A Stupidly Long A/N: I had to change the canon timeline a little bit in regards to Eleazar, because supposedly he was shocked to find vamps could live on animal blood when he and Carmen met the Denalis. But Carlisle was a vegetarian in Volterra from 1700 to 1720, and Eleazar was changed some time in the 1700s so either at the same time as Carlisle was with the Volturi or after. Unless I'm missing something, it's virtually impossible that he wouldn't know about the animal diet, so I have him changed in the 1600s and gone from Italy before 1700. Along those same lines, Jane says in Eclipse that it's nice to meet Carlisle. How the hell did Carlisle live with the Volturi for two decades and never meet Jane? Honestly, SM was the queen of plot holes. If I include that particular scene in this story, I'll change it so it won't be Carlisle and Jane's first meeting.

And quick reply to twilightgirl587: I'd tucked a couple sentences in this chapter about Nettie and Lucy, but I guess I say Maria is the only female warlord because she was the coven leader. That might actually be wrong, lol, but it's what I always assumed.

Thanks for reading:)

New Insights

"Here. Don't say I never did anything for you," Leah snapped as she tossed two breakfast sandwiches wrapped in a couple paper towels to Paul, who caught them with a smile.

"I'm pretty sure I'll say whatever I want because I know you didn't do this for me," he snarked.

"True," Leah laughed as she plopped herself down beside her imprint. "My mom's too soft when it comes to you. I expect you to thank her for her efforts, by the way," she said with a pointed look.

"Of course," Paul answered around a too-big mouthful of food.

Leah looked around at all the vamps, most of whom - with the exception of Jasper, who was smiling at her - were looking at her best friend with scrunched up noses. "Manners, Paul," she reminded him with a sigh. "Chew with your mouth closed and maybe use one of those paper towels to wipe up the hot sauce on your chin."

Paul scrubbed his chin clean while he chewed and swallowed. "Sorry," he laughed. "I haven't eaten since those cookies your mom gave me."

"So what's the newest crisis we're dealing with?" Leah asked Jasper. Then she figured she should take her own advice and use her manners. "What I meant to say was good morning," she said after quickly kissing him hello.

"Morning," Jasper smiled. "I'm sorry you got dragged out of bed so early."

"It's fine, I'll sleep when I'm dead," Leah shrugged. "Although I guess I'm a little bit immortal now so that's out the window," she grumbled. "Seriously, becoming a wolf comes with an awful lot of downsides."

"Okay, moving on," Jasper laughed. Leah may not love that she'd stopped aging recently, but Jasper was thrilled by the whole thing. He took a second to consider how to go about telling her everything that had happened over the last few hours and figured straight and to the point was probably his best move. "So Alice got a vision of Maria last night. We've done an awful lot of speculating, and we think Victoria either happened to meet her recently or will meet her in the very near future. There's a good chance–"

Leah cut him off with an incredulous laugh. "You have got to be fucking kidding me. You think Victoria's next move is going to be creating a newborn army with Maria?"

"You're half right," Jasper nodded. "Well, you may be all the way right, but we're still not sure about the whole 'with Maria' part yet."

Leah looked around again and saw that everyone looked dead serious. There wasn't a smile in sight that told her this whole thing was a really bad joke, and Jasper was usually smiling or laughing in her dreams so she was almost certain she was awake and this wasn't a nightmare. Just to be sure, she discreetly pinched her leg. Ow. Damn it, definitely not sleeping. "Jesus christ," she muttered. "Alright, start at the beginning and don't leave anything out."

The vamps all took turns relaying the events just as they had with Paul - they started from the moment Edward walked into Jasper's study and finished with Paul calling and waking Leah up. Leah just listened patiently, occasionally nodding or scowling, sometimes smiling, but she didn't interrupt. She just let them get through the whole story and made a note of all the questions she had along the way.

"Okay," she nodded when they'd finished. "I know this is pretty much the least important detail, but humor me. How do you go about breaking someone's face a little bit?" she asked Alice.

Alice laughed and gave her a casual little shrug. "His nose was definitely broken and I might have hit him hard enough that some of his teeth fell out. Maybe a fractured eye socket," she added with another shrug. "But it's not a big deal, he'll be fine in a few hours."

"Sure, no big deal," Leah nodded. "You vamps are weird," she added, shaking her head a little.

"I'd resent that if you weren't right," Alice laughed.

Leah took a minute to think through everything she'd learned, and she appreciated that they all just patiently waited for her to sort through her thoughts. Those thoughts soon got stuck on another detail that wasn't at all relevant to their current situation. "If Maria's mate and coven-parents or whatever were killed, where did those other two bitches come from?" she asked. Seeing everyone giving her weird looks, she huffed a little indignantly. "Look, I'm still half-asleep, so maybe don't expect a whole lot from me right now."

Jasper laughed and took her hand. "You mean Lucy and Nettie?" he asked, and Leah nodded. "They'd also lost their coven and territory, so the three of them joined forces to better their odds of getting revenge," he explained. "Well, Maria's main motivation was revenge, Nettie and Lucy mostly just wanted territory."

Leah nodded again. "Alright. Back to the important stuff. You haven't spoken to Peter since you left the house?" she asked Jasper, who shook his head no. "Maybe we should call him. Putting aside Maria and what her intentions might be for a moment, we should probably talk about the whole newborn army thing, and he and Charlotte will be the best ones to brainstorm with. With Victoria keeping you blind, Alice, there's no way of knowing how far along in that plan she might already be."

Jasper just nodded, knowing she was right, and pulled out his phone.

As he usually did, Peter answered and just jumped straight into the middle of a conversation. "I have to tell y'all, it's seriously fucking annoying that I know why you're calling and who all's there, but I don't have any concrete answers for what we all need to know."

Jasper smiled a little. "I've never expected you to have all the answers before and I certainly don't expect it now," he reassured him.

"That may be true, and I'm grateful for that, but it's still annoying," Peter huffed.

Before Leah just jumped straight in, she briefly debated taking the time to introduce herself to her imprint's oldest friend - she'd already spoken to Charlotte on the phone - and thank him for loving Jasper enough to take the risk of going back into Maria's territory just to get him out of there. That seemed like a more personal thing than she wanted an audience for, though, so instead she just said a polite hello and got down to business. "Let's assume for a minute that Victoria came across Maria way back when Edward followed her south. That puts their meeting at… what, like six months ago?"

"About that," Alice nodded. "We left Forks in the middle of September and he left the family almost immediately after that. Assuming he didn't catch her trail right away, I'd say he probably found her some time in October."

Leah nodded. "So theoretically, she could already have some baby vamps that are about five months old?"

"Could be," Jasper agreed, his chest tightening a little at the thought that there might already be the beginnings of an army created solely for the purpose of destroying his family.

"And it's my understanding that newborns tend to be an unruly bunch," Leah continued. "So where the hell would Victoria be keeping them?"

"Well she's definitely not making veggie vamps, so she's gotta be somewhat close to an area where she can aim them in the direction of some humans they can eat," Peter answered.

"Or she could be keeping them somewhere secluded and she's just bringing the humans to them," Charlotte pointed out.

Rosalie jumped in there. "She's still making regular appearances in our area, so she can't be too far away from here."

Trying to think of all the places Victoria could have stashed a handful of newborns within a couple hundred miles of them got Jasper nowhere but frustrated. He doubted she'd have them in a city, and definitely not in a small town, but they were only a hop, skip, and a jump from the Canadian border. There was plenty of wilderness up there that she could be hiding in.

"As far as I know, Victoria has been alone every time she's come here. Has the pack ever seen anyone else with her?" Alice asked Leah and Paul, who both shook their heads.

"The only other vamp we've come across was Laurent," Paul answered. "And we know he was here at her request, but she wasn't with him."

Jasper nodded. "Then if she does have any newborns already, she's leaving them on their own pretty regularly."

"Which means she either hasn't changed anyone yet, or whoever she's changed is already controlled enough to not need a babysitter," Peter said.

Jasper growled in frustration. "There are too many what-ifs to get us anywhere useful. Vamps who are only a few months old aren't typically controlled enough to be left on their own with no monitoring. Which leaves us where? Either she hasn't started creating an army yet or she started before Edward tracked her south?"

"What do y'all know about her?" Charlotte asked after a few moments of silence. "And I don't mean what happened at the baseball game or that she's got a vendetta against your coven and Edward's human. Do you know anything about her life before last spring?"

"Not much, to be honest," Jasper answered. "They were a coven of three, and she and James, at least, were already together when they stumbled across Alice in 1920. I don't know if Laurent joined them before that or after."

"Then maybe we need to go all the way back to the beginning," Charlotte sighed. "The first rule of warfare is to know your enemy."

"How the hell are we supposed to do that?" Rosalie asked with a frown. "Laurent's dead and it's not like Victoria is going to talk to us."

Leah snorted a laugh. "I can just imagine Esme calling out 'Wait, won't you tell us about yourself?' while you guys are chasing after her through the forest."

"And inviting her back to the house for a cup of tea," Paul laughed.

Jasper just shook his head with a smile. "Well it certainly wouldn't be coffee," he said while shuddering.

"My mom has a tea that's supposed to calm you down, so maybe you can ply her with enough of the stuff that she drops the whole murderous rage vengeance plot," Leah offered, her face remarkably serious for the amount of amusement she was feeling.

Alice nodded with an equally serious face. "Maybe your mom can bake us up some of her award-winning cookies and we can sweeten her up that way."

Emmett laughed and clapped his hands together. "There. Looks like we've got ourselves the beginnings of a foolproof plan."

Everyone laughed, grateful to have the mood lightened a little, but Leah's laughter trailed off and she tipped her head a little as she tried to remember something she'd heard in Jacob's memories.

"Didn't Bella say Laurent dipped out when you guys were going after James?" she asked the vamps. "That he went to meet another coven of vegetarians?"

Jasper nodded and gave her a proud smile. "Good thinking. Maybe Laurent talked to the Denalis about Victoria and we can get some intel from them."

Emmett snorted a laugh. "Intel. There's the military man we know and love," he laughed and hopped to his feet. "We should head back to the house. Carlisle's probably the best one to call them, and maybe one of us can talk to Edward to see if he heard anything in Victoria's thoughts that might help us piece together more of her history."

"Not it!" Jasper, Rosalie, and Alice all shouted at the same time, making Paul and Leah laugh.

"I'm happy to do it," Leah offered with an innocent smile that looked just about as convincing as Rosalie's innocent smiles.

"Okay, sure," Emmett scoffed, though he was still smiling. "Maybe you should bring along some of those cookies to sweeten him up, too."

Paul rolled his eyes. "Or a pint of Bella's blood," he said dryly.

All the vamps simultaneously huffed some incredulous laughs at that.

"Jesus, can you imagine the aftermath of that?" Rosalie said. "He'd probably be the most mellow he's been since the moment he met Bella if he finally got his singer's blood, but that would only last about two seconds until his brain kicked back into gear and he realized what he'd done. Then we'd have to deal with an Edward who drank his mate dry, and he's already the most angst-ridden asshole I know. That would just ratchet it up about six thousand percent."

"I'd be happy to put him out of his misery," Jasper shrugged.

"Same," Peter and Charlotte said through the phone.

Emmett laughed and bounced on his toes a few times. "Come on. I'll take one for the team and ask the angst-ridden asshole if he knows anything more about Victoria that could end some of this endless speculating we've been doing."

Leah decided to tag along, but Paul just wished them luck and headed home to get some much needed sleep. His shift had officially ended so he walked home as a human, because like Leah, he had no interest in dealing with Sam. He also knew it would be best if he was well-rested, because the shit was going to hit the fan when the rest of the pack found out that Jasper's past appeared to be coming back to haunt them all.

Jasper smiled at his mate as he gently ran his fingers through her hair and tucked the blanket around her a little more snugly.

They'd all talked to Carlisle and Esme when they arrived at the house to get them caught up on all the new speculating they'd done, and then he and Leah went up to his study to wait to hear what, if anything, Carlisle could learn from the Denalis and Emmett could pry from Edward.

Leah had fallen asleep within minutes, and Jasper half-listened to the conversations in the house, but mostly just enjoyed a little peace and quiet with his mate. He knew that they were likely going to be dealing with renewed hostilities from some of the wolves when they learned Victoria may be upping her revenge scheme with the help of his sire, even if it was a little bit unintentional on Maria's part.

Alice peeked her head in the door and held up a book. "Can I sit with you?" she whispered.

Jasper nodded. "You know you don't have to ask."

Alice just shrugged and plopped herself in one of the armchairs. "It's polite," she told him. Even though she'd brought a book along under the guise of sitting and reading, she was just flipping pages without looking at them. She was focused on Emmett grilling Edward upstairs about anything and everything he'd heard in the thoughts of all three nomads at the baseball game. She felt a surge of satisfaction that his words were a little garbled because his teeth were still a little wobbly.

"And people think I'm the most ruthless one in the family," Jasper laughed.

Alice just shrugged again. She didn't think she was particularly ruthless, but she was protective of her family, and Edward had repeatedly put them all at risk.

Alice's entry into the vampire world was a confusing time for her, because she didn't understand what she was and didn't remember anything from before the moment she opened her eyes. It was her visions that guided her in figuring the world out. First those of Jasper - which meant she indirectly saw quite a bit of Maria and Peter - then of Carlisle and the rest of the Cullens as more vamps joined his family. For a long time, she thought all vampires lived the way Jasper did.

And before they met in 1948 and he started teaching her to fight, she picked up some things just from seeing him train the newborns. It was those skills that allowed her to protect herself for those twenty-eight years she spent alone. Vamps weren't always the most peaceful beings, and given how small she was, strangers tended to view her as an easy target. She'd had a few run-ins in those years that meant she had to put Jasper's 'teaching' into action.

So no, she didn't think she was particularly ruthless, but she was just as comfortable using violence to get her point across as Jasper was. Neither of them typically resorted to violence as a first response to anything, but Edward had repeatedly pushed Alice beyond what she could tolerate recently.

Jasper sighed a little when he heard Irina snarl at Carlisle over the phone. "Unless you're calling to tell me you've changed your mind and are willing to step aside, we have nothing to talk about."

Upon their return to Forks, when the Cullens found out the wolf pack had killed Laurent, Carlisle called the Denalis to explain the situation in the hopes that it would bring Irina some closure. Unfortunately, Irina didn't want to accept that perhaps her mate was a little less invested in their relationship - and their diet - than she thought. She also didn't want to accept that he was in the forest outside Forks at the behest of Victoria and was planning to kill Bella. The fact that the wolves were simply saving the life of a human did nothing to lessen her anger. When she threatened to come after the pack, Carlisle had told her in a steely voice that they had a treaty with the Quileutes and he wouldn't allow her to hurt any of the wolves or the humans of the tribe.

When Carlisle told Irina that his position hadn't changed, she slammed the phone down on him. Carlisle let out a weary sigh and slowly walked up the stairs to knock on the open door of Jasper's study.

"You know you can come in," Jasper told him with a smile and waved him inside.

"Maybe you should have gone straight to Tanya," Alice said when Carlisle sat down and scrubbed his hands over his face.

He just nodded. "I'll call her next. Has Edward come up with anything more?" he asked quietly, not wanting to wake Leah.

"Not a whole lot," Alice answered. "She was scared when we were at the baseball clearing. She didn't like the potential risk of having a confrontation with a coven as large as ours."

Carlisle just nodded again. "And because of that night, she lost Laurent as a coven mate, and then James as well. She was right to be worried."

While Jasper had obviously been paying attention to the emotions of James, Victoria, and Laurent that night, and knew Victoria had been uneasy, most of his focus had been on using his gift in every way he could think of to keep the situation from escalating. He'd essentially hidden Alice, Esme, and Bella behind a veil of indifference and boredom to such an extent that they basically became invisible.

He'd done the same thing with himself. He didn't want to run the risk of any of the nomads seeing his scars and potentially putting the pieces together of who he was. Some vamps were a little too bored and a little too cocky, and saw challenging the Major of the Southern Wars as good entertainment. Jasper had hoped that they could get through the encounter in the clearing without a fight.

And if not for Bella being with the family, a poorly timed gust of wind, and Edward overreacting and essentially challenging James, they would have.

He took a minute to add the latest insight from Edward to the information he already knew and considered how that might affect Victoria's actions in the aftermath.

Eventually he tipped his head back a little to speak in the direction of the door, slightly above a whisper but still quieter than a human's voice. "Did you hear anything about how old she is?" he asked Edward, who was refusing to leave his room. Jasper honestly wasn't sure if he was too embarrassed to have anyone see his still-healing face, or if he didn't want to risk pissing off the family any more than he already had.

Probably both, Jasper thought as he rolled his eyes. Edward was weirdly arrogant for a kid who was changed only a month or two past his seventeenth birthday after nearly being taken out by the flu. He was also a little bit of a pussy.

Feeling the telepath's indignation at his thoughts, Jasper rolled his eyes a little harder. "Just answer the question, asshole," he snapped.

"Old," Edward muttered petulantly from his room. "I can't be more specific than that. She had a brief thought about the Volturi and I got the impression that she was connected to one of the guards somehow before they joined the Volturi. And as far as I know, the kings haven't recruited any new guard members in at least a century or two so she's probably at least that old."

Jasper just nodded and went back to doing his strategic thinking thing of over-analyzing. He frowned when his phone rang, which made his mate start stirring, then frowned a little more when he saw Peter's name.

"What now?" he answered with a sigh just as weary as Carlisle's had been.

"Heidi."

Jasper didn't say anything, assuming there'd be more to that sentence, but he started chuckling a little when Peter didn't add anything else. "Heidi what?"

"She was a coven mate of Victoria before the Volturi came along and killed their sire and 'recruited' her," Peter explained.

Carlisle let out a low whistle. "Heidi was changed some time in the 1500s."

Alice's eyebrows shot up. "Victoria's that old?"

"With the exception of Carlisle, we're all very young compared to many in our world," Jasper reminded her with a smile.

Leah yawned and pushed herself up so she was sitting beside Jasper. "It's never not gonna be wild to me that you exist in a world where a hundred and seventy-six is still considered young," she said tiredly as she leaned against him. "So what'd I miss?" she asked, stifling another yawn.

Jasper smiled and wrapped an arm around her so he could tuck her closer to his side. "Not much. Irina's still a little put out with us that we won't stand aside and let her kill your friends."

"You vamps sure are a violent bunch," she laughed as she wiped the sleep from her eyes.

Jasper just shrugged and nodded. "Many of us are."

Esme popped her head in the door and smiled at Leah. "I hear you appreciate a good cup of coffee," she said as she held up a steaming mug. "Would you like some?"

"Please," Leah nodded tiredly.

Esme quickly glanced at Jasper, who laughed and waved her inside. "Just assume you can come in unless I directly block your path."

It was a standing rule in the Cullen's household that no one was permitted to enter any coven member's personal space without permission. While most of the siblings tended to come and go in each other's rooms as long as the door was open, Carlisle and Esme still always knocked first regardless.

Esme nodded and walked in, carefully handing the mug to Leah, who took it with a grateful and happy sigh. "Thank you, Esme. This is just what I needed."

"You're very welcome," Esme answered as she sat on the arm of the chair her husband was sitting in. "So, I was thinking. If I was a woman who'd lost her sire and coven mate because of a larger coven's actions, and then I lost the coven I was part of after that - along with a mate, obviously - because of yet another larger coven, I might be a little frightened to suddenly be on my own again."

Jasper just looked at her for a moment. "You think she has a new companion?"

Esme nodded. "All of this is hypothetical, of course, but you speculated earlier that perhaps she'd begun changing others - or at least one other - prior to Edward following her south. Maybe she was unsettled enough after Laurent left her and James died that she decided it would be better to create a new coven for herself, rather than remaining a solitary nomad."

There was silence for a few moments as everyone considered that.

"If that's the case, she could have a vamp who's already nearing the end of their newborn year," Peter said. "Which could explain how she's able to leave him or her on their own while she keeps trying to get her shot at y'all."

Leah's knows scrunched up a little in confusion. "Then where does Maria fit in?"

Alice hesitated a moment before answering. "Maybe she'd already turned someone, or multiple someones, when she happened to stumble across Maria and decided she should use whoever she'd sired as an army, rather than a coven?"

"That wouldn't make sense, would it?" Jasper said with a frown. "If Victoria is as old as we think she is, she wouldn't need Maria to tell her about newborn armies, she'd already know about them. The Southern Wars aren't exactly a hidden practice in this country, and regardless of where she was turned, she's been in this country since at least 1920 when James caught Alice's scent. You can't be in the Americas for a century and remain ignorant about the Wars."

"And Alice woke up in Mississippi, so Victoria and James, and possibly Laurent, were roaming the south for at least some of that time," Carlisle pointed out.

Jasper sighed in frustration. There was too much guessing going on and it did absolutely nothing to help him come up with some kind of plan to keep everyone he loved safe. "Maybe you should give Tanya a ring," he suggested to Carlisle. "If Irina won't help us, maybe she will. I highly doubt she would have just opened her home to Laurent without asking a whole lot of questions. She's way too careful about her coven's safety since Sasha was killed."

"Who the hell is Sasha?" Leah asked. It was getting harder by the minute to keep all these non-Cullen, non-Whitlock vamps straight. "And Tanya's the coven leader of the Denalis?" she double-checked.

Carlisle nodded. "Yes. Tanya, Irina, and Kate were all changed by a woman named Sasha. She was killed by the Volturi over a thousand years ago for breaking the law," he explained.

"Harsh."

Jasper laughed, but corrected Leah. "No, normal. We're all still sitting here because of Aro's… fondness for Carlisle, combined with his interest in some of the gifts in this coven. Without those things working in our favor, we likely would've been executed for our crimes."

"And if that self-absorbed asshole hadn't walked right into that castle and given Aro his hand, the Volturi wouldn't even know about Alice's gift," Peter grumbled through the phone.

Jasper just nodded. He'd managed to forgive Edward for an awful lot over his seventy years as a Cullen, but bringing Alice to the attention of Aro Volturi was one thing he'd never be able to forgive.

He distracted himself from that thought by refocusing on their current circumstances. "If Heidi really was Victoria's coven mate–"

Peter cut him off with an indignant huff. "Which she was."

"Sorry," Jasper laughed. "Since Heidi was in a coven with Victoria before the Volturi got their grubby hands on her, maybe Eleazar can shed a little light on the situation."

Carlisle nodded and looked at Esme. "How about I call Tanya and you call Eleazar?"

Esme nodded her agreement. "That's probably a good idea, you know he likes me more than he likes you," she teased.

"I certainly can't blame the man. I like you more, too," Carlisle laughed.

Leah smiled at the couple as they walked out of the room. If you ignored the whole vampire thing, Carlisle and Esme reminded her so much of her parents. When Jasper quietly pressed a kiss on her temple, she pushed aside her sadness so he wouldn't have to feel it.

"So I'm assuming Eleazar is a Denali with a connection to the Volturi?" she asked.

Jasper nodded. "He was a guard member back in the 1600s. After he met Carmen, his mate, Aro allowed them to leave. They eventually stumbled on the Denalis, found the idea of feeding on animals intriguing, and joined Tanya's coven."

"And Heidi? She's one of the Volturi?" she asked, and Jasper nodded. "Then–"

Jasper held up a finger to stop her for a moment as he focused on Carlisle's conversation with Tanya.

"Are you certain?" Carlisle asked her.

Tanya hesitated for a moment. "No. It was nothing concrete, he just said a few things here and there that made me believe Victoria was no longer alone. He talked about her very little, knowing Irina didn't like the idea of Laurent still being in contact with her."

"And there was nothing to indicate to you whether she'd created new vampires as companions or simply happened to meet others to keep company with?"

"No, nothing," she answered. "All I can say is that I got the impression that, after James was killed, she wasn't on her own for long. But again, nothing concrete. In the month or two before he disappeared, he stopped mentioning her at all. Until you called to tell us what happened to him, none of us had any idea he had met with Victoria, or that he would do her bidding that way. When he left, he told us he was going on a hunting trip."

"Alright," Carlisle sighed. "Thank you, Tanya. I appreciate your willingness to speak to me. I know Irina is very upset with our family over what's happened."

"I consider you family, Carlisle, you know that. I'll always be willing to speak to you," she said with a little laugh. "Yes, Irina is upset, but none of the rest of us feel any ill will towards you.

"Thank you, I appreciate that as well," he chuckled.

There was silence for a moment before Tanya spoke in a more hesitant voice. "Can you tell me what's happening? You don't have to, of course, but I am admittedly a little curious where your questions are coming from."

Carlisle sighed again. "We believe Victoria may have a larger plan than just trying to get to our family and Bella on her own," he told her, then went on to explain the vision Alice had about Maria and all the speculating they'd done and their attempts to interpret it.

"I see," Tanya said quietly after a moment. "I hope you're correct that Maria is coming to warn you. She's not a woman I would want targeting my coven. Please let me know if there's anything more I can do to help. As I said, you're family."

Carlisle thanked her and assured her he'd be in touch soon before hanging up.

Jasper and Alice shared an uneasy glance at the same time that Peter sighed into the phone.

"What am I missing?" Leah asked as she looked between the two vamps. "I heard most of that and it doesn't sound like we know any more than we did ten minutes ago."

"We know a lot more, actually," Alice answered. "James was killed over a year ago. If we're going with the assumption that she changed someone to create a new coven for herself, and if Victoria wasn't on her own long, then she's likely already got a vamp who's a year old."

"Okay," Leah said slowly. "I still don't get why you suddenly look that level of worried," she said, pointing at their solemn faces.

It was Peter who answered. "If you made yourself a new vamp solely for the sake of having a companion so you didn't have to be alone, why would you then continue leaving that companion behind while you tried to get at the Cullens or Edward's human?"

Leah looked at Jasper with a little bit of exasperation. "I'm not a former soldier or a strategic thinker, so maybe just spell it out for me."

Jasper gave her a small smile, but there was no humor in it. "That first vamp is old enough to not need a babysitter."

Leah's eyes went wide after only a second and she cursed under her breath. "That vamp doesn't need to have a babysitter, so he or she can be the one who stays behind to babysit the ones who do."

Jasper just nodded.

Leah sat frozen for a second, thinking about her home, her pack, her family, the elders, Charlie… all of them being at the mercy of a vengeful and violent newborn army. It had been an abstract worry until that moment - a maybe, not a sure thing. When she heard a floorboard creak above her, she was up and out the door before she'd even thought it through, only vaguely registering Jasper saying Emmett's name.

"Yep, on it," Emmett answered, and she heard a sound like a thunderclap coming from the room at the top of the steps.

When she got to the door of Edward's room, she saw him struggling to get out of Emmett's grasp, but the behemoth had him in an iron grip. Leah only slowed down for a moment before Emmett gave her a nod.

Leah put all of her weight behind her punch. "If anyone from my family or my tribe, and I include Charlie in that, are hurt because of this, the pack will tear you to pieces. Jasper told you she was a threat but you thought you knew better. If anyone I care about is hurt, you better pray the newborns get to you before I do," she growled, then punched him again. She sneered as she looked him up and down. "I know you're not using that with Bella, so you won't mind if I do this."

Emmett cringed but kept his hold on Edward while Leah pulled her foot back and kicked the telepath right in the dick with all her considerable wolfie strength. Edward let out a garbled scream and Emmett let go of him so he fell to the floor.

"Thanks, Emmett," Leah nodded, then turned around and strode out of the room. As she walked back downstairs at a much more sedate pace, she heard Peter's deep laugh through the phone in Jasper's study.

"Fate sure did you a solid, Jas. Not even married yet and she's already doing the Whitlock name proud."