Four: Mate
Bella kisses me with a definite purpose—not that I can remember what that is with her lips fused to mine—as she shifts out of her hunched position. Her passion briefly eclipses mine, and then I let go and we are equals in the kiss, giving and giving until there is truly no difference between us.
Without breaking our kiss, she shoves me backward onto the ground and straddles my hips. One of us rips my trousers open. When we unite our bodies, the feeling is indescribable. Everything is more. Every touch, every shift of her body against mine. Her scent. Her strength. Her speed. I almost close my eyes, needing to shut off one sense because the others are in overload—but, even now, when I have her in my arms, as close as she can physically be, I can't bear to lose sight of her.
Our lovemaking is essentially one long, drawn-out, all-consuming orgasm—and my orgasm is like an out-of-body experience. Bella's face is all I can focus on, all I can think about. I know I am crying out in ecstasy, but for an eternal moment, there is only silence. The roar in my ears comes later—as though my mind has surpassed the speed of sound. As I settle back into my physical self, the thought makes me chuckle. I am quickly distracted when Bella joins in.
Her breathlessness pleases me immeasurably; there's no doubt she feels as gratified as I. Despite her unsated bloodlust, she looks triumphant.
"That," she says emphatically, "was—" and then she clamps her lips shut. I wait—for once, in this infinite moment, it doesn't feel like waiting—but she doesn't go on. In fact, she shifts her gaze from my face to the flattened moss beside my shoulder. It isn't hard to imagine the blush that would have flushed her cheeks were she still human.
When my impatience finally stirs, I stroke her cheek, hoping to encourage her to elaborate, and she nods to signal that she just needs a moment. The familiar gesture reassures me, and reminds me that, even though I am once more feeling the passage of time, it no longer holds any power over us. Technically, I could wait all day for her answer. That thought gets me through the two-and-a-quarter seconds of silence.
"Hot," she confesses quietly. "I don't mean I wasn't aware of you, but… it was all about the sex…" When my smile widens, she relaxes once more; then her brow crinkles ever so slightly. "I am more curious about what you're thinking, but not really… Is that weird?"
"No. It's just me. Sorry."
She shrugs. "I have so much more room in my head now—it makes sense to wonder anyway. Are the others wondering?"
"Yes and no; they're a little nervous because I can't hear if you're in danger of losing control, but that's all."
She nods solemnly. "I get that."
"I'm not worried."
"No?"
"If anything startles you, I'll be your distraction—"
She giggles, and the movement travels through her body and into mine, overwhelming us both with renewed lust.
This time is almost as frenetic, but now that my brain is slightly less overwhelmed, I have greater control over my actions. My hips need no instruction, as before, but my hands enjoy the chance to explore my wife's new body, and I press my lips to whichever part of her is in reach. At some point, I spare half a thought for the dress she had been wearing, but I can't remember what happened to it, and I don't feel the slightest urge to look away from her in order to find it.
Bella moans delightedly, over and over, lending our coupling a rapturous melody as she shifts her body on every thrust to help me smother every inch of her in kisses. At times, her fingers tighten a little too much on my arm or my chest, or in my hair, but I find myself not caring in the slightest; in fact, it adds to the thrill, knowing she is equally consumed by our lovemaking.
An infinitesimally small part of me mourns the loss of her speeding pulse, of the feel of her heartbeat throbbing through me—but that is the only human trait I miss. I'd expected to miss her former heat, too, not realizing that the matching temperature of her titanium-velvet skin would feel infinitely more satisfying.
Long after I've forgotten that life exists beyond this ecstasy, as we luxuriate in the afterglow of our latest synchronous climax, Bella hums softly.
"I thought I wouldn't feel this way for a long time," she murmurs. Her fingers trace the planes of my face, lingering on my lips.
"I'm not surprised," I reply, the words coming out a little slurred as my brain reengages. "Impressed, to say the least, but not surprised. You've taught me anything's possible."
"You made the impossible possible."
Rather than doubling up on the compliment, I take the opportunity to express my devotion anew. "I would do anything for you—even violate the laws of physics." When she quirks an eyebrow, I briefly explain the split second of infinite silence I'd experienced, teasingly attributing it to a metaphysical exceedance of the sound barrier.
As before, when she laughs, we return to our previous activity. I have never felt such intense pleasure. I am nothing but pleasure as I give myself over to the rhythm of our bodies.
At some point, while I am still mostly lost in the haze of yet another exquisite, synchronous orgasm, Bella's voice calls me back to reality. "Even now," she murmurs, "I'm so used to the way you felt when I was human. It's weird to discover that my new skin—and yours—is actually soft. And warm! Well, not warm warm, but you know what I mean."
I wholeheartedly concur, but with my whole body still singing with power, all I manage is a soft hum of agreement.
She smirks down at me. "You're intoxicated by me," she teases gleefully.
"I've never denied it," I breathe. In the back of my mind, I wonder how she can be so lucid when I still feel so separate from myself, so giddy with pleasure.
"I suppose what's changed is that I can see it now," she jokes, moving her hand to within half an inch of my cheek, very deliberately not touching me, even though our bodies are still fully coupled. Then her tone turns serious; "I never want to be parted from you ever again—but there's a part of me that means that literally."
My body reacts to that—my entire being feels the same way and immediately seeks to ensure her continued closeness—and she laughs as she obligingly surrenders to my interminable passion.
Eventually, though, during our next pause, the reality of my selfishness penetrates the fog of my desire. However happy she appears to be, her thirst must be acute. "Are you ready to try again?" I murmur, asking as indirectly as I have the wits to, in case she needs more time to recover from our near-disastrous first attempt.
She tenses (presumably because she comprehends my meaning), then forcibly relaxes. "I can ignore it."
"Like Carlisle," I murmur, and she gives a soft chuckle.
"No—I have a much better distraction," she replies, tipping her head at me.
As flattered as I am, I can't take credit for her apparent imperviousness to the nagging thirst. Her ability to discuss the bloodlust so calmly on her first day—before her first hunt—is unprecedented. And then her brow furrows and I wonder if she's realizing that it's not that simple. One word is enough to dispel the momentary doubt.
"Renesmee," she breathes, almost making it a question.
I nod, feeling guilty that my focus on Bella—and my own pleasure—has made me forget the duty we owe our daughter. "She'll be waiting for you."
"And I have to hunt before we go home."
"Yes; Alice—" I stop when she growls.
"Shush," she commands, unnecessarily. Then she takes a deep breath before gently uncoupling our bodies.
Her composure is truly astounding as she stands up and calmly scans the tattered fabric surrounding us that represents what remains of my clothing. When her eyes come to rest on something to her left, I spare a glance to see what it is (if only I could see through her eyes!). It is her dress; somehow, it looks to have survived intact. She carefully steps around the scraps of material on her way to retrieve it, then chuckles softly, musically, as she gently picks it up and steps into the skirt. The shoulder straps are broken, but the two sections of the stiff bodice are more than capable of providing sufficient cover on their own. She gingerly tears off the dangling straps, then deftly winds the pieces through her hair, braiding it loosely.
My predicament, however, is far more complicated; I'm reminded of it when her gaze travels down my naked body, eyes darkening anew as they linger on my persistent erection. I'd like nothing more than for us to get distracted again, but I force myself to move, starting with retrieving the remnants of my trousers and using them to subtly screen my lower half.
"I didn't think you would need a change of clothes," she murmurs wistfully. "We're going to have to sneak home."
"I can repair this," I assure her.
"How?"
We both chuckle as I inspect the shredded garment. I double check my calculations (something that would normally be unnecessary) before describing my plan to use fabric from the lower legs to patch up the front. Bella wishes me luck and then watches with obvious admiration as I fashion myself a remarkably serviceable pair of shorts, using a series of small knots to tie the different pieces together.
On, the clothing even resembles Regency-era breeches.
"Very Pride and Prejudice," Bella compliments.
"I thought you'd like it."
She nods once. Then her smile turns distinctly flirtatious. "Did you forgo our underwear deliberately?"
"I honestly didn't think about it. I changed you as quickly as possible, and I did the same for myself."
She laughs. "Practical and exhilarating."
I would laugh with her, but I still don't seem to have the necessary coordination. "I'm glad my oversight turned out to be so useful."
She gives a little hmm that sounds faintly vexed, but her general mien is still cheerful, so I resist the urge to ask what she's thinking (and the urge to apologize), and then she looks up at the overcast sky. I glance up, too, even though I know what she is seeing: millions of miniature rainbows sparkling in the otherwise gray clouds. If the blanket of cloud weren't so thick, we'd be able to see stars and planets as well; but, right now, only the sun's bright silhouette is still visible… and it is lighting up a section of cloud that is much closer to the horizon than I'd expected.
"How long have we been gone?" Bella asks suddenly, interrupting my calculations on that very matter.
"Based on the sun, it's twenty to eight… which means fifty or so minutes."
Her mouth falls open. "Fifty minutes?" Then she chuckles. "I don't feel so bad now. It feels like hours—no, days."
I nod. "Like a lifetime."
"Welcome to eternity," she murmurs tenderly. Her hand lifts as though she means to touch my cheek, but then she thinks better of it. With a sigh, she shifts her gaze from my face into the densest stand of trees. "Where's the nearest herbivore?"
After transferring a little more attention to my sense of hearing, I locate a trio of deer in half a second—and then I take another half-second to confirm that there are no humans within five miles. "South-east; just over half a mile away."
"Lead the way," she requests solemnly. "Slowly, please."
I set our pace at 100 miles per hour—the equivalent of a lazy jog for us both—so we come upon the deer in less than twenty seconds. Bella looks nervous, so I dart ahead the last thirty yards and take out all three black-tailed deer in one swift strike. Aware of my mate's latent newborn instincts, I carry the smallest one a dozen yards away and then wait for her to start drinking.
The careful way she kneels by the deer's neck amazes me all over again. How is the speeding heartbeat not driving her wild with thirst? She even rests her hand on its neck before lowering her head and finally biting through the skin to reach its blood.
Her eyes are closed, but her body visibly tenses as the blood enters her mouth, and she drinks as swiftly as any newborn, draining the carcass in seconds. When she immediately turns to the second deer, I remember the deer in front of me. I am tempted to offer it to her as well, before deciding to take my share; I don't want her to think I'm going hungry, especially now she knows firsthand the thirst we suffer.
I drink as quickly as I can, which, thanks to my greater experience, is fractionally faster than Bella. When she stands up, we regard each other in silence for a moment; her eyes are excited without looking feral, but I can see her testing herself, checking for any lingering wildness—which implies she felt at least something akin to the mindless bloodlust.
"Thank you," she murmurs.
As I marvel at her incredible presence of mind, I realize it is the only thing that has saved us from breaking the treaty twice in Bella's first few minutes as an immortal.
I can't hold in the apology any longer. "I'm so sorry for ruining our first hunt. You trusted me—"
She traverses the distance between us in four hundredths of a second. Her lips are parting to speak as she covers my mouth with her hand, but the rush of passion overwhelms us both. While my hands seek out bare skin, she tears through the knots on one side of my hastily repaired trousers and then springs upward in my arms, expertly wrapping her legs around my waist. Our bodies interlock effortlessly, and the novel position coupled with the lingering adrenaline of the hunt has us both climaxing in moments—which is fortunate because I'm entirely too preoccupied to stay on my feet any longer.
Bella chuckles softly as I sink to my knees, setting a foot on the ground to help steady me. But when she uses that foot to gently slip through my arms and remain standing, I feel utterly bereft.
"Renesmee," she murmurs softly, and although I understand—I feel the same draw to return to our daughter, or I would if I could focus on anything other than my beautiful, sexy, powerful, awe-inspiring wife—I miss our physical connection acutely. I ache to have her back in my arms.
"It wasn't your fault," she murmurs suddenly. "I went after them."
It takes a moment to process her words and their meaning, and then I realize that she's explaining why she won't accept my apology. "Of course you did. What I don't understand is how you managed to stop. I couldn't have done that when I was a newborn."
"There weren't ever people around?" she challenges.
"We always check before we give ourselves over to the hunt. I was unforgivably careless."
She shakes her head absently, her focus inward as she ponders my answer. "I'm not sure I know what you mean," she says after a moment. "I didn't feel any different until I caught the human scent."
"Were you focusing on the elks' heartbeats?"
"Yes," she agrees uncertainly. "You said their scent would get better when we were closer, but it didn't really. And this blood… I know I couldn't have stopped once I started, and the burn in my throat is definitely less than it was, but I didn't feel the… frenzy you all talk about."
The familiar—but no less impressive—sentiment makes me smile. "Carlisle doesn't feel it either; he has never felt it, except perhaps the first time, which he doesn't remember clearly."
"Never? Even when he changed you?"
"It's different for him. Tasting human blood intensified the burn, but he was still fully in control."
She nods at that, as if the simple description—one that condenses centuries and a myriad of powerful urges and sensations into a comparatively token account—explains everything. She must really feel that way, too.
"Your eyes are so beautiful," she murmurs, distracting me. When I go to return the compliment, she waves me silent. "I'll believe you when they're not blood red," she mutters. "Why are yours brighter than the others'?"
"My eyes were green, so the color is less dense."
"Alice had dark eyes?"
I nod. "A much darker brown than Jasper's or Esme's," I reply, hoping she won't ask anything more about Alice, because it is only thanks to James that I got a glimpse of human Alice, and I don't mind if those memories stay faint. "Carlisle's, Rosalie's, and Emmett's were all shades of blue."
While she ponders the differences in their eyes, I set my mind to re-repairing my ruined trousers. Knotting the fabric back together makes the front section sit lopsidedly, but it's not too obvious so I call it a success.
Before I get to my feet, Bella suddenly waves her sparkling fingernails at me. "I look like I've got one of those French manicures!" she bursts out, and I get the strong impression that she's complaining about it. "How did that happen? Even Rosalie's don't look like that."
I shrug. "Your skin was a lot paler than hers."
"Yours don't look like that."
"Your body was in much better condition," I propose.
When she cringes, I assume the reference to her pre-vampiric blood-drinking was too overt; then she says, "Poor Rosalie," and I rethink my assumption.
"It doesn't matter to her now," I say, pleased that I can reassure her on that point. "She has everything she ever wanted."
"Even though it's not her baby?"
"May you have better luck convincing her of that than I."
She laughs, but—if I'm reading it correctly—there is still a hesitancy in her expression. Does she remember Rosalie's long-term bitterness more clearly than her very recent warmth?
"She actually thanked Carlisle for saving her—and she even thanked me for being immune to her killer good looks."
Instead of the fresh laughter I expect, Bella regards me wistfully. "So much would be different if you had favored her. Neither of you would know what you'd missed out on, but Emmett and I would have lost our happily-ever-afters—although death by ferocious grizzly bear is much more impressive than death by out-of-control van," she adds, grinning once more.
I can't share her levity—the memory of that day still stirs up so many powerful emotions—but I manage a smile and then use the necessity of getting to my feet to hide the tension in my body. I'm not sure how successful I am, but the way Bella arranges her arms across her midriff (covering the gaps in her dress) suggests that she blames my unsated desire.
When her eyes flit across the fallen deer, I encourage the change in focus by suggesting we seek out another herd.
"No," she replies at once. "I want to go home—but you could take their hides?"
Although the request catches me by surprise, I don't let my amazement delay us. "Of course. It'll take a minute to get all three—"
"Please," she interrupts, so I get straight to work.
After watching me for a few seconds, she asks, "Have you grown to like the taste of deer blood?"
I give her a wry smile, wishing I could say yes, and she returns the smile, her eyes sympathetic.
"Is that what you meant when you said they'd smell worse once we got closer?"
"Not exactly—I hoped it might be different for you; that you might not dislike the taste." I hesitate to explain the other reason, the real reason—the way the bloodlust consumes us, exhorting us to forget all that we are for a temporary reprieve from the burn.
"So mountain lions just smell good?" she teases.
"You could say that," I tease back, going with a lighthearted answer because, in truth, humans are the only animals that smell good.
She seems to see the other answer in my eyes, though, for her expression turns serious. "When we met," she murmurs, bolstering my conjecture, "how did you stand it?"
"For Carlisle. Because I had to."
She bursts into a smile that catches me a little off guard in its intensity, implying that she remembers making use of that concept herself recently.
"You remember?"
She nods. "I didn't want to forget anything. Everyone said human memories fade if you don't think about them, so I went through all of mine as soon as I could think again."
The deliberate phrasing confuses me slightly. "While you were still changing?"
"Yes and no," she replies, shrugging. "I didn't want to muddle them up, so I only focused on a few simple memories at first—the ones that helped me remember everything I had that was worth the pain. But as it got easier to… compartmentalize it, I guess, I started thinking about more and more—when I wasn't listening to you all telling stories to Renesmee."
Her description is frankly awe-inspiring, but the last part brings me up short. "Did you hear the one I told her about the day we met?"
She quirks an eyebrow. "No…"
"I may have told our hours-old daughter that I very nearly gave in to the urge to kill you."
Her lips twitch as though she can't make up her mind between concern and amusement. "What exactly did you say?"
As I recite my poorly planned story, my embellishments earn a few chuckles and more than a few raised eyebrows. She interrupts twice to clarify the truth, and then I end with the point that she always knows what the right thing is.
"You said that?"
"Of course. I may have embellished a few things and glossed over even more, but that one is the absolute truth."
She purses her lips. "I have a lot to live up to."
"You're having no difficulty so far."
"For myself, maybe, but everything is so much more complicated now."
"You still know what to do. Do you remember Seth's advice about not letting your mind's extra capacity be taken up with worries? You can see more of the possibilities more easily now, but you can think of more solutions, too."
She smiles. "I remember what a good influence Seth has been on your mindset."
The point is a good one, so it is easy to laugh—even through the frustration that I have to ask what she does and doesn't remember. I consider asking her to recount her memories for me now, but I don't want to badger her; after all, my story has already reminded her of several highlights. So I say nothing while I finish stripping the third deer's skin from its flesh.
"How was it for you?" she asks softly. "The day you woke up a vampire."
The question catches me a little off guard; right now, experiencing Bella's first day, my memories of my own awakening seem surreal. "Carlisle's thoughts were the only ones I could focus on. My first few days, I couldn't think beyond the burn in my throat."
"That's why Carlisle realized you could read minds before you did?" I nod. "And why you've always avoided describing your experience."
"Yes."
"You think it was worse for you than for the others?"
The amusement that question inspires is a welcome reprieve from my dark memories, so I go with it, giving her a teasing smile. "I think so. Esme and Emmett had their instinctive love for Carlisle and Rosalie—" and their belief that they were burning in Hell for their sins—"and Rosalie had her thirst for vengeance." Bella's absorption in my answer is the only thing that keeps me talking; now she is the one whose penetrating gaze has the power to charm the truth from my unwilling lips. "If I hadn't been able to hear Carlisle's thoughts, if he hadn't been able to use them to control me, I might've become too wild to be controlled."
"That's why you were so worried about Renesmee."
I nod, hoping she'll let it go, but I can't ignore the undiminished curiosity burning in her eyes. "Ask me anything," I murmur, though I wish I knew what she has in mind. (My only solace is that I'm no longer at risk of filling her mind with unhelpful thoughts or worries about her own ability to cope.)
She hesitates for a split second, then says, "Why did Carlisle feel the need to recreate the injuries he suffered? Didn't he realize it was working from the very first bite?"
I shake my head, trying to follow her example and recall the change without dwelling on the pain. "The pain woke me, but I was too weak to move, unable even to cry out, and his efforts to limit his direct exposure to my blood meant that not as much venom entered my system, prolonging the process considerably."
"Considerably?"
"Four days."
She shudders. "But your experience meant he knew what to do for Esme?"
I nod. "Her transformation took three days. I didn't think about using a syringe until you," I murmur, more than a little wistful.
"There wasn't the time to plan for the others'," she reminds me.
"True," I agree, immediately comforted.
Remembering my task, I return to stripping off the deer's hide. When Bella doesn't continue the conversation, I try a 'joke' to encourage her to speak more of her thoughts. "Was that your only question?"
She laughs. "No. I like watching you work. When I could see everything, I assumed you'd still look skilled, but I didn't expect you to still look fast."
"Well, I am hurrying."
"You'd go slower if we were already home?"
"Maybe."
She laughs again, filling my ears with glorious music.
As soon as I'm done, she encourages me to lead the way; but then she sets a swift pace—not pushing me to my limit, but close.
"I still can't believe how clear everything is," she remarks as we run, gesturing into the distance. "I can focus on anything I want to, even the tiniest detail! If you said we can see bacteria, I'd believe you—I bet you didn't need a microscope to read those slides!"
I have to laugh, delighted that her unique take on the world hasn't changed a bit. "At close range, we can see some individual bacteria—"
"What is close now?" she quips. "I can see an ant on a leaf a hundred yards away!"
"Have you tried 'zooming in' on anything you've seen?"
"Zooming in?"
"That ant; can you see what it was doing?"
She gasps. "How is that possible?"
"Our minds catalogue everything we see down to the finest scale, even if we weren't looking that closely at the time."
"No wonder human memories are so hazy," she remarks, raising an interesting point. "Even recording all that, our minds never get full?"
"There's no evidence to the contrary. We are supernatural beings—although I'm not sure I believe that anymore. It could all be a matter of scale. Who's to say, at quantum scale, there are any bounds to reality?"
While she ponders that, I feel a flicker in my mind that distinctly reminds me of the 'nudge' Alice sometimes gets before a big vision. I might be imagining it, but it feels like Renesmee's mind—yet we are over twenty miles from home.
Because we're moving so fast, I only get a few seconds to analyze the feeling before there's no doubt that it's Renesmee—and then, half a minute later, her crystal-clear thoughts are suddenly there in my mind, without any effort on my part. Indeed, her thoughts and feelings flow through me so smoothly (unlike Renée's telepathic yelling, which demands my attention), that it is as though her mind is an extension of mine. But it's possible I'm imagining that aspect—overlaying other experiences onto this strange new feeling—because it feels just like the telepathic link between the wolves' minds (except for it only going one way).
After I share this news with Bella, she initially smiles. Then her expression closes down, leaving me struggling to guess what she's thinking. I want to ask her; but do I really want to know?
We run in silence for almost a whole minute, gazing into each other's eyes, and then Bella unexpectedly offers up her thoughts. "Is it hypocritical," she asks a little ruefully, "that I'm glad you can hear her thoughts so strongly?"
The question is so unexpected—and so welcome—that I find myself laughing. "Probably," I blurt, only realizing after the word is out of my mouth that it's not the joke I'd intended it to be. "But Renesmee wouldn't think so."
"What's she doing now?"
"She's in Rosalie's arms, playing with a little wooden toy—" it's actually a wolf that Jacob carved for our daughter, but I can't explain that yet—"while they wait for us to arrive."
"They know we're on the way?"
"Yes; Alice still can't see around Renesmee, but she only has to go a few hundred yards away to start getting visions again. She hasn't told them about the humans."
Bella cringes. "Did she see—? No, don't tell me."
"She always saw you stopping; there was no other version." Bella doesn't seem convinced, so I try making another joke. "You never even tried to attack me."
She frowns in sudden anger, clearly not appreciating the wonder of that. "I looked straight at you," she laments, "and I didn't see you. I couldn't see you—in that moment, I wasn't myself. I was a monster."
I shake my head, trying to stall while I rack my brains for a valid argument—because it was equally horrifying for me, and yet she is being much too hard on herself. "I know how it feels. In the moment I first caught your scent, my mind went completely blank. But only for a moment. As soon as my mind reengaged, I realized what was happening—and so did you. As soon as you focused on me, you saw me."
"But that was an exceptional moment for you," she argues. "Those humans weren't anything special, and I still flipped out. I didn't recognize you."
"You were brand new—you still are."
"How did your first hunt go?"
"I almost killed someone."
"Really?" she says skeptically.
"Carlisle had already taken me out of the city—somewhere deer were more abundant than people—but it was only his thoughts that stopped me from siding with the monster."
"That was a choice."
"Hardly." She snorts softly, and I regret not simply answering that I'd slaughtered half a dozen deer without feeling much respite from the burning need. "Most newborns think of nothing but blood for months."
"So Esme and Rosalie and Emmett were different from the start?"
"Actually, yes," I reply, because it won't help to mention the 'accidents' Esme and Emmett both had during their newborn years. "Esme and Emmett fell in love, and Rosalie was all about revenge."
"Are any of the wolves at the house?" she asks anxiously, abruptly ending our debate; I assume the intensifying sound of the river has made her realize just how close we are to home.
"Yes. But, even in human form, they don't smell human."
She screws up her nose in a familiarly adorable gesture of bemusement. "Do they really smell like wet dog?"
"It's something of an extrapolation," I joke. "Wet horse smells like any other animal, but maybe a horse-sized dog would smell that bad."
She gives a soft chuckle, and then shakes her head. "If Alice's complaints are at all valid," she quips, "I doubt it."
"I'll let you debate that one with her."
Instead of smiling, as I'd hoped, she grows serious once more. "Remember my deer farm suggestion?"
"Of course!" I agree, thrilled that she remembers. "We can look into it," I promise (despite anticipating the difficulty of managing the human farmhands' curiosity).
"I'd rather not hunt wild animals," she insists, obviously not satisfied with my level of commitment; "their lives are hard enough without us." Then she grimaces. "If we had a farm, there'd be less risk of anyone stumbling into my kill zone."
I shake my head. "Only Carlisle could've done what you did. You remember who you are, even when hunting. I know you couldn't kill a human—and I'm not the only one who sees Carlisle's resolve in you. Esme does, too."
She smiles at that, palpably reassured. "I won't hurt the wolves," she affirms, the familiar determination steeling her voice and expression, "or anyone else."
I wonder if she's thinking specifically of Charlie, but regardless, I applaud the sentiment. To change the subject slightly (and hopefully further reassure her), I tell her that there are four wolves at the house—Seth, Leah, Jacob, and Embry.
She doesn't react when I say Jacob's name, giving me no clue to her feelings at seeing him again. I make it two seconds before I have to ask what she's thinking. She glances at me, then back at our path.
"All these greens are beautiful—I was just too cold to appreciate it before."
I have to smile at that, but I know she's evading the question. "Are you worried about Jacob?"
"A little," she admits with a sigh. "What will he think of me?"
"He'll be forced to admit he was wrong," I say, in lieu of anything that would necessitate revealing that her troublesome best friend has imprinted on our baby—because if the news makes her mad, I want him to see it.
She seems somewhat reassured, so I change the subject again. "Alice has left some clothes for me at the tanning barrels." When she purses her lips, I don't know if it's a reaction to me putting on more clothes, the reminder of Alice's snooping, or the delay it represents. "It's not out of the way," I add, hoping to assure her on at least one potential point of irritation, "and I can change while you put the hides into the barrels."
"Well," she says with a sigh, "I suppose you do need to put more clothes on."