Chapter Nine: The Alpha
Black Residence, La Push - (Ninety-five years ago)
A small bit of drywall fell off onto the plate as Bella pulled the hot pocket out of the microwave. The rough cut out in the wall next to the oven was supposed to have been finished with nice trim, but after they had gotten the microwave inside they found that the door wouldn't open if they had the trim in place. The two obvious solutions presented a financial issue, and Billy couldn't afford either. So the slowly deteriorating drywall occasionally dropped small reminders into their food.
Bella picked out the white speck and tossed it into the garbage without mentioning it to Jacob who was nearly passing out at the table. He had been on patrol all night, and had only gotten back at the crack of dawn, a fresh scar on his left forearm was already fading. Bella sat down loudly and pushed the plate in front of him. He snorted and shook himself awake.
"Thanks." Jacob sat forward over the plate, using his elbows to prop himself up.
"You gotta get some sleep Jake, you look like death." Bella said with a worried look, the rings under Jacob's eyes had gotten darker in the last few days.
"Tell that to the leech, she keeps playing with us." Jacob said with a yawn, a small smile on his face indicating he liked the challenge.
"Right, this is all my fault." Bella said, shaking her head, her own guilt about daring to be a part of the vampire world causing all this misery.
"What, it's your fault for falling for an asshat?" Jacob said, admonishing Bella's obvious guilt, he couldn't understand her need to take all of it onto herself, when Edward was the one who abandoned her to such impossible danger.
"Maybe, I don't even know about Edward anymore." Bella lowered her head, she felt a deep hurt revolving around her time with Edward, yet the hole in her chest and the pain she felt wasn't wholly centered around his absence anymore.
"Finally!" Jacob threw up his hands above his head in a small cheer.
"Jake, don't." She warned, narrowing her eyes at him a bit and shaking her head slightly.
"I know." Jacob frowned, and then shrugged. "So, Sam is pretty sure they know her pattern now, he's expecting her to change her routine this afternoon like clockwork." Jacob frowned and reached into his shorts pocket, pulling out a cell phone that was vibrating and answered immediately, mouthing 'Sam'.
"Yeah, I'm with her now. What? I'll be there. Get Colin or Seth to spell me. See you soon." He said, and Bella could almost hear Sam on the other end of the call. He sounded heated, and more than a little angry.
"What's going on?" Bella asked, feeling a sharp sense of worry for some reason she couldn't quite put her finger on.
"Vamp attack nearby. Some red-eyed leech made a mess of some poor hiker at a campsite just a few miles out of town. I need to go. Someone will be here soon to watch you." Jake spoke animatedly, shaking off the tiredness in his shoulders.
"Go, be careful." Bella still couldn't quite nail down her fear, and hoped he would use caution for once.
"Always." He stood, and stopped himself from leaning over towards her, and instead grabbed the hot pocket off the plate, bouncing it in his hands a few times to cool it off and was out the door in a flash.
Bella had gotten used to spending time at the Black house alone, Billy was always off doing council stuff and Jake usually patrolled during the day. She did go home at night, but since graduation she hadn't been able to do much for fear of Victoria intervening. The constant assault kept the pack busy, and lately the violence had ticked up a notch.
She got up and put the plate in the sink, and turned on the water to get the pile of dishes done. While they hadn't actually started to date, she was already acting like a housewife. It was honestly grating on her nerves a little, but she would never mention it. The small household chores didn't bother her, even taking over cooking gave her something to do.
As she turned off the water she heard the front door open, but not shut.
"Jake? You forget something?" She said as she started towards the living room. Except when she got there the room was empty. She felt the hairs on the back of her head start to stand, something felt very wrong.
"Bella, at last." The voice came from behind her as a pair of slender, but powerful arms wrapped around her waist. "It's been so long since we last saw each other." Bella found herself being spun around, coming face to face with a nightmare. A beautiful face, with dark red eyes framed with a mane of bright red hair.
"Victoria." Bella muttered breathlessly.
"The little mutt sent to guard you won't be joining our little party. Although, I believe a change of venue is in order." Victoria smiled, and grabbed Bella's hand roughly, breaking her wrist in two places. Bella managed not to scream from the sudden pain, desperately afraid of drawing anyone nearby who would end up as another innocent victim.
"Oh this will be fun." Victoria whispered in Bella's ear as she felt something hit her in the temple, knocking her unconscious.
Between La Push and Forks - January 29th
The howls sent a shiver down Isabella's spine. The sound sparking an ancient memory from a time when she took for granted what the world was like. She took a deep breath, pulling up her hood which easily concealed her face. While outwardly she was stone still, inside she was deeply unnerved, this would be a test of politics and coercion, neither of which she was very good at. Whoever was leader of this new pack had no obligation, no history, no reason to trust her word. Arriving with a package that could possibly incense and enrage them, she had no doubt this was about to get bloody.
Seconds after she stepped across the boundary line, the scent of dogs wafted up as five wolves moved towards her with deadly haste. Yet, despite the otherwise unappealing odor, it was distinctly different from the scent she had encountered earlier that day when fighting the shifters in the warehouse in Seattle. She set her shoulders in preparation, and then waited with her hands at her side.
The first on the scene was a dark silver blur, which snarled once announcing its presence as it appeared from the treeline on her left flank. The attack was sudden and vicious and almost certainly would have succeeded had Isabella been focused on anything else. Yet she was aware of everything coming towards her, and sidestepped the first attack easily. She then reached out and grabbed a hold of one leg, and using its own momentum against it, swung it around towards one of the other on-coming wolves.
"I'm not here to fight. I need to speak to your alpha." Isabella said calmly, as she surveyed the rest of the wolves while they took positions around her. She had but a second, and her advantage vanished almost immediately, as a slightly smaller sleeker wolf with grey fur and black spots, attacked head on. The frontal assault felt like a lure, because it was almost sloppy in execution. She felt herself fall into an easy stance, familiar in how often she had used it to catch an enemy unprepared. She waited until the last instant and bent unnaturally over the attack and twisted forwards to come up behind it and grab it's rear paws.
Pulling it up and around, she used the poor mutt as a club against the wolf that was trying to flank what should've been her blind spot. Of course she had Eliza's connection who had a bird's eye view of the entire battlefield. Sending both wolves reeling, Isabella had to stifle a small chuckle, reasoning that this had to be diplomatic. She had to stop the fighting.
She turned on the majority of the pack and squared her shoulders, and let the shadows start to creep into her. It wasn't a pleasant sensation but it always stilled an enemy.
"Mom, no." Eliza tried to stop her, because every time Isabella used this tactic she felt a small bit of her mother vanish with the shadows.
"I'll be fine." Isabella sent back with determination through the link. "Stop!" She said aloud. The volume was enough to draw attention, but she infused her voice with darkness echoing like a slithering worm burrowing into the minds of everyone in earshot. Eliza felt an involuntary shiver run up her spine, and she was prepared for the effect.
The wolves all immediately cowered, save for the dark silver furred wolf who had managed to recover from her first deflection, and was actively looking for an opening. He hunkered down low, a snarl curling his hackles up. Isabella tilted her head, his mannerisms and coloring suddenly seemed very familiar, but had no time to dwell on it. The wolf lunged forward aggressively, so fast that he got close enough to snap at Isabella's hooded face. She pulled back, just barely keeping out of his range, then she spun with the next lunge, slipping around his right side and sending a knee into its ribs. Then she grabbed the loose skin on his back, and threw him away from her, causing him to skid along the ground, until he slowed enough to roll to his feet.
She turned to meet his gaze, and recognized the shape of his eyes. Fuzzy as her human recollection of the wolves, she had once been able to identify her old friends easily in their wolf form. She shook her head, it was impossible. The wolf took advantage of her momentary pause, and charged her again. Instead of dodging, she met the charge head on. Plowing into him, Isabella got a grip on the fur of his chest. She twisted her body sending the wolf sailing into a nearby tree. With a loud crack, he hit the trunk and fell to the ground amid a small shower of bark and wood splinters, only to regain his feet again immediately growling loudly. She felt the shadows fade away as she realized who she was confronting.
"Paul Lahote." Isabella said in partial shock. If Paul was alive… no she couldn't imagine anyone from the pack would still be alive after a century. Yet the name stilled the snarls and the recovering wolves all started to look at each other in confusion. Using the pause in the conflict, she looked around on the off chance that there were others that she might recognize.
"Embry. Is that you too?" Isabella said towards the gray wolf with black spots, she couldn't accept what she was seeing, it made something inside her roar in confusion and anger. The pack should be dead. They deserved to be dead.
"No Mom, they don't. You know it wasn't their fault." Eliza said through their link, instantly calming Isabella's building rage.
"You're right." Isabella responded, releasing some of the tension building in her shoulders. She watched as a large sandy furred wolf stared at her, and let out a strangled whimper, almost involuntarily taking a step forward. Paul turned towards the wolf and barked loudly once.
"I'm not here to fight, I need to talk to your current Alpha." Isabella felt the strength return to her voice, the shock over seeing her old friends vanishing quickly. Paul howled once, and in the distance there was an answering howl. All the wolves settled back on their haunches and stared at her intently.
Isabella kept her gaze on Paul and after a few seconds of waiting she crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head at him. "Could you inform your Alpha that I cannot read minds, so he needs to be human, and preferably not naked." The sandy wolf let his tongue loll out, and huffed in short bursts in what she assumed was laughter.
It wasn't even two minutes later when she heard the pounding of heavy paws beating against the ground as not one, but four wolves moved into range. Three continued and one came to a stop and paused behind a tree. They all joined the rest of the pack, and the Alpha she assumed, now in human form, started towards her, while mostly concealed in shadows. Then he emerged from the tree line and Isabella let out an audible gasp.
"Jacob." She whispered mostly to herself, her mouth dropping in shock. He looked almost exactly the way she had remembered him; Short dark hair and a tribal tattoo on his right arm. While he hadn't visibly aged, he had a full beard and had grown into his features giving him a much more imposing appearance. He looked like a leader, as he stood in front of the rest of his pack without fear. His expression was somewhat familiar, a scowl that he used almost exclusively when he interacted with vampires. It was an expression that had never been directed at her.
"What are you doing in our territory leech? You know the treaty is void if you trespass on our land." Jacob demanded, despite his human form the wolfen snarl was still in his voice. His power and presence spoke to his status as the Alpha of the pack.
"Perhaps that would be true if I were a member of the Olympic coven, I am not. Your treaty is with them, and therefore not void." Isabella replied, struggling to regain her equilibrium as she faced someone she never expected to see again.
"Okay, then who the fuck are you? How do you know so much? Why shouldn't we kill you where you stand." He practically spit out the words, the disdain and hatred making him look ugly.
"I… it's complicated." Isabella struggled, she had prepared for a battle, diplomacy, coercion… not the past.
"You recognized two of my pack in their wolf forms, that means you have been watching us. You must have a reason for revealing yourself. If you know us, you know that we cannot let you leave here, your life is forfeit." Jacob snarled again, his voice full of contempt. Isabella snarled back and took an aggressive step forward.
"Jacob Black, don't you dare threaten me with death. My life was forfeit a hundred years ago and it was your fault!" Isabella responded feeling her anger returning, the darkness starting to gather in her eyes.
"Mother." Eliza said through their connection, hoping to pull her back again, but this time it wasn't working.
"My fault?" Jacob muttered to himself almost under his breath, taking a step back in response to her aggression and rage, now thoroughly confused.
"Did you mourn me, after promising to keep me safe? Did you dream about me mutt? Did you feel your heart rip out of your chest when you realized I was gone that day? Did you think I just ran, or did you suspect the truth? That you failed in every conceivable way!" Isabella took another step forward, and threw back her hood. Jacob gasped and fell back to the ground in shock.
"No… Oh god no." He shook his head and stared at her with his mouth agape.
"Oh yes, she got me. Now I'm this. So go ahead, kill me if you can! I'll take down most of your pack in the attempt. Or do you want to back the fuck down and listen?" Isabella was shouting, shaking with rage and pain. Her voice echoing through the forest and reverberating through shadow.
"Bella?" A small voice came from the right, and she turned to find Seth in his human form. She felt her resolve fracture and the rage emptied into the pit inside her, the beast caged again.
"Isabella." She corrected after flinching at the name used when she was human. Jacob got to his feet and openly stared at her, his eyes unblinking in shock.
"I'm so..." Jacob started, stepping forward almost involuntarily.
"No. You do not get to apologize." Isabella said, stopping him before he could get out the empty platitude.
"Isabella. I thought you... I thought you were dead. I thought the red-haired bloodsucker killed you." He managed to get out, while clearly in a state of minor shock. Isabella closed her eyes and lowered her head.
"What she did was so much worse than death, and I don't mean turning me into a vampire." Isabella spoke softly and sighed slightly. Then she looked at Jacob, who was shaking his head in disbelief, and was obviously at a loss for words. After taking a deep breath, she continued apologetically.
"I'm sorry. I didn't expect to see you. It's been so long. I thought…" She trailed off for a moment before squaring her shoulders and looking him in the face. "You told me once no matter what happened, you'd be my friend. Does this change things?"
"No. You will always be my friend. However, that doesn't mean that we can have a friendly relationship. You are a vampire, and it has been a century." Jacob responded immediately, but after he finished he began to work his jaw slowly. Isabella caught in her peripheral vision one of the smaller wolves, which had arrived with Jacob, turned and leapt away into the woods.
The wolf quickly returned now in her human form, and as she emerged from the deep shadows of the forest Isabella found her to be a pretty woman with striking features, her hair typical for a female shifter which was black, straight and hanging just below her chin. Unlike Leah though, she had managed to layer it and put it into a style that gave it some bounce. She appeared to be in her early twenties, and held herself with a strength that Isabella not only recognized, but respected. She came up next to Jacob and slid her hand into his, squeezing it slightly.
"Jacob, don't be rude." She said, scolding him, as only a lover could.
"Isabella, I would like to introduce you to my wife, Tekali." He turned towards the woman standing next to him slightly, a small smile spreading across his face. Isabella looked back and forth between them a couple of times, before her face broke into an honest grin.
"Jacob, I thought you hated the idea of imprinting!" Her words were unexpectedly playful, surprising even Eliza. The sudden change in her demeanor also affected the wolves, who all looked at each other in confusion again.
Jacob didn't miss a beat, while blushing slightly. "Yeah well if you can't beat-em, you got no choice but to join them, literally." He snorted slightly at his own joke, but Tekali elbowed him in the ribs. "Sorry." He muttered to her under his breath.
Isabella chuckled slightly at the joke, but the whole concept of imprinting still left an uneasy feeling in her stomach. To lose yourself entirely in another person, it felt… wrong somehow. Yet she couldn't deny when he looked at his wife, she could see flashes of the young man she had once called her own private sun. Tekali hesitated only a moment before she walked forward and offered her hand to Isabella.
"Hi there, believe it or not I've heard, and seen a lot about you. Despite the circumstances, it is a pleasure to meet you." Her smile was welcoming, friendly and oddly familial. Isabella nodded, and accepted the offered greeting with one of her gloved hands, a frown forming to express her mild confusion.
"Seen about me?" Isabella asked, narrowing her eyes..
Tekali tapped the side of her head with a finger. "Wolf pack. No secrets."
"Right, how could I possibly forget about the pack link. You know Jake, I think you lucked out with this whole imprinting thing didn't you?" Prompting Jacob to blush a bright red and Tekali to burst out laughing.
"This may be startling, but do not react negatively. I would like to introduce you to someone." Isabella warned. Jacob nodded, and Tekali moved back to join her husband again.
"Yay!" Eliza exclaimed through their own link, and hopped off her tree branch and made her way over to her mother, while still maintaining her cloak. "I guess wolf senses are not that great after all."
Eliza drew her hood up for effect, and then appeared by slowly lowering her invisibility cloak, rendering it as though she was fading into the world. She lingered there, her bright purple eyes giving her an almost otherworldly appearance. Several of the wolves snarled in surprise, but Jacob held up a hand to stop their aggressiveness, and then cocked his head slightly.
"You brought Darth Maul?" He said with a slight chuckle, which totally broke Eliza who threw back her hood and burst into uproarious laughter. It took her almost a full minute to stop.
"Thank you so much." Eliza said, still trying to make her face obey and stop smiling. Isabella rolled her eyes a little, and Eliza just shrugged.
"What?! He called me Darth Maul… that's like the best compliment ever!" Eliza's enthusiastic response made the entire pack look at each other again in utter confusion. Finding the oddly human behavior unsettling.
"Jacob Black, I would like to introduce you to my daughter, Elizabeth." Isabella nodded her head towards her daughter who waved with a bright smile.
"I usually go by Eliza, you know it's just really nice and genuinely unbelievable to meet you Jacob. Believe it or not, I've heard a lot about you too." Her smile was infectious, but he shook his head slightly.
"You turned your daughter?" Jacob looked a little disappointed, and Isabella sucked in a small breath of anger and Eliza put a hand on her shoulder to calm her.
"No, it is a long complicated story, but I have never been human." Eliza said, hoping to cut short any hasty stories told without proper context. Jacob, Tekali and Seth all looked absolutely befuddled, but equally unable to deny the resemblance between the two women.
Isabella rubbed her teeth back and forth a little, deciding how much she wanted to say. "A story for another time, all you need to know is that our relationship is... complicated. I didn't give birth to her, but yes I am her mother in every way that matters."
Jacob nodded thoughtfully. "Of course, an adoptive family is as real and important as blood relations. As far as being a parent, I can totally understand, we have three of our own. Michelle, our youngest, just started at Dartmouth."
"Three kids, I never thought of you being a father." Isabella's eyebrows were raised in mild surprise, but the genuine smile on her face gave him just enough encouragement to reveal something that suddenly seemed mildly embarrassing.
"Yeah, it happens. I'm actually a grand-father. My eldest, William, and his wife just had twins. My first daughter… Isabella is also expecting her first child." He was clearly proud of his children, but cast his eyes down when he mentioned the name of his middle child.
"I'm honored." Isabella said, her face softer than it had been when she arrived. Inside she was shaking, the act of naming his child after her touched her deeply, more deeply than she could express.
"I could stand here all night and reminisce, but you must've come here for a reason." Jacob asked, he didn't look impatient but he was feeling a bit overwhelmed. Still reeling from the fact that Isabella was not only alive, but standing in front of him after a century of wondering and pushing away any hope of answers to the back of his mind.
"Yes, we came here because of a development in our entire purpose here. A major problem that you need to be aware of." Isabella confirmed.
"Then I think we need to bring this to the council." He said with a small nod.
Isabella nodded in response, understanding what he left unsaid. Her presence there had come straight out of left field and he was still processing everything. "Well, your next council meeting will probably be a long one, the problem is a complex and active threat."
Isabella's statement prompted Jacob to frown at her, so she nodded to her daughter, and Eliza tugged the backpack off her shoulder and tossed it to Jacob. "Take a whiff of what's in there."
Jacob caught it easily and then pushed it to arms length as he opened the top flap and took a deep breath to examine the scent inside. "My god what is that?"
Isabella shrugged her shoulders. "I was hoping you could tell me. I picked it up this morning in Seattle. I had a small altercation with two shifter type wolves in a warehouse… working with three vampires."
Jacob frowned more deeply, tossing the bag in front Paul, who immediately took a long sniff before shaking his head and chuffing in disgust.
"None of my pack was anywhere near Seattle today." Jacob stated with certainty.
"I thought as much, not from a pack led by you. Considering they had killed a human, I figured that there was no way the Quileute were involved, but now we have a big problem. Undeclared shifters working with a group that is actively turning humans into a newborn army."
Several of the pack members growled and Jacob straightened up to his full height, his expression deadly serious. "I think I better hear the whole story."
Isabella nodded slowly, and then began to relate a slightly edited version of the events starting with their arrival in Los Angeles up to and including the deaths of the three vampires and one of the wolves, and the survivor's escape into the sewers where she could sense the presence of even more active shifters. Jacob listened to the whole story and then turned to regard Paul who, like the others, hadn't switched back to human form.
"Paul. I want a meeting including everyone. Tonight. Get the Council. Get all of the Elders. Get the entire damn pack. No excuses. No exceptions." Jacob's voice exuded authority and Paul picked up the bag with his teeth, and then turned then bolted back toward the reservation.
Jacob hesitated a moment as he turned back to Isabella then spoke. "I would like to extend an invitation for both of you to join us this evening." There was a snarl from one of the two wolves who'd come with Jacob, but it was cut off immediately as Jacob glared at the offending wolf. The wolf shook slightly and bowed his head in submission or apology before Jacob turned back to Eliza and Isabella.
"It will take a few hours to get all the Elders. Would you be willing to meet us again this evening?" Jacob asked formally.
"What time?" Isabella asked
"Let's say ten o'clock at the boundary line?" Jacob answered.
"We'll be there." Isabella nodded, gesturing for Eliza to follow her. Isabella was about a hundred feet away before she paused and glanced back at Jacob for a few seconds, before turning back towards home.
The walk took a while at normal speed, Eliza watching her mother carefully trying to gauge her mood. She let the silence stretch for several minutes as they walked before she finally spoke up.
"Mother, are you okay?" Eliza kept her voice even, making sure the worry didn't come through. Isabella stopped, and turned towards Eliza leaning against a tree. She took a deep breath and looked up into the sky, before starting.
"I never expected to see him again, ever. I never even expected to see his tombstone, since we were never going to get that far into Quileute lands without encountering the pack." Isabella finally looked down and met Eliza's worried gaze. "I know you have my memories, but living through that time was… impossible. After I escaped I was more than a little crazy, convinced that I was nothing more than a monster. I knew, just knew that Jacob would hate me for what I had become. I couldn't think about it rationally, and I was also so angry with him for leaving that day. So for a while I blamed him for everything, for not being able to stop Victoria, for being in love with me when I didn't feel worthy of anything approaching love. So I found a big boat I could hide on, shrouded myself in shadows and crossed the sea. By the time I had made it to Volterra and joined the guard I was only partially regaining my sense of self. Before I found you, I thought about going back, maybe finding the pack. But that was over a decade later, and I didn't want to interfere with his life. I had hoped he would be married, possibly started a family. I was also conflicted, while my anger toward Jacob had abated somewhat, it was twisted with my guilt and resentment from... being abandoned."
Isabella took a shuddering breath before continuing, "It took a long time to sort it all out, even now I don't entirely know who is to blame, and where my anger truly lies. As the years passed, I imagined him growing old, and by now I expected him to be gone. And yet, here he is, just as I remember him."
Eliza smiled slightly. "Not just as you remembered him, he's gone all scruffy nerf herder like. Plus he is married now, with three freaking kids. Damn, I wasn't expecting that either."
Isabella managed a stuttering laugh "Yeah, he named one of his children after me. He did mourn me, and I left him with the question of my death for a century. He was my best friend, my rock when I needed one so desperately. Which is why I was so angry, I hated him and all he ever did was try and help me. Him being alive, honoring me in such a wonderful way… knowing that he loved me. I've put him through enough, I cannot be angry with him any longer. I can't… I just can't handle this."
What remained of Isabella's composure shattered and her legs buckled. Eliza caught her before she could fall, wrapping her up in her arms as tears began to flow slowly from Isabella's closed eyes. It was one of their secrets, another change to their physiology that neither could explain, yet it had never been a problem. Eliza had only seen her mother break down twice in seventy plus years. Eliza didn't say anything, and just held her mother as the torrent of emotions flowed out of her like a tidal wave, content to hold her until she cried herself out.
Author's Note:
The entire goal of this chapter was to get to the heart of Isabella's emotional struggle. She is still (and will remain) very shut off, but this this was a good beginning. New readers may be confused by how this story is paced. It is not quick narrative, and there is a LOT of story. The romantic aspects are very slow burn.
The intro scene in this chapter is new, and is just a taste of some of the other flashbacks to come. We are also changing up the Pack a bit, as the roles are better defined and give a specific character more agency. The history of the pack is also explored although I won't go into specifics here. We hope you like the changes.
Next Chapter: A Council Meeting
Thank you for reading!