Crescent Moon

Chapter 17: Planning Stages

BPOV

Taking a deep breath, I walked into the shadows. We were initiating "Part A" of the plan, and this was were we were meant to be collected. Looking up at the mild cloud cover, I smiled tightly at the fact the weather was on our side.

Corrin was by my side, smiling genially, his strong arms wrapped tightly around Sophia, his only outward indication of tension. Our acts were quite convincing – we appeared to be the perfect image of a traveling family. Sophia even had her hand tucked in the back pocket of Corrin's jeans, making them the loving couple. Although, for that, those two did not need to act much at all. They already were the loving couple. I was more stoic than the others, my anxiety stopping me from acting as well, but I pulled through.

Here where we were was the area where tourists were taken on tours to castles. And here was where, on occasion, a beautiful enchantress would come and take several dozen on a "personal" tour. Safe to say none of those people ever returned.

Yep, we were waiting a few minutes out of Volterra for a vampire to pretty much collect the take out food. To get inside the gates we would infiltrate the livestock.

Now that I think about it, the plan was too simple – something definitely had to go wrong.

It was moments like this that I hated being the pessimistic one. Thousands of possibilities ran through my mind, most of them with the outcome being horrifically bad.

The only thing that kept me grounded was the fact that Edward was waiting for me in the villa. He could not go, not because he did not want to, but because I insisted. Even though he was my mate, I could not risk his presence being seen in the case the Cullen family face the consequences of our actions. That and the fact that his entire being screamed 'vampire'.

He protested loudly against the idea of staying behind, but after I implored for him to stay here to protect his coven, he finally caved. A small part of me acknowledged that part of the reason I wanted him to stay away was so he stayed safe. I could not refuse Corrin or Sophia – they were family. However, I came up with an acceptable excuse to keep Edward at bay; I suspected that Sophia knew of what I was doing, but she said nothing on it, sparing me only one searching glance.

Since he could not be part of the action, he threw himself into the planning stages, intent on keeping all of us out of harm's way as much as possible. Carlisle's knowledge of the Volturi's inner knowledge was immense, hopefully enough to make this rescue mission as painless as possible. Edward tried to pull as much as he could to his advantage.

Edward had relayed to us what Carlisle had known about the feeding schedule. Thankfully for us, the Volturi were a rather stuffy bunch of old men, and although cunning, they were rather reserved in their habits, some of which – like the feeding ritual – going back centuries.

As my wristwatch glowed half past midday, I suddenly feared that we were wrong. They were incredibly late and I don't think that was right and –

My inner ramblings were cut off when a beautiful vampire, dressed in clothes that left little to the imagination, walked into the shadowed courtyard, eying the tourists mulling around the area with glee. Barely a minute had passed before her entrance and she had already collected a reasonable amount of humans. With a sickening jolt, my stomach plummeted when I realized that these people were facing death in a matter of minutes.

And they didn't even know it.

The idea was immediately rejected from me, being so repulsive, I didn't know what I could say or do. But one thing I knew was that I couldn't make a scene. There was no way I could free Annalie if I were led to her in chains. Metaphoric ones at least; there were no chains on earth that could hold me.