Bella came back surrounded by worried vampires.
"Oh, thank fuck." She could hear Kate mutter in the back as Irina grabbed her face, twisting it from left to right, checking her over.
It really didn't take her long to find the scars on her shoulder and hand. Bella hadn't exactly had the resources to change clothes, and the werewolf attack had torn up her current attire to an almost indecent point.
She hadn't really had time in the last week to feel that ashamed of it. Now, though, as Irina reached out to gently touch the claw marks on her bared shoulder, Bella was becoming very aware of her lack of dress.
"I'm just going to go put something more…whole on." Bella moved to leave, but she was instantly stopped at the strong grip on her arm. Irina had grabbed her.
"How did that happen?" She questioned, concern and suspicion warring in her voice. At her words, the rest of the Denalis saw what she was referring to, and suddenly she was surrounded by confused, worried vampires.
"Whoa, that's hardcore." Kate commented before Tanya reached over to smack the back pf her head without even looking away from Bella.
The starring was making her nervous.
"Oh, well," Bella began, swallowing nervously, "there was this, uh, really big animal—"
"No animal can pierce a vampire's skin." Tanya traced the scars on her shoulder with her eyes before looking at her hand. "None have teeth that could harm us."
"Well, technically, the wolf shifters on the Rez can—"
"Did they do this to you?" Irina cut in, eyes going dark in anger.
"No!" Bella held up her hands in a placating manner. "No, the wolves are my friends, I was just saying—"
"These scars are healed." Tanya spoke calmly, like she hadn't been interrupted. "You were gone for a few minutes, and that was enough time for you to be attacked by 'an animal', feed, and heal?" Her eyes bore into Bella's, and Bella found herself unable to respond for a moment.
She looked from one Denali to the next, half-assed lies and excuses running through her head, before her shoulders slumped.
"I can't tell you."
Most of the Denalis looked shocked, but Tanya's face was as hard as stone. "Why ever not?"
"Look, I'm not—this isn't." Bella sighed. "I don't know how to explain this, Tanya. I'm trying to protect you. All of you."
"What?" Kate laughed, "No offense, kid, but I can whoop your ass any day of the week. If anything, we protect you."
"I know that!" Bella agreed, wringing her hands. "It's not…this isn't about protecting you in a fight. I know you're stronger than me." Her voice became more distressed. "But…none of you have a shield like mine."
Something sharpened in Tanya's gaze.
"What does that even mean?" Kate asked, "You're shield isn't physical, kid. I can still just as easily kick your ass—"
"We can question her later." Tanya broke in, "But right now, I think Bella needs to wash whatever that stink is out of her hair."
"Tanya, we need to know—" Eleazar began.
"Later." Her eyes allowed no arguments, and he sighed before heading back into the house with Carmen. With another concerned look from Irina, and a mocking punch from Kate, Tanya and Bella were the only two left outside.
It was silent for almost a full minute with Bella hunching under the force of Tanya's stare before she managed to speak, "Tanya, I swear—"
"We care about you, Bella." Tanya's voice was as calm as ever, but it held a sharp note underneath it. "My whole coven, myself included. It has been one strange situation after the next with you around, but you have helped my sister, Irina. You have become like family to all of us, really, and I would honestly call you a member of my coven, if you were willing."
Bella felt tears pool in her eyes, touched.
"But you need to understand something." Tanya took a step closer to her, and despite Bella's height advantage, she felt small. "I will not allow harm to befall any member of my coven. And, while that includes you, it also means I will not allow you to harm any member of my coven."
Bella's eyes widened. "I would never." Tanya just looked at her. "Tanya, I swear, I would never hurt any of you. You have helped me through so much. I know you haven't really known me very long, but I—" Bella swallowed past a knot in her throat. "I really do love all of you."
Tanya's eyes softened, then, seeing the truth reflected in Bella's eyes, and she nodded.
"We all care about you a great deal, Bella. But, once, we cared about our mother as well." Bella didn't entirely understand the change of topic, and Tanya could easily read that. "Our mother brought Kate, Irina, and I together. She taught us everything we knew about the vampire world and freed us from the harsh reality that so many women at that time lived. We would have done anything for her." Tanya took an unnecessary breath. "And she knew that. So, when she committed a crime against the Volturi, a crime that would certainly be punished by death, she didn't tell us." She looked hard at Bella. "She kept the truth from us so that we would not be implicated in her crimes. She protected us."
"…I promise I have committed no crimes against the Volturi." Bella spoke hesitantly, and Tanya seemed to relax, incrementally. "That I know of."
Tanya's eyes narrowed at her.
"Hey!" Bella put her hands up, "Don't get angry at me, no one has told me the rules, yet! Hell, I barely even know who the Volturi are."
Tanya let out a tired sigh, rubbing at her brow. "Come inside, I think it is time for you to be formally introduced to the vampire world." She turned and began to walk inside, Bella following her, but she turned to speak over her shoulder at the last minute. "You really do need to take that shower first, though. You smell like death."
Bella felt like she was constantly washing blood out of her hair, and she'd never been more thankful that she lived in a time period with running water. The heat on her skin was calming her from the conversation she'd just had. Eventually, though, she had to step out and bring herself back downstairs.
The Denalis were waiting for her, and Bella was almost getting used to having these formal feeling 'meetings'.
"We don't know what all the Cullens told you, so we'll start there and work from that." Tanya gestured for her to sit, which she promptly did next to Irina.
"About the Volturi? Or the vampire world in general?" Bella asked, "Because the answer is the same for both: Basically nothing." She shrugged. "Edward told me that I was his singer, so I know what that is, and apart from that I know that we drink blood."
That got a few chuckles.
"That is one of the main ones." Kate sniggered.
"And the laws?" Tanya continued, "What did they tell you about them?"
"Um," Bella's brow furrowed, "that vampires aren't supposed to reveal themselves to humans."
Tanya nodded, "That is the most enforced rule that the Volturi hold; Vampires may not reveal themselves to humans without killing them or turning them. They don't allow any loose ends, and any vampire that is caught breaking this rule is punished with death for all those involved."
"What?" Bella's eyebrows rose to her hairline. "But the Cullens left me here."
The Denalis looked at each other before Tanya answered.
"That is something we have been discussing, yes. While we are very happy to have met you, Bella, my family has had run-ins with the Volturi in the past, and we are hesitant to bring them down upon us again. We follow the rules of the Volturi rather strictly, and the only reason we didn't report this is due to our close relationship with our cousin coven, and your already having been a vampire before we even knew of any rule breaking. We don't wish any harm upon our cousins—"
"Apart from Edward." Irina added, her eyes dark.
Tanya glanced at her, "—but it is impossible to lie to the Volturi. On of the kings, Aro, has the ability to see every thought you have ever had with just one touch. They would know instantly if we had tried to cover anything up for the Cullens, and we would become complicit in the crime. No matter our relationship with the Cullens, my coven will always come first." She finished.
"Oh," Bella uttered, a little stunned.
"You will not be punished for this, Bella." Tanya reassured her. "You were not bound to our rules at the time and have committed no crime." That hard look returned for only a moment, reminding Bella of her conversation outside.
"But the Cullens," Bella had less difficulty saying the word each time, "are in trouble?"
"We don't know. Had you still been human when we arrived, they most definitely would've been punished, but since you weren't…" Irina trailed off.
"Though, why Edward bring a human that isn't even his mate into this mess is difficult to understand." Eleazar chipped in.
"Wait, what?" Bella asked, "We are. Were. We were mates. Edward told me that, himself."
Eleazar gave her an uncomfortable look, and when she glanced at Irina next to her, a look of sympathy was on her face. "I apologize, Bella, but…you and Edward were not mates. It is impossible for a Singer to also be that vampire's mate. The mating bond doesn't allow us to do our mate any harm and being a vampire's Singer would go rather against the point."
Bella stared at him, her mind whirling.
They weren't mates? After everything he'd told her? Were they all lies?
Is that we he refused to turn me?
"Even then," Kate added, her voice shooting for casual despite the tension in the room, "he wouldn't have known if you were his mate. Even if you hadn't been his Singer, you were still human."
Bella managed to snap out of her thoughts at that and raised an eyebrow at Kate, feeling mildly offended.
"I meant that vampires can't feel the full mating pull with humans," Kate explained, "They'll feel some sort of draw, at most, but vampires can only feel the bond in full with other vampires." Her mouth twisted into a smirk. "Or maybe those shifters, too. They've got that imprint thing, right?"
"Do you want to smell that for the rest of your life?" Irina asked her sister, to which Kate responded with a shrug and a laugh, breaking the harsh atmosphere completely.
Bella leaned back in the couch, watching the sisters bicker playfully. As much as she needed this conversation to happen, learning more about Aro just made her more concerned for Didyme. And the ability he had? Had he already known about Bella? Did he see her in Didyme's memories from the very first moment, or did he only have that ability when he was a vampire?
Would Bella's shield protect her from Aro's ability if she saw him in the past the next time she saw Didyme?
She was so busy thinking, she hadn't heard the conversation switch back to the object of her thoughts.
"It's something that can be brought up at our check-in. We don't need to worry about it now." Bella heard Eleazar comment to Tanya.
Tanya tilted her head, considering his words, "That's true. Our next check-in is coming up soon, anyway, and that is usually when we are supposed to report minor crimes that don't have any immediate consequences. That will work for this."
"Sorry, what check-in?" Bella asked, causing both vampires to look at her.
"Once a decade, every coven, even the nomads, are required to check-in, so to speak, with the Volturi. It's a formality, and many nomadic covens don't pay any mind to it, but the bigger covens, such as ours and the Cullens, would be sought out if we didn't come. Our next check-in is in about a year. We will be taking you with us for your first check-in. At that time, our coven leader, Tanya, would allow Aro to read her to assess whether our coven has broken any laws." Eleazar explained.
"So, kid, we've got a year to get you fully in the know about the dos and don'ts of the vampire world." Kate grinned at her. "And hopefully you have some control over your ability by then. The Volturi won't look too kindly on a vampire that could accidentally reveal vampires to the world by popping up in front of a rolling camera or something."
"Right." Bella nodded, trying not to freak out. "I'll…work on that."
"Back to training it is, then." Kate grabbed her, dragging the newborn towards the door.
"Wait, wait, wait." Bella stuck her feet, not letting Kate pull her outside. "Are there any other rules I should know about, right now?"
Tanya considered her for a moment. "None that are currently relevant or cause for concern. We will teach you the rest as we go."
Bella nodded, "Okay, thank you." And let Kate pull her outside.
Training was draining, as it somehow used up her 'limitless vampire energy' when she messed with her shield.
They didn't talk about it, but Bella was sticking to only working with that instead of trying anything with her 'teleportation' ability.
With effort, Bella was now able to expand her shield even further, covering the whole house with it and even a bit of the driveway. When focusing on individuals, she could also create little personal shields that were separate from her own. They didn't last very long, but when Kate tested it, she couldn't shock any of the other Denalis that Bella was focusing on.
It took about a week or so of training for her to get to that point. She spent most of the day training, sometimes taking a few hours to head to La Push and hangout with the wolves. Weirdly enough, the longer she spent around them, the less they smelled. Most days she also headed over to see Charlie, if only to make sure he was eating something other than pizza.
On the days she had 'off', Bella would run to Port Angeles, or even further away to Seattle, and busy herself with testing both her control, and her patience. It took some effort to 'act human'. She had never noticed that they were constantly moving until her own blood had stopped pumping through her veins. It was a conscious effort not to look like a statue all of the time.
She also liked to browse the shops.
She'd tried to vary it a little, not only stopping at book stores, but she usually ended up surrounded by shelves of the novels by the end of the day. With Charlie still trying to give her allowances and the Denalis having followed Alice into the stock market, Bella had enough money to buy all the books she wanted.
She needed something to do with her free time. Her attention span was way too small to be able to occupy herself by meditating, or whatever it was that Eleazar recommended.
She ended up with a variety of books, many of which were history books. She'd varied the time periods and told the Denalis that she'd always liked history. Adding in that she'd rather know the history of the places she ended up in helped sell that story. She did, however, find some informative books on Ancient Greece as well as Rome. She'd even managed to find a Latin dictionary after she recalled the few words that were spoken in a language other than Greek.
Turns out, Latin is ridiculous, but Bella was trying. Having a vampire brain was fantastic for memorization.
And, after opening her books on Ancient Greece, Bella had discovered that the time period that she continued to show up in, at least for Didyme, was actually over 3,000 years ago.
Bella wondered if it was possible for a vampire to hyperventilate.
Before she knew it, a month had passed.
"No no no no no no NO!" Bella slumped her head in defeat as laughter boomed from the vampire beside her. "This isn't funny Kate. I don't know how, but you are cheating. Nobody is that good at Mario Kart, and you took a shortcut that I swear didn't exist last time we played this course."
"Whatever you say, sore loser." Kate practically preened as Princess Peach did her victory pose on screen, Luigi, Yoshi, and Baby Mario stood in the back.
"At least you got second," Irina frowned, "I still don't understand how I manage to get hit with every single shell that every single person throws."
"Stop choosing Luigi, then." Kate said.
"What does that have to do with—"
Bella's hands tingled.
"Oh shit, here we go." She gritted her teeth, focusing on the exercises Eleazar and Kate had mentioned. She took deep, unnecessary breaths, attempting to ground herself, and concentrated on keeping herself calm rather than letting her panic take hold.
For a moment, under the watchful eyes of the Denalis, Bella almost had it. She kept her mind calm, and she managed to relax herself enough to gently stop the progress of her fading body.
She honestly thought she would have been able to reverse the process and stay there, but there was something behind the pull.
She hadn't noticed it before, usually too consumed with panic and confusion, but under a calmer eye she could feel something different. It was almost foreign, like a part of her power didn't truly belong to her, and that part was pulling her away. She could've resisted it, but in the few moments that she felt it, it seemed almost…desperate.
She needed to go.
With a conscious effort, Bella let herself fade.