Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: This one goes out to all the people who responded positively to my last story and encouraged me to continue writing! You guys are great!

Be forewarned that I've tweaked the Twilight verse a little to suit my story's needs. A pairing or two will be switched (obviously) and some characters will be tweaked, while others are left out all together (sorry to all you fur-face fanboys, but the wolves have no place in my story :() So I hope you'll be willing to over-look it.

Wrong. This was all wrong.

Azial scrunched her face up as the couple she was currently spying on shared a perfunctory, almost staged kiss. She didn't bother to smother the gagging noises that crept up her throat as the male attempted, rather half-heartedly she noted, to take it further. He was (thankfully, Azial thought) rebuffed.

Azial couldn't decide which pairing was more nauseating, this one, or the couple currently locking lips in the bedroom down the hall.

Now that, Azial thought, was a match made in hell. Vain and broody and vain and bitchy. It almost boggled her mind that those two were actually soul mates, but then she remembered the disaster that was Eva Braun and Hitler. She had stopped being surprised after that.

Well, maybe not entirely. It had boggled her mind a bit when she found out that two vampires in the same coven both had human mates, a rarity in its own right, but also ones who happened to be related by marriage, an almost unheard of happenstance in bondings. It had been a bit stranger still to see so many bonds in one house and almost overwhelming at times. But then again, this coven proved to be anomalies in, not only the human world, but the supernatural as well, it would only be proper if their bonds were as well. And while she may have been trying to wrap her head around one of the bonds (two if you counted the false one she was watching) and trying to unite the (real) other, at least the other two couples in the house made perfect sense. The soul mate bond between them unbreakable, yet soft and beautiful.

She wasn't responsible for any of the pairings, hell, she would never have been unable to support the unholy pairing of Broody and Bitchy. No, not even Her Goddess had complete control over that. She could only instil the spark in people from the moment they were born, steer them in the right direction of their other half and have their paths intersect. It was entirely up to them at that point whether they did anything about it. It was sad how few did though, the concept of soul mates proved to be very difficult for mortals to comprehend. Lust and other emotions disguised as love seemed to win over the bonds almost every time. It had happened so often, that eventually the spark in a large number of mortals began to just peter out. It was why soul mates were so rare nowadays. The supernatural race, it seemed, were better at feeling the bonds and embracing them... or at least most of them were.

That's why Azial was here. That was her job. She was a Righter. One of only three that existed.

They fixed the, sometimes, grievous errors committed by those who had been soul-bonded. Because of the rarity of the bond, as style continued to replace substance, a Righter's job was very sporadic one, their assistance required only once every few years, sometimes even decades. As the best, Azial knew that whenever she was sent on the job, it had to be a doozy. This one certainly was.

She pressed closer on the windowsill, her body now half in the room while her legs dangled outside. She wasn't the least concerned about being seen. Despite the heightened senses that came with being a vampire, Azial could easily prance in front of the entire coven, nude and doing the Macarena, (it was rather pathetic that she knew what that even was. Mortals were a peculiar breed.) and still not be seen if she chose it.

She focused her attention on the pair in the bedroom, half of the reason why she was here. The male was perched on the bed, an almost pained look on his handsome features, while the oblivious female prattled on about the latest fashions coming out of Paris in the next week.

Azial could clearly see why Her Goddess was so angry with these two. She had watched the male over the last week, more closely on the rare moments he was near his soul mate, and was beginning to wonder if Her Goddess had been right to question whether he deserved the second chance she would give him.

Her Goddess had been unconcerned at first, when the pairing Azial was currently observing, had met. The male's soul mate wouldn't even be born for almost forty years, with an extra eighteen years added before she would finally be ready for him. Her Goddess usually never had a problem with unbonded beings sharing companionship or love, considering so few even experienced the true soul-bond, and was content with the knowledge that, whether the male knew it or not, he was inadvertently on the path that would eventually lead to his soul mate.

What Her Goddess hadn't expected was the complex interference that would follow, both in the years before his other half came into the picture and the months following her arrival. Not only from the female who had convinced the male she was his mate through her deliberately twisted lies and visions, but also the male himself, with his confused silence and frequent avoidance and denial of the bond itself.

The confusion Her Goddess could understand, and even forgive. After all, the male had spent 60 years with a woman who had been playing the 'we're mates' card from the moment they met. It wouldn't be easy to simply disbelieve something you considered truth until the moment your eyes met with another's and you felt the bond snap into place. And he felt the snap. Azial knew that without a doubt.

Whenever the two were in the same room together, something that had become less and less frequent with each passing day, Azial could see ribbons of their souls desperately reaching out to one another. Evidence that the male could feel it would manifest in his topaz eyes as a brief flash of agonized longing in her direction. It would always end the same way, him abruptly leaving the room, brutally severing the reaching ribbons, his smug, false mate plastered closely to his side.

If he had only turned around, he would have seen the same look on his soul mate's face as she watched his retreating figure.

It took a month of these repeated episodes, something that inspired both admiration and pity in Azial. Admiration for putting up with the indifference for as long as she had and pity for the cracks that were clearly beginning to show.

Once a soul mate bond had begun (the spark generated in their first meeting had allowed that much at least) it wasn't something that could, or should be easily ignored.

Thanks to the fickleness of mortals, it had proven to be easier for them to ignore, or eventually reject. The worst of their symptoms being heartache, usually followed by a jaded or slightly embittered feeling towards love that would prove to linger throughout future relationships. Sad, yes, but still relatively simple to maneuver around. But when supes suddenly factored in the equation, be it single or doubles, the consequences of denying the bond could be much more unsettling.

When one was mortal then neither would die, which was pretty much a guarantee when both of the bonded were supes, instead, both would feel the pain and incompleteness grow to unbearable proportions. Then it could go one of two ways; either their minds would eventually snap under the pressure and they'd be driven insane or misery would cloud over them as they become more listless and lethargic until eventually they were just hollow.

Azial had always considered this to be a bit cruel, much harsher than death, and had said so once to Her Goddess. Her Goddess had replied that the Human/Supe pairing was complex, with the vampiric kind being the most difficult of all, due to their largely considered belief that humans were beneath them. These symptoms were the bonds last desperate attempts to unite, before they simply gave up and taught those bonded a very harsh lesson. Even love has its limits.

Azial's job as a Righter was to attempt to fix things before they reached this critical level. As harsh as Her Goddess could initially be to those who had denied the rare gift she had given them, she truly did want people to feel the indescribable amounts of love, beauty and power that came with a soul-bond. A Righter served as the soul mate's last chance, and they almost never failed... Azial tried not to think of the time, when she had been mere years into her Righter duties, when she hadn't succeeded. It had proved to be so terrible, that she had begged Her Goddess for permission to end their misery. Though Her Goddess had eventually conceded to her request, as punishment for such a grave failure, she had told Azial that she would have to deal the death blow herself, then branded their names above her heart so she would never forget. And never fail again. And she hadn't. It would be the only time she had ever taken a life in her five hundred years.

Her sisters got the simpler jobs, the ones where the bonded were hesitant or slightly reluctant. More often than not, they were able to guide the bonds into fruition, with some gentle suggestions and unseen nudging. Azial was known to be a little more unorthodox in her methods and always got the rarer type, the ones that were tiptoeing the line of a full mental breakdown or death. This was usually brought on by full on, vehement denial from one, or both of the bonded. It was the reason why she was sent to deal with this one.

It had been clear the moment she had taken stock of the situation that no amount of gently nudging would break through the male's staunch refusal to acknowledge the bond. While Azial knew he was experiencing the onset of the symptoms, she was concerned that he wasn't feeling them as strongly as his soul bond. Thanks to his history, and his years with his false mate, he had become very adept at suppressing his feelings. His only real tell was the pinched look that was constantly on his face, something that the other members of his coven had mistaken for a struggle to control his thirst for the blood that beat in the veins of the Broody one's human mate. She had a feeling he used this to his advantage, convincing himself that any longing or pain he felt towards his soul-bond was merely for her blood and nothing more. He didn't know it, but this continued denial had caused his soul mate's symptoms to almost triple in the speed of their development.

Azial had been watching the three for almost two weeks, turning over her (perhaps craziest yet) plan in her head, waiting for the right moment to put it in motion. She knew when she witnessed his soul-bond's difficulty in getting out of bed this morning, that she had to act soon.

Her gaze was drawn to the female who was currently flitting around the room, throwing things into a large designer bag, before coming to a stop at the bedroom door.

"Are you coming, Jazzy?" She threw over her shoulder, a falsely sweet smile stretching her lips. "You promised you'd take me and Jess to the mall."

Azial watched as Jasper's shoulders collapsed briefly, before he snapped to attention with a small, forced smile. "I'll be there in a minute, just let me grab my jacket."

"Not the leather one, Jazzy," she replied, scrunching her nose. "You know I hate the way it smells."

"Yes, Alice," he sighed resignedly.

Alice beamed. "Great! I'll just go grab Jess and meet you in the car." She flitted down the hall, calling Jess' name and squealing an indistinguishable, even to a vampire or Righter's ear, stream of words that might have included something about clothes and shoes.

Jasper sighed again and walked to the very small portion of the gargantuan closet that Alice had designated for him and grimaced as he picked up the pea coat, in a very eye watering shade of orange (because 'Omigod, orange is the new pink, Jazzy!') that he knew Alice wanted him to wear, even if she hadn't specified it.

Azial leaned closer when Jasper hesitated while pulling on the jacket and rubbed hard over the spot above his unbeating heart. "Hurts." He murmured absentmindedly, before shrugging into the jacket and stalking out the bedroom door at a human pace.

The pain in his heart meant his symptoms were escalating. Soon, Azial decided, just wasn't soon enough.

It was time. By sunrise, her plan would be in motion.