The Story Of Sarelle: The Immortal Years »

Chapter 44

BPOV

7th July 2048

The door shuts behind me, a resounding echo as the heavy wooden falls into place. As it bounces around the cavernous space, every reverberation registering in my ears, I can't help but feel it tells another story.

It's not just a door closing, it's a whole past ending. Life as I know it.

I walked forward without thinking. I could do nothing else. I had to keep moving. If I stopped and thought for just a second about what had just happened in that room then it was over.

Love, life, meaning... over.

I walked and walked. Time made no sense as I wound through the maze that was Volterra castle. It was seconds passing, but also hours. Maybe it felt like time had frozen because the castle looked the same no matter how far I went. It felt like I would never escape, this place or the reality that everything I once knew had changed.

I had given him everything, my love, my life, my humanity, and all for what? Lies? Had anything he had ever said to me been true? I wasn't his first love. I hadn't been the one to awaken his un-beating heart. Who was I to him? A replication, a substitute for something he had lost?

I pushed through another set of doors into the grand atrium of the fortress. Finally it felt like I could breathe. The wide open space was silent except for the high whistle of wind passing through the slitted windows.

I paced the smooth stonework as my fingers traced the wedding band on my left hand. Was it anything more than just precious metal?

I had always had doubts as to why he chose me. Why he had chosen a clumsy, simple human when he could have had any one of the beautiful creatures in the world. He could have someone extraordinary, someone who was so much more than I could have ever been. It never made sense that he would love me. Unless...did he choose me because I was ordinary? He had clearly already experienced what it was like to love a girl who wasn't just skin, blood, and bones. Sarelle hadn't been a normal human. She wasn't even a normal vampire. I knew that. I could see it in her eyes, those strange irises that look like a splintered pattern of hazel and gold. No vampire who was completely normal would have irises like those. They held too much. A shrewd expression as if she were hiding something, untrusting of how much she could let out.

Of course she was hiding something. She'd been cheating with my husband!

My anger erupted as I felt my shield pulse, capturing Edward's essence within it, far from here, deep within the antechamber.

He used to taste so sweet, a bright light in my mind. Now it seemed sour, dimmed, unwanted.

I stuttered at that thought. Did I truly not want Edward? He had been the one and only for so long that the thought that he ceased to mean that much to me was shocking. He had hurt me, lied to me, betrayed my trust, committed adultery...but did that negate the years I had been happy in his arms, the moments and memories we'd shared together?

Did that absolve my love for him?

At that moment the doors burst open revealing Felix and Demetri dragging Edward's struggling body with them.

"You bastards! If you hurt her!..."

"It's her choice, Cullen. She's ours now," Felix said with a sly smile.

"And I for one am certainly looking forward to getting to know her a little better..." Alec drawled, smirking as Edward growled and spat.

"You dare touch her and I'll turn you to ash," Edward hissed. He seemed so completely oblivious to my presence. Not that I wanted him to acknowledge me, not yet. I didn't know what I wanted yet, and I certainly didn't want to hear his words. His words had too much power over me. I wouldn't stand it anymore.