Disclaimer:  Don’t own any of it.  My world, their characters.  Capiche?

Pre-Edit Count: 2,546 Words

Song: Gotta Be Tonight by Lifehouse

Previously:

Benedict comments, “It is as you suspected, they know something is happening, and think that by making her sleep unexpectedly that it will hamper your connection.”

His own eyes dark, and the beginning of the fire that he has kept banked for so long starts to fan higher. “Though I wish it weren’t so.”

The rest of the drive to the staging area is quiet, all of them giving way to the rage that is filling the van emitting from Eric.

Now:

Alice jumps on the bed, yelling, “It’s time!  You need to get up!” wakening Bella.

Giving a dirty look to Alice, Bella looks at the time. She does not like to have herself jerked from Eric’s arms so early, but he had assured her that he is ready, as well as the rest of them when they first went to rest. She looks at the time, and frowning, “Alice, the ceremony isn’t until 7 tonight.  Why am I awake 12 hours before?” She knows that the reason will have something about getting her Barbie dolled up.

Rolling her golden eyes at the idiot human, “It is going to take time to make you look just right for the ceremony.  You want to look like you belong with Edward don’t you?” The unsaid message is loud and clear to anyone in the know, but someone walking in the room would think that Alice is just being nice.

Bella gives her a look and answers her honestly enough, “Not really, but since you threatened my father unless I agree with everything about the wedding, I don’t have much choice do I?” The last part is said as scathingly as possible.

That little tidbit had done more to gain Pam’s enmity than the rest of it. You don’t threaten a woman’s family to force her to marry you.

Eric had people guarding her father right this moment, not wanting to take a chance that Edward and his fucked up family will do something.  Though he had assured her that Pam had been upset on not being able to be able to personally take a piece out of the fucked up family since hearing all that has gone on.  This just makes it a tad more personal for her.  Forced marriages seemed to do that to people, even those that are not being forced.

Alice shakes her head and smiles sweetly down at Bella. “If you hadn’t been fighting this, then there wouldn’t be any need.  We need to make sure the Volturi’s decision is held up.” She looks so innocent, but she is not fooling anyone in the room.

Bella rolls her eyes back at the manipulative Cold One. “And just being bitten by Carlisle is not a choice.  When did this happen?  Why does it matter to the Volturi if I am married or not?” She is bitter; they started this little bit when she refused to get married.  Aro supposedly is supporting it, but she has never heard it from him or from Caius when he has actually visited.

Looking down at the human they had worked so hard to make malleable to their wishes, Alice wonders where all this fire came from.  Nothing is working anymore, and it gets worse each day.  Aro is of the idea that the encounter with the traditional vampire had done something.  And since he had been promised her shield when he wishes it, he has been supportive of any measure taken by the Cullens to make her theirs, especially when he had been promised to have Jasper, Alice and Edward along with her.

“The Volturi are taking this as a breaking of a promise by you.  Moreover, if you can break this promise, what is breaking the one keeping us hidden?  Now, get up, or I can call and see where your darling father is.  Just to make sure he is fine.” Her voice becomes steel hidden behind the sweetness as well as the gold eyes, no longer molten but hard. Alice is fed up with the argumentative human.

Bella gives her a dirty look, and informs her with a dark voice, “Since I just wish to be made one of you, per the agreement, I have no doubt you did something to change this.  All for your Edward.  I will make you regret this.” She has no idea how no one has seen it before but Alice and Edward are closer than so-called brother and sister.  In fact, she suspects they are the mates, and have been using Jasper and her for other reasons.

Ok, she knows what they are using her for, her blood.  But why Jasper?

Alice twirls and informs her with an unholy glee. “Not if you don’t want your father to suffer.” She is confident that she has Bella where they want her.  As long as they get her changed by Edward, nothing else matters.  She will be permanently under their control, their puppet.

Bella just lifts an eyebrow in response, as she reluctantly gets out of bed. “And you think once they have passed from this earth that I will forget?  How easily you think I will forgive.” She cannot wait until this is all past her.  She manages not to smile at her thoughts of who her real mate is, a man, not the wanna be that Edward is.

Rolling her eyes, she pulls Bella down the stairs to her room that she has set up with all the needed supplies. “Bella, you are getting what you always wanted.  Edward will turn you, after you have sex with him.  Why are fighting this all of a sudden?” She has been curious about this, and asks hoping it will finally answer the question that has been on everyone’s mind.

Bella glares at her, as she steals herself for the pain that is to come. “Because I don’t think I need to get married.  But I don’t get a say in any of this.  That is the point isn’t it?  To have everything your way and no one else’s, isn’t it, Alice?” She gives her a look out of the corner of her eye.  She is done with trying to do anything to make this calmer.  In fact, she is enjoying pushing every button she can, limited as she is with the threats hanging over her.

Alice just turns and smiles sickeningly sweet at Bella. “This is all so pointless.  You are not changing anything; you will get married tonight. I see you walking down the aisle with your father. So smile, and try to enjoy yourself.  And remember, no one else can know of the deal.” She cannot wait until tonight.  She is having issues seeing anything with the wolves there, but there is no reason not to say those magic words that give her the control she craves all the time.  No one but Edward would know any better anyways.

Bella just gives a nasty chuckle. “Cause we don’t want to ruin the wonder twins perfect image do we?” She wonders how many times in the past she gave into those words, ‘I see it’ before now.  There is no way Alice can see anything with the wolves there.

It is why they are coming, to make sure that Eric and his plan will work exactly as they want it to.

Alice ignores her as everyone soon converges on her room, and she maliciously beckons Bella towards the woman waiting to wax her, “You DO want to look your best for your change don’t you?” And that is only the beginning of the day of torture.  The only thing that made it worth it is knowing that Eric will be here tonight. And that he will never make her go through this if she never wants to.  Shoot, if she gets her way, she will be changed by him soon.  She is close to his age, or at least enough not to have to go through high school forever.

While Alice maliciously tortures Bella, Edward is in a meeting with Carlisle, making sure they are going over security for the wedding.  Carlisle has been supportive of anything that makes Edward happy, having fallen under the thrall of Edward a long time ago.  How could he not since his perfect son listened and took to heart so many of his teachings?  He was the first, and even though he left, he came back telling Carlisle his way had been right all along.

Since Emmett and Jasper are still fighting his influence, Edward doesn’t take a chance for the final assessment that something may come over the two, ruining this chance for them to be able to get out of this family and on the road to where Alice’s visions tell them that they will be in charge.  All they had needed was Bella and Jasper: their shield and sword.

Unknown to the two, Jasper has had his own suspicions.  Since they had thought Bella had become compliant, they had not spent as much trouble keeping the two separated, but the day she had confronted Alice and Edward in the main room of the house, he had been there.  And he had taken notice of what she had screamed at them.

Something does not jibe for him.  There is an air of pure anger from Bella towards Alice and Edward.  He remembers the day it had appeared; they had come back from something to do with the wedding, and while Alice and Edward were smug, Bella was seething.

And it never stopped.  While Bella was unique in her strong feelings, there had been something that even made him hesitate in her pure anger.  Being on the bad side of Bella is not something he will ever think anything good coming of it.  Whatever Edward and Alice have done, it has ensured their death by her hand.  And he can tell Bella is fully cognizant of the rewards of cold revenge.

So from there, Jasper had contacted his brother, and after he had been picked on for being with the Pixie Bitch as normal, Peter had told him to pay attention today.  He and Charlotte will be coming, but if Jasper wasn’t on top of his game, he will incur the wrath of someone he really doesn’t want to be his enemy.

As a result, Jasper had disappeared, saying he was going for a hunt. Instead, he had been hanging around the house instead.  Right now, are the times he had paid for what he suffered in Maria’s army pay out.  Just as Aro proves there can be other types of mind readers, Edward isn’t the first he has gone against and successfully managed to keep his thoughts to himself.  He had learned how to shroud himself, using emotions as his way to hide.  Amazing what you can achieve with emotions.  They affect the subconscious mind in such a way to make the physical mind not see him.

Hence he hears the threat against Bella from Alice, and now he is listening to the plans for the security tonight.  It is here that he learns of an Eric Northman having a marriage license with Bella.  That nothing Edward has done has made it go away.  So they came up with Emmett doing the ceremony since it had rubbed Carlisle the wrong way to marry someone that is supposedly married already.

It surprises Jasper since some of the information Peter had passed along in the past was a history of Carlisle Cullen.  Not so much a pacifist; that is just a front.  So for him to deny marrying the two because of a piece of paper…  It makes Jasper wonder who is this Eric Northman.

The worst part according to Edward and Carlisle discussing it right above him, is that Alice had lost Bella a couple of times that night in Vegas, so it could have happened.  In addition, Bella will not annul it, nor will she allow Carlisle to examine her, making it a point to go have her lack virginity confirmed by an independent doctor because she did not trust Carlisle to not lie.  Jasper chuckles to himself on that one. Bella had fallen enough times to make it a reality.  So no one could tell if she had sex on that night or not.

Jasper also quietly laughs as he hears Edward complain about how Bella is fighting the wedding, and somehow she is the reason it is taking place so late.  No one knows how she did it, (and they tried everything, including having Jasper and Emmett look into it) but it ended up being late in the day, then finally the evening.  When she continues to fight, to delay it more, they threaten the life of her father if she does not go through on it.

With that found out, he quickly texts Peter, who replies that it is taken care of.  Jasper also sends him the name of the person who Bella is married to, along with the details of the security.

Peter replies after a pause, and tells him, to do all he can to stall the wedding.  And be prepared to guard Bella.  Her father will be safe as well as her mother.

Reading the text, Jasper nods.  He is seething as he realizes that Bella has been under such torment for so long, all for something he can’t understand.  At least not until Edward tells Carlisle, “Aro is going to need us pretty soon after the wedding.  So be prepared to knock out Jasper and Bella if they don’t participate.” He throws the comment out as if it didn’t really matter; just making sure that base is also covered.

Jasper sees nothing but red in that moment.

In the room she had been brought to, Bella is simply too mad to be in pain.  Alice has had her waxed, telling her that she should be happy that she will not have to worry about stubble when she is changed, nor have to worry about bleeding around Edward. The whole procedure is more painful than she thought it should have been, and what had been what she remembered when she had it done with her mother.  Plus there is the whole it could have been done earlier, not on her wedding day! It is just yet another sign that she is being manipulated, and that they enjoy her in pain.

For some reason, Alice just cannot imagine that Bella has done any of this, since she is poor, poor Bella with no taste and no sense of refinement. Trying not to snort at the idea, Bella just stares holes into Alice’s head.  Since Eric appeared in her dreams, her eyes are now wide open to all of the things happening around her.   And as she watches, she wonders how many in the family are truly under the control of Alice and Edward.  As well as how they manage it.  It is as if they are all drugged.

Either way, she is happy that the blood Eric gives her in their dreams has helped, and she cannot wait to finish the bond in person when he gets here.  She has begged him for the second stage while Edward can see it, making it obvious how much she wants Eric.  She has denied her blood to all of them and will continue to do it no matter what.  With the lessons Eric has given her, she can safely say her blood belongs to Eric now.  Even more important to her, is that his belongs to her.

Mating is a wonderful thing.

One of the things that they had discussed in detail was Edward. Neither could tell if Edward really wants her, and Eric had laughed at the idea of a 100-year-old virgin. The idea is just idiotic.  A male vampire claiming to be a virgin and being actually a virgin with there being no way for anyone to tell?  Preposterous! Eric has hypothesized that Edward probably had sex by now, it was really hard to believe that the Cold One is still a virgin.

And he had just grinned boyishly at her when she had pointed out not only had he managed to work a line from the Princess Bride into the conversation, he had also had managed to show off his vocabulary to her.  It is something the two of them have had fun poking at each other about.  As Eric has pointed out, he has a lot of dead time and movies were one of the things that helped.  Also reading before he had movies.  With his memory, he needed to not have to watch or read anything more than once.

Then came one of the times when he teased her back for her sneakiness, praising her for actions worthy of being his mate.  At first Eric had laughed his head off when he heard what Bella had done with the virginity test.  Knowing that her hymen has been broken from all the falls she has taken in her life, she had gone and got it certified that she no longer had one, and since there is no other way to tell by that time if she had sex or not, they couldn’t annul the marriage between the two.  Later he had not liked how much of her limited freedom she lost for that stunt, but it had neatly boxed in their adversary long enough to give them more time.

Tired of all the abuse that has been put upon his mate, Eric is prepared today to do anything to get his mate, and has told her that.  Bella believes him.  She has to know there is nothing to gain by thinking it was all a dream.  She has thrown in all her chances of the future based on her dreams with him, and there is nothing left.  But she believes in him, and too much has happened that she has acted on his information to turn out to be right.  So while the logical side of her brain is telling her this is impossible, she ignores it, going with her heart as she has always done.

So here she is suffering so that she can have part of her revenge against the Cullens for the trials they have put her through for no reason that neither Eric nor she can figure out.  She could have slipped away long before this time.  However, the advice Eric had received told them to play it out.  He asked for her patience, telling her that he would not blame her if she ended it sooner. Instead, Bella shows her faith in him by waiting until now.

But right this minute, she is sitting here, watching the clock, as the hairdresser does her hair.  Less than two hours; less than two hours and she will be done with this shit.  Never again will she allow another to mold her, to treat her like a human Barbie doll.  She had already threatened Eric that if his child thinks of dressing her even one time, she will cut off a toe at a time.

He had laughed.

Not that Bella hadn’t already decided that she needed to have a new wardrobe, her style choices in clothing have changed like they do with all humans as they grow older. When she had admitted it reluctantly to her mate, he had kissed her and told her that he would be happy to take her shopping.  But if she wanted to be in sweats for the rest of her life, he wouldn’t say a thing against it.  That had only cemented her agreement.  She has a definite idea on what she wants, and is looking forward to the time they can shop.

Her mind whirls away, ignoring Alice and the others trying to talk to her, Bella thinks on how she is looking forward to meeting Eric’s Maker, as well as the rest of his retinue.  The stories he has told of them have made her laugh.  They are also the ones who have been doing the work to stall this wedding.  Whoever thought of buying up all the wedding stuff for miles around after Seth had sabotaged all the current stuff is quite simply brilliant.

The wolves have helped Eric out.  She has no idea why, but there has been a definite tie in with the sabotage and her vampire’s plans.  Though she knows Eric would have liked to gotten her away earlier, but they wanted the chance to see who was with whom.  The advice he had received had told him to wait, and he did, but Eric had not joked about taking his revenge on the family.

Bella looks up at the time, as she continues to ignore Alice’s comments and attempts to get her to talk; less than an hour now. A smile fits itself on her face, one that is foreign to her, but if the observer had known Eric Northman, it would have been very familiar.

Jasper is ready, and since he is a ‘danger’ to the bride, he is not supposed to be around her until after she is changed.  But since he is part of the family, they have him being an usher.  He did not mind, since he will be in place to kill as many as needed to make sure that this Eric Northman can get to Bella.

He looks at the time, and at the same time, his phone goes off.  He looks at it, and his eyes darken, the message clear as it can be. ‘It’s time.’

The unholy glee that possesses Jasper as he finally lets loose all the bonds he has on Ares, and he merges for the first time with his beast would have scared anyone if they had seen it.  The smile that comes across his face is one that would have warned the Cullens that Armageddon is coming, but unluckily for them, not a single one of them saw it, or him.

It’s time for him to give back what he has been given.

Final count, 3,708 words.

Fairfarren~