"We still have some things to talk about before we get…carried away."

"I'll stop," he said, the words once again instantaneous and hovering in the heated space between us. "I'll stop phasing as soon as the Cullens are safe." He didn't move, but his eyes once again roamed over my face, trying to take in my thoughts. "I didn't really mean it—I don't actually think wolfing out is cool. You were right about Edward, and you don't even have to point out how ridiculous this is." We stared at each other, one of his arms waving in a general direction at the wreckage while the rest of his body tensed.

"You keep saying that," I whispered. "After it's over, I'm always right, and you're always sorry—"

"I'll stop, Bells, I'll stop right now if you want—"

"Just stop saying it, and do it," I said. I could feel tears in my eyes and I saw horror on his face. "I don't know if it's phasing, or what that makes you act like this, Jake. I'm scared it's just you--if you can't control yourself—"

"No," he whispered. "Don't."

"I'm not!" I yelped. "But I will, Jacob." I looked at him, fiercely, feeling my guts roiling with pain, protesting against what I was saying. "Right now, the world we live in needs the wolf, but I am done with him. And…I will. If you leave me no choice—" I pushed the words out of my mouth before my own panic at the idea of living without him silenced me, knowing I couldn't actually bring myself to complete the thought out loud.

"No," he whispered again. In a flash, he'd dropped to his knees in front of me. He moved forward, using his long arms to gently draw me to the edge of the table and then buried his face against my stomach, his hot breath cutting through the fabric of my shirt. His voice was a desperate rumble, originating against my skin and edging around me so that it seemed he spoke in stereo. "We'll help the Cullens, and then it will just be you and me, Bells. I don't want—" he pulled his face up and looked at me, and I realized without his head bracing me it was just his arms that kept me balanced. His expression was made of raw fire. I ran my fingers through his hair involuntarily; I saw what he was going to say when I looked in his eyes, and I felt the truth of it. "I don't want to be this. It isn't what I need any more." He stared at me for a long moment, the desperation in his heart beat breaking like waves against my knees. "I would never hurt you Bella, I know myself and I know that….but to frighten you is bad enough. Just, please, don't ever—"

I hushed him with my lips. I didn't want him to beg. I wanted him to change, and he knew that. Now it was up to him to do it.

Jacob kissed me as if my lips were laced with an antidote to a poison that was killing him. His hands slid around my body and crushed me against his chest, my legs widening against him and the hottest center of my body pulled taunt against his wildly beating heart. It was almost frightening—the fervor in him now was only matched by the mania of his anger. I didn't know how to soothe him, and as I gently pulled away, my back bowing slightly as he pulled my lower body closer, I delicately ran my fingers through his hair and looked at him. His eyes were pleading. Panicked tears rested on the edges of his long black lashes, and he spoke again before I could think how to reassure him that I didn't want—would never want—to be without him. The ending depended on him.

"I'll do anything Bella." I was now pressed so tightly against him that with each inhale and exhale his rib cage rocked my thighs like a butterfly's wings. "I need you—"

"Jacob please," I whispered. I didn't want this either, and I was beginning to regret telling him I'd come to the conclusion that the wolf and I weren't compatible at this moment. I should have waited until we weren't hot on the heels of exploding chairs and discussions about Vampire invasions, let alone the imprint that got away. But Jacob had always been unafraid of telling me how he felt. He pushed his face in between my breasts and I saw that his shoulders were shaking. "Jacob, honey—please don't. I just--" here he raised his face to look at me, and I felt tears rise in my eyes again. I'd done exactly what I'd set out not to do. I had hurt him. "I don't want to be with the wolf, Jake. I don't want to have children with someone that might…" He buried his face again, his mouth open and hot and the tears like lava against my skin. "But I need you too, Jake. I want you. Please, honey, don't think of it that way—I want you." My whispers cascaded down over his head, my hands helplessly roaming over his shoulders and clutching him tighter to me. We stayed that way a long time, until his shoulders stopped moving and his ribs ceased shuddering and moved rhythmically, slowly, once again. He pulled back and stared up at me, purple gashing the skin beneath his dark eyes and dampness lining each crevice of his face.

"When I smelled her," he gasped, "I could have turned away." I held my breath. "I knew what it was, but I could also tell that for me—I could have turned away." A tear slid down his cheek. "It's just genetics. It's like an arranged marriage, or…" and here, bitterness furrowed his broad forehead, "like breeding dogs." He inhaled, clearly pausing to smell me, and then continued. "I thought it would help. I thought imprinting was the best I could do—running hadn't helped. Nothing I'd found could kill me, and I wasn't exactly suicidal….just, curiously self destructive." A short smile irked across his mouth, but another tear slid down his cheek, blemishing the effect. "That's what Leah called it." I raised my hands to his face, feeling the heat and wet on his cheeks. He continued. "We're supposed to be whatever they need, and she needed an alpha male. She was acting alpha because her own mate had died. When I showed up," his brows lowered, "she was in her moon cycle—the three days a month when they're not human. They're different than us. What they have…it seemed more like a virus." I wondered about that for a moment before listening again. "She wanted me to become the alpha, and I refused. I didn't want to be her mate." Sadness crumpled his face and then, as though suddenly embarrassed, he shook his head. "I wanted to want to…" he tried to smile, and I tried back, but we both gave up. "I couldn't leave her, though—the imprinting is strong, and I'd indulged it enough. She needed protection, so I became her second. Communication was difficult—I had to phase to talk to her while she was a wolf." He stared at me again, and his word came back to mind: haunted. Jacob was haunted. "I tried to explain to Sam, but he didn't believe me until he realized nothing had changed when she died except that I got worse. Because there was nothing, nothing for me. No reason to live and no way to die." He leaned towards me. "Can you imagine, for a moment, how that felt?"

I couldn't. But I knew who could.

"I didn't want Leah to know, because Sam….it tortured Sam, to see that I'd refused her anything. We know that I was supposed to be alpha of our pack"—my eyes widened—"and we can only guess that that is why I'm so different." His tears were gone, for now, but I kept my hands planted on his face. "Leah thought of what to do—she thought we could save the kids. She thought we could keep them away, keep all this shit from ever happening again—" tears spilled over once more, and his voice broke. "And I could live for that. I could stay alive to make sure of that. But now, it seems…we made it worse. We couldn't figure out why more kids were phasing, why vampires kept coming—it was me. When I killed one I was just making sure it's mate would show up…turning more kids…." He sobbed again, and I let him, experiencing a kind of pain I could never personally imagine as deep waves wracking my own rib cage. When he could look up at me again, he continued, but his voice was ruined. "When I was in the woods, and I heard you tell Edward…" a glimmer appeared at the memory, then lapsed. "I felt it—not imprinting. Love. I wanted you, I wanted anything at all, it was so scary and it had been so long—Bella, I'm trying to say that I love you more than anything. That there has never been and never will be anything as powerful as how much I love you." I couldn't speak. Tears fell from my eyes and rolled down my chin towards his face. "But maybe—maybe you can understand what I meant when I said I don't want to be loved because I deserve it?" Pain crushed the simple sparks of hope in his eyes. "I deserve it less—if love is something we earn, than I shouldn't…I shouldn't be loved." Hopelessness filled his face, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm selfish, for clinging to you…but I can't help myself. To touch you—to be able to talk to you like this—how could I go back? I would do anything to keep you, and I hate that I frighten you…and then you mention children…how could you want children with me, when they could phase and become monsters? Can you imagine?" By the end his eyes were distracted; his monologue erratic and I realized he was moving. His hands were slowly slipping from around me, and my mind raced frantically, trying to process everything he'd told me before they slipped away forever.