A/N: "Season of the She Wolf" won a Sunflower Award for Best Wolf Story, so thanks to everyone who voted! A few of you have asked how much more story is left, and the answer is - not much. More than five chapters but probably less than 10. I have a few other things in the works too, including a long-overdue fourth outtake, so if you haven't already put me on author alert, please consider doing so.

Thanks as always to Evelyn-Shaye and MunkeeRajah, the two most eagle-eyed betas in the world. I love them more than my much-played Breaking Dawn soundtrack CD!

Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and no copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 33 – Man without a Mouth

Jake POV

I awoke in agony.

Pain twisted and gnarled my limbs like the tangled roots of an upended tree. Sharp and sawing, it grated deep into my body, burned through my stomach lining and scorched down my intestines.

This pain was a pure prism of intensity; it focused and exaggerated the urge to change. The compulsion to escape through transformation was almost irresistible.

I wanted to give in. Wanted to phase so damn badly. The wolf gnashed his teeth and gnawed at my guts, fighting to get out. But I held him back.

Why?

I was waiting. For something? No. Someone. What?

My eyes clenched shut against the torture. As if not seeing the mangled mess she'd made of my flesh would somehow make it hurt less.

Her sweet voice slivered the darkness in a whisper so low it barely stirred the rancid air. I didn't really hear it so much as sense it at a cellular level. The vibration of my every molecule was attuned to her. Only her.

"Jake, someone's coming."

She was my purpose. Both the creator of the pain and the reason why it was necessary. To protect her, I burned. To save her, I waited. To see her—maybe for the last time—I pried my eyes open.

Dimly lit in the weak light reflected off the pallid gray walls of our prison, her beautiful face swam into my line of vision, and I shattered. Tears slicked her soft, pale cheeks. The sight hurt more than the broken bones. She was so afraid. So fucking sad. I couldn't stand it.

"Renesmee."

My voice was a hollow, used-up rasp. I ran out of words. I ran out of air. I hesitated, my body and mind reaching for both necessities.

She glared at the door and, without looking at me, dragged me upright by the arm. The movement hammered misery through my throbbing fingers. I gasped and flinched, trying to pull away from the hurt.

The massive metal door made a clicking sound. With a loud, drawn-out creak like something out of a low-budget horror flick, it slowly swung open. Like sunrise over a mist-shrouded mountain, the sound and movement burned away the haze of my confusion. Between the intake of breath and the exhalation, I knew what I needed to do.

I phased.

Before Joham's offspring had the door even halfway open, my fangs ripped through her throat.

I wanted to gag. The tang of her blood, the scent of her rending flesh, flooded my senses. She fucking tasted like Nahuel smelled, and for a lost, bewildered moment, the man in me screamed that I was murdering something that was a part of my friend. Worse, that I was killing someone who was like my mate.

In the next second, the Alpha wolf ascended.

And I painted the walls of our shitty little prison with the half-vampire's blood.

SSW/SSW/SSW

We couldn't keep on like this. I couldn't.

Pain, piercing and cold, spiked through all four of my paws every time they touched the hard-packed snow. Or lifted off the ground. Or moved through the frigid air.

The broken bones had knitted, so they supported my weight, but they'd knitted wrong. They ground and grated against each other agonizingly with every movement, and I knew there was no relief in sight until Carlisle rebroke them and set them right. That wasn't going to happen any time soon.

Each pulse of pain wrested a wounded, bestial whimper from my dumb animal throat. Renesmee echoed every whimper with a ragged sob. Her anguish, that was what would break me, not the misery in my body.

She had to stop, or I'd go insane.

My brain was a scramble of wolf and man, and I couldn't make sense of the past few hours. Couldn't sort through the jumbled memories of pain and fear. The only thing clear and sharp was the sound of my mate's weeping.

It wasn't like the pain in my paws would kill me. I was in more danger from the trench-like, jagged gashes the hybrid ripped down my flank. Bitch only landed one hit, but it was a good one. The wounds were wide and deep, and they steadily oozed blood and fluid that had turned milky and foul-smelling in the last hour. For some reason I couldn't fathom, they weren't healing.

But Renesmee wasn't crying because of those wicked wounds. No, she wept over the pain she had caused. I wanted to tell her to stop. My wolf vocal chords couldn't produce the human sounds, though, and all that came out was a strangled grunt that made her sob harder. She was crying so hard I wondered how she could breathe, let alone keep moving.

She was all but hauling my huge, hairy ass through the forest, her tiny fingers sunk deep into my ruff. I barely crept along, my furry gut dragging along across the frozen ground like the old-pooch paunch that my sister's geriatric beagle developed the year before it died.

When the wolf wanted to lie down beneath the bleak, ashen sky and lick his wounds like the dumb fucking animal he was, my half-vampire mate forced me back up onto the lumps of solid pain that had replaced my paws. Between her breathless sobs, she kept up a running litany of encouragement and pleading and cajoling.

"Come on, Jake, we have to keep moving."

"I'm so sorry, baby. So sorry, so sorry, so sorry …."

"Please love, just a little farther. Just a few more steps, I promise."

"My sweetheart, my darling, my strong, brave man …."

And when none of that seemed to move me fast enough to satisfy her, she resorted to over-the-top threats.

"Get your ass up, Jacob Black, or I'm going to tell my father you fucked me in that hellhole. I'll show him everything we did in full, high-def technicolor, I swear to God I will. He'll rip off your dick and feed it to your pack of mutts."

I would have laughed at that one, if I'd been able.

SSW/SSW/SSW

The wolf didn't need to think to move. Instinct could propel his limbs without conscious direction.

I'd learned this six years ago when I went completely fur-baby, trying to escape the emotional pain of a Bella-induced broken heart. At the time, I'd thought it was the worst misery I would ever suffer. What a joke.

This fear-enhanced pain was far worse, and by giving physical control over to the wolf, the man—little boy, really—made room in my head to worry about all the things I couldn't control.

I cowered inside the battered wolf. I was fucking terrified—of everything.

Not being able to protect my mate. The possibility that not even Carlisle would be able to fix me. If we ever saw him again. My growing suspicion that this had all been for nothing because I'd seen no trace of Leah or Nahuel, even though we'd been moving steadily south for hours.

The sense of eyes on me—the almost physical weight of a hateful glare against my fur—dragged me back toward reality. Someone was watching us, my wolf senses told me. The man reasoned against this. Joham's lackeys wouldn't just watch us. They'd be all over us. I'd be dead—a furry grease spot on the snow—if they'd really found us.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched. I stopped shuffling forward and flopped down on my belly. I needed a minute.

I swiveled my head slowly to the left, where Nessie's frightened face hovered over my shoulder. Then back to the right where there was nothing but gray, barren-limbed trees. Trees and more fucking trees. Irrationally, I hated the sight of them.

Wearily, I wished for an owl's neck so I could do a three-sixty surveillance without having to actually get up to accomplish it. But my shape-shifting ancestors went with a wolf instead of a nocturnal raptor, so I levered up onto my haunches and dragged myself around to peer back the way we'd come.

I saw nothing. But I felt it—hate and fear.

Maybe Ness felt it too, because she grabbed two big fistfuls of fur and pulled for all she was worth.

"Get up, Jake. We have to keep moving south."

I huffed a shallow breath—I hadn't been able to pull a deep one since the hybrid clawed me. It plumed in the cold air, and I felt the crystals collect around my muzzle, weighing me down as if they were stone instead of ice. I felt as if just one more frozen drop would be my tipping point and I wouldn't be able to get back to my feet.

"Please, baby," she begged, her voice a trembling whine. "I know you're tired, but our only chance is to keep moving."

I heaved myself back up onto my throbbing paws. You'd think my brain would have just given up by now and tuned out the pain. No such luck.

Renesmee's urgency made sense. Our family would be coming from the south. If we just kept going, I had to believe they would find us eventually. With their super senses, we could be miles off course and they'd still be able to find us.

As long as whatever was following us didn't find us first.

SSW/SSW/SSW

I'd slept standing up in the past, whenever I had needed to. Though I didn't think I'd ever slept while walking, I swore I was doing it now. And while I walked, I dreamt.

Dreamt about being home, in my bed in the Cullen house, Renesmee snuggled up beside me. Warm and comfortable and safe.

I heard my family's voice drifting from other rooms. Emmett and Jasper arguing over some stupid video game. The sound of Edward playing Bella's lullaby on the piano. Esme's sweet laughter at some excruciatingly human observation Bella just made.

And farther off, outside the house, the metallic clatter of tools as Rosalie worked on an engine. The soft thud of paws as my wolf brothers patrolled the forest. The sunshine and happiness of Seth's laughing, perpetually joyful mind. But as I listened, that sunlight darkened into ruby-tinged twilight.

What the hell?

Seth?

Suddenly I was fully awake, and I limped to a halt. The wolf had no concentration to spare for forward motion. He was totally focused on that distant hint of a whisper at the edge of awareness.

SETH!

Faintly—so faint I could almost believe I was imagining it, except I didn't have the energy or hope left for imagination—a reply sighed through the haze of pain and fear.

Jake! Oh, thank God!

Relief sucked the last vestiges of strength from my shaky legs, and I belly-flopped onto the cold hard ground. Renesmee, who had no way of knowing I'd just made contact with Seth, seemed convinced I'd given up. She seized both my ears and pulled, threw her full weight backward on her heels, and cursed inventively.

Seth. Of course Seth would be the one to find me first. He was the first to leave Sam and join my pack. The first to embrace the Cullens as family. I'd never loved the little asshole more than I did in this exact moment, and if he were in front of me, I'd honest to God kiss him right on the lips. For a second, I was so overwhelmed with gratitude that I couldn't even think a response at him.

Jake? Panic seeped into his mental tone. You still there?

Yeah, yeah. I'm here, kid. Just … really fucking happy to hear your voice.

Me too, man. Me too.

And I could tell he was happy, because wasn't Seth always happy? But there was something else there, too. Something under the surface that he was trying to hide from me. Seth never thought anything he wouldn't say, and the fact that he was trying to not think about something he didn't want me to know scared the hell out of me. The only thing I could think was …

No one's dead, Jake. Seth's mental voice was calm and reassuring, but still holding back.

Show me, I demanded.

I think it's probably better if you go first. You're in a lot of pain, man, and I think we need to find you as soon as possible. Edward's with me, so if you fill me in, he'll pass it on to the rest of the family.

I knew he was right, so I gave him a mental core dump—everything I could remember, no matter how jumbled, over the past few days. In the seconds it took me to do this, Renesmee decided she'd had enough of my lack of response. She began kicking my ass, still oblivious to the dialogue taking place in my brain. Her little sneakered foot slammed repeatedly into my shaggy rump.

There was no way she'd induce me to break my connection with Seth by phasing to human form to explain what I was doing, but she was a distraction. Enough of one that the adult content that I'd tried to edit out of my communication with Seth—and by default, Edward—slipped through. It dribbled out of my brain and straight into Seth's. To his credit, he covered his shock quickly, hastily attempting to contain my memories of being inside Edward's daughter.

Seth was silent for several long beats.

Uh, shit. Sorry, Jake. I tried to keep that under wraps, man, but ….

Guilt and dread flummoxed me … for all of two seconds. Then I realized that in light of everything Renesmee and I had been through in the past few days, Edward being pissed about our cherry exchange was the least of my problems. I didn't regret being with her, giving her what she needed, and I sure as hell was not going to apologize for it.

No worries, bro. It's a non-issue.

Yeah, I don't think Edward sees it that way.

I don't really give a crap. On the one-to-ten scale of "Shit that has me shaking in my boots," this one is a minus twenty.

I raised my head and found the sun, gauging its position in the sky relative to the images of landscape that Seth broadcast to me as he continued running toward us.

I don't think you're that far. His proximity was confusing. In theory, if he'd just entered my range, he'd still be more than three hundred miles away from me. But judging from the sun's position overhead and the familiarity of the forest around him, he couldn't be more than fifty miles south of us. How did I not hear him until now? And why couldn't I hear anyone else?

Seth, who else is with you? I can't hear anyone else in the pack. Where's Leah? I think you're close, but you … feel … far away.

His reply took too long—Ness had time to give me a dozen more sharp kicks in the ass while I waited to hear Seth's mind voice again. When it reached me, it was more muffled than before, even though it should be clearer as he moved closer.

Jake? You still there? You're fading. You sound like you're underwater or something.

Now the fuzziness was leaking out of Seth's voice and into my head. Everything felt muted. Renesmee's curses were becoming distant. Even the impact of her feet on my backside felt like it was cushioned by a pillow.

I realized I was slipping into unconsciousness.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck ….

I did the only thing I could think of to wake myself up and possibly help guide Seth to us. I threw my head back, heaved as much air into my pinched lungs as I could manage … and howled.

Nessie clapped her hands over her ears and staggered back, round-eyed in disbelief at the amount of noise I was making. I howled like I'd been shot. Like my life depended on it, which it just might at that point. I howled until my throat felt raw. I howled until I exhausted every molecule of oxygen in my bloodstream.

When my air ran out, I tried to haul another lungful into my body. But my drained lungs refused to re-inflate, and the weight of all existence came to rest on my chest.

I had strength to send one more thought Seth's way.

Ah, shit.

And then I was gone.

SSW/SSW/SSW

The wolf had no sense of time passing. No capacity to recognize and define the moment of transition between unconsciousness and awareness. One second … he wasn't, and in the next … I was.

The pain-thickened haze of confusion returned with wakefulness. Part of my brain thought maybe I wasn't that awake. Just alert enough to register that everything freaking hurt, but not aware enough to be able to do anything about it. Certainly not in the world enough to willingly open my eyes and really look at the disaster my body had become.

"Daddy, why aren't you helping him?" Renesmee's voice was angry and accusing. "Give him something for the pain."

Edward's reply was measured and patient. I'd never heard him lose his temper with his daughter. "Sweetheart, I don't have anything that's appropriate to give him while he's still in wolf form. I need him to phase to human form so I can treat him."

"I thought Carlisle said you had a whole bunch of medical degrees." At Leah's abrasive voice, a pulse of relief pumped through my chest. Seth had said no one died, but until I heard her voice, I hadn't been sure my beta was really okay.

I wanted to tell her that I no longer blamed her for starting this whole mess by going after Nahuel alone. I'd finally admitted to myself that I would have done the same thing, and that I was wrong to try to force her to go against instinct and delay looking for her imprint. I should have gone with her right away. I would tell her. Soon. Real soon. Maybe later. Okay, later. Yeah, much later.

"My degrees are in human medicine," Edward snapped. He had no problem displaying his impatience with Leah. "I don't know any more than you about treating a canine."

I felt a cold hand stroke my head. Edward's voice was far kinder than I would have expected, given what he knew had occurred between his daughter and me.

"Jacob, I need you to phase back to your human form," he said in an enticing tone I remembered from his attempts to get a very young, very stubborn Renesmee to take a bath when she wanted to keep playing. "I know you're in pain, but I can't treat you in this form. I have no way of knowing how much morphine to give you."

The wolf snarled and crouched, tail tucked between his legs. He was too afraid to yield control to the man.

"Please, baby," Ness begged.

Come on, Jake. Phase. Everything will be fine, Seth mind-whispered to me, and every one of my pack brothers echoed his encouragement.

I wanted to tell them "Not gonna happen," but my awareness started to slip sideways again. I rolled with it, knowing when the listing ended and I came to rest, I'd be blissfully unconscious again. I couldn't wait.

Leah's colorful swearing nearly drowned out the unmistakable sound of a bag being dumped on the ground. "Leah!" Bella barked, and I was glad to know she was here, too. "What are you doing?"

"I know Carlisle put smelling salts in here," Leah grumbled over the clattering sounds of bottles and plastic being sifted and sorted. "You want him to stop being a wolf, you need to give him some incentive to stop being a wolf."

A loud pop sounded near my ear, and something hard and cold pressed against my left nostril. The most godawful, burning stench scorched up my nose and shafted straight into my brain.

I. Was. Awake.

The wolf instantly retreated from the horrific burning scent, abandoning the man in his haste to escape. I phased. Shifting those wrongly healed bones hurt like a bastard, so the first human words I uttered in hours were a string of curses directed at my beta's heavy-handedness.

"I hate you," I wheezed, my eyes springing open. "I really fucking hate you, Leah."

Leah knelt in front of me, an innocent-looking glass vial in her left hand. She smiled smugly, and I wanted to smack the smirk off her face. "Right back atcha, boss," she chuckled. She backed up a few feet and sat down, cross-legged in the snow, still in my line of vision. Nahuel appeared from nowhere and dropped down beside her. Bittersweet relief seeped through my veins at the sight of them safe and together.

Cold, hard hands skimmed my naked body as Edward began examining the injuries on my now-human form. I studied his hands warily as he prepared a shot. I couldn't help it; I felt like a wounded dog waiting for the shot that would put him down. I didn't think Edward would kill me in front of Ness and Bella, but I was also pretty sure he was angry enough to want to right now.

When he approached my arm with the needle, I flinched and rolled my eyes to meet his. His expression wasn't what I'd expected. He didn't look angry. He looked … hurt?

"I am very angry with you," he growled, his voice low and tight. "But only a complete beast would abuse you right now, and I try very hard not to be a monster. We need to get you to Carlisle. There will be time for us to … talk … later."

Even after knowing him for nearly ten years, Edward could still surprise me sometimes. I knew I wasn't getting a pass on the ass-kicking he thought I deserved. But I was glad he was willing to hold off for now.

"Where is Carlisle?" I asked, wincing as Edward slid the needle into my vein.

"In Anchorage," Jasper's voice answered. I hadn't realized he was here, but Edward's calm suddenly made more sense. I glanced around and realized my naked ass was the center of attention for a large group of people. It was like a convention of mythical creatures, I mused. All my pack brothers were there, along with all the male Cullens except Carlisle. Why the hell would they come after us without the one person we'd be most likely to need?

"Why's he in Alaska?"

Edward capped the needle and dropped it in the medical bag Leah had upended earlier. He seemed to be ignoring my question. Jasper studied me cautiously, but said nothing. I glanced around the circle that had gathered around me. No one appeared to be in any hurry to explain why the doc wasn't here.

"Will someone please tell us what's going on?" Renesmee pleaded. "Why is Grandfather not here? Jake needs him."

I already felt the morphine kicking in and knew I was going to be out again soon. I was hoping for at least some answers before I slipped off into Neverland again, but it wasn't looking good. I struggled to stay focused, but my eyelids felt as if each had a five-pound weight glued to it.

Leah's hot glare alternated between Edward and Jasper, as if she were willing them to open their mouths. Edward began wrapping my injured extremities in tight bandaging. The compression held my twisted bones in place, offering almost immediate relief from the grinding and grating. When both Edward and Jasper remained silent, Leah growled in frustration.

"Carlisle went to Anchorage to meet the Volturi," she snapped. Her scowl dared anyone to interrupt. "We weren't sure we'd be able to find you on our own, so we decided to involve their tracker."

If my brain had feet, they'd be wearing cement boots and dragging through quicksand right now, because that's about how fast I was processing information. "But you have a tracker," I observed lamely. "Didn't Anjali help you find us?"

Leah grimaced at the mention of Seth's imprint and gritted her teeth. I recognized the clear signs of an imminent Leah eruption. Apparently, so did Nahuel, because he gently laid his hand on her shoulder. It was like he'd opened a valve and released her steam. Amazed, I watched her anger deflate.

"She was of some assistance," Nahuel offered quietly. "There are extenuating circumstances, however, that required us to seek the Volturi's aid." He glanced at Edward questioningly. "Perhaps it would be better to carry Jacob to safety before discussing these matters in detail."

Edward nodded briskly and finished wrapping the last of my injured extremities before gently probing the gashes on my side. Even with the morphine, his examination motherfucking hurt, and I couldn't hold back my hiss of pain.

"Damn it." Surprise and anxiety leaked into Edward's normally controlled voice. He glanced up at Ness, who'd been hovering over me quietly this whole time. "I thought you said the hybrid Jacob fought was female."

"She was," I groaned, instinctively trying to roll away from the pain his touch sparked in my wounds.

Abruptly, Edward pulled back and began scooping the spilled contents of his medical bag back into the satchel. Suddenly, he was in overdrive.

What the hell? I wanted to ask him what happened, what he'd seen in those wounds that had him so obviously rattled. But the morphine was kicking in and my tongue felt thick and useless.

"Emmett, pick him up," Edward commanded. "Jasper, call Carlisle and arrange for him to meet us as quickly as possible."

Renesmee scrambled to her feet as Emmett scooped me up. While any of the vampires would have been strong enough to carry me, Emmett's size made it easier for him to manage my long arms and legs. As my body left the ground, my vision fuzzed out. I was going back under, and part of me was glad to be headed away from the pain and confusion.

"Daddy?" Ness demanded. "What's going on? You're scaring me."

"We need to get Jacob to Carlisle immediately," Edward answered, and the anxiety in his voice scared me almost as much as waking up in that shithole of a prison had. "There is something in Jacob's wounds that looks like venom."

Well that's a pisser.

End note: I don't often do this, but I'm pimping a fic I recently started following - BlindSpot by FictionFreak 95. It's got an interesting twist. Bella has a bit of psychic ability, Edward is an ex-cop with a troubled past, it's set in Louisiana. I like it because this Bella is no push-over. Plus, it's hot!