Chapter 1
Jacob Is Coming

I placed my hand on my momma’s arm and sent her a picture of a large russet wolf. She frowned and I felt that she was remembering a time when Jacob loved her, before she was a vampire. I knew that I was the only Cullen who was aware that momma still remembered those days. I knew that she didn’t want anyone, least of all my daddy to know. But that was okay, I hadn’t told anyone of my growing ability to sense what people were thinking either.
My gift wasn’t as clear as daddy’s yet, but I could feel it getting stronger. Just like momma’s memories of her human years were growing almost as strong as her vampire ones. She’d said that she didn’t miss those years of tangled relationships and worry, and it was the truth. But it still didn’t rid her of the memories.
A split second later and her frown turned back into a soft smile, though, because of my almost-vampire-sensitive eyes, I could see that it was only half-hearted. “Jacob will be here soon, Renesmee.” She told me in her singsong, wind chime voice. Momma was the only one of the Cullens who still referred to me as ‘Renesmee’, everybody else called me Nessie, although Carlisle and Esmé always switched back to ‘Renesmee’ when momma was around.
I removed my hand and smiled sweetly, having my daddy’s ability to hide my emotion behind a mask. Inside I was nearly bursting with pure happiness and emotion. Jacob was coming back to Forks! It was good that daddy wasn’t around, because he was able to read my emotions, like my Uncle Jasper. Daddy had told me that he couldn’t read my mind like he could with everyone else but momma, and, even though I’d been younger and my mind-reading powers less developed, I could still tell that he wasn’t lying.
I’d still rather not have him know how excited I was to see Jacob again. He’d only been there for the first few months of my life, after which all of the pack but Seth and Leah had gone with Alice to search for more werewolves to defend Forks. Secretly I think, from vague memories, that Jacob had only ordered the wolves do this so that there would be more werewolves to defend me when he returned. I knew that Jacob had left Seth behind so that there was someone to warn him if he needed to come back. Leah had just stayed with her brother, besides having a knack for disobeying the alpha (to some degree), she’d only been able to stay because Jacob didn’t want her around.
“Thank you, Bella.” I told her. I was beginning to try and speak out loud more for when I started school at Forks High School. Momma had decided that I deserved a go at a human lifestyle. She’d also told me that I needed to call her Bella, since I was too old to be her daughter anymore; because she’d stayed eighteen and I’d grown to be about fourteen.
“Your welcome. Now go out and play, it’s a nice day.” She replied. I knew that it was a nice day already, although all of the blinds on the magnificent windows in the Cullens’ house were down, because all of the Cullens that remained in Forks (everybody but Alice, who would return sometime today) were inside.
Since the house was so far back in the woods, it wouldn’t matter if the Cullens were sparkling inside of the house, though they couldn’t go outside, but it was disorienting to be around so many sparkling vampires at once, so the blinds remained down.
I was allowed outside because my skin only gave off a faint luminescent glow, it didn’t sparkle, thankfully. I liked sunny days wouldn’t be happy if I had to stay in on the few ones that Forks actually had. But I was reluctant to leave my family. I knew that they’d want me to go outside too, so I decided that I would.
But I would have company. “Okay mo—Bella. But where’s Seth and Leah?” I loved Seth, though not in the way that I remember feeling towards Jacob. And I really liked Leah, now that she’d warmed up to me and would actually hang out with me now. She hadn’t liked me at all, for a while, and she’d resisted the pull that had affected everyone else, which was why I liked her so much. She liked me for me and not for my strange gift that made everyone want to be near me.
Momma’s smile grew even more forced; though all of the other Cullens found it amusing, she disliked my affection for the wolf girl. It was probably because I was her child and she felt protective of me. But she still answered, “They’re hunting, you’ll probably be able to smell them once you get out in the woods.”
“Thanks!” I called, running through the house and dodging a sweetly amused Esmé who smiled and wished me luck as if I was human girl who needed luck to find her friends. I paused just long enough to thank her.
I was out the door in an eighth of a second; my speed had developed well beyond that of a regular vampire’s, and I was now as fast as daddy and faster than momma, who’d outgrown her newborn strength. She said that I got all of my speed from him. I knew that that was the truth because I had very few human attributes besides the fact that my eyes were chocolaty brown rather than dark brown or gold. My hip-length braid was a beautiful bronze, exactly like my daddy’s, and it perfectly complemented my eyes.
I was proud to look like my parents, and to be a Halfling, which I’d started thinking of myself as. But I was also happy to be fast and have a good sense of smell, which enabled me to fly down the long, winding driveway and leap across the road, since there were no cars in sight. I sensed that Seth and Leah were deep into the woods on the other side.
Running was fun for me, more so than to an actual vampire, probably because I could actually feel more of the things around me, although I was still tough enough that it didn’t hurt. I’d held momma’s hand while running enough times to know that I liked it even more than she did when she was a newborn.
Sometimes I purposely hit a large branch just to see what it would do to me. I never even faltered when I hit them, although I snapped the branch cleanly off of the tree. There was no stinging or bruised feel, either, just a quick sensation of a numb pain that was exhilarating. I couldn’t do this much though, or people—human people—would start to suspect things.
Unfortunately, for me, since I was so fast it didn’t take very long for me to reach Seth and Leah. I stopped at the edge of the clearly they were in, although I really wanted to keep running. I was downwind, so that they couldn’t smell me but I could smell them. They couldn’t hear me either; I made sure of that.
Then, with a long, graceful bound I landed on Seth’s side and wrapped my arms as far around him as I could, which wasn’t much, and, careful not to harm him (I had been taught that werewolves aren’t indestructible like vampires), I pulled him down with me.
There was a quick, false snarl and he licked my face. I grimaced and shoved him away. “Seth!” My anger was fake and he knew it. Then Leah jumped on me from behind and it turned into a friendly wrestling match. Since I couldn’t swing her over my shoulder I swung over hers and landed on her back, something that the werewolves only let me do, and wrapped my arms around her neck. I was careful not to cut off her air supply, and grabbed lower, where her windpipe wasn’t pressed against the hide. I felt no instinct telling me to bite her or drink her blood, because she was a wolf and I would have fought any instinct like that anyway.
She bucked around playfully for a bit, before rolling over on me. It didn’t hurt and felt like nothing more than a comfortable pressure. A split second later and she was on her feet and Seth was leaping.
He landed on me, which was also on his sister, and all of us fell in a dog pile on the mushy ground. I noticed, without particularly caring, that I was covered in mud. I would take a quick run through a river on the way back and take a shower when I got home. Just like full vampires I only needed showers when I actually got myself dirty. Even though I grew larger, I didn’t sweat and my hair didn’t get greasy or dirty enough itself for me to need shampoo. I took rough swims through the river enough that I washed all of the dirt off of me, unless I was covered head-to-toe in mud, like I was now.
Suddenly both of the werewolves ran into the trees. They immerged a few moments later as humans, both in shorts and Leah in a thick sports bra, which she’d discovered was easier to carry around than a t-shirt.
“Hey, Nessie!” They called, rushing up to squish me in a group hug. Normally Leah wasn’t into the whole hug thing, but I think that they were squishing me as get back for winning the match. They were grinning and I lost my innocent smile to grin back.
“Great to see you too.” I replied from between them. I was tiny, smaller than either my momma or my daddy. Carlisle thought it was some sort of side effect from the vampire/human gene mixture and I agreed; it was a better excuse than anything Emmett had come up with (An example of which is, “Loving a werewolf stunts your growth, Nessie”). I knew that he meant Jacob and I knew that he was referring to when I was younger. I didn’t even know Jacob anymore.
“So, what brings you here? Looking for a Jacob update?” Seth asked good naturedly. A large grin was still across his face. The idea hadn’t come to me but now that he mentioned it, I realized that it was a good one.
“Actually, I was coming to see if you wanted to race or something, but a Jacob update would be cool.” I replied, turning my face into a mask again so that they didn’t know how excited I was. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought of this. I wondered if momma would be mad, then I immediately dismissed the idea. Jacob was one of her closest friends and I knew that she missed him greatly, despite their ‘problems’. She couldn’t blame me for missing him. I could see daddy being a bit upset, although not because of me asking Seth for an update but because I was so excited over seeing him. There was still a firm wall of awkwardness and unease between them that was on the verge of irritation and anger. They were brothers but it was still a weak bond. Even with all they’d been through they couldn’t get past what had happed before, and the supposed imprint that Jacob had on me.
I remember missing him a lot for a few days after he left, but gradually it became a mild ache and didn’t burn every time I thought about it. I figured that he didn’t miss me enough to come back, so I’d long since dismissed the idea that he could’ve imprinted on me. I figured that daddy had simply misread his thoughts, or that Jacob had mistaken my pull for an imprinting. I couldn’t decide which I hoped for: imprint or not.
“You might want to get a shower pretty soon, Nessie,” Seth said, rubbing a finger down one of my arms and showing me the mud, his grin widened, “Because Jacob will be here in about fifteen minutes.”

Chapter 2
The Arrival

I was in an out of the shower in five minutes, plus the two it took me to dry off and the five it took me to dress and race back to the main house. My outfit was a light sundress, just fancy enough to appeal to Alice. Everyone had long since discovered that I shared my mother’s immunity to the perky vampire, and to her fashionable ways. My usual outfits were blue jeans and t-shirts, but today I decided that I wouldn’t give Alice reason to lecture my dress. Surely she wouldn’t oppose, though, to me wearing small blue jean shorts under said dress.
In a flash I was down the stairs and sitting in between Emmett and Jasper. Uncle Emmett was hilariously loud and boyish; his funny arrogance was fun to watch. I still hold the memories of him and my momma arm-wrestling, although he’d started to beat her around eleven months after my birth. Now she was no match for the great vampire, but I was beginning to wonder about my increasing strength. Unfortunately for me, the only people I had to compare it with were vampires, my family, and they wouldn’t even consider it. Maybe one of the werewolves would arm wrestle with me when they returned.
Jasper, on the other hand, was completely Emmett’s opposite, balancing out his boisterous ways with an intrigued, more sidelined approach to life. The only thing about Jasper that I didn’t like was his ability to read emotions, and I could tell, by the way he looked at me, that he could read the excitement and anxiety racing through my blood.
“Hey, Nessie!” Emmett boomed in his baritone voice, shattering the serene atmosphere of the giant house. He wrapped an arm around me good-naturedly, more of a bigger, younger brother than an uncle.
“Hey.” I replied, giving in and returning his grin. He chuckled loudly and I shook with the vibrations through his barrel chest. Uncle Emmett the largest of the Cullens.
“How are you feeling, little sister?” Jasper asked me with a faint smile to show that he was happy. He must have missed Alice, but he knew that it was necessary to let her go to help the werewolves so that his family and they could forge a better relationship than the previous one.
“I’m sure you know, Jasper.” I replied, my grin switching from one of playfulness to one of a sly mischievousness. He chuckled, his laugh quieter than Emmett’s, and more secretive.
“Yes, I do.” He said jokingly, before Emmett once again began to speak.
“I can’t wait to wrestle with that werewolf of yours, Nessie!” He said, and I knew that he wasn’t joking. He probably wanted to make sure that he was still the strongest one there.
“Now that’s one fight that I won’t be able to miss.” That voice belonged to my daddy, his voice more casual, although my ears could pick up the forced lightness to his voice. My daddy put up with Jacob, but they would never be as close as they could have been before Jacob had supposedly imprinted on me.
Another problem with living in a house full of vampires was that there was no privacy as long as you were speaking out loud. If daddy could have been able to read my mind like he read others, we could probably have conversations silently, once my gift developed a bit more. I could only hope that he forgave me when he found out.
“No fighting the werewolves until they get a decent place to sleep, Emmett!” My momma called casually from the kitchen, where she was helping Esmé, my ‘grandmother’ who was more of an aunt, and Rosalie, who was my aunt but more of an older sister.
Rosalie wasn’t my favorite one of the Cullens; she hated werewolves, and she babied me. Although, luckily, that had grown less since I grew. Rosalie only seemed interested in babies, not ‘teenagers’ like me. This I was okay with.
“Sure, Bells!” The Cullen boys, excluding Carlisle, had taken up Grandpa Charlie’s nickname for momma. She didn’t seem to mind, although my nickname still bothered her.
Then I heard the feet in the distance, and the others must have to, because they quit talking and waiting like me. I could smell the odor that wasn’t foul to me like it was to vampires. The werewolf scent was more animal-like, wilder, when I smelled it at all.
I raced to the window and reached it in a fifth of a second, pressing my face to the glass and holding my breath, which I could do indefinitely. Carlisle had said that, despite the seeming impossibility, I could both stop and start my heart at will. But my mind wasn’t on that now, it was concentrating on every little detail of the rugged wolf that came into view at that second. A giant russet wolf, much bigger than he had been when I last saw him.
His face turned towards mine and I saw age in his eyes, not only had Jacob grown physically, but mentally as well. Butterflies stirred in my heart, something that had never happened before, and there were a lot of them. I heard Jasper suck in a slightly deeper breath than he usually did, and remembered to keep my feelings in check.
There was a quick bark from Jacob, and I felt in his mind what I was thinking in mine. An immediate sense to share everything and catch up and be together. Unfortunately, my attention was caught by five new wolves that were not part of my childhood memories. Two brown/gray wolves of average size, a small dark brown one that appeared female, a gray one that was almost as tall as Sam although lankier, and a chubby tawny one that appeared young, judging by this one’s thoughts, he’d be a good friend for Seth, one of the youngest werewolves.
I bolted to the front door before my momma or even daddy could catch up to me and stop me, realizing that I was running much faster than ever before. I raced out and towards the approaching wolves, after a small fraction of my brain made sure that the new recruits knew that the vampires were friends and that the pack wasn’t in battle formation.
They weren’t, although Jacob was still in front, as his position as alpha allowed him to be, and I was able to race right up to him. He seemed surprised at my speed. I felt his thoughts lock onto me and the saw the care in his eyes as he bent down to my level.
I locked my arms around his neck and squeezed slightly, careful not to crush the windpipe or harm him in any other way. I heard one or two of the newer members of the pack growl menacingly at the embrace, but Jacob called them off with a quick growl of his own.
He whimpered a bit in my direction and pulled away from my embrace. A split second later and he was running into the woods with a speed that matched Jasper’s, who was the second fastest full-blood-vampire of the Cullens. The way he moved, though, showed that he could probably run much faster.
It took about three minutes for him to step out of the woods, dressed in a ragged pair of knee-length jeans that looked as if the legs had been ripped off and the waist chewed on, which it probably had been. He was much bigger than he’d been when he’d left. The top of Emmett’s head would reach Jacob’s nose, and the top of my head would probably reach about half a foot below his shoulders.
He was still muscular, and his muscles were even more prominent now that he’d reached what was hopefully his permanent size. He walked up to me and wrapped me in a hug with arms that would put a part-time bodybuilder to shame. “I’ve missed you, Nessie!” He said in a low, guttural voice that had dropped an octave or two since he left.
“Yeah, Jake…missed you to.” I managed to gasp with the little air I had left before he’d wrapped me in a wolf-hug. He spun me around once before setting me gently on the ground, suddenly acting as if I were made of porcelain.
“How’s Forks been since we left?” He asked, once again reminding me of the five long years that I’d spent without him. Now that he was here, I couldn’t imagine being without him. It was like a reflex, a good one. I wondered how I felt when he first left me. I must have been heartbroken! I suddenly recognized what this feeling was. He’d imprinted on me truly, it wasn’t just my nature that had drawn him in, but an unnatural werewolf attraction that was unavoidable…as if I wanted to avoid it.
With a sly grin, I reached out and took his hand, showing him a picture of momma and Esmé cooking for them, and making a feast. I heard his stomach rumble. And he roared out, “Come on, gang, the bloodsuckers are fixing us a feast!” He said the term affectionately now, in a sarcastic way towards his earlier, close-minded self. I let go of his hand a second after sending him a picture of Alice. He smiled at me, bearing perfect white teeth, before turning and racing after his pals towards Esmé’s dining room, which I suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for.
Alice, almost as if reading my thoughts, stepped up next to me. “It’s nice to see you again.” She told me in her high, ethereal voice, a voice that spoke as if from a far away daydream, or trance. I loved Alice’s voice.
“I’ve missed you, Alice.” I said honestly, suddenly hugging my vampire aunt, the only one of momma’s siblings who was actually like an aunt, albeit a very young aunt. She grimaced.
“You’ve gotten stronger, Nessie.” Her voice seemed more earthly now, as I grew accustomed to it. I caught her drift and relaxed my strangle hold before pulling back.
“Yes, I have some other things to tell you too, but not right now.” I said contentedly, perfectly happy except for an uncomfortable lack of…something. It took me a minute to realize that I disliked being apart from my Jacob. It felt weird to consider him this now that we were so close to the same age, but it was true; he was my Jake, my Jacob.
Alice seemed to know what I was thinking, “Come on; let’s catch up with the wolves.” She smiled sweetly and took my hand; she seemed surprised when I wound up pulling her along beside me, I was so much faster than she.
I heard a single, clear thought burst through a knot of vague emotions, the first of many that I was destined to hear: There is a lot that she needs to fill me in on. I was secretly happy that Alice’s gift didn’t work on me either, as bad as it seemed; it would be a lot harder to hide certain things from some people if she could see me with her gift.
We met up with the werewolves as they finished stuffing their faces with Esmé’s and momma’s cooking, which was apparently good, despite the fact that they were vampires. Jacob was already done eating and he slid up next to me on the couch, putting his large hand over my tiny one.
“It is really great to see you again, Nessie.” He sighed contentedly, and I rested my head against his large shoulder, if a bit lower than that, somewhere on the upper arm.
“You were gone for a long time.” I said, despite the fact that I knew that we sounded like some sort of soap opera, like: The Days of Our Lives: Supernatural Version. Or maybe just some cheesy hallmark.
Either way, I allowed him to wrap his hand around mine. I let the soft, woody scent of trees fill me as I inhaled his scent. His bare skin was flaming hot compared to my relatively cold one. He didn’t seem to mind, for he was right up next to me.
“Yeah, I was.” He paused, as if wondering how to continue, “But there is something that I’d like to show you as long as you can get away.” His last sentence caught me by surprise, and I glanced at daddy, who must have heard, even over the noise of the hungry werewolves. I knew that he would disapprove of me going anyway, but if it was too bad of a ‘something’, he didn’t seem to care.
“I’d like that, Jake.” I told him softly, and we stood. Me taking four steps for every one of his, I followed him to the door, where we began running. Even though his stride was longer, I was still quicker, and after a few seconds of running, he stepped over, and in a single, strong movement had me gripping his shoulders so I didn’t fall backwards. Apparently he planned to carry me wherever we were going.

Impressum

Texte: I did not write the Twilight Saga or come up with any of the names from the original books. I myself am responsible for the odd twists in this book, although the original story wasnt mine.
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 24.08.2010

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Widmung:
To Stephenie Meyer for writing the Twilight Saga and rewriting vampires everywhere in four books.