A/N: This is officially my longest published story. : ) Thanks everybody for reading. A special thanks to my regular reviewers. I keep writing for you. (My other long story took me a couple of years to write… I've written more in one month for you guys! I guess it helps that I don't work…ha!) You wanted a quick update, well here you go! :D xoxo, see you on the update!

**Bonds**

Xenia ran through the house looking for her brother, but didn't find him; not in the kitchen, in their rooms, not with her parents or with Rose who had seemed to be very taciturn as of late.

"Papa, have you seen EJ?" she asked her grandfather.

"No not recently," Edward said from the piano, "why don't you come play with me, I'm sure he'll turn up?"

Xenia looked at the shiny mahogany piano, a smile spreading across her lips. Edward began her favorite piece by Beethoven and she wove in an intricate harmony inside of it.

"That's beautiful," Edward commented. "Maybe one day you'll get to play that for him," he said changing the melody from Beethoven to a beautiful piece from an old classic Jane Austen movie, "that is of course when this whole hiding business is over."

"Play for whom?"

Edward smirked and watched for Xenia's reaction out of the corner of his eye, "Carlisle's old friend, Beethoven."

"Like actually, Beethoven…" Xenia said discontinuing her rhapsody. "Huh, Beethoven's a vampire…"

"Shhh, don't tell anyone I told you… it's a secret," Edward said smiling, morphing the song into her lullaby.

"Secret… that's it!" Xenia exclaimed jumping up kissing her grandfather.

Where are you going? He asked.

"I know where he is… I'll be back later, once I found him." Xen called out to her grandfather.

Edward shook his head smiling and playing again, this time in improvisation.

Xenia ran from the house as fast as her legs would carry her to the tree she had chosen earlier that day. There she found her brother sitting at the base of the tree on a blanket, with food spread out in front of him. A large pizza and a book.

He saw Xeni appear immediately and his countenance lifted instantly.

She landed on the blanket and insinuated herself into a cross-legged position as if she were folded down in slow motion.

"I knew you would find me," Josiah smiled putting a slice of the thick pepperoni pizza in front of Xenia.

"Where did you get this from?" she asked taking a bite.

"We made it at the house," Josiah informed her. "Embry and Seth had steak instead," he said inhaling a giant slice. "I already know what you're thinking," Josiah said eyeing his twin carefully.

"No you don't," Xenia challenged.

Josiah squinted at her and smiled, "Okay then, astonish me."

"I was just wondering why you came out here instead of coming back to hang out with me and Damian?" she said peaking her eyebrow. That didn't happen to be the question she was thinking, but she wasn't about to be so easily discovered for what had been going through her mind, when in fact her twin had been correct about the question that floated beneath the surface of her eyes.

"I wanted to test the tree," Josiah said sarcastically, "now why don't you ask me the question you want to ask and stop playing coy," he challenged finishing another slice of pizza.

Xenia sighed with defeat because she couldn't fool her twin. "What, are you clairvoyant now too?"

"No, I just know you. I know what you're thinking…sometimes even before you know," he said smiling, "by the way your jealousy is cute."

"What jealousy. I'm not jealous."

"Oh aren't you?"

"No, what would I have to be jealous about?"

Josiah smirked again, wiping his mouth from the tomato sauce, "In as much as I already knew the question, you already know the answer, my sweet," Josiah said stroking her cheek with his finger.

"So you didn't imprint on Sasha?"

"No, don't worry. I'm still all yours. Even though you aren't mine," he said with bittersweet sorrow and a smile.

What's that mean? She asked sliding the remains of the food to the side in order to sit next to her brother.

One day you'll be over us… you'll have your Damian and I'll… I'll be fine. Don't feel sorry for me, I'll make it by okay.

"I'll always have time for you," Xenia promised.

"It's okay, you don't have to make me promises. I've see it how it is with our parents. Dad spends all his time with mom. I'm not saying he doesn't love us," he added quickly, "he just doesn't love us as much as he loves her…"

Xenia didn't have a response for his line of reasoning… "You're part of me…" she whispered.

"Aren't we part of him too?" EJ asked with an ironic smile.

"I don't feel sorry for myself Xen, I just realize that one day I'm going to have to deal with it… and seeing how fast we grow up, it will probably be sooner than later… I saw the way he looked at you," Josiah said casting his eyes down from her face.

What he and I have is different EJ, please believe me…Xeni pleaded picking his face up between her hands. Closing her eyes she embraced his mind into hers so that the feeling of love overwhelmed him more than words could ever express.

Xenia could feel the tension and the confusion that played behind his eyes as they gazed at each other and sighed, releasing him from her mental embrace.

Josiah rested his back against the tree, and Xenia arranged herself to lay her head on his thigh and they sat together in silence as the daylight fused and faded out.

Damian heard a knocking at the door while he sat at his desk writing longhand in a leather bound journal. Closing the book and placing it in a locked drawer, he called out, 'open', knowing who was behind the door. "Hello sister," he said smiling rising up from his leather chair, rounding the desk to greet his sister.

He smiled at her radical difference in appearance. Her leather bike suit had been changed for a knee length, white sun dress and her black hair lay uniformly against her scalp and down her neck, with a very pretty sheen. "How is my gothic rose?" he asked planting kisses in her palms, noting her bare feet and black polished toenails.

"Bored," she sighed and jumped gracefully landing in his favorite armchair by the fireplace. With her feet in the seat, she squatted down into the chair. "How can you stand this place where there's so much world out there?" she whined.

"The world has no appeal for me, honey, you know that."

"So what are you going to do? Sit here and vegetate for the next hundred years until the next society rises?"

"Perhaps," Damian smiled leaning against the back of the chair looking down at his younger sister.

"Don't you want to get out there and leave your mark?" she asked frowning up at his easy grin.

"It's pointless my love. We've had this conversation for decades. I'm content with collecting things, and my occasional diversions," he said stroking her hair.

"I've missed you," she said lifting herself up from the chair, kissing him sweetly on the lips on her way up then bounded over to the wall of books. "So are you going to tell me what's going on, or shall I have to figure it out for myself?"

"I don't catch your meaning…" Damian admitted, pouring himself a drink into the heavy crystal glass on the side table.

"You, this little girl, her whole family… what's the deal?"

"Aro."

"Did he try to kidnap her too?"

"No, actually he was successful… but in an overt way."

Sasha divined his meaning within moments, seeing it in his mind. "Son of a bitch!"

"Yeah, well now you know why we're involved."

"I bet daddy dearest is having a field day with his science and their species." Sasha said returning from a wall with a book and laid it on the table.

"Yeah, he is," Damian said surrendering his drink to his sister.

"Has mom begun any experiments with them yet?" she asked flipping though the book.

"No, mom kinda keeps to herself. We don't see her at all… she's in the middle of something I'm sure."

"So the whole Italy thing, crashing the masquerade is what exactly?"

"Just another move in the game," he said walking over to his chess board and rearranging the pieces.

"I brought you something." Sasha said smiling, "Even though I think it's a waste of gemstones, I got this for you," she said picking up the solid gold king and replacing it with a diamond encrusted piece, adding it to his other gemstone encrusted pieces. "I can never understand why you insist on spending untold billions of dollars making these things…"

"And yet you always bring me pieces…" Damian said smiling, inspecting the beautiful craftsmanship… "Are these all…"

"You've got a good eye," she smiled, "they aren't all flawless, but the lowest grade stone is VVS2 so ...for the most part, yes." she said. "I had that piece melted down from a couple coins from 1933 that I had laying around, but I got the stones from Russia," she said with a devilish grin.

"You know what I like," Damian said placing the piece on the gold chess board. "Shall we?"

"Next time… I hear your little girl coming down the hall, with whom I would guess to be her brother… I still have to go see our darling mother about some things."

"Why don't you stay?" Damian asked cajolingly. "Come in Xenia," he said before she knocked.

Damian caught Xenia's eyes give Sasha a once over and smirked.

"No, that's okay love, I'll see you a bit later…after the children go to bed," she laughed. She gave Xenia a strange sort of look and leaned over, kissing her brother deeply on the mouth, and departed the room, leaving the 'children' in shock at her blatant behavior.

"We'll play you," Xenia said gliding into the room with her brother following behind her. "I've been practicing."

"You should be in bed… do you realize what time it is?" Damian asked checking his watch.

"No, I don't know what time it is. What's it matter to a family who doesn't sleep?"

"You do sleep," Damian chided.

Josiah smirked but remained silent.

"Are you seriously making me go to bed?" Xenia asked in utter surprise.

"Yes little girl. You and your brother both have to go to bed."

"I already took a nap, besides, I'm not tired." She pouted.

"Don't take your little attitude with me, you're going, and that's the end of it."

Josiah took Xen by the hand, "Come on, I wanna go see mother anyway, and Aunt Rose has been acting very strange lately…"

"That's right, go… listen to your brother," Damian said dismissing her.

Xenia's eyes flashed in anger at his rude treatment.

"Stop standing there trying to think of evil things you'd like to do or say to me and go to bed you little monster," Damian said laughing and turning his back on her, infuriating her further. She disappeared down the hall before he turned around.

Damian set his jaw watching the hall down which she and her brother had vanished then returned to his drink and writing.