Eclipse, стр. 78

WHEN I WOKE UP IN THE MORNING, IT WAS VERY bright — even inside the tent, the sunlight hurt my eyes. And I was sweating, as Jacob had predicted. Jacob was snoring lightly in my ear, his arms still wrapped around me.

I pulled my head away from his feverishly warm chest and felt the sting of the cold morning on my clammy cheek. Jacob sighed in his sleep; his arms tightened unconsciously.

I squirmed, unable to loosen his hold, struggling to lift my head enough to see. . . .

Edward met my gaze evenly. His expression was calm, but the pain in his eyes was unconcealed.

“Is it any warmer out there?” I whispered.

“Yes. I don’t think the space heater will be necessary today.”

I tried to get to the zipper, but I couldn’t free my arms. I strained, fighting against Jacob’s inert strength. Jacob muttered, still fast asleep, his arms constricting again.

“Some help?” I asked quietly.

Edward smiled. “Did you want me to take his arms all the way off?”

“No, thank you. Just get me free. I’m going to get heat stroke.”

Edward unzipped the sleeping bag in a swift, abrupt movement. Jacob fell out, his bare back hitting the icy floor of the tent.

“Hey!” he complained, his eyes flying open. Instinctively, he flinched away from the cold, rolling onto me. I gasped as his weight knocked the breath out of me.

And then his weight was gone. I felt the impact as Jacob flew into one of the tent poles and the tent shuddered.

The growling erupted from all around. Edward was crouching in front of me, and I couldn’t see his face, but the snarls were ripping angrily out of his chest. Jacob was half-crouched, too, his whole body quivering, while growls rumbled through his clenched teeth. Outside the tent, Seth Clearwater’s vicious snarls echoed off the rocks.

“Stop it, stop it!” I yelled, scrambling awkwardly to put myself between them. The space was so small that I didn’t have to stretch far to put one hand on each of their chests. Edward wrapped his hand around my waist, ready to yank me out of the way.

“Stop it, now,” I warned him.

Under my touch, Jacob began to calm himself. The shaking slowed, but his teeth were still bared, his eyes furiously focused on Edward. Seth continued to growl, a long unbroken sound, a violent background to the sudden silence in the tent.

“Jacob?” I asked, waiting until he finally dropped his glare to look at me. “Are you hurt?”

“Of course not!” he hissed.

I turned to Edward. He was looking at me, his expression hard and angry. “That wasn’t nice. You should say sorry.”

His eyes widened in disgust. “You must be joking — he was crushing you!”

“Because you dumped him on the floor! He didn’t do it on purpose, and he didn’t hurt me.”

Edward groaned, revolted. Slowly, he looked up to glare at Jacob with hostile eyes. “My apologies, dog.”

“No harm done,” Jacob said, a taunting edge to his voice.

It was still cold, though not as cold as it had been. I curled my arms around my chest.

“Here,” Edward said, calm again. He took the parka off the floor and wrapped it over the top of my coat.

“That’s Jacob’s,” I objected.

“Jacob has a fur coat,” Edward hinted.

“I’ll just use the sleeping bag again, if you don’t mind.” Jacob ignored him, climbing around us and sliding into the down bag. “I wasn’t quite ready to wake up. That wasn’t the best night’s sleep I ever had.”

“It was your idea,” Edward said impassively.

Jacob was curled up, his eyes already closed. He yawned. “I didn’t say it wasn’t the best night I’ve ever spent. Just that I didn’t get a lot of sleep. I thought Bella was never going to shut up.”

I winced, wondering what might have come out of my mouth in my sleep. The possibilities were horrifying.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” Edward murmured.

Jacob’s dark eyes fluttered open. “Didn’t you have a nice night, then?” he asked, smug.

“It wasn’t the worst night of my life.”

“Did it make the top ten?” Jacob asked with perverse enjoyment.

“Possibly.”

Jacob smiled and closed his eyes.

“But,” Edward went on, “if I had been able to take your place last night, it would not have made the top ten of the best nights of my life. Dream about that.”

Jacob’s eyes opened into a glare. He sat up stiffly, his shoulders tense.

“You know what? I think it’s too crowded in here.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

I elbowed Edward in the ribs — probably giving myself a bruise.

“Guess I’ll catch up on my sleep later, then.” Jacob made a face. “I need to talk to Sam anyway.”

He rolled to his knees and grabbed the door’s zipper.

Pain crackled down my spine and lodged in my stomach as I abruptly realized that this could be the last time I would see him. He was going back to Sam, back to fight the horde of bloodthirsty newborn vampires.

“Jake, wait —” I reached after him, my hand sliding down his arm.

He jerked his arm away before my fingers could find purchase.

“Please, Jake? Won’t you stay?”

“No.”

The word was hard and cold. I knew my face gave away my pain, because he exhaled and half a smile softened his expression.

“Don’t worry about me, Bells. I’ll be fine, just like I always am.” He forced a laugh. “’Sides, you think I’m going to let Seth go in my place — have all the fun and steal all the glory? Right.” He snorted.

“Be careful —”

He shoved out of the tent before I could finish.

“Give it a rest, Bella,” I heard him mutter as he re-zipped the door.

I listened for the sound of his retreating footsteps, but it was perfectly still. No more wind. I could hear morning birdsong far away on the mountain, and nothing else. Jacob moved in silence now.

I huddled in my coats, and leaned against Edward’s shoulder. We were quiet for a long time.

“How much longer?” I asked.

“Alice told Sam it should be an hour or so,” Edward said, soft and bleak.

“We stay together. No matter what.”

“No matter what,” he agreed, his eyes tight.

“I know,” I said. “I’m terrified for them, too.”

“They know how to handle themselves,” Edward assured me, purposely making his voice light. “I just hate missing the fun.”

Again with the fun. My nostrils flared.

He put his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he urged, and then he kissed my forehead.

As if there was any way to avoid that. “Sure, sure.”

“Do you want me to distract you?” He breathed, running his cold fingers along my cheekbone.

I shivered involuntarily; the morning was still frosty.

“Maybe not right now,” he answered himself, pulling his hand away.

“There are other ways to distract me.”

“What would you like?”

“You could tell me about your ten best nights,” I suggested. “I’m curious.”

He laughed. “Try to guess.”

I shook my head. “There’re too many nights I don’t know about. A century of them.”

“I’ll narrow it down for you. All of my best nights have happened since I met you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really — and by quite a wide margin, too.”

I thought for a minute. “I can only think of mine,” I admitted.

“They might be the same,” he encouraged.

“Well, there was the first night. The night you stayed.”

“Yes, that’s one of mine, too. Of course, you were unconscious for my favorite part.”

“That’s right,” I remembered. “I was talking that night, too.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

My face got hot as I wondered again what I might have said while sleeping in Jacob’s arms. I couldn’t remember what I’d dreamed about, or if I’d dreamed at all, so that was no help.

“What did I say last night?” I whispered more quietly than before.

He shrugged instead of answering, and I winced.

“That bad?”

“Nothing too horrible,” he sighed.

“Please tell me.”

“Mostly you said my name, the same as usual.”

“That’s not bad,” I agreed cautiously.

“Near the end, though, you started mumbling some nonsense about ‘Jacob, my Jacob.’” I could hear the pain, even in the whisper. “Your Jacob enjoyed that quite a lot.”

I stretched my neck up, straining to reach my lips to the edge of his jaw. I couldn’t see into his eyes. He was staring up at the ceiling of the tent.

“Sorry,” I murmured. “That’s just the way I differentiate.”

“Differentiate?”

“Between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Between the Jacob I like and the one who annoys the hell out of me,” I explained.

“That makes sense.” He sounded slightly mollified. “Tell me another favorite night.”

“Flying home from Italy.”

He frowned.

“Is that not one of yours?” I wondered.

“No, it is one of mine, actually, but I’m surprised it’s on your list. Weren’t you under the ludicrous impression I was just acting from a guilty conscience, and I was going to bolt as soon as the plane doors opened?”

“Yes.” I smiled. “But, still, you were there.”

He kissed my hair. “You love me more than I deserve.”

I laughed at the impossibility of that idea. “Next would be the night after Italy,” I continued.

“Yes, that’s on the list. You were so funny.”

“Funny?” I objected.

“I had no idea your dreams were so vivid. It took me forever to convince you that you were awake.”

“I’m still not sure,” I muttered. “You’ve always seemed more like a dream than reality. Tell me one of yours, now. Did I guess your first place?”

“No — that would be two nights ago, when you finally agreed to marry me.”

I made a face.

“That doesn’t make your list?”

I thought about the way he’d kissed me, the concession I’d gained, and changed my mind. “Yes . . . it does. But with reservations. I don’t understand why it’s so important to you. You already had me forever.”

“A hundred years from now, when you’ve gained enough perspective to really appreciate the answer, I will explain it to you.”

“I’ll remind you to explain — in a hundred years.”

“Are you warm enough?” he asked suddenly.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Why?”

Before he could answer, the silence outside the tent was ripped apart by an earsplitting howl of pain. The sound ricocheted off the bare rock face of the mountain and filled the air so that it seared from every direction.