*BPOV*

"Trouble? What kind of trouble?" I asked in wide-eyed terror. I hurriedly tugged my clothing back on. What an unfortunate time to be without one's panties I inwardly grumbled as I pulled my jeans back up over my naked rear end.

"Alice sees some visitors coming our way. Our kind. She can't see exactly when, but soon. We'll need to go back to learn more. But we should really be heading back anyway.

"It's always best to present a united front when meeting new vampires. A small nomadic clan would have to be suicidal to challenge a coven of eight..." Edward muttered, hastily shrugging on his shirt

"Wouldn't be the first time," I growled.

Edward took a step closer to me and used a sweeping motion of his hand to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. He held his hand there, cradling the side of my face, and gazed deeply into my eyes.

"You do bring out bizarrely strong reactions in our kind," he murmured, quoting something Jane had once said of me.

"Maybe when I was human," I shrugged impassively. "But I'll be damned if anybody is going to hide me away in a hotel in the desert or in a tent on a mountain this time!" I snorted, crossing my arms stubbornly against my chest.

Edward's face hardened as if he were about to argue with me, but then his lips drew up into an amused smirk.

"Well, it's not as if either of those attempts to hide you even worked, did they? In any case, we don't know why they're coming. They might just be curious. All the same, it's best that we get back to the house."

*EPOV*

I thought that once Bella was turned I would never again have to feel the gut-wrenching, bone-chilling fear and anxiety that went hand-in-hand with being in love with a fragile human. Apparently, I thought wrong.

Bella may have been less breakable now, but that didn't mean that she wasn't an easy target. Just like any other relative newborn, she was young, impulsive, easily-distracted, quick to anger, and had not been trained to fight.

In some ways, she was even more of a liability. Gone were the days when I could throw her over my shoulder and run like hell from whatever the source of danger was.

And worse, now she was no longer afraid of our kind because she was one of us. And her strength (and beating Emmett one too many times at arm wrestling) had made her overconfident.

As we sprinted north, I tried to remind myself not to get ahead of myself. There was no reason to think our visitors would present some sort of threat to us. And again, there were eight of us. The largest known coven on this side of the Atlantic, and gifted to boot. The thought quelled some of my anxiety.

"What have you learned? Anything new?" I asked Alice the moment we sprinted through the doors of the main house.

Alice took one look at our disheveled appearances, most notably, Bella's sex hair which amazingly hadn't smoothed out in over ninety miles of running (If anything, it had only been made more unruly) and smirked, "I hope you didn't rush home on my account. It was just a heads up."

I snarled, not in the mood for her snark. "Can you possibly blame me for being a little wary of strangers, Alice?" I asked impatiently.

"No, I guess not," Alice conceded. "I see four of them. They have our location loosely surrounded and have been watching, getting a sense of our daily patterns. If I had to guess, I'd say they're being cautious, trying to figure out the best time to approach. They haven't decided yet," Alice explained, her eyes going blank as she checked the future for any new developments.

Seeing none, she refocused back on me and Bella.

"Who are they? What do they want?" Bella asked with a worried "v" etched between her brows.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Alice shrugged. "But I wouldn't worry too much about it. If they planned to harm us in some way, I would've seen that. They're probably just curious."

"I've heard that before," I grumbled.

Being surrounded by outsiders didn't sit well with me. At all. But they were far enough away that I couldn't hear them, which was only a small comfort.

"In all fairness, James, Victoria, and Laurent were just curious. But Bella being there in the field that day…changed things. Now, unless you have another human friend hanging around that I don't know about…" Alice looked questioningly up at me, eyebrows raised almost in accusation.

"...Then I don't see any reason to get overly anxious about this," she finished, her tone patient, though slightly patronizing, like a mother talking her toddler down from a tantrum.

I huffed in displeasure, crossing my arms defensively across my chest, but said nothing else on the topic.

"Well, I don't see you planning to hide Bella on the International Space Station or anything, so I guess that's progress," Alice ribbed.

I opened my mouth to say something rude in response but she cut me off.

"I'm gonna stop you right there and save you the trouble of apologizing later," Alice retorted with a saccharine smile. "I'll let you know the second I have any more information. Toodaloo!" She fluttered the fingers of one hand in a little wave and skipped out of the room.

"International Space Station!" Emmett guffawed from the next room. "Good one, Al."

*BPOV*

"I'm going for a run. I'm gonna go see what I can hear. I won't be gone long," Edward answered the question in my eyes before I could voice the words. I could tell by the hard set of his jaw that he was gearing up to tell me "No," in response to my next question.

After this morning's argument at school, I wasn't really in the mood to butt heads with Edward again. I swallowed the argument I'd concocted about how we were better off going together (because my shield could come in handy in the event of a confrontation). Instead, I merely told him to be careful and sweetly kissed him goodbye.

"Wise choice," Emmett said without taking his eyes off the TV screen as I flopped down next to him on the couch and waited for Edward's return. His thick fingers blurred over the buttons of his Xbox controller as he played some martial arts fighting game.

"What is?" I asked, scrunching my brows together in puzzlement.

"Picking your battles," Emmett answered. "I could tell you wanted to argue with him back there. So could he," Emmett grunted and nodded toward the door where Edward had just exited.

"But in the same amount of time it would have taken you both to bicker about it, he would have already gone and come back. Just wait and see," he predicted with a smile and a wink in my direction.

"Hadouken, motherfucker!" Emmett boomed, simultaneously pumping his fists victoriously above his head as his fighter produced a blue fireball, killing his opponent.

"Pardon my French," he chuckled after I startled a little in response to his unexpected outburst.

"Pfft. I spent most of last year running with a pack of wolves. I'm not about to start getting offended by coarse language now," I laughed and gave him a little shove. He nodded once and grunted in agreement.

It was still so mind-blowing to me that I could shove Emmett, the biggest, strongest vampire I'd ever known, and now his body would actually move a little in response.

"Wanna play a round? You can't possibly suck as much as the computer," he smirked and tossed me a controller.

"I'll take that bet," I laughed self-deprecatingly.

My thumbs easily remembered the appropriate amount of force to use because it was muscle memory by now from the hours upon hours I'd spent practicing controlling my strength on the busy board Emmett had made me of knobs, latches, and yes, video game controllers.

Not pulverizing the controller was pretty much the high point of the match (for me). I gave it my best shot, randomly mashing buttons and joysticks with my thumbs. But in the end, my own character, a thick-thighed female kung-fu master was handily defeated by another blue fireball.

An image of the defeated, crying fighter appeared on the screen with the word "Continue?":

"You're right, Squirt. You do suck more than the computer. But you're way more fun to beat," Emmett snickered and leaned over to hit the start button on my controller, bumping the boulder of his shoulder into mine as he queued up another match.

By the time Emmett wiped the floor with me again, I could hear Edward slipping in through the door.

He found us in the living room a moment later. Emmett had paused the game so that the crying face of my defeated fighter was frozen on the TV.

Edward shot me a crooked smile. "Now you've gone and done it," he teased. "Now Emmett will never give you back." I playfully whizzed the wireless control at Edward which he handily caught, as I knew he would.

Undeterred by the teasing, I asked, "What did you find out?"

"You took the words right out of my mouth, Bella," Carlisle chimed in as he padded down the stairs with Esme in tow. Rose, Alice & Jasper filed in next. Before I knew it, we were all gathered in the living room having an impromptu family meeting.

Edward's smile faltered by one tiny degree, but I noticed. "They won't hurt us. I guess you could say they're our new neighbors. But I'll let them explain themselves."

"You can't fool me, brother. If they aren't a threat, then what's with all the doom and gloom?" Jasper asked suspiciously, raising one tawny eyebrow..

"When are they coming?" Rosalie demanded territorially before Edward could answer Jasper.

Edward's eyes moved dizzily around the room from person to person as he was bombarded by the questions we all had must've been silently asking all at once.

"One at a time, please," Carlisle calmly interjected, holding up a quieting hand in Rose's direction. "I would like to hear the answer to Jasper's question. Edward, what's troubling you, son?"

"They aren't a threat. They are curious about us and our lifestyle, just like you said, Alice," he nodded in acknowledgment at Alice, quietly perched on the arm of the couch. One dainty hand flew to her chest and she feigned a look of total surprise. The corner of Edward's mouth twitched upward in amusement, but he kept speaking.

"But they were also intimidated by the size of our family. They've been waiting for an opportunity to get one of us alone to make an introduction. It's another family, like ours. Though they don't follow our restricted diet, they do manage to keep a semi-permanent residence not far from here. I invited them over so we could get to know each other. I figured Esme would have my head if I didn't," he explained with a chuckle.

"That's my boy," responded Esme with a smiling nod of approval.

"They'll be here at sundown. To answer your question, Jazz, it's what they didn't say that's bothering me. When I turned to leave, Kendra, the coven's matriarch was thinking about how they had to warn us about something. Something important."

"I wonder what it could be," Carlisle pondered aloud. "Alice?" he asked, an unspoken request in his voice. Alice's eyes went momentarily blank as she searched the future for new information. Seconds later, her golden eyes refocused back on Carlisle, answering with a shrug and a soft shake of her head.

"I see a warning now, and a time. But no context," she clarified.

"I guess we'll find out soon enough," Emmett muttered, looking outside at the setting sun.

*EPOV*

Just as the last of the sun sank down below the horizon, the sound of four pairs of supernaturally fast feet could be heard running up the long, winding gravel driveway toward the house. We were all tensely congregated in the living room waiting for our guests to arrive.

Just before they got close enough to knock, I opened the door and ushered the four of them inside, greeting them cordially.

"Everyone, this is Kendra, Maia, Ember, and–" I stopped when I got to the only male member of the coven, Kendra's mate. He was older than Carlisle in physical appearance. Early to mid-thirties with ghostly pale skin, brown hair cropped short, and a scruffy goatee that didn't do much to age his baby face.

"I don't believe I caught your name this afternoon," I said politely. I knew it from his coven's thoughts, of course, but I wasn't ready to reveal my gift to these strangers, yet.

"Everyone calls me Pink," he introduced himself with a disarming grin, conventionally extending his hand out to shake mine. "Put 'er there."

I shook the man's hand without hesitation, so as not to appear rude. But I carefully paid attention to his thoughts to ascertain whether or not he possessed a gift that was triggered by touch like Aro's or Kate's.

It appeared to be an ordinary handshake, however, as Pink's thoughts were occupied by discretely sizing up my family. Wisely, he was just as suspicious of us as we were of them.

They seem friendly enough. Weird eyes, though. More money than God by the looks of it. Wonder where they got it? Some kind of criminal enterprise I bet. Not like it's hard to rob a bank (or ten) when you can break open a vault as easily as cracking open a can of pop.

Never met vampires that didn't just steal what they wanted directly, though. Why bother with the pretense of cash? I guess for digs like this, Pink answered his own question, looking around at the lavish furnishings with unveiled appreciation.

I pulled myself from the older man's thoughts and finished introducing my family before my silence could be perceived as awkward.

"Pleased to meet you, Pink. I'm Edward Cullen."

I quickly went around the room naming my family members in pairs, making it clear that we were all mated off. And saving the most important for last, I pulled Bella to my side with an arm wrapped securely around her waist and introduced, "And this here is my lovely wife, Bella."

All these young gorgeous guys and they're all married?! Ugh. Lame! complained an unfamiliar mental voice. Ember's I realized after a moment as my wedding ring entered her thoughts.

I politely looked away, smirking a little at the disappointment I heard in her tone.

I heard Jasper mentally casting a wave of camaraderie over both of our groups before I felt the sudden peculiar wave of friendliness and familiarity wash over me.

As if by magic, the tension that existed between our two families dissipated and we were chatting like old friends.

"This is quite a place you've got here!" Kendra gushed as her deep crimson eyes swept over her surroundings.

She had a kind face and her honey-colored hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders. But there was a penetrating shrewdness about her eyes that made her seem as if with one look, she knew all of your secrets.

Pink went on to explain, "We did the nomadic thing for a while… But the girls liked it here in the Bay Area and we discovered that we could maintain a low profile by hunting exclusively on the homeless population. Plenty of those to go around and they never get reported missing."

Maia and Ember were identical twin sisters turned in their late teens, but there was a marked difference between the two of them, though I couldn't put my finger on what exactly it was.

Kendra went on to tell the story about how she had created Ember (as many vampires do, out of loneliness) without knowing that she was a twin.

Ember couldn't bear to be separated from her sister. So when she could finally control her thirst one year after her disappearance and presumed death, Ember went back for Maia and explained what she had become. Overjoyed by her sister's miraculous reappearance and unwilling to be parted again, Maia joined their coven shortly thereafter.

It dawned on me then what the difference was between the two sisters. They were identical, that much was obvious. But Maia was physically one year older than Ember.

Human eyes never would've detected the subtle differences. But the tall, blonde teen with an athletic build and a punky chin-length haircut was half an inch taller, just a bit narrower in the face, and a little broader through the hips.

Ember looked the same, but, well…younger.

"Fascinating," Carlisle breathed, his gaze flipping between the girls, comparing their subtle differences for himself.

"It was just the three of us girls for a while," Kendra smiled fondly at the sisters she clearly loved like daughters. "But then I met Pink when we were passing through Alaska and he completed our little family."

"How about you all? Where are you from and how did you end up here?" Pink asked conversationally.

"Well that's a rather long story," Carlisle chuckled amiably. "But what a coincidence that you should mention Alaska because that's where we just came from. We spent some time in Southeast Alaska while Bella adjusted to immortality."

"Got yourself a young'un, huh?" Pink trained his easy smile on Bella. "I'm sure glad those days are behind me." Then, addressing Bella, he said,"It'll get easier, sweetheart," and patted her twice on the arm in what he meant to be a reassuring gesture.

"Bella is doing exceptionally well and we're all very proud of her," Esme inserted, never turning down an opportunity to gush about her children.

"Not that well," Bella grumbled, still disappointed with herself for having to leave her classes early that day.

Pink laughed at that. "Don't sweat it, girly. Whatever you did couldn't have been as bloody as my first year. I went on a bender and took out an entire tribe of natives," he chuckled nostalgically like a human would about indulging too much at Thanksgiving dinner. "And besides," he concluded with a dismissive swat of his hand, "It's not like they're an endangered species."

Bella gaped in horror at the man but then quickly recovered. "That does make me feel better, thank you," she offered politely, if not convincingly. Pink didn't seem to notice either way.

After the preliminary small talk was out of the way, our large party broke off into smaller groups divided by gender. The custom was a relic of our humanity from another time when men would retire to another room to drink brandy and smoke cigars while the women cleaned up and gossiped at the conclusion of an old-timey dinner party.

"Hey, Pink, how do you feel about motorcycles?" Jasper asked congenially.

"What's not to love?" Pink answered without hesitation.

"Right this way, friend," Emmett jumped to his feet with surprising agility and led the way to the garage, eager to show off our toys to his new friend.

Rosalie stared after us with undisguised longing and thought hard about tagging along with the men to the garage where she could proudly show off the modifications she'd made to her M3. But one look at Esme had dispelled that notion.

If Rosalie had ditched the ladies in favor of the car & driver show that was about to go on, she might've offended Kendra, Ember & Maia. And if there was one thing you didn't do in Esme's house, it was offend her guests.

"Right behind you, Alice," Rose muttered as she stomped up the stairs behind Alice, Bella (who seemed just as reluctant to leave my side as I was hers), and the twins who were jazzed about the proposed idea of a makeover.

Meanwhile, Esme linked arms with Kendra and took her for a tour of the property and some "mom talk."

*BPOV*

Ember and Maia's eyes were cartoonishly large when they saw the inside of Alice's closet. Alice was in her element styling the twins in some of Rose's old castoffs.

Much like the shopping trips I remembered having with Jessica and Angela, I stood around feigning interest and mumbling affirmations like "Mhm" and "Oh, really?" at the appropriate times.

As Alice was flitting around gathering clothing and makeup, Rosalie was just as mindlessly styling Ember's hair. We exchanged a sympathetic glance in acknowledgment of the fact that we both had other places we would have rather been. I smiled wryly thinking to myself about how family obligations were unavoidable even in this life.

One of the times Alice passed by me, I felt the lightest touch of her hand graze against mine and then felt the sharp corners of a folded piece of paper being pressed against my palm.

When I was sure nobody was paying me any attention, I discreetly unfolded the note. It read:

Shield me when they start singing.

I stared at the paper for an extra second trying to make sense of the words. I didn't fully understand the instruction, but it was Alice, so of course, I would do as she asked without question.

Just then, Maia emerged from the closet holding Alice's Birkin bag.

"Is this what I think it is?" Maia squealed.

"I paid way too much for it if it isn't," Alice quipped.

Just then I heard what could only be described as a faint humming that was gradually growing louder. And then I realized that the sound was louder because now both girls were producing the sound.

I wasn't sure if Alice counted humming as singing, but just in case she did, I threw up my shield over her.

"Can I have it?" asked Maia in a small but determined voice.

"Um, no," Alice answered pleasantly but definitively as she plucked her prized handbag from the girl's hands.

The humming suddenly broke off as both girls gasped in surprise. "What did you just say?" Maia asked in a voice that was just as astonished as her expression.

"I said no. Which I gather is something you don't hear often," Alice muttered. "And while I don't appreciate that you just tried to compel me into giving you a bag that cost twice as much as my Porsche," she glared between the two of them, "because I'm a good, Christian woman, I'm going to let you take any other bag you want. Just not this one." She petted the silver crocodile skin tote encrusted with over 1.5 carats of diamonds like it was a beloved cat instead of a purse.

"What the hell is going on, Alice?" Rosalie asked in an even more incensed voice than usual.

"I don't understand how you said no," Maia's smooth porcelain brow creased with confusion mixed with frustration. "No one's ever been able to tell us no."

Alice answered both Rose's and Maia's questions at the same time with the fiery statement, "You're not the only gifted ones here, and it was very foolish of you to assume as much in a house full of vampires you've only just met," Alice lectured in the sternest voice I'd ever heard her use.

"Alice? Is there a problem?" Esme silently appeared with Kendra in tow after hearing the heated exchange.

"I think it's time for us to go," Ember muttered as she slipped out of the salon chair with her hair only half-styled.

"What did you do, girls?" Kendra asked, her tone an icy accusation. Her blood-red eyes were even more frightening as she glared daggers at the twins who were staring embarrassedly at the carpet.

"I'm sure it was just a big misunderstanding," Esme interjected in a calm, pacifying voice.

"No it wasn't," Rose replied bluntly, any thought of being a gracious hostess long gone. "We welcomed you into our home and she tried to grift Alice into giving her a Birkin bag," she accused, pointing a manicured finger at Maia.

"Esme, I don't know what to say. I am mortified. They promised me they wouldn't do this! These damned teenagers and their gifts. They think they can just do whatever the hell they please with no thought of the consequences!" Kendra threw up her hands in the air in exasperation as she ranted.

Esme smiled compassionately at her new friend. Laying a consoling hand on Kendra's shoulder, she said "I hear you there. Trust me on that one!" Esme laughed sympathetically.

Just then the room got rather crowded as the men returned to see what all the screeching was about.

"Kendra? Everything alright, hon?" Pink asked cautiously as he crossed over the threshold into Alice & Jasper's suite.

Kendra sighed wearily. "We were just leaving, that's all. But before we wear out our welcome any further," she glared angrily again at the twins, "there's something important we need to tell you all."

I held my breath. The warning. Amongst all the drama I had almost forgotten.

"Go ahead. What is it, Kendra?" Carlisle asked as he squeezed between Emmett and Jasper who were now blocking the door like sentries.

Edward slipped around them, too, and dashed over to my side. "I take it you're the reason Alice's mind went AWOL," he whispered in my ear barely louder than a breath and kissed my cheek in greeting.

Guilty, I silently replied with a smirk.

Kendra nervously wrung her hands together as all eyes were on her, unsure of how to deliver the news she came to share.

Edward's gasp cut through the tense silence like a blade. "No!" In a horrified expression, he covered the bottom half of his face with both hands. Every member of the Cullen family stiffened as they waited to hear what horror awaited us.

And without Kendra needing to say another word, Edward broke the chilling news.

"It's the Volturi. Aro is toying around with the idea of enacting a compulsory draft for gifted vampires to serve at the behest of The Guard. He's about to make a decree announcing a mandatory registration for gifted immortals."

Kendra stared at Edward in shock and confusion. After a moment, comprehension seemed to settle over her. "You're a mind reader," she said dully. It wasn't a question.

Ember stared at my husband with wide eyes and then averted her gaze, looking for all the world like she wished the floor would open up and swallow her. I wondered what thoughts she'd had around Edward that would be humiliating to her. I probably didn't want to know.

"I can see that such a law would adversely affect your family just as much as it would affect ours," Kendra asserted in an anguished voice.

"It certainly would," Carlisle agreed in a grave tone.

"Over my dead body," Jasper growled. His teeth were bared and his arms were crossed tightly against his chest; he looked even more lethal than he usually did.

"What do we do?" Esme cried, looking around at our family with a distraught expression on her face. "They can't be allowed to…"

Emmett snarled, menacingly driving one huge fist into the palm of his other hand. "We fight back."

A/N Oh bother, those damned I-talians are at it again! If you're dying to know what happens next, drop me a line, because nothing motivates me to update more than hearing from you all! Thanks for reading and reviewing! I can't wait to hear what you think! Til next time, lovelies!