Author's Note: Hey guys, sorry for the long wait, but I'm now recovering pretty damn well, and felt like I could actually write again. Thanks for your patience, and hope you enjoy!

Chapter 11

Immediately, upon Bella and Laurent's exclamation, the entire Denali coven turned to stare at the two in disbelief as Bella and Laurent exchanged a glare, unhappy that there was yet another connection between them. However, it was Irina who spoke first in a quiet, tense voice, her eyes focused solely on Bella.

"So you know her?"

Had Bella been human, she would have thrown up, she would have felt so nervous and nauseous. After all, out of everyone who could have popped up, did it really have to be Victoria? And to pop up before Bella had fucked and claimed Irina, of all times!

Bella averted her eyes from Irina, only to meet the half crazed eyes of Victoria. Victoria was staring up at her hopefully, devotedly, thankfully completely silent. "Yes, I know her," Bella admitted, refusing to lie. Not that she could in the first place, what with the evidence being right in front of the entire coven.

Alec and Jane kept close to Victoria as the vampire's eyes lit up, realizing who the woman was and how crazy she could get. Their eyes stayed on Bella, worry glinting in their red depths as they wondered how Bella was going to get out of the situation.

"How?" Irina asked, her voice still soft, but the command for information so clear in her voice that it made the twins stiffen automatically. Nobody was supposed to get away with talking to their Queen like that, and if Irina hadn't been Bella's mate, they would have unleashed their powers on her on the spot.

"She's from my old coven," Laurent interrupted before Bella could speak. Had Laurent been anyone else, Bella would have been thankful, as despite her quick mind, she couldn't think of what to say without making her look like complete and utter shit. "As you all know, I was sent to you all by the Cullens-" Of course, of course those killjoy fuckers had something to do with this asshole meeting Irina, still trying to claim Irina, and Bella now having to clean up the mess without murdering the fucker. Damn it, if they weren't considered Irina's cousins, Bella would have just stormed down there that very second and slaughtered the lot of them. "As I didn't agree with what my other coven mates were doing. Those coven mates were James and Victoria, and they were hunting the coven's human. From what I'm guessing, James had been killed trying to kill the human, while clearly, Victoria had survived, and for some reason ran here."

The other vampires all nodded as they listened to his explanation, but all eyes were still fixed on Bella.

"And you, Bella? How do you know Victoria?" Irina asked coolly.

Never before had the twins seen their Queen squirm so much.

"As you all might have guessed, I was kind of a player when I was younger," Bella muttered, unable to meet Irina's eyes. "And at one point, I was kinda involved with Victoria's old coven."

"Meaning?" Irina demanded as she started to realize just what Bella was getting at. Surely her mate hadn't actually fucked this crazy bitch, right?

"Well, Victoria's old coven was kinda my harem," Bella said in a rush. "It was just in fun and all, for me anyways, but apparently the majority of the coven felt otherwise. The males of the coven were killed quickly by the females because the males were too jealous about the females getting fucked, and then the females all started killing each other because they all wanted to be my favorite. When I realized what was happening, I just snatched my actual favorite because I didn't want her to die ran back to Volterra. I'm guessing Victoria either was the final victor in that coven, or just ran from it."

This was how Heidi had ended up joining the Volturi, and it had been the final nail in the coffin that led to the whole "vampires shall not attempt to steal another vampire's mate" law. It had sounded like a pretty crazy experience at the time, and Bella's sons had been quite the group of grumpy bitches about it all, even trying to lecture Bella, their mother and queen, about morals and not following her every whim. But their reaction seemed pretty tame to how Irina exploded right then.

"What? Are you kidding me?" Irina screeched, stomping towards her mate. She knew she was mostly driven by jealousy, but as Victoria was being guarded by the twins at the moment, it wasn't like she could just kill the redhead in a fit of rage. So instead, Bella had to take the brunt of her emotion. "You mean to tell me that you fucked an entire coven to the point they became obsessed with you?"

"Only the girls!" Bella protested, holding up her hands in surrender.

"At least you know she's good in bed," Kate muttered, earning a disapproving glare from Tanya and eyes rolls of disgust from the twins. Thankfully, Irina was too busy raging at Bella to have heard Kate and to redirect her rage.

"God damn it, how horny can a single vampire be?" Irina continued to rant. She was all but shaking at this point.

"It was in the past. I'm different now. I have you," Bella said, her tone pleading as she rested her hands on Irina's shoulders, turning Irina to face her.

"Don't touch me!" Irina hissed, shoving Bella away from her. Bella let herself be shoved, but even though it was clear to all that she was doing it for Irina's benefit, the twins both stiffened with a hiss. The only thing that stopped them from attacking was the knowledge that Irina was Isabella's mate.

The hisses were still enough for everyone to notice, and suddenly everybody was silent and on edge. The Denali coven was eyeing the twins, Irina was still shaking, trying to figure out what to do with her pent up emotions, and Bella was looking around helplessly, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do next.

Victoria was the one to break the silence, despite her instincts telling her to keep her mouth shut. "No. No! It can't be in the past. You loved me! You loved my body! I was so good to you, and the way you fucked me...you felt something! You felt it for me! I would do anything for you-"

With a scream of rage and jealousy, Irina whirled and attacked Victoria. Victoria tried to fight back, but was unable to defend herself against the onslaught. Bella stood to the side, still useless, not wanting to anger her mate further. Alec and Jane didn't do anything either, knowing that subduing Bella's mate might upset their queen.

Laurent and Eleazar were the two to jump into the brawl and break it up, pulling Irina back just before she managed to rip off Victoria's head.

Bella stiffened, feeling an overwhelming desire to jerk the two men away from her mate, but realized how stupid that would be. Refusing to let her instincts rule, Bella hurried over. For a moment, she stared into Irina's eyes, seeing the turmoil of pain, jealousy, anger, and confusion in her eyes. Bella had seen it in others' eyes before, usually when Bella had stolen a mate away, if only for a night, but this was the first time she had felt bad about what she had done in the past. Without saying a word, she wrapped her arms around Irina's body, caging her mate's arms against her sides, and pulled her into a tight embrace.

As the twins went about putting Victoria back together-occasionally glaring at Laurent, Jane even sending some pain his way when he tried to help-Bella simply sat on the ground with Irina in her lap. All the queen could think to do was whisper apologies in Irina's ear, truly sorry Irina had to deal with the fucked up feelings. She didn't dare kiss her in comfort, not yet, unsure if Irina would explode again.

The apologies continued to pour from Bella's mouth; apologies for her playgirl ways, apologies for not finding Irina sooner, apologies for her age, apologies for Victoria and Heidi, apologies for being too hot to resist but assuring Irina that Irina was ten times hotter. She even apologized for Kate interrupting their near lovemaking with a promise to show Irina how much she means to Bella later. There were other apologies mixed in there, some that made absolutely no sense, like Bella apologizing for trying to eat a strawberry as a young vampire and then throwing up on one of her changelings, and an apology about finding Irina so fucking hot when Irina was mad, but they still calmed Irina nonetheless.

By the end of it, she felt like a foolish child, and she couldn't help burrow deeper into Bella's body. Not just for comfort, but simply because she felt too embarrassed to face the other vampires nearby. But Bella didn't seem to care about Irina's outburst, besides the fact that the outburst made it clear that Irina was incredibly upset. And Bella still kept calling Irina her angel; her feisty, sexy, avenging angel, but her angel nonetheless.

Eventually, Victoria was back in one piece, her arms held tightly from behind by Jane with Alec's hand over her mouth, all of Victoria's sense cut off by Alec's power. At one point, Bella and Irina had engaged in a serious makeout session, which infuriated Laurent, who had to look away. Tanya, who wanted to deal with the matter at hand, had to clear her throat several times to get Bella's attention.

"What should we do with her?" Tanya asked, gesturing towards Victoria.

Now, usually when she needed to question someone, Bella would grasp the vampire by the chin, look into their eyes, and use one of her many, fabulously awesome, sexy, and just plain awe inspiring powers to force the answers out of them. Sadly, seeing as Irina had nearly killed Victoria only seconds ago, Bella knew better than to touch the redhead unless she wanted to risk another explosion.

Turning to the twins, Bella prompted them into action with a quirked eyebrow while saying, "Let's figure out what she's talking about before making any decisions."

Both twins nodded, Alec pulling back his power as he took up Jane's place, holding Victoria's arms tightly behind her back. Jane crouched in front of Victoria with a cruel smile that would strike fear into the hearts of anyone, vampire or human.

The second Victoria was released from Alec's power, she started to babble all over again. She didn't get more than a sentence or two out before she started screaming, Jane's smile widening as she got to enjoy inflicting pain.

"Jane," Bella said in warning, knowing if she didn't run interference, the torture could go on for an eternity.

Jane stopped, which caused a lot of suspicion among the Denalis outside of Eleazar and Irina, Eleazar obviously because he already knew who Bella was, Irina because she was too blissed out in Bella's arms to notice. For the rest of the Denalis, it was clear that Jane had responded to an order and hadn't just stopped out of some kind of friendship she and Bella might have. Bella was definitely of high rank among the Volturi, but as far as the Denalis knew, the only one above Jane and Alec's rank was the Volturi Kings themselves. So what did that mean for Bella?

"Now, you are going to tell us, clearly and specifically, why you came here. If you start on a crazy rant again, I'm going to make you suffer. Is that understood?" Jane asked softly, her tone of voice only causing more fear.

Victoria looked over at Bella, the clear longing in her eyes making Irina hiss. Baring her teeth, she tightened her grip on Bella possessively, which made the ancient both happy and nervous. She still felt like one wrong move could mean possessive, avenging angel Irina might try to kill someone; whether that someone was Victoria or Bella herself remained undetermined at that particular moment in time.

Slowly, carefully, and with a restraint that made every vampire wonder how hard she was working to stay sane, Victoria explained the situation. Part of it-James's death-was already explained by Laurent, but Victoria went into more detail. Upon hearing that Victoria had tried to convince James not to do it, that her own power was telling him he was going to die if he pursued, Bella wanted to laugh out loud. Victoria's mate sounded like a fucking idiot, to the point Bella felt he deserved his death. While she hated the Cullens and their joy killing, fun shitting, fart eating ways, James had his chance to live and leave them alone, and he chose to rush into his death already on fire, cackling like a crazed idiot towards a hoard of hell's army itself.

No, not hell's army. The Cullens were way too lame to be compared in any way, shape, or form to something that Bella knew was some kickass cool bastards. James was simply a tiny mouse rushing towards a bunch of declawed cats who happened to still have their fangs, however dulled they might be.

However, Bella had to face a problem. The Cullens were stupid enough to kill one mate without killing the other. Bella did feel a little guilty for leaving Victoria's coven, which probably helped get Victoria into such a crazed state, therefore making Bella feel bad about killing her off. But there was also the fact that Bella couldn't leave such an unstable vampire alone, even if Bella wasn't even a member of the Volturi. Who knew what Victoria might do if left to her own devices?

Sighing, Bella knew what she had to do. She had to risk adding more drama and death to her life, not to mention risk her life itself, and risk the revelation of her secrets, not to mention upsetting Irina...fuck. Why was Bella doing this again?

Victoria let out another wail as she was tortured by Jane, probably because she started to babble again.

Oh yeah. Guilt. Damn it, since when did Bella feel guilt, anyways? While she was in love with Irina, she was starting to worry that Irina was making her a little too soft. But a part of Bella just couldn't help but go along for the ride anyways.

"How the gods have fucked me," Bella muttered in ancient greek. Turning to the twins, Bella let out a loud sigh and said, "Call Heidi and Felix and get them down here. They'll have to help deal with the situation."

Oh, the irony. Only moments ago, Bella had been laughing at James for rushing to his own death, and now here was Bella, doing the exact same thing.