Believe Me Chapter 11

Tanya had opted not to call the Cullen’s to inform them of their visit. They technically did have a blanket invitation for whenever they decided to travel to Forks to visit; they didn’t have to deal with vampire politics about advising the other coven of their presence and asking for permission to be there and whatnot. She didn’t want to deal with whatever nonsense would fall from the other coven leaders lips about possibly not allowing them entrance. She also wanted to be there in person for when Rosalie and Emmett unveiled their involvement in breaking orders from their leader. She wanted to make sure she could defend their actions and make sure they didn’t get in any trouble or suffer any punishments for their very justifiable actions.

From what Victoria had explained, she was sure James would not quit the hunt so easily and may even try to buy some time before attacking Bella again. If that’s the case, more vampires around Forks would do some good; especially if they all took turns hunting to keep up a regular perimeter check to catch a scent of James anywhere around town. Tanya had run across many trackers and hunters in her time and they all had one thing in common: they never gave up.

Victoria, Bella and Irina were in the lone vehicle while Tanya, Kate, Rosalie and Emmet ran alongside the suburban to make sure there were possible sneak attacks from James in case he had followed them up North. Irina opted to drive them while Victoria and Bella sat in the back. While they were in a larger vehicle, there really was no sense of privacy, Irina was doing her best to ignore the conversation the two in the back were having. They were getting to know each other at first but it had quickly escalated to Victoria wanting to know more about her relationship with Edward. Irina wasn’t sure what the redhead hoped to gain from the knowledge, but it was certainly interesting to watch the vampire fight against her instinct of jealousy. Young love between a vampire and a human was always so amusing to watch and thankfully this time, she had a front row seat.

“You would allow him to watch you while you slept?” Victoria asked, doing her best to keep her voice even and only mentally coming up with different plans to get back at the perverted boy.

“Well, I didn’t so much allow as he did it and then told me about afterwards.” Bella said as she scrunched up her brown in concentration as she tried to remember her thought process when she had learned about that little tidbit from Edward. “Then when I learned about it, I guess I just let him continue with permission since he had already been there at least I could cuddle with him as I slept.” Saying it out loud though, made Edward seem like a creep.

Had she really let her boyfriend know it was okay to just stare at her while she slept? Had she really given him permission to be around her while she slept knowing that he craved her blood so much? She had been warned many, many times by the boy himself that he was a constant danger to her whenever they were together. How had she so blindly ignored the warnings?

“It sounds really stupid now that I’ve said it out loud.” Bella murmured, starting to get a little embarrassed about how she acted around Edward. That couldn’t have been normal.

Victoria gently cupped her mates’ cheek, making her human turn towards her; she didn’t want her mate to feel bad for something that had been outside of her control. “There is nothing to feel embarrassed about, it was something that you were tricked into accepting. It was something Edward had done that he really shouldn’t have; forcing you to do anything is incredibly wrong and completely not okay.” Victoria said with conviction.

“But I had wanted him to be there,” Bella said as she stared into Victoria’s gorgeous red eyes that she was starting to like to stare into much more than golden eyes. “I could have sworn that it was the only thing I had wanted; for him to be around me all the time.”

Victoria cupped her mates’ face with her other hand and forced her mate to look her in the eyes, “You felt that way because he was making you feel that way; that’s what he was doing.” Victoria said as realization hit her.

Edward wasn’t trying to control her, to make her do what he wanted. He wasn’t even trying to make her addicted to him like a normal vampire would to a human. Edward had been trying to genuinely get Bella to want him around and his vampire instincts took over; likely without him even knowing he was glamouring her. He was likely so obsessed with wanting her to want him around, that he hadn’t paid attention at all to what his vampiric instincts were doing.

That made him even more dangerous to her mate.

The coven leader at the very least should have realized what was happening if the idiot himself hadn’t. There’s no excuse for a third part, an experienced third party at that, to not realize what was happening. At the very least she was going to kill both the idiotic vampire boy and now she was definitely going to kill the coven leader as well. If that leader had done his job, her mate wouldn’t have been trouble and she likely would have been able to catch her mate’s scent from just passing the town and her mate would have never caught the attention of James. If that stupid coven leader had just done his job in the first place, her mate would have never been taken advantage of. She would have her revenge in due time.

“You are not at fault here, Edward is.” Victoria told her mate, doing her best to convince her mate of that. She couldn’t let her mate think it was her fault. “Never believe it was you; it was always him and his leader.”

Bella couldn’t help but smile at what the redhead was saying. Bella knew Victoria was right, but Bella did have at least a small amount of blame as well. She should have left well enough alone in the very beginning when they had first met and she would have never been put in this mess.

“I understand.” Bella said with a small smile; she knew no matter what she said Victoria would never place any blame on her, regardless of how true it may be.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but we are about to enter Forks borders and the Cullen’s will know that we are here.” Irina told her passengers that had been clearly to wrapped up in each other to notice their surroundings.

Victoria moved to sit in her seat properly and only kept one hand holding her mates’ hand as she realized they were in enemy territory. She would have to go and meet this coven leader immediately; that was likely where Irina was driving them to. She was going in there with another coven, not on her own, which meant that she would have to wait for Tanya to do her own greetings before she made her own. That pissed her off. She had no idea what Tanya would say and would have to likely follow her lead that would likely not be what she would want.

“What does your leader plan on doing?” Victoria asked, hoping for some sort of insight.

Irina couldn’t help but snort at the question, “Like she would tell me.” Irina said with no small amount of amusement.

“Are you not her mate? Does she not talk with you?” Victoria asked, frustrated that she didn’t get a straight answer. Bella had to turn her head to hid her amusement at Victoria’s anger.

“She’s also our coven leader and as such, she doesn’t tend to ask permission to do things that involves running the coven.” Irina said, getting a bit defensive about her coven leader. “She’ll do what’s best and make sure Bella stays safe; but we do want to get answers from them as I’m sure you do. That will be her goal.”

Before Victoria could comment, her mate talked, “This is the turn off.” Bella said, pointing at the near hidden entrance to the Cullen house. “But I guess you already know that.” Bella said as she remembered that these were the Cullen’s friends and had likely been to this house several times; or at the very least could see the entrance a lot better than she could.

“It is alright Bella, but at least we know we are in hearing range of the Cullen’s.” Irina said just as Victoria tensed, causing Bella to give her a concerned glance, but it wasn’t the redhead that explained. “It seems the Cullen’s have unexpected company in the form of shifters. Apparently there have been some interesting developments that no one thought to tell Rosalie or Emmett while they were with us.”

“I swear if Edward does something or gets too close to Bella, I will attack him.” Victoria threatened with a growl.

“Hot.” Bella muttered under the breath, only hoping a little that he would actually do something so she could watch Victoria in action. She would definitely love to see that.

“My sisters and I won’t let him.” Irina said with conviction.

As they drove up to the house, Edward immediately moved out of the house to greet his mate, happy that she was finally with him and no longer in danger by being away from him. Before he could even reach the steps, his arms were gripped by Emmett and Jasper, of whom he hadn’t even realized were so close, and Victoria was growling in front of him only being blocked by Irina and Kate at her sides and Tanya between them both.

“Edward, there’s much we need to talk about.” Tanya said, giving Bella some time to join them in the front yard. “And I don’t think you’re going to enjoy this as much as we are.” She said with a smile, already enjoying the combination of confusion and fear in his eyes. This would be an interesting conversation.