66. Mother Nature

The day had dawned beautifully. Renesmee had awoken early enough to marvel as the sky became a purple and pink display that quickly filled her window, and as quickly vanished. Now, in the afternoon, low clouds crept in, bringing with them a fine mist that hung in the air and clung to every surface. Small water droplets sparkled like jewels in Bella's hair, short lived decorations, taken by the wind as she flitted through the trees with our daughter in her arms.

The effect on Jacob's fur was less flattering. It lay matted against his skin except for when he paused his ground covering lope to indulge in a full body shake, flinging water everywhere and leaving his fur standing on end, and causing Renesmee to let out peals of laughter. His thick coat gave off a pungent wet-dog smell that had me wondering if I'd notice the more subtle scent of deer if we happened to come across one.

But for their windswept hair, there was little evidence of our speed. Bella may as well have been strolling slowly along a flat, featureless surface for all that Renesmee felt of her mother's run. She didn't need Bella to carry her, but she enjoyed the ease of communication while being held. As with talking, although Nessie could walk or even run alongside us, she often chose not to.

As predicted, ours was the most spoiled half-vampire child in existence.

Leaving the clouds and their mist behind as we gained elevation, the sun offered its own addition to Bella's otherworldly beauty. Why had I ever hated the way our skin looked? How had I missed the colors, the radiance, the brilliance? I was the fastest, but deliberately trailing behind my family, watching as they created a galaxy of stars as they flashed in and out of the sunlight, I was awestruck by their collective beauty. How blind I'd been. Bella, with her human eyes, had seen my family far more clearly than I ever had.

We could have found something in the parks closer to home, but too many vampires hunting in close quarters would not only be noticeable to the humans no matter how we disposed of the bodies, but over the long term would have a negative impact on the ecological balance. Before the addition of a newborn in the family, we usually tried to go far enough afield that we made a weekend of it. At that, we would go weeks between. Bella's frequent forays necessitated careful management of our resources.

Jasper and Alice declined to join us, leaning on just such a need. While certainly true, his excuse was not the truth. He preferred not to hunt in the presence of a living creature other than his intended prey, or with those who his instincts told him were his enemy. He felt it was better to be cautious than risk accidentally hurting anyone.

The rest of our family was in high spirits as they ran with us. I caught Carlisle's eyes as the trees flashed by between us. A montage of other hunts paraded through his mind, from when it had been just the two of us till now. His eyes danced when he took in my expression. Nothing pleased him more than his family's happiness.

On his other side ran Esme. Now and again, she'd catch hold of a low hanging limb and swing herself up to the tree tops, simply because she enjoyed the view. She kept pace with us from up there before returning to the earth, dancing from branch to branch like a kid playing hopscotch. Renesmee, craning her neck to watch, thought she looked like a squirrel, deftly navigating the forest through the trees without ever touching the ground.

Jacob wished she wouldn't. He wasn't sure he was ready for Renesmee to decide she wanted to see the world from above.

Some distance from us, Emmett came to an abrupt halt. Rosalie, who'd been following him - and unfortunately for me, ardently admiring him - came to a stop by his side. He had caught the scent he'd been hoping to find.

"There's more than one," I observed, giving him space so as not to disturb the scents he was tracing. "A mother and her cub?"

"Two cubs," Emmett grunted. He matched his fingers up with the claw marks one had left on a tree's trunk. They were young enough to need their mother, but still a respectable size. My own venom flowed in response.

"Grizzlies," I explained to Jacob when he and the others circled back. "They're Emmett's favorites."

Jacob's lips pulled back from his teeth, unaware of the way he was placing himself between Emmett and Bella, and thus Renesmee. You didn't say anything about taking Nessie hunting for bears! Are you nuts?

The look on Bella's face matched Jacob's words.

"No, I quite agree. An irritable grizzly bear would be fun, but not exactly appropriate for Nessie's first hunt. Another time," I reassured a disappointed Emmett. "But why don't you and Rosalie help yourselves and catch up with us when you've finished?"

The two exchanged a glance. Rose wanted to be a part of Nessie's first hunt, but those bears smelled better by far than the deer she knew we were after, and she and Emmett had not taken many chances to hunt together since before mine and Bella's wedding.

I could see Emmett's plan. Rosalie would go after one of the cubs first, which would enrage the protective mother, and while he tussled with her, Rose would be free to take the other cub. Unlike Bella and I, she had not been making near daily treks into the mountains, preferring the happy duty of babysitting while we were hunting - or whatever. She could use the potent blood of a couple of young omnivores.

Ecology aside, it was better to hunt in small groups anyway. Safer.

"Go ahead," I encouraged them. "Renesmee will enjoy showing you what happens."

Rosalie nodded, but before she took off with Emmett, she zipped over to Bella's side to take Nessie's hand and press it against her cheek.

"Have fun, alright? Catch a big one."

Uncertain exactly what Rose meant but amenable nevertheless, Nessie sent an impression of excited agreement, and then my siblings were gone amidst a spray of rainbow sparkles and a swirl of disturbed leaf litter.

The air smelled crisp and clean as we continued our hunt, except for Jacob's lingering stench, and it wasn't long before Bella called Renesmee's attention to the scent we had been seeking. When we got close enough, we found a fallen tree to crouch behind where we could spy on the deer Bella had detected. Jacob flattened himself to the ground with Bella between us. Carlisle elected to join Esme in the branches, to watch from on high.

Across the clearing, just visible through the verdure, was a family of deer. Or rather, two families, a couple of doe with their young, who were nearly full grown. Another year or so and they would fill out and be ready to start little families of their own.

Or, they would have, had we not happened across them.

Lips parted and tongue just protruding between her teeth, Renesmee stared at the deer in rapt fascination. She had seen pictures of the many animals that inhabited the forest that surrounded our home. None of them would come close to our house. No still images could have conveyed the draw of their beating hearts, nor the soft bleats, snorts, and snuffles that carried across the clearing. The birds Jacob had coaxed close enough for her to touch had been interesting for their novelty. Unlike the deer, or Charlie, their tiny, rapid heartbeats had not set fire to her throat.

My eyes were drawn across Bella to where Jacob lay, ears up, eyes bright, and nose aquiver. His attention, divided between Nessie and the deer, had me wondering what old Ephraim would have thought if we could have told him that one day, a member of his pack would hunt alongside my family.

Bella was so much herself, I liked to think he would have remained friends with her after her change even without the imprint. But to hunt with us? I thought that probably wouldn't have been possible without Renesmee's influence. Imprinting had changed him almost as much as loving Bella had changed me.

There was no revulsion in his thoughts, no disgust for what we were about to do. We were simply hunting, as people had done since time immemorial. He, himself, had killed deer with his own teeth, much as we were about to do. What difference did it make that we were after their blood, rather than their flesh?

Without taking her eyes off the deer, Renesmee reached up to share her impression of them with Bella.

"Yeah," Bella agreed, "they do smell weird. Kind of good and bad."

Despite their unappealing smell, Nessie's desire to bite them was strong. Yet she, like her mother, simply observed the small herd. I certainly had not had such patience when I was newborn. Now, surfeited with blood from accompanying Bella on her frequent forays, I intended to catch but not kill.

"Wait here," I said.

A second later, I had a deer in my arms. It tossed its head and kicked its legs, the whites of its eyes showing as it struggled against my sure grip, though I was careful not to hurt it. A human might have pet it in an attempt to calm it, but such a gesture would not have had the desired effect coming from me. Another second, and I was beside my little family once more.

Without taking her hand off Bella, Nessie stretched out her other arm toward me and the deer I held. Bella obligingly brought her closer. Unerringly, Nessie placed her hand on the unhappy creature's chest right where its heart pounded out its seductive rhythm. Her other hand went to her own chest, and then to Bella's.

"That's because I'm a vampire. It used to, but it stopped beating when I changed. Every other living creature's heart beats. Yep, just like Jacob," Bella agreed when Nessie pointed at him.

Was I imagining the satisfaction in her voice when she spoke of being a vampire? Probably not. She reveled in being what I had once loathed. Not anymore, though. Now, I had eternity to learn to appreciate the virtues of being a vampire by her side.

Much to the deer's discomfiture, Jacob moved to stand close enough for Renesmee to touch, which she immediately did, finding his heart as instinctively as she had found the deer's. It trembled against me, and its pitiful bleats grew louder as it attempted to free itself from my grasp. Before it could injure itself, I opened my arms, releasing the poor beast, and watched as it bounded away from us as fast as it could.

I'd never released an animal I'd hunted before. Letting it go went against my nature. Everything in me told me to chase after it. I had no real need to drink its blood though, and turned away as if utterly uninterested.

Glancing up, I met Carlisle's eyes briefly when I felt his approval. His pride wasn't just in me and my restraint - I would not have been capable of releasing it before she came into my life - but also in Bella's. I had let it go, but so had she.

She's so good for him… Esme echoed his thoughts. In sync as always.

Yes, I wanted to agree. Bella is very good.

Grinning, I returned my gaze to my wife, to the embodiment of goodness that I had fallen in love with, and who, by some miracle, loved me back. My eyes eyes shifted to our daughter, whose goodness and purity I was determined to preserve. There were things she needed to learn, but I didn't have to let her education destroy her innocence.

"Everything requires sustenance, Renesmee," I said as I touched our daughter's face, making sure her attention was on me, and not on the fleeing deer. "Some animals, like that deer, get theirs from eating plants. Other animals eat the deer. Humans eat both plants and animals. We," I gestured toward Bella and myself, "cannot eat their flesh. We can only drink their blood."

"Animal blood," Carlisle stressed when he landed lightly beside me, followed by Esme a second later.

"That's right," I said. "Our family lives on the blood of animals. But you must understand this: There are other vampires out there, others of our kind. But unlike us, they live on the blood of humans. We're different because of Carlisle. He discovered it was possible to live off animals, and our family follows his example."

I heard Carlisle's qualification of that statement, though he instantly regretted thinking it.

It needed to be said, so I said it for him. "Most of the time."

Jacob unconsciously growled low in his throat.

"The blood you have been drinking is human blood," Carlisle said to Renesmee, as if that, alone, accounted for the difference, "from humans like Sue and your Grandpa Charlie."

He heard my unintentional huff and raised an eyebrow at me. Is now the time to go into other specifics? This is not about our past; this is about her future. Choose your words carefully, my son.

He was right. If I wanted to preserve her positive self-image, I could not load her down with my personal demons. The truth was essential, but there was more than one way to present it.

Slowly, I said, "You and your mother make it look easy. Most of our kind find our way of life… difficult. Even unnatural. Among the vast majority of our kind, humans are considered food, not family. When you smell them, and they make you thirsty, your vampire instincts are telling you to bite them and drink their blood. But you mustn't. Not ever."

Renesmee remembered Jacob saying he had a problem with vampires drinking blood when it came from people, and his numerous attempts to get her to eat something else made a little more sense to her. But the blood we gave her didn't really smell the same as the people she loved.

They were far more appealing.

Her little brow furrowed as she remembered me saying it was alright to bite Jacob.

"Well, as long as he doesn't mind, neither do I. You're not really hurting him, and you are not drinking his blood."

Knowing exactly who we were talking about, Jacob snorted while Bella laughed. Esme tsked at me, but I wasn't inclined to stop my daughter from biting him. He didn't object, and Bella seemed to find something satisfying about Nessie biting Jacob. As did I.

Renesmee continued to hold a hand against Bella's cheek, her deep brown eyes locked on mine, her lower lip puckered out.

"No, sweetheart," I said, "you're not hurting them either. The people your blood comes from gave it willingly. Oh. Well, humans can donate their blood to others who don't have enough of their own. It doesn't hurt them in the slightest, and it saves lives."

"I needed some once," Bella said. "I… fell. Um, down a flight of stairs and through a window. Got a few bad cuts and a broken leg. Lost a lot of blood."

"You mean you were attacked by a vampire who nearly killed you, and we lied and told everyone you fell. There is no sense in hiding the truth from her. Charlie doesn't need to know what really happened. Renesmee does."

"Then she should also know that you saved me."

Was this obstinance or memory loss? Just how much of her human life could Bella recall? I doubted I would ever get brave enough to ask. Still, if she insisted on crediting me, there were others who'd had a hand in saving her life.

"I got to you in time to stop James from killing you. If Carlisle hadn't been there, it wouldn't have made a difference. He made sure you would live long enough for us to get you to the hospital so the doctors there could save you."

"Yeah, but you saved me first. The doctors just patched me up."

Was there any point in arguing with her? Especially with my father over there laughing at me and nodding?

"Alright. I saved your life. Carlisle kept you alive and the human doctors assured you would recover by replacing the blood you lost. Donated blood saved your life just as much as I did. Made you smell funny, though."

"Only to you."

I smiled smugly and shrugged my agreement. Mine was the only opinion that had mattered.

"But that's what it's for. People give their blood to save the life of a stranger. It's not meant for thirsty vampires to drink." Bella gave one long, bronze curl a gentle tug. "Luckily, we have other options."

"Yes, that's right," I said in response to the image in Nessie's mind. "Deer, or other animals like them."

Yack yack yack! Let's get this show on the road. Jacob trotted off in the direction the deer had fled.

"Care to do the honors this time?" I asked Bella when we had all caught up with them and were once again lurking where we could see without being seen.

The timid creatures were fidgety. Their heads swiveled as their nostrils flared. Their jumpy muscles caused their skin to twitch. I had done no harm to the one I had caught, but they knew death stalked them.

"Me?" Bella asked, her voice pitched high with alarm.

"Why not? You need to hunt. Show her how it's done." She continued to hesitate, so I suggested, "Together, then?"

As a human, Bella had hated being the center of attention. Judging by the relief in her smile, that hadn't changed. Hunting while the five of us watched was quite different from hunting by my side. She placed our daughter in front of the attentive wolf, who scooched forward so his shoulder rested against Nessie's back, and then squatted in front of them to look Nessie in her eyes.

"Renesmee, you stay here with Jake, okay? And watch your daddy. He's a lot better at this than me."

I shook my head, but forbore to argue again. What good would it have done? She clasped my hand when I held it out to her and flitted through the trees by my side, skirting downwind of the deer. Only when we were close enough to strike did she drop my hand. We were the same temperature now, but I still felt colder without her touch.

With whatever sixth sense animals possessed, the deer anticipated their danger and bolted. In the mood for a good chase, I laughed as I sprang after them. I wouldn't be letting this one go!

Intent though I was on catching a deer for myself, my attention, like theirs, was on Bella. Through my family's eyes, I watched her skillful kill. Despite her claim that I was the better hunter, Bella pounced on one with perfectly timed precision. Her body arched gracefully through the air to collide with the deer she'd chosen. They hit the ground with a bone-snapping crash that shook the closest trees. Her hands, usually so gentle, had already broken its neck, putting it out of its misery before it could begin to feel it.

Unlike Emmett or - surprisingly - Bella, I preferred to snatch my prey out of the air in mid-leap, rather than tackle it to the ground. By the time Bella was brushing leaf litter off her shirt, a grimace of distaste on her lips, I was dropping my kill beside hers and Renesmee was streaking across the clearing with Jacob on her heals. The hunt, short though it had been, had been exciting to Nessie, and she couldn't wait to express as much to her mother.

Exactly as Bella had launched herself at the deer, Renesmee threw herself into Bella's arms. Once more, through the memory Nessie shared, I had the pleasure of watching Bella stalk her prey, seeing her crouch and then spring forward, all the power of her new body sending her flying through the air in a fluid motion. She was a lethal predator, beautiful and deadly. I felt my pride in her swell.

Carlisle and Esme, too, were proud of Bella. Or perhaps amazed was the better word. She hadn't been at all distracted by the werewolf or the presence of other vampires while she hunted. They were keeping their distance, but I thought it wouldn't matter. It had taken me some time before I no longer felt the need to defend my kills, and then it had just been me and Carlisle. I would forever sport the evidence of Emmett's newborn period.

Large covens were rare for a very good reason.

But Bella! It was only during her first hunt that the need to defend had broken through her need for blood. Here she was now, little more than one month into her vampire life, completely unphased by instincts that had overwhelmed the rest of us.

She hadn't been a normal human. I should never have expected her to be a normal vampire. A hundred years from now, and Bella would surely still be capable of amazing all of us.

Jacob wasn't as impressed. Smooth, Bells, real smooth!

"Practicing your hyena impression?" I muttered to the mutt, whose wolf form wasn't well adapted to the laughter he indulged in.

Renesmee understood innately what we had been doing - hunting the animals for their blood - but when she finished replaying our hunt back to Bella, she looked to the deer still laying on the ground, clearly expecting them to find their feet and beat a hasty retreat.

"They can't," I said. "They're dead. We killed them."

Slipping from Bella's arms, Renesmee put her hands on one of the dead animals, once again unerringly finding the exact placement of the creature's now silent heart. She inspected the wounds we had left and looked into their eyes. The deer I had held for her to touch had expressive brown eyes much like her own, but these deer's eyes were dull and lifeless.

...for how long?

"Forever, Renesmee. They won't ever wake."

I squatted beside her when she looked to me, a familiar expression of bewilderment on her face. I loathed putting an end to her innocence in such a way, but death was a part of life, one that she, more than most, needed to understand.

Since finding out I could read minds, Renesmee took a special pleasure in being able to talk to me in her normal way in what was, to her, my normal way. Even if I held her, she enjoyed simply thinking at me, knowing I would hear. Now, she placed her hand against my cheek to reinforce her thoughts, even going to the trouble of forming words along with the images and feelings she normally sent.

Because you bit them and drank their blood?

"Yes."

But mommy woke up.

At the time, I hadn't paid attention as Rosalie strode from the room with newly born Renesmee peering over her shoulder to witness my desperate struggle to save Bella's life. As I'd bit her mother again and again, Nessie had known what I was doing if not why. And in the days that followed her birth, Bella, corpse-like and bearing wounds left by my teeth, had been in the background of every memory she had of me.

And then Bella had awoken, radiant, vibrant, perfect.

"That's different," I said in astonishment. "I bit her to save her, to change her into a vampire like me. I didn't drink her blood."

I bite Jacob all the time. I don't drink his blood, and he doesn't change.

"Yes, but you don't make venom. I do. And he is a werewolf. If I bit him, it would hurt him, not heal or change. Bella was a human."

Like Grandpa Charlie.

"Yes."

Only a few minutes earlier, we had told her there were other vampires out there, others that drank human blood the way we drank animal blood. In a leap of understanding, she imagined Charlie and Sue in place of the deer, their throats torn open, shirts stained with blood, eyes staring and blank, never to move again.

And she, herself, drank human blood. And I had warned her, repeatedly, not to bite them.

Grandpa Charlie would not heal.

It wasn't a question. I had told her the day they met that he would not heal like Jacob. Confirming what she already knew, I said, "He would not."

Troubled eyes held mine. I would never-

"I know," I said before she could finish the thought. I gave her a smile of reassurance. Neither she nor her mother would ever go down the dark paths either Rose or I had. With their astounding level of control over themselves, mistakes like the others in my family had made were unlikely.

Bella and Renesmee were pristine, perfect, and would stay that way for the rest of their lives.

Renesmee let out a little sigh of relief, but continued to hold her hand against my face. Charlie was safe from us, but those who fed on humans with impunity would not hesitate to do to him what we had done to the deer. Bella had already been attacked by one. What was to stop another one from hunting him?

Humans were fragile and mortal. If watching Emmett, Jasper, and I wrestle had taught her anything, it was that we were indestructible. The deer could be killed. Humans could be killed. We could not.

You should bite Grandpa Charlie to save him. She gave me a bright smile and a firm nod. Like mommy!

"No, Renesmee. That is not a solution."

"What?" Bella asked, unknowingly echoing the question Jacob was silently repeating with growing exasperation.

Sourly, I muttered, "Your daughter is just like you. Thinks becoming a vampire fixes everything."

"But… I thought - " Bella breathed heavily and shook her head, the line of distress forming between her eyes. "It's fine."

"What?" I demanded. Why did she have to claim things were fine when they clearly weren't?

For an agonizing few seconds, I thought she wasn't going to answer. But then she mumbled, "I thought you liked the way I am now."

I laughed softly. Silly, insecure girl. Didn't she know by now? Well, I would gladly tell her for the rest of eternity.

Pausing only to gather Nessie into my arms, I stepped around the deer to plant a kiss on Bella's forehead. "I do. More than you'll ever know. But you were ready to give up your human life. Charlie is not."

"Charlie?"

"Hmm. She thinks he'd be safer that way."

"Safer from what? We won't hurt him."

"From other vampires," I said, surprised that she hadn't seen the conclusions Renesmee would draw after what we had told her. "From the majority of our kind who would hunt him if they could."

"Oh. Oh. Are you worried about your grandpa?"

I gave her over when Nessie pushed herself out of my arms and into Bella's.

"You don't need to worry," Bella assured Nessie when she shared the same images she had shown me. "Alice keeps a close eye on Charlie. She'd know if there was any danger long before it got here."

Jacob chuffed his agreement.

"And the packs, too," Bella said. "For a small town with a large population of vampires and werewolves, the humans here are remarkably safe."

I laughed with them, but thought there was only one other place in the world where humans were as well protected by the local population of monsters. Like the residents of Forks, the people who called Volterra home were some of the safest in the world.

Their tourists were a different matter.

Keeping such thoughts to myself, I said, "The humans are safe, yes. The wildlife… well, it's open season. What do you think, Nessie? You up for a hunt?"

"My turn!" Renesmee exclaimed, actually speaking aloud in her excitement, and pointed imperiously in the direction the last deer had run.

"Wait!" Esme called down. When she had our attention, she pointed in a different direction than the deer had taken and said, "There!"

"Elk," I said appreciatively. Her vantage point had allowed her to spy them. A sizable herd, I noted with pleasure. Truly, I wasn't thirsty, but the others were, and elk were far better than the black-tailed deer we had been chasing.

Bella took off in the direction Esme had indicated. The rest of us were only a few steps behind. Seconds later, Nessie pushed herself out of her mother's arms, choosing to run for herself. Jacob edged past Bella to run by Nessie's side. She reached up and brushed her hand quickly against his muzzle, expressing her happiness for his company. Bella and I hunted together; it seemed right to her that she should have a hunting companion too.

Following their scent was as easy for Renesmee as any of us. The moment we crossed their path, she smelled their residual scent trails and altered her course to better match theirs.

I barely paid attention to the ground before me, focused as I was on her thoughts. The excitement of a new experience, the scents pulling her forward, following instincts that guided without taking over, Renesmee was a born hunter. She felt the thrill of the chase without losing herself to it.

Soon, we had caught up with the larger animals. Renesmee, thinking of Rosalie's parting comment, was pleased. These were much bigger and smelled stronger, somehow both more appealing and less than their smaller cousins.

Like with almost everything she learned, watching once was all it took. Renesmee mimicked the way we'd hunted exactly, paying attention to the direction of the wind, melting into the shadows of the sheltering plant-life, even to the point of waiting for them to bolt before launching herself at the one she'd chosen. The biggest, naturally.

While she was nearly as strong and fast as a full vampire and should have been fully capable of taking down an animal of any species, none of us had accounted for the difference her size would make. She was not tall enough to snatch it out of the air like me, nor was she heavy enough to tackle it to the ground the way Bella had done. Instead, she found herself being carried along by the startled creature as it attempted to flee through the forest with what appeared to be a human the size of a one year old clinging to its neck.

Later, Emmett would howl with laughter when she related her first kill to him.

Behind and above me, I could hear Esme's tinkling giggles, though she tried to suppress them. She didn't want Nessie to become self-conscious, thinking we were laughing at her. Carlisle didn't bother resisting, giving in to his hearty laugh without a second thought.

Neither could I stop my snickers as Bella and I followed. I didn't know what strength of will Bella had that she did not give in to the amusement dancing in her eyes, but when she looked askance at me, I laughed harder.

Jacob, whose eyes never left Renesmee, dogged every move of the very confused animal. It didn't seem to know what to be afraid of more: the enormous wolf chasing it or the tiny, wild-eyed girl it couldn't rid itself of.

A sound, half giggle, half growl, and unlike anything I'd heard her make before, carried back to us. Ignoring the branches catching in her hair from the elk's attempts to brush her off, Nessie held on with one hand and used the other to feel for the place where its pulse was strongest. Her tiny, razor-sharp teeth cut through its skin as easily as mine would have. It stumbled and soon fell, dead as the deer Bella and I had killed.

By the time it fell, I had managed to stop laughing, but I gave my daughter a huge grin, feeling like any proud parent. Bella scooped her up, knowing she would be eager to share the excitement of her first hunt. Renesmee also shared her indignation over the wretched taste of the animal's blood.

"Yeah," Bella agreed, "but it's better than the alternative."

Renesmee understood Bella to mean the alternative of feeding on humans, but felt her statement truly applied to the human food she'd been encouraged to eat. Elk blood, unsatisfying as it had been, was far better than that! Human blood, given freely and without harm, seemed the best choice.

"No, Renesmee," Bella said sternly. "Those are for saving lives. Human lives," she specified when Nessie related an image of the animals we'd killed.

Our daughter heaved a sigh, but nodded in acquiescence. Perhaps sensing that her evident reluctance was about to lead to another lecture, one that might result in an injunction against her consumption of any human blood, she changed the subject. She'd found her ride on the elk to have been quite good fun, and playfully launched herself at Jacob as if he were an animal for her to hunt.

His thick fur offered more purchase for her grip than the elk's had, and for all its efforts, it had been unable to dislodge her. She was as safe and secure perched on his shoulders as she would have been on mine. He took off at a run after the herd, the sweet sound of her high laugh trailing after.