She was comparing visions now. The older ones where, tomorrow night, the three strangers would approach the house. It was a future I was prepared for; Bella and I were far away in that version.
Something had changed their plans. She moved forward, just a few minutes, into this new timeline. A friendly meeting was a possibility, introductions, a request. Alice realized what had happened. But I was fixated on the fact that Bella was there in this vision, quietly in the background.
We were all in a tight circle at this point, Alice at our center.
Carlisle leaned close, putting one hand on her arm. “What is it, Alice?”
Alice shook her head quickly, as though trying to force the pictures in her head to line up in a way that made sense. “They were traveling much quicker than I thought. I can see I had the perspective wrong before.”
“What changed?” Jasper had been with Alice for so long that he understood better than anyone besides me how her talent worked.
“They heard us playing,” Alice told us; the strangers would reveal this information in the friendly version of events. “And it changed their path.”
Everyone stared at Bella.
“How soon?” Carlisle demanded, turning toward me.
It was not an easy distance for me to hear across. It helped that on a late, stormy night like this, the mountains around us were mostly empty of humans. It helped more that there were no other vampires in the area. Vampire minds were slightly more resonant; I could hear them from a greater distance, pinpoint them more easily. So I was able to locate them—aided by the landmarks I’d seen in Alice’s vision—but I could only catch the most dominant thoughts.
“Less than five minutes,” I told him. “They’re running—they want to play.”
His eyes flashed to Bella again. You have to get her away from here. “Can you make it?”
Alice focused on one strand of possibility for me. Trying to escape, Bella on my back.
Bella didn’t slow me down very much—it wasn’t the burden of her weight but the need to move carefully so as not to hurt her that impeded me—but I wouldn’t be quite fast enough. This strand tied into the other future I’d seen: us surrounded, outnumbered…
The strangers were not so enthusiastic about baseball as to be careless. Alice saw that they would come at the clearing from three different angles, surveilling, before regrouping to present a united front. If any of them heard me running, they would come to investigate.
I shook my head. “No, not carrying—”
Carlisle’s thoughts roiled in alarm.
“Besides,” I hissed, “the last thing we need is for them to catch the scent and start hunting.”
“How many?” Emmett demanded.
“Three,” Alice growled.
Emmett snorted. The sound was so at odds with the tension that I could only stare at him blankly.
“Three?” he scoffed. “Let them come.”
Carlisle was considering options, but I could already see there was only one. Emmett was right: There were enough of us that the strangers would have to be suicidal to start a fight.
“Let’s just continue the game,” Carlisle agreed, though I didn’t need to read minds to hear how unhappy he was with this decision. “Alice said they were simply curious.”
Alice started combing through all the possibilities for an encounter here in the clearing, the images more solid now that a decision had been made. It looked like the vast majority were peaceable, though they all began with tension. There were a few outliers on the spectrum of outcomes where something ignited a standoff, but those were less clear. Alice couldn’t see what would trigger the conflict—some decision yet to be made. She didn’t see any stable version that would result in physical combat here.
But there was so much she couldn’t interpret yet. I saw the blinding sunlight again, and neither of us could understand where she was seeing.
I knew Carlisle’s decision was the only decision, but I felt sick to my core. How could I have allowed this to happen?
“Edward,” Esme whispered. Are they thirsty? Are they hunting now?
Thirst wasn’t in their thoughts, and in Alice’s vision, every second more clear, their eyes were a satiated red.
I shook my head at her.
That’s something, at least.She was nearly as horrified as I was. Her thoughts were, like mine, snarled up in the idea of Bella’s being in danger. Though Esme was no fighter, I could hear how fierce this made her feel. She would defend Bella as if she were her own child.
“You catch, Esme,” I directed. “I’ll call it now.”
Esme took my place quickly, but her focus was locked on Bella’s position.
No one was eager to stray deep into the field. They hovered close, ears all trained toward the forest. Alice, like Esme, had no intention of moving away from Bella. Her protective thoughts were not exactly like Esme’s—not as maternal—but I could see that she, too, would shield Bella at any cost.
Despite the sick feeling consuming me, I could feel a rush of gratitude for their commitment.
“Take your hair down,” I murmured to Bella.
It wasn’t much of a disguise, but the most obviously human thing—besides her scent and her heartbeat—was her skin. The more of it we could hide…
She immediately pulled the band from her ponytail and shook her hair out, letting it fall around her face. It was clear she understood the need to hide.
“The others are coming now,” she stated. Her voice was quiet, but even.
“Yes,” I said. “Stay very still, keep quiet, and don’t move from my side, please.”
I placed a few locks of her hair in a better position to camouflage her face.
“That won’t help,” Alice murmured. “I could smell her across the field.”
“I know,” I snapped.
“What did Esme ask you?” Bella whispered.
I thought about lying. She must already be terrified. But I told her the truth. “Whether they were thirsty.”
Her heart thudded out of rhythm, then picked up faster than before.
I was vaguely aware of the others pretending to continue the game, but my mind was so focused on what was coming that I saw nothing of their façade.
Alice watched her visions solidify. I saw how they would split up, which routes they would take, and where they would reassemble before confronting us. I was relieved to see that none of them would cross Bella’s earlier trail before entering the clearing. Perhaps that was why Alice’s vision of the cordial if cautious meeting held firm. Of course, there were hundreds of possibilities once they were here. I saw myself defending Bella many times, the others always standing with me—well, Rosalie taking Emmett’s flank; it looked like she had little interest in protecting anyone besides him. There were a few fragile future threads where it came to a fight, but they were as insubstantial as steam. I couldn’t get a good view of the outcome.
I could hear their minds approaching, still distant, but clearer. It was obvious that none of them had any hostility toward us, though the one trailing the pack—the redheaded female Alice had seen—was skittish with anxiety. She was prepared to run for it if she felt any hint that we were aggressive. The two males were just excited about the possibility of some recreation. They seemed to be comfortable with approaching a group of strangers, and I assumed they were nomads familiar with how things worked here in the North.
They were splitting up now, doing their due diligence before exposing themselves.
If Bella hadn’t been here, if she’d rejected the idea of spending her evening watching us play… well, I probably would have been with her. And Carlisle would have called me to let me know the strangers had arrived early. I would have been anxious, of course. But I would have known I’d done nothing wrong.
Because I should have foreseen this possibility. The noise of playing vampires was a very specific sound. If I’d taken the time to think through all the conceivable contingencies, if I’d not accepted Alice’s vision of the strangers coming tomorrow as gospel—set my watch to it, so to speak—if I’d been circumspect rather than enthusiastic…
I tried to imagine how I would have felt if this encounter had taken place six months ago, before I’d ever seen Bella’s face. I thought I would have been… unperturbed. Once I’d seen these visitors’ minds, I would have been confident that there was nothing to worry about. Probably, I would even have been excited about the novelty of newcomers and the variation they would add to the pattern of our usual game.
Now I could feel nothing but dread, panic… and guilt.
“I’m sorry, Bella,” I breathed just loud enough for her to hear. The strangers were too close for me to risk speaking at a greater volume. “It was stupid, irresponsible, to expose you like this. I’m so sorry.”
She just stared at me, whites showing all around her irises. I wondered if she kept silent because of my warning, or if she just had nothing to say to me.
The strangers reunited at the southwest corner of the clearing. Their movements were audible now. I shifted my position so that my body would hide hers and began tapping my foot quietly to the rhythm of her heartbeat, hoping to disguise it as long as I could by creating a plausible source for the sound.
Carlisle turned to face the whisper of their approaching feet, and the others followed his lead. We would not give away any of our advantages, but would pretend to have no more than our extensive vampire senses to guide us.
Frozen, motionless as if we were hewn from the rock around us, we waited.
22. THE HUNT
BY THE TIME THE STRANGERS ENTERED THE CLEARING, THEIR FACES were already so well known to me that it felt as though I were recognizing them rather than seeing them for the first time.
The smaller, ill-favored male started in the lead, but he quickly fell back in a practiced maneuver.
He was focused on our numbers, singling out the threats. He assumed we were two or possibly three friendly covens, meeting for the game. He was very aware of Emmett, hulking beside Carlisle. And then me, obviously agitated; it was strange for a vampire to twitch in anxiety. None of them knew what to make of my cadenced tapping.
For the smallest part of a second, I struggled with the feeling that something was missing in his tally, but there was too much for me to concentrate on to have time to track down that impression.
The male in the lead was tall and handsomer than average, even for a vampire. His thoughts were very confident. His coven meant no mischief here; though, naturally, this large grouping of covens was surprised to be approached by strangers, he was sure we would work it out quickly. He, too, reacted to Emmett’s size and my tension, but was then distracted by Rosalie.
I wonder if she’s mated? Hmm, they do seem to be even in numbers.
His eyes skipped over the rest of us, then settled on Rose again.
The female with the vivid red hair was tenser than any of us, her body nearly vibrating with anxiety. She had a hard time keeping her intense glare off Emmett.
There’re too many. Laurent is a fool.
She’d already catalogued a thousand different routes for escape. Currently, she felt her best chance was to sprint due north to the Salish Sea, where we couldn’t follow her scent. I wondered that she wouldn’t opt for the much nearer Pacific coast, but I couldn’t see her reasons if she didn’t think of them.
I found myself hoping the jittery female would break for cover and the others follow, but Alice didn’t see that.
The redhead was watching the plainer male, waiting for him to run first. Her eyes danced to Emmett again, and she moved reluctantly as she followed the others closer.
The two males seemed unable to keep their eyes off Emmett for long, either. I found myself appraising my brother. He seemed even bigger than usual tonight, and there was something unnerving about his taut stillness.
Still the leader, Laurent, was sure of his plan. If our covens could get along with each other, then we could get along with his. Everyone would calm down and then we could all play. And he would get to know the glowing blonde.…
He smiled in a friendly way, slowing his approach and then stopping as he got within a few yards of Carlisle. His gaze flickered to Rosalie, to Emmett, to me, then back to Carlisle.
“We thought we heard a game,” he said. He had a faint French accent, but his internal voice came to him in English. “I’m Laurent, these are Victoria and James.”
They didn’t appear to have much in common, this urbane traveler from the continent and his two more feral followers. The female was irritated by his introduction; she was almost consumed by the need to escape. The other male, James, was a little amused at Laurent’s confidence. He was enjoying the unpredictable nature of this encounter and was keen to see how we would respond.
Vic hasn’t split yet, he was thinking. So it probably won’t come to anything.
Carlisle smiled at Laurent, his friendly, open face momentarily disarming even the frightened Victoria. For one second, they all focused entirely on him instead of Emmett.
“I’m Carlisle,” he introduced himself. “This is my family, Emmett and Jasper; Rosalie, Esme, and Alice; Edward and Bella.” He gestured vaguely in our direction as he spoke, not drawing attention to me individually or Bella behind me. Laurent and James were reacting to the information that we were not separate tribes, but I wasn’t entirely paying attention.
In the second that Carlisle said Jasper’s name, I realized what I’d been missing.
Jasper—lacerated with scars on every visible portion of his skin, tall and lean and fierce as any stalking lion, eyes brutal with remembered kills—should have been at the forefront of their assessments. His warlike aspect should, even now, be coloring this negotiation.
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, and found myself… so incredibly bored. It seemed as if there could be nothing less interesting in the world than this nondescript vampire standing docilely to one side of our grouping.
Nondescript? Docile? Jasper?
Jasper was concentrating so hard that, had he been human, his body would have been dripping with sweat.
I’d never seen him do this before, or even guessed that it was possible. Was this something he’d developed during his years in the South? Camouflage?
He was concurrently smoothing the tension surrounding the newcomers and making anyone looking in his direction feel singularly uninterested. Nothing could be duller than examining this nothing male at the back of the group, so unimportant.…
And not just him… He was covering Alice, Esme, and Bella in the same haze of tediousness.
This was why none of them had realized yet. Not because of Bella’s disheveled hair or my ridiculous tapping. They couldn’t cut through the sense of overwhelming mundaneness to look at her closely. She was just one among many, not worth examining.
Jasper was really extending himself to protect the vulnerable members of our family. I could hear his total concentration. He wouldn’t be able to hold it if things got physical, but for now he had Bella encased in a more clever protection than I could have imagined.
Gratitude swamped me again.
I blinked hard and refocused on the strangers. They were affected by Carlisle’s charm, though they did not forget Emmett’s intimidating size or my intensity.
I tried to absorb the soothing calm that Jasper was exuding, but while I could see its effect on the others, I couldn’t access it. I realized that Jasper was presenting what he wanted, and that included me on edge, a threat, a distraction.
Well, I could certainly lean into that role.
“Do you have room for a few more players?” Laurent was asking, just as amicable as Carlisle.
“Actually, we were just finishing up,” Carlisle responded, his tone oozing warmth. “But we’d certainly be interested another time. Are you planning to stay in the area for long?”
“We’re headed north, in fact, but we were curious to see who was in the neighborhood. We haven’t run into any company in a long time.”
“No, this region is usually empty except for us and the occasional visitor, like yourselves.”
Carlisle’s easy friendliness, along with Jasper’s influence, was winning them over. Even the edgy redhead was beginning to calm. Her thoughts tested this sense of safety, analyzing it in a way that was strange to me. I wondered whether she was aware of Jasper’s performance, but she didn’t seem suspicious. It was more like she questioned her own gut feeling.
James was a little disappointed that a game did not seem to be imminent. And also… that the confrontation had eased. He missed the excitement of the unknown.
Laurent was absorbing Carlisle’s poise and confidence. He wanted to know more about us. He wondered what subterfuge we used to disguise our eyes, and why.
“What’s your hunting range?” Laurent asked. This was a normal thing, an expected question among nomads, but I worried that it would alarm Bella. Whatever she felt, she was motionless and silent as a human could be behind me. The rhythm of her heart, and thus my drumming foot, didn’t change.
“The Olympic Range here, up and down the Coast Ranges on occasion,” Carlisle told him, not lying, but also not disabusing Laurent of his assumption. “We keep a permanent residence nearby. There’s another permanent settlement like ours up near Denali.”
This surprised all of them. Laurent was merely confused, but anything unexpected seemed to turn to fear in the mind of the panicky female; for her, all the effects of Jasper’s efforts vanished in an instant. James, however, was intrigued. Here was something new and different. Not only was our coven immense, we were apparently not even nomadic. Perhaps this detour wasn’t entirely wasted.
“Permanent?” Laurent asked, bewildered. “How do you manage that?”
James was pleased that Laurent had spoken, so his curiosity could be assuaged without any effort on his part. In a way, his reluctance to draw attention to himself reminded me of Jasper’s much more effective camouflage. I wondered why James would want to play it safe this way. It didn’t seem to line up with his desire for diversion.
Or did he, like Jasper, have something to hide?
“Why don’t you come back to our home with us and we can talk comfortably?” Carlisle proposed. “It’s a rather long story.”
Victoria twitched, and I could see that she was holding herself in place by will alone. She guessed what Laurent’s answer would be, and, oh, how she wanted to run. James gave her an encouraging look, but it didn’t alleviate her stress. Still, she would follow his lead.
Could it be this easy? It would be simple to split up if they accepted the invitation, with Carlisle and Emmett safely leading the strangers away. Thanks to Jasper, they might never realize what we were hiding from them.