The Cullen estate stood draped in silver and white. The night before the wedding. Cold winds brushed against the glass walls of the mansion, whispering secrets only the dead could hear.
Bella Swan stood alone in her bridal chamber, staring at her reflection—or rather, the ghost of who she once was. Pale skin like marble, golden eyes like molten fire. A vampire now. A Cullen by blood, if not yet by name.
She should've felt happiness.
Instead, a knot tightened in her chest with every ticking second. A name pulsed inside her mind like a heartbeat she couldn't silence.
Jacob.
Her fingers gripped the edge of the vanity. She remembered the feel of his heat, the way his voice broke when he told her goodbye the night she chose Edward. But she hadn't known then what the transformation would do—how cold she'd become, how alien her bond with Edward now felt.
She no longer felt warmth with Edward. Just silence.
The door creaked open behind her.
"Alice said you needed space," Edward's voice came soft, almost distant now. "You look stunning, Bella."
She nodded, but didn't turn around. "Do you ever regret it?"
His silence answered her.
Then she whispered, "I do."
Edward's jaw tightened. "You don't mean that."
"I think I do."
The words came from someplace deeper than her mind—somewhere her instincts now ruled. Her vampire body rejected him. Her soul pulled elsewhere.
"You knew this would happen," she said, rising to her feet. "You turned me. You claimed me. But you never asked if my heart still beat for someone else."
Edward's eyes darkened. "Jacob was a distraction—"
"No," she said sharply. "He was the truth I ran from."
In a blur, she passed him, walking into the hallway, ignoring Alice's sudden intake of breath from the stairs.
"Bella—where are you going?" Edward called out.
"To the one place that still feels real."
---
La Push.
The forest air hit her like a wall of memories. Trees towered over her like giants, and every footstep echoed like thunder in her sharpened senses.
Then she smelled it. Him.
Jacob's scent was fire and earth, still as intoxicating as ever. He stood by the cliff's edge, shirtless, golden-brown skin glowing beneath the moonlight, staring out at the sea. Older now. Stronger. A chieftain in everything but name.
He turned.
His eyes widened.
"You're—"
"A vampire," she said softly.
He stepped back. "Then why are you here?"
"Because I can't marry him."
Jacob's breath caught. "You're saying this now?"
"I didn't understand until after I turned," she said, walking closer. "I don't love him anymore. Maybe I never did. I love you, Jacob. I've always loved you."
Silence fell between them. Her words were fire, and they burned through every scar he'd buried.
"I thought I lost you forever," Jacob murmured, voice raw.
Bella stepped closer. "Then take me back. Please. I'm yours, if you'll have me."
He pulled her into his arms before she finished speaking. Her icy skin met his burning heat—and for the first time, it didn't hurt. They fit. Opposites in body, but not in soul.
When they kissed, it wasn't gentle. It was years of longing, pain, and fate crashing together like waves against a cliff.
And then—something stirred.
Bella gasped and clutched her stomach. A pulse. No—two pulses. One of venom. One of blood.
Jacob froze. "Bella? What's wrong?"
Her eyes widened in panic. "I… I think I'm pregnant."
---
Three days later, the Cullen mansion burned.
Emmett threw a chair through a wall. Rosalie screamed. Carlisle held back Edward, who stood like a shattered statue, the wedding ring still clutched in his hand.
"She's carrying what?!" Edward roared. "That's not possible!"
"It shouldn't be," Carlisle whispered, face pale. "But if her transformation wasn't complete… if the venom fused with Jacob's DNA…"
"A hybrid?" Alice whispered. "Not like Renesmee. Something worse."
---
Meanwhile.
Deep in the woods, Bella lay under thick blankets in the cabin Jacob built with his own hands.
Her body convulsed every few hours—violent tremors like lightning inside her veins. The child growing within her wasn't normal. Her body rejected it and accepted it all at once.
Jacob watched, helpless and protective, his hand never leaving hers.
Then, on the seventh day, it happened.
The sky darkened at noon. Animals fled the woods. Storm clouds gathered without warning.
And Bella screamed.
A pulse of heat and frost burst from her womb, shattering every window in the cabin. The walls cracked.
Jacob shielded her with his body, his skin burning, but he didn't move.
Then everything went still.
The child stopped moving. The pain stopped.
And a heartbeat echoed.
Thump.
Thump.
Not hers.
Theirs.
Jacob looked down, and so did Bella. Her skin glowed faintly. The child was alive.
She looked into Jacob's eyes. "He's… not human. Not vampire. Not werewolf."
Jacob's jaw tightened. "Then what is he?"
From somewhere deep in her mind, something answered. Not in words, but in instinct.
He was something new.
A fusion of monsters.
And the world would never be the same again.