I Never Meant to Start a War

His emotions were his weakest link.

I felt them in the air, flashing through in all different speeds and quantities. The heat of them nearly knocked me off of my feet as I stood about three feet away, just a step away from a dangerous proximity. I wanted to take a step back but there was nowhere to go other than through the front door and back to La Push. But I couldn’t hide there all the time.

“Jasper,” I said, but was taken aback by a sudden wave of incomprehensible sadness. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t just walk away from you.” His tone of voice scared me at the same time as soothed me, malice under sweet.

I stepped forward as if to move past him, but he easily grabbed my waist and twirled me around so that I wouldn’t be able to. I tried to push out of his arms, but he held fast, gentle enough so that it didn’t hurt me, but tight enough that I couldn’t quite squeeze out of it. I looked up at him, and his eyes were full of fire.

“You smell like him,” he snarled and I started to struggle again.

“Jasper, stop,” I hissed. “Just, stop.”

“No. Not when you haven’t given me any answers. Marie, why would you pick him? A filthy mutt who can’t give you anything?” Jasper’s eyes lightened, started turning back to gold. I liked that color, but I didn’t like the thoughts he was expressing that made that color come back. “I could give you whatever you wanted, Marie, anything you want. I could even give you forever. He can’t even give you what you deserve.”

“I don’t want forever,” I snapped. “I don’t want you.”

He let me go finally, but his eyes went back to black, all reassurance in his actions completely gone. His voice felt like acid against skin as he growled, “I don’t believe you, and do you want to know why? Your emotions tell me more than being in your mind ever could. You feel love for me. Don’t deny it, I can feel it, under the surface, right where you think it can stay hidden forever. But one day, it’ll come back. And you’ll think about it much more rationally. I only hope you come to this realization soon or else it may be too late.”

Hatred raged through my veins, and the only thing that scared me was that I wasn’t sure whose it was—mine or his. I felt the heat of my gaze as a twisted smile made its way onto my face. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’ve made my decision.”

“You know what happened the other day, at the treaty line,” he said. “It’ll happen again, right when they all least expect it, even the wolves. No one will see it coming. I promise.”

The threat shook all of the emotions out of me other than a sick sense of fear. I stumbled back a step as if it had been a physical blow, my eyes widening as I looked at the serious panes of Jasper’s face, trying to comprehend that the same Jasper Whitlock-Hale I had fallen in love with was threatening to kill someone I loved as if that would win me over. When I looked into his eyes, those eyes where I always used to be able to read everything, all I saw was blind rage.

“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I don’t love you.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it.”

“No, Jazz, I don’t—”

But I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Something that I had once yearned for, once loved, was being used against me in something as simple as a kiss, something as simple as Jasper pressing his lips against mine and just letting everything take control. Shock stopped me in my tracks, choking on the words I had been trying to speak.

The emotions, though, were back to normal, like they always used to be. The love and affection was there, a permeating force, but it . . . it didn’t seem like it used to. His chill of his skin brushing against mine as he softly pushed my back into the wall didn’t have the same heart-pounding effect that it used to have on me so often before. Kissing Jasper had been something I had dreamed about. But now it didn’t seem nearly as much of a treat.

Everything had changed when he had introduced me to the world of vampires and werewolves. I had fallen in love and seen a side of reality that I never thought existed. I met a friend that finally made me feel welcome in my own skin and gained a love that I let myself believe would last longer than forever.

But forever also introduced me to Paul.

Forever had another idea.

My heart as of late has been ripped in two, and I knew it wasn’t fair to juggle the constant indecision between two supernatural creatures of two different sides of the spectrum. Sooner or later, my heart knew that it would have to catch up with my brain and let him go.

I think that Jasper kissing me in that moment just made it possible. My heart hadn’t been able to make a decision, but right then, when I had been able to feel the love that both of them made me feel, I think that propelled my heart into making the decision to change everything. Slowly but surely, as I stood in Jasper’s arms as he tried so hard to cling to the one thing that was most important to him, I felt myself letting him go.

He felt it stir in the air as it escaped in waves from my heart. The one piece that would always hold my love for Jasper closed itself off to accept defeat from the bigger percentage being held forever by Paul, and I think Jasper could tell. Maybe he felt the acceptance, the sudden calmness, maybe even a bit of happiness as the tears began to fall, but he knew when he pulled back and looked me in the eye frantically. I could tell from the pure fear in his eyes that his worst nightmare had just occurred.

I reached out and touched him, as if to make sure he was real. “I love you,” my voice came in a whisper. “But I don’t love you enough. I’m sorry.”

“No,” is the only word he managed, a whimper, before a pounding exploded on the door and Jasper’s head snapped to it immediately. Suddenly, a snarl ripped through his lips as they curled into a scowl, and a shout came to accompany the pounding on the door.

“Marie!” Paul’s voice boomed from the other side of the door, and my heart sank somewhere where I didn’t know if it would ever be found again. I felt myself wan as I stumbled further away from Jasper, reaching up to touch my swollen lips. “Marie! Open the damn door! I know he’s in there! Open the door!”

Jasper growled as I rushed to the door, throwing it open quickly and coming face to face with a slightly shaking Paul. His eyes met mine as a very slight breeze slipped past the back of my neck, and a steady stream of bass growling just behind me. Paul growled as well and stepped forward, grabbing my arm and trying to pull me out of the way. I stayed firmly in place, panic setting in at full force.

I stood in between the two snarling fictional creatures, reaching out a hand to put on each of their chests, one over a beating heart, the other over the forgotten hollow of one.

“Stop!” I screamed over their animalistic noises frantically. The tears were cold on my cheeks from the cold air that had been let in by the front door, still hovering in the air of the front room, the chill from Jasper’s skin a constant reminder.

Jasper reached out to pull me behind him, and Paul snarled, “Don’t you dare touch her.”

“STOP!”

My shriek silenced both of them, probably because neither had really heard me scream. They both blinked and looked down at where I stood as the constant barrier in between them, a metaphor I no longer wanted to tolerate. I looked at the two of them through my tears, feeling the anger and annoyance and utter panic showing on my face, none of Jasper’s emotions seeming to touch me. I had no doubt that he was directing hatred to Paul, though, because his shaking was slowly but steadily increasing.

I looked at him, knowing. “Stop,” I said between my teeth to the man I had finally let go of, and Paul suddenly calmed slowly.

He reached for me and this time Jasper snarled, making him freeze in midair and shoot him an incredulous look.

But all attention was directed to me as I began to shake my head.

My voice was weak, but I spoke anyway. “Just stop, both of you. Please. I can’t take fighting right now.” I reached up and rubbed the tears away before I looked back at Jasper, feeling so exhausted. “Just go,” I told him. “Please.”

I hadn’t slept, but the exhaustion felt more infinite than that, ultimately. Like it wasn’t from my physical and mental strength, but spiritual, like all of this was sucking the life right out of my soul. My head began to spin and I repeated my words to Jasper, and they sounded even more like a begging whimper.

He heaved a silent sigh before nodding once and moving to the door, Paul staring him down as he went and shifting himself so that he began to stand between me and Jasper, an understandable move, but yet another one that seemed to slash at my heart.

Right before he hit the porch, Jasper spun to look Paul in the eye, his on fire with the heat of every ounce of hatred he felt for him. He said, “This is your first and only warning, mutt. This isn’t the last you’ve seen of me.”

Then he was gone.

When he had successfully evaporated into the night, Paul scooped me into his arms and held me close to his chest, burying his head in my hair. I didn’t move my arms around him, just let him hold me for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to me in the silence, though I don’t know if I knew what he was sorry for. Whether it was for the possibility of doom on the horizon or what I heard earlier today, I never quite knew. But I nodded my head and accepted his unknown apology and just let him hold me there to the earth and let it be the way I wanted it to be for the rest of my life.

If forever had the same plan, anyway.

“Promise me,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut. “Just promise me you won’t hurt him.”

He looked at me and shook his head.