After Bo vowed not to let herself be coerced into giving up her independence, the conversation shifted to lighter topics as they all tried to lift Bella's spirits – until Tamsin returned with half a dozen guards, which instantly put a damper on everyone's mood.

"Visiting hour's over," the Valkyrie announced. "The boss wants a word with you ASAP."

One of the guards deactivated the barrier spell on the cell door, and Tamsin led Bella out while the others performed crowd control, ensuring that her friends and family didn't try to interfere. Just before she pulled Bella out of the main room of the holding area, Tamsin glanced back over her shoulder long enough to say, "Don't worry, you'll see her again soon. I don't think this'll take very long."

Bella didn't know whether to find this reassuring or not, and judging by her last glimpse of her friends' faces before she was whisked away, neither did they. She expected to be taken back to the Morrigan's office, but instead Tamsin herded her through a maze of twisting corridors on the lower level. Bella couldn't figure out how Tamsin knew where to go since every hallway looked the same to her, all concrete floors, gray cinderblock walls, and harsh strip lighting – the only thing she could be sure of was that they were still on the same floor, because their route never included any stairs or elevators – but at last they came to a small room that reminded her of the interrogation rooms she'd seen on various cop shows, except those were usually nicer.

The Morrigan was there, along with a dark-haired man in an expensive suit, both of them looking ridiculously out of place in this dreary, bare-bones environment. "Bella Swan," the man said by way of greeting as he stepped forward. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lachlan, and I've recently had the honor of being chosen as the new Ash."

"Hi," Bella said cautiously. She didn't know whether he and the Morrigan were aware that she had encouraged Bo not to go along with their attempts at strong-arming her, but she figured it was safest to assume they knew everything…and if they did, they probably weren't very happy with her.

"I trust your situation has already been fully explained to you?"

"You want me to choose a side now," she recapped tersely, still on edge, "otherwise you can keep me locked up as long as you like because I'm not a full fae citizen and I don't have a clan to take responsibility for me."

"There is one other teensy-tiny trivial little problem," the Morrigan chimed in, holding up her thumb and forefinger a couple of millimeters apart as if to minimize what she was going to say next. "Do you happen to know a vampire by the name of Victoria? Red hair that could give the Little Mermaid a run for her money, weird aversion to shoes, says you used your succubus wiles to get your coven of golden-eyed groupies to bump off her mate for you?"

Ice flooded Bella's veins, her heart actually seemed to freeze for a second, and when she spoke again, it was a struggle to get the words out through her numb lips. "Yes," she whispered, "I know her." Then she shook herself and tried to inject a little more strength into her voice. "But I didn't make the Cullens kill James. He was the one who decided to hunt me."

"Why, because you're so irresistible? This James person just had to have you the moment he laid eyes on you, seven other vamps were willing to put themselves on the line for you…and you just sat there looking pretty while they all fought to the death over you, huh?"

Evony's derisive tone made it clear that she found this version of events highly questionable, maybe even suspected that Bella's role in the whole affair had been more sinister than that of an innocent bystander – which might make sense if she had ever met Aife, because from what Bo had told Bella about their mother, provoking two groups of powerful supernatural creatures into fighting over her for kicks seemed like exactly the kind of thing she would do – but Bella didn't try to defend herself. If the Morrigan was determined to paint her as a nefarious femme fatale, she doubted anything she could say would convince her otherwise.

When Evony realized Bella wasn't going to say anything, she continued. "Well, however it went down, Victoria certainly thinks it's your fault her mate is dead. She's declared a blood feud against you. Do you know how we settle that kind of dispute?"

Already suspecting she wasn't going to like the answer, Bella shook her head.

"These days it's a whole bureaucratic dance with arbitration between the feuding parties' clan leaders that can take decades to sort out and usually ends with whoever's found to be in the wrong paying a hefty fine and both sides giving gifts to the mediator, but Victoria doesn't want to bother with all that crap – you know how temperamental those redheads can be. She's requested to settle this the old-fashioned way: single combat, to the death."

For a second, Bella couldn't believe she had heard correctly, but her body seemed to process Evony's words before her mind caught up; her knees buckled, and she probably would have fallen if not for Lachlan taking hold of her arm and quickly steering her to a chair. This time, several long seconds passed before she was able to speak, and when she did, the words came out haltingly, her stunned brain barely capable of stringing a coherent sentence together. "Are you saying you want me to…to fight Victoria?" It sounded even more absurd when spoken aloud, as if Evony had suggested she fight a fully grown T-rex. "But…I can't. She's a vampire, and I'm just…me."

"That's just too bad for you, isn't it? Death match starts in five." Turning to Lachlan, Evony said brightly, "Come on, let's go grab the best seats."

He reacted to her lighthearted remarks with a slight frown – or maybe that was just his default facial expression – but followed her without comment. The door clicked softly shut behind them, but the sound held such finality that it might as well have been a resounding boom, sealing Bella inside the tiny room that now felt disturbingly like a tomb for the few minutes she had left to contemplate her imminent demise.

The miniscule part of her mind that wasn't completely senseless with terror tried to tell her she was overreacting, because it wasn't like she'd never faced death before. She had, in fact, deliberately contrived to meet James at the ballet studio, fully expecting that she wouldn't walk out alive, but that was different. Perhaps she had been foolish to fall for his ruse of having captured Renée, but foolishly or not, she had genuinely believed she was trading her life for her mother's, and that belief had allowed her to make peace with whatever was about to happen to her. This, though…

There was no noble sacrifice here, no one she could save by submitting to her fate. She was going to be slaughtered for no better reason than certain powerful people finding her existence inconvenient…and no matter how hard she racked her brain, she couldn't think of a damn thing she could do about it.

XXX

The next five minutes were easily the longest of Bella's life – and yet, because she knew they were also the last minutes of her life, they were nowhere near long enough. She didn't even have time to fully comprehend what was about to happen, that this was truly the end of all her plans for the future, her hopes and dreams, her time with the people she loved – the end of everything she was – let alone accept it, before Tamsin came for her.

If the Valkyrie said anything, Bella's fear-numbed mind wasn't able to process her words, but her body moved of its own accord, automatically standing up and walking even though she was unaware of willing her legs into motion. She was thankful for that; at least she would meet her death on her own two feet, rather than being dragged to it in a pathetic, whimpering mass of rubbery limbs, even if that was how she felt on the inside.

The next thing she knew, she was in a huge room that resembled a modernized version of a gladiatorial arena; everything was steel and concrete, but there was a large, open circular area in the center surrounded with amphitheater-style seating. Tamsin halted at the edge of the open space, but when Bella stopped as well, the blonde propelled her forward with a hand in the middle of her back, indicating that she was meant to go on alone.

Caught off guard, she stumbled into the arena to an outpouring of noise that could have been either cheers or jeers, which was when it registered in her head that the seats rising all around her were full of people. Blinking past the bright lights that all seemed to be trained on her, she tried to make out individual faces among the spectators, wondering what kind of people besides Evony and Lachlan would turn out to watch a total stranger get ripped apart like it was a weekend movie outing…and that was when she saw them. Her friends and family were in the front row, surrounded by guards who were undoubtedly capable of subduing them if they tried anything – and judging by their expressions of horrified disbelief, they knew exactly what was about to happen.

Edward made a lunging motion in her direction when their eyes met, and a couple of the guards quickly moved in to pin his arms behind him, but Bella turned away, unable to watch any more, her stomach lurching. The whole thing sickened her – sending her to her death was despicable enough, but did they really have to make the people who loved her watch? It was an appallingly pointless level of cruelty…and as her petrified brain processed it, her terrified numbness gave way to an anger like nothing she'd ever felt before.

It was beyond moral outrage, beyond the hot surges of fury provoked by insults or injustices that brought stinging tears to her eyes and made her want to lash out with cutting remarks; this was a cold, black rage that spread through every fiber of her being, drowning out all rational thought and leaving no room for fear, or doubt, or even concern over the alien darkness that was rapidly overtaking her. All she wanted, though she had never experienced even an inkling of such desires until now, was to hurt everyone who had a hand in this travesty – not just the people who had put her here, Evony, Lachlan, Victoria, Tamsin, and anyone else who'd conspired with them, but the nameless, faceless strangers who had come to make sport of her death as well. They were just as guilty, they all deserved to pay…and somehow, without knowing how she knew, she was certain that she had the power to give them exactly what they deserved.

As this revelation dawned on her, she raised her chin and shook aside the curtain of hair that had fallen over her face, revealing eyes that were a brighter blue than they had ever been before – and saw that Victoria had entered the arena. The vampire was charging toward her, yet it seemed to Bella as if she was moving in slow motion; the roar of the crowd had faded to a distant rumble, like far-off thunder, and she seemed to exist in her own little world, like she was watching this farce of a trial by combat unfold on a TV screen rather than participating in it herself.

A small, almost sinister smile formed on her lips as she watched Victoria approach, and she saw the redhead's stride falter minutely, a split second of doubt flashing through her scarlet eyes as she realized something was off about Bella's reaction; then she jerked to a sudden, violent stop as her chi started pouring out of her. It wasn't just her either – somehow, Bella was drawing energy from every single person in the room, except for Edward, Bo, Dyson, Trick, Jacob, and Kenzi.

Filled with previously unimaginable strength from this mass feeding, she marched right up to Victoria, who actually looked slightly unsteady on her feet, took her face between both hands, and with a single sharp twist, wrenched the vampire's head so violently that it almost ended up facing backward. Cracks appeared in the porcelain skin of Victoria's throat, there was a horrible screeching noise like stone splitting, and when Bella let go, she crumpled into an inert heap at the succubus' feet.

"Is that it?" Kenzi whispered into the stunned silence that followed. "Did she win? She won, right? Bitch is definitely down for the count even if Bella doesn't have anything to torch her with, so it's gotta be over."

"I'm not so sure," Edward murmured, his gaze riveted on Bella even as he addressed Kenzi. "Something doesn't feel right." Bella's body was angled so that he mostly just saw her back, plus a tiny sliver of the side of her face, but even with that limited view he could tell there was something different about her posture and the set of her jaw – it was hard and rigid, her shoulders and spine too stiff, while her legs were braced in a stance that made her appear as if she was still poised for a fight.

Lachlan, meanwhile, seemed to have come to the same conclusion as Kenzi after another handful of seconds passed with no sign of movement from Victoria, and stood up to declare Bella the victor. Before he could finish making the announcement, however, she whirled around to face him, and everyone in her line of sight froze. The fact that her eyes were still blue even though, with the threat neutralized, she should have started to relax was concerning enough, but it was the look on her face that chilled everyone's blood, especially that of the people who knew her. Icily detached with a hint of contempt underlying the cold façade, it wasn't at all like Bella.

"Did you really think that half-breed could defeat me?" she scoffed, and her voice wasn't like her either; the timbre was much deeper than her normal voice, her tone was cold and harsh, and the words coming out of her mouth definitely didn't sound like anything Bella would ever say. "I have powers beyond your comprehension!"

Galvanized into action by her disturbing behavior, her friends shook off their guards, who were still frozen in astonishment, and leapt over the partition separating the arena from the spectators' seating area. Once their feet hit the concrete floor, they approached her cautiously, letting Bo and Edward take the lead.

"Bella, sweetheart, you need to calm down," Edward said soothingly. "Victoria is incapacitated; there's no danger here."

"That was a neat trick with the group suck, and I'm glad it gave you the juice you needed to take her down, but you need to snap out of it now," Bo added.

"Yeah, this weird power trip is legit freaking us out," Kenzi put in while Jacob nodded in fervent agreement. Dyson and Trick said nothing, but both of them practically vibrated with pent-up tension as they watched closely, ready to jump in if necessary.

Bella's eyes remained dispassionate as they roamed over the faces of her friends and mate; only when they landed on Bo did something flicker in their indigo depths. "Isabeau," she said in that same deep voice, though her tone was perhaps a degree warmer. "You have the same power in your blood as I. Come – together we shall crush these fools who oppose us and take our rightful place as rulers of the fae. As the elder sister, it is your birthright."

"Hard pass," Bo said at once. "As the elder sister, my birthright is to ground your ass if you don't cut this out right now!"

Edward shot her a sideways glance, feeling that her confrontational attitude might not be the best approach at the moment, then tried again. "Please, Bella, this isn't you. You promised that you would come back to me; now I need you to keep your word. Come back, Bella."

She slowly turned her head toward him, giving him a glimmer of hope that he might have gotten through to her…then, as soon as she looked away, Bo pounced. Lunging forward, she seized Bella's arm and, when her sister's head snapped back to her, lips parting in an enraged snarl, began siphoning the excess chi Bella had absorbed from the crowd. It was easily the biggest head rush Bo had ever experienced, but she kept going until she felt Bella's energy levels dropping to something resembling normal and saw the eerie blue light fade from her eyes.

When she finally released her sister, they were both a bit weak in the knees, so Dyson and Edward rushed in to offer their support.

"Are you all right, Bo?"

"I think so," she answered with a trace of uncertainty, raising one hand to her forehead while the other clutched her boyfriend's arm. "Just…whoa."

"And you, Bella?" Edward asked anxiously, searching her eyes (which were, thankfully, completely brown now) for some sign that the love of his life was back. "Are you feeling…more yourself?"

"I… Maybe?" She sounded even less sure of her answer than Bo, but at least her voice was back to normal, which he took as a very good sign. "Edward, I-"

She didn't know exactly what she wanted to say, but it didn't matter, because at that moment she was interrupted by Lachlan once again announcing that the trial by combat had concluded, and a general flurry of movement followed as the obviously shaken audience began making their way to the exits. The sound of his voice sent a fresh wave of emotion through her, and she straightened up, pulling free of Edward's bracing grip as she strode over to where the Ash and the Morrigan stood behind the partition.

"That's it?" she demanded, her voice quivering from the maelstrom of fury, exhaustion, several hours' worth of fear and tension, plus at least a dozen other feelings she couldn't name swirling inside her. "You set me up to be slaughtered in front of the people I love like it's a…a Friday night football game or something…and now that it didn't play out the way you hoped, you expect everybody to just skip off home like nothing happened?"

The two fae leaders responded with rather blank looks, clearly not understanding why she was so upset. "The blood feud has been resolved," Lachlan said in the patient yet patronizing tone parents might use when attempting to reason with a child throwing a temper tantrum. "Our business here is done."

"What, were you expecting a trophy?" Evony added, arching her eyebrows superciliously. "You'll live to seduce another day; you should be happy. As an extra special bonus, we'll even give you a grace period on that whole 'choosing sides' thing, at least until you turn eighteen. Your birthday's in September, right?"

Bella stared incredulously at them for a moment, her mouth hanging open in shock…then closed it as her head slowly shook back and forth. "You know, I've had some reservations about both sides for a while now, but still, when it came down to it, I probably would have chosen the Light eventually, just because it seemed like the lesser of two evils and it's the side Edward and all my friends are on. Now, though… Now you can both go to hell."

With that, she turned and walked away, leaving dead silence in her wake.

XXX

It was only after she reached the sanctuary of the small room Tamsin had brought her to before the fight, where she was alone with her friends, that her composure shattered. Her knees gave out so suddenly that only Edward's quick reaction saved her from ending up on the floor; instead, she huddled in the chair he placed under her in the nick of time, her entire body shaking as she hyperventilated. "Holy crow… Holy crow, what just happened? What was that? What did I do?!" Lifting her head from her trembling hands, she cast a wild look around the room, hoping desperately that someone could help her make sense of what had just transpired.

"From where I was standing, it sounded like you just told the leaders of both factions to go to hell after curb-stomping a bloodsucker," Jacob supplied, "which was pretty awesome, in kind of a scary way."

"Balls to the wall," Kenzi agreed with a broad grin, which drew an irritated look from Trick.

"Awesomeness notwithstanding, I'm not sure it was the most prudent course of action."

"You're probably right, but I meant the part where I somehow fed on everyone in the room at once. I don't even know how I did it, I just- I was furious that they were going to make you all watch Victoria kill me, and it was like…like something woke up inside me and took over. I felt the same way sometimes when my fae side first started to come out, but this was different, this was…dark. Now that it's gone, I have no idea how to get it back, not that I want to. Is this a normal succubus thing?"

Bella looked to her sister, the only other succubus in the room, for an answer, but Bo could only shrug. "Nothing like that's ever happened to me…yet. I mean, you did say I have the same power…" Which, now that she was able to stop and think about it, was a singularly unsettling notion. "Did Aife ever pull off that kind of mass feeding, Trick?"

"No need to ask if it turned her into a raging megalomaniac too, 'cause with it being Aife, that's pretty much her default personality anyway," Kenzi quipped.

"No, Aife never displayed that ability," Trick said at once, ignoring Kenzi's wisecrack. "Nor has any other succubus that I know of."

"Then how did this happen to me?" Bella demanded, her voice rising. "Am I just a freak?"

"Of course not," Edward automatically assured her, the protective arm he'd placed around her shoulders after helping her sit down tightening.

"If you are, I guess that makes me one too," Bo offered with a weak smile.

Somehow, Bella did not find either of these responses particularly comforting. She could tell they were trying to make her feel better, and she was certainly grateful that Edward didn't think she was a freak, but the fact remained that he wasn't able to provide an explanation for what had happened to her. As for the idea that the same darkness that had temporarily overwhelmed her might be lurking inside Bo too, just waiting for the right moment to emerge… That wasn't reassuring in the slightest.

Then Trick walked over and hesitantly placed his hand on her arm. "I'm sorry we don't have any answers for you right now, but let me look into it. The information has to be out there somewhere; it's just a matter of finding it."

"Thank you," Bella said shakily, a tremulous smile finding its way to her lips. She had never been especially close to Grandpa Swan, and Renée's father had died when she was too young to really remember him, so when Bo introduced her to their grandfather, she hadn't quite known how to react (naturally, the fact that she was meeting him in a prison cell only made it even more awkward), but now she was indescribably grateful for his presence. "It means a lot to me that you came all this way…and we'd never even met until today…"

Before she knew what she was doing, she found herself on her knees with her arms wrapped tightly around him, blubbering into his bespoke vest.

"There, there," Trick said, sounding slightly alarmed as he tentatively patted her on the back. "Everything will be all right…"

Bella made a strangled noise that could have been a sob or a laugh, or both. "One thing's certain," she sniffled in a brave attempt at gallows humor, "if I ever had any hope of convincing the Ash and the Morrigan that I'm not a threat, I'm pretty sure I just blew it."

Yeah, they're definitely not going to leave her alone now. Hope you guys enjoyed seeing Victoria get a beatdown as much as I enjoyed writing it.