A/N SM owns it all!

Chapter 29

The next morning before they left the hotel, Jasper went to the front desk to pick up their dry cleaning.

"Really, Jasper, what is up with you and these clothes?" Bella asked him, watching with amusement as he packed their sweaters away in his backpack.

"I like them," he said defensively. And I like that you picked mine out for me, he didn't add. "Now that we're back in civilization, we need to look nicer."

"Right... And tell me again why we're going on foot instead of flying to Italy or just renting a car now that we're 'back in civilization'?"

Jasper paused in his packing. Lie or tell the truth? He hadn't lied to her about anything so far, so he didn't think it was right to lie to her now. It wasn't fair to lie to her. Lies made it difficult for people to make correct decisions. Telling her the truth was very important to him. At least it had been since he'd first found her.

"It's more difficult than I thought to just rent a car or buy last minute airline tickets," he lied. "I've never actually had to do it, not from a former 'iron curtain' country." Truth. "Just asking about it made the concierge suspicious." Lie. He hadn't asked. "It's just too risky." Possibly true. "I realize going on foot is slower, since we can't really travel quickly except at night." True. And the reason for the lies. "But we'll get there, Bella. Even if it takes just a bit longer." True. And every extra moment it took them was an extra moment Jasper had to change her mind. "Come on, it's cloudy out. If we leave now, we'll be out of the city in a couple of hours, even walking like humans. Then we can maybe get you something to eat, even if it's small. Are you thirsty?"

"A little bit," she said, nodding. "Aren't you? All those humans around us yesterday?"

Jasper shook his head. "No, not so much. I told you – your shield hides your thirst from me. Half my problem has always been dealing with everybody else's thirst in addition to my own. Now that it's just me, it's not difficult at all. All those years of over-compensating is paying off."

"Hmmm...I wonder..." She looked at him through narrowed eyes, clearly thinking about something.

"You wonder what?"

"I wonder...my shield is hiding my thirst from you. And it's hiding my emotions from you. But don't Alice and Carlisle think it might be hiding your future from her? Like I'm actually shielding you, maybe?"

Jasper nodded slowly. "Yes. Carlisle thinks that is possible...especially since, from what you said, you seemed to be sort of shielding Edward there a bit, at the end, before..."

"And it would be a really good thing, wouldn't it, if I could shield you – or other people – in addition to myself..."

"It would be a VERY good thing, Bella," Jasper told her. "But a little difficult to test without another talented vampire around."

"But it WOULDN'T be, would it...? I mean, maybe I could try shielding HUMANS, and then we would know if it worked if YOU couldn't feel them, or influence them..."

Jasper nodded slowly. "Yes, that could work. They DO respond to my gift very easily... Good idea, Bella! But, do you have any idea how to go about it? Do you even know what you're doing with your shield? I got the impression that it just, well, was just THERE. Although...you obviously have some control over it because you've been raising and lowering it...and it's obviously stronger than it used to be because before you left for Europe with Edward and Carlisle, I could feel you and Alice could see you..."

Bella went totally still - the stillness only a vampire could achieve. Jasper felt her shield come down for a split second, and then go back up. After a moment, she gave her head a shake. "I don't know exactly what I do. But you felt it come down, didn't you?"

"Briefly," he said, nodding.

"OK, then. I can't explain how, but I think I can do this. Let's find a human..."

"We need to leave," Jasper said gently. "We can't experiment right now. Maybe we can hitch a ride with someone and do it while we ride."

"Oh. Yeah. Okay. Or while we're walking...you know, people we pass on the street."

"Bella, it's like five in the morning. There won't be many people."

"Fine! I'm just trying to be helpful! I mean, it would be really good if I could shield you, too, when we finally get to Volterra, you know?" she snarled at him. He immediately felt bad. She'd had an excellent idea, and they should try and see if it would work. What was wrong with him? Did he just not like the reminder of their destination?

"You're right. Absolutely right," he said hastily, reaching out to pull her towards him. She was stiff, refusing to relax at first. "We'll try," he whispered into her hair, breathing in her scent. "We can try as we go along – there'll be some people up, even now. You're so clever, Bella. I didn't think of doing that at all, and neither did Carlisle." She finally relaxed against him. He kissed her quickly on the lips. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Alright," she whispered back. "I just think it'd be a good idea..."

"You're right. It is a good idea. Shall we go?"


There were actually more people awake at that hour than Jasper had expected. Kiev was a large city and it never really went to sleep. He and Bella walked quickly along streets and sidewalks, heading in a generally western direction. Every so often, when they'd come across humans either walking along the street or in nearby buildings, they'd pause for a few moments to see if her shield could work on them.

It did. It took her several times, but she was finally able to do it.

"Whatever 'it' is," she said, laughing at her success. "I still don't quite know how I'm doing it. Oh, Jasper..." she said, her face falling.

"What, baby? What's wrong?" he asked with concern, instantly by her side and pulling her into a hug.

"If I could have done this before, Edward would still be alive... I failed him...us..."

It took everything Jasper had not to growl. Right now, he didn't fucking care about Edward being dead. He was, in fact, a little tired of hearing about Edward. Immediately he felt guilty. He sighed. At this rate, it would be him who needed to be on Dr. Phil, not Bella. She was just plain crazy. He, on the other hand, had 'issues'.

Emmett would have a heyday. Jasper could imagine it now – 'Jasper, the girl'. Except, since it was Emmett saying it, it would be 'Jasper, the pussy'. And then Jasper would be forced to beat the shit out of him.

Then they'd both be in trouble with Carlisle.

"No, Bella. You couldn't have saved Edward. He was taken down by sheer numbers, not talent. Your shield doesn't block the physical."

"Oh. True. I hadn't thought about that. So...it will be a good thing if I can shield you, right?"

"It will be a very good thing. I am much better at the physical than Edward, if you can protect me from the mental attacks."

"But we won't know if I'm shielding you, will we? I mean, can your talent go OUT of the shield if I'm protecting you?"

Jasper considered this. "I don't know... Okay, let's try that next. Try to shield ME, and I'll see if I can still feel the humans or influence them. Same thing, just shield ME instead of THEM."

"Of course. That was sort of obvious. I don't know why I didn't think of that before."

"Yeah, because you're the trained soldier in the group... Don't worry about it, Bella. Come on – try to shield me now."

They continued down the street, the light increasing around them as the morning progressed, even thought it was still cloudy. Bella put her shield around Jasper and he felt a moment of disorientation. Her emotions were flowing around him now. Muted – he didn't think he was feeling them full strength, not by a long shot. But he was feeling them. It was...different...than when she just let her shield down a little bit. She watched him in worried silence, but after a moment of getting used to it he grinned at her and said, "Alright. Let's go".

The first group of people they came across were workers in a bakery. There was a glass window, and they stopped to peer inside, ostensibly to look at the baked goods.

"Can you feel them?" Bella asked.

"Not really...maybe a little bit. I feel like I'm looking through really cloudy glass. I don't think I'm really feeling them at all."

"Try to make them feel something...I can see them from here."

"Fear," Jasper said. "That's usually the easiest to get a reaction from, especially with humans."

Bella watched the people for a moment. "They aren't doing anything, but I can certainly feel it... That's enough of that. Pick another emotion before I run off screaming and leave you here."

"Lust, maybe?" he asked, grinning at her.

"No, not that either." She turned and walked off down the street. "But you can definitely...feel...the shield around you?"

"Yep."

"That means it wasn't around you before – so my shield isn't what's stopping Alice from seeing you."

"Not necessarily, Bella. You could be shielding me on a low level all the time. You've just ramped it up a bit now - now that you're making an effort. How's your throat? All this should have made you really thirsty, based on your 'normal' feeding pattern."

"It burns," she said, her hand going to her throat. "Badly."

"Alright, let's get moving."

"I'm going to keep it up – for practice," she explained as they walked along. Jasper merely nodded as he walked by her side. After a few minutes of this, though, Jasper came to a sudden halt.

"What is it?" Bella asked, having to stop and turn back to him.

He held up his hand to silence her and stood on the side of the road, turning his head slowly from side to side. "Smell that?" he finally asked her.

She inhaled deeply and carefully, considering the various scents brought in by the air. Fuel. Smoke. Rotting garbage. A rotting carcass of some sort. Rats. Dogs. Various humans working in the surrounding buildings.

Vampire.

"Vampire," she whispered.

"Yes," Jasper said, nodding. "I hadn't realized the territory had been claimed. Well, it doesn't matter. We're leaving anyway."

"Claimed? Territory?" Bella questioned him as he started walking again. This time, he moved at a more human pace, clearly more cautious now.

"Territory. Vampires are very territorial, Bella." He glanced sideways at her and grinned a little at her apparent confusion. "You remember the story of my origins? And the southern wars?"

Bella nodded.

"Territory. Feeding territory. This is large city. It's not surprising at all that someone has claimed it. I'm surprised I missed it when we came in on the other side. It must have been because we rode in on that truck." He shook his head. "I'm so worried about the damn werewolves that I'm getting sloppy about paying attention to the worst threat. Like I said, though, we're clearly on our way out, so even if he's in the area, I doubt he'll bother us. I'm not sensing anything."

"He? How do you know it's a he?" Bella asked, checking the air again.

"Females rarely mark territory. He may have a mate, but she wouldn't be doing much boundary-marking, if any. "

Bella stopped and looked at him. "Are you SERIOUS?" she asked.

"Well, yeah," Jasper answered, stopping and looking at her in puzzlement. "Does that upset you?"

"It's just...so...I don't know...sexist! You mean, I can't mark out a territory for myself?"

"Do you WANT to? Alice, Rose, and Esme never felt the need to join us, but I guess if you want to, you can certainly help...."

"Wait, what? What do you mean? You have a territory at home?"

"It's technically Carlisle's, but yes...yes, the Cullens have a territory."

"But why? The Cullens don't even eat people! Why do you need a territory?"

"Well, we certainly don't want OTHER vampires coming in and feeding off humans in our vicinity, do we? Carlisle usually maintains a rather large territory because there are so many of us."

Bella thought about this for a moment. "How do you go about 'marking' your territory, and how in the hell did I not know this was going on?" Visions of Emmett lifting his leg by a tree flitted through her mind, making her smile.

Jasper shrugged. "I have no idea why you didn't realize it. Probably because, like I said, females rarely mark territory. Maybe it's a species thing. And as to how we do it, we just run a perimeter on a regular basis. The scent trail we leave behind is all that's needed to let passing nomads know that the territory is claimed."

"So all those long hunting trips...the male bonding..." she said, remembering.

Jasper nodded. "Exactly."

"How big? The territory, I mean. How big?"

"Well, in Washington, the whole Olympic Peninsula. In Alaska, we take the Kenai Peninsula, too. The Denalis take the mainland - they kinda consider the whole state theirs, to be honest with you. Nobody ever disputes our territory - we have different needs than most of our kind. They take the cities, we take the wilderness."

"I have a lot to learn, don't I?"

"And all the time in the world to do so," Jasper pointed out.

She looked at him for a moment, not saying anything, and Jasper's heart fell just a little bit. She nodded slowly, though, and it gave him hope. "Let's hurry," she said, turning back to continue on down the road. "Now I'm creeped out." She started picking up speed, quickly leaving him behind before even he realized it. Jasper felt her beginning to panic. Which reminded him...

"Bella! Drop the shield around me... I can't feel anything!"

She clearly did not like the idea of encountering another vampire. Not that he blamed her. He took off after her and was quickly catching up to her when, to his horror, a blurred shaped shot out of an alley between two warehouses and grabbed her, dragging her back into the shadows.

Jasper caught up with them a split second later. Another vampire held Bella – his scent matching the one they'd just been discussing. Jasper had been correct – it had belonged to a male. And he had Bella firmly in his grip, her arms restrained, and his teeth were at her neck.

A position all too familiar to Jasper – and, unfortunately, to Bella. She'd dropped the shield around Jasper the instant the strange vampire had grabbed her, but fear, panic, and anger were all leaking out now, and Jasper thought her shield might come down completely in her distress.

"Let her go," Jasper hissed in Russian.

"Not a chance, nomad," the vampire hissed back in the same language. "You come into my city, bringing that FILTH with you? I want to know why, or I will kill your mate."

"Do that and you will die, too," Jasper said, not bothering to correct him.

"And you will still be alone at the end," the stranger returned.

Bella was struggling more now. "Let go of me, Goddammit. Let me go! DON'T TOUCH ME!" she screamed in English.

"Tell her to stop struggling and screaming, or I will kill her now," he growled, jerking Bella hard and putting his teeth to her skin.

Before Jasper could say anything, however, Bella gave a mighty twist in the strange vampire's grip and broke free. In an instant, she grabbed his head and twisted it from his body while simultaneously kicking the torso further into the alley. She then tossed the head onto the ground behind her. She started keening, sounding almost hysterical, and she danced backwards away from the decapitated head that was lying in the rubbish.

"Holy shit!" Jasper yelled, staring at her in shock, and then at the headless torso coming toward them from the alley, clearly looking for its head as it stumbled around blindly. Jasper reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter, moving toward the torso as he did so.

"What are you doing?" Bella yelled at him, her hysterics escalating.

"Destroying him!" Jasper yelled back.

"Stop it! Don't do that!"

Jasper stopped. "Excuse me?" he asked.

"Don't kill him!"

"Bella, you just ripped his freakin' head off – and now you don't want me to finish the job?"

"He might have a mate! You said he might have a mate!"

The head in the rubbish seemed to gurgle in agreement. Jasper walked over to it and gave it a kick, sending it flying deeper into the alleyway, away from the advancing torso.

"So what if he does? Did? Why do YOU care? He was going to kill you! I can't let that just happen without..."

"Without what, Jasper? If we kill him and he has a mate, then she'll just come after us – just like..." she trailed off, not finishing her sentence.

She didn't need to. Jasper knew what she was going to say. 'Just like me'.

He lowered the lighter and tried to reason with her. "YOU pulled off his head," he pointed out again, sounding sullen even to himself. The torso stumbled toward him, and he quickly sidestepped it, grabbing a leg as it passed him and throwing it up the alley, further away from its missing head.

"I don't like being touched. He was touching me. I told him to stop. What was I supposed to do?"

Didn't like being touched? That was news to him. He mentally filed it away in the growing folder of 'Things That Would Come Out In Therapy Someday'. He sighed and put the lighter away. "Alright, fine. But now we REALLY need to hurry. He's going to find his head soon and we don't want to be in the area when he does."

They quickly flitted out of the alley and down the street, not caring who might notice the blur of movement that was all that indicated their passing. Once they were out of the city and in the countryside, they finally slowed down.

"Why do you have a lighter?" Bella finally asked him. "Don't tell me you smoke..."

Jasper laughed. "No, Bella, I don't smoke. I WISH I could – well, I suppose I could if I wanted to, but it wouldn't actually do anything for me. So, no, I don't smoke. I keep it for just such a situation as back there. You never know when you're going to need to burn some son of a bitch to ashes."

Bella shivered and moved away from him, and Jasper cursed his thoughtless words.

"I'm sorry, Bella. I..."

"It's okay, Jasper. You didn't burn Edward. There's just so much I don't know about being a vampire."

"You know plenty about being a vampire, Bella. You know way more than you should about the dark side of being a vampire. It's the good parts you need to learn more about."


"Tell me again why we're in the back of this truck instead of running? Are we still trying to avoid your friend Mstislav? Because I don't think we've done a good job of it so far. We might as well have just asked him to ride along with us," Bella said.

"What's wrong? Don't you like hay? You seemed to like it just fine in that barn..." Jasper said, rolling onto his side in the hay so he could see her better.

Bella shifted on the bale of hay they were lying on, and then turned to look at him. "It's...hay. What do you want me to say about it?"

"Want to roll in it?" Jasper asked, only half joking. He reached out to touch her face gently before slipping a hand between the buttons of her coat and feeling his way through layers of clothing until he found the bare skin of her stomach.

She laughed and pushed his hand away. "I think we'd roll OFF if we tried that. You have a history of not being able to stay on moving vehicles. It's not like it's loose, like in a hayride or something. It's all baled up and uncomfortable. And don't point out that I can't be uncomfortable because I'm a vampire."

"We're riding on a truck because we're back in 'civilization' and can't really be seen running through fields and towns in the daylight. We went over that this morning before...the alley. Nor can we just hide somewhere during the day, like normal nomads, because we apparently have a werewolf that we just can't seem to shake." Not to mention the mission-of-death we're on, he added to himself.

"Is that what we are now? Abnormal nomads? Back in Siberia you said we weren't nomads at all – we were travellers."

Jasper shrugged and returned to his original position on his back beside her, keeping a hold of her hand. "You're right. We have a coven we belong in. A family to return to."

"I want to talk about the whole territory thing," she said suddenly.

Jasper groaned. "Again? Can't we just drop it?"

"I don't WANT to drop it," she said stubbornly. "I want to understand the purpose of it."

"Purpose? How the hell would I know? It's not like some anthropologist or something has done an in- depth study of vampire behavior, Bella. We do it to establish feeding territories, to prevent fighting, to make a safe place for ourselves and our mates... And before you get on your feminist soap box again, I don't KNOW why it's the males doing it and not the females. It just IS. Maybe because most of us come from male-dominant societies. I don't KNOW. If it's so important to you, when we get home you can go running with us. I hardly think it would matter to Emmett or Carlisle."

"A safe place for our mates," she whispered. "Edward and I didn't do a very good job of protecting each other, did we? We weren't very good mates. I don't know why you want to be with me... Look how much trouble I'm getting YOU into already. And we're not even in Volterra yet."

"Trouble?" he snorted. "You forget where I came from, Bella."

"I haven't forgotten," she whispered. "But...there will be so MANY of them. There were so many when they took down Edward and me. He couldn't stop them..."

"Look, Bella. You gotta understand that Edward was a great guy, but he had no experience with fighting. None of the Cullens do... Not really. Carlisle, maybe. But the rest of them? Not at all. Carlisle has created, I don't know, this nice, safe, little haven for all of us to exist in...where we all get to pretend we're human instead of monsters. We're isolated from some of the realities of our world. None of them had EVER fought until recently. You already know more about the 'real' vampire world than all of the Cullens put together – with the exception of me and Carlisle."

"Until I came along," Bella whispered. "I ruined Carlisle's world..."

"Don't be foolish, Bella. The Volturi were eyeing the Cullens long before you showed up. Have no doubt about that."

"They must hate me," she said, ignoring what he said.

"They don't hate you, Bella. Nobody could hate you. You KNOW this. You talked to Carlisle and Esme yourself." Jasper inwardly groaned. He really did not want to be rehashing this with her.

"Alice must. I mean..."

"DON'T," Jasper snarled.

In an instant, she was away from his side and huddled at the front of the truck.

And just as quickly, he was by her side. "Don't start this again, Isabella. I don't want Alice. I want YOU." He reached out and pulled her, without complaint, onto his lap.

"I just feel..." she began, hesitating, "I still feel like... if you weren't here with me, even though your bond with her was broken, if you could have STAYED with her, you could have reformed it. Instead, you had to chase me down, and this...happened. And now, because of me, you can never reform that bond."

"I don't WANT to reform that bond," Jasper said, kissing the top of her head. The stink of the strange vampire was still on her from that morning, and he had to stop a growl from escaping him. Instead, he rubbed his face in her hair, not-so-subtly trying to cover up the scent with his own. She either didn't notice or chose not to comment on his actions. "I don't even REMEMBER that bond. It's like something I read in a book. I can't explain it, Bella. Just please, I can't say it enough, please trust me."

"But what about Alice? What if SHE wanted to reform that bond?"

"I've TALKED to Alice," Jasper reminded her. "She is happy for us." He hoped she didn't notice the unintentional emphasis he'd put on 'she' – he didn't want to address what appeared to be a problem with their other sister's acceptance of their relationship. Nobody had said anything to him, but he knew his family well. And he knew something was not quite right on that front.

"I know. I'm just scared."

"About going home?"

"Yes."

Jasper laughed. "You're not scared at the prospect of trying to extract some sort of revenge on the Volturi, but going home to the Cullens has you in a frenzy?" He began to unbutton her coat. It, too, smelled of the stranger, and he decided that perhaps if he lay on it - or wore it - that the stench wouldn't be so bad. But if he took it off of her, she'd be on the hay. Alright, he'd take care of that later.

"I am beyond scared about the Volturi," she murmured, letting him push her back into the hay. "But I can't do anything about that."

"Yes you can," he whispered against the skin of her stomach. He pushed her shirt up further, following its ascent up her torso with his lips. "You can just ignore it. The pull isn't as strong any more, is it?" he said, continuing to kiss her skin softly. The stress of that morning's encounter was starting to emerge now that they were safe and alone. He fought back the urge to claim her...to mark her as his own, right now. He didn't think she'd appreciate it since they hadn't really discussed their...status. And she'd certainly marked him enough, even though he knew it was not the intentional marking of a mate. Right now he'd have to be content to just be her lover.

"No, it's not," she whispered, quickly pulling her arms out of the sleeves of her coat.

"Not nearly as strong as your pull to me. Right, baby?"

"Not nearly," she whispered. "How did you...know?"

"I just KNOW. I can feel it...when you let me feel you at all. I feel your pull. I feel it getting stronger..." He pushed her shirt up over her breasts, and then decided to remove it completely. "Just give in to it, Bella. Please...."

"I want to," she whimpered, beginning to squirm under his touch.

"I KNOW you do."

"The other pull..."

"Just let it go, Bella. Don't give in to your instincts. Let it go. You KNOW revenge won't change anything. Let it go. Stay with me." He was almost pleading now, pressing his lips to her stomach before moving lower, and causing her to whimper more.

"I don't know if I can. It will always be hanging over us..."

He stopped for a moment, considering this. She was probably right. It WOULD be always there, in the background. "Alright," he finally sighed. "We'll think of something. We'll figure something out - some way to get rid of it. Some way that doesn't involve you getting yourself killed." Better hurry on that promise, Jasper, he told himself. Every mile brings you closer to her destruction.

"Yes," she sighed.


A/N -Thanks to everyone who has voted in "Everything's Bigger in Texas." If you haven't, there's still time!

A/N: The Lambs are hosting another contest, the 'We Don't Need No Stinkin' Coven' Contest! Dedicated to those hot and wild nomads! Go to the Altered Lions and Sacrificial Lambs web site and click on the link, or look up "We Don't Need No Stinkin Coven" under "authors" on FanFiction, and read the great stories. Better yet, write an entry!