Seraphina's POV

After dancing with Alec, I felt we had grown even closer than before. I was getting him out of his comfort zone. I taught him new things, just as he did the same.

"You press this key at the same time as this one." Alec instructs me.

We were sitting in front of a piano, that I had no idea even existed until Alec showed it to me.

Apparently, there is a music room.

Of course, there is.

I press the keys as Alec taught me, in the same order but the desired sound doesn't come out instead a distorted version.

"What? I did just what you told me!" I yell at the dumb piano.

"The order was correct until the middle where you pressed this key and then went off-trail." He explained.

"Ugh! We've been doing this for hours. How am I not an expert?" I grumble.

"My love, it's only been two hours. Learning the piano will require weeks of practice." Alec says while grabbing my shoulders. "And that will be only to grasp the basics. To reach mastery, it may take years."

"Years? God, it looks so simple, who knew it was such a hassle." I groan.

I look around the music room, my eyes falling to the many instruments available.

Violin, guitar, cello, harp, clarinet, French horn, saxophone, etc.

"What instrument besides the piano can you play?" I ask my mate.

"All of them." Alec replies.

"What?! All of them?" I exclaim.

"Yes, all of them." Alec repeats.

"Oh wow…" I mutter.

He did stay in this castle for centuries and has read all the books in the library, it shouldn't be a surprise he also learned how to play all the instruments.

"Out of all the instruments, which is the easiest to learn?" I ask him.

"The piano." He answers.

Of course, it is. If I find it difficult I only imagine all the other instruments.

Alec notices how peeved I feel and asks, "Have you never played an instrument before?"

"No." I pout. "I was always interested in other things, I like music and dancing but never felt inclined on learning an instrument."

"What changed? Why do you wish to learn now?" Alec asks, puzzled.

"Isn't it obvious? For you. You learned dancing for me. I wish to learn how to play an instrument for you." I confess.

The only difference is that it only took Alec about 40 minutes to learn how to dance jazz while it might take me years to learn piano.

Alec chuckles making my insides melt, "Mia amore, you don't need to learn anything for me. You're already perfect the way you are."

I'm sure if I was human I'd be blushing. The only perfect one is him not me.

He gives me a warm smile that I know is only reserved for me, making me fall even deeper for him.

His words make me feel warm and tingly. I was used to compliments but unlike others Alec is genuine and I can tell how much he means it.

"Still, I like learning new things. And this piano will be no different!" I declare.

Just as I'm about to press a key, the door is opened by Santiago.

"Alec, Seraphina, you are being called by the leaders." Santiago informs us.

Just in time!

"Oh, that's unfortunate." I say with a fake pout. "I wanted to learn piano."

Alec seems to see through my ruse as he rolls his eyes and gives me a smirk.

We head towards the Throne room and get there in no time.

"You called for us, Masters?" Alec asked.

"Yes, there is a coven that has revealed their identity to a group of humans. Find them and bring them to me." Aro orders.

We should simply kill them on the spot, but as always Aro wants to 'confirm' that they've broken the law before killing them.

What a waste of time.

"If we are meant to bring them, and not kill anyone, I'm confused as to why I'm tasked to go as well." I ask.

I'm usually sent on missions where we must kill at the very least a small group, but simply finding and retrieving is not a mission I'm usually given.

Taken, I have only received a handful of missions since completing my training.

"Do not question us! Simply follow our orders!" Caius yells.

I frown and glare at the blond leader.

As always the most annoying of the leaders begins barking, how annoying.

I will never understand why they keep him around, and at such a high position too.

Aro must have seen the look on my face as he puts his hand on Caius's shoulder and says, "Calm down Brother, dear Seraphina was only asking a question, she is still new and wants to learn more."

I suppress the urge to roll my eyes.

More like, I'm offended that they are sending me on a mission that a lower-ranking member could do. Do not waste my time with easy missions.

"This coven isn't a typical coven, they have been alive for many decades and have gifts. We need strong vampires such as yourself to subdue them without killing them. After all, all vampires have the right to receive a fair trial." Aro explains.

Right, 'fair trial' if that's what you call it.

Though them having powerful gifts does make it interesting.

"I have already briefed Jane on the details of the members, she can explain on the way." Aro continues.

"Follow me." Jane says.

As we walk out of the throne room I notice Demetri, Felix and even Santiago also follow us.

This coven must be pretty strong if the Volturi is sending Alec, Jane, Demetri, Felix, Santiago, and of course myself.

I'm already itching in anticipation.

A pleased smile forms on my lips and Alec kisses my hand.

"What has you so happy love?" Alec asks.

"Oh nothing, simply pleased that this mission appears to be more interesting than I previously thought." I smirk.

Usually, I'm sent on missions with two others guards sometimes three but never five.

Jane informs us that the coven lives in England so we must use the Volturi's private plane.

I quickly sit in the comfy seat and admire the plane's inside.

This is my first time using the Volturi's private plane, my last five missions have been not so far from Italy so a plane was never necessary.

I lean back in my seat and feel myself relax.

But I can certainly get used to it.

Alec sits next to me and smiles as he notices my posture.

"Relaxed, love?"

"Very much so, a girl could get used to this." I smirk.

Jane sits in front of me and says, "They are simply seats, I do not understand the appeal."

"Well, it sure beats running miles and miles to find the enemy." I say.

"Personally, it's all the same for me." Jane replies.

"I agree with Seraphina, riding the jet is better than running on foot." Demetri says as he sits in the row beside mine.

Alec glares at Demetri as he says, "You're a tracker, you should be used to running. That's all you're useful for, running and finding our target."

I stifle a laugh at Alec's jab to Demetri.

He's got a point, Demetri doesn't dirty his hands unless he needs to.

Wouldn't want to damage that styled hair of his.

"Exactly Alec, I'm always running trying to find a target, which is nice when I can fly and let my legs rest." Demetri scowls.

Both members glare at each other until I get tired of their squabbles and needing to be in the middle of their glaring contest.

"Anyways! Jane, tell us more of our targets, I'm eager to know just how powerful they are and why the Volturi hasn't tried recruiting them." I ask Jane.

"All of them have gifts but not all of their gifts are useful for the guard." Jane explains.

"Adrianna has the gift of invisibility, so her gift is only useful to herself. Beatriz has superior speed, Raymond has the gift of telepathy, although it is not strong, he can only read the mind of one person at a time and he must concentrate in order to do so, Elliot has the gift of seduction, if he touches a member of the opposite sex they become infatuated and are in a daze, making it easier to kill them and Carlos has superior strength.

Most of them have gifts but as Jane mentioned their gifts don't sound very interesting.

"Seraphina remember, we must not kill them. We must bring them to the Masters." Jane tells me.

"I know Jane. I can limit my gift to not kill them."

I prefer to let out all my power but I can limit it.

"Who is the leader?" Alec asks.

"Their leader is Raymond, the mind reader." Jane answers.

"We must devise a plan." Felix says.

"I agree, Demetri should target Adrianna as she will turn invisible as soon as she notices us but even while invisible Demetri should be able to track her." Jane says.

Demetri nods.

"The ones that need to be careful with Elliot are Jane and Seraphina, so either me, Alec, or Felix can take care of him." Santiago says.

"As for all the other members, it can be any of us." I concurred.

We are all in agreement.

I feel Alec pat my hair and I happily cuddle next to him.

"Be careful with the enemy. Do not underestimate them." Alec warns me.

"I know, love." I say with a roll of my eyes.

So overprotective.

Two and a half hours pass in a flash and we soon begin tracking the coven.

After some minutes we find the coven, they are on the backyard of their spacious, luxurious home.

"Is that all of them?" I ask my coven mates.

"Yes." Jane replies.

"Let us go to them." Alec says.

We soon enter their backyard, they turn to us in surprise.

"Greetings, English Coven." Jane started. "You are being summoned to meet with the Volturi."

"W-what? We have not committed any crimes, why are we being summoned?" A blonde woman, Adrianna asked.

"You have committed a crime and must come to the Volturi to be tried." Santiago answers.

"There must a mistake! We haven't broken any laws." A tanned, black haired man, Carlos exclaims.

I roll my eyes.

So much for being a powerful coven.

"You have broken a law, you have told a group of humans the secret of our kind." I say.

All of them pale at my words, until a brunette woman, Beatriz says, "We have only revealed our secret to a single human but he is my mate, I will soon turn him into a vampire. No laws have been broken."

A human mate? Oh, how naive.

I smirk, "Oh don't you know? Your human boy toy has told his group of friends and family about you."

Her eyes widen as she sputters, "T-that's impossible! He would never do that to me."

"But he has, and now your recklessness has put our secret in danger. Come with us now to be tried." I continue.

"What if we refuse?" The dirty blonde haired man, Elliot said with a frown.

You'll take away my boredom.

"We will take you by force." Alec answers.

"N-no!" The blonde woman screams and turns invisible.

We take that as she is trying to flee and Demetri soon runs to another location, appearing to be chasing her.

"Listen, ladies, we didn't tell any humans anything, but we will eliminate all the humans who know of the secret. I'm sure you can turn a blind eye on this right?" Elliot steps towards us winks at me and Jane.

I scrunch my nose in disgust.

Flattery? Is that really his last resort?

"Take another step and you will be in a world of pain, whether it's from me, Jane or my mate will be a surprise." I tell the flirtatious vampire.

That makes him come to a halt as he notices Jane and Alec's intense glare.

"Let us talk, as my coven mate mentioned, we can kill the humans and the harm will be erased." The black haired vampire, Raymond said.

"We have lived in harmony for decades, pardon our mistake. We promise to fix it. Do not let this slip-up cloud our good relationship." Raymond continued.

I can see why this guy is the leader, he is trying to get on our graces and apparently has a good relationship with the Volturi.

Unlike his coven mates who look at us in fear, Beatriz is even shaking in fear. Raymond is all smiles and looks the epitome of calmness.

I look around at my group and see they are thinking about his proposal, making me scowl in anger.

I did not fly all the way here for nothing.

Thankfully after a moment's thought, Jane said, "As agreeable as those terms are, you must negotiate with my Master. We are only here to take you to them."

"If our Masters agree, you will be able to return and eliminate the humans as soon as you return." Alec continues.

Something must have broken the shaking Addriana as she yelled, "I won't let you kill him!"

After that, she began running at high speeds away from the house, probably in search of her human toy.

I do like a chase.

I quickly run behind her, watching her speed away from me.

She certainly has superior speed. Though not superior wit as she keeps running in a straight direction.

I summon a flame and throw it in her direction, it hits her and she begins to scream.

"My hair! Y-you're burning my hair!"

Taking advantage of her distress I catch up to her and grab her by the hair, making the flame disappear with my touch.

Grabbing her from her hair, I pull her up to my eye level, "Listen here human lover, I've extinguished my flame on your hair but if you try to escape again, your hair will be the least of your concerns."

"Escape is futile, understand?"

She nods as her eyes are glassy, but no tears able to form.

"Your first mistake was to trust a human. Now you must pay for his errors." I mutter to her as I grab her by her arm and run back to where the rest of the coven is.

"I'm back! Miss me?" I tease.

Only Alec gives me a small smile, the rest all too serious to give me a response.

After so many missions, they can't have fun?

"Thank you for retrieving my coven mate, I apologize for her escape. She is still too tormented and is still processing the current events." Raymond says with an apologetic smile.

No matter how polite and reasonable this man is being, I just get a weird vibe from him.

He is really fake, I don't like him.

It's ironic he's a mind reader as I cannot get a read on him.

"Beatriz, settle down now." Raymond says and immediately after Beatriz stops shaking and her fearful gaze turns to a defeated one.

Can this guy also control them? How is it that with a single word, he manages to calm her down?

This guy is definitely manipulative.

"Hope I didn't take too long." We hear Demetri's voice as he drags Adrianna with him as she continues to struggle in his grasp.

The females in this coven sure are flighty.

"Adrianna, you too settle down." Raymond says to the blonde.

At his words, Adrianna stops struggling and she too simply looks defeated.

Alec looking bored asks, "We have wasted enough time. Will you come with us to Volterra or must we take you by force?"

"No force needed! We shall go with you." Raymond answers.

As they promised, the English Coven join us without any problems and get on the plane with us.

I sit in my seat with a huff.

So much for a dangerous coven.

All I did was chase a scared little mouse, no more than that.

What a boring mission.

Aro greatly overestimated this coven.

I look at the back of the jet where the English coven sat in silence.

"Something the matter, love?" Alec asks as he sits beside me.

"Yes, this was an extremely boring mission. Anyone could have come beside us, this mission was incredibly easy."

"You have to understand that the outcome may have been very different. Their leader Raymond has a strategic mind, had lesser gifted guards came he might have fought instead and the outcome might have been in his favor. He knows of us and knows when to pick his fights." Alec informs me.

"That's true, he has a very calculative look in his eyes. No doubt he was sizing us up and reading our minds in the process." Felix said as he sat in the row next to us, right next to Demetri.

"I would call this mission a success, we reached our goal and without needing to fight." Demetri said in a relaxed tone. "We had a successful mission."

I scoff at the blonde, "If you could call that a successful mission."

"I do."

I roll my eyes seeing no point in arguing with Demetri, it would lead nowhere.

I still would have no one to have fought with and would have simply wasted my breath.

I eye at the coven warily, trying to see if any of them look like they want to attack.

Though I'd be stupid as we are in a flying machine.

All of the coven members except Raymond looked tense but showed no signs of wanting to attack.

Raymond unlike the rest looked relaxed as he simply looked outside the window.

Why are you so relaxed! You could be killed by Aro in a matter of hours.

He seemed to sense my gaze as he looked my way, smiled, and waved.

What is wrong with him?! Is he insane? Why is he waving at me?

I glare at him before turning my head back.

What a lunatic, I didn't like him before I like him even less now, If Aro let us kill them, Raymond would definitely be my first choice.

He's trying to give this calm and friendly demeanor but he's not fooling me.

I'll kill him at the first opportunity.

Sorry for taking a long time to update! I will continue on the story, although I may take some time between each chapter. I am trying to flesh out the story. I know there's not that much romance, especially in the middle or end but I wanted to show a mission that was different from what Seraphina was used to, it might seem like a filler but it is not. Kudos to those who recognize the black haired vampire Raymond. He appeared on my other story, Seth Clearwater~ True love~. I wanted to give a little more 'personality' to the villain of my other story. He is a character who links my two stories, and soon enough they may be linked in more ways than that.

I timed things wrong, I've had his appearance in this story in my mind for a while now but hadn't written the chapter. Which is why some of my readers from my other story might have forgotten about him entirely, hint he appears in chapter 26 of my Seth story.

But I've rambled enough, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! I promise the next chapter won't take as long and will be much more romantic than this one. Please do send me comments, they motivate me to keep writing.