Eclipse (49 page)

The sudden absence of sound was the only warning.

The deep rush of Seth's breathing cut off, and - as I'd paced my breaths with his - I noticed. I stopped breathing, too - too frightened to even make my lungs work as I realized that Edward had frozen into a block of ice beside me.

Oh, no. No. No.

Who had been lost? Theirs or ours? Mine, all mine. What was
my
loss?

So quickly that I wasn't exactly sure how it happened, I was on my feet and the tent was collapsing in ragged shreds around me. Had Edward ripped our way out? Why?

I blinked, shocked, into the brilliant light. Seth was all I could see, right beside us, his face only six inches from Edward's. They stared at each other with absolute concentration for one infinite second. The sun shattered off Edward's skin and sent sparkles dancing across Seth's fur.

And then Edward whispered urgently, "Go, Seth!"

The huge wolf wheeled and disappeared into the forest shadows.

Had two entire seconds passed? It felt like hours. I was terrified to the point of nausea by the knowledge that something horrible had gone awry in the clearing. I opened my mouth to demand that Edward take me there, and do it now. They needed him, and they needed
me.
If I had to bleed to save them, I would do it. I would die to do it, like the third wife. I had no silver dagger in my hand, but I would find a way Before I could get the first syllable out, I felt as if I was being flung through the air. But Edward's hands never let go of me - I was only being moved, so quickly that the sensation was like falling sideways.

I found myself with my back pressed against the sheer cliff face. Edward stood in front of me, holding a posture that I knew at once.

Relief washed through my mind at the same time that my stomach dropped through the soles of my feet.

I'd misunderstood.

Relief - nothing had gone wrong in the clearing.

Horror - the crisis was
here.

Edward held a defensive position - half-crouched, his arms extended slightly - that I recognized with sickening certainty. The rock at my back could have been the ancient brick walls of the Italian alley where he had stood between me and the black-cloaked Volturi warriors.

Something was coming for us.

"Who?" I whispered.

The words came through his teeth in a snarl that was louder than I expected. Too loud. It meant that it was far too late to hide. We were trapped, and it didn't matter who heard his answer.

"Victoria," he said, spitting the word, making it a curse. "She's not alone. She crossed my scent, following the newborns in to watch - she never meant to fight with them. She made a spur-of-the-moment decision to find me, guessing that you would be wherever I was. She was right. You were right. It was always Victoria."

She was close enough that he could hear her thoughts.

Relief again. If it had been the Volturi, we were both dead. But with Victoria, it didn't have to be
both.
Edward could survive this. He was a good fighter, as good as Jasper. If she didn't bring too many others, he could fight his way out, back to his family. Edward was faster than anyone. He could make it.

I was so glad he'd sent Seth away. Of course, there was no one Seth could run to for help. Victoria had timed her decision perfectly. But at least Seth was safe; I couldn't see the huge sandy wolf in my head when I thought his name - just the gangly fifteen-year-old boy. Edward's body shifted - only infinitesimally, but it told me where to look. I stared at the black shadows of the forest.

It was like having my nightmares walk forward to greet me.

Two vampires edged slowly into the small opening of our camp, eyes intent, missing nothing. They glistened like diamonds in the sun.

I could barely look at the blond boy - yes, he was just a boy, though he was muscular and tall, maybe my age when he was changed. His eyes - a more vivid red than I had ever seen before

- could not hold mine. Though he was closest to Edward, the nearest danger, I could not watch him.

Because, a few feet to the side and a few feet back, Victoria was staring at me. Her orange hair was brighter than I'd remembered, more like a flame. There was no wind here, but the fire around her face seemed to shimmer slightly, as if it were alive. Her eyes were black with thirst. She did not smile, as she always had in my nightmares - her lips were pressed into a tight line. There was a striking feline quality to the way she held her coiled body, a lioness waiting for an opening to spring. Her restless, wild gaze flickered between Edward and me, but never rested on him for more than a half-second. She could not keep her eyes from my face any more than I could keep mine from hers.

Tension rolled off of her, nearly visible in the air. I could feel the desire, the all-consuming passion that held her in its grip. Almost as if I could hear her thoughts, too, I knew what she was thinking.

She was so close to what she wanted - the focus of her whole existence for more than a year now was just
so close.

My death.

Her plan was as obvious as it was practical. The big blond boy would attack Edward. As soon as Edward was sufficiently distracted, Victoria would finish me.

It would be quick - she had no time for games here - but it would be thorough. Something that it would be impossible to recover from. Something that even vampire venom could not repair.

She'd have to stop my heart. Perhaps a hand shoved through my chest, crushing it. Something along those lines.

My heart beat furiously, loudly, as if to make her target more obvious.

An immense distance away, from far across the black forest, a wolf's howl echoed in the still air. With Seth gone, there was no way to interpret the sound.

The blond boy looked at Victoria from the corner of his eye, waiting on her command. He was young in more ways than one. I guessed from his brilliant crimson irises that he couldn't have been a vampire for very long. He would be strong, but inept. Edward would know how to fight him. Edward would survive.

Victoria jerked her chin toward Edward, wordlessly ordering the boy forward.

"Riley," Edward said in a soft, pleading voice.

The blond boy froze, his red eyes widening.

"She's lying to you, Riley," Edward told him. "Listen to me. She's lying to you just like she lied to the others who are dying now in the clearing. You know that she's lied to them, that she had
you
lie to them, that neither of you were ever going to help them. Is it so hard to believe that she's lied to you, too?"

Confusion swept across Riley's face.

Edward shifted a few inches to the side, and Riley automatically compensated with an adjustment of his own.

"She doesn't love you, Riley." Edward's soft voice was compelling, almost hypnotic. "She never has. She loved someone named James, and you're no more than a tool to her." When he said James's name, Victoria's lips pulled back in a teeth-baring grimace. Her eyes stayed locked on me.

Riley cast a frantic glance in her direction.

"Riley?" Edward said.

Riley automatically refocused on Edward.

"She knows that I will kill you, Riley. She
wants
you to die so that she doesn't have to keep up the pretense anymore. Yes - you've seen that, haven't you? You've read the reluctance in her eyes, suspected a false note in her promises. You were right. She's never wanted you. Every kiss, every touch was a lie."

Edward moved again, moved a few inches toward the boy, a few inches away from me. Victoria's gaze zeroed in on the gap between us. It would take her less than a second to kill me - she only needed the tiniest margin of opportunity.

Slower this time, Riley repositioned himself.

"You don't have to die," Edward promised, his eyes holding the boy's. "There are other ways to live than the way she's shown you. It's not all lies and blood, Riley. You can walk away right now. You don't have to die for her lies."

Edward slid his feet forward and to the side. There was a foot of space between us now. Riley circled too far, overcompensating this time. Victoria leaned forward onto the balls of her feet.

"Last chance, Riley," Edward whispered.

Riley's face was desperate as he looked to Victoria for answers.

"He's the liar, Riley," Victoria said, and my mouth fell open in shock at the sound of her voice. "I told you about their mind tricks. You know I love only you." Her voice was not the strong, wild, catlike growl I would have put with her face and stance. It was soft, it was high - a babyish, soprano tinkling. The kind of voice that went with blond curls and pink bubble gum. It made no sense coming through her bared, glistening teeth. Riley's jaw tightened, and he squared his shoulders. His eyes emptied - there was no more confusion, no more suspicion. There was no thought at all. He tensed himself to attack. Victoria's body seemed to be trembling, she was so tightly wound. Her fingers were ready claws, waiting for Edward to move just one more inch away from me.

The snarl came from none of them.

A mammoth tan shape flew through the center of the opening, throwing Riley to the ground.

"No!" Victoria cried, her baby voice shrill with disbelief.

A yard and a half in front of me, the huge wolf ripped and tore at the blond vampire beneath him. Something white and hard smacked into the rocks by my feet. I cringed away from it. Victoria did not spare one glance for the boy she'd just pledged her love to. Her eyes were still on me, filled with a disappointment so ferocious that she looked deranged.

"No," she said again, through her teeth, as Edward started to move toward her, blocking her path to me.

Riley was on his feet again, looking misshapen and haggard, but he was able to fling a vicious kick into Seth's shoulder. I heard the bone crunch. Seth backed off and started to circle, limping. Riley had his arms out, ready, though he seemed to be missing part of one hand. . . .

Only a few yards away from that fight, Edward and Victoria were dancing. Not quite circling, because Edward was not allowing her to position herself closer to me. She sashayed back, moving from side to side, trying to find a hole in his defense. He shadowed her footwork lithely, stalking her with perfect concentration. He began to move just a fraction of a second
before
she moved, reading her intentions in her thoughts. Seth lunged at Riley from the side, and something tore with a hideous, grating screech. Another heavy white chunk flew into the forest with a thud. Riley roared in fury, and Seth skipped back - amazingly light on his feet for his size - as Riley took a swipe at him with one mangled hand.

Victoria was weaving through the tree trunks at the far end of the little opening now. She was torn, her feet pulling her toward safety while her eyes yearned toward me as if I were a magnet, reeling her in. I could see the burning desire to kill warring with her survival instinct. Edward could see that, too.

"Don't go, Victoria," he murmured in that same hypnotic tone as before. "You'll never get another chance like this."

She showed her teeth and hissed at him, but she seemed unable to move farther away from me.

"You can always run later," Edward purred. "Plenty of time for that. It's what you do, isn't it?

It's why James kept you around. Useful, if you like to play deadly games. A partner with an uncanny instinct for escaping. He shouldn't have left you - he could have used your skills when we caught up to him in Phoenix."

A snarl ripped from between her lips.

"That's all you ever were to him, though. Silly to waste so much energy avenging someone who had less affection for you than a hunter for his mount. You were never more than a convenience to him. I would know."

Edward's lips pulled up on one side as he tapped his temple.

With a strangled screech, Victoria darted out of the trees again, feinting to the side. Edward responded, and the dance began again.

Just then, Riley's fist caught Seth's flank, and a low yelp coughed out of Seth's throat. Seth backed away, his shoulders twitching as if he were trying to shake off the pain.
Please,
I wanted to plead with Riley, but I couldn't find the muscles to make my mouth open, to pull the air up from my lungs.
Please, he's just a child!

Why hadn't Seth run away? Why didn't he run now?

Riley was closing the distance between them again, driving Seth toward the cliff face beside me. Victoria was suddenly interested in her partner's fate. I could see her, from the corner of her eyes, judge the distance between Riley and me. Seth snapped at Riley, forcing him back again, and Victoria hissed.

Seth wasn't limping anymore. His circling took him within inches of Edward; his tail brushed Edward's back, and Victoria's eyes bulged.

"No, he won't turn on me," Edward said, answering the question in Victoria's head. He used her distraction to slide closer. "You provided us with a common enemy. You allied us." She clenched her teeth, trying to keep her focus on Edward alone.

"Look more closely, Victoria," he murmured, pulling at the threads of her concentration. "Is he really so much like the monster James tracked across Siberia?"

Her eyes popped wide open, and then began flickering wildly from Edward to Seth to me, around and around. "Not the same?" she snarled in her little girl's soprano. "Impossible!"

"Nothing is impossible," Edward murmured, voice velvet soft as he moved another inch closer to her. "Except what you want. You'll never touch her." She shook her head, fast and jerky, fighting his diversions, and tried to duck around him, but he was in place to block her as soon as she'd thought of the plan. Her face contorted in frustration, and then she shifted lower into her crouch, a lioness again, and stalked deliberately forward.

Victoria was no inexperienced, instinct-driven newborn. She was lethal. Even I could tell the difference between her and Riley, and I knew that Seth wouldn't have lasted so long if he'd been fighting
this
vampire.

Edward shifted, too, as they closed on each other, and it was lion versus lioness. The dance increased in tempo.