"Is everyone ready?" Carlisle asked the group of vampires and shifters minus Edward, his mate Jessica and the young shifter named Seth all lined up in formation in the clearing they had chosen for the battle. Alice's vision had predicted that Victoria and her army were going to attack any minute now. Carlisle would never say it out loud but he was worried for his family. Only Jasper and Simone had any actual experience with fighting. The rest of his coven and the wolves had never done more than play fighting and even though they had been training Carlisle wasn't sure if they were ready.
"As we will ever be." Rosalie mumbled.
"Here they come!" Emmett shouted excitedly.
"Mother look they have dogs. Can we get one too?" Isabella asked her mother from their spot on the side of the field where she was shielding herself, Athenodora, Heidi, Alec, Felix and Demetri from being seen by others.
Athenodora sighed as she watched the newborns rush towards the Cullens and the group of shifters that were working with them. No one had mentioned the existence of shifters but during their scouting they had found them easily enough living on an Indian reservation near the ocean. This was just another instance where the Cullens were breaking the law and Athenodora wondered what else they were hiding. "No you can not have a dog. Your mom would have a fit if I allowed an animal in the castle."
"I would take care of it." Isabella she got home she would bring it up to her momma. She was the most likely to give in.
"And don't think about asking Didyme. I will be telling Sulpicia about this before you get a chance to ask." Anthenodora could easily see where her daughter's train of thought went.
Ignoring the snickers coming from the other four vampires with them Isabella turned back to the fight. It didn't look like the Cullens and the wolves were doing that well. "I don't think they are going to make it out of this without casualties."
"Especially with the mind reader and the other wolf hiding in the mountains with the human." Heidi had been disgusted when they had come across the trio camping away from the fight. It showed how loyal he was to his so called coven. The Cullens liked to refer to themselves as a family but they didn't act like one. Although Isabella could more than take care of herself Heidi would be the first one to throw herself in the path of danger for the princess. Not just because she was one of Isabella's personal body guards but because to her Isabella was the kid sister she always wanted. That's how a real family acted. They put their family before themselves. They didn't hide while the rest were dealing with the real danger.
"It does seem silly to split forces and move the object the enemy is focused on destroying to a non secure location where being ambushed is almost guaranteed. It's quite obvious this is a mere distraction as we have yet to see the red head." Alec had thought at least Jasper would have planned better than this. Just standing in the middle of the field waiting for an army to come was extremely stupid. "They didn't even set up any traps."
"Mother are we going to let them die or are we going to save them?" Isabella asked. Out of the eight wolves five were out of commission due to injury and the other three were being treated as punching bags by six newborns. The Cullens hadn't faired much better. Two of them were holding their own just fine but the little one had already lost an arm and was on the way to losing another one, the coven leader and his mate were being surrounded by another group of newborns and the blond haired girl was currently saving the burly one from three newborns who had overwhelmed him.
"I suppose we should end this before there is no-one left to question." Athenodora was reluctant to get involved because in her opinion the fewer Cullens in the world the better but they had yet to prove who was responsible for their crimes so they needed to collect all of them before the guilty parties were killed. "Unshield us please."
Rosalie was in the process of pulling three newborns off of Emmett when she was suddenly pushed out the way by a robed figure. Stumbling to get her balance she looked to see what was going on only to become overwhelmed with fear. All around her six robed figures were quickly and easily destroying all the newborns. She should have felt relieved that the danger was being taken care of but she wasn't. Those robes meant that the Volturi had come and if she wasn't mistaken the two different robe colors meant that out of the six of them four were royal guards and the other two were actual royals.
"Shit." Emmett cursed. He had been excited for the fight but as they started losing badly he held out little hope all of them would make it out alive. Now even with the newborn army eliminated he wasn't sure if they would.
"Exactly." Simone said coming to check over her mate.
"I don't how they found out about this." Carlisle said as he and Esme joined the group followed by Jasper and Alice who was holding her arm tightly to her body waiting for her limb to reattach.
"Regardless of how, they have and now we have to deal with the consequences." Jasper hadn't liked this whole plan and had wanted to report the army right away but he had been outvoted. He knew the others were worried about the Volturi trying to force Edward, Alice and him into the guard but Jasper wasn't. He had a friend from the Mexican wars that was recruited and after spending two decades with the guard he was allowed to leave without a problem with an invitation to return whenever he liked. Jasper knew the real reason Carlisle was against informing the queens was because of his hatred for the female rulers. Jasper didn't know the full story but was told that Carlisle had wanted a position in the royal court but the queens denied not only that but refused to let him stay in the castle.
Rosalie watched the robed figures treat the newborn army like a bunch of practice dummies and admitted to herself they were very impressive. None of them seemed to make a sound as they tore through each vampire methodically. It was almost like she was watching a choreographed dance where each dancer executed their moves perfectly. Especially the two in the royal robes. Rosalie watched mesmerized as they stood backs towards each with twenty feet between them and the shorter of the two flung a newborn towards the taller one who didn't even turn as she reached her hand over her shoulder and caught the vampire snapping his head off before it even had a chance to fight back. "The ones in the purple robes are royals aren't they?"
"Yes purple is what the queens wear and red is worn by the royal guard." Carlisle wasn't happy that the Volturi had shown up in the first place but to have the queens personally show up and so easily do what his family couldn't was like a slap in the face to him. He would rather his whole family died instead of the queens saving them.
"Why would two of the queens personally come here to deal with a newborn army?" Alice asked. She happily moved her arm around now that it was reattached.
"I'm not sure the shorter one is actually a queen." Simone said. She had been introduced to the queens when she had joined the Cullens and didn't think any of them were that small.
"Who would dare wear a royal robe if they weren't one of the queens?" Emmett didn't know who would be that stupid. It would be instant death to anyone who tried to impersonate a queen.
"I think we are about to find out." Carlisle said as the Volturi walked towards his coven. The fact that they had ignored the wolves was surprising but he was sure that they would do something about them once they finished with his family.
Athenodora and the four guard members pulled their hoods down causing the queen to hold back a smile as she saw the fear flash across the faces of the vampires before her. "Hello Carlisle, it's been awhile."
"Welcome to our territory your majesty to what do we owe the pleasure?" Carlisle asked.
"Calm." Athenodora said to Isabella. She knew her daughter didn't appreciate Carlisle's lack of respect but the queen had plans for the self important vampire.
Rosalie looked over the faces of the four guard members surprised that Jane wasn't with them. She would have expected if one of the queens had come to fight an army they would have wanted their best weapon with them. Then there was the fact that Heidi was there. Rosalie wasn't aware that Heidi had a great fighting ability and her gift of persuasion wouldn't be that useful against a bunch of newborns. It made her wonder about the second figure in the royal robes. As Rosalie turned her attention to the last member of the group she locked eyes with the person and gasped.
Isabella had been taking the measure of each of the Cullens and hadn't been impressed with any of them but it was when she locked eyes with the blond one that she froze. "Ti ho trovato finalmente."
"Isabella what is it?" Athenodora dismissed the Cullens from her mind as soon as she heard her daughter speak. She worriedly rushed over to her daughter as she saw her state of shock. Putting her hands on either side of Isabella's black mask she asked. "Are you alright? Did they do something?"
"We did nothing to the girl." Carlisle said defensively.
"Contain them." Athenodora ordered the guard. She wasn't exactly sure what was going on but knew it had to do with the Cullens. Her daughter had yet to move and anger was starting to rise to even levels with Athenodora's worry.
Isabella didn't break eye contact with the blond vampire until she saw Felix grab her arm. Without even thinking about it she had thrown him across the field grabbed the blond vampire, put her behind her and crouched in front her growling to keep all at bay. "She is not to be touched."
"Isabella calm down. No one is going to touch her." Athenodora held up her hands and slowly approached her daughter now understanding exactly what happened. She began speaking in soft tones in hopes of reasoning with Isabella's beast and getting it to calm down."You have kept your mate safe. No harm will come to her with you by her side."
"Your mate?" Carlisle sneered. No way was he letting one his children be mated with a member of the Volturi. "I won't allow it."
"I don't believe anyone needs your permission." Heidi snapped back at Carlisle. She desperately hoped this would turn into a fight so she would get a chance to pound his stupid face in.
Athenodora ignored the others as she kept her attention on Isabella. "My beautiful girl you can calm down now. You know that I would never let anything happen to you or your mate. Your mothers would have my head if they didn't get to meet the first girl you ever wanted to bring home."
"Mothers? Who are her mothers?" Emmett whispered to his mate. Simone just shrugged in reply.
"Mother?" Isabella shook her head to clear her thoughts of violence and revenge. She had never felt like this before. She was always in control but this felt like an out of body experience.
"That's it my beautiful girl." Athenodora reached for Isabella and pulled her from her crouch into her arms and held her. "Everything is alright now. You have just found your mate."
"I found my mate?" Isabella asked still confused.
"Yes and she is standing behind you looking just as confused as you. So why don't you go to her and we will continue this interrogation when you are in control of yourself." Athenodora was happy that Isabella seemed to have gotten her bearings back. Isabella finding her mate was something to celebrate but it would have to be put on the back burner while they dealt with the issue they came there for.
"Of course mother. I apologize for my lack of self control. It won't happen again." Isabella bowed her head to the queen and turned to face the blond vampire. She held out her hand. "My name is Isabella Volturi."
Rosalie was still trying to wrap her mind around having a mate and now with the new information of her mate being the queens' daughter she wasn't sure if anything that was happening was even real. She reached her hand out and held Isabella's taking comfort in the fact that the vampire in front of her was very real. "My name is Rosalie Hale."
"I know we have a lot to talk about but as my mother mentioned we have a job to do." Isabella guided Rosalie by the hand to stand between her and the queen where Isabella felt she would be the safest. "I am myself again."
Athenodora ignored the shocked and confused faces of the Cullens."Good, now that we have that out of the way let us continue with the reason why we are here. Why were we not informed of the vampire army in your territory?"
"We didn't inform you of it's existence because we knew we could handle the situation ourselves." Carlisle wanted to deal with the issue of the newborns quickly so he could deal with this mate nonsense. He didn't care if they were the rulers he wasn't going to allow Rosalie to go off and be corrupted by human drinkers.
Before Athenodora could reply Edward and his human mate ran into the clearing. The queen smirked as she saw the boy's face turn from cocky to confused as he looked at her. "Ah it seems the coward has decided to join us."
"I am no coward. I was protecting my mate." Edward had no respect for the queens and had no problem speaking his mind. The only thing that gave him pause was he wasn't able to read any of the Volturi's minds and to his surprise Rosalie's either.
"Alec, if you would." Athenodora wasn't going to put up with a disrespectful toddler. She wanted this done with quickly so she could go home.
"Of course your majesty." Alec focused his gift on Edward. With in a few seconds the mind reader fell to the ground like a frozen statue.
"No don't,what are you doing?" Jessica dropped to her knees and ran her hands over Edward trying to get any kind of response from him becoming more distressed as he failed to move.
"Jessica calm down." Simone put her arms around the human lifting her to put her in between herself and Emmett. She didn't want the girl to do something stupid.
"But they are hurting Edward. He didn't do anything wrong." Jessica cried.
"If you continue to make a fuss they will do more than that to not only Edward but you as well so keep it together." Simone hissed at the human.
"Are you quite over your tantrum?" Athenodora asked. "Now I will ask you again why did you not inform us of the newborns being created in your territory? Don't give me your petty excuses."
"I offer no excuses. We knew we could deal with the newborns and didn't need your help." Carlisle was trying to control his anger but it was hard. His son didn't deserve to be targeted.
Looking over to Isabella who was standing one step in front of Athenodora and her mate the queen made a decision. Carlisle wasn't going to give any answers so they would need to question all of the coven members individually. With Isabella having just met her mate she wasn't on top of her game and would be prone to overreacting so the best idea was to bring everyone back to Italy with them. "Cullens as I feel that we will not get the answers we wish for from you you will be coming with us back to the castle. There you will be questioned and we will determine which of you is innocent."
"No you can't do this!" Carlisle objected. If his family was taken to Italy then there was no way all of them were going to make it back alive.
"I can do anything I want. You should remember that the next time you open your mouth to speak." Athenodora warned him. She turned to address the guards. "Alec release the mind reader. Then the four of you guard them while I will lead us to the plane and Isabella will follow behind with her mate. If any of them try to fight you then you have my permission to use whatever force you deem necessary to make them compliant."
"What about the human and the wolves?" Demetri asked.
"The human comes as well. I think the other queens will be interested in knowing that she hasn't been turned yet even though we were promised she would for the wolves they aren't going anywhere any time soon so I will call for a team to come and take care them." Athenodora glared at each member of the coven daring them to say anything. It seemed the human they were talking about had finally realized the danger she was in because she couldn't even make eye contact with the queen. "Isabella are you ready?"
"Yes mother." Isabella badly wanted to reassure Rosalie that everything was going to be alright but she couldn't. It was obvious that her mate was scared and worried about her coven but it wasn't up to Isabella to decide what punishment the Cullens were going to get. As she walked Rosalie to the back of the group she promised her mate. "I will do everything I can to help your coven. "
Rosalie was ashamed to admit that she hadn't really thought about the fate of her family. Her worry was mostly over being introduced to the queens as their daughter's mate. The queens terrified her and she wasn't sure what kind of person Isabella was. Usually Rosalie could confidently get through any situation she was thrown into but this one was way beyond anything she could've even prepared for. Deciding to trust that Isabella would protect her from her mothers the way she protected her from the guard she replied truthfully. "I trust you."