A/N - Another outtake! This is in two parts. The first section titled "Ioana" is written by me and takes place after Leda's family; Ioana, Xandru and their mother are taken captive by the local villagers to be tried for witchcraft. Gasaway Alley did the beta work and I was telling her how it didn't feel "finished". She graciously wrote out the second section entitled "Jane" which is her first feeding. She did an amazing job. Thank you April! Please make sure to check out more of her amazing talent in Kick the Tires and Light the Fires, Victory Lane, Pick Your Poison and Three on the Tree. Her writing is chock full of charm, wit and passion.

Ioana

by

Rowan Moon

I sat on the mud packed floor with my knees pulled up to my chest in the corner of my dank cell, housed in the basement of the Town Hall. The smell of urine, fetid mud and feces permeated my atmosphere. I was chilled, yet the cold I felt wasn't something that could be aided with a blanket or a warm coat. They took my mother and cousins from their cells today. They were to be burned for witchcraft in the Square. My ears pricked to the yell of the crowd as my stomach dropped to my feet.

"Burn the witches!!"

I hobbled to the barred window. Too short to see, I turned over the pail I used for my waste. Holding onto the bars, I stood on top of it to peer though a throng of feet and legs, I stared agog at the ghastly fate of my mother and my kin. They had built a raised platform so all could see the witches burn for their sins. Xandru and I were the youngest...perhaps they will not burn us. I hadn't heard Xandru's cries for hours. Did they take him too? I scanned the procession of my flesh and blood. No. He was not with them. My cousin was going into hysterics. My mother was calm, looking out into the crowd as they lashed her to the pole like an animal on a spit.

Goddess Save Us.

The rusty screech of the heavy iron door being opened by the guardsmen sent a tremor of revulsion and fear down my spine. I jumped down off the pail quickly pressing myself against the grimy rock wall. This one was rougher than the others. For three hellish days I've been tortured, molested and defiled by my jailers who devoured my innocence and flesh like greedy pigs. They punctuate the irony of their evil deeds by sending in their priest afterwards to cleanse me of my sins and save my wretched soul.

"Witch."

The foul creature leered at me. My hands clenched into fists. I vowed to the Goddess I serve that I would kill the next one who touched me. I could not bear the agony of being raped again by the repugnant, sweaty demon who was stalking towards me now.

I had no physical strength to fight him off. I needed to channel my power. Mother had only just begun to teach me how to control it before we were captured.

Mother...

I don't understand.

The night we were all taken prisoner we were in the middle of performing the first complete Circle of Power with the remaining Striga in over a century. Our cousins had traveled for months to join us for this sacred gathering, from as far away as the British Isles and France. My mother was High Priestess. Chosen vessel for the Goddess. I will never forgot the glory of the Goddess riding her body. She was a bright shining beacon of light and High Magic.

I simply don't understand...she had at her fingertips the full arsenal of the Goddess, she could have protected us all, yet, she went calmly to this prison where they've tortured, molested and burn us for sins against their god not ours.

I will not go gently.

Vengeance flowed like molten lava through my blood. I turned my deeply seeded anger into glowing stream of indigo light, forcing it out of the center of my forehead, my third eye. My body went rigid with this intensely dark rush of power. Throwing that light through the head, chest and groin of my assaulter, I blasted him with thoughts of fiery needles, shards of razor sharp painful things scraping and carving his body into a ruinous red nightmare.

"Pain!!!!" I screamed at him. I screamed at him as the fires that would consume my mother roared to life outside my jail cell window. I screamed at him for the loss of my mother, my brother, my kin, my innocence and dignity. Myself.

He bellowed in sublimely terrible agony, lunging then pushing me against the wall with breath stealing force. Madness rampaged across his eyes as he came for me. My head connected with the hard stone wall, pain exploding into a million tiny pinpricks of light. Dazed and nauseated from the blow, I felt the warm trickle of blood cover and sting my eyes as they fluttered closed. The last thing I heard were his deafening hollers echoing off the walls. I smiled as my vision grew black, succumbing into the numbing darkness.

~//~

I felt a swaying weightlessness, as I came to. My head was throbbing, my body cradled against a man who was carved from the hardest, coldest marble. His muscles flexed and bulged as he ran with me wrapped within his cloak. I opened my eyes a sliver to take in my transporter. His chin was above mine and his eyes bore straight ahead, a very blank expression on his chiseled, pale, face. I sucked in my breath as fear sank it's claws into my chest dragging me to the bottom of the deepest hole. He looked down at me and smiled...rows of gleaming white teeth, such as I had never seen. He was beautiful, but dreadfully frightening. An instinctual need swept through me to be as far away as possible from this creature who appeared so human, but wasn't. Was he demon? Watcher? Nephilim? My heart rattled against the cage of my chest, threatening to burst through my ribs and take flight.

"I am Felix," his voice poured out like the sweetest honey, coating my insides. Urges I had never experienced sparked a hot tightening surge of carnal need low in my body at the sound of his rich deep voice. His breath a mint dream stealing over my face. Peppermint oil and eucalyptus.

"I am taking you somewhere safe. Where you will be powerful. Respected for the miracle you are."

My heart stuttered. The world spun in a kaleidoscope of color and distorted sound, a sickening nausea taking hold of my body. I felt completely drained and weak as a kitten. I hardly had the strength to react to this strange circumstance. I simply wanted to curl into him like a tendril around a vine and go to sleep.

"Stay awake sweet creature...your head injury is very bad, and if you sleep I fear you will not wa..."

His voice faded away as I drifted into the abyss of the In Between. He stopped abruptly and the last thing I felt were his teeth sinking into my flesh like I was spoiled fruit. A strobing vicious heat spread throughout my body plunging me into sensory overload.

Death was anything but gentle.

~//~

Agony.

Burning.

Had someone lashed me to the pole to burn as my mother before me? Was Felix a cruel hallucination? My whole body was on fire but I couldn't open my eyes to see if I was aflame. I didn't dare. I felt as if I had been dipped in heavy tar, boiled alive under my own skin before the flames turned my flesh to blackened brittle coal.

I heard his voice, my devouring angel. I tracked it across the room.

"Forgive me my Lord, but there was no time. She was dying. I had to turn her before it was too late."

A voice answered, light and airy, like music played by an accomplished hand.

"Felix, you did what you had to my pet. Best not to lose this precious jewel to such a disdainful, mortal existence."

I could feel Felix's supplication to this man. He was Power.

"I worried you would want to change the Striga Witch yourself. I know what a prize she is to you."

"This one has no need for my ancient blood. She has her own power, a Royal Lineage, the potential to be my left hand. Her brother has taken to the change beautifully. They are feeding him now."

A cold lick of the crepe-like skin of his finger brushed over my cheekbone. He laughed low and inclined his head close to my ear. His breath cooling the burning canals to what was left of my brain, he whispered,

"You will be my favorite."

~//~

I awoke.

I remember feeling as if I were reborn, only my heart did not beat anymore. Yet I could hear the beating of many hearts off in a distance. An orchestral assault of night sounds filled my ears, and damn near deafened me in fright and exultation. I could feel the dust swirling about weightlessly in the air, landing on my face. Every single minute particle landed noisily in a tap, tap, tapping across my skin. I opened my eyes; my eyelashes fluttered, sounding like the wings of a hundred starlings in mad flight.

"She is a goddess." The Voice breathed.

His papery face set with watery crimson eyes, aquiline nose and weak chin appeared beautiful. The face of a wizened god.

He touched my hand and closed his eyes. A smile warmed his sparkling faceted skin of diamonds, his face thralled with rapture. His mouth moved in fevered devotion while he closed his feverish eyes as if in prayer.

"Excellent. She remembers nothing. She is reborn."

Blood red eyes softly settled on my own, and he held out his hand, his fingers splayed in my direction,

"Your name is Jane"

Jane.

I felt a pull to my right and my gaze locked with a young man whose eyes held the same intense garnet glow as my Lord's. There was a flicker of sadness in his visage as he looked at me. I turned my head quizzically to the side, wondering whatever could this poor beautiful man-child be sad about?

He stiffened and looked away from me.

Strange.

I looked back to the ruby spun gaze of my Lord. He took my hand and pulled me into sitting position.

"I am Aro. Your teacher in all things." He turned to the young man and motioned him forward.

"Alec, come and meet your twin sister, Jane."

Twin sister?

Alec stood in front of me in an instant, I didn't even see him move. A growl rumbled across my chest and the moment I thought it, Alec dropped to the floor in desperate pain. I was mildly...delighted over this trick. To maim with a thought. I would be powerful. I tried to hide my reaction and appear aloof. In control. Aro simply grinned.

"How wonderful to exhibit your talent so quickly. You haven't even gotten out of bed yet. Fascinating." He calmly walked over to give my bewildered...brother, a look over. Embarrassment flashed across Alec's face, and he stood up quickly, glancing at me, puzzlement etched across his brow. He bowed to Aro.

"I am unharmed, my Lord."

Aro turned on his heel and walked back towards me. Extending a pale hand, he helped me off the bed.

"None of us mean you any harm sweetling. You and your brother Alec will be the Leaders of my Guard. My right and left hand. It is only fair that the left hand knows what the right can do...Alec?"

Alec's eyes tightened in concentration, suddenly my whole body was numb. I felt completely disconnected from my corporeal form, powerless, floating in ether. He smiled sweetly , his voice low, sounding very close to me.

"If you can hear me sister, know that the next time you cripple me it will be your last."

His hold on me evaporated and I straitened to my full height in front of him, he glared at me stonily, but something flickered across his eyes. Regret?

"Now, now my dears," Aro cooed, "Together you are more deadly than apart. We are family here. Jane, you must be hungry, child. Come, I have prepared a special feast for you."

His eyes twinkled mischievously and I wondered why I felt a frisson of fear caress my spine.

Jane

by

Gasaway Alley

Aro led the way into a great stone-lined hall. His richly woven over-robe trailed several feet behind him as an extension of his person, it flowed with his every movement. I had to be careful to not step on the fabric, which was so hard to do, given the pattern of the raw silk weave completely enchanted me. The minute strands tightened and loosened hypnotically as the nightshade train troweled in his wake. Once I drug my gaze from the black abyss, I was distracted by the uneven fissures and bubbles in the mortar of the harsh grey cubes of the quarry stones lining the walls and ceiling.

The squishy palpitations I heard earlier rang true in my ears as a torrid heat clawed and broke free in the tender veins of my throat. I began to salivate profusely and had to swallow in great heaves. Desperation filled me as a great hunger burst to life. A hunger which felt as if it were a whole separate entity - a hunger to eviscerate me.

What is that smell? I wanted so desperately to plow through the procession of people in front of me. My life depended on me getting to this new food source. I retained my manners, barely.

Finally, we arrived at what appeared to be our destination. Double oaken doors, the size of drawbridges, opened up to reveal a large expansive hall. Three royal cathedral chairs sat up on a dais. Thick tapestries hung from great balustrades, and paintings seemed to come to life in their huge gilt frames. Giant looking glasses in various sizes scattered the walls like huge silvery, sightless eyes.

But no matter the surroundings...six men huddled in a corner together, their coarse clothing hung on their bodies like death shrouds. A pall fell over them as they stared at the red-eyed creatures before them. One urinated himself and the wailing, pleading, and bargaining began. Sonata music to my ears. All men were filthy animals.

"Jane, feed. Take what you must."

I had no idea what he meant. Feed on what?

Felix strode to one man, and wrenched him from the group. He wracked the man's neck by pushing his lower jaw in a bone cracking stretch from his shoulder. Then did the unthinkable. Felix bared his oyster teeth and sunk them through sinew and muscle leaving a yawning tear. The destroyed man sunk as dusk vermilion fluid spilled and flowed from the flayed skin.

"An offering for my liege." Felix bowed and offered up the dying man in his upraised arms in a genuflecting fashion. A phantasmagorical scene to be sure.

A snarl gored its way from my throat and I pounced as all thoughts went black. My eyes were unseeing, blind as the hunger opened up its reign of terror upon the hapless sacks of flesh.

Aro clapped his hands in delight, pulling me from my haze. "Her first blooding. Witness all the divine natality of my Goddess Jana."

The golden wraith of vengeance in the mirror caught my eye and winked. It was no wraith, but myself gluttonously draining the life of each bawling male. Throwing down the lifeless corpse, I walked to the mirror and smiled the same chilling smile Felix had bestowed on me right before he ended my life.

I was gloriously terrifying.

I was abject retribution.

I was carnage anew.

E/N - Please review. What would you like to see next? For those of you that are wondering, I am wrapping my head around a sequel for Broken Doll...so there will be no epilogue, I will simply pick up the story where we left off with our favorite lovers entombed in ice awaiting Bella's rebirth as an Immortal with the powers of 3 supernatural races coursing through her veins.