BPOV

This was so fucked up. This wasn't supposed to happen. I wasn't supposed to be here. I wasn't supposed to be anywhere NEAR here. I was supposed to be getting ready to get married and as much as that sucked, I would rather spend the next two months living at the bridal shop than be walking down the halls of this place again. At least this time I'm above ground, so that's a plus.

It's about the only one.

These vampires still wanted me dead, in some capacity. These vampires were still heartless bastards that killed for stupid reasons. These vampires were still evil and cold and dangerous. Nothing has changed. The only difference between this time and the last time was that I was alone with them.

Where was my rescue party? Where was the love of my life when I needed him? Why was I defended by someone that wasn't Edward? Why wasn't he here to take me away from these things? I did it for him… which is kinda what landed me in this position in the first fucking place.

I shook my head with a sigh, looking down and away from the red eyes that became trained on me at the noise. This was so fucked up. I mean really, walking arm in arm with a human killing machine that has vowed to be the one that ends my life like it was perfectly normal to do so. Maybe I was the one that there was something wrong with and not the situation. I mean, it's not the first time I have landed myself in hot water with red eyed vampires through my own actions. It's not the first time I went willingly to them, or with them as with this particular vampire. I have done it three times now, twice with this guy.

Fuck, I was an idiot.

Figuring we had to be getting close to where we were going, I decided to take one last look around, taking the time to actually take in to the surprisingly beautiful architecture of the building. There was no telling just how old the construction was, but it was done in designs and ways that I knew weren't used for a really long time. There were tapestries hanging from the walls, intermittent indents in the stone that boasted statues or paintings.

I glanced behind me to catch a glimpse of something that caught my eye and my eyes widened. I tightened my grip a little on the arm I was holding and used my free hand to give a slight tug on the jacket that covered it. I cleared my throat and lowered my voice to the point I couldn't even hear myself. "Demetri."

I felt his eyes ghost over me before he snorted. When he spoke, I didn't know the language he used, but I knew it wasn't Italian. "Tha écheis na doulév̱eis. Eísai apó to myaló sas."

I looked up at him, lip curled a little but didn't say anything, just returned my attention to the three vampires that were behind us, one of which I recognized from not that long ago. I ran my tongue over my bottom lip before pulling it between my teeth. I glanced back and forth between Demetri and the other three a few times before I looked up at the only person that stood between me and the black eyes that wouldn't move from my form. "What's going on?"

Demetri never moved his eyes from the three vampires at the end of the hall, just pulled on his arm, telling me to give it back, and turning so I was facing his chest once I let him go. "Your graciousness in sparing his life before was taken as a weakness of mine. It is as I told you; if you do not kill them, they will kill you."

I whimpered a little. "I'm sorry."

He snorted hard and finally looked down at me. "For what? You do not honestly think this is going to be the first fight I have ever gotten in, do you?" He then turned back to the three that hadn't moved. "Shit like this happens all the fucking time."

Before I could ask the question that was burning my tongue at that response, the one that had tried to attack me before snarled, making me jump and step closer into Demetri's personal space. Fuck, what was wrong with me? This guy is going to kill me. I know this guy is going to kill me. Yet, here I am, looking to him to protect me from death?

What the actual fuck?

I glanced up at Demetri just in time to see him cock a brow high on his forehead. He didn't look impressed. If I had to name it, he looked amused. However, if you looked at his eyes, you could clearly tell he wasn't. He was pissed.

What happened next was anyone's guess. I went from standing in the hall to catching myself on the shelf that was in the setback of stone with a grunt. After my balance was caught, I whipped back around, my eyes darting all over the hall trying to see where the vampires were, but all I could see was Demetri's jacket fluttering slowly to the ground a foot from where he shoved me out of harm's way. I couldn't see anything but flashes of bodies, but I could hear every growl, every snarl and every hiss.

There was a gust of wind and I followed it, turning to the left. What I saw in that moment I would never forget, I was positive. Everything moved in slow motion, even to me. Demetri had his forearm in the mouth of the guy from earlier, but it didn't even look like it phased him as he lifted his right leg and kicked a different vampire, the one that I contributed to the reason for the wind, right in the face. The stone shattering sound that bounced off the walls was awe-striking, but to watch as fragments of vampire flesh flew every direction as the head itself snapped back was, in all its morbid glory, mesmerizing. The bits of skin made little tinkering noises as they fell to the floor.

The look on Demetri's face, however, as he glared at the one he just kicked sent chills down my spine. His eyes were jet black, the whites completely gone into narrowed slits. His lips were pulled back from his teeth all the way to the gums and his nose was wrinkled. It was the growl though that had me squeezing inner muscles so I didn't wet myself.

In that moment, seeing him like that, told me that there was not a single lie told to me today. Vampires weren't nice, they weren't civilized. They were monsters, things to be feared. They weren't what I thought they were. They were dangerous and, even though I knew that, I didn't allow myself to see it even when I saw it.

I saw the Cullens train with the wolves. I saw Edward and Seth face Victoria and Riley, but it was nothing like this. It was nowhere near as brutal. It was nowhere near as gruesome. Demetri ripped his arm out the other vampire's mouth and shoved his other fist through it. You could hear teeth snap and shatter, creamy looking blood flying from the hole Demetri left in his wake of attack, staining his pristine white sleeve and odd color of pink.

When he pulled his arm back, he brought bone out with it. Oh, god… is that part if the spine? He just stood there as the body crumbled to the floor, that same growl still vibrating in his chest. His voice was dark, bordering demonic, but it was when I figured out the language he was talking in. He was speaking Greek.

"Dýo, ópou tó̱ra eínai treis?"

I only knew a few words, but I knew the numbers. Best guess, he was talking about two down and one to go, but he said three. Before I could put that together the light seemed to disappear in my little hiding place, drawing my attention from Demetri to right in front of me. My reaction was instant, even before my brain could connect the dots. I let out a shriek that bounced around the hall and left my own ears ringing. I couldn't move. I was frozen in complete terror as I stared into the blood red, narrowed eyes of number three.

My heart stopped in my chest and breath caught in my throat at the sight before my eyes. After all that, after everything I already faced in the world of myth, this was the end of the line. I survived a sadistic nomad that beat the shit out of me. I survived getting bit. I survived my first encounter with the Volturi. I survived a revenge seeking vampire and a newborn army. I survived all of that and now, it was all going to end.

I saw my whole life replay in my mind in a split second when his hand came towards me. I saw growing up in Arizona. I saw all my mother's odd little recreations. I saw her get remarried to Phil. I saw moving to Forks. I saw meeting the Cullens. I saw my adventures with Jake after Edward left. I saw saving Edward's life. My mind came to a screeching halt during my first time here. I saw Edward get his ass kicked. I saw Edward get tortured. I saw us leaving. I saw Demetri and his messages to me before we left to go home. I saw the Cullens and the wolves training to take on Victoria and her newborns. I saw everything between the time I was born to this second and all I could think was 'Well, it has certainly been an interesting life'.

I wasn't sure when my memories became reality, when I stopped seeing the past and was again in the present. I saw the hand that was nearly touching me vanish as a horrific sounding snarl bounced around in my nook. I might have sighed in relief, I might have whimpered in terror. The classification of the noise that came out of me would never be defined by my brain. It was a complete impossibility.

As I stood stone still, my eyes focused on the happenings before me. Demetri was standing behind the vampire, holding him by an arm behind his back and his hair. He yanked the head to the side with enough strength for the skin to make a 'crack' before he brought his exposed teeth down, biting through the marble flesh like a hot knife through melted butter. With a jerk of his hand, the head was removed and thrown away like garbage as Demetri then flung the headless body into the wall across the hall with another snarl.

He didn't even look at me, just whipped around to face the direction that the three vampires had originally come from. I turned to look too, thinking there was more only to sag nearly to my knees when I saw an empty hall. That was, until Demetri roared loud and clear.

"Santiago!"

That time I know I whimpered.

I watched as he ripped his sleeve off, revealing a deep, angry looking bite to his arm as well as a lot more scars that matched my own. Tossing it away from him, he licked his palm and clamped it over the wound. He didn't even flinch when a sizzling sound came from under his hand. He did, however, wrinkle his nose at the sight of the pink stain on his other sleeve.

I blinked at him like he was out of his mind. He was pissed off about a stain and not getting bitten? I just looked down and shook my head. He was an odd one. That was when I saw his jacket was still on the ground where it landed at the beginning of the altercation. Not knowing what else to do, I reached out for it and pulled it to me. When I felt eyes on me, I glanced up, giving Demetri a shrug as I wrapped it over my forearm and stood back up.

He looked about to say something, but before he could, his head snapped back to the end of the hall and his eyes narrowed. "Took you fucking long enough."

I turned to look where he was again and saw a vampire that was probably of Mexican human decent. He stared wide eyed at the mess that Demetri made of the hallway. You could see the spark of fear that lit in his eyes as he looked back at the really pissed off vampire that was glaring at him.

He cleared his throat. "I apologize, Master Demetri. I was otherwise involved when you called."

Demetri growled again. "I don't give a flying fuck if you rip your dick off while masturbating. You come when called or you will lose your ability to move. Am I clear?" When he nodded, Demetri snorted. "These fuck-ups are YOUR responsibility. I do not care what you do with them. Burn them, bury them, put them back together again, I don't care. But if I see them again, it is your ass."

I watched as Santiago looked at the pieces of body parts before he looked up at Demetri again. "But, these are not my men."

A smirk lifted Demetri's mouth. "They are now."

The other vampire stuttered a couple of times, his eyes going wide. "But, but, Master Demet…"

Demetri huffed out a growl and crossed his arms, his spine straightening as he stood to his full height. Holy shit, he was tall. But the noise cut the other guy off. "Are you questioning me, Santiago?"

He was quick to shake his head, taking a step back and holding up his hands. "No, Sir. I'll see to this and let Afton know of the change."

Demetri's eyes narrowed as he shook his head. "No. I will deal with Afton." Then he reached over and grabbed his jacket off my arm before pulling me out of my little nook in the wall and giving me a slight push to start moving in the direction we were heading in prior to all that happened. He started walking next to me, his hand on the small of my back and his jacket draped over his arm. After a few steps, he just called out, though I wasn't positive he was still talking to Santiago. "And I want this mess cleaned up before the Masters see it."

I couldn't bring myself to look back and see what mess he was talking about. There was enough of the last three minutes burned into my memory to know that it was stone skin, broken walls, crushed floor and pools and splatter of vampire blood. I didn't even know vampires HAD blood. I also didn't realize I said that out loud until I heard Demetri chuckle, prompting me to look up at him.

He smirked down at me, his eyes dancing with a dark mirth and sadistic amusement. "Older ones don't. Only newborns do. That was the blood of his last meal." I wrinkled my nose at him and he chuckled again. "Just like your body absorbs what it needs from what you eat, ours does the same. Though there are not a lot of organs that continue to work after the change, the ones that do need blood to do so. Our venom makes it thicker, thus making it last longer. However," He curled his lip and held up his stained sleeve, "It also changes its color." Poking the tip of his tongue out with a slight grunt, he shook his head. "You can tell how recently an injured vampire has fed by the color of pink that comes from the wounds. The darker the pink, the more recently fed."

I didn't have anything to say to that so I just nodded. I was going to ask when we would reach the end of our walk, but I saw his arm twitch a little under his jacket. I bit my lip as I watched for it to happen again. I looked up at him when it did. "Does it hurt?"

He looked confused for a moment until he looked at where I was and it seemed to click. "Oh, getting bit?" When I nodded, he moved his jacket from his forearm to over his shoulder and raised his arm up a little. "Like a mother fucker."

The way the light was hitting it, you could see long cracks in the surface of his arm, spider webbing out from the two half crescents. Over the wounds, you could see a shiny, sorta iridescent sheen from his own venom. In the individual teeth holes there was a dark pink, almost red looking liquid oozing up, but not breaking through the covering. The edges of the holes were singed and burned away so that there wasn't a raise of the mark like I saw on Jasper, but instead it was smoothed down level with the rest of his skin.

I don't know what I was thinking, and chances are I wasn't, but I bit my lip and lifted my hand, running the pad of my fingers over the mark gaining me a growled shrouded hiss. I jerked my arm back, bringing it to my chest and holding it there with the other. I looked up at him with wide eyes and stuttered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt… I mean, it wasn't on purpose. I'm sorry."

The more I talked, the more amused he looked. His lips pressed together in a line to keep from smirking at me. His brow started to rise and his shoulders started to shake a little. When I apologized for the second time, Demetri snorted hard before he actually laughed out loud. It wasn't his normal chuckle or snicker. It was a deep laugh that held a lulling, comforting undertone that made me give a half smile in return.

After a moment, he shook his head, an actual smile on his face when he looked at me again. "It burns a little, but there is no way, on this planet or any other, that your little ass is EVER going to actually hurt me. Bites hurt, they aren't meant to tickle. The introduction of foreign venom is why they hurt, not the mark itself. In fifteen minutes, this will be nothing but a scar. Relax."

When we rounded another corner, I recognized where we were. We were almost there. I looked behind me and saw the doors to the reception room Edward, Alice and I were taken to the last time I was here sending a shudder down my spine. Turning to look forward, I then saw the last turn that separated us from the doors to where my fate resided and would be decided.