Chapter Two

Nathan's Point-of-View:

Hint: Yes, this is one of the Alabama wolves

Patrols ran smoothly that morning. We wound through the trees, Caleb's nose in the air and mine on the ground. Sniffing around a forest at three o'clock in the morning sounded boring, but it wasn't. With Caleb by my side, and especially when the entire pack was with us, the patrols were fun and, however uneventful, usually the most eventful part of our days. There were six of us, which made us the second largest pack that was known to our Elders, and only our alpha had ever actually seen a vampire.

It always made me wonder why we had phased if there weren't any vampires around. Other packs, like the ones in Oregon and Maine, had vampire activity all the time, even if the leeches were just passing through. Alabama got nothing. Not even the faded scent of one. Sure, when we took a trip to Ontario, Canada to help a newly formed pack, we smelled plenty of them. Hell, one even left a kill on the trail for us: a warning.

I had come close to seeing a vampire. A man with sandy blonde hair and skin paler than anyone I had ever seen before had zipped past me one night while I was running patrols with a new wolf in Ontario. I was just a pup then; I didn't know that I was supposed to run after it. All I knew was that the scent scared me. I ended up running home to Caleb.

Caleb was the alpha of the Alabama pack, nicknamed the Black Warrior Pack because our patrols stopped at parts of the shore of the Black Warrior River. I was his beta, even though I felt like I hadn't deserved it. It almost felt like special treatment. Caleb's wife and I had been best friends since childhood; our mothers still went to the grocery store together and I still spent half of the holidays at home and half at Allison's place.

Our pack had never seen any signs of imprinting in our members. We thought at first that Caleb had imprinted on Allison, but when they had a fiery break up during their second year of dating, it was clear that they had just fallen for one another quickly. They had been together for six years now; two of which they had been married. Allison was our pack mom, always cooking and watching out for us. She was a great girl. Young and beautiful with the kindest heart I'd ever seen, but she would smack us with a wooden spoon a little too hard for a human when we tried to dip our fingers in the cake batter she always seemed to be making.

I phased from my gray-white wolf form, rolling my shoulders and turning to Caleb, whose sandy brown fur still coated him. He cocked his head, looking up at me, but he wasn't paying attention to me. He smelled something, and so did I. I phased again, anger coming hot and thick at the scent of an outside wolf around our territory. He smelled like rain and sweat, along with something sweeter – perfume? The only females we knew of were in packs in Washington and Ontario.

Since it was just Caleb and I on that patrol, we ran together toward the scent. It didn't take us long to find him. We lingered on the edges of the forest, hidden by the damp trees and shrubs. He was talking to a girl, a slip of a thing who looked like she was about to claw his eyes out. He was shirtless and she was shivering against the cool breeze of the late summer night. It would get colder very soon and she would need a coat over that thin tank top she wore.

She was beautiful too. Legs one hundred miles long and light brown hair just as long; it brushed her slender waist, right about her ass, which was one of the nicest I'd seen in a while. Her jeans were soaked up to her knees and her shoes were definitely not fit for a walk in the damp forest in the early morning. She was pale, which either meant she never went outside or she was from up north.

"Bella, please, it's really not that big of a deal," the guy was saying, sighing in exasperation. Another breeze whirled by and I caught his scent; he was the wolf and she was the human. He smelled like the north; maybe he was from one of the Oregon or Washington packs. He definitely wasn't from the Ontario pack; after spending three months with them in the snow, I would know their scent anywhere.

"Jacob, I am not pissing in the fucking forest!" Bella shouted, clenching her fists by her sides. I snorted a soft wolfish laugh and Caleb shot me a look, telling me to be quiet. Though he looked like he was about to cough a laugh with that wolfish grin of his that he wore.

"Fine! We'll go back to the car, I'll change, and we can drive for another hour until we find a service station. Do you think you can hold it that long on these bumpy roads?" He was trying so hard not to laugh. And it really was funny; this skinny little thing wouldn't squat down and take a piss in the woods, even though she didn't look like much of a girly girl.

Bella shook her head, wavy brown hair falling over her shoulders. She hugged herself, shivering. Jacob stepped closer to her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close to his body. She sounded like she was about to cry when she murmured, "I hate the forest."

Caleb suddenly stepped out from our hiding place, Nike shorts already on and his hands raised in an innocent gesture. Jacob caught his scent immediately and whirled around, shoving Bella behind him. She stumbled and grabbed his bicep, but he ignored her, his eyes narrowed toward Caleb.

"If you think about attacking, just know that you are the one who stumbled onto our turf." Caleb's southern drawl hung in the trees, carrying the hint of a threat but the majority of friendly conversation. He had a way with people. I phased and yanked on my shorts as well, stepping out of the trees with my hands shoved in the pockets.

"Which pack are you from?" Jacob asked, his defensive stance relaxing very slightly. His fists were still clenched at his sides.

"Black Warrior. And you?" Caleb raised a light-colored eyebrow.

"La Push. From Washington." Jacob's stance relaxed even more, until he was almost in a submissive position. "I was hoping to find the alpha, and here he is standing in front of me on my first night here. My pack abandoned me. I came to Alabama hoping that another one would let me into their ranks."

I nodded toward Bella. "Why did you bring her then?"

He turned to look at her and gave her the most sickeningly loving look I'd ever seen. It made my stomach acids curdle. "I love her," he murmured. She blushed fiercely, but said nothing, averting her eyes toward her shoes. "I know that this is a big decision, but if you would just consider me."

"Why did they abandon you?" Caleb's stance was one of pure power. Hell, I wanted to get on the ground and show my throat to him. He was asserting his dominance, and it was working.

Jacob shrank back, almost cringing at the alpha power in Caleb's voice. "I told Bella about the wolves. They gave me an ultimatum: Bella or the pack. I chose her."

Caleb laughed then, harsh and too loud. I cringed, knowing that he was just being cruel for show. Still, it was rough seeing my alpha acting like an ass wipe. "That is very noble of you – at least nobility to your lady. Come with us. You can stay in the spare rooms at my place. Carry her on foot; she isn't ours to take care of." Caleb turned and darted into the forest and I quickly followed. I heard Jacob pull Bella onto his back, much to her very verbal displeasure, and he started after us.

Author's Notice: I'm so sorry that it took so long for me to post this chapter, but here it is!