Jacob dialed Bella's cell number, the one Alice Cullen had insisted she get because the pixie went blind when she was around the wolves, and leaned his head on the rough wooden wall of his house. He forced himself to breath evenly as he waited for his Bells to pick up. If this didn't work out and he and his dad were wrong, she'd probably hate him for it. If it did work though, even a little bit, and it kept her breathing-
"Jake! Hi! How are you?"
Bella's voice drifted over the speaker and his heart clenched at just how excited she was to hear from him. It had been two weeks since he'd last seen her and the distance was killing him. He'd gotten the wedding invitation a few days ago but aside from trashing the garage in an agony filled rage, he was ignoring that.
The wolf, for his part, was quiet. The animal seemed to feel the same way about the plan they had made as it did about stalking prey. Patience was an attribute the wolf had that the man certainly did not.
"Hey Bells. Yeah, I'm doing okay, all things considered," he murmured into the phone. "Miss you."
There was a pause before Bella took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. "I miss you, too."
Jacob cleared his throat. "Listen, I know what I said about needing time and all that, but-"
(Fuck, this was hard to even say, hard to think about)
"You aren't planning to be... available-"
(Alive, breathing, soft and squishy and my Bells)
"-very much longer so, I was kind of hoping we could get together. Maybe you could come down to the Rez and spend the weekend?"
Silence reigned for a moment on the other end of the phone, but before she could say anything, Jacob cut back in.
"Nothing funny, Bells," he assured her, even though it ripped his heart to shreds to lie to her like this. True, there likely wouldn't be any of the 'funny business' she was thinking of, but there would be plenty of weird to go around. "Just you and me being best friends. That's it; that's all I'm asking for."
Bella took a breath and Jacob grit his teeth when he heard Edward's voice loud and clear in the background as the leech clearly responded to the conversation he had undoubtedly been listening to.
"Love, I'm not sure that's a good idea. You know how I feel about you being somewhere I cannot get to you and how it concerns me for your safety."
Jacob could almost see Bella chewing her lip and darting glances at the fucker as she tried to work out what she wanted to say. His heart dropped as he considered that he may be too late, she may truly refuse him, and he NEEDED this. He wasn't sure how else to make this happen if she wouldn't come to the rez willingly for a couple of da-
"Sure, Jake. I'd really, really like that."
He exhaled harshly as relief swamped his body. His wolf purred in smug satisfaction.
"Great," Jacob breathed into the phone. "I've got patrol, but I'll have Embry meet you at the treaty line Friday after school, okay?"
There was no way Jacob could go, not with the leech dropping her off and going through his mind like it was a pop-up book. Edward would pick the events of the coming weekend out of his mind in no time flat and then all his planning would be for not.
"Okay," came Bella's sweet voice over the line. "See ya soon."
"Yep," he murmured. "Bye Bells."
"Bye Jake."
Jacob braced his hands on the wood of his work bench, his head hanging down against his chest as he waited to hear the soft grumbles of Embry's car on approach. None of the pack knew what was going to happen the next few days except Sam, and he had alpha ordered Jacob not to think about the real plan while phased. As far as his friend knew, Bella was just coming to hang out for a weekend and that was probably for the best.
Gravel crunched under the tires as Embry swung the car into his driveway and Jacob forced himself to release the wood lest he crush it to pieces beneath his hands. The car stopped and the doors opened and before he could make a conscious decision to move, Jacob was out of the garage and scooping Bella into his arms, squeezing her tighter than he should as he buried his head in her hair.
God, she smelled so good. He'd heard the leeches say she smelled like lilacs and freesias, but that had never been what Jacob got from her. To him, she was vanilla and cream, cinnamon, with a little bit of strawberries mixed in from her shampoo. She smelled delicious and like home and his wolf positively reveled in the scent of her.
Normally, Bella would make a crack about how she needed to breath and start pushing him away, but not this time. She must have been just as desperate as he was because her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms clung to his neck and she embraced him back just as hard. She either didn't notice or didn't bother to comment on his lie about patrolling. Jacob held her for a few moments, nodding at Embry when the guy pulled her bag from his car, winked, and retreated without a word to give them time together.
Embry was always good at knowing when to just quietly see himself out.
Finally, Jacob moved to put her down but she clung harder and whimpered into his neck. "Not yet," she whispered, continuing to spider monkey onto his front. "I missed you so much."
Forcing a swallow down his dry throat at the feel of her pressed against him and the words coming out of her mouth, Jacob said nothing as he stooped to pick up her duffel bag with his free hand and carry her towards the house. This was fine, honestly, as far as he was concerned. She could stay clinging to him forever. They'd eat stomach to stomach and he'd sleep on his back and she could just stay right where she was indefinitely.
The wolf was in approval of the idea. It's where she belonged anyway.
Jacob moved into his silent house, down the hall and into his bedroom where he dropped her bag on the floor and sat down on his bed. His dad was at Old Quil's, finishing up the herb pouch they'd be bringing to dinner for Bella's tea, so there was no one there to raise an eyebrow at the strange behavior of the pair of them. Sooner than he'd like though, Bella seemed to come to her senses and she quickly disentangled herself, tripping over her shoelaces as she scrambled to her feet.
Jacob caught her with his big hands around her waist, steadying her to keep her from falling backward.
"Thanks," she mumbled with a shy smile, cheeks blazing as she stepped out of his hold and wiped her hands on her jeans. "I'm sorry I just, um, grabbed you like that. I just really, really missed you. But that's, like, weird or whatever and-"
"S' fine, Bells," Jacob interrupted her before she could really get herself going. "I missed you, too."
Bella's blush climbed down her neck and under her shirt and Jacob fought really hard to squash the curiosity of just how far down it went.
She cleared her throat. "Right. Well, I brought food," she said, moving to open her duffel and pull out three bags from the grocery store in Forks. "I wanted to make a special dinner for you and Billy tonight and have leftovers for tomorrow, so I got a few whole chickens to roast and I thought we'd have that with smashed potatoes and green beans. I also bought some angel food cake, for dessert."
Jacob reached out and grabbed the bags from her, chuckling at the annoyed huff she let out.
"Sounds great," he told her with a sunny smile, ignoring the reality that by the time dessert rolled around she'd be in no position to eat it. "Actually, Old Quil and Sam will be here for dinner too."
He moved into the kitchen with Bella trailing behind him, studiously avoiding her eye as he began putting the groceries away.
"Oh, that's- not that I mind or anything, but why are they all coming for dinner?" Bella asked with just a hint of suspicion in her voice.
"It was already planned before we knew you were coming, Bells," Jacob told her, closing the fridge door and crumbling the plastic bags up. Technically, that was true. They had already planned out the dinner and everything else before he even asked her to come.
Bella smiled weakly. "Good thing I got three chickens then," she muttered.
The rest of the afternoon was spent watching the staticky TV and joking around. He had been wanting to take her to First Beach, but a heavy storm rolled in and instead they spent the day holed up on his couch. His nerves started to take him as 6 o'clock approached, bringing with it the very much dreaded and anticipated dinner, but he tried to hold it together. Jacob dipped his fingers in the smashed potatoes just so she'd giggle and try to smack at him, lending an air of normalcy to those last, precious minutes until he heard a knock at the door.
"Sam," Jacob greeted, holding the door open as his alpha slipped past him and into the house.
"Hey Jake," Sam nodded solemnly, offering Bella a small smile before settling himself at the table.
Sam's feelings on Bella were complicated, to say the least. The current alpha was fairly good at hiding his thoughts, but some of it had slipped through. Sam's wolf had been the one to find her on the woods and since that night, the wolf viewed her as a sickly cub, in need of attention and protection. His views weren't quite fatherly, more like that of a brother or cousin, but it was certainly enough that her decision to go back to the vamps had killed him more than a little bit.
Sam didn't love her, but he did feel responsible for her and every second she spent with the Cullens felt like a failure.
Jacob went back to trying to steal bites of food to make Bella laugh but she was too busy shooting slightly nervous looks at Sam to pay him too much attention. Old Quil arrived soon thereafter, with his dad in tow, and the five of them sat down at the table to eat. After everyone was served, Old Quil looked pointedly at Jacob and after taking a steadying breath, he stood.
"Just a second, I forgot the iced tea," he said, moving towards the kitchen.
This was where the plan came in, the one that could possibly take his Bells away forever. He walked to the fridge and opened it, pulling out the pitcher of plain black tea he had already prepared. He poured it into two mugs and set them aside before adding the contents of the herb pouch Old Quil had palmed to him when the man arrived.
He stirred the herbs in with a mix of fear and exhilaration. This herbal blend was an ancient pack secret, one that only the alpha knew about and the tribe's medicine man or woman would know how to make. It was a detox, of sorts, for when a person had been exposed to the sway before being rescued by a pack member or when a wolf had been exposed to the scent of venom too long. The tea acted as an antidote and forced your body to purge the poison from your system.
In humans who happened to be exposed on a limited basis, it tended to induce a slight headache, sweating, and fatigue. The dosage for a wolf was much higher and caused vomiting, fever, and extreme fatigue, with occasional hallucinations. The remedy had never been tried on a human under the sway for an extended period, but then again, they had never had cause to even consider it before. Now though...
The dosage in the tea for tonight was made for humans and since neither his father nor Old Quil had much interaction with the leeches, the effect on them should be negligible. Just in case, he and Sam wouldn't be drinking it, because Sam needed to be able to handle the pack and Jacob needed to be able to handle his mate. Bella, unfortunately, was likely going to be in for a rough ride. At the end, though, she'd know exactly how she felt about the Cullen leech and blood suckers in general without any sort of vampiric effect in her body. She'd know how she felt about becoming one of them, and plotting her own death. If she wanted it, well, that would be that, and she'd likely never forgive Jacob for feeding her this brew without her permission (not that it would matter because he was fairly certain, marked or not, he'd be dying right along with her if she still chose it.) She'd never agree to take it on her own as things were right now; he knew that.
But if she was literally being drugged, if she was being manipulated in ways she couldn't hope to fight, didn't he owe it to her to give her the antidote whether she accepted or not? He'd do the same if he suspected someone had slipped something into her drink at a stupid high school party, though that would be a matter of time for it to pass and not an herbal remedy. If she was being kept constantly under the leech's sway, she literally could not consent to drinking the tea, nor could he trust her ability to make her own choice and tell him no.
It had to be done. The wolf growled in agreement and Jacob's shoulders squared. Okay. He could do this.
Grabbing the two mugs in one hand and the pitcher in the other, he moved to the table and set everything down. The two already poured cups went to Sam and himself before he retreated to the kitchen and grabbed three more.
Bella watched him curiously with a furrowed brow as Jacob poured each of the three remaining people a cup and sat down.
"Jacob? What's in the-" she started to ask but was interrupted.
"Herbal brew prepared specifically by the tribe's medicine man as gratitude for hospitality," Old Quil stated firmly, sipping his own tea and lying through his teeth. "It brings the drinker prosperity and luck. Drink up, girl. It's an honor to receive it and an affront to the tribe to refuse it."
Bella flushed and picked up her drink, trying to sniff it discreetly as she tucked her hair behind her ear. "Um, why are Jake and Sam not-"
"Bad for wolves," the man told her. "Good for humans. Drink."
She took a small sip, but at Old Quil's unwavering, unimpressed gaze she drank more deeply, finishing half of the glass before she set it down in front of her. He nodded and turned his attention to Sam. "So Alpha, tell me, how go the patrols?"
Everyone ate quietly, complimenting Bella on the meal as Jacob watched her carefully from the corner of his eye, wondering when the tea would kick in. 20 minutes later Bella bent over at the waist and gasped.
"Bells?" Jacob asked, rising immediately to his feet and moving beside her.
"Oh GOD," she muttered before pushing past him roughly and taking off for the bathroom.
Old Quil sat back and wiped his mouth before turning to look at Billy who was staring towards the hallway that Bella had just fled down with concerned eyes.
"So it begins," he said, standing and moving towards the porch as he pulled an herbal cigarette pack from his back pocket.
Jacob caught Sam's eye and after a moment of silent communication with his alpha, he took off down the hallway towards the bathroom. Bella hadn't even bothered to close the door, or maybe she just didn't have time, but now she was kneeling on the floor with one arm wrapped tightly around her stomach, heaving violently into the toilet.
He was almost bowled over by the strangely tinted scent of leech venom that flooded the room. It wasn't really like what they smelled like when they 'bled,' but it was close and somehow impossibly sweeter. Jacob pulled her hair back from her face and fought not to gag as what she had eaten for dinner finished off and instead she began throwing up a cross between bile and the silver liquid that he knew from the journals was being pulled from her internal body tissues and was now making an appearance in the porcelain of his toilet bowl.
"Jesus, Bells," Jacob muttered as she heaved again.
Bella sat back slightly on her heels and glanced back at him with glassy eyes. "I don't feel good, Jake," she stated unnecessarily.
"I know, Honey," he told her with a grimace, gently wiping a few stray hairs from her forehead. Yeah, she was already running a fever. "I'm so sor-"
He never got a chance to finish as she wrenched her head away, vomiting up more of that disgusting liquid and shaking from head to toe with chills. His wolf whined loudly and paced in his soul, both saddened and angry by the state his mate was in.
After an hour had passed, Bella's stomach had finally calmed down enough that he moved her to the bed with a bucket instead, pulling her sweat soaked hair into a messy pony tail on top of her head and coaxing her into changing out of her long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans. The clothes were stained with... stuff, and with how feverish she was, Jacob wanted her in something less hot. It was a testament to how out of it she was that she allowed him to basically undress her and redress her in one of his shirts.
He didn't allow himself to look at her body or enjoy the first (and potentially only) time he saw her in nothing but her underwear. He didn't even want to. Jacob was miserable and it was because his mate was literally expelling poison; poison that had accumulated into the tissues of her body through long term exposure to his natural enemy. It was, quite frankly, more than any wolf or man could handle.
He set himself up on a pillow and blanket next to the bed, close enough to watch over her without crowding her. He was exhausted but terrified to sleep, terrified of what might happen to her if he took his eyes from her or let her out of his sight for a minute. This was... so much worse than he had imagined. She was vomiting and sweating out the remnants of sway and there was so much more than even was documented from when the wolves took the remedy. He never imagined, even in his most paranoid moments, that she had this much in her system.
Jacob had never been so helpless before in his life.
"Don't! God, please, don't fight!"
Bella was screaming, trying to force her way off the bed and around him towards a scene only she could see. The hallucinations had begun an hour ago and they were beyond painful to hear.
"Honey, it's okay," Jacob breathed into her hair as she fought the grasp he had on her wrists. "It's not real. You're safe, no one is fighting. It's okay."
"No, no, NO!" She wailed, thrashing in his arms and kicking outwards. "Don't hurt him! JACOB!"
Jacob bit back a growl as the wolf thrashed at the confines of the man, desperate to find the source of Bells' misery so he could rip and tear and kill.
"Shhhhh," He soothed. "I'm right here, Honey. Everything is alright."
"Please take me," she pleaded. "Take me. Not Edward. Leave him... No! Leave him ALONE!"
This was another issue with the hallucinations. JACOB wasn't the only one she was calling out for. There was also the leech.
Jacob swallowed back bile, but answered regardless, a lot nicer than he would have bothered with if she wasn't so sick. "Edward's fine, Bells. He's in his house in Forks. All the Cullens are fine."
"I'm sorry," Bella whimpered. "I'm so sorry. I NEED him."
He closed his eyes. Dear God, he couldn't survive hearing this again.
"Jake," she whispered, eyes open but unseeing, wide and fevered. "Jacob, I love you."
She settled down after that, leaning into the heat of his body and burying her face in his neck to inhale. It couldn't possibly be good for her, to mix his high body heat with her high temperature, but if it helped with the hallucinations, it was definitely the lesser of the two evils. Eventually, Jacob released her wrists and settled next to her on the bed, holding the back of her head as she rubbed her sweaty face on his bare chest.
It was fine, really. He didn't care that she smelled like vomit and was sticky and completely out of it. He loved her and he'd give her anything to help her get through this. His body, his soul, his heart; she could have whatever she wanted and she could do with it what she would.
The wolf purred in agreement.