A/N: I wanted the imprint connection to be more heightened for Renesmee, not just Jacob. Please let me know what you think!
My ability to form any semblance of coherent thoughts disintegrated there in his gaze. My brain was effectively mush, but my body easily took over as an intense burst of electricity shot through me, running from the crown of my head to the tip of my toes and leaving every part of me tingling. I felt trapped with his eyes locked on mine, their depth and emotion bowling me over, but I didn't even want to be released and that impulse scared me much more than the bizarre electricity. I wanted to stay right here in this hallway with him staring at me until the world collapsed around us. What the fuck?
Jacob and I were the ones entranced, but it seemed like the others were just as overwhelmed as they processed our interaction. I numbly felt my hand still in Embry's delicate grasp and shame pounded in my veins, filling every crevice of my body. Surely, I couldn't change my mind that fast. I wasn't that shallow, was I? How could I be so completely captivated by the mere sight of this man?
I detached my eyes from his with a preposterous amount of necessary strain and only moved them about six inches to his right on Leah's face. If her expression was snide before, it was absolutely abhorrent now and I tried to understand how she could already know the depths of the chaos in my mind. She let out a noise from deep within her and it was pure, raw agony. My shame rebounded and I found the decency to keep my eyes on the floor as my brain slowly awoke and scrambled to dissect what happened.
"Well, I guess you're not taking the couch after all." Her words were riddled with anguish, but she recovered the incisive edge with a vengeance and shirked out of Jacob's hold. Her movement seemed to reactivate his faculties and he reached back out for her almost on instinct. She flinched away from his touch and I felt nauseous at the hurt expression washing over his face, fighting the psychotic instinct coursing through me to comfort him.
"Lee, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to-" His words faltered in torment and I inexplicably shuddered as he spoke aloud for the first time. It was pained and clearly reflecting the broken state of the man before me, but it was also the most engrossing, musical sound I'd ever heard and I wanted to ask him endless questions just to hear it again. I briefly questioned my sanity given how profoundly I just transformed and my only boon to reality was the apparent impact it had on him as well.
Leah didn't respond, though I saw her cheeks glistening as she silently cried and I felt utterly despicable. My brain and body finally seemed to regain their connection and I started stumbling backward a little, desperate to leave their apartment and stop inflicting this absurd pain upon them. Embry dropped my hand without a word and my actions caught Leah's attention. She glared at me fiercely, but her powerful anger was clearly just disguised pain. I couldn't help but feel like I deserved it, even though I was at a complete loss for what transpired between us.
"No attachments, right Jake? I knew what I was getting into and it's not like I'd be the one it happened to first. That would be too fair, right?" She spoke the quivering words at me, but they were obviously directed at Jacob and I tried to wrap my brain around them. I had forgotten Seth was behind me entirely until he swiftly passed to hug Leah. I dropped my eyes to the floor again, because she broke against his chest and started shivering uncontrollably.
"I'm gonna take her out for awhile, Jake." Seth's voice was tight but adamant, and I was floored by how the boyish persona he had all night was replaced by a strong, protective brother with devotion that defied his age. Jacob simply nodded at his retreating figure, because Seth didn't stop to gauge his approval, already halfway to the door with her cradled in his arms.
When he swung the apartment door shut, I glanced up at Embry's face for the first time since this thing started. His expression was a perplexing mix of sadness and overriding guilt. What the hell did he have to be guilty about?
I got an inkling when Jacob let out a noise resembling a growl and every muscle in Embry's body strained in response. I looked to Jacob for some kind of explanation and nearly gasped at the shift in his mood; gone was his regret and hurt, he was literally shaking with baffling rage.
"Did you sleep with her?" He spoke so quietly that I wouldn't hear it with human ears, but Embry did. He shook his head no vigorously almost in fear- not exactly fear, but submission maybe. I turned to Jacob, anger swelling in my chest for the beautiful, righteous man quivering in front of me.
"How is that any of your business? Embry did nothing wrong" I intended to be sharper, more confident. But my voice betrayed my inner turmoil of obsessive fascination and bubbling indignation. His eyes bulged at me, primarily surprise with his unfounded fury quickly chasing it. He quivered impossibly more until he was practically blurring before my eyes and I wondered if it was him at all or just my level of intoxication/insanity.
"Well? Are you going to answer me?" I was growing exasperated with how everyone obviously knew what was going on and I didn't. Embry tugged my arm gently and I looked up at him.
"Ren, this is a really, um, charged situation. Why don't we sit in the kitchen and I'll make you that coffee while Jake and you talk?" I could see the desperation in his eyes and I wanted to agree, so he would feel better but this all just seemed crazy.
I carefully pulled my arm free and moved closer to the door, watching the fear flash in both of their eyes. "Embry, I really appreciate your offer to let me stay tonight, but I think I should go. I don't really understand what the hell is going on, but I am definitely not helping, so I'm going to take off. Thanks for everything."
I turned on my heel and flew to the door with the intention of flinging it open and never looking back, but Jacob called out to me and my heart stuttered in my chest.
"Please! Please don't leave yet." My blood became lead in my veins at the anguish of his cry. He needs me. Why did that thought feel crippling on my shoulders as I tried to grasp the doorknob?
I sighed in aggravation and peered at him from over my shoulder, his agonized frame nearly making my knees buckle. If I was staying, I would get some answers. And I knew at that moment, my escape plan was a lost cause because if I left now, I would never stop wondering and obsessing over the incessant pull between us.
I steeled myself and forced my voice to carry without wavering. "If I stay, you will tell me what the hell just happened and not leave anything out." He nodded gravely and his eyes conveyed the most compelling essence I'd ever felt in my life. I walked back toward him and with each step, I felt my body calming and warming to his nearness. He appeared to feel the same as his tightly coiled body relaxed in my proximity. He walked so close to me that I would only have to move an inch or two for contact with his skin and the margin of space was pulsing with electric currents between us. Some crazy portion of my mind was aching to close the gap and experience what his touch felt like. It was a dizzying high even imagining it, so potent that I didn't even note the wafting scent of my coffee until Embry placed the mug in my hand.
I scanned their kitchen as something to do besides ogling Jacob and it was a little dated, but overall nice and more importantly functional. The pale yellow wallpaper was peeling slightly near the corners, but the butcher block countertops were crisp and neat. The appliances and cabinets were wrapped around the three walls, with a sizable island in the middle, framed by small wooden stools on the outward facing side. I slipped onto the end stool on the left side and sipped the coffee daintily, cognizant of the burn on my tongue. It was jarring to feel something so powerful beyond Jacob and my tumbling thoughts about him since it seemed that the rest of the world dulled after our first glance.
Embry joined me on the furthest right bar stool, two over from me and I forced down my immediate anger at his caution. Jacob leaned against the island and remained standing, half across from me, but favoring the side between us. I took another sip of my scorching coffee as fuel and cleared my throat expectantly.
Jacob's head snapped up from the countertop and he glanced warily at Embry. "Okay, uh, what has Embry told you?" The frustration was growing exceptionally harder to beat down and I released my own growl which I thought would go unnoticed. I knew that wasn't the case when his eyes bulged again, almost more appreciative this time and there was a sudden, warm fluttering in my chest.
"Embry told me you all moved here two years and how you are working on your masters, so you can open up your own garage. He did not in any way address why I'm ready to burst at the seams around you so will you just tell me what the hell is going on?" My voice rose at least an octave by the time I finished and I just groaned at Jacob's expression of almost amusement.
Embry took mercy on me. "I'm sorry Ren. Believe me, I didn't know this would happen. I would never have-" Jacob released another growl quietly and I threw back my chair, moving to his side of the counter. Had I been thinking clearly, I would've known proximity to someone as massive as Jacob was anything but imposing.
"Would you stop growling at him? I'm ready to tear my hair out with your possessive bullshit! Talk to me!" He gawked at me and I forced myself to resume my seat farther away.
"How- how can you hear that?" His voice was incredulous and I just ground my teeth together.
"That's what you're worried about right now? How about you answer some of my damn questions first?" I was being defensive and I knew it, but if he wasn't acting like an ass, I wouldn't feel the need to indulge. He harshly swallowed and I became preoccupied with the movement of his Adam's apple which led me to staring at his throat and his neck. Which led me to wondering what they taste like. The arousal swirling in my brain now was a thousand fold stronger than the light waves at the bar and I felt pathetic knowing it was because they were about Jacob and not Embry.
"Just tell her, Jake. She's going to hyperventilate." Embry's stern urging brought me back to the kitchen and, sure enough, I was panting heavily. Little did they know, it wasn't just anger.
My haze of emotions was interrupted for a moment and I struck inspiration. His rage incensed me, but his pain was unbearable. It was the sole reason I wasn't running down the streets of Manhattan right now. I sucked in a breath, quenching any residual anger and looked directly at Jacob.
He stared back just as intensely and I forced all of the frustration, guilt, and sadness to the forefront of my mind. "Jacob, please talk to me." My voice was small, but I knew he heard it because his whole frame shook and he inhaled sharply. It worked.
"Okay, um, the four of us aren't just living together. We are part of a kind of pack." He paused like I would flip at some revelation I couldn't even fathom, though I didn't dare interrupt because he was finally goddamned talking.
"Being part of the pack gives you certain, uh, abilities and one of them is called imprinting…" He didn't cut off this time, but the rest of his words were drowned out by my mental pandemonium. Pack… imprinting… wolves.
I think I interrupted him, but I was frantic to rid myself of the solidifying conclusion in my mind. There was no way. "Jacob." He stopped and waited for me to continue, while the nausea in my stomach threatened to tear me apart.
"Embry said you all moved from the state of Washington, right?" He nodded in confirmation and I swallowed my rising bile.
"Are you… are you all related to the Quileute tribe?" I felt the air leave my lungs as recognition flashed across his face and he nodded several seconds later. Tears brimmed in my eyes as the severity of this bond hit me with sickening clarity.
"Did you imprint on me Jacob?" He was coiling himself tightly again and I knew it was in response to my devastation before he confirmed it with a slow nod. I let out a shuddering breath and fought to suppress my tears. They wouldn't do any good- the damage was done.
"Is it really so awful?" They were the softest words I'd heard him speak yet, laden with insecurity and stress. My heart writhed in my chest out to him, aching to relieve his pain but I couldn't.
"No." I breathed the word painfully. "Not for me, Jacob." His eyes clouded with confusion and I saw him squirming with the urge to come over and hold me. I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could, because I knew in my heart that he wouldn't feel this way if he knew. That inexorable certainty consumed me and I suddenly couldn't breathe.
I released the festering truth from my chest and felt like I was already dead. "You-you wouldn't want me if you knew. You would-" A sob burst from my lips in place of words and he stopped fighting his instincts, rushing over to me. The sobs only intensified as he held me to his chest, stroking a hand through my hair like he'd done it a thousand times. I gave myself one minute. One minute to just feel. To love with every fiber of my being the feel of him holding me, because it would all cease in a matter of minutes.
I buried my face against his chest, pushing it up toward his shoulder to rest over his heartbeat. My self control was waning dramatically as I wound my hands around his neck and held on with everything in me. He was so warm and big and his scent was more intoxicating to me than a thousand cocktails. I thought when we finally touched, the electricity would cease but it just amplified, flooding my body with such a sense of pleasure and wholeness that I thought I would pass out. I drew in a wheezing, tortuous breath as I accepted that my minute of bliss was up.
I pulled away, completely detaching myself from him despite the visceral pain it caused me. He looked lost staring at me with unyielding love and concern. I needed to distance myself mentally or I would never survive the rest. I chose to focus on Embry, who sat silently witnessing our emotional carnage and his expression was almost as distraught as Jacob's.
My voice was rough and cracking, but I forced myself to begin the inevitable demise. "You are all shapeshifters, yes? Werewolves?" He nodded in agreement and I pushed through before I could break down again.
"Do you remember when you asked me how old I am and I hesitated?" He nodded again, but was obviously perplexed about how they were linked.
"I lied; I am not 22. I have been alive for ten years (eleven in September), but I became a fully grown adult at the age of 7 and I will always stay in this state now." He looked at me blankly as if I'd spoken in French. Jacob moved to stand between us and watch my face as I spoke, which gave my gut an extra twist.
"When you say always…?" Jacob's voice was hoarse and I grimaced as the first pieces fell into place for him.
"Always, I'm immortal." Embry maintained his stone-faced expression, but Jacob winced and I bit my lip until I drew blood to avoid crying again.
"How is that possible? You aren't a vampire." Jacob shook as he spoke and I finally recognized the action as his control slipping and his imminent phasing. I instinctively placed my hand over his heart to calm him and felt dizzying triumph when he stilled, clapping his own hand over mine and holding it in place.
"Whatever it is, I'm not- I won't leave." He pressed my hand firmly over his throbbing heart for emphasis and I felt my will power crumbling. If I didn't do it now, I never would.
"Your pack is familiar with the Cullen coven." I wasn't asking anymore, but I knew. I nearly collapsed when all the blood drained from Jacob's face. Faster than I could process he pulled back into his embrace, clutching me against his chest.
"What did they do to you? I'll protect you, honey. They'll never touch you." He spoke those convictions into my hair with every ounce of devotion and strength he possessed and I died internally knowing how much he meant them.
I pried my body out of his grasp and moved away far enough that if he phased, I'd be safe (I think). I stared into my soulmate's eyes absorbing the adoration flowing through them and delivered the final blow, "Jacob, I am a Cullen."