It was not long before Aro was on an aeroplane to Romania – he twitched in his seat constantly, frustrated with his inability to do anything but wait.

His beloved was alive – his wife, his mate…she was alive.

The Romanians would pay for their treachery with their lives, and Aro would have the honour of killing Vladimir himself.

The Cullens had reported their find, along with their success in subduing the twenty Romanians that lingered on the outskirts of their castle, in a complex system of tunnels, vaults and caves – they had gone underground for so long, just living for the sake of torturing and recruiting new immortals.

They were weak, as leaders and as men – Aro would destroy his enemy, and then see to his wife. He had spent five-hundred years wallowing in misery, he could wallow a few moments longer to destroy Vladimir before seeing his Isabella.

He had no idea what he would find either – everything was so…distorted, and complex. He wished he had not been so consumed by grief on the night of the battle, and maybe he could have discovered the Romanians' secret hide-out and saved his wife from a fate worse than death…

Caius' hand suddenly grasped Aro's, and Aro turned to look into his youngest brother's eyes.

"Aro, Isabella is safe now, and we will personally deliver justice to the scum – think of how it will feel to have her in your arms again, and nothing else," he said softly, in a tender way that had always been reserved for his wife, Athenodora, and his sister, Aro's Isabella.

Aro nodded and sat back in his seat as he closed his eyes – he let past memories of their love dance before his eyes, and he hoped that it would be as shining and brilliant as it ever was.

The dark angel, Edward, stayed with Isabella in her torture chamber, while the other angel left through the hole – she could vaguely hear voices now, but due to her lack of nutrition she could not hear the words and their tones were only dimly registering to her.

She felt like a pitiful excuse for an immortal.

Questions ran through her mind – like what the blonde angel, Carlisle, meant about her Aro and how they were even here. Was the vicinity not guarded by tens of immortals? How had they gotten through them? What would they do with her? How had the world changed?

So many questions and no answers.

Edward watched her cautiously for a while, focusing intently on her eyes, before asking, "Do you have a gift?"

Isabella felt like lying, but it was not in her nature – even now, while she was broken, she was willing to hold onto her morals and trust.

She nodded weakly, and he smiled.

"What is it?" He asked, and Isabella buried her face in her lacklustre hair.

"I am a shield," she murmured.

He looked confused when she peeked out from her brown locks.

"I can block others' gifts," she explained softly, meekly.

Isabella was ashamed of how fragile she had become and how small she sounded – she was always proud to be strong and loving and passionate, but now she felt no better than a mouse.

The dark angel did not press any more, and he seemed to be listening to something – he turned his head towards Isabella quickly after a moment.

"He's coming," Edward murmured. "Aro."

"But Aro is dead," she whispered, clutching at her dead heart beneath the jacket that lay over her. "My Aro is dead…"

Edward shook his head, "You were lied to, Isabella. The night you were captured, the Volturi won the battle – you were beaten into submission with lies. You were taken to…release anger on, because you are Aro's mate. Your Aro is alive and well, and he is coming with all the fury that Hell has to offer."

That was when Isabella heard it, that fluttering noise – it was a buzz, a hum, which surrounded her and Aro. She had thought it lost, for he had died, and mourned the sweet noise that used to lull her into an easy peace in his arms at night – she had missed that sound.

Isabella knew then, that every word the dark angel had spoken was true – Aro was here.

With the last vestiges of her poor strength, she sucked in a deep breath and screamed for her love, "ARO!"

The aeroplane had landed, and in the bright Romanian morning the gathered Volturi Guard drove on to 'la Castel Negru' – the Black Castle, where the Romanians had fought and been vanquished so many years ago.

Aro thought, as they drew closer, that today would be the day that their battle would finally end once and for all.

Clouds drew in above their heads, as they drove up the long deserted road to the castle – the sky turned grey, then black, and silver droplets began to fall from the heavens. The castle loomed before them, on a steep incline – its turrets were blackened and its grey stone walls were crumbling from the fire that was set on the night of the battle. It seemed the humans were clever enough to realise that they needed to stay away from the place, as the surrounding forests were empty of human life, and even animals seemed to flee from the castle's aura.

Aro's mind flashed through memories of the fighting that had commenced of those very battlements, and how purple smoke rose from thousands of points around the grounds and inside the castle's very walls.

The rain beat down on the line of cars that ascended up the road, entering through the castle's tall wooden doors that stood open like a grim welcome. Past the doors and the outer wall was the main courtyard, and the cars circled and stopped until all were inside – Aro stepped out of the car he had ridden in with his brother, not caring for the water that fell down on him, saturating his hair and suit and running down his face.

Aro listened, disregarding the sound of thunder that was about to roll in and picking out the soft and harsh tones of nearby voices – he immediately recognised his old friend's voice, Carlisle. He sounded uncharacteristically unforgiving – Carlisle's usual soft voice and pleasant manner seemed like a distant memory, compared to this growling tone that met Aro's ears.

He followed Carlisle's voice towards the open main door to the castle – he heard the Guard following him, but Aro was more preoccupied with listening to whoever else was with Carlisle.

There were three female voices, and two other male voices – Aro recognised the arguing tones of Alice, Esme and Rosalie Cullen…and a snarl ripped through him when he realised that they were all speaking to Stefan and Vladimir.

Aro flitted through the hall that welcomed him, down a long corridor, down two flights of stairs…until he met a door – it was a simple wooden door, something that indicated that this was where the servants would have passed through, and not that his worst enemies sat just beyond it.

The two Romanians seemed to be arguing a point, and Aro could not have cared less – but when he heard Isabella's name slip from Vladimir's lips, his rage took control of him.

The door did not survive – it shattered against the stone wall behind it as Aro threw it open.

The scene that met his eyes did not dull his worry for his wife – the three females stood over the large group of men that resided in the large stone-clad room, and they were growling and hissing at each of them with vicious expressions of fury. Aro could not think of any other reason why they would be so outraged at these men, whom they had never met – these were the men that had raped his wife, his Isabella.

One shuddering intake of breath was enough to confirm his thoughts – the room was laced with Isabella's scent. Aro's eyes darkened, his vision swimming red as he inhaled his beloved's scent – a part of him rejoiced in her smell as he had been bereft of it so long, but the rest of him roared in fury because it was not only her natural scent but the smell of her venom and of sex.

The unknown vampires in the room were heavily subdued, and as Jasper Cullen's scent invaded Aro's nostrils, he knew he was close by but standing silent.

Aro's eyes finally fell on Vladimir and Stefan – they were subdued like the rest, but not as heavily. They lay in a heap at Carlisle's feet as he hissed at them menacingly and warningly.

They were still talking, incoherently babbling on about something – Isabella's name was the only coherent word that they uttered.

Aro stalked towards them, his hair and clothes dripping with water as his movements shook it off – they looked up drowsily, their unfocused red eyes finding his and even in their stupor they realised what was coming for them.

As Aro neared their shaking forms, black rage rolling off of him, he smelt the most concentrated wave of Isabella's luscious strawberry and floral scent – it was coming from Vladimir.

"You are the guiltiest…" Aro managed to spit at him.

Vladimir seemed to impossibly pale, "I did nothing! I know nothing!"

Aro growled, making Carlisle step back and the three females stop their outraged hissing – the sound was full of power and fury, and it was a noise that they would remember until their final deaths.

Aro's hand shot out, clasping Vladimir's neck and squeezing until the flesh beneath his fingers cracked under the pressure – Vladimir gasped and flailed, unable to do anything against Aro's strength and Jasper's emotional spell.

Stefan tried to crawl away, but Aro's foot came down hard upon his sternum and pinned him to the stone floor.

"You stole my mate!" Aro roared, his lip curling back and baring his gleaming teeth to his enemies, "You staged her death and made me believe her dead, all so you could torture her for eternity for your own weaknesses and shortcomings! You are the very worst of men…"

Aro's voice was deadly-sounding and venom was rapidly pooling in his mouth – the two Romanian leaders quaked in fear, and Aro's inner-beast growled in satisfaction at their obvious cowardice. His beast quickly lost its patience, and Aro's hand and foot pressed more intently on his victims.

"You will be sorry," he promised, in a low hiss.

His patience snapped, and his vision grew dark – Aro felt almost detached; like he was watching another's hands rip the Romanians' limbs from their weakened bodies. His motions were rapid, his movements swift and deadly – he was naturally aggressive as a vampire, but he had been trained for war and dealing death.

Aro's ears were filled with their screams as his teeth tore into Vladimir's and Stefan's flesh, infecting them with his venom – their veins burned at the entry of the foreign substance, only used to their own venom. They screamed and writhed as their parts were detached and thrown towards the assembled Guard in the room.

Piece-by-piece they watched their bodies destroyed and burned on the spot – Caius was eagerly flexing his hands in anticipation of bringing death to the scum that surrounded them, as the purple smoke filled his nostrils.

As Aro looked into Vladimir's and Stefan's eyes, he gestured for Felix to bring forth the Volturi's most treasured and used contraption – the Glove of Andmani. The material it was made of was a fusion of different metals, and it was the strongest and most durable material that had ever been created – it was tough enough to survive the journey of being forced into a vampire's rock-hard skin. Once the middle and index fingers were inside the vampire's head, underneath their chin, a switch was activated and fire flew through their brain, killing them instantly and reducing them to mere ash.

Aro's beast calmed as he saw the destruction he had wreaked upon his enemies, and he had a clear enough mind to take the proffered metal gauntlet and slip it on his hand. The silver metal shone in the dim light that filtered through the windows of the room, and Aro admired his glowing black eyes in his reflection from the glove, savouring the moment before his wife's tormentors were brutally finished.

Vladimir's and Stefan's eyes were pleading, as they could not speak for Aro had crushed their necks – he took no notice, barely glancing at anyone or anything besides the glove he wore.

Aro closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and then whispering, "Five-hundred years ago, this should have been done…" He opened his eyes and glared down at the Romanians, "For your deceit and the torture of my mate, you are hereby given the sentence of death…a final death."

In one swift move, Aro had pierced the skin under Stefan's chin with his gloved fingers and activated the fire mechanism – Stefan's eyes burned pure black before his skull disintegrated, taking his face with it as blue sparks shot out of the glove. The flames used his venom as an accelerant, and in the next few seconds his body was eaten alive from the inside by fire.

Aro smiled darkly as Vladimir's eyes widened and shone with fear – he had destroyed Stefan first for this purpose, so Vladimir could see what would become of him. Vladimir looked down at the ashes of his brother, and at the plume of purple smoke winding its way upwards towards the ceiling, where it dissipated rapidly.

"That is what will become of you, Vladimir," Aro growled, thrusting the glove underneath Vladimir's chin as he stared at the spot where the smoke had dissipated.

Aro smiled, waiting to pull the mechanism inside the glove – he wanted to see Vladimir suffer, to make him not know when his end would finally come.

But there was one deciding factor in the timing that Aro had not thought of.

"ARO!"

The voice was weak, broken, but he knew that voice – that sweet, beautiful voice that used to whisper softly in his ear as he cradled his love against him… It was the voice that once rang out joyfully in the halls of the castle he called home… It was the voice that he had first heard singing in a field six-hundred years ago, drawing him closer to the one woman that would steal his heart and hold it for all time…

"Isabella," Aro breathed, his head instinctively turning north where she had called out from.

A noise interrupted his thoughts, and he looked down to see Vladimir snarling at him – Aro roared in his face, sending the other immortal into a whirlwind of terror.

"Lucifer awaits you," Aro hissed, pulling the trigger inside he glove.

Sparks fired, lighting the venom inside Vladimir's head – he keened pitifully as he was burned from the inside out – as soon as his skull disintegrated, Aro passed the glove back to the waiting Felix.

Aro turned to Caius, whose eyes were black and was twitching with eagerness to rip apart those who had stolen and tortured his sister.

"Kill them all," Aro murmured, setting Caius loose on the unsuspecting Romanian vampires left in the room.

Without another word, Aro turned and ran straight through the stone wall – he burst out in a mass of rubble and dust into the pouring rain, and he ran. The castle's perimeter wall before him was nothing, and he leapt it with the easy grace that his years had given him – his unnecessary breathing became shallow and quick as he raced through the forest surrounding the castle, towards his Isabella.

As he flashed past tree after tree, hills loomed before him – that was when he saw the entrance to the place that his love had been held in all these long years. A crack in the meeting of two hills served as the entrance to a cave – Aro skidded through it, finding himself in a long dirt tunnel. He raced along it, taking in the scents of Carlisle, Edward and Emmett Cullen who had been the ones to subdue the guards outside Isabella's prison and find her. He followed their scents through a series of tunnels, trying to find his way to his mate.

The scents got stronger as he came to a purely stone tunnel – he turned a corner to see a chamber with a hole in the stone floor and metal cover lying beside it. Emmett Cullen stood behind it, his arms crossed in a show of strength and prowess – he had guarded Isabella in case their plan went awry.

Aro saw different tunnels leading away from the room in his peripheral vision, leading to chambers the same as the one in which he now stood – but Aro's concern was Isabella, and he did not even take a breath before dropping through the hole in the floor and into the room below him.

The first thing that assaulted him was the smell – the room reeked of many different immortals, venom, and sex…and his wife.

Aro's eyes landed on the frail, shaking creature to the side of the room, huddled under a suit jacket that should not cover her entire body but did – his dead heart broke as he looked upon the pale, thin face of Isabella.

Her hair lacked the brilliance it once had, and her skin had lost its luminosity, but she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen – Aro's fingers twitched in recognition of his mate, longing to just hold her to him.

Edward Cullen stood in front of Isabella, almost protectively, and Aro had to hold back a menacing growl – he was between him and his wife, but he did not want to alarm Isabella.

"Go," Aro hissed in his thoughts. "Get Caius and bring him here, with something to cover my wife with."

Edward nodded and left, leaping through the hole in the ceiling and taking off.

Aro turned back to his Isabella, noticing that she had not looked at him once – her eyes were closed, and she seemed to look so small…smaller than she actually was, like she was trying to disappear.

"My love…" Aro whispered brokenly, his knees shaking with the effort of holding him up in his grief.

Isabella's eyes fluttered open, and his gaze was met with the blackest he had ever seen – she had not been fed for five-hundred years, and it showed in those pained, dark orbs.

Her face twisted in sudden grief upon seeing his wet form, and her mouth parted as she let out a pained breath, "Aro…you are dead… My husband is dead…"

Aro shook his head, his wet, jet-black hair flying everywhere in his fervent gesture, "I live… I thought my wife was dead…you, my sweet Isabella…"

His voice broke as he stepped closer to her – Isabella cowered away from him slightly, and Aro's being was filled with immediate and physical pain.

"I will not harm you…" Aro breathed, venom stinging his eyes.

Isabella shook her head weakly, knocking it against the stone floor, "You never came… I was left…and…oh, God… Aro….what they did…"

She shook violently, and Aro came closer, kneeling in front of her small form, "Please, Isabella… Please, let me hold you. Let me love you, my wife, and forgive me…please forgive me… I was so easily fooled, and I have been lost without you…"

Isabella suddenly flung out her arm from underneath the suit jacket, and looked up at him with burning eyes, "What do you see? Look…"

Aro's gaze brushed along her arm, his heart splintering more with each inch of flesh he inspected – hundreds of bites covered her arm like an intricate, silvery spider's web.

"I am not good enough… I am broken… I… I have fallen… I do not…shine…" Isabella whispered, drawing her arm back and casting her gaze away.

"No," Aro whimpered, clasping her hand in his and stopping her from drawing away. "No, Isabella – my love, to me you shine like the most brilliant star and nothing on earth or in heaven could change that."

She looked at him with such pain and simply said, "I missed you."

Aro smiled slightly, but without humour, "I have missed you, too."

"And I love you…" Isabella breathed, "I have always loved you…and now, you are here…"

"I am here, my Isabella," Aro crooned softly, taking her face into his hands. "I will take you home."

"Home," she whispered. "I have longed to hear that word again, and even more to see my beloved Italia…" Her painfully thin fingers reached up and brushed Aro's cheekbone, sending shivers through his entire being, "But I have longed for nothing more than you, even as I thought you dead…"

Aro let out a pained sob, leaning down and pressing his forehead to hers, "Forgive me… Please, forgive me…"

"I forgive you," Isabella said almost silently, her eyes swimming with venom.

Aro looked down at her lips, wanting nothing more than to seal their reunion with a kiss, "I… Isabella?"

"No…" She breathed, "No… How… How can you still…want me?"

Aro ran the tip of his nose along her cheek tenderly, "Since the first moment I heard you sing, I have wanted you – I will never stop. I promise, I will never fail you again."

With that, he pressed his lips to hers and sealed his promise with a kiss that would last for eternity.

Finis