Chapter Text
As congratulations were doled out (mostly from Esme and Emmett) and ideas of wedding planning were brought up (exclusively by Alice), Eleri let herself think about the suddenness of the engagement. It wasn’t really much of a surprise—she knew it had been coming—but the exact manner of the proposal was…off.
She didn’t let herself dwell on that fact for very long since she was in mixed company, and instead, she focused on the bigger picture. Change. Things were already changing—had changed. And while it gave Eleri a spike of anxiety, she knew she needed to come to terms with it.
“Eleri?” Bella spoke tentatively, having managed to somehow free herself from Alice’s incessant questions.
“Oh, yes, right. Congrats to you both.” It sounded rather lame following the rest of the well-wishes from the other people in the room, so Eleri tacked on a smooth, “Um…mazel tov?”
“Thanks,” Bella replied, giving Eleri a soft chuckle. “I was a little worried you might try to talk me out of it, but I’m glad you’re happy for us.”
“If this is what you want, who am I to argue?” Eleri shrugged. She had long since given up hope that Bella would go hunting around the country with her after all was said and done. If this was what would make her happy, then Eleri would be supportive. “Friends only talk friends out of astronomically bad decisions like making demon deals and getting bangs. Edward might be…Edward, but luckily, I don’t think it’s transmissible—his personality, I mean, not the vampirism.”
“Eleri,” Edward drawled with a sneering twist to his lips. “Always a pleasure.”
“Edward,” she stated coolly, trying not to draw attention to the fact she was unbuttoning Jasper’s pants—er, that probably sounded wrong—she was unbuttoning the pants she was wearing that were too tight to sit comfortably in for very long while buttoned because they were pants that belonged to Jasper. She wouldn’t unbutton Jasper’s pants in front of everyone in the living room normally, er, not that she’d ever be unbuttoning Jasper’s pants.
Ugh. This was why she should never be in the same room as a telepath. Her thoughts were embarrassing.
“I must say, I’d find your support of our engagement a lot more believable if you weren’t so occupied thinking about unbuttoning Jasper’s pants.”
Eleri felt her eye twitch.
She took a deep breath, trying to will her face not to turn beet-red as all eyes seemed to latch onto her—Emmett’s slightly muffled snicker filling the soundless room.
“They’re very tight,” she blurted aloud as she reamed out the rat mentally. TELEPATHIC ETIQUETTE, EDWARD! As a telepath, he should know better than to broadcast a person’s private, inner thoughts. “It’s distracting,” she added to her verbal defence. ALSO, no one likes a tattler, you melodramatic egg.
It was then, after a beat, that Eleri realized that what she had said aloud hadn’t sounded quite how she had intended. Instead of a defence, she had dug a deeper hole.
“Fuck, wait, that came out wrong.” She buried her burning hot face in her hands as Emmett began hooting and hollering with laughter. “Oh god,” she groaned. “Let’s go back to talking about the engagement. Hooray. Wedding and stuff. Alice?”
“You’re right. They’re already engaged and I don’t even have a seating plan or a guest list. So much to do and so little time.”
“It’s too soon,” intervened Rosalie. “She hasn’t had time to figure out what she wants in life and you’re going to take that choice away.”
“They’re only engaged, Rose,” said Alice. “Nothing has to happen right away. Besides, there’s still so much to do before they can get married—I haven’t even gotten Bella to agree to a colour scheme yet.”
With that, Rosalie fell silent, but her cold, displeased expression didn’t falter.
As much as Eleri wanted to be in Rosalie’s corner—especially since the blonde had come through for her when no one else seemed to want to take Eleri’s side—Eleri didn’t want to pick a fight, not when she and Bella seemed to once again be on good terms (Eleri honestly couldn’t remember what terms they had been on last which didn’t really bode well for their friendship, but whatever). She really should just keep her mouth shut and let everyone fight their own battles, particularly when she knew the most likely outcome.
Even so, a losing battle was still worth fighting as long as you had someone worth fighting for.
“Listen, I’m not trying to stir the pot, but hear me out.” Eleri took a deep breath. “Bella, don’t take this as me not supporting you, I just think you shouldn’t necessarily brush off what Rosalie has to say. It might seem as if she is speaking from a place of malice—like she is doing her best to keep you out of the family—but she isn’t. And this is a big deal, so you should definitely at least attempt to think it through—not that I’m saying you haven’t put thought into it. I know you’ve likely been overthinking it if anything.” Eleri then turned to Rosalie. “And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t yell at Edward and tell him off—be my guest, he probably deserves it—but…” She paused to organize her thoughts. “But marriage doesn’t necessarily mean that Bella is going to become a vampire. For all we know, being married to the gloomster could change her mind entirely. Besides, even if it doesn’t, the change might not happen for a year or more yet. There’s time.”
Eleri took another deep breath and released it slowly. The room was silent again and it was beginning to make her feel awkward. “I don’t know what that was, but I’m assuming it was a side effect from these tight pants reducing the circulation to my brain. Someone else please say something before it starts up again.”
“That was surprisingly…diplomatic,” commented Emmett. “Perhaps you should wear Jasper’s pants more often.”
“Why are you wearing his clothes anyway?” Bella asked, seemingly not upset by Eleri’s little speech.
“I’ll leave it at dumpster juice and let you jump to your own conclusions.”
“Luckily, Jasper ‘gentleman’ Whitlock gallantly came to our rescue and even gave the fair maiden a change of clothes,” explained Emmett with his signature grin.
“Don’t mind Emmett’s flair for dramatics,” Jasper drawled. “I was barely involved.”
“You were supposed to be preparing, finalizing the plans for the fight with Victoria,” Edward said accusingly. “You do realize it’s the day after tomorrow, Jasper. There isn’t time for gallivanting off to bail Eleri out of her messes.”
“You do realize that kidnappers don’t exactly wait until it’s convenient,” Eleri shot back. “Your crisis is important, but that doesn’t mean it trumps every other crisis that happens in the same time frame.”
Edward turned his attention from Jasper to her which she was more than okay with. Let him blame, let him be angry, but Eleri wasn’t going to sit back and let Jasper take it all.
Unfortunately, it seemed Edward had been waiting for her to ‘poke the bear’ as it were—he had a whole speech locked and loaded (he had clearly been fantasizing about this argument in his free time which was equal parts flattering and annoying—mostly the latter).
Seriously though, what was it with people and speeches lately?
“You think you’re all high and mighty, but I’ll be there for the inevitable fall from your high horse,” he growled through gritted teeth. “You’re a distraction—a deception. You appear to do the right thing, but the motivation behind the action isn’t normal. It always seems like an act, like you’re playing a part. Like this is all a twisted game to you.”
“I—” but Edward didn’t let her interrupt.
“I’ll admit it, you helped Bella when I left. But you can’t convince me that you did it purely out of the goodness of your heart. There was something else, wasn’t there? Something where a soul should be that urged you to do it for your own selfish reasons—that’s why you ‘hunt,’ isn’t it?”
“I think you mean, ‘Thank you,’” Eleri replied calmly. She was going to ride this high horse till it croaked if it meant getting under Edward’s skin. “I know you must feel guilt and shame for your actions and how they caused Bella distress, but I will no longer be your emotional punching bag.” She was getting tired of having different versions of this same fight with him. Enough was enough. “Contrary to what you might think, I am not an entirely despicable person.” She’d know, she’d met people who were worse than her. “I might not get it right all the time, and I might not be what you consider someone with good morals to be, but I try. And I think that ought to count for something.”
Eleri looked around the room to gauge the reactions of the others and found the majority to be nodding with her in agreement—or at the very least, not openly hostile. Rosalie, in particular, looked ready to physically fight Edward if it were to come to blows which Eleri found to be endearing. Even Bella, Edwards biggest supporter, looked a bit conflicted.
“You’re right.” Had he just agreed with her? Edward Cullen? The most disagreeable person ever? “I haven’t been fair to you. And for that, I apologise.” Had hell frozen over? Were leprechauns dancing in the street? “But I maintain that your presence is problematic and dangerous. I don’t like how you try to control your thoughts when I’m around like you’re trying to hide something, and I don’t believe that you’re not operating under your own secret agenda. That doesn’t, however, give me the right to treat you as I have been. I will try to be civil in the future—for Bella.” He turned to the brunette and smiled down at her.
“Well, thanks,” she said after a moment of gaping at him like he’d lost control of his faculties.
It was a lot to unpack, and Eleri didn’t really want to unpack it all right here right now, so she shoved his speech to the back of her mind and tried to change the topic.
“So…the fight?” She turned to Jasper who appeared to be looking at her contemplatively. “Should we go over the plan?”
Jasper nodded and took the topic change in stride, allowing Eleri to breathe a sigh of relief.
…
Friday came faster than Eleri had anticipated.
She had spent the entirety of Thursday in her room, ruminating on Edward’s accusations. It was entirely headache-inducing, not to mention unfruitful. Eleri had been torn from trying to make it seem like she wasn’t so obviously controlling her thoughts around him or coming clean about her knowledge. Neither option seemed very promising in her opinion.
Sure, if she came clean it would be a relief—until, of course, the questions came rolling in, followed by the disbelief and even more accusations. That certainly wasn’t ideal right before a big, pivotal moment, nor did it seem to solve the problem at hand. If anything, it’d just make Edward’s problem with her worse.
The other tortuous thoughts came from how accurately Edward had managed to hit the nail on the head when it came to her moral ambiguity and lack of soul—not that she actually lacked a soul, mind you (Eleri assumed the more apt description would be that she had soul-damage). Edward had also been pretty spot on when he had said that it seemed like something seemed to be urging her, affecting her actions. He just didn’t know that the something had a name—Lucifer.
The more Eleri thought about it, the more she began to believe that Edward had heard Luci’s little whisper all those weeks ago, and he hadn’t forgotten about it.
She was also becoming convinced that she wasn’t as unaffected by Lucifer as she liked to believe. The evidence was becoming clearer as of late. The flinching, the mood-shifts—they were physical and emotional reactions to something that was all in her head. She was no psychologist, but that struck Eleri as a bad sign.
But she didn’t have the time or mental space to think about that now.
Eleri donned the clothing Jasper had procured for her—a pair of baggy cutoffs (that weren’t too tight in the waist, thankfully), a white wifebeater, and a Hawaiian shirt with flipflops and flamingos all over it. She honestly couldn’t tell if the outfit was giving grandpa on vacation or Floridian kid dresses himself for the first time.
Based on the name ‘Embry’ scrawled on the tag, she felt pretty confident she knew who the clothing had come from.
Making sure the angel blade was securely sheathed at her waist (she wanted easy access to it during the fight in case something happened to her flamethrower) and that the cutoffs were not at risk of falling down, Eleri left a note for Joan and snuck out of the house.
The note had actually been Jasper’s idea. It said she was going to hang out with the Cullens and that she’d potentially be spending the night which would allow her to have an excuse not to go home in case she got injured.
It was still dark outside as Eleri grabbed DEET and strapped it on over the Hawaiian button-up she had left unbuttoned. Dawn was a while off, but she needed to get to the rendez-vous pronto, so she had time to double check everything and stretch—the last thing she needed was a misaligned flamethrower and a pulled muscle mid-fight.
She began the long walk into the forest, following the agreed upon path to where she was to meet the wolves. Of course, Lucifer decided that he’d rather she didn’t have to walk there peacefully on her own.
How considerate.
“You know you like having me around, Winchester,” he said with a grin that was positively glacial yet somehow teasing at the same time.
He’d been glued to her side for nearly the entire walk, looming over her left shoulder like a bad omen. She’d managed to tune him out for the most part, but once his normal topics seemed to lack the emotional gut-punch he wanted, Lucifer had started down unexplored territory. Mainly, it consisted of speculation on how much Eleri enjoyed his presence—like he was expecting a five-star review on Yelp or something.
“I know you do, otherwise you’d be trying to get rid of me,” Luci continued. “You find comfort in me just as much as you hate me. You crave the pain and suffering because you know you deserve it—just think of all the people who suffered because you were too late and how your poor decisions have caused the ones you love torment.”
Eleri tightened her hands on the straps of DEET and kept walking. That last part wasn’t new material, but she didn’t like that it was paired with speculation of her inner motivations—not when he was literally in her head.
“C’mon, dearest, you can’t possibly be stupid enough to think I wouldn’t see what you’re doing. I am literally the Devil himself. I can recognise torture when I see it, and you want me to cut you deeper and deeper until the guilt is wrenched free.”
That couldn’t be true. Eleri hated listening to him blather on about how vile she was and how much more fun it would be if she went on a killing spree. She didn’t like it. She didn’t. Who in their right mind would like to be tormented over and over again?
“Why else would you keep going pathetically crawling back to that Bella girl? You like when she treats you like you’re an after thought—like you’re worth less than dirt.”
Bella was her friend. Eleri wasn’t going to let him get under her skin with such obvious defamation of Bella’s character. It wasn’t like that.
“I bet you can’t even remember the last time she asked you to hang out because she wanted to actually see you.”
There was…well, she couldn’t actually remember the last time Bella had initiated a meet-up that was just the two of them. But that wasn’t a fair assessment of their friendship. Eleri had been busy, and Bella also had a life. He was just trying to make her feel insecure by making her overthink it, but Eleri wasn’t going to fall for that trick either.
“You really are no better than a dog that is beaten by its owner and keeps coming back for more. You do realise that they’ll never love you. Who could? I mean look at you, you’re a fucking disaster.”
Eleri had had enough of this shit. She knew she needed to be in top fighting shape which was why she had been avoiding using pain to banish him—especially since it seemed like every time she did it, it took more and more for it to actually work. But enough was enough.
She walked over to the nearest tree and pressed her left hand against the bark. Eleri thought it unwise to break skin, thus she decided to go for extreme blunt-force trauma—bonus points if she managed to fracture a finger bone.
“Oh, do prove my point for me, my little masochi—!”
She slammed her fist into the back of her fingers until Lucifer shut the hell up. It took a few hits, but the silence was worth it.
Eleri took a deep breath and flexed her rapidly bruising hand. It hurt, but her fingers were still functional which is what mattered.
Fucking Luci.
She felt her lips pull back into a satisfied smirk and Eleri made her expression flatten—she hadn’t enjoyed that. Well, maybe the part where she had made Lucifer go away, but not the pain bit.
She continued on her way until she reached the wolves. They were all sequestered in the small-ish clearing, some were laying down, some were standing at attention, and the chocolate brown one she assumed was Quil was pacing agitatedly.
Eleri thought she had a pretty good idea who was who at this point—though she hadn’t actually had anyone confirm it. She did know for a fact that the small silver one was Leah, the black one was Sam, and the Russet and Sandy wolves that weren’t present were Jacob and Seth respectively. That left Quil, Embry, Paul, and Jared.
She was fairly certain that the dark grey one with black spots was Embry—she could remember precisely who that one was from the books, but she’d seen this wolf act enough like a hooligan to be Embry. The chocolate brown one seemed to hang around the Embry-wolf enough for Eleri to decide that he must be Quil. The other grey wolf was rather aggressive—suggesting that they were likely Paul ‘has-anger-issues’ Lahote. And finally, the medium brown wolf was thus Jared by default.
“Hiya,” she greeted, despite the fact that they would all have heard her approach and wouldn’t be able to verbally respond—being, you know, wolves.
Sam acknowledged her with a nod and the chocolate brown one paused in his pacing to give her a once over, letting out a wolfy-snort that Eleri translated to be amusement at her unfortunate attire. How she longed for sweatpants, an oversized T-shirt, and her leather jacket.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up over there,” she grumbled, checking all her straps to make sure they were still tight and making sure the torch was still held fast by Rosalie’s hose clamps before starting to stretch.
She was in the middle of doing some leg swings to limber up her hips when she noticed that the silver wolf was eyeing her from where she lay on the ground nearby. Eleri switched to shoulder stretches and took a step closer to Leah.
“I don’t suppose you require much warming up, eh?” Eleri commented. “It’s really unfair that you wolves heal pretty much instantaneously. You don’t even have to worry about pulling something or rolling an ankle.”
She was well-aware she was talking at a wolf who couldn’t respond, but Eleri didn’t care. It was better than awkwardly standing there while they all chatted in their heads without her.
“You lot won’t even be sore tomorrow whereas I’ll likely be stiff as a board.”
Eleri did a few lunges then focused on stretching her hamstrings. She paused for a moment when the silver wolf growled, but a quick glance proved that the growl was for Embry who was now looking anywhere but in her direction. The creep must have been staring at her ass.
Eleri gave Leah an appreciative nod.
It was good to know that Leah wasn’t holding on to a grudge for the ‘I told your ex to essentially stalk you’ thing. Or, that she was at least willing to tell Embry off in Eleri’s defence despite holding a grudge.
Just as she was about to start doing some shadow boxing, Eleri noticed that her left ring finger was rather stiff and swollen. It seemed she had actually broken it after all. “Ah, shit,” she grumbled, looking for a stick she could use as a splint.
When she found one she deemed suitable for the task, breakable if she were in desperate need to use said finger, and unlikely to get in the way, Eleri ripped the hem off the bottom of the Hawaiian shirt.
“Sorry,” she said to Embry unapologetically—it was a hideous shirt anyway, so really, she was doing him a favour.
With the fabric, she tied the stick to her finger so that she couldn’t easily bend it and made sure it wasn’t impeding her middle finger.
It wasn’t her best fix, but it would have to do for now. She’d need to check the alignment of her fingerbones later when she’d know for sure she’d be able to keep it still. Currently, she needed to know that she’d be able to move it if the need arose—better to damage her broken finger some more rather than get torn apart by those blood-thirsty biters.
Speaking of, Eleri took note of the wolves gathering into formation, fanning out behind Sam.
It was almost time.
She could feel the pre-fight anticipation building in her chest like a stoked fire. Eleri was so ready for this. A good, old-fashioned monster massacre. Some proper physical violence. She tilted her head to one side to stretch her neck before shaking out her nerves, bouncing on her feet so that she was ready to sprint into action the moment the wolves charged.
She couldn’t very well let the Cullens have all the fun—at the very least, she had to kill more than Emmett.
As she tightened her ponytail, the wolves suddenly launched from the clearing like ducks at a duck pond when someone tosses a hunk of bread. Eleri blinked, clicked the torch on, and then took off after them—moving as fast as she dared without accidentally starting a forest fire.
She heard the exact moment the wolves entered the fray, breathy snarls and the tearing of limbs rising over the sounds of clashing vampires. Eleri pushed herself harder, cursing Jasper for his pick of location for her and the wolves to wait—did it have to be so far away?
When she finally broke into the clearing, Eleri barely had time to see the mess of body parts strewn about and gouges in the dirt before a pale, red-eyed woman was on her. The woman grabbed at her throat, but Eleri had already drawn the angel blade and thrust it under the woman’s ribs as she aimed DEET at her face and pulled the trigger.
“Too close, too close!” Eleri berated herself out loud, as the jet of flames ricocheted, singeing her arm hair and Embry’s hideous shirt.
She quickly pulled back just as the woman was engulfed, her screams fading as she turned to ash. One down, lots more to go.
Eleri turned her flame thrower upon the next poor fella who decided gently seared human was on the menu, and he barely made it ten feet before he too was burnt to a crisp.
“Take that! Ha, ha!” Eleri was, quite frankly, having the time of her life.
She blasted a wayward arm that seemed to be using its fingers to crawl across the ground and she was unable to contain her manic glee as another vampire seemed to sniff her out and try their luck.
This girl was faster than the man, and dodged the stream of fire, getting up close and personal. Eleri dodged her clawing hand, slashing at her with the angel blade and catching the underside of her forearm. A chunk of flesh—which was more like rubble than skin—broke off, but the girl seemed undeterred.
Eleri reflexively raised the angel blade as the vampire came at her with gnashing teeth, the girl impaling her neck on the knife as she shoved Eleri to the ground. Ouch.
She didn’t have much time to ruminate on the scuba tank that was digging into her spine though, because the girl seemed to be fully functional even with a blade through the throat.
Eleri grunted and wrenched the blade clockwise, watching as cracks formed in the vampire’s neck. She needed more leverage. “For fuck’s sake,” she complained as the girl smashed Eleri in the nose with a flailing elbow.
Her eyes instantly watered, making her vision blur as blood gushed from her nose.
Now actively bleeding and laying on her back like an overturned turtle, Eleri was aware that she was in an astronomically bad position. To rectify this, she jerked her hips just as the girl’s hand clamped over Eleri’s neck, flipping them over as her air supply was cut off. She planted her knee on the girl’s chest and finally decapitated her, the head rolling away, but the hand remaining tight on her throat.
Goddamn.
Eleri’s vision was starting to go black at the edges—from lack of oxygen or lack of blood flow she wasn’t sure. She stabbed at the arm, but she couldn’t seem to get a good angle.
With limited time and limited options, Eleri scrambled to reach the handle of the power sprayer, but before she could get a firm grip on it, a large set of jaws clamped down on the arm and tore it off—forcing it to relinquish the grip on Eleri.
The silver wolf shook it like a dog with a chew toy and tossed it away before giving Eleri a look that said, ‘Why the fuck are you sitting there like an idiot?’
“Thanks!” Eleri shouted as she got to her feet and quickly blasted a vampire that was too close for comfort—unfortunately missing the vampire’s face but luckily the jet of flames seemed to scare the bloodsucker into Paul’s open maw. Eleri then turned the flamethrower on the still-moving parts of the decapitated girl.
Once the girl was sufficiently incinerated, Eleri took a deep breath and sheathed the angel blade.
The battle, for the most part, seemed to be wrapping up. The wolves were chasing down stragglers, Rosalie and Carlisle were piling up vampire bits, Esme seemed to be talking to Alice, and Emmett was…arguing with Jasper? All the while Jasper was making quick work of a vampire that seemed to have Eleri locked in his sights.
Eleri could taste the hot blood dripping from her nose as she licked her lips. Ah, that’s right. She was still actively bleeding. In the presence of vampires. Whoops.
She pinched just below the bridge of her nose to try to staunch the flow.
The fight had been quick—a little dissatisfying, if she were being honest. But at least she managed to get two kills. Well, two-and-a-half really with the decapitation and Leah’s arm-ripping assist.
If Emmett asked, Eleri felt it was fair to round that up to a solid three.
When she deemed her nose fixed-enough, Eleri made herself useful by using DEET to incinerate all the vampire bits she could see moving around on the ground. It was all going well until she accidentally got the flames a bit too close to a russet wolf—Jacob must have arrived at some point.
“Don’t mind me,” said Eleri to the wolf as she blasted what looked like a slab of thigh. “Just doing some clean up.”
The wolf blinked at her before turning and heading over to the wolf-forms of Quil and Embry.
Eleri continued until she was approached by someone with the ability to speak.
“You should have Carlisle take a look at your nose and finger,” said Jasper as he took in her appearance. “Your throat is also bruised quite badly.”
“Yeah, well…your shirt is wrinkled.” It wasn’t, but Eleri felt obligated to say something.
“I must say, I am—”
“Oop, we’ve got a wriggler,” Eleri interrupted. “Just one sec.” She set the twitching toe on fire before turning off her torch, deeming her cleaning duty done enough. “Got ‘em. You were saying?”
“Yes, I wanted to say that I…” Jasper seemed to pause to gather his thoughts, his golden eyes rather dark as they bore into her face.
His hand raised slowly, as if he was trying not to startle her or like it was moving of its own accord. Jasper pressed his hand to her cheek, the cold pleasant against her flambéed skin.
He swiped his thumb over her upper lip and pulled his hand away, staring at the blood on it intensely.
Her nosebleed must have started up again.
Eleri waited with bated breath, part of her brain lingering on the feeling of his cold thumb on her lip and the other, more depraved part wanting him to lick the blood off said thumb—to give in and have a little taste.
Be bad, she urged mentally, but Jasper’s hand fell tensely to his side, his fingers flexing before assuming a relaxed position. Aw.
“You…” he said, drawing her gaze back to his face. “You handled yourself well. Not that I didn’t think you would—I constantly find myself impressed with you. Uh, not because I have low expectations, mind you. I just wanted to say…good work.”
Eleri blinked at the uncharacteristic word-vomit, staring at Jasper with wide eyes as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.
“Are you concussed?”
“No,” he replied, smiling ruefully at his boots. “That came out wrong. Perhaps I should start over.”
“I’ll allow it.” Eleri was sympathetic to his plight—her words often came out wrong. And if he was going to say more nice things to her, he could do it as many times as he pleased. It’d been a long time since she’d had her ego stroked. One might even say it was overdue.
Jasper cleared his throat, straightened, and Eleri prepared herself for abundant praise. He then proceeded to give her a polite nod and a measly, “Good work.”
“That’s it?” Eleri crossed her arms with a scoff. “I think I preferred the bumbling version. What happened to ‘I constantly find myself impressed with you’?”
“I’d be more impressed if you didn’t look like you were clobbered with a brick,” he said, teasing her right back. “C’mon, let’s have Carlisle take a look at you.”
Eleri allowed him to lead her over to where the others had gathered, not caring if Edward heard her mentally replaying Jasper’s awkward speech in her head.
“What are you grinning about?” Jasper asked.
I constantly find myself impressed with you.
“Nothing,” Eleri claimed, feeling the grin widen.