Happy 2023!

I hope things have been going well for you since our last update. Things for me have been crazy, both good and bad. I'm most proud of myself for taking a step back from a lot of things in order to realign myself toward the end of 2022. I built better habits and I've written so much more consistently than I have in long time.

My original collaborative novel (retitled Once Upon a Lie that's a young adult fantasy romance and free on Wattpad under the username CressAndLeigh y'know, if you wanna read it or just know about it or whatever) was released in September 2022. It's been getting amazing reception in the short time my co-writer and I have had it up, and it updates every Friday. Y'know, if you wanna read it or just know about it or whatever.

RAVAGE is getting some more love, too. One of my plans now that the holiday season over is to continue editing and uploading RAVAGE across AO3 and Wattpad. I'm also going to try and maintain a more consistent writing schedule for SAVAGE so we can have uploads once a month. Try is the keyword here. I promise I'm doing my best.

This year, the word I'm focusing on is "curate."

What are your goals for 2023? Or do you go by a word?

Also, if you recognize some dialogue from Eclipse in this installment and the next, the answer is yes you did.

JULY

Part I

ALICE HAD LEFT THE NEXT day, but promised she would be back soon. We considered a return trip happening during fall break, or Christmas, because she still lived under the charade as a student of Forks High. All of the Cullens who were considered underclassmen were. Which meant Edward was still lurking in Bella's shadow.

It wasn't a pleasant thing to think about. No dealing with a vampire ever was.

Fwoosh!

Swack!

The baseball landed in the center of my palm, the harsh contact making my skin buzz. If I were human, trying to catch this ball would've meant shattering my hand. I looked toward the source of the throw from my vantage point in the lower boughs of a pine tree.

Jasper made himself easy to find, taking deliberate steps until his bright golden eyes found my own, which had dulled from their vibrant red into a baked orange. They were still a far cry from blue, but the steady and fade from red and shift to yellow brought a sense of comfort. Jasper leaned against the trunk of the tree opposite to mine, exposing himself to shafts of sunlight spearing through the clouds, making his skin glimmer. "Penny for your thoughts?" he called up to me.

Maybe not all dealings were unpleasant.

I didn't move from my place in the branches. Instead, I settled back against the trunk and cradled the ball between my hands. "I'm thinking about Bella." Again.

The tree shifted around me, a shadow brushed over my line of sight, and Jasper situated himself a few branches above me. He looked down at me now, reversing our roles as quickly as we'd found ourselves in them. He was restless like that, I was learning. He didn't like staying still, or he just wasn't capable of it. I didn't mind it at all. If anything, I liked it too much. The Jasper I was coming to know since my transformation was vibrant. The general joy he exuded was unlike anything I'd ever experienced from him when I was human, to the point that his emotions and attentions were things I wanted to bask in always.

It would be so easy to be Jasper's mate. The pull to become his felt stronger every day, for so many different reasons.

"You know you can call her," he said, oblivious to the way I ogled him, or probably too polite to point it out. I did that a lot lately, ever since that night in the cabin. "I set everything up for you."

He had. A second laptop sat on the kitchen island. It had been part of the supplies he picked up when Alice came over, and it sat untouched for two weeks now. It was supposed to be mine to use for anything. Something to connect me to a world outside of Jasper and the cabin, because it was still too early for me to go out into civilization. I could look up schools, if or when I wanted to pursue my education again. I could Skype with Alice or Bella. But I never even turned it on. I didn't know if I wanted to. I wasn't in any rush to get back to the world I'd left behind. I liked this one: the quiet, almost monotonous cabin on the cliffs where I only had Jasper and my thoughts and my slow, steady progress.

But then I would feel guilty, because I knew I needed to have progress with Bella, too. Our last conversation had been a disaster, and Alice hadn't even talked about her during her visit, except for a hasty, "She misses you, too, you know," right before she darted back to the woods. Back to Forks. Since then, my thoughts would drift toward my best friend, but only the freshest memory I had of her played out in my mind. It always ended with Edward's cunning gaze and even more arrogant words. As if he knew better. As if he knew her better than me.

"I know," I finally told Jasper, who still hovered over me. I followed the lines of his arms bracing himself over me with my eyes, stopping at his fingers, before skipping to one ringlet of his hair that caught in a sheen of sunlight. "I just don't know what to say."

I didn't know what to say about so many things. Lately, those things revolved around Jasper himself, even though he didn't know it.

The kiss we had in the cabin after I told him I loved him had been the last one we had. Our physical relationship hadn't progressed any further than the things we'd done before: holding hands, soft kisses on a cheek or forehead, his gentle caress when he tucked my hair behind my ear or held my chin or gave me an even rarer hug. It had to be weird, right? But he never said anything about it, never pushed for anything more, and I… I was too afraid to ask.

Which was hilarious. Me. The girl who used to be as meek as a loaded gun. The same girl who, while human, had almost drug a vampire into her house to make out under the guise of a study session. At least, that had been when I though Jasper was human. But the point still stood. I had been able to take control, then. Even if there was still so much out of my control now, this didn't need to be one of them.

I just… had to do something about it.

My sudden resolve piqued Jasper's interest. He cocked his head to the side and smiled a lazy, confident sort of smile that made my insides feel fuzzy. "Now what are you thinking about –"

I tossed the baseball up to him before dropping out of the tree. The undergrowth barely rustled around me when my feet hit the earth. "Tag," I said over my shoulder, and started running.

A shock of adrenaline thrummed through me as soon as I heard him drop to the forest floor. My senses heightened with the rush of movement, of our game renewed. Every time we played, something like my old self crept up toward the surface. The girl who loved running, chasing, hunting for something other than blood.

My body shifted from stillness to movement like ice melting into water, and evaporated into the air as I became nothing but a blur – even to vampiric eyes, Jasper admitted somewhat begrudgingly after one of our games. He was just as competitive as I was, his fire stoking my own.

Luckily for him, this time – just this once – I wanted to be caught. But that didn't mean I would make it easy.

I tore through the trees, lush and green from the summer sun. They smelled faintly like salt from the thick ocean air clinging to their branches, but mostly fresh and clean. My legs cut past the ferns, leaving nothing more than a whisper behind. Jasper was more powerful, naturally louder, his speed sounding more like a passing breeze that whistled through the trees and was getting closer.

I bolted for the cliffs leading to the ocean, still slow enough to let him think he was closing in. As the trees thinned out and the ground became rockier under my feet –

Jasper shot out in front of me, much faster than I was anticipating. He beat me easier than I planned, but I wasn't mad about it at all.

I skidded to a stop, smiling, my breathing quick as I stepped back until I hit a tree. The ocean air whipped Jasper's golden hair around his head, so much so that he had to push it back with one hand, his arm flexing back as he did. "That was terrible," he admonished because he was always my mentor first, but he was smiling, closing the space between us in confident strides. A tension swelled behind my abdomen when he got closer. Want. It was want.

Jasper paused, picking up on the emotion as soon as I gave it a name, as if it were a scent on the wind. His smile fell, and his eyes seemed to go dark. I licked my lips in anticipation. His focus latched onto them immediately. "Blaire…" His tone was soft, cautious.

"Jasper?" I hoped my answering question sounded casual. Innocent. I didn't move from my place but continued to stare at him. Waiting.

The air lost its gentleness. Something taut sprung up between us that cut through the breeze. It was like stepping out onto a tightrope, my body singing in pleasure and pain at the next torturous step Jasper took to meet me. It was too little and too slow. Everything felt agonizingly slow, and quiet. I could barely hear the ocean waves over the sound of his boots lying flat in the grass, his steady breaths. I didn't know how he was so calm. I could barely breathe as his emotion slammed into me and rebounded. If he didn't kiss me soon, I would suffocate in hopeless desire.

This feeling was so much more potent than any time I had faced this as a human. Soft, grainy memories materialized in my conscious of those sensations – in front of empty locker rooms and front porches and my room in the moonlight – reminding me of how much I'd always wanted this. Before things got complicated, and scary, there had been moments where it was just Jasper and I. No pretense. Just a delicate pull. A bond that was invisible, but so real. It was vibrating between us now, shaking the air, begging me to take and be taken.

The idea of being taken surprised me – the idea of wanting that was even more surprising. But any reservations about it disappeared when he took another slow step forward, treating me like I was a wild animal. I felt wild, fighting every impulse not to lunge for him. I spent the seconds between us mapping out the path of his skin I would take with my lips.

Another step. He was within arm's reach.

At his fourth step, I moved, and he let me into his space. I pressed my palms against his chest and slid them up around his neck, while his arms locked around my waist and crushed me against him. His lips were warm and soft and urgent. I sighed into the kiss, my fingers tangling in his hair as his body bowed over mine to close the height difference between us. I gave into the way every line in him pressed against mine, more intent on molding my lips against his.

This kiss… was different than the ones we had before. The ones we shared when I first turned were panicked and always held an edge of fear. This one felt languid and molten hot. Now that I wasn't afraid of losing him anymore, I could enjoy him the way the human version of myself would have been cheering for.

I couldn't help but reach up to run my fingers through his silky curls, or the way I brushed my tongue against his lower lip.

A shudder ran through Jasper and he sighed deep, before my back was suddenly pressed hard against a tree, pushing us even closer than before. And it wasn't close enough. He opened his mouth to me, while his hands travelled up from my waist and splayed across my ribcage, long fingers splaying up just under my breasts. The sensation of the tips of his fingers against me there made my body tingle with anticipation. A perfect tease, and one I fell for easily as I arched myself into his body, my fingers tightening in his hair. I pulled my mouth away from his and kissed his jaw before kissing his neck, standing on the tips of my toes, pushing my body harder into his. "Fuck," Jasper growled over my head, his hands sliding up, brushing against the front of my breast –

"Wait," Jasper said against my mouth, dropping his hands back down to my waist, tightening against me in a way that wasn't trending in the direction of a fiery make out session. "Wait, darlin', hold on."

I leaned back, surprised to find myself out of breath. I thought vampires didn't need air, but I guessed those vampires had never kissed Jasper Whitlock. I pulled my hands out from his hair, but selfishly let them linger around his neck before drifting back down his chest, even though his hands held me firmly against him. Before I could completely pull them away, he reached up and covered one of them with his own, flattening my palm over the space his still heart lay. "I'm sorry," he said. I was somewhat distracted – maybe even a little smug – by the way he sounded just as breathless as me.

The feeling didn't last long, though. Not when something like anxiety buzzed over my skin and he wouldn't meet my eyes. I frowned. "Jasper –"

"I'm sorry," he said again. It didn't help me understand what was going on. What did he have to be sorry about? Did I do something wrong? Did he not want the same thing – Oh God. Did he not want this?

Rejection and mortification slammed into me. I couldn't believe it. Had I been misreading things this entire time? "It's okay," I said quickly, trying to pull away from him, so I could drown in embarrassment by myself. "I… thought we could… or that we were – It doesn't matter. I understand –"

"Oh hell." Jasper suddenly kissed my forehead, the action and his lips shaking me out from my nervousness and insecurity. "It's not that. Trust me, I've been hoping for this – but… There are things you need to know before this goes on."

I couldn't help but look at his scars. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, exposing so much more of himself than I'd seen before. Every inch of him was marked with crescent-shaped bite marks and cruder, thicker lines encircling most of his joints: one at his ankle, another at his knee, both his wrists, even a half-line at his collarbone that always gave me a flicker of fear when I considered the few inches it could've taken to – A few more inches, and he might've been lost to me before we'd ever met.

He still hadn't told me why, but I hadn't pushed him. I remembered what he told me in the woods near the Denali house. Whatever he was going to say, he'd said he needed me to know if he had any hope of this – us – working out. Something that linked together all the scars, Charlotte and Peter, and some place down south.

I leaned forward to press one quick, chaste kiss against his frowning mouth. "Tell me."

He nodded, finally pulling himself away but not breaking contact. His hands slid down my arms, letting one of them grasp one of my hands before he finally led us away from the tree. We followed the edge of the cliffs, Jasper hovering close to the drop-off, glancing down it in a way I found familiar. I'd wanted to do the same thing in Alaska when Tanya kissed Jasper. What had he gone through to make him want to run away from me? From himself in this moment?

I squeezed his hand gently, reminding him that he was safe. He cast me a grateful look, the wind battering his hair, loose curls framing the storm in his eyes.

"I'm sorry for the melodrama," he finally said, his voice carrying over the constant bashing of waves against the cliffs. The sound faded as he finally steered us back into the forest, crossing the treeline. He walked me to a fallen tree and gestured for me to sit. The rotting wood creaked underneath me but was otherwise solid. Then Jasper stepped back, rocking on his heels. He needed the space to talk and move. "I'm worried."

He didn't have to tell me. I could feel it hanging in the air all around us. I crossed my legs underneath me, curling and balancing myself perfectly on the log, settling in to wait. I didn't say anything. I didn't need to.

"You know now that there are different ways to become a vampire," Jasper began, slowly, "and that most are born out of wickedness or desperation. Just like you were born from something of the former, I was too."

He gestured to his scars when he said that, but I didn't need to look at them. I was more concerned with the darkness shadowing his golden eyes, or the way his worry crested into breath-halting anxiety that rolled off of him in thick waves.

"Try to picture a map of the western hemisphere," he said. I scoffed at the request, which broke the concerned concentration on his face. It made him smile, even if it was small, even if it was for a second. "Sorry, my story will probably feel like a history lecture. I am a little over a century and a half old."

My smile faltered. I'd known he was older, remembered he'd told me once when I was human, even if I couldn't remember the exact number. He was turned when he was older than me when he was human, and vampires were obviously immortal, and he did make an offhand joke about centuries separating us, but… almost two of them? Almost two hundred years?

I also realized Jasper stopped talking. He'd felt my reaction, my surprise, and was letting me work through it.

"You should know you exceed my age range when it comes to dating," I finally said.

A startled chuckle bubbled out of him. "I'd certainly hope so. I'll admit that you don't fit my typical type, either. I usually prefer older women – by a couple decades at least."

It was so stupid, and I couldn't help but laugh. Jasper smiled.

"While we are on the subject, though, you should know I really don't expect anything," he admitted. It was a little needless because he'd already shown me that time and time again. "Our difference in age has always been something I've been aware of, and the last thing I want is for you to feel any pressure from it, especially given… who you are to me."

He never said the word "mate." He knew how uncomfortable that word was for me – the formality and finality of it all, even though I was learning there was so much more meaning to it that wasn't so formal or final. Jasper had a way of teaching me one of those new meanings every single day, every time I found a new reason to love him.

"I just want you to be happy," he went on. "And safe. I want you to find yourself again, and I'm grateful you trust me enough to let me stand by you while you do it. Whatever you want from me is enough. It always will be."

This was today's, I decided.

"I know," I finally said. "I still appreciate it when you tell me that, though. Sometimes – less often now – I still worry. Even though I didn't know by how much, exactly, I've always known you've experienced so much more than me."

So much more of the world, of vampires, of life. Embarrassment licked up into my face, making my head throb at the confession I needed to force out. "Sometimes… Sometimes I worry I won't measure up to some of those… experiences."

God, did I have to say it like that? What in the eighteenth-century-sounding crap was that? Why couldn't I just say this for what it was – but who the hell was I kidding? Even when my confidence was at its highest, the human version of me would have been stuttering the exact same way. My past experiences were make out sessions and maybe an accidentally-on-purpose boob graze. Moving past anything like that was foreign to me. Unknown and uncharted territory.

"My life only started when you showed up in it, as cliché as that sounds. If any of my past matters to you in those certain experiences, though –" He flashed me a meaningful smirk that somehow made me laugh and my breath hitch with want at the same time. "– please let me know. But when it comes to us? It's different. It's new for me, too, and I like the pace we've set."

He had no business making me feel like this, making me want him so desperately that it bordered on scaring me, while making me feel so comfortable with wanting him so desperately simultaneously. It was so… sexy. There wasn't another word for it.

"This wasn't the direction I was planning to take this conversation in, you know," he said, sobering, smile falling. "There are other parts of my past that matter a lot more. Parts that I need you to know before we move forward, or before you make any decisions."

"Okay," I said. "Then tell me."

V

Is it really a Twitch chapter if it doesn't end on a cliff-hanger? Is it REALLY?

Would you guys like to connect more over social media? If so, what platform is best? Twitter, Instagram, Hive, Mastadon, Tumblr... Facebook? Please just don't make me do TikToks lol. I'd like to announce updates in a way that's more convenient for you guys than just uploading a chapter and hoping for the best. Unless you like that, in which case what we're doing is totally fine!

The reason why I ask is because whoever currently follows me on Twitter knows, the second part to this July installment is already complete. I'll post it in the next week or so, as a New Year's and my birthday-month and a thanks-for-not-abandoning-me-completely gift to you all!

In the next update, we'll be getting into the nitty-gritty of Jasper's past which is problematic af. I hope that I've been able to tackle the following subject-matter in a respectful way that doesn't make light of what he did, because even though Jasper is a fictional character, SM put him in a very real world that was experiencing very real events. Events that still effect a very real society today.

All that being said, if the next chapter seems like the subject was mishandled or that I just did it "wrong," please let me know. I did my best with it, but the great thing about writing is that it can always be edited. If I made any mistakes with it, I would appreciate the opportunity to learn and fix it!

On that somewhat-serious note, this is me checking in! I hope you're doing well and that your 2022 was kind to you. I hope 2023 is so much better for you, too!

Also, if you wanna read my original work Once Upon a Lie, I just updated it today so... if you wanna check it out or whatever, you have a lot of content to read.