Your reviews are all so so sweet! There are also a few of you who have been reviewing consistently since the beginning - so much love for you especially. Also, before you start the chapter, I just wanted to clarify that I'm not necessarily a Bella hater - but please do remember that Leah hates her guts.

Also, as a reminder, the timeline of this story follows canon events from Eclipse through the beginning of Breaking Dawn - I won't be fully re-writing every scene from Leah's perspective, but you will see enough for the sake of continuity.


NINE

My first thought the next morning was that it was hot. Hot, hot, hot.

And sweaty. I twisted around in the slick, hot cage I found myself trapped in, and opened my eyes halfway to face a bare chest.

A hard, sweaty chest that belonged to none other than Jacob Black.

My eyes flew open as I fully registered the thought, and I struggled shove him away. He, of course, made this quite difficult by promptly tightening his arms around me at my first effort of escape.

"Jake!" I resisted the urge to yell, lest my mother or Seth burst in to find us in such a compromising position. I managed to pull my arm back far enough to smack him in the chest, startling him awake.

"Wha…?" he looked around the room in a daze, before finally resting his eyes on me. "Oh," he said quietly, observing the positions of our naked bodies, tangled on my bed.

I blushed a deep crimson at his reaction, and used his momentary distraction as a chance to wrench myself out of his pseudo embrace.

He slid out of the bed after me and pulled on his cut offs hastily before making his way over to the window, all without looking at me. It was only when he had one leg slung out the window that our eyes met. His were swimming with so many emotions that I longed to confront but felt myself shying away from nonetheless.

"Just go, Jake," I finally said quietly. After a moment's hesitation, he was gone.


I shouldn't have been surprised when he brought her to the bonfire later that night, but I was anyway.

Bella. Bellllaaaa. I rolled the name around in my mind, feeling more disgusted the longer I did so. It meant pretty in...Spanish? Italian? Both? Yet the longer I looked at her, the plainer she seemed.

She was skinny - too skinny. The simple jeans and a t-shirt combo she wore were almost too big on her, barely clinging to her barely-there curves as she made her way to the fire, looking painfully uncoordinated next to Jacob's wolf-like grace. I frowned the longer I looked at her, taking in her too-thin nose and slightly over-large lips contrasted against the look of adoration that was permanently on Jacob's face when he was in her presence.

It was also a look that her leech had probably been trained to give her as well.

Why this seemingly insignificant and simply plain girl got this much attention I would never understand. Yet somehow I couldn't tear my eyes from her as they moved to sit, something I didn't wish to identify bubbling in the pit of my stomach.

My trance was broken when Jacob strayed closer to grab food, pausing for a moment as he caught my eye before quickly turning back to the food. It had been brief, but I scanned the faces gathered around the fire to ensure that no one was paying attention to us nonetheless. His skin glowed in the light of the fire, enhancing his already beautiful features. His muscles ripped as he bent over preparing the food. I felt myself itching to trace the strong line of his jaw and - I stopped my thoughts in their tracks.

A part of me wanted to stalk over and grab the bitch by her hair, whispering about how this man that she was currently hanging onto, fawning over him despite her insistence that she had a leech boyfriend, had been inside me last night. I longed to see the shock on her face, on everyone's faces, when I did it. What would be the consequences? Would there even be consequences? I shook my head free of the thoughts, knowing I couldn't do that, especially not with my mother and brother right there.

Instead, I looked around at everyone, all absorbed in their individual banter, my eyes finally resting on Sam and Emily cuddling across the fire. He kissed her forehead sweetly as she leaned against him, undoubtedly whispering sweet nothings to her as he drew back. One of his hands fluttered over her scarred face, a twinge of pain flashing across his features. He settled into a smile as she looked up at him, ensuring that she saw no trace of his pain.

I shivered at the loving exchange letting my eyes flick back to Jacob and her once more before I trained my stare towards the fire instead.

Now, knowing everything that had transpired and that had lead to this messed up situation we had been forced to accept as reality, I was disgusted by all that I had thought and felt in the past. Why, then, was I letting this sudden wave of jealousy overwhelm me so completely? I'd already been down this path, and it was ugly.

The flames rippled and crackled, the waves of heat they gave off blurring the world around me. I let the mesmerizing patterns they threw draw me into another place, the banter of the pack and council fading into the background.

The vibe settled into a din as quickly as it had begun, and all attention gravitated toward the four elders among us. I let my eyes flutter shut as the stories began, intent on purging all but the history that had brought us here, to this moment, that they began to unfold before us.

Throughout the story of our history, I remained frozen in my spot, lost in the troubled history of our pack. Death and pain had followed each generation like a plague for centuries, with no end in sight. Fathers, their children, their children's' children…

And women. Wives, mothers. And then myself. I was neither - each woman in the story served some higher purpose, held a place in it all…

I was regarded with cool disdain by the women on the reservation, who whispered tales of my pathetic fawning over the man I had lost to another. The rumors had gained vicious momentum once I had joined the pack and began openly following Sam around "like a lost puppy". Questions of who - and what - I was had plagued me since the day I first phased, leaving me in a constant struggle with questions that had no answers.

I vaguely registered Old Quil's final words about the burden we had been forced to carry for generations. Burden. A word that was neither strange nor foreign to me. My destiny, I supposed. A burden on my family, the pack, the tribe… an unexpected and unwanted twist in our already over complicated history. A traitorous tear slipped from one of my still-closed eyes, and I wiped it away hurriedly, unwilling to let them see the weakness that had bubbled forth throughout the course of the bonfire.

I sat like this for some time until I felt my mother hovering behind me a moment before she rested a hand on my shoulder. "Leah?"

I exhaled deeply before looking up at her. "Yeah?" I said evenly, hoping she could not hear or feel anything that was bubbling beneath the surface.

"I'm going to head back," she looked over at Seth and a few other pack members laughing in the distance. "Are you ready?"

"Not quite," I reached up and squeezed the hand that rested on my shoulder. "I'm going to take a little walk."

She smiled and went over to join Billy Black, who I had noticed waiting in the shadows. He nodded at me and I gave him a small smile before I went off.

I wandered along the beach for some hours after, allowing the methodical crashing of waves on the shore to lull me into a sort of meditation. The night was still and silent, the beach devoid of any form of human life. I could taste impending rain, and it started to fall slowly soon after the thought crossed my mind.

I turned my leisurely walk towards my home, ignoring the wetness as the rain fell heavier, soaking through the thin shirt and shorts I wore. It was well after midnight when I finally crept silently into my home and made my way upstairs towards my room.

I smelled him before I even reached the doorknob.

"What do you want, Jacob?" I started once the door was securely shut behind me. "Why are you here again? Why did you bring her? Why would you do that after-"

The look on his face, however, stopped me short. Tortured was the best word I could think of to describe him in that moment.

He, too, was soaked through, his hands hanging limply at his sides where he sat on my floor. I couldn't tell if both tears and rain dripped from his face, but it didn't matter in that moment. Abandoning my annoyance, I crossed the room swiftly and slipped a hand under his chin, pulling him to look up at me.

"Jake," I whispered quietly. He raised his chin, but his eyes remained downcast. "Jake, please." She had broken his heart yet again, and anger and sadness warred within me as I took in just how easily she was able to break him.

In a moment of sheer stupidity or desperation - I couldn't quite decide - I wrapped my arms around him tightly. We sat quietly for some time, his body limp and unresponsive under mine.

Eventually, one of his hands slid up under my shirt to clutch at my back, pulling me closer. I shivered slightly at the feel of his hand on my skin, but let him pull me closer nonetheless, sliding my arms up until they were slung around his neck. He crushed me closer still, burying his face in my neck.

It was a long while later when he finally pulled back and looked into my eyes. In them was a pain that only someone who had experienced true heartbreak could bear, a weight that only one who had truly experienced love and loss could see. Becoming a wolf had aged Jacob Black into a man not only physically, but emotionally as well.

"Oh," I managed to let out before his lips crushed mine in a desperate, searing kiss. How had I ended up here, again, less than a day later? He pressed harder into to me, as if he was ridding himself of his pain. I accepted it eagerly, yearning only for his touch, even if this was how it would be given.

When he pulled back to slip my shirt over my head, I tried to speak through my hazy thoughts. "Jake, wait-"

This time, he pulled back and looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to continue.

I looked up at him, letting my eyes scan his body slowly, then following with my hands. He shivered under my touch, and I was intoxicated by it, by him. This time, it was me pulling him back into a kiss, because I could not deny that I craved this just as much as he did.

He moaned his approval at my touch, and in one fluid movement, scooped me up with one arm carried me gently towards the bed, laying me down before covering my body with his own.