Chapter 19-Finding Solace in Love

~Oksana's POV~

Pain was everywhere. My body throbbed in ways it had not since I turned. I could only feel the way my body was so badly mangled, arms and legs separated from my body. Fire was burning all around me, my friends and fellow vampires dead, turning to ash in the infernos reflected in my crimson eyes. The stench of burning flesh was filling the air, burning my nasal passages.

"Child, why have you done this."

It was not a question, but a statement made in a voice that elicited anger and dread from deep within me. I did not look up to see him, nor did I say anything to acknowledge him. I could not move.

I lay on the ground, watching as the Volturi guard threw my arms and legs into the blaze. I closed my eyes, screaming in pain as they turned to ash. I had failed. None of this was supposed to happen. Not like this. The Volturi was supposed to die tonight, not us. Under my breath, so quiet that I made almost no sound, I prayed in Russian. Prayers that I had long since thought I had forgotten along with my humanity.

"I do believe I asked you a question, child," Aro repeated, more sternly than he had before, unsaid threats under toning the words. I knew that I was going to die. And I knew that he could learn all with but a simple brush of his skin against mine. I halted my prayer, knowing it was futile. Death was the inevitable result.

Still I remained silent. Until he reached forward to touch me. Then he saw everything.

And he whispered, "Cullen," as his beloved guard began to shred me and toss me in with my friends.

I had failed.

~Wyatt's POV

The room was tense, rife with anxiety. I could sense it emanating from everyone as if it were a breeze flowing from an open window in spring. No one could move, as still as stone where they sat. And I knew from previous experience that they were similar to stone. Mac clutched my hand tightly in hers, so tight that the tips of my fingers were going numb.

I was the first to speak, to break the silence. "Who are the Volturi?" I whispered, the room so quiet that my voice rang back to me so loudly I nearly cringed. I was afraid at first that maybe I should have just kept my trap shut.

"They are basically our version of government," Jasper answered, taking his focus away from Alice, whose eyes had gone glassy again. "Only law and what's right means little to them. They are driven by power and the need to conquer. The only reason anyone follows them is because they have been around since the dawn of time and a vampire's power grows every year that passes. Most vampires know that if they were to retaliate, they would no longer exist."

The room grew quiet again and I fidgeted. My free hand found a hole in my jeans and played with the frayed ridges on the outer edges. "So what do we do?" I asked.

All eyes moved to Alice, who answered, "There is nothing we can do except prepare. They are coming and they are angry. The only thing that can happen is war. They are tired of us causing trouble."

"What trouble?" Carlisle wondered. I noticed that he was holding Esme's hands in his, and, as I looked around, realized everyone was holding onto a loved one. Ravyn was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and his face was stoic, purposefully looking away from all of the lover's clasped hands.

When Alice did not respond, he asked, "What exactly did you see, Alice?"

She took a deep breath even though I know she didn't need it. "Oksana organized a group of vampires to fight the Volturi. They lost and were killed, but not before Aro saw all of her memories. Of us, and the real motives of why she attacked them. Aro, Cauis, and Marcus are not happy with us. They are coming here to kill us."

"Does he know about my children?" Renesmee whispered, her voice barely audible.

Alice nodded, despair etched into every single granite stone line and expression on her face.

Renesmee chocked on a breath of air, Jacob pulling her tight into his body, his face falling into her hair. I could hear his voice but not his words.

"Is it bad that these vampires know about them?" I voiced, considerably perturbed by how upset Nessie and Jake were.

"Yes," Mac answered. Looking into her eyes, I was startled to see fear in their iridescent green irises. "They fear anyone who might have more power than them. And to learn what we are, what we can do . . . It's not good. We just solidified their need to vanquish our coven. They were already afraid of us to begin with."

My heart began to pound. "Is this what all of you have been feeling? The sense of something bad?"

Everyone in the room nodded, their voices silent as I'm sure thoughts swirled around.

"Can we run?" I wondered.

"No," Edward responded, his tone grim and lost. "They have guards that can track us. We have nowhere to go."

"So we have to stay and be slaughtered?" I asked, appalled by this outcome.

Silence was my answer. Anger bubbled inside until it manifested as its own entity. Mac and I deserved a life together. A long, happy life. Days filled with laughter and smiles and stolen kisses. We were too young to be shot out of the sky when we had just found our wings. "We can't just sit around and wait for Death to show up at our door. I refuse to lie down and let them take my life. Our lives."

"Wyatt," Mac urged, pulling on my hand.

I turned to her, cupping her smooth, dark cheek in my palm. "No. I cannot lose you. Lose this." I gestured between us. "I'll never get this again, and I'm not waiting until my next life to find you again and start over. I won't die without a fight."

I glanced around the room, my eyes touching every single person. "We can't be the only coven who feels like I do. We deserve life just like everybody else."

Carlisle met my eyes. "Wyatt, maybe it's time for us to start over. Some of us have lived much longer than an average human. This could be our chance to be human again."

I nearly exploded. "You won't be reborn into a body that knows all of what you do now. You want to give up Esme and hope you find her in your next life? Not everyone finds their soul mate, Carlisle. I love Mac, but how do I know that we were together before or that we'll be together in the future? I want forever with her, not a lifetime."

Emmett stood up and paced to the window. "He's right Carlisle. Rosie is all I have that keeps humanity inside. I don't want to give that up yet."

"So we're to fight? Again?" Jasper queried.

Everyone looked at each other as if they were afraid to acquiescence before the other. "Yes," Esme answered.

I held Mac in my arms under the stars. We lay on a blanket in my truck bed, having driven out to the middle of nowhere to be together alone. Her curly black hair was spread out across my chest as she listened to my heartbeat. I played with a ringlet, wrapping my finger in it over and over again, marveling in its softness. Mac played with the fingers of my free hand, intertwining our fingers on my stomach.

I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of her lithe and supple body against my hard one. This was what I could not afford to lose. My heart pounded out a rhythm. Love. Love. Love. Happiness. Happiness. Happiness. My being was at peace, here, with this girl wrapped up in my arms and holding on tight. She my world, my reason, my rock. She kept me steady when nothing but determination and will ever could. I got up every morning knowing I would see her, knowing that her smile would light my darkness and I would be able to finally see.

Mac was the only person who I could ever truly just be myself with. I was a romantic at heart, dripping sap from my pores. And she just soaked it all up, teasing me here and there, and then dishing it back at me later. She needed to hear those three words just as much as I needed to say them, and vice versa. Her arms could hold me and no matter what, I would be happy and content.

I sure as hell was not ready to lose her yet. Having just found her, I wasn't about to go through it all over again. Life had finally thrown me a play I could take in stride, a play I could enjoy and take pleasure in. And I was going to hit it out of the park.

For most of my life, I grew up not really know love. I didn't have it coming from my parents, and girlfriends were just passing fancies. I came home to fear, and left knowing that eventually I would have to come back to a place that should not have to exist. The epitome of hell on earth. I had to find something that could take the horror of daily life away from me. Sports, school, girlfriends, it all helped drain the black void from my heart until I could smile and laugh and try to ignore the fact I had bruises under my clothes, and every once in awhile, on the inside where my ribs were.

MacKayla not only helped me forget, but she helped me heal. I was burned and hurt from playing with fire too many times, and she comes in and lights up my world. I take pure joy in everything around me, in the stars at night, in the blue or grey sky in the day, in the sound of the wind and the beauty of newly fallen snow. She showed me that I could take happiness from the things surrounding me. I never knew how beautiful nature was until I saw it with her beside me.

She reached up, tracing the line of an eyebrow. I sighed, smelling her unique and utterly "Mac" scent. Her finger moved down the bridge of my nose to play along the outer line of my lips. When it found the seam of my lips, I gently kissed the center.

"What're you thinking about?" she asked, tilting her head so she could see me more clearly.

"You," I whispered. "How much I love you and how much I'm willing to fight to keep you right here with me."

Her eyes grew cloudy. "Wyatt, I don't want you to fight."

I scoffed, slightly pulling away from her. "So I'm supposed to sit back and twiddle my thumbs? Oooo, I could crochet a nice scarf for you, how about that?"

She snarled. "Don't be a dickhead."

"Then what the hell do you want me to do?"

"I want you to stay safe!"

"I would rather die saving you, then be waiting at home wondering what the hell is happening to you. Do you understand what that would be like?"

She sat up, pushing her hair away from her face. "Do you know what it's like to have to worry about you and fight at the same time? I won't be able to do my job and watch out for you too."

"I can hold my on," I said, aching to have her back in the circle of my arms, yet knowing she was too angry to be touched.

"No, you can't."

I stiffened. "Pardon?"

"You don't get it do you? Vampires, Wyatt. We are going to be fighting vampires. You won't stand a chance against them. You are just their meal and plaything. What are you going to be able to do to them? Shoot them?"

"If I have to, yes."

She laughed darkly, looking away. "That wouldn't kill them Wyatt. You have to dismember them and then burn the pieces. And you are too weak to pull them apart. They have ten times the strength you have."

My pride having taken a hit, I lay back, absorbing this. I was too weak. Too human. I had nothing to add to the war, nothing but a weakness. But damn if having her dish it to me didn't hurt like a son of a bitch.

"Then make me a vampire," I said, tugging on the back of her hair so she could turn to look at me.

"No."

"Mac…"

"We don't have enough time to make you into a vampire, Wyatt. It takes a few days, and then a year after that for you to master it. Sometimes it takes much longer than that, depending on the vampire's will and restraint. Newborns are bloodthirsty creatures. It takes them months to years to curb their constant desire for blood, to walk on a sidewalk and not attack anyone who walks too close to them and has blood coursing through their veins.

"You won't have to time to learn anything before they come down on us. If we change you, you die."

"If I remain human, I die."

She didn't say anything, and in the air, I heard a goodbye in the wind rustling the leaves of nearby trees. "MacKayla," I growled.

She didn't look at me. I sat up and she shifted away from me. "MacKayla."

She got up. So did I.

"MacKayla."

She took off running and I chased her, knowing she could outrun me any day. I caught the back of her shirt the minute her legs began to propel her forward, hauling her into my arms. She squirmed, punching her fists into my chest with no force whatsoever.

"Let me go," she whispered.

"No," I snarled, my arms holding her prisoner. I knew she could easily break away, and the fact that she didn't even try told me that she wasn't okay with letting me go either.

"Let me go." I barely even heard it.

"NO!" I roared.

"You have to! It's the only way."

"Fuck that!"

"Let. Me. Go."

I didn't answer. Instead, I pulled her lips up to mine and kissed her roughly, pouring all of my emotions against her lips. My hands clutched her cheeks like a life line. My tongue slid right in, licking at hers.

Mac didn't fight me. With a low moan, she pushed herself against my body, filling mine with an intense fire starting in my toes and working its way up until every part of me was tingling. All of the blood in my brain drained to my groin, tightening and hardening my dick. She wrapped her legs around my waist and with my hands on her ass, I walked us back to where my truck was sitting, all alone.

I laid her down on the blanket, not ever bothering to pull my lips away from hers. My hips ground into hers, my breath leaving my body in a whistle as I felt the delicious friction, my dick getting impossibly harder. Her body was right there with me, hot as fire and aroused like hell.

Her hands reached for the hem of my t-shirt and pulled up roughly. "Off," she ordered raggedly. "I need this off."

Quickly, I dispensed of the shirt, immediately covering her body with mine, my lips sucking the skin beneath her ear. Her hands ran up and down my chest, tracing every dip and curve as if she hadn't seen them before. I unbuttoned her plaid blouse, pushing the offending material from her shoulders. Her nipples were taut and I leaned down to suckle them through her black bra.

She groaned, reaching down to my fly, fingers fumbling slightly with buttons and zippers until I felt her hand along with cold air on the skin of my erection. My face fell into her neck as she stroked me, my hips moving forward, thrusting into her hand.

Not wanting to waste another second, I pulled her jeans and panties off, tossing them up by her head. My fingers found her center, warm and wet and inviting and in a half second I was in, thrusting into her with abandon, feeling her walls caress me. I took her loud cry into my mouth as she came instantly.

I pulled back to stare into her face and right away felt the air between us change. My hips slowed down, my forehead leaning into hers. What started as frantic sex had turned into tender lovemaking, and I watched her eyes watch me as I slowly thrust in and out, taking her hand in mine and holding it above our heads. Our fingers intertwined, she curled her legs around mine, her hips meeting mine, moving to the rhythm I set.

This is what it should always be like. This physical profession of love. The tender meeting of skin and soul and heart. Our bodies meeting together and making sweet music in the air like a live orchestra. Mac was the girl who I planned to die with light years away in the future. The girl I would have kids with and love and cherish with every atom of my being until nothing was left but my heart, beating at her feet.

MacKayla's arms stole around my neck, her cheek rubbing mine, her lips sucking on my earlobe as I attacked her neck with love bites and nibbles. I could feel the fire start to reawaken within her and reached down, my fingers finding her tight bundle of nerves, and flicked my thumb repeatedly until we were both moving frenzied against each other again, and love words, sex words, and French profanities were spewing forth as we peaked together in perfect synchrony.

I fell on top of her, my body limp and spent, reveling in the feel of her skin and body beneath me.

"Don't leave me."

I looked up into tearful green eyes and felt my heart have a seizer. I wiped a tear from her cheek, levering myself up onto an elbow. "Two Socks, I wasn't the one trying to leave."

She shook, her body racked with tearless sobs. "I know. I thought I could. I can run faster and knew you would be safe if I just packed my family up and left town. My grandfather did it, why couldn't I."

"Because I'm not weak enough to believe you could ever leave me." I pulled her hand up to my chest, where my heart was thundering, practically yelling its love and adoration for her. "This is for you. Without you, I wouldn't be anything. All it would be able to do is push blood throughout my body. Nothing more. I'm yours, whether it's safe or not. You and I are a team. When one is in trouble, the other has to help. There is no 'I' in team."

She laughed, a watery sound that made me wrap my arms around her and never let go. "Did you get that off a poster in the locker room?" she giggled.

"As a matter of fact, no. It was in the coach's office."

Laughing harder, she swiped her nose with a hand, sniffling slightly.

"I love you, MacKayla," I said, suddenly back to being serious. "No matter what, I'm going to be there when the Volturi threatens to take you from me. Nothing will stop me from saving you, not even my humanity."

Tilting her head back, she looked up at me. "I know. I just wish my soul mate had been much more docile and weak minded."

I laughed in earnest, my hands rubbing up and down her arms. "What you see is what you get, baby," I whispered, breathing into her neck.

"Honestly? I don't think I'd want you any other way," she murmured, tugging my head up to hers.

"You would be bored in a second if I were a mindless robot," I muttered, kissing her forehead, temple, cheeks.

"I don't know. It kind of has its appeal."

I tweaked her nose playfully. "What happened to wanting me no other way?"

"I realized that I can't order you around."

Fingers finding her side, I tickled her until she couldn't breathe and was begging me to stop.

"Alright, truce. I love you, you strong willed, non-docile human."

We kissed leisurely, enjoying the feel of each other and the company we provided. In her arms, I was home.

Finally.

"And I love you, my incredibly beautiful, wonderful future Mrs. Parker."

I don't even know what to say other than I am so sorry. This really shouldn't have taken so long, but it's at a part in this story that I have always had difficulty writing.

Also, I started Rays of Moonlight. It's scenes from Aiden and Leah's life together. Go over and check it out :)

Oh, and please review :)