Prologue – Legacy

 

Carlisle

 

20 September, 4032

My father is finally gone. His memory will fade soon enough as well.

 

24 September, 4032

I have been in counsel with my advisors all day. We received word early this morning from scouts at the border that a large army is moving onto our lands. The first reports assumed the army was from the Quileute nation to the west, given the man-sized wolves that head the party; subsequent reports have confirmed this. I have no choice but to believe that they come with the intention of exterminating me, my family, and our people.

We have, up till now, always been peaceful, if wary, neighbors, and their king, Ephraim Black, is a wise, fair ruler, I am told. I cannot imagine what could have sparked this aggressive move, but as yet, none of my scouts or messengers have been able to make civil contact with them.

Even as I write this, I am preparing to leave the Capital, my home, my wife, son, and unborn child… I go to meet the force that would annihilate all I hold dear. I will ride out at dawn tomorrow to meet with Ephraim Black himself and, God willing, make him see reason.

 

26 September, 4032

It is all madness. To think that my people, subjects of my own court…

The crimes Ephraim described to me were committed by foolish, spoiled, rich, young men, men scarcely younger than myself. Low, foul men, not even worthy of that title… As my esteemed neighbor said, how despicable that the daughters of the Quileute cannot even venture into the forests that have always been their ancestral domain, cannot enjoy the gifts of nature as is their right, without being set upon by lusty, disgusting men…

I would renounce these men if I could. I would try them in the highest court of my kingdom, strip everything from them, but they are unknown, undetectable. And the Quileute are adamant in their cries for blood.

I cannot believe the audacity of his demands. I cannot believe that one thinking, feeling person could require such a thing of another… Appealing to him father to father only seemed to strengthen his resolve. It is for the daughters of his people, he said, that he does this.

It will break my poor wife’s heart. My dear, sweet, Esme… I cower at the thought of relating these things to her. I am sickened myself by what I must agree to, what I must give up to save my people.

I tried to convince Ephraim that my people are not wholly bad, that every society, no matter how sweet and light, will have its share of villains. His response: “Prove it. Show me yourself how good you people can be.”

I have no choice. God forgive me.

 

30 September, 4032

Esme wept as I told her of my meeting with Ephraim Black. She wept and clutched her swollen belly as though I would take the child from her myself. I wept with her, for I know not what else to do.

 

18 November, 4032

It’s a BOY! A boy, I tell you! A son! Another son!

We will name him Edward, after Esme’s father’s brother. He was born just before daybreak this morning, my sweet wife laboring through the night to bring him into the world…

And yet, beyond all the joy of parenthood, most of all I feel… relief. The uncertainty of the last month and a half is ended; we will not have to give up our child.

Emmett and Edward. They will grow up good and strong, and we will all live secure in the knowledge that our family will never be torn apart by the threat of war.

 

15 January, 4039

Another emissary has returned empty handed. The Quileute king will not budge, will not even hear negotiations. He is as stubborn as his father was when first laying out his demands. I do not even have any daughters… His only reply is this: “We will wait.”

 

3 December, 4043

My emissary returned late last night, beaten and bedraggled. On his horse’s flanks were large bite marks, larger than any normal animal could inflict. This new Quileute king is offended at the mere mention of reviewing the terms of our peace.

 

1 October, 4059

Edward has just announced that his wife Isabella is pregnant. They expect the baby in the spring, and, like all of us… they hope for a boy.

I will send again to the king of the Wolves… How much longer can they insist on such a brutal sacrifice?

 

12 April, 4060

I have a granddaughter. They have named her Renesmee, after my wife and my daughter-in-law’s mother, Renee.

This should be a day of joy. She is a beautiful, sweet baby… but despite the unconditional love of a grandparent, all I can feel is dread.

 

13 April, 4060

A Wolf appeared at the city gates today. When he was led into the palace, he said simply that they would be watching… and they would come for her when she came of age. She is but a day old, and already her days are numbered… God help us all.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1 – The Big Bad Wolf

 

Jacob

He phased back with an inward breath, the transformation ending as he exhaled, human once more.

The capital city of the Cullens’ domain rose up out of the farmland before him, fields giving way to barns and silos, then houses, shops, and finally the bustling city center and white stone palace that overlooked it all. They were a strange people, living for nothing but the sunlight, their buildings and industry never quieting, tiny figures crisscrossing each other with no rhyme or reason, utter chaos.

It hurt his eyes to watch.

Bending down, he untied the leather strap binding his folded trousers to his calf. The patch of skin underneath was rubbed raw from the long run, even through the callus built up there. He massaged his leg for a few seconds, then straightened and stepped into his clothes. He had traveled all yesterday and through the night, stopping only briefly to catch some game and rest by a glade at the edge of the forest before beginning the long final leg of his journey, crossing the dry prairies that surrounded the Cullen lands.

He almost wanted to walk up to the gates in his wolf form. The little city guards would probably piss themselves running away. Either that or try to stick a spear in me, he snorted, tying off the knot at his waist. No, it would do better to simply announce himself in human form, man to… well, whatever these little pale people considered a ‘man.’

He’d never been to the Cullen kingdom before – he’d never been this far from Quileute lands at all, in fact – but he’d heard stories. They were all small and pale, almost womanly, with eyes the color of gold or gems. They didn’t hunt, or even eat meat, and they spent all their time buying and selling, inventing things and studying in great libraries, burning their lights through the night without even a thought of what the world around them actually held.

Wistfully, he glanced back over his shoulder, back toward the forests and mountains of his home, though they were beyond even what his eyes could see now, miles and miles away to the west. Soon… He did not have to stay here long, in this bright, deafening city with its bald fields and lanes. He had only to perform his task, and then he could return home, to run and hunt and feel the forest floor beneath his paws again…

With a deep breath in and out, Jacob squared his shoulders and stepped out onto the road to the palace.

---

Renesmee

They couldn’t send me away if they couldn’t catch me.

I darted down a side corridor in the castle, paused at an entrance to the servants’ passages, then thought better of it. Even my friends on the kitchen staff couldn’t be trusted today.

Not that I could blame them. I knew what was at stake if I didn’t go. The future of our entire kingdom hung in the balance today, on my being a dutiful daughter and princess and going to my doom so save them all. It was my life calling, what I had literally been born to do. There was no running, no escaping.

That didn’t stop me from trying, though.

I flew down a set of stairs and burst out the doors at the bottom, emerging into the gardens near the stables. Some groundsmen across the way perked up at the sight of me, no doubt with orders to bring me directly to my parents and grandparents should they find me. I made a hasty retreat toward the stables before they could come after me.

I was glad to disappear between the horse corrals. These gentle, powerful creatures asked nothing more from me than a pat on the nose and a cube of sugar now and then. I walked down the lines, pausing to greet any horses I was familiar with, before finally stopping in front of my own horse’s pen.

Noble nuzzled my hand affectionately with his big black nose, then proceeded to nip at my hair and the bits of leaves and grass sticking out of it. I really was a mess; I’d been climbing trees, diving into bushes, and running full-tilt through the palace all day, desperately avoiding all human contact and the fact that today, finally, was my sixteenth birthday.

For most girls my age, this was a glorious occasion, celebrated with balls and being presented at court, and finally being fair game to all the handsome young suitors of the land. For me, it was the end. Sixteen years of childhood, and now it’s time to say goodbye.

I knew what I had to do, and I would do it. My country and my family needed me. I knew I would do the right thing in the end – I just needed a few last minutes to be selfish, one last time.

I wrapped my arms around Noble’s neck and sobbed.

I don’t know if it took the stablehands that long to notice me, or if they were content to let me be for a few last precious minutes, but either way it was nearly a quarter of an hour before anyone disturbed me. I was all cried out by then anyway, hanging onto Noble’s strong neck for support and the feeling of someone simply being glad I was there without any other expectations.

It was one of the elderly horse trainers who finally approached me. “Miss…” he said softly, and gently reached up to pull me away from Noble.

I sniffled once, scrubbed at my eyes, then nodded and let them lead me away to my parents.

---

I was taken directly to the great hall, where my parents and grandfather waited. I’m sure if they’d known how things were going to play out, they would have sent me to get cleaned up first. I should look presentable, after all, for our… guest.

The man standing with my family was unlike anything I’d ever seen. He wore nothing but a pair of soft-looking leather trousers, bare foot and shirtless despite the cool air in the hall. His massive arms were folded over a well-muscled chest, the lights in the hall glinting dully on the exposed planes of coppery skin. Long black hair fell unrestrained past his broad shoulders. He was like a walking social faux pas – unkempt, half-dressed, positively wild.

My parents looked decidedly unsettled by him. I could tell Grandfather was trying to be diplomatic, despite the glower the man was leveling at him. The guards in the hall all watched him anxiously, shifting their weight from foot to foot every few seconds.

And me? I stopped dead on the threshold, something like ice shooting through me at the sight of him.

My mother was the first to notice me, followed by my father and then my grandfather, who actually winced at my appearance. Apparently, negotiations were not going well.

The strange man was the last to look over, glancing impatiently in my direction.

Our eyes met, and the ice became a bolt of lightning, coursing bright and wild through every fiber of my being.

Only one thought ran through my mind in that instant: This is the face of my future.

---

Jacob

The universe had just realigned itself.

He had been sent here by Sam to complete a forty year old peace agreement. He was the hand delivering the lesson from his king and his own great-grandfather to these pale-skinned strangers that no Quileute could be taken advantage of without the entire kingdom rising to exact vengeance. He was the messenger and the deliverer. What he was doing now was the key to keeping open war from breaking out between their peoples.

And yet, none of that was as important as the slight figure in front of him.

---

Renesmee

“Renesmee,” my mother said, and took half a step in my direction. I glanced at her briefly, my eyes quickly returning to the Quileute man who was still staring at me.

“Come here, child,” Grandfather said gently, holding his hand out to me. Wordlessly, I crossed the room to them, never shifting my gaze from the dark eyes that followed my every move. “May I present my granddaughter, the princess Renesmee,” he said, addressing the foreigner.

There were twigs sticking out of my hair, the bottom of my dress was tattered and dirty, there were scuffs and scrapes all up my forearms from climbing trees, and my face was still a blotchy red from crying. And yet, I dug deep inside myself and was able to pull out the most graceful, dignified, princessly curtsy ever to have been performed in the entire history of the kingdom. Aunt Rose would be so proud.

He stared at me as I rose to my full height once more, black eyes unreadable. Then he responded with a low, fluid bow, his arms spreading out to either side, hands open and palms forward. His hair slid silkily in front of his shoulders, and was carelessly shaken back as he straightened again, towering a good foot over me and at least half a head over my father and grandfather.

“I am called Jacob,” he rumbled formally, speaking directly to me. The sound sent a shiver down my spine, like the far off beginnings of a thunderstorm.

“You often find yourself ruining people’s lives, Jacob?” I quipped humorlessly, before clamping my lips tight shut. It figured my rebellious mouth would choose now to present itself, without so much as a wave to my brain first. I didn’t need to look at my family to know they would all be in various states of embarrassment and horror.

Jacob blinked down at me, his eyebrows rising in surprise. “Not as often as I find myself taking lives, no,” he responded evenly. Behind me, my father seemed to be choking on something.

Grandfather cleared his throat just as my mouth was opening to retort again. He placed a hand on my shoulder, smiling easily up at Jacob as only a seasoned politician could. “We can continue this conversation at the banquet tonight,” he said. “Which, as you can see, the princess still needs to go prepare for.”

“Banquet?” Jacob repeated, frowning.

“To celebrate her birthday, of course,” Grandfather said, giving my shoulder the gentlest of squeezes. So they weren’t going to just let this wildman carry me off into the wilderness without further ado. Huh.

“Uh, yes,” I continued for him. “I need to go get ready… big event and all that.” I smiled at my parents, offered Jacob an air-headed nod, and then turned to leave, practically skipping out of the room.

I made the mistake of glancing back as I paused in the doorway. Jacob was watching me go, his eyes looking somehow almost regretful. He looked away at last when my parents insistently tried to engage him in conversation once more, and I took the chance to slip out, ignoring the ache that was settling in the center of my chest. Beg, plead, or stall, there was nothing they or anyone else could do.

My fate was sealed.

Chapter 2 – Traditions

 

Renesmee

The event my family had planned for my coming of age was to consist of a grand banquet, formally presenting me to the court – something I couldn’t help viewing as frivolous, considering I had been at court my entire life, and would immediately afterward be leaving it forever – and then finally a ball, where, tradition would indicate, I would be sought after by every handsome young suitor in the kingdom. Somehow, I doubted that would be the case tonight.

I watched myself in the mirror as I stood for the final fitting of the gown we’d commissioned specifically for this event. It was simple in design, but elegant in the details, the way I liked my formal wear. Panels of pale green hugged my bodice and waist through the hips and then swirled out into a full skirt. Delicate gold embroidery edged the neck, sleeves, and bottom hem, where it wove its way up into a larger, more intricate design on the front panel. The colors were perfectly balanced to bring out the red and gold hues in my hair, and the skirt would look beautiful twirling around the dance floor, embroidery glinting in the lights of the hall. Too bad I wouldn’t be doing any dancing tonight; no one was going to come seeking the doomed princess, no matter how pretty her dress looked.

Once I was dressed, my hair was next on the list of preparations. The top half was pulled back and woven with strings of tiny white forget-me-nots, leaving a few loose curls to frame my face and the rest to swing freely down my back. Rose and Alice both tried to offer me pieces from their personal jewelry collections, but I politely refused. I knew they were only trying to help in their own ways, but getting dressed up like a doll was the last thing I wanted right now. Tonight was the last time I would get to be me, perhaps even the last evening of my life, period. Formal and pretty, yes, but most important tonight was that I still looked and felt like myself.

After that, time seemed to move both sluggishly and all too quickly. It was a little like I had my head submerged in water, watching my life play out around me but unable to hang onto any of the details. I remember being ushered into the great hall, where tables had been set up for my family and me, as well as the rest of the noble families who would be attending, along with a wide open dance floor and a raised platform where a small string band was already playing soft background music.

Since the celebration was to be held in my honor, I would be seated in the chair just to the right of my grandfather’s place at the head of the table, with my mother on my other side. As the guest of honor, Jacob would be across from me, at Grandfather’s left, and my father next to him. The rest of my family filed in after us, moving to stand behind their respective chairs while we awaited the arrival of the court. Rosalie would be next to my mother, and my uncle Emmett across from her, followed by Alice and Rosalie’s brother, Jasper. Rose and Emmett’s twin sons Tobias and Joshua brought up the rear; at ten years of age, they finally could be trusted to sit through a formal evening without direct supervision from their parents. Between them, opposite my grandfather, my grandmother Esme took her place at the end of the table, smiling sweetly – and a little sadly – at all our family gathered here together.

Together for the last time, I thought gloomily, staring down at the wood grain between my fingers as I clutched the back of my chair. I refused to meet anyone’s eyes – particularly the pair of obsidian black ones watching me from across the table.

As the first of the guests arrived, Grandfather and Grandmother came around the table to greet them together. Grandfather gave my shoulder a little squeeze as he passed – both in reassurance, and as a reminder to look up and smile, since technically I was the main spectacle tonight.

I sighed, then turned and joined the rest of my family in smiling welcomingly to the people filing in for the banquet. I couldn’t help a quick glance in Jacob’s direction. Where I expected to find boredom or confusion, he instead seemed to be carefully studying my face. I flushed, turning away quickly, but not before taking in his appearance as well.

Someone – Grandfather, no doubt – had apparently convinced him to don a short robe-like garment in addition to his trousers. It was a deep green color, edged in gold and black, and belted closed at the waist, the top hanging open to expose the russet skin of his chest. Such a garment was normally worn over an undertunic, but Jacob, I suspected, had agreed to one shirt, not several. It was nothing formal by our standards, but at least he wasn’t walking around half-dressed in front of the rest of the court.

I smiled and nodded to our guests as they entered, despite the looks of worry and even fear directed at me and the large dark man behind me. I wondered if they had convinced him to put on shoes. I doubted it – and for some reason, that thought made me smile in earnest.

All of a sudden, I wanted nothing more than to frighten these little people before me, to showcase the foreignness they feared, the same foreign power that was even now reaching out to claim me. I was hyperaware of Jacob standing behind me, how he towered over everyone in the room, looming threateningly with his dark skin and deep black eyes. I smiled toothily at a noblewoman as she passed, her eyes darting from me to Jacob and back again, a hint of white beginning to show all around her irises.

When the last of the courtiers had passed me, the triumphant, morbid glow began to dim, leaving me feeling a little foolish. I had seized the moment to try to make all of them feel as bad as I did, but it didn’t do anything to improve my own situation in the end. I suppressed a sigh, clasping my hands in front of me and staring resolutely out at the crowd.

Now that all the guests had arrived and found their respective tables, Grandfather stepped away from the rest of us, calling the court’s attention to himself as he stood at the front of the room to deliver his welcome speech while we took our seats. He thanked them all for coming to celebrate my birthday, and I rose to curtsy and smile sweetly at them when he directed their attention toward me. When I turned back to my seat, it was to find Jacob studying me from across the table, his gaze curious, which I had expected, but also compassionate, which I had not. I pursed my lips and looked down at the table instead.

I felt Jacob’s gaze lift momentarily when Grandfather introduced him as the representative from our esteemed neighbors, the Quileutes. I glanced up at him as he acknowledged the court with a disinterested scowl; he really wasn’t doing anything to dispel the image of him as a savage half-man-half-beast warrior. His eyes found mine again a moment later though, and I had to force myself to look away, instead turning to watch as Grandfather finished his speech and called for dinner to be served.

The cooks and servers who had been standing by now emerged from the side doors all around the hall, carrying great vats of fine wine; bowls of salads, fruits, and beans prepared in every way imaginable; baskets of warm, sweet breads; and platters of butter and cheese. Jacob looked more and more disappointed with every dish they placed on the table around us, his eyes searching hungrily for something he knew would not be there. Glumly, he finally accepted the salad one of the servants offered him, heaving a heavy sigh. Grandfather glanced at him semi-apologetically, but didn’t comment.

Everyone at our table was unusually quiet as they ate, despite the soft music from the band and the general hubbub of conversation in the rest of the hall. I stirred my food around on my plate and tried to keep myself from meeting Jacob’s gaze as he continued to stare at me.

I wondered what he could see on my face that could captivate him so. Perhaps he was looking for some sign of guilt over the crimes my people had supposedly committed against his, never mind that they had occurred nearly a half century before I was born. Maybe he was looking for fear. Maybe he was waiting for me to cry.

I glanced up defiantly, silently daring him to think such a thing. He caught my gaze eagerly and held it with his dark eyes.

“What?” I said, ignoring the look my mother shot me. She had raised me better than that, but I didn’t so much care at the moment.

He frowned, though not as if he were offended by my rudeness. “You’re not eating,” he said simply.

I saw my father’s hand tighten around his fork. Jacob continued to watch me.

I glanced at his untouched plate of salad, beans, and potatoes. “Neither are you.”

He made a face, flicking at the green leaves piled on his plate with one long finger. “There’s no meat…” he mumbled.

“Excuse me?” my father suddenly cut in. My mother hissed his name admonishingly but he ignored her, staring up at the younger man with eyes like twin pieces of amber ice.

“I said there’s no meat,” Jacob all but spat, a snarl coloring his voice as he turned to face my father.

“Yes, well, we can’t all be barbarians, can we?” Father snapped back.

The whole table went very still. Grandfather and Emmett were watching the exchange anxiously, my uncle looking ready to leap out of his chair at the slightest hint of a fight beginning. My mother looked embarrassed and dismayed, while Aunt Rosalie glared openly at Jacob. I simply stared, shocked at my father’s uncharacteristic loss of temper and at Jacob’s sudden mood change from the quiet concern he’d shown me just moments before.

From the other end of the table, someone cleared their throat delicately. We all looked down at Alice, who was smiling placatingly at the two of them. “Edward, you know perfectly well there’s nothing barbaric about the Quileutes eating meat,” she said sweetly, then continued in a conspiratorial stage-whisper to Jacob, “You should be glad it’s just the one day for you; imagine having to give up meat for the rest of your life!” And then she winked at him, letting out a tinkling laugh that served to immediately disperse the tense mood around the table.

Everyone seemed to relax again, at least as much as they could. After a few moments, they began tucking into their food and conversing quietly, apparently determined to forget the last few minutes’ conflict – all but Father and Aunt Rose, who continued to shoot Jacob furious looks despite their respective spouses trying to distract them.

“What the hell was that supposed to mean…” Jacob muttered, casting a dubious look down towards Alice as he picked at the vegetables on his plate.

“Alice grew up in Volterra,” I said quietly, not meeting his gaze.

“What?” He didn’t raise his voice, but the shock and horror was still evident in that one syllable. His eyes were wide when I looked up at him.

“She’s originally from Volterra,” I repeated. “She didn’t join us until she married Jasper, my Aunt Rose’s brother.” I nodded toward the far end of the table, indicating the tall, battle-scarred man sitting across from her.

He stared down the table at them for a long moment before turning back to his still-untouched plate with a small shudder, muttering something that sounded like “bloodsucker.”

I felt my eyes narrow slightly, but he didn’t say anything else on the matter. Alice was my mother’s best friend and like another aunt to me. It wasn’t important where – or how – she was raised; after meeting Jasper, she chose to convert to our vegetarian ways of her own free will. That was all that mattered to us.

“So how do you eat this stuff?” Jacob asked after a moment, waving a hand disdainfully around the food on his plate.

I raised an eyebrow. “With a fork.”

He wrinkled his nose at me, grabbing his fork off the table as if to prove he knew what it was. “I mean how do you eat this every day? All fruits and vegetables, nothing but plants.”

“And bread, cheese, nuts, beans…”

“Those count as plants,” he said, wagging his fork at me.

“Cheese?”

“Okay, not that one,” he conceded. He seemed to debate for a moment, and then selected a steaming ear of corn from a nearby bowl, pushing the salad aside to make room on his plate as he slathered it in butter.

“That’s a plant,” I pointed out, feeling one corner of my mouth begin to hike up just a little. He made a face at me again and purposely took a huge bite of the corn, making me bite my lip to stifle the grin that threatened to break across my face. This didn’t escape Jacob’s ever-watchful gaze, and he smiled in return, knowing he was getting to me.

I felt a small blush beginning in my cheeks, and looked back down at my own plate, stirring my salad around thoughtfully. What was I doing? Making friends with the enemy? Because Jacob was my enemy, I was sure. He was here to rip me from all I had ever known and loved, to visit on me a punishment that was meant for men my grandfather’s age, who had wronged his people long before I was born. I should be feeling the most violent hatred toward him, not joking with him about our eating habits.

But… so what? I frowned, stabbing half-heartedly at a turnip slice. What was the point in hating him? It wasn’t as if it would change anything. I was going to the Quileute king whether I made Jacob’s life miserable along the way or not. If anything, it made more sense to befriend him and thus have at least one person on my side when I went into that strange land.

I blinked, the realization suddenly crystallizing in my mind. Of course. I slanted a glance at my grandfather, who had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the meal. His eyes were on his plate, seemingly content to let Jacob and I entertain each other. Silently encouraging us, even, to talk exclusively to one another.

I looked back over at Jacob with new eyes. Grandfather was hoping I would find a friend and confidante in him, that I would have someone to trust and rely on when I left home. Jacob didn’t seem adverse to the idea either, if his open, friendly conversation with me was anything to go by. A small part of me still insisted I should resent him for coming to take me away like this, but… truth be told, I liked Jacob.

I didn’t know what to make of him, though. Surely, I thought, the Quileutes would have wanted to send their fiercest, most intimidating warrior. Not that he wasn’t fierce-looking, or intimidating… but it was difficult to think of him that way when he was grinning like a mischievous schoolboy, or sighing over his meat-free dinner… like he was now.

“You really can’t make any meat appear there by staring at it,” I said. He looked up at me, grinning sheepishly. I found myself smiling back. “I mean, I assume not… Unless you’ve got some kind of magic powers I don’t know about.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Wouldn’t that be nice? Concentrate hard enough, get bacon!”

“Bacon?” I blinked.

He looked back at me, confused by my confusion. “Yeah, you know, it’s…” He hesitated, pursing his lips. “Um… It’s a kind of meat…”

“Well I figured that.” I ignored the stormy expressions coming our way from my family members.

Jacob gave me a disparaging look, but continued, still smiling. “It’s thin slices of pork, and when you cook them they curl up and get all crispy, and…” He trailed off, licking his lips comically. “It is just about the best thing in the whole world.”

I laughed, though I couldn’t help the horrified look on my face. “Pork? Like from piglets?”

“Well, yeah,” he shrugged. “What else are you gonna do with pigs?”

I made a face at him, thinking of the miniature piglets some people liked to keep as pets in our kingdom. They were sweet, intelligent creatures, and very easy to take care of. I knew from my studies that they were nowhere near the size of the pigs bred for butchering in other places, but they had no need to be. I couldn’t imagine eating something so adorable.

Hundreds of feet above us, the tower bells suddenly began to chime, signaling the setting of the sun and, in our case, the end of dinner. I swallowed hard, my carefree conversation with Jacob forgotten.

Grandfather gently grasped my hand as he rose from his seat, pulling me up with him to lead me to the front of the room. I took a deep breath, preparing myself mentally for what was to come. Jacob looked concerned but not confused as we stepped away from the table; apparently, he’d been briefed on the events for the evening.

My family and I had discussed many times over the past year how exactly to handle my birthday celebration. Tradition dictated a banquet and then a ball, but my parents and grandparents had suggested perhaps foregoing the latter. No one ever said it, but I knew we were all thinking the same thing: what was the point of a dance when I was going to be whisked away from all the would-be suitors perhaps that very night?

Grandfather had wanted to find some way of graciously declining the ball, perhaps inviting others onto the floor while I danced only with family members. I remember commenting at the time that they would all have to prepare themselves for a lot of dancing then, or else it would be a very short ball, since there were only four men in my family, not counting my two young cousins. That didn’t seem like such a horrible alternative anymore.

When it came down to it, I had decided to just follow the old traditions. I would go through the motions and try to keep things as normal as possible till the very end. I had forced myself to consider only what would benefit our nation the most, what would be the most comfort to our people. Now, it was all I could do to keep from hating them all for this.

I steadied myself with a breath. Just go though the motions.

“My lords and ladies of the court,” Grandfather began, calling the room to attention. “It is my greatest honor and pleasure to introduce to you this fine young lady, who has blossomed seemingly overnight into a beautiful woman. She is the pride and joy of our family and our kingdom, and my own sweet granddaughter. Ladies and gentleman, I present to you the princess Renesmee.”

Polite applause spread through the hall as I curtsied graciously. Grandfather smiled down at me as I stood, his eyes sad but full of love. He turned to kiss me softly on the forehead. “I am so proud of you,” he whispered, and then turned back to the crowd. Raising our joined hands, he called out, “Let the dancing begin!” Then he twirled me elegantly out onto the dance floor, where I came to a stop just inside the wide circle of tables ringing the hall, my skirt swishing around my legs softly.

For just one moment, I managed to smile out at them, letting myself believe that this would actually be a normal coming of age ball. Any moment now, the first of the ever-eager young men would begin making their way toward me…

That feeling lasted for a solid three seconds, and then I remembered who I was, and what was happening, and what the dark man at the table behind me was really here for.

The hall was silent but for the band’s feeble attempt at a waltz tune. A hundred pairs of eyes watched me and even more couldn’t seem to look up from their suddenly interesting plates. I felt my expression begin to fall, and my face begin to heat.

I stubbornly refused to look away though, standing proudly at the front of the room, even as I felt a glower darkening my features. Just as my eyes began to sting with the tears I absolutely refused to shed in front of these people, I heard a chair being pushed out somewhere behind me and someone rising from their seat. I didn’t look; I didn’t want to turn around and see my father coming to my rescue.

Traditionally, family members and relatives waited until the end of the night to dance with the lady of the hour, allowing as much time as possible for the young men of the court to seek her out for a dance. Father must have finally decided enough was enough; if they hadn’t approached me yet, they weren’t going to.

When I looked up at the figure who had stepped up beside me though, it wasn’t my father, or my grandfather, or either of my uncles. Instead, it was Jacob who stood before me, his large brown hand held out toward me and the strangest expression in his eyes. It took me a moment to decipher it, and then I understood: I was being rescued, but not by anyone I’d expected.

He couldn’t know anything about our traditions, about how humiliating and disappointing it was for me to stand at my own coming of age ball as not one young nobleman took so much as a step in my direction. He couldn’t understand how this was my last chance to be normal, to pretend I had a life, before it all came crashing down… There was no way he could know any of that – and yet, somehow it seemed he couldn’t bear watching me anymore than I could bear standing there alone.

I reached out and placed my hand in his.

The instant our skin touched, a bolt of lightning seemed to shoot up my arm, originating from our joined hands. My eyes jumped up to his, which had gone wide like my own. There was no doubt that he had felt it too.

Jacob swallowed but continued forward, swinging me out into the center of the dance floor as his other hand found my waist. He seemed to think for a moment, and then suddenly grinned down at me. “Follow my lead, okay?” he said, dark eyes twinkling.

It occurred to me then: there was no way he knew any of our dances either.

“Hey, you!” he called, then whistled through his teeth at the band. They stared him, aghast. “Play something fast,” he ordered. The musicians glanced at my grandfather nervously, who nodded and waved a hand at them to go ahead.

“What are you–” I started, and then we were spinning around the floor.

My feet barely touched the ground as Jacob carried me through some kind of jaunty, quick-stepping dance I was entirely unfamiliar with. I was suddenly very glad for his apparently limitless strength – he could have easily picked me up and carried me like a sack of potatoes, I was sure – because otherwise I would have been tripping on my skirt and my own feet trying to keep up with him.

After a minute or two, I did start to get the hang of it. I had always been a natural dancer, and between finally finding the rhythm in the song and studying the quick movements of his feet – which, I noticed, were indeed still bare – I was just beginning to be able to follow along when the dance abruptly changed.

Instead of the two of us moving in tight circles across the dance floor, Jacob suddenly whipped me out away from him, sending me spinning until I was jerked to a stop by our joined hands. A quick tug then had me whirling back into his arms, where he caught me with a smirk.

We turned a few more quick circles, and then he sent me spinning out again. As far as I could tell, there was no pattern to it at all; he simply swung me out and spun me back in as he felt like it. The next time, I made sure I was ready for it, letting my feet guide and steady me through the outward turn as my skirt spun out around me with a flourish.

There was one instant at the outermost point of the spin where everything seemed to slow to a halt, the golden light in the hall surrounding us and blocking out all else. Jacob stood with his arm extended, holding me by the very tips of my fingers, absolutely beaming at me. Behind his exhilarated smile, however, was a warm, gentle glow, like a sunrise breaking through the night’s storm clouds.

I couldn’t put a name to the emotion on his face, but I knew it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My eyes drank in the sight, burning the image into my memories forever.

I was breathing heavily when he pulled back in again.

“Having fun yet?” he asked, and before I could answer, he suddenly bent me backwards, dipping my head toward the floor. I clung to his arms, sure I was about to hit the floor, but then he lifted me back up and we were spinning again.

“Are you making this up as you go?” I gasped, trying to find my balance again.

“Of course,” he said, eyes twinkling.

He raised the hand holding mine then and pushed me under his arm with the hand at my waist, spinning me around several times in one direction and then back the way I had come. I was a little dizzy when he caught me again.

“I’ve never danced like this before,” I admitted as he swung us around the dance floor once more.

He snorted. “I’m a little surprised you even have dancing here, you’re all so freakin’ proper…”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I demanded, glaring up at him. I resisted the slight urge to step on his toes.

Jacob blinked down at me, looking slightly surprised. “Oh, I didn’t mean…” He frowned, then spun me out and back in as he tried to find the right words. “I guess what I meant was, this,” he gestured around the room with his chin, “is their idea of a party?”

It was my turn to blink wonderingly up at him now. I’d been to other banquets before, of course, celebrating our national holidays or another young noble’s coming of age. They all followed a certain format, an expected routine, but they weren’t boring. And yet… somehow, afterward, I could never throw off the rich finery they required fast enough, freeing myself to run barefoot across the palace lawns despite my parents’ disapproving yet indulging gazes.

“Why,” I said, making it sound like a challenge, “what are celebrations like where you come from?”

One corner of his lips quirked up and his eyes took on a distant quality. “They’re… wild.” He said the word breathlessly, even reverently. His eyes found mine again a moment later, and he smiled down at me, his voice still quiet. “But I guess you’ll see that for yourself soon enough.”

My insides seemed to ice over as I stared up at him, apparently unaware of the effect his words had on me. Where his hands touched me now felt like points of fire.

Jacob looked up as the song ended and gradually slowed us to a halt. “Maybe something slower next,” he murmured. So maybe he had picked up on my mood change after all. I nodded, feeling hollow.

Someone cleared their throat right behind us then, and we turned to see my father standing a few feet away at the edge of the dance floor. “If I may,” he said, smiling gently and holding his arm out to me, though his eyes were frosty as he glanced up at Jacob.

Jacob, for his part, looked like he wanted to tell my father no, he may not. Something like a muted growl seemed to reverberate in his chest, but then he snorted and nodded sharply, relinquishing his grasp on me.

“Princess,” he said, turning back to face me, and offered a short bow, an abbreviated version of the fluid movement he’d performed when we first met. Shakily, I responded with a small curtsy of my own, and then could do nothing but stare at the spot he’d vacated as he passed me to return to our table. Father reached down and took my hand, gently leading me back out into the center of the room as other couples began to trickle onto the floor around us.

The band struck up a familiar stately dance melody, and my father began to lead me through the steps, we circling each other, joining hands then parting again, moving in perfect sync with the others dancers. It was a common dance in our kingdom, one I had known by heart since I was very young. It didn’t do anything to dispel the hollow feeling.

Father sighed after a minute or two of silence. “What did he say to you?” he asked quietly, but I looked up at him, hearing the anger and hate burning just below the surface.

“Nothing important,” I sighed. Father didn’t look convinced, but it was technically true, I realized. Dancing, parties… It was about the equivalent of discussing the weather, really. So why did everything Jacob say get under my skin like that, like the entire world hung in the balance when he spoke?

Father continued to watch me, his eyes like two sad drops of honey. “We tried, you know,” he said after a long moment, causing me to look up at him again. “When he arrived this afternoon, we tried everything we could to convince him to leave you be. How can sacrificing your life right a wrong that happened forty years ago?” His voice broke on the last few words, but he shook his head, continuing. “But that… that monster… He wouldn’t even listen. He would have tossed you over his shoulder and left immediately if we’d let him.”

“He’s not a monster,” I said quietly, despite the fact that he was now echoing my own thoughts from throughout the day. “He’s just… doing what he has to. Just like me.”

My father stared at me incredulously. “How can you- How can you just accept this, Renesmee?” he demanded.

“What choice do I have?” I shot back at him, feeling my eyes begin to prick with the tears I refused to shed here. Father stared at me and I stopped, standing across from him. “I think I’ve had enough dancing for one night,” I muttered.

He nodded, looking soul-sick, and turned to lead me back to the table. Uncle Emmett rose from his chair as we approached, but I waved him back; I couldn’t stay out on that dance floor any longer.

“All finished?” Grandfather asked gently. I nodded as I took my seat, avoiding the dark gaze from across the table. I stared down at my hands folded on the tabletop as my grandfather went to address the crowd, trying as best I could to maintain appearances and not break down right here in the middle of the banquet hall. Grandfather thanked them again for coming to celebrate with us, thanked the band for the wonderful music and the cooks for the delicious food, and then brought the festivities to a close, bidding them all a safe return and a good night.

I sat and tried not to hear the astonished murmurs that rippled through the room. My head hurt. My chest felt hollow. I’d never felt so drained.

Slowly, a large dark hand glided across the table to rest on top of both of mine. I looked up to find Jacob gazing at me resolutely, his eyes apologetic. I didn’t know if it was for what he’d said that had upset me on the dance floor, or for simply being here at all. Beside Jacob, instead of looking like he wanted to attack him like I’d expected, my father simply sat watching me, he gold eyes heartbroken.

I looked down at Jacob’s hand on mine and, for some reason, felt a little better.

---

Once the guests had all left and the servants were beginning to clear away the tables and decorations, my family converged on me, gathering in a tight clump at the front of the hall. Jacob stood a little ways off, arms folded and looking somewhat unsure as he watched me.

Uncle Emmett pulled me into a fierce bearhug, shaking his head when I tried to apologize for not letting them each have a chance to dance with me. “Hey, it’s your party, Nessie,” he said, grinning down at me, though even his usually merry eyes looked sad. “You can do whatever the hell you want.”

“Here here,” Jasper agreed quietly, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder. My mother pulled me into a tight embrace then, unable to hold back her tears any longer, and Rosalie and Alice stepped up as well, encircling us both. My grandmother was the last to pull me into her arms, cradling my head against her shoulder as she whispered how much she loved me and what a beautiful woman I had become.

I was close to tears myself with my family members clustered around me, their love and loss tangible in the air. I could feel the end coming, though, something pulling me away from them and on to whatever awaited me beyond the mountains.

I looked up from my grandmother’s embrace to find Jacob studying my face from where he stood apart from us. Somehow, he looked almost as drained as I felt. “So what now?” I asked quietly, stepping slightly away from my grandmother to look him in the eye.

He blinked, caught off guard by my question. “Um…”

“I think it’s time we all got to bed,” Grandfather cut in, taking a step between Jacob and I. We both looked at him, confused. “It’s much too late to set out for Quileute now,” he explained, as if he hadn’t actually planned this. “We can of course offer you the best lodgings for the night, Jacob.”

He shrugged noncommittally. “I’d rather sleep outside, honestly…”

“Whatever you’d like,” Grandfather said graciously, bowing slightly.

My family started to shepherd me away with them, but that unnamable something was still tugging on me, pulling me toward Jacob and my future. “You don’t mind, do you?” I blurted, leaning around my father to look back at Jacob.

He gazed at me for a long moment, then offered a small, tired smile. “No, of course not.” His dark eyes were strangely regretful once more as he murmured, “Good night, princess.”

I nodded and let myself be led away, staring back at him the whole while.

---

Once in my quarters, and having finally finished saying my various goodbyes-disguised-as-good-nights to my family members, I went through my usual nighttime routine, washing, changing into my nightclothes, and pulling a wide-toothed comb through my unruly curls. I tried to ignore the ache building in my chest and the pull that had yet to ease.

As I moved through my nightly habits, I found myself at the window, staring out at the stars as if they had some sort of advice for me. Shaking my head, I sank onto the window seat – and then gasped.

There on the lawn four stories below me, I could see the silhouette of an enormous canine mass. The moonlight caught on its fur, painting it a dusty reddish-brown, and from here I could just make out the steady rise and fall of its breathing.

Inexplicably, the weight on my chest seemed to lessen as I sat there watching him. I still felt the pangs of loss at having to leave my family, but it was manageable, I realized. While part of me mourned that loss, there was another part, perhaps even a larger part, that was already moving on. My thoughts repeated what I had known when I first saw Jacob this afternoon: However dire or short my future might be, it was waiting for me just past tomorrow’s sunrise, and, somehow, the wolf-man sleeping below my window was the key to it.

I felt a palpable tug in the center of my chest, and for one instant I actually considered running out to sit with him on the grass under the moon.

I shook my head feebly, leaning against the cool glass as I watched him. I stayed there for a little while longer, and then finally rose with a sigh, reaching up to draw the curtains. I thought better of it a moment later, though, letting them hang open so I could see the moon and the stars.

As I settled into bed, I looked back at the window one more time. “Good night, Jacob,” I whispered, just before drifting off into a troubled sleep.

Chapter 3 – Trust

 

 

 

Renesmee

 

In my dreams, I was pursued by packs of bloodthirsty wolves. They pounded through the trees behind me, tearing up undergrowth and leaping obstacles I had only managed to scramble over moments before. I ran from them until my lungs felt as if they would burst and my legs screamed with every step.

 

All the while, I could see another shape darting through the trees parallel to me, always obscured by the thick forest. This form seemed just as desperate as I, racing the wolves and racing time, inching closer to me with each great bound, yet still too far to rescue me from the snapping jaws at my heels.

 

I woke several times in a cold sweat, before sinking quickly back into sleep and the same continuing dream.

 

Just before dawn, though, a different dream finally began. I found myself as a small child sitting on the floor near my parents’ feet. I had in my hand a wad of thread that danced and tickled me and, I realized after a moment, extended away past my mother and father, out through the door and into the distance. I stood on my toddler legs and proceeded to follow after it. The thread slowly grew as I neared the door, and so did I. My parents made a grab to keep me with them, but the pull of the thread was too great, and I was soon out the door.

 

I followed the thread through what seemed to my sleeping mind many wondrous dreamscapes, all the while pulling it hand over hand and growing a little older with each tug. At some point, the thread became string, which then grew into twine, and then finally swelled into a sturdy rope. Just as the rope was beginning to transform itself into a steel cable, a knocking sound echoed through the dream, and I woke up back in my bedroom.

 

The knocking stopped, and after a short moment a deep voice called through the door, “Princess Renesmee?”

 

My eyes flew open, sleep forgotten. What was he doing?!

 

“I’ll be out in a minute,” I called back, scrambling out of bed and grabbing my dressing gown from its hanger. I pulled it closed around me, feeling a little less exposed now, and went to the door, glancing at the clock on my dresser as I passed. It was still early; a look back at my window confirmed that the sky was barely beginning to pale with the coming sunrise. My maids weren’t even here yet.

 

I cracked the door open the tiniest bit and peeked out. Jacob was standing in the hall facing my door, shirtless once more and looking like he’d only recently woken up himself.

 

“Sorry,” he winced, rubbing the back of his head with one hand. “You were still sleeping, weren't you?”

 

“Not well,” I admitted, opening the door a little wider to look out at him.

 

He frowned slightly. “You too, huh?”

 

I felt my eyebrows rise in surprise. “Just a lot of… vivid dreams.” He nodded, looking distracted, and I added, “I guess it’s because you’re away from home… and I’m about to be.”

 

Jacob blinked down at me, coming back to reality. “Oh… Yeah. Right.” He nodded again, looking away as he ran a hand through his hair once more.

 

I leaned against the door frame, feeling a little awkward standing there in my nightgown. I bit my lip, looking up at him. “Was there… something you needed?” I asked gently.

 

Again, he looked startled by my words, as though having a reason to come wake me hadn’t even occurred to him. “Oh, I, uh…” He seemed to deflate slightly, sinking back against the wall across from my door. “I wanted to tell you good morning?” he said, making it sound like a question.

 

I found I couldn’t help the bemused smile that spread across my face. “Good morning, Jacob,” I responded quietly. He gave me an embarrassed half-smile. I smiled back at him for a moment, chewing my lip, and then made a decision. “Wait one minute,” I said, holding up a finger and slipping back into my room.

 

I dashed into my dressing room, pouring some fresh water into the wash basin and scrubbing quickly at my face before turning to my wardrobe. A simple blue dress was the first thing to catch my eye, and I grabbed it, throwing off my robe and nightgown to pull it on. I quickly slipped on a pair of sandals, tying them off around my ankles, and then headed back to the door, pulling at the back laces of my dress as I went. I tied them in a hasty bow, pushed my hair behind my shoulders, and then pulled the door open.

 

Jacob looked up as I emerged once more, a smile spreading his broad lips as he took in my appearance. “Going somewhere, princess?”

 

“I thought I’d go down to the kitchens and get some breakfast,” I told him, pulling my bedroom door closed behind me. “Care to join me?”

 

“Like you even need to ask,” he snorted, pushing off the wall to fall into step beside me. “So what’s the likelihood of there being real food at this meal?”

 

“If by ‘real food’ you mean the insides of small animals, I’d have to say slim to none.”

 

“Eh, no one said they had to be small animals.”

 

I looked up at him, trying to ascertain how serious he was. Jacob just smiled down at me serenely. I shook my head and proceeded to the entrance to the servants’ passages set in the side of the hallway.

 

“Where are you going?” Jacob frowned, following a step behind me as I pushed the wooden door open into the smaller passageway.

 

“Shortcut,” I grinned back at him, then winced as he glanced around at the close walls claustrophobically. The beams in the ceiling were a little above his head – but just barely. Maybe the scenic route would’ve been better after all… He didn’t complain, though, so I turned once more to lead the way downstairs to the kitchens.

 

“Where is everyone?” Jacob asked after a few moments, looking around the deserted hallway. “I thought this was supposed to be some big, busy castle thing…”

 

“The sun’s barely even risen,” I objected, glancing back at him. “Some of the servants may be awake now, but most people won’t be up for a little while at least. Luckily for us, though,” I added, nodded down the corridor the way we were headed, “the kitchen staff gets up early. They should be firing up the ovens as we speak.”

 

“‘Luckily,’” Jacob mimicked, then heaved a heavy sigh. “More plants…”

 

I chuckled but decided not to comment.

 

When we emerged into the large kitchen on the ground floor of the palace, it was to the welcoming hum of cooks and bakers already hard at work. I felt myself relax as the familiar setting washed over me.

 

Like most in our kingdom, my parents prized learning and experience above almost all else. As a small child, I had found my way to the kitchens, no doubt looking for handouts and sweets, and instead finding a strict ‘no work, no food’ policy. With encouragement from my parents, who seemed to see this as a safe and respectable place for me to learn how the world worked, I began spending more and more time there. I would hide under tables, peek into ovens, and, eventually, help stir pots of bubbling soup and knead sweet-smelling balls of dough. To this day, the kitchen was where I felt most at ease.

 

I paused on the threshold, suddenly feeling guilty for my decision yesterday to avoid this place and my friends here.

 

“Nessie!” the head cook suddenly yelled from across the room, holding his arms up in a kind of long-distance-hug gesture, cleaver in one hand and all. His boisterous expression fell slightly, though, when he spied Jacob coming in behind me.

 

“…And guest,” Jacob muttered sarcastically beside me, glancing around at the faces that ranged from fearful to hostile at his appearance. I cleared my throat, stepping into the room with an air of determined cheerfulness.

 

“Anything I can help with?” I asked the room at large as I moved to pull an apron down from the rack on the nearby wall. I was vaguely aware of Jacob bemusedly watching me go.

 

“Right here,” Caroline, a middle-aged baker, called, gesturing me toward her table. “Be a dear and help me knead these loaves out, hm?” She smiled amicably at me, before her eyes flickered up above my head and took on a distinctly more wary look.

 

I glanced back to find Jacob looming over my shoulder, looking down at the dough with interest but otherwise doing nothing to appear intimidating. Nevertheless, Caroline quickly excused herself to go check on some things in one of the ovens.

 

“So, you pound this till it’s ready to be baked into bread?” he asked, reaching out to poke a dough ball with one long finger.

 

“Something like that,” I chuckled, pulling one lump of dough toward me and beginning to punch it down, leaving little knuckle marks in its surface. “You have to break up the yeast after it’s risen, or else it’ll expand too much when it bakes.

 

“Okay…” He watched my movements for a few seconds, then, looking at the dough ball nearest him, pulled one arm back and punched straight down in its center.

 

It didn’t appear that he’d put much effort into the punch, but I heard the table splinter under his hand, and a few small pieces of wood even dropped onto the floor from the underside. There was a noticeable depression in the wood when he pulled his hand out. Jacob blinked, looking dismayed.

 

I stared. “Um, maybe you should let me do that.”

 

“Yeah,” he nodded, wincing. “Sorry…” He pried the dough out of the indent and began picking off the few wood chips that came up with it.

 

“Here, trade you,” I said, finishing with my dough and handing it off to him as I took the hopefully wood-free one from him. “You can drop that one in the pan there,” I said, nodding toward the loaf pan on the table beside him. I spread more flour on the table to begin laying out the second ball, though it probably didn’t need much more kneading after the beating it had already taken. I suppressed a laugh, shaking my head, and looked up to find Jacob watching me, a loaf pan in each hand. “Thanks,” I smiled up at him, dropping the second dough ball into the empty pan. When I moved to take the pans from him, though, he pulled them up away from my grasp.

 

“I think I can do this without breaking anything,” he grinned. “Now where do these go?”

 

I blinked up at him for a moment and then motioned to one of the ovens set into the wall. “Over here.”

 

He followed me to the wide open mouth of the oven, the heat pouring out making us both instinctively squint and cringe away, then carefully slid the twin pans into line with the rest of the loaves baking there. He frowned in concentration, seeming intent on positioning them absolutely perfect for some reason. Finally satisfied, he let go of the pans, but pulled his hands away too quickly.

 

“Careful-!” I hissed, just as one hand slipped and brushed the hot metal rack under the loaves.

 

Jacob yanked his hand back, swearing, an angry red welt already appearing across the backs of his knuckles. He glared at the offending furnace and then down at his burned flesh, one side of his mouth and nose twisting up angrily.

 

“Come on,” I said quickly, automatically reaching for his elbow before catching myself and forcing my hand to simply wave toward the sinks on the far side of the room. “We’d better get some cool water and herbs on that before it starts to blister.”

 

“Don’t bother,” Jacob said, cutting me off before I could even take a step in that direction. He flexed his hand, pulling it into a tight fist and making the burnt flesh stretch and pop.

 

“What-?” I began, staring at him in horror, but he just continued to look down at his hand.

 

The skin had cracked as he stretched it, and the wound began to ooze clear liquid, as though it were already blistered. A moment later, though, it stopped, and the burnt flesh began to harden, finally curling at the edges and slowly crumbling off like an old scab. Jacob shook his hand, wiped it on his pantleg, and then brought it up to his face to inspect the new pink flesh with a critical eye. “Hmph… that’s gonna itch for the rest of the day now,” he muttered, scratching the back of his hand roughly. His eyes found mine again, and he suddenly grinned, one eyebrow quirking slightly. “Trying the catch flies, princess?”

 

I closed my mouth with a snap, still staring up at him with wide eyes. “What just- How did you-?!”

 

“I heal fast,” he shrugged, then held up his hand. “See? Good as new.”

 

I started to reach for his hand to inspect it more closely, but stopped myself again, mere inches away. The memory of the dance last night, and the lightning that had seemed to course through me when our skin touched, was still so fresh in my mind. The steel cable from my dream seemed to have attached itself to my sternum and now gave a small tug, urging me forward, but I stayed frozen.

 

Slowly, Jacob’s hands reached out and closed around both of mine. I shivered, looking up at him as the same fire from last night seemed to run through me again. He smiled gently, and I knew he felt it too.

 

“There you are!”

 

I jumped, yanking my hands away from Jacob’s at the familiar voice. Aunt Rosalie swept into the kitchen through the main entrance, her eyes narrowing when she saw the two of us standing together. She stormed over to me, wrapping a protective arm around my shoulders as she turned a poisonous glare on Jacob.

 

“How dare you?!” she hissed at him. “She’s only got a few more hours with us and here you are following her around, harassing her like this! You just can’t wait to steal her away, can you?!”

 

“No, Rose, we were-”

 

“You’re right,” Jacob interrupted, glaring down at her in return. “I can’t wait.” And with that, he grabbed my hand and pulled me over to him. Rosalie followed the movement, wrapping both her arms around my shoulders as Jacob tried to pull me away from her. They snarled at each other over the top of my head.

 

“Stop it, both of you!” I cried, throwing my hands up to free myself from their grasp. I turned back around to face them; Jacob looked chagrined while Rosalie’s face showed anger and even a little betrayal.

 

“Rose, I was just showing him the kitchens,” I said, addressing my aunt. “He wasn’t harassing me – he was helping me.”

 

Rosalie only looked more upset by this. She pursed her lips angrily, then said simply, “Carlisle wants everyone to meet in his dining room. He wants us to have a family breakfast together.” She glared up at Jacob as she emphasized the word ‘family.’ And then she turned and swept back out of the kitchen without waiting for my reply.

 

“Damn harpy,” Jacob muttered once she’d gone.

 

“You!” I said, whirling on him to jab a finger in his face. “Stop picking fights with my family members! You may not like them, but I happen to love them!”

 

He jumped, caught off guard by my ire. “Oh… Uh, right… Sorry…”

 

“Ugh, so much for a quiet breakfast,” I griped, marching out of the kitchen after my aunt. Jacob followed silently a few paces behind me.

 

When we came to the wide entrance hall of the palace, Jacob stopped, running a hand through his hair. “I guess I’ll wait for you here…” he said dejectedly.

 

I blinked, turning back to face him. “You’re not coming with me?” My anger had had time to cool on the walk up here, and truth be told, I was more annoyed with my family than with him.

 

He looked back up at me, frowning slightly. “Well, she said it was family only… I don’t wanna piss off any more of your relatives.”

 

“Right.” I looked down at my feet, pursing my lips. Why was I so disappointed by this? I didn’t know, but it didn’t change the fact that I was. “I’ll… see you in a bit then…” He nodded in response and I turned to make my way upstairs to the family dining room alone.

 

My family members were all subdued when I arrived, quietly milling about the small, cozy room together. I stopped in the doorway, watching them all for a moment before they noticed me.

 

I had grown up here. Everyone and everything I had ever loved was here, most in this very room. It would kill me to leave them, to never be able to see them again, and yet… I couldn’t deny what I had to do. I had studied all my life about the outside world, but I had never actually seen it, had never actually taken that step away from home. And now, I knew somehow that it was time to do just that.

 

I thought of the steel cable in my dream calling me away to strange and exotic lands. Even now, I felt its pull.

 

I took a deep breath to steady myself and then cleared my throat. “Everyone? I have something to say…”

 

---

 

Jacob

 

He sat out on the grass where he’d slept last night, hands folded and elbows resting comfortably on his bent knees. The sun slowly made its way up into the sky on his right, the city below beginning to come to life in response.

 

He huffed, glaring down at all the little scurrying people.

 

What was he doing here? Making nice with the Cullens, eating their food, dancing at their ball… letting himself get yanked around by some sixteen year old girl. It was crazy.

 

It was.

 

He tried valiantly to make himself believe it.

 

When he’d arrived yesterday, it had been with the full intention of doing exactly what Sam had ordered, nothing more, nothing less. He was just supposed to come get the Cullen princess and bring her back with him, whether she wanted to or not. The rest would be Sam’s problem to deal with.

 

He squeezed his eyes shut, grimacing. That was just it. She didn’t want to, and somehow he couldn’t bring himself to force her to go. It didn’t help any either that her family seemed to come up with another new, all too reasonable way of stalling every time he turned around.

 

“And what have you done to stop it?” he grumbled to himself. Nothing. He’d let them talk him into waiting around through her birthday celebration, and then into staying the night, and now here he was sitting, burning daylight while they had their little family breakfast. And all without so much as a word of complaint from him. He growled softly, irritated with himself. He’d been wrapped around Renesmee’s little finger from the moment he set eyes on her.

 

But what did he expect? The whole thing was one big sob story, a pretty little girl having to leave her home, her family… Even he couldn’t be completely insensitive to that. No one was that heartless.

 

You’ve gone soft, he reasoned, snorting. He needed to man up, put his foot down, and…

 

And…

 

And you’re lying to yourself, a snide voice in the back of his mind told him.

 

He groaned, rubbing his temples. It was crazy. It was impossible.

 

He couldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to. He wasn’t the type to strong-arm anyone, least of all a young girl, but despite his normally laidback nature being a part of the pack sometimes meant having to use force – placing the needs of the nation, of the people, over those of any one person, including himself and pretty little princesses.

 

And yet… When he thought of making her do anything she didn’t want to, anything that would make her unhappy… it seemed physically impossible for him.

 

You’re just getting soft, he tried to convince himself, as though that were somehow better. You’re just being too easy on her because you feel sorry for her.

 

Liar, the snide voice responded.

 

He grimaced. This could not be happening!

 

As he sat battling against himself, he gradually became aware of another presence coming up behind him. It moved almost completely silently across the dewy grass, downwind from him, the breeze carrying their scent away in the opposite direction. None of the usual instinct-driven alarm bells went off in his mind at being approached by an unknown entity, but he knew after just a moment that he wasn’t alone.

 

He opened his eyes and turned to find Renesmee walking toward him.

 

She offered him a small half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes. His previous thoughts of manning up and putting feet down and such were all but forgotten as he took in her wide chocolate eyes, the way the morning sunlight played on her red curls, the way her skirt moved around her legs as she came closer…

 

He swallowed, and the little snide voice chimed in once more: You’re a goner.

 

“Are you alright?” she asked, tilting her head to look down at him as she came up beside him, a tiny crease forming between her eyebrows.

 

He blinked up at her stupidly for a second, then shook himself. “Yeah. Fine,” he said. “Just… thinking through some things…”

 

She cocked her head to the other side but didn’t say anything as she took a seat on the grass beside him.

 

Jacob took a breath, forcing himself to look away from her as he ordered his thoughts. They would be expected back at Quileute before long, and with a several day journey ahead of them, they needed to get moving, and soon. He knew he wouldn’t be able to say it if he was looking at her, though. Hell, if she so much as whimpered at his words, his willpower would crumble right then and there, and they could very well end up never leaving.

 

“I spoke to my family,” Renesmee said suddenly. He froze, slowly turning to look over at her. She spoke in a flat monotone and didn’t meet his eyes, instead picking at a thin blade of grass near her knee. “We should be able to leave within the hour.”

 

“Oh… Okay…” he said, staring at her, dumbfounded. She was insisting they leave now? But… “You want to go?” he asked, peering into her face incredulously.

 

“Of course not,” she frowned, brown eyes flickering up to his quickly. “But I have to. I need to.” She looked away again, chewing her bottom lip. Jacob swallowed again, making an honest effort not to stare too hard. “I don’t know what’s happening, or what’s going to happen,” she continued, looking out at the city center below them. “But whatever it is, I can’t stop it. And neither can my family,” she added sardonically, rolling her eyes.

 

Jacob grinned darkly in response. So he wasn’t the only one sick of them.

 

She caught his look, frowning, but continued. “They were trying to set up some kind of big parade to see us off,” she said. “It would have taken a lot of time and preparation, and would mean bringing a whole posse of servants and maids with me.”

 

Oh, did she want servants? Sam hadn’t expressly forbidden it… And maybe she would like having someone from home come with her…

 

“But I told them no,” she continued quietly, looking down at her lap. “I just want to get this over with.”

 

He stared at her for one long moment. “You know,” he said slowly, watching her face carefully, “this isn’t the end. For you, I mean.”

 

Her eyes flickered up to his for an instant and then quickly away again. He saw everything he needed to in that instant.

 

“I will not let anything happen to you, Renesmee,” he said, slightly surprised by the vehemence of his words. She looked up at him, eyes shining with the barest beginnings of tears. “You have to trust me. Okay?”

 

She stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded as one small tear escaped down her cheek. “Okay.”

 

He studied her face for another few seconds, and then, without even letting himself think about it first, reached over and pulled her into his arms.

 

She tensed at first as the electricity blossomed between them again, setting his mind and body humming at the contact, but a moment later she had relaxed against him, and finally let herself cry in earnest.

 

---

 

Renesmee

 

As promised, a small pack mule was brought out to the little side courtyard where we stood waiting, laden with food for a week and the few personal belongings I had decided to take with me. My family was gathered silently to my right and Jacob stood with arms folded on my left, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from him.

 

None of my family members had taken my decision well. Even Grandfather, who had been quietly supportive and encouraging all this time, had looked at me sadly as I laid out my thoughts for them, as if begging me to change my mind. Now, I couldn’t bear to meet their eyes, knowing I would find the heartbreak and betrayal that I had caused when I looked at them. I fingered the edge of my cloak, tempted to pull the hood up and hide away within its depths.

 

We were going to take a back road out of the palace, traveling as inconspicuously as possible. I had insisted on this – I didn’t want any fanfare or grand showmanship, and while I didn’t purposely arrange it so that my family couldn’t accompany us, it was an unfortunate – or fortunate, depending on your view point – side affect that we would all have to live with. Jacob and I could slip out easily enough when it was just the two of us, but there was no way the entire royal family suddenly descending upon the city would go unnoticed.

 

As a stablehand led Noble into the courtyard, saddled and ready to go, Grandfather turned to address Jacob once more.

 

“Are you certain I can’t convince you to take a steed? I assure you we have plenty to spare,” he said.

 

I pursed my lips, staring down at the ground while Jacob’s silence became positively icy beside me.

 

“No, thank you,” he bit out, glaring straight ahead rather than looking over at my grandfather.

 

They had been back and forth over this topic several times already. Grandfather was honestly trying to be courteous, to show Jacob the highest respect and honor that we could in our kingdom by treating him like an equal, but for some reason, Jacob seemed to take the mere suggestion of riding a horse as a personal insult. He did at least seem to be making an effort to remain civil, but I could literally feel the irritation and outrage rolling off of him.

 

Noble had been looking increasingly agitated as he neared us, and he suddenly whinnied and reared, pawing at the air as the handler tried to keep a hold on him.

 

I rushed over to help the stableboy calm him and he quieted under my hands after a minute, though he continued to stomp and roll his eyes as if something had seriously frightened him. I rubbed his neck and shoulder soothingly, wondering what in the world could have set him off like this. He was normally such a calm, well-behaved horse…

 

“Ah,” I heard Grandfather say quietly behind me. “Well, perhaps it’s for the best, then.”

 

I glanced back, following Grandfather’s gaze, to find Jacob watching not me for once, but Noble. The look he was giving my horse could be described as nothing short of predatory. His eyes flickered to mine momentarily, and there I saw all the confirmation I needed. Riding was the absolute last thing on his mind when it came to horses, and it seemed Noble knew it. I turned back to my horse, letting out a breath as I mechanically continued to comfort him.

 

Jacob cleared his throat behind me, shifting his weight awkwardly. “Well, if there’s nothing else…” he said to the room in general, clearly anxious to be out of here.

 

Someone hissed, and then I heard two quick steps and a pair of arms was pulling me into a desperate embrace from behind.

 

I spun around and threw my arms around my mother’s neck, hanging onto her like I had as a child. I could feel her beginning to cry as she cradled my head with one hand and I squeezed my eyes shut, hugging her tighter. My mother was never one to show an overabundance of emotion, except with me. Besides being spectacularly in love with my father, I seemed to be her one weak spot, the one person who got through her emotional reserve.

 

“My little girl,” she cried, her voice hitching with a sob. “Renesmee, my Renesmee… I-If anything happens to you, I- I don’t know what-”

 

“Mama,” I whimpered, curling my hands in the back of her dress. How could I leave here? How could I leave her? I buried my face against her shoulder, clutching her tighter still.

 

“I’ll protect her.”

 

We both looked up at that quiet declaration, twin pairs of tear-reddened eyes blinking widely in surprise. Jacob hadn’t moved from his spot several yards away, but he had unfolded his arms and was looking back at my mother with the most open, sincere expression I had ever seen on his face.

 

“I won’t let anything bad happen to her. I promise,” he continued, black eyes boring into my mother’s brown ones.

 

Mother considered him silently for a long moment. Something seemed to pass between them, some kind of understanding. Slowly, she nodded her head, still watching him carefully, before turning back to me. She looked like she wanted to say something more, but then just pulled me into a tight embrace once more, sniffling loudly.

 

I held on to my mother until she released me and the rest of my family converged on us, each hugging me and offering some form of tearful goodbye and well-wishes. All the while, I had my eye on Jacob, who was looking back at me with some indecipherable expression in his eyes, something between sadness and regret, triumph and warmth, and a hundred other emotions I couldn’t even name.

 

Alice was the last to bid me farewell. She gave me a quick hug and then pulled back, casting a sidelong glance over at Jacob before looking back at me. “Don’t be afraid of finding a new home,” she said quietly, and then gave me a cryptic smile, squeezed my shoulders once, and stepped back to rejoin her husband.

 

I looked around at all the faces of the people I loved, willing my mind to memorize every tiny detail, but then my eyes continued beyond them and I found myself looking over at Jacob once again. I took a deep breath, looked back at my family, and then turned to pull myself up into the saddle, feeling several pairs of hands reach up to steady me.

 

I settled onto Noble’s back, then looked toward Jacob and the road leading out of the courtyard and away from the palace. I swallowed hard, gently urged Noble forward, and Jacob turned to lead the way, keeping a considerate distance between himself and my nervous horse. I turned to look back at my family one more time, my eyes finding my mother’s identical brown ones, holding her gaze until the trees on the path closed around us and she was lost from sight.

Chapter 4 – Tension

 

Jacob

This country was so freaking boring.

Off in the distance, he could make out a smallish green clump rising out of the neverending fields alongside the road. That clump was what passed for a tree in these parts, he assumed. He snorted, thinking of the ancient, towering giants he’d played under as a child – now those were trees. Some farmers were setting their gear down in the sparse shade at the shrub’s base, settling in to eat their lunch. The scents of cheese, some kind of rough wheat bread, and fresh, creamy milk wafted to him over the breeze.

His stomach growled.

Behind him, the horse clopped along steadily, and behind it, the mule carrying the princess’s supplies. The fear was mostly gone from the animals’ scents after hours of following him down the road, though they remained wisely wary of him. A gust of wind blew up from behind, making his mouth water momentarily as he savored their warm, meaty smells. The next moment, though, he was overtaken by the princess’s scent, and all of his most recent efforts to distract himself were blown away with the wind.

The ache in his chest that he’d been ignoring all morning suddenly flared to life again, taunting and begging all at once, urging him to just glance back, just look at her for one moment, let her presence wash over him…

He clamped down on his self-control, refusing to turn around. He was losing his mind.

He just had to focus, he told himself. Go back to his training. Control his thoughts, control his emotions, don’t let anything in or out that he didn’t purposely put there. Sam didn’t pick him for this mission for no reason. He was one of the best, in mind and body, one of the strongest in the whole Pack. He could master this.

Unbidden, thoughts of ugly alternatives to his current situation flitted through his mind. What if Sam ­hadn’t sent him? What if it had been Jared? Or Paul? He shuddered in spite of himself. Renesmee would never have to deal with that mongrel if he had anything to do with it.

That thought almost had him looking back at her again. He pushed it away, concentrating on the sound of the wind in the grass and the feel of the sun on his skin, the road under his feet, anything but the sight of the beautiful, heartbroken girl behind him. Or what he’d like to do to the people who made her like this. Or the fact that he was the main culprit. He tried not to think about how much he wanted to turn around and do something, anything, to make her smile. Just one smile, and his life would be complete…

He shook his head. Bit down. Kept walking.

He could make her smile, though, he was pretty sure. He’d done it last night, after all.

He scowled to himself, already hearing how his brothers would hoot and howl at his choice of words. Last night at the dance. Assholes.

The dance… Just the thought of holding her in his arms sent a tingle up from his hands, making him shiver. It was like the feeling of a change coming on, but gentler, subtler somehow. She’d looked so beautiful last night, delicate and bright and all his…

He squashed that thought.

He couldn’t think like that. There was nothing to make her his, nothing binding them together. He had no claim on her whatsoever, except as his charge while they traveled, and that was a flimsy connection at best. There was absolutely no reason for him to feel so protective, much less possessive of her.

He would master this. He would control himself while they were together for the next day or two, and then he would hand her off to Sam like he was supposed to, and-

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even think past that point. Sam couldn’t have her, no one could. He had to protect her. He had to take care of her. Nothing mattered but her. The absolute certainty of that fact was like an iron hand closing around him, clamping down and forcing him to comply.

He resisted, gathered his willpower and dug his heels in, uselessly – he was losing ground every moment, he could feel it. And, on some deep, basic level, he didn’t even want to resist.

And with that, the struggle was suddenly over. In acknowledging that one thought, all of the defenses he had built over the last twenty four hours came crumbling down, disappearing as if they had never even been there. His whole world had been reordered, all previous ties to anything and anyone around him all but erased the moment he laid eyes on Renesmee.

He had imprinted. And the gods only knew what it meant.

He had to keep control of his thoughts, though. It was really more important now than ever.

Last night when he’d phased, he’d been hoping to find someone to commiserate with, some sort of stability in melding with the Packmind. He’d just had the rug essentially pulled out from under his life, but instead of the comfort of familiarity, he’d found only the open sores of discord that had been plaguing them for months. The minds waiting there for him were packmates, yes, but not brothers, not in any sense of the word, and he’d be damned if he let them anywhere near Renesmee, even if only through his own thoughts. He’d broadcasted out a short report to pass on to Sam – he’d arrived, made contact with the Cullens, and would be leaving in the morning – and then had grumbled about being tired and irritable and had sunk into the background hum of his personal mindspace.

Like all Wolves, he’d been taught from a young age to quiet his thoughts out of courtesy to others when the monthly transformation came and they all shared in the Packmind, but when he came of age and became a Shifter, courtesy became absolute necessity. He had spent months after his sixteenth birthday in intensive training, learning to contain and smother his thoughts so as not to bombard his teammates with every idle notion that passed through his head, and to guard against the wandering thoughts of others, to keep his mind separated, protected, private. With the amount of time they spent in their wolf forms, their minds moving in and around each other like water, it was all they could do to maintain any sense of self. The Packmind was a powerful thing, part of each of them, and it would be so easy to lose yourself in it, to forget what your name was and whose eyes you were looking out of. So easy to never separate yourself from it ever again.

But this… This was something separate, something precious that he had to protect, that was worth keeping apart from the pack. It was almost a stroke of luck that he couldn’t phase right now, not without upsetting her or the livestock. She’d kept a brave face through all of this so far, but he couldn’t expect her to handle seeing him explode into a giant, fanged monster after all she’d been through already. And hearing his brothers’ thoughts, their internal voices reaching out to him, was the last thing he wanted right now. She was his to protect and care for, and he couldn’t let anyone else near her.

If anyone saw his dreams last night, there might be some awkward questions waiting for him the next time he changed. He would just have to hope that his packmates had stayed out of his head like they were supposed to. He was fairly certain, at least, that nothing he’d dreamed up last night was enough to give them away. Odd, yes; troubling, even. But nothing overtly about imprinting.

It would have seemed so strange to anyone who looked, or if any of it had leaked out… Everyone had running dreams, but they were usually thrilling, exciting, joyful. To just cut loose and feel nothing but the wind in your fur and the forest floor beneath your paws… It was the most exhilarating feeling in the world, and not normally overshadowed by the gut-wrenching terror and desperation that had plagued him last night.

The thought of losing her, of what would happen if they caught her… If he couldn’t save her in time, if he wasn’t fast enough…

“Jacob?”

It was really a little pathetic how quickly he whipped around to answer her call, like he’d been holding his breath all this time, waiting on pins and needles for her to speak to him, to grant him the pleasure of hearing her voice. He caught himself just in time, clamping his mouth shut to keep from gaping hopefully up at her. “Princess,” he answered after a beat. It didn’t sound nearly as detached or authoritative as he’d intended.

Renesmee blinked at him slowly, still seeming on the edge of the silent funk she’d cocooned herself in since leaving the city. She pursed her lips. “Do you want to stop to eat lunch?” she asked abruptly, as if she was forcing each word out.

Jacob’s stomach suddenly gave another loud gurgle at the mention of food, reminding him that he really hadn’t eaten anything yet today. Renesmee blinked in surprise at the noise, and then a small smile broke across her face. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, pulling on the horse’s reins to steer him off onto the side of the road.

“Whatever you say, princess,” Jacob murmured, and had to remind himself not to stare up at her smile in awe. Setting aside his worrying for the time being, he followed her out into the neverending grassland beside the road. The mule shot him several worried glances over its shoulder as it picked its way through the tall grass behind the horse, following Renesmee toward a small copse of trees a few hundred yards into the meadow. His stomach gave another protesting groan, and he licked his chops, squinting up at the grove ahead. Where there were trees, there were squirrels…

Renesmee guided the horse into the shade under the trees, the mule following after on its tether, and stopped beside a thick old oak to gingerly climb down from her saddle. Jacob stopped at the edge of the grove, watching as she moved in the dappled sunlight filtering down through the boughs. She untied the packmule from where it had been tethered to the horse’s harness, then opened one of the saddlebags on its side to pull out a small armload of supplies before shooing both animals away into the meadow.

He hadn’t meant to stare quite so hard, but when she turned around again, Renesmee froze, holding his gaze with wide brown eyes, and he found himself suddenly unable to move as well. The sight of her was entrancing. The little spots of sunlight glowed softly in her pale skin, shimmering, even, at the right angle, and picked up the gold highlights in her red hair.

Renesmee swallowed after a moment, blinking up at him. “Do… Do you want a sandwich?” she asked, suddenly shy. She gestured with the loaf of bread she held in one hand, her other arm holding two small earthenware pots, a pair of cloth napkins, and a small knife. He blinked, his stomach giving one last half-hearted murmur for meat, but thoughts of chasing squirrels stood no chance in the face of anything she offered him.

“Sure,” he said, sparing one cursory glance out at the grazing horse and mule. He really couldn’t hunt with them around anyway. Shaking his head, he unfolded his arms and stepped forward under the trees with the princess.

He moved over to where she had knelt to lay out the napkins and food stuffs, and sat down cross-legged on the grass beside her. He could smell the contents of the two little jars now that he was closer. One smelled fruity and overly sweet – some kind of preserves, he assumed – and the other smelled like… peanuts?

“What’s in here?” he asked, picking up the jar in question.

“Peanut butter,” Renesmee answered, gently sawing several even slices off the end of the bread loaf. She glanced up at him a moment later when he didn’t say anything else. “You’ve… never had peanut butter before, have you?”

He shook his head, weighing the jar in the palm of one hand, considering it and its mysterious contents. Peanut butter, huh? It was, technically, just more plant-based food, but he had to admit the smell was rather enticing…

“It’s basically just a cream made from ground peanuts,” she started to explain, as he popped the top off the jar. Inside was, indeed, a strange, smooth, peanut-colored substance. Weird.

Without thinking, Jacob stuck a finger down into the goo, pulling out a little scoop and sticking it straight in his mouth – and then froze as Renesmee suddenly burst into laughter.

“You’re supposed to spread it on the bread,” she laughed, nudging two flat ovals of bread toward him with her little knife. He eyed the bread suspiciously, his finger still stuck in his mouth, and then glanced back up at Renesmee, who was chuckling quietly to herself. “I suppose it is pretty good on its own, too, though,” she said after a moment, reaching over to swipe a little of the peanut butter off the top with her own finger.

Jacob smirked at her, wiping his hand off on his pants, and she gave him a knowing smile in return, looking away with a little blush. He’d gotten her to come out of her shell, and he was going to do whatever it took to keep her smiling from now on.

“So what is the best way to eat this peanut butter, princess?” he asked, holding his hand out for the knife she held.

She handed it over, considering him for a moment as if trying to determine how serious he was. “I like it on bread with some jam,” she said, pushing the other, fruity-smelling jar toward him as well. “And you don’t have to call me princess, you know.”

Jake accepted the jar, pulling it open with a quiet pop from the lid. “What should I call you then, highness?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, lips pursed playfully. He pretended not to notice, instead just offering her a slice of bread with the peanut butter and jam like she’d suggested. “You could call me by my name,” she said, accepting the bread with a polite, “Thank you.”

“I could,” Jacob conceded, making up a second slice for himself now. “But where’s the fun in that? I mean, you are a princess, aren’t you?”

“Yes…” she said, knitting her brows at him as she chewed. She was still smiling, though, so he continued.

“Well, doesn’t that mean you get to order people around and they have to call you ‘your majesty’ and fulfill your every whim?”

She laughed, shaking her head, and Jacob couldn’t deny the feeling of triumph that washed over him at the sound. Gods, he loved hearing her laugh. “It doesn’t work that way,” she said, taking another bite of her food.

“It doesn’t?”

“No! At least not in our kingdom,” she said, grinning at him. “Why, do you have a bratty princess you have to look after in your palace?”

“Not technically,” he grinned, thinking of Leah, their one female Shifter and the closest thing they had to a princess. “Bratty, yes, but she’s not royalty or anything.” And that was only because Sam wouldn’t marry her. Poor Leah… He really did feel bad for her when he stopped to think about it.

He shook his head, refocusing on the girl beside him. “So, you’re saying that even though you are a princess, people don’t dote on you and do whatever you tell them? What is this world coming to?”

“It’s not like that!” Renesmee laughed, shaking her head at him. “It’s not about getting whatever I want, it’s… about responsibility,” she said, trailing off as her voice sobered.

Jacob watched uneasily as her expression began to sink back into introspective depression. “Responsibility?” he echoed, scrambling to keep any kind hold on the conversation before she completely withdrew. “What, like to those people who were at the dinner last night?”

She glanced back up at him, eyes intense but unreadable. “Yes,” she said at last.

Jake blinked, staring at her. “What?”

“I said, yes,” she repeated, eyeing him dubiously now, as though she couldn’t understand his reaction. “Of course I have a responsibility to them. They’re my people.”

“What-” he started again, then cut off, pinching the bridge of his nose. “How can you feel responsible for them? None of them even appreciate what you’re doing,” he said, then winced as she frowned up at him, looking affronted and a little stung.

“So?” she demanded, her glare barely masking the underlying hurt. “I should still set an example – that’s what it means to be royalty, at least here.”

“I’m just saying, I don’t think they deserve what you’re doing,” Jake said, trying to backpedal. “I mean, what’s the point of setting an example if no one’s going to follow it?” he asked, then swore mentally when her expression only became more infuriated.

“So this is just an empty gesture?” she hissed. “I’m just throwing my life away for nothing?”

“That’s not what I said,” he frowned, growing frustrated. Why couldn’t he say the right thing? “I just don’t think you owe those people anything.”

“Though I apparently owe your people something,” she replied scathingly.

That hit a nerve. “None of those spoiled, rich brats give a damn about you,” he snarled, jabbing a finger back the way they had come. “They let you go without a second glance – they couldn’t even look at you last night! What kind of people do that, let some young girl go off and sacrifice herself to pay for their crimes?!”

“What kind of people demand that kind of sacrifice in the first place?!” she shot back furiously.

For a moment, he actually saw red, and the world seemed to be vibrating around him. He felt the tremors sweep down his spine, through his limbs, and forced himself to his feet, catching a glimpse of Renesmee’s eyes, now wide with alarm, as he turned and staggered away.

He was vaguely aware of the two animals skittering away as he stumbled out into the sunlight, squinting in the sudden brightness. Gods, but he wanted to kill something. Something flesh and bone, that would cry out as his jaws closed around its neck-

How could she think like that?!

Another shudder ran through him, making his fists shake at his sides. He tried to concentrate on his breathing. In and out, in and out, even and deep, human breaths, not the fast pants of a wolf.

She actually thought…

He stopped walking when the little grove was some hundred yards behind him, running his hands back through his hair agitatedly. The shaking had almost stopped, his instincts to phase and fight off the threat, real or imagined, finally coming back under his control.

Those people last night… He clenched his teeth, remembering the sneers and whispers, how her face had fallen as she’d stood up there in front of them, alone. Bastards. Not one of them could hold so much as a candle to her.

And she thought she owed them something!

Another tremor began, but he fought it, willed himself to stay standing upright. The very idea of those people, of how they treated her – it was enough to send him into a rage all over again.

The thought of how his own people would treat her was even worse.

He let out a long breath, covering his face with his hands, the muscles in his arms still twitching and jumping with the urge to shift. That was, by far, the worst part. He knew they would treat her badly. He knew they hated her, simply because of who she was and what she represented. And that maddened him more than anything else. He was supposed to take care of her, to keep her happy and safe and loved. He had to. But how could he, when the biggest threats were his own countrymen, his own packmates?

Images from the dream last night swam before his eyes again. Running, tearing through the woods, nothing but instinct to guide him, consumed by terror… Racing against his own kin to save the one most precious thing in the world.

He wouldn’t let that happen. He would not.

He didn’t jump when she came up behind him, though he did stiffen when she hesitantly laid her hand on his arm. Was she still angry? Was he? Maybe he shouldn’t stand so close to her, not until he knew it was safe… Renesmee seemed to misunderstand his tense silence, though, dropping her hand quickly and leaving a tingling sensation behind where she had touched him. He mourned the loss instantly.

He looked around to find her chewing on her bottom lip, staring away from him into the meadow, looking thoughtful and guilty and unhappy. His heart softened, and he turned to face her fully.

“I’m sorry,” she said abruptly, glancing up at his movement. “I shouldn’t have said what I did back there,” she added contritely, looking down again.

“It’s not your fault,” Jacob said quickly. He hesitated for one second, and then reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder, fingers brushing gently through her hair. Renesmee looked back up at him in surprise, but didn’t pull away from the contact.

“I didn’t mean to make you angry,” she started, but he just shook his head at her.

“I shouldn’t have said those things. I just…” He trailed off, letting out an angry breath, almost a growl, as he thought again of the ball last night, before reminding himself to stay calm. He could not afford to lose his temper now, not with her standing right here beside him. “I hate the thought of anyone treating you like that.”

He blinked in surprise when Renesmee suddenly sniffled loudly, her eyes shining with tears that hadn’t been there a moment before. Without thinking, he pulled her into his arms, cradling her gently against his chest. She hiccupped once in surprise, but then wrapped her arms around his waist, her tiny hands fisting against his back.

“Why are you so-huh nice to me?” she asked, her voice jumping in a high-pitched hiccup halfway through. She sniffed loudly, resting her cheek against his sternum.

A thousand answers whirled through his head, everything from that she was cute when she had the hiccups to that he was bound by ancient wolf magic to be her loyal, loving slave for all eternity.

But that might be coming on a little strong.

“I like seeing you happy,” he finally murmured, the words feeling inadequate though true.

She laughed half-heartedly and began pulling away from him. “You don’t have to do that, you know. Try to cheer me up, I mean,” she said, looking up at him with a small smile that said she appreciated the effort nonetheless.

“Yeah I do,” Jake replied, smiling down at her. “It’s just you and me, right? Nobody else matters. Just let me take care of you, okay?”

Renesmee sniffled one more time, scrubbed at one eye with the back of a small hand, and then finally nodded. “Okay.” 

---

Renesmee

I kept my arm linked through Jacob’s as we walked back toward the trees to finish our meal, feeling a little like he was the only thing holding me up. Noble picked his way nervously through the grass behind us, his loyalty to me warring with his instincts that told him to run from Jacob, and the packmule trailed a little ways behind him, looking lost. I cast them both a sympathetic look over my shoulder before turning back to my thoughts.

We finished our sandwiches when we reached the grove of trees again, then quickly packed up the supplies, the mule luckily calming when I approached him to get into his saddlebags rather than bolting like I’d been afraid he would. And all the while, Jacob watched me with that intense gaze of his, reminding me strangely of the way my father used to watch over me when I was small and he wasn’t yet sure how safe the outside world was for me.

Noble trotted over when I called him, his ears flicking nervously at Jacob as I reattached the mule’s tether to the back of my saddle. I patted his neck reassuringly and moved to climb up onto his back, but then paused, thinking.

I’d been riding along in a despondent haze all morning, wallowing in self-pity as the countryside I loved so much slid by virtually unnoticed. Now, my mind finally felt sharp and clear again, shaken out of the depression I had sunk into – and whether through humor or arguing, it was all thanks to Jacob. I didn’t want to go back to that, to the solitude and the feel of drowning in my own thoughts. I wanted to stay near him.

I didn’t have to think about it for more than a moment. Mind made up, I patted Noble’s neck one more time, and then turned to walk over to where Jacob waited.

“Do you mind if we just walk for a while?” I asked as I approached him, shielding my eyes as I emerged into the sunlight.

He blinked once, dark eyes flickering back at Noble before focusing on my face again. “What about the horse?”

“He’ll follow me,” I said, knowing it was true. Noble looked a little worried at the sight of me standing with what must have seemed to him a dangerous predator, but already he was cautiously making his way toward us, the mule following reluctantly behind him. I spared them one more glance before stepping closer to slip my hand into the crook of Jacob’s elbow again, earning a warm smile from him that sent a pleasant shiver up my spine. Arm in arm, we set out toward the road again.

 

Chapter 5 – Bloodlines

 

 

Renesmee

 

“Tell me about your family.”

 

I was watching Jacob’s face intently as he glanced down at me, whatever heavy thoughts had been clouding his expression seeming to evaporate the moment our eyes met.

 

I swallowed and willed my steps to remain even, caught off guard by his easy smile. He didn’t make any sense to me.

 

“What do you want to know?” he asked, one corner of his lips quirking up.

 

I blinked up at him, trying to think quickly. Truth be told, I hadn’t expected him to just agree and open up like this. Who goes around offering up their life story to any stranger who asks? Especially when for all intents and purposes that stranger should be a veritable thorn in your side, a disruption, a bratty, weepy, ungrateful-

 

“What are your parents like?” I blurted.

 

I was grateful, though. Undeserving, maybe, of the consideration he’d shown me so far, but definitely grateful. I just couldn’t understand why he would be so kind to me.

 

Jacob drew a long breath in, looking up at the sky as we walked, smiling as though he were running through years of happy memories in his head. “Well, my father’s name is William, but he mostly goes by Billy,” he said. “He’s a carpenter by trade, but a scholar at heart. History, mostly.” He smiled crookedly, shaking his head. “He taught me some of both, when I was younger, before I came of age and joined the Pack.”

 

“The pack?” I asked, glancing up at him questioningly.

 

He looked back down at me, blinking as though just realizing I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Oh, uh – see, when you’re young, you only change once a month, when everyone does, on the full moon.”

 

“Change,” I said slowly, making sure I understood, “into a wolf?”

 

“Right,” he nodded, without even a hint of condescension or impatience. How did he do that? “Everyone turns into wolves on the night of the full moon, but some people, when they come of age, usually around sixteen or seventeen, will start changing more often than that.”

 

I nodded, remembering the view from my window last night. “And… you’re one of those people? Do you… change every night, then?”

 

He blinked, then shook his head, chuckling. “No, see, it means I can control when I shift. I could do it right now, even.”

 

“Really?” I stared up at him, feeling strangely breathless at the idea.

 

He slanted an odd look down at me, seeming surprised by my reaction. “That… doesn’t scare you?”

 

I looked back up at him carefully. “Should it?” I asked.

 

It was like something out of a fairytale, unlike anything I’d ever seen. Men turning into wolves, and then back again, just by sheer force of will. That was almost all we knew of the Quileutes – they could turn into wolves. They hereditarily tended toward darker hair and skin. Their kingdom was thickly forested, and they were no strangers to the mountains. And they absolutely refused to mix with the outside world, to let foreigners like us, like me, learn anything substantial about them.

 

“It can be dangerous,” Jacob admitted, looking away.

 

I did remember one fact I’d read during my studies – during the many hours spent poring over the meager supply of books on the subject in my family’s vast library – something that was only mentioned in passing, jotted down in a worn travel log by one of Grandfather’s emissaries years before I was born. The man talked of the roiling political situation during his visit, mentioning that the throne had just changed hands, that a new king had just assumed rule of the kingdom. And this new king, Samuel, was anything but sympathetic to us. Not that any of his predecessors had been either, but where they had treated Grandfather’s messengers with cool indifference, King Samuel now met them with outright violence.

 

“Do you… know what you’re doing when you’re like that?” I asked, swallowing.

 

Matthias, the ambassador who had written about this King Samuel and whose record had captivated my research more than any of the others, had made one small comment that now swirled around in my head, echoing and splintering and reforming again: he’d described the wolves’ transformation.

 

Jacob looked at me sharply, and I imagined I felt his arm shake a little where my hand rested on it. I swallowed, refusing to drop his gaze.

 

Ambassador Matthias had been attacked, driven out of the Quileute kingdom with a pack of angry wolves snapping at his heels. He had recounted the experience as he lay healing, weak from fear and bloodloss, barely able to make it back to our lands safely.

 

“I would never hurt you, Renesmee,” Jacob said at last, the sincerity in his voice making the ache in my chest start anew.

 

We didn’t know what actually set off the process, what made a human body suddenly reform itself into a huge, ferocious wolf. Could a simple flash of emotion do it? A heated argument, perhaps? Was it entirely involuntary then?

 

Matthias’ words ran through my head, as though narrating the scene that had played out between Jacob and I less than a half hour ago.

 

The trembling rushes through their bodies, no doubt due to a wave of signals traveling down the spinal column, into the limbs.

 

I remembered the way he’d seemed to choke on his air, the way the whites of his eyes had shown around his irises. How his hands had quaked as they reached for me.

 

It’s as if they shake themselves out of existence, and the wolf steps in to take their place – man no more, only snarling beast.

 

In that moment, I had been truly afraid of him.

 

I couldn’t even imagine how close I must have come to meeting Jacob’s inner wolf – something that I knew would be an entirely different experience up close and personal than watching from my fourth story window while the beast slept peacefully below. Jacob might be sympathetic to me, kind and gentle and whatever else made him treat me with such consideration – but there was no telling if the wolf that appeared when he disappeared would be anywhere near so concerned for me.

 

He stopped it, though, I reminded myself. I wasn’t blind to the struggle he’d gone through as he wrenched himself to his feet and fled out into the field. I could only imagine the amount of willpower it took to hold back the snarling beast inside him, so ready to burst out of Jacob’s skin and finish off the infuriating little girl in front of it. But he had done it; he had stopped it, probably at the cost of his own peace of mind and calm, just to save me.

 

I was just ashamed now that I had sat there for several long minutes, too scared to go after him or even move.

 

Jacob seemed to have fallen into a similarly pensive mood beside me, watching me carefully as I mulled over all this. “Do you still want to hear about my family?” he asked quietly after several moments.

 

I looked back up at him, the sound of his voice doing more to calm my nerves than I would have expected – or cared to admit. “Yes, of course. If you don’t mind, I mean.”

 

He smiled again, shaking his head slightly – indulgent was the word that came to mind as I watched him – and began to speak again.

 

He told me about his sisters, Rachel and Rebecca – twins, which was apparently quite a common occurrence in their land, unlike the oddity that Uncle Emmett and Aunt Rose’s boys were in ours. He laughed when I commented on that, grinning and pointing out that two was actually a small number for a wolf’s litter.

 

I wondered at that, at just how much the wolf was a part of him, a part of his people, though I didn’t have the courage to question him about it directly. I watched him as we walked, his voice flowing continuously from story to story, memory to memory, his deep tones cocooning me in a strange feeling of warm security. But even as he drew me in with his voice, I watched and tried to detect some evidence of the predator in his gait, in the way he gestured with his hands or flashed his teeth as he turned to smile down at me.

 

He really was a walking contradiction, I thought, entranced by the movement of emotions across his expressive face. The man with a beast inside him, the warrior with a heart – or at least a soft spot for princesses in distress.

 

“So can anyone else in your family… ‘change’ like you can?” I asked, looking up at him sidelong.

 

“No,” he replied, shaking his head, then paused, frowning. “Well, my brother-in-law is a Shifter too, but he’s not exactly what I consider ‘family,’” he said, his lip curling in distaste.

 

I blinked, both intrigued and amused at his reaction. “Why is that?”

 

“Because he’s an ass-” He cut off suddenly, glancing down at me in seeming alarm, and then cleared his throat, continuing stiffly, “Let’s just say he and I don’t get along.” I laughed, and Jacob’s cheeks went a little red at what he’d started to say.

 

“What did you call him?” I asked, then laughed again when Jacob gave me another wild-eyed glance. Apparently, he didn’t think such language was suitable for princesses’ ears. “No, not that,” I chuckled, shaking my head. “The term you used. Shifter, was it?”

 

“Oh,” he said, looking instantly relieved. “Yeah, that’s what we call people who can shift at will, not just on the full moon.”

 

“Like you,” I said. He nodded. I felt my smile widen, adding, “And your brother-in-law,” and laughed once more when he wrinkled his nose again at the mention of his apparently odious in-law.

 

“So your sisters are both married?” I asked, still chuckling. “Do you have any nieces or nephews?” I smiled at the idea of a pack of small children underfoot, running around screaming for ‘Uncle Jake’ to give them piggyback rides.

 

“No. Well…” He shook his head, looking torn. “No.”

 

“No?”

 

“The women in my family kind of have a hard time bearing children,” he admitted reluctantly. “That’s why there’s only three of us, me and my two sisters.”

 

“Oh,” I said, taken aback. “I’m sorry. So, your mother-?”

 

“She died giving birth to me.”

 

I looked up at him sharply, horror-struck. It was all I could do to keep up with his long strides as I gaped at him. “Jacob, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

 

He glanced over at me suddenly, seeming surprised by my words. “What? Oh, no, don’t worry about it,” he said, rushing to reassure me – me, who had just made him bring up his dead mother!

 

“No, that was completely inappropriate of me. I’m so sorry. It was absolutely none of my business. I shouldn’t have made you-”

 

“Princess,” Jacob interrupted me, stopping in the middle of the road and turning to face me. I stuttered to a stop as well, turning toward him somewhat more hesitantly. “Do I look upset?” he asked after a moment, holding his hands out wide, as if inviting me to inspect him fully.

 

I chewed my lip, looking up at his face – his patient, indulging, kind face. “No,” I finally allowed.

 

“That’s because I’m not. Okay?”

 

I frowned, still uncomfortable. “Jacob-”

 

He shook his head and abruptly took a step forward, halving the distance between us. I tensed, feeling my eyes widen as I tipped my head back to stare up at him.

 

“Look, princess,” he said, gazing down at me with dark, unblinking eyes. I had to concentrate to keep my breathing even as I stared back at him. “The way I see it, I’m basically all you’ve got now,” he said matter-of-factly.

 

I sucked in a breath through my teeth, my eyes narrowing – where was he going with this?

 

He saw my reaction, and pursed his lips in response. “We’re all either of us has got now,” he amended, his voice quiet.

 

“But- your family-” I started, frowning up at him in confusion, but he just shook his head, dark hair flying with the motion.

 

“Believe me when I tell you, princess – I’m as much bound to you as you are to me now.”

 

We stared at each other, Jacob’s words hanging in the air between us, making no sense in any world I had ever lived in. His eyes bored into mine, pleading, all but begging me to understand what he was saying – but I couldn’t. I had no idea what he wanted from me. All I could possibly do was accept it, place my trust in him, and blindly go along with whatever it was he wasn’t saying behind his words.

 

And, I realized, that was what he was asking me to do, what he’d been asking me to do almost since the moment we laid eyes on each other. He was asking me to trust him.

 

It was more than choosing to leave with him, than putting a stop to my family’s various antics and stalling attempts. More than believing him when he said he wouldn’t hurt me. This was something deeper, something meaningful that he was asking of me. I had no idea what it was – but I did have the distinct and palpable sense that it would change the course of my life from this point on. I swallowed, feeling as though I were balanced on the edge of a precipice, about to take a step forward into the great unknown stretching out below me.

 

“Alright,” I said in a small voice.

 

Jacob gazed down at me for a moment, seeming almost stunned by my ready acceptance, and then he blinked, looking away and breaking our staring contest. “Well… Alright then.”

 

I couldn’t help the smile that started on my face when he shook his head, still looking quietly astonished at whatever I had just agreed to, and then his eyes focused on me again, or more specifically on my hands hanging at my sides. Very deliberately, he reached down and grasped my hand in his, slipping it back in where it had fallen from the crook of his elbow.

 

“Alright then, princess,” he said again, covering my hand with his larger one as he smiled down at me. He tilted his head in the direction we’d been traveling, toward the distant mountains and everything that lay beyond them. “Shall we?”

 

I pursed my lips, then nodded in return. “Just one thing, Jacob.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

I smiled, despite my continued misgivings. “You’re not allowed to call me ‘princess’ anymore.”

 

That earned me a roar of laughter from him – and then nearly an hour of teasing as I tried to convince him to call me by my given name, which he claimed was such a mouthful it was ‘like a full sentence all its own.’

 

“It’s a combination of my grandmothers’ names!” I tried once more, though my attempts to illustrate the sense of sentimentality and family history attached to my name had thus far fallen on deaf ears. Jacob just laughed again, shaking his head.

 

“Oh, Ruh-nez-may,” he said, exaggerating each syllable as he grinned down at me. “Haven’t you ever had a nickname? Something a little easier to say?”

 

I wrinkled my nose at his teasing, refusing to look up at him and let his infectious smile affect me. “Not since I was child,” I told him coldly. Actually, if I was being honest, it had made a resurgence in the last month or two, but that was only because my life-long friends and family knew it wouldn’t be long before they would never see me again, and that didn’t count.

 

“What was it?” Jacob asked eagerly, but when I didn’t answer, instead only scowling at his obvious tongue-in-cheek enthusiasm, he raised one eyebrow and then seemed to shrug off his previous interest. “You don’t have to pretend or try to make something up, you know. It’s really okay if you’ve never had a nickname, princess,” he said, assuming a kindly, almost patronizing tone. I glanced up sharply at the use of the royal title he wasn’t supposed to be calling me by any more – and found him trying to suppress a wide smile, his dark eyes twinkling merrily down at me.

 

“Nessie!” I spat, glaring up at him. “My Uncle Emmett used to call me Nessie, but like I said, it was really only when I little-”

 

“It’s cute,” Jacob interrupted my tirade, his smile somehow turning from joking to sincere in the blink of an eye.

 

I stopped, feeling my face heat a little as I looked up at him. “You… think so…?”

 

“Yeah,” he replied, meeting my gaze with that kind, warm smile of his – which, a moment later, turned teasing all over again. “Princess Ness. Even rhymes,” he mused playfully.

 

“What- No!” I sputtered. He just laughed. “No more of this ‘princess’ stuff! I mean it!”

 

“Sure, sure,” he said noncommittally, nodding but still grinning and looking overly pleased with himself. I glared up at him, knowing I hadn’t heard the last of this. I tried to stay grumpy and give him the cold shoulder after that, but Jacob’s cajoling and easy conversation quickly had me laughing again as he recounted boyhood tales of stealing chickens and getting chased out of neighboring farms by pitchforks and enormous Shifter wolves.

 

It was just an hour before sunset when the road began to swing south, the land around us beginning to change from open prairie and farmland to rolling hills as we approached the western mountains that separated our two kingdoms. It was at this point that Jacob glanced back at Noble, still trotting obediently along behind us with the mule, and asked if I wanted to stop to eat supper before we struck out off the road.

 

I blinked up at him in confusion. “What do you mean, off the road? The road goes around the mountains – straight into Quileute.”

 

Jacob frowned down at me, as if my words were nonsense. “No one uses that southern road anymore. The northern passes are safer and faster.”

 

I went from confused to incredulous. “Jake, the northern passes aren’t passes, they’re cliffs. And the only reason no one uses this road now is because no one travels between your kingdom and mine anymore.”

 

“That is not the only reason,” he countered, his voice turning grim. I pursed my lips, frowning up at him as my mind went straight to what neither of us seemed to want to say out loud.

 

The road we’d been traveling on for most of the day wound out from the Capital, where my family lived, merging and intertwining with the other major highways and trade routes that crisscrossed our kingdom. It broke off from the central quarter to head almost due west, traversing the vast plains of our kingdom as it headed for the mountain range that separated us from the Quileutes. At some point – the point at which we had just arrived – the road turned south, skirting the edge of the foothills until the mountains abruptly ended at the seashore. There, the road followed the water’s edge, curving west again and then north, straight into the heart of the wolves’ kingdom.

 

I’d never traveled to this distant corner of our kingdom before – the furthest I’d ever been from home was my mother’s family estate in the south – but I’d seen sketches of the coastal road, had traced my finger along its course on the crackling old maps in the library more times than I could count. Time after time, I had stood there, trying to imagine what it would be like to actually be there, to look with my own eyes at the indifferent earth and sea passing by on either side as I stepped forward into the unknown and my life disappeared behind me forever…

 

I swallowed, and in my mind’s eye I could see the old map, and the road etched on its surface in fading ink, and, beside the road, so close to the shore it was practically in the ocean, a small, unassuming dot labeled ‘hot springs.’ The springs were almost exactly halfway between our two kingdoms. Once upon a time, they had been a popular destination for both our peoples, though now they stood deserted, just like the road that led to them. And it was no mystery why.

 

Those springs were where all of this had started.

 

My parents had tried to keep me from the gory details of all that had gone on there, but I was determined to know the truth. It was the story of what had led to the cloud of doom that had hung over my head my entire life – in a way, it was my history, just as it was what would determine my future.

 

Some forty years ago, on a day at the very end of summer, a group of Quileute girls had traveled out to the springs. Simultaneously, the sons of several wealthy families from our kingdom had set out for there as well. They discovered the young women bathing in the springs – and, to quote some of my grandfather’s own writings, proceeded to inflict on them such unspeakable acts as had never been seen among our people since we had separated ourselves from the Volturi.

 

I stared up into Jacob’s dark eyes, and felt all the history behind my existence swirling around me like a shroud. “You don’t think it’s fitting that we pass through there?” I asked. It was quite a nice full-circle ending to the story, if you asked me.

 

He grimaced, looking away. “No, I don’t,” he said firmly, then caught my gaze again, his eyes hard. “Besides, it’s too dangerous.”

 

“More dangerous than trying to scale hundred-foot cliffs? With pack animals?”

 

That gave him pause, if only for a moment. “I’m not taking you down there,” he said, shaking his head. “Not when some Volturi bloodsucker could come sniffing around at any moment, looking for a quick meal.”

 

“You’re exaggerating-” I started, frowning up at him.

 

“I’m not.” He gazed down at me sternly, refusing to budge, and I felt my own determination falter slightly in the face of his certainty.

 

We heard stories, sometimes, of Volturi crossing our borders out here near the coast, snatching away careless farmers and villagers and disappearing with them into the night. The wild tales were easily brushed off in the comfort of the Capital, chalked up to accidents and wild animal attacks and country superstitions. But out here, standing on a road in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but open fields and limitless sky around me, as the setting sun began to paint the world a dusky orange, those stories suddenly seemed all too real.

 

It wasn’t like I didn’t believe everything that was said of the Volturi – I knew it as fact, just as everyone in our kingdom, and the Quileute kingdom too I was sure, knew it. They were blood-drinkers. Carnivores. Cannibals. But somehow it had just never occurred to me to actually be afraid of them before.

 

Now, though, looking up at Jacob, at how serious his normally affable face had become, I felt a chill run up my spine. “It can’t be that bad… can it?” I tried again, feebly.

 

He let out a long breath, looking away for a moment to think. “We might be able to make it up the coast without running into any of them,” he said at last, grudgingly. “But the odds aren’t good.”

 

“And what would that mean? If we encountered one?” I asked. “I mean, they are sentient beings – surely we could avoid a fight…”

 

“Sentience has got nothing to do with it,” Jacob said, his mouth set in a grim line. “If we run into a Volturi, it won’t hesitate to attack. It won’t care what you have to say or how you try to reason with it, and it will only see you as food.”

 

I felt a shiver working its way over me, making my skin crawl, and wrapped my arms around myself, feeling suddenly exposed. Jacob automatically took a step forward, his large hands sliding up along my arms to warm me. “You’ve fought them before, haven’t you?” I asked him, feeling instantly safer in this close proximity to him.

 

He nodded. “They can track as least as well as I can, and they’re fast and sneaky as hell. If we run into a gang of them, we’re screwed.”

 

I swallowed. “Do they often travel in gangs?”

 

“Only occasionally,” he said. “Only when they really want something. Out here, it’s mostly just hunters, rogues… But you never know.” He paused, glancing up at the sky and letting out a long breath. “It’s going to be dark soon. We need to make a decision one way or another.”

 

I nodded, feeling myself shiver a little more, and leaned closer to Jacob. “The southern road is dangerous,” I said slowly, not looking up at him, “but there’s simply no way we’d be able to get the pack animals up through the mountains to the north.” I tilted my head back, meeting his dark gaze as he looked down at me. “I don’t think there is much of a choice here. We have to go south.”

 

Jacob sighed, grimaced, and then finally nodded, though he still didn’t look happy about it. “Whatever you say, princess.”

 

 

Chapter 6 – Wild Animals

 

Renesmee

 

We walked for a while more, trying to cover as much ground as possible before stopping for the night. I watched as our shadows lengthened on the path in the orange light of dusk until the sun fully disappeared behind the mountains and the world was bathed in twilight. Darkness fell quickly after that, and while I continued to attempt conversation, Jacob seemed to grow evermore tense and tight-lipped the farther south we walked.

 

He wasn’t happy about my decision to travel in this direction, that much was clear. It meant an extra day on the road compared to how quickly he must have made the journey on his own, but there was really no other choice. It wasn’t as if we could abandon the animals out here. The mule was carrying our food and some clothes and other personal belongings of mine, and Noble… Well, I had to admit to pure selfishness there. Noble had been my horse for years, and had become a dear and loyal friend. He was completely devoted to me, and would no doubt continue following us even if we tried to set him free and send him back the way we had come – a fact that, I had to admit, actually pleased and relieved me. He would be my comfort in that strange land, the one piece of home that I could take with me. I didn’t know what I would do without him there.

 

Still, it was a huge inconvenience to ask of Jacob. I was determined to keep going as long as I could and lessen the delay he would have to put up. But as the night deepened around us, I found myself fighting to keep my eyes open, battling my heavy eyelids with every step. It was a losing battle. After what felt like hours of trudging along in near-silence, I felt my head dip forward like a sleepy ragdoll, my fatigue finally getting the better of me. My feet snagged on each other as I tried to keep walking, but then Jacob was there, catching me just as I began to pitch forward. He scooped me up easily, cradling me against his chest as though I weighed nothing at all.

 

“I can walk,” I gasped in protest, jolted awake by the sudden movement.

 

“Sure you can,” Jacob muttered back. He glanced down at me, a small smile softening his features after a moment. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

 

“Jacob-”

 

“Shh. Sleep.”

 

I sighed and leaned my head against his chest, grudgingly admitting defeat as a wide yawn overtook me. His arms held me securely as he continued to walk, the heat radiating off of him enveloping me like a cocoon and I felt myself begin to relax again. The warmth seeped into my bones, spreading through me from head to toe and filling me with a sense of peace and safety, as if nothing could possibly go wrong so long as I was right here, with him. My eyelids drooped, and I snuggled closer to him, pressing my cheek into his chest, and in my sleep-muddled mind I wanted nothing more than to stay there in his arms forever.

 

 

---

 

 

I was momentarily woken by a change in Jacob’s gait, and when I opened my eyes it was to find him lowering me carefully to the ground. “Don’t go,” I insisted sleepily, trying in vain to hang onto his arms.

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll be right back, don’t worry.” And then his silhouette disappeared from my view.

 

I must have slipped back into sleep, because the next thing I knew, a huge warm mass was sidling up to me, pushing up against me as if offering itself as a pillow. I gratefully snuggled into its fur, breathing in its earthy, spicy scent. The thing hummed encouragingly, the sound thrumming through my whole body, and I smiled in response as sleep claimed me once more.

 

 

---

 

 

I dreamed of a many-headed creature peering down at me through the dark, its hundreds of faces contorting in all manner of emotions from curiosity to fear, anger to astonishment. From its mouths came an indistinguishable babble of voices, all talking over and through each other, the sound ebbing and flowing like the waves of the sea.

 

The creature was vast and powerful, and threatened to swallow me whole, but I simply closed my eyes, holding fast to the protective fur coat surrounding me, and knew it could not touch me.

 

 

---

 

 

The world was grey with early morning light when I woke, the distant cries of birds and the rustle of the wind in the trees greeting me as I came to. I lay on my back for several minutes, blinking my eyes up at the swaying boughs above me, sleepily disoriented by their waving. Since when did we have such big trees in our kingdom? And since when did I fall asleep under them? I was mulling over these and other mysteries of the universe when a movement caught my eye, pulling my gaze back down to earth.

 

Across the little clearing from me, Noble and the mule both stood tethered to a slim tree trunk, quietly picking at the grass at their feet, and, halfway between me and them, sat Jacob. He had one of the mule’s saddlebags open on the ground beside him and was rifling through it, setting out an assortment of food on a cloth on the ground in front of him. The other saddlebag, I discovered when I pushed myself up to a sitting position, had been placed behind my head as a pillow.

 

Jacob looked up at my movement, a wide smile immediately spreading across his face when our eyes met. “Morning,” he said, and held up an apple in one hand. “Want some breakfast?”

 

I blinked, returning his smile. “Sure.” It took a moment of squirming to find my way out of the blankets wrapped around me. They were tucked so securely, like a baby’s swaddling, that I realized I couldn’t possibly have done that myself, especially not in my sleep addled state last night. And there was only one other person around with opposable thumbs…

 

I straightened at last, brushing imaginary dust from my skirt and fighting a blush as I turned back to Jacob. “Did you sleep well?” I asked politely, sinking to the ground beside him and accepting the apple he offered me.

 

Jacob’s eyes flashed up to mine, then he smiled a slow, crooked smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I slept great. What about you? Any more interesting dreams?”

 

I paused around a bite of my apple, watching him. “No,” I said at last, ignoring the wisps of sleep still clinging to my mind. Something warm and furry beside me, thousands of voices all chattering in my head at once… I shook my head, then glanced around, hoping to change the subject. “Where are we?” I asked, looking up at the swaying trees around us. The foliage was thicker here than any I had ever seen before; I could barely make out open fields between the most distant tree trunks.

 

“Still on the road south,” Jacob answered, continuing to rummage through the pack of food beside him. “I just veered off it a little ways to make camp last night. We should hit the sea in an hour or two.”

 

I looked up at him sharply. “An hour or two? Jacob… Did you walk all night?” Last I had checked, we were easily half a day from the coast.

 

“Most of it,” he shrugged, nonplussed. He sniffed at a cheese wheel, put it back, and then finally settled on a loaf of bread, which he bit into without bothering to cut it into slices.

 

“Aren’t you tired? You were carrying me all that time…” I added, feeling my face flush anew as I remembered how he had saved me from falling flat on my face in the middle of the road.

 

Jake snorted, giving me an amused look. “Please. I’ve eaten meals that weigh more than you. And I’m used to working on only a few hours of sleep anyway. Just part of the job,” he said, shrugging again.

 

“The job?” I echoed as I got to my feet, moving past Jacob to where the animals stood tethered across the clearing.

 

“Yah, you know,” he said around a mouthful of bread, before swallowing and continuing. “Being a Shifter, I mean.”

 

“That’s a job?” I asked, looking back at him as I offered Noble the core from my apple. He sniffed it once, then delicately plucked it up from my open palm, crunching it to bits in a matter of seconds. I smiled, patting his nose as he nuzzled my hand again, looking for more treats.

 

“Well, yeah,” Jacob said, taking another bite. “We patrol the border, keep the peace, settle disputes. We basically run the country.”

 

“And all just because you were born with the ability to change into a wolf whenever you want?” I asked, smiling over at him.

 

He shrugged, polishing off the last of his loaf and climbing to his feet as well. “There are worse gigs,” he said, slowly walking toward me and the animals.

 

Noble tensed at his approach, ears flickering nervously, but otherwise gave no outward sign of fear or alarm. I glanced up at him, then back at Jacob, who was still closing the distance between us with slow, even steps, his eyes locked on Noble.

 

“Jake…” I started, my tone cautioning. “I don’t think-”

 

“Just watch,” he said quietly, taking another careful step forward.

 

I held my breath as Jacob finally drew near, waiting for Noble to rear or try to bolt. He did neither, though, instead only pulling his head away and pawing at the ground nervously with one hoof when Jacob stopped beside me.

 

“I can’t believe he let you get this close,” I breathed, staring in wonder at them both. “You were able to tether them last night without a problem?”

 

He nodded, one side of his mouth pulling up in a lopsided smile. “Turns out I’m not bad at sweet-talking these animals of yours. Of course, it did seem to help that I was still carrying you.”

 

I snorted. “Or maybe Noble’s just smart enough to know you’re all bark and no bite,” I teased, grinning up at him as I slid my hand around his arm and turned to lead him back toward our little camp, leaving the animals to graze in peace once more.

 

He slanted a look down at me. “Careful, Ness, or I might have to show you just how much bite I have.”

 

“Ooh, I’m terrified,” I mocked, releasing his arm to go pick through the pack of food again.

 

“You should be,” Jake said, following me. I pulled out the cheese wheel he’d discarded earlier.

 

“Mm-hm,” I hummed, looking through the bag’s smaller pockets until I found a knife. “Do you want any of this?”

 

“Don’t you know you shouldn’t feed wild animals?” Jacob said, crossing his arms with a small smirk.

 

“Bit late for that,” I quipped, grinning.

 

“Oh, I don’t know.” He uncrossed his arms, stepping closer so that he towered over me. I tipped my head back, staring up at him. Gently, he pulled the cheese and the knife from my hands, holding them up for me to see. “This stuff doesn’t really do it for me, ya know? Now, what I’ve really been craving,” he said, he voice turning husky as he slowly began to lean down toward me. I felt my eyes widening as he filled my field of vision. “Is some nice… tender… young meat.”

 

I blinked, then instinct seemed to take over and I turned and bolted. Jacob laughed once, then let out a kind of low snarl and gave chase, tossing the cheese and knife aside as he came running after me.

 

I darted into the trees, letting out a startled laugh when I glanced back to find Jacob crashing through the brush behind me, gaining with every step. I ran deeper into the grove, lunging for the first big tree I saw and hiding behind its thick trunk, and had to resist the urge to peek back to see where he was. Pressing my hands to my mouth, I tried to fight off the giggles and the giddy smile that threatened to break across my face, and it was then that I noticed the pale figure regarding me from the next tree trunk.

 

He was a man of medium build, with long blond hair held back in a low ponytail and the most piercing blue eyes I had ever seen. He smiled languidly from where he leaned against the tree across from mine, and I felt a chill run up my spine at the sight. The world seemed impossibly still and silent around us, all movement swirling to a stop around me and him and the meager yards separating us.

 

Somewhere behind me, Jacob seemed to be choking, snarling out something that sounded almost like my name. The blue eyes switched from me to him, the smile widening until it was downright predatory, and he straightened from the tree trunk, coiling to spring. I flinched at the rush of wind passing me and the blur of movement in the corner of my eye, but the man flew right past me – and straight at Jacob.

 

I heard them collide with an eruption of snarls and the audible snapping of teeth, the stranger hissing like a wildcat. I stood frozen against my tree, my hands still clamped over my mouth, too terrified to even move as they tore into each other behind me. I flinched at each new snarl, Jacob’s words from last night playing through my head once more as the sounds of their fighting grew more distant, tumbling and crashing away from me through the trees. He said the Volturi were fast, powerful, ruthless… Jacob was a warrior, but could this man, this creature, be stronger than him?

 

The seconds ticked by as I stood there, my body beginning to quake as the full terror of that thought overtook me. Somewhere off in the distance, I heard one last furious snarl from the monster, and then, shooting through me like a bolt of lightning and jolting me out of my trance-like state, the howl of a wolf.

 

I launched myself away from the tree trunk, scrabbling frantically over the roots as I spun around to rush back to our camp. A few yards behind my hiding place, carelessly tossed aside and crumpled on the ground, I came upon what appeared to be Jacob’s leather trousers. I stared at them, my panicked mind refusing to make sense of what I was seeing, and so simply scooped them up and took off toward the clearing again.

 

The run back was farther than I expected – I hadn’t realized I’d strayed that far into the woods. But then, finally, there was the camp, off to my left. I dashed toward it, bursting from the treeline as my head whipped around to make sure it was all clear. I couldn’t tell where the fight was anymore, the sounds of rustling, crashing, and snarling seeming to echo through the forest on all sides.

 

I made a beeline for Noble, quickly untying him and the packmule from their tree and tethering them together for travel.  Pulling them out into the middle of the clearing with me, I grabbed up the two saddlebags Jacob had taken out earlier, and it wasn’t until I had thrown them across the mule’s back that I realized what exactly I was doing.

 

I stepped away from the animals, staring down at the trousers still slung over my arm as their meaning finally sank in. I had only grasped the reality of the situation through vague instinct before, but now full understanding settled heavily around me.

 

Jacob was no longer human.

 

Jacob was gone.

 

And in his place was the ravenous beast he’d held at bay all this time.

 

The knowledge left me cold, desolate, as though I had just lost something precious. I felt the steel cable attached to my chest again, pulling on me, stealing my breath, thrumming and aching as though stretched to its limit. Somehow I knew, at the other end of the cable was Jacob, wherever he had gone, wherever he disappeared to when the wolf took over, and if I just willed it enough, I could get him back, I could pull on the cable connecting us, hand over hand, bit by bit, and then–

 

I bit my lip, catching myself. Let out a breath. I didn’t have time for this. Carefully, I wadded the leather up under one arm and reached for Noble’s reins with the other. I had to focus. I had to be rational. My life literally depended on it. Jacob might not be here anymore, but the wolf was out there, and it would no doubt be coming back for me once it finished with the vampire. I didn’t plan on being here when it did.

 

Noble stamped his feet as I pulled him around, ears flicking agitatedly, and then, suddenly, he whinnied, high pitched and fearful. I barely managed to hang onto his reins as he jerked away from me, all but pulled off my feet by his sharp movement. My eyes swept the trees as I tried to hang on to him, simultaneously attempting to soothe him and pinpoint the threat that had set him off.

 

It was only a moment before my eyes found what his animal instincts had already identified: a wolf, easily as tall as the horse beside me, stalking toward us through the trees.

 

I felt the color drain from my face, even as some part of me wondered if Noble could outrun him. Not for long, and certainly not with the mule in tow. I tried not to calculate how much longer I had to live. The wolf broke into a run, barreling out of the trees toward us, and Noble went berserk. He reared back on his hind legs with a terrified whinny, yanking me clean off my feet. I managed to disentangle myself from his reins before he pulled my arm from its socket, falling to my hands and knees directly in front of him – and below his churning hooves.

 

As I moved to scramble away, I had one split second in which I glanced up to find the wolf bearing down on me, its predator’s eyes locked on me, ready to bite, to tear, to kill – and then it was leaping over me, its snarls colliding with Noble’s high-pitched cries behind me.

 

I sucked in greedy breaths, unsure how I was still alive, and looked back over my shoulder as I shakily climbed to my feet. Behind me, the giant wolf was shoving Noble back with its shoulder, growling and baring its teeth as the horse continued to panic, tearing at the furry auburn mass with his hooves. In spite of this, the wolf made no move to actually harm him, instead simply pushing him back step by step like a well-trained shepherd dog.

 

It was then that the smell reached me.

 

I gagged, feeling my stomach revolt and my throat constrict in protest. I felt my knees buckle all over again, and lowered myself shakily back to the ground, my vision beginning to swim as that scent poured over me in waves.

 

It was blood. Fresh blood. And it was coming from the wolf.

 

The animal chose that moment to turn back toward me, Noble having been sufficiently herded away. It padded toward me on quick paws – paws that were easily as big as my entire torso, if not more – and I could do nothing but stare up at it in dread. The blood scent was stronger than ever now, making my head throb. It would be so easy to kill me. I wouldn’t even put up much of a fight with that scent clouding my mind. He could bite me clean in two and be done with it.

 

The wolf stopped, lowering its head until its nose was almost in my face, and then, to my surprise, it let out the most pitiful canine whine I had ever heard.

 

I blinked bleary eyes up at it. Well. That wasn’t quite what I’d been expecting. Why hadn’t I been killed and eaten yet? I knit my brows, trying to think past the haze of the blood.

 

At the change in my expression, the wolf whined again, bumping my cheek with the end of his nose. My eyes flew open to stare up at him again, and his huge black eyes stared back, earnest and questioning. When I didn’t say or do anything in response, he whined once more, insistent.

 

“I don’t know what you want,” I managed at last, the effort to string a sentence together making me squint in concentration. In vain, I covered my nose and mouth with one hand, hoping to block out the smell. It was so strong, with the wolf standing over me like this…

 

“Please,” I ground out, trying to breathe through my mouth instead. No good, because then I could taste it. “Please, the smell… I can’t take the smell of blood…”

 

The wolf pulled back, grumbling in the back of his throat, and my foggy mind went so far as to assign emotions such as ‘surprised’ and ‘inquiring’ to his reaction, as if the beast could actually understand my words. I clenched my teeth, trying to think straight, and then jumped when a cold, wet nose suddenly bumped my hand, nuzzling at it pointedly. I blinked several times and followed his movements down to the hand that was lying limply at my side, still clutching Jacob’s wadded up trousers.

 

“You… want these?” I asked, feeling a little crazy as I held the pile of leather out to the animal, and then only crazier when he nodded emphatically, his mouth opening and tongue lolling out in a wolfish smile.

 

Carefully, the wolf dipped his head once more, keeping his large, dark eyes on me, and delicately lifted the leather trousers out of my hands with his front teeth. He straightened, then gave me a hard look and grunted once, which in my confusion sounded very much like a command of ‘Stay!’ I nodded dumbly, and the wolf cast me one more glance before turning and disappearing into the trees again.

 

I sucked in a long breath after he had gone, the blood smell dissipating behind him and the fresh air helping to clear my head. What was I doing? What was happening? Could that animal, that beast, really understand me? Was it still Jacob in there, somehow? Was it possible?

 

“Well, I’m not dead yet, now am I?” I muttered, squeezing my eyes shut. I felt lightheaded, like I could float away in the clouds overhead.

 

“Are you okay?!” Jacob’s voice suddenly barked, and I opened my eyes to find him striding quickly across the clearing toward me, human, whole, unharmed. He looked like he’d rushed right back here after his transformation; his hands were only just finishing with the tie at the waistline of his pants as he neared.

 

“Jacob,” I breathed, still dazed.

 

“Are you hurt?” he demanded, dropping to crouch beside me and reaching for my arm. “You looked like you were gonna pass out earlier.”

 

“No. No, I’m fine now,” I said, shaking my head. “It was just the smell of the blood…” My eyes strayed to his bare shoulder, taking in the patch of puckered, half-healed skin there, and just the faintest impression of what appeared to be teeth marks. “Your blood.”

 

“My… blood,” Jacob repeated, watching me carefully. He let himself sink to a seated position beside me, still holding onto my arm with one hand, and let out a long breath. “You looked like you were gonna be sick,” he said at last.

 

I nodded. I might well have been sick if I’d had to smell it much longer. The scent of blood affected all our people in a similar manner: deep down, we were still the same race as our Volturi cousins to the south – the same as the monster that had just attacked Jacob and me, I thought with a shiver. We were still technically, physically, capable of becoming just like them, if we so chose, but it wouldn’t be an easy transition. Like the sickness of a starving man who gorges himself upon finding food again for the first time, our bodies would revolt, the taste, smell, and very sight of blood too rich for our deprived systems to process.

 

“Is it because of… Does it have anything to do with the vampires?” Jacob asked, as if sensing the direction of my thoughts and picking his words carefully.

 

“Yes,” I said.

 

“So I should be glad you wanted to vomit instead of, say, salivating?”

 

I let out a surprised laugh, shaking my head and turning to look at him again. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I said, smiling up at him. And I was – more than glad even, but relieved, overjoyed to have him back. We could just gloss over the part where I’d been preparing to flee from him as well, fully expecting him to turn on me as soon as he’d finished with the vampire.

 

Jacob smiled in return, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me into his chest. Once there, he rested his forehead on top of my hair and let out a long, strained sigh. “Me too,” he murmured, sounding exhausted. I swallowed, not sure what to say to that, but before I could give it any more thought, Jacob tensed and began to roll to his feet, pulling me with him.

 

“Come on, we should get moving again,” he said as he set me on my feet.

 

“Do you think he’s still out there?” I asked, looking up into his dark eyes. He nodded, his face serious. I didn’t need to elaborate on who I meant.

 

“I managed to run him off, but I don’t think he’s gone for good. Especially not after getting a bite out of me,” he said, nodding down at the gradually disappearing patch on his shoulder. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t bring any friends back with him next time.”

 

I nodded and made my way toward our still-jumpy pack animals, needing movement to hide the shiver of fear that ran through me at that thought. “I don’t understand why he went after you, though,” I said, glancing back at Jacob. “I mean, I was right there. There was nothing to stop him from killing me.”

 

“I would have stopped it,” Jake growled. “Besides, I’m bigger and stronger than you, and strength is what they’re after.” He folded his arms, standing back to let me soothe Noble; the horse had had more than enough fright for one day. Jacob’s eyes swept over me, a mischievous smile quirking one side of his mouth. “Face it, Ness, compared to me, you’re just an appetizer. I’m the main course.”

 

I winced, feeling my skin crawl at his words. “Don’t joke about that,” I said, pulling myself up into the saddle. He was right, though: the Volturi – and my people, though we chose to abstain from their way of life – gained their speed, strength, and other heightened abilities by consuming the life force, the blood and flesh, of other creatures. Jacob, with his human intellect and werewolf strength, must have looked like a feast to our attacker. I shook my head, feeling sick for a whole different reason now.

 

Jacob just shrugged, his smile turning somewhat grim, and set off on the way out toward the road. I nudged Noble forward, watching Jacob’s back, and tried to convince myself that I was imagining the feeling of being watched.

 

 

Chapter 7 – The Coast Road

 

Jacob

 

They traveled in tense silence once they were on the road again, Jacob setting a quick pace, almost a jog, Nessie following as close behind him as her still-jittery horse would allow. The animals weren’t the only nervous ones – Jacob was all too aware of Nessie’s hands clenched on the reins behind him, of her eyes darting around at every little sound and movement in the countryside around them.

 

He hadn’t meant to frighten her. This was exactly why he’d tried to make light of the situation earlier, so she wouldn’t be scared. But he should have known better… She was smarter than that, much too smart to let a few quick jokes distract her from what was really going on. She knew exactly what kind of danger they were in, possibly even better than he did, with the common ancestry between her people and the Volturi, the way she still responded to blood like they did-

 

No. Not like them. Renesmee was nothing like those monsters. She was good and sweet and intelligent and selfless and… And everything opposite of the Volturi and their mindless, bloodthirsty destruction.

 

It was odd, though… As far as he could tell, she, and all the rest of the Cullen people, didn’t seem to possess any heightened abilities of smell, hearing, or any other senses. It was just the odor of blood that stood out to them. His people were the same way, all living happily oblivious to the myriad of bright scents and sounds that surrounded him every day. It was only on that one night a month when the full moon brought them together in the Packmind and they were able to experience the reality he lived in. The next morning, most people could be found suffering from what they called ‘moon sickness,’ a kind of sensory-deprivation hangover, the world suddenly a muffled, scentless place after the overload of information their wolf bodies had taken in the night before.

 

Jacob hadn’t experienced moon sickness himself since he was a child, before he became a Shifter, but he could remember it well enough. Perhaps, on some level, the effect of the blood-scent was the same for the Cullens: they still recognized it, still longed for it even, but it had no place in their dull human existence.

 

He kept his head on a swivel as they moved, scanning every detail of the terrain around them, his nose constantly testing the wind for traces of the vampire’s sickly-sweet smell. He knew the creature was still out there, somewhere. And he knew that there were probably more tailing them, more than just the one male he’d fought already. His hackles rose, sending an involuntary shudder down his spine, and he felt certain they were being watched, even then.

 

They continued to push westward toward the sea, the grasslands receding behind them and giving way to sand and rocks and more of the scraggly trees they’d camped under last night. The mountains paralleled their course, racing them to the water’s edge and creating a veritable chokepoint through which they would have to pass. It didn’t take a genius to guess that that was where the bloodsuckers would try to cut them off.

 

Not if he could beat them there, though. If they could just make it up the coast, past the mountains, onto Quileute land… The leeches wouldn’t dare follow them into the forest, where the entire Pack would be waiting, ready to tear the intruders to pieces. They just had to actually get there first.

 

The wind began to shift as they neared the seashore, bringing with it wafts of salt, fish, brine, and that overripe, burn-your-nostrils vampire stench. Jacob tensed, readying himself for an attack, but then the smell had gone, evaporating on the unpredictable ocean breeze. Maybe it was just an old trace, left behind from whenever the leeches were last in this area… Or maybe, they were here, and they were doing it on purpose, taunting him.

 

The town rose up out of the rocks ahead of them just as they came within sight and sound of the ocean, the dark roofs of the buildings standing in stark contrast against the blue background of the water and sky. Jacob kept up his jog, not yet willing to relax – even a little pocket of civilization like this wouldn’t protect them from the Volturi monsters that were after them. His tested the air cautiously, frowned, and took a deeper breath.

 

The stillness as they approached only confirmed what his nose had already told him. There was no one alive in this village.

 

He glanced back at Nessie, and she met his eyes briefly before looking ahead toward the dark buildings, her gaze tentatively hopeful but her knuckles clenched white around the reins. She could tell something was wrong, even if she didn’t know what. He faced front again, trying to swallow past the growing knot of dread in his throat. He was fairly certain of what they would find here, and he only wished he could shield her from it.

 

He’d seen this sort of thing before, though it was usually lone travelers in the mountains, explorers or hermits who ventured too far out into the wilderness and met a grisly death. There usually wasn’t much left by the time the Pack stumbled across them. Just bones, stripped clean of flesh, and sometimes even those were broken, the marrow sucked from their cores. The monsters took everything from them.

 

It was bad enough finding one person out there, having to look through the little shards and fragments that had once been a person, but this… An entire town wiped from existence…

 

Half a century ago, this town had probably been a popular stop along the road between their kingdoms, a cozy place for travelers to stay the night on their way to the hot springs in the mountains. It probably hadn’t ever gotten especially large; the tiny, fishing-village feel would have been part of its charm, just as long as it had a comfortable inn and a few small shops of trinkets and keepsakes for visitors to pick through. There had likely never been much draw for larger merchants and industry to move into the area, as even before the events of forty years ago, the Quileutes had been a reclusive people, never allowing much trade to reach them from the outside world. Now, with the dark history associated with the springs and tensions rising between their peoples, the road and therefore the town had been all but abandoned, left to fend for themselves against the encroaching Volturi threat.

 

He knew the instant that Nessie smelled the blood, old though it was. She sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth and held it, and her face was deathly pale when he looked back at her. Her eyes had gone wide, staring around at the tomb-like buildings in silent horror, and when her gaze met his again, she looked on the brink of tears.

 

“Jake…” she started, then choked and looked away, her whole body trembling.

 

“Come on, Ness,” he said gently, turning around to face her, “we just have to keep moving.” He wanted to go to her, to carry her through this and keep her from having to see what he knew lay ahead, but he couldn’t get any closer while she was on her horse. The animal was already tense and jumpy from the events of that morning; it wouldn’t allow him to approach it again without trying to bolt, or worse, go wild and throw Ness from its back.

 

She nodded, looking up, but then her eyes strayed past him, over his shoulder, and the color drained from her face all over again. “Jake- What-”

 

He turned back around and saw them: laid out neatly side by side and coming into view as they moved through the center of the village, three skeletons, a man, a woman, and a child – a family. They were each lying spreadeagle, their wrists and ankles lashed to stakes driven into the ground, bits of decaying flesh and connective tissue still clinging to their bones. Their heads – skulls – were thrown back in unmistakable agony, their mouths hanging open in silent screams.

 

They’d been eaten alive. It was a common enough Volturi practice. Rip into them while the blood was still warm and flowing, save the tender, beating heart for last…

 

He shuddered, turning away.

 

“Nessie,” he ground out, feeling tremors sweep down his arms, making his fists shake at his sides. Gods, she shouldn’t have to see this. “We’re getting out of here, okay?” He stared hard down at the rocks beneath his feet, trying not to see the silent, screaming skulls in his mind. “You’re going to close your eyes, and we’re going to run, and when you open them again, we won’t be here anymore. Okay?”

 

He looked back up at her when he finished speaking, and she was staring back at him with tears running down her cheeks, her lips pursed to hold back her sobs. But she nodded her understanding, leaned forward, and kicked Noble into a faster trot, following as Jacob turned to lead the way through the town to the open seashore beyond. The horse seemed only too willing to escape the gruesome scene, matching Jacob’s pace and pushing faster still, without any encouragement from his rider. Jake glanced back once to find Nessie clutching the horse’s reigns, her face pressed into the animal’s neck and eyes shut tight as they bounded away.

 

The carnage whipped past him in a blur of grey, but his keen senses still managed to pick out all the details around him – the bodies nailed to the walls of their own homes, the bonfires where whole families had been roasted alive, the stench of death and decay, the tall red-headed woman watching them from the roof of what must have once been a church–

 

He did a double take, catching only a flash of bright auburn as she disappeared from view. He hadn’t imagined it, though – that was the other one, the second one he’d been smelling. And they were here, watching him and Ness run for their lives through the massacre these creatures had left in their wake.

 

This town must have been their playground. They’d been coming here for years from the look of some of the bodies he’d passed. The cool, well-trained part of his brain analyzed and catalogued each of the murders, absorbing what the dead had to tell him about their killers. The town was tiny, isolated, and had probably sustained itself almost entirely on what the people could catch from the sea. They hadn’t had anywhere else to go. No escape. No choice but to hunker down, cling to the only life they had ever known, and wait for the end.

 

Jacob let out a tense breath when they blew past the last of the town’s outbuildings; not quite a sigh of relief, but a release of some of the pressure, at least. The road swung them straight out toward the water, finally turning north when it met the edge of the rocky beach below, and he continued to run until he was sure they had left the ghost town and its grisly inhabitants behind.

 

He could hear Nessie doing her best to quiet her sobs, still clinging to her horse and shaking like a leaf when he looked back at her. He slowed, the horse still trying to give him a wide berth and so matching his pace, and finally stopped in the middle of the road, turning around to look up at Nessie.

 

She looked back at him, one hand alternating between covering her nose and mouth and scrubbing at the tears that continued to course down her cheeks. The other still held Noble’s reigns in a vice-like grip.

 

He swallowed, taking a step forward, the need to hold her and know that she was alright pressing in on him, but the horse snorted, stopping him in his tracks as it pawed agitatedly at the ground. Jake glared at it, but didn’t try to get any closer.

 

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking back up at Nessie. He had to tilt his head back just slightly to catch her gaze from her seat on the horse’s back.

 

“Yeah,” she said weakly, squeezing her eyes shut in a grimace. “Jake, all those people…”

 

“I know,” he said, feeling suddenly hollow. He had hoped she wouldn’t see any of that… It was bad enough that she could smell them, smell the life that was sucked out of them by those demons. She shouldn’t have to carry the memory of this place with her. He should have protected her from this.

 

His thoughts were cut short by a movement out of the corner of his eye. His gaze refocused over Nessie’s shoulder, on the flash of red from among the buildings. The she-vampire was watching them, her pale face visible above one of the nearest rooftops. She was letting herself be seen – taunting him again.

 

He tried not to make any sudden movements, tried not to let it show that he had spotted her. Nessie stilled beside him, her eyes focusing sharply on his face, sensing the change in him. “Jacob?” she asked, her voice steady and serious.

 

“Ness,” he said, turning his face and eyes toward her, though his attention was still tracking the splash of scarlet against the dark village roofs. “When I tell you, I need you ride as fast as you can up the coast. Okay?”

 

She frowned at him, her brows knit. “It’s him, isn’t it? The one from this morning?”

 

Jacob pursed his lips, studying her face carefully. The tear tracks still stood out wet and bright on her cheeks, but her eyes had hardened somehow, deep brown backed with steel. He nodded once. “Him, and his mate.”

 

She swallowed, understanding settling around her. “You’re going to fight them.”

 

He nodded.

 

“And you want me to run away.”

 

“I can’t have you in danger, Ness,” he said, holding her gaze, wishing he could make her understand. “I can’t.” She opened her mouth to protest, looking unconvinced, but he spoke before she could. “I’ll be right behind you the whole way,” he assured her, trying a lighter tone. “I just want to know you can get away quick in case something happens.” Like the bloodsuckers ganging up on him. Right, that’d never happen. “It’s just a precaution.” Really.

 

Granted, if they did gang up on him, and if they were too much for him – he wasn’t saying they would be, he could handle himself in a fight after all, but just in case – if something were to happen, somehow, and he couldn’t protect her – well, he’d be dead before he let that happen. And even then, her horse wouldn’t be nearly fast enough. Not against these creatures. But if they got close enough to Quileute lands… If she could make it into the forest, she might be saved…

 

His heart clenched at the direction his thoughts had taken; he had to prepare for the worst, though.

 

“A precaution,” Nessie repeated, frowning. She shook her head. “Fine. But nothing better happen,” he heard her mutter as she turned away, and he found himself grinning despite the somber situation.

 

“Are you going to transform?” she asked, looking over at him as she moved her horse into position to take off up the road like he asked. Her eyes were still hard, but she bit her lip, watching him uncertainly.

 

He cast a glance back at the village, discretely testing the wind with his nose. “If they get too close.”

 

She nodded, and then her next words came out in a rush. “You can still understand me, right? When you’re like that? You’re still you?”

 

Jacob blinked, surprised at how she suddenly quailed asking that. This one little thing seemed to have her more worked up than even the thought of running for her life with the Volturi snapping at her heels. “My body’s the only thing that changes, Ness,” he said, watching her. “I’m still me.”

 

She let out a breath, nodded hesitantly. “Just… don’t leave me, okay?”

 

His voice felt suddenly thick as he looked up at her. “Never.”

 

They held each other’s gazes for a moment longer, and then simultaneously glanced back at the village. He couldn’t say if he’d actually seen movement there or not. “You’ll be right behind me?” Nessie asked, looking back down at him.

 

“Right behind you,” he confirmed. She nodded, squaring her shoulders, then leaned forward and urged the horse first into a walk, then a trot, and finally a run. Jacob fell into step several yards behind them, easily keeping pace with them, his senses going on full alert as he once again scanned the terrain for signs of the vampires following them.

 

The female was more obvious in her pursuit than the male had been. She seemed to like the attention, teasing him by slipping in and out of view, appearing first on one distant rock outcropping and then disappearing and reappearing somewhere else, always showing off little flashes of her bright hair. The male’s scent followed them as well, mirroring his mate, though he stayed mostly out of sight. Jacob only caught a few glimpses of him, pacing them from among the craggy rocks and crashing waves below the road.

 

Their path began to weave uphill, the mountains rushing up on their right as the sea dropped away below the sheer cliffs on the left. Jacob kept up a steady stream of profanity in his head as they ran. This was exactly why he hadn’t wanted to come this way, why no one came this way anymore. It was a naturally formed trap, a strategist’s nightmare, nowhere to seek refuge or escape with the wall of steep rocks on the east and the unforgiving waves to the west.

 

And the vampires knew it, too – he could feel them closing in, their hungry gazes crawling up his back, dancing over Nessie, making him bristle, making his teeth bare and his limbs shake… Why didn’t they just attack already?! Why all the waiting? Why let them get any closer to their goal rather than just ending it here?

 

They made it a good ways up the coastline at their ground-eating pace, Jacob feeling the whole time like he might snap from the tension, focused entirely on keeping track of where the vampires were, readying himself for their inevitable attack. It was then that the wind suddenly changed, blowing in his face and whipping his hair straight back from his shoulders. The scent hit him full-force, stronger than it had been since the fight that morning, burning his nose and sending his entire body trembling. And then, ahead on the road in the distance, he spotted a solitary, pale figure standing, blocking their path, waiting.

 

“Ness, STOP!” Jacob roared, leaping forward to try to get in front of her. Nessie gasped, Noble whinnying in protest at his sudden approach.

 

“What’s the matter?” she asked, looking down at him as she reined the horse in.

 

“Up ahead-” he started, pointing, but Nessie’s gaze was taking in the landscape around them, her eyes growing impossibly wide.

 

“We’re at the springs,” she murmured, her voice suddenly small and frail.

 

“What?”

 

“The hot springs,” she repeated, her eyes refocusing on him after a moment. “Where it all started.”

 

He looked up the road again, at the waiting figure, and then the land around him – half a mile ahead of them, there was a break in the cliffs, a sudden indentation in the mountains’ high walls. Now that he knew to look for them, he could pick out the scents of fresh water and healthy vegetation on the breeze, previously masked by the vampire’s overpowering stink.

 

If they were at the springs, it meant they were halfway to the Quileute border, as far as they could get from the safety of either kingdom, yet only a handful of miles from their goal. Just a little farther, and they would have made it. But there was no more running now; if they wished to gain any more ground, they would have to fight for it. He would have to fight for it.

 

“They herded us here,” he growled, a fresh tremor sweeping down his spine. Then, movement behind them – his eyes snapped back to the find the female on the road, stalking slowly towards them, her head cocked to one side and face split with a cat-like grin. He snarled at her, but she only smiled wider and then took off at a run towards them.

 

He didn’t have to think about the motion as he leapt forward through the air, the transformation coming as easy as his own breath. This was what he was built for, what he’d been born to do, to fight these monsters, to protect his mate-

 

Nessie’s startled scream was echoed by the host of new voices in his head.

 

Jake!

 

Where are you?!

 

Vampires!

 

He picked out Quil and Embry’s minds among the others, their familiar thoughts as at home in his head as in their own. They were patrolling the southern border, right near the coast – they were only minutes away.

 

We’re coming! Embry cried, taking off in a dead sprint through the trees, he claws tearing up dirt and loam as he sped past.

 

Be there in a sec! Quil was running to intersect Embry’s course, coming from the other direction, farther north, with another behind him. Jacob didn’t waste any time trying to figure out who it was, instead turning his full attention back to the fight.

 

The she-devil leapt straight at his face, fingers curled like talons and teeth bared viciously, but he caught her mid-air, his jaws clamping down on one extended arm, shaking her like a rag doll and managing to slam her into the ground a few good times. She hissed at him, thrashing in his hold, and her free hand went for his eye, trying to gouge it out with her claw-like nails. He yelped in pain, releasing her arm and sending her flying away into the side of the mountain just as Nessie screamed behind him.

 

He spun around, the female vampire instantly forgotten. In the few seconds that he had been distracted, the male had darted forward, snatching Nessie from her saddle before she could even react. He held her up by one wrist, her feet dangling above the ground as she tried in vain to kick at him or scratch his face with her free hand. Jacob snarled at the creature, teeth bared and every hair on his body standing on end as he edged menacingly forward. The threat was clear: put her down or else.

 

“Oh, is this one yours, pooch?” the blond man asked, turning a wicked grin on him.

 

“Let go of me!” Ness screeched. Her knee connected with his stomach, with no effect.

 

“She is pretty, isn’t she?” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, curling two fingers under her chin. Nessie tried to bite his hand, but he pulled it away, chuckling. “Feisty, too.” He glanced back at Jacob, his smile widening to expose his perfect, lethal teeth. “But then I’ve always had a thing for redheads.”

 

Nessie screamed his name just as the female collided with him again.

 

She landed half on his back, almost riding him like a beast of burden, and wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing with impossible strength from her two slim arms. This was exactly the worst thing that could happen when fighting one of them. His training played in the back of his mind, echoed in the minds of the rest of the Pack, ingrained in all of them. Never turn your back on them. Never let them jump at you. Never let them get their arms around you. He tried to shake her off, but she was cutting off his blood flow, his air. If he could slam her into the rock wall again, perhaps he could loosen her hold… He stumbled sideways, but his vision was beginning to darken as she wrestled him to the ground. Nessie was screaming…

 

Jake? Jake! What’s going on?!

 

“You will make a nice little snack,” he heard the male vampire purr, sounding very far away. “And then we’ll finish off your canine friend there…”

 

One of the bones in his shoulder splintered with a snap, and his left foreleg went numb. Nessie screamed his name.

 

He was clinging to the edge of consciousness by sheer force of will, his mind chanting a cadence of Renesmee, Renesmee, Renesmee, the thought seeming to pulse in time with his heartbeat. He had to get to her, he had to protect her. He couldn’t let them get the better of him like this. His claws scrabbled feebly against the ground as he tried to drag himself forward.

 

Suddenly, the pressure around his neck let up, and the she-vampire was standing over him, hissing and spitting angrily. He blinked blurry eyes, the world a hazy, sideways mass.

 

Hang in there, Jake!

 

We got you, man! You’re gonna be okay!

 

Quil, Embry. They had made it.

 

Yeah, no worries! Easy pickings, huh?

 

And Seth. He grimaced, pulling his paws under himself again and pushing himself to his feet. What was that kid doing out here?

 

The three made short work of the red-haired vampire. She might have gotten the drop on Jacob before, but now she was far outnumbered. She managed to get a few good swipes in, but just as soon as she darted past one of them, there was another wolf there, snapping at her. In moments, they had her surrounded, and then set to work tearing her apart.

 

Jake ignored them, his gaze on Nessie alone. She was sitting on the ground, looking shell shocked, and her eyes were filled with terrified tears when she looked up at him. He sank gingerly to the ground beside her, and she silently leaned over to bury her face in his fur.

 

His head felt like it was stuffed full of feathers, both from the encounter with the female vampire and with relief that Nessie was alright, so it wasn’t until his brothers began pulling at his memories that he realized the inconsistency: the male vampire was nowhere to be found.

 

There were two, weren’t there? Quil asked, even as he sifted through Jacob’s memories of facing off with them here and fighting the male earlier in the morning.

 

Uh, guys, Seth interjected, looking up from where he’d been snuffling along the edge of the road that dropped off to the sea, I think I found him.

 

Embry moved to join him at the ledge, while Quil kept watch over the female’s remains and Jacob stayed beside Nessie, both of them craning their necks though they would be able to see through the others’ eyes just as well.

 

Far below, a crumpled form could be seen among the rocks at the edge of the water, the cold waves crashing over him. It was the blond vampire, and he wasn’t moving.

 

A fall like that shouldn’t have killed him, Quil said, cocking his head to one side. Unless you finished him off before that, Jake?

 

Jacob shook his head. He hadn’t even been able to get close to the male before the female had attacked him again. The last thing he saw was the monster leaning down toward Nessie, about to make her his next meal…

 

He looks pretty dead to me, Seth said, mentally shrugging. That’s what counts, right?

 

Quil and Embry seemed to exchange a glance, their thoughts carefully blank, and then agreed with him. The vampires were dead; that was what mattered.

 

Jacob blinked at them, his thoughts churning slowly. How had the Volturi male been killed? And how had Nessie gotten away from him? One moment, he was threatening her, and then he was just gone…

 

Wait, Embry thought at him, cutting him off, then continued in an easier tone, We should phase back, take care of these remains. He nodded at what was left of the female vampire.

 

And introduce ourselves, Seth added cheerily, gesturing in turn toward Nessie.

 

Jacob looked down at Renesmee, still curled against his side, her tiny hands fisted in his fur. I don’t really want to move right now…

 

Jake, Embry thought. Just that, his name, one word, but he could tell what the other wolf wanted. Embry was one of the best at communicating something without actually thinking it, and right now, he wanted Jake to phase back, and he wanted to talk to him. Discretely.

 

Jacob snorted, then turned to gently nudge Renesmee with the tip of his nose. She raised her head after a moment, looking up at him exhaustedly. He whined quietly in what he hoped would come across as a soothing manner. I need to get up, Ness. I’m not going anywhere, I promise, but I should probably go find some pants, and see what these jackasses want that’s so important that I have to hobble around on a broken shoulder for them… He felt Embry and Quil both roll their eyes behind his back.

 

Nessie blinked at him a few times and then carefully leaned away from him. “You… need to change back? Is that it?” she asked hesitantly, her eyes darting around to the other three wolves. He nodded, nudging her reassuringly with his nose one more time, and then climbed laboriously to his feet. His shoulder was beginning to mend itself, but it was still painful and would no doubt be stiff and sore for days.

 

They moved a short distance down the road from where Nessie sat and quickly phased back to human. The others untied their trousers from around their calves and pulled them on while Jacob sat, rubbing his abused shoulder and frowning up at them.

 

“Alright, what’s this about?” he growled, anxious to get back to Nessie.

 

“In a minute,” Embry waved him off, turning to Seth. “Seth, why don’t you go see if the princess has any clothes or blankets she can spare? It looks like Jake managed to lose his pants in that fight.”

 

“Sure thing,” the younger boy grinned, turning to head back up the road. Jacob craned his neck, trying to keep an eye on him as he approached Nessie.

 

“Jake,” Embry said then, almost admonishing.

 

“What?” He didn’t move his gaze from watching Seth talk to Nessie. She didn’t look exactly afraid of him, just shy and worn out from the events of the day. Seth seemed to be acting his usual overly-cheerful self.

 

“You’ve got the hots for the Cullen princess,” Quil said bluntly. Jake looked back at him sharply, and Quil smiled widely. “Don’t you?”

 

“I- No-” Jake sputtered.

 

“Hey, she’s cute,” Quil shrugged, still grinning. “If you like that pale look, I mean.”

 

“It’s not like that,” Jacob growled at him, bristling. A part of him was surprised at himself – this was Quil, one of his best friends – but the rest of him was more concerned with how Quil was talking about Nessie.

 

“Your thoughts were pretty loud back there, man,” Embry said, folding his arms over his chest. “And you kept thinking of her as your mate.”

 

Jacob felt the color drain from his face. Had he really thought that? And with the whole Pack for an audience? He’d been operating on nothing but rage and instinct when the Volturi attacked them, and hadn’t paid any attention to what thoughts he was broadcasting and what he was keeping carefully hidden. “Who else heard?”

 

The other two exchanged a glance. “A lot of people heard, bro,” Quil said, looking down at him. “But I don’t think very many of them picked up on your meaning. It was all wolf-thought, anyway, no words.”

 

Jacob let out a breath, nodding. Wolf-thought was how they referred to the flashes of emotion, instinct, and sensation that drove their other forms. It was pre-lingual, more basic than human thought, and was less easily deciphered, except by those closest to you. With any luck, no one else had understood any more than the very surface of his thoughts – he had phased, he was angry, he was fighting the enemy. His motivations, hopefully, had remained buried deeper.

 

“What about Seth?” he asked quietly. As one, they all glanced over at the boy, who was laughingly accepting Nessie’s cloak from her as she tried to hide the bright red blush spreading across her face.

 

“I don’t think he got much out of it,” Quil said, still watching the younger two. “He was just excited about getting to join a real fight.”

 

“What’s he doing out with you, anyway?” Jake asked curiously, looking up at Quil again.

 

Quil shrugged. “Showing him the patrol route along the border. Can’t really fault the kid for wanting to get out from under Leah’s thumb.”

 

“I guess,” Jake conceded, casting a dark look up the road to where Seth was talking animatedly to Nessie. “Just as long as he doesn’t go running off to Sam about this.”

 

“Is there something going on between you two?” Embry asked pointedly.

 

“No,” Jacob said, looking up at them both, then back down at his hands. “No, there isn’t.” He could feel their suspicion and skepticism as they continued to watch him, but just then Seth came trotting down the road to join them again, carrying the cloak Nessie had given him.

 

“Found you something to wear, Jake,” he said brightly, holding up the small woolen cape by its hood.

 

“Thanks, pup,” he replied, standing to take the cloak from him.

 

Seth rolled his eyes, smiling exasperatedly. “Come on, man, I’m almost eighteen, I’m not a puppy anymore.”

 

“Your mouth says one thing,” Quil grinned at him, “but the size of your paws says another.”

 

Jake held up the diminutive cloak for a moment, trying to decide how he could get the most coverage out of it. He could let it hang down normally from around his waist, but then he would be left with an open slit all the way up one leg… Decidedly, he turned it sideways and wrapped it around his middle like a bath towel, securing the loose ends with the neckties, the hood hanging off one of his hips. Quil gave a loud guffaw when he finished and Embry raised an eyebrow, grinning.

 

“Shut up,” Jake grumbled, turning to start making his way back up the road. “You’re just jealous you don’t have an awesome pocket like this,” he said over his shoulder, waving the hood at them.

 

“Yeah, or a pretty skirt like that. If only I could be as pretty as you, Jake!” Embry simpered, pitching his voice higher on the last sentence.

 

“I just hope you’re not planning on giving that back to her,” Quil commented, pulling a disgusted face. “I’d burn that thing when you’re done with it, if I was you. No telling where it’s been now.” Jacob mock-snarled at Quil as Seth and Embry laughed, leading the way back up the road to where Nessie was waiting for them.

 

She stood when they approached and Jake made a beeline for her, striding ahead of the other men to her side. She smiled hesitantly up at him and then turned shy eyes on the others, who stopped a few paces away.

 

“You okay?” Jacob asked quietly, and had to fight the desire to wrap an arm around her shoulders, instead contenting himself with placing his hand under her elbow.

 

“I’m fine,” she replied, looking up at him. Her eyes took in the dark bruises on his swollen shoulder. “Are you-?”

 

“It’ll heal soon enough,” he nodded, reassuring her, just as Embry cleared his throat, reminding them they had an audience. “Right, Ness,” Jake said, looking up and speaking at a more normal volume. “I guess I should introduce you guys… These are my best friends, Quil and Embry,” he indicated them each in turn and they nodded, smiling amicably down at her, and then he gestured at the younger boy, his tone turning just slightly sour. “And you’ve met Seth.”

 

Nessie nodded, returning their smiles. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

 

“The pleasure is ours, princess,” Embry replied, sinking into a graceful, formal bow. Quil and Seth followed suit, the three of them straightening again a moment later.

 

“Oh, um, thank you,” she murmured, responding with a curtsy of her own. Jacob winced, watching as her face and posture sank back into the too-formal lines of when they have first met. She was steeling herself for what lay ahead, every inch the martyr princess once more.

 

“Well, we should get moving again. Nessie,” Jake said pointedly, his hand moving to the small of her back. He needed to remind her that with him, she was still just Nessie; she didn’t have to be anything else. He couldn’t stand the thought of her pulling away from him, wrapping herself once more in the shroud of doom that she had carried with her as they were leaving her homeland.

 

She looked up, blinking wide brown eyes at him, seeming almost startled by his presence beside her. But then a moment later, a hint of a smile ghosted across her lips, reaching her eyes, and she was his Nessie again. He let out a relieved breath, turning back to the others to make preparations to set out once more.

 

The pack animals had run off into the springs when the vampires attacked, seeking the only available refuge from the monstrous predators, but they were easy enough to track down, especially with all four of them sniffing them out. Once they were found and Nessie was able to calm them down, it was only a minute before they were out on the road again, jogging through the last of the mountains toward the Quileute forest. Jacob decided to keep his human form, not wanting to run on his injured shoulder, and the others followed his lead. In Seth’s case, it seemed to be an eagerness to talk to Nessie some more; in Embry and Quil’s, Jacob suspected they didn’t want to risk giving away any hints of the things they have spoken of earlier, not until they had had a little more time to process and temper their thoughts.

 

The path gradually began to slope downhill again, the mountains pulling back and the solid ground on either side of the road widening out as they traveled north. And then, finally, the mountains fell away completely, and the view ahead opened up on the wide valley and dense forest spreading out beneath them.

 

Jacob heard Nessie gasp at the sight, and then, running on her other side, Seth looked up at her, smiled widely, and said, “Welcome to the Quileute Kingdom, Princess Renesmee!”

 

 

Chapter 8 – The King

 

Renesmee

 

I was in awe.

 

We had descended from the mountains just as the coast began to curve away to the west again, keeping to the road as it continued northward into the expansive forest beyond. Forest seemed like such a bland word for the giant trees that sprang up to surround us. They spread back from the seashore as far as I could see in all directions, taller than the buildings in any of our most affluent cities, primeval and unmoving and somehow alive.

 

I tilted my head back as we passed beneath them, staring up at the enormous trunks and crisscrossing branches in open-mouthed wonder. The sky was reduced to distant patches of pale blue beyond the very highest of them, the sunlight filtering down in dusty, shimmering beams. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

 

I was struck with a sudden sense of treading somewhere ancient, somewhere holy. My breath sounded loud in my ears, my heartbeat thudding out a raucous, steady pulse in comparison to the hush of the trees. This forest was a cathedral, nature’s shrine grown up here without the help or hurt of man’s interfering hands.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me it was so beautiful here?” I murmured, finally tearing my eyes away from the heights to look down at Jacob. His head was only a few inches below eye level from my seat on Noble’s back. He met my gaze, smiling softly, but then he stiffened, his eyes flicking away at a movement off to our left. Two wolves, easily as big as any of the young men running alongside me, had emerged from behind the huge tree trunks along the road and now stood watching us, their heads lowered and tails hanging motionless behind them. Embry nodded to them as we passed and Jacob kept his eyes trained on them, seeming wary and tense.

 

“You know them?” I asked quietly, trying to catch his gaze again.

 

“Yeah,” he grunted, finally looking away as the wolves turned to lope back into the trees behind us. He glanced up at me and seemed to relax marginally. “We all know each other in the Pack,” he explained. “There’s more of us now than there’s been in a long time, so it gets confusing sometimes with that many voices in your head, but...” He trailed off, shrugging.

 

“Voices?” I asked, leaning forward. “You… can hear each other’s thoughts?”

 

I saw Quil and Embry exchange a look up ahead of us. Embry seemed to be keeping one eye trained on me, only half watching the road as we jogged along. “Can you always read each other’s thoughts?” I asked, watching Embry right back. He turned away, facing forward again.

 

“Oh, no, thank the gods,” Jacob replied, huffing out a sardonic laugh. “I think I’d go nuts without a little privacy once in a while. No, it’s just in our wolf forms.”

 

“How?” I asked. “How is that possible?”

 

Jake glanced up at me, looking mildly surprised, as if he hadn’t realized this was something that needed explaining. “It’s the Packmind,” he said, then seemed to search for the right words when I still looked down at him uncomprehendingly. “It’s, uh, like a hive mind, I guess. It lets us move as one, see what the others are seeing, smell what they smell. It’s the only way for the Pack to be effective. Without it, we’d just be a bunch of mangy dogs running around aimlessly,” he said, grinning up at me.

 

“Not that we aren’t a bunch of mangy dogs as it is,” Quil added, flashing a smirk back at me over his shoulder.

 

I smiled slightly at his joke, turning my attention back to Jacob. “So the whole pack knows everything that any one wolf knows? Like those two back there? Everyone knows we’re here now?”

 

“Well, we can shield our thoughts, to some extent…” Jacob started.

 

“But we do share information,” Seth interjected, smiling up at me from my other side when I looked over at him. “That’s the whole point, ya know? Like, for instance, word’s probably getting back to Sam right now that we’re here, if he didn’t know already.”

 

I blinked owlishly down at him. “Who’s Sam?”

 

“Sam’s the Alpha,” all four of them said in unison. I stared around at them for a moment before looking to Jacob for clarification.

 

“The king,” he said, sounding slightly peevish all of a sudden. “I- We’re supposed to take you straight to him.”

 

“Oh.” I tried to keep the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach from showing through in my voice. What was going to happen once we got there? What would this king do? Would… Would I be separated from Jacob? I bit my lip, refusing to give that thought time to take hold in my mind. “So he’s Ephraim Black’s grandson? Or… great-grandson, I suppose?” I asked, looking to distract myself with names and dates, hard historical facts. He must be the son of the King Samuel I had read about in the travel logs of Grandfather’s emissary, Matthias. And there had been one other king, briefly, before that first Samuel but after Ephraim. I added up the years in my head, wondering if it was enough time for that many generations to have passed.

 

I didn’t miss the way Embry and Quil both stiffened at my words, or how Seth suddenly looked sharply over at Jacob. His face split into a wide smile, watching Jake over Noble’s back. “Oh boy, are you in trouble,” he laughed, shaking his head.

 

“Shut up,” Jake growled at him, then looked up at me, now looking decidedly sour for some reason. “No. It’s Sam Uley,” he said gruffly. “Ephraim Black’s family fell out of power over thirty years ago.”

 

“Oh,” I said again. Of course – Matthias had written about the unsteady political situation around the time of his visit. It was a brief account, barely more than a mention, really, but I should have known. I’d poured over his journal enough times over the years to practically have it memorized. I shivered, remembering the violent means with which Ambassador Matthias had been driven from the Quileute lands. That was the father… Could his son be just as merciless? “What’s he like? The king?” I asked, biting my lip as I glanced down at Jacob again.

 

“Sam?” Jacob asked, looking back up at me.

 

“He’s a good guy,” Seth said. “Pretty serious most of the time, but good.”

 

Jake nodded, though his face was grim when he met my eyes once more. “He won’t hurt you, Ness. I promise.”

 

Embry was watching me out of the corner of his eye again. Quil was frowning out at the forest as he ran, his brows knit. I looked down at Jacob, my voice hesitant. “Okay…”

 

Jake let out a breath, dropping my gaze. “I don’t know what he has planned for your arrival,” he admitted, his voice edged with a growl. “But… they’ll probably want to put on some kind of spectacle.”

 

“Oh.” I seemed to be saying that word an awful lot today. There just weren’t words… I had no idea how I felt, how I was supposed to react.

 

“It’ll be okay, princess,” Seth said, smiling encouragingly up at me.

 

“Thank you, Seth,” I replied hollowly, my mouth dry. On my other side, Jacob growled quietly, and I couldn’t tell if he was agreeing or disagreeing with the younger wolf.

 

We ran in silence for a while after that, until I heard Jake draw in a deep breath, as though preparing himself for something. His teeth were clenched when I looked down at him.

 

He shook his head, frowning as he looked up at me. “Just… ignore everyone, okay?”

 

I felt my brows knit in confusion, but I didn’t have long to wonder at his meaning – up ahead, a town of sorts was emerging from the forest. It seemed to have been built in and around the massive trunks, the trees a part of the village’s structure rather than being cleared out to make way for the buildings. There were treehouses resting in the branches, wide staircases spiraling up to them from the ground – wide enough, I realized, for three wolves to walk up shoulder-to-shoulder easily. Burrows were dug into the ground below, the trees’ thick roots framing the top edges of their entrances. Animal carcasses hung from the fronts of the buildings in various states of cooking and dressing, making me cringe at the sight and smell.

 

I spotted several wolves watching us, some of them growling quietly as we rode up, but the majority of the population seemed to be as human as me. Jake had said that most people couldn’t shift at will like he could; for the most part, they only changed into wolves on the night of the full moon. Still, there was something distinctly canine about them as they stopped whatever they were doing, their dark eyes intense and focused, seeming to silently close ranks as we approached. I swallowed, feeling very much like an outsider in the face of these people’s unity.

 

I wasn’t prepared for the jeering.

 

It took a moment for it to start, the townsfolk seeming surprised by our appearance at first, but then one voice in the crowd barked out an insult, and it quickly spread from there. The people moved forward to line the street, shaking their fists and raising their voices in an angry outcry, some running to keep up with us as we passed. My companions all went rigid, glaring out at them, and I could see Quil and Embry ball their hands into fists, ready for a fight. Jacob kept up a steady growl beside me.

 

“Dirty bloodsucker!”

 

Jacob snarled, his eyes sweeping the crowd for whoever had spoken.

 

“We don’t want your kind here!”

 

Seth bared his teeth at them, looking every inch a warrior despite his young age.

 

“Filthy demonspawn!”

 

I swallowed, feeling my eyes prick, and pushed Noble into a faster canter.

 

“Go back where you came from!”

 

Embry caught the arm of a teenage girl just as she was about to throw something at us. He wrenched it away from her, and, my stomach turning, I saw that it was a handful of raw, still-bleeding meat.

 

“You’ll pay for what you leeches did to us!”

 

Quil had to shove a man back as he tried to rush out into the road to block our path. The man fought for a moment, but he was no match for the huge young werewolf.

 

“Little vampire whore!”

 

Jacob seemed to snap, turning toward the last catcall with a roar. His body shook, ready to transform and leap into the crowd, but then Embry was there, pushing him back toward me before turning to face the people.

 

“If you want to interfere with official state business, be my guest – but you’ll have the Pack to answer to!” he yelled, glaring out at them. “The whole Pack.”

 

“Come on,” Jacob said, urging me forward again with a warm hand on my calf, though he was still shaking with fury. I nodded numbly, and we made our escape as Embry stared down the irate villagers, Seth and Quil close behind. The wolves at the edge of the town snorted derisively as we passed, but they made no move to stop us.

 

I managed to keep the tears at bay until the sounds of the villagers faded into the forest, their angry voices mingling into a dull, malicious rumble behind us, but then I couldn’t hold back any longer. I hunched down in the saddle, my vision blurring as the hot droplets rolled down my cheeks. I felt like I had cried more in the last twenty four hours than in the entire course of my life before then, but I was too far gone to care anymore. I was scared, I was homesick, and thinking about any of it simply hurt.

 

I was a fool. I couldn’t believe I had let myself think for a second that the fate I was going out to meet would be anything less than horrible, that I could possibly be happy here, that I could have a life here. Quil and Embry and Seth had all been so kind to me that I had thought maybe, just maybe, everyone in Quileute didn’t hate me. And Jacob…

 

“Ugh, I’m such an idiot,” Jacob muttered, and then he reached up and gently pulled me from Noble’s back mid-stride. I hiccupped in surprise, swallowing a sob as he settled me against his warm chest.

 

“Sorry,” he said. “I should have known better than to… I should have expected something like that.” His hand rubbed soothing circles across my back, though I could still feel him growling quietly, the sound reverberating through both of us as he held me. I sniffled and closed my eyes, wrapping my arms around his neck and wishing I could forget everything but the feel of his arms around me.

 

 

---

 

 

I must have dozed off at some point, lulled into unconsciousness by Jacob’s steady warmth and the sound of his heartbeat under my ear. The sun was much lower in the sky than I remembered, the dusty beams of light now cutting between the trees in orangey, slanting rays as dusk approached. I let my eyes slide closed again, wishing to return to the quiet world of sleep and peace and Jacob.

 

“You’re gonna have to put her down soon, you know.” Embry.

 

Jacob grunted in reply, his arms tightening around me, but I felt him slow to jog, then a walk, and finally a stop. He met my gaze when I looked up at him, blinking drowsily.

 

“Where are we?” I croaked, my throat feeling sore and dry.

 

He pursed his lips. “We’re almost there.”

 

“Oh. Do I… need to get back on my horse?”

 

He nodded reluctantly.

 

I swallowed, and some childish part of me wanted to demand Why? Why did I have to leave this peace and comfort, why did I have to go back out into the real world where everything was cold and mean and hurt? Why? But I simply nodded and shifted, letting Jacob set me on my feet again.

 

I looked around as we walked back to where Noble and the mule had been following us, my horse’s devotion to me outweighing any fear he might have felt at passing through these hostile lands. Jacob stayed within arm’s reach the entire time. We were on a gradual incline, the ground seeming to climb slowly upward towards our goal, wherever and whatever that was.

 

“We’re going to hit more populated areas soon,” Jacob said, his hands going to my waist to steady me as I climbed up into Noble’s saddle.

 

I nodded, not meeting his gaze as I settled in.

 

“Nessie…”

 

I bit my lip and looked over at him. “It’s going to be a hundred times worse than that little village back there, isn’t it?”

 

He sighed, his troubled expression all the confirmation I needed. “We managed to skirt around a few other dens on the way here,” he said, “and we’re gonna keep trying to do that, to keep you out of harm’s way for as long as possible, but at some point it’s not gonna work anymore. It’ll just be too densely populated to go around.”

 

“So what do we do then?” I asked, pulling Noble’s reins up between my hands.

 

Jacob suddenly gave me a lopsided grin, looking decidedly wolfish. “We make a break for the Summit,” he said, turning to lead the way back up to where the others waited. “Don’t worry, once we’re there, you’ll be safe. Sam won’t put up with any crap like what we saw earlier.”

 

I nodded, feeling a small glimmer of hope once more. If their ruler was as even tempered and compassionate as the werewolves around me had proven to be, then perhaps I did stand a chance here. Perhaps it was only the common people, the very lowest class, who would act that way toward me. Perhaps my fate wasn’t so dire after all.

 

We set off up the road once more, the four werewolves falling into a loose formation around me and the animals, Jacob never more than a few feet away. It wasn’t long before they were directing me off the road, cutting across the soft pine needle carpet of the wild forest to trace a wide berth around some settlement that was still too far away for me to detect. We did that thrice more, and every time that I looked back over my shoulder upon regaining the road, the town we had just skipped past was little more than a cluster of shadows, disappearing behind into the growing evening gloom.

 

The next time Embry made to dart off the road again, though, Quil shook his head, stopping him. “There’s less than a mile between this den and the next one,” he said, holding his course on the road.

 

“That’s better than just going straight through the middle of this one,” Seth piped up from his place to the right and slightly behind me. “I mean, then we’d at least have a little bit of buffer room…”

 

“More like we’d have two clans gunning for us instead of one,” Quil grumbled, but he and Embry both looked back at Jacob to decide. Jake thought for one moment, and then flicked his head to the side, and we took off across country once more.

 

I could just make out the shapes of the distant burrows and treehouses on either side of us as we passed between the two settlements. Some people at the edges of the villages stopped as they spied us sneaking past, but they didn’t make any move to pursue us. I heard Jacob let out a tense sigh of relief beside me as we left them behind.

 

We didn’t return to the road again, instead keeping to the trees as the ground continued to steepen below us. The next settlements we came to were much closer together, with less than a half mile separating them. As we swept past, I glanced off to the right just as a middle aged woman emerged from between some trees on the very edge of her village. Our eyes met, and even from this distance I could see the emotions wash over her face: surprise, recognition, rage, and finally blackest hate.

 

I jerked my eyes away, shivering.

 

The trees began to thin as we climbed higher still, the scarlet rays of the setting sun breaking through the boughs to paint the forest in a bloody haze. More and more dugouts seemed to be popping up around us every minute, more and more of the trees covered in the spiraling architecture of the wolves’ treehouses. And then, up ahead, I saw them – no longer clusters of dens and buildings, but a veritable wall of them. I squinted, trying to see a path through, a way to sneak past without charging directly through them, but the thin, winding streets between the burrows seemed to be the only route.

 

“Jake,” Seth said, his voice strained.

 

“I see it,” he answered, nodding once. “Time to make a run for it,” he said, looking up at me. He glanced back at the pack mule, struggling along behind Noble from the long run, and swore under his breath, no doubt wondering how we were going to get a little more speed out of the poor animal.

 

“On it,” Quil called, apparently following Jake’s train of thought as well, and spun mid-step to fall back behind Noble and me. I blinked, his sudden movement making me jump. The animals both shied away from him, Noble whinnying nervously, but Quil darted in, grabbed the tether between the two beasts, and bit it, snapping it easily with his teeth. “Go!” he yelled to Jake, and then, eliciting a panicked squeal from the mule, he grabbed the animal under the ribs, saddlebags and all, and lifted it up in his arms without even breaking step.

 

“Come on, Ness!” Jake cried, his voice all but swallowed by his growl, and I urged Noble faster still. We barreled up the hill side by side, the dens and burrows growing closer and closer, and then we were in them, darting past them, people yelling and jumping out of the way as Jacob and Embry ran ahead of me, clearing the path, Seth and Quil following close behind. It was only after we were well out of reach that I could hear people beginning to shout and rant as they realized who had just darted past them.

 

The ground tilted further upward as we dashed through the veritable wolf city, the trees growing increasingly sparse, and then they were gone altogether, the forest falling away behind us as we finally emerged onto the grassy, windswept side of a mountain.

 

I felt my mouth fall open as I took in the sight before me. The slope up to the mountaintop was pocked with small, fortified openings, not unlike the residential burrows below us in the forest, but distinctly more military, and not just because of the enormous wolf faces that I could see peering down at us from within. The ground turned rocky as we continued to climb, our pace never slowing, all four of the wolfmen staring intently up at the peak of the mountain. There, a huge cave opened in the sheer rocks, its mouth yawning wide like that of a dragon or some other terrible creature of myth. We made straight for it, and I had to try to shake the image of being swallowed alive by a great, stone demon.

 

We finally slowed as we neared the dragon-cave, well away from any threat of the common people following us out of the city. The wolves guarding the mountainside growled at me as we passed, but Jacob paid them little if any heed and they didn’t give any indication that they would leave their posts to give us trouble. I did my best to follow his lead and ignore them as well, though each new snarl and flash of teeth sent a shiver through me.

 

I studied the rocks of the cave opening as we drew near. It was at once crude, almost primitive, and magnificent. If it hadn’t been for the obviously man-made walls and fortifications leading up to the entrance, I would have thought it was a completely natural formation. It might have been, I supposed, once upon a time, but the Quileutes had since carved it out, smoothing the floor and ceiling of stalagmites and stalactites and carving sconces into the walls for candles and torches.

 

Jacob and Embry slowed to a stop in front of the cave, both nodding at the huge sentry wolves that looked down at us from either side of the opening. I reined Noble in and slowly slid down from the saddle, looking to Jacob for direction. He blew out a breath, looking almost as nervous as I felt.

 

“Sam’s waiting for us inside,” he said quietly. He hesitated for one moment, and then held his arm out to me. I gazed up at him, carefully slipping my hand into the crook of his elbow like I had the day before as we walked side by side out of my homeland. Had it really only been a day? It seemed so long ago now, like a distant, fond memory of a more peaceful time, just him and me, walking along without anyone else in the world.

 

It was the most dignified way to be presented to the king, and no matter what else happened, I would be eternally grateful to Jacob for this. I would be escorted into the wolves’ fortress like a lady, rather than led in like a prisoner. I was able to hold my head high and feel all the generations of royal blood coursing through my veins as I stepped forward with Jacob. This man, Samuel Uley, was a king, but I was a princess, a daughter of kings, and I would not be cowed by his presence. I came to him now as an equal, subject to his will perhaps, but a representative of all that my people held in highest esteem.

 

The inside of the cave was clean and dry, the multitude of candles set into the walls reflecting on the dull black facets of the stones and illuminating the hall with a dim, golden glow. It was much deeper than I expected, and had several visible hallways branching off of it, sloping quickly down and out of sight into the belly of the mountain. Several wolves and a handful of humans stood along the walls, acting as guards or awaiting instructions I didn’t know, but they all looked up as Jacob and I entered, Embry, Quil, and Seth fanning out behind us. There was a small group of men standing at the very back of the hall, looking deep in discussion.

 

I knew which one was the king the moment I laid eyes on him.

 

It wasn’t just that he seemed to be the tallest in the room, or that he wore a black bearskin cape across his broad shoulders, or even that he seemed to be the center point around which the other men oriented themselves, each powerful and grand in their own right and yet somehow deferring to him in their very body language. All of these could have been indicators, but they were not what drew me in.

 

It was the eyes.

 

The king’s gaze had zeroed in on me the moment we stepped into the cave, reminding me suddenly of the first time I saw Jacob. I remembered the ice and the fire that had shot through me when our eyes met, the lightning when we touched. Even now, my skin hummed being in contact with his. But there was no fire here, no ice, no lightning – only the deep blackness that exists between the stars. When I met Jacob, I had known, certainly and instinctually, that his face was that of my destiny, that he somehow represented all that Fate had in store for me.

 

When I looked at this man, I saw only doom.

 

We stopped several yards from them, Jacob holding his silence as he waited to be acknowledged, his face set in an expression of military stoicism. The clustered men stilled after a moment, slowly turning toward us as they followed the line of their ruler’s attention. His eyes never leaving my face, King Samuel separated himself from their midst and stepped forward, looking down at us as he rose to his full height.

 

He seemed to study us for a long moment, his eyes traveling from me, to Jacob, to our linked arms, and finally back to my face. I refused to so much as blink while his dark gaze was on me.

 

Finally, he spoke. “You’ve done well, Jacob,” he rumbled, speaking loudly enough for the entire room to hear. It sounded like a formality, almost ceremonial.

 

Jacob didn’t make any verbal reply, but bowed his head, keeping his eyes lowered respectfully. I saw him swallow reflexively out of the corner of my eye.

 

The king looked up then, addressing the rest of the room in a tone that was clearly meant for the history books. “We are all witnesses today,” he said loudly, his voice ringing, “to the arrival of the Princess Renesmee, daughter and representative of the Cullen Kingdom, our neighbor to the east.”

 

Quiet mumblings from the onlookers. The sound of feet shuffling. I kept my eyes locked on the king.

 

“The treaty is fulfilled,” he continued, “as set forth by our forefathers. It was begun by Ephraim Black, our great ruler of old, and now, so very fitting, it is finished by Jacob Black.”

 

I stiffened, feeling my eyes go wide. “Jacob… Black?” I mouthed, turning my head a millimeter to stare at him out of the corner of my eye. “You’re-”

 

“Nobody,” Jacob cut me off in a whisper, then met my gaze, his eyes softening. “I serve the Alpha. That’s all.”

 

King Samuel turned back to us then, his eyes dark and calculating as he surveyed me once more. I knew he couldn’t have missed our little exchange just now.

 

“You have done well, Jacob,” he said again. “You have loyally served your Alpha, your Pack, and the entire Quileute nation. You have done well indeed. And now,” the formal tone faded from his voice, a smile quirking one side of his lips. It didn’t reach his eyes, I noted. “Let’s prepare for the festivities!” He jerked his head, and one of the giant wolves we had passed earlier stepped away from the wall, padding up beside me.

 

“Sam-” Jacob started, looking alarmed, but the king sent him a sharp look, nostrils flaring, and he fell silent. I tightened my hold on Jake’s arm, looking nervously between the huge wolf beside me and the towering man in front of me.

 

“Take the princess down to her chambers,” Sam said, addressing the wolf. “There’s a dressing room all ready for her there.”

 

“A dressing room?” I asked, at the same time that Jacob said, “Sam-”

 

“Enough, Jacob,” Sam cut him off. He nodded to the wolf, who grumbled in the back of his throat and butted my shoulder with his nose.

 

“Jake,” I said, my voice sounding small and frightened even to my own ears, looking up at him as the wolf nudged me toward one of the tunnels leading down into the mountain.

 

“You’ll be fine,” he tried to reassure me, standing helplessly as we were pushed further apart. “Just…” He trailed off, grimacing. “You’ll be fine,” he said again, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself than me.

 

He held my gaze as I was led away, looking like he was in physical pain, and I kept my eyes on him, staring back over my shoulder until the walls of the hallway closed around us, blocking him from my view.

 

---

 

Jacob

 

He waited until Nessie had disappeared from sight, the sound of her light footfalls and the clicking of the wolf’s claws slowly fading down the corridor. Her scent lingered behind her, clinging to him. He breathed it in, steeling himself, telling himself that they would be together again soon enough, that she would be fine, that it would be okay. Then he turned to face Sam.

 

“What are you planning?” he asked.

 

Sam raised an eyebrow, looking up from the papers one of his advisors had just handed him. “Why do you care?” he asked in return.

 

He opened his mouth to reply, but then stopped, biting off the words. He had to be careful what he said here.

 

Sam watched him struggle for a moment, then handed the paperwork back to the old man at his elbow. “Come on,” he said gruffly, gesturing with his head for Jacob to follow him as he made his way to the entrance of the northern corridor that was set in the very back of the cave. It was the only tunnel that led upward from the Main Hall, ending at the Alpha’s personal study in the top of the mountain.

 

“Close the door,” Sam ordered, shrugging out of his bearskin mantle once they were both inside. Jacob did as he was told, making sure the ornate wooden door was firmly latched before turning back toward the older man. Sam stood with his back to Jacob after hanging up the cape, his hands on his hips. He let out a long breath and then turned around.

 

“First,” he said, pointing down at Jacob’s makeshift kilt, “what the hell are you wearing?”

 

“I had to phase on the fly,” Jake said defensively. “We got attacked.”

 

“I heard about that,” Sam said, walking over to the bureau set against the side of the room. “That why you’ve been favoring your left arm?” He uncorked one of the bottles of wine arranged on top of the antique piece of furniture, pouring himself a small amount before looking up at Jacob again.

 

Jake nodded, rolling his shoulder. He could feel it beginning to mend, but it was stiff and still sent twinges of pain across his back if he moved it too much. Carrying Nessie around this evening probably hadn’t helped any, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself after what happened when they passed through that clan’s den. “We were just lucky Quil and Embry were so close, or things could have gotten really ugly out there.”

 

“Mm.”

 

“And Seth,” Jacob added, realizing in a back corner of his mind that he was beginning to babble, giving away his nervousness. “Though I was kind of surprised to see him that far out from home. I thought Leah was pretty determined to keep him close by-”

 

“Jake,” Sam said, his voice stern. “I think we both know we’re not here to talk about Seth.”

 

Jacob closed his mouth with a small snap and felt himself tense, almost as if for a fight. Sam took a sip of his wine, titling his head back to gaze up at the ceiling thoughtfully.

 

“Do you feel sorry for her?” he asked after a moment.

 

He blinked. “Yeah. Yes. Of course.” It wasn’t a lie – just an omission of the whole truth.

 

Sam leveled his eyes back on him. “You’re worried about her.”

 

He hesitated a moment longer on that one. Dread began to curl in the pit of his stomach. “Yeah.”

 

Sam took another sip from his glass, a slight, skeptical sneer pulling at his lip. “You can’t afford to get attached to this girl, Jake.”

 

“Sam, she’s completely alone-”

 

“She’s supposed to be!” Sam suddenly growled, cutting him off. He set his wine down on the bureau behind him somewhat harder than was necessary. “Dammit, Jacob, have you completely forgotten why she’s here in the first place? Have you forgotten what she represents? What her people did to us?”

 

“It was forty years ago, Sam! It’s not her fault!”

 

“It’s what we agreed on,” Sam snarled, his voice deepening as he asserted his dominance, his place as the Alpha. He towered over Jacob, dark eyes blazing. “It’s the price they have to pay for what they did! For gods sakes, her own family sold her life away to save themselves.”

 

“That’s exactly why-” Jake tried again, feeling scattered, out of control. “Sam, she’s been through so much already-”

 

“So, what, you spend a few days with her, and now you’re her guard dog? You would choose her over your own pack?” Sam demanded.

 

“No- It’s not-”

 

“How exactly did she get under your skin like this, Jake? She flirt with you? Did she look up at you with those big, brown eyes, and bat her lashes and ask you to protect her?”

 

“Sam-”

 

“Did she let you bed her? Is that what took you so long on the way back here?”

 

He felt a flash of rage of the sort that normally would have catapulted him into transforming. He held it back, barely, but the words were harder to control. “I imprinted on her!” he bellowed – and then he froze.

 

Sam was staring at him, his eyes slowly narrowing as some mixture of revulsion, betrayal, and righteous anger began to rise in his expression. “What?” he asked, very softly.

 

Jacob shook his head, his mind a panicked blank. There was nothing he could say now. “I- I don’t-”

 

“You imprinted on her,” Sam repeated, his words dripping with sarcasm. He had never sounded so furious before. He leaned forward then, glowering down at Jacob, and enunciated every word carefully and sharply, “Only the Alpha wolf can imprint, Jacob.”

 

Jake threw his hands up, helpless. “I know that! Gods, Sam, I know. I have no idea why this happened, or how. All I know is that it did.” He pursed his lips, shaking his head. “I mean, my grandfather was an Alpha. Maybe it just got… passed down from him, or something. Leftovers.” He shrugged, looking up at the older man beseechingly.

 

Sam glared hard at him for another few moments, his eyes searching Jake’s face. “Maybe,” he said at last, grudgingly. Jake let out a breath, looking down at the floor as Sam straightened, turning to pick up his glass of wine again.

 

“The girl’s no longer your concern, Jacob,” he told him, pinning him with a domineering, quietly furious look, “no matter what may, or may not, have happened over the last few days. Stay away from her.”

 

Jacob swallowed, not trusting himself to respond past the knot in his chest.

 

Sam took another drink of his wine, pausing to raise an eyebrow at Jake. “Well? I’m sure you have things you need to attend to. Go.”

 

Jacob nodded shakily, turning to let himself out of the study, but Sam’s voice stopped him again.

 

“Oh, and Jacob?”

 

He turned back around, feeling the dread squirm in his stomach, claw at his lungs.

 

“Don’t say anything about this imprinting nonsense to anyone else. Understood?” Sam said, looking down at him imperiously.

 

Jacob straightened, clenching his teeth. That was a promise he could keep. He nodded once, curtly, and then turned, yanked the door open, and fled.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 9 – In the Dark

 

Jacob

 

He took off down the corridor before the door was even fully closed behind him, instinct taking over to run, to get away, to put as much distance between himself and Sam’s angry, accusatory eyes as possible. The dark stones flew past him, each ensconced torch leaving a slash of light burned into his retinas before the glow of the Hall came into view, the walls opening up in front of him, offering escape, freedom, and Nessie’s scent. He launched himself through the opening–

 

And ran smack into one of Sam’s advisors.

 

The impact sent them both flying, skidding to a stop after a few feet. Jacob righted himself with a grunt as the papers the man had been carrying fluttered down through the air around them.

 

The old man was just lucky he was a Shifter too, Jake thought, reaching to help him up. Even if he was older, long since retired from active patrolling. Any normal two-leg person would have been pretty badly banged up after a collision like that.

 

The man waved him off, climbing easily back to his feet and beginning to gather up his scattered paperwork. He smiled and shook his head when Jacob tried to apologize, his weathered skin crinkling around his eyes and behind his white beard. “It was an accident, completely understandable,” he said, holding up a hand, though he didn’t protest when Jake moved to help him pick up the papers.

 

“I actually wondered if I might have a word with you at some point this evening, young Jacob,” he said, shuffling the stack of papers back into order.

 

Jacob paused, looking fully at the man as he handed over his sheaf. He didn’t know him personally, but he’d seen him around the Summit, and of course knew him from within the Packmind. His name was Zedekiah, and he was a widower with little or no family left, if he remembered correctly. “About what?”

 

“Oh, just a bit of business with your father,” Zedekiah said, accepting the last of his papers with a rueful smile.

 

“You’ll have to take it up with him, then,” Jacob replied, his voice strained as he tried to stay polite. “I’m… kind of in a hurry…”

 

“Oh, of course, of course, my apologies! I should have known, with the big event starting soon…” He smiled in a dark, anticipatory sort of way, is if savoring the thought of whatever had been planned for Nessie’s arrival.

 

Jacob grit his teeth, trying not to grimace too hard, and nodded once to the old man before turning on his heel to march back toward Quil, Embry, and Seth.

 

He’d known going into this that public opinion was anything but favorable toward the Cullens, and to their princess who would soon be coming to the Quileute lands. And frankly, before he met Nessie, he hadn’t really cared. He hadn’t held with any of the more extreme elements of their society, people who wished a violent death on her, or who wanted to restart the war, but he hadn’t felt particularly sympathetic toward the Cullens either. Not until he saw her, and his entire world had changed.

 

Now, the thought that anyone could harbor any ill will toward her turned his stomach and sent waves of hot rage down his spine. The way that old man had spoken of her, or the people in the dens they had traveled past… or Sam…  He shook his head, pushing that thought away. Sam was his Alpha, his leader. He might put on a show to appease the people, but ultimately he would do the right thing. He had to.

 

“Did you have a nice trip?” Seth asked brightly, grinning cheekily as Jacob approached, drawing him out of his thoughts.

 

“Shut. Up,” Jacob snarled down at him, making the younger wolf take half a step back, his eyes widening. Jake glared at him for a second longer before straightening up and taking a deep breath in and out. “I’m gonna go get some clothes from my room,” he muttered, sparing half a glance around the hall as he marched away to one of the western corridors. It wasn’t any coincidence that it was the same one Nessie had disappeared down not long ago. He heard the others following a few steps behind him and glanced back, feeling half surprised, half relieved, and just a twinge guilty when he didn’t see Seth tagging along behind them anymore.

 

“I think he finally took the hint,” Embry commented, giving Jacob a sidelong look as he fell into step beside him, smiling sardonically.

 

Jake made a face, turning away again. Nessie’s scent painted a bright path through the air for him, comforting in the absence of her physical presence, but after a few minutes, it broke away, veering down one of the side tunnels that branched off the main one. He hesitated at the fork in the road, swaying dangerously as their bond tugged at him, imploring him to follow it, to come and find her, to close this horrible distance between them.

 

Quil placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. “She’s gonna be okay, man,” he said. “They’ll take care of her here. The best thing you can do for her now is to be there when this all goes down. She’ll need a friendly face in the crowd now more than ever.”

 

With a great effort – too great, bordering on painful – he forced himself to keep walking, to continue down the familiar track to his quarters, despite the way her scent called to him from the other direction. His thoughts from earlier nagged at him again, bringing with them a horrible creeping suspicion that things might be worse than he had expected. “What do you know about what’s happening tonight?” he asked them, not looking up from the stone floor passing beneath his feet. “I mean, they’ve been planning something? While I was gone?”

 

“Yeah,” Embry answered slowly.

 

“And you’re not gonna like ‘em,” Quil added.

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

They were absolutely right. He didn’t like this.

 

He could feel the moon rising above the trees behind them, though he couldn’t see it. Tonight was the new moon, the darkest night of the month, the inevitable ebb in the Pack’s power to the full moon’s flow. The inky darkness seemed appropriate to what he was about to witness. He clenched his teeth, his fists, clenched every muscle in his body, waiting, dreading what was coming, holding onto his sanity by a thread.

 

Behind them, the crowd swelled in anticipation, hungry. An angry mob. Several of his packmates paced a wide circle in front of them in their wolf forms, holding the crowd back, keeping the center clear for whatever kind of show Sam had planned. The word had gone out to the people sometime during the evening, and they had all come here, all eager to see whatever dark justice their Alpha promised for the Cullen princess. Jacob grimaced, feeling a stab of pain in his chest. His heart ached, crying and fighting against the helplessness he felt weighing down on him.

 

They were gathered in the huge, naturally formed amphitheatre a few miles north of the Summit, the ground sloping downward on all sides into a smooth, round center. That was where Sam would be. Where Nessie would be. The people covered the sides of the hill leading downward, pressing forward, itching to get a little closer to their intended target, though she hadn’t yet appeared. Jacob tried to ignore them, tried to ignore the trembling in his limbs and the empty, bottomless dread in the pit of his stomach.

 

He had never felt so cut off from his kinsmen before. It was in the very nature of the Pack to be one with the people and with each other. They were the glue that held their kingdom together, the Packmind the great equalizer. They were supposed to move as one unit, to hold the same desires, the same hopes for their nation.

 

Now, he could barely stomach standing amongst them.

 

He and Quil and Embry had phased briefly for the run over here from the Summit, but he hadn’t been able to hold his wolf form for long. It wasn’t that the change had fought him, like his nerves wouldn’t allow him to remain a wolf. It was the bone-deep, all consuming hatred that he had felt in the minds of the rest of the Pack, and it had been reflected back in his own mind, washing over him like so much poison. His body and soul had revolted, unable to reconcile the others’ hate with the worry, the protectiveness, the absolute love that ached from every bone in his body as he waited for Nessie to appear.

 

Embry and Quil had phased back as well and now stood on either side of him, their arms folded like his, portraying a solid, united front. He didn’t know how much they knew, or even suspected, about the strength of his attachment to her, but he sent a prayer of thanks out anyway to whichever of the Gods that had gifted him with two such unwavering friends.

 

He spotted Leah standing at the front of the crowd across the amphitheatre from them, looking haughty and distant as usual. Seth was hovering at her shoulder. The boy glanced over at Jacob once, and then away, his expression troubled as he frowned down at the dirt beneath his feet. Did he know what Sam had in store for Nessie tonight? Did he care? Jake glared across as the two siblings, suddenly infuriated at the young wolf who could act so friendly to Ness one moment, and then turn his back and throw his loyalty in with Sam, with this damned mob. His thoughts were cut short, though, as the man himself finally appeared.

 

Sam strode into the circle at the floor of the amphitheatre, his bearskin cloak rippling behind him, reminiscent of his own dark, hulking wolf form. As if on cue, torches and candles began to ignite throughout the crowd, the flames passing from person to person, pushing back the night and filling the theatre with dim, gold light. Sam made one circuit about the inside of the circle, nodding in acknowledgement to the wolves pacing around him, keeping the crowd in check, and then he stopped in front of Leah and her brother, directly across from Jacob.

 

He’d been inside Sam’s head enough times to know the look on his face, even with the open floor of the amphitheatre separating them. His eyes were distant, his gaze turned inward, and Jake could practically hear him going over his words in his head, carefully reexamining and polishing each one from the speech he has no doubt prepared days, weeks, maybe even years ago. Sam wasn’t a manipulative man or a great orator by nature, but he knew how to influence his people. He was the Alpha after all, and, whether they liked it or not, they were every one of them hardwired to respond to the sound of his voice.

 

Jacob grit his teeth, wishing he could miraculously go deaf.

 

Sam’s eyes came up, and a tremor passed through the crowd. Their Alpha was speaking to them.

 

“Brothers. Sisters.” His voice almost broke on that word, before hardening, deepening once more. “We have waited long for this day. Many years have passed since our homeland was disgraced, since our families were torn apart, our own flesh and blood cast to the earth before their due time.”

 

Muted growls spread through the theatre, underlaid by the sound of hundreds of feet shuffling impatiently. Sam began to pace in a slow circle around the amphitheatre, his eyes sweeping the throng, as if speaking directly to each and every one of them. Jacob felt his fists tighten against his folded arms.

 

“We have waited, and we have suffered, all these long years, our lost ones crying out from the dust, crying for vengeance!” The collective growl crescendoed, rising with the Alpha’s voice. He silenced them with a look, striding around the circle again. “We let the villains live that day,” Sam continued, his voice ringing. Scattered snarls now – anger rather than mere anticipation. “But on one condition only: that they pay the same price as what they stole from us. Blood for blood… life for life!”

 

Sam threw his hand out, and the growls swelled to a roar with his voice as they all followed where he directed them. Several wolves were pushing their way through the crowd, clearing a path to the floor of the amphitheatre. Jacob leaned forward to see with the rest of the horde, though for a very different reason – he was fairly certain he was the only one choking on a knot of terror in his throat, strangling his breath and making his heart race like a frightened rabbit.

 

There was only one other person, he was sure, who wanted to be here even less than he did.

 

The front wolves stepped aside when they reached the floor of the theatre, revealing the humans coming in behind them: several untransformed Pack members, and, at their front, with one arm twisted uncomfortably behind her back, Nessie.

 

He was distantly aware of Quil and Embry shifting their weight on either side of him. The world seemed to have shrunk to a few single, bright points: Nessie. The grimace of pain on her face. That someone would dare put their hands on her. The few steps it would take to carry him across the circle to them, how easy it would be to rip them limb from limb, to teach them never to touch her again-

 

Nessie was thrown to the ground at Sam’s feet, catching herself on her hands and knees in front of him.

 

Embry’s hand closed around his wrist, jerking him to a stop before Jake even realized he’d taken a step.

 

Sam looked down at her coldly, his lip just beginning to curl.

 

“Don’t,” Embry hissed.

 

“I can’t-” he choked, straining forward, desperate. Nessie was curling in on herself, sensing the mob around her without looking at them, seeming afraid to move, to stand, to breathe.

 

“You’ll only make it worse,” Quil growled, sounding uncharacteristically frustrated.

 

She looked so scared, so alone…

 

Jacob whimpered.

 

Sam’s eyes flickered up and locked with Jacob’s for just an instant. His nostrils flared once, expelling a breath, and then he looked back down at Nessie and began to pace once more. She watched him from under her brows, slowly pushing herself up into a kneeling position.

 

She was dressed in a simple linen gown, the plain white fabric making her coppery ringlets stand out like a flame in the night, putting the torches and flickering candles around them to shame. Someone had woven dozens of tiny, crisscrossing braids into the top layer of her hair, forming a netted crown around her head. It was the same style that adolescent Quileute girls wore throughout the kingdom… the same as the girls who had been murdered all those years ago. The crowd responded to the clear reminder, a fresh rumble of growls spreading through them, though no one spoke a word. That was the Alpha’s place.

 

“Life for life,” Sam repeated, looking out at the throng as he trod a small circle around her. Nessie pursed her lips, following him with her eyes.

 

Jacob lurched forward, struggling against Embry’s grasp. Life for life. Sam couldn’t mean-

 

“This life,” Sam continued, looking down at Nessie again with a sneer. He turned back to the people, his voice ringing out with fervor. “Here before us, my brothers, my sisters – the princess Renesmee, daughter of the accursed Cullen people, the two-faced demons who would present us with a façade of peace, of innocence, and then, when our backs are turned, they would prey on our young ones, our most precious daughters!”

 

Nessie winced, looking angry and offended at his words, though she didn’t dare say or do anything to contradict him. Jacob ground his teeth together, the need to shield her pulsing through him like fire, pushing him to the very edge of transforming.

 

“Your life,” Sam spat, towering over her, “for the ones that were stolen from us. For the voices and minds and hearts that will never again join us in the Packmind, who have been silenced forever!”

 

Nessie recoiled at the sudden ire that was turned on her. She placed her hands on her knees as if to push herself to her feet. “I-”

 

“What could you possibly have to say?” Sam snarled, and in one sharp movement he stepped forward and wrenched her up by the arm. Nessie gasped, and it was all Jacob could do to hold back the tremors that swept down his spine, urging him forward to help her.

 

“Would you bring them back to life?” Sam demanded, his teeth bared viciously as he held her mere inches from his face. “Would you restore the families that were destroyed by your people?!”

 

He released her then, all but throwing her back to the earth with a scornful glare. “We do not come here tonight looking for restoration,” Sam cried, addressing the people once more. “It is impossible. What is done is done, and we can never be whole again. But,” he turned back to regard Nessie, though his voice remained raised, speaking to the crowd rather than her, “a lesson must be learned here.”

 

Sam stalked toward her, and Jake could see the effort it took for her not to cower before him as she glared up at him from her knees.

 

“Justice must be served,” he stated, sucking in a breath through his teeth. He leaned forward ever so slightly, looming over her threateningly. “It would be so fitting for you to get a personal taste of everything that was done to our people, all the horror you monsters inflicted on us. On our daughters.” His hand lashed out, catching her jaw in a tight grip, forcing her to look him in the eye. “A punishment to match the crime, don’t you think?”

 

Nessie stared up at him, the terror she’d been trying so hard to hide written plainly across her face now. Jacob felt it insides ice over. Sam couldn’t- He wouldn’t-

 

“But I would never lower myself to touch a disgusting little bloodsucker like you,” Sam sneered then, and thrust her away from him. Nessie stumbled back and fell, landing hard on her hands and knees once more. A chorus of cheers and snarls went up from the crowd around them.

 

“No-” Jacob growled, pulling against Quil and Embry’s hands on his arms.

 

“They’re just words, man,” Quil ground out, trying to keep a hold on him. “He’s not going to actually hurt her-”

 

Nessie was blinking tears from her eyes, slowly pushing herself upright again. Jacob was so focused on her that he almost missed the movement at the edge of the circle, the way Sam looked off to the side and then raised a hand to beckon them forward.

 

The same young Shifters who had ushered Nessie into the amphitheatre, teenagers, barely finished with their training, still hotheaded and unpredictable, volatile- The crowd parted for them once more as four of them guided Nessie’s wild-eyed, bucking horse into the circle.

 

Nessie gasped, mouthing her pet’s name. Noble.

 

Jacob stilled, he and his two friends watching in confusion as the animal was led out onto the floor, followed closely by two more young men carrying a wide basin between them. Whatever this was, it had been planned and choreographed. What was Sam doing?

 

“Your family will never see you again,” Sam said darkly, looking down his nose at Nessie as the horse stopped several feet from them. He raised his voice, calling out the gathered people. “That is the lesson to be learned. That is where we take our revenge. The Cullens, who allowed this to happen, who allowed their followers to savage our young women, to rape, murder, and devour them – they now share in our pain!” He looked down at Nessie once more, sneering with every word. “They will feel what we feel, never to know what has become of their sweet, precious little daughter.”

 

Nessie stared up at him, something akin to hate beginning to color her gaze as the fear receded from her expression. Jacob actually felt himself relax marginally. The Cullens were the real targets, not Nessie. Sam wasn’t going to hurt her. Now if he could just get to her… He needed to comfort her, to hold her, to convince himself that she really was alright and whole, that no one would take her from him…

 

“But, for you,” Sam continued then, waving the trainees forward with the horse. One of them produced a long knife from his belt and offered it to the waiting Alpha. Sam accepted it, glancing back at Nessie with a baleful look. “Well, you’re as much a leech as any of the rest of them,” he said, and stepped up in front of the thrashing horse, brandishing the knife grandly. The four young Shifters handling him were more than enough to keep the horse still, despite his wild efforts to break free.

 

Sam eyed the animal disdainfully for one moment, then pulled his arm back and plunged the knife into the creature’s neck, just above the breast bone. The horse let out a near-human shriek of pain just as Nessie screamed, “No!”

 

Sam withdrew the knife and handed it back to its owner as the two young men standing by slid their basin into place between the horse’s front legs, catching the blood as it began to gush from the wound. Sam ignored them, winding his arm up again, and thrust his hand into the open hole in the dying animal’s chest. The horse screamed again, its legs buckling beneath it as Sam reached into its core, seemed to find what he was searching for, and then ripped his hand back out. With one last shudder, Noble seemed to collapse in on himself, supported now only by the werewolves holding him up.

 

Sam turned back around to face Nessie, her pet’s thick blood dripping down his arm. Clutched in his hand was Noble’s steaming, still feebly spasming heart.

 

“For you,” Sam ground out, continuing his earlier thought, “we have a different sort of lesson. A more literal lesson. A lesson in blood.”

 

Nessie’s eyes widened in horror as Sam approached her. Jacob couldn’t seem to breathe, his lungs refusing to work. Even Quil and Embry had gone still, their eyes locked on the Alpha, too shocked to move. The crowd rumbled in anticipation behind them, hungry for what had to come next in this gruesome scene.

 

“This is what you demons are after, isn’t it?” Sam sneered, stopping in front of Nessie, still holding the heart aloft. The hot blood dripped onto the ground from Sam’s hand, making Nessie recoil, curling into herself in revulsion.

 

“What are you-” she started, her voice wavering, but she was cut off as two of the Shifters who had been handling Noble appeared on either side of her, grabbing her arms and yanking her roughly to her feet. Jacob felt his body spasm, the transformation fighting to break free at the sight of them putting their hands on her.

 

“This!” Sam roared, pivoting to take in the mob once more, holding the steaming organ above his head. “This is what they took from us! Flesh! Blood! Life!” He turned back to Nessie, who was staring up at him, too confused and shocked and frightened to move. “So take it,” Sam said, looming over her. “Take your prize, your pound of flesh, and eat your fill!”

 

The confusion cleared from Nessie’s eyes and she had just enough time to open her mouth in a horrified gasp before Sam slammed the bloody mass directly into her face.

 

“No-!” Jake choked, Quil and Embry barely holding him back as they stared aghast at the scene in front of them.

 

Nessie jerked back, trying to fight off the hands holding her, to turn her face away from the raw flesh being forced into her mouth, muffling her scream.

 

“I said eat!” Sam barked, and his free hand shot out to grip her jaw, forcing her to break off a chunk of meat in her mouth. His hand clamped down over her face, holding her teeth closed and covering her airways until, reflexively, she had to swallow.

 

“Ness,” Jacob groaned. A fresh wave of tremors swept down his spine, hot and painful and all but driving him to his knees. Quil and Embry seemed to be holding him up more than holding him back now.

 

“How does it taste, demon?” Sam asked, leaning down until their faces were inches apart. His lip curled, showing his teeth. “Can you feel the power? The force of the innocent life you just devoured?”

 

Nessie just shook her head slightly, looking stunned, her face smeared with red. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over, cutting tracks through the blood as she stared up at Sam.

 

He sneered and straightened once more, holding up the slowly cooling heart in his hand again. Casting a disgusted look between her and it, he threw the lump of flesh down into the dirt in front of Nessie. The two Shifter trainees released her arms and she crumpled to the ground, shaking, her tears flowing freely.

 

“Get her out of my sight,” Sam commanded disdainfully, turning away with a indifferent wave of his hand to the young men standing over her.

 

There wasn’t any signal from Sam that provoked the next action, at least not that Jacob saw. The Shifters who were still standing over the horse’s carcass seemed to be acting on their own when they exchanged a glance, looking at each other and then down at the brimming basin on the ground between them. As one, they picked it up, then stepped forward and dumped its contents over Nessie’s huddled form.

 

Something seemed to snap inside of Jacob at the sound of Nessie’s sharp intake of breath, the way she jumped as the warm liquid suddenly crashed over her, instantly staining her dress crimson, sticking to her hair, her skin. Sam was walking away, uncaring, sparing barely a glance back at them. The trainees were laughing, shaking out the last drops of blood onto her as Nessie tried to shrink away.

 

Jacob would never know if Quil and Embry actually released him then, or if he simply ripped his way out of their grasp before they could stop him. One moment, he was standing between them, and in the next instant, he was scooping Nessie up, snarling murderously at the younger wolves who couldn’t seem to scramble out of his way fast enough, spinning, rushing at the crowd, taking in Sam’s furious look as he sped past, but then they were gone, away, free.

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

He ran blindly, Nessie’s tiny, quivering form cradled to his chest, his grip on her probably too tight, desperate, protective. He wouldn’t ever let anyone near her again, wouldn’t, couldn’t let anything else happen to her. He had failed her tonight, had let them hurt her, humiliate her, had stood by when she needed him most. He should have fought harder to get to her, his friends be damned, the Pack be damned, Sam, the Alpha-

 

Nessie suddenly squirmed in his arms, and then gave a sharp tug on his hair when he didn’t stop running. Her voice was thick when she spoke.

 

“Jake, I’m gonna throw up.”

 

Jacob skidded to a stop, setting her down quickly but carefully, hovering over her as she stumbled to the nearest tree, catching herself with one hand on its trunk as her body bent double.

 

He gathered her hair back behind her shoulders as she wretched, shuddering violently with her body’s need to purge itself. He could smell the blood as she coughed it up, though it was foreign, not her own, and mixed with her stomach fluids and bile and whatever scanty bits of food had still been in her system from earlier in the day, before they arrived, before Sam got his hands on her-

 

Jake squeezed his eyes shut once, fighting off that thought.

 

A dry sob escaped her when she’d finished, and she slumped against the tree trunk, her entire form quivering weakly. Jacob released her hair in favor of wrapping his arms around her waist and her shoulders, pulling her into him as he sank to the forest floor between the tree’s roots.

 

Nessie curled into a tight ball in his lap, leaning into his chest, his arms and legs forming a protective wall around her, keeping all the rest of the world out. The forest was pitch black and silent around them; as far as Jacob could tell, no one was pursuing them. He held her tight against him, ignoring the sticky wetness of the blood drenching her clothes and hair, just glad to have her back. But she let out a quiet sob then, and he felt the hot tears against his skin, and his heart broke all over again.

 

“Shh, it’s okay, honey,” his whispered, resting his forehead on top of her hair, burying his nose in the auburn curls. “I won’t let anything happen to you ever again, I swear… I’m so sorry…”

 

“I-It’s not y-your fault,” Nessie hiccupped, rubbing at her eyes with the back of one tiny hand before turning her face into his shoulder again.

 

Not his fault? How could she say that?! “I should have-” he started vehemently, but then bit the words off before they could leave his mouth. He had let this happen, let them hurt and frighten her like this – but what else could he have done? Tried to stop it? Defied his king, his Alpha? Gone against all the wishes of his people?

 

The answer came to him fast and instinctual, something he didn’t have to think about but knew as base fact: Yes!

 

Jacob closed his eyes, holding her a little tighter as he rocked them back and forth, wishing he could forget about Sam and the Pack and the blood and everything except Nessie’s presence, her scent washing over him, the feel of her in his arms…

 

They stayed like that for a little while longer, until Ness began to shift uncomfortably. The blood was drying into her clothes, sticking to her skin and crackling softly as she moved.

 

“Ugh, I’m so- so filthy,” she muttered, and Jake was sure he didn’t imagine the quaver in her voice when she spoke. How she had managed to withstand the stink of so much blood around her all this time was beyond him, but he chalked it up to emotional exhaustion, her body’s reactions pushed to the background as her mind simply couldn’t take any more.

 

He started to stand, his mind made up, pulling Ness up with him as he climbed to his feet. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go get you out of those clothes.”

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

He continued to carry her the rest of the way, despite Nessie’s halfhearted assertions that she could walk on her own. He didn’t think he could bear having her out of arm’s reach after all that had happened tonight, and from the way she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, Jacob suspected that she felt the same. He took off northward again, knowing now where his instincts had previously directed him. He had only been concerned with getting away before, and he hadn’t stopped to process where they should get to. The answer was obvious now, though.

 

The forest whipped past them in a dark blur as his feet pounded out the familiar route, and, before long, his family’s ancestral home appeared up ahead. It rose out of the trees and hills, a huge, hollow rock outcropping, like a miniaturized version of the Summit where the Alpha ruled. He climbed up the worn path to the entrance, and Nessie peeked her eyes out when she felt his gait change.

 

“Where are we?” she asked quietly, pushing her hair out of her eyes as she looked around.

 

“My father’s den,” he answered, letting her down on her feet as they reached the mouth of the front hall. Nessie looked around the inside of the dark cavern, leaning into his side, and Jake wrapped an arm tight around her shoulders.

 

“You grew up here?” she asked as he guided her to the hallway that led down to the family living quarters in the hill below them.

 

He nodded, pausing at the doorway to pick up one of the cold torches hanging there. In the hollow behind its sconce, he found the small bit of flint that was kept with each torch for just this purpose. He struck a few sparks onto its head, and the flames spread quickly over it, sending light washing over the two of them. Nessie blinked rapidly in the sudden brightness, her eyes no doubt having grown accustomed to the night outside. He could see well enough in the dark with his sharpened Shifter senses, but he didn’t want her to be scared or tripping over things when they descended into the pitch black inside the den.

 

“My father still lives here,” he told her, pulling her against his side once more as they started down the winding tunnel into the hill. “Though from the look of things, he’s either out or already asleep,” he said, indicating all the unlit lights.

 

“He wouldn’t have been… back there?” Nessie asked hesitantly, her voice little more than a whisper.

Back there. At the amphitheatre. In the crowd. Cheering for Sam to humiliate her, to hurt her. He squeezed her shoulders a little tighter.

 

“No,” Jacob said, reassuring her. “He wouldn’t. Billy might be a crotchety old man, but he’s not like that. He would never do anything to hurt you.”

 

Renesmee let out a breath. “Okay…”

 

Jake winced. He could imagine what she must be thinking. ‘That’s what you said about Sam.’ He swallowed, holding her a little tighter. Nessie leaned into him and wrapped one arm around his waist as they walked.

 

The hallway opened up into the wide cavern that was the family’s main living area in the heart of the hill. Jacob had spent many an evening studying here with his father or playing with his sisters as a child. He hadn’t been here to visit Billy in weeks, but everything was just as it always was. The thick fur rug stretched out in front of the fireplace with its dirty chimney that his father could never get him to clean as a kid. The shelves of books lining the far wall, holding all of his dad’s favorite texts, mostly historical accounts, tales from the ancient days.

 

“Come on,” he said, leading her through the room to another short hallway. This one didn’t travel further down though, but instead took them to a pair of simple wooden doors facing each other at the end of the corridor. “That’s my sisters’ old room,” he said, nodding to the other door as he pushed open the nearest one. “And this is mine.”

 

Billy hadn’t moved anything, of course. He never did. It looked like he’d barely cleaned, either, if the weeks-old layer of dust on the furniture was anything to go by, but that didn’t matter right now. “You can stay in here,” he told Nessie softly, leading her into the center of the room. He released her reluctantly, moving to hang their one little torch in one of the rings on the wall, and when he turned back around, she was hugging herself, shivering and watching him with hooded eyes. The red blood on her clothes had begun to darken to brown, splattering across her form in great violent slashes. He swallowed, feeling his heart clench at the sight.

 

“Let me just… see if I can find you something clean to wear,” he mumbled, and Nessie nodded numbly, not moving as he slipped out into the hallway, closing the door softly behind him.

 

He crossed to his sisters’ room, praying that they had left some clothes behind, anything that Nessie could wear, anything to replace the ruined, blood-soaked gown she was in now. At first, it seemed he was going to come up empty handed, but what did he expect? They were both married, moved away, trying to start families of their own. Not like him, a bachelor, living mostly in his quarters at the Summit with the rest of the Pack, but always coming back to visit, crashing with Billy whenever the inclination hit him.

 

But then, finally, stuffed in the very back of Rebecca’s old wardrobe was a small sack containing some of her old dresses and tunics from when she was a kid. She had probably outgrown them years ago, and so hadn’t bothered taking them with her when she moved out to live with her husband, Ishmael, on the far western edge of the kingdom. They were definitely small, but they would probably fit Ness’s tiny frame perfectly. He picked up the whole bag of them and made his way back out to the hall, closing up his sisters’ room again behind him.

 

Jacob crossed the hall to his own quarters, opened the door, stepped inside – and froze.

 

Nessie was sitting on the edge of his bed with her knees drawn up to her chest. She had wrapped the topmost blanket from his bed around her shoulders and over her legs, hiding herself in its depths. If it hadn’t been for the bare skin of her shoulders just barely peeking out, he wouldn’t have even realized that she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing under the blanket.

 

He glanced to the side, the metallic scent of the blood drawing his attention, and sure enough, there was the gown they’d dressed her in at the Summit, wadded up and thrown – with some force, it seemed – into the corner of the room.

 

“Sorry,” Ness said quietly, staring down at her knees. She shivered and bit her lip, looking ashamed of herself. “I just… I couldn’t stand it anymore… All that blood… I thought… I thought I was going to vomit again…”

 

“Oh, no, it’s fine, honey,” Jacob rushed to reassure her. He held up the little satchel from his sisters’ room. “I found you some clean clothes to wear anyway,” he said soothingly. “They’re old ones of my sister’s, but they should fit you.”

 

Nessie nodded, but didn’t make any move to stand.

 

Jake chewed the inside of his cheek, watching her. The smell of all that drying blood really was starting to irritate him… He could only imagine how it must be affecting her. He set the bag down on top of his chest of drawers against the nearest wall and then went to pick up the discarded dress. “I’m gonna go get rid of this, okay, Ness?” he asked gently, turning back to her.

 

She nodded again, not looking up. Jacob watched her for a moment longer, his chest beginning to ache, before turning and slipping out into the hallway.

 

He walked back out into the living room, not needing any light to navigate the familiar space, and tossed the ruined garment into the fireplace. He was reaching for the flint that Billy kept above it on the mantelpiece when two familiar scents reached him.

 

“You guys just walk in here uninvited now?” Jacob groused, turning around.

 

Quil and Embry emerged from the hallway at the far end of the room, their features indistinct in the deep blackness of the unilluminated den.

 

“I thought we were always invited,” Embry returned. “Didn’t realize that had changed.”

 

Jake growled quietly, glancing back toward his room where Nessie waited before striding across the empty space to them. “What the hell do you want?” he growled, stopped a few feet from them.

 

“Hey man, we’re just trying help,” Quil replied defensively, frowning at him.

 

Jacob scowled. “Oh yeah, you’ve helped so much. Especially that time when you tried to stop me from getting to Nessie while Sam was torturing her!”

 

“What do you think would have happened if we hadn’t stopped you?!” Embry snapped, bristling at his tone.

 

“I could have-”

 

“Could have what?” Embry demanded, leaning forward belligerently. “Pissed Sam off even more than he is now? Is that your grand plan?”

 

“Sam can go-” Jake started, snarling ferociously, but then clamped his mouth shut as he realized what he’d been about to say. The words were treason, mutiny. “I could have spared her at least some pain,” he ground out instead, stubborn.

 

“I doubt it,” Quil said, folding his arms. “Sam looked like he was about to blow his top when you took off with her. As it is, things are probably gonna get worse for her before they get better. Unless…”

“Unless what?” Jake asked, his eyes narrowing at his friend. He felt his hackles rise when Quil and Embry exchanged a glance before looking back at him.

 

“Well,” Quil said, “unless you imprinted on her.”

 

The words hit him like a punch in the gut. He spluttered, trying to think. “How- What- Where did you get that idea?!” How did they know? How had they guessed?!

 

“Are you saying you didn’t?” Quil asked.

 

“’Cause then I guess we should just take her back to Sam,” Embry added. “I mean, if you don’t care about her-”

 

“No!” Jacob snarled, then caught himself, surprised at his own vehemence. Quil and Embry both blinked at him, shocked.

 

“So you have,” Embry said quietly.

 

“You imprinted,” Quil finished, sounding slightly awed.

 

 Jacob shook his head. “It’s not like that…”

 

“Not like that?” Quil repeated, his eyes widening. “Jake, this is huge! I mean, come on, you’re the history nerd, you should know better than anyone what this means-”

 

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Jacob hissed, cutting him off. He glared at them each for a moment, then took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. “Look, Nessie’s waiting for me. I don’t want to leave her alone for too long.”

 

They nodded, and he turned to go. “Is she okay?” Embry asked suddenly from behind him, his voice soft.

 

Jake stopped in front of the fireplace, not looking back at his friends. “She’s pretty shaken up. Scared out of her wits. But yeah. I think she’ll be okay.” He found the flint on top of the mantelpiece and scratched a few sparks onto the wad of blood-stained fabric waiting there. Flames began to eat through the cloth after a few seconds, casting a dim, flickering light over the room as the fire spread.

 

“You guys know where the guest rooms are,” Jake said, finally looking back at them as the garment began to smolder. “I’m sure Billy will be glad to see you tomorrow morning.”

 

They nodded, Quil giving him a lopsided grin and waving one hand as he turned to go. Embry held Jake’s gaze for a moment longer. “Tomorrow morning then,” he said finally, and followed Quil away down the corridor.

 

Jake let out a breath when they were gone, looking back down at the fireplace and what was left of the dress. The fire would burn itself out in a few more minutes. Satisfied, he pushed away from the mantel and padded the short distance back to his room and Nessie.

 

The room was silent but for the quiet flickering of the torch still hanging on the wall and Nessie’s soft breathing. She was curled up on her side, still wrapped in the blanket from before, sound asleep. The clothes he had brought her still sat in their bag on top of his dresser, untouched.

 

Sighing quietly, he moved over to the side of the bed, gently pulling the rest of the blankets out and laying them over her, tucking them right up to her chin. He leaned over to brush her hair back from her face, and Nessie murmured something in her sleep, turning into his touch as one small hand slid out from under the covers to grasp at his fingers.

 

Jacob let his hand close around hers, suddenly awestruck as he drank in the sight of the beautiful, perfect creature before him. Carefully, he lowered himself onto the bed, settling on top of the blankets a few inches away from her. She stirred slightly at the shift in weight on the mattress, mumbling again, and Jacob could have sworn he heard his name somewhere in there. His heart swelled, and he could literally feel the connection running between them. His skin hummed and tingled where it touched hers, everything in him responding to the presence of the glorious, precious, magnificent being beside him.

 

The imprinting he’d been trying so hard to deny was like a tangible presence in the room, a steel cable binding them together, joining his heart to hers forever. He would do anything to keep her safe, from harm and from sorrow, from the sort of pain she had had to endure today. He had failed her, on so many levels, but he would see to it that that never, ever happened again. He would do whatever he had to, the Alpha’s wishes be damned.

 

No one was going to take her from him again. No one.

 

 

Chapter 10 – Boundaries

 

Renesmee

 

I drifted gradually up from unconsciousness, sleep falling away in soft, gauzy layers. I was enveloped by warmth and security, content to never move from that spot, beyond the reach of darkness or pain. Wakefulness came eventually, though, and, strangely enough, the first thing I was aware of as my mind cleared was the sound of Jacob’s even breathing beside me. I couldn’t say how exactly I knew it was him. It was some other sense besides sound or smell or the feel of the heat radiating from him. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I simply knew.

 

I let my eyes slide open slowly, feeling a smile tug at the corners of my mouth at the sight that greeted me: Jacob, his features slack with sleep, lips parted slightly and silky black hair pooling around him as he lay facing me. Just as I knew he would be. Pale light washed across his skin, highlighting the sharp lines of his cheekbones, brow, and nose, making him look at once young and wise, fierce and innocent. I felt relaxed and safe just watching him, my mind dancing on the edge of sleep once more, and settled my head further down into the pillow we shared, drinking in the view.

 

And then froze, coming sharply awake as I suddenly realized just how close we were lying – and remembered that I was far from properly dressed.

 

I wasn’t completely naked, I reminded myself, trying with little success to convince my teeth to unclench and my fingers to give up the deathgrip they had suddenly seized on the bedclothes. I did still have the blanket wrapped around me from last night, after all, and several more piled on top of that now too. Jacob must have tucked me in last night, I thought with a blush. Again. I felt the blush intensify, and swallowed, glancing down the length of the bed to confirm that he was at least lying on the bed rather than in it.

 

But still. ‘Compromising’ would be a kind description for the position in which I had found myself.

 

I tried not to squirm too much as I slowly pushed myself away from Jacob, realizing too late that one of his arms was slung over my waist, his hand resting lightly against my lower back. I stopped, staring at his face, watching for any signs that he was stirring, afraid he would wake at my movements.

 

And then it occurred to me – where was the light coming from?

 

I blinked, my eyes sweeping over Jacob’s perfectly illuminated face once more. Frowning, I tilted my head up, craning my neck to peer over his shoulder at the torch he had hung on the wall the night before. It was extinguished now, as I had expected. Jacob had no doubt put it out before he had – I swallowed – come to join me in bed. This wasn’t the flickering orange light of an open flame anyway, I reasoned, shamelessly trying to distract myself from my current predicament. The light was bright and steady, as clear as sunlight shining through fine glass windowpanes. But there were no windows here. We were underground, in a cave. I had seen that much last night. So then how…?

 

My eyes roved around the room, looking for a lantern or oil lamp of some sort, anything that could produce such illumination, and resolutely avoiding looking directly at the face mere inches from my own. After finding nothing that could explain the strange phenomenon, I glanced reflexively over my shoulder toward the wall at my back – and gasped at what I saw.

 

The entire wall seemed to be aglow above me, the very stones lit as if from within. I sank onto my back, blinking as spots began to dance before my eyes from the brightness, but couldn’t tear my eyes away, staring in wonder up at the white, glowing rock.

 

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you you’d go blind if you looked right at the sun?”

 

I jumped, looking over at Jacob sharply, and then had to clench my eyes shut as the sunspots obscured my view. “Um, what?” I asked stupidly.

 

He was smirking lazily at me when my vision finally cleared enough to make out his face. “See, you’re goin’ blind already,” he teased. When I only looked at him blankly, he clarified. “It’s crystal. This whole side of the hill is made of it. ‘Swhy I like this room,” he said, yawning widely.

 

“Crystal?” I asked, unable to hold back my answering yawn. “Does it go all the way to the surface? And… it refracts the sunlight into here?”

 

“Something like that,” Jacob shrugged. “Really not that interesting,” he mumbled, smiling sleepily at me as his eyes fell closed once more.

 

“I guess… I was just…” Just trying to distract myself. I was suddenly extremely aware of Jacob’s arm lying across my stomach, his hand hanging by my hip. “Jacob,” I said, trying to keep my voice from hitching as I felt my face flame all over again.

 

“Yeah?” He didn’t open his eyes, still smiling, sleepy and content.

 

I swallowed, staring up at the carved out patterns on the ceiling. “I should, uh, really get dressed…”

 

I felt him still beside me, his eyes coming open as he seemed to finally wake fully.

 

“Oh. Right. Of course. Sorry,” he said, pulling his arm back and pushing himself up on his elbow to extricate himself from the bed, but then he stopped, his eyes widening suddenly as something else seemed to occur to him. “Oh. Oh! Oh shi-! Sorry, I wasn’t thinking! Sorry, sorry!”

 

And then he was gone, all but leaping from the bed, stumbling back across the room, his eyes wide and horrified as he sputtered out disjointed apologies. I stared after him, shocked by his sudden reaction.

 

“Gods, I’m so sorry,” he said again, groping behind him for the door handle with one hand while the other came up to cover his face in mortification. “Clothes are on top of the dresser,” he reminded me in a rush, grimacing embarrassedly, and then fled out into the hallway, yanking the door shut after him.

 

I pushed myself slowly up into a sitting position, my face aflame, listening as Jacob’s muffled voice grumbled out an ongoing stream of profanity from the other side of the door. I felt an instant pang of guilt, making my blush only darken further.

 

I hadn’t meant to accuse him of anything. It just… wasn’t proper. Lying like that. And with me dressed as I was… which was not at all…

 

I pulled the blanket tight around myself, wrapping it under my arms and shivering as the chilly air hit my exposed skin. Strange, I hadn’t even noticed the cold with Jacob beside me… I slipped one foot out from under the covers and then the other, gingerly touching down on the cool stone floor. It was absolutely scandalous – I shouldn’t miss Jake’s ubiquitous body heat, no matter how cold and lifeless the room felt without him. It was indecent.

 

I shook my head, stepping across the room to the dresser, my blanket dragging along behind me like a train. The bag of clothes Jake had found for me last night was set atop the chest of drawers, which, I found when I approached it, stood at about my shoulder height. I frowned, gauging the distance across the dressertop to the bag. I hadn’t realized before how large the piece of furniture was. Nor, it seemed, had Jacob, since he’d left it pushed toward the back, quite possibly out of my reach. I couldn’t exactly call him back in now, though. Determinedly, I held onto my blanket with one hand and stretched up on my tiptoes, reaching across the smooth wood surface and was able to just barely snag the satchel with the tips of my fingers. Triumphant, I curled my fingers into it and pulled it toward me, dropping it over the edge and setting it down on the ground in front of me.

 

There was an odd assortment of short dresses and tunics within, most of which appeared to have been intended for a girl much younger than myself. The styles were all fairly childlike, despite their sizes. His sisters must be tall, I mused, holding up a dress that would easily fit me, though its straight, girlish cut gave away the expected age of its wearer.

 

After a few minutes picking through the bag’s contents, I came up with a dark green dress that seemed suitable enough. There was just one problem… I let my blanket fall away, slipping the dress on over my head and pulling it down into place. The bodice was fitted nicely, not too childish, and the sleeves were elbow-length and comfortable… but the skirt fell only to my knees, barely covering them. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, considering it, looking down at the dress as the material swished back and forth with my movements. I didn’t think I’d worn anything shorter than ankle length since I was about ten years old. These dresses Jake had brought me were almost certainly play-clothes, more suited to running, jumping, and climbing trees than to greeting noble guests for a royal function at the palace. I swayed one more time, watching the skirt twist around my legs before righting itself. Actually, that idea didn’t sound half bad…

 

I spared a moment to straighten the blankets on Jacob’s bed and arrange the pillows against the headboard, then scooped the pile of discarded clothes back into their bag, setting it back on top of the tall chest of drawers. It seemed the least I could do to clean up after myself, with all that I’d put Jacob through in the past twenty four hours.

 

When everything once again seemed to be in its proper place in the room, I turned to the heavy wooden door that stood between me and where Jacob waited out in the hallway. It had to be several inches thick at least, made of sturdy hardwood and equipped with an enormous wrought iron ring that had to be pulled downward in order to release the latch and open the door. I eyed it warily, stepping forward to wrap my fingers around the ring’s bottom edge, making sure to get a good grip on it. It had been dwarfed by Jacob’s large hands before, whereas both of mine together still didn’t span the entire width of it. I had doubts that I would even be able to budge it, much less move the weighty door it was attached to.

 

“Why is everything so huge here?” I muttered, gathered my strength, and pulled down, hard-

 

And was somewhat surprised when the latch slid easily open and the door swung smoothly toward me, making me stumble back several steps. I found myself clinging to the giant door handle now, fighting to keep my balance against the door’s inward motion.

 

Jacob was leaning against the far wall beside his sisters’ old room, apparently studying his feet with great interest, but he looked up when I swung the door open. I thought I saw him lurch forward half an inch, as if to catch me as I fought to stay upright, but then he stopped, sinking back against the stones with what sounded suspiciously like a sigh. I finally righted myself and stepped out into the hallway, straightening my dress and pulling the door closed  after me with as much dignity as I could manage.

 

I turned around to find Jacob’s eyes trailing over me, though he still hadn’t moved from his spot across the hall. “You look nice,” he said after a moment, meeting my gaze hesitantly, his voice quiet.

 

“Thank you,” I said just as quietly, clasping my hands behind me self-consciously. Jacob continued to watch me, looking guilty and apologetic and – I winced internally even as the thought passed through my head – like a kicked puppy. “I’m sorry-”

 

“I didn’t mean any offense,” he said at the same time.

 

I stopped, looking up at him. “I know.”

 

And I did know. Jacob would never do anything to hurt me. I knew that.

 

“I just- I know where you’re from, people are a lot more… strict about… that sort of thing…” he continued quickly, running a hand through his hair. “After last night, I just… I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

 

“Oh, no, no, you don’t have to apologize,” I said, shaking my head and taking half a step forward. “You are right, I suppose… It’s not how a gentleman would behave in our kingdom, but-” Jacob’s eyes widened, and I bit my tongue, realizing how that sounded. “I- I meant-”

 

“I understand,” Jacob cut me off quietly, looking down at his feet again, and I was surprised to hear no anger in his voice. If anything, he sounded resigned.

 

“Jake…” I tried again, drifting a step closer to him.

 

“Don’t worry about it, princess,” he said, lifting his gaze to smile down at me, though his eyes still had that kicked puppy look. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

 

I stared up at him, the few feet that separated us seeming to stretch into miles, a chasm suddenly yawning wide between us. I knew I shouldn’t wish to close that distance, shouldn’t miss him, miss the closeness of the past few days – but I did. I missed it terribly.

 

“You probably want to go get cleaned up, don’t you?” Jacob said then, at last straightening up from his place against the wall, his voice businesslike and more distant than I had ever heard him. I searched his gaze for a moment, feeling the chasm solidify, groaning and settling like rocks in an earthquake, and finally sighed, nodding. Jake opened his mouth as if to say something more, but then let it fall closed again, instead holding his arm out to me. I hesitated for a half a second, and then stepped forward to slip my hand around his elbow, guiltily, scandalously grateful for the contact, despite the distance that still seemed to extend between us.

 

Jacob led the way out of the family area and into the corridor we had followed from the entrance hall last night, turning now to continue further down into the cave. The passage wound downward in a wide spiral, at times lit by the glowing white crystal that made up the outer wall of the hill, and by evenly spaced candles set into small indents in the stone the rest of the time.

 

“Looks like Billy’s up and about,” Jake commented after a few minutes, nodding at the candles as we passed, his casual tone sounding awkward and forced. I simply nodded, the silence weighing down heavily on us both.

 

I studied the smooth, cavernous walls of the hallway as we walked, looking for any sort of distraction from the strange unease that had settled between us since leaving Jacob’s bedroom. Each bend in the spiraling corridor took us past more hallways and suites of rooms branching off from the main path into the interior of the den, similar to the living area we had just left. I turned my head to follow them as we moved past, trying to catch a glimpse of what they held.

 

“How many people live here?” I asked curiously, peering down another dark hallway that twisted away from us into the hillside.

 

“These days? Just Billy,” Jacob answered, shrugging.

 

I looked up at him sideways, wondering if he was going to elaborate, hoping he would, if only to feel a little less disconnected from him. He didn’t, though.

 

“So…” I prompted when he didn’t say anything more, “what are all these rooms for then?”

 

Jake blinked, finally looking down at me, and I felt a jolt of warmth spread through me just from the eye contact. My fingers tightened involuntarily around his arm, reassuring myself that he was really right there beside me, and not miles and miles away like he felt.

 

“Oh, just guest rooms, old offices, that sort of thing…” he said, shrugging again, though he didn’t drop my gaze.

 

“Offices?” I asked. Maybe I was grasping at straws, but if it got him talking again…

 

“Yeah, for…” He trailed off, looking suddenly uncomfortable, but then continued, grimacing slightly. “See, this place used to be like the, uh, the Alpha’s hunting lodge, family getaway, that sort of thing…”

 

I pursed my lips. That wasn’t unexpected. “But now Sam Uley is the Alpha,” I said quietly.

 

Jake blew out a loud breath, his cheeks puffing up as he did so. “Yeah. Sam’s the Alpha now,” he agreed, sounding like some internal tension had been relieved with those words. “So the offices are all mostly closed up, but the guest rooms still get some use, at least,” he said, glancing down at me again, his tone lighter now. He sniffed then, turning his gaze toward the next suite we were approaching. “Quil and Embry stayed on this floor last night, for instance.”

 

“Quil and Embry are here?” I asked, looking between Jacob and the doorway we were passing.

 

“Yeah, they, uh, wanted to make sure everything was okay after… you know, after everything last night,” he said awkwardly, shooting me a guilty look, and now it was my turn to be uncomfortable. I’d been trying not to think about it since I woke up, trying not to remember the fear and the dark and the blood… I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath, my hand tightening on Jacob’s arm once more.

 

I didn’t imagine the way Jacob pulled me a little closer to him, the chasm between us narrowing just slightly, and he spoke quickly again, drawing me back to the present. “I think they may have beat us down to the bath too,” he said. “Smells like they came this way already this morning…”

 

“Oh… do you think they’ll still be there?” I asked, grateful for the distraction but also blanching at the idea of coming upon two young male werewolves bathing.

 

Jake grinned at my expression, and it was like my insides were finally defrosting after a long winter. “Hopefully not,” he said for my benefit. “I mean, we did sleep in pretty late- Er, I mean-” He winced, trailing off and avoiding my gaze again.

 

I felt my face heat with a blush once more, almost more embarrassed by Jacob’s discomfort than by the reference to how we had woken up together. I could feel the distance opening up between us again, Jacob pulling away, and I scrambled, grasping at any thread of conversation that I could before he slipped away entirely. “What about Seth?” I blurted out. “Did he come with them last night?”

 

It worked. Jake wrinkled his nose in distaste, but at least he was back beside me again. “No, thank the gods,” he grumbled. “I thought we were never going to get rid of that little twerp…”

 

I looked up at him, surprised by his sour tone. “What do you have against Seth? He seemed perfectly friendly to me.”

 

“Yeah, maybe a little too friendly,” Jake said cryptically, glancing down at me. He shook his head then, relaxing marginally. “He’s an okay kid, really, he’s just…”

 

“Very cheerful?” I suggested, grinning up at him as I thought back to my interactions with the younger wolf the previous day. ‘Cheerful’ was really putting it lightly. ‘Buoyant’ seemed more appropriate.

 

“Very well-connected,” Jake said instead. “But, yeah, also annoyingly cheerful,” he added, scowling.

 

I couldn’t help smiling at his expression. “What do you mean by well-connected?” I asked.

 

He glanced down at me again, his eyes serious, and I suddenly wondered if I’d picked the absolute wrong topic of conversation to try to distract us. Everything, it seemed, was tied up in politics here, and thus ultimately led back to the Alpha… and the question of why Sam Uley, not Jacob Black, held that position.

 

“It’s really more his sister, Leah, not him,” Jake admitted, shaking his head. “But because of her relationship with Sam, Seth’s kind of… I dunno, guilty by association.” He shrugged. “It’s like he’s Sam’s snitch. Anything you say or do around Seth is gonna get back the Alpha, whether you want it to or not.”

 

“Oh… Well, I suppose, being his brother-in-law…” I said, trying to be diplomatic even as I fought off the memory of Sam Uley’s snarling face, inches from my own, promising pain and sorrow and retribution for crimes committed long before I was even born. How could any woman love such a man? How could someone as kind and friendly as Seth stand to be associated with him?

 

“Oh, they’re not married,” Jake said, cutting through my thoughts.

 

“What?” I asked, looking up at him, my mind lagging behind a few steps. “They’re… Sam and Leah? They’re not married? But I thought you said…”

 

“They are together. But Sam won’t marry her because of, uh, political reasons,” he said, confirming my earlier thoughts.

 

“It’s all politics, isn’t it?” I murmured, not meeting his gaze. And then, without so much as checking in with my brain first, my mouth was speaking again: “Jake, why is Sam the Alpha?”

 

I froze, shocked at myself, and felt Jake stiffen at my words as well. “That’s… not an easy question to answer,” he said at last, his voice strained. Then, sounding almost relieved, he added, “And it’ll have to wait till later. We’re here.” He nodded ahead of us and I followed his gaze to where the hall was finally ending, a huge, steel-banded door set into the wall there.

 

Jacob stepped up to it and effortlessly pulled the door open with one hand, the enormous latch easily as big as the one back at his bedroom, making even his large hand appear small by comparison. I only had a moment to wonder about it, about what motive there could possibly be for such over-sized design, but then Jacob was moving forward again, pulling me gently along behind him through the doorway-

 

And then made me run into his back as he stopped abruptly, his entire body tensing.

 

“Jake…?” I asked tentatively. I couldn’t see around his hulking form, though I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to if his reaction was anything to go by. Could some danger have followed us here, something that had been lying in wait for us to appear now?

 

“Wait here,” he said, a growl just beginning to color his tone, and pulled his arm from my grasp to stride out into the open space beyond the doorway.

 

I stood teetering on the threshold, my hands hanging uselessly in midair in front of me, too anxious to be anything but obedient. I swallowed, watching as Jake marched away from me, my eyes taking in the view around him.

 

The door had opened not on a bathing room as I had expected, but rather on a wide patio and outdoor pool, half in shadow under a low ceiling of rock. Evenly spaced pillars edged the patio, whether for actual structural support or mere decoration I didn’t know, their sides carved with intricate, swirling designs that almost seemed to resemble faces, both human and animal. I pressed my eyes closed, pulling my gaze from the enchanting shapes as Jacob reached a small wood and stone structure near the edge of the patio. I felt my breath hitch as he yanked the door to the little building open, growling when he was hit in the face with a spray of hot steam. I almost took a step forward. What was in there? Was Jake in danger?

 

“Get out,” he said flatly.

 

“Aww, c’mon, man!” another voice answered, making me stop in my tracks. I knew that voice. “I was just getting a good soak started!”

 

I couldn’t be sure from this distance, but I thought I saw Jake roll his eyes. “Nessie needs to use the pool. Out. Now.”

 

“I’m not stopping her,” the second voice grumbled, but then a moment later, sure enough, Quil came stumbling out of the little building, clad in only a towel, sweat gleaming on his exposed chest and arms.

 

Oh. Well, didn’t I feel simple. It was a sauna. Of course.

 

“It’s all yours, girlie,” Quil groused, shooting me a disgruntled look as he retrieved his pants from the shelves built into the outer wall of the sauna. He shook them out with one hand, and then released the hold on his towel with the other.

 

A sound very much like a squeak escaped from my throat and I spun to face the wall, my hands flying up reflexively to cover my eyes as my cheeks flamed bright red.

 

“Jeez, Quil!” Jake barked.

 

“What? Oh.” I heard a rustle of fabric, and when he spoke again Quil sounded distinctly like he was smirking. “Shy little thing, isn’t she?”

 

“Just because you have no sense of decency-” I started heatedly, not daring to look over my shoulder to yell at him properly.

 

“Would you just get your clothes on and get out of here already?” Jake growled at him.

 

“Alright, I’m goin’, I’m goin’…” I heard Quil start to swagger away and was just beginning to wonder if it was safe to look again when he paused behind me. “Hey, princess.”

 

I blanched, looking back at him automatically, and was relieved to find him fully clothed – or as fully clothed as werewolves ever seemed to get. Everything important was covered, at least. He grinned at me, spreading his hands wide on either side of him. “There’s really nothing to be scared of here, you know,” he told me, then shot Jacob a sidelong glance. “Now, this one, though – him you gotta look out for-”

 

“Hey!” Jacob shouted, clearly not amused. “Get out of here, Quil!”

 

“Going, going!” Quil laughed, holding up his hands placatingly now as he backed away. He glanced at me one more time and – I couldn’t believe his audacity – actually winked at me. Then he turned tail and ran out into the sunlight, laughing, just as Jake took a threatening step in his direction.

 

Jacob snorted, watching his friend disappear up the worn path leading out from the pool area before turning back to me. “Sorry,” he mumbled, pushing a hand through his hair as he walked back over to me. I felt an unreasonable amount of disappointment when he stopped with several feet still separating us. “He just… They don’t… get it,” he said lamely, then blurted, “And that stuff about having to watch out for me- It’s not-”

 

“I assumed he was just teasing you,” I said, smiling slightly, though I could still feel the blush on my face. Jake blinked, then tentatively returned my smile. I cleared my throat, looking away again. “People are… a lot more comfortable with nudity here, aren’t they?”

 

“Well, yeah… I guess so,” Jake replied, shifting his weight awkwardly. “I mean, it sorta goes with the territory when you’re a Shifter. You either lose your clothes before the transformation or during,” he said with a shrug.

 

I peeked up at him shyly, standing in front of me in nothing but a pair of leather trousers, no shoes or shirt, and yet perfectly at ease. I had stopped even noticing the way he dressed sometime in the last few days, I realized. Back home, his clothes would have been considered outrageously lacking, immodest, indecent even. But here, on him, it was absolutely normal, completely natural. Part of being a Shifter. Part of who he was.

 

“I didn’t mean to imply that… that you’d done something wrong earlier,” I said suddenly, my mouth working without my permission again. But the words needed to be said – I couldn’t stand this distance between us. “It’s just…”

 

Jake’s eyes tightened, something almost like a smile twisting his lips, though it was bittersweet at best. “You don’t have to worry about it, princess,” he said. “I get it. I’ll be more careful of your… boundaries… in the future.”

 

I looked up at him, feeling dissatisfied in a way that I couldn’t even begin to explain. It wasn’t as if I wanted to be around him like that. It was inappropriate, wrong. Absolutely so.

 

But I didn’t want him to be so far away.

“Anyway. Lemme show you where the towels are,” Jake said, avoiding my eyes as he stepped around me. I opened my mouth to stop him, but couldn’t find anything more to say, and so, silently, followed him across the patio.

 

He showed me the cabinets carved into the wall of the hill, stocked alternately with clean, soft towels and with a variety of soaps and lotions, and suggested I could change in the now vacant sauna if I needed a little more privacy – though, as Jake put it, “You might wanna let the Quil b.o. air out a little before going in there.”

 

I blushed all over again at that and gratefully accepted the towel Jake held out to me, glad to hide my flaming face behind it.

 

“Well…” he said then, drawing the ‘L’ sound out.

 

I looked up, a jolt going through me, a realization. “You’re leaving?”

 

Jake blinked down at me in surprise, frozen with one hand pushed halfway through his hair. “Well… yeah.”

 

My cheeks, impossibly, reddened further. “I- I mean-”

 

He smiled then, dropping his hand, and, sending a thrill through me, finally stepped closer. “It’s okay, you’re safe here. I won’t be far, just up that trail a little ways,” he told me, pointing behind me in the direction Quil had gone a short while ago.

 

“That- That wasn’t what I meant-” I started – but then, what did I mean? Jacob obviously couldn’t stay here while I bathed. I had to resist the urge to bury my face in my towel again, sure my cheeks would be permanently dyed red after all this. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to sort out my thoughts. He had to leave, obviously, but I didn’t want… what? I couldn’t even say.

 

It wasn’t that I was afraid for my safety, but rather, I was afraid of the canyon that had opened up between us, afraid of losing the little bit of ground I had gained back in the last few minutes. I was afraid of the distance between us widening, of the ache in the center of my chest building, pulling on me, driving me insane with the need to see Jacob, to be near him, to know his thoughts and his feelings and his very soul like my own-

 

My eyes flew open, bringing those thoughts to a screeching halt, and I said the first thing that came to my mind, the only thing that made any sense anymore: “Thank you.”

 

Jake stared at me, and I took a breath, grounding myself back in reality. “Thank you,” I said again, trying to smile up at him, “for everything you’ve done for me. It… it means so much to me that… that you care.” The steel cable attached to my sternum seemed to quiver, as if reacting to the deficiency in my words.

 

I did my best to ignore it and the flurry of strange, confusing thoughts that seemed to go hand in hand with it, looking up to meet Jacob’s gaze.

 

His eyes softened when they met mine, and he took half a step forward, the chasm shrinking with the movement. “You don’t have to thank me,” he said gently, shaking his head slightly as he looked down at me. “It’s because I, uh… care about you.”

 

I smiled up at him, his words warming me even as I felt another tug in my chest, the cable thrumming almost impatiently. I ignored it.

 

“Well,” Jake said again, straightening up but not backing away, for which I was glad, “I guess I’ll give you some privacy now.” He gestured again to the path leading out and around the side of the hill. “I’ll be in the kitchen up that way. I can smell them cooking breakfast already,” he added, grinning. “Just head up there when you’re done. I’ll keep an ear out for you.”

 

“Alright,” I nodded, returning his smile tentatively. He wasn’t pulling away anymore; things almost felt like they were back to normal, back to the easy comfort of the previous few days.

 

Jake started to step away then, but paused, looking suddenly like he wanted to say more. He looked down at me, his eyes intense, and seemed to lean infinitesimally forward. I held his gaze, transfixed, something in me clenching in anticipation, breathless – but then he caught himself, took a step back, dropped his gaze. “I’ll see you in a bit then, princess,” he said, his voice rough, and before I could say a word in response, he had stepped around me and out into the sunlight, all but fleeing away up the hillside.

 

I stood staring after him for several long moments, confused and somehow bereft, wondering what I had been waiting for, why it felt like such a loss that it had been denied me.

 

I watched Jacob’s receding back until he disappeared from view, feeling the chasm between us yawn wider with his every step.

 

 

---

 

 

Jacob

 

…Because he cared about her.

 

Because he cared about her?!

 

Jacob grit his teeth, grimacing as he climbed the path up to the kitchen on the other side of the hill. That had to be the understatement of the year. Of the century. Ever.

 

Yeah, he cared about her. Like the earth cared about sunlight. Or, no… Like… fish… cared about… water…? He couldn’t think of a strong enough comparison, but it went a hell of a lot further than just caring!

 

He would literally sell his soul, feed himself to the Volturi, anything at all, if it meant making life even a little better for her.

 

Groaning to himself, he was only somewhat relieved to see the kitchen area coming into view up ahead. Quil and Emrby’s scents were laid out along the path at his feet and wisps of his father reached him now too, carried on the breeze and the thin column of smoke rising from chimney above the kitchen. And overlaying them all, of course, was the smell of frying bacon.

 

It was nothing to Renesmee’s scent, of course, he thought, though his stomach did rumble appreciatively at the smell of the breakfast meat. He could hear her back at the pool, just like he’d told her, her soft footfalls padding across the stones, the rustle of fabric and then quiet ripple of water as she-

 

He cut that thought off right there. He’d already violated her trust enough that morning, he didn’t need to keep on doing it in his head too.

 

Not that he’d actually seen anything – and not that he’d been trying to see anything! She had been perfectly covered up last night, snug as a bug in a rug, warm and safe and, if not actually happy, then at least no longer frightened.

 

And then he had to go and mess it all up.

 

He should have known better. He did know better! Billy hadn’t spent years forcing him to sit still and study so he could just forget it all the moment he got a little worked up. If he hadn’t been so crazed and worried about her, consumed with the need to know that she was alright, that she was safe, that no one could get to her, then he wouldn’t have lost his head like that last night. He wouldn’t have crossed the line, invaded her personal space, violated her sense of modesty, of morality…

 

Cullens didn’t touch. At all. At least, not like that, not outside of marriage, or family ties. He’d seen the easy affection between her relatives when he was in their home, the way they all clustered around her, hugging and holding and all the other things he wanted to be able to do. That he had been able to do, he thought guiltily, when they were traveling and she was frightened and he needed to protect her. But not like this morning. Not holding her just for the sake of feeling her in his arms. He didn’t have that right. Much as the thought rankled, he wasn’t her family.

 

He’d wanted to kiss her back there.

 

Not… not on the lips. Not in any kind of romantic, or sexual way. Even in his weaker moments, he could never think of her like that, would never soil her with such selfish, lust-driven thoughts.

 

The urge had actually been to kiss the top of her head, or her forehead. That general region. And it wasn’t a desire to lay some sort of claim on her. As if he could. No, it was simply the need to show her his affection, his devotion, especially when they were about to be separated. It felt almost like he was swearing his fealty to her, reaffirming all his previous promises and promising anew that they wouldn’t be apart long, that he would always, always be there for her, for whatever she needed.

 

He blew out a breath, slowing his pace as he neared the entrance to the kitchen and rubbing his knuckles against the ache building in his chest, their connection pulling tight behind him, imploring him to return to her side. The warmth and familiar smells wafting out through the doorway in front of him somehow had less hold on him than they used to, spoke less of home than the quiet sounds of splashing from down the hill seemed to.

 

Nessie was his home now. She was his world, his everything, and he would do whatever he had to to protect her. Even from himself, from his own thoughtlessness. He couldn’t let the events of that morning repeat themselves. He wouldn’t. He had to think before he acted, before he spoke. Had to keep a tight leash on his self-control, on urges like what he’d experienced by the pool. He would remember everything he’d ever learned about the Cullens and their way of life, and he would make sure to keep a safe distance between them, for her sake.

 

“You planning on standing outside all day?” a voice asked, jolting him from his thoughts, and Jake looked up to find Embry grinning at him from the doorway of the kitchen. They had heard him coming, of course.

 

“Just bracing myself for your charming company again,” he replied sarcastically, stepping up and pushing past the other man into the kitchen. Embry whacked his shoulder as he passed, but laughed, shaking his head.

 

“Jake,” his father greeted him, looking up from the pan of bacon frying in front of him and waving once with the spatula he held.

 

“Heya, Pop,” he replied, sliding into a seat at the big wooden table across the room. Quil was already there, hunched over a plate piled high with bacon and sausage patties, and Embry sidled up after him, taking the chair on his other side.

 

The kitchen seemed smaller than he remembered it. Not cozy or homey, not like the memories he had of playing with his sisters here, just… constricted. Narrow. Almost crowded.

 

It wasn’t actually a small room, he supposed, but it felt a little like the walls were closing in on him right then, like the high ceiling was about to crash down on his head. Half of the room was taken up by the long wood table where he sat, and the other half with counters and ovens and a set of wood-burning stoves over which Billy now stood, flipping bacon and lumps of sausage in the enormous skillet to feed the three hungry young wolves behind him.

 

Jake helped himself to some bacon, pulling a handful off the large platter in the center of the table and onto the plate that had been set out for him, keeping one eye on Billy the whole time. He was glad to see his dad up and walking around – or limping around, he supposed, noting the cane that was leaning against the cabinet next to the stove. Limping was better than nothing, though. He remembered some days when he was a kid when Billy could barely even haul himself out of bed, the pain both remembered and current too much for him to bear, weighing too heavily on him to go about his usual routines. So yes. Limping days were good.

 

“So what brings you boys out here?” Billy asked, turning from the stove to shovel some more meat onto the big platter. “These two have been trying to very casually evade all of my questions,” he told Jake, gesturing with his spatula at Quil and Embry, who didn’t look up from their plates. “You’re not all playing hooky, are you?” he asked, his tone reproving but his grinning eyes giving him away.

 

“Not that I would blame you,” he added then,  turning back to the stove and leaning down stiffly to check the fire. “That was some assignment Sam sent you on… I assume everything went without a hitch though, right, Jake?”

 

“Do we have any fruit?” Jacob asked suddenly, starting to push away from the table, his own food forgotten.

 

Billy blinked at him, caught off guard by the sudden subject change. “Fruit?”

 

“Or, um, bread? Cheese?” At his father’s blank look, he sighed. “Anything not meat?”

 

“You got something against meat now?” Billy asked quizzically, his brows knitting slightly.

 

“Jake-” Embry started, his tone urgent and placating at once.

 

“It’s not for me,” Jake continued, looking at his father and shaking his head. “Nessie doesn’t eat meat.

 

He felt Embry wince beside him, and Quil stopped chewing on his other side, looking up at last. There was a beat of silence.

 

“Who’s Nessie?” Billy asked, his brows drawing together in confusion. And then, his voice lowering, wisps of suspicion beginning to creep into his tone, “And why doesn’t she eat meat?”

 

Jacob met his father’s gaze, his mouth pressed into a hard line. “Because she’s a vegetarian.”

 

Billy stared at him, looking like he didn’t want to believe the realization that was dawning in his eyes. “I thought- Sam had made arrangements for her. At the Summit.”

 

He couldn’t help the growl that rumbled up from his throat, his mind going unwillingly back to last night. “Yeah, he did,” Jake said tightly.

 

Billy frowned. Jake had essentially just confirmed who they were talking about. “So what is she doing here then?” he demanded, bracing himself with one hand on the edge of the table.

 

“Jake,” Embry tried again, “we should really have that talk-”

 

“Because I didn’t like Sam’s ‘arrangements’ for her,” Jake growled, talking over his friend, glaring up at his father’s increasingly stormy expression.

 

Billy’s eyes widened slightly at that. “Who are you to decide-” he sputtered. “You gave up that right-”

 

“I know!” Jake snapped, then took a breath, forcing himself to calm down. “But this is different,” he said, his voice quieter but no less angry.

 

“How?” Billy asked. “Just because Sam had you go get her doesn’t mean you have some kind of say over her.”

 

Jacob opened his mouth to tell his father exactly what kind of say he had in Nessie’s welfare, but then stopped himself, biting the words off before they could escape. Sam had told him not to tell anyone else about it. Quil and Embry had figured it out on their own, but Billy didn’t know. And he didn’t need to know.

 

Not to mention… Given his friends’ reactions last night, he knew where Billy’s thoughts would immediately go if he found out about the imprint. Just now, without even knowing the whole truth of the situation, he’d come dangerously close to dredging up that old fight of theirs. Most of the time, they could both keep those events from three years ago happily swept under the rug, out of sight and out of mind. But this… This would be just the fodder Billy needed to start his argument all over again. And Jake did not want to deal with that right now.

 

“That’s actually what we came to talk to Jake about,” Embry jumped in, taking advantage of Jacob’s silence to address Billy.

 

“Yeah,” Quil agreed, following Embry’s lead. “I mean, Sam’s pissed at him, but it’s all cool…”

 

Billy looked between the other two for a moment and then settled a glare on his son.

 

“Thanks so much, guys,” Jake grumbled, scowling and sinking down in his chair. And that was when he realized – he couldn’t hear any splashing coming up from the pool anymore. He instantly pushed himself away from the table, muttering a quick “‘Scuse me,” as he leapt up. Billy tried to call after him, saying they weren’t done yet, but Jake ignored him, already out the door and jogging back down the hill.

 

He wanted to kick himself. How could he get so caught up in a petty argument with his father like that? He just couldn’t help himself when Nessie was involved… Any threat to her, real or not, was enough to set him off. But he shouldn’t have let it get to him – he’d been so distracted he’d very nearly forgotten to listen for her like he’d promised.

 

He rounded a bend in the trail, and then there she was.

 

The sight of her nearly knocked him off his feet, as always. Nessie looked up at his approach, her eyes widening and a tentative, beautiful smile spreading across her lips, and was it just him or did she start walking a little bit faster up the path toward him? He met her halfway, running the last few yards and skidding to a stop in front of her. The connection between them hummed and warmed, pulling on his sternum, urging him closer. It was like all the tension and anger of the last few minutes had never happened. This was right. This was where he was supposed to be, how they should be, together, always.

 

He managed to stop himself before he reached for her hand, or hugged her, or otherwise invaded her space, though he did let himself look her over, unable to resist.

 

Her hair hung around her shoulders in shining, wet curls that seemed to glisten in the sunlight, setting off the pale shimmer in her skin wherever the sun touched her. The dress she’d picked out hugged her figure perfectly, neither too tight or too loose, accentuating the easy, natural grace with which she carried herself. Her red hair stood out against the green of the dress, bright and riotous, a flame in the forest depths.

 

“You look amazing,” Jacob murmured fervently.

 

She instantly turned pink, the bright blush blossoming across her face and spreading to her neck, forehead, and even the tips of her ears. “Uh- Thank you.”

 

Damn, was that over the line? He wasn’t sure. He’d said something similar when she’d first emerged from his room in her new clothes, and she hadn’t seemed to mind then… but maybe she was just being nice. What if she just didn’t have the heart to tell him when he’d overstepped his bounds? Hell, she’d just laid there in bed earlier with him hanging all over her… He’d been too mesmerized by her beauty, by her smell and the feel of her in his arms, to even realize what he was doing, until she’d had to tell him – gently, shyly, as if she was afraid of his reaction… As if he could be angry at her, as if he could be anything but disgusted and horrified with himself…

 

He shook his head, pulling himself back into the present. “Do you want some breakfast?” he asked, hoping the subject change would help him get control of himself. “They were just cooking a bunch of meat when I was up there, but we can find something vegetarian for you.”

 

“That sounds wonderful,” Nessie smiled up at him, her cheeks still stained pink. He tried to will himself to take a step back from her, to give her more space, and failed.

 

“Okay, well… It’s just up this way,” he said awkwardly, turning to lead the way back up the path, but Nessie’s voice stopped him.

 

“Aren’t you going to offer me your arm?” she asked suddenly. Her tone was semi-teasing and she was smiling slightly when he looked back down at her.

 

Jake blinked. “Right. Sorry,” he said, and held his arm out for her. He could’ve smacked himself upside the head for that one. First he was too touchy, and now he was being neglectful, leaving a lady, a princess to fend for herself. She must think he was a complete barbarian. Not a gentleman like in her kingdom.

 

Nessie slipped her hand into his elbow with a smile and what sounded very much like a quiet sigh, her fingers squeezing slightly and her little fingernails scratching very lightly across his skin. It took all his self-control not to shiver as the contact sent a delicious tremor through him. Gods, he was pathetic.

 

Quil and Embry were waiting for them outside the kitchen when they crested the hill, Embry standing with his arms folded and Quil leaning casually back against the wall next to the doorway, both watching intently as they approached. Jacob could hear Billy still inside, dishes clattering together angrily on the stove and tabletop.

 

"Mornin', princess!" Quil called, all but leering at her, and Nessie turned pink all over again, frowning and shifting closer to Jacob. Embry rolled his eyes and Jake growled at Quil, who just grinned unrepentantly.

"Come on," Jacob said to Nessie, shooting a glare at his still-grinning friend. "Let's see if we can find something for you to eat…"

Embry stepped forward, stopping him with a hand on his arm as they passed him. "We've really gotta talk, Jake."

Jacob felt himself frown further, but nodded once. It seemed wrong, downright unfair, to be separated from Ness again right after being reunited with her, no matter how short the time apart was. But Embry was right – they needed to sort this stuff out, to clear up what his friends thought they knew and kill whatever stupid assumptions they'd made about… about imprinting.

"Just let me get Ness taken care of first. Then I'll be right out," he grumbled, ignoring the curious, concerned look Nessie sent them as he ushered her inside.

Billy didn't look up from the leftover meat he was wrapping for later use when they entered the kitchen, but Ness stopped in the middle of the room, staring at the old man and refusing to go when Jake tried to steer her toward a seat at the table.

"Is that your father?" she whispered, looking up at him. He nodded, and her eyes widened, showing how important this was to her. "I can't just sit here without being introduced to him, Jake! Would you? Please?"

"I don't think…" he started, glancing between his father's back and Nessie's wide, pleading eyes. He sighed. How could he say no to her? "Alright… Hey, Pop!" he said loudly, his voice rougher now than it had been when he said those same words not fifteen minutes earlier. "I've got someone I want you to meet."

Billy seemed to sag at Jake's words, bracing his arms straight out against the countertop and letting his head hang forward. He stood like that for a second, then let out a sigh and pushed away, pivoting around on his good leg to face them. He kept his eyes trained on his son's face, though, not looking once down at Nessie. Jacob grit his teeth, telling himself he wasn't going to get angry again.

"Dad," he said, his voice coming out clipped and tight, "this is Nessie. Princess Renesmee. Cullen."

Billy's mouth pressed down into a thin line and he still didn't look at her.

"It's so nice to meet you," Nessie said then, releasing his arm to take a step forward, one hand held out toward Billy. "Jacob's told me so much about you."

Finally, Billy tore his eyes away from Jacob's to look down at her and then at the hand she had extended toward him.

Come on, Dad, Jacob thought, watching his father tensely. He'd told Nessie his father wasn't like the others, like Sam and the people who had stood by while she was tormented last night. He'd told her Billy wouldn't, couldn't hate her, not like them, without even knowing her… Come on, don't make me a liar.

Billy looked down at Nessie's tiny, pale hand, and then into her eyes, which Jacob knew would be looking up at him wide and sincere, the warm brown depths pleading for the old man to just give her a chance, to see how wonderful and amazing and breathtaking she was…

Or maybe those were just Jacob’s own thoughts.

Very slowly, Billy raised one of his toughened old hands from where it had been supporting him against the countertop. Carefully, as if he expected her touch to burn him, he reached forward and grasped Nessie's hand in his. "Nice to meet you too," he said gruffly.

Nessie smiled, and Jake felt himself relax just at the sight of it. "Thank you," she said quietly, letting her hand return to her side when his father released it. Billy nodded vaguely, looking wary and a little surprised but no longer hostile.

 

“Lemme go see what we've got to eat here," Jake said to Nessie, nudging her toward the table and chairs again and shooting Billy a small, grateful smile over the top of her head. His father just blinked back at him, looking confused and more than a little disgruntled.

 

As Nessie scooted into the first chair at the table, Jake crossed the room to the doorway of the pantry set into the back wall of the kitchen. There was a disappointing amount of dried meat stacked on the shelves there – disappointing in that moment because there was so much of it. Any other time, he would have happily helped himself to the jerky and venison his father had stored up, but not right then, not when he was on a mission for Nessie.

Being a Shifter, Jake could live on an almost purely carnivorous diet. His father couldn’t, though, since he was what many people called a 'two-leg.' It wasn’t exactly a demeaning term, but it also wasn’t a real complimentary way of speaking of regular people, non-Shifters, who couldn't take to four legs whenever they liked. Sometimes, in fact, his ailing father seemed more like a one-leg, one and a half tops, but that was beside the point… The point was, he had to eat bread and fruit and vegetables, more than Jake did. He had to have something here that Nessie could eat.

He scoured the shelves, skipping over the stacks of salted pork, fowl, beef jerky… Billy might technically be a two-legger, but he still loved meat as much as the next wolf. And this was just the dried stuff, not even the fresh cuts like the bacon and sausage he'd been cooking up this morning. At last, in the very back corner of the deep pantry, he found several loaves of bread, some jars of fruit preserves, and a few crates of vegetables.

 

One of the loaves had spoiled, the sour smell of the mold making him wrinkle his nose in distaste, but the others still seemed fine, so he grabbed one along with a jar of strawberries, remembering how much Ness had enjoyed spreading jam on her bread when they were on the road. If only they had some of that peanut butter stuff she liked… But the little jar her family had sent with her was still in the saddlebags with the rest of her belongings back at the Summit, assuming none of Sam’s lackeys had nosed through her stuff and eaten it.

 

The thought of anyone going through her things like that was enough to send a tremor down his spine. He had to remind himself not to crush the jar of preserves and loaf of bread in his hands.

 

He got himself under control and went back out into the kitchen, setting the bread and jam on the table in front of Nessie before going to grab a clean plate and knife for her. “Sorry, I know it’s not much,” he mumbled, handing her the dishes.

 

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” she said, smiling and shaking her head at him as she set the dishes down and popped open the jar of strawberry preserves. Her eyes lit when she saw what was inside, and she looked back up at him, her smile turning soft and grateful. “Thank you, Jacob.”

 

Jake felt his cheeks heat slightly at her gratitude, and he straightened up from the table, running a hand through his hair. “Well, I, uh… I guess I’ll leave you to eat then… Quil and Embry really need to talk to me, so…”

 

“Are you going to be gone long?” Nessie asked, looking up from the bread she was slicing, her eyes suddenly wide and almost fearful.

 

Jake blinked, surprised. Could she be feeling the separation as sharply as him? “I’ll… I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said hesitantly, wanting to reassure her but not wanting to promise anything he couldn’t make good on. Embry seemed pretty serious about all this stuff, so he couldn’t say how long it would take to hash is all out… “Okay?”

 

Nessie bit her lip slightly, still looking nervous, but nodded. “Okay.”

 

Jake sighed, taking one last look at her before  turning to make his way outside, but then paused next to his father. “Hey, will you stay with her? Until I get back, I mean?” he asked quietly, drawing a frown from the older man. “I just… I don’t want her to be alone…”

 

Billy pursed his lips, looking reluctant and disapproving, but dropped Jake’s gaze without argument. “Fine. But she had better not try to bite me.”

 

Jacob felt a flash anger jolt through him, straight down his spine. “She’s not-” he started furiously, but cut himself off when Nessie looked up at them, her brows rising in concern. “I told you,” he continued in a quieter, more even tone, “she’s a vegetarian. And an amazing, wonderful person, if you’d let go of your prejudice long enough to get to know her at all,” he added, all but spitting out the last part, and turned to stalk out of the kitchen.

 

Quil and Embry were waiting for him when he emerged. Jake looked between the two of them somberly, still feeling the aftershocks of the clash with his father. “Alright,” he grumbled, stepping forward to lead the way out into the sunlight. “Let’s get this over with…”

 

 

 

Chapter 11 – Conversations with Werewolves

 

Jacob

 

They took the path back down the hill and through the pool area, retracing his and Nessie’s steps and reentering the den from the back entrance. Her scent still hung in the air there and clung to the stones around the pool, sweet and heart-wrenching in her absence, as always enticing him to turn around and run back to her. That urge was no easier to withstand now than it had been any other time over the last few days, but he at least tried to console himself that she was in good hands with Billy.

 

Jake couldn’t help noticing as they passed through the bathing area that Ness seemed to have done everything she could to clean up any trace of herself that she might have left behind. The soaps he’d gotten out for her had all been put back in their cupboards, and her towel – and the one Quil had left on the ground too, he noted – had been neatly hung up to dry on the racks protruding from the wall by the pool.  There were no puddles or drips on the stones, and the warm spring morning had already dried whatever little wet footprints she might have left. If not for her scent, you wouldn’t have even known she was ever there.

 

Embry led the way inside from the pool, he and Quil both knowing the den’s hallways like the backs of their hands, or the insides of their packbrothers’ heads. They’d easily spent just as much time here as at their own homes as children. The three of them had always been tearing through the halls together, laying ill-conceived traps for Jake’s sisters, daring each other to climb higher, swim deeper, race faster through the forest… It felt like they’d lived entire lifetimes here, each summer evening and winter morning stretching out into adventure after adventure. The memories dogged their steps now, following them down the familiar corridors and overlaying their current sobriety with incongruous laughter and light.

 

It was no surprise when Embry made the turn into the dusty old passageway on one of the deepest levels of the den, leading them into a section of rooms that had been boarded up since before they were born. As boys, they had been spellbound by the dark, silent rooms in the abandoned levels of the old burrow, and had spent long days underground exploring them. They had broken doors down and smashed locks, always with one of them keeping watch for Billy or the girls, ready to scamper into the nearest hiding spot and hold still until the coast was clear.

 

They made their way back to the farthest room at the very end of the winding, carved out hallway, as they had done so many times before as boys. This particular office was on the crystal side of the hill, and though they were well underground, enough light still filtered down through the translucent veins of stone to allow them to see dimly. They each took up their old places around the edge of the room, sitting on top of ancient desks and cabinets, kicking up clouds of dust as they moved, habit still strong though they hadn’t been down there in years.

 

They had sat here, just like this, for hours on end sometimes, basking in the easy sort of friendship where conversation alone could pass for entertainment. The conversation of boys, of course, had often consisted of conspiring together about whatever hell they could raise for their families or what trouble they could get into with the other children who lived in the area. They had also come here to share the artifacts and documents they’d unearthed in the many tomblike chambers below the den, always returning to this room like it was a true base of operations, picking through the relics and bits of history as they snacked on their secret stores of fruit and jerky they’d nicked from the kitchen pantry and squirreled away here.

 

Most of all, they had sat here across from one another and vowed that they would all grow up to be Shifters together. They would be true brothers then, not just friends, foster brothers, playmates, but inseparable, indestructible, as everlasting and strong as the Packmind itself…

 

In all those times, it had never felt like they were squaring off against him before.

 

Jake folded his arms over his chest and leaned back into the wall, already defensive. “Alright,” he grumbled, “let’s hear it.”

 

 

---

 

 

Renesmee

 

I could only stare down at the plate in front of me after Jacob left, frozen in my seat with a slice of bread halfway to my mouth. ‘An amazing, wonderful person.’ That’s what he’d said of me. If his father could just let go of his prejudice long enough to get to know me.

 

That was… very flattering. And a lot to live up to.

 

And, touched as I was by Jacob’s high opinion of me, it probably hadn’t done much to endear me to his father. Telling someone they’re a bigot and that they should befriend the object of their hate was rarely an effective way of getting into their good graces.

 

I peeked up at the old man, trying to use my slice of bread as cover. He was leaning back against the edge of the countertop and glaring hard at the stone floor by his feet, but not at me, so I supposed that was good at least. Still… It hadn’t escaped my notice that he couldn’t seem to look at me at all earlier, glaring or otherwise.

 

He didn’t want me here.

 

I forced myself to resume eating, but slowly, doing my best to act normal and not like I was some foreigner who had just crash landed in his kitchen. It wasn’t as if I really had any choice in the matter… But maybe I could try to seem a little less like a stranger.

 

I swallowed my bite of bread and jam and glanced up at Billy again. He hadn’t moved. I willed my voice not to shake. “Jacob speaks very highly of you, B- uh, Mister Black.”

 

I saw his jaw clench for a second, and then his dark, deep-set eyes flickered up to meet my gaze. They were the exact same shade of brown-black as Jacob’s, but held none of his son’s warmth.

 

“Is that so.”

 

It wasn’t a question – more like an intentional conversation stopper. I swallowed, holding my bread in both of my hands. Alright, so he wasn’t going to make this easy for me. “He said you’re a… carpenter?” I hadn’t meant for it to come out sounding like a question, but my voice had tripped up at the very end. His glare was a lot more intimidating than I’d expected.

 

I had to suppress the thought of how similar Billy’s glare was to Sam’s.

 

Billy didn’t reply to me, but simply folded his arms over his chest, locking one knee to put all of his weight on it and bracing his back against the counter. Now that he was looking – scowling – at me, it seemed he wasn’t going to turn away again.

 

“Did- did you make a lot of the furniture here?” I asked, attempting polite interest. “I thought the pieces in Jacob’s room were particularly beautifully carved…”

 

Billy’s eyebrows went up and I felt my cheeks flame, realizing how that sounded.

 

“I-I mean- last night,” I stuttered out. “It was just so late… And I- I guess Jacob didn’t want to- to take the time to, uh, find me my own room, or-”

 

Billy just kept staring at me. I thought I saw white beginning to show all the way around his irises.

 

I could have slept in his sisters’ old room, it occurred to me. Or Jake could have slept somewhere else. But somehow either of those options seemed to defeat the purpose, though I couldn’t quite say what that purpose was…

 

“We were just so tired, after everything that happened yesterday,” I pressed on, feeling my voice rising higher as I babbled. “And I- Nothing happened!” I finished, the last words coming out in a frantic squeak.

 

Billy stood completely motionless, staring at me, his mouth hanging open the smallest bit. When he spoke, it was with an expression very much like outrage.

 

“Just what kind of relationship do you have with my son?” he demanded, staring me down with dark, intense eyes.

 

I shrank back in my seat, feeling very small under the weight of that gaze. “I… I don’t know.”

 

His eyes narrowed. “You don’t know.” Again, he didn’t phrase it as a question, though this time it seemed out of simple contempt rather than a pointed insinuation that I should stop talking. I swallowed and tried to hold his gaze.

 

“I don’t know,” I said again. “He… He protects me. Has protected me. Since we left my home. But I- I haven’t asked him to. I haven’t asked him for anything, I swear,” I said, the last coming out in a rush. “He just… does. He takes care of me, even when I don’t expect him to… when he doesn’t have to.”

 

I drew a breath, feeling a little steadier now that the words were out. Billy was still watching me closely, though some of the hostility seemed to have gone out of his expression, if begrudgingly.

 

“He’s my friend,” I said, trying in vain to sum up our relationship in a word. The word tasted bitter and lame in my mouth. Inadequate.

 

Billy was silent for a long moment, looking pensive and suspicious as he studied me, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet, deep, and mistrustful. “Something tells me,” he said, dark eyes pinning me in place, “there’s a lot more going on here than just friendship.”

 

I shivered, not sure I wanted to hear the answer but unable to keep from asking. “What do you mean?”

 

 

---

 

 

Jacob

 

“You imprinted on her,” Embry said.

 

Jake glanced at him and away again, leveling a scowl at some dust bunnies by his toe. “Yeah. So?”

 

“So,” Quil said, drawing the single syllable out longer than was necessary, “that means you’re supposed to be the Alpha now.”

 

Jacob grimaced, folding his arms tighter around himself. “No it doesn’t.”

 

“C’mon, Jake,” Quil said, sitting up. He had been sprawled on his side on the desk across the room. “Imprinting is the one sure sign of being the Alpha. Everybody knows that.”

 

“What about being a Shifter?” Jacob growled petulantly, glaring at him. “That’s a sign too.”

 

“You ­are a Shifter!”

 

“But Billy’s not!” Jake replied, waving a hand vaguely to take in the rest of the den and the kitchen where they’d left his father and Nessie. “It’s never skipped a generation like that before!”

 

“How do you know?” Quil shot back, just as Embry stepped in to speak again.

 

“Look, it’s not always just cut and dry like that, Jake,” the tall, lanky wolf said, leaning back against a sturdy filing cabinet. “We’ve all studied the histories, maybe not as obsessively as you, but well enough. It doesn’t always go in a straight line like that – sometimes it wasn’t the oldest son like everyone expected, even if he was a Shifter. Sometimes it was the secondborn, or even the youngest.”

 

“But it was always one of the Alpha’s children – which I’m not!”

 

Embry frowned at him. “Jake-”

 

“It’s not complicated, guys,” Jacob said snidely, and then continued as if he were explaining something very simple to a very stupid child. “See, you have the Alpha, and then you have his kid, and then that kid is the next Alpha-”

 

“We know how it works, Jake,” Quil cut him off, rolling his eyes. “But you know what else isn’t really complicated – that the Alpha has always been a Black, as far back as anyone can remember or any of the history books go.”

 

“Not anymore,” Jake said stubbornly. “Sam’s the Alpha now.”

 

“You weren’t so sure about that three years ago!”

 

Jacob bristled, his eyes blazing furiously. “I didn’t want it three years ago, and I don’t want it now!” he yelled.

 

The other two recoiled instinctively from his sudden rage, Embry’s hands flying up as if to hold him off, and then staying there in a placating gesture.

 

“Calm down, Jake,” he said. “We’re not saying you did the wrong thing then. But this is about more than just what you want now…”

 

“Oh really? So I guess I just imagined all the times you guys said I should rush off and declare myself king now?” Jake asked sarcastically.

 

“Would you get your head out of your ass and listen,” Quil snapped, glaring at him. Jacob blinked, startled, and then slouched back against the wall, his cheeks flushing slightly.

 

Embry pursed his lips and then continued, taking Jacob’s silence for the acquiescence that it was. “This isn’t just about you anymore, Jake,” he reiterated, his tone even and firm in the new quiet of the room. “It’s about Nessie too.”

 

Jacob frowned up at him. “What are you talking about?”

 

“As your imprint-”

 

He could literally feel his expression blacken. “Don’t you dare try to drag her into this political crap-” he snarled, as Quil growled at him for interrupting again.

 

“She’s part of this, Jake,” Embry insisted, “whether you like it or not. There are people who don’t want you to be the Alpha-”

 

“Yeah, I’m one of them!”

 

“Shut up, Jacob!” Quil snarled.

 

“-And they’d do anything to stop that from happening, even if it means the death of an innocent girl!”

 

Jacob stilled, something in his core going cold. “What?”

 

“Think about it, Jake,” Embry said. “She’s your proof.”

 

“My proof,” Jacob repeated, staring up at him.

 

“All they’d have to do is get rid of her, and then no one would be the wiser,” Quil said, his tone somber. Jake’s gaze cut over to him, feeling something dark and panicky gathering in his chest, right around the cord that connected him to Nessie.

 

“You saw what she did out on the road yesterday,” Embry said, pulling Jake’s eyes back over to him. “That bloodsucker had her by the throat, and then the next second he’s gone.”

 

“The imprint’s manifesting already,” Jake murmured numbly, a hundred different history lessons on this topic whizzing through his head at once. He’d been too messed up after fighting the she-devil to figure out what had happened, and then he hadn’t wanted to figure it out. The others had pulled his mind along with them as they carefully tiptoed around the issue, afraid to even think about thinking it while in their wolf forms.

 

Embry nodded. “Other people might start to see it soon too. And plus the way you act around her…”

 

“What do you mean how I act around her?” Jake asked, shaking himself back into focus and trying to ignore the sense of dread pooling in the pit of his stomach. He cringed at the incredulous looks they gave him. “It’s that obvious?”

 

Quil and Embry exchanged a glance and then answered at the same time: “Yes!”

 

“It’s not hard to see what’s going on between the two of you, Jake,” Embry continued. “If the wrong people found out…”

 

“If Sam found out,” Quil added, giving Embry a significant look. The other nodded.

 

Jacob frowned, sitting up a little straighter. “Sam already knows.”

 

 

---

 

 

Renesmee

 

Billy didn’t answer my question right away. He stared down at me hard, a small frown crinkling his weathered face, and seemed to be taking in every little detail of my expression, carefully weighing my reaction to his previous words. Several seconds passed and then, almost imperceptibly, something in his eyes softened. 

 

“I’ve never seen Jacob act like that before,” he said at last, his voice quiet, looking away and shaking his head. “The way he is around you… He’s courted girls before, but never…” He blinked, seeming to catch himself, and slanted a look back up at me, his lips pressing once more into a flat, unhappy line.

 

I don’t know how I found the breath to speak, but the words somehow came out regardless of my shock. “You think… Jacob is courting me?”

 

“No,” Billy said emphatically, his brows pulling low over his eyes once more as he seemed to hunch into himself, defensive. I swallowed; that stung for some reason.

 

“I don’t know what went on between the two of you the last few days,” he continued after a moment, his voice stern and disapproving, “or what you did to make him so attached to you-”

 

“I didn’t do anything!” I insisted, my vehemence leading me to forget my manners and interrupt him.

 

He frowned at me. “Maybe not intentionally,” he admitted gruffly, “but it doesn’t matter. You’re going to ruin him just by being here.”

 

That hurt. I gasped, the ache I hadn’t noticed building in my chest suddenly flaring sharply at those words. “What?”

 

“Jacob is a Shifter. But you have no idea what that means, do you?”

 

“It means he can change-” I began, but he cut me off, shaking his head.

 

“It’s more than that, girl,” he said roughly. “It’s a position. A job. A life. And you could ruin it all for him. Look at you.” He raised one hand to wave vaguely at me, but then let it fall, meeting my confused gaze with hard eyes. “I suppose you’re considered a great beauty among your people,” he said, and my confusion only grew.

 

“I… I don’t know.” I supposed I was pretty enough, but I had never really paid much attention to whether I was particularly beautiful or not, much less how I compared with other women in our kingdom. That sort of thing was for girls with suitors, girls who would grow up and be courted and get married and live happily ever after with someone they loved passionately… Girls who weren’t me. So what was he getting at?

 

Billy watched me with dark, intense eyes. Wolf’s eyes. “Most people here,” he said slowly, clearly, “when they look at you, all they see is enemy.”

 

Oh. Now I understood. I looked up at him, feeling a new, strange sort of strength covering my previous insecurity, solidifying around me like a hard shell. “Is that what you see?” I asked him.

 

Billy’s mouth twisted to the side, holding my gaze. “I see a pale little girl who, at best, will make my son look like a fool, and at worst… like a traitor.”

 

I felt my eyes widen, choking on a sudden flare of anger as the words rushed out of me. “A- A traitor?! What- How could anyone think that? He- Everything he’s done has been because Sam Uley made him! Because he ordered him to!”

 

“Sam didn’t order Jacob to protect you, or take care of you,” Billy replied severely. “And he certainly didn’t tell him to bring you here!”

 

And just like that my newfound strength seemed to crumble. I stared up at Jacob’s father, seeing Sam’s face instead, and I finally, truly, understood. I could stand against all the disapproving looks in the world, all the untrue accusations of being a life-sucking monster… but not when they were true. Not when I actually was destroying someone’s life. “He… went against the wishes of the king…” I murmured, almost to myself. “He wasn’t supposed to save me.”

 

Billy nodded. “For some reason, Jacob seems determined to throw away everything he’s worked for… Everything he has left…” He trailed off then, his eyes turning distant, looking pensive and upset.

 

“Is he… going to be in a lot of trouble?” I ventured hesitantly.

 

Billy looked up, blinking as though he’d forgotten I was there for a moment. His face quickly closed off again. “That depends. But I doubt the Alpha will let something like this slide,” he said, his voice bitter.

 

“What will he do?” I asked, shuddering to think of what horrible punishments the man who’d stood over me last night could come up with. Surely Jacob wouldn’t submit to anything like that though…

 

“I don’t know,” Billy said. “The Pack lives by hard laws, and Jacob will have to accept whatever decision the Alpha makes. And like I said… he could lose everything.” His dark eyes bored into me, angry, accusing, and absolutely justified.

 

I couldn’t hold his gaze, but rather dropped it to look back down at the table, fingering the forgotten slice of bread on my plate. It was all I could do to breathe around the deep, guilty ache in my chest.

 

 

---

 

 

Jacob

 

“He… what?”

 

“He knows,” Jake said again, looking back and forth between the two of them. “He found out almost right when we got here.”

 

“He ‘found out’?” Quil echoed, his voice strained. “How the hell did he find out?”

 

“I don’t know,” Jake said, defensive once more. “We were talking and it just sort of… came out.”

 

Quil stared at him. “Jake,” he said slowly. “You know I love you like a brother. But are you stupid?”

 

“What the hell-”

 

“Quil, stop it. You’re not helping,” Embry cut them both off, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He didn’t look any less aggravated when he opened his eyes again to fix Jacob with a disgruntled frown. “Alright, explain, Jacob, please. How, and why, did you tell Sam about this?”

 

Jacob folded his arms, leaning back against the wall. “I told you, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. It’s not like I walked in there and said ‘Hey Sam, you know that girl I just showed up with? I imprinted her! Have a nice day!’” he said, doing a sarcastic, overly cheerful impression of himself.

 

“How’d he take it?” Quil asked, for once completely serious.

 

Jacob blew out a long breath. “Not well,” he admitted. “He… Honestly, I’m not sure he believed me. He reminded me that imprinting is his job, as the Alpha,” he said, glaring at his two friends momentarily, “and basically just told me to stay away from her. I don’t know how he expects me to do that, but…” The thought of staying away from Nessie was simply impossible, except for her benefit, and even then it was nigh unthinkable.

 

Embry let out a hiss through his teeth. “He’s threatened by you already,” he growled, and cursed softly under his breath. He shook his head, looking back up at Jake. “Man, you really should not have told him about this…”

 

“Sam is not threatened by me,” Jacob scoffed, frowning. “I serve the Alpha, like we all do. He knows that.”

 

Quil and Embry exchanged another worried look, and then Quil spoke again, his voice quiet. “That’s just it, Jake… Which Alpha?”

 

 

---

 

 

Renesmee

 

The rest of my morning with Jacob’s father consisted mostly of silence as he leaned against the counter and brooded and I sat at the table and picked half-heartedly at my breakfast. I had lost all motivation to speak after the rude awakening Billy had given me, but after a time he seemed to grow restless in the long quiet, and eventually made a few gruff attempts at conversation.

 

“So you’re a vegetarian.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Huh. So you don’t drink blood.”

 

“N-no!”

 

“Huh.”

 

And then we would lapse into uncomfortable silence again, until one of us was able to once again pluck up the nerve for more small talk.

 

“Jacob tells me you’re a scholar… of, uh, history?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Any particular area of study?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“Oh.”

 

It was a long morning.

 

I had never felt more relieved than when Jacob finally returned from his talk with Quil and Embry. I felt him before I saw him, just like when I’d woken that morning and when he had come to escort me from the bath up to breakfast. It was a sensation I didn’t care to examine too closely just yet, especially on the heels of Billy telling me I was essentially ruining Jacob’s life. I just knew, somehow, that Jacob was nearing, that the distance between us was lessening, and then there he was, striding into the kitchen with an agitated expression and eyes that immediately sought me out.

 

“Hey,” he said, sounding almost out of breath. “You ready to go?”

 

I blinked up at him, wiping my hands off as I pushed away from the table, “Go where?”

 

“Just… somewhere… not here.” He spared a quick glance back at his father, who was frowning and watching us closely, before turning back to me with a strained look.

 

I swallowed, trying to ignore Billy’s gaze, and nodded, stepping out from around the table to join Jacob. He didn’t move immediately to the door like I expected, though, instead pausing to frown down at my abandoned plate of jam and bread, his brows knitting together. I blushed, realizing I’d been about to take off and just leave that mess behind me. “Sorry,” I muttered, stepping back over to the table, “let me just clean this up, and we’ll go…”

 

Jacob’s hand on my arm stopped me, his long fingers closing all of the way around and sending a wash of warmth through me. I looked up at him in time to see his throat convulse and his eyes momentarily unfocus. He felt it too… whatever it was. I was sure.

 

“You don’t have to do that,” Jacob said, shaking his head slightly. “It’s just… You didn’t eat much.”

 

My gaze flickered over to Billy and then away again. “I wasn’t that hungry,” I said.

 

I heard Jacob sigh above me, and his hand tightened on my arm, reassuringly, before dropping back to his side. I looked back up at his face again, missing the contact already.

 

“You two go ahead,” Billy said suddenly, pushing himself away from the counter to limp stiffly toward us. “I’ll take care of the dishes.”

 

Jacob studied his father for a moment, his expression unreadable, and then finally nodded once, offering a gruff, “Thanks.” Then he took me by the hand and led the way out of the kitchen.

 

 

---

 

 

We walked in silence for a minute, Jacob seeming lost in thought and intent on simply moving forward, but when we were about halfway down the path back to the pool, I finally spoke up. “Jacob, where are we going?”

 

Jake looked up, coming out of his thoughts, and slowed to a stop. “Oh, I… uh… Where do you want to go?” he asked, looking down at me sheepishly.

 

I raised my eyebrows at him, smiling slightly. “I don’t even know what’s around here to go to,” I reminded him, smiling wider as a small flush colored his cheeks for once. I felt lighter already, just being out here with him, away from his father’s accusing gaze and the reminders of why I was really here in this kingdom. “What are our options?”

 

We ended up walking down the hill, past the pool, its exposed half shimmering in the sunlight as the other end rippled darkly in the shade of the ceilinged patio. Jacob led us around the edge of the den, the hill rising up on one side with its faceted walls of glowing crystal, and the towering pines of the forest pressing in close enough to touch on our other side. The trees parted as we came to the bottom of the hill, allowing a wide view of the valley spreading out below us, all waves of green and golden sunshine. I let out a quiet breath, drinking in the beautiful sight.

 

Jacob was silent beside me, his eyes distant and contemplative. He hadn’t let go of my hand once this whole time. I looked up at him and gave his fingers a gentle squeeze.

 

“Are you alright?” I asked when he looked down at me.

 

He nodded, looking out at the valley again. “Yeah. Just… thinking…”

 

“I hadn’t noticed,” I teased gently, smiling up at him. He gave a little half-smile in return, but then seemed to sink back into his thoughts. “What did Quil and Embry want to talk to you about?” I asked quietly after a moment, and he looked up again, blinking.

 

“Just…” He dropped my gaze, releasing a loud, frustrated sigh. “Politics,” he spat.

 

“Politics?” I repeated, surprised. Why did everything come back to politics here? For all the simpering and dealing that went on in the court back home, it never seemed to consume every part of life like it did here… “And it was so urgent that they had to drag you off right then?”

 

He shot me a sideling look and seemed to be choosing his words. “They thought it was urgent,” he said at last.

 

There was something about the way he looked at me then, his reluctance to speak, his long, uncharacteristic silences as we had walked… I was reminded of what Billy had told me earlier. “It’s about me, isn’t it?” I asked, my mouth going dry.

 

Jake turned toward me, his brows drawing together as he frowned. “Well… Yeah, some of it.”

 

I nodded. He didn’t need to say any more. “Billy told me.”

 

Jacob’s hand suddenly spasmed around mine, gripping almost painfully tight. I jumped, looking up at him to find his eyes wide with shock. “What do you mean he told you?” he demanded. “I didn’t think he even-” He cut himself off mid-sentence, staring down at me, and then his eyes narrowed slightly, suspicious. “Wait,” he said, calmer now, “what did he tell you?”

 

“That… That you’re going to be in trouble for bringing me here,” I answered, gazing up at him in confusion. I bit my lip, a wave of guilt washing over me as I looked at him. “That you weren’t supposed to save me.”

 

Jacob swore. “Why that codgy- old-” He growled, ran a hand through his hair, and breathed out through clenched teeth before looking back down at me. “That’s not what we were talking about. And Billy shouldn’t have told you that, either.”

 

I peered up at him uncertainly. “So… you don’t think you’re going to get into trouble with Sam?”

 

“I didn’t say that,” Jake admitted, then grinned, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It wouldn’t be the first time. It’s not that big a deal,” he shrugged.

 

“Really?” I asked, still unsure. I couldn’t stand the thought of Jacob being at Sam Uley’s mercy, especially if it was my fault…

 

“Really,” Jake nodded.

 

I considered this for a moment, before looking back up at him. “So what were you talking about with Quil and Embry then?” I asked. “I mean, if you don’t mind my asking… I don’t mean to pry…”

 

Jake smiled, and this time it did reach his eyes. There was something so warm and private about that smile, like it was just for me. “Of course I don’t mind,” he said, shifting a little bit closer to me. “You can ask me anything, anytime you want.”

 

I felt myself blush slightly, and returned his smile shyly. “Okay…”

 

We simply stood like that for a moment, smiling bashfully at each other. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying Jacob’s proximity immensely. It was almost as if the space that had come between us earlier that morning had never been there at all. Part of me wanted to stay in that moment, stay close to him, and never leave… but I was still curious about these politics he and his friends had been discussing, and what about them had been so upsetting for him.

 

“So…” I said softly, breaking the silence. “If you’re not worried about what Sam will do, about me being here, I mean, then… what did they need to talk to you about?”

 

He let out a long breath, looking away again. “It’s not… They just think I should be doing some things… that I don’t want to do,” he said, shaking his head. His eyes found mine again a moment later, though. “It’s really not anything you need to worry about, though, princess,” he added, giving me what was no doubt supposed to be a reassuring half-smile.

 

I felt a stab at the use of that royal moniker again, and frowned, leaning a little closer. I could feel him pulling away from me again, the chasm cracking open between us once more. “You just seemed rather upset about it…”

 

He shrugged again, not meeting my gaze, and there was a new tension about his shoulders as he thought back on what they had discussed. “It’s Pack stuff. They’re welcome to their opinions, I guess, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

 

“Alright…” I said uncertainly, still curious and more than a touch worried.

 

Jake looked down at me, smiling again, seeming to make a conscious effort to put the matter from his mind and relax again. “Come on,” he said, squeezing my hand gently. The chasm rippled, and finally closed again. “I’ll show you around the rest of the den.”

 

“Okay,” I replied, smiling slightly in return, and stole one last look out at the golden valley below us as he led me away around the rest of the hill.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 12 – Sunshine

 

Jacob

 

It wasn’t anywhere near as simple as he’d made it sound.

 

He tried to be attentive, to enjoy the time he and Ness had together, but he was distracted all day, his mind going over and over what Quil and Embry had told him that morning.

 

He couldn’t believe them. What they’d implied…

 

Ness was perfectly understanding, of course, which only made him feel worse. She never demanded that he pay attention to her, and she never seemed particularly surprised when he couldn’t seem to carry on a conversation, he was so lost in his thoughts. The only signs he ever saw that she was unhappy were an occasional sad smile when he took too long to respond to something she’d said, or an increasing inability to meet his gaze, as if she felt guilty for disturbing him, for trying to talk to him, for being near him at all… And then he would remember what Billy had apparently said to her while he was gone, and his blood would boil all over again at that, and he would make a renewed effort to pay attention to her and to ignore the gnawing, festering thoughts running through his mind.

 

He showed her around the outside of the den first. They went to the orchards of fruit-bearing trees nestled into little nearby clearings in the forest around Black Hill, which served to feed not only his father’s home but all the family dens in the area. It wasn’t time to harvest them quite yet, but Jacob climbed up in the branches to pluck some early fruits for Nessie, and they sat down to eat a peaceful lunch together beneath the trees as the sun climbed to its zenith up above them.

 

The air quickly grew hot outside as morning shifted into afternoon, and they finished their lunch to retreat back into the cool interior of the den. Nessie was eager to see everything – where the various twisting tunnels led from the entry hall, where he had spent his time a child growing up here, what the rooms were used for since their official purposes had gone when the Uleys took power. He did his best to keep her entertained as they padded through the many abandoned rooms and offices, Ness’s soft-soled sandals making little more noise on the stone floor than his own bare feet. He tried to answer all her questions, to keep himself firmly planted in the present, but his friends’ words continued to pull at him, nagging and troubling and insistent.

 

He took her down to the great, sprawling library that occupied one of the huge caverns deep beneath his family’s den. Nessie immediately fell silent as they entered, staring around her in open-mouthed wonder. Jake couldn’t help smiling at her expression – she’d liked all the other things he’d showed her today, had been politely curious and enthusiastic, but now, with the rows and rows of books and scrolls spreading out before them and Nessie absolutely speechless, he knew he’d hit the jackpot.

 

“It’s just like our library back home,” she breathed, reaching out to carefully run her fingers over the books on the nearest shelf, leaving little wisps of dust dancing in the air behind her hand. She glanced back at him shyly, looking almost embarrassed. “I… I didn’t think you had anything like this here,” she admitted.

 

Jacob smiled, leaning against the end of the shelf she was studying. “We’re not all barbarians here, princess,” he grinned at her.

 

She blushed, looking back at him with a slight frown. “I didn’t think that…”

 

“No, no, it’s okay, princess,” he teased, making as though he were trying to cover up some deep hurt. “I know how you really feel… I mean, who wouldn’t be intimidated by all this raw strength and ferocity?”

 

Nessie rolled her eyes, catching onto his game. “I’ve met puppies that are more intimidating than you, Jacob,” she sniffed haughtily.

 

“Oh really?” he drawled, slowly straightening up – and then an instant later he was towering over her, arms out and grasping the shelf on either side of her. Nessie jumped, finding herself suddenly trapped, all but sandwiched between him and the bookshelf at her back. “What do you think? Intimidated yet?” Jake asked, smirking down at her.

 

Nessie hugged the book she’d been holding to her chest. “No,” she said stubbornly.

 

Jake leaned forward a few inches, halving the space around her. “How about now?” he breathed.

 

She leaned back into the shelf away from him, her eyes going wide and her throat convulsing as she swallowed hard – and Jacob realized just what he was doing. He took a quick step back, letting his arms fall back to his sides, holding Nessie’s shocked gaze with his own mortified one.

 

Boundaries, Jacob, boundaries! Gods, he was an idiot.

 

“Well… good,” he said awkwardly, trying to cover his indiscretion. “I wouldn’t want you to be afraid of me.”

 

Nessie nodded, relaxing marginally but still hugging her book like it was a shield. Jacob felt a pang of guilt, and let out a frustrated growl. First he was so distracted he was all but ignoring her, and now he was invading her space again, completely forgetting what had happened when they’d woken up that morning. Was it really that hard to find a happy medium?

 

“Here, I’ll show you around,” he said flatly, not daring to touch her as he brushed past her toward the main aisle of the library. He saw Nessie nod again and then fall into step behind him after quickly replacing the book she’d been holding.

 

“How are these all organized?” she asked after a moment, her voice quiet and small in the big, echoing chamber.

 

Jacob glanced back at her, stopping to gesture at the shelves that surrounded them. “This half’s all history books, in chronological order. You start getting into more practical studies at the other end of the room…”

 

Nessie stopped beside him, her eyes widening again as she looked around them. “These are all history books?!”

 

“Well, yeah,” Jake blinked, confused.

 

“Your histories go back that far…?” she asked, sounding astonished.

 

Jacob smiled slightly, understanding then. “Yeah,” he said again. “Our kingdom’s a lot older than yours, remember?”

 

She glanced up at him, still looking a little shell-shocked, and then nodded. “I guess… We didn’t bring many of the Volturi histories with us when we broke off from them… I suppose my ancestors didn’t want to remember those things… They wanted a clean start…”

 

Jake nodded. He’d come to the same conclusion in his own studies. The Cullens, led by a Volturi nobleman of that name, had broken off from the greater vampire kingdom only a few hundred years ago, declaring that they would no longer eat flesh and blood as their kinsmen did, and then withdrawing to the barren wastes to the north of Volterra. The Volturi weren’t about to let them go easily, of course, and had been preparing for war – but Cullen, it seemed, had been something of a fast-talker, a silver-tongue, and had been able to form a hasty alliance with the Quileutes over the mountains. Jacob’s ancestors had been understandably wary of this new group of bloodsuckers moving into the land that had previously been a buffer between their two kingdoms, but they had somehow been convinced of Cullen’s sincerity and his followers’ dedication to living as vegetarians, and so had agreed to stand with them against their ancient foe. The Volturi, strong though they were, knew they couldn’t win against the wolves and the Cullens together, and so they had retreated back into the south, and the great war had been averted.

 

"Our histories have been unbroken for thousands of years," he told her. Though, admittedly, some of the texts were nearly indecipherable now – ink faded, and pages crumbled, and language changed over the eons. There were few people, like his father, who could still translate them.

And, no matter how far back they searched, Jacob had never been able to find a time when a Black Alpha hadn't led the Pack – right up until his grandfather's time, when Samuel Uley, Sr., had taken the throne. But that didn’t mean that Quil and Embry were right.

"Is it… I mean, can I read them? Is that… allowed?" Nessie asked, tearing her gaze away from the rows of books to turn beseeching eyes on him. It didn’t take a genius to see that she really, really wanted to.

"Yeah, of course," Jacob said. "That's what they're here for, right?"

Nessie smiled brilliantly at him, then turned to scamper off down the nearest aisle, running her finger lightly over the spines of the old tomes, her eyes scanning over the titles stamped into the leather. "We hardly had any books on Quileute history back home," she said over her shoulder as Jacob padded along after her. "It always seemed so secretive, like it was forbidden for outsiders to learn about it."

"We don't trust foreigners much, I guess," Jake shrugged, coming up beside her. She glanced up at him, smiling wryly, and he knew neither of them had to say it – the events of the previous night, and Sam's spectacular show of xenophobia… Saying they 'didn't trust' foreigners was putting it lightly.

"Well, I'm eager to learn more about you, anyway," Ness said, smiling at him and tipping one heavy old leatherbound volume out into her hands. Jacob blinked, not sure which ‘you’ she had meant by that, but Ness had cracked the book open and looked completely engrossed already. Once she was occupied, it was only too easy for Jacob to fall back into the thoughts that had been plaguing him all day. He thumbed through the familiar old texts, selecting one at random and opening it to a middle page to make afeeble attempt at reading.

Quil and Embry thought he should be taking measures against Sam. Against their Alpha. They thought Nessie's life was in danger.

He snorted, barely seeing the words on the page in front of him, yet sharply aware of Ness standing mere yards away from him. He would never let anything happen to her. Quil and Embry knew that. It was the very essence of the imprint, that he would do anything for her, give anything to keep her safe, to keep her happy...

They couldn't really think Sam would try to… to…

But they'd spent the morning telling him just that. They hadn't quite said it outright, but the implication had been too strong to miss: that Sam Uley was a usurper, or a regent at best, but now that the true Alpha had returned, he wasn't going to give up his position easily.

But Sam is the true Alpha, Jake thought, growling under his breath. For anyone to suggest otherwise was treason. Sam held the power, as he should. When he spoke, the Pack listened. And Jacob respected that. He respected the Alpha, and the Alpha's power. He was loyal. Sam knew that. Sam knew all of it.

And yet… There was some part of him, some small, primitive part that was still quaking and raging from the things he'd had to witness the previous night, that had reacted to what his friends said and now wanted nothing more than to hide Nessie away where no one could ever get to her.

But it was just a small part. It was just the imprint making him jumpy, responding to the imagined threat to Nessie. But he wouldn't let it take over, couldn't let it or Quil and Embry's wild assertions cloud out rational thought. That would lead only to madness, paranoia, to further fractures within the Pack, and that was something he absolutely could not allow. Already, the Packmind rang with discord, various dissenting factions clashing but never quite speaking or acting out against each other or against the Alpha. Some of them were simple family rivalries, but there were others… He did his best to ignore them, but there was really no way to escape them in the omniscience of the Packmind. They were just whispers, rumors, nothing tangible, yet they followed him like a shadow: that even after all this time, after his own decision to the contrary, there were still those who claimed Jacob Black as their Alpha.

 

It was insane. He’d never asked for this – he’d turned it down when it was offered to him! Anyone who thought that he would stand against Sam, that he somehow had some claim on the throne, that he wanted it at all, was flat out of their mind. He would never do anything to betray the Pack, or the Alpha.

 

And yet.

 

And yet, there was still that nagging little voice in the back of his mind, reminding him: if it came down to a choice between Ness or Sam, Ness or the Pack, he knew without a doubt, without even having to think about it, who he would choose.

 

“Jake?”

 

He looked up, startled out of his thoughts, to find Ness leaning over him, big brown eyes wide and brows drawn together in concern.

 

“Are you alright?” she asked.  “You’ve been staring at that page for a while…”

 

“Uh… Yeah. Yeah, just… good book, ya know?”

 

Nessie blinked, her eyes darting to the volume in his hands and away again, trying to suppress a smile. “If you say so.”

 

He glanced down, confused for a moment by the odd illustration on one page and the seemingly alien script on the other – until he realized he was holding the book upside down. He snapped it shut and climbed hastily to his feet. It must’ve gotten turned around when he came to sit down. He looked around, feeling stiff and fuzzy-headed. The light from the crystal that infused the huge, curving outer wall of the library had dimmed, more gold than white now, soft as candlelight as the sun began to set outside.

 

“It’s starting to get late,” Nessie said. “Do you think we should head back soon?”

 

“Yeah, we should-” His stomach suddenly gave a loud, angry gurgle, cutting off his words.

 

They stared at each other for a moment. “Get some dinner?” Nessie supplied, grinning at him.

 

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak again. Ness laughed.

 

 

---

 

 

Renesmee

 

Dinner was a simple affair, and thankfully just the two of us, the kitchen blessedly empty when we arrived back there. We raided the storeroom again for bread and cheese for me, and stacks of dried meat for Jacob. I managed to coax him into trying another sandwich, showing him how I liked to grill the bread and cheese together until it was hot and melting, sizzling and golden with melted butter. He ate the first sandwich in under three bites, then set to work making himself several more, happily adding in slices of the bacon left over from his breakfast.

 

I couldn’t help feeling, as we sat at the big wooden table across from each other, eating quietly, that the others were conspicuously missing. Perhaps they’d simply already eaten, but their absence felt forced, somehow. I didn’t know what gave me the idea, but I couldn’t help thinking that Billy had purposely withdrawn from us, not anxious for a repeat of this morning or to spend more time with the bloodsucking enemy. Quil and Embry, it seemed, were making sure to give Jacob his space, though that was plain from the look on his face and his frequent deep silences.

 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked one more time when we had finished and I rose to gather up the leavings of our meal.

 

Jake didn’t move to stop me like he had this morning, but he did grab up whatever I couldn’t and followed back to the larder, replacing the cheese and dishes in their respective places. “Yeah,” he said, still looking thoughtful. His eyes finally found mine again. “Sorry I haven’t been much fun all day…”

 

I frowned slightly. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

 

He shook his head, stepping closer to offer me his arm. “It’s nothing you should have to worry about.”

 

I suppressed a sigh, sliding my hand into his elbow, and we walked out of the kitchen together.

 

Outside, the sun had set already, leaving behind it only a pale pink glow on the western horizon and a smattering of stars beginning to shine in the deep blue above us. I paused for a moment, taking in the view. The stars were never so bright and clear back home. Jacob began to point out constellations to me as darkness gathered and more tiny points of light became visible, but he trailed off as I was overtaken by several wide yawns. I tried to apologize after each one, embarrassed, and asked him to continue, but he just smiled knowingly. I really was tired, and there was no hiding it from him. He led the way further up the hill, humoring me by continuing to point and talk about the stars as we went, until we came again to the cave opening at the front of the den where we had entered last night. Jacob didn’t have to search for a light this time – the halls were still illuminated by the multitude of candles Billy had lit throughout the day and a lingering glow from the cooling crystal walls.

 

My steps grew heavier as Jacob led the way through the twisting tunnels, and I realized after a moment that we had walked right past the hall that led to his bedroom, descending another level or two into the heart of the den. We turned down a dark but clean corridor, and then at last came to a stop in front of a heavy wooden door, as intricately carved and sporting the same enormous ring as all the other doors I’d seen.

 

“I thought you might want your own place to stay,” Jake said, not meeting my eyes as he turned toward me.

 

My head felt fuzzy with the desire to sleep, but I wasn’t so slow that I didn’t understand what he was talking about. “Thank you,” I said a bit stiffly. I understood, yes, but something about it just didn’t sit right with me.

 

I saw Jake swallow. “It’s the best guest room in the whole den. The best room, period. I… I came and made sure it was all clean and ready for you this morning. After talking with Quil and Embry. It… It should be…”

 

“Jake…” I took a step closer to him, touched by his concern. I was more sincere this time, “Thank you.”

 

He let out a quiet breath, finally meeting my gaze as I looked up at him. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He took a tiny step closer to me, his large hands running up my arms almost to my shoulders. “Sleep well, princess,” Jacob murmured, and then he leaned down and pressed his lips to my forehead in a quick, searing kiss.

 

I froze, something entirely new shooting through me at the contact, as if there were another dimension to the lightning that came with all of Jacob’s touches, some new force that had suddenly opened itself to me. I felt his hands tighten around my arms, his muscles locking up as he undoubtedly felt it too. He breathed in long and deep against my hair.

 

“Just a little while,” he muttered to himself, his voice gravely, and I could only nod dumbly, the lightning still skittering through me, drowning out all else. Jerkily, Jacob reached over and pushed the door to my room open, and then gently guided me over the threshold with the hand on my shoulder. I stared up at him and he stared back, looking as thunderstruck as I felt. Then he turned and, without another word, strode away up the dark corridor.

 

 

---

 

 

Jacob

 

He didn’t bother to take a light with him to bed, going so far as to snuff out whatever candles he found still burning along the way to his room. The last of the day’s glow had bled out of the crystal when he was taking Ness to her chambers, leaving the facets as dark and solid as the rest of the stone walls and casting the corridors in deep shadow. The darkness stirred something in him, sharpening his senses, waking the beast that lived just under his skin.

 

The sun was gone, but it was still early yet. He could run, he could hunt. The night was only beginning.

 

But that was exactly the problem – the night stretched out long and empty in front of him.

 

Abruptly, he turned away from the climb up to the entrance hall, discarding the idea of phasing and going out to enjoy the stars. Even if he stayed close, even if all he did was run circles around the outside of the den, it wouldn’t help any. A wolf’s brain might dull some emotions, but it wouldn’t make the time go any faster. He’d still be without her, still be alone.

 

Well, not alone. He’d have the whole of the Pack in his head, most likely to include Quil, Embry, and, because he was just so lucky, Sam. The phasing idea was definitely out.

 

It was just a little while, anyway. Really. He could do this. Just until tomorrow morning. He just had to go to sleep, and then it would be tomorrow, and he’d get to see her again. Hold her again. Touch her again.

 

Okay, maybe not the touching and holding. Boundaries, Jake, remember? He had to remember the boundaries, the rules. But they’d be together, at least. He’d get to see her, smell her. That would be enough.

 

Decided, he settled down in bed, his eyes tracing out the familiar carvings on the ceiling, dimmed though they were by the lack of light, his heart at once aching and singing that her scent still clung to the blankets under him.

 

He could do this. He could. It was just a little while. Really.

 

 

---

 

 

Renesmee

 

Everywhere I turned was blood, darkness, and those damnable, never-ending trees. I wanted to run, even though I had no idea where I could possibly go, but my legs refused to work, like they were sunk deep in mud, like there were invisible hands holding me in place, holding me down.

 

There were lights all around me, torches that did nothing to pierce the darkness, that did not even illuminate the shadowy men holding them. The lights moved closer, surrounding me, and finally a figure emerged from among them, stepping out of the shadows where I could see him: Sam Uley, tall and terrible and cloaked in black, and holding Jacob’s lifeless body in his arms.

 

“You did this,” he said, but it was not Sam’s snarling voice that came from his lips, but Billy’s cracked and tired one. “You ruined him.”

 

I opened my mouth to scream, and instead choked in the blood in my throat – blood that was not mine, that tasted so hot and sweet, tasted of Jacob, that drugged me and made me forget everything but the desire for more-

 

I woke with a start, thrashing pitifully in my blankets. It took me a few seconds to remember where I was, and that the darkness pressing in on my eyes now was simple nighttime and not the sinister black of my dreams. I disentangled myself from the twisted blankets and slid off the high mattress to the floor, shakily straightening my nightgown, and then stood shivering as I looked around the room.

 

Jacob had clearly gone to great lengths to make sure I had everything I needed here – fresh bed linens, several changes of clothes, a thick, soft fur rug to cover the cold stone floor. That was why he’d taken so long to come back to the kitchen to get me. It was a very nice room, and I certainly appreciated his efforts, but there wasn’t a single part of my being that thought I could stay there another minute.

 

 

---

 

 

Jacob

 

He couldn’t say how much time had passed or if he’d actually slept at all yet. It felt like he’d only dozed, had been slipping in and out of restless dreams for hours now, but he found himself waking at some far off sound, the haze clearing slightly from his brain. Was it a door opening? Light footsteps, the smell of cinnamon, warmth, peace…

 

He jumped when something suddenly pulled itself up onto the bed beside him, squirmed over him, and then at last settled a few inches in front of his face in a mass of auburn curls and big brown eyes.

 

“Sorry,” Ness whispered, “I was trying not to wake you.”

 

Jacob stared at her. Was he still dreaming? “What are you doing here?”

 

She looked away, curling in on herself. “I just… I didn’t want to be alone… I’m sorry-”

 

“Don’t apologize,” he said quickly, and had to remind himself not to reach out and wrap his arms around her, pull her closer. This was definitely not a dream, or at least not a good one. She wouldn’t be scared like this if it were.

 

“Can I…” She looked up at him then, her eyes wide and fearful, pleading. “Can I stay with you?”

 

No, this wasn’t a dream. He didn’t think his heart could ache this much in a dream. “’Course you can. Anything you need… just…” She looked worried, as if she thought he would tell her to leave. He bit his tongue, then forced himself to continue. “It’s just, what happened this morning… I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, or feel like you’ve done something… improper…”

 

He could almost hear the blood rush to her face, and she shook her head, curls shifting and bouncing against the bedspread with the frantic movement. “It wasn’t- I mean- This is different.”

 

He pursed his lips, watching her for a moment as she strained to see him in the dark room, her eyes wide and dilated, adding to the childlike desperation on her face. He couldn’t deny her this. Like he could deny her anything. However she felt in the morning, he’d deal with it then. “Whatever you say, princess.”

 

She grimaced, and then surprised him by scooting right up next to him, curling against him with her face pressed into his shoulder. “You’re not supposed to call me that anymore, remember?” he felt her mumble against his skin.

 

He couldn’t stop his grin then, and, carefully, he let his free arm down over her waist, holding her to him, safe and secure. “Sure, sure… Princess Ness.”

 

“Jake…” she growled, and lifted her face to give him what was probably supposed to be a glare, but instead came off as simply pouty. She didn’t make any move to shake off his arm, though, and if anything seemed to scoot even closer to him.

 

He smiled, rubbing a slow circle on her back. “Go to sleep, Nessie. I’ve got you.”

 

She pout-glared at him for one moment longer, only partially mollified, and then laid her head back down, nuzzling her face into his shoulder once more. Jacob tightened his arm around her, feeling sleep begin to tug at him again, real sleep, real rest, because Ness was here, in his arms, where he could keep her safe from anything that might try to hurt or frighten her.

 

 

---

 

 

Renesmee

 

The sun was just rising when I woke the next morning, its light beginning to filter in through the crystal wall and illuminate Jacob’s room. I could see it through my eyelids, feel it on my skin as the shadows receded. This was what I was used to, what was normal – early to bed, early to rise, with the sun, not staying up to all hours of the night like I had the night before…

 

Was it really just one day ago? It felt so far away now…

 

I rolled onto my back, stretching my arms above my head, sleepily envisioning myself as a happy housecat. A chuckle beside me finally prompted me to open my eyes, and it was to find Jacob smiling down at me, with that same warm, private smile he’d given me yesterday as we had stood outside the den looking out over the golden valley below. I smiled back, shyly, willing myself not to blush. I had come to him last night; I had no right to feel embarrassed now.

 

“Did you sleep well, princess?” he asked politely, and I felt my smile instantly disappear – until I saw the twinkle in his eye. He was teasing me.

 

“I don’t answer to that anymore,” I replied, swatting at him and moving to sit up, but he caught my hand and pulled me back down, holding me flush against him.

 

“I know,” he grinned, his face inches from mine. “Good morning, Nessie.”

 

“G-good morning, Jake,” I stuttered out in response, my voice barely more than a whisper as I stared back at him. My eyes felt as though they would pop straight out of my head if they got any wider.

 

He gave me a gentle squeeze, almost a hug, and then let go to roll away from me and off the bed. I sat up and scooted to the edge of the mattress after him, just glad he wasn’t apologizing and fleeing like he had yesterday.

“So what do you wanna do today?” Jake asked, turning around and offering me a hand down from the bed. It wasn’t so tall that I actually needed help, but I was glad for the excuse to touch him again. “We can go get some breakfast, then maybe head back to the library, if you want…”

 

“I’d like that,” I smiled up at him, reluctantly dropping his hand once I was standing on my own two feet again. “But not until after I bathe, if you don’t mind…” I added, shy again.

 

Jake blinked, looking confused for half a second. “But, didn’t you just…” He trailed off, then seemed to remember something. “Right. Of course. Sorry.” He looked downright abashed as he turned to pull the door open and usher me out into the hall. I offered him a smile and decided not to ask.

 

 

---

 

 

We walked down to the bath together just as we had the day before, though we were both infinitely more relaxed now. Jacob left me at the water’s edge, parting with only a smile, a hand on my arm, and the promise to meet me in the kitchen with breakfast when I was done here. I didn’t understand my disappointment as I watched him lope away up the hill out of sight, until I realized that I’d been waiting for a kiss like I’d gotten last night. I shook myself, turning back to the bath.

 

Once I had my clothes off, it was just a few quick steps out of the little sauna to the edge of the pool. Still, I wrapped the towel around myself before I stepped out into the open air, glancing around apprehensively before setting it and my bar of soap carefully on the stones beside my feet. I thought about inching my way into the water, but then, staring down at the glimmering blue surface, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and jumped straight in.

 

The water was cold around me as it cushioned my fall, muffling sound and sight and every other sense but one – the one I could only call my Jacob sense. The familiar tug on my sternum was still there, the remembered heat from his lips against my forehead not lessened at all by the cool water. I touched bottom and launched myself upwards again, resurfacing with a gasp. The water wasn’t so deep where I had chosen to jump in, barely over my head, but I didn’t feel much like treading water the whole time, so I grabbed my soap and paddled over to the shallower end of the pool.

 

I really could feel him, up the hill, around the bend in the trail, several hundred feet and a stone wall between us. I hadn’t wanted to think about it yesterday, but this was how I had known when he was coming back to get me after going off to talk with Quil and Embry. It was how I’d found my way to his room last night, in the pitch black, through unfamiliar, twisting, turning corridors. I had simply known where he was. And it wasn’t new. I’d been avoiding looking into it too closely, but if I was completely honest with myself, I’d been feeling this… whatever it was… for days. Maybe even since I met him. What did that mean? I didn’t know, but I knew this: I hadn’t had a single nightmare once I was with Jacob again.

 

I shuddered to think of the grisly images that had played behind my eyelids last night. I had relived Noble’s death a hundred different times, or so it had seemed once I was finally able to wake up and run to Jacob. My poor, courageous Noble… He’d been my only friend when I was a child, when the knowledge that my life was already promised away had spread through the kingdom and frightened off any aristocratic families with children my age who I might have become close with. My father had presented the knock-kneed little colt to me on my seventh birthday, and the two of us had instantly bonded. I’d trained him myself, under the watchful eye of the castle Stablemaster, of course, and I’d always thought I’d get to see my beautiful horse grow to a ripe old age, even when we had to leave our home. I’d gotten to bring him with me, and he was my one last link to home, to my old life… But now he was gone. And there was nothing I could hold onto anymore.

 

I dunked my head several times, rinsing my hair out before coming back up to grip the edge of the pool and steady myself in the churning water. I still didn’t feel clean. I wanted to wash the dreams, the nightmares, the memories from my head. Turning away from the wall and out toward the rest of the pool, I took a deep breath and dove forward into the water. I swam for a few strokes, almost to the edge of the patio roof, not yet brave enough to venture out into the uncovered half of the pool, where the sun gleamed and shone down through the blue. I came up for another breath, briefly, and then let myself sink below the surface again, curling into a ball under the water, suspended and weightless, somewhere between the sky above and rock bottom below. It was as if even gravity had abandoned me, and one small push would send me drifting off into oblivion…

 

Almost. I opened my eyes under the water, not really seeing the shimmering depths of the pool before me, but instead feeling the pull, the connection that went right to my core.

 

I was connected to Jacob. Even when everything else had been taken from me, when all my other ties had been cut, he was still here, almost as if he was the one holding me to the earth now, when home, family, and the very laws of physics could not. I let my face break the surface again, inhaling, and continued to float, staring up at the ceiling.

 

Yesterday, I had studiously put all these things from my mind, focusing instead on Jacob, on my time with him. The continuing theme there was not lost on me.  I was happier with him. I felt safer. Even in my dreams. I needed him.

 

And he didn’t seem to mind, either. I thought again of what his father had said to me, that I was ruining him by my mere presence. But Jacob didn’t seem to think so. If anything, he always seemed just as happy to see me as I was to see him. And he didn’t seem worried about Sam, about my being here, about any of it. So maybe I shouldn’t worry about it either. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about any of it. I didn’t know what any of this meant, these feelings, this strange connection to Jacob… except for one thing: I wanted to see him again as soon as humanly possible.

 

I dressed in record time. My hair was quickly toweled off and thrown in a thick damp mass over my shoulder, the soaps and towels were hastily put back in their proper places, and then I was hurrying out into the sunshine and up the hill. I was alternately watching the uneven ground at my feet and the way ahead, and glanced up again as I rounded the first bend in the path along the outside of the den – and jumped in surprise, stopping in my tracks. I could only stare for a moment, and then I took one slow step backward, my eyes wide and mouth hanging slightly open as something that felt very much like terror began to spread through me.

 

 

---

 

 

Jacob

 

Something wasn’t right.

 

He pursed his lips, looking over the table settings one more time. Nessie would done with her bath soon, and he wanted things to be all ready for her when she got here. He had bread, butter, jam, even a jug of milk he’d retrieved from the big meat cooler, just a day or two old but well-chilled. Oh – utensils, of course! What, did he expect her to spread her jam and butter with her fingers?

 

Something prickled along the back of his neck. He shrugged it off. Ness would be here soon.

 

He set out a pair of knives, one for the butter and one for the strawberry preserves, then decided to get a third, a bigger, serrated one for cutting the bread.

 

Outside, the wind shifted, gusted in past the doorway. There was something there, or a hint of something. He felt a tug in his chest.

 

He paused, looking up from the table, and then slowly moved to the doorway, looking out. He couldn’t hear Ness in the bath anymore. His chest ached. His hackles rose.

 

There was definitely something there. Nothing as tangible as scent to tip him off, but a deep, primal knowledge that came straight from his wolf-self: there was someone, some unknown, unwelcome presence, here, in his territory.

 

And they were out there with Nessie.

 

He took off sprinting down the hill. 

 

He was nearing the bottom in seconds, and that’s when he saw them: a tall, hulking form standing between him and Nessie, his shirtlessness identifying him as a fellow Shifter. Nessie stared up at the other man, her fear written plain across her face as she began to back away from him.

 

Jake skidded to a stop, his eyes and nose identifying the new presence in the same instant, the name ripping out of him in a savage growl:

 

“Paul!”

 

His brother-in-law took his time responding, glancing over his shoulder with a lazy smirk. “Heya, Jake.” He glanced at Nessie and then back again, his smile widening, showing his teeth. “Bet you know why I’m here.”