Chapter 12

Jesse Uley's POV

The drive from Tennessee to Washington state was one of the longest trips in my entire life. With Rebecca at the wheel, it was taking a lot longer than it had taken me two months ago when I came to visit Rosie by myself. The closer I got to my imprint, the more restless I became.

I spotted the familiar treeline that said we were only a twenty minute drive from La Push border.

"Jazzlyn." I uttered her name quietly, seeing her figure far before my stepmother-of-sorts and half sister ever would, and my heart leaped.

She was running along the side of the car, well hidden in the forest from human eyes. But I saw her. And, god, did it hurt to not be allowed to touch her just yet. She had a carefree smile on her face as she kept eye contact with me. I was mesmerized by her grace and agility, though I knew I always would.

It had been too long since I last saw her. Two months was entirely too long to go without seeing this gorgeous creature everyday. Honestly, I'm not even sure how I managed it. The imprint pull was always there in the pit of my stomach, begging me to return home; "home" being wherever Jazzlyn was.

The last time we had spoken on the phone, an excruciating six days ago, she proposed to me accidently. Not that I minded, far from it; I loved the idea of giving her a fairytale wedding and raising a family together. But I knew that I had to be patient. Though she looked nineteen, and would forever, she was still technically just now seventeen and I was twenty-seven. She was still young and I wanted her to experience her own life before she tied herself to me forever.

"Did you say something, Jess?" Mandi asked from the backseat. She was doodling on a notepad, so it wasn't a surprise when she got distracted by another inspiration and didn't realize I had never replied.

Fourteen was such a fun age for my sister, though every other female I had ever met found it to be a difficult stage in their lives. Mandi was an optomist to the extreme and never let anything weigh her down. Not even the thought that some of the kids on the reservation might hate her for what she stood for. She was the physical representation of Rebecca Black and Joshua Uley's greatest sin.

That made me even more of an outcast. At least Jaro had married her mother, like he had done with Sam's mother, Julie, before he left each woman for another. Though he had never been faithful to either, he at least had the balls to man-up and claim his children. Unlike with my mother.

My mother had been...well, she was a call-girl. And Jaro called, a lot.

I was the result of one of his weekend flings away from Rebecca in Hawaii. Becca knew that Joshua wasn't completely faithful, but she was naive and in love. Plus with the new baby on the way, she figured that he would have to put aside his faults and focus on his family again. But she was wrong. So wrong.

Joshua was planning on leaving Becca. This much I gathered from my mother, at least, so who knows if he would have actually gone through with it or not.

Mommy dearest, though she never said it in so many words, was still in love with him. It was hard for her to raise me for the twelve years that she did by herself, especially when I phased into a giant wolf for the first time in front of her, but she believed that Joshua, who she knew as Jim Upston, was always going to come back for her.

And he did. Ever six months or so, he would go on a "business trip" to visit her. He never found out about me, Mommy dearest was careful about that little information, but she told him all about the rest of her life and how well off she was now. And she was doing well, sleeping with Senators and Business men had it's perks. Jaro was the only lowlife that she still kept around.

When she offered him half of whatever she made, he came to his senses. My mother rushed home the day before he was due back into town (and the day before they were killed) to announce that I was going to live with a neighbor for a little while. "Not forever, kid." She had said, but I knew from the look in her eyes that she wasn't ever coming back.

I was hurt and heartbroken...so I followed her later that night. I was in wolf form for the first time since I had phased and saw everything. They had passion, I'll give them that. Unfortunately, the semi that hit them didn't appreciate the fact that they were tangled up on the side of the road in the backseat of her car.

Mandi was in the womb when he died in a car with my mother, so she never had any resentment towards him for not being there. Rebecca never hid the fact that we had different fathers and that Sam and his family were out there somewhere connected to us as well, but she didn't really have the heart to explain to Mandi just how awful of a man Joshua really was.

Besides, who knows how many other half-siblings I have out there? How many other children would grow up never knowing that Joshua, Jaro, Jim, whatever name he went by when he lied to all those women, was their father? I pitied them most of all; those hypothetical results of one night stands with a man carrying the phasing gene. At least I was around people who understood my birthright.

As much as I hate to admit it, I was envious of Sam for his brief time with Joshua. I knew that Mandi was too, though she'd never admit it either. It was just not in the cards for us to have a relationship with him and I know that if he were still alive, I wouldn't want to anyways.

When we finally stopped the car in the Cullen-Black's winding driveway, I lept out of the passanger seat. I had seen Jazzlyn dart into her house from a side door, too fast for human eyes to catch, so I decided to go find her myself.

"Aunt Nessie! Uncle Jake!" Mandi yelled from the car when she spotted them on the porch.

I was already half way up the stairs and only stopped for a second to glance at them. My eyes had trouble focusing on their features when I could hear Jazzlyn somewhere in the house behind them. I guess they noticed too, though.

"Just go, son." Jacob said with a low chuckle and even Nessie grinned my way.

I grinned back at the two of them. I'm so glad that I had future in-laws as amazing as the two of them. Nessie had always been on my side when it came to dating her daughter, though I knew that Jacob trusted me with her too. I appreciated that they were an imprinted couple though, because they understood my burning desire to see Jazzlyn right this second after two months away.

I breezed past EJ on the couch, snuggled up with his new fiance, and tried not to vomit at the love pouring out of that particular imprinted couple. Sara was in his lap, her left hand shinning in the light from all angles as the world was left to admire her ring, and her tongue was pretty deep down his throat. I could see what Rosie meant.

I spotted EJ's twin on the back porch with her own loverboy. Carlie was grinning at Sammy Uley as if he had single-handedly just saved the entire planet from a zombie invasion. My heart dropped upon seeing my nephew for the first time in real life. I had plenty of images in my head of him thanks to phasing with Jazzlyn when I came back to visit her a few months ago, but this was different.

He was real. Which meant so was his father, my half-brother. Oh, god. I don't think I could do this anymore. Coming here to meet the Pack was a bad idea. I should go back to the car and warn Becca how awful an idea this was.

Then he turned around to see who Carlie was staring at his eyes froze. His dark brown eyes with just a hint of green mixed in. Just like mine.

"You can come out here, if you want, Jesse." Carlie prompted, knowing how vital it was that I meet my family. But I just shook my head.

"No, I haven't seen Jazzlyn yet." I said, a sudden urgancy in my tone. I had to see her now. Or I was going to completely lose it.

"Yeah, okay." Carlie said, dejected. "I think I saw her run upstairs."

I nodded and followed the tug at my heart that was Jazzlyn. She was indeed upstairs. I knocked lightly on the bedroom door that I knew was hers and waited patiently for her to unlock it. Her skinny arm pulled me inside the room before I even had a chance to think.

She pressed her cool lips against mine urgently, her new physical age making her much more bold than she had ever been before. Or maybe it was from our time apart? Who knew? And honestly, I didn't really care what the reason was.

I clutched her to me, kissing her with gentle passion. When we finally pulled away, I was a little breathless.

"Well, that's one way to say 'hello'." I said, grinning like an idiot at her. "God, I've missed you, Jazz." I kissed her temple lightly before pressing my forehead against hers.

"Not nearly as much as I missed you." She countered and I only grinned in response. If only she knew, if only she knew.

"So, uh, Sammy is downstairs." I said when we finally seemed to both have our breathing under control.

"Oh, I guess I should have mentioned that..." Jazzlyn said, her beautiful eyes trying to avoid mine.

"What is it?" I asked, afraid for whatever it was that she was hiding from me.

"Um, well, you know how Becca called Dad and told him that she wasn't going to hide anymore from the Pack?" Jazzlyn bit her lip and I knew that the worst was truly yet to come. She never bit her lip unless she was nervous. It was one of the habits that I usually found adorable.

I nodded, "uh-huh."

"Well, you see...he sort of invited...or rather, he told Mom and she invited..." She stumbled on the right phrasings and I let her take her time to get it all right, if that was what she wanted.

"Go on." I urged gently, rubbing a soothing circle on the back of one of her hands that I had in mine. "You can tell me anything. You know that."

And in typical spur-of-the-moment can't-contain-herself spirit, Jazzlyn blurted out the one thing that I didn't think that I could handle today. "We're having a Pack Bonfire tonight to celebrate your guys' future return to La Push!"

AN: I'm sorry, I think I'm addicted to Jesse's POV so next chapter is probably going to be his too :D He's going to meet the rest of the Pack though, so it'll be worth it.

Review if you love me :)