Warning: the first part of this chapter features more succubus shenanigans, though nothing too explicit.

The next day was a Saturday, meaning Bella was free to go straight to the Cullens' place after breakfast with Charlie – which she did, only to be met with the unusual sight of the entire family milling around the front lawn, some distance from their house. She greeted them happily before asking the obvious question: "What are you all doing out here?"

"Ah, well…" Carlisle didn't squirm, of course, but he did look distinctly uncomfortable.

"We thought it best to vacate the house for a while," Esme answered for him.

"Why, is something wrong? Where are Bo and Kenzi? They're okay, aren't they?" Bella demanded with rising alarm.

"They are both absolutely fine," Edward assured her.

"I'd say Bo's better than fine," Emmett elaborated with an odd look. "Isn't that right, Jasper?"

Jasper, who had just ventured a bit closer to the house before quickly stepping back like he'd been hit with some noxious odor, nodded. "Yes, she seems to be in…ah…good spirits."

"And Kenzi went into town a while ago," Alice added before Bella could press him for more information. "I saw her going into the diner."

"So Kenzi's in town, but Bo is in there-" Bella pointed up at the huge house "-and you're all out here. What the heck is going on?" She would've asked if the house had to be fumigated for some reason, but if that was the case, surely Bo wouldn't still be inside. Even more baffling (and worrisome), the Cullens were all strangely unwilling to tell her anything, or even to make eye contact.

At last, despairing of getting a straight answer and growing increasingly concerned, she said, "You know what? If you don't want to tell me, fine; I'll find out myself."

She started toward the house, but Edward caught her arm. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"She's my sister, Edward. If there's something going on with her, I need to know what it is." Slipping free of his grasp, she marched up to the front door and yanked it open.

The instant she stepped inside, she was hit with a wave of energy so intense it actually made her light-headed, forcing her to lean against the doorframe for a minute until her breathing was back under control. Then she straightened up and, doing her best to ignore the wobbly feeling in her knees, proceeded further into the house, where she soon uncovered the source of the sexually charged atmosphere – the living room was filled with what appeared to be a random collection of people in various states of undress, some of whom were asleep on couches or armchairs (or even the floor), while those who were awake were so busy making out that they didn't even notice her arrival. There were also a number of empty bottles scattered everywhere. Holy crow…what did Bo do?!

Bella's intuition told her that her sister must be responsible for this bacchanalian display, but she didn't see any sign of her, until her ears picked up sounds issuing from another room. Following the sighs and moans into the kitchen, she found Bo standing between the legs of a lingerie-clad redhead who was perched on a countertop, lazily entwining her tongue with the other woman's while a third pressed up close behind her, platinum blonde hair falling forward to obscure her face as she nibbled on Bo's neck.

For a moment that felt like a small eternity, Bella stood frozen, too astonished to move a single muscle – at least that was what she told herself later, not that she was in any way intrigued or enticed by the salacious scene – before finally managing to gasp out, "Bo! What the-?!"

Her voice came out in a raspy croak that hardly sounded like her, but nevertheless achieved the desired result as the three women froze, then slowly turned to look at her.

"Hey, sis," Bo greeted her brightly, as if there was nothing remotely awkward about the situation. "These are my new friends Ashley and Celeste…or was it Celeste and Ashley?" She glanced between the blonde and the redhead with some confusion, apparently unclear on which was which.

The blonde stared at the floor, arms crossed over her bare chest, but the redhead gave an embarrassed little wave. "Hi, Bella."

Bella frowned, wondering how the woman knew her name, and then it came to her. "Don't you work at the police station with my dad? Sorry I didn't recognize you at first; I'm just used to seeing you with your hair up…and, you know, clothes." As the redhead (Ashley, she thought) sheepishly looked away, Bella sighed and asked, "Do you two mind if I talk to my sister for a minute? Alone?"

Once they had slunk off, not seeming at all sorry to be dismissed, she turned back to Bo and fixed her with a silent accusatory glare – one Bo appeared deliberately impervious to. "So that girl works at Forks' cop shop, huh? You might want to tell your dad to screen his hires more thoroughly, because it looks like he's got a very dirty cop on the payroll."

"I'm not telling Charlie anything about this," Bella retorted, "and you'd better hope nobody else finds out either. In a town like this, anything you say or do can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion. Where the heck did you even find all those people?"

"Forks isn't so tiny that it doesn't have its own bar, even if the sign out front calls it a tavern."

"So what, you went out for a drink and brought all of the bar's patrons back with you for a wild party? Why?"

"I was hungry, okay?" Bo admitted, her composure finally beginning to crack. "You know, I did okay feeding off humans while I was on the run – not that it was fun, since I always put it off as long as I could, but I survived – but after a few months of being able to feed on other fae whenever I wanted…I guess I forgot how hard it is to make do with humans. It's even harder now that I know how to stop before I totally drain them; if I don't want to kill, I can only take a little, which means I need more people to get enough chi."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Bo, I didn't realize being here was so hard for you." Now Bella felt guilty for dragging Bo away from her home, where she was surrounded by fae who were probably only too happy to give her what she needed, and worse, for failing to notice her sister's troubles while she herself had access to a steady supply of on-demand vampire chi. "There's gotta be a solution – if you need more energy, you can take mine. I'm fae, so that'd be better for you than this piecemeal approach even if we don't…you know…right?"

Bo was visibly touched by the offer but still shook her head. "That's sweet, Bella, but you don't have to do that. This is my problem. And don't go feeling bad that I'm here because of you either, you hear? Whatever I have to deal with, it's worth it to be with my family. You are worth it."

"Thank you, Bo," Bella choked out through a suddenly constricted throat. She laid a hand over the one Bo had placed on her shoulder and squeezed while using her other hand to wipe away the moisture that had sprung into her eyes, then sniffed and said in a firmer tone, "But you can't do anything like this again. Not only will you be a pariah if word gets out, do you realize your all-night buffet got so raucous that you scared seven vampires out of their own house? Including Emmett and Rosalie?"

"Hey, they started it," Bo protested. "The hunger wasn't too bad until they decided to make it date night, and the vibes they were putting out made Jasper grab Alice and run upstairs with her – not that she seemed to mind – and with all that sexual energy in the air… It was like having a plate of fresh cookies waved under your nose and not being allowed to eat one."

"How rude," Bella commented, feeling a grin tug at the corners of her mouth in spite of herself. "I'd say you successfully one-upped them, though."

"Not all those guys were here for me. Kenzi went with me, and let's just say I wasn't the only one who scored last night. I figured a fun night was the least I owed her after she came here for me, even though Forks is not exactly her scene."

"You can say that again. Okay, here's what we're going to do: you go put some clothes on, and I'll handle damage control."

She hustled Bo through the kitchen's secondary entrance and up the back stairs, then reluctantly returned to the living room, put two fingers in her mouth, and produced the most ear-splitting whistle she could muster. Once she had everyone's attention, she adopted her best imitation of Charlie's 'stern cop' voice and said, "All right, everybody, time to get up, get dressed, and get out – party's over. If you clear out in the next five minutes, I think I'll be able to convince Dr. Cullen not to file a complaint with my dad, the police chief. And keep what happened here to yourselves, okay? I'm sure none of you want your neighbors to hear about this."

Her words created a mad scramble as the revelers raced to find their missing items of clothing and make it to the door before her deadline, though a couple of guys did stop to ask her to give their numbers to her 'cute pink-haired friend'.

"Hey, man, I saw her first," the second one complained as his buddy pressed the slip of paper with his number written on it into Bella's hand.

"Yeah, but she obviously liked me better."

"I'll pass these along to Kenzi when she gets back," Bella assured them, while privately thinking that the odds of Kenzi calling either of them were probably somewhere between slim and none. She supposed they were attractive enough for a one night stand, but as far as long-term prospects went, Kenzi could do much better.

###

At that moment, her romantic prospects were the last thing on Kenzi's mind. Forks' diner made a pretty good breakfast – with real, gloriously greasy bacon, not that turkey or tofu knockoff crap Esme had stocked the Cullens' fridge with – but the atmosphere had been noisier than her faintly pounding head had wanted to deal with, even though she'd taken the maximum dose of aspirin before setting out on her food-finding mission. Now she was meandering through what she guessed was the closest thing Forks had to a shopping district with a Styrofoam cup of the diner's strongest coffee in hand, searching for a quiet place to sit down and drink it, when someone called her name.

"Kenzi? Is that you?"

She turned toward the semi-familiar voice, pulling her oversized sunglasses down so she could peer over the rim at its owner. "Oh, hey – it's Jacob, right? Bella's friend with the '86 Rabbit. Finally get that master cylinder you needed?" she asked with a nod toward the auto shop he'd just exited.

"Nah, just picking up some new spark plugs and oil filters." He held up the bag containing his purchases.

"Well, if you're having trouble finding what you need, my offer still stands."

"Thanks, but Dad's been hinting that he'll probably buy it for me soon." And not from a questionably legal source either, Jacob added silently.

"Oh, is your birthday coming up?"

"Something like that." In his tribe, a shifter's first transformation was a much bigger deal than a regular old birthday – it was, after all, a once-in-a-lifetime event, while birthdays came every year, which made it a prime gift-giving occasion.

"Cool. Happy pre-birthday."

Kenzi turned away to resume her quest for a suitable coffee-sipping haven, but before she could make her getaway, Jacob asked, "Hey, where's Bo?"

"Back at Casa de Cullen. We had kind of a wild night last night – as wild as you can get in Forks, anyway – so…" She held up her cup. "Bo prefers a different kind of morning after pick-me-up," she added with a smirk, thinking of the hot young things her best friend had been entangled with when she left. Sex as a hangover cure – yup, I'm officially jealous.

"Does she know where you are?"

"Uh, maybe? I told her I was taking off, but I'm not sure she heard me." The moaning had been rather loud, after all.

"So she didn't say it was okay for you to go?"

This seemed to cause him an undue amount of concern, which raised Kenzi's eyebrows enough that they could be seen over the rim of her shades. "So what? I don't need her permission to go out for breakfast. Grown-ass woman here, you know?"

"Yeah, I noticed. It's just that, well…"

At that, Kenzi pulled her sunglasses all the way off, the better to fix him with a piercing glare (at least she hoped it was piercing, not just bleary and bloodshot). "You're not about to give me crap about my height, are you? Just because I'm not freakishly tall like some people-"

"Nope, definitely not making a height comment," Jacob said quickly, realizing he had stumbled onto a landmine. "I just meant that you and Bo seemed really, uh, close, so I was surprised to see you without her, that's all."

"Oh." Kenzi, who had actually seemed to gain a couple of inches as she puffed up with righteous indignation, shrank back to her usual size like a bird smoothing out its ruffled feathers. "Yeah, Bo and I are besties, but that doesn't mean we have to be joined at the hip twenty-four/seven; we've each gotta do our own thing sometimes so we don't slip across the fine line between a healthy amount of togetherness and being weirdly co-dependent."

"That's good," Jacob said seriously – more seriously than the conversation warranted, in her opinion. "No matter how good a friend someone is, you don't want to let them take over your whole life."

"Nope, sure don't want that," Kenzi agreed, countering his seriousness with a dose of flippancy.

"But you let Bo drag you all the way here from Toronto to meet her sister."

"'Drag' is a pretty strong word, don't you think? Would I have come within a hundred miles of this charming little backwater on my own? Hell no, but it's not like I spent the whole drive here kicking and screaming either. I wanted to be there for Bo. She's the best friend I've ever had, and she's made my life so much better than it was before I met her, and why the hell am I spilling my guts to you anyway? I normally talk less when I'm hungover, but then you start asking all these questions and… I'm leaving now. I need to imbibe at least another quart of caffeine, but the longer I stay here, the more tempted I am to throw it on you instead, and that would be a criminal waste of a fairly decent coffee."

With that, she marched away, refusing to look back or slow down until he was well out of sight. Only when she had put a respectable distance between them did she stop and take a sip from her cup while trying to put her finger on exactly what it was about her encounter with the resident gear-head that had rattled her. Could it be the fact that he's disconcertingly hunky for a guy I've been told is younger than Bella, and should therefore still be in the awkward, zit-ridden teen phase? Or is it that he's way too nosy – that he actually had the audacity to question whether my being Bo's ride or die to the bitter end is a good thing or not? …Hmm, that was definitely out of line, but no, that's not quite it.

No, she concluded after another moment's reflection, it was the way he'd asked those probing questions about her and Bo, the edge in his voice and the cagey look in his eyes, both of which were weirdly similar to how Edward had acted when he suggested that it might not be a good idea for her to go off exploring without Bo's okay, before she set him straight on the fact that Bo wasn't some anti-human bigot fae-hole, that as far as they were concerned the whole claiming thing was just for show…

Thing is, Mr. Too Good to Accept Shadily Sourced Car Parts doesn't know about Bo being fae or me technically being her pet in the eyes of stupid prejudiced fae law, so why would he act that way? She absentmindedly gulped down the rest of her coffee while pondering possible reasons for his strange behavior, barely noticing that it had long since gone cold.

###

Meanwhile, Jacob was also reflecting on their conversation as he started on his way home, with equal feelings of perplexity. Kenzi had been completely blasé about being out on her own, without her owner's permission; in fact, by her own admission, Bo might not even be aware she'd left, yet she didn't seem the least bit afraid of getting punished. Even weirder, she actually talked about her predicament like it was a good thing, like Bo was her friend, which flew in the face of everything he'd ever been told about the dynamics between fae and their claimed humans. It was utterly mind-boggling.

Unless the stories I've heard don't show the whole picture…or maybe it's just Bo and Kenzi who're different. Not for the first time, he wondered what he might find if he left his small community of shifters and explored the wider fae world, before quickly pushing those thoughts aside. It was never going to happen unless he went somewhere else for college, and that was still more than a year away. And even if he left in pursuit of higher education, he would still be expected to come home after he graduated, to join the pack and help defend their territory, especially if the Cullens were still around. Stupid bloodsuckers ruin everything.

Still, he told himself they couldn't hang around forever if they wanted to keep people from noticing that they weren't aging, while shifters like Jacob had the option of halting their own aging process after their first change. Most of the Quileutes didn't take that option, preferring to share their human neighbors' shorter lifespans, but it wasn't forbidden. He could wait the vamps out. In the meantime, he chose to focus on more short-term positives, like the fact that, unless she hid it extremely well, Kenzi probably wasn't being mistreated, which meant he didn't have to defy fae law and his father's orders and try to stage some kind of daring rescue.

###

Later that day, Bella was just getting out of the shower after another training session with Bo (she didn't want to arouse Charlie's suspicions by coming home reeking of sweat; luckily, Alice was always happy to let her use her bathroom) when, upon wiping condensation off the mirror, she was startled to see Kenzi reflected in the doorway behind her, their gazes meeting in the glass.

"Holy crow!" Bella yelped as she whirled to face the other girl head-on, instinctively clutching her towel tighter around herself. "What are you doing?! Who do you think you are, Norman Bates?"

"Nah, he went for blondes," Kenzi retorted with a slight grin. "Besides, do I look like someone who'd sacrifice a whole bottle of chocolate syrup for visual effects?" Then her expression became serious. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Bella's eyebrows shot up in surprise at Kenzi actually wanting to have a conversation with her, but all she said was, "Since you've already come in here and almost given me a heart attack, sure. I'd hate to have nearly gone into cardiac arrest for nothing."

"So, your friend – the one with great taste in classic cars who's weirdly choosy about where his parts come from-"

"I think he just goes by 'Jacob' these days," Bella said dryly.

"Yeah, him. You don't think there's any tiny, miniscule, remote snowball in hell's chance he's onto the whole fae deal, do you? Like, even this much?" She held up her thumb and forefinger a hairsbreadth apart.

"What? Jacob?" Bella's first impulse was to ask whether Kenzi had completely sobered up yet, because what she was suggesting was utterly ridiculous…or was it? "Well…he was the one who first told me the Cullens were vampires," she said slowly.

Kenzi's smoky silver-blue eyes bugged out, her mouth falling open, but before she could recover enough to give verbal expression to her feelings, Bella rushed to clarify.

"I mean, he just thought it was one of his tribe's old legends that the superstitious elders told; he didn't actually believe it. So no, I don't think he knows, or at least he doesn't know that he knows." Then she paused, frowning as she tried to figure out if her somewhat redundantly worded explanation made sense.

"Are you sure?" Kenzi demanded, peering into her face with a hawklike stare.

"Pretty sure. Why?"

Now it was Kenzi's turn to hesitate, dropping her gaze and twirling a lock of black hair around one finger. "I don't know… It wasn't like he came right out and accused my bestie of not being human, it was more the way he said what he wasn't saying, you know? Like, he was weirdly uptight about me cruising the town without Bo, and he straight-up asked if she was cool with it. Why would he do that unless he knew about that fae bullshit of her technically owning me?"

"Maybe he just thinks Bo's an overprotective friend," Bella suggested. Although the behavior Kenzi described certainly sounded suspicious, there had to be another explanation, something perfectly rational that didn't involve one more person in her orbit turning out to be some kind of supernatural entity. This is Forks, for crying out loud! How many weird creatures can there be in a town this tiny and boring?

"Yeah, maybe," Kenzi agreed, though she didn't sound totally convinced. She eyed Bella for another minute, wondering if she should say something else, maybe ask how her training was going…but, now that she'd accomplished her objective of quizzing her about Jacob, the atmosphere between them was quickly turning awkward again. Besides, even if she was up for an attempt at bonding with Mini Bo, she'd prefer to do it when the other girl was wearing more than a towel. "Okay, good talk."

With those parting words, she turned and left the bathroom as abruptly as she'd appeared, leaving Bella somewhat disconcerted yet also hopeful that maybe, just maybe, they had taken a step in the right direction. Kenzi's theory about Jacob Black somehow being aware that fae existed as more than ancient legends was completely absurd, of course, but at least she had come to her to talk about it. Bella was pretty sure this was the first time Kenzi had sought her out of her own volition, and they'd had a conversation that had probably lasted five whole minutes without sniping at each other.

Maybe this is overly optimistic of me, but I'm going to put that one in today's 'win' column. At least that way, she thought with a frustrated sigh, I can say I'm making progress with somebody. With Edward, on the other hand, she seemed to have hit an impasse. He never voiced any outright objections to her learning to fight, and when she forced the issue he insisted he didn't have a problem with it, but his actions said otherwise. Not once had he asked how her first training session went in the hours they'd spent together last night or this morning (though admittedly, he had been busy helping his family clean up after Bo's feeding frenzy), he'd politely but firmly declined her invitation to watch today's lesson just like he'd done yesterday, and his lack of enthusiasm when she tried to discuss it with him spoke volumes.

He was still very interested in all her other activities, still as affectionate toward her as ever, so she wasn't worried about the state of their relationship in general. In fact, now that she no longer had the looming threats of old age and mortality hanging over her head and was on her way to becoming less of a damsel in distress, she thought their relationship was pretty close to perfect…if only there wasn't that single, tiny, niggling point of tension between them.

###

Bella wasn't the only one who noticed Edward's reticence regarding her newest endeavor, and after the situation continued for two more days, his parents decided it was time to talk to him about it. When he left the house – which was his preferred method of avoidance while Bo and Bella trained together – they followed him into the surrounding forest, finally catching up with him after several miles.

Naturally, he knew they were coming despite the wind blowing their scents away from him, and was waiting when they came into view, leaning casually against a tree. "You didn't need to take time out of your day to chase me down," he said by way of greeting. "I'm sure you both have other things you'd rather be doing."

"No, we don't; nothing is more important to us than you and your brothers and sisters," Esme replied.

"I appreciate that, but your concern is unwarranted. I'm fine, Mom. Bella and I are fine."

"Then you didn't take off into the woods and run over fifty miles without stopping in order to avoid her?" Carlisle asked, arching one blond eyebrow. "That's a relief."

"Of course I don't want to avoid Bella," Edward said quickly, though his eye contact with his father wavered for the tiniest fraction of an instant, less time than it took a human to blink, though of course Carlisle noticed. "I spend most of every day with her. You know, some people think it's healthier for couples to spend time apart now and then, to pursue their own interests. I'm merely trying to give Bella space to do that."

Carlisle and Esme received this assertion with obvious skepticism, but before either of them could point out that he'd only started giving Bella space to pursue her own interests when she developed an interest he disapproved of, the wind shifted, bringing new sounds and smells to their ears and noses. A motorcycle was approaching on the nearby highway, traveling much faster than any reasonable person would consider safe, but that wasn't what worried them; it was the rider's scent that stiffened their spines and made their golden eyes go wide, while Edward's lips curled back ever so slightly from his teeth and a low growl rumbled in his throat.

"Calm down, Edward," Esme admonished him.

"That's the scent of a wolf, coming toward our house!" he protested in disbelief. "If one of us crossed into their territory, they'd jump at the chance to tear us apart!"

"This one isn't coming from the direction of the reservation," Carlisle pointed out. "Perhaps it's not a member of the tribe."

"The Quileutes are the only shifters around here."

"True, but this could be an outsider just passing through, in which case we should let them know where our boundaries are. If it is a Quileute, I'm sure they wouldn't come so close to our home without good reason. In any event, we need to intercept them before they end up in our backyard and Emmett and Jasper get involved. There'll be much less chance of a peaceful resolution then."

Neither Edward nor Esme could argue with Carlisle's logic, so they followed without protest as he left the cover of the trees, flanking him as he positioned himself in the middle of the road. Moments later, the motorcycle came roaring into view…and kept right on coming, not slowing down a bit even though its rider obviously saw that there were three people in his path.

"Should we step aside?" Esme asked softly. "I know shifters heal fast, but still, we don't want to hurt him."

"He's not going to hit us," Edward assured her, not moving an inch.

Sure enough, just as the motorcycle reached the point where a collision seemed inevitable, the rider abruptly killed it and put his foot down to halt its momentum, bringing it screeching to a stop barely a foot from the three vampires. Then he dismounted and stood facing them squarely, his posture tense and ready for a fight, though they took it as a good sign that he didn't transform; he was prepared to do so if necessary, but he didn't seem to want to escalate matters if it could be avoided.

"Hello," Carlisle greeted him in a guardedly pleasant tone. "We don't want any trouble."

"Then why are you blocking the road?"

"You're about to enter our territory; we only wanted to make you aware of that and ascertain your intentions. You're not from around here, are you? I don't recognize your voice."

"No, I'm just passing through."

"He's heading for Forks," Edward announced after skimming the stranger's thoughts. "He didn't know we were here, but he has business in town… He thinks there's something there that he wants, I think. Something he's searching for."

The man's head turned sharply toward Edward as he spoke, and he could practically feel the man's eyes boring into him through his visor, but he said nothing.

"Well, if you'll tell us your business, perhaps we can help," Carlisle offered. When this was also met with silence, he pressed on. "May we at least have your name?"

The stranger considered his request for a moment before finally pulling off his helmet, confirming their suspicions that he wasn't a Quileute; his face, though somewhat tanned, was lighter than theirs, and his slightly curled hair was light brown, not the straight black locks that most of the tribe members sported.

"Name's Dyson," he said as he shook Carlisle's outstretched hand. "I'm looking for a succubus."