Disclaimer: I own nothing Twilight, only Andie and I reckon her story.
AlicePOV:
I didn't think the drive would ever be over. I had endured screaming vocals and heavy guitar sequences for over 24 hours. I couldn't take it anymore, and I was secretly glad when Andie finally dropped off to sleep in the passenger seat of her Mustang, giving me full advantage of her iPod; I knew there was better music to listen to downloaded on the device. So I gave sigh of relief as my all time favorite band came over the speakers, and I drowned in the melodies of "Hey Jude" as it began.
We'd left Andie's now-vacant apartment five days after the incident with Daphne, who had blown Andie's phone up ever since. It greatly agitated me that this bitch actually thought she had a chance to take what is mine. Andie was lucky the phone had not gone off while we were in the car, I had already decided that if Daphne called again that I would be the one answering, to finish saying the things I didn't get to say the night she showed up at the apartment. I had a feeling Andie wouldn't be so pleased with it, but I knew she would forgive me... hence, why I was hoping the girl would ring her again.
I had my Bluetooth in my ear, talking to Bella, after Andie had passed out. Bella was over the moon that I was coming home, if it were only until May, when Andie and I would fly to one of our other homes in the world, for her to become a vampire. She refused to be a day over twenty-one, and wanted to be changed on her birthday, so she would be born into her next phase of life the same day she was brought into the world at all. I had no problems with her desire, that selfish part of me doing a little dance, one akin to Family Guy's "Prom Night Dumpster Baby" routine, minus the swinging of the umbilical cords.
"Is she nervous to be coming home to a house full of vampires she doesn't know?" Bella asked me as I drove along, and I glanced down at my sleeping mate, her fingers still loosely threaded through mine, even in slumber. It made me smile.
"She's like you were," I answered, grinning at the nostalgia. "She's more worried about what you guys will think of her."
Bella giggled. "I remember that... just barely. I thought Edward was being ridiculous, saying that his family would love me."
I laughed with her. "Well, that's what I'm getting from this adorable human here. You guys really are going to love her... she's amazing."
"The way you gush about her, I'm going to be offended if she's not," my best friend teased me. "And I've got a little test in mind for her, too."
"Test?" I hadn't seen anything of the sort in my vision of how things played out in Forks, where Bella and Edward still lived.
Bella hummed an affirmative answer. "You say she's as territorial over you as a vampire would be, right?" she asked, clarifying.
"Yes," I said uneasily, as the flash became clearer in my mind, and I gasped in shock. "Bella! Don't you dare! She's insecure enough as it is, she doesn't need you all over me!" I knew Andie would flip about it if Bella came out the door and pounced on me, kissing me full on the mouth. "We'd be locked in a room for a month, with Andie trying to wash away your scent with hers, and not that I mind the idea, but the girl has to eat and sleep."
Bella laughed at my worried tone, and she sighed as her laughter finally died out. "Okay, okay, you win. You take care of your little human. Just don't be petty when I flirt with you just to get a rise out of her for entertainment."
I cocked an eyebrow, even if she couldn't see me. "A rise out of Andie, or a rise out of Edward?" I said tauntingly, and she made a noise of indifference.
"I don't have to flirt with girls to get a rise out of Edward, trust me," she said with an air of satisfaction, and I gagged a little internally. Not a mental picture I wanted in my head. "OH! That reminds me, I want to tell you about this new thing we tried, it was fucking amazing! He lifted me–"
"Bellabellabella," I said in a rush to cut her off, not wishing to hear anymore about sex between them. "Andie's waking up, and I need to go so I can pay attention to the road." Bella scoffed.
"You're a horrible liar, Alice. But I love you, anyway. I'll see you in a few hours, be safe."
AndiePOV:
I was stiff in my neck when I woke up on Alice's arm, not knowing how long I'd been out. I turned it slowly to work out the kinks, and looked around at the scenery. It was all... white, gray, and green. Green, in January? Oh, yeah, the evergreens. We must be in Washington now. Alice turned her face to kiss the top of my head, and I yawned, turning my face to kiss her jaw. "Where are we?" I asked disorientedly, having a flashback from the ride down to South Carolina. This ride had been much more pleasant, as I didn't wake up unknowingly in another state, and I wasn't bleeding, that was a major plus.
"About thirty miles outside of Forks," Alice answered, bouncing in her seat just a little. "We'll be at my house in less than ten minutes." I looked at my speedometer as my mate drove my car. One-forty. Christ.
"Have you been maxing out my poor transmission the entire ride?" My eyes shifted over to the RPM, seeing its needle lying in the 5000 range.
"It's okay," Alice said dismissively. "If it's stripped out, I'll just buy you another one and have Rose put it in. She loves your Mustang, she's been itching to get under the hood of it since she laid eyes on it a few weeks ago."
The knowledge that Rosalie liked my car made me beam with pride, and I realized it didn't shock me as it should that a pretty girl like Rosalie would be into mechanics. It just seemed to fit her personality somehow. And I had noticed the way her eyes lit up just a bit when Alice and I had taken her and Emmett to the airport a couple weeks before, but I was so saddened by their departure that I had not realized it was my car that made her look so serene; I figured Emmett had been whispering sweet nothings in her ear or something. "Are Emmett and Rose going to be at the house when we get there?" I asked, sitting up and straightening my glasses on my face.
"Yes," Alice said, giving me a look, but I saw the amusement in her dark eyes. "Why do you ask?"
"I miss them," I answered, not skipping a beat. It was true. I missed them both horribly, almost as much as I would miss Jasper, who had remained at school for the rest of the semester, before joining me and Alice wherever she had picked for me to be changed. Jasper's experience with newborns would help Alice keep me under control.
"They miss you, too," Alice assured me, one dimple caving in. "Rosalie is having a stroke waiting on us to get there... I wonder if I might have some competition for your affections," she went on jokingly, and I automatically placed a lingering kiss on the side of her mouth.
"In her dreams," I replied in Alice's ear, tracing the outer cup with my tongue. I felt that familiar heat balling up in my gut, and I pulled away before I made Alice pull over right outside of the town to take her to my backseat, and I saw Alice give a little shimmy in the driver's seat from my implication.
"I'm excited for you to finally meet the rest of my family," Alice said, changing the subject back to the people waiting for us, her mind in the gutter snuggled up next to mine. "But keep in mind what I've told you–"
"Your family is unlike any I've ever seen," I finished the mantra she had given me over the past few days, when we decided we were going to move to Forks for the time being.
"Well... yes. And don't be scared, love, none of them will hurt you... if they value their lives," she breathed, turning down a tree-lined road. "Okay, well, here it is... the house is at the end of this driveway here."
"How long is this driveway?" I asked a minute later, and Alice chuckled.
"Five miles," she answered simply with a shrug. "We like our privacy, and we like to be able to walk in the yard, even when the sun is shining."
"You still owe me," I reminded her. I still had not seen the effect of the sun on her skin she had told me about months before, the night that we became us.
"I know I do," she said agreeably, nodding her head, and I watched her spiky hair swish with the motion, fighting off the urge to grab handfuls and pull her from the beneath the steering wheel.
God, where did these urges come from? It's not like we never had sex, it was more like we constantly had sex, especially after the first time she let me touch her; it had been completely on from that point. I was almost afraid that if I was like this with her now, as a human, of what I would be like with her as a newborn vampire. Her words from that conversation came back to me: Newborn vampires only think about two things: blood and sex. Their appetite for both are insatiable. I'd never been a sex addict. Daphne would have probably stayed with me, had I been, and not fucked every girl in the apartment building and half the female population of our school. It was only Alice that invoked that animalistic part, the part I had no idea even existed before her. She was as bad as I, if not worse, with the advances; often in public, with her hand riding up my thigh much the way it was now, right when we were pulling up to the house at the end of the road.
I closed my hand on hers to stop it in its path upwards, squeezing my eyes shut and biting my lip. I had to regain some sort of control, I could feel something inside me stirring, and if I let it grow and take shape, we wouldn't be out of the car for a long time.
Alice shuddered as she also tried to clear her head, and she opened the door with a deep breath of the fresh air. I'm sure that she was suffocating in the scents we stirred. "Are you ready?" she asked me a few seconds later, allowing my heart to slow down from the reactions to her touch.
"As ready as I'll ever be," I breathed, looking out of my window at the expansive yard and the enormous structures that rested there. One was the house, which was seemingly older, but large for the age, and well built... it was beautiful. Then there was a garage, half the size of the house, but all the doors were shut, so I couldn't see what rested in its shelter. Alice's house. The first time. I was terrified, and my heart sped back up considerably as I reached for the door handle.
"Hey, it's going to be fine," Alice said, tapping her head as she often did to remind me that she was rarely wrong about something. "Rosalie adores you, and that's your toughest one. The rest of the family are big teddy bears, I promise."
I nodded and took a deep breath as I got out and shut the car door, seeing a blur come from the house and I heard Alice squeal behind me. I turned around and saw a dark haired beauty with her arms wrapped completely around my mate, swinging her around. There was a huge smile on this vampire's face, and I thought back to the pictures Alice had shown me of her family... this was Bella, the writer, her sister-in-law, and admittedly her best friend aside from me. This was the one she spoke about the most, a happy grin plastered on her face... should I be jealous? No, no. Her best friend. But I couldn't help but swallow a growl when her best friend reached down and pecked my mate's cheek, a little too affectionately for my liking. "I missed you, Alice," Bella said to her, and I swallowed again, fighting the feelings...
"You're killing my mate, Bella," Alice said, rolling her eyes and lightly smacking Bella's shoulder. "Put me down, you big goof." As soon as Bella placed her on her feet, Alice was by my side, weaving her arm through mine and locking our hands together. "Andie, this is my ridiculous best friend, Bella. Bells, this is everything I've told you about in the past two and a half years in the flesh, my Andie."
"Of course," Bella said smiling, and she took a stride forward with her hand outstretched. "Bella Cullen. Pleasure to finally meet you."
I took her hand, shaking it briefly. "Andie Fowler. Charmed." I meant it. Sort of. She was too close to Alice a second ago. I still didn't like that. Alice pressed her lips to my cheek, and that made me feel a smidgen better.
Bella shook her head with a chuckle. "Alice said you were possessive already. I don't blame you, though. If I had been into girls, Alice would've been the first one I'd have f–"
"Bella, so help me, if you finish that sentence, I will whip your ass all the way to the La Push animal shelter and back!" A familiar voice rang out from the porch to our left, and I looked to see Rosalie glaringly at Bella playfully, who merely stuck out her tongue at Rose. With a swish of perfect blonde hair, Rosalie was gone.
"Protective, Rose?" Bella murmured, and she smiled softly at what I was guessing was Rosalie's reply.
Alice also gave a smile that dented both her dimples, and I couldn't help but grin at that. I was a lovesick fool. The three of us made towards the house, and Alice gave my hand a reassuring squeeze, as I'm sure my heart sped up with every step we took. Her parents were in there, waiting to be introduced to me. The ultimate acceptance. Oh, dear God.
The first thing I noticed when I entered the house was the smell of food– human food. It was strong, telling me it was nearly finished cooking. I felt my stomach give a rumble, and I realized it had been a while since I'd last eaten. I blushed at the noise, remembering that they could probably hear that, and it was as if my appetite was inviting itself to dinner. The second thing I noticed was that there was a giant LCD television in the living room, and right then it was displaying my favorite Xbox game, which Emmett was playing enthusiastically, as foul-mouthed as I when playing it. The third thing I noticed was that the entire back wall of the house was glass, showing us the forest that lay beyond its borders, and there was a grand piano resting on a rise near the sliding door to the backyard. The fourth thing I noticed were the two vampires appearing from our right, around a corner that led into a dining room, set with a table and chairs and all. "Welcome," said the lady I knew to be Alice's mother, Esme.
"Hello," I said shyly, and Alice let go of my hand to wrap that arm around my waist and step forward with me.
"Carlisle, Esme, this is my Andie. Andie, these are my mentors, my counselors, my advisors, and my heroes. My parents, Carlisle and Esme."
Carlisle held out a hand, and I shook it, but Esme pulled me into a warm hug, surprising me for one so cold. Alice's hugs were warm like that, her kisses were, too... NO, I told myself sharply, keeping myself rooted to reality.
"Alice says wonderful things about you both. I'm thankful you allowed me to stay here," I said, blushing for several reasons, so it had to several shades dark. Good one, Andie. Just let the blood flow right up in a house full of vampires. Sheesh, you got a way of making people uncomfortable.
"It's nothing at all, dear," Esme said, and Carlisle nodded.
"You belong to my daughter, therefore you belong with this family," he added, giving me an understanding smile. He knew how I was feeling, being the only blushing human in the vicinity, and he was trying to tell me it was okay. Maybe for him... he was a doctor who cut people on a regular basis and abstained from going into a frenzy. He was like a self-restraint saint.
"I told you so," Alice muttered, elbowing me gently so she didn't shatter a rib or three.
"Shut up," I muttered back, giving her a grin and elbowing her back.
Her parents chuckles at us and our antics, and that brought me back to where I was, standing in Alice's house meeting her parents. When I shifted my gaze back to them, Esme gave a disarming smile, and made a motion over her shoulder from where they had appeared. "I've got some food on, a ton of garlic alfredo for you and the pack, it should be ready soon. I just have to pop the bread in the oven," she said sweetly, and I felt my heart melt at the motion of acceptance. Apparently they were used to humans, despite Rosalie's obvious aversion.
Carlisle smiled at his wife, and placed an affectionate kiss on her forehead. "I, unfortunately, have to go to the hospital. It's going to be a rough next four months, now that I've given my resignition," he sighed, looking at Alice and me. "It's time for us to move on, now that my age is being questioned... there is no way I can pass for forty, and that's about how old I should be by now."
"So you're moving away from here?" I asked, and he nodded, looking around the hall we stood in.
"Yes, for at least seventy or eighty years... long enough for the people here to have changed," he replied with a sigh. "I'm sure you'll get the chance to live here; we love this house."
I smiled softly at his subtle implication of my being with them in seventy or eighty years, it was very sweet. "I hope so," I replied, glancing at Alice, who was zoned out on a vision, probably trying to see if it would come to pass. When she came back with a satisfied smile, I knew it would.
"You girls have a good night, and try not to be too... exuberant. Andie needs her rest, Alice," he said pointedly, and Alice ducked her head. I swear her face would have been red if it were possible.
"She usually starts it," Alice muttered sullenly, pouting for being scolded.
"Look at it like you're the adult," he suggested with a wink, going out the front door and closing it behind him before Alice could scowl at him.
"He's right, Alice," Esme said gently, turning and walking back to the kitchen to finish her work.
I looked at my pouting mate. "Are we really that bad?" I whispered to her, and she looked up at me without lifting her face, her mouth tugging up on one side.
"Your fingers are molesting mine, if you hadn't noticed," she said dryly, and I looked down to see my fingers indeed rubbing through hers suggestively. I stopped as soon as I saw, and pulled my hand back to myself, embarrassed.
"Sorry," I mumbled as she put a hand on the small of my back to lead me up the stairs. "I didn't mean to get you in trouble."
Alice gave a giggle. "I'm not in trouble. He was just reminding me that I should pay attention to your needs before your wants... sometimes I forget that, not having those needs, myself."
"I don't classify you as a want, Alice," I said flatly, and she smiled.
"Nor do I classify you in that category. But we really do need let you sleep some, from now on... it's not healthy for you to be getting two or three hours here and there... especially when you're in bed almost the entire time, anyway."
This was true. We'd go at it fifteen or sixteen hours a day on one of our good days, stopping only to let me eat and sleep, and both of us to shower... which technically didn't count as it was merely a change of venue. As I stated before, after I took her virginity, it was on.
"I'm not normal, I know," I groaned, covering my face with my hands as we stopped in front of a door.
"This is a case where we don't know what normal is," she told me, pulling my hands away from my face and holding them down at my sides. "Sure, it's strange, but I think it has more to do with instinct. The only reason Bella didn't get as defensive as you are when she was human was because she and he were on an island away from everyone and everything, so she had no reason to be jealous when they first mated. And she spent the months after being pregnant. And then she was a vampire, so the instinct was expected of her, and it didn't seem as bad because she was a newborn."
"So, I'm strange because I've remained human even after we've started a very healthy sex life?" I asked, confused.
"Basically," Alice laughed, reaching for the doorknob. "Come on, let's get you settled in. Esme's sending Emmett up with your bags, and Edward will be here with Jacob and Nessie shortly to collect Bella."
She opened the door and allowed me to pass in front of her, stepping in behind me and closing the door with a faint snap as I looked around the room that had A-L-I-C-E written all over it. The walls were a pale yellow, accented in white, including the canopy bed that lay in the center of the large room, which I was sure would match my old apartment foot by foot. The floor was hardwood, but had fluffy white shag carpets placed in a strategic manner across it, and she had a gorgeous white vanity set in a far corner near what looked like an old-fashioned ventrilo on a white peg table, with several vinyls lined up neatly beside it. On the shelf below it sat a record player, bigger vinyls set in order beside it, and finally my eyes crossed over a huge stereo system with floor speakers and a surround sound set up. The wall of CDs past that could only be rivaled by the wall of books that faced it, on this side of the bed, or the wall of DVDs on the wall in front of it, where her sizeable LCD was mounted. Above the wrought iron headboard of her bedframe, hung a yellow Fender Stratocaster with a white pick guard that had several scribblings on it, and a painting of the Beatles below it, done Warhol style but with hues of yellow and white instead of the blues and pinks and purples and bright colors that marked Andy Warhol. I knew Alice "dabbled" in art, as she once put it to me, and I looked at her as she gazed around with me, pointing at the painting.
"You do that?"
She nodded, her eyes resting on the picture. "I painted that January 20, 1964, the day that Meet the Beatles was released in the States. It hit number one on Billboard, and stayed there for eleven weeks. It's my favorite album of all time... and I love music," she added with a sly grin.
"What's your favorite Beatles song?" I asked her, pulling her over to her record player, where I knew without asking that she had their albums, probably in chronological order. "Don't tell me, show me," I told her, when she opened her mouth to speak.
"Okay." She shrugged as she went into the stacks, flipping through them so fast I couldn't get a look at a single one of the covers. A second later, she was placing the needle onto a record that was spinning on the plate, and the opening notes of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" came over the floor speakers and the surround sound. I felt myself smile. She was such a romantic soul, and this just proved it. Alice grinned back at me, holding out a hand for me to take in a dance, and I blushed, shaking my head. She rolled her eyes, which I noticed were darker, and pulled me in anyway. "You wanted me to play it, you have to deal with the consequence," she said in a sing-song tone as she twirled with me, making me laugh despite myself.
She continued dancing us around in a playful circle, matching the upbeat song, singing the words to me in a chiming voice, even if I knew she was goofing off, I loved it. I loved her. I loved that she was a Beatles nut. I loved that she was obsessed with yellow and white, such happy, bright, innocent colors, the colors that made Alice up in a scheme, made better only by the fringe of the love of the arts and music. God, she was beautiful, enchanting me as we whirled, her eyes bright despite the dark irises that meant she thirsted; she smiled over the discomfort, and it was genuine, not forced. As the song ended, I brought my face to hers for a kiss, unable to refrain any longer from it, and she returned it eagerly for a moment, until I heard the knocking on the door and we jumped away from each other like teenagers being caught. I smiled sheepishly as she turned off the music and called an entrance for the knocker, and Emmett poked his head in, eyebrows raised expectantly. "Anything going on? Did I interrupt?" His tone was light and hopeful, and Alice rolled her eyes again, chuckling weakly.
"No, Emmett, you did not, and will not," Alice told him pointedly, her eyes sliding down to his crotch. "Remember what I said would happen if you try to catch us?"
Emmett winced, and his legs crossed a little. "Sorry, um, Andie... your bags are out here," he mumbled distractedly, looking over his shoulder as if he really wanted to get away from Alice at that moment.
I laughed, shaking my head. "Okay, I'll get them. Thank you, Em."
"No problem. Oh, and Esme said dinner's ready. The pack is here, too. All of them in Jake's bunch," he told Alice, with a significant look.
"Oh, joy, Leah," Alice muttered, and Emmett gave a slow nod in agreement. "Is Edward and Nessie here, too?"
"Were you too caught up to pay attention or something?" Emmett's eyes got a little excited, and Alice pushed him out of the room, slamming the door before leaning against it, and touching her forehead.
"Are you okay?" I asked her, moving towards her.
She nodded, but allowed me to pull her into my arms regardless, snuggling her face into the crook of my neck. "The pack makes my visions weird... I don't get them. I'm not used to the sensation, anymore, nor their smell... Emmett left this door open too long, and now it's all I can pick up in the air." She gave a long sniff at my jugular vein, and I shuddered pleasurably, my arms pulling her in closer.
"We can stay up here..." I let my suggestion ring on the air, and she chuckled in my neck, pressing her lips up the pounding vein there, traveling all the way to my ear.
"See? That's what Carlisle meant," she whispered, pulling my hips into hers, nudging her tongue against the lobe. "Always having each other before actual sustenance."
Contradicting her words, her actions were more along the line of staying up in her room, but after a few minutes of kissing that led to me trying to get her out of clothes, she pushed me away a little, planting a chaste kiss on my lips. "Go eat, Bella will introduce you to her friends, and I'm going on a quick hunt... I need to eat, too, before we get too carried away in here. I'll meet you back up here for a shower in two hours," she whispered, her eyes taking in mine in deep draws, and I could feel the connection of our souls as we tried to pull each other in and tried to pull away at the same time. The constant longing to remain, and the necessity of separation.
"Okay," I replied, clearing my throat. "I have to get my bags in here–" I broke off as Alice opened the door and swept out and back in less than a blink, my bags set up in front of a white bureau.
"That's yours, until I can clean out a closet space for you. We'll be going shopping soon for you, and we'll need the closet space, so I'll get that done tonight while you're sleeping." She held her hand out for me to take, and we went back down stairs together, only around into the dining room and kitchen area, where there was a horde of shirtless boys gathered around the island in the middle of the kitchen, all elbowing and fighting and growling at each other. "Well, they haven't changed a bit," Alice sighed, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame to watch them wrestle over the food.
One of the bigger ones, and I say bigger because they were all huge, turned and looked at Alice standing there, and then his brown eyes shifted to me and widened. "Alice- you mate is a girl?" he asked in high pitched tone of surprise.
"Yep," was all she said, grinning like crazy at me, and I couldn't help the blush that rose up my neck.
The boy looked back from Alice to me, and held out the hand that wasn't clutching a plate piled high with pasta. "Hi, I'm Quil Ateara, you can call me 'Runs With Three Legs'." And he burst into laughter at his own joke, and I shook his hand. When he saw I didn't laugh, he went on. "You know, because I'm an Indian... 'Runs With Three Legs'... means I have a huge-"
"Quil!" I heard a deep voice bark from the other side of the gaggle of tan backs and chests. "That's Alice's imprint, yo. Don't say stuff like that."
"Chill out, Seth, I'm just joking, dude... Sheesh," he muttered, looking at Alice apologetically. "I'm sorry, Flea."
The one that had called out stepped around with his own Leaning Tower of Pasta, a boyishly cute grin on his face, and his hand out as well. "Seth Clearwater," he told me, winking at Alice. "You take care of Flea, okay?"
I heard Alice groan loudly, and looked over in time to see her sink to the floor exasperatedly. "Flea?" I asked her, and she squeezed her eyes shut at the pain of the nickname.
"Yes," she moaned in misery, her face dreadfully long. "The smallest parasite that Jake could turn into a bad joke."
I snickered, and another of the musclely guys turned around, his cheeks full and puffed out like a chipmunk's. "S-mone sa' mm n'me?" he said, and all of us looked at him blankly, waiting for him to swallow the gorge of food in his giant mouth and speak again. "Oh, hey, Flea," he said with a grin once his breathing passage and larynx was free of obstructions. "I thought I heard you say my name."
"I was telling Andie that it was the worst you could come up with... 'Flea'! I'm so much cuter than that," my mate complained, her arms still clenched tightly over her chest, hiding the sexy bust that was coming out of the low-cut white blouse she was wearing... Andie, stop!
"Hey, those little fuckers pack a punch," Jake said defensively, as if the nickname should be taken as a compliment. "Just like you do, Flea."
"You would know, wouldn't you?" she purred, giving him a mocking smile. "I'll bet you're well versed in fleas."
Jake shrugged, taking another huge mouthful of food. "Occupational hazard of being a werewolf," he said through the pasta, and I looked at Alice, who was staring at me, apprehensive.
Werewolves? Okay, I'd had enough of the supernatural beings for a life time. "There's no mummies or swamp things, any blobs or Frankenstein monsters coming over tonight, right?" I asked, feeling a little light headed. Now I knew why Alice was saying she had a family unlike any I'd known, and why she kept pushing the fact that none of them would hurt me.
"We have a swamp thing," the last of the guys piped up, "if you count Leah."
"How about, fuck off, Embry?" A girl I had not noticed through the throng of tan skin spoke up, not eating a thing and hanging back like she wanted to be near a door to bolt if need be. "I've got your swamp thing, you dumb shit. Your fucking mom."
Embry's face went red, but he didn't continue to speak, and the female sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, giving me an impatient glance. "What the fuck are you looking at?" she shouted at me, and I went red, just about falling out right then and there, but then Alice was beside me, snarling at the girl, who I had deduced was Leah.
"You want some on your first day back, leech?" she yelled, rising to her feet, shaking all over, and Alice hissed at her in reply.
"LEAH," Jake said, moving in between them. "If you can't respect her or her imprint in their own home, I suggest you hit the trees," he told her firmly, pointing out the open back door. Leah shot him a look of disgust.
"Yes, sir," she said poisonously, taking off through the door and I heard something shred, making Jake shake his head.
"I'm sorry about that, Alice," Jake said softly, no joking in his tone. "She was out of line. I'll talk to her."
Alice gave a shaky breath as she eased out of the crouch in front of me, and I reached for her, pulling her against me, and letting her nose seek out its favorite spot in my neck. "I should hunt," she mumbled, pulling back after a second. Looking at her eyes, I saw she really needed to go, but I saw her hesitance to leave me alone in unfamiliar territory.
"It's okay," I said, pushing my fingers through her hair. "Remember, we both need to eat, and then... "
"Right," she breathed, nodding, but not breaking her gaze from mine to leave.
...
A cough shook us out of our trance, and I let go of her hair and her hands dropped from my waist. She opted to press her lips to my cheek rather than my mouth, and smartly, as we were surrounded by a kitchen full of guys who were all staring, some of them in mid-chew, waiting to see if she kissed me goodbye. "Hurry back to me," I whispered as she left with a gust of wind, knowing she would be able to hear, and I knew she would answer, though she knew I couldn't hear it. Alice would always answer me.
A/N: So, another chapter written and posted. I'm probably going to start 19 tonight, as I was on a roll here, but if I didn't stop it wasn't going to end lol. So maybe you guys will get lucky and I'll splash a few lemon drops in the next chapter.
As always, reviews are appreciated.