Warmth. Comfort. Peace.
Home.
This is it. Home- he knows it.
From her soft cooing to her intoxicating scent, this gentle creature holding him is… what is she? His? His what? He doesn't know.
All he knows, what little of it that there is, is that she brings his wild, untamable mind to rest- and that must make her important, whatever she is.
When she falls limp against him, he holds her even closer. Pressing his cheek against her own, he wonders if it would be alright if he just… would she mind? Of course she would… wouldn't she? Does she? Does she even know? Of the blood… death… screams and crying and pleas for mercy and the blood the blood the blood-
Would she mind?
Ever so gently, he maneuvers her so that she rests fully against him. With one arm cradling her against him, he slowly raises his hand before hesitating. She'd be angry, just like the other one. But what if she isn't?
She certainly doesn't smell like the other. Not of blood, but of a flower. Not of rage and terror-inducing, mind-numbing fury, but of fresh rainwater and a gentle breeze.
She wouldn't mind.
Closing his eyes and bracing himself for her rage, for the pain, he ever so slowly threads his fingers through her hair.
She doesn't snarl. She doesn't bite or growl or tear her claws into him…
Instead, this gentle girl sighs softly and burrows even closer to him, grabbing loose fistfuls of his shirt.
What a marvel, this girl.
He is delightfully surprised to discover that her hair is like silk. Soft and wavy and cascading through his fingers as he, for all intents and purposes, pets her.
He imagines he could continue on for the rest of the night, for as long as she'd allow him. But the man standing at the doorway seems displeased and, for the moment, he halts his ministrations.
The man snarls and growls… just like she used to. This stranger radiates with fury, trembles with it.
Just like her just like her just like her would he hurt her?
Slowly, he turns so his body is between this girl and the male.
Unbidden, his lips peel back from his teeth and he finds a primal, animalistic sounds ripping from his throat.
The soft pressure that had been cradling her before begins to increase. It tightens and tightens to the point that she can't breathe.
Waking with a gasp, Bella struggles instinctively against the force crushing the breath from her lungs.
"Bella, stop!"
Edward? He sounds so frightened, so worried.
Terror floods her veins, for what could make a vampire scared? So she stops struggling, even though she can't breathe, and forces herself to take in the scene around her.
It's the stranger from before. Had she fallen asleep against him? He has her face pressed against his neck, hiding her from Edward's sight. He looks… utterly ferocious, animalistic, with his face creased in fury and his teeth on full display, eyes black as night.
Her lungs are quivering now, begging for oxygen. She tries to raise her arms but they are crushed between her body and his.
This man… no, he's more animal than man. Shouldn't she reason with him as such?
Forcing herself to go limp in his grasp, she does the only thing she is capable of. Clearing her mind of the panic, she whimpers so softly that a human wouldn't have heard.
But he is no human, and his eyes immediately flicker towards her own. Though he doesn't tear his gaze from presumably Edward, his grasp loosens instantaneously.
She sucks in lungful after lungful of air, tears forming in the corners of her eyes as her throat stings ferociously.
"Edward?" she whispers hoarsely.
"Don't struggle or he'll attack. Just be calm, Bella."
"What do I do?" she whispers, being mindful of not allowing her fear to tense her muscles. Gone is the quiet, gentle man. In his place is a snarling vampire. A feral.
His growls vibrate against her, makes her body radiate with his own energy.
"Bella."
She nearly sobs when she hears Carlisle's soft, self-assured voice. He's beside Edward, one of his hands raised in supplementation.
"You need to be calm; we'll get you out of this. Just be calm. Jasper? Jasper, can you understand me?"
Who is Jasper?
Carlisle continues. "Jasper, I know it's hard. Nothing makes sense right now, but you have to let go of Bella. She's just a human, your strength is too much for her. You could kill her."
Jasper must be the man holding her, then. Distantly, she thinks it suits him. Though now is not the time to be thinking of things so trivial… But then again, now that her earlier wake-up scare is fading, she finds that with each slow breath, she calms more and more.
"Carlisle?" she whispers, reluctant to raise her voice.
"We're right here, Bella."
"I… I think it's best if you and Edward leave the house."
"Like hell-" Edward snarls, though he is immediately interrupted by the ferocious roar that comes from Jasper.
It takes a moment to unscramble her brain from the nearly concussive sound, realizing she'd gone utterly limp during it all. So long had she been around vampires with near perfect control that she'd been lulled into a complacency around them. She'd forgotten of their fearsome strength, of the fact that they could break her in two with just one arm. It should terrify her. It really should.
"Jasper," she murmurs, and it was as if a light switch had been flipped. He quiets and drops his head though maintains a steady stare-down on the other two vampires.
"See?" she says in just as quiet a voice. "He's calm around me. I think he trusts me- he knows I can't hurt him. You two need to leave- he'll settle down without two threats staring him down."
Carlisle is obviously hesitant in his reply. "I don't think that's our best course of action…"
"There is absolutely no way we are leaving you here with it," Edward cuts in, though this time he is more mindful of his voice.
"Do you have a better idea?" she challenges. Jasper readjusts his grip on her, his fingers flexing against her. Almost instinctively, she drops her head against his neck and sighs, letting her breath ghost across his skin. "Please, Edward."
The silence that follows suggests a conversation carried on, too low and fast for her human ears to register.
Carlisle speaks again, his voice just as smooth and precise as before. The voice of a doctor, a man in control. "Alright, Bella. Alice is outside. She says it will work. Once we leave, you are to do whatever it takes to get him to let go of you. Do you understand?"
"Yes," she nods against Jasper.
"I'm right outside, Bella," Edward reminds her.
She closes her eyes as the only two capable of saving her leave the house.
"Jasper," she murmurs into the utter silence, opening her eyes once more to stare up at him. His face has relaxed, though he still stares at the closed door with an intensity that makes her swallow. "Jasper," she tries again.
This time, he does look down. His eyes are still black, still creased in worry.
"It's ok…" she soothes, struggling to make enough room so that she might raise her hand. He seems reluctant of the distance, however, and makes sure that there isn't even a millimeter between their chests.
Her voice drops to convey how utterly serious she means her next words. "I won't let them hurt you," she promises soberly. "They won't lay a hand on you." What right does she have to make such empty promises? A human promising to protect a vampire? It's almost laughable. But she means it with every fiber of her being.
His eyes are so somber that her heart aches. What has this man been through to have such sad eyes? It makes her want to wrap him up and hide him away. But for now, they must address the coven anxiously waiting for her outside.
"You need to let me go," she murmurs, beginning to struggle lightly.
A crease forms between his brow and she can't help but wonder how much he truly understands. Is he beyond all form of basic human speech?
"Jasper," she says, louder this time.
He jerks against her, his eyes snapping to her lips and back up to her eyes. "You need to let me go."
"Go?"
His voice. It's like drizzled honey, smooth and low and intoxicating. She shivers in his grips, feels an embarrassing twinge in her lower stomach, made all the more embarrassing by the quiver of his nose and the widening of his pupils. Gods… can he… can he smell her?
Mortified, she begins her struggle anew and he immediately lets her go as if touching her burnt him, leaving her sprawled along the floor.
She watches as he backs away, behaving as if she is the creature capable of tearing him limb from limb.
All of a sudden, a blur shoots forth from the corner of her vision. A chorus of ferocious, blood-chilling noises follow, then she is left in the living room all alone.
…what the hell?
Grabbing the feral by his neck, Edward hauls him out of the door before he can lay one more hand on his Bella.
This creature. It was time to end it. Alice had her fun, but it was time to stop trusting in her little visions and start acting.
His hands are on either side of the feral's head when it contorts its body, hunching into itself and bucking Edward from it like a bull. Edward lands on his feet a long distance away and roars his challenge.
The feral responds in kind but is cut short when Emmett suddenly grabs it, wrapping both arms around its neck in a sleeper hold.
It bucks and screeches and roars but, in such a weak state, it has no chance of upending their strongest member.
"Time to calm down, buddy," Emmett growls.
Sudden flashes of bloodied corpses, thousands in number, each with frozen faces of terror. The visions are enough to make Edward fall to his knees.
"Edward?" Carlisle asks, hesitating between the struggling feral and his disturbed son.
"Get that thing away from me," Edward snarls, holding his head. "Its mind is the foulest thing I've ever witnessed." He pauses to gag. "There's no good left in it. End it, Emmett!" he demands. "End it!"
Alice's scent invades his nose as she comes close, wrapping her arm around his shoulders as he trembles. "Edward-" she tries to say, but he shoves her away.
"Get off! Emmett!"
The feral is going berserk, twisting and writhing and trying every trick in the book to get away.
It finally resorts to yelling, as it had in the woods.
"Get off!" it screams. "Get off, get off, get off!" If their kind could cry, he'd imagine the feral would be sobbing. Never had he seen one so far gone as this. It was saddening in a way. But more than anything, it sickened him. Edward wanted it gone from his sight, and as far away from Bella as possible. Just the image of it curled around her vulnerable, delicate form… he shudders.
And then she appears, like an angel of fury. Her brunette locks whip behind her as she stumbles outside, her expression nearly as thunderous as the feral's. "What the hell are you doing to him?" she demands, rushing toward Emmett as if she had the strength to break his hold.
Edward grabs her before she gets too close, hauling her back.
If possible, the feral goes even more berserk, managing to whip around and dig his fangs into Emmett's arm. "Fuck," he hisses. "Rose." She's by his side in an instant, attempting to subdue the creature. It takes both Alice and Carlisle to keep it in hand.
Bella herself is throwing a fit in his arms. "Can't you see you're hurting him?!" she demands, snarling as pathetically as a kitten. He would have laughed if her safety wasn't at stake.
"Bella, love. We need to go inside."
"He's scared," she yells ferociously, as alive as he'd ever seen the normally timid girl. "He's just scared. Carlisle! Alice, please." But already they are hauling the enraged feral away, back into the woods and to their house. "Please," she whispers as they vanish from her sight without a hint to suggest they'd been there in the first place. Tears beginning to cascade down her cheeks.
It hurts him to see her so sad. And over that creature, no less. He pulls her inside despite her struggles and protests and forces her head under his chin as he wraps her in a hug and inhales her delectable, mouth-watering scent.
She trembles against him and he realizes she is still crying, now sobbing silently.
"He's just scared," she whispers. "He's just scared."
I'm absolutely speechless over the amount of support this fic has gotten! Each one of your reviews brings a smile to my face! I am not worthy!
The mystery deepens! What happened to Jasper? Why is Edward such a d-bag? When will Jasper and Bella bang? The questions will never cease!
Sorry I haven't updated sooner; the reason is currently purring on top of my chest (7 week old kitten oh lawd somebody help me... his name is Dexter ;)... )