Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author Stephanie Meyer. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. I'm just borrowing the characters for a bit.
Author's Note: This is my first foray into writing fanfiiction and as such I will attempt to post chapters as much as possible. (I will post them as fast as I can write them, but I do have a very taxing and time-consuming job.) Please go easy on me!
Panting.
She could hear it. Could feel the viscous heat blasting against her neck. She could feel her feet stumble in the rich loam of the forest soil, and she was terrified. The huge beast was upon her in moments, paws skittering over needles, branches, the detritus of a forest mostly untouched by humans. Terror blanketed her as a scream climbed up her raw throat, clamoring it's way passed whitened lips. The beast, too large to be a normal wolf, was pacing around where she had fallen to the forest floor, it's haunches quivering and jerking in a dance that could never be deemed calming. Tears had spilled over her cheeks, cascading down a slender throat which was still forcing a piercing shriek that had the beast's ears pinned to it's massive skull. A growl rent the air, effectively cutting the scream short, though it still echoed in the cavernous woods that she had fled through.
He stopped in the clearing she had fallen in, her labored breathing now filling in around him with the tense quiet his growl had caused. He had seen her for the first time since his world, everything he had known as true and good, had been ripped apart, as his beast. THE beast. He was confused and terrified of her reaction. Hadn't he JUST told her the stories a few weeks prior? Hadn't she felt the undeniable pull that he felt, even now, wrenching his body towards her much smaller form? He had to fight himself to go to her, to lay his muzzle across her shaking legs because she was heartrendingly traumatized.
The beast raked quick eyes over her lithe form. She was hiccuping around sobs that made his heart lurch in his chest. He let out a whine as he took in her long brunette hair, a mess of twigs and leaves that created a disarrayed halo around her shrunken cheeks. Her arms and face were a mass of seeping wounds from branches and thorns that had bit into her ivory skin in her frantic race away from... him.
This was HER. His world. His only solace in the desolate hell that had encompassed his new life, and he was fucking it all up!
Jake pulled his lips away from glistening fangs as he scented the air, frantically searching for any other surrounding danger. His ears canted forward, desperately trying to make out something other than her ever increasing sobs, but the forest was silent. Nothing. The entire world felt as if it was holding it's breath from the violence that he had just presented.
They had just killed that toffee skinned dread-head leech. She had been scurrying up a tree, scrabbling away at the tree limbs with her usual klutzy grace. Maybe she hadn't known that the leech could have been in front of her in less than the space of a breath, WOULD have been if he and his brothers hadn't leapt between her and the death-breath.
Jake HAD to calm down. He needed to be able to explain that she wasn't in danger anymore. Her frantically racing heartbeat was making that difficult and the tenuous leash he used to keep himself from dwarfing her small body with his own was straining to be released. Jacob needed her to understand. He hadn't been there for her when she needed him, but now he could be! He was imprinted and Sam's edict could go to hell! He knew Bella would be okay with everything that had enveloped his life, at least he hoped she would be, so he took a chance and lowered himself to his haunches in front of her, tongue lolling out of his mouth that would have had Quil, Paul, and Embry in fits. He had to be less frightening, she had to calm down.
Bella couldn't believe this was happening. Did every damning force on the planet just decide that she was not going to see the next day?! First, HE had left her with nothing but a gaping hole in her chest that she could have driven her truck through. Then Jake had, without so much as a backward glance, uprooted the entirety of their friendship and decided she wasn't even good enough to answer the phone for. She had taken that particular loss almost as hard as she had the loss of HIM. She hadn't known the compulsion that had taken over so completely, to hear HIS voice, would lead to Laurent. She couldn't know Laurent was even back in Washington, let alone the backwoods of Forks, in the particular clearing where everything had started. She hadn't known that there was a plethora of pony-sized wolves roaming the vast forests that surrounded a town that held months worth of memories which made the marrow of her bones ache.
HE was gone, Jake wouldn't even answer her desperate phone calls, Laurent was dead, and one of the creatures that had effectively dismembered and decapitated the once helpful vampire had broken away from the mass of lunging, writhing bodies to come after her! Her entire body rocked as she realized that these beasts must be the cause of all the dead hikers. A new wave of terror raced through her veins as she came to the conclusion that her picture would be the next that was circulated through Washington.
'Isabella Marie Swan, MISSING, Presumed DEAD. Any information regarding this matter should be directed to the attention of Forks Police Chief Charlie Swan, Isabella's father.' Her breath hitched on a keening sob as she pictured her father's distraught stumbling form wandering these very same woods looking for her. Would Charlie be tracked by one of the vicious equine sized dogs, just as she had been? Would he be attacked as Laurent had been? As she would undoubtedly be very soon?
She shivered as she bit her lip, letting her eyes trip up along the great shaggy dog, wondering why he, definitely a he, hadn't used those teeth and claws to rip her to shreds yet. Was the animal taunting her? Drawing out the kill? Her eyes connected with dark orbs, the size of a golf ball and Bella swore intelligence, human intelligence, stared back at her.
Bella was puzzled. This new confounding situation made her pull up short. Animals couldn't have human sentience! Why would it seem as if this hulking dog was waiting for her, studying her? Suddenly the beast started shaking.
Bella watched in stunned silence as the beast reared onto it's hind legs, listened as bones cracked and then seemed to re-knit themselves into the standing form of her best friend. A very nude best friend. A happy-to-be-there nude best friend. Realization struck Bella like a rock between her eyes. Her best friend was a killer. First the hikers, then Laurent, right in front of her! Jake had followed her here to kill he.
The world twisted on it's axis and the last thing she remembered was Jake's startled cry of "Bella!" and a pine-cone stabbing into her cheek as unconsciousness blissfully pulled her under.