talented

What is the werewolves' part in this?" Taras asked then, eyeing Jacob.

Jacob spoke before Edward could answer. "If the Volturi won't stop to listen about my best friend, I mean Beau," he said, remembering that Taras would not know we were friends, "we will stop them."

"Very brave, child, but that would be impossible for more experienced fighters than you are."

"You don't know what we can do."

Taras shrugged. "It is your own life, certainly, to spend as you choose."

Jacob's eyes flickered to me—standing next to Carmen with Kate hovering

over us—and it was easy to read the devotion to his friend in his eyes..

"He is special, that boy," Taras mused. "never seen anyone like him."

"A very talented couple," Elena murmured as she paced. Her tempo was increasing; she flashed from the door to Carmen and back again every second. "A mind reader, and a shield. I wonder if there is a name for what he is, or if he's just a regular vampire hybrid. As if such a thing could ever be considered normal! A vampire hybrid, indeed!"

"Excuse me," Edward said in a stunned voice. He reached out and caught Elena's shoulder as she was about to turn again for the door. "What did you just call my husband?"

Elena looked at Edward curiously, her manic pacing forgotten for the moment.

"A shield, I think. He's blocking me now, so I can't be sure."

I stared at Elena, my brows furrowing in confusion. Shield? What did she mean about my blocking her? I was standing right here beside her, not defensive in any way.

"A shield?" Edward repeated, bewildered.

"Come now, Edward! If I can't get a read on him, I doubt you can, either. Can you hear his thoughts right now?" Elena asked.

"No," Edward murmured. "But I've never been able to do that. Even when he

was fully human."

"Never?" Elena blinked. "Interesting. That would indicate a rather powerful latent talent, if it was manifesting so clearly even before the transformation. I can't feel a way through his shield to get a sense of it at all. Yet he must be raw still—he's only a few months old." The look she gave Edward now was almost exasperated. "And apparently completely unaware of what he's doing. Totally

unconscious. Ironic. Aro sent me all over the world searching for such anomalies, and you simply stumble across it by accident and don't even realize what you have." Elena shook her head in disbelief.

I frowned. "What are you talking about? How can I be a shield? What does that even mean?" All I could picture in my head was a ridiculous medieval suit of armor.

Elena leaned her head to one side as she examined me. "I suppose we were overly formal about it in the guard. In truth, categorizing talents is a subjective, haphazard business; every talent is unique, never exactly the same thing twice. But you, Beau, are fairly easy to classify. Talents that are purely defensive, that protect some aspect of the bearer, are always called shields. Have you ever tested

your abilities?  Blocked anyone besides me and your mate?"

It took me few seconds, despite how quickly my new brain worked, to organize

my answer.

"It only works with certain things," I told her. "My head is sort of… private. But it

doesn't stop Jasper from being able to mess with my mood or Alice from seeing

my future."

"Purely a mental defense." Elena nodded to herself. "Limited, but strong."

"Aro couldn't hear him" Edward interjected. "Though he was human when they

met."

Elena's eyes widened.

"Jane tried to hurt me, but she couldn't," I said. "Edward thinks Demetri can't

find me, and that Alec can't bother me, either. Is that good?"

Elena, still gaping, nodded. "Quite."

"A shield!" Edward said, deep satisfaction saturating his tone. "I never thought of

it that way. The only one I've ever met before was Renata, and what she did was

so different."

Elena had recovered slightly. "Yes, no talent ever manifests in precisely the

same way, because no one ever thinks in exactly the same way."

"Who's Renata? What does she do?" I asked.

"Renata is Aro's personal bodyguard," Elena told me. "A very practical kind of

shield, and a very strong one."

I vaguely remembered a small crowd of vampires hovering close to Aro in his

macabre tower, some male, some female. I couldn't remember the women's faces

in the uncomfortable, terrifying memory. One must have been Renata.

"I wonder…," Elena mused. "You see, Renata is a powerful shield against a physical attack. If someone approaches her—or Aro, as she is always close beside him in a hostile situation—they find themselves… diverted. There's a force around her that repels, though it's almost unnoticeable. You simply find yourself going a different direction than you planned, with a confused memory as to why

you wanted to go that other way in the first place. She can project her shield several meters out from herself. She also protects Caius and Marcus, too, when they have a need, but Aro is her priority.

"What she does isn't actually physical, though. Like the vast majority of our gifts, it takes place inside the mind. If she tried to keep you back, I wonder who would win?" She shook her head. "I've never heard of Aro's or Jane's gifts being thwarted."

Hey Beau you are special Jacob told me grinning.

I felt disoriented. Didn't I already know my gift? I had my super-self-control that had allowed me to skip right over the horrifying newborn year. Vampires only had one extra ability at most, right?

Or had Edward been correct in the beginning? Before Carlisle had suggested that my self-control could be something beyond the natural, Edward had thought my restraint was just a product of good preparation—focus and attitude, he'd declared.

Which one had been right? Was there more I could do? A name and a category

for what I was?

"Can you project?" Kate asked interestedly.

"Project?" I asked.

"Push it out from yourself," Kate explained. "Shield someone besides yourself."

"I don't know. I've never tried. I didn't know I could do that."

"Oh, you might not be able to," Kate said quickly. "Heavens knows I've been

working on it for centuries and the best I can do is run a current over my skin."

I stared at her, mystified.

"Kate's got an offensive skill," Edward said. "Sort of like Jane."

I flinched away from Kate automatically, and she laughed.

"I'm not sadistic about it," she assured me. "It's just something that comes in

handy during a fight."

Kate's words were sinking in, beginning to make connections in my mind. Shield

someone besides yourself, she'd said. As if there were some way for me to include

another person in my strange, quirky silent head.

I remembered Edward cringing on the ancient stones of the Volturi castle turret.

Though this was a human memory, it was sharper, more painful than most of the

others—like it had been branded into the tissues of my brain.

What if I could stop that from happening ever again? What if I could protect him?

Protect my family? What if there was even the faintest glimmer of a possibility

that I could shield them, too?

"You have to teach me what to do!" I insisted, unthinkingly grabbing Kate's arm.

"You have to show me how!"

Kate winced at my grip. "Maybe—if you stop trying to crush my radius."

Oops! Sorry!"

"You're shielding, all right," Kate said. "That move should have about shocked

your arm off. You didn't feel anything just now?"

"That wasn't really necessary, Kate. He didn't mean any harm," Edward

muttered under his breath. Neither of us paid attention to him.

"No, I didn't feel anything. Were you doing your electric current thing?"

"I was. Hmm. I've never met anyone who couldn't feel it, immortal or otherwise."

"You said you project it? On your skin?"

Kate nodded. "It used to be just in my palms. Kind of like Aro."

"But after a lot of practice, I can radiate the current all over my body. It's a good  defense. Anyone who tries to touch me drops like a human that's been Tasered. It only downs him for a second, but that's long enough."

I was only half-listening to Kate, my thoughts racing around the idea that I might be able to protect my family if I could just learn fast enough. I wished fervently that I might be good at this projecting thing, too, like I was somehow mysteriously good at all the other aspects of being a vampire. My human life had not prepared me for things that came naturally, and I couldn't make myself trust

this aptitude to last.

It felt like I had never wanted anything so badly before this: to be able to protect

what I loved.

Because I was so preoccupied, I didn't notice the silent exchange going on between Edward and Elena until it became a spoken conversation.

"Can you think of even one exception, though?" Edward asked.

I looked over to make sense of his comment and realized that everyone else was

already staring at the two of them. They were leaning toward each other intently,

Edward's expression tight with suspicion, Elena's unhappy and reluctant.

"I don't want to think of them that way," Elena said through her teeth. I was

surprised at the sudden change in the atmosphere.

"If you're right—," Elena began again.

Edward cut her off. "The thought was yours, not mine."

"If I'm right… I can't even grasp what that would mean. It would change

everything about the world we've created. It would change the meaning of my life.

What I have been a part of."

"Your intentions were always the best, Elena."

"Would that even matter? What have I done? How many lives . . ."

Taras put his hand on Elena's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "What did we

miss, my friend? I want to know so that I can argue with these thoughts. You've

never done anything worth castigating yourself this way."

"Oh, haven't I?" Elena muttered. Then she shrugged out from under his hand

and began her pacing again, faster even than before.

Taras watched her for half a second and then focused on Edward. "Explain."

Edward nodded, his tense eyes following Elena as he spoke. "She was trying to understand why so many of the Volturi would come to punish us. It's not the way they do things. Certainly, we are the biggest mature coven they've dealt with, but in the past other covens have joined to protect themselves, and they never presented much of a challenge despite their numbers. We are more closely bonded, and that's a factor, but not a huge one.

"She was remembering other times that covens have been punished, for one thing

or the other, and a pattern occurred to her. It was a pattern that the rest of the

guard would never have noticed, since Elena was the one passing the pertinent

intelligence privately to Aro. A pattern that only repeated every other century or

so."

"What was this pattern?" Carmen asked, watching Elena as Edward was.

"Aro does not often personally attend a punishing expedition," Edward said. "But

in the past, when Aro wanted something in particular, it was never long before

evidence turned up proving that this coven or that coven had committed some

unpardonable crime. The ancients would decide to go along to watch the guard

administer justice. And then, once the coven was all but destroyed, Aro would

grant a pardon to one member whose thoughts, he would claim, were particularly

repentant. Always, it would turn out that this vampire had the gift Aro had

admired. Always, this person was given a place with the guard. The gifted

vampire was won over quickly, always so grateful for the honor. There were no

exceptions."

"It must be a heady thing to be chosen," Kate suggested.

"Ha!" Elena snarled, still in motion.

"There is one among the guard," Edward said, explaining Elena's angry

reaction. "Her name is Chelsea. She has influence over the emotional ties

between people. She can both loosen and secure these ties. She could make

someone feel bonded to the Volturi, to want to belong, to want to please them. . .

."

Elena came to an abrupt halt. "We all understood why Chelsea was important.

In a fight, if we could separate allegiances between allied covens, we could defeat

them that much more easily. If we could distance the innocent members of a

coven emotionally from the guilty, justice could be done without unnecessary

brutality—the guilty could be punished without interference, and the innocent

could be spared. Otherwise, it was impossible to keep the coven from fighting as a

whole. So Chelsea would break the ties that bound them together. It seemed a

great kindness to me, evidence of Aro's mercy. I did suspect that Chelsea kept our

own band more tightly knit, but that, too, was a good thing. It made us more

effective. It helped us coexist more easily."

This clarified old memories for me. It had not made sense to me before how the

guard obeyed their masters so gladly, with almost lover-like devotion.

"How strong is her gift?" Taras asked with an edge to his voice. Her gaze quickly

touched on each member of his family.

Elena shrugged. "I was able to leave with Carmen." And then she shook her head.

"But anything weaker than the bond between partners is in danger. In a normal

coven, at least. Those are weaker bonds than those in our family, though.

Abstaining from human blood makes us more civilized—lets us form true bonds

of love. I doubt she could turn our allegiances, Taras."

Taras nodded, seeming reassured, while Elena continued with her analysis.

"I could only think that the reason Aro had decided to come himself, to bring so

many with him, is because his goal is not punishment but acquisition," Elena

said. "He needs to be there to control the situation. But he needs the entire guard

for protection from such a large, gifted coven. On the other hand, that leaves the

other ancients unprotected in Volterra. Too risky—someone might try to take

advantage. So they all come together. How else could he be sure to preserve the

gifts that he wants? He must want them very badly," Elena mused.

Edward's voice was low as a breath. "From what I saw of his thoughts last spring,

Aro's never wanted anything more than he wants Alice."

I felt my mouth fall open, remembering the nightmarish pictures I had imagined

long ago: Edward and Alice in black cloaks with bloodred eyes, their faces cold

and remote as they stood close as shadows, Aro's hands on theirs.… Had Alice

seen this more recently? Had she seen Chelsea trying to strip away her love for

us, to bind her to Aro and Caius and Marcus?

"Is that why Alice left?" I asked, my voice breaking on her name.

Edward put his hand against my cheek. "I think it must be. To keep Aro from

gaining the thing he wants most of all. To keep her power out of his hands."

I heard Taras and Kate murmuring in disturbed voices and remembered that

they hadn't known about Alice.

"He wants you, too," I whispered.

Edward shrugged, his face suddenly a little too composed. "Not nearly as much. I

can't really give him anything more than he already has. And of course that's

dependent on his finding a way to force me to do his will. He knows me, and he

knows how unlikely that is." He raised one eyebrow sardonically.

Elena frowned at Edward's nonchalance. "He also knows your weaknesses,"

Elena pointed out, and then she looked at me.

"It's nothing we need to discuss now," Edward said quickly.

Elena ignored the hint and continued. "He probably wants your mate, too, regardless. He must have been intrigued by a talent that could defy him in its human incarnation."

Edward was uncomfortable with this topic. I didn't like it, either. If Aro wanted me to do something—anything—all he had to do was threaten Edward and I would comply. And vice versa.

Was death the lesser concern? Was it really capture we should fear?

Edward changed the subject. "I think the Volturi were waiting for this—for some pretext. They couldn't know what form their excuse would come in, but the plan was already in place for when it did come. That's why Alice saw their decision before Ivan triggered it. The decision was already made, just waiting for the pretense of a justification."

"If the Volturi are abusing the trust all immortals have placed in them…," Carmen

murmured.

"Does it matter?" Elena asked. "Who would believe it? And even if others could be convinced that the Volturi are exploiting their power, how would it make any difference? No one can stand against them."

"Though some of us are apparently insane enough to try," Kate muttered.

Edward shook his head. "You're only here to witness, Kate. Whatever Aro's goal, I don't think he's ready to tarnish the Volturi's reputation for it. If we can take away his argument against us, he'll be forced to leave us in peace."

"Of course," Taras murmured.

No one looked convinced. For a few long minutes, nobody said anything.

Then I heard the sound of tires turning off the highway pavement onto the Cullens' dirt drive.

"Oh crap, Charlie," I muttered. "Maybe the Denalis could hang out upstairs until—"

"No," Edward said in a distant voice. His eyes were far away, staring blankly at the door. "It's not your father." His gaze focused on me. "Alice sent Peter and Charlotte, after all. Time to get ready for the next round."