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Special thanks to Gredelina1, Augustmoon and Mary-Alice-Brandon-Cullen for pre-reading this.

This was pre-read by jtmd24 and beta'd by Maxipoo1024 from Sparkly Red Pen. Thank you ladies.

Chapter Eleven — Fate

Bella POV

My footfalls were like the thunder of cannon fire resounding along the stone tunnels. I made no effort to quiet them; I wanted everyone to know I was coming.

When I reached the plush reception room, I found Demetri perched on the edge of the polished desk talking animatedly with the human assistant.

She made a high pitched yelping sound as she saw me and then hurried to cover her mistake. "Welcome—"

With a flick of my shield I rendered her mute. It took almost no thought to use my shield like this. I had centuries of practice. I merely visualized the path and stretched my shield over it, and the object of my focus was at my mercy.

Demetri turned to greet me. His ready smiled faded when he saw my furious expression. He hurried to my side and reached out to catch my hand. I blocked the action, ignoring the look of hurt in his eyes. I allowed Demetri a lot of liberties with me—I was very fond of him—but in that moment he was just another guard.

I heard the voices in the throne room falter as I marched along the plush carpeted hall. Someone came to open the doors ahead of my approach but I crashed through, not caring when the massive wooden doors broke against the wall.

The figures milling around the room froze. I barely registered their presence; my attention was fixed on the three men seated in their ornate thrones. I felt a surge of satisfaction when their smiles faded at the sight of me.

"Out!" I commanded, raising my voice to a shout when the guard remained. "I said get out!"

The exodus from the room was over in seconds. I saw Aro's eyes follow them. Perhaps he was considering following them out. Pride kept him in place.

"How could you do this to me?" I demanded. I was looking at Aro but talking to all of them.

"We did not do anything to you," Aro said stiffly. "This is your nature, Isabella. You could not really hope to stay alone forever."

"It was my choice!" I screeched.

Marcus hurried to my side, holding out a placating hand. "Isabella, please calm yourself."

I shook him off and locked eyes with Aro.

"I could kill you."

He paled visibly. I was not just talking about the level of my anger; it was a genuine threat.

"Isabella," Marcus said in a scolding tone.

"Don't push me," I hissed. "You are not my father, remember?"

He stepped away from me, his hands raised in surrender. It was cruel of me to speak of these things, to use his own words against him, but the rage boiling inside of me was barely contained. It would take only one wrong move from any of them for me to lose control completely.

"Is it complete?" I asked. "Can I save him?"

Marcus shook his head sadly. "It would not be saving him Isabella; it would be dooming him to a life alone."

"Is it complete?" I hissed.

"Yes. The mating is bonded now. You must know this."

My knees gave way and I knelt on the floor gripping my head in my hands. "Why would you do this to me?" I asked plaintively. "To him. You know what this means."

"It does not mean what you think," Caius said, speaking for the first time. "Marcus has suffered, that is true, but Aro and I, and hundreds of others have found their happiness in being mated."

"And if something happens to me? What then?"

"Nothing is going to happen to you," Marcus soothed, laying a tentative hand on my shoulder and taking comfort when I didn't push him away. "You have nothing to fear Isabella, we are at peace. If you wish, you need never go out on an active mission again."

My head span with confusion. I couldn't imagine an inactive life. I enjoyed my travels and time away from the coven, but my life was the fight. I protected our kind; it was what I was made for.

"You cannot deny this, Isabella," Aro said.

I hissed at him. He was the very last person I wanted to talk to now. I was sure it was his manipulations that had doomed me to this. If I had been warned…

"He is right," Marcus said. "You must already be feeling the pull to him. There is no breaking it now that it has formed. You love him. Even if you refuse to admit it to yourself, you do. Allow yourself this happiness."

"No." I said it coldly, angrily. "I can stop this. It may not have happened before, but I will find a way." I got to my feet and fixed my gaze on Aro. "I will never forgive you for this." I turned to Marcus. "Nor you."

I marched from the room and back to the main reception. Demetri was there trying to comfort the human.

"Find me someone now." I ordered.

"Who?"

"Don't play stupid, Demetri. You and I both know there is someone out there Aro wishes to have dealt with. There always is. Now, tell me who and where."

I could see his thoughts clearly in his eyes. He was weighing the cost of defying me with what Aro would do to him. I won.

"The nomad that was destroyed had a mate. She has a gift for evasion. She is somewhere in North America, but I cannot tell you more than that. Her gift is interfering."

I tapped into his gift and found the pull to the female. It would be difficult to find her, but a challenge was exactly what I needed.

"Do you want me to come?" he asked.

"No thank you."

"Isabella, what happened?"

I paused mid step and looked back at him. "My family betrayed me."

I went to my room and changed into clothes that would sustain the journey. I took my black cloak from the closet. If I was going to hunt this female, I would do it as a Volturi elite, not as Isabella.

xXx

The woman was cunning and her trail was hard to follow. She seemed to be constantly one step ahead of me.

I had chosen her as a distraction initially, but her ability to confound me had elevated her to the status of enemy in my mind. I was going to take great pleasure in ending her existence.

I followed her through the states of America, her scent always too old for me to trace to the source. She was not always alone. Sometimes, there was a second scent, joining hers and then disappearing again.

Throughout my search, there was one subject my mind returned to no matter how hard I tried to ignore it: Jasper.

I tried to demote him to the title of empath again, but it was in vain. The image of him as I rode away was etched into my indelible memory, and there was nothing I could do about it. My thoughts returned to him again and again. It was maddening. Worst of all were the times I found myself reflecting on how he was faring with this mating debacle. He had seemed pleased to tell me about it. What was he feeling now?

Unable to banish these thoughts, I threw myself into the hunt instead. It was through a stroke of luck that I eventually found her. I had purchased another motorcycle as I hadn't wanted to go back to Alaska to collect my own from the airport. While refueling at a gas station, I heard two humans discussing a spate of disappearances in Washington. Something about it didn't ring true, so I went to investigate.

I was forced to shed my cloak when around the humans, which I didn't much like. Luckily, the female had chosen Seattle, where the weather was dismal enough for me to move around freely, to base her efforts.

The city was ripe with the scent of vampires. I wondered why Caius had not picked up on the situation already. This was why we existed after all.

I caught a relatively fresh scent at the docks and waited for the vampire to show itself. Only twenty minutes later it arrived with a dead human slung over its shoulder. It was clearly young, its eyes were a startling red.

It was a contentious hunter. It searched the area for humans and then jumped into the water, dragging the human down with it. A few minutes later it emerged from the water and began swimming back toward land.

It was clever to bury the kill in the water, but it clearly didn't think about the absurdity of walking around the city dripping wet. If this was indeed a creation of the female, it was an ill-trained one. I could school it though. Perhaps even send it back home to assist us. Even if it was not gifted, Aro may find a use for it. We could use a vampire for a receptionist for a change. The turnover for humans was really quite exorbitant.

These sympathetic thoughts brought me up short. I had never cared before, its involvement in the females rule breaking would ordinarily have earned its death automatically. Now I was planning to send it home and give it a job. What on earth was wrong with me?

It made its way to an industrial area, the scent of other vampires was thick in the air. This must be where the female had set up her lair. It wasn't a bad choice, all things considered. I would even commend her on her planning―right before I removed her head.

I heard a great deal of snarling and the unmistakable sound of vampire flesh being torn apart as I got closer to the largest warehouse.

One less for me to kill. I thought to myself.

Admittedly, I didn't know exactly how I was going to do this. I had become lazy since Alec and Jane joined our guard. Jane would torture the accused until they were begging us to destroy them, and Alec would steal their senses making their destruction positively easy.

Still, I was Isabella. There were still a few vampires living that knew enough to fear the name, like those irritating Romanians for example.

I sent my shield out from me, searching for a gift I could use. The female was there, her ability to evade danger was no real use. There was another, but I couldn't get a handle on his ability. It was an unpleasant sensation to reach for him.

I would have to do this the old fashioned way.

Screaming at the top of my lungs, I smashed through the old steel doors and into their midst.

There were ten newborns and the female. I felt a momentary pang of doubt as they all dropped into crouches then the battle lust took over, and I laughed. This was going to be fun.

The female I followed back lunged for me, and I twisted away, gripping her wrist and tearing it from its socket. She screamed in pain, but I was already moving on to my next opponent: a stocky male.

I ripped and tore and slashed and laughed. This was who I was.

My laughter came to an abrupt end as I felt a hand grip my wrist and then a burning pain in my shoulder.

The female had torn my arm off!

She tossed it onto the ground amongst the pile of limbs I had created of her newborns. Even as I watched, another dismembered hand gripped my wrist. I reached for my arm, but the female kicked it away.

Now I was angry.

I launched myself at her, a blur of snapping teeth and clawing nails. I was able to knock her to the floor, but my centre of balance was off because of my missing arm. I struggled to right myself above her, but failed, falling to the side.

Providence was on my side, as my hand gripped her hair and my head landed close to her. With a yank of hair and a swipe of teeth, I removed her head.

Her struggles immediately stilled, and she was left as still and useless and a broken doll.

I pushed myself to my feet and retrieved my arm from the floor. With a hiss of pain I held it to my shoulder and waited for the venom to do its work. When the burning pain ceased, I flexed my arm tentatively. It was, of course, perfectly healed, but I was still cautious. I had never been hurt like this before, and it was a disconcerting experience.

I checked my other injuries, a bite to the collarbone and back of the neck. Someone had come dangerously close to ending me completely.

I did a quick headcount and found the eleven I had first seen. Satisfied I had destroyed them all, I kicked them into a pile and reached into my pocket for my lighter.

It wasn't there. I never went on any mission without means to dispose of my prey, but something had gone wrong; my pockets were bare.

I stared at the twitching mound of parts and tapped my foot impatiently. How was I going to do this? I couldn't leave then while I went in search of matches; if a human came across this… Well, I didn't want to be forced to kill one because they had seen too much.

I scanned the room, looking for something I could use, and my eyes fell on the cable trailing across the ceiling. The female had evidently liked comfort as she had kept the electricity flowing into the room. This I could use.

I moved to the door. When this went up it was going to be fast, and I had no desire to finish my day with self-immolation. Jumping up, I gripped one of the cables. A shower of blue sparks shot from the ragged break. One of them landed on the pile of venom soaked pieces, and with a sound like a sheet being snapped, the flames burst into the air.

I ducked out of the door and mounted my bike again.

I was done here.

Thanks for reading. If you would like a teaser of the next chapter let me know in a review or a PM.

Simaril x