Disclaimer: I own only the mistakes in this story, all characters belong to Stephanie Meyer
Chapter 1: At your mercy.
Wow, I thought as I entered the throne room.
In the middle of the room, there were two gigantic thrones where a man and a woman sat. The woman was dressed in the finest black silk that stood as a striking contrast to her marble skin, Lady Esme. The man on the other hand wore softer colors, creams, and golds, but unlike the lady he was sporting a rather dark expression, King Carlisle.
Seeing their beauty made me blush.
I kneeled obediently silently cursing myself for being in this position
I just had to try my luck and steal that apple, it was so stupid. And now I had to answer to the king and queen.
"What is your name, young one?" The king asked softly
"I-Isabella Swan"
"And why are you here?"
Damn it.
"Because I'm a thief, my king" I admitted, my voice faltering
"I don't particularly like my subjects to be thieves, Miss Swan"
I could feel my eyes brimming with tears and my cheeks burning red with humiliation.
"-But I don't think you are a thief," the blond ruler said, to my surprise
"We have taken a look at your case" The lady of the castle began.
Suddenly, for a brief moment, I saw two golden eyes lurking in the dark.
Who... I thought before snapping my attention back to the sovereigns in front of me.
"And we have decided to grant you leniency, in exchange for something from you" she continued
From me?
What could the wealthiest family in all of Forks, no, America, want from me?
"Of course, my lady. Anything" I said, becoming rather keen on not spending the rest of my life behind bars, or paying off a ridiculous fine.
They exchanged smiles and sighed in relief
"Well, as you know Isabella," the king started
"Call me Bella"
"Bella", he corrected "we have a lot of children and well, those children tend to get a little... bored, especially our youngest, Edward"
Huh? A breath hitched itself in my throat. I was to be a nanny? And as if that wasn't bad enough, I was to be a nanny to a boy my age who was, no doubt, spoiled rotten.
"I can tell you're confused, dear. But you will simply act as a friend to our particular children"
I wanted to protest but quickly decided against it.
Wouldn't they feel embarrassed to have their parents force a criminal to be their friend?
Before I could react further to this proposition they descended from their respective thrones and went to stand in front of me.
"Please, we can't stand to see our children suffer, we only want what's best for our family" the matriarch pleaded, taking my hands into hers, making half her ebony hair fall behind her shoulders while the other half covered her face.
She was so beautiful, from up there you couldn't really see her full glory, but now as she stood right in front of me I couldn't help but feel a strange feeling of admiration and comfort at the same time. The king was also, naturally, an absolute wonder to look at but the thing that stuck out the most about him was his fatherly gaze and the way he seemed to be genuinely upset about having me here in this manner.
"And your payment would be that the debt is forgotten" The king smiled
"Okay, I'll do it," I said, speaking for the first time in a while.
It couldn't be that bad, could it?
Wait, how many kids did the pair have?
"Thank you, Bella. This means a lot, we all need a bit of companionship once in a while. We're only ... people, after all" she added
People. Why was she treading around the word human?
Another reason for my reluctance was because of the rumors that went around town about the Cullens. Rumors were to be expected, Carlisle and Esme weren't cruel or unjust rulers ( and seemingly not bad parents either ) so some talk had to go around to fuel the petty townspeople. None of the rumors seemed, how should I put this, quite right. All gossip I had heard had some sense of idiocy about it, everything from huge things like they were monsters and witches, to smaller things like they were all having incest relations with one another, had something missing.
Even now, as she began stroking my face I could clearly see a difference between her ivory complexion and her smooth marble skin and my rough, in comparison, pink, freckly cast. It didn't seem right.
Out of nowhere, a light figure came, hugging me with excitement
"I'm Alice, you smell good," the young woman said.
I almost cringed, the difference between us was so big. She was a slender, pale young woman with beautiful spiky black hair that reminded me a lot of her mother and just by looking at her you could see she was a woman of high standing.
She wore a pink-beige-ish dress made of wool that seemed to be sewn together with gold thread and to accompany it she wore soft shoes in gray.
At her side a blond gentleman stood, and judging by the look on his face, mirroring what I was feeling on the inside.
"I'm Bella"
"I have a feeling we're gonna be good friends. This is Jasper" Alice said, gesturing to the man beside her.
"These are two of our curious children, that I think you will get along with very well" Carlisle chuckled, putting an arm around his daughter
"Can I show her to her chamber, Daddy?"
My chamber?
"Uhm, we hadn't really gotten to that part yet, Mary Alice" Esme interjected with an awkward smile
"We don't mean to frighten you by any means, dear. We simply think that if you ever need to sleep over or want some time alone, a private chamber would be a nice thing for you" the patriarch said, probably trying to calm me down
That seems reasonable.
While the royal family at times struck me as odd and borderline scary I could never find it in myself to feel frightened for long, their kind demeanor made it impossible.
Like prey that didn't know it was being hunted.
A/N: Hi! So I thought that a nice little Twilight AU was just what we all needed ( or what I needed ) besides I'm getting quite fond of medieval stories. I haven't decided if I want this to be a sort of AU series ( like a non-alien follow-up to "my interstellar lover" ) but I will be expanding on this idea.
Ignore that it's sort of similar ( in very subtle ways ) to a story I made not long ago called "The not-so-humble Life of a Voltori Wife".
I hope you enjoyed it!