Hello reader! Thanks for stopping by on this story. Each chapter is told from a different characters point of view and there is the introduction of a new character called James. Don't be too hard on him, he's going to be causing a lot of the fun drama. I hope you enjoy. Please comment along the way, I would love to hear what you think.

Happy reading…

Prologue

Jacob

I arrived at the Cullen's earlier than I was planning. Now this is the confusing part because now there were two houses occupied by Cullens'. Ness, Bella and Edward lived in a small cottage type house in the woods not far from the other Cullen household. I had a spare room designated to me in both houses and divided my time sleeping wherever I ended up at the end of the day. I was meant to be patrolling. Some vamps crossed through forks the other week and since then the pack had all been on edge; starting patrols and night covers. It was my week on duty. Sam and I had hatched the air. Since I now spent as much time as I could with Resnesmee at the Cullen's and off of pack turf, it only seemed fair that I stepped aside and let Sam take most of the responsibility. I was the only wolf that had imprinted on a vampire gene. It kind of placed me out of the loop, though I was still committed to the pack and as rightful Alfa I had a duty to them. They let me off the hook a lot, I was meant to have been supervising the patrol this week but I had told Sam that I had to help Bella with something for a coupe of hours and he was covering for me. The truth was Renesmee had been on a hunting trip with Edward, Emmet, Rosalie and Jasper and I hadn't seen her in two days. I knew she'd be home from school within the hour.

I hated school. I hadn't hated it when I was there or more to the point the few occasions I had managed to drag myself there. I had loved being around other kids, messing around during lunch, making up a daily excuse for why I hadn't done any work in the last two or three years. It wasn't my experience of school that I hated; it was Renesmee's. I hated Renesmee being at school. The endless eight hours that continuously separated us were a painful torture that I felt I would never adjust to. She had only just hit a point where she had stopped aging at a speed that would seem suspicious; she rarely changed appearance now, hitting puberty around the age of five. Weird huh. Resulting from this, the one thing she so desperately wanted to do was to go to school and the one thing I most desperately wanted was for her to be back on the reserve again, hanging with the pack all day or messing about at Esme's.

I approached the cottage hungry after being out with the pack all morning. I wondered into the kitchen to forage for food. Bella was preparing something edible by the kitchen counter. I could hear voices in the other room.

"Who's here?" I asked Bella curiously.

"Emmett…" She started and my face was pleased, "…and Rosalie," and my face fell.

I approached the bench. "What you got there?" I asked hopefully, taking a seat opposite her at the breakfast counter.

Bella frowned at me with confusion, glancing up at the clock. "I thought you were patrolling today?"

I avoided eye contact, taking a fork from the side and hashing at the bowl of fresh pasta. "Sam let me off the hook for an hour." I mumbled with a mouth full of food.

She wasn't convinced. "Why?" I looked up to meet her playful eye. I was useless at lying to Bells because she knew me too well, so I pleaded guilty; raising my hands up in surrender. "You're awful." She laughed as Emmett came in and stood next to me.

"Hey! How was the trip?" I greeted him with my best smile.

"Jake! Good. All good. Your girls appetite it getting stronger every time." He informed me with pride.

"Don't want to know." I deflected slightly repulsed by the idea of Ness eating wild animals with her bare teeth.

"Bells are you in for baseball tonight or what?" Emmet asked her impatiently.

"Tonight?" I had been imagining a lazy catch up evening with Ness.

"Yes tonight and you're in. Don't bail on me. Bells?" He pushed.

"Yes, yes i'm in." Bella caved.

Emmett seemed pleased by this and then turned his attention to me. "I thought you had wolf stuff today?"

Bella grinned, "Sam voluntarily gave him an hour off." she mocked. "Weird huh." Emmett elbowed me hard in the ribs.

"Ow." I overplayed, pretending to fold over in pain. "Do you know what is weird, every one knowing my weekly schedule. What did we all sink our calandars without my knowledge or what?" Emmett chuckled in amusement as the queen of doom entered.

"What are you laughing about?" Rosalie demanded.

"Just a little thing we like to call humor, you may not have heard of it." I teased.

Rosalie ignored me, "Why are you here? Aren't you missing out on some important patrolling time or something." She mocked.

"Seriously? Get your own life." I whipped as she scowled at me aggressively.

Emmett and Bella shared a look of amusement. "He's pulling a sickie." Emmett explained.

I rolled my eyes, "I am not pulling a sickie; I'm allowed to take an hour off. Yes I'm not really meant to leave the pack during patrol, yes my excuse wasn't 100% truthful but it's all mostly harmless." I assured them.

"Sure sure." Emmett laughed.

"You really are pathetic. Sometimes I wonder if this whole imprint thing is just an act you've come up with because you're too lame to get a girlfriend on your own." Rosalie smirked cruelly.

"And sometimes I wonder how I restrain myself from strangling you to death." I advanced.

"Alright you two, break it up." Emmett warned us playfully.

"Jake can you stop eating all the pasta, it's for Renesmee when she gets home." Bella shot at me as she snatched away the bowl.

I had eaten my way through half over the previous ten minutes. "Can't you make more?" I begged, giving her my best puppy eyes.

Bella exhaled in frustration, sliding over the bowl and then heading to the fridge to get more food. I stood up and took the bowl in my hands, "I'm just going to take this with me upstairs."

Bella poked her head from around the fridge to glare at me. "Don't make a mess."

I was already half way out the door when Emmett called to me, "Hey. See if you can get Embry here tonight." Embry was always hesitant when it came to playing sports with Cullen's, you know that whole werewolves hate vampires thing but he was a brilliant bowler so Emmett always insisted he joined in and over time he grew to like it.

"I'll see what I can do." I promised, affectionately punching him in the arm. "Going to wait for Renesmee in her room." I informed them. I tilted my head at Rosalie has I passed her, "Malabo." I had christened her with this name after Malabo Barbie, simply to piss her off. It was a nickname I had come up with about a year ago and had stuck to it because it enraged her.

"Mutt." She responded venomously; simple but effective.

I grinned maliciously at her and then exited with my bowl of pasta. The aching I felt when I was apart from Renesmee for too long is the same feeling you get when you haven't eaten in too long, that sense of painful emptiness. I didn't make it easy on myself, I could have tried to distract myself, patrolling, though there was nothing more boring than looking for enemies that simply didn't exist; running around in circles chasing my tail basically. I could have seen the guys, gone down to La push but I knew they would all be with their imprints and that's the worst kind of third wheel. So I had instead decided to place myself there, on her bed, staring at the clock on the right upper corner of her laptop and counting down the seconds until she came home.

Eventually I heard her voice from downstairs, my heart jumped so hard that I swear it hit into my ribcage, which felt like it was holding it hostage from its owner. I waited listening to her chatting away downstairs and then eventually she burst into the room all a flutter, speaking in a pitch only a bat could hear and at a speed not even Bella's vamp ears could grasp.

"Ahhh, I just had the most amazing day! I can't believe that just happened! I don't know if dad will be mad that I walked him to the house, oh well he'll get over it." She was already discarding her coat and had her own bowl of pasta, which she placed on her desk carelessly.

I rolled my eyes impatiently, she was always gushing over her days at school, she was having a love affair with her academia, she would have an 'amazing' lesson or a 'magical' lunch hour and then spend the rest of the night describing it to me in painful detail as if it were a first date.

"Hello?" I signalled to her.

She spun around to meet me as if she had forgotten I was there already and then meeting my eye she beamed at me affectionately.

"Hey." She grinned. "Missed you."

"Good." I teased with a playful eye. "I've been waiting here for you in this spot since you left."

"Mum told me you only just got here." She laughed.

"Well your mums a gossip." I warned her.

She shook her head at me in disapproval. "I thought you had patrolling today?"

I threw my hands in the air in exhaustion. "Yes! O.k. I had patrolling; but I've taken an hour off. One, don't you think it's unhealthy that everyone in this family knows everybody else's daily timetable? And two, why does everybody assume I'm a liar?"

She laughed at my outburst, "Maybe because everybody knows you skipped out to meet me from school."

I collapsed in defeat, "Fine, maybe I made up a slight excuse."

She grabbed her bowl of pasta and came to sit with me on the bed. "Maybe." She grinned. "Jake, you shouldn't blow off patrol to meet me from school."

"Maybe if you weren't at school..." I mumbled under my breath.

She put on that cute stern look that I loved so much; sometimes I would purposely drop something or say something cheeky, just so I could create that look. "Please can we not get into this again?"

I began a slow sulk. "Do you remember when I said I missed you?" She smiled convincingly.

"Vaguely."

"I know you feel that imprint stuff when we have to be apart but it's hard for me too. I have to learn though Jake and you don't make it any easier by guilt-tripping me."

The imprinting stuff, to her was that we were best friends, not soul mates. No one had explained to her the real weight of what was between us and Edward had made me promise not to tell her until she had reached full maturity. As for the subject of school, she was right of course but that didn't mean I liked it.

"Fine, you're right." I gave in.

She tilted her head at my with fake sympathy, "I'm selling a reason for you to quit sulking."

I sat up with interest, "What's it going to cost me?"

Nessie bit her lip in thought, "Control over this weeks shopping list." As Nessie and I were the only ones who ate in the Cullen household we were in charge of the shopping list, though it often caused a lot of disputes.

"In exchange for?"

She grinned devilishly, "A secret patrol."

I raised my eyebrow, "I'm listening."

"Dad gave me permission to stay at Emily's next week for the Quileute gathering."

My eyes flew open with surprise and excitement. "Really?!" Edward hardly ever let Renesmee stay over night at La Push.

"Really." She confirmed. "I was thinking, you, me and a late night stroll to the cave for some adventures." She beamed. This was in no way a sexual suggestion, though it might appear. This was a sort of ritual of ours where we would sneak out in the night on our own private patrol.

I was suddenly ridiculously happy. "Sold." I agreed. "That is going to be awesome." She picked back up her bowl of pasta and started eating hungrily.

"What were you squealing about when you came in?" I asked, not actually caring as I fell back on to the bed.

Her eyes lit up once again, "A guy." She scoffed.

I rolled my eyes for the second time; this was another thing that was common. Renesmee had reached that age where every guy that spoke to her was the next news headline, whether it was asking if she had a pen or telling her she had tissue stuck to her bag. For me, the imprint/soul mate this at first was a painful torture but over time had become an amusing routine, where she gushed over the latest heartthrob and I sighed in disapproval and stopped listening.

But that day, as she gave me the play by play of how a boy had come up to her after school, asked her if she was new in town and then offered to walk her home, I should have been paying close attention. If I hadn't let my mind drift to what would be cooking at Emily's that evening and how I was going to convince Embry to head back with me after for base ball, I would have heard Renesmee describe how this guy hated apples too and didn't like the way they stuck in his teeth, how he loved to read as well and his favourite book was by Dickens, how he had a sister and she was twelve and that he had asked if they could walk home together from now on and she had said that she'd like that.

"Are you listening?!" She derailed my train of thought.

I laughed carelessly, "No. Do you think Edward would let you come back with me? Emmett is getting everyone together to play baseball tonight. I was thinking you could help me to convince some of the guys along. Seth might be up for it."

She shook her head in a frustrated manner, "I don't know, I'll ask...I listen when you talk to me." She moaned.

"I was listening." I lied.

"You just said you weren't!"

"What was the guy's name again?" I asked just to cover myself and seem interested.

"James." She replayed dreamily.

I laughed playfully and pulled her down next to me on the bed, she immediately filled the space between us, twisting onto her side and resting her head on my shoulder. Only then did the empty aching in my gut fill full as I let myself drift off into a content doze, comforted by her light breath tickling the side of my chin.

I didn't know it then but the name 'James' would be one that stayed with me for the rest of my life and if I had known then what I know today, if I had known the chaos that name would bring into our happy existence or exactly how much was on the line and how hard I would have to fight to keep it, then I would have told her then never to see him again; I would have without a moment's hesitation crushed that name from her existence, for his sake not for mine. But I didn't know, instead I dozed happily by her side in a moment of complete happy ignorance, not realizing that the chain of events that would lead up to the hardest revelation of my life, had just been set into motion. Starting a month from then, with a kiss…