My eyes narrowed as the nomads emerged from the forest and I watched them carefully as they moved swiftly yet cautiously towards us. They shifted positions allowing the taller dark haired man moved to the front, while the other man stayed close the woman, a wiry red haired female whose movement reminded me strongly of how Alice moved…when we first met her and Jasper, she moved like a cat, springy and ready to pounce at a moment's notice. The only difference between them was this desire to pounce was not a 'I'm going to hug you because you are my new family' pounce, this was a 'you are a threat and I will kill you' pounce.

I watched as they took us in. Like most nomads we encounter they studied us carefully; it's the basic instinct of our kind. We are predators by nature, it's part of our make up to view everything as a potential threat.

As I expected, the taller nomad did a double take when he saw me, his eyes wide with surprise, but his expression changed when he saw took in Carlisle, pinpointing him as the leader of the Coven, his attention turning to Carlisle, Emmett, and Jasper, just as I hoped.

This studying lasted a few seconds even though it felt like minutes and the more I stared at the nomads the funnier I felt.

Something was wrong with their set up, their leadership seemed odd to me, but I couldn't confirm it. What I did know was the tall dark haired nomad was acting as the leader, but I was pretty sure he is not the decision maker.

"We thought we heard a game," the leader said in a relaxed voice with the slightest of French accents. "I'm Laurent, these are Victoria and James." He gestured to the vampires beside him, the one called James caught my attention, I followed his gaze it was on Edward, Bella, and I could picture his senses going into overdrive.

His focus was not on Carlisle and my brothers, it was on Bella, exactly what I had been trying to prevent.

I saw Edward twitch a bit as both my thoughts and the nomads thoughts entered his mind, he saw what I did, the suspicion of the nomad was there, we just had to make sure it wasn't confirmed with Bella's scent.

"I'm Carlisle. This is my family, Emmett and Jasper, Rosalie, Esme and Alice, Christian, Edward, and Bella." Carlisle said, calmly gesturing to us in groups, not drawing attention to us as individuals. I noticed James looked away from Bella for a brief moment to look at Alice and I stiffened as he studied Alice, a smirk on his face, I really did not like him looking at my sister like that, it was like he knew Alice.

Do you have room for a few more players?" Laurent asked sociably, I looked over at my father quickly.

Carlisle matched Laurent's friendly tone and it really felt like this was going to end peacefully and the nomads unaware that they had just encountered a human.

"Actually, we were just finishing up. But we'd certainly be interested another time. Are you planning to stay in the area for long?"

"We're headed north, in fact, but we were curious to see who was in the neighborhood. We haven't run into any company in a long time."

"No, this region is usually empty except for us and the occasional visitors, like yourselves."

"What's your hunting range?" Laurent casually inquired. Laurent seemed generally curious about us and our territory, Victoria looked slightly bored, but it was James who I focused on, I was growing tenser about him. Compared to the other two James would be the only one I would peg as a real threat to Bella.

Carlisle kept his cool at Laurent's question and answered casually:

"The Olympic Range here, up and down the Coast Ranges on occasion. We keep a permanent residence nearby. There's another permanent settlement like ours up near Denali."

Again Laurent looked shocked, but his curiosity outweighed his surprise

"Permanent? How do you manage that?" there was honest curiosity in his voice.

"Why don't you come back to our home with us and we can talk comfortable?" Carlisle invited. "It's a rather long story."

I looked over at my father understanding what he was doing, if we could get them to come to our home, Edward could quickly get Bella out of harm's way.

If Laurent's reaction to us having a permanent settlement was amusing it was nothing compared to James and Victoria reacting to the word home, had the situation been different I would have burst out laughing.

"That sounds very interesting, and welcome." Laurent's smile was genuine, he was curious, though intrigued by our way of life. "We've been on the hunt all the way down from Ontario, and we haven't had the chance to clean up in a while."

That was obvious. Though there was no visible trace of blood on their persons, I could smell it in their clothing. It had soaked deep into the material and no amount of washing would remove it.

Not to turn into Rosalie or Alice, but their clothing looked like it had been picked up at a thrift store and just thrown together for convince and I had a sinking feeling, something my profile was telling me that all their clothing was from people they had killed.

"Please don't take offense, but we'd appreciate it if you you'd refrain from hunting in this immediate area. We have to stay inconspicuous, you understand," Carlisle explained.

"Of course." Laurent nodded "we certainly wont encroach on your territory. We just ate outside of Seattle, anyways," he laughed.

I looked at Edward for a second and out of the corner of my eye I saw Bella shiver, Laurent's last sentence was verified by the Seattle Mariners patch on James's jacket.

"We'll show you the way if you'd like to run with us. Emmett and Alice, you can go with Edward and Bella to get the Jeep, Rosalie would you help Christian gather the bat and bases and go with him home on the ATV?" he casually added.

I nodded, for a second I felt confident that this was working out that we would come out of this without an issue.

Exactly one second after that feeling, I felt my stomach drop and I went stiff, the wind was about change.

After everything we had managed to do to protect Bella to keep her from the nomads, it was all about to be for nothing. The storm that we had relied on for the baseball game to mask our thundering bats so that no one in town would be suspicious, turned against us and sent a gust of wind through the clearing. It wasn't strong, barley enough to move strand of hair, but that's exactly what it did.

I winced as the wind amplified Bella's already strong scent and sent it towards the nomads. I watched in horror as James took in the scent, his eyes darkening quickly, before he crouched low preparing to lunge at Bella.

A growl erupted from Edward's throat as he pushed Bella back leaping in front of her, his teeth bared.

"What's this?" Laurent exclaimed, the shock in his voice apparent. I regained my composer and moved so I was standing between Bella and Edward and I kept my eyes locked on James, if James managed to get through Edward he'd have to get through me to get as well to get at Bella.

I stayed firmly planted as my brother and the nomad shifted sizing each other up as James tried to find a weak point in Edward's defense.

"She's with us." Carlisle said firmly to James, Laurent was recovering from his shock as he caught the scent.

My eyes went wide as I realized why James had reacted so strongly and Laurent sharing the same lifestyle had not. James was a tracker. He lived for the thrill of hunting not for the taste of the blood that came with it, that was just an added bonus.

"You brought a snack?" Laurent asked, stepping closer, a warning growl from Emmett kept him back though.

"I said she's with us." Carlisle corrected, his voice more forceful than before.

"But she's human!" Laurent protested, he was still in shock and it was all I could do to not say 'duh'.

I could sense Laurent was trying to calm James down and the more he spoke he did a decent job of showing leadership, but something about it was still bugging me.

Emmett moved closer to Carlisle, the bodyguard of our family, making his presence known without a doubt.

"Yes," Carlisle agreed.

"It appears we have a lot to learn about each other."

"Indeed."

"But we'd like to accept your invitation." I watched Laurent look at Bella for a moment, before returning to Carlisle "And of course we will not harm the human girl. We wont hunt in your range, as I said."

James's movement caught my attention as he stared in disbelief and aggravation at Laurent, before looking back at Victoria, whose eyes flickered to each of us before resting on me I saw the curiosity and a bit of suspicion fill her eyes, but it was James who I instinctively began to profile. His reaction after Laurent's promise made my profile go into overdrive and I suddenly understood what was bothering me about the leadership.

Bloody Hell, Laurent wasn't the leader of this coven, it was James, Laurent's body language had all been for show and nothing more, this was James's coven and Laurent was just a pawn, a decoy in it. I couldn't believe I had missed it!

I could see that Carlisle wanted to look my way for confirmation from Edward and I, but he wouldn't bring anymore attention to Bella, not that it mattered now.

"We'll show you the way." Carlisle turned to Jasper "Jasper Esme?" they would run with the nomads, Jasper needed to stay close to maintain whatever calmness he had managed. "Chris, Rosalie the equipment?"

I was reluctant to move, I didn't want to leave Bella's side for fear that James might attack, but I felt a bit better when Esme moved to take my spot. Rosalie put a hand on my shoulder and with one look back at James we moved out to the field to gather up the bases and bats.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as Alice took my place at Bella's side as Esme and Jasper blocked Bella, Emmett backed with them, his eyes locked on James, daring him to attack.

Edward grabbed Bella's elbow and made a move for the woods, Emmett and Alice with them.

Once Bella and my siblings were clear, Jasper, Esme, and Carlisle backed away slowly, waiting to see if the nomads would follow.

Without making to many sudden moves, I ran the bases, picking each one up as I went as Rosalie grabbed the bats and the bag of balls and tied them tightly to the ATV, I faintly heard the jeep start up deep in the woods and out of the corner of my eye I watched James carefully, studying his reaction.

To my surprise there was barely a flicker of attentiveness on his face as he and Victoria followed Laurent and my parents, keeping a good distance, studying them as I did him.

They were going to bolt once in the woods and Laurent would either follow them or my family and I had a feeling he was going to stay with us, something about our way of life intrigued him, though I really don't think he was committed to it, but rather using it as an excuse to break free of James and Victoria, but that was fine with me, that meant one less nomad to protect Bella from.

My hope was we could convince Laurent to go far away if we couldn't convince him to help us fight if necessary. If he was truly intrigued to our way of life, Denali would be the best suggestion.

I was relieved that none of the nomads had figured out what I could do; like with Edward, it makes others uncomfortable with the knowledge that I can learn so much from a person with just a glance and being uncomfortable can make people especially vampires, dangerous.

I climbed onto the ATV and Rosalie slid on behind me, before wrapping her arms around my waist.

"What's the matter with you?" she asked, "you're tenser than usual; you're practically shaking." I looked back at her quickly "what?"

"You're kidding right?" I replied, "I screwed up, I put Bella in danger by being overconfident on my profile."

"No, Edward put his precious Bella in this mess, it's his screw up let him deal with it. Why should we care?"

My eyes went wide and I stared at my sister. Rosalie can be the kindest person in the world and hates to see others suffering especially suffering what she went through her last hours as a human. But sometimes she gets lost in herself and needs to be reminded that she's not an uncaring, selfish person and that she does care for others, and usually Emmett and I are the only ones in the family that are able too.

"You do realize her life is in danger? That James bloke is a tracker, his one desire is to track, hunt, and kill his prey and the more challenging the hunt the more he enjoys it! He is not going to stop until he either kills Bella or we kill him."

I heard Rosalie mutter 'so' under her breath, but I know she didn't completely mean it, she was angry, frustrated, and over all irritated at Edward. I knew she'd fight whatever means we had to do to protect Bella when those means directly involved her, but her value of human life would win in the end.

Not to mention if the order came from Carlisle she would be expected to obey, she wouldn't be happy, but she would obey.

"Lets just go home." She grumbled. I sighed and kicked the ATV to life, it roared as I reved the engine before we shot off into the woods.