There was a lot that came pretty naturally just because you were a werewolf—you knew how to run, how to jump, how to bite a vampire's arm off. There was also a lot of stuff you had to learn. Luckily for my pack, we all had Sam. God knows how he'd figured it out by himself, the only werewolf in the continental US for probably more than a year. But when we'd turned he was ready, teaching us werewolf strategy, tactics, telling us what was and was not a stupid thing to do.
One thing he had spent a lot of time telling us about was overwhelming numbers. "We are not in the business of getting ourselves killed," he had told us. "That is not our job. We are not going to be stupid, we are not going to be impulsive. We are not going to get ourselves killed."
At the Battle of Little Bighorn, there were roughly 1800 Native American warriors to Custer's 600—roughly three to one odds. At the Alamo, it was 2,400 Mexicans to 200 Texans—twelve to one. We were not supposed to do that. We were not supposed to be the Alamo.
Four to one would have been okay odds if it had been me against four vampires—it wouldn't have been good odds, in fact Sam might have disapproved. But I would have been able to at least get out of there alive—werewolves were vampires' natural kryptonite, teeth that could punch straight through them. Four werewolves to one werewolf, though—that was not so good.
"Hey guys," I said warily, keeping my arms stretched out in front of Tanya, boxing out, mantling. "We need to talk."
But of course we couldn't. They were wolves and I was human. They weren't going to go back human anytime soon, and if I went wolf right here, without warning, Tanya was going to bolt. How was this going to work?
Mostly, at this point, I was just trying to keep an eye on Psycho Luke. I recognized Caleb, and I knew he was in charge of the rest of them, and I knew he could keep control of exactly all of them except Luke.
Case in point: as I turned to Tanya to try to convince her that I was not, actually, setting her up, that I was trying to protect her—well, I suddenly had to prove it. The rest of the pack was holding their places in the circle, half-crouched but waiting for direction—I could almost see the thoughts flying between them in the air, and God I wished I knew what they were saying. This must look pretty bad, I knew—but they were all waiting for orders. All of them but Luke, who showed extreme self-control by waiting for a whole fifteen seconds, and then jumping me.
First priority was Tanya—I went from turned partway to her to all the way and I grabbed her and wrapped my arms around her. She was busy yelling at me, she didn't expect it, so she let me get my arms around her and shove her out of the way, quick enough and far enough that Luke went right past us, hitting ground and scrabbling to get his feet back and come back at us.
She was past the shocked stage, struggling to get away from me and doing a damn good job, prying herself out of my grip with a snarl and spinning to find herself face-to-face with Luke, charging straight at her. I sighed and tackled her again just as Luke jumped for her, landing both of us face-first in the snow and Luke missing us by inches. The others were finally starting to react, though, and they circled around Luke as he landed this time. They knew we were a threat, but Luke was a threat too. I mean, Paul had nothing on this guy. How could they even afford to keep him around, if he was honestly this much trouble?
He did cause a pretty good distraction, though, and this time I wasn't the one to take advantage of it. Tanya was on her feet almost instantly, and to my surprise she was reaching back for me and dragging me up, pulling me through the temporary gap and into the woods.
"What are you—"
"Come on," she said, not letting go of my arm. "I'm not going to wait for you."
"But why—"
"Shut up," she said. "They're coming. We need to run."
And so we ran. She wasn't pulling away, so I kept hanging onto her, barely keeping up. I was sure she was slowing herself down for me, at least a little. I could keep up with a vampire when I was a wolf, but not like this. I was fast but I was human. I was sure that the wolves were going to be on us any second. But she seemed to know these woods she kept finding strange cuts and double-backs, so maybe—maybe we weren't dead?
By the time we reached the glacier I couldn't smell them anymore. I hadn't seen a sign of them since we'd broken free, and I could hear them, couldn't smell them. Somehow, we had gotten away.
Tanya was still running, going straight up the side of the glacier like she'd done it a million times. She was kicking footholds in the ice somehow, driving her feet into the glacier, but I couldn't work out how she was doing it and certainly not having much success with it myself. I took about ten steps and then slipped, breaking my hold with her as I slid away and she stayed put.
I slammed into the side of the mountain, not sliding anymore, at least—I braced my feet against the rock and started thinking about how to maybe get back up. There was a crunch of ice near my head, and Tanya was standing next to me, holding out a hand to help me up.
I eyed the hand uncertainly—she had beautiful hands, long fingers like you might see on a piano player—but I still wasn't sure whether they were going to end up around my neck. "What happened to 'leave me alone, I hate you'?" I asked, staying where I was.
She reached down and grabbed me anyway, pulling me upright. "Kick into the ice as you run," she told me, walking away. "Use your momentum to make your steps land a little harder, that's all there is to it."
"Hey," I said, chasing after her. "Hey, Tanya. Wait." I wasn't sure where we were going or why, but I knew that she was going over the glacier—therefore I was going over the glacier, too.
"What's your name again?"
"Embry."
"Embry," she said. At least she didn't make some sort of a comment about my name —usually people did. She didn't raise her eyebrows or laugh, though, and I loved her for it. "So. Why did you save me, Embry?"
Aha. The real question. "I told you why."
"You said you loved me," she repeated. "I didn't believe you."
"Do you believe me now?"
She turned back and gave me a look like she just wasn't sure of anything and least of all me. "You're a werewolf."
"Yes," I agreed. "And you're a vampire. Believe me, it's not exactly how I imagined falling in love."
"So sorry to disappoint," she said, stalking away.
Oh crap. I'd offended her again. This love thing was hard—even wanting her to be happy with my whole soul, my every single thought, I was still managing to make her unhappy on a fairly regular basis.
"Hey, I didn't mean—"
"I'm not in love with you, you know."
"What?"
"I'm not in love with you."
"Yeah, I—figured that one out," I said. It was actually pretty confusing. I mean, every other person I'd ever seen who had imprinted had been loved right back. I guess no one ever said that was a given—it was probably just more that it was hard to resist that kind of selfless, overwhelming love. Everyone wants to be loved, and not everybody gets it this good. Tanya, of course, seemed to be a special case. "It's okay."
"What do you mean it's okay?"
"Well, it sucks," I said honestly, "but I guess it doesn't change my mind. I'm still going to love you, and I've never had anyone be in love with me, so I guess I don't know the difference."
"I should want to kill you," she informed me matter-of-factly. "I do want to kill you. I want to kill you right now, I hope you know that."
"Yeah," I said. "We're going to have to work on that."
"I have a better idea," she snapped. "Why don't you just leave me alone?"
"If you wanted me to leave you alone, then why did you pull me out of there?"
"Because I was pretty sure you were about to get torn to shreds," she said, "and you did save my life. Figured I should at least return the favor."
"I appreciate it." I really did. I had no interest in being torn to shreds. It was not part of the plan. Speaking of 'torn to shreds'—I couldn't go back to Paskiak now, now that I'd outed myself as vampire-loving traitor guy. I hoped Quil was okay. "Where are we going now?"
"My coven lives just over this glacier," she said, nodding to the steep rise of ice. "A little close to the reservation, I know, but in our defense, we were here first."
"You know," I said hopefully. "Back where I live, vampires and werewolves live in peace together?"
"Oh my God, where do you live?" she said dryly. "Shangri-la?"
"La Push, Washington," I corrected.
"That's not natural," she asserted. "We are meant to be enemies."
"We are meant to be enemies. Kind of makes me wonder what's up with the glacier tour, Tanya."
I recognized that voice. I looked up on the ridge of the glacier and saw Rosalie, arms crossed, looking like anextension of the glacier. Carved statue made of ice, radiating cold. "Rosalie."
"Rose," Tanya said in relief, running up to her. "Rosalie, I am so glad to see you. I have had the weirdest day."
"Just coming to find you," she said tautly, her eyes still on me. "Come on. I'll make you hot chocolate or something."
As Tanya slid gratefully over the edge, I followed her—again, I'm really not trying to be a stalker. It's just that I was tired and wasn't thinking about it—I mean, I'd been following her for a good twenty minutes now, I just kept following her on autopilot. As I passed Rosalie, though, she took care of that, putting a hand on my chest and shoving me away. I slid backward on the ice, barely keeping my feet.
"Hey!" I protested, trying to catch my balance.
"This is a vampire coven," she said firmly. "You are not invited."
"That's fine," I said. "I don't want to have a slumber party or anything. I just need to talk to her. I need to ask her if I can see her again, if I—"
"Embry," she said, her voice close to a snarl, her eyes lit up like firepoker coals. "You need to stay away from Tanya."
