Chapter 4 - Visibly shaken

~ RAVEN’S POV ~

“What?! Melanie is Isabella!” Jasper yelled, his voice echoing off the high ceilings of the penthouse the second I explained why I was with her in the parking lot.

I stared at him calmly, giving him a nod.

“Are you sure about this, Raven? You could just be projecting. You might be mistaking Isabella for Melanie,” Jasper insisted, pacing back and forth across the mable floor.

“I know my wife’s face, Jasper,” I said. “I could identify her voice with my eyes closed among a million people. It’s her. From her hair down to the shape of her eyes… it is all her.”

Jasper stopped pacing, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “Look, I know you’ve been alive way longer than me, but… are you seriously telling me reincarnation is real? I thought that was just fairy-tale garbage.”

I looked at him with an unblinking stare. “Aren’t vampires considered fairy-tale garbage, too? Am I not a vampire?”

Jasper winced slightly, the logic hitting him hard. “Fair point. Most people wouldn’t even believe me if I told them you drink blood.” He let out a long, exhausted sigh and dropped into the armchair across from me. “Okay… fine. Let’s say Melanie really is Isabella. What the hell do you plan to do about it?”

“Continue where we left off five hundred years ago.”

“Huh?” Jasper gasped, bolting upright. “Are you out of your mind?! She has a boyfriend! Who happens to be my best friend!”

“Isabella is my wife,” I reminded him. “We took vows five centuries ago.”

“Exactly! You got married centuries ago!” Jasper countered. “She might have Isabella’s face, but she’s not the woman you lost, Raven! She has a totally different life now, a different name, and she clearly doesn’t remember a single second of the life you shared with her!”

“So what are you suggesting? That I just ignore the fact that my wife is standing right in front of me? That I walk away?”

“Yes!” Jasper urged, leaning forward with pleading eyes. “She’s been reborn. Right now, all she has is Isabella’s face. She’s a completely different person.”

“Are you only saying this because Bryan is your best friend?”

“Of course not,” Jasper exclaimed. “You’re the most important person in my life, Raven. You saved me. You raised me. You’re like a father to me! And because you mean everything to me, I’m telling you the brutal truth!”

“Five hundred years, Jasper. Not five days, not five months, not five years. Five hundred years. It took me half a millennium to finally lay eyes on the only woman I have ever loved… and the only advice you can offer me is to forget her?”

Jasper ran both hands through his hair, looking utterly torn. “I know how much you loved her! God, Raven, I’ve literally watched you call out her name in your sleep with tears in your eyes for twenty years! I know it hurts!”

He let out a shaky breath, his tone softening into genuine concern. “But I’ve known Melanie for three years now. And in all that time, she has only ever had eyes for one guy—Bryan. He’s her first in everything. I see how she looks at him. I know how deeply she loves him.”

“I was her first, too. Her first kiss. Her first love. The first man she ever surrendered her heart and body to. She loved me just as deeply as she loves him now.”

“Things are different now, Raven!” Jasper pleaded. “She doesn’t know you! I doubt she’d even look at you like that! I just don’t want to watch you get destroyed over a ghost. Please… just let it go. You hate being around humans anyway. Keep it that way. Because you and Melanie? It’s never going to happen.”

I stared at him in silence. Deep down, I knew he wasn’t trying to be cruel, nor was he taking Bryan’s side over mine.

And the worst part? It ached like poison because he was right.

I had seen it with my own eyes. I had watched her cheer his name without hesitation, blowing him kisses, unashamed to yell her love for him in front of thousands. I had watched her wrap her legs around him and kiss him like he was her entire world.

They loved each other.

But forgetting her?

That was an absolute impossibility.

Because five centuries ago, she used to look at me with those exact same adoration-filled eyes. She used to hold my hands, press her lips to mine, and declare that her heart belonged to me for eternity.

“You were planning on moving to Canada next month, right?” Jasper continued softly, taking my silence as a sign of yielding. “Why don’t you just push through with it? I won’t try to stop you anymore.”

“I’m not going to Canada,” I replied instantly. “I’m staying right here in Greyhound City. With Isabella.”

“She is not Isabella, Raven! Her name is Melanie Fisher!” He snapped.

“Say that name again,” I growled.

I suddenly lost control as my crimson eyes flared into life. My sharp fangs burst past my gums, extending to their full length as a guttural, predator’s snarl ripped from my throat.

Jasper quickly stood up, fear flashing across his face.

The moment I saw how scared he was, I came back to my senses. My fangs disappeared, and my eyes slowly returned to their normal dark brown color.

In twenty years, I had never lost control in front of him... not once.

“I’m sorry…” I choked out. “I… I didn’t mean to do that.”

Jasper swallowed hard, his throat bobbing as he stared at me, still visibly shaken. “I’m going to bed. I… I have an early class tomorrow.”

“Jasper...”

“Goodnight, Raven,” he cut me off, turning around and sprinting up the stairs to his bedroom, slamming the door shut.

I stood alone in the living room, exhaling a ragged breath. I loathed it when Jasper was angry or afraid of me. As much as I tried to deny the bond, he was my son.

I stood up and walked out onto the high-rise balcony, leaning my hands against the railing.

Below me, Greyhound City stretched out in a sea of glittering neon lights. The sensory overload of the city bombarded my ears—engines roaring, distant laughter, sirens wailing, thousands of human heartbeats thumping in a chaotic rhythm.

I closed my eyes, forcibly tuning out the noise, letting the silence of the night settle over me.

Instantly, her face flashed across my mind. The way she had smiled down at Bryan. The way his hands had rested possessively on her waist.

It had taken five centuries to find her again. This wasn’t a coincidence. It was fate bringing my bride back to me.

Jasper was right about one thing: she had a life now. A boyfriend. A world that didn’t include an immortal like me.

She might call herself Melanie Fisher, but deep beneath those new memories, buried under a different life, was my Isabella.

And I was going to find her.

I wouldn’t stop until she was back in my arms as my bride.