A/N for 2021-02-21: As always, my thanks to the two amazing betas who work on this story, chayasara and Eeyorefan12.

Erin

Edward's arms were around Bella in a viselike embrace yet again. Her grip was just as tight even though she was sure she must be hurting him with her newborn strength. It was a most reassuring compression. Yet, despite having the comfort she'd so longed for over the last days, her heart and mind were not free of worry.

"We need to check that we got them all," she said into his chest, whispering out of necessity. Edward hadn't left her much air with which to speak.

Lessening the pressure a little, he ran his hand from the top of her head down to her waist before pulling her tightly against him again. She wondered if he were physically unable to let her go. She knew she felt the same. "No, we don't, not unless someone has learned to hide their thoughts in the last five minutes. The others can check if they wish. Please give me this moment." WIth his lips buried in her neck, nearly touching the scar that marked her as his, these words were spoken with a quiet desperation.

She squeezed him tighter within her own embrace, ignoring his flinch of pain, rubbing his back to soothe him. "I'm okay." While this was the case now, she'd known equal parts terror and frenzy in the heat of battle, and she didn't doubt that Edward had too. "You killed him. He can't hurt us anymore."

Edward exhaled into her neck. "We'll never be apart again." It seemed as much a reassurance as a promise. It certainly sounded reassuring to Bella, not that they were in any way fully clear of danger, not with the rest of the guard due back soon.

With the turmoil of combat only a few minutes behind them and the search for lingering threats still ongoing, Bella was beginning to make sense of more than just her mate's embrace and their mutual need for connection. Other unhappy sounds were reaching her ears.

Marcus—the only Marcus remaining—was comforting one of his brethren, or attempting to do so. The quietly wailing man held a severed head, stroking its hair and trying to close the pale pink lids to the now-vacant eyes.

Bella had seen many members of the Lower Order fall, their heads literally rolling across the floor in the heat of the battle. She swallowed, looking up at Edward who had lifted his chin and was also watching.

"They won't," he said softly, possibly anticipating her question.

"Could you hear—?"

"No." He smiled apologetically, smoothing her hair down the side of her face. "I couldn't hear your thoughts. It's just a logical question to ask. Technically it's possible to reattach our heads, but there are . . . complications afterwards. It's usually a kindness not to attempt it."

Bella did not push the question further.

From outside the throne room, Emmett, Rose, Jasper, and Alice's voices called out, "Clear," at various intervals.

Edward slowly released his grip on Bella, looking towards the much diminished faction of the Lower Order. She understood he meant to let her go to them, and she wondered what he was hearing that had convinced him to release her. He followed closely behind her as she made her way over.

She knelt when she reached the small, huddled group, resting her arm on the shoulder of the man who continued to weep. "I'm sorry."

"I am, my Lady, and I am not," he said, his voice shaking. "He is at peace." He buried his face in the man's hair. "My friend is at peace."

"His service to the order was long," Marcus said quietly to Bella and Edward. "And it was very hard. Some ends are a blessing."

In total, there were seven bodies from the Lower Order to be burned.

When Marcus stood up, he spoke for the order, his tone firm but still respectful. "We'll clear the room."

"Wait." Edward had been watching Marcus intently, and he glanced down at the floor where the bodies rested. "You'll want to pay your respects. We have time."

Bella watched Marcus blink, a sign of his surprise at such an unexpected and gracious offer. "Of course." Then he looked to Edward again, clearly seeking further guidance.

"Yes," Edward said in answer to Marcus's silent question. "Winding cloths or shrouds. Flowers and a favoured item are customary, too."

From just outside the throne room, Bella heard Jasper speaking urgently with Jacob. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but you need to leave for now and to make plans to be gone for a while."

"But you'll need us—"

"We absolutely will want you here, just like before, and your help will be most welcome, but first Alice needs a chance to see."

"If they come back while we're gone—"

"We'll call you as soon as she sees something, or we know they're coming."

"Bella? Edward?" Jacob called. His voice was even, and it was clear he wasn't challenging Jasper but seeking their blessing. They both nodded at him.

Seth was already up and moving, Carlisle having made sure the young man's wounds were healing as they should. "I'm good."

Jacob nodded curtly in Bella and Edward's direction. "Call us as soon as you know something."

"We will," Edward said. "Thank you, Jacob."

As she watched Jacob, Seth, and Leah leave, Bella hoped they would at least have a few moments to rest. While the trio was now dressed in clothes they'd pulled from their backpacks, they moved less quickly than she remembered them doing before. She shook her head. Maybe she wasn't thinking straight, given all that had just occurred. She didn't need rest herself, but the relief she felt at being reunited with her mate was overwhelming, and she found herself longing for privacy and the reassurance of Edward's embrace. That and a healthy stretch of time would do a great deal to displace recent memories.

Marcus's soft voice brought her back to the matter at hand. He and the remaining members of the Lower Order were wrapping their fallen in sheets. With reverent precision, another member placed a single stem of a flower on each body, this on top of what Bella assumed was a favoured book.

There were no words spoken by any of the vampires gathered. Bella imagined that after so long together, there was little need to recall what the order members so intimately knew of each other.

"Here?" Erastus finally asked Marcus, holding a box of matches.

"Here," Marcus said. He lit and dropped a match to the first body and then handed the small matchbox to Erastus. And so it was passed from hand to hand to ensure that each of their fallen brothers was not alone as he embarked upon his final journey but was venerated by a kindred spirit whose life would go on.

As Bella watched the somber ceremony, along with the members of her family who were still in the room, she thought it curious that Chelsea stepped forward to stand beside Marcus. Her curiosity turned to surprise when she saw the two of them join hands. She glanced up at Edward beside her, wondering what he thought of this.

"Amazing," Edward murmured, obviously having seen what she had and using his gift to fill in the blanks. "How did they keep this from him?"

And from you and Alice, Bella thought silently. She wondered how anyone without a gift like hers had the ability and mental strength to hide something so monumental from two powerful mind-readers and a practiced seer. Not to mention Marcus the Ancient, who would have been able to sense any bond between them. There was no other explanation but that he had protected their secret—for reasons none of them would ever know.

When the last body was no more than dusty ash, Marcus surveyed his small group with Chelsea by his side, communicating something with his eyes that Bella could only guess at, before turning to the rest of the vampires in the room. When he spoke, his voice rang with authority. "We'll fight with you again."

- 0 -

As far as Bella could tell, the Wolves must have gone far enough away for Alice to be able to see because her sister had her eyes closed, hands to her head, her brow furrowed in concentration. "They found her. She's been destroyed."

Bella wondered if she were imagining the collective sigh of relief she felt run throughout their group upon hearing Alice's words. Victoria was finally and truly gone. Even having watched Aro's destruction only an hour before, this news seemed nearly as monumental to her. Should she dare to hope that the last of their enemies would soon be dealt with as definitively?

Alice was still concentrating on her visions. "They're travelling," she murmured. "They'll be here just after sunset, but I don't know if it will be today or tomorrow." She hesitated. "Tomorrow," she said with assurance.

Alice still had her eyes closed, and Bella watched her wince a little before Edward did too. Alice looked up then, and the two of them locked gazes, some silent communication passing between them.

"No," Alice said, smiling sadly and shaking her head at him. "We can't."

"What?" Bella asked.

"They're going to feed on their way here," Edward said quietly. "A small refugee encampment."

From the looks on Edward and Alice's faces, she understood that they wanted to stop it, but that would have other unwanted consequences. Bella's gut twisted, thinking of the human lives that would soon be extinguished. She'd understood that both Alice and Edward's gifts came with a balance of benefits and drawbacks, but it was a particularly excruciating understanding now. They—all of them assembled in this room including her—would knowingly let people die in order to serve a greater good. At least, they hoped it would be a greater good.

Bella supposed Edward and her new sister had both had a lot longer to make peace with the uglier sides of their gifts. After Bella's change, when Edward was helping her retain her memories, he had shared his past with her again, including his struggle to come to terms with not being able to right every wrong he heard in the minds around him. Somehow Bella hadn't equated his difficulties with Alice's ability before, but now she wondered what it would be like to constantly see terrible events like the upcoming attack on these humans and be unable to stop them. Her heart ached for both of them in this moment but especially for Alice. Not all evils could be prevented, but most people were blissfully unaware of them.

"We need to let them come to us." Alice was looking around the room. "We'll have the advantage here." She seemed resolved.

The Cullens nodded as did the members of the Lower Order. The large group broke apart at that moment, mated pairs turning to each other, the Denali's conferring quietly, and the members of the Lower Order murmuring amongst themselves. As much as she wanted to drag Edward away for a few moments on their own, Bella remained in their own small huddle with Alice and Jasper.

"They'll be forewarned," Jasper said. He didn't need to explain how. The smell of ash was thick both inside and outside the castle. Any vampire approaching Volterra would know that there had been a massacre of their kind. The intensity of the odour was too great to be explained away by Volturi justice.

Bella looked at Jasper. His folded arms and sombre expression were not heartening, and then his words were even less so. "Given their abilities, we need to plan very carefully—and use our talents with precision." Here he looked to Bella. "Even the uproven ones."

Her eyes widened, and she shook her head. "I've only managed to do it a few times, and—"

"When Demetri was there," Jasper said calmly. "As he will be this time."

Bella felt Edward inadvertently tighten his hand on her arm, and she realized how confusing this conversation, and whatever images he was seeing in Jasper's head, must be. They hadn't had any time to talk about their time apart.

"We can end him now," Jasper continued. "You can help end him."

On seeing the question in Edward's eyes, Jasper quickly filled him in on what had transpired with regard to Bella's newly discovered talent. As he did this, something flared inside her. Excitement? Fear? She wasn't sure, but the familiar bubbling sensation began in her arms. Was Jasper manipulating her with his gift, or was this all her?

"She's a shield?" one of the Denali women asked.

Though they had momentarily split off into separate conversations, the one they were engaged in now had silenced all the others. At the moment, everyone seemed to be staring in their direction—or more precisely, at Bella.

Edward curled his arm around her shoulders, an instinctive and protective gesture in response to the sudden focus on her.

"A shield," the male member of the Denali said. "Of course." He nodded to himself as if he had just solved a puzzle.

She wasn't sure he was using the right term. More importantly, she wasn't sure it was something she could control well enough to be useful in a fight. If Jasper expected her to be able to protect anyone—the beginnings of panic bubbled in her gut. She'd barely begun to be able to initiate her ability, let alone wield it with precision. If anyone counted on her and she failed, even for a few seconds or minutes as she had with Erastus and Marcus—

"Jasper, I don't think you can depend on my shield, or whatever you want to call it. I'm still learning—"

"You protected me, my lady." She would have missed Erastus's words, spoken so diffidently, if she were human. His posture was equally acquiescent, but clearly he had seen how worried she was and wanted to ease her mind.

"Only after they hurt you." She shook her head. "I took too long. Even with Marcus—"

"It was only a few seconds." Marcus spoke gently. "Hardly any time at all."

She stared at him, partly shocked that he could dismiss his pain so readily. Even a few seconds was plenty of time for a vampire to inflict damage—physical or otherwise. To kill, even.

"It's all right, Darlin'." Jasper said quietly. "We're just askin' you to try. There's a chance you could be a big help."

A chance.

It hit her then. No matter how much experience they had between them, no matter how good a strategist Jasper was, how strong Emmett was, or even how well Edward could hear the moves their opponents were about to make, they were going up against the most elite fighters of the Volturi guard. If the wolves were vulnerable to Alec and Jane's gifts—and there was nothing to suggest they weren't—all of them would be at Jane and Alec's mercy unless they could take them out first. But this exclusive group of vampires had defended the ruling coven of the vampire world for centuries. They had probably survived countless attacks on Volterra, fought hundreds of battles. They knew how to defend themselves, and they knew how to strategically use their gifts better than she could possibly imagine. And Jasper thought she had a chance of helping with her uncertain and unpredictable new talent? No, it was impossible. Anyone she tried to protect would likely wind up incapacitated and dead in moments. What if that "anyone" was Edward? What if—

She felt Edward's hands cup her face before she registered the sight of him. "Whatever you're thinking, please stop. It's not going to happen."

It was easier said than done. All she could imagine in that moment was the worst possible scenario: one where Edward was dead and she wasn't. One where Demetri attempted to make claims on her again, and there was no one left to stop him. . .

"Bella."

Edward's voice called her back from the brink. He pressed his forehead to hers. "It's going to be okay. With what Jasper described and Erastus and Marcus just showed me, I know what you can do, and I believe in you. But even without our gifts, none of us are alone here. We will all do this together."

She closed her eyes and focused on his words and his soothing tone. He sounded so confident. She wanted to feel the same.

"Bella, there's something else I want for you." Edward had leaned in even closer, his mouth at her ear, his quiet tone as seductive as it was persuasive. "It's your turn. I want you to have the satisfaction of destroying the vile creature who dared to lay his hands on you. I want you to hear his screams as you tear him limb from limb and to watch him burn until he's nothing but ash. I want you to feel the justice that you've been denied for what he took from you, from us. Don't you want that too?"

At his words, her vision of disaster and helplessness shifted as if a switch had been flipped. She recalled her frustration at having her attempt to dismember Demetri stymied by Jasper a few days before. As that image returned to her, a low and menacing growl reverberated through the stone room. Only after the sound echoed back to her, matching the timbre in her chest, did she realize it came from her.

"There's my girl," Edward whispered.

Out of the corner of her eye, Bella watched Emmett's lips twist. Was that a snicker? Having had so many emotions wrung from her in such a short time, Bella found herself going from a growl to a nervous giggle. It felt grossly inappropriate, but as she scanned the room, she could see there were now smiles on other faces. Clearly, she wasn't the only one feeling the swing of heightened emotions.

One of the unfamiliar women stepped closer to them, smirking a little. "I believe it is time to introduce your mate to us, Edward." Bella tensed as the woman reached out to touch his arm but, after a calculating glance at Bella's face, she appeared to reconsider, lowering her hand to her side and stepping back again. "Perhaps this is close enough for now." The blonde stranger was still smiling but Bella registered the note of amusement in her tone and wondered at it.

Beside her, Edward chuckled and tightened his arm around Bella before running his free hand through his hair, a most human gesture of embarrassment. "Of course, Tanya." He introduced Bella to the members of the Denali coven, which included four incredibly beautiful women and the man mated to one of them, and each greeted her in their turn.

"What did you mean, a shield?" Bella asked when she formally met Eleazar. It wasn't that the term was surprising, but he seemed to know about it, and given Aro's reference to him and his talent, she wondered if he was the same—and if he had any insight she could use in making sense of her abilities.

"Simply that. You can shield yourself. You're shielding yourself right now."

She was? She checked herself carefully. No, no bubbling. She shook her head.

"Your mind, that is," Eleazar said, smiling. "That's why Edward cannot hear you."

"Eleazar can sense the talents of other vampires," Edward explained. "He was, uh—"

"I was once a member of the guard." Eleazar's smile was somewhat rueful as he finished Edward's sentence for him. Clearly, he was as uncomfortable with the topic as Edward had been. "But your gift—I understand you were silent to Edward when you were human?"

Bella nodded.

"And you are still. Hmm."

"I'm choosing that?" The idea seemed implausible. She couldn't imagine consciously choosing to hide something from Edward.

"On some level." Eleazar shrugged. "Most gifts manifest first in an instinctive manner. If you are willing to answer a few of my questions about it, perhaps I can help you to better realize the characteristics of yours."

But Edward still had his hands on her and now he was sliding them around her midsection from behind, his nose in her hair. His embrace was tight, and she welcomed it, her conversation with Eleazar forgotten. She and Edward were more than ready to be alone with each other. Her need to focus on only him and to reassure herself of his wholeness and well-being was overpowering. She leaned her head back against his chest, reveling in the physical connection.

"There will be time for questions later," Edward said, essentially dismissing Eleazar—and anyone else in the room—for the time being.

"We need to make plans for tomorrow," Rose murmured.

"Later," Edward repeated.

". . . a more concise plan of attack," said Irina.

There were a few murmurs of agreement throughout the room although some of the voices were less than enthusiastic. Bella paid all of them little mind as she turned in Edward's embrace, pressing herself more tightly against him. There was an urgency in both of them, a mutual need for assurance of the other's well-being that required privacy in which to transpire.

"Which chamber is yours?" Edward whispered, ignoring the rest of the room now, just as she was.

"Yours." She smiled.

"Edward." It was Jasper's voice, chastising his brother.

"Jasper." There was no mistaking the near-snarled response from Edward; he was resolute. His eyes remained focused on Bella's as he slid his hands firmly down her back and clutched the fabric of her shirt. She heard the low growl in his chest and felt the responding one in hers.

The room around them fell silent for several moments. Just when Bella believed she could not bear another second of waiting, Carlisle's voice broke the standoff.

"I propose that this would be a good time for those who need to hunt to do so." The calm authority in his voice carried across the room. "And for the rest, perhaps an hour or two spent with families and mates would not cause undue delay in our planning. If this is an agreeable solution, shall we reconvene here in a few hours?"

Bella never heard anyone else's response to Carlisle's last question because she and Edward were already gone, racing from the throne room towards the promise of welcome seclusion. No matter what the next day would bring, no matter what threats they would face or what fearful outcomes loomed, at least for the next few hours she knew she had everything she could want.

DISCLAIMER: S. Meyer owns Twilight, including any named but invisible mates of the characters she has created and who don't seem to serve any real purpose and who don't appear in the books except on lists of dubious value which appear as appendices...oh, and no copyright infringement intended, too.