Somehow, I'd managed to release Ren. Maybe if for no other reason than that I was horrified by what I felt for her. The taste of her on my lips was like a living, breathing thing. It was calling me back already as I made hasty excuses and escaped into my house. I could feel her following me in, but I refused to look back as I hurried into my room to find clothes, to think, to breathe without inhaling her.
She had seen me completely naked, but, even as I pulled a pair of jeans on, I didn't feel any embarrassment. There was nothing between us. She had always been a part of me, and there was nothing to hide.
I hissed out a breath as I tugged a t-shirt over my head. Where the hell were these thoughts coming from? I sounded pathetic, like some lovesick idiot. I didn't know Ren. I didn't even know her last name or where she was really from. I wasn't in love with her.
To hell with imprinting.
"Jacob?"
Shit. I inhaled a breath, staggering back a step. I could damn imprinting to hell and back, but the second Ren was within touching distance, my brain went on the fritz. That irrational sense of loving and possessiveness seemed to crowd the room with me. I could barely move at all, unless the direction I took was straight to Ren.
I wanted to smooth out her bronze curls still in horrible disarray from her encounter with a vampire. I wanted to kiss the bruises, to hold her and tell her that I wouldn't let her get hurt like that again. I'd tear that leech to shreds if he ever touched what was mine again.
"Who are you?" I demanded. "What the hell is going on?"
Why was every thought in my head filled with her? Why could I feel the curve of her name on my tongue? These feelings weren't mine. I hadn't chosen this. I was the runaway from La Push with dormant werewolf genes and a serious disease of unrequited love for Isabella Swan.
I dug into myself, but I felt nothing at the thought of Bella's name.
There was a blank void where there had once been a scar.
For the first time ever, I wanted to be in hopeless love with Bella, to know that feeling of desperation again, that knowledge that I'd never have what I truly wanted. But I couldn't, because everything inside of me was telling me that what I wanted was Ren.
Ren, the mystery woman who'd shown up on my doorstep. Coincidence? Nothing involving a vampire was ever coincidence. While my heart thumped with her name, I stared at her in bitter accusation. She had brought vampires back to my door. She had brought my past back to my door.
She had woken the wolf and started all those old gears in motion.
Everything I had worked so hard to forget had found me.
"Jacob, I--"
"Don't lie," I snapped. "No more lies."
I didn't deserve this. I couldn't withstand feeling such an intense mix of hatred and love. My spine wanted to curve with it, dropping me to the floor where I could writhe in agony, torn between two extremes. Instead, I glared at Ren, doing everything I could not to reach for her.
"My name's Renesmee."
"What's your last name?"
Ren flinched, her dark eyes shadowed. "It's better that you don't know."
Didn't she understand? I had to know. I had to know everything about her. I needed it to live, to exist. I wanted to integrate everything about her into me and who I was.
I sucked in a breath. I was losing it. I was losing everything to this girl, to the imprint. Her name wasn't important. The only thing that mattered was why she was here, why a vampire was after her, and why she had chosen to involve me, to ruin my life.
"Why is there a vampire after you?" Better question, "How did you survive that?"
For the first time, it struck me how bizarre it was that she had stood against a vampire. She had bruises, sure, but I'd seen what a vampire could do. But she was human, wasn't she? I'd touched her hand before. I'd felt the warmth. Even now I could feel the rhythmic beat of her heart fluttering in the air between us. She smelled human too, didn't she?
I breathed in. She was covered in the honeyed scent of life, sure, but, now, with my senses back up to par, I thought that there might actually be something else there. Something was underlying in her human scent that I hadn't been strong enough to taste in the air before.
The sleeve of Ren's shirt had been torn jaggedly, but the skin it had exposed was unblemished. Most of her clothing, in fact, was in the same sort of disrepair, but, other than the bruises and the fatigue that was evident in the way she stood, Ren looked unharmed. It was more than any human could hope for when faced with an angry vampire.
Ren couldn't quite meet my gaze. I ignored the fact that it hurt that she couldn't look at me. That was just being stupid. She shouldn't be able to look at me, not after the lies. Not after involving me in something that could change my life so drastically. I should have sent her on her way when I'd had the chance.
"It's the Volturi," Ren told me.
I felt myself stiffen. The Volturi were the bad vampires, I remembered enough of the things Bella had told me to recall that. They were half the reason that my pack in La Push couldn't stop phasing, if not the whole reason. Blood-suckers like them were dangerous enough to keep us around.
They had followed Ren to Florida. They had forced me to phase.
Now I was a werewolf again, and I had imprinted.
I would deal with that later, whenever I felt like I could manage to face it with a level head. Who knew when that would be?
"I'm... I'm a hybrid."
"A hybrid?"
Ren nodded slowly. "Half human, half vampire."
I felt like I'd been socked roughly in the gut. I could feel all the air leaving my lungs with no ability to draw it back in again. Ren was half vampire? I had imprinted, fallen in love with, a vampire? Ren had finally decided to look at my face, and I thought she looked slightly ashamed of what she saw there, which must have been something close to horror as I realized my fate. My fate, that was, unless I could change it. And I would, wouldn't I? I wouldn't let this become my life. I wasn't going to be forced into doing anything. Especially not loving a vampire, the source of all the pain in my life.
"They..." I swallowed to moisten my mouth that had suddenly gone dry. "They want you because you're a hybrid?"
"Yes," Ren said. "Among other things."
I closed my eyes. "Why did you come here?"
Ren went quiet. I couldn't bring myself to open my eyes again. There were too many things I didn't want to see, figuratively and literally. Besides, I didn't have to see her to feel her. She was in every corner of the room now and in every pore of my body.
The tension in the room was thick. I wondered what she was thinking. Probably the best way to explain without lying but not telling the entire truth. Was that what she was like? A liar? I couldn't love her. No way in hell. Beautiful or not, she--
"I was told that you could help me. I knew that you were a wolf. I knew you were here."
I opened my eyes, frowning. "How?"
Ren was frowning as well, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, wincing as she leaned to heavily on her bruises.
"Does it matter? I'm the only one that knows—or knew—that you were here."
But now a whole legion of leeches knew that I was here too. All thanks to Ren, the love of my life, according to an irrational, infuriating imprint. I wanted her out of my system. Right now.
"Who?" I growled, lowly. "Who told you about me?"
She lifted her chin. "I know Bella Swan."
I suddenly couldn't feel my legs. I collapsed onto my bed purely by luck. If it hadn't been behind me, I would have went straight to the floor. Ren could have knocked me over the head, and I wouldn't have felt any less stunned. Bella? Ren knew Bella? How could my life become any more distorted? If I had despised the thought of loving Ren before, I hated it with true passion now. I couldn't... I couldn't do this. I didn't want anything to do with my past, especially not a girl that was tied to the only other person I had ever loved.
The only other person I had loved by choice.
Bella Swan. Dear God. I dropped my face into my hands, still drowning in my new-found feelings for Ren. I would never survive this, whatever it was.
I wanted to ask Ren how Bella was, what she was doing, what had become of her. If... If she had married that disgusting leech. I swallowed bile, feeling sick. Why did I want to know? An old, gut reaction to Bella? I couldn't feel the things I felt before, after all. Ren had overruled them, steam-rolled them right out of existence.
"She was who you were talking about then," Ren said, quietly.
I looked away from her, scowling at a patch of carpet on my floor. Ren must have cleaned while I'd been at work. I hadn't seen that spot of floor in a long time. I scowled harder at it and didn't answer.
I let Ren stand uncertainly in the doorway instead. I hoped that she felt guilty, sorry for the fact that she had invaded my life, rocked my only newly constructed foundations for a new life, and destroyed them completely. If I wanted to be alone and miserable and pining after Bella, I should have been able to.
"She doesn't know that I'm here," Ren told me, and then straightened. "Your living room window is broken. I'm sorry. I'll pay for it. I'll send you the money. I'll just... I'll leave you alone now."
I was on my feet. I didn't mean to get up. I didn't mean to call her back. I wanted to let her go, but I couldn't.
"You can't leave."
Ren stopped, turned. "Why not?"
"Because..."
I floundered. The truth threatened to surge up, but it was the forced truth. Not what I really felt, not what I'd ever really willingly feel. I did not need her to stay because I couldn't live without her. I did not need her to stay just so that I could see her, feel her, talk to her.
I had nothing to say to her. She had ruined my life.
"Because that guy is after you, and now it's my problem too," I told her, irritable. "I told you I'd help. I don't break my promises."
At least, not any more.
"You don't owe me anything," Ren told me.
"Are you ever going to tell me the whole truth?"
Ren shrugged. "I don't know."
I wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her. I wanted to explain to her that her secrets were no longer acceptable, that they would kill me in the end. I needed her to understand that space between us, no matter how small, felt like a gigantic crevice I was about to fall into. She didn't understand my desperation, the force and power of an imprint. I had no other choice.
"Jacob."
I looked up.
"What is this?" She lifted a hand, gesturing between the two of us.
I paused. Did she feel it too? Did the imprint work both ways, or was I the only freak here?
No, of course I wasn't.
Remember, Jake? Ren's a vampire.
"It's nothing."
"You kissed me."
I wanted to do it again, too. I wanted to curl her bronze hair around my fingers and taste her lips again. I wanted to hold her against me, hearing and feeling her hybrid heart beat. I wanted to ignore the voice that told me it was wrong to love someone I didn't know, whose whole name and family was were a mystery to me, someone who wouldn't tell me the entire truth.
"I told you before that I was attracted to you," I reminded her. "I haven't been a wolf in a long time. Things are kind of confusing right now, all right?"
Ren looked hurt. "All right."
"I'm exhausted. I need to sleep for awhile, okay? Just... do whatever you want, but stay inside."
Ren nodded. "Sure. Whatever."
I waited until she left the room, resisting the urge to chase after her, and collapsed onto my bed. I hadn't been lying. I really was exhausted. Today had felt a lot like phasing for the first time. Everything was sore and aching.
I wanted to sink into my mattress and disappear. There was suddenly way too much to deal with in my life. Not only was I a wolf again, but I was in love with a vampire hybrid of indistinct origins. I owed my pack an explanation. I'd understood that even as my whole world had broken apart and then begun pivoting around Renesmee. I'd heard their voices. I understood their annoyance with me.
I couldn't go into hiding again, because my genes were obviously not going to go dormant a second time when vampires were most likely circling my house at this very second. Thinking this, it took everything I had not to get up and go check on Ren. She was still in my house. I was certain.
I could smell her. All of my senses were fine-tuned to her now.
Who the hell was Renesmee? How did she know Bella?
Why did I feel like I was being used by Renesmee and several different people I wasn't aware of? I didn't like being a puppet. I refused to be one.
Nothing about this added up. The woman I was fated to be with had just happened to show up at my house? Directed by others or not, it was too much of a coincidence. Had I really imprinted, or was Renesmee more than just a hybrid? Maybe she had talents like the Cullen's had. Maybe she was manipulating my emotions.
I closed my eyes. I just needed a nap, just an hour, and then I would figure out how to get my life back.
My dreams were filled with Bella.
As somewhere outside of the land of slumber my heart had begun to pick up the rhythm of Renesmee, what was left of me from before the imprint mourned the loss of Isabella Swan, of the woman I had wanted and had lost, who was out there somewhere now and no longer the same.
But I dreamed her back into who she once was: a human girl with perfect skin, pale but warm to the touch. I drank in the chocolate of her eyes, the richness of her smile as we sat in the past, inside my garage, kneeling beside a motorcycle. I let her work the wrench, keeping my hand closed over hers in guidance.
But really all I wanted was that chance to touch her, to feel the warmth of her hand inside of my own. I wanted to bury my nose into her hair as the sun glinted off of it and warmed it. I wanted to tell her that I would always only love her.
Maybe it was a lie now, but in my dreams I had the courage to do what I had failed to do in reality.
"Bella," I whispered, my voice still the voice of the youth, of a young man not yet a wolf.
She looked up, and I saw in her eyes all the things I had always only imagined existed there. In my dreams I could adequately fill the holes Edward Cullen had left, and I could become the only man she ever needed or wanted. In my dreams, Bella reached for me, and I lifted her into my arms.
I remembered there had been a bench seat sitting in the back of the garage, pulled from some hopeless Chevy that had no chance of running again. I gently placed her onto the seat. Knowing what I wanted, wanting it too, Bella worked the button of her jeans, slid free of them, and waited for me.
I couldn't get mine off fast enough. Around my ankles was as far as they got.
Her voice was faint, "Jacob."
Why couldn't I remember the sound of it more clearly?
I hooked my finger around her panties, pulling them aside.
"Don't forget me, Bella. I can't forget you."
"Jake."
Why couldn't she say that she wanted me? I wished she'd say something other than just my name. I needed to hear her ask me to take her. I wanted to hear her tell me that she loved me. Just once. Even if it was only in a dream. Even if it'd never really mean anything.
I hovered over her, desperately yearning to push into her, to fill her, to feel her close around me. I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything. I wanted to ride into oblivion with her wrapped around me, disappearing forever to live with her somewhere secret and private.
I didn't want to be a wolf. I didn't want to imprint. I just wanted to be Jacob, and I wanted Bella Swan to be mine.
The edges of my dream began to blur. Everything felt so indistinct, the quality of Bella, of my arousal, going bland and unimpressive. Even in my dream world, I couldn't touch her. I couldn't be with her.
"Jacob," Bella called my name.
"I love you." It was Renesmee's voice.
