A/N: It's time to hear from Jake again. Once again, the incomparable Evelyn and magnificent MunkeeRajah beta'd this chapter. I love them more than Edward's sex hair!
Stephenie Meyer still owns everything Twilighty. We bow to her brilliance. And her copyright!
Chapter 7 – Never Get Old
Jacob POV
When I was sixteen, I thought I had found the love of my life. Then, I turned into a wolf. Fur, fangs, drool—the whole enchilada. Suddenly, I couldn't be with the girl I loved. I couldn't tell her what I was going through, couldn't help her continue mending her badly broken heart, couldn't imagine any scenario that would allow me to stay in her world.
To say that I thought my life was shot to hell is an understatement. There was, however, one bright, beautiful spot in the dark, fetid crapper my existence had become: I got to drop out of high school.
I escaped the torture normal kids have to endure in the pressure cooker of festering hormones and angst that is high school. Even after I found the real love of my life when Nessie was born, and it took me a few extra years to get my G.E.D., I didn't regret missing out on the catty, gossipy, in-everyone-else's-business atmosphere that poisons those four years.
I was glad, thrilled, to skip the drama.
So when Renesmee started obsessing over the whole Leah/Nahuel situation like a cheerleader who'd discovered an exciting new shade of lip gloss, it really made me want to pierce my own eardrums with a rusty nail.
"I'm just living vicariously, Jake," she said, trailing her fingertips through the fur of my ruff. "I mean, I never got to experience that whole 'blush of first love' thing. I don't remember a time when I didn't love you, when I didn't know you were my mate."
We were returning from an early morning hunt, walking slowly, just enjoying the time alone together. Neither of us was in a big hurry to get home. Any private conversation would have to stop as soon as we were within earshot of the Cullens' house. Half the family would be there, since Jasper had decided to hold a mass training session this morning. Luckily for Ness, Alice had summoned her back to the house. Wedding plans apparently took precedence over battle preparation.
Love you. My mate. I never got tired of hearing her apply those words to me. She owned me, body and soul, and there was no way I could not tell her about Leah and Nahuel. So I had no one to blame but myself for her fixation. If I hadn't told her, she wouldn't be badgering me now for details.
I felt a pang of guilt, because I hadn't actually told Leah yet that Ness knew. I figured my beta should kind of assume there was no way I could keep something as important as her imprinting from my imprint. I just hoped she wouldn't kick my tail too hard when she found out.
I understood why Nessie was curious about Nahuel, since he was the only other half-vampire we'd ever met. It even made sense that she would be fascinated that another wolf had imprinted on another hybrid. Still, I felt a little jealous that she could be so focused on something other than us, especially considering all the wedding planning that was going on in the Cullen household.
I'd never really seen Nahuel as a threat to my relationship with Ness. Not only did I know that she was as nuts about me as I was for her, I was confident that Nahuel's interest lay elsewhere. Over the past few days, I'd watched him zeroing in on Leah like a stallion sniffing around a choice mare. I figured he'd discover for himself soon enough that this mare had sharp fangs and no fear of using them.
Yet, other than that observation, I really didn't have that many details to offer Renesmee. Besides, I felt more than a little weird discussing Leah's sex life—or lack thereof—with Ness.
I wanted to be done with this conversation, at least for a while. I shook my head and snorted loudly, spraying her sneakers with gobs of wolf snot. Verbal communication isn't always necessary to get your point across.
"Ewww! Gross!" She propped one small, snot-covered foot on my flank, grabbed my bushy tail and swiped it across her slimy sneaker. After repeating the process with the other foot, she dropped my tail and shoved me away.
"Don't try to distract me," she chuckled as we resumed our slow stroll. Exasperated, I rolled my eyes. Wouldn't dream of it.
"I just want to know what it's like," she continued, "that first moment when you realize you're in love. If that's even what Leah and Nahuel are feeling right now. I mean, for all we know it could just be purely physical at this point …"
I had so heard enough. I dipped my head and nipped at her heels, our private signal that I wanted to play one of our favorite games. Giggling like a teenager, Nessie took off running vampire-fast through the trees, heading toward the river that would lead us back to the house. I was after her in seconds, allowing her to stay a few paces ahead of me.
Catching her was, of course, the best part of the game. I waited until we were within eyeshot of the water before snagging my teeth in the hem of her flannel shirt. She screamed with laughter. Tugging backward sharply, I spun us both around so that she landed on her back beneath me. I planted my front paws on either side of her shoulders, ducked my head, and licked her face from chin to brow.
"You jerk!" she shrieked. Using the bottom of her shirt, she wiped my spit off her face, a move that exposed acres of creamy white stomach and a hint of lacy black bra. One look, and I was done for.
I phased and dropped, naked, on top of her, straddling her on my hands and knees. She looked amazing. Her skin was flushed a rosy pink with her laughter, and her eyes glistened. I wanted nothing more than to taste every inch of her right there on the grassy river bank. Instead, I carefully held my body above hers, minimizing skin contact. Her laughter choked off immediately.
"See, this is what I'm talking about, Jake," she said breathily, reaching up to twine her fingers in my hair. She tugged hard, drawing me toward her. "You pull a stunt like this and expect me to keep my hands to myself?"
I really didn't feel like talking, so I lowered my lips to hers. Pressing light nips along her bottom lip, I coaxed her mouth open for me. As I deepened the kiss, she wrapped her jeans-clad legs around my hips and jerked me down into the cradle of her thighs. In the same heartbeat, she opened her mind to me. Her arousal speared through my brain, down my body and straight to my groin.
Instant. Raging. Hard-on.
Knucklehead. What did you think was going to happen when your naked ass jumped her?
We'd both agreed to wait until we were married, but lately she seemed to be regretting that decision, testing my willpower at every opportunity. She made it hard—in every sense of the word—to remember why we were waiting. I wanted to do things right, in a way that would ensure I kept the respect and trust I'd worked so hard to earn from her father. If we'd all just been ordinary people, I probably wouldn't have cared what he thought. But getting my rocks off wasn't worth the risk of having Edward pissed at me for eternity.
I broke the kiss and rolled away from her, drawing one knee up to hide my erection from her always-greedy eyes. No matter what Leah thought, I was not totally shameless. Renesmee was welcome to look at the rest of my body all she wanted, but there was no way I was going to let her ogle my boner.
"Damn it, Ness!" I unstrapped my cutoffs from my leg and shook them out. "Turn around."
"Oh, like I haven't already seen it a million times, Jake," she shot back, just as annoyed as I was. "Next time, don't start something you're not going to finish." She sprang to her feet and showed me her back.
Of course, she was right. When things got out of hand between us, it was usually as much my fault as hers. I stood and shimmied into my cutoffs, cursing under my breath when I realized my big problem wasn't going away.
Shit. There's no way I'm going to be able to zip up over this thing.
"Done?" she asked. Before I could tell her to stay put, she spun around and got an eyeful of my predicament. Her dark eyes popped wide and she clapped a palm over her mouth, trying to stifle her snickering.
"Guess I'll need a swim before we head back to the house," I sighed, eyeing the river.
"Well if you're going to do that, shouldn't you take your shorts off again?" she suggested, archly raising one eyebrow.
"Like hell," I grumbled, holding my fly closed and splashing waist-deep into the chilly mountain stream.
It wouldn't be the first time I went home with wet jeans.
SSW/SSW/SSW
Jasper was a vampire on a mission. That mission was either to drive my pack to exhaustion or force Nahuel to vamp up and learn how to defend himself. It could possibly be both.
Our resident empath had been working us all like, well, dogs, for the better part of the day. If it had been anyone else, I'd have told him to ease up on Nahuel. Nearly two weeks after showing up on our doorstep battered and broken, he still had moments when he was clearly holding his shit together with his finger nails. I really wasn't interested in seeing him completely lose it, and I was pretty sure Leah would be furious if I let things get to that point.
More than any of us, though, Jasper knew what was at stake and what Nahuel's emotional limits were. So I kept my mouth shut and helped him put my pack mates and Leah's imprint through their paces. Fortunately, Carlisle and Esme were also there to be the voices of reason when the sun began to set and Jasper was still driving us all hard.
"Jasper, I think we should wrap up for the day," Carlisle said, when Beau, the youngest member of my pack, took a particularly hard fall while sparring with Emmett. "The wolves need a break. They won't be as effective protecting Forks and the reservation if you run them into the ground training."
It was pretty obvious that Jasper would rather keep going. He'd probably bring in floods to light up the practice field until dawn if Carlisle would let him. I understood his sense of urgency; he adored his niece with every inch of his cold, dead heart. I loved the dude for that. But he also knew when enough was enough, and I respected him for that.
Jasper finally called an end to the day's activities. My pack mates had had some fun off-roading to the remote spot where we'd faced down the Volturi all those years ago. This site now served as a gathering place whenever the packs and vampires needed to come together. We'd trained for battle here, but we'd also held numerous picnics and baseball games in this field as well.
Ever the considerate hostess, Esme had set up a tent where the guys could phase and dress with relative privacy. Of course, since wolf stomachs were involved, it was also stocked with plenty of snacks and drinks, too. I'd been watching on the sidelines in human form for the past hour, hanging out near the entrance of the tent. The vampires began to leave the clearing, and the four members of my pack who were training today—Embry, Quil, Paul and Beau—headed inside to change and unwind.
Nahuel approached me. "Jake, may I have a word?"
"Sure. What's up?" I'd brought him to today's training session and would be giving him a ride home. I wasn't looking forward to the drive with him. Nahuel was like a restless toddler in a vehicle. The day I'd delivered him to Leah's door for the first time, I'd been stunned to learn he'd never before been in a car, not once in a hundred and fifty years. How was that even possible? He'd been an awful passenger, fidgeting, playing with the windows and sticking his head outside throughout the drive.
He glanced toward the tent, where the sound of loud laughter broadcast that my pack brothers were up to their usual clowning around. He wanted privacy, or at least as close to it as he could get surrounded by creatures with super-human hearing.
It was time to head home anyway, so I stuck my head in the tent and said a quick goodbye to the others. Then I nodded toward where my truck sat at the far end of the clearing and began to walk in that direction. He fell in step beside me.
We walked slowly in silence for a few moments. I'd learned Nahuel rarely spoke without thinking first about what he would say, and he was obviously weighing his words carefully now.
"Jacob, I wanted to ask you if Leah is … yours," he said.
I stopped walking and stared at him blankly. "Huh?" After a second, understanding landed with a wet smack between my eyes. He couldn't mean what I thought he meant. Could he?
"I know you intend to marry Renesmee," he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He looked like he'd rather not be having this conversation. "But I wanted to ask if Leah also belongs to you. Please understand, I have never before met a … family?" He looked at me, questioning, to see if that was the right word. I nodded. Close enough, I guess. "… A family like yours," he continued, "and I don't presume to understand the relationships in the group. You and Leah seem very close."
My face and ears felt hot. He did mean what I thought he meant. I'd known he was interested in her, but I was still surprised that he was being so upfront about defining territory when it came to Leah.
"Leah is my beta, my second in command. She's also my friend. Nothing more. I'm with Renesmee and no one else. Does that answer your question?"
He grinned widely, one of the few real smiles I'd seen from him. "Yes, I believe it does. Thank you."
In the past few days, I'd realized that I actually liked Nahuel. He'd been through hell and had every reason to be a miserable, weak asshole. But every day he struggled to master his fear, and I admired him for it. In the past few days, something had changed. He'd seemed less frantic, less likely to take off running. I'd suspected Leah had something to do with the change. Now, I was sure of it.
We resumed walking in silence for a moment, but I sensed he wasn't done yet.
"I would ask one more thing," he said, seeming more confident now. "I overheard some of your pack members discussing Leah and Sam. He is the leader of the other wolf pack, correct?" I nodded. "From what I understood, they were together and he chose another over Leah."
I stopped walking again. "I guess that's somewhat accurate. Why?"
Nahuel look skeptical. "Why would he do that?"
That question spoke volumes.
I knew Leah probably thought Nahuel walked on water right about now, thanks to the effects of the imprinting bond. I was beginning to suspect she wasn't the only one feeling that influence, however, if Nahuel truly couldn't imagine why anyone would leave my prickly, ball-busting beta.
Of course, there was no way I was going to tell Nahuel that Leah had imprinted on him. Still, that didn't mean I couldn't talk about someone else's experience, right?
"He imprinted on another woman, Emily," I said. "Imprinting is a little hard to explain, but it's kind of like the mating bond that vampires experience. Had you met a mated vampire pair before the Cullens?" He nodded, a thoughtful, reflective expression on his face.
"Well, when it happens to a wolf, his entire world realigns," I continued. "Everything centers around the object of his imprinting. He would do anything, be anything for her. Any relationships or ties he had before aren't as important as she is. She's the only thing that matters, and he'll do anything to give her what she needs."
"Why didn't Sam imprint on Leah?" Nahuel demanded. His tone clearly conveyed he thought Sam was a moron for throwing Leah over, no matter what the circumstances.
"He didn't choose to imprint on Emily instead of Leah. It doesn't work that way," I explained. "It chooses you. We're not sure why it happens, but when it does the wolf has no control over it."
An odd combination of pity and disapproval played across his vampire-perfect face. I didn't need Edward's skills to know what he was thinking.
"It's not like that," I hurried to correct him. "Imprinting is …" I struggled to find the right word, "… transcendent. It makes two imperfect individuals part of a perfect whole. When it happens to you, you know you'll never be alone, never be lost again, because she is always a part of you. She is always your reason."
A spark of comprehension flickered in his eyes. "Is this what exists between you and Renesmee?"
"Yes," I replied. I held my breath, silently willing him to make one more leap of understanding. Leah couldn't be angry at me if he figured it for himself, right? After all, Sam had given me a pass when Bella figured out my secret on her own all those years ago.
Maybe deep down he didn't think he deserved that kind of devotion. Maybe he just couldn't imagine that kind of love. Or maybe he wasn't ready yet to admit to himself what I was pretty sure he did know, even if it was at a subconscious level.
For whatever reason, he missed the moment and resumed walking toward my truck. I sighed and followed him. Sorry, Leah. I gave it a shot.
I needed to get Nahuel back to the reservation. And I really needed to have a come-to-Jesus with my beta. She'd put off the imprinting conversation long enough.
End Note: This was a fun chapter to write. Hope you enjoyed reading it, too! If you've been following this story but haven't yet reviewed, I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading.