I want to give special thanks to ThathippySnow, Rosenia, and bambieisavenging for following the story, and to Crystal-Wolf-Guardain-967 and brankel1 for commenting!
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing and no one that you recognize.
I'm excited about this chapter, so I hope you guys enjoy! Please RxR! I always love and appreciate your comments!
Jacob pulled on his old black sweatpants and walked out of the woods toward Sam and Emily's little house, relieved to be alone in his own mind again. He gritted his teeth when he noticed Leah hurrying to catch up with him, shorts on, pulling her tank top over her head. He spend up to walk away, but she called after him. "Still not ready to talk, Most High Alpha?"
Jacob rounded on her, turning to approach her as he shouted back. "What do you want me to say, Leah? That you were right? Because you were. That this is all my fault? It probably is. That I fucked up? I let everybody down? Will that make you feel better? Will it bring Brady home?"
He stopped inches away from her, glaring, waiting for her response. At 5'10, Leah was almost a foot shorter than Jacob. He was easily twice her weight. Anyone else in her place would have cowered away from his massive form, bearing down on her. Leah didn't even flinch. "What? I'm supposed to just let it go? Water under the bridge? You abandoned us when we needed you. You abandoned me. How am I supposed to run patrols when everybody's so depressed and fucked up in the head - because of you, by the way - that they don't know their ear from their asshole? Not to mention some blood sucking parasite just attacked us in our own home. Beautiful timing!" she exclaimed sarcastically. She raised her voice in an affected tone. "Everything going wrong? Great time to put Leah in charge! Because I don't think enough fucked up stuff has happened to her yet. She hasn't lost enough. And now you're back and you want to ask your leech ex girlfriend for help! As if this whole situation isn't messed up enough." She let out a grunt of frustration and pushed past him toward the house.
Before Leah approached, Sue appeared in the doorway. "You two are going to wake the whole reservation."
Leah pursed her lips and waited silently for Sue to move aside and allow her entry.
When they got inside they found that everyone who hadn't been assigned to patrol was already there, along with Sam, Emily, Billy, Sue, Rachel, Kim, and Sierra.
Both Jacob's and Leah's eyes paused on Sierra. Billy's voice rose above the murmured conversations all over the room. "The time for waiting is over. This affects all of us now."
The unspoken part of the exchange did not go unnoticed by Sierra. She hadn't known what to expect when Sue had asked her to come to Sam and Emily's after Jacob had disappeared that afternoon. It had felt strange but comforting that they had all acted as if she belonged there. She still didn't understand how she fit into this group with the most well respected and influential people on the reservation, or why they seemed just as attached to her as she felt to them. In fact, Sierra still couldn't quite get her head around her own feelings of attachment. Why her heart had leapt into her throat as soon as Jacob had run out the door after that cry of agony from the woods. Normally, Sierra didn't allow herself to form strong attachments. After moving around so much as a kid, she was as much an expert at letting go of relationships as she was at building them. But the way Sue mothered her like she mothered Seth and Leah, the way Emily offered her food and reassured her "the boys" would be home soon, the way Billy smiled as he watched her try to distract herself by writing lesson plans for the rest of the week, all that felt different from anything she had experienced before. But this wasn't the time for making sense of all that. There were more important matters at hand.
Billy's statement seemed to call everyone to attention and the room fell silent.
"It has been a long time since our people have faced the unknown," Billy continued. "The magic of the spirit warriors has always served to protect our people and our land. Warriors have died fulfilling this duty, but never before has one been abducted. We would not have thought it possible to sever the connection that allows that pack to hear Brady's thoughts, but as we have not heard from him for several hours, we must consider this possibility."
Sierra was determined to absorb as much new information as possible. She hung on Billy's every word and made a mental note to ask Jacob more about the mind reading thing later.
"Isn't he just unconscious?" Elijah asked.
"For this long?" Jeremy responded, the skepticism apparent in his voice.
"What if they used some kind of tranquilizer?" Elijah suggested.
"It would have to be one hell of a tranquilizer," Paul put in. "Remember when Jake got all smashed up and that leech doctor put him on all that morphine? It was probably enough to take down a charging rhinoceros, and it still couldn't keep Jake knocked out for more than an hour or two."
Sierra's eyes flickered to Jacob this time. She found herself slightly sick to her stomach thinking about Jacob sustaining injuries bad enough that he would be on 'enough morphine to take down a charging rhinoceros.' She noticed him glance at her, too, but his face was impassive.
"He could have phased back," Jonah offered. "We wouldn't hear him if he's human."
Sam shook his head. "It's unlikely. If he was taken captive, Brady would know better than to make himself vulnerable like that. And he can't be forced into human form. Think about it: what would happen if someone tried to torture you or force you to do something you didn't want to do?" Jonah's hands began to tremble. Sam nodded, his point made. "Your body naturally does the opposite."
"That being said," Sue interjected, "no possibility can be ruled out. This situation seems to be unprecedented in our history."
Adam spoke up. "It's got to be related to what those bloodsuckers warned us about last month, though, right?"
Sierra's eyes widened involuntarily. Bloodsuckers? She got the distinct feeling her was not being metaphorical. She caught Jacob looking over at her again, gauging her reaction. She took a breath and refocused on the conversation as Billy responded to Adam's thought.
"It is difficult to know, as the creature's vision is obscured where our kind are concerned. As you will recall, she was able to convey little more than an expectations that our fates would intertwine once more."
"But wouldn't it make sense to find out?" Collin asked.
"Ask leeches for help?" Axel protested.
"They know too much about us already," Paul agreed. "That leech doctor took samples of Jacob's blood. How do we even know they're not behind the whole thing? They have more information about us than anyone else.
Sam gave Paul a disapproving look. "The Cullens have proven themselves to be friends to our pack and our people on numerous occasions."
"A leech is a leech," Axel pouted.
Sierra watched Billy, waiting for him to make a decision. She was surprised when he looked up at his son. "Jacob?"
Despite her shock, Sierra was reminded of the first time she had met Jacob. She had long since forgotten that he had had to approve her for her job because he was technically the chief of the tribe. Looking at him now, it made sense. He was definitely physically the largest person in the room, and there was a sense of majesty and leadership about him that she had never really noticed before.
When he spoke there was a different quality in his voice. "I don't like putting our fate in the hands of outsiders. Especially those who should be our natural enemies. But our ancestors were slaughtered facing the unknown. We've already been caught off guard once." There were murmurs around the room, but they quited when Jacob continued. "I take full responsibility for that."
"Oh come on," Jeremy protested. "That wasn't your fault."
Jacob held up his hand. "It's ok. 'Cuz it's not going to happen again. And we're going to do whatever we have to to get the upper hand in this situation. Like it or not, we have little knowledge of the world of the cold ones outside of our own home and history. The Cullens have contacts all around the world. That's not a resource I'm willing to leave untapped just because of bias or personal pride."
The room was quiet as they all processed Jacob's decision.
Axel broke the silence. "Do you even have any pride left when it comes to those bloodsuckers?" he said with a laugh.
Jacob rolled his eyes but smiled good-naturedly as the rest of the pack joined in the laughter. "I'll make the call," he said. "Then we'll figure out the new patrol schedule."
Conversations resumed around the room as Jacob walked outside, dialing the phone. Sierra felt a hand on her shoulder. "How are you doing?" Kim's soft voice asked.
Sierra did a mental check as she considered the question. The meeting had served to highlight how much she still didn't know, without really answering any of her questions. She considered everything that had been said. Bloodsuckers. Leeches. The Cold Ones. She thought back to the beautiful but slightly terrifying woman she had seen behind the community center on the night the lid had been taken off the world as she knew it. Emily had assured her the woman had not been human. Something clicked. "The Cullens aren't - " She paused on the word. It seemed like such an absurd thing to be asking. "They're not, like, vampires or something, are they?" She felt stupid as soon as the word passed her lips. Her question had been directed to Kim, but the entire room turned toward her in synchronicity. Suddenly it didn't seem like such a stupid question. "I would say 'I'll take that as a yes,'" she said, trying to sound lighthearted, "but this is too weird. I'm going to need someone to actually answer that question if I'm going to believe that vampires are really a real thing."
"There are many names for the creatures we call The Cold Ones." Jacob's voice startled Sierra. He stood in the doorway, still holding the phone in his hand. "The most common one is vampire. But they're not like the 'vampires' you see on T.V. and in movies. In fact, pretty much all they have in common with the movie version in the feeding on human blood part."
Sierra nodded, her expression blank, as she tried to process this new and completely impossible information. "Right…" She continued to nod as she tried to think of something intelligent to say. "Ok…" Jacob was starting to look at her funny, but she couldn't get herself to stop nodding.
"She's freakin' out," Jeremy said, looking at her with watchful eyes, as if she might explode.
Jacob reached out and took Sierra's hand, pulling gently to her feet. "Come on, let's go for a walk."
Sierra gave one last nod. "Yeah, good."
"We'll switch patrol at three. Axel and Elijah, you'll come down south with me. Paul, Adam, and Collin, you take the coast." Jacob addressed the room one last time before pulling Sierra out the front door.
"I know it's a lot to take in," Jacob started, walking in the direction of the beach.
Sierra shrugged and intertwined her fingers with his. "It's ok." The warmth of his touch spread up her arm and through her body, and she felt herself relax. She considered whether she should feel afraid. Twenty four hours ago she had been terrified, and that was before she had known anything about vampires. Before one of her enormous, seemingly invulnerable friends had been abducted in the woods. But somehow, walking with Jacob, feeling his strong heartbeat slow and steady in his wrist, she felt more calm than she had in days, and all she could think about was how happy she was to be back here.
A thought occurred to Sierra as they reached the beach. "How come you look so normal?"
The absurdity of the idea that he could ever look normal made Jacob laugh out loud. "Well, the bad news is: you've completely lost it….The good news: you make a pretty cute crazy person."
Sierra shoved her shoulder playfully into his bare chest. "Oh come on. I just saw you think afternoon and you looked awful. I mean frighteningly bad."
"Again, you really know how to make a guy feel good."
"Now it's like you were never sick," she continued as if he hadn't interrupted. She took a step back and looked him up and down. The circles had disappeared from under his eyes. The bulk and tone of his muscles seemed completely restored.
"I heal fast. It's a wolf thing."
"A wolf thing," she repeated with a chuckle. She looked up at him, her eyes narrowing in thought. "So, you can just change on command?"
"Sort of. It's hard to control at first. It happens when we're angry or upset or feel threatened. Over time it gets easier to control that emotions and the transformation, but it's still mostly an instinctual thing."
"Could I see you?" she asked hesitantly. "As a wolf?"
Jacob debated internally. There was no chance of having this moment in private with five of the guys still out there patrolling. If she didn't react well, he didn't really want them to be in his head for that. But he took her curiosity as a positive. "Ok, just wait here a sec," he said before disappearing into the trees.
When the huge, russet colored wolf emerged from the trees, Sierra gasped. Not because of his enormous size, or because of the monstrous claws digging into the sand as he cautiously approached, but because it was like she was really seeing Jacob for the first time. She recognize how limited her sight had been before, when all she had been able to see had been his body. Now it was like she was seeing his true essence. His soul.
She quickly closed the gap between them, reaching up and stroking the thick fur on his neck. He lowered his head so he was on her eye level. Sierra ran her fingers over the smooth fur between his eyes and down his muzzle. With both hands she dug her fingers deep into the fur behind his ears until she touched the skin underneath. She stared into his large black eyes and saw a question behind them. "I've never seen anything more beautiful," she breathed in response.
Sierra was taken aback when Jacob pulled away suddenly and took off back into the forest. Had she said something wrong? But he quickly reemerged, human again. Although he was back in his old, familiar body, something had changed for Sierra. It was as if she could still see the wolf inside. "Sorry," he said quickly, "I just wanted to have this moment without five other guys in my head." He cupped her face in one large hand and tilted it up toward his. He leaned down and placed his lips gently on hers. Sierra's body responded instantly, heat spreading through her chest as she trailed her hand up his arm and around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. She traced his bottom lip with her tongue, and his arms wrapped around her waist.
Once again, they were interrupted by the howl of a wolf. But this was not a cry of warning. It sounded more like a celebratory yelp. Sierra's eyes searched the woods in the direction of the sound, and she saw a chocolate brown wolf streak through the trees. She was sure she had never seen the wolf before, but she could have sworn she recognized Quil.
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