11:17 p.m.
Like rivulets of water migrating horizontally across a tan, glistening desert, the skin above the boy's brow creased. A slight downward tug of a sinuous mouth and squaring jaw inscribed a very plain story of contempt upon an austere visage. Delectable, really.
If only that death glare wasn't aimed at Edward. The wolf held tremendous power over him, and it amazed Edward Cullen how Jacob was all the more ignorant toward it.
Jacob Black's teeth shimmered under the wan luminescence of the moon, trembling under the intensity of tightly compressing them to appear bared and menacing. The vampire knew it was to ward him away, to establish the wolf as a threat to his person, ready to pounce and bite, to rip his head off at a moment's notice, but Edward was only able to envision that mouth biting onto his shoulder as he rocked them to places Jacob had never been, to highs no lovers-if any- were able to reach or comprehend until the boy's body came undone and quivered at the vampire's chilling caress.
For a while, the silence was all that remained, a tension-filled fog between them. Trees bristled in the sharp wind, owls hooting from their boughs. Insects and grass were carried away on the unforgiving breeze. Heavy downpour was to come soon. In nineteen minutes exactly. He could already smell the musty petrichor from Taholah, Washington.
Keeping his breath held was almost unmanageable. Fulfilling some form of physical intimacy manifested into this dark animal of desire inside his mind. Implacable, unmitigated by its inability to be satiated. It was something horrible. The silence was needles branded to his dead heart. Even if it to tell Edward that he was going to kill him, he wanted, no needed him to speak. Needed to hear Jacob's voice.
Anger smoothed out and became callous indifference on Jacob Black's face. Then, it vanished. Running wouldn't solve anything. Edward held it as a fact of life. Even after his death running hadn't solved anything.
Taut and sinewy back muscle shifted smoothly, growing farther away from Edward Cullen each second. Frustration gripped him, his fists clenched until his knuckles cracked. Something about the Native American made Edward lose control, lose his resolve. Splaying his palm over the massive shoulder bone, he welcomed the thrill it brought as he pulled the boy back into the safety of the moonlight. How was this wolf so mesmerizing. What breaths of perfect agony.
As expected, the sixteen-year-old ripped his shoulder away.
"Don't. Touch. Me," Jacob spit out with heavy vitriol. His first words tonight.
Jacob Black hated his very existence while he, himself, wanted more of the boy's existence. Insurmountable hunger, dark and passionate, welled inside of him just to be near Jacob. To just languidly drag his fingers across the human skin of the wolf's arm, invited a sense of completion he had never experienced. To just take the boy and claim him as he was on the moss-covered earth.
Veiled in the cloak of darkness once again, Jacob receded into the thickets of the trees with a snarl not as ferocious as his counterparts, but dangerous enough to warn Edward not to tailgate him.
"Don't..." the words forced out, tightly, his voice foreign to himself. "Don't walk away."
The crunch of soil was all he received in response.
"Why do you act this way?" Edward's disbelief at the insolent behavior poured out. "Running away from me won't stop the Volturi coming after us."
Jacob Black faltered in step, turning his head with beady eyes, his lengthy, native hair billowing behind him with a grace Edward wasn't familiar with in others that weren't vampires. Murderous. A black and murderous emotion took over. Jacob's mind was a full slate hidden by shields of impenetrable darkness. Presence, emotion, and anything that would classify a being as intelligent and self-conscious was there, but too away far to ascertain.
"First of all, there is no us. Secondly, the Volturi isn't the first thing you should be worried about." Jacob paused as if Edward Cullen needed the words to register. "I am."
Like marble, Edward's face hardened and his auburn brows formed an arch over his well-placed nose. "Your clan doesn't need to know about tonight-" his tone brook no room for argument. He could not allow this. Before, he hadn't fully absorbed the repercussions of his actions. Now, suddenly, the prevention of a deadly battle weighed on his shoulders. Carlisle had already forgiven and accepted him from one major screw-over, Edward didn't want the man he called a father to be any more ashamed of calling him a son.
"Ha! You're delusional if-" the spittle flew from the tightly pulled back mouth-" you think that-"
The boy jerked backward, stumbling to a halt in an attempt to escape Edward's massive body. Even without his wolf-form, Edward knew Jacob would be towering over him in the next couple of years. As of right now, they were eye to eye.
A cold wisp of air passed between them. The feeling of alienation was present even among Jacob. It crept under his skin, unwelcome and jittery-almost bug-like. The vampire steeled himself to avoid raking his nails over his own skin. No matter how much he physically itched, there was no relieving the ache. This type of ache could break Edward if he wasn't careful. "Don't ignore me, Jacob," he gritted through sharp teeth, refraining from gripping the hot, muscular shoulders with his large, icy hands again. "I know our clans started on the wrong foot for centuries, but we don't have to."
A deep scowl flitted across Jacob's features. "You've violated the treaty, Cullen," Jacob growled, eyes bored into Edward's glass-like skin as if he was hoping it would crumble and scatter in the wind. "If you and the Cullens leave now, I'll ensure my pack won't engage in battle. A peaceful resolution to the broken treaty, if you will. " He offered in a disparaging tone.
Jacob wanted to get rid of him.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were threatening me?" Edward Cullen hissed, wholly miffed.
"Well, do you?" Jacob responded, acerbically.
As if overburdened, the clouds unleashed torrents of rain unto them.
The wet smell of Jacob was so mouth-wateringly pleasant.
"Do I what?" Edward hissed again, his throat knotting.
"Know better?"
Quiescence prevailed. Neither of them opened their mouths again. Without uttering a word, Jacob abruptly jogged away, his sodden hair matted to his neck, ribs, and back.
He was still so beautiful.
Nonplussed and his body dreadfully concupiscent and alive with a burning, black fire, he slowly inhaled the lingering touches of Jacob Black's aphrodisiac scent.
If he didn't choose his next steps carefully, there would be hell to pay.
~*~
February 2nd, 2005
Here was Bella Swan, the epitome of tactlessness and ineptitude, standing in front of him with her jaw slackened so wide she would no doubt catch flies. The biggest, fattest, juiciest flies if she wasn't careful.
"You shouldn't leave your mouth open like that. It's unbecoming," he injected in the rudest manner he could muster. Smelling her throat wasn't what he needed at the moment. In careful precision, he sidestepped her and slid his plastic tray along the bar picking up random bits of food.
"I just don't see your strange aversion to me. Why can't we be friends, acquaintances at least?" Bella argued, not ready to let the useless topic go.
"If you were smart you wouldn't want to be near me."
"Let's just say, for argument's sake, I wasn't smart enough to stay away from you. What then? Will you tell me the truth."
If you were smart, his thoughts snapped back viciously.
Gods, why did she have to breathe so loudly. It sounded reminiscent of asthma to him.
"No." The one-syllable was rough and hard to his own ears.
"I keep replaying that day over and over. What you did wasn't human. And there are so many unbelievable theories running through my mind."
"Like what?" Edward gave her a short and cold, humorless laugh. His patience was thinning. He had to remember to retain the usage of breathing.
"I-I don't know. Kryptonite! Radioactive spider bite maybe-"
"All superhero conjecture" Edward cut in. " You've mistaken me for a good guy, and that's not what I am. Have you considered the possibility that I could be the next Venom, Lex Luther, Joker, Magneto, Dracula even... "he spoke the last phrase as an afterthought. "Have you considered for a moment that I'm the bad guy?"
Bella let out a small bout of air, almost scandalized. "You're not. Look, I know what you're trying to put off. It's not going to work. That mask you use to keep others away I can see through it."
Edward moved along the bar to reach for a green apple, pretending he hadn't heard her. He could feel the heat of her body enclosing around him as she reached over his arm to retrieve an eye-appealing red one. Out of reflex, his arm shifted to the side so she wouldn't touch him. Bella started at the sudden movement, dropping her apple. It toppled and rolled off the edge of the bar. Bella made a show of hot potato before it bounced back up from Edward Cullen's foot and into his hands before she could flinch from the expected thud onto the marble-tiled floor.
"Your movements are starting to give me whiplash," she said, catching the apple onto her tray awkwardly.
"Good. Now, keep your distance." Edward Cullen then traveled toward the lunch ladies, retrieving his wallet from his back pocket with Bella Swan's tennis squeaking behind. Forfeiting when it seemed best didn't seem to be in her arsenal capacity of common sense.
"Hey-"
"What do you want, Isabella?" He snapped.
The first to notice them was Eric, a gangly boy with hair and skin problems so oily and uncontrolled it could rival that of Professor Snape's. Jealousy was as clear as it was predominantly cloudy in forks.
"Okay. It's obvious we've started on the wrong foot. Why," here she paused. "Why don't we hang out sometime. Get to know each other better?"
Alice's eyes latched onto his at that moment, her vision from weeks ago filling his head.
Edward would endanger Bella.
"I don't think so." With that, he left Bella standing dumbly in front of the cafeteria.
Avoiding Isabella Swan should not have been as hard as it was. She pestered him throughout the day. In biology, on her way to P.E.-anywhere they were forced to cross paths she was there, a determined expression forming.
The dismissal bell rung and a few hundred bodies packed into the parking lot. Too many hot bodies to breathe in all at once. Edward couldn't trust himself to breathe anymore.
Yellow lights flashed after he pressed his car keys. To his annoyance, Bella's rusted truck sat idly in front of his. Edward half-expected Bella to start hounding him out of thin air. He slammed open his door and slid into the seat of his silver car prepared to avoid incurring her gaze, but when he glanced over the dashboard to reverse, he saw Jacob Black in Bella's passenger seat, his motorcycle in the back of the Chevy, talking to her in low, hushed tones.
And he knew why.