Chapter Twenty-Eight

Caesar walks down the steps slowly, his eyes the same trophy-gold color I'd seen in my vision, he's tall and pale, with dark brown hair that almost looks like it has reddish tints. He's dressed in a dark brown cloak, with strapped sandals and a bronze medallion shines on his chest, one with a huge trident in the center, the sign of Poseidon.

"Volturi's." He says, his body's relaxed and calm, but something about it makes it seem like he's ready to attack at a seconds notice. "What a sight."

Aro seems frozen, his brothers faces mimic his own. "Caesar." He whispers, almost unbelievably. "I thought you were dead."

Beside me I feel Finch tense up, his face is a mix of emotions, happiness, torture, regret, confusion.

Caesars not far away now, he's walking straight through the crowds and stops only ten feet away from us, and five feet from Aro.

"After all this time, you and your coven still follow Thar's cause. After thousands of years, I slept, for many years. And I awoke thinking things would be peaceful, but I guess not."

Aro looks scarred now. His brother Caius speaks up before he can reply, his face defiant. "And you still stand for Juno's, I thought you'd join us, she did sacrifice herself and that bastard child she was expecting."

The air gets chilly. Caesars face still holds no emotion, but a fire sparks in his eyes. "You speak of bastard children, Caius. You, and your proud brother Aro here have two bastard children of your own. Jane and Alec for Aro," he stops and stares at the leader of the brothers, whose face has steadily gone from steady to infuriated, "And you, well Caius, your wife doesn't have any children at all. But she does have concubines, ones in your own guard."

Cauis hisses furiously at the same time Aro looses his control, he leaps towards Caesar, but he's gone by the moment Aro touches the ground. He's suddenly beside Finch, his eyes glowing wildly, he attacks Aro once more, this time like a viper, fast and agile. He grabs at Aro's head and twists him till Aro cries out in agony.

The counterattack is poorly planned; Aro reaches for Caesars dark hair and yanks out a pile of dark hair, leaving a bald patch in his scalp. Caesar's next growl vibrates the room, and around us I hear lightning cracking, lighting up the entire sky just a few hundred yards away from the temple.

"The truce!" I hear Carlisle yell from somewhere behind me, "Think about the wrath of the gods!"

Aro screams again, and soon I see a very pale woman on the sidelines beside Cauis who I recognize as Sulpicia, Aro's wife. She watches the fight with wide eyes, but something sparks in them that make me wonder if seeing her husband lose a fight saddens her.

Curiously I look at Finch who's watching me with serious eyes; he looks over to Sulpicia, then back to me and sighs, his face somber. "Sulpicia was from Juno's kingdom before she married Aro, she's a shield, too."

I nod, looking back over to see Sulpicia starring back at me, her eyes unreadable.

Suddenly a huge flash blinds the entire room, and I feel sharp energy hit my body and feel my hair rise. Lightning, striking dead in the center of the room, right between Caesar and Aro.

The two fall apart harshly, both of them panting with ripped clothes.

"The gods have spoken." Carlisle yells once more, walking beside Caesar and yanking him to the side with a fierce tug. "Its time for my coven to leave." His command is quiet but understood, around me my coven begins to merge together and come back to their senses.

"Caesar…" Finch whispers, making the vampire turn to us, his eyes focusing first on Finch.

"Phoenix, my old friend." He says solemnly, "I'm glad to see you're still alive." He looks over down to me and his face freezes immediately, taking on a tortured expression.

"The wrath of the gods indeed." He whispers slowly, his eyes widen and look terrified.

"Caesar, no…" Finch interrupts, stepping towards his friend. "Her names Isabella."

"No." He cries, and behind him I seed Edward walking closer with a curious expression on his face, Alice lingers behind him with the rest of the Cullen's.

"Juno… she looks just like Juno." He cries again, this time bringing the attention of the entire temple.

He looks up at Finch again, his face shocked and devastated and hopeful all at once, "I don't understand."

Then, as if a swift wind blew him away, he's gone. He darts out of the temple before anyone can react, leaving the rest of us stunned.

Edward is the first to take action this time, "Cullen coven, we leave now." His voice echoes through the silence, and this time its like his voice is an enzyme that makes us all react.

"Bella," Finch turns to me quickly, in my peripheral I see Edward walking closer and closer. "I'll meet you again soon, I promise." He looks back to where Caesar disappeared. "Be safe." Then he's gone too, walking away in a manor that signifies that he's stopping himself from running.

"Bella," this time its Edward who says my name, he grips my hand intently and stares me in the eye with a careful expression. "Are you okay?"

I nod numbly, my mind still running over everything that's occurred tonight.

"Good. Now come, we need to leave fast."

The next few hours pass in a blur, we leave the Core for a hotel where we change back into modern clothes, and then Edward and Alice both make calls to some man who gets us a private jet to fly back to Seattle with in the next ten hours, then before I know it, I'm back to the Cullen house.

Sometime within the next week Alice knocks on my door, coming into my room without my word and settles at the end of my bed. She tucks her knees under her chin and faces me, her eyes are bright gold from recently hunting, and her clothes are fresh and as pricey as usual.

"Bellllllaaaaaaaa." She says, sounding annoyed. "You've been in your room for the past week, its time to get some fresh air."

I shrug, not wanting to think.

"Bella." She narrows her eyes this time, "A lot of stuff is going on the next week or so, and you, as a part of the coven, need to be active in it."

Sighing, I finally decide to talk to her. "Stuff like what?"

"Edward." She says after a few seconds of thinking, "There's something you need to know before it happens."

I raise an eyebrow, realizing that I haven't thought of anything other than Juno and Caesar since last week, and my memories of Edward come in swiftly.

"Who is Anastasia?"

Alice looks at me somberly, her face breaking my heart just by the expression. "Bella…"

"Yes?"

"This has all came so fast, there's so many preparations. Edward did this in one of his arrogant moments, he's a fool."

This catches my attention, and something in the bottom of my stomach prepares myself for bad news.

"He's having a union with Anastasia, to join the Russian clan with us."

"What do you mean by a union?"

She untwists herself and lies out against my bed, starring at the ceiling. "Like, a marriage, I guess in modern day terms. They didn't have marriages in ancient times, they had unions."

"So… basically they're getting married." The thought hits me like a battering ram, the looks Edward gave me all night at the Core, the compliments, and the kiss.

"Yes… in a more complex way," she stops for a second, collecting her thoughts. "They don't say I do or buy each other wedding rings, but there's a big spiritual ceremony that's kind of animalistic…" she presses on, her face becoming tortured, and she watches me with a guarded expression.

"Alice, you already know how I'll react to this, so go ahead and tell me."

She sighs, defeated. "They join themselves, joining our covens, and making themselves mates."

"So…"

"They mate, Bella, in front of us all, and the whole coven has to watch or else its bad luck against us all."

I slowly meet her eyes, my mind filled with disgust and sadness. "What…?"

"I'm sorry, Bella." She says, her eyes not meeting mine this time.

I sit there paralyzed for what seems like hours, and outside the sun sets then disappears, leaving my room in complete darkness, all the while Alice sits there, grasping my hand in her own in a way to comfort me.

Eventually she stirs, sighing heavily. "Come with me."

I follow her to her car, where we drive into town, I lean my head against the window all the time, trying to ignore the thoughts in my head.

Eventually we come outside of a familiar house, the same one I spent my childhood in. "What are we doing here?"

"Visiting." She smiles lightly at me; "Your brother and father went to a baseball game in Seattle today, so it's just your mother home."

She parks down the street in the cover of the trees, then I follow her through the woods to the side of my house and up the wall to my parents bedroom, where I see my mother.

Renee looks better, much better actually. She's asleep at the moment, but from what I can see the grey in her hair is gone, and it's back to its original brown. Her skin is smoother and glows in the moonlight, and there's something off about her, something different.

"She's pregnant." Alice says quietly, her voice making the window smog up.

"Really?" I can't help but be excited for her; Renee tried for years to have another kid after my brother.

"It's rare that someone her age could be, but she is." Alice smiles over at me, "It's going to be a little girl, I don't know the name yet, but I can see that it's a girl."

"She looks good."

"I see you coming back to them, one day. I don't know when, only that it will happen when you need them most."

"Soon." I press my hand against the window, "I miss them all."

"They're healing." Alice looks back in at my mother with soft eyes, "Slowly. Charlie's been taking your brother out to more and more games, and Renee's trying to cook again."

"This Christmas will be rough though," I say, thinking about our usual Christmas Day of burnt ham, our house smelling like pine and wrapping paper, and the wood burning in the fireplace.

"They'll always miss you, until you return home, they will."

Inside I see Renee stirring and dart, leaping from the second story and into the woods behind our house. Alice on my heels.

"Sorry, I saw her waking up but I didn't see it happening just then." She shrugs, "I don't get to pick and choose visions."

"Do you think she saw us?"

"I don't think so, we moved too fast for a human to see."

I nod, pushing the thought of my pregnant mother out of my head and suddenly my mind lingers on Edward.

"What's Anastasia's history?" I asked suddenly, the look in Alice's eyes letting me know I'd caught her off guard.

"I don't know that much," she shrugged uneasily, "I know she was a part of the Russian royal family, but not much other than that. It's said she was a child of Ivan the Terrible."

That caught my attention. "Then how on earth did she become a vampire?"

"I don't exactly know. But under her she united all the vampire covens of Russia into what it is today. She's possibly the most powerful vampire of Northern Asia."

"So that's why Edward wants a, what did you call it, a union? Some freakish bondage between the Russians and the Cullen's?"

"Precisely." Alice said sadly, her eyes gleaming in the moonlight. We were know just walking through the forest behind my old house, letting the sounds of animals and wind-shaken-leaves carry us deeper into the woods.

"That's disgusting. I would never." I cant help but snort, "He talks about the Volturi being power hungry, he does the right things the wrong way,"

"He's always been stubborn." Alice agreed, "He's always been the eldest, the heir to his fathers throne, he believes that his way is always the right one, it pains me to speak so harshly about my brother and my Lord, but its true. He's not perfect."

"Is it true that he can make you do whatever he pleases if he's changed you?"

She nods, "Technically, he's not my lord because it wasn't him who changed me, but he's the leader of the coven I live in, so I must obey by his rules."

"That's terrible." Anger soars inside of me, "That's like a dog and its master."

She shrugs, "Its like a pull in your stomach, if you're strong enough you don't have to follow orders, but its like we're a part of them, and if we do something that will upset them, it hurts us physically and emotionally, its strange you don't have that feeling." She eyes me cautiously, "I really do wonder about your origins Bella, and I know you must too. I wish I could do something to help you."

"I'm almost used to it." I shrug again, "I know I'm different. And I'm slowly coming to terms with that."

"It just must be strange."

We walked until dawn light crept through the forest leaves, bristling the ground in a strange way. It wasn't often sun shined in Forks, especially not this close to Christmas.

"Todays good weather, thought Christmas next week we'll have a blizzard bigger than any we've seen in years." Alice said as if guessing my thoughts, "The week after that is the union, they'll come in numbers, the Russians, and it will happen in the cave on New Years. Both covens must be present at the time." She curled her lip in disgust, "We have advanced so much since the vampires dark ages, but yet we stick to ancient rituals preformed back before any of the Queens and Kings of us were born, its animalistic."

"I don't know how I'll take it." I cant help but let my heart drop with a big thud in my

stomach. This means no more Edward; he'll no longer be a free man.

"He doesn't realize the dangers in this," Alice growls, her sudden anger shocking me. "The Russians are an old and powerful group, but they're crazy and greed-filled, Anastasia uses her brother more as a weapon than a loved one. Imagine how she'll use her brother."

"Alexei?" The sharp faced, raven-haired boys face pops up in my mind and I can't help but admire the beauty of it. "He can see aura's, its kind of like Jasper."

"Its more special that Jaspers," she admits solemnly, "Jasper can see emotions, Alexei can see everything. Whether a person is greedy and hateful, or kind and loving, their inner character and emotions. Its unique."

"What's Anastasia's power?" I can't help but ask.

"It's the power to sway people her way, almost like Onyx's seductress powers." Alice narrows her eyes at the thought, "She's dangerous too, she uses her body likes a bullet, she attracts more men than I believe is humanely possible, compared with her intelligence and cunning character, she could be a bigger threat than even the Volturi themselves if turned against someone."

"So that's why Edward wants her as an ally." I conclude, trying to image them side-by-side in a romantic way. Anastasia was gorgeous, and Edward was a male with two brains on different parts of his body.

Grief filled my body. Alice seemed to notice immediately and grabbed my hand worriedly, "I'm sorry, Bella. I wish I could see the future of you two, but it's so uncertain I can't comprehend the images, its like nothing I've ever seen before."

I nod, not knowing what else to say. Eventually I realize that we're by the river, near the cave.

"Alice, we left your car."

"I'll send Jasper to go fetch it later." She says carelessly, like she couldn't' care less if someone tried breaking into her expensive car while it was left alone.

A new thought occurred to me. "Do ya'll still go to school?"

"No." She shook her head; "We told them that Esme decided to homeschool us because we didn't get along with everyone at Forks."

"Odd."

"Yeah, but with everything going on lately and the increased tension between our kind, its necessary. War is coming fast, I can't see it, but I sure can feel it." Her voice becomes tense, "Its better for all of us to be prepared at all times and not stuck in high school."

Somehow she ends up leading me farther up the river to the cave, a place I hadn't been in weeks. The tunnels darkness hit me momentarily, letting my eyes fix to the light, and soon we were heading deeper into the mountain, the air in the tunnel cold enough to freeze a human.

"Bell-" Alice started to say my name but was interrupted from a loud shriek inside the cave, the one of someone in extreme pain.

Cliff hanger or…? Not really. Reviews are much appreciated! Some of you are getting close to guessing the truth about Bella's origin! Keep guessing and see if you're right in the end.