A/N: it's not my playground, just my slide.

I'm sorry it has taken so long to update. My family and I are homeless and living in a cheap motel right now. If you want more info, go to my Tumblr: blog/flamingpen18

I have been chipping away at this chapter for months. There is still no update schedule.

BPOV

I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with my Grandma Doro. She had no issues with me calling her grandma either. In fact, she confided in me that Caius had a tendency to be superficial. She even laughed at his obsession with not aging. Seriously, he's a vampire and is incapable of aging. However, that didn't stop his constant obsessing over his non-existent aging. According to Doro, Caius loves to stand in front of his mirror all the time to make sure he always looks presentable. The vampire is obsessed with his looks.

According to her, Caius was very vain in regard to his looks when he was still human. Even then, he was always extremely attractive which did not help his vanity. Men and women were often throwing themselves at him which was something I could definitely see happening. It's a characteristic that remained after his change. I have noticed several of the female and a few of the male guard members appreciating Caius when they thought no one would notice.

Grandma Doro told me about a time a thousand years ago when a new coven had come to Volterra to see the kings about some silly dispute they were having with another coven. Apparently, the one unmated female decided that she wanted Caius and kept trying to get him alone so that she could make her move. Even after the guard warned her that Caius was mated, she still kept on stalking him.

Jane harbored a great deal of hate for the female and decided that Caius's mate should be made aware of what was going on. What Grandma explained to me was what I could only say was a genius retaliation. She snuck out of the tower which Caius was unaware of and had the guard drag the female down to the dungeons which were unoccupied at the time.

My sweet, delicate, and innocent-looking grandmother proceeded to torture her would be usurper for nearly twenty-four hours. Grandma Doro does not have a quantifiable gift per se, but she does have a gift. She has the ability to create illusions in people's minds. Her gift was similar she said to another vampire. Doro's gift, however, also involved the ability to force another person to literally feel what she was projecting into their mind. Frankly, I thought that her gift was diabolical and could very well be insidious if Doro wanted it to be.

So Doro spent twenty-four hours replaying one single illusion in the female's mind. When I asked her what she had forced her to see, Grandma Doro only replied with a comment about how the second the female was released, she high-tailed it out of Volterra and she never even stopped long enough to give an explanation for her rapid departure.

To this day, no one has ever mentioned to Caius about what happened to his stalker. The guard continues to keep Grandma Doro's secret, and Caius continues to remain in the dark. Those two were two peas in a pod and perfect for one another. They both seemed to enjoy a spot of torture when it is called for.

Learning that Doro had such a powerful gift had me become a little bit more upset with her confinement. She of course calmed me down and explained to me that they wanted to keep her gift as a secret weapon. All three kings were aware as well as all of the upper guard members. No one else in Volterra knew, and they desperately wanted to keep it that way. This soothed the small amount of offense I had felt over the fact that Caius hadn't told me.

She did say that even though she was gifted, Caius still tended to be overprotective. She further pointed out that she chose to remain in the tower, and that at any time she got fed up she would just leave. I was just glad to learn that she was not stuck up there against her will.

After I left my grandma, I decided to get a little sleep. After giving Doro a hug and a promise to come to see her again, I tiredly made my way down several flights of stairs and down a long corridor to get to my room. The moment I crawled under the lush covers on my bed, I passed out. I must have been really exhausted.

I woke up a few hours later and was feeling edgy. I had a lot of pent-up energy that I really needed to work through. A lot has happened in such a short period of time that I was certain that it was normal for me to feel like this. It's almost like everything was finally catching up to me. I decided to head out to the gym to have a long workout and burn off all this excess energy.

Admittedly, my workout schedule has been royally screwed up which I am a tad bit disappointed about. Just missing a handful of workouts has the potential to set me back a bit. It's harder to get moving than it is to keep up the momentum.

I made my way down to the gym and was happy to see that it was empty. Being watched while I work out is becoming a nuisance. I get why they all loved to watch me. I just wish they would give it a rest once and a while. I swear it's really weird to watch Emmett of all vampires acting all fan-girl while I'm working out. That idea had me picturing Emmett dressed as a preppy cheerleader and brandishing pink pom poms. That's another sight I would pay to see.

I decided to run laps around the gym in order to get my blood pumping. It didn't escape my notice that I was in the vampire citadel and trying to get my blood pumping harder. The irony was not lost on me.

The gym boasted a regulation-length basketball court. I had no idea that vampires even played basketball. I really had no clue how they didn't destroy any basketballs or shatter the backboards. I was going to have to make it a point to catch them playing at some time in the future.

I wanted to run a quick mile and got right into it. I ran nineteen laps around the regulation gym to help loosen me up. I made a mental note to thank Caius for setting everything up for me.

Running a mile is easy for me now, and I am able to do so in under ten minutes. I immediately transitioned into some cardio for a good twenty minutes. Once I was finished with that, I dropped to the floor and did ten sets of crunches. It was imperative that I maintain my abs. Besides, I rather like having my own feminine six-pack.

I followed that with my stretching exercises which I always try to take my time with. Doing martial arts requires me to be limber. Thankfully, I was born limber. By regularly stretching, I have been able to increase just how limber I am.

Once I finished with my stretching, I morphed into my martial arts exercises. Today, I decided to practice with my bo and then follow that with the nunchucks. Caius had managed to get me a pair of aluminum Nunchaku or Nunchucks. He even had my name engraved in them in a beautiful calligraphy.

These nunchucks were a great deal heavier than standard ones. Each set weighed thirty-six ounces and was a foot long for each piece. These were perfect to use for a controlled upper body workout that focuses on the arms and the upper body as well as core strengthening.

Due to their weight, they are not good for speed. However, the benefits of having an exceptional upper body workout far surpassed any concerns about lack of speed. I wanted to maintain my tight toned arms and these babies would do it for me.

As is usual for me when I am working out, I became so absorbed in what I am doing that I failed to notice everyone coming in to watch me. By the time I finished the last spin of my bo, I looked up to see Caius, Aro, Jane, Alec, Emmett, Demetri, Felix, Jasper, Santiago, and a few new members I had yet to meet. I rolled my eyes and their facial expressions.

"You guys are all stalking me," I yelled out to them as I walked over to the display hanging on the back wall. I placed my bo back into its holder and spun around. "How long have you all been there?"

"You are remarkably unobservant when you are working out, little one," Caius teased.

"Very funny, Grandpa," I replied with a mischievous grin.

Caius gave me a dirty look that promised retribution. I couldn't help but laugh at him. He knew I was not going to stop calling him Grandpa especially after Grandma Doro told me to keep it up. He narrowed his eyes at me saying, "I knew I never should have introduced you to Doro."

I shrugged and laughed at him. The guard joined in, and we were all cracking up. "You've met Lady Athenadoro? Things just got more interesting," Jane commented as she tried to control her giggles.

"Yea, Lady Athenadoro is hilarious," Alec added with a huge grin.

"She has a way of keeping Master Caius on his toes," Felix supplied.

"Don't you all have something to do?" Caius growled. The guard took that as their cue and made a run for it. We could hear them laughing as they rapidly departed.

Jasper and Emmett both stayed behind completely unperturbed by Caius's grouchiness. "I can't wait to meet your mate, Master Caius. She sounds lovely," Emmett told him with a glint in his eyes.

"This is my punishment," Caius muttered as he chose to not reply to Emmett.

"Oh, come on, Caius, you love us. We have brought endless laughter and joy to your existence," I giggled as I walked over to Jasper and wrapped my hand around his bicep and not failing to notice the well-defined muscle under his shirt.

"I love you," Caius grunted as he leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on my forehead. "The rest I could do without." With a sideways glance and a roll of his eyes, he casually walked off.

"Well, I am certainly feeling underappreciated," Emmett groused.

"That's not what it sounded like to me several hours ago when a particular unattached, female member of the Volturi was calling out your name like you were a deity," I joked. I may be teasing him about it, but that does not erase the disturbed feeling I had while hearing it. Emmett is like a brother to me. As far as I am concerned, he is not sexually active. That's a whole area I don't even want to know about.

"I've got two words for you, short stack," he said with a mischievous grin. "Oh, Jasper," he taunted in a high voice as he tried to mimic me.

"Is that all you've got? At least I give credit where credit is due. While I was praising Jasper for a job well done, your counterpart was praising a deity and not you," I snapped back with a laugh. Jasper joined in and cracked up over Emmett's kicked puppy dog look.

"Damn you, Belly," Emmett said as he stomped his foot. "I have somewhere else to be right now," he added as he walked off probably on his way to find another bed partner.

Jasper's laughter died down as he pulled me closer to him to place a loving kiss on my lips. "I do love how you mess with him."

I grinned, "I live rent-free in his head and he cannot evict me."

Jasper and I decided to take a walk out of the grounds for a while and ended up in a gorgeous rose garden. It was beyond stunning. Whoever maintained it knew what they were doing. We must have been there for at least an hour before Jane came looking for us.

"Master Caius asked for me to find the two of you. The Denali coven has finally arrived, and the master wishes to have Eleazar read Mistress Isabella," Jane explained.

"Jane, I just have one request to make of you: Please do not refer to me as 'mistress' at least not while we are in private. It makes me feel old," I asked as I took hold of Jasper's hand for him to pull me up off the marble bench we had been sitting on.

She bowed her head in acknowledgment. "As you wish," she replied.

"So is the entire Denali coven here?" Jasper asked as we made our way back inside the castle.

"Yes, they are," Jane grimaced.

"That is not going to be a good thing," Jasper said absentmindedly.

I stopped in my tracks and tried to yank on Jasper's arm to get him to stop. He abruptly turned to me, raising an eyebrow in question. "Why is that not a good thing?" I asked feeling very curious.

"It's not a good thing because that means Tanya is with them. If you recall, Tanya has had a thing for Edward for a hundred years. She is going to be pissed over what happened to Eddie-boy," he explained.

"Ah, now I get it. She's going to blame me for him being turned into a lit matchstick," I said guessing accurately.

"Don't worry, Bella. Master Caius and Jasper will not let anything happen to you," Jane said. "In fact, the upper guard will not let anything happen. You are a part of our family now. We take care of our own."

"Thanks, Jane, that means a lot to me," I said as walked over to the petite girl and gave her a quick hug. She awkwardly patted me on the back a few times and then pulled away. I guess she was not used to being hugged by a human.

"Jane's right. There's nothing to worry about. Let's get moving. We don't want to keep the masters waiting," Jasper said as he began to usher Jane and me along the corridor.

When we finally made our way to the throne room, I saw five unknown vampires standing in front of Caius, Marcus, and Aro. Caius looked up and beckoned me over to him as he continued his conversation with the tall Hispanic male.

As I began to make my way over, the strawberry blonde turned her head and sneered the moment she caught sight of me.

"You!" she bellowed as she tried to make a lunge for me but was held back by the two blonds standing next to her.

"Tanya, enough!" the petite Hispanic woman growled out.

"No! It's her fault my Edward is dead," Tanya whined.

I walked right up to Caius who wrapped his arm around me. "Let's make one thing clear. Edward is the reason why Edward is dead," I stated without an ounce of remorse. Frankly, I didn't give a damn that Edward was nothing but ashes now.

"You need to control her. I will not tolerate anyone trying to attack my granddaughter," Caius growled angrily.

Tanya continued to stare at me furiously. I wasn't fazed by it. She's just mad that her booty call is gone.

"This isn't over, human. You're going to pay for what you did," she threatened.

"You're kind of stupid, aren't you? You just heard that I am Caius's granddaughter, and you still threatened me in front of him not to mention my mate and the guard. If you want to follow Eddie to the afterlife, keep shooting that big mouth of yours off. I could use some more free entertainment," I taunted. She was clearly a brain-dead bimbo.

"Enough of this. Let me be clear, Tanya Denali, since you haven't seemed to grasp what I said before. Bella is my granddaughter. Anyone who tries to attack her, tries to attack me. You do not want to find out what I will do to you if you even make an attempt. Am I clear?" Caius angrily asked.

The bimbo refused to respond. She just stood there growling at me. Here is another imbecile that is too stupid to realize that she was already in hot water. This was going to get interesting.