The Life We Live

Chapter 4

Pairing: Bella / Leah

Rating: T for Language and Content - Subject to Change

Torture. That was what this was. I hadn't seen Bella or even heard from her in days. I was too chicken to approach her myself. I mean, how am I supposed to do that? Just walk up to her door, knock and say "Hi, I'm a supernatural werewolf and I imprinted on you, which means I'm your soulmate forever." Like, what am I even supposed to do? I hardly knew her and I mean, I didn't exactly like her before we actually met. I felt like an awkward teenager with a schoolgirl crush on the popular girl in school. One does not simply approach said crush willy nilly. It must be handled with care.

It didn't help that Sam had the me and the guys patrolling for the unknown wolf day and night. As soon as I had returned from dropping Bella off, Sam had called a pack meeting.

I had just gotten out of the car and was walking back over to the bonfire, when Sam beckoned me over. "What is it Sam?"

"We need to tell the others; about the wolf and about Jacob." I cringed, I knew some of the guys would probably see it as my fault that Jacob had been attacked and left. Don't ask me how I was responsible for that. But some of the guys, namly Paul, thought that everything bad that happened was somehow my fault.

Sam must have noticed my unease. He put an arm around my shoulder. "Don't worry Leah, this wasn't your fault. There was nothing we could have done to stop it. And he was going to attack you for something that was beyond your control. He was the one in the wrong, not you." I looked at Sam gratefully.

The others noticed I was back and they all gathered around Sam and started asking questions.

"Where is Jacob?"

"Why did Bella have to leave?"

"How the hell did the poor excuse of a wolf imprint on someone? Let alone Jacob's girl."

That last question was from Paul. I growled at him and he just laughed. "As if you could ever stand a chance to get her away from Jacob. He's way more man than you'll ever be." I was seething. I wanted so badly to just punch that superior look off his face. But Sam was holding me back.

"Enough Paul. You have no right to question or invalidate an imprint relationship. You know as well as I do that they are sacred. Insulting the imprint is the same thing as insulting the wolf." Paul shook a little, but shut up regardless.

The rest of the boys waited for Sam to speak. "Jacob will no longer be returning to the reservation." All the boys gasped, and a couple yelled in outrage.

"How could you Sam?!"

"You threw him out for that piece of shit?" Once again, Paul felt the need to blame this on me. Sam growled.

"Hush Paul. If you'd all let me finish, you'd see this was not my fault." They all quieted down. "Now, as I was saying. Jacob will not be returning to the reservation as long as there is an unknown threat in the area. Follow me, all of you." We all followed Sam into the nearby forest and he commanded us to shift. One by one, the boys and I all turned into our wolf forms.

"What you are about to see is not to be mentioned to anyone. We do not know if this wolf is a threat to our people yet or not. We are simply to be cautious and watch our backs." Sam let the memory of what happened earlier flow through his mind. Vivid images of the incident showed themselves to all in the mind link. They all saw how Jacob blamed this on me and I could feel Paul's smugness. I softly growled at him, he just gave me a wolfy smirk. Then as Jacob had lept at Sam, the strange black wolf appeared out of nowhere and gave Jake the beating of his life. The rest of the pack were somewhere between fearful, awestruck and angry. I on the other hand was grateful, slightly scared and something else, something I couldn't quite place. But regardless this wolf had saved me from whatever Jake had planned. No matter how dangerous this wolf was, I'd owe it that much.

Paul was, of course, the first to speak. "We can't just let this so called wolf run our leader off the reservation. He is out rightful Alpha. We should be hunting down this wolf and killing it so that Jake can return and take his rightful place." I just stared at Paul. A couple of the other guys were agreeing with Paul.

"Paul, we don't know how much a threat this wolf was. Jacob was one of our strongest and it controlled him without a second thought. No doubt it could do that to any one of us." Sam was trying to reason with Paul, but that was obviously not enough for him.

"Sam, you were always the weak one. Jake was the strongest of us all, and you allowed your feelings for this bitch to let this so called powerful wolf to force him to leave. With our numbers this wolf wouldn't stand a chance. Although, I doubt you and Leah would be much of a help killing it. You were so effective the first time." My hackles were standing on end. I snarled at Paul. He just snorted. "Like you could do anything to me Leah. I'm stronger, I'm male and I could rip you to shreds. Don't even pretend that you could possibly stand up to me. Jacob was right when he said he should claim you and Bella. Men like Jake and myself are to be obeyed." I honestly couldn't believe anything that was coming out of Paul's mouth. I mean I knew he didn't like me and that he was pretty sexist, but this was taking it to a whole new level.

"Paul, enough." Sam's Alpha tone was enough to get Paul to shut up, but for how long exactly? "We will not be doing anything about this wolf until we know what we are up against. It said that it could destroy us. I don't know how true that is, but I will not engage it until we know for sure we could come out on top." Paul snorted again but didn't say anything. "We will be running nightly patrols." All of us groaned, one thing we all had in common; we hated patrols. They were boring. Normally we only ran patrols two or three times a week, but now because of this wolf we'd have to do it every day.

Paul, as usual had something to say about this. "I for one think we should just go after this wolf. There's no way it would be able to stand up to even a few of us. We're stronger than vampires, one measly wolf should be no trouble. I don't care what you think Sam, you're a weak leader. I will go find Jake and help him destroy this wolf. Then we will come and he will take his rightful place. And you'll take yours Leah, at his feet." Without another word Paul ran off, his mind fading with him into the dark. Sam tried to command him to come back, but he had broken his ties with us, same as Jake had.

If I had to hazard a guess, he went to find Jake and join his pack, since technically Jake was an Alpha he could create his own. And he did that night in order to defy Sam.

Sam growled, frustrated. "Paul is a fool if he thinks he and Jake can stand up to an unknown threat." The rest of the boys remained silent. Looks like none of them want to follow in Paul's footsteps. Something that I was actually surprised about.

The rest of that night Sam spent breaking up the pack into patrol squads. With Paul and Jake gone we had fewer numbers, so some of us would have to take more patrols. It was decided that Sam, Jared and I would take most of the late night patrols as the rest of the boys had school to worry about. Sam wanted Quil and Collin, Seth and Brady, and Embry and Jared to patrol together, with left me with Sam. And honestly I was grateful for that. Besides Seth, Sam was the only one who actually respected me. Sure the guys weren't outwardly mean to me, besides Paul and occasionally Jared, I knew their thoughts. They all thought that I shouldn't be in the pack and that they thought me weak, especially after that little episode with the wolf and Jake.

"Leah. Leah.. Leah!" I was jarred out of my thoughts by Seth. I was sitting in my room, relaxing before a patrol with Sam.

"What is it Seth?" I huffed.

"Isn't it almost time for your patrol." I glanced at the clock. He was right, I had about five minutes to meet Sam so we could start patrol. I was grateful that I didn't have school anymore so I didn't do much besides patrol, sleep, eat and occasionally play around with my brother. Since my mom was an Elder she knew about the pack, so I didn't worry about needing to hide it like some of the other boys did.

I grabbed the strap that held my clothes to my wolf form. I ruffled my brother's hair as I walked out. I could hear him groan and try to fix his hair. "Thanks a lot Leah." I just laughed and ran out the door. Our backyard was in the borderline of a forest, so I bounded out the door. Once fairly deep into the tree line, I removed my clothes and tied them around my ankle. Shifting into my wolf form, I sat waiting for Sam.

Soon he appeared in front of me, tipping his head for me to follow him. I got up from my place on the ground. As we ran the perimeter of the reservation, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious, he spoke.

"You know what happened with Paul and Jake wasn't your fault. Jake was in no position to judge you for something that is so uncontrollable. And Paul is just angry, you know him. He's hot tempered and acts before he thinks." I glanced over at Sam who was stopped a little ways behind me. I ran back over to him.

"I know, Paul has always hated me and Jake is just a little misguided. But still, how can I ever expect to ever get anywhere with Bella? She's a leech lover Sam. I'm supposed to love and protect someone who runs with vampires?" Sam closed his eyes and sighed.

"I won't lie to you Leah. It'll be hard, but the imprint bond is never wrong. She is what your wolf has been searching for, even if you didn't know it yourself. Nature has a way to getting you to listen. Just give her a chance." I nodded at him.

"I just don't know what to do Sam. This mysterious wolf is a threat to the reservation, our families. Isn't family supposed to come first?" Sam started walking again and I followed him.

"An imprint is a close to family as you'll ever get Leah. Even if you two don't know each other very well now, you will with time. You just have to allow yourself to make that time. It's up to you to begin the bond. She is human and while she does feel the effects of the imprint, they are dulled for her until you pursue her. And you never know, she runs with vampires after all. She's probably a little more accepting than you think." I quickly looked at Sam as he gave me a knowing smile. Well as knowing of a smile as you could as a wolf. I had been feeling this way all week. I was very insecure about my wolf. How could Bella possibly accept me turning into this big furry animal? And how could I even tell her?

But Sam was right, as usual. She did run with leeches. My powers probably didn't seem as strange as I thought they would seem. Perhaps I could just tell her. But I didn't want to just yet. I wanted to start a relationship with Bella first. I didn't want her to think I was just with her because of the imprint. I wanted her to fall in love with me, because I'm me. Not because she thinks a stupid bond is making she and I feel this way. It sounded really cliche; like something that would come out of a badly written book. But it's the way I wanted it to be.

I would tell her about me; about the pack, in time. And honestly, I hoped it didn't take that long. I didn't know how long I could keep it a secret from her. I didn't really know her yet, but I planned on fixing that immediately.

Sam could see the fire in my eyes as I worked this out. He smiled and bumped my head with his nose. "Go get her tiger." I laughed.

"Maybe you should be saying wolf instead." Sam chuckled.

"You know what I meant. It's only sunset. I'm sure she's not in bed yet. Go, I'll cover the patrol for you." I looked at Sam. I was extremely grateful that Sam was still in my life. He may have broken my heart, but I now understood fully why. An imprint bond isn't just something you can ignore. And ever since becoming a wolf, ever since imprinting on Bella, he's been nothing but supportive. It's like he's the older brother I never had, always looking out for me, pushing me in the direction I needed to go. Even if I didn't know I needed to go that way. He smiled, I knew he could read my thoughts. I nodded at him and bolted off in the direction of Bella's house. I didn't know what I would do when I got there, but I'd figure something out.

A/N: Okay, well now chapter 4. I actually rather like the way this turned out. I actually have been struggling to figure out how I wanted to deal with this. I was originally writing it from Bella's point of view, but changed my mind. I've had writer's block all week until this just came to my mind. All the supportive reviews have been totally helpful and I thank all of you for them.

I do feel that Leah is slightly out of character in this chapter, but honestly this chapter kind of just wrote itself. I actually hadn't intended Paul to get so out of control, but I figured why not. At least Jake can have someone on his side. As for Sam, it might seem a little unrealistic, but I've always loved the idea of Sam being that older brother to Leah. Unrealistic, maybe. But it's my story.

Anyways, the next chapter will more than likely be in Bella's point of view although I don't exactly know how I want to go about this meeting yet. Rest assured it will be good though. Typically I update on Tuesdays, but I honestly really just wanted to post this, so think of it as an early spring present.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Keep in mind that I'm an un-beta'd writer, so all mistakes are my own. And any plot line discrepancies are just my poor memory being dumb.

A Charmed Vampire