Jasper took Liliana hunting every day for the next four days. Every day she drank and every day she'd vomit it up within half an hour of their return to the cabin. She tried to do it away from the others, but she was certain they knew. It wasn't easy to hide something from four vampires. She was also sure that was why Jasper had forced her to hunt every day.

Lily stared at the flames dancing in front of her as she checked all her blocks one by one. There were so many she'd become little more than a shell. But they were breaking down. Nothing catastrophic but there were definite cracks allowing whatever was dammed up behind them to seep through. An emotion here. A jolt of pain there. And the hunger. Oh, that was a needy growing thing. Which meant the block between her and Jasper needed to be stronger than the others. The more energy she put there, the less she had to distribute elsewhere. Then more cracks formed. It was a vicious circle that would eventually destroy her.

A sweet aroma pulled her from her thoughts. Saliva pooled in her mouth and she swallowed it down. She glanced in the direction it came from but didn't move to find it. She was too exhausted, too weak. Seconds passed and Garrett appeared in the clearing.

He tossed a body beside her. "Eat." His voice was little more than a growl.

Lily glanced between her friend and the meal with wide eyes.

"Don't think we don't know you haven't been keeping any of that swill down. You need real food. Eat."

That was the only encouragement she needed. She was on the body a moment later and that's all it was to her. If anyone asked later she wouldn't be able to tell them how old the person had been or if they were male or female. She simply didn't care. Every swallow fed life into her body, brought back some of the strength she'd been missing. She didn't stop until the corpse was empty of blood.

Lily wiped the back of her hand across her mouth before smiling at Garrett. "Thank you."

His gaze ran over her before he grinned. "You already look better, Queenie. We get a few more of those in you and you'll be right as rain."

Pain shot through her head and heat flooded her body. Her stomach churned and her chest grew tight. A tear leaked from her eye to roll down her cheek. "Not again."

She swallowed several times before launching to her feet and stumbling to the edge of the clearing. She emptied everything she'd just eaten into the grass. Every bit of improvement went with it. Lily fell to her knees before collapsing sideways. She pulled her knees up to her chest and sobbed. Tears rolled across her face and into the dirt.

Someone picked her up and cradled her in their lap. She didn't know who held her as she continued to weep. Gods, everything hurt. And she was tired. So, so exhausted.

It wasn't until later, when hands began to undress her that she came back to herself a little. Alice and Charlotte stripped her ruined clothes off then helped her step into the tub. Lily wondered exactly how long she'd been out of it as they'd had to heat the water over the fire outside and she hadn't even noticed.

She sighed and more tears leaked down her cheeks as she drew her knees up to her chest. The women murmured comforting words as they scrubbed at her skin and washed her hair. Finally, Lily spoke. "Ali?"

"I'm here, Lils."

Her gaze moved to lock on her sister kneeling beside the tub. Her heart ached but she needed to get the words out. They needed to know. "I'm dying."

***

Once again Liliana found herself sitting by the firepit staring at the flames. The others argued nearby. The topics kept shifting between whether she was actually dying or just sick and what to do about it. When she could take the bickering no longer she managed to gather herself enough to speak. "I want to go home." She shook her head. "No. I need to."

The others fell silent as all eyes turned to their failing queen. They would do as she wished not because she was their ruler but because she was their friend. "You want to return to Forks?" Alice asked, uncertainty in her tone.

"That's not her home anymore," Jasper said. "She wants to go back to Volterra."

Lily's gaze met his which was all he needed to confirm he was right. The view was blocked when Sebastian sat beside her and took her hand between both of his. "Are you certain that is what you wish, fiore? After the way they treated you? What makes you think things will be any different if you return now?"

Her brow furrowed against a flash of pain. Gods, her eyes hurt. She closed them against the pressure. Her arm jerked as Sebastian was shoved away from her. She opened her eyes to find that Jasper had the other vampire hanging in the air with a hand around his throat. No, not Jasper. The Major.

"If you touch her again, I will remove your head and burn the corpse."

"I don't like the boy either, Major, but killing him seems a might extreme," Garrett said as he stepped closer to the pair. He positioned himself so Sebastian would have to go through him to get to Lily. Not that he had a chance of escaping Japer and the Major.

Lily's eyes darted around the clearing taking everything in. Things were suddenly beginning to make sense. Sebastian had finally slipped up.

"He did something to her. I felt it through the bond the moment he grabbed her hand," the Major insisted.

"Yes, he wasn't very subtle this time, was he?" Lily stood and Garrett grasped her elbow to support her. "He must have been desperate to keep me from my mates."

"Subtle about what, Lily?" Charlotte asked, her voice soft and unsure.

Lily closed her eyes and took a breath. "Whatever he's been doing to destroy my life."

The guard's laughter surprised her and her eyes flew open to study him. His lips twisted into a sneer contorting his face into something far uglier than normal. Or maybe that was just her seeing him for what he really was for the first time.

"What did you do?" the Major demanded as he squeezed harder. Cracks appeared under his grip and radiated onto the other man's face and chest. That had to hurt. Not that Lily could bring herself to care at the moment.

"The bonds. It has to be for you to have felt it." Lily narrowed her gaze as she tried to work out exactly what Sebastian had done.

"Jasper, it's okay, honey," Alice said, placing her hand on his back as she tried to calm him down.

"Leave him, Ali. Just don't kill him permanently, Major. We need answers."

"Yes, ma'am."

Alice stepped back though Lily could tell she didn't want to.

She shifted her focus back to Sebastian. "What's your gift?"

He said nothing, just keeping that stupid sneer on his face.

Lily sat back down as exhaustion swamped her. She was too tired for this shit. "Take his arm," she ordered no one in particular.

Peter complied while Sebastian howled in pain. Garrett stayed between her and the prisoner. Alice and Charlotte stood a short distance away ready to intervene if needed.

"Your gift?" Lily asked again.

Still no answer.

She flicked her gaze to Peter. "Burn it."

His lips curled into a small smile as he did as ordered. The flames flared with the new source of fuel. Sebastian's eyes went wide at the realization that she would literally have them take him apart a piece at a time and there would be nothing to put back together. If he wasn't going to talk there was no point keeping him alive. At least that's what she wanted him to think. Aro could always read him later, but she wanted her answers now. Some of them at any rate.

"Gift?"

"Bond emotion manipulation."

The Major's grip loosened slightly at the proof that the guard would speak.

"What the fuck does that mean?" Garrett asked.

"One touch and I can affect how anyone you share a bond with feels about you and vice versa. Our little queen has so many bonds. She forms them so easily, you see." Sebastian grinned then, incredibly proud of all the damage he had wrought. "And when I started playing with them, I discovered a delightful side effect. By manipulating emotions through the bonds, I was weakening them. I'd never done it so extensively before."

Lily shook her head. "It's not possible. Aro would have seen your gift. He would have known and he would have kept you the fuck away from me."

"He discovered it many times. And then Bianca would make him forget. Just like she'd manipulate Marcus' memory of our bond."

She closed her eyes in thought. Bianca. Why did she know that name? Gods, why wouldn't her brain work the way she needed it to? Oh, yeah, this asshole.

"Don't tell me you forgot her already, your majesty. You are to blame for her death, after all." Venom dripped from Sebastian's every word.

Just like that it came to her and she felt stupid that she'd even had to think about it. Bianca was the memory manipulator that had led the Volturi to believe she was dead when John was murdered. That had tried to kill her the day Caius bit her. That had been lying to her mates about so many things for decades if not longer. The bitch that her mates killed. Suddenly, it was all very clear.

"So, you destroy my relationship with the kings as revenge for her death."

"No!" he screamed. Jasper's hand tightened in warning.

"It's revenge for letting me live. The original plan was to kill you and leave them to live without you so they would know how it felt. Then I saw the effect the damaged bonds were having on you. You'll still die but your mates will forever know they are partly to blame." The look of pure triumph on his face was so much worse than his words. "Of course, I wasn't planning on being discovered. I intended to watch them suffer."

The expected anger was nowhere to be found. Instead, Lily was flooded with relief. The knowledge that an outside force had manipulated everything and that it could somehow be fixed relieved her of a good portion of her burden.

"The letter," Jasper demanded, Major having retreated for the time being.

She was confused for a moment until Sebastian started talking. "Do you think I'd get to my age without having connections that could forge anything I wished for the right price?"

"How did you keep the kings from coming after her?" Alice asked. "They love her. I saw it."

"She left a letter of her own, of course, warning them not to follow if they ever wished her to return."

Lily's head spun and her chest felt heavy. This absolute bastard. This menace. She should take him home to Aro. Let her mate strip every bit of useful information from him possible. She should, but she wouldn't.

"Burn him."