Chapter 13

Jesse Uley's POV

Wolves know how to throw a mean party, I'll give them that. Though as to how much fun I ended up having, well, I'll let you decide.

Every wolf, present or past, was able to make it to the Cullen-Black property that night except Quil Ateara, which was expected, so the party started getting out of control far quicker than a frat party at a college campus ever would.

It was understandable that he missed our "Welcome to La Push" event, though. His wife, Claire, and their nine year old twins Ethan and Lizzie had all caught a virus. Or rather, she had caught it from her job at Forks Hospital as a nurse and she accidently passed it on to her children, since neither one of them had the phasing gene so their ammune systems were pretty weak.

Paul and Rachel were the first ones to arrive. Becca's twin showed up three hours early so that they could chat. I could see the strain of Becca's confession of why she hadn't returned to La Push and saw her eyes flicker briefly to me, but I just continued to smile reassuringly to her. She was strong.

Seventeen year olds, Joey and Johnny Black, were a sight to see. In Mandi's quick calculating of having nine cousins, she completely forgot about the pair, and she made up for it by keeping the two out of trouble once things got rough. Johnny was huge like any typical werewolf, whereas Joey looked like he had only recently begun sprouting up. Mandi eagerly got to know them while she waited for the "main event," aka Sam's arrival.

The next to show up, however, were the Clearwaters. All of them.

Though Sara Sue was already here with EJ, she went to say hello to her parents as politely as she could muster. Leah looked hurt that Sara still wasn't back home yet after announcing her engagement, but from what Jazzlyn told me, the shewolf had overreacted and her daughter might not ever accept an apology.

Embry took his identical twins, Tom and Tim, over to say hello to Jacob instead. Better to avoid the fight, if one broke out, I assume. He seemed nice enough, from what I could gather, but his imprinted wife definitely wore the pants in their relationship. Not that he would mind, of course.

Seth Clearwater also arrived with them, though his family was a lot less dramatic with their entrance. He simply stepped out of Leah and Sara's way and went to say hello to the guests, ie Becca, Mandi, and me. I liked him immediately: warm smile, firm handshake, and not a single question about who my father was-though it was obvious that I was nearly a spitting image of Joshua Uley.

Amber, who seemed to be the only non-Quilluite imprint in the room, stood by Seth the entire evening and only spoke once without being spoken to first. I could see that she didn't quite fit in here, even though her oldest, Harry, was seventeen so she had been on the Rez for awhile. Harry was quiet too, though his twin brothers were anything but. I guess it came with not having the phasing gene because Mike and Miles, who were only a year younger than he was, exuted confidance.

Mandi lit up when she saw Harry though and stuck to his side the rest of the night. There was no way that either of them imprinted, so I was glad that my sister had a friend-of-choice here already. It was probably the red hair that drew her in. My little sister had been in a "ginger" phase for about three months now.

Jared and his wife Kim arrived amid the noise of the dancefloor being opened up for the younger ones. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that that man was Sam. I said a quick hello to them and introduced myself, though I made careful not to mention that he was my half-brother.

I didn't think he recognized the similarities, but I sure did. Oh, well. Better to keep another poor soul in the dark about their liniage. His mother was still happily married to his "father" and I didn't think it right to bring up her infidelity at a party like this.

It got me thinking though. I began to wonder about some of the other Pack members and how many of them could possibly be related to me, but shook my head. It was useless. None of it mattered. Sam was who I was here to meet. The rest could all fade away. Luckily, Kim was sterile though, or else I'd have to inform Mandi of more cousins to add to her seemingly ever-growing list.

When at long last, when I began to think that my nerves couldn't take it anymore, I spotted a minivan pulling up in the driveway.

Sammy was the first of the Young-Uley clan to enter the house. He searched the crowd for Carlie and then the two of them made scarce.

I held my breath as the triplets, my eighteen year old nieces, entered right behind him. I was thankful for Jazzlyn's descriptions of them from the last time we phased, or else I'd never be able to tell them apart. Vanessa had long straight hair, Tia had the same coloring and texture only short, and Tessa had curly hair that was shorter than Tia's. It was strange to see them so old, though. I was only nine years older than they were, though we looked physically around the same age.

Seventeen year old Emilia and fifteen year old Miley, the only nonphasing children in the bunch, were the next ones that I noticed. Sam seemed to have a protective barrier around them and his wife. I smiled when I saw Emily, though we had never met. Her three long scars on her face told me that she was accepting to the extreme. I only hoped that she would help me get to know Sam. I needed an ally in that house.

I didn't get up from my seat next to Jazzlyn when I noticed them enter. Nor did I go say hello when they made their introductions to Becca and Mandi. I held firm, my grip on Jazzlyn's hand never faltering, though my nerves sure did.

"You can do this." Jazzlyn whispered, leaning over to kiss just below my ear as she did so.

"I'm not quite sure." I muttered back, my gaze never leaving Sam's form.

"Stop being a wimp and just go talk to him." Jazz said, nudging my rib lightly.

"I...I can't." I admitted.

My imprint sighed next to me. Before I could stop her, she called Emily over here.

"Emily, meet my Jesse." Jazzlyn said, bursting with pride.

I stared at my sister-in-law. Surely she knew who I was. I looked a lot like her husband and knew that imprints noticed extreme traits like Sam and I share. And if she didn't notice the similarities, she was bound to have heard the rumors by now. All anyone had been talking about today was the gossip of Joshua Uley's illigitamite son showing up. The Pack was worse about gossiping than a group of teenage girls.

But she played it off as not knowing just exactly who I was, probably for my benefit.

"Nice to meet you." She said with a huge smile across half of her face. The side with the scarring twitched a little, but her lips couldn't rise completely like the uninjured side of her face did.

"You too." I said, reaching over to shake her hand.

"I'm sure my husband is around here somewhere." Emily said lightly, seeming to try to ease me into his life as if it wasn't the biggest moment of my life. "Oh, there he is."

"Sam!" Emily called, half of her face lit up in a huge smile as he spotted her. "Come over here."

Sam followed like the imprinted wolf that he was, though his eyes stayed trained on mine. "Yes, darling?" He asked, gently kissing the scared side of her face in greeting despite only being apart for a few minutes.

"Honey, meet..." Emily faked confusion and I tried not to blush at her attempt to get me to admit who I was. "Oh, I completely blanked. What was your name again, son?" She asked me and I knew that Emily would be my ally even if Sam disowned me.

"Jesse. Jesse Uley." I choked out at last, Jazzlyn sqeezing my hand for moral support. "I'm your half-brother." I added, though formal introductions weren't needed.

"I know." Sam said slightly darkly, though Emily nudged his rib and he seemed to brighten up a bit. "I, uh, met your little sister. Amanda, was it?" He asked and I nodded.

Sam looked thoughtful. "Does she...have the gene?' He asked, noticing my muscles bulging out from under my t-shirt.

"No." I said, thankfully and noticed that Sam let out a small sigh of relief too. "But, uh, I do."

Sam nodded. "I thought as much. Since I retired, I haven't kept up with Pack gossip, but it's easy to tell an active wolf when I see one."

"You aren't...angry?" Jazzlyn asked, a little in shock.

Sam let out a reluctant sigh, showing his age. Though he was nearly forty-five, he definitely looked much older from the stress of being the Alpha for all of these years despite the fact that he was physically a few years behind his wife. The stress of meeting me seemed to have aged him a year or two in the last few minutes too.

"As much as I would like to be angry. I can't." He glanced at me again. "You look just like him, you know My, um, our" He corrected himself and I knew that this would be an adjustment for both of us, "father."

"The eyes, I know." I said. That was the one thing that Becca always mentioned.

"No, no. Not just that." Sam said. "The chin too. And high eyebrows. And obviously, the skintone and hair color. Spitting image of him."

Sam glanced at my imprint sitting beside me on the couch and smiled weakly. "At least you won't leave town with a girl like this to make you stay." He tried to joke, though I could see that his father's abandonment was still sort of a fresh wound after so long.

"I'm not going anywhere." I said honestly. "I just have to get my diploma and then I'll be moving back here to be near Jazzlyn."

"Mandi and Rebecca too?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow.

I nodded. "Becca knows that Mandi is going to need family now that she's a teenager...and, I'd like to hope that maybe you'd let her come over to your house to get to know our cousins..."

"Of course." Emily nodded warmly. "We're family, after all."

Sam nodded as well. "It seems that your sister has already befrended the entire Pack."

"She's your sister too." I said lightly and Sam's eyes widden a small fraction as he fully realized the truth.

"Yeah, so she is." He swallowed a lump in his throat. I bet it was hard for him to think about his father having numerous affairs and spawning children left and right. Especially when Joshua's youngest child, that we know of, was a year younger than his youngest grandchild.

He turned with Emily in tow to return to the rest of the party and stopped. "You...you really do look like he did...you know, right before he left."

I smiled, though not because I looked like my drunk, cheating, dishonest father. No, I smiled because I finally had a place to call home. I knew that it would take Sam a long time to fully accept me, but at least he didn't kick me off the Reservation. I snuggled up closer to my imprint, finally able to feel at peace about being here.