Jacob closed his eyes and he took what looked to be some very deep breaths, his chest heaving upwards dramatically as he sucked in his frustration as well as a lungful of air.
"Maybe we could talk about this in private?" His eyes held Leah's for one soulful moment, the room waiting to see what his tempestuous imprint would say to his request. However, she didn't respond with words, she merely shrugged a pair of defiant shoulders and lifted one eyebrow combatively. Jacob groaned aloud, but then shifted his gaze to his father, betraying his usually masked vulnerability.
"Dad, c'mon! Seriously, this is a fucking archaic ritual that went out of date when people were still pissing on the trees, but you're just gonna let them go ahead with it just because they want to? What about what I think? What about what Paul would think if he knew you were letting her sacrifice herself for him?" Jacob's voice had lost its Alpha authority and to Bella's ears he was sounding far more like the whiney high school Junior he was meant to be. The reality of who they'd all become in such a short period of time only flitted softly through her mind, the thought of her wolf laying dying at her feet roaring over every emotion she'd could possible consider feeling.
"Can we just get on with this?" Bella asked sharply, dropping to her knees to run her fingers through Paul's lustrous dark hair, trying to ignore the cold chill to his pallid skin.
She didn't see Billy raise his eyebrows with unspoken questions, nor did she catch Jacob standing down in defeat when Leah pleaded ever so effectively with her beautiful dark eyes, but she did sense movement in the air.
There was no question over how this would be done, what tools they could possibly use to execute something which had gone out of practice centuries ago. If she'd been thinking more clearly, she would have acknowledged this as an admittance that they'd known all along what her choice would be if they brought this to her attention, but in truth she was barely thinking at all.
"Jacob could you come sit here please?" An elder Quileute asked, pulling himself to his feet with shuddering strength before standing proudly in the middle of the room, authority exuding from his pores.
Jacob paused for a heavy moment before slumping down almost petulantly into a nearby chair. However, his lack of acceptance with this course of action didn't stop him lifting his shirt over his head without a single direction or word spoken in the room. His eyes never left Leah's as a vial of blood was pulled from his body, the tension mounting as all eyes watched on.
When the same Elder moved to kneel by Paul, Bella almost threw him from his feet with an innate instinct to protect, but a heavy hand on her shoulder stilled her wild response. She didn't need to look up to know that it would be Jacob standing by her side, knowing intrinsically that her choice would come at a cost, that she would need him in this moment.
Laying her head on the warmth of his hand, she watched the life being literally pulled from Paul, the tainted blood glimmering no differently than that which had been elicited from the Alpha himself. She scolded herself for thinking that evil would be so obvious, that the past few weeks had probably taught her nothing.
Another body joined her side, followed by another, and this time she took a thorough look around, recognizing the feel of pack in a way she'd never understood before. But something was missing, something key to all this.
"We need Embry." She whispered.
Silence resumed, but it seemed that her instincts were shared, and soundlessly Jacob and Quil once again trekked up the narrow stairway, returning with a broken soldier held loftily in their arms.
Laying him gently by Paul's side on the floor, she felt an outpouring of guilt. She hadn't really thought about the salvation of Embry, about the boy who it seemed was destined to always be left behind in her consideration. Pushing aside the selfish emotion, she couldn't help but feel that now he was with them, that this was right, and everything they needed was now in place.
"Shall we?" The elder man asked holding out his hand towards Leah, who though she'd volunteered second, seemed to be taking the lead on this whole imprint ritual. Bella didn't mind, didn't see any need in being petulant and insisting she needed to do this now, no matter how much her mind was screaming that was how it should be.
Leah took the lead from her mate and didn't flinch once as the knife sliced down into her skin, didn't actually react at all, not even when the blood of her wolf was smeared aggressively into the indistinguishable wound on her skin. The Elders hadn't actually told them what they would be marking into their skin, but nothing about this night felt uncertain and Bella assumed, rightly, that there had been significant discussion regarding this very ritual among the council.
Her turn came soon enough and as she reclined back into a comfortable chair, she fought against her every instinct to close her eyes, instead focusing on the two wolves lying prone on the floor, aware that her body was about to ingest merely a fraction of what was currently running like glue through their veins.
No one insulted her by asking if she was certain of her choice. No one warned her when the first slice would be made into her body. The knife felt cool against her skin and the pain was so sharp that it slid in easily, ripping her apart in short sharp slices. The intricate design on her skin stung as the knife was finally laid aside and she felt the whole room pause as the blood of her wolf was smeared, just like it had been with Leah, directly into the open wound.
Bella wasn't sure exactly what she'd expected to happen, what sort of fireworks she'd expected to erupt in the atmosphere, but all that seemed to happen was a sharp tingle began to spread throughout her body, a gentle fire ebbing and flowing under her skin, but never erupting into uncontrollable flames.
After an indeterminable period of silence Bella raised her eyes to her shoulder, pulling gently at the skin to see a number of words she couldn't decipher. Looking to Leah she found the elder girl already wrapped up again in Jacob's arms, his fingers trailing reverentially as close to the wound as he obviously dared.
"You okay, Bells?" She heard a gentle voice ask from her side. Turning her head slowly, she caught Quil's endless brown eyes, his concern apparent as his fingers gripped tightly to the arm of her chair. She understood enough about the pack dynamic to know that he was probably desperately looking for a way to comfort her, to protect her from the possibility of pain.
"Thanks, Quil. I think I'm good, a little warm maybe, but nothing too bad." Twisting slightly in the seat, Bella felt the old wounds on her skin like a familiar ache, superseded by the sensations she was enduring. Now that she'd mentioned it, her whole body felt like it was on its way to overheating. So when Quil walked away only to return a few moments later with a cool cloth, she was ridiculously grateful.
"Do you think it did anything yet?" She asked as he laid the cold fabric on her glistening forehead, a sigh falling from her lips.
"I don't know, the Doc is checking them over as we speak."
Bella didn't have it in her to wish for any miraculous improvement, but she would have been lying if she said there was a certain amount of contentment in her soul. She'd done all she could, more than she was sure Paul would have approved. Now, she just had to find any reserves of patience she had left.
When the Doctor stood up from the two fallen wolves and wiped his sweating palms down on his trousers, Bella told herself there was still time, that it would be foolish to hope for any effects to have taken place so soon.
Long hours passed and the room grew more and more still, the Elders of the tribe slowly finding reasons to be elsewhere, as the hope that had once buoyed them all flittered from their hearts. Instead of strengthening them, both Embry and Paul seemed only to be weakening. Their bodies which had once showed no physical strain of their obvious injuries were now bathed in a thin coat of sweat. Embry had started shaking violently over an hour ago and as the Doctor laid his useless instruments aside for the last time, it was with a listless shake of his head.
"Thank you, for everything." Billy Black said, his tone devoid of his usual purity of emotion.
Bella didn't care for what anyone else had to say, she was too tied to this battle. The slow fire running over her skin, reminded her that both Paul and Embry were feeling this tenfold, that their bodies were being wracked with an intense pain and she could do nothing to prevent it.
Pulling her hand from Quil's grasp she dragged her body to the floor, ignoring the three lonely voices calling for her to come back to them. She knew where she needed to be and it was no longer as a bystander watching on as the man she had bound herself to for eternity slipped away.
She took great care not to move either of their bodies as she tucked herself between them, and though her back was facing Embry, she pressed her body in line with his, hoping he would understand that she would do all she could for him, but Paul was always hold her loyalty first.
"Bells, do you think that's such a good idea?" Jacob asked and she wanted to tell him that he wasn't much of a wolf if he couldn't see that they needed her, that they needed all of them to be near. She'd held herself back for too long and though she wanted to say all this aloud, she simply didn't have the energy left to give.
Closing her eyes she wrapped her hands carefully around as much of Paul's body as she dared and only when she could feel her body trapped within theirs did she finally allowed her eyes to close.
She wasn't sure how much time passed before she felt one of them twitch against her side, her mind so lost in grief and pain that she couldn't even distinguish who it had been. Bella tried to speak, to let the others know what she'd felt, but they were already right there with her, telling her to rest. Even in her haze she understood that their voices were coaxing, that there was something in their tones that hadn't been there before.
The realization scared her and a little jolt of adrenaline flew into her heart, piercing the dull hold that was pulling her under. Too soon the pain was back and she drifted away once again, not fully aware that they were no longer just fighting for two lives but three.
"What do you think we should do?" Quil asked quietly.
Embry's breaths had evened out in the past few hours, his body taking on a little of the heat it normally exuded and they were all secretly clinging on to the hope that was knocking against their mental barriers.
"I think we don't do anything. Whatever she did is working, for Emb at least. Other than that, Paul doesn't seem to be getting any worse." Jacob concluded robotically, holding a sleeping Leah to his chest as though she might run if he even thought about letting her go.
"You don't think we should call the Doc back in?" Quil asked, running his fingers through his dirty hair.
"He'll just tell us what we already know." Jacob sighed, already contemplating the conversations he was going to have when this was over. Like Quil, he'd seen improvements in Embry, but it did little to soothe the fear in his heart. Bella looked right at home tucked between the two pale wolves and he didn't want to admit it, but he could taste the sickness in the air, the rank smell of death screwing with his mind as he felt it drawing nearer.
"They can't die, right? I mean, I know they can, but they aren't going to, right Jake?" The soft plea in his voice reminded Jacob of who he was meant to be, the role he had been destined to fill.
"Of course they won't. Bells has been through hell and back these past few days and a little leech in her system isn't going to kill her now, especially when she'll get to say she 'told me so' when they all make it through this okay." Jacob threw a confident smile on his lips, but it was his eyes that let him down, the true lack of belief shining through them. If Quil noticed it, he never let on.
The sun rose for the second day and three of his pack were still fighting for their lives on the living room floor. What had initially been pack business was slowly sifting through his fingers and an unwelcome visit from his father, to unobtrusively remind him of who Bella's father was, left him with a whole new set of problems to deal with.
He's laid Leah carefully down by Paul's side during the long hours and only now, in the light of day could he see that there were definitive changes that had taken place during the night.
Not only were Paul and Embry both looking slightly flushed, their skin back to the dark russet color favored in the Quileute tribe, but there was no longer the scent of decay in the air. He didn't truly want to believe his eyes at first, but when he nudged Quil awake and asked for his assessment of the situation, he allowed a genuine smile to fit on his lips for the first time in as long as he could remember.
The room felt too enclosed, too dark and lacking in life. Both he and Quil made quick work of opening all the windows and doors they could, the scent of forest, of sea and of earth flowing like honey bringing sweet relief into the room.
"This feels better." Quil concluded, his hands firm on his hips as he surveyed the new feel of the room.
"You think we should look at their wounds?" Quil asked, but Jacob didn't wait to answer him.
His large Alpha hands were delicate as they pulled back the edges of the white patches hiding the brutality of their fallen pack-mate. Even as Jacob held his breath, expecting the worst, he lifted the gauze only to raise his head, his smile turning into a wide grin.
"What?" Quil asked, dropping to his knees by Jacob.
"They're healing." Jacob said happily, pulling the bandage fully away.
"What about Paul?" Quil asked tentatively. There was absolutely no doubt that Embry had improved markedly during the night, but Jacob still hadn't decided whether he saw the same in Paul, or whether it was something he only wanted to see.
"No doubt the same" Jacob said firmly, masking his uncertainty with firm bravado.
He was even more careful this time, even more reticent to pull back the tape to see the horror within.
The anticipation was strong in the air and Quil stood back, desperately wanted his Alpha to hurry up, to just rip back the blanket of white and reveal whatever the fates had chosen for their brother. He could read little from his Alpha's face, but when Jacob's mouth dropped open in shock he felt his heart thud louder in his chest, grief nearly bringing him to his knees.
But then Jacob was smiling again, and suddenly that smile became a deep bellow of laughter, the sound a little manic in the stillness of the room. Quil didn't want to believe it until he'd seen it with his own eyes. In a very unQuil-like manner, he nudged Jacob slightly out of his way, his own mouth dropping as Jacob's had before.
Unlike Embry, Paul's wounds were already knitting themselves into red raw scars, lines that would surely fade in little to no time at all.
"What the hell?" Quil exclaimed with joy, finding Leah's blinking eyes looking at him in bewilderment.
"What's going on?" She asked, her voice raspy with sleep.
With the news that the two wolves were on the mend, her mind was alert in seconds. However, unlike the boys, she didn't smile, didn't feel the extent of pure relief that was running through the room, because unlike them she'd seen something they'd both been oblivious to.
"Guys, what about Bella?"
a/n: A big thank you to my wonderful beta Twiticulate - you rock hun. xxx