Bella Volturi

2

One Year Later.

Sulpicia was heading toward the throne room when she encountered Demetri and Jane in the hallway grumbling about something.

"What are you two standing around here for?", she asked, "Where is Isabella?"

"Uh, she wanted us to play hide and seek with her", Demetri sighed, "But then she left us hiding for nearly an hour. We're looking for her now."

"So you lost my daughter?"

The two guards winced slightly and lowered their eyes. Sulpicia laughed to herself because she already knew where Bella was.

"Come."

Jane and Demetri followed her silently to the throne room where they found Bella seated on Marcus's lap and being coddled by Athenodora and Didym. Aro and Caius were engrossed in a discussion about something concerning "vegetarians".

"Mamma!", Bella squealed

Bella jumped off Marcus and ran to embrace Sulpicia who then easily picked the girl up. Bella had lost two teeth not too long ago and her toothless smiles made her look like an adorable angel. But despite her appearance, everyone had become accustomed to her little pranks; like the one she just did on her guards. Now they understood why she called herself a bad child a year before but that didn't stop them from loving her.

Aro and Sulpicia quickly came to the conclusion of why the girl's parents left (albeit it was still quite stupid to do something so extreme) and were quick to discipline her. Of course Bella still got up to her tricks but she managed to show a modicum of restraint and did so less often. What her new parents had that her old ones didn't was patience, curiosity and love. A lot of love.

Aro ended his talks with Caius and finally acknowledged his wife and daughter in the room, something that brought the gentlest of smiles upon his face.

"Vieni qui tesoro", he said

Bella indicated for Sulpicia to let her down and rushed over to Aro who lifted her onto his lap.

"Why were you not with Demetri and Jane?", Aro asked

"We were playing hide and go seek", Bella answered simply

"Oh so you were hiding in here."

"Nope. I'm the seeker."

"Then why weren't you seeking?"

Bella smiled cheekily and didn't answer. Not that she needed to; everyone knew she liked her pranks. At this point you had to be stupid to play that game with her. Bella would leave you hiding for hours and not feel bad about it. Something that Aro and even Caius found amusing.

"Don't cause too much trouble for them Isabella. You know Jane isn't all that patient", Caius quipped

All except Jane laughed or chuckled at her expense and the very young looking vampire shrugged it off. Caius was one to talk about patience.

"Anyways", Aro said, "How would you like to go on a trip Bella?"

"To where?"

"The states. I have an old friend there I need to meet and you can tag along. What do you think?"

Bella briefly thought to ask if it was an excuse to abandon her but then thought better of it. After all she'd been through the past year, she could tell that these non-human people loved her more than she'd ever been loved before. Asking that sort of question now seemed ridiculous even to her. Instead she nodded her head vigorously and hugged her father.