Love's Challenges
Disclaimer: I don't own them which just sucks!
BELLA'S POV CH8
The kiss that Paul and I shared was...indescribable, but there was something missing. It was like when you know that you love your best friend then come to realize after the kiss they will always be just the best friend or brother. I still feel this pull towards Paul for whatever reason that may be, but he will always be my best friend. I hope that he doesn't take the kiss the wrong way so we can still be friends without it causing problems.
Now the kisses that Embry and I had were perfect. They were giving, passionate, and just plain hot if I'm going to be honest with myself. There was a spark like the ones that you read about in books. It started on my lips and seemed to move throughout my core and settle in my soul making us one being. I'm beginning to realize that I have feelings toward Embry, as this pull towards him is like steel cables never to be broken.
Now here I am being pulled behind Paul because of this tremendously loud growling noise. As I look over Paul's shoulder to see what animal he is protecting me from, all I see is a livid Embry vibrating to the point that he seems to be blurring. What the hell. I thought and then, BAM, there was a giant dark grey wolf with darker spots on his back in the place where my Embry had stood.
Then suddenly as if all rational coherencies had left I was brought back down by Paul yelling at me to get Sam and not to look back. I took off running, but you know what they say, you tend to do the opposite when told not to look. As I'm running I take a quick glace over my shoulder just as Paulie falls on his front paws in the form of a huge silver wolf. Jesus, this is all my fault, and now these wonderful men are wolves what the hell is wrong with me.
The tears were streaming down my face as I reach the bonfire. "Sam, Paul and Embry are fighting and they are wolves. This is all my fault, I'm so sorry." I gasped though my sobs as I fell to my knees from exhaustion. Jake and Sam growled, cussed and then took off running. Great just great, they are growling now to, I guess they will wind up wolves. This just made me sob harder than before. As I wrapped my arms around my chest, rocking myself I felt two more sets of arms wrap around me. Looking up I see that Kim and Emily have come over to comfort me.
Kim got up and started to put all the drinks and food into the coolers then started to put the fire out, while Emily sat rocking me trying to calm me down. "Bella everything will be ok. Calm down hunny." Emily cooed to me.
"No Emily it won't be ok. First Edward leaves stating that I'm not good enough, then I have Em and Paul who are both wonderful and I just don't understand this connection to both of them. Now they are fighting and as wolves. Go figure, Edward was right I am a danger magnet. Maybe I should just go to my mom's in Jacksonville." I started to sob harder than before as Kim's head snapped up turning to look at me.
"Shhh, come on lets go back to my house and wait for the guys to come back then they can explain everything to you." Emily said softly.
"Emily's right Bella, we can't explain what's going on, it's not our place but if you were to leave now it would devastate Embry and Paul. Think of how they would feel to be losing the one person that they both care for the most in this world." Kim stated matter of fact.
As this sunk in I realized that she was right I knew how it felt to lose that one person and I would never wish it on either of them. Paul has already been through that with his mom, I just can't do that to him. The mere thought of how this would affect them sends a hot, fiery burn threw my chest while the sharp pains of knives were being stabbed into my gut. I wiped the tears off of my face as Emily helped me stand up on wobbly legs as we walked to her house.
By the time that we got to the house I was so worn out from all the physical and emotional stress. To top that off my stomach was hurting pretty bad, probably from crying so hard. As we walked in the door I turned to Emily and asked
"Hey Em, do you have somewhere that I could lay down. I'm kind of tired and I'm not feeling very good." Emily and Kim gave each other questioning looks but I just ignored them.
"Sure Bella the guest room is just down the hall last door on your left." Emily told me while rubbing soothing circles on my back.
"Thanks Em" I walked into the guest room, took my shoes off setting them by the door and lay down. I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up I was sweating and there was an arm wrapped around me with the hand laying softly on my lower stomach. Rolling over I couldn't help but smile seeing that Embry was fine and sound asleep. I snuggled into his chest as his arms tighten around me and I fell back into a blissful sleep.
EMBRY'S POV
We took off towards the woods after Jared and Quil to find out what was going on. Jared had just yelled to Sam that we have a problem then he turned on his heel taking off into the forest again. Just as Jared and Quil were phasing the wind suddenly changed directions blowing straight towards us.
"God damn that stupid leech. Haven't we run her off enough in the last few months for her to get the message and how the hell did she get so far on the rez? Sam started growling as a collective "SHIT" ran through the group.
"Alright guys form up so that we can take this bitch down, she got way to close to our imprints this time and I'll be damned if she's going get the chance to do it again." Sam commanded with so much authority in his voice without using the Alpha timbre. We formed up following her scent as the trail was barely ten minutes old we could easily catch up.
As her scent got stronger I started to see little flashes of bright fiery red hair about a mile ahead of us. The leech would be jumping on and off of trees, running on the branches, dropping to the ground, only to take off at break neck speed and then do it all over again. It seemed that she was going in a straight line, but our bodies were so big that we couldn't hit our top speeds as the forest grew thicker. We had to dodge and weave in and around the trees and bushes.
Suddenly I saw a chance that I could take her, there was a dead tree lying in my path and she was in the branches. I didn't even think about it, I just hit the tree with my front paws then the back ones, using the force from running I leaped up towards the branch just as she was getting off of it. Using my sharp teeth I managed to grab a hold of the long light weight coat that she was wearing. Pulling her towards the ground with me, she landed on her feet and in one very fluid movement was out of the coat and thirty feet in front of us.
"How the hell did she do that?" Paul exclaimed
We chased her for hours, to the northern part of Canada when we all saw that there was a cliff coming up. Suddenly the leech turned around running back words. Her long fiery hair was swirling around her oval shaped face as her bright blood red eyes looked at me then Paul.
"One day I'll get past you wolves." And with that said she sprinted off of the cliff diving into the frigid water below. We all came to a skidding halt right at the cliffs edge.
"What do you think she meant by that?" Paul huffed as we were all trying to catch our breaths.
"I don't like it. What she said gives me an uneasy feeling." Jake replied.
"I don't feel good about it either but right now we have Bella to deal with. Let's go boys you two have a lot of explaining to do to Bells. We'll deal with the leech problem later and maybe Bella might know something that would be helpful." Sam told us but more pointedly to Paul and I. We set off running slower this time but still at a high speed heading towards home.
As we made it to La Push we bounded threw the forest to Sam's back yard. Phasing just inside the tree line everyone pulled their shorts on quickly except for Paul and me, ours had been shredded. Sam always kept spares on the back porch so we each grabbed a pair. We only heard two voices and neither of them was Bella. I wonder if my Bella went home since it was late or early as some would put it since it was two in the morning. As we all walked into the kitchen Emily and Kim looked up at us. The look on Em's face was golden, she was pissed and boy did she explode.
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO. SHE COULD HAVE BEEN HURT and yet she feels that this is her fault. None of this is her fault, we have told her that, but I don't think that she is comprehending that right now. When she was crying, she was saying that Edward told her that she wasn't good enough, and then he left." Emily yelled but as the anger subsided it sounded like the soft quiet voice that we all know and love.
"Bella doesn't know exactly what's happening or that we know what the Cullen's are, but she believes that you turned into the wolves from her being a danger magnet. Kim and I had to talk her out of leaving and going to live with her mom. Now she was not feeling good when we got in, so I suggest that you both pull your heads out of your ass and tell her everything when she gets up." Emily told Paul and I in an exasperated voice
"Em she hasn't mentioned anything to you has she?" I asked concerned for Bella. Emily knew what I was asking and by the look on Kim's face so did she.
"No Embry she hasn't and all she said was that she was tired and not feeling well."
"Alright thanks Em. I'm just going to go check on her." I told them, turning on my heel to head to the guest room. Bella looked so beautiful and peaceful while she slept. I went to the other side of the bed, climbed in and wrapped one arm around her waist holding her close. My hand just happened to land on her stomach and a vision of her with a perfectly round belly as a little boy with dark brown hair and russet skin stood her hugging her leg. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep with that wonderful picture in my head.
I woke up to Bella snuggling her face into my chest. I reached one hand up and smoothed out her hair. It was sticking up everywhere and I let out a light chuckle. This must have woken Bella up.
"Morning, Embry." My Bella said as she propped herself on one elbow.
"Look Em, I'm sorry I didn't mean for you guys to turn into wolves. I don't know how it happened or why but the way I feel about you haven't changed. You are still you, even though you turn into a giant fur ball." Bella told me, as I looked into her eyes I saw all the sincerity in them. Leaning in slightly I gave her a light kiss on the lips.
"Bells there are things that the guys and I need to tell you about this wolf stuff. So why don't you clean up a bit and then meet us in the living room." She nodded as I lifted her up off the bed, sitting her on her feet and kissing her softly but longer this time.
Bella came into the living room and sat in between Paul and I, turning to look at me.
"Ok Bells, obviously you saw us as wolves so what we are going to tell you should be less of a shock. Our tribe descends from wolves. They were the protectors from the cold ones, as we are now. This only happens when cold ones are around for the wolf gene to become active." I told her as she watched with curious eyes and listened.
"Ok so this is not my fault then, but I feel that there is something else."
"Yes Bella there is, you see when a wolf finds his soul mate it's like there are steel cables grounding him to that one person. Nothing else matters except the happiness of his mate. This is called imprinting. You see, Bella, the thing is that you are my imprint." I told Bella so happy that she finally knew. She had a big smile on her face that suddenly turned into a frown.
"Baby what is it?" I asked fearing that she wasn't happy that I had imprinted on her.
"So I am your imprint, right? So why do I have this pull towards Paul?" Bella asked looking from me to Paul then back again.
"Well we think that we have figured that out. Paul is now sure that he did not imprint on you as well, which would make things difficult. However he was comfortable enough with you to tell you things that none of us knew or had any inkling of knowing. Somehow your personality and soul seem to call to him like a mother to her child. As far as we can tell he will still be able to have his own imprint, but the two of you will always be linked to one another." Sam explained to us.
"So like brother and sister that are the best of friends." It wasn't a statement. Paul and I both nodded.
"Ok Bella on a different note we know that you knew that the Cullen's were Vampires. We were just wondering if there were any tips that you could give us on vamps. You see there is one vampire that keeps coming back around and we chase her off, most of the time once we have ran them off they don't come back, but this bitch is after something and we don't know what that is." Sam stated while shaking his head back and forth.
"She was able to be just in the trees at the beach while you and Paul were talking yesterday. Now Paul could defiantly take care of the both of you had it come to that, but she has now come to close to the packs imprints and we won't have you hurt if at all necessary." Sam told Bella in a very serious tone. Bella started shaking when he mentioned how close the bloodsucker had come to them on the beach.
"Ok, your right that was too close to anybody. I met a few others while I was with them, could you give me a description of her and then I could see if we can eliminate those?" Bella asked looking from me to Sam.
"Sure Bella, this one has blood red eyes and long wavy fiery red hair." As Sam said the vamps hair color she gasped and all the blood drained from her face. I wasn't the only one to notice this as Paul put his hands on her shoulder and asked
"My girl, do you know this one?" Bells just nodded and starting to gasp for breath.
"Honey, do you know what she's after?" Paul looked her right in the eye as she whispered. "ME" At this everyone in the pack started growling and Bells hopped off the couch and ran towards the bathroom.
BELLA'S POV
Holy shit she came back and wants me. How am I going to deal with this? Damn I'm going to be sick, I jumped off the couch and ran for the bathroom. As I'm spilling all the contents of my stomach into the porcelain god Emily walks in with a damp towel.
"Here you go, Bella I wanted to ask you something that I have been thinking about for a few days." I just nodded sitting back against the tub wiping my face with the damp towel.
"Ok, umm, I know that this is going to be very personal, but did you and Edward have a physical relationship? Now I only ask this because the pack has brought up concerns to me for advice. They have noticed how much you've been getting sick, and the sudden mood changes. These are some of the early signs of being pregnant Bella." Emily asked with her soft quiet voice
I stared at Emily then looked at the floor and whispered "OH SHIT"
A/N: Ok guys/girls I know its another cliffie. Don't beat me with the stick to much cause then I might not get ch9 out. For all my readers that are 18 and over check out Jacob Black N Pack, the link is on Robin's page. (frosty 1974) It's a wonderful site and has stories for all the pack not just Jake. We are having a blast so come join the fun.
On a differnt note this is another ch that is all mine and most of the rest with the ecouragement and advice of the wonderful Robin. Lets all give some love to Robin she is sick and had to go to the hospital and will be there for a few days. Geat well soon girl we love you and miss you.
Don't forget to hit the green button below and leave a review to let me know what you think. Any ideas for ch9 that you may want to see are welcome. Also to those that left reviews and added me to favs/alerts thank you very much. It was a long stressfull week and I wanted to let you all know that I have not forgotten you.
Loves ;) Nicole
