They Could Hardly Believe Their Eyes!

The Winning Hand

"I don't believe in war, for war's sake. Bet you'd never have guessed that, not with my reputation? I don't have the time or patience for Prima Donnas either. Why were you tryin' to start a war just for the damned sake of it? You have your own little piece of the world right here, why rock the boat?" Jasper asked as he glanced around assessing the room,

"Why? Why not? We're vampires and as the superior supernatural species, we can do as we please" Lucky Jim replied, although he didn't sound too confident about his reason,

"Wrong, we were never the superior breed. But in our own arrogance, we created a stronger one. The Witch Vampires are actually now the top of the food chain, without a shadow of a doubt!" Jasper told him striding forward and smirking as all the other vampires stepped back.

"That's not possible! They were just humans that could do magic, what makes them better than us?" Lucky Jim demanded scathingly,

"Well, take my wife here for instance. She was a powerful witch, now she's a strong vampire who is still a powerful witch. You just saw your men bounce off her shield, saw her free your prisoners and remove your witches. I'd say that was superior, seein' as she didn't move a muscle to do any of it. Let me introduce you, Lucky Jim, meet Isabella Whitlock the leader of the American Witch Vampire Council!" Jasper said proudly as Bella smiled at him,

"Thank you, Jasper. I should be on my honeymoon you know, but alas! It seems the overzealous Caius Volturi and you don't want that. So here we are and I want nothing but to leave as soon as possible. You have a choice today, accept Major Whitlock as the leader of the American Vampires or die! It's really up to you, but please don't wait too long to decide, neither of us are patient people" Bella said quite tonelessly, before stepping back beside her husband.

They both saw the vampire out the corner of their eyes; he had been slowly edging around to get behind them. With Bella's shield up who knows what they thought he could do. Bella smiled and squeezed Jasper's hand before placing a ring of fire around the fool. As the others moved forward she did the same to them and then raised an eyebrow to Lucky Jim. He could see he was outclassed and outmanoeuvred and his shoulders slumped.

"It's not right, it took me years to build my empire and you want me to just hand it over to you?" Lucky Jim spat,

"I don't want your empire; I don't need your money! All I want is your allegiance, nothin' more. I'm tryin' to stop war breakin' out here in America, nothin' else" Jasper said with conviction,

"What! He said you'd take my life's work" Lucky Jim said confused,

"Who?" Jasper demanded now getting angry, his eyes turning black,

"That bastard! He's been ripping me off for three years. Told me a witch or two in my corner would keep all vampires away and to slowly start a war, one that witches couldn't win. I assumed he wanted control of the council and was using Chicago as the battleground. Then he called in a panic and said you were taking out all the major vampire players one by one. I'll kill him, the lying sack of shit!" Lucky Jim ranted,

"Who God damn it?" Jasper yelled at him,

"Gerard, bloody Gerard Peters, that's who! Travis' right-hand man, that backstabbing little weasel. He sent me my two witches and I paid him handsomely for them!" he yelled back.

"Romain? Did you hear all that?" Bella asked quietly knowing the earpiece would pick everything up,

"Yes. Curse the man, I'll deal with him" Romain sighed as he turned to Charlie and they headed back into the trading post where most of the witches were still milling about.

TCHBTE

The next several hours were passed by each leader discussing things with their own groups. Emmett sent the video link to Romain and Bella and each one showed their side what happened in the vampire lair and who was to blame. Romain outlawed using any kind of force on other species for a witches personal gain from that moment on. He then in front of all his people there and gave his apologies to the High Queen of the fairies, Ravshala and to Shaman Ateara on behalf of the shifter nation for the wrongdoings of those three witches.