Of Curses and Legends
POV: Embry


Jake's warning pounds in my head. I've been wallowing in self-pity for two weeks. He's right. I'm not proving myself much of a man here. And now he's offering me an opportunity to show myself worthy of Leah.

I sigh and look pointedly at the sheaf of papers he's taken out of the manila envelope.

"So, what did the leech find out?" I ask warily.

"First, let me tell you what Edward told me."

And so Jake starts to tell me how the bloodsucker happened to be hunting in the woods during a stop over to Europe at the same time the terrible twins paid a visit to Bella. It also happened to be on the same night Jake was on a jet plane with Leah bound for New Hampshire.


POV: Leah

We're still on the porch and I'm mulling over Felicia's message of: So, why not both?

It hurts my head to think about such free-wheeling. And she's grinning at me like a maniac. I swear, there's something not right about this girl if she wants me to two-time Stefan with Embry.

"So, yeah, anyway," I say with some trepidation. "That other night, what was that all about anyway?"

I turn to look at her and watch as a pained expression mar her otherwise beautifully angelic face.

"It's a really, really long story, Leah," Felicia says wearily.

"So, just start at the beginning," I say casually. "It seems like I don't have anything but time."


POV: Embry

"... and so, when I got back, I found this letter from Edward," Jake says as I watch him dig into the sickeningly sweet pile to pull out a fancy cream colored envelope and hand it to me. I wave it away, holding my breath. I still can't take it from him. The smell of it is absolutely revolting.

"Just tell me what it says," I say quietly, pushing Jake's hand away again.

"He thinks that Stefan is a shifter, his chosen form is a lynx and some sort of predatory bird. Ed says he's 'after' Leah and that I was on his mind, too," Jake gets quiet, seeming to hesitate. He looks at me doubtfully, chewing on his lip. I know he's going to affirm my suspicions about Stefan - the initial reason I'd decided to visit Jake and start talking to him again.

"It gets worse Embry. Leah's imprint can read minds and project thoughts into them, too."

"Stop calling him that," I snip, irritatingly. "I figured he could do that, not the projecting thoughts part... but... yeah, anyway, whatever... I think I'm sort of glad he can. Now he knows I can't stand the sight of him. If he found that out by invading my thoughts, it serves him right. Besides, I barely had to exert any effort at showing him my hatred."

Jake stares at me open-mouthed, surprised by my reply. I guess he thought I was going to lose it over that last bit of information.

"Why do you look so stunned, Jake? I watched you torture that vampire using only your thoughts alone. It was... well... disturbing… at the time. I also know a little about undergoing mental torture, myself. After all, Leah sure can dole it out," I add, smiling woefully at him. "Now, Jake, don't you think I'm looking forward to causing Steffie a little mental torture myself? When I think about it, it's kind of a cool power that I can use against him."

Jake gives me a rueful chuckle and shakes his head. I shrug, unbothered.

"Yeah, well, there's more," he says, ruffling the sheets of paper in his hand. "You ready?"

I nod. "Yeah, go ahead."

"Edward thinks we werewolves in LaPush are distant relatives to werewolves known to all leeches as Children of the Moon. The bloodsuckers believe they wiped all of our ancestors out in some vamp/werewolf war a long time ago, but - and this is me talking - I'm sure some of the werewolves escaped the genocide and found their way to the West coast or to Asia. Though the original werewolves could bite humans to create more werewolves, they could also reproduce the normal way. There were females in the pack..."

Jake stares at me. And I don't need telepathy to know that one name enters both of our heads at precisely the same time.

Leah


POV: Leah

"Stefan fell in love with a woman he shouldn't have been with," Felicia says in a lilting voices, as though reading a fairytale. "She was a close friend to both werewolves and shifters, with a stronger connection to those who were known by the blood thirsty as the Children of the Moon. Because of this connection, she met Stefan who was childhood friends with one of the werewolf packs. Where we come from, it was forbidden to be intimate with mere humans. We were friendly with them, but mating with them was prohibited."

She stares at me, daring me to call her a bigot. I don't.

Different time, is what I think back at her.

She nods and continues.

"This woman, her name was Elisheva, told us she was a sorceress, but she never could conjure anything or do anything remotely magical in my presence. So, I didn't believe her to be anything but a human infatuated with my brother. It wasn't until Stefan and I found ourselves cursed that I came to see just how powerful a witch she really was."

Listening to Felicia's story I suddenly suspect that a great deal of what I'd thought only existed in the realm of fantasy is out there and is real. I know I'm getting a bit hysterical because I have an irresistible urge to clap my hands and shout at the top of my lungs, "I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!"

She shoots me a forlorn look and I wonder if she's listening to my insane musings in her lovely head. She doesn't indicate if this is true or not, only continues her storytelling in a mournful voice.

"This whole thing is my fault." She hides her face in her hands and for the second time today it occurs to me that this woman is unused to admitting and accepting that she can sometimes be terribly wrong. "I should have looked away, Leah! Stefan was happy, the happiest I'd ever seen him, in fact, but I felt Elisheva was unworthy of my brother. He was destined to be our leader, meant to be mated for life with another shifter, or even better, with one of the Children of the Moon. So, on the night he and Elisheva planned to run off together, I put him under a sleeping spell and bound him to his bed with an invisible force while I made sure she'd gone away, heartbroken."

She stops to stare at me.

"You know," she says in a whisper. "You remind me of her... you look a lot like her. It's unnerving."

At this point in her story, my mind is reeling. I can't believe I'm having a conversation, albeit one-sided, about witches and shifters, and curses and... What the hell were Felicia and Stefan anyway?

Hearing my unspoken question, Felicia answers me.

I am a shifter. I can take on any animal form and so can Stefan. But he prefers two forms, a lynx and a falcon. We're Norse shifters, different from werewolves in not only form but in our powers, like telepathy, strength, speed and ... others. You are a werewolf. Stefan suspects that you are distantly related to the Children of the Moon, which is why, he is in LaPush. He'd been tracking an ancient line of werewolves that now has him on your ancestral land. This is why you both find yourself in this thrall.

"Thrall?" I ask out loud.

"Judging from your previous thoughts, you have the same. You call it imprint," Felicia replies.

I take a sip of my now cold tea to hide my emotions. Without comment and only a wave of my hand, I prompt her to go on.

"Elisheva did not know of my treachery… And well, you've heard the saying, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? Well, truer words have never been spoken when it came to Elisheva..."


POV: Embry

"Edward said that for the females, as part of preparation for mating and having children, the female werewolves go through seven years of being part of the pack. After that, they become more human, unable to shift, and are ready to reproduce. The seven years also allows the females of the pack to help prepare their young for the life of a werewolf, since she'd been one herself."

I mentally do the math in my head. "So, Leah is only starting her second year of ..."

"..werewolf puberty..." Jake helpfully supplies with an amused chuckle.

"Well, that would explain why she thinks she's menopausal," I say absently, drawing a bark of laughter from Jake. "She hasn't surpassed werewolf child-bearing age...she's regressed into werewolf tweener-dom and hasn't even... uh... become a were-woman yet."

"I think I'm going to let you have the honor of telling her this," Jake adds, thoughtfully. "I'd rather not have her bite my head off... literally."

I roll my eyes at him. Coward.

"And as for Stefan," Jake continues. "Edward seems fearful of him, which freaks me out because that sharp tooth isn't afraid of anything. He tells me Stefan must have Nordic blood that..." Jake rifles through his papers to find the notes. "'…his kind of shifters can take any shape...They're extremely powerful.. and that their powers, whatever ones they might possess, rival vampiric ones, especially in the women.'"

"Scary," I say flabbergasted at the amount of knowledge the leech has collected.

Weird how they're working together. What the hell happened between him and Jake to allow for this kind of cooperation between them to be happening right now? I wonder to myself. Hell, if I were Jake, I would laugh in the leech's face, proclaiming myself the better man for winning the girl.

"Yeah, that Felicia is one frightening creature," Jake says, seeming to recall something that I am not privy to. "Judging from what I've been told, that girl sure doesn't want Leah anywhere near her brother."

Hmmm, I think with a little smile. Seems as though I'm going to really like this Felicia.


POV: Leah

"So she cursed him - us- forever," Felicia recounts quietly. "She left him impotent among humans and shifters, unable to father children, one of the primary duties and the greatest of all blessings given to the leader of the clan. But to make matters worse, he was to walk the earth attracted to the most deceitful and conniving of all human women for eternity."

My eyes widen. Impotence, doesn't that mean...

Felicia lifts her index finger and then allows it to droop.

Wide-eyed, I cover my open-mouth. Poor Stefan, indeed!

"How long?" I ask, my voice shaky since I hadn't had to use it during the duration of her story.

"Too long, really. It's been so long we've lost count. At least through the Middle Ages," She sighs. "As you might imagine, he was frustrated through the first hundred."

My eyes widen even more.

"Stefan hasn't had sex since the 1400s?!" I'm thankful for once that I'd paid attention in my art history classes. "I mean, that's the end of the Middle Ages. The 5th Century is when the Middle Ages began!"

My mind crawls back to the night I plastered myself all over him and I seem to recall feeling his... uhm...excitement. Felicia can't be right.

She catches my suspicious gaze.

"There are other ways. Maybe not as satisfying for Stefan, but there are other ways to pleasure a woman. But, I haven't finished my story yet," she explains. "The curse gives these women the power to enthrall him, thrall means to enslave."

I nod. I can see how that might be the same for imprinting. No choice. Even if its wrapped in a pretty or gorgeously handsome package, you don't get to choose the bond.

"When in their thrall, Stefan must fulfill the woman's every desire… while she is alive. He has the power to do just about everything, except of course, the obvious. He's unable to express his love or passion for them with his body. We've discovered that the sort of women destined to enthrall him get quite angry when their man can't perform. And with Elisheva's curse, the more evil the woman, the more powerful the enthrallment. These were the worst because they kept him in unna, or the most superficial kind of love, of which traps not only his body and mind, but also his heart."

Felicia's face fills with such sorrow over the memories she has of these unfortunate times for her brother.

"Once Elisheva realized I was the one who tricked them both, Stefan would no longer have her. He'd been so angry that she'd thought so little of him and he refused to accept her apology. So, to punish me and him, she made me my brother's keeper," Felicia explains bitterly. "The only way to break these magical enthrallments is through the death of the woman who holds him in a thrall. And this is where I come in," she hesitates, unable to meet my gaze. "I've killed twice, Leah. For Stefan."

I've killed, too, I say in my mind. They were of the wild, blood-thirsty undead variety, but I've killed, too, and I know what that's like.

There are tears in her eyes for my quiet acceptance.

I have no desire to judge Felicia about what she's done to keep her brother from bondage.

"It ripped my soul apart when I killed them, Leah," she says suddenly, breaking into heart rendering sobs. "But I had to! The things that they had Stefan do! The pitiful look in his eyes. I couldn't leave him at their mercy! It wasn't his fault. He should not be the one who has to pay for my sins!"

It is my turn to place a hand on hers. "It's Ok. You don't have to explain, Felicia. It's OK."

"I didn't want to kill you, Leah. That's why I just threw you out. I'm so sorry I hurt you and humiliated you. But just know that I did those things because I didn't want to kill you, too."

"Well, lucky me," I say with a wry smile. "It's a good thing, too, because I can't imagine doing anything to warrant you taking my life in cold blood. I'm not evil, felicia. Hell, I don't even want the imprint with your brother… But the thing is… well, you probably don't want to hear it, since Stefan's your brother and everything, but I seem to have helped him with his millennium-old problem."

She looks at me quizzically. I meet her stare, present a droopy index finger then purposefully raise it to point it to the sky. It is her turn to look at me with wide-eyed wonder.

"No wonder he was so furious that I'd come home," she said with a giggle, her tears forgotten. She gets up and swiftly grabs me up in an unexpected hug. "Do you know what this means, Leah?! It means YOU'RE THE ONE! You're the one we've been searching for! You're the one who can save us!"

"What?! Just because I helped Stefan get his mojo back?! "

"No, silly! You're going to have Stefan's child!" She looks absolutely ecstatic, while I imagine I must look shell-shocked. "You're going to help Stefan break Elisheva's spell, help Stefan have a baby, and finally make me an aunt!"


POV: Embry

"… and this witch jinxes the male werewolf, causing him to be enslaved to crazy, mad women who use him mercilessly… and, now, Edward thinks that this old legend, unearthed in Greenland, has something to do with the terrible two-some. Apparently, according to legend, the only way to break the sorceress's curse is for the male shifter, I guess Stefan, to imprint on, mate with, and have a baby with a female werewolf - a Child of the Moon."

I'm still trying to put two and two together. And suddenly I realize what Jake is trying to tell me in his convoluted way.

If this legend is actually truth…

If the LaPush werewolves are truly descendants of the Children of the Moon…

and if Leah did indeed imprint on Stefan…

then…

Oh! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!!!!

"… so that means… if what Ed is thinking is right..." Jake is still talking, I can barely hear him over my internal shouting. "… looks like Leah's got no real choice in the matter, Embry. She's got to see this imprint through if she's going to rid herself of the archaeologist."

"Wait! This doesn't make any sort of sense, Jake. Why would the witch give him that one out? Unless she thought..." my mind drifts off, trying to think of anything that would make sense in a very pissed-off, magical female's mind.

"...unless she thought she could somehow come back as a female werewolf," Jake supplies, "... you know... be reincarnated as a female Child of the Moon."

This is crazy!

Can Leah be this witch incarnated? Shit! This can not be happening to Leah. This is pure insanity.

In my frustration, I finally grab at the saccharine smelling papers, neatly stacked in the file folder. I quickly sift through them, throwing each away from me in my frenzied search for a word that says there is another option, that there is an alternative to her and Stefan being together. I read through the bloodsucker's letters to Jake. I take note of the vampire's annoyingly neat handwriting, pick up another sheet, and another, and another, and find myself staring at the last piece. It is torn at the bottom and appears to be written with a feminine hand. They are handwritten copies of findings from Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

[sic] The power of the imprint, or thrall, is irresistible. For such a bonding leaves no question of the physical and genetic perfection that would result from such a pairing. Among werewolves, the imprint is unique, a monogamous pairing. Among mere shifters, however, the imprint is of common occurrence. As in the animal world, the female shifter is able to choose her mate from among many males vying for her attention. Her final selection is often only from those she alone has deemed genetically acceptable.

The males of the species have but one weapon, only their unique mating call. If heard by the female, it brings them to the front lines of her attention. The female, upon hearing the call possesses the power to summon the male to her side or reject him outright.

Should such an imprint occur between shifter and werewolf species, however, the male of either species does retain the ability to . . .

"To... what, Jake!? To… what?!" I hear the frantic note in my voice.

"I don't know, Embry. I'm sorry. I got the paper that way, and Edward says he did too, but I seriously doubt that," he adds, his tone clouded with suspicion. "I'm harassing the bloodsucker about it now. But that was the latest thing I'd received from him. I'm still waiting for more."


POV: Leah

I reel at Felicia's words and back out of her embrace.

"I can't have a baby with Stefan, Felicia. What are you talking about? Are you serious?!"

She looks like I struck her with my fist rather than refused her with my words.

"What do you mean, Leah?" Her question seems sincerely confused. "If you have a baby with Stefan, he'd be free of the curse. That's the way to break it. If he… well… like you said, found his mojo with you, that means YOU'RE the ONE! You could free him, you could free us both!"

The ache that had been niggling at the back of my brain, comes at me full-force, coursing through to the front of my head. I am utterly speechless. Then for whatever insane reason, I find myself thinking about the fact that I haven't menstruated since I phased, nearly two years ago. I think about how I felt kissing Embry and how I felt when I was with him the night of Sam's wedding.

Bittersweet.

I think about my constant grief that I am simply barren.

She reads my mind. I know she's doing it. And then to my utter amazement, Felicia laughs at me. "Don't worry, that's normal," she says, comfortingly. "You're still young. It's OK, you'll be able to have children."

A part of my heart unclenches and a phantom breath that I didn't know I held deep within me releases.

I'm normal. I'm normal!

Then, hearing my internal rejoicing, Felicia takes the opportunity to sends me visions of her watching Stefan's unerring gaze on me that very first day. Shockingly, she gives me his carbon-copy thoughts and emotions when we were finally were alone together that fateful night.

Hunger.

Desire.

Want.

The power of our pairing slams through me and I am at once bombarded with all of the feelings I had while in Stefan's arms.

I feel a tear trickle down my cheek as I re-experience it.

Uncontrolled.

Untamed.

Frantic.

Primal.

Ultimate femininity meeting complete masculinity.

It is beautiful, absolutely frightening.

"… And exciting, Leah," Felicia adds, a knowing smile on her face.

I don't even realize I'm nodding until I catch myself doing it.

"Stefan was not an innocent before the curse, Leah," Felicia says with a sly upturn of her lips. "He was touted among the clan vixens as being a highly skilled lover. The sort of man to experience the act of love with even if such a pairing wasn't destined to last a lifetime."

I accidentally flash on my unease at my own sexual inexperience. Felicia looks up at me, surprised. Her smile twitches.

"Imagine what it would be like to have a lover like Stefan before you settle down with your Embry. Imagine how much you could learn. Would that be such a terrible thing?"


Author's Note: Sorry about the delay in update. My baby bro got married and real life got in the way. This was an important set up chapter. I know there wasn't any romance or real interaction between Leah and Embry/Stefan. Next chapter, I promise!