Rising Sun by Gabrielle Danielle Burnett (top 20 books to read .txt) 📕

Chapter 2
The Arrival

I was in an out of the shower in five minutes, plus the two it took me to dry off and the five it took me to dress and race back to the main house. My outfit was a light sundress, just fancy enough to appeal to Alice. Everyone had long since discovered that I shared my mother’s immunity to the perky vampire, and to her fashionable ways. My usual outfits were blue jeans and t-shirts, but today I decided that I wouldn’t give Alice reason to lecture my dress. Surely she wouldn’t oppose, though, to me wearing small blue jean shorts under said dress.
In a flash I was down the stairs and sitting in between Emmett and Jasper. Uncle Emmett was hilariously loud and boyish; his funny arrogance was fun to watch. I still hold the memories of him and my momma arm-wrestling, although he’d started to beat her around eleven months after my birth. Now she was no match for the great vampire, but I was beginning to wonder about my increasing strength. Unfortunately for me, the only people I had to compare it with were vampires, my family, and they wouldn’t even consider it. Maybe one of the werewolves would arm wrestle with me when they returned.
Jasper, on the other hand, was completely Emmett’s opposite, balancing out his boisterous ways with an intrigued, more sidelined approach to life. The only thing about Jasper that I didn’t like was his ability to read emotions, and I could tell, by the way he looked at me, that he could read the excitement and anxiety racing through my blood.
“Hey, Nessie!” Emmett boomed in his baritone voice, shattering the serene atmosphere of the giant house. He wrapped an arm around me good-naturedly, more of a bigger, younger brother than an uncle.
“Hey.” I replied, giving in and returning his grin. He chuckled loudly and I shook with the vibrations through his barrel chest. Uncle Emmett the largest of the Cullens.
“How are you feeling, little sister?” Jasper asked me with a faint smile to show that he was happy. He must have missed Alice, but he knew that it was necessary to let her go to help the werewolves so that his family and they could forge a better relationship than the previous one.
“I’m sure you know, Jasper.” I replied, my grin switching from one of playfulness to one of a sly mischievousness. He chuckled, his laugh quieter than Emmett’s, and more secretive.
“Yes, I do.” He said jokingly, before Emmett once again began to speak.
“I can’t wait to wrestle with that werewolf of yours, Nessie!” He said, and I knew that he wasn’t joking. He probably wanted to make sure that he was still the strongest one there.
“Now that’s one fight that I won’t be able to miss.” That voice belonged to my daddy, his voice more casual, although my ears could pick up the forced lightness to his voice. My daddy put up with Jacob, but they would never be as close as they could have been before Jacob had supposedly imprinted on me.
Another problem with living in a house full of vampires was that there was no privacy as long as you were speaking out loud. If daddy could have been able to read my mind like he read others, we could probably have conversations silently, once my gift developed a bit more. I could only hope that he forgave me when he found out.
“No fighting the werewolves until they get a decent place to sleep, Emmett!” My momma called casually from the kitchen, where she was helping Esmé, my ‘grandmother’ who was more of an aunt, and Rosalie, who was my aunt but more of an older sister.
Rosalie wasn’t my favorite one of the Cullens; she hated werewolves, and she babied me. Although, luckily, that had grown less since I grew. Rosalie only seemed interested in babies, not ‘teenagers’ like me. This I was okay with.
“Sure, Bells!” The Cullen boys, excluding Carlisle, had taken up Grandpa Charlie’s nickname for momma. She didn’t seem to mind, although my nickname still bothered her.
Then I heard the feet in the distance, and the others must have to, because they quit talking and waiting like me. I could smell the odor that wasn’t foul to me like it was to vampires. The werewolf scent was more animal-like, wilder, when I smelled it at all.
I raced to the window and reached it in a fifth of a second, pressing my face to the glass and holding my breath, which I could do indefinitely. Carlisle had said that, despite the seeming impossibility, I could both stop and start my heart at will. But my mind wasn’t on that now, it was concentrating on every little detail of the rugged wolf that came into view at that second. A giant russet wolf, much bigger than he had been when I last saw him.
His face turned towards mine and I saw age in his eyes, not only had Jacob grown physically, but mentally as well. Butterflies stirred in my heart, something that had never happened before, and there were a lot of them. I heard Jasper suck in a slightly deeper breath than he usually did, and remembered to keep my feelings in check.
There was a quick bark from Jacob, and I felt in his mind what I was thinking in mine. An immediate sense to share everything and catch up and be together. Unfortunately, my attention was caught by five new wolves that were not part of my childhood memories. Two brown/gray wolves of average size, a small dark brown one that appeared female, a gray one that was almost as tall as Sam although lankier, and a chubby tawny one that appeared young, judging by this one’s thoughts, he’d be a good friend for Seth, one of the youngest werewolves.
I bolted to the front door before my momma or even daddy could catch up to me and stop me, realizing that I was running much faster than ever before. I raced out and towards the approaching wolves, after a small fraction of my brain made sure that the new recruits knew that the vampires were friends and that the pack wasn’t in battle formation.
They weren’t, although Jacob was still in front, as his position as alpha allowed him to be, and I was able to race right up to him. He seemed surprised at my speed. I felt his thoughts lock onto me and the saw the care in his eyes as he bent down to my level.
I locked my arms around his neck and squeezed slightly, careful not to crush the windpipe or harm him in any other way. I heard one or two of the newer members of the pack growl menacingly at the embrace, but Jacob called them off with a quick growl of his own.
He whimpered a bit in my direction and pulled away from my embrace. A split second later and he was running into the woods with a speed that matched Jasper’s, who was the second fastest full-blood-vampire of the Cullens. The way he moved, though, showed that he could probably run much faster.
It took about three minutes for him to step out of the woods, dressed in a ragged pair of knee-length jeans that looked as if the legs had been ripped off and the waist chewed on, which it probably had been. He was much bigger than he’d been when he’d left. The top of Emmett’s head would reach Jacob’s nose, and the top of my head would probably reach about half a foot below his shoulders.
He was still muscular, and his muscles were even more prominent now that he’d reached what was hopefully his permanent size. He walked up to me and wrapped me in a hug with arms that would put a part-time bodybuilder to shame. “I’ve missed you, Nessie!” He said in a low, guttural voice that had dropped an octave or two since he left.
“Yeah, Jake…missed you to.” I managed to gasp with the little air I had left before he’d wrapped me in a wolf-hug. He spun me around once before setting me gently on the ground, suddenly acting as if I were made of porcelain.
“How’s Forks been since we left?” He asked, once again reminding me of the five long years that I’d spent without him. Now that he was here, I couldn’t imagine being without him. It was like a reflex, a good one. I wondered how I felt when he first left me. I must have been heartbroken! I suddenly recognized what this feeling was. He’d imprinted on me truly, it wasn’t just my nature that had drawn him in, but an unnatural werewolf attraction that was unavoidable…as if I wanted to avoid it.
With a sly grin, I reached out and took his hand, showing him a picture of momma and Esmé cooking for them, and making a feast. I heard his stomach rumble. And he roared out, “Come on, gang, the bloodsuckers are fixing us a feast!” He said the term affectionately now, in a sarcastic way towards his earlier, close-minded self. I let go of his hand a second after sending him a picture of Alice. He smiled at me, bearing perfect white teeth, before turning and racing after his pals towards Esmé’s dining room, which I suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for.
Alice, almost as if reading my thoughts, stepped up next to me. “It’s nice to see you again.” She told me in her high, ethereal voice, a voice that spoke as if from a far away daydream, or trance. I loved Alice’s voice.
“I’ve missed you, Alice.” I said honestly, suddenly hugging my vampire aunt, the only one of momma’s siblings who was actually like an aunt, albeit a very young aunt. She grimaced.
“You’ve gotten stronger, Nessie.” Her voice seemed more earthly now, as I grew accustomed to it. I caught her drift and relaxed my strangle hold before pulling back.
“Yes, I have some other things to tell you too, but not right now.” I said contentedly, perfectly happy except for an uncomfortable lack of…something. It took me a minute to realize that I disliked being apart from my Jacob. It felt weird to consider him this now that we were so close to the same age, but it was true; he was my Jake, my Jacob.
Alice seemed to know what I was thinking, “Come on; let’s catch up with the wolves.” She smiled sweetly and took my hand; she seemed surprised when I wound up pulling her along beside me, I was so much faster than she.
I heard a single, clear thought burst through a knot of vague emotions, the first of many that I was destined to hear: There is a lot that she needs to fill me in on. I was secretly happy that Alice’s gift didn’t work on me