Disclaimer: I am not Stephenie Meyer; I do not own the Twilight series, just a fan having fun. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 16

This is the chapter second part of chapter 16, Hope you like!!!!

Jacob's POV

I let her beat me; of course I did, because just seeing her smile upon winning was the only award I could ever want. When we got to Leah's house my entire pack was sitting on the porch, except for Leah who was walking from side to side like a lion in a cage. She scoffed when she saw Nessie, really pissing me off. I could handle her being rude to me, but never to Nessie.

"Manners Leah… you wanna be treated like a lady, behave like one." – She looked really taken aback by my comment; even Nessie looked up at me somewhat shocked, maybe because my tone was really harsh, even for a bad ass like Leah. After her initial reaction, she quickly rearranged her face from embarrassment to smugness.

"Can we go now?"

"Hold up a second… there's something you need to know. Those things produce vampire venom; that's what paralyzed you."

"What? How is that possible?" – The rest of the guys got up from the porch and went to stand next to Leah, looking at me in surprise.

"We don't know… they're probably hybrids of some sort, like half vampire half werewolf."

"That doesn't change anything… we're built to destroy vampires, aren't we? So why would some vampire venom scare us?" – Embry looked defiantly at me, as if I were questioning his capacity.

"Yeah… all I'm saying is we need to bear that in mind, be extra careful, treat them like vampires, ok?" – They all nodded in agreement.

"Ok, can we go now?" – Leah had her arms folded and looked annoyed.

"Sure." – As soon as I gave the "ok", they all left into the nearby trees to phase. I turned toward Nessie and noticed she looked anxious. I scooped her up in my arms so that we were at eye level.

"Just be careful, ok?" – She was stroking my cheek with her soft hands.

"You too."

"What do you mean "me too"? – She was frowning and half smiling at the same time, probably thinking I was teasing her or something. All I wanted to do in that moment was to take her far away, to hide her, lock her in and stand watch over her door. But she'd chosen to stay, she'd chosen to stand by her parent's and my side; and even though it would kill me to put her in harm's way, I needed to accept her as a partner, not my little girl, not my imprint, not a treasure I need to look after, but my equal.

"Well, you're coming too, right?" – Nessie's face changed from puzzlement to anticipation.

"I'm coming with you? To track those things?"

"Yeah, I need someone to watch my back." – I put her down and quickly kissed her, winking at her as I walked away to phase. I returned in wolf form to find the rest of the wolves around Nessie.

"She's coming?" – Seth's thoughts were excited, as if Nessie had been given permission to go out and play with him.

"Bad idea Jacob… she'll distract you." – Quil was thinking of Clair, not being able to imagine ever taking her tracking or to anything remotely dangerous. I could see in his mind that he thought I'd lost it.

"She's coming, it's final. Leah and Embry, you start from the north; Seth and Quil, start from the south; Ness and I will take the east. Leah, show us what their scent is like." – Leah brought back to her mind the memory of her encounter with the creatures, and we all suddenly felt their scent in our heads. Once we felt it for a minute or two, everyone took off in different directions, leaving Ness and I.

I hadn't thought about the logistics of the whole thing, there was no way I could show the scent to Ness. She was looking at me in expectance and I felt at a lost. She got closer and nuzzled her face in my fur, placing her palm on my face.

"I'll follow you." – She projected, as if she'd known what I was thinking. I licked her face playfully making her giggle; the taste of her skin was delicious, but this wasn't the time for that. So I suppressed my desires and gave her a nod. And with that, we were off.

Three hours had passed and so far we'd found nothing. Leah and Embry were already making their second round, while Quil and Seth were sitting in the forest bed resting for a bit. I'd decided to take another rout and try our luck there, but I was getting nothing.

"I don't smell anything out of the ordinary." – Ness seemed to be talking almost to herself, as we continued to walk. She was about to say something else when she suddenly stopped walking. I turned to look at her and saw that she was sniffing a nearby tree.

"Come here, I smell a human." – She instructed me. I got to her side and smelled the tree she was next to. There it was… as faint as any scent I'd ever encountered, but sure enough, it was one of the scents Leah had shown us. I knew it was female, but I couldn't be certain how long ago she'd walked through here. I barked at Ness to let her know that it was the scent we were looking for.

"We're coming!!!" – Both Quil and Seth got up and started running in our direction, while Leah and Embry said they'd take the other side of the rout I was on to make sure nothing got away or passed us.

Nessie and I started tracking the scent, which thankfully began to get stronger as we continued. She looked so much like a vampire that it was scary… good scary. She was completely in hunter mode, almost outrunning me whenever she got a stronger whiff of the scent. A few minutes had passed when Quil and Seth caught up to us.

"So, seek and destroy right?" – Quil was making sure of the game plan, obviously excited by the prospect of a fight. I could feel Seth's heart rate increase when Quil said this.

"Yep."

The scent was getting so strong that I wondered why we hadn't seen her already.

"There she is." – I turned to focus in the direction where Seth was looking and saw her. She was exactly like the description Leah had given me. She looked wild and dirty, long thick black hair flowing almost to her waist, with a few red braids sticking out from underneath. Her skin was ashy and dark, almost burnt. She was kneeling beside a small creek, apparently drinking water. If I didn't know better, I would swear she was human.

I didn't have to plan or coordinate the attack, our instincts just kicked in. Seth and Quil silently divided and went to take on positions on either side of her. Leah and Embry where already here and where now drawing a perimeter around us to make sure she didn't get away. I stood there waiting for my cue; stalking her while I waited for everyone to be in position. Ness silently moved away from me to take on a more advantageous spot. We'd hunted together so many times that for some reason this didn't seem so unusual.

I was just about ready to leap when the woman rapidly turned her head and darted her eyes toward me; squinting, her nostrils flared. That was it. I leaped out of my position while she stayed crouched, teeth bared and all. I didn't know what to expect, but from the human looks of her, I would have never expected what came next.

I was running towards her at full speed, my jaw aiming for her throat. "Easy kill" popped into my brain… cocky bastard. I was inches away from tackling her and ramming my body straight into her, but I missed. She moved so quickly, I barely got a glimpse of her as she twirled in the air out of position. I turned to find Seth, Quil and Nessie circling her, not allowing any escape. Seth and Quil attacked her first, but she was so fast that both times they missed. Quil finally was able to sink his teeth into her arm making her growl. I took advantage of this and bit her throat as hard as I could. She threw Quil off her arm in a single movement, making him hit a tree so hard it almost broke in two. She then kicked her leg up almost to a 90 degree angle and hit me hard on the head, so hard that the blow knocked me away from her, losing the grip my jaw had on her throat. She was standing now, not even in a defensive crouch, in the middle of us. The bloody gash I'd left on her neck closed up right before my eyes; a wound that would take us wolves about six hours to heal, cured itself in under a minute. I saw Nessie turn her eyes on me, surprised and shocked by this. I immediately regretted having brought her. The woman seemed to be enjoying this, a slight demented smile curving her lips.

We continued to attack, wounding her as much as we could; but for every injury we were able to induce, we received heavy blows that almost knocked us unconscious. And with every injury, came the miraculous cure. Nessie sprinted up and down, twirling in the air at vampire speed, pounding and kicking her wherever she could, resembling Pixie when she fights. However, her blows merely slowed down the woman; enough that we got a chance to do some damage but not enough to kill her.

She was trying to bite us, as if she knew what the venom would do to us. I saw Seth barely dodge one of her attempts, making me realize we where underprepared for this.

"You need backup man?" – Embry asked, upon witnessing how close we all came to being bitten. I didn't have to answer, him and Leah came running.

At that very moment the woman launched herself at me, catching me completely off guard. I saw her sharp teeth coming right at me and knew there was no way I could dodge her. I was already bracing myself for the damage when Nessie came flying through the air, taking the blow instead of me. The sound her body made upon contact was horrible; my baby was thrown back a few dozen feet, hitting a boulder hard and collapsing next to it. Every part of my body screamed in fury; I had never wanted to kill something as much as I wanted to kill this thing. I launched myself at her with murderous rage, throwing her to the ground. I literally became an animal, sinking my teeth into her wherever I could, taking away big chunks of her flesh by mouthfuls; it tasted awful, putrid, but I didn't care. The rest of my pack joined in, including Leah and Embry.

I pulled back to survey the damage and realized the woman was looking at me, her eyes yellow and catlike, with dark slits running across them. She was smiling, smiling directly at me, the most horrible and freighting expression I had ever seen in my life. She was being killed in that very moment, her body maimed and torn apart, and yet, she was smiling. I got the eerie sensation that I was missing something, that someone was playing a sick twisted joke on me. The horrible woman finally rolled her eyes to the back of her head and her mangled body became limb. I felt my entire pack exhale in relief.

I ran toward Nessie, finding her sitting down next to the boulder she had hit, blood dripping down from her head. I hadn't noticed, but I was whimpering like a little puppy. I nuzzled her cheek and went behind the boulder to phase back. Ness had never been hurt before in my presence, or ever in her life; a heavy pressure was coming down on my heart… I hadn't protected her, my only job.

"Ness… I'm so sorry… I never should have brought you." – I said this while placing my hand over her head, pressing to stop the bleeding.

"Are you kidding…? I stopped that wacko from biting you." – She was smiling at me, which relaxed me a little; because despite everything, despite my failure, she was fine and so was I.

"I've never seen you bleed before." – I continued to feel like a jerk, but for some reason she didn't seem upset or anything with me. Lucky bastard.

"It's nothing… the side of this rock had an edge… that's all. Besides, head wounds are always bloody, even if they're small." – Ness paused and looked passed me, towards where the others were standing. – "Is she… is she dead?"

"I hope so." – I tried to smile but couldn't hide from her the uneasiness I was feeling. She placed her hand on my face and gently caressed the crease that had formed between my eyebrows.

"I'm not hurt Jake… this was my first fight, I was bound to get a little knocked around." – But it wasn't the fact that she got hurt that had me upset, it was the reason she got hurt.

"Ness… promise me something…" – She nodded solemnly when she realized how serious I was.

"Promise me you will never ever do that again… it's my job to protect you, not the other way around. If things ever get difficult, if I'm ever in danger or hurt, I want you to run away… you understand me? I want you to leave me. Your life is more important than mine."

"Jake… I… I can't promise you that."

"You have too… if you love me… you have to." – For some reason, she had tears in her eyes. I felt bad for taking out the "if you love me" card, but I had to make sure she didn't pull a stunt like that again.

"Jake… I can't."

"Do it for me… please baby… just promise me." – She continued to soothe out my forehead, deliberating.

"Ok, I promise."