Hello everyone,

Thanks for the reviews for the last chapter go to Grumpy DelSan13, Astilbe, Rose, melodia, Dottyanne, blackenedwolf, Tala Channing, virend and Mandy may, your reviews have all kept me motivated to keep writing. Thank you for the encouragement. I appreciate your thoughts and comments very much so when you're done reading please do type a quick note and hit the review button, getting them in my inbox makes my day and keeps the muse happy.

This story is Beta'd by SeptemberSkies without whom it would rougher than rough and there is a good chance it would also be a lot more confusing. Thank you for your time, effort and words of encouragement!

Lastly, the same disclaimer from the introduction still applies.

Happy reading (and reviewing)

Chapter 4

(JPOV)

She moved with a studied grace, as if she carefully planned and thought out each move that she was going to make before she made it and I could tell by the way she moved she was conscious of the fact that I was following her. She led me to a kitchen that looked like it was built to cater for an army. Emily would have killed for a kitchen like that to help feed all of the bottomless pits that circled her dining table and yet it was clear that unless Isabella needed food the space went unused, it was almost clinically clean.

She circled around the table sized island in the middle of the kitchen and pulled the kettle off of the stove and filled it with water before placing it on a burner she had just turned on. She reached into the cupboard to her left and fished out three mugs and the makings for coffee and then pulled a teapot and two tins from the same cupboard. She measured out coffee into the two mugs before measuring out loose leaf tea that smelt like raspberries, apple, rosehips, hibiscus and lemongrass into the tea pot. Once she was done she turned slowly and looked at me critically.

"Who are you?" She asked her voice level with none of the rage apparent in it that I had heard out in the garden.

"Jacob Black." I answered her, as I placed my hands in front of me on the island. The contrast between my skin and the white marble countertop was a little shocking and had me stuffing my hands in my shorts pockets before I left a dirty mark on the pristine surface.

"I'm Isabella Swan." She said in return. "I hate when people call me Isabella though. It's too formal."

"Then what do you like to be called?" I asked.

"Bella." It was a piece of personal information that went beyond what was necessary in an introduction and I clung to it like it was a piece of hope.

"Bella it is then." I nodded, careful not to try and push her into speaking more than she wanted to.

"Your dad is William Black?" She was chewing on her lower lip in a way that made me want to vault over the island, take her into my arms and taste those beautiful lips myself but I forced myself to concentrate on her eyes instead while keeping my feet rooted to the tile floor.

"Yep." I popped the 'p' as I nodded but I couldn't help my eyebrows folding together.

"I read about him on the internet." She rushed forward with an explanation. I don't know what it was that she saw on my face but suddenly her face was cherry red, her blush creeping from her cheekbones to her hairline in a way that only served to remind me how real and alive she really was.

"I'm one of his kids. I have twin sisters and a half-brother too." I shrugged offering some personal information of my own in hopes she would begin to see me more as a person and less as a giant monster from a horror film.

"And they're all…" Her voice drifted off like she wasn't sure what word to use.

"Wolves?" I said the word I was sure she was looking for, for her. She nodded; a blush that helped to highlight her cheekbones crept across her face. I shook my head. "No. Just me and my brother."

"But Leah?" She looked uncertain as she scuffed the toe of her sock on the tiled floor.

"An anomaly." I responded. There were women, my own sisters included, in whom the bloodlines ran just as strongly or more strongly and yet they showed none of the telltale signs of the phase. Bottom line, no one knew why Leah had phased.

"Oh." She went back to chewing on her lower lip.

"Where are your biological parents?" I asked.

"They're dead." She looked up at me defiantly, her lower jaw jutting forward like she was preparing for a fight. I couldn't help but remember the way that she had stood up to Sam, the look of righteous indignation on her face as she set him straight on her feelings about the family that she counted as her own.

"I'm sorry." I responded.

"I have a good family Jacob. My parents are good people, I'm close with my siblings and we care deeply for one another. I wouldn't trade them for anything. I think that my biological parents would be glad that I have the family that I do, that I have a mom and dad that love me and care for me." She said quickly, stumbling over her words at times like it was important that she got them out without me interrupting. I didn't and I wouldn't have. I could have stood there in the middle of her kitchen for an eternity to listen to her speak no matter what the topic was or who was around us.

"I lost my mom when I was little. I don't remember hardly anything about her, doesn't mean that there aren't times that I miss her." I shrugged by way of trying to make her understand why I was sorry.

"I'm sorry." She parroted my words back to me and blushed harder when she realized what she had done. "I do miss them I guess but it's more the idea that I miss. I was so young, only three years old when they died, I don't remember them at all. They were from here though. It's part of the reason that Dad thought it would be good to live here for a while, so I could see where I was from and maybe learn a thing or two about my parents, see who it was I would have been if things had been different." The kettle started to whistle behind her and she turned.

"Charlie and Renee Swan?" I asked her.

"What?" She almost spilled the water on the countertop when I spoke instead of in the coffee mug like she was aiming for.

"They were your parents?" I tried again once she had mopped up the water she had spilled and was focusing on the task of pouring the water into mugs again.

"This is one of those small town things that Dad warned me about right? Everyone knows everyone because they grew up together and La Push is so close to the town and with Charlie having been a police officer…" Bella was frowning as she poured the last of the water in the tea pot and covered it with a tartan tea cozy. The guard that had started to drop as we had spoken raised again and I could have kicked myself as I listened to her put the pieces of the puzzle that even she didn't know she was missing together. "They knew each other didn't they, my parents and your parents?"

"Your dad was best friends with my dad before he died. There's a picture of them fishing together in our house. You have your dad's hair and eyes." I responded trying desperately to fix the mistake that I made without trying to sound more like a weirdo. "Dad talks about him sometimes, usually when he's watching sports or going to the cabin to go fishing. I'm sure if you ever wanted to come to the Res and talk to him about Charlie you'd be more than welcome." I picked up a pen that had been left on the island and jotted my cellphone and the house phone number down on a piece of paper that was next to it. She looked at it and then at me, those big doe eyes skeptical as I handed it to her.

"Maybe that's true but I don't think me coming to the reservation is going to be a good idea." She shook her head but took the paper anyway, folding it carefully and putting it in her pocket. "Do you or Mr. Uley take anything in your coffee?"

"One sugar for me, Sam likes his black." I explained and then took the two coffee mugs that she offered me careful not to touch her fingers, afraid that touching her skin would be my undoing and she wasn't close to ready to know the truth of our situation. I smiled, placing the mug with sugar on the island in front of where I had been standing before turning and walking down the hall to the room that Sam had disappeared into.

The window was open, the breeze, I was sure was supposed to somehow make the smell better but it was oppressive. Leah was sitting on a chair as close to the window as she could get and she used my arrival to turn her head toward it and gulp in air, everyone else was looking at me. I handed Sam his coffee.

"How is Bella doing Mr. Black?" Carlisle asked me. I looked at Sam who raised his eyebrows as he took his drink and set it down on the floor next to one of the legs of his chair.

"She's worried." I said trying to breathe shallow breaths when I realized that breathing was going to be hard with the syrupy stench in the air. Get used to it Black. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Leah's snapped at the back of my mind. You imprinted on a girl whose family are vampires. The smell is going to be a permanent fixture in your life. Fuck! I had spent so much time with Leah in my head it was like she was perpetually stuck there.

"Maybe I should-" The Dr.'s wife stood a fraction of an inch before her husband's hand was on her arm stopping her.

"You need to be here for this conversation. There will be plenty of time for you to talk to Bella when they're gone. Alice is capable of getting to her if she needs help." He said, his voice still tempered and even the way that it had been since we arrived. His wife sat back down but the tension didn't leave her body.

"Have you told her?" Sam asked me, I knew he was talking about the imprint but his expression trying to convey something else to me at the same time.

"No." I shook my head firmly. "She's not ready. She's just worried that we're going to hurt her family." I managed to get the words out but I couldn't help the pain in my chest. I was hurting her, my existence was hurting her and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it but walk on eggshells around her.

"I've told Dr. Cullen about the Connection. That you will be able to feel when she's distressed or hurt like you did this afternoon." Sam said. Leah snorted. His words were clear, as clear as the words that he didn't say and Leah's reaction just backed up my suspicion. He hadn't told them about imprinting, not properly, only the parts that benefited the Pack most. I understood, I really did especially since it was the only way short of kidnapping Bella that Sam could come up with to put his point across and keep my imprint safe but I found that I was pissed off too. My relationship with Bella was not supposed to be a threat and she was already feeling threatened enough by our presence without adding to it.

"I'm not here to make her miserable." I said to the room as a whole as the doctor nodded his head once in affirmation that he had heard and understood me.

(BPOV)

I watched him turn and walk away and I felt a twinge of disappointment until I looked at the coffee that I had made for him left on the island like a silent promise. He would be back and the knowledge made me smile as I put a spoonful of rock sugar in my tea cup and poured the tea over it. I lifted the cup, taking a deep breath of lemon and floral raspberry before sipping, letting the hot liquid slide down the back of my throat and warm me from the inside.

I missed always being warm.

Jacob's father had grown up with my biological father; his family had known mine years before when my parents had lived here in Forks. Had his parents known me as a child? Had I met this Jacob before? Was that why I was comfortable alone in a room with him despite the circumstance that brought him here? Clearly despite their knowledge of vampires, they didn't know the particulars surrounding my parent's deaths and that fact made me a little uncomfortable. They had converged on our home, over a scream that had only happened in a dream, calling me a vampire's pet and belittling the life that I had been happily living and thriving in, what would they do if they knew the truth about my parents, what had really happened the night I became a Cullen.

I knew that we had only just moved, that I hated moving more than the sound of nails against a chalkboard, but the threat to my family and way of life made me feel like it was suddenly a good idea. My stomach flipped and then sank to my feet in reaction to my thought like it caused me physical pain. A tremor ran through my arms down to my fingertips and a voice in the back of my head rebelled at the idea of leaving this place. Since when did I want to stay in wet, cold, miserable Forks?

"You okay?" His voice was a liquid baritone that flowed effortlessly around the space we were in. I turned and looked at him, nodding as I wrapped both hands around the teacup. I shivered as the heat from the tea traveled up my clasped palms anchoring me to the space I was in as it helped to warm me from the outside in.

"Mom said that one of you heard me scream?" I asked, sipping at my tea as I leaned against the counter, glad for the island that separated us. I wanted too badly to reach out and touch him. Feel what his skin actually felt like under my fingertips, was it as smooth as it looked? Would it be warm like my skin or cold like my family's? Was it pliable like mine or hard like marble? I put my teacup down.

"We're kinda pre-programed to react to a human in distress." He shrugged, taking a gulp of his coffee.

"I didn't scream." I said, weaving my fingers together and looked down at the island instead of at him. Breakfast for dinner was sounding better and better, French toast with maple syrup, turkey bacon, strawberries and bananas. Breakfast always helped sort everything out like a chance at starting a day fresh.

"You didn't scream?" His voice sounded strange like he was skeptical. "Why would you say that? Under an hour ago you were terrified, the kind of terrified that only happens when someone thinks they're going to die! What are you afraid of?"

"I didn't scream. I don't have anything to be afraid of! What is your problem?" I snapped, my eyes instantly locking to his. He looked like he was between pissed off and deeply concerned. I was freaked out; a little under an hour ago I had been asleep and dreaming. Asleep and dreaming about a vampire biting me and in my dream I had been terrified and I had been screaming. How could he know that? Did he know that? How was that even possible?

"My problem is that I know that something was wrong!" He voice had risen in volume, not quite enough to equal my outburst of seconds before. His face was fierce, the expression the same on it as when he had run out of the classroom earlier that afternoon.

"I had a dream." I said suddenly, not sure why the words came tumbling out of my mouth or why I felt it was so important to tell him.

"Bella?" Alice's voice drifted down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"I'm fine." I didn't raise my voice to match hers but I knew that I didn't have to for her and every other member of my family to hear me from where they were around the house. More aggression was the last thing that the situation that I was in needed.

"A dream?" He seemed confused.

"You know the kind you have when you're sleeping? You do sleep?" I asked after taking a deep breath and trying to stay calm.

"Yes, I sleep." Jacob looked at me like I had grown a second head.

"Don't look at me like that!" I snapped. "I don't know what the werewolf rules are. Enemies are usually enemies because they are more similar than they like to admit and have a mutual interest in something like land or food or-" He didn't let me finish my thought.

"We DON'T eat people!" He retorted.

"Neither do my family!" I glared at him, and then took another deep breath. I had to get a grip on my temper before I pissed two werewolves off in one afternoon.

"Fine." He said and I watched him struggle for a moment to regain his composure. "So we're here because you had a bad dream?" He still didn't seem to be able to comprehend that idea any more than I was able to.

"This is really frustrating." I did my best to keep my tone level. "Do you…"I started to motion between us and then stopped myself. I took a deep breath instead of finishing the question. "Why did…" I thought better of my next question too. He was frowning as I failed to speak my mind again. I chewed on my lower lip and watched his eyes travel across my face from my eyes to my lips and back again in a way that made a shiver of anticipation run down my spine. "Why does it matter to you how I live my life?"

I watched him struggle with his reply. It was as if I could see the thoughts running through his head as he tried to come up with an explanation. One large hand reached up and ran through the short hair on his head turning it into a spiky mess. "It's complicated," was what he came up with.

"Then explain it to me, after all it is my life that is being debated in that room." I returned.

"Your family has lived here before. They signed a treaty with my ancestors decades ago. It's a complicated document but basically they were given the right to live here at this property, hunt animals on the Olympic Peninsula so long as they respected human life, didn't drink from or turn a human being and stayed off of tribal land." He said carefully and I had a feeling that he wasn't telling me everything. Why would his reaction be so strong over a treaty?

"If we break any parts of the Treaty?" I asked, reaching out and rubbing at the edge of the worktop to keep my hands busy. They were shaking enough that I didn't trust myself to hold my cup, the last thing I needed was to break something and then cut myself on it to add fuel to the fire and considering how my luck was holding out that was what was going to happen.

"You can't break the Treaty Bella." He said softly, his eyes finding mine again and holding them captive. He was telling me the truth and was making sure that I understood it. "You're human. If one of," I could see him physically struggle with the words he was trying to say, "your family," the words looked like they actually hurt him to say, the corners of his eyes pinching slightly, the muscles in his jaw working as his nostrils flared, "break the Treaty then we are within our rights to destroy them on sight."

"Oh." I felt my heart pick up its pace and simple fear settle into my gut in a way that I had never had fear before. I could lose my family to horse sized werewolves if they so much as put a foot in the wrong spot or I got a scratch that I couldn't instantly explain away or I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and needed help that I knew they would risk their lives to give... What would happen to my siblings and I without Esme and Carlisle to balance and keep us secure? Would it be possible to smile again without Emmett pulling pranks or teasing me or Alice not being there to stop me taking life too seriously and Rosalie with the answers when life had to be serious? I wrapped my arms around my torso as premature grief hit me hard.

"Bella." He had moved around the counter and was slowly extending a hand toward my shoulder until his hand cupped the joint and squeezed in what was meant to be a reassuring gesture. I gasped; his hand was hot, beyond fever hot, like the same sort of heat from a cup full of boiling water and the warmth was seeping through my shirt and into my skin. It was like a brand marking me and my body responded never wanting the touch to go away. "So long as the Treaty is respected and you are safe, no one is going to be destroyed. We'll work this thing out; find a way to make it work."

I looked up at him. His gaze was intense; his entire focus was one hundred percent on me and while I knew that I should have been feeling intimidated, I didn't. Jacob Black was a man that protected and for some reason he had chosen to protect me, instead of wanting to turn him away I wanted to relax into what he had to offer. The look on his face spoke of his sincerity, he meant his words and the sick feeling in my gut lessened a little. More than anything, I wanted to believe him.

"Jake!" I almost jumped ten feet in the air and ended up pressed against the counter top my heart beating frantically, one of Jacob's arms wrapped around my waist to steady me. Sam Uley stood looking at us, his eyebrows pulled together and his jaw set in a hard line. The girl he had brought into the house was standing next to him in shorts and a tank top that left none of her curves to the imagination. She was gorgeous and she was smiling at me, a sort of smug grin that made me feel like she was taking pleasure in the fact that I was causing so many problems for everyone. "Time to move out. The Treaty remains intact, the girl stays put."

"You okay?" Jacob looked at me removing his arm as my parents appeared in the open study doorway. Esme looked worried and Carlisle grave, I wondered what had been said to concern them.

"Yeah." I nodded.

"If you need anything call." He said before clenching his jaw and walking toward the others.

"You handle weird better than most." Leah, the female wolf looked me up and down as though she was continuing her assessment of me, long thick eyelashes brushed high cheekbones but the approval on her lips didn't meet her eyes. There was something deeply wrong in her life, her eyes which should have been the color of melted dark chocolate looked dead somehow, like she had forgotten she was supposed to be alive. "You'll survive. See you at school tomorrow." She put her shoulder into Jacob's, making him take a step to the side. They looked at each other and he nodded once to her unasked question. The werewolves turned and left the house with Carlisle following them.