AN: Ah! So I totally meant to upload this chapter over the weekend, but then crazy life got away from me and I am now rushing to upload this before I have to run out the door. Thank you a million for all of my incredible, wonderful, dedicated reviewers! I'm sorry I don't have time to individually reply to you now, but I will do so in the next chapter.

This chapter was insanely hard to write, so I hope it turned out ok. One thing I hated about Breaking Dawn was that Meyer prepares you for this awesome battle scene and then they all simply have a chat and leave... So this is slightly bloodier and more action packed.

Enjoy! xx

Chapter Twenty Six

I should have slept badly that night. I should have dreamt of vampires with blood red eyes and dripping teeth. But instead, I slept peacefully, the heavy weight of anxiety finally lifted from my chest, curled into Jacob's warm arms.

Morning dawned misty and cold. Jacob roused me with a kiss on my forehead, and his dark brown eyes were the first thing I saw. My heart leapt and I reached out to stroke his cheek. He caught my fingers and kissed them lightly.

"Are you ready?" I asked, my voice croaking from morning lack of use.

He nodded confidently and I envied him. I wish I could be as trusting in our joint strength against the Volturi.

Quietly, we dressed. Jacob in just a pair of shorts, me in comfortable jeans, a warm woollen top, thick sweater and puffy vest. I scraped my hair back into a tight braid, washed my face and brushed my teeth. The face that stared back at me in the Black's bathroom mirror suddenly looked very small and pale. My dark eyes were large and scared. I frowned and swallowed hard. I needed confidence.

When I walked into the kitchen, Jacob held out a large mug of steaming coffee.

"We're going to be fine," Jacob said quietly, reading the fear in my face.

I nodded and quietly set the table, taking comfort in the ordinary task.

Jacob's appetite seemed unaffected by the apprehension of what was to come, but I couldn't eat. The fear I had pushed aside last night had returned in full force this morning.

"Bels, honey," Jacob said, his voice soft and warm, "you need to eat something. You need your strength."

I picked up the toast he had placed in front of me and nibbled on the edge of it.

"We've been training for this moment for a month," Jacob said quietly.

I shook my head trying to clear it and a lock of hair escaped my tight braid. Jacob leant over and brushed it out of my eyes, then caught my chin in his fingers and raised my face to meet his. He kissed me gently, taking his time to thoroughly explore my lips and mouth with his.

"I am going to spend a lifetime kissing you, and exploring you, and loving you," he told me, his face serious but his eyes dancing. "I am not going to let this fight get in the way of that, understand?"

I couldn't help but smile. "Okay," I replied and took a large bite of toast.

ooo

The mist blanketed the ground, the trees on the far side of the clearing invisible. I squinted through the fog, imagining that I could see dark shapes moving in the distance. The silence was deafening. Shaking my head to clear it, I shrugged off my backpack and opened it, pulling out the picnic rug. I spread the rug on the ground and sat down, hoping the waterproofing would protect me from the wet ground. I was cold enough as it was, I didn't need to be wet as well. I sat and zipped my coat higher around my neck. The temperature must have been close to freezing and I was glad I had thought to wear my gloves and hat.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and felt for my shield. I prodded at it, feeling the edges expand and I pulled it out over the wolves standing closest to me. Seth was crouched down beside me, Quil and Embry a few metres away, just visible through the thick fog. I felt Sam, Jacob and the rest of the pack, standing in the middle of the clearing. I slid the shield over them and then felt for the Cullens, standing side by side with the Quileute pack.

I let my subconscious spread to the rest of the clearing, carefully wrapping each vampire and shapeshifter in the silky smooth embrace of the shield as I roamed further into the surrounding woods, feeling for all of the others, in place and waiting. Finally, everyone was secure. I took a deep breath and clamped down, ensuring that every fighter was securely cocooned in my shield, safe from any mental attack that came their way. It was all I could do and now I had to wait. I opened my eyes and peered again into the gloom.

An hour passed and I needed to stand, stretching out my frozen, stiff limbs. The fog began to lift, but the day remained dark and cold, thick grey clouds blanketed the sky.

Seth twitched and stood, taking a step away from our safe protected spot among the trees towards the clearing. A low quiet rumble vibrated in his chest.

A chill, that had nothing to do with the weather, ran through my body. The fog had lifted and suddenly I could see everything laid bare in front of me. There were the Cullens, standing beside the large wolves, staring at a dark shape emerging from the tree line. A large group of darkly clad bodies moved as one into the clearing. I gasped. There were nearly a hundred of them. How could we win against so many?

I closed my eyes to the terror in front of me and focused all of my attention on my shield. I could feel a pressure building and then suddenly, the shield was struck with an almighty force. My hands balled into fists as I fought against the sudden impact of power. I knew it was Jane and her brother Alec. Their powers hit the shield like heavy hammers of colour – blood red for Jane and dark inky black for Alec.

I clenched my teeth and scrunched up my face as the pressure built to screaming point.

"You stand here, ready to fight," said Aro, his voice quiet. I could hear him in the minds of those I protected.

As planned, Edward stepped forwards.

Aro held out his hand towards him and Edward crossed the distance, slow and determined. My stomach clenched in fear. This was part of the plan I wasn't comfortable with. Edward put himself in too much danger. Aro turned his head ever so slightly to look questioningly at Jane. Her face was a mask of fury.

Edward stopped a metre from Aro. "You're wondering why Jane's powers aren't working on us."

Aro's lip curled in a mockery of a smile. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

I shivered, knowing we were mere seconds away from all-out war.

Edward stretched out his hand and his fingers met Aro's. In that instant, I knew that Aro, and all his supporters would lose sight thanks to Zafrina. A shocked murmuring rose from the Volturi and their supporters. They staggered, blinded in the darkness forced upon them from Zafrina.

"Jane, Alec!" Aro cried out.

Their combined powers hammered at me again and I grabbed my head in my hands, feeling the pressure intensify. I gritted my teeth in steely determination and held my shield in place. I would not let them through.

"Now!" bellowed Edward.

And then it began.

With a roar of sound, chaos broke. The Volturi were under attack from all sides. Blazing fire erupted in a deadly semi-circle around the Volturi and the earth cracked in a deep trench. I shivered, seeing the full force of Benjamin's work for the first time. We had the Volturi cornered and Benjamin would only lower his defences for the wave of attack planned by the different shape-shifter groups. Blinded by Zafrina and with nowhere to run, the Volturi should be slaughtered quickly. Or at least that was the plan.

Blinded, surrounded and in peril of burning or falling into the earth, I knew that the Volturi and their supporters didn't stand a chance. But to watch the turmoil and chaos unfold in front of my eyes was worse than I could have ever possibly have imagined.

I turned my head back to the centre of the battlefield. Aro still held Edward's hand but he was blinded to the scene unfurling around him. I saw the muscles tense under his pale, ashen skin and then he was pulling Edward toward him.

And then Alice screamed. The kind of scream that could turn your blood to ice. She was screaming Edward's name. Jasper and Emmett both held on to her and she fought against them. Afraid, I turned my eyes back to Aro and Edward. Aro's hand clenched Edward's hard and his eyes glittered maliciously.

Then Edward spun, yanking hard on Aro's arm and with a screech of tearing granite, Aro's arm was ripped from his body.

Aro shrieked in fury, swung wildly at Edward and smashed his head clear off his body.

I wanted to scream but no sound came from my breathless lungs as I lurched forwards, stretching my arms pointlessly towards the horrific scene in front of me, as if I could grab the moment in time and throw it back.

Everything had gone silent and I could hear my blood pulsing in my own head as Edward's head flew through the air, his coppery hair dimming as deep lines cracked his face. It hit the ground and smashed into thousands of tiny pieces.

I clutched at my chest, trying to draw breath through shaky uncontrollable gasps. I felt my shield slipping and I clamped down hard, fury and grief fuelling my determination.

I closed my eyes yet again, trying to block out the horrors around me. The screams and shrieks of battle still assaulted my ears.

Again and again my shield collapsed over a mind that was suddenly no longer there. An Apache shapeshifter had been killed, then a Shoshone bear, then a Kalapuya mountain lion. The sudden disappearance of the minds within my subconscious stabbed at my heart. I withdrew from the dead, pulling my shield in tighter, wishing I could protect from more than just mental attacks.

And then the pressure doubled. I scrunched my eyes at the force squeezing my brain and tears fell down my cheeks. It took everything I had to maintain my grip on consciousness. Through a haze of pain, I could hear Seth whimpering beside me. My nose stung and I knew the wetness that trickled over my lips and down my chin was blood.

"Seth," I cried out, barely managing to form words. "Seth, it's Jane – she knows it's me. She's directing everything she has at me."

I screamed, clawing at my scalp, needing a release from the pressure that threatened to implode my brain.

Seth nuzzled me and through the hazy confusion of pain I was confident he had passed the message on to his pack members. I glanced up at the battle, my vision blurred. I saw the huge form of Jacob making a beeline for Jane, whose eyes never left me.

Jacob's huge paws pounded the ground as he sprinted towards the small blonde vampire. An enemy attacked Jacob from the left, but he threw him off, his strong jaws ripping the body in half as though he was nothing more than a flimsy rag doll.

Jacob continued on his path towards Jane. But she was not alone. Felix stepped in front of her, a smile twisting his lips. He crouched to the ground, preparing to spring. I pressed my fingers into my ears and felt the wetness of my own blood. I couldn't hang on much longer. Everything blurred and darkened as I watched Felix spring through the air at the speed of light and collide with the huge russet wolf.

And then everything went black.

ooo

The dull droning buzz of a thousand bees humming in unison penetrated my unconscious brain. I had been standing in a field of wildflowers, the heat of the sun warming my face as I breathed in the lightly perfumed air.

But the buzzing was persistent, droning into my skull and forcing me awake. As I drifted towards consciousness, I realised the sound was, in fact, not the buzzing of bees, but hushed voices, talking quickly and quietly close by. I wanted to drown the sound out and return to my field of happiness but the sunshine and bright colours of my dream were fading quickly.

Gradually, I began to make out individual words and my groggy mind struggled to piece together what I heard.

"It's been two days."

"She'll wake when she's ready."

"What do we tell her?"

"She'll survive this, she's strong."

I tried to shake my head to clear it but found that when I attempted to move, a wave of pain crashed between my ears and made my brain ring. Nausea rose quickly in me and my mouth stung with a familiar sensation. Despite the pain I sat up quickly and rolled to the side, vomiting neatly off the side of the bed into a thoughtfully placed bucket.

My hair clung to my sweaty forehead and I wiped the back of my mouth with my hand. Someone pressed a cool washcloth to my face and I accepted it gratefully before lying back on the pillows and cracking open an eyelid to see who had come to my side.

Emily smiled at me and held out a glass of water and two small tablets. I took them from her with a murmured thanks and swallowed them without asking what they were.

"Ibuprofen," she told me, reading my mind and placing the glass of water on the bedside table. "I imagine you have quite the headache."

I didn't chance nodding my head, worried the wave of nausea may rise up again. Instead I grimaced weakly at her.

"Where am I?" I asked, my voice hoarse and nearly inaudible.

"Our house," Emily explained. "In the guest room."

I felt something bulky under my shoulder and lifted myself up, removing the disagreeable object. It was a teddy bear with one eye missing.

"Maxim thought you might need some company."

I tried to smile, but my brain was quickly catching up to me. The battle. My shield. Jane. Felix. Jacob.

Edward.

I sat up as quickly as I could but Emily pushed me back down onto the pillows. I had no strength to resist her.

"Calm down," Emily said, "everything's ok."

"No," I protested but even my weak attempt to escape the confines of the bed had left me breathless and exhausted. The door creaked open and Sam came in. He smiled to see me awake.

"We were just talking about you," Sam said. "I'm glad to see you awake."

"I heard you," I replied trying to piece together the fragments of conversation that had penetrated my unconscious state. They had said I would survive this – but survive what? What had happened on the battlefield after I had passed out? "What happened?" I demanded, cutting Sam off as he opened his mouth to speak.

Sam sighed and sat down on the end of the bed, taking Emily's hand in his and kissing her fingers. She took this as her cue and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

"You passed out under the pressure," Sam explained, eyeing me warily.

"I know," I retorted, urgently needing to know more details.

"It was Jane and Alec," Sam explained. "They directed all of their power at the shield. I only realised when Seth alerted us to how much pressure you were under."

"And when I collapsed?" I pressed urgently. "How many died because I couldn't hold up the shield?"

Sam shook his head and smiled weakly. "None, Bella. As soon as we realised what they were doing, we turned our forces on them. Jacob went for Jane and I went after Alec. They were destroyed in moments. Thank God. Otherwise I'm not sure what would have happened to you."

"But Jacob," I pressed on. "He was fighting Felix, what happened to him?"

"Oh!" Sam replied surprised. "I'm sorry, I thought Emily already told you. Jacob's fine – he's at home in bed resting – he has three broken ribs and he dislocated his shoulder. He heals fast though, so he will be back to normal in no time."

I lay my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes. Relief washed over me and I was embarrassed to feel tears prick the corners of my eyes. I felt Sam's warm hand pat my knee.

"Emily is calling him now, I know he'll want to see you."

I swallowed. "And the Cullens?"

The smile slipped from Sam's face and he looked down at his hands. "Bella, I am so sorry, but Edward didn't make it. He was killed by Aro."

I'd known, but having Sam tell me made it real. It was like a hole had opened in my chest and I pressed my fingers to my eyes, trying to hold back the flow of tears that threatened to overflow.

"And the others?" I asked, my voice breaking.

"We lost two Apache brothers, one Shoshone fighter, a Kalapuya sister and… and Kara died fighting off five of them. She fought bravely, but even she couldn't win against those numbers."

"Did any other Cullens or vampires…?" my voice trailed off.

"None."

I gulped and counted the losses in my head. Seven. Seven had died. That was seven too many.

"And what about the Volturi and their supporters?"

Sam didn't smile. He took a deep breath and set his jaw in a firm yet determined line. "It was a total loss on their side."

I raised my eyebrows. "None survived?" I asked in disbelief. "None surrendered? None were taken prisoner?"

The look in Sam's eyes was one of defiance. "No, Bella."

I took a deep shaky breath and exhaled. Had there been no prisoners because none had surrendered? Or had no one been given the chance to surrender and pledge their loyalties to the new regime? If someone had surrendered, then killing them was murder – wasn't it?

I didn't have the chance to ask Sam because at that moment the door banged open and the frame was filled with a huge, hulking figure. He was dressed in a pair of shorts and little else. His dark skin glistened with sweat and his well-defined chest rose and fell with quick, deep breaths. Clearly he had run all the way to Sam's house as soon as he heard the news.

His inky black hair flopped onto his forehead and fell into dark, concerned eyes framed with long black lashes. A week's worth of stubble darkened his chin and strong jaw and his full pink lips were turned down in worry.

Jacob.

My beautiful, perfect Jacob.

My eyes raked him from top to toe, taking in the white linen sling supporting his right arm and his bruised swollen shoulder. It seemed not to be causing him pain however, as all of his attention was at that moment directed at me.

I sobbed his name and he was at my side in an instant, his good left arm wrapping around me and cradling me into his warm chest. I cried freely into his embrace and he stroked my hair, shushing me soothingly as we rocked gently back and forth. Without my noticing, Sam quietly left the room.

Finally, when the tears had dried, I pulled back from his arms to look into his face. Love and sadness filled his eyes.

"I am so sorry about Edward," he said quietly, his voice barely more than a whisper.

"Me too," I replied truthfully. "How are the Cullens?"

"They want to see you. They're worried about you."

I tried to smile but failed. "If it wasn't for me, Jacob, the Volturi would never have come here. Edward never would have died."

He pressed a finger to my lips, stopping me from saying more. "If it wasn't for you, Bella, then the Volturi would never have been defeated and who knows how many hundreds, thousands of lives would have been lost for their cause."

I tried to understand this. I tried to weigh up the hundreds of faceless humans who would one day live because Edward had died. But I couldn't. Would I have sacrificed hundreds of unknown for one known? I didn't know.

"Are the Cullens angry with me?" I asked quietly, barely able to form the question.

"Of course not," Jacob replied. "They are very, very sad, but they're not angry. And they believe Edward died fighting for something he believed in. He died fighting to make the world a better place. And that's what he'd have wanted."

I shook my head. "He didn't want to die."

Jacob shrugged and looked out the window. "Maybe not. But he lived a very long life, Bella, and I think if you achieve one great thing in a hundred years, it's better than achieving nothing in a thousand."

I rubbed my face in my hands, not wanting to think about it. I didn't want to trivialise Edward's death. I didn't want to give it meaning. I wanted to cry and scream about how unfair it was that he had to die. Jacob could read my mood and he stroked my cheek with his thumb.

"You need to keep resting. You're still so pale," he grinned at me. "Paler than usual anyway, and for you, that's saying something."

I tried to joke with him, "Are you making fun of my albinism?"

"You should be relieved that, with me, at least our children will have a healthy tan."

I closed my eyes and couldn't resist the smile that curled my lips.

AN: I can't believe this story is nearly at its end. Send me a review with suggestions/things you want to see happen or have explained in the last couple of chapters :) :) Thank you in advance for your reviews! xxxx Annie