Disclosure:  Twilight is the property of Stephenie Meyers.  I take the characters out of time and see what happens.

Pre-Edit Count –   2,941 Words

Song I listened to for this chapter: IN MY REMAINS by Linkin Park

Previously:

Carlisle rocks for a second, his need to know, fighting with his need for his mate to be protected, but Edward turns to him, “This is all a distraction! Jacob didn’t think you would bring Bella. He contacted the nomads that had come around for Bella, to kill her. If he couldn’t have her, then he was going to make damn sure that no one else could.”

At the house, Brad is standing there looking around to what his men have accomplished. Even with the week deadline, it looks like he will complete this one ahead of time. He grins.

It will be the last action he will remember having during three fiery days in hell…

Now:

Carlisle is snarling, and has Bella behind him, his hand on her hip, hers on his as she has been taught.   Everyone is looking down, or fully submitting to the enraged King. Jasper is the only one still upright, he is holding Jacob by himself, and is snarling at the Shifter.

Sam, too is snarling, only Carlisle’s command is keeping him from shifting. He cannot believe the dishonor of one who is supposed to be Alpha of their Tribe Chief. To know that he had told their blood enemies, ones whom they are to protect humans from, how to attack his sister! Just to keep her from her mate!

Unable to keep his legendary control with the threat to his mate, Carlisle’s beast is demanding that the one who thought to have his mate killed in probably one of the most painful of ways, be killed. It is driving him and his anger so his eyes are totally black, without a hint of color.

His mind is running through the implications of this attack though. Edward turns to him with wide eyes as the thought of them passing into Carlisle’s painfully marked territory to kill someone obviously under his protection, makes it so he knows that they are basically declaring war on the leadership of their world.  All vampires know the smell of their kings, and even if not, an Alpha’s scent is enough to drive them away.

That had been a night to remember, but Bella had steeled herself and accompanied Carlisle through his marking their territory, knowing this is his beast’s way of making her safe. Though this had been her last lesson on how exactly their bond ties them together. The first time had been hard on both of them, until Carlisle remembered that when she came, so did he. He had gotten that mischievous look to his eyes, and had spent an enjoyable night after that, shattering his mate’s ideas of privacy when she was in his arms and he was dead set on her enjoyment.

But for the nomads to pass through the area, after Emmett, Edward and Jasper had made sure their marking had worked, meant they were attacking Carlisle himself.

His eyes wide, Edward tells Jasper, “Call your brother. If they attacked, then they went through Carlisle’s markings.”

The rest of the coven reacts to the Beta’s comment. Sam kneels before Carlisle, “I swear to defend you, and yours from all enemies. I am under your rule and control. I place my Pack under your direction to use as needed. This I swear by the right of Alpha of the La Push Tribe.”

Jacob snarls and struggles against Jasper’s hold, “NO! My Tribe!! You cannot swear it to this leech!!!”

Sam turns, his eyes, which are glowing with his wolf behind them, to Jacob “I can and I have. You will have to fight me for the honor. You, who have given a human to the worst type of leech. To ones who will kill our sister for her blood!! One who we have protected all these years! For what? Revenge because she is mated to another? Blasphemy! I call upon the Elders to cast you from the tribe, to be known as the Omega of Omegas. No tribe will have you once you are branded as a traitor!”

Carlisle is still seething, and before anyone says anything, he orders, “Rose, you stay. Emmett, you can either stay or go with Jasper and Edward as they go back to the houses to check. Alice . .  We need to talk.” It has not missed his notice that she has said nothing.

Jasper and Edward nod, and with a look to Emmett, who shakes his head, races off to their home. Emmett stands there and looks down on Jacob, who is snarling at Sam, still. Paul comes up to stand with him, and the others from the pack, Embry, Jared, and Quil make a ring around Jacob, leaving the twins to their never ending patrol around the area and Brady and Leah to their patrol of the Tribe.

Alice is cowering, her visions have never failed her this way before. “Carlisle! I have no idea what is happening! Bella is safe, and I only look for the family. I try to keep an eye on the future, but lately with the wolves it is harder. It is like these nomads can slip through the cracks. I really could not see them!”

Shaking her head, Bella faces her. “Alice, this is not like trying to rule over me, this is very important. I can see how Carlisle thinks you purposely missed this. What about the workers that are at our house! What about Brad?   Check him, if there is anything wrong, he will be the one who will suffer for your mistake!”

Alice cowers before her Alphas, Bella fully taking on the role in her anger. Bella never likes anyone to suffer, and to think that this mistake may make a man who had teased her and worked with her to make her and Carlisle’s home what they wanted, this made her push past what the way her mind was conditioned to react by Jacob and is truly becoming the Alpha her mate knew her to be.

Alice’s eyes glaze over, and she gasps, “Carlisle! You need to go home. Brad is bitten. If you change him, he has a chance. Jasper and Edward would be tempted with all the blood . . .” Her eyes glisten as she shakes her head in denial. “I saw none of this!! I swear!”

Carlisle growls, and is divided. He can feel the call of a child, has felt it, but the call of his mate is stronger. He finally growls out at Alice, and calls Edward.

Edward looks down at his phone, and slowing down, answers it. Carlisle’s voice comes through, “Edward. Brad is bitten, but I am guessing from Alice’s comments that not enough venom was pushed to make it an easy turn.” Edward’s eyes flick to Jasper who is running beside them.

Then they both listen as Carlisle tells them, “Jasper needs to finish the turning. He has bitten and changed more vampires than any of us. Edward, you need to control your blood lust, since it is an emotion as I have taught all of you in the last few years. Remember, Jasper can feel your emotions and since Blood lust is an emotion, it could tip him from having control to having none. Understood?”

Edward nods, “Got it. Does Alice see anything else that can help?”

Carlisle looks at his youngest member, and she shakes her head mournfully. “No. Seems these Nomads can escape her gift. I need Peter here as soon as possible, Jasper. It looks like I will need to be reassessing some things. Be safe, both of you.” With that, he hangs up.

The two of them look at each other, knowing that things are going to be changing.

Jasper sighs. He knows part of the problem is Alice. She is unique to say the least. She is his mate, and therefore, like Bella, could have been an Alpha, but mating is always even. Males are in control, but their mates are the equal of them. And somehow, Alice, like him, is damaged. He shies away from the idea that his damage caused at the hands of Maria, somehow damaged Alice.

He had brought it up to Carlisle one day, and Carlisle had looked to him seriously. “Does it really matter, Jasper? To look into this might cause more damage to either of you. It’s not really worth it.”

Since then, Jasper it is always in the back in his mind, but nothing had come of Alice’s bossy ways. But now, she is in the position of having to give way to Bella, whom her vampire instincts don’t acknowledge as being her superior.

So it has caused many problems, but Jasper had talked with Carlisle and Edward about it. They figured out that Bella needs to start stepping up. It is not that Jasper trained himself to command as a human that has hindered him, it was Maria’s habit of putting his two selves at war with each other to remain the leader. She would punish the human and reward the beast for having done something horrific, or the human being empathetic. Then on the opposite side of the coin, she loved the human, and spurned the beast side of Jasper.

It worked. The two parts of him are at war with each other at all times, each side hating the other. They are closer than ever before, but there is a sense of distrust in each that hampers that final bonding.

Alice on the other hand, was damaged by not knowing her past. This makes her feel insecure, and after all this with Bella, her one time trying to change the future in a big way is back firing so much, she is even more reluctant to interfere with her visions.

Jasper spreads his senses out to see if he can sense anything as they come up to the territory line. His nose wrinkles as he tells Edward, “It smells like something dead, very dead.”

Edward nods and changing their direction, Edward comes to a stop at a dead body dropped near the line. The stink from it all but obscured Carlisle’s mark. “This is how they passed his line, there is no question that they planned this.”

Jasper nods, his eyes growing dark. He looks to Edward, and when he nods, they take off to the Alpha’s den. What they come upon is a massacre, but they can hear a keening noise. Jasper runs to the sound and drops down next to Brad. He places a hand on him and tells Edward, “He is changing. But Alice is right, by the time he is changed, he will be so feral from the pain that he would have to  be put down. You ready?”

Edward nods and answers the thoughts in Brad’s head. “No, we are not human, but Jasper will help you out. It will hurt more, but there is no way to kill you without tearing you apart. Instead Jasper will push his venom into you, and it will be enough to turn you in three days instead of the painful loss of self over weeks of torture.   Think of your happy memories, and you will come out better on the other side.”

He cocks his head, listening and sighs to Jasper. “He understands as much as any. Go ahead and bite.”

With that Jasper did something that he has done thousands of times before. But hopefully, this one will be one that survives, making his grand total of living vampires whom he has sired as three.

Carlisle hangs up and tells his mate, “We will need to think on this more.” He says nothing more, but it is enough to have his mate nod.

He then turns to Sam who is still kneeling. He looks at the man before him and finally tells him, “Once you have carried through on your threat to Jacob, I will accept that as punishment. But don’t expect me to take it easy on your tribe. You are still liable for the fact that one of your own has exposed you to an innocent. This is not an easy matter.”

He turns and paces then turns to his mate as he senses her in their Bond. When he lifts an eyebrow to her, she tells him, “Carlisle, the issue will be contained. My father should have a good clue about why he shouldn’t expose the secret.   Now for the tribe? They need to police their own, but you have every right to oversee this. In fact, I think we should come back to oversee it, since we wish to make sure this is marked down in their records.”

Carlisle can’t help the proud glint in his eyes, and he sends his pride to his mate. He didn’t miss the blanch from Billy. By doing what Bella has proposed, it cannot be taken care of here with an informal meeting. No. This will be a tribal matter, open to the public, and because Carlisle and Bella will be there to witness it, they will have to dissolve the treaty in order to allow them on the tribal lands.   The treaty he had made without the power he had now. This made it where they could not be told no to come on the lands.

It will be out to the tribe how low their future Chief has sunken, and there will be no hiding from the shame Jacob has brought upon his line.   Carlisle will insist on the full expulsion, which will involve the spirits.

Jacob tries to surge up, but the ring around him had him back on his knees as soon as he tried. He growled out, “Bella, you fucking little bitch!! Because of your little fucking mouth, you will shame my ancestors! Do you know what your leech is proposing to do?”

Bella looks at him and lifts her eyebrow, “I have taken the time since our last meeting to learn more of my future. You will be outcast, to the pointthat  you don’t exist to any but hoquats. No other of your tribe, or even other shifters, will acknowledge you. You are a nobody. An outcast, or as Sam said, the Omega of Omegas. Never will you have a woman of your tribe or any other for wife, or even to rest between their legs. Any offspring you have will be as outcast as you. So yes. I do know exactly what we are doing. But how do you think your life is worth more than the ones that died today for your revenge on something that was never yours?”

He spat at her, “Lives? If you weren’t there who would they kill?”

Bella stands and walking to him slowly, her fire that he had tried to smother burning brightly in her eyes as she tells him, “Workers. Neighbors. A person passing on the street, a hiker. Any and all of those may be dead because of your decision. I have as many as 20 people at my house at any given time, often Brad would call in more often in order to match Carlisle’s request for the home to be done earlier. But you didn’t care. You still don’t. It could have been the entire population of Seattle, but as long as I was dead instead of being the mate of Carlisle, you would have been happy.” By the end she is staring him down, not backing away.

Carlisle murmurs, “Beautiful.” He shakes himself and speeding to behind his mate, he uses her body to shield others from the reaction to his mate taking on the authority that she has. He growls as his beast demands that she be theirs. While he is not ashamed of his reaction, he knows that others will not understand and that Bella would be embarrassed.

Sitting there, Charlie is speechless. This is a side of his daughter he never realized she could be. Guilt spreads through him as he realizes he helped make her into the other Bella. He never bucked against the lies he knew Jacob was making her tell, because he seriously thought it was a form of rebelling and what she truly wanted.

But right now, that is not important. Charlie could beg the forgiveness of his daughter, and it would not matter one iota.   Not anymore. Bella is learning to stand on her own, and the rage going through her is for the man who had tried to break her.   Instead, she is stronger for what he had done, and like tempered steel, she is showing her true worth.

Then Alice is hit with a vision, and she whimpers. Which pulls the attention of both of her Alphas and Bella asks, “What is it?”

Alice comes out of the vision and she tells them both, “They are going to call the police and newscasters about the massacre at your home.”

Carlisle nods at the information. Then his phone rings, he answers it, and before he can say a thing, a male voice tells him, “Taking care of it, Milord. I got the information as the midget did. Char and I are heading it off. I may need to bribe those I can’t get to physically, but my so-called knower says it will work.”

Thinking it through, Carlisle tells him, “Do what is needed. You know how to access it. And Peter? Thanks.”

A laugh comes through the phone, distinctly female, “You know he ain’t happier than when he can cause problems with your blessings. And from what he told me, he gets to have a lot of fun this time through. See you soon, Papa!” the phone call ends with that.

Carlisle winces. Bella looks up at him, “Papa?”

He sighs as his hand rubs the back of his neck. “Funny that. There seems to be a fact that I had not known about . . .”

Final count, 2,940 words.

Fairfarren~