— 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟔 —
𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐚, 𝐈𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐲

"We have a war on our hands—we must send every source we have to track down Lithiovai immediately! We also must track down the escaped siblings: Cassandra, Cassius, Nicholas, Noelle, and Zulon are to be hunted at once!"

"We have a mate to consider in this, brother. Such actions are exactly why we have not heard so much of a whisper from Cassandra until now, and even this was not by choice! She wishes for her and her siblings to be left alone..."

"A truly delusional desire, we cannot just ignore them. Apart from the fact that she is the mate we have been waiting over three thousand years for, Lithiovai is too dangerous to leave them alone! We are already lucky enough that his plan has backfired so brutally, but he is smart, and if he manages to gather all eight of his children once more then our chances of succeeding against him slim exponentially!"

"None of them would ever choose to do his bidding!"

"There are other means, you know this well, brother! Not everyone has a choice!"

Aro sat silently for once, his eyes calculating and hands folded in front of him on his desk. Caius and Marcus sat across from him, both of them arguing back and forth. They had been for hours now, ever since Aro had told them everything he had seen in young Alice's mind.

Their suspicions were officially confirmed—the presence they felt had been a mate, and her name was Cassandra. And her story was far more than any of them were expecting.

They had been expecting her to be either a new vampire or a very talented human: not a three-hundred-year-old fae who had escaped a psychotic enemy of theirs and was now in hiding. Not to mention the fact that Lithiovai had raised her with the singular purpose of serving him and wiping their entire coven off the map.

Caius was enraged that Lithiovai had managed to trick them so seamlessly—how could they have been so foolish to think that he was dead? Lithiovai had been the trickiest and most talented of the Romanians, of course, he was not dead!

Now, because of that rash mistake, generations later they all had another war rising: yet another battle against the Romanians was on the horizon. And the last one had been anything but pretty.

The Volturi-Romanian war lasted for centuries. While it ended in the Romanians's defeat, the Volturi still suffered many losses in the conflict. Not to mention the devastation that was caused to the human world as collateral. Thankfully, enough time had passed that the humans forgot it and it was nothing more than myth and legend, but the times were different now.

The supernatural world was barely able to be concealed as was: if war broke out their world would be revealed and the humans would no doubt be pulled in. And with modern technology and weaponry, it was not so farfetched to assume that humans would be able to create weapons that could destroy them all.

Obviously, Caius was concerned about their mate just as much as Marcus or Aro, but he showed his concern very differently.

He could manage a life where Cassandra hated him for kidnapping her and forcing her to Volterra, he could live with himself if she despised him for killing her siblings because at least she would be safe.

At least war would be avoided, the threat eliminated and his mate would be safe and alive.

But no, Marcus and Aro could not live in such a reality.

Aro was already devastated that their mate apparently feared and hated him the most—no doubt Lithiovai's doing.

He had brainwashed his children—AKA youths he kidnapped—into believing the Volturi were nothing more than monsters, an enemy to be destroyed.

Marcus was trying to ignore the war aspect of it altogether, he was trying to think of ways to reach Cassandra to reason with her. He did not want to make her feel trapped or intimidated in any manner.

They had no way of tracking Cassandra, the last they knew she had been in Forks. She was no doubt long gone by now, but they would still be sending Demetri to scout out the area to see if there was any sign of her or any way that he might be able to track where she had gone.

"Lithiovai has already managed to destroy an entire species over three hundred years ago with us being none the wise to it! He may not have all eight of his children at the present moment, but he still has the most powerful witch in this age, the first hybrid of a vampire and Child of the Moon, and the first human-vampire hybrid with abilities of obliteration! We did not even know we were capable of reproduction up until this moment: he is a threat that we need to take out immediately!" Caius ranted. "And with that being said, until we have more research and information, we should make it a law for our kind to not spread their seed in any other species apart from a vampire! We have no clue how dangerous these hybrid creations are!"

"That is preposterous!" Marcus scoffed. "Making such a law would only draw more attention and therefore cause more people to break it! Such instances are obviously far and few between seeing as we have never heard of such hybrids until now. Vampires are seldom able to mate successfully with any species other than our own. We typically kill humans trying to do such a thing and Children of the Moon are our natural enemies: no such thing occurs but once in a blue moon!"

Aro slammed his hands to the table, standing up as he spoke.

"We may stay on the lookout for her siblings but we cannot expend all our resources into finding them, we must begin with recruiting and strengthening ourselves. While we are strong, we are in no way prepared for another war against Lithiovai. But we also cannot allow Cassandra to just remain out there... while we obviously have no means of tracking her, we will also keep an ear out for her... the first sign we get of her location we will pursue it." Aro said, his voice cold. "For now we will inform only the Elite Guard. Caius, you must up the training of our members, I will conduct detailed checks of everyone's minds to ensure there are no spies among us, and we will begin recruiting heavier than we have in centuries. Vladimir and Stefan are to be watched but not approached, we must keep them oblivious to the situation or they may attempt to find Lithiovai themselves."

Aro turned his back to them, folding his hands behind his back as ended his plan.

"Brothers, as of this moment, we are once again at war with the Romanian Coven..."