When Dawn Breaks 46

"I missed you today.” Bella said as she kissed Rosalie passionately. They had spent the day apart and it had been torturous to Bella knowing her imprint was so close without being able to spend time with her. Now the pair were in Bella’s bedroom after Bella had eaten dinner with a few of the shifters. It had taken some prompting but she got a few of them comfortable enough to at least talk to her without stuttering and blushing. The looks of awe and reverence were still taking some effort to get used to though. Bella didn’t think she was better than of any of them but it seemed they would always see her as something bigger than she thought she was.

“I missed you too.” Rosalie had worked on the master bedroom the whole day and had enlisted some of the shifters to move the furniture out. She had wanted to go through the furniture in storage but by the time everything was boxed up and moved Bella had returned for dinner. “What were you able to find out?”

Bella sat down at her desk in her bedroom and pulled out a laptop and some papers from the brown satchel she was carrying. “I brought this stuff back to show you.”

“Is it safe to use a laptop to keep information on?” Rosalie didn’t know how safe the internet connection at the estate was.

“It’s a secure laptop. We have a few that aren’t able to access the internet for keeping sensitive information on.” Bella told her as she opened the laptop and typed in a password.

“That’s smart.” Rosalie should have realized with all the things the Shurlongs had to keep secret they would have ways that they could organize things without someone else being able to gain access to it.

“So this is what I found so far.” Bella moved the computer over to where Rosalie was sitting so she could see it better.

Rosalie read through the information but couldn’t make much sense of what she was reading. “This talks about blood samples and DNA profiles. What exactly were they trying to do?”

“It seems they were trying to isolate the gene that allows shifters to shift. The reason they were taking children was because they wanted to see if their genetic make up changed or if the gene was dormant.” Bella explained.

“What were they trying to achieve?” Rosalie asked.

“I haven’t gotten the full picture of what exactly they were doing but from the research I’ve done it seems like they were trying to figure out a way to artificially create shifters.” Bella told her.

“Why would they want to create shifters?” Rosalie wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer but asked anyway.

“I don’t know exactly who is in charge of all this but it seems they want to make super soldiers.” Bella wasn’t surprised by the look of outrage on Rosalie’s face. She had felt the same way when she found out.

“How do the vampires and humans fit into the equation?” Rosalie didn’t understand how the two groups came together to form an alliance.

“I don’t know yet. The good news is it seems that they were just at the beginning stages of their plan. The outpost we raided was actually the main laboratory they set up because of the large shifter population in the mountains.” Bella said.

“So that means that there are other laboratories though. Plus we still don’t know who is in charge of all of this.” Rosalie was disappointed that Bella didn’t have more answers but she understood that it wouldn’t have been that easy.

“I still have lots of stuff to go through so don’t lose hope just yet.” Bella also wished that all the answers would be laid out in front them but like Rosalie she knew that it wouldn’t be that easy.

“I guess there isn’t much we can do until you go through more stuff.” Rosalie was trying hard not to feel disheartened by the lack of information. She wanted to be able to tell the shifters something.

“Did the doctor get back to you about the test he did on the children’s blood?” Bella asked.

Rosalie shook her head. “No I don’t think we will be hearing from him for a least a few days.”

“It would have been nice if he had though.” Bella worried about any side effects that the children might have due to what they were injected with.

“I agree.” Rosalie had checked her phone numerous times through out the day making sure she didn’t miss a call or text from the doctor. She had been disappointed every time when there was no alert and had to stop herself from calling and telling him to hurry up.

“What did you get up to today?” Bella hadn’t had a chance to actually talk to Rosalie other than when she called on the intercom about the signet rings.

“Well after I got over the shock of finding millions of dollars of jewelry sitting out in the open I was able to clear out your grandparents’ belongings.” Rosalie told her.

“I doubt there was millions of dollars worth jewelry.” Bella said.

“Bella some of those pieces by themselves were worth a million dollars.” Rosalie still couldn’t believe all the things she had found. “I almost had a heart attack when Charolette showed me what she found in the drawers.”

“It would make sense if it wasn’t important to them or the family that they wouldn’t care about it. I know most of my jewelry is in my closet in the accessory drawers.” Bella didn’t see what the big deal was about leaving unimportant things out in the open.

“Wait you have jewelry in your closet?” When Bella nodded Rosalie sighed. “Why do I have a feeling that you also have extremely valuable items not properly stored?”

Bella gave Rosalie a kiss on the cheek. “Because you know me my love. Besides didn’t you go through my room already when you put our stuff away?”

“No I didn’t think it was necessary. I just moved the clothes that were already in your closet to one side and put our stuff away on the other.” Rosalie got up from her chair and made her way to Bella’s closet. “I was going to clean out all the clothes and give them to the shifters but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”

“That’s a good idea. When my grandparents died I just left everything the way it was and brought very little to my mother’s. I was going through a growth spurt so I needed new clothes and left my old ones here.” Bella hadn’t really wanted to bring much to her mother’s house. After it became apparent that her mother had no interest in actually being a mother Bella figured she could just bide her time and when she was old enough move back to the estate.

Rosalie opened one of the drawers on the island of drawers in the middle of the closet. She had assumed it was just filled with grooming items and underwear and socks. Looking at the very expensive necklaces on display she couldn’t have been more wrong.Opening the other drawers Rosalie found rings, bracelets, broaches, hair accessories and even a few tiaras. “Jesus Bella this stuff is worth more than our house in Forks.”

“It’s just some things I got as presents through out the years.” Bella said.

“What should we do with all this stuff?” Rosalie now realized they would definitely need another safe.

“I don’t know. I’m not that attached to most of it. The pieces that I am are stored in my personal vault.” Bella made her way over to the side of the room Rosalie put their stuff and pushed a button on the wall causing it to swing open like the one in her grandfather’s closet.

Rosalie rolled her eyes at seeing that Bella had a vault in her room. She should have expected this. “Did your grandparents install this just for you or do all the rooms have vaults in them?

“A few rooms have them.”Bella put her code into the key pad and scanned her eye on the retinal scanner.

Rosalie thought she wouldn’t be surprised by what was in the vault but found herself almost speechless at the items on display. Bella’s grandparent’s jewelry collection had been impressive but it didn’t hold a candle to how extravagant Bella’s was. Instead of just glass cases lining the walls holding pieces Bella’s closet had several cases against each wall that you had to push a button to rotate to get access to. “Your grandparents gave you all this stuff?”

“No not all of it. Some of it I got from my grandparents’ friends or acquaintances.” Bella pointed to a necklace that had large rubies surrounded by diamonds. “This was a gift from Queen Elizabeth of England for my christening.”

“Of course you would know the queen.” Rosalie didn’t know why that surprised her as Bella probably knew many heads of states but it did. She figured it had to do with the fact that the Bella she knew was mostly isolated from the rest of the world.

“Well even though we don’t claim it we are royals. As a matter of fact my family can trace our origins father back then the queen can.” Bella told her.

“I still find it amazing that even with the many changes of kings and queens your family stayed in good standing with the royals all these years. The fact that you helped fight the British for control of America and they still consider you a duchess is mind blowing.” Rosalie still couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that her mate had a place in the monarchy.

“Even though she has no claim to any of the land my mother is actually the Duchess of Shurlong. I won’t inherit the title unless she passes it to me early or she dies.” Bella said.

“I’m actually surprised your mother hasn’t tried to capitalize on the fact that she is.” Rosalie would have expected Bella’s mother to try and gain something from the title.

“Oh she has. It’s just that no one listens to her. She once tried to move into the castle with a bunch of her friends and threw a fit when they refused to allow her entrance.” Bella still found it funny when Gene had told her what her mother had done.

“She actually thought she could live in your castle?Is it even inhabitable or is it just a museum?” Rosalie asked.

“Someone could easily live in it. As a matter of fact if you wanted we could make it our permeant residence.” Bella never thought of living there herself but if Rosalie wanted to she would.

Rosalie thought about what it would be like to live in the castle. She had done some research online about the property and village and was impressed with what she found out. She actually found herself intrigued with the idea of staying there. “I don’t know about living there but it would be nice to be able to stay there once in a while.”

“Any time you want to we can easily make the trip. I only warn you that if word got out that we were there people would want me to visit them.” Bella hadn’t visited the castle since her grandparents died but knew that once some of their old friends heard she was there they would want her to take some time to talk to them.

“That wouldn’t be too bad. Unfortunately I doubt we would be able to go without Emmett and Alice. I have a feeling if we left them behind they would just follow us.” Rosalie said.

“There is plenty of things that can keep them busy so we could have some time alone.” Bella knew that Emmett and Alice would want to see everything in the castle and probably wouldn’t even notice that Rosalie and her were not around.

“Speaking of alone time.” Rosalie shut the drawers, strolled up to Bella and put her arms around Bella’s neck. “It seems like we have some right now and I was wondering if we could play around like we did before we left for Maine?”

Bella pulled Rosalie into a heated kiss. “I would like nothing more.”

“Then let’s forgot about all the things we have to do and just focus on having some fun.” Rosalie picked Bella up and ignoring her protests carried her into the bedroom and tossed her on the bed. She had been semi hard all day thinking about this moment. She didn’t really need to feed but since it didn’t affect Bella and her mate liked it so much Rosalie didn’t feel guilty about drinking Bella’s blood. Too impatient to wait for Bella to remove her clothes Rosalie tore them off her body then removed her own the same way. As she flipped a willing Bella onto her stomach Rosalie’s last thought before she pounced was to thank fate yet again for making Bella her mate. There was no one who could be more perfect for her.