δ ~ Twenty-Two Years Later ~ δ

***

Screaming was normal. Pleading was normal. Even the occasional crash and bang was normal. All of those things could be heard right then from the throne room a few rooms and floors away. Humans were unfortunately rather attached to their lives and made efforts to keep them. That was part of the fun.

Emily, however, could sense that the pathetic cries she heard weren't normal on that particular day.

It was St. Marcus Day, a favorite annual tradition of hers to observe from the castle windows. The irony always tickled Emily in such a way. The humans in the city would wave their little red flags, wear their red capes, and have their parades while none the wiser to the vampires living in the castle towering above the city. The vampires they thought had been expelled from the city ages ago unknowingly looked down on them in more than a few ways.

The celebration also meant a slight influx in tourists. Some came for the celebrations, some came to add a little history to their vacations. Tours of the ancient castle led by Heidi were offered to unsuspecting groups of people. They took their pictures, they listened to the descriptions and stories Heidi told...

It was like having dinner brought right into their hands.

That was the first indication to Emily that something was off. Today's group wasn't due to come to the throne room for a little while yet. That, and she would have been told it was lunchtime. They wouldn't start without her.

Second, she could only hear three foreign voices. Tour groups consisted of upwards of twenty people. They had a whole coven to feed after all.

Maybe this had something to do with the Cullen boy that had come crawling at their doorstep earlier?

Emily heard a loud crash and chose to investigate. She left her balcony and ran in the direction of the throne room with super speed. She ran right for the right side door and burst through it.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Emily asked, her voice authoritative.

Oh... well this is interesting.

The twins were off to the side observing while being ready to intervene at a moment's notice. The boy she recognized as Edward Cullen had been thrown to the ground by Felix, smashing a hole into the marble steps to the dais. Demitri held back a rather fashionably dressed girl with choppy dark hair from getting involved. And, to Emily's surprise, a rather distressed human girl stood in the middle of the room looking two seconds from passing out. Emily licked her lips, thinking about the impending lunch Heidi was bringing.

"Caius, you didn't tell me we would be having visitors." She said, climbing the steps to stand next to Caius, seated on his throne. Her husband gently took her hand to press a kiss to the back of it.

"It was impromptu, agápe. A little... incident at the clock tower." He replied. Emily still held his hand, but she turned to look at their "guests" with a smug smile.

"I'm assuming that's Edward on the floor there." She said. Edward gave a groan in response, still not moving from his place stuck in the stairs. She turned to look at the short haired girl. "And I'm assuming your Alice Cullen? It seems like we have two of Carlisle's with us today. Exciting. I have yet to meet a Cullen. Though... I don't know who she is."

Emily pointed to the human girl who looked up at her. Now she looked like she was about to vomit on the ground.

"I... I--" the human stuttered.

"Sweetheart, please, if you're going to expel yourself, do it out that window." Emily said, pointing to a window she knew wasn't over any streets.

"Excuse me, but..." Alice piped up. "Who exactly are you?"

"She's my mate and wife." Caius chose to answer. Alice's eyebrow raised, about to ask a question before Edward started pushing himself to his feet.

"I thought she was dead." He grunted, still clearly in pain.

"Yes, unfortunately we lost our dear Athenodora in the 1940s. But we're more than happy to have Emily here." Aro spoke up.

"Wouldn't Carlisle have told us?"

"I thought we sent word. Must have gotten lost in the mail." Aro seemed to shrug. Emily snorted shortly. She knew no such letter had been sent. If the Cullens were to find out about her (or any of the other covens, for that matter), they would find out eventually. Carlisle in particular, though...

Emily knew all the history, so she knew he of all people wasn't going to get any sort of information from them.

"You moved on quick." The human girl spoke up. Emily raised an eyebrow, taken aback by her bluntness. "That's not even a hundred years; next to nothing compared to the thousands you've lived."

"You're very astute, Miss...?" Emily said.

"Bella... Bella Swan." Edward moved to stand in front of Bella protectively, though the girl still stood in view.

"She's right, though. Caius, you were married for thousands of years and losing a mate like that isn't something one gets over easily." He said bluntly. Emily could feel Caius tense at being spoken to in such a way. "What makes her so significant?"

"What my brother is trying to say..." Alice shot Edward a dirty glance. "Is that we merely wish to understand how such a thing happened. You must be special, Lady Emily. Did you come from an ancient coven?"

Emily gave a haughty laugh. "Hardly. I was born and raised in a podunk Indiana town. I only found this place by accident after shit went down in 1987. You might have heard about it, but I don't believe you read small town newspapers often, so it's hard to say."

Alice blinked.

"1987? How old are you?"

"I think I'll be sixty at some point this year. I don't know my exact human birthday. I've only been immortal for going on twenty-two years."

"You're... young!"

"I was turned at thirty-eight, but I looked younger. My... previous hobby kept me young. Honestly, I was turned and frozen with more mental maturity than a lot of you."

"Wait." Bella piped up. "You left Indiana in 1987?"

"Yes."

"Were you involved with the Hawkins incidents?"

This time it was Emily's turn to be taken aback.

"How... you're going to have to be more specific, Miss Swan." She stammered. Bella shrugged.

"Take your pick. The earthquake of '86, that kid's disappearance in '83, the Creel Murders of '59--" Emily laughed, cutting Bella off.

"Lord, I haven't heard that name in a long time. How do you know all this?"

"My dad's a cop. I've heard plenty of stories and read plenty of newspapers."

"I never even heard what happened after I left. You're a lot more studied than your... plain featured face would lead me to believe, Miss Swan."

Truth be told, at times Emily wondered what exactly happened after she left. Considering she was still in Volterra and there were still humans around, she could only assume the plan failed.

What that meant for Henry's fate, she had no idea. Being honest, Emily was content to live in ignorance lest she hear something she didn't want to know. No matter how many millenia she would end up living, a part of her would always love him. She was frozen in time when she turned, so that emotional bond would always be there, even if the mental bond to him and the hivemind was gone.

Emily loved Caius deeply, but a part of her heart would always be Henry's. Knowing if he had perished horribly would wound her severely.

Never sleeping meant Emily was alone with her thoughts a lot, and over the years the more she thought, the more she came to accept the fact that she always knew deep down that Henry would never come back for her. She made him swear to do so only if the plan suceeded.

She knew that leaving him would emotionally cripple him, and she knew it would be hard to win a war like that when he was unstable in that way. She knew that if Henry by chance came back to her having wiped out the human race, she couldn't survive in that world. No humans meant no food for her after she transformed. And she transformed so readily at that...

So, yes, deep down Emily knew from the very start she never would see Henry again and that she essentially doomed him to failure by staying behind.

Maybe that's why she was so content to remain ignorant of his fate. If he had died, it essentially would have been her fault. That wasn't a crisis Emily wanted to spend the next thousand years feeling bad about.

"You seem like you know what happened to the Creels." Bella spoke up, snapping Emily out of her stupor.

"Of course I do. My ex was the one who did it, after all. But that's not something you need to worry about." Emily allowed herself a small smile at throwing Bella off guard with what she said. She broke away from Caius' side to start slowly stalking closer to the girl. "What I see here is a human girl who knows too much about our kind... and I see that my lunch is running late."

Bella gulped audibly as her heart began to race. Emily smiled down at the girl, licking her lips almost tauntingly.

"The Cullen boy refuses to turn her. It's a shame to let that gift of hers go to waste." Aro said from behind her. Emily looked back at him, confused.

"Her gift? She's human."

"So were you. But when I say she's gifted, I mean she has potential. None of our gifts work on her. Jane can do nothing to hurt her and I see nothing in her mind. Edward's mind reading is even useless."

"Maybe you can't read her mind because she doesn't think." Jane said sourly. Emily looked at the girl, a clearly butthurt expression on her small face. Her gift always worked and she enjoyed using it. She and Jane made a formidable duo, really. Jane subdued targets, Emily disposed of them, both with mere stares. She and Jane had grown quite close over the years, forming a strange type of older-younger sister type bond.

Same name aside, Emily saw a lot of Eleven in Jane... if Eleven hadn't been quite so... moral, that is.

"You're gifted?" Edward asked.

"Of course she is, Edward, do you think she'd have the status she did if she wasn't?" Alice hissed. Emily let out a thin smile. Due to the nature of her powers, she kept their true nature a secret unless she was on a mission that required them. She hadn't seen real combat yet, but there were some covens that had been on the wrong end of an accusation she had disposed of.

It made her the Volturi's non-living, non-breathing Ace up the sleeve. She wasn't about to let the Cullens in on that secret now.

"I wouldn't throw my mate out for not having a gift. It wouldn't be right." Caius interjected. "Now, can my agápe enjoy her appetizer or must she continue to starve in front of a perfectly good--"

"No, you musn't kill her!" Alice squeaked.

"Alice, dear, you know the rules." Aro said.

"Bella will be one of us. I've seen it. I'll turn her myself."

That got their attention. Alice wriggled her way out of Felix's grip and pulled off one of her gloves, offering Aro her hand to observe her thoughts. He took it gently, the room growing eerily quiet. Emily looked at Caius, a bit disappointed. She silently wondered where Heidi could possibly be.

"Mesmerizing... to see what you have seen before it's happened." Aro said quietly.

A seer.

"So we're just letting them go?" Emily asked.

"It will happen in due time, dear sister." Aro turned back to Bella. "Your gifts will make for an intriguing immortal, Isabella. Go now."

Emily rolled her eyes.

"Let us be done with this." Marcus finally spoke up. Being honest, Emily forgot he was in the room most times. He rarely ever spoke up. "Heidi should be here soon. We thank you for your visit."

"We advise you to follow through on your promise. We do not offer second chances." Caius hissed. Emily stalked away back to his side, staring at Bella and Edward cooly as the trio were escorted out. Just in time, too. Heidi's tour group was coming closer.

"Riña. Alice. Ziry ebas zyhon." Emily murmured.

"Of course he does." Caius replied. Most people assumed Greek was his first language. In reality his mother tongue was a regional language from the island he was born on. Only Caius knew it and he spent time teaching it to Emily so they could have conversations only they understood. "We've been through this a few times already."

"She's a Cullen."

"It's nothing Chelsea can't fix."

The doors swung open and a group of about twenty-five tourists poured in behind Heidi, chatting and snapping pictures. The doors were locked behind them to prevent escape. Emily's mouth watered and Caius could see her eyes turning black with thirst. Even if she was already hungry, being angry made that kick in tenfold.

Oftentimes when these tour groups came in, Heidi would say a few words to keep up what was left of the tour facade before Aro introduced himself and his siblings. By then, the humans usually caught on to the fact that something wasn't right. Then it was time to feed.

Heidi barely got a single word out before Emily pounced on the closest human to her, a middle-aged woman with big sunglasses and a floppy sunhat. The second her teeth met flesh, the entire room erupted into chaos. She could almost hear Aro's sigh over the noise, but he didn't reprimand her. When she was in this type of mood, she had the appetite of a newborn and there wasn't much use in trying to hold her back.

The other vampires in the room began to catch and kill their own humans, having their fill before letting the excess flow down the drain.

Emily wiped her mouth with the angel style sleeve she wore and stalked out of the room, silently cursing the Cullens with Caius close on her tail.

***

δ ~ Three Months Later ~ δ

"Guesi misenakson Scipio undas." Caius pointed to the line written in the book sat on Emily's lap. It was a history book he had written himself both to preserve his memories of major historical events and his first language. He used them to teach Emily the language and history she hadn't been taught as a child.

"Scipio... ordered that the trees should be... killed?" She translated uncertainly.

"'Felled.' It is a related word." Caius corrected gently. Emily groaned, her head banging against the back of Caius' throne he let her sit on when they were alone. Caius sat on Aro's throne, having dragged it closer to his so he could more easily look at the book. He brushed some hairs out of her face and behind her ear. "Don't get discouraged, agápe. It's a hard language to learn when you didn't grow up speaking it. You've grasped the simple phrases quickly enough."

"Italian was easier to grasp than this." Emily closed the book and ran her fingers over the worn leather cover. She allowed a small smile to form the longer she looked at it. "But I like having a secret language with you. A dead one at that. It makes me feel special."

"You are special. To the coven and to me." Caius replied. Emily rolled her eyes with a smile.

"Of course I am. What would you all do without me?" She replied, leaning closer until their noses were practically touching. "Avy jorrāelan."

"I love you, too, agápe." Caius said with affection etched on his face hearing her use the language. He closed the gap between them, kissing her deeply. Emily kept one hand on the book on her lap while lifting the other to run her fingers through his hair.

"I don't know if I like the gold." She said, pulling back but still holding a lock of Caius' hair between her fingers. "The silvery-blond was more unique."

"Heidi assured me it wasn't permanent. A year or two at most." He replied. Emily smoothed his hair down both sides of his middle part, gilded curtains framing his face.

"It feels softer." She said, leaning back in to smell it. "Is it a new shampoo?"

"If it is, I have no idea."

"It's sweet smelling. I like being burried in your yellow hair." Emily grinned. Caius grimmaced.

"I'm never hearing the end of this from Aro. I've never liked yellow. Silver hair was special back home."

"You're still special." Emily echoed his earlier sentiment.

The double doors opened and a figure walked inside the throne room. Jane threw down the hood of her cloak with a self-satisfied expression.

"Jane, you've returned! Where are the others?" Emily asked, shifting in her seat to face the girl.

"Demetri and Felix are getting cleaned up and my brother is having dinner." Jane said, standing at attention in the middle of the room.

"And what's the status on the situation?" Caius asked her.

"The newborn army in Seattle has been dealt with. They've all been disposed of and their creator, Victoria, is dead. Allegedly she wanted to use the army to attack and kill the Cullen coven in retribution for her slain mate."

"Always the Cullens, isn't it?" Emily sighed.

"And what of Isabella?" Caius asked as Emily gestured for Jane to come closer, to relax. Formalities could be abandoned here The girl strutted forward with an amused smile.

"Still human." She replied. Emily could see Caius grip the armrests tightly, his anger beginning to boil. "They claim a date has been set. Before her birthday at the end of September."

"Those insolent--" Caius started to seethe before Emily rested a hand atop his. They exchanged a long stare, no words needing to be said. Jane sat down on the floor next to the throne Emily was sitting on. She rested her small head against Emily's leg, Emily running her hand over Jane's platinum hair. With them, Jane was allowed to be vulnerable. She was stuck permanently at thirteen, after all; as intimidating as she was to others, she was barely out of childhood.

"I delivered the threat of retribution in your name if they didn't follow through by that date." Jane said.

"Believe me, we'll lead a whole party to make sure they pay." Caius said. Emily gave an amused huff, unearthing an old memory of make-believe raiding parties commanded by a set of dice and her best friend's outlandish ideas. "You did well, Jane. Aro will surely be proud once he returns as well."

Jane beamed.

"I almost want them to miss the deadline." Emily said aloud. "I've fantasized about making Edward Cullen's shovel face explode. Really stick it to that prude Mr. Joseph Smith..."

"I'm sure you'll get that chance regardless. We want to get Alice Cullen and saying they missed a deadline to mend breaking a rule is the perfect chance to do so." Caius said. Emily's face lit up with excitement.

"It's not as exciting as busting them for fostering an Immortal Child, but I'll take it."

"You really liked that trip to Sweden, didn't you?"

"I haven't had that much fun since the Denali's incident." Jane piped up. "Shame you missed it."

"Shame you missed the Massacre of '79." Emily shrugged. "You should go feed, Jane. You've earned a nice rest."

Jane stood up and inclined her head in respect by protocol. She smiled thinly and left out the side door. Emily sighed and sagged her body bonelessly in the throne.

"I'll be glad when this whole Cullen business is done with." She said.

"Unfortunately you'll have the displeasure of meeting Carlisle in person. Self-righeous, prudish, condescending--" Caius said. Emily snorted to cut off his rant. She'd heard plenty of stories about Carlisle over the years and she held no positive regard for him.

"Is there anything he did here that didn't make you turn up your nose?" She asked.

"I started wearing scarves to mock his insistence upon hiding his bite mark, but now I rather like them." Caius held up the end of the red paisley patterned scarf around his neck to punctuate his thought. Emily laughed.

"Options are limited then, huh?" She replied. Caius smirked, taking the scarf from around his neck to wrap it around hers. Emily smiled, burrowing her face in the folds of the fabric. Her voice muffled, she impishly declared "This is mine now."

Caius just laughed and kissed her forehead.

"It looks better on you anyways."