Chapter Thirty-Four

My cast coming off was somehow more exciting for Emmett than it was for me, and I hated the thing. Keeping my arm bent for six weeks had been inconvenient, but at the same time, I had grown so used to it that in the days following Carlisle removing the cast, I kept catching myself holding it bent.

"It's off!" Emmett had yelled. "Why didn't anyone tell me?!"

"I keep telling Jasper to add you to the bulletin recipients, so you get all my life updates, but I guess he's slacking." His excitement was so great that he didn't even pause to appreciate my sarcasm.

"This is excellent!" I had no idea why this was so exciting for Emmett. Jasper had invited me to go 'swimming' with him and Emmett. Which meant, while they swam, I would be trying to coax any sea life I observed from the pier into being my friend.

I glanced up at Jasper, but he was too busy pulling his shirt over his head to give me a clue as to why his brother was so jazzed over my cast removal.

"Now me and Rose can get married! She didn't want your neon green cast clashing with everything." Oh. So, there was the root of the excitement.

"Aren't y'all already married?" I was genuinely confused.

"They do this every few years." Jasper's tone let me know he wasn't exaggerating. He kissed my temple before following Emmett down the pier. They raced each other down the wooden outcropping. "Just go with it!"

The blast of Emmett's cannonball was so mighty that it sent Jasper under the aftershock waves of it. Were it not for the fact that I knew he would be fine—literally unable to drown—I would have been worried. As it was, I simply sat cross-legged on the pier and waited for Jasper to resurface.

Eventually, he did, shaking his head to throw his sopping-wet hair off his face.

"I'll race you," he called out to Emmett, like the two of them hadn't already had a race. Emmett's waves had also sent Jasper a few yards away from his brother.

"Across or down?" Emmett called back, performing lackadaisical backstrokes to propel himself through the water. I laid myself down on the pier, bored with their competitive antics. Jasper must have picked the 'down' option, because when I peeked up, they were both gone.

I wanted the dolphins to come back, but I hadn't seen them in months. I knew they probably wouldn't come close with Jasper and Emmett in the water anyway. Jasper still maintained that Honeybun was the only animal to ever like him.

All I saw under the water was some fish, all of which swam away when I dipped my fingertips into the water. I rolled myself onto my back, watching the clouds shift in the sky instead. Apparently, Edward's subtle brags when he described vampire abilities in-depth to me were justified. I thought Jasper and Emmett were liable to never surface from the water again.

They were gone for so long that I nearly fell asleep, watching the clouds and waiting for them to come back. The gentle waves didn't help much, their rhythm lulling me toward sleep. I didn't notice the change in the sound of the waves, which would have signaled Jasper's return had I been paying attention.

Instead, the salty seawater dripping from Jasper's hair alerted me. The droplets startled me awake, making me think it was raining. But when I opened my eyes, I saw Jasper's smiling, upside down face had replaced the clouds.

"I won," he told me, dropping his head to kiss me. He was effortlessly holding himself aloft on the edge of the pier, his body still half-submerged in the ocean below. I was framed between him and the pier underneath me. They must have dived deep underwater; there was a soggy chill on Jasper's skin, and I could taste the sea on his lips.

It was a glorious moment while it lasted, but a sudden deluge of a wave fell over us, courtesy of Emmett. The onslaught of water left me soaked, despite Jasper trying to cover me as much as he could. He was also wet, though, so his covering me didn't really help all that much.

"Get a room, you two."

I would have liked to know Jasper's reaction, but it was too fast for me to process. Rather, the two of them were simply suddenly gone, fallen down beneath the waves again.

"Would you be frightened, if there were suddenly more vampires in Forks?" Now that it was summer, I didn't have to sleep if I didn't want to, when I didn't have work in the morning. Which meant that I spent many nights awake when Jasper was over, only to sleep late into the morning the next day.

"Aren't your cousins from Alaska coming? The ones that all drink animal blood, just like you?" I titled my head back to look at him. Weak moonlight streamed in from my window, but it was enough for me to catch glimpses of his golden eyes. I lifted a finger and ran it just under his eye, trailing it along his cheek. "I'll get to meet this infamous Tanya."

That made Jasper chuckle. I felt it rumble through his chest, we were so closely pressed together. "Yes. Still, logically, you should be frightened. Not excited."

I shrugged, because I couldn't help it. Alice had told me about Tanya, who she described as 'almost as lovely as Rosalie' and having strawberry blonde curls. I already knew from Jasper that Tanya and her sisters were the inspiration behind the myth of succubi, which I loved. It was admirable, in my opinion, to have a whole mythology based around you.

"Tanya's my hero," I joked, to which Jasper groaned.

"You can't go mooning after her, too. I'll lose my mind."

"Someone's going to have to pay attention to her while Edward is fulfilling his best man duties." Rosalie and Emmett renewed their vows so often that Jasper and Edward took turns being the best man. Esme and Alice did the same, with the role of maid of honor. Carlisle consistently played his part of walking Rosalie down the aisle.

Jasper, Esme, myself, and their family from Alaska would serve as wedding guests. When I had mentioned Rosalie and Emmett's upcoming nuptials to Jessica, she had been ridiculously scandalized.

"Isn't that, like, illegal?" She asked. Jess had brought me lunch from the sandwich shop she was working at, and we ate together sitting on the front steps of the library.

"No? Carlisle and Esme didn't ever adopt Rosalie and Jasper. They were only foster parents for them." Rosalie and Jasper had recently 'had a birthday', marking them as eighteen. Emmett's actual birthday had been in the spring.

"Still." Jessica shook her shoulders, like she had felt a chill. "They were raised as siblings."

"Hardly," I countered. "Emmett was already eleven when Jasper and Rosalie came to live with the Cullens when they were ten. Don't make that face, I seem to remember you having a crush on Ben Yorkie when we were ten."

"We don't speak of that, Maisie." Jess' face soured against the memory.

"Doesn't mean it didn't happen, Jessica," I countered. Still, Jessica wasn't the only one who was put off by the idea of Rosalie and Emmett tying the knot. My parents weren't exactly scandalized, but they were surprised that Carlisle and Esme would allow them to marry so young.

Either way, it was happening. A nighttime wedding, which I had never heard of, but which fit for two vampires. The morning before the wedding, Alice showed up to my house with a black dress.

"Surprise," she told me, bursting into my bedroom with the dress in a bag. My parents or Gunner must have let her in to the house. "Rosalie decided she wants to be the shining star, so the rest of us have to blend into the night. Everyone is required to wear black, so I'm gifting you a dress."

When she unzipped the garment bag, Alice revealed a two-piece black dress. The top was long-sleeved lace overlay, and the skirt was satiny, short and full.

"Oh," I breathed. I wasn't sure how the sparkling beadwork stitched into the lace was going to 'blend into the night'. "Alice…"

She held up a hand to cut me off, already knowing what I was going to ask. "I bought it years ago, so don't even bother me about the price. You're lucky we're the same size. I brought you shoes, too."

Blessedly, Alice had taken into account that the wedding was outside, and that I did not have the extraordinary grace and balance that allowed her to wear high, spiky heels even on grass. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the strappy, beaded sandals she had brought instead.

"Paint your nails black," Alice instructed. "And curl your hair. Pin it like this."

She plucked a bobby pin off my dresser, twisting my hair so it all fell over one shoulder. "I would doll you up, but unfortunately, it's my turn to get Rosalie ready, so you'll be left to your own devices. Luckily, I have full faith in you."

Alice's parting gift was a flower-shaped hair pin made of jet-black stones.

"It's Alice's prom dress from last year," I told my mom, so she wouldn't get upset over my accepting the dress. I had already ripped the price tag off. The labels were in Franch, and I didn't know the exchange rate between American dollars and French currency, but I also didn't want to know.

"I've never heard of a wedding dress code, other than in terms of formality." Mom zipped the back of the top up for me when I was getting ready. "It's a lovely dress, though. Is it still a dress, if it's in two pieces?"

"Why not?" The top was cropped, but the skirt fit so that the two pieces nearly came together. A tiny sliver of my skin separated the two. I was a handful of inches taller than Alice, so I was sure the skirt would have fallen to her knees, but it hit me mid-thigh.

Were it not for the long sleeves—and the fact that Carlisle and Esme would be at the wedding, effectively chaperones in my parents' minds—I'm not sure I would have been allowed to leave the house in the dress otherwise.

"You look like you're going to a funeral on that stupid show you watch," Gunner told me when he walked by my room. He meant Pretty Little Liars when he said, 'that dumb show'.

"That's high praise, coming from you!" I yelled back at him. I felt like I was getting ready for prom, with the dress on. Never had I been to a wedding that required something so fancy.

I thought, perhaps, Alice was overexaggerating. That happened with her sometimes. Surely, this all black dress code Rosalie was dictating wasn't that serious.

Then I saw Jasper, clad in a black tux with a black shirt and—you guessed it—a black tie. He opened the door to the Cullen house before I even knocked. "Oh, Rosalie was serious."

His blonde hair was the only thing breaking the monochromatic color scheme. My blurted words made Jasper chuckle. "Yes, she's quite serious. I wouldn't want to test her by wearing anything but her designated color."

Jasper drew me into the house by the hand, dipping his head low to whisper to me. "Though, in my opinion, she won't be able to shine like she intended with you around."

The compliment made me blush. Through the floor to ceiling windows that made up one wall of the Cullens' living room, I saw that the backyard had been transformed. All of the trees wore sparkling tealights, and a double row of chairs had been set up. The chairs, of course, were black, but Rosalie's aisle was lined with white rose petals that were so thickly strewn that I could smell their heady scent through the open sliding door.

With a hand pressed against my back, Jasper led me to the yard. Gauzy white fabric hung overhead, stretching from tree branch to tree branch. I realized the chairs were arranged to face the aisle, not the alter. Rosalie truly wanted every eye on her.

"And they do this often?" I asked Jasper, quirking an eyebrow.

"It makes Rosalie happy," he explained. "And Emmett has made it his life goal to ensure her happiness."

Alice must have been with Rosalie—wherever they were—but Esme greeted each of us with kisses on the cheek, her arms laden down with yet more white roses. Her black dress was sleek and long, with an off the shoulder cut and a little train that glided elegantly behind her.

"Apparently, I didn't make the aisle long enough. Maisie, will you help me pluck these petals?"

I never could have done it as quickly as Esme. For every flower I completed, she had at leas four done, but I helped her anyway. Esme lined the perimeter, so it would be straight, and had me fill in the middle.

"She's going to be a vision," Esme told me, every bit the proud mother. I was sure Rosalie would be. She was always a vision, even when she was doing nothing more than walking across the schoolyard on a dreary day at Forks High.

I was happy for Rosalie and Emmett, because obviously this was something that made them happy, even if it were nothing new. I would have been lying, though, if I said I wasn't more curious about Jasper's Denali cousins. He had told me little more than their names: Tanya, Irena, and Kate, the sisters of succubi lore. Carmen and Eleazar, the latter of which I knew had left the Volturi—the overlords of the vampire world.

I knew very little about the Volturi. Carlisle and Jasper were in agreement that it was better if I didn't know much about them, unless there was need for me to.

"They consider me an old friend, but they do not play as well with humans as my family does," Carlisle had told me once. That was enough for me to not ask questions, his words calling up James' and Maria's red eyes in my mind.

I didn't have to wait long for my curiosity to be satisfied. No sooner had I finished filling in the rose petal border that Esme had laid out for me, there was another knock on the door. I turned to Jasper, who had been hanging more strings of light also per Rosalie's instructions, and smiled brightly at him.

"Your hero has arrived," he teased me, flitting to my side. "Try not to feed her ego too much."

Lucky for Jasper, there was no time before the ceremony to talk to anyone. We were quickly ushered into our seats by Esme.

Just like Esme had predicted, Rosalie was absolutely a vision when she walked down the aisle. The only one in white, her dress clung to her curves, the thin fabric shimmery under all the lights Jasper had hung. She was like a beacon in the night, walking down the aisle. The only thing brighter than Rosalie herself was Emmett's smile.

I didn't get to talk to Jasper's Denali cousins until after the ceremony, but that was honestly what I was most excited for.

In the end, it was not Tanya who I found most fascinating, but rather her sister, Kate. Tanya was lovely as Alice had said, yes, but she didn't compare to Kate in personality in my opinion.

Kate was blonde, like her sisters, though hers was long and straight. Her voice carried a lilting accent that I couldn't place, and she told me stories of her human life.

"My tribe was a war tribe," she told me. We sat together under the lights while everyone milled around. Though Jasper had told me I should be scared about more vampires coming to Forks, he had undermined his own words. It was obvious he had full trust in his extended family, as he had left me alone with Kate to talk with another cousin, a young man named Eleazar.

"Even the women fought, especially myself. That was my job, to protect my lady. She was wealthy and highborn, and I can scarcely remember her face, now, but I know that I loved her fiercely. Protecting her was not a duty, but an honor."

I was fascinated by her story of war progressions over land and see. Kate and I were about the same size, yet she told me of cutting men down in the name of 'her lady'.

"We were travelling in a caravan when the women who would become my mother and sister in another life attacked us." Kate smiled ruefully here, tossing a look over her shoulder to where Tanya was talking with Edward and Alice. "A whole tribe of humans, over a hundred strong—considerable numbers, in those days—but we didn't stand a chance against just two vampires. I'll be damned if I didn't try, though."

My mind wandered to James, and the way the bullets lodged into his skin. Though it cracked like glass, no blood had trickled out, of course. And my efforts didn't give him the slightest pause.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Everything I could. Every weapon I had, I tried. All of my blades, my spears…nothing so much as scratched their skin. It was very frustrating. In a last-ditch effort, I set fire to some of our supplies, shielding my lady behind the flames. That was the only strategy that even phased Tanya and Sasha—that was our mother. In the end, it wasn't enough. It never would have been enough. My lady died, and I was born again as one of the creatures I was trying desperately to defeat."

Emmett's hand clapping down on my shoulder made me jump. "I should've known you two would become friends. Maisie here has shot a vampire, an old friend of your newest coven member."

"Laurent? Yes, he did tell us the unhappy run-in his old coven had with yours. He calls his old companions fools, to try to take on a coven of your number. Laurent seems quite happy with Irina, and he's adjusting to the new diet well. If we're to keep house with one of your adversaries, I'm glad it's him."

I tipped my head back to look at Emmett. "He knew James? I didn't know that."

"I probably shouldn't've told you." Emmett's halfhearted shrug let me know he also didn't care if he wasn't supposed to let that slip. "Bygones, and all of that. What's done is done, right? Hey, Kate, show her your gift."

"You have one?" I asked, immediately interested, Laurent and his former friendship with James forgotten in my mind. Kate lifted her arm to me and I watched, in amazement, as a crackling layer of electricity coated her skin. The energy was alive, writhing and sparking over her arm.

I very nearly touched it. I have no doubt I would have, and shocked myself greatly in the process, were it not for a sudden fear that stilled my hand.

"Jasper!" Across the Cullens' lawn, he raised one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. I knew he must have felt my excitement and stopped it before I could hurt myself.

"I like your heart beating," he called back to me.

"Oh, Jasper, don't you think I know how to use my power and leave a human alive? Men love it. Let her touch, she'll hardly feel it."

I narrowed my eyes at Jasper before turning back to Kate. She let the electricity bathe her skin in that thin layer again. Tentatively, I reached a finger out to tap her skin.

Kate was right. It was only a tiny shock that she let me feel, with no pain. Instead, it made me laugh. I had hardly believed the electricity was real until I felt it.

"I know, I know, she's kind of broken, as far as humans go," Emmett teased. Kate's face turned smug.

"That's so cool!" On impulse, I reached my hand out to touch her arm again, but Kate moved it away.

"Let me show you my real power," she gloated, turning toward Emmett. Never one to turn down a challenge, Emmett happily held his own arm out for Kate to subject to her electric shock.

I never got to see Kate's real power, though.

Honestly, sometimes I forgot just how quickly vampires could move. With a dizzying speed that made me nauseous—it was much faster than Jasper had ever handled me—Emmett all but threw me behind him.

"Em—" I started to say, but my question died on my lips. He didn't need to tell me what was happening when several monstrously huge wolves flooded into the Cullen's yard from the tree line of the forest.

Jasper was quickly at my side, tucking me close to him. "What's going on?"

Thankfully, Jasper was able to hear my question even though my voice failed me.

"I'm not sure," he murmured back to me. "Alice didn't see them, of course. Edward must have been too distracted to hear them."

Though Jasper's eyes were scanning the scene before us and his face was impassive, I could still hear the annoyance ringing in his voice. He didn't like the idea that the Quileute werewolves were able to ambush them.

Everyone was moving quickly, but I tried to make sense of the scene as much as I could. Edward and Alice were running—I only knew from the side-by-side blurs of their black and copper hair streaking across the yard. Emmett was already engaging in a tense stare down with one of the werewolves. They were silently daring the other to make the first move.

I didn't see Carlisle, but I could hear him somewhere, trying to speak diplomatically, asking which of the werewolves was Sam Uley. My view of anything was soon disrupted, though.

A smaller, gray wolf came to sit right in front of us. I say this one was smaller, but it was still taller than Jasper even when the wolf came to rest on the ground. This gray wolf turned its head, almost nodding to Jasper.

I knew instantly this was Leah, and I let out a sigh of relief I didn't know I was holding.

"You will be safe with her," Jasper told me, but I didn't need that reassurance. I already knew Leah wouldn't hurt me. He kissed my cheek quickly. "I need to help them."

Then Jasper was gone. I stepped closer to Leah, sinking a hand into the thick fur on her shoulder to steady myself.

"I'm sorry," I murmured. "I don't know what's going on. And I'm scared."

Leah dipped her head, bumping her nose against the same cheek Jasper had just kissed, gently turning my head away. Whatever was going on in front of Leah, she didn't think I needed to see.

When I heard the awful, creaking and cracking sound of vampire skin breaking, I had to agree with her. The shrill, thin sound, so like ice on a lake breaking apart, reminded me entirely of James. It drowned out the sound of shouting and arguing and wolf growls, so that it was all I heard.

I closed my eyes against that sound and the memories it brought up in my mind. I forgot to even be concerned about who was being hurt. It was all over in no more than a handful of minutes, but I felt like I stood with my eyes scrunched shut and a fistful of Leah's fur for many years.

The end was signaled with a deep growl that I felt reverberating through Leah. Not at me, nor at Jasper, who had returned and was softly working my fingers out of the tangle they had made of Leah's fur. No, here was Leah, growling at one of her own. I wished I knew what was being said between the two wolves, Leah and this inky black one that was larger than the rest.

"Now that Edward is paying attention," Jasper whispered to me, "I can tell you why. Remember, Laurent was originally part of James' coven. He took human lives in Forks. This is simply the wolves' justice for old crimes."

"Why is that one so mad at Leah?" I asked, my voice shaky. My heart was beating so hard and fast that I was surprised Jasper could stand to be near me.

"I'm not sure," Jasper admitted, carefully leading me away from the scene. He made sure my back remained turned to the carnage as he took me toward the house. "Emmett didn't hurt you, did he? When he moved you?"

"No," I murmured, for I hadn't thought Emmett had. In actuality, I had a deep bruise the exact size of Emmett's hand where he had grabbed my arm, but the long sleeves of my dress hid it. Emmett felt terrible about the bruise despite how many times I told him it was fine, and he didn't need to continue to apologize.

You would think a death, in this case, Laurent's, would be the end of a night. But that was wrong. Though Jasper had brought me inside to remove me from the commotion, it simply followed us inside.

Or, rather, Irina followed us inside. Jasper was preoccupied with the bruise on my arm, which his keen eyesight had spotted despite the black lace sleeves. I simply hadn't heard her arrival…until she was right in front of me, shrieking in my face.

Her shrill voice was like a cold splash of water, waking me from the memories of James still running through my head.

"This is your fault!" Irina was speaking so quickly I could hardly make sense of her words. When they registered, I felt a hot anger begin to fill me.

"Excuse me?!" I shouted back at her. Jasper's hand on my arm kept me in place, or I would have taken a step forward. "How is it 'my fault'? I didn't even know vampires existed when Laurent was killing humans in Forks. That was on him, not me."

"Irina," Jasper cut in, his voice harder than I had ever heard it. She had opened her mouth to say something, but Jasper took her chance. "Back away. Surely you are not ignorant enough to misinterpret where my loyalties lie, and the wolves are still here. Obviously, they value and protect human life."

Perhaps she would have taken action, but Kate took the opportunity to appear, that electricity lighting her skin again. All it took was one touch on the arm to incapacitate her sister, who was quickly moved away from me by Carmen and Eleazer. Tanya and Carlisle, both leaders of their respective families, inserted themselves between where Irina was now held and Jasper and me.

While I was fighting to get my breathing slowed down, Jasper was rigid and still as stone. Still, I felt the warm, calming sensation he was flooding me with even if he wasn't feeling it himself. If everyone else's tense facial expressions were any indication, Jasper didn't extend the same kindness to the others filling the room.

"I'm sorry, Tanya, but I fail to see how Maisie had anything to do with the wolves' decision. I do apologize greatly for the unfortunate events that have unfolded tonight. While we have a tenuous treaty with the Quileute, this is an oversight on my part. I should have anticipated it, and I did not."

I hadn't realized Rosalie, Emmett, Alice and Esme, still in their wedding finery, had come to stand behind us until Rosalie spoke over Tanya.

"It's not our fault. We have always upheld our side of the treaty. Maisie has never been hurt by any vampire in our coven. We can't help if others can't control themselves, even after Carlisle has issued a warning."

"Rosalie," Esme reprimanded, but Tanya was already waving the words away with her hand. I was just amazed that Rosalie had taken up for me.

"She isn't wrong. We knew what happened; Laurent told us. It was his choice to come here, knowing what he knew." Here, she looked over her shoulder to Irina, who was still pinned between Carmen and Eleazer despite her attempts to break free. "We will mourn his death and let it end there. We are guests in this territory. The human girl isn't to blame."

Irina's guttural scream made no mistake that she did not feel the same. But she was soon out of the house, carried out unwillingly. Kate followed close behind, her hands still coated in electricity as a precaution, I was sure. Tanya stayed behind a moment, though, offering the lot of us an apologetic smile.

"I'll talk to her," she promised. "Get it straightened out. I'm sorry for ruining your wedding."

Emmett snorted, but it wasn't his usual humorous sound. This one sounded almost condescending. "It will make for one we'll remember."

I had not realized Edward was outside until I followed Tanya's gaze there. He was talking with the huge black wolf, it seemed. Though Alice's visions couldn't touch the Quileute, Edward's telepathy was untouched.

"I'll just tell Edward goodbye, and then I'll be going. I apologize again."

A/N: I'm sorry it has been so long! I have wanted to get this chapter out for literally a month, but I haven't been able to sit down and get it finished. I have been SO busy with work and school, but I am doing well and I hope all of you are too! I will get chapters out as soon as I can. I hope this action packed chapter makes up for the long absence. :)