when it rains, it pours | FELIX VOLTURI

003 - - the truth .

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the truth

"You're a werewolf?" Alice's voice is incredulous, one pale hand reaching up to press against her forehead. Jasper takes her hand from her forehead, holding it in his own, and when their eyes meet, she seems to relax, somewhat. 

"Why didn't you ever tell us?" Carlisle's butterscotch-colored eyes were warm as he gazed at her, one arm wrapped around willowy Esme's waist, his wife leaning into him. Her expression is gentle, kind, and it reassured her. 

"I couldn't." Charlotte says, quietly. "I'm bound by the tribe." 

Edward and Bella share a glance, Renesmee perched on Bella's hip, before Edward's wife speaks up. "Exactly how Jacob was - is, before I found out. He couldn't say it outright."

Charlotte gives her a grateful glance, Edward staying quiet. She's glad that Emmett and Rosalie are away - knowing how her adoptive uncle would react, with his booming words, and Rosalie's quiet judging. 

And that Felix and Demetri are away, hunting in Seattle. Facing him right now would be....difficult.  

"Can you forgive me?" Charlotte is pleading with them, looking around at all of them - Carlisle, Esme, Edward, Bella, her her adoptive parents, Jasper and Alice. 

"Of course." Carlisle assures her, Edward and Bella nodding in agreement. Jasper looks from Alice to Charlotte, who is relieved when her mother's lips tug into a gentle smile.

"Just because you're a...dog, doesn't mean we love you any less, Charlie." Alice assures her softly, and Jasper smiles in agreement. "But, please...no more secrets."

"No more secrets." She promises, and glances at the front door, a wistfulness coming over her features.

"Felix." Edward says, and Charlotte turns to him, confusion written over her face.

"Felix?" She repeats, and he sighs quietly. 

"You imprinted on Felix." He explains, and his hand cradles Renesmee's cheek, who smiles brightly up at him. "The way that Jacob did with Renesmee. And like Bella and I, you're his mate. But female wolves aren't supposed to be able to imprint, right?"

"I....yes, I did. But they never actually said that females weren't able to imprint, just that that was what they thought...I'm the first."

"And Leah?" It's Bella who asks the question this time. 

Charlotte gives a helpless shrug of her shoulders. "I don't know. Maybe she just hasn't found her imprint yet."

It's then that Demetri and Felix walk through the door, eyes a deep burgundy from having just fed. Charlotte's eyes are immediately drawn to Felix's, just as the other vampire's are to her. After a moment, she gives him a hesitant smile, and he looks at her curiously. 

"Did we miss something?" Demetri piped up in the silence. 

Carlisle looks from Charlotte, to Demetri, to Felix. "We were going over how Charlotte is a werewolf."

"Ah." Felix speaks then, and his gaze on her is even more intense. "Interesting." 

"Your mate is a wolf?" Like Alice, Demetri is incredulous. "Felix, we did not expect this, Aro did not expect this."

"Um, a three-part hybrid, actually." Charlotte interjects, and both Demetri and Felix turn to look at her. Uncomfortably, she shifts her weight from foot to foot. "Vampire, human, and werewolf."

Demetri speaks something in italian, a harsh word that she's sure she doesn't want to know what it means.

"Relax." Felix snaps at him, and Demetri glowers but doesn't say anything else. He takes a few steps closer to Charlotte, who looks at him, carefully. 

After a moment, she extends her hand. 

He looks at her with that burning gaze, and she swallows hard. But then his hand raises, and his palm slips over hers. He takes her hand, carefully, as if she were fragile, and, still watching her, he laces their fingers. 

A breath she didn't know she had been holding whooshes from her lungs at the contact. And she can feel her family watching her, watching them, all of them. A warning growl slips through Jasper's teeth, breaking from his usually calm composure.

After a moment, Felix releases her hand, and it drops back to her side. 

"Come to Volterra, with me. Please." She knows he isn't the type that usually says please, sees the effort it took for him to say that word. 

"I can't." A light, gentle shake of her head. "My friends, my family, my tribe, my future...all of it lays here, in Forks. As yours does in Volterra."

"We cannot be separated, now that we have each other." He steps forward again, steps close, fingertips reaching up to brush lightly against her cheek.

She doesn't like doing it, but after a moment she steps away. They're in front of her family, and..she isn't used to affection like this. Or anyone touching her this way.

"I know. But it's...not a good time." She looks away from him, to Edward, Bella, and Renesmee, to Carlisle and Esme and then to her parents. "I have my family, my tribe, to think of."

"Then I will have to return to Volterra, without you. Aro only gave me a few days to find you." Felix sighs heavily, and then glances around at her family, to Demetri, and then back to her. "Take a walk with me?"

She looks back at him, searching his face. "Okay."