#jacobblackxoc
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Chapter 24: Break
Warning: Uuuuh, sad.
It all happened so fast.
Rachel Black, Jake’s older sister, had laughed as Grace had launched her body full force into hers. The two tumbled to the beach in a heap as the pack and their partners made their way over to them.
“Gracie!” Rachel giggled hugging her back just as tightly, “Oh it feels like home seeing you.” She said.
Grace had helped her up to get a good look at her. Rachel was a little taller than Grace but had the same beautiful angled face as Jacob. Except where his hard edges protruded, hers softened. She had chopped her black hair into a short bob just above her shoulders but her cheeks were just as pink and pronounced as ever. Her amber brown eyes sparkled in the sea light.
“It’s so good to see you,” Grace said breathless. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m back home from college, just for the summer before I start my thesis this fall. Biodynamic Farming in Indigenous Communities. So I guess you could say i’m here for research?”
“That’s great! Wow!”
“Hey!” Rachel called over her shoulder as the others moved toward them. They all were suddenly crowded around them. Rachel was always a calming presence for Grace. All through her childhood, she was there in her memories. She was the thread that tied her, Jake, and Grace together. And now she was here, same bubbly beautiful Rachel.
Everything suddenly started to move in slow motion. Rachel still had her arm wrapped around Grace’s shoulder, refusing to let her go just yet as she pulled Quil into a one arm hug, and then Embry.
And then.
Paul. Her Paul.
Rachel and Paul took one look at each other and the world shifted violently under Grace’s feet.
“Paul Lahote, right?” Rachel had said, some coloring of recognition moving across her face. She had to have felt it. How could she not have? The feeling was palpable between them. The air electrified at this emergent shift in destiny.
Paul didn’t move, his eyes darting from Grace to Rachel quickly. He was tethered. Rachel let go of Grace and stepped toward him, magnetized almost. The rest of the pack looked around at each other, uncomfortable and waves started to echo and crash in Grace’s head like someone turned up the volume too loud.
Leah was next to Grace in an instant. She threaded her fingers into hers and leaned in close to Grace’s ear.
“Time to go.” She whispered. It wasn’t an ask, but it was urgent, begging almost. At least Grace couldn’t remember if she had asked or not.
But either way, in the next second, Grace was gone.
Grace looped an arm around her midsection and sank to the bottom of the shower letting the hot water move over her back. The scene wouldn’t stop replaying in her head. Like a broken record for the past five days between being awake or asleep, the scene replayed in her head. She had to hold herself together now to get through the pain of that moment. Again and again it screamed through her brain.
Paul Lahote, right?
Grace gripped the side of the tub as she felt herself breaking apart again. Steam choking the air around her. She tried her best to stay whole and to stay here. In the past few days, Grace had been having trouble controlling her recasting. Bella thought it must be a side effect of her emotions pushing and pulling her around.
Sometimes, Grace would wake up in the middle of the night, shaken from a nightmare and find herself somewhere in the forest. Groggily, she’d stand and look around her before recasting home. She never tried to figure out where she was, but she got the feeling that she was going to the same place every time.
Now, in the heat of the bathroom, the water leaving red welts on her skin, she held on tight trying to keep herself in place. She didn’t know how long she was there for, but she heard the door creak open and a voice call out to her. Everything stayed blurry for awhile. The water was suddenly off and Grace instantly felt cold.
A towel was placed around her shoulders and suddenly Bella’s face came into view.
“Hey, come on. Let’s get you to bed.” Bella had seen this look before on her own face and knew that Grace had done the same for her. She gently pulled Grace to her feet and steered her toward the bedroom, tightening the towel around her. Grace sat on the edge of her bed as Bella rummaged through her drawers and pulled out some sweats, socks and an old band t-shirt. She dressed the catatonic Grace carefully and gently combed her hair, threading it into a loose french braid down her back.
“Come on,” she said as she pulled her back on the bed with her and threw the covers over both of them.
“Where’s Edward?” Grace asked barely above a whisper as Bella wrapped her pale arms around her.
“Hunting. They’re prepping for the fight.” Bella said non-descriptively. Bella didn’t need to ask what had happened that day.
The day after Grace had come home from the beach and gone straight to bed and laid there for over 20 hours, was the first time Paul had shown up. His eyes were hard but pleading when Bella answered the door.
“Is she here?” He said, a rasp to his voice as if he had been yelling.
“Now’s not a good time, Paul.” Bella said, crossing her arms. “She won’t speak. So since you’re here, why don’t you tell me what happened.”
Paul looked down at the ground and shook his head.
“Please. I just need to see her,” he had pleaded. When he looked back up at Bella, she saw intense pain in his eyes. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just-”
“What happened?!” Bella pushed.
“I….I imprinted. On Rachel Black….at the beach,” Paul said the words like he had said them a million times.
“What…” Bella knew what it meant to imprint. Jake had told her what it meant and she had hesitated to ask him if he had imprinted on anyone considering the intensity of their relationship. But he had given her a confusing answer and brushed it off.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen, Bella. Please. Just...if I could just see her,” Paul stammered, his body trembling.
Charlie was behind Bella now in the doorway.
“Paul.”
“Chief Swan.” He replied trying to regain some composure.
“Grace isn’t feeling too hot right now and isn’t allowed guests. She’ll call you when she’s ready.” Charlie nodded. “I suggest you head home.”
“Thanks dad,” Bella muttered as Charlie retreated back into the house. Paul stood there, limp.
“Just...tell her I stopped by.” Paul said, taking a step back down the stairs. Bella just nodded and shut the door.
And again today. As Bella hopped down from the truck and pulled her hood up against the rain, she glanced down at her phone to see if Jake had texted her back. Her last text message was sent the day before as her worry for Grace grew:
SMS Text—7:47 p.m.: Bella
Please call me, Jake.
Please.
She hadn’t gone into details about Grace, but she knew that Jake should be here. Grace was having nightmares, much like the ones Bella used to have when Edward was gone last year. She was woken up on more than one night this week to cries of pain. But each time she jumped across her bed to get to Grace, she was gone. On one night, she even called out for Jake.
When she closed her phone and looked up, Paul was there again. Bella shoved her hands in her pocket and walked around the truck making her way toward the house.
“No, Paul.” Bella said, much less sympathy now.
“I just want to talk to her.” Paul said. He seemed less beat up today than he had on the first time he’d known up. Bella had raised an eyebrow at him, skeptical.
“Absolutely not. You broke her fucking heart,” Bella said, surprised at her own anger. Paul tensed at this.
“I know. I just need to see her.”
“No, not today.” Bella said, swerving around him to get into the house.
“Before the fight then,” Paul bargained.
“No. When she’s ready, not when it’s convenient for you,” Bella said, not bothering to turn around. She slammed the door behind her before hearing an explosion and tearing out on the front lawn that could only mean one thing.
Now, as Bella listened to Grace’s rhythmic breathing as the light faded away outside, she worried about what happened next. If Grace tried to join the fight like this, she worried she’d get hurt. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone again.
Still nothing. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
SMS Text—8:32 p.m.: Bella
Jake, you need to come home now.
It’s Grace. She’s in pretty rough shape.
Bella clipped her phone shut and wrapped her arms around Grace who had fallen asleep on her shoulder. She sighed and closed her eyes, willing sleep.
When she woke up the next morning, the space where Grace had been sleeping was empty.
Grace had been walking and walking since before dawn. Making her way to the reservation. Her body felt weak despite all of the sleep, but she held new resolve. She couldn’t sit in this pain anymore and just let it be hers.
She was going to confront Paul. Instead of recasting to the rez, she took the time to walk through the forest. She made her way easily in the dark, not needing to see to know where she was going. When she finally reached his door some of her resolve started to crumble.
What if Rachel was in there? What if she saw something she didn’t want to see? He wouldn’t have moved on so quickly would he? But she knew imprinting worked different. She took a step back and then felt the pain crash around her again. She would not be alone in this.
Quickly she stepped forward and rapped on the door, nearly banging on it. It only took a couple of seconds for Paul to reach the door and yank it open. His face was full of annoyance that subsided to shock that melted into desperation.
“Grace,” he choked out. Grace kept her hands at her side, eyes rimmed red and hands clenched into fists.
“Can I come in?” her voice shook more than she wanted it to.
“Yeah, yeah,” he stepped back so she could come in. She moved past him doing her best not to let any part of her touch him. The minute she got inside, her eyes automatically lingered down the hallway to the cracked bedroom door. She swallowed hard and turned to face him. Maybe this was a bad idea after all.
“Grace, I’ve wanted to talk to you for a week.” Paul said keeping his distance more for Grace’s sake than his. “I’ve stopped by. Did Bella tell you?”
Grace nodded her head. She suddenly felt like a caged animal. What about this was supposed to make her feel better again? She couldn’t even look at him for too long or she’d feel her stomach turn.
“Grace I’m so-”
“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Grace said, her eyes hard now. “Don’t.”
“Okay,” he watched her carefully. She felt frantic, uneasy, where this place was once going to be her home she now felt like an unwanted guest. She kept checking over her shoulder, waiting for someone to stumble out of the bedroom. A room that Paul had filled with light for her. And now, she’d never see it again. She wanted to walk the short steps to it and push open the door to mourn her loss in peace. But she was too afraid about who was behind the door.
“Is she here?” Grace said suddenly.
“What?” Paul said confused for a second, and then realization dawned on him, “No, Grace of course not, no.” He almost looked offended.
Grace looked at the floor embarrassed now. Paul took two steps toward her and she stumbled back.
“No.” she said, tears coming immediately. “Please...don’t. It’s too much.” Paul crumbled now. She’d never seen him cry, but something in him broke in this moment.
“Grace. Please, let me explain,” he said. Grace dug her fingernails into her palms and nodded.
“Okay. Explain.” She could take it. She could do this.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen, you have to know that. When Rachel showed up, I was just as panicked as you. I’ve barely talked to her since. I just needed to figure this out and I couldn’t….I didn’t want to let you go,” he shuddered, as tears glistened and fell from his eyes. Grace nodded to have him keep going. “I couldn’t eat or sleep. I had to see you and Bella wouldn’t let me see you. I felt so...lost without you Grace.”
Grace was shaking now, trying to keep herself in place. Not now, not yet. She had to hear it.
“I went to see Ti’Hal. I couldn’t take the pain...the weight of this. She said imprinting wasn’t a choice but that I still had one. I could still choose you.” Grace let a whimper escape and shut her eyes tight for a minute before opening them to look at Paul. “But….but she said that even if I chose you, Grace, you would never be as happy with me as we were before. And I wouldn’t expect you to be because I’d always be looking after Rachel. It would eventually destroy us.”
Grace held herself in place even though she felt it starting.
“Ti’Hal said it would be better if I-,” he choked, burying his face in his hands and letting out muffled sobs. Grace was shaking so hard she wondered if he could hear her teeth chatter. “She said, I should….” he stopped and stuttered again trying to look at her.
“She told you to let me go,” Grace said, her voice warbling and her knees shaking. Paul looked at her sucking in a deep breath and wiping at his face. He nodded.
“Yes.” Was all he could manage as he looked at her. She wasn’t sure why but something in her accepted this even though her heart was fighting like hell against it. She strode over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. He immediately grabbed her and held her to him tightly.
She let her body collapse onto him. She tried to let her pain go but instead it swelled up inside her as she held tight to him. The pain crescendoed and she pulled back cupping his face in her hands. Paul was breathing heavy trying to bring himself under control. His eyes searched hers, hoping for her to say anything that might allow him to move forward, pretend like nothing happened, and carry her back to the bedroom like they had done last week.
“Let me go.” she whispered painfully. He squeezed her sides and looked down then quickly back up at her face. She planted one more soft kiss on his lips that he desperately tried to deepen, but she was gone in a flicker.
She recast on the edge of the forest and trudged the short way up the familiar hill to the cliff’s edge. The day around her was shaping up to be beautiful, the last solid day of sun they’d have for awhile. Grace stood on the edge of the cliff, the pain swirling up in her and tearing its way out of her throat. She let out a guttural, primal, painful scream that shook her whole body and got carried away by the wind and then fell to her knees in heaving sobs.
#twilight fanfiction#twilight#twilightfanfic#paul lahote pairing#paul lahotexoc#angst#jacobblackxoc#jacob black#bella swan#edward cullen#the cullens#the pack#eclipse#new moon#smeyer#chapter 24#a monster lives here
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Need a beta reader
So I’m almost 10 chapters into a Twilight FF and have 7 of those up on Ao3. I have a few people who read at their own leisure and encourage me to keep writing the story, but I would love to have someone that can talk with me regularly about the story. Also, I’m finding that I can be inconsistent with verb tensing, so having someone point that out would be fantastic.
Here’s the description that I have on Ao3 and fanfiction . net
One second can change everything. One second was crucial in the outcome of many lives during the Newborn War. One second changed the life for Aidan Hallowell, resulting in her running for her life. Fate eventually lead her to Forks where she met a pack of wolves that further changed her life. At a time when she wasn't looking for love, she found it in the pack's Alpha, a man who would do anything and be anything for her. Jacob Black would be her protector, a friend, and even a lover when she was ready. Now, he will also be her personal sun. Though, life wasn't going to be easy for them; fate has more in store for Aidan...and Jacob.
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Chapter 36: Choice
“Times up.” Sam said one afternoon after Grace had ducked out of the Cullen house early for a pack meeting.
“What do you mean ‘times up’? You’re just going to go in there and kill her?” Grace said skeptical, almost laughing at him as she grabbed some food from the kitchen table.
“We have no new information and we need a plan of action for when this thing comes out.”
“What do you want me to do?” Grace said annoyed. Jacob was standing behind her with his arms crossed looking at Sam with a raised eyebrow.
“I don’t want you to do anything. You’re our line in. They trust you and I think the only other person that they would trust is Jacob.”
“Okay,” Jake said also skeptical and reaching around Grace to grab a muffin from the table. “Then what do you want me to do?”
“Same thing as Grace. I want you to get a line in, start spending time with Bella, keep an eye on the situation. And then as the time gets closer if she progresses we’ll have two of ours on the inside, which will definitely buy us more time if we need it in the end.”
“I think you’re jumping the gun on this one Sam.”
“Well, I don’t. And I’m alpha so you’ll do as I say,” he said confidently before leaving the room. Jake and Grace were left alone in the kitchen and she dropped into a kitchen chair laying her head on her arms.
“We’re not fucking secret agents. Bella knows that the pack is not thrilled about the pregnancy. They’ll be prepared for an attack.” Grace said into her arms. Jacob dropped in the chair across from her and put his hands behind his head.
“Edward already texted me like a month ago.” Jake said casually. Grace shot up in her seat.
“What?! He texted you? About what?!” Grace said surprised.
“To have me come and talk to Bella and try to convince her she should terminate.” He said looking toward the door.
“Did you...did you text him back?” Grace said. She couldn’t believe Edward had never mentioned it to her.
“I went and saw him. We met in the woods. I mostly wanted to rub it in his face that I was right. That I knew he was going to kill her one way or another. But…” Jacob looked at his hands and Grace rested her chin on her crossed arms. “It didn’t feel like I thought it would. He was...different. Broken.”
Grace listened quietly and when Jacob looked into her eyes she concentrated. She could see the image in his head now, fuzzy and flickering but there. They had been practicing this every once in a while when they were near each other when Jake wasn’t phased. She only ever caught glimmers and echos, never anything as concrete when he was in his wolf form but it was something. She squinted her eyes trying to see it more clearly in her mind’s eye but it wasn’t working.
“You get the idea,” he said, cutting off his gaze and moving it back down to his hands.
“What are we going to do? Sam is definitely going to kill this thing but what if...what if it turns out to just be a baby? What do we do?”
“There’s no way it’s just a baby, but I get your meaning….” he was at a loss and couldn’t offer her a way forward anymore than she could other than to say, “We buy as much time as we can so we can be sure.”
“Right,” Grace breathed.
January
Grace walked into the study where Bella was getting another ultrasound, coming to the middle of her second trimester. Carlisle was diligently moving the wand across her belly trying to see if he could ascertain anything new.
Grace put her hands in the backpocket of her jeans and smiled.
“How are we doin’?” She asked nonchalantly.
“Good, just seeing if I can hear anything new…” Carlisle said his eyes trained on the monitor. Bella smiled but her face was starting to look sallow, Grace noticed. Her color was off too. In her first two months, she was pink and flush with a pregnancy glow, but now she was turning a tinge of yellowish green.
“I brought a present. Hope that’s okay. It was kind of big so I left it downstairs,” Grace said nodding over her shoulder. Bella smiled and Carlisle clicked off his machine saying “Nothing new,” with a tight smile to Bella.
“Come on preggo,” Grace said, helping her up. She was definitely starting to show much more than a woman who was normally 4-5 months pregnant would show. She helped Bella slowly descend the stairs, noticing how thin her arms were becoming.
“You feeling okay?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah of course, just had a headache this morning I can’t shake. Where’s this monster present?” Bella asked jokingly as they rounded the corner to the living room.
“It’s a good monster, I promise,” Grace said.
Jake stood in the center of the living room wearing his black leather jacket, tan shirt and jeans.
Bella broke into a wide smile and shuffled quickly toward Jake to wrap him in a hug. He obliged and carefully closed his arms around with a smile Grace hadn't seen in a while as he said, “Hey Bells.”
“It’s so good to see you,” Bella said as tears sprang to her eyes. Grace patted Bella’s back and looked up at Jacob’s face before saying,
“I’m going to run some errands while you’re here with her. You good?” Jacob nodded without opening his eyes and Grace headed toward the front door. As she left she heard Bella say,
“Your hair’s long again.” To which Jake laughed softly. Grace cherished that sound for a second before she moved to the treeline, focused herself carefully and recast the 56 miles to Port Angeles. When she reappeared, she leaned up against a nearby building and tried to catch her breath.
After a couple of minutes, she relaxed and pulled her hood up against the January sleet and headed down the busy street. Edward and Carlisle had been hard at work trying to find information from anyone who could tell them more about what was happening to Bella. Alice and Jasper had disappeared for a full month before coming back empty handed. They left in shifts, not wanting to leave Bella unguarded for too long, but this time, their trips had overlapped with when they usually went to feed, so Grace had offered to meet up with a lead Carlisle had found who seemed promising.
Grace had conveniently left this information out of the collective pack mind however, knowing that Sam would be furious if she was meeting up with a rogue vampire informant. So what Sam doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Not to mention that the alpha fatigue was starting to wear on her.
Now that Jacob was back, the old tension between Sam and Grace resumed. He understood that the connection between Jacob and Grace might be more akin to the true alpha-Spirit Bird link but since Jake wasn’t interested in becoming alpha, he was trying to dictate the parameters of their connection as the true alpha.
It was exhausting. Grace was usually given so much whiplash by Sam’s commands that she opted to just tune out as much as possible which caused clear divides amongst pack members. In their histories, the alpha and Spirit Bird were meant to work in perfect harmony, a balance, give and take. But with Sam and Grace it had been anything but. She found herself wanting to resist his alpha commands more and more, make decisions without consulting him, keeping him out of the loop when it came to what was happening in the Cullen house, anything to get some peace. She knew Sam was just trying to keep the pack in order, do his job, and keep everyone safe, but Grace felt like it was more of a father-child relationship between them than a mutual agreement to manage the pack.
She and Jacob had mulled it over a couple of times in their collective mind, but stopped when Jacob was getting hounded by Sam for sowing discord. Grace was able to shield her own mind from the collective packs if she wanted because it was a choice to dip into their shared consciousness, but Jacob could not.
Grace pulled herself out of her reverie as she turned down another alleyway, her footfalls splashing in the gathering puddles. She paused a door to her left, rechecking her phone for the address before she heard a light hiss above her. Grace tentatively looked up and saw the crouched figure of a man in a long coat on a fire escape. He quickly jumped from the immense height and landed across from Grace. She kept her face cool, hands in her pockets and spoke with purpose.
“Alastor? I’m here on behalf of Carlisle,” the sleet slowed offering them a brief reprieve that neither of them really noticed. The vampire looked at her curiously, his eyes darting across Grace’s body, taking her in and relishing in the scent. Grace made a mental note, Black eyes, this might be a problem.
Another low hiss came from the back of the vampires throat without him meaning it, like a reflex. “And you're the little mortal he sent to do his bidding?” he let out a soft, pleasing laugh. Grace didn’t respond right away, just shifted her weight a little and kept her eyes trained on the creature.
“You have information Carlisle asked for?” Grace leveled him with a solid stare. Surprisingly she wasn’t afraid, but as the time ticked on she felt like she was on a fool’s errand. Alastor looked like he hadn’t had a shower in decades. His blonde hair hung in oily strands around his round face. Patches of dirt adorned his perfectly marble like skin. He was dressed in a dingy, worn overcoat and gloves that left his thin fingers exposed. Grace grimaced a little. He gave her an unsettling smile and pulled his lips back a little too far over his teeth.
“Right. This way,” he said as he walked off down the alleyway. Grace rolled her eyes and followed him internally thinking Shields up. He took her through dark street after dark street until the sun started to get low and he veered off to his left, pulling open two cellar doors that were sunken into the alleyway. He descended down the stone steps into the darkness and Grace groaned. She was walking into a vampire den, clear as day, and if Sam or Paul or any of the pack members found out, she’d be crucified. She followed after Alastor into the dark, damp cellar until she found herself in a worn and disheveled den. Literally. She had to almost stop herself from laughing at the irony.
It was scattered with remnants of paper, old CDs, actual trash, and tattered linens with questionable stains. Alastor was rummaging through some dresser drawers on the far wall.
“When Carlisle had told me of his little predicament, it had reminded me of this book I had come across centuries ago in a deserted library. It detailed the legends of bloodsuckers, the immortal way, and the children born from them.” Grace raised an eyebrow still taking in the dank surroundings as the bare bulb in the center of the room cast eerie shadows. “He was very interested in such a book, and lucky for him I nicked it some 300 years ago. Ah!” he cried pulling a slender, small book out from his drawer. He looked upon it lovingly, “It’s given me solace, to understand the monster that I am, how I’m perceived, and how legends tell us more truth about ourselves than anything else.”
Grace didn’t respond. His eyes, black as ink, drew her in momentarily. She felt an odd tickling at the back of her neck. A warning?
“But for all his goodness, Carlisle is nothing if not gullible to the real fault of humans,” he was on her now, terribly close and she careened back, her back slamming into the wall behind her. Her head hit the stone with a thud and she felt warmth trickle there. When she felt the back of her head, she pulled back a small amount of blood, but it was enough. Alastor’s hand was suddenly outstretched, closed around her throat and slowly crushing her windpipe. Grace, taken off guard, gasped for breath, gripping Alastor’s wrist with one hand as her other fought for purchase on the wall behind her to give her leverage. She was turning blue.
Alastor’s eyes were gleaming, his mouth wide open in hunger and just as quickly, “Just a taste,” he teased cruelly.
Grace squeaked out a suffocated, “I wouldn’t,” before bringing her free hand up, pulling her energy hard and fast, slicing down like a knife in front of her and severing Alastor’s outstretched arm at the elbow. She frantically pulled at the hand that still loosely gripped her neck and cast it aside with a clatter. Alastor let out a howl of pain and was momentarily thrown off balance. Grace leaned down to scoop up the small book and sprinted for the staircase. Once out in the cool, dark air, she wasted no time recasting back to Forks.
Falling forward on her knees in the forest, Grace coughed and tried to regain her breath. She drew in ragged breaths, but the pain was excruciatingly sharp. It felt like someone had dragged glass shards down her throat. Grace checked to make sure she had the book pocketed in her jacket before pulling herself up with a groan and stumbling toward the Cullen’s. That was the last time she volunteered to meet up with one of Carlisle’s sketchy ass friends.
As she broke out of the treeline and onto the Cullen’s driveway, she was starting to wheeze. Coming down from the front steps was Jacob. Panicked, Grace tried to gain her composure. His face looked furious, dark, and he was lost in thought until he looked up and saw Grace coming toward him.
“Hey,” he said quietly. Grace nodded thinking she was in the clear but as she got closer to brush past him his eyes went wide:
“Grace what the HELL!” He stepped in front of her and his hands went to roughly touch her neck. Grace flinched painfully and wheezed out: “Jake, take it easy.” Her voice was raspy and cut in and out like changing channels on a tv.
“Sorry,” he breathed, his hands soft on her neck now inspecting the clear red welts of hand print there. “What the fuck happened?!” Suddenly he was taking a deep breath, the coppery scent clear now, and his eyes shot up to her head, “Are you bleeding?!” his eyes were roving up and down her body, desperately searching for where the smell of blood was coming from.
“Jacob,” she whispered, trying to even her wheezing. “I’m fine, let me just—” she tried to move past him, but his hand was firm on her upper arm holding her in place. His other hand reached and softly touched the back of her head, pulling back wet blood. His eyes were wide with anger now, furious, and filled with absolute disgust.
“Who did this?” he growled. His whole body was shaking and his eyes were alight with something she hadn’t seen in months.
“Can I go inside please?” she asked, tired. She wasn’t losing a lot of blood, but the smell was starting to make her just a little bit dizzy. He nodded snapping out of it and wrapping his arm around her shoulders as he led her up the steps and into the Cullen house.
Carlisle was there instantly trying to assess her, but Jacov’s reflexive growl told him to keep his distance.
“Jacob may I?” he asked politely. Jake wasn’t letting go and Grace had to gently peel his fingers off her shoulder to be released. His anger only ticked up as Grace sat down wincing as Carlisle gently parted her hair where the wound was. “Esme, please get my kit,” he said, lifting Grace’s chin up and looking closely at her throat. She was gone and back in an instant. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think Alastor would be in bad shape.”
“This was for you?!” Jacob said, rage racketing up in him now. Grace gave Carlisle a warning look, upset that he had said anything.
“Jake, I’m fine, really. Look,” she whispered, her voice raspy and weak. She held up her finger and followed her eyes as she moved her finger back and forth across her face. Jacob was not placated. He seethed, watching her with clenched fists as his chest rose and fell quickly with every passing breath.
She reached in her pocket to hand Carlisle the book. “Thank you,” he said quietly as he took it from her and then deftly grabbed some tools to start working on cleaning, disinfecting, and stitching up Grace’s head. “Should just need a couple of stitches. Can you breathe alright?” he asked as he listened to her wheezing. She nodded even though it caused severe discomfort. As he finished the stitches and moved to look at her neck again, he gently pressed on the sides of her throat. Grace let out a soft, involuntary, whimper. Her eyes shot up to meet with Jacob’s and his face had changed. It was desperate, intermixed with anger—he couldn’t handle it, seeing her like that. Carlisle met her eyes and said “You’ve definitely got some swelling and bruising around the windpipe, but the muscle feels intact.”
At this, there was a huge crash that caused Grace to jump. Rosalie was in the room now, having heard the noise, looking around quickly for the threat. One of the floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the forest in the living room was completely shattered. Jacob had thrown his wolf body through it and darted off into the forest. Grace braced against the chill that crept in.
“Sorry about that,” Grace wheezed. Carlisle gave her a reassuring smile.
“I’m sorry about this. I shouldn’t have asked you to go. I thought...It doesn’t matter,” he said. He dashed and was back with a warm compress from his study that he gingerly fixed around Grace’s neck. “This should help with the swelling at least until your healing kicks in. Let’s get you up to the guest room,” he said softly.
“Can someone actually give me a ride home?” her mouth was dry and the pain in her head was slowly subsiding but she was worried about the pack, about Jake.
“Of course, we’ll take you home right away.”
Grace carefully climbed the steps to her front door and gave Carlisle a wave as she went inside, shutting the door behind her. She let out a sigh of relief and pulled the compress off her neck as she climbed the stairs to her room. She clumsily pulled off her jeans and grabbed at a loose shirt that was hanging from her closet door. After pulling off her sweatshirt, t-shirt, and bra, she pulled on the oversized t-shirt and revelled in it’s warm cedar-like smell before collapsing on her bed and passing out, her phone buzzing wildly in the back pocket of her discarded jeans.
Early muted sun came in through her porthole window above the bed. Distant thunder roiled somewhere outside. Grace groaned and rolled onto her side, slowly opening her eyes. She let out a quick gasp as her eyes put together the figure of Jacob, sitting low in the chair next to the bed that was usually piled with laundry.
“Fuck, Jacob,” she said softly. Her voice was rough, but the rasp was gone and she pulled in cool, clean breaths with ease. She tentatively brought a hand up to her neck and gingerly pressed it. The pain was gone and only a dull ache like a bruise remained. She felt better, but didn’t try to get up, resettling her head on the pillow to get a better look at Jake. His face was dark, brooding. His eyes were alight with fresh upset but it didn’t feel solely directed at her.
“What were you thinking?” he said, his voice filled with disdain. Grace let her eyes rove over him carefully taking in his shape. She hadn’t been alone with him in her room since before she broke them. The feeling was strangely intimate and Grace didn’t let herself settle in it too long.
“We’re trying to figure this thing out and I want some answers. For Bella,” she said simply her eyes glued to his face now. He had a hand resting lightly over his mouth and Grace silently wished that he would drop it so she could stare at his lips and remember every shape they took.
“Do you have a death wish? Sam is…” Jacob stalled, his eyes locking more concretely with Grace’s now as he silently tried to communicate with her. She got simple flashes, Sam on his hind legs, rocketing back, snarling and snapping, the rising of howls moving around the forest, a volley of commands that she couldn’t quite make out.
“Yeah well..” Grace sighed sitting up now. Jacob’s eyes moved down the length of her body not covered by the sheet. “What?” she said quietly.
“You’re wearing my shirt,” he said with relief. As if the realization gave him something special, clarity that he wasn’t expecting. She was confused by his tone and looked down to pluck at the shirt with her fingertips.
“Oh. I was out of it when I got back.” She rubbed her hands over her eyes and gave a low yawn.
“Grace you don’t get it, he—” Jacob was cut off by a crescendo of howls coming through the forest, his eyes snapped up and Grace looked out her window alarmed.
Get down here. NOW.
Grace heard the clear command in Sam’s voice and quickly jumped out of bed, alarm bells ringing her head. Something was wrong. The howls were clearly pained, as if they pulled against the voice that dragged them forward.
Jake had already phased and had dashed into the forest. Grace quickly dressed and recast to his location, realizing too late that she was barefoot. The cool earth pricked at the warm soles of her feet as she stood in front of the towering black wolf.
Jake was mingled in with the pack, nipping at Seth and Quil to stay back. Grace steadied herself as she looked up at Sam and felt the heat of his anger rolling off his body.
Time and time again, you put this pack on the brink. You put each of us in danger with your recklessness. Going out there alone and putting your life at risk on an errand for a bloodsucker?! The disregard for your own life means I can’t trust you to help protect this pack.
Grace’s heart rate ticked up. Thunder crashed just offshore and the hair on the back of her neck rose. Whimpering sounds from the pack echoed behind Sam.
“I’m trying to keep Bella alive and keep a war from starting.” Grace said simply. Her hands felt that familiar pain and she clenched and unclenched them into fists.
You can no longer be trusted to have good judgement when it comes to the Cullens or Bella. And the Cullen’s clearly have you compromised if you’re out there doing their bidding. I won’t let it continue and have one of ours end up dead because of your clouded judgement.
Grace’s eyes darted around to the pack now, unsure of what to do. But Sam wasn’t backing down. He padded toward her, his muzzle open in a clear snarl, all teeth.
You will either come under heel and submit to Alpha orders like everyone else here. Or you will be cast out and we will come after you if you interfere with us taking care of the threat.
Grace swallowed hard. “So you’re going to kill Bella then, that’s your plan?”
I tell you that you have two choices to maintain your connection to this pack—YOUR DESTINY—and instead you ask about if we’re going to kill Bella. It makes me sick!
At this, Sam lunged at her, his mouth open in a clear attack. Grace pushed her body back as she pulled energy up in front her, eyes wide. She went crashing back into the woods and came to halt once she slammed against a tree.
“ARE YOU CRAZY?!” Grace shouted as she scrambled to her feet and rushed back into the clearing. There was a squabble of fighting amongst the wolves behind Sam. Their dissent was quickly quieted with a swift command from him.
Choose. I won’t ask again. Sam was livid. This was beyond insane. The weight of this alpha command was stronger than any she had felt before and her body begged her to obey, desperate for relief. She felt the strain of it in the back of her head, the muscles surrounding her skull tightening dangerously, willing her to submit. But she pulled against it. There was no way she was going to let her pack murder her sister and her unborn baby. They meant too much and the pack meant too much. She’d never let them become those kinds of monsters. She gritted her teeth and leveled Sam’s gaze.
“No.” she said between clenched teeth. There was another round of howls, whimpers, snaps, and snarls at her defiance. Sam recoiled, his ears back in clear anger.
Enough. Fan out toward the Cullen’s. Don’t stop. Sam said.
We’re going to kill her?!
Sam, wait please.
Grace don’t do this.
There’s no other way, we have to kill this thing. Bella’s made her choice.
Jacob do something! Seth’s voice was loud and clear as Sam charged toward Grace. The pack was held back by their alpha orders. Grace pulled up her energy as a shield again, teeth still gritted, digging her feet in and taking Sam’s blows as he battered against her again and again, pushing her back shouting:
YOU. WILL. LISTEN. TO. ME.
Jacob felt a sharp ripple move through him as he watched Sam advance on Grace again and again. She wouldn’t push Sam back, she wouldn’t hurt him—Jacob didn’t know if she was capable of hurting them in their wolf form or if something in her held her back. Still, she wouldn’t return the attack. Jake could see that she would lose. There was no way she could keep this up for long. Not after multiple alpha commands dragging her down while trying to keep herself standing against his barrage of attacks.
A ripping growl grew in the back of his throat as he watched, the chaos around him was shredding his sanity into pieces. Sam wouldn’t stop, Jacob knew that.
Sam thought that Grace was putting them in danger and that he needed to protect them. But Jacob knew killing Bella wasn’t the answer either, and bringing Grace under Sam’s heel would backfire, it’s not how Grace felt the bond worked.
Every time he hit her shield of energy, the sound crunched louder and louder, intermixed with his snarls and snaps. The crescendo of wolf thoughts wouldn’t cease either as they all escalated into panic. Jake was boiling over and he just wanted it to stop.
Sam crashed into Grace in one final blow and her shield fell. She was pushed back up against a tree and slowly slipped down the trunk. Sam raised himself up on his hind legs to bring himself down upon her again, a paw raised with claws extended. An echo screamed through Jacob’s head, long forgotten and buried deep in his psyche. He felt pushed forward by unseen hands as his body sprinted toward Grace.
Once he had rocketed toward her, the cries and shouts of his brothers went quiet as he launched himself at Sam’s broad back.
His jaws grabbed around Sam’s shoulder. H was caught unaware and in his panic, Sam threw his head back snapping wildly to try and toss him off. But Jacob was strong, stronger than he thought, and he pulled him backwards onto the ground. Sam twisted out his grip and Jake moved his body in front of Grace as she pulled herself up, her breath quick and sharp.
“Jake, don’t.” Grace said softly. He growled and widened his stance, blocking Grace from Sam’s view.
Get out of the way. Sam growled.
No. Jake shouted back. Sam’s ears went back and suddenly at his tone. Startled, Jacob realized he couldn’t hear anything, just his own quick breath as Sam narrowed his eyes on him again.
What did you do?! Sam screamed.
You gave me no choice. This is not who we are, Sam. This is not who you are.
What did you DO?! He lunged for Jacob and as Grace cried out. Jacob shook Sam’s muzzle off of his neck and beared down on him, crushing his ribs under his paws. Sam yelped as Jacob dug in and chomped harder, the other wolves pacing frantically behind him.
I won’t let you hurt her. She’s under my protection now. SAY YOU UNDERSTAND! The command was clear and Sam yelped again, struggling harder against his tightening grip.
I understand! Sam finally yelled out. Jacob released him immediately and Sam retreated to his pack.
You’ve made a mistake, Jacob. You’ve destroyed this pack. We can’t come back from this.
Jacob had had enough. He turned to give Grace a look that she acknowledged and she recast away deeper into the forest. Jacob would find her soon enough.
The other pack members whined, confusion clear in their eyes. Jacob took one last look at them and took off as desperate howls rang out.
He ran in the direction that Grace went, knowing she’d be waiting for him. He saw her ahead in the clearing and quickly phased, pulling on his jean shorts before walking into the clearing. He let his eyes fall to the ground, realization sinking into him. His pack, his brothers, Leah, they were lost to him. Grace spun around, her eyes wild in shock:
“Did you just become alpha?!” Her voice was strained, shattered. He raised his eyes to her and in that moment everything stopped. A hush fell over the forest, unnaturally void of the chirps and rustling of the in its floor. The light seemed to glitter around them and the air grew thick and heavy despite the January cold. The thunder that had sounded off shore, clattered around them, lacing the air with electricity that splintered out and set their nerves on fire.
Grace pulled in a sharp breath. The dangling thread that had snapped in her when Jake had left suddenly reacted, shooting down through her body like a steel cable and snapping to the forest floor. She felt grounded, tethered to the earth, but more than that, she felt tethered to him. The rushing noise was already washing through her, the immense pressure building and finally exhaling around her. The pull in her stomach rejoiced in an exalted sigh of pleasure as it said, Yes, it’s you. Finally.
Jacob was stone in front of her, his eyes wide with understanding. It was her. The soul that had been calling out to him all this time had been hers and deep down he thought he always knew. It was like finally turning over a stone and revealing the glittering life beneath. Like pulling a relief of air into a stifling room, the cool rush of understanding washing over his too hot body. His mind buzzed with recognition: Grace, his imprint.
Like a magnet, her pull begged her to move closer, but all Grace could get out was a soft, “Oh.” as they stared at each other. The sound suddenly returned to the forest, teeming with life and becoming all too loud. Tears welled around the bottom of her eyes as she became overcome with joy. The ancestor’s hadn’t forgotten about her.
She held herself in place, waiting for his cue. His mouth opened and closed before he finally said, “Grace.” Calling her to him.
Grace sprinted forward.
#twilight fanfiction#Twilight FanFic#twilightfanfic#twilight#new moon#eclipse#breaking dawn#smeyer#bella swan#jacob black#jacobblackxoc#jacobblack#jacobxoc#paul lahote#edward cullen#the cullens#the pack#chapter 36#a monster lives here
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Chapter 15: Grief
“The Cullens. Are Vampires.” Grace said slowly repeating back what Jake had told her. Skepticism was thick in her voice but a nagging feeling started to take shape in the back of her mind.
“Yes.” Jake said simply, not breaking eye contact with her. Grace stared at him for a solid minute and then with complete disbelief in her voice she said,
“Jake-”
“Grace, think about it.” He interjected. And she was. The Cullens. Edward. Bella’s boyfriend was a vampire? The thing they were trained to kill? It just didn’t seem likely. Bella would have told her right? But maybe not. Grace hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with the wolves or her being the Spirit Bird for almost two months. “Don’t you feel it?” he asked.
Grace perked up at that and looked around her room. Things had felt off last night when she and Paul had pulled up to the house. Paul had said there was a vampire here, but she had thought he was referring to the redhead.
Her eyes lit up with crashing realization--the dream, the feeling she had when she first met Edward that had set her destiny in motion.
“Then that means she knows.” Grace said suddenly. Jake nodded, placing his hands in his lap and satisfied with his explanation. “And now she’s going to get him?” Jake sighed and let his gaze fall to the floor.
“I guess.” Grace sensed no danger when Alice was here and she sensed no danger when she first met Edward, only in her dream did she feel ill at ease. She stood up suddenly lost in thought. Jake mirrored her, reaching his hands out unconsciously to her. She paced away from him, one hand on her hip, chewing her lip and thinking.
“So the redhead is -”
“Victoria,” Jake responded sickly. Grace raised an eyebrow. “Can you just come here, and listen?”
“Excuse me?”
“You know what I mean.” Jake shook his outstretched hands at her beckoning her over. She stood far apart from him, critical but she wasn’t sure why. His face communicated defeat, but she felt something deeper was plaguing him. She recognized that look that pulled at his face but she couldn’t convince herself that it was true.
“I want to go talk to Sam. And the rest of the pack.” Grace moved decidedly to her dresser and pulled on some loose sweats over her sleep shorts and dragged an oversized hoodie over her torso. Jacob gave her a wanting look.
“Is that Paul’s?” Grace was confused for a moment by his question and then looked down at the hoodie. It was a plain grey hoodie but it was ripped in certain places as if someone had tugged on it too much.
“Is that important?” Grace shot back. She wasn’t sure why she was being so defensive. Maybe it was the fact that she had felt exceedingly confused by her friendship/relationship with Jake and then the fact that what Jake and Bella had was never explained also irked her. And now this new Jake, who was clearly thrown out to sea, adrift, looking for safe harbor, she wasn’t familiar with. And all of this uncertainty made her feel disconnected from him, which felt worse.
“I guess not,” he said, hurt mutating into concealed anger coloring his voice. It was true. The hoodie was Paul’s, but it was one she was given in her early training days with Jared, Sam, and Paul, when she would overshoot and land in the water. On one particularly cold January day, Paul had given her his sweatshirt on the ride home, fearing she might freeze to death. Grace recalled the awkward moment of changing in his forerunner during the drive, looping her hands in the sweatshirt while trying to discreetly take the soaked t-shirt off underneath it. She remembered Paul’s face and how his eyes were drawn to the sound her wet t-shirt made as it plopped on the floor of the car.
Now standing in front of Jake, she felt an odd sense of betrayal that shouldn’t be there. She shook her head to clear it.
“Okay, then let’s go.” She turned and jogged down the steps, coming to a stop when she remembered Charlie in the other room. The note was still upstairs on her desk. She slowly walked into the living room where he was staring at the tv but not really watching it. She leaned down and hugged him gently to which he kindly returned.
“I’m going to run to the rez with Jake real quick. Are you going to be okay?”
“Always am.” He smiled sadly and she returned it, grief washing over her again.
“I’ll bring back something from the diner, yeah?” Grace said and patted his shoulder. He nodded and turned back to the tv.
She grabbed her sneakers and jogged down the steps pulling them on. Jake was lagging behind, dreading something that Grace couldn’t quite place.
She did realize on the drive there that she was actively blocking him out. For this she was sorry but couldn’t seem to let him in.
When she pulled up to Sam’s, she was relieved to see everyone there. She hopped from the truck and was met with the pack pouring out the front door. Along with-
“Leah?” Grace said when she spotted her. Leah did not look happy to be there. She looked to Sam for confirmation and he gave a short nod. Grace’s heart broke, understanding instantly what that meant.
Paul was looking from Grace to Jacob, a small smirk on his face.
“What are you smiling at?” Grace said.
“Did you tell her?” Paul said, his eyes not leaving Grace but directing the question to Jacob.
“Paul.” Sam said.
“Yeah, he told me about the Cullens. How long have you all known?” Grace asked. The pack shifted uncomfortably and her eyes landed on Sam, “Another order to withhold information? Really?”
“You were too close to the situation, I didn’t want to make it more complicated than it already was.” Sam stated plainly. Instead of reacting, Grace considered this.
“Okay,” she said softly. Sam looked surprised. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“The treaty states that they are not a threat, we don’t harm them unless they break the treaty by coming onto our land or biting a human. To the best of our knowledge, they are less dangerous than the average vampire. That’s everything.” Sam said.
“Well, not everything.” Paul responded.
“Don’t, Paul.” Sam said. Jake had his arms crossed and was glaring daggers at Paul. The other members had spread out, preparing for a fight, lounging on the porch or climbing into Grace’s truck bed to get a better vantage point.
“What else then?” Grace said, prompting Paul.
“Tell her,” Paul baited. Jacob was stone faced.
“Tell me what?” Grace looked to Jacob. Only when she looked his way did he avert his gaze from Paul and his eyes softened. He opened his mouth as if to say something but stopped when Paul let out a huff that turned into a laugh. Jacob’s eyes went straight back to Paul, the anger returning. “Tell me WHAT?” Grace said louder this time. Paul and Jacob were in a standoff. And when Paul was satisfied that Jake wouldn’t say it first, he took the initiative.
“He kissed her.” Paul said, looking back to Grace as if he won something.
“Who?” Grace looked to Jake.
“Bella.” Paul confirmed.
“Paul, that’s enough.” Sam barked.
Grace didn’t let her eyes leave Jake and she turned her body to stand directly in front of him. He glanced up over her head and back at Paul, clearly uncomfortable.
“I didn’t kiss her.” Jake said evenly, disappointed even.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You almost kissed her and then you told her you loved her.” Paul clarified--he took an automatic step toward Grace. This seemed to incense Jake who looked like he was about to lunge for him. Grace was speechless for a moment, still staring up at Jake with her mouth open, waiting for words to form.
“Is that true?” she finally managed to say in a tone stronger than she realized. Jake hesitated for a moment, shaking out his right hand nervously and not meeting her gaze for a moment. Then he took a deep breath, looked her dead in the eye and said,
“Yes.”
The sound of the ‘yes’ rang out like a shot to Grace and she outwardly flinched. So that look on his face that Grace had spotted earlier this morning was accurate—heartbreak. She knew that feeling all too well and was sure that as Jake was looking at her now, he’d see that same look reflected back at him on her face.
She had so many more questions she wanted to ask, but feared the answer to them, so instead, she remained silent, staring up at Jake who was desperately trying to communicate with her. Grace took a step back and stood next to Paul. She suddenly felt repelled by the one person she felt the closest connection to.
Resolved to keep herself together, she swallowed hard, tears brimming in her eyes and turned to walk slowly up into Emily’s house. Some of the pack followed close behind her, leaving Jake, Paul, and Sam out in front. Grace had heard enough for one day.
A few minutes later, Paul and Sam crossed the threshold to the door and Paul took his place next to Grace who was sitting up on the kitchen counter, eating some granola from Emily’s snack stash. Jake never came inside, in fact, Grace was pretty sure he took off shortly after Paul and Sam joined the others. Leah sat on a chair on the porch by the open front door, not wanting to come inside, Grace felt a similar feeling washing off of her that she herself felt.
------
When Grace got home that afternoon with food in hand for her and Charlie, she could easily sense the wolf presence nearby but she chose to ignore it.
She carefully opened the door and called out: “Charlie?” as she made her way toward the kitchen. She was met by him standing there holding the note that Bella had given Grace, staring at it.
“I found this on your desk.” Charlie said, even toned but clearly upset. “It seems like it’s for me.” Grace swallowed hard and set the diner food down. All she could do was nod. “So she left again...to go find him?” Grace nodded again. “When was this?”
“Last night.” Grace almost whispered. Charlie crumpled the letter and left it on the counter.
“Let’s eat,” he said dejectedly. Grace stood quietly in place and then grabbed some food once Charlie had sat at the kitchen table.
“Am I grounded?” Grace finally squeaked out pushing around her veggie lasagna. Charlie chewed thoughtfully for a moment.
“Not yet. Why is there something you should be grounded for?” Charlie asked, an odd tone of nonchalance masking his obvious pain. Grace could definitely think of a list of reasons. “Harry’s funeral is tomorrow, I’m sure you’ll be needed to help out, so plan on that.” Grace gave a soft nod.
----
The next morning, Grace woke up early to get ready. She braided her hair and tied purple and yellow ribbons into her hair that she had worn to her father’s funeral. She let her necklace Ti’Hal had adorned her with hang long and refitted her bracelet. Grace smoothed out the simple black dress she’d only worn one other time that fell just above her knees.
She waited until the sun rose, sitting on the staircase and looking out her front door, waiting for Charlie. When he finally came down, he was surprised and helped her up off the stairs and to his cruiser. They drove in silence as Grace clutched her black jacket in her lap. She’d done this before, she could do this again.
Everyone was gathered at the community center and planned to walk the short distance to a lightly wooded area where Harry was to be buried. Grace automatically scanned the crowd when they arrived looking for her pack, and unfortunately, one face in particular. Was she a glutton for pain?
She saw most of the pack gathered toward the front, Sam was talking to some of the elders, and the rest were milling about conversing with those closest to them. Leah was next to her mother, arm around her, looking to hold onto composure for as long as she was able. Seth was folded into the pack’s group. She signaled to Charlie that she would be back when she made eye contact with Quil who gave her the nod and a wave. Everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief once she joined their gathering. Ti’Hal was nearby, eyeing her.
When it was time to walk over, Paul and Sam rejoined their group. Paul took Grace’s hand in his and she couldn’t help but look him up and down.
“You guys clean up nice.” she said off-hand. This resulted in a loose laugh from the group. She smiled at Paul who gave her a warm look and then reached out her other hand to Seth Clearwater who gladly took it.
Seth looked so young, at just 14 he only came up to just above Grace’s shoulder. He dwarfed in comparison to the massive height of the pack. She appreciated regular-sized Seth, because once they started phasing, it triggered an uncontrollable growth spurt that defied normal height standards. Jake towered at nearly 6’5” and Paul was close behind him at 6’4”. Grace was going to be in a neck brace by 20 from constantly having to look up at them.
They settled on a place in front, Seth sitting next to her and Paul draping an arm around her shoulder. Grace never let go of Seth’s hand which gradually became clamier as the service proceeded. She was doing an alright job of keeping it together until Ti’Hal stood up and sang a farewell song. Paul got up from his seat as well as Sam and some other members of the pack to help lower Harry into the ground as Ti’Hal sang. Once they hoisted his casket and started to lower it, everyone stood up. Leah appeared at Grace’s side, but she was too focused on watching Harry’s casket slowly disappear from view.
As Ti’Hal reached a crescendo, Seth dropped Grace’s hand and wrapped both his arms around her torso, clutching her as he hid his face and began to cry in full force now. Grace would take the weight of this pain gladly. And then she felt a hand grab for hers—Leah. She was still staring straight ahead but held onto Grace’s free hand that wasn’t looped around Seth so tightly that she felt her pulse throb in her fingertips.
She would take this pain too. Grace straightened up and felt the wash of grief run over her in the room. She opened herself to receiving every ounce of emotion and sadness in the room and let it crash in around her until she felt like she couldn’t breathe anymore.
When the service ended and everyone began to depart toward the Clearwater home for the reception, Grace beelined it for the beach. She had to put the massive amount of grief that was burying her somewhere. As she weaved her way through the crowd and finally pushed to the edge, she ran directly into Jake. He was wearing a simple white button down shirt and grey slacks with a loosely fitted tie.
The sight of him almost made her burst into a million pieces. He tried to catch her under the arms to stop her but she took off, recasting just out of sight and landing directly on the edge of La Push beach. She kicked off her flats and waded waist deep into the water, letting out a wail so loud she thought her eardrums would explode. The grief that she held for Seth, Leah, the entire tribe that they put into her to carry spilled into the ocean and was pulled out by the waves. She took gasping, shuddering breaths as the cold water pushed against her hips, and she let her hands drift just above the water’s surface. When she finally felt like the grief was drained from her, she calmly turned and trudged back to shore.
Paul was waiting, his chest rose and fell with deep breaths he was taking as he watched Grace step out from the waves. She walked right up to him and threw her arms around his neck and held onto him tight. He responded in kind and looped his arms around her torso and pressed his hands against her back. She relished in his warmth and felt an overwhelming sense of relief at being held.
She didn’t know how long they stood there holding onto one another with the waves lapping up under their feet, but she hadn’t felt like this in awhile. When he finally pulled back a little, he pressed his forehead to hers and she felt his warm breath on her face.
“You okay?” he breathed, his fingers gently moving across her lower back, making her shiver. She nodded and looked up at him, just for a beat. Something in her face must have conveyed a look of want, and she did feel a rush of excitement when he looked at her that way.
He dipped his head and pressed his lips to meet hers, and a splash of warmth spread from his lips to hers. His lips were soft and welcoming, such an opposite feeling to what he presented as a person. She knew this felt good and for a moment she pulled herself closer to him, which he readily interpreted as her want, but then just as quickly, something spiraled in her and she pulled back, taking a step away from him. The warmth evaporated and she felt cold again.
“Grace, it’s okay.” Paul reassured her, his breathing was still quick and labored from the kiss and his eyes were on fire as they looked at every inch of her. She looked at him and knew that was true, it was okay, they’d done nothing wrong, but in her she knew something was missing. She didn’t have the energy to figure that out at this moment though.
“I know,” she said but she kept her distance. “Let’s go back.” He looked at her for one more wanting moment and then nodded holding out his hand to hers.
She took it and together they traversed up the beach, Paul scooped up her shoes and carried them with him. If the pack didn’t know already, they would know soon what had happened and for once, Grace didn’t care.
They crested the hill and walked the rest of the way to the Clearwaters, easily getting absorbed into the crowd. Paul stayed close by as she was buoyed from elder to elder, family to family, to connect and share in their collective grief, but what Grace had done during the burial had seemed to lift the tribe up out of the overwhelming swell of sadness and alleviate some pain, at least for now. And for that she was grateful.
When she reached Ti’Hal, the gentle woman placed her hands on either side of Grace’s face and brought her down to touch her forward to Grace’s. They both closed their eyes and silently communicated to one another to which Ti’Hal quietly said: “Destinies take time to unravel, and people who matter most always return to you in the end. Hold tight, little bird.”
Grace smiled and mumbled a soft thanks before finally moving back to the pack. Sam was holding onto Emily and they both were giving her a worried look but she waved them off.
She felt more sure than ever that she could handle this, whatever this was. But that didn’t help the ache she felt growing within her.
#twilight fanfiction#twilightfanfic#twilight#new moon#jacob black#jacobblackxoc#paul lahote#the cullens#the pack#edward cullen#bella swan#a monster lives here#chapter 15
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Chapter 12: Run
Grace didn’t realize how disappointed she’d be the next day when she showed up on the reservation and started running rounds with the wolves. It was at least good practice to get in with Jake and connect with Quil who had just joined.
She was disappointed because it had been almost boring. There was no sign of the redhead vampire and Grace spent the day recasting through the forest alongside Jake and Paul, only taking breaks to let Grace catch her breath every now and then. By the end of the day, she had mastered using recasting as a form of running alongside the pack. Since they travelled at or above the speed of certain vampires according to Sam, Grace was able to hold onto one of the wolf’s forms in her head and recast as a flicker next them before recasting again (she often chose Jacob for this, but if Paul or Sam were closer, she’d hold onto that instead).
She kept pace best with Jacob, often recasting ahead or behind Paul or Sam which made Sam uncomfortable, thinking that she was making herself unnecessarily vulnerable to unknown threats up ahead.
As the sun dipped under the horizon, Paul, Jacob, Embry, and Grace went back to Emily’s to rest. Jared, Sam, and Quil stayed out running wider loops to cover entry points that they knew the redhead had taken in the past.
Grace was thoroughly exhausted and collapsed on the small couch in the living room. Embry sat on the floor and leaned his back against the couch, resting his head on Grace’s arm and Paul plopped on the opposite end of the couch, hoisting Grace’s tired legs onto his lap before also leaning his head back against the back of the couch and closing his eyes.
Grace was pulling in deep breaths, trying to relax. She hadn’t spent an entire day recasting so quickly like that before and she felt the fatigue pull over her. She threw her free arm over her eyes listening to the rhythmic breathing coming from Embry and Paul.
Jacob stood off in the kitchen with Emily eating a massive sandwich she had prepared. Paul and Embry were too tired to grab food when they came in. She listened to the soft voices of Emily and Jacob as he filled her in on the pack’s progress.
Before she knew it though, she was fast asleep.
----
She found herself in an unfamiliar clearing. Dry leaves and flowers wilted around her feet. She was in a long burnt orange prairie dress that her mother used to wear when she was little and would play with her on the reservation in her bare feet.
The sky roiled above her, dark threatening clouds moving too quickly. This felt like the spirit realm, a world she temporarily touched when she would recast. Things were recognizable, but when you lingered on them for too long, they started to bleed with an eerie realization.
She could barely see in the treeline, it was masked in shadow. She squinted and took a step forward, but the sound created a reverberating crunch that made her flinch. Things scattered in the treeline, just out of sight. Her heart quickened.
Something was wrong.
She felt no warm presence around her, no wolves, no human, nothing. Just coldness. A stranger in a strange land.
When she exhaled, she realized she could see her breath and something in her began to shake. A figure was making its way closer to the edge of the treeline toward her, slowly like coming up from under deep water. The form shifted and changed shape the longer Grace looked at it until it broke through the trees.
‘Edward?’ Grace’s voice left her mouth and floated across to Edward, shimmering a ten feet from her and echoing out around him. She kept her eyes trained on him, the coldness still not leaving her.
He didn’t speak, he only looked down and to the side, the exposed skin on his face and hands glittering wildly. He mouthed something but it sounded like warbling mumble deep under water.
‘What?’ Grace said. She made a move to take a step forward but Edward’s eyes suddenly snapped up and trained on her, intense, burning, like a predator. Her breath caught in her throat and she felt sick. Around the canopy of the rushing sound of the trees she heard birds escaping up and into the dark sky, screeching frantically, but she couldn’t see them. The sound grew and as Grace kept her eyes on Edward who looked ready to pounce, she heard him clearly this time.
‘You should stay away from me.’ The tight line of his mouth drew back revealing a terrifying grin with sharp incisors.
The sound of the screeching birds transformed suddenly. When she focused on the sound, she could hear screams, calls in high voices. She tried to hear what they were saying, but could only make out one word: Run.
As if in slow motion, Grace turned to run just as she felt Edward push off the ground behind her and lunge for her. A dark shadow pulled over her and darkened her remaining vision as she felt the coldness descend and press down and down until-
----
Grace’s eyes snapped open and frantically looked around her. She was still on the couch in the warmth of Emily’s living room. Embry was slumped on the floor beside her and Paul was sitting at the table eating and talking with Emily. Quil was back, but Jared, Sam, and Jacob were missing. She didn’t know how long she had been asleep for.
“What time is it?” Grace murmured.
Paul looked over his shoulder at her, “Almost midnight. I can take you home.” Grace nodded and he stood up and rubbed his hands together to rid them of crumbs before pulling on his hoodie.
When Grace reached the front door, he was right behind her and placed a hand nonchalantly on her lower back leading her out the front door and down the steps to his forerunner. Emily looked after them concerned, but didn’t make a move to stop them.
Comfortably sat in his warm truck, Grace leaned her head back on the headrest and let the dream seep away from her. Paul didn’t say much and just kept his eyes trained on the dark road as he drove her home. She was grateful for this but shot him a warm smile every now and then, noticing that every time she glanced over, he seemed to be looking back at her.
When he pulled onto the side of the road just in front of her house, his eyes glided up to the lit bedroom window. Grace thought that was strange but just leaned over, gave him a hug and jumped out. He waited until she got inside, she turned to wave once she pushed over the front door, and then gave a wave before heading off down the street.
Grace pulled off her boots and walked quietly up the stairs, not wanting to wake Charlie who had fallen asleep on the couch. When she made it to the top of the landing, she stopped. She heard voices coming from under the closed door to her and Bella’s room. The light was on like she and Paul had noticed when they pulled up. Grace stopped for a moment and heard the rushed and soft voices of Bella and….Jake? What was he doing here?
She crossed the landing and went to open the door when she stopped, her hand resting just above the doorknob, waiting.
“Let’s just get out here. Go somewhere. Alone. Away from Sam and everyone.” Grace heard Bella say. Her voice wavered somewhere between desperation and intense loneliness. Grace’s heart panged.
“You’d do that for me?” Jacob replied. Grace closed her eyes tight fighting the rushing feeling pulling in and around her heart. She had no reason to feel like this. She tried to tell herself this every time she saw Jake. No reason to be overwhelmingly happy and light, comforted and safe, pulled in one specific direction, with an ache that only seemed to subside when she was near him. She opened her eyes and stared at the doorknob, trying to make herself move.
“Jake.” Bella said. She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t just sit here and listen.
“It would be so much easier if you knew, please. Please try to remember,” now Jake’s voice took on a note of desperation. Grace felt cracked in two and the force of it pushed her through the door suddenly.
Her grand entrance was met with Bella and Jacob very close together, Bella’s hands on his lower arms, his cradling her arms by grasping her elbows. Their heads were leaned in close, too close, to one another. Jake was shirtless and Bella was staring at his mouth.
Grace must have looked frantic, she hadn’t realized that her hair was askew from sleeping on Emily’s couch and probably tossing and turning from that nightmare. Not to mention the bags under her eyes from pure exhaustion after today.
Jacob stepped back slowly from Bella when Grace walked in. Cool, no shame whatsoever. She thought and then mentally chastised herself for it. Who was she? She and Jake certainly weren’t dating. He was free to do as he pleased. But she just didn’t know why it made her feel like this then.
Bella shoved her hands in her back pockets and looked to Grace.
“Long day?” Bella said, not meaning to cause insult to unspoken injury. Grace raised an eyebrow at her and then looked to Jake who was shifting uncomfortably.
“Paul give you a ride home, then?” Jake asked. Grace’s head spun.
“Yes to both.” she said. “I’ll just-” she hooked her thumb behind her out the door and went to the bathroom. She closed the bathroom door and turned on the faucet, looking at her face in the mirror for a second before dunking her entire head under the cool water. When her hair was fully saturated, she flung it back, letting the water splatter on the tile and the wall. She let the cold rivulets of water run down her face and shirt and back. She winced when she looked at herself at the mirror and saw the hurt there. She heard a light thud and rinsed her face off before heading back into her room.
Bella was sitting on her bed and looked up at her when she walked in.
“You okay?” She looked genuinely alarmed.
“Yeah, long day, like you said.” Grace said. “What did Jake want?”
Bella hesitated. “What do you do at the reservation all day? Are you hanging with Sam and them? Or?”
“What do you mean?” Grace’s back was turned away from her as she opened her drawers and pulled on a big tshirt and sleep shorts.
“Well…. Jacob won’t exactly tell me what’s going on with him and Sam and that new group he’s hanging out with. Which is why he can’t see me now. I just wondered if you knew...what was going on?”
Grace sat down on her bed opposite of Bella and stared at her intently for a moment. She remembered the order Sam had given: Tell no one about the pack’s the existence or the existence of vampires. But Grace’s recent dream had shaken her up and made her look at Bella differently. Why had it been Edward in her dream? Elder Ti’Hal had taught her to never disregard a dream or vision or wondering because it usually tugged at something deeper--a truth your mind was trying to tell you.
Grace looked at Bella critically. If she brought up Edward now, Bella would crumble. She didn’t want that. So she found a different way to answer the question.
“If Jacob can’t tell you, then I shouldn’t either.” Bella’s face dropped. “Not that I don’t want to tell you.” She didn’t. “But it’s probably better if it came from Jacob.” It wasn’t.
“Right.” Bella nodded, disappointed.
“I really need to get some sleep.” Grace burrowed under her covers and turned her bedside light off. Bella nodded and crossed the room to turn off the overhead light. Just as she switched it off, Bella said,
“Grace. We’re just friends. I promise.” She whispered the word promise. Tears finally rose to Grace’s eyes as she struggled to respond.
“Okay.” She was finally able to say with a measured, curt tone. She swallowed hard.
“Goodnight.” Bella said.
“Mmhmm.” Grace mumbled. Hoping for the sweet crushing relief of sleep, Grace closed her eyes tightly.
But sleep would not come and just outside, she could feel the warm presence of Jake standing in the forest and looking toward her house. A look of wanting filled him that she could perceive and it crushed her further, allowing the tears to finally spring and soak her pillow.
#new moon#twilight fanfiction#twilightfanfic#jacob black#jacobblackxoc#the pack#bella swan#edward cullen#chapter 12#a monster lives here#twilight#paul lahote
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Chapter 7: Recast
December
With the last week of finals completed, Grace hurtled toward winter break. She was exhausted after the constant studying but thought she faired pretty well. After the night with Jacob, she had been more proactive about inviting him around, studying down in the living room and letting Charlie kick him out when it got close to bed.
Grace was somehow able to drag Bella out to Port Angeles for some last minute Christmas shopping. She was surprised Bella had agreed, but then realized that she had just gone and saw a movie with Jessica (questionable choice of first friend after a breakup) and it seemed pretty successful. She was waking up a little.
As they strode arm and arm down the streets of Port Angeles and popped in and out of shops looking for the perfect gift for Charlie (they’d settled eventually on a new fishing pole and tackle box, equipped with the finest lures Port Angeles had to offer), Bella broke into more serious conversation.
“So, what’s going on with you and Jake?”
“What do you mean?” Grace asked, genuinely curious and taking a sip of her chai tea.
“You know what I mean,” Bella pressed, “He’s always around, he slept over, he calls you all the time. He seems smitten.”
“We’re just friends,” Grace said simply, and when she looked over at Bella, her eyebrows raised in doubt, Grace more forcefully stated, “Honestly! He’s becoming my best friend, but that’s it. He’s getting me back onto the rez slowly and just looking after me because Billy asked.”
“Okay, so do you only see him as a friend or is it mutual? Because Jake definitely likes you.” Bella offered. Grace hesitated, trying to be careful with her words.
“It’s not like that. I can’t explain it but it’s something different. Of course I like him,” Bella mocked a look of shock and awe and Grace laughed bumping into her lightly, “No I mean, you have to like someone to want to be around them all the time. But it’s different with Jake. You just feel completely natural, completely safe. It’s like a magnet. It’s easy to be with him. But truly, it’s just a friendship.”
“So the sleeping over thing was a fluke?”
“I don’t know,” Grace admitted looking up at the sky. “That felt different than any other interaction. Every moment with Jake feels brand new, so it’s hard to piece together what it all means at the moment. But the great thing about that is that I don’t need to know right now. We’re good just like this. Simple.”
“Simple.” Bella echoed, a sadness pulling at her voice.
“Come on” Grace bucked her and threw her a smile to keep her up, “Let’s head to the bookstore real quick, I have one last gift and then we can go.”
January
Winter break had come and went and with the solace and cold, came a lot of thinking. Grace thought constantly about her conversation with Bella regarding Jake. What was it exactly? She couldn’t really define the relationship, it felt tenuous but strong. Affectionate but friendly. Slow going but hot to the touch.
Hanging out with Jake didn’t really clear anything up for her. They were the same old friendly, comfortable, boisterous pair. She’d hang out with him in the garage while he tuned up the Rabbit and when it got too cold he’d take her inside and plop her on their tiny loveseat with hot cocoa and cheesy action movies. Sometimes Quil and Embry would appear and they’d venture into the woods or to the tiny mainstreet to get a snack, but most often it was just Jake and Grace.
Once school picked back up, Grace felt that ache and pull grow more when she was away from Jake for extended periods of time. This was even more confusing.
Then, one day when she picked up the receiver after school, and stated clearly “Jake.” she was bemused to hear a low rumbling laugh on the other end that said “Not quite.”
“Billy, hi,” Grace recognized him immediately.
“Listen, I know you’ve been coming out to the rez a lot more, so I was wondering if you would do me a favor and run an errand for me.”
Grace raised an eyebrow. “Me? Why?” Why not ask Jake? She wondered.
As if in answer to her unspoken question, Billy replied, “Jacob’s a little adverse to running errands for me, especially when they involve Sam Uley.”
Grace’s breath hitched in her throat. She’d seen Sam milling about a bit on the odd occasion they frequented the little downtown street on the rez. Each time it had filled her with a feeling that she could only describe as hunger, but not physical hunger, like an itching desire to turn over a rock just to see what was hiding underneath. She felt a visceral connection to Sam Uley without ever knowing him--it felt like a taut thread that ran from her middle and connected to him. Whenever they made eye contact, the thread twanged painfully and tugged at her insides, begging her to move forward, but she resisted. To this, the thread vibrated uncomfortably and Grace would quickly try to duck behind Jacob or change direction to gain some distance.
“Uh, I mean, I’m not sure how much help I can be on that front, but what do you need?” The hunger spoke for her.
“Just a box of old council written histories. He’s been meaning to come by and grab it but has been,” he paused, “A little busy. Would you mind next time you’re out this way coming to grab it and swing it by his and Emily’s place for me?”
“Sure, I’m doing a pickup for the Wilo’s tomorrow afternoon, I’ll come by then, yeah?” Who was this person that was so willingly agreeing to an errand that would possibly bring her within spitting distance of Sam?
“Sounds good, thanks Grace, hach tochoktiya.” he hung up and Grace held the receiver to her ear for a little while after the phone had been disconnected.
Sam Uley, huh?
------
After dropping Bella off at work, Grace had coasted down to the rez and completed her grocery run for the Wilo’s. After waving and hopping back into her truck and heading toward Billy’s house, she suddenly felt her palms go sweaty.
At least she’d get to see Jake.
When she got to his house and popped out of the truck, she thought she’d look up to see Jake jogging around the side of the house, beaming, but he was nowhere to be seen. Confused, she shoved her hands in her pockets and walked up to the house knocking on the door. Billy pulled the door open and maneuvered aside to let her in.
“Where’s Jake?” Grace asked casually.
“Out with Quil and Embry, I think.” Billy brushed off the question and wheeled to the table to put his hand on the top of the box. “This is what I need you to take to Sam’s. And here’s the address,” he pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it Grace.
“Right, yeah,” Grace said inspecting the paper. “Down, close to La Push beach?”
“You got it--better get moving before it gets too dark.” Billy prompted. Grace raised an eyebrow at him and headed out the door, picking up the lightweight box and out the door.
As she pulled onto the lawn of the little bungalow tucked into the trees and facing the beach, a worrying pain shot through her.
Time to get this over with.
She grabbed the cardboard box from the passenger seat and shut the door with a loud bang. It must have alerted them inside because Emily, Sam’s fiance, peered out the gauzy curtains with a reassuring smile and tentative wave.
Grace raised her hand and gave a short wave as she climbed the steps of the porch. Emily opened the door and greeted her warmly.
“Grace! So good to see you,” Emily gave her a one armed hug.
“Aah, so Billy wanted me to bring this by,” Grace held out the cardboard box. As Emily took it from her hand, Sam appeared behind her in shorts and a sleeveless sweatshirt. A little light for January weather, no?
“Grace.” Sam nodded matter of factly from the doorway. Grace felt her stomach lurch and she swallowed hard. She was going to face this head on at least.
“Sam, good to see you,” she said.
“Come in for a minute,” Sam replied, gesturing inside. Grace automatically took a step back down the porch.
“Yes, please! I’ve just made some tea.” Emily reached her hand out to her as Same took the box from her.
“I-I just had some errands to run and-”
“Come in.” Sam said a little more forceful and Grace felt an automatic need to obey. It was a feeling she was unfamiliar with and didn’t really like.
As she crossed the threshold, she couldn’t help but feel comforted by the warmly decorated home. Familiar relics from the rez hung on the walls and it smelled like toasted bread. She sat down at the kitchen table that was in the center of the wide open room. Emily set some tea down in front of her and retreated behind the island in the kitchen to finish cutting some vegetables.
“How are you doing?” Sam asked.
“Uh, yeah good thanks.” Grace said dismissively looking around. Sam raised his eyebrows.
“Have you gone to see elder Ti’Hal since the gathering?”
“Was I supposed to?” Grace said, a little irritated.
“No, just thought you would is all, considering what she gave you,” he gestured to her necklace. Grace automatically touched it. The low rumbling started in ears again, her feet vibrating. “You know what that is right?” She could feel her fingertips tingle and a searing hot wave worked its way down her throat and into her belly where Sam’s pull sat and squirmed.
“Stop.” Thunder rattled outside and a cool wind started to blow through the trees.
“You’ve been avoiding me.” Sam’s gaze was intense. Grace’s eyes, swimming in and out of focus, landed on Emily who had stopped chopping and was watching her carefully.
“What do you mean?” Grace choked out. Her hand clutched around the dark stone of her necklace and she felt her body sway. She tried to stay focused, but the heat shot through her extremities and pooled in her feet and hands. She could feel it rising to the back of her head.
“You’ve been called here. And instead of meeting your fate, you’ve been running from it. Ignoring it. And now we’re here.”
“Sam,” Emily’s small voice echoed in Grace’s head. “Is she alright?” Grace was turning bright red, sweat pouring from her face, and she started to gasp for air.
“She’s fine.” Sam almost said it as a command. Grace didn’t want any of this. Whatever Sam was doing, she was not okay with it. She felt her body screaming from the inside out, it felt like her skin was being pulled apart like loose stringy dough.
“No.” Grace managed to shout in between ragged breaths. Sam’s eyes narrowed. Emily stepped forward concerned.
“You can’t run from this Grace.” Sam compelled her. Suddenly, Grace was on her feet. The pull was becoming too much--whatever this was, she wanted no part in it.
The chair clattered to the floor behind her and she clutched her side as she stumbled backwards toward the door. Sam was on his feet immediately.
“Grace stop!” he commanded. Grace felt that familiar, but unwanted pull in her stomach, and angrily pulled back against it. She wouldn’t be tamed by whatever this was. Her feet hesitated for a moment but then she turned and stumbled quickly toward the door. Sam was after her but by the time her foot reached porch steps, she felt her entire body tear apart. The world wavered in front of her and then she was gone and everything went black.
Sam crossed the threshold and looked around frantically. She was gone. The thunder rolled over the sea and Emily’s windchimes tinkled behind him. Bewildered, Sam jumped off the porch and looked around the clearing. There was no sign of her.
One moment she was there, and the next she wasn’t. And then, her eyes fluttered open. She was on the forest floor staring up the light shimmering down through the trees. For a moment her focus went in and out and then she noticed chirping above her. A small wisp of smoke unfurled around her and she heard a faint humming and shuffling. Only then did she realize she was covered with a blanket.
Grace stirred from her place on the forest floor and lifted herself up onto her elbows to look around. Her head felt cracked in two. When she looked around her, she saw the hunched form of elder Ti’Hal. She was burning a bushel of fir and herbs that she had tied tightly together over the small fire that she had built. She was humming to herself and didn’t pay Grace any mind.
“What happened?” Grace croaked. Ti’Hal took her time turning to look at her from her spot by the fire.
“You recast.” Ti’Hal said calmly.
“What?” she was groggy and thought that maybe her words were altering in her head. Ti’Hal was by her side in a moment and Grace couldn’t quite fathom how the old woman could move so quickly.
“Recast, you altered your place on this plane and reoriented in a new space. It’s a state of being that until now was buried deep in your blood, and it triggered when you confronted those you are meant to protect.” Ti’Hal stated this with such clarity that it rang clear as a bell in Grace’s mind. A crushing sense of understanding bloomed in her and the uncomfortable pull she had felt before in Sam’s presence unwound itself in relief and bloomed into recognition.
All at once she felt at ease, but her mind still stumbled with confusion.
“Who I’m meant to protect?! What do you mean, Ti’Hal? Why am I here?” Grace was still slurring a little bit and Ti’Hal placed a cool hand to her forehead to push her gently back to the earth. Grace felt the embrace of the forest floor around her.
Ti’Hal clucked and shooshed her as she began humming again. Grace stayed prone trying to regain her thoughts. Her whole body felt scrambled. She couldn’t remember how she got here and the last thing she remembered was feeling like she was being pulled apart as her blood boiled.
Sam had done this somehow, and Billy had orchestrated it. Grace felt so stupid that she had fallen for such an easy trap. But what still didn’t make sense was why she was lured into a trap in the first place. Billy never meant her any harm. But Sam had spoken about fate and avoiding her place here. What had he meant exactly? She felt her body vibrate again and panicked.
Ti’Hal raised an eyebrow and scanned Grace’s body with her eyes. “You need to calm yourself. Bring your awareness to your fingers and toes, grab hold of your shaking veins between your fists and hold it there. Breath into your belly and pull down into the ground. Stay focused on the light around you.” Ti’Hal coached calmly as she held onto Grace’s clenched fist.
The vibrations dissipated and Grace felt clearer this time.
“What did Sam do to me?!”
“It’s not young Uley’s fault, dear. But it is your destiny. You are blessed with the ability to recast between this world and the next. You are tied to the wolf warriors as their protector, their shield. You are the spirit bird, Alo.”
-------
Hi! You’ve reached Charlie, Bella, and Grace. We’re not home right now, please leave a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. If this is a police matter, please call the station.
Thanks! Talk to you soon.
“Grace?” Pause. “It’s Jake. Where have you been? I haven’t been able to get a hold of you for like two weeks now. You’re not at school, you’re not with Bella, you’re not at home. I’m getting really worried. Can you call me back? I just-” Pause. “I’ve heard that you’ve been hanging out with Sam and his cult lately. I don’t believe it and Billy said I should just leave it alone but-” Pause. Sigh. “Listen, just call me when you get a chance. Whether you’re mad at me or you don’t want to hang out anymore, I just-”
The voicemail tape cut off as Bella picked up the receiver.
“Jake?”
#twilight#twilightfanfiction#fanfic#jacobblackxoc#jacobxoc#jacob black#bella swan#edward cullen#the cullens#new moon#a monster lives here#chapter 7
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Chapter 19: Claim
Warning: Implied Sexual Content
The hunt for Victoria was on.
Now that the Cullens were back and they realized the danger that Victoria still presented, they doubled their efforts of tracking her on their territory. Grace was swamped with finals prep and Sam told her they had it handled for the time being, so she sat out on night rounds for now.
Jake was busy hunting Victoria so he hadn’t stopped by her texted since that afternoon they fell asleep together. She promised herself that as soon as things calmed down, she was going to ask him the questions she needed to: Why did he try to kiss Bella? Was he in love with her? What did that make Grace to him? What did this all mean?
The questions circled her head as she sat in her AP English class. Bella tapped her shoulder with the eraser end of her pencil. Grace looked over and gave her a gentle smile
“Hey, you okay?” Bella asked. Grace nodded and turned back to her notes.
Grace did know that she could just ask Bella about what happened between her and Jake. She would be honest at least and forthcoming. She had Edward so there was no reason to stymy any details. But Grace knew that Bella didn’t feel intensely for Jake, so it wasn’t really her feelings that she needed to clear up. Still, she might as well ask.
Just as she went to raise her hand to answer a question her teacher posed about the significance of the birds in James Joyce’s novel “Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man”, her phone buzzed. Sidetracked now, she flipped it open.
SMS Text— 2:33 p.m.: Paul
Are you ready to talk yet?
I promise I’m cool as a cucumber.
And then there was Paul. Her heart ached every time she thought about him. In any other life, Grace knew she would have readily chosen Paul to be with for the rest of her life. He was so kind and soft and gentle with her. His anger was frightening but never directed at her. She always felt exceedingly safe with him, however, this wasn’t any other life. And being with him meant understanding that something was always going to be missing, no matter what he did. And that wasn’t fair to him.
Grace had asked him to give her some time, what with finals coming up and needing to wrap her head around everything. She also wanted to give him time to cool off as his territorialness over Grace increased once he found out about her and Jake’s afternoon together.
She wrote a hasty reply back saying they’d talk this weekend, in person, and then shut her phone and buried it deep in her bag. Bella had been watching her do this the whole time and Grace looked over to give her a reassuring smile. But worry was painted clear on Bella’s face.
Once the day was over, Grace and Bella walked toward their truck. Relieved that it was finally the weekend and the start of Spring Break, Grace began organizing all of the studying, essays, and projects she needed to do in her head. She had as far as next Wednesday mapped out when Bella slammed the driver side door of the truck and looked over at Grace.
“Hey,” Bella said, her face a little unsure.
“Hey,” Grace said, a little confused.
“Um, so. Would you want to have a sleepover with me and Alice?” As the words tumbled out of her mouth, Bella outwardly cringed.
“We...we sleep in the same room every night. But yes? I guess?” Grace said laughing a little.
“No, I mean, Edward still won’t let me go down to the rez and everyone except Rosalie and Alice are going hunting. And so he asked me to stay the night at his place with Rosalie and Alice just to be safe.” Bella said all of this very quickly. Grace looked at her skeptically for a moment.
“I thought you liked Alice,” she said.
“I do!” Bella said, “I just, I would just feel better if you were there. And I know we haven’t gotten to spend a lot of time together since Edward got back and I--” Bella looked at Grace’s face that was pulled into a broad smile, “Just forget it. It’s stupid.”
“No! No, Bella!” Grace laughed, “It’s just not very….you? I don’t know. Of course I’ll have a sleepover with you. In a vampire coven’s home. On land I’ve been specifically forbidden to enter.”
Bella’s eyes went wide in distress.
“Sounds fun,” Grace concluded.
“Oh god,” Bella said, “If this is gonna get you in trouble with Sam or…..Jake.” Bella again lightly cringed when she said his name, more for Grace’s sake than hers. “Then really. Do not worry about it. I just thought-”
“No, I’m coming.” Grace interjected joyfully. It was true, Sam had told her to never go to the Cullen’s house again. But she wanted to prove once and for all that they posed no threat to them. Sleeping over seemed like a dangerous enough feat that would show that. Plus, if Grace gathered any intel on the vampires, that might be enough consolation for Sam not to totally take her head off.
Or maybe, it was just the old rebellion rising up in her again. She hadn’t felt this need to disobey every order thrown at her since right after her father died. Something in her kept telling her to push harder and harder, just to see how far enough she could go.
Bella gave a small smile and said “Thanks.”
When they got home, they both bolted upstairs to pack a bag, a weird pulsing joy moving through both of them. Grace felt like she was a 6th grader, invited to the popular girl’s party and she didn’t know why. Bella was just thrilled Grace was coming.
When they both tumbled back down the stairs together, arm and arm, and whispering about something they had heard that day, Charlie was just coming through the front door.
“Where do you two think you’re going?” Charlie raised an eyebrow. “Far as I know, you two are still grounded.”
“Dad,” Bella groaned.
“Jessica invited us to a slumber party at her house to kick off spring break,” Grace quickly interjected. She thought mentioning a town girl instead of a rez girl would keep Charlie from double checking a story since he knew of Jessica, but didn’t have enough face time to place her in town.
“Jessica?” Charlie said.
“Yeah, is that okay? We wanted a,” Bella paused, the words making her cringe ever so slightly, “A girl’s night.”
Charlie seemed pleased that this seemingly had nothing to do with Edward.
“Pleeeease, please please please,” Grace feigned begging.
“Alright, alright,” Charlie said. “A slumber party?”
“Yes!” they both said in unison.
“No boys?” Charlie confirmed.
“Dad.”
“No boys allowed!” Grace replied.
“Alright then, have fun.” Charlie said stepping aside and trying to conceal a smile.
“Yessss!” Grace bounded out the door and Bella lagged behind to hug Charlie goodbye.
When they pulled into the driveway of the Cullen house, Grace had to stop herself from admiring the sheer immense beauty of the home in the daylight. The windows glittered in the low light sun still and the trees shimmered in bloom. As they hopped down from the truck, Edward was already down the steps to greet them.
“Grace. Good of you join,” Edward said politely. He wrapped his arm around Bella pulling her into his side and taking her bag.
“Of course. Any chance to hang with some vampires,” Grace said nonchalantly. As they walked through the house and up the stairs, Edward guided them toward the kitchen. When the huge island countertop came into view, Grace gasped at the fanfare of food, party snacks, and candy littering the counter.
“Thought we’d lean into the sleepover theme,” Esme said kindly from behind the counter.
“You didn’t have to go to this much trouble,” Bella breathed. Esme waved a dismissive hand at her and beamed.
“Wow,” Grace breathed. Suddenly Carlisle was beside her taking her bag from her shoulder.
“I’ll place this up in the guest room for you. Good to see you, Grace,” Carlisle nodded.
“Likewise,” Grace said sincerely back. Something about Carlisle’s calm demeanor and sincere stare put Grace at ease.
He was back in a flash and then nodded to the others, “Ready? We should get going if we’re going to make it by nightfall.” The others agreed and said their goodbyes to their partners. Edward held onto Bella for just a little bit longer than anyone else and then quickly departed leaving Alice, Grace, and Bella in the kitchen.
“Rosalie’s just running a quick errand, she’ll be back,” Alice said. “Okay, so what first! Nails? Face masks? Hair braids?” Alice was clapping her hands together on every suggestion. Bella’s anxiety climbed more and more and Grace’s eyes grew bigger and bigger with glee at each suggestion.
When Rosalie entered the converted dining room that Alice had made into a very high end blanket force with gauzy curtains, colorful pouf pillows, and lush faux fur blankets, she was surprised to see everyone on the floor in some state of disarray. Sleepless in Seattle played on the too big TV above the fireplace. Grace was pulling on Red Vines and clasping a magazine in her hand, staring at it seriously, with mashed avocado smeared across her face. Bella, also clad in green avocado, had an intricate braid winding over her most of her head that Alice had perfected and placed flowers throughout and was taking bites of pretzels and popcorn while tracing her pencil over a crossword puzzle. She intermittently answered Grace’s questions while Alice bounded from the tent and back again with another concoction from the kitchen to now slather over Grace’s free hand.
“When you’re alone, what’s your favorite activity to do together? A) Gaze adoringly into each other’s eyes in a field of flowers….Bit specific.” Grace said in between bites of her Red Vine, “B) Do some dare devil defying feat. C) Go out to eat followed by a late night movie. Or D) Go to a party and get silly.”
“What are you three doing?” Rosalie said a little surprised, with wonder filling her face.
“We’re trying to figure out how old Edward is based on their relationship traits with this Cosmo quiz,” Grace replied, her eyes still focused intensely on the page in front of her.
“Oh.” Rosalie said looking around the room, “You should really condition your hair with egg whites.” She suggested as she saw Alice rubbing coconut oil through Grace’s hair.
“Is this a way for you to get to crack eggs on my head or something?” Grace asked as Bella tried to conceal a laugh.
“No! It’s just an old trick I remember from my time,” Rosalie said matter-of-factly, “Here I’ll show you.” She strode over to the refrigerator and started gently separating eggs in a bowl.
“Answer the question, Bella,” Alice prompted. Bella snapped back to attention.
“Ummm, A I guess?” She replied with an embarrassed smile.”
“Yeah, we all knew it was A, no need to fret,” Grace said pressing on. Rosalie settled behind Grace expertly draping a towel over her shoulders with a satisfied smile on her face before expertly applying the whisked egg whites.
The night pressed on with too much food, rinsing their hair in the sink and having to advise on temperature to two people who couldn’t perceive temperature, and quoting Roman Holiday. Bella fell asleep just after midnight and Alice carried her up to Edward’s room that was repurposed into a guest room.
When Grace turned in for the night, she heard her phone beep.
SMS Text—12:32 a.m.: Paul
Meet me at my place and I won’t tell Sam where you are right now. ;)
Grace let out a surprised laugh. She expected someone to eventually figure out where she was but the cheeky jibe from Paul was unexpected.
SMS Text—12:33 a.m.: Grace
Are you threatening me, Paul Lahote?
SMS Text—12:33 a.m.: Paul
Come and find out, Spirit Bird.
Grace was definitely intrigued. Maybe it was the expert styling of her hair from Rosalie or the glow from her avocado face mask, or the fact that she hadn’t heard from Jacob in days and she was starting to think he regretted it. Whatever it was, she gathered her coat and made her way out to the forest. Rosalie gave her a confused look as she passed the living room but didn’t try to stop her.
She jogged the short mile and a half to the rez border and once she crossed onto her territory, she quickly recast and landed in front of Paul’s quaint home. It was a tiny little one bedroom with a wrap around porch and modest kitchen. He didn’t spend much time there, but Grace had been there once or twice before when he swung by to grab something before taking her home. She skipped up the porch steps and before she could even knock on the door, he pulled it open. Shirtless as always, he smiled and nodded his head over his shoulder to beckon her inside. She gladly ducked inside.
Grace didn’t exactly know why she came. She thought about making amends, talking about what happened like he had asked, but when she turned to look toward Paul after walking across the short length of her living room, it didn’t really seem like he was all too concerned with betrayal anymore. He looked her up and down appreciatively, taking his time to take her all in. The old fire rose in Grace once again and she smiled warmly at him. While the ache of that familiar absence remained where she knew Jake fit, she was able to keep it quiet, just for now.
“So do you always text girls past midnight who happen to be hanging out with low risk vampires?” Grace said nonchalantly.
“I guess, at least I do when the girl looks as good as you,” Paul said seriously. Grace blushed.
“So you’re not mad? Don’t want to yell at me about betraying the pack and all that?” Grace pressed.
“Not if you don’t want me too,” Paul said, crossing his arms over his broad chest. Grace shook her head no. “Good, then I won’t and we can do something better instead.”
“Better?”
“Better.” he looked at her trying to figure out something before he said, “I’m tired of this back and forth. Who chooses who and all that. So, I’m laying claim.”
“What do you mean?” Grace said, her heart starting to beat faster. She felt like she was on the precipice of something that she might not be able to come back from. Paul crossed the small room in three quick strides and scooped her up, pulling her legs to wrap around his lower torso and holding onto her back before saying in the softest voice Grace could ever imagine he was capable of:
“I’m calling you mine.” With that, he pressed his lips firmly to hers, his breath hot and wanting as he parted his lips and ran his tongue across hers. Grace responded easily, allowing the feeling of warmth to crash through her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her.
He easily steered them down the narrow hallway back toward his room without breaking the kiss. He was keen on keeping hands on her at all times. When he sat down on the bed, she perched in his lap, kneeling over him as he kissed her neck softly, running his hands gently down her sides before deftly pulling at her shirt. She obliged and slowly peeled off the soft t-shirt as he pressed his lips to her collarbone and shoulders, pulling one bra strap down gently with his index finger to gain full access to her shoulder.
Grace shivered at his touch and let her hands roam down his neck to his chest and arms. He captured her gaze and stopped for a moment, searching her eyes lovingly before placing a hand behind her head and pulling her to him for a deeper kiss. With his other hand, he quickly unsnapped her bra and Grace let it slip from her arms and tossed it aside before pressing her chest to his. He let out a soft groan as their bodies connected and placed both of his hands on her naked back, pressing her roughly to him for a moment before swinging her around to lay flat on the bed.
He kneeled over her now, leaning up to stare at her for just a minute before kissing down her neck and chest, his hands making quick work of her jean button. He shimmied her out of her jeans and quickly discarded his own shorts before gently sliding her underwear down her legs, kissing at her thigh and calf as he went.
Grace let small gasps of breath escape, allowing herself to relax into this feeling with him. Whatever voice in her that was telling her no, she had stopped listening and the voice had grown quiet. When he finally slipped out of his boxer shorts and hovered over her, Grace opening to him and looping her hands confidently behind his head, he stopped for a moment once more.
His eyes poured into hers and Grace felt intensely loved, more than she had felt in her entire life. The fact that a singular human would look at her like that made her whole lower body tremble.
“Grace Alo, you are the most beautiful, mysterious, and frustrating woman I’ve ever met,” Paul said, heady breaths flowing across Grace’s face. She felt intoxicated by them. He paused again brushing his lips to hers and Grace arched her hips instinctively. He pulled away and leaned back for a moment to take his whole face in and said, “Promise me that you’re mine.”
Grace looked up at him and cupped both hands to his face before whispering, “I promise.” He gave her another achingly sweet smile before pushing forward, resulting in Grace gasping and clutching tightly around his neck in wanting rhythm.
#twilight#twilightfanfiction#jacobblackxoc#paul lahote#edward cullen#bella swan#alice cullen#rosalie cullen#eclipse#new moon#twilightfanfic#the cullens#the pack
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Chapter 26: Heal
Grace woke up to the low, cloudy light of dawn breaking around her. The low light still caused her vision to go in and out of focus as a throbbing headache made its debut. She groaned, raising a sore arm to her face and rubbed it.
She had no concept of time or where she was but she felt deep, pulsing pain throughout her body. She tentatively touched at her midsection and sucked in a breath like a hiss as the tender skin felt too hot to touch. Grace slowly stretched the fingers on each of her hands and felt the excruciating pain shoot down her wrist and up her arm. She felt battered, like she’d been stamped by a thousand hot irons pounding at her body for hours. It probably wasn’t the best idea, but Grace tried her best to push her body upright into a sitting position. A painful moan escaped her as her vision went black.
“Hey, woah woah woah.” Suddenly there was someone kneeling beside her, bracing her back, their hand hot and firm. She knew that voice.
“Where am I?” Grace said, her voice scratchy and hushed like she had a sore throat.
“My place.” Paul said, his face coming into better focus. “Drink this.” He held a glass of water to her lips and she drank gratefully, draining the glass easily and gasping for air afterward.
“Where’s Jake?” she croaked. Grace was too disorientated to even take in the fact that she was in her ex-boyfriend’s bed in a home that was supposed to be hers. That ache had no room to exist as her body screamed at every move she made.
“They took him home. He’s okay, he’s healing.” Paul was scanning her body frantically. He didn’t know what to do when she had passed out. He just knew he had to get her out of that clearing before the ancient vampires —Volturi the doc had called them—came into the clearing to kill them all. So he rushed her to his home. She had been out for a solid 18 hours until now.
Grace rubbed her eyes and tried to bring more things into focus. She looked down at herself, still wincing at even the slightest movement. She was wearing one of Paul’s shirts and her pants were missing.
“My clothes,” she said groggily, an aching finger pulling at the shirt she had on.
“Yours were covered in blood,” he breathed. “You scared the hell out of me. Grace being in that clearing was not part of the plan. You could have gotten killed, why the fuck did you do that?” his voice rose slightly as anger flooded him. Seeing her in the clearing had sent a shock wave through him. One he felt rippled down the pack.
But he had to admit that once she was there, they felt renewed, faster, more agile, their adrenaline at seeing her allowed each wolf to tap into a stronger or maybe more panicked version of themselves. Sam had been the most upset. He was trying to keep everyone safe and was pulled in so many directions during the fight, dividing his attention to ensure no one died on his watch. And when Grace came into the clearing, that attention dialed in to just her. It was maddening for him. Paul thought he’d attack Grace instead of the newborns for a second.
Grace looked at the empty glass and said in a hoarse voice: “Can I have some more water?”
Paul nodded, letting out a huff of air and stood up to get her more. When he went into the kitchen there was a soft knock at the front door. He set the glass down and pulled it open.
Rachel.
“I come bearing gifts.” She said, a small smile on her face. Paul felt his stomach drop. Just seeing her made everything swim in his head. His eyes cast around her face to the beautiful sprinkle of freckles dancing across the bridge of her nose to the strand of hair that fell in front of her perfectly tinted russet skin. Her amber eyes almost glittered and her full, ruby lips pulled open into a welcoming smile.
“Um, hey.” Paul mustered. She let out a light laugh and returned a “hey.”
His eyes fell to the stack of clothes in her hands. “I brought some clothes over for her. Thought she might need it, what with all the blood.”
“How’s Jacob?” Paul said. He could see the pain there on her face.
“Yeah, he’s okay. It’s going to take a bit for him to heal, but the doctor has him on a morphine drip to keep him comfortable. My human biology course isn’t really coming in handy as much as I thought it would considering the whole….wolf...thing.” Rachel paused to look Paul up and down. She’d been given a crash course in the pack’s secret once Paul had imprinted on her. He had also demanded that Sam let him tell her.
She held out the clothes in Paul’s silence, her warmth never leaving her voice. “Here. She’s only a little bit shorter than me, but these should fit.” Paul took the clothes, their hands brushing in the process. Rachel blushed and Paul tried to keep the heat from rising in his body.
“Thanks.” he said. Wow. So eloquent. Great job, Paul. Real smooth. You have seen a girl before you know? Idiot. The thoughts raced through his head.
“Okay, well. See you later!” she trilled before hopping down the steps, stumbling just a little in her overexcitement. Paul automatically took a step forward like he was going to help her but she held a hand up and laughed, heading toward her car.
Paul carried the glass of water and clothes back to his bedroom and kneeled by the bed where Grace sat with her head in her hands.
“Hey.” he gently said holding the glass out. She took it but it started to slip from her fingers. He placed his hand on top of hers and helped tip the glass so she could drink.
He set the half empty glass down next to the bed and held out the clothes to her. “Something to change into.” Grace gently folded her arms around the clothes and gave a soft ‘Thanks.’
Her head was still spinning and showing no signs of stopping. The ache was growing rather than subsiding and she felt an excruciating need to get out of here.
“Can you take me to Jake?” she said automatically, trying to listen to her body. Paul hesitated, his eyes staring at Grace, trying not to touch her.
“Yeah.” he whispered, pain apparent in his voice. Grace tried to focus on his face but he kept disappearing behind a blur making its way across her vision. “Can you stand?” he asked.
She hadn’t considered this. Her body felt weighted in a pain she’d never experienced before.
“Can you help?” she said as she winced and tried to pull herself up. Paul grabbed her easily, like he was meant for it, and took the weight off of her limbs as he pulled her into a standing position on the floor. He gently placed her on her feet, slowly letting her weight come down. She gripped his forearms for support and felt the blinding pain of standing on her own. Without meaning too, she let out a sharp cry of pain and a pitiful “Ow, ow, ow,” that triggered Paul to panic and lift her again.
“Okay, that’s not gonna work.” Paul said, “I don’t think we should move you yet.”
“Just help me get dressed,” Grace said, her labored breathing returning. Paul looked at her carefully and then nodded his head. Grace was flushed with embarrassment but didn’t see any other way. He gently removed the shirt he had changed her into before putting her and she shivered. Paul tried to keep his face straight. Looking at her now felt different and filled him with guilt. Grace didn’t even bother trying to cover her exposed chest before Paul pulled the University of Washington shirt over her head that Rachel had brought. He leaned down and Grace raised her leg to thread through the fitted matching sweats. He pulled them up around her hips and tightened the strings on them, tying it into a loose knot so they stayed put. He picked her up under her knees and took her to the car, stone faced, trying not to think about how warm her body felt in his arms.
When he pulled up to the Black residence, he could see some members of the pack filtering out of the house. He popped open his door and they came over to him.
“Is she okay?” Embry asked worried, his eyes pulled to where she sat, eyes closed, in the front seat.
“I’m not sure. Is the doc here?” Paul replied. Quil shook his head.
“He just left but we can get him back if you need.”
“Yeah, maybe. I need to get her inside, she’s been asking for Jake.”
Embry and Quil gave him a surprised look. He didn’t really want to deal with the barrage of questions. “Just go get the leech.” He said annoyed. They nodded at him wordlessly and were off, slowing to stare at Grace as they went past.
Paul grabbed her from the car gently and walked her into the tiny house. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with her, but when she murmured a sign of being awake, he gave an exhausted sigh and walked her toward the back of the house where Jake’s room was. When he pushed open the door, Sam was there. The tiny room didn’t afford for this many people but Grace was already awake and pulling out of his arms, reaching for the bed.
“Put me down,” she grumbled. Paul tentatively set her down, holding around her waist in case she fell. Grace looked hypnotized, her body reacting to seeing Jake’s motionless frame sprawled on the bed. His face was covered in a sheen of sweat and he was pulling in deep labored breaths that were raspy and tight.
“Doc said his lung collapsed but that it was healing. He had to reset all of the bones on the right side of his body because he healed too fast and they fused together unevenly.” Sam’s voice shot through with pain. Paul saw the guilt there—Sam thought it was his fault that Jake got hurt and thought he’d never forgive himself.
Grace, still entranced, pulled herself onto the bed next to Jake. She shimmied herself into the left side of his body that wasn’t wrapped up in gauze and buried her head in the crook of his neck. His left arm automatically circled around her waist and his breathing evened out some, the rasp cooling. Grace immediately felt the relief crash through both of them. Her pain ebbed and she let the gentle rise and fall of his chest lull her to sleep.
At some point later in the day Carlisle came in, but Grace floated in and out of consciousness as he took her vitals. He seemed perplexed by her state, muttering something about not being able to get a good read on anything since it was so inconsistent. Since he had limited knowledge on how their wolf bodies healed and even less knowledge on how Grace’s bodies interacted with theirs, he didn’t feel confident giving a determination or diagnosis.
Jacob was improving quickly and was able to be conscious for longer periods of time over the next day. He wouldn’t let anyone take Grace from him though, keeping his arm tightly around her as she struggled to pull in air through her throat. She seemed to be getting worse for some reason.
Sam spent most of his time sat in a chair in Jacob’s room or wandering up and down the short hallway, pulling at the nape of his neck. Emily was having a hard time getting him to eat.
“Should we get Ti’Hal?” she asked Sam at one point.
“Not yet.” Sam said, afraid of what she might say. But it became apparent that they’d need to call her in sooner than later when Grace stayed asleep for a solid 24 hours, the sounds in her chest starting to rattle. Jacob's lung was almost healed at this point.
When Ti’Hal shuffled into the small room, Jake was awake, his arm wound around Grace. He had slowly pulled her more and more on top of him in an attempt to bring her closer. Her body was now draped over the left side of his, her head in the center of his chest. Ti’Hal gave Jake a soft smile and put her hand to his cheek, closing her eyes.
“You’re healing well,” she acknowledged. He nodded but looked down at Grace, concern warping his features. “Ah.” she said, “But you’re not worried about you.” She moved to place her hand on Grace’s forehead and one on her back. Ti’Hal sat for awhile just listening to Grace.
“She’s healing,” she finally said. A domino of sighs could be heard in the living room where most of the pack had been milling about, listening intently. “But she’s healing you first,” Ti’Hal said definitively.
“What?” Jacob said surprised. “Why?”
“She’s healing him?” Sam said incredulously.
“First, she heals him and then herself. She protects, heals, defends, and connects. But you haven’t made it easy on her.” Ti’Hal suddenly said looking over her shoulder at Sam and then back to Jacob. She wasn’t accusatory, simply stating a fact. Something she understood better than them.
“We’re still figuring it out, Ti’Hal,” Sam said with some strain in his voice.
“Figure it out together. Or you’ll end up putting her in more danger,” she said sternly, closing her eyes once more to feel Grace and then taking her leave. “She should wake soon. I suggest you don’t move her and keep her close to Jacob so as not to interfere with the healing.” Sam nodded and helped her to the door where her granddaughter was waiting to ferry her back home.
“So we wait.” Jared said in the living room. Sam turned around and nodded.
“We wait.”
Paul stirred uncomfortably on the couch. Rachel was in the kitchen cooking them some food with the help of Emily. None of the pack wanted to be away from the Black residence or Grace for too long until they knew she was in the clear so they spent their afternoon and evening huddled in the small living room, eating and joking and watching TV or spilling out onto the lawn to kick around the soccer ball.
Word got out about “the accident” and the community showed up. Theo Merdra, the local carpenter even stopped by and made it a point to say he’d come and fix their sagging porch and install a proper wheelchair ramp for Billy. He even replaced a rusted rain gutter while he was there and had his son clean the debris from the roof.
Bella showed up every few hours to check on Jake and Grace and helped clean and cook. She brought over a duffel bag of clothes, a toothbrush, and toiletries for Grace for when she woke up knowing she’d need to shower. She asked Rachel to call her as soon as Grace was up so she could come and help.��
The Black residence was soon overrun with a massive amount of food, some of Sue’s friends came by and cleaned up the house. George Runnings fixed the wiring on the back of their fridge since it kept blinking on and off. Billy was overcome with emotion. Everyone who came through did their best to keep it down to ensure they didn’t disturb Jacob or Grace. Jacob was almost fully healed by the second day and only moved from her side to go to the bathroom.
Carlisle had stayed away to ensure he didn’t overstay his welcome with the community descending on the Black home. But he was itching to get back to monitor Grace. As the sun set on the second day, Grace’s eyes fluttered open.
“Hey,” Jacob said, cupping a hand to her face.
“I need to sit up,” she croaked.
“Okay, okay,” Jake said. He pulled his body up and rested it against the wall and then gently pulled Grace between his legs so her back rested against his chest. He looped his arms around her stomach and she leaned her head back onto his shoulder, winded by the sudden movement but breathing clearly.
“How do you feel?” Jacob whispered. Grace laid her hands on top of his and looked out the window at the people gathering around a makeshift bonfire in the twilight. Seth was kicking a ball around with Jared and Embry. The sounds of happy voices floated in through the window.
“Like shit.” Grace finally breathed. “But better. You?”
“Like new,” he said, kissing the side of her head. She closed her eyes at the warm feeling.
“How long have I been out?”
“Couple of days.”
“Mmm,” she replied, lazily sinking into Jacob’s embrace and turning her head to face into his neck. He rested his head lightly on top of hers and pulled her in a little closer, making sure she was tightly nestled into his body.
“Grace?” Jacob said softly.
“Mmm?” she replied again, starting to drift in and out.
“We really need a shower.” He laughed softly, his body shaking her some and her face cracked into a smile, starting to laugh too.
“Oh my god,” she mumbled. “Gross.” Tears sprang to Jacob’s eyes as he pressed another firm kiss to her forehead. He was so happy she was awake, she was alive, and she was here. The thought of losing her in that clearing suddenly washed over him and he squeezed her ever so slightly.
“You okay?” Grace muttered sleepily, her hand coming to gently rest on his cheek where she felt the clear damp of tears on his face.
“Fine. You just smell...really really bad. It’s making my eyes water.” he joked, letting out a choked laugh.
“Nice one,” she breathed before drifting off to sleep.
Late that evening, Grace was feeling good enough to get up. With Jake behind her, she stood on her own two feet and only winced a couple of times before standing upright. She stretched her neck around and shook out the pain in her hands. Rachel was in the doorway of the room supervising.
“I’ll call Bella,” she said and disappeared into the kitchen. Grace made her way slowly into the hallway toward the living room. Leah was there, biting her thumb and when she saw Grace come into the room and shot to her feet.
“Grace, I’m so so sorry,” she said. She’d been holding in her guilt for the past three days. Grace waved her off and said,
“Leah, it’s fine. Are you okay?” Leah nearly crumbled at this question and nodded her head quickly. “Good.” Grace paused for a second and then looked dejectedly at her feet, “I really have to pee.” Leah bounded over as an uncertain look crossed Jake’s face.
“I got it.” she said and led Grace to the bathroom.
“Bella should be here in 15. Leah, fill up the tub while you’re in there.” Rachel called. Total mom-mode. She hugged Jacob and confirmed that he indeed did smell.
“I’ll wait until Grace is done,” he said. “Got some grub?” Rachel smiled and opened the stuffed fridge. “Woah.” he said.
“Take your pick. Or you can wait. I’m making mom’s homemade lasagna,” She smiled at him and he felt so glad that she was home again. Just then the pack spilled through the open door elated and pulled Jacob into a group hug.
“You’re alive!” Seth cried.
“Thought you were a goner for sure.” Quil said.
“Yeah, what took you so long?” Embry said.
“Jeez Jake, way to hog all the healing for yourself,” Jared jabbed. Sam came through the door and looked to Jake.
“She okay?” The worry was still there.
“Yeah, she’s in the bathroom with Leah,” Jake said, giving him a reassuring smile. Sam nodded, relief pulling down across his shoulders.
“Who’s hungry?” Rachel said, pulling out some freshly baked lasagna. Bella arrived, taking a second to hug Jake tightly before saying, “Where is she?”
“Bathroom,” multiple voices answered her before Jake could even open his mouth.
“Okay,” she said, her face looked flushed as she headed down the hall. She knocked on the door, announcing her presence before pushing it open. Leah came out a few seconds later and gathered around the table with the others.
“God, I haven’t heard someone pee for that long in my entire life.”
There was a chorus of ‘Ewws’ and ‘I’m eating’ and ‘When you gotta go you gotta go’ followed by laughter around the table as the group dug into the food.
#twilight fanfiction#twilightfanfic#twilight#new moon#eclipse#jacobblackxoc#jacobblack#jacobxoc#paul lahote#edward cullen#bella swan#the cullens#the pack#chapter 26#a monster lives here
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Chapter 16: Collide
Grace left before rounds started that evening. Jake was nowhere in sight, but she didn’t feel like waiting around for him to find out she and Paul had kissed. Sam gave her a hug before she left which was very out of character for him.
“What was that for?” she had said to him.
“For today. I felt what you did, we all did. So thank you.” Sam had replied.
“You’re welcome.” she had smiled, completely grateful for this moment. Paul had hugged her tightly and whispered that he’d see her tomorrow in her ear before kissing the top of her head and releasing her to Charlie. She felt light, buoyant.
But when they pulled up to a still dark house, the sinking realization filled them both—Bella still wasn’t back. Grace automatically checked her cell for texts, but there was nothing.
“Come on, Bells,” Grace muttered under her breath. Charlie stared at the dark house for a little too long while clutching the steering wheel tightly. “She’ll be back soon Charlie.”
When she got up to her room to change, her phone beeped. She checked it anxiously. When Jake’s name popped up on the text, she hesitated opening it.
SMS Text— 9:52 p.m: Jake
I’m so sorry, Grace.
Let me know when you want to talk.
She clapped her phone shut and chewed on her thumb nail, distracted. Then she shook her head, quickly undressed, and went to sleep before she could make a hasty decision.
-----
The next morning, Grace got up for school and headed out the door before Charlie had even come out of his bedroom. She left a note saying she went to school early to catch up on some homework and worried that the process of finding a note might traumatize him further.
When she pulled up to the empty parking lot and made her way to the school’s library that was usually opened early for students, she heard her phone beep again. Flipping it open, she was happy to see that it was a text from Paul:
SMS Text— 6:32 a.m.: Paul
Good morning.
SMS Text—6:33 a.m.: Grace
Hey, good morning :)
SMS Text—6:33 a.m.: Paul
Sleep okay?
SMS Text—6:34 a.m.: Grace
For the most part, yeah.
Bella still isn’t back so that’s scary.
You?
SMS Text—6:34 a.m.: Paul
I was up doing rounds for most of the night.
We’ll keep an eye out for her and I’ll call you if we get wind of her showing up.
SMS Text—6:36 a.m.: Grace
Thanks Paul. I really appreciate it.
I’m gonna get caught up on some homework, but can I text you later?
SMS Text—6:37 a.m.: Paul
Not if I don’t text you first.
Have a good day <3
That morning during her classes, Grace tried to pay attention as much as possible to keep her mind off of Bella and off of...Jake. Everytime she thought of him the ache grew a little larger. She flipped open her phone during AP Chem and looked at the message he had sent to her last night.
I’m so sorry, Grace.
Let me know when you want to talk.
Did that offer still stand now that he probably knew she and Paul had kissed? Her fingers hovered over the keys to type a response but she opted to shut her phone and dig into her lab report instead with a huff. Seeing as her lab partner had been conveniently absent for 7 months and her teacher hadn’t offered to replace him, Grace had to work twice as hard to keep up.
As the bell for lunch rang and Grace packed up her things, she heard her cell phone ring. Paul. Grace’s eyes went wide as she stared at his name for a half second and frantically answered it, rushing out into the hallway among the throng of other students.
“Paul?”
“Grace, she’s back. The Cullens are back on their property and she’s on her way back home from the airport. The leech is with her.” Paul said scathingly.
“Okay, I’m on my way.” Grace shouldered her backpack and turned to move towards the front doors.
“I’m in the parking lot. I’ll take you. I don’t feel comfortable leaving you there alone.” Paul said with an edge in his voice. She didn’t have time to argue and his forerunner would be faster than the truck anyway.
“Okay, I’ll be to you in just a second. Thanks Paul.” She shut her phone and started jogging toward the front door, pulling her hood up to protect against the downpour of rain that had started. She skipped down the steps and landed too quickly in a deep puddle, causing her to slip and reach for the railing to catch herself. Paul jogged around his car, laughing and scooped her up, planting a short kiss on her lips that made her laugh a little too.
“Try to tone down the x-games mode, will you? I need you in one piece,” he guided her toward the car and opened the door for her to slide in. When she was safely inside, she pulled down her hood and shook off the excess rain. So much for catching up on schoolwork.
“Thanks for coming to get me,” Grace said a little breathless as Paul jumped into the driver’s seat and started them off toward her house.
“I wasn’t going to let you go alone,” Paul said decidedly.
“Right, but you can’t come inside, Paul.” Grace retorted.
“We’ll see about that,” his voice was even, another edge.
“Paul, I’m serious. It will only cause conflict and I’m sure there’s enough going on at the house. Edward isn’t going to do anything, especially not with Charlie there. I need you to wait in the car.” she stated this simply, sure of herself and glanced to Paul. His jaw was clenched and he was chewing the inside of his cheek.
“Paul?” Grace tested.
“I got it.” he said through gritted teeth. Grace sighed and leaned back against her seat watching the rain pour in sheets. When he pulled up to her house she turned to him.
“I’ll be okay, really. Hang out here and I’ll text you, okay?” Paul only nodded, his eyes flickering toward the house.
Grace pushed open the passenger door and sprinted toward her front door. When she opened it, she heard Charlie’s voice right away.
“—this again?!”
“Charlie, I think she needs to lie down.” Edward said calmly. Grace rounded the corner as she saw Charlie raise his finger at Edward and start toward him.
“Woah!” Grace said as she stepped between Charlie and Edward who was holding up a deliriously tired Bella.
“DON’T YOU TELL ME ANYTHING. You took her away AGAIN!” Charlie moved his finger from Edward to Bella.
“I understand, Mr. Swan,” Edward said reverting to fatherly respect, “And I’m happy to hear what you have to say about myself and my character, but right now I think it’s very important I get Bella to bed.”
“Dad,” Bella groaned.
“Whats wrong with her?!” Charlie cried out.
“Okay, Charlie, I think she’s honestly just tired. She’s home, that’s what matters,” Grace said. Edward took this as a cue to start moving Bella toward the stairs.
“Not YOU!” Charlie bellowed. Bella moaned and Grace flinched.
“Oooookay, I’ll do it.” Grace went over to Bella and gently moved her arm under her left shoulder to transfer her weight onto her. Edward looked at her skeptically but let her so as to reduce Charlie’s wrath. Grace clutched Bella’s wrist to help leverage her up the stairs. “Jesus, Bells.” Grace muttered as they slowly moved up the stairs. Charlie was right behind them, ferrying them up the stairs in case they stumbled. Grace got Bella into her bed and covered her up, pulling off her shoes and socks to make her more comfortable.
When she turned around, Charlie was standing in the doorway, his face pulled with worry.
“She’s here. She’s not going anywhere, at least not right now Charlie. She’s okay.” Grace offered. She didn’t know if that was entirely true but she needed to offer it as consolation to Charlie anyway. At least it would hopefully help to keep Charlie from completely flaying Edward.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Edward was in the hallway, a full look of surrender on his face. Grace gazed at him critically. His black eyes were circled with dark purple bruises. His pale skin practically glowed in the late spring light.
Charlie let out an exasperated huff and Grace crossed her arms, motioning to the living room. Edward turned to move back into the living room but Charlie interjected.
“No.” Grace looked up at him in surprise. “You get out.” Oh, that makes sense. Grace thought. “You get out. You’re not allowed to step foot in through that front door ever again, do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Edward said simply.
“And don’t sir me! You’re done mister. I’m not letting Bella anywhere near you either. She’s grounded for the rest of her life.” Charlie continued.
“Charlie,” Grace sighed.
“She’s eighteen, sir” Edward quipped. Grace’s eyes shot up to Edward, bewildered.
“Damn, you really said that,” Grace said some what impressed and somewhat disturbed.
“OUT!” Charlie bellowed.
“Charlie, keep your voice down, you’re going to wake up Bella,” Grace said as she crossed to the door and opened it for Edward. It quickly moved across the room and out the door. Something to Grace he’d be back. As she watched him move tensely toward his car, her eyes met with Paul’s. He was leaning against the driver side door of Edward’s Volvo, arms crossed. Edward stopped halfway on the lawn and glared at him.
“Can I leave?” Edward held out his hand toward his car.
“Sure, dude.” Paul said. Pushing himself up off his car and moving toward the stairs to the porch to Grace. Edward got in his car and sped away.
“See, totally fine,” Grace said sarcastically throwing her hands up in the air.
“Right,” Paul said, a smile on his face. “Can I leave my car here? I need to run quick and let Sam know what happened.”
“Yeah, of course. I should stay here with Bella anyway. Make sure Charlie cools off and doesn’t grab his shotgun and go after him.” Grace put her hands on her hips and let out a light laugh.
Paul climbed the two steps to meet her face and gave her a warm, long kiss. Her hands automatically moved up to cup his face and his hands gripped her waist. When he pulled back he glanced over toward the trees to the sound of a light growl.
“Gotta go,” he smiled and kissed the tip of her nose, taking off toward the woods. Grace sighed and held a hand to her forehead before turning around and trudging back into the house.
Charlie was in the kitchen standing in front of the fridge and aggressively drinking a beer. Grace grabbed her backpack from the door and climbed the stairs and walked into their room and felt a coldness rush through her. At first, she was startled and then she realized what it was.
“Edward, I know you can hear me,” Grace said dully. She dropped her bag on her desk and started digging in it for her homework. Another rush and he reappeared by Bella’s window.
“It’s fine, but I expect you to at least tell me what happened.”
“That might be a little complicated,” he responded, gently sitting on Bella’s bed and running a hand across her face.
“The cliff notes version then,” Grace said as she plopped on the edge of her bed and popped open her Chem book.
“Does this run in the family then?” Edward asked, evading her request for now.
“What? Being incredibly good looking and perceptive?”
“No. Blocking me out so I can’t hear what you’re thinking.” Edward said nonchalantly. Grace dropped her pencil.
“Wait. You can read minds?!”
“I thought you said you knew!” Edward whispered back incredulous.
“Oh my god,” Grace said, picking up her pencil again and writing out an answer on her chem lab worksheet. “So, wait you can’t hear what I’m thinking?”
“Sort of, I can hear feelings with you, similar to Charlie. Though if I concentrate hard enough I can hear him more clearly, but never full sentences. I could feel what you meant when you said you knew I was here. An understanding.”
“Hmm.” Grace responded still trying to be interested in her worksheet. Her head was reeling and she was glad he couldn’t hear her thoughts. Edward waited for a beat, his eyes trained on her and then followed up with:
“Hmmm? Is that all?”
“I’m waiting on you to tell me what happened.” Grace pointed her pencil tip toward Bella, “And to figure out why my cousin is so exhausted that she could barely stand after coming and looking for you.”
Edward watched her for a full minute, weighing his options and then began to tell the story. About how and why he left, looking down at Bella painfully when he explained, him thinking Bella dead when Jacob answered the phone and said Charlie was planning a funeral, the despair he felt when he thought Bella was dead because of him, and his decision to see the Volturi to end his life.
At some point during his explanation, Grace had set her pencil down to watch him intently.
“And Bella came to save me. From myself. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead.” Edward finished. His eyes jumped to their bedroom door suddenly and with another rush, he was gone. Charlie opened it a second later and stuck his head in, his eyes looking for Bella.
“She’s still sleeping. I think she’s gonna be out for awhile.” Grace said trying to cover dead air.
“Right,” Charlie looked from Bella to Grace a couple of times and then said, “Did you skip school?”
“What? No! I mean...I came home early because I heard Bella was home and I wanted to see her.” Grace said tapping her pencil against her textbook. “I’ll keep an eye on her, I promise. I just really need to get this homework done.”
“Okay. I’ll pick up dinner.”
“No, I can make something later, it’s fine.” Grace responded. Charlie nodded and took one more look at Bella before closing the door and going downstairs. When Grace looked back over at Bella, Edward was there again.
Grace turned back to her work even though she was dying to know more. After about 15 minutes, Edward piped up again.
“How bad was she?” Pained was etched clearly in his voice. Grace looked up suddenly. She swallowed hard and nodded her head looking down again.
“Not great,” she said, trying to spare him.
“Tell me,” he pressed. Grace sighed, and looked up at him. His eyes were on her now.
“Really bad. She barely talked, ate, or moved for three months. Then she took to jumping off cliffs and running around on motorcycles for the thrill of it. She almost drowned. I didn’t see her smile for five months. So, you can see why maybe Charlie isn’t thrilled to see you again.” Grace said a little annoyed.
“I’m sorry, Grace,” Edward said sincerely. Her eyes checked him for any malice, any danger and still there was nothing. She shivered at what she thought was something forming between them: an alliance, an understanding as he put it.
“Apology accepted. But you could at least help me with this Chem work that you’ve skipped out on for nearly eight months,” she held up her lab and shook it at him. He laughed and in a blink he was standing in front of her bed, reaching for the paper.
For the next hour or two, he helped her study and complete her backlog of homework. He sat cross legged on the floor while she perched up on her bed. Bella still slept soundly as they worked quietly, making light jokes to one another. Grace could see why Bella liked him. Once he let the impenetrable wall facade down, he became easy to talk to. Relaxing in his company became second nature.
At one point, Grace’s phone buzzed once, twice, three times. Exasperated, she picked it up and mumbled an apology to open the flood of texts in her inbox.
SMS Text—5:01 p.m.: Paul
Is he still there?
Grace, answer me.
I need to know you’re safe.
SMS Text—5:03 p.m.: Sam
Is Bella alright?
Remember, you’re under specific orders not to share the pack’s existence to anyone.
That includes “friendly” vampires.
Call me.
Grace clapped her phone shut and shook her head at the messages. One thing at a time. Edward posed no threat and she hadn’t shared pack business with him so everything was fine.
“I got to go make dinner downstairs, are you going to be okay up here with her?” Grace said and then caught herself, “Of course you are, stupid question. I’ll be back.”
She left her phone on her bed and quickly went downstairs to start dinner. When Charlie was fed and she took a couple bites of spaghetti, she whisked back upstairs, half expecting them to both be gone. She was relieved to see Bella was still asleep and Edward was sitting on the edge of her bed at a picture in his hand.
“Your phone buzzed more while you were gone,” Edward said quietly. Grace let out a groan and checked her phone again.
SMS Text—5:22 p.m.: Paul
I’m coming to get you if you don’t answer me Grace.
You’re not safe with him there.
SMS Text—5:28 p.m.: Quil
Paul’s freaking Grace, can you text or call him?
Sam’s going to send out a patrol soon if you don’t answer.
“He wouldnt,” Grace whispered annoyed under her breath.
SMS Text—6:12: Sam
We’re having trouble keeping tabs on Paul.
I’m about to give the green light on patrol around your house.
Don’t make us blow our cover.
“Jesus,” Grace said and frantically typed to Sam:
SMS Text—6:33 p.m.: Grace
Everything is absolutely fine. I’ve been doing homework up in my room all afternoon and just got done with dinner with Charlie.
Chill out. No one’s making you blow anything.
“Except yourself,” Grace muttered. Then to Paul she wrote:
SMS Text—6:33 p.m.: Grace
I need you to chill and take a deep breath.
I’m 100% fine. He is still here. Nothing is happening.
I’m doing homework. I’ll call you tomorrow.
Please just relax.
<3
She realized belatedly that she threw that heart emoji in as an afterthought and it didn’t sit well with her.
“Everything okay?” Edward asked.
“Just getting hounded,” Grace shook her phone and threw it on her bed, laying back with a huff. She got back to work, sitting at her desk this time and typing up an English paper she’d been putting off.
Around midnight, just as Grace was wrapping up her homework, Bella began to stir. She stood up frantically and stayed by the desk. Edward was leaning over her, trying to console her. Grace couldn’t hear much between their mumbled conversation except that Bella thought this was all a dream.
“The Volturi, they don’t have a great concept of time. To them, soon could mean decades. You’re safe and we don’t have to rush anything.” Edward placated her.
“No.” Bella said. She suddenly got up stumbling to get her shoes on. Grace helped her as she almost fell into things.
“Bells, where are you going, it’s midnight.” Grace asked. Edward was on his feet trying to get Bella back to bed.
“I want to talk to Carlisle.” Bella said, a little clearer now as she pulled on her jacket.
“Bella, please,” Edward said trying to tug her back to bed.
“No! Edward. This is what I want and I don’t want there to be a chance of you leaving again. I’m going. Come if you want, or not.” Bella said firmly. Edward looked to Grace for help. Grace was currently blocking Bella’s exit.
“Grace move.” Bella said. “I need to do this.” Grace considered this for a moment looking from Bella to Edward.
“Then I’m coming with you this time. No more secrets.” Grace extended her hand to Bella and for just a moment, Bella hesitated. Then her eyes seemed to color in recognition and she smiled, nodding.
“Okay.” Bella acknowledged.
“Uh, just one thing. The truck is in the school parking lot. Paul picked me up.” Grace countered.
Bella quickly turned to Edward and held her hand expectantly for the keys. “Edward?” He looked at her for a moment, rolled his eyes almost imperceptibly when he realized she wouldn’t stop and said, “Fine, but I’m driving.”
So, she was walking into the vampire’s den. The pack would be floored when they realized. She just hoped she wouldn’t start a war over this. With Bella’s hand in hers, she snuck easily down the stairs. And in the cool night air, they felt cloaked in the knowledge that somehow, despite the chaos of destinies colliding at this very moment around them, they’d be okay as long as they held onto each other.
#twilight fanfiction#twilightfanfic#jacobblackxoc#jacob black#bella swan#edward cullen#the cullens#new moon#twilight#chapter 16#a monster lives here#the pack#paul lahote#sam uley#quil ateara#Twilight FanFic
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Chapter 8: Push and Pull
February
“Again!” a booming voice echoed somewhere in the trees. Grace tried to focus clearly on the sound, tuning out the high pitched birdsong, crashing sound of leaves rustling against one another, the boom of a pack of deer nearby scattering, the overwhelming thud and drag of the waves just off the cliff, and each tiny pinprick of insect feet crawling in and around the dirt for miles.
When her senses were tuned in like this, it became hard to block everything else out. Every sound was dialed up to eleven and she would feel her heart start to race as her ears tried to pick up the one sound she was meant to find.
Searching for a pulse was out, there was too much life around her. So she switched her mindset, she tried to listen for the distinct breath of the wolves. Their human breath trying to mingle with the intense, aggressive huffing of their wolf breath that was simultaneously trying to smell, breath, and cool. She could hear that sound and then she tried to envision the wolf behind it.
Once she made out the shape of Paul’s wolf form down to his shoulders outlining around her through the trees, she opened her eyes and felt that familiar pull--a feeling that she had come to know very well over the past 6 weeks.
Grace’s life had taken a unique turn after she had ended up in the woods with Ti’Hal unexpectedly after visiting Sam’s. Elder Ti’Hal had told her she was the spirit bird. While Grace wasn’t exactly sure what she had meant at the time, something inside her had clicked into place. Ti’Hal had advised her, no rather begged her, not to avoid Sam any longer and let the pull of whatever was happening to spill through her. She promised that Grace would feel so much better.
And she did. Surprisingly, once she stopped avoiding the pull of Sam, the reservation, and her people, the old anxiety and tugging in her ceased. She was filled with warmth and felt the most secure she’d ever felt since her father died. Around Sam especially.
After she had returned to Sam’s. She had nodded in acknowledgement as she crossed the threshold of the home and sunk back into the chair at the kitchen table exhausted.
“So, what now?” she had asked. Sam had given her a knowing smile and took her into the forest. It was there that he revealed to her his wolf form and had called out to Jared and Paul to join him. Grace would have been overwhelmed at the sight of this had she not just recast her body through the woods and been washed with immense understanding that something deeper, the legends, the histories, all of it, ran through her and them.
She had taken a moment to admire their form before looking at Sam expectantly. He had hesitated for a moment, seeming to look around at his brothers before taking a step forward and towering over her. Grace had stumbled back in a fleeting moment of sheer panic by the meer size of him. But to this, Sam just stood tall looking down at her, his eyes intent on something.
And then, she heard a faint echo at the back of her head. A voice. Sam’s voice, but it was too hard to hear. She turned around expecting to see him behind her even though she knew he was in front of her. Sam shook out his body as if squaring up to concentrate and tried again.
This time the voice had been louder, but still far away.
“Sam?” Grace said out loud, her face screwed up in confusion. Sam seemed to acknowledge something. “Wait, say that again.” Grace said, staring at him. She tried to focus on the sound of the voice, far away as it was, she could feel herself seeking it out, like running down paths in a dense wood, with precarious twists and turns, she looked for the voice that was somewhere out there, but also in her. She shook her head in frustration.
“Again.” She said in a small, unsure voice.
Paul and Jared walked up to flank Sam, seeming to join him. The voice grew, but only marginally so. She could hear a faint echo of his voice now in different tenors ringing out. But when she chased it, they scattered like fireflies pushing out and away from her.
She exhaled without realizing she had been holding her breath. Sam took another step toward her. She felt reassured this time rather than intimidated by his form and nodded at him in confirmation.
“Again.” she said clearer this time.
Now standing in the forest, feeling her body pull and crush around her, she tried to focus on sound again, but this time it wasn’t voices. She was trying to sense where they were without them having to actively call out to her.
After six weeks of what Grace could only describe as training, she was able to clearly hear Sam’s voice, even if it did seem muffled sometimes, and was able to faintly hear the echo of Jared and Paul’s voices in her head when they called out to her.
Recasting felt like a warming of her blood. Something that felt natural but that took an exceeding amount of effort. Depending on the distance she went when she recast was how exhausted she felt afterwards. When she traveled a short distance, like from one side of the street to the other, it felt like nothing-- a quick blip. When she recast across stretches of forest, she was gasping for air like she’d just run a marathon.
Sam and Ti’Hal had reassured her that it would just take practice, her stamina would build as she continued to train, and when she and Sam finally fell into step with one another, recasting would feel second nature. Grace had been wary of this, even though she desperately hoped it was true.
When she felt her body dissipate around her, she focused on where the sound of the breathing was coming from. Hurtling toward it in her mind and then when she recast and reappeared she looked around her hurriedly. Paul was about half a mile away from her through a clearing in the trees she could see. She let out a groan and threw her head back. “Come on!” She had overshot her target by a half a mile.
“Come back. Try it again,” Sam had said. He never grew tired or angry or frustrated with her while she did this. She was starting to suspect it was because he didn’t really know how to guide or help her tune into this power. Even Ti’Hal was only able to offer theoretical perspectives of how to master this.
Grace envisioned her starting point and recast. She reappeared down the hill leading up to the cliff face.
As she attempted and again and again, she got gradually closer to Paul as he changed locations in the forest each time. But as she continued, she got more and more tired until finally, when Sam called her back to her starting position, she lost focus, and overshot the cliff, recasting a quarter of a mile out into open water. As she fell from the height of her anticipated starting point into the water, she loudly cursed before twisting her body midair to land in the water without hurting herself. Unintentional cliff diving was not the goal and she was really hoping not to get soaking wet today.
When she surfaced, she looked up to the cliff face and saw Sam standing, arms by his side. With a huge crash to his left, she saw Jared’s human form surface and make his way toward her.
When Jared approached her with a broad smile, she rolled her eyes.
“He said we’re done for the day.” Jared commented as Grace wrapped her hands around his neck, resting on his back and kicking her legs to help propel them through the water.
“Finally.” Grace breathed defeated.
“You’ll get the hang of it, don’t worry.” Jared reassured her.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Just relax. I got this.” he swam with earnest now and Grace wallowed in her defeat.
-----
When she got home, Grace could barely keep her eyes open. Paul had dropped her off since she didn’t have the truck. Grace didn’t think it was fair to hog the truck since she was down at the reservation nearly every day for hours.
“Is that you?” Charlie called from the living room.
“Yeah,” Grace said.
“Picked up some dinner. Bella’s not back yet. It’s on the counter if you’re hungry.” Charlie replied. Grace sighed in relief.
Bella not being home these days was common. Between working at Newton’s and school, she made herself pretty scarce. While Grace was like the walking dead at home, she did have enough observation left in her to see that Bella had really perked up. She seemed happier, brighter. Maybe she was finally getting over Edward. This filled Grace with relief but she still missed seeing her regularly.
Bella would usually creep back home late after Grace had gone to bed. She had no idea how she was keeping up on her schoolwork, but whatever she was doing was working and Grace was happy for her.
Grace also noticed that Jake had stopped trying to get into contact with her. For this she was somewhat grateful. She didn’t know how to explain what was happening to her but also what might be happening to him. Sam had told her that it was inevitable that more of the tribe would begin to phase, but he just didn’t know how many or when. With vampires still making their way in and around Forks, it didn’t seem like it would ever stop. And Grace felt this immense pressure to protect them all.
-----
When Grace collapsed into her seat at their shared lunch table with their group of friends, they looked at her expectantly. It took her a minute and she looked at each pair of eyes staring back at her.
“What?” she said confused.
“Hey.” Bella said. Grace hadn’t realized that Bella had been sitting in the chair a couple of spaces down from her.
“Oh hey!” This was a surprise. Bella hadn’t sat with them in months--not since the incident. Grace had tried and failed multiple times to sit with her in an isolated table by the windows, not wanting her to be alone in her grief, but every time, Bella had asked her to leave. After the tenth time, Grace would sit at the table with Angela, Jessica, and the others and glance over at Bella now and then. So Bella sitting with them now was a huge step and the group was looking to Grace for a clue as to why, but Grace decided she was just going to act normal.
“Did you get that paper back from McCarty today in AP Lit?” Grace asked Bella nonchalantly. She could see relief wash over Bella’s face as she responded back.
“No, not yet. He said tomorrow.” To this everyone descended back into conversation, excitedly asking Bella questions and talking amongst themselves as normal. Halfway through lunch, Grace was startled then when Bella looked around the group and said:
“Hey, did you guys want to go see a Face Punch?” a pained look on her face subsided when everyone agreed, “Grace?” Bella asked her pointedly. Grace hesitated.
“Oh yeah, I mean sure! Sounds good.” She smiled. A night off might be nice, away from the monsters and the myths.
Bella nodded and smiled at her, grateful.
------
Bella clipped her phone shut as Grace pulled into the parking lot of the movie theater in Port Angeles.
“Who was that?” Grace asked.
“Angela. She has the stomach flu and Eric’s staying to take care of her.”
“Oh no, that sucks.” Grace said. “That makes just us three then, right? Because Jessica and Rachel bailed too, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Bella said dismissively as she hopped down from the truck.
“Does Mike still have a thing for you?” Grace teased, bumping playfully into Bella as they rounded the corner to the theater.
“I hope not.” Bella breathed. She looked up from the pavement and her eyes lit up. Happy, Grace thought. She smiled at her happiness, not looking ahead to what made her react so.
“Hey!” Bella called out with a smile, “Jake!”
Grace froze. Her gaze shot from Bella to the towering form at the end of the sidewalk, standing off to the side of the ticket window.
Bella practically launched herself into his arms and he caught her, closing his eyes and smiling, his broad hands wrapping around her and holding her tightly. Grace slowly walked up to the pair, feeling bristled for a reason she couldn’t pinpoint. Jacob looked over Bella, in fact he was even taller than the last time Grace saw him, so much so that almost knocked her breath from her.
A different look colored Jake’s face, one that made Grace almost stumble in surprise. He looked disappointed to see her. Pain pulsed in her stomach and she tried to pull her grimace into a grin.
“Hey.” Grace said quietly, her hands shoved in her jacket pocket. He gave her a curt nod and said:
“Hey, long time no see.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, I’ve been-”
“Busy. Yeah, I got it.” Jacob cut her off. This hurt way more than Grace was expecting.
“Come on, there’s Mike.” Bella gestured to them both, trying to ease the tension. Grace felt irritated all at once at Bella. Irritated that she didn’t tell her Jake would be here, and irritated that she seemed to be so close to Jake now when before they were just distant childhood acquaintances. What was this?
Jacob turned and followed Bella quickly, leaving Grace standing on her own on the curb. Grace tilted her head back and groaned softly at the sky before walking reluctantly forward.
So much for her night off.
When they approached Mike, Bella caught him and Jacob up to speed with the recent change to their party.
“So, I guess it’s just us.” Bella shrugged.
“Great!” Mike said. The look on his face screamed double date. This made Jacob shift uncomfortably and Grace try to hide the blush rising in her cheeks.
Once they got the tickets and headed inside the theater with their popcorn, the awkward tussle of who sat where began. After much shuffling and Bella switching spots multiple times at the request of Mike, then Jacob, then Mike again, Bella settled on a spot in between Mike and Jacob. At the prompting of Bella, Grace reluctantly sat in the seat next to Jacob. He immediately tried to shift his massive, broad frame away from her and leaned toward Bella’s seat. The pain in Grace’s stomach grew and she fought back an immense sense of sadness rising in her.
At one point during the movie, Grace, who couldn’t help her eyes from moving to Jacob’s face every 10 minutes, saw that his hand was awkwardly placed on the arm rest next to Bella, with the palm facing up.
Was he hoping Bella would hold his hand? A new realization dawned on her.
Were they a thing? Were they dating? When did this happen? How did this happen?!
The questions rose in volume in her head and her face got hot. Why did she even care? She didn’t want to answer that question posed to no one.
She did a double take and saw that Mike was trying to shoot his shot as well with his hand in the exact same position. Grace rolled her eyes and sunk down into her seat crossing her arms. At least it seemed that Bella wasn’t having any of it. She had gone as far as to sit on both of her hands to avoid any accidental hand grazing. Grace couldn’t wait for the movie to end.
During one of the intense final action scenes of the movie, Mike sprang up and ran from the theater. Jacob chuckled and settled back into his seat, but Bella got up to go after him and make sure he was okay. Jacob, not pleased with this development, glanced back once at Grace with little to no emotion she could perceive and got up and went after Bella.
Grace hesitated to follow. Was she going to be the girl that followed the guy who followed the other girl out of a dark movie theater? She sat for five minutes and then huffed. Yes, yes she was.
When she made it to the hallway she didn’t see any of them around. Shoving her hands into her jacket pocket, she quietly walked down the empty movie theater hall until she heard Jacob and Bella’s voices around the corner. She paused. They were having a quiet, seemingly intimate conversation. Grace looked behind her and took one step forward, not meaning to eavesdrop but not able to tear herself away. The familiar tug was pulling her forward and she decided to listen to it this time.
She could just catch the end of Jacob’s sentence: “...hold your hand?”
“You’re about to ruin everything.” She heard Bella say in an almost half whisper. “And I don’t want to lose you.”
So maybe they were together. Grace let her face fall.
“Well, I got loads of time. And I’m not giving up.” Jacob replied. Bella took a minute to respond.
“I don’t want you too. But it’s just because I don’t want you to go anywhere,” she choked out, “It’s selfish, I know, but….I’m not like a car that can be fixed up. I’m never gonna run right. So I should be fair to you.”
“It’s because of him right?” Jacob said softly. Grace was surprised at that. “Look, I know what he did to you, but I would never, ever do that to you Bella. I promise. I won’t let you down.”
There was a silence and then a small, whispered, “Jake.”
Then, Mike Newton stumbled out of the bathroom behind Grace, blowing up her spot.
“Hey are you okay? You look really sick,” Grace couldn’t help saying, announcing her presence. Jacob and Bella came out from around the corner, Bella seemingly wiping a tear from her eye and trying to look normal. Grace tried not to look at them. Jacob’s mouth was set in a hard line.
“I think I need to go home.” He croaked. Jacob rolled his eyes and exhaled a frustrated breath. Mike looked at him aghast.
“Dude what’s your problem?” Mike said.
“You’re my problem.” Jacob measured him with a fierce stare.
“What the hell?” Grace said her face screwed up in confusion.
“Feeling sick?” Jacob jabbed.
“Dude, stop.” Mike took a step back as Jacob walked toward him.
“Maybe you should go to the hospital.” He shoved Mike a few steps back and to this Bella grabbed his upper arm and Grace threw herself between Mike and Jake.
“Knock it off Jake!” Grace said.
“Yeah, movie’s over Jake, come on,” Bella tried to tug at his arm but he wasn’t having it.
“Do you want me to put you in the hospital?” Jake’s face looked different, the anger seeping through him was unfamiliar to his usually warm, and kind features.
“Woah!” Bella stumbled forward as Jake tried to lunge for Mike again. Grace put a forceful hand on his chest and with almost all of her strength, sans power, she pushed him back a little.
“Jake STOP!” Grace yelled now.
“Jake, you’re like really hot,” Bella pulled her hand back and both Grace and Mike looked at her incredulously. Really? Was now the time? “No, I mean, like you’re burning up. Like you have a fever.”
Jake didn’t respond and just looked down at Grace who still had her hand held up in front of Jake at chest height.
“And you.” he seethed. Grace braced for it. She could see now what was happening.
“Jacob, listen to me,” she tried to soothe.
“You just disappear? Think you can just show back up and that I wouldn’t have noticed? What are you playing at huh?”
“I’m not playing at anything Jake, I think you need to go home. I’ll come with you,” Grace took a step forward and reached for him but he grabbed her wrist, a little too hard if she was being honest. Mike took a weak step forward.
“Don’t come near me,” he stated, resolute, painfully, almost cruel. Grace let out a little gasp as he squeezed her wrist as a warning and dropped her hand forcefully. Bella, wide eyed, had taken a step back, not sure how to intervene. Jacob turned and walked off, mumbling an apology to Bella as she passed. Grace cradled her red ringed wrist as she watched Jacob’s form disappear out the glass doors of the theater.
Everything in her was pulling her toward Jacob, but she refused to follow. This time, she wouldn’t listen. It hurt too much.
#twilight#twilightfanfiction#fanfic#jacobblack#jacob black#jacobblackxoc#new moon#chapter 8#a monster lives here#bella swan#the cullens#edward cullen#the pack
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Chapter 25: Clear
Grace had no idea how or when she made it home. The rest of the day was a blur or spent unconscious or spent recasting to the stupid, same old place in the middle of the forest.
The next conscious moment she recalled with clarity was waking up in her bed to muffled voices: Edward and Bella. The last thing she clearly heard was Bella saying “—tried everything! He’s not answering.” before Edward gently hushed her indicating that Grace was awake.
She knew they were talking about her but didn’t care and as she drifted off back to sleep, she heard Edward mutter, “We’ll find him.”
Grace woke the next morning, the day before the fight was expected to happen, and felt oddly lighter. She didn’t feel better, but a weight had lifted off of her. Maybe seeing Paul had been a good thing and she could work on letting him go too. At this thought though, Grace sucked in a painful breath and took her time getting up and out of bed. Too soon.
Once out of bed, she pulled her long hair out of her face into a presentable ponytail, some jean shorts and a white baggy t-shirt. She headed down the steps to the smell of breakfast cooking in the kitchen. As she rounded the corner, Charlie sat at the little dining table finishing his breakfast, decked out in his fishing gear. Sue Clearwater was packing their provisions into a small cooler to take with them on their 2-day trip to Fraser River to get them out of the area for the fight. Bella was taking no chances.
Grace leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms watching Bella push a massive amount of scrambled eggs around in the pan. Bacon was cooking on the back stove, she must have cooked an entire slab, the pan was overflowing.
“Hey,” Grace said in a small voice.
“Hey! You’re up! Hungry?” Bella gestured to the food. Grace nodded lightly and eyed the pan.
“That’s a lot of food,” Grace raised an eyebrow.
“Good, cos I’m starving,” a warm, comforting voice carrying a hint of a smile came from the other side of the kitchen that connected into the living room.
“Jacob.” Grace whispered, her eyes connecting with his before bounding over to him and crashing her body into his. She wrapped her arms around his upper chest and under his arms like a child hugs an adult, but she didn’t care. Everything had felt so cold since she and Paul had separated and now, warmth rushed through her body causing her to shiver with relief.
Jacob eagerly wrapped his arms over her shoulders and down around her back, leaning forward to whisper softly in her ear, “You okay?”
Grace tried so hard to hold it together in that moment but she couldn’t help a sob from escaping her throat. She clasped her hand around her right wrist behind his back and pulled tightly into him, trying to squelch any sounds from escaping her lips with his body. Her tears wetted his dark blue shirt and he just held her there gently swaying her back and forth.
“You got this?” Charlie put a hand on Jake’s shoulder as he held his tackle box in his other hand.
“I got this,” Jake said confidently.
Charlie smoothed Grace’s hair down absently for a moment and then headed toward the door.
“Have fun!” Bella called behind them.
“We will!” Sue said to the sound of the screen door clapping shut behind them. Grace took deep steady breaths as she continued to hold onto Jake, loosening her grip ever so slightly and laying her left cheek to his clothed chest. Her body had ached so long for that warmth and she felt something in her mending ever so slightly. She didn’t feel whole just yet, but Jake being there took some of the pain off of her that she had tried so hard to release when she saw Paul yesterday.
“Let’s eat, yeah?” he said and dipped his head to look at her face. She nodded, still breathing heavily, tears having stained her cheeks despite her best efforts. Jacob cupped her right cheek in his hand and wiped the tears with his calloused thumb before giving her a reassuring smile. He walked her over to the kitchen table and she slumped into the chair across from him. Bella set some plates down in front of each of them and spread jam across her toast, taking a seat facing the small window. Grace looked at her food for a second still trying to come back down for her emotional high. Things swam in front of her, her head foggy.
“Grace, eat.” Jake said before digging in, giving her a worried look. She straightened up a little and moved over her plate, slowly taking bites and sitting back in her chair to chew. When she looked to her right over Bella’s shoulder, Edward was sauntering in.
“That’s new,” he said, gesturing to Grace eating. “Took you long enough.” He jabbed at Jake.
Jacob returned the comment with a scathing look. “You know you didn’t have to tackle me. If I’d known I was being summoned, I would have come.”
“Keep your phone on then and I won’t have to come looking for you next time.” Edward said jovially.
“Anyways, the plan is to get you two into the mountains. Seth will be there as a guard, but with Bella’s scent placed everywhere in the clearing, it shouldn’t be difficult to keep the vampires there.”
“Wait what?” Grace said, trying to clear the fog in her brain.
“We need Bella away from the area, but not so far enough away that I can’t get to her if I need to,” Edward replied smoothly. Bella watched Grace’s face carefully.
“You’ll need to recast you and Bella to the location,” Jake said, staring at her seriously. Grace looked from Edward to Jake.
“So you’re going to leave her there with Seth?” Grace felt dumb. “No offense but if something were to get to Bella, Seth isn’t the best defense just yet.”
“You’ll be there to protect her. If danger pops up, you can easily recast her away to another location.” Edward said simply.
“That doesn’t make any sense. I’ll be in the clearing with everyone else,” the fog persisted but she was slowly coming to a realization.
“No.” Jake said firmly, “You won’t. We’re not risking you to an army of newborn vampires. You’ll be away, safe in an isolated location with Bella.”
“The fuck I am,” Grace said dropping her fork with a clatter on her plate.
“Grace,” Bella pleaded.
“No. I’m not letting you guys do this without me. Edward can stay with Bella,” Grace pointed at Edward, like a child accusing a sibling. He let out a scoff. Jake glared at Grace. “What?!” she said, voice raised. Okay, she was a little emotionally uneven right now, she’d admit, but that wasn’t an excuse to box her out of the fight.
“Forgot how stubborn you were,” Jake said casually, returning to shovelling eggs and bacon into his mouth. Grace rolled her eyes and looked back to Edward.
“I’ll get her there but I’m not staying, so figure something else out.” Grace said definitively, crossing her arms.
“You’ll have to talk to Sam then,” Edward replied, digging in his heels and keeping his voice curt.
“Oooh, I’m so scared.” Grace taunted. Bella had her head in her hands now. “I can do more than just recast you know.” Jake looked at her suddenly giving her a warning look. Edward waited to hear more but Grace decided not to offer additional information, squirming a little under Jake’s look.
“Grace, I’d feel better if you were with me. I don’t want you in the fight as much as Edward, but at least if you’re there I’ll know we’re safe together.” Bella said softly. Grace rested her eyes on her uncrossing her arms and leaning forward to Bella.
“I understand, but I can’t leave them out there,” she motioned to Jake.
“You can and you will,” Jake said between mouthfuls. Grace glared at him. Now she was careening toward annoyance at his presence even though when he left she knew the cold would return. “Because Sam’s gonna make you.” Jake gave her a knowing, harsh look.
Grace tightened at this, her whole body starting to shake and shimmer. Her emotions were on a hairpin trigger as it were. She heard an echo of her name as someone, maybe Jake, maybe Bella, called out to her before she recast. Then, she was in the same thicket of wood she’d ended up in the past few days.
Again.
She was standing in the fern covered ground, as if she had just been dropped there. She threw her head back and let out a low groan:
“Uuuuugh, why?! Why am I here?” she asked no one.
Fine. If something was bringing her here, she needed to figure out what it was. She surveyed the densely vegetated area and picked a direction, taking large steps over the choke of ferns, vines, and brush. Grace could hear the ocean nearby and the birds trilled and dove above her high in the trees. After a few minutes walking through the trees, she came to a clearing.
Grace audibly gasped. The clearing she had come into was actually a cove. She faced the side of an old dilapidated house that faced out toward the lapping waves in the large oval shaped cove. She stepped out of the brush toward the moss covered home. The roof was sagging on one side and it definitely had weathered more than one storm.
Grace came around to the front of the home and tentatively tested the porch steps. It led up to a wide and deep covered porch. It seemed okay but she tread lightly anyway. The house was on the small side but breathtaking with wide old windows laid into the front that reflected the ocean at her. She tried the door and it swung open easily.
Abandoned. Empty.
When she crossed the threshold, she felt that familiar rush move through her that she now recognized as a signal of change, a shift in her destiny, the page turning. She took a deep breath and stood in the doorway all at once feeling alone, but home.
Grace zipped close the duffel bag she was meant to bring with her to the campsite.
“You know where you’re going?” Sam said standing next to her in the clearing. Bella was finishing up rubbing her blood on everything and Grace grimaced at the coppery smell that lingered around.
“Yes.” she said with a huff, shouldering the bag and looking up at him. She zipped up her coat. Even in the warm May weather, it would be quite a bit cooler up the mountain.
“Just listen for Jake’s voice and you’ll be able to see if a threat is coming, okay?” Sam said, fully acknowledging that she was more directly linked with Jacob from afar than him.
“Okay. Anything else?” Grace said. He’d already given her the Alpha order that she wasn’t allowed to join the fight under any circumstances. To which she had almost lunged at him for before Jacob put a hand defensively around her. He waited for her to look at him in the eyes before he said.
“Nope, just stay put with Bella until we give the all clear. Understood?” He thought he’d just toss on an extra dose of the alpha just in case the first one hadn’t sunk in. Grace bit the inside of her cheek, irritated and gave a curt.
“Mmmhmm,” before turning to see Jake and Bella approaching. Edward left his family’s group to come and say goodbye to Bella.
“Ready?” Jake said. Grace, hands on her hips nodded again and Jake ran a hand down her arm before nodding at her, “Everything’s going to be okay.” He hesitated before jogging off with Sam to look at her just a little bit longer. Grace held back the emotion threatening to spill out and bounced her leg nervously.
“I know. Be careful,” she edged out. Jacob nodded and looked over her shoulder at Edward, signaling his was off and then he turned to leave. The pull in her stomach jerked toward him as he ran and Grace winced.
Grace turned to Bella who held out her hand after giving Edward one last long kiss.
“Stay together,” he said strongly before Grace had heard enough and recast them easily to their targeted destination. Edward had gone ahead and set up their campsite earlier the night before. Grace dropped the duffel bag near the tent and turned to look at Bella.
“Well. This will be fun.” Grace said sarcastically.
“Thank you for staying with me,” Bella said softly. Grace immediately melted some.
“I know. Of course. I’m sorry I’m just…” Grace faltered.
“It’s okay. I know the feeling.” Bella could see that Grace was trying to keep it together despite everything that had just happened over the last week. “It’ll take time to feel okay again. At least I think it will? Jacob was the only thing that could make me feel slightly better afterward.” She said shoving her hands in her pockets.
“Same,” Grace breathed.
“Two peas in a pod.” Bella joked.
As the night drew on, Grace and Bella settled into their sleeping bags around the campfire where they had roasted some peppers and warmed up some of Emily’s homemade vegetarian soup made special for Bella. They had zipped their sleeping bags together and were huddled under it spooning soup into their mouth when Seth bounded up the hill.
Grace could feel him coming early on as she listened for Jake, but she still acted surprised when he appeared.
“Seth-a-rino!” She said happily clanking her bowl of soup with Bella’s. “The party starts!”
Are you drunk? She could hear Seth ask jokingly.
“What? Of course not.” Grace said, confused. Bella looked at Grace curiously since she hadn’t heard what Seth had said, but she waved her off. Seth acknowledged her weird mood swing and came to sit beside them in his wolf form. He radiated hotter than the bonfire ahead of them.
“What do you think it’s gonna be like tomorrow?” Grace asked Bella. “You’ve had way more encounters with vicious vampires than I have to be fair.” Bella nodded at this.
“I’m not sure. A few vampires is one thing, but an entire army of newborns? I was in an entire ancient den of probably the most dangerous vampires in the world and I still couldn’t tell you. But I know it will probably be terrifying.”
Grace breathed out, listening for echoes in the distance. Voices calling out to her in rounds, but no one did. Seth’s even wolf puffs of breath indicated he had fallen asleep. Grace watched the flames of the fire until they died down to an ashen burn before nudging a sleeping Bella awake to go sleep in the tent.
The morning of the fight dawned on Grace excruciatingly slowly. She paced up and down the side hill training her ear for Jacob. She heard echoing voices that didn’t say much, just communicated how excited, how pumped, how scared or nervous they were for the fight to start. They were meant to stay on the eastern part of the forest and slowly surround once the vampires had been drawn into Bella’s blood-soaked clearing.
Alice confirmed with Edward who relayed to Sam that the newborns were on their way and would be there soon. The message echoed down the line. Grace felt a lump form in her throat as she repeated over and over again so Jacob would hear her.
Be careful. Be careful. Please be careful.
She was surprised by the volley of answers calling out to her.
We will.
We’ve got this.
Stay put.
They won’t know what hits them.
Can’t wait to take them down.
They’re the ones that should be careful.
Let’s rock this shit.
Grace laughed a little, reassured by the confident voices and closed her eyes to try and see through Jacob’s eyes what was happening. The image flickered off and on for her—she hadn’t practiced this form of communication as much with him. But she was able to see that they were falling into formation and the sickening smell of the vampires was growing as they descended on the clearing.
The Cullen’s stood ready. Grace felt a warm hand in hers and felt Bella beside her, leaning in like she could hear what was happening too, but watching Grace’s face for cues.
“They’re here.” Grace echoed and she saw, horrifyingly, as the newborns stomped into the clearing. The Cullens didn’t hesitate intercepting them as the huge throng of 23 strong newborns launched at them. They volleyed for two minutes, mostly ducking and moving out of the newborns way to get them deeper into the clearing and buy the wolves time to surround the clearing and then--
Grace heard the command from Sam to charge in and she tightened her hold on Bella’s hand.
“What? What?!” Bella asked frantic clutching Grace’s hand back. Grace focused and shook her head. She followed Jacob’s sight through the throng. He lunged and ripped and tore at each newborn that came into close contact.
Then he careened back, changing course and lunging across the field over bodies and bodies fighting to intercept and pull a newborn that had clung to Embry’s back. He and Sam ran rings around the group, trying to keep up but—
“They’re outnumbered.” Grace breathed. And then, she saw the red head, Victoria, move into the field, frantically searching and locking eyes with Edward across the field. Edward was on her in a second and they were locked in an exchange of blows. Edward tossed her across the field and Quil went to intercept but got flung back by a large newborn that crunched him into a tree.
Grace sucked in a deep breath and tensed. Jake was there in a second to pull the newborn down and Quil quickly rejoined the fight, shaken but undeterred. The newborns were fast, just as Jasper had described, and they were outpacing the wolves and the Cullens were having trouble keeping up. Each time one of the wolves pulled a newborn to the ground, a Cullen would come to try and pull the newborn apart, but frustratingly, the newborns would wiggle free and dart away more often than not and continue the tireless fight. After ten minutes of this, Their numbers had barely diminished.
Grace was growing worried as the wolves continued, their senses dialed to ten. But she knew it wouldn’t last forever. They’d get tired and then they’d be in trouble. Jacob was having more success taking some newborns down but when Paul was suddenly knocked from his feet, Grace couldn’t help but yell out in pain as the newborn came down on top of him, snapping his collarbone. Paul yelped and Grace snapped her eyes open. The alpha order melted away and she felt it’s release.
“Grace wait!” Bella said seeing a dangerous look in her eye. Seth whimpered and tried pleading too.
You’re supposed to stay with me and Bella, Grace. Sam said, remember?
“Stay here, Seth.” Grace was calm, she felt the air move easily around her as she recast and heard a rushing sound, a change as she reappeared directly in the middle of the clearing, the fight raging around her. She knew she had to do something, but no sooner had she got there than suddenly, the newborns froze and their gaze snapped to her. The Cullens and wolves instantly moved to try and tackle the temporarily distracted newborns but it caused them to move faster, surrounding Grace in their fury.
She smelled very very good to them, temporarily overpowering Bella’s scent in the clearing. Her heartbeat echoed in their newly defined ears. They were drawn to her like moths to a particularly lit flame.
Bait. She was bait. Fuck.
Grace hadn’t anticipated this reaction and braced herself for the onslaught not sure what to do next. The wolves dashed toward her, somehow in this moment outpacing the vampires as adrenaline shot through them at seeing Grace there. They made a crushing circle around Grace facing the newborns. Furious voices filled her head as the wolves cursed at her for being there.
Jesus, Grace.
You couldn’t just stay put.
I swear to fucking god if we die, I’m gonna be so pissed.
As the newborns crushed in on top of the wolves and the Cullens tried to pull them off from the outside, Grace saw an opening. She had to act fast.
She recast outside of the tight circle of snapping, growling, shattering, and bludgeoning and moved quickly around the edge of the circle.
She reached through one of the Cullen’s arms, Emmett by the size of it, and onto a newborn they had. She yelled “Let go!” and they did. Grace recast carrying the newborn out of the crush just a few feet from the circle. Then in one swift motion she pulled her energy up, hardened it, and smashed it down toward the ground as hard as she could onto the unsuspecting newborn that had been sprawled out on the grass, cleanly severing it’s head and smashing it’s arms in the process.
Satisfied with this result, she repeated it more times than she could keep up with, constantly recasting in and around the circle, pulling newborn after newborn free and smashing them to bits on the ground. The Cullens, catching on, broke from the circle and picked up the mess of limbs and threw it on a waiting fire. The wolves were able to push the diminished crowd of newborns back as Grace moved quickly. The rest seemed easy.
Grace saw Edward out of the corner of her eye give her a menacing look and take off through the trees. She had left Bella alone and unprotected. She tried to shout after him but the momentary distraction had given a newborn the opening they needed to crash into Grace, tackling her from around the waist and smashing her against a tree.
Blood poured from her mouth at the force of the impact and she temporarily slumped to the ground after the newborn had pulled back, hand raised to bash in her skull no doubt. But that blow never came—Jacob and Paul crashed through the clearing, one going for the head, the other going for the body and ripped the newborn to literal shreds, not stopping until he was practically dust.
Grace picked herself up and leaned back against the tree taking deep gulping breaths, the blood soaking the front of her shirt. She tried to assess her internal injuries but in her heightened state was unable to focus on one point of pain long enough before it subsided. Jake and Paul stood guard in front of her scanning the field as the others took down newborn after newborn. The wolves were taking the rest down 2-1.
Her eyes widened as she heard a distance, echoing voice rise up through the back of her head.
Grace! Grace help!
“Seth!” Grace recast, envisioning the campsite and holding onto Seth’s form in her mind.
Jacob and Paul swung around to where she had stood, eyes wide, before jumping back in to take care of the rest of them at Sam’s command. When Grace recast at the campsite, her eyes widened as she took in the scene.
Edward was on his knees, held by Victoria at the throat as another blonde newborn held him down. Bella was screaming and about to launch toward them but Grace was faster. Seth was mid-air when she recast and slid into the blonde’s legs like she was sliding into homebase, knocking him unexpectedly off his feet. Seth grabbed his head in his mouth and tore it cleanly from his shoulders.
Grace tossed the beheaded body aside and Seth had at it. Edward was able to get on his feet, and take Victoria down to the ground. Grace strode over, lifted her leg as high as she could and brought it down with a satisfying crunch into Victoria’s face. She ground her heel into her neck, severing it from her body. Edward flicked open a lighter and threw it on the bonfire, stacking Victoria’s body on the blaze and immediately crossed to Bella. Grace tossed the severed head and limbs of the blonde vampire on as well, her breathing raspy and uneven.
“Grace?” Bella said, concerned as Edward wrapped his arms around her pulling her into him.
Blood covered Grace’s shirt but she didn’t feel injured. She must be in shock. Then a scene flickered in front of her eyes. Leah spotted a newborn hiding in the trees and went after it. Her takedown was messy and the newborn quickly got his arms around her. Whimpering and calling out for help, the pack snapped into action. Sam cried out “Leah!” desperately trying to reach her.
But Jacob got there first, pulling the vampire off. He stumbled in his haste to free Leah and the newborn got the upper hand again, quickly wrapping his arms around Jacob. Grace heard a sickening crunch and screamed, recasting into the clearing as she saw Jake’s body fall to the ground.
Every piece of energy she felt around her roiled and built up in the ground beneath her like an unconscious call. She realized her scream was echoing and pushing out around her and in the next moment, the energy like a hot, crashing wave moved out from around her and pushed everything in the clearing away, including the wolves and the Cullen’s who were thrown into the forest. The newborn who had been poised above Jacob felt the full force of it and slammed back into a tree, cracking his head at the neck so it was almost severed but not quite. Jacob’s body was untouched.
Trees fell from the impact of the energy and crashed into the ground like giant booming dominoes. Grace quickly ran to Jacob who had unphased in his agony before passing out.
“Jake?!” she yelled in a broken sob.
The others were on her in a second crowding around Jacob. Paul put his arms under Grace’s shoulders and hoisted her back away from Jacob despite her screams and clawing forward to get to him. The pack quickly and carefully picked him up walking out of the clearing. She heard a muffled sound and saw Carlisle shout something at them. But she was losing consciousness.
The massive amount of energy she had expelled to clear their battleground had drained everything from her. Paul caught her under the knees as she buckled and let herself get swallowed up in the darkness, the noise and rush still crashing around in her head.
#twilight fanfiction#Twilight FanFic#twilightfanfic#jacob black#jacobblackxoc#jacobxoc#paul lahotexoc#paul lahote pairing#bella swan#edward cullen#the cullens#the pack#new mooon#eclipse#chapter 25#a monster lives here
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Chapter 32: Mistake
Jacob was shaking violently before her. Low clouds had rolled in on the horizon and it threatened to rain. The thunder sounded ominously off the shore and Grace was standing, stock still on her front porch staring at the boy she loved as he crumbled.
“You….you slept with him?” his voice cracked from the weight of the words. She was out of tears, her eyes just burned fiercely and her voice croaked with dehydration.
“Yes,” it killed her to admit it. Something in her cracked as she tried to move toward him. He shot her a look and exhaled a fierce breath through his nose.
“No,” he growled. His eyes leveled her with a silent command that locked her in place. She had to obey. Her eyes went wide and she stopped and clenched her hands around the bottom of her shorts.
“It just...happened. I didn’t..we knew it was a mistake right away. I’m so sorry, please. I—,” Grace couldn’t move from the spot she was in and she felt like she was choking. The hurt radiated off of Jacob’s body in clear pulses as he shook wildly. She thought he was going to explode, a part of her really wanted him to so that she could feel the pain she knew she deserved at this moment.
The thunder clapped behind him again, louder this time, the storm coming in too fast. The sound echoed in her head and she felt a rush move through her. Another change—a strangled small sound escaped her lips as she tried to step forward toward him.
Jake’s face twisted in anger, his teeth clenched, and his fists hung heavy by his sides. His breathing was fast and loud and she braced for impact. Oh how she wished he would.
A cry like that of a wounded animal escaped his lips and she felt her insides twist wildly in excruciating pain. Was he doing that? Grace’s eyes widened in fear.
But then, the anger was replaced with debilitating sadness and tears sprang to his eyes. He went limp, his eyes casting to the ground and Grace felt the constricting pain loosen.
This was somehow worse. Much worse. After a few terrifying moments of silence he raised his eyes to hers, black with quiet rage, took one ragged breath and said with venom laced in his voice, “I hate you.”
Grace broke into a thousand pieces, whimpering in the spot she couldn’t seem to leave. Before she could get anything out, he had turned, phased and left through the trees. It felt like someone had cut a taut thread holding her body together. She felt her body let out a scream as he left, still unable to move, so Grace did the only thing she thought she could do. She called out to him in her mind desperately:
JACOB! JAKE. JAKE PLEASE. JACOB, COME BACK!
But she couldn’t hear him anymore. She collapsed in a heap on the ground. It felt like she was bleeding but she had no physical wounds to speak of. The ache in her belly exploded into a thrashing snake that burned and tore at her. Thunder echoed around as rain came crashing down around her in a torrential downpour. There was no relief.
She felt everything for what felt like forever and then, excruciatingly, she felt nothing at all. For however long Grace had laid there, it rained on her and she welcomed it. She turned onto her back and let her mouth hang open as rain dripped down her throat. Nothing offered any relief. She was empty.
Grace heard splashing footsteps approach. She was still soaked through and shivering but she pulled herself up and stood, uneven on her two feet. Her vision blurred from the rain and she rubbed her eyes to clear them just in time to see Rachel, stomping toward her.
In one fell swoop, Rachel raised her arm and slapped Grace as hard as she could across the face. The searing pain whipped through her cheek and into the back of her head, sending white lights popping behind her eyes. She wasn’t sure if she let out any sound other than heaving a breath before she righted herself to see Rachel rigid with anger.
“How fucking dare you.” her voice was seething and Grace flinched at it’s acid. She opened her mouth as if to reply but Rachel’s eyes warned her not too. “How dare you treat me and my brother like this. I have no idea who you are but if the old Grace is in there, relay this message to her as well.” She paused for a second and leaned in so her face was close to Grace’s. “FUCK. YOU.” Rachel was fire and Grace was dry grass. She was consumed by her rage and turned to ash. Rachel took one last look at her, spitting on the ground next to her and walked away.
Grace staggered on the spot and pulled herself up the steps holding onto her left cheek where Rachel had slapped her. As she pushed through her open doorway, sopping and dripping, she slipped in a puddle of her own making. She landed hard on the wood floor just inside of her front door and stayed there. Her heartbeat slowed and she hoped that sleep would take her at least for a little while. But the pain returned to keep her awake as long as it wanted, raking her over the coals and making her see Jacob’s pained face, hear the echoing words ‘I hate you’ over and over and Rachel’s tearful, enraged face as she screamed at her.
Grace fell into the unending black.
July
August
September
The cool, late summer air pushed through the open window. Soft steps down the stairs leading into the kitchen complemented the peaceful silence that hung in the air right before sunrise. The coffee machine sputtered quietly as the soft footsteps made their way to the couch, covering the sleeping boy with a light throw blanket, his broad, russet back exposed.
Steam wafted from the top of the coffee cup as it was pressed to full lips. The sun slowly rose, breaking over Grace’s face as she stood on the edge of the beach letting the cold turning water lap up and kiss her toes. She stared out over the horizon, letting the day wash over her, trembling from the cold or the anticipation. Shaking the last of the pain prickling in her hands free, she took a deep breath and turned to go back inside.
A couple hours after day break, Grace walked over to the sleeping form on her couch.
“Hey, wake up. Breakfast,” she nudged the grumbling boy in the shoulder and waved an oversized stack of pancakes in front of his face. The boy’s eye peeped open and reached for the stack. “At the table.” Grace said, her voice monotone.
Embry slumped into the chair across from her and dug into a stack of pancakes untouched by Grace. She picked over a bowl of yogurt and watched him chow down.
“Late night?” she offered. He nodded between bites, his eyes rolling into the back of his head in pure bliss at the food.
“Yeah, ran damn near to Canada. Thanks for letting me crash,” he said mouth full. Grace nodded. This was a regular thing with most of the pack. Her home was a stop gap between Forks and the rez. Sometimes, if they were too tired, they’d crash at her place, not able to make it all the way home. She left her door unlocked and would often find a snoring member on her couch, in her armchair, or on the spare mattress she set up in her office for just such an occasion.
At first, she had internally protested their presence. The first week after Jake was gone, Grace didn’t leave the house. Embry and Quil had made quick work of the locked door without damaging it (much to Jared’s dismay) and found her in bed, conscious but not responsive.
“Should we call someone?” Embry had said worriedly as he sat on the side of her bed after trying to make her look at him. “Ti’Hal maybe?” Quil shifted uneasily from foot to foot and nodded over his shoulder. Jared and Embry followed him out into the hall where he quietly said,
“Let’s try to find Jake first. And if we can’t, then we’ll bring in Ti’Hal, yeah?” Jared was peering through the door with fear in his eyes. While he’d never seen it himself, he recognized something in Grace that he’d heard only in the legends. He kept his mouth shut though and nodded to the others.
“Yeah, let’s find Jake.”
But they were unsuccessful. No matter how far they ran in any direction, they heard nothing. After that first week, Embry, Quil, and Jared would casually start showing up at Grace’s place, prying open the door and sleeping over on the couch or munching on snacks in the kitchen. The noise roused Grace more than once and when she finally found enough energy to creep down the top steps looking haggard she was met with a delighted wave from Quil. She scowled and turned back up to her room locking herself in.
Seth and Leah quickly followed suit, then Brady and Collin, and even Sam. Sam had taken one look at her after that first week and the next day Emily was there, tidying up the house, cooking meals, and rolling Grace onto her side like an elderly patient to change her sheets. Leah had hauled her from the bed from under the arms and put her in the tub, carefully undressing her and turning on the hot water. Grace had broken down into tears in the bathtub as Leah had washed her hair like she was a little kid. Leah didn’t protest when Grace leaned into her, getting soap all over her shirt and sobbed.
She’d refused to see Ti’Hal, mostly due to shame. She wasn’t ready to hear the extent to which she had royally fucked up. Not yet.
Grace crossed her arms, sitting back and staring past Embry toward the door.
“So...the big day is upon us,” Embry said gently. Grace snapped her eyes back to him looking for clarification. When she dazed off like that everything went out of focus and she lost all connection to solid ground. “Bella and the leech are getting married?” he prompted.
“Oh, yeah,” Grace said, closing her eyes tight to shake off the blurriness and come back to center. “Yeah, tomorrow. You still coming?”
Embry shrugged his shoulders not meeting her eyes as he finished off his pancakes. Grace got lost again and only came to when Embry patted her shoulder and said goodbye.
“Are you gonna be able to walk in those?” Grace said skeptically, sitting on the front deck of the Cullen house and watching as Bella scraped across the wood leaving marks. Even though the weather was still fairly warm for September, Grace was wrapped in a blanket wearing a giant oversized sweater and sweatpants. She was constantly cold these days.
“Can’t I just go barefoot?” Bella said, unsteady on her feet. Alice looked like someone had punched her in the stomach, not that she would feel it if they had.
“Absolutely not! This isn’t some backyard hoedown, you will wear the Jimmy Choos and you will appreciate the Jimmy Choos.” Alice chided. She tried to demonstrate again for Bella, gliding gracefully across the deck.
“To be fair, it is in a backyard,” Bella said. Grace pointed a finger at her and her eyes lit up momentarily before being clouded by dull pain. Bella watched the fleeting moment of joy dissipate on Grace’s face with increased worry.
It had been three months. Three months since Jake had taken off. No one tried to go after him at first, but it became clear as the hours turned into days and turned into weeks that he wasn’t coming back. Whatever broke in Grace that day had broken in Jacob too.
After a month, Bella asked Edward to go looking for him, hoping that the luck he had last time in finding Jake would happen again. But nothing came of it. He and Carlisle reached out to their contacts but they were very limited in offering identifying information considering they were trying to keep the pack’s existence a secret.
He was just gone. And Grace was left behind. The pack was in disarray as Grace lost herself. Sam had banished her from patrols and trainings since she couldn’t stay focused. Her recasting was almost nonexistent—anytime she tried to recast she ended up miles away from where she intended. She was thrown completely out of sync.
As she sat watching Bella scrape her way across the deck, Grace felt that familiar buoying sensation that made her feel like she was thrashing around in an open ocean, unsteady and untethered. This feeling was constant ever since she felt that thread snap in her when Jake left. She rubbed absently at the dark purple bruises under her eyes from the ongoing lack of sleep. It was if her body was punishing her for what she did during the day and her mind took up the task at night throwing nightmare after nightmare that would leave her screaming herself awake in a cold sweat.
She tightened the blanket around her to brace herself against the feeling more and gave Bella a weary smile when she looked her way.
“Bella you have to promise me you’ll practice this week. There’s only five days left!” Alice squealed.
“I have been practicing,” Bella said with a terrified look on her face.
“Just….practice more then!” Alice said cheerfully.
Bella dropped Grace off at Sam and Emily’s place in the afternoon. Grace plopped into the nearest chair in the kitchen. Emily turned to look over at her as she kneaded some bread dough on the counter.
“How was it?” she said nonchalantly. Grace made a sound of affirmation, not wanting to elaborate. Sam walked out from the bedroom door, pulling a shirt over his head before kissing Emily on the temple. He looked across the kitchen at Grace and she gave him that desperate faraway stare.
As far as Spirit Bird’s went, she was probably the worst in her histories. Completely useless to her Alpha and unable to do anything of value at the moment. The girl who had decimated a horde of newborn vampires in a clearing was long gone. She could hardly lift her arms above her head. Sam glanced from Grace to Emily who gave him a worried nod, encouraging him to say what they had discussed earlier.
“I think it’s time to see Ti’Hal,” he said in a stern voice. Grace took awhile to react, slow and encumbered with fatigue at just existing. She let out a tired breath and tried to protest:
“Sam,” she croaked weakly, but he just shook her head at her, throwing what little energy she had to fight out the window. “Fine.” she said sullenly. Let Ti’Hal tell her she was broken, that there’d been a mistake, that she wasn’t actually the Spirit Bird but a perfect fake who destroyed lives instead.
Ti’Hal’s home was small but well maintained thanks to the community. She held most of the tribes histories and so she was treasured amongst nearly every member of the tribe. Sam handed Grace over to Ti’Hal on the doorstep much like a child of divorcees. She felt like that a lot recently: a helpless kid who didn’t know what to do or how to exist in this world. It drove her crazy, but the painful stupor kept her still.
Ti’Hal gave Sam a small, sad smile and took Grace’s hand leading her into her home to the small comfortable living room. She had a fire going and Grace trembled at it’s warmth, only a faint echo of the warmth she used to feel with Jake. She slumped to the floor and Ti’Hal shuffled away to the kitchen to make some tea as Grace stared into the fire.
Before long Ti’Hal was next to her, handing her a cup of tea and settling into the armchair next to her. Grace leaned her back against the side of the armchair and let out a whimper.
“Where have you been, Little Bird?” Ti’Hal said softly, her gentle, raspy voice mixing in with the flames. Grace wasn’t sure how to answer and shook her head. “There is so much pain you have caused each other. Why? Why do you fight so hard against who you are?”
Grace turned her body to look at Ti’Hal. Anger, the only emotion her body would let her feel completely other than pain, was apparent on her face. Ti’Hal continued.
“You’re angry about the imprint. What you see as cruel fate interfering with your happiness. But what if you are seeing it through the wrong eyes?”
Grace’s face contorted to that of confusion. “Who’s eyes am I supposed to look through if the whole problem is I’m fighting against who I’m supposed to be?”
“Grace, you are exceptionally perceptive at feelings, but you are not listening. What has your heart been telling you this whole time?”
“That he will leave me for his imprint so I retroactively fucked us up as a form of self-destruction and protection to ensure at least one of us ends up happy.” Grace said aggressively. Ti’Hal shook her head.
“The imprint...the imprint is more than a means to an end. An imprint happens when the wolf warrior needs it most, when they are exactly who they are supposed to be. It is the purest form of fate, that is dictated by the fated’s actions. You see fate as cruel, something you cannot control, but you are the one dictating it with every move of your muscle. So why do you insist on betraying yourself?”
“I don’t understand,” Grace said slowly.
“Stop worrying about fate and become your truest self. Only then will it fall into place. Who you’re meant to be, who he is meant to be. If you don’t, you will continue in this dance around one another and only end up suffering.”
“That’s it? Just be yourself? That’s your world changing advice?” Grace said, the anger back again. She was on her feet. Ti’Hal nodded, so sure. “Ti’Hal what?! Don’t you see what’s happened? I fucked up! I broke. And I destroyed the only thing that was good...for me.” She choked.
“Where there is a break, there is healing. You are the Spirit Bird. So heal. The uncertainty will dissolve when you make the decision and become who you are meant to be.”
“They made a mistake. The ancestors. I’m not...I don’t think I can do this. I’m not strong enough for this,” Grace was shaking, swaying in place. A hard look came across Ti’Hal’s face and her arm shot out with such speed and force that it startled Grace.
“Fight HARDER for yourself.” Grace felt fire run up her arm, ignite her veins from Ti’Hal’s touch and the dull cloud of pain cleared. Hot flames licked down her body, burning away the cold that had trapped her since Jake was gone. The snapped thread still hung empty in her body, but she felt the solid ground under her feet for the first time in awhile.
Ti’Hal let go of her and the feeling remained, echoing in ripples up and down her body. “He will return. His soul has heard the call of another’s and he won’t be able to stay away for too long. I suggest you prepare yourself by heeding my advice. Become who you were meant to be, for the good of the tribe, for your pack, for young Jacob Black. For you.” She said firmly, the last words echoing in Grace’s head loudly. She nodded, swallowing hard, to show she understood and crept toward the door.
When she pushed it open, the cool air washed over her feverish body and she shivered from the sensation. Her senses had been dulled for so long and now she felt everything again, the pain, the rush of the wind, the sound of the ocean crashing nearby, the warm earth under her feet.
As she took a step out of the door, onto the grass, her body shifted and she recast deep into the forest, coming to a stop next to Sam. He was addressing the pack and turned to look at her. The pack followed his gaze to her and she looked to each of them, resolved to heal, resolved to find her way back to them.
#twilight fanfiction#twilight#twilightfanfic#twilightfanfiction#jacobblackxoc#jacob black#jacobxoc#The Pack#paul lahote#the cullens#edward cullen#bella swan#new moon#eclipse#breaking dawn#chapter 32#a monster lives here
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Chapter 23: The Beach
The whole ride to the rez Grace was lost in thought. Her hands were clutching the wheel distractedly as she careened down the damp street in the mid-morning light. She bit her lip and replayed the words in her head:
“This is ridiculous, I don’t understand why you keep doing this.” the disembodied voice in her head said.
“Don’t tell me to go. Please.” it continued.
Grace pulled up to Emily and Sam’s house, trying to clear her head of last night’s events. It was key that she keep her face even and calm. Not only did she have to convince Sam to join her and Jacob at the clearing with the Cullen’s to train, but she also needed to keep her thoughts clear to avoid any suspicion.
She took a deep breath and crossed the threshold.
“Grace, good morning!” Emily called from behind the counter. Paul looked up from his place leaning against the cabinets watching Emily cook as Jared talked in a low voice to him. Grace gave him a soft smile. He returned it but didn’t move toward her.
Sam suddenly came in behind her. “What’s this all about then?”
Jacob was at the kitchen table plowing through the first batch of cinnamon rolls with Quil, Seth, and Embry. Grace stuffed her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and made her way over to Paul.
“Hey,” she said quietly as she walked up to him. He leaned down and kissed her gently, wrapping an arm around her waist.
“Hey. How did you sleep?” He said nonchalantly. Grace let out a sigh of relief.
“Yeah, good. I missed you last night,” she pressed, bringing her hands to his sides. He gave her a small smile and kissed her forehead roughly.
“I missed you too.” He looked over to Sam and gave him a nod. Grace kept her eyes trained up at him, a little taken aback. Something felt off.
Jake launched into the story of the vampire army, that they were coming to Forks and that we needed to temporarily lift treaty lines to be able to train with the Cullens and defeat them. Grace watched for Paul’s reaction, knowing how quick to anger he was, she thought she’d feel him tense up, or unconsciously grip her tighter. But he stayed at ease listening as Jake laid out the plan.
Sam looked to Grace at the end of his speech and said, “What do you think?”
Grace took a deep breath and shifted a little bit under the weight of Paul’s arm.
“I think it’s the right thing to do. The Cullen’s pose no threat and working with them increases our chances of wiping out the real threat before anyone can get hurt.” Grace said confidently, keeping her eyes locked on Sam’s so as not to let her gaze drift to Jake’s. “We are by no means required to train. We can just show up and watch. It would also give the pack a chance to see the Cullen’s specialties in action.”
Sam was nodded appreciatively. “Alright. Set it up.” Grace nodded and turned to Paul.
“Do you want me to come over tonight?” Grace probed, running a hand across his lower torso. Paul looked down at her for a minute and then said,
“Uhh, not tonight.” Okay he was definitely being weird.
“Oh...why not?” Grace couldn’t help herself from asking. He brought a hand to cup her face and pull it up to look at him.
“Don’t be so nosy, you’ll find out. I’ll text you later,” he leaned down and dropped a peck on her lips and when Grace tried to hold him there a little longer, he pulled away and let go of her, patting Jared on the shoulder as they headed toward the door.
“Wha-” Grace said, turning and watching them head out the door. “What was that about?” Grace asked Emily who just shook her head smiling.
“Who knows.” Grace let out a groan. Maybe he had found out about the graduation party last night. The voice rose back up in her head “Don’t tell me to go.” Her eyes rested on Jake for just a minute. He always knew when she was watching him and immediately caught her gaze. Her mind shifted to last night again without her wanting it to.
They were in her backyard after the party. Jake had insisted on giving Grace a ride home instead of carpooling back with Edward and Bella. She had protested at first again reiterating their need for distance, but she caved, as she usually did when Jake was near her.
They had walked around the house, Grace not wanting to go inside just yet and settled on the rusted porch swing that faced the forest. He sat next to her, almost too close, their thighs touched.
“I don’t like this,” he said softly. Grace didn’t want to speak, she didn’t want to say anything that would push him further away. She didn’t want to fight most of all. “Grace, you can’t tell me you don’t feel this immense….relief when we’re near each other.”
She looked down at her hands and he continued.
“It’s like I can take a deep breath when you’re near. And every time…..every time I’m around you it’s like I have to be close to you or I’m going to explode.” he paused to look over at her. “Ti’Hal said it’s not an imprint but, I don’t know. I feel….” he paused. “You must think I’m nuts.”
“No.” Grace said in a small voice.
“You can’t tell me that you feel that way around Paul.”
“Jake, I love him.” she said softly. And it was true.
“This is ridiculous. I don’t understand why you keep doing this.” Jake paused. “Just tell me you feel it too.”
“I think you should go,” Grace said softly, not making eye contact.
“Don’t tell me to go. Please.” he said, “I’ve been trying so hard to give you space, to keep my distance because you said you were happy and Grace...Grace I just want you to be happy. So much. Just tell me, I’m not crazy.”
She turned her head to look at him and let her hand rise to rest on his cheek. Immediately her anxiety ebbed but she pushed through. “Please go.” She whispered, pain etched in her voice. Jacob grabbed her wrist and searched her eyes. “Please.” She begged now.
In Grace’s head, she was screaming at him to stay, to reach forward and pull her to him because all she craved was that relief he gave her. That connection that made her feel completely whole and rid her of that ache that Paul could never seem to satiate, only temporarily quiet. She knew Jake could sense it, hear it even if he was listening for it.
But after a few minutes of Grace holding her resolve and not letting her inner workings spill everywhere out onto the lawn, he stood quietly, firmly, and walked back around the house. Grace didn’t move for a long time after that, but eventually made it up to her room and didn’t bother getting undressed before collapsing into bed.
“You can’t tell me that in a fight Godzilla wouldn’t absolutely rock your shit,” Embry countered, snapping Grace from her reverie. Jake had held her there in that moment.
“Seth, you’re with me,” Grace said, breaking her gaze from Jake and looking at Seth. He immediately perked up. Sam had asked Grace now that finals were over to start individually training with each member of the pack to help hone their skills and improve how they worked off of each other during rounds or in fight. “You and me dude,” she said as she wrapped her arm around his shoulder and pulled him toward the door.
Grace had coordinated with Carlisle to set up the training in a clearing between the two territories two days from when she had spoken to Sam. She hadn’t heard from Paul for the rest of the day even though he told her he’d text her. She was starting to get nervous.
The next day, the day before the training, she waited, pacing her room and groaning with irritation. Still nothing. She sent him a text in the morning.
SMS Text—9:33 a.m.: Grace
Hey, you didn’t call or text last night. Just checking in.
I’d like to see you today.
And then again in the afternoon.
SMS Text—1:45 p.m.: Grace
Are you okay?
If you’re mad at me just tell me.
And then finally.
SMS Text—4:07 p.m.: Grace
This is stupid, Paul. I’m coming over.
She snapped her phone shut, pulled on some shorts and a hoodie and made her way to the truck. He couldn’t stop her. But if he wasn’t there, she’d have to find him another way. This radio silence didn’t work for her when it came to Paul. If he was mad about Jake, she’d just deal with it now.
When she pulled up to his drive, she could clearly see a light on in his home. She jumped up the steps and went to knock on the door, but in her impatience thought better of it and pushed her way inside.
Her mouth dropped. She hadn’t noticed from outside, but the house was somehow….bigger. Not monumentally bigger, but the living room was actually spacious and the kitchen didn’t hide behind a little half wall. Things were still in disarray, but they still looked beautiful. The right wall of the house had been moved back closer toward the forest. The kitchen was open to the living room and an unfinished island sat where the half wall used to be. She gently strode past the living room and down the narrow hallway to the bedroom.
When she crossed the threshold to the bedroom, she audibly gasped. An extension had somehow been built in the short time she hadn’t been here off of the bedroom. The extension was sunken and composed of a collage of windows making a makeshift sun room that the bed now faced. Light poured in through the windows and she took the two small steps down into the extension and spun around in the open space.
“You just couldn’t wait, could you?” Paul said. She stumbled to a stop and looked up at him. He was standing with his arms crossed and a tool belt on, leaning against the bedroom doorframe.
“What is all this?” Grace said a smile erupting from her face. He beamed back.
“It’s for you.” He said simply pushing up from the doorframe and walking down the short steps to meet her.
“Me?” Grace said. “Paul this is incredible, how did you do this so fast?”
“I’m handy like that. And had some help from the rez obviously.” He shrugged his shoulders and moved his arms around her waist.
“Paul, you do not just decide to do massive home renovations on a whim and ignore me for two days. What’s up?” Grace countered.
“First of all, I was not ignoring you. I was busy doing something,” he gestured to around the room but still gave her a joking smile. “And second of all, like I said. It’s for you.” He said this in a small voice, like he wasn’t sure at first.
“You keep saying that. What are you talking about? Why would I need all of this? It’s beautiful, yes. Do I love it? Yes. But, Paul this is your home.” Grace said softly, putting her hand to his face.
“I hope not.” He said cryptically. She raised an eyebrow and he took a deep breath like he was building the courage to say something immense. “Grace Alo. Will you move in with me?”
Grace looked at him for a long moment, thoughts rushing all around her head. Her hand never left his cheek as he watched her face for clues.
“Grace?” He said, nervous now and pulling her into him closer.
“Yes.” she said simply, finally.
“Yes?” he confirmed, his voice rising with joy. She nodded enthusiastically and he started laughing pulling her up off her feet and spinning her around in the light filled room.
Grace padded down the hallway to the renovated kitchen to grab some coffee the next morning. She paused pouring a cup and looking around her, imagining herself here all the time and her heart swelled.
This can work.
She took a satisfied breath before returning to the bedroom, the early morning light beginning to pour softly through the window with the trees shimmering above. Paul had pulled the mattress off the bed and set it in the center of the sun room so they could sleep there. Grace looked up through the window panes now her mind flashing to last night as she had moved on top of him throwing her head back and letting the milky moonlight spill across her naked body.
She sipped her coffee quietly as Paul slept next to her and she felt a wave of happiness pour over her. Her breath caught in her throat for a second as she felt a familiar rush move through her, a thunderous sound rising from behind her and slowly creeping up over her head. Her eyes blurred for a second and shook it away.
“You okay?” Paul said groggily, peeking an open eye at her through the covers.
“Yeah,” Grace said kind of breathless. She felt like she had gotten the wind knocked out of her for some reason. “Yeah, fine.”
“It’s bright,” he moaned, trying to pull the covers over his head.
“Yeah, it is, but look at everything you can see!” She set her coffee down and stood up, throwing the loose t-shirt off and standing naked on the bed before him.
“It is a nice view,” he laughed, before grabbing her around the knees and pulling her down to him. She shrieked and he quickly pulled her underneath him, pushing her legs apart with his. He stopped and kissed her nose softly before pushing into her and devolving their morning into a collection of moans and shudders as the sun spotlit them.
-------------
Grace walked into the clearing with her hands in the pockets of her zip up grey hoodie. She had opted to wear her old blue running shorts and had tied her hair up in a high ponytail. She fully intended on training with the Cullen’s despite both Paul and Sam’s protesting.
She spotted Bella and Edward and knocked her shoulder against Bella’s.
“Hey!”
“Hey. Are they coming?” Bella said looking at the empty clearing. Grace nodded to the treeline where the vegetation was particularly thick and shaded.
“Yeah, they’re right behind me.”
“Oh.” Bella said.
Carlisle and the rest of the Cullen’s gathered in the clearing facing the treeline and Grace stood close to Bella on the Cullen’s side.
Slowly, Sam emerged from the trees with the others flanking him. Some, like Seth, were told to stay back further out of sight.
“They don’t trust us enough to be out of their wolf form,” Edward said casually to Carlisle.
“They came. That’s all that matters,” Carlisle said gratefully. “Thank you for coming.” he addressed the pack now. “My son Jasper has unique insight into the threat we’re facing. We hope that working together, we can defeat this threat without any casualties on either of our sides. It’s our best shot,” he nodded and conceded the floor to Jasper.
Jasper came up from behind Grace to stand where Carlisle stood. Grace heard a distinct snap of the jowls come from the pack and Sam called to her to join them instead. Seems Jasper hadn’t gotten too close for comfort. Grace rolled her eyes and jogged up to the treeline and Jasper started providing the pack with a history of newborns, their strengths, their weaknesses, and how they planned to fight them. Grace stood next to Paul who nudged her back farther behind him.
Over his shoulder, she made eye contact with Jake’s wolf form. He shook his head as if being snapped back to attention and Paul made a low growling noise.
“Let me demonstrate. Emmett!” Jasper called across the clearing. Sam perked up, intrigued to finally see fighting styles in action and he communicated to the rest of the pack to pay close attention.
Through volleys and crashing at one another like boulders, they were able to understand Emmett’s fighting style—he was brute strength and force. Jasper was lythe and meticulous, but ruthless.
Jasper worked his way through each of the Cullen’s one by one, demonstrating how to overpower and displace certain moves or tactics. When they were finished, Jasper looked up at Sam and said,
“So, who would like to go first?” His hands were behind his back and he gave a mischievous grin.
Grace automatically raised her hand and took a step forward. She was met with a crescendo of growls and snapping down the line of wolves. Paul turned to glare at her and nudged her back again.
“Oooookay,” Grace said, putting her hand down and looping it behind her back, “Not me, apparently.” The Cullens laughed. Paul and Jared made their way forward, Seth coming to stand by Grace instead.
While there were a couple of close calls during the training, each wolf got a turn to fight one of the Cullen’s and work on their response to unpredictable attacks. Grace was not allowed a turn.
When they turned to leave for the day, she noticed Jake take off in a different direction from the others. She made a move toward him but quickly stepped back in case Paul noticed and made a mental note to ask Quil instead.
Paul dropped her off and gave her a kiss before she went inside, “A couple more training sessions like that and we’ll be their worst nightmare.”
“Mmmm, I bet,” Grace rolled her eyes and stood on her tiptoes to hug him.
-----
The pack ended up training all week with the Cullen’s in preparation for the fight. Alice saw the newborns coming sometime in late May, early June, so they had some time to prepare. At the end of the week, they put together a beach day at La Push to take a break from rounds and training.
Grace was relieved. She had barely seen Paul all week. Between training and finishing the renovations on his house for her, he was busy and sometimes too tired to see her at night. But they planned to spend the whole day together at the beach.
She made it to his house mid-morning with her beach bag and supplies in hand. She dropped them on the porch and skipped into the house. Paul was making pancakes by the stove and he grinned from ear to ear when he saw her.
“There you are.” he said. She jumped into his arms and planted a long kiss on him.
“Whatever they say about absence makes the heart grow fonder is bullshit. Absence makes the heart miserable,” she mumbled in between his lips. He chuckled and set her down, still holding a spatula in his other hand.
“This should be ready in a second,” He flipped a couple more pancakes onto a plate. When he was finished, he handed her her plate and they opted to stand in the kitchen and eat wanting to be close.
“Delicious,” Grace said between mouthfuls.
“Hey so, I was thinking. This weekend, maybe we start bringing some of your stuff over?” Paul said. Grace stopped chewing for a second and hesitated.
“Uh, yeah sure, that sounds good.” She had forgot to mention to Bella or Charlie that she was moving out. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she thought that Paul might only be half serious.
“Good.” he set his plate down, “Now. We have about, mmmm, ten extra minutes? I think we can find a way to make good use of that time.” He grabbed her plate from her and swiftly picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder and hauling her off to the bedroom. Grace giggled, she was more than happy to oblige considering that they had barely touched each other in a week and she could feel Paul’s eagerness quickly after he tossed her onto the bed and straddled her.
-----
In true new-love fashion, they were late to the beach get-together. They strode in a half an hour late, all smiles to the applause and jibing of the pack.
“Yeah, yeah,” Paul said, “Settle down.”
They spent the day playing tag football on the beach, Paul intercepting Grace instead of the ball and running her up the beach, and in the water pushed up against each other as the waves pushed and pulled at them.
After settling down to eat lunch and enjoy the sun, the pack digging in eagerly to the collective spread they all brought, Grace laid back on their beach blanket and let the sun warm her. She felt so whole and so complete. Almost as complete as when she danced with Jacob.
Jacob.
Quil had told her that he had left to do reconnaissance in Seattle at the request of no one according to Sam. She had been perplexed at that, but then Quil had said in a hushed voice that he’d caught wind of her and Paul planning to move in together and just needed some time away.
He’d been gone since the very first training and it irritated Grace. That familiar pang pulsed in her stomach again at the thought of him.
Paul leaned over to kiss her softly and she opened her eyes and smiled.
“Good day so far?” he asked, running a hand down her side.
“The best,” she said softly.
“Me too...I love you,” he said softer leaning down so only they could hear one another.
“I love you too, Lahote,” she sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him to her. Something about it felt different this time. Like something in her was shifting. She could be happy with Paul, Jacob was wrong. It wouldn’t end in a mess if they just kept going together.
Grace sat up and looked out over the waves as the general chatter of the group carried on. And then, she heard a distant ‘Hey!’ call out from down the beach.
Quil and Sam turned to see who it was.
“Oh my god.” Grace said getting to her feet and starting to run toward the woman padding down the beach. Joy erupted through her chest as she shouted out:
“Rachel!”
#twilight fanfiction#twilightfanfic#twilightfanfiction#new moon#eclipse#twilight#jacobblackxoc#imprint#paul lahote pairing#paul lahotexoc#jacob black#chapter 23#a monster lives here#the cullens#the pack#edward cullen#bella swan
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Chapter 22: Graduation
April
After Spring Break had ended, Grace was kicked into overdrive preparing for her finals. This was it. One final push and this would be off of her plate.
She spent most of her nights in her room studying, at the library with Bella and Edward tucked away in a corner, or staying late at Paul’s taking way too many study breaks. Sometimes she’d take the truck to Paul’s before he got off rounds to surprise him, cooking dinner and setting up at the small kitchen table with her books. He’d stumble through the door, shirtless and exhausted but immediately crack a smile and scoop her up for a kiss when he saw her there. He’d share about his rounds in between bites and when he was done, he’d tug her off to take a shower with him and try to derail her study night.
Other times she’d get to his house late, spread her books out open on the floor and fall asleep waiting up for him. At some point in the night she’d feel herself get picked up and placed in bed. A freshly showered Paul would slip in beside her and wrap his arms warmly around her, sighing softly into her neck.
But once the crush of finals was upon her and Bella, she knew she’d have to stay away to push through the end. Her last night with Paul, she was wrapped in arms as he pressed his lips to different parts of her face and neck, letting his hands absently trace the sides of her body.
“Okay, so I probably won’t see you for a full week. Communication is going to be limited. Tell me,” she said, trying to hide the creeping smile as he dipped his head to kiss below her collarbone, “How will you survive?”
Paul let out a chuckle and pulled his head up to stare sleepily into her eyes, “I won’t.”
“Hmmm, better make the best of it now then.” she teased. He groaned sleepily and buried his head into the crook of her neck. She laughed, kissing his forehead and wrapping her hands around to cradle his head.
“Rounds have been so brutal lately,” he said softly, his voice muffled against her skin.
“I know I’m sorry. Are you still tracking Victoria?” She said staring up at the ceiling. He took some quiet breaths and said,
“I mean, yeah kind of? Sometimes we catch a scent and sometimes we don’t. Leah actually picked up a new scent tonight which is why we were out so late. We traced it along the treaty line and then it kept hopping back and forth. But we typically never get a solid sighting. It’s frustrating.” He gripped her sides firmly as he said this as if the tension rising in him was causing him to physically manifest it. She wiggled underneath him to remind him she was there and he loosened his grip, kissing into the crook of her shoulder.
The new scent worried Grace. She’d have to check with Edward to see if they had picked up on anything new on their end. These days in her limited time on the rez, she was basically the go-between for the pack and the Cullens. Bella was hoping to get them to work together more and Grace was trying to push in that direction too, but that had fallen by the wayside when school work had kicked in.
“Hmmm, what does Sam think?” Grace asked after a short silence. But Paul had drifted off. Grace lay staring at the ceiling for a long time after that wondering what was coming.
She traced absent minded patterns on Paul’s back listening to his rhythmic breathing and before she knew it, Jake had crept into her mind. She had kept her promise to Paul—she hadn’t been with Jake alone or even really talked to him since that day. Not that Paul ever really gave her a chance. Any time Grace went on limited rounds on the weekend, she was paired with Paul and any outings outside of that were (like meeting up at Emily’s for lunch or hanging on the beach with the boys) strictly chaperoned by Paul.
Now, images of Jake circled in her mind. There was just the odd look every now and then during the times she did see him. He kept his distance and for that she was grateful. The tug was still there but she was able to keep at bay with her and Paul’s healthy sex life and Paul’s constant presence. But even now, Grace felt herself thinking about Jacob’s face and how she’d steal glances at him when Paul wasn’t looking and catch him looking back at her too.
Grace woke up early the next morning to get home before Charlie noticed. It was Sunday right before her finals and she was planning on spending the day finishing up some papers. Paul was going to be out all day on rounds anyway. She bent over the bed to plant a kiss on Paul’s mouth. He stirred and opened his eyes groggily reaching for her. She kneeled on the bed, backpack slung over her shoulder, hair tied up in a messy knot.
“A whole week huh?” he mumbled.
“Yeah,” she whispered leaning down to kiss him again, “I’ll see you on the other side.”
“Hmph,” he laughed sleepily. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“No, stay in bed, you’re tired.” Grace protested but he was already pushing his way around her and pulling on some sweats. Paul rarely slept in clothes and made sure Grace did the same. He said it improved their ‘efficiency,’ to which Grace had laughed as he had peeled her out of her clothes.
He took her backpack from her shoulder and placed it on the passenger side seat before coming back to meet her at the driver side door. She wrapped her arms loosely around his neck and kissed him, opening her mouth and letting him glide his tongue just inside her lips. She sighed softly into his mouth with a gentle moan she couldn’t quite contain and his grip reflexively tightened on her hips. She already felt the kiss getting out of hand as he pushed her back against the side of the truck. She pulled back lightly and smiled saying,
“I gotta go.” He looked at her face seriously for a moment and then without missing a beat he said,
“Right. I love you.” His eyes held hers as they went wide and she opened her mouth to say something.
“I….” she stammered searching his eyes. He lifted an eyebrow leaning back away from her and she felt the cold creeping in between them. Panicked, she said, “I love you too.” A smile broke over his face and he leaned down to kiss her again. Grace was happy to have him close again but her ache returned.
“Let’s go back inside,” he said devilishly.
“Jesus, Paul,” she groaned, smacking his arm and wiggling out of his arms. “I’ll see you next weekend.” She climbed up into her truck and he shut the door behind her waving her off as she went.
May
The end of finals had passed swiftly, crashing up against graduation, and now as Bella and Grace posed in their gowns with their diplomas, smiling for the camera that Charlie held before them, Grace was relieved.
She had done well, graduating near the top of her class, just behind Jessica and Eric—no small feat for a girl who had been expelled from her previous highschool.
“We better get back and get ready for the party,” Bella said as they wrapped up hugs with their friends.
“Right. No curfew tonight, right Charlie?” Grace joked. He rolled his eye.
Back at home, Grace pulled on her jean mini skirt with her dark green fitted shirt. She took time to expertly curl her hair in gentle waves around her face and tapped on some of her orange/red lip tint.
Bella was combing her hair behind her, “Is Paul coming tonight?”
Grace scoffed, “Yeah right. Like he’d ever be caught dead in a house full of vampires. That boy’s head would explode.”
“That’s a bummer,” Bella said softly, putting on a thin coat of mascara and pulling at her plaid shirt, “Do I look okay?”
Grace turned to look at her full on, “What are we going for here?”
Bella looked down at herself, “Just… like casual party goer.”
“Hmm, do you mind?” Grace said, getting excited. Bella shook her head.
Grace smoothed Bella’s hair in soft luxurious brown sheets that waved away from her face. She tapped on some bright red gloss across her perfectly pouted lips and dug through her closet before tossing chocolate brown fitted shirt dress her way. It was made of soft, clingy, cottony fabric that clung to every curve and dip of her body. Bella blushed as she put it on and Grace put the finishing touches on her.
“So, this says: Casual party goer who’s looking to stun her boyfriend into submission,” Grace cocked her head to the side satisfied. Bella let out a laugh curling a self-conscious arm around her middle.
“Ready?” Grace said shoving her feet in some simple white keds. Bella looked at herself once more in the mirror, pleased with what she saw and nodded.
The bounded down the steps together just as Edward was making his way up the steps to them.
“Charlie, we’re going!” Grace yelled over her shoulder.
“Bye dad!”
Outside, Grace skipped ahead of Bella so that Edward could take her all in.
“Nice huh?” Grace nudged him and headed toward the car. Edward was speechless. Bella tucked her hair behind her ear and gave him a simple,
“Hey.”
Grace enthusiastically gave the thumbs up from behind his back before climbing into the back seat of his car. From the back seat, she watched as Edward gently took Bella into his arms and placed a careful kiss over her mouth, holding her face with one hand and saying something to her without letting his eyes leave hers. Bella stared back up adoringly and Grace felt her heart skip a beat for a minute. She never saw two people more in love. Like really in love.
The party was extravagant to say the very least. Grace and Bella were immediately swept into the crush of people. Edward held fast to Bella as they moved around the party, greeting friends, grabbing snacks, and hugging Carlisle and Esme each and thanking them so much for the party. They clearly had not thrown it for just their Alice and Edward. Cakes with Bella and Grace’s names were prominently displayed along with their senior pictures (that Alice had insisted on earlier that month right after finals) throughout the house.
Grace had whisked Bella out onto the dance floor with Jessica and Angela for a few songs before she retreated in a quiet corner with Edward who fawned over her lovingly and encouraged her temporary outgoingness.
When Grace found herself trapped in the middle of the dance floor as a slow song came on, she looked around her quickly for a way out. And then from behind her she heard a familiar voice ask confidently,
“Can I have this dance?”
Grace whipped around coming face to face with none other than Jacob.
“Jake?! What are you doing here?” Grace said, taking an automatic step back. The couples were crowding in around them though so it was hard to keep distance.
“Bella invited me.” Jake said nonchalantly. Grace shot a look over at Bella who was being glided across the floor by Edward. No one was paying her any attention.
“Okay…” Grace said warily.
“So?” Jake held his hands out to her, “Will you dance with me?” Grace hesitated, looking for an escape. She had promised Paul the very exact opposite of this, but now she was trapped. And she didn’t really want to say no.
“Sure,” she said. Grace took the two steps forward to close the small gap between them and Jake let his hands slide across her waist to rest on her lower back. She snaked her hands up around his neck as he swayed them back and forth with more rhythm than she thought he was capable of.
“I know you’re not supposed to be alone with me,” Jake said, staring down at her, casting his gaze away every now and then to lower the intensity that was already pulsing between them. This was the closest they had been in months and the ache that was always there had subsided for once. She let her body move closer into Jake to monopolize on the feeling of overwhelming relief she felt at being held. It was like having a rock stuck in a shoe for months with no end in sight and then suddenly you’re able to take your shoes off and dip your feet in cool, clean water.
Grace wasn’t going to deny it. “Paul doesn’t trust you.”
“Paul is a control freak.” Jacob shot back.
“For good reason, apparently. Look where we are,” she looked down at the nonexistent space between them and he sighed, readjusting his grip on her so that she was pressed up against him just right. She clicked into place with him like a puzzle piece and it made her dizzy. They were gathering stares from those around them.
“So you’re totally comfortable coming to a vampire graduation party then?” Grace said in a low tone. Jake laughed.
“I guess. When the payoffs are nice at least,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Grace said, confused.
“You, Grace. Obviously,” Jake replied somewhat annoyed.
“Me? You’re here for me?” Grace sighed and tried to pull away at this, but he held her fast and she didn’t protest too much. His grip was comforting where Paul’s could sometimes feel too tight. She relaxed into that feeling.
“Don’t get too excited. I came for that, too,” he nodded over her head and Grace looked over her shoulder to see Alice volleying between here and not here. A vision. Grace let go of Jacob but felt his hand easily grab hers as she made her way across the dance floor. She held onto it, just to drag out that feeling of relief. She’d take whatever fight this would cause between her and Paul, just to have this feeling for a little longer.
“Alice.” Grace said. Bella was right next to her.
“What did you see?” Bella echoed.
“A problem,” Edward replied as he read Alice’s mind.
The Cullens, Bella, Jacob, Embry and Quil who had accompanied Jacob to the party, reconvened in the study.
Jake had finally let Grace go and she had stood next to Bella with her arms crossed in front of her.
“We’ve been tracking the situation in Seattle for awhile,” Carlisle said looking to each new face around him. “It seems like Victoria has been playing possum with us and has instead been making an army to come and confront us.”
“An army? What, you mean like an army of vampires?” Jake said incredulously.
“Newborns, our kind. Their human blood lingers in their tissue so they are at their strongest when they’re first turned. And when a vampire creates a lot of us at once, it’s usually for less than savory reasons.” Jasper contributed.
“So what do we do?” Bella said.
“Well, they were passing around Bella’s scent, so their motive is pretty clear. It seems like they’ve changed course, according to Alice’s vision and they’ll be coming here.” Rosalie stated dryly. Edward tightened his grip on Bella who had a look of pain on her face at the news.
“It might be to our advantage to have them come here right?” Emmett said, arms crossed.
“More vampires mean more problems for us,” Jacob said. His eyes locked with Grace’s.
“We know,” Carlisle said, a genuine sound of regret in his voice. “I’m sorry.” He said quietly. Jacob nodded at him, thankful and Grace’s heart swelled.
“So we draw them out,” Grace said suddenly. All eyes snapped to her at once. “Woah.” she said.
“What do you mean?” Esme asked.
“Emmett said we have the advantage, which we do. And we can draw them out and attack them from both sides, right?” Grace looked to Jacob who uncrossed his arms.
“Right.” he nodded. “We’re in.”
“Jacob, do you think Sam could come to some sort of understanding in this instance, so we could work together?” Carlisle asked.
“It would give us the numbers,” Jasper said, the wheels turning now as he prepared a battle plan in his head.
“I can talk to him. As long as we get to kill some vampires.” Jake said sarcastically.
“No.” Bella said suddenly.
“Bella,” Edward placated softly.
“No, you’ll get yourselves killed. It’s too dangerous.” Bella continued, not listening to Edward.
“Bella, this is what we do,” Jacob said. Embry and Quil nodded behind him.
“We’ll be fine, Bella,” Grace said. Jacob gave her a warning look. Something told her that he wasn’t including her in his instance of ‘we.’
“You’re definitely not going to be there,” Bella said matter-of-factly crossing her arms and getting irritated now. “Absolutely not.”
“Okay, mom. We’ll talk about it later,” Grace poked. Bella’s face was set. Grace and Jacob connected again, this time communicating wordlessly and coming up with a plan to convince Sam.
“It would be ideal if we could maybe coordinate with Sam and the pack, to ensure that there are no mistakes in the field,” Carlisle said.
“Yes, it would be best so we could train around each other. You’ll give us the edge we need, but if we can work with each other and learn from each other, then we can optimize our chances of survival.”
A weak sound came from Bella at this and Edward pulled her into him again.
“Got it. I’ll talk to Sam,” Jacob turned to Grace, “I’ll need your help with that.”
“Of course.” Grace said. He gave her a gentle smile and Grace felt herself shiver.
#twilight fanfiction#twilightfanfic#twilightfanfiction#jacobblackxoc#jacob black#jacobxoc#paul lahote pairing#paul lahotexoc#paul lahote#the cullens#edward cullen#bella swan#The Pack#new moon#eclipse#twilight#smeyer#fanfic#chapter 23#a monster lives here
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Chapter 21: Return
When Grace shut the door behind her, Paul was coming around the front of the truck to her when they heard a voice shout out across the clearing to them. They were still a little early, but some members of the pack were there building the bonfire pit and helping some of the community set up tables for the food spread.
“Hey!” Jared shouted across the field. Paul raised a hand and waved back, stuffing his keys into his pocket before holding his hand out to Grace who gladly took it.
“This feels so official,” Grace said leaning into him as they walked in step with one another.
“Oh it is. The binding ceremony is a real ball buster, but worth it if I get to kiss you in public,” he said nonchalantly. Grace looked up at him confused for a minute and then said,
“You’re so full of shit, Lahote.” He laughed and unfurled his hand from hers to drape it across her shoulder instead and pulled her into him to kiss the top of her head before they reached the group.
They entered the raucous of hoots and hollers from the pack. Grace gave Emily a quick hug before settling next to her quickly as Paul helped prepare the bonfire with the others. Grace always felt at home here. Speaking of home:
“Weird question,” Emily had asked after she confirmed with Grace that her and Paul had made it official. She seemed pleased when Grace had said they were so that was a good sign.
“Shoot,” Grace said.
“After graduation, are you planning on moving back to the rez?” Emily asked casually. Grace felt like she had been smacked with a 2x4.
“Umm, I mean. I don’t know my plans just yet, but….maybe?” Grace said suddenly. Where were these words coming from? Grace had planned on taking some classes at the community college in the fall to get her bearings for the next step, but the Spirit Bird thing had kind of thrown things off course for her. Her grades were good enough to get into local schools according to her advisor but she didn’t know if she was ready to leave just yet.
“Think about it. The tribe has money set aside to help tribe members relocate to the rez and find a home here. I’m sure Paul would love it, and you clearly belong here.” Emily nudged her on that last one.
“Thanks, yeah. I’ll-I’ll think about it.” Grace said. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity around her as the rest of the tribe drew near for the lighting of the bonfire. Paul had come over and handed her a drink before taking her back to their spot.
As the council members gave updates about the tribe, Grace settled into Paul’s side, however she couldn’t help her eyes dancing around the group to see if Jake would show. When she and Emily were talking, Quil and Embry were close by discussing Jake’s whereabouts. Apparently he’d been gone for a couple days now. Grace breathed a sigh of relief that he might not yet know that she and Paul were a thing. She wasn’t ashamed, she just wanted to be in this happy bubble a little while longer.
But her bubble quickly burst when she saw just outside the ring of people, Jacob’s towering frame, arms crossed and looking toward the fire. She made eye contact with him for a half a second trying to keep her thoughts clear before laying her head on Paul’s shoulder to continue listening.
Once the official business was wrapped up, they broke for food—the most fun part of bonfire night.
“Want me to grab you something?” Paul said eagerly, a hand lightly placed around her waist.
“Sure! Whatever you’re getting just grab me some. I’m going to make the rounds,” Grace gestured over her shoulder to a waiting crowd looking in her direction.
“Go on, Spirit Bird,” he kissed her forehead and let her slip away toward the group. She was greeted cheerfully by the throng of people waiting to receive her.
Grace noticed more and more that part of her role as Spirit Bird was not just the connecting link between the wolves that made them work better together, or the fact that she could provide protection with her shield and whatever other abilities waited under the surface, but she was also an emotional and spiritual conduit for her tribe. By even just conversing, sharing details with her, sharing emotions, connecting through touch and eye contact, Grace could relieve some of their anxiety, pain, grief, or worry. The best way that she could describe it was that she felt craved by the tribe.
So she took her time moving from circle to circle, checking in, exchanging hugs and forehead touches, just being with the people who loved her. This also gave Grace immense relief and she felt so needed here that Emily’s suggestion of moving to the rez after graduation didn’t sound so crazy. Paul’s eyes followed her every now and then, keeping track of her in the crowd until she reached the outer edge where Ti’Hal was milling about with some children.
Grace made her way to her and crouched next to her letting her know she was there by placing a hand on her arm and smiling warmly, not needing to communicate verbally. Ti’Hal returned the smile and then stood. She cupped her hands warmly on Grace’s face and said:
“Little bird, you seem happy.”
“I am,” Grace almost choked out.
“That’s good dear.” Suddenly, Ti’Hal’s eyes were distracted over Grace’s shoulder toward the treeline. Grace turned to see Jake just standing off outside of trees. His eyes pulled at Grace and she felt that familiar tug in her middle that had been absent for awhile since she hadn’t seen him. She looked back to Ti’Hal wanting to stay with her and pretend like she hadn’t seen him. Not yet, not yet. The voice in Grace’s head begged. Ti’Hal gave her a knowing look and once again pulled her face down to hers, pressing their foreheads together.
“You are both trying so hard to be different people. Why must you draw out fate like this?”
“What?” Grace said incredulous. Two seconds ago Ti’Hal had acknowledged how happy she was and now she was trying to be someone different?
“Little bird, youth carries you now, but don’t fight it for too long or you both will suffer.” Ti’Hal let go of her face seriously and moved back across the lawn toward the elders. Grace stood up straight, shocked.
“What the hell-”
“Can I talk to you?” Grace nearly shot out of her skin at the request behind her. She whipped around coming face to face with Jake, a pleading but strong look on his face. Her bubble had indeed, spectacularly burst.
Grace looked around her immediate vicinity for any sign of Paul. She knew two things for sure: 1) If he saw her with Jake, he’d come immediately to her rescue and 2) if he found her with Jake there might be hell to pay.
Not seeing Paul anywhere nearby and the throng of the tribe separating them from the immediate sight line of the bonfire, she nodded with a terse ‘fine’ and followed him as he led her to the forest.
They went just inside the treeline, maybe 40 yards in, where they could still hear the bustle of the of bonfire and the see the light of the flames. Jake turned and Grace kept a good bit of distance between them so that nothing could be misconstrued if they were happened upon by a member of the pack.
“Yes?” Grace said a little irritated. Jake shook his head and scowled at that.
“Really?” He shot back. Okay, so this was going to be a fight. Grace thought to herself.
“What, Jake? I haven’t heard from you or seen you in days, what could you possibly want?” Grace was mostly irritated because that tug that she had quieted was roaring back trying to pull them together like a magnet and she felt it’s discomfort by refusing it.
“Oh please. So I’m gone a few days and you immediately shack up with Paul?” He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth and tried quickly to back track when he saw the outraged, open mouthed look on Grace’s face, “I just mean...I just want to know: Are you guys officially dating or what?”
“Jesus, Jake. This is what you wanted to ask me? Yes, Paul is my boyfriend. And you could have asked me that in front of him instead of playing this secret hideout game. This is crap, I’m going back,” Grace turned to leave but Jake took an immediate step forward and shouted after her.
“That’s absolute shit, you know. If you listened to what Ti’Hal said-”
“And what did Ti’Hal say to YOU, EXACTLY?” Grace interjected swinging around and letting anger color her voice clearly. He had no right.
“Exactly what she told you. If you listened to yourself, you’d know that being with Paul is just going to end up a mess. Grace. At some point...he’s going to im-”
“And who am I supposed to be with instead?” Grace said, taking quick steps forward and closing the gap between them. She couldn’t stifle her anger any longer. She wanted to kill him, wanted to hurt him, wanted him to feel bad for saying all of these things to her when she was happy. She came right up to him and shouted, “You?! I’m supposed to be with you?”
Jacob didn’t move, didn’t wince, just stared down at Grace like he wanted to speak.
“Because last I checked, you were still hung up on Bella. And I have a boyfriend.” Jacob grimaced at the mention of Bella and looked away for a second. Hurting him like this didn’t give Grace the satisfaction she was hoping for and she faltered some, anger dissolving into sadness.
“I’m happy Jake. Let me be happy. Please, please, please. Please.” Tears stung at her eyes as she begged without looking at him. He reached for her now and whispered, “Grace.” before touching her arms and trying to pull her into a hug. Grace shoved away from him, not letting herself get caught in this again.
“NO!” she bellowed putting more distance between them again. And it was just at this moment that she heard a booming voice come up behind her.
“Grace!” the voice shouted. She couldn’t tell if it’s intonation was one of recognition, concern, or anger, but she was going to bet it was probably all three. Paul was in front of her in a second, pushing Jacob in the chest, “Back up!”
“Screw you, Paul.” Jacob shot back, the anger returning. “We’re just talking.”
“I’m going to tell you this once and only once: if you touch her again, you’re going to regret it.” Paul returned, seething anger building in his voice. Grace took a step forward to interject.
“She’s not your property, Paul. She’s here for everyone.”
“She’s MINE. She’s MY girlfriend. And the sooner you understand that the more likely you are to remain intact, alpha-reject.” Paul shot back.
“Paul, that’s enough!” Grace said stepping forward and grabbing onto his arm. He yanked it free from her to her surprise and pushed Jake again, who pushed him back. Both of their bodies shook violently.
Jared and Embry crashed into focus and pushed between them, separating them from one another.
“Paul, get a grip,” Jared warned, pushing him back toward Grace. Embry was leaning into Jacob talking quietly to him and Jacob seemed to gain his composure. “Take Grace and get out of here.” Jared tried to command. Paul made eye contact with Jared for a second before shaking himself free and quickly turning to roughly grab Grace around the shoulders and steering her back toward the treeline muttering, “We’re leaving.”
Once out past the treeline and in sight of the car, Grace shook Paul off of her and gave him a scathing look before treading quick ahead to swing around at him, “Paul what the fuck?!”
“Get in the car.” he said solidly, not stopping. “I’m taking you home.”
Grace turned to watch him climb into the car and waited for a half second, the look he gave her made her want to dissolve. “Grace!” he yelled impatiently. She gave in and walked to the car yanking the passenger door open and climbing inside, crossing her arms.
When Paul pulled into his drive, Grace perked up and said half confused, “I thought you were taking me home?”
Paul didn’t say anything and just got out of his car and walked into his house. Grace sat in the car for a moment, readying herself for a fight before taking a deep breath and pushing her door open. Paul had left the front door open and she walked through closing it behind her, trying to calm her nerves. Paul was at the sink drinking a glass of water.
Grace waited for him to speak first.
“Why is it that whenever I don’t know where you are, I find out that you’re somewhere alone with Jacob Black every time?” Paul said, his voice even but hurt and anger still clearly etched in his tone. Grace’s hands shook a little bit from the nerves.
The ache in Grace was growing after seeing Jake and leaving him so quickly again. She hated this part, so she tried hard to quiet it again, but Paul wasn’t playing ball.
“Paul, that’s not what that was and you know it. He was asking if we were together and I said yes we very much were and that he was an idiot and could have asked me that in front of you.”
Paul watched her with a critical eye and dumped the rest of the water down the sink before coming into the living room and leaning against the wall.
“Part of me laying claim was to assure everyone that you’re mine. But for whatever reason, Jake doesn’t seem to respect those boundaries so I need your help there.” Paul was calmer now but not coming near her.
“I did tell him we were together.”
“That’s not enough.” Paul said quickly. Grace closed her mouth quickly not sure what to say next. What else was she supposed to do? Her arms hung limply at their sides. As if on cue, Paul said: “You can’t be alone with him.” Pain shot through Grace on this request.
“How am I supposed to-?” Grace started and Paul let out an annoyed hiss before turning down the hallway toward his bedroom, “Paul! I’m talking to you!”
He swung around, the anger back, “I asked you something very simple. For us to work, I need you to make the boundary clear because CLEARLY the line gets blurred when you two are alone together. I’m not blaming you. I’m asking you to choose me. Like I chose you, Grace. Fuck!” he yelled turning back down the hallway. He disappeared into his bedroom and Grace heard the shower turn on. She put a hand to her head trying to hold back her tears.
How was she supposed to stay away from Jake when everything in her pulled her toward him? But something Paul had said was right: the lines got blurred and that wasn’t fair to him. If she wanted this work, she had to do this. And she desperately wanted this to work.
Grace tread softly down the hallway, removing her sweater and jeans as she went. She was completely naked by the time she reached his bathroom door and hesitated, her hand hovering over the door knob. She’d promise him, she told herself.
She gently opened the door and climbed in the shower behind him, wrapping her arms around his torso, before saying: “Okay. I promise.”
Paul turned around and cupped his hand under her chin so she’d make eye contact with him.
“For real, Grace. I need a solid promise.”
“Paul. I promise. I won’t be alone with him ever.” she said clearly, water streaming in rivulets down her face. He nodded satisfied with her answer before leaning down to lock her in with a kiss. Their shower quickly devolved into Paul carefully carrying Grace to bed, both of them slick with warm water.
He buried his head between her legs and worked in there, pulling gasps and moans from Grace as she held tightly at his short hair. As she pulsed toward climax, one face lingered behind her closed lids as she lost herself in pleasure: Jacob’s scowl, Jacob’s pleading face, Jacob’s hands reaching for her arms and leaving scorching heat just from a soft tentative touch. She shivered with release and then Paul was above her, moving into her and washing away the pictures from her head. She bit her lower lip and focused, guilt flooding her instantly.
#twilight fanfiction#Twilight FanFic#twilight#new moon#eclipse#jacob black#jacobblackxoc#paul lauhote#paul lahote pairing#paul lahotexoc#edward cullen#bella swan#the cullens#the pack#chapter 21#a monster lives here
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Chapter 20: B-word
Grace woke up to the soft glow of Paul’s digital clock on his nightstand: it read 5:02 a.m.. She felt exceptionally warm, a feeling she was coming to be very familiar with sleeping in bed with a member of the pack. Paul’s white t-shirt hung loose on her frame and was the only thing she was wearing. She crept out of bed to the bathroom quickly to pee. When she looked in the mirror to take in the state of herself, she placed a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.
Her cheeks were flushed red, and she let her fingers caress the red warmth. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes held their half lidded shape somewhere between sleep and a flutter of immense pleasure. Her mind lingered back to just a few hours ago as she and Paul were clutched together, Grace on top of him this time moving needy and quick over him as he cradled his hands on her hips and ass helping her to move up and down on him and sucking softly at her breast.
She pulled the hand across her mouth back to gingerly touch her lips that were swollen and soft from rough, wanting kisses that asked for more and more. She quickly combed fingers through her hair to smooth it down, snapping herself from her reverie, and then crept back into Paul’s room looking for her clothes. She had to get back to the Cullen’s before Bella woke up. She was going to tell Bella about Paul, but she just didn’t want to cause a fuss so early in the morning. As she shuffled quietly around the room gathering her things, she heard Paul stir from the bed.
“Mmm, where do you think you’re going before the sun’s even up?” his deep morning voice made her lower body tingle and she smiled warmly, whispering:
“I don’t want anyone to think I’ve been kidnapped and my honor taken under the cover of night. I have a reputation to remain on this rez,” Grace laughed. As she spotted her underwear just under his bed and leaned close to get it, he reached out with one swift arm and grabbed her. She shrieked trying to turn out of his grasp, but he held fast and pulled her to him, pressing her back against his warm chest. Grace giggled and tried to pretend to struggle against him as the hand he had wrapped around her belly snaked its way up toward her breasts.
“Paul for real, I gotta go!” Grace protested only half serious. He smiled, kissing on her neck and grumbling low in her ear:
“You wiggling is not helping your case here.” She could feel how much isn’t wasn’t helping, alright. Paul hadn’t bothered to put his boxers back on after the third time they’d gone at each other last night, so there was nothing between them—she felt him pressed against her back loud and clear.
“They’re going to worry!” Grace tried again, turning her head ever so slightly so his kisses could land closer to her lips.
“Letting my nearly naked girlfriend leave my bed to run back to house full of vampires does not appeal at all to your short-fuse boyfriend,” his other hand had pushed under her waist and was moving it’s way down her hips, sliding between her thighs and pushing them open. Grace let out a gasp as he gently stroked her there—she closed her eyes and leaned her head back, triggering an eagerness in Paul to roughly kiss on her throat and clutch her breast.
“Say you’re my boyfriend again,” Grace exhaled, eyes still closed. Paul chuckled running his lips across the edge of her ear before saying,
“Maybe later. Don’t want to wear my name out,” he teased before fully cupping her mound and pushing down, causing Grace to instinctively arch her back. He quickly entered her from behind, rushing into her and causing Grace to let out a sharp cry before happily matching his rhythm as early morning light poured through his window.
6:14 a.m.
Grace clicked the front door of the Cullen home softly behind her before hurrying up the steps to her guest room. On the landing, Rosalie was standing at the other end of the hallway, arms crossed and giving her a knowing smile.
“And where have you been all night?” Rosalie asked, not trying to keep her voice down. Grace looked around panicked and held out a hand.
“I was, was, was, uuuuhh, tending to business on the rez,” Grace said quickly and not convincingly.
“Well, your business stinks. I can smell you from here,” Rosalie wrinkled her nose and turned to walk back toward the study.
“Thanks,” Grace breathed to an empty hallway before quickly retreating into the guest room. She made a beeline for the shower, trying to smell herself. She didn’t think she smelled that bad, but who knows.
Grace took her time in the shower, letting her mind wander back to last night as she touched parts of her body that Paul had lingered on, clutched to, or gripped. She knew what would be waiting for her on the other side of all of this. Someone was going to get hurt, but she needed to sit in this moment of happiness for just a moment longer.
Before she had left, much to the continued protesting of Paul, she begged him to do his best not to let what had happened creep into his head during rounds. He gave her a wicked grin and had the audacity to ask why, before she let out an aggravated groan and said: “I’d really like all of this to be a ‘your-eyes-only’ thing.”
She motioned up and down to her body which Paul was aggressively staring at.
“Say no more,” he said seriously. Grace had a feeling that watching a pack member drool over or make a comment about Paul’s picture of her naked body would result in some serious mauling.
Grace didn’t bother drying her hair, opting to let it dry natural and wavy before pulling on some dark wash jeans, a black fitted t-shirt and grey zip up sweatshirt. Grace plugged in her phone and before going downstairs to appear totally normal and not like she had been rolling around in bed with her newly anointed boyfriend last night, she checked her phone.
SMS Text—6:33 a.m.: Paul
Be safe. I’ll call you after rounds tonight
Signed, your boyfriend.
Grace laughed before quickly typing her reply:
I will. Thanks for last night < 3
I’ll talk to you soon, from your very exhausted girlfriend
She clipped her phone shut and left it on the nightstand and contemplated mussing up her sheets to make it look like she had slept there last night. Shaking her head, she left them perfectly made up instead and made her way down to the kitchen, peeking around the corner to scope it out before busting in like she owned the place.
Alice was tentatively at the stove prodding at pancakes when Grace came into view with her hands folded in front of her.
“Good morning!” Alice cried. “Oh my goodness, I didn’t think you’d be up so early!” Alice said, a tone of lilted recognition in her voice.
“Oh!” Grace said a little surprised as she came to sit at the island across from Alice, “Just an early riser, I guess. School’s been a grind lately so I’m used to it I guess.”
“Right,” Alice looked at her with a knowing smile and then back at her pancakes, “Well! Breakfast is not ready just yet, I’m trying to learn the perfect brown of a pancake, but they’ll be ready before you know it! Help yourself to some coffee.”
Bella woke up a couple hours later and stumbled still in her pajamas into the kitchen while Grace and Alice chatted away easily.
“You’re chipper this morning,” Bella said off hand through a yawn as Alice placed a cup of tea in front of her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Grace said aghast. Could Bella really tell so quickly?
“Pink cheeks, happier than I’ve seen in weeks,” Bella said sleepily as she leaned into her cup. Grace looked at her over her second cup of coffee and raised her eyebrows. “You’re happy is all, jeez,” Bella laughed.
“Thank you, I am. Very happy.” She enunciated the last two words and broke out in a giggles as she made eye contact with Alice. Grace had found it very easy to get along with a feel close with Alice. She understood now why Bella liked her too. Alice was easy to love, warm, knowing, but always true.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bella echoed Grace’s earlier statement. Alice finished cutting some fresh bright peppers and scattered them elegantly across Bella’s stack of pancakes before sliding it in front of her.
Alice looked to Grace for permission who gave a short nod and eye roll before Alice blurted out excitedly, “She’s got a boyfriend. A real official boyfriend!” She finished the announcement with a squeal of utter delight. Bella almost choked on her tea.
“What?! Oh my god, really? Jake?!” Bella said wide eyed. It was Grace’s turn to choke on her coffee. Between cough and sputters that she got out she shook her head no.
“No! No, no, no. Paul!” Grace said before clearing her throat and saying, “Paul Lahote is my boyfriend.” The words rolled off her tongue easily and she liked the taste of them. Paul Lahote was hers. Her boyfriend. She crossed her legs to help quiet the throb that had returned when she thought about last night. Get a grip, Grace. She told herself.
“Oh Paul!” Bella said somewhat surprised before she changed her tone and said, “That’s so great! You guys are-are great together.”
“Yikes, Bella,” Rosalie said as she entered the kitchen and sat next to Grace. Bella squirmed uncomfortably in her seat.
“It’s an easy mistake to make,” Grace interjected. “Honestly, I get around,” she toasted herself and bust out laughing. Bella relaxed and laughed to shaking her head.
“So what happened?” Rosalie asked, her eyes curious and invested. Grace wasn’t sure why Rosalie seemed to like Grace as much as she did. The entire night before when they were in the girl’s night part of their sleepover, she had doted on Grace, fixing her hair, pushing back her cuticles, tending to her like a doll. Curious.
“Uh, well,” Grace looked from Rosalie to Alice. They of course knew that she had snuck out the night before and now it was clear where she had been.
“You don’t have to say,” Alice suddenly waved it off.
“Nooo!” Both Rosalie and Bella chorused, surprising each other.
“No secrets, remember?” Bella said. Grace looked to her and then bit her lip, holding back a smile and said:
“I went to see him last night. He texted me and well, he gets under my skin, you know.” Grace said, suddenly getting nervous at all of the eyes on her. “And…”
“And?” Rosalie prompted.
“We… we had sex,” Grace finally got out closing her eyes tight and letting the exulatations from the others rush over her. “Like a lot...of sex.”
“Oh my god,” Bella said, blushing profusely. She was suddenly hiding her face in her tea.
“Oh, I forgot, Bella’s a little virgin. Not too many details now, Grace,” Rosalie chided. Bella’s face flamed hot as she looked up with a grimace.
“Rosalie,” Alice groaned. Grace looked quickly to Bella.
“Bella, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-” Grace started to which Bella became even more embarrassed.
“Oh jeez, please don’t apologize. I’m not some innocent little baby. I know what sex is. I grew up sharing a house with Renee, remember? She wasn’t entirely secretive about her conquests.” Bella stammered trying to gain some composure.
“Okay,” Grace said still apologetically. Rosalie leaned in and said quietly.
“So how was it?” Grace blushed and tried to hold in her giddy laughter. She was a woman possessed. And she leaned into Rosalie, while Alice tried to feign disinterest but still leaned toward them while Grace tried to spill some details.
Bella speared a strawberry and looked out the window.
Back at home, Grace unpacked her bag and started a load of laundry. When she returned to her room, Bella was sitting on her bed picking at the tips of her fingers.
“Bella?” Grace asked. Bella looked up suddenly and said.
“You can tell me stuff, you know. I’m not a total prude.” Bella said a little dejectedly.
“Oh my god,” Grace said as she dropped her laundry basket and moved to sit next to her. “I know! And it’s not a big deal really. I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. You just seemed….uncomfortable.”
Bella fidgeted some more. “I wasn’t. I just-” Grace looked to Bella’s fingers. “I know me and Edward aren’t there yet, but I can still talk about these things.”
“I know! And hey, it’s totally okay to go at your own pace okay? I didn’t mean to make you feel left out. Come here,” She pulled Bella into a hug, “You’re like my sister. Okay?”
“Okay,” Bella mumbled into her hair letting out a light laugh. They each pulled back from the hug.
“No secrets,” Grace said holding out her pinky. Bella let out a laugh and looped her pinky with hers.
“No secrets.” They sat quietly for a second swinging their pinkies back and forth before Bella shyly asked, “So...what was it like? Was it your first time or?”
Grace broke into an overwhelming bright smile.
“So, if I’m being totally honest, no it wasn’t my first time. Brad Boychen was my first, ugh,” Grace stuck out her tongue and pointed to the back of her throat indicating a gag, “But this time, everything felt so new and right and he was so sweet.” Grace felt her hand creeping up to hold around her neck. “And I honestly can’t stop thinking about it. He just knew what to do, and I felt like with him, I knew what to do too. We just clicked together.” Grace flushed and let out a sigh before looking at Bella who was enraptured.
“How did you know he wanted to...you know?” Bella blushed and then forced herself to proceed, “I mean, how did you know that you were ready to have sex. With him i mean.”
“Well, I honestly did not know when I went over there last night that that was the plan. Like at all. But when I got there, I just felt like something had changed between us and we acknowledged something in each other we knew had been building for awhile. It was definitely a mutual decision. He waited for cues and I responded to those cues I think. Does that make sense?” Grace cocked her head to one side.
“Did he initiate it? Or did you?”
“Definitely him, he said he was tired of the ‘back and forth’ so he was making a decision. And then he just kissed me and-” Grace paused smiling again, shaking her head. “It just happened. And it was so wonderful.” Grace watched Bella’s face carefully for the next few minutes. It seemed like she was mulling something over so Grace went out on a limb, “Are you and Edward thinking about….you know?” Grace nudged Bella with her shoulder.
Bella’s gaze shot up and her eyes were wide, “Oh no! No definitely not. I mean….Edward is….very old fashioned,” she scoffed. “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to.” she admitted.
Grace paused before asking her next question. “Can I ask? Ummm, like how will that work? I don’t claim to be an expert on the mechanics of vampire-human sex, but...I don’t if you had..thought about it?” Grace stumbled over that last bit and blushed profusely. She really didn’t hope Bella thought that she was thinking about how her and her boyfriend would have sex.
“I think it works like normal?” Bella said a little unsure. “I mean, we’ve definitely gotten to a point where I thought things were about to go farther, but he always stops. It’s so….” she made a face, “Frustrating. I totally get that he wants to wait, but if it was up to me…” Bella stalled there, letting her curtain of hair cover her face.
“Woah, Bella,” Grace said jokingly, “You’re a total sex freak.”
Bella’s jaw dropped before she made a sound of protest and smacked Grace with her history binder.
“Whatever,” she laughed, “I’m not the one having wild all nighter sex with a half human, half wolf.”
“Hey, he’s fully human when we do it,” Grace laughed. She heard a car horn honk out in front and looked over her shoulder.
“Who’s that?” Bella said. Grace crawled across Bella’s bed and opened her window that looked over the front yard. Paul was leaning against the passenger side door of his forerunner, arms crossed in a cream colored crew neck sweater and jeans, smiling up at her when she leaned out.
“What are you doing here?” She called out, a smile breaking over her face and her belly swelling with warmth already.
“Come down from your balcony, Juliet so I can say hi to you the right way.” Paul called back up. Delighted, she pulled back from the window and bolted toward her door saying over her shoulder, “It’s Paul!” to Bella. Once down the stairs, she pulled on her boots and bounded out the front door, running full tilt toward him and crashing into his open arms.
They’re lips collided effortlessly and he kissed her like he hadn’t seen her in weeks, holding her to him and lifting her body up off the ground. When she broke away from the kiss she said, breathy: “Hi.”
He put his forehead to hers, kissing gently at her nose before saying softly, “Hi.”
“Was that the right way to say hello?” Grace asked, cocking her head to the side and feeling her feet touch the ground.
“To your boyfriend, yes,” Paul laughed, leaning down to softly kiss her again.
“What are you doing here, again?” Grace asked.
“It’s bonfire night babe. Go get dressed.” Paul patted her hip and let another hand come up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “We’re ‘coming out’ tonight, so I want to show you off a little bit”
“Oh!” Grace said, her eyes widening nervously. Did everyone already know?
“Word gets around the rez,” Paul said shrugging and letting his hands move up and down her arms instinctively to warm her up. “Don’t worry, your rep is cleanly in tact. Pack’s honor.” Grace laughed at this and kissed him again, relishing in the feeling of getting to do it anytime she wanted.
“Okay, just give me ten minutes?” Grace said stepping back. Paul nodded and Grace turned to jog inside.
In her bedroom she got dressed quickly, pulling on a cream colored chunky knit sweater with a thick turtle neck to match Paul’s and some black, tight jeans. She ran a brush through her hair a few times and opted to tie half of it up in a loose knot, letting the rest fall down around her shoulders. It was getting long, she’d need to get it cut soon. She patted some orange red lip tint on that blushed against her warm brown skin.
“Can you do me a favor?” Grace said over her should to Bella who was propped on her bed with a book.
“Yeah, sure.” Bella said.
“Can you cover for me? I might be getting home kind of late tonight.” Grace said smiling knowingly. Bella smiled.
“Of course!” Bella replied.
“Are you going to be okay tonight?”
“Oh yeah, Edward should be here soon.” Bella said. Grace came over and kissed the top of her head before waving goodbye and hurtling down the steps, pulling on her boots once more before she skipped down the steps toward Paul.
He broke into a wide smile and when she reached him again, he bent his head down and kissed her softly before whispering, “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” she smiled up at him. He opened the passenger door for her and when she got in he closed it behind her.
When he hopped into the driver seat, he took her hand into his and said “Ready?”
“Ready.” She breathed. She hadn’t been this excited since her junior prom. Something about declaring her and Paul as a couple to the rez felt so satisfying and nerve wracking and thrilling.
He pulled her hand up to his lips to kiss and then they were off, the sun just beginning to set behind them.
#twilight#twilight fanfiction#twilightfanfic#twilightfanfiction#new moon#eclipse#jacobblackxoc#paul lahote#paul lahotexoc#the cullens#bella swan#edward cullen#the pack#jacob black#paul lahote pairing#a monster lives here#chapter 20
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