"Get away from them right now!" Leah screeched out, her heart pounding and voice breaking in poorly concealed panic and terror as Aro moved toward the cribs. Renesme, bless her beautiful little heart, and Esme were standing in front of her cubs protectively, blocking the manipulative bastard's way to my babies but his little vampire shield was close and if he got into reaching distance, they would be confused and instinctively move away...it was the vampire's power after all. She was sure Aro thought he was much too sophisticated to indulge in violence or some other ridiculous notion of being superior that made everyone else do all the dirty work for him. Leah wished she at least knew the shield's name.
They could not even get near Aro to kill him unless they killed the female vampire first and they couldn't even get close enough to kill the girl either because of her stupid fucking shielding ability. Why were vampires the ones with gifts? Shouldn't shifters, the protectors of humanity and earth, be the ones with gifts? Even Angels were on par with Devils. Not that she was an Angel or anything... holy crap! What that disorientating thing already compelling her? She was feet away, how could she ever hope to stop her when she was already going fuzzy in the head.
She couldn't. Nobody would be able to. Nobody except maybe...Oh...only Bella. Bella could. Not that she would, that traitorous little- Wait!
Bella had been a shield even as a human. Leah had...Leah had taught herself how to shield. It wasn't fool proof and it wasn't even complete, but she could do it...maybe.
The thought was barely formed, no plan for back-up in sight, when she launched herself across the room, phasing back into her wolf form mid-air.
She could feel it, the clouding of her mind. The instinctive desire to back away, move. It was like feeling displaced air behind you and ducking before you were even sure someone was swinging at you. Just knowing you have to do something. Well, at that moment she knew she needed to back away from these leeches. Why had she been going at them anyways?
Leah! Get the cubs! Seth screamed into her mind. She could hear and understand the words but it was not registering. It needed to register. Seth was her brother, she needed to understand what he was warning her about. It was probably really important and they had been fighting or something, right?
Pushing against the intrusion, that cold and apprehensive fog in her mind, she muddled through to where that voice was coming from. Her brother's voice inside her head, connected together from this affliction or gift that the spirits had saddled them with /given them, however you wanted to look at it. They were pack. Family. By choice, by blood, and blood. She was joined to him. She could find him she just... It was almost like slamming doors shut, locking her own mind down. It wasn't a steel trap by any imagination, more like thick wood doors. Safe from intrusion, but she could still feel the vibrations coming through as if it was shaking the barriers of her mind. A creeping worry that chilled her and disoriented her a little.
Take out the girl, Leah! She is fucking with your mind! Jacob snarled at her. She could still see the fighting outside through his eyes but half of his attention was on her mind. She could feel the worry, protectiveness, and warmth connected to her vision, her little babies squirming in their beds. Jacob was...he was her Alpha, her friend, her...he was her cub's. He belonged with them. She was connected to him like she was to Seth.
The cold one, Leah! She is protecting Aro and trying to take the babies! It was Embry this time, sounding and feeling damn-near frantic. It was like suddenly, it was all clear in her mind. All of their emotions were pushing into her head from strings that patched their minds together but she didn't block them off like before because they seemed to be crowding her mind, dispelling the after shocks of that thing that had been buzzing around, banging to get in.She pushed against the worry the leech was giving off in vibes and she simultaneously pulled the cords that trailed to her packbrothers, opening them wider and letting their feelings consume her until she could only feel the vaguest imprint of that cold one's influence. Like a faded scent on the breeze, long gone and not coming back.
Blinking rapidly, things came back into focus. Aro was standing feet in front of Esme and Nessie...her family...with his shield a half step behind him. Renesme was blinking rapidly as if to dispel thoughts, but Leah knew that she was trying to project things and not let anything in. Esme was inching away already, looking bewildered and determined as if trying in vain to hold onto her thoughts.
Leah scrambled forward, letting her brothers' minds take up all the space in her own head as she clamped her jaw around the woman's ankle. A vicious twist of her neck had the marble-like appendage cracking away from the rest of her body and she stumbled a bit, the beyond graceful creature suddenly a newborn calf when faced with only one leg. Leah spat it out, the marble clanking loudly against the wood flooring as it skittered a few feet away. She saw movement from the corner of her eyes but she had already started to move forward. Her teeth had pierced the woman's hip when Aro was suddenly gripping the scruff of her neck before she could even turn her head as the movement registered as a threat.
When he ripped her away her jaw was locked so a large chunk of vampire came away as well but Leah didn't have time to cheer because she was slamming into the drywall across the room.
The shield woman was surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, weak. Leah had thought her to be indestructible for a moment, but after getting past those mind games, it was maybe too easy now, Leah thought as she watched the vamp curse and swear and dry-sob as she scrambled to pick up her missing body parts. She was not used to fighting or even running because she thought her power to be infallible. You would think that with Bella around she would realize just wrong she had been to assume nobody could ever hurt her. You would think she would prepare for another person like Bella, or Bella herself. To at least have some sort of back-up plan in case her power failed her. Even Jane and Alec could fight, and they could disable someone with their freaking minds!
Aro on the other hand, while old and lazy for the last few decades or whatever, obviously could fight. He did not always have a guard and she was sure he had been challenged or whatever at least once. And if he did not know at least one fighting style enough to have mastered it, she would be a little dissappointed with him, to be truthful. He had been alive for like two or three thousands of years after all. What could he be doing with his time when he wasn't drinking blood or eating or killing others of his kinds to keep them in line enough to prevent exposure?
She twisted, snapping at the arm at her neck but he held it so tightly that if she ripped away, she was more likely to lose all the skin and muscle of her neck than she was to slip from his grip. She threw all her weight into it but he lifted her off the ground and she didn't have the momentum to use enough force. Esme was cooing to the babies to calm them now that the shield woman was far enough away, but Renesme was glaring at Aro with murder in her eyes. It was okay though, she was smart enough not to-
Okay, maybe she wasn't. Because her little half-vamp teeth were biting into the Ancient Royal Vampire's kneecaps. He sort of snorted at her, like he couldn't believe her idiocy as Leah snarled and growled at her to back away. Still, he seemed beyond shocked, but Leah wasn't really surprised, when one bite seemed to sink in deep enough and he jerked. Vamp skin or not, she was a vamp baby and Leah had been attacked by enough human kids when she had been human herself to know that they got in lucky shots sometimes.
The jerk and initial shock of pain was distraction enough for his grip to loosen and as Leah slipped away from him, she reminded herself to spank Renesme after she made her a few dozens of cupcakes for that stupid, brave, idiotic, amazing action. Renesme did not release his left leg and as soon as the pompous asshole raised a hand at her step-daughter, or whatever Renesme was to her, Leah flew at him. She heard bones crack as the vicious backhand landed on the little girl's cheek and Leah snarled as her maw opened wide. The Volturri leader started to duck the incoming attack but it was far too late. Leah's teeth sank into the top of his skull instead of the targeted throat, fangs sliding through the rubbery-marble flesh of his scalp. A human would have lost the majority of their hair, maybe survived, and had blood soaking their face. Aro's hard flesh was tough enough to take more force to pull off so she yanked back, the whole upper part of his cranium was nestled in her mouth. His body fell to the side as she spit out everthing above his mouth where it clanked loudly onto the floor before turning to finish up his personal body guard.