Chapter One

The room was highly decorated with fine Italian furniture. The curtains, a deep black where pulled closed even though it was daylight outside. The room was lit by a chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

The walls were a dark textured yellow and were adorned by paintings. The room would have been perfect if one thing didn't throw the entire room off and that thing was sitting right in the center of the room, a cradle complete with a screaming infant inside.

Jane glared at the cradle from the open doorway. She looked once one way and once the other way. Believing that there was no threat, she stepped into the room. She peered at the tiny infant boy who sobbed harder at the sight of her. "Because of you, Felix is dead. It wouldn't take much to kill you now. It wouldn't hurt me at all to kill you, my conscience wouldn't haunt me. Your mother's conscience isn't haunting her." She said stroking the baby's cheek with one cold finger. "Just one little raise of my eyebrow and…"

"Jane!" Renata barked from Jane's side. Jane sighed as she discovered that once again, her power was useless against the helpless infant. Renata was shielding him. Renata bent into a defensive crouch. "Get away from him."
"Ooo, scary Renata," Jane mocked her. "Why are you doing this? That child is the future leader of the wolves, have you forgotten that they kill our kind?"

Renata picked the screaming child up. Jane wrinkled her nose at the faint, but there, werewolf smell. "How can you even stand holding him?"

Renata ignored her. "He's a baby, just an innocent life." She said. "The Volturi are wrong. Caius is only agreeing to this because he wants a reason to kill. By stealing the baby we instigated the attack. The werewolves have never wronged us specifically before."

"They have killed our kind without reason before. Have you forgotten Laurent?"

"They also helped destroy Victoria's newborns who would've caused problems for us!" Renata hissed.

Jane got closer to her, as close as she could get with the wriggling child between them. "If I just kill you, he won't have a protector."
"Jane!" This time the angry voice belonged to Aro. "Leave her be. One of our number is already lost; we don't need to be fighting each other." He snapped.

"Why are we keeping him alive? His mother murdered Felix!" Jane demanded.

Caius entered behind Aro. "That's exactly the reason why we're keeping the wolf child alive. Don't you understand the bond between mother and child?" He growled. When Jane shook her head, Caius rolled his eyes and Marcus came in.

"The bond between mother and child is one of the strongest bonds in any relationship. Ellabeth, a normal human, killed Felix, something we never thought possible before. She killed him, solely because, he was trying to take her baby. She's still alive and she's going to come after us with a vengeance. If we don't have the baby when she comes, not many of us, or none of us at all will make it out of this." Marcus said. "She may be only human, but if she can kill one of us on her own, imagine what she can do with an army of wolves behind her!"

"And the Cullens," Aro sighed. "We have made ourselves their enemy once more. Ellabeth is dear Bella's sister."

Jane sighed. "What do we do with it?"
Renata had finally gotten the baby to stop crying. "We have to care for it."

"And just wait for them to attack us?!" Jane snapped. "Why not just give the damn thing back?"

"Despite the fact that we made a mistake, we aren't going to lay on our backs and surrender. We won't admit we made a mistake until it comes time to." Aro said firmly. "Save your power for the army against and stay away from Renata and the child." He gave Jane one of his rare foreboding glares. "I mean it."

Jane glared at Renata. "Fine."

They all left the room while Renata sang the baby to sleep. She placed him back in the cradle which didn't belong in the dark room. In his sleep, he whimpered, "Mama."