Her Majesty (Volturi Kings)

CHAPTER THREE

The snow was starting to stick as Alice had predicted before she and her mate, Jasper, left. I was deeply saddened to learn on my arrival to the Cullen's residence that Alice and Jasper had fled to for some reason. Maybe she knew she was being hunted for her gift? But I just couldn't shake off the feeling that maybe she left for a bigger thing. A thing that would affect us all more than the Volturi would ever do.

My dead heart still stung at the mention of Aro, and in fact, it has only gotten worse when the other two rulers, Marcus and Caius, were mentioned. What's wrong with me? Why was I feeling this way? It was like my heart was missing three pieces and was trying to sew it together but failing miserably.

Today was the eve of Christmas Eve. Tomorrow we were going to meet our fate. To celebrate and acknowledge each other, we walked to a clearing where we stood and talked to one another, not bothering to use the logs. That is until Jacob cut in.

"Why are you standing there like a freaking statue?" he asks, glaring down every vampire. "Aren't we gonna tell battle stories or something? Almost every single one of you are hundreds of years old, you all have to have some sort of battle story."

I rush over to Jacob and pull him down onto the log with my vampiric strength. "Name any American battle after 1780. Garrett and I were there."

Jacob looks look at me with wide eyes. "You're that old? No wonder you smell like a corpse." he looks up to see glares. "No offence, that's just my wolf talking."

I laugh. "Don't worry, you smell like a wet dog to me. And yes, I am 243 years old. Garrett is about 256 years old. Anyway, name any American Battle."

Jacob didn't hesitate. "Little Big Horn."

"Almost came this close to biting Cluster," Garrett says gesturing with two fingers to show how close he got. "But the Indians got to him first."

"I killed Benedict Arnold." I say, taking a sip of blood from the cup that was handed to me earlier. "I also met Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington."

"Wait, how?" Jacob asks, staring at me with wide eyes.

I look back at him. "Benedict Arnold hurt my older sister and he became a turncoat. As for the others, Garrett would still partake in the battles. I would follow and do boring tasks that I was assigned. Women weren't allowed to do many things when it came to war. Only certain assignments, such as sewing, laundry, cooking, and others. But that doesn't mean that I didn't fight. Anyway, back on topic, I ran into Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, and yes that is from memory, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington when I was doing camp work. We were great friends. Sadly, I couldn't expose our secret to them. It would be wonderful to speak to them again. Plus, Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, was, as kids nowadays say to describe a person's attractiveness, hot."

"Why do you keep saying Lafayette's full name?" asks Jacob.

Garrett chuckles. "She likes to brag. She knows it gets on my nerves since I can't say his full name."

"Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette." I tease.

Garrett rolls his eyes. "Shut it!"

More and more battle stories got told and we listened intently to every single one of them. Kate helped in Oleg's assault on Constantinople. Liam talked about the Eleven Years War. Soon enough, almost every single battle story was told except the Romanians.

"When we ruled," Vladimir retells with his thick accent, "everything came to us. Prey, diplomats, favor seekers. Such was our power, but we never put on white hats and call ourselves saints."

"We were honest about what we were." Stefan chips in, spreading his arms wide.

"We sat still for a very long time; we didn't notice we were beginning to petrify." Vladimir takes his turn.

Stefan looks down in remembrance. "Perhaps the Volturi did us a favor in burning our castles."

Oh, great. Here's their revenge talk, I think.

I couldn't help but to get angry every time they started to talk badly about the Volturi. Why didn't I hate Volturi for what they have been doing to my friends? It didn't make sense.

Vladimir grins. "We've been waiting over fifteen hundred thousand years to return that favor."

I roll my eyes and Stefan takes notice. "What's wrong, dear Amity? You seem to not have liked our story?"

I stand up and walk over to where Bella and Renesmee are hanging out. "I don't like revenge talk. We're here to negotiate, not fight." I say as I walk over.

Bella looks up as I enter the tent. "Hey." she greets me.

"Hey," I smile gently at her. "How's young Renesmee doing?"

Renesmee looks up and smiles big. "We're reading a book!"

"Oh?" I sit down criss-cross-applesauce style. "Which book?"

"Red Riding Hood!" her smile gets bigger.

I smile back. "A classic."

Bella gets up. "I'm going to check on Edward. Will you be alright watching her?"

I nod. "She's fine with me."

Bella nods back and leaves the tent.

Renesmee looks up from her book that was being read to her. "Can you read to me?"

I take the book from her and flip book to her direction so she can see the pictures. "Of course."