In the darkened feeding room, the long wooden table was set up, with most of our guests seated around it. Due to the lack of chairs and space in general, I sat on Caius' lap for the duration of the meeting. Technically, it was still Christmas Eve, with only 2 or so hours until midnight.

It was now less than a week until the big trial, the trial that decided whether the Cullens would live to see another day. I'd been trying hard to distract myself, but it seemed to be of no use. At least I did have one good thing to look forward to: Christmas.

Aro was still addressing the entire table. "…and that is why the nomads…"

I was trying to pay attention to what he was saying, but Afton, who was guarding the door, was waving his arms frantically. I shrugged my shoulders confusedly at him, but it was once he mouthed the words, "Christmas, now," that I realised what he was on about.

I unnecessarily cleared my throat so everyone's attention turned to me. "Can I be excused?"

"Whatever for, cara mia?" Aro asked.

"Um, well…Christmas?" I smiled hopefully.

He sighed and kissed my forehead. "Of course, but please do not be gone too long. There is plenty to do."

"'kay thanks bye!" I gushed excitedly as I disappeared out of the door after Afton.

Afton stopped after a second to allow me to catch up. I ran to him and squealed, clapping my hands while jumping up and down on the spot. Of course, he did the same, and we bounced in the corridor like a bunch of screaming teenagers for a few moments.

"Christmas!" I yelled again, and I heard a chorus of chuckles from the feeding room behind us. I looped my arm around Afton's as we skipped down the hall. "We're going to have so much fun. We can make cookies, decorate the tree, listen to Christmas music, wear Christmas pyjamas, and watch Christmas movies!"

"You thought this all through," he mused.

I pushed the door to the guard quarters open, the very one I'd had to get replaced after I broke the last one when I first woke up after my transformation. "Oh yeah, this is going to be so much fun!"

The only ones inside the guard room were Chelsea, Renata, Santiago, and Felix. That was until Demetri busted the door open with his foot, carrying a box of Christmas decorations as if it weighed nothing. He placed it down beside the tree that apparently someone had brought in and clapped his hands together.

"Let's get this tree decorated then." He grinned.

Santiago scoffed and was the first to pick up a long string of lights. "We'd better put this damn thing up, dude, I had to haul it all the way through town with contacts in."

"Why didn't you just strap it to the top of one of the cars or something?" I asked.

"They're for 'work missions only'," he raised the pitch of his voice in a weak attempt at mimicking one of Caius' many rules.

I picked up a few lights along with the others as we wrapped them around the tree. "Next time, just ask me and I'll give you full authorisation to use one of the cars. And, contacts?"

"I still find it funny how your mother didn't even question the fact that my eyes were bright red and I refused to eat anything when I came to visit," he laughed.

"Do we have any music?" Chelsea asked, hooking the first few baubles on the tree at lightning speed.

"Say no more." Renata dashed over to the radio in the corner and turned on the first radio station she found, which happened to be playing 'Driving Home for Christmas'.

I squealed. "This is so festive- oi!" Someone had thrown a few pieces of tinsel shreds at my hair so it was tangled together. "Who threw that?"

Felix's booming laugh echoed behind me. "Gold's a nice colour on you," he teased, dropping another clump of strands directly on top of my head so that they dangled in front of my face.

"Right," I gritted through my teeth.

I tried to snatch the tinsel pieces out of his hand but instead he tauntingly held them above his head so they were out of my reach. Fortunately, Santiago was much taller than me so he was able to yank them out of Felix's grip and toss the rest at the tree.

Due to the speed at which we worked, it took less than 10 minutes to get the tree finished and put up, which also included all of our constant squabbling and running around the room chasing each other with Christmas ornaments.

We settled back into some of the beanbags in the corner comfortably. Chelsea was on Afton's lap, Felix and Demetri were throwing a leftover bauble between each other, and I was sat on the floor between Renata's legs while she tied up my hair into a bouncy high ponytail. The radio was still playing in the background, now doing a Christmas song quiz which Chelsea was yelling the answers to, not that she got many of them correct.

With a flick, the before darkened room lit up brightly with all of the little fairy lights in the tree. Santiago appeared from behind, grinning smugly at his handiwork.

"Not bad, not bad at all," he mused.

"What time is it?" Felix asked lazily.

Demetri held the bauble in his palm and pulled a pocket watch out from the inside of his jacket. "22:36."

Chelsea suddenly shot up from her seat excitedly and started tugging me away from Renata by my hand.

"Where are we going?" I asked her.

She giggled lightly. "We're baking cookies, obviously. I found a recipe for gingerbread cookies online and a bunch of cute cookie cutters in the main kitchens."

She pulled me into a small kitchen which was connected to the main living area, filled with boxes containing random items and cleaning supplies, and large containers of blood here and there. Sliding a few containers to the side to give us more space to work with, she began rummaging in the fridge and pulling out a bunch of ingredients.

"Why do you have a kitchen?" I questioned, assisting her with bringing out some of the ingredients.

"You never know when you'd need a kitchen." She opened up her iPad and began scrolling through the recipe she'd found. "Now, we need 175 grams of sugar."

Once we'd finally finished baking and icing the cookies we couldn't even eat ourselves, we left the plate of them on the receptionist's desk with a little handwritten note that said; 'Help yourself to cookies, I baked them myself (I promise I didn't poison them or anything), merry Christmas! Eliana xx'

Fast forward a few hours which were spent sitting curled up on beanbags watching every Christmas movie we could find, and it was 6am the next morning, which we considered to be Christmas morning. Jane and Alec had joined us as well, but their festive spirit wasn't nearly as obvious as ours.

Chelsea must've been keeping an eye on the time, because I had been sitting curled up on a beanbag with her when she shot up straight excitedly and began squealing like a mad person. Jane groaned and hid her face in Alec's shoulder exasperatedly.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas was still playing in the background while Chelsea sat herself cross-legged under the tree and began handing everyone's gifts around. A few weeks back, I'd suggested we did a Secret Santa so that everyone got one gift, which everyone thought was a great idea.

Jane opened hers first, which was the gift I'd gotten her. Inside was a brand new iPhone, the latest model, that I'd had to pay extra for because technically it hadn't been released in Italy yet. She gasped and everyone fell into an eerie silence, slowly turning their heads to me.

Afton seemed completely bewildered. "Eli!"

"Oh, how did you guess?" I giggled.

"You're the only one here who'd ever be able to afford that."

"Do you like it?" I asked Jane. "Because if not, I can always exchange it for an Apple gift card or-"

"No, no, no, no, no!" she cut in. "I actually do like it, thank you."

I smiled at her just as Felix huffed. "Eli, can you buy me a new phone?"

"If I get you for Secret Santa next year, then sure." I shrugged.

Chelsea frowned. "Now my gift for you is going to look terrible."

"No it won't," I insisted, tearing off the wrapping paper in one swipe. "I'm sure I'll love it either way. I'm really not difficult to buy for, too easy to please to be honest."

Under the wrapping paper was a soft beige teddy bear jacket. A grin spread across my face as I held it up to gasp at it and turned my attention to Chelsea.

"As if I wouldn't like it," I scoffed disbelievingly, pulling her in for a hug. "I love it, thank you!"

"Really? You do?" she questioned sceptically.

I pulled the jacket over my shoulders, and the sleeves were a little too long so I could curl into it easily. "Uh, yeah, I was actually going to buy a jacket like this, so you saved me a lot of bother."

The rest of the gifts handed out were pretty average Secret Santa gifts, mostly comprising of random clothing items, cosmetics, and Christmas socks for some reason. Once we were all finished unwrapping gifts, we settled back in front of the TV in true holiday fashion with bottles and mugs of O-Positive which we found stashed away at the back of the kitchen under all of the B-Negative bottles.

Half way through watching Elf, someone knocked on the door. "Come in," I called, my head resting against Jane's shoulder.

The door creaked open and Sofia and Lillie were both standing in the doorway. "Can we, um…join you?" Lillie asked.

"What, just to superglue my hand again?" I snarked lightly.

"I really didn't expect Aro to figure that one out so fast," Sofia mused.

"You're terrible at covering your tracks, that's why. Even that section of Aro's quarters had you scents all over it," Alec pointed out. "Didn't you think to cover it up with the stuff we gave you?"

"We did!" Lillie insisted, the pair of them inviting themselves inside in anyway and settling down with the twins.

Santiago turned his attention to the conversation. "Wait, you both superglued her hand?"

Sofia shrugged. "We superglued her phone to her hand. It was a prank, pretty much everyone found it funny."

"Literally no one found it funny except for you four," I gestured to the four kids in the room, "and Marcus because he can't help but laugh at me at every given opportunity."

"But that ended well for you in anyway, no?" she asked. "Because we heard what happened afterwards."

"What happe—oh." My face sunk in realisation of how loud I was that time.

"Why the hell were you so loud?" Demetri asked confusedly.

Afton shook his head. "No one wants to know."

"Well, literally anything with a true mate is supposed to be absolutely mind-blowing," Renata added. "But for a second, you sounded like you were being strangled-"

"When we're quite finished," I raised my voice over the chatter, "talking about my sex life, why are you two here in anyway?" I asked Sofia and Lillie.

They glanced between each other and then back to me. "I dunno," Sofia shrugged, "bored. The adults are still talking, and we needed something to do."

"I love how festive it is in here," Lillie said. "I was turned in the 80s but my coven doesn't do much for Christmas so I pretty much miss out every year."

"So…you're not that much older than me," I realised.

"When were you turned?" she asked.

"August," responded.

"August…?"

"August 2006, as in this year."

"The kings met you while you were still human?"

"Um…yeah, I used to be their little human pet until I got kidnapped by the Romanians, then I became their little vampire pet. Anyway, past is in the past, I'm not that bothered by it," I insisted.

Was I bothered by it? Maybe. Did I sometimes wish I was still human? Maybe. Being human had its perks, such as the fact that I could sleep curled up with my mates, and I could eat and digest Christmas cookies, and I was warm, actually warm.

Another knock sounded on the door, this one harsher than when Sofia and Lillie knocked. I glanced up at the door from my train of thought. "Yeah?"

Caius appeared in the doorway with a little smirk on his face. As soon as I saw him, I ran into his awaiting arms and hugged him tightly while he nuzzled into my hair.

"Merry Christmas, carissima," he murmured.

I giggled and kissed his lips softly. "Merry Christmas, babe."

I felt something suddenly hit the back of my head shortly before Lillie's voice chimed in. "Ugh, get a room."

I turned around and picked up the plastic bauble that she'd thrown at me, hurling it back at her. She caught it easy and we both stuck our tongues out at each other. Caius scowled at Lillie before dragging me back out of the room and closing the door.

"Ooh, do you like this?" I motioned to my new jacket. "Chelsea got it for me."

He smiled and scooped me into his arms. "It is adorable." He nuzzled back into my hair. "I missed you," he murmured quietly.

"I was only gone for a few hours," I laughed, "but I missed you too, Caius."

I felt the air suddenly whipping past us and realised he was running towards his room. Once we got outside his door, he shifted my weight to one arm in order to open the door and placed me back on my feet inside.

Aro got up from the sofa and stood in front of me. "Il mio amore, merry Christmas."

I wrapped my arms around him and purred lightly into his chest. "Merry Christmas."

A second pair of arms wrapped around my waist and I yelped as Marcus tugged me backwards onto the bed in his arms. "Merry Christmas, tesoro," he chuckled and kissed my forehead.

"Merry Christmas." I cupped his cheek with my hand and shuffled backwards on the bed to sit with my back slumped against the headboard.

Aro and Caius toed off their shoes and sat either side of me while Marcus placed his head on my chest and rested his entire weight on top of me. If I was human, he definitely would've crushed a few bones.

Aro curled into my side. "I apologise but we did not buy you anything for Christmas this year, cara mia."

"It's okay," I assured them, ruffling Marcus' soft brown hair, "I didn't want anything in anyway, you three are enough of a gift for me. That sounded cringey, didn't it?"

Caius shook his head and pressed his nose against my neck to inhale my scent. "Not at all. It is a shame we have to share our gift."

"When cloning is possible, I'll make two clones of myself so you can all have one each," I joked.

"I'm claiming the original," Marcus announced.

"Brother, you do not get the original," Aro argued. "I get the original."

Caius scoffed. "Why should you get the original, brother? We all know I am her favourite."

"No, that would be me you are thinking of there, brother," Marcus countered.

"Children!" They all suddenly went silent and turned their attention to me. "Geez, you're acting like a bunch of 3000 year old toddlers, for goodness sake. I feel like, if we ever could have kids, they'd be more mature than you. I love all three of you with every fibre of my being equally. Happy now?"

Aro purred and kissed my shoulder. "We do not deserve you."

"Oh, shut up, I don't deserve any of this whatsoever. I'm just a completely boring normal girl who was hurled into the world of the supernatural. I don't deserve you three in any way."

Marcus' expression hardened. "Do not speak of yourself so lowly. You mean more to us than you could ever imagine."

Caius pointed to the ceiling which prompted me to glance up. "Mistletoe," he pointed out.

I giggled. "You really did think this through, didn't you?"

Rather than respond verbally, he brought his lips to mine passionately. Marcus' lips gently brushed against my stomach while Aro sucked on my neck, causing a soft moan to escape me. In that moment, every concern of mine over the next week disappeared. All I needed was them and I was happy.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

Author's note: Merry Christmas in July I guess haha! This chapter was so sweet to write, especially all of the fluff with the kings at the end. I feel like I'm pushing the confrontation very close to the end of the story, but it should be fine aha.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading, be sure to leave some feedback because I love to hear your thoughts, stay safe, and ily lots!