His Wolf Pup - a Jasper Hale Story

27- Nomads

Three unknown vampires walked into the clearing, causing everyone to look at them. We were all trying our best to look like we were calm, and I had a feeling Jasper had something to do with that. I squeezed his hand gently to remind him that everything would be okay.

Our family all gathered together in front of home plate, waiting for the three outsiders. As they walked, I looked over their appearance.

The girl on the left had unkempt fiery red hair that really stood out against her pale skin. She had a wild look on her face as if she were living on cloud nine. The guy on the right had long blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail and an unchanging frown etched onto his face. The guy in the middle stood out as the leader. His dark skin and long black hair made him stand out from the other two. The most noticeable feature among all three of them was their bright red eyes. I looked away from them, hoping to hide the color of my eyes from them.

The one in the middle held our baseball up before saying, "I believe this belongs to you." He threw it at our family as a friendly gesture, but the atmosphere was anything but that.

Carlisle caught the ball with a smile, saying, "Thank you."

The one in the middle continued speaking. "I am Laurent. This is Victoria and James." He gestured to the two beside him as he introduced their group.

Carlisle took it upon himself to continue the conversation. "I am Carlisle. This is my family. I'm afraid your hunting activities have created something of a mess for us."

"Our apologies. We didn't realize the territory had been claimed."

I felt Jasper's arm twitch slightly, his focus never failing. I was sure he was working over and above to make us seem non-threatening even though we vastly outnumbered them. I could see Emmet tensing out of the corner of my eye, waiting to strike if necessary.

Carlisle continued the conversation as if nothing was going on. "Yes, well, we maintain a permanent residence nearby."

"Really?" Laurent's tone shifted to surprise at Carlisle's words. "Well, we won't be a problem anymore. We were passing through."

"The humans were tracking us, but we led them East. You should be safe." Victoria's words startled me. Her voice sounded sweet, but it chilled me to my core. I knew she was not someone to mess with.

Carlisle continued to speak as if this were all normal. "Excellent."

"So, could you use three more players?" Laurent asked our family.

A tense silence followed his words as our family tried to figure our way out of this situation.

Laurent continued on as if there was nothing wrong. "Come on, just one game."

Carlisle seemed to come to a solution in his mind as he replied. "Sure, in fact, a few of us were just about to leave. We'll bat first." Carlisle threw the ball back toward Laurent as a friendly gesture as our family started to relax a little.

Victoria grabbed the ball out of the air instead, saying, "I'm the one with the wicked curveball."

"Oh well, I think we can handle that," Emmet replied, being the first person other than Carlisle that spoke from our family.

I felt Jasper relax slightly as he directed me away from the three new vampires. As we turned around, I looked to see Edward doing the same with Bella. The four of us would leave the field as everyone else played happily, and nothing would go wrong. The once tense atmosphere was replaced with friendly feelings between everyone.

And then a sudden breeze came through the field and blew Bella's hair, exposing her scent to James. I heard him growl as our family launched into defensive mode. Edward and Jasper quickly turned around, shoving Bella and me behind them. Edward got ready to attack as Jasper did his best to stay calm.

"You brought a snack," James said with a grin on his face as he looked at Bella. He was hunched over, ready to attack.

Laurent was confused at the sudden turn of events. "A human?" he asked, incredulously.

Carlisle went back to speaking. "The girl is with us. I think it best if you leave."

"I can see the game is over. We'll go now." Laurent's words were final, but James did not move. "James."

Only then did James finally look away from Bella. He looked over our whole family once before following Laurent away from the field. I saw Victoria grab his hand as they walked away.

I felt Jasper lift me up and super speed away before I could watch the strangers any longer. He stopped running and set me down as I saw we were back at the house. Everyone else from our family arrived seconds later.

"What do we do?" Noah asked, looking at Alice.

"We need to go down to Bella's house. She's going to convince Charlie she needs to leave Forks. Then we're going to take her far away from here and lead James away from her."

"Wait? Why is this so important?" I asked the family.

"He's a tracker," Alice replied. "He lives for the hunt, and Edward just sent him over the edge. He's not going to stop until he kills Bella."

"Oh."

"Don't worry," Jasper said, wrapping his arms around me. "He didn't notice you were different. You're safe."

"I know."