Seth Clearwater Imprinted With Trouble

Chap. 9

Edward POV

So many thoughts tumbled and whirled inside of my head. Both my thoughts and the thoughts of every person in the room. They all danced around in there and competed for my attention. But three in the room were silent. So very silent.

The first one I identified was my wife, Bella. That wasn’t very difficult to discern.

The other was Seth.

And the child I held by the neck.

It wasn’t as if they were hiding their thoughts from me or shielding them. They literally weren’t thinking anything. At all.

The child literally had no thoughts, no emotions. She just stared deep into my eyes as she tried to pull air throw a blocked passageway. She reached up with her hands and wrapped them around my wrists. She was gentle. It was like she didn’t care that I was strangling her. A millisecond after her hands covered mine, her pupils dilated. They grew and what was left of her breath escaped. Her body stiffened and a single thought crossed her mind.

Safe. Safe. No one gets hurt. Safe for now.

Her thought jumped and bounced around in my skull, beating itself against the edges. It confused me. There was such assurance in the thought. There was absolute confidence in it. And suddenly, I felt like it was physically impossible for me to hurt her. It was almost a realization. It was like I knew that I shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t harm this little girl.

I… I just couldn’t do it.

Not even knowing that her very presence endangered my entire family. She could even be a spy of Aro’s and yet… I couldn’t do it.

Amidst my self-reflection, I didn’t notice the child—Clari?—turn to look at Seth. Then I heard the absolute most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard come from someone’s mind.

There was a loud snap. A crack and then, there was a wild roar, mentally and physically. It was loud and long and full of emotion.

There was pain and anger. And fear. There was so much fear.

It was so sharp that it sliced through my brain like a knife and it opened my eyes. I saw Seth shudder, his face the mask of a man in agony. His roar subdued to a growl as the shudder grew stronger and stronger. His limbs elongated and grew thick, sandy red-brown fur. He grew larger and larger, larger than I’ve ever seen him before. He’s never been this big. Seth had always been relatively slender for a Quileute, and especially for a member of the pack.

His jean shorts and shirt shredded to pieces as he dropped down onto all fours. All the fur on his fur stood up and his ears were drawn back to his skull. His lips were pulled away from his jowls as he growled. The growl reverberated throughout the room, so loud in its intensity that it rattled the windows.

What frightened me most was that I still could not hear any thoughts from him. It was like there was a large wall placed between them—a large one that couldn’t be knocked back down again. Strangely enough, I could feel every single emotion he felt. Jasper and I both winced at the barrage of them being flung at us.

Pain. The pain was all-encompassing. It overtook all feelings of rationality that Seth had once had. In an almost indiscernible undertone, I heard him whisper and lament to himself mentally, why? Why would he…? How could he…?... my friend… was… my… friend…

Anger and rage of such violence tainted his pain and underlying grief. It made me stop short in its vehemence.

The fear caused me to shudder. It was everywhere in his head. There was no rage without fear, there was no pain without it, there was no grief without it. A lot of the sadness and despair he felt was because he did feel fear. He was so very afraid. Afraid… of… me. And us. Of the vampires.

Seth had never been afraid of us. Or even hated us.

But now there it was, clawing and climbing its way out there into the forefront, tainting his every emotion.

A loud gasp drew my attention from Seth and I looked over to see Leah. She was covering her mouth with her hands and terror was written all over her face. I quickly tuned into her thoughts.

No! It… it shouldn’t exist! Not anymore!

“Leah. What is it?” My voice cracked like a whip through the verbal silence, just above Seth’s growling and howling as his body adjusting to its new shape and size. She looked back at me and a fleeting look of understanding and then more fear crossed her face.

“Quick, the kid! Drop her! Let go of Clari!” she yelled. I instantly let go of the small child. She dropped directly onto her feet.

He moved faster than I had ever seen any of the wolves move.

Her feet had barely even brushed the ground and he had already bounded the fifteen feet between us and snatched her up by the back of the shirt. He flicked his head to the side and opened his jaws. Clari went flying into an empty corner of the room and she rolled into a crouch as she landed.

He backed up into the corner with her as he stood guard over her, keeping her covered with his own body. His hackles were raised and his growls grew louder and louder until it became harder and harder to think. His eyes kept shifting back and forth between all of us. Me. Bella. Carlisle, Esmee, Jasper, Emmett, Alice, and Rosalie. All of us vampires.

I still couldn’t hear his thoughts but I can sense that, as he was now, he didn’t trust any of us.

I turned my head to look at Leah but as soon as I moved a single inch, Seth’s growling became panicked and even more threatening than before. It was easy to understand, even for a minder reader who couldn’t read his mind.

Don’t move.

Under my breath, I asked Leah, “What do you know about this?”

Jacob answered me in a strained voice. “It’s a survival mode that is in several of our oldest legends. Its… it’s a phase we go through when there are too many enemies to face. It—it hasn’t appeared within the last thousand years because… because we’ve strengthened in numbers as… as our enemies’ have decreased.”

Carlisle, saddened and anxiety-ridden, frowned slightly. “Enemies? As in vampires?”

Leah gulped and inhaled sharply. “Yes. As in vampires. Within the last thousand years, the only reason this has occurred is when… when one’s mate is in life-threatening danger. When the wolf knows that there is no chance of the two of them surviving… he sacrifices his own s-sanity and life to—to protect her.” Leah’s voice broke as she gazed at her younger brother. A tear traced its way down her face.

Esmee recoiled at the very thought of Seth losing himself like that. Seth growled louder again. Jasper shuddered at the intensity and the velocity of which Seth’s emotions were flying through him. Carlisle looked stricken.

“He considers us our enemies?” he despaired.

“How could he not?” I said softly, delicately. “Out of all of us, Seth believed and trusted in me indefinitely. He brought his mate here to celebrate and ask for our help… and I myself hurt her. Now he… he can’t trust any of us.”

“Just—just look at him,” Jake whispered hoarsely.

I looked back at Seth and saw his chest working like a bellows would. He alternated taking huge, shuddering breaths and growling at us all. His head kept turning from side to side, his body trembling.

I had to make this right.

“How?” I asked Jake and Leah.

“How what,” Leah gruffly responded, wiping away her tears.

“How do we get him back?”

Leah trembled, her throat constricting as she tried to force back more tears. Jake slowly shook his head, despite Seth’s growls. “We don’t know,” he whispered hoarsely again. “We honestly have n-no clue. There have never been any s-survivors… never any recordings… or legends... he—he,” clearing his throat as his voice broke, “he might n-never make it back.”