Hello all, and welcome to my first update of a brand new year! I hope 2025 is treating everyone well so far.
Bella and Edward spent the rest of the day together, strolling through the forest and enjoying the view from the treetops as they had during her first visit to his house, talking about everything and nothing (in between kisses that were by turns heated and tender), and generally enjoying their renewed emotional bond, which they both felt was now stronger than ever. It wasn't until twilight's shadows filled the woods that Bella remembered there was a world beyond the two of them, and promptly freaked out.
"Oh no, what if Charlie's already home? If he finds my truck still there and me gone, he'll probably think I've been kidnapped!"
"Don't worry, I'll get you home," Edward promised.
She climbed on his back one more time, and he ran to her house at top speed, but for once he wasn't quite fast enough; Charlie's car was already parked outside, and there were lights on in the kitchen and living room. "Now what'll I do? I can't let him see me like this!" Bella exclaimed, shrinking into Bo's coat as if it would protect her. Unfortunately, it only reached her knees, leaving her leather pants partially exposed. "I am so dead!"
"Maybe not. Would you like to see how I get inside when I visit you at night?"
"What, go through the window?" Sneaking in through the window of her own house like a burglar struck her as absurd, but the alternative of letting Charlie catch her was far worse. "Okay, let's do it."
With her clinging to his back, he shimmied effortlessly up the outer wall to her window, then somehow worked his fingers into the tiniest cracks between glass and frame and managed to release the latch without breaking anything. Once they were inside, Bella raced into her closet, pulled the door closed behind her, then reappeared a couple of minutes later in a pair of old jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. "Better?"
"I don't know if that's the word I'd use," Edward teased. "It took some getting used to, but I'm beginning to like your new look. This sort of apparel is probably better suited for interacting with Charlie, though."
Bella smiled, glad to hear that he was becoming acclimated to the new persona that felt more like her real self every time she slipped into it, but resisted the urge to express her happiness by hugging or kissing him. If she did that, she knew she would end up staying in her room a lot longer than she'd intended. "Well, I'd better go let him know I'm alive."
Right on cue, Charlie called out, "Bella? You up there?"
She bounded to the top of the stairs to find Charlie peering up from the bottom, having fruitlessly searched the lower level of the house for her. "Yes, I'm here. Sorry – I got so engrossed in the book I was reading that I didn't hear you come in. What would you like for dinner? Anything you want."
Charlie said that whatever she felt like making was fine, then followed her into the kitchen, watching suspiciously as she practically skipped around while gathering ingredients and assembling cookware. "You're awfully perky tonight," he said at last, almost accusingly. "That must be one heck of a good book."
"Oh, I didn't spend the whole day reading. I met Edward earlier, and we had a good talk – we've been talking a lot this week, actually, and today we finally worked everything out. We're back together!" she burst out, unable to contain her joy and excitement any longer.
"Really?" Charlie blinked owlishly at her, obviously surprised yet pleased. "So that boy finally pulled his head out of his…place where the sun doesn't shine, huh?"
"Where would that be, exactly?" Bella asked with feigned innocence. "A place where the sun doesn't shine could be anywhere in Forks."
"Ha, ha," Charlie grumbled. "Anyway, I'm glad he wised up and decided to start treating you the way you deserve. You know, I can't say I mind the idea of him wanting to protect you too much, but he shouldn't take it so far that you feel stifled. You're strong enough to take care of yourself, Bella. Don't ever forget that." He said this in a rather forced tone, wanting to say something inspirational to reinforce to her that she shouldn't lower her expectations just for the sake of being in a relationship, no matter how much she loved Edward, but not really sure how – after all, Bella wasn't the sort of kid who needed a lot of inspiring – then immediately added, "Sorry if that sounded hokey."
"No, Dad, it's perfect. Thanks. But you don't have to worry about us. It took Edward a while to come around, but I can tell he's really trying or I wouldn't have taken him back. I mean, there was this one little thing last night that gave me some last-minute doubts, but once I heard his side of it I realized he just did the best he could in a difficult situation, so I decided it was time for us to quit dancing around each other with the whole 'break' thing. Like you've told me before, sometimes you get to a point where you have to choose whether to fish or cut bait, and this is one fish I don't want to let off the hook."
Charlie frowned slightly as he took a hard look at his daughter; her words sounded innocuous enough, but something about the way she said them, with such gravity, made him think she wasn't just talking about a typical high school romance that only lasted until graduation. "Good for you, sticking to your guns and fighting for what you want. When you find that one person that's right for you, you have to hold on to them… Just give me a few more years before you ask me to walk you down the aisle, okay?"
Bella's head snapped up, and the chicken breast she had been about to start cutting up slipped from her fingers, but she didn't even notice, too busy staring at Charlie with the wide-eyed look of an animal that had just stepped into a trap. Surely there was no way he could know that she and Edward had discussed that very topic a mere handful of hours ago… As she watched him putter casually around the kitchen, however, she became certain that he didn't really know anything, that his comment was nothing more than a coincidence, and the tension that had gripped her gradually ebbed, though her mind was still spinning.
During her earlier conversation with Edward, she had been so relieved that he didn't expect her to start shopping for a wedding dress immediately (or, more likely, to let Alice and Bo find one for her) that she had eagerly pounced on his assurance that they could put it off for another century or two, except now she realized they couldn't. She had never been one of those girls who spent excessive amounts of time daydreaming about her wedding day, but on the few occasions when she had acknowledged the possibility of it, there had never been any doubt in her mind that Charlie would be by her side as she made the long walk to meet her groom (who at the time had just been a faceless figure in her young mind), with Renée watching from the front row, hopefully confident that she had made a good choice and proud of her.
Now, for the first time, an aspect of her new reality that she had somehow avoided thinking about hit her with the force of a tidal wave. She was a succubus, and therefore immortal for all intents and purposes as long as she maintained her diet, which she fully intended to do so that she could be with Edward forever. Charlie and Renée – the people who had raised and cared for her all her life, who she still thought of as her parents and loved deeply even after learning that they didn't share a drop of her blood – were human, which meant her time with them was limited. Her life would go on hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of years after theirs ended, the time they spent together a comparatively tiny, ever-shrinking fraction of her immortal existence.
The thought made her throat close in panic, her hand shaking so badly that she nearly dropped the chicken again, and she was forced to squeeze her eyes shut and take several deep breaths to calm herself. Gradually her emotional equilibrium returned, along with a new resolution: she might not be able to do anything about her parents' shorter lifespans, but she was determined to pack as many of her life's meaningful events as possible into the time they did have. Guess that means I can't wait three hundred years to tie the knot after all. Oh well, I'm sure Edward won't object to moving the wedding date up.
"Sure, Dad," she said at last, pleased that her voice sounded reasonably steady even though her throat was still slightly constricted, "I can do that."
###
"So it finally happened, huh?"
Bella blinked in surprise. Since the Cullens had discovered her true nature, she had noticed that Rosalie seemed less hostile toward her than she had been when she thought Bella was human – at least she was willing to stay in the same room with her longer than five minutes, her face no longer automatically fell into a scowl whenever her gaze landed on Bella, and she hadn't broken any more bowls out of annoyance with her – but it was still fairly rare for the blonde vampire to address her directly. "What finally happened?" she asked hesitantly.
"The moment when it hits you that there's a downside to immortality." Rosalie's golden eyes were filled with sadness and sympathy, which surprised Bella even more. "When you realize just how much you're going to lose by staying as you are now forever, never moving forward."
"Aw, it's not that bad," Emmett argued, giving her waist a squeeze, though for once he actually sounded somewhat thoughtful underneath his usual jocular manner. "Look at it this way: you get an eternity with me. What could be better than that?"
Rosalie rolled her eyes even as the corners of her mouth tugged upward, unable to resist his infectious good humor. "Yes, that makes it all worth it." Then her expression turned serious again as she looked back at Bella. "That's the key – you just have to find someone or something that makes it worth it."
"No worries there," Bella assured her, smiling up at Edward over their tightly clasped hands. "But thanks."
"Yes, thank you," he added, his reciprocal smile fading into a more somber expression as he looked at his sister. He understood why it had been hard for Rosalie to be around Bella at first and how difficult it was for her to set aside her pride and stubbornness and try to mend fences now, but he was grateful for any small effort she could bring herself to make, especially since she'd actually managed to say something helpful just now.
You're welcome. Believe it or not, I do want you to be happy…and if your succubus makes you happy, I hope it works out for you two. Of course, Rosalie would only voice such sentiments in her mind, where no one but Edward could hear them. Even as she thought them, she tossed her shining, perfectly curled hair and prepared to say something snarky for everyone else's benefit, but before she could, the five-minute warning bell rang, forcing her and Emmett to separate from Edward and Bella as they headed off to their respective classes.
Bella and Edward were just outside her classroom when Jessica Stanley ran up to them, her face glowing with excitement. "Bella, guess what?" she squealed, seizing the other girl's hands. "Mike asked me to prom!"
"Really? That's great, Jess."
"So I guess I'll see you there, right?" Jessica asked, her eyes darting between Bella and Edward. "I mean, now that you're back together." Of course, Jessica had been the first to notice when they walked into school hand in hand that morning, and had wasted no time in spreading the news.
"Um, I don't know…" Bella began, only for Edward to cut her off.
"Yes, we'll be there."
"Great! It's gonna be awesome!" Jessica let out another exuberant squeal and pumped Bella's hands up and down before finally releasing her and hurrying into the classroom, no doubt eager to tell everyone else about her plans.
Bella tentatively flexed her fingers, trying to work some feeling back into them, then gave her boyfriend an incredulous look. "What the hell, Edward? Prom? You want to take me to prom?!"
His answering look was one of perplexity. "Why not? I thought you wanted to have as many normal human experiences as possible before your lack of aging becomes too obvious, and in every high school I've attended, prom has always been considered the social event of the school year."
"This is one normal experience I can do without. Formal wear, dancing, all those vicious teens just waiting to laugh their butts off when I make a fool of myself… No thank you."
"Why do you think you'll make a fool of yourself?"
"Did I mention the dancing? You wouldn't ask that question if you'd seen my dance recital that one year Renée made me take ballet lessons. After that, even she had to admit I wasn't cut out to be a dancer."
"Your physical dexterity has improved substantially since those days, though," Edward pointed out. "You can't tell me you're still afraid of dancing after taking on a gang of human traffickers."
"That was different," Bella growled. "Why are you pushing this prom thing anyway? I really, honestly, don't care about going."
"Fair enough…but have you considered that maybe you're not the only one who doesn't want to miss out? They didn't have proms when I was human, you know," he said with a wry grin. "Since then, I've gone through high school more times than I care to dwell on, and every year I've watched excitement build among the juniors and seniors in the weeks leading up to the prom, though I've never gone to one myself. It's never bothered me before since there was no one I wanted to go with, but now that I've found you…maybe I'd like to see what all the fuss is about, just this once."
"Really?" She couldn't hide her surprise, having always thought Edward viewed high school as a mere inconvenience, an irksome yet necessary part of the cover his family had to maintain. It had never occurred to her that, as he watched the human students carry on their boringly ordinary lives, he might feel like he was stuck on the outside looking in. Now, as she took in the wistful look in his eyes, she was startled to realize that maybe he didn't find it all so far beneath him as she had thought. "Well," she said at last, "if it means that much to you, fine. I'll be your prom date."
She did her best to sound grudgingly grouchy, but Edward's face lit up nonetheless. "Thank you, Bella." He gave her a kiss that instantly wiped away her mock glare, then nudged her inside her classroom just as the final bell rang before dashing off to his own class down the hall.
As Mr. Varner called the class to order, she stumbled to her desk in something of a daze, unable to focus on her surroundings as a single thought kept repeating in her head, in an increasingly panicked tone: What have I gotten myself into?! An hours-long torture session (otherwise known as a makeover) with Alice, and probably Bo and Kenzi as well, was a given, as was a ridiculously overpriced dress and most likely a dangerously unstable pair of shoes, because somehow she doubted she would be allowed to wear her new badass boots to the prom…and that was just what she would have to endure before she even got to the dance itself.
Some part of her knew she was probably making too big a deal out of it – a high school prom was bound to be a lot tamer than the underground fae club Bo had taken her to – but the people in that club were all strangers she knew she would never see again, not classmates who could mercilessly ridicule her every day until graduation when she inevitably tripped and fell into the punch bowl, or something equally disastrous. The tamer atmosphere also meant there would be no intoxicating current of sexual energy to make her forget her awkwardness and carry her through the evening, unless she convinced Kenzi to spike the punch…
It took a couple of minutes for Mr. Varner's voice to break through her ominous musings; when it did, she was relieved to realize he hadn't begun his lecture yet but was still making announcements – which, ironically, concerned the very event she had been ruminating over.
"With Coach Greene sick and Mrs. Cope out of town for a family emergency, we're short a couple of chaperones for the prom. If any of your family members are willing to fill in, please…"
Bella instantly perked up. Prom was sure to be a dreadful ordeal, but maybe, just maybe, Bo's presence could make it somewhat bearable. Before she had time to think better of it, or consider the likelihood of her sister wanting to attend Forks High's prom, her hand shot into the air.
###
"What? You volunteered Bo and Dyson as chaperones for the prom?" Edward turned his head to stare incredulously at her – completely taking his eyes off the road, which would have made her nervous if she didn't know full well by now how good his reflexes were. "Don't you think it might have been better to ask them first?"
"It was a knee-jerk reaction, okay? All I could think was that maybe prom wouldn't be so bad if Bo was there, and I thought she might be more willing if Dyson went with her. They're supposed to get dressed up and everything, so it could be like a date. Besides, Kenzi would kill me if I tried to rope her into it. She has an honest-to-goodness katana, you know."
"That's true, you don't want to end up on the wrong end of Geraldine," Edward agreed, his eyes glinting with amusement.
"…You're not going to help me break the news to them, are you?"
"Well, you did say you wanted me to scale back my efforts to protect you."
Bella pretended to pout, but just then they reached her house, and she saw something that knocked any thoughts of teasing Edward right out of her head. Jacob was back at work on her truck, seemingly about to actually fix it this time, and the sight of him made her stomach plummet. "Speaking of telling people things they won't want to hear…" She had asked Charlie not to mention her reunion with Edward to Billy because she didn't want the news getting back to Jacob through secondhand channels; she felt she should break it to him herself, in person, but that didn't mean she was looking forward to it.
Edward gave her an encouraging pat on the back. "I'm sorry; I know this is difficult for you. Just remember that you haven't done anything wrong. Jacob Black isn't the first person to develop an unwanted attraction to you, and I'm sorry to say he almost certainly won't be the last-"
"Is this supposed to make me feel better?" Bella interrupted, her eyebrows shooting up.
"My point is that you are not responsible for the way he feels, so you shouldn't feel guilty now that it's regrettably fallen on you to disabuse him of his misguided fantasies. You've done nothing to encourage him, and if he truly is your friend, he should respect you enough to accept your decision, even if it makes him unhappy."
"Thanks." Looking back at him, she managed a grateful, albeit shaky smile; she would have liked to kiss him goodbye, to show him that his support meant the world to her, but his understanding expression told her that he already knew, and it didn't feel right to indulge in what was normally her favorite activity while her insides were knotted with dread. Reluctantly leaving the safe haven of his car, she walked up the driveway with her nerves jangling.
Jacob, of course, had no clue what was coming, glancing up to greet her cheerfully before returning to his work. "Hey, Bella. Sorry I haven't been around to get this thing fixed till now; the part actually came in last Thursday, but I had a report due Friday, and then Dad had stuff for me to do all weekend…"
His mouth kept moving, but that was all Bella heard as his speech blurred into a dull roar in her ears, drowned out by the thudding of her own heart. "Jacob." Her dry throat mangled the word, turning it into an incomprehensible, raspy croak. Swallowing hard, she tried again. "Jacob…we need to talk."
"Sure, I'm just about done here. Just give me ten more minutes."
"No, I really need to talk to you now. Will you come around back with me?" Tempting as it was to take the out he'd unknowingly offered her, even if it was only for a few minutes, it felt wrong to let him complete his repair job before telling him that not only was she not interested in him as anything more than a friend, she was once again dating a guy he saw as his natural enemy. If, after hearing that, he wanted to storm off and tell her to find someone else to fix her truck, he should at least have the chance to do that.
Her deadly serious tone finally registered with him, and he looked up with a puzzled frown, then slowly straightened up and put down his tools. "Okay, sure."
As soon as they entered the Swans' backyard, he asked, "What's wrong, Bella? I mean, it must be something pretty big if you don't even want me to finish fixing your ride first. I thought you'd be dying to get it running again so you wouldn't have to keep bumming rides from your ex."
"That's actually what I wanted to talk about. Edward's not my ex."
"I know, I know, you keep saying it's just a break, but come on, Bella. That can't last forever. Sooner or later, you've got to move on."
Something about his tone, as if he assumed the break would end with her dumping Edward permanently, rubbed her the wrong way, and her anxiety evaporated as she lifted her chin defiantly. "You're right, it couldn't go on forever. Edward and I have been talking things over, trying to work out our issues, and we did. We got back together last Saturday."
"You- What?" Jacob shook his head, seemingly unable to make sense of her blunt announcement. "You took him back? No way! You can't!"
"Why not?" she snapped, her eyes flashing blue before she could stop them. "Because he wasn't born fae like you and me? Yes, I know you're a wolf-shifter," she went on, part of her – the small part that wasn't too angry to care about anything else – enjoying the thunderstruck look on his face. "Bo's boyfriend is one too, and he smelled you after you rode in her car when we went out on Friday. So you're a wolf, I'm a succubus, Edward was human before he became a vampire, and guess what? I don't care. It doesn't matter to me what we are. I like you, Jacob, I really do, and I'm sorry if this hurts you, I'm sorry if you were hoping for more…but I love him."
He continued shaking his head as she spoke, whether in denial or mere astonishment she wasn't sure, but when she stopped, he finally managed to gather his thoughts enough to muster a semi-coherent reply. "It should matter! Bella, what he is… It's wrong! Don't you get that? Things like him aren't meant to exist! People shouldn't be able to take humans and turn them into…into these walking dead things that prey on their own kind and don't even bleed and- How can you love a monster like that?!"
He was so worked up he seemed to be literally trembling with fury, which Bella had always thought sounded rather hyperbolic when she read that phrase in a book – but Jacob really was shaking, his whole body vibrating so hard that his shape appeared to blur around the edges, though the searing glare he fixed on her was still perfectly clear. Bella saw the exact moment when his face changed, his dark brown eyes turning a wolfish, feral gold, his teeth and fingernails elongating into fangs and claws just like Dyson's.
Unlike Dyson, however, Jacob didn't seem to be in control of his transformation, and all the warnings about how inexperienced shifters needed time to master their animal selves flashed through Bella's mind. Realizing it might be only a matter of seconds before she found herself facing an enraged wolf the size of a bear, she did the only thing she could think of – lunging forward, she seized the part of him that was closest to her, which happened to be his right forearm, in both hands and focused on pouring every ounce of calming energy she could call up into the tightly corded muscle beneath her fingers.
As red light traveled through her hands and sank into his skin, Jacob's shaking slowed, then stopped altogether as the look in his gold and black eyes changed from animalistic ferocity to confusion. Bella had just begun to feel a tiny hint of relief at how she had seemingly (hopefully) defused the situation before it got dangerous when she heard the back door of her house opening and Kenzi's voice called out to her.
"Yo, succu-sis, you out here? Bo and I just rolled into town to replenish our snack stash, so we thought we'd drop by and-"
Both Bella and Jacob instinctively turned toward the new voice…and that was when it happened. The second Jacob's wolf eyes took in Kenzi, his aura lit up in a dazzling burst of radiance that left Bella feeling like she was stupidly staring straight into the sun during a solar flare. She had only seen such brilliant auras a few times, like when one of the Cullens was with their mate, or when Dyson looked at Bo – his imprint. Holy crow – could it be-? Did he just-?
Her incoherent thought fragments were abruptly silenced as Jacob ripped his arm from her grasp and backed away, his head turning from her to Kenzi and back with a very human look of disbelief on his slightly lupine features. Then his body exploded, his clothes reduced to shreds as he transformed into an enormous ball of russet-brown fur. The instant all four paws hit the ground, the wolf was off and running, his distraught howls echoing through the trees.
Bella and Kenzi were left staring at one another across the now-empty yard, the former stunned at what she had just witnessed and unsure of what would happen next, the latter simply bewildered. "Okay," she said slowly as she took a few steps beyond the doorway where she'd paused to look for Bella, her silvery eyes still fixed on the place where Jacob had been, "what the hell just happened?"
I know some of you might be wondering the same thing, so let me explain. I think Kenzi could be good for Jacob, since I see in her the kind of forceful personality needed to curb the bad behavior he exhibited in Eclipse, which was when I stopped caring whether he got any kind of happy ending or not; before that, he was perfectly likable even if I never did ship him with Bella. So here I wanted to give him a partner who can set him straight if need be and help him stay likable.
Having said that, I don't see Kenzi as the type to be instantly swept off her feet just because a guy imprints on her, so Jake definitely has some work to do if he wants to be with her…and who knows, she may end up being the rare person who says no to an imprint. I can see scenarios where they end up together and others where they don't without affecting the series' overall outcome too much, so we'll just have to see how things unfold.
On that note, I'm pleased to say that there are only three chapters left in this story unless the next one gets so long that I have to split it in two, but I don't think that will happen – fingers crossed.