In my waking nightmare, I saw them. The Volturi.

They were coming for us again.

Coming to destroy.

Seven years of happiness. Was that all I was entitled to? Had I run out my store of the good will the universe allowed me? I’d faced death so many times. But I thought that finally, finally, the threat was gone. I thought I was safe. I’d allowed myself to hope. I’d thought that once I was unbreakable, I would be invincible. All I had asked for was peace – peace and Edward, peace and Renesmee. Peace, and time. Time to enjoy immortality.

So stupid.

They came from the forest, emerging from the treeline, in their fan-like formation. I saw their black capes swirling over the frozen ground, their bone-coloured claws curled tightly in front of them as they ghosted towards us. They moved slowly, prolonging the moment: we were prey, there to be stalked, frozen by terror. Beneath black hoods, their red eyes gleamed sulphurously.

They came to judge. They came to condemn.

If it had just been me, if I was the only one to face these waking nightmares, I would have sacrificed myself gladly. Others were more worthy of life than I was, and I would fight to save their lives. It was second nature for me to sacrifice myself. But on this day, I was all that was standing between the Volturi and certain death for everyone. Everyone I loved, everyone who made up my world.

And my sacrifice would make no difference.

This time, logic would make no difference. Debate would make no difference. Pleading, prayers – no difference. We were all doomed. And now time was up. There was no more time.

And it was all my fault.

Even as I shifted into a crouch, my lips pulling back from my teeth, sheltering my beloved people behind me, I knew that my fight was hopeless. My sacrifice would be useless. Even though I was enraged, furious, my rage was worthless. I had always sworn I would not allow the Volturi to control my destiny and rob me of the things that were precious to me. But I did not see how we could win. I could see no way out.

But I would face death with my eyes open. And I would go first. I would madden our enemies so completely that they would sweep through my beloved ones like a mighty wave. I would battle so ferociously that the Volturi would be consumed with the lust to destroy. Death would come silent and swift.

That was the last gift I could give them. The only gift I had left.

CHAPTER ONE

WORRIES

‘That was… interesting.’ Edward leant against a tree, legs crossed loosely at the ankle. His posture was relaxed, but his eyes were wary. ‘Even after seven years, I have never quite overcome my anxiety when watching you wrestle with wild beasts.’

I stood upright – a sixteenth of a second and I went from horizontal to vertical – and grinned at him. ‘Emmett got me curious. He said wrestling with anacondas was the greatest fun he’d had in decades. I had to try for myself.’ I flung the remains of the smooth, muscled creature into the undergrowth and beamed at him, a coaxing look in my eyes. ‘Mission accomplished. I have nothing else to achieve here. So – can we go home now?’

Edward rolled his eyes. ‘So eager to leave. We’ve only been here a month –’

‘And you know why I want to leave. I don’t like it, Edward.’ My smile faded; my voice was sharp with anxiety. Edward crossed the short gap between us and wrapped his arms around my waist, his cheek pressed against my neck. He allowed his teeth to graze the skin of my throat. I shivered and pulled back. ‘Now is not the time for that, Edward.’

‘You’re right.’ He released me. ‘We need to talk.’

I looked from him to the little party across the river who chattered away, oblivious to my fears. ‘Let’s get out of here. Guys?’ I raised my voice and Nessie and Jacob, standing over the body of a giant jungle cat, turned to look at me. ‘We’re going off for a bit – see you at home.’ Jacob waved cheerfully, but Ness watched me, her chocolate-brown gaze unblinking. Finally, she nodded. I turned on my heel and sprinted through the Amazonian jungle where we’d travelled for a month-long vacation, staying with the vampires Kachiri, Senna and Zafrina. So very different from the woods and forests of home: the air was moist, almost thick enough to cut and soft as velvet against my skin, and the lush foliage overwhelmed me with its greenness. I could hear Edward hard on my heels. Gentlemanly as ever, he let me take the lead: he could easily outrun me, seeming to turn into a near-invisible blur when he really began to sprint. After twenty or so miles, we slowed and stopped. I could detect no hint of human activity or presence in the scented air. I dropped on to the trunk of a fallen tree, careless of my jeans – Alice never let us wear the same clothes twice, anyway – and stared up at Edward.

‘You know why I’m worried.’

He only nodded, his lips tight, and stared into the distance.

The vacation had seemed like such a good idea. We’d lived up near Anchorage, close to the Denali clan, for six short months – part of the Cullens’ usual subterfuge: it was unwise for so many of us to stay too long in any town, no matter how small and insignificant it might be. A family of physically perfect individuals, all with the same, strange gold eyes and ice-white, freezing cold skin who repelled the fragile humans around them, stood out like a sore thumb. We tried to be inconspicuous – we had to be; if the humans caught on to the fact that we weren’t like them, that we were something more, the Volturi would come down on us… but the fact that we never aged, that if we weren’t careful we did distinctly inhuman things, meant that we were always on the move. And then we moved again, for a job Carlisle was offered – a research job, one that involved caring for children with leukaemia. So back south we went: we were now only about a hundred miles from Forks. Ness, who had reached her full growth half a year ago, had complained endlessly about having to leave Forks. She had known nothing and nowhere else in her short, but hugely accelerated life: she didn’t want to leave Charlie and Sue, now happily married, or Billy. And she certainly hadn’t wanted to leave the wolf pack. The thought of being parted from Jacob had caused her actual physical pain.

Then. Had caused her actual physical pain then.

I bit my lip, sighing, and Edward’s eyes flashed to my face.

‘At first, I thought I was imagining things,’ I whispered. ‘I thought she was going through a teenage phase – you remember we had those two months of slammed doors and blasting music – and everything would go back to normal. I thought our trip would be a way to reset everything, get rid of her jitters. I didn’t expect…’ I gave a humourless, bell-like laugh.

‘Nor did I.’ Edward was paler than usual. He again looked across the river, over which a thin mist drifted, and I knew he was remembering the night that we came.

Senna, Kachiri and Zafrina had given us GPS coordinates rather than an address; they lived in a part of the Amazon that was, until relatively recently, inaccessible by humans. We’d got off the plane in Rio, taken an internal flight, and after a day and a night of seeming aimlessness in a nowhere town vanished into the depths of the living forest. When we were reunited with the three incredible women, Nessie jumping up and down for joy and demanding to see the ‘pretty pictures’ that had so entranced her when we were last together, the Amazonian vampires took us to their home. They had built a series of roundhouses, high in the trees, that could only be reached by scaling the trunks which were hundreds of feet high. As a token of their welcome, they had presented us with large wooden vessels of jaguar blood. I remembered Nessie laughing with excitement as she drained hers, the delicious colour flaring in her cheeks.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

And then, Nahuel had come.

I thought nothing of it at first – nor had Edward; in vampire life our thoughts and actions were remarkably attuned, and we orientated ourselves around each other without thinking – but a few short seconds later, I had realised that there was something wrong. Very wrong.

Not wrong as far as Nahuel was concerned. The young man, half human, half-vampire, was as beautiful and warm as ever, his dark eyes glowing with excitement. We had got to know him for several weeks after our battle-that-never-was against the Volturi ended. But he had returned to his forest home with his family, and we had somehow put him out of our heads as we returned to normal life. When I’d mentioned Nahuel to Ness before the trip she’d given me her usual brilliant smile, but she was more interested then in the prospect of going hunting for bears with Jacob. Emmett was going with them, and she wanted to offer him a challenge: the first one to take down three bears would have control over the remote for a month.

This time, everything changed.

A look, a single look, was all it took: their dark eyes met, and held. The room had filled with a stifling warmth that was uncomfortable against my vampire skin. Edward was frozen in an attitude of stress, his golden gaze intent on our daughter and the young man who was so like her. Born of a human, each with a vampire father. Nahuel had wordlessly stretched out his hand, and Nessie took it, holding it in hers. Holding his hand as if it were something precious.

A moment later, Jacob shivered.

I’d flinched, turning to look at him so fast that the microscopic splinters in the wood walls blurred. He met my gaze, and his eyes were hell. He was in hell. At that moment, his entire reason for being had separated herself from him. He shook his head several times, his hands trembling, and looked again at Ness. She had let go of Nahuel’s hand and taken Zafrina’s, laughing in delight as the older woman filled her vision with images of long-lost lands. Jacob’s dark eyes flickered from Ness’s face to Nahuel’s and back again. The atmosphere in the room had already shifted, and Jacob’s stiff shoulders relaxed. I could feel the relief rolling off him in waves, even as I trembled inside. Nothing to worry about. He had imagined it. There was nothing to fear.

But as the days went on, I could see his eyes burning again.

It wasn’t anything that either Ness or Nahuel said. They were perfectly polite to one another, interested in each other’s histories, chattering animatedly on the few occasions they were alone together, but there wasn’t much of an opportunity for aloneness: the Amazonians were a single entity, responding instantly to changes in each other’s moods and visions.

No. What was wrong was the way they looked.

I sifted through my old, imperfect memories, which were flat and blurred, captured by my dimly-lit mortal sight, and threw out my shield to cover Edward. He looked at the images of his own face, the expression on it, and sighed. I knew he saw what I saw: enchantment, obsession, need, desire, longing, pain. Hope.

‘It’s the same, isn’t it?’ I whispered, pulling my shield away and wrapping it protectively around me like a comfort blanket. ‘They feel just the way we did…’

‘Still do.’ Edward gave me his familiar, crooked smile, and for a moment I marvelled at him. So beautiful. So perfect. ‘That will never change. My love grows stronger for you by the day.’

‘As does mine.’ I bit my lip, chagrin washing over me. ‘But Jacob. This will… kill him, I think. He… lost himself when he imprinted. His life became all about trying to please her. Do you remember when we worried about what would happen if a wolf lost the object of his imprint, even for a day? Edward, what is he going to do? What are we going to do?’

Edward came to sit next to me, resting his bronze head against a smooth-limbed tree behind him, and sighed. ‘I can foresee a number of outcomes. None of them good. If Nessie chooses Nahuel –’

‘Edward, she already has!’

He half-closed his eyes, nodding. ‘They may fight. To the death. Or Jacob will…’

‘Jacob will what?’ I asked, almost expecting to hear the familiar, husky voice whispering through the trees. I flinched as a bough cracked and fell. Some vampire I was: I should be beyond jumping from nerves by now. The forest around us was silent, the animals and little living things frozen with fear at our presence.

‘I don’t know,’ said Edward diplomatically, and I scoffed.

‘Don’t try to spare my feelings, Edward. We are partners, remember. You don’t have to protect me –’

‘Oh, but I do. Now and always.’

‘This is about more than us, though. It’s about our daughter. And the man you once referred to as your son. What is happening here, Edward?’

‘I don’t know. Not for sure.’ Edward’s tone was calm. ‘She’s a young woman. Most young people have crushes.’

‘We certainly did.’

‘And, for a time, you yourself were enamoured with young Jacob Black.’

‘It wasn’t reciprocated. Not really. He was just there at a time when I needed him most. When I look back on his behaviour… well, Edward… somewhere, along the way, I grew a backbone. It’s not funny,’ I hissed, and the smile faded from Edward’s lips. ‘What Jacob did was entirely inappropriate. If it weren’t for the fact that he imprinted on our child, sometimes I would like to –’ I fought to force down my irritation. Jacob’s highhanded assumption that I was in love with him still rankled, after all these years, but I’d pushed those feelings deep down: I’d wanted to keep harmony in my family, and Ness’s happiness and well-being were my priority. But I could never quite get over the memory of Jacob forcing a kiss on the woman he now saw as his mother-in-law.

‘You never told me this,’ said Edward, his voice surprised, and I remembered that I had been keeping my wrath a secret. Anything to stop Edward from being hurt.

I shook my head impatiently, returning to the problem at hand. ‘Technically, we were “just a crush” –’ I used air quotes ‘– right? At least, that’s what everyone else thought. That’s how it looked to the outside world. Uncontrollable teenage love.’ My voice shook. ‘Stupid, I know,' I muttered. 'To think that we were ever ‘just a crush’; I don’t know what I’m saying, I’m so upset… I just mean, she looks at him like the two of us looked at each other.' Tremors rolled through my shoulders. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I whispered. ‘She is his life. He would rather die than cause her a second of unhappiness… but the thought of him being without her, her being with someone else…’

Edward closed his eyes, deep lines of pain scoring through his skin. ‘He can’t live without her,’ he agreed without opening his eyes. ‘I remember that, before he imprinted, when he was still obsessed with you, he went on an expedition to a nearby city to try to find another girl. The very day that I first heard Renesmee’s voice in utero. But when he got there, he couldn’t see their faces…’ He gave a half-laugh. ‘And it is not as though he didn’t attract his fair share of interest. He may be an enormous beast, but he is a very handsome beast,’ said Edward, surprising me. But then, he was always generous to those around him; the happier he grew, the more he wanted to share the joy. He was simply the most selfless, decent, kind person I’d ever known. Awe at the fact that he’d chosen me, Changed me, radiated through me. ‘Jacob is perceived by the female population as quite the catch.’

‘That doesn’t matter to him at all. He doesn’t care how he looks.’

‘No. He is remarkably free from vanity. Except when he compared himself with Nahuel; it was only a fleeting thought, but the venom in it was unmistakeable. He hates him.’ Edward’s comment was a statement, not a question. ‘I should not have been listening, of course.’ He looked ashamed. ‘But sometimes people’s thoughts are so intrusive that I am unable to block them out.’

‘Except for me,’ I murmured, and he nodded. ‘But he couldn’t do anything to cause Ness pain… he couldn’t fight Nahuel, could he? Or kill him so that he…’ I shook my head. And there it was: that was the problem. Jacob would die for Ness. He would kill for Ness. His entire being was wrapped up in hers. But the thought of causing her a moment of grief was enough to bring him to his knees. ‘What would he do?’ I demanded, my voice louder. ‘He doesn’t have a life without her…

'You call her 'Ness' these days...' Edward's voice was uncertain. 'Why, Bella?'

'Because it's her name. He didn't even allow us to choose our own daughter's name, Edward!' Irritation seethed on my tongue. 'I have to have something that's just mine... But that's unimportant right now. Will it kill him, Edward? Won't he survive her rejection, or is there a chance that -'

‘Yes. It very well may kill him.’ Edward’s face was bone-white against the vivid green undergrowth. ‘He can’t go through a single day without seeing her.’ His face twisted. ‘She has never entirely felt like my daughter, because he has always been there…’

I shook my head, ignoring this: this conversation could wait. But we were going to have to have it, and soon, because it seemed that there was a lot that had gone unsaid over the years. ‘It could be nothing,’ I said staunchly, though it felt like I was lying to myself. I was never convincing at the best of times. ‘It could just be a crush. We’re leaving tomorrow, and there’s a good chance she’ll never see him again. And everything can go back to normal.’

‘Normal,’ Edward echoed, but he didn’t sound convinced. I stared into the darkness, avoiding my husband’s golden gaze, but I knew what he was thinking: ‘normal’, as far as our vampire-werewolf-hybrid life went, would never be the same again.