I'll be home for Christmas

Chapter 68

Chapter 68 - I'll be home for Christmas

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Thanks to BanSidhe [ruadh sidhe] and Feebes86 for betaing and pre-reading.

[AN: okay… hold onto your everything and don't forget to vote in the fandom choice awards. I've been nominated five times… thefandomchoiceawards. blogspot. com. au

Thanks!]

The Cullens waited for the Volturi. The sun had just set, but they stood out. They looked startlingly light; dressed in shiny white outfits. The Volturi did not know Alice well enough to know that she was already dying inside at the ignominy of being seen wearing this.

"We look like a cult," she hissed at her husband. "Or a 1970's ABBA tribute band. You know the 70's was a bad decade for fashion. I hate this. And I have a headache."

"Hush now, darlin'," he said to her.

They had chosen the clearing deliberately; both for the familiarity of it to Jane and Felix, so they would know where to meet them and for the wolves who liked the terrain and had fought there before. No wildflowers bloomed there at this time of year and it was covered in a light dusting of freshly fallen snow. The wolves liked the surrounding tree cover and the forest ringed the cleared space. The forest belonged to the wolves. It was their place. But they had a speed advantage in the open as well and there were patches of elevated ground around it, too.

Alice's headache was making her very terse but for appearances sake, she tried to look bright and bouncy, as she usually did.

Esme looked as nervous as Bella felt. "What if they just attack us?" she asked. "Without warning?"

"They won't," Carlisle answered. "They haven't fought a fair fight in about twenty-five hundred years. And they've never, never fought one where they were at a disadvantage. Especially since they gained Jane and Alec, they've only been involved with unopposed slaughterings."

"Don't say that word," Rose muttered.

"Fight?" Emmett teased.

She smiled at him, but she looked bleak.

"We can do this," Bella said. "We just… have to."

Bella could taste the last few drops of one of Old Quil's potions in her mouth; bitter and heavy on the turmeric as Josh had once told her the shaman used in all his potions. The foul taste lingered but it reminded her that she could do this. That flavor was associated in her mind with getting the shield right.

And it needed to be, for the tribe members standing with them were human.

They stood; flanking the Cullens. Others were hidden in the woods behind and around them. Jake stood with Quil, Embry and Paul by his side. Billy had Sue, Niki, and Ellen.

She resisted the urge to glance up at the small piece of higher ground where her father and his deputies were hidden. Not that anything with a heartbeat was really hidden from vampires. Josh was close, performing some kind of ritual with Old Quil. Her wolf mount Seth, was saddled and hidden in the trees.

She kept telling herself that once they phased, if she covered Josh and the alphas, she shielded them all. But they were completely reliant upon her now.

"They're coming," Edward said as he heard the brain signatures of their enemies.

**They came with pageantry, with a kind of beauty.