The Edge

ix.

Emma was the last Cullen member on shift when it came to watching over Bella, the rest of her family leaving to hunt. Emma had hunted less than a month ago and would probably be fine for another month or so until she needed to hunt again. "No better time to talk then now, huh?" Jacob appeared behind Emma as she sat on an old tree stump in the woods behind Bella's house, waiting for the wolves to take over. "You want to talk now?" Emma looked at Jacob annoyed, she really just wanted to go home and sleep, or at least get out of the cold weather. "Paul and Quill will be here to relieve you in a few minutes, why not." Jacob shrugged. "How is he?" Emma was curious about her friend but knew she didn't have the same freedoms as before. "Quil?" Jacob questioned dumbly. "No, the shifter that tried to rip my leg off, of course Quil." Emma rolled her eyes at Jacob, who gave an annoyed look of his own. "He wasn't going to rip your leg off, stop being so dramatic." Jacob sat next to Emma on the large tree trunk. "Without his interference I probably would've taken the wretch's head off. I have every right to be dramatic." Emma defended herself. "You crossed the treaty line." Jacob reminded the blonde, who rolled her eyes again. "Wasn't the first time." Emma muttered so low even Jacob didn't pick up on it. "You really think you could've taken her head off?" Jacob broke the small moment of silence. "Guess we'll never know." Emma shrugged as she scanned the perimeter of Bella's house.

"To answer your question, Quil is doing fine. He's a little bummed about missing school and everything, but happy that he finally knows why we disappeared." Jacob explained Quil's feelings about shifting. "That's good, I got his voicemails, but it didn't feel appropriate to respond if we weren't ever coming back." Emma explained her guilt at leaving the boy alone when he had already lost two friends. "I think the newfound information of you being a Cullen gave him all the answers he needed, well except one." Jacob looked at the blonde curiously, wondering how he never knew she was a vampire. "Why don't you stink like the other bloodsuckers?" Jacob asked the question that the pack had all been wondering since they learned of her true existence. "It's kind of a long story." Emma bit her lip, unsure if she should really be telling Jacob her deepest darkest secret. "We've got time." Jacob shrugged off her statement. Emma glanced around the woods, checking to see if the other wolves showed up yet, there was no sign of them. "I'll tell you my secret in return for one of yours." Emma bargained with the shifter, who lifted an eyebrow curiously. "What do you want to know?" Jacob questioned skeptically. Emma didn't really have anything she wanted to know specifically, but she was sure there were juicy secrets among the pack. "Something nobody outside of the pack knows about, something that makes me trust you with my secret." Emma pursed her lips as she formed an answer. "You don't trust me, I'm wounded." Jacob jokingly held his hand to his chest, to which Emma gave the boy a small look of amusement. She missed the three shifters in her time away, she didn't really care that they were wolves now, they were her friends first. "Alright, have you ever heard of imprinting?" Jacob thought of the best secret he could trade with the hybrid. "No, what's that?" Emma looked at Jacob intrigued.

"Imprinting is a wolf thing it's like the finding your soulmate, but even deeper." Jacob tried to find the words to explain the process, thinking back to the night he witnessed Paul imprint." Imprinting on someone is like when you see her everything changes. All of the sudden it's not gravity holding you to the planet, it's her. Nothing else matters, you would do anything, be anything for her." Jacob replayed the images that projected from Paul when he imprinted. "That...sounds really deep." Emma digested the statement. "You sound like you know the feeling." Emma then looked at Jacob skeptically. "No, but the other night, one of the pack members imprinted while we were patrolling, and we all saw the projection." Jacob sighed as he looked over at the blonde, the image of her and Paul together still stuck in his head. "Projection?" Emma looked at Jacob confused. "That's another secret for another time, it's your turn." Jacob brushed off Emma's inquiry. "Okay, uh, bear with me, it's kind of a depressing story, my mom doesn't like to share it." Emma sighed and Jacob immediately gave a questioning look at the word 'mom' but remained silent. "My mother, Rosalie, she didn't have a choice when it came to the life of a vampire, none of us really did. My mom tells the story this way...my father, Royce King, was the most eligible bachelor in town. She barely knew the man, but she was so young, she was in love with the idea of love." Emma began the story of her creation, not hearing the approaching wolves.