DPOV

The idiocy of this coven truly knows no bounds. Who the fuck in their right minds tries to break into the lion's den? This is a place you try and break out of, not willingly walz into when you know good and god damn well your ass is in trouble. Let's add to my annoyance by them doing this ridiculous stunt when I was in bed with my mate, gearing up for round four.

I'm going to kill every last one of them.

Reaching the rendezvous point, I waited for Jane to catch up with me, nodding at Felix who was already there. When the little imp finally caught up, she looked around, questioning where her brother was. Glancing at her, I then looked at my watch. "He's with Isabella. Okay, they have had 97 seconds of free reign within the tunnels since they are now too close to pinpoint their exact location. If they haven't gotten themselves turned all the fuck around and somehow managed to stay a straight course, they will be moments from emerging in the underground level closest to the pit."

Felix's eyes shifted to the hall that would lead to that area of the grounds. "So, what's the plan then?"

I grinned. "Aro wants them taken to the main chamber, but we're going to herd these mother fuckers to where I want them first. They're here for my mate? Well, they are going to have to get through me and my guards first."

Jane made a face. "But, if Aro wants them in the main chamber, we should take them there. And, we're his guards."

I snorted. "Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Jane. Besides, he only said he wanted them alive. He never said shit about in how many pieces. The main chambers isn't big enough."

Jane and Felix glanced at each other for a moment before Felix crossed his arms. "Training floor? It should still be full."

Not finalizing that, I lifted my brows, in a clear indication of my liking. Walking backwards, I looked at each of the other guards. "Watch out for the empath and make no final decisions. Fly by your ass and confuse the mind reader. Remember, they broke into our home. That is a slight against The Masters."

I do believe Jane forgot just how good my hearing is, and I don't think she meant for me to hear her.

"The Masters? Felix?"

I heard Felix's voice respond to her. "He's a Master, too, Jane. He's our boss, even if he never pulls rank."

"He isn't mine."

There was a quiet snort. "Really? Then disobey and run to Aro. See who Aro sides with, you or him."

Pausing, I wanted to see if she would do just that. I didn't have to see her to know. I was so attuned to her I knew where she was without even trying anymore. She did wait a moment after Felix left her to do as he was told, but after what I was sure was a serious debate with herself, she finally headed deeper into the tunnels under the palace, to do what I told her to do.

Yeah, I'm not your master at all, Little Jane.

Shaking my head, I continued my course, heading the coven off at the pass, forcing them to go a different direction, where Felix would be waiting. The only one of the coven that would be of any issue was the Major, but I had this strange feeling he wouldn't pose much of an active threat.

*X*

Once the Cullens were left with no choice in where they were going, I took a hidden shortcut to the Training Floor, deciding to kill two birds with one stone. Throwing the doors open, I strolled in, head held high when all eyes landed on me. Letting my eyes roam the floor, I pulled three necklaces from the inner pocket of my jacket.

Holding the charms up by their chains to show them off, I spoke in an even, unraised voice. "Your Masters have been disgraced, by a pathetic excuse for a coven who have decided The Laws of the Land do not apply to them. I need three new Level Two guards. There are no less than seven intruders within these walls. The first three who present me a head, receives a Jewel under Afton's Crest. Should one bring me the live head of the Mind Reader, I will give that vampire the chance to train for future consideration of elevation to Elite status, something you all know well I never give to anyone who has served less than a thousand years."

Jane's words floating through my mind, and I grinned as I crossed my arms. "Master Aro wants these invaders brought to him, alive; my guess preferably in one piece. I want their heads on a silver fucking platter to present to my mate as a present. The choice is yours. You can capture them and take them to the Main Chamber where Aro awaits I'm sure with praise the likes of which you will never hear from me. Or, you can bring me their heads and get nothing in return but a cheap necklace to show earned elevation within our ranks and world. Your future lies in your own hands."

Waiting a moment, letting my words sink in, I waved a hand and didn't move from my spot in front of the only exit in the room. "Dismissed."

Waiting for the room to clear, I pulled my phone from my hip, holding the 5 until the call connected, putting my phone to my ear when it did. Hearing a voice in my ear, I glanced behind me. "Alec, bring my girl to the catwalk of the training floor. Shit is about to get very interesting."

"The catwalk?"

I nodded as a smirk pulled at my lips as the lights in my head that were the Cullen coven were pushed closer and closer together, givin them far less wiggle room than they planned for. "The coven is a bunch of idiots, more so than I ever thought possible. The guard is forcing them here, and they are on the main level. I don't want them to see her just yet. I want her to see them first."

*X*

Waiting for Alec and Isabella on the catwalk, I kept tabs on the Cullens, but judging by the way the guards were playing with them, I was left to assume it was going to be awhile before anyone joined us. When the two of them entered, I pushed off the far wall, waving two fingers at Alec, telling him without words to wait outside the doors. If nothing else, to be a lookout or some shit, something he did without question.

Clasping my hands behind my back, I looked at my mate, who seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. Clearing my throat, she snapped back to her glorious body, and gave me her attention. I licked my lips as I closed the distance between us.

"I assume Alec told you what's going on." She nodded and so did I. "When you were human, you and I had a conversation about the coven that broke into the palace today, though I am not confident you fully remember it."

I watched her eyes crinkle in the corners, and her head tilt slightly to the side before her voice floated to my ears. "Vaguely. What I remember about being human is pretty foggy."

I shrugged. "Normal, but I want you to think, hard, about what I told you the day I brought you here." She did. She went silent as she thought, but her eyes told me she was coming up empty. When she said as much, I enlightened her while coming clean about a few things as well. "You know them, or thought you did."

She grabbed the front of her mask and pulled it away from her face, her lips thinned and in a hard line. Her eyes were narrowed, and locked on mine. When she spoke again, her words were slow. "Strange... gold eyes. You... you took me from them."

I nodded. "Yes, I did. And you fought me every step of the way. You were convinced, through no fault of your own, they were the good guys. They had you conditioned to believe natural is horrible. Not only that, they had you believe you belonged to one of them."

Her eyes shifted around, her voice quiet. "That's why you took me away."

Again, I nodded. "Yes, it was. They were destroying you, little by little, day by day. Nothing I said to you made you believe otherwise. Our conversation the day I brought you home circled the same drain, more than once, always coming back to civility. Us guards were uncivilized beasts while they were nothing short of compassionate beings to all they crossed paths with, so long as it wasn't one of their own kind. The day I took you from them, they killed fifty vampires without a second of hesitation. Do you remember that?"

I left that memory alone, so she should. And when she nodded, she crossed her arms and looked down. "The newborns. It was an army, who wanted to kill all of us because of a nomad. I remember that now. It's fuzzy, but it's there. You... kidnapped me."

I shrugged. "If you wanna get technical, sure, but I was only doing my job that, at that point, had nothing to do with my position. The only reason I gave chase was because you ran. Had you not, nor would I have. Four months prior to that I warned you, I told you, and you didn't listen. What went wrong needed to be fixed."

She frowned. "If you went through so much trouble to fix things, why are you telling me about it now?"

I grinned at her. "That's the question, isn't? It's simple, actually. It's done, over, and fixed. There is no reason to lie to you, and don't think I liked doing it in the first place. I would rather not have had to, but one thing I have been very upfront about is my willingness to do whatever I have to, when it comes to you."

She nodded and looked at me through her lashes. "So, what you're saying is, you've been lying to me since I woke up."

I shook my head. "I haven't lied to you about a damn thing since two days into your change, and all I did was fix what they fucked up. They took far too many liberties with you, even after they knew better. Prior to your rescue attempt four months ago, there was plausible deniability on their part as to who you really belonged with. After you left, however, they didn't have it anymore, and they really stepped up their game to make you believe everything was perfectly fine, when it was anything but. At least one of them knew I was coming for you."

She scratched the back of her neck and cleared her throat. "So, if they knew that, why are they here?"

My grin turned into a smirk as a chuckle rumbled my throat. "And that, My Love, is the answer I can't wait to see your reaction to. They are here, because as we both know they are idiots, but also, because of your father."

She bulked. "My dad?"

I nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. He is holding them personally responsible for your disappearance. They came with the hope of finding you human, in order to turn you back over to your dad, so he stops digging around in their pasts where we both know what he's going to find since these stupid bastards refuse to use the brain Satan gave them and change their Goddamn surname when they move."

I knew the moment she figured out where I was going with that. She grabbed me by the arm, her bright red eyes looking up at me with a level of pleading I have honestly never seen before. "You can't kill my dad."

I was surprisingly unfazed. "I can, actually. Humans are so... fragile, breakable, not to mention delicious."

She whimpered, and I was set off the idea just a bit at the noise. "I'll call him, tell him... I don't know, I left to find myself before I got married, to make sure it's what I really wanted and..."

I shook my head. "I can't let you do that, and you know it. Gataki, he's going to die eventually, beit because of his humanity or because he doesn't let this go and the order comes for his death. It will be one or the other, and it will be up to him and him alone."

She grunted. "You really are a monster."

I nodded. "Yes, but a very honest one. I'm not going to sugar coat shit for you. That's one thing you should know by now. I never have, and I never will. If I tell you something, you can bet it's the absolute bottom line. I am telling you this because it's coming to the point everything is about to be exposed for exactly what it is. Me, them, you. Everything. This is the end of a very long, very intricate, web of lies. I have confessed to you my every sin, Gataki, and I'm pretty sure you're not very happy with me. I can live with that. I am telling you this now because you are going to see me do some very horrible things, and I am going to enjoy every second of it. I am going to enjoy every second of doing some very horrible things to people you are going to recognize. I can see in your eyes you remember far more than you ever want me to know. So, do as you have always done, and compare them; compare us. My coven, OUR coven, to theirs and tell me, Gataki, are you unhappy here?"

She shook her head. "No, but how do I know that's not just because of these fixes of yours?"

Grabbing her by the hips, I pulled her flush against me, and looked down at her. "Four memories. That's it. I fucked with four memories. The rest, you either have them or you don't. Now, if you are not unhappy here, were you unhappy there?" She dropped her eyes and I lowered my voice. "I know far more than you think, Isabella. I made it a point to. Just because I never said anything, doesn't mean I don't know exactly how you felt or how you were treated. Don't forget, that redhead that wanted you dead came to us first. We just told her no. Once we knew of you, you were watched, quite often, just to make sure you kept your mouth shut. Why do you think Felix and I weren't at all surprised to see you in the alley?"

She shrugged. "Edward told you about me."

I cocked a brow at her. "Edward told us you were dead, yet we still weren't surprised to see you standing there. Well, I was, but for a very different reason, which I told you that day when I left you in the reception area." Crooking a finger under her chin, I tilted her head back and looked in her in the eyes. "I am every bad thing you think I am, but one thing I am not is a liar."

Her voice was soft. "You lied when you changed my memories. I can't look back on any of them without getting a bad taste in my mouth."

"A bad taste you should have always had. If the Seer hadn't gone out of her way to change the future to suit them, I wouldn't have had to. Also, I would do it again. I have no regrets over my choice. When it comes to you, there is nothing I am unwilling to do. For nearly two thousand years I waited for you to walk through those doors. Two thousand years later, you walk through those doors on the arm of someone else because of selfishness and lies. That bad taste? The destruction of those memories? There was a sense of pleasure that went along with my words on your deathbed as I took back what has always been mine. Your will, your sheer stubbornness against listening to reason prior to that first bite gave me all I needed to undo what was done to you. Do you honestly believe you would think me a monster had you not been exposed to their way of life to the extent you were? Drug into the recesses of our world by those who do not even truly live in it? You have happily killed numerous humans in your time here, most often each time in a more brutal fashion than the last. If you still fail to see what I'm trying to show you, I'll point it out. I am no more a monster than you are."

I was really surprised when she still didn't pull away. "You made me this way."

I shook my head, and she blinked in response. "No, not on my own. Believe it or not," I grabbed her wrist and showed her her original bite mark, "I had a little help."

She gasped. "James."

I hummed in my throat. "Something it seems they didn't know is, once the change starts, there is very little that can be done to remove the vemon from your body. You can clean the blood, but you cannot clean tissues, muscles, bones... they all take on venom and they all hold it just as easily. You were halfway to who you are now the very first time you were bitten. Had you changed then, you would have been brought here much, much sooner because they wouldn't have been able to control you, to teach you how to control yourself. Having a half psychotic sire hardly ever bodes well for the newborn.

"Your gift is what it is because of him. Your desire for violence is what it is because of him. Your love of bloodshed is what it is because of him. You didn't get any of that from me, and what of it you did, lies only in your gift. You are the perfect combination of me and him. You got your unlimited distance and the way your mind stores scents from me, but I am not a scent tracker, though my nose is more sensitive than most other's. The way your gift works is because of him. All of your loves and desires are his, but you have my ability to carry them out, or you will when you're older and with very little instruction I would think."

I gave her a moment for that to settle and when it did, she licked her lips. "I still don't understand why you're telling me this."

Cupping her cheek, I smiled at her. "Who would you rather hear this from? Me or them? Because, I promise you, if they are still alive, they will use whatever they can to get you to go with them purely to save their own asses. You will have a choice to make when they come through those doors as to which side you will come down on. I will make no more choices for you."

She swallowed and let out a breath. "Can I ask you something and for once get a straight answer?" When I nodded, she cleared her throat. "Why did you let me leave with them four months ago if you were just going to come to take me back?"

I clicked my tongue a couple of times before I answered. "Well, it certainly wasn't to make wedding plans. It was to give you time to do the one thing you didn't take the time to do. It will be a very long time, if ever, you return to that place, and I assumed someone of your age had a certain number of affairs to set in order. I gave you four months to do so, and you didn't. Anything that happens from here on out as a result of that, no matter how much you want to, you cannot place the blame on my shoulders. Whether you want to believe it or not, Gataki, I have actually always done right by you. You just never listened."

Her lip curled. "What do you mean?"

Crossing my arms and taking a moment to locate the guards and Cullens, I sighed when I realized our time was growing very short. Still, one last answer wouldn't hurt. "The day you arrived here I saved your furry little friend, which is more than I should have done when you decided not to listen when I told you to keep your mouth shut in the main chamber. When you left with those two morons you continued to allow them to poison you against this coven because you didn't listen to me when I told you not to believe everything you hear. You were six weeks shy of marriage because you didn't listen to me when I told you you would be mine. You were that before you left, and had you listened, you would have known that. You were so far up the asses of that coven you decided to allow the freedom of someone out to kill you within these walls, leading to a fight that destroyed priceless and irreplaceable artworks because you didn't listen to me when I told you if you do not kill them, they will kill you, nearly leading to your true death had I been detained much longer against the other two imbeciles that decided you were a snack. I have literally given you every ounce of information you could possibly need, and you fought me tooth and nail, every step of the way. On the plane here I told you it was time to face the consequences of your choices, and once again, that is exactly what you are faced with here. The only difference between now and then is this time, I will spare no one."