disclaimer : I dont own the characters who belongs to stephenie meyer

Chapter XIV – Battle plan

CPOV

It was unbelievable. We talked about him several minutes ago and now he was here, standing in the front porch, looking at my friend intensely and in all likelihood he was imprinting on her right now. I wasn't the only one thinking that because the entire pack was watching at him in connivance with him and they were totally understanding. Ella on the other hand seemed to be in total shock. She seemed lost in his look and couldn't have the possibility to move one muscle or say a simple word. I was practically sure that if Edward Cullen could read his mind he would have seen nothing or only confusion. I looked quickly at him and he smiled lightly at me and nodded in agreement. Anyway, if the situation wasn't so tragically serious I could have laughed of his behaviour. But right now, I just couldn't. Embry looked like hell and he wore on his skin the marks of a cruel fight. If he wasn't looking at Ella with all his heart, I wasn't sure he could stand up again once again. But imprinting seemed to have an effect on him. On his health. Well it was curious but things seemed to be in the rush.

"Embry, what are you doing here?" Doctor Cullen asked with a calm voice but in two strides he was at his side and tried to help him to stay still. His presence seemed to snap Embry from his trance and just because a vampire was next to him he tore his gaze from Ella and went back to reality.

"You shouldn't have left your bed. Come and sit on the couch please" said Doctor Cullen helping him walking near the sofa. After another glance to Ella who followed him from her eyes, he sat down on the couch. The second he sat Jake asked quickly:

"Embry, what happened?"

"Leah and I smelled vampire's scents around the house. We aren't in a good form so we decided not to fight them. We shifted and took two different roads around the woods and we eventually finished to lose them before coming here"

"Where is Leah" asked Seth

"At home I suppose. We had agreed I would come to warn you. She was all right before I shift back… Well as good as she is…"

"Seth, go to your place and find Leah. Take the doc with you and please check on her. If she can, it will be better if you could return together here as soon as possible" Jake said with the authority that his alpha's raw gave him. Doctor Cullen nodded and before leaving with Seth he checked on Embry's injuries. Satisfied of what he saw he simply said:

"Lie on the couch and stay still. I go and check on Leah and I come back to give you some medication. But until my return, don't move a muscle" Then he took a black little bag, looked at his family and disappeared quickly.

"Embry, how many vampires did you smell? And did you see them? And in your opinion what did they want" Jake asked again a frown in his forehead.

"We smelled two scents but we didn't stay long enough to talk. We ran away. I didn't see them and neither did Leah. I don't know what they wanted but I'm not sure they just wanted to have a drink with us"

"They probably smelled the blood" the big muscled vampire said.

"Or they wanted to finish the work" Quil said. "Kill them knowing that they couldn't really fight"

They continued to talk like that imagining all the possible scenarios about those vampires while Embry and Ella kept on looking at each other. Ella was completely frozen on her feet in the middle of the room and I wasn't sure she understood what it was saying. We were talking about vampires for god's sake. She was supposed to tell us that we were crazy and go away like she would like to do several minutes ago. But she absolutely didn't move. On the other hand, the pack and the vampires were too preoccupied by the situation that neither of them realised that Ella knew anything about our legends and their veracity. They talked in front of her without paying attention to her as is she already was one of us now that Embry had imprinted on her. I decided to make a move. After all, Embry and Ella weren't formally introduced to each other. I approached my friend slowly and while pointing to Embry on the sofa, smiled at her and said:

"Ella this is…"

"I know. I saw him. In my dream" she cut me. She was whispering but I was pretty sure everyone in that place, wolves and vampires, heard her perfectly. "He died"

But suddenly, she seemed to wake up and looked at me strangely. There was confusion, anger and fear in that look.

"Claire. What's going on here? Am I crazy? Did they really talk about vampires? Are they serious? " I sighed. Here we go. Someone cares to explain? Billy came to my aid and said with his deep and calm voice:

"You're not crazy Ella. I'm going to explain everything to you. Would you like to sit down? It will be better if you sit when I give you an explanation"

Lightly on the defensive, Ella looked at me with apprehension then again looked at Embry who smiled at her. Eventually she nodded and slowly took a seat near the couch. And Billy started to tell her the principal legends she needed to know but he considerably cut the story because obviously we didn't have time to develop. Billy informed her about the werewolves, the vampires, the Cullens and about the threat. He shortly talked about imprinting but unfortunately he didn't go on detail but basically he explained that she was bound to Embry by magic. That was probably the reason why she saw him in her dream. Great! It was the better way to make her run away from him. It was scary. we were talking about magic!

But Ella was amazingly calm and concentrated on what Billy was telling her. She didn't shout, she wasn't in denial, she did believe the story even when it was told that men could shift in wolves. I knew for sure that she never believed in magic, science fiction or in mythical creatures. And now she seemed to accept perfectly what we were saying as if we were talking about the Pythagorean Theorem. She seemed nevertheless to be a little afraid when the Cullens politely introduced themselves and she blushed and smiled with understanding at Edward when he told her he was a mind-reader. I had to admit that it surprised me and I asked her why she took that story so well. She answered looking directly at Billy:

"Let's say that a big part of what you told me, Mr Black, appears in my dream and if I decide not believe you, well… it will mean that I will be utterly insane and I prefer thinking that I'm not. But to be honest all that story is crazy and well…I have a million questions to ask"

"It's understandable but before answering to your questions, we really need to know what you exactly saw in your dream" Quil Sr said smiling.

"Okay" she murmured it. She was uncomfortable I could say that and understand it because I was in her position a couple of hours before. But it was with a firm and calm voice that she told us about her dream, how she was in a beach she didn't know but which looked like La Push beach after she described it, how she was with Embry around a bonfire (but she blushed a little at that part and I could swear she didn't tell us everything) how she saw suddenly appearing in a line about fifteen persons very beautiful, pales and who seemed utterly dangerous and now she presumed they were vampires, how she saw the Quileutes men shift in huge wolves and started to fight, how the pain she felt when Embry was wounded and the impression of death she got when he died and the strange feeling of cold hands around her neck ready to break it, the pain in her chest still there when she woke up. But she was positive about the fact that none of the Cullens were on that beach.

There was a silence in the room. No one was talking. If it was a premonition dream it was as terrible as mine. And I was pretty sure that it was because some parts of it were very similar to mine. We made more or less the same dream. I looked at Quil and he was staring at Sam and Jake and they seemed to have a silent conversation. Then the light voice of Edward Cullen broke the silence. He said:

"From what I've seen in their minds, these are the same faces of vampires and they dreamed of the same iconic figure, the same vampire girl with red cape, black hair, eyes fearful. These are exactly the same characters. It isn't a coincidence. They are linked to the threat. It cost me a lot to admit it but we are in the presence of the three witches." He finished his last sentence showing Nessie, Ella and me with his pointing finger.

"Is she a vampire you know?" Jake asked

"No, not at all. Never seen her, never heard about her. But we could ask Carlisle when he'll come back. Maybe he already had heard about her. I'm going to draw their faces. Do you have a sketchbook or something?" he asked at no one in particular. Emily left a couple of minutes and came back with white paper and a pencil. While Edward was starting to draw Billy said:

"I think…I agree with Mr Cullen and it's time to set up a battle plan. What do we know about our forces and about their forces? Their first: they seem to be about fifteen vampires around one leader who is the threat. She uses magic but we don't know if the others vampires have or not specific abilities. What else?

"They are strong and well trained" Embry said.

"They know us and our territory very well" Quil added

"But we killed some of them so they aren't unbreakable. So all of them don't have specific abilities" Jake kept on

"And they don't know that you have others fighters with you" Bella Cullen said with her melodious voice. In front of several misunderstandings looks, she added "Us. Emmet, Jasper, Edward, Rosalie, Alice and me. Don't forget us, we're in. I will never let my daughter fight against a bunch of vampires without being with her to protect her as best as I can"

"Neither will I" added Edward without raising his nose from his drawings.

"And about us, we have the Three Witches, about fifteen wolves" Sam started but was cut by Bella who said "and five vampires with abilities: strength, strategy, mind reading, a seer and a shield"

"We are well trained too and strong and fast and we know perfectly well our lands" Paul said for the first time this day.

"Euh, excuse me" the little voice of Ella spoke"but I don't know if you realise that I absolutely haven't an inch of magic in me. So, when you said that 'we have Three Witches' I think you're wrong"

"She's right. I don't have any magic in me too and if the vampire girl spent about four hundred years to practice magic we don't have the slightest chance to win against her" I said a little panicky at the prospect of me and my friends fighting a such powerful vampire witch.

"Don't worry about that, Claire, Quil Sr and I will train you as much as we can and we will start by telling you everything we know about the Quileute Witch. You have to know, young girls, that when we saw the signs for the first time, the Elders decided to put down all information we collected during years in writing and we're going to share with you what we discovered. I hope it help you to understand magic and to find a way to fight that powerful vampire witch"

"But Billy, you seem to be sure that I am the Quileute Witch, why couldn't it be Ella or Nessie?" I asked in disbelief because all of them seemed to think that it couldn't be anyone else but me and honestly it started to annoy me a bit and above all this it worried me a lot.

"Simple answer, Claire. Nessie is half vampire kind. Ella isn't Quileute. You're the only one and you are the link between Nessie and Ella. You've chosen the two others witches. Even if you didn't have conscious of doing it, you recognised magic in them. You are the centre of Quileute magic" Billy said smiling but his stare was intense and very serious under his smile.

"But I don't feel any magic. How am I supposed to fight this well trained and powerful vampire witch who incidentally has been using magic for about 400 years?" Ok I was panicking. Never forgot I was only 17 and well, I supposed I was beyond scared of fighting. But Jake said:

"That's why you won't fight. We will" and like the big machos they were, all of the men nodded vehemently. Even the vampires men agreed with Jake's comment.

"But I just would like you remembered what Claire and Ella explained" the crystal voice of Emily spoke. "Claire said that the vampire girl wants to destroy all the wolves and imprints and Ella said that she felt in her flesh the pain of her wolf in her chest. Claire said that too when she talked about her first dream"

"We already know that there is a close link between a wolf and his imprint. A wolf can feel what his imprint feels and vice versa" Sam said gently to his wife.

"Yes, but never what Ella and Claire described in their dreams. As an imprint I know when you're hurt, I can feel it. But I never felt your pain in my flesh and blood. It's a strong feeling but not a physical pain" answered Emily.

"What do you want to say, Emily?" Quil Sr asked my aunt.

"It's just an idea. That vampire witch wants to destroy all the wolves and the imprints. Right? It's what she said in Claire's dream and we believed in it. In that dream. She was hurt by our magic and she's resentful. So what if she discovered a magical way to destroy wolves and imprints in the same time? Make an imprint feel the pain of the wolf?"

There was silent. It was something more than plausible.

"It's impossible. Magic never did something like that. The magical bound between an imprint and a wolf is sacred. Only death could destroy it." Billy said.

"Imprinting is a link, a bound and a magical one. I'm sorry Billy but I disagree. It's something possible. I don't know how but I think that Ella and Claire's dreams are true. It's a warning. The witches must protect the imprinting. I believe imprinting is the key and the bound is in danger." She was talking with vivacity to prove her point. Then, slowly she added:

"That means that you, wolves…"and she pointed Quil, Jake and Embry "…are in the same ship than your imprints. If you get hurt, the witches will be hurt too so they couldn't fight anymore. They couldn't do their job anymore" And she said with a smirk "and I suggest you three remain at home with the rest of the imprints watching TV and eating cookies"

There were some laughs but Jake didn't seem to find the last sentence of my aunt funny. I really didn't know why but I supposed they already had a hard talk about us fighting because Quil seemed angry too and Embry was looking at Ella in panic at the idea of her fighting.

Jake said with gritted teeth

"They won't fight, I never permit it"

Nessie was about to react at what her husband said when suddenly, Alice Cullen cried out slightly and all the looks turned to her. She seemed to be in trance and she was staring in front of her a vacant expression on her face. Then slowly she came back to life and her first worried look was for her mate who asked very quietly:

"Tell me Allie, what did you see?"

"She's here. She's going to attack very soon" she whispered to him

"When?" the two alphas asked almost shouted in the same time.

"At the new moon, at dawn of the third day from now"

Oh my god, we would never have time to be ready for the fight...

A/N : Pease, let me know what you think.

Thanks