Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined (Twilight #5)(37)

She laughed. “Cool. Sam’s fault, then.”

I laughed, too. “Not really, though. I’m totally confused.”

She looked up at me, smiling like we already shared a secret of our own. “Can I trust you?”

“Of course.”

“You won’t go running to spill to your blond friend?”

“Logan? Oh yeah, I can’t keep anything from that guy. We’re like brothers.”

She liked that. When she laughed, it made me feel like I was funnier than I really was.

Her husky voice dropped a little lower. “Do you like scary stories, Beau?”

For one second, I could hear Edythe’s voice clearly in my head. Do you think I could be scary?

“How scary are we talking here?”

“You’ll never sleep again,” she promised.

“Well, now I have to hear it.”

She chuckled and looked down, a smile playing around the edges of her lips. I could tell she would try to make this good.

We were near one of the beached logs now, a huge white skeleton with the upended roots all tangled out like a hundred spider legs. Jules climbed up to sit on one of the thicker roots while I sat beneath her on the body of the tree. I tried to seem only interested as I looked at her, not like I was taking any of this seriously.

“I’m ready to be terrified.”

“Do you know any of our old stories, about where we come from—the Quileutes, I mean?” she began.

“Not really,” I admitted.

“There are lots of legends, some of them claiming to date back to the Great Flood—supposedly, the ancient Quileutes tied their canoes to the tops of the tallest trees on the mountain to survive like Noah and the ark.” She smiled, to show me she wasn’t taking this seriously, either. “Another legend claims that we descended from wolves—and that the wolves are our sisters still. It’s against tribal law to kill them.

“Then there are the stories about the cold ones.” Her voice dropped even lower.

“The cold ones?” I asked. Did I look too interested now? Could she guess that the word cold would mean something to me?

“Yes. There are stories of the cold ones as old as the wolf legends, and some much more recent. According to legend, my own great-grandmother knew some of them. She was the one who made the treaty that kept them off our land.” She rolled her eyes.

“Your great-grandmother?” I encouraged.

“She was a tribal elder, like my mother. You see, the cold ones are the natural enemies of the wolf—well, not the wolf, really, but the wolves that turn into women, like our ancestors. You could call them werewolves, I guess.”

“Werewolves have enemies?”

“Only one.”

I stared at her, too eager, trying to disguise my impatience as entertainment.

“So you see,” Jules continued, “the cold ones are traditionally our enemies. But this pack that came to our territory during my great-grandmother’s time was different. They didn’t hunt the way others of their kind did—they weren’t supposed to be dangerous to the tribe. So my great-grandmother made a truce with them. If they would promise to stay off our lands, we wouldn’t expose them to the pale-faces.” She winked at me.

“If they weren’t dangerous, then why…?”

“There’s always a risk for humans to be around the cold ones, even if they’re civilized like this clan alleged they were. You never know when they might get too hungry to resist.” She deliberately worked a thick edge of menace into her tone.

“What do you mean, ‘civilized’?”

“They claimed that they didn’t hunt humans. They supposedly were somehow able to prey on animals instead.”

I tried to keep my voice casual, but I was pretty sure I failed. “So how does it fit in with the Cullens? Are they like the cold ones your great-grandmother met?”

“No.…” She paused dramatically. “They are the same ones.”

She must have thought the expression on my face meant only that I was engrossed in her story. She smiled, pleased, and continued.

“There are more of them now, a new female and a new male, but the rest are the same. In my great-grandmother’s time they already knew of the leader, Carine. She’d been here and gone before your people had even arrived.” She was fighting another smile, trying to keep the tone serious.

“And what are they?” I finally asked. “What are the cold ones?”

“Blood drinkers,” she replied in a chilling voice. “Your people call them vampires.”

I stared out at the rough surf after she answered, not sure what my face was giving away. Do you think I could be scary? Edythe’s voice repeated in my head.

“You have goose bumps on your neck,” Jules laughed delightedly.

“You’re a good storyteller,” I told her, still staring into the waves.

“Thanks, but you’re just cold. It’s crazy stuff, isn’t it? No wonder my mom doesn’t want us to talk about it to anyone.”

I couldn’t control my expression enough to look at her yet. “Don’t worry, I won’t give you away.”

“I guess I just violated the treaty.” She threw her head back and laughed.

“I’ll take it to the grave,” I promised, and then a shiver ran down my spine.