CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

(JPOV)

I was only a mere mile from the Reservation when my course suddenly changed, the images in my head causing me to halt my run in an instant as Bella's face invaded any prior thought and became my center focus.

Her tears dripped steadily from her cheeks and her pain was so real for me that my own joints began to profusely ache in response.

I huffed and skidded to a jarring halt there in the freshly fallen snow under my paws as the images hit me one after the other, like a violent kick to the stomach. Each one of them roamed over me, the weight of her agony washing through me with enough tangible weight that I was soon hunkered down with a whine escaping my muzzle.

I had gone through hell to deaden this pull to her years ago and I had hated every second of denying the seemingly undeniable, of changing the magnetic direction of something that wasn't supposed to have the ability to be redirected at all, but against the odds and against the advice of nearly every council member Billy had sought the wise council of, that's exactly what we had done. I tried to stand, but found it hard as hell to keep myself upright as the images all blurred together then. Some of them so graphic that it caused a rush of heat to lick it's way further up my spine.

After some time had passed, the images changed from past to current and I found the strength I needed to pick myself up off the forest floor and tear off in the direction of Forks. I ran faster and pushed myself harder when the border came into view, the visions of Bella's pain enough to make me ignore the burning in my lungs while I neared the bordering trees of Charlie's back yard.

The pull to be near her was damn near suffocating and when I broke free from the clearing and noticed her light was still on, I couldn't help but feel the guilt consume me. I wanted to take her in my arms and that left me riddled with a nauseating and sickening shame that I loathed. What was supposed to be the most natural thing in the world was far more difficult than I wanted to admit.

I'd let her go all those years ago so she could find who she was. Let her run states away to be where she wanted and pursue her dream career in the field she had such a passion for, but in all the time she'd been gone, there wasn't a fucking day that went by when I didn't think of her or wonder how she was fairing in Maine. I wanted, above all else, to know that she was happy in her life. That she was fulfilled in every way.

There was a time after she first left that her absence would literally tear me apart, both physically and mentally.

Sam had been my saving grace back then, he'd sought further council from some of the elders and both he and Billy had endured endless late night meetings to find a way for me to still carry out my pack duties without the separation from Bella causing me to endure anymore agony.

It was hell. Pure undiluted hell.

After weeks of advice and pawing through more of the older legends, Sam found the sought after loop hole we needed and I had followed every detailed instruction given to me by the elders in order to deny the imprint and break the hold to her. I hated the very idea of severing that tie to her like that, of breaking something so solid to the person I already loved without any wolf magic involved. She was such a fixed part of me and that connection to her ran bone deep. I had begrudgingly taken Billy's advice and even though I knew it wasn't permanent and that it would allow me the freedom to move on in the same way she had, none of it settled well with me.

Lillian came into my life that following Summer like a whirlwind. She had caught me off guard and how fast I fell for her made me question everything I'd ever known about the imprint to begin with. How could something that was meant to be forever, something that I previously despised before it had taken hold of me, be released as the elders claimed it could? You weren't even supposed to be able to look at another woman who wasn't your imprint. It made you blind to anyone else because no one could ever come close to her. No one could make you feel the way she did and when I met Lillian, I found myself dumbfounded at how free I actually felt with that pull being temporarily removed.

My love for Lilly had been nothing but true, but the more time went on, and the more years that crept steadily by, the more I would lose sleep over Bella. I had dreams of her, and sometimes they were so real that I hated to even close my eyes cause I knew what was waiting for me when I did. She was always alone in them and the light in her eyes void, her face pale and lacking the vibrant blush I'd come to miss seeing more than I could put words to.

Despite the fact that I stopped phasing, as fucking painful as that had been, these feelings didn't go away and it often made me feel like a traitor.

My father wasn't blind to this and neither was Sam. They'd taken notice over the past few years how I'd become guarded. How I never lingered around Charlie for too long without excusing myself to tend to other things. He was never anything less than cordial to me and Lilly when we did have the occasional dinner together in Forks, but I found it almost painful to look him in the face because his eyes reminded me too much of Bella's.

I let out another huff and glanced up to the light the shined brightly through her bedroom window, the glow of it like a lighthouse to me in a raging storm. My wolf gaze lingered on the tall tree that I knew every branch to like the back of my hand. The one I had hiked up dozens of times to hold her while she slept when my patrol was over. We did this for weeks before she left for Maine and Charlie was none the wiser.

That felt like a lifetime ago right now.

Time had changed the two of us, pulled us further in opposite directions and I'd be an absolute fool to think she would stick around here in Washington for too long. Her whole life was back in Maine and I wasn't part of that.

I listened to the treasured sound of her racing heart and looked back toward the forest, debating on what my next move should be. I couldn't ignore the magnetic draw to her no matter how hard I tried to turn myself back around toward the darkened tree cover behind me.

She was still awake and the night was nearly over. Maybe she was having just as hard a time sleeping as I was?

I waited there by the forests edge and wared with myself on whether or not I should fight this any longer or just give in to the constant pull I'd felt since the first time I heard her voice in that hospital.

This was so fucking hard.

I phased back to human form, landing barefoot on the snow and swiftly pulling on my cut offs as I headed across Charlie's back yard, the movement I caught sight of from above me making it impossible for me to not look up and see her there.

She peered out into the darkness through her window, her gaze fixing on my own when I stared up at her.

She was just as beautiful as ever and I cussed under my breath for even having the thought in my head.

Did I need permission to go up? Would she tell me to go home?

Damn was this screwed up.

I sighed and ignored my inner monologue as I finished crossing the yard and saw her back away from the window, her face awash with the same kind of indifference I felt right about now.

She knew this was hard for me. I could see it in her expression as I quickly climbed the tree for the firs time again in almost ten years and leapt through her half opened window like it was second nature.

Bella froze where she was when I landed on my feet and slowly stood up straight, my eyes meeting hers and every part of me feeling locked in place with the effort it took for me not to cross her bedroom and hold her the way I wanted to. My gaze soon went to her door, silently questioning whether or not Charlie was still awake, and if he was about to come barging in here with a loaded shotgun for me standing half naked in front of his daughter, and in the middle of the fucking night no less. Bella easily read my face and offered up her reply.

"Charlie's asleep." She softly confirmed in a whisper.

I stilled then at the sound of the broken and unsteady tone she spoke this in, her pale face filling with an almost fearful and pained expression when she tried to look away from me.

And just like that, all my prior worrying and overthinking vanished from the hurt I caught in those two words. Like the steam that rises from the hot asphalt after a cool rain on a blistering hot Summer day, it left me in a fleeting vapor. The heavy fog in my head disappeared in an instant, and for the first time since I'd laid eyes on her again in the hospital, I saw her. Really saw her. The dark circles under her doe eyes that told me she hadn't slept much tonight, or in the nights prior, and the shaking in her thin frame that made me instinctively step forward, my hands now twitching at my sides to comfort her.

Everything seemed to cave in then, her tears dripping down her snow white cheeks when she blinked and began to crumple in on herself in front of me.

"I can't do this anymore."

I moved forward and took hold of her and in the next second, she was in my arms.

I pressed her to me and like a dam had been broken, she let out a wail that tore through me, her body trembling with her tears like she had been holding onto something far too heavy for far too long.

I kept her close and noticed the heating pad on the bed along with the half a dozen bottles of unknown meds that lay scattered in a disarray next to it.

What the hell had she been through in the time we'd been apart?

A/N: Thanks for reading and please review. I'm so sorry for the delay in posting this new chapter and I very much appreciate your patience with me.