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The blond, Carlisle, glanced back at her, and then he straightened up a little, though I could see he was stil wary

"We have no wish to har voice "We didn’t want to fight any of you"

"I’ain

I couldn’t o was dead, and that was the ht was over, my coven had lost and my enemies had won But my dead coven was ful of people ould have loved to watchto me kindly when they had no reason to Moreover, I felt safer with these two strangers than I’d ever felt with Raoul and Kristie I was relieved that Raoul and Kristie were dead It was so confusing

"Child," Carlisle said, "wil you surrender to us? If you do not try to harm us, we promise il not harm you"

And I believed him

"Yes," I whispered "Yes, I surrender I don’t want to hurt anybody"

He held out his hand encouragingly "Coroup for a moment, then we’l have so to fear"

I got up slowly,

"Carlisle?" a male voice cal ed

And then another yel ow-eyed vampire joined us Any sort of safety I’d felt with these strangers vanished as soon as I saw him

He was blond, like the first, but tal er and leaner His skin was absolutely covered in scars, spaced ether on his neck and jaw A few smal marks on his arm were fresh, but the rest were not frohts than I could have iined, and he’d never lost His tawny eyes blazed and his stance exuded the barely contained violence of an angry lion

As soon as he saw

"Jasper!" Carlisle warned

Jasper pul ed up short and stared at Carlisle ide eyes "What’s going on?"

"She doesn’t want to fight She’s surrendered"

The scarred vampire’s brow clouded, and suddenly I felt an unexpected surge of frustration, though I had no idea what I was frustrated with

"Carlisle, I" He hesitated, then continued, "I’m sorry, but that’s not possible We can’t have any of these newborns associated with us when the Volturi coer that would put us in?"

I didn’t understand exactly what he was saying, but I got enough He wanted to kil me

"Jasper, she’s only a child," the woman protested "We can’t just e to hear her speak like we both were people, like

"It’s our family on the line here, Esme We can’t afford to have them think we broke this rule"

The woman, Esme, walked between me and the one anted to kil me Incomprehensibly, she turned her back to me

"No I won’t stand for it"

Carlisle shot lance I could see that he cared a lot for this woo’s back I tried to appear as docile as I felt

"Jasper, I think we have to take the chance," he said slowly

"We are not the Volturi We fol ow their rules, but we do not take lives lightly We wil explain"

"They ht think we created our oborns in defense"

"But we didn’t And even had we, there was no indiscretion here, only in Seattle There is no law against creating vaerous"

Carlisle touched Jasper’s shoulder tentatively "Jasper We cannot kil this child"

Jasper glowered at the ry Surely he wouldn’t hurt this gentle vahed, and I kneas okay My anger evaporated

"I don’t like this," he said, but he was cale of her You two don’t kno to deal with so"

"Of course, Jasper," the woman said "But be kind"

Jasper rol ed his eyes "We need to be with the others Alice said we don’t have long"

Carlisle nodded He held his hand out to Esme, and they headed past Jasper back toward the open field

"You there," Jasper said to ain