Chapter 10: Conversations With Wolves

Embry's POV

As we stood at the top of the staircase, looking down on all our friends and family below us in the Uley living room, I could feel Leah's apprehension.

I had heard at some point that she had finally been able to make some progress in Seattle – finally begun to heal the repeatedly scabbed-over-then-reopened wounds she had walked around with for several years before getting out of La Push. Would any progress she had made ultimately be for naught?

I turned my head to give her what I hoped would come out as a look of reassurance. Obviously I couldn't see what it actually looked like as it crossed my face, but her eyes seemed to be laughing at me so I assume I both failed miserably in my efforts to reassure and yet succeeded in lifting her spirits – if only to amuse her for a brief moment, allowing her to temporarily forget what was about to happen.

As we turned back to the room below us, the whole crowd began to notice our appearance. I heard two very angry growls coming from their ranks and emanating from two very different, almost totally opposite people.

Both Seth and Sam looked like we had just slapped their mothers, after having just called the women whores.

Actually, saying 'we' is a bit misleading – their glares were reserved solely for me, as they both stood fuming and clearly just barely managing to keep themselves from charging up the stairs to maul me. They hardly spared Leah a second glance.

We slowly descended the stairs, side by side, and stopped at the bottom to face the room at large. The expressions we were receiving varied greatly from one person to the next.

Like I said, Seth and Sam both looked furious – though just at me.

Paul looked… disgusted, maybe?

Emily looked ecstatic – though that was hardly an unusual expression for the easily-excitable woman. But Sue Clearwater's face wasn't far off from that of her neice.

Quil seemed to be somewhere between puzzled and contemplative.

Everyone else looked to be at varying levels of confusion.

Neither of us knew what to say, or how to begin. Leah and I both just stood there silently, each hoping for the other – or perhaps someone else in the room – to start what was sure to be an awkward and uncomfortable conversation for all.

Sam spoke first, barely able to contain the rage in his voice.

"So… care to tell us exactly what it is that's been going on between you two and for how long?"

He was so angry he began to shake – in the preliminary stages of an uncontrolled, accidental phase – until Emily laid a hand on his arm, immediately calming him down enough to stop the tremors.

I could tell Leah was too paralyzed by Sam's anger to speak so I rallied all the nerve I had in order to respond.

Screw any plans I might have had for the direction of this conversation! Who the hell did he think he was to speak to either of us like a father scolding misbehaving children that had just been returned home in the back of a police cruiser?

"Well, what time is it?" I inquired calmly, if a bit sarcastically.

After checking the clock on the mantle, I continued, "Hmm, three-thirty? Then I guess this," I nodded my head in Leah's direction, "Has been 'going on' – as you put it – for oh… about an hour and a half now."

Sam just scoffed at what had in actuality been the truth (not that he was able to determine this from inside the haze of fury that no doubt thickly clouded his brain's higher reasoning faculties) and pushed, "Sure, okay. And what the hell is it exactly that you think you're doing?"

I looked at Leah before saying anything further, not wanting to offer any information she really didn't want me to give out – to her ex, of all people. But one look at her face told me that she was just as pissed at his nerve as I was and didn't care what I said, so long as it knocked Sam off his oh-so-high goddamned horse.

I could definitely tell she was thinking along the exact same lines I was. I think she and I both realized then that nothing we made up could ever decimate Sam's current righteousness quite like a little more of the truth. She just nodded for me to continue, to just go ahead and tell him.

Turning a steady gaze back on my half-brother, I took three deep, calming breaths before – with one eyebrow raised, to express the contempt I was now feeling – I coolly gave answer to the question they had all desperately wanted someone to ask…

"We're not doing anything, Sam," I paused here, still wrangling the last of the courage I'd need to finish.

"Not that it's any of your business, but what we did… was imprint," absolute silence.

"On each other," Leah clarified, finishing for me.

This was apparently the wrong thing to say.

The whole room exploded in a barrage of questions, speculation, and a range of varied well-articulated emotions.

Sam's was the first voice to be heard clearly above the chaos and only then because of the commanding, even quality of his voice as he spoke – his words ringing with the authority of an Alpha-tone. The commotion throughout the room stilled and quieted in nearly an instant, every wolf – except for those of us in Jake's small pack – finding their attention snapped forcibly to focus on their Alpha.

Fucking dictator! I caught Leah's stray thought and, thankfully, just barely managed to suppress an inopportune smile that almost snuck out.

You said it, sister! I thought this back in her 'direction' as loudly as I could – still not quite sure how this whole new connection thing worked between us, but hoping nonetheless that my whole-hearted agreement would somehow make its way into her head.

She must have heard me because I saw her 'accidentally' let a little chuckle slip past her lips before she quickly regained composure and schooled her features back into a mask of disdain.

The brief flash of amusement from Leah apparently confirmed to Sam that we were screwing with him. When he finally addressed us, in front of our now-silent audience of indentured spectators, the tone of his words had escalated from that of resentful rage to a fury so cold that it bordered on outright hatred.

"Right. The two of you have imprinted… Sure," at first he almost sounded amused, but the malicious glint in his eye told them otherwise.

"Just how stupid do you two think I am…think that we all are?" he corrected himself, to presumptuously include everyone before continuing.

"Couldn't even drum up the dignity to put any effort at all into your lies? You at least could have chosen an excuse that we wouldn't have all immediately known to be impossible. You've imprinted…right!" he finished with a venomous snort.

I don't think I've ever been so repulsed by the man standing five feet in front of me at the moment. My own brother – by blood even! – and I could hardly stand to even look at him right now. If you'd asked me at that exact second – in the heat of confrontation, tempers still flaring – I would have told you that I hated him, without even giving it a second thought.

In hind sight, I'm incredibly thankfully that I managed to keep my lips sealed on these thoughts during the hostilities. Not because I didn't, in fact, feel this way at the time or because I now think he didn't deserve my disgust at his behaviour, but because once everything dissipated I'm not sure Sam and I would ever have been able to salvage any of our relatively new bond as brothers. Had either of us actually voiced the loathing we were feeling in that instant, our unseasoned relationship as siblings would likely have gone no further than our fray that day, facing-off in the middle of his living room.

Biting my tongue with the realization that Sam wanted nothing more at the moment than for me to lose my temper and lash out at him like an upset, immature child – validating his condescending opinions – I chose instead to respond to his provocation in the most rational manner I was capable of affecting at the time.

"Apparently, it is not impossible since it just happened."

As it was, the bulk of my anger didn't stem so much from the fact that he didn't believe us. After all, it had never happened before and the idea of it was in reality so outlandish that it was almost ridiculous really. Hell – even Leah and I hadn't quite believed it ourselves, at first – and we actually experienced it first hand! Remember our earlier fit of hysterical laughter? Making a bit more sense now?

No, it wasn't the fact that he didn't believe me. What truly burned was the implication he had obviously intended to suggest by the way he expressed his disbelief. The intonation and delivery of his declarations had been spoken not as though to say 'two wolves imprinting on each other and after this many years is impossible', but instead so as to clearly mean 'everyone one knows that it's nearly impossible that you will ever experience an imprint, Embry – and absolutely so, in Leah's case'.

Honestly, I could easily have lived the rest of my unnaturally long life without ever imprinting and probably have been perfectly okay with that. What pissed me off was that Sam – who basically believed that imprinting was just so great that it should be some sort of ultimate life-goal for all of us – had just told us all that he fully expected neither Leah nor I to ever be "gifted" with an imprint, as though we were unworthy of such a reward.

Well, he can just fuck right off, now can't he? Just because he doesn't believe it, doesn't make it any less true!

"Whatever you think happened to you… I assure you, it didn't. Imprinting only happens the first time a wolf sees his imprint after he begins to phase," he condescendingly 'explained' as though everyone in the room didn't already know this stuff through-and-through.

"You two have seen each other, known each other, and even been in each others' minds for years," he continued, speaking slowly and clearly as if to a child.

When he seemed to have finished, everyone else's eyes immediately shot over towards Leah and I – looking for one of us to reply. Their back-and-forth manner of focusing as an entire group, was almost reminiscent of fans following a very heated, but very slow tennis match.

"Sam, I can't tell you why it appears to have been different for us than it was for the rest of you. But then again, Leah's one of a kind, isn't she now?" I pointed out, with a barely perceptible – but definitely smug – grin just for him.

Okay, so now I was just goading the already-roused Alpha. Sam said nothing in return, settling to merely glower at me for a bit instead.

It was at this point that Seth finally spoke up, uncharacteristically angry in addressing one of his very best friends and his beloved older sister.

"Are you sure?" he asked, somewhat wary of the answer.

"You're positive it's an imprint and not something else? Because if you have any doubt – either of you – any doubt whatsoever – "

"We're absolutely, one hundred and fifty percent positively sure baby bro," Leah interrupted him softly, finally reentering into the conversation.

Her confidence seemed to reassure Seth that I was not the Devil Incarnate, and assuage some of the aggressive body language he had been sending me.

"No, it just doesn't work that way! You imprint the first time you see her. It doesn't take you years to get around to it!" Sam declared, his voice now rising in volume.

"Besides, Leah can't have children, so she won't ever imprint," he concluded.

I won't deny it…I growled. I just couldn't stop myself.

I probably would have been nearly just as enraged this time last year – when Leah and I were nothing more than pack-mates and recent 'kinda-friends' – so with the urges of the imprint added to my fury, I was dangerous. How fucking dare he!?

Sam had just crossed so far over the line that I couldn't stop myself...

I hit him.

Right square in the centre of the face.

I felt and heard his nose crunch under my fist and then heard Emily scream as blood began to pore out of the broken facial feature in question.

Everyone else just stood idly by, most looking shocked – though I did happen to notice smirks on Seth, Quil, Jacob, and Sue Clearwater's faces.

As Emily ran into the kitchen – most likely to grab paper towels and some ice – Sam returned his attentions to me.

His nose had already stopped bleeding and was probably already half-healed - crooked, I could only hope.

"Okay, so you've gotten me back for earlier-" he began, but I interrupted him before he could finish.

"That had nothing to do with earlier and nothing to do with me. Talk about MY IMPRINT in that manner again – like there's something wrong with her, and it'll be a lot worse than just a broken nose and a little bit of blood next time. There is nothing wrong with her, and frankly, it would be none of your business even if there were."

Damn! Where the hell did that come from? Oh, yeah – imprinting…here we go. Joy!

"Besides," I followed up, a bit cooler now. "The imprinting-for-reproduction theory is just that...a theory. No one knows for sure why it happens. Not even you."

I made sure he could hear the anger in my voice and slowly moved closer to him in a threatening manner as I spoke. Idiot! How are we related again? Oh yeah, our philandering father…

"We don't have to prove anything to any of you. Like I said before – it's really none of your business."

With that, I moved to make my exit and headed in the direction of the front door. Before I made it across the room, Seth spoke up once again.

"I think it's fantastic!" Well, that was quite the turn around from the angry growling the kid had been doing earlier.

"I was angry because I thought you were just taking advantage of her and you'd only hurt her again someday, but if you both say that you're sure you've imprinted...then I believe it and I'm happy for you guys!"

The kid really was touchingly innocent. Others around the room, all the imprints and most of the other wolves, began to look like they agreed. Sam still looked like he was seeing red though.

Seth continued, "Why do you think it just happened now though? Like Sam said, there's never been a case of a wolf imprinting years after the first sight. So what do you think made it different this time, for you guys?"

"Uh… no idea, kid," was all I could offer.

Looking at Leah though, I got the distinct impression that she wasn't quite so clueless as the rest of us. Just what did she know? And why wasn't she sharing?

Author's Note: As always guys, reviews are greatly appreciated!