacked. I hid in a potato cellar for the rest of my transformation and I was in hiding basically till the 18th century when I was studying in Italy, I found the Volturi, they took me in. With their poor attempts to change my appetite of animal blood to human blood I moved on to the New World to Chicago and was a doctor there and that's when I found Edward." He finished taking a breath after that long explanation.
"That's very interesting Carlisle." I smiled and he laughed with me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
Esme came up behind us and they talked to me about my human life. They said I went to school with the kids and all of us were friends. They took me in as a daughter; they both admitted I was their favorite, even now. They were kind people; I wish I could be as kind as them and remember them like they remember me.