Happy November, everyone! Writing-wise, this probably one of my favorite times of the year, because it's National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo). The typical goal for this month is to write fifty-thousand words on a totally new project within the month of November, which breaks down to about 2k words a day. To put that in perspective for y'all, a typical chapter of RAVAGE/SAVAGE is about two to three thousand words. If I chose this project for NaNoWriMo, I'd probably be writing a chapter or so a day! How crazy is that?!

But this is not the project I'm doing. I'm actually working on another one that I plan to finish by December 1st and I have about forty-thousand words left on it, so I'm working like crazy every day to get to the end. It's a lot of fun, but also a struggle because I'm balancing work and life with it.

Which leads me to inform y'all that updates will be slow again. I'm sorry. I promise I'll try to write SAVAGE when I have time. I have about half of chapter eight written, so I will try to finish it this week so we can have another Tuesday update. I can't make any promises after that when it comes to November.

What I CAN promise you, though, is that I'll be writing this story in December. I'm going to take a break from the original works to focus on reading, revising what I wrote for this month, and holiday activities. The only thing I'll be writing is this story! I did this last year with RAVAGE and it gave us all of those fun chapters and faster update times.

Hope you guys are doing well, and that you enjoy this update!

7. TOGETHER

I held onto Jasper tightly. Even when I felt the sun's heat as it crested the horizon, I kept my arms clasped around his neck and hid my face in the crook of his shoulder. I was happy to ignore the rest of the world as long as I could breathe him in. His scent made my head spin; it was intoxication in its most sublime form. With his arms locked around my back, keeping me from moving, I could only lose myself to him. He rested the side of his face against my head. Our chests rose and fell with the shared tempo of our breaths.

We didn't say anything. Maybe it was because the quiet was what we needed after deafening chaos took over our lives for so long, and simply took what was my life away from me…

I was still getting used to that. Being dead… and alive.

Though I felt nearly catatonic in his arms, I knew I would never actually fall asleep. My mind still worked on overtime, constantly moving and turning and adjusting to everything that had happened.

I won.

And Jasper was mine.

But was I his? How could I make a decision like that? I just got turned into another species. Throwing… Throwing Jasper, and who he was to me, on top of it didn't seem fair. I wasn't ready to make any more life-altering choices – at least not right now. But Jasper… He was ready. It took him no time to answer me. It took him no effort to tell me his life was mine.

I wanted to ask him how he could make that decision so easily. I wanted to know when he knew who I was to him. He had to have known before I was turned, I was sure. I wanted to know why he didn't tell me. I wanted to know how he could want me when I was so lost and damaged. I tried to ask so many times, but the words piled up in my throat and didn't make it further. I was afraid to ask, because what if it made him – the only good thing in this world – realize it too? What if it made him leave?

My fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt.

"Blaire," Jasper murmured. His lips barely brushed against my neck, startling me. How had he gotten so close? How could I get him to do it again?

The second thought was more startling than the first. It forced me to pull myself away.

Jasper looked at me from under the blond curls that spilled over his forehead, shining gold in the faint morning sunlight. His eyes were still blacker than any night sky, and I knew he had to be in so much pain from his thirst, but he still managed to look at me like I was the only thing in the world. Even when I pulled back, that look didn't let me get far. I sat beside him with my legs draped over his lap. Jasper followed me, twisting so he could sling his arm over my shoulders and keep me closer to him. I wanted to get even closer still. Anticipation and desire prickled at my skin and shot around my insides like fireworks.

I had to look away, or else I knew my body would push me into doing something I wasn't ready for.

Then Jasper cupped my chin in one of his hands and tilted it up, forcing me to look into his eyes. He brushed his thumb across my cheek. I stopped breathing. "What's wrong?" he asked.

The longing. That was what was wrong right now. I remembered it dampened every human memory I had of him, heightened by the rare moments where I felt like we were the only two beings in the world. I remembered wanting him when I was human, but this… It was so much more now. It was demanding, needing, desperate. Couldn't he feel it, too?

"You used to blush whenever you felt like this," he said quietly, when I didn't answer his question. His thumb swept over my cheek again. I leaned into his palm, overcome with the rightness I felt in his hands. When he sighed, his breath rushed over my skin. My eyes threatened to close and give into the sensation.

"Do you miss it?" I whispered. Maybe that would be the right way to lead into the conversation I needed, to get to the questions I desperately wanted to ask.

"Do you?" he countered.

I frowned. "I… I don't know."

A vague answer, but an honest one. There was so much to hate and love about this new body and the life that would come with it. I didn't understand all of it yet.

"You don't have to," he said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Like my answer was actually acceptable.

The the undergrowth a hundred feet away rustled. I stiffened –

"Relax," Jasper said. I didn't. The two vampires who held Victoria down stepped out of the trees and into our view. I still didn't relax. The female was all lean lines filled with power and dotted with her own set of scars, staring at me warily. The male beside her was brawny and large with even more scars. They wore clothes like James and Victoria – old, faded pants and jackets – and looked just as wild with their dark red eyes. Like Jasper, these vampires screamed strength, but unlike Jasper, they made me uncomfortable.

Jasper stood up and guided me up with him. I hung close to his side. "These are my oldest friends, Peter and Charlotte," he explained. "Y'all, this is Blaire."

"We figured you could use some time before introducing ourselves," the female, Charlotte, said casually. Even if her words were bright and sounded cheery, they were fake. I could tell by the stiffness in her posture, and the grit of her teeth when she smiled. She held up a backpack. "Wanna take a real bath and change outta those clothes?"

Beyond words.

I didn't have to look in a mirror to know I was filthy. The clothes I wore stuck to me like a second, itchy skin. The game between James and I was over. I could… move on.

Move on and do what, though?

It was just another question I didn't have an answer for.

Jasper rested his hand on my shoulder. "Maybe we should hunt first," he said.

Hunt.

Fire erupted in my throat, burning at everything. Flames licked the rest of the world away, taking everything rational with it.

I whirled around and tore through the woods, my breathing ragged as I sucked in the air around me, tasting it for blood. But not before I overheard the amused voice of the male vampire I barely knew.

"I guess that's a yes."

V

I hunted three times after that.

Three times, I was possessed by the monster I'd willingly accepted so I wouldn't die. Now I was forced to live forever. Jasper's words echoed in my thoughts in a never-ending loop. Did I miss being human?

I knew that I was still me, somehow, somewhere in the mess of my pain and fear. There was still… so much to work through and understand, but…

But everything I wanted to achieve when I was human was done now that I was a vampire. James was dead! I did that. How could I miss being human when I'd only been drowning in a world where everyone was stronger than me? At least I was on equal footing with them now.

If not more so.

I ghosted through the woods, sometimes running, sometimes crawling, as I slaughtered ten deer, five elk, and then a black bear (much to Jasper's equal parts horror and amusement). As the blood refreshed me and cleared my mind, it pushed the horror that had been my short life with James further away.

It helped that Jasper was with me, racing with me through the woods, bounding over rock outcroppings. He was a force of nature with the way he overtook the terrain and stalked his prey. I lost kills in favor of watching him lunge and wrestle elk to the ground, the power of his entire body on full display, and he seemed to do it without an ounce of effort. Not a single drop of blood unintentionally fell.

I hadn't seen another vampire hunt until now. It piqued my interest. I wanted to learn how he could do it and not look like a walking butcher shop.

When we charged further into the wilderness, Jasper flanked my side, until he started speeding up. He glanced back at me and smirked.

A challenge.

It flickered in my chest like a small, comforting flame.

I threw myself into it and let go. I sprinted past him. I felt the cold, thin layer of snow underneath my bare feet and the roughened bark of trees when I let my fingers skim past them as something else seeped into my veins –

Excitement.

The feeling was excitement. Something I never thought I would feel again, in the depth of James's wicked game.

I was coming back to life.

But that came with its own struggles. As I drank more blood, the world met me. It became clearer, more vibrant, louder. It was too much, too intense for my heightened senses, but Jasper was there. He would pull me into his chest so I could breathe his scent and only focus on him. He made the world quiet.

The sky lightened as time passed, the sun rising higher up in the sky, but it was covered by thick, overcast clouds, promising more snow. The cool air made my blood-coated skin tingle. The grass tickled the bottoms of my feet. I smelled the freshness of air untainted by the gore and violence of my latest hunt, and it almost made me feel normal. Almost human, maybe?

Jasper followed me, his eyes vibrant yellow, and despite the hours we spent hunting, was still much less disheveled than me. His shirt was only stained red from the times I needed refuge in his arms. "You're fast," he said. "You might even be quicker than Edward."

Pride (another emotion I discovered when I saw him watch me take out that black bear) flickered within me at his words. I smirked.

"I better be," I said. "I've been running my whole life."

Because conditioning my body to be the best soccer player I could be had been my life. So many dreams: varsity, captain, scholarships, pro, Olympics –

All of that was gone now.

My shoulders dropped. My smile fell. Maybe this was what Jasper was talking about. What was I supposed to do now? I was something entirely other. All of my human dreams had to be left behind with that scared little girl on a soccer field.

"Blaire," Jasper said. I turned to look at him. He maintained a polite distance away from me, giving me the space I desperately needed to adjust. "Talk to me. Tell me what's going on."

What wasn't going on? My head was constantly turning in on itself, desperately trying to piece everything together, coming up empty. I had hours to organize my thoughts without the hindrance of sleep, and absolutely nothing to show for it.

I fought to break it down. Where the best place was to start?

"How… long has it been?" I asked. "Since the dance studio. What's been going on since then?"

"Two weeks," he said. "The last time I talked to Alice was last week, before I lost cell reception. Bella's back in Forks, along with the rest of the Cullen clan. Alice wanted to come, but with all the loose ends we had to leave behind, it wasn't the best idea. The townsfolk would've been even more suspicious than they are now."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Your dad…" A sharp pain lanced through my chest. God, my dad. How could I even forget him in middle of everything? "Bella told him you didn't want to be found, but he's still trying to look for you."

My dad always said my tenacity was from him. I wondered how he would react if he knew what I'd become. He and my mom both thought I was going crazy toward the end, before I ran away. Before I dove headfirst into the world of the supernatural and got swallowed whole.

"Do you think he'll find out what happened?" I asked.

"That trail went cold as soon as you jumped out of your window," he said. "But…"

"But?" I echoed. Jasper only ever hesitated when he knew I would hate the answer to a question.

But you'll tell me anyway, won't you? I'd remembered asking him, where only shafts of moonlight and a food chain hierarchy separated us.

And he'd sighed. I didn't know it then, but it'd been a wistful one. I haven't been able to deny you yet.

"He lost so much, so fast," he answered. "He'll hold onto what he thinks he has a chance of finding."

But he'd never find me. We lost each other long before I'd been bitten.

"What do we do next?" I asked.

It was easier to keep moving forward. Not look back any further than I needed.

"Whatever you want," he replied. "I figure you'd want more time to transition. There are a couple of places we could go, like Alaska. There's another coven up there like the Cullens, but they have a more secluded residence. Emmett and Rosalie offered up their place in Tennessee for us, if you want that. We can go back to Forks –"

My throat went tight. Equal parts of sadness and horror crippled me. "No –"

"Okay," he said quickly. "That's fine."

I couldn't face that town, at least not right now. Not after so much had happened.

After a moment, Jasper spoke again. "We're closest to Alaska. If anything, we can go there and stay a while, get you fresh clothes, you can call Bella since we'll have better reception…"

"Call Bella?" I felt like a broken record, just repeating everything he said. But… The things he said… I could actually talk to her? Why the hell didn't I think of that? I… I could actually talk to her! "Yes. Let's go to Alaska first."

He nodded. "Then it's done."

Only Jasper could make something sound so absolute. Only his words could put me at ease. Was it because he was mine?

Was it because he wanted me to be his?

I guessed he could read my conflicting emotions, or maybe he saw them on my face, because Jasper's brows furrowed. "Blaire?"

"How… How did you decide so easily?" I asked. "To be mine?"

Because I was still too afraid to use the one word that defined what we were.

Jasper met my gaze, burning and intense. He wouldn't be able to deny me. "It was inevitable," he finally said, his voice low and dragging across my skin in all the right ways.

Inevitable. The word stirred something within me, but I couldn't quite place it. I just knew it wasn't a satisfying answer right now.

I needed more.

So I closed the space between us until I was inches away and staring up at him. "But you knew," I said. Jasper didn't look away, but he rolled his shoulders back. Uncertainty danced between us, all from him. Why? "I think you knew the moment we met. How did you know? Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were human," he said. It proved me right. But he didn't answer my first question. I hoped he could feel my annoyance bubbling up. "You didn't understand. You couldn't have."

"You never gave me the chance," I hissed.

"I didn't want to," he replied. Something soft vibrated behind his words, almost like a growl. When it buffeted against me, it stung.

Rejection.

Jasper felt it too. The hard expression on his face cracked in half, and something softer met me. He reached out for me, and held the side of my face in his hand. It eased the pain coiling inside. "You had your friends, your family, your dreams. You had a life. When I felt how much you loved it, I couldn't take it from you. I didn't want anyone else to, either."

"Was that what was inevitable?" I asked. "Me becoming… this?"

"Yes." The word was strained with the desperation he felt. "And so were we."

My eyes widened.

"Alice saw it," he explained. "She saw it when we were together, and more when we met the Cullens. Because we were closing in. She saw you, Blaire, as a vampire… and who you were to me."

Sheer relief tore his desperation apart. I was swimming in the sensation of it as Jasper cupped the other side of my face with his other hand. He leaned down and pressed his forehead against mine. I closed my eyes as a lighthearted joy threatened to make me float. I gripped his wrists just to keep myself tethered to the ground.

"I wanted to tell you so many times, darlin'," he murmured, so quiet, wracked with emotion after emotion that lapped against me like waves. So desperate again, pleading, begging me to understand. "But… I couldn't. You were so afraid. You had every right for it, too, and with that bastard forcing you in a corner…"

The rage in his words and emotions shook me, but I was trembling for a much different reason.

"I didn't want to do the same," he went on. "I couldn't put that on you. I would've rathered be anything you needed, just so I could have a reason to stay by your side. I thought that was all I'd have, but then, at the airport…"

The memories were so muddled. I cursed the transformation for making them so difficult to access. I could only remember the bravery that came with kissing him on the cheek, vaguely saying, I'm trying to say it like I'm saying hello.

Because when I was human, I realized what I'd wanted. And I never thought I'd get another chance.

But I had it now.

I rocked to the tips of my toes, holding Jasper's wrists tight, and pressed my lips against his.

V

Lol if you thought I was gonna stop there, you're dead wrong. The next chapter will have the rest of the kiss scene.

Because I am the thirstiest. And Blasper is the most established couple in all of the slow-burn romances I'm writing rn. So... yeah. I'm hoping to have that chapter up next week!

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