A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays. Wish I could say that I have, but I was sick for a great percentage of it. But now I do feel better. I had to rewrite this chapter once because the first result was just tragic, so I hope you enjoy this one.
Also, I will address the question that has been asked a couple of times, Imprinting. I'm not entirely sure. If you guys want it, I will, but I feel it's been overdone. But I can see it going both ways, so let me know.
D: Disclaimed
Chapter Three: Clueless Explanations
No mater how much I tried to make sense of all of this, none of it did. I never really dealt with fears that well, and here I was put in the line of fire of it, I was petrified to exactly why I was here. Who was here? What was here? Okay, maybe I knew, but I still didn't know a lot of whys.
A lot of it was the fact that I just saw two beautiful women change into horse-sized wolves, something I would have never suspected. How do you cope with something like that? I was sure that I was in a nightmare, waiting to wake up sweating beads because I'm glad that it was the truth. But it is. Fuck, as much as I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself somewhere else other than here, it never worked.
Then there was Emmett. What was I going to do about the vampire? How was I going to get out of here to save my dad and stop the bastard from ruining my life? There had to be some way to stop a vampire, they weren't entirely indestructible, and I had to find some way to believe that, for my sake mostly. There just had to be a way to stop Emmett.
Every time I tried to close my eyes to get some rest, I would always hear the howls in a short distance, and I was beginning to become annoyed of it. So imagine by the time I was able to get some shut-eye, I found a brown wolf staring at me sleeping. I wasn't sure whether to be creeped out, or afraid of the massive dog. I pulled back in panic mode and watched the wolf as it watched me, full of curiosity from what I could tell. As it sat on its hind legs, there was a sack with a bottle of water at his feet. The wolf nudged the bag and moved it closer to the bars, so I could only assume that it was for me.
The wolf's dark eyes watched me intently as I reached my hand out. Normally I wouldn't be this brave, but something told me I could trust this animal. I thanked the wolf to be courteous; the wolf did in fact bring my breakfast. After practically inhaling the breakfast sandwich and chewing my apple to the core, it took me awhile to realize the wolf was waiting for the bag to leave. Once I gave it what it wanted, the wolf made me smile with the bow of its head before it left.
After an hour of sitting and doing literally nothing, another wolf came up following the same routine, but this one was far more different the first one. He was intimidating, and the reason I'm saying he is because he reeked of dominance, and I wasn't even sure how that was possible. I wouldn't go near the silver-grey beast, nor did I want to trust it. It hadn't threatened me, but it had growled a couple times. What was I to do though; it was like the wolf was waiting for me to put my hand through the bars just to bite it off. I'm guessing he sensed my fear and stepped to the other side of the room to sit and wait for me to be brave enough to touch the bag.
After about five minutes of the waiting game, I grabbed the bag, pulled the food out, and tossed the bag back. It didn't take me long to know the routine, and the wolf seemed to let out a yelp of laughter, very wolfy I might add. I knew the bastard was now teasing me, he even watched me take a bite before descending back down the stairs.
It was then that I was beginning to feel like an animal. They had me on a meal schedule, they had me in a cage, and I ate when they said. Well either way, I was hungry, and I wasn't about to pass up any source of food. I just wish I was giving a bit of my dignity back rather than feeling humiliated.
Now this is where it was beginning to get interesting, well… so far in the day, and my boring morning, I was finally able to see some civilization as Emily came up with the massive black wolf not far behind. Now, other than the monster that carried me here, this wolf looked just as frightening and intimidating. His dark fur matched the night, his eyes just as dark too. His size was enough to fill the width of the stairway, and half the height. He canines showed in front, his hair stood erect down the spine, and his paws looked bigger than my hands.
I found the wolf to be very protective of Emily as he stepping front of her while she opened the gate. He knelt down a little; his head lowered as he let out a deep growl, calming down once Emily shuffled her hand on his head.
"It's okay Sam, he won't hurt me." She explained as she moved ahead of him.
I still stood against the wall and kept my distance, but once Emily grabbed my hand, I felt some sort of calmness take over too. I followed her as the wolf, Sam, continued to keep his eyes one me. I wasn't exactly sure where we were going, or what we were doing, I was just glad to get a bit of freedom. Never had I known till now just how lucky I was to walk around freely. Man, I seriously wouldn't last in prison.
Walking throughout the massive mansion, it reminded me of the typical ones in the movies. Pillars that traced the hallways, dusty red-velvet drapes hung over the windows and walls, gold painted edges, ancient furniture that looked as if it would break once you touched it. The ceiling was rounded with arches, the walls white, but looked as if they hadn't been washed in years. Spider webs were even growing between the abandoned spots of the building. One thing I noticed were the pictures, or the lack thereof, the walls were bare.
We passed through the living area, which looked like it hasn't even been sat in for years. The fireplace even looked unused. The walls were dark, the curtains were collecting dust and webs, the place was disgusting. The worst part of it was that I think Emily was picking up on my judging habits and began apologizing for the mess.
"The alpha sees no use to keep this place tidy." She defended.
I shrugged my shoulders and followed her as we came to the dining aread. Once again, this place looked abandoned. The table had a couple layers of dust, the curtains were falling of the rods, chairs were stacked in the corner, and the fake flower centerpiece looked as brown as the table. The entire place just looked tragic, abandoned and just disgusting.
Ignoring my inner rants, we arrived in what looked like the kitchen, obviously. Leah was tossing another block into the wood stove; on top was a pot boiling food that smelled delicious. A couple other old grills sat on the other side, a walk-in cooler in the corner, a table near the exit on the far right corner, and a table in center where Leah and Emily began cutting the vegetables. Above them was a rack that hung most the pots, pans and bigger utensils. It reminded me of the school cafeteria back in Forks, just more ancient.
To be… kind, I picked up the knife and joined them in the food preparations. Then was the awkward silence. Emily smiled, Leah smirked, but what really bothered me was that Sam, the wolf, sat at the side of the door like a guard dog. Whatever questions I had, or whatever conversation I was about to spark with the ladies, seemed limited. I didn't want to offend anyone, especially since the wolf could probably tear me to pieces in seconds. So I remained silent until Leah finally spoke up.
"Did you still have questions?" She stated the obvious.
"Yeah," I muttered.
"Well…" she smirked, "shoot."
"Well, umm…" I stalled, "how… when…why… ugh, sorry, I did have questions."
"Well what comes to mind?" She asked.
"How long am I here for?" I asked quickly.
"That we don't know." She dropped her gaze to the celery she was cutting, "you see, it's not up to us, we could let you go, let you free, but you'd end up back here."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Why don't you ask me the main question?" She said almost sounding annoyed.
"Why are you here? How did you get here?" I asked.
"A curse, plain and simple." She stated, "we were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we ended up being forced to be here for the rest of our existence with no knowledge of how to free ourselves. So this is why I say I'm not sure how you could get out."
"Then why'd you offer to lead me to the gate?" I asked bluntly.
"Because I had hopes for you kid." She replied. "You see," she adjusted herself on the stool. "No one has ever found this place, so imagine the surprise to us when I saw you enter the gates. I figured, since you found the place, you might find a way back to let everyone know that were here, and hopefully someone could get us out of here."
"It was actually a little hard for me to find this place," I admitted, "I hadn't a clue where I was when I woke up yesterday morning, and there was no sign of how I got there. No roads but the one leading here. It seems like this place is hidden for a reason."
"I was afraid of that." Leah sighed in disappointment. "We've all tried to find a way out of here, but every time we ran in the opposite direction from here, it seemed like we looped back because we would always end up back here. It's frustrating."
I was speechless. Every hope I had to get out of here, was diminished the moment she said they always ended up back here. What hope did I have?
"Why were you all cursed?"
"It's a long story really." Leah continued, Emily remaining silent the entire time. "It was the time when our people were becoming ill, and most were dying. A doctor came up with a solution to try and stop it from spreading. Little did we all know, a creature so pale fed off of the blood of humans, and looked human. The doctor called them vampires, but we knew them as the cold ones. They feed off of a human's blood, and what better way for them not to kill innocence then to give them our ill people."
I kept thinking of the Cullens as she spoke. Even though they feed off of animals, I still found it wrong in some way. Maybe it was just my resentment towards Emmett, either way, I wondered if they were around during these times. Did they feed off of humans at this time to survive, how many people have they actually killed?
"The yellow slip order came into effect." Leah continued, "anyone handed the slip, was disposed of, or so they called it. Basically, this yellow gave any vampire the rights to kill the humans. Of course this hadn't settled well with our people, and one incident triggered something we knew nothing of."
"A man and his wife were beginning their family, the wife had fallen sick, and it was assumed to be the disease finding it's way to her. She hadn't even showed any of the symptoms, but yet the doctor ordered the slip to be delivered to the girl. This upset the man, he wouldn't stand for it. In attempts to keep his wife safe, he waited for the vampire to make an appearance. He wasn't sure how he was going to fight of the inhuman creature, but that hadn't stopped him from trying. I guess the spirits were on his side, because that was the first known noted shift of the shape shifters. The man phased for the first time and killed the trespasser. His wife recuperated, and the pack began to build rapidly."
"After word had spread about wolves being capable of killing the cold ones, they went back into hiding, and the shape shifters became known as a myth. But in these times, where it became illegal for the dependence of vampires, I phased because they tried to do the same thing to my mom. And in the same time, it was discovered the doctor who implemented this in the first place, actually became deathly ill from the disease. So imagine the infuriation once Jake heard that the doctor was changed into a cold one to avoid death, he cheated death because he was a coward."
"We gathered the pack and came here to… punish the doctor. He needed to know that he was being unfair. Little did we know that his wife had practiced magic? Emily and I had found her hiding, and I honestly didn't feel it was necessary to get rid of her too, but Jacob thought different. It was under his order to get rid of her too, but before we could, she placed a spell on us and those in the mansion before she collapsed to her death."
The sun will rise and fall as well as the moon,
You will remain in this form until you are rescued.
In time, and only in such the spell can be broken,
But only by one that can hear your voice, one with words of truth that can be spoken.
"See this is where I'm stumped on exactly why Emily and I can still shift into our human forms, maybe she felt pity for us or something, but it still remains a mystery to why we're able to be human when none of the guys can. It doesn't make sense." She said frustrated.
"Well has there been any books or archives that explain this, she must have kept some sort of journal on her practicing magic?" I asked.
"I don't know." She replied, "there is a library, but the only one who knows how read, well kind of, is Collin, one of the pups. And he rarely comes out when Jacob is around."
"Jacob?"
"Our alpha, the one who carried you here." Emily finally spoke.
"Why does he look different than you guys?" I asked confused.
"Jacob has always been the angry type, and I can only think its because he is probably the source of the spell. I believe he's the reason why this all happened."
Just as Leah said it, Sam growled and walked away. It did make me jump a little, but I can guess that he was upset over the conversation, or maybe him and Leah just didn't get along.
"Sam doesn't like it when we blame Jacob." Emily explained, "they've been friends even before we phased. Sam sees it as Jacob defending our people, and so do we, but we can't help but be upset that we're stuck here too."
She did have a point I guess. And from what I could tell already, Jacob didn't like me. If he was the monster that carried me here, then it was definite that he didn't like me, shit, he practically broke me in half when he threw me against the brick wall. What the hell did I do to deserve the treatment? I already hated the alpha, and I hadn't even been fully acquainted with him.
"Where is Jacob?"
"He's in the east tower, he stays there until night fall." Emily said.
After the conversation, I found that the ladies usually did the daily preparations for the packs food. They may have been animals, but they still liked their meals cooked. The pups, Brady and Collin enjoyed their vegetables just as much as Emily and Leah, but the others preferred the deer or caribou. So that was the reason Jacob, Sam, Paul, Jared, Quil, Embry and Leah were out during the night, it was there job to hunt for the next day. This was there everyday routine and every night.
I offered to read up on the books or any notes taken, that's if they could find any. The only way that this was possible for now was that Emily would bring what she could tonight while everyone else was out. I knew I had to find someway for all of us to get out of here, I had to get back to save my dad, and find a way to get out of Emmett's demands.
After the dinner was prepared, I was brought back to the tower before Jacob arrived. Apparently my presence wasn't welcomed, and it took a lot of arguing with Leah and Jacob to even let me out during the day. Jacob wanted nothing to do with me, and I wanted nothing to do with him either, so it was okay with me.
Emily, as polite as she was, packed the sack with fruit and another bottle of water. She felt bad for degrading me to a puppy dish, and she felt I deserved better. She was actually a kind woman, and when I asked her about the scar on her face, she explained that it was from the first time that she discovered that Sam was a wolf. She defended the wolf by saying he didn't mean it, and he continues to apologize till this day for it. Apparently the two were madly in love and planned to spend the rest of their lives with each other once they got out of here.
Sitting in the tower and finishing my dinner, Emily kept to her promise and brought two books before departing as quickly as possible. The first book was just a novel, a love story about a girl falling for the guy, the guy doing here wrong, making it up to her, and them living a happily ever after, just the typical love story that never really existed in reality. The second was written in a neat scripture, and I thought I had something, until I realized that it was a manuscript for another novel of a girl falling for a guy that was a vampire. I kept thinking that it had to be the wife's, and this might have been her story.
As I read it, she was madly in love with the man, and they set to start a life with each other, but found that it was ended when the man became sick. He was turned under request to save his life, and the woman sworn to stay by his side and one day hoped to follow in his footsteps. I figured it was based on their love life, but no details were given that she was a witch, a sorcerous; she was just a regular girl that loved a man she was afraid to lose.
I was hoping it would bring use, but it was just a bunch of scribbled notes on the characters, their families, and the fear of losing someone she loved dearly. As much as I tried to decipher exactly what it meant, I ended up nowhere. It was unfinished, and the last line said 'The beautiful young woman just needed to wait for the love of her life to wake up…'
I hadn't realized that dawn was approaching until the room became brighter. The candle lit above was now dying out, and I heard footsteps approach. It sounded like the wolves were returning. I could hear the clicking of their claws coming up the stairs, and yelps here and there. That was until I heard the distinctive voices of Emily and Leah approaching.
"It's exhausting breaking those two apart." That was Emily.
"Well Paul and Jared have always been that way, they're best friends that disagree with a lot of things." That was Leah.
It was strange after that. A dead silence filled the room, then they appeared at the top of the stairs, Leah was pulling her shirt down while Emily was braiding her hair again. I stared at them puzzled, thinking that I must have been hallucinating, or there were other wolves with them. I looked past them to see if there were others, but it was just them.
"You look like you seen a ghost." Leah teased.
"Umm…" I muttered, "Where are the rest?"
"They're still out," Leah said as she unlocked the gate, "Paul and Jared have to bring in the last of the kills."
"You might be able to meet the rest of the wolves today." Emily said almost to gleefully, "most of them are still amused by you."
"Why?"
"Because you're the first human other than us that we've seen in a long time," Emily replied, "they practically forgot how they looked, so I think it does them good to know that you might be a hope for this to all end."
"Why do they think I can help?"
"The same reasons we gave you," Leah smirked, "you are either clumsy and full of dumb luck, or you just might be here for a reason."
"Okay, I resent that." I said defensively, "I may be clumsy, but I'm not lucky."
"She said dumb luck." Emily giggled.
I shrugged and followed them downstairs, hoping that I wouldn't be bothered by the pack. I wasn't looking forward to the meet with the silver-grey wolf or the black one, so I was on the edge as I followed them.
"What is Jared and Paul's history? Do you always fight as often as you said."
"Well Jared and Paul have always had that type of friendship," Emily said, "they've never had the privileges of having any relations with a girl, it's always been just them…"
"Emily…" Leah scolded.
"What?" We stopped on the stairway as Emily stared at Leah dumbly, "did I say something wrong?"
"No…" Leah now stared at me, "it's just… you remember that we said that when we were coming up the stairs…"
"And…" She looked at her puzzled, I looked confused now.
"Did you hear what we said?" Leah now asked me, I nodded.
"Whats the problem Leah?" Emily asked.
"It's just… when we said it…" she still stared at me, "… we were in our wolf forms."
"So…" Emily hadn't clued in, but I had. Until she gasped like she had an epiphany. "Wait? You heard us?"
"I guess." I shrugged.
"That means… you can hear our thoughts like we can hear each other's," Leah rambled on. "Telepathically."
"Does that mean anything?" I asked.
"It should."
A/N: I'm going to leave it at that; I don't want to give too much away. Can't really say that I have. The meet between Seth and Jacob will be soon, but I don't want to end up rushing this, the bond will still need to build, and I'm hoping to give everyone their background stories. I want to say as well, the conversations with Leah and Emily may sound modern, and I am aware of that. Truth is, if I do go back to study which words actually existed, it would take me forever with my posts. So I hope you understand that I prefer to move forward with the story. This is why I hadn't included the year to which the spell was enforced.
If anyone has any ideas to add, I'm open to it. If you happen to come with ideas of why Leah and Emily can still phase, let me know, or if there are just any additions you might have, I might consider them.
Big shout outs to the ones who reviewed rAbiDmutt03, sammypants, WolfPacFaan, alykat14, lette2001, Romancegeek13, Guest, SoundShield11, Hank's Lady, and Michonyx. I appreciate all of your input, it helps me continue. Also, thanks to the ones who favorited and alerted, it just grows everyday.
Much Love,
TurnItUp03
