Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer not me.
Author/Note 1: This story is the sequel of Our Dawn 5. For the ones who don't know anything about Our Dawn Series, you can always read Our Dawn 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, and Our Dawn Series Specials but if you don't want to bother I have a resume on my profile page. As it would be expected this is a next generation story and as such, it's focused on Jake and Leah's children.
A/Note 2: A huge thank you for everyone who reviewed Our Dawn Series so far.
A/Note 3: I'm not a native English speaker so I'm sorry for my grammar and spelling. Thank you for reading.
Alpha
Book I – The Third
Harrison Black
23. Consequences
Three hours was how long it took for the pack, led by one of our best trackers, to find Jay. And during those three hours a lot had happened.
Sarah had been put on house arrest and mum and dad were still pondering on grounding her for life. Mum had a long conversation with her lecturing Sarah about the consequences of her actions. She said and I quote 'You'll regret this when you're older. When you'll face the consequences of what you did today, you'll know exactly what I mean'. She went as far as telling Sarah that usually young people tend to mistake lust and love and that she had time to fall in love properly. Sarah listened to her in silence and in the end it was obvious she was having none of it.
Then it was time for dad to try. He was a bit more dramatic than mum and equally useless. He burst into her room shouting at her that in the next few days her marriage with Jay would be annulled. Sarah did get a little intimidated by dad's tirade but he completely blew it when he asked her if Jay had ever touched her.
Sarah blushed heavily, then she glared at him and without even bothering a reply she grabbed a few objects from her bedside table and threw them to dad forcing him to run out of the door. When he left Sarah's bedroom dad was even more pissed off than before. He called Jason, told him his son was an idiot and that if he found out that Jay had touched Sarah, he would kill him without hesitation.
I knew dad well enough to know he would never do that. Dad was all talk. Even with Will and I. I guess he was going to threaten Jay for a while, and then he was probably going to phase and try to traumatize Jay for the rest of his life. In the end he could even throw in a punch or two, just to prove a point, but he would never harm Jason's boy too seriously. Dad was a leader, not a tyrant.
The truth was that dad liked Jay. We all did. At least at some point. Right now we didn't like him that much but we didn't hate him completely. After all Jay was the boy who had grown up without the love of a mother and Jason had never actually cared much about him either. And he was a good friend. He wasn't a geek like Jerry, or an idiot like EJ. He was just a decent kid who had the misfortune of falling for my younger sister.
We were a bit angry and confused about Sarah and Jay's secret relationship but if we gave it some thought it could be a lot worse. At least Jay had the decency to wait until she was ready to have sex. And when dad realized that, his initial anger would fade away and Jay would be welcomed to the pack just like Isaac had.
Sarah wasn't the only one who got lectured though. My 17-year old brother had also listened to a lecture from our parents because apparently he had known about Jay and Sarah's relationship ever since he had returned to La Push a week ago and he hadn't said a word to anyone.
Out of pity I decided to confess that I had smacked a priest to know where Sarah and Jay were earlier this afternoon. Mum and dad lectured me then about how wrong it was to hit people like that. They did change their minds for a brief moment when I told them Father Harold had mentioned that Sarah was a little whore. In the end they suggested I should apologize to the priest as soon as possible which I promised to do although I had no intention to go back to that church ever again.
In the meantime William had returned from EJ's house in a very foul mood. If I didn't know him like I did, I'd say my brother was bipolar. When I asked him what was wrong he muttered something about Rhea and her fiancé, and about going to the woods to destroy a few trees. I knew better than to follow him. William needed time to cool off on his own so I didn't follow my brother.
Then dad asked me to go with him to the garage so we could prepare one of the six spare cars he had built from scrap in the last ten years to give to Callie for the one Isaac had broken and left on the road. He felt he had the obligation to replace a vehicle that happened to have sentimental value to her owner.
At first Callie said she could wait for her husband to come and pick them up early in the next morning however when she knew we were expecting the Cullens later on that night, she changed her mind and accepted the gift. One thing was to know the truth about the existence of wolves and vampires, other was to meet them in person. And since she had somehow seen her own death at the hands of a leech, let's just say Callie wasn't too keen on meeting the Cullens even knowing they were 'vegetarian'.
As soon as Callie and Sophia left, Isaac was told to guard Sarah like a hound while we were going to Granddad Billy's to meet Jay, who should be in La Push in the next twenty minutes.
It was not a long wait. Sam, Brady and Jared arrived with Jay in Jerry's orange car. Before letting the others return to their homes dad promised Jared he would fix Jerry's car and he made Sam describe how Jay had reacted when they had found him.
"He didn't phase. He didn't show any signs of anger. He just looked…"
"Defeated." I finished for Sam who simply nodded. I was watching Jay through the window and there was no better word to describe his expression right now.
"Don't be too hard on the boy." Brady said. "Deep down he's probably scared as hell."
"Good. He should be." Dad replied with a grin.
Sam, Brady and Jared left through the back door and dad, mum and I joined Jay near Jerry's car. Granddad stayed close to the phone so he could call for backups in case dad snapped.
"How old are you boy?" Dad asked approaching Jay like a wolf approaches his prey.
"Twenty-two." Jay locked eyes with me for a moment before answering, probably unsure of what my dad's intentions really were.
"And how old is my daughter?"
"She's seventeen today."
"Do you know that the law of this state forbids underage people to get married?"
I figured dad would say something like that and to my surprise Jay wasn't taken aback. On the contrary he looked quite at ease.
"I do." Jay replied without flinching. "I also know that it's illegal to have intercourse with a minor and yet… sometimes it just happens, right?"
My parents looked at each other astonished. It was no secret in La Push that they had slept together when dad was still underage. Still that had been a very bad move on Jay's part. My father was in no mood to play that game, especially when the person in question was his daughter.
"Listen to me jackass… My daughter is not for you to play with! Do you understand?"
"I'm not playing with her!" Jay answered back. I had to give some credits to the guy. Few people had faced my father like that and lived to tell.
"She's too young, too innocent and too good for you!"
What dad really meant was that no one was really good enough for Sarah.
"Now I want you to phase so I can see for myself what happened between you and my daughter. If you dared to touch her, consider yourself a dead man, got it?"
"Jacob, I don't think that forcing him to phase will do any good." Mum stated. "Remember what happened with Will?"
On the first time William phased dad hacked into my brother's memories to find out what he was hiding from them. It happened that Will had a girlfriend at the time and I was the only one who knew. Dad hated when we lied or hid things from him that's why he read Will's memories without permission. Afterwards they had an argument that lasted for weeks.
Having our thoughts and memories hacked by other people was not as appealing as it sounded. It was, of course, a great weapon to use during a real hunt or a battle but when it came to private aspects it was a freaking nightmare, especially when several members of the pack were related.
Uncle Seth had told us that in the past things had been quite stretched between dad and Uncle Paul because dad didn't accept the imprint bond between Uncle Paul and Aunt Rachel very well. It was hard for dad to be in tune with the guy who was sleeping with his sister. To make things worse, later on his other sister was imprinted on by his best friend. The friendship between dad and Uncle Embry remained but it was no secret that one of dad's main worries when he was phased was to make sure Paul and Embry didn't think about their intimate activities with his sisters.
This problem didn't affect only my father though. It became quite common to have members and ex-members of the pack dating or marrying other members' sisters.
It happened to Gary who married Skye Longtree, Sully's younger sister, and to his cousin Rick who married Esther Nawat, Denis' older sister. Fortunately neither of them was a wolf when they began dating their present wives. So there was no actual problem for them.
Despite having imprinted on Jared's daughter, Josh also ended up marrying Cristine Groves, Gary's younger sister after a brief relationship with Caleb's younger sister, Beatrice Lowrey. Josh was still a wolf when he dated both girls. Fortunately Gary and Caleb weren't. No problem there either.
Things were a lot harder for Denis though. He had married Jared's younger sister, Meredith only two years ago but by then she had already given birth to their two children: Chloe and Connor who were seven and four years old respectively.
Jared was eighteen when his sister was born. Jared's mother thought she couldn't have more children after Jared's high risk pregnancy but apparently she was wrong. Since he was always busy with Kim, his job and patrols, Jared hardly had time to spend with his kid sister and on several occasions he relied on the younger members of the pack to keep her company. Denis ended up spending a lot of time with her. There was a 13-year gap between them but Denis was still a wolf and he wasn't aging so they looked more or less the same age. Besides the chemistry between them was undeniable.
It was only upon her eighteenth birthday that Denis confessed publicly he had feelings for Meredith. Jared didn't take it too well especially because he had to share Denis' thoughts during patrols. Dad was forced to always put them on different patrolling groups. Things got worse when Meredith announced she was pregnant but when Chloe was born Jared decided to put the past behind and accept Denis as his future brother-in-law.
I remember asking Uncle Seth once how he coped with the situation himself since his sister was his alpha's wife but instead of a straight answer I got a growl.
So, when it came down to it, no one in the pack really liked to have his mind invaded by someone else. Jay would not be an exception. We would be lucky if he didn't try to run away from the pack again.
"Besides, Sarah assured me that the boy hasn't touched her." Mum added.
"I would never do that without her consent and I promised I'd wait until she was older." Jay said blushing slightly.
Dad relaxed a bit after that but he was still glaring at Jay.
"Look, Harry told me how you feel about the wolf gene and I understand your position but you can't leave La Push much less with my daughter."
"I was trying to protect her." Jay muttered.
"Sarah is safe with us." Dad assured.
"Safe?" Jay laughed sarcastically. "She lives with five wolves that have been lying to her all of her life. Not to mention you've been exposing her to your vampire friends and to dangerous situations like the night when Isaac was almost killed by a werewolf."
"And what exactly was your plan Jay?" Dad asked. "You thought you'd get married, leave La Push and spend the rest of your lives happily ever after? Did you honestly believe everything would be fine just like that?"
"I was going to give her a chance to have a normal life. Or at least I was going to try."
"You're a wolf! Nothing about you is normal!" Dad shouted and Jay took a few steps back by precaution. "Do you have any idea what that means?"
"No, I don't! And I don't want to know because I want to stop! I don't want to be this! I don't want to shift into an animal that only cares about killing vampires! I want my life back!"
That little outburst made me sympathize with Jay a bit more. It made me realize we were very different from each other.
I liked to be a wolf, it took some time but I eventually understood that our mission was important. Saving someone's life was very gratifying and I would never forget the first time I actually saved a person: a four-year old girl in a trailing park in the north of Idaho.
She was on holidays with her parents and older sister. The pack thought there was only one vampire in the area and they focused on the one who was fleeing the park. I realized there was another one so I stayed behind. The female leech was about to attack the little girl who was out of her trailer playing when I managed to reach her and drag her back into the forest without anyone seeing.
William backed me up seconds later and we took the vampire's dismembered body deep into the woods to burn. The pack eventually caught the other one. I returned to the trailer park when everything was over just to watch the child I had saved playing happily on the grass. She would have a future because of me, because I was a wolf and had done my job.
However sometimes I did wonder what it would be like if I had a chance to have a normal life. Sometimes I envied my friends who knew nothing about the legends. Not long ago I even envied Isaac because he was able to go to college and experience things Will and I never could. So deep inside I understood Jay.
"That's not possible anymore." Dad said and Jay looked absolutely distraught upon hearing that.
"No… You said it was possible to stop." He turned to my mother. "My father isn't a wolf anymore and you mentioned Gwen as well. She stopped too."
"You phased for a reason, Jay. You phased because the pack needs you." My mother explained.
"No! No one needs me here! No one ever needed me!"
"Phase!" My father ordered.
"I don't want to."
"Phase now!" He repeated. "I want to show you something."
"Do you think that's a good idea?" I asked dad. None of them was calm enough to shift into a giant wolf. They would probably try to kill each other.
"He's not going to understand how dangerous it is for him to be with Sarah or what it's like to be a protector if I don't show him. The sooner the better."
"Try not to overwhelm him." Mum advised. "I'll leave some clothes for you outside."
Dad nodded. Mum went into the house and brought two pair of shorts. After placing the clothes on the floor, she pulled me with her.
"Let's go." She muttered. "Your father can handle this."
We felt dad phasing along with Jay when we were walking down the road on our way home.
"Was it wise to leave them all alone like that?" I asked her.
"There are wolves patrolling right now. They'll know what to do if your father decides to attack Jay, although I'm sure that won't happen."
"What if Jay attacks dad?"
"Jay's just a pup. He's no threat to Jacob."
Mum was right. I shouldn't be worried about dad. He was the strongest of the pack.
"We should've forced him to come home." I said talking about Jay. If William and I had forced him to return to La Push with us this wouldn't have happened.
"I understand why you decided to let him go. You wanted to help him. When I first phased I wanted to leave La Push as well. I wanted to be far away from here and I wished Sam would just let me go but never allowed that."
"And why did you want to leave?"
"My father was dead, my ex-boyfriend was my alpha and was engaged to my cousin, I was told I would never be able to have kids and I'd have to spend the rest of my life running after vampires. That was not the future I had dreamed of. I felt betrayed and angry with the world. I lashed at everyone, especially the pack, and all I wanted was to be normal and happy. Basically, I thought that the only way I could do that was to leave La Push and start over in some another place."
I knew bits and pieces about my parents' youth but it was rare to listen to them talking about it so spontaneously, so I decided to ask a couple of questions.
"So was that the reason why you left and went to Gold Beach? That's where you met Sophia's mother wasn't it? Isaac told me about it."
Mum looked at me for a while and then sighed.
"No. I went to Gold Beach because I was afraid to admit that was I falling in love with your father and I wanted to give him the chance to be happy and find his imprint."
"But dad didn't imprint."
"No, he didn't. But I didn't know he wouldn't imprint back then. I had already lost Sam to Emily, so I decided I would not go through that again. If your father found his imprint I would never be able to pull myself together again. That's why I left."
"Do you think I will imprint?"
"I don't know Harry. No one knows how that works."
Will and I were wolves for ten years now and none of us had imprinted yet. Not that we actually wanted to imprint but if we did it would be a lot easier. At least for me.
"I think it's safe to say that alphas don't imprint, they have mates instead. The fact that you and William are potential alphas might be related to your non-imprinted status." She added.
"But that means we'll have to find more girls that phase into wolves. I mean we can only mate with wolves, right?"
"Yes, that's right. There are plenty of girls with the gene in La Push."
"I know but one is our sister and the rest are our cousins."
"Not all of them are your cousins."
I rolled my eyes sighing deeply.
"Really? Can you tell the name of a girl who might carry the gene and is not related to our family?"
Mum thought for a while. Almost all of the families in La Push were related which was normal in a small community like ours. My parents' marriage was actually the second union between the Clearwaters and the Blacks in the last hundred years. Before them, my ancestor Ephraim Black and his three sisters had been born from the union of Joseph Black and Jane Clearwater.
"Madison and Lavinia." My mum finally said. "They're not your cousins."
"Madison is Lucy Clearwater's great-granddaughter. She's your relative, which means she's mine too."
"Right…"
"And one of Lavinia's ancestors was Ruth Uley who was also Grandma Sue's great-grandaunt." I pointed out.
Mum frowned.
"Well they're like our distant relatives. Jacob and I also have common ancestors. It's no big deal. It's not like the Lannisters, is it?"
I looked at her with surprise.
"You know the Lannisters? Aren't you… too old to watch that?"
She glared at me.
"One is never too old to watch Game of Thrones."
We both laughed however soon enough mum's laughter died and I watched her expression change drastically from happy to upset in a matter of seconds. The cause for this drastic change in my mother's humour was waiting for us right under our porch and their names were Vanessa, Verena and Rhea White.
"Crap…" Mum complained. "What the hell did I do wrong to deserve this? I had to listen to Rhonda the entire afternoon and now I have to deal with her daughters as well? Why me?"
"What do you think they want?"
"Bore me to death, probably." She replied. "I can't believe there's actually someone more annoying than Bella."
Vanessa was the first to spot us and she crossed her arms while waiting for us to get there.
"What can I do for you ladies?" My mother asked politely when we joined them under the porch. I noted Rhea's anxiety by being there. She was probably thinking that she would run into my brother by going to our house. Luckily for her he was still out.
"We were about to knock." Vanessa stated.
"I saved you the bother then. Lucky me."
I was sure all three noted the sarcasm on my mother's words but none of them acted upon it.
"I assume this isn't a courtesy visit, right?" Mum inquired.
"My niece is getting married in a couple of months and now that dad is part of the Council, we figured it would be nice to give you your invitation in person."
My mother frowned, clearly upset about that. Not about Rhea's wedding, of course, but about the fact that Hal White had been accepted into the Council.
"You came all the way here to give me an invitation for your niece's wedding?"
"Of course." Vanessa pulled Rhea so she could stay in front of us.
Rhea wasn't as pretty or attractive as Season but she was sort of beautiful. Her eyes were greyish and her hair was long and dark brown. Her golden skin was almost completely covered with her clothes: a blue sweatshirt and casual jeans. That's what I liked the most in Rhea. She had never tried to be someone she was not. She rarely used make-up, she didn't dress with fancy and expensive clothes preferring the casual style, she treated people fairly enough even when those people didn't deserve to be treated like that. She was naturally beautiful especially on the inside.
"Thank you so much." My mother said accepting the invitation from Rhea's hands. It was a small envelope with the word 'Clearwater' written on it. "You got it wrong though. It should say 'Black'."
"Old habits die hard." Vanessa grinned.
"I can replace it, if you want to." Rhea said immediately.
"No, it's fine. It's not the name that matters anyway." Mum sighed not wanting to prolong the argument. "Well now that I have been officially invited..."
"We have one more thing to talk about." Vanessa cut her off. "Can we go inside?"
After a long silence, mum nodded and opened the door allowing Vanessa, her sister and her niece to enter first. Any other day mum would have kicked them out of our porch with no regrets but now that Hal was an elder there would be consequences to face if mum did something like that.
"I wish that murder was not considered a crime." She whispered to me and then we both went inside.
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