Hi everyone, thanks for sticking with me and this story. I think I wrote back to everyone last week, all except those who were guest and those without PM enabled. So I want to say thank you for your comments too.
I have just realized that I've made a massive oversight in this story. I haven't acknowledged my friend and Beta, Atretee in any of my authors notes. THANK YOU. Thank you so, soooo, much Les for all the editing and advice to give to my work. You know how appreciative I am, I'm just a dork who forgets to say it in print ;-)
To the rest of you, thanks for reading, I hope you like what's coming up. This is a longer chapter, it's good and meaty.
Marina
Chapter 6
In the thinly wooded forest of Rivas Canyon Park, I came-to with my two pack brother's hauling me back toward Seth's car. Through the bitter retching and agonizing pain in my chest, I vaguely realized that Embry was bent over my naked ass, pulling and tugging on my legs. They were trying to get the shorts that I'd had tied around my ankle up and over my legs.
"Come on dude, lift your ass up," Embry grunted, pulling at my hips as I once again, tried to hurl out the lining of my stomach.
Rolling on to my side, I pushed up, turning onto all fours, "Emb, it's okay," I croaked, waving his hand off as I pulled my own god damned pants up.
"Welcome back boss," Seth said as his hand reached out in offering. "We don't know what the fuck's going on, you've been spewing and moaning like a delirious zombie for the past ten minutes." I used his help to get myself to my feet. "It's only another mile to my truck," he added, as I wiped the yellow dust off my hands. "You think you can do it, Jake?"
I nodded absently, my mind only on one thing, one person. The pain hit again, another wave that sent me hunching over and clutching at the burning agony inside me. I pushed through the pain, determined to focus on my task. I was a protector, the chief protector in a pack of honored warriors and I had failed to protect her, my most prized possession. I was gunna change that, starting from now. I took an unsteady step forwards, towards my way back to her. "Ness, I got to get to Ness," I choked, fighting the searing pain in my chest.
"We know dude," Embry soothed as he dipped under my arm, letting me use his shoulder as a crutch. "That's all you've said for the last ten minutes. We'll get to the truck then head straight up to the San Gabriel's. We'll find her Jake, we promise."
Several minutes later, with me pausing every minute or so to either dry retch or to instead double over in pain, or sometimes both, we arrived at the quiet gravel car-park. There were only three other cars parked in the lot and not a soul around to witness my impotence as I took the water bottle Seth had offered me, swirling a mouthful around and then heaved it back up all over the ground before I could even attempt to swallow it.
I spat out the bitter bile, my thoughts were still obsessed with getting to my imprint. Then, as if thinking of her triggered Ness to think of me, I felt a warm pulse in my chest. It was faint and less potent than any of the other connections to Renesmee I'd felt in the past. She was thinking of me and she was hurting too. Realizing that she was hurting too made it all increase by a hundred, physically and emotionally. I couldn't help the moan that escaped my lips as I doubled over once more as bitter, yellow bile filled my mouth.
"Jake, I love ya man, and we're gunna help you," Seth said, clasping a supporting hand on my shoulder, "but there is no fucking way you're coming in the car with all this spewing going on."
"Fine," I wheezed, the wolf in me too forlorn at the receding imprint bond to care about the status of where the human sat… or lay.
.
With my brother's help, I pulled myself up and into the back of Seth's truck. We headed south down the Pacific Coast highway and I, once again, started retching, my stomach convulsing while my insides burned.
As we followed the coast line down, I could feel what was left of the cables that were tying me to her starting to pull and strain further. It was getting worse. The ties binding me to Ness were tearing the flesh from my body with the strain.
We were being pulled further apart.
Lifting my fist up, I hammered at the rear window, screaming to the wolves inside, "we're going the wrong way. She's north, Seth, drive north."
Embry turned in his seat, his brows bumped together in worry as he meet my eye through the laminated glass. "We will Jake, it's just faster on the freeway. We'll be heading to her in just a few minutes. Hang in there Dude. We were there for you when you were running from your betrayer, we're sure as hell gunna be there for you when you're running to your redeemer."
My redeemer. Embry always had such a way with words, I thought as the pain seared through my chest. He'd looked into some kind of literary course in community college a few years back, but it had never panned out. As alpha, and his friend, I should have pushed him further. He was right thought, she was my redeemer, my savior, my one and only reason for everything. And I had to be near her.
I felt our bond, although pulled tight and within a micron of snapping, pulsing and warm. It pulsed again, jerking at the cables, filling my heart with tenderness and love and my chest with agonizing pain. The love gave me enough strength to not cry out in the torture of it all.
Giving in to the exhaustion of the pain, I sunk down, the skin of my back burning as it touched the heated aluminum. It was nothing though, compared to the pain in my chest. I lay diagonally across the bed of the truck, looking up at the clouds that were still obscuring the sun. It reminded me of how beautiful she looked this morning as the dawn broke through the window. The pain was now constant, only fluctuating in its severity. I hoped, with every fiber of my being that my mate wasn't going through this same agony from our separation.
The thought of her smile and her kiss helped keep me from going crazy but the ongoing pain was wearing at me. I knew my brothers would help me find her. They'd know instinctively what I needed as I I'd called out her name and I doubled over from the spirits' sucker punch to my soul. I needed to get to Ness. I just had to endure the torture until we did.
Almost like a protective mechanism to the torture I was experiencing, I decided to let my eyes become unfocused and my mind disengage from it all. I detached from the pain, from the missing piece of my heart, from the world around me. I let the steady hum of the reconditioned engine sooth me. My head knocked back into the tray beneath me, and I stared up at the grey filled sky above. The regular stripes of the overhead wires passing as we traveled were like a hypnotic flash. I let myself remember the softness of her whispered voice in my ear, it numbed me and lulled the beast howling from within.
.
After hours or minutes— I couldn't tell— I was brought back to the truck. The humid wind buffeted over the side, cooling my heated skin. There was a short lived darkness as we drove under an underpass and it woke me from my self-induced stupor. It was like waking up from the most fucked up night's sleep I'd ever had. I rolled on my side, pressing my hand to my still throbbing chest as we rounded a long bend, the ache ebbing just a little bit as the road turned towards the north. Towards my Nessie.
We drove for another half an hour. I was finding that for each mile closer to the mountains we traveled, the more the ache began to ease. It was still burning and still a pain that was impossible to ignore, but the retching had simmered down to a green nausea for now.
At some point, as we merged onto the interstate 5, I'd found the strength to sit up and watched the road from the back of the truck. My wolf started to get impatient, he wanted to escape my skin and find his mate on his own terms. With a tremor and whole lot of will power I pushed the old boy back down. As we traveled along the road, I felt the insipid grey of the concrete barriers were fencing me in. There was nothing but the grey of the faded asphalt, the grey of the cement fences and sound barriers and the grey skies above. The scenery seemed to paint my mood as nothing but concrete slabs flicked past.
We left the more built up part of LA and the sun found its way out of the morning's cloud cover, it spread a bleached piercing light over everything. All the spindly palms and green shrubs lining the highway now seemed muted and washed out by the dry Californian heat. It made me miss the deep, luscious greens of home. As much as I complained, I missed the rain and the green. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to take my mate home... if we could find her.
I had no idea what was happening to me to have caused this reaction. I knew it was centered around my imprint. And it was something to do with us being apart. But the other imprinted wolves had never had this problem as far as I could remember. Emily had gone to visit her family on more than one occasion. Sure, Sam had been a brooding asshole the whole time she'd been gone, but he'd never vomited uncontrollably, and it had never hurt like this was hurting.
But Emily and Sam hadn't been separated less than twenty-four hours after first imprinting. Once she'd accepted him and his wolf, they'd shacked up and hid out for days. And shit, Paul and Rachel were even worse. They'd only surfaced for food and water. It had been totally fucked having to listen in through the thin shitty walls of dad's house. They only reason they even left the house was because the council—aka dad— made them, and that wasn't for at least a week after they'd imprinted.
Renesmee and I had only had one night. My imprint wasn't like the others and none of the other wolves were the true alpha either. There was no god damn manual for this supernatural shit. Sometimes I wish I could talk to Ta'ha Aki and the third wife. The last known imprinted alpha pair might have been about to tell me a little more than the legends did. But then again, our stories didn't tell us much about the third wife, but I'm pretty sure my ancestor's imprint wasn't a vampire hybrid. May be that was what had made our separation so much worse.
It was really all just poorly educated guesses though. I was pretty sure, however, that Edward had something to do with it, one way or the other. My gut instinct told me all this mess and pain had something to do with her family. With the leeches. I'd bet my left nut on it. The sparkly ass fucker always had a way of fucking up my life.
With a little pulse in my chest, followed by a warm and only slightly painful burn, I focused my attention back to the road again. Back to finding my mate. From my ousted position in the back, I watched the little orange digital clock on the dash as the minutes ticked over and the speedometer as it sat at a healthy eighty-five mph. Just fast enough that the wolf inside me wouldn't complain but still pushing the maximum limits of the piece of shit, green, 1989 Silverado.
.
As the miles rolled on, I could feel, more and more, the easing of the pain in my chest. It was really now just a dull ache, a pulling sensation. It was pulling me closer to her. As the ache got duller, the longing to be at Renesmee's side started to grow, exponentially. I felt an overwhelming compulsion to get to her. The compulsion surrounded me. My wolf had sprung to attention and was clawing his way to the surface too.
We must have been getting closer.
Seth switched lanes, headed towards the right, towards the Palmdale exit when I'd felt the sudden and strong pull at my chest, pulling me to the left. Not towards to mountains, as Edward and Bella had promised, but Left; north, to whatever unsuspecting Podunk town the leeches had turned their farcically human life towards.
I yelled at my brothers thought the rear window. My voice was loud and low; just shy of the bass timbre of an alpha order. "Sacramento, Seth! Take the Sacramento exit."
They both look at me over their shoulders, their eyes narrowed with brows pulled together in confusion, but they knew better than to question my sudden direction. "The fuckers lied to us," I sneered, punching in frustration, and denting the silver metal I was kneeling on.
With a sharp swerve and a few jolting bumps, the truck mounted the small road divider to keep us traveling on the 5, heading towards Sacramento. I knew we were on the right track as the cables tying me to my imprint were steady hauling me in to her by the yard and the wolf pushing his way to the surface. I knew, instinctively, that Ness had had no part in the misdirection. I could feel her pain and her love pulsing through me. She was angry at her captors too.
I felt myself start to tremor, the internal rage of a phase simmering to the surface. He had no right to take my mate from me. The fucker had crossed me for the last time; she'd betrayed me for the last time too.
Neither the beast, nor the man was going to tolerate it.
With the truck now pushing eighty-eight mph, I could sense her closeness. The wolf was pulling at his tether. I stood up, looking over the top of the cab, straining my eyes to find her. Letting my vision follow my heart's sensibilities.
Then suddenly up ahead, pulled up on a dirt alcove, was a silver fucking Volvo. Predictable fucker. I could smell the sickly, bleached scent of the blood suckers, it was tainting the sent that was etched on my brain. Ness.
There was a sparkle that caught my eye half way up the top of a mountain, off to the side of the road. And then I saw her. In a pair of jeans and a plain grey, fitted t-shirt, her hair a wild mess bunched over one shoulder as she stooped over on hands and knees, the two sparking dead asses fussing around her uselessly.
The wolf broke free of his tether then, letting me keep in my human skin, instead I leaped from the speeding truck and sprinted, at superhuman speed, up the hill side.
.
"Jake," Seth called out the car window as he pulled up next to the parasite's car.
Bella turned as I approached, "Jake," she started, her hands fanned out in a placating gesture.
"Save your bullshit Bella," I sneered, pushing through them both and wrapping my arms around Renesmee.
.
Without much warning at all, the scrambled eggs that had been threatening for the past several minutes violently exited, as a pain like I'd never felt before seized me by the chest.
Mother had gently pulled my hair into a makeshift cluster behind my neck as daddy lifted me up off all fours and carried me over to the shade of a nearby tree. Even in pain induced delirium I couldn't help the snide comment escaping my thoughts, we wouldn't want to cause a truck crash by blinding the interstate drivers with vampire sparkle would we, daddy.
Another wave of searing hot pain pulled at my heart and I rolled on to my side. My face pressed into the undergrowth, my own moans competing with the crinkly snaps of the dried, curled leaves under my cheeks.
"Renesmee, sweetie," my mother's frantic voice broke thought the haze of pain, "what's wrong?" Turning to my father she asked, "Oh, God. Edward, what's wrong with her?"
"Jake, I need Jake," I wheezed out.
I had no idea what was happening to my body but I knew, in the very deepest depths of my heart, that Jacob was my cure. I'd been feeling sick and mildly pained since the moment we drove away from the apartment. But the moment I realized that dad had no plans of allowing me to return, the pain had expediently worsened. It wasn't a dissecting aortic aneurysm, but I could have sworn I was enduring a thoracotomy whilst still conscious.
.
Daddy stood from his worried position over me, the speed of his movement causing the dried leaves to rustle and blow around my face as it rested to the cool earth. "What has that mongrel done to her?" He paced pack and forth, the leaves gusting a small track in his wake.
"What has he done?" Mom hissed, looking back to my father, her body statue still as she remained protectively guarding over me. "What have you done Edward?" Her normally bell like voice was shrill and painful to my partially human ears.
My ears hurt, my heart hurt, everything hurt.
My chest was throbbing; it felt, raw and bloodied, like my soul was being shredded into broken-hearted pieces. I needed him in that moment more than I needed the air I was breathing.
My mother stood up into a protective stoop over my sprawled body, her fists bawled at her side, "She was fine until she realized you'd lied about taking her back. You lied to Jake, to her, to me, Edward. How could you let me promise, knowing full well you were never going to take her back to LA?"
He shook his head, looking up to the branches of the tree above me, "Even after all these years, Bella, he still has a piece of you. I knew you'd want to go back, at the very least to see him again," he spat.
She glared at him, a hiss escaping between her perfectly white teeth. "He's like family Edward. And he always will be. I discarded him, along with my own parents, when I chose to live my life with you. For you. I have never, not for one minute, doubted your love. It cuts me to the core to think that you doubt mine."
She stood to her full but still shorter height, a pointed finger pressed to her husband's chest. Her tone was cold and controlled. My mother may have only found her new life recently—in terms of a vampire's existence—but she had a natural control of herself. I liked to see her rise to her full potential, without fathers repressing shadow. "I promised my oldest friend that we would return our daughter, not because I want to see him again, which, for the record, I do, but because she is his imprint. I don't have to be inside their minds to know how their connection works."
He blew an unnecessary breath out of the back of his clenched teeth, leaning in to her accusing finger, her nail cut a small incision in the oxford he was wearing. "No Bella, I didn't need to hear it, I could smell their connection from outside the apartment block."
"Don't be vulgar Edward, it's not becoming," she sneered.
He glared at her, a coolness I'd never seen in my father's eyes, and most certainly never directed towards my mother. He angled to the side, balancing his weight on one foot as mother tilted back to block his subtle moves towards me. "You're not taking her anywhere Edward," she said shaking her head slowly. She reminded me of a clown at an amusement fair, only there was no smile, her lips were tight and her eyes were narrowed, waiting to obstruct his elusive rush.
.
After a few moments of aloof dancing back and forth father stood tall, blinking and regarding his wife with something akin to tolerance.
"Love, be reasonable," he said, tilting his head to the side, his cool white hand reaching out to her in offering, "we can't stay out here indefinitely, she obviously needs medical attention. Let's take her back to Alberta, to Carlisle."
"No Edward. No," she said, her hands crisscrossing in front of her in a sharp, air-cracking movement. "Stop trying to manipulate the situation. She doesn't need a doctor she needs her mate. Are you that myopically focused that you can't see the obvious?"
Mother's stance softened over me, but it still didn't relax. She let out a breath, the flash gush of air whistling though her teeth. "I'm sick of it Edward, I love you, but I'm sick of it. Stop trying to manipulate me. Stop lying. Stop thinking that you always know what's best. You don't always know what's best." Her arms waved in earnest as she spoke, years of pent up subservience unleashing as steadily as she could. "It's actually okay to make mistakes. It good for her, for all of us to make a mistake now and then. Not that our daughter finding a mate is a mistake… it isn't. It might be a little sooner than any of us preempted, but it's not a mistake. He'd be good to her Edward."
"I don't care if he worships her or he's just using her. The dog is never going to put his filthy paws on her again. I'll make her see reason. Anyone but him."
Father was wrong, it was only him, it was only ever him and it would only ever be him. His paws were clean and large and talented, he'd never stopped touching, even miles apart Jacob's soul was wrapped around my heart, and it was pulling and squeezing it. We couldn't be separated—not emotionally.
Silently I pressed my fist into my chest, hoping it would fill the gaping hole that felt like it was there. It hurt that he thought Jacob could be using me, either to get back and mother, or to get closer to mother, or just for all the amazing sex we shared last night. But I didn't believe it. Not really. I knew, soul deep, that his feelings for me were sincere. I'd felt it. I'd felt him. I was feeling him still. This pain and love… it couldn't be faked.
Mother let out an irritated sigh, "Don't you get it? It doesn't matter what you do, or what you say, they'll find each other again. She'll search for him and then we'll truly lose her or worse, he'll find her… and then he'll kill you." The wind blew through the trees at that moment, cooling my skin and sending an ominous chill over me.
"Do you really think the dog could kill me? You always did put too much credence on the wolves. Too much faith in him." He paused, looking at my mother, his wife, a burning hurt in his eyes. "How did it feel Isabella, to look into Jacob Black's eyes again? Did you feel it? Did the love come rushing back in to your cold body?" My chest ached anew, but I'm sure it would have hurt without the imprint bond pulling at my insides. I didn't want to know the answer to daddy's jealousy driven question, but I was desperate to find out too. My mother and my mate had loved each other for a time, prior to my birth, prior to her transformation. Had she still loved my Jacob as she had changed? He promised me that he now had no such feelings for her, and I was inclined to believe him, but I didn't know about my mother's affections. Had that part of her, that part that had loved her childhood friend as more than a friend endured and become set in stone as her body had cooled and hardened?
"No!" mom yelled, stepping closer to father, her face only inches from his.
I'd never heard my parents speak a cross word to the other. It bothered me that it was the reintroduction of Jacob in their lives that had caused it.
"Edward, I can't believe you're jealous still. After all these years, and all the things we've shared. God! When will you listen?!" She grimaced in exasperation, her fingers raking though her hair coarsely. I suddenly realized that this topic may have been one that they had discussed before… many times before. "I love you, Edward. Not Jacob. When I entered that kitchen today, I saw the eyes of my oldest friend, and nothing else." Her head shook in a single move, her brow was furrowed and her eyes closed.
Then she looked over her shoulder at me, down to where I was lying laterally on the soil, my arms and legs bunched up to my chest. Our eyes meet in a silent conversation between mother and child. My mother. The woman who had gave up her life for me…literally. She would go to the ends of the Earth, and back again for me. I understood then, as her golden eyes looked into mine, that my reservations about her friendship with Jacob were unfounded. My mother loved my father… and she always had my back.
She turned back to dad, she had a calmer lift to her brow now. "When I looked at Jacob today after all these years, I saw him as my daughters mate. I saw the way he looked at her."
She licked her lips, her shoulders rising and falling in a discontented puff, "it's the same way you look at me, Edward. Like I'm the only other person in a room. You are the only one I see too. When are you going to believe me? Trust in me; my words and my actions."
She lifted her hand, the large oval diamond encrusted ring caught the light filtering through the tree canopy as she rested her palm gently on his chest— above the very place his heart had once beat. "Stop this," she pleaded, "before it spirals out of control."
He was silent, his hand came up to hold hers to his chest as they locked eyes.
.
I closed mine.
The image of Jacob and his dark, chocolate eyes smiling into mine filled my mind, it filled my senses, my very being. I needed him.
I once again felt the bond between us pull tighter; it stretched and ripped at my proverbial insides. The pain peaked in it's torture, raw and bloodied, I felt like my insides were on fire. I screamed out, my voice piercing through my parent's argument.
Both were back at my side in an instant, their disagreement and nascent—but not where yet absolute—reconciliation was temporally forgotten.
The pain was nothing like I'd ever experienced before. My vision was blurred from the tears my body was secreting.
Mom crouched back over me, her worried, cool palm sliding over my forehead as I whimpered against the insistent agony.
"I'm calling Carlisle," dad said as he stepped closer to me, ignoring my mother's quiet hiss towards him.
With his phone to his ear, he bent down to me, a cool, slender finger lifting a stray curl from my eye. He bent down further, pressing a desperate kiss into the crown of my hair, "I'll fix this is for you uccellino; my little bird."
Then he looked up at mother, his eyes soft and repentant. They were the eyes of a man burning alive and begging his mate to soothe the licks of those torching flames. I understood his pain, it had been blistering at my soul for what felt like an eternity.
"Bella love," he whispered, his fingers gently grasping the tips of hers that were hanging tight by her side. "I have only ever acted in what I though was in her best interest. Forgive my irrational possessiveness. I have never doubted your love. I have never taken for granted everything you gave up to be with me."
She looked up into his eyes, her posture and stance softening. Their gaze appeared to be something straight from a scene of one of those over acted, and over played romance movies that Aunt Rose loves so dearly. Their hands lifted and their fingers entwining mid-air over my fallen shoulders. If I'd had the strength to reveal the petulance of rolling my eyes, I would have. I was jealous, I wanted Jacob to look at me like that. He did. But I wanted him here with me in that moment. I needed him. My chest ached for him. I felt empty.
My parents moment was broken as grandfather answered the phone, the trill ring of my father's cell like a starters gun for me to once again vomit, what was left of this morning's eggs were soon covering the dried leaves on the ground below me.
"Carlisle," daddy clipped, instantly rising to his feet and once again pacing along his leaf-blown track as mom held my hair back off the dirty mess. Even as I listened from my broken position on the ground, through the chocking sounds of retching, I could hear dad's worried tone.
.
A minute passed as I listen to my father and his creator debate on the possible causes of my sudden and debilitating illness, and on the best course of action to take. Grandfather would make a suggestion and dad would counter with mom adding her thoughts on occasion. They spoke at vampiric speed, their panic and concern took their melodic voices to a shrill harmonic pitch.
Their panic was increasing the tension within me. The pull in my chest pulsed tighter again and, though I couldn't imagine how, the pain increased one more level still. I couldn't envisage a physical torture as horrific as this.
As the sensation in my chest stretched and pulled I realized it wasn't simply my connection to Jacob I could feel, it was the physical distance between us and our own inner discourse at the separation. I could feel him moving away from me. In that moment I truly understood how entwined with Jacob's my life now was. There was no stronger thing on this earth than that of imprinting. It superseded chemistry and physics.
I knew, without a doubt that the moment I would feel him by my side again, I would be whole once more.
I needed my sanity. I needed the quiet of his arms. I needed the comfort and complete wholeness that I'd felt as our eyes had met for the first time last night.
I closed my eyes to tune out my parents who were alternating between statues and smears of color as they paced, their speech and pitch now reminiscent of one of uncle Emmett's old 45's played at 78 speed. It was exacerbating the torture inside of me.
I focused inwardly instead. I mentally layered a soft, buffeting fire-blanket over the searing pain in my chest and instead focused on the steady, rhythmic pulsing of my heart. I let my mind wonder to the other deeper, more solid heartbeat that, in the course of an evening, I had memorized the tenor of.
Jake.
I let the mental image, the memory of his scent and the imprint of his soul on mine surround me.
I pushed back the pain and allowed the memory of his deep and dark eyes as we woke this morning to float to the surface. As he'd pulled my body against his, his muscles had bunched and the morning sunlight had played over his physique; it eased the burn and the memory warmed me from within. His touch, his kiss, his smile; he was the answer to all my agonies.
.
For thirty-seven minutes, both my parents sat century over me as I re-focused my energy. In a stalemate between taking flight and lingering, they had defaulted back to their natural state. Marble like statues; frozen in time and by their apprehension and impasse. My mom was sitting over my huddled and twitching body as dad stood at her side.
It felt as if there was an elastic band being stretched from within my chest, pulling and tearing. Then, as suddenly as it had originally been exacerbated, the tension was eased. The elastic cables connecting me to my mate began retracting and the sensation of him actually nearing me settled inside my heart. The inferno of pain was turned down to a flicker, like the white hot flame of a Bunsen burner before the collar is rotated and the flame starved of oxygen back to a warm yellow glow. Jake was coming to me.
I found the last shred of energy I had inside my soul and forced myself lift my head up, trying to push up onto my hands and knees.
My parents unfroze at my movement, "What are you doing sweetheart?" mom asked, hoping to preempt what I needed.
She couldn't help me.
Only Jacob could.
.
I could feel my chest filling, the essence of our bond expanding and heightening as he neared. I could feel him approaching. I could feel his growing power inside of my soul. It created a physical reaction in me. The unsettling weakness left me and I pushed more easily up on to all fours.
My father's head turned suddenly, and mother's was only a split second behind as they stared down the interstate at something. It was approximately two seconds later that I heard it. The howling engine of the truck I had ridden in only a little over an hour ago to my apartment in Los Angeles.
I heard it only moments before I felt it. Moments before I'd felt him. Jacob.
Dad bent down, readying himself to pick me up and run. "His wolf is at the surface Bella, it's not safe."
"Don't Edward," mom answered, shifting protectively to block him. "He's not going to hurt her. You, on the other hand, he'll hurt you if you try to take her..." she paused, squaring her jaw. "There are three of them, Edward. And I'm not going to fight those men I consider my friends," her hand pointing to the green truck borrowing down the interstate. "Just let me talk to him. Don't say anything that'll antagonize him. Just don't say anything," she corrected, pursing her lips.
The truck engine was roaring closer and the fire in my chest was now only a glowing coal.
I turned to look towards the road my hair created a spiraling lattice to see him though. At a frighteningly dangerous speed, I saw the titanic man— my titanic man— jump from the rear of the utility truck, hitting the ground running and speeding up the embankment. He hand noting but a pair of cargo-like shorts on, his feet and his chest were bare. His muscles bunched and shifted as his broad and powerful shoulders moved with each stride.
One of the wolves called out his name as mother stood, turning.
"Jake," she said.
"Save your bullshit Bella." His voice was soothing and caressing me as hot hands wrapped around my waist. He lifted my up and pressed me to his even hotter and harder body. The painful fire was instantaneously snuffed out as my arms and legs wrapped around him. I was clinging on for dear life. I never wanted to apart from this man again. Not for an eternity.
"Jacob."
.
She whispered my name, pulling me to her as she wrapped both her arms and legs around me. My body filling up with love and wholeness as I pulled her chest to mine. Her warm fingers wound tight over my shoulders and my mind was filled with all the emotion of relief and love she could project.
She was whole and safe and in my arms. The ache in my chest completely disappeared the moment we touched, the imprint bond once again happily pulsing out love as she wrapped her long, thin legs around my hips and her sweet breath tickled my neck.
The man had been momentarily assured but the wolf wasn't. Her scent still wasn't right, she still reeked of leech, the animal didn't care what relationship the vampire was to her.
"She's not well, Jacob," Edward said, stepping closer and making to pull her from my arms. "Carlisle thinks we should bring her home."
She wasn't going anywhere.
The mere suggestion was more than my wolf could take.
With an imposing, deep-toned growl, I snarled at my natural enemies.
I turned on my heels in the tawny yellow dust and, faster than I should have in a public space, raced over the small mountain that lined the interstate.
.
Wrapped around me, with as much of our skin touching as we could, I carried Renesmee like this, with arms and legs clinging, for several miles. It took me barely half a minute to get my mate out of sight, and scent, and ear shot of the vamps... and the other wolves for that matter.
The instinct to keep her safe was in full bloom. And the middle of nowhere, with not a soul or soulless being in sight was what the wolf demanded.
When we were satisfied that my mate was safe from, well… just about everyone, I slowed to a walk. My wolf was still insisted on a survey of her; an inventory of her injuries. If she'd felt a fifth of the agony I had while we'd been separated, I would break the laws of science to make sure she felt better.
With one hand holding her by her round and perfect ass, the other smoothed over her hair, feeling the silkiness of her curls. I ran my hand down her back, counting vertebra and the ripples of her ribs in my wake. She seemed to be calmed too, I could hear her breathing in my scent.
.
"Are you okay?" I panted, more out of imagined anxiety than breathlessness. "Are you hurt?"
"Not anymore," she whispered into my neck, her lips softly kissing the tense chord of muscle there. "I missed you, Jake. Whatever that was, let's never let it happen again."
"Was it bad?" I asked as I continued to carry her up the mountain side.
"Horrific. But I'd do it all again if I got to feel you hold me like this every day." Her arms held me tighter as she buried her face in the side of my neck and inhaled deep and long once again.
I did the same, her steady swift pulse fluttering under my lips as I pressed them to her throat and then down to the healing scar on her shoulder. H er scent was tainted by leech, but even the wolf could smell the sweet wholesome smell of his mate. I could almost taste her also, the lingering musky odor of where I'd been last night... and this morning—if I was counting, that is. And apparently I was.
The wolf in me started to scent her. All of her. Small puffs of breath over her hair, her temples, over her lavender eyelids and down her flushed cheeks.
She let out a little giggle into the neck of my shirt as my sniffing went back down to her throat and then over the valley between her puppies.
She let out more soft and innocent, relieving giggles as she held my face between her boobs. My chest pulsed at the joy and my body shuddered in lust at her closeness. And her scent.
She lifted her head so that her neck stretched until our lips met. It was a soft gentle kiss that sent the familiar zing of electricity though my body. That internal combustion that could fuel the exhausted man. It had only been an hour, but being without her touch had starved me.
Her lips, so full and soft, moved over mine were like a feast. I was ravenous. Within seconds, our soft gentle kisses became so much more. My hand roamed over her shoulder, down her chest and grabbed a handful of her heavy, full breast. Lifting and pulling at it, my thumb rubbed over her shirt, fondling over her upright nipple as she kissed me back with just as much intensity.
I lifted her up and my lips trailed down, over her throat and nestled into the crook of her neck. My tongue found the little depression where her collar bone met the muscle, poking in and tickling her skin. My tongue traced circles over my mark, flicking at the mostly healed, raised skin… and then I inhaled.
.
That last hour of agony was washed away and all but forgotten. I wanted one thing, and one thing only. Her. She smelt like sex and mate and woman. The lingering scent of hopeless and fear from our separation had vanished and in its place was the heady, musky scent of her lust. The animal in me started to chafe at the bit, to chafe— over and over—at her bits.
I wanted to take her right there, right then. On the top of a road side mountain, overlooking a new housing development on the outskirts of Santa Clarita. I didn't care that her parents were only a mile or two back down to hill. Or that the sparky assed, double crossing vamps and my two closest, and nosey wolves would probably be hot on our heels in less than a minute. I wanted her so badly.
The wolf desperately wanted to stake his claim. Saturate her in his—my— scent. Reaffirm the bond that we had. The wolf wanted his mate. The compulsion was strong. So strong that I nearly gave into it on the gravely hillside.
But I wouldn't lose myself to the wolf. I refused to let him demean the woman who was my mate. The boy of seventeen had let the wolf take over when I'd run away and lost myself to him all those years ago. But I was a man now, with the sense and restraint of an alpha. I could control the way in which I lavished love on my spectacularly appealing mate.
I wanted to take my time reaffirming a bond that would last an eternity.
.
With his shirt was off, I was able to roam my hands over his musculature. I relished in the hard virility of my mate and cherished the love he felt towards me. I curled my hand around his deltoid and with my gift projected to him all the relief and love I could.
I pressed my lips to his neck, the tip of my noise tracing up the long thick corded line of muscle to his jaw as I let myself be wrapped by his quintessence.
Then father stepped towards us, his hand griping slightly on my arm, "She's not well, Jacob. Carlisle thinks we should bring her home."
.
I felt the immediate swing in Jacob, his body tensing and quivering with a repressed rage. I felt the rumble begin in his chest, expanding out through our joining abdomen and beyond. It was an animalistic, instinctive growl, one of an animal protecting its own from a predator. Jacob had done well to keep his wolf at bay, but my father's know-it-all attitude was the trigger for Jake to release the hold in the tether.
He spun, taking off at superhuman speed with me still wrapped firmly around his middle. I looked over his shoulder as we escaped, watching as my mother gestured for father to stay put as the men that Jake called his brothers moved to block daddy from following us also.
He carried me into a sparsely wooded forest and soon we were surrounded by the dark green of the oak with slender reddish brown acorns hanging heavy on the branches. The earthy, herbaceous scent of the sage plants underfoot wafted up and complemented the warm spice of his skin. I pressed a soft kiss to the square of his jaw, inhaling. I loved to breathe in his scent, it was intoxicating.
My hands traced over his skin as he carried me at a fast trot. I could tell that the wolf was still demanding he take me away from the indicated threat. If he needed to carry me, to protect me, I would let him. Besides, I was in no hurry for him to put me down. I liked the way his hands felt over my curves. I liked the way my soft lines molded to his well-defined angles. I liked being in his arms.
He slowed as we continued to make our way up the mountain side, now with less urgency in his step. "Are you okay?" he asked, his deep rumbling voice sending a flutter through my body. He rubbed his jaw against my temple in a wolf like caress, "are you hurt?"
Was I hurt? The current feelings and emotions coursing through me were the antithesis of hurt. I was exultant; energized; contented. I had all and everything I would ever want. I had Him.
No, I wasn't hurting any more, but I had hurt though. I had experienced more pain in the last hour than I had in my seven years of life. By far.
I could still feel the tension whirling off Jacob, and I knew the wolf— and the man— would find it unacceptable to have allowed me to be injured and to have felt the pain that I had. I didn't want him to dwell on what agony I had experienced in his absence. He didn't need to know the degree of the torture. It would only serve to torture his mind. That was the last thing that I wanted for my mate.
I kissed the tense muscle of his neck, "not anymore," I said quietly. Then in an attempt to divert him from the topic slightly, I whispered against his pulse, "I missed you Jake. Whatever that was, let's never let it happen again."
But he wasn't diverted. "Was it bad?" he asked, his deep voice cracking at merely the thought of his imprint, the one person in this world that he would give his everything to protect being in pain.
And then it struck me. His concern wasn't so persistent simply because of our imprinted relationship, but because he too had felt it He'd also felt the pain of our separation, possibly even worse than I, and he'd still found the strength to find me. We had endured it apart yet throughout it all, we'd still been together. Joined in our agony. Joined in our love.
I owed him the honesty of an honest response. "Horrific," I said. Then holding him tighter, I rushed to add, "But I'd do it all again if I got to feel you hold me like this every day." It was true, the extreme elation I was now feeling from simply being held in his arms was worth the torture five times over. I pressed my face in to the crook of his neck once more and breathed in his soul filling, warm hearted, intoxicating scent.
.
Jacob then nuzzled into my throat his lips pressing a soft kiss to my pulse point. It was then that I felt the wolf re-surface. Like a sent hound, he sniffed at my hair, my face and over my eyes. A zig-zagging pattern that was slightly crazed and edgy.
His breath ticked down my throat and then lower. The warmth of his lips as they pressed between my breasts sent a tingle to my nipples, and then over my torso at it erupted in a fine sheen of goose pimples. I let out a soft laugh, relishing in the freedom and belonging in him. In less than a day, my world had become complete, and my body had been awakened. All because of Jacob. His soft touches awakened me once again.
In the safety of his arms I allowed myself to truly feel the man I was wrapped around. His hard muscle, his strong confidence, his unadulterated masculiness. My mate. I felt a fresh wetness in my vulva and the fire in my chest was once again lit. Only this time it was a pleasurable flame.
I looked up into his dark brown eyes as his pupils dilated with want. I read it as an indicator of his need. My eyes were trapped inside his heated gaze. I needed more than the touch of his hands and the feel of his body against mine. Holding on to his shoulders, I lifted myself up a little, stretching until my lips met his. The warmth of his lips and our tingling love pulsed though us. His kiss was gentle and exploratory. Within seconds however, the gentle warm tongue brushing over my inner lips was inside my mouth, tracing over the ridges of my palate. Tasting and teasing, as he kissed me with an open mouthed passion. I kissed him back with just as much verve.
My hips rolled against his hard abdomen, pressing and moving as his hand held me by my bottom. Instantly, I wanted and needed more.
I felt his erection pressing through his shorts, pressing up and searching out my wet heat between our pants. I felt my own need rise with his.
With tongues tussling and teeth viciously clicking, his other hand found my left breast. His scorching palm pulled and massaged in time to the pulling between my thighs. I wanted him to take me here in the gravely hillside. All sense of propriety vanished with my lust.
.
Then as suddenly as the heat had risen, his lips left mine. The abrupt break paused the passion for the moment. With added tenderness he traced a line down my throat, inhaling as he nestled his face into the crook of my neck. He inhaled deeply once more before a shuddering release of tension quaked over his body and he let out a calming, breath against my skin. The complete and unadulterated love he felt for me pulsed through our shared bond and in that moment, I felt like the most providential girl alive to have his love –human, vampire or hybrid.
His display of pure masculine strength combined with his sensitive adoration; it was my final undoing. I wanted to be closer physically. I shifted my hands, sliding them over the ripples of his muscle. Moving slowly over this chest and down his abdomen I found the little diagonal line of his oblique muscle, my fingers tickled perpendicularly to my leg, against the thigh that was still wrapped around his waist. I reached between my own legs, rubbing briefly over my denim clad clitoris and down into the waist of his pants.
"We can't," he whispered, a strained tremor in his voice as the hand that had been on my breast shifted to gently restrain my wandering hand. "Trust me," he smiled, kissing me sweetly, "I want to. But not like this Ness. Not here. Not right now."
.
He was right, of course, but the hormonal driven adolescent in me didn't care. I told him as much. I sent him images of us, engaging in the animalistic intercourse we'd shared in the shower earlier that morning. Our hips pounding together, faster and faster in abandonment. I want you to press my naked skin into the gravel, Jake. I want you to make me come so hard that the sounds of our moans echo down to that valley beneath. Then I sent him an image of the occupants of the housing estate on the other side of the rise hearing and knowing full well the meaning behind my screams of ecstasy. And then I let him feel the replicated sensation such an orgasm would generate.
He pulled me a little tighter to his chest, moaning in a knowing regret. "Oh god, woman. You're perfect." His hand released my wrist and once again rubbed and squeezed my breast through my shirt. I would forever be indebted to my Aunt Alice for that shopping trip she insisted we go on prior to me leaving for collage. The lace of my bra did little to obscure the sensations of his touch. His fingers found a hardened nipple and gently squeezed and twisted at it. It sent a little quiver of pleasure through me again and I let a little hum of appreciation escape my lips.
Then he pulled away, palpably dueling with the primal beast inside. "Later baby. I promise it'll be worth the wait." He lowered me to my feet and I regretfully unwound myself from him. We stayed standing face to face, my hands around his neck, his resting on my hips.
"If we do that, we'll scare the people down there Nessie," his head nodded towards the far side of the mound, "and any way, you're forgetting who's down this side of the hill."
I had forgotten about a potential audience. Jacob; his mind, his heart, and his body all combined to make me forget everything by how good it all felt to be with him. With him in the emotional and the carnal sense.
"I want to take my time loving every inch of your skin, Renesmee. I don't want to rush, and I don't want any interruptions," he said stooping down as his lips skimmed over my jaw and throat. I listed my head back to give Jake's lips better access. He drew a line with his nose from my manubrium, over my larynx, my chin and my lips before finally stopping with his nose pressing in to mine. We shared a soft lupine rub of noses as his eyes softened and his brilliant smile shone out. "I don't particularly want your father to rip my balls from my body either."
"No," I husked, pulling back and attempting to look seriously into his eyes, the mischief spilling out still. "Those balls are mine, and mine only." My hand quickly lowered to cup his bulge, lifting and weighing them in my palm. "We'll be needing them if we're going to add to the pack one day. Can't make puppies without out these puppies."
He sucked in a breath his eyes dilating as I froze at my seemingly rash words. My hand dropped away from his testicles in a swinging arc to my side.
It wasn't rash it was candid... and the god's honest truth.
I wanted his puppies.