This is a work of speculative fanfiction. No profit was made nor was intended to be made. All rights to to Twilight and it's sequels and prequels belong to Stephanie Meyer and Little Brown Publishing company. I make no claim to ownership on any of those rights nor to any intellectual property of Stephanie Meyer.
AN: Okay, I'm horrible. I made promises and did not keep them. I swore 2 chapters a month and was made of utter fail on that one. The words would just not come to my fingers. Though I have graduated with my degrees and hectic holidays are over and the out of town guests are home. I will try. I have a new goal of finishing this plus the next story in the Fate's Middle Finger series that I have planned by the end of the year. It was my New Year's Resolution and I will try like hell to live up to it.
Anyway... ONTO THE STORY!
Chapter Twelve:
The problem with the darkness is that, if you're not careful, it can be all consuming. The problem with war is that if you fight it long enough, it changes you and not for the better. The problem with becoming immortal instead of being born that way is that you aren't prepared for it. No mortal is. One day you're... you, with your smaller concerns, food, shelter, living and dying. And then suddenly, the fire rolls through your limbs, your body snaps and reforms... and now, for as long as you can keep yourself that way, you're immortal. You'll live forever, if the war doesn't kill you. And that war is brutal and uncaring and as the decades roll by, friends and loved ones die all around you. Some bloody, some less so. And then the ones that aren't gifted with immortality start reaching the end of their lives. Old, grey, some wise, some less so. All withered and greeting death with a grace that belies their frailty. And you are left behind.
For a time it weighs on you, for a time you hold yourself apart, but eventually someone or something worms it's way into your heart, and you mate. You take a wife, you watch her belly grow round with your children. You rejoice when two are born. A girl with fire red hair and a boy with hair as yellow as the sun. And then you get it, you understand what true immortality really is. It's not living forever, it's not having your name sung out as the Jarl of the Fenrir. It's giving a piece of yourself to the next generation and seeing what they do with it.
But sometimes it just gets twisted. It goes sideways, and in the blink of an eye, in the turning of your head to glance at a sound, it all goes so wrong. And you forget. And someone else has the power to help you remember, but she chooses to have you remain forgetful. She chooses to keep you like a thief keeps ill gotten gold.
She makes a choice, and that choice has a thousand consequences, and each consequence yields another choice to make until finally you are here, waiting upon a Gather. Waiting upon your people to determine your fate through determining hers.
And the saddest part is, you no longer remember why you are here.
Dagonet couldn't help this litany that rang through his head. It's what he thought the Jarl would say if Gunnar was self aware enough think it anymore. The third ranked wolf was old, older than his Jarl, but he was no ancient. Even so, he had seen many things in his lifetime as a Fenrir and his alpha's imprinting was a somewhat singular event in those three centuries of life. To be sure, alpha imprintings were never good, and they usually had bad consequences for everyone around them, but still... Gunnar's was... unique. He had imprinted on a human. That, in and of itself was astounding. The only other two alphas to ever imprint in their nation's history had both imprinted on wolfblooded. He was a mated man, with children, so it had shocked the pack and the nation to it's core when he had repudiated Marit for Dagmar. Dagonet had been shocked along with the rest of them, but not for the same reasons. He knew how it went. An imprint had all the control, all the power and sometimes that level of power could be very corrupting. No, what had shocked him was Dagmar herself.
He would maintain to his dying day that there was something wrong with that woman.
A scent caught his attention and he smiled. Hilde and Karolina walked up the hall to where he stood, guarding the Jarl's door, keeping Dagmar under lock and key till the Gather was fully convened. His mate and his imprint. Dagonet knew very well that he was the antithesis to Gunnar's situation. He too had been a mated man when he had imprinted, he too had children, though his were all grown now. He too had utterly loved another woman, and like Gunnar's bond, his was too strong to ignore, the pull to Karolina too all encompassing to shove away. The difference had been Karolina herself; she had refused to break up his marriage to Hilde. He had explained everything to her, and gave her her options. They could become friends, never crossing the line to be anything more than that. Plenty of imprinted pairs had made that choice over the millenia so they would most certainly not be casting out into uncharted waters. Or she could enter into a three-mating with he and Hilde, a polyamorous arrangement that would bind the three of them as family. At no time did he ever offer up the option of leaving Hilde for her and at no time did Karolina ask it of him.
Dagonet's eyes softened as he watched Hilde's arm slide over Karolina's hips and pull the woman closer to her side. The two women were as attached to each other as they were to him. It had been easier for Karolina to quickly take to the three-mating, she was bisexual and found herself very attracted to Hilde, and the fact that Dagonet had long loved her made the she-wolf all the more worthy in her eyes. Hilde on the other hand could be more aptly described as Karolina-sexual and had taken longer to become as comfortable. Three-matings were not rare in their situation, but like all things, they took time to adapt to. Now though, Dagonet knew that if something happened to him, Hilde and Karolina would stay together. They were as mated to each other as they were to him. A true three-mating.
He had been there when Gunnar first phased after sending Marit and the twins away. Dagonet had seen it in his mind. The first questions Dagmar had asked when Gunnar had explained everything to her, was why she could not have him for herself? Why, if she was his imprint, did she need to share him? And with that, everything had changed. Everything rolling inexorably to this, to this Gather. The third ranked was firmly of the opinion that once the current bolverk had asked those questions that it could have ended up no other place than here. Than now.
XXX XXX XXX XXX
Ingrid watched the markings pass by her as her brother drove the SUV through the snow. Within the hour she would be back home. The rock and snow under her feet, the old smells, the feeling of a true pack in her bones. Everything here was familiar to her, the biting crispness to the air, the way that if you breathed in too deeply the frigidness of it would burn your throat and lungs, the way the harshness of the landscape turned into beauty if one knew how to look at it. This was home, this was her sense of place, this was family. This was where she had fought a ceaseless war for so much of her life that she could barely remember anything else anymore. For her home was not where the heart was. Home was where one protected their soft spots, where one made sure that their allies were close and their enemies were watched at all times.
A hand reached over the back of the seat and clasped her shoulder. Seth. Her imprinted wolf. A man she was not mated to, but who nevertheless was coming here with her, who had agreed to stand beside her and be there while she faced her demons. In another life, if they were different people... he would have been a good match for her. But they were who and what they were. Seth may not have had her love, not the way his tribe wanted her to give it to him, but he had her unswerving loyalty. They were 'old sames' and he had shown her a great deal of his world in the last few months. Now it was her turn, only, what she had to show him was nowhere near as comforting as the things he had offered to her.
Seth had offered her peace, she had nothing to give but war. Seth had offered her as much acceptance as he could during those first weeks of the imprint, when the pull was nearly a pathology all it's own, she had had given him rejection and suspicion. He had been open with all the information he knew, she had hid everything, including the fact that she had told no one but her brother and her old packsister that the imprinting had even happened at all. Ingrid's behavior was understandable, but it was not ideal in her eyes. As she sat there with her wolf's hand on her shoulder she decided to change, to be as open with him as he was with her. They were friends now, things were better, but here, among the Fenrir, she committed to standing beside him, maybe not as his mate and lover... but as his family.
Even Seth could feel the new ease in their bond. He patted her back and settled down into his seat.
"We're pulling in now. You might want to wake everyone up." Magnus said, looking at Seth in the rear-view mirror.
"Who said we were still asleep?" Leah was the soul of sarcasm, as per the usual.
Next to her Sam just smiled and shook his head. Somethings never changed, maybe somethings never should.
When they went came to an old stone wall they all heard a chorus of wolf howls reverberate through the air. As they passed through it the howls intensified, and the pack could see quick snippets of huge four legged creatures darting through the snow by the vehicle. Amazingly, they were hard to see.
"They're arctic wolves, the darkest Fenrir is Paul's shade, a silvery grey. They may be the size of some sort of nightmare wolf, but in this environment, they're camouflaged." Ingrid had a soft smile on her face and her hand was splayed on the glass of her window. Her pack, her home, it settled in her bones and the La Push wolves could all see it.
Ingrid was still a Fenrir.
They passed small stone houses that lay inside the old rock wall, it looked like a village of sorts. An old village, but with odd modern things that were so out of place it was nearly comedy. SUV vehicles in driveways, satellite dishes attached to roofs, telephone poles. All surrounding houses that looked like they had been carved sometime in 1302. It was like the past and the present were in a marriage of convenience out here. Then they saw it, a huge Norse stone manor. The thing looked like it belonged on a movie set for Beowulf or something equally Viking. And it was old, there was no getting around the fact that the Fenrir had something the Quiliette did not. Full and complete access to all of their history, all of their stories, everything they had ever done was theirs to remember and take pride in. Including this stone behemoth.
"Wow... you grew up in, in that?" Quil asked, a bit awestruck. "It looks... old."
"800 years old actually. And yes, for the most part that is where I grew up. Home sweet, drafty home."
Magnus laughed. "She hates the place, complains about the wind all the time.
"All I'm saying is that some more central heating wouldn't exactly decrease the property value. That's it." Ingrid replied.
"Tell you what. When we get back, you can go tell Yvanne that you want more heating now that you're home."
"Oh... shut up." she muttered.
Magnus pulled to a stop, his booming laughter could be heard outside the SUV. Soon figures come out of the dark air, seemingly unconcerned with the snow around them.
Ingrid looked behind her. "Time to meet the rest of the family." Then she hopped out and was lost in a sea of people who were very obviously happy to welcome the Jarl's daughter home.
The four Quillette wolves got out and watched the reunion, Seth was grinning. For the first time he fully knew what it felt like when his imprint experienced true joy. Being here, with her twin, with her pack, that was joy for her and it reverberated through their, albeit weak, bond and he couldn't help but let happiness for her beam out of him.
Suddenly Leah gasped, stiffened and stared. There, right in front of her, welcoming Ingrid home, were the four she-wolves of her pack. Four females, four wolves who knew what pack life was like for a woman. It hit her like a lead pipe to the back of the head.
She was not alone.
She was not a freak.
She had... for the first time... sisters.
She cried. The wolf inside her nearly took over and a high pitched whine emanated from her chest.
Hilde, Astrid, Minka and Enni looked up, totally in tune with what sounded like a packsister in need.
"She's never met another she-wolf before. As far as her tribe knew, she was the first of her kind ever born." Ingrid explained for Leah. La Push's she-wolf meant a lot to her. She had tried to fill in as much as she could in the role of packsister, but she knew that Leah needed to see, needed to touch, other she-wolves.
Hilde nodded and walked over to Leah, tilted her head up and gently wiped away her tears. "Welcome, you are not alone."
Seth wrapped his arm around Ingrid's shoulder. "Whatever else happens here, whatever happens between us, good or bad... it's worth it. This makes it worth it. You have no idea what this has done for her. Thank you."
Ingrid smiled up at him. "You're welcome. Always."
Sam watched Leah as she sniffed each of the Fenrir females, as she reached out and touched each one of them, wonder on her face. While he stood there, he saw a bit of his old Lee-Lee peek out of Leah's hardened shell. Like Seth, he too felt that whatever ended up happening was worth it if Leah got back a piece of her own self worth. She might no longer have been his mate, she might no longer be the woman he shared his bed and his life with... but she would always be important to him. The only person more important than Leah to him was Emily, and right now, her happiness radiated out in such a blinding way from her that for just a moment... she even eclipsed Emily in his mind.
Magnus stood apart from the rest. "It's time for introductions to be made. But since our guests seem to be a bit... delicate for this cold, perhaps we should go inside?"
Seth turned, looked at the Fenrir beta and simply extended his left hand and then his middle finger.
"I think I might actually come to like you." Magnus said and then he turned to go inside.
Quil popped the hatchback to start getting their luggage. As he did so a small, for a wolf, female popped her arm into the back and grabbed a suitcase. "Hi. I'm Enni!"
Quil held out his hand, looking her over. She had slight, delicate features with large blue eyes. Her hair, like almost everyone else's here, was blonde and cut short. "Hey, I'm Quil Atera Jr."
As Enni took his hand, she sniffed him, then she smiled.
"Do I smell funny or something?" he asked.
"No, you smell just fine." Then Enni tossed the bag over her shoulder and walked towards the hall. "I'll take this to your room" she yelled out to him.
"How do you know it's mine?" he yelled back.
The blonde she-wolf laughed at him. "Because it smells like you silly."
Leah bumped his hip as Quil watched Enni bound up the hill with his suitcase. "Smooth, real smooth."
"What do you mean? I'm not trying to be... what are you talking about?"
She just rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say Quil, whatever you say."
As everyone began to move inside, a large man with a scar going through one eye came up to them. He was bald and reeked of wolf and a certain calmness. It was slightly unique because wolves were known for many things, but a truly calm demeanor was not one of them. He walked over to Ingrid and much like her brother had done, wrapped his arms around her and spun her around, smiling broadly at her.
"Welcome home Little Fire!"
Ingrid turned to face the La Push wolves. "This is my father's former beta. Now he is the third ranked of the Jarl Pack. His name is Dagonet."
Dagonet nodded at each wolf as they were all introduced. Then he looked down at Ingrid again. "Your father wants to speak with you. In private. Now."
She stiffened, she had known that she would have to face him eventually, but like a 6 year old... she had hoped to put it off as long as possible. Apparently this was as long as possible.
"I guess I can't put it off any longer?"
Dagonet shook his head. "You knew you'd have to face him someday, even before all this... you and your brother had to know that eventually, this day would come. And you were always the more blunt of the two of you. This was always going to be you, not Magnus."
Ingrid set her shoulders. "Magnus, Dagonet, can you see my wolf and his packmates to their rooms please?" Then she turned to Seth. "I'll come and see you directly after meeting with my father. Through me you all have full rights to roam the area, explore the hall... however I would stay out of the great room until it's time to officially start the Gather."
Seth held onto her arm. "Do you need me to come with you to this? I will."
She knew he would, and she also knew that Seth would get himself in a great deal of trouble in a private meeting with her father. The kindest thing she could do for him was to reject his offer of support.
"Thank you Seth, but some mountains need to be a solo effort in the climb. Dagonet's right, this has been a long time coming and I was always the one who was going to have to do it."
Magnus stepped forward. "Alright, I'll show you to your rooms and we'll see if Yvanne can show you around. She runs this place and knows it better than anyone."
As the pack walked away Leah could be heard asking if Yvanne was yet another she-wolf. Magnus told her that no, she was a wolfblooded and his lover and prospective mate. Dagonet looked at Ingrid for another moment along with Seth, and then both males followed the rest of the group. For her part Ingrid watched them all till they were out of sight and then took a few deep breaths, calming herself and started the walk toward her father's quarters. It was time to beard the lion in his den.
She paused for a moment outside his door and listened, sniffed, her senses sharp enough to tell her that while Dagmar was in there, that she wasn't moving, most likely... asleep. How many times had she done this? How many times had she had to come in here and try to get her father to see past Dagmar? Too many and it had made her far older than her 22 years. Sometimes, what she was angriest the most about was not that her parents marriage broke up the way that it did, but that whatever sort of childhood she could have had was ruined by these two so fully, that it was like she was an adult by the age of ten. She wondered if the children of non-functional alcoholics felt the same way.
Then she gave a perfunctory knock on the door and opened it. She would not back down nor show fear. It was too late for that. She would own her choices and she could only hope that he would own his and Dagmar's, that he would own the consequences that they had brought.
Gunnar looked up at his daughter when she came in, part of him, a small part, loved her and her brother intensely. They were his children, he had been there when they were born, held Marit's hand, cut their umbilical cords and had taken joy in their development. The wolf inside him also had deeply loved his offspring, put as much effort into caring for them as he had his former mate. Not even imprinting could fully take away that connection, not all the way. Although it could and had lessened it. A larger part of him saw her as merely a rebellious member of his pack who would not knuckle down and who needed to made to submit or be cast out. A larger part of the inner wolf viewed her as becoming too dominant, her and her brother both. Neither could truly see anymore that how they felt about their children, their cubs... was wrong. That this was not the way a parent should think of their child.
"Father." Ingrid said. It was a simple greeting, for now she would remain reactive, let him show her how he intended to steer this conversation. Then she would engage him. For what should have been a simple talk between father and daughter... the effort and planning she did was more akin to negotiating with a hostile potential ally.
"I wondered if you would return and break your exile for this." Gunnar replied. There was no emotional reunion for them. The roles were cast, events were set in motion. The only thing left to do was to take the ride to it's end.
Ingrid walked closer and chose a seat across from him, a low coffee table between them. "The law is clear, the eldest wolfblooded child of a Jarl speaks for all wolfblooded in the event of a Gather. I guess you should be glad that I'm speaking for them instead of Freya's son Stephan. He hates you as much as his mother does."
Gunnar snorted. "Stephan is also 104 years old and not in good health. He nears the end of his life and is in no shape to travel in the winter. I don't think even his hatred could make him leave his mother's hall right now."
"Perhaps not, but he's not really what you want to talk to me about, is he?" She looked him in the face, but not the eyes. A delicate balancing act. To look fully away would denote submission and fear, to look him in the eyes and initiate a stare down with an alpha of her father's level of dominance would be an act of stupidity that not even at her most recklessly angry would she be able to make.
"Freya didn't always hate me you know. But you're right, I don't want to talk about the Eldest and her family, what's left of it anyway. You and I have far more important things to talk about now don't we? Starting with why you deliberately hid this imprint bond of yours. You will explain yourself." he said.
She gave a half smile. "It would figure that you would want to talk about that first. I hid it because I wanted to control how it went. I knew you would either uphold the custom as regards my station in Fenrir life or you would order me to accept it. Either way, it would be you making a decision that would affect the rest of my life. I was half a world away, I decided to take that power for myself, regardless of the consequences. I won't apologize for that Father, I've accepted my punishment, I won't hide from my decision."
Gunnar paced angrily on the other side of the table. "If you were anyone else, the daughter of anyone else it would not matter. But you are rare! Do you have any idea how rare it is for a child of the Jarl to not phase? You are a marriage prize! You aren't a she-wolf, you won't go through heat, the rules are different for you than for anyone else, wolf or wolfblooded. And you broke them... FLAGRENTLY!"
"You may be Jarl, you may be king... but the rule is absurd. Because he's below third ranked he's not worthy of me? I may not want Seth as a mate, but believe me Father, he is an honorable and good person, he would be more than worthy of me if I wanted him in that way." She crossed her arms over her chest but otherwise stayed emotionally cold in the face of her father's anger. "No other person has laws and rules about who they take for a mate except a wolfblooded child of a Jarl, and even then, if I was your son you would ignore it. No... suddenly you care so much about this old custom because you want to use me someday as a bargaining chip and you are upset because I may not let you."
She stopped and sighed. "Seth is the least of your concerns right now Father. A Gather has been called because of your wife, your imprint. Perhaps you might want to focus a bit more of your attention on that issue rather than my disobedience?"
Her father stopped pacing and faced her fully. "I should never have let you become the bolverk. It's caused too many problems."
"Maybe not, but you did and she never learned to do the job. You coddled her, babied her and gave her whatever she wanted, when she wanted it. You directly helped create the person that she's become. And the person she's become is responsible for the death of an entire village. There's no easy way out of this one Father, not anymore." she replied.
"Your popularity with the pack, with the Nation has left her feeling incompetent and that has effected how she does everything, how she reacts to everything."
Ingrid leaned back in her chair. "This is not my fault Father. This is Dagmar's fault and you can try and obfuscate that all you want but it won't change the essential truth of what happened. The only person Dagmar has to blame for me and Mom being more popular with the Fenrir than her, is herself. Same with the Northcape disaster. That's her fault. And maybe yours as well. You hide in here too often with her and leave the running of things to your children."
Gunnar took a deep breath. "You used to blame me too. For everything."
"We are not going to do this. Not about that. There are things that you and I will never talk about, there are things that Magnus and I went through up in that cabin that you gave up the right to know about. You gave us up, and you and your imprint can pretty that up any way that you like, but you handed me to my mother and walked out that door and left us. If you thought that I didn't remember, you're wrong. I remember everything... it's why I am the way I am."
She smiled at her father, but it wasn't friendly, it wasn't a baring of the teeth either, it was something... in between.
"Do you think that I don't know that if you had had children with Dagmar that you would have sent us to whatever pack would have taken us after our mother died? I've always known... and I've always still been loyal. So maybe that makes me the fool, no, not maybe, it does make me the fool. It's why I left, only the insane give their loyalty to one who could care less about it."
Her father looked at her, truly looked at her, and his eyes softened. For a moment Ingrid went so still that she nearly could have passed for a vampire. She stopped breathing, stopped blinking, if she could have, she would have stopped her heart. He hadn't looked at her like that since she was six years old.
"You loved cardinals, you loved anything that was red when you were little. You said that they matched your hair. Your brother, he was quieter than you, but stronger. I remember... sometimes." Gunnars voice was resonant, like it used to be. Like she remembered.
And then it was over. In a second's time he reverted back to that cold man she had known for the majority of her life. "This... this accident was not Dagmar's fault. She is human, she should not have to tend to these duties. No... they are your responsibility and you will return and take up the bolverk's place again. That will make all this go away. You will do this for me."
Then he turned around and walked back into the bedroom where Dagmar was, clearly dismissing her. It took a moment for Ingrid to regain her sense of calm. She stood straight and walked out the door, turned the corner in the hallway and then leaned against the cold stones in the wall. She, Magnus and Dagonet had been saying for years that Gunnar had been increasingly acting unstable. They had hidden it as best they could from everyone. So few in the Nation knew, many in the pack were unaware. But the journey was complete. The moment he stood at the Gather to defend his imprint... they would all know. Gunnar wasn't increasingly unstable, he was no longer in full control of his faculties.
How in the hell were they going to fix this?
XXX XXX XXX XXX
Sam watched Leah look out the window. "So... you and Paul huh?"
She looked back at him, or rather his reflection in the glass, the slight remove made it easier to talk to him. Like she was speaking to her memories of Sam, not the actual man himself. "Are we really going to do this now?"
"I'm not going to get in the way of whatever sort of relationship you carve out for yourself Leah. You deserve to be happy and... I'm not that cruel. It's just... for years you and Paul hated each other and now? It's just a bit shocking I guess. I always thought that if you chose anyone from the pack, it would be Embry."
Leah traced a small pattern on the windowpane, smiling a little bit. "I'd run roughshod over Embry and you know it. Maybe, back when I was hurting all the time it would have worked. But now? The woman I became is too dominant for him to start something with, if he had been with me since the beginning, it would be different. Paul on the other hand, he understands me in ways no one else does anymore, plus we're equals. Do you know how hard it is to find an equal when everyday, all of your interactions are determined, for the most part, by rank?"
Sam's drawl had a slight bit of sarcasm to it. "No, of course not, I wouldn't have any idea what you're talking about."
"Fair enough Sam, fair enough." Leah smiled at his reflection. "I hated you for a long time Sam. It consumed me. Now some of that, and how I took it out on people that weren't you and Emily, is my fault. I did and said things to other people that were wrong and I have to live with that. But... if you think I'm going to apologize to you and Emily, you're wrong. I've let it go, it's in the past where it belongs, but that's not the same as forgiving the two of you. I'm not sure I'm ever going to be the sort of person who is able to forgive something like that."
He took a deep breath and just looked at her face reflected back at him. "You seem to think that I expect it of you. I don't and I always thought is was unrealistic of the people, including Emily, who thought that you would or should. I want you to be happy Leah, content and if forgiving me personally helps you with that, than that's great for me. But since it's not about me, I can live with it if you don't. It won't make me happy but I'll be able to shut up and deal with it if your forgiveness never comes."
Her smile this time was more genuine, a rare thing between the two of them these days. "Thank you. You know... it helps to know I'm not alone. It makes me calmer, happier, more able to see things as they really are. I mean, it was already helping when Ingrid told me there were other she-wolves... but Sam... it's another thing to actually see them, touch them, memorize their scent. I've spent years feeling like I was being punished, that I was unworthy of happiness and this was my penance, all of it was my penance, for something terrible that I had done and just couldn't remember."
Sam's hand unconsciously rubbed over a spot on his chest and he tasted a bit of bile in his throat. Leah's honesty hurt. To be sure it hurt in a far different way then her mindless anger had, and he knew it was what he needed to hear and what she needed to say to him to get the rest of the way past what had happened between them. However, standing there and listening to Leah say that she had thought she was worthless for over 5 years, that she thought everything... him and Emily, phasing, Harry, all of it... was her being punished because she was somehow deficient and needed to pay for that lack hurt badly. He was glad she had her back turned to him, that she was talking to his reflection in a piece of window glass, that he was also looking at her face in the same manner. Because otherwise this would be too intimate, too much of everything for him to handle with any sort of dignity.
For a few moments they just looked at each other in the glass, the remove making it easier and harder all at the same time. No one said a word, what could they say? No one wanted to rehash the pain again, it was just too much and at least now, there was acknowledgment of both hurt... and healing. It was Leah who finally broke the silence.
"I'm tired of this. I can't do this thing we have between us anymore. The guilt, the anger, it's enough. It has to stop. You're with Emily and I'm with Paul. What we had was real Sam, no matter what imprinting makes you feel about it now... but it's over and it's time to move on. I'm happy with Paul, I don't know where it will lead, but I want to be with him. And you and Emily... regardless of whether or not I think it's genuine, you do and you're happy with her. It's time to stop this Sam. We both need to just walk away and stop... thinking about it anymore."
She turned around and for the first time since he had left her Leah looked at him openly. There was grief there for a life planned for and wanted but never lived. However there was also anticipation of a life that perhaps someone else can give her.
"Can we just start over?" she asked. "Can we just be packmates? Can we just forget we were ever anything else? I just want to start over."
Sam didn't say anything for a few moments and just looked at her. The last time they had been this honest with each other, without Leah yelling, had been before Emily. It was bittersweet that she was doing it know to tell him her own goodbye. Part of him didn't want to let go, deep down, in a place he shared with no one, he had held onto his love for Leah, wrapped it up as this piece of him that was still a choice. In a life where everything was decided for him and outside of his control, having this fractured piece of him that loved her was like having something that belonged only to him, to Samuel Uley. The other part just wanted Leah to stop hurting, he could accept anything as long as she didn't hurt anymore. Emily may have been his mate and he loved her, but being the cause of Leah's pain made him want to rip at his own skin. It was time to let it go.
"I can do that. I know that what we had was real... and when I asked you to marry me, I meant it. But... imprinting changed that and it changed us. I'm not sure I want to forget what we had, but I think you're right. I think what's best is to move on. We were friends, then we were lovers, engaged... then enemies. We've never really been packmates, never really been partners. I'd... I'd like to be that now."
He didn't bring up Paul's name again. Sam wasn't sure if Leah was making the right decision in choosing another wolf. But at the same time he couldn't blame her. She could be honest with Paul about her life in ways she couldn't with a human. And after having spent time alone with the secret and no one to share it with, he understood the need for a mate one could just be honest with. However, he hadn't been kidding when he had yelled at Paul the day before they had left for putting Leah in the same position that Sam himself had put her. They hadn't exactly left on good terms.
Leah held out her hand and Sam took it. She wasn't his Lee-Lee anymore, she was her own, and who she chose to be with was no longer his concern. "This new confidence looks good on you Leah."
"Flirt." she laughed.
"Just honest, just honest." he said.
And for the first time in a long, long time Leah threw back her head and laughed. Her neck and belly utterly bared to him and he could tell that she wasn't even thinking about him hurting her. She was just enjoying laughing... and maybe... thinking about Paul.
Sam smiled softly... he'd missed her like this. Even if it hadn't been him that was able to make her happy again, he was strangely satisfied.
XXX XXX XXX XXX
Seth was pacing and he could tell that he was making the other wolves nervous. Sam, Leah and Quil were all getting themselves settled, he on the other hand was unable to pay much attention to his luggage and had just followed Magnus, Dagonet and Hilde after everyone had been shown to their rooms. When they had arrived in Magnus's rooms no one had seemed overly surprised to see him there with them.
"Want a drink?" Magnus was by a shelf with many bottles of liquor, pouring drinks for him and his packmates.
Seth nodded. "Sure, whatever you're having." The young wolf didn't drink often, but when he did, he had an affinity for things that weren't beer. His sister had once joked that some of Seth's drinking tastes wouldn't have been out of place in some bar from the roaring twenties.
Magnus handed him a heavy lowball glass and and when Seth drank the amber liquid inside he relished the way it burned down his throat and warmed his belly. Then he sat in one of the chairs and looked around. The beta's quarters were done in rich, dark colors, a sort of old fashioned masculinity was infused throughout the place. Dark leather furniture that showed years of wear, but looked the better for it. Dark rugs in burgundies, navy blues and hunter greens on the floors and heavy draperies on the walls. It was interesting because Magnus himself dressed in well worn, broken in jeans and long sleeved tee shirts with abstract designs on them. He didn't seem to match his own home.
Magnus saw Seth's appraisal and laughed. "It used to be his quarters." He pointed at Dagonet. "When he and Hilde took Karolina as their mate they needed a bigger place and I inherited their old one."
Seth looked at Dagonet. The large man with the scar seemed perfectly suited to these rooms. The clothes he wore all looked heavy and while not old fashioned, seemed like they were inspired by memories of styles no longer worn. Even the twisted gold jewelry he wore on his finger and wrists was heavy. His wife Hilde, while slighter than him, had a weight to her presence as well. She was one of very few people he had seen since he had arrived, with brown hair. She was long, her limbs were long and leanly muscled like Leah's and while no one in their right mind would ever mistake either female for a man, there was no doubt that they were powerful. She too seemed like she would be right at home here.
Seth gave a one sided smirk. "I'm not even going ask about the whole threesome mate thing you just brought up. I think I can take only so much culture shock in one day." Then he leaned back fully in his chair and took another sip from his glass. "Is she going be alright in there, with him?"
"She'll be fine. He won't hurt her, and he won't allow anyone else to either. No matter how angry he is, no wolf hurts their child. We're just hardwired not to do things like that. We may get angry, we may have all sorts of issues, but even when one of us loses it, we never physically harm our children." Hilde's hand brushed over a large locket at her throat. "We can mess up a lot of other people we care about, but I've never heard of a wolf turning claw or hand to his or her child. And I'm almost 300 years old."
Seth blinked at her and looked at Magnus. "Are all your women ancient?"
The beta nearly choked on his drink. "You heard about Freya then? No Seth, not all our women are ancient. Astrid's only been a wolf for three years, Minka for ten."
Dagonet casually slung an arm around his mate. "I'm a bit older than Hilde, by what... a decade?
"No one in our pack is that old. Not even close. Sam and Leah are the oldest and... this is really not important right now." Seth put his glass between his thighs and looked at the other three. "Why did he want to talk to her alone?"
Magnus looked into his own glass. "Me and my father had an easier time of it. Don't get me wrong, I don't like him anymore than she does, but I have to, as the Chinese say, swallow my bitterness. I have no choice, he's always so nose deep in his imprint that the pack needs to look to me for stability. I can't afford too much open conflict with him. Ingrid, even when she was the bolverk, has that luxury."
Dagonet laughed. "I think she also enjoys it too Magnus. Not everything your twin does is suffused with the fires of revolution. Sometimes she just thumbs her nose at him because she can. And by Fenris it's entertaining."
"So, you have to play the game for the most part and she doesn't, am I right?"
Ingrid's brother nodded at Seth. "Pretty much. The bolverk gets to use brutal honesty whenever and where ever she chooses to, and never let it be said that my darling sister never ran with that to the inth degree while she was in the position."
"Sounds like her." Seth smirked. "But that still doesn't answer why she had to go there alone."
Magnus finished his drink and set it down. "Mostly because she always fights back. Even when she's going to lose. Even when the person she's butting heads against is more dominant than her by a long shot, she always fights back. I'm not sure that Ingrid knows how to back down if she thinks she's fighting the good fight. And our father learned a long time ago that if he dealt with her in public, she'd get people on her side, so he stopped. He hasn't chastised her in public since she was 16 years old."
The door opened and Yvanne swept into the room. Magnus smiled up at her and looped his arm around her waist and pulled her down into his lap. "You're done for the day right? No disasters, no leaky pipes or crumbling walls to deal with?"
Her eyes lit up. "Nope. Our guests are settled in and Enni volunteered to show them around the hall. I think she likes the way the one named after a feather smells."
Seth watched the two of them. There was a certain ease about the way that they touched each other that was much like Dagonet and Hilde, but unlike Dagonet, Magnus seemed to want to make sure that Yvanne carried a bit of his scent with her in a way that spoke of a certain newness. His hand drew a pattern on her thigh and every now and then his thumb traced over the side of her neck. Seth thought that Magnus could call Yvanne his prospective mate all he wanted, but the man was lying to himself. The older wolfblooded was already his mate, and from the looks everyone in the room was giving him, they all knew it too.
"You staying here tonight?" Magnus asked her.
Yavanne just nodded, gave him a quick kiss as the beta pulled on one of her grey hairs, but left it in place. Then she got up to rummage around for food in his cabinets.
Before much more could be said Ingrid came into the room. "So anyone else noticed that Daddy Dearest... hi Seth."
She seemed a little bit surprised to find him here, but only a little. He wasn't exactly hiding the need he felt to help her. What was surprising was that Magnus had allowed it. They all were far too much in the practice of keeping pack political matters to a very small and tight knit group. For all that Seth was imprinted on Ingrid, he wasn't part of that group. He wasn't Fenrir, just as she wasn't La Push.
Yvanne handed her mate's sister a drink. "He's loosened up a bit lately."
She took it, looked her brother right in the eyes and smirked. "I think it might be the sex he's been getting regularly. I hear it does wonders."
Magnus nearly choked. "You do this shit on purpose. Admit it."
Yvanne merely smiled wisely at the beta, much like Hilde was smiling wisely at Dagonet.
"You bet your ass I do. I get so few selfish pleasures in life. Making you uncomfortable once a week is one of my most treasured ones."
He merely threw a pillow in her face.
Seth cleared his throat. "Not that this isn't entertaining, because believe me, it is. But don't we have bigger issues to deal with. Like why you smell all sorts of weird right now Ingrid."
Ingrid took her drink and sat on the sofa next to Seth and across from Magnus. "Father's out of his gourd. We talked, he wanted to make a big deal of me keeping Seth a secret, and then... it's like the fact that the whole Northcape settlement is dead hasn't even penetrated. He actually told me that I would stay, take back up the reins of the bolverk and everyone would forget what had happened."
"Is he out of his mind?" Yvanne asked, incredulity lacing her voice.
Hilde's hand clenched on her glass so hard it nearly shattered in her grip. "He cannot just sweep that many deaths under the rug and pretend they never happened. I was there... I had to put the bodies of children on the pyre! I will never forgive Dagmar for this, not even if I live to be as old as Freya. And if the Jarl seeks to let this go unpunished... I will never forgive him either. I've spent my life in this pack Magnus, but I'll give my allegiance to another alpha if it comes to that."
Dagonet rubbed the back of Hilde's neck soothingly. Then he too looked at his beta. "Where Hilde goes, Karolina and I go. Not that either of us would want to stay if this Gather ends with Dagmar still the pampered princess she insists Gunnar treat her as."
The old and massive wolf leaned towards the man who he had trained since he was a boy. "You will have decisions to make in the coming days Magnus, both you and Ingrid. If the worst comes to pass, and you make the right decisions, you'll have allies."
Then the two old wolves got up to leave. Karolina was getting off her shift in the village clinic and this time was sacred family time for the three of them. Both expressed their happiness at seeing Ingrid again and then they were gone.
"So you really think he's unstable?" Seth asked.
"We know he is. We've known for a long time." Ingrid rubbed her eyes. "The more mean spirited Dagmar would act, the less stable our father would act in return. And now, it's weird. There was this moment, it was just a moment, but... he looked at me. And it was like it was him again, like he used to be. He talked about us like no time had passed. Like it hadn't all gone to crap." She downed her drink in two gulps. "And then it was over and he was the jerk he's been for pretty much our whole damn lives."
Seth reached out and took Ingrid's hand. "I'm sorry. In a way, I'm luckier than you."
"And how exactly is that?" she asked.
"My father is dead. There's no guessing, no hoping to catch glimpses of a man who's soul is gone but who's body remains. Harry Clearwater is gone and I have a headstone I can go to and mourn him at when the need comes to me. You two have watched your father die in degrees, piece by piece and his body shows no signs of stopping. So, in a way, I'm the lucky one out of the three of us."
Then he looked over at Magnus. "If everyone knows how nuts he's been acting, won't this be pretty easy?"
"We kept it a secret. I was too young to take over. I wasn't ready. No one would accept Dagonet taking over... and... as important as he's been to the Nation. He's not an alpha, he would never have been able to hold the pack together or if he could have, the Nation itself would have imploded. Freya would have had no choice but to take the reins. She would have challenged my father to a fight for the title of Jarl, and in the shape he's been in the last several years, she'd probably have won."
Ingrid snorted. "You know she would have won. She's too old and too good at killing things to lose to our father in the condition he's in now."
"So how old is she?" Seth asked. "I mean you all go on and on about how ancient she is, the Eldest, like it's a title or something."
"In every way that counts, it is a title." Magnus replied. "And it affords her more respect than anyone save for the Jarl."
"Still though, how old is she?"
Ingrid cleared her throat and looked at Yavanne. "You want to do the honors of screwing with his world view?"
The older woman faced Seth. "Everyone in this room is homo-sapiens, or at least started out that way before phasing. Freya is homo-erectus. She was part of the very first group of wolves that ever phased in Scandinavia and as far as she can remember, she was the second wolf to ever phase here period."
Seth didn't really have much he could say to that. So he blinked instead. Then he looked at his empty low-ball glass and held it out. "I think I need another drink. A stiff one."
Ingrid laughed and handed him a bottle of very nice scotch. "I say we just share the bottle. Call it fortifying ourselves for what's to come. By the day after tomorrow, everyone is going to know that I, my brother and Dagonet have been hiding the fact that the Jarl is incompetent to lead for least 4 years. I think this is the perfect moment for a stiff drink... or five."
The remainder of the night was spent getting Seth up to speed on the Jarl's family dynamics. For the rest of his life, Seth would never think of his family as dysfunctional again. The Clearwaters were bastions of normalcy and sanity in comparison to the current state of the Jarl's family. He felt lucky, but at the same time sad. Ingrid and Magnus had dealt with far too much, far too early and it had left it's mark on both of them. One was denying that he had a mate and the other was trying her damnedest to make war on the world. And that was only their lighter issues.
When Seth and Ingrid left Magnus' rooms, still holding onto the bottle and taking swigs from it, Ingrid led Seth to her room.
"I'm pretty sure I have my own room to go to Ing." Seth said.
"Actually, since I'm your imprint, you automatically stay with me until I officially reject the mating version of the imprint. So, how do the Spanish say it? Mi casa, su casa?" Then she opened her door, walked into the bedroom and pointed at her bed.
"Here's how this is going to work Seth. You won't fit lying down on on my couch, so you get to share a bed with me. My last boyfriend told me I talk in my sleep."
Seth was busy responding to the first part of what she had said. "You have a an official way of telling an imprint 'Let's just be friends?' are you serious?"
"Seth, we're the Fenrir, we're in love with our traditions and history and blah, blah, blah. We probably have an official way of throwing out used toilet paper."
He shook his head. "You have a unique way with analogies, you know that."
Ingrid grabbed some flannel pj's and walked toward the bathroom to change. "I hope you brought something to wear to sleep in. It get's cold during true night here."
Then she went to the bathroom and came out looking... cute. She was in blue flannel pj's with sheep on them for shit's sake. It was adorable, especially with her red curls bouncing into her eyes. However, Seth had enough experience with her by now to not actually tell her that. He just nodded, and went to bed on the side she said wasn't her's in sweatpants and a tee shirt.
For a little while they just lay there, not much to say, just thinking. Then he turned on his side and looked at her. "You're important."
Ingrid gave him a weird look. "What do you mean Seth?"
"If you had been a wolf, you'd be ranked high, Magnus told me how old you were when you became your father's bolverk. You were just a kid. You've been helping to run a pack and a nation since you were 15 years old. You're important and I get it now." he replied.
"What are you talking about, what do you get?"
"I get that you've been forced to do all the things I've been putting off. I could be.. more dominant, but I never push it. Never really saw the need, I liked being me. But... being this means I have a lot of responsibility and being little ole' me isn't good enough." he mused.
"You give yourself too little credit Seth. But if you really feel that you're shirking your duties, then... change."
"I'm trying." he said. "Old me wouldn't have pushed my way into Magnus' private party, but... I needed to know what was going on, so... I went."
After that they were quiet again and after more time passed, they fell asleep.
XXX XXX XXX XXX
The following day was spent with Magnus, Ingrid and Enni sparring as much time as they could to familiarize everyone with the protocal they were to observe. Sam and Magnus spent a lot of time going over La Push's political stake in all of this. Leah joined that discussion often and Quil seemed to be fascinated with all the things Enni could make a computer do for her.
Ingrid told them the name of every alpha and the person they brought with them for the Gather, showed everyone pictures. Eventually they were all as prepared as they were ever going to be.
Magnus looked at Sam. "Get some sleep, people will be interested in what you have to say, you're a new presence on the board. They're going to want to see how well you perform."
Sam took a deep breath. "No pressure there."
Then he took the files Magnus had given him and walked towards his room, Leah followed and they discussed their options till they separated for the night at their door. Enni walked Quil back to his room and their laughter could be heard echoing down the hall long after they vanished.
Seth looked at Ingrid. "It's all going to go down tomorrow. You ready for this?"
She looked him dead in the eye. "Not really... but I'm not going to let anyone else know that."
Magnus, Yavanne and Seth looked at each other... yep... tomorrow was going to be an interesting day indeed.
AN: Once again, I suck at not getting this out, my only excuse is that I have 2 children under the age of 4 to take care of and late at night is the only time I really have to write. That and some angsty moral issues I've been having with Twilight was killing my muse. But... I'm in this for the long haul. No matter how long it takes, Shrapnel and it sequels WILL be completed. Period.