Hey everybody. Yes, it is still summer, and yes, I am still happy, so yes, I'm going to attempt to update regularly. So, real shocker, huh? I've had it planned out since Leah's jealousy attack, and I still got that. Sort of an inconvenient way to imprint don't you think? But now I've got one thing that needs to be said. A story can only go on for so long before it just becomes boring and pointless. I could try to stretch this out, but it's only got a few more chapters left in it. I wish I could say more specifically. Anywhere from one to three more after this. I'm kind of sad, but I think I can survive. So back to the story.

Last time:

It was Leah, and she had a very familiar goldfish-type look on her face. I glanced at what she was looking at. Lorenzo. Seth followed my line of vision and glanced from Leah to Lorenzo in rapid succession. He looked shocked and elbowed Jake.

"OH SHIT!"

At that point in time you probably could've knocked me over with a feather. I had barely eaten in days, Leah had just done the weird imprint thing, I had no idea what was about to go down in this room, and Seth was there.

"Leah, this is not a good time!" Jake pleaded. I'm pretty sure it did nothing at all. The other wolves had interesting combinations of shock and amusement written on their faces. Except for Sam. He seemed almost resigned through his normal calm expression. Figured.

Seth tapped Leah's shoulder. The moment her concentration was broken she looked first shocked, and then marvelously overjoyed. Lorenzo, poor guy, was probably trying to figure out what the heck was going on here.

"Could we stop the drama and get this over with?" called out Nessie. I really admired her guts. This was a scary and delicate situation. I knew that even though the Volturi weren't necessarily looking for a fight, one could easily still take place.

The vampires on the good side looked like they would agree. They however thought a fight was imminent.

"Hello Carlisle, my friend," said that soothing voice front and center of the dark side. Aro.

"Hello," Carlisle answered. "We mean you no harm. We have no desire to overthrow you."

"Speak for yourself," muttered a heavily accented vampire with a similar creepiness to the Volturi. He sounded exactly like Dracula. I shuddered. Seth looked at me, concerned.

"If you could please let the girls go free, then we could all perhaps come to a compromise," Carlisle continued, as if the Transylvanian hadn't spoken.

"Oh, you see, that is where you are wrong. I knew you never planned to fight us. I've shaken your hand many a time before. It all comes down to the hybrid."

"What does? And why do you want her?" Mind reader was back. Edward was also looking more paternal than is strictly healthy for a teenage boy to look. Then again, I was pretty sure he was older than he appeared.

"Well your Renesmee is so enchanting. It got me to thinking. I've decided to make a study out of these hybrids and find out what makes them different from us and from humans. Their body temperature, for instance, seems to come neither from the human side nor the vampire side." I'd heard this all before, but I still found it sick.

"You took my daughter for one of your sick experiments!" Bella... Well, if you've ever heard of what a bear does when her cub is threatened, Bella looked like that. Only, being a vampire, she made it look good.

"I assure you, dear Bella, that no harm has come to your child. In fact, she is not the only hybrid I have been studying. May I present my son, Faustus?" Aro sounded too calm for anyone to fully realize what he was saying. When he brought the kid forward, that was when all hell broke loose.

The vampires and wolves on the good side looked outraged. More than outraged, they simply looked disgusted. Couldn't say I blamed them. The person the most so was Bella. Definitely couldn't blame her. She was the survivor of the vampiric pregnancy. She knew. The rest of the Cullens had similar looks. Witnesses.

"So, you see. It's all fine. They have been quite safe. And I assure you I would not have taken the human if she had not witnessed Renesmee's leave. It would have been awful for this whole project to fail just because you would not allow her to come to Volterra. In fact, you can have the human back now." The human. Nice, Aro. Then I realized that I was free.

I've never been much of a runner. More of an indoor girl. But I swear I ran faster than any human I'd ever seen. Right into Seth's arms with an impact that would've knocked over a normal sized guy. But Seth wasn't normal. He was extraordinary. And it felt extraordinary to be lifted off my feet, and into a kiss that burned like fire, and not because the wolves ran such temperatures, either.

I wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I possibly could, and clung there for several long heartbeats. Seth, on the other hand, was gentle, as if I were breakable, or just precious. It was so comforting, so familiar, and yet at the same time so passionate and new that it left me breathless. I probably would've gone on longer if Seth hadn't pulled his lips away from mine.

"Haley, we've got an audience," he whispered. I flushed and loosened my grip. Whistles sounded from the other wolves. Everyone looked like they were on the verge of smirking. How I managed to get myself into these things...

Seth's arm wrapped around my waist and I leaned against him, suddenly tired from the last few days, the little sleep, and even less food, plus I was getting a headache from straining to see without my glasses. He was nice and warm, too.

"But why did you steal Renesmee? You..." Bella couldn't seem to get the words out.

"Oh Bella. If I had asked, would you have let me do a study on her? No," Aro sounded infuriatingly patient, as if he were trying to explain something to a kindergardener.

"Of course I wouldn't have! And you have your own spawn to experiment on!" Bella cried. Faustus looked shocked. Poor little kid, only a baby, really. I bet he'd never been shown any affection by his own father.

"But I simply had to make some comparisons. Are all hybrids made equal, or are some more humanoid than others? Some are venomous and others are not." Here he shot a greedy look at a dark skinned, good looking young man I had missed in my examination of the scene. Dang vampires. Made me lose my glasses. I realized that he must be a hybrid too. It explained why he wasn't pale at all. Jeez, how many were there?

"You've had your experiment. You've abducted my daughter. This is over, and we're going to return with Renesmee," Edward looked plain scary. This was the tone of voice someone uses when they expect to get what they want. This was the tone of voice someone uses when they are not going to take no for an answer. Aro saw that. He'd been around the track a few times. He knew a lot, including when to stop, but he wasn't quite finished.

"You see, Edward, we are quite evenly matched. I don't believe we should give in to all of your demands." The surrounding evil vampires looked hopeful, but Nessie looked scared. "I shall let her go with you, as long as you make the journey here every few months for a few years. I should like to compare how Renesmee and Faustus grow."

All the Cullens looked angry. Jake even more so. Carlisle was the only one who kept his head.

"I believe that is the best offer we shall receive. There is just one more thing I would like to discuss."

"Oh?"

"It is about your human... servant. One of our number seems to have grown quite attached to him." Leah perked up. Lorenzo just looked more confused.

"Indeed."

"Would you consider letting him go free, as he is now a part of our world?" Lorenzo now looked scared. Honestly, did he think that he'd been changed into a vampire without his noticing?

"But he did have such potential! I was actually considering changing him. I highly suspect that he will have greatly beneficial abilities."

"Are you kidding me? Do you honestly think anyone would go around telling people that vampires and werewolves exist after you scared them like that? And you've got enough power for one collection! Get over it!" Wow. I knew Leah was intimidating at times, but to say something like that to what amounted to the vampire king... That took some gumption.

Aro actually looked amused. He had some nerve. He looked at Nessie and Lorenzo and sighed. "I suppose so. So that covers that. Unless there is anything else someone wants to bring up." He glanced around as if daring someone to speak.

Nessie didn't bother waiting. She dashed straight into her mother's arms and was swept into a giant circle of love by Bella, Edward, and Jacob. I smiled, I missed my family too.

Leah walked up to Lorenzo and stuck her hand out, the star-struck look on her face identical to her brother's.

"Hi, I'm Leah. You want to get out of here?" I smirked up at Seth. I knew this story.

Everyone on the forces of good walked out of the room, grumbling about wasted time and their relief that no one would die today. The exceptions to this being the two creepy Transylvanian ones. They were grumbling about their empire and how they were all destined to fall, or some such baloney.

I was all set to follow them out when Seth swept me back up and started carrying me as if I were a small child.

"I can walk, you know," I mentioned.

"I don't think so. Have you seen yourself? Your parents aren't going to have any trouble believing you were sick." Well, so much for my looks. Then again, I hadn't washed my hair in a while, or slept, or eaten, or done anything much. And I was pretty sure I had bruises where Felix's shoulder had slammed into me when he and Demetri did the kidnapping. God, and I thought I had problems before.

"Sick?"

"You're officially staying with Dr. Cullen because you came down with a rare case of something-dangerous and I am officially skipping school."

We emerged into a beautiful city covered by a darkening sky, the sun far gone beneath the horizon. I had hardly noticed it last time, shocked state that I was in, but this was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. This was Italy. I'd always wanted to see Italy, under different circumstances of course.

"I would've come earlier, but we had to wait until the sun went down. Glittering." I almost snorted at the thought of these beautiful, deadly people glittering in the sun. It was as if someone had gotten the myths for fairies and vampires confused.

It took a lot of large cars to fit everyone. They were left a ways away from the castle where the Volturi lived, presumably so as not to draw attention to it. With most of the pack squeezed into one, it was a fairly tight fit. I, probably because I was the kidnapped one, was allowed a window seat, with Seth next to me. The movement of the car was soothing, and Seth's long arms wrapped around me, holding me against his chest, felt safer than any seat belt. Before long, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, the car had stopped, and we were in Rome. I piled out with everyone else, shooting a warning look at Seth when he shot me a worried one.

It seemed like everyone was splitting up at this point. Most of the vampires were headed in different directions, before I could utter one 'thank you', the only ones left were the Cullens and five others who also had gold eyes. Seth pointed them out as Tanya, Eleazar, Carmen, Kate, and Garrett. I turned my attention to Leah and Lorenzo.

"Sorry we can't get you any farther by car. Unless you wanted to come to America or something..." Leah looked flustered for the first time.

"There is nothing for me here," Lorenzo said in his charmingly accented voice. I could tell he was making Leah want to swoon. "What am I, exactly, to you?"

Leah took a deep breath. "So you caught the part where I'm a werewolf right? So sometimes we do this thing where we imprint on a person the first time we see them. It's sort of like a really strong attraction. Like them." Leah pointed at Seth and me. I flushed. Seth put his arm around my waist and winked at me.

"Is this common?" asked Lorenzo.

"It isn't supposed to be, but it keeps happening so much that I guess it is."

"And if I were to go to America with you?"

"Well, it doesn't force you into anything. But if you wanted..." Leah blushed. This really was a day of firsts.

"I would love to."

"She works fast," I muttered to Seth.

"Maybe I should go give him a talk or something," he said back.

"That worked well when Leah did it," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Point taken." We went back to looking at them while Carlisle booked some tickets. They really did make a cute couple. Lorenzo was only about three inches taller than she, and they both had short, dark hair and names that started with L. So this was why people liked to be matchmakers.

I got another few hours of sleep on the plane. (First class seats! These vampires had cash to burn!) Seth and I spent the remainder of the ride home talking and catching up, apparently the Dracula-esque vampires were Vladimir and Stefan, and the other hybrid was Nahuel. Truthfully, we spent a decent chunk of time ignoring the stewardess' looks at our PDA. It probably didn't help that I could pass for sixteen at the very most and that he could pass for over twenty. Worth it.

It was morning, at least in Washington, when we finally touched down in Seattle. This traveling thing was beginning to get old. I stuck out the last car ride and got dropped off at my house. Carlisle made a big show of coming out and explaining a disease that neither my mother nor I had ever heard of. Good actor, too.

I suffered through the crushing hugs and exclamations of "We were so worried about you!" Sophie, my mother and my father all made a big show of shooing me up to my room to get some rest.

"I don't care if you're not contagious any more, you still should be in bed," Mom insisted. Even Chris and Dan came out from whatever they were doing and made sure I wasn't dead or anything. Thoughtful.

Later, I sat up in bed, a book in my hand, a bowl of soup on my bedside table, that dog curled up at my feet, thinking of Seth. I'd get out of the sickroom soon, and maybe he'd visit me beforehand. Hey, we were soul mates. There was no maybe about it.