Bella sat on her couch in the penthouse apartment she kept in Paris, France. She owned the entire building under the name of a real-estate development company. It was the easiest way for the vampire to own anything legally and not have people looking to close at her personal business. Owning many buildings around the world also made it easier to help people out by giving them lower rent or job offers that wouldn't reveal exactly who she was. She wasn't able to have many relationships with humans like the one she had with Doris but that didn't stop Bella from helping. She had been alive a long time and found joy in so few things. Helping made her feel good,so she had continued all throughout her existence.

As she watched the various tv screens mounted to the wall all playing different news channels over the world she contemplated her recent conversation with Aro about the American animal drinking coven. He had told her that Marcus had confirmed a mate bond between a human and the mind reader. The boy was trying to expose vampires to force their hands and kill him over some misunderstanding with the seer. She honestly didn't care at all about them having a human. She was the boy's mate and they were planning to turn her after she graduated high school. From what Bella understood the girl had a human family that she wanted to spend a little more time with before turning.

None of that bothered her. It was something that happened numerous times over the years and as long as the pair was mated no action was going to be taken. The mate bond was the most sacred of all vampire bonds. One Bella had long since stopped wishing to have. When she had began her vampire life she was naive and believed that everyone had a soul mate out there just waiting for them. It was after a few hundred years of watching everyone get one that she had come to the conclusion that her life was to chaotic to share with another. She didn't even feel the longing for someone to share her life with anymore. She had lost that around her third century of life.

So no them having a human didn't bother her. What bothered her was what Aro was able to pull from the human's mind from touching her hand. The coven was aware of and protecting the knowledge of a group of wolf shifters. They were neighbors in the area they were living in and had some sort of a treaty. The problem was they never reported them to any of the Volturi. It was one of the unspoken rules that anything supernatural be reported.

Aro said that they hadn't because they were worried about Caius' hatred of werewolves. That had made her smile. Caius always liked to brag he was the reason that werewolves were extinct. He told people grand stories of how he and his mate fought side by side to eradicate the dangerous threat to not only vampires but human kind. Of course none of those stories were true. Other than him almost losing a fight against one. Bella had stepped in at the last second and saved the man and after investigating it further Bella had decided the beings to be to reckless. They couldn't control themselves when they shifted on the full moon and even while in their human form they thrived on destruction and chaos. They were simply to dangerous to exist. So Bella had taken care of them. She allowed Caius to take the credit because the man thrived off of people fearing him. Bella, herself spread a few graphic stories of his supposed battles just for fun.

The problem was not that the shifters. It was the coven. She had met their leader Carlisle once and had inquired about his way of life. It intrigued her that he lived off animal blood. He wasn't the first she met that did that but his reasoning had intrigued her. He had been learning human medicine and had wanted to be a doctor to help humans. She had kept track of him of course and knew he worked in hospitals and lived amongst humans. He even had the younger looking vampires go to high school. His want to live as much as a human life as possible was different than others she met. Most didn't want to bother changing with the times or putting that much effort into settling down only to leave a few years later and start again.

Bella had also thought that Carlisle was an honorable man. The fact that he did not inform anyone of the shifters was proving that to be untrue. She wondered if she should pay them a visit. She had left him alone because he never truly caused trouble but maybe she was to lax with him. He didn't seem power hungry but he did have three gifted vampires in his coven. If he was now protecting a group of shifters that could mean trouble. She didn't like having to kill her kind but situations like this forced her hand. A tone indicating a text message from her phone broke her out of her musings. She smiled when she saw it was from Doris.

D: Wore the necklace to the bridge club and now all those old hags think I'm being courted by a mysterious rich man.

Bella laughed.

B: And I'm sure you happily played into it

D: Of course

B: As long as you are having fun

D:It was fun until my daughter saw it and that horrible husband of hers asked how much it was worth

B:I told you I would take care of him if you asked

D:No she loves the dumb bastard for some reason

B: If only to be young again

D:If he is what's available now a days no thanks

B:Agreed

D:Alright I won't bother you anymore

B:You are never a bother

D:Charmer

Bella smiled as she sat her phone down. She was glad Doris had fun with her gift even though her son in law probably was thinking about pawning it. Bella knew deep down the guy was alright. She had done extensive checks to make sure. He was just a little dense and didn't have very good manners. His family was working class and every time he was faced with something that was expensive he usually acted stupidly. Doris may complain about him but she did approve of his marriage to her daughter.

Looking back at the tv she unmuted the one playing American news. The newscaster was reporting on a potential serial killer in Washington state. The details of course were gory but they sounded very familiar to Bella. Grabbing her laptop she began a long search into missing people around that area not liking what she found. It seemed someone was creating newborns. She couldn't quite confirm it yet so she would monitor the situation before she acted but she had a gut feeling that she would need to act. She would have to go to Italy to find out if there were any covens or nomads that roamed that area.

Bella sighed as she put her computer next to her on the couch and turned her attention back to the tvs. She never complained to anyone about all the work she did to keep peace in the not only the vampire world but the human one as well. It was mostly because no one knew the full extent of it. She wasn't one to brag about her achievements but it would be nice to have a friend she could talk to about this. If she couldn't have a mate a confidant would be better than nothing.