-MAISIE-


Rudely, no one told me that Bella Swan would be at Gunner's fish fry. I guess it should have been a given. Charlie was her father, after all, and it would only make sense that she would be spending time with him if she were visiting on her college break.

Still, I wasn't prepared to see her standing in the Clearwater kitchen next to Charlie, helping him roll fish in breading.

"Hey, Maisie." Charlie, unlike his daughter, was all easy smiles. I squeezed past them, quickly sliding the pasta salad I had made into the fridge. Bella looked up at the sound of my name, that petulant pout she was so good at forming on her full lips.

"Hi, Charlie. Hi, Bella. I didn't know you were home." My word choice got to her, lips deepening in their pout.

"I wanted to make sure Charlie hadn't regressed to eating three meals a day at the diner," she quipped. "I guess Sue's kept him from that, though."

Charlie flicked his breading covered fingers at his daughter. It occurred to me just then that Gunner would likely have Bella as a sister-in-law one day. Oh, bless him.

I laughed, unsure how else to respond, and secretly cursed my brother for letting me walk into the kitchen blind like that. He just had to stop in the living room, pointing to cards over Seth's shoulder to help Ava win the game of Old Maid he was playing with her.

Backtracking through the house, I went right up to Leah's room. Sue had told us she was upstairs when we arrived, wrapping a last-minute present Charlie had brought for Gunner.

"Hello, I'm offended." I told her when I slipped through her bedroom door. "Nobody told me Bella-freaking-Swan would be here."

Leah didn't pause in her work, fluffing the tissue paper in the gift bag sitting on her desk. She had the decency to roll her eyes, validating my own annoyance. "I didn't know either. She just got in today, apparently."

"I didn't think she would have the balls to come back, not to La Push at least. I thought she took her and Jacob breaking up pretty hard."

The look on Leah's face told me all I needed to know. "They've been talking again. Remember, pretty much no secrets when all connected in wolf form. Coming to visit Charlie is just a convenient excuse to be here again."

Wait, Charlie will be Gunner's father-in-law. Charlie. The man who responded to the break in call when James was terrorizing my family, the officer who good-naturedly broke up parties in high school when we got too loud. He never gave us minor in possession charges even though he must have known we were drinking at those parties.

What a bunch of wild things I was neglecting to think of because I was so focused on the Volturi. Leah passed Charlie's gift to me to carry downstairs. She had her own gift for Gunner, I realized. "Y'all spoil this boy too much. He got graduation presents, like, a month ago."

"Yeah, but these are for his apartment."

"It better be a recipe book with illustrated instructions, because I've only ever seen Gunner make pizza rolls in the microwave."

These fish fries, I soon figured out, were a Clearwater tradition that Gunner was now a part of. From the stories Sue and Charlie were telling, it was obvious that these fish fries happened anytime there was a call for celebration.

Ava was monopolizing Seth's attention, shiny new plaything that he was for her, which took two people out of the conversation pool. My parents, ever polite, kept asking Bella questions about her life in Arizona, pulling me in alongside. I wasn't thrilled about that.

"What are you studying?" Dad asked. "Maisie Daisy here still hasn't declared a major."

"I might declare the wrong one and then change it three times before I graduate, like Mom," I countered, making my mom shake her head.

"Better sure than sorry, truly. I started on a veterinary track before I realized I couldn't handle the blood. Then I tried my hand at English, but my love of harlequin romance didn't really translate well. I fell into teaching by accident, but I've loved every second of it."

Bella, never one to enjoy any kind of spotlight, squirmed under my parents' attention. The blush crept into her pale cheeks and I wondered vaguely what it was about her blood that used to call to Edward. "I'm studying English, actually. I like it."

"I just want to play with animals all day," I threw in when the pause grew so long it was obvious Bella wasn't going to add anything else. "I just don't know how to make that into a career."

Animals won't like me if I'm a vampire, was the full truth. I had seen the way that animals shied away from the Cullens, knowing instinctively that they were more dangerous to them than humans. Only Honeybun, our elderly family dog, had ever showed interest in the Cullens, but Honeybun loved everybody.

"You mean they don't shell out the big bucks for people who hang out with penguins all day? Shocking." I flicked Gunner for that one.

"There's no penguins in Alaska. Most of them live in the Arctic Circle."

"Okay, Steve Irwin."

Gunner opened his gifts—one of which was a cookbook, from Charlie—and everyone at fish while I stuck to my vow to only eat pasta salad and dessert. If my days of eating human food were numbered, then I figured pasta and cheesecake was as good a dinner as any.

Our parents exhausted their questions on Bella over dinner. Leah brought down her old toys to keep Ava entertained, and she forgot about us entirely once she had a whole doll house at her disposal. Not even Seth was allowed to play anymore, leaving him drumming his fingers on the side table. Seth was a ball of energy, even more so than most teenage boys.

"Let's go down to the beach." He only lasted five minutes without food or Ava to hold his attention. "We can play volleyball."

The suggestion made Charlie burst into laughter. "I would pay to see Bells play volleyball. I've heard some horror stories from her high school gym days."

Another blush bloomed in her cheeks as Bella rolled her eyes at her dad. "Bella can keep score. Think you can keep up with us, Gunner?"

Seth quirked his eyebrow dramatically. Any teasing at Gunner's expense was not something I was going to pass up. "If he's on my team, he just might stand a chance. Let's go."

The Clearwater house was not far from the beach, only a short hike. Seth grabbed a volleyball from a pile of mismatched sports equipment on their covered porch. "I would say we should race, but I'm not into easy pickings."

"What he means to say is that he doesn't want to get smoked and embarrassed with an audience around." Leah slapped the volleyball out of her brother's hand. It bounced dully against the grass before she caught it. Her taunt was enough to spur Seth into action. He took off in a head start before Leah could toss the ball at me and follow suit.

I had fallen in step with Gunner and Bella, keeping pace with them as we picked our way behind the Clearwaters. The sun was setting behind us, turning Gunner's hair into flames and even bringing out some red in Bella's dark hair. She was on my left, though she seemed happy enough to accompany us to the beach.

"Do you ever get tired watching those two?" I asked, Leah and Seth becoming smaller and smaller specks in the distance. Seth was almost too easy with his true nature around those who didn't know better—such as Charlie or my parents. He reminded me almost of Emmett and Alice, who were both more comfortable in their vampiric tendencies than the rest of their family.

"They're exhausting together," Gunner admitted. Beside me, Bella gave a snort of a laugh.

"So are you two. It's probably a sibling thing." Besides that quip, Bella was largely silent. By the time we reached the beach, Leah and Seth were there arguing over who would be on teams together.

"You would do your boyfriend dirty like that?" Seth was shaking his head. "At least give him a chance."

Throwing the ball into the air, I spiked it toward Seth's head. "Better not be talking smack, wolf boy."

He deflected the ball easily, smacking it away before it could hit his face. A teasing smile spread across his face. "Actually, I want Gunner on my team. You've got the power, but none of the height, vampire girl."

Bella sucked her breath in at that. I had forgotten her…apprehension, curiosity, jealousy…whatever it was that she felt toward the Cullens, the only vampires she had encountered. I looked over my shoulder, fixing her with a look. "Are you gonna keep score or no?"

She gave a glance back at the path we had taken. I guess just the word vampire had been enough to unsettle her. Then her chin jutted out like it was a challenge she was meeting. "I'll keep score."

Bella sat on a hunk of driftwood while we paired up for the game. Seth got his way, and Gunner ducked under the tent to his side of the 'court'. I tossed the ball up to serve, sending it sailing over the net. "Will you spike that into your brother's face for me?"

"You wish!" Seth parried my serve back to us easily, aiming straight for me. I had lunge to get the ball before it hit the sand. I sent it toward Gunner, hoping my brother's humanity would win us a point. Color me surprised, though, when he sent it back with proper form and everything.

"Gun, what the hell! You don't even play sports!" I would have been equally as surprised if Bella had hit the ball as easily as Gunner just did. Seth and Leah were both laughing, parrying the ball back and forth between each other for a bit.

"All the pack does is play." Gunner actually dove for one of my hits, barely saving it from becoming a point for me and Leah. He didn't hit it hard enough to go over, but just enough for Seth to spike it over. "I had to adapt."

We lapsed into an intense game of blocks and hits and spikes. The points came slow and grudgingly from either side, but true to her word, Bella called out updated numbers each time someone was able to scrape the score forward. When I chanced a look over at her, sitting there on her driftwood log, Bella was actually smiling.

And across the net, Seth was laughing, dark eyes shining when he lifted Gunner off his feet in celebration of their latest point. Leah was fighting to keep a smile off her face as she watched them. I plucked the ball from where it had landed in the sand, tossing it to Leah for her serve. We carried on our game for a while, but having the siblings split on opposite sides was probably not one of Seth's best ideas.

I already knew that me and Gunner were competitive with each other to the extreme, but I found out that Leah and Seth were very much the same. Bella was the only one smiling now, watching us go to the lengths we were to try to get an upper hand on the other team. At one point, I set Leah up for what could have been a glorious spike. Leah went for it, but with way too much power behind her hand. It sailed over Gunner and Seth's heads, far out of their reach, and sailed until it hit the ground to roll into the shallows of the tide coming in.

"Go get it, Maisie!" Seth was all smiles again at our flub. "See, neither of you can spike."

I rolled my eyes, giving Seth a little push as I went by to retrieve the ball. It bobbed in the shallow water, shining white in the gathering darkness. Soon it will be too dark for us to play. Gunner wouldn't be able to see, and neither would Bella. Was it anger or sadness that I felt jot through me at that thought? Maybe a little of both. I stepped into the tiny waves for the ball, cold seawater washing over my ankles.

I can't even put myself in the same category as other humans anymore.

Perhaps it was the chilliness of the water, or my distracted, self-pitying thoughts. Either way, I didn't notice the cold fingers that wrapped themselves around my ankle until they pulled me under.

Through the roar of the water rushing over my head, I heard Bella's scream. The beach sand under the water was soft, cushioning my fall, but it plumed around me and clouded the water. It wasn't until I saw the red glow of a pair of eyes cut through the cloudiness right in front of my face that I realized this wasn't an unfortunate riptide.

Under the water, I could hear nothing but the waves and the pounding of my heart. A primal fear inside me screamed Maria at the sight of the red eyes, but I knew that wasn't right. Maria was dead, Jasper had made sure of that himself. It didn't fit, the red eyes didn't fit, but it couldn't be anyone else than Irina.

Right?

There was no time to waste trying to consider the identity of the person. After one kick, I realized that this course would do me no good. The water made it hard to get any power behind my movement, slowing me enough for the attacker to dodge. I reached down instead, grabbing the wrist that held my ankle in my own hand. I tightened my fingers, squeezing even as I felt the hardened skin beneath my own begin to crack and prick at my palm. No, I wasn't going to stop until that hand was severed from the arm.

Venom began to make the water murky in milky streams. My chest tightened, from adrenaline and lack of oxygen, I was sure. A twist of my wrist, and a muffled crack, and the hand was dislodged. That didn't stop the cold fingers from clinging to my ankle, but it did give me the opportunity to kick away from the vampire and make for the surface.

I took a gasping breath, salty water burning in my eyes as I tried to find the shore. When I had been dragged, it was several meters; my feet were nowhere near touching the sand below me. Blurrily, I spotted all four of them standing in the shallows, trying to figure out where I was. "Leah!"

At the sound of my voice, Leah ran and then dove into deeper water immediately. No, my brain screamed. No, no, don't come like this. I couldn't get the words from my mouth. That cold hand still clung to my ankle, sluggishly making its way upward along my calf. Jasper never told me severed vampire limbs could still move.

I tried to swim, to get away from the vampire and closer to Leah, but I had only taken one hand. Two strokes in, I was pulled down again, this time much harder. Down, down, down, several feet until I felt my face slam into something hard. My nose broke on the impact, my blood blooming in the water. I gasped on reflex of the pain, seawater flooding my mouth.

I was released again, the cold hand now gone from my knee. My head felt light from my broken nose and the water I had swallowed, but I made myself try to swim up. Or was it down? I couldn't tell. My chest hurt again. Blood was still streaming from my face, making it even harder to see in the dark water. A whole arm wrapped itself around me, this time fever-hot. Leah.

Leah pulled me to the surface again. I spit out what was left of the water. I was begging immediately. "We have to get out of the water. Right now! We have to get out of the water!"

"Vampire?" was her only question. We were swimming away before I could even nod. Ripping the hand off bought us time, I supposed—just enough that we made it to shore, where I coughed up what was left of the seawater before I could elaborate.

"I think it's Irina," I said, pushing sopping wet strands of hair off my face. My hands came away red. "Gunner, take Bella and get out of here."

The hand stunt bought us only enough time to get to shore. Before Gunner could even react to my words, there was Irina herself, pulling herself from the sea. "They'll be staying."

I was right, her eyes were the shocking red of a vampire freshly fed on human blood. The ripping sound of Leah and Seth's shifting didn't throw her at all; even as two massive wolves now flanked us, Irina didn't stop her beeline for us.

"I've watched before," she said. "I know these two. The only she-wolf in the pack and a young pup."

Gunner would be a faster runner, I was certain. Bella was likely to fall down, given her track history. Plus, my brother wasn't as bone-white with fear as Bella was in the rising moonlight.

"Go!" I told Gunner, pushing him behind us. "Run and get Sam and the others!"

My decision banked on the assumption that Irina was alone, but I had already hedged my bets there. She had been alone when she stalked the edges of the territory, alone when she ran to the Volturi, alone as she attacked me in the water. I pushed Gunner again, spurring him to action. Behind me, there was a terrible crash and a loud whine, causing Bella to start to shake.

I took her arm, warning her, "Stay on your feet." We were not on a secluded section of the beach by any means. The fight would be loud, I knew, and loud drew attention. Pulling Bella along, an idea suddenly came to me.

"We're going to the woods," I told her. "Just over there."

I stopped only to pick up a piece of fortuitous sea glass nestled in the sand. Bella was slow and lurching in her run, but we made it to the tree line unfollowed.

"Jacob's told you the Cold Ones story, right?" Her eyes were huge, dark saucers of fear in her white face, but she nodded. "Listen to me. We have to get her off the beach. I need you to do something without questioning it."

I pressed the sharp sea glass into her hand. She looked down at it, pale green even in the moonlight, before raising her panicked eyes to meet mine. "Just your palm. Do it, Bella."

"She'll come for me." She protested, her voice breaking over the words. I grabbed her face between my hands, my blood smearing across her cheeks.

"I won't let her near you," I promised. "But we need to draw her over here."

Another wolf cry of pain punctuated my words. "Bella, you have to. I'm already bleeding, and she doesn't care. She'll come for you I know she will. I'll keep you safe, just trust me."

She nodded, though I was certain she didn't believe me. Then she drew the sharp edge of the sea glass along her palm, drawing a red line of fresh blood. What I didn't expect was the tug that line of red drew from me. My stomach roiled at the sight—not from queasiness over blood or disgust. From hunger.

I pulled a strand of my salt water-soaked hair across my nose and mouth, taking a shaking breath. The brine helped steady me, and I turned away so I didn't have to see the blood. Instead, I faced the imagine of Irina becoming a streak of blonde hair and white skin as she, too, caught onto the scent of Bella's blood.

Irina beat Seth and Leah to the trees. I blocked her advance, her body slamming into me at full speed. Her impact knocked me from my feet. I hit the ground on my back, clinging desperately to Irina's arms and clothing to keep her with me, away from Bella.

"Leave her!" I screamed at Irina, grabbing her face and slamming her head against a huge tree near us. The tree splintered more than her skin, but I would take what I could get. Creaking, skin split along her cheek and around her eye. She smiled at me, red eyes seeming to glow in the night. "You didn't come for her; you came for me."

"You're right." Her wicked smile widened as she threw her weight on me, pinning me to the ground. Roughly, she pushed my chin up. I realized, dumbly, that she had the time to reattach her hand. I felt her nails scratch across my skin as she exposed my neck. Her cold breath washed over me, and I closed my eyes against what was coming for me.

Suddenly her weight was gone, air flooding back into my lungs. Seth had reached us first; between his legs I could see Leah limp toward us. She settled herself before Bella, emitting a warning growl to the distance before licking at a bleeding wound on her front leg.

I shimmied out from under Seth, rolling onto my feet. "It's us against her, I guess."

He let me use his huge shoulder to pull myself up, his coarse fur sinking under my palm. She came streaking back to us only for Seth to throw her again—this time, a whole arm remained in his jaws, the venom streaking down his chin and throat. I ran forward as Seth tossed the limb back to his sister. He had only thrown Irina a few feet, but Seth had the good aim to slam her against a boulder jutting from a small hill.

As I got closer, I could hear the eerie creaking sound of her skin cracking and healing itself. I wouldn't give it time to heal, I decided. Though she was crouching, Irina grabbed at my arm with the one she had left. She tried to get my hand close enough to bite, but instead I grabbed hold of her hair. Using all my strength, I slammed her head back against the bolder.

The ensuing sound made me shiver, the creaking and crunching of her skin and bones giving way at the same time the rock did. But when I saw one red eye pop from its socket, I gagged. Still, Irina could see her opportunity, and she took it. The stub Seth had left her with ended somewhere between her shoulder and elbow, dripping the venom that made up a vampire's body fluids.

While my mouth was still open, her hand latched onto my jaw, fingers digging into my skin. I couldn't have gotten my mouth closed if I had time to try. Irina used her stub of an arm to drip the venom into my mouth. The acidic taste of it mixed with my blood, still filling my mouth from my nose. She forced my mouth shut herself, clenching her hand over my lips. "Swallow."

I did as I was bid, knowing full well I could be sealing my fate. She knew it, too. When she smiled, her ruined cheek mirrored the grin with bare teeth. Seconds later, Seth was on her, but her victory must have given her a second wind. This time, she threw him… so far that he slammed into Leah, and they narrowly missed hitting Bella full on. Luckily, Bella had thrown herself down and away, but Leah still accidentally landed a foot squarely on Bella's leg in the impact.

Her scream of pain mixed with the keening of the wolf siblings.

The venom had burned a path down my throat to my stomach. I could feel it there, hot as embers, that breath of fire spreading from my middle outward through my body. But this wasn't over. I pushed myself up fully.

"You'll die tonight," I promised Irina.

"And you'll come with me." The spreading fever flush made me aware of my injuries. The pounding in my head from the broken nose, the sting of various scrapes and the dull throb of rising bruises. I barely got my arms up to block Irina's attack, her nails carving into my skin to raise yet more blood.

She was right, I would have gone with her. I had no doubts about that, but my salvation came in the form of a colossal black wolf, so inky only his yellows eyes showed in the night over Irina's head. That is, until he opened his jaws to show massive white teeth.

I slid to the ground, back against the bolder, and watched Sam take hold of Irina's head in his mouth. Another wolf—Jacob, chocolate brown, nearly as large as his Alpha—took a leg. Together, with a terrible tearing sound, they made quick work of reducing the vampire to pieces.


A/N: To neverlands-star: Thank you for your kind words! Myself and my family are doing well despite the craziness COVID-19 has brought with it. I hope that all of you can say the same. Stay safe and healthy out there, y'all. A positive (hard to find these days, I know) is that I've been able to catch up on homework and writing work alike. I hope to see y'all again before the next two weeks of our three week closure is over.

I hope you were surprised by this turn of events. The idea for this chapter specifically is what majorly inspired me to write a sequel to Preciosa. I'm so excited to finally have it out for all of you to read!

A fun fact to leave y'all with: Any time I write action-packed scenes for Maisie, I listen to Woman King, by Iron and Wine. I feel like the song is really befitting of our girl.