The Dying Evergreen

Chapter 4: Hunger

AN: Alright, so this semester was of hell, and I know that's not an excuse. To make up for it, the longest chapter to date! Lots of drama, lots of crazy shiat, an appearance from Emmett and Bella, and, well, y'know STUFF. Rest assured, this is still very much T, and will stay T. In case anyone gets to the end and freaks out. I ain't planning on getting too spicy…

Warnings: Language is somewhat worse here. That's pretty much it. There's super nondescriptive sensuality, but its very mild in nature.

"You don't have to rush," I sat up quickly, the satin sheet pooling around my hips. My torso was bare, but I made no move to cover myself from the harsh air. "It's not like I'm going to ask you to cuddle or anything."

Emmett stopped amidst buckling his leather belt, straightening up. The tight skin across his stomach clenched in stress, straining over the river of blue veins that ducked below his pelvic bones. He ran his tongue across his teeth, his amber irises deepening to a brandy brown. "You don't have to say things like that, Rose."

Moving towards his discarded shirt, he snatched up the rumpled mahogany button-up at a slower pace to appease me. I watched him dress disinterestedly. My husband's body had once been something that I would be transfixed by. The constriction of his smooth planes of tanned muscle was just as lovely as it had always been, but I now regarded him with a strange reticence. It was the same lack of intrigue that one would hold towards a photograph of a male model. Emmett was still virile, but he was unreachable as though he were but a paper replica.

Ironic, considering what we had just done to our forty-fifth king sized bed of the year.

I picked up a discarded book from my nightstand, unashamedly remaining nude from the waist up. Turning to a random page, I falsely pretended to be engrossed by the Hardy novel I found myself perusing. Emmett finished dressing, pausing to gaze at me. I was aware of his empty analysis of my stature, but continued to pore over the words as though I actually cared what I read.

Finally, Emmett strode to the corner of the bed and picked up my white dress I had been wearing earlier. He tossed it to me gruffly, fixing me with a scowl. "Get dressed."

I looked aimlessly at the wrinkled material of the garment on my lap. A guttural snarl rumbled in my chest. "Fuck you, Emmett."

He snorted derisively, opening the patio door. He turned back for a moment, his eyes glazing over a mournful ocher. "You already did, Rosie." With that, he leapt out of the room and into the grey, thick mist.

"Fuck you!" I hoarsely cried out, tossing the novel after him. The heavy book hit the window beside the patio door, immediately shattering the glass with the force of my throw. The shards sprayed in all directions like water droplets, many of them ricocheting off my frozen skin. I barely noticed, rising to stand. The glass on the floor crunched beneath the soles of my feet into miniscule fragments. I cried out again, my voice thick and heaving. "EMMETT!"

He did not return. The grey, heavy vapor hung silent outside the balcony.

Grabbing the crumpled dress from the bed, I slipped into it thoughtlessly. The slivers all over the floor formed a sort of odd cosmos, a broken and strange maelstrom on the wood. Absently, I picked up a large fragment close to me. With sickening intention, I ran the piece in a long line down my opposite wrist. The glass barely made an indentation, leaving no mark on the icy sheath of smooth skin. Irrationally and furiously, I ran the piece along my forearm once arm, only succeeding in chipping the piece into smaller sparkling shards that trickled out of my hand onto the floor.

"Damn it all." I cursed under my breath. Sleeping with Emmett was a game, a silly, preposterous game that left me in division: my stomach was twisted in sorrow and my chest was brimming with fury. Why, why in hell were we still doing it? Why did we spend hours on blatantly empty shows of affection when we both knew it was simply emptying of us of our souls, pooling them on the floor in glass shard Milky Ways? I was tired, so, so tired of going through the motions of marriage without ever really living it.

The worst thing about it, really, wasn't the blatantly empty sex.

It was the sublime, taunting scent of pine and honeysuckle that seemed to curl in the back of my mind and settle on everything I touched. Even with Emmett, golden brown expanses of scorching skin flashed through my mind like a repetitive nightmare. And I wanted it to haunt me. I craved every moment of it.

"Rosalie!"

"What the hell happened?"

I spun on my heel towards the entrance. Bella stood in the doorframe, her hand still guiltily grasping the brass knob. Behind her, barely held back by her demure frame, Jacob Black anxiously hung in the doorway. I immediately found that I couldn't bear to look at him. His wide, imploring eyes bored a guilty hole in my chest cavity. Instead, I fixated my aghast stare at Bella.

"Bella?"

The younger vampire took a step forward, effectively giving the mutt room to sidle in beside her. She apologetically shuffled her feet, her lovely mouth slightly agape.

"Sorry—I—we heard you scream and then the sound of the window breaking and—"

"What the hell did that damn bloodsucker—" The dog started to speak, but Bella elbowed him in the rib. He rubbed his side, miraculously clothed in a shirt today. "Ow! That actually hurts now that you have super human strength."

"Jake! Shut up."' Bella turned back to me. "Sorry—I mean, I know you guys were—I mean, we didn't want to interrupt—it's just the noise, and we thought something was wrong and—"

"It's fine." I swiftly cut her off, lacing my arms across my chest. It was far too easy to immediately put up a cold exterior to match my skin temperature. My composure solidly in place, I looked the younger vampire in the eye. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it, Bella."

"I—okay, Rosalie." The strange beauty turned to leave, giving the mutt a light shove towards the door. She paused then, turning once more back to me. "Are you sure?"

I managed a smile, something that I considered quite phenomenal. Nodding tersely, I made an obligatory wave of my hand. My arm was trembling. If they did not leave soon, I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep up my façade.

Bella gave me one last concerned look before turning out the door, with Jacob in tow. "C'mon, Jake."

I turned back to the mess of glass, not bothering to see if they both left. Experimentally, I crushed another shard beneath my toes, wishing to the heavens that just one would pierce my stony flesh and draw blood. I needed to feel that pain. I barely felt alive anymore. Not that the animated corpse I inhabited, this monstrous husk of a body, could really be said to be living. Momentarily lost in this conjecture, I became vaguely aware of a gradual change in temperature. An exceedingly warm presence moved at my left.

"What do you want, mongrel?" My mind flashed to the balmy, steaming garage of many, many weeks ago. There was a strange sensation that day that Jacob Black could actually heat me, that he could raise my temperature from the constant arctic that was vampirism. It was different today.

Much like the day when we fed the birds, our polarity starkly stabbed the pit of my stomach. A peculiar sensation of asphyxiation came upon me: my throat seized and the dead shells of my lungs clenched as if straining for a gasp of air. He was the warming, comforting fire of the sky: the sun rolling in soothing waves that crept under the cells of my skin. In contrast, not only was I physically frozen, but my motionless heart stood like a vacant crypt in my chest, filled with nothing but dust and disease.

He still did not speak.

"What—what do you want?" I whispered, the last word coming out in a small gasp. I couldn't do this much longer. This ploy, this ridiculous dance we were constantly going through the motions of. I was sick and tired of living the lines of the troubled wife, Jacob Black the niece's disinterested soul mate. We stuck to our script, but inside I was waning with fragility and utter want.

He was silent for a moment more, before I heard the glass crunch as he shifted stance. I balled my fists, digging my fingernails into my palms. "What—"

"Say my name." His voice was unbearably thick and hot. My mouth slipped open, and I closed my eyes. I felt him draw nearer, and an agonizingly temperate pool of breath rolled over my shoulder and circled my neck. "Say it."

Entirely against my will, the delicious word formed on my lips, sliding pleasurably over my tongue in release. "Jacob, I—"

And then he was suddenly there, all around me, his thick arms holding me tightly against his chest, his huge hands clenching me ineffably close at the small of my back and the edge of my hair, his mouth moving insensibly over the crown of my head.

The world seemed to pause.

Something like a sob retched my body. I didn't move. I couldn't. A part of me wanted nothing more than to bury my face in the sweltering smell of pine and honeysuckle that emitted from the soft cotton of his shirt, nothing more than feel him with my hands and drink every breath he took straight from his mouth.

I stayed perfectly still, because, in the end, I could not breathe back.

Jacob took one long intake of air, burying his noise in my hair before moving back a step, still loosely holding me in his arms. "Rosie, please talk to me." He moved a hand to cup my cheek, his fingers playing at the edge of my ear. "You can tell me. I'll listen." His thumb grazed over the end of my mouth, barely pressuring the curvature of my lip. "I will. I'll listen. I won't say anything, really I won't. Rose…"

I was inclined to believe him. In my life so very full of games and masks, this was an earnest chance to speak about the monsters that tore at my insides. His brown eyes swelled with brutal honesty, and I couldn't refuse him. "We—I—I need to sit."

He immediately drew me to the edge of the bed, sitting comfortably besides me. For a second, I felt repulsion to perching on my bed with him, especially now that the headboard was snapped once again. If I could have blushed I would have, because the wary, knowing glance he threw the damage filled me with unsettling embarrassment.

Drawing it in, I began to cross my hands. Before I did, Jacob snaked a large, golden hand over and interlaced his fingers daringly with mine. I looked up at him, raising an eyebrow.

"Are we forgetting that I'm married, mutt?" I said, probably more harshly than necessary.

Jacob looked at our hands for a moment. He took my ring finger between his thumb and his forefinger, stroking the skin right above where the silver band trapped me. The tan pad of his thumb barely grazed over finger, but every movement sent shocks straight through me.

He looked up, his brow set seriously. "No. I didn't forget." He gave my hand a squeeze and then let go. "But don't say you didn't want me to."

Ignoring the last comment, I crossed my legs and looked away from him. When I didn't speak for a while, Jacob started again.

"I'm sorry—I guess—if I've caused you any problems. I haven't meant to." He leaned back against the far post of the end of the bed, running a hand through his mussed raven hair. "I didn't mean for this—I mean us—to be or do anything that would hurt you. You know I don't really give too much of a damn about your leech husband. But if what's going on with us is hurting you, then—"

"Nothing is going on with us." I interrupted, straightening the white material of my dress over my thighs. "I want to make that clear, mutt."

He scowled at my words, his eyes darkening to a glare. "Whatever you say, Blondie. What're you so friggin' mad about all the time, then? Undead hormones getting you down?"

I snorted lightly. The wolf really was classless. "Funny, Black. Really quite inspiring humor there."

"We on a last name basis now, Hale? That's cold. And you're freezing to begin with."

"Leave, fleabag." I hissed, crossing my arms over my chest.

Jacob stood up, as if to go. He paused, though, looking at me with brewing anger in his earthy gaze. Suddenly, he swiftly moved back to the bed, thrusting himself over me and pushing me down on my back.

"No, Sleepless Beauty, I don't think I will." Both of his expansive hands took hold of my wrists, pressing them down onto the mussed comforter. My abdomen curled tightly. Things were getting interesting. "Now, you can answer me civilly, and I'll get the hell out of here. I need to know if your problems with Emmett are my fault. I need to."

I snarled brutally, imagining how much force it would take to push myself up and bury my teeth deep into the strong gullet of his throat. I could practically taste the boiling, ruby iron of blood gurgling from his perfect russet neck. Licking my lower lip, I let out another growl. "And if I don't answer?"

He looked down at me, considering. His knees dug into the bed on either side of me, and I felt tempted to kick upwards as hard as I could. One thumb rolled off my wrist and flicked across my palm in small circles. "I think I'll kiss you."

Well, that wasn't going to happen. Not in hell. I parted my red lips, baring my teeth at him. If he wanted the fucking truth, he could have it. "And people call me the narcissistic one. This has nothing to do with you." I dug a sharp fingernail against his thumb, drawing blood. The cut immediately closed up, but the delicious smell made me moan in hunger. Even his blood was laced with an overpowering scent of the wild woods. "You're nothing more than a damn nuisance that won't get the hell out my head."

I felt the preliminary tremors of the change run through his body then, and I raised a brow. The animal brewed within, running under his taut skin, snarling to be free. He wouldn't dare. A guttural noise came from his throat, and he grasped my wrists tighter. "Good to know I have such an effect on you. Then what the hell is it, Ice Princess? What's so damn wrong with you and the Hulk that he's got you screaming and breaking windows? And drinking blood in the damn dark? And messing around with me?" When I scowled at that, he shook his head. "Yeah, that's right, Blondie. You're doing all kinds of sick shit to my head. I can't focus anymore. I want more than anything to stay away from you, but I keep coming right back like a moth to your stupid frozen flame. Do you have any fucking idea how insanely sexy you are?"

Electricity shot through my body, coursing through every dry vein. "Jacob, it's not you. I swear."

"Rose, what—"

"It's Nessie."

Jacob seemed utterly shocked for a moment, his hands going lax on my wrists. I took the opportunity to shove him off and stand to my feet.

"What the hell do you mean?"

"Nessie, Jacob. It's always been her." I closed my eyes, before letting out a frustrated howl. "Damn it. What do you know about the way I was changed?"

"Not much. Bella said you didn't want it. And I assume it was Carlisle."

"'Didn't want' it is an understatement. The only good thing about Carlisle saving me is that I had the opportunity to murder the men who raped me and left me for dead." I didn't let the shock of that seep in for him, and quickly carried on. "I had my humanity stolen from me. I never had a chance to grow old, to mature. I didn't get to have a wedding where my family could see me walk down the aisle breathing. I'm in limbo. I can't change." My voice grew to a low hiss. "I can't have children, Jacob."

He stayed silent, but his full lips tightened.

"It's been an issue in the back of my mind since the day I knew what I was. Even after Emmett, even in the happiest throes, it was still there." I paced over the glass, my stone feet crushing a path. "And then Bella became pregnant." I paused at the empty window frame, its edges still dotted with protruding glass. The grey mist outside seemed to thicken tightly around everything it touched, strangling the tall evergreens. I turned back to Jacob. "I acquiesced to her request that I guard her and her unborn child very easily. It wasn't a question of whether or not I had particularly grown to like Bella. She knew how I felt about having children, and he knew I would let nothing take away the opportunity, albeit bizarre, from her."

I expected him to break in, to say something ridiculous that would finally cause me to rip him to pieces, but he remained perfectly still, his forehead wrinkled in intense concentration. I continued, "It was fine for awhile after Nessie was born. Watching her, playing with her, reading to her—it all made me genuinely happy, something I'm sure you've gathered is somewhat of a rare occurrence. Up until then, it had always been Emmett who made me happy, Emmett who pulled me out of the slumps I'm so prone to." I reached out a poised finger and ran it along the edge of the jagged window frame. "It wasn't long before Emmett became jealous of the way I reacted to Nessie, and before I became irrationally angry at him."

Seeing the way Jacob shifted dangerously, I quickly clarified. "Neither of us blame Nessie for what we've done because of her, for what we've become. But Emmett is jealous nonetheless, because Nessie is the one who makes me happy now, genuinely, truly happy. She's my escape from this stupid, damnable vampirism, this living death I'm condemned to. And he's mad, furious, really—rightly so. I don't blame him. In turn, I've been worse. I'm mad at him too. Furious, because I can't have a child of my own, and somehow I'm blaming him for my ineptitude. It's not his fault at all, in any way, it's my body that won't shift, that won't change."

"Rose, it's not—" The wolf started, rising to his feet.

I stopped him, the pain in the center of my chest coming to full fruition, not unlike the rampant lust for blood. "You can barely blame him at all for any of our problems. Ultimately, I caused it. I'm the damned selfish bitch, blaming other people for the messes I make, for the wrecks I cause. For what I feel. I'm the one to blame for every damn problem I have. I'm like a fucking masochist." A noise, halfway between sob and a laugh retched from my throat, and I couldn't say anymore, I couldn't say another word to him because now he knew everything. I had exposed and offered him the very naked core of my heart, and the open, seeping wound was too much for me to bear.

He stood quietly, his hands clenching and unclenching, his eyes lidded and his chest tensely flexed. In the silence, I could hear the ever-present throb of his heart, and it made my tongue twitch with desire. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't fed for a while.

The last two times my family had gone to hunt, I had remained behind, starving myself, staving off the hunger with the meager supplies in the refrigerator. Yet, the urge to catch prey and feed had suddenly come back to me as a result of my irritable, emotional upheaval. Denial of the hunt roared in my mind like a demon.

That's all I was, anyway, an animal that was lustfully ravenous for the metallic tang of blood. The hunger grew in my spine, pooling in my hips, burning my mouth. Jacob seemed to become aware, suddenly, of the change in my temperament, undoubtedly due to my eyes. I could almost feel them darkening with famished yearning to a burned, dingy gold.

"Rose…" His voice was hoarse with warning. I could still feel the residual anger between us, but building off it was a tide of something else, something feral, something animalistic, utterly wild and dangerous: an unbelievable, maddening hunger.

The urge to suck his every wildwood vein dry was never so strong before, and I couldn't handle it anymore. Whether it really was the anger, the rawness of my emotions, or the tension between us, I needed to eat, to feed that instant. Without another thought, I leapt in a long bound straight out the gaping window and breached the heavy, grey mist.

The gloom was instantaneous. All around me draped a heavy, moist veil that gladly drowned me in its depths. I became aware of the icy, titillating stab of a light rain on my skin. Falling into a hellfire speed run the moment my bare feet impacted on the damp ground, I pierced the curtains of grey and raced into the vague world before me.

Behind me, I heard a cry of my name, undoubtedly the wolf, followed by an ominous howl. I sped up, falling into the comforting limbo of grief, my mind numbing in the miry, opaque realm of the mist.

For a while, I ran without thought, my only drive to be further from him. The emptiness of the surrounding vapor was fully welcome, and I became lost in the void with gratitude, welcoming an abyssal euphoria.

Gradually, though, I became aware of the towering pillars of trees, their arms stretching out above me, barring the dull oppression of the firmament from weighing down and suffocating me. The cage of the forest was familiar ground, a vault full of hot smells and cold laws, where I was the predator at the top of the chain of command, and death was mine to deal. The detritus boiled with earthy fumes, swelling around me and whispering secrets to me. My heels crashed down, filthy with mud, unleashing the clandestine location of potential victims with every pound of my feet.

A rabbit there—a lynx in the hollow—finally, a rancid waft of urine sprang up from the ground, selling the presence of a large stag. I caught the trail in my nose, and the forest world was gone. An invisible line lay out in front of me, and it spelled out the path of the stag with hesitant releases of sweat and short puffs of animal breath. I took no moment to hesitate, and purged the way before me with breakneck speed.

The trees became vaulting boards, the rocks merely aiding me in tracing the path of my prey. It was not long before the delicious pulsating beat of the creature's heart permeated my hunting stupor and my hungerlust reached a crescendo. Our dance was nearly finished.

My singular focus kept me from the rest of the woodland realm, but not from the sudden wisp of a smell that carried on the rain. Pine and honeysuckle dripped across my firmly pressed lips and I let out a primal snarl. Another predator had chosen me as his prey.

I ran faster, clearing a small ravine over a creek with little thought. The stag was too close to give up; my path was relentless. Yet, I could now make out an incessant thumping of paws hitting the forest floor not far behind me. The beat was like a war drum, warning of competition, of conflict. My mind refused to process anything but the hunt, even though the balmy forest had spied my wolfen stalker and gave hail to his close flight.

And, as I ripped over a verdantly mossy boulder, the stag came into sight, running in a fierce panic. Its eyes were wide with near-catatonic fear, a beady onyx. I could see its brown flanks gleam in the weighty grey light, and my teeth bared in anticipation.

It was then that the massive hide of a russet wolf emerged to my left like a furious, nether worldly hellhound, strings of drool whipping from his open jaws. The giant beast cut me off, snapping its huge toothy mouth at the stag and catching it right in the neck. The prey did not stand a chance.

In less than a second, its throat was rent and its life fluids were running free. I had paused atop a nearby mound of detritus, stirring a whirlwind of rotting leaves into the air with my angry sways. I let out a feral snarl at the wolf, a wet growl that warned him to back off.

The creature looked at me, puzzled, dropping the scarlet stained carcass. His sleek head bowed in succession, as though he meant to concede the prey all along. Cautiously, I sidled forward, the smell of the stag blood nearly driving me into a frenzy. Under the brown eyes of the wolf, I pressed my lips to the throat of the animal and drank deep.

I gradually loss awareness of the preternatural russet watchdog, falling into a lull of satisfaction. The warm, irony life fluid tasted of heavens to my tongue, and I dug my fingers greedily into the brown flank, sipping more. I felt the wildness of hunger stave off and I looked up.

Jacob had changed back to human form. In my dizzy fervor, I regarded him as if I were dreaming. I knew something was off, something was different, but I didn't, couldn't, place it immediately.

I met his weary frown, running my gaze down his cheekbones to his open mouth, where a set of sharp white teeth were lightly exposed. Further down, his neck ran in picturesque lines, a sculpted throat of unparalleled proportions. The tanned smooth skin continued to form a clavicle that ran both ways to thick arms, pillars to the chiseled torso and the dark hollows around his abdominals. He was in every way a dark, living manifestation of Michelangelo's David, but so much more. Sweat, raindrops, and grime ran in small trickles down his tanned skin, down, down, along his pelvic bones, and—

The something that was different hit me very subtly, almost like a momentary hushed whisper. He was vivacious and filthy and all kinds of feral beauty. And yet, it hit me, this picture was so vividly, hauntingly stark because Jacob had, in his haste, ripped off his clothes in the tremors of the shape-shifting change.

The sated hunger that I had felt redoubled in return, wrenching my bones into a spasm, leaving my chest heaving with starved wanting. Wretched ravenousness coursed through my every fiber, leaving my innards growling with need. I was not filled at all.

I wiped a forearm slowly across my mouth, a trail of crimson pasting my hairs down across my skin. Not losing his unashamed gaze, I dropped the cradled stag to the damp mud.

Jacob stared back at me wantonly, his inflamed need blazing in his wide eyes. What had been a craving, a want, was now in full form. It had matured to a bitter, bitter necessity in the heart of the moist, heavy forest. We were suffocating into a central crux, into a dire conflict where the only sustenance we had, the only air there was to suck in heated breaths, was found in each other. The sodden woods roared with intentional laughter, the humidity striking a match and lighting a wildfire between us.

I rose to my feet, my white dress clinging to my thighs with water, with mire, with red, sticky blood.

Jacob took little time in crossing the clearing, his stride purposeful and knowing and drawn like a caustic, virile deity. I didn't hesitate, and I certainly didn't turn in flight. The heat had become unbearable in the balmy cusp of our game, and I had every intention of rolling the final dice to bring it to an explosion. This cell of lofty trees, this moist womb of the forest would be the only witness to the deliciously anticipated crime.

The proverbial fire roared into a blinding light, crashing with a maelstrom of raw consumption. He deliberately, hungrily claimed my mouth, devouring every corner, sipping tastes and moans of amaretto burnt wood, and sucking out every last wall or fortitude. The smell of pine and honeysuckle asphyxiated my throat.

All hesitation dissipated into the grey vapor curtain.

Jacob Black seared his name onto every inch of my lips, onto every spectrum of my body, and into the clandestine hollows of my mind.