"How could you do that to her?" Bella screeched again. I had been too focused on getting Bella off of my land without killing her. I needed her alive if I was going to be able bargain with the Cullens. I should have been paying more attention.
What did you do, Seth?
I didn't mean to. What was the kid freaking out about? The memory played in his head. The little spawn grabbed hold of Collin, her pasty white hand against his own dark fur. Her hand squeezed a little and I heard a pop of bone. Collin whimpered a little, but bit down on his tongue. I could feel the protection surging in him as Seth jumped forward and grabbed hold of the demon's arm. I heard her own bone snap and felt a rush of blood into a mouth that wasn't mine. Seth balked, the coppery taste of blood filling a mouth, whether it was his or mine, I couldn't tell you. That was what was freaking him out. He had tasted blood.
It wasn't what we were built for. Yet another thing that Annie had been right about. We were made to protect human life, not hurt it. The taste of blood wasn't something that we craved like the vampires. No, we didn't lust after the blood but after the protection of humans.
She's not human, Seth. You did nothing wrong. Calm down, I commanded. I watched Seth inhale and exhale and Collin push to his feet. Let the kid go, Seth. We need her alive.
Seth took a step off of her, growling and snarling the entire time. Collin did the same thing, crouching down, prepared for the fight that seemed imminent. "How could you hurt her? She's a child!"
She's not a child or a human. She was on our territory. Any harm that came to her was her own fault, I snarled. Edward reiterated the message.
"You asshole. She was trying to show him something."
"She hurt him," Edward translated.
"She didn't mean to. It's like you said, we don't know anything about her. She didn't mean to hurt the boy," Bella said.
"I didn't know," the thing said.
I glared at Edward. "Renesmee, get back over here now," he commanded. She jumped just like any other vampire that I had ever met. She made it up to her parents, looking back at us with wide, watery eyes. Eyes that I would never see on a fully human face again. And the best part was, I wasn't really upset about it. "You don't want to hurt her, Jacob. I know. I saw Seth's thoughts too. He didn't mean to hurt her."
But he did. It was instinct to kill her. You know she'll never be safe. Why don't you tell your wife and your daughter to stay off of my territory or next time, we will kill them. Boys, patrol. Get control of the twisted thing you call a family, understood. Let's make it clear: your witnesses are dead if they get close enough to the border. I waited until the monster had nodded to nod to the guys and take off running.
I was going to have to talk to Leah. It was the only chance I had of making sense of this. But not this morning. I couldn't deal with it this morning. Annie had been sick and stressed; Sam had been pissing us all off with his inability to realize that he was no longer Alpha. I was going to be sick if I didn't get a break from all this shit soon. What was I thinking? I couldn't be Alpha. It took someone who had power and authority and that energy to keep going. I didn't have any of that left in me.
At least I didn't think I did. But as I walked to the tree line, I could hear Annie screech singing from the house. I was laughing as I phased out and pulled my shorts on. The house smelled like bacon and sausage and everything I could possibly want to come home to. Dad was still asleep, snoring in his room happily. I pried the door open and stepped in, Annie's sweet smell smacked me in the face. I sighed. I could do this; I could fight and fight and deal with the stress if this is what I came home to.
She had a pair of spandex shorts on, which were personally my favorite. They hugged her ass and hips so nicely, reminding me of what was mine. She kept singing along to My Chemical Romance, dancing around and laughing at herself. At least she knew how ridiculous she looked. "Trust me; I'm not okay!" she shouted with a laugh. Her head bobbed, curls flying around her as she timed the music and scraped the spatula across the eggs. I couldn't help myself; she was so hot when she was dancing and playing and being happy again.
I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her away from the heat. She squealed and laughed, realizing that it was just me. "I thought there was a rule against scaring me!" I just laughed and found the now scarred mark on her neck. Mine. No one else could touch her. She calmed down and stepped closer to the oven-stove, making sure the eggs didn't burn. But she didn't pull away from me when I stepped with her, resting my chin on her shoulder. "You're a little affectionate today," she whispered. "Everything okay?"
"No," I whispered. "But it's better now that I'm home." She just laughed and continued her cooking.
"What happened this morning? Is everyone okay?"
"Yeah; Leah bit Embry because he was acting like a dip-shit. No big deal," I replied.
"What took so long then?"
I sighed; should've known that Annie would know when something was wrong. "I had to talk to the Cullens. And I may or may not have attacked your sister when she was on our land," I admitted.
"You did what?" She turned to look at me, ignoring the food and looking honestly shocked.
"I only tossed her back on the Cullen land. I just wanted her off of our land. And then I had to deal with Seth and the little spawn. By the way, her name is Renesmee," I added as an afterthought.
"What happened with Seth? Is he okay?" Leave it to her to get that out of that whole conversation.
"Your niece grabbed Collin and Seth reacted instinctually. He hurt her," I said, watching her eyes carefully. Annie had always wanted kids, always wanted to have a large family. I hadn't really used family terms when I was talking about the Cullens because I didn't see them as a family. But the single word that I had sneered could be my downfall.
"Is Collin okay?" There was nothing in her eyes that had to say that she was upset that I had talked about her "family." I just nodded. "Good; I don't need my boys to be hurt."
She turned back around like there was nothing else that she needed to say now, making it just in time to save the food from being burned. "Annie, do you want to meet the thing?" I whispered. She kept her eyes on the food, not answering me while she poured some more milk and eggs into the pan. She was carefully stirring, her head cocked to the side as she pondered my words.
"I don't really care either way. I mean, she's not my family. My family is right here, you know? So, sure I'll meet her or whatever. But that doesn't mean that she's anything to me. She's just an unnatural spawn that is like a quarter related to me," she whispered.
"How do you figure a quarter?" I laughed.
"Well, she's mostly vampire right?" I nodded. "So that would make her like three quarters vampire and a quarter human. And it's that quarter part that is related to me. And I don't really think that a quarter is worth anything," she said, shrugging. She pulled the pan away from the stove and stuck it into the oven, the heat blaring. She finally turned around in my arms and looked up at me. "What's eating you, Jake?"
"I had a brief moment of fear where I thought that Seth might imprint on the spawn and then I would never be rid of the Cullens. I don't know how much more of them that I can take," he whispered. "But then I realized how stupid that is. You know? I'm pretty sure the imprint only works on humans."
"Seth doesn't need a hybrid imprint. Maybe if he needed to stay young forever but he doesn't. Trust me, Seth has enough energy to keep people going for days. I mean, if ever there was a solution to the world energy crisis, it'd be Seth," she laughed. She wrapped her arms around my waist, waiting until I dropped my arms around her waist to lean back and look up at my face. "Don't sit and worry about everyone else. Hasn't my philosophy of everything will work out gotten us through everything so far?"
"Yes Ryanne," I mocked, "You're always right." She beamed at me and stepped out of my arms and grabbed her breakfast. "I'm going to go get Dad up," I said. She nodded and began plating breakfast for everybody.
This was what I was fighting for. I had a family to fight for, one that I hoped to expand one day. There was a part of me that wanted to ask Sam how he managed this for so long while I was growing up. But I couldn't do that because Sam would take that as me letting him have more input than I was ready for him to have. Not until he accepted that Leah was my Beta would I be willing to let him have input again.
"Hey Dad, Annie made breakfast," I said, wrapping my arms around his waist and pulling him up, using my foot to grab his chair.
"Anything good?" he asked. He laughed as I sat him in his chair. "Who am I kidding? It's always good. I'll be right out there," he adding, wheeling himself into the bathroom.
"Jake, come get your food!" she shouted.
She was sitting on the counter, her plate resting on her lap as she ate, my plate lying next to her. "Everything good?" she asked when she saw me grinning like a fool.
"Perfect."