Sam Uley, never once in his 20 years, expected to be saving the life of Bella Swan. Then again, Sam Uley never expected to be part wolf either.
When he came across the brunette, face down in a murky puddle of water in the middle of nowhere forest, he didn't know how to react, what to do. On his left was Jared Cameron, his beta, and on his right was Paul Lahote, his third in command. The hotheaded werewolf was a pain in his ass, but his brother nonetheless. He stood there, stock-still, trying to figure out what to do with the younger girl. The stench of leech permeated the forest and around the girl, contaminating the air with the sickly-sweet smell of it.
"Jared, go check if she is alive and if the leech attacked her in any way. Paul, call Billy and tell him we found her, don't say anything else." Sam then went to crouch down next to the pale girl, on the opposite side of her body from where Jared was inspecting her. They rolled her over and found that she was, indeed, alive and no harm had come to her. When Sam picked her up and cradled her human body for a closer inspection, he was shocked at the temperature of her body. No colder, no warmer than the average bloodsucker. She was about to die of hypothermia.
"Shit, Jared, do we have anything to warm her up?" Sam asked his beta, worry traced into his voice.
"No, Paul has his shirt, but that would only have a minimal effect." Paul did have the shirt on his torso, a white t-shirt he was wearing before he was called into the woods by his alpha. He had tied it to his leg along with his shorts when he phased.
"Anything would help, Paul come here and put your shirt on her, there's no way she can survive out here without something to warm her up, supernatural heat regardless." Paul stalked over, impartial, and not very attentive to the problem.
"Sam, Billy wants to have more information, and wants to talk to you." Paul held the small device out to Sam, not offering any more words.
Paul really didn't have any grudges over the small, pale, brunette laying down in the mud. People can do whatever they want, fuck a leech no less, but don't come complaining when it blows up in your face. If you made the decision to do that, you can deal with the mess afterward when everything is screwed up. Sure, he'd help out some when you really need it, but he didn't particularly care for helping other people's own messes. So he was a little bothered to be saving the life of a girl who practically served it up for others to take. Especially when he could be doing better things at the moment.
When Paul Lahote first phased, he accepted the life-style easily. Though, it just made his already hair-trigger temper that much easier to set off. At least he now had a purpose, rather than wasting his life away on the reservation just like his deadbeat parents had. Now he was actually able to do something to help other people, even if he never got any recognition for it. The council paid him and the other two, and he lived very comfortably in the childhood home that was left to him after his folks pissed off. Being a wolf wasn't half bad either, gives you a great body, don't have to pay for heat, super-strength, and other senses. The only downside was the bottomless stomach, but even that wasn't so bad.
Paul whipped off the shirt from his body and walked over to where his pack-mate and best friend, Jared, was crouched over the small girl. Jared, himself got up and walked off to where Sam was talking to Billy Black on the phone. Paul lent down and then picked up the girl to cradle her in his arms, and the first thing he felt was the near-freezing temperature of her pale body. He grimaced and then slid the extra-large shirt over her frame. He then picked her up and stood up so she was carried bridal style in his arms. He willed the heat from his body to seep into hers, anything to warm her up. She was freezing. Paul honestly didn't know how she was still alive.
To Paul, she was very pretty, but in an innocent way. Long wavy mahogany hair framed her thin face, long black eyelashes tickling the skin under her eyes. Suddenly brown orbs looked up at him, lifeless and still, confusion and pain warring underneath a thin mask. She blinked once, then twice, and burrowed herself into Paul's hot chest, seeking warmth that was necessary to her survival. He didn't dislike her as much as he did a few moments ago, something about her just calmed him down, settling the fury that raged on beneath his thinly veiled facade. Seeing someone as desperate as himself helped placate his wrath.
While Paul was very content with his life right now, he had it rough, and took it out on other people, having no other outlet to take it out on. Jared and his mom were the only two people in his corner, but even then it almost was never enough. His parents abused him since he could remember, and the only good thing they ever did for him was leaving when he was eleven. He caused more fights by the time he was sixteen than most adults did in their lifetime. When he finally phased at seventeen, though it was a blessing, it just made the sea of hatred in his gut even harder to control. Most days he was barely hanging on by a thread. He sleeps around and tries not to punch people in the face for getting on his nerves even a little bit.
Paul was genuinely confused why he felt much better by holding her, even though he's never even spoken a word to the brunette. He clutched her to his large frame, intent on keeping her safe and alive.
Her murmur shocked him out of his foggy state of mind. "He's gone, oh my god he's gone. He left, why did he leave me?" She stops her ramble with a tiny wail and then latches her arms around his neck, shuffling her body closer to his in his arms. "He sa-said I was-w-wasn't good e-enough. Di-d-didn't love me!" She starts sobbing in Paul's arms, at the same time her teeth chattering.
"He's a fool then," he begins to respond, but she keeps speaking through her gut-wrenching sobs.
"Why w-wasn't I-I enough... I-I'm nev-ne-never enough." She whispers, tears trailing down his bare chest before evaporating. She clutches his white shirt closer to her, and her knuckles turn white with the force of the grip she holds over the thin material.
"Listen, girl, I'm not going to say that you're great and all, because I barely know you, but if that bloodsucking vampire willingly puts you through the wringer like he just did, then he doesn't deserve you. Now hush before you die of hypothermia. We're gonna get you back to the chief."
"How do you know he's a-a vam-vampire?" She stutters out before she closes her eyes again and takes a big inhale right against his chest. That was weird. I wonder what she smells like underneath all of this leech stink? He walked over to where Jared and Sam were still engrossed in conversation with Billy over the phone.
"Sam, we need to get going, our body heat may prevent her from dying, but it's going to get worse if we don't get her home soon," Paul tells Sam, and then glanced over the small girl in his arms, taking inventory of her body. She was around 5 feet and 2 or 3 inches, had long mahogany locks, was almost as pale as her bloodsucker ex, long legs, and small breasts that accentuate her tiny frame. She quivered in Paul's arms, and her eyes opened again, staring straight into Paul's eyes, haunting him with the dead look in them.
"Alright Paul," Sam responds and then turns his attention back to the phone. Bella heard his voice and as fast as she could, she turned her head to look at him, her eyes wide and frightened. "Billy, we're heading back, but tell Charlie we're going to take her back to the reservation, mine and Emily's house. She's about to freeze to death, and if we went back to Forks, it's going to get worse. We're much closer to the rez, so..." Sam waited for Billy to respond, and then turned his head and looked straight into Bella's eyes. He inhaled sharply but averted them, shocked by the torment in them. Bella clutched even closer to Paul's tall body, and turned her head back into his chest, breathing deeply and shivering.
"Alright, Sam, should I tell Charlie to go there?"
"Tell him to wait a day, and to come back tomorrow morning, I want to see what we're dealing with when she comes out of shock." Sam glances back over to Paul and Bella, and then hangs up, saying goodbye to Billy right before.
"Alright, lemme have her Paul." Sam held his arms out to take the brunette, but Paul made no move to release her, in fact, he enjoyed her presence in his arms.
All three of them whipped their heads to the sound of the brunette speaking up. "P-please, no, don't t-ta-t-take me." She continued to shiver, her body temperature making no moves to get any warmer. It seems as though she was frozen in her state, literally and figuratively, Paul thought. It also seems as though she was paying more attention than any of the three thought she was. "I w-want, you to hold m-me, j-just I-I wanna be-e war-m, Paul-l." She also noticed my name?
"Alright, calm down Bella, we're going to take you back to my house, just to get you warmed up, and then we need to find out what happened." The brunette nodded her head minutely, and then the three packmates start to head out of their little spot in the woods, making their way back to the reservation.
The group of four finally broke the treeline and made their way to the backyard of Sam Uley's and Emily Young's house. Emily was waiting on the back porch with a bunch of blankets and a heating pad in her slender arms.
"Sam!" She shouted walking as fast as she could down the stairs and to the group, stopping short and getting a good look at the girl in Paul's arms. Emily was shocked and grimaced as she got a better look the group walked even closer. She passed a blanket to Paul, and he thanked her while bundling up the girl in it and pressing her and to his chest. Over the walk she fell fast asleep, her body shivering rhythmically every few seconds. They walk into the house silently, Emily huddled into Sam's side, Kim walking in from the side of the house and into Jared's arms. Paul marches on with the brunette in his arms, determined to make her warm and okay.
He won't let go of her until she is okay.
"Paul, don't stop holding her, there isn't anything else as warm as us around here, and she needs all the heat she can get, Emily, can you heat up some water and soak towels in them, and then give them to Jared and Kim to lay out on her. Actually, Paul, would you lay down on the couch, and then lay her down on top of you, like you are the couch." Jared snorts and starts laughing at this, despite the dangerous situation.
"Paul's cuddling!" He breathes out, overcome by another fit of laughter at the situation. Paul's growling cut them off, and he sobers up at the glaring look at Paul's face.
Paul proceeds to do as Sam says, the brunette nestled down into his chest as soon as they both got comfortable, her arms wrapping around his torso, a contented sigh escaping her at the heat. Emily, Kim, and Jared all come over with heated towels, and they spread them out over on her exposed skin, peeling back the comforter that Emily had brought out earlier. The girl let out a small pleasured moan as she continued to get heated up, and she turned so her head was tucked under Paul's chin.
Paul felt utterly at ease this entire time, except for when Jared made a joke at his and the brunette's expense. Best friends or not, he felt weirdly protective of her. As soon as everyone turned their backs at them on the couch, Paul kissed her at the crown of her head. He had no idea what was happening between himself and the brunette, but he welcomes any sort of normality and peace into his fucked up chaotic life, and she seemed to need protecting. Made for each other he thought. I can't let anyone hear me think like this, I sound like a sissy, like Jared and Sam's whipped imprinted asses. If there was one thing Paul was sure about, was that he hated imprinting, and he never would, nor never want to. No hate on Emily and Kim, but Paul believes that it changes you, and he likes how he is right now. And he was also sure that he never imprinted on the girl, so what was happening to him?
As the hours went by, Paul became restless, helpless to anything more to help the girl, wanting to wake her up and see her alive, more than anything. The rest of the pack lounged around the living room, Kim and Emily in their respective imprint's laps. Around 3:30 a.m., a twitch from the brunette woke alerted Paul from his exhausted induced haze.
"Sam, Jared!" Paul hissed, arousing the girl even more from her slumber. She began to wake, stirring over Paul's overheated chest. Paul noticed perspire beginning to pool around her hairline. Thank god, she's warm again. Sam and Jared were now alert and awake, causing Emily and Kim also to awaken.
20 seconds after Sam and Jared awoke, Bella Swan propped her chin up on Paul Lahote's chest, and her eyes opened, revealing cinnamon-chocolate eyes to Paul, and Paul only.
Sam is the first one to break the silence that had enveloped the room with her awakening. "Bella, can you tell us what happened?"
Bella speaks for the first time since she fell asleep in Paul's arms, and she's only speaking to Paul. "Were you the one who saved me, P-Paul?"
And then she started crying.