Alas, I blame Eclipse for my sudden, and rather powerful desire to be imprinted by Jacob. Sighs dreamily

He's such a strong character; I think I'm in love with him.

However, my obsession for Edward remains.

I hate Bella, but DAMN it must suck to pick between those two.

Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I certainly hope Stephenie Meyer doesn't want to punch me in the face.

Yeah, she owns Jake, Sam, Jared, and Quil by the way. I only take ownership to Rave and the cat.

Cinnamon Butterflies
A Jacob Black One-Shot
Rated: Teen- for sadness, anger, language, and an OC.

He found no comfort from his wolf form, no sense of relief, no immediate rush from the feeling of his morals and human-like qualities slip away and take vacancy in the back of his mind, where the others in the pack couldn't hear.

This is where he kept Bella safely tucked away.

He loved her; there was no doubting that now, because every time he thought of her his heart would constrict and thump almost dully in his chest. He snarled at the night sky, unable to contain the half-rage, half-sorrow that ate away at his soul like some flesh eating disease. But, Jacob thought suddenly, a parasite such as that wouldn't cause him nearly as much pain as Bella was.

She was so stupid! At least he had a goddamn heart beat. At least he was fucking warm. What did that bastard bloodsucker have that he didn't? Beauty? No, Bella had once told him be was kinda beautiful and kinda - to Jake - meant that she thought he was attractive. Bronze? Hell no. He was more ripped than that pale asshole. The capability to love her? Hell-oh! He was more human than Edward would ever be.

It didn't make any sense. None at all. Any other girl would be throwing themselves at him and not that creepy bastard. With his golden eyes and marble features, he was more inhuman looking like a human than Jacob was as a freckin' wolf.

And at least he didn't smell like a goddamn candy bar high on glucose and hardcore sugar.

That's when her heard it. In his near sprint across the forest coming along to the boundary of the Cullen's and his pack, he stopped mid-step, skidding across the ground and knocking over a good-sized tree. He sniffed the air in three easy inhales, mentally calculating whether each smell was dangerous or not. He smelled nothing musky, kicking the threat of danger off the cliff Bella had taken her dive off of; he didn't catch the whiff of any bloodsuckers, either. Too bad, he thought violently, he'd like to rip off one of their arms to see if it tasted like sugar.

Damn it! There was that noise again, almost like the snapping of twigs but not quite. Maybe a crackle? What the hell was a word like crackle anyway? The only thing Jacob could firmly recall making a noise like that was when his three gallons of milk poured over his seven boxes of Rice Krispies in the morning.

He sniffed the air again, deeply, pointing his muzzle towards the sky in a half-sigh. He was probably just hearing things. He should just go to bed. Bella had her precious leech to watch over her. He was done patrolling.

Sam would give him hell in the morning, but in his dreary, but flaming mood, he didn't care.

He was itching for a good fight anyway.

"I don't want to deal with his bullshit in the morning, Jake,," a voice hissed into his mind. "Just finish checking the perimeter and then go sleep in the grass, I don't give a damn. Just finish."

Jared seemed highly irritated this night, Jacob thought softly, careful.

"You just miss you girlfriend, sourpuss,," he growled in return, making his displeasure with an order coming from someone below him known. "So shut up and stop patronizing me. I'll do what I damn well please."

"It's your funeral, asshole."

The humming that usually came from Jared's mind suddenly disappeared, and Jake knew that his pack-mate had changed back into something more human.

Perhaps he would fight Jared instead of Sam in the morning. Fuck, he'd fight them both.

His fur rippled over his skin, as the almost painful change from wolf to man set every nerve in his body on overdrive. His bones contorted and slid, bringing his height down quite a few feet, his fur melted into his body, revealing the tawny, dark, almost polished color of his skin, and the shape of his muscles brought that color life. His black, jadedly cut hair fell to his shoulders and his dark eyes narrowed and humanized. Stark naked, no one could deny that Jacob Black was beautiful in a rustic, foreign way. But his mood and thoughts told a whole other tale. He was angry, depressed, and severely hurt. The emotions made him almost ugly.

But of course, Jake and his ego would never admit to that.

Slipping on a pair of cut-off jeans that met his knee, Jacob growled and grumbled about how terrible his luck was. Bella must have been rubbing off on him, one way or another, because damn it, things had been good before that bastard Cullen came back and destroyed everything. He had the girl of his dreams, the fate of his dreams, and had all his dreams pretty much coming true. Sure, the danger of his temper was something that everyone worried about, the fact the he could be too close to someone and seriously mess him or her up in the blink of an eye. But, with Bella's annoying little pushes and outlandish remarks, he had learned to pretty much control the wolf of his temper inside of him.

But, had Bella seen his effort?

Of course not...

"Dude, I should not be dwelling on her," he whispered aloud, running a hand through his hair before cupping his face in both his huge palms. "It's hopeless, man. She's in love with the leech. I told her I'd fight for her, not give up, but damn it, it's really annoying sittin' around while she's making kissy faces and who the hell knows what else at that vampire."

Exhaling through his mouth, Jake willed his shoulders to stop being so tense as he started forward towards La Push, dropping his hands to his sides.

"Don't go to bed angry," he chanted aloud to himself. "It's a recipe for another damn sleepless night."

He knew that better than he liked to admit.

His steps were virtually silent as he paced through the knee-high brush, ducking beneath or jumping over branches that threatened to clothesline him when he wasn't really paying attention. So, he wondered in his half-daze, why the hell was he still hearing that damn crackle? Or whatever the hell it was?

Maybe he was going crazy. Yeah, he entertained the idea as he counted the number of times that noise echoed in his sensitive ears.

He was up to seven times when he remembered the way he'd forced Bella to kiss him, basically shoving his tongue down her throat in a desperate attempt to make her kiss back and want him as much as he wanted her.

And then when she punched him! Ha! Yeah, he was probably just as crazy as his little brunette stupid-head.

The idea was enchanting.

Yeah, he could see it now, he and Bella living together in La Push, sitting together on a hammock in their almost equally old age, talking about Vampires and Werewolves and one-hundred and eight degree body temperatures.

Yeah, enchanting was so the word for what they'd be.

His steps became quicker as sleep became ever more needed for his system, and Jacob's yawns became more frequent as the moon still stood high in the sky. That crackling noise still remained, an ever irritating sound in the background of his thoughts, but the wolf found more and more that it was just putting him more quickly and quickly to sleep.

Then he tripped over something.

And he was not in the least happy.

"What the hell?' he hissed, lifting his face from the ground only to instantly get to his feet, looking around in the midnight darkness to find the damn thing that had not only caused him to fall and look like a dumbass for the forest, but had pulled him from his precious almost-dreaming thoughts of him and Bella. He would destroy the stupid piece of wood or fallen tree that had caused him such distress.

And, lets be honest by saying Jacob Black felt even more idiotic when he realized that he thing had tripped over had been, well, not exactly something found in the woods everyday.

Yeah, in the stomach of some wild beast - like his own if he was hungry enough - but not right in the middle of his damn feet.

It was a cat.

A fat one, too...

"What the hell have you been eating?" Jacob asked, eyeing the cat and it's nearly three rolls of pure fat that hung around each side of ribs, all of the mass smushed to each side. The lazy thing laid on it's belly, it's front and back limbs not tucked beneath the animal as usual, but out and pivoted diagonally away from itself, as though it was just too fat to fit its legs under himself and just gave up. "A cow?"

He remembered his joke with Bella well, he almost laughing at himself.

At least he really didn't eat the cow, unlike this poor little feline.

There it was! Again! That crackling noise that had been bugging the hell out of him. It was so close now, right under his...

Jacob's dark-brows came together, knitting the skin above his nose. That crackling... he leaned forward, pivoting his head to the side so his ear hovered just above the bored looking face of the fat cat... it was the thing breathing!

"Oh shit. You're dying aren't you?" Jacob asked the cat stupidly, not really expecting an answer.

"Nuu," the cat meowed, or nuued, or whatever the hell it did, as it continued on with it's crackling breathing.

A million thoughts raced through his mind. He could take the cat home; get it proper medical treatment and whatever else it needed. There'd be no problem with food, there was always enough food for everyone in La Push, whether he and the others in the pack were gluttons or not. But, then again, Billy wouldn't really be happy with some cat in his house, eating all his food. Hell, Billy wasn't happy half of the time when Jacob was in his house, eating all his food.

Jake couldn't blame him.

Maybe Bella would like a present. Yeah! He could tell her that he had been racing around in the forest when he found the cat - true - but it was so skinny that he had to feed it back to a healthy weight - false - because he was such a good guy and an animal lover and because he took care of this cat, he could most certainly take care of her - only partly true.

Well, didn't girls like cats at least?

There was snapping, and a heavy scent instantly hit Jacob in the face. He blinked a few times, being jarred from his thoughts, as he immediately thought the snap had came from the cat - a bone breaking, maybe - and the smell was just what cats smell like when they pass out. But, Jacob couldn't help but instantly notice the presence that weighed the right side of him, unbalancing his air and making him nervous.

Instinct told him in a second that the creature was a good foot shorter than he was.

Instinct told him in a second that this creature was somehow dangerous.

Instinct was what Jacob knew best.

Jake flew to the side in a second, grabbing the creature by a very human looking arm at the wrist, crushing it almost painfully in his giant hand. The creature came up to smack him with a stick - the snap - but Jacob grabbed the weapon and threw it far away, grabbing the creature in the same place as it had on its other arm. Pulling its arms above its head, Jacob let a deep growl radiate from his chest, almost as though it wasn't coming from his mouth. He snarled, showing off his teeth, as he angrily glanced down at the intruder, his black eyes fierce.

Instinct had not prepared him for what he saw.

A girl, probably his real age, looked way up at him from suddenly glassy eyes. Her short, black hair looked a mess, leaves and grass stuck to it in clumps that sat in every which way about her scalp. She had a mildly wide face, like he did, but her eyes were slightly upturned, exotic, not quite Asian but certainly not American, either. Her lips were curved down, her lower lip pouting out a bit not because she wanted to appease him in some seductive way, but because her upper lip was thinner. Her nose was wide too, a little big for her face, but nothing had made her look hideous. His eyes wandered back to hers for a brief second, where in the tears that pooled along her lower lashes made the color of her irises shine heavenly in the moonlight.

Cinnamon.

Suddenly, something was gripping him from the inside, like a fist had fingered his heart and was crushing it. He gasped out for breath, instantly falling away from the frightened girl, as he felt his face heat up even hotter than he had felt before. He wondered for a brief moment if he was dying, if that girl had been a spy from the Cullen's and she had somehow injected him with some poison made of silver. Could silver really kill him and his wolf brothers? He'd seen it all in the movies but he and the others had never really gotten the guts to try it out.

Well, maybe Quil would have the answer to his dire experiment now.

Then the most peculiar thing happened.

The pain stopped and the feeling of love, adoration, and comfort exploded in his chest all at the same time. It was so powerful that it brought tears to his own eyes, and he truly thought that he had died and was being gifted with some chance at heaven or whatever the hell was good after death. He somehow felt his soul reach out from his body and... and...

Then it was gone.

That over whelming sense of well being, the joy, the fullness of something that had crammed in his chest and made him feel whole. It was all gone, no more quickly than it had come. He frowned at the ground, his hand unclasping the center of his chest, as a stray teardrop was blinked from his eye and left to freefall to the forest floor.

"What the hell was that?" he asked the air.

"I'm so, so, so, so, so, very sorry, sir! You scared me!" the voice that spoke to him was so beautiful, so musical, like bells

Bells. Bella.

He thought of her and felt nothing, not a tablespoon of love, not a drop of adoration, her name made him feel sadly hollow. His curiosity consumed him.

"I am visiting family in Forks, sir, and my cat wandered away and I had to come and get him and-"

Jake let out the loudest, most booming laugh he could muster, throwing his head back for no real reason.

"How can the cat wander when it can barely stand up?" he asked, the mirth still in his deep tone as he smiled, looking down at the girl who spoke so gorgeously to him.

When he met her gaze, his stomach somersaulted and was suddenly consumed by butterflies, those butterflies where cinnamon colored, he knew, because that was the color of her eyes.

Any imperfection that maybe had been there before wasn't existent in her face any more; he swore she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. So much prettier than Bella, than any super model, than anyone he knew he'd ever meet again.

And that accusing look, the way her mouth twisted a bit on the left and the way her eyes narrowed at him made him want to kiss her until she was as breathless as he was.

"Daniel is not fat," she murmured, in the cutest voice he had ever heard. "But he's not one of those underfed house cats that are ugly and run away from you."

"And I guess that your solution to him running away was over feeding him?" Jacob asked, teasing her. "Ah, too bad, he ran away anyway. I guess he doesn't like you."

Her cheeks turned the most beautiful shade of crimson. "T-that's not it! T-that's not it at all! He-he!" she let out an angry yell, almost stomping her foot.

"Oh my God," he thought aloud, laughing. "I seriously think I'm in love with you."

The girl paled.

"What did you say?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Jacob shook his head. He was a blunt kind of person, and had she been anyone else, and had it not been close to three in the morning, he would have told her straight out that he was madly and deeply in love with her.

But, he desperately didn't want to lose this, lose her, lose... the feeling...

He wouldn't screw up again.

"My name is Jacob Black," he said, holding out a large hand to the girl. "I'm sorry about earlier, you just caught me off guard."

The girl looked up at him with her gorgeous eyes, seemingly unsure of what to do or say. After a moment of careful consideration, she extended her arm as well, lightly taking his palm in her dainty hand.

"Rave Wentworth," she introduced herself, "But I guess you can call me Rae."

A smile engulfed his face.

"I'm thinking that I like Rave more," Jacob whispered, low, not with enough throatiness to scare her, but enough to make her aware that he was more than interested in her. "It's cute."

More crimson. More beauty.

He walked her home that night, as he hoped he would many others, holding the cat in one hand, and hers in the other.

Perhaps, he thought with a wolfish grin, he wouldn't have to kick Sam or Jared's ass in the morning.

After all, their annoying pushiness had led him to the two things he thought he'd never have.

True love and one seriously fat cat...