motives

"So," a voice called from behind me. "What's it like, loving a shifter?"

I spun to see Kate, standing a few feet behind me in a pose that would look far more casual if she was leaning against a tree.

"What are you talking about?"

"Your mate, Edward, has called a few times about you in these last couple of months. He says you claim to have moved on with your life without him, that you're dating one of the shape-shifters that you have moved in with. So, what's it like to love a shifter?"

"It isn't like that." And it wasn't. Jacob was my best friend, and while I wouldn't deny that I cared for him, deeply even – I wasn't in love with him, nor was I in a relationship with him. It was just that La Push was my only option left.

"Then why are you with him?"

"Because I can't be with Edward," I spat the words angrily.

"Why not?"

"He deserves better."

Kate looked at me speculatively. "What makes you believe there's better out there than you?"

My reply was instantaneous and honest. "Because he's good." I didn't bother to say the implied, I'm not.

Her eyes narrowed slightly and then they shifted away looking off in the distance. She casually walked up until she was standing beside me. "Did you know that I'm the oldest amongst my siblings?" She didn't wait for an answer. "I was changed by Sampson sometime around 400 AD. I've lived through and seen things that many others never have. I doubt even the Volturi have seen the kind of things that I have. They simply couldn't have – given the way they live in their high castle and pretend to be saints. I can actually think of only a few vampires who've been around more than me. I suspect you may know two of them yourself. I don't need you to confirm it. Tanya, an actual descendant of Sampson's, was changed by him almost a hundred years after me, and Irina, a good fifty years after that.

"We all loved Sampson. He was our maker, and he was this brilliant light of sorts... to all of us. Sadly, in 1196, he did something that we were unaware of. He turned a young child that was a mere three years old, Valerie. He kept the child a secret, not only from the Volturi, but from us as well. He managed to to hide the child for almost an entire two years. I have no clue how. Of course, you know what happened when the Volturi discovered the existence of the immortal girl. It was because of that event that we changed our diet. But what you likely don't know, is what happened immediately after they destroyed him.

"My sisters and I initially plotted our revenge. We contemplated many methods of how to kill Alec, how to kill Jane, how to kill Aro... I must admit, we were overtly theatrical about all of our ideas. Eventually, we gave up our ideas." She sighed. "Not because we wanted to, but because we didn't have the talents we would need to pull such a thing off." She looked at me. "Our species is very instinctively based, in spite of the fact that we're a hundred times smarter than a human – or possibly because of it. It is not wrong for our species to seek out revenge. It's in our nature. It's something that all of us, who've lived long enough, feel at some point.

"Maybe it's because our mate is killed, or our maker... Maybe it's because we see some great injustice... Maybe it's because someone we love is hurt... Or perhaps they're just threatened. Whatever the case may be, Beau, when we seek out revenge, it's purely natural."

Her words hit a cord, but I shook my head, because she was wrong. I hadn't done the thing I'd done because of revenge. I hadn't.

She arched an eyebrow, before reaching out and grabbing my shoulder. "Everyone in that house knows you killed your first human. For him. To save his life. The question is. Did you kill someone else for him too?" She looked back out at the Alaska terrain. "Come, let's hunt."

…

The hunting trip was uneventful. Unlike Jake, Kate didn't monitor my every movement – she'd been hunting herself.

It did give me time to think a lot of things through... I wondered to myself that if perhaps what I'd done had been natural, even if it hadn't been about revenge? Did that make it slightly more acceptable? I knew it was unforgivable... but was it something that could be looked beyond if I did tell Edward the truth?

I wasn't sure, and I knew I wasn't going to tell him what I'd done yet. But... It gave me hope. At least a little bit.

When we headed back to the house, she told me that if I ever wanted to come live in Denali, I could. I nodded my thanks at the offer, though I knew I wouldn't accept it. I had a home. Be it with the Cullens or with the wolves.

Once we were back at their giant house, I sought out Edward, who I found upstairs in one of the bedrooms on the second floor. I stepped up beside him, looking out the window with him and stared out at the giant firs and pine trees that covered the landscape – many of them in excess of two hundred feet tall. In the backdrop behind the trees I could see the giant mountain range, that – in spite of it being the dead of summer – was still more white than brown or green.

"It's beautiful here," I murmured.

"Yes, this area of Alaska, in spite of this giant mansion, is relatively untouched by man. It's left it mostly in it's natural order," he agreed.

I looked at Edward out of the corner of my eye. "And none of it is as beautiful as you," I said softly.

"What?" He turned to look at me, his voice completely shocked.

I turned so I was facing him, in turn. "I... don't know what I'm doing. And I'm sorry for that. So sorry. I've lost my way somewhere, lost my step. I'm not sure how to make it back to that path... But, I miss you, Edward. So much."

He looked into my eyes, looking for something that I wasn't sure he would find, but hoped it was there. "Please... Promise me this is for real. Promise me this isn't the mountains talking." What he said was more of a breath than actual words.

"Yes, I promise, Edward."

He stepped closer to me, his feet almost on top of mine as he leaned forward and I leaned down in turn.

I don't know who kissed who. His lips were on mine, our lips moving together, our tongues fighting for dominance in an entirely new way. He pressed me backwards with his hands, walking with me. My back hit the wall and then his hands were in my hair.

I picked him up around the back of his legs, so I could stand up straight as we continued kissing, our lips never parting. He wrapped his legs around my hips.

Somewhere, either below me or in my head, I heard a chuckle. I wasn't sure if it was Kate, or some mental imagination of Alice. I ignored it.

His hands slipped under my shirt, and as our lips parted briefly, he yanked it off. Then his lips were on mine again as I let my hands slide up under his shirt, feeling his smooth as satin skin with my fingers, just barely tracing up the side of his rib cage. I was about to touch his chest when he moaned softly, his hips gyrating the slightest bit that I realized what we were doing.

Everything came back into sharp focus. I pulled back from his lips, my hands dropping back to his hips, grabbing and holding him in such a way that he wouldn't feel exactly how heady the lust was that was running between us. And that was what it was – lust.

"Edward, we need to stop," I barely managed to make myself say the words that I really didn't want to.

Edward looked up at me, a painful look in his eyes. "Why?"

"Because, if we continue like this right now..." I shook my head. "I know this isn't how you really want things to happen."

He sighed and pulled himself away from me.

…

The next two days passed in a blur. I got to know the five Denalis in that time – or I got to know four of them, anyways.

Kate was an enigma. She was probably one of the most interesting mixes of strangely aloof and intensely intimate that I had ever met. In her eyes, one could see the world if they only looked hard enough. She told me stories about history, only it wasn't vampire history, it was history of other beings – werewolves and witches.

Irina and I talked a few times, and in that short amount of time, two things became clear. The first, she blamed me for Laurent's death and didn't like me very much. The second, she couldn't have possibly been his mate. There was just something that wasn't there. In spite of her anger towards me, there was no fire for revenge, no desire to die, no real attachment at all... It also turned out that the vast majority of the paintings in the house were her creation.

Eleazar, who was about fifty years younger than Carlisle, was very interesting. He showed me artifacts and items that he had taken with him when he'd left the Volturi behind, telling me the history behind a couple of the vases that were in the dining room, pointing out one in particular that I hadn't initially noticed because of how plain it was was – a simple clay bowl with no paint or art of any kind – but as he pointed it out to me, he explained that it had actually been made by Alec and Jane when they'd been human. When I'd asked why he had it and not them, he explained that the item had meant nothing to the twins – explaining that the two were smart and very knowledgeable of the law, but that they had little concern for it in reality. They'd apparently only been twelve at the time they'd been turned, technically both considered adults back in that time period, but the reality was that they probably should have been a few years older before they were turned. He had explained there youth – the early stage of puberty – was a large part of why they were so vindictive.

Then there was Carmen. She was compassionate and empathetic in a way that reminded me far too much of Esme. She was also the one that played the harp, which she demonstrated with extreme efficiency as Tanya sat at the piano and played. It turned out that Tanya was as good of a piano player as Edward.

While with Tanya, the clear leader of the coven, I couldn't say I honestly made any headway with. Perhaps, if I'd come on my own, I might have actually liked her... I didn't know. Unfortunately, every time I was in the room with her I just really wanted to smash her face in, let it heal, and do it all over again. And though I wasn't unfamiliar with violent desires anymore, it was a whole different kind of violence that I wanted this time.

After being there for the better part of three days, we left. The flight home was better as Edward didn't tense up every time someone walked by. In fact, it felt light, hopeful even... At least it did to me.

We were driving back to Forks from Seattle in his Volvo and I was just about to tell him that I was ready to come home when he opened his mouth.

"I think there's something I should tell you, Beau." His words were serious.

"What is it?" I asked, immediately on alert.

"There was an ulterior motive for having you go to the Denalis. Everything I said before was absolutely true. The tickets were about to expire, and I didn't want to offend our cousins... but the truth is that we knew that Victoria was going to be in the area because Alice saw her in a vision. I talked with Jake when we discovered it. He was the one that actually suggested the tickets."

I flinched, half freezing in my seat. "So you lied?" They'd both lied, the feeling of betrayal was immediate.

"I didn't lie. I just didn't tell the whole truth. Beau, I don't want to see you hurt. I don't want to lose you, and I'm worried what would happen if you got into a fight with Victoria. Please don't blame me for wanting to protect you."

His words were earnest and heartfelt. So I closed my eyes, counting backwards from ten and focused on letting go of the quick flash of annoyance that his... lie of omission, caused me. "I don't," I said once I was sure it was an honest answer.

We were quiet for a few minutes and I opened my mouth to tell him what I'd initially planned, but I closed my eyes and looked away instead. In spite of the fact that part of me wanted nothing more than to tell him I wanted to come home... I just couldn't say it anymore. But I desperately wanted him to ask me to come home. I wanted him to tell me anything that solidified that I wasn't the only one who had felt something while with the Denalis. I needed him to tell me he still loved me or for him to tell me we'd move forward from this. I'd even accept it if he told me to forget Jake, just any sign that there was still hope for us.

That wasn't what he said though when he finally opened his mouth just as we were on the final stretch to Forks. "You need me to move on without you, don't you?"

I closed my eyes, because it wasn't what I wanted at all, but how could I explain to him what I needed from him? If he couldn't understand what I'd been trying to make him see in Alaska, then how would he ever understand anything?

He continued when I didn't reply immediately. "That was what the kiss was about, right? You were saying goodbye right?"

The thing was, that hadn't been a goodbye kiss, and he should have known it. I'd given him a goodbye kiss before. If he couldn't tell the difference then what hope was there? I'd also promised him it was real.

So, in spite of it killing me, I said what he obviously wanted to hear. "Yes."

Part of me knew, if I could shed tears still, I would... because leaving and him moving on wasn't what I wanted at all.

…

The last ten minutes of the drive were pure torture, and as he pulled into the Cullen drive, I was out of the car before he had it completely stopped.

"Beau," he called.

In spite of every instinct screaming at me to take off before he dug the knife any deeper, I couldn't stop myself from turning toward him.

"If.. if Jake ever imprints or you ever change your mind... then you know how to find me."

Some part of my mind realized it was the life raft that I'd desperately wanted fifteen minutes ago. But it was too little and far too late, as every belief that I could never be good enough, and every doubt in him was back in full.

So I nodded mutely before I spun and raced away, heading straight to the little cabin that was mine.