Based on the characters created by Stephanie Meyer, in her Twilight Saga series of books

HOME BY TWILIGHT

Chapter 6

The Cullens had gathered in the front room, with the map and fireplace. The stairs ran behind them, directly across from the fireplace. The large opening at the foot of the stairs contained the front door, and the entryway to the dinning room and the front room. There was a very large table in the dinning roon, and the humans all sat at the far end, toward the door to the kitchen. Connie was busy making sure they were fed a proper meal. Esme soon took over the serving, and allowed Connie to sit next to Tony and find out how the day had gone.

"Well," He started, "We'd still be out there if it weren't for the Cullens."

Esme lifted an eyebrow and smiled.

Tony saw it and smiled back, "It usually takes us two or three days, to do what we did just today. Oh!" Tony turned his attention to Jenna. "I turned Drifter loose before I came in. He headed straight for the canyon."

"Good," Jenna nodded. "He'll help keep the mares calm and together in the canyon, until they're able to run free again."

"Yeah," Bill looked down at his plate. "Looks like they ripped the guts out of the herd stallion first thing," Bill began to devour his food, without tasting it.

Jenna, sitting next to Bill, reached for his hand, "Drifter will cover those mares now. The herd will be stronger for it." She let his hand go, and Bill continued to eat at a slower pace. This time, tasting his food.

Jacob, trying his best to behave civilized, devoured as much food as he could get on his plate. It took only minutes for the humans to realize that setting anything in front of Jacob, meant that it would not reach anyone else at the table.

During a short interlude, when Jacobs mouth was nearly empty, he put in his two-cents. "We need to discus the issue of the attack on the truck."

"What attack?" Connie looked around at the faces of those at the table.

Everyone looked a little bit guilty, but Tony simply looked at his plate and continued eating, as if the topic had not been brought up. Hearing that the discussion had changed, the rest of the

Cullens came in and took up the empty seats at the other end of the long table.

"Antony Micheal Gutierrez !" Connie straightened in her chair.

"It was nothing," he smiled at her. "Alice was in the truck with me and Jasper was running along side. When they saw the wolves, they worked together and killed them. A beautiful sight it was. The tiny Lady Alice ripping the head off that beast. The the way she and Jasper played with the other. I missed the rest of that one. I was too far away by then."

"If we're going to get this all on the table, then I need to tell you all something the werewolf said, before Alice joined me."

Edward straightened in his chair and grabbed Bella's hand and squeezed it.

" These werewolves have great control over their transformations. He only turned back to human enough to speak. He said," Jasper chose his words carefully, for the sake of the humans, but Edward already knew what the werewolf had really said. "next time they would be going for the girls. Both of them."

Every one at the entire table stopped what they were doing. As if on cue Nita and Renesmee came bounding down the stairs, laughing. Rose was right behind them. Nita ran to her parents and gave them both a huge hug, then sat down by them to eat dinner. Renesmee placed her hand on her father's face, and then her mother's. She grabbed each of their hands for a moment, then went to join Jacob.

"Perhaps the girls should eat upstairs," Connie suggested.

"No!" Jenna responded. "Nita is old enough to understand what is happening. She can feel the tension that we all feel. As for Remie, I refuse to call her Nessie. She, in no way, resembles a sea snake. But she knows what is happening. There is no sense in trying to hide it from her. She may as well hear it first hand, rather than pull it from you later."

Bella wasn't sure she agreed, but Jenna was right about one thing. If Renesmee wanted to know something, she would find a way to discover it. She had been found questioning Jacob, while he slept, just three nights ago, before they had come here.

"They obviously didn't know that we were here," Jasper spoke up. "Our interception at the truck was a complete surprise. That may be the only reason we were able to take them out so easily."

Jenna pushed her plate away from her and shook her head slowly. "I am so sorry," she lifted her head to look at the Cullens, and then settle on Bella. "It was never my intention to put you all in a position like this. We knew the werewolves were in Deeth, but up till now, we haven't had much trouble out of them."

"I thought that werewolves had been exterminated by Caius, several centuries ago," Esme added to the conversation, while she helped Connie clear away the dinner dishes and bring out the coffee and pie.

"Caius is an idiot,"Jenna spit out. "In some ways, he's worse than Aro. Both of them, punch drunk on their own self-importance." Jenna noticed the wide eyed stares from the Cullens. "What? Did you think I didn't know about the Volturi? The only decent one there is Marcus, and Aro has him tied in knots." Bella was still staring at her mother, wide eyed.

"Who are you?" Bella breathed quietly.

"I'm you mother, my dear Bells. And you have a lot to learn about yourself. It also sounds to me that you have been kept in the dark about a lot of things," Jenna looked at Edward.

He sat up straight and locked eyes with Jenna. He couldn't hold it though. There was something there that commanded respect and … Edward couldn't find the words to describe it. But, in terms Jacob would use; in any pack, she would be Alpha.

"As for the extinction of werewolves, Caius got almost all of them, worldwide. Unfortunately he missed a few of the most important ones. A couple of the strongest leaders."

"And you know this because...?" Rosalie spoke up.

"Because I've heard the story from them," Jenna responded. She looked over everyone then continued. "They had split up. One was in England, in hiding. But come full moon, he was in all kinds of trouble. The other was here. He had been living over in Utah. Calls himself a skin-walker. He's probably been there 300 to 400 years. He doesn't even remember. He spent most of his time as a wolf." Jenna sighed and shook her head slowly, "This pack may be some of his lot. He was working at breeding, rather than biting, to produce a new pack member."

"So he's been raping women for.." Jacob was ready to jump out of his seat.

"No!" Jenna slammed her fist on the table. "He married. Over and over he married. Three to four centuries is a long time to either be alone, or go through several mates." Jenna appeared to be lost in thought, for a few seconds. "He may have bred the gene until it mutated into what we have now, werewolves that can change at will."

"If we can get Carlisle back here with some testing equipment, and a good blood sample, maybe we can find out for sure." Alice suggested, while holding tight to Jasper's arm.

"I've got a fully equipped lab," Jenna announced. "Does Carlisle do DNA testing and research?"

"He has," Esme responded. "He's done some work, as to why vampires are able to handle sunlight now. What it is that has changed all vampires."

"Good," Jenna nodded her head. "Tomorrow we can start testing and see just what it is we are dealing with,"

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Bella asked.

"What dear?" Jenna responded.

"The blood sample. Carlisle will need a subject to do the tests."

"Oh, that. I thought that a couple or three of us would do a raid on Deeth and bring one back." Jenna was smiling. "They do have patrols. It should be easy enough to trank one and bring him back to the lab. I'm fairly sure I have a cage that will hold one. And that was the end of that.

Edward, Jasper and Jenna would leave at about midnight to capture a werewolf. Tony and Bill would check on the confinement cell and reinforce it, if needed. Everyone else would stay at the house with the girls. Rose, Esme, and Bella would do rounds to make sure the girls remained safe. Connie, who was very good at handling a gun, would be sleeping in the girl's room. Bill and Tony would stay in one or the lower floors of the house. They had decided that they would take turns sleeping.

The three found what they were looking for, at about 2AM. They had left on time, at midnight, but finding a lone target wasn't as easy as they had expected. When they did find one, they had to work fast. Jenna tranked the unsuspecting man, and the three fell on him and had him bound and gagged before the anesthetic had time to take effect. Jenna was thrilled that they had their unwilling guest bound, home and confined by 3:30AM. She smiled as she waved goodnight to the Cullens and went to her room to get some sleep.

"She's good" Edward commented to Bella, as soon as he found her on her rounds.

"I hope so," Bella responded as she leaned into him. "We're trusting the life of our daughter, on her ability to lead."

Edward held Bella tight as he looked out into the quiet desert night. He listened to the minds of those around the house. Both girls were excited about going out to help with the horses in a couple hours. Everyone else was worried about the safety of the children, except for Jasper, Jacob and Jenna. Jasper , after seeing Deeth, was mentally working on battle plans. 'Always the soldier' Edward thought to himself and gave a small crooked smile. Jacob was dreaming of pulling the heads from wolves that dared to threaten his Renesmee. This was OK with Edward, since he felt the same way. Jenna, Edward could not read. He was barely able to register her existence, but that was OK too. They all wanted the same thing; a safe place for themselves and their children. Edward thought about how it all might turn out, and came up empty. Alice was getting nothing.

Bella snuggled closer to Edward, as if she wanted to join him in his skin. He held her tighter, while she worked to open up to him. When her shield finally came down enough, Edward was flooded with a feeling of overpowering love. He moaned and buried his head into Bella's neck. "It will be alright," he told her. "I promise." But it was to late. Bella's shield surrounded them both, and the emotions she poured through him left him little choice. He grabbed her up, in his arms and began to run west, just a mile or two. Edward found a patch of grass to lay his wife on. As the night slowly disappeared, Edward did everything he could to rid Bella of all her feelings of inadequacy and fears for him and their daughter. It worked for the most part. By the time the sun began to rise, they both began to accept what was happening and the fact that they had to see it through. Today would be another day of revelations. And they were both ready for it.