"I'm telling you, I'm telling you, someone is going to get killed. Just mark my words. This was such a bad idea! No, I need to go...I...I need time, so much more time...and now I–I can't breathe. I can't breathe, Nora!"

Bella had been ranting and raving for the last five minutes, and Nora was about ready to explode if she didn't quiet down soon.

They had only just arrived at the Cullens after collecting her from their fathers house; all Nora had been told by Marcus was that they were seeing the family about something important. Something about reforming alliances. That was all.

And she heavily cursed her generous nature that had forced her to convince the unsure men to bring Bella along.

Her sister kicked a stone into the shadowed and still rain wet green shrubbery to their left, hopping around like an anxious rabbit caught in a trap. She wrung her hands, her mouth opening, and Nora let her head flop back with a noiseless groan, a fraction of patience away from clamping her hands over her ears.

"Like, what if they start something? What if they haven't let the whole Edward thing go? What if–"

"Oh God, Bella!" That was it. It had been officially exceeded. There were actually tears in Nora's eyes when her frowning sister stopped in front of her. "I think my ears are bleeding, just–" She got her frantic tone under control, her smile kind but her eyes wide and screaming for peace, "Please, I'm begging you, just stop worrying, 'kay? For the sanctity of my mind."

"I..." Bella pouted her lips, aware she might have been on a bit of a nervous tangent. Embarrassed at the fact the grieving vampires had probably heard her, too, she nodded and sighed, dragging her feet and hauling herself up to sit next to her sister. "Sorry." She mumbled, picking at her sleeves.

Nora knocked into her shoulder with her own, the collision padded by their winter coats, feeling a little bad about her reaction but then a whole lot better when Bella's morose expression lifted. "It's fine. Just chill okay?"

She snuck a side–glare full of prejudice at the house before them from where they sat, on the cold hood of the kings car, dangling legs crossed at the ankles as she picked away at her noir gel nail polish.

It was the cause for all of Bella's frenetic fit, being back there...and she puffed her cheeks, conceding that she was just as nervous and was being a hypocrite, "Although, I've got to say, I'm not totally thrilled we're back here again. This is giving me major deja vu and bad vibes. Maybe the ghost of Edward is loitering or something? Just waiting to jump out and kill us all."

It had been an ill–intended joke that was sort of in bad taste considering they definitely could hear her turn the memory of their family into a punchline, but she half expected to see his mangled and charred corpse dragging itself towards her to enact revenge like something out of Night Of The Living Dead.

If things went according to plan and no dead versions of Edward–ghost or weird vampire, zombie, hybrid...thing alike–tried to murder her like the Volturi had him, then this would be one of the last times she'd have to see the piece of modern junk and its tiresome residents.

They were waiting, though. Which had led to this slow build up of anxiety. They'd been waiting on the gravel for around fifteen minutes to be invited in. Probably a subtle way for the Cullens to get some form of revenge.

There was no doubt Alice knew they had arrived and her psychic abilities made Nora feel good and violated. The woman couldn't help it and of course, Nora retained no grudge or torch of resentment toward Alice. Her subjective precognition was a gift she didn't pick...but having the preemptive knowledge in the back of her mind that her every move could be monitored by and her privacy could become non–existent should Alice wish it?

Yeah. It was not fun. Like, at all.

She saw a quick glimpse of glimmering white skin, the unmistakable perfection of dark yet unruly and choppy hair as Alice twirled past the upstairs window like an elfin ballerina in the direction of the stairs. They had only seconds, a minute at a push before she'd be upon them.

She folded her arms, sighing out, "Finally."

Bella, too, soughed haggardly, a welcome interruption for Nora.

The younger girl scooted to be so close that she plopped her head on Nora's shoulder, playing up her worries and doubts in that heavy, exhausted sound. The snuggle session, for Bella, was partially because she wanted the support and to feel the warm aura her sister naturally radiated and partially so she could be far away from Caius who, as always, was making no effort whatsoever to pretend to like her.

A villainous man like him was not someone she wanted within ten feet of her. The other two weren't so bad now she'd been forced to spend a morning with them—now and the other day—and she had to admit, they were rather docile in comparison.

Still, it hadn't made the car ride or them picking her up any less awkward. It was like some strange, fucked up field trip or odd family vacation, rolling around the plain town of Forks in such an expensive car with men who were three thousand years old and could kill her with a swipe of a hand. She'd felt so out of place she'd debated opening the door and rolling to her death.

She admonished herself mentally, aware she'd basically just ignored Nora while her mind conjured up unpleasant things.

"You've got deja vu? Imagine how I feel." She said when she came back to reality and out of her crosswired, deprecating brain. It had been thrown deeper into desolation, though, by returning to the place some of the worst times of her life had gone down.

She linked their arms at the elbows to solidify that yes, Nora was there and no, she was not alone with the three kings who were keeping their distance to give them their space and let them have some sibling bonding time. "You see why I was freaking out now? This is like a cesspit of bad memories. A graveyard for the 'pleasant times' I had with Fuckward."

As Nora ruptured with wild laughter, she choked it down in a mere second and became grave. The two sisters went rigid and leaned further together.

Nora wasn't laughing anymore. There was a feeling...the one you get when a storm is brewing or a crack of lightning builds in the sky, your hair standing on end and like spooked deer, they huddled together in the prospect of oncoming doom.

The two Swan's stood with a crunch of stone under their shoes, jumping off the kings Rolls Royce with impeccable timing; the door to the Cullen residence flew open and patting Bella on the back to ensure her courage remained, Nora winked down at her and sealed an expression of neutrality on her face that hurt like flames were licking at her skin in its falseness. "Come on, little sis. Time to face the resident disco balls of Forks."

And drum roll of insincere suspense...yep! Nora had been right. It was Alice who swayed out the door, the one they had expected to graciously welcome them with a genuinely incandescent smile.

The Cullens, passive to the end, had sent her to try and keep the peace while they stalled and prepped themselves to play pretend and act nice. It musn't be easy knowing you were going to have to spend the day with the murderers of your son and brother.

Murderers that they already despised enough before all of that shit had gone down.

"Bella!" Alice's tinkling vocals cried out jovially, addictive like a siren's song and chirpy as a lark. She essentially skipped on air rather than the wide steps, engulfing Bella in an eager hug. In her flowing white chiffon dress and knee length black lace up boots she looked just like some sort of grungy fairy.

Nora quite liked her style...if only she was as beautiful as the impish vampire to pull it off.

"I knew you'd come back!" Her delight was so infectious that Nora found a small and awed twinkle of mirth crossing her lips, emblazing her grave face back into its naturally sweet and welcoming disguise.

Of all the Cullens, the little seer wasn't so bad.

She appeared to be the only one who didn't actively hate the Volturi and if she did, she was exceptionally good at hiding it. Nora respected that, but grudges were a natural thing to her. Not so easily avoided. This little woman had still played a part in dumping her in Italy. She hadn't forgotten.

Alice twirled and danced them both around, the result being Bella nearly rolling her ankle over in a painful way that would have given her a sprain if she hadn't managed to right herself on time and to her relief, Alice let her go before her clumsy sister could injure herself. Her gladness at having her best friend back was palpable.

Not very worthy of Nora's short lived relief, her golden gaze was now moving onto her. Crap.

"Nora!" That mesmeric voice was full of so much joy it challenged the infectiousness of Aro's. She broadcasted to all how happy she was to see the unsure woman–livened with the same vivacity as she had been to see Bella. She wrapped Nora in a surprisingly warm hug, negating to spin her around. Alice had a feeling...more like she'd seen Marcus's stern glare from his position leaning against the door of his expensive car, hands in his gravely black suits pockets...that the possessive men wouldn't like that.

Nora accepted the hug without Alice's giddying levels of enthusiasm, patting her on the back, narrowing her eyes into murderous slits at Bella when her sister choked on a snort at how uncomfortable she looked.

Precepts from both Covens would need to be abandoned if they wished to get anywhere with patching things up, which Nora did want to do. It was the whole reason they were there. So, suffocating hugs from Alice that pitted to crush her ribs would have to be endured.

There was a loud and ferine hiss from behind her at her apparent and obvious discomfort; one that was possessive and overprotective and had started out of nowhere. Not needing confirmation of its culprit Nora prayed her eyes up to the heavens for this to be easy and disentangled herself from a now nervous Alice to turn slightly to her left and pin those still narrowed eyes on Caius.

There was an asinine sneer turning his face, beautiful and carved by the most blessed of Gods, into an aggressive mask of malcontent. If he wanted to make a show and claim her as some sort of property of his, which she most certainly was not, he may as well have just pissed on her like an angry little dog to get it over with.

"Baby, please. Shut the fuck up and control yourself. Christ." She burst out in annoyance while he sputtered, embarrassed at having been told off in front of the seer, the mortal and his brothers. The same as a sad balloon out of helium, his ego deflated until it was near nonexistent.

All bark, no bite, he withdrew into himself: a wounded, kicked puppy. When Marcus snickered behind a hand, he added kindling to the fire of Caius's subdued wrath until the withkept flames of anger threatened to perish everyone in a smoldering death.

In his mind, that was.

On the outside, all he did was pout. It was cute. He was cute...and annoying. Maybe more the prior over the former.

Giving Aro who flung his hands up in surrender and Marcus who merely winked at her, scathing cautionary looks to behave unlike their brother, Nora seized both Alice and Bella's dainty wrists and confidently strode up the stairs that led to the door with her head held high as she pulled them along behind her, before shoving them quite uncouthly inside.

"You two run along. We'll be right with you–and Alice?" Said woman turned virtuous but fraught butterscotch eyes onto Nora. "Vampires and clumsy breakable mortals are a recipe for disaster. I'm trusting you. Look after her."

It was a premature warning and Nora watched, nonplussed as she'd expected it but a little annoyed, as her sister stumbled and fell onto her knees trying to keep up with the excited pixie.

With a shout from Alice that she would be 'making no promises,' the two women were gone, Bella lobbying one last pleading pouty wince that had amounted to nothing from Nora when the energetic vampire foisted her up and dragged her away.

Nora loped with much less grace than Alice had down the wide steps towards her mates. She paid ignorance to them in the bias of facing the tree's with a cynical squint. Hands in the deep pockets of her soft crimson coat, she pivoted toward the thick treeline just meters from the house, knowing something was amiss.

Folding her arms across her chest she cocked her hip and smirked, her eyes searching through the murky green darkness. "All right, enough fun and stalkerish games you two. Come on out."

Jane and Felix popped up in a third of a second and bowed dutifully, now on the granite toned steps before her. They had placed themselves in between Aro, Marcus, Caius, and herself. Making sure to bow to them as well, lest they wanted to be rebuked later.

Her favorite bloodhound of a guard was missing as was adorable, babyfaced Alec...both of whom were probably monitoring that sentient trashbag of a 'human' that Aro had shackled up somewhere.

Nora was disappointed, but didn't show it. No need to make Jane jealous.

"You're not very discreet, are you?" Nora told them, scuffing her clunky heeled boot while watching Jane slope her head in an adorable way that was similar to a curious kitten. "You gave up your cover when I saw you shove Felix from his selected tree, Jane."

The little girl stepped forward, about to defend herself and her volatile actions but Nora held up a hand, stilling her dispute. "Before you go there I don't even want or need to know why." She said, grinning at the tall titan of a man when he flapped his arms in exacerbation, smacking them against his sides in reminiscence of an angered, territorial bird.

There were still twigs in his hair, leaves too and such a look mellowed his aloof, unsympathetic appearance. He was actually kind of a dork.

"I can assure you, mia Regina, I did nothing to deserve such barbaric mistreatment in the workplace!"

Nora creased with laughter, the happy girlish giggle doubled with disagreement and reached to pull a particularly large stick from on top of his head, fixing his matted hair for him. "I highly doubt that, Felix. Have you forgotten how you treat people in the workplace? I don't think your endless pranks are very professional. Demitri is often driven to insanity after a guard shift with you...it took him a week to get all of that purple goop out of his hair and you know how much that poor, vain man adores his tumbling, boy band locks."

She tsked and threw the stick to the ground, seeing in her peripherals the way her mates were withholding their laughter at how put out Felix was.

"On top of that, I'm sure my darling little Jane was perfectly justified. I know you now, Felix. You're far from an angel, but if you feel so strongly about it then form a union or something. I really don't care." Nora winked at Jane the way she had with Bella, the small girl sadistically grinning up at Felix when Nora inevitably took her side.

"Touché, Queenliness. I'll let your obvious favoritism slide since you've finally started calling me by my name and not 'big bird'." He countered, but he was as filled with humor as his mistress who had turned a light shade of red, embarrassed at how malign and...like her mother in her behavior she'd been with him up until recently.

Demitri had been the one to make the nickname stick and due to the way Nora had disliked Felix when she had first met him, she had taken it up with vigor, the pair often reduced to being a small version of a mean girl clique around the gentle giant.

The brutish guard shrugged at her as if to say 'no big deal, it is what it is' and edged away from the little blonde that his mistress was too fond of. She was leering up at him and no doubt thought she was untouchable.

Jane could probably zap him with her pain and Nora would find an excuse as to why it wasn't Jane's fault, but Felix didn't mind. The girl frozen at thirteen needed someone like his queen to care for her, to show her that the whole world was not out to get her as the people from her past had been.

Nora's light attitude became charged with unavoidable worry and she half twisted her torso uncomfortably to dejectedly scrutinize the house. She could almost taste the bitterness of the Cullens fear in the air and it grounded her in what was happening. She'd all but just abandoned Bella in there with them.

"Come on," She prompted in urgency, lifting an arm for Jane to slide under so she was wrapped in a side hug.

The girl giggled happily when Nora gave her a squeeze, reminded of her long deceased mother for a short moment before she wiped that from her thoughts, but it was too late for shame. Aro would see the next time he decided to go swimming through the troubled sea of her mind. Jane could only pray he would keep silent about the way she viewed Nora as a maternal figure.

"Leave your Masters to their brooding and their pouting over having to be grown up boys. I'm sure they'll join us when they're ready." Nora flounced away with Jane in tow, not absolving the disgruntled men an iota of attention for their immaturity.

Ever since leaving Seattle that morning they had been acting immaturely, complaining and complaining and complaining about having to go to the Cullens even though it was their idea. Even Marcus had joined in. Nora's suspicions had been ignited...there was something they didn't want her to know.

They couldn't have made it more obvious.

Under their boyish ways, there were nerves dictating their griping. It was an insult to her intelligence that they thought such uncharacteristic objecting wouldn't cause her to be suspicious.

Presently, she had other matters to see to. Her surprise interrogation would have to wait until she could get them alone.

Following her, with the possibility of being punished for it, Felix didn't give a fuck and outright laughed at Nora's freely spoken words he'd have be filleted for had he said them, a bellowing one that made the birds in the canopy and other poor woodland creatures flee from the rowdy noise.

Following behind his queen as well as following her example, he didn't dare look behind him at his Masters. He'd find himself wishing he shouldn't have. That he was sure of.

The group of three disappeared inside and Caius grumbled when they did, feeling suitably put out now he was able to show just how affected he was by Nora. What was worse was he didn't know whether to be angry at the humiliation or turned on by such a sexy, powerful display from her.

His face soured and his bad mood plummeted into dangerous waters and when he focused on his raven haired brother next to him, the whimsical man was smiling like an idiot and giggling like a loon.

His criticism burst from him then.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Our mate is close to figuring out the secret of the army we were supposed to already have told her about and yet you smile as if things are all as pleasant as daisies and sunshine? News flash brother, Nora is cross with us right now and it is certain she will feel much more irate later on. We're in for it tonight. I can feel it." He heralded gravely with the same added theatrics as some psychic from a carnival.

"Calm your dramatacisms and your nerves, Caius. I appear to be the only one who appreciates all the parts of her complex design," Aro sighed out dreamily like a lovesick fool, clapping Caius on the back as Marcus shook his head at him and his eccentricities. "Isn't she just the most stunning creature you've ever seen when she's annoyed? Cosi squisita."

Marcus and Caius leant around him as he stared ahead of himself at something invisible to them; lost in his fanciful mind and all of its oddities and curiosities. They exchanged a derisive look behind his back, fairly concerned but detached about his behavior. Three thousand years with someone as strange as Aro? Eventually, numbness to it was unpreventable.

Caius scoffed weakly, lacking his normal fire as he readied himself to come face to face with their frenemies, choosing to focus on what was to come when they entered. Not before uttering a snide remark, of course.

"You are the strangest man I have ever met, Aro–no. Don't smile. It really was not a compliment."

When they eventually made their way inside and joined Nora things were...odd. Nora did not know what she'd been expecting from this meeting.

Water under the bridge? Surely not.

The Cullens attempting an attack maybe? Sure, she could have seen that happening.

This...yeah, this was not it.

Nora tried to understand the way vampires worked. She really did.

She didn't get it. Even now.

If she was in a similar unfortunate situation, she was sure she could in no way be in the same room as the person who had killed her sister. Especially with the brutality in which the act was committed.

The Cullens, they hadn't let it go, that she could tell, but they were trying to. It was commendable...and it was also bat shit insane.

Nora was sitting with her sister, the only two who actually needed to do so. They were on the uncomfortable dark gray couch pressed to the wall. It was obvious the furniture was more for decoration, and with her two guards positioned in the doorway Nora really felt just–uncomfortable and unable to relax. Out of her element.

Especially when feeling like if she moved a single inch, she was going to break or dirty something that was ridiculously expensive. Like the stupidly ostentatious Tv and its hulking black unit adjacent to her. It looked too fancy for her, and it was full of games and things the vampires she knew would have no time for. On the screen, giving a hint of relaxing amusement, she could see a paused neck and neck game of Mario Kart.

The rest of the room was severe: bookshelves and tables and large wall length windows surrounded by panes crafted from cherry wood.

Copying her unease, there was some mild discomfort between them all and the main catalysts of that were Rosalie and her 'brother,' Jasper. Marcus had whispered of his ability...an empath. His looks were starting to make more sense. He could literally feel everyone's tension and inferred anger. It must have been an exhausting gift to have and Nora didn't envy him. Not one bit.

And Rosalie, well, she was still sore about Caius's attempted dismemberment of her. Who could blame her, really. If the Cullen woman had her way and could have made it possible, he would have been burning in hell or upon some slapdash pyre.

Her wily glare and mutterings of the colorful ways she would kill him were actually working to make him squirm, and Nora did admire her vivacity in the ways she'd go about it: Ripping him to tiny shreds, tearing off his head and displaying it as a pretty little prize on the mantelpiece above the fireplace...just to name a few.

Nora, as a fellow woman wronged by a man, felt she had to appreciate her dedication.

The rest of the family were perfectly amiable and polite, in spite of Rosalie. Bygones being bygones and all of that pleasant bullshit needed to save this.

It was indisputable that what had happened to Edward was not the Volturi's fault, that it wasn't Bella's or Nora's–it had been a fate of his own design and workings and he had suffered the rightful punishment like any other would have for pulling a stunt like his.

After their concise greetings, however, the Cullens had immediately committed a blunder, dropping the kings into dangerous waters. They had brought up the newborns and Nora...Nora was beyond the point of no return. The Cullens were not at fault. Nora was expected to have been told by now...and she was furious.

Another secret? Another almost–but–not–quite lie? Another round of others deciding what was best for her when they lied and pretended she had that control herself? When they'd–not long enough to have forgotten with their advanced minds—had a long little chit chat with her about how she hated exactly this?

Their deceit just kept piling up.

"The what?" Giving them the chance to deny it, she looked to the three for guidance when the animal killers turned into the stone sculptures of lost time that they were.

But they, too, were reacting strangely. Caius had a hand over his eyes as a shield from the burrowing disgust in hers, Marcus was avoiding her and pretending to find interest in the paused Mario Kart game but Aro...

Aro was wordlessly pleading to her again with that look: the one that meant he had done something. Something he didn't want her to get mad about.

It was too late for that. She could feel her anger simmering like a bubbling, viscous liquid in an overboiling pan, waiting to destroy any who dared try and snuff and control it.

"Someone explain. Now."

And the one to do so, after plenty of thick ticking seconds of an awkward air, had been her sister.

So now, Nora was back in the loop. She knew that a female vampire called Victoria had been hunting and taunting Bella as revenge for the death of her psychotic mate James, who had made the mistake of fancying Bella a light afternoon snack and had gotten himself torn into pieces of chargrilled vampire jerky for it.

She knew that the La Push boys were werewolves. Shapeshifters was the true and used term, but she was forcibly of the opinion that werewolves just sounded so much cooler.

It was their responsibility and the whole point of their furry counterparts' existence to keep the town safe from vampires and apparently, Victoria had been evading them for quite some time, playing with them like the mutts that they were.

Such taunts and words of scorn were of Rosalie's input, not hers. Nora was nowhere near that level of bitchy toward the innocent boys.

The icing on the cake for poor Bella, the true shocker–note the sarcasm–was that Jacob was being a whiny asshole and had been avoiding her little sister since she had come back from Volterra. Bella had been calling and calling and he'd given her nothing, even when knowing Edward was no longer in the picture. Nora had thought now Bella was single, he'd shoot his shot.

Kids game was nonexistent, evidently.

The influx of new knowledge had gone on and on, so now Nora was also aware that the disappearances in Seattle, the very same she had been privy of existing only days ago thanks to a news report, were the result of someone creating an army of newborn vampires. Deadly. Precise. Driven by bloodlust and made only to maim and devastate all in their path.

Whoever had created them meant business; they meant revenge and Nora had full heartedly agreed with Bella that Victoria was the culprit.

That had been shot down by the Cullens in regards that 'Alice would have seen it.' Nora called bullshit—Alice's visions could be damned for all she cared. The seer was not infalible from all that Nora knew of her gift. She could be toyed with if one was smart enough to understand how.

Lastly–the horrid icing on her disgusting cake of lies–she knew she was livid with her mates. Not so much a surprise these days as it was as common as the arduous task of breathing.

Their reputations be damned, they had all clamored for a chance to explain themselves when she'd given them the deepest, hottest, most seething look of guaranteed consequences for their actions and the Cullens were...surprised? No, more than that. Appalled.

It was almost sickening for them to see how much their three leaders were wrapped around Nora's finger. A human. A single, mortal woman. Rosalie's respect for the elder Swan skyrocketed at having such powerful men practically groveling at her feet.

Especially when Nora hadn't bowed down or accepted anything they said. All the excuses they'd given, she'd heard before. It was for her protection, it was better she did not know, it was better...blah blah blah.

What it really was, was a load of horse shit that she refused to buy.

The only one she had heard out was Marcus. Her cinnamon roll. Her sweet and charming giant who was the incarnation of 'still waters run deep.'

He was a terrible liar. Absolutely awful. She'd known something was wrong with how shifty and quiet and distant he had been with her the last few days. He had not been himself. It wasn't all that much of a shock to discover he had been the only one who wanted to tell her from the beginning and as he so painfully put it, he'd been 'outvoted' and thus, she had been left blissfully unaware.

Outvoted. The fuckers. As if they had any right to treat her like some sort of object who could not make her own sensible choices.

Fundamentally and in true honesty, Nora would not have been so annoyed or angered by this in normal circumstances. If things had not been worrisome enough as they were, what with it too fresh a wound that she had learned of Aro's secretive ways–which was putting it kindly—she might have been divulged to let it go. But not now.

No fucking way.

What this transgression really was? Bare faced lies and to discover this from the Cullens, too. It was a bad fucking joke.

To learn of this on top of Aro's deceit about Joshua had pushed her to the very edge of her patience and she knew not why they struggled so much to be honest with her and keep her in the loop. There was much to speculate: it could have been to do with her mortality, with the fear that her being human made her fragile and they foolishly surmised they were saving her from a grim fate. One her conscious mind and fragile heart could not prevail to handle.

The likelihood that they were delusional enough to believe such duplicity was helping her was the reality she had accepted as the truth–but not one she would accept as necessary. Whatever the reason...justified, unjustified, it didn't matter. They were going to learn the hard way what happened when they disrespected her value.

Nora wasn't the only one who was putrefied to her very core at the lack of being treated like a human. Her demure little sister and the fiery Rosalie, much to her shock and pride, had both turned rather nasty. Sometimes it paid to be quiet, but when Bella had learned how often the kings kept things from Nora–for her 'protection', Caius had tried to reason and defend their decisions–she had been just as miffed with the lot of them and her shy presence had run away from her, replaced with a fire so similar to her sisters. In that moment the kings had truly started to view Bella as Nora's sister.

And Rosalie, well she had no problem letting them know how disgusting their outdated views were.

So now, Nora had opted to put a lid on the desire brewing deep in her soul to roast the absolute shit out of them and had shifted everyone's focus back to the situation that had become the number one priority.

Aro, Caius and Marcus were grouped cautiously around the couch she resided at. Nervy, as if at any moment, she would spring up and devour them.

Marcus was brave, sitting on the arm, his hand in hers, his thumb working to relax her shaking grip made so by the adrenaline coursing through her veins. He was the only one she was allowing near her and that was simply because she believed him when he said he had wanted to be transparent with her from the start.

But the other two...so much alike, more than they cared to admit, were not being offered the same treatment. They stood beside Marcus, both wearing angry frowns of differing levels and both lacklusterly aiming them at their gentle and diplomatic brother who could do no wrong in the eyes of Nora. How quickly she forgot that while he might have protested it, Marcus did nothing to actually help her see through their withholding of the truth.

Caius, of course, was the most visually disturbed. He was more than angry, more than upset, more than just simply aggravated but Aro wasn't far behind him in his attitude.

In an odd and unknown place such as this where the unpredictable was waiting to happen, to hear her thoughts like he did on the daily would have been a blessing for the touch starved telepath. They were a steady stream, caring and bright and full of genuine love. Genuine care for all around her and he enjoyed the pattern of them, the light in them that calmed the erratic, seedy mess in his own mind; the way they gave him strength and resilience, but she was denying him and he felt similar to a drug addict cut off from their supply. Desperate and willing to do anything to get his next fix.

Nora stayed implicit to their pandemonium. Other matters were of more importance and the Cullens. Vampirism aside...they were remarkably puzzling people, the strangest that Nora had the misfortune of crossing paths with in her life. They stood around her own menacing coven with freakish smiles stretched on their faces, even as Bella was being driven to frantic lunacy so unlike her at their unbudging views of the situation they'd all gathered for.

"It's Victoria!" Bella was adamant, saying this for the fifth time in the last five minutes. Nora dodged an elbow from her flailing arm that nearly broke her nose, saved by the grace of Marcus. Vampiric instincts were a blessing and he smoothly maneuvered her out of Bella's destructive path with a hand on her elbow. Her sister's raving continued, "She's the one behind it! Why is that so hard for you all to believe?"

Rosalie flipped her tumbling curls over her shoulder so they fell like a liquid gold waterfall down her back. If she wasn't so perpetually angry Nora would have really thought her some ancient Greek Goddess who'd made a life for herself among the common mortals.

But no. Her scowl, permanent and stiff as if she were a carved marble Grecian effigy of Aphrodite, was too unbefitting.

"Bella, Alice would have seen her make the necessary decisions. There's no way it's her and there's no way Alice would have missed it. Why can't you believe that?" She crossed her arms over her ample bosom, waiting for a response but Bella blushed a hot pink at the nasty overtones in her voice that was as beautiful as her face. She was making Bella out to be a stupid thickhead, her ridicule as shrewd and bitterly cold as Caius's scathing attitude.

Nora refused to stand for it.

"Because she is not underestimating our enemy." Nora replied in turn, not flinching when Rosalie moved her fox–like eyes over to her, the dark lashes surrounding them making their gold hue more of a forbidding yellow. "It's foolish to believe it's not this ginger bitch. She is the only one with a motive, the only one who would go to such lengths and I'm sorry but is her basically stalking Bella not enough proof that she likes to be known and feared? She likes the theatrics, to go to the extremes and she wants Bella to be afraid–but she wants her dead more than anything. Lest you forget, you all played a part in James's demise. It's not just Bella who should be afraid. She wants you all killed for it. It's unfortunate that Bella is the easiest target."

Marcus squeezed her hand, once. Then two more times when she shot a quick grin up at him for it. He quickly, eagerly and with such resilience  threw a proud smile back down at her for her cleverness before Rosalie spoke up again with even more venom coating her not–sugar–coated opinion.

"Then tell me, my Queen, how has Alice not seen her? Hm? It's not possible. No one escapes Alice's sight."

"Hold your tongue, you vapid wench–"Caius bristled at her mockery of Nora's title, as did Aro, but the appointedly mocked 'queen' held a finger to her lips and they miraculously quieted.

There was determination weighing in the blue of Nora's eyes and the furrowed angle of her brows. They wanted to see where she was going to go with her point and if they had to hold their silver tongues wanting to unleash verbal fury, so be it. She had been magnificent to watch so far.

"Overestimation." Nora said, slightly smug when Rosalie and the rest of the Cullens looked down at her, confused. It seemed she was going to have to take them through every step of her thoughts on this. Did eating animals instead of humans make vampire's stupid? "You overestimate Alice's abilities. Her gift is subjective, no? Based on the choices of the person she is watching? A little bit unreliable?"

Nora was going off a thought Bella had voiced and been ignored for: that Victoria might be using someone as a puppet. It was a genius insight, one only someone who had been the pinnacle of this hungry revenge seeking creature's attention could observe.

Nora was...surprised the Cullens hadn't thought of it, but as she was finding out, they were much too cocky to think any could outsmart them.

Alice, who was slightly unnerved at being implied to that her gift was not as impressive as others always thought it to be, nodded as confirmation.

Nora shrugged her shoulders, crossing her legs. She kept herself guarded and professional. A move she had learned from her mates who were doing the same. "Then there is your answer. She is not the one making the decisions. Not any major ones, that is."

A bright spark of realization seemed to light all of their once dark, fault–seeking eyes at the same time, the entire family sharing worried glimpses of guarded concern that quickly developed into sudden fear.

If Nora was right...there was so much they had missed. So much they had overlooked in their arrogance.

The fact that one of the people Alice had seen, Riley Biers, was a local and was recognizable kind of solidified that Nora was right. He was the leader, young. Impressionable. A good pick. It would have been easy for Victoria to keep domain over him from the shadows.

"She's playing with you I'm afraid, Alice." Nora informed the pixie who was virtually shaking in her designer shoes, feeling obligated to continue.

Their shock was something she'd expected but it meant little enough to stop her. Alice's feelings–all of theirs, they equaled nothing but an obstacle to be pushed aside to Nora. The only one who mattered was the one Victoria wanted most. Her baby sister.

"She's a clever one. She was aware you'd suspect her, aware you'd keep tabs. Having someone else do all of the dirty work so she appeared innocent when you checked in on her means she knew you wouldn't rope her into it. More opportunity for her to make sure things go according to her plan. Just as you've been watching her, she's been learning about you all, too. The way you think, what you'll do. It's a major possibility she knows just how shaky Alice's powers are if she keeps her decisions constantly changing."

Nora was on a tangent now, mind in overdrive as she thought more on it, but no one tried to stop her. They'd be hard pressed to argue with such reason. "I mean, people are complex. Our minds are working and reevaluating all the time, rapidly veering to different courses and paths. She knows that and she's the Master of Puppets in this game. You have no idea who she's controlling, who's deciding all the vital things but whoever it is, she's been hiding behind them."

"Shit..." Emmett blurted, mumbling a quick, "Sorry, Mae," when Esme lightly smacked him on the arm, but his shell shock still numbed him and left him airy, "Shit, man. We fucked up big time."

His response had broken the building tension and with nervous chuckles, he wrapped a loose, beefy arm around a stumped Rosalie's waist whose beautiful visage was twisted as she struggled to accept Nora's explanation as the truth. It was like she was sucking on a very tart lemon.

Emmett's eyes were set on no one else but the Volturi leaders...and there was suspicion in them. Suspicion was something Nora had been anticipating from them. Veggie vampires so far had proved themselves to be so much more prejudiced than their human drinking brethren. Distaste for the Volturi's diet and distaste for their position were working to break this fragile misalliance.

"I'm assuming you've had your guards monitoring this if you're staying right in the middle of it?"

Aro pressed the tips of his fingers together, subtle anger at the assertion of deceit in Emmett's voice awakening like a great leviathan in the cherry red depths of his eyes. Even in his simple human clothes rather than his normal garb of refined suits, he still looked poised and elegant. None there were daring to look down on him.

None but Emmett. Brave, outspoken, foolish Emmett.

"Indeed we have, young one. What is your point?" He serenyly asked, when if you knew him well enough, beneath the screen of that smile that bestowed ease, he was on the precipice...a faulty gasket, ready to blow.

Emmett lifted his head. A challenge of their authority and control. True to his fighter appearance, he turned away the fear incited base reaction to back down. "Well, they had to have seen if Victoria was involved? Why haven't you put a stop to it already?"

The younger vampire was clearly trying to imply that they weren't doing their jobs right. Caius reached his boiling point. He'd been trying, really he had. Almost despairingly to hold his tongue.

The Cullens...they just had a special way of making him reach and exceed the limits of his anger. It was impressive as it was annoying and now at the turn of allegations, he enthusiastically subjugated control and let his angrier side take the reins.

"You foolish dult! If she is aware of you, she will be aware of us too. She most likely knows her little band of unruly children are being watched by us intently. What self respecting person with crimes as severe as hers would openly flaunt themself in front of the Volturi elite guard? A person with a death wish. Have you not been listening, you ingrate? Because that is not who we are dealing with." He was hurling all of this with increasing volume and unruly unpredictability at the muscled vampire, stepping around the side of the couch so he stopped in front of Nora.

It was subtle, she noticed, but he was leaning slightly and using himself as a barricade in case any tried an attack. She was still hurt...but that was sort of sweet.

Damn it.

"As my sweetheart stated, this Victoria is a smart woman. She is calculated and driven purely by revenge. Do not make the mistake, however, of assuming her stupid. Whatever her plans for this heathenous army of hers are, they are well thought out. Every step. Every move. You have incurred a formidable foe in this woman and Nora is right. You underestimate her...it will get you all killed." As he finished with not so subtle joy over that last part he hoped would come true, his powerful voice echoed in the room.

"No. There has to be another explanation." Jasper insisted, defending his own wife's virtue with the same vigor Caius was Nora's intelligence.

The Cullens just had to ignore all of that which was undeniable, they just had to be idiots and reinstate Alice's omnipotence in their eyes. It was ridiculous ignorance and Nora wasn't about to put up with it any longer. She wanted to go back to Seattle, shovel some painkillers down her throat and kick back with some wine, some chocolate and maybe a nice anti–oxidizing face mask to rid herself of the pollution of the cullens idiocy seeping into her pores.

"Look," Nora got to her feet to step closer to the offensive coven, sliding out of Aro's cautionary hold as his hand fell on her shoulder to stop her, Marcus's protective hands gripping at her hips.

She escaped them and stopped, shoulder to shoulder with an intrigued Caius, "I understand where you're all coming from, I do. You've relied on Alice's powers for so long that the thought of anyone being able to outsmart her will seem impossible. You've relied on my Coven thanks to their position in your world to clean up this mess, but the Volturi assess their enemy before they make a move so that they can suffer as little casualties as possible. We can whine and moan and hate each other all day long, but I am trying to think of everyone in this situation–not just my sister or my family."

Emmett and Rosalie backed off and sensibly locked away their resentment. It was only the legitimate distress and care in her speech, and in the way she was looking at them that made that possible. At the entire Cullen family. She was rotating her wild yet heartfelt stare from them all so determinedly it was hard not to be convinced by her.

"I don't know jackshit about armies," She confessed somewhat sheepishly, missing Caius's small awed smile, "Least of all a fucking legion of savage vampire babies. I don't know how easy it will be to defeat them, I don't know if any of you will lose your lives but what I do know is we have to work together in this. We have to be a team. We can speculate about each other's motives and characters after the battle has passed us. Until then, we have to stand united. Do you understand? Or you will never be rid of her."

It had been an inspiring speech. To the ones who listened, that is.

The six vampires the bane of her existence, they still weren't convinced.

All her valiant spiel lead to was a fucking parade of inasinty, led by none other than Carlisle Cullen. He stepped forward, and she massively tuned it all out and flopped defeatedly back down. What was the use in arguing with crazy, anyway?

To him, it was as if she hadn't spoken a word as he became locked in a battle with Caius, instead: one in denial of their aid and the other relentlessly trying to give it, in spite of his repulsion over that.

She knew Caius was just trying to help her, but she face palmed.

They were going to be there all day.

Morning bled into the golden tones of a sunny afternoon, and after a lot of talking they had finally managed to be convinced, finally coming to an agreement in solemn respect for Nora's diplomacy. They would work together to think of a solution.  Help each other like she had wanted because she was right. If they didn't band together, the ones to end up dead would not be her coven and as much as she was beginning to despise them, the Cullens deserved to live. Not to be brutally destroyed by an army unfairly encumbered upon them.

And quite frankly? Nora felt brain dead after listening to that back and forth. They'd been at it for hours, all grouped around a table to strategize. It was punctuated, however, with constant pleading looks from her mates that begged the belief of their anticipated cavalcade of pleads she was in for later, and she was dreading it.

The constant chatter, the uncomfortable numbness of her legs, the ache in her spine and coccyx, the shuffling of Bella next to her and the growling of her clearly hungry stomach, the thick atmosphere of mutual respect but heavy hate–it was all too much.

She stood unexpectedly, her ears ringing, effectively halting all discussions.

Ignorant of their worried looks, she focused on no one in particular, only on banishing the anxietous ache of nerves–that feeling of osticious dread in her chest.

"You lot feed my starving sister, strategize or whatever," She waved a hand at Jane when the girl went to fall into step behind her as she moved to leave the room, the pout on the little girls lips cute but not appreciated as much as it would be if Nora wasn't so overwhelmed by every small thing. She was far too lost in thought and decisive about her plans, "I don't care, really. I'm going for a walk. No one bother me, if you know what's good for you."

She left, grateful when there was no sound of anyone following her...nothing but all of the eyes in the room.

She needn't have been grateful for long. Making it impressively quickly outside, just about to disappear into the foliage and have a calming stroll along the hiking trails right on the Cullens doorstep, she rolled her eyes when she heard the faint sound of the door creaking open.

"Nora."

She gave them nothing, shoving her hands in her pockets to escape the chill of the cold afternoon mist.

Caius huffed when she continued as if she couldn't hear him. Flabbergasted, he closed the door and still tried not to scare her, running to catch up with the pitiful speed of a mortal. "Nora, wait–" He caught her elbow as she trudged grumpily along the trail, her face just as unhappy when she let herself be turned. He still smiled. "Please, just let me talk to you."

"Then multitask, if you can manage that with being a simple minded man. I'm not stopping." She turned back around and left him in the dust. He'd been frozen by the pure anger in her voice, but this was imperative to fix and he wanted to try his hand before gentle Marcus or the manipulative Aro could give it a go or step in.

He didn't bother keeping the human pace, setting his teeth on edge, quickly molding to her side in half a second. She didn't even flinch or acknowledge him, head pointed straight but eyes set on the cloudy sky peeking through linear leaves.

They were silent for some time, until she tripped over a root with the typical clumsy Swan fashion and barked a nasty 'I'm fine' at him when he kindly steadied her and saved her from a mouthful of dirt and moss.

That was it.

He peered over his shoulder, deducing they were far away enough from the Cullen clans home to have some undisturbed privacy. He pulled her to a stop again, a little less kind and a lot more harsh, his physical and mental frustrations fueled by her quiet contemplativeness and undertones of anger. "Would you just stop? What is the matter with you?"

"What's the matter with me?" She exploded in her disbelief, cheeks flushing–from the cold or from her rage, he had no ability to discern. Both would have done the job of creating that angry a red. She ripped her arm away from him, scoffing emotionally as she stepped back to create a rift between them. "The better question is what the hell is wrong with you?"

Did he just miraculously forget she was angry with him? Because, as always, he was trying to sweep his involvement in their little secret under the rug, looking at her as if butter wouldn't melt.

His countenance he'd set off with of this–will–be–so–easy–to–fix fell, the steel in her tone and her face and her unreceptive touch, even going so far as to move away from his fingers that sought out her hand, enough for him to glean she was really mad. More than he'd ever seen her.

"You know we are sorry for leaving you out of it, carissima. It was a mistake, and I apologize, but nothing more than that can be done." He risked the failing idea of trying to uplift her.

This had the opposite effect as to what he desired it would. Instead of lulling her so she might stop watching everything he did with such anger, it made that worse. It enraged her.

She scrunched her nose, her fists balling, marching to and fro in front of him in a reminiscent way he would if he were angered. "And how often you all seem to make such mistakes! Especially when involving me. What, you apologized? So you think I should feel all better at the expense of my own feelings and the right I have to be upset. Is that what you're saying?" She was taunting him and kept her hands crossed over her chest as some kind of barricade to keep him from clocking that beneath her frostiness, she felt vulnerable. It was a futile move to shield her heart from any more pain.

"No." He flung back, just as disdainful, his forehead and mouth set in a scowlish frown. She would have been frightened if she weren't his equal, which she reminded herself she was. She was marked now. With him, they were fairly matched. On the same playing ground. "I am simply saying not to dwell on what is now the past. Gods, we were trying to help you–"

"Help?" She laughed, ill–humored, her fast steps slowing into idle movements. She hadn't meant to interrupt, but then why should she care if that hurt him when they never meant for their own actions to hurt her but were fully aware of the chance that they could? They still did it anyway, even with the risk. This seemed worth it. "Help me how exactly? We're right in the center, Caius! I'd say that's pretty damn far from how you should be helping me!"

He laughed now, too. It was not kind and it was not patient and she gulped, finding her throat suddenly bone dry as it had been the night before for a vastly different reason. As it always was around him. There was a...vibe, a part of Caius that even when she knew she'd be fine, that he wouldn't hurt her or dare to dream of it, he still could drag her under waves of numbing fear.

It was a chilling, stabbing sound and he had never let himself be so cruel to her, but that meant he wanted her to grasp what he was going to say entirely. Their newly strengthened bond made it so she did feel it. Inexorably, the cold of his cruelty practically encapsulated her like a suffocating blanket.

"If we had told you there was an entire army of deadly vampires speculating about murdering your sister, would you have been able to sleep at night? Would you have been able to cope?" He didn't need a response and he didn't possess the patience to wait for one, leaning cooly against a tree to take her in as she gaped like a fish for a defense, "It's a no, isn't it?"

Yes, her silent expression of anguish said.

He nodded, softening his stern tone, "You are suffering too greatly as of late, Nora. You are painfully human, my love and it is not a bad thing. It only means there is a limit to the hardship your mind can take. It was not fair or just to make the decision for you, but we did. It is done. You know now and we are working toward a solution to save your sister and her surrogate family from death. Is it not best to let any resentment pass?"

Let it pass? Was it...was it just that easy for them?

It never was for her. Not anymore.

She was used to being forgiving. That was who she was, but even her mercy and leniency had boundaries–there were some things you couldn't come back from, and their tally was piling up in favor of never seeing her sweet side again.

Caius pushed himself up from his lax slouching to be at his full height. He towered over her, a thing he couldn't control, and it was silly to be flummoxed into fear by that while her thoughts howled and went exponential, but she would not cower. Never would she give him the satisfaction, if that was what he was after.

It seemed he hadn't stood to intimidate her. Instead, he sighed and touched hesitant hands to her arms. No resistance came.

"Come here, pretty girl." He carefully encouraged and furthered his advances, his hands sliding up her biceps to lay over her back. She was now pulled into him, a cheek on his chest, her arms breezing around his waist to rest grudgingly against the sloping, tight muscles and elegant blades of his shoulders.

"I know I'm harsh sometimes, Nora. That I'm difficult and cruel and just...genuinely an unpleasant person. A cocky bastard who doesn't even try to be better than those derogatory things the vampire world thinks of me and paints me out to be. But I never want to be that for you or have you look at me like I am, or think that I could treat you with the same disdain and lack of any real empathy and sentiment like I do with others by my actions against you. I will not. Ever." He'd have sworn by the bible and kneeled before her like she was his Saint if it would get her to believe him.

And he was right. He was all of those foul things. That was just who he had chosen to be to be in the limelight that came with his infamy. Yet, it wasn't truly him. Not inside. Not really.

No, under the surface he was sweet. He could be kind and selfless and devoted and he was capable of so much love for the world around him that only seemed to despise him. It was just a shame he kept that hidden and chose to live as his other persona's.

To her he was the Artist, the man who loved and was full of wonder. To the world he was a butcher...an executioner. The brutal Warrior. The callous King.

And she hated that nobody could see him like she could. She really did.

"I am sure that you don't understand where our decisions or our choices come from when you are involved." He said, the words uttered into her hair after moments of her not responding and to her silent delight, he swayed them slightly from side to side.

The action had always brought her peace and her frosty disposition to him wavered, her meekly clenched body releasing some tension and sinking into him, she even nuzzled her cheek into his chest. A light and miniscule smile lifted the frown from his lips at her returned affection. "I am also sure you feel cheated and jaded and kept out of the loop. Abandoned when you feel like you need our honesty the most. I can tell you that it is not so, little dove. Everything we do, every move we make, you are the driving force behind it all and I am sorry. Truly I am that we keep things from you. That we lie and we scheme and we withhold things you consider vital knowledge. But...I am regretful to inform you that I will continue to do so if I consider it the better option for your mental health."

She wanted to protest that her mental health was fine. That she was fine. Caius disagreed.

He drew back from their mending embrace and cupped his hands vehemently under her jaw, giving her nowhere to go and no cause to escape, fingertips pushing lightly through her hair around her ears and laying against her scalp. There was no chance to vanish, no other choice but to gaze up into his crimson eyes shining with brutal honesty he had deemed her needing to hear.

"Your pain is your own. One that I may not understand Nora, but it haunts me day and night, just as it does you–as if it were my burden to bear, too. We are bonded," He implored her to realize just what that meant, knowing she didn't fully grasp just how deep their connection rooted them within each other, "I know, sweetheart."

"You...know?" Aimless, she quoted him, squinting her eyes like that would help her understand any better and he nodded, steadfast against her confusion.

What did he know?

"I do. You've been lying to yourself. To me, to Marcus. Aro the exception because of his invasive talents, but it makes no difference. You can continue to do so to my brother, but you cannot to me. Not anymore."

She didn't get it, didn't see the point he was trying to make so clear.

What had she lied about?

He shook his head, his thumbs touching and stroking her cheeks. He feared, if he took this step, if he said this...that it would be the last time he'd get to. He hoped this revelation wouldn't distance her as he feared it might. "You let me get closer to you in a way I am so proud of you for, but I don't think you fully understand just what that means. Nora, I feel it, even right now. This second. This moment...that you try, that you're always trying so hard to be alright and I admire that so much about you, sweetheart. Your strength and resilience are qualities I know you try and keep to shadow over the pain, to convince those you love that you are fine and there is nothing to fear for you so that you might save them from the same heartache, but do not stand there and tell me that if you were to take any more, it would not break you. We both know it would."

She tried to show that very strength he commended and condemned all at once, attempting to get away before he could see the pain latched forever onto her soul.

He shushed her, touch unrelenting to release her but so gentle she could have just let herself escape into the solace he provided her.

He was begging now, face pinched in earnest bereavement. For her denial and shame...and for himself. For finally accepting the reality of the unspeakable that had been done to her. He would not let the neurosis she pretended so diligently didn't exist consume her.

She wasn't struggling to escape her demons anymore, especially not when he kissed her forehead with a sad smile that broke the barrier walled around her tired, finished soul. "Don't. Do not ask me to let you suffer in it when I have the chance and the power to change it. The opportunity to let you live in peaceful reprieve from what the world has done to you...if only for a little while. Please, never ask that of me."

To add to her hysteria, his voice had splintered with sorrow, beaded tears of venom pushing and building and desiring to spill down his cheeks, though they never would.

Nora had to take a few seconds to recoup, gaping up at him. Caius had never, ever, ever 'cried' in front of her. He must have been deeply worried and such a sight added new meaning to his words.

"Hey, shhh. It's alright. I'm alright, Cai." He nodded and closed his eyes in bliss when she reversed their roles so she was the one cradling his face between her hands. His fell to hold her bent elbows so she could not pull her warm touch away that was working to oust his consuming distress for her.

It was all true. Inside, she was...dying. On a daily basis. No love, no joy, nothing could overcome the pit of despair that would one day try to ruin her for good. She didn't need saving, she didn't see the point when it was easier to pretend and ignore that one day things would catch up to her, but it was also easier to let the three men who showed her everything didn't have to be dark any longer attempt to find her salvation.

Caius was right, she realized. A heart aching truth. Anymore of this and it would just speed up the process of her mental decline and looking at him, really looking at him, seeing how he truly felt for the first time since his discovery of her depressing past. She understood.

"I'm sorry." She said, and there was no grasping why she had except for the fact that it had been his face. Normally so impassive, so shrouded with reassurance in everything he did. Now, it was twisted. With pain and with hurt. Her hurt, absorbed and made his own.

That face...melting into a real expression of agony that she kept below the surface every day. So people wouldn't know–just how much, and only sometimes...how much she didn't want to be here.

It hurt her so much. More than anything that had been done to her or would be done to her to see it on him. To see the lie of peace she lived in right in front of her.

Most of all though, she surmised that she was sorry for her. She was sorry to herself, that his observation, his truth thrown in her face...that it made it all real. For when left untouched, unspoken of in her mind, in the background of conversations, in the past as she tried to thrive in the present, she could pretend it was fake.

Yet, she understood now. Why they did what they did, why they had lied and not told her. Because for all her efforts to live in her ruse of tranquility they still saw her for who she really was just as she saw them. The good, the bad, the ugly pain she just couldn't shake, the unhealthy habit of surviving in a make–believe world of good. And they understood. They accepted her in spite of it, including it.

It was this that pushed a small grin, minuscule really and somehow not feeling right, onto her face to make him see. "I promise I'm fine."

He didn't believe her, blank in expression but even for vampires, the eyes...so expressive, a doorway to the soul he suspected was nothing but a wilted, bleak rose. And in their complex depths they spoke the hints of his refusal to believe her.

"I am." She insisted, and she had no problem over explaining so he'd stop looking at her as if he'd never forget the harrowing, blackened state of her own soul. Just as mangled as his, entwined in their ruin. "Really, Caius, I am because I know with you three that everything is going to be okay in the long run. I mean, it still pisses me off when you make choices for me, but I know you were just trying to help in your own...fucked up way a–and..."

His eyes widened and their dynamics switched again, because Nora was the one on the brink of crying, her moods doing a severe 180. "That's so sweet of you, to be so worried about me. All the time. To understand me like no one else seems to even try to and G–god I'm falling apart here." She stated woefully and that's all it took for her to melt so easily into harsh tears that wracked her whole body and made it jolt with each sharp cry.

Caius had no idea how this had all escalated in the span of ten seconds. How their argument had turned into this. This: the validity of his words. The confronting reality to her that he'd been right. What he was aware of was that he was not about to just leave her so emotionally wrecked. Not when he was there to pick up the puzzling pieces of her sadness.

"Oh, hush now. Come on, it's alright sweetheart." He consoled this time when her small and irregular cries turned into hearty sobs, pulling her by her elbows back into his chest so she was sandwiched and squished against him. "I'm sorry, sweet donna. I didn't mean to make you upset. What's brought this on all of a sudden, hm?" He asked, considerately soft as he stroked a hand against her hair.

"I'm just still sad about it, that's all." She confessed, sniffs and wobbling, pitchy tear clogged words deadened, her face hidden entirely.

He frowned at the air in regret and indecision, trying to think of anything to win her forgiveness. "What can I do, sweetheart? What do you need to know that I am sorry?"

"...Are you?" There was a strange aura about her now, the sadness receded. He couldn't identify it, and her tears had dried and were no longer staining his shirt–not that he even cared. He'd endure the worst sessions of torture for her, measly tears were nothing.

Offended, he tried to remain calm and kind, not increase the levels of her upset so she was inconsolable. He squeezed her, feeling a little better when she hummed pleasantly because of it. "Of course I'm sorry. How could you think I'm not?"

"Because I need you to show me you want my forgiveness." When she did step back and pull away from the restraints of his arms that almost refused to let her go, he became apprehensive at the smile on her face. Not tears, no cries. A big smile, rife with mischief.

Where the woe had gone? He didn't know. But what was it to dwell, to make her sad again when he'd urged her to move on?

She was...purposefully pushing his limits. Purposefully trying to rile him with that pretty little grin.

He mirrored it back, relieved that she felt better but eager to play the game. The tension between them was thick, never felt before, electricity crackling around them as the after effects of their strong emotions from the fight fizzled and fused into something playful and almost...lustful.

"I don't think I believe you. I can't feel it." She sighed, tilting her head and ghosting her fingertips over the damp spots on his shirt.

She felt his chest raise as he breathed in deeply, and she knew he was losing control. He wanted to play, but this tense air of possibility between them shortened his patience for that.

"Shall I make you feel it?" He challenged, his height swathing his downward tilted face in breaking shadows. The only thing not hidden...eyes that were now black hues of something potent, the meaning behind his stare obvious. Hunger. "I won't beg." He whispered and moved, the glittering screen of overcast light revealing a predatory smirk. "I won't plead. But I'll make sure you know that I am bound to you. That I respect and cherish you."

He shoved her back, crowding into her space with a stern face but a twinkle in his eye, and she winced but felt a thrill prickle along her skin as the rough russet bark of a massive sequoia tree dug into her back through her clothes.

No time. No air. She was dizzy, but Caius didn't care. He let his frustration from their fight bleed out and crushed his mouth to hers in a stinging, smothering, breath stealing kiss. She tried to keep up, to kiss back, but he had no interest in letting her have an ounce of control, slamming seeking hands to the tree by her wrists.

As she'd wanted, as he'd said, he was showing her just how he felt. It was rushed, with the fear of being caught at any moment, but that made it even better.

It hurt. It all hurt and she couldn't breathe, but what was air when she had him? What was anything in comparison to the completion, the click she felt in her soul as he touched her, as he cherished her, as he took and stole from her with those silken lips that spewed aggressive hate to all but her.

He stayed, pressed and close and mussing up her top so it was askew, like they couldn't be separated, like she was a tear in the fabric of his universe and he'd willingly be sucked in so all he knew and all that existed around him and for him was her.

And he loved her and treasured her there and then, when she needed it the most, with the caresses of those open kisses.

He'd just released her to let her touch him as wantonly—just begun to unbuckle his belt, fully intent in his rage and passion and their joined want, their flaming vexation, on taking her there against the tree–when a throat cleared.

Nora gasped and pushed at him, but he just stood straight and scorned a withering glare upon an awkward Felix who couldn't avert his gaze fast enough...if he'd even been looking at them in the first place, which Nora doubted.

"You impertinent meathead–" Caius began, absolutely livid and stepping in front of Nora to protect her modesty.

Hurriedly fixing her shirt so her bra was no longer in danger of being on show for the poor guard, she firmly clasped Caius's shoulder and pulled him back from edging forward like a starving lion toward the terrified gazelle. "Cai, stop. I'm sure Felix didn't mean it. He's clearly here for a reason, right Felix?"

Felix was unequivocally relieved she'd saved him from being devoured whole, and he nodded vigorously when she cut her pleading eyes over to him, begging him to help save himself and to hop on to the life raft, to pull himself from the rocky waters.

Caius could easily move, they both knew that. It was only respect for her stopping him. Only her pressed, like she was glued to his back, keeping him at bay.

Felix bumbled under the man's promising look that assured death if he didn't have a good reason.

"Master Aro sent me." The guard quivered, and Caius groused to himself, unashamed as he re–buckled his belt in front of poor Felix who looked like he would be blushing scarlet and dissolving into fucking smoke, if he could.

"Of course he did." Caius laughed, a scoff, untensing and letting his head fall back when Nora massaged a hand against his stiff back. He stayed like that, until his rage frittered away and was transformed and left as only protection and concern for Nora at being caught in the act.

When he graced that snake–like glare back upon Felix he felt better to see someone shiver in his presence, not bumble awkwardly in embarrassment. "And what, pray tell, did my scheming brother need so imperatively to interrupt such a fragile, crucial moment?"

"We've reached terms." Felix divulged, the rush to it a tell he wanted to be far away. But his job was his life–a life he wanted to keep–so his head stayed bowed and he forced his begging legs happy to give in and run to remain rooted to the ground. "The Masters have ruled that we are long overdue for some training. The Cullens have...decided to join."

"Decided." Caius copied, a leering mockingjay, humming a laugh at the small smirk Felix now felt comfortable to let show on his face. "A nice word, given the way Aro likes his toys to cooperate. Who was the first to cave under his enthusiasm for friendship so they might be kept from experiencing a meltdown?"

"Carlisle."

"That gutless worm. As expected." Caius laughed, sniffing cockily and catching Nora's hand in his steely hold, letting a rare little smile of pure, unadulterated delight shine down on her.

"What do you say, carineria?" He cajoled in arrogance, lifting their twined hands to kiss the back of hers over her knuckles, his assured whisper slithering its cool wickedness against her already chilled skin, "Are you ready to see true power, my sweet?"

Always the one to incite forth her darker side, she grinned just as evilly back at him, her mind afoul with gory images of the Cullens getting their stupidity knocked out of them. More than ready to see them take a beating or two, she pushed up to peck him on those still smirking lips, letting her forehead rest against his so they could share in each other's malicious energy.

"Bring it on."