Lips of an Angel

Chapter 16-Unending

Over the next few weeks, I saw Edward regularly, although I sensed a definite change in what he said. He was just as he always had been during our sessions when talking about all the drama he'd been through with that devilish James and his real winner of an ex, but it was when exchanging the pleasantries required upon greeting and departure that Edward's manner seemed almost forced. I tried my best not to think much of it, but I couldn't help my mind wandering to the mysterious man when I was running or hunting. My mind was usually blank during said activities, but Edward worked his way into every corner of my life, somehow.

Paul was becoming increasingly more difficult to work with as pack alpha. I'd asked Jacob and Seth to drop in one day, by mere 'coincidence', during which time I was meeting with Paul, in order to try and give their leader some perspective on the situation surrounding us all. It didn't work.

The mutt didn't seem to understand that we both wanted the same thing - James to be caught and killed. He was more interested in picking a fight with me about anything and everything he could think of, particularly regarding Edward. In turn, I was tempted to retort with some if Emmett's more inappropriate and cruel wolfish jokes, but I knew that would get us no closer to rebuilding the trust that myself and Sam had shared. Even when Emily joined our meetings - as she was part of the group of elders, despite her young age, and had known me well - Paul was insufferable.

When Emily pointed out, exactly two weeks after Edward left his momentary residence at the Cullen house, that the pack should be more interested in avenging the death of Sam and eliminating a major threat in the process, Paul went wild. He accused Emily of siding with the 'blood-suckers' over her own kind, and spat threats everywhere.

That was when the division of the town's people began. Word of the events of our meeting got out, and two of the younger pack members crossed the borderline one night and attempted to attack Jasper while he was hunting. They, of course, denied it when confronted, and as it was Jasper's word against their's, there was little either side could do. Carlisle suggested ending the disagreement, calling it a simple misunderstanding, and Paul, reluctantly, agreed. Even if Carlisle chose to turn a blind eye, I could see the sheer hatred blazing in Paul's eyes as he forced himself to leave, and take his pack with him.

Hence the beginning of the end.

The regular meetings between myself and Paul, which had always been tense, began to deviate from the subjects at hand - namely the whereabouts of James, and the possibilities of finding and capturing him - and stray onto Paul digging as much dirt as he possibly could on my own family. I refused to play his games and respond in kind, instead bringing this issue up tentatively with two of the most influential elders of the pack. But that didn't help. For even the elders were divided in two, as the pack were. Billy Black was furious that my family were allowed even to live, but Harry Clearwater, the uncle of Emily, was of the mind that something should be done regarding Paul's violent behaviour.

However, when Paul decided to taunt me over the various misdoings and misfortunes of my family in the past - particularly that of Alice and Rosalie's pasts, and Rosalie's last hours as a human and the events leading up to her transformation - I could bare it no longer. As I listened to his rude and vile comments about my sisters, I became more and more riled. Eventually, I came to the end of my proverbial tether, and, with a furious glance of disgust directed at Paul, I turned on my heel and stalked from the room.

There ended the 'civil' conversations and negotiations between myself and the pack alpha or elders. There ended any calm peace between my family and pack. There ended any possibility of the pack helping us to find James. And there ended the inconspicuous lives we'd been living for four years in the vicinity of London.

Unfortunately, this set Rosalie off also. For when I returned to the main house after that disastrous meeting and told Carlisle of all that had occurred, Rosalie decided that, rather than thanking me for defending her and saving some of her pride, she would scream at me. So, for many hours, I listened to her lecture me about ruining the lives of our family. First with 'that human', and then with being completely 'incompetent' when talking to the 'mutts'.