Chapter 21

Soon into their journey to the Cullen's, Edward swung Bella onto his back. Looking over at Jacob with a mischievous smile on his face he raised his eyebrows and asked, "Do you want to race?"

"NO!" The protest didn't come from Jacob, but from Bella. "Edward, I swear I will vomit down your back." She warned.

They all laughed at her but Jacob took pity. "Maybe next time, when you don't have any extra weight on you," he glanced at Bella with a rye smile. "Don't want you having any excuses when I kick your ass."

Emmett scoffed in the background. "Please, Belly weighs nothing."

Edward always thought Jacob reminded him of Angela, but he was starting to see a little of Bella in him too. He could have agreed with his brother, or even announced he could be carrying the whole town and still beat the wolf in a race. But he knew Jake's comment was to benefit Bella, and he couldn't fault him for that. Instead he turned to his brother. "Belly?"

"Yeah, you know, because Bella makes me belly laugh, so Belly. It's either that or Bellion because she is a little hellion" He barked a laugh at his own thoughts.

Edward rolled his eyes and shook his head at his brother.

They ran at a more leisurely pace; for vampires and werewolves, and still got to the house long before Charlie. Most of the wolves were hanging around outside. They kept their distance until Jake arrived. Soon Seth and Leah joined them. The only ones missing were Sam, Paul and Jared.

Leah announced to Jacob, "Paul and Jared are on patrol, Sam said you and Emb are on graveyard shift. Paul said he will watch the leach lover's house tonight."

Jacob growled at the term.

"Hey, his words." She protested.

"Who's volunteering to watch with him?" he asked, trying to shake the aggravation of her obvious taunting off.

Quil looked like he was about to volunteer but Leah cut in, "Me."

Edward huffed "Of course, the two wolves that have their own agenda."

Bella knew they were the two wolves that despised her, so Edward had to be right. She was about to ask him what their motives were, but decided against it. She hated when other people spoke for her when she was fully capable of speaking for herself.

"Why are you so keen to volunteer?" She asked Leah instead.

Edward started. "She…"

"I have a voice leach," Leah snapped. "and I believe she was asking me." turning to Bella she said. "Because Sam doesn't want me to."

Rosalie snorted. "Kinda petty, isn't it."

"Says the queen of petty." Edward snarked.

Carlisle helped Jasper bring out a large table that would have taken at least ten strong humans to carry. He yelled over his shoulder, "Behave children." Alice and Esme came out with a feast behind them. After placing the food on the table they went back in the house and were back out with chairs in the blink of an eye.

Esme proudly announced. "The food's all ready, dig-in whenever you want."

An enthusiastic Seth ran up to the table. "Oh, this looks great!" He grabbed a plate and filled it with food.

Quil and Embry weighted for Jacob's lead. Smiling politely He picked up a plate and began to fill it. "Thank you Esme, Seth is right, this all looks amazing."

Quil and Embry finely grabbed plates of their own, but Leah refused to join them. "Does no one else wonder why they have so much food in their house?" She asked.

"Well we have to keep up appearances, and we have Bella to feed now." Esme smiled sweetly at Bella.

"Oh," Leah snarked. "Like your pet dog? Or maybe she's more of a kitten?"

Embry leaned into Bella, whispering conspiratorially he asked, "How much do they think you eat?"

A loud siren fractured the air, bringing all their attention to the cop car pulling up the long driveway.

Marching over to her father she chastised. "Dad, what are you doing? You're going to bring the whole town's attention here."

"You're supposed to use the sirens in an emergency, I had an emergency."

"And what would that be?"

"My daughter, my only child, is the only human here, surrounded by supernatural creatures that want to, and could eat her at any moment."

With his mouth full of food Seth helpfully announced. "We don't eat people."

Emmett added. "Yeah, and if we were going to eat Bella, you being here wouldn't stop us."

"Emmett!" Edward hissed.

"What?" Emmet shrugged. "And, there is at least one wolf here that would love to eat her." He smiled coyly.

"Damn," Quil announced "He said it before I could… Ouch!" A fork was flung at Quil so hard it implanted itself in his arm. Looking around, Bella surmised it came from a red faced Jake that no longer had a fork on his plate. Pulling the fork out of his arm and then rubbing the quickly healing wound he complained. "He said it."

Bella was glad Jacob was avoiding looking at her. She quickly turned away only to find a panicked Charlie rushing over to Quil with a fistful of cloth napkins.

"It's alright Chief Swan." Edward soothed. "Their blood is not tempting to us."

Oh, blood! Bella wondered why she wasn't the first to panic.

Changing the subject, Jake wondered, "Maybe Quil or Seth should be the second wolf on watch."

"It doesn't really matter." Edward told him. "I will be with her tonight."

"Oh, no you won't!"

"Dad," Bella protested.

"No! Now look here, I don't care if you're out there flittering through the trees or frolicking with the wolves, but you will not be entering my daughters bedroom."

"Dad, you can't do that."

"No," Edward said softly. "He is right. I shouldn't be spending my nights in your room. It is inappropriate. If I were human he would have that same rule."

Bella stared at him, begging him with her eyes to tell her he was only saying that to appease Charlie.

Alice gasped looking off into space with a paper in her hand. Coming out of her vision she said, "Riley Biers just chose a girl for Victoria to turn."