I Never Meant to Start a War

If I thought the training fights between Jasper and the members of his family was nerve-wracking, I had a hard time even fathoming all that happened between Jasper and Paul.

It was almost as though it was a game to the wolves, and I would later scold myself for thinking that it wasn’t. Of course it was. As Paul and Jasper started toward each other with their lips pulled back over their teeth, the wolves growled in anticipation. I could almost hear their thoughts egging him on, cheering for him, muttering negative slurs about the leech. I caught Sam watching the scene with some kind of grin on his face.

And then, they were attacking.

The way they fought each other wasn’t nearly as much of a dance as it had been with the other vampires. They fought with brute force and speed, rather than skill and intelligence. Their snarls connected in the air.

I heard a whimper, and I flinched.

Revenge was supposed to be fulfilling, but this was more along the lines of torture. It almost didn’t seem fair, but I knew that I deserved so much worse. So I watched. I had never seen anything quite like it.

Paul slunk low on his hunches, his eyes unwavering as Jasper stood with an anticipating grin, watching him patiently and waiting for the direction of his attack. The air around us was so silent and tense, that were someone to speak, it would have made us all jump and gasp.

Instead, we all locked down for impact when Paul launched through the air at the angle no one saw, and Jasper was taken off guard.

They were sent tumbling into the ground, snarling so loudly that it was all I could hear, and it echoed back to me from the trees around us. They were a tangle of limbs and strikes that moved too quickly for my human eyes to catch, but the constant flipping from one over the other was the only way I could keep track.

The domination seemed about equal.

They bounced back and hovering to judge their attacked again, and then attacked. Then back. Then attack. It went on like that for a while, and no one said a word to stop them like they would when it came to Jasper fighting family. Now both sides wanted to see what happened. What I knew, though, was that the wolves, Paul in particular, was getting much too much out of this.

Edward stood with a straight face not far away from Bella and me as we tensely watched the fight, listening and watching. I clenched my teeth together so that I didn’t say something to him I would regret.

After all, I deserved it. In some sick part of my mind, I knew I deserved it.

Eventually, though, Paul and Jasper had gotten sick of the wrestling, the not being able to hurt one another. I felt the anxiety wash over me as this time they lunged toward each other with a little too much energy. I felt my stomach fall as a sound of a choked chuckle came from one of the wolves.

A snap echoed through the clearing, as well as a purely enraged snarl.

The large pack of wolves, the remaining nine, all began to growl in unison, and even I had to admit that it was rather intimidating. Jasper was standing beside a slightly-hunched Paul with an invigorated smirk on his face, a wickedly threatening spark in his eyes. Paul had eyes burning of pure hate, but he wore some kind of twisted form of a smile on his face that told me that he was okay, that he had gotten everything he wanted out of that.

With a quick flash of heat through my stomach, I realized that he hadn’t tried too hard on purpose, that he had played his cards perfectly. He was studying for the possibility of them having to fight for me, and he looked forward to winning, no matter if it was to win me or keep me.

I finally closed my eyes.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Carlisle called to his son with a sharp look, knowing that he couldn’t tell Paul what to do but knew that Paul wouldn’t do anything cheaply. Jasper sent his father figure a sheepish grin before he sudden disappeared, appearing next to me in only a second. I flinched in surprise.

He thought it was fear.

“I’m sorry,” he immediately apologized in a low voice, his eyes wide and guilty. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No, no,” I interrupted him, smiling a little. “You just seemed to forget that I’m one of the few that can’t see you coming.”

He rolled his eyes at me before he took me in his arms and kissed my temple, holding me close.

A wicked snarl echoed through the clearing, and I looked to see that Paul had joined his pack, and he was looking right at Jasper’s back, teeth barred.

He caught my eye, but I looked away.

“It seems that you have made yourself an enemy,” I whispered to Jasper, smiling up at him through my anxiety. He rolled his eyes and grinned, leaning down and putting us forehead to forehead.

“It’s only a mutt,” he murmured moments before he pressed his lips to mine, and I wondered how I kept control of myself. When he pulled away, he pulled me closer into an embrace, and I caught Paul staring at us in obvious envy before he disappeared into the forest, gone without a trace.

~*~

That night, when Jasper held me in his arms and listened to my heartbeat keeping peace in his world, I wanted to cry.

Solidifying my love for Paul was just solidifying Jasper’s belief Alice’s visions lead to my death.

The guilt kept me awake. I don’t think he noticed.