Ban Together Chapter 13

Getting Carlisle to buy her a plane ticket to Europe was easier than she thought it would be. She had been sure Jasper and especially Alice or Edward would be able to tell she wasn’t going to go with their plans. Victoria couldn’t help but scoff at the thought of those vampires thinking they were going to get away with all they were doing. They were idiots if they thought that mind reader really was that human’s mate. Victoria couldn’t help but roll her eyes as she thought that.

She was only on this hunt because of her own mate that the idiot Cullen’s had killed. She could admit that if her mate hadn’t been so obsessed with the hunt and had listened to her when she said it wasn’t safe, he would still be with her; he likely wouldn’t be happy about having to lose a hunt, but he would have at least been alive.

She wanted her revenge; she needed to make sure James death wasn’t in vain. She would finish what he started and then she would join him in their final death. She had thought the Cullen’s, when they had agreed to work with her, would be the easiest and fastest route to getting the human. But it hadn’t taken long to realize that she was only being used by them.

They were using her as a distraction from what they were trying to do. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure of their plans, but she knew they were trying to get that human back. They were all sure that the human really was Edward’s mate and that Edward had only left to protect her. They were concerned that the other golden eyed vampires were apparently helping to keep the human away from Edward. They were also concerned about them getting help from the Volturi.

Victoria hadn’t actually reported back to them that they had in fact gotten on their plan and left; she figured the twerp psychic would figure it out rather quickly. They wanted her to wait in the States and let the Volturi come to them. What exactly they wanted with that, she didn’t know. She didn’t care.

All she wanted was the girl. She wanted the human dead and in order to do that, she had to get to Italy. She knew she would no longer have the Cullen’s help; but really, what help were they in the first place? All they had done was boss her around and make her deviate from her ultimate goal. They sounded nice when they first came to her; offering not to kill was also an added bonus to her. But everything they had promised her was taking much too long to do. They were slow and seemingly not caring in her endgoal.

She was done with them. She would likely come to regret her decision to abandon the Cullen’s but she didn’t care. They were no longer helping her and she needed to avenge James. She needed to not allow his death to be in vain and the only way she thought she could do that was by directly going to the Volturi themselves and just waiting for just a second that the human wasn’t protected.

Victoria grinned to herself as she thought of all the delicious ways she would be able to kill the human. She likely wouldn’t have enough time to play like her James loved to do; but she would make do and simply do her best.

***

Bella was walking aimlessly down a hallway that she really had no idea where it lead to. She had been in Voltera for not very long; not even two days thus far. But since she had gotten there, there was really only one big thing on her mind.

Granted, she really was worried about Victoria and the Cullen’s and their plans. But she was more worried about her family. About Charlie and the pack. Charlie had no idea where she was, if she was alive, or when she would be returning. At that point, she honestly wasn’t even sure if Athenodora or Sulpicia would actually let her return. Whenever they talked, they always made sure to insinuate, both subtly in Sulpicia’s case and blandly in Athenodora’s case, that they fully expected her to live in the castle. But she couldn’t do that.

She already felt guilty enough that she had left Charlie on his own, she couldn’t just disappear on him. She had already done that once when James had been hunting her and she knew Charlie felt guilty about letting her leave without notice and then getting hurt. Granted, there was nothing Charlie could have done to prevent her from getting hurt, but she couldn’t very well tell him that to assuage his guilt. As far as he would ever know, he had let her sneak out of his house, a cop’s house, and got hurt because of it.

She wanted to reach out to him, to let him know that she was okay. Sure, she had four shadows on a near constant basis; but that wasn’t all that bad. Two of those shadows were pretty entertaining as they argued about who was stronger and then talking over each other when she told them both to either shut up or remember to talk in vampire speed so she couldn’t hear it. She would never admit to them that she actually thought their bickering was kind of endearing. The other two shadows though, well, they were more of the ominous type if she were to be honest… or to be exaggerating.

Athenodora actually made her feel really safe. There had been more than one time when Kate had embarrassed her and Jane had been too amused for Bella’s liking, that she called the warrior queen for backup to get Kate to shut her mouth. As scary as the ancient vampire appeared, Bella actually wasn’t that scared of her. In fact, Bella usually found the woman kind of funny as she took things so seriously and so couldn’t help but poke fun at the ancient. That usually ended up in a mini-stare down between the two with Sulpicia breaking in to laugh at them both. Athenodora would then huff and race away and Bella could only smile after the woman, happy that she knew her.

Sulpicia though, Bella couldn’t quite figure her out. The woman seemed to genuinely want to talk with her and to get to know her, but never actually gave the chance to do so. For instance, whenever she broke up a staring contest between her and Athenodora, the other blonde always seemed like she wanted to talk but instead always just gave a small smile and then left. Bella was sure if the queen was ignoring her or giving her space or something else entirely.

“Is there a particular place in mind that you were trying to get to?” Jane asked in a dry tone from behind Bella. She had already asked several times where her human wanted to go but Bella had just waved her off saying she would find it. Jane had sneered at that answer; not when her mate could see of course because Jane wasn’t that stupid. Jane knew for a face that humans did not have the best memory and Bella had certainly not been given a tour of the castle to know where anything is even if she had a good memory.

“I’m just walking.” Bella huffed out, tired of Jane asking the same thing over and over again. Thus far she hadn’t been told she wasn’t allowed to walk around the halls. Plus,  Jane was following her; if she was about to go someplace she wasn’t allowed Jane would say something and Both Kate and Jane would protect her if someone in the castle attacked her.

“Stop bugging her Jane, she did just leave her home a bit adeptly, she’s probably just thinking everything through that’s happened and about to happen.” Kate said as she strolled right next to Bella, doing her best to make sure Jane wouldn’t have room to walk on the other side of Bella while simultaneously trying to get a hold of the swinging hand without Bella pulling her hand away. She hadn’t been successful in the whole not getting Bella to pull her hand away but if she was anything, she was persistent.

Jane couldn’t help but snarl, just a little though because she didn’t want to scare or get scolded by her mate… again, “Is there something on your mind then?” Jane asked and then a thought came to her. “I know when I’m nervous when my brother is sent on a mission without me and I grow concerned about his safety, I tend to wander the halls until I hear from him.”

Bella couldn’t help but stop walking, Jane’s words actually giving her an idea. If she could contact her brother, why couldn’t she contact her father? Sure, there was the whole they were humans and technically shouldn’t know about them and should definitely not get a call from the vampire stronghold that shouldn’t exist in the first place. But, the two queens were claiming she was their ‘bond daughter’ or whatever, so asking to call her father was a small favor to ask for, right?

“Could I ask a favor from the queens?” Bella asked. She figured she should run the idea through Jane first in case there was no chance that the queens would agree. Well, she would still ask and argue with the queens even if there was no chance of them letting her. She had to tell Charlie not to worry about her, she had to make sure Charlie knew she wasn’t dead.

Jane arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow that made Bella mentally swear to herself that she would never admit how hot she thought that looked on the stern looking woman. “You can ask for anything you want; I’m sure they would buy you an island if you showed any interest in owning one.”

Bella had to stop herself from commenting that with all the wealth vampires seemed to garner and horde, they could probably stop world poverty if they were so inclined. Instead, Bella had to focus on getting what she wanted.

“I want to call my dad so he’s not worried about me.” Bella answered, knowing just hinting around what she wanted wouldn’t do her any good. Jane was definitely a woman that appreciated getting to the point.

Jane fought a scowl from appearing on her face. While she didn’t see the point in her mate calling her very human father when she had two perfectly good, and perfectly better, bond mothers that were more than willing to replace the human male, Jane knew humans mostly respected their parental/child relationships. Her human father still meant something to Bella and therefore it should mean something to Jane… even though she would rather it wouldn’t.

Before Jane could answer and much to Bella’s annoyance even though Kate had actually helped, Kate cut in.

“Actually, that would probably be a good thing.” Kate said, her tone taking on a more serious tone than she usually had.

“I know it would be, that’s why I asked.” Bella said not bothering to hid her confusion about what Kate was getting at.

“What do you mean succubae?” Jane said, using the one word that was the most insulting that, since it didn’t insult Kate one bit, wouldn’t get her in trouble with her mate for starting fights.

Kate only rolled her eyes at the literally centuries old insult that she was actually a little proud of, “The shifters are friends of yours right?” Kate asked, Bella nodding her answer, “Then we should probably tell them that Bella isn’t in danger and is in fact happy. What better way to do that than to have Bella call her father and possibly even a friend or two? I doubt they would buy plan tickets out here, but they could certainly cause enough of a stink with local authorities to get a larger search range for Bella.”

Jane was actually thrown off by Kate’s very accurate analysis. While there were plenty of ways to avoid the shifters causing them problems and avoid having Bella contacting her father, the way she explained it gave a stronger case in favor of Bella.

“So you do know something after all?” Jane asked with a smirk that seemed a bit more condescending that not.

Bella was surprisingly quick to jump to her defense and Kate’s inner vampire couldn’t help but purr in happiness and satisfaction about that.

“Hey, she had to pretty smart to be able to sneak me all the way through airport securities and their tower control and whatnot when they hijacked a plan and kidnapped me to Italy.” Bella couldn’t hide the smile on her face if she tried. She was sure she would never get bored of accusing Kate of kidnapping her.

“Hey, I did not kidnap you!” Kate said, her happiness about being defend quickly dissipated at Bella’s accusation that she had thought her young mate had let go of.

“Figures the only way Kate can woo someone is by kidnapping.” Jane said, “Come, I’ll take you to the queens.” Jane said, carefully avoiding calling them her parents as Jane was sure her mate didn’t quite seem them that way yet.

“Hey now, that’s mean.” Bella scolded Jane. While she liked to make fun of Kate for ‘kidnapping’ her, she felt oddly defensive of anyone else doing the same thing.

Jane’s growl was easily over shadowed by Kate’s laugh, “Ha! You’re gonna have to learn to watch your temper there Jane.”

Jane thickly swallowed the insult she wanted to swing at Kate; she was sure if Kate kept talking she would sooner rather than later piss off Bella. “Whatever.” She hissed, then tugged on Bella’s hand, “Let’s go.”

For just a brief moment, walking with the two bickering and being taken to the queens to hopefully be able to call her father, Bella hoped, for just a second, that her life wasn’t about to turn into a giant shit show. That had already happened once with James and then Edward leaving her the way he did; certainly with the vampire royalty helping her, her life had to get better, right?