A/N: Wow, the reaction to the last chapter was great. The answer to my little poll in the end note was a resounding "yes!" So here's the tail-kicking you all asked for. Thanks as always to my betas, Evelyn-Shaye and MunkeeRajah. I love them more than an ice-cold keg of whup-ass! Twilight and its characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. I'm just wading in her pool for a while.

Chapter 39 – The Voyeur of Utter Destruction

Leah POV

I phased in Joham's arms and plunged into immediate sensory overload: The appalling reek of vampire layered thickly over the smoky stench of scorched drywall. The frantic thundering of Nahuel's heart and the ragged rasp of his breath. The god-awful taste and sensation of cold, hard flesh in my mouth.

My mind zipped in a thousand directions at once, so it was bizarre—and possibly fatal—that my brain chose to snag on the smothering quiet inside my head.

For six long years, phasing had meant willfully cracking open my cranium and accepting the shared thoughts of a horde of testosterone-addled werewolves. I'd always thought it was the worst part of being a werewolf, especially in the months when I'd been trapped in Sam's pack—and in his head. When Jake's defection had created the opportunity for me to get the hell away from my ex-fiance's thoughts, I'd jumped at the chance. It hadn't taken me long to decide that while sharing a pack mind with Jacob and Seth—and later Quil, Embry, Paul and Beau—was better than being stuck with Sam, it still sucked balls in its own way.

Now, as my fangs sank deep into the dead, granite flesh of Joham's shoulder, the silence in my skull threatened to swamp me.

Jake! Seth!

Leave it, the wolf-bitch admonished. Keep your head in the game, or you're dead.

That soft, strong phantom warmth pulsed through my veins again, as if it silently agreed with the she-wolf's advice. The fleeting sense of impending panic faded beneath a fresh wave of calm.

I've never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I do learn from experience—eventually. Three times in my life as a werewolf, I'd been on the receiving end of a vampire's crushing grip. The lesson I'd learned was that if I let a tick get its arms around me, I'd play hell shaking it off, never mind winning the fight. So when I surprised the crap out of Joham by phasing while he still held me, I knew exactly what to do with the sliver of advantage I'd earned. I needed to disarm the bastard.

Before Nahuel's morally unhinged sperm-supplier had so much as a second to realize my fur was in his face, I buried my teeth in his shoulder and ripped the douchebag's arm off. His limb separated from his torso with a profoundly satisfying dry snap.

Kind of hard to crush me if you're short an arm, isn't it, asshat?

Joham didn't scream. Didn't so much as utter a single curse. He staggered back, gaping in surprise at the ragged stump where his right arm used to be. Behind him, Remy appeared to be equally stunned. He'd gone utterly still in that creepy, patented vampire way that always made my skin crawl.

Getting a face full of pissed-off wolf and losing an arm had apparently broken Joham's concentration, because suddenly, Nahuel could move again. My imprint didn't lose a second taking advantage of his freedom. In a flash almost too quick to follow, he twisted his head and sank his teeth into Remy's elbow, which was the only part of the brain-molester that he could reach at the moment.

Remy's past experience had probably left him a bit overly sensitive to being bitten, and especially to being bitten by Nahuel. Joham may have been stoic about my chomping his arm off, but Remy had no such self-control. When Nahuel bit into the meaty part of bayou boy's arm, Remy screamed like a little girl and tried to shove my imprint away. Really, I'd never seen a more gutless vamp; he was a classic bully that fell apart when a victim put up a fight.

Rather than let go and run—which was the course of action I would have endorsed—Nahuel released Remy's elbow, twisted out of his arms and somehow ended up behind him. Nahuel leapt onto the vamp's back, hooked his legs around Remy's waist, grabbed his head, and buried his teeth in the back of Remy's neck. With a sound like shredding metal, he began gnawing at Remy's throat, clearly working on separating his head from his shoulders.

Remy lurched backward, obviously looking for a strong wall to bash Nahuel against. He staggered a few unsteady steps and then, as if in slow-motion, he toppled out of the decimated wall and into the dark, snow-filled night with Nahuel still latched onto him.

My heart boomed behind my breastbone at the sight of them disappearing into the darkness. Our room was on the second floor of the mansion, but while I was confident they could both handle the two-story drop without injury, I wasn't so sure about Nahuel's ability to finish Remy off on his own. I needed to get to him—and fast.

All this took just a few seconds, but it was enough for Joham to regain at least a little composure. He growled low in his throat and glared at me.

A crisp coldness, like the frost that lingers in the corners of a window pane, crackled against my pelt. Joham was trying to regain control of my body, but the comforting internal heat that had freed me from his mental grip just seconds ago softly bubbled to the surface again.

I felt warm and safe and fucking invincible.

I didn't care about the source of the warmth right now. I just knew there was no way Joham's talent was getting through it. Perfect calm settled over me, and my galloping heart slowed to a gentle canter.

Joham began sliding to the left, obviously trying to position himself between me and the shattered wall, as if he could read my mind and knew I was thinking of going after Nahuel and Remy. Behind me, the screaming that had rang throughout the hallway following the explosion had finally stopped. Now, the snarls of both vampires and werewolves, metallic shredding sounds and jarring rumbles carried through the smoky, cold air.

Clearly, when I broke Joham's concentration by chewing his arm off, the distraction had freed more than just Nahuel. From the sounds of it, a knock-down, drag-out fight was going on elsewhere in the house. Now that the fight was fair, without Joham's influence and with Jake leading them, my pack was more than capable of winning any battle.

I, however, knew I would need help to defeat Nahuel's batshit-crazy sire.

The truth was I'd gotten in a damned lucky hit when I took off his arm. Though I'd swallow my own tail before I'd admit it out loud, I just wasn't as physically strong as my larger pack brothers. Jake or Seth on their own could take down a lone vamp, even one as psycho, old and experienced as Joham. But I didn't have that kind of brute force, and even now, with him down one arm, Joham was still a danger to me.

I needed to rely on my advantages: wits, speed and the fact that Joham seemed to consistently underestimate me. I didn't count being knocked up as one of those advantages; I had no illusion that Joham would spare me in order to preserve the pregnancy he found so very interesting. If he couldn't get his hands on my baby alive, he'd probably be just as happy to kill me and dissect my corpse.

Maybe if I delayed long enough, Jake or Seth would come looking for me. But then, it would also mean I would be delayed in getting to my imprint. I needed to rattle Joham. I needed to regain the advantage, and I wasn't above playing head games to do it.

Neither, apparently, was my enemy.

"Such a risk-taker, little wolf," he chided silkily. "I wonder what effect changing your shape is having on your unborn child. Will it survive?"

He continued moving, shifting his position minutely to put him closer to the open wall. Just as I was gambling that our dance might give my pack brothers time to find me, Joham was betting that the longer he delayed me, the better Remy's chances of taking out Nahuel. I paced him inch for inch, angling to keep my body between him and his escape route.

Thinking of Jacob and Seth made the stillness inside my head swell. It pressed painfully behind my eyes.

Ignore it, my inner bitch commanded. It can't hurt you. HE can't hurt you—unless you screw up and give him an opening.

I didn't try to suppress the growl that rumbled up from my gut as Joham continued his slow slide toward the ruptured wall.

"I can help you," he offered, with the paper-thin sincerity of a televangelist promising salvation. "I have invested more than two centuries in studying the products of human-vampire mating. I know better than anyone what you face in the coming weeks. I may not be able to preserve your life, but I can save your offspring."

His eyes narrowed slyly, maliciously. "Nahuel will want to kill it, you know." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "I can save your child from its father."

I brutally hammered down the surge of dread his words churned up. Whatever Nahuel felt about my pregnancy, whatever I'd need to do to regain his trust and rebuild the foundation of our future together, I sure as hell wasn't going to discuss it with Joham.

If I'd been in human form, my reply to his wheedling would have been something along the lines of "Fuck you sideways with a big splintery stick." Instead, I had to settle for a non-verbal response. I curled my upper lip, revealed my fangs and chuffed repeatedly, low in my throat.

Anyone who'd ever had a dog would understand my expression for the canine equivalent of laughing.

I thought about the best food I'd ever eaten—the pancake dinner Nahuel had made for me on the night he proposed—and my mouth flooded with saliva. I allowed some of it to dribble through my lips, and stretched my jaws wide so Joham would see the drool dripping off my long gleaming fangs.

Again the coldness of Joham's power butted up against my shield of warmth, but this time it was so weak, so ineffectual, it felt like nothing more than the brush of butterfly wings across naked skin.

I recognized the exact instant that Joham accepted he wasn't going to be able to regain control of me. His crimson eyes narrowed, his lips pulled back in a snarl, and he dropped into a defensive one-armed crouch.

I readied myself for his attack.

Either I'd succeeded in making him take me seriously, or he was just an even bigger pussy than I'd first thought, but instead of lunging at me head-on, as I'd expected, Joham feinted. He dodged to my left, and when I moved to intercept him, he turned tail and ran like the gutless wonder he was. He leapt gracefully through the broken wall and disappeared into the night.

No fucking way!

I wasn't going to let him escape. I wanted this stupidity over. I wanted my life back, and I wanted Nahuel out from under the shadow of his father's existence. I jumped through the wall after him and hit the ground running.

Joham's abattoir stench was easy to follow. So was the trail Remy and my imprint had left in the snow. The ground was trampled, and tiny scraps of vampire bits glinted silver on the snow. Joham appeared to be tracking them. He was gambling that Remy had either already defeated Nahuel or, if he hadn't, that he'd be able to with Joham's help. Of course, whatever was protecting me from Joham's talent didn't seem to work for Nahuel. Once he was paralyzed, they'd easily rip him apart. When they were done with him, they'd turn their joint attention to me, and I'd be toast if my pack brothers hadn't found me by then.

I didn't slow my headlong run in the slightest, but while I ran, I did the only thing I could think of that might still help me. I started screaming in my head for anyone I thought might be able to hear.

Jake! Seth! Edward! Help! We've got Joham, but I need help! Jake! Seth! Edward!

If I'd concentrated—really focused on reconnecting with my Alpha—I probably could have reached Jake. But there was no time for that kind of interlude. I barreled through the night, kicking up hard clumps of snow and ice, amazed at how far my imprint and his opponents had traveled away from the house in such a short amount of time.

My focus was so narrow that I had no clue I wasn't alone until a small, ice-cold cannonball slammed into me head-on. The impact bowled me backward, tumbling tail over snout until the momentum split the missile and me apart. I rolled thrice more before coming up on all four feet, head lowered and ready to face my attacker.

The ringing in my ears spluttered into silence. My heart seized like an overheated engine.

My attacker was just an inch or two taller than three feet. Long, cascading curls of silvery blonde hair tenderly framed a face that belonged on a cherub in a Raphael painting of some heavenly scene. Her skin was pale and perfect as moonlight, her mouth formed a flawless Cupid's bow.

My first thought was that she was simply the most rapturously beautiful thing I'd ever seen. My second was that I was staring my own death in the face, because there was no way I could fight the creature in front of me.

She couldn't have been more than five years old when she'd died.

My stomach cramped excruciatingly. A dry heave strangled me.

Fuck me. The Volturi were right.

Right to outlaw the creation of immortal children. Right to exterminate every one they encountered. Right to bestow on their creators the ultimate punishment.

Everything that was on the line—my baby, Nahuel's life, my own life—I couldn't save any of it now.

There was no way I could kill a child. Not even one that wasn't really a child at all anymore. Not even a killer that would gladly tear my throat out and drain me dry before moving on to the next hundred or so innocent victims.

I just couldn't do it.

She barreled into me like a Panzer plowing through a field of peasants.

I curled in on myself, trying to protect my belly and my eyes from her vicious little teeth. She snapped at my shoulders and back—wherever she could reach. My tucked-up posture kept my throat out of her grasp, and her jaws were simply too little to open wide enough to allow her to pierce easily through my thick pelt and hide.

Her high, shrill growls of frustration were bladder-loosening in their intensity. She was crazed with blood-lust and as petulantly angry as a toddler denied a second slice of birthday cake. This tot would never tire of the tantrum, though. Eventually, she'd wear through my defenses, and I'd be done.

Maybe if I hadn't been about to be a mother myself, I'd have been able to fight back. She hadn't yet broken through my skin, but the sting of her hundreds of little bites began to seep through my fur, and all I could think of was how I would feel if I were this child's mother.

Did she know what had happened to her baby?

God, I hope not.

Did she think her dead? Abducted? Lost?

I tried to tell myself that this was a savage newborn vampire. I should hate her. I should easily kill her. I shouldn't feel bad about it at all. It was like killing a snake before it had a chance to bite you. Right?

Except it wasn't.

It's not her fault.

Could I live with myself knowing I'd killed a child? Even this one?

No. I couldn't.

Her savage little teeth had settled on a spot near the base of my neck. Her jaws pinched repeatedly, and each time her teeth sank a little deeper, working their way through thick fur, heading toward hide. Tiny fingers tore at my shoulders, ripping tufts of fur out by the roots.

It was only a matter of time.

I love you, baby. I'm sorry.

For the second time that night, a body was abruptly ripped away from mine. She took two fistfuls of fur and a mouthful of skin with her as her tiny form went flying backward through the air. I sprang to my feet and whirled around to face whatever the hell this new threat might be.

The Volturi guard … the big one that made Emmett look dainty … held the vampire child by the throat, dangling her flailing little body in the air at arm's length. I was pretty sure that as a vampire he couldn't really vomit, but he looked like he wanted to. In my experience, blood-suckers usually inspired expressions of revulsion and horror; they didn't usually wear such expressions.

The tracker appeared beside Felix, took one look at the snarling child and actually gagged.

"Kill it!" Demetri hissed, and Felix didn't hesitate for even an instant.

With one hand, he seized the child's neck and wrenched her head off her shoulders. The snarling stopped abruptly, and he dropped both pieces of the girl to the ground. My gorge rose, and I fought it down.

Of all the fucked up things I've seen ….

When Demetri produced a lighter, I took off.

The past two minutes would haunt my dreams for decades. Maybe for eternity.

Forget it. Don't think about it. You couldn't save her. Focus on who you can save.

I ran. As fast as I'd chased after Charlie's cruiser the day I'd spilled the beans to my mother's boyfriend about everything. As fast as my pounding heart and legs could manage.

There was no time to agonize over the horrors behind me, or even those ahead of me. Within seconds, I was on them, and the scene was as terrible as anything I could have imagined.

Remy had Nahuel face down in the snow, his knee planted in the small of my imprint's back. He'd dragged Nahuel's arms back behind his body, stretching and hauling on them at a painful angle. Nahuel screamed in agony and rage, but was incapable of fighting back. Remy laughed like Nahuel had just told the best nun-walks-into-a-bar joke ever.

Joham stood by placidly watching his minion tear apart his son. His power wasn't working on me, but he had no compunction about using it against his own child.

In that moment, I hated him more than I'd ever hated anyone or anything in my life. In the history of the world, there was never a parent who less deserved the gift of the child he'd been given. Any creature sick enough to abuse his own child and steal someone else's didn't deserve to exist—not a second longer.

I hit Joham just as he was turning to face me, and in a move as elegant and powerful as any Jake or Seth had ever made in battle, I took him down in one smooth arc.

For Nahuel.

He thrashed beneath me, fangs gnashing for my throat. An icy fist connected low on my side with a painful thump, and I grunted. His legs scissored beneath me, trying to buck me off, but he was already as good as dead.

For my baby.

My fangs were in his throat, just under his chin. I ground my jaws together, gnawing through cold, dead flesh. The stench of vampire and fear permeated the atmosphere.

For that lost little girl.

Long, cold fingers tore at the skin of my shoulder, and his knees repeatedly hammered into my gut, but my grip didn't loosen. I maintained the pressure, and suddenly, my fangs rang against each other, and I knew I'd never have a better moment.

I lashed my head to the side, and Joham's neck separated midway between his collarbone and jaw. I spat the head on the ground, and it rolled a few inches from his decapitated torso before slowly spinning to a stop.

I had no second to savor what should have been a profoundly satisfying moment. No reprieve in which to feel cheated by how easy it had ultimately been to extinguish Joham's evil. Even as I snorted the bastard's stench from my nostrils, I caught the stink of two new vamps. Had more of Joham's minions arrived to torture Nahuel and me? I leapt from the headless body and whirled around to face whatever this new threat might be.

A male and female flanked Remy, but instead of helping him, they were obviously restraining him. They each held an arm as he struggled. At their feet, Nahuel sprawled on the snow and gasped for air. I lunged forward, loosely grabbed his bicep in my teeth and dragged him through the snow away from the trio.

"Peace, wolf," the female said, watching me cautiously. "We're friends. I'm Kate." She nodded to the tall, blonde vampire on the other side of Remy. "This is Garrett."

Of course. The other two members of the Denali coven.

I'd only given a passing thought to wondering where they were when we'd arrived in Denali. I'd been so focused on the shit-storm going on around me that I'd only half-listed to Tanya's explanation that Kate and Garrett had been traveling. Now that Kate had introduced herself, I remembered them both from our confrontation with the Volturi six years ago.

Without touching me or even looking at me, Nahuel rose shakily to his feet. Without a word, he stalked to Joham's decapitated body and retrieved his father's lifeless head from the ground. He lifted the grisly trophy to eye level and, with a vicious snarl, squeezed it between his palms.

A human head would have popped and spewed brains, blood and gore everywhere. But Joham's already-dead noggin simply disintegrated in Nahuel's hands.

Shocked at his savagery, I dropped back on my haunches and watched while my imprint meticulously crumbled to powder every last fragment of the head. He even stooped down once or twice to retrieve a larger chunk that had fallen to the snow, and then thoroughly crushed those pieces, too.

I knew that rage was only part of his motivation. Even if we never got around to burning Joham's body, with his head utterly destroyed, no one would be able to put the fucker back together ever again.

"Bastard!" Remy shrieked. "Fucking bastard! He shoulda jerked off into his hand instead of puttin' you in the belly of that human whore."

Garrett jerked roughly on the arm he held, forcing it high behind Remy's back. "Manners, sir," he cautioned mildly.

"Fuck you!" Remy continued to rage. "Fuck you all!"

As if he hadn't spoken at all, Nahuel turned to Kate. "Do you carry a lighter?"

She studied him for a moment, as if she didn't trust what he would do if she produced what he was asking for. She glanced at Garrett out of the corner of her eye. He shrugged and nodded. Reaching into her pants pocket, Kate brought out an expensive-looking silver lighter.

"Thank you," Nahuel said calmly, taking the lighter from her outstretched hand.

Scrapes and bruises from the explosion and his tussle with Remy covered his naked body, but in typical Nahuel style, he didn't seem the least concerned by his nudity. He returned to Joham's body and kicked the piles of silvery powder that had been Joham's head until they were mounded near the body. He stepped away, flicked a flame into existence on the lighter, and tossed it onto the dry tinder of his father's remains.

Remy seemed to be running out of steam. Maybe he was finally realizing how very bad his situation was, because when Nahuel approached him, he remained silent.

"How long have you lived?" Nahuel demanded, his voice hard and cold.

Remy blinked confusedly. "What?"

"When were you made, vampire?" Nahuel enunciated clearly. Remy stiffened slightly. Jake had once told me that some vamps considered it an insult to be asked their age.

Remy glowered hatefully. "Nineteen forty-five," he said, acid resentment dripping in his tone.

Nahuel nodded toward the flaming corpse.

"Was he your sire?"

The mind-rapist hesitated, as if he was unsure what Nahuel really wanted to hear and feared my imprint's response if Remy answered wrong.

"No," he finally replied, tightly.

Nahuel nodded, as if satisfied. "Where are the hybrid children?"

Now Remy smirked knowingly, as if Nahuel had just handed him a prize. "Fuck you, half breed."

In a flash, Nahuel's big warm hands were around Remy's icy throat, and his sharp teeth gnashed centimeters in front of the vampire's mangled nose.

"You have only minutes left to exist, vampire," Nahuel growled. "Your only thought at this moment should be how you wish your existence to end: quickly and painlessly, or in agony. Answer me quickly and truthfully, and I will remove your head before I throw you on my sire's bonfire."

Remy cringed and turned the ravaged half of his face toward Nahuel's gleaming teeth.

"Choose not to answer, and I will begin tearing off and burning pieces while you watch," Nahuel continued. "Your head will be the last to go into the flames, and it will be attached to your breathing torso when it does."

His teak eyes narrowed, and a cold, mocking smirk curved his flawless lips. "Can you guess, rapist, what appendage I will remove first?"

Remy's eyes widened. He glanced to Kate first, then Garrett. When he didn't see any sympathy in their eyes, he frantically cast his gaze on me.

"You really gonna let him do this, sweetness?" His voice had taken on a silky, almost flirtatious tone. "With Joham gone, ain't no one else knows more about that pup you're carrying than me—"

He gurgled into silence when Nahuel's fingers tightened around his throat.

"You do not speak to her, filth," Nahuel growled, his low musical voice shaking with rage. "Choose now, or I will choose for you."

Remy began to struggle in earnest against Kate and Garrett's grip. Suddenly, his body went taught, and he screamed loudly. Garrett flinched and cast Kate a reproachful look.

"Damn it, woman, give a man some warning when you're going to do that."

She shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, love. He's getting on my nerves."

I realized she'd used her talent to zap Remy with that painful electric charge she could generate.

"Fucking bitch," Remy wheezed, his scarlet eyes fluttering rapidly.

Garrett rolled his eyes. "You're repeating yourself." He turned his attention to Nahuel.

"Apologies, friend, but until Kate and I find out what's really going on here … and what has happened to the rest of our family … I'm afraid I can't let you end this wretch."

The hushed sound of two sets of footsteps—vampire light and fast—approached through the snow. All eyes moved to the two figures that emerged from the snow that whirled blizzard-like around us.

"Then step aside, revolutionary," Demetri said, approaching our little group. "This one must die for his part in creating an immortal child."

Kate flinched and gasped. Garrett's tall body stiffened, and I remembered Jake saying how deeply scarred the entire race of vampires seemed to be by the long-ago massacre of the immortal children.

"I had nuthin' to do with that!" Remy wailed, pulling frantically against Kate and Garrett's grip. "That was all Joham's doin'."

Felix didn't appear to feel the least bit threatened that two other vamps were technically standing between him and Remy. He marched right up to the struggling vampire and grasped his head in his huge hands. Kate and Garrett immediately dropped Remy's arms and stepped away. They knew better than to argue against a Volturi death sentence, especially one handed down in relation to the creation of a vampire child.

"Wait!" Nahuel shouted. "He can tell us where the hybrid children are being held."

Felix hesitated and glanced at Demetri questioningly.

"Go to hell," Remy said, his voice trembling as badly as his body. If leeches could piss themselves, there would be a puddle of yellow snow under his shaking boots. "Why should I tell you anything? You're just gonna kill me anyway."

Demetri pranced gracefully to Felix's side and studied Remy for a moment. "You are probably right to think the half-breed …" He nodded toward Nahuel. "… would not be capable of torturing you."

He slowly circled around Remy until he was standing behind the taller vampire. He rose on his toes, brought his face close to Remy's unmarred cheek and whispered in his ear. "I'm sure your coven master told you all about the Volturi guard. Did he mention my colleague Jane and what she can do?"

Remy's convulsive shiver said clearly that Joham had told him all about Cruella de Vamp.

Demetri chuckled.

"I see that you are familiar with her abilities," he said, resuming his slow circuit around Remy. "She is not with us at the moment because her brother, Alec, was burned severely in your attack on the Denali coven's house. She is caring for him right now, but I'm sure she would be willing to assist in … interviewing you … should it become necessary."

He completed his stroll and now stood beside Felix again. "Will that be necessary?"

His head still clamped between Felix's huge ham hocks, Remy's eyes rolled wildly. The shitbag was too scared to even grab Felix's wrists, too petrified to struggle at all. He was fucked and he knew it, and no part of me felt even a smidge sorry for him.

"Best cut your losses, friend," Garrett muttered behind him.

Remy shivered in Felix's grasp for a few moments more, before finally heaving a ragged breath.

"Ivvavik," he muttered.

If he meant where I thought, he might as well have said the dark side of the moon. From the disgusted expression on Garrett's face, he was thinking the same thing.

Demetri caught Garrett's look. "You know of this place?"

"Yes," Garrett replied, shaking his head. "It's a national park in the northern reaches of Canada. About as far north as you can go before you run out of land and light. It's nearly ten thousand square miles of wilderness. It could take a century to find anything hidden there."

The only hope we might have—and the only reason I knew about the place—was that Jacob had been through the park six years ago when he wolfed out and went nuts over Bella's decision to marry—and become—a leech. Of course, being in wolf form, I couldn't exactly share that information with the group, and I wasn't eager to phase while the mind-molester was still alive and the Volturi present.

Felix shook the now-whimpering Remy roughly. "Perhaps we should keep him alive a bit longer. He might be useful in finding the children."

"We can manage without him," Nahuel snarled. "If you are reticent, Volturi, I would be happy to dispatch him in your stead."

Demetri tittered as if Nahuel had just recited a naughty limerick.

"That won't be necessary," he chuckled. "We probably have as much help from him as we are likely to get, and I'm sure Aro would not approve of one with this remote viewing ability using it so carelessly."

What he meant was that Aro wouldn't want Remy using his abilities unless it was on the Volturi's behalf, and since that didn't seem likely to happen, better to kill the son of a bitch instead. While the reasoning was self-serving, I couldn't argue against the outcome. I wanted Remy dead more than anyone.

Demetri cast a dismissive glance at Remy before pivoting on his toes in the snow and heading back in the direction of the house. "Felix, take care of that, please," he called over his shoulder.

Remy's terrified shriek squelched off abruptly, and for the second time that night, I watched Felix pop the head off another vamp. Obviously, he'd had a lot of practice, because the fucker was really good at it. He tossed bayou boy's parts on top of Joham's smoldering remains, and the whole fetid pile flared up. Multi-hued flames licked the dark sky, melting the snow in a wide circle around the burning mound.

It's over. Holy shit. It's really over.

Relief took my legs out from under me as efficiently as a blow behind the knees, and my furry ass hit the cold, wet snow with a loud splat. No one spared me a glance.

Felix turned to Nahuel with a lupine smile.

"Well met, half-breed," he said, his voice generous and affable. "The Volturi will remember what you and your werewolf mate have done here tonight."

Nahuel nodded calmly, as if he'd just received a kind compliment from a colleague, rather than a veiled threat from an immortal sociopath. "Thank you for your assistance," he said. "Do you know what transpired at the Denali house and how our friends fared?"

Felix tipped his head to one side, considering Nahuel's request. Finally, he grinned widely. "Alec was injured. One of your number died, although I'm unsure of the circumstances."

The cold beneath me surged up from the frozen ground, crackled along my spine and down my ribs, and burrowed straight through muscle to frost my heart.

"Who?" Kate gasped.

Felix shrugged. "Can't say. I wasn't really paying attention."

I squeezed my eyes shut against the chill of Felix's indifference and turned my vision inward, searching for the snapped tendrils that had connected me to Jacob and my pack brothers. It was difficult to perceive anything around the throbbing, painful cable that bound my soul to Nahuel's. I'd made such a fucking mess of things that our souls were bleeding on both ends of the connection. I couldn't do anything about that right now, so I dug deeper. Found the ragged stumps of those precious tendrils and seized onto them for all I was worth.

Jake! Damn you, let me back in. Do you hear me Jacob Black? I want back into my pack. Let me in!

What if Jake was the one who had died? Would the silence last forever?

A spark flared to life on the far edge of my awareness. I lunged toward it.

Jacob! I choose you. I choose to follow my Alpha. Let me back in!

And like everything else tonight that I'd thought would be so hard, reconnecting with my Alpha and my pack turned out to be easy. As easy, in fact, as simply deciding to do it.

A cacophony of voices crashed into my silent head, obliterating my separateness, and for a split second I basked in the thrill of belonging again—even if it was to a bunch of muscle-bound morons.

Then the pain slammed into me, bearing my joy down into an abyss of darkness and loss.

I was drowning in agony and isolation. Alone. So fucking alone and lost there was no way I could ever find myself again, no matter how loudly my pack brothers begged me to come back to them. The pain in my mind was overwhelming, and if I stayed inside my head, I was going to die of it.

I took the only escape available to me. I phased.

I was already screaming when my vocal chords resumed their ability to produce human sounds.

"Seth!" I shrieked, flopping full-length on the ground. My muscles cramped tightly enough to snap bone. I could almost imagine I heard them crunch over the sound of my screams.

Nahuel's terrified face hovered above me in the swimming, screeching darkness, and I knew he'd lifted me from the ground. Knew he cradled me in his arms, but I couldn't feel his touch. Couldn't feel anything but the brutal despair and agony.

"Seth!" I screamed again.

Kate and Garrett's faces manifested from the black haze behind Nahuel's shoulders.

"Oh fuck." Garrett's voice. "Her brother?"

"Yes!" Nahuel, panicked. "Leah! What is it? What about Seth? Is he—"

"Not dead."

It was all I could get out. I kept repeating it like a mantra, like those words were the only hope I had of lighting the darkness.

"Not dead. Not dead."

No, the wolf bitch conceded. Not dead. Yet.

The school girl whispered hysterically. No, but he wants to be.

The darkness surged up from behind my imprint's shoulders and spilled down over his head, shrouding his beautiful face. It poured over me and dragged me down into oblivion.

End note: I know, I know. Another cliffie. Trust me, though, everything will work itself out in the end. We have another two or three chapters and then an epilogue. I promise that only ONE of the remaining chapters will end with a cliff-hanger - and it WON'T be the epilogue!