"Guilt has a very quick ear to accusation."

Henry Feilding

"This is really what you want to do for your birthday?" Red asked for the forth time. Her cheeks were red and wind-bitten but her eyes were bright. She looked beautiful.

Laughing, I gripped her hand tighter in mine as I lead her through the snow. "Yeah, I guess it is. But you don't havetoo-"

"Shut up," she grumbled, and I was sure she was blushing. "I know I don't have too. I...er. Well, I wantto -to be clear here, I always want to- I'm just not sure...it's January! It's cold."

"Pff. You know I'll keep you warm."

Red had been asking me what I wanted for my birthday for two weeks now. And honestly, I couldn't think of a single thing I wanted that I didn't have already. My life was justthatgood. I had a good woman, a good family, good friends, and my tribe was happier than they had been in some time. Not to mention money. I never really believed money bought happiness -it was a cliché that it didn't, for a reason- but I was certainly happierwith it.

But Red was insistent, as she always was. A wolf with a bone if I ever saw one. She drove the pack to near distraction. It had been Jacob who broke, and spilled a secret of mine I barely knew existed, myself. Of course, he was possibly the only wolf in the pack who could have had such knowledge to share. My surface thoughts were an open book, but it took a strong wolf to delve any deeper.

"Come on Sam," Red had said, sighing tiredly. "Your birthday is like two days away. I want to do something nice for you. Seriously. I'm literally giving you carte blanch here. What do you want? I am to the point where I will literally give you anything."

Babies, the more feral part of me piped in. But it was easily squashed. I wasn't ready for kids; I wouldn't ever be truly ready until Red was. And if she never was, than so be it.

Laughing at her eagerness, I shrugged over my notes. I'd already began ordering materials for the Neah Bay property. I'd stopped by Billy's that night to pick up a list of people looking for work. The interview process was pretty loose; I needed skills and experience, both of which the Rez had in abundance. If I got enough experienced crew members, I could bring in trainees as well. "Really Red, I'm happy. We can do dinner or something, if you want. No need to make a big deal about it."

"Dinner." Her voice was flat, bordering on dangerous. I felt my hackles rise; what the hell had I done now. "You wan to have dinner-"

It hadn't occurred to me what it was she had on offer until Jacob spoke up from the living room, where we'd conveniently forgotten him. "Fuck. I can't take this anymore, seriously. Look, he wants to fuck you in the snow, alright? Like face-down, ass-up, wild-things-naked-in-the-woods-fucking. No clothes, no blankets, just you him and the frosty forest floor, and I swear to God if you two don't shut the fuck up about birthday gifts, I'll kill myself." He pointed the remote at the TV and turned the volume up. "Now, this conversation is making me incredibly uncomfortable. Get the fuck out of my house."

I laughed at the little Alpha, but the demand resonated in me, quiet and firm. I had no particular desire to obey it, nor did I feel compelled. But I could feel the powerbehind it, even though he hadn't intended it that way. Jacob had come a long way; I was proud. "How do you even know that?" I asked, as Red gathered up Billy's lists, shoving them into her bag. She had her eyes cast down, but her cheeks were pink enough that I knew she was a little embarrassed, but mostly because she was thinking about it. "I've thought about that maybe onc-"

"Every time we cross that clearing on the eastern border run," Jacob corrected, looking at me from the couch. "You know the little one, that cuts over near the river, with the fallen tree? Every single time." His left eye twitched, and he shot the door a pointed look.

Frowning, I couldn't help but make a face. Sure I'd thought about it. It had been the fallen tree, actually. It bent in the center, low enough that I could have easily bent Red over . She didn't have to be naked really, it my head she always had her panties around her-"It can't be that much."

"Believe me," Jacob said dully, dropping the remote on the cushion next to him. "It really is. Seriously. And wipe that look off your face. I don't need to be reminded that I know exactly -in technicolor surround sound- what it is your thinking about right now. Fucking fallen tree. And if you think you can fuck her like that with her underwear around her freaking ankles, you got another thing coming because I guarantee she'll fall on her face. Fuck you, now it's in my head." He scrubbed his hand down his face and huffed. "I hate you both."

"Hey, the whole pack has regaled me with endless tales from your Bella-based spank-bank,"Red shot back, her tone mildly indignant. "You do know I'm not blonde or even a b-cup, right? And that heels were always out of the question? Quil told me you once-"

Jacob's eyebrows shot up. "Quil is a filthy liar. And I haven't thought about you like that since Sam i-" His mouth snapped shut, possibly from old command or the truly burning glare I pinned him with. "Insisted you were his to bone, and his alone. Something about seeing your Alpha pork your crush on the regular sort of ruins the romance, I guess. It's no different then being forced to watch Paul and my sister...do what they do." He made a face, sour-lemons and bad-milk. "Yeah, you know what? That's actually worse. So thank you for that."

Red made a thoughtful face, nose wrinkled up. "So is that what you want? I think Jacob's probably right about the panty thing. I'll fall-"

"You both are way too comfortable discussing your sex life in front of me."Jacob wasn't wrong. But then, he didn't have to listen. Or he didn't have to acknowledge he could hear us, at any rate. It wasn't as if anyone asked him for his opinion. In my opinion, he walked into this minefield all on his own. "Seriously, you used to blush. You used to get flustered. What happened to that, huh? I remember when some one even alluded to a blow job, you had to leave the room before you busted a capillary."

"Yeah but that was before I gave one." Red did flush at that, shifting on her feet. "You could pretend to not be listening you know? Isn't that what we use to do? Anyway, Sam said my life would be a lot easier if I just embraced the fact that the pack has no secrets and you've all seen my o-face. I've got nothing left to hide. Besides, it was your idea, jerk."

"One that I am deeply regretting now. Are we done here? Yeah, I think we're done here." Jake ushered us to the door. "Let us never speak of this again."

I hadn't given it much thought really, until the evening of my birthday, when I found Red wrapped up in her parka with a surly expression on her face. "Come on then, are we going to do this, or what?"

"Do what?" I asked, fumbling around in the fridge. We'd eaten a birthday breakfast with my mother and sisters only an hour prior, but that didn't mean much to my stomach. "How old is this chicken salad?"

Red slammed the refrigerator door, catching my fingers. "Fuck the salad Sam! We're going to that clearing." She paused to clear her throat, cheeks pinking. "The one with the tree."

"Oh. Oh."

What more could I say, really?

It was cold, but it wasn't the coldest. We left at high noon, with nothing but winter wind pressing against our backs. I'd waited until we were exactly fourteen feet into the forest before stripping my heavy winter coat off, and hanging it on a tree. My shirt followed, as did my shoes. The snow didn't bother me; it melted beneath where I stepped.

The blinding bright daylight would bother Red when it came down to it; she had a notion in her head about her body that I just couldn't understand. She was beautiful, and not just to me. The male interest in her was well beyond my zone of comfort, though as word spread of our relationship, most the Forks boys seemed to back off. Not that Red noticed one way or another.

Snowfall prevented us from making a nighttime excursion. That and the mutual knowledge of just exactly what kind of nocturnal beasties could lurked in the forest. As if to spurn that thought from my very mind, it was sunny out. Brilliantly so, sunshine pouring down across the fresh white snow in an explosion of blinding crystal light. It made everything look brighter, and fresher.

"You smile any harder and you're going to break something," Red commented, mouth muffled behind the scarlet scarf the girls had knitted her beneath the careful tutelage of my mother. It was lumpy and malformed but Red wore it every single day, a fact that did weird, warm things to my insides.

"Just happy," I replied, throwing my arm over her shoulder. I'd carried her a good deal of the way in, till we skirted the outcrops of the clearing. It was situated in a proverbial no mans land, in a stretch of land owned by no one in particular (Neither Quileute nor Cullen).

Red laughed, wrapping her arm around my waist. "Well I'm happy that you're happy. We nearly there?"

"Anxious?" I ribbed her, kicking my foot out in front of her so she would trip. She did as I expected, giving me the opportunity to catch her. She shrieked as I hauled her up over my shoulder, the rough wool of her coat scraping against my bare shoulder. I slapped her firmly on the ass and hauled her up the little hill that spilled over into the even more little clearing.

The thick trunks of Washington redwood blocked most the wind, but you could still hear it whistling outside the tiny sanctuary. It wasn't ten by ten feet, all told, and bathed in shadows, the overhead cast with snow-laden branches like a canopy, like a cave. Heavy underbrush and moss surrounded the mouth of the clearing, making the actual entrance narrow and almost hidden.

"So...you brought me to your den?" Red asked, fingering the top button of her coat. "Your...wolf den? Is that what this is?" She didn't look particularly upset by the notion, though considering the life she lead, and the life we lead together, that wasn't so surprising.

"Yeah maybe." In a way, I supposed it was. The little nook carved out in the sprawling forest, I'd always thought of it as mine, though it sat outside Quileute land. The boys didn't come here, even if they saw it in passing. I, on the other hand, had spent a lot of time here. Several weeks, trapped in my wolf form, actually. "This is where I lived, when I first phased. I slept under the tree, there."

The fallen tree was more of a sapling in comparison to the trees still standing. Beneath it, the forest ground had been tamped down, the underbrush flattened and made soft, with dead leaves and broken grass. The show hadn't touched here, trees to heavy and thick overhead. I hadn't been here in some time; not since my fathers unceremonious re-emergence into my life. It felt words ago.

Red undid her coat, and unwrapped her scarf, laying them both over the tree. She wasn't wearing her mittens; she never remembered too. She flashed me a nervous, awkward smile as she hugged her cable-knit sweater tight to her body. "Now what?"

"Now what? You make it sound like we've never done this before." I couldn't quite smother the laugh in my voice. She looked wedding-night nervous. And considering I'd actually fucked her against a tree on what was considered our wedding night, it was comical.

Red laughed, flashing me a sheepish smile. "I know! I know! I just don't know how to begin."

"Kiss me and go with it." Stalking forward, I backed her against the tree, lifting her up to sit where it bent. She squeaked as the snow melted beneath her, soaking through her jeans (should have brought another pair, but we didn't think this through).

Tilting her head back, she met me for a kiss, cold mouth meeting me with comfortable familiarity. That familiarity had been so hard won, I was sure I'd never take it for granted. Red shivered, so I pulled her closer, cupping hot palms over her neck. She wore her hair up with a single hair-tie, and I pulled it free with one firm tug.

I liked her hair like that the best, down in a mess of tumbling curls. It reminded me of the summer festival, when I'd realized how truly gone I was for her. Plus it made her look a little wild, something I'd never fail to admire.

Red pulled back, just enough to lift her arms so I could tug her sweater and the tank-top she wore beneath it, up over her head. She'd gone braless, but that wasn't new. I ran my warm hands down her spine, fingers bumping along every vertebrae, till they came to rest at the curve.

She arched against me, pressing our stomachs together with a laugh. "Tickles."

From there it progressed as it always did; mouths and hands and hot-cold touches. She hissed when the tree bark bit into her shoulder, and hissed when I bit into her skin. I had the good sense to hang her jeans and sweater on a tree branch, but that was the last of my more cognizant thoughts.

The first push never failed to shock me, a gut-punch pleasure that shot through me so fast it stole my breath. Here, surrounded by snow, and the sweet scent of her, it was doubly so. Red clung to me, nails biting into the skin beneath my shoulder blades. She held on like I couldn't possibly get close enough, begging in wild little whispers for more, for harder, for faster.

I couldn't not give her what she wanted, what she needed. I wasn't built that way.

Better then her broken words were the broken whimpers, the hurt little moans that escaped her with every too-hard thrust. If I fucked her harder just to hear them, I couldn't be blamed. She was wild and naked, with nothing but shadows and my own sweat on her skin. The scent of her, the scent of me, all mixed with the smell of sex and snow...

It was exactly how I wanted it. Feral.

"Oh God," Red moaned, the heels of her feet pressing into my lower back. "I'm reallywet."

She was; she always was. This time however it had only a little to do with my particular skills, and more to do that her period had come early. I looked at it as part of the birthday package, though I sincerely doubted she'd agree. The darker part of me wanted to tell her, just to watch her squirm on my dick, partly in pleasure and partly because it freaked her out. I didn't tell her; she wouldn't really want to know.

Didn't mean it didn't make me hot though. "Wet for me, baby?" She was only my babylike this, on her back beneath me. The fiercely independent creature I'd long-since come to love was no bodies baby, but this girl? This feral, moaning mess pressed against a tree in the middle of the fucking forest? All mine.

"Alpha," she replied, mouth curling up into a smirk. "You think you're such...such a big bad wolf."

We'd played this game exactly once before, the night I fucked her for the first time. But this time, it went a little different. No vitriol, no hate. "I do," I said, pushing her legs farther apart, the palms of my hands hot against her bare thighs. "I am, little Red. Big bad wolf; you can't run from me." Sliding my hands under her butt, I lifted her up on my cock, and off the three. She held to me on instinct, arms locking around my neck. It was no hardship to drop us both into the hard, damp ground, and I savored the way she hissed through her teeth as the cold hit her skin, arching against me. Grabbing her wrists in my hands, I pinned her there for a moment, just to watch her chest heave. "If you run, I'd catch you. "

"Hmm," she laughed, and squealed when I rolled her on top of me. January was fucking cold, but it was no match for me. The little cove was made far less frigid by the heat of us, the small space heating up with every moment. She curled herself low against me as I moved her. She waswet, and her body gave to my every push and pull. With her hair spilling down over her shoulders and mine, she spoke in a breathless whisper, mouth pressed against my ear. "Maybe next time you can chase me, Alpha."

Jesus Christ.

"You're a jerk, Sam Uley."

I laughed, at the indignant but no less fucked out expression she gave me. "Heat of the moment?"

"You knew!" Ah, and now she was pouting. Of course I knew. But it wasn't as if it was my fault she decided to be an overachiever and start early. I didn't control these things.

Not that I'd say as much to her, because really, I wasn't an idiot. "Red," I said instead, tugging one of her curls, and tipping her pouty little mouth up by her chin. "It's not a big deal. You know I like it."

"It's gross!"

And from an outsiders point of view, I could accept that. There was blood, bright red and fresh, smeared down her thighs. Not to mention the blood on me. Before the phase, when I'd been human, it would have grossed me out too. Now though, a surprisingly large part of me wanted to just wallow in it. I smelled like her, and I was wolf enough to want that mark.

Glaring, she stooped down low, snatching her tank top up from the snow. I gave her what privacy I could while she made her useless attempt at cleaning herself. Even if she managed to wipe the worst of the blood away, the smell of her and me would be clinging to her for a while. I almost couldn't stand it, struck with the urge to just throw her back down in the snow and fuck her again.

She was at her sweetest this time of the month, and the smell of me would stay with her for days. As often as we fucked, it never really left her. Except, for this particular time of the month. It wasn't something we'd ever done before, mixing up our scents like this. It might have been some kind of vanity, but she smelled twice as good with me inside her. And every one would smell it too.

"I don't even need to know what you're thinking about to know that I would hate it," Red snapped, tossing her tank top at me. I let it hit me in the chest (it would piss her off more if I caught it), and fall to ground.

Trying not to laugh, I handed over her jeans from the branch. "I'll run you a bath when we get home, okay? I think we even have some of that fizzy bath shit you like. And I'll rub your back. Are your cramps already bothering you?"

It was possibly the worst thing about her periods; the cramps. I wasn't really sure if all girls got them the way she did, but I hated watching her in pain, knowing I couldn't do shit for it. Well, I did what I could; baths, back rubs, and on occasion, I made her tea (there was apparently an art to this that I just did not understand, so it wasn't often she asked).

Unfortunately, it usually lead to me being almost unbearably up in her space, concerned and undeniably annoying. But at the end of the week, I could only assume her exasperated but fond smiles were a silent thank you. The guys hadn't failed to rib me for it, or at least until Paul and Jared imprinted. By then it was obvious it was a wolf thing, and not just a Sam thing. Although, I was pretty sure I couldn't handle watching any girl go through that kind of torture with a straight face, even as a human. I didn't envy women their uteruses, that was for damn sure.

"Yeah yeah, do your Nice Guy Sam shit. You suck," she grumbled, pulling her shirt on. I held her coat open for her, and kept her steady as she shoved her sockless, dirty feet into her boots. She was a mess, still, by the time she was finished. Leaves in her hair, dirt on her palms; Red was just too damn beautiful. She sighed, and smiled, as she tossed my jeans at my face. They were muddy and damp, not that I cared. "Happy Birthday, Sammy."

Sammy. Only my family every called me that.

But then again, Red was family.

The walk back was quiet. We took our time, walking hand in hand on the beaten-down path. I'd still have to carry her down the steeper slopes, of course. But for the moment, we walked, taking in the brilliant winter Sun. It wasn't warm by any means, but it was tolerable, and Red was mostly bundled with scarf re-secured around her neck, and her hood pulled high over head.

"You never remember your gloves," I said, wrapping my whole hand around hers.

She laughed. "Not when I have you around, anyway."

We were near the border, when the trees began to thin out, and the wind shifted. For the first time in not nearly long enough it carried a familiar scent.

Red must have noticed the way I tensed, stopping short on the path. "What? What is it?" Her fingers tensed in mine. "Sam..."

"I need to get you home." My tone left no room for argument, not that Red seemed inclined. "I need to get the boys on the trail."

Phasing wasn't new to her; she'd seen all the boys do it at some point or another, from a distance. I switched from one skin to another with old ease, stalking around her with tense shoulder. My tail was twitching, expectant and agitated. Only Leah was phased.

'Got a scent on the North line,' I snarled, earning a questioning look from Red. 'Send out Jake, Embry and Paul. I want the others at the house with Red."

'More babysitters than front line?' Leah's confusion was evident.

'No need for an honor guard. It's a fucking Cullen.'

'Definitely more babysitters than front line,' Leah agreed, already hauling ass towards the La Push outskirts. I could hear the double-echo of her howl in my mind and in the air. Red heard it too, her gaze shifting towards the Rez.

I phased out just as the Pack phased in. Leah would catch them up; I just wanted to get Red home. "Lets go. The scent came from the North, and it's hard to gauge scents downwind. I'm lucky I caught it at all. ." Cullen could have been much closer than I was comfortable with.

"Piggy-back?" Tucking her scarf inside her coat, she looked at me expectantly. "Well, turn around."

I hesitated; I didn't want her back exposed like that. "Up front this time." I didn't wait for a reply, hauling her up against my chest. Her legs wrapped around my waist almost on reflex, and she tucked her head up under my chin. "It'll be okay," I whispered, when I felt her tremble. Vampires scared the shit out of her, but considering the alternative, I'd rather her be afraid.

It was hard, leaving her behind at the house. Red was understanding, letting me bury my face into her neck and just breathe her in. It helped too, that I was still sticky with the scent of her. My pack knew it, but now wasn't the time to tease.

"Will you at least take another wolf with you?" She asked, as what Pack was present looked the other way. "You don't need to leave this many with me. You're overreacting. Take Jared, at least? He works best with Paul. Leave Leah and Seth with me, since they work as a team, and put Quil on the boarder. Just in case either of us ends up needing an extra. Plus, Quil can tell Leah if anything breaks through. She can get me out of here. No need to worry on either sides, that way."

Damn it, but it was a good idea. One I hadn't thought of. I could see Leah's smirk reflected in the living room mirror. "Uh. Okay. Jared, run a head. Quil, take the north facingborder, and uh...Leah and Seth, stay here."

"Sure thing boss." Leah gave me a mock salute, and snapped her fingers at Seth. "You want to run the property line, or hang out inside? One of us should stay human, with Bella."

Seth danced around, flexing his hands. "I'm to worked up to stay indoors." He headed towards the back, clothes abandoned on the porch before shifting.

'Did you tell her it was Edward?' Jacob asked, weaving between the trees near the border. 'She won't appreciate being left out of the loop, Sam. I mean, it's a Cullen. She's bound to find out. Forks is a small town. If they plan on staying...'

'I'm going to tell her. She deserves to know. And if she wants to talk to them...I won't stop her. But she doesn't deserve to be fucking bombarded by them. If they want to talk, it's going to be on her terms. They're not going to push her around any more.' I'd never assume to tell her that she couldn't. That wasn't my place. That, and I absolutely believed she deserved to have that closure, to have that final word.

'You're not worried?' Embry asked, hesitant and tentative. Both Jared and Paul scoffed, but then again, they knew what it was like to imprint. The infallibility nature of simplyknowing.

'Of course I am,' I told my brother, and both Jared and Paul faltered. Imprinting was infallible; there would never be any one made for Red the way I was. Red, however, did not have the benefit of knowing. And I wasn't about to throw it in her face just because of Cullen. If I couldn't have faith in the imprint, I did have faith in Red. I had faith that she loved me, even without knowing the God's intentions. I had faith that if forced to, she'd choose me.

Because if I didn't have that faith, then it was all in vain. If I didn't have that faith, I had nothing at all. So no, I wasn't worried about her leaving me, at least I mostly wasn't.'I'm worried what this is going to do to her.'

In the end, it wasn't a matter of us finding Cullen. He found us.

"What did you do to her?" He snarled, flat black eyes narrowed at me in particular. "What did you do!"

All things considered, I thought it was a question I should have been asking him. But I knew; I'd known for a long while, what he'd done to her. There was only one answer to his question. 'I took what you broke, and I made it stronger.'

It wasn't only me, in that moment, remembering the way Red was. So angry, so broken. Jacob's memories were possibly the worse, going farther back then my own. Where as I remembered mostly her vehement hatred of just about everything, Jacob's memories were filled with the empty, hallow Red, the one who looked for danger, the one who found it.

Cullen flinched. I might not have noticed it, had Red not told me he was a mind reader.

He snarled, mouth pulled back, showing all his teeth. "I broke her heart. You...You..." The words, it would seem, would not come to him. Instead, he lifted his hand, shaking out a filthy tattered piece of fabric.

It didn't take me half a second to recognize it, and the pack wasn't far behind me. It was her tank top, absentmindedly left behind. It was hers, and covered in blood so fresh it was still wet. But not just blood. Blood and me.

'You misunderstand,' I said, keeping my tone as calm and neutral as possible. He didn't deserve to see her like that. That was only for me. Mine. She was mine.

Cullen shuddered, venom spilling out of his mouth as he growled. "Just because you took it, doesn't mean it's yours. You wolves, so quick to call my family monsters, and yet you-"

'I've never taken anything from Red that she didn't offer freely,' I snapped back, not particularly enjoying being accused of rape.

"No." Cullen shook his head, advancing towards my pack. They spread out, circling him, but he only had eyes for me. "I can smell her blood on you. Just like I can smell you onthis. My sister saw it, Bella's bloody shirt, torn and filthy. She saw it, and I couldn't not come for Bella. I left her unprotected...I left her... I had to...I had to..."

If I had a reply to that, which I didn't, it was a moot point. Cullen lunged, faster on his feet than any of us expected. But where he was fast, we were massive. It made for an equal fight, or rather, it would have been equal were it only he and I.

'Stand down,' I barked, slashing my paw across his chest. It tore his shirt, and bit into his flesh. I wasn't close enough to do any real damage, and I wasn't sure I wanted to. He broke the treaty when he attacked me, but he'd done so in Red's defense. My instincts were at war.

"Never," he snapped back, kicking out at my back leg. He caught me in the hind-quarter, but underestimated my turn-around time.

I'd sunk my teeth into his thigh by the time I replied. 'I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to my pack.' They'd already stood down, pacing on the outskirts of our skirmish, unable to do much else unless ordered otherwise. And I would order them, if it came to that. I was man enough to ask for help when necessary. I just didn't think I'd be needing it.

Cullen snarled, twisting out of my grip. He was running on mostly emotion, and that in itself was more dangerous then I cared for. Add to the fact that the rest of the Cullen's hadn't come to claim him, I could only assume he was operating alone. Having seen what an emotional clan Vampire was capable of when upset before -Irina's death was still fresh in my mind- I wasn't inclined for a repeat. 'Red is fine. Bella is fine. Seth, show him Red."

Seth's vision shifted in my mind, skating up across the side of our little cottage, to the window over the kitchen sink. Red was there, Leah at their sides. They were doing dishes, of all things. But then, that was Red. When worried, she cleaned.

'Sam'll be alright, Bells. He'll come home,' Leah was telling her. Seth could hear it clearly from the back yard. 'He's Sam. He's probably out there wondering what he's got to do to get back to you.'

Red's answering smile distracted the both of us, but by then, the fight had dwindled down. Cullen was tense, blood, both dark and bright stained his shirt. I couldn't have been wounded too badly, as I wasn't exactly sure where I was bleeding from.

'I'm pretty sure I have to worry,' Red told Leah. 'It's like, part and parcel of the whole wife thing.'

'That and babies,' Leah replied. Fucking Leah.

'Yeah well, one thing at a time." Red rolled her eyes, and dried her hands off on Leah's shirt. 'Fuck this shit. I can't just sit here. Want to make him a cake? I should make him a cake. Man, this has to be the worst birthday ever.'

'Judging from the way you smell, I sincerely doubt that.' Fucking Leah.

Cullen wasn't listening in anymore. His eyes were wide, the black fading out in favor of his typical amber-gold, where he stared down at the frosty forest floor. "She swore."

'Twice, actually.' That was what he chose to fixate on? 'She does that, a lot actually.' She'd been cussing since the day I'd imprinted.

Looking up, his eyes were beseeching. "Imprinted?"

There wasn't any preventing it, not with Paul and Jared in tow. It was like reliving those earth-shattering moments of cosmic rearrangement all over again, only on a much more mild level. Unsurprising, none of us could think about our imprints without an embarrassing undercurrent of love and devotion and general awe.

'Soul mates,' Jake supplied. 'Bella said that's something you vampires can understand.'

"Yes." His voice was distant. Surely he knew he wasn't her mate? He'd left her behind. His eyes snapped to mine once more, a sneer splashed across his pale face. "You make it sound like it was easy to leave her. You don't know what it did to me. But it was...it was for the better, or so I thought. I wanted her to have the opportunity to be normal, to have normal things. Instead, she finds the first werewolf-"

That stung. It wasn't as if the thought hadn't occurred to me. What if I hadn't been the first wolf she saw? What if it had been Jake, or Quil or Paul or-

'Stop that,' Embry snapped at me. 'None of us fit Red like you do. It happened as it should have. Don't doubt that. Don't lose faith.'

'Bella's not made for normal,' Paul told Cullen calmly. His and Red's anger management classes really had paid off. 'She's made for Sam.'

Cullen was silent for a long moment. "I'll be wanting to see her. I won't leave until I do."

'Well, that's up to her,' I told him easily. 'But she doesn't know about the imprint, and I'd rather it remain that way. You've broken the treaty once. I'll overlook your indiscretion, if you can keep my secret.'

"Why would you keep that from her?" He sounded honestly baffled, brow pulling together as he frowned.

'Come on Cullen, you know Bella Swan. You know she's a martyr. I like knowing that she stays because she wants to, and not because the Gods said so. I like knowing that if she wanted to leave me, she could, without the guilt of an imprint pinning her in place.'

"Do wolves die without their mate?" He asked, with just enough curious interest to make my hackles rise. "If your mate were to die, or leave you?"

I phased human, just to watch him squirm at my nudity. Prude. Red's blood was still thick on my skin, but I wore it like a badge, shamelessly. "No. We go insane. I think it's time for you to leave now, Cullen."

It was only when I phased back, that Cullen called out to me once more. "Wait! One more question."

'Yes?'

"Bella, she...she called herself your wife." He looked positively betrayed. "I was always under the assumption she was against marriage in general."

'She is. Was. Ours is more of a commitment, than a wedding. We didn't do the bells and whistles.'

Jake snorted. 'Really, it was just a small ceremony."

'Surprisingly short guest list,' Jared added, snickering.

Embry piped in next. 'Real casual. Not a tux or dress in site.'

Paul of course, would always be the most crude. 'Not much to say about the catering though. I mean, all Sam ate was Be-"

'That's enough.' Words weren't' enough to halt the overflow of imagery, all artfully torn from my own memories. Turning back to a suitably horrified looking Cullen, I tipped my head down. 'As I said before, I think it's time for you to leave. We'll be in touch.'

tbc