So, LONG break. I just want to let you all know, that even though it has been a long while since I've responded, that I have LOVED getting all your reviews and pm's. Your kind words lift my spirits immensely. Unfortunately, RL issues are still prevalent and a few more have decided to jump on the wagon for good measure. I feel like this chapter is missing something, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.
Chapter 13
The Volturi's every thought is focused solely on our retrieval and delivery to the castle, Edward mused internally as he and his mother joined the somber procession of vampires awaiting them at the small airport. He allowed the greater portion of his mind to drift as he pondered the implications of such dedicated focus. Almost all individuals had thoughts which centered around their current occupation or task. It was also not entirely unheard of for someone to be so meticulously focused on a task that no other concerns or distractions broke through. But for more than one individual in a group, especially a group of vampires, to be so completely consumed by a ridiculously simple task was...suspicious.
The two guard members greeted Edward and Esme with the expected amount of chilly civility. Edward felt no loss for failing to please these seemingly mindless drones. He was however disappointed that the welcome from his own family, from Carlisle and Jasper, could only be described as stoic - at best. In fact, no words were spoken, apart from a brief round of 'hellos'. Once all the luggage had been accounted for, the group was expeditiously ushered into a heavily tinted limo driven by another, very large, member of the Volturi. This vampire, like his fellows, thought without distraction on the banal task of driving from the airport back to the castle.
Edward, by this point, was positive this undiluted focus was enacted by design.
Determined to resist whatever mind games the Volturi wishes to play with him, he concentrated his attention on Carlisle and Esme, knowing that their happiness at seeing one another again would be reflected in their thoughts, even if they decided not to put it on display before their escort. His brows furrowed when, instead of finding a harbor of happiness and contented thoughts, he encountered similar patterns of focus on banalities in his parents - as well as in Jasper!
What purpose would it serve for his family to block their thoughts? He was more than accustomed to intercepting random thoughts and stray ideas and was quite adept at keeping their secrets and private matters to himself. They had seldom even had occasion to censor their thoughts from him. The evidence was overwhelming however, that they were indeed also hiding something from image and pattern in their brains at the moment was fixed, focused in a way that they never achieved unless they were, in fact, attempting to keep something from him.
His unease grew exponentially the closer they drew the castle, not helped in the least by the fact that Jasper, who no doubt recognized Edward's emotional plight, made no effort to alter or soothe this tension.
Something was very, very wrong here.
When the limousine came to a halt, under a carefully placed canopy, the solemn group disembarked and were shown silently into the public entrance of the Volturi grounds.
Edward's quick eyes cataloged the faded green carpet and the deceiving blandness of the calm cream walls. None who entered this office and looked upon the face of the beautiful young woman smiling serenely behind the tastefully carved, solid wood desk would ever entertain the notion that this generic room would, in fact, lead them directly to hell. He followed the rest of the group uneasily and waited for the elevator to reach their level.
Bland, generic music - the next facet of the "normal" facade played wistfully as the metal box full of demons made their descent into the pit of all evil. Edward's ire was now fully piqued. How cliche could the kings be? They live in a castle where they "rule" over the vampire world, even going so far as to have their meals delivered. And now posess the gall to raise false allegations against his family so the Volturi have an excuse to exert their power. Perfect, just perfect.
The elevator came to a smooth stop and its metal doors slid open. Immediate and ( ), like a forceful kick to the groin, a scent plowed into sensitive olfactory receptors. It was the loveliest, most potent scent he had ever encountered. It simultaneously set his throat aflame and made his body ache with desire. Following closely on the heels of these sensations was the frigid panic that flooded his being when he realized what encountering that enthralling scent in this place meant. These monsters had somehow gotten to his Bella.
"How did you find her?" he shrieked, dropping all presence of composure. He knew he'd left her in a secluded place. She should have been safe from the Volturi's underhanded machinations. "What have you done?"
However, no one acknowledged his outburst, not even his family! He fleetingly wondered if were possible for them to be under Chelsea's control. Without pausing to (gauge) the intelligence of his next action, he reached for the small blonde Volturi female, intending to turn her around by her shoulder, only to have his world dissolve into screams and agony. When the haze of pain cleared, he found himself on his back staring at the intricately carved arched stone ceiling of the ancient underground passageway.
Jane, his mind supplied moments too late, has the power to invoke massive amounts of pain with a mere look. Still panting lightly, he rose and dusted himself off with as much dignity as he could muster. The group had nearly reached the throne room, judging by the sight of massive, ornately carved double-doors just ahead.
"Why will no one speak to me?" He tried again to get a response.
Nothing.
"What have you done with Bella?" Edward demanded once more.
Carlisle turned to face him then, and his father figure's thoughts slipped just long enough for Edward to catch a hint of sadness and deep disappointment before Carlisle's previous display of blank stoicism reasserted itself. Before Edward could question Carlisle, the grand doors were thrown opened to reveal the three kings of the vampire world and the remainder of their massive guard.
Once Edward's body breached the threshold of the doorway, he found lining the back wall of the giant room Rosalie, Emmett, and Alice. When had Alice arrived in Volterra?
"Ah Carlisle, my dear old friend. I see you are now reunited with all your lovely family," Aro spoke. The sound of his oily voice made Edward resent him even more than he had already, for dragging them here to participate in this farce of a trial. Aro, no doubt, wanted his or Alice's power for himself and would not rest until they were pledged to join his merry band of minions.
Edward made a quick mental scan of the room, and while he could still not pin down specific thoughts pertaining to him or his family, he was inundated with musings of hatred and disgust. Edward could only assume the many vampires in the room resented the way his family chose to feed.
Irritated and anxious to know what had become of his Bella, he quickly lost his temper with the situation. "I demand you tell me where Bella is!" he shouted at the kings. "We have done nothing wrong and if you are truly the paragons of justice you claim, then you will return her to us immediately!" Many low growls from around the room answered his outburst, though it did nothing to affect the stoic masks of the kings. Aro held up a placating hand to his slaves.
"My dears! Mr. Cullen is obviously suffering from jet lag," he announced jovially. "We will forgive his manners in this one instance." He then turned to his left with a mischevious smirk in place and asked, "Caius, what do you think? Should we honor young Mr. Cullen's request and bring forth the lovely Ms. Swan?"
Instead of answering, the blonde king merely raised an eyebrow to his brother, then turned and walked to an area, far beyond the back of the thrones, ensconced in deep shadow. He then presented his arm to what Edward finally noticed was a partially open door. Edward's breath stilled when a delicate and pale, but very much alive, hand reached out to lay itself upon Caius' forearm.
"Bella," he breathed when he saw her step out of the shadows on the blonde kings arm. He expected to find her frightened by her close proximity to a dangerous vampire that most likely meant her harm, but try as he might, Edward could find no visible symptom of stress or discomfort.
As his eyes drank in the sight before him, he also quickly began noting minor discrepancies, mostly pertaining to her figure and face which both held a maturity that his Bella, for all her perfection and loveliness, had not yet attained. The woman who approached him was ridiculously similar, but not fully identical. His Bella, he also believed, would never achieve such poise and grace while donning this particular specimen of formal attire that this young woman wore as comfortably as a second skin.
The claret chiffon dress was lovely of course, with it's painstakingly tailored bodice and soft flowing skirts. Her regal high necked cloak of lightweight shimmering black seemed to have life of its own as it floated gently from her shoulders and played across the stone while she glided - yet another thing separating this woman from his endearingly clumsy Bella - alongside the king.
Edward drew a breath to voice his opinion of the Volturi's obvious attempt at trickery aloud, when a potent sample of the woman's scent reached him and positively affirmed her identity beyond any doubts he held about her appearance.
"How?," he mused in a genuinely confused whisper as he fought back the venom pooling in his mouth. Hadn't he finally become desensitized to her scent? Why was his throat now a blazing inferno of need when he had been having no problems controlling himself around his Bella for some time now?
When her eyes locked with his own, he found himself more confused than ever before. The intelligent brown eyes before him were the same deep and infinitely beautiful eyes he was accustomed to seeing, but he had never before seen such a dispassionate gaze turned his way. He had seen love, happiness, anger - so many emotions - but never this void stare that now pinned him to the floor. He struggled to make sense of the situation, though the tension in his body was ever mounting and his relentless pangs of bloodlust refused to be ignored. He desperately needed to solve this mystery.
"Bella," he called softly once more, but she made no move to come to him, or to leave the blonde king's side at all. "What have you done to her?" He demanded to know. They must have done something to turn her love away from him.
He shook his head helplessly. What was going on here? His eyes fell again to her small hand resting on Caius' forearm, and something in the back of his mind prompted him to look more closely at that hand. It was bare, devoid of his mother's ring.
"Where is your engagement ring?" He asked Bella gently.
Her brow immediately furrowed in response. Moments passed as she seemed to contemplate his question before she moved, but not to speak. She moved only her hands, in an organized but unrecognizable pattern.
'I have never worn an engagement ring', he heard not from Bella's lovely lips but from inside the dry, momentarily decipherable, thoughts of Caius as the blonde king tracked the motion of Bella's hands.
"Why will you not speak to me my love? Have they forbidden you?," Edward coaxed, ignoring the angry growls that broke out around the room. He needed to hear her speak. He just knew that hearing her precious voice would calm the churning discomfort that gnawed away at his composure.
"You needn't be afraid, love. I'll protect you. Everything will be cleared up soon, you'll see." He said confidently.
He saw an emotion flash through her eyes then, and he didn't need the lashing recoil of Jasper's empathy to recognize glowing hatred when it stared him in the face. Bella was furious with him, that much any fool could see, but why? What had he done? He had somehow unwittingly allowed the Volturi to capture her yes, but soon that would all be behind them. He took a step closer to the dais, desperate to hold his love, to end his torment. he made it no farther than that one step before he crashed to the floor and screamed as pain claimed him once again.
Jane's wrath was shorter lived this time, but what disturbed Edward more than the temporary agony was the look he found on Bella's face upon gaining control of himself. When he looked to reassure her of his well-being and to allay any trepidation she may have experienced at seeing him endure such torture he found no fear, distress or panic. What he did see on his beloved's face made his body flush cold and planted the seeds of genuine fear into his heart. For there on Bella's face played an expression of grim satisfaction.
She had enjoyed his pain.
"Bella?" He croaked.
Still she said nothing. He turned pleading eyes to each of the kings, first to Caius who stood tall and smug and far too close to his Bella, then to Aro, who was radiating pure and gleeful curiosity - about what Edward had not yet deciphered as everyone's thoughts were still cycling through seemingly random and indeterminate subject matter. He looked last to Marcus, expecting to find only his characteristic facade of boredom. Instead, he found an expression caught between thinly veiled disgust and wariness. Edward would certainly find no sympathy from this quarter. What could he have possibly done to offend this king?
"Will no one tell me what is going on here?" he pleaded.
"Why young Edward," Aro supplied with mock pity, "I thought you were fully aware of the charges against your family?"
"Yes Aro, you claim that we betrayed the secret, that we left loose ends. We did no such thing." Edward replied confidently. "Yes, Bella knows, but she is my fiancé and will be changed immediately after we wed. Surely this fits within the parameters set forth by the Volturi of keeping knowledge of our existence limited to our own kind?"
A fragment of an image invaded Edward's mind suddenly, and though the clip was infinitesimal he had no trouble deciphering the tenor of the mind it originated from. It came from Esme and showed his mother's ring - the ring he had proposed to Bella with. In this picture however, instead of on his lovely fiancé, it rested on the gnarled hand of a wasted corpse. He sucked in a sharp breath and whipped his body around to face his mother. "What was that Esme? I thought you were happy for us?"
"Young Edward, if you could return your attention to the matter at hand we will continue," Aro reprimanded sternly from the dais. "You stated that you did not break the law, but we have had multiple accounts that suggest differently. We know you left Bella, left her alone with knowledge of our world, and had no intention of ever turning her. Is that not so, Mr. Cullen?"
"Yes!" Edward exclaimed, exasperated with the way Aro was trying to turn the situation against him. "But I couldn't live without her! I saw Bella everywhere, smelled her everywhere. She haunted my every moment until I realized I couldn't survive without her in my life. Luck smiled upon me then, and I ran across her completely by accident. She was hesitant to be with me again, of course, after the abominable way I'd treated her. In the end however, I succeeded in winning her heart back. We've been happy together for months now! She wants to be my wife! Why are you trying to keep us from our happiness? Bella, please tell them love, tell them the plans we've made," he pleaded with her.
She remained silent however, and through a festering haze of anger and possessiveness, Edward noticed that she had drawn even closer to the side of the Volturi king holding her captive from him.
Aro sighed, "I am afraid your accounting of events does not match that of the majority. I have seen incontrovertible evidence that you did not, in fact, return for Miss Isabella."
"What are you talking about?" Edward spluttered. "I know my own actions! I have no idea what kind of twisted game you're playing, but we won't be your playthings any longer!"
With a burst of speed that startled everyone in the room, Edward Cullen leapt across the space separating him from Caius and Bella. Just before he could close his hand around her wrist, Caius caught him in the throat with a swiftly raised forearm. Edward was pushed forcefully away from his goal and their granite bodies met in a terrible reverberating clash that echoed ominously off the walls of the chamber.
The blonde king attacked him furiously. And Edward, having expected his potential foresight into the king's upcoming actions to aid him, was thwarted again and again against gaining ground on the infinitely more experienced Volturi leader. He dodged and twisted, gnashed and growled. In fact, it was all he could do to keep from losing a limb to the enraged blonde vampire. Every time Edward seemed to find an opening, Caius immediately turned the tables on the younger vampire and reintroduced him mercilessly to the cold stone floor.
OOooOOooOOooOO
"Oh dear," Aro lamented insincerely, "Perhaps we should have kept them separated."
Marcus, who had immediately crossed the dais to comfort Isabella when Caius' unexpected departure left her exposed and visibly distressed, gently pulled her to his side and secured his arm about her narrow shoulders. She looked up at him with panicked eyes, clearly wanting to know why no one had put a stop to the fighting.
"Caius will come to no harm, Isabella", he assured her over the cacophony of snarls which had gradually increased in ferocity, becoming more guttural and savage with every passing moment. "From the sound of it, Caius should have things wrapped up any moment now."
No sooner had Marcus uttered the words, a keening snap reported the end of the scuffle. Edward Cullen's body lay pinned beneath Caius' knee while Edward's head, mouth agape, dangled from the blonde king's triumphantly raised fist. Shocked cries rang out from the females in the Cullen coven, though they knew better than their currently dismembered kin to keep their peace.
"Bring that here, would you brother?," Aro requested, his hands already outstretched to take the severed head. Felix stepped forward to restrain the groping headless body, which had begun searching for its missing cranium, as Caius moved to do his brother's bidding.
As Aro held the head of Edward Cullen, he was amazed at the effortlessness of information gathering for one who could read minds without the necessity of touch. Edward however, unlike Aro, could only read surface thoughts. It became immediately obvious to the ancient vampire that while Edward had been able to learn many things with his magnificent power, there was a glaring shortcoming evident as well. By hearing every little fleeting thought that passed through a being's mind in real-time, the boy had grown cynical, disillusioned to the world around him. He came to feel that he was above everyone else, that his own thoughts could never be so mundane, selfish, or disgusting. Edward never stopped to take into account how very little individuals censor or even pay conscious attention to minute thoughts that flit through their mind. As a result of young Edward's oversight, he granted himself a position above all others and inevitably grew lonely there on his solitary pedestal.
Then Edward Cullen met Isabella Swan. She was everything he had always wanted, while being the thing he hated most at the very same moment. Her mind was silent yes, but her scent was a seductive siren. To be rewarded by one was to be tortured by the other, in the same moment both his refuge and his ticket to hell. And Edward Cullen, who had thoroughly stagnated on his lonely throne, came to find he desired companionship more than the health of his body and mind.
Aro watched, with sick fascination, the loops Edward's mind created, as it endeavored to make sense of his unnatural attachment to this girl, the one he convinced himself was meant to be his lifemate. It really was tragic, Aro thought, how the boy fooled himself into believing that the obsession and need he was experiencing was love.
Then came the moment when the already precarious situation began hurtling towards one of two inevitable conclusions - the moment Edward tasted Isabella's blood. It stoked in the young vampire a primal hunger so deep it was every moment driving the boy closer to madness, and by the time she cut her finger at her 18th birthday party the only course of action available to him was to either toss her bodily away, or to succumb and drain her completely.
His callous breakup with Isabella was just one more way he tried to escape the maddening need. He thought great distances would erase the consuming nature of his desire, but he was sorely mistaken. Instead, the need twisted him and strained him until his mind warped out of sheer necessity to handle the burden.
Aro looked on with undisguised disgust as Edward found a girl who resembled his lost love and object of obsession. He watched as Edward stalked the girl, learned her patterns, and finally abducted her - making it look like a home invasion/murder gone wrong. Aro saw Edward as he took the girl to his hideaway and shackled her to a bed in a room made to look like Isabella's. He watched as Edward took everything the girl had, her sanity, her body, and finally her blood and life. Worst of all was that the delusion continued on after the girl's brutal demise. Edward continued conversing and taking his pleasures from the poor departed girl long after she escaped his tortures, and somehow Edward's mind never let him see, hear, or smell anything but the presence of his faithfully loving fiancé, his Bella.
"What do you see?" Marcus' soft voice queried.
Aro shook his head solemnly . "I see nothing good, brother." He answered. "My first impression is that denying his body the blood of his singer has directly caused his present state of delusion."
"Can the boy's mind be healed?" His peaceful brother asked next.
"I do not know. Human blood may possibly restore him, but I am not positive that it would be a permanent fix. It perhaps ought to be attempted, but his body has already sampled the blood of his singer. Therefore, it may not be satisfied until that source has run dry."
"Peace!" Aro all but shouted to forestall the anticipated explosion from Caius. "You know we will not allow that to happen." he spoke calmly to his blonde brother, who had pulled Isabella fully into his arms at the mere thought of her blood being spilt.
"The choice is yours Carlisle." Aro decreed, turning his attention to his old friend. "Would you have him partake of his natural form of sustenance and attempt to regain his sanity, or would you send him to his immediate demise?"
Carlisle hung his head. "I still do not condone taking human lives to sustain our own, but I cannot let go of my son without doing all in my power to help him."
"So be it. Heidi!" Aro summoned, having forseen the possibility of this circumstance.
"You will not feed him here? In front of Bella?" Esme gasped.
"She is fully aware of the source of our nourishment, I assure you, Mrs. Cullen", Caius sneered in her direction after returning Isabella to her feet.
"You monsters! How can you do this to her? You cannot force her to witness senseless murder! Please, let me escort her to her room!"
"Your concern is touching Mrs. Cullen, however misplaced. Isabella knows what to expect and, contrary to your belief, will not be horrified by the procedure."
Aro struggled to maintain a straight face. He knows how dearly Caius loves to wind people up. Secretly, he too cannot wait to see their shocked faces once Heidi has returned.
"Ah! There you are my dear!," he greeted as she entered the room bearing a large thermal carafe and matching stainless tumbler.
"Close your mouths, dear Cullens. Of course we would not expose Isabella to a typical hunt-feed. The unpredictability is too dangerous for her in her current state." He noticed the shocked groups attention stray as Isabella turned and communicated silently to Caius, who barked out a startled laugh in return. At Aro's raised brow, Caius explained. "I quote, at least this way will keep the fleshy bits out of his teeth."
The guard erupted in laughter while the Cullens wore faces of shocked disappointment, most likely upset that Isabella could be so blasé on the subject of feeding from humans. Although Jasper, Aro noticed looked quite intrigued.
"Felix. Demitri. Hold him." Aro ordered as he approached the decapitated body of young Mr. Cullen. He placed Edward's head upon his neck and listened for the sounds of healing to begin. The progress was slow, as expected, given his long term malnourishment. When it was certain the head would not fall, Aro stepped back and motioned for Heidi to begin. She raised the first cup to his lips and Aro could easily read the hatred and resentment burning in Edward's eyes as he glared back at him. Felix kept the boy's head steady by means of a fisted hand in Mr. Cullen's wild hair. No matter how he struggled, there was no escaping. He growled almost constantly, even as the warm blood poured down his throat.
When Heidi took the cup away to refill it he ground out in threatening monotone,
"She is mine. She has always been mine. You may have taken her and brainwashed her, but she will be mine once more."
The second cup cut off any further diatribe, but he kept his strained eye fixed upon me. Aro heard a shift of fabric upon the dais, and knew instantly that Edward now had a perfect view of Caius.
"I will kill you." Edward swore as the second cup left his lips. "I will kill you and take back what is mine."
The administration of the third cup began and with it came the slightest reddening of his flat black eyes. Shortly thereafter, a decidedly odd look crossed his face and, curious as always, Aro lifted a finger to touch the back of one of Edward's restrained hands. He instantly understood the perplexed look, for he would be forced to admit he felt that way himself. There in Edward Cullen's mind were two sets of images playing simultaneously. One set was the magnificently intricate hallucination, while the other set held the reality of his recent life, alone, starving, and distracted.
Edward remembered getting a voicemail telling him Bella had disappeared. He never responded, but he miraculously "found" Bella a short time later. He decided not to tell his family right away so they could privately work on rebuilding their relationship. He remembered a screaming girl, begging to be set free, how she promised she wouldn't say a word if he would please just let her go.
He remembered Bella promising to be his wife and making love afterward. He remembered a girl howling in pain and pleading for him to stop as her body was battered and torn.
He remembered relaxing into Bella's comforting scent, knowing they would spend forever together. He remembered curling next to the fetid remains of a dead and still nameless girl.
Aro pulled away as Edward began to scream. It was raw and it was full of horror and dismay and loss. He choked on the fourth cup as it was poured down his throat.
By the time the final cup was removed from his lips, his body sagged against the two vampires holding him tightly in their unrelenting grips. "What have I done?" Edward whispered as his now vibrant red eyes replayed the horrific truths so recently discovered.
AN: Boy, I missed writing, but after such a long break I feel rusty. I hope the next chapter will not take as long to get out as this one, but I make no promises!