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thanks monkey for all the help.

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BPOV

Something hard and cold was rocking me into its chest as my eyes fluttered open; even though the sun remained hidden by the clouds its light stung my eyes. My heart spun out of control as I remembered the jump and I began shoving myself away from the frightening captor behind me. To my astonishment it let me go, moving its arms out of my way as I attempted to scramble up the beach. But as I turned to see who I assumed had nearly drowned me, it was Edward.

My mind scattered into millions of pieces as I looked around for clues to my ordeal. A snarl from behind me made me spin around. Jacob, wolf Jacob, was snapping his teeth at a calm male, too beautiful to not be a vampire. His dark brown hair was disheveled enough to be attractively wild, but not messy. His eyes were deep, his jaw square, and his nose straight. He stared intensely at me, and me only. His body stance was considerably calm noting that a six-foot tall werewolf was barely restraining from ripping him to pieces.

Alice sat behind Jacob, her eyes on the strange new vampire as well.

"Edward?" My voice shook, my eyes didn't leave the stranger.

"Come here Bella," He opened his arms and folded me into him, stuffing his nose into my hair. "Please stop doing things like this, I don't know how many heart attacks a technically dead heart can stand, but I'm pretty sure mine has nearly reached its capacity."

"I-…I uh..well I was going-" my mind couldn't straighten out my words enough to form a sentence. I took a deep breath reorganizing the thoughts flying through my mind. "I was going to wait for Jacob, but he was taking so long…and I got really hot so I wanted to jump in…" my reasoning for jumping seemed petty as I explained it to Edward. " And then- well…then someone was holding onto me, and I couldn't get up for air." I coughed up a little of the salt left in my lungs.

"And well…now I'm here," I mumbled.

A silky low voice came from the vampire I didn't know, " Luck must be on your side today. I don't know what the hell you were thinking but hopefully thoughts like that one don't cross your mind too often." His seductive voice dripped with an unmistakable Irish accent.

"You're the one that nearly killed me." I opined.

"Well my apologies if I didn't know that you skipped off of cliffs for fun." I glared at his sarcastic reply, Jacob's menacing stance making even the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. He pointed to Jacob. "If this fella hadn't come along I wouldn't have been distracted and we could've gotten to shore much quicker."

Pieces to this very strange puzzle still seemed to be missing. My mind felt like there were holes through this story.

"Why would you try and save me in the first place? I would have been fine without you." I tried to sound angry but failed dismally, my curiosity creeping noticeably in my words.

"I've been trying to answer that myself, and I can't completely say. You seemed… different." He paused as I grimaced, why was I always the weird one? "Maybe different isn't the correct word, you seemed special, worth something."

"Although I do not believe a thanks is in order, I applaud your knightly efforts. But as you can probably see," Edward motioned to Jacob and himself, "Bella already has enough prince charmings to keep her safe." I heard Jacob cough a laugh.

The vampire's face lifted into a smug grin, "Bella, is it? Beautiful name."

"Yeah well, I don't remember catching yours," A sting of annoyance was present in my voice.

"Ay, you have not. Raphael, it is." He smiled and winked coyly at me. "But you may call me Raph, if you'd like."

Sam Uley suddenly appeared out of the forest's border, he was only wearing a pair of jeans. He looked over at Jacob and gave him a quick nod. With that Jacob galloped into the woods only to reemerge as a human.

"Sam." Alice nodded, keeping her eyes on Raphael as Sam continued towards Edward and me. His size was no less daunting than Jacob's. And as Edward and I stood to meet him, he towered over Edward by a good four inches. I couldn't help but snicker at the difference; Sam shot me a cold glance, and reminded me of the traitor he thought I was.

"The treaty has been broken. But considering the recent alignment against the Seattle coven it seems stupid to dwell on that." Sam took a deep breath. "We caught this one's trail crossing from the border up north, we couldn't identify the scent and feared the return of some of Victoria's allies." I shivered at her name; Edward only tugged me closer to him. "I called Jacob to come help us track him down, only for him to discover the trail a few moments later, leading straight to the cliffs, straight to the girl."

He turned his jet black eyes on me, his voice remaining unnaturally calm but seemingly seasoned with a piercing accusatory tone, " I don't know what it is about you that seems to attract any dangerous object within a one-hundred mile radius, but you may consider getting it fixed." He grinned at the last part.

"I'm not broken, Sam." I spat back.

"Ya know Sam, it's not really her fault," Jacob murmured quietly from behind Sam's shoulder.

"Ay, it's not. I believe I am the one to blame in this situation, Sammy boy," Raphael interrupted, his charming voice and smile didn't seem to appease to the Alpha wolf.

"You may call me Sam." His voice was as chiding as it was reserved.

"We're leaving Sam. Sorry to cause you such discomfort." Alice turned her furious eyes on me, " it won't happen again." This was the first time I could actually remember Alice being mad at me. And frankly, I was terrified.

"As for you…" Sam glanced back towards Raphael, who quickly interrupted his thought.

"Oh, I'll be leaving with them, no need to show me out. Thanks." He positively beamed. Sam was apparently irritated and motioned for Jacob to follow him back into the forest.

"WHAT?!" Jacob protested. "We're just going to let him go! He's not a Cullen! He had no right to be on this land! And you're just going to let him go! C'mon Sam!" He sounded way too excited. Usually his affinity for physical violence irritated me, but after the scare Raphael caused, well he deserved to be roughed up a bit.

"Now's not the time Jake." And with that Jacob sighed defiantly and followed Sam into the forest pouting, but not without a backwards glance to me.

"Call ya later," I mouthed; he smiled and disappeared into the trees.

Edward clasped his fingers around my palm and began dragging me up the beach, Alice following closely behind, and Raph trailing on the tail his eyes lazily admiring the scenery.

"Why is he here?" I whispered to Edward.

"He's an old acquaintance of Carlisle's." Edward's hushed voice barely carried to my ears.

"So you've met him before?" I glanced over my shoulder at the man behind Alice. He was…in one word, statuesque. More beautiful than Carlisle, if that was possible. There was an eerie regal air about his posture, a sultry attractiveness about the masculinity in his features, and his muscles were apparent underneath the tight grey shirt and jeans he dawned. There was a charming tone that seemed to flitter around him.

"No, never. He was just thinking about it." Edward looked a little irate. "He was just stopping in for a visit and happened upon the wrong piece of land while traveling towards Forks, and then as fate would have it…he spots you." His stern voice broke into a quiet chuckle. "Your luck amazes me, Bella."

"Yeah well I do my best." I added sarcastically, I was getting tired of the doomed from the beginning jokes; they got old pretty quick.

"I don't like him," Edward growled. I patted his shoulder, failing to tame his tempter.

"Don't play the bully role Edward, he seems nice enough." His eyes went wide with astonishment and immediately flashed to angry.

"He almost killed you." He countered.

"He didn't mean to." I whispered. Almost laughing at the fact that I was defending the person that had nearly drown me. Why was I defending him? I felt nearly drunk off of his magic: the fluidity of his words, the strength of his presence. He had just been so polite to Sam, which I of all people knew was hard to do. And if Carlisle liked him…how bad could he be?

Edward's eye roll was dramatically obvious as we continued towards the Mercedes that seemed to pop out of nowhere at the edge of the forest.

"I still don't like him," he repeated. I sighed at his tenacity, and he thought Rose was pigheaded.

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