I finally got around to finishing this chapter! It's one of my favorites so far. It's long, but worth it! Let me know what you think!

Chapter 14: Breakfast

Ms. Wintours and Angela decided to share one of the big rooms in the basement. The basement was a large walk out basement. Esme had decorated it in neutral colors and the windows were centered to catch the morning sun. Esme loved playing host and enjoyed the company. I had waited until our guests were in their rooms and settled, before Alice and I walked downstairs to give our guests a few extra blankets. Alice flew down the stairs, and I was right behind her. She reached for the door, but I grabbed her hand.

"They don't have our hearing." I reminded her, "It's more polite to knock." Alice smiled sheepishly, and knocked.

"Come in." Angela's voice sounded unsure. Alice opened the door and we both slid in. Ms. Wintours looked regal in her burgundy gown. She must have came with a packed bag. Angela was getting ready to lay on the bed, fully clothed.

"Did you not bring pajamas, Angela?" Alice asked, a little too hopefully. Angela smiled and shook her head.

"It's all right, I don't mind sleeping in these." By this point, Alice was visibly shaking. The smile on her face grew.

"You can borrow some of my clothes!" With that, she grabbed Angela's hand and they were rushing up the stairs, Alice dragging poor Angela behind her. This left Ms. Wintours alone with me. I looked around nervously.

"I brought you some more blankets, Ms. Wintours. Our house may be a little cold. We don't really know if it is or not. We didn't want to take chances." I handed her the blankets. She smiled at me. She was examining me.

"The mind reader's wife, and the newest vampire." She purred. She looked me up and down.

"My name's Bella." I added. She smiled, a little embarrassed.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I have a habit of putting people's status' in front of their name." She looked at me again. "How do YOU do it?" I was taken back by her question. If I was Edward I would know what she meant, but I had no clue now.

"Do what?" I asked.

"Go to school, being a fairly new vampire. Doesn't the thirst get overpowering?" I genuinely thought about this question.

"I guess, I don't notice it. I can block it out better than most." She noted that in her mind.

"And why do you stay with your captors?" She sat on the bed and stared up at me. Her posture, perfectly straight. "You are strong enough to escape."

"Captors? They didn't kidnap me, I came along willingly. I love Edward, and I wanted to be with him forever. I begged for him to turn me." I was trying not to sound like I was insulted by her question. "Carslile and Edward would not turn someone if there was another way." I sat down on Angela's bed and looked at Ms. Wintours. Why would she think of the Cullens as abductors? "I was bitten by a vampire a year before I was actually turned. Edward sucked the venom out. He did not want me to become a vampire. He wanted me to stay human for as long as possible." Ms. Wintours looked intrigued.

"So you got married, and then he turned you? What caused the change of heart?" she looked at me, smiled and then added. "Sorry about the pun.". I sat my hands on my legs, and looked at Ms. Wintours.

"I died."

"Did he kill you?" She gasped.

"No, he saved me from dying." I assured her. She didn't look convinced.

"What killed you then, dear?"

"Renesmee." Ms. Wintours looked shocked. I decided to elaborate. "Edward and I were married, and we went on our honeymoon. It only took two weeks for me to find out that I was pregnant. I went through the entire 40 weeks of gestation in a matter of a few months. No one knew to warn us, because, no one thought I could get pregnant. When Renesmee came, I was weak and she was in danger of dying if she wasn't born in a hurry, so, they ripped her out. I remember one of my last human moments, I was holding her and hearing that she was girl. She was safe and that was all that mattered. Then I remember the fire." I had never fully talked to any one about Renesmee's birth. It felt good telling someone about my miracle daughter's birth story.

"Fire? What fire are you talking about?"

"You used to talk with vampires, before the witches fell from power, and you don't know about the fire?" I asked, incredulously. Ms. Wintours shook her head.

"I was very young when our secrets were first discovered. Not many of the witches know about vampires at all. That is why we are interviewing your family." She went back to the topic at hand. "Tell me about this fire."

"The fire is the feeling you have when you are bit." I explained, "It is almost indescribable. I felt like my whole body was on fire and I couldn't move to put the flames out. I could hear the voices of my loved ones around me, but they wouldn't put the burning out. I begged for death, and finally, and agonizingly I noticed that my toes weren't burning, my fingers started to lose the fire feeling also, and this continued until I wasn't burning any more. Then the loud thudding sound of my heart stopped. That's when I woke up." I stood up to show that I was done with stories for the night. Ms. Wintours still examined me.

"So Renesmee was not bitten. She was born?" I nodded.

"The Voultri could not have liked that. She would have been a lot like the immortal children they feared so much." She almost sounded amused.

"They thought she was an immortal child, and wanted her dead. We got away from them and they have left us alone, for now." Alice and Angela burst through the doors. Angela was in silky red capris and a short sleeve top.

"And I'll have you an outfit down here by tomorrow." Alice promised. She stopped and her eyes became glazed as she stared off into space. She shook her head and turned to the door.

"Esme, Stephanie Johnson is coming over tomorrow morning!" She called. Esme called down a quiet 'okay'. Angela and Ms. Wintours couldn't hear it.

"That explains the weird looks Alice would sometimes have in school." Angela mused.

"Is there anything you can't see?" Ms. Wintours inquired.

"I can't see Jacob, or any of the shapeshifters." Alice grumbled. "When Jacob comes around my visions go black. Renesmee's kind of the same way. I can see her if I look really hard. It took a few years to even get the slight glimpses, but if she does something that impacts the rest of the family, I can see her." It was obvious that Ms. Wintours was warming up to Alice the easiest.

"And what was your life like before you were a vampire?" Ms. Wintours asked.

"I was in a mental institution." Alice replied matter of factly. Ms. Wintours looked frightened. She had warmed up to Alice until that point. Alice caught what she said.

"In the early 1920's, if you had visions you were put in a mental hospital. I'm not crazy or anything, unless you ask Edward's opinion." She smiled a charming smile. Angela covered her mouth to keep from laughing. Ms. Wintours nodded.

Morning came all too soon at the Cullen house. Ms. Wintours, despite having gone to bed incredibly late, was up really early. She had made sure Angela was awake with her. Since I used to cook, I was in charge of making the bacon, eggs, waffles, omelettes and French toast. Renesmee helped cut up the fruit. The second the Wal-mart opened, Edward had gone and bought as much as he thought we would need for breakfast. We were feeding at least 5 people that ate human food, and Alice said some other friends of Esme's were thinking about visiting before lunch. Esme had called Stephanie to extend an invitation. Stephanie had told Esme that she was planning on stopping by, if that was all right. Jacob was helping himself to seconds and Renesmee was eating an omelette, when Stephanie knocked on the door. Stephanie looked around the living room and could plainly see us in the kitchen. She walked further in.

"Wow, you really outdid yourself with all the food." She gushed. Esme smiled.

"Bella's our chef, today. Please help yourself." Stephanie joined in near Ms. Wintours and gave a small hello. She was introduced to everyone. Stephanie looked at Esme, who still didn't have a plate in front of her.

"Esme? Aren't you going to eat? This looks delicious."

"I just finished." She quickly added, nonchalantly. Stephanie started to cut up her French toast slowly.

"It's almost like a vacation from the boys." She looked up at Esme and added. "Their dad took them fishing today." Carlisle walked over to Esme and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Why don't you two go to Seattle today. You've been talking about visiting some of the shops for home decorations." I could tell Stephanie Johnson was officially dazzled.

"Yeah, it sounds… like fun." She looked away from Carlisle and towards Esme. Esme was smiling up at Carlisle. This would be her first one on one time with a human since my wedding. Esme's control was remarkable, there was no fear about her going to Seattle with Stephanie.

"It's going to be cloudy all day, mom. No rain though." Alice confirmed. Angela looked over at Alice, as did Ms. Wintours and Stephanie.

"I watched the Weather Channel this morning?" She made it sound more like a question than an explanation.

"The Weather Channel is so unreliable." Stephanie complained. Trying to make conversation. Esme walked towards her and Carlisle's room.

"Just the same, I'm betting on what Alice says." She smiled at the family's inside joke, and went into her room to get a jacket. Stephanie continued to eat. Edward looked at Alice and nodded. Angela caught the motion and looked over to Edward.

"Alice and I are going to play chess, would you like to join us, Angela?" Edward must have been answering the questions in her mind. Angela considered the invitation and then shook her head.

"I think I might be outmatched." Edward grabbed the chess board and Alice went to sit on the other side. Almost immediately Emmet added in.

"This time I'm betting on Edward." He looked for someone to bet against. He picked on Angela.

"Care to take that bet Angela?" Angela looked at Edward and Alice then to me. She smiled shyly back at Emmet.

"Okay. I've learned to not bet against Alice." She agreed. Emmet grinned.

"Edward won the last time." Stephanie watched Edward and Alice stare at the board for a minute or two before she got bored and walked towards Esme's room. Esme joined her and started to show her the house. Ms. Wintours watched the game closely.

"Who usually wins?" She asked, trying to hide her inerest.

"It depends on the day. Edward has been winning a lot lately, though." I explained. Alice wrinkled her nose. It was a sign that she saw Edward win that match. Edward smiled, smugly. I suddenly had an idea. I walked over toward Alice. I was looking over her shoulder. I stretched my shield out to encompass. Alice's body. Almost immediately, Alice saw what I was doing and smiled. She made her first move. Edward looked surprised, then he looked defeated. He moved a pawn, and Alice grinned. Within a second Alice had won the match. Edward was next to me in lightening speed.

"That's considered cheating, Bella." He purred.
"What? I was just watching the game." I put my hands up in mock innocence. Alice was bouncing around. Angela looked over to Emmet, who had his mouth all but on the floor.

"I always bet on Alice, and the one time I bet against her, she wins." He looked defeated. He then looked up.

"Witches always get what they want. I should have known to bet against Angela!" He groaned. Edward grabbed me by my sides and started to tickle me. I may be somewhat immuned to pain, but not tickles. I squrimed and giggled as Edward lifted me and spun me around.

"Public display of attention!" Jacob called out from the kitchen. "It's too much for my innocent eyes." He put a hand over his eyes and then one hand over Renesmee's eyes. She let out a small giggle. Edward looked over to Jacob.

"Don't get me started on this tangled web called Jacob's love life." Edward joked. Alice jumped in.

"You have what the pop music industry likes to call Stacy's mom's syndrome." Alice giggled an airy giggle. Jacob turned bright red. Since Renesmee's birth, Jacob's affections toward me had changed completely. We became old and dearest friends. The idea of him trying to take me away from Edward was completely gone. He saw a different future for himself. We hardly ever make reference to Jacob's past with me. Jacob didn't want the talk to go any further. He put up his hands in surrender

"Okay, okay, your family's house, your rules. Continue, lovebirds." He rolled his eyes and went back to eating with Renesmee. Stephanie came out of the room, followed by Esme.

"I'm still a little spooked about us going to Seattle alone. Do you remember that murdering spree that happened there about five years ago?" She shivered. How could we forget. Edward and I almost died there. Hundreds of vampires had died. I had a flash of a memory. Bree. She was one of the vampires that had given up. She was going to join our family and try the vegetarian lifestyle. The Voultri had decided against our plea to keep her. She could have been sitting around this table with us today. If she could control her thirst.

"We lived not too far from Seattle when that happened." Carlisle lovingly hugged Esme. Esme looked at Stephanie.

"Don't worry about Seattle, I'll protect you." Stephanie laughed incredulously. But we all knew that Stephanie was more than protected with Esme near.

With Esme and Stephanie gone, Carlisle sat down in the living room near Angela. Edward sat on the chair and I sat down in front of him and sat my head on his knee. Renesmee and Jacob came up to the group.

"May we go play catch, Momma?" She threw a baseball up and caught it. Rosalie joined the group on the love seat. She and Emmet sat there, and Jasper sat next to Alice who was seated closely to Ms. Wintours. Ms. Wintours was intriguing, and Alice could not deny the fact that Ms. Wintours had wonderful taste in clothes.

"Don't you mean you're going to play fetch, Renesmee?" Rosalie smiled. Jacob's face turned red. Despite the red color, he grinned.

"I almost forgot about the blonde joke of the day, Rosalie." He thought for a moment. "How do you get a blonde's eyes to sparkle?" Rosalie rolled her eyes.

"I don't care." She started to add some more in, but Jacob cut her off.

"Shine a flashlight in her ear!" I smiled and so did Edward. We had heard most of the blonde jokes. But it was fun to see Rosalie get flustered.

"Or shine it on her face." Edward corrected. He pointed to his own face. "Sparkly vampires, remember?" Jacob smiled.

"Why sparkle? I mean, that isn't very intimidating. Those vampires on the scary movies would be laughed out of Hollywood if they 'sparkled.' He used his fingers to air quote the word, sparkle. "Seriously, real men don't sparkle." He smiled smugly at Edward.

"Real men also don't drink out of the toilet." Rosalie shot back. Emmet laughed and patted her on the back. Jacob once again, turned red. He then stuck his tongue out.

"You're right." He lunged towards Rosalie. "Gimme a kiss Rosalie! Tell me if I have toilet breath." He lunged and Rosalie avoided him, easily and pushed him into Alice and Jasper. Alice laughed and Jasper helped him up.

"You kiss me, and I will rip your heart out through your nostrils. Do not try me, pup." She growled. Jacob was cracking up now. The rest of us were laughing too. Jacob stood up straight and looked at Rosalie.

"I'm sorry Rose, it was too tempting." He turned to Edward and me. "Seriously, Bella, Edward, is it okay if we go out and play ball?"

"Have fun you two." Edward laughed. Renesmee and Jacob ran outside to play. Ms. Wintours marvelled at them as they left.

"You do act like a fairly normal family." She looked at each of us. She must have a weird definition of normal if she finds us fairly normal, I thought.

Carlisle turned to Ms. Wintours and Angela.

"Ms. Wintours, were there any questions you wanted to ask?" Angela raised her hand, timidly.

" What are the Voultri, exactly? I know they denied the witches help during the witch hunts, but what do they do in the vampire world?" Carlisle thought about how he was going to word his response.

"They guard us, in a way." He started slowly. "The Voultri are in charge of keeping the vampire secret a secret. If they find a vampire breaking one of the fundamental rules, they are in charge of reinforcing the rules. With Bella, for example, Edward and Alice were told that they either had to change Bella, or kill her before the Voultri visited us."

"So, they do for vampires, what the witches are supposed to do for all of the supernatural beings." Angela confirmed.

"Basically. They are a little more corrupted now, but they started out with good intentions"

"The roads of Hell are paved with good intentions." Jasper mutter quietly. Carlisle paused again. "I was there when the witch council pled for help. The Voultri did not like non vampires telling vampires how to keep their life a secret. That was one of the reasons they denied help." Ms. Wintours looked abashed.

"We weren't intruding. We were simply making sure that the supernatural worlds did not fight. Minor discourse within the groups are not my affair." Emmet looked towards Edward for a better explanation.

"She means that she doesn't care if we kill each other." Edward went on. "As long as we don't take out a shapeshifter in the process." Ms. Wintours nodded at Edward

"A little more calloused than I would have used, but correct, none the less." Ms. Wintours straightened up. "We have been out of power, therefore, none of the supernatural creatures were safe from eachother. The Voultri hunted werewolves into near extinction. We are hoping that now, we can regain our powers and help govern the creatures again." I wasn't sure I liked being refered to as a creature.

"What makes now a good time?" Rosalie asked.

"Our powers are coming back. More and more witches are being found. More people are starting to attain their powers. We just need an audience with the Voultri. We will let them know of our numbers and hope that their memory of us, helps them make the decision to let us back into reign over the supernatural creatures." Alice looked up, as if she just had a vision.

"Would you like a glass of water Ms. Wintours?" She asked. Ms. Wintours nodded.

"I would love a glass of water, Alice." Alice skipped to the kitchen. Suddenly we heard a gasp and the sound of glass shattering. The family was around Alice in the kitchen before the glass was finished shattering. Alice's eyes were glazed over. She was shaking. Jasper quickly took her into his arms. He was desperatly trying to calm her with his moods, to no avail. Her vision must be petrifying. She came to. Her eyes returning to their normal golden brown color.

"The spies Bella and Edward found at La Push." She started. "They weren't really sent to watch the wolves. They were sent to provoke us. There were other spies in the woods. They wanted us to attack them." I had never seen Alice that shaken before. "The surviving spies went to the Voultri. They call what we did an unprovoked attack. They also saw us going into the sun, with our make up." Her voice was high and frantic. She paused and took a ragged breath. "They also plan on showing Aro the vision of Renesmee attacking Mike at the dance. They're going to leave out the fact that she didn't hurt him. They are going to make Renesmee out to be an uncontrollable vampire, hanging around a werewolf. The Voultri have already decided to come here and confront us. They haven't even talked to the spies yet! They're going to attack silently this time. There will not be witnesses. They plan to get rid of us."

"This is an attack on us because we live differently than they do." Jasper reasoned.

"What about Jacob and Renesmee?" Edward asked, rushed.

"If we take them to the meeting place, they will have to fight. If we try to hide them, they will be found and as outnumbered as they will be, the odds don't look good for them." For the first time in over four years, I felt sick.

"How much time do we have?" I couldn't think of a better question for her.

"I don't know, the Voultri haven't planned it yet." Ms. Wintours and Angela joined in on our conversation.

"Looks like we will get to have our conference with the Voultri." Ms. Wintours purred. Edward turned on her.

"Did you plan this? Was this how it would work out for you? They would attack us? Then you could talk to them after they had their victory?" Edward tried not to growl. I could feel him holding back.

"No, I didn't plan it this way." Ms. Wintours tried to calm him down. "It just happened this way, it is to our advantage that they want to see you. I will gather the witches and we will all meet the Voultri with you." She looked excited, even though she tried to hide it. I tried to be the diplomat. I had to keep the peace somehow.

"What do we do now?" I asked weakly. Alice's sad eyes met mine.

"We wait."

~*~

And wait you must! If I don't post a new chapter by May 19th, I will be out of town, well country for two weeks. My trip to Costa Rica starts on the 19th and I fly back home on the 29th. I will continue to brainstorm on my trip. I will be on a trip with a bunch of teachers, so my mind will be on the scenery and Twilight. I will post as soon as I can.