[BamaFan121s]

He buried his face in my hair inhaling deeply and then pulled me back and looked into my eyes deeply. He reached his finger up and traced the shadow under my eyes, as I had done him so many times before. "I told Jacob that we were going to hunt tonight and that we’d meet him and Renesmee in the clearing later." I nodded in agreement, recognizing the burning thirst that suddenly made its presence known at his mention of hunting. "And then when we get back," he murmured in my ear, "I will have my way with you." As he traced his fingers teasingly up my spine, a ripple of desire quickly replaced the thirst.

Moments later, we were running through the woods, following the not so tempting scent of a nearby heard of elk, along with Alice and Jasper who had decided to join us. It did not take us long to find the heard, and even less time to successfully take them down. To Alice’s delight, I managed to drain two full size does without getting so much as a single drop of blood on my clothes. "Very good, Bella," she mocked, in a voice that sounded more like she was praising Renesmee. I rolled my eyes at her, but couldn’t argue. My hunting techniques had drastically improved over the last few months.

The four of us stepped into the clearing together, but there was no sign of Jacob or Renesmee yet. As we waited, Alice looked thoughtfully up at the sky, her eyes staring blankly for a minute. "Oooh…there’s a big storm coming in tomorrow afternoon." She turned to us, the excitement on her face quickly being matched by that of Jasper and Edward.

"Perfect day for baseball," Edward commented, no doubt having seen the predicted weather conditions in Alice’s vision. He turned to me, a wicked smile playing on his lips. "I’m eager to see how your baseball skills match up to Emmett’s. He’ll be absolutely beside himself if you outperform him."

"Well, I don’t think he has to worry about that much longer, seeing as I can’t beat him at arm wrestling anymore," I said with a casual roll of my eyes. It was true, much to Emmett’s delight, the strength that I’d had as a newborn was fading and a few days prior, he’d finally claimed victory against me.

Truth be told, it was not beating Emmett that concerned me. My mind was preoccupied with the last game of Cullen style baseball I’d witnessed. It had resulted in disaster. Come to think of it, this was the first trip to the clearing I’d made that had been under favorable conditions. At that realization, I immediately began listening to every sound around us, trying to detect any sign of a threat. My eyes instinctively surveyed the spot where James, Victoria and Laurent had once emerged.

An involuntary shudder ran the course of my body. Edward, sensing my apprehension, but not the true source, wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. "Don’t worry yourself about it, Bella. You’ll do just fine." And he was right. It would be fine. There was no one here but the four of us. And I knew that even if three murderous vampires did suddenly appear, they wouldn’t pose any threat to us. It was absurd to let the memory of that fateful day have such an effect on me now. I forced the notion from my head and reprimanded myself for my overreaction.

"Of course it will be fine," I responded, casting him an excited smile of my own. "I’ll be with you—what could possibly go wrong?"