Language Warning. For this chapter, and the rest.
Leah Clearwater hated most things. She hated bloodsuckers, she hated werewolves, and she hated the wolf genetics playing havoc in her body. She hated alphas and she hated imprints. She hated Sam, she hated Jake, and she was beginning to hate Seth.
She barged through the front door, the screen door ricocheting back against its hinges. Sue looked up, her ever-present frown and the stress lines in her forehead etching themselves deeper as she took in her naked daughter. Leah had resumed her human form only while bounding up the steps of the porch.
"You didn't find him." She said softly, stepping back from doing the dishes. Soft plops punctuated the silence as soap bubbles dripped onto the floor as her mother sank into a chair. Leah thought that even if the chair hadn't been there, her mother would have continued down to the floor with the same distant, lost look in her eyes.
The same one that had been there for weeks after her father's funeral.
Sucking her lower lip in between her teeth, Leah pulled on the emergency clothes they left in the kitchen for times like this. It wasn't like Seth to disappear like this. After their father's death, he wouldn't stay out all night. She swallowed hard, feeling the same drowning sensation she had felt for months after her father's death.
Besides, she thought, adjusting her bra strap, who in the bloody world would he be hanging out with? After the packs had separated, none of the guys or girls on the reservation would give any of them the time of day, let alone hours of their night. And her brother wasn't friends with anyone in Forks.
"I'm going to call Jake again." She said, lifting the phone from its cradle. She had already called him when Seth hadn't been home for supper, and she doubted he knew more now then he did then. She was grasping at straws. But it was all she had.
Her mother didn't respond, and with a heavy heart, she dialed. Jake picked up after a couple of rings. "Hello?" Though it was nearly noon, he sounded like she had woken him. The benefits of summer break, she thought bitterly. Of course, those benefits only went to those without families to keep from falling apart.
"Hey," She said, sweeping leaves and twigs from her hair.
"Leah?" His voice was low, rasping against her ear.
"Yeah." Suddenly, she felt awkward. With the pack's telepathic link, she didn't need to call Jacob much. She cleared her throat, trying to keep any hint of panic from her voice. The image of her brother, bleeding out with some vampire's teeth in his skin swam in her vision. "Have you seen Seth?"
For a moment, the line was silent except for the hiss of static. She pictured Jacob sitting on the edge of his bed, naked and hair tousled from sleep as he examined her words. She shook the image from her head. That was the problem with the pack's link. Knowing things like the fact that Jacob slept naked.
When he spoke, she knew that he hadn't done enough to hide her panic. "He didn't come home last night." It wasn't a question.
"No. And he would have told me if he was going out." Pinning the phone to her ear with her shoulder, she pulled open the junk drawer. She scanned the contents for a hair elastic. Screwdriver. Electrical tape. Her father's fishing lure. She slammed the drawer shut and blinked tears from her eyes. With a quick glance at her mother, she lowered her voice to a whisper. "Jake."
Jake heaved in a breath, and then blew it out for a long moment. "Your mother's there, isn't she?" She made a vague sound of agreement. "And you don't want to scare her."
At least, hidden among all of Jake's flaws, he was able to read her without her needing to spell things out. Something her last alpha had never been able to do. "Yeah." She said, trying to keep her voice upbeat.
There was another moment of silence before Jake spoke again. "You tried the wolf link, right?"
Leah nodded, though she knew he couldn't see her. "Of course."
"He's not just hanging out with somebody?"
She bit back a bitter laugh, even though he sounded like he was grasping at straws too. "What friends? After he followed you..." There was no need to finish. Jacob knew. After Jake had decided to claim his birthright from Sam, Seth and Leah had followed and severed not only their link to the pack but any friendships they might have had.
Something on Jake's end of the phone line rustled, and the connection crackled. "Right." He whispered, and even without having his voice in her head, she could see the damned lost look in his eyes. Like a fucking lost puppy. "Do you think maybe he's hurt?"
She shrugged. "I don't know what I think."
"You don't think Sam would... do you?"
Ever since the werewolf genetics had taken over him, Sam was a different man. Leah would never put voice to the thought, but she was glad that he had imprinted on someone besides her. She could see the scars on Emily's face, and then superimposed them on her own face. Her hand gripped the slender body of the phone so hard her knuckles went white. "I don't know." She hated the tears she could hear in her voice.
"Seth – and you – betrayed him. Left his pack." He heaved in a breath, and she could picture him, standing now, pacing back and forth. Probably dragging his fingers through his hair in that way he had. "And hurting Seth would hurt you a lot more than just hurting you would."
Swallowing past her lump in her throat, Leah nodded. "Yeah."
"Leah, you're not safe."
She put some laughter into her voice for her mother's sake. "I can take care of myself."
Something hit something hard on the other end of the line. "You shouldn't have to."
"Leah?" Her mother's quavering voice was held a note of fear. Leah spun to look at her. With wide eyes, Sue was staring out the window.
Leah followed her gaze. Her mouth parted in silent shock. "Jake? Imma have to call you back."
…
The summer's heat burnt unnoticed into Leah's bare shoulders. All she could feel was the weight of Esme's long dead eyes boring into her.
"You're not allowed here." Leah called, stopping several yards away. She could the telephone in the house ringing insistently. No doubt Jake would rip her apart for hanging up on him like that. If she survived long enough to have the argument.
The vampire stood in front of her car, heels sinking into the grass, her usually perfect hair mussed, and something that looked suspiciously like blood sprinkled over her sleeves. She had never seen Esme look like this before. Normally the blood sucking parasite was a maternal Barbie doll. Not a reflection of her true state of a murder.
Esme's pale hands were turning over and over each other, as if she could wash away the echoes of blood. "Leah, I need to talk to you and your mother."
"You stay away from my mother." She snarled, feeling the wolf rippling under her skin, howling to be let out. To kill, to destroy.
"Leah please." Esme stepped towards her. Leah crossed her arms over her chest and regarded her with cold eyes. "I wouldn't break the treaty if this wasn't important."
Seth. Leah felt her heart skip a beat. What if it was Seth?
Don't be stupid, she told herself. What news could a vampire bring of her brother? Vampires were nothing but portents of death and doom. And if they had done anything with her brother, Esme wouldn't be standing here.
Esme continued, her voice barely loud enough for Leah to hear, even with her supernatural ability. "Jasper was out hunting yesterday."
"Leah?" Sue Clearwater's voice rang out into the yard; Leah turned, cursing under her breath. Her mother's face was pale beneath her brown skin. "What's going on?"
Leah turned back to Esme. If the vampire upset her mother, she didn't care, she would shift right here and now, and tear the bloodsucking bitch apart. If Esme was the bearer of bad news, she wasn't sure her mother could survive it.
Some of that must have reflected in her face. Esme smiled reassuringly at her mother. "Nothing to worry about Mrs. Clearwater. Leah and I just needed to talk about the treaty now that Jacob has separated from the pack."
"Oh." Sue said. Her confused gaze shifted from the vampire to her daughter. "Are you sure?"
Leah nodded. Esme may be a bloodsucking machine, but she was also a brilliant liar. "It's fine mom. We just need to talk for a minute." Hopefully, her lie was half as good. Her mother seemed to believe it, for she retreated back inside. Returning her gaze to Esme, she crossed her arms over her chest. "Jasper did what?" She demanded, her voice glacial in the summer's heat.
"Jasper found your brother yesterday. He had been badly hurt."
Icy fingers closed around Leah's heart and throat. For a moment, the only sound she could make was a low whine of pain. She was drowning. She could feel it. Feel the water, the pain, the desperation, slipping into her lungs, forcing the oxygen and the sanity from her body.
Jasper had the weakest hold on his hunger of all the Cullens. If he had come across Seth, broken and bleeding... He would have drained every drop of blood from his body.
Pushing her wolf down, she strode forward till she was nose to nose with the vampire. As much as she wanted to rip the bitch apart, she had to wait. Once the need for English was out of the way, she could murder her to her heart's content.
"What did that fucking bastard do to my brother?"
Esme's hands fluttered, as if she had been about to touch Leah with them. Instead, she pressed them to her own lips. "Leah, your brother is alive. But he's in bad shape. Let me take you to him."
Leah bit her lip and tasted blood. Here she was, a vampire asking to help her. As much as she wanted to tear the leech into a thousand different pieces and light them all individually on fire, as much as she wanted to shatter the bones insider her delicate fingers, and as much as she wanted to pull every venom carrying fang from the monster's mouth, she wanted her brother more.
She wanted him as much as she wanted to erase the past two years.
Trapped in the car, all she could breathe in was the overwhelming, sickly sweet scent of vampire. At least it was better than rotting blood. Powering down her window, she dragged in a breath of fresh air.
"What did Jasper do to my brother?" she asked, flicking a glance at Esme.
Esme's hands tightened on the steering wheel, white blooming on her knuckles. "He found your brother on the beach. I won't lie to you Leah." Taking her eyes from the road, Esme looked at her. "He drank from him, but the blood of shifters... It woke him up, if you will. He didn't kill him."
Watching the trees stream past, Leah thought she could smell the faint scent of blood in the wind. A vampire had bitten her brother. Her brother had vampire venom in him. "What will happen?" Her fingers found her knees, and she clung to them as if they could save her from drowning. Already she could feel the water pushing over her lips.
The same water that had swept over her when she had killed her father.
"Because of the vampire venom, you mean?" Esme asked, making a sharp turn that pushed Leah against the door. "I don't know. Carlisle doesn't know either. He's never seen a shifter infected with vampire venom."
Infected, Leah though vaguely in some corner of her mind. The rest of it was too busy trying to figure out which would win in a showdown between wolf genetics and vampire venom. "So he could die?" She asked, her voice soft.
Because she had shifted in front of her father, he had died of a heart attack. And because she had shifted, her brother had shifted early. She was the reason that he had been brought into this hellish war between wolves and vampires. If he died, it would be her fault. She would have killed her father, and her brother. Maybe Sam had been right to hate her.
Esme broke her from her thoughts. "Leah..." she said, then stopped, as if searching for words. There was something about the way that her mouth set that made Leah wonder if she had changed her mind entirely on speaking. Leah wanted to fling herself from the car. "Know this," Esme said finally. "No matter what happens, your brother has the protection of the Cullens."
She was beginning to wonder if that would be enough to save him from her.