Once the confrontation was over, the witnesses were the first to head back home, making their own way out of Forks and back to their home countries. The guard then followed back to Italy and, an hour later, the only ones left in the large house in the woods were me and my mates.

I was sat in the middle of one of the sofas in the large front room with Aro and Marcus either side while Caius sat on the floor beside my feet with his head on my knees. We were all still in our outfits for the trial, although our cloaks had been haphazardly tossed into our suitcases.

I leant back into Marcus' shoulder while Aro silently wrapped his arms around my waist and cuddled into me. "Oh, and Nessie is so cute!" I squealed.

Caius raised a perfect eyebrow. "Nessie?"

"Mhm, she seems to prefer that name." I ran my fingers through his white blonde hair. "Considering she shares half of her DNA with Eddy boy, she's surprisingly smart and adorable. Who would've guessed?"

Marcus laughed. "You do not like Edward at all, do you?"

"Not since he pulled that stunt with Bella a year ago, no. Seriously, the boy claimed he didn't love her, left her heartbroken in the middle of the forest, and held a pity party for himself in South America. Since then, he has become one of my least favourite people, and I'm not exactly planning on letting him forget that. I can't really hate him because Bella's wildly in love with the moron, but I'm not part of the Edward Cullen fan club by any means," I explained. "Besides, it was his idea to decline my calls in the first place, so he's now gone even further up on my hate list. He's really not far off the Romanian scum now."

Caius briefly growled but the rumble died out quickly. "We must arrange regular visits to the Olympic coven," he said. "This is a very new and unheard of threat to our kind—which the girl is a threat, regardless of what the Cullen boy claims she is—so we must monitor and plan accordingly for every possible severe eventuality."

"What, just to make sure Nessie hasn't massacred the entire population of Forks while we're not there to supervise her?" I giggled.

He nodded. "Exactly that. We do not know enough about the child at all for her to be trusted fully."

I sighed. "If that will make you feel better, then fine. Every month, while she's growing so fast like they're feeding her nuclear waste or something, we'll visit the Cullens to check on her progression and all that. I'm just not sure if the Chihuahuas will like us much," I laughed.

"It is unbelievable to think we were able to provide you with a child this entire time," Marcus mused sadly.

"Oh babe, be glad you didn't impregnate me," I assured, pressing a kiss to his jaw. "Bella was literally dying on a hospital bed. She looked like she was in agony the entire time she was giving birth, I daresay worse than the pain Jane inflicts. The baby was so strong that she snapped Bella's spine, and Edward only narrowly managed to save her life."

"A risk that I am glad we did not take with you, carissima." Caius leaned into my hand and purred lightly.

Glancing over at Aro, he had his head just under my arm as he hugged me tightly with his face hidden in my dress like a frightened child gripping onto their mother. I adjusted myself slightly, but he still refused to let go of me.

"You're being quiet today," I teased lightly, since he pretty much always retorted back with some kind of witty response. Instead, he nuzzled further into my side, which worried me slightly. "Aro, babe, what's wrong?"

He took in a sharp breath. "Alice's vision," he mumbled with his voice muffled by my dress, clearly still upset by whatever he witnessed.

I sat up further so that I could see him better but he stubbornly didn't remove his arms from around me. Rolling my eyes, I held his face in my hands and lifted it up to my view, stroking back some of his jet black hair.

"Are you willing to tell me what you saw?" I asked and tilted my head to scrutinize the emotion behind his crimson eyes.

Reluctantly, he nodded and moved his head so that his face was again pressed up against my side. I placed my right arm over his shoulders, occasionally brushing back strands of his soft hair with my fingers.

"In this vision, a battle did indeed occur between us and the Cullens, initially provoked by Alice. Carlisle was the first to die, at the hands of myself, and we lost many lives in the conflict. Marcus and Caius both held you back to stop you from getting involved, which in turn forced you to spectate as the likes of Jasper Hale, Andrey, Tobias, Jane, Alec, Demetri, Afton, and Chelsea were killed mercilessly.

"Once Bella was attacked by one of our guard, you somehow escaped Marcus and Caius' hold, reaching her just in time to save her and decapitate said guard. You were—" he paused, "—you were then ambushed by some of Carlisle's nomadic allies. Between us 4 and Bella, with much assistance of your gift, we defeated them and remained unharmed, but then one of those—those mutt things," he began growling, "they…"

I think we all knew where he was going with his sentence as all three of them seemed to tighten their grip on me without even thinking about it. "They killed me, didn't they?"

At those words, not only did all three of my mates growl protectively, but they also all clung to me deathly tight as if they were scared to even risk letting me go. I'd already had it explained to me before how painful even the thought of a true mate dying can be, and that had been proven to me several times, whenever one of them would tell me that they would protect me with my life.

I didn't even realise I was purring that loudly or that I could make that much noise when I purred, not until we were all purring against each other. We simply enjoyed the silence, occasionally shifting a bit only to cuddle closer comfortably.

After a few minutes, I finally spoke up. "Oh yeah, and before we get too comfortable, I still need to do this." I whacked Caius around the head, not enough to injure him but so that he got the message, which made him glance up at my face and scowl at me.

"Why did you hit me?" he snarled.

"Why were you provoking a fight throughout that entire trial?" I countered. "I had to kick you in the leg consistently to get you to zip it."

He glanced down and shrugged. "I just wanted a fight."

"You want a fight, huh? You want a fight?" I began sitting up straight. "Okay then, let's fight. Bring it, blondie."

Aro and Marcus stood to the side so that they weren't in the way as Caius and I began sizing each other up from across the front room and attempted to intimidate each other. "Maybe this is not a wise idea, tesoro," Marcus warned.

I opened my mouth to reply but didn't get a chance when Caius' fist came flying at my face. I managed to duck backwards out of the way and perfectly time a kick to his side which caused him to fall sideways to the ground.

While he was still down, I bent over to hurl him against the wall, but instead he slammed me down onto the ground with his hands on my waist. Once he was satisfied with the sharp cracking sound coming from my spine, he threw me across the room and I narrowly missed the wall, instead rolling backwards through the doorway just into the hall.

"Don't you dare damage anything. I want my deposit back," Aro called over the sound of our fight.

Ignoring him, I stood back up to my feet and grabbed Caius firmly by his shoulders. I slammed him sideways into a small wooden side table which caused a ceramic vase to topple over the edge. It landed on the polished floor and shattered into hundreds of tiny fragments.

"Eliana!" Aro snapped.

I held my hands up in mock surrender. "Technically, it was Caius who broke it since he was the one who hit it off the table in the first place."

Since I was distracted, this provided the perfect chance for Caius to leap at me, tackling me down to the sofa. I giggled as he hovered above me but my laugh was cut off as his lips collided with mine. His tongue pushed its way past my bottom lip and battled for dominance against mine as I held him closely with one of my hands fisting his hair and the other grasping his shoulder.

"Caius, do not monopolize our mate for goodness sake," Aro grumbled.

Caius sat up again on the middle cushion of the sofa with me across his lap. Once Aro was sat down beside him, he pulled me over onto his own lap and cuddled me in his arms delicately, pressing soft kisses to my hairline. It was as if he was reassuring himself rather than me, seeking comfort in my physical contact with him.

"Now you are the one monopolizing Eliana, brother," Marcus chuckled, sitting back on his heels on the floor with his head in my lap while my legs were extended across Caius' thighs.

I twirled a strand of Marcus' hair around my finger. "Can I braid your hair? I think a French braid would look so cute in it."

He instantly grabbed my wrist and looked at me incredulously, as if I'd actually lost my mind for good this time. "Absolutely not, Eliana. You are not to braid my hair."

"Geez, chill out," I laughed. "Caius?"

He scoffed in disbelief at the idiocy of the question. "Never."

"Aro?"

"Unless you would be willing to face the consequences," the way he murmured that word against the skin below my ear made me shiver, "of doing so, piccola, then no."

I scoffed and crossed my arms. "You guys are no fun."

Marcus narrowed into my face so that the tips of our noses were insanely close to touching. "Hm, maybe we should demonstrate how much fun we can be, bellissima."

As much as that sounded like a lot of fun, I shifted away from him slightly with an awkward giggle since I knew that we wouldn't leave for hours if we began anything now. "When we get back, help yourselves."

Aro's nose skimmed across my jaw. "You are willing to make us wait?"

"You really don't have the self-control to wait a few hours?" I raised an eyebrow.

Caius hummed in denial and very quickly swooped down to press a kiss to the inside of my thigh. I playfully swatted him away and tugged the hem of my dress down slightly.

I stroked my fingers gently through Marcus' long hair which earned a deep set purr. "I promise, once we get home, whatever you want. But for now, keep it in your pants."

"You are so stubborn," Caius muttered under his breath.

"Me? Stubborn?" I laughed ironically. "Never, you love me really."

"That we will never deny," Aro chuckled, his fingertips absently tracing light patterns across my neck and collarbone. "I thought I was going to lose you," he murmured.

I kissed his cheek softly. "Nope, instead you get me for the next millennia or so, or at least until climate change destroys the planet like in The Day After Tomorrow."

Caius laughed. "You are more concerned about climate change than any genuine threats to your safety such as other enemy covens?"

I shook my head, lightly squeezing his hand and playing with his fingers. "No, I'm not really concerned about anything if I'm honest, because I know everything will pretty much turn out fine as long as you three are around.

"You're all I'll ever need."

THE END

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

Author's note: A short, uneventful, fluffy ending chapter to this story, sounds about right.

Oh geez, when I was writing this, it didn't really click in my head that this is the final chapter of this story. Damn, I never would've thought this entire series would come this far, yet I stand corrected.

Thank you to everyone who's stuck through with me this far. As you know, this little series is my first fanfic, so the fact that I'm getting so much support from all you lovely readers means the world to me, thank you!

For the last time, thank you so much for reading, be sure to leave some feedback because it's your comments and opinions that got me this far in the first place which I'm extremely grateful for, stay safe, and ily with all my heart!