Disclaimer: It's just me again playing with Ms. Meyer's characters in an alternate universe. I subscribe to the infinite worlds theory of quantum physics...somewhere there's a world in which Edward and Bella really exist, don't you think? No copyright infringement intended.
Author's Notes: Thanks for the kind reviews... they keep me at my keyboard.
The Blood Wars
Chapter 14
Jacob met them as they crossed the moonlit yard. Alice sent him. In no time at all, he had the deer strung up on a low limb of a large tree by the river. With swift efficiency he gutted, skinned, and quartered it. Both he and Edward carried the venison into the house so Bella could pull the back straps and start butchering and bagging the meat for the freezer.
Always before when he hunted, he had hidden the carcasses in the forest to rot there as if they were something shameful. Never had he paraded home with a dead animal draped over his shoulders as if it were something to be proud of. Jake's praise for the clean kill and the size of the dear made him feel confused. Funny how providing meat for the nourishment of humans made the act of hunting seem almost... he stared down at the bags of meat and tried to find the right word in the confused churning of his emotions...
Looking up from his slicing and dicing, Jake caught the disoriented look on Edward's face. Almost as if reading his mind, the wolf said, "You've never brought your kills home before?"
Edward flinched at his words.
"Hey, it's a good thing to put meat on the table,...it's what a man does; he feeds his family. Brings home the bacon whether it's a paycheck to buy groceries or actual bacon, a man takes care of his own. It was the sacred duty of the men in our tribe to become good hunters. Among the Quileutes, a man who can't hunt or fish loses his self-respect, his dignity. My dad fished and hunted from a wheelchair. I killed my first buck when I was nine, just a spike, but I was so proud. My dad dabbed some blood on my forehead and I wore it home to show my mom."
He grinned and pointed at Bella with his knife, "Even Bells may have to give up her rabbit diet and eat some of this if the garden doesn't come in soon enough. She loves venison... or did. Do her good. She's looking a little anemic these days, anyway."
Neither Bella or Edward could meet his eyes suddenly... guilt?
Jake caught himself. "Ah shit! I didn't mean it that way, dude...squeeze the faux pas. Okay?" He went back to his slicing, but the silence grew a little too long for comfort.
"Alice seems upset about something," Jake told them when they were almost done. In a surprise move, Edward kissed her cheek and left her alone with Jake as they finished up. She thought maybe he went to check on his sister.
"Did she say anything?" Bella asked after Edward left.
"Not to me...just muttering and pacing back and forth... sometimes staring off into space...I think they're going to call a meeting."
"Where's Rachel?"
"She's taking a class in Vampire 101 from Esme. Carlisle and I broke the news to her earlier, and she took it fairly well. Seemed glad that I wasn't a leech." He grinned down at her.
"Jake! That's just rude." She smacked him hard with a wet dish towel.
"What? They call me Dog every other breath. I'm not supposed to retaliate?"
She had to laugh.
"I've missed you Jake. We haven't been hanging out much since I moved in with... Charlie last fall... not like we used to when we were kids...what happened"
"I started phasing, Bella. It's been a hard adjustment, and for a long time I was afraid to be around you or anybody until I got a handle on the situation, you know?"
"Has Rachel been able to say anything yet?"
"No, but Emmett had an idea to give her an old cell phone. Can't use it to call people, but she types with the text feature and shows it to me ... beats carrying paper and pencil around all day."
"Has she said much about her family... her past?"
"No, and I don't think she will. It was bad, really bad, Bella. According to Edward, she lived in foster care most of her life and there was...abuse. Carlisle found scars on her back when he gave her a physical this afternoon."
The muscles in his jaw clenched as he ground his teeth together.
"The scars are shaped like..." He made a choking sound as he continued. "Carlisle says they look like a man's belt buckle...he's seen them before."
"Oh God!"
"I tell you what, Bells. The bastard who did that is damn lucky to have died of the virus...damn lucky!" His upper lip lifted into a disgusted snarl baring his sharp, white incisors. The muscles in his arms and neck seemed to shiver in reaction to his thoughts. He stepped back from Bella a few steps.
Just then Edward stepped through the kitchen door looking worried.
" You OK?" He seemed ready to grab Bella and run if necessary.
Drawing a deep breath, Jake visibly settled himself, reining in his anger by force of will.
"I'm right as rain," he reassured them but his eyes did not match the calm sound of his words.
"We're going to meet in the family room in five minutes. Can you call in the patrols, Jake? Carlisle wants everybody here for this one."
"Sure. Consider it done."
"Bella?" Command rumbled in his voice.
"Just finishing up." Folding the dish towel she had used to clean the counters, she took his outstretched hand.
Pausing at the door, Edward stopped suddenly and looked back.
"You're right. She comes when I call, but you're wrong about which one of us is being trained.
"You put a mark on her, and you'll answer to me."
Edward nodded slowly. He wanted to say that vampires always mark their mates, but for once he kept the smart-assed comment to himself... no need to antagonize the boy. Conflict among the ranks would only prove counterproductive in the coming days. Besides, his head was still reeling from the way Jake made him feel about the deer he killed. Damn! Was he grateful...to a werewolf?
Instead, he said, "You'd better be looking after your own. She's planning to run...just like she ran from the last two foster homes...that's what she does when she feels threatened, she runs. She's been living on the streets of Seattle for almost a year ever since she turned sixteen. Don't trust her for a minute."
"Thanks for the heads up."
"The meeting is about to start," he told Jake and left.
Once they were all assembled, Carlisle leaned forward in his seat on the sofa beside Esme... keeping her hand in his even as he spoke. Beside them on the couch, Jasper sat with his arm around a very distressed looking Alice. Carlisle cleared his throat. and everyone got quiet.
"Alice has something she needs to tell us," he said.
She looked at her mate as if to draw support. Giving her a sideways grin and wink of encouragement, he clearly was working a little mood magic.
"A decision has been made." Alice announced. "The Volturi will definitely be coming here to destroy us. Human blood is so scarce, Aro feels the competition must be eliminated. He and the guard have been killing off vampires everywhere they go...and collecting human survivors for his herd. He is waiting for the fall to give Felix and Jane time to destroy as many other covens and nomads as they can and to send back human survivors. If he comes in the fall with both Jane and Alec with the guard, we won't stand a chance. He's saving us until last."
The members of the pack exchanged looks...wolf telepathy... War!
"Why us?" Rose asked, concern evident in her tone. "We're no threat...we're no competition to the Volturi... we don't even drink human blood." Anxiously, she looked down at Little Wolfe who was napping in her arms.
"Yes, but he knows Carlisle will also want to collect surviving humans... not for their blood, but to prevent extinction of the species. That makes us a threat," Edward clarified.
" Twenty-one survivors, that's how many he has found so far in Europe and Asia. The Western Hemisphere is next on his agenda. He hopes to find at least that many here." Alice told them.
She looked up at Jasper ; he took over.
"Aro wants to get rid of us because he figures Carlisle will refuse to just sit by while what's left of the human race becomes no more than groceries for his guard. If he finds out we have humans under our protection, that will make it much more tempting for him to attack. Alice sees it happening in the fall."
"Aro's never been to this house before. He'll definitely send spies first," Carlisle said, " to locate us and get the lay of the land before coming in with the full guard. Believe me, he will bring his human herd with him."
"Why would he do that?" Rose wanted to know.
"He'll bring them with him because he knows it will take both witch twins to defeat us, and he will be afraid to stay in Volturi without at least one of the twins to protect him."
"But why bring the humans with him?" Jake asked. "They'll slow him down. He'll have to find a plane, clear a runway, figure out a way to feed and secure them. Wouldn't it be simpler for him to leave them back in Italy?"
" Yes, it would be simpler, but would you leave twenty-one bottles of wine in a room with a bunch of unsupervised alcoholics? Neither will he leave his blood supply with guard members while he takes care of us. Trust is not a word in his vocabulary...so yes, I promise, he will definitely bring them with him when he comes here. "
"Our biggest problem will be taking out Jane and Alec before they incapacitate us." Carlisle took a few minutes to explain the nature of the witch twins' powers to the girls and the pack. "They're unbeatable in a battle because she protects Alec from attack while he renders the enemy helpless. The rest of the guard can then kill everyone at their leisure. They've never lost a battle."
"They don't know about us, do they?" Jake interrupted.
"No, they don't," Jasper answered, but I'm not sure how we could best use that advantage."
" I guess we could preempt the battle and go to Italy... do a little surprise attack, but I prefer to fight this war here," Emmett told them. " We can't take the baby, Bella and Rachel with us, and we can't leave them alone while we go to Italy."
"So how do we make sure Aro brings the whole guard and the captured humans here?
"Let's play it like chess." Jasper suggested. "Jane is his queen, right? And Alec, the knight. Can we use her to check the King? Alice has seen him decide to send Felix and Jane to the West to conduct his vampire genocide. He won't send just the two of them against all of us, but I think he'll send them here to reconnoiter before he comes with the full guard in the fall. He'll tell them to make a spur of the moment decision to find us and check us out, maybe while they're out searching for humans and vampires. They won't confront us openly, so we have to catch them while they're passing through, kill Jane at least...check! Then all we have to worry about is Alec and the rest of the guard. If we can kill Alec before he tries to use his power on us in the autumn...checkmate. When they don't show up in Italy with survivors, he'll have to come...if he wants the rest of the human survivors, that is.
"We'll need a pawn," Edward offered. "Jane can only use her power on one attacker at a time, unlike her brother. Someone will have to distract her. If the pack can deal with her, surely the rest of us can take down Felix. Without his queen, Aro will have to depend on his knight. The question is how do we kill Alec without being able to see, hear, smell or feel him or anyone else.?"
"Who will be the pawn?" Biting her lip, Bella wished she had never asked the question.
"She'll choose the pawn, Bella," Alice told her gently. She met Edward's eyes, but neither one said anything else to her,
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," Carlisle said as he stood up. "It's late and I'm sure Bella, Rachel and the pack need their rest. Keep brainstorming...I'm sure we'll come up with a plan to deal with Alec. We have our vegetarian cousins in Alaska who may help us. Esme and I plan to make a trip up to see them in the next couple of days. I need to warn them before Aro sends his assassins their way. They don't have an Alice, after all. Jake, I'm counting on the pack to know when Felix and Jane show up. But for now, let's call it a night."
Jake stayed behind with Rachel as the others began to leave the room. He was content just to sit with her and enjoy the silence for a while. She was so still. Jake wondered what cruel circumstance had conditioned her to work so hard at going unnoticed as if she were trying to hide in plain sight.
Everyone left slowly... almost reluctantly. Maybe they found comfort just being in the same room together... a group of survivors united against the darkness of impending war.
Group? Were they just a group anymore?
Damned if he knew what they were... maybe friends, but no... it was beginning to feel like a family more and more as each day went by. Even their arguments felt like sibling conflicts. Nothing short of an apocalypse could have united these mortal enemies...now they all had bonded over one common cause...the protection and survival of the last few humans left alive on this earth.
Wolves, vampires and humans all living together in relative peace...too bad it took a global pandemic to make it happen.
While he had been pondering these mysteries, the room had completely emptied. Edward and Bella had gone hand in hand upstairs. Rose and Emmett following them carrying Little Wolfe who slept still soundly in Rose's arms.
He noticed Rose always wore long sleeves these days to keep her cool skin away from the baby, although she touched him and kissed him often. Did she ever put the baby down? Come to think of it, he had never seen her without him in her arms or somebody's. Those vamps passed the kid around like he was their favorite toy. Even the pack took turns playing with him or feeding him if... and only if...Rose allowed it and only under her direct supervision. The kid was going to be spoiled, but he seemed to be happy and thriving.
Alice and Jasper went with Carlisle and Esme to hunt, and the pack, except the two he had silently sent on patrol, raided the fridge and went to their rooms to play video games or watch movies on DVD and sleep...in a house full of vampires.
Finally, only he and Rachel were left. She sat like a little mouse beside him on the sofa waiting for him to indicate what she should do. She clutched the cell phone Emmett had given her tightly between the fingers of both hands, but she didn't text a single letter. She just waited like some submissive whose will had been given to another.
He couldn't begin to imagine what she must be thinking after all she had seen and experienced over the past few days. She was Dorothy lost in Oz... Alice though the looking glass... Beauty with the …. yes, he guessed that was about right... he was the beast, but not the kind of beast that would beat a young girl with the buckle end of a belt.
Maybe, if he sat here silently with her long enough, she would get so impatient or curious or bored that she would open that lovely mouth of hers and speak to him. He suddenly wanted desperately to see that mouth. With his hand under her chin, he turned her face up for his perusal taking his time to admire the fine grain of her ivory skin, the cerulean blue of her eyes, the gold brown arch of her brows, the luxuriant sweep of her lashes, the gleam of coppery streaks in the soft curls of her long strawberry blonde hair.
Sweet Jesus, yes...she was Beauty, and he was for sure a beast to think what he thought each time he even looked at her.
"Do you know the Bible?"
She started texting.
Saw a Bible once... never read one.
"There's a story in the Bible about a man named Jacob who left his family and went his own way in the world. He met a beautiful woman named Rachel, but he had to work fourteen years before her father would let him marry her." Jake noticed that Rachel listened closely, but made no comment to his story.
Do you know why I told you this story?
Because our names are the same as theirs?
"Partly, but mostly because it is a story about a man who was willing to work for what he wanted. He was willing to wait fourteen years for the woman he loved."
No response came from her... well, of course not, he realized. He hadn't asked her a direct question.
"I'm willing to work at making you feel safe, Rachel. Eventually, you'll decide that you are safe enough to speak to me. I'm not going anywhere and I'm not going to give up, no matter how long it takes. And most of all, I promise I'll never hurt you like the man who beat you. Do you believe me?"
Jake noticed she didn't answer immediately. He waited. Finally, she began to hit the buttons on her phone.
Want to talk...want to trust ...trapped in scary dream... can't wake up.
She handed him the phone. He nodded.
"I'll wait." he assured her.
She said nothing.
"Ready for bed?"
She touched the couch where they sat and then to herself. She pointed to him and then gestured toward the stairs.
He shook his head slowly.
"I'm sorry, but there is no way, you'll sleep anywhere but with me, especially tonight."
Muttering a vicious curse at her alarmed expression, he wanted to give in to her wishes, but realized it was best to start out as he meant to go on. Nothing but honesty between them... he would have it no other way.
"Rachel, there something about me that you don't know yet."
Alarm turned to fear as she subtly shifted further away from him towards the end of the sofa...probably expecting him to turn into a zombie or something after all she had seen the past couple of days.
He reached across and pulled her closer feeling the quaking of her body as he put hands on her. Drawing her close to his side, he wrapped one big arm around her shoulders. She might as well get used to his touch.
"Do you remember when I first touched you at the television station yesterday?' He felt her slight nod.
"Do you remember how it felt sort of like an electric shock?"
She pulled her arm free to text an answer.
Not shock...exactly...intense...scared me...will you do that again?
Jacob felt himself reacting to her description of the imprinting phenomenon and quickly used a cushion to cover his lap. She regarded his reaction with confusion, but waited for him to continue.
"So... well that feeling is part of what is called imprinting. When a wolf, werewolf, shapeshifter, whatever you want to call us, first sees the one he is supposed to ….when we see the one we're destined to be with for the rest of our lives, we imprint on them. That person becomes the most important person in our lives. Nothing else matters as much as that person, her safety and her happiness in that order."
For life?
"Until death...I belong to you."
He watched her face as she processed this new and startling information.
Belong to me?
He nodded.
Like a slave?
"Not exactly.."
Her eyes widened in comprehension.
"So, you see why, circumstances being what they are in the world these days, I will not leave you to sleep alone when at any moment some passing vampire could..."
Afraid.
"Ah, Little Red..." he murmured softly as he threw the cushion on the floor and pulled her onto his lap. Pressing his lips to her temple, he settled her into his arms and sighed sadly. "I could no more hurt you than I could cut my own arm off...that's part of the imprinting thing. Unless your safety is at risk, I will never do anything that makes you unhappy. We can sleep down here on the couch if you want. I'll hold you right here the rest of the night...don't be afraid. You slept with me last night, you know."
They sat cuddled up together for a long time without talking at all. At first she sat stiffly in his lap, but soon her tense muscles began to relax and her breathing slowed and deepened. When Jake knew she was out for the count, he stood and carried her up the stairs. She didn't even stir when he laid her on the bed and pulled the covers over her.
He looked for a moment at the blanket he had used last night. Disdaining it, he climbed in beside her and reached for the lamp. Not the floor tonight, he sighed, happy to snatch this little space of happiness amid all the turmoil and strife of the past few days.
If she woke up and decided to make a run for it...well he knew he could track her down in no time, but he might not be the only dangerous animal out there in the woods tonight.
Drawn to his warmth even in her sleep, Rachel turned and tucked herself into the hollow spaces of his body as if they both were precisely crafted to be interlocking halves of a single puzzle. Fourteen years, could he wait that long? Probably not. He doubted he could wait fourteen days to take her. He tangled his right hand into her long hair... just in case. Drawing a deep breath, he savored the sweet smell of citrus shampoo and the uniquely enticing scent of his own Little Red Riding Hood. As he was drifting towards sleep, he heard her murmur something. He couldn't understand all of what she said, but he thought he heard her say his name. He smiled against her hair and drifted off content and complete.