….but I hated the wolf for imprinting most of all.
I felt the arms lift me from the chair as if I weighed nothing, and I knew they were his by their heat. Only a slight tremor went through them now as he cradled me to him, tucking my head beneath his chin and using a careful hand to brush my hair back. I didn't have the strength to move, but I listened when he spoke.
"I've been very cruel to you, Bella," he began. It was the soft voice I'd heard only one other time, so delicate and full of rasps I had to concentrate to listen over the sound of my own choking breaths. "I'm never going to leave you. My imprint is dead." He squeezed me when I thrashed against him, letting my hands fall where they may, and I felt his tears on my neck as he bent his head against me. "I'm sorry," he finished, and continued to hold me close, letting my rage descend like the tide. It was only a moment before it was replaced by relief, and the look of surprise on his face when I stopped flailing my arms and wrapped them around him instead almost made me smile. Almost.
I sat on his lap, straddling his waist with my legs dangling down either side of the chair. We were both a mess; Jake's hair was still wild and tangled, and I could feel the blotchy, embarrassing patches of red on my face from crying. I felt nauseated from the emotional exhaustion I'd experienced since we'd returned—it had been worse, in some ways, than the pure terror before. Terror was decisive; the rollercoaster since left me doubting everything, raging, filled with sadness so deep I couldn't control it, and then simple confusion steam-rolled over the whole mess. Jake had imprinted?
"Why didn't you tell me?" He looked ashamed, and though his voice was a little louder, it was still soft.
"I don't like to talk about it," he said. "No one knows except Embry and Sam." He looked at me, and then, strangely, he smirked. "And I thought it wouldn't matter—I thought you were the one who would leave me, Bella. I keep acting like an idiot." Even stranger, he threw his head back and laughed, a bitter-sweet sound. "I'm not just a dog, I'm a dumb one." We looked at each other quietly when he was done, the echo of the sound fading slowly in the big, empty room. "Even though I know you're here—that we've done what we've done—when I see you with Edward it only seems like a matter of time before you realize you're too good for me."
I bit my lip. Everything moved so fast here; it was as though Forks followed the sun at an accelerated pace from the rest of the world. Of course, it would, since half of its inhabitants weren't moving at human speed anyway. "I'm getting really tired of it, Jake," I said.
"I can tell," he said, and sighed, pulling me closer. The sound of his massive heart pushed in to the cave in my chest, echoing through me. "I am too, believe it or not."
"Then why does it keep happening," I whispered, and I felt him sigh again as I nestled further in to the hollow below his jaw. His answer wasn't what I expected.
"Probably because of my imprint." I drew back and looked up at him. He looked very sad, and still very ashamed. "I should have told you, that was stupid—it just didn't occur to me to think that maybe you would be insecure. And for good reason." I watched his lashes lock and unlock, his nostrils gently swell as they took in my body chemistry. "It must have felt like torture, actually," he said, his voice once again descending to softness.
It did, and I didn't need to say so for him to know. "What does it have to do with your imprint?" My question didn't quite change the subject, but I could tell he was grateful that it was evident I was working on forgiving him for not telling me.
"I didn't love her, Bells," he mumbled. "I didn't really know her, but imprinting is…more powerful than almost anything else I've ever felt. Gravity, exhaustion, grief, hunger…"
"Almost?" My tone was doubtful. He studied me, his mouth grave, and nodded.
"Almost." Jake's eyes continued to explore my face. "Without realizing it—I guess you're my last chance, Bells. You were my first and last chance at ever having any kind of normal happiness." His voice broke and he leaned in, his eyes closed as he rested his forehead against me. "There's nothing else for me, without you." I knew when we were younger he'd hated imprinting, but I could imagine that after I'd left he'd probably felt that it would have been freeing. I wanted to be jealous but I thought of Edward, and realized I couldn't be.
"I love you so much," I said bluntly. My hands came up and held his face, and as they reached the skin there his eyes briefly closed. "Does this mean we're…safe? Together?"
"Together?" He said, his eyebrows lowering and his mouth twitching mischievously. "I thought we were married." He smiled when I actually laughed. We kissed, a gentle, sweet kiss, before I pulled back again and looked at him more seriously. My expression, as usual, gave me away, and I didn't have to ask.
"She was a child of the moon," he said, watching my face again with a guarded expression. I waited, forcing my heart to slow the same way I had when he'd first reappeared in my life. Raw jealousy erupted inside of me, but I kept it in check in spite of all the new paths it opened in my mind; I thought Jake had been a virgin too? Had he lied to me, blatantly? Why couldn't he have loved a normal girl—there was no way I could compare with the memory of a werewolf, was there? "I smelled her when I was out, a year or three after you'd left Forks. Somewhere around the Rockies." He grinned, but it faded when I couldn't make myself smile back. "I followed the trail without knowing why, and when I caught up to her…it happened." He saw I was still waiting, silently, so he sighed and continued. "She was in wolf form the entire time I knew her—three days." I could hear the grief beginning to creep in to his voice. "She was killed by vampires on the third day." When I still didn't move, his hand rose to point to the scars, and I remembered hovering over him as he explained their origin to me. Vampire. Gunshot. Vampire. Layer upon layer of scars on the smooth brown skin of my almost immortal wolf.
"How did you survive?" He should be dead. I knew that now—there was no way he should have survived when a werewolf had died.
"Sam thinks it was the same reason that I imprinted on a child of the moon," he said, and his voice was now numb. "I've always been freakishly strong, and I became so much bigger than everybody else…." He stared at things I could not see. "He thinks we imprint to create stronger wolves. She and I would have made strong wolves." Jealousy rippled through me again before it abated once more. He watched me carefully, turning away from whatever had held him captive in his mind. "I never saw her as a human, Bella. I carried her body back here and begged Embry and Sam to help me bury her." I realized he was trying to tell me they'd never been physical as I watched him shrug. "They did. And because of who they are, no one else knows—Sam has always been able to keep his thoughts pretty private, and Embry asked him to make sure he couldn't share by commanding him not to think about it while phased."
"Really?" Embry's words during the meeting with Leah came back to me. He'd understood—Jacob's grief at having killed mated vampires, the soothing words that Leah had mocked him for…but there was still something else. I wondered how to ask while Jacob finished his thought.
"Really. Embry is the only one who would do that for me."
"Wow," I said. And I meant it; Embry's loyalty was astonishing, given the way each wolf resented the command of the alpha. No wonder his pain had been so vivid at the first meeting we'd attended in this room; Jacob's retreat must have felt like the ultimate betrayal to him after the sacrifice of his will, however small, for their friendship. My mind picked over the details of previous conversations, moving to another pack meeting, and I found a thread and pulled on it. "Leah said that….wolves whose imprints died either chose to die themselves or refused to phase back…." Jacob nodded, gave another awkward half-shrug, and I continued, unsure. "You didn't do either?"
He laughed the same barking, salty laugh. "I did both," he said bitterly, and then gently picked me up and placed me on the table while he stood.