(When I posted last chapter I was honestly expecting worse. Sure a lot of people raged and even demanded I rewrite the chapter, but a lot were also very mature about it, and a few even guessed possible future plots from it. I guess there's still hope for this world. Thanks to everyone who stayed, and even more to those who showed open support. I won't make any empty promises that this will be a masterpiece or something like that, I will just keep writing and try to do my best.)
...
Rosalie was the first to snap. She had been staring between Edward, Jasper, and the giant white-furred creature for a solid thirty seconds, jaw tight, eyes narrowing more with every passing heartbeat.
Finally, she threw her hands up. "Okay. What the hell was that?"
Her voice cut through the clearing like a whip. She wasn't angry, exactly, just done. Completely, utterly done. And she had clearly noticed the way both Edward and Jasper had gone stiff and wide-eyed the moment Mike had looked at Bella.
Edward turned slowly, tension in his shoulders, and met Mike's enormous wolf-blue gaze.
"Mike…" he said cautiously, "is it okay if I tell them?" He felt the matter was quite intimate, so he didn't dare to say it without permission.
Mike, still in his towering wolf form, gave a small nod, or at least the closest thing a creature twice the height of a man could manage. But before anyone could say anything else, something in him lurched.
And then…
FWOOMP.
The giant white wolf was gone. And in his place, standing in the center of the Cullen backyard, surrounded by vampires, was a very, very naked human Mike.
Feeling the sudden change in perspective, he blinked, looked down, then looked around.
His brain hadn't caught up yet. But everyone else's had.
Emmett burst out laughing so loudly birds fled the nearby trees. "NICE DICK, BRO!"
The sound echoed through the woods.
Mike jolted as if shot, finally realizing what had happened.
"Wait, why am I, oh my GOD…"
He slapped his hands over himself, but unfortunately he only had two hands and far, far too much surface area to cover. The vampires, with their perfect photographic memories, were already going to remember this forever.
Bella had both hands over her flushed face, visibly trying not to die.
Esme, bless her endlessly gentle, mothering soul, appeared beside him in a blur, carrying a folded blanket from inside the house.
Her expression was soft, warm, completely unbothered by his mortification.
"Here, dear," she said, offering it to him like a towel at a spa. "You must be cold."
Mike snatched it with a strangled noise of gratitude, wrapping it around himself like a life raft. His face was so red it nearly glowed.
Edward cleared his throat delicately, as if pretending the last fifteen seconds had not happened at all. "So," he said, "about the imprint…"
Mike tightened the blanket around his waist, face still burning, and cleared his throat.
"S-So… could we maybe do this inside?" he managed. "And, uh… could I borrow some clothes? Preferably ones that aren't see-through?"
Emmett snorted, still riding the high of his earlier joke. "Yeah, man. C'mon. Let's get you some pants before Esme starts knitting you a shame sweater."
Esme gave Emmett a look that was both disappointed and amused.
A minute later, Mike was sitting in the Cullens' pristine living room, squeezed into a pair of Emmett's jeans and a dark T-shirt that looked like it was holding on for dear life. The seams stretched every time he breathed. He kept tugging at the collar self-consciously.
Everyone settled around him: Edward leaning forward, Jasper still tense from the earlier emotional spike, Rosalie with her arms crossed, Emmett grinning like he was watching a comedy special, Esme warm and patient, Carlisle curious, and Bella looking worried.
Mike rubbed his palms on his knees, trying to figure out how to say this without revealing far too much.
"Okay. So… Do you know how ducks, like… actual ducks, imprint on the first living being they see when they hatch?"
Emmett blinked slowly. "…So Bella is now like your mom?"
Rosalie slapped a hand over her face. "For the love of God, Emmett."
The rest of the room cracked up. Even Jasper huffed a silent laugh.
Mike sighed, but he couldn't help smiling. "No, Bella's not my mom," he said, shaking his head. "It's more like, wolves imprint for protection. Binding. Loyalty. I'm… sort of instinctively tied to her now. I have to keep her safe. At any cost."
Bella's laugh died instantly. Her eyebrows pinched together in real worry.
"Mike… But I don't want you to sacrifice yourself for me," she said, voice tight. "What if protecting me gets you hurt?"
Mike's expression softened. He leaned back, shoulders relaxing, giving her a reassuring smile.
"Bella," he said gently, "I can literally snap a vampire in half."
The vampires collectively froze.
Mike shrugged, incredibly casual. "So I'm not exactly in danger."
…
Mike finally stopped fussing with the too-tight shirt and glanced around the living room, specifically at the maps, papers, and scribbled notes scattered across the floor.
"So… what were you guys doing before I barged in?" he asked, jerking his chin toward the mess.
Edward sighed. "We got into trouble with another coven. The vampire you killed was actually part of that coven. He came to warn us that one of his partners, James, is planning to hunt Bella."
Mike's posture changed immediately. The relaxed slouch vanished. His brows pulled together in something cold and calculating. "How many?"
Carlisle stepped forward, calm as always. "Only two remaining. But we can't keep Bella under watch twenty-four hours a day, not without forcing her to live in fear. So we're going to deal with them before they get close."
Mike's shoulders dropped a little. "Oh. Only two?" He nodded, satisfied. "Alright then. I'll leave you to it. I've got a date I need to get ready for."
The Cullens all froze.
Edward blinked. "…What?"
Mike tilted his head innocently. "What?"
"Aren't you going to help?" Edward asked, baffled. "James wants Bella. Aren't you her protector?"
Mike shrugged casually, like Edward had just asked if he planned to help carry groceries. "Yeah, but it's just two vamps. You guys got this. I might be her protector, but I'm not her nanny or her slave. I have my own life to live too."
The silence that followed was thick. Every Cullen stared at him like he'd announced he was moving to Florida to become a professional flamingo wrangler.
Mike raised a brow. "…What?"
Seeing the shocked expressions, he added, "Okay, how about this: you take Bella home, keep her and Charlie safe for a bit, and I'll deal with your vampire problem tomorrow."
Carlisle stepped forward immediately. "Mike, you don't need to. This is a problem we started ourselves."
Rosalie muttered, "Edward started it," under her breath. No one acknowledged it, though several lips twitched.
Carlisle continued, "It'll be troublesome, but we should be able to take care of it."
Mike gave him a long, skeptical look.
"Yeahhh, that doesn't sound reassuring at all," he said honestly. "Tell you what, let's try my approach before you risk anything. You can protect Bella here or at her house for a few days easily. I'll try tracking these vampires. Since I've got all your scents down, I just need to look for any other vampire that doesn't match."
He shrugged. "If I don't find them in two days, then we follow your plan. Sounds fair?"
Bella opened her mouth instantly, already forming a protest, she didn't want him risking himself for her again. But Edward cut her off sharply.
"That works," he said, meeting Mike's eyes. "We agree."
Bella turned to him in shock. "Edward!"
"It's the best option," Edward said firmly, though his eyes flicked to Mike with unspoken gratitude.
Mike grinned, pleased. "Alright then. Tomorrow I hunt."
…
The front door shut behind Mike, and the Cullen house fell into a heavy, almost stunned silence. No one moved. No one breathed, not that they needed to.
It was Bella who broke first.
"Edward, why did you do that?" she demanded, rounding on him. "Why would you agree to let Mike risk himself like that? He could get hurt! Or worse!"
Edward opened his mouth, but someone else beat him to it.
Jasper.
He stepped forward quietly, arms loose at his sides, tone calm but grave. "Bella… it's not Mike you should be worried about."
She blinked, thrown off. "What?"
Jasper nodded toward the door Mike had just walked out of.
"I was analyzing him earlier. His stance, reflexes, strength distribution, the way he shifts weight, how he reacts to threat. I went through every scenario I could think of, every strategy, every formation, trying to figure out how we'd subdue him if the need ever came."
Everyone froze. Even Edward stared at Jasper, surprised by the admission.
Bella's voice faltered. "And…?"
Jasper's jaw tightened. "And I couldn't."
A ripple of shock moved through the room. Bella's eyes widened.
Jasper continued, tone serious. "Every attempt I ran ended with us losing. Some of us, or… most of us. Even the most optimistic scenarios had at least half of us going down. And that's if things went well."
Emmett's eyebrows jumped up, impressed. Rosalie looked faintly horrified. Alice nodded quietly, like she had reached the same conclusion but hadn't wanted to say it aloud.
Jasper gestured toward the woods. "So trust me, Bella. Two vampires? They have zero chance against him."
Carlisle stepped in then, voice warm, calm, but underscored by a kind of awe that he rarely showed.
"Jasper is right. I've never seen a wolf like Mike."
He glanced toward Edward, then back to Bella and the others. "The biggest wolf I ever encountered was nearly a century ago, the alpha of the Quileute pack we made the treaty with. A formidable creature by any standard."
Carlisle raised his hand, leveling it at chest height. "He stood just over half of Mike's size."
Bella's breath caught. "Half?"
Carlisle nodded once. "Mike is something entirely different."
A long, deep silence followed his words. A silence filled with the weight of new understanding, new uncertainty… and for the first time, the Cullens were not thinking about the threat to Bella.
They were thinking about the monster that had just walked calmly out their door wearing Emmett's too-tight clothes.
…