"I don't want Jacob to be alpha."
To my surprise, a low resounding growl rumbled out of the warrior wolves; Jared began to move towards the younger boys, the brutish hustle of an older brother in his stride. Jacob wordlessly held up a hand, and he froze. The brazen little wolf shivered, then lifted his head even higher.
"Why?" This from Emily, now still beside her cousin, hand locked around shoulder, hair tangled together. They incredulously watched the young boy as he stepped in front of the three older ones and faced Jacob.
"Because I don't know Jacob," he said in his high voice. "Jacob scares my mom when she sees him at the grocery store." Quil snickered until the boy continued. "She says he doesn't take care of his dad, and he ditched town because of a white girl." My eyebrows flew up on my face and I felt the urge to run. Almost as if they knew, Leah and Emily each reached behind and grabbed me without looking, pulling me closer as the child continued. "And Sam got beat up by Leah, and it looks like he might have beat up Emily." The child pushed his lip out. "I don't want an alpha that fights with girls."
"But you'll take me as an alpha? I'm a girl," said Leah, clearly trying to diffuse the tension. Sam stared at the ground.
"You're not a regular kind of girl," the little boy said. He was starting to get very nervous; even the bigger boys behind him were surreptitiously whispering at him to shut up. His eyes widened and he took a deep breath. "You can't have babies." It seemed like no one could breathe. Even the trees were still until she spoke.
"Did your mom tell you that too?" Leah's voice was low, bitter, but trying for a joke even if it didn't quite work. Quil swore quietly and kicked at the ground while Embry stared, open mouthed, at the child. I squeezed her hand.
"No," the little brash boy said. His voice wavered, but he still stood tall. All the young wolves looked at the ground, ashamed and afraid. "We all know, from when we've phased." He looked up at the older wolves. "We know about all of you, your moms and dads and…we think you're good wolves. Good protectors." The oldest boy, Jacob's look-alike, raised his head to watch the response of the adults. "Even if it didn't work, and you didn't want us, and even if you fight with each other." He looked defiant for a minute. "But you're all scared of Jacob, and he scares my mom, and I don't want him to be alpha." His bravery spent, he pushed back behind the bigger boys and curled in a tight ball next to his friend.
"It's not that we didn't want you," Jake said, and his voice, the deepest and farthest reaching of them all, was still kind and soothing after rejection. "We didn't want you to have to deal with the hard parts of being a wolf—like imprinting. Or even fighting. If you've seen all of us, you know how much it hurts to get bitten—"
"But you survived it," said the thin one with reddish hair. "The hardest part of being a wolf isn't fighting vampires—it's you. It's you fighting each other." The younger child made them bold, and they watched Jacob for his response. "Leah and Sam, and you. We know about you. We saw you fight Sam, in memories."
I inhaled sharply, and this time Leah squeezed my hand, as if to say, wait. It's not what you think.
"Jacob's grandfather was the true alpha," Sam said. He stood suddenly, and Jacob moved next to him. The two men looked like they could be brothers, even though Jacob was so much larger. "But I phased before Jake, like we talked about, and there was no one to help me learn how to do it. We think Jake took so long because…he was in love. He was happy. And it made it harder for him to change." Jacob looked over at me briefly. "When Jake had a hard time and left and then came back, we had to figure some stuff out."
"You thought he wanted to die," accused the little boy from the back.
"I did. And I thought he could try all he liked and never do it." Sam's tone was fatherly, patient. "Why don't you let Jacob tell you what he wanted?" The boy's faces became expectant.
"I wanted to take care of my people," Jake said, neatly dodging the question without lying. "And all of us decided the best way to do that would be to make sure no vampires got even close to you guys, and because there can only be one alpha, for me to stay away." His heavy hand rested on Sam's shoulder. "We disagreed about how to do it, sometimes, but it wasn't fighting."
"Well, not real fighting," Sam said, and the two men laughed low with each other.
"We knew we didn't want vampires near La Push," Jake finished, "and we had to figure out how to do it, and it wasn't easy. Nobody," and here he looked at Leah, suddenly, "wanted to die more than they wanted to take care of you."
"I don't mind fighting, but I don't want to imprint," said the oldest boy. He looked at the men in front of him and quickly crossed his arms, his hair still hanging in his eyes.
"That's because he loves Leah," sang the bold little boy behind him, and Quil howled with laughter as the older one started to reach backwards into the giggling mess of little wolves, embarrassed and flushed.
"Maybe if Jacob is alpha we won't," said the red head. The group hushed, and the other thin one pushed his friend's shoulder to make him continue. "Maybe…if Jake is alpha, we won't like, fall in love with our imprints. We could imprint, but we don't have to like, marry them, or whatever."
"Gross," said a different youngster, but Jacob and Sam were looking at each other.
"I think imprinting makes stuff easy," said the brash boy's friend. "Just don't fall in love, you dorks."
"Gross!" Repeated the same little boy, and then they began to wrestle, and then the older wolves were gathering together. The oldest boy watched them go and sighed, and Jacob, noticing, waved him closer. The two thin ones hesitantly followed, but all three hung back as the adults began to weave in and among themselves.
The wolves sniffed each other, even in human form; Leah's nose wrinkled from where she sat, and the men, coming closer to one another, all did the same. I realized that settling these problems in human form meant some of the subtleties of wolf mannerisms were lost, but that searching through these chemicals helped calm them and re-establish order. Leah and Emily stayed seated, their hands firm around mine. I felt like I was intruding until I noticed that Edward was also present, lingering on the edges close to where we sat and nodding to each pack member that ventured near him. The three younger boys stood as far from him as they could without losing their tenuous place in the gathering.
"So," Jacob said finally, looking around at the boys, "no imprinting, huh?" His double nodded, mouth firm. Jake looked back at Sam. "What do you think?"
"Who knows?" Sam shrugged, still favoring his arm. He looked older, but somehow lighter, as if a weight had been lifted from him. "It seems as good a theory as any."
"What's the theory? As the alpha goes, so goes the pack?" Leah's voice was still ragged and low, but animated. She looked up at the men from where she sat and tried to straighten herself, stopping only when a dull pop reverberated through her ribcage. Sam winced, but she waved her hand for him to continue.
"I think the kid's got a point—maybe evolution is trying to take us away from imprinting." He looked over at Jake. "If Jacob could take or leave his imprint…" Sam could not raise his eyes to face anyone, but he continued to speak. "Maybe, if he's the alpha, it will help guide the kids away from imprinting. Somehow."
"What if Jake's just a freak?" Quil raised his hands while everyone, including Jacob, laughed. "I'm serious—what if Jake is just a weirdo, and making him alpha just means we've got a weirdo for alpha. Nothing else."
"That's a good question, actually," said Jake. "There's only one of us, anyway, that would be the best bet for an alpha that doesn't imprint." He didn't look at her, but Leah sighed.
"Right. Because all jokes aside, I am a freak." No one found they could laugh with her, just like they couldn't laugh before. Emily laid her head on her cousin's slim, muscled shoulder.
"Leah, when you stop phasing, your ability to have children will return." Sam stared at her. If he were able, it seemed like he would have traded places with his wife.
"That's what you think," she grunted. "From what I can tell, being as there's only ever been one freak like me, there's no guarantee that's true."