S.A.L.V.A.T.O.R.E.

His Embrace

"Jade," he murmured, almost silently. "I want to do this for you. You don't know how much you mean to me. . . I am in love with you..."

I stared him in the eye, not believing what he had just said. Was he serious or just playing around with me? He was in-love with me? I hadn't ever had anyone fall for me before, nor had I fallen for anyone in my life like I had fallen for Jacob.

He shook his head suddenly, getting up quickly. "I'm sorry. I should have known better," he whispered, walking quickly out of my room and downstairs before I could even think to stop him. What was wrong? Didn't he think that I felt the same? Or was it something else? Whatever it was, I wished he hadn't left. I felt cold and exposed now he was gone.

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep warm as I pulled the sheets up and over me. I wondered where he had gone. I hoped that I hadn't upset him. And in that instant, I knew I had. That was why he had left and it was why he had left so quickly. I felt so stupid? How could I have upset him after all he had done for me? Jacob was putting his life on the line for me and I stupidly upset him! I curled up into a ball, knowing that there was no way I could even try and attempt to go downstairs to see him, and I couldn't yell out to him as I would wake Emily, - if she was still around that was.

I didn't know where Emily went after Jacob carried me to bed. I didn't know if she stayed or went back home. All I knew was Jacob was always around, he told me that he wouldn't leave me from the first night he brought me home. I was so grateful to have him helping me. I had to make things up to him tomorrow, I just had to!

I fell asleep quickly, feeling safe thanks to Jacob promising me that he would keep me safe, but still I couldn't help but worry about him now. I still didn't want him anywhere near Dan. It scared the hell out of me to think of him anywhere near that bloodsucker!

I gasped awake at the sound of my phone ringing at ten o'clock in the morning. My hand felt around the table at my bedside. I found it and flipped it open just on the last ring.

"Hello?" I said softly, sleep covering my voice.

"Hey Honey. It's mum."

Oh great! I looked to the calendar to see that already three weeks had passed and that I only had a week left with Jacob until my mother came home. I knew that my mother would freak if she knew that I was just friends Jacob, but she would die if she knew that he had stayed with me while she had been away. Either she would die or I would be killed . . . either way I was going to try and avoid it.

"Oh, hey mum. What's going on?" This time my voice was sheepish. I never had been sheepish before. The things Jacob did to me!

"I just thought that you would like to know that I'm coming home in three days. I've finished work now and just waiting for your father and Katherine to fly in."

She didn't just say that, did she?

Ugh! My father and sister coming home with mum, coming home early! My life sucked? I couldn't stand my sister or my father. Katherine was always trying to get me in trouble with both of my parents, but mostly with Aaron, and she was just like Aaron; bossy, arrogant, ignorant, and smug and a total . . . jerk, to put it lightly. Aaron just wanted me in boarding school. He saw me as a spoilt little brat, but I wasn't the one who owned a hundred-thousand-dollar luxury car, like little miss Katherine. Just because she was eighteen, she thought she owned me or something. I was sure that she lived just to tick me off. I guessed it was because Katherine was from a previous marriage that she was Aaron's little princess. Sometimes I wondered if I was even related to him. I wished I wasn't.

"Oh great," I said in a sarcastic voice, knowing that my mother of all people had no detection of sarcasm, even if she said something sarcastic herself.