Better the devil you know

chapter 1

Bella POV

Winter. The world lay dormant around us, dead to the less perceptive eye. People seemed unable to see through the cold blanket of snow and the stillness of the air to the fresh buds of grass just beginning life, waiting for that first touch of spring warmth when they would burst through and bring summer anew. Humans, they're ears too dull and unattuned to hear past the cold silence that lay across the forest floor, to the hear the crisp birdsong high above as families lay hidden away, bunkered down inside hollow trees, welcoming in the new day with their song as the dawn broke over the horizon and the suns warm touch creeped through the branches.

A smile graced my cold lips as I felt the warmth reach them and saw the sparkle of my skin reflected in the snow around me, I released a sigh and lent back into the solid figure behind me. His masculine arms wrapped around me and encircled my waist as he reached down to place a gentle kiss on my bare shoulder, allowing his head to rest there afterward.

This was our bliss, our perfect piece of forever.

The silence broke as Ness came crashing through the brush to our right, rolling forwards off the giant wolf landing giggling in a fresh drift of snow in the clearing before us. I pursed my lips trying to stifle a laugh, Edward was not so reserved and I felt the vibrations run through his body as he let out a low chuckle at our daughters antics

"If I didn't know she was perfectly safe, I'd have killed him for letting her fall like that"

I saw Jakes ears perk as he heard Edwards low mutter in my ear and he offered a lop-sided grin in our direction, tongue lolling out sideways before he flopped down to the ground beside her, snuggling his large wolf body into her side.

I couldn't help but chuckle in response to his ludicrous threat. Once maybe, but not now. I couldn't ever see Edward hurting Jake with how clear it was what he meant to our daughter just by the simple smile on her face whenever he was around. No the days of those two brawling on the forest floor were well and truly over.

We decided to leave them be, Renesmee was safe enough with Jake and we were in no doubt he'd come back to the house with her later. He had essentially moved in the last few months, never straying away from Nessie for more than a day. It had already been well over a week since I'd last seen him take a trip home to La Push. We were going to have to put some boundaries in place for the two of them if things carried on this way.

Alice bounded down the stairs with a gleeful smile almost knocking me over as we entered the house, she began twirling me around muttering something about a new dress and how I would need the perfect shoes to match. But I was distracted from her musings as my attention, alongside Edwards who'd drifted over there, was drawn to the lounge. Carlisle, Jasper and Emmett were once again sat staring solemnly at the news playing on the TV, a deep frown etched on each of their faces.

"It's all over again, on every channel, a full town missing. They're calling it a massacre; blaming Russian extremists" Emmett huffed out a deep breath and stood from the couch. "That's the fourth village this month Carlisle; they're not even trying to hide anymore. How long till they just declare an all-out war!"

I stepped into Edwards side placing my hand on his chest. "The Romanians?" It wasn't even a question; not really, there was no need to ask anymore. We all knew, we'd known for months. Stefan and Vladimir had not been happy walking away from a fight with the Volturi last year, they saw them as having been weakened and had begun amassing forces to launch an attack on them in Italy not long after. They'd started to cause quite the epidemic over in Eastern Europe with so many people so openly disappearing. Rumours had got back to us through Jaspers contacts that they had stopped caring who they took, their ranks contained humans and vampires alike now.

Things had been escalating these last few weeks and the air had become tense as everyone waited for the moment when they would break out from behind their walls and launch an attack. It would be chaos.

The Volturi vs the Romanians

We would have to pick a side. The whole world would. It was clear our choice was already made from the fact that we weren't rushing to join their ranks. The Volturi may be led by a power hungry psychopath but for the most part they maintained order and kept the peace between vampires and humans. Whereas the Romanians had no regard for human life at all, they wanted the old ways back when vampires were worshipped like gods, and they ruled over humanity who cowered in fear of them.

They had been openly slaughtering whole villages for months now. It was sickening to watch, knowing what we were heading towards and being powerless to stop it. The wheels of war had been set in motion and it was coming, whether we wanted it to or not.

Edward glanced sideways at me and gave my shoulder a small squeeze "This time it was a small town, just outside the border to Hungary. The media's going wild"

The weeks continued to pass and on the surface life appeared normal, we all went about our lives as if nothing was happening but if you looked closely you could almost see the tension in the air. The subtle looks of apprehension on faces that could almost be missed, hidden behind smiles, but it was definitely there. Even the normally more boisterous Emmett had been more subdued and spent hours sat with Jasper, silent conversations that we all pretended not to see passing between them as they weighed up the threat coming towards our family.

It was just another one of those many days sat waiting for something, anything to happen. Most of the family sat around the living room playing with Ness, and Edward was in his usual seat at the piano composing yet another song for our beloved daughter. In the corner of the room the television was on, a 24 hour news channel, as it had been for weeks, but there had been no more massacres or disappearances. There was eerily little news of anything happening in Eastern Europe and it had everyone's nerves up, wondering why the Romanians activity had dropped off so suddenly. We knew the Volturi had not yet stepped in, Alice had been watching Aro's decisions and she surely would have informed us if they had made a move against them. So what were they up to? Where were they?

I glanced towards Alice now from my position on the sofa as she sat with Rose twisting my daughters hair up into an intricate design to more befit the princess gown they had dressed her up into and smirked to myself as I imagined the day Ness inevitably tired of them playing with her like a little doll. She was after all my daughter and I could see with each day she grew so did her annoyance at being fussed over constantly. I think Alice and Rose would have a harder time letting go of her being a little girl than me and Edward would. She was still growing relatively fast and at almost two years old she looked closer in age to a seven year old.

The smirk quickly dropped from my face however when Alice suddenly ceased her movements and sat frozen, her hands still in Ness's hair halfway through pinning up a braid, a vacant look across her features. Everyone focused on her then, waiting for the vision to finish and for her to inform us of yet another massacre somewhere, or that the Volturi had finally taken action and we could relax.

We were not expecting the look of horrified panic that she fixed dead on Carlisle as soon as she emerged or indeed the words that left her mouth in little more than a whisper.

"They're coming, the Romanians"