They filled my room like statues come to life—seven vampires standing in a space designed for one human girl, and somehow they made it work. Carlisle had taken the chair at my desk, his posture relaxed, his ancient eyes gentle. Esme, his wife, perched on the arm of the chair beside him, her dark hair falling in soft waves around a face that radiated maternal warmth. Rosalie leaned against my dresser, her perfect features arranged in an expression of bored disdain, though her golden eyes missed nothing. Emmert towered beside her, one massive shoulder propped against the wall, a easy smile playing at his lips. Jasper stood near the door, his body angled slightly forward, like a soldier ready for battle, his watchful gaze scanning the room with a predator's awareness. Alice had claimed the foot of my bed, sitting cross-legged like a child at a sleepover, her too-bright eyes sparkling with barely contained excitement.
And Edward—Edward stood at my window, his back to the glass, his golden eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made it hard to breathe. He hadn't spoken since entering, hadn't moved, just watched me like I was the only thing in the universe worth seeing.
I sat on the edge of my bed, my hands clasped in my lap to hide their trembling, and waited.
Carlisle began.
"You know what we are," he said. It wasn't a question. "Edward told you. But there's much more you need to understand—about us, about yourself, and about the forces that have been hunting you since before you were born."
"The Crimson Queen," I said. "Edward mentioned her. He said she's been searching for me for seventeen years."
"Seventeen years is a conservative estimate." Carlisle's eyes darkened. "She's been searching for something like you for centuries. A hybrid. A child born of vampire and human, with the strengths of both and the weaknesses of neither. The last one appeared five hundred years ago, and her appearance changed the vampire world forever."
"What happened to her?"
A silence fell over the room. I saw Rosalie's perfect lips tighten, saw Jasper's jaw clench, saw something flicker across even Carlisle's gentle features.
"She's still alive," Esme said softly. "In a manner of speaking. Her name was Selene, and she was the daughter of a vampire lord and a human woman he loved against all laws of our kind. For a hundred years, she lived in peace, hidden from those who would use her. But peace never lasts."
"The Volturi found her," Alice said, her voice uncharacteristically serious. "The oldest and most powerful vampire coven in existence. They didn't want to destroy her—they wanted to control her. Use her as a weapon. When she refused, they—" She stopped, her eyes going distant in a way that made me think she was seeing something none of the rest of us could.
"They turned her," Carlisle finished. "Against her will. Forced her into a transformation that should have been impossible—she was already half-vampire, already carried our nature in her blood. The process drove her mad. She became something else, something terrible. The Crimson Queen was born from that madness, and she's been hunting ever since for a way to reverse what was done to her."
"For a cure," I whispered.
"No." Edward's voice was sharp, cutting through the quiet. "Not a cure. A sacrifice. She believes that if she can find another hybrid—one who hasn't been turned—and consume their blood, she can regain her sanity. Become whole again. She's been killing her way through vampire covens for centuries, looking for someone like you."
The room spun around me. I gripped the edge of my bed, forcing myself to breathe, to stay conscious, to not fall apart in front of these ancient creatures who had seen empires rise and fall.
"That's why she wants me. To eat me."
"Essentially." Carlisle's voice was gentle, but the word hit me like a physical blow. "But it's more complicated than that. There are others who want you for different reasons. Factions within the vampire world who see you as a symbol—either of hope or of destruction. A prophecy has circulated among our kind for generations: When the child of two worlds awakens, she will either unite the tribes or tear them apart forever. No one knows which interpretation is correct. No one knows what you'll become."
"What do you think I'll become?"
The question hung in the air between us. I watched Carlisle's ancient face, searching for any sign of deception, any hint that he was manipulating me the way everyone else seemed to want to.
"I think," he said slowly, "that you'll become whatever you choose to become. Prophecies are not destiny—they're possibilities. Warnings. Maps of potential futures. But the choices are always yours."
"Then why does everyone want to kill me?"
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Because choice terrifies them. If your future is predetermined, they can plan for it. Control for it. But if you're free—truly free—then you're unpredictable. And nothing frightens the ancient world more than something it cannot predict."
I thought about that, turning it over in my mind like a stone. Freedom as a threat. Choice as a weapon. It made a kind of terrible sense.
"What about my mother?" I asked. "She's human. Or at least, I think she's human. How did she end up with me? How did she escape the Crimson Queen?"
The room went very still.
"That," Carlisle said carefully, "is a complicated question. Your mother—her name before she lost her memory was Elena Vance—was not always human. Or rather, she was human, but she was also something more."
"I don't understand."
"She was a guardian." Esme leaned forward, her soft voice filled with something like reverence. "A member of an ancient order dedicated to protecting hybrids. They've existed for thousands of years, long before the first vampire ever walked the earth. Their purpose is to find children like you—children born of impossible unions—and keep them safe until they're old enough to choose their own path."
"A guardian," I repeated. "Like a bodyguard?"
"Much more than that. Guardians are humans who have been enhanced—given longer lives, greater strength, heightened senses—through rituals lost to time. They're the reason hybrids like you still exist. The reason the Crimson Queen hasn't found you before now." Carlisle paused, his ancient eyes meeting mine. "Your mother was one of the best. She'd protected three hybrids before you, guided them to adulthood, watched them make their choices. And then she was assigned to protect the child of a vampire lord who had fallen in love with a human woman—your father."
My breath caught. "My father. You know who he is?"
"I do." Carlisle's voice was heavy with something that might have been grief. "His name was Alistair Vance. Your mother's partner in the guardian order. They fell in love—a love that should have been impossible, forbidden by every law of their kind. When your mother became pregnant, they knew they had to hide. Not just from the Crimson Queen, but from their own people. Guardians are sworn to protect hybrids, not create them."
"What happened to him?"
The silence that followed was answer enough.
"He died," I said flatly. "Didn't he?"
"Three days after you were born." Esme's eyes were bright with unshed tears—could vampires cry? "The Crimson Queen found them. Alistair held her off long enough for your mother to escape with you. He knew he wouldn't survive—he wasn't a fighter, not really—but he bought her time. Minutes. Hours. Long enough for her to reach a place where the Queen couldn't follow."
"A place?"
"The stone in the forest." Alice's voice was soft, distant, her eyes unfocused. "It's a guardian anchor—one of the old places, charged with power from before recorded history. Your mother used it to hide you, to hide herself. But the power cost her. It stripped away her memories, her identity, everything that made her who she was. She became a blank slate, a woman with no past and no future, carrying a child she couldn't remember conceiving."
I thought about my mother's trembling hands. Her confusion. The way she sometimes looked at me like I was a stranger she loved but didn't recognize.
"She gave up everything for me. Her memories. Her identity. The man she loved." My voice cracked. "She doesn't even know my name. Not really. She calls me Ellie because that's what the hospital wrote on my birth certificate, but she doesn't know me. She can't."
"She knows you." Edward spoke for the first time in minutes, his voice rough with an emotion I couldn't identify. "I told you before—I can hear her thoughts from a distance. She loves you, Ellie. Desperately, completely, with every fiber of her being. She just doesn't know why. And that confusion, that absence—it's like a wound that never heals. But the love is real. It's the most real thing about her."
A tear slipped down my cheek. I wiped it away angrily, furious at myself for crying in front of these strangers, these monsters, these people who had lived for centuries while my mother sacrificed everything for me.
"What do I do now?" I asked. "The Queen is coming. Your note said so." I pulled the folded paper from my pocket, the one that had arrived in this morning's mail. The Queen is coming. "How do I fight something that's been alive for five hundred years?"
"You don't fight." Carlisle's voice was firm. "You run. That's what guardians do—they hide their charges, keep them safe until they're ready. And you're not ready, Eleanor. Not yet."
"When will I be ready?"
No one answered. The silence stretched, heavy with things unsaid.
"She needs to know," Alice murmured. Her eyes had that distant look again, the one that made me think she was seeing futures I couldn't imagine. "If we don't tell her, she'll find out on her own. And that path—" She shuddered, a movement so slight I almost missed it. "That path ends in fire."
"Tell me what?" I demanded. "What are you hiding?"
Edward moved from the window, crossing the room in three fluid strides that should have been impossible. He knelt before me, his cold hands reaching for mine, his golden eyes burning into my soul.
"Your inheritance," he said quietly. "The part of you that isn't human. It's been sleeping your whole life, suppressed by the guardian magic your mother used to hide you. But it's waking up now. The stone in the forest triggered something. My touch triggered something. And when it fully awakens—" He stopped, his jaw tightening.
"When it fully awakens, what?"
"You'll become what your father was." Carlisle's voice was gentle, but it hit me like a blow. "A guardian. Enhanced. Powerful. Capable of things no human can do. But the transformation is dangerous. Painful. And it attracts attention—the kind of attention that gets people killed."
"Then why would I want it?"
"Because without it, you can't defend yourself. Without it, you're just a human girl facing a five-hundred-year-old vampire queen." Edward's hands tightened on mine, his cold fingers sending shivers up my arms. "The choice is yours, Ellie. It's always been yours. But you need to make it soon, because the Queen's agents are already here. I can hear them—distant thoughts, cold and hungry, searching the town for any sign of you."
My heart stopped. "They're here? Now?"
"Not in Raven's Peak. Not yet. But close. A day, maybe two. They're tracking the same energy the stone released when you touched it. The same energy that's been building in you since birth."
I looked around the room at these seven vampires—these creatures who had every reason to want me dead or controlled or used—and saw something I hadn't expected: fear. Not of me, but for me. They were afraid of what was coming, afraid of what it would do to me, afraid they wouldn't be able to stop it.
"Why do you care?" The question came out harsher than I intended. "You don't know me. A week ago, I didn't even know you existed. Why would you risk your lives for a stranger?"
"Because we've been waiting for you." Esme's voice was soft, her maternal eyes shining. "Not specifically—we didn't know who you were or when you'd appear. But we've always known that someday, someone like you would need our help. And we made a choice, long ago, to be the kind of creatures who help when help is needed."
"We were all human once," Carlisle added. "We remember what it was like to be afraid, to be hunted, to have no one to turn to. The Volturi would have destroyed us if we hadn't banded together. We survived because we found family in each other. And family—" He smiled, a gentle expression that transformed his ancient face. "Family protects its own."
"You're not my family."
"No. But we could be. If you let us."
I looked at Edward, still kneeling before me, his golden eyes never leaving my face. I thought about the rose on my windowsill, the note telling me to run, the way he'd touched my forehead like I was something precious. I thought about my mother, alone in Portland, unable to remember the daughter she'd sacrificed everything for. I thought about my father, dying to give me three more days of life.
And I made my choice.
"Tell me what to do," I said. "Tell me how to wake up whatever's inside me. And tell me how to kill a queen."
The next twenty-four hours were a blur of preparation.
The Cullens couldn't stay in my room—dawn was approaching, and despite their vegetarian lifestyle, they still couldn't risk exposure. But they didn't leave entirely. Instead, they scattered through town, watching, waiting, listening for any sign of the Queen's approach.
Edward stayed closest. I found him outside my window at dawn, standing motionless in the gray light, his golden eyes fixed on my face.
"You should sleep," he said. "Tomorrow will be difficult."
"I know." I leaned against the window frame, drinking him in—the impossible beauty, the ancient sadness, the way he held himself so still it seemed to defy nature. "Will you be here when I wake up?"
"Yes." A pause. "I'll always be here, Ellie. Whether you want me or not."
I wanted to ask what that meant—whether he was promising protection or something more, something deeper. But exhaustion was pulling at me, dragging me down into darkness, and before I could form the words, sleep claimed me.
I dreamed of fire.
Not the clean fire of a hearth or the warm fire of sunlight—this was something else, something ancient and hungry, burning through my veins like liquid lightning. I dreamed of running through forests at impossible speeds, of leaping across chasms that should have swallowed me, of fighting creatures that had haunted human nightmares since the beginning of time.
I dreamed of a woman with amber eyes, screaming my name.
Eleanor. Eleanor. I WILL FIND YOU.
I woke gasping, my skin slick with sweat, my heart hammering against my ribs. The room was dark—night had fallen while I slept—and for a terrible moment, I didn't know where I was or what was real.
Then I saw him.
Edward sat in the chair by my desk, his golden eyes glowing faintly in the darkness, watching me with an intensity that should have been terrifying but instead felt like the safest thing in the world.
"The Queen," I gasped. "She's—"
"Close." His voice was calm, but I could hear the tension beneath it. "Closer than we hoped. She'll be here by midnight."
I looked at the clock on my nightstand. 9:47 PM. I'd slept for nearly fifteen hours.
"How long have you been sitting there?"
"Since dawn. I told you I'd be here." A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "I keep my promises."
I wanted to say something—thank him, maybe, or ask him why he cared so much—but there was no time. Already I could feel something stirring in my blood, that fire from my dreams waking up, demanding attention.
"The transformation," I said. "It's starting, isn't it?"
Edward nodded, his expression grave. "The stone triggered it, but your body has been fighting it—holding it back, the way your mother's magic taught it to. But you can't hold it forever. And with the Queen approaching—"
"I need to let it happen."
"Yes."
"Will it hurt?"
He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. "More than anything you've ever experienced. The guardian transformation was designed to be painful—to weed out the weak, to ensure that only the strongest survive. Your father went through it. Your mother went through it. They both came out the other side changed, stronger, more than human." He paused. "But they also came out different. The pain changes you. It has to."
I thought about my mother's trembling hands. The confusion in her eyes. The way she sometimes stared at nothing, like she was trying to remember something just out of reach.
"Did it change their memories? The way the stone changed my mother's?"
"No. That was the anchor—the price of using guardian magic to hide. The transformation itself won't take your memories. But it will give you new ones. Instincts. Knowledge you didn't have before. Some of it will feel like remembering something you never learned."
I swung my legs out of bed, standing on shaky feet. The fire in my blood was stronger now, a pulsing warmth that seemed to beat in time with my heart.
"Where do I do this? Not here—Aunt Cora will be home soon."
"She's not coming home." Edward stood, moving to my side with that impossible grace. "Alice spoke with her this afternoon. Explained what's happening. Your aunt is... not entirely human herself. She's been protecting you your whole life, Ellie. She just couldn't remember why."
I stared at him. "Aunt Cora is a guardian?"
"A retired one. She gave up the life decades ago, chose to live quietly in this town, away from the wars and the politics. But when your mother called, begging for help, she didn't hesitate. She's been watching over you since you arrived. Waiting for the moment when you'd need her."
All those years. All those questions. And my aunt—my strange, distant, hard-faced aunt—had been protecting me the whole time.
"The forest," I said. "The clearing with the stone. That's where I need to be, isn't it?"
Edward nodded. "The anchor will help. It's charged with guardian energy—it can ease the transformation, make it less... brutal."
"Less brutal than what?"
He didn't answer. He didn't have to.
We moved through the night like shadows.
The Cullens had gathered outside—all seven of them, waiting in the darkness like a legion of guardian angels. Or guardian demons. I wasn't sure which anymore.
Alice fell into step beside me as we approached the forest's edge, her small hand finding mine in the darkness.
"It's going to be okay," she said softly. "I've seen it. Not all of it—the future gets hazy around you, like trying to see through fog—but enough. You survive tonight, Ellie. That much I know."
"And tomorrow?"
Her smile flickered. "Tomorrow is another battle."
The forest closed around us, dark and ancient and pulsing with a life I'd never noticed before. Now, with the fire in my blood burning brighter, I could feel it—the trees, the soil, the creatures hiding in the shadows. They were all connected, all part of something vast and old and powerful.
The stone waited in the clearing, its markings glowing faintly in the starlight. As I approached, the glow intensified, pulsing in time with my heartbeat, matching the rhythm of the fire in my veins.
"When I touch it," I said, "it's going to hurt."
"Yes." Edward's voice was steady at my shoulder. "But I'll be here. We'll all be here. You won't go through it alone."
I looked back at them—these seven vampires who had chosen to risk everything for a girl they barely knew. Carlisle with his gentle eyes. Esme with her maternal warmth. Rosalie with her cold beauty that hid depths I was only beginning to understand. Emmett with his easy strength and quicker smile. Jasper with his soldier's vigilance and hidden wounds. Alice with her visions and her faith in futures she couldn't quite see.
And Edward. Always Edward. Watching me like I was the answer to a question he'd been asking for a hundred years.
I turned back to the stone and reached out my hand.
The moment my fingers touched the cool surface, the world exploded into agony.
Fire flooded my veins—not the gentle warmth I'd felt before, but something ravenous, consuming, burning through me like I was kindling. I screamed, or tried to—no sound came out, just a silent, endless howl of pain that echoed through dimensions I hadn't known existed.
My bones were breaking. No—they were melting, reforming, reshaping themselves into something new. My muscles tore and regrew, tore and regrew, each cycle more agonizing than the last. My blood boiled in my veins, steam rising from my skin as the transformation remade me from the inside out.
Through the haze of pain, I was dimly aware of hands on me—cold hands, vampire hands, holding me steady as I thrashed and writhed. Edward's voice, somewhere far away, murmuring words I couldn't understand. Alice's face, swimming in and out of focus, her eyes bright with tears.
And beneath it all, a voice that wasn't mine, speaking words that burned themselves into my memory:
Welcome, child of two worlds. Welcome to your birth.
The pain peaked, crested, and then—nothing.
I opened my eyes.
The world was different.
I could see everything—every leaf on every tree, every star in the sky, every microbe swimming in the air between. I could hear everything—the heartbeat of every creature in the forest, the whisper of blood through veins, the distant murmur of thoughts that weren't my own. I could feel everything—the pull of the earth beneath me, the weight of the atmosphere above, the thin thread connecting me to every living thing within a hundred miles.
And I could smell them.
The Cullens surrounded me, their scents as distinct as fingerprints—Carlisle's ancient wisdom, Esme's gentle love, Rosalie's sharp beauty, Emmett's rolling strength, Jasper's controlled violence, Alice's sparkling hope. And Edward—Edward smelled like winter and lightning and something else, something sweet and terrible that made my newly awakened heart stutter in my chest.
I stood.
The movement was effortless—smoother than it had ever been, more controlled, more right. I looked down at my hands, expecting to see something different, but they were the same hands I'd always had. Same skin. Same shape. Same fingers that had touched the stone and triggered this impossible change.
But they weren't the same. Nothing was the same.
"How do you feel?" Carlisle's voice was calm, clinical, but I could hear the concern beneath it.
"Different." My voice was my own, but richer somehow, deeper. "I can hear—" I stopped, frowning. "I can hear you. Not your thoughts, exactly, but... your intentions? Your emotions?"
"Guardian empathy," he nodded. "One of the gifts. You'll develop more as you grow into your power."
I looked at Edward, and for the first time, I could see him—truly see him, not just the beautiful surface but the depths beneath. The weight of a hundred years of loneliness. The hunger he fought every moment of every day. The hope he barely dared to feel.
And beneath it all, something that made my breath catch: a love so vast and ancient and desperate that it threatened to swallow us both.
"You can hear me now," he whispered. "Can't you?"
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
"What do you hear?"
I stepped toward him, my new body moving with a grace I'd never possessed, and placed my hand on his chest—over where his heart would beat if he still had one.
"I hear a boy who's been alone for a very long time," I said softly. "I hear someone who's spent a century believing he didn't deserve to be loved. I hear—" I paused, feeling the truth of it in every cell of my transformed body. "I hear my future."
Edward's arms wrapped around me, cold and strong and perfect, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I was exactly where I belonged.
But the moment shattered.
A scream tore through the night—not human, not animal, something else entirely. It came from the direction of town, from the place where Aunt Cora's house sat at the edge of the forest.
And beneath it, a voice I recognized from my dreams:
ELEANOR. I HAVE FOUND YOU.
The Crimson Queen had arrived.
We ran.
The forest blurred past me at speeds that should have been impossible, but my new body handled it effortlessly—leaping over fallen logs, dodging branches, covering ground that would have taken hours in minutes. The Cullens flanked me, a protective formation that spoke of centuries of fighting together.
But when we burst from the treeline, we were too late.
Aunt Cora's house was in flames.
Fire consumed the old Victorian, climbing toward the sky in hungry orange tongues, devouring a century of memories in minutes. The heat was intense, even from a distance, and through the roar of the flames, I could hear something else—a voice, low and musical, singing an old lullaby.
I knew that voice. I'd heard it in my dreams.
A figure stood in front of the burning house, untouched by the heat, untouched by anything. She was beautiful—more beautiful than any creature had a right to be—with hair the color of blood and eyes like burning amber. Her skin was pale as marble, her features perfect as sculpture, her smile the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen.
"Eleanor." Her voice was silk and poison. "I've waited so long to meet you."
Behind her, barely visible through the flames, I saw a shape crumpled on the ground. Aunt Cora. Not moving. Not—
"She's alive." The Queen's smile widened. "For now. But that depends on you, little hybrid. On the choices you make in the next few minutes."
I started forward, but Edward's hand caught my arm, holding me back.
"Don't," he whispered. "That's what she wants—to provoke you, to make you act without thinking."
I knew he was right. I knew it with every rational cell in my transformed body. But looking at my aunt—the woman who'd taken me in, protected me, watched over me my whole life without even knowing why—I couldn't just stand there.
"What do you want?" I called out, my voice steady despite the terror coursing through me.
The Queen laughed—a sound like breaking glass. "What do I want? Oh, little one. I want so many things. I want my sanity back. I want the centuries of madness to end. I want to feel whole again, the way I felt before they broke me." Her amber eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my skin crawl. "And you—you're the key to all of it. Your blood, your power, your very existence—it's the only thing that can save me."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then your aunt dies. Slowly. Painfully. And then I find your mother—oh yes, I know where she is, I've always known, I was just waiting for you to come into your power first—and she dies too. And then I find everyone you've ever loved, everyone you've ever cared about, and I take them from you one by one until you have nothing left but me."
The fire roared behind her, casting dancing shadows across her perfect face. Behind me, I felt the Cullens tensing, preparing for a fight they knew they might not win.
But I wasn't listening to the Queen anymore. I was listening to something else—a voice in my head, warm and familiar, speaking words I'd never heard but somehow knew by heart.
The guardian gift isn't just strength, Eleanor. It's connection. You're linked to every guardian who's ever lived, every hybrid who's come before. Draw on them. Draw on us. You're not alone.
My mother's voice. My mother, thousands of miles away, reaching across the distance to guide me one last time.
I closed my eyes and reached out with senses I didn't know I had.
And I felt them.
Thousands of them—guardians from every age, every culture, every corner of the world. Some had lived centuries ago, their memories faded to echoes. Some were alive now, fighting their own battles, protecting their own charges. And at the center of it all, bright as a star, was my mother—confused, damaged, unable to remember her own name, but loving me still with every fiber of her being.
We're with you, she whispered. We've always been with you. Now fight.
I opened my eyes.
The Queen was still speaking, her voice a poisonous melody, but I wasn't listening anymore. I was looking at the Cullens—at Edward, whose golden eyes burned with desperate love; at Alice, whose face had gone distant with vision; at Carlisle, whose ancient wisdom had brought us all to this moment.
"I know what to do," I said quietly. "But I need your help. All of you."
Edward nodded without hesitation. "Tell us."
"The Queen is old—older than any of you. Stronger. Faster. We can't beat her in a straight fight." I looked at Alice. "But you see the future. You can guide us, show us where to strike, when to move. And Jasper—" I turned to the soldier-vampire. "You feel emotions. You can sense her intentions, predict her attacks. The rest of you—" I met each of their golden eyes in turn. "You trust Alice and Jasper. You move when they tell you to move, strike when they tell you to strike. And you give me an opening."
"An opening for what?" Rosalie's voice was sharp, skeptical.
I smiled—and it wasn't a human smile anymore. It was something older, something fiercer, something that had been sleeping in my blood for seventeen years.
"An opening to show a five-hundred-year-old queen what happens when you threaten my family."
The Queen was still talking, still monologuing like every villain in every story I'd ever read. She hadn't noticed the change in us—hadn't noticed that we were no longer prey.
She was about to learn.
Edward's hand found mine, cold and strong, and for just a moment, our eyes met.
"Together," he whispered.
"Together," I agreed.
And then we moved.
The battle that followed would echo through vampire history for centuries.
The Cullens struck like lightning—Emmett first, his massive frame crashing into the Queen's flank with enough force to shatter stone. She barely flinched, turning to meet his attack with a speed that made my new eyes struggle to track her. But Emmett wasn't meant to win—he was meant to distract.
Jasper's gift washed over the battlefield, flooding the Queen with emotions she couldn't control—fear, confusion, doubt. For just a moment, her perfect composure cracked, and in that moment, Alice struck.
She moved like water, like wind, like something that existed in the spaces between seconds. Her small hands found the Queen's throat, her legs wrapped around the older vampire's torso, and for one impossible instant, she had the Queen pinned.
It wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough. But it was exactly what I needed.
I ran.
My new body carried me across the distance in less than a heartbeat, my guardian-strength propelling me faster than any human had a right to move. The Queen saw me coming—saw the death in my eyes—and for the first time, I saw fear flicker across her ancient features.
But she was still faster.
She threw Alice aside like a ragdoll, spun to meet my attack, and caught me mid-leap with hands that felt like iron. We crashed to the ground together, her weight pinning me down, her amber eyes blazing inches from my face.
"Foolish child," she hissed. "Did you think you could defeat me? I've killed things older than your entire species. I've crushed armies, toppled kingdoms, destroyed everyone who ever stood against me. You're nothing—a accident, a mistake, a child playing at war."
I should have been afraid. I should have been terrified, paralyzed, unable to move beneath the weight of five hundred years of pure evil.
But I wasn't.
Because in that moment, with her face inches from mine and her breath cold on my skin, I heard something. Not my mother's voice this time—something older, deeper, more primal.
The guardian gift isn't just strength, Eleanor. It's connection. And connection cuts both ways.
I reached out with my mind—not to attack, but to understand. To feel what she felt, to know what she knew, to become, for just a moment, the creature who had hunted me my entire life.
And I saw.
I saw a girl, young and beautiful, loved by a vampire lord who should have known better. I saw her transformation—not chosen, but forced, her body twisted into something monstrous against her will. I saw centuries of madness, of loneliness, of desperate searching for a cure that didn't exist. I saw the moment she broke, the moment the girl died and the Queen was born.
And beneath it all, I saw what she really wanted.
Not power. Not control. Not destruction.
Just peace. Just an end to the screaming in her head. Just to be whole again.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
The Queen's eyes widened—confusion, for just a moment, replacing the madness.
And then I showed her what I'd seen. Showed her the girl she used to be, the love she'd lost, the hope she'd buried under centuries of pain. Showed her that I understood—not as an enemy, but as someone who had also been hunted, also been afraid, also wondered if there was any way out of the darkness.
She screamed.
Not in rage—in grief. In loss. In the sudden, overwhelming realization of everything she'd become and everything she'd destroyed.
And in that moment of vulnerability, the Cullens struck.
Edward's arms wrapped around me, pulling me from beneath her. Emmett and Jasper pinned her to the ground. Carlisle stood over her, a wooden stake in his hand—not to kill, but to offer a choice.
"We can help you," he said quietly. "Not with a cure—I don't believe such a thing exists. But with something better. Family. Belonging. A reason to fight the madness instead of surrendering to it." He extended his free hand. "Join us. Not as an enemy, but as an ally. Let us help you remember who you used to be."
The Queen—no, the woman—looked up at him with eyes that held five hundred years of pain.
"You would trust me?" Her voice was broken, nothing like the silk and poison of before.
"I would give you the chance to earn that trust." Carlisle's voice was gentle. "The same chance someone gave me, a very long time ago."
Silence stretched across the burning clearing. The fire had consumed Aunt Cora's house entirely now, but I could see her—alive, moving, being pulled to safety by Rosalie and Esme. My aunt was alive. My family—my strange, impossible, vampire family—had saved her.
The woman on the ground closed her eyes. When she opened them, something had changed. The madness was still there—it would always be there, I realized—but beneath it, a flicker of something else. Something that might, in time, become hope.
"Okay," she whispered. "Okay."
And in that moment, everything changed.
Dawn found us gathered at the Cullens' house—a sprawling modern structure hidden deep in the forest, invisible from any road, designed for creatures who couldn't risk exposure.
Aunt Cora lay in one of the guest rooms, unconscious but stable, her burns already healing with a speed that confirmed what Edward had told me: she wasn't entirely human. A retired guardian, yes, but the enhancements never fully faded.
And in the main living room, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the rising sun, the Crimson Queen sat in silence, watching the light creep across the sky.
She'd asked to see the sunrise. Her first in five hundred years.
I sat beside her, Edward a silent presence at my back, and watched as the first golden rays touched her face. For just a moment, she looked young again—looked like the girl she'd been before the world broke her.
"Thank you," she whispered. "For seeing me. For understanding."
"You deserved to be seen." I meant it. "What they did to you—it wasn't right. None of it was right."
"No. But I can't change the past. I can only choose what comes next." She turned to look at me, her amber eyes clear for the first time since we'd met. "The prophecy about you—it's real. You will unite the tribes or tear them apart. But the choice is yours, Eleanor. Not destiny's. Not anyone else's. Yours."
"I know."
"And I know something else." She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "There are others like you. Hybrids. Hidden, the way you were hidden. The Queen—the monster I used to be—she wasn't the only one hunting them. There's a faction within the Volturi that wants to find them, control them, use them as weapons. They've been searching for centuries. And now that you've awakened—now that your power has announced itself to the world—they know you exist."
My blood ran cold. "How long do I have?"
"Months, maybe. A year at most. They'll come carefully—the Volturi are patient, methodical. But they will come." She reached out, her cold hand covering mine. "When they do, you'll need allies. Not just the Cullens—they're powerful, but they're one family against an empire. You'll need more."
"And you'll help? After everything?"
She smiled—a real smile, the first one I'd seen from her. "I have five hundred years of knowledge, Eleanor. Five hundred years of fighting, of surviving, of learning every secret the vampire world has to offer. If anyone can help you prepare for what's coming, it's me."
I looked at Edward, at Carlisle, at Alice and Jasper and Emmett and Rosalie and Esme. My strange, impossible family.
Then I looked at the woman beside me—the monster who might become something more.
"Okay," I said. "Then let's get to work."
The sun rose over the forest, painting the world in shades of gold and rose, and I watched it with eyes that saw everything differently than they had just days ago.
I was no longer just Ellie Vance, troubled girl from Portland.
I was Eleanor, child of two worlds, guardian-in-training, hybrid prophesied to change the vampire world forever.
And my story was just beginning.
End of Chapter Three