The Life We Live

Chapter 3

Pairing: Bella / Leah

Rating: T for Language and Content - Subject to Change

As soon as Jake stalked off, I knew something was seriously wrong. I had this gut feeling that I was going to have to intervene. I wanted to avoid this, to hide myself as long as possible, but if he did what I thought he was going to, I'd have no choice. I excused myself from the bonfire. I made up some excuse that I needed to use a restroom, and the closest one that I knew of was at Jake's place, which was a good 10 minute walk.

I walked off in that direction and as soon as I knew I was out of range of the shifters, I bolted towards the forest and pursued Jake, shifting into my full form as I went. These puppies had no idea what was coming to them if Jake harmed my mate. As the beast I was, I was extremely protective of her. No harm would come to her on my watch.

These shifters were all young and as such their senses weak. I was able to get close enough to hear Jake spew bullshit without any one them being alerted to my presence. Like I said, I didn't want to get involved and if I could avoid it I would, but if Jake went violent, I would stop the pup.

He was saying a lot of crap like he would take the Alpha position to make Leah submit to him, which made my hackles stand on end. Leah was mine, even if she didn't know it yet. It was only a matter of time until she pursued me. He was also saying shit like that the vampires brainwashed me and that I would eventually come crawling back to him. That wanted to make me snort. As if I would ever to crawling back to a puppy like that for anything, much less to be his mate.

As for vampire brainwashing, hardly. The Cullens were fascinating but they have not changed any of my views at all. If anything they just strengthened them.

But then things took a violent turn. Jake crouched down to fight Sam in order to get to Leah. I snarled and ran at him. I'm much faster than a shifter, both because I'm just stronger, plus I'm much older. In the supernatural world, your power grows with age, regardless of the species. And Jake is like a newborn compared to myself.

As his feet left the ground, I could see Leah cower behind Sam, most likely in fear. I growled at Jake, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and smashed him into a tree. He yelped, struggling against my powerful grip to get away. That only made my tighten my grip. How dare this insolent pup attack my mate. I don't care whatever friendship we have, he will not get away with this. In fact by rights I should kill him for attempting to kill my mate.

My tail was lashing around. I was trying to control my anger, rein it in. I couldn't give in to the beast now, it would kill him and while I was furious at Jake, I didn't want him dead, were friends, or well as close as I could get to being friends with someone.

Jake was shouting at me through his mindlink. Fortunately I was able to break into it because of Edward Cullen's power. You see, in addition to being born a mental shield, I'm also a power sponge. You'd think that it would make me basically unbeatable, but it did have some limits. I had to have constant exposure to the power for me to use it. And if I wanted to retain it forever, it took a lot of energy. In fact the last time, it took me to the brink. I was asleep for days, recovering. I rarely permanently retain powers unless they are invaluable for my survival.

He was calling me a psychotic animal. The pup thought he could harm me. I snorted. As if to show him that it was futile to fight or threaten me, I tightened my grip on his neck. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Leah and Sam frozen on the spot, staring at me. I wanted to chuckle. I suppose I was quite a shocker if you had limited knowledge of the supernatural world, as most species did.

Turning my focus back to Jake. I growled. "If you know what's good for you pup, you'll run far away from here and stop bothering these shifters." He wasn't going to harm anyone if I could help it. And I could help it. His eyes narrowed at me.

"You have no right to get involved in this you freak. This is reservation business, you're an outsider and a weirdo. I could easily call the pack here to finish you off. I bet a couple of our members would enjoy ripping you to shreds." Again I snorted. I could easily destroy that pathetic little group he calls a pack. They had no chance against me. Shifters, always ruled by emotion and anger. And it seemed that Jake had no sense of self-preservation at all. Much like everyone accused me of.

"As if you puppies would stand a chance against me. I could decimate your entire pack if I wanted to. Now you will listen to me Jacob Black. I'm being extremely lenient with you right now, leave this place and never let me catch you here again, or next time I won't be so nice." I added a little Alpha undertone to give my order to him a little kick. I released him from my grip and he fell to the ground, battered and slightly bloody. He looked past me at Leah and gave her the dirtiest look I think he was capable of.

"This isn't over Leah. Bella will be mine, you'll both submit to me in time. I will return and take what is rightfully mine." I snarled and my hackles stood on end. I just threatened his pup with his life and he still insists on trying to claim both me and my mate? He really did have a death wish. Or something like that. I kicked his side, fairly hard and he yelped.

"I told you, get out of here and don't return." Jake stood and ran off, deeper into the forest. He had a slight limp, but that was obviously to be expected. Sam and Leah watched him go and I took this opportunity to take my leave. I blinked away, running as fast as lightning away from the scene. I didn't want Sam and Leah to get their paws on me, they didn't need to know anything. Obviously I was now a threat that Sam and the others would think they needed to deal with. But until Leah starts to pursue me like I know she will, I will keep silent about the entire thing and go back to hiding myself.

I could hear Sam and Leah attempting to chase after me, but I'm scentless in my wolf form, there would be nothing to track. I knew they would give up, frustrated. I needed to quickly get back to the bonfire. But I wanted to return after Leah and Sam. I had only been gone about fifteen minutes. I had about five to ten minutes to kill. I took my time after I knew the two shifters had stopped pursuing me and were returning to the bonfire site. I took this time to have a quick run. It had been so long since I had really shifted and allowed my wolf to take over. My wolf and I were interconnected. In fact all supernatural creatures that could shapeshift were, but some to different degrees than others. Those who accepted their inner animal had greater control, because trusting your animal was the greatest sign of love you could give it. Those who fought against their nature always had less control. Their inner beast was always fighting for control, wanting to be let out. They didn't like being in a cage.

After I had run myself out, I shifted back and returned to the bonfire. Sam and Leah had indeed returned before I had. Hopefully they didn't suspect anything. I doubted it because I was just weak human Bella who ran with vampires to them. None of them could probably fathom that I was really just dangerous monster.

Sam saw me approach and nudged Leah. She glanced over at me, then turned her head back, whispering to Sam. "What do you want me to do exactly? I mean, she came here with Jake. What do we tell her?"

I heard Sam reply. "That's up to you. She's your imprint, you know that you're the one that must tell her about us. As for when, that's up to you. You can make something up now, or tell her now. It's your choice. But either way, you need to go over to her." She sighed. I put on a quizzical look and looked around, as if searching for Jake. Leah approached me.

"I'm assuming you're looking for Jake?" I nodded, still feigning my confusion. "He wasn't feeling well after he left you. He decided to just go home. He told me to tell you that he was sorry. I'd be happy to take you home, if you'd like." I wasn't going to lie, I was a little disappointed that she didn't tell me straight up. But I suppose I understood. She thought I was a human, and regardless of my acceptance of vampires, she most likely was afraid of rejection. I know I would be if I didn't know she imprinted on me and would accept me no matter what. I actually felt a little guilty that she didn't know about me. She still had to deal with the fear of rejection and such. Even though she could be a kelpie and I would still end up loving her.

I nodded, accepting her offer. I was pleased though that she wasn't pushing me away. She did reach out to me first, even if it did take a little prodding from Sam. She gave me a small smile. "You're going to have to walk with me to my place though, since my car is over there. I walked here, my house isn't too far." Again I nodded and followed her.

We were walking side by side on the way over there. I noted that she was about two inches taller than I was. Although, in both our shifted forms, I was the larger one. Oh well, I guess that's how nature wanted to work this time.

We were both silent for a while until she spoke up. "So, I don't think we've actually been formally introduced. I'm Leah Clearwater." She stopped to offer me her hand. Honestly, I wanted to do a lot more to her than just shake her hand, but I settled for this, for now. I reached out to grab it and gave her a firm handshake.

"I've actually heard a lot about you Leah, obviously you know who I am, so I don't think I need to do much introducing of myself." She laughed.

"Indeed, although I'm assuming you haven't heard good things about me? Jake isn't exactly my biggest fan. In fact most of the guys at the bonfire tonight dislike me." I scowled at that, the pack disliked my mate? That offended me, even though I really didn't need to be offended.

"I'm not going to lie, you're right, Jake isn't your biggest fan. But I don't let that stop me from making my own judgements." She grinned at me for that. I could help but give her a dazzling smile in return. We continued walking.

"So, I'm curious. What have you judged so far?" I chuckled at the question. She genuinely did care about what I thought of her. That was a good step, she was interested and cared about how I felt about her.

"Well, from what I've seen of you, which mind you isn't much, you obviously have a great love for your brother. I'd assume that you have a deep love and loyalty for your family. Uh, judging from what I saw of you with the guys tonight at the bonfire, they think you're an icy bitch, pardon my language. I don't see it personally. There's always an underlying reason or reasons that someone acts that way." She looked at me.

"You know, no one has ever observed that much about me, ever. Even my so called friends, they don't really care about me. Seth and Sam are the only ones that actually care. The rest just put with me because they have to." The last bit was muttered, most likely to herself, so I didn't question it.

"Well at least you have some friends then." She sighed.

"I guess. Although sometimes I just wish that I could just disappear; leave the reservation and start a new life somewhere else. But I know that it could never happen." I looked at her quizzically.

"Why couldn't you?" She laughed.

"Well, I've got a family, my mother and brother. I can't just leave them. And well, I've got responsibilities here that I can't just leave high and dry, as much as I want to." I held back a snort. She could leave if she wanted to, but she just didn't know it. These reservation shifters had a very flawed sense of purpose. They thought that they were suppose to protect their people from so called evil vampires. They thought that because they were able to kill vampires that it meant that's what they were for.

That really couldn't be further from the truth. If it was, almost all supernatural races would be protecting humans from vampires. Vampires were one of the weakest supernatural species. The Volturi was the largest coven in the world, followed by, I believe, the Cullens unless there are some large covens in hiding. But regardless, most vampires live and travel in pairs or triplets. They even traveled alone. Pretty much any supernatural species could take on a coven that small. Shifters weren't by any means special in regards of the ability to destroy vampires. If they could single handedly take out the entirety of the Volturi, then I just might be impressed.

We soon arrived at her place. She opened the passenger side door to her car and gestured inside. "Your carriage awaits ma'am." I laughed and climbed in. She walked around and got in the driver's side. As we took off, I gave her directions to my place.

"So, what are your plans?" She asked. I wasn't exactly sure how to answer that question, so I just shrugged.

"Depends, plans for what exactly?"

"I dunno, the rest of the week, month, year, life?" I laughed.

"I haven't really thought that far in advance. I'm sort of a go with the flow person. What about you? Obviously you plan on doing whatever you do on the reservation." I knew she wanted to leave the reservation at some point, and I knew that she would eventually travel around with me, but I suppose if she really wanted to stay here, I knew I would be by her side the entire time.

"I haven't really thought about it. So much has happened in my life lately, that I haven't really given it much thought either." I didn't follow that up with a comment, so we sat in silence for the rest of the ride. It wasn't really an awkward silence though, more of a comfortable one. As she pulled up in front of my place and cut the engine, she turned to look at me.

"Well here we are Bella. Home sweet home." I nodded.

"Yeah, well anyways, thanks for driving me home." She shook her head.

"No worries. I'm sorry Jake sort of ditched you tonight, he just wasn't feeling well." I almost laughed. I knew she was lying, and like I said, it sort of hurt. But at the end of the day I understood. If she told me what really happened to Jake, she would have to explain the pack. I didn't want to force her to tell me. I wanted her to pursue me, to tell me her secrets in time. I would tell her all of mine in a heartbeat, but I didn't want to scare her off, I was taking this at her pace. I suppose I did feel a little guilty that I was lying to her, but I had done things in my past. Things I wasn't proud of and I knew if she knew about them before she was ready, they would scare her and it would take her even longer to accept me. No, this was for the best.

"Oh well. I'll probably see him later. Anyways, thanks again for the ride." I said as I got out of the car.

"No problem Bella. I'll see you around." I nodded and walked to my door. As she was pulling out of my driveway, I turned to wave goodbye to her. She returned the wave and drove off into the evening. I unlocked my front door and walked inside.

A/N: Well, there's chapter three completed. The first part obviously told Bella's side of the encounter with Jake. And Leah is trying to at least reach out to Bella.

I'm always slowly developing my AU, so there's a lot of information about it that I haven't specifically worked out yet, so if there are ever any problems, feel free to tell me and I'll try to address and fix them.

Also keep in my I don't have a beta so all the mistakes are my own. I try to read over my work a few times to check spelling and grammar errors, but sometimes I just miss things. So apologizes for errors.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter.

A Charmed Vampire