APOV

It felt so wonderful to know that our friends and family were finally on their way home. How the Wild Cards were going to manage to pack the heads in such a way so that they wouldn't be detected by airline security, I couldn't say.

Jen, Angela, Kathy, and Kari were all still sleeping.

"They've been sawing logs for nearly nine hours," Leah complained.

"It takes time for humans to rest after going through so much," I chided. "After all, you were completely human not that long ago. Don't you remember how exhausting high-drama research and reckless adventures can be?"

"Yeah, I guess so," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm going to head back to the Res for awhile. I'll let my mom know that Seth is going to be home soon. She's not on board with us working together with vampires, just so you know. I'm already going to have to kiss my mom and dad's butts forever after this little escapade," she laughed. "They're going to be pissed when I tell them that we left the country to track someone down."

"Would it help if you told them that the one we tracked down was an icon in their ancient legends?"

"Not likely," she smiled.

It's true that both Harry and Sue were against their children teaming up with their family's long-time mortal enemies. Well, the vampires weren't the mortal ones, per se, but they thought of us as mortal enemies nonetheless. It was, after all, in the nature of them to kill one of us and in the nature of the average vampire to want to kill one of them. As long as Billy and Sam were against the idea of us all working together, so would the rest of them be.

"Maybe it would cheer them up if you told them that the Wolves helped destroy one of the most ancient, dangerous clans?" I suggested.

"Nope," she laughed. "It won't help. I'll let them know, though, regardless."

I waved her off as she ran outside and phased into her wolf form. She managed to reach the woods before I could close the front door behind her.

"I am interested to meet your family," Joan called behind me from the kitchen.

She was sitting at the kitchen table, eagerly waiting their arrival.

"You will love them," I said. "And they will love you too."

"I hope I can be of some use to your Bella," she smiled.

"I know you will," I assured her. "Are there others out there like you and Bella?" I asked.

She shook her head. "As far as I know, Bella and I are the only ones who are mixed between vampires and anything else. I'm sure she'll have a lot of questions about what she can expect from the baby. Labor will be an extreme pain, but I suppose that's true for all mothers as they bring children into the world. It never got any easier though. The fifth one hurt just as badly as the first. However, the unique advantage that our children have is that they will get to live forever. They only age until they are between sixteen and twenty. Everything about them appears perfectly human. Aside from the never aging and never dying, I would argue that they are human."

"Do their children live forever?" I inquired.

"Well, as for my grandchildren, only one of my children is a boy. He married a vampire and they cannot conceive. Obviously, my daughter-in-law's body is not able to bear children. However, my four girls, they are each unique. One of them married a mortal man, and their three children have aged past the norm. Their eldest aged to twenty-five years. When he anticipated that he would continue to age, he expressed interest in becoming a vampire himself. His younger sister is still aging. She is in her thirties and has decided not to become a vampire. It is a true sadness to us, but she and her husband have children of their own and they want to live normal human lives. Their youngest was nineteen when she decided to become a vampire. She expressed interest shortly after her brother. They became vampires the same year. I suppose how Bella's grandchildren turn out, mortal or otherwise, might not be the same as mine. I'm not exactly sure how the genes of the generations are altered from this. I think each situation might be unique. It will be interesting to compare her future generations to my own. I don't know if there's any rhyme or reason to it all, to be completely honest with you, Alice."

"Do you have any grandchildren who have never aged past sixteen to twenty like their parents?" I asked.

"Yes, I do, actually. All the rest of them, as a matter of fact, though I suppose that might be due to the fact that they married vampires instead of mortal men."

We continued to chat for awhile before Jasper sent me a text letting me know that their plane had arrived in Seattle. They were going to simply run home from there. It would be the quickest way, and aside from the heads, they had no luggage.

Joan and I continued to chat for awhile before she and the kitchen table disappeared entirely.

I was standing out in the woods, though where the scene was exactly, I couldn't say.

I saw Charlie off in the distance, walking through the thick brush in his hunting gear. He and Billy Black were parting ways, saying goodbye to one another and laughing about how they had just spent the last four hours without finding a single animal.

"It seems a little too quiet," Harry said.

"I wonder what could be scaring the animals off? In all my years I've never heard it so quiet around here before," Charlie wondered out loud. "We might have to put out the rabbit boxes next time if bigger game doesn't start showing up."

"I don't think we'd have even been lucky enough to catch a rabbit today," Billy laughed. "Literally, the forest is completely silent."

"Oh well," Charlie said, waving goodbye. "See you tomorrow at Harry's? When's Leah and Seth supposed to be back from visiting their aunt up in Maple Grove?"

Billy just scowled. He obviously knew that Seth and Leah were not in Maple Grove. This must have been the cover story that was going around, to hide why they were really gone.

"I'm not exactly sure," Billy said. "You sure you don't want a lift back to your house?"

"Nah," Charlie insisted. "I'll be fine. It's only a mile or so back. I'll see you tomorrow. I'll bring the beers, you bring the nachos. Deal?"

Billy laughed and headed the opposite direction. He walked for several moments before looking uncomfortable. He kept looking behind his back as if someone was following him. He had a worried look on his face as he searched through the trees, looking for something that might have been not quite right. He swung his rifle around, unslinging it and aiming it straight ahead of him.

"Who's there?" he called out.

"Your worst nightmare," replied a sticky-sweet voice.

Within no more than a flash, a beautiful strawberry blonde ran in front of his gun.

"You shouldn't be out here, miss," Charlie warned, lowering his aim. He looked confused- probably because of how she seemed to him to have appeared out of thin air. "You could get hurt."

Tanya laughed heartily. "I don't think so, Charlie."

"Do I know you?" he asked, tilting his head in curiosity.

"No," she replied. "You don't know me, but I know Bella."

"Look, miss. You really ought to head out of these woods. This is no place for a lovely lady to be running about. These woods are usually full of dangerous animals and so forth, along with hunters. You wouldn't want to get scratched up or shot at, would you? Tell me your name and I'll tell Bella you said hi."

"You aren't going to have the opportunity to pass a message along to your daughter," she smiled cruelly.

"What do you mean?"

She ran up to him and stood face to face with him. She grabbed his rifle, tossing it aside. She lifted him by his neck and sunk her teeth into his shoulder. She ripped at him, tearing through his hunting jacket with ease. As her venomous bite tore through his flesh, he let out a deafening cry.

"Please, please," he whimpered pathetically as she drained his tensed body of his precious blood very, very slowly. "Please… stop… please…"

She tossed him to the ground as if her were nothing more than a ragdoll.

"Your filthy little mixed daughter thinks she can take away someone I love? That she can steal him from me? Well, two can play at that game. I swear not to stop until every man she loves is dead or destroyed!"

She kicked him, sending his weak frame flying into the trunk of a tree. He lay there listless, struggling for each random intake of air he could get at first then breathing so lightly that it appeared he had stopped altogether. Tanya ran off, laughing as she went. I could still make out the tiny flicker of life in his eyes as Joan and the kitchen table came back into view.

"Alice?" Joan asked. Her hand was on top of mine. "Alice?" she called again.

"Joan!" I gasped. "Bella's father!"

EPOV

We were nearly home at last!

Everyone was rambling on as we ran, excited about making plans for the new system of authority that would be implemented throughout our secret world. The Wild Cards were each thrashing their tightly woven linen bags against the trees as we went. I heard the cries and complaints of the moaning heads which were inside. Rose and Emmett kept going on making snide jeers at the heads, mocking them and making jokes about their situation to humiliate them. They were definitely keeping the Princes and the Wolves entertained.

"It will be nice to be home," Esme said to Carlisle.

He smiled back at her.

"Perhaps your family would consider staying with us for awhile?" Esme asked Carmen.

"It would do us some good, I think, to be around those we love so much and who love us too," Carmen said, nodding her head.

Eleazar was agreeing with them as Carlisle was inviting Adalfieri and the others to stay with us for awhile too so that we could all make plans together as to how our secrets should be kept from the world and what exactly should happen when certain vampires or groups of vampires tried to threaten our existence by exposing it.

We were only ten minutes away from home at the most when Jasper's phone rang. We all slowed down as he stopped to answer it.

"Hey darlin'," he said. "We'll be home in just a few minutes. I'm real excited to see… Wait, honey. Now slow down a second… What do you mean about all this?"

Alice was whispering into the phone so that we wouldn't be able to hear all that was being said. However, I could still hear Jasper's panicked thoughts.

"I'll be the one to tell her," Jasper said into the phone while turning toward Bella.

"Tell me what?" Bella asked.