Chapter Twenty-Five: Regrets, Unchangeable

"I'm leaving."

Those two, innocent sounding words had been the catalyst to it all.

Isabella Swan rocked back on the porch swing behind her mother's modest home, her head connecting with the hard wood of the bracers holding the seat itself aloft. Her bottom was nestled carefully into the plushness of the cushion beneath her.

I really didn't think it'd hurt this much. She thought to herself, her right hand rising to rub at the ache that never seemed to go away in her chest. In fact, all of her body ached. She felt as if she'd gone for a ten-mile run, fallen down the side of a mountain, got back up onto her feet for another five-mile jaunt, and then ran face-first into a wall. Her head pounded rhythmically, seeming to follow each stuttered beat of her heart.

She fought through the pain, though. She had to.

They left me no choice, she intoned morosely.

Thinking about the guys simultaneously depressed and enraged her. She didn't know what to do about them or the relationship they'd been building. She loved them; she knew she did with every fiber of her bring…which was why their unwillingness to listen to her had caused so much damage between them. Why she now found herself hiding at her mother's house over three-thousand miles away from the men that had broken her in a way Edward never could.

Tears prickled at her eyes, but she ruthlessly pushed them back down.

She hadn't stopped sobbing that first day. She'd fallen in and out of consciousness sporadically, the crying coming and going with her awareness. She'd only controlled herself enough to pick her father up from the hospital. He'd stayed with them at the Cabin in the other Master upstairs. Later she'd gone with the guys, at their instance, to scrounge through the wastes of the Swan home to salvage whatever she could.

All we walked away with were the two fire-proof-safes, great-Gram's silver dining tray, and half of my baby-blanket. Ash. Everything else is ash.

She felt another stab go through her heart and had to breathe through the discomfort.

Evy had told her about this. She'd warned her.

Bella groaned in misery, hating the guys even more for what she now had to endure.

After Bonding and Mating, it was apparently a near-impossible thing for a Shapeshifter and its Mate to be separated. The Shapeshifter had the worst of it, normally unable to continue on with a normal life until its Mate was returned. They often stayed in their animal form because their mind-set was too rabid to maintain their human form for any period of time. For the Mate's part, it was a horribly uncomfortable and sometimes agonizing experience. The energy a Mate normally fed to its Shapeshifter counterpart was forced to build up in their body as it did before Bonding and Mating. The longer a Mate had been feeding her Shapeshifter, the harder it was to withstand containing the energy and power she once did on her own. Their ability to contain energy dwindled away until they were made nearly incapable of leaving their Shapeshifter.

Bella could understand that warning now.

Her body was fighting itself to keep in the energy she regularly and unconsciously transferred to her seven men. It made her sick and sore. At times the throbbing shifted to sheer agony. She thought it was because she was reaching out for them without knowing it, hoping to release what was building up, and when they weren't there she was forced to withdraw back into herself.

It about killed her.

Evy'd told her they could separate. Not permanently, no, but for a time. Her men were Alphas. She was Induja. They had strength that most other Shifters and Mates didn't. They'd pay a price for the split, but Bella had had no doubt in her mind that this needed to be done. She needed to think about what had occurred between them without their influence. They'd steamroll her if she stayed too close to them at this time.

She groaned again, this time with exasperation.

The guys had been particularly frazzled when the next morning came after they'd beaten her ass. They fawned over her, their eyes frantic. They tried to talk to her about nonsensical things, but not about what had been going on with Victoria or her opinions and decisions that had led up to that horrible session in the living room. They attempted to get her to eat, which she hadn't the mood or strength for. Several times they had tried coming into her room when she was having night-terrors to comfort her only to be sent back out by her hollowed voice. She stayed locked up in her temporary room beside her father's and ignored the words they tried to share through the door.

They cared about her, yes, but not enough. Not enough to listen to her, to try and explain themselves, or to even admit to the fact that they'd done something wrong. She suspected that they felt they had wronged her, but didn't want to admit it to even themselves. To Hell with her.

I'm not worth it.

A sob wracked her, but she bit into her lip hard enough to draw blood to keep it from evolving into something more.

"Bella?"

Startled, she turned her head to see her mother standing in the doorway leading back into the house. The older woman looked beyond concerned and Bella couldn't blame her. She'd been in Jacksonville for more than three days and she'd been anything but good company.

"Hey Mom." She waved to the spot beside her on the swing. "You can come sit with me if you want."

Renée, still looking young and full of life for her age, strode around the chair to sit. Her hand came to settle automatically on Bella's knee. She, in-turn, flinched. Physical contact with anyone, female, family, or otherwise hurt now. Her skin was tender as if she'd just gotten sunburned and the touch of someone's hands on her scorched like hundreds of wasp stings.

"Honey, what's wrong? Phil's gone right now and I thought we could talk." Renée pulled her hand back, apparently seeing the convulsive and unpreventable jerk in her daughter's face. "Something happened. Is it that boy again? Edward?"

Bella smiled faintly. Renée didn't know about Jacob and the others. She hadn't dared tell her mother about them outside of her 'friendship' with them. It had taken Charlie nearly being burned to death in their own home for her to gather up the courage to admit the truth to him.

Unbidden, she found herself falling back into that memory…and back into the pain of that time.

It was three days after the fire and after Jacob had so cruelly pulled her over his lap to have her ass beaten. Three days since they ruined her trust in them. Three days of them bowing and scraping at her feet, doing anything and everything to get her to even look at them with anything but broken eyes.

And it was also the day they had planned to tell her father the whole truth.

"Everyone's here, Bells." Jared whispered as he moved into the Study where she'd holed herself up for the past few hours. It was the first time, besides at dinner, when she had left the room she used beside her father's while hers was being repaired. The all-encompassing sorrow had made room for flickers of boredom and so she'd wandered down to the Study to do some soul-searching and research.

She'd been forced into promising the guys she wouldn't leave the Cabin without their permission…they had their wish. She stayed. She wouldn't ask, either. She simply remained in her bedroom wasting away, listening to the guys pleading with her to come back to her old self or whimpering in wolf-form. School had been called and told that she wouldn't be returning for some time. Let them wonder if it was over the loss of her childhood home or illness. She didn't care.

Nodding, she set down the files she'd been sifting through.

Inside the 'decorative' boxes were files and forms from previous generations of Shapeshifters of LaPush. Bella was amazed to find that, according to the papers, that almost all of LaPush was owned by the previous generations of the Pack. The stores. Restaurants. Clothing stores. Barber and salon. All of them. It was a quiet ownership and one that needed absolutely no maintenance on the Pack's part, but it was there nonetheless.

She wondered if the guys knew that they essentially owned the town. She'd ask them eventually, but not now. Not when everything was still so raw. There were more important things to discuss.

"Bella?" Jared hushed as she slid by him. His big hand cuffed around her forearm, stilling her. She flinched violently, unable to keep the reaction to herself. She feared their touch now, no matter how innocent. All her mind saw or her body felt was Jacob's brutally hard hand coming down on her indefensible backside. If he could do that to her there, if they could all stand around and watch or even hold her down, what more were they capable of?

She knew it hurt them to see her recoil from them, but a large part of her didn't give a damn. They had damaged her both physically and emotionally. They deserved to feel at least a little of what they'd dished out onto her.

"Please, Bella. Please don't do that." He lifted his hand as if to caress her cheek, but she jerked her head away. His hand curled into a loose fist and hung back down at his side. "We love you, sweetheart."

"You don't," she whispered harshly. Heat rose into her cheeks and stung her eyes. Her body wanted to cry, but she didn't cave into the impulse. She was just making day-to-day living even more of a struggle by wearing her already tired body down with tears. "You should have listened. You would have listened if you really loved me."

"Bella, what you did was…" but she didn't let him finish. In a flash she had reached out and slapped him. It didn't hurt him, she knew, but the shock of her raising a hand to him in anger was enough to silence him.

"Get away from me, Jared. All of you." She shoved him with all her might, her lips trembling. He stumbled back, but only half willingly. She saw it in his eyes that he wanted to hold her, to have her back. She wanted that, too, but not this way. Not with this between them.

"I'm not doing this. I refuse." Gathering up her sweater, one of the ones she'd transferred to the Cabin before the fire so she'd have clothes both places, she moved entirely out of the male's reach. "You don't deserve what I had to give. Just go away, Jared. Go away and leave me alone."

She skirted around the sofa where Jacob had paddled her ass so shamelessly when she entered the living room. Evy and Billy Black were there. Evy's men nodded to her from the kitchen where they stood with Jacob, Sam, and Paul. The six Shifters looked solemn.

"Will you please leave?" She queried softly, gesturing them and Jared, who'd followed after her, out the back door. They could run patrol with Embry and Quil for all she cared. Seth was too busy sulking outside, watching over the house and her to get involved with his brothers. She just didn't want them in the house. "I'd like this to be as contained as possible."

"Sure Bella." Caleb set a heavy hand onto Jacob's shoulder. "Come on, Prime. Let's go run." Quieter, but still audible to her well-trained ears, he mumbled, "She needs this, man. Don't ruin things more by staying here."

With Evy's men taking up the rear and making sure none of her men stayed behind, they left the house. Bella's heart wrenched to see them go and to hear them complaining to the three others that she might need them, that she wasn't well. She needed to be persistent, though. She needed to be strong because they couldn't be strong for her. Not when they were the cause of these problems.

"Hi guys," she greeted once they were all out.

"Hey Bella." Evy walked over slowly before hugging her tightly. Bella returned the embrace gladly. She needed this.

"Hello Bella." Billy waved from his chair just in front of her and behind Evy. "How have you been, kid? The old-man okay?"

"Yeah. Dad's doing good. No more cough." She purposely left off on the assessment of herself. Anyone with eyes could see the dark circles under her blood-shot orbs and paler complexion compared to her normal, pearly skin. She knew she should be eating more, too, but she felt too sick to stomach anything more than a few pieces of toast.

"That's good, kiddo." Saddened, she heard and saw in his manners, but he didn't push.

Evy let her go with sympathy in her eyes. They'd talk together after she and Billy explained things further to her father. It was the entire reason why she was here.

"I'll go get Dad since you can't go upstairs. Evy, can you stay, please? You might be able to help us field some of the questions my father'll ask."

"Of course, Bella. I'll help you out as much as I can."

She grinned, the first real smile she'd had in days. With more strength than she'd intended she pulled Evy back in for another hug. She embraced her hard, wanting the comfort of her friend almost as much as she wanted things to be right again between her and her men.

"Thank you." She whispered in Evy's ear.

"No problem, hun." The red-head said back.

Letting her go, Bella made her way up to commandeer her father. She smirked to herself, thinking already of the results of a very important issue she planned to bring up with her men sometime in the near future. If she had it her way, and she'd make certain she did, she'd have Evy as a permanent residence of LaPush and a part of their Pack along with Larissa, Brady, and Collin.

Later, though. Seems like everything now is 'later'.

…

By the time they got downstairs and had halfway explained things to Charlie, simply adding onto what Billy had told him at the hospital with the Third Wife story, Bella was exhausted. She had a horrible headache and her father was not taking things well.

At all.

"Why the Hell does it have to be seven men, though?!" He demanded not for the first time. He was practically spitting he was so upset.

"None of us chose this, Dad. It's not even something we could fight against." She leaned forward in her seat at the dining table, unable and unwilling to lounge in the room she'd been 'spanked' in. Her cold hands wrapped around her father's clenched right hand. "Daddy…could you stop loving Mom just because she left?"

Shocked into silence, Charlie just stared at her. His jaw stiffened.

"This is not the same thing, Bella."

"You're right, it's not." She conceded. "But you still love her, right? Even though she's married to Phil and even though she took me away? You still loved me even when I refused to come back to Forks when I thought you didn't want me around? You love both of us, no matter what we did, right?"

"You know I do, Bells. I love you very much…and your mother." The last was begrudging. "I loved her very much and I still do."

"Dad, you both were meant to happen. She left and that was meant to happen, too. Everything that happens to us was meant to happen Dad, but that doesn't mean that we have to go through those preordained things not feeling either way. I was upset at first, too. Polyamory obviously isn't accepted in the world. It definitely isn't normal…and I was afraid.

"But you know what? I wouldn't change it. They were my friends before I loved them, Dad. It just evolved into something more. I can't make myself hate any one of them or turn my back on one for the other. You loved and still do love Mom, but that doesn't mean that you don't have room in your heart to love another woman in the same way. So tell me, how is that any different than me loving multiple men at the same time?"

He was silent for a long minute, his face pensive.

"I know it's not acceptable to society, Dad. I know it's going to get us into trouble and if we stay here it could mean your job, but I can't stop myself from loving each of them. We can leave if we have to," she said though she suspected now after seeing those papers that they had a few more possibilities available to them than ever before, "but I refuse to tell myself that I can love only one of them and not the others just because people are too closed-minded.

"And I can't even do that for you." She ended somberly, looking into her father's brown eyes with naked truth.

"This is going to take me time to get used to, Bella."

"I know." She assured him. Her hand patted his comfortingly. "It took me a while to face it, too."

"I might never accept it."

"I know that, too." She smiled softly, gloomily. "No matter what, though, you'll always be my father. I love you, Dad, and I really don't want you to forget that or think that I'll ever not love you."

Charlie sighed gustily, drooping heavily into the chair-back. His gaze slid over to the other girl, a half-smirk pulling up the corner of his lips.

"And you? How have you been with your – ahem, men?" He winced using the plural.

"We're good, Sir." Evy chuckled a little, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "That's not to say that we don't fight. Every couple does. We can drive each other crazy, but I've been with them for just over two years now. I've never been happier. They care about me and do everything they can to make sure I'm content. There's not many women out there that can say that, Sir."

"You're right." Charlie nodded doggedly. "More than half the cases I've received on the Force have been for domestic dispute."

Bella flinched minutely, but thankfully went unseen by her parent. She didn't need the man to know about the recent occurrence between her and the guys. If she slipped and said one thing wrong this tenuous conversation would be blown to pieces. Charlie would never forgive her men…and while she was uncertain as to if she would ever truly forgive them for ignoring her as they had, she wanted her father and them to be on even, calm ground. These were delicate times.

"Let's talk a bit more, huh Charlie?" Billy asked, his eyes concerned as he stared at her. Bella shook her head frantically at the older man while her father's head was turned away. He'd obviously seen her earlier cringe and pieced things together. She didn't want him informing her father of anything, especially if he didn't know the whole story. "We'll discuss this and maybe watch some of a game, okay? I think the girls want to talk a bit."

When her father turned to her for confirmation Billy nodded sagely. She breathed out deeply, happy that the man understood her need for quiet.

"Yeah, that sounds good, Billy." With a shaky hand Bella grabbed up Evy's own appendage. "We'll just go into the Study. There was something I wanted to show Evy anyway."

One their shuffling way, Evy murmured into the air, "what's up? You have something planned."

"Exactly how much do you know about Shapeshifters and their mates, Evy?"

It'd taken two more days, a call to the airport, and some arguing with her men, but she was finally here in Jacksonville with her mother. Charlie, she hadn't been all that surprised, was gung-ho about the idea. He knew something was wrong between them all despite the cheery façade she tried to put on for him. Visiting her mother was just another way that she could get free of them in his mind.

He's probably out practicing his skills with his shotgun…and the guys as his target. The thought was almost wistful, but the very real fear of her father being so uncomfortable with their situation made the thought more sobering.

Upside…I didn't have to pay for the ticket. Thank you, Cullen family. The tickets she'd received on her birthday from them were safely tucked away in her smaller fire-safe when the house had burned.

"Bella!" She jerked violently at the shout, staring at her mother with ogled eyes.

"You weren't here with me, honey." Renée reached up as if to touch her cheek worriedly, but set it back down. Neither of them felt that secure in their love for each other to make that kind of physical contact, to give the kind of support normal mothers and daughters had been giving each other since the dawn of time.

Well, since the first-ever daughter was born, anyway.

"I'm sorry, Mom. I really am." She clenched her lip beneath her teeth fixatedly. The sting from the bite only minutes earlier helped to ground her.

"Bella, what exactly is going on?" Renée stared at her intently. "I know I haven't been the best mother – probably not even motherly at all, but I want to be able to help you. Is it Charlie? Do you want to come live here with me and Phil?"

"No!" She cried, horrified. She could already feel the burning pain in her chest and the ache in her bones tripling and quadrupling until it was all she could think about. She couldn't leave them. She was Bound to them now, for better or for worse. She would never be able to truly leave them without killing herself internally…possibly even physically.

"They didn't do it on purpose or knowingly, hun," Evy had told her. "It just – happens! I guess it's Fate's quirky sense of humor. Mates and Shifters are meant to be together and Fate or God or whatever is out there made it so that we'll stick to our other halves. Our bodies revolt against us if we don't."

It wasn't fair. Not by a long shot, but she had committed to this. To them. There was no backing out now. She had to work something out, either with herself, with them, or both. She was tied to them until the very end.

The older brunette gaped at her in amazement. Flushing brightly, Bella turned her head away. She felt chastened without being verbally assaulted.

"No," she waded back into the conversation. "It's not Dad. I actually love it in Washington…minus the cold. I could do without the cold. I like being a part of a small town."

"You never did like the city much," her mother agreed readily enough.

"It's too chaotic." She returned distractedly. This wasn't the conversation she or her mother was shooting for, she was sure. "Dad's been great. I'm sorry I never spent more time with him. Our time together was nice, too, but I missed a lot not having him there, you know?"

"I do," Renée glanced at her with guilty sorrow.

Not wanting to continue down a path that would bring awkwardness into the tête-à-tête they were having Bella diverted the topic. Deep down she understood that she was also avoiding having to look her mother in the eye and confirm the truth of those words…that Renée was a lacking mother.

"It's not Edward," she said instead. She was fighting with timidity. How was she going to broach this without sounding so much like the slut she'd first thought she was? "I've pretty much gotten over us. We weren't meant to be. I was more in love with the idea of being in love and made him out to be the man he wasn't. I think I've accepted that."

"Then what is it?" Her mother smirked faintly. "Don't think your scatterbrained mother can understand, hmm?"

Bella grimaced a smile at the small joke, but still squirmed on the cushion under her. Her ass still stung! The bruises were still there; plain in their hatred of her every day she took a shower and pulled her pants on.

She'd decided before even getting on the flight to Jacksonville that she needed to remain silent about Shapeshifters and vampires. The knowledge of their existence couldn't be left to chance. Besides possibly opening her mother up to the dangers of the Other side of their world by making her 'in-the-know' she would also be running the risk of their secret being let out if Renée was shaken too badly by Normal circumstances or otherwise. She didn't doubt that the woman was too weak emotionally to deal with Supes. She couldn't be trusted and though it broke her heart to think that her mother would never know the full truth it was far more important to keep her family safe and happy.

It's for her own good, she thought sullenly.

"Do you remember Jacob Black?" Slowly. Go slowly.

"Of course." Renée beamed grandly. "Sarah and Billy's son. Such a sweet boy. Does he still live on the Reservation or has he moved away like his sisters?"

Focus! The inner her snarled, rolling her proverbial eyes. Her mother was always like this. Ditzy and unable to stay on one topic for any lengthy period of time.

"No. He still lives on the Rez. Embry and Quil, too." She scratched at the back of her neck absently. There was no itch. She just needed to do something to keep her hands busy so she didn't end up displaying her nerves through quaking fingers. "I've been spending a lot of time with them and some others. Harry Clearwater's son, Seth, too."

"Well, it's good you have some new friends. Isn't it?"

"Yeah," she allowed gently. Back to kneading at her lip. "I, uh, we aren't just friends. Not anymore, anyway."

Renée cocked an eyebrow at her daughter, her lips suddenly thinned. "What are you talking about, Bella?"

"Do you, uh, know what polyamory is? Ménage?" Renée's face darkened dangerously. It sent chills down Bella's spine. She'd never known her mother to look so…serious and stalwart. "Momma?"

"Are you physically involved with multiple men, Bella?" The stark, flat tone she used had Bella nodding obediently and utterly silent. "Do you know what that's going to mean for you? For all of you? Do you understand what you're going to be faced with in the future? Whether this is permanent or not, it's not something that will just be forgotten. Do you get what this will mean for you, Bella?"

Tears prickled, but she nodded mutely.

Renée turned away from her. Her jaw was set stubbornly, perhaps even angrily. Bella stared at her in amazement. Was this really her mother? Was this the same Renée Dwyer that so often ran away from her problems and pranced around as if nothing was wrong with the world?

Maybe Phil's been good for her. She wondered idly.

"Mom? Talk to me. Please?"

"Do you remember Grandma Marie? My mother?"

She did. She'd spent a fair amount of time with her mother's mother when Charlie and Renée first divorced. Marie was a terribly stern woman. She often made Bella think of a drill sergeant. She also spoiled Bella rotten when she got the chance to have her granddaughter alone while Renée went back to school for teaching.

"Yes."

"My father…my father left my mother before I was born. She contacted him, of course, and we got regular child-support payments. Your grandmother never looked for another man. She wasn't interested." The aged brunette's leg began to jiggle. "I used to ask about him a lot. What was he like? Why he left. Did she still love him…"

Eyes glistening, her mother set sights on her for a long moment. "Your grandfather left your grandmother for another woman. He was a good man, according to Mom, but he loved someone else more. And he wasn't the only one."

Huh? She bug-eyed. All breathing stopped.

"Your grandfather, my father, shared the love of another woman with his cousin." Renée shifted so that they were sitting front-to-front. She grabbed the younger one's hands, holding them tightly. Bella watched as long-suppressed hurt flared across her elder's face. Her own physical discomfort at the active touch was placed on a backburner for that shattered look. "My mother was hurt by him, Bella, and what he chose damned her. She wasn't welcome back in our hometown because they knew what life my father chose and thought she chose that way, too.

"People are judgmental, Bella. It's everywhere. There's no escaping it. If you want this, if you want to be in a relationship like that, be sure. Be surer than anything else in your life."

Bella fidgeted. Her mind was racing.

Was my grandfather a Shifter? My God! If he was that could explain how I ended up being an Induja. It sickened her to think that her biological grandfather could have left her grandmother Maria, but if he was a Shifter and met his Mate it would make complete sense. She knew from experience with her own mates that wanting to be with them was an impossible-to-resist temptation. He wouldn't have been able to stop himself from going after his Mate. Just like her men couldn't leave her alone or let just one of them have her over the others. It wasn't just a want. It was a need.

Shit, maybe Shifter genes do pass through the generations as pure as any 'full-bred' mix would? I need to ask Evy more about this Supernatural crap.

What was more was that her mother knew about ménage relationships. Maybe not personally or from a secondary point of view, but she knew of them. She didn't seem to totally distrust that kind of life-choice, either. She was just worried. She'd seen what it'd done to her mother indirectly. She didn't want her daughter to be as forcefully-removed from society as Marie had been.

It's unavoidable, she asserted in her own mind. It's deviant behavior and deviant behavior is dealt with by way of exclusion…but I knew that already. I was ready to face that so long as they would be with me.

And therein lay the rub.

I don't have them with me because I can't trust them anymore. Not with my heart. Not when they can so easily discredited my words and forgot about what I need the most. She needed time. She needed time, and talk, and reassurances. She needed them to prove to her that they could be better than they acted…that they could live up to their vows.

I won't let them fail me again.

"Bella?" For what seemed like the hundredth time she found her attention jerked back into the moment. Renée stared at her soundlessly, but in a profound way. Like she'd seen something she hadn't expected. "You – you love them, don't you, honey?"

Smiling sorrowfully, she bobbed her head up and down with exaggerated slowness. She did. She still loved them. What they did to her wouldn't change that.

"But we can't be together the way we want right now." She finished her thought aloud. Renée's brows furrowed. Sighing gustily, Bella pushed on. "It's why I left. They did something bad. They, uh, they didn't trust me. They couldn't put me first. All that mattered was them." She was going to leave out that they beat her ass. That the marks of Jacob's hand still 'shone' on her derriere. Her mother didn't need to know about the physical abuse she'd suffered as well as the emotional.

Just like Dad didn't.

"Can you forgive them?" It was asked in a way that Bella knew her mother was looking more for her to look inside her own mind to figure it out. She didn't desire an actual 'yes' or 'no' answer to fall from her mouth.

"I – I don't know." Her voice stuttered and quaked. She cleared it loudly. "It hurt. I can't tell you how much it hurt. I don't want to go through that again."

Silence hung between them like a veil. Dark and shadowed. Bella ticked her head back, setting it against the supports. Her mother swung a leg to propel them into motion. The seat swayed back and forth gently, the far warmer air of Florida brushing across their cheeks.

"Why did you come down here, Bella? Really?" Renée sounded as morose as she felt.

Sigh. "I needed space. I needed to be away from them to decide what I want."

"And do you know what you want?"

A self-depreciating smile crossed her lips. Slowly, deliberately, she faced her mother. Brown eyes clashed with familial brown.

"I want none of this to have happened." She murmured just loud enough to be heard. Pain ripped through her chest with the denial of her connection to her men, but she trudged on. "I wish I'd have stayed with you and avoided all of this Hell I've gone through.

"But," she clipped out between bowed lips, "I don't want to lose what I've gained. I have friends now. Men I still love. I have a dad again, not just a father. I wouldn't give any of them up. I just wish it'd been easier to get to the good stuff without having to face the bad."

"Nothing in life is ever easy, honey." Snatching a glance back to the house, Renée beamed widely. Bella pivoted, too, to see Phil standing in the doorway nodding.

Her brows furrowed.

"Come inside with us, Bella. We have something for you."

Bella watched her mother rise and practically skip to her far younger husband. It was entirely touching to see Renée so whimsical and happy, but also caused her internal suffering to watch the couple embrace and kiss lovingly. Jealousy flared its ugly head for only a moment, but it was long enough to lament over.

I have things to think about. Decisions to make.

Rising, she glanced up from beneath her lashes to see her mother staring at Phil with adoration, his own eyes mirroring her elated emotions.

Hopefully I can make the right choices.

She had three more days in Florida before she had to go home…before the pain became unbearable. She'd use them to their fullest now that she'd gotten the worst of the weight off of her chest. She wouldn't squander time.

Padding into the house, Bella gasped.

Meanwhile…

The sand-colored wolf lumbered through the break in the woods leading into a now sparse clearing. The grass had been torn up by their fighting. Nearby trees were either felled or stripped of their barks from massive hits to their trunks. Wolf fur of all colors dotted the semi-dry, semi-muddy ground.

It looked like a cage-match for pissed-pussycats had taken place fairly recently.

Huffing, Seth dropped to his stomach on the well-worn ground. He burrowed his head into his paws, despair quieting his louder howls in favor of consistent, disparaging whimpers. He'd not left this spot by more distance or time than it took to run Patrol and return for fear that she would reappear and need him. Want him. He wanted to be near home. He wanted to be the first one she came to, if she decided to, when she came home.

Whimpering soulfully, he felt deep in his rattling, aching bones that this was his mate's home. She would come back to them. To him. She would. She loved them enough to forgive them for what they'd so foolishly, horridly done to her.

Harsh snarling in the distance barely roused his interest.

They were barely human anymore. They hadn't been able to Shift back into human form since Bella had left them to see her mother. Far away. They could barely function enough now to protect their lands as they were born to. All they seemed capable of was fighting between them, hating each other and themselves for pushing her away so thoroughly. They'd accomplished what the fucking leech had never been able to do.

They'd destroyed the trust their mate had in them.

Fucking liar! The beast and man in him thundered. You swore to her! You fucking swore to her that you would do nothing to hurt her. You would protect her! She is all we are and ever will be and you scared her away. You made her tremble and cry and hurt!

The condemning words had been cycling through his head, their heads, for days.

Foolishly, they'd thought that just maybe she'd forgive them after they'd beaten her. She was a self-sacrificing, beautifully kind individual. She could see through so many faults of any and every-one. She was goodness incarnated.

And yet she'd been unable to look at them.

Fuck!

He'd been unable to tear his eyes off of her. Or more readily, he'd been unable to pull his eyes away from the veracious welts across her milky-white ass. The area wasn't just red. Jacob had pelted her ass so hard it had bruised, which was no small feat considering a well-rounded rear was a difficult thing to raise blue-purple marks on. It took massive force. It took diligence and controlled hits.

Fuck them all!

He tore himself apart for not letting himself see, hear, or feel it to begin with. He was so caught up in his own selfish rage that he'd discounted the only meaningful thing in his life. He had shoved the scent of her fear out of his mind. Her pain had meant nothing. Simply that she would listen to them from then on and be safe.

It had all backfired.

She was the single most important thing in his life and he had had a hand in chasing her away from them.

For the three days they'd had her before her flight, both figuratively and literally, he'd lain outside her door in wolf form. He'd eyed the full trays of food they'd shuttled up to her temporary room and back down again when it was clear that she would not touch them. The silver tray always glinted evilly at him, taunting him. It harassed him silently. It screamed out its disapproval of them, reminding him that it was their fault that their mate now starved herself. She had always been thin, possibly too thin…

Seth shuddered to his clawed toes, not even able to bear the image of seeing Bella's already slight frame withering away to nothing.

Charlie never spoke to them. Not directly. He glowered at them with a fiery passion. The man, Seth was certain, knew nothing of what they'd done to his daughter despite her pained wobbling, but he clearly was upset with them. Such a little worry he was, though, in comparison to what they stood to lose if they couldn't earn Bella's forgiveness and win back her trust.

Embry limped into the clearing while he was lost in his thoughts and those he shared with the others, which all but mirrored his own. Embry's yellowed eyes flickered over his splayed form before huffing and leaning his only slightly larger body into the side of his sand-colored one. The spotted wolf's nose sniffed and then nipped encouragingly at his ear before slumping over the column of his neck.

Both wolves stared at nothing in particular, listening only to their brothers' outrageous obscenities as they fought and the quiet of the woods beyond the little Hell they'd made for themselves.

"She'll come back," Evy had said the day Bella had left to Jacksonville. They had stared down at the petite woman with disparaging eyes. The fliers at the Seattle Airport had given them a wide berth, most likely sensing the animal so poorly leashed within them. Evy's men were stiff and had built up a wall of their solid muscle around their mate to keep her safe. From them. Alphas.

Pussy-whipped butches. Paul threw into their shared mind ragingly.

"You all fucked up. Royally." Evy glared at them, her eyes changing to an almost icy shade. Her red hair caught in the florescent lights as though they were tendrils of fire crackling. "I'd have wanted to beat the shit out of you guys and I bet she probably does too. If not for any other reason, she'll come back to make you guys sorry."

Obviously the girl had been clued into what they'd done to their own mate.

"But, I think she loves you guys too much to just walk away. She'll come back when she's ready; when she thinks she can struggle through what you all forced her to think about. Personally, I hope she gets you all neutered."

Both Seth and Embry flinched in memory of that particular comment and blow to their already depleted egos.

As she'd walked away with her Shifters in tow, Evy had made one last statement. It was morbid and melancholy, but they hung off every word.

"She's going to come back feeling almost as bad as you guys are feeling. Being apart from your other half is not a nice experience. Take your chance to look after her while you can, because once she's feeling better you all will be in the proverbial doghouse."

Seth didn't know how to make things better. None of them did.

The physical pain he felt, the madness encroaching upon his mind with every breath he took minus the scent of his one true mate, was nothing compared to the desolation he felt at possibly never receiving Bella's loving gaze again.

For hours they lay there, one by one joined by the others. The pups, the poor sots, had been saddled with the brunt of the Patrols. Their Alphas were non-functioning for the most part. Even Evy's men, Caleb, Boone, and Daire had come to run with the pups. Seth was certain that their measly Pack would have fallen apart without their guidance and help.

It might still fall apart.

Refusing to think more on it, Seth settled in with his brothers. The peace between them would only last as long as it took for them to regain their strength. After that it would be back to scrapping and howling, each of them mourning for the mate that no longer wanted them.

And I can't blame her.

Despite it all, though, he wanted her back.

He prayed for the first time in years that night…prayed to the Spirits and every other Deity out there that they would show mercy and help him to get his beloved back.

Echoes of 'Amen' sounded in his mind from his brothers, most beyond Normal thought any longer.

Come back, Bella, my mate. Please come back.

Notes: Hello all. I know. Long-ass time to update. I won't make excuses. I simply just did not like this chapter as many times as I wrote it and re-wrote it. Finally inspiration struck and I was able to get to it. Beyond that I've been exceptionally busy with my real-life. Anyway, here's the next chapter and I hope it's enjoyable.

And to note, on the previous chapter, I in no way, shape, or form agree with abuse. It is a vile thing whether it's mentally or physically. Neither do I care if it's abuse from a man or a woman…abuse in any form is wrong.

Thank you for sticking with me. Happy reading, happy holidays in case I don't get another update up before Christmas (though I sincerely hope I'll have one ready), and please feel free to review at your leisure.

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Twilight.