My Strength Chapter 16

She could be doing chores; it had been a while since she had done a deep cleaning of her house and she was sure she could easily rope Charlie into helping her. It would have been a nice time of them cleaning and talking and bonding over pizza after getting the whole house clean. She could also be doing some studying and/or homework. With all the slacking off she had done when ‘dating’ Edward, her studies had taken a deep hit. She could have caught up on them before going back to class. That would have been the smart thing to do.

Instead, she was suffering in the absolute silence that had befallen the Cullen living room. Everyone was staring at either her, Athenodora or Zafrina who was sitting next to her. They hadn’t even gotten much into talking before Edward opened his stupid mouth.

When they had first arrived at the Cullen house, Athenodora hadn’t bothered to knock. She had opted to literally break the door down and lead their group sans Felix and Heidi who were keeping patrol of the town for Victoria, into the house. Athenodora, at a human pace so that her daughter could easily keep up and see what was to happen, completely ignored the shocked looks from the Cullen’s as they all raced to see who broke in and then their shocked looks as Athenodora grabbed Carlisle by his collar and literally dragged him towards the living room. She ignored Carlisle’s shock and quickly tempered growl from surprise, she ignored Esme’s shocked cry of concern and definitely ignored the ‘children’s’ growls of anger from being attacked. She couldn’t hide the smirk as Carlisle quickly assured them not to attack and to not do anything hastily.

But when they realized Bella was one of the four heartbeats that was coming into the house, what little restraint the younger vampires, Esme included, was lost. But all had different reactions. Esme was one of both extreme grief and worry. She felt grief due to their abandonment of the girl and worry because her human daughter was very much in twined with vampires that she never should have met and could likely be in very real danger. Rosalie and Emmett, while happy that Bella was no longer under Edward’s influence, they were wary about the presence of not only the Amazon coven, but the fact that they were with the Volturi was also concerning. Alice and Jasper, while worried and concerned for the human they had once been able to call friend, knew that what was about to pass had to happen. But Edward, the one who said he was going to travel elsewhere in search of Victoria to provide final protection for his so-called mate, had made a visit home when he heard the rest of the Cullen’s had returned to Forks, he thought it the best action to attack Zafrina.

For Zafrina’s part, Athenodora would later admit to her husband only when there were no other eyes or ears that she was impressed by Zafrina’s restraint, she only wrapped her arm around Bella’s shoulders to pull her in close. It was Zafrina’s coven mate, Senna, that acted.

“You will not touch my sister.” Senna growled as she grabbed Edward’s throat in a tackle that pushed them into the living room. She pushed Edward into the floor, careful enough to only hold him down and to not damage the foundation of the home.

“Aww, Senna, thank you.” Bella said, trying not to get teary eyed about Senna’s, the quietest of the sister’s, proclamation. She would need to make sure to figure out a way to not only get the Amazon’s to stay with them in Italy, but to make sure they were comfortable after being away from civilization for so long; it was the least she could do for her sisters after all.

“Calm down everyone.” Athenodora said in the most commanding tone Bella had ever heard. Athenodora threw Carlisle next to Senna and Edward and walked to stand with her back towards the wall. “There is much we need to discuss, but first and foremost I want to hear what Edward has to say about his actions.”

Carlisle moved to stand next to his family while the rest of the Amazons and the Volturi stood on the opposite of the room, the shifters standing in between the groups, opposite of Athenodora. Everyone was smart enough to realize that unless Athenodora told them to, they would not speak. The Warrior Queen was in full effect and anyone that pissed her off by even speaking out of turn could bear the brunt of her anger. There was a very good reason why Athenodora was the most feared of the Volturi rulers and all the supernatural in the room could feel the power leaking from the ancient vampire.

Senna lifted Edward up, the child vampire for once was smart enough to not resist anything Senna did likely because of the power leaking off the Amazon, and placed a restraining a hand on his arm.

“Tell me Edward, I’m very curious, who is Bella to you?” Athenodora asked, causing Bella to tense. Bella knew she wasn’t going to like listening to him; it would bring up not only embarrassing memories but shame as well.

Edward growled in frustration, something that caused Senna to give a warning grip to his arm, his eyes darted to everyone in the room, landing on Alice. He silently pleaded for her to have a vision to show him what to say that would keep him the safest, but all Alice would think was that he would have to tread carefully. His favorite sister didn’t even seem to be trying to have a vision to help him.

“Answer Edward or I will tear your head from your body and bring to Italy for Aro to get the answers himself.” Athenodora growled in warning, sure that she would only need to give one warning.

Seconds ticked by as Edward thought of possible things to say, willing Alice to have a vision he could see, but her mind remained blank.

“She, I was so sure, she was my mate.” Edward answered, looking beseechingly towards Bella, his one love that he had ever had in his long life. There was a reason she was silent to him and yet her blood drew him in so much; she was the ultimate gift from God. If he was able to resist temptation, he would be able to enjoy the fruits of his trials by relishing his time next to his personal nectar of the gods.

“She is not.” Zafrina murmured, with not even a growl in her tone. She knew that he was delusional and that the best he could hope for with Bella was a friendship… a very long distance friendship but nothing more. Kachiri placed a calm hand on her shoulder that while she knew she didn’t need to restrain her coven mate, the coven leader was proud of the restraint and strength Zafrina was showing with another vampire laying claim towards her mate.

“I had thought she was.” Edward said, and the whole room heard the unspoken: he still wanted her to be. But the difference was that while he wanted her to be, he seemed to not believe she was any longer; not with the thoughts of Zafrina going through his head… never mind literally everyone else’s warning and threatening thoughts he could hear.

“And what of your actions of leaving her?” Athenodora asked, “That is to become a trial that your whole family will have to answer for. You commanded your entire coven to leave a human behind with the knowledge of our existence without any intention of turning her. Is that not against our highest law?” She asked Edward but had her eyes on Carlisle. Carlisle was the leader of the coven, yet he allowed the emotions of seventeen year old boy dictate what his coven did. He shouldn’t bear the honor of having the title of coven leader if he couldn’t even manage doing the job.

“I was so afraid after what had happened, that I had to have all her threats leave; I had to keep her safe.” Edward pleaded, “I did it because I love you Bella.” Edward proclaimed, this time Zafrina was unable to withhold her growl.

Bella felt like a stake had been stabbed through her heart. If he had loved her, why did he leave her? If he had loved her so much, wouldn’t he have wanted to stay around her to make sure he kept her safe and not just hope it happened by magic? Bella was put through all the pain of her adopted family leaving her because he was trying to protect her? She couldn’t believe that.

“Bullshit.” Jacob said, no longer able to keep quiet. He had seen what the Cullen’s abandonment had done to his best friend. There was more to it than that. He knew Edward and Bella had talked because he left her in the forest, but Bella never said what exactly they had talked about, but something told him that whatever was said was a big part of what left such a lingering pain. “If you loved her so much, wouldn’t you have wanted to hold on tighter? If I had someone I loved as much as you claimed to have loved Bella, I wouldn’t have left, I would have stayed put and kept a closer eye on her.”

“Not if you were the danger.” Edward roared. “My entire family put her at risk of losing her life every time she was around them. She is too weak to protect herself from anyone of us, therefore I made sure we left.”

“I wasn’t too weak Edward.” Bella said with tears, remembering the words he told her before he had left her alone in the forest. “You only thought I was.”

“You’re a human Bella, you don’t stand a chance against protecting yourself against any of us.” Edward said in a near desperate tone, “Don’t you understand? No matter how much control we have, there was always a risk of us losing control and that risk was too much for you.”

Bella felt her sadness at remembering how useless and unloved he had made her feel slip into anger. Thanks to all her talks with Leah, Bella had been able to realize that her worth was not based off of how strong she was or fragile she was compared to others, her worth was based off of her actions. And quite frankly, she was done with listening to Edward.

“You mean for you?” Bella asked with a sneer, her eyes drying up from the few leaked tears from the remembered sadness, “You were the one that had the most trouble. Even Jasper, the supposed newest to the diet had an easier time around me than you did; at least when you weren’t around.” Bella said, thankful for her time with the pack for giving her the strength to talk again after Edward had gotten it into her head that she was better off seen and not heard.

“How can you talk so casually about Jasper’s ability to be around you when he was the one that attacked you in the first place!” Edward yelled as he surged forward as if getting closer to Bella would force her to listen to him. Senna’s hold was firm though and Edward barely moved at all.

“He attacked me because you were losing control and his empathy made it worse for him!” Bella yelled back, taking a step forward, Zafrina letting her go because while the Amazon wanted to keep her safe, the warrior had no fear that her mate couldn’t handle herself. Unlike Edward, Zafrina would never control her mate in any way.

“You don’t know that!” Edward yelled, “You could never understand the pressure we feel from just being around you. The strength it takes just to talk to you as every breath to talk draws in your scent and insists that we attack and drain you. You could never possibly understand the restraint we need to just be in your presence. You will never understand!” Edward yelled and for Bella it made everything click; he struggled so much to be around her but was so against admitting he was weak that he blamed everyone else.

“Well, if I’m so hard to be around, then I guess I should go.” Bella angrily said as she started to walk towards the front door, “I’m going for a walk, please no one follow, I just want to cool off a little and not listen to him anymore.” Bella said before she left the door. Bella hadn’t looked to confirm, but she was sure that Zafrina had been following her, but after she spoke, she was sure she would alone for a little bit at least.

Truthfully, she didn’t want to hear anything else he had to say and was kind of hoping her vampire mom would come up with a non-lethal way to make sure he stayed quiet when she got back. If she had stayed much longer, she would have continued to yell at him about everything he had done wrong in their relationship; but she didn’t want to do that because then she would have to admit that she hadn’t even seen it happening. Frankly, she was still ashamed that, as a sheriff’s kid, she hadn’t seen the signs of how bad of relationship she had had with Edward. Even after her father had tried to point them out, she still hadn’t seen it.

So, to cool off and not talk in anger, especially when she needed her friends to be able to stay there and be comfortable, she opted to go for a small walk to relax. She wouldn’t go too far, just to the end of the drive and then back.

What she hadn’t realized though, was that the end of the drive was outside of hearing range for the vampires; they had a long driveway for a reason after all. Bella also didn’t notice that following her, being very careful to only act on instinct and to not make decisions, a redhead was following her along the driveway. It wouldn’t be until Bella was past the vampires inside the soundproofed house hearing range that she would realize she was being followed by the one vampire she believed was an actual threat to her.