You have my betas, Whitlocked & Angelz111457 to thank for the super quick update this time!

Also my co-bloggers over at Twi-sted Edbrella, Nikki & Dani, for their suggestions, willing ears and encouragement.

We finished the last chapter on a bit of a cliffhanger ;o)

What happened next? Read on!

Disclaimer: The characters & back story are owned by Stephenie Meyer, no copyright infringement intended.

Chapter 18

Jake PoV

For the entire drive over to Rosalie & Emmett's house, I had been trying to hold myself together. My emotions were all over the place. One minute I was so angry that I couldn't wait to get there to tear Nahuel apart, the next I was fighting back tears as I thought about Nessie and what she was putting me through. All I'd ever lived for since the day she was born was to love her whole-heartedly. What the hell had I done to deserve this? Imprinting was supposed to make everything simpler; at least it had been for everybody else I'd ever known who'd imprinted.

I gripped the bike so hard that at one point I felt the metal move slightly under the rubber-grip handles. I tried to force myself to relax a little to try and relieve the headache that I was now suffering from. I wasn't sure if it was caused by the stress of the situation or my brow being furrowed while I searched for a satisfactory solution to all of this.

I knew that if it was anyone other than Nessie putting me through this, I'd be closing the door on it all without another moment's thought. If there was one thing that I hated it was deceit. Things had been tough with Bella, but at least she'd always been honest with me about her feelings for Edward. I'd never complained about it, but my life had never been easy from the time my mom died. First that, then my dad wound up in a wheelchair, the whole Bella & Edward thing, and finding out I was a shape-shifter. Nothing had gone right for me at all. Until the day that Nessie was born. Suddenly the whole world shifted and everything fell into place. The years since then had been a hell of a lot better; everything had been good since Nessie had been in my life. Finally the smile on my face had a good reason to be there.

As I turned into the long driveway to the house, the adrenaline surged and my heart rate picked up. As I parked my bike up, I noticed that the only cars here belonged to Rosalie & Emmett. My eyes narrowed as I wondered whether Nessie & him were out or if they'd been brought here together. I guessed I was about to find out.

I let myself in through the front door; I was so pissed at everyone that I didn't care enough to ring the doorbell and wait. Rosalie was standing like a statue in the living room at the end of the hallway, her eyes already fixed on the door as I entered. Of course she'd have heard me arrive on my bike. My nose wrinkled; no matter how many times I visited, I still couldn't get used to the gross vampire smell.

Rose walked to meet me as I started along the hallway.

"Jake." Her voice was filled with relief as she spoke my name. "I don't know whether to hug you or hit you." She sounded sterner now, and the challenging expression that she regarded me with riled me.

"Careful Rosalie, I'm not having the same dilemma," I warned her as I put my hand on her upper arm and pushed her to one side. I stepped past her, my eyes scanning the space. I turned back to face Rosalie. "Where are they?" The longer I stood there, the angrier I became. My hands were in fists at my side and my whole body felt coiled and ready to strike, trembling slightly as I kept my instinct to phase under control.

Rose regarded me for a moment before she spoke.

"They're upstairs."

I took off toward the staircase and began to run up the stairs two at a time. Suddenly Rose called out after me.

"Jake! She knows."

I froze and then turned slowly.

"Knows what?" I asked quietly. My heart was hammering harder than ever now. From Rose's odd behaviour, I thought I could probably guess what she was talking about. I willed myself to be wrong; if Rosalie meant what I thought she meant, this was going to be bad.

"She knows about you and Bella."

Although I'd guessed as much, hearing her speak the words aloud still made me feel as though the breath had been knocked out of me. My eyes locked with Rosalie's and I could feel the terrified expression that had fixed itself on my face.

"No."

I was in denial. I'd often wondered what would happen if Ness ever found out that I'd once been in love with her mother. I'd never been able to settle on an answer to this, but I'd known it wouldn't be pretty.

"She heard me on the phone, Jake," Rose explained.

I shook my head as I tried to process everything. I needed to speak to her now, to try and at least explain this too her; I couldn't even begin to imagine how she'd be feeling about it. Rosalie was speaking again now, her voice angry. "I said all along it was wrong to keep this from her, she should have known from the start…" I could hear her voice but wasn't registering her words.

"Shit!" I spat out. My head was a lot clearer now and I turned again and started up the stairs again. I raced along to the bedroom that Nessie and I always shared when we stayed here. The door was closed and I paused to take a deep breath, my fingers wrapped around the handle as I prepared to confront the onslaught that I knew I was bound to face on the other side. In the quiet I heard something that made my heart stutter in my chest and a wave of cold feeling pass through my body. It was a quiet moan of ecstasy and I knew exactly whose lips it had slipped from. I slowly pressed down on the handle, not wanting to see what was on the other side of the door, but being driven on by some masochistic urge.

I pushed the door open silently and took in the scene before me. My vision blurred and all I could focus on was Nessie, lying virtually half naked, eyes closed and neck extended, while somebody else kissed it.

"Nessie," I whispered, not realising that I'd spoken out loud until her eyes opened and her head turned quickly to look at me. I watched as her eyes opened wide, then a look of panic, quickly followed by guilt crossed her face. She was trying frantically to move now, to sit up. My eyes focused again and I took in the scene fully. The person who had been kissing her neck was lying on top of her – it was him. I fought back the urge to phase, but rocked back slightly, ready to throw myself forward at him. Before I could move an inch, a steel ring clamped round me, pinning my arms to my side.

"Hey! Jake, man, calm it!" Emmett's voice was right next to my ear and I realised that it was his arms that were restraining me. I struggled against him, my eyes never leaving the bed where he had moved from on top of Nessie and pushed her back, behind him. He knelt on the bed, bare-chested, his brown skin covering well-defined muscles, while she retrieved her t-shirt and pulled it back on. He backed away across the bed, keeping Nessie tucked behind him until he was standing up at the other side. She held onto his arms for support as she peered around his body cautiously. I'd never seen her look scared of me before, and through my anger I felt a pang of guilt for making her feel this way. Nessie's appearance had shocked me enough to make me realise that I needed to calm down, when Rosalie strode in past me. She tossed a set of keys through the air and his hand reached up and snatched them from the air.

"Nahuel, go."

He shook his head defiantly, his eyes narrowed with disdain, as they remained fixed on mine.

"No," he snarled. "I'm not leaving her here with him like this."

The red hot anger surged forcefully through me again at his suggestion that I'd ever be a risk to Nessie. I started struggling against Emmett's iron grip, desperate to get hold of him and show him exactly what I was capable of.

"Rose!" Emmett gasped. "I can't hold him much longer!"

Rosalie turned, her eyes wide as she registered the fact that the anger-induced adrenaline surging through my body had given me enough extra power to match Emmett's incredible strength. She spun quickly back to Nahuel and spoke again, her voice urgent and stern.

"We wouldn't let him hurt her, Nahuel, but if you don't leave now and give him chance to calm down, we might not be able to keep her safe."

He eyed me angrily for a moment longer, and then he pulled Nessie around from behind him, to his side. He bent and whispered something to her and she looked up at him and nodded. I watched as he bent and kissed the top of her head. My head felt like it might explode with the rage that I was desperate to vent. I began to tremble violently, as the urge to phase into a wolf began to break through all of the carefully constructed barriers of control that I'd worked on over the years. I tried to focus but everything was becoming blurry.

"Rose!" Emmett yelled frantically.

Suddenly, something as hard as granite smashed into my face, causing my head to fly back. My eyes closed and my brain was spinning with disorientation as I slumped in Emmett's tight grasp. He loosened his arms and I dropped to the ground in a sitting position, my hand automatically coming up to my agonizing and undoubtedly broken, jaw.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and opened my eyes gingerly, still wincing at the pain. Nessie was crouched next to me, her hand on me and her beautiful face filled with worry.

"Jake, are you ok?"

I was still in shock from the impact.

"What the hell..?"

I looked up to see Rosalie watching me, a tight-lipped, apologetic smile on her lips. "Sorry, Jake, I had to do that."

I scowled up at her as she shrugged and continued. "We've only just decorated in here. I didn't want the place to be torn apart by some overgrown mutt." She smirked and I considered briefly how satisfying it would be to phase now and wipe the look from her face.

My head had finally stopped spinning long enough for me to look around the room. He'd gone of course; the door onto the balcony stood wide open. All of the anger had left my body; almost as though Rosalie's punch had knocked it clean out of me. When my eyes met Nessie's again, something within me shifted and almost clicked back into place. Only almost, because as she looked at me and realised I'd recover from Rosalie's assault, something in her expression changed. Her face was the same, but somewhere behind her gaze, something was a little off somehow. She withdrew her hand, rose to her feet and backed off, then walked over to the open door and stood looking out into the darkness. I looked up at Rosalie. She looked at Ness, then at me and reached out for Emmett's hand and pulling him toward the door. Without looking back at us they both left the room and pulled the door shut behind them.

A/N: Ooh, what's going to happen now?!

If you want a break from the angst for some Christmas fun, citrus style, check out my other story I've added on here, Jingle Balls!

What would I like for Christmas? A nice big pile of reviews stacked under the tree!