"Alas that love, so gentle in his view, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!"
~ Benvolio, "Romeo & Juliet", Act I Sc I
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Breathe.
Just keep breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.
My chest moved jerkily. At some stage the unconscious centre of my brain took over and I had one less thing to concentrate on.
My self-control was fraying rapidly. I was still, silent. My arms were locked around my elbows as if to hold my body in place. I was worried that if I moved, if I discovered that my muscles still worked and my bones still did a fairly decent job of holding me up, I just might lose it.
Everything had changed. Everything and nothing.
I was rocked to my core, and I was so afraid that even the tiniest movement on my part would kick my brain back into action and result in me doing something exceptionally stupid.
Like laughing. Or crying. Or maybe screaming.
Silently, seamlessly, the pack had surrounded us. Hemming us in. Trapping us together. I recognised the bulk of Paul, prowling restlessly behind Edward, and the impassive grey mountain that was Sam, poised for attack.
All hope left me at this. Jacob I could reason with, but there was no fighting against Sam's immobility.
But that didn't mean I couldn't try.
I finally found my voice. It seemed like it had been years since I'd last spoken.
"This is between us," I croaked, directing my words to Sam. "Please. Please just leave this to me."
Edward's eyes had never once left mine. Resignation glimmered in their depths, but try as I might I could not see a trace of regret.
"That isn't the way they look at it, Bella," he said quietly, sadly. "I broke the treaty. And now I have to face the consequences."
I turned to glare at Jacob, who had since phased, almost where he stood. "Do something!" I pleaded. I had intended my words to burst forth on a flood of anger, but my voice sounded very small and scared. Even to me.
"There's nothing he can do. He's not the Alpha." Edward's voice was gentle. I wondered just how much he was putting up with behind his calm mask. I was unreasonably terrified just by the sight of the wolves. I could not begin to imagine the thoughts that were lancing through their collective mind.
Something brushed past me, and I shrieked, my heart pounding in fear. I turned to see Jacob's reddish-brown bulk, moving into position between Edward and me, his eyes liquid pools begging for my cooperation.
Closing the circle. Hemming him in. Cutting me out.
I snarled, and the sound, so feral, shocked the living hell out of me. Reaching out a hand I quite literally smacked Jacob on the nose – the one sensitive part of his body. He yelped, and in his momentary lapse of concentration, I slipped through the tightening noose forming around Edward and stood, once more, where I belonged. Between him and the pack.
"He hasn't hurt anyone." I appealed directly to Sam now, desperate. "The only reason he's even here is me. Spare him. Have some mercy and we'll leave right now, right this minute."
A long, long silence stretched over the tiny yard.
My body was trembling with the force of my fear. I could feel Edward behind me, the chill of him reaching out to embrace me. I never would have believed that cold could be so comforting. At the very least, it confirmed his presence.
No gesture from Sam broke the tension. There was no softening in his eyes, no relaxing of his rigid posture. We were balancing on a knife edge, all of us. I knew that if the wolves attacked, Edward would not have the strength to fight them off – he still hadn't fed, after all.
I also knew that if there was any way to avert disaster, it lay with me. I trusted these men. They had protected me once and they would do so again. Surely I could make them see sense. The alternative was unthinkable. Edward had just risked his life to fight for me, and I would reciprocate his gesture with everything in me if the occasion called for it.
"Bella." A cold hand touched my shoulder, and I nearly wept from the relief his touch brought. "Bella. It's okay."
I tore my gaze away from Sam, my eyes finding Edward's, begging him for a solution. Begging him to make this better somehow.
"It's okay," he said again, smiling softly at me. His hand reached up to brush against my cheek. "Sam is telling me to tell you that it's all going to be okay."
I eyed him suspiciously. Surely it couldn't be that easy. Surely there would be another obstacle in our path, another hoop for us to jump through.
His eyes held mine and I could not detect any guile in them. There was not even the slightest iota of it.
I breathed again. Nodded my head warily.
The circle around us broke into pieces, and I began to relax. These were my friends, after all. These were the men who had saved me from a hostile vampire not six months ago. This was Jacob's family. Anything connected with him had to be pure and good.
I turned towards the house, intent on retrieving my clothes and leaving this place before disaster could choose to strike once more.
And my eyes fell upon my best friend's downcast head.
As if pulled by an invisible string, his eyes rose and locked on mine.
Edward was skilled at hiding his emotions. He was over a century old and he'd had that long to practice the facade. A century of days and hours in which to perfect it.
Jacob did not have that same luxury. Jacob's eyes were truly the windows of his soul, and right now they were filled with... with...
With guilt. And with a silent warning, a hidden plea.
Jacob knew something I didn't.
I swivelled around to my original position as fast as I could.
The second my attention had diverted from him, Edward had moved away from me. Shielding me with his back, he held a proud and unapologetic posture, his chest unprotected, his palms held upward in a gesture of defeat.
And Paul – Paul, the one member of the pack I'd always been slightly wary of – was crouched low to the ground, prepared to strike.
Everything slowed down. I felt as though I was looking at the entire, sick scene through the wrong end of a telescope.
And Edward was all that mattered. He always had been, he always would be.
It was so ironic, I thought dazedly to myself, that it was only on the edge of disaster that I realised how important he was to me. It had happened in the forest last September, it had happened in Italy and it was happening now.
In the weakness of everyday life I could pretend that other options existed for me. In my vain conviction that I would always have time to heal properly and to move on, I could afford to be lazy. I had pushed him away because the thought of battling through the pain he'd caused was overwhelming. Even if I'd known, secretly, that the reward would far outstrip the cost.
I had not been brave enough to face the situation head-on, like a grown up. Childishly I had buried my feelings under layers of anger and pain. I had run from the only one I would ever love, sought refuge with a man I knew cared for me. Manipulated them both. Forced Edward into risking his life to come to me. Forced Jacob into this awful stalemate between his best friend and his family.
My brain was working at a lightning-fast pace. And I knew my fate. Even as I watched Paul's haunches quiver in anticipation, I knew what I had to do.
Despite my newfound urgency, my limbs felt like they were moving through wet cement. A soundless cry tore itself free from my throat as I propelled my entire weight forwards. I would not be fast enough, strong enough, I was sure of it...
And yet, somehow, I was.
My body collided with Edward's back, and somehow – maybe because of the sheer unexpected nature of it, maybe because his senses were so highly attuned to what was about to happen right in front of him, and maybe just because he had sacrificed his strength to come and talk to me – somehow my only love, my perfect vampire stumbled forward.
My nails scrabbled wildly at his shoulders and neck, but could find no purchase in his stony skin. The momentum of his involuntary action, combined with my own meager velocity meant that as his body slid forwards, mine followed, my torso hanging over his shoulder, my back exposed.
Seconds later, as if in a dream I felt a blazing force slam into me and the three of us – vampire, werewolf and human – fell to the ground in a tangle of fur and limbs.
My vision began to blur.
The last thing I heard before the world went completely dark was Edward's voice, screaming my name.
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