A/N: This chapter contains sensitive materials that might be construed as triggers for some. So approach with caution.

Chapter-6: War of The Worlds

For a moment, I felt her hands push hard against my chest. She mumbled something against my lips, spiking the anger burning inside me even more.

The green monster of jealousy took hold of me then, and grabbing her wrists in one of my hands, I pulled her head back with the other, angling her mouth to fit more closely to mine.

When she didn't try to push me away again, I licked her lips, needing to taste her once more, but she clamped her lips shut, refusing to let me in.

I felt my lips pull up at the corners in a smirk. You wanna play, baby girl? I asked her heart silently. Alright. Let's play.

Instead of trying to forcing my tongue to meet hers, I started to tease her lips with my own. I kissed her top lip and then the bottom. I nibbled at the plump bottom lip of hers, loving how it tasted just like I had remembered. I was going to drive her insane with want if this kiss was all I could get.

Slowly, I felt her body relax against me. I slackened my restraint on her then. When she slipped her arms around my neck, I couldn't take it anymore. My baby girl was trying to beat me at my own game.

Grabbing either sides of her hips, I turned around, perching her sweet ass on top of my desk. With my hands on her knees, I spread them wider before stepping in between them, my lips never leaving hers.

The moment our hips met, a soft moan left her lips and that's all I needed to slide my tongue inside her mouth. Our tongues touched once … then again … and then, it felt like a fire had been lit inside us.

I felt her hands pull on my fatigue shirt to bring me closer to her, and then it was my Bella who was kissing me, not the stern professional journalist Isabella.

Through the haze of passion, the distant sound of a siren rang in my mind. Fuck!

"Baby ..." I breathed in her mouth. "I have to go."

With admirable self control I had instilled in myself in the past seven years of service, I stepped away from her and started to walk away. However before I could leave, I felt her hand grab my wrist. "Please be careful," she whispered.

A soft smile was all I could offer her before walking away.

"Absolutely not!" I roared. "She's a civilian!"

"Remember who you're talking to, Staff Sergeant!"

At the tone of warning in Sergeant Major Denali's voice, I shut my mouth before something disrespectful escaped me. Taking in a deep breath, I tried again, "With all due respect, Sir, I believe she's not prepared for this."

No one can be.

"That's where you're wrong, Cullen," Eleazar said. "Ms. Swan assures me that she has been trained to withstand the rough terrain."

"She doesn't know what she's talking about!" I huffed, remembering how she had nearly fainted once at the sight of blood trickling out of a little paper cut on her own hand back in high school. "A land mine has blown off, Sir," I said at last. "We don't know the casualties yet. Do you think she should be allowed to accompany us on the search and rescue?"

Eleazar nodded. "It's what she's here for, isn't it?" he barked. "So let the girl see what war looks like."

When Eleazar left, my eyes found her immediately. There, huddled next to Lance Corporal Emily Young, stood my Bella. The stubborn set of her chin was visible to me despite all the protective gears on her.

As if she could feel my eyes on her, she turned her head. Our eyes met for a moment.

Are you sure about this? I asked with my eyes.

I'm ready, she answered with a slight nod of her head.

Be careful, I urged.

Ditto, her eyes said with a blink.

Smoke.

Black smoke rose from the area marked on the map lying on my lap as we neared the site of our search and rescue mission.

"Stay with the car, Newton," I ordered as I got down from my seat, Emmett and Jasper coming up to get my flanks immediately.

The three of us started to lead the men forward, looking around for any sign of danger in the vicinity.

"What was this place?" Emmett asked after a pause in hushed voice, obviously having not heard a single word of Eleazar's briefing a little while ago.

With a shake of my head, I let Jasper know that I wasn't feeling up to rebriefing Emmett because he had been busy daydreaming about Rosalie to be attentive in the briefing session.

Jasper sighed and started speaking in a soft voice. "This used to be a residential area," he said before pointing to a ruin of a building with smoke still coming out of it. "See there? According to the map Sergeant Major Denali showed us, that's where the local school used to be."

Emmett cursed softly at that. "Fucking assholes! Couldn't they leave the innocent lives alone?"

"If they did, there wouldn't be any wars to fight," Jasper answered. "It's protecting the innocent lives that matter."

"Tell that to Miss Journalist here," Emmett said, tilting his head to the side. "She pretty much tried to burn me like kindling with her eyes when I suggested that she stay back at camp."

At the mention of her, I turned around to see her. I didn't know what I had expected to see, but it certainly wasn't this. The delicate Bella I used to know and love was nowhere to be seen, instead there stood a professional photojournalist who was braving the smoke and possibility of blood and mangled bodies and taking pictures after pictures of anything and everything her eyes found.

It's the sound of a small groan that made everyone stop in their tracks. In that moment, I could swear I could feel my heart try to beat its way out of my chest.

The sound came again.

"I think someone's in the ruins," I whispered at last, motioning my men to follow me.

Stealthily we all moved like a synchronized group. From the corners of my eyes, I saw her falling in step behind me with all the marines. With my rifle held in position, I rounded the corner and then stopped short at the sight before me.

There, with his back pressed against the wall of the wreckage, sat a little boy of not more than five. His clothes and skin looked singed and blackened with soot. Blood trickled down his face from a deep gash across his left cheek and one of his hands looked oddly bent like it was fractured with bits of bone sticking out of it. But that wasn't the worst of it. The boy was huddled over a body … or what's left of it … as if he was protecting it.

Someone gasped from behind Emmett.

And then, before anyone could do anything to stop her, Isabella Swan and my Bella merged into one as I saw her running toward the injured child who even battered and broken, was trying to protect his dead mother's body with his weak little arms.

And that's when I fell in love with her once more.

A/N: So … thoughts? Share them with me and leave a review.

Thanks for reading.

See you with Revised Curriculum soon.

Stay safe.

Ann