Chapter 1. Jacob 1, Edward nil.
Why wasn't I stopping this? Worse than that, why couldn't I find in myself the desire to stop? Suddenly my whole fantasy of being with Edward for eternity was swept away, and replaced images of my future with Jacob:
Never having to hide from Charlie and Renee. Not having to disappear to some far away college, in Alaska. Never running away ever again, from vampires, trying to kill me. Edward had left me before, and it damn near killed me. Maybe, just maybe, Jacob was the right choice?
That was about when I stopped thinking. Jacobs hands slid down my back, curving around my hips, smoothing along the contours of my waist, and mine winding through his hair where they held, and then pushed his face closer to mine. This, this, is what I wanted. I wanted Jacob, not Edward and his ageless beauty, his perfect house and family, not eternal life, and certainly not the ensuing eternal thirst.
Jacob broke away from me. "I told you you loved me." he whispered it to my throat, and then kissed along my collar bone, then back up past my throat to my jaw, and crushed his lips against mine again.
I felt my blood rise to my skin everywhere he kissed, everywhere he touched me.
"I want you Jacob. More than I wanted him. I don't want to be like him anymore." It was hardly even a whisper, and it was the truth.
I guess that was when Edward heard, because of the speed at which he tore through the trees away from the clearing where the werewolves and vampires (what's wrong with me?!) were still fighting to save my life. Almost in the same second, he had launched himself upon Jacob with a snarl of agony twisted with fury, and in that second still, Jacob quivered into his red-brown wolfish self.
As they tore into each other, ready to kill one another, fighting to do just that, I felt my whole world being ripped apart. I realised how many people had, and were going to have, been killed because of me. How many hearts had ceased to beat? How many souls were being snuffed out forever tonight because I thought I had fallen in love?
Who else's futures had been destroyed so that I could live forever?
Then of course, Alice appeared. She hadn't seen this coming, obviously, because Jacob was a werewolf, and as you probably already know, she couldn't see where werewolves were involved. But she couldn't see Edward's future now any better than I could, and she knew something was wrong.
At almost the same speed as Edward had crashed through the forest toward us, she appeared, and then, though handicapped by Jacob's presence, launched herself into the brawl.
Though of course when I say brawl, I mean death match. And now, one way or another I was going to lose one of my best friends.