Dancing with the Devil's Daughter Chapter 4 Teaser

“He’s having trouble today.”
It was lunch once again and I had been staring so hard at Isabella, determined to hear something from her mind, that I almost missed Alice’s thought. I looked away from Isabella and looked at Jasper, obviously the “he” Alice had been speaking of. I felt a pang of shame. I had been so caught up in the mystery of Isabella Swan that I had almost forgotten to keep tabs on Jasper’s thoughts. I always kept tabs on Jasper’s thoughts; it was one of the most helpful things I could do for the family.
“Have to resist. Think about Carlisle, about Alice, about the whole family.”
Jasper was sitting next to Alice, his gaze focused on the desk in front of him. His brow was furrowed, and his hands were gripping the table tightly. I was surprised he had broken anything yet, his control was that frayed.
“Just one nibble. It can be passed off as an animal. No one will know.”
I frowned at the thought. It sounded like Jasper, yet… not. Over the years I had become so used to the… flavour of my family’s thoughts that I could pick them out of a group of a thousand minds. This voice sounded like Jasper, but there was something off about it. It reminded me of when Emmett would impersonate Carlisle’s voice. It sounded almost perfect, but there was something off in the pronunciation and flow of the words.
“Jasper!” I said sharply, too quiet for human ears, but loudly enough to catch Jasper’s attention. “You can resist it. Concentrate!”
Jasper looked at me, his expression a little dazed. That was odd. As a rule, vampires were rarely, if ever, dazed. A furrow appeared between Jasper’s brows for a moment, before he shook his head and his eyes cleared.
“Yeah. You’re right. Thanks Edward.”
The five of us got up as one unit and headed to discard our untouched food in the garbage bin. As we walked, my gaze once again travelled to Isabella.
She was holding an apple in her hand, her gaze fixed on Jasper, and a contemplative look on her face. As if she could sense my eyes on her, she turned hers away from Jasper to look at me. Raising an eyebrow, she took a large bite out of the apple and gave me a close-mouthed grin.

God Love Her Chapter Twenty-two Teaser

“It’s been abandoned for eight years now.”
Startled, I turned away from the house’s rotting fence to look at a young woman who stood at the next house’s mailbox. She had tired blue eyes and was still wearing a worn pink bathrobe, which was tied tightly at the waist.
“I’ve lived here for five years, and no one’s ever looked that place. The woman I bought my place from said that the couple who used to live there packed up and moved to Florida three years before I came. I wish I could afford to move to Florida.” Her eyes turned distant and she turned her face upward, as if she could feel the Florida sun on her face. “But they’re gone now, and that eyesore is condemned. They’ll be tearing it down next Friday. What are you looking at it for, anyway?”
“I used to live there,” I replied. “It was a long time ago.”
“Well, you look like you’ve gone up in the world since then.” The woman nodded at my clothes. They were the ones from the day Bella and I had left Forks. Clothes that Esme had bought for me. I supposed that they would seem pretty fancy in this neighbourhood. Esme only bought high end merchandise. “If I were you, I’d go back to wherever you’re from and forget about this place. Anywhere has to be better than this.”
The woman took her mail out of her mailbox and stuck it under her arm. She gave me a small wave and entered her house, closing the door firmly behind her.
I looked back at the other house longingly. I had hoped that I would be able to come here and find my closure and be able to return to Bella. I had only lived in two places in Chicago. This house, and one other that remembered very well.
A group home. My first group home. It was where I had gotten my first taste of crime, and where my (rather lengthy) juvenile record had its humble beginnings.
With one last look at the decrepit house, I started my bike and rode towards the last place I really wanted to go.