As I step into the palace I am overcome by a sense of serenity and I instantly regret losing my temper earlier. My brother Ogon is already home from school. He must have sensed my mood and he wraps me in a cloak of calm, his mind reaching out to mine from wherever he is. I close my eyes to follow the train of his thoughts and I locate him on the veranda of his room. I would normally stomp up the stone steps to confront him, but he maintains his hold on me, making my limbs feel heavy.

All of my family have the power to control mood, except for me. Ogon is best at it. Most of my family have to be standing right next to the person they are trying to influence, but Ogon can reach out to anyone's mind from a distance.

Ogon has it easy, he's in his last year at the Malvern Academy, he's a top student and he's next in line to the throne of Voltaire, our home.

I come from a long line of Volturi, the royal family of Voltaire and the Keepers of the Old World. We are an ancient, powerful family who are feared by all. At least that's the idea. Unfortunately for me, I have yet to show my 'true potential'. As well as lacking in the mood influence department, I haven't mastered any of the powers of my ancient clan. I know the powers are inside of me, deep down, but they have a habit of bursting out of me unexpectedly, particularly when my temper flares - that seems to be happening a lot lately.

My brother is the perfect example of a Volturi leader, he is strong and brave, but most importantly, he is well respected, even at the age of eighteen. I reach his room and the door swings open of its own accord.

"Stop showing off," I drop my bag on the floor and I step into Ogon's room. He stands in the doorway to the veranda with a smirk on his face, his hands in the pocket of his jeans. "You can stop now. I'm calm."

Ogon's influence rolls off me in waves and that familiar, tense feeling wraps its hands around my insides again.

"So?" Ogon regards me with an amused expression. "You want to tell me what happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

The truth is, I do want to talk about, but I chew my lip to stop the words from spewing out of me because I'm scared to get agitated again. Last time I came home upset, I spontaneously set fire to the curtains in our living room.

"Tell me," Ogon says. "I hate these curtains anyway."

A small laugh escapes my lips. "Fine."

I take a deep breath and then I exhale slowly, trying to adopt the same calm feeling that Ogon's influence had brought. "Morgan Gazini tripped me in the corridor and I fell into a group of Cullen's."

"Seriously? Did you touch any of them?"

"I rolled into them, like in that game from the Old World, the one with the pins and the ball. Of course I touched them."

Ogon snorts with derision and then quickly rearranges his face into a passive expression. "What happened?"

"What do you think?"

Ogon whistles. "How bad was it?"

I chew the inside of my mouth. "Bad. The Cullen's blasted in all direction; one of them went straight through a wall. Madame Melania said they're going to bill Mum and Dad for the damage."

Ogon's face darkens. "Madame Melania knows you can't help it. You want me to speak to Gazini? He should know better than to trip a Volturi right near a group of Cullen's. He should pay for the damage."

I shake my head. "It's fine, just leave it."

The Gazini's are an ancient family like ours, they're not as powerful, but they are represented on the Moros council and they have a lot of influence in the smaller communities. Not only that, but my Father is far too proud to hand over the bill for the damage.

Ogon's face searches mine. "Why are you so upset? It's not the first time you've caused chaos at school."

I shrug my shoulders, but as much as I try to repress it my heartbeat quickens and stomach leaps.

Ogon cocks his head to one side. "I felt that."

My cheeks redden. "Felt what?"

Ogon raises an eyebrow. "You know what."

In that split second when I thought about the incident, Ogon felt my emotion, that feeling of elation I get every time I see, or think of, Nicholas Cullen. He was with the group I hurtled into when I tripped; he was slammed into the lockers that line the corridor when our bodies repelled each other like magnetic poles.

It's a curious thing. The Volturi have conducted much study on why the Cullen's and the Volturi react to each other like this, the Cullen's are naturally our most trusted ally, always at the side of the Volturi in Voltaire and the Old World, but our scientists can't figure it out.

"So, who is he?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on Roma, you can tell me."

"Why, so you can tell me that he's not good enough for me and then intimidate him so he never speaks to me ever again?"

"So there is someone."

I scowl at him and he laughs. He gestures towards the small refrigerator in the corner of his room. The door swings open and two blood bags float through the air towards him. "Come on." Ogon gestures towards the veranda.

Outside, the late afternoon air is stifling and the sun is still bright in the indigo sky. I look down at my arms, my skin shimmering in the light, sparkling like diamonds. "Madame Melania says that in the Old World we have to cover up our skin so that we don't draw attention to ourselves."

"That's right." Ogon says, leaning over the railings beside me. With his fair hair and barely-there eyelashes he is my opposite. I have our Father's thick, black locks while Ogon takes after our Mother. We both have the same blue eyes though, bright blue like the sea on a sunny day.

"I'll have to live somewhere dull and cloudy, I don't want to stay indoors all day and only go out at night. What would I do, stuck home?"

Ogon doesn't answer. He hands me one of the blood bags and I take a sip, pulling a face at the syrupy taste. Ogon has a sweet tooth.

"Will I have to wear one of those cloaks, like the Old World Volturi?"

"Maybe, if Father lets you go."

"He'll let me go, he doesn't need me here. You think the Volturi Keepers will take me?"

Ogon looks at me, he takes a big gulp from his blood bag and then he leans on to the balcony overlooking Moros, the capital city of Voltaire. A future king surveying his kingdom. "You need to control your emotions. It could be the key to unlocking your powers."

I roll my eyes. "I've tried. It was easy for you, your powers came naturally," I throw myself down on to one of the veranda chairs. "Oh what's the point in even talking about the joining the Old World Volturi; I'll never pass the entry test."

The Volturi in the Old World live in a place called Volterra in Volturi recently expanded, planting Volturi Keepers right across the Old World to keep an eye on 'new-borns'. Father says that the number of new-born vampires has more than tripled in the last decade. They're unpredictable and unable to control their thirst for blood, causing a threat to humans – our main source of blood.

The original Old World Volturi were unable to monitor all of the new-borns from their mountainside home in Italy and requested that the Moros council of Voltaire send help. Any Voltairians wishing to go must pass a test, they must be able to demonstrate their aptitude for fighting new-borns and conserving the lives of humans.

Voltairian vampires are born, not made. We are living creatures, immortal like our Old World counterparts, but we are much harder to kill. Voltairian Volturi are more powerful than any vampire in the Old World, as most possess only one or two powers.

Ogon continues to gaze across Moros. I sip on the sickly-sweet blood as I watch him, then I toss the empty bag down on to the table.

"Careful." Ogon rushes to the table and thrusts the bag back at me before shuffling the papers littering the table into one neat pile.

I try to peer at the papers in his hands. "What is all this?"

They look like diagrams annotated with Ogon's spiky handwriting, but I can't make any of it out. Ogon hastily gathers up his work up and jams it under his arm. "It's just some research."

"Research? Like, for school?"

Ogon sits down on the chair opposite me and looks at me carefully. "It's just something I'm…interested in."

He fiddles nervously with the amulet that rests on his chest. He got it for his eighteenth birthday, a key to the Old World. I'll get one too when I come of age, a red gem wrapped in a cage of metal. At school they taught us that our world and the Old World are two layers of reality and the amulets allow us to pass through the veil between the worlds. I don't really understand the science behind it, but before the veil was discovered and we found the vast food source in the Old World, we lived on the blood of animals. I shudder at the thought.

"Whatever, unless you're studying how to get my powers to work, I'm not interested."

Ogon smiles tightly. "They'll come to you; a lot of kids at school don't have their powers yet."

"Ogon, I'm almost seventeen and I'm Volturi. I'm a laughing stock."

"Nobody's laughing at you."

"Aren't they?"

Ogon runs a hand through his hair. "Maybe we could work more on your powers, provoke them out of you."

"Mother won't let us practice at home anymore, not after last time."

"OK, maybe at school then."

"Oh yeh, like Madame Melania will allow that."

"Yeh, you're probably right," Ogon scratches his chin thoughtfully and then his face lights up. "We need somewhere that's unbreakable right? Plenty of space to practice?"

I nod.

"The Cullen's place."

"No, no way."

"Why not?"

"I…I don't want anyone to see me practice."

Ogon rolls his eyes. "They won't be around. I'll just ask Gabe if we can use one of the training rooms. It'll be fine as long as we keep out of the Cullen's' way."

Gabe is the leader of the Cullen's, their coven lives in a fortress just off the coast of Voltaire. The Cullen's are strong and fast and they prevent war in the Old World – another major threat to our food supply. They help the Volturi to protect humans, preserving their lives because we need them in order to survive. We call it to the Conservation Programme.

I think of Nicholas, his brawny arms, his muscular chest and those liquid-brown eyes. He's the same age as Ogon and he'll leave the Malvern Academy soon. Butterflies dance in my stomach at the thought of seeing him at the Cullen's fort and my heart rate quickens. I'm always too shy to speak to him at school; he's always surrounded by his friends and even if I did, what would I say? Repelling him into the lockers in the corridor today is the closest encounter I've ever had with him. I know it's impossible, we could never have a relationship if he's going to be blasted off his feet every time we get too close, but there's just something about him. I look up to find Ogon watching me curiously and my cheeks blaze.