Chapter Sixteen
Jesse stiffened as that voice caressed his name intimately. He really didn't need this now. Very slowly he turned around to face her. He kept his face expressionless as he took in her ruby eyes, her caramel colored hair, the pale, unmarred skin. Fighting for control, he managed a passingly polite smile. "Amanda."
Amanda looked him over and raised a brow. "What the hell happened to your eyes? And what are you doing in Washington State? Last I knew you were still on the East coast." Inwardly, she cringed. She hadn't approached him to start a fight. On the outside though she kept her somewhat calm demeanor.
Jesse fought the urge to just get back in the car and drive. She would probably follow. "Keeping tabs on me, Amanda?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
It was that moment that Tanya chose to make herself known. It was a true testament to how much Amanda hadn't been paying attention to anything but Jesse, because as soon as Tanya stepped out of the car, the woman sucked in a breath and backed up about four feet.
Looking from Tanya to Jesse and back to Tanya, Amanda looked dumbfounded. "I thought you said you made her up!" she hissed quietly at Jesse.
Tanya shook her head before Jesse could say a word. Arching a strawberry brow at the other woman, she crossed her arms over her chest and deliberately looked Amanda from head to toe and back up again. "Who are you and what is your business with Jesse?" Tanya's voice was deceptively quiet, though her words and actions clearly said 'Stay away, he's mine.'
"Who am I? Just who the hell are you? And what are you doing with Jesse?" Amanda shot back before looking again at Jesse. "You didn't make her up. Have you been seeing her since we were together? And what the hell is with both of your eyes?!" The whole golden eye color seemed to bother her a lot.
Tanya blinked but Jesse started talking quickly. "I didn't lie to you Amanda. At the time I had never met Tanya. I didn't know she existed."
"Would someone please tell me what is going on?" Tanya demanded.
Jesse sighed before gesturing to Amanda. "Tanya this is Amanda. Amanda, Tanya. Amanda and I were, um, involved. About a century ago," he stressed.
Tanya tapped her fingers on her bare upper arms and looked speculatively at Amanda. "Then why does she think you knew me from so long ago?"
Her question was reasonable, but Jesse knew Tanya well enough by now to see the barely controlled leash she had on her temper.
Amanda answered for him. "Because he painted your portrait. Many times. He told me that it was just a face in his mind, a woman he made up. I believed him." It sounded as if it pained her to admit it. "But obviously he lied, because here you stand, in the flesh."
Tanya ignored the explanation, instead focusing her anger on the other woman. "So, if you and him are no longer together, and haven't been for some time, what can we help you with?" her voice dripped with mock sweetness. Tanya was trying so hard to keep her temper from exploding, and attacking the woman outright in a very crowded gas station off the freeway.
Jesse touched the small of her back reassuringly. "I'm sure she was shocked to find me here." His smile was tight. "Seeing as how I left her with no explanation."
Amanda made an inelegant noise. "That's one way to put it. How about he waited until I went hunting and then took what he could and disappeared. It took me years to track him down again. Though he managed to lose me again a few years ago. And now here you are, in Washington." Her smile was not pretty.
"Yes, Amanda, here I am in Washington. Where I will leave you once again. I thought my leaving was clear. I don't want you."
Though Tanya's rage was directed at both Jesse, for keeping this huge secret from her, and at Amanda, merely for existing, she had to smile at Jesse's words. If she had ever doubted his feelings before, they were crystal clear now. Tanya's lips spread into a slow smile as she looked at Amanda. "You see, Jesse loves me," she held up a hand when Amanda looked about to protest. "What you had with him was not based on love. I can see that just from the color of your eyes."
"What?!" Amanda spit the word out in her rage, her voice rising an octave and bringing on a few stares from some of the other patrons of the gas station.
"You asked what the 'hell' was with our eyes earlier," Tanya explained, relishing the moment. She kept her voice pitched low, so one would have to be on top of the three of them to overhear the conversation. "Your... hunting habits keep you at arms length. Sure you take a lover, but you still take human life to live. We do not. And our shared abstinence from human blood allows us to fully bond with another. A bond of true love, unbreakable by anything, even death."
Amanda took another step back from them. "I don't believe that. I loved Jesse. I still do. And I know he cares about me too."
Jesse shook his head. "That's where you are wrong Amanda. I don't care about you. If I did, I wouldn't be with Tanya. I wouldn't have spent three months in misery without her to prove I could live her lifestyle. Because that's what happens when you are separated from your true love Amanda. You are in pain. You are in misery. You cannot function. I know that now. And I never felt that way after leaving you."
Amanda growled low in her throat. She looked from Tanya to Jesse, letting her eyes linger on him. A scream of frustration erupted from her throat and she disappeared in the blink of an eye. Those around them looked again, and immediately gave Jesse a sympathetic look, assuming the scream had come from Tanya. When Amanda had left, Tanya's face had dropped it's sweetly friendly look, and now held a look of anger.
Tanya stepped away from the comfort of Jesse's touch and turned her piercing golden gaze on him. "You have some explaining to do," she said through clenched teeth. "I will wait in the car." With that, she turned on her heel and got back in the Viper, shutting the door a bit harder than necessary behind her.
Jesse winced as she slammed the door and sighed, filling the car and swiping his card. He damned Amanda to hell for showing up, and he damned himself to hell for not telling Tanya sooner about this. This could throw a wrench in all of his well laid plans for their trip down here.
After taking a moment to settle himself and brace for Tanya's onslaught, he got into the drivers seat and pulled them to a parking spot out of the way to wait for Eleazar, as well as to start explaining to Tanya. Laying his head back against the headrest he rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache. "I met Amanda while I was still with the Volturi. She is Chelsea's sister."
Tanya hissed in a breath but otherwise didn't make a sound, allowing him to continue.
"I did care about her. I spent a lot of time with her when she came to visit Chelsea. Amanda is not gifted, so Aro had no interest in keeping her with them. So when she was going to leave, I decided to go with her. Chelsea wouldn't deny her sister anything, and released me from the bonds of the Volturi without question. Amanda and I left.
"We wandered Europe for awhile but decided to come to the New World, just like many others before us. But as I spent time painting, I had a face in my head. Yours. I didn't know that at the time though. I just painted her over and over. I thought maybe if I painted her enough, her image would leave me alone. Amanda asked me about it, wondered who she was, and I told her exactly what she said... that I made her up. But the more I looked at these images, the more I realized I couldn't stay with Amanda. I don't know what possessed me, but I couldn't. So I left, leaving most of the paintings behind. I took a few. I painted more. But I didn't know, until I saw you, that you actually existed. And that's what drew me to you, why you intrigued me. Well that, and you always had red eyes in my paintings, but in real life you have beautiful golden eyes."
He had turned his head to look at her during his explanation, but refrained from reaching out to her, letting her absorb it all, and decide to make the move. It was killing him though, not knowing what she was thinking.
"You used Amanda to leave the Volturi?" Tanya asked, her features impassive.
"Not actively, no. I did care for her, after spending countless weeks together. It was just never... true."
Tanya looked about to respond when she saw Eleazar's Avalanche pull into the station.
