The group of us arrived outside Emily's house, whoever that was, on the reservation. We'd decided, just so that we didn't seem too threatening, to only take me, Marcus, Carlisle, Jacob, Bella, and Nessie.

If the likes of Caius had come, I didn't even want to think about the likelihood of a fight breaking out. That was the reason he and Aro remained at the Cullen house with Amethyst.

I stood outside for a moment, staring up at the building. "So this is the wolves' place, huh?"

A tiny little quaint wood house stood in front of me, surrounded by rain-covered trees which occasionally dropped fat droplets of water onto the tiled roof. From inside, I could already smell someone cooking human food, the scent of blueberry muffins wafting through the air.

Jacob entered the house first, without bothering to knock, and Marcus followed, dragging me along by the hand. The others trailed behind, since they were there for backup more than any other reason.

As soon as we entered, we were met by a mess of angry shouts and yells, so many that it was hard to pick apart voices. Instinctively, Marcus moved me behind him and crouched defensively in front of me, a low growl building from his chest.

I tried to focus my attention on some of the conversation.

"They should not be on our land, what the fuck do you think you're doing, Jacob?!"

"Get them out before I destroy them myself!"

"There is no way I'll be doing business with those demonic bloodsuckers!"

"EVERYBODY, BE QUIET!" a loud, authoritative voice shouted over the commotion. The room was plunged into deafening silence, and I took the safe quiet as my cue to step out from behind Marcus.

Many pairs of piercing dark brown eyes locked on me, and their glares alone made me wince. This was going to be a long and painful meeting, that much I could already tell.

"Can we please agree to have a sensible conversation?" Jacob requested exasperatedly.

One of the many topless boys scoffed—in his defence, they were all topless. "Not happening, there is no way I'm having a 'sensible conversation' with them." He jabbed a single finger in our direction.

"Paul . . ." one of them warned.

"No, Sam, we don't make deals with the enemy." Paul's voice began to raise a few decibels as he stood up to his feet. Goddamn it, he was tall. In fairness, everyone was tall to me.

"Paul," Sam warned more urgently.

"They're evil bloodsuckers!" he laughed in disbelief and placed a hand on his forehead. "How are you not getting this?"

"Can we make a deal here?" I butted in. "I'll stop calling you lot," I motioned to the room, "Chihuahuas and instead shape-shifters if you stop calling my lot 'evil bloodsuckers' and instead vampires. Is that reasonable?"

"Paul's right," another boy with his hair spiked up slightly snarled, "we shouldn't even have to waste our time listening to their annoying British voices whining away like babies."

I groaned at how unreasonable they were being. "Oi, you, spiky-hair," I pointed to him, "name?" I demanded.

He rolled his eyes. "Embry."

"'kay, Embry? Shut up." His expression froze in front of me. "And the same goes to that gobby one over there, Paul." I pointed to the other one whose expression also froze. "Because we're actually here trying to be reasonable people. We could say exactly the same bullshit to you lot, because honestly you all smell of dog crap, but we don't, because it's not polite. Did your mother teach you manners?"

Embry nodded slowly with his head bowed down.

"Good." I smiled at him. "Now, I don't think it's that much I'm asking for just to have literally a few minutes of your time. Trust me, I don't want to be here either, but you'll see this is something that definitely needs to be discussed."

Sam still seemed confused about what the hell was happening but went along with it anyway. "Would I be correct in saying you're vampire royalty? I'm Sam by the way, Alpha of the pack." He extended his hand out for me to shake.

I took his hand, which happened to be burning hot, and shook it slowly. "Nice to meet you. Yeah, I'm Eliana, although you can call me Eli, and this is Marcus." I motioned to my brunette mate who was currently standing as closely to me as possible with a protective arm around my waist.

"What do you want?" one of the other boys snapped. I opened my mouth to ask for his name but he answered it before I had the chance. "Jared."

"Straight to the point, I like your energy." I jokingly clicked my fingers and pointed at him. It seemed he at least had some sense of humour since he did the same back. "We have something of a small issue that needs your . . . expertise . . ."

At that, the room burst into angry yells once again, though not quite as angry as they were when we'd first entered the house. I could see one of them, a smaller boy, even yelling with his mouth full of muffin, crumbs falling out of his mouth and onto the table.

"I DO NOT WANT TO REPEAT MYSELF!" Sam bellowed over the noise, causing things to once again settle down to a mildly sensible volume, one I could actually talk over while still being heard.

"Thank you," I sighed. "As I was saying, I assume you've heard of the Children of the Moon?"

They all shook their heads in unison, making me cock my head to the side confusedly. Jacob cleared things up. "Unlike bloodsu- vampires, we aren't aware of most other supernatural creatures."

"In that case," Marcus continued for me, "Children of the Moon are werewolves, but not in the sense of your kind. They are slaves to the moon, transforming only during the full moon and losing all control of their conscience. They feed mostly on humans but, rather than consuming their blood, they consume flesh.

"We have been made aware of an army of 50 Children of the Moon, created to destroy the Volturi and gain rule over the supernatural world. This will include the enslavement of humanity, and the persecution of vampires and shape-shifters alike. That is why we ask for your help."

Of course, another uproar started up, only to be immediately silenced by Sam. Their tempers when it came to vampires were unbelievable.

"Why should we help you? Haven't your lot already done enough?" Jared pointed an accusing finger at me. "Just a few months ago, we were defending the entire west coast from you, and now you want us to help so that you don't lose your precious princess tiaras?"

I stared at him in blank shock. "Whoa, okay, first of all, we do not wear tiaras-"

"But you have thrones," Bella added.

I whipped my gaze around to her. "Whose side are you on, Smelly-Belly?" I hissed, using the nickname I used to annoy her with when we were little. "As I was saying before somebody decided to be a know-it-all, it's not so much about our rule. You've just been told what happens if we let them win, and it might come as a surprise to you that, contrary to popular belief, we do somewhat value humankind."

Paul scoffed. "Somewhat," he repeated under his breath.

I ignored him, not providing a reaction like he wanted. "Our numbers alone aren't nearly enough to take on these wolves," I told them. "We're gathering as many allies as possible, but your kind has the advantage of being immune to their venom."

"Oh, so now she tells us they're venomous," Embry sneered, flicking an exasperated hand in the air.

"Not to you," I repeated once more, slowly so that my words sank into his brain. "Your strength is almost equal to theirs. That combined with the venom immunity is enough for you to be an important part of this battle plan. You're our secret weapon."

Paul stood up angrily and gestured to the room. "We are nothing."

"You are nothing," I teased, which earned a series of soul-sucking glares.

"No," Sam interjected, "unfortunately, Eli has a valid point."

Now it was my turn to scoff. "Unfortunately," I muttered.

"Oh, so I'm not allowed to scoff but you are?" Paul complained. "How's that fair?"

"I'm vampire royalty and you're not," I answered back, sticking my tongue out at him immaturely. He did exactly the same back, squeezing his eyes shut.

"The entire purpose of our pack is to protect the people from vampires," Sam continued, pretending to be oblivious to our childish argument. "Since that's no longer necessary, we may as well put our physical attributes to good use and fight the good fight."

"How do we know this is the good fight?" Jared challenged. "How do we know that we can trust these people? This could all be some elaborate scheme that involves us all getting killed. You remember how that blonde king was back in December."

I giggled. "Don't worry about Caius. The only reason he was like that is because Children of the Moon scare the crap out of him, and he was only being cautious. They're dangerous creatures, beyond your wildest fears."

"And how do we know if what you're saying is utter bullshit or not?" he snarled.

Marcus growled beside me. "You insinuate that my mate lies about-"

"Marcus, it's okay," I whispered, placing my hand softly over his arm to calm him down. "I do get why you'd be so wary of me. If I were you Chihua- I mean shape-shifters, I'd be exactly the same. Hell, I would've killed me by this point. That was phrased weird, I'm not suicidal. Anyway, I feel like this is getting away from me. You want to know why you can trust me on this?"

They nodded their heads, listening intently on what I had to say.

"A week or so ago, I went on a mission to Siberia, to their fortress, with a few of the guard. Their Commander in Chief is my father." I recounted the tale, blinking venom tears out of my eyes. "He transformed in front of me using moonstone. He tried to kill me and my guards. I almost died in that room at the hands of my own father.

"These people, these creatures, are monsters. If you want to see no respect for human life, know that one of three leaders tried to kill their own daughter, and almost succeeded in doing so."

I inhaled a quivered breath and exhaled deeply. I felt Marcus' hand moving to hold mine as he rubbed soothing circles on the back of my hand and smiled apologetically at me.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that, Eli. I can't even begin to imagine how hard that must've been for you."

This time, the voice didn't come from one of the Quileutes like I'd initially expected, but instead from Carlisle. Of course, I hadn't told them about what happened yet, or more specifically, who. Everyone in the room had a mixture horror-stricken and sympathetic expressions on their faces.

I nodded, biting my lip. "That's why I have this."

Removing my coat, I lifted the sleeve of my jumper which revealed my pale arm. The grey scar looked exactly as it had yesterday, and as it would for the rest of my life. A permanent reminder of what I had done, what my father had done.

"It looked much worse before," I told them, laughing to try and lighten the mood. "It was like a deep slice, but there was pus-like venom all around it. Thought I'd lose my arm for a while.

"This is why we're asking for your help," I continued as I rolled my sleeve back down. "We're not only doing this for ourselves, but for everyone else. Not to be dramatic or anything, but the world as we know it is at stake. If you give two flying fucks about humanity, you'll help us," I pleaded, internally laughing at the words leaving my mouth.

Sam seemed to be debating his answer internally, but his expression still told me he'd decline our offer of alliance. Jacob seemed to be thinking the same thing as me, since he chimed in unexpectedly.

"Sam, we do this for the humans. It's the core of our values, to help those who cannot defend themselves, whether it be from these bloodsuckers or those cannibals who don't even deserve to share a wolf title with us."

Again, Sam paused for a moment. "I am tempted to accept this alliance but, considering who it's with, we will consult with the Council first. Though I believe they will be easily swayed by the argument you pose.

"I believe you may have found yourselves a few more allies, Eli."

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

Author's note: Another uneventful, talkative chapter. If I'm honest, I haven't really been feeling writer's block per se, but I've just felt uninspired to write this story. Of course, I'm going to continue, since fortunately I have the rest of the story planned out, but if my writing is slacking at all, that's why. Either way, there's no way I'm abandoning this story. I've started this bad boy, and imma stick with it until the end.

I'm really nervous because my GCSE results come in less than two weeks so, uh, pray for me, and here's to hoping I don't fail miserably. Not looking forward for back to school whatsoever.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading, be sure to leave some feedback because I love to hear your opinions, stay safe, and ily lots!