They Set Out to Fight Love

by KitKat Roar

Second Book. The Cullen's world is shattered after Isabella's treachery and as they struggle to keep their makeshift family together, including the wolves, Leah's imprint settles into his hybrid nature while a revelation on an unexpected foe emerges. Can the love between the wolves and Cullens survive, and can Jacob Black ever forgive his former imprint?

21. Scorching Souls 2

SCORCHING SOULS

X

Xx~xx~xX

LEAH CLEARWATER

The travel back south to the little pathetic town was grueling. Between caring for the shivering ill-prone werewolves and handling Charles withdrawal, the pack was strained. I was strained…

I suppose I seemed like the cruelest being to them, what imprinter gives instruction for her imprint to be drugged? But now that the drugs were out, and now that Charles was lucid enough to continue weakening himself by terrorizing the minds of the wolves-Embry had at least, managed a semi mental block, which meant that as I drove over the speed limit back to Edward and Jacob, praying they were all still there with Renesme… the Jeep only had Embry and a shaking sweating Charles in the backseat, bound and uncomfortable and Dominic, glowering out the window beside the long thin hybrid.

"Who is he?" this was as straight forward a question Dominic was willing to give me, I could see him in the rearview mirror casting Charles a look of deep disdain.

"Our… former leader's child" I said.

"So he is a wolf too?" Dominic asked.

"Yes" I sighed "And no. You'll figure it out; you will figure it all out once we get to the farm; what you hunger for, what Charles is… the way our supernatural genes work… don't worry about it. It's kind of like you are in the pack too"
"You and I both know that isn't true, and I am sure Seth would agree with me there fully" Dominic sneered. "But a farm is a much safer place to be, when the moon shows its face…"
"A drop…!" Charles rasped.

"Not a drop, Charles" I sighed "Not from my blood, not from anyone…"

"Blood" Dominic said the word in an odd popping sound. "Shapeshifter… can you change into any animal you want?"

"No" I said.

"Not that we know off…" Embry added, staring out the window. Was he thinking about his moment of finally acknowledging Charles as his nephew… admitting to himself that he was indeed Jacob's brother? Maybe if he had not managed to push Charles half way out of his mind, he could hold on to a glimmer of hope that his father was an Uley… but didn't this make it all the more better? That as he was a wolf, that as he was incapable of stopping his phasing as yet, he had family… actual blood family here with him to understand him and love him. "Why are you all of the sudden so chatty…?" Embry asked Dominic, turning his head to frown at the occupants of the backseat, his expression unfamiliarly solemn-the old Embry, the younger introvert Embry with long hair and bad skin.

"I have a fever" Dominic said "Sweats… me and Charles have a lot in common right now"

"Charles is going through withdrawals, not Werewolf pre-moon shakes" Embry said, I was unsure if he was going for scathing or factual.

"Just… I need to keep my mind focused, talking to people helps to turn a little later…" Dominic was rambling.

"What do you mean, turn a little later?" I said, frowning.

"Moon" Dominic breathed "I can feel it…"

"There is no way you can feel it tonight, moon is out in two days time!" Embry looked at me, fear on his face.

"Not since we have been travelling towards it…" I whispered, seeing the billboard of the little town, its promise for 'a welcomed stay' and the memory of Charles in Angela's little apartment erupting in my mind. I looked in the review mirror once more, this time making sure that Seth was staying close to me…

His headlights were a little far off. He wouldn't know how to get to the farm if I just sped away from him… but at least there were four wolves with him. It was just Embry and I here to take care of Dominic, and then we would have to worry that Charles doesn't get swiped by the werewolf's fits of teeth and claws.

We drove into the dust road in nothing but a commotion of dirt and brakes, Dominic moaning and groaning while Charles stared on in fear… finally understanding that there was a curse much worse than his unique DNA, I prayed.

"Get away…. Get him away!" Charles rasped, kicking Dominic viciously. Dominic was oblivious to the attacks, clutching his middle and moaning softly… Embry was out in a flash, pulling the door open and dragging Dominic out.

"Get in the barn, now!" he ordered Dominic. I looked to the house, the lights were on… as far as I knew, Jacob spent most of his time with Angela while Edward and Renesme commiserated exclusively together… Nessie never left any lights on save for the attic, but of course they would have heard us pulling in to the multi-hectare property.

There was no time to wonder, Dominic was already bruising all over, half way to his crawling towards the barn he was now thrashing on the ground. Embry tossed a bound Charles casually my way and ran after Dominic, scooping him up and trying to contain him in his arms while skipping over the terrain to the barn.

"Charles, please could you pretend in this one moment that we were back in that crappy Texas house and I was your aunt, and you were just the kid getting bullied and had gardening to look forward to after school, while getting bossed by me?" I said quickly, shaking Charles "Because buddy, as freaky as you think you are… as freaky as you thought you were back then when the strangest thing about you was your tan, red hair, green eyes and asthma… this shit, that is going on in the barn…" Dominic let out a half groan-howl in the barn, Embry crying out for me-as though they were in on my speech to Charles

"That, is freaky by nature" I whispered to him "Stay put, stay fucking put… don't you dare let this mysterious 'darker side' of you talk you into running off somewhere. You stay here and you sit tight!"

I released him and he stumbled back, falling on his bottom and I could feel him watching me as I skipped over the ground, flinging the shirt to the side and gliding through the air as a wolf before falling heavily on my paws. It was going to be a long wait, of watching and anticipating Dominic's transformation. Behind me, I could hear Seth pulling the car nervously in, no doubt Matthew had suddenly developed a twitching problem between Collin and Billy too.

Embry was pacing in front of a cornered sobbing Dominic, his fur on end and thick around his neck-courtesy of having a beard, I supposed. The barn was… tidied, a tractor in the corner, a cart filled with hay at one side and tools and farming equipment neatly organized. I stuttered in my step, left front paw hanging unsure over the ground. Something wasn't right… or maybe, everything was finally completely okay. Maybe Edward had stopped feeling the pain of his injuries, maybe Renesme had fallen truly in love with the idea of being a Bed Ford wife and extended it to a role as Martha Kent, maybe Jacob was in school here and running back home to work in the fields everyday…

Who the fuck are you kidding…? Embry chortled morosely, falling on his stomach theatrically when it was obvious that we would be watching Dominic for a good few hours before the werewolf made an appearance. As the moon days pulled out, the transformations would get more violent and for a longer period of time… but the first day, was the worst because although the werewolf wasn't out for long, it was a lot more aggravated-the hunger, I supposed, would be at its core.

In a second, Seth came in dragging Matthew through the dirt coldly by his twiggy bone ankle, Seth's face contorted in utter rage and indignation. Behind him, Collin and Bradley were at their soberest , tossing their shirts off silently-they had learnt, that werewolves no matter how frail… could sap the life and joy out of those who were tending to them. And it was a lesson I was glad they had, for this introduction into werewolves would save them… in a world were other supernatural creatures formed their own communities and armies with little detection… but a thick file worth of bad intentions.

"Two days…?" was all Seth could manage in his anger, tossing Matthew viciously into the corner were Dominic was cowering and trembling in. "Two fucking days… I thought I could get my mind around it, you know… work myself towards baby sitting rabid coyotes…"

Does he want me to do sign language or something…? I grumbled and Embry let out a hot billow of air through his nose that lifted dust up and covered Matthew and Dominic.

"Argh!" Seth hissed , removing his clothes in a grand show of frustration before stepping into the wolf with little grace and a ton of annoyance. Charles and his mind raping…

Firstly, mind your language kid… I am the only one allowed to discipline that boy… I growled at Seth, lips pulled over my teeth. And secondly, only Edward mind rapes…and only I get to use that nickname. Trademarked and all. Now sit tight, stop being a little bitch about your fear of werewolves… we already established that neither Matthew nor Dominic is as mangy and wild as those things you got yourself whopped by in South America.

Hmm. Seth's embarrassment and further irritation at Matthew and Dominic wafted off of his sandy fur in a tidal wave.

We formed a tight half arch around them, while Charles low grumbling and sighing mingled with the wind outside, the moon a fraction formed over this world.

Xx~xx~xX

It's easier to believe the evil in others than it is to believe in their good, because such ethereal purity is only for the divine and we were all but stumbling damned souls. Were we not born into evil? And what a strange thing it was, to believe that souls were more prone to evil than good, and yet a billion and more people believed in the existence of God and not the Devil?

We are all Evil, God Exists and there is no Devil? The riddle of all times...

And as I watched them die and burn in their curse, bones cracking, skin bruising to black and spines elongating and tearing away at skin and muscle... it came to me. God created man in his own image, and man is both evil and goodness... then what's to say that God was not both evil and goodness at that point? What's to say that God, upon creating man and realizing that his creation had darkness in it as well as light, remembering how he had meticulously constructed said Adam to be his representation on earth-God realized then, that he had darkness inside him...

And God is light, God is purity... God knows if he is to be a God, a true powerful God... he can't ever have darkness. So he created man, with some of that light and darkness... and then he created other creatures to be rid of his own darkness. Other malformed creatures filled with God's darkness...

Walking this earth, bitter and jealous of men and growing dissension amongst themselves with the single purpose of revenge on a Father so cruel as to show such damning favoritism.

The werewolves are seconds from turning this into an all-nighter, and behind me I can hear the yell of a man-a human man-about trespassing and the such, and it all makes sense so suddenly. They left; Edward, Angela, Renesme and Jacob, and this farm... is truly just an ordinary farm with a farmer and his wife and regular son who shovels hay...

Dominic! Embry hissed and the black werewolf rose shakily to its feet, sniffing the air before turning its massive long ugly head towards us with an odium glare. Beside it, the smaller still shuddering werewolf began to emit low cold growls of violence.

There was nothing to be done, but hope that Farmer Brown upon seeing pure darkness... would skip back into his house with his useless gun and huddle with wife and son under his bed.

Xx~xx~xX

X

Xx~xx~xX

CHARLES BLACK

It was only a slither, a fleck in the sky. Cold ice looming in the sea of the night, clouds veiling and unveiling it, and yet… the power it held over these lesser creatures, these fearsome beasts… these… these… true demons.

I could see them easily through from the side of the barn through the thin spacing of the timbre paneling. Each nervous tremble the wolves made, circling and pushing the werewolves back… I could see them. Black mangy creatures, skin leathery and barely furred with abnormal ridges working over the thick membrane. And those eyes… heavens, those eyes…

"Boy!"

I wheeled around stumbling a little and struggling to right my stance, hands bound behind my back as they were. The old man held the shotgun up at me, beside him a dog whimpered and struggled against the chain he held firmly in one hand-the dog, wanted nothing to do with these scene, its eyes wide and fearful darting from the barn to the far freedom in the dark horizon of the cursed farm.

"You are trespassing son…" he breathed, the wind whipping around us in tune with the growls and snarls from the barn. He looked at me, peering with great difficulty through the night and scowled at the barn. "Son?"

"You should go back to the house" I told him dryly. "Heavens, I am about to leave this place myself…"

I looked back at the barn once more; a flash of grey, maybe Leah darting and weaving to subdue the two beasts. I am already moving over the land, calm and thirsty-happily aware that the pack will not be after me even after they realize I am gone. They have their hands full, between the two werewolves and the added problem of a human inching closer to the barn, dragging an unwilling terrified mutt behind him… I would be free.

I am back to square one of course, the thirst and hunger but this time… something has changed. Call it a conscious, a voice, a nagging… a Leah. My heart squeezes relentlessly with each step I take; each gentle stumble and sigh-it wants to remain with her. I am tempted to just rip the thing out and toss it at her feet, "There Leah" I would say "I have no need for this… it renders me, it weakens me… it binds me to you"

Take it, Leah. Take it all. We aren't in Texas and you and I both know we should have never have left that bland reality for this living nightmare. We should have let the Volturi do as they may, we should have grown up with you as my aunt and I as your asthmatic nephew and the imprint just a word to describe engraving or indentation… nothing about souls and wolves. Jacob Black would be my drunken desolate father, Renesme would be in South America abused and vaguely in love with Nahuel and Edward Cullen would be placed in one of Carlisle's storages in some hidden place, never moving and always sorrowing for Isabella…

"Rwaoor!" the sound cuts through my breathing, my musing and my idea of a fucked up utopia, and I freeze. The air, as far away as I am from the barn, swirls violently and the sound of desperate snarls and growls terrifies me into hyperventilating. As I turn around slowly, as I stand with eyes wide and somehow besides my lack of supernatural efficiency at the moment-these eyes of mine swallow more light and throw it out so everything is one vividness of bright night; I see the poor Old Man standing momentarily bemused as a black giant furless rat-like thing squeezes through a hole in the side of the barn, growling and snarling.

Everything is suddenly boosted, audio and visual and my heart is pumping too fast. It has been long since my adrenaline has been shocked into life like this, since my body has been woken from its lethargic slumber due to piling it with more concentrated venom… my venom, I had thought, was no longer sufficient for anything. How wrong I was, witnessing the Old Man struggling with his shot gun-that had been unloaded it seems, for he was now pushing cartridges in it realizing that he may have to fire the thing. He raised the gun, the Werewolf was out and further away I saw the kitchen door open and two female figures step out in terror.

There was no way they could distinguish the shadows by the barn as nothing more than giant darkness.

Two shots fired, gun cocked quickly and the werewolf momentarily staggered in surprise. Inside the barn, wolves ere growling anxiously and Embry skipped out of the hole the werewolf had made and immediately attacked the beast-but the Old Man couldn't understand what was happening before his eyes and with his raised gun, he fires at Embry and sends him stumbling off of the werewolf. The werewolf rose easily from the ground, shaking of bullets that I was sure had failed to penetrate that leathery skin, probably stinging like a paintball bullet instead.

"Daddy!" one of the women moaned, struggling against what could only be her mother. The Old Man cocked his gun again and blindly fired shots through the hole in the side of the barn-orange white lights popping with each bang. He couldn't see the stalking werewolf, he was more interested in the deliberate movements of Embry and the yelps in the barn and by the time he realizes that the darkness inching near him isn't the shadow of nature but of hell… he is run over by the werewolf.

"Shit" I breathed, as one last shot fired away into the night followed by a soft whimper, a pained moan and the squelch of pliable flesh. I hopped and skipped out of my frozen terror, aware that I was running to what could be my own death in these bound hands…

Bound…? The ropes are easily broken with one twitch of my wrist and my feet move faster over the ground, and with that velocity, I smack into the side of the werewolf and he growled in surprise, stepping from the Old Man. It's too late, there is no heart beat from the corpse… but if it were about heart beats, there are two in the distant thrashing violently from fear. The dark beast ignored me and ran up to the house; Embry who had been knocked to the side of the house hard recovers from his minute of disorientation and pain, which had cost the Old Man his life. We rushed forward, Embry colliding with the werewolf, which only growled in irritation and shook him off easily before swinging an odd arm-like paw at me and sending me flying through the air, back towards the barn and through the barn roof.

I fell heavily on top of something, it was a wolf not a werewolf… the fur similar to Embry's but Embry was outside. The wolf tossed me off of him irritated. Blood was all over the place, fur tufts-not werewolf fur; they didn't have fur, only stray strands of thick long hair.

The wolves ignore me, rushing out to the escaping werewolves-that were fighting each other, as well as the wolves while rushing towards the house to the easily distinguishable prey-like human females.

"They killed a man…!" I yelled into the night, useless bit of information as it was. I rushed after the roundabout tornado of the pack trying to rein the werewolves in.

"Daddy!" that girl was still struggling, still screaming and moving her and her mother closer to such perilous danger. I needed to get to them, let the wolves deal with the werewolves…

"Stop!" I moved towards them in a burst of energy that left me drained, I could feel my heart shuddering. I tried to hold the girl but she scratched at my face, and between my coughing and paining heart-so abused as it was with the venom of vampires, it couldn't function properly on my own venom any longer. Her mother joined in on the fight; hitting and kicking me and concentrating her attentions on the 'stranger' trying to 'hold' her child down… but now the girl was free and running towards the circle of teeth, claws and violence.

"Your daughter is about to die!" I hissed at her, pushing her away from me. She gave me one blank look before her features rearranged themselves into something desperate. She whipped around and ran after her daughter, but it was… like it had been for the old man, close to too late. She had gone unnoticed just a few feet into the bustling fighting wolves and was now knocked over, close to being trampled and one of the werewolves was sniffing the air deliberately.

The werewolf gave a violent nudge against one wolf and extended a long half claw-half hand like paw out that reached her and scraped over her body, pulled her to it and it lowered its head momentarily over her before it could be stopped. Her blood was in the air, her slowing heart a background melody to the violence.

"Katherine!" the Old Man's widow cried and rushed to her daughter between the masses of muscles and teeth, managing to push a moaning Katherine only a few feet from the tornado before looking up at me deliberately, through a darkness she wouldn't be able to see through… save, for two iridescent eyes I was sure I was sporting. "Help her!?"

I got up shakily, my hand clutching my chest and swallowed the pain. I rushed to her, the moment I reached them I coughed out blood and then all hell broke loose. The bleeding girl's blood had only excited the werewolves but my one cough of only a few drops of blood sent them into a frenzy…

"Get her away!" she looked at me desperately, her hand going over mine. I picked her daughter up and rushed to the house, behind me the blood curdling scream of the Old Man's wife assured me that I was carrying a dying orphan.

Xx~xx~xX

"Ngh…" Katherine groaned, twitching, her face pale and covered in bruises, scratches and plump swells of purpling flesh. Her hand was hanging strangely, draped over the couch and her nightdress had only a square inch of a white patch that alerted me that its crimson color was an impostor.

"I don't know what to do!" I hissed, touching her middle tentatively where three deeper crimson stains were blooming through the sheer gown. Those three stains were sticky and black in the middle, claw marks through her nightdress. Her one eye rolled back into her head, her lips were crooked and twisted into a something fleshy and raw, her face was vaguely distinguishable as female and human with the twists and bruises, the one side gauged.

She was bleeding to death, she was going to be disfigured whether in surviving or in her casket but that wasn't the problem area to my sense of horror… the problem area was the piece of flesh missing from her calf because it was so profusely visible, so horribly disfigured and traumatizing that if I had ever thought that the true horrors could only be seen in the supernatural…

I had about a thousand scenarios of shark bites and lion maulings to consider in that flash. She looked like she had been half devoured by a pride of lions on some safari… attacked by sharks while snorkeling…

"Nghhhhh!" she twitched and I could hear her heart stuttering to an odd fast tempo before slowing, skipping and thrashing pathetically in her. Behind us, the wolves could subdue the werewolves more effectively now that there weren't any human distractions… for in trying to contain the werewolves and steer them away from harming the humans, they failed to do just that.

"I don't know what to do…" I insisted, holding her trembling hand. "I don't know…"

I could turn her. Wasn't that how many of the Cullen's were turned? But my venom wasn't as potent as any vampires, it's very content not even true vampire venom but something that rendered nerves momentarily paralyzed, like with Nahuel…

But my blood, I had seen how Harold the City Vampire's eyes had turned purple, how his skin had cleared of all his 'war wounds' from days of 'vampire territory squabbles'. But she was human; I could end up killing her more than anything…

She was dying as it was… there was no harm in trying both routes.

I brought her wrist up to my mouth and bit once, sucking hard and gulping her blood before licking the wound. She didn't respond to that pain, her body had more important worries… I bit my own wrist and brought the oozing too dark blood to her mouth, forcing her swollen ripped lips open and pressing the wound by mouth.

She groaned, and shuddered in my hold, her blood covering me but in a minute, I was sure she had ingested something adequate.

I fell back to the ground, and watched her bleed and die, the howls and snarls outside dying down as the sun came up.

Xx~xx~xX

X

Xx~xx~xX

LEAH CLEARWATER

There are things that we cannot ignore.

But human deaths, wasn't one of those things.

This was sick on so many levels...

"Dig deeper..."

This was, not what it meant to be a Quileute wolf, this was not what it meant to be a protector but it was everything, every comprehension and understanding to what it meant to be a part of the supernatural world. There are things we cannot ignore in our world, in our supernatural world, and human beings were not one of those things. Natural things were not one of those things; deaths and life, ignorable instances in our never ending timeline-but a mixture of both-something abominable and illogical, then you had our full attention.

Like Katherine, you had our full attention if you should have been dead or alive by any natural occurrence but you were in limbo instead-officially a part of our fucked up world.

"Embry, fucking put your back into it!" I hissed and he paused his shoveling, his eyes swerving up at me and breath coming out in huffs, skin tinted with patches of dirt and sweat-sweat, not from the exertion, that was child's play for a wolf-but sweat from the continuous effort he had found himself applying to our surroundings while every other wolf held a stare down with the unconscious naked currently harmless Matthew and Dominic.

"You want to try, Leah?" he asked me, lifting the shovel up and scowling at me "You want to dig a grave too? You think you can stand in this shit, knowing you were the reason..."
"It was Dominic not you" I whispered.

"I hesitated, I was disorientated..."
"You were one wolf, you were alone out there and you were worrying about my imprint standing in the distance and those two women..." I sighed, jumping into the relatively deep grave and nudging him to the side, forcing him to make room for me. "Hand me the shovel"
"No" he casually tossed the shovel into his other hand, his face somber and beard... he was going to have to shave that stupid thing. "We killed people, Leah"

"They killed people, the beasts not us or Matthew and Dominic, it was the beasts." I whispered.

"They are dead" Embry continued, flicking his eyes over to the bundled bodies lying motionless on the ground. "She is... more likely going to be a werewolf too. Worse than dead after what I saw, that was the worst... I mean, I knew back then in Malwood how bad werewolves got but to see that..."

"We saved one life" I said, trying not to be drowned into Embry's natural affinity to weigh every sorrow of the world on his shoulders-brought about from a lifetime of being his mother's son.

"Charles saved her" Embry snorted hard. "She could wake up a vampire or a werewolf... we saved her from heaven and gave her sanctuary in fucking hell"
"She won't be a vampire... Charles venom is unique; Carlisle said he had a one in a billion chance of turning any human"
"Over six billion people in the world..." Embry looked up, sighing wearily "So he has about six people in the world to turn into freaks like us. Well, at least he has willingly allowed himself to be rehabilitated supernatural style-chains and all"

"He was going to leave" I said, staring back at the house, up at the attic were Edward once found himself limited to. "He was going to run away, and there would have been nothing I could do to make him stay..."
"You gave him the wrong speech" Embry sighed, placing the shovel on the ground above us and hoisting himself out of the grave. He extended his hand out to me, and I momentarily thought of ignoring it-like hell I couldn't hoist myself out-but I was playing nice, so I let him pull me out. He picked up Mr Farmer and placed him as carefully as he could in the grave before moving over to the second grave and lowering his relatively younger wife.

"What do you mean I gave him the wrong speech?" I asked him watching as he shoveled the dirt mounds back over the graves.

"You were talking to him about someone that died, a human Charles. An irrelevant Charles" he sighed, flicking dirt easily and emotionlessly over the bodies. "You can never go back to that time, you can never be his aunt and there can never be a boring house in Texas"
"I only said that because it is my safe haven, from everything; that memory" I said, watching as the bodies disappeared under the earth. "I thought it would be his too"

"Leah, you aren't his aunt and he isn't your nephew" Embry stopped, chucking the shovel disdainfully up to the side. "No one memory will ever be your safe haven"
"So what are you saying, I should just live without any hope or even a sense of rescue to said hope?" I scowled at him "I should just tell him that it's all fucked up and there is no where we can go for it to ever be safe again?"
"I just said that that memory isn't your safe haven" he looked at me, his large eyes staring into mine and face flushed-such was the life of not being fully Quileute, his cheeks and neck were a deeper russet and eyes weren't the typical dark brown but something flecked and hazel like. "I didn't say you two didn't have a safe haven"
"Okay, Dr Phil, what's our safe haven?"

"Each other"
"No shit, Sherlock"

"No, you don't get it!" he sighed "Each other, none of that 'oh, aunty' bull shit. Untitled... Leah, you have to let it be untitled. You keep sticking a label to it, reminding him he is a 'kid' and such... and you know what he is doing?"
"What?"
"Showing you he isn't a kid"

Should I tell him I kissed said kid at a bus station? But that was different, that was... me trying to establish the upper hand. And I supposed what Embry was pointing out was that I was terrified of letting the titles go, letting them fall away because I had always been the Alpha between Charles and I (fuck that bullshit about equality and the such which Charles and I loved to dish out to each other-this was a power struggle and I had been the Alpha and being Alpha keeps you safe).

"I don't treat him like a kid" I said and Embry raised an eyebrow "Okay, not all the time. Like... err, at the warehouse..."
"You treated him like your little bitch" he grinned "You said so yourself... you know what I think, you are going to get a rude awakening when he flips the tables and let's you play your natural role..."
"You calling me a bitch?"
"Err, female wolf?" he grinned backing away from me.

"Female wolf, not dog" I sulked, staring at the fresh graves with a mixture of regret, fear and anxiety. The moment Katherine awoke, the moment Dominic and Matthew regained conscious... our work would be cut out with counseling and therapy.

"Are you going to congratulate him on his road to recovery or what?" Embry asked "'Cause honestly, the kid made quite the impact"
"You call him kid"
"Yeah, that's different" he sighed "I am his uncle"
"You said you were his uncle..." I whispered in awe.
"I guess I did" he said absently "I guess I am"

Xx~xx~xX

"I could break these" he lifted his bound hands "I could..."
"I may not be Carlisle but I am not a halfwit Charles" I pulled the ottoman under me "You think I wasn't paying attention when Carlisle was talking about your adrenaline rush with regards to your own venom production? You are out of venom kid... and there is no adrenaline rush coming your way in a while..."

He sighed and slouched back down, glaring at a corner, his lips ashy and face pallid and feverish.

"Embry is proud of you" I told him "About Katherine...?"
"I don't give a fuck" he spat "I don't know why I did it... I could have just let you handle things, I could have just run off and you would never have found me again. Leah, I would never have come back to you again and I would have been happy"
"Happy being a junkie?"
"Happy being away from you"
"You aren't yourself"
"This is me... this is who I am now" he laughed morosely "I suggest you deal with it"

"You once told me I was the strongest person you knew" I said "You know something, you have to be the strongest person I know"
He remained silent, glowering at the empty corner.

"All her wounds are healing fast" I said "You saved her"

No response, just a soft sigh and then after a second, he turned his eyes towards me... and I understood, he was being strong, he was being brave and he was terrified of it. It was easier to expect the worst, when the best was so hard...

"Leah" he said "I am sorry"

"Nothing to be sorry about" I laughed, my voice parched. "You saved a life while we... ended two"

"You should just keep me like this" he held up his bound hands. "I am good for nothing"
"I was going to ask you if you could contact Jacob" I whispered and he grimaced.

"Through the wolf link?" he asked and I nodded. "Isn't he part of the pack?"
"No he is a loner, but you... you could reach him" I said.

"I can't" he shook his head, groaning a little "Leah, as the wolf the hunger turns me into something similar to those werewolves. And I don't want that hunger added to this... this pain of recovery. I don't want it even for a second, Leah. I don't know how to be human again, but I think I can learn a second time around? Leah, I am so scared..."

"Don't be scared" I whispered, moving from the ottoman to him. He lowered his head onto his bound hands. I touched his hair and tried to move his head up but he refused the motion, groaning a little.

"You smell divine to me, Leah. You always have... not like sweet poison to the good in me, but like... the antidote to every single hurting"
"Don't be scared, Charles" I breathed feeling the stinging in my eyes and trying to wrap my arms around him and failing then opting to remove the rope from his wrists, freeing his hands. He ignored this and remained silent, a soft cry coming from him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pulled him off of the couch and onto the floor with me, trying to rock him... trying to comfort him like I used to...

"Forgive me Leah, I am weak" he whispered into my hair, his head nudging into the space between my neck and shoulder, cool breath fanning over the skin there. A thrill shot up my spine momentarily as I felt a cool kiss on my neck, and thought for a second I would feel his teeth in my skin...

But that didn't come; instead, he wrapped his arms easily around me and scooped me into his lap and held me so tightly, defying so much and forming a new safe haven for us.

"Forgive me, Leah" he breathed "I have been weak..." another kiss on my neck, another thrill as I thought he would bite into me, this time the exquisite fear mingled with wild anticipation for him to do just that "But I can never be weak with you, if you are my strength and if you are where I have lain my humanity to rest... then surely, I could learn it from you?"

Not a bite and not a scratch and he was, for once and forever after that, stronger in a way that I could never ever hope of knowing and I was for the first time since Sam and my father, comforted and filled with a sense of safety through Charles.

The sound of Renesme and Jacob, and three Cullen's arriving in the background serenaded that feeling, in that moment, as Charles held me in a way I had never known I needed to be held before and I thought that for once, I didn't need to be so strong...

I was his strength.

And he was mine.

Xx~xx~xX

X

Xx~xx~xX

CHARLES BLACK

"My blood did this to you?" I asked again and Edward smiled slightly.

"Your blood has so many capabilities" this was Carlisle, naturally, pacing Angela's old dinky living room in a blur, Esme watching him patiently while Edward remained fixed on my mother and I sitting on the couch. "Your venom too... every side of you, Charles, is combined in one way. No vampiric part is left isolated without the influence of the Shapeshifter gene... your humanity... your wolf side... everything draws weakness and strength from each other!"
"You could take some... Carlisle" I said slowly "For your scars"
"Nonsense!" Carlisle laughed nervously, touching the collar of his shirt.

"Those scars tell a story" Esme whispered. "I have never been a fighter, never been good at... this, war. And Carlisle... your grandfather, well... he might not like it but he is rather efficient when pressed to do it"
"There is nothing I wouldn't do for my family" Carlisle paused his pacing and smiled at his wife "Nothing I wouldn't do for you, my love... and tackling a werewolf should not surprise you"
"You tackled a werewolf alone?" I asked bemused.

"Well, not alone... with Emmett and Rosalie" Carlisle murmured "Nahuel ran off... he knew the territory we were in was not Joham's but this Raul. And Raul has werewolves patrolling his borders to Joham's territories. Edward, they don't need the moon to turn! They have collars and... What I suspect to be human guards or watchers who trigger their transformation and somehow control them through the collars... a series of electric shocks. There is so much more here... and as much as Aro wont leave my family alone, I feel this is beyond us son"
"Yes, the werewolves..." Renesme breathed from beside me, tucking my hair back. She had been murmuring how thin I had gotten; accusing Leah of negligence "We never really understood how it was Raul was controlling them. It would make sense that the human familiars were controlling them... a vampire... is a grave distraction to those beasts. They caught a werewolf once, it was mindless... more mindless than a new born. There is no semblance of humanity in those creatures when they are transformed. They are beasts... rabid ones at that. Best to be put down"

"Dominic and Matthew don't even know what their sustenance is" I murmured, avoiding Edward's gaze this time. Was I ready to discuss venom? We were all here and I remembered the power the venom gave me... but I remembered the torture the monster in me delivered with each dosage, the loneliness and fear of harming Leah...

"That's a sign" Edward whispered, smiling "You are healing"

"More on Nahuel" I pressed Carlisle, quickly moving them over asking Edward what his statement was about.

"He ran off" Carlisle repeated "Of course, the beasts were not so concerned with him from his being half human... I am unsure on whether he will return to Joham or seek Huilen out. Rosalie and Emmett decided to stay a while in Rio and source information out and they will try and make their way back to us through Africa... precaution. Jasper is doing the same..."
"Where is Alice?" Esme asked.

"She left when Isabella and Jane attacked us" I said "For Jasper... I am sure, they had threatened her with him"
"Then she should be with Jasper" Esme nodded "Her gift would lead her to him"

"In the face of these werewolves..." Edward said "Aro wants us all more than ever. He has no hope of convincing Caius to take Raul or Joham's measures... so more vampires with talents mean everything to him. And I suspect, he knows how much of an upper hand he would have if he had actual wolves that had intelligence at his command..."

"He can never have the Quileute!" Renesme growled, her eyes flashing "He can never have anyone... not anymore. We will be our own army if need be!"

"Which is what Leah and Jacob have agreed on" Edward smiled. "And that is where I am impressed with Leah Clearwater... taking the reins to ensure our world remains ours"

"Do we stay here?" Esme asked.

"No" I said "It would be unwise of us to remain where they know we once where"
"We can't move until the werewolves are done with their cycle" Edward said.

"And what of the girl?" Renesme asked, looking back at the door that I once lay motionless for weeks behind.

"She has to come" Edward said "There is no way to tell if she is infected by either Charles blood and venom, or the wolf bite as yet... she is going to have to be a part of this, for a while"

Xx~xx~xX

Of course I wanted to be back at the farm, with the wolves and Leah-but being part vampire in any manner made it that much more difficult for Dominic and Matthew when they transformed. It felt like we had entered a new world, or at least… stumbled upon an old one that we had previously been ignorant to.

No death or life, no joy or sorrow-just fear; that was all we had to guide us in this strange new world…

It is prudent, to fear the unknown.

AUHTORS NOTE:

IF YOU WERE ONE OF THE FEW WHO READ THE UNEDITED VERSION, APLOGIES. I named both files the same and well… you get the picture.

Two character deaths, or three… to come. You have been warned.