A/N: Wow! Thanks for all the positive feedback on Chapter 30. While it seemed most of you were happy to spend some ... ahem ... "quality time" with Jake and Renesmee, many of you wanted to also know what the heck was up with Anjali. So, here you go.

Thanks as always to Evelyn-Shaye and MunkeeRajah for helping me smooth out the rough spots and plug the plot holes. I love them more than Jasper's sexy Texan drawl!

Twilight still belongs to Stephenie Meyer, so I'm really glad she's such a good sport about letting others play with her characters and not coming after us all with a battalion of lawyers and a Louisville slugger!

Chapter 31 – Telling Lies

Leah POV

Bitch. Ball buster. Witch. Wench. Shrew. Harpy. Harridan.

I'd heard all that and more thrown my way in the past six years.

When you're the bitter ex-girlfriend of one of the community's most beloved heroes—not to mention the only female in a very exclusive, high-pressure all-boys club—you're on the receiving end of a lot of insults. Truthfully, I'd deserved most of them; I could admit that to myself now that I was on the verge of getting everything I'd ever wanted—a family, love and a future—with Nahuel.

But no one had ever before questioned my loyalty. No one had ever called me a traitor, until now.

It was one slur I did not deserve. Even though I'd broken my link to Jake, I wasn't abandoning him. I was still loyal to my pack, and I'd never break our treaty with the Cullens by colluding with their enemies.

Anjali's claim that I'd been passing information to Nahuel's insane, conniving father was the worst aspersion I'd ever had anyone cast on my character. I'd never even seen the fucker. If I had met him, one of us would be dead, because I would have either ended his miserable existence or died trying. I wanted to rip her lungs out for making such a despicable accusation. Only the presence of my brother and my imprint—and the knowledge that they both loved her as much as I despised her—kept me from doing just that.

Still, I couldn't take it and keep quiet. Then again, when did I ever keep quiet?

"You're a liar!" I screeched so loudly my throat burned. Nahuel's arms were still wrapped around my waist, and I gripped them tightly. If I kept my hands on his warm, energized skin, maybe I could keep myself from slapping Anjali across her too-perfect face.

Part of me—a very small part because mostly I was just furious—welcomed the outrage her bald accusation ignited in my soul. It diverted my mind from the epic terror I'd first felt at hearing that the buried parts of my would-be rapist were missing. I'd like to think that I wasn't really afraid of anything other than losing Nahuel. But the truth was that sick, smooth-talking corpse had gotten under my skin and into my head, and the possibility that he was reanimated somewhere … my mind shied away from fully examining the depths of that horror.

Better to channel my anxiety into anger and aim it at my brother's treacherous imprint.

"A fucking, filthy liar!" I added for emphasis. "I wouldn't tell Nahuel's psycho DNA-donor where to find a hose if the fucker was on fire. I'd sure as shit never rat out my pack and friends to him. But you would, you bitch!"

"Leah!" Anger and warning filled Seth's voice. He was smack in the middle of the shit storm that was brewing between Anjali and me. I could only hope he'd take my side when the truth was out.

My fingers itched to wrap around her elegant, slender throat and squeeze until she confessed to the lie. To all her lies.

Pot, meet kettle.

Stupid, fucking school girl. Shut up. It's not the same at all. We're not the same. At. All.

Anjali's eyes narrowed shrewishly, until they were small and hard. They glittered like the eyes of a viper that lurks in waiting, ready to strike from its dank burrow in the dark of night.

"You didn't intend it, any more than I did," she hissed. "But you've been as much a source of information for my father as I have."

"Anjali, what are you saying? Tell me what's going on," Seth begged his imprint, tugging gently on the hand he still held. In his pain-wracked expression, I saw echoes of the agony and betrayal I'd put on Jacob's face when I sucker-punched him and then ran out on him. A fresh wave of shame and guilt slammed down on the shores of my consciousness.

Told you so, the school girl chimed inside my head in an annoying sing-song.

Not. The. Same. At. Fucking. All!

The wolf bitch threw in her two cents. A lie is a lie is a lie.

Jesus H. Christ! When did I start hearing voices?

My cheese was definitely sliding off my cracker. Maybe it was the hormones. Could pregnancy cause hallucinations?

Although she'd quickly recovered her composure after her brief crying jag, Anjali's cool countenance crumpled again at the plea in my brother's voice. I'd been right that he was her weakness, the one person she truly cared about. Maybe all of this really was her twisted, misguided way of trying to protect Seth. I hoped so. I'd still want to kill her if she'd compromised Nahuel and betrayed his trust—not to mention everyone else's—but I could forgive her for doing anything to protect her mate. After all, I'd do the same.

I glanced over my shoulder at Nahuel and my heart tumbled. Confusion and hurt clouded his warm golden eyes and his gaze shifted restlessly back and forth between Anjali and me. His bewilderment made my soul ache. Fear quickly nipped at the heels of my empathy. Did he believe her? Did he think I would betray my pack, the Cullens … him?

Anjali's soft whimpers drew my attention back to her. "I'm sorry, Seth," she cried softly. "I don't want you to be hurt or sad. I only want to protect you and make you happy."

Bingo!

"Then tell me what's going on," he repeated, his eyes shifting anxiously to Edward.

My brother and the mind-reader were close, and I knew they were almost as good at the silent communication thing as Jake and Edward were. I watched Edward closely, but if he gave Seth some sign of what he was reading from Anjali, I didn't catch it.

I did notice, however, that Jasper and Emmett had both subtly shifted their positions to bring them closer to the four of us locked in the core of this unfolding drama. They were no longer protecting us from any possible outside threat; they were now behaving as if the real danger might come from within.

Seth, Anjali and Nahuel seemed oblivious to the change in the atmosphere. In fact, everyone seemed to be so eager to hear whatever Anjali would say next, that Carlisle's furtive step closer to me went unnoticed. Just as well; you didn't have to be a strategist to recognize that the move would allow him to put himself between my brother's imprint and me in a split second.

Still clinging to Seth like he was the only anchor she could find in the grip of a raging current, Anjali drew in a shuddering breath and focused her attention on him. She spoke as if she believed what she had to say would matter—should matter—only to Seth. The rest of us might as well not exist, for all she cared.

"Father knows things," she said, her small, shaking fingers hooked in the belt loops of Seth's cargo shorts. "Things that you can't imagine how he could know." Her hazel eyes flickered to Nahuel.

"Like where a … target … has gone once it has fled from him."

Now her eyes swept to Jasper. "Or that another's power is useless against him."

Finally, her gaze settled on me. "Or that another has a secret that they wish to protect."

Blood was roaring in my ears, and it took every ounce of willpower I had to stay still and not place my hands protectively over my stomach. Carlisle moved minutely closer.

She turned back to Seth. "He considers information the greatest asset and power one can possess," she said. "What he knows is not through any ability of his own, however. He uses others to gather information for him. Remy was … is … the best of his gatherers."

Behind me, Rosalie growled impatiently.

"Just spit it out, bitch! Stop talking in riddles."

Suddenly, I liked Blondie a whole lot more than I ever had before.

Anjali didn't even dignify Rosalie with a look, let alone a response. Instead, she continued speaking to Seth, her low tone silky and intimate, as if they were completely alone together in the clearing.

"Remy is a remote viewer."

Well that explains everything. Not.

"What does that mean?" Seth asked cautiously.

"Remy has a special ability, like Edward's mind reading talent or Jasper's empathy," she explained. "He's able to see and hear through the perceptions of anyone with whom he has ever had physical contact."

"You mean like Aro can read your mind when he touches you?" Emmett suggested. I shuddered involuntarily. I didn't like to think of the Volturi master; he was almost as creepy as the vampire rapist. But the mention—again—of the vampire royal family had planted a seed in my brain, and it was taking root. Something was stirring beneath the surface. What would emerge when the new tender shoot broke ground within my psyche? I didn't have time to contemplate it, because Anjali was talking again.

Although she still wouldn't look away from Seth, she answered Emmett's question.

"No. He doesn't read the person's mind. He only shares their senses, sees what they see, hears what they hear, feels what they touch. And once he's touched someone, Remy is able to re-establish the connection at will, even if he's separated from the subject by hundreds of miles."

My stomach churned, its contents curdled, and I began drawing in short, rapid pants, trying to convince the whole mess to stay put and not come hurtling out of my mouth. Nahuel had thwarted the sick bastard's attempt to physically rape me, but he hadn't been able to stop the real violation. Oh no, not at all.

That had occurred afterward. When we were home and thought ourselves safe. When someone dug up the undead prick and pieced him back together. Every private word I'd spoken to my imprint, every intimacy we'd shared, the precious secret Carlisle had agreed to help me keep—all were potentially exposed now.

How much did he know? What had he heard? What had he already told Joham?

Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck.

My mind was a roiling cauldron of chaos and I couldn't pull a single coherent thought from it. Thankfully, my new vampire BFF was still thinking clearly.

"Bella!" Carlisle snapped urgently. "Your shield—"

"Already on it," she said calmly.

My head spun. Was she shielding me? I didn't feel any different.

How many of us could she shield at once? How many did she need to? Who else had the mind-molester touched besides me?

Definitely Nahuel. Possibly Anjali, and that meant ….

Seth's coppery skin had taken on a sickly greenish undertone. He pushed Anjali's hands off and backed a step away from her. Apparently, his thoughts were paralleling mine. He was realizing he'd had an unwelcome witness to everything he'd shared with his imprint because this super-powered peeping Tom had almost certainly touched her.

Words of love. Battle strategies. Passionate kisses. Tender caresses.

His first time having sex.

And Anjali had allowed that to happen to him. She hadn't said a word of warning, when she must have known this creep … Remy … was watching and listening through her. If she'd only told Seth, Bella could have been shielding him—all of us—all along.

I'd changed my mind. I couldn't forgive her, even if she really had thought, in some warped way, that she'd been physically protecting Seth. This was even worse than I'd imagined when I first began to suspect her of feeding information to her father. This was psychic violation, emotional betrayal so extreme, defilement so utterly foul that I wanted to vomit on Seth's behalf.

Emmett summarized what everyone was thinking: "Fuck."

Rosalie editorialized a bit more: "You sick bitch. I ought to rip your head off."

"Rose," Carlisle admonished in a soft murmur. "That's not helping."

While the rest of us were struggling to absorb Anjali's revelations, Jasper was already examining the situation, picking this new information apart, turning it over in his mind to study it from every angle.

"Is this connection constant?" he asked Anjali. "Or does it happen only when he focuses on an individual? Can he watch through more than one person at a time?"

I wondered why he wasn't using his abilities to help calm everyone down. I was so wound up I'd actually have welcomed some relief. Nahuel's arms clenched around my waist; I couldn't move if I wanted to. He was strung as tight as a piano wire and could have used some help from Jasper to manage his emotions. I wished I knew what to do to ease his pain.

Anjali ignored Jasper as if he hadn't spoken at all. She just stared at the spot on the ground where Seth had stood only a moment before. Her small hands hung suspended in the air before her, as if they still rested at Seth's waist. The seconds stretched.

"Anjali?" Seth's voice, low and pain-filled, seemed to snap her out of whatever reverie she'd been trapped in. Her gaze leapt eagerly to his face. "Can you answer Jasper?"

She inhaled—short and sharp. At the expression on Seth's face, her eyes filled again with tears.

Goddamned crocodile tears.

"Seth, are you very angry with me?" Her voice was soft and tentative, with a childlike quality that would have tugged at my heartstrings if I hadn't known she was a pathological liar.

While I had zero sympathy for the lying bitch, my heart was breaking for my brother. His inner turmoil was plainly written on his face. A battle raged in his head between instinct that urged him to give her whatever she asked for and intellect that told him she couldn't be trusted. Which would win?

Either way, Seth was the loser.

He hesitated; he wasn't used to being angry with anyone, let alone someone he loved this much. It must have been incredibly difficult for him to admit it, especially with everyone watching.

"Yes," he finally replied.

Her chin quivered and the tears began coursing down her satin skin. "You were never in danger, my darling," she whispered. "I wouldn't let my father harm you. You are everything to me. Nothing else matters. Only you!"

And that, right there, was the problem with Anjali.

Yes, she loved Seth—absolutely and irrationally—but she didn't give two shits about anyone else.

Living in the Cullen house, switching to a "vegetarian" diet, interacting with her brother, even trying to behave more humanly—it was all for Seth, so that he would accept her. So that he would love her. She didn't do these things because they were right. She did them because she thought it was what Seth wanted her to do. Unlike Nahuel, she didn't care at all whether or not she behaved like a monster. She didn't even entertain the questions of conscience that my imprint agonized over every single day.

Edward probably hadn't been able to pick up on her deception because it just wasn't on her mind. She thought nothing of it. Why should she? She didn't care about right or wrong. Didn't give a damn that her silence had put everyone else at risk. She only cared about Seth and what he thought of her.

Seth swallowed hard, his dark eyes swimming with agony. He was surrounded by people who loved him—because everyone loved Seth—but I knew that gave him no comfort at all right now. I wanted to put my arms around him and let him cry like a little boy. I wanted to take him somewhere away from all these too-kind, pity-filled eyes and give him the privacy in which to grieve the death of his illusions about his imprint.

I wanted to take Rosalie's suggestion and separate Anjali's fucking head from her miserable shoulders.

But Seth was leading our pack, and he didn't have the luxury right now of just being a broken-hearted boy. He had to be an Alpha and try to fill one hell of a big pair of shoes until we could find their rightful owner.

"We'll talk about us later," he said, gruffly. "Right now, I need you to answer Jasper's questions."

He'd worded his response perfectly. She would have ignored Jasper and everyone else until hell froze over. But if she thought Seth wanted those answers too, she'd cough up any information they asked for.

Again she answered Jasper without looking at him. "Remy's ability is not constant. He 'tunes in,' like a radio. He can't remain connected indefinitely and can only see through one individual at a time."

"That's good, right?" Emmett, the eternal optimist, was obviously trying to find the silver lining in the situation. "It means anything that we didn't discuss in front of Anjali, Leah and Nahuel may still be safe from Joham."

Jasper shook his head. "There's no way to know what he's seen or heard. I think we have to assume Joham knows that we're tracking Jacob and Renesmee right now."

Jasper turned back to Anjali. "Have you communicated directly with Joham or anyone who works with him while you've been in Forks?"

As if she saw an opportunity to minimize the hideousness of her betrayal, she responded eagerly. "Seth, I haven't spoken with Father or communicated with him in any way," she said, her wide eyes full of hope and adoration. "He only knows whatever he has learned through Remy. I knew you didn't want me to help Father, so I broke off all communications. I wouldn't hurt you that way."

"Yeah, you're a regular fucking saint," Rosalie muttered. "You didn't lie directly. You just left out the whole truth."

Sound like anyone we know? The school girl jibed.

"Rose," Carlisle sighed. "At least going forward we have the advantage of Bella's shield. Joham won't be getting any more information through his remote viewer."

"I can keep everyone covered for as long as we need," Bella confirmed.

Everyone? We were a big group. I'd had no idea she was that powerful.

"We need to consider our next step," Edward said. "We need to change our plans."

He had a point.

"We should do something he wouldn't expect," I volunteered, surprising myself that I could speak at all. My fury at Anjali and my heartbreak for Seth had successfully suborned my fear—for now.

All eyes turned to me.

"You have an idea?" Jasper asked.

I opened my mouth to speak, but caught myself before anything spilled out. Anjali was still staring intently at Seth, but I thought her demeanor had an undertone of … listening? Observance? I didn't want to take the chance.

"Yeah, I do. But I don't want to talk about it in front of her," I said flatly, bobbing my chin toward Anjali.

My words hung dense and heavy in the air of the clearing. Seth looked utterly stricken by my reminder that he could not trust the woman he loved. I shook my head regretfully.

"I'm really sorry, Seth, but you know I'm right."

Seth swallowed hard and looked away from me, rubbing his big hand vigorously over his sallow face. He was six years younger than me, but suddenly his weary eyes looked a century older than Nahuel. Finally, he nodded, staring at the ground.

"Paul?"

Jake's brother-in-law was the only other pack member who'd taken human form for this discussion, and he'd been largely silent. Probably too shocked and upset by Anjali's revelations to indulge in his usual stupid behavior.

"Yeah?"

My brother looked up at last, but not at Anjali. He was looking at me with that lost expression I remembered so well from the night our father died.

"Would you mind taking Anjali back down the trail a ways?" He finally turned his gaze to Paul. "You don't need to go far. Just out of earshot. Take Quil with you."

Even Paul wasn't big enough of an asshole to give Seth a hard time right now. "Sure thing, man." He turned to Anjali, his eyes hard and disapproving, and gestured wordlessly for her to precede him out of the clearing.

The betraying bitch looked like Seth had just ordered Paul to take her straight to hell. I really wished he had.

"You're sending me away?" Her voice trembled pathetically and her huge hazel eyes started leaking again.

Not venomous, my ass. She's the worst fucking kind of poison.

"I can't trust you right now," Seth replied, and I was impressed by the determination in his voice. Amazed at his strength. Now that I had an imprint of my own, I finally understood the power of the bond. Having to push his imprint away had to be ripping Seth's guts out. I didn't think I'd be able to do it.

Anjali's tears had escalated from a drizzle to flat-out sobbing. She hugged her arms around her ample chest and just stared at Seth, shaking like a scrap of trash trapped by the wind against a fence wire. I wasn't buying the performance, but it apparently softened Seth the tiniest fraction.

"It's just for a little while," he told her gently. "Paul and Quil will take care of you."

"I'm sorry, Seth," she cried again. "Do you still love me?"

I saw red. I really wanted to just slap the shit out of her in that moment for demonstrating how little she really knew my brother. If she'd had any idea of who he really was, how profoundly and whole-heartedly he loved not just her but everyone in his life, she'd have known that she could only lose his trust. She'd added insult to injury by implying that he'd withdraw his affections. Of course, she didn't deserve his love, but she should have known she would still have it.

My fury spilled out of my mouth. "You stupid, selfish cuh—"

"Leah!" Nahuel interrupted sharply. His arms tightened around me and forced me to choke off my rant if I wanted air. He whispered softly in my ear. "Please do not make this any more difficult for Seth than it already is."

He was right. Of course he was right. My calling Anjali names wasn't going to hurt her at all. It would only hurt my brother.

I didn't trust what would come out of my mouth if I opened it just then, so I kept it shut, and gave Seth an apologetic half-smile instead. He shook his head sadly, then refocused his attention on his imprint.

"Love isn't the issue," he told her quietly. "Please go now."

Still, she didn't move. Paul looked from her to Seth, at a loss as to how to budge her.

"Oh for heaven's sake," Rosalie muttered in annoyance. She flitted to Anjali's side and touched her far more gently than I would have imagined she could. Far more gently than I could have managed at the time. She gripped Anjali's shoulders and eased her around to face Paul, then gave her a nudge in his direction.

"Just do as Seth asks and everything will be fine," she told the sobbing half-vamp.

Finally, Anjali began to move, shuffling through the snow and heading back up the ridge that surrounded the clearing. Paul and Quil fell into step behind her.

"Give them a few minutes," Jasper said quietly.

I didn't have a watch, so I wasn't sure how long we waited until Jasper seemingly decided it was safe to continue our discussion, even though I couldn't tell what was different between this moment and the last.

"Leah, you had an idea?" Edward prompted.

That seed that had been quietly germinating beneath the surface now broke through.

"We should contact the Volturi," I said.

I knew I was talking out of my ass, but really … what more did I have to lose today?

Silence reigned for several heartbeats. Rosalie assassinated it.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" she shrieked.

Yeah, I really hated vamp-Barbie.

"Probably," I growled at her. "But so is Joham. We need to be at least as nutty as he is if we're going to beat his ass. He wants the Volturi to notice him? Let's help him out."

"Calling the Volturi isn't just insane, it's suicide," Bella protested. "Aro's been looking for an excuse to come after us for six years."

"That's exactly why we should call them," I replied, growing surer of my suggestion the more I thought about it. I twisted in Nahuel's arms so I faced Jasper. They could all protest as much as they wanted, but Jasper was the strategist. His opinion of my idea mattered more than anyone else's.

"You said yourself that those bodies …" I gestured toward the barn, "… are going to attract the attention of the Volturi sooner or later. Well, if we're pre-emptive, if we tell them about it first, they'll see we have nothing to hide. That we're not to blame for this. And maybe they'll be so pissed at Joham that they'll help us get him."

My eyes circumnavigated the crowd of supernatural that had molded itself around me during my little speech, pausing when they reached Carlisle. He was grinning at me like I was a precocious toddler who'd just sung "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" in perfect pitch. And in Portuguese. I glanced around again. A slight smile curled the corner of Jasper's lips, and Edward was outright smirking.

Did I have something caught in my teeth? Was my shirt unbuttoned or my high beams on?

"What?" I demanded, peevishly.

Edward answered. "Carlisle is tickled that you just said 'we' instead of 'you,' and Jasper's thinking your idea is a good one."

"We?" "You?" So what? Oh .…

Carlisle was back to that whole "part of the family" dreck. I made an overt show of rolling my eyes at him. It was the only comment he'd get out of me on that subject. I was more interested in hearing Jasper's thoughts on my idea.

"Inviting the Volturi into this will only make matters worse," Bella objected, her calliope voice chiming with alarm.

"Actually, Bells, I think Leah makes a very good point," Jasper said. "The Volturi will learn of this sooner or later, if they don't know already. If we're the ones who tell them, it won't be so easy for them to blame us. And if they do decide to help … well, let's just say they have a valuable skill set."

Bella shook her head. She'd been pigheaded as hell when she was human. Immortality hadn't softened that at all. "Help from the Volturi would come at a very high price." She turned to her husband. "Edward, you can't be thinking of agreeing to this."

I held my breath. If Edward accepted my idea, I was pretty sure Bella would go along too. If he rejected it, Jasper would probably walk away from it as well. I'd never had much faith in the judgment of this particular vampire. It seemed to me that he had a tendency to make obtuse decisions, for all his ability to read minds. But today was a day of surprises, it seemed.

He shook his head sadly. "If it helps us find our children, what price wouldn't we pay?"

Our children.

He'd said it before, when I'd been injured and he thought I might know what had happened to Renesmee and Jake. Like a thunderclap that splits a clear sky, I suddenly got it. Edward, Bella, Carlisle, Jasper—even Rosalie and Emmett—they were just as worried about Jacob as they were about Renesmee. They wanted to find my Alpha every bit as much as I did.

They love him, too.

Shame poked me painfully.

I'm such a jerk.

"Yes." Edward directed his quiet murmur for me, although he knew there was no way to make the statement really private in this company. "On both accounts."

"Look, this needs to be said, so I'm going to say it," Rosalie interjected. "Finding Renesmee and the pup can't be our only objective. We need to find Joham and take him out."

Carlisle's distaste at the idea of intentionally ending another creature, even one as vile and sadistic as Joham, was clearly written on his handsome face. Blondie didn't miss it either.

"He's not going to stop impregnating humans until someone makes him stop," she said. "What he's doing, using women as ignorant breeders, is loathsome, but that's not the only reason to take him out. Every time he does something like this …" she jabbed her finger toward the abattoir of a barn "… he risks exposing us all."

Into the brief silence that followed Rosalie's rant, Nahuel spoke the first opinion he'd voiced since the whole drama started.

"Rosalie is right," he said softly, finally releasing the stranglehold he'd had on my waist all this time. "My sire will continue to murder humans, create half-breed monsters and pursue Renesmee and myself as long as he is able. Ending him is the only solution."

My heart thumped unevenly at the thought of going after Joham. But I knew Rosalie and Nahuel were right. It had to be done. And if we were going to do it, we needed strength, advantage and numbers.

"We need the Volturi," I repeated, directing the force of my conviction squarely at Carlisle.

He would be the hold-out. And if he rejected the idea of killing Joham … well, we simply wouldn't do it. Carlisle met my gaze, and I could see reluctance warring with conviction on his face.

"Involving them is the only way to be sure we have the firepower to win," I said, playing my last ace, one that I knew he alone would understand and respond to. "We all have too much at risk."

Carlisle blinked at me. Maybe he was surprised by my boldness in alluding to my pregnancy in front of the whole group, and, more specifically, in front of Edward. Or maybe he just agreed with me all along. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the satellite phone he'd intended to use to keep in touch with Alice and Esme.

His eyes never left mine.

"I'll make the call."

End Note: So who's ready to see things get even more weird and tense? (Insert evil laugh here.)

It's been brought to my attention that nominations are open for the Hidden Star Awards and that SSW may have been nominated. Hard to say, since they don't appear to post nominations until the voting opens. If you're interested, check it out at http: / thehiddenstarawards . blogspot . com/p/rules . html (You know to remove the spaces, right?)