Hi folks!
This chapter was a real pest to write, and all your wonderful reviews could not make it easier. They did however serve the purpose that I finally managed to get at least some part of it written down and publishable – I hope.
Anyway, enjoy!
12
J POV
All in all the day was almost gone by the time we got back to Peter's house, and no one protested when I carried Bella upstairs to my friends' bedroom.
I put her down on the sturdy four poster bed which Charlotte must have dressed in crisp white linen for my darling. She was still pale, but looked as beautiful as ever, and her conversation with Carlisle had given me some confidence about her feelings for me. True, I was an empath, but still – for all his bad intentions, Edward had been right: I was a monster, who should make anyone run for their lives rather than make them stay with me. In addition to Bella's divine scent the room gave off a faint smell of lavender, and I remembered having seen some of the plants outside in the little garden which could be seen through the window.
Bella smiled up at me with such love and trust that I swear warmed me all over.
"Do you want me to leave you alone, or do you need help…" I caught her as she was about to fall down again. While I had been ruminating, she must have tried getting up and stepped on her ankle which caused her to gasp with pain and lose balance in the attempt of hopping on one foot. I took a deep breath: "You will be the death of me, woman! I was just about to ask you if you needed help undressing!"
She bit her lip and pouted at me. "I've been undressing on my own for quite a few years, Sir!" When she also started blushing at the idea of me taking off her clothes at the same time that she was oozing lust while I had her in my arms, I was done for. All thoughts of her being a fragile human who had just been through the ordeal of almost being in between two fighting vampires were wiped from my brain and the monster took over. Our clothes were gone in a flash, and I was in the bed with her. I covered every bit of her satiny hot body, made sure to touch everything with my hands and mouth. I was claiming my mate greedily, burning up with passion and the need to make one being of the two of us. I only stopped when she begged for me to do so and fainted.
I came back to my senses, horrified at what I had done.
Peter's POV
Jasper had carried Bella to our room some hours ago, so that she could rest. Then all at once we were hit with a huge wave of lust – not the kind of feeling the Major would usually give off so generously; and most of the couples disappeared. I stopped Esme from rushing upstairs by placating her with the sentence that he would not hurt his mate, and she took me at my word, flitting away hand in hand with Carlisle for some privacy.
For all my assurances though, I was not ready to leave and stayed with Charlotte on my lap giving me hell until I took her outside to my workshop. We really have to think about what to do if this is what it gets like with a mated empath.
Anyway, we were very cosy when the blonde bombshell found us and cleared her throat in the doorway.
"What is it?" I hissed, not happy to be disturbed at that particular moment. My little blonde vixen actually hissed at the interruption, and it was a tribute to Rosalie's courage that she stayed.
"I – eh – found your friend. I went to your upstairs bathroom to sort out my hair and… something's wrong with him. He is lying on the floor naked and… it looks like he's dead."
I was alert at once. "What?" I pushed past her and dashed up the stairs, Charlotte on my heels. Blondie was right. Jasper was curled up near the tub, not breathing, dead to the world. What the hell could be the matter with him? "Carlisle?" I called and a second later the blond vampire doctor was in the room with us, shaking his head in wonder.
By now I could hear the others had returned as well. There was a commotion on the stairs, then the huge Volturi was with us, nodding his head knowingly. "Yes, he does that," he said in a sad voice.
"Does what? What is going on?" I was ready to shake him like a rat, blindly disregarding that he might not be willing to put up with that, but Jasper's behavior certainly had me panicking.
"Shut down like that. He was like that for years in Volterra, basically he was like that in the tower all the time, unless we unleashed him…"
"…which was why he would go berserk," Charlotte added dryly. "How could you treat anyone like that?"
Felix shrugged his shoulders. "I … it was nothing we did. He would just …curl up when he was locked up… I mean, he could have simply joined the Guard…"
"He feels dead inside, because he's done bad things", a flat sounding voice said from the doorway.
I looked up and saw Rosalie whose eyes were brimming with venom. The big brawny male was embracing her lovingly. "Shh, it's all right, Rosie."
"No, it's not", she said quietly. "He feels like I felt after…"
Something really bad must have happened to that girl before she was turned, and I wondered if that was why she was giving off such a cold shoulder to the rest of the world when Charlotte interrupted my thoughts with a cry. "Bella!" She struggled through the group of vampires and rushed to our bedroom, coming back almost at once. "No, sleeping."
Strange. I shook my head to clear it, and signaled to the others that I'd like to be alone with my friend. Some way or other I had to get the Major back into working order, after all, we had the Volturi on our trail.
"Major Whitlock!" I called him, hoping that his military reflexes which had survived the change to vampire would also work with this kind of sleep/depression, whatever it was.
He snapped to attention, but it was clear at once that he was in full fighting mode, ready to tear me to bits. The monster was out in full force.
"Jasper!" I screamed. He stopped in mid-rush and put his head to one side as if to listen. Then he caught sight of himself in the mirror and frowned.
"Care to explain what's going on?" I asked casually, surer now that I would survive this confrontation with my brother in arms.
When he turned to me again, it looked like he literally deflated; all life seemed to go out of him.
"Jasper, it can't be as bad as that!" I said, shocked at how much pain he looked to be in.
He shook his head. "I … Bella…" He stopped as if simply talking about it was too much.
I blinked. What we had heard from upstairs had not sounded as if there was cause for concern on that front, just the opposite, the sounds Bella had been making had almost been enough for any male downstairs to thoroughly embarrass themselves in front of their mates. "Yes?" I asked encouragingly.
He squirmed. "I should have listened to you, but then… she said she loved me in the hospital, and that she wanted to stay with me rather than go anywhere with the Cullens. Oh god, she was injured and I forced myself on her like the beast that I am…"
"Eh – let me assure you, it did not sound like you forced her to do anything…"
He snorted contemptuously. "Of course not, she must have been hit by my… damn this projecting thing. Peter, I just behaved … how can she ever look at me again? Now she will run from me…"
"Well, at the moment she's …"
He did not let me finish. "I know, she's unconscious again, we should get Carlisle to take another look at her, after which he will surely take her away from me for good."
"Aha, would you mind putting on some clothes before that, you're…"
He ignored my banter. "And the big brother will kill me." His eyes met mine. "Let him, Peter, it's best if I don't wreak any more havoc on this earth."
I was still thinking how to react to his latest outburst at depression when the door almost buckled under Emmet's fist. "I'm coming in. I don't care how big and bad you are, if you hurt Bella, I'll…"
"Can you all pipe down a little?" Charlotte could be heard above the din. "The human is trying to sleep!"
"She'd love to, but it's far too loud in here," Bella's grumbling voice sounded as if she'd just been woken and Jasper and I butted heads in our hurry to get through the bathroom door at the same time. Strangely her door was still closed, but her voice continued. "Looks as if this place is vampire central for quarrels, damnit, and I was just dreaming so good…"
By that point Charlotte had started giggling and we realized that Bella thought she was just talking under her breath to herself. I signaled to everybody to go downstairs to give the human some time to sleep – we all had heard that she must be exhausted after all.
When I looked around downstairs though, I saw Jasper was not with us anymore and the front door was open.
Oh no, Whitlock, you're not getting away from me while you're in this mood. I followed his trail to the lakeside where I found him looking into the water.
"…and the worst thing is, it felt absolutely right, like nothing ever has before."
"I know", I started. I knew what he was talking about, life without Charlotte did not seem possible any longer once I had met her, but it felt downright absurd as soon as I had actually slept with her.
Jasper got up in a fluent movement and turned to go. "I'm leaving. Just get her set up somewhere in her world. No vampire will touch her or harm her, I marked her thoroughly." His tongue was dripping self-disgust.
"And just where do you think you're going?"
His shoulders slumped. "No idea", he whispered so quietly that without my vampire hearing I could not have made out his words.
"If that's the case you might want to stay here at least for a talk on how to proceed in this whole thing. Char and me are involved as well as those Cullens, who – to speak frankly – are far too good to be left alone in our world. Leave tomorrow if you're that insistent about it."
He closed his eyes and rubbed his face only to follow me back inside.
