Believe Me Chapter 19

James watched as another newborn was made in front of him. There were several of his first turned newborns he was able to use his maker’s bond with to have them find other people from other states to turn and then other’s yet that would actually turn them. James was all too aware of little Mary Alice’s gift and wanted to do his best to circumvent it. Mary Alice was a hunt he lost long ago, he didn’t want to lose another one.

Without Victoria with him, he was likely to act more rash, without thought. But unlike what Victoria likely thought, he was well aware of his shortcomings; what kind of hunter would he be if he didn’t know his weak spots? Victoria was nice to have along so he didn’t have to think about being safe, think about anything outside of getting his prey; but it wasn’t like he had always hunted with the woman. He was just allowed to be more careless with her around because she would warn him if he was about to go too far.

He watched as the human screamed its’ lungs out, begging for help, for them to let it go. The worst thing James hated about humans was their screaming. Yes, he loved to hear the screams, but the screams did sometimes hurt his hearing. The more newborns they created, he found his patience for listening to the delicious screams was wearing thin.

James moved forward from his spot to the scream human, grabbed it from the newborn that was working under his maker’s command to change the newborn, and opted to just drain it himself. He none-too-gently moved the head to the side and bit the neck. Now, not only were the screams gone, but he also got a meal out of it.

From the corner of his eyes, as he drank his fill, he saw the other newborns look at him feed with such a ferocious need in their eyes. James had opted to keep his first turned newborns the only ones that fed on a regular basis since they were the ones doing the fishing. The others they changed, the ones that didn’t leave their hideout, they didn’t feed nearly as often as they probably should. James was counting on that hunger to make them fight harder when they caught wind of his target’s scent. The hungrier the newborn was, the more they fought. He knew he was walking a fine line with how much control he had with the maker’s bond he enforced on the ones he turned and the commands his turned vampires gave to their turned, but he was willing to take that risk to have a stronger army. He didn’t want to lose this prey.

***

The wolves were on one side of the field, except Leah and Seth who were next to a fussing Esme who made it perfectly clear she was not okay with Leah being out of bed after being hurt so badly not too long ago.

Carlisle and Edward were stood on the opposite side of the wolves, both giving pathetic looks towards their respective ex’s. While the rest of the group were stood just off to the side of the pack as everyone watched and listened to Jasper and his friend talk about the different fighting techniques the newborns had. Charlette had opted to let her mate talk while she moved to stand next to the human all these supernatural creatures were willing to fight for.

Charlette knew there were many people keeping a very close eye on her because not only did she have red eyes, but she was also a newcomer; no one knew they could trust her outside what the major told them.

“Are you afraid?” Charlette asked the human, Bella, ignoring the hiss of warning she got from the redhead that was practically wrapped around the human.

Bella gave a brief side-glance to the red-eyed vampire before she answered. She knew the woman was fishing for information but Bella wasn’t sure what the endgame was for the vampire.

“Not really.” Bella confidently answered, “I know Victoria won’t let anything hurt me.” Bella didn’t need to mention that her mates gift would make sure nothing bad happened to either of them. So in the end, no matter what happened during the battle, as long as Victoria was with her, she would be fine.

Charlette as if she had expected the answer, “That makes sense, your mate does have a pretty good defensive gift. She would be a hard one to beat in a fight.”

Bella wasn’t sure if she should be worried about her mate being assessed as she was with this newcomer. Was there a reason or was the pixie cut woman just really bad at making small talk. Perhaps turn-about is fair play?

“What about your mate’s gift? What can he do?” Bella asked, recalling how much faith Jasper had in his friends’ abilities. It almost seemed Jasper was more confident about Peter’s gift than he was his own mates’ gift.

Charlette smiled at the opportunity to talk about her mate, it was a topic she never got bored of. Then again, what vampire ever got tired about talking about their mate?

“We call him a knower.” Charlette easily answered, “It’s not visions like little miss Alice, just more of an intuition that is never wrong.”

“Never?” Bella asked, “It can’t be perfect.” Bella scoffed, if there was one thing she had learned about ‘knowing things’, thanks to Alice, nothing was a hundred percent.

“Well, I’ll admit it’s a bit frustrating that her never has any details when he tells me we need to go a route way out of our from where we were heading with no reason whatsoever, but in the end, it always makes sense.” Charlette answered with a smile.

Bella wasn’t sure what came over her, but hearing Charlette talk so well of her mate that Bella felt she needed to as well. Especially since she was going on about how good Peter’s gift was, there had to be flaws.

“Victoria’s gift is a little similar it seems, just hyper focused on what’s important to her.” Bella mused, “I would think since it’s hyper focused, it would be a lot more accurate than Peter’s.” Bella said, almost thinking out loud instead of keeping the thought silent. Bella could practically feel the smugness coming from the redhead next to her. Apparently Victoria liked hearing Bella praise her.

Charlette couldn’t help but scoff, “I’m sure it may seem that way since you’re one of the few protected by her gift, but Peter is able to help others beyond those he had bonds with.” Charlette argued with the human, more than happy to have this conversation with her. It felt so natural to talk to her, to try an one up each other with their mate’s gifts, it was actually a little fun; if not a little bit frustrating. “Victoria may be good for the few, but Peter is great for the many.”

“He can’t really do much good if he doesn’t have any information behind it.” Bella argued, she had a heard a few of his ‘predictions’ Peter had. He more or less just told people what to do, he didn’t explain anything or give any reasoning to his commands, he simply smiled and tapped his head as an answer. It seemed really frustrating to work with him and Bella was happy she wasn’t one of them.

“And Victoria does?” Charlette asked with a skeptical tone, she couldn’t believe she was arguing with a human about whose mate was better. It should have been an easy win on her part, but at least the human didn’t seem like a pushover. “What good would she be in this fight if the only two people her gift helps is herself and you?” Charlette completely ignored the hiss of indignation given by the redhead; hopefully Victoria knew she was just having fun with Bella.

Bella gave the older woman a shit eating grin, “It sounds like she would be the perfect person to have with me in the battle.”

Charlette couldn’t help but scoff at the answer, not that she expected anything else really. Bella really was fun to be around.

Before the Southern vampire could continue the conversation, her mate called for everyone to pair up, preferable a wolf with a vampire, to start drills. She knew it was necessary, especially for the young Cullen’s, Carlisle included, that didn’t have much of any fighting experience. But she was hoping for some more time with Bella to see if she could rile the human up at all.

“Well, that’s time, we’ll have to agree to disagree.” Charlette said with a smirk, “Perhaps we can continue talking about whose mate is better another time?” She asked as she started walking backwards towards her mate, when the human nodded her agreement, she turned and dashed off towards her destination.

“Is that what that conversation was about?” Victoria asked, she had already put her food down that she was going to be glued to Bella’s side when her human was outside of her’s or the Cullen’s residence. Victoria wasn’t willing to risk everyone being busy with training for a newborn to possible slip past them to get to Bella.

“Eh, I was just telling the truth.” Bella said with a dopey grin aimed toward the redhead. There was no one better than Victoria, no matter what anyone said.

Victoria couldn’t resist leaning in to kiss her mate, making sure to be very careful to make sure it was a brief kiss in case Victoria decided to not stop with just giving a kiss no matter how many others were around.

“You are quite the charmer.” Victoria husked, her lips just a breath away from her mates’.

“For kisses from you? I’ll be anything you want.” Bella said with a cheesy smile.

On the opposite side of the field, about to pair off with three of the wolves, the Denali’s couldn’t help but smirk at their bond child.

“If I didn’t know better, I would think she is your blood daughter with how show-offy and cheesy she is.” Irina smirked.

“Or how desperate she is for any type of sexual release.” Tanya added with a smirk, happy to tease her mate.

Kate just scoffed as she started to walk a small distance away to spar with a wolf named Jarod. “You all are just jealous she scored her smooth talk from me.” She said with a wide grin.

Irina and Tanya looked at each other before chuckling, “We wouldn’t call either of you smooth.” Irina chuckled out.

“You’re just jealous.” Kate said with a pout before putting her attention back to her spar.

Every vampire on the field, while some where annoyed with the circumstances of what was going on, they were willing to ignore a lot in order for everyone to remain as calm as possible. Since neither Alice nor Peter were able to give an estimate of how many newborns they were expecting to have to fight or even a general timeframe, they were all waiting on pins and needles for either of the two to say it was time to go and fight with no advance warning. Having them all there, acting like normal people just doing training gave everyone a hint of peace before they would be forced to face hell with a newborn Army. Hopefully the peace would last long enough to get them to the battle so there would be no extra drama before the big fight.