Sorry for the delay on this, folks. The convention was this past weekend and I got ZERO writing done during it. Finally got back to the grind yesterday. Here's what happens to the Nomads! SM is the stage, I am merely a player.

Chapter 10

Edward PoV

I was so excited to see Bella's baseball finesse. Something told me she could quite literally give some of us a run for our money. At least knock Jasper down a peg or two. But my excitement was short lived and soon turned to fear. I saw the vision as Alice had it. The nomads were fast approaching. They'd heard the sound of our game and came to see what was going on. They knew only one thing could make that sound. As soon as their figures broke through the trees, I ran to Bella. I just had to have her near.

She stood stock still as they approached. Good move. They'd think she was one of us unless the wind picked up and blew her scent towards them. They were getting closer, their bright red eyes betraying their recent meal. I glanced at Bella again and her eyes instantly turned solid black, taking over the entire white of her eye. This couldn't have been good. She broke free of my embrace and ran across the clearing faster than I've ever seen. "Bella, no!" I yelled, but she didn't stop.

The nomads didn't even have time to react. The one with the dreads and the blond tracker were in pieces within half a second. I saw the redheaded woman shriek and jump on Bella's back. All this happened so fast, we didn't have time to react. The woman's teeth bit into Bella's shoulder before I could rip her off. Emmett grabbed her from me, locking his arms around hers, immobilizing her. "You crazy bitch!" The woman yelled. I guess we needed a gag, too. "How dare you attack us?! What did we even do to you?" Bella was unresponsive, mechanically tearing apart the two males. She didn't even react to the bite that the woman gave her. I could see the venom burning her flesh, yet she didn't even flinch.

Bella's eyes turned glowing red and her hand caught fire. The whites of her eyes were still black, giving her eyes an eerie demonic look. She threw the flames at the pile of vampire pieces and they caught immediately. Seconds later, the flames were out and all that was left was ash. Her eyes cleared, turning back to the chocolate brown I'd grown to love. She shook her head as if to rid herself of what she had just done and looked around in confusion.

"How… when… what did I just do?" She looked down and saw the ashes. "I saw them enter the field and then… nothing. My mind went blank. Did I… did I kill them?" She turned to me.

"Yes, Bella, you did," I answered honestly. "You were in some kind of trance. Your entire eyes were black and you were unresponsive."

"You killed him!" The woman began screeching again. "You killed my mate! As soon as you're done turning, your ashes will meet his."

"Turning?" Bella asked. I pointed at her shoulder and she turned, seeing the crescent shaped bite marks left by the crazy red-head. The venom seemed to be oozing out of the wound, mixed with a bit of her blood. The combination was literally smoking, something I'd never seen before. "Huh, how 'bout that." And then she passed out. I was at her side in an instant, cradling her head in my lap. Carlisle knelt next to me and inspected her bite wound. It wasn't reacting in any normal way, which I figured would happen given she wasn't entirely human, but I had no way of knowing how vampire venom would affect her system.

"What have you done?!" I heard a male voice yell from just beyond the tree line. I was so focused on Bella that I didn't hear their thoughts. Six horse sized wolves and one huge Quileute man stepped into the clearing. I didn't move from my place. "Who bit her?" the same voice asked, it belonged to the one in human form.

"She did," I said, pointing at the red-headed nomad that was still locked in Emmett's arms. I didn't know how much the Quileutes knew about Bella, even with her father being very close to a couple of their elders. I didn't want to tell secrets that weren't mine so I left out the fact that the woman bit Bella because she turned her mate and companion to ashes.

"Are those vampire ashes?" the man asked again, pointing to the now blowing away piles of ash near Bella's feet. I listened to his thoughts, and they should nothing but concern for the girl that was lying on the ground. Apparently one of theirs had inadvertently phased in front of her and she knew all about them. But they didn't know much about her, it seemed. Though they did suspect something was up with the way she reacted to some things.

"Yes, they attacked Bella and we killed them. This one we saved, as she was the one that actually bit her. We thought Bella might want some revenge when she wakes up," Jasper offered. I sent him a sense of approval, so he'd know I thought he said the right thing. We had no idea if she was actually turning or if she was simply unconscious from the shock of what had happened. Her heartbeat was steady, she wasn't thrashing around, and it seemed like her body was pushing the venom out, rather than the venom altering her like it should.

"So, a Cullen didn't bite this human?" he asked again.

"Correct," Carlisle replied. He glanced at the wound. Knowing a wolf had never seen a vampire transform before, hey knew they wouldn't have a clue what a turning human looked like, or how the bite would react with the skin. "As you can see, the venom is working its way through her body," he explained. "If you smell it, you'll notice that the scent most definitely belongs to this nomad. You may also be interested to know that she and her coven mates were responsible for the killings that Bella's father has been investigating. The man leaned closer to Bella and sniffed, wrinkling his nose at the concentrated scent. Our venom was what gave us each our scent, so smelling it directly from the source rather than the diluted version that one would normally smell, was rather off-putting to a wolf. From his thoughts, I heard that we smelled sickly sweet to them. Well, they smelled like dirty wet dogs to us.

He then stepped closer to Emmett and got a whiff of the red-head. "It's the same," he confirmed. "A Cullen did not bite a human. The treaty is still intact," he said. "But she is turning. She will have to be destroyed."

"NO!" I yelled at the same time as one of the wolves howled and growled at the leader. "She is my mate," I declared. "I cannot live without her." Jacob Black was the wolf that howled. He thought of Bella as a really close friend; though he had hoped she would be his imprint. Apparently, an imprint was the wolf version of mating.

"Then you die with her," he replied, his face not betraying his thoughts. He was thinking of a young woman that he was clearly in love with. She had been horribly scarred when he lost his temper and phased with her too near. Clearly he had no clue of my mind-reading abilities, or he would likely try to hide those thoughts from me. I decided not to let on that I knew what he was thinking. Esme was bawling, Carlisle gripped my shoulder, and Alice was a wreck. Rosalie was staring at Emmett trying to decide what to think. If Emmett was taken from this world, she knew she wouldn't be far behind.

"Please, just let her be," I begged, tearless sobs wracking through my body. "She'll be like us; she'll feed only on animals. We'll teach her how. I know you all think we're just mindless, bloodthirsty monsters, but I promise you that we're not. We have souls, we think, we feel. We are capable of love. Whatever your tribe history has told you about vampires is not true of all of us.

"Our treaty with the Quileutes says nothing about destroying vampires that are not on your land. Secondly, the land you're on now is Cullen territory, where you are not supposed to be. I want no quarrel with any of you, so we are not going to fight. But I will tell you that if you attempt to take my son's mate away from him, we will destroy all of you. I don't say this to threaten or encourage you to start a fight, but to simply state what will happen if you do. We are seven, and you are six. We have trained fighters in our group, and the oldest one of you has only been phasing for a year, from what I understand."

"No one's fighting anyone," Bella said. Wait. Bella said?! She stood up abruptly and shook out her shoulders. Glancing at the wound on her neck, she gently blew on it and the wound closed up instantly. The venom had all seeped out, dripping down her arm and to the ground, and killing the grass where it fell. "I'm not turning into a vampire. My body fought the venom, just like it fights everything that attacks me. Like you said, no Cullen did the biting, so the treaty is intact. I won't be a vampire so there's no need to destroy me.

"I know you realized something was different about me, Sam. Well here's the cliff's notes version. Firstly, I'm not human, so even if a Cullen did bite me, your treaty wouldn't apply. Secondly, I have superpowers and could very easily kill all these vampires and all of you with a flick of my wrist. To prove it, I killed these red eyed vampires with my bare hands, and I have a very strong feeling that if I look at this one in the eyes, I'll kill her too. Considering she's being held by a man that I consider a brother, I'd rather not kill her just now and risk him getting caught in the crossfire. Jasper lied about who killed these two, but I understand why he did. They had no way of knowing what was happening to me, nor if I had told any of you about me.

"Now you know and can go on your merry way. What brought you out here anyway?" she asked. I knew the answer. The nomads had crossed into their territory and they were tracking them down. I waited for them to answer, though.

"We smelled leech on our land," Sam replied. "We don't allow leeches on our land, so we tracked them with the intent of destroying them." Their thoughts betrayed their hope that it was a Cullen that crossed the invisible boundary and thus incited a war. Sorry to disappoint you, boys.

"Well, have at it then," Bella said, gesturing to the red-head, but not making eye contact with her. "She did kill the two humans nearby, and led a fake trail away from the bodies so the humans would never find them. Little did she know that I was on the case, though." She stepped away from the group as the wolves slowly approached Emmett and the red-head.

"I think they want to chase her, Emmett," I offered. Their thoughts told me that exactly, but I didn't want to convey that I knew that for certain. He reluctantly let her go and she was off like a shot. Her thoughts told me that she planned to go to the Volturi and tell them what happened, and that we were friends with a pack of werewolves. They weren't werewolves in the strictest sense, but still, the Volturi wouldn't honor a treaty with them. The wolves bolted after her and within a few seconds, we could hear the tell-tale metallic screech of a vampire being torn apart. They were very fast. I wonder if her instinct for evasion didn't work with the wolves, she didn't try any evasive maneuvers whatsoever, just ran in a straight line due east.

Bella ran over to where they were, which was just on the other side of the field. "Need a light?" she asked, letting her hand catch fire again. The wolves all jumped back in shock, watching her set the vampire on fire. "Cool, huh?" She bumped her fist against Jacob's snout and skipped back to us. Yes, she skipped, like tra-la-la skipped.

"So, that was new," she said. "Turns out venom hurts like a bitch. I'll be going through an upgrade now, so I need to go to my house and into the panic room. You can't come with me or I'll tear you apart, whether I want to or not. I nearly tear myself apart every time."

"Upgrade?" Emmett asked.

"Well, I've been attacked, so my body will now be evolving to be stronger than what attacked me. My skin will be harder than vampire teeth, I imagine, and I'll be completely immune to venom. Every time my body is attacked by anything, it evolves to be stronger than and resistant to whatever attacked it. But the transformation is extremely painful. Every cell in my body changes, altering my DNA. I'll be out for about forty-eight hours, I estimate. I suppose I'll have to have Charlie call me into school for a couple more days. It's going to start any minute now, so I need to get home before it does, or I may massacre half the town. Please don't try to come over. I'll call as soon as it's done."

With that she left. Shot out of the clearing like a bullet, without even a goodbye. She was going to be in pain and I couldn't do anything to help. "Where'd she go now?" Sam asked, having returned to our group.

"Um, something about an upgrade and evolution," Emmett answered. "Dude, the science is a bit beyond me." Hell, it was a bit beyond me, and I went to med school twice. Even Carlisle was having a hard time wrapping his mind around it. We went back to our house, the desire for playing baseball having blown away like the nomads' ashes on the wind.

"Do you think she heard me say that she was my mate?" I asked. "She seemed to have heard a lot of what was said between us and the wolves, but didn't comment on that little tidbit. Then again, maybe she thought I meant mate in a different sense, like friends."

"We're not Australian," Emmett stated. "I think if she did hear, then she chose to focus on more important issues like the matter of us going to war with the wolves for no reason. That kind of trumps your mating declaration by a little bit, bro." Well he had me there.

All I wanted was to go to her house and find her panic room. I didn't even know she had a panic room. Then again, that morning, I had no idea that she was even inhuman. I had my theories of course, that she was possible very specially trained or something, but the idea of her being basically a mutant had never entered into my consciousness. Alice had to stop me from leaving the house on multiple occasions.

"I can't see what she'll do, only that you're in pieces when she comes out of her 'upgrade' as she called it. She'll be devastated, Edward. Even if you can be put back together, she'll never forgive herself for hurting you. Do you want that?" Hell no I didn't! I resolved to staying in my room and listening to Claire de Lune over and over again. I desperately wanted her here, in my arms, her lips against mine. It was pure heaven for me, and I was determined to have it happen again soon.

It would be morning soon and we had to go back to school. Once there, the rumors were already going around that Bella was a lot more hurt in the almost accident than was let on. The fact that I was walking around without a scratch on me had people wondering what really happened. And more people than normal were trying to get me to answer questions. "Is Bella okay?" Mike Newton asked. He would be interested in her. Caveman.

"Yes, she's fine. Just a bit sore. She wasn't hurt by the van, but she did hit the ground pretty hard, kinda like getting knocked over by a three hundred pound linebacker, I guess," I lied. "She should be back on Thursday, I think though. That's what my dad said anyway. Just a couple days of rest and then back to the grind." Mike seemed appeased at my explanation. I said it loud enough that Jessica and Lauren heard to. Between the two of them, the rest of the school will have heard that Bella was fine. Though I wouldn't have been surprised if the story did come back that she had some horrible flesh-eating disease by the end of the day.

Chief Swan called that night asking what happened to Bella to make her have another "upgrade." Honestly, she sounded like a Cyberman from Doctor Who. I mentioned that aloud and Emmett began wobbling around the house as if he didn't have any knees, declaring, "You will be upgraded," over and over again in a monotone voice. I should have kept my thoughts to myself.

"I'm sorry Chief Swan, but if Bella hasn't told you exactly what happened, we're not at liberty to say. She did tell us all about her and we told her all about us, but you cannot know everything. It's for your own safety."

"I'm the damn Chief of Police, Dr. Cullen. I'll decide what's for my own safety or not," he retorted. I had to roll my eyes. You're awesome chief, but this is a tiny ass town, Emmett thoughts were along with my own.

Carlisle bit back a sigh. "Yes Chief, you are, but this is way beyond Forks PD's jurisdiction. Beyond the FBI, Interpol, CIA, NSA, MI6, you name it. It's bigger than all of us, and I'm sorry to reiterate, but you cannot know. We'll all be in danger if you do."

"This isn't some mafia shit, is it?" Emmett laughed out loud at that.

"No sir, I assure you there's nothing illegal about it, but as Bella has likely told you, humans aren't the only monsters out there." I had to figure that turning a human into a vampire wasn't technically illegal, but there were ways to twist the interpretation of the laws around.

I heard Charlie grunt. "Well, alright then. Bella put me on a need-to-know basis and I guess I don't need to know this, huh?"

Carlisle grinned grimly. "Correct Chief Swan, you do not need to know this. Ever."

"I just want her to be okay and to be happy," The Chief said, almost in tears.

"We've only known your daughter for a short while, but we're all quite attached to her, too. All we want is her safe and happy as well. And she will be. She didn't really go into specifics about this upgrade thing, but assured us that she'd be okay within a couple days."

"Yeah that's what she said, too. Doc, you know she's not really my daughter, right?" Charlie asked.

Carlisle chuckled. "Well Chief, biologically, none of my children are my own either, but that doesn't make me any less their father or them any less my children. You may not have provided your own DNA to her creation, but you helped her, guided her, taught her, saved her, and took her in when she needed you most. If that's not the definition of a father, then I don't know what is."

Charlie thanked Carlisle for the chat and said he'd have Bella call us when she came out of her upgrade. Emmett started laughing all over again and then going around the house shouting, "Delete. Delete. Delete," on repeat. I loved Doctor Who, but Emmett could really make me hate it.

The next morning, before we were all leaving for school, the phone rang. Carlisle answered. "Bella? Hello! How are you feeling?"

I scrambled down the stairs to take the phone. He gestured for me to wait. "Edward? Certainly, let me see if he's around." Carlisle was chuckling silently as he made me wait an acceptable amount of time for him to call me down from my room. After five agonizing seconds he finally handed me the phone, a shit-eating grin on his face. Bastard.

"Bella? Love, are you alright?" I asked.

"Yes, Edward. I'm fine." She sounded so drained. Well, the worst part is over. I'm still taking today off of school to sleep. The upgrade really takes a lot out of me. I'd be dead on my feet all day today."

"Well, I'm dead on my feet every day," I joked.

"Edward Cullen, did you just make a vampire joke?" she asked, laughing.

I laughed with her. "Why yes, I believe I did. Another first for me, Miss Swan."

The family had gathered around, most of them in awe at the banter between me and Bella. They'd never seen me so carefree. "Well, I was thinking that maybe you could come over after school," she suggested. "I may very well still be asleep when you arrive, but you can come into my room and sit with me if you like."

"You want me to hold you while you sleep?" I asked, hopeful.

"I would love that, Edward," she agreed. Holy crap. "What do you think?"

"I'll be there. Two thirty."

"Great! I'll see you later then. Um, be prepared for me to look a little… different."

"Different how?" I asked, concerned.

"Well, I think I still look more or less the same, but there are some differences, and changes I'll have to get used to. You'll see when you get here. It's ah… it's a little hard to describe over the phone."

I was concerned, confused, and curious all at the same time. It seemed everyone else was as well. I promised I'd keep an open mind and that nothing could change the way I felt about her. "That makes me very happy Edward. I'll see you soon." We said goodbye and I gently replaced the phone to the cradle as if it was about to break.

School could not get over soon enough. The rumors began all over again with some people swearing they heard a wild animal inside the Swan house. Something told me it was probably Bella screaming during her transformation or upgrade. The fact that she was still out of school added to the ridiculous stories that were going around. I was on my way to my car when a motorcycle pulled up abruptly, blocking my path.

Jacob Black was sitting on it, glaring at me. "You said she wasn't turning," he hissed.

"Um, actually, Bella said she wasn't turning. Not me. And she hasn't turned. She said herself that she was going through some kind of upgrade due to her body altering to be stronger than whatever attacked it. She was attacked by a vampire. Something tells me it'd be a hell of an upgrade."

"You hurt her, I'll tear you apart. Understand?" he asked.

"I hurt her, and I'll beg you to do just that," I agreed. He gave me a curt nod and spun out of the lot, squealing the tires on the way. How mature, Mr. Black. I noticed he wasn't wearing a helmet nor a shirt. Being a wolf, he was resilient, but still, he should keep up appearances so as not to draw attention to himself.

As I walked to my car, I heard whispers from the students who saw the exchange. None of them heard the words, but they were all guessing that Jacob and I were fighting over Bella. Perhaps if the whole imprinting thing wasn't an issue then we would be, but Jacob already knew that Bella wasn't his intended. This was strictly a vampire vs. wolf thing.

I pulled up outside Bella's house and heard her sleeping. I knew she had to be sleeping due to the light snores and incoherent mumblings every few seconds. With a quick listen to the neighbors to find out if anyone was watching me, I scaled the tree outside her window, opened it with ease and slipped inside.

"Who the fuck are you?" a voice asked. I looked up and a young man emerged from her closet. I'd never seen him before. He had sandy blond hair, golden tan skin, and ice blue eyes. Definitely not a resident of the Pacific Northwest, that was for sure.

"I could ask you the same thing."

Well? What did you think of the nomad non-fight? Victoria bit Bella... how 'bout that... And who is the mystery man lurking in Bella's closet?