A/N: I am sorry I haven't updated in a long time but my laptop charger was eaten by my dog so I had a hard time finding a replacement. Hopefully this chapter and the one to come will be long enough to make up for my absence.

In the world there are few moments when there is complete silence surrounding you but Janet and Leah happened to walk into one of those rare moments. The instant they walked into Emily's house, it was as if all sound had ceased to exist. Janet was in her adult form once they walked in, Leah had told her how uncomfortable her child form made the wolves. All the pack was present except Jacob which was a relief to Leah since she still thought he was being stupid. Janet was amazed at how many wolves there were in the pack but was a little sad to see them be so young. It was hard for some vampires who were young to change their life completely, but they had eternity to get use to it. The wolves had a different set of rules that made it even harder for them to get use to their new life.

"Do I take my shoes off?" Janet broke the silence in the most unusual way and caused everyone to look at her weird.

"What?" Paul was the one to answer in a tone of voice that said he didn't know whether to laugh or be insulted.

"Well you see I am not familiar with your customs and preferences on house etiquette. Some people wish for their guests to remove their shoes before coming into the house or some have house slippers that they want their guests to use in the home. Since I don't like to be disrespectful, I always ask which is preferred." Janet explained with a serene and patient smile on her face that confused the pack. Was she insulting their intelligence or was she just happy to get to share something with them?

The pack didn't know how they should be acting or treating this new addition to their life. It was hard enough for them to come to terms with their alpha deciding to fight with the vampires but now one of their own was imprinted on one as well. Then there was the elephant in the room of Leah's imprint being a girl and how none of them knew what to do or say to her about it. Leah always seemed to avoid the subject all together especially if her mother was close by or any other non-pack tribe member.

"You may leave your shoes on dear but now that you brought it up, I might have to start making no shoes a house rule around here." Emily stated as she turned to head into the kitchen and get the biscuits she had cooling on a rack.

The boys of the pack all groaned and grumbled when Emily talked about the mess they left behind whenever they came by. It was always a hazard when hosting the boys of the pack for any reason since they were still boys in the end. Emily was the only one with a house all to herself, so she didn't mind the boys coming over. They also didn't have to worry about anyone over hearing supernatural business.

"Come on I'll introduce you and then we can sit down." Leah said to Janet as she took her hand and led her to the kitchen. It was always better to start the introductions with Emily and Sam than with the pack.

Sam and Emily were in the kitchen, but it looked like Sam was more in the way than actually helping. Emily didn't seem to mind and just smiled at him every now and then which is how Janet and Leah walked in on them making lovey dovey eyes at each other. It still surprised Leah that she wasn't instantly mad or jealous of the both of them anymore. The situation did make her uncomfortable but mainly because she wasn't one for PDA too often. To her it felt like watching her older siblings making out.

"Emily, this is Janet, my mate. Janet, this is Emily, my cousin and Sam's mate." Leah officially introduced them, but things went awkward for a few seconds after. An elephant seemed to follow the couple around no matter who they were with.

"It's a pleasure to meet you" Janet greeted and held out her hand but froze once her eyes landed on the scars on Emily's face. Everyone in the room noticed her change in demeanor and tensed ready for whatever reaction came from Janet. Emily tried to hide that side of her face as the silence grew longer, she was ashamed.

"You have been in combat, it is an honorable thing do not disgrace your battle by being ashamed of the marks you bare." Janet's tone had changed drastically and didn't resemble the childlike, freedom filled voice that it once was. She sounded so cold and robotic that even Leah was taken aback by the sudden change.

"Janet?" Leah calmly spoke as she took her mate's hand in hers and motioned for both Sam and Emily to stay still. The girls had spoken briefly about her past and her different instincts that took over at random times. It worried Leah that her mate was so fragile emotionally, but she knew there was nothing she could do other than stand by her side.

"I'm sorry" Janet apologized after a lengthy pause and after she blinked away the last remnants of her mini episode. These episodes were getting closer and closer together and that worried her in many ways. She would have to talk to Leah about what to do if she lost herself to her inner beast in the battle and any other time as well. Maybe her mate being a wolf and being so near this pack was causing her instincts to go haywire.

"It's okay sweetheart, do you need a minute?" Emily talked to Janet in the same tone that she used to use on Leah when she was having problems with her temper as a child. There were so many similarities between the two girls that it surprised everyone.

"No, I'm fine. Sorry I have a bit of a back story with scars and shame. I think it is a waste to hide such honorable signs of the battles of your life." Janet explained as gently as she could while still getting her point across. She thought of her father and herself and the scars they use to hide from the world in shame. The depressing she fought with for many years as a young and fragile vampire child.

"What do you know about scars and shame?" The group turned to see Paul Lahote leaning in the kitchen doorway with a scowl on his face.

"Paul" Sam warned as he turned to face one of his most volatile pack members. He was one of the most against Janet in every way possible.

"Now, now boys let's all just sit and eat before all the food gets cold or its disappears. I don't need or want any fighting in my house." Emily spoke firmly as she shooed them all into the dining room where the rest of the pack sat waiting with bated breath. She started to take the food to the table from the kitchen by herself.

"You can sit if you want" Sam told Janet as he sat at the head of the table signaling that the rest could sit and eat.

Leah and Janet stood near the windows over looking Emily's backyard and her gardens that Leah remembered helping plant many years ago. The house had belonged to Emily's mother but now it was passed down to her since she decided to move back to the reservation. Janet had always loved nature and basically anything beautiful since her early years were nothing but war and destruction.

"Thank you, I am fine standing since I don't eat I would rather not take up space." Janet continued to be as polite as possible as she looked at all the pack members and their different reactions to her.

"What's your story then" Paul continued from what had been said in the kitchen without caring for decorum. Leah growled in warning at Paul for his being rude and looking to offend her mate in anyway. Paul had not been quiet for his dislike to her being mated to a vampire since the beginning and didn't seem to be backing down no matter what.

"It's alright Leah, I don't mind. I can speak of some of it with them, after all they will be fighting by our side soon." Janet calmed Leah down with a hand on hers that gripped the windowpane tightly. She could see Leah shaking slightly and she didn't want Leah to get in trouble later especially because of her.

"Paul drop it, you don't have to say anything Janet." Sam said and gave Paul a look that said they would have a talk alone after this.

Janet look around at all the boys seated around the table and wondered if they knew what Paul was actually asking her to reveal to them. Many of them weren't even old enough to drink much less fight in a war and yet their blood demanded it of them.

"Sam, how old are you?" Janet asked in a curious tone that captured everyone's attention since no one really asked that of any of them anymore. It was a tine that an adult would use when seeing a child speaking in an adult manner.

"I am twenty, why how old are you?" Sam replies with a narrowed eyed look as if waiting for judgement from her.

"I was 25 when I was brought into this life by my father over a century ago." There was a pause as Janet smiled sadly at the boys playing men in the room. No one is ever prepared for this kind of life and to be thrown into it at such an age was sad but that was life.

"Why 25?" Seth spoke up for the first time from his seat near the back of the room. Janet's heart clenched at the youngest member of her mate's pack and her new brother.

"My father didn't want to take away my childhood too early. He wanted me to live my life as long as possible before he brought me into this life." Janet answered and looked into the curious eyes of Seth with a small prayer that he would never lose his childhood like she had.

"Why change you at all? If he really loved you he wouldn't have changed you at all." Paul spoke with a sneer as he watched Leah take Janet's hand.

"Times were different then and my father was a different man. He was the great and feared Major of the southern vampire wars. With a heart that felt the pain and anguish of every life he took over and over again for years and years on end. It was like dying again and again with no way out and with a darkness that ate at your soul day in and day out," Janet paused to take an unneeded breath and swallow the none existent bile in her thought at the memories of those times and her interior battle, "When he found me I was dying but he says I gave him a light in that darkness and was determined to not let me die. He could not show me the love he shows me now, but he cared for me in the only way he remembered how. They had created a monster out of him and he was trying to love when he didn't know how."

As she continued to speak Leah led Janet into a seat and took the one next to her without letting go of her hand. The whole pack was riveted to her every word as was Emily who stood behind Sam's chair listening. They had never heard the story of any cold one before and had a million questions.

"I wanted to be like my father for years since I was sixteen, but he refused and told me it was not for a young child like me. My early twenties were filled with education and fashion and a want for marriage that never came. No one from Maria's army was supposed to find out about me but someone did, and my father had no choice but to change me. Maria would have killed me or used me against my father. She was a true monster with a coal for a heart and a desire to see the world burn. At the age of 25 I experienced my first kill and not of a human but another vampire I didn't know." Janet closed her eyes as she remembered the man she had killed to earn her place next to her father. He had just been turned the week before me and I had ended his second life faster than thought possible.

"What are the southern wars?" Quil asked after Janet composed herself and looked to Leah to make sure he didn't over step any boundaries.

"In the south there is a on going war for the most populated land. Newborns are made and trained to fight in the background for territories and then after a year they are killed unless they prove to be more useful. My father and I were a rare few who had something to offer the army creator, Maria. For almost a century we were made to train and fight and then kill our own army and then start the cycle again. It was the way we were told the whole world was like and we believed it for so long. So many let themselves be killed by the first six months and after a couple of years we wished it too." Janet felt Leah clutch her hand at her last words and turned to look her in the eyes. The eyes she had fallen in love with at the first glance and could never imagine never looking at them again. As she allowed her thumb to stroke Leah's hand, she thought of he future with Leah and what she would give up for it.

"Why did you ask how old I was?" Sam asked with his brows furrowed from taking in all the information Janet just gave them.

"I see the unfairness in life in everyone of you. Boys as young as sixteen were forced to kill in the army I served and then I or my father had to kill them. What would they have become if they hadn't been forced into that life? What would your lives have been had you not been forced into this life? This life is not easy and yet you are expected to accept it and act as if something wasn't ripped away from you? I know it is just the way things are, but it just doesn't seem far for you to be made into something you never wanted to be." Janet stood with Leah as the words she spoke were striking too close to home and she wanted to get out while she could.

"Thanks for the food Emily, I'll be back later for my shift." Leah made their goodbyes and ushered Janet away since she could feel her mate's distress.

Leah held Janet's hand as they walked through the forest and enjoyed the silence of their surroundings. In her head Leah was worrying that the pack, especially Paul, had over stepped some sort of boundary. This had been a sort of trial run for Leah to see what it would be like when she brought Janet home to meet her mother.

"I like them" Janet declared out of the blue when they came to their cliff side clearing.

"Who?" Leah was so surprised that she drew a blank as to who Janet was talking about.

"Your pack silly" Janet chuckled and pulled Leah into a spin with a laugh when Leah grunted and tripped.

They both fell to the ground in a heap of limbs and laughter with Janet laying on top of Leah. These moments between them seemed short lived to Leah as if they were stealing from time itself. The battle was close by and it worried Leah that Janet was waiting to leave as soon as it was over. She knew she couldn't stop time but sometimes she wished she could just stay with Janet in this clearing forever.

"I'm having problems" Janet confessed after a quiet moment laying in Leah's arms. She knew she had to talk about what was going on with her with her mate. In every relationship there had to be trust and honesty for there to be a harmonized habitation. Janet always knew love wasn't enough otherwise there would be no such thing as divorce in this era. Two halves make a whole because they both put forth effort.

"What's wrong?" Leah asked leaning on her elbows to look at Janet who as curled up on her chest. The two had become so easily affectionate that it sometimes surprised Leah since she was such a cautious person.

"This battle is having an effect on me. I am having lapses in my control where my instincts are surging to the surface. I had an episode this morning and again in Emily's kitchen, that's why I reacted so strangely. They both were minor, but it will only get worse as the battle draws closer. I'm afraid to hurt someone and be a liability on the battlefield and I know papa knows I am slipping. There are things you need to know for if I lose control and what my father will have to do to reel me back in." Janet explained as best she could and sighed when Leah laid back down and began to stroke her hair in comfort. They lay there watching the world around them change from late afternoon to dusk and finally to night. The moon was on the rise and they knew that it was another day gone before the battle.

"What is going to happen?" Leah asked with a sigh since she knew she wasn't going to like any of what Janet was going to tell her. But in this moment, she knew her mate needed support and understanding more than anything and she was willing to do anything for her.

"As the battle gets closer I may have growing episodes and you have to learn how to deal with me. I will be incredibly tense and on edge all of a sudden and my patience will take a drastic drop. I'm sorry if I snap at you or anything like that because I won't be able to control it and sometimes I won't remember either. Those are the minor episodes and they only last a couple of minutes at most. But there is a very real possibility I can have a least one major episode and that is harder." Janet leaned up to look Leah in the eyes as she spoke next

"Do not try to stop me when I am in a serious instinct control, ever. I am serious Leah, you are my mate and I don't want to hurt you in anyway. In that state of mind, I don't know how I will react to you or if I will recognize you at all. I have attacked my own father before when in that state and he had to take me down before he could calm me."

Leah leaned up on her elbows and pressed her forehead to Janet's in a small gesture of love. She could tell how worried Janet was for her and she didn't want to take any of it lightly, so she would listen to her mate.

"I promised" Leah promised and touched her lips to Janet's softly bringing a relived smile to Janet's face.

"Thank you" Janet put her head on Leah's shoulder and her arms around Leah's middle and watched the rise and fall of her chest. It comforted her in a way she never knew possible to see her mate breathing.

"What will your father have to do during battle?" Leah asked the question that was running around her head.

"He will submit me to him by any means necessary. I will probably feel pain in some way or another, but you must all let him. We lived a completely different life than what you can imagine, and a century of life can not be erased by a couple of decades. There will be nothing anyone can do unless I submit, and my father trained me to make that near impossible for anyone but him." Janet rubbed Leah's back when she tensed at the thought of someone causing her mate pain. Every fiber in her demanded she not let that happen no matter what and that was a battle she would have to fight to keep her promise.

"I'll try but you are asking me to not be who I am or not love you in that moment and I can't do that" Leah told Janet as honestly as she knew Janet was being about what was going to happen.

"…You won't love me in that moment…" Janet whispered on a broken voice that almost shattered Leah's heart.

"I could never stop loving you and you know I have tried." Leah pulled herself to a sitting position and held Janet back by the shoulders to try and make eye contact. Janet refused to look at her and seemed to shrink into herself causing Leah to worry about her deeply, "Janet, look at me" Leah cupped Janet's chin in her hand and gently lifted up her face to look at her. Such deep sadness filled the hazel eyes she loved so much, and it tore her very soul apart, "Talk to me, ciccino"

The nickname slipped out as naturally as Janet's name from Leah's mouth and caused them both to pause in their train of thoughts. It was a sort of milestone for them and it filled them with happiness, but the moment didn't last. There was something weighing heavy on Janet's heart and it was something Leah knew she could help with.

"I wasn't lying when I said that Maria had created monsters earlier. When you see me in battle and if I lose control you will see me as I really am inside." Janet spoke as calmly as she could though she was breaking on the inside at having this conversation with Leah.

"You're an idiot" Leah insulted without remorse and moved Janet, in her shocked state, to get up and paced with such irritation it was almost anger.

"What?" Janet asked after she recovered from her shock at Leah being anything but loving and gentle towards her. Was this the real Leah finally letting lose and free? Janet slowly started to grin as Leah began to rant and let out all her frustrations.

"Do you honestly think that I am that fragile? That our love is that easy? Do I look weak to you? Who gave you the right to assume I couldn't handle something? You have asked me a lot of me tonight but now you are just insulting me. You think you could do anything to drive me away? You are an f-ing vampire Janet, I literally hated your kind for a good couple of months for what happened to my father. There is nothing you could do to make me not love you. So yeah I called you an idiot and I'm not taking it back" Leah crossed her arms and set her shoulders as she turned away from her ranting to stare down at her surprisingly amused mate.

"You're sexy when you're mad" Janet crooned as she looked up at her mate who was trying to stay mad and intimidating.

"It's not funny Janet" Leah reprimanded her but with no real steel behind her words and her shoulders sagged in relief that Janet understood. Not many words were needed between them to understand each other but when words were needed it was easy to explain and understand.

"Call me ciccino again" Janet continued to croon at Leah as she stood from her spot on the ground with a predatory smirk on her face.

"I'm serious" Leah warned lightly as she narrowed her eyes as she watched start to get up from her spot.

"As am I my love" Janet replied and without warning launched herself at her mate wrapping her arms around her shoulders and her legs around her midsection. Leah let out a squeak of shock that she would deny later and went down with her arms locked under Janet's stomach. Laughter filled the clearing followed by a thump and soft deeper laughter and then it was the rustling of leaves and love filled the space.

A/N: I love this chapter so much and thank you all for still staying with me.

*Ciccino is Italian for Darling (google said), I don't know if I like the nickname too much, but it was the best I could find. I really wanted a nickname for them.