AN: Sorry for the long gap between updates. School is kicking my butt. I will try to manage it better from now on. Review please :)

Chapter Seven

Max's POV

Ella didn't take the news well that her second fetus wasn't going to make it to infancy. She was in denial for two whole weeks as her stomach continued to grow larger with the accelerated werewolf baby boy inside her. Collin was equally as upset, but it was because his wife and imprint was determined to carry the second, undetermined baby to full term. With only two more weeks left until Carlisle's predicted due date, everyone was tense.

It tourtured me to see my sister so upset, but we all knew that Alice's visions were never wrong. That fact alone made it difficult to be in the house all the time. Alice was guilty for having the vision, Esme and Rosalie were grieving for the loss of a potential baby in the house, Edward and Carlisle were busy in the study trying to figure out a way around the ultimatum, and everyone else tried to stay out of the way of the emotional women.

So instead of being at the Main House, I spent a fair amount of time at Crew Headquarters. I would have just gone to the Black Residence, but my imprinted children needed time away from their future mates and this was the perfect oppertunity. Besides, Nudge II (or Nuala as she's long been called), and her husband Denver had the most precious little boy that I loved to set the kids up to play with.

"We're here!" Arian yelled at the top of his lungs as soon as we entered the house.

"If we wanted to yell, we could have had Nudge do it." My little Annie joked. Her eight year old mind found that hilarious for she burst into laughter as Nudge and Iggy merely ignored the jab. My motormouth flock member had calmed down a substantial amount since she became a half vampire thing like her husband. I guess it was her human trait.

No one was in the foyer, so we made our way to the living room where there was likely to be one of the resident experiments.

Serenity, now nineteen and still as pale as ever, glanced up from the book she was reading in the rocking chair to acknowledge our presence. Her brown eyes blinked in greeting before she turned her attention back to the oversized novel in her lap, her dark hair falling halfway in her face in response.

It was times like these that I was reminded again of how robotic she truely was.

I heard him before I saw him, but Kirby appeared from behind the couch a moment after he croaked nervously. His blonde hair was in disaray like he had been in a heavy makeout session and there was sweat sticking to the back of his patchy green skin so I had to wonder if Angel's double was behind the couch as well.

"Of course I'm not." Two-Two commented from behind me, having come out of the kitchen with a bag of raisins. Sometimes I forgot that she's a mindreader as well, but only because she didn't use her power as much as my youngest flock member did.

Her brown hair, the only thing that sets her apart from my Angel, was in two pigtails, hinting at the innocent age she was. Though her and Angel were both sixteen and had older boyfriends (though her's was only by a year), Two-Two seemed to be the more mature, reasonable, cautionous dater.

"Of course I'm more mature." Two-Two stated logically. "What kind of leader would I be to the Crew if I were always focused on my boyfriend?"

I rolled my eyes at that one. How many times had my own flock accused me of the opposite before Fang and I tied the knot?

"Hey, where is my double?" Nudge asked half jokingly.

"Right here!" Nuala responded from the top of the stairs. She was carrying her two year old son Jayden on her hip while Denver followed behind them with their five month daughter Karrim.

"Oh my gosh, you won't believe how much this kid weighs now. Like seriously, he's so big. All he eats is Wheaties and grains. I tried to get him to eat, like, normal food like we do, but that was a no-go. Takes after his father, of course, 'cause of the horse genes and all, but I mean, could they not eat something else?..." She rambled, passing Jayden over to Nudge for comparison.

"You're right, he does weigh a lot." Nudge commented, pulling at the boy's pant leg to get a good look at his little kickers.

"I think it might be more about his hooves weighing him down than his lunch though." Iggy replied logically, sizing up the oversized brown hooves in place of the two year old's feet.

Jayden was pretty much an exact duplicate of his father Denver. Both had semi-long brown hair that whips whenever emotional, warm brown eyes, and hove legs. The only thing they differed in was skin color; Denver was tan while Jayden looked more like Nuala and had a light mocha skin tone.

Karrim, on the other hand, had a dark tan skin tone, black frizzy hair, and brown eyes. She was a better mixture of the two twenty-year olds, though she did have Nudge's tawny wings.

"I wanna go play, Mommy." Jayden whined, kicking his little hoves at Nudge's stomach in an attempt to get free from her grasp.

"Now what did I say about kicking people?" Denver said sternly. "You could really hurt someone like that, you know."

But the two year old wasn't listening. He had already spotted Sierra and Arian.

The three of them were so used to these forced play dates that they actually became friends in the process. Though my son was three years older than both of them, he still managed to have a good time. That left Anastasia as "watcher" over the three younger children. Annie loved the position so there was no way I would ever take it from her, or even tell her that Iggy or Fang would usually be watching them from the window anyways.

"But I wanna plaaaaay." Jayden whined again.

By this point, Nudge had lowered him to the ground so he would stop kicking her and he took that as his chance to escape.

"Don't go into the woods!" Denver yelled cautiously like he always did.

"I won't let them." Annie reassured him as she kissed my cheek goodbye and hugged Fang's torso quickly. Arian had already run outside as well so she grabbed Sierra's little hand and lead the partial vampire outside towards the boys.

We spent the rest of the day talking with the Crew until we got an urgant call from Carlisle.