Wow, what a journey to get here. Life has been spinning away a little out of control as only real life can. I have not given up on this story by any means and hopefully I will post a little more regularly, if not I apologize in advance for the tardiness of my posting.
This was a particularly hard portion of the story to write and I'm not sure that I am 100% happy with the way that it turned out yet but I am not displeased either so I havve decided to give it up to all of you who are reading and let you be the ultimate judges. So without further ado, pop some popcorn, sit back and relax and (I hope at least) enjoy.
Part 5
To say that I flew into the Cullen household like a whirlwind would have been an understatement. I hadn't spoken at all on the ride home and I could tell that Edward was getting increasingly worried about me as time wore on and the rest of the boys were uncomfortable enough to make awkward small talk with each other. I didn't look at anyone or try and talk to anyone when I entered the house. I just made my way straight upstairs to Edward's bedroom and closed and locked the door behind me on entry.
I tore the lovely clothes that Alice had picked out for me off my body and found the baggiest most comfortable pair of sweats that I owned and an old t-shirt out of my duffel bag and fell into bed. My head hurt, my heart hurt and Jacob's hurt, angry and tortured face was burned into my retina.
I closed my eyes and I saw his face and it made my heart hurt even worse. But sleep came as I knew sleep would and in my sleep I dreamt.
In my dream there was a young woman. She was as beautiful, tall with hair too dark to be called blonde and too light to be called brown, eyes as blue as blueberries and perfectly shaped cherry red lips. In my dream we were in the kitchen of my father's home. She was sitting at the kitchen table a mug of hot chocolate cupped in her hands, another of tea sitting steaming across from her. In my dream she smiled at me as I sat across from her.
"Rejection hurts doesn't it little one?" Her voice was like silk, perfectly pitched and tender, like the way a mother's would be when she was comforting her child.
"Things just aren't the way that they would be in a perfect world." In my dream I answered her, wrapping my hands around the mug in front of me.
"No, this is not a perfect world." Her laugh rang out clear as a bell around me.
"I spent too much time dreaming about the perfect reunion where all of our problems and differences wouldn't matter anymore. My pain is my own fault. I should have known that he wasn't going to be happy to see me. By all accounts we have hurt each other perhaps more than is repairable." I sighed, taking a sip of the hot tea and tasting all of my favorite fruit flavors mixing together in harmony. I decided that I really liked dream tea.
"Dreams can be dangerous and powerful things. I don't think that you carry the burden of guilt alone however, he has hurt you just as badly as you have hurt him. Perhaps there is fault in both corners." The dream woman said with a knowledgeable nod of her head. "Your dreams are strongly tied to your heart little one and your heart is stronger than his."
"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked, realizing in my dream that sitting across from this stranger and talking to her about my feelings was actually a comfortable thing. Strange considering I didn't even like to talk to myself about my feelings.
" Isabella Swan, you have fallen in and out of love. You have been deeply hurt and survived. It has made you strong. Even when you have been at your worst you haven't tried to deny how you feel or who you are and no one else has expected you to. Jacob's friends, family and tribe have not been so kind to him." Her berry blue eyes twinkled at me from under her finely shaped brow. "Come, walk with me a while and lets talk some more of your scary feelings."
In my dream we left my house in companionable silence and started walking. It felt like we walked for hours around Forks and through the woods until we came to cliff tops that I couldn't honestly say that I remembered ever having visited before. I felt comfortable and at peace in a way that I hadn't since Matt and I had made the mistake that changed my life forever.
"Change isn't always a bad thing you know." My dream friend said, taking a seat on the cliff top and dangling her feet over the edge. I looked down, trying to work out how far it was till the ocean that was lapping around the base, how long the free fall would be before you hit the waves below.
"I don't think you quite understand the particular change that I have gone through in the last couple of years." I shook my head.
"You would be surprised by what I know." She answered with a shrug like it didn't really matter to her much at all.
"I jumped off a cliff once." In my dream I found myself offering as I took a seat next to her, pulling my long sleeves over my hands in a long forgotten habit as I spoke. "I don't think that I was trying to kill myself but I might have been. I wasn't a very strong person back then. I thought that life wasn't worth living without Edward. I did all sorts of crazy things then because when the adrenaline kicked in I would hear Edward talking to me in my head. Sounds insane doesn't it? But he was there in my head telling me what I should and shouldn't be doing and I craved it. So I jumped off a cliff." I shook my head and picked up a small pebble that was on the ground next to me. I rolled it between my thumb and forefinger before tossing it over the edge and watching its rapid decent.
"No, not insane. First loves are hard to let go of. Any kind of love at all really. It's much harder when you don't have a choice in the matter." She shrugged again as a gust of wind picked up her hair and spread it across her face.
"Jacob saved me. I mean, when I jumped off the cliff. I didn't realize how strong the current was or how heavy your clothes can be when they are wet. I almost drown." I tucked my hair behind my ears.
"It's not relevant anymore." My dream friend put her hand on my shoulder.
"He also saved me from myself when Edward left. He made me want to live and breathe and laugh and smile and be, just be. He loved me so much it scared me." I sighed.
"Unconditional love is scary sometimes." She acknowledged wisely.
"Jake, he was supposed to be my now and forever. He promised me and then his stupid tribal blood kicked in and he imprinted on that woman." My words caught in my throat, I felt the tickle behind my eyes that usually signaled the onset of tears. I shook my head. I had cried enough tears over Jacob Black. "Then Embry makes me meet her and I find that I can't hate her the way that I want to anymore. She's not a bad person. I think in another life we would have been friends. She seems sweet and kind but I'm angrier at her then I have ever been at anyone else in my life. She has the life that I wanted, that I would have given anything to have and she doesn't want it."
"You're mad at her because she doesn't love him. That is no more her fault then it is your fault that you do love him." It was the other woman's turn to find a pebble to toss. This time I counted the seconds that it took for the pebble to meet the water. It didn't take very long. I looked up and away at the seagulls circling the shoreline. It was funny, I could see them but I couldn't really hear them. I couldn't properly hear the sounds that any healthy forest held or the sound that I knew the waves made when they met the rock of the cliff. It was like having human ears again that missed so much.
"It doesn't matter. Imprinting means that they 100% genetically compatible I don't know if love has much to do with it. If it did then they wouldn't have imprinted would they? After all, at the time Jacob loved me or so he said." I reasoned.
"Are you so sure that he doesn't still?"
"You didn't see his face." I shook my head.
"Don't give up so easily." My dream companion counseled before looking up at the sky with a faraway expression like she wasn't looking at the sky that she was staring at. "The Moon will be up in a couple of hours. You should get some rest."
My dream faded to black.
I woke up to sun streaming through the glass and my body feeling like I had a bad case of the flu. I groaned and rolled into a ball, pulling the pillow that I had been sleeping on over my head trying to get some form of relief.
I hated the full Moon more then I hated my period!
"Rose and I have the basement all kitted out with soppy chick-flicks and plenty of popcorn if you want to throw clothes on and move down there." Alice's chipper little voice sent a headache that I didn't know that I had into overdrive.
"How did you get in here?" I moaned, trying to move farther under the thick goose down comforter that Edward had provided for me years ago as my stomach cramped making me want to draw my knees to my chin.
"Edward has a spare key for his bedroom. He gave it to me this morning." She spoke softly but her voice seemed far too load for the room.
"You're a traitor Edward Cullen." I mumbled from under the pillow and heard his answering chuckle from the music room below.
"He's just trying to help." Alice sounded a little pouty.
"If he wanted to help he should have come himself." I replied.
"You know seeing you in pain hurts him." Alice chided.
"Come on, you know it will be better in the basement." Rosalie coaxed from across the room.
"Knowing that I'll feel better downstairs and actually getting the motivation to move from here are two very different things." I replied.
"I can carry you downstairs or have Mathew come and help you if you'd rather." Alice said making it clear that I was moving down to the basement by my own steam power or she was going to find someone who would help me.
I sat up with a groan and swung my legs out of bed. I didn't have to reach far for a change of clothes; Alice already had a pair of jeans, a cotton tank top and a sweater in hand next to me. "I have bought you so many nice night clothes and you still insist on wearing those ratty old things." She sighed a little dramatically even for Alice as I slipped pulled my clothes on and tested out my stockinged feet on the floor.
My nerve endings were tingling but like last month the tingling was more like pins and needles then sharp pain as it had started. I could only hope that one day I wouldn't be totally useless on the full moon. I rolled my neck, breathing a sigh as I started to move.
"You okay Iz?" Rose said from the doorway of the room. She looked tense even in her unmoving stance, her arms were crossed and her perfectly shaped eyebrows turned down in an uncharacteristic frown.
"I'm fine." I nodded my head feeling like it was going to explode from the jerky movement. "I just shouldn't nod or shake my head anytime soon." I tried at a weak joke and failed as I moved for the doorway, reflecting on how caring that monsters could be.
It was a common thing actually. It wasn't something that was central to the kind of creatures that could go bump in the night. Predators of all kind could be very cruel, from birds of prey to reptiles and even predatory mammals. They were viscous, caring little for the animals that they preyed on and yet were extraordinarily caring within their family groups.
Yes, punishment was sever and dealt quickly with little thought beyond making sure that the family group was well cared for, kept safe and healthy. It seemed that even the creatures that went bump in the night were caring within their family groups. Okay, so Laurent, James and Victoria had all tried to kill me, hell, Victoria was still trying apparently, they had been viscous and cruel in their dealings with me, the Cullen family and the wolf pack but still they were caring toward each other. Victoria's hunting of me was driven by revenge for the deaths of the rest of her family group if it wasn't for me they would all still be alive and she wouldn't be alone. I could understand that.
Even the Wainwright Clan had dealt harshly with Mathew but because the harsh punishment was for the good of the whole Clan. A blind man could have seen how much it pained Ian Wainwright to banish his own son and the pain that it caused their mother and sister when Daniel decided that he had to share in his brother's banishment. There was no hatred though between Mathew and his father, just a cool and hard understanding of the facts and the conditions of his betrayal and banishment.
I think what was hardest for the brothers, was the fact that I could have then and still held the power in my hands to change his banishment. If I would only accept the fact that my friends and family could no longer be mine then I could have a new family and Matt would be restored to his rightful place as heir to the Wainwright family Clan and fortune. All the better if I accepted my place at Matt's side as his wife.
The Clans could be very archaic at times. After all there was ownership in creation.
I was not the only one who was taking advantage of the Cullen's basement. Dan was prowling the floor as an over grown wolf who didn't seem happy to be trapped indoors and Matt was lazing on the couch, apparently at ease within himself. If I hadn't known him better I would have said that he was as unaffected as I was affected but the muscles around his jaw were tight. He was fighting the Change as hard as I was.
"You and Dan should go roam around for a while." I asserted myself even as I dropped onto the couch next to him with a slight groan and pulled the throw from the back of the couch over myself. Matt put an arm around my shoulder and drew me in close to his side. The contact was reassuring as well as painful. I tried to draw on Clan Magic but the bond was as pained as my body and I let go quickly.
"We will wait with you until nightfall." He replied as I knew he would but I had to try.
"Then we are going to subject you to many a chick-flick." Alice proclaimed a little louder then I think she meant to. "What to start with? The Notebook? Sleepless in Seattle? Clueless? Titanic?"
"I think that Titanic is a movie I never want to see again!" I laughed, feeling a release from the worst of my headache. Dan snorted in agreement as Rosalie appeared with a full bowl of popcorn in her arms and Esme right behind her with sodas.
We made it through The Notebook and Clueless and had settled in for Sleepless in Seattle before Edward appeared in the doorway of my basement haven, followed by Embry and Seth. I stiffened and Matt did the same at my side as Alice pushed the pause button and stood up fluidly followed by the rest of the Cullen women.
"Seth heard you were home and after him and, well… it doesn't matter, he just wanted to see you." Embry said looking straight at me. "Carlisle said the distraction might be welcome, he said you weren't feeling great. We aren't looking for any trouble."
"That's what you said last time you showed up on our doorstep. You weren't welcome then you aren't welcome now." Matt's voice was taunt, his muscles bunched to launch an attack. The only thing that stopped him was me curried into his side. Dan was stood next to the arm of the couch, hackles raised and lips curled back to show strong white teeth in a silent growl.
"This is not your home Mathew and as long as the Cullens are happy to have them here then it's okay with me." I smiled encouragingly at Seth. "You've grown Seth Clearwater." I commented trying to sit a little straighter.
"Call us if you need anything. The smell of wet dog isn't so pleasant." Rosalie scrunched up her face and all three of the Cullen women left the room in fluid unity that was enviable.
"You don't look well Bella." Seth nodded, ducking his head as a flush of embarrassment spread across his high cheekbones. Seth had grown into an incredibly handsome young man.
"She likes to try and kill herself by sheer force of will once a month." Matt said dryly and I shot him a dirty look as the two Quileutes looked a little alarmed.
"It's a bit like PMS." I clarified, hoping that the foray into feminine hormones would be enough to satisfy both of the young men and let the conversation drift in a different direction.
"Yeah, my sister says that sucks." Seth's laugh wasn't forced and Embry looked a little abashed.
"Yeah, something like that." Matt said shooting me a dirty look of his own.
"I'm sorry about last night Bella. Jacob wasn't supposed to come home until later but him and Sam had it out again. I didn't realize that he would react badly to seeing you." Embry tried an apology.
"Yeah, he's missed you so much I'm sure that it hurt the hell out of him to see you with another guy!" Seth's words were out of his mouth before he thought about what he was saying that much was evident by the expression on his and Embry's faces. Embry reached over and cuffed the back of his head hard enough it was sure to hurt a little. "What? It's the truth! After all he's spent the last number of years pouring every last minute and dime into that godforsaken –" Again Embry's hand moved up to cuff the younger wolf in the back of the head, this time a lot harder, making Seth's mouth snap shut on words that never came out.
I moved away from Matt, sitting up straight for the first time in hours. Both of the Quileute boys looked at me. Seth bit his lip nervously and Embry looked like a storm cloud had passed over his head. "On a godforsaken what?"
"Look Bella it's nothing." Embry tried and I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Seth said there was something?" I leaned forward. It turned out that the hope that Jacob still cared for me was painful.
"Seriously, it's nothing. Just a stupid project that he keeps buying shit for. Melika didn't lie to you last night Bella. Her relationship with Jake is a whole lot less than it should be. He uses these projects like an escape from the Elders and their expectations." He shook his head vehemently.
"Yeah, no biggy." Seth nodded his agreement enthusiastically. "So who's the big guy and the wolf anyway?" I looked at the boys a minute longer before deciding to let the comment about the mysterious projects slide until my lunch with Melika the next day.
"Mathew and Daniel Wainwright." I replied. "They went to collage with me."
"Can't stay away from us monsters can you?" The young Quileute laughed.
"It doesn't look like it." I shrugged; the laugh that accompanied it sounded a little dry even to me. "How's your sister?"
That afternoon we never really made it back to Sleepless in Seattle. It was nice to sit with Seth and Embry; both boys had been favorites of mine to hang out with in the past. It was nice to talk about past exploits, catch up on the goings on in the Pack, all the while avoiding Jacob's name like it would cause an explosion.
It was nice to be at home and feel accepted even if it was only for a little while.
It wasn't until just before darkness fell that Esme came to escort the boys from Cullen territory. Because of me it was easier for the Quileutes to move back and forward across treaty lines, there was even a little more leeway for the Cullens but lines were still lines and because of the full moon my vampire family was feeling protective.
We waited for a half an hour after they had left before Matt stood up, Dan next to him and looked sharply over at me. Everything in his posture exclaimed that for him enough was enough and if he had to drag me with him he would. He was Alpha and in that moment he was to be obeyed.
"Alright lets go." I nodded my head in acquiescence.
I made it to the backyard a few minutes behind the boys. The Moon was calling to me, offering acceptance and relief from the constant heckling of my nerve endings. For a moment it was it was too quiet standing there alone. There was no sign of Matt or Dan and I could feel Edward and Alice's eyes watching me from the huge glass windows of their home.
Then like something out of a horror movie two large wolf forms appeared at the edge of the tree line and howled. I smiled before closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, smoothing my slightly sweaty palms against my jeans as I exhaled and let go of the control that I had been holding so tightly onto.
Instinct and then my body took over.
Changing is like floating to the top of a swimming pool after having sat at the bottom until you can't hold your breath anymore and your lungs burn with the need for air. There is a peace in it as well as a little pain. A knowledge that in just a few moments you can take a deep breath and allow your body the oxygen that it has been craving and the pain will be gone.
And then you open your eyes and you see differently.
What must be understood from the beginning is that as long as mankind has walked the earth, so has the Clan. We once lived alongside mankind without our secrets to protect us. Back then, they left us to ourselves and we left them to do as they pleased. It was safer for us all that way. But things changed as they often do.
The Clan was always looking for new ways to survive and thrive, they knew that they could mate with humans but the offspring of those unions weren't always successful in Changing, some were just as human as their human parents. Then the Clan discovered that they could Make humans into Clan.
All it took was one single bite.
The bite would either kill a human or Change them.
Humans called the Clan and the people that they Changed, Werewolves, the Moon's children, the twin souled, even the devil's children.
There was war!
Because humans felt threatened they attacked the Clan with cunning and numbers greater than the Clan could gather. What used to be a Clan that worked as a whole was split into different pieces that fled across Europe, Africa, Asia and later the American continents in small family groups. They withdrew from mankind and let them believe that they had died out. Clan became myth and legend and enjoyed the safety that that afforded them.
Because of one night of stupidity and a bite that's purpose I didn't understand at the time, I was now Clan.
I opened my eyes to the warm spring night and took a deep breath. Smells were different. Stronger and held more information for my wolf nose. There were the crisscrossing scents of small prey animals in the yard, the smell of running water not far away, the smell of forest decay and living plant life. My muscles tensed then released, all of the days tensions running through them to the ground beneath my feet and dispersing through my toes.
I felt strong and almost invincible standing under the moon.
Thought processes are different, one moment I was alone basking in the glory of being whole beneath a full moon and the next my pack brothers had joined me and there was joy in being a part of something larger then myself. I can imagine that it's the same sort of exhilaration that wild wolves who have been away from the family group get when they arrive back within the safety of the pack.
There was excitement in the air as Dan bumped me and I pulled my lips back at him in a playful snarl that also served to remind him that I was above him in the pecking order. He laid his ears back against his skull and crouched low in a submissive posture, showing me his throat before Matt snapped at us both and bounded toward the trees reminding us of our purpose.
I looked at the Cullen household, the shapes of Edward and Alice still watching us from behind the glass panes before looking at Dan, my ears swiveling around to take in the night's sounds before taking off after Matt into the trees. The aim of any full moon night was simple, reinstate pack bonds. It was a night full of patrol, play and usually a hunt before dawn came and I went back to denying my place in their small pack.
If I knew Matt at all then he would be looking for some sort of prey almost immediately, not the small kind that we could easily pick up alone like rabbits or large rodents but something bigger that would take all the strength and cunning of all three of us combined working together. It was probably too much to hope that he would pick a mule or white tail deer, knowing him it would be an elk or a moose that would be his choice for the evening.
Dan yipped excitedly from my left and I swung my head, catching the scent of a cotton tail as he veered toward the smell. I was hot on his tail, my tongue lolling out of my teeth before making a wild leap in the air, twisting through a flip through the air and landing on the other side of him to see the rabbit just ahead zigzagging as fast as it could in front of us.
He barked as he bumped my shoulder with his and veered away before I retaliate. Dan was the faster out of the three of us in our mini-pack where I tended to be a little more agile considering my slightly smaller size. Matt was the strongest and while he didn't tend to win in a race between the three of us he never let us forget that we weren't as strong as he was.
So we played, zigzagging in and out of the trees, jumping back and forward across a small stream, bumping into each other, Dan trying to outrun me while I tried to out maneuver him and after a while the rabbet ceased to matter at all. I'm not sure how long we chased that rabbit or how much of that time the rabbit was really there before Dan was sent sprawling into me and my feet scrambled for purchase I no longer had.
I landed hard on the ground, the air escaping from my lungs in a painful whoosh that I knew I would feel in the morning. Dan's large gray body pinned me to the earth, Matt standing over us both, ears pinned and lips pulled back in a silent snarl of warning.
His brother whined at him as he tried to stand so I could get out from under him but Matt's strong jaws clamped firmly over his mussel drawing small droplets of blood and pushing his brother harder into me. There was a faint howl in the woods to our right, far away and haunting. My ears pricked as I looked wildly around trying to work out where we were.
Somewhere along our way, crashing and playing noisily through the woods we had crossed from Cullen land to Quileute land and the Quileute Pack knew we were here. I tensed as Matt let Dan up and in turn he let me up. I shook the dirt from my coat. There was another howl far to our right, answered moments later by a closer one down the path that we had been following the rabbit scent down.
I looked at Matt and he nodded. It was time to make a hasty retreat back onto safe territory before they caught up with us. Hopefully it wasn't the whole pack, just a small party patrolling because as fierce as Clan were there were only three of us and the only one of us who had any real fighting experience was Matt. For a fleeting moment I wished that I had taken Matt up on his offers to teach me how to use my wolf to defend myself but there was no point in wishing, we just had to try and make it out quickly and safely.
We started moving back up the trail, all happy playing gone as we moved in a V formation toward safety, Matt in front and Dan and I trailing him. Keeping noise to a minimum and sticking close to one another. We were upwind, I couldn't catch a fresh wolf scent besides our own and I was afraid that they could smell us very well due to the faint breeze that was wafting our scent back the way that we had come.
Every few moments a call would come through the bushes from the Quileute wolves behind us making me wish that Clan wolves had the same sort of telepathy that the Quileute's shared with each other in wolf form. All I had to go on was the body language that Matt used, not that I wasn't good at reading him, I was, but the fact is good old fashioned words are hard to replace sometimes.
I stopped at the edge of a clearing I knew to be a little over a half mile away from the treaty line as the hair at the back of my neck stood on end. Dan froze next to me, tensing, his hackles rising as Matt continued forward, besides his ears that flickered toward our position he looked the picture of a powerful and relaxed Alpha wolf. It was nothing less than I expected from him.
The trees seemed to part as three giant Quileutes wolves, snarling and snapping slowly advanced on Matt from either side of him. I tensed, recognizing the dark gray fur that belonged to Paul; Seth's light sandy coloring that wasn't unlike my own and next to Paul stood the unmistakable huge russet wolf that was Jacob. My heart leaped in my chest and I had to suppress a whine from my throat as everything in my wolf begged to be allowed to present myself to him in all of my canine glory. It seemed that even my wolf couldn't resist him.
Instead I held silent and still with Dan stiff by my side. The Quileutes were advancing slowly on Matt. Dan was getting more and more tense at my side. I bumped him lightly with my shoulder, the only way I had to command him to stay still and silent. He looked at me, his eyes pleading to be allowed to help his brother and I gave him a look that I could only hope translated as wait.
I wanted the Quileutes closer together, I wanted to cause one quick moment of chaos to allow all three of us to slip through the slightly larger wolves' net. So we waited and the waiting seemed to take forever until I saw Matt stiffen himself, the Quileutes only a leap away from him and totally concentrated on their prey.
I leapt forward into the clearing making a beeline for Paul and Jacob, hoping that Dan was close behind me. I opened my jaws, my teeth clamping on Paul's ear as I careened into him, letting my chest take most of the impact and sending him sprawling into Jacob, his ear shredding as it was ripped through my teeth, his blood filling my mouth before I tripped over my own feet barely three feet from them. It took a bare moment for me to leap back to my feet. The air was filled with the sounds of Paul's enraged and pain filled howls, Matt's snaps, and Jacob's answering snarls. Matt snapped at my heels, his motivation to us to move and move fast as we barreled out into the forest.
Dan quickly moved out in front of us, his lanky form built for speed, I wasn't far off his heels and could hear Matt behind us as well as the pursuit from the Quileutes. They were close, too close for comfort and our head start wasn't enough to be called breathing room. My lungs were burning in my chest and Dan pulled ahead as three hundred yards in front of us Edward appeared followed by Alice, Emmett and Carlisle and I stopped hearing Matt behind me.
Then the snapping and snarls of a wolf fight began. I skidded to a halt, my front legs scrambling in an awkward rollback as Carlisle caught hold of Dan's form that was trying to scramble back the way he had come too so that he could get to his brother.
"Bella, he wants you to RUN!" Edward yelled but I wasn't listening. My mind was already focused on working out how best to help Matt, while not allowing Matt and Jacob to do harm to each other. "BELLA!"
It was a battle that I witnessed as I turned. Paul and Seth weren't in sight not that I could say that I would have noticed them as I watched the slightly smaller and more agile Matt do battle with Jacob. It must have been a dream come true for Matt, finally to be able to take on the reason that I clamed banishment from my own home and family. The reason that he was banished from his own home and family. The reason that I couldn't ever quiet love him like he wished that I could.
Grey fur meshed with russet, teeth snapped and claws raked against flesh. Blood was flowing from mostly minor wounds as I made my decision and entered the fray, leaping on top of Jacob's back and making him release his death grip on the ruff of Matt's neck as I tried to lock hold of Jacob's scuff with my own jaws. I didn't succeed in getting a grip but I did succeed in throwing Jacob off of balance and bringing him to his knees, if only for a moment.
I leapt from his back to the ground as Matt was already heaving himself toward the Cullen family who with the exception of his brother who was struggling hard against Carlisle's rock solid arms and Edward who was pacing like a caged animal watched on completely still. I landed on my front legs only to be side swiped by a blur of dark gray, his teeth, ripped into the back of my neck as my right front leg caught and twisted on the uneven ground with an evil sort of snap that sent a shock wave of pain through my entire body.
I crumpled to the ground, my breath coming in heavy gasps as Jacob's mass hovered over me, lips pulled back to show long dagger like teeth I knew from my own to be as sharp as razors, Paul, who had side swiped me, at his side and Seth moving toward us. Jacob's head snaked toward my neck but I managed to catch his mussel in my teeth, the way that Matt had done to Dan what seemed like a lifetime ago and shake with what strength I could muster.
Jacob howled in rage and shook his head with all his might, dislodging me and making my head spin. Matt was heading back to me, his ears pinned against his skull as Jacob's teeth flashed down for my neck again. I twisted my head and body, barely avoiding his snapping teeth as Paul and Seth turned to meet Matt's
"Jacob, leave her be! It's Bella!" Alice was shouting, along with Edward's enraged roar as Emmett grabbed him from behind and held him firmly behind the treaty line. Only the threat of war was keeping them from allowing Edward to move into action. I was going to have to get myself out of this mess the only way that I knew how.
I froze, pulling all of the willpower and energy that I had left in me and forced by body to Change despite the force of the moon calling me to stay one of her children.
If the pain that I had felt as a wolf was bad then as a human with my already moon sensitive nerve endings firing, it was almost unbearable. I knew that despite the fact my arm looked normal it was most definitely broken and I knew I was going to be grateful for a werewolf's tendency to heal about three times as fast as a human over the next few days.
I also know that I must have looked quiet the sight, one minute a golden sand brown furred wolf and the next a fully human girl in dirty, ripped jeans and a torn tank top. I could see the shock register on Jacob's face as he scrambled backward, his own form rippling and changing into a fully naked Native American man as he looked down at me.
"Hi Jake." I managed before passing out.