AN: Thank you for those of you that have left me reviews and encouragement. Special thanks to my friend queequeg for helping me formulate the beginning of this chapter. Praise and constructive criticism is always appreciated from anyone so that I can keep improving on future chapters.

"Stand up, look forward and keep quiet." I was on my feet before the sentence was finished, so startled to hear that voice, sure that he couldn't really be standing right behind me.

I took in a deep breath and sure enough there was not a trace of his sweet scent in the room. It took every ounce of my resolve to keep my emotions in check and continue my marble façade. That voice would never lie to me; in fact, it was more honest with me than I was with myself. Still, hearing that velvety voice always left me disorientated.

"They are too interested now to do anything to you, wait, we'll be there." That last comment made me flinch just a little. Deep down I knew it was true. My family was on their way and would fight for me if they needed too. I wish they wouldn't though. It wasn't fair that I had thrown their life into such tumult.

Aro was eyeing me with hungry eyes. He looked almost like a child in a toy shop and I was the newest gadget he wanted to play with. My sudden change in position seemed to excite him, as if there was finally a game to play. I realized that he probably did see this as a game—perhaps chess. He was trying to maneuver his army to try to force me to surrender. Or perhaps it was just not me that he was expecting to surrender but Edward and Alice as well. Edward always said that it was at the back of Aro's thoughts every time he saw him.

There was no way to stop my family from coming so I may as well not cause them to arrive with only a bonfire left to rescue. We were safer as a whole now and I knew it was foolish to try and play the martyr. Often times the martyr ended up being the cause of a great war.

I still had a lot to learn but I found it easier to act a bit more logically these days. Perhaps it was how fast my mind was processing everything. It gave me more time to consider all the possibilities. In fact lately I began to feel I was even becoming predictable but the others still insisted that I was one of the most erratic people they have ever met. I still hadn't decided if that was an insult or a compliment.

Marcus was frustrated with this situation. If Edward was here it would have been interesting for him but he had a hard time understand the individual. In fact if any of the family were here I could tell he would have been more interested. As it was, I was a single person with no relationship he could analyze.

It was easy to understand how fascinating Marcus must find relationships could be. Just watching the three rulers standing together was intriguing for me. The two female companions always stayed back in the wings and made no move for dominance. I thought back to the façade of leadership Laurent put on in James's coven and couldn't help but sense a similarity. Both Jasper and Emmett were quick to jump at what ever Alice and Rosalie pushed them to do and I wouldn't be surprised if the two mysterious women had a similar level of influence.

Caius seemed resigned. Being the only one of the three not to have an additional power to strengthen him, the power of his guard was of more importance to him. He had seemed the most intimidating to me because those without power tend to abuse it when they get control of it. I expected some amount of anger right now, or even fear. While those emotions had flashed across his face at first, he settled on just giving into the situation.

As a family we had discussed the possibility of Caius putting up the most resistance to our family getting so large. Large families drew attention. Large families were also covers for large armies. While the Volturi knew very well that we were likely the least violent of any coven in existence, we also had the potential among us to be the most deadly.

Right now would be a good time to have Edward. I am decent at reading people's expressions but it is far easier for people to lie with their body language than it is to lie with their thoughts. These men could be dangerous if they wanted to. For a change something was going right for me and they hadn't decided to get dangerous…yet.

Onlookers were shifting uncomfortably all around the room. Clearly none of them had the ability to predict what was going to happen either. This had not been a planned meeting so there was no heads up from Alice on what to expect. For the first time in a very long time it felt like we were all truly living in the moment. There was no one to reassure me or give warnings on what to avoid. There was no one here to give the Volturi the upper hand in persuasion. As long as there was no one here I cared about, they were powerless…or so I thought.

Aro stretched a fragile looking finger toward Alec and motioned for him to come. Without saying a word Alec slipped his hand into Aro's as both of them stared on at me. A frown stretched across his face and what seemed like hours of silence was finally broken.

"Please come forward Irina."

I was expecting that the silence would have been broken by some type of question directed at me and had almost forgotten Irina's presence in the room. My eyes darted over to the group of gossipers I had seen her disappear among earlier and I saw that they had separated with each half pushing themselves as far away from the interloper as possible. She looked vulnerable standing there exposed and by herself, the center of attention now. I felt a surge of pity for her but quickly reminded myself that she had most likely wanted me dead by bringing me here.

Irina moved as slowly as she dared to stand in front of Aro. As he lifted his hand I was reminded again of how strangely delicate his skin looked. He brushed Irina's cheek and while I knew his skin was as durable as mine I still expected it to flake off as he touched her. A wicked glint flashed in Aro's eyes as he saw all of the information inside of Irina's mind. Edward always told me the women of the Denali clan had a colorful past but refused to go much further than that. I often suspected he was trying to avoid making me jealous of them. While he never actually did anything with them I hated the idea of Edward being sought after by another woman.

"You have an odd definition of friendship Irina," Aro started with a chuckle but then his face grew very cold. "You also have an odd definition for the used of our guard. While we appreciate having Bella here, you would have been wise not to lie to us about the Cullens' intentions."

Irina cowered back under the force of Aro's burning stare; she had no intention of contradicting anything Aro had to say. That was wise seeing as how Aro was the only person better than Edward at finding out every secret a person had ever kept.

Turning just slightly towards his brothers, Aro summarized what he had seen inside Irina's mind. She had spent months plotting some way to get revenge on the Cullens. It appeared that Jane had stopped by after the incident with Victoria to make sure every loose end was cleaned up. Since Victoria had been up there several times to visit Laurent Jane had made sure that the Denali clan had no intention of continuing Victoria's footsteps.

It was then that she had discovered that Laurent was killed because of me and not because he had just wandered across a pack of hungry werewolves. From that moment Irina wanted to see me dead. She didn't care about hurting the Cullens even though she had been their friend far longer than she had been intimate with Laurent. When Carlisle had called Tanya to tell her about our planned trip to Volterra, Irina knew she would need to act quickly. She had sent a message to the head of the Volturi guard stating that she overheard a conversation in which the Carlisle's coven intended to run away to an unknown place to avoid their scheduled meeting over Bella's sentence. That was when Alec got involved and let Irina plan the ruse to kidnap me.

Suddenly it made sense why Alice hadn't seemed the threat coming. Since the day Edward bit me Alice had focused all of her attention on the Volturi. She was waiting to see if they would send someone to try and pull me away from the family. What she hadn't expected was that someone outside of the Volturi would come up with that exact plan. Since Alec didn't actually know what the plan was or where he was going, Alice was unable to see him coming to kidnap me.

I was starting to become impressed with all the effort Irina had put into this. She didn't want to get her own hands dirty killing me and so she had devised a plan to get the Volturi to take care of her problem. While she wanted revenge, she was no longer a murderer and could not bring herself to even kill another vampire. What she didn't account for was how intrigued the group already was by me and that they wouldn't do away with me quickly as she had expected. The Volturi were not ones to take nicely to being manipulated.

The brothers talked in hushed whispers to one another and after several moments it appeared they had come to some kind of decision. As always, Aro was the one to make the command.

"Jane, please teach Irina what happens to those that think they can control the Volturi."

In an instant Irina was on the floor screaming and writhing in pain. The pang of pity I felt for Irina before surged to the forefront of my mind and before I knew what I was doing I screamed out, "NO!"

Irina stopped writhing and the entire room stared at me in silent shock. Jane's eyes had glazed over for an instant but as I stumbled back in surprise they regained their menacing glint. She looked infuriated with me and I couldn't understand why. Why had she listened to me crying out? Why…

By mouth fell open as I realized the answer to my own question. She hadn't been listening to what I was saying. I had not called out with just my voice but also my mind without even understanding what I was doing. In that moment when I focused on wanting to shield Irina from Jane's mind, Jane had stopped against her own will. It made no sense to me.

Slowly I turned my head to look at every face staring back at me and realized that it didn't make sense to any of the others either. When finally my eyes found those of Aro again I was taken aback.

There was triumph in his eyes.