– pity

They were a little weary of his reaction. Granted, they did know him and so they did know he wouldn't stand in the way – but he would never approve. Not if the only proper explanation they could give him would sound like a curse to his ears, something bad, something awful like the screeching of sharp fingernails on chalkboard.

Because he hated it. He hated it so very much in such a heated, serious way it made him look twice his size, towering over all of them. Not that he wasn't taller than them anyway.

Some of them were uncertain themselves. They all had their own reasons. Mostly they weren't sure what to make out of it, it was an unknown force of nature that was supposed to be rare. It didn't seem to be that way anymore.

That, too, was one of the reasons why he despised it. It was like there wasn't anything left to count on, to believe in. He could easily imagine warning signs just outside the reservation's borderlines, saying "trusting tribal legends at your own risk".

Seth sat up straighter in his seat in Emily's kitchen, getting ready to drop the bomb. He felt like fighting, fighting for his blessing, his approval but he – like every single one of them – saw it as a lost cause. And Seth himself hadn't really liked it either before it… well, before it just happened. It had been bright, afire, blinding and it had shook his foundations, changed his inner workings. He was a goner.

Jacob's eyes were meeting each of their gazes, his face collected. Leah shied away, not from his gaze but from the question in them, and chose to focus and stare at the table instead, detaching herself from the group. The Pack.

"So?" Jacob urged them on, growing irritated with their careful demeanor. He was one of them, connected not only by blood but by something bigger, their ties went soul-deep. They were, in so many ways, different parts of a whole. Their thoughts were one but still separate. He was not used to be the last to know something. Usually they all knew, at the same time. It was an eerie but not entirely unwelcome feeling to be something separate from them. Because in that moment, he was.

Seth cleared his throat, ready to go into defense – to protect what it wanted him to protect. And he would. And Jacob would accept silently, mourning the loss of another one's freewill. Hoping, pleading, for it to somehow skip him. At the same time asking it to bring it on.

"I imprinted. Her name is Lou." The name rolled off his tongue with the utmost affection, something that – Jacob mused – would be incredibly precious in normal circumstances. These weren't; so it wasn't. He had to admit it reminded him a bit of arranged marriage. Well, and brainwash.

Jacob pitied Seth.

– secrets

He saw Leah as the stroke of wings. He saw Leah as the sweet scent of daffodils in the morning after a storm. He saw her as the pouring rain the clouds released during the day.

Jacob Black saw Leah Clearwater as many things. In his mind, she was the synonym of beauty disguised with the pain of her forever bleeding heart.

Not that he would ever tell her.

– shifting

Jacob didn't want to be Alpha. Of course he didn't; not because he was lazy but because he liked to pretend to be able to hold on to the natural course his life would have taken.

And he didn't want to, he would not and he couldn't – but did that matter, anyway? It really didn't.

It felt like a shifting, something of power and control, of trust. It rushed trough all of their minds, dis-and reconnecting their loyalties, a wave of understanding, announcing Sam as one of them. The blood felt hot in their veins, hotter than normal as it boiled with the magic of ancient times.

Jacob couldn't help but watch Sam wearily out of the corner of his eye – was he somehow taller or was that his imagination running wild? – even though Sam had nothing but approved as he felt his power slip out of his fur-coated fingers.

Jacob realized Sam didn't want to be Alpha, either. Out of two who didn't want the responsibility of a leader, both out of different but alike reasons, wasn't it logical for the power to shift and engulf the one with the blood that sung of birthright and true leadership?

Jacob didn't want to be Alpha but he saw it as a given for him to guide his Pack. So he surrendered; for once in his life.

And the night arose in howls.