*EPOV*

After our new neighbors apologetically let themselves out, we stood as still as stone, stunned by the events that had just transpired.

"I don't understand. How didn't Alice see this coming?" Rosalie asked the question I myself had been wondering.

"I think it might be because a law that applies to all vampires isn't specific enough to trigger my visions?" Alice answered in an uncertain voice. She sounded even more floored than the rest of us. It was a rare day indeed when Alice was caught by surprise.

"...That and/or the random nature of a draft means that my future wouldn't necessarily change until the moment one of our names was drawn, which could be a century from now," Alice supposed optimistically.

"Or next week," Jasper growled as he began to pace the room like a caged animal.

"It leaves us no time to prepare. And that whoreson, Aro, wants you badly enough that he would indenture thousands of vampires he has no interest in until the end of time just for the day that your name was drawn. And that's assuming he doesn't stack the deck!" Jasper's cold and calculating voice escalated to an enraged roar.

"Can somebody please explain to me how the weird siren twin family had intel on the Volturi that we didn't know about? Doesn't that seem kinda…What are the kids saying these days? Sus?" Emmett asked rather reasonably.

"Very sus," Rosalie agreed, crossing her arms tightly against her chest. The siren twins certainly hadn't made a fan of her.

"I thought they were a lovely family," Esme defended. "And while those girls might have made a poor decision, those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," Esme thundered while pointing to the wall-to-ceiling windows.

Rosalie was wise enough not to press the matter any further.

"It actually checks out," I began, and proceeded to share what I'd learned from poking around in the heads of our new acquaintances. "Kendra knew about the Volturi before we did because Chelsea tipped her off. Chelsea created Kendra before she joined The Guard."

"Won't Chelsea get in trouble for that? Isn't that like…treason?" Bella asked.

I shrugged. "Chelsea gets preferential treatment because her gift is so valuable to the Guard. She's the glue that holds them together. I very much doubt many of them would stay on without her influence, and Aro knows it, too.

"And that's another very good reason why a draft would be so appealing to him. Serving in the Guard is no longer viewed as a prestigious and desirable vocation as it once was by older generations of vampires. Enlistment must be down," I speculated out loud.

"I'd say that's likely," Carlisle agreed. "Young vampires don't remember what it was like before the Volturi created order. Back then…humans outlived immortals more often than not. "

"We're going to need numbers. Carlisle. You have friends you could call, don't you?" Jasper asked, an eerily calm and strategic tone replacing the murderous one he'd used moments before.

"Well, yes. But what are we really proposing here? Going to war? With the Volturi? That's…suicide," Carlisle shook his head, unconvinced.

"It might've been. Before Bella," Jasper countered, his amber eyes fixed on Bella's in deep scrutiny.

I could see in his head what he was plotting. A battlefield. Crimson-eyed heads being savagely ripped from their bodies and tossed into a raging purple pyre. And there, hidden behind the warring front lines was my Bella casting a massive shield over our side, rendering their offensive talents completely useless against us.

"No," I growled fiercely and pulled Bella closer to my side. It was too dangerous. Far, far too dangerous. Even if it worked, it would paint a target on her back that she would never be free of.

"What?" Bella asked anxiously. "If there's something I can do to help, I'll do it! I'll do anything to keep our family safe and whole," Bella said, her voice cracking at the end. The sound of the fear I heard in her tremulous voice put a lump in my own throat. I swallowed hard against it, to no avail.

Esme's soft sob was smothered by her own hand.

Carlisle wrapped a protective arm around her shoulder and murmured into her ear. "We'll figure this out, my darling. Please don't cry," he pleaded in a strained voice and placed a tense kiss on Esme's temple.

It pained me to tell her this, to give Bella the idea if it hadn't already occurred to her, but she had to know what she was blindly signing up for.

"Love, Jasper sees you shielding everybody while the rest of us fight. It's too dangerous…and it might not work. It would make you the target. They'd be gunning for you first," I choked. "How am I supposed to go along with that, Bella? How am I supposed to survive it?"

I could see the resolve forming in her eyes. She opened her mouth to say things I had no desire to hear.

"No. No. NO," I roared. "You asked me to sit out. I sat out. Now it's your turn," I demanded, poking her in the sternum and using a more forceful voice than I had intended.

Bella drew up to her full height and, tilting her head back, she looked me dead in the eye. Very calmly, she replied in a low, clear voice, "I gave you another option, Edward. Give me another option."

"Think about it rationally, brother. I don't see how we can lose. Our friends would help us with this. It's not just our freedom at stake here! If we put up a big enough show of resistance, maybe the Volturi will back down before it even comes to a fight."

Carlisle jumped at the small sliver of hope, wanting a peaceful resolution more than anything.

"Maybe if we didn't ask others to fight, but instead organized a peaceful protest using their gifts however they might to…underscore our position. If we convinced Aro that they would lose in a fight, there might be a chance to get him to walk this back without a single life lost."

"And if the Volturi won't reconsider? You think all of those enraged assembled vampires are just going to go home and write to their Congressmen?" I asked bitingly.

Carlisle's face was compassionate as I vented out my frustration. It's the only chance I see where we might all get to keep our lives. And our mates, he thought sullenly, looking from me to Bella, and then to all of the frightened faces of our family.

I took a deep breath. Then, reminding myself to speak gently, I turned back to Bella and made my counteroffer. "I'll agree to a protest. But if I get the slightest inkling that things are going to turn violent, we run. That's my offer," I said, stubbornly raising my chin by a few notches.

"You would leave your family to d–" Jasper tried to argue but I cut him off with a silencing hand raised in his direction. "I'm talking to my wife right now," I answered back tersely, my eyes never leaving Bella's face.

I waited for her response. A war of emotions battled for dominance across Bella's face as she chewed on her lip, obviously having some kind of internal dispute. I badly wanted to ask what she was thinking, to let me in, but I let her sort out her thoughts in the privacy of her own mind.

*BPOV*

"Ok, it's a deal," I nodded after a long beat. For the second time that day, I shielded Alice. Just long enough so that Edward wouldn't immediately be able to tell that I was lying.

Luckily with all the other voices in the room (the ones that I could hear and the ones that I could not), he didn't seem to notice the brief absence of hers.

If it came to a fight and Edward wanted to run, I wasn't going to stop him. But I wasn't going to abandon my family if I could stay and help them win. And it may have been manipulative, but it crossed my mind that if I refused to leave the fight, then so would he.

In a way, Edward was right. It was my turn. My turn to save them, now. To keep the family that I fought so hard to join intact. It was the very least I could do after all of the times they'd jeopardized their own lives to save mine.

I'd learned something else as a vampire, too. Sometimes it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Jasper first turned to Edward and the two of them had a brief, silent exchange. Jasper squeezed Edward once on the shoulder in a comforting brotherly gesture, no doubt calming his palpable anxiety at the same time.

"Bella, we're going to need to start training you. The sooner the better," Jasper insisted.

"To fight?" I gulped. This had gotten so real so fast.

Edward opened his mouth to object but Jasper held up a conciliatory hand and clarified,"That's probably not a bad idea, but I meant expanding the range of your shield.

"What you can do is impressive, but it's not enough. You're going to need to learn to shield a large group of moving targets and hold it for long periods of time. Think you can work on that like all our lives depend on it?" Jasper drawled with a grim smile.

"You bet," I croaked. Jasper winked at me and cuffed me on the shoulder before moving on to assigning tasks to everyone else. Carlisle immediately set about calling the friends he had phone numbers for, starting with our extended family in Denali.

Before I could promise Jasper anything else, Edward cupped his hand around the inside of my elbow and gently but insistently tugged me toward the door. "Can we please go home, now?"

*EPOV*

When we got back to our cottage, I did the only thing that felt right when everything around us seemed determined to go wrong. We quickly dressed down and I tucked Bella under the covers of our bed. I crawled in beside her gathering her into my arms, and pulled her back to my chest.

As I held Bella safe in my arms, I could feel the rhythmic expansion of her ribcage as she breathed in and out. I silently counted the breaths as if they were numbered, a residual habit from her human days. Pulling the covers up more tightly around her, I childishly pretended that the thin layers of Egyptian cotton and down could protect us from the forces that sought to separate us.

"What a day," Bella broke the silence first in the flippant tone she reserved for when she was most afraid.

I inwardly groaned, not yet ready for the dire reality of our situation to seep into the sanctuary of our bed.

"If that isn't the understatement of the century, I don't know what is," I muttered and buried my nose into the soft hair at the top of her head.

Bella's scent held traces of honeysuckle, wet earth, pine, and the mountain lion she'd devoured for breakfast. And when my nose traced an invisible line from the shell of her ear down the side of her neck, I smiled faintly as I detected traces of my own scent lingering on the soft skin there.

If I thought the scent of her blood was alluring, the fragrance of both our scents mingled on her skin was the sweetest, most enticing perfume I'd ever encountered, and I never wanted her to smell of anything else.

Bella rolled over onto her back then and looked up at me with the expression that I had come to dread. Her brow was furrowed and her bottom lip was caught between her teeth. It was the face she made whenever she was about to ask me to do something she knew I wouldn't readily agree to.

Can we talk about—

"Literally anything else?" I finished for her. "Certainly. What'll it be? Religion? Politics? Fantasies Jacob Black had about you in my presence? The inner workings of Mike Newton's mind?" All of which were more favorable topics of conversation than discussing putting her life—our life—in peril.

"Edward, I know you're scared, but…" She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts.

But? My body froze with tension as I waited for whatever absurd rationalization would come out of her mouth next.

What argument could she possibly make for getting me to reconsider my position on putting her in the direct path of mortal danger? No such reason existed, but I waited nonetheless out of morbid curiosity.

"I think Jasper's right. If it came down to it, do you really think Aro would be stupid enough to challenge a gifted group of furious vampires and their loved ones? I've only ever seen what you, Jasper, Alice, and Kate can do. Oh, and the siren twins. But imagine what we could do if we put all our gifts together! And If we had even more backup...I don't see how we could lose."

"Bella," I groaned in exasperation. "I thought we already discussed this. It's too dangerous! I will not entertain the idea of a confrontation with the Volturi in which our entire defense depends solely on you. End of discussion."

"No, it's not," Bella growled irritably. She placed her palms against my chest and shoved against me to get me to release my hold on her.

I sighed and withdrew my arms as Bella hopped lithely to her feet. Clearly agitated, she paced the dim, cramped room lit only by a small reading lamp on my bedside table.

I held back a growl of my own. It was to be an argument then. Lovely.

As if she could hear my thoughts, Bella's pale gold eyes flashed with anger. "You don't get to just unilaterally decide–"

Before she could get the words out, I sprang to my feet and pressed a silencing finger to her lips. "When my family is spouting madness, it doesn't leave me with much of a choice," I hissed, barely containing my own frustration.

Bella batted my hand away with a swat that would have broken bone if I'd been human. I retracted my throbbing hand with a muttered curse.

She countered, "I can stop Jane. I know I can! With a little practice, and maybe a little help from Kate…"

With more volume than intended, I interjected, "Jane isn't their only weapon, Bella!"

Bella's eyebrows arched in surprise. That seemed to give her pause, so I pressed on in the hopes of talking some sense into her. In a calmer tone, I explained. "She has a brother. A twin. Alec. And he is far more dangerous than his sadistic sister."

Bella frowned deeply at that. "What can Alec do?" she asked with a hint of petulance in her voice. I reminded myself to have patience. It was so easy to forget how young Bella still was. A child herself just a few short years ago.

"Alec can create a toxic fog that would deprive all of us of our senses. We'd be rendered deaf, blind, and completely helpless to defend ourselves."

Aghast, Bella's eyes widened with trepidation and her mouth hung slightly open. Finally! A rational response!

"Exactly. Jasper thinks you could shield us from that because, in theory, Alec's gift works inside the mind the same way mine or Jane's does. But we have no way of knowing if that will actually work! And do you really think I would take that sort of risk with you?" I asked as gently as I could manage, raising my hand once more, this time to cradle the side of her face.

Bella's face softened but not in a way that made me feel like she was seeing sense.

"I understand your objections, even if I don't totally agree with them. But you haven't told me what you plan to do if we don't stand up to the Volturi. What if Alice gets called up to serve? Or you? Or me? What then?" Bella frowned.

"Then we'll be draft dodgers. They'll have to catch us first before they can force us to comply," I snorted derisively. It wasn't all that different from the plan I'd proposed to keep Bella hidden from the Volturi in the first place after Aro had made me agree to turn her in exchange for her life.

"I can't keep us all hidden from Demetri all of the time, Edward. And I don't want to have to live that way," Bella fumed.

"And I don't want to live without you!" I returned just as fiercely. Then, in a softer, vulnerable voice, I pleaded, "Please don't ask me to consider a course of action in which that is a very real possibility. I can't bear it."

"So where does that leave us then?" she sighed.

"Another impasse, I think," I answered in a flat tone, sounding just as deflated.

"Please, Edward. Please," she begged, reaching up to cup my cheek. "I can't lose you either." Let's fight this so that no one will ever try to separate us ever again.

I smiled just a little and pulled her to my chest, wrapping my arms tightly around her. "Sorry, love," I murmured into the hair on the top of her head. "That won't work this time. I'm afraid you're all out of bargaining chips," I chuckled despite myself.

Adorably, Bella's nose wrinkled and her jaw dropped with indignation. Before she could return fire, I quickly added, "But even if you did, there's nothing that would be worth risking your life."

"Now where have I heard that before?" Bella retorted with an amused smirk on her lips. She was referring to our honeymoon when I'd initially refused to make love with her again after accidentally maiming her the first time.

I rolled my eyes, remembering with dismay how quickly I'd capitulated at the first sign of Bella's tears.

"Would this have gone better if I still had the ability to cry?" she asked, a hint of teasing in her voice.

"Perhaps. For you. Now would you please come back to bed? I wasn't finished cuddling with you, yet, Mrs. Cullen," I said, pouting a little.

Bella huffed but relented. As she crawled under the covers she turned back to look at me over her shoulder and warned with her trademark stubbornness. "This discussion isn't over," she insisted.

The corner of my mouth twitched with amusement. "I'd be shocked if it was."

A/N Apologies for the delay on this chapter. I suffered a bit of a creative slump this past week due to a nasty bug that I suspect was covid, but I'm feeling much better now. Now I have a question for you all. For the Volturi showdown, are you Team Jasper (and want to see some Volturi heads roll)? Or are you Team Carlisle and just want everyone to get along? Thank you all for reading and reviewing! I hope you enjoyed this update, and I can't wait to hear what you think!