1935 — The Cullen Estate
Foothills of the Smoky Mountains, near Gatlinburg, Tennessee
The Cullen estate stood like a secret carved into the earth—stone foundations nestled in the forest's green heart, cedar beams stretching up into the mist. Twilight rolled over the Smokies, cool and blue, pressing against the windowpanes like an ancient, watchful ghost.
Inside, the air was still. Uneasy.
The radio crackled in the corner, its voice sharp and British, slicing through the quiet like a scalpel.
"...Chancellor Hitler has officially renounced the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and announced the reintroduction of conscription…"
Carlisle turned the dial slightly, sharpening the signal as if clarity could make any of it better.
He stood with the poise of a born aristocrat—tall, fair, gold-touched in the lamplight. His voice was low, thoughtful. "They won't stop at conscription. This is the first drop of the storm."
"Men and their wars," Daenerys muttered from where she stood by the bay window, arms crossed over a silk blouse the color of lavender smoke. The soft waves of her platinum hair were pinned in a twisted crown, but rebellious strands kept slipping free. "Always posturing. Always sharpening their swords."
She turned her head toward Carlisle, a single brow arched with queenly disdain. "Dragons didn't kill cities. Men did."
Hadrian leaned beside the stone hearth, a shadow limned in firelight. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows, showing forearms like marble and a streak of dried clay from where he'd been shaping stone earlier. His green eyes glinted, catching the fire like emeralds—or old memories.
"We thought ourselves above it in my world too," he said quietly. "Wizards. Elves. Magical folk with their fortresses and ancient bloodlines. But death doesn't care about your lineage. War doesn't care about your wand."
Daenerys glanced at him. There was something unspoken in the look—irritation, maybe, but laced with something warmer. Familiar. Dangerous.
"You have a very specific way of ruining the mood, Hadrian."
He grinned, cocking a brow. "You have a very specific way of assuming there was a mood worth preserving."
Daenerys rolled her eyes, but it was fond—infuriatingly fond—and Rosalie hated how her stomach clenched at the way their hands brushed as they passed one another. A dance. A current. A thread pulling tight.
Carlisle sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Esme, maybe we should start looking at safe houses. If this comes across the sea—"
"It will," Edward said flatly from the far corner. He hadn't moved in an hour, a pale statue by the window. He stared through the glass as if he could see through the trees and into Berlin. "Humanity always repeats itself. War is like gravity—it pulls everything down eventually."
Rosalie, reclining on a velvet chaise with all the disdain of a Renaissance painting, gave a tight smile.
"God, you're depressing."
Edward didn't blink. "You're not exactly sunshine yourself, Rose."
Rosalie arched a brow, her cheek resting elegantly in her hand. She wore ivory silk that shimmered like frost—impossibly pristine, impossibly perfect. It made her fury all the more glaring.
"I could be, you know. If I had a reason to be."
There was silence.
Not the heavy kind. The pointed kind. The kind that cuts.
Daenerys finally broke it, pushing off from the windowsill and crossing to Hadrian with a toss of her silvery hair. "If another war's coming, maybe this time we do something. We've sat in the shadows long enough."
Hadrian gave her a look. "And do what? Invade Poland?"
Daenerys didn't flinch. "If it saves lives."
Rosalie made a noise in her throat. "That's rich. The Dragon Queen preaching peace."
Daenerys turned slowly, like a lioness roused from a nap. "I never said peace. I said lives. You remember what those are, don't you?"
Hadrian stepped in—gently, a hand at Daenerys's back. "Okay, easy. Nobody's burning anything tonight."
Rosalie stood suddenly. "Excuse me."
She didn't wait for permission. She walked through the room like a storm wrapped in silk, chin high, fury cold. She didn't know where she was going. Just away.
—
The balcony door groaned as she pushed it open, the night air brushing over her skin like an old lover. She gripped the railing hard. Stars broke through the sky above, cold and distant.
A wolf howled somewhere below. She didn't flinch.
She never flinched anymore.
"They talk about war like it's some grand tragedy," she whispered, staring into the black treetops. "As if they know what it means to lose."
Her fingers curled, nails biting into wood that wouldn't yield. Nothing broke anymore. Not her body. Not her voice. Only her inside.
"I would've traded it all. The beauty. The immortality. All of it. For a baby with my eyes. For laughter in the house. For someone to call me 'Mama' just once."
No tears. Vampires didn't cry.
But her throat hurt with the absence of them.
The door creaked behind her.
She didn't turn.
"I said I didn't want to talk."
"Good," Hadrian said, his voice low and warm. "I'm excellent at standing in silence. It's my second greatest skill."
She exhaled, sharp and reluctant. "What's your first?"
He stepped beside her, his scent brushing hers—clean air, stormclouds, and something older, something wild.
"Making impossible women smile."
Rosalie snorted. "That's a terrible line."
"And yet it worked."
She didn't deny it.
They stood together, stars creeping across the sky above them. He didn't speak. Didn't touch her. He just was there, and somehow, that was more intimate than anything else.
Then softly—
"I knew a spell once," he said. "Back home. Ancient. Magic that could conjure dreams into reality. If you wanted it badly enough."
She turned, sharply. "You mean… a child?"
His face—handsome, open, kind in a way that made her ache—was solemn. "I don't know. Magic is messy. Primal. It gives what it wants, not always what you ask. But maybe... maybe there's a version of the world where that's possible."
Her lip trembled. Just for a second.
"It wouldn't be real."
Hadrian tilted his head. "Neither are we, Rosalie. You, me, Daenerys, Edward... We're myths walking in flesh. If we can exist—maybe so can your dream."
Rosalie looked away.
But her hand... her hand brushed her stomach without thinking.
Hadrian saw. He didn't say anything.
He just stood there with her, as the moon rose over the forest, silvering the balcony in ghostlight.
Behind them, inside, Daenerys was watching from the doorway, eyes unreadable, arms folded. She didn't say a word. But her gaze lingered on Hadrian far too long.
And when she turned away, her jaw was set tight.
She'd always known she had competition.
But now?
She felt it.
And it burned like dragonfire.
—
Rosalie didn't move when the door shut behind Hadrian. She leaned harder into the balcony rail, like gravity was the one thing keeping her upright—and maybe she was just barely holding on. The night air was sharp, and the scent of fire and ash hit her before the voice did.
"I always thought you were the strong one."
She didn't bother turning. "That's rich. Coming from you." Her voice was dry, the kind of dry that carries a thousand unspoken words.
Daenerys stepped into the moonlight like smoke curling—graceful, deadly, and a little wild. Her arms were folded tight, but her chin was less queen, more weary woman who's been shoved off more thrones than she cares to count. Her silken blouse shimmered, catching the light, but those famous dragonfire eyes? Quiet. Haunted. Not blazing with power, but simmering with scars.
"I used to think love meant enduring," Dany said softly, coming up beside Rosalie. "Like pain was just strength in disguise. If you stayed long enough, if you took enough... it'd make you unbreakable."
Rosalie snorted, barely masking a bitter laugh. "And?"
Daenerys let out a breath, dark and slow. "Turns out… pain just stacks up. Doesn't get easier. It just… multiplies."
They stood side by side, two statues carved from grief and fire, wrapped in silk and fury, staring out into the endless dark like maybe it could whisper some kind of answer back.
Finally, Rosalie glanced at her, eyes sharp. "You're not like the others. You don't flinch around me."
Dany's lips curled into a twisted half-smile. "Because I know what it's like. I was raped, too."
The words dropped between them like a guillotine.
Rosalie didn't blink. Didn't look away. Just waited.
"I was sold," Daenerys went on, voice low but steady. "By my own brother. Like a prize mare handed over to a warlord. I told myself it was my duty. To obey. To please. And when I didn't…" Her voice cracked just for a moment. "He took what he wanted anyway. Every night."
Rosalie turned her gaze to the horizon, jaw clenched tight enough to crack.
"I told myself I loved him," Dany whispered, voice breaking but holding. "That he was kind. That he was mine. Because if I didn't believe it, I'd shatter. I convinced myself obedience was love. That surrender was affection."
Rosalie shut her eyes briefly. "And then?"
"Then he died. I thought I was free." Dany laughed—bitter, hollow. "Freedom? It's a joke when you've already given yourself away piece by piece."
Rosalie's voice was barely a rasp. "Daario?"
Dany's jaw clenched. "He wanted a queen to warm his bed. I wanted someone who stayed past dawn. We used each other, both pretending with smiles. But it was emptiness, just dressed up prettier."
They fell silent again, a long pause thick with everything left unsaid.
Then Rosalie whispered, "And the Stark boy?"
Daenerys exhaled sharply, as if someone had reopened an old wound.
"Jon Snow. I loved him. Honestly. Truly." She hesitated, voice fragile. "He loved me back, maybe… but not more than his honor. Not more than his fear. He stabbed me." She said it like it was nothing, but it was everything. "Said it was mercy."
Rosalie turned to face her, eyes burning sharp. "I would've killed him."
Dany smiled bitterly. "You would've done it better."
The wind caught at their hair, soft and relentless.
"I had a son," Daenerys said, voice dropping so low it was almost a secret. "Rhaego. In my belly. They called him the Stallion Who Mounts the World."
Rosalie's breath caught.
"He was born twisted. Dead." Dany's voice was full of shattered dreams. "Because I trusted the wrong woman. Because I wanted to save a man who raped me. Because I thought I was strong enough to defy death."
The silence that followed was raw. Hollow.
"I had dragons," Daenerys added, softer now. "Three. My children. One lost to the dead. One to a spear. And the last… Drogon." Her eyes darkened. "I don't know where he is. He flew away with my body after I died."
Rosalie blinked, stunned. "You… died?"
Daenerys met her gaze, steady and cold. "Burned alive. Betrayed. Alone."
A beat of heavy air.
Then she said it.
"But after all that... I came here. Immortal. And I found him."
Rosalie didn't need to ask.
Dany's voice dropped to a whisper, fragile but fierce. "Hadrian saw me. Not a queen. Not a savior. Just a girl who lost everything—and kept standing."
Rosalie swallowed hard.
"I'm not saying there's someone out there for you," Daenerys said, squeezing Rosalie's hand gently. "Maybe there is. Maybe there isn't. But if I can come back from all that… if I can still feel… you can."
Rosalie's lip quivered. "You don't know what it's like. Knowing you'll never have the one thing you were made for."
Daenerys reached out slow, cautious, and laid her hand over Rosalie's.
"I do," she said. "Every second I realize I'll never have children. Every time I smell smoke and think it's Drogon. Every time I see Hadrian smile and wonder what our son's laugh would've sounded like. Or a daughter's."
The wind shifted. The forest seemed to hold its breath.
"I see you, Rosalie," she whispered. "You think you're ice and steel, but I see the part of you still dreaming. Still hoping."
Rosalie bit her lip hard. "Hope hurts."
"So does silence."
They stood—no longer rivals, no longer queens or monsters, but survivors. Threadbare, furious, and still here.
Daenerys gave her hand one last squeeze. "When you're ready to fight for that dream again—let me know. I've got a dragon or two left in me."
Rosalie laughed—rough, cracked—but real.
"Just don't set the drapes on fire."
Daenerys smirked. "No promises."
Behind them, the balcony door creaked.
Hadrian stood there. Watching. Not intruding. Just waiting.
And maybe—for the first time—Rosalie didn't feel alone on the balcony.
She was standing between a queen and a myth.
And for once?
She belonged.
—
The night hit different.
Rosalie didn't realize how tightly she'd been wound until Daenerys left the balcony and the silence settled like a silk noose. She stood there with Hadrian a second longer than she meant to. Not speaking. Just existing. His presence felt like gravity—quiet, immense, unyielding.
He didn't offer her pity. Just patience.
She hated how much that mattered.
Rosalie gave him a small, sharp nod—gratitude diluted in pride—and slipped away before either of them could ruin it with words.
She needed space. Real space. The kind that stretched for miles and didn't ask her questions.
So she ran.
The wind tore through her hair like fingers in a lover's fight. Her heels struck moss and mud like war drums, rhythm syncing with the pulse pounding behind her ribs. Trees blurred past, a ghost parade of green and gray. She didn't think. She just ran until the world stopped being made of people and became something simpler.
Then she smelled it.
Blood.
Not prey.
Human.
Sharp. Metallic. Red with fear.
She veered left on instinct, leaping through brush until the screams hit her ears like a slap.
They ended with a sound no throat should ever make.
Rosalie cleared the last line of trees and saw it: a bear—massive and rabid, jaws slick with red, hunched over a torn figure on the ground.
The boy was still alive.
Barely.
And for one horrible second, the scene rewound—Vera's screams, Tommy's blood, her own helpless rage echoing across a century.
Rosalie snapped.
She didn't roar. Didn't snarl. She just moved.
One moment, the bear was ripping flesh. The next, it was a twitching heap with its throat torn out, Rosalie crouched over it, blood soaking her arms to the elbows. She fed quickly, cleanly. The boy didn't need to see the monster.
When the thirst was quiet—just a whisper behind her teeth—she turned to him.
He was… huge. Even crumpled in pain and soaked in his own blood, he looked like he'd been carved out of Tennessee hardwood. Shoulders like boulders. Hands the size of textbooks. But his face—God. He was just a boy. Twenty, maybe. Brown curls. Dimples stained with dirt and blood. He looked like he should've been tossing a football and asking some girl to prom, not bleeding out in the woods.
Her breath hitched.
"You idiot," she whispered, falling to her knees beside him. "You absolute, muscle-brained, beautiful idiot."
He groaned.
She blinked. He was still conscious?
"Shhh. Don't move," she murmured, brushing curls off his forehead. "God, you're even pretty when you're dying. That's not fair."
His lips moved. Barely. She leaned closer.
"…you single…?"
She blinked.
"You're making jokes," she said flatly.
"...hurts less… when I talk…"
"You're missing half your insides."
"…still worth it…"
She let out a short, helpless laugh that cracked like glass. "I hate you already."
"Love you too," he rasped, then passed out.
Rosalie stared at him. Then at the sky. "You've got to be kidding me."
She checked his pockets—wallet, torn and bloody. Name: Emmett Dale McCarty. Railroad worker. From Gatlinburg. There was a photo tucked behind his ID—him with a loud-looking family. Big grins. Church clothes. Backyard barbecue vibes.
Something sharp and old twisted in her chest.
"Damn it," she whispered again. She cradled him in her arms, standing effortlessly. "You are going to be so much trouble."
And she ran.
The scent of blood followed her like a curse, stoking the thirst with every mile. By the time the house came into view, she was shaking. Not from exertion—but from restraint. Every second was a war not to sink her teeth into the boy she was trying to save.
She didn't knock.
She kicked the door open.
Carlisle looked up from a leather-bound book, glasses perched low on his nose, dressed like he always was—somewhere between 19th-century professor and GQ immortal. He stood slowly, closing the book with quiet precision.
"Rosalie," he said, voice calm, accent soft and vaguely European. "You appear… feral."
"He's dying," she said, stepping into the light. "I need you. Now."
Carlisle's eyes fell to the blood-soaked body in her arms. Then back to hers. "Do you understand what you're asking?"
"Yes."
"You swore—"
"I know. But I can't let him die."
Carlisle walked toward her, graceful as ever, blue eyes cool and ancient and endlessly kind. "Why this one?"
Rosalie looked down at Emmett. "Because he fought. Because he smiled through it. Because he looks like someone I couldn't save."
Carlisle took him gently. "This will change everything."
"I want it to," she whispered.
He studied her, then gave a slow, accepting nod. "Then let's begin."
He laid Emmett on the dining table, which had seen more emergency surgeries than dinner parties, and rolled up his sleeves.
"You know," he said, reaching for his scalpel, "when I said I missed the excitement of my youth, I didn't mean—"
"Carlisle."
"Yes, yes. Biting now."
She watched, trembling, as he sank his teeth into Emmett's neck. The sound—wet and quiet and intimate—made her knees buckle.
When it was done, Emmett gasped. Not a cry. Not a scream. Just a sharp inhale—like the first breath after drowning.
Rosalie sank to the floor, back against the wall, arms folded tight. Her throat still burned. Her hands still shook.
But her heart…
Her heart was doing something it hadn't done in a very long time.
It was hoping.
Carlisle wiped his mouth and looked at her. "He'll be in agony for three days."
"I know."
"He may hate you when he wakes."
"I can live with that."
Carlisle tilted his head. "You like him."
"No," she lied.
He smiled faintly. "Rosalie."
"What?"
"He looks like a linebacker carved by Michelangelo."
She rolled her eyes. "Shut up."
"I'm just saying, if you'd told me you were into muscle-bound Southern goofballs, I might've kept an eye out."
"Go sterilize your scalpels."
"I'm a vampire. Everything I touch is sterile."
"You're insufferable."
Carlisle smiled. "You're glowing."
Rosalie looked at Emmett.
"I hate him already."
"Mm. Love at first mauling."
She didn't answer. Just closed her eyes and listened to the slow, ragged rhythm of a boy dying his way into immortality.
—
Three Days Later
Outside, a storm brewed.
The sky, painted in shades of plum and charcoal, rumbled with a menace it never quite delivered—like thunder was merely clearing its throat, waiting for permission to speak.
Inside, the Cullen estate whispered its secrets.
An opulent mansion with marble floors that echoed like cathedral vaults. Firelight flickered through oil lamps and danced across the walls, casting long, gothic shadows that seemed to breathe.
It had been three days since Rosalie dragged Emmett from the mountains—half-dead, ripped open, blood-soaked, yet somehow still smiling. Three days since she looked Carlisle in the eye and demanded, not asked, that he turn him. Three days of silence. Of restraint. Of waiting.
Tonight, the waiting ended.
A sound—deep, rumbling, primal—rattled the floorboards.
It wasn't the storm.
It was the basement.
Carlisle stopped mid-conversation with Esme, his ice-blue eyes flickering toward the floor. Edward's head snapped up from his book, lips parting like he'd just caught the end of an unfinished symphony. Rosalie had already turned, her body a blur of grace and tension.
And across the parlor, on the chaise near the fireplace, Daenerys Targaryen—barefoot, curled in a pale silk robe that made her look more goddess than girl—tilted her head. "He wakes," she said softly, like it was prophecy.
Hadrian was up before the words settled, his boots silent on the marble. "Let's greet the newborn," he said, voice smooth and threaded with anticipation.
—
The basement smelled of stone, old blood, and lavender soap—the kind Esme insisted on using no matter how many wars Hadrian and Dany had fought in their lifetimes.
Emmett lay motionless on the oak table Carlisle had used for surgeries during the Spanish flu. His massive frame stretched taut, every muscle carved like a Michelangelo had chiseled him from granite. Shirtless. Pale. Still.
Then—
A gasp, sharp and raw.
He bolted upright with a snarl, red eyes glowing like furnace coals. His chest heaved, but there was no breath. No heartbeat.
"Easy," Carlisle said, stepping forward with the calm of someone who had done this far too many times.
Edward, leaning on the stair railing, quirked an eyebrow. "Ten bucks says he throws someone."
"He throws you," Daenerys whispered, "I'll double it."
"Not helping," Hadrian muttered, though the smirk tugging at his lips said otherwise.
Emmett growled again, like something cornered, then blinked at the room full of strangers. Predators. Gods.
And then—
Her.
Rosalie. Golden. Fierce. Beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with softness.
"Angel," he breathed.
Rosalie's lip trembled. "You remember?"
"I remember the pain. The bear. You. You called me pretty."
Edward snorted. "She has a type. Dying and dumb."
Emmett turned his blazing eyes on him. "Who's the glittery twig?"
"Edward," Hadrian supplied. "Ignore him. He's mostly cheekbones and angst."
Daenerys chuckled, then turned to Hadrian. "Remind you of anyone?"
He raised a brow. "Please. My cheekbones are heroic. There's a difference."
Carlisle cleared his throat. "You're safe, Emmett. The transformation is complete."
Emmett stood, slightly unsteady but exuding power like it was leaking from his pores. He towered over everyone, eyes flicking to Rosalie like a lifeline.
"You did this?"
Rosalie nodded. "You were dying. I couldn't let you go."
He stepped forward, close enough to touch her but careful not to. "You saved me."
"I cursed you."
He touched her face, his callused fingers brushing her cheek. "Don't care. Still worth it."
"You don't know what this life is."
He grinned. "I know you're in it. And that's enough."
Behind them, Daenerys sighed. "If he starts composing sonnets, I'm leaving."
Hadrian leaned closer to her, voice teasing. "Would you want sonnets?"
She turned, eyes electric. "Only if you write them in Valyrian, with blood and fire."
He smirked. "Darling, I'd burn a continent to rhyme with your name."
Esme, ever the patient mother, smiled warmly. "You'll need to learn control, Emmett. But you have time. And family."
"Great," Emmett said, flexing his arms. "When do I get to punch a tree?"
Edward pointed toward the woods. "Just not my tree. I like that one."
"Do I get a room?" Emmett asked, eyes flicking back to Rosalie. "Or do I bunk with my angel?"
"You don't sleep anymore," she said, already turning.
"I wasn't planning on sleeping," he called after her.
Edward groaned. "We should've let the bear finish the job."
Hadrian laughed, pulling Daenerys into his side. She melted against him, her hand ghosting under his jacket. "Think Carlisle will regret this?"
"Only if Emmett finds the piano," he said.
"Or the wine cellar," Daenerys added.
Together, they watched as Emmett followed Rosalie up the stairs like a dog chasing the moon.
The house didn't quite exhale.
Not yet.
But something shifted. Something settled.
The storm outside cracked.
And this time, the thunder landed.
—
Later That Night. The Ridge Above the Valley — Deep in the Tennessee Wilderness
The moon hung swollen and silver in a cloudless sky, casting long shadows over the slick pine needles. The scent of damp earth mixed with ozone and an undercurrent of something wilder—blood, sweat, and the promise of a fight.
Emmett stood barefoot on the ridge's edge, chest bare and glistening faintly under the moonlight, wearing trousers that strained against his muscle mass like a second skin. He flexed his fists, cracked his neck, and grinned like a kid about to jump into the deep end for the first time.
"So," he announced, voice rumbling with excitement, "where's this bear I'm supposed to wrestle?"
Rosalie leaned against a tree, arms crossed, the faint glow of moonlight making her auburn hair shimmer like fire. "You're insane," she said flatly. "This isn't some kind of gladiator arena, Emmett. You don't need to throw down with a bear."
Emmett bounced on the balls of his feet like a prizefighter warming up. "I don't need to. I want to. A bear mauled me. Now I'm gonna suplex one into a tree. That's poetic justice. Circle of life."
Edward, standing nearby with his trademark scowl, shook his head slowly. "You're delusional."
Hadrian, leaning casually against a boulder with that perfect mix of chill and subtle strength, smirked. "Let the guy have his closure. Besides, I want to see this 'bear suplex.'"
Daenerys, fingers twisting a loose curl of her platinum hair, eyes sparkling with mischievous fire, rolled her eyes. "You're a disaster waiting to happen, Emmett. At least wrap your fists. Not because it'll protect you—God knows it won't—but for the aesthetic."
Emmett caught the bandage she tossed over, winking. "I like you already."
Rosalie snorted. "You said that about the bear."
Hadrian chuckled, stepping forward. "So, who's the designated referee? Someone's got to make sure we don't end up burying him in the woods."
"I volunteer," Edward deadpanned. "Just so I can say, 'I told you so,' when he ends up a bear's chew toy."
Emmett scowled playfully. "Grizzlies are more my style. They've got spirit."
Carlisle, calm as ever and impeccably dressed despite the wilderness, pointed toward the west. "Follow the stream. That's where you'll find them."
Esme appeared beside Carlisle like a beacon of grace, draped in a soft moss-green shawl. She cleared her throat delicately. "Before you all disappear like a pack of gothic cryptids into the night, can we talk about moving? Really moving?"
Edward groaned, the sound low and melodramatic. "Oh god, the 'Forks' speech. Again."
Esme shot him a look of gentle reproach. "It's not a speech. It's a vision. And you promised to think about it."
Daenerys raised a perfectly arched brow, voice smooth but teasing. "Forks? That perpetually gloomy little town? The one that basically invented broody energy?"
"Exactly," Esme said with a smile that could melt glaciers. "Minimal sunlight. Low population density. One hospital. Close to the ocean. And I've already designed the house—down to the crown molding."
Hadrian's eyes lit up, the corner of his mouth quirking. "You had me at 'ocean.'"
Rosalie smirked, tapping a finger against her chin. "And at 'low sunlight.' My skin thanks you."
Esme's gaze swept the group. "We've been lucky here, but the risk is growing. We're drawing too much attention. And with Emmett…"
Everyone's eyes flicked toward Emmett, who was shadowboxing against a pine tree, muttering growls and grunts like a slightly deranged bear himself.
Hadrian shook his head, a slow smile creeping across his face. "He's about as subtle as a freight train."
Emmett puffed up his chest, stepping toward the group like a proud gladiator. "I'm right here, people. And I swear on my new strength that I'll be a model citizen in Forks. I'll only suplex animals on Wednesdays."
Rosalie raised a perfectly sculpted brow. "How generous."
Carlisle turned to Esme quietly. "I agree. The time has come."
Edward's frown deepened but no words came. Daenerys nudged Hadrian, her voice a low murmur. "Will there be schools? You know, so you can keep bullying the local teenagers?"
Hadrian grinned. "Trying to blend in and cause trouble? Why not both?"
Daenerys's lips curved in that sly, almost imperceptible smirk—the kind that meant 'challenge accepted.' "Perfect. I'll be waiting to school you."
Esme smiled, full of hope and warmth. "Good. I'll start packing. If we leave by the end of the week, we'll get there before the spring rains."
Rosalie exhaled, running a hand through Emmett's wild hair. "Fine. You get one bear. Then we pack."
"Yes!" Emmett whooped, then suddenly froze, nose twitching like a bloodhound. "You guys smell that?"
The group fell silent, tension rippling through the air.
Edward's voice dropped. "Grizzly. Quarter mile west."
Emmett's grin split his face like a kid on Christmas morning. "Let's go make some closure."
He vanished into the woods like a cannonball in sweatpants.
Rosalie shook her head but smiled. "He's going to break something."
Edward sighed dramatically. "If he ends up in pieces, I'm not putting him back together."
Daenerys stretched her shoulders, eyes glowing faintly in the moonlight, voice low and teasing. "Want to place bets?"
Hadrian laughed, disappearing after Emmett's retreating figure. "Fifty on the bear for round one."
Carlisle and Esme lingered, watching shadows shift and leaves whisper in the breeze.
"You're sure about Forks?" he asked quietly.
Esme's eyes met his, steady and sure, warm like the last ember in a dying fire. "It's time we find a place where we can finally plant roots, Carlisle."
He took her hand gently. "Then Forks it is."
Behind them, the forest echoed with the triumphant whoop of a newly minted vampire body-slamming his way into legend—and the slightly less triumphant roar of a very startled bear.
Somewhere in these woods, chaos reigned.
But in their hearts, the Cullens were already home.
---
Hey fellow fanfic enthusiasts!
I hope you're enjoying the fanfiction so far! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Whether you loved it, hated it, or have some constructive criticism, your feedback is super important to me. Feel free to drop a comment or send me a message with your thoughts. Can't wait to hear from you!
If you're passionate about fanfiction and love discussing stories, characters, and plot twists, then you're in the right place! I've created a Discord server dedicated to diving deep into the world of fanfiction, especially my own stories. Whether you're a reader, a writer, or just someone who enjoys a good tale, I welcome you to join us for lively discussions, feedback sessions, and maybe even some sneak peeks into upcoming chapters, along with artwork related to the stories. Let's nerd out together over our favorite fandoms and explore the endless possibilities of storytelling!
Click the link below to join the conversation:
https://discord.com/invite/HHHwRsB6wd
Can't wait to see you there!
If you appreciate my work and want to support me, consider buying me a cup of coffee. Your support helps me keep writing and bringing more stories to you. You can do so via PayPal here:
https://www.paypal.me/VikrantUtekar007
Or through my Buy Me a Coffee page:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vikired001s
Thank you for your support!