The moment the house was clear of humans – which was sometime near midday – Charlie called for a pack meeting.

We sat quietly around the table in awkward silence. Bree was so nervous and had taken to sticking to my side like a barnacle. I couldn't blame her, what with all of the furious and distrustful looks the Cullen's were giving her – all except Esme, who was smiling warmly at the newcomer and seemed delighted at the idea of having another daughter to dote on.

"We are here to discuss the future of Bree." Charlie announced without preamble.

"Way to sound unnecessarily sinister, dad." I scoffed with a roll of my eyes.

Charlie ignored me – rude – and turned his gaze to Carlisle. "You said you have a suggestion."

Carlisle nodded and began to address the family. "Bree has expressed genuine interest in changing her lifestyle, she was forced into vampirism in the most violent of ways, something I believe all of us here can understand and sympathise with. That being said, I believe it is our duty to help her find her way-" Carlisle's very well rehearsed and obviously scripted speech was violently interrupted as multiple people began talking at once.

"You cannot be serious!" Rosalie scoffed.

While at the same time Edward barked out, "This is a terrible idea!"

Jasper was grumbling under his breath what seemed to be a slew of reasons why newborn vampires were dangerous and volatile at the best of times, and pointed out that with everything we had going on – graduation, moving states, and illegally changing our identities in an increasingly digital world where identity fraud was getting more and more difficult to get away with, all while being on the look out for an insane, homicidal vampire – we did not need anything else on our plates. I was honestly surprised by how much Jasper had to say about the identity fraud issue, apparently while he had volunteered for the job, it had become much more costly and burdensome since the last time Jasper had done it. The chaos around the table only seemed to grow as Charlie started a fringe discussion with Jasper about the issue, serendipitously sliding a plain white business card across the table, mumbling something about Jasper's guy calling Charlie's guy in order to sort everything out. I was torn between listening to the ongoing argument and wanting to ask how long Charlie had a 'guy'. The anarchy was amusing, especially because both Rose and Edward seemed absolutely aghast at having chosen the same side during a family disagreement.

"Quiet!" Carlisle boomed, and everyone immediately stopped speaking. He waited several moments, simply staring out at us over the silence, as if insuring we would remain quiet and listen to what he had to say. "Thank you." Carlisle continued, his voice returning to his soft and fatherly tone. "As I was saying, while I believe we have a duty to help Bree, I also think that right now, our family is woefully ill-quipped to fulfil this duty." Several members of the family took this as a personal rebuke and shifted uncomfortably in their seats. "So, I have taken the liberty of contacting our cousins to the north. They will be here just after sundown."

"Vampires have cousins?" I blurted.

"They're not actually our cousins." Edward murmured conspiratorially, "They're the family of vegetarians I told you about, the ones who live in Denali."

"You mean the ones thatlike you?" I retorted childishly.

"Only one of them fancies me." Edward quickly replied, as if that was any better.

"Stop. Talking." Jasper hissed across the table, attempting to stop his brother from digging himself any deeper. Which was a shame, really, considering how far I knew Edward could go. For a man who could read minds, he was surprising adept at saying the worst possible things.

"Are they nice?" Bree spoke quietly, as if she weren't sure she was allowed to speak at all, her muddy red eyes – dark from thirst and tinged from the animal blood she had gorged herself on – were wide and frightened.

"Yes." Carlisle answered kindly. "They live far away from humans, so they will be able to help you control your thirst," Carlisle paused for a moment, before continuing almost as an afterthought, "And they have experience in training those with … unusual Gifts."

"Okay," Bree nodded weakly. "Okay."

XxXx

All things considered, I was actually very excited to meet the Denali Coven. I just had to remember to keep my cool and not let the presence of a slew of unfamiliar vampires trigger my more volatile side. I never even considered that it wasn't me I should have been worried about.

As the Alaskan vampires emerged from the forest and walked across the back lawn of the Cullen's yard, Charlie growled furiously and launched himself over the railing of the back porch, too enraged to deal with something as trivial as stairs.

I was following him over the banister without a second thought – I didn't know which of the new vampires Charlie had beef with, or even why, but none of that mattered. My loyalty was to my dad, and I would follow him into the gates of hell, eager and willing.

Charlie collided with the only male of the group, with nails turned to talons he gripped the vampire by his jacket and threw him down onto the ground, a vampire sized divot appearing in the grass. I jumped over the pair, moving so my back was to the forest and I was facing the rest of the foreign vampires, Charlie and the male at my feet. My posture was lowered, but strong, and I made sure to keep each member of the new coven in my eye line. The Cullen's were still on the porch, stunned and unmoving, but their inaction only lasted a moment before they were all rushing onto the lawn.

"I should kill you." Charlie snarled into the vampire's face.

"And I wouldn't blame you." The vampire responded in a purring accent, it sounded vaguely European, his accent was both dangerous and familiar in equal measure. The way the strange vampire didn't fight back, the way his amber eyes flickered over Charlie's face, was all very intimate – alarmingly so.

From the corner of my eye I noticed a tall woman with strawberry blonde hair shift her weight – it was a small movement, infinitesimal, really, but it was enough to draw my attention. My eyes snapped to hers. "Don't." I warned in a growl.

Without breaking eye contact the tall one spoke. "Carlisle, do you want to explain what the hell is going on here?" She hissed venomously.

"I'm afraid I do not know." Carlisle responded, his voice calm and placating, always trying to keep the peace. "Charlie, what is going on?"

Charlie was straddling the male's torso, a hand tipped in pitch black 6-inch claws gripped him by the throat and the other was pressed against his chest. Charlie's lips twitched over his still human teeth as he snarled in the vampire's face, I could see my dad's gums were tinged red and as he spoke a small drop of blood fell from his mouth and landed on the vampire's cheek. "This… parasite is Volturi."

"Was." The vampire responded in his lilting voice. "I was Volturi."

"This is ridiculous!" A dark haired vampire exclaimed in a similar accent. "Eleazar left the Volturi centuries ago!"

"Charlie, why don't we take this inside and discuss this like civilised people?" Carlisle implored as he began to approach the pair on the ground. I eyed him warily, unsure if he posed a threat but unwilling to take the chance.

"He was there, Carlisle!" Charlie roared, turning his head slightly to spare Carlisle the smallest of glances. "He was there!" He repeated, turning back to the vampire beneath him, the vampire who was yielding, not trying to resist the wrathful werewolf in the slightest. "You were my friend, and you were there." Charlie's groaned whisper caused a shard of agony to ripple through my chest, causing my throat to tighten painfully.

"I know." Came the whispered reply.

The Denali's didn't know what to do, all of them casting fervent glances at the tallest blonde one – so she was the leader, good to know. With one of their own pinned beneath a werewolf, not fighting back, and the Cullen's clearly not about to step in and force the pair apart, they were adrift at sea with no stars to guide them.

I knew my place, knew my roll. I would stand here, keeping each of the strangers in my sight, ready to defend my dad until whatever this was, was over.

"When Carlisle called, I knew. Of course, I knew, who else would it be, but you?" The vampire rasped out, his voice strained by my dad's hand constricting his windpipe, tiny cracks began to appear in his skin from the strength of Charlie's grip. "A werewolf, by the name of Swan. Last I knew, there was only one Swan left."

"You made sure of that, didn't you?" Charlie growled, leaning down further, his face distorted by the feral snarl marring his features. "After what you did?"

"And I came anyway." The vampire choked out, ignoring the growling jibe. "I came, even though I knew you would want revenge."

"Why?"

"To help. To ask for forgiveness and-" Charlie's hand tightened, cutting off the words completely. "Mer-cy." The vampire gasped, the word stretched out into two breathless syllables.

"Mercy?" Charlie recoiled, his hold on the vampire's neck loosening. "You ask me for mercy? Tell me, Eleazar, did you give my sister mercy, as you stood and watched her burn?" Charlie threw himself off of the vampire, as if disgusted by the fact he had even touched him to begin with. Charlie stood up and glowered down at Eleazar who remained on the ground. "You do not know the meaning of the word." Charlie looked over to me, as if finally remembering that I was there, the prone vampire between us. Our eyes locked, his jaw clenched but his eyes softened minutely, I nodded my head once – message received. Charlie was going to explain everything, just… not right now. In a brazen move of fearlessness, Charlie turned his back to both me and Eleazar. The action saying better than words ever could, just how much of a not-threat Charlie considered the vampire. It also said just how much Charlie trusted me to have his back, just in case Eleazar changed his tune and decided to attack. "You vouch for this… leech?" Charlie asked Carlisle coldly.

Carlisle nodded. "I've known Eleazar for a long time. He is a good man, a good vampire. He's family." Carlisle didn't miss the way Charlie bristled at that. "I don't know what he did to you, but the Eleazar I know wouldn't hurt you, or your daughter. He has often expressed to me the guilt he feels over his time spent with the Volturi, and I… I am beginning to understand why."

"I trust you." Charlie heaved out a heavy sigh and turned back around. He looked down and scowled at Eleazar who was still motionless on the ground. "Carlisle calls you kin, that is the only reason I'm not tearing your head from your shoulders right now."

"This is inexcusable, Carlisle." The strawberry blonde hissed. "We come here, at your request, offering to take a newborn off your hands, only to be attacked by this… this animal!"

"You watch your mouth!" I snarled.

"Not helping, Tanya." Edward growled out the corner of his mouth.

"Why don't you ask your coven mate about what he did for the Three Kings? Get him to tell you the truth of his past, then come back and call me an animal." Charlie spat bitterly, barely holding on to his strenuous patience and boiling calm he spun on his heel and stalked around the side of the house.

I searched out Bree amongst the mass of vampires and found her next to Esme, small and trembling. "Go with them." I ordered, pointing to the Denali's. "Do as they tell you." And with that I hastily followed my dad.

XxXx

When we arrived back at our half packed up house, we had silently gone into the kitchen, made an extra strong pot of coffee and drank it together in silence. We were halfway through the second pot before Charlie spoke.

"There's a lot I haven't told you."

You think? I bit the flesh of my cheek to stop the snarky comment from escaping. It wouldn't help. Charlie wasn't the caring and sharing type, and I had come to terms with that. And it wasn't exactly fair for me to expect any different from him. What was I gonna do? Demand that he sit down and tell me everything he had gone through in his seven-hundred plus years on this planet?

Still. That didn't mean it didn't sting.

"I've never told you about what happened before the Great Massacre." Charlie sighed into his cup of coffee as we sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table.

"What do you mean, before?" I asked. "I thought you said the attack was unprovoked."

"It was!" Charlie replied scornfully, but I could tell that his anger wasn't directed at me. "It came out of no where, no one saw it coming." He continued insistingly, and then in a much softer voice he murmured, "Eleazar was my friend."

"You mentioned that. And I still don't understand it." I replied gently, my voice soft and coaxing. And when did that happen? At what point had my relationship with Charlie shift so dramatically from father-daughter to something more akin to… friends? Equals? He was still my dad, of course, nothing could change that, but it felt… different.

Charlie took a deep breath, his shoulders rose as he filled his lungs before he released it in a gushing sigh. "After the fall of the Roman Empire, the world was thrown into chaos." Charlie murmured.

And that was not where I thought this conversation was going. I kept silent and sipped my coffee, waiting for Charlie to continue.

"Human society was in shambles, boarders were being drawn and redrawn, kings being crowned and then killed only weeks later. The Volturi – or at least who we now call the Volturi – took advantage of this, using the disorder of the world they began an attack on the leaders of the vampire world, the Rus, or rather, the Romanian Coven. They started a war." Charlie downed the rest of his coffee and poured himself another cup. "The Vampire War had been raging across the continent for over 500 years by the time I was born." Charlie eyed me from across the table, waiting for me to crack a joke about his age, something that in the past he had hinted at but had never really confirmed – until now.

I kept my mouth shut.

"The Volturi preached a doctrine of silence, of operating in the shadows of mankind, in complete opposition to the current vampire philosophy of establishing your coven as all powerful gods in need of human sacrifice in return for fair weather or a good harvest or whatever other bullshit they would spout to con the humans into willingly walking to their deaths." Another long pause as Charlie stared into his coffee, a frown pulling down his features and making him look much older than I was used to. "The Fall didn't effect the Packs much, in fact the human settlements in our territories did better then most, since we more or less supported the local economies and… well, that doesn't really matter." Charlie trailed off with a shake of his head and a dismissive wave of his hand, physically stopping himself from going off on a tangent about dark ages economies. "So we decided to stay out of the Vampire War, as long as the violence didn't encroach upon our lands or impact those under our protection, we were content to stay neutral." Charlie paused as he watched me finish my coffee, raised the almost empty coffee pot in question, and at my silent nod poured the remaining liquid into my cup. "When I was twelve, the Three Kings approached the leading pack in Francia," At my confused head tilt Charlie quickly corrected himself, "France." I nodded in understanding and he continued. "Our Pack was powerful, influential for sure, but we weren't the leaders of the region, not by a long shot."

"Wait." I interrupted abruptly. "We're French?" I boggled.

The sudden change caused a shift in the air and Charlie cracked a smile as he barked out a laugh. "We're Germanic, perhaps closer to the old Celtic-Franks, if you want to be technical about it."

"Oh yes, I'm so sorry for the mistake, Charles." I snarked, happy to see that my teenage impertinence was putting a smile back on my father's face.

A deep blush appeared on Charlie's olive skin as he scratched the back of his neck. "Charles was just a nickname." He mumbled, "My given name is Childebrand. After a while, I decided to just stick with Charles, it didn't go out of fashion the way my given name did."

Okay, right. That was… well that was a lot. And oh boy, did I want to dig into that some more, but I didn't want to get further off topic. "So the Volturi asked the Frankish Packs for help in their war?" I guessed, hoping to edge the conversation back towards the issue at hand.

Charlie's good mood deflated as he nodded. "Yeah, they made a good case for it too. How if vampires weren't constantly messing with and destroying human settlements that they would have the chance to grow, to adapt and innovate, which in turn would be a good thing for us since we traded with them a lot." Charlie closed his eyes and shook his head disbelievingly. "And they weren't wrong. That's what really chafes. Us helping the Volturi win the war, helping them get the throne, was probably the best thing for humanity."

"So… what happened? What went wrong?" I implored, not understanding how it went from them fighting together for the betterment of humankind, to the Volturi slaughtering them en masse.

"I… I don't know." Charlie sighed with a shake of his head. "I really, truly have no idea." Charlie's eyes went sharp as he smirked humorlessly, "And I have had a very long time to think about it."

"So… you helped the Volturi…" My sentence trailed away from me, tipping up at the end into an undefined question. It all seemed so… surreal.

"I was young, I barely fought in the war, mainly towards the end, and then a few years after I helped quell a few rebellions. The Kings were… well they seemed reasonable, I wouldn't call them kind exactly, but they were fair, at least." Charlie downed the last of his coffee, grimacing slightly at the cold, bitter taste of it. "And they were true to their word. For the most part, they left humans alone, complete and total secrecy was enforced upon all the vampires of the continent. And then…" Charlie trailed off with a sigh.

"And then they attacked the Packs." I finished coldly.

"Yes." Charlie nodded gravely. "I was nineteen. Life was… it was good. My elder sister, Annalise had just married her Mate, many of the Volturi were invited to the ceremony and following festival, Eleazar among them." Charlie stood up and grabbed both of our empty mugs and the drained coffee pot, turned his back to me and rinsed them all out in the sink before setting them up to dry on the nearby rack. Charlie turned back around to face me and leaned against the counter as he spoke. "He was my friend." The statement hung in the air, and then doubt clouded Charlie's features. "Or I thought he was."

I stood up and crossed the small kitchen to stand beside my dad, leaning against the counter in an unconscious mimicry of his body language. "Maybe… maybe he was. Maybe he was just-"

"Do not say that he was just following orders." Charlie cut me off with a growl. Ice cold fury rolled off of him like a bitter snow-storm, vicious and unpredictable, so very different than anything I had sensed from Charlie before. Charlie turned his head and looked over at me, and his anger simmered before finally floating away. "Sorry, didn't mean to snap at you like that." Charlie's smile was soft and apologetic.

I shrugged. "It's alright."

"I was sixteen when I first met Eleazar. The war had ended, I was bitter that I didn't get to see any real action." Charlie scoffed and rolled his eyes. "I was an idiot."

"You wanted to help." I argued, it was a sentiment that I could empathise with. It was how I felt when Charlie wouldn't let me go looking for the nest in Seattle. Charlie cut me a look that told me that I was full of it. And sure, okay, maybe he had a point. But so did I. I did want to help, I wanted to be useful and prove myself. But another part was just itching for a fight, for the roar of adrenaline that always came with the heat of battle.

"I wanted to fight." Charlie corrected. "And I got the chance.Eleazar and I were in charge of a small unit of wolves and vampires, hunting down the last of the rebellious vampires in the region. We became fast friends. And then… then he…" My dad's voice broke as tears welled in his eyes and he blinked furiously in an attempt to force them away. I wanted to say something, I wasn't sure what, exactly, but I wanted to say something that could offer Charlie some small measure of solace. I couldn't find the words. So instead, I ducked my head and burrowed under Charlie's arm, forcing him to put it around my shoulders as I pressed myself against his side. Charlie readily took advantage of the physical comfort I was offering, pulling me securely against his torso he lowered his face to the side of my head and pressed a kiss to my hair.

We stood in silence in the dim light of the kitchen, both of my arms tucked firmly around my dad as he rested his cheek on the top of my head. It wasn't much, but it was enough.