PREVIOUSLY-
"Alright then, Bells. Get some sleep and call me at the station anytime tomorrow if you need me." He said, standing up and heading to the doorway.
"I will. Love you, Dad." I said to him just as he was leaving the room.
"Love you too, baby girl."
I fell asleep quickly, but it was an uneasy sleep. I couldn't get warm enough, despite the amount of blankets on top of me. Something about it just felt off.
When my alarm went off in the morning, I woke still feeling cold but no longer anxious. It was a strange feeling, but I could tell that either Sam or Jared was nearby and I wondered if the sleeping troubles were related to them in any way.
I knew that Charlie would already be at work, so I took a deep breath and wondered if what I was about to do would actually work.
"If you can hear me, you can come inside and up to my room." I said louder than my talking voice but not quite yelling.
For a second I thought I had just made myself sound crazy, but then I heard the front door opening. It had worked. I would have to ask about all of the things the wolves could do, but at least now I knew they had super hearing.
I heard a soft knock on my door. "Come in."
The door opened and I realized that it was Jared who came in. I hadn't been able to see him properly in the dark wet forest the night before but now I could and he was very handsome, just as handsome as Sam was. I blushed at the thought and shook my head as I looked at his tanned and toned body, again without a shirt, only a pair of cutoff jeans.
He chuckled and looked down at me as I gave him a questioning look. "I guess I should go ahead and tell you that Sam and I can feel your emotions."
I blushed again, now realizing that meant he knew I was checking him out. I smacked my hand to my face and I knew I was bright red. It was then that I realized I could feel what I assumed was two separate sets of emotions layered on top of my own and one of them was excited while the other was anxious.
"And I guess it would only be fair of me to tell you I think you're pretty gorgeous too." He told me with a smile as he leaned up against my doorframe. It seemed like I couldn't stop blushing. It didn't help that he was definitely a charmer for sure.
"I'm pretty sure I still have leaves and twigs in my hair…" I mentioned, looking down and pulling a leaf out of my hair.
"Doesn't matter to me. Want my help to get them out?" He asked as I tried to search my hair for more.
I looked back up at him in surprise. "You'd do that?"
"Anything, Bella. Including picking leaves out of your hair." He replied with a slight chuckle, walking over to me and motioning for me to sit up.
I sat up and he sat behind me, gently running his fingers through my hair, plucking out leaves and twigs as he went, setting them in a small pile on my nightstand.
"Thank you." I whispered to him, somehow miraculously not feeling embarrassed.
"How are you feeling this morning?" He asked me as he continued at his task.
"Better, but I'm still cold and my ankle is pretty sore. Dr. Gerandy said it was only a sprain though, so that's good." I replied honestly.
"I'm just glad it wasn't worse. You could've easily gotten hypothermia or actually broken an ankle with the weather and terrain out there." He responded.
"Says the person wearing nothing but shorts while out searching for me in the same weather and terrain." I said to him with a small giggle.
"Our clothes don't phase with us and we can't carry more than a pair of shorts tied to our leg. So it was either shorts or naked. Not like it really matters anyway; we don't get cold. And I'm pretty sure your dad might've questioned us if Sam walked out holding you while not wearing anything." He laughed and I blushed as I thought about what he'd said.
I smiled. "Yeah, that might have not gone over very well."
"Do you have a brush and a hair tie?" He asked me out of nowhere as he stood up.
"Uh yeah, in the bathroom, top shelf." I told him, curious about what he was going to do with it.
He came back into the bedroom and sat back behind me, beginning to brush my hair before I felt his fingers running through it again in a way that almost made me want to fall back to sleep.
When he was done, he tied the end of it with a hair tie and I reached up, feeling a very well done braid cascading down my back.
"Come here." he told me, moving his leg behind me so that I was now sitting between his legs. I leaned back into him and sighed at the immediate warmth that rushed through my body.
"Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Where were you last night when I was freezing cold?" I asked as I closed my eyes, resting against him.
"Trying to resist being here. Sam was too. Let me tell you, that was extremely hard for us." He replied with honesty. I frowned at his words.
"Why was it so difficult?" I questioned curiously.
I felt him take a deep breath before replying. "We really don't know very much about imprinting except what was passed down by word of mouth -which wasn't much-, so we're both really running blind here. Apparently distance isn't something we take very well. Both of us were up all night, actively trying not to run back up here."
"I think I felt your anxiety… both of you. I didn't sleep well either." I replied to him.
"I'm going to have to tell Sam. I don't know what we're going to have to do about it but none of us need to go through that again." Jared said as I turned to lay on my side so that I could look up at him.
"Where is Sam?" I asked, curious as to where he could be.
"He wanted to patrol this morning, make sure the Cullens didn't double back." He said in return.
"Patrol?"
"All three of us take turns patrolling the area to check if any vampires are close by. When the Cullens were here, our territory was limited to the reservation, but now that they're gone, we have the entire Olympic Peninsula." He told me as I listened in curiosity.
"The whole Olympic Peninsula? That's like a huge area!" I was clearly confused.
He started chuckling. "Not for us. We can run to Seattle and back in less than an hour and up to Canada in about 15 minutes. We have to be faster than the vamps if we're supposed to kill them."
My eyes widened at him. "Wow. What else can you do? I mean obviously you're both like really hot –" I blushed as I felt his amusement "—I didn't mean like that, although you are, but I'm getting off track. I meant your body temperature is really hot."
"108, all the time." He replied proudly.
"108? I thought the highest you can go without getting brain damage was 107?" I questioned incredulously.
"We're wolves, Bella." He laughed. "Like I said, we don't ever get cold, we heal extremely fast, super hearing, speed, strength, eyesight, and smell. Scents are a huge thing for us, part of our animal instincts, I guess. We have a degree of invincibility, although we can get hurt, it just takes a lot. Oh, and we can hear each other's thoughts, only while we're phased though. We call it the pack mind."
I listened with rapt attention as he spoke, feeling intrigued about the whole thing. I could feel that he was really tired though and he was trying to stay awake.
"Hey, why don't you try to rest and you can tell me more later?" I suggested as I looked up at him.
"Can I stay?" He asked me nervously.
"Well I wasn't intending for you to leave. Here, move over to the side and we can both lay down." I told him, feeling his surprise.
He nodded and slid his other leg underneath me to where he was lying next to me. I readjusted myself to where I was laying with my head on his chest with his arm wrapped around me.
It should've felt weird considering I'd only met him the night before, but it didn't. Not at all. I relished the feeling and the warmth that came along with it. I could feel that he was beyond happy as well.
"Sam is going to be jealous." He chuckled.
"I'll make sure he gets to rest today too. When we wake up, do you think you can take me down to the reservation to see him?" I asked him, feeling the need to see Sam as well.
"I ran here on four legs…" He replied and I laughed.
"You can drive my truck, you know. I might need some help getting in and out of it though." I told him with a smile.
"I can do that."
We both fell asleep easily and a couple hours later, he woke me up.
I sat up sleepily to him handing me my phone. "Your dad's calling."
I took the phone and answered it. Charlie was just checking on me and I told him that I was feeling much better and that I was going down to the reservation for a while. He asked about my ankle and I told him that it was fine although I left out the fact that it was still very sore. He sounded happy that I was going to the reservation and that as long as I felt alright, he was okay with me going.
When I hung up the phone, I looked at Jared. "Did you get enough sleep?"
"Yeah, I did. Doesn't take much for us to recharge and I'm pretty sure I've never slept so well in my entire life." He responded, sitting up. "So, time to go to the res?"
I nodded. He helped me up and also helped me put my shoes on before handing me my jacket. Once I was sufficiently dressed, he chose to pick me up and carry me down the stairs to my truck, sitting me in the passenger seat and taking the driver's side.
As we started down to the reservation, I scooted closer to him in the seat, huddling into his side for the warmth.
"So tell me more about you. How old are you?" I questioned as he drove.
"17, turning 18 in a couple weeks. Sam is 19." He replied.
"I just turned 18 the other day… September 13th." I said to him.
"Well then, happy late birthday. Mine's on the 28th."
"It wasn't exactly the happiest of birthdays this year." I frowned, thinking about the doomed party that was held.
"Sam and I will have to change that. You get another birthday this year, a happy one, no exceptions." I hadn't enjoyed my birthday this year to begin with because it meant that I was a year older than Edward, but now that didn't matter. Jared would be the same age as me in a couple weeks and Sam was a year older. I wasn't afraid to age anymore.
"I think I'd like that." I replied to him happily. "Do you go to school?"
"I would've been a senior this year but Paul and I had special privileges to graduate early because of our status. The council knows and allowed it." He explained to me.
"No fair. I wish I could graduate early." I grumbled into his side.
"There's technically nothing saying you can't… If you have all the classes you need, all you'd have to do is ask your principal. Since you're an imprint now, I'm sure Billy and Harry could come up with something to help if that's what you wanted." He suggested to me which piqued my interest.
"As of this semester, I have all the classes I need to graduate. All the classes I chose for next semester are just fillers. Do you really think I could?" I asked him curiously.
"Definitely. If you want, we can talk to Billy and see what he can do. Sam told him about the imprints this morning so that he could record it with the tribe. Oh, I should probably mention that you're now officially part of the Quileute tribe."
I looked up at him in surprise. "Really? How?"
"Imprints are an automatic in with the tribe if they're not already Quileute." He responded.
I didn't ask any more on the subject just yet. "How did Billy take it?"
"Sam said he was surprised about the whole thing but happy that you were finally away from the Cullens." He said just as we were pulling into a driveway that led to a two story wooden house.
"Is this Sam's house?" I questioned.
"Yep. Sam's house and pack central." He replied, turning off the truck and opening the door making some sort of noise, I assumed alerting Sam to our arrival.
Sure enough, Sam walked outside immediately and began walking to my side of the truck, opening the door and lifting me into his arms, carrying me inside.
He sat me down on the couch and I could feel his happiness that I was there. I looked around the house, taking it all in before focusing back on Sam who was sitting on the ottoman in front of me, looking down at my ankle.
"How are you feeling?" He asked as he unbandaged my foot carefully.
"A lot better. Taking a nap with Jared really helped." I replied, wondering how he was going to take that piece of news.
"Oh really?" he asked with a raised eyebrow as Jared smirked from the chair behind him.
"He said you were both up all night so I made him sleep with me—I mean, with me, not with me. Like next to me." I turned red and slapped my hand to my face. "You know what I'm trying to say…"
Sam and Jared both laughed before Sam returned to checking out my swollen ankle. "I understand. Jared, go grab me an ice pack from the freezer."
Jared stood from the chair and walked over to the freezer, grabbing an ice pack then coming back and handing it to Sam, who then placed it on my ankle.
I winced and sucked in a breath when it touched my skin.
"I'm sorry, Bella, but this will make it heal faster." He said to me, turning me to the side so that my leg was up on the couch. I was in complete awe at the amount of care they were giving me. Both of them had immediately made sure that I was taken care of first and foremost without a second thought.
"It's alright. I know that it will, but I was pushing it off because I was so cold until Jared came. He helped warm me up though." I replied to him.
"I'm glad he did." Sam responded with a smile, grabbing a blanket from the other side of the couch and laying it over top of me.
"Bro, she had it almost as bad as us last night." Jared told him and Sam sighed.
"I wondered if you would. I was really hoping that wasn't the case." Sam spoke, running his hand down his face.
"What are we going to do? All three of us can't be doing this every night." Jared asked him.
"I don't know yet, but we'll have to figure something out." He replied.
"Jared mentioned that I might be able to graduate early. He said Billy might be able to help with that?" I asked Sam as he stood to walk over to the kitchen area. I immediately felt a spike of excitement pulse through him.
"Absolutely, if that's what you want to do. You don't have to graduate early if you don't want to. I don't want you to be pressured into it just because both of us are already graduated." He told me adamantly and I smiled up at him.
"No, I want to. I'd love to graduate early if I can." I said to him, watching him grab something out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter before pulling two plates out and setting something on them. He then brought the plates over to both me and Jared and I saw that it was a sandwich. I hadn't even realized that I was hungry until he gave it to me.
"I hope a turkey sandwich is alright with you." He mentioned as he handed me the plate.
"Yeah, it's great. Thank you." I replied before biting into the sandwich.
"You're welcome. So what else did you guys do this morning?" Sam asked me.
"Jared picked the leaves and twigs out of my hair then braided it for me and filled me in on all the things you guys can do before we fell asleep." I explained to him in between bites. "Can you really run to Seattle in less than an hour?"
Sam smirked proudly and chuckled. "54 minutes for me, 56 minutes for Jared, and 57 minutes for Paul."
"So you're the fastest?" I asked him with my eyebrow raised.
Jared answered first. "It's only because he's alpha."
"Alpha?" I questioned. "So it's like a real wolf pack?"
"Yes, Bella. All of our mechanics are the same as a real pack, just a supernatural one. I'm the alpha and Jared is beta. Eventually there will be more pack members as well." Sam replied to my question.
"Wait, more pack members? Who? And how do you know?"
"In order to phase, you have to have the gene passed down from an ancestor that was in the last pack. There were only three in the last pack, but there are several people on the reservation that share bloodlines." Sam began.
"Who was in the last pack?" I questioned immediately.
"My great-grandfather Levi Uley, Quil Ateara II, and Ephraim Black."
My eyes widened. "Does that mean Jake will phase?"
"He's supposed to be next in line, we just don't know when. Something has to trigger us." Sam replied.
"Wow, okay. So Jared, what bloodline are you from?" I wondered who it could be.
"I'm from the Black line, just further up the tree. Jacob and I share a great-great-great grandfather, Jacob Black Sr." Jared told me as he stood up to take his plate back to the kitchen and rinse it off.
"What about Paul?" I asked curiously.
"He's from my line. We share the same great grandfather." Sam told me.
"What about me?" I heard from the doorway, looking up to see another shirtless Quileute walk through the door.
"Paul, come meet Bella." Sam told him, waving him over to us. "Bella, this is Paul Lahote."
"Nice to meet you." I said to him as he stood next to the chair where Jared was now seated again.
"Same. I don't know how both of these fuckers managed to imprint on you, Swan, but good luck with that. Must be into some pretty kinky shit." I turned bright red and Jared swung his arm into Paul's stomach.
"Dude, what the fuck man?" Jared glared at him.
"What? She's the imprint of not one, but two giant fucking wolves. Either she's into poly already or she's about to be." I nearly choked on my own spit.
"Enough, Paul." Sam told him commandingly and he raised his hands in defeat before walking over to the fridge and grabbing himself a sandwich.
My cheeks were still burning as I turned my attention back to Sam.
"Don't listen to him, Bella. Like I told you last night, we'll be whatever you want us to be. It doesn't have to go that way if you don't want it to, with either or both of us." Sam said to me in a quiet tone.
I sat and thought about it for a second. If an imprint was basically the same as a true mate, why would I want anything different from them? Sure, it was odd that there was two of them. Something I'd never considered in the past, but I'd always been open minded (and I blamed Renee for that). My comfort level around them, my need to be close to them, how I felt with them… none of it registered on a purely 'friendly' level.
"What if—" I stopped, looking over to where Paul was standing, not sure if I wanted to start that conversation with him right there.
"Leave, Paul." Sam told him immediately as if sensing that I was uncomfortable with him listening in at that point in time.
"But—"
"He said go, dumbass. The three of us need to talk." Jared reiterated.
A/N- A little longer chapter today! I really hope you enjoy :)
Please remember to follow and review for more updates!
Love ya bunches,
Bex