Emmett snickered when he saw us coming down the stairs, "Did you break anything?"
"Not everyone feels the need to destroy houses to prove themselves when they have sex," I replied.
Demetri laughed and Emmett's mouth opened and closed a few times.
"You know you chased off Bella, Edward, and Ness, right?" Emmett said finally.
"Good. She's a little young to know how she came into existence."
Rosalie's giggles echoed from somewhere overhead. "She's not Bella, Emmett. She'll probably give as good as she gets."
Emmett pouted before dashing up the stairs to be with his mate.
I settled into my usual spot on the couch, except my feet were now resting in Demetri's lap.
Haylla shifted and it felt like she was exploring my stomach near my navel, reaching her hand out, testing her surroundings. I pressed back as best I could, and she began following my movements in her own limited way.
Esme handed me a plate of scrambled eggs, with several slices of bacon, seasoned hash browns, and a bowl of blueberries along with a glass of what smelled like fresh squeezed orange juice. To this, Rosalie added a cup of blood.
"One nice thing about being pregnant is that I get five star service," I remarked as I dug into the fluffy eggs.
"You'd get five star service from me anyway," Esme said with a smile. "I've always enjoyed being in the kitchen, but have had no excuse to cook regularly until recently, so I've got decades of catching up to do."
The whole time I ate, I contemplated Esme. It still unnerved me how unvampirelike she was. From her soft features, so unlike the angular faces everyone else possessed, to her gentle voice that had the distinctive ring muted, she could have been the friendly teacher that all the children liked, or the foster mother no one wanted to leave. Maybe this was the real problem I'd had with her during Bella's pregnancy, that as much as I wanted to hate her for being what she was, she didn't fit the mold we'd all assigned vampires in our heads.
Once my plate was clean, I set it on the coffee table and leaned my head against the back of the couch. Haylla twisted and my hands moved to my stomach almost of their own accord, cradling my unborn baby.
Demetri pulled out a sketchbook from his back pocket and flipped through it. Finding an empty page, his pencil started to move across the paper. After a few minutes, his brows pulled together and he paused what he was doing for a moment to look at me out of the corner of his eye, then returned back to his work.
A beam of sunlight cut through the clouds, illuminating his face, giving him the appearance of an otherworldly creature. Beams of light refracted out from his skin, and for a moment, I forgot to breathe, I was so caught up in how beautiful he looked. Even with his red eyes, he looked like a being straight from mythology.
With the sun reflecting from him like so many prisms, I could understand why humans of ages past might think that vampires were gods. What else could they be with their shining skin, perfect features, and ringing tones, but beings from on high.
He caught me staring and his cheek went up like he was grinning. "What are you thinking about?"
"That demons aren't supposed to be so beautiful."
"And here I was thinking the same thing about a certain wolf girl."
"I'm not the one ancient humans would have thought was an angel. They'd take one look at me in my wolf form and scream, 'Monster.'"
"A fierce young woman who becomes a wolf to save her people? That could be a story from anywhere. If your people were smart, they would include you in their legends."
I snorted in disbelief. They couldn't even remember the Third Wife's name. Why the hell would they want to remember the freak wolf girl who got herself knocked up by a vampire?
"You'll see. One day, you'll live long enough to see yourself as you truly are."
Finally, cloud cover broke the spell and he was simply Demetri once more.
"What are you drawing?" I asked after about half an hour of watching him work in silence.
He flipped to the first page and turned it around so that I could see it. In the top corner was a pair of eyes, my eyes, as they must have looked the first time he saw me. Next to it, there were several bars of music. Beneath it, was what looked his hand pushing one of mine into the snow, our fingers links. That too was accompanied by music. In the bottom corner, there was a sketch of the side of my face, with snow in my hair. Another bit of music arched over this and to the side, he'd written something in an elegant script.
I tilted my head to read it. Her eyes could make armies fall to their knees, begging for mercy. In her hands, she could hold the fate of thousands. With snow as her only covering, how could she be anything other than a goddess?
"Is that whole book about me?" The fact that he'd called me a goddess during those weeks he was away from me sent a warm glow through me and I allowed myself a small smile.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"The first time I laid eyes on you, you captivated me in such a way, I wanted to try to capture it in music. However, any attempt to compose sounds muddled unless I draw beforehand because you overwhelm me. So, each sketch helps me focus on what I wish to convey." He gave an almost embarrassed smile as he spoke. "From the moment I left here three weeks ago, I used all my free time to try to make sense of how I felt, to understand why you entranced me so." He set the book on the coffee table and placed his pencil across it. Resting his arm across the back of the couch, he looked at me, his lips twisting into a playful smile. "For all my years, all my experience, I felt like how a schoolboy must feel when dealing with his first crush after meeting you and I responded accordingly."
"What else did you do besides write music?" I asked. I wanted to know just how the imprint had affected him. Even though I was happy now and he'd accepted the imprint, I needed to know that I hadn't been alone in my suffering those weeks I spent without him.
"I moped, dramatically."
"How the hell do you mope dramatically?" The first image that came to mind was of Demetri in a feathered nightgown lying on a fainting couch with a jar of smelling salts and I snickered at the thought. I'd clearly spent too much time watching black and white movies with my mother.
"Whatever it is you're imagining, I can assure you it was nothing like that." His eyes crinkled at the corners as if he could read my mind.
"What did you do?"
"I would go up to the roof at night and stare at the sky, thinking about how the stars looked like snow against your hair. During the day, when I wasn't doing whatever it is I was supposed to do or messing with that book, I would sit in front of the fire in my quarters and just stare at the flames, remembering how it felt to be in your arms." He grabbed my ankle and pulling on it making my lie down, then shifting me a little to the side so that he could stretch out beside me. Putting his arm under my head, he stared down at me, his scarlet eyes wide. "I'd given up hope centuries ago that I would ever find a mate, then I found one in the place I least expected it."
I reached up and traced his lower lip with the tip of my pointer finger.
"Now, I find that I am entirely, hopelessly, happily in love with you," he breathed as he pressed his lips against my cheeks, my forehead, the tip of my nose, before finally kissing my lips. It wasn't the kind of kiss that would go anywhere inappropriate considering our location, but it still left me breathless.
I leaned back, unable to keep the smile off my face as my heart squeezed in a sweet pain. "You already know how I feel." I cupped his chilled stone cheek in my hand. "Imprinting may have initiated this connection with you, but what I feel now, it's all mine."
Demetri placed his hand on my rounded stomach, "A month ago, lonely as I was, I thought I was complete in myself. But now, I have a mate and a baby on the way."
"You don't have to be alone like that ever again."
He lifted my hand to his face and kissed my palm while I curled my fingers around his jaw, tracing my thumb along the shape of the bone, marveling at the way we seemed to fit together. My muscled, yet feminine frame verses his hard, lean stone body, two opposites, coming together to make a perfect whole. Fire and ice, like those photographs I'd seen of volcanoes surrounded by snow, neither one of the other, yet somehow they blended together seamlessly.
This moment right here, this was perfection. There was no guilt, no shame in lying in his arms. I left no broken hearts behind me and I did not have to bow to his will if I didn't want to. We were both here because this was where we wanted to be. This was where we both belonged.
The other couch creaked as someone sat on the end closest to us and we both looked up. I was surprised to see Jasper sitting there, almost awkwardly.
"Sorry. It's difficult to resist a good emotional climate and the two of you, it's deeper, purer than anything I've ever felt from any couple before." He tugged his pants so that they were looser around his thigh. "It's like the way Alice feels for me."
"She knew she was destined for you, yes?" Demetri asked.
"Yes."
"But she allowed you to choose for yourself if she was who you wanted to be with."
"Yeah." Understanding washed over Jasper's face. "She loved me before she ever met me, like Leah, who felt this connection to you before she knew your name. And both of them let us take the path we wanted."
"Perhaps those who are brought together by destiny, but let the other person decide for themselves, are more content. Because though their souls match, they were allowed to walk away if they wanted to, but they chose to stay." He looked down at me at he spoke, then pressed a kiss to my cheek. "There is something intoxicating in knowing that you hold the keys to someone's happiness."
Alice danced into the room, holding a laptop under one arm. She curled up in Jasper's lap and opened it up. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin against the top of her head.
"All of you are so sweet, it's nauseating," Emmett remarked as he flipped on the TV. "I'd have thought that at least Demetri, being a bad ass Volturi warrior and all that, we'd get something else. But no, he's just like everyone else."
"We are all fools in love, Emmett," Demetri said, not sounding embarrassed at all by his apparently recent change in behavior.
Edward walked through the back door, followed by Ness.
"Jake'll be here soon," she said excitedly. "He's probably getting ready to leave right now."
Just then, the phone rang and Esme answered it.
"Leah, it's for you." She handed me the offending device and I stared at it for a moment. "It's your mother."
I swallowed sharply and sat up before I took the phone from her hand. "Hello?"
"Hi, Leah. I was wondering if it would be alright for me to come over with your pack?" She sounded so hesitant, so desperate, it made me worried. "It'll just be me. There are some things I need to say and they're best said face to face."
I thought about it for a moment. Jake wasn't likely to let her near me if he thought she was going to cause trouble. Besides, she was my mother and I did miss her. "Just you. None of the other Council members or anyone else."
"Alright." She let out a breath as though she'd been afraid I would reject her request. "They're leaving now so I'll be there in a bit."
"See you soon." I pressed the end button and handed the phone back to Esme.
My heart started racing and I squeezed my eyes shut. This was my mother. I shouldn't be scared of her, and yet I was. I was terrified that she would reject me when she learned how my life had changed in the last month. She'd chosen duty over me before. How could I expect anything less now?
"You're afraid," Demetri murmured as he knelt down in front of me.
"She may be my mother, but I don't know her like I thought I did before I got dragged into the madness," I whispered. My heart pounded as though it was about to beat out of my chest and I felt like I couldn't draw a full breath.
Demetri caught my hands in both of his, "I'll be right here in the room with you and I don't think your pack will go very far." He kissed my knuckles and brushed my hair out of my eyes. "One word from you and I carry her outside."
"Do you promise?"
Demetri grinned, "Cross my heart."
He stood up, preparing to move to the other couch, and I wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head against his stomach, holding him there for a little longer as he stroked my hair tenderly. I dug my fingers into his shirt, inhaling his scent, sandalwood and snow, deeply. The cold stone of his skin soothed my fraught nerves and I sighed.
"Leah, you don't have to do this." Demetri lowered himself so that his face was even with mine once more. He caught my chin in his hand, tracing the shape of my lower lip with his thumb.
"I can't keep running or hiding. I have to face them."
Rosalie entered the room and handed me another cup of 'fruit punch. "Do you want us to stay?"
I thought about it for a moment before replying, "I think I'd better do this with just Demetri around. More than one vampire might be a little much."
"Call us if you need anything," she said as she dragged Emmett towards the stairs, though she seemed unhappy about leaving me, and the other vampires disappeared. Ness stayed, waiting for Jake, but I knew she too would leave as soon as he arrived.
"I'll make sure her mother behaves," Demetri promised and Rosalie nodded. He remained in a crouch, one of my hands between both of his, tracing my veins over and over again.
Putting the straw between my lips, I chugged the cup Rosalie had brought me. I wasn't ashamed of having to drink blood for the sake of Demetri's baby, but I didn't want my mother asking questions before I was ready to answer them.
Demetri's lips tightened just a little as if he knew why I was drinking so fast, but he said nothing.
It seemed only a moment before I heard Jake's Rabbit pulling into the driveway. My heart skipped a beat and I swore that the temperature of the room dropped by a few degrees.
"Leah, one word from you and I tell her to leave." Of course he would notice my heartbeat. How could he not? It had been acting up from the moment I heard my mother say she wanted to see me.
I shook my head. My hands trembled, but I refused to give in to the fear. I needed to face this, to face my mother and possibly get answers to the questions I'd never dared to ask before. And maybe, if I was very lucky, we could start mending our relationship.
"So stubborn."
Car doors opened and shut, followed by a murmur of voices just too low for me to understand. I pulled the blanket higher as I leaned my back against the arm of the couch and drew my knees up as far as I could, making sure that my pregnancy was concealed. Though I was carrying a little smaller than Bella had apparently, due to my muscle mass in comparison to hers, my stomach was still noticeably no longer the washboard my mother knew it to be.
Demetri stood up, moving to the other couch as the front door opened, and my mother walked through.
"We'll be in the kitchen," Jake promised as he and the other members of my pack filed in behind her. Ness ran over to him and he swung her up onto his back.
Once everyone except for Demetri left the room, my mother stepped closer. She cast a nervous glance towards my imprint as she moved. He pretended to ignore us as he opened his book and began sketching lines on the paper.
"Are you-are you okay?" She looked at Demetri, then back to me.
"I'm fine. Better than fine really" I gestured to the cushion at my feet. "Take a seat; he won't bite."
Sue laughed shakily, but did as I said.
"What'd you want to talk about?"
She looked down at her hands for a long moment before lifting her wet eyes to mine and I stared in shock. My mother rarely cried, so whatever this was about, it had to be important.
"Your pack sat me down last night. What they had to say was difficult for me to hear, but I deserved it." She wrung her hands, then continued, "I failed you, Leah. The last two years have been nothing but me failing you, again and again."
I wasn't sure how to respond to that. Some part of me wanted to defend her, but the wounds on my soul silenced the loyal daughter. And a tiny part of me was petty enough to be happy that she was in pain over the harm she'd done to me.
"When Sam treated you the way he did, I should have acted on my anger. I should have kept him away from the house, no matter what, even if it was serious pack business, for doing what he did. Even though I knew why, I should have let you know that I had your back." She shook her head. "But I didn't. Instead, I excused it by telling myself one that there was never just one wolf, that with your bloodline, surely one of the other boys would imprint on you, then you would understand and everything would be okay."
Demetri whispered to softly for my mother's human ears to detect, "Make her grovel for that, my darling."
"How could you?" The words burst from me without my realizing they were even in my head, "Why didn't you? I was your daughter and as far as I knew, you took their side over mine! Yeah, sure imprinting is absolute, I know that now, but the way you and everyone who knew acted, it made me feel like what I wanted, what I needed wasn't important! That this stupid magic meant more to you than I did!" Haylla kicked hard in response to my yelling and I rubbed the side of my stomach trying to soothe her.
Demetri's pencil stilled as he prepared to stand, but I tilted my head to stop him.
"I know. Jake made sure I knew just how much that hurt you." She worried her lips between her teeth for a while, then she spoke again. "The worst failure wasn't that though. It was refusing to see that you were going through the same changes that the other wolves were going through, the exact same things and not doing what I could to prepare you for what was coming. But tradition said that only the boys turned, never the daughters. So I couldn't allow myself to put the pieces together."
"How could you have missed it? Because a girl going from five foot five to five foot ten in less than two months, after she's turned nineteen, is totally normal?" I spat. "And it's so normal for said girl to pack on muscle without trying. Oh and we can't forget my sudden anger issues. Throwing a hissy fit over a shirt being in the wash when I wanted to wear it wasn't something I did until then. I punched a hole in the wall over it! That didn't strike you as being a little bit much?"
"I convinced myself that it was a late growth spurt and that your temper was because you were still dealing with what happened with Sam." She looked at me, guilt written across her face before lowering her gaze.
"Mom. It had been over a year. I was doing okay, better than okay really, at least until these things started." I ran my hands through my hair. "Didn't you stop to think about how I was feeling? My body was changing, I was angry all the time and I couldn't understand why! I was terrified! I thought I was going crazy! The way everyone treated me, it made me feel even more like I was losing my mind and I was considering looking into professional help."
"I know," she admitted meekly. "I just couldn't face the possibility of you turning and what that would bring. My mind wouldn't go there. I was a coward and I took the coward's way out." She squeezed her eyes shut, then blinked hard a few times. "It didn't help that no one checked the pack for their treatment of you once you'd turned. Billy said that you brought it on yourself when I said something, so I gave up, when I shouldn't have."
"No one said anything, not a single damn person, except for Sam and that was just because he knew he'd treated me like shit to begin with so he was trying to appease his conscience. No one seemed to care that I was being forced to share a head space with the bastard who betrayed me. How was I supposed to fight along side that? How was I supposed to trust him in battle if I knew just how capable he was of breaking that trust? It wasn't until Jake started his little renegade pack and I joined him that anyone paid attention to what I was really feeling. Is it any wonder that I found it easier to accept what I was when I didn't have to put up with that?"
Sue winced and wrung her hands. "Seth mentioned that. Embry also said something about you causing as much pain as you could in Sam's pack because you hated it that everyone knew how badly Sam had wounded you."
It hurt, sitting there and being reminded of everything I'd been through in the last two years. I found myself glancing at Demetri more and more. Every time I'd look at him, he'd meet my eye and give me a slight smile, encouraging me to see this through. His eyes were tight though, as if he was feeling my pain as his own.
"It was easier than letting them feel sorry for me, to let them see how vulnerable I was. If they hated me, they stayed away from me, ignored my thoughts as much as they could. Sharing the pack mind with so many people who were loyal to Sam was torture!" I fought back tears.
"I'm so sorry, Leah."
"You keep saying that," I snapped. "As if it makes everything okay."
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," she whispered brokenly. "You hold a grudge better than anyone to expect that to happen any time soon, something you got from me, I think, which is only fitting for everyone involved."
"What do you want?"
"A chance to prove myself. I don't want to lose you, but this past week showed me just how easily you could cut me out of your life and your pack would go along with it if Seth or Jake felt it was in your best interest."
"Every person Leah trusted, with the exception of her brother, betrayed her in some form or fashion," Demetri broke in. There was an underlying threat beneath his polite tone, a hint of the vampire so many feared showing through.. "All of you broke her. If it was up to me, I'd tell you to go to hell."
Her face spasmed as his words cut her, but I didn't stop him or try to soften what he'd said. She needed to know the full extent of what she and the others had done to me before I could even allow myself to consider forgiving her.
He stopped drawing and turned his full attention to my mother. "Your daughter is an amazing young woman who has been through enough. I won't tolerate her enduring any more unnecessary pain. If she chooses to allow you back into her life, know that I will be watching you. One step out of line and you'll never see her again."
Sue looked from me to Demetri and back again, shocked. But I only gave him a small smile.
It felt amazing to have him go to battle for me, to protect me like this. He knew I could handle my own fights, but he was willing to defend me when necessary. Another wound stopped bleeding and the pain lessened.
In that moment, I realized something. This was how love and healing really worked. It was a process. It wasn't supposed to be, 'I imprinted, so I'm all better now because all of my emotional reserves are devoted to serving this person.' The injuries still festered beneath the surface unless they were acknowledged and allowed to mend. Imprinting was to draw two people together, not be the 'be all end all.'
Demetri held up his hand when my mother opened her mouth to protest. "Don't look to her to stop me. I've only promised not to touch you, not that I wouldn't speak when I thought she might cave to family loyalty. You'll be allowed in her life on a probationary period only. Her wounds have only just begun to heal properly, so be careful."
Sue nodded, then hung her head. "I'm only just now realizing just how much."
"You allowed yourself to be blinded by how you thought things should be, so you failed to see just how unique Leah truly is."
"Some part of me just wants to keep making excuses, to try to explain away my behavior and lessen my responsibility, but I can't do it anymore." She inhaled, fighting back tears once more. "That's what brought us here in the first place."
"I miss you, the way things were before all this," I admitted, "and I wish we could go back to that, but I can't just jump right back into this, just because it's what I want. I can't ignore how I feel any longer if I want to be happy."
"And that's my fault."
"I love you, Mom, believe that, but it'll take time."
"If I may add something?" Demetri raised one black brow at my mother.
"Sure."
"I think all of you allowed yourselves to become so wrapped up in the supernatural, you forgot the individual needs of those involved. Suddenly, the magic you'd heard about all your lives is real and glorious, but it's so easy to forget about the price that so many pay for it to happen."
"I'm so sorry, Leah," she said again and looked at the blank TV screen, as if willing it to turn on and distract her. "Before you were born, someone told me that no matter how hard we try, we always do harm to our children. I was so sure I could prove them wrong, that I would be better. Yet, here you are, staying with someone who should be your natural enemy, trusting them to defend you against me. And even though you're afraid right now, there's something about you, you're lighter, happier, than I've ever seen you."
I dragged my lower lip between my teeth and glanced over at Demetri. He nodded, so I took a deep breath, preparing for the plunge. Would she still want to mend the fences if she knew about my imprinting and my baby?
"There's something you need to know, about why I'm here at the Cullens, something that may change your mind about wanting anything to do with me."