Chapter 30

I stared at Felix from my crouched position on the West side of the Cullen's garden. Felix was crouched exactly opposite me, on the East, watching me. Stood on the deck that led into the Cullen's kitchen were Jasper, Carlisle, Emmett, The Kings, Demetri, and a few other of the Guard, they were watching, waiting with me to see when and how Felix was going to attack.

Quick as a flash Felix was moving towards me. I felt the power and the heat rise up in my body and quickly side-stepped him and moved twenty feet away. He turned to look at me, a little shocked I had evaded him and I grinned. He ran again towards me and I side-stepped again letting out a little laugh at his stunned expression. He didn't like my mockery and I could practically see his anger overriding his judgement, without real thought he ran towards me. This time I ran towards him, quickly sliding to the floor and between his legs, I turned and jumped on his back, my arms quickly wrapped around his neck. I kicked him to his knees and squeezed his neck. He started to panic and started snapping at me. I squeezed harder and he could barely move; I had won.

But before I could start celebrating my victory I heard someone move behind me. A second too late I realised they had added another attacker. I loosened my hold on Felix but before he could react I grabbed him and threw him into the new attacker. They both fell like bowling pins but the new attacker was calculating and skilled, he pushed Felix off him and jumped up. He started towards me and it took me less than a millisecond to realise that he was a lot faster than Felix. I went to side-step him, but he grabbed my arm, swung me round and launched me into a tree. The tree cracked and fell and I could feel a sharp pain start in the base of my skull and thick blood begin to gush out.

The new attacker ran towards me but the pain in my head made me sloppy, I didn't understand why I wasn't healing, why there was still blood gushing out of the wound, and before I could react properly he was on me and about to grab me. For less than a second I could feel Jasper's panic, through the soul mate bond. What neither of us knew was that he had no reason to panic.

Right as this new vampire was about to immobilise me a bright blue light erupted from my stomach and he hit it. It sent him twenty feet into the air and he lay stunned on the opposite side of the garden.

It took him only a moment to collect himself and began another attack. I was still foggy, I could feel myself losing more blood and the wound just wasn't closing. In a flash Jasper was crouched in front of me and growling at the other vampire. Thankfully the vampire lifted himself from his crouch, held up his hands to Jasper and backed off. Jasper turned to me and Carlisle ran over and to us.

"Bella, what happened?" Jasper asked and I grimaced and lifted myself up off the tree. I turned the back of my aching head towards Carlisle and looked at Jasper in the eyes.

"My head isn't healing, I can't tell why it just hurts." I could feel Carlisle's hands move quickly over my open wound.

"Carlisle?" Jasper asked, I could feel his worry radiating over me so I grabbed his hands and tried to smile.

"I'll be okay, and the Baby's fine, more than fine actually." I glanced down at my stomach, trying not to move my head, and smiled, this Baby was very special.

"Bella, there's a small piece of wood stuck in the back of your head, I think that's what's keeping the wound open, I'm going to have to reach in and pull it out, it's going to hurt." I took a deep breath.

"Okay Carlisle, just get out and please, no counting to three, just do it." I closed my eyes really tight and squeezed Jasper's hands. He kissed my palms and squeezed back and nodded to Carlisle. I had to stop myself from pulling away from Carlisle as I felt his fingers push into my skull, I felt him grab something and then a sharp pain as he pulled it out of my head. Involuntarily I cried out as he removed the splinter of wood from my skull.

I knew when the wood was out, I could feel the pain dull and my skin stretching and moulding to close the wound, bone growing back to protect my brain, it felt really weird. I hear a few gasps from behind me and when I was completely sure it was over and I was completely healed I opened my eyes and turned to see Carlisle and the Kings watching my wound close. I looked down to the bloody piece of wood in Carlisle's hand and cringed. It was about four inches long and almost two inches thick and I couldn't believe that it had been in my head.

"Come on, let's go inside and get you cleaned up." Jasper said, helping me to my feet and leading me inside. He stayed in the bathroom with me while I showered and Rose brought me some clothes, turns out mine were ruined by blood.

Once I was clean we made our way downstairs and Jasper gave Esme the clothes to burn.

We sat down in the living room and Carlisle, the Kings, Em, Rose, Felix and the other random Vampire, who I could now tell was a part of the Guard, came to join us.

Carlisle handed me a cup with blood in and I took a grateful drink.

"I thought you might want some after the training and bleeding so much." I smiled and sat back leaning against Jazz with my drink.

"Thank you." I said to Carlisle and Jazz started playing with my hair.

We sat in silence for a minute before the random Guard member spoke.

"Could have warned us about the physical shield." There was malice in his tone and when I looked at him he was glaring at me. Aro glanced sharply at him which made him lower his head and stay quiet.

"Do not worry Isabella, Santiago is just not used to people being faster than him, and is very jealous of your ever expanding gifts." Aro smiled at me and I smiled back. "I'm sure we were all shocked at your shields expansion from just mental to physical." My smiled widened and I put the drink down.

"That blue shield thing wasn't me." I corrected them. Everyone looked a little confused and Jasper glanced down at me.

"We all saw it come from you Bella, you did it." I smiled brightly at him and kissed him softly on the lips.

"No Jazz, it came from my stomach, it was the Baby." There was a collective gasp and I watched as Jaspers eyes brightened and a proud smile lit up his face. His hands moved down to my stomach and as if confirming it the Baby gave a big nudge.

"Magnifico." I heard Marcus mutter and Aro and Caius agreed. Everyone was astounded and both Jasper and I were so proud of our Baby.

"I can't believe the Baby protected itself, even from inside the womb." Carlisle's stunned voice echoed throughout the room but I knew that his statement wasn't true.

"No, I don't think the Baby was protecting himself, I think he was protecting me." Jasper looked at me with a crease between his eyebrows.

"You think the Baby's a boy?" He asked, a little smile on his face. I hadn't even noticed I'd used gender based words but now that I'd said it I felt a deep sense of truth and I knew Jazz felt it with me.

"Yeah, yeah I do." He grinned and kissed me and for a moment I forgot there was anyone else in the room, until Caius' voice interrupted us.

"How do you know the Baby was protecting you?" He asked and I smiled over at him.

"Logic really. I mean, think about it, Carlisle did the tests and we know he's protected by a membrane of thick vampire-like skin so he can't be directly hurt, but I can, how many times over the past few weeks have we talked about how, even with my regeneration I can still be hurt and weakened. He's bound to have picked something up, especially since he's underneath my shield he's bound to have known when I was hurt and in danger. He was protecting me." And like it happens every time we're talking about him and something needs to be confirmed he nudged my stomach hard so everyone could see his confirmation; Our Baby is a smart one.

I could tell by the looks on everyone's faces that they believed me, I mean, Baby had confirmed it.

"Sounds plausible." Spoke Carlisle.

"More than plausible I'd say." Said Jasper, grinning down at my stomach.

"Bella, maybe you shouldn't get too stuck on the idea that Baby's a boy, it's a 50/50 chance Baby's a girl." I smiled at Rose, it was typical of her not to be very bothered about the Baby's gift and more about the menial things, it was one of the things I loved about her.

"I don't know Rose, I've just got this feeling, like an overwhelming sense of truth whenever I say boy." I smiled to myself and Jasper nodded.

"I know, when I really thought about it, it just sort of felt right." Jasper spoke and kissed me on the head.

"Alright then, but does this mean we're going to be buying lots of boy centric stuff?" She asked, I knew she was excited to start gender orienting, lots of pink or blue, but I didn't want that, and I knew neither did Jasper.

"No it's okay, we're going to stay neutral, even after Baby's born." She frowned but nodded, grabbed her laptop and started to browse, probably at more baby stuff, I swear this kid is going to be extra, extra spoilt.

After just over two weeks of our visit with the Kings, they decided it was time to leave, but insisted that we come to visit them after Baby is born, so they can meet the new addiction to the family.

It was nice having them stay; I was surprised at how well I got along with the Kings and more especially with Jane, the "pain bringer" as some of the others called her. She was especially excited about the Baby, almost as excited as Rose and Esme. But having them around meant having less time with Jasper, and I hadn't seen any of the wolves since I'd found out I was pregnant which I didn't like, I missed my friends and so was a little relieved when they left.

The first two days after they left I stayed cooped up at home with Jasper. We had got everything with school sorted and I was officially being home schooled so that wasn't a problem. But I had really started to miss my friends on the rez so on the third day I sorted it with Emily to go and visit. Jasper was fine with it as he knew he could come see me whenever he wanted.

I made my way to Emily's in my truck, singing along with the radio and smiling happily to myself. I was hoping to see Leah, I hadn't been able to get hold of her and I really wanted to see her, I'd found myself missing her these past few weeks. I didn't know her that well so I found missing her a little weird but I put it down to hormones and ignored it

I got to Emily's pretty quickly and could hear the pack inside her house from a mile away and the closer I got the more I could tell what they were talking about. I could hear Paul shout at Embry for trying to steal some of his food. I chuckled, how typical. Before I even pulled into Emily's driveway Paul, Leah and Emily were out the house and smiling. I parked and got out of my truck and was instantly engulfed in a hug from Paul.

"Hey B, it's great to see you, how've you been?" He asked as he pulled me towards Emily and Leah.

"I've been alright thank Paul, it's good to see you too." I pulled away from Paul to hug Leah and Emily. After hello's we walked towards the house but Leah pulled me back.

"Be warned, we have two new wolves, they're really young, like thirteen, so they're a little more volatile." I nodded and followed her inside. I got lots of hugs and Hello's from everyone but the two new wolves, and even though Leah said they were thirteen, I couldn't help but be shocked, they looked more like they were sixteen or seventeen. I smiled at them, one of them blushed and the other glared. I resisted the urge to shake my head and sat down between Paul and Leah.

It took a minute for me to realise that Leah was staring at my stomach, but I had gotten used to that with the Kings so I ignored it.

"So Bella," started Sam, who was smiling at me. "How is everything?" He gestured around his stomach and I knew he was asking about the Baby and the pregnancy, but I was a little shocked that he hadn't just outright asked me, everyone already knew.

"Good, great actually, I'm glad the Volturi's gone, they were nice and everything but it got a little tiring with all the training and stuff." He nodded and was about to reply when Leah leaned over and sniffed me. I looked at her like she was a crazy woman, actually everyone looked at her like she was a crazy woman.

"What are you doing Leah?" Sam asked but she looked up at him shocked and I could see a slight blush to her cheeks.

"Oh, sorry Bells, it's just that you smell different, you smell, weird." I laughed.

"Yeah, that'd be the baby." She nodded and moved back a little, it was only when she moved back did I notice how close she'd actually been sat to me.

"How's everything with the Baby, Bella? You feeling any better?" I looked up at Emily and smiled.

"Baby's good, really good, turned out I was only puking so much because the Baby's appetite is closer to Jasper's than mine." The shock on their faces was hilarious.

"How do you deal with that? Do they have to kill a buck and bring it to you or something?" I laughed at Paul trying to lighten the atmosphere a little, everyone was still a little shocked.

"No, nothing like that, there's no killing involved." Everyone relaxed at that and the conversation just started to flow, although it never steered back to me drinking blood and I was grateful.

I ended up having a great day with them, everyone was really nice about the whole baby situation, but it made Paul and, surprisingly, Leah very protective over me and Baby, especially when one of the new wolves started calling Baby an abomination, they really didn't like that. But Sam shut him up by saying that my Baby is as natural as they are, as it will be born different like them. I really smiled at that.

But it started to get late and I started to get tired so I left. When I got home I went straight to the fridge and got some blood, I only needed a little bit a day but I hadn't had any yet so I was starting to get hungry. When I toddled into the living room I found Jasper talking on the phone, he was laughing and he put his arm around me when I sat next to him.

"We definitely need to visit brother, I wanna meet this mate of yours, she sounds like a firecracker." Jasper grinned down at me and kissed me lightly on the lips. The guy on the other end of the phone had a southern accent, a bit stronger than Jasper's.

"Yes you do, it wouldn't be a good idea for us to go anywhere yet, especially in Bella's condition." The guy on the other end laughed.

"Oh, you got that right, you don't want her popping the little one out on the road." Jazz shook his head.

"She's not far enough pregnant to have the baby while travelling, I was thinking more with her Dad being around and her not graduated yet, not that the graduation thing is much of a problem."

"Eh, whatever, I can't believe you're doing this man, you're too young to be a dad." I laughed with Jasper at that one and I heard a woman on the other end laugh as well.

"I'm over a hundred and fifty years old, I'm way past the use of the word young."

"Sure Jazz, anyway I need to go hunt, me and the missus will see you in a couple days, that okay?"

"Yeah, sure brother, I'll let Bella know." They hung up after a mutual goodbye and Jasper grinned at me.

"Who was that?" I asked, I couldn't help but smile back at Jasper when he was radiating happiness as much as he was.

"That was my brother Peter, him and his mate Charlotte are coming to visit."

Thanks for reading. Leave your thoughts.

KV =D