Chapter Twelve
1 It wasn't like a slap to the face. It wasn't even a punch in the stomach. No. Nothing dramatic, actually. It was more like…how to describe this? Someone pulled the plug and drained her? Her heart liquefied and slowly dripped into her abdominal cavity? All the warmth got sucked out of the world? As Creepula and Alaska Blonde explained what had happened, Leah just sat there on that hideous monster of a sofa, staring blankly at their blood-smeared faces.
Embry's blood.
Jared's blood.
She'd had to sit down, because her legs had turned to rubber. The leeches who'd done this were right in front of her, their fair hair caked in red, their faces smeared, their clothes, their hands. It was all over them. They'd killed more than ten people, and now…
Embry. Jared.
They were dead. Gone. Erased from this planet. Everything they could have accomplished, every life they could have touched, every difference they could have made – it was all gone. Wiped out. Destroyed.
Forever.
Before her mind's eye, she saw them, their youthful, smiling faces. She heard their cocky voices. She watched them phase into big, clumsy wolves and playfully rough each other up. She heard them in her mind, as they all shared each other's thoughts and emotions.
They were dead. They'd been stupid enough to attack three vampires that had just gorged themselves on human blood, one of them being a literal killing machine. Jasper had snapped their necks and left their bodies in the woods to rot. They'd just been boys, kids, children. They'd had their whole lives ahead of them, and now they were gone, broken, thrown away like garbage. A few months ago, everything had been fine. Now, the whole world was in shambles. Yes, Leah had known that there was the distinct possibility of a fight ensuing wherein some of her people might get killed, but this…nothing could prepare her for this, for this hollowness, this black void she was caught in – all for the sake of protecting a half-vampire baby. What a fucking hilarious joke of cosmic proportions.
"Leah?"
"What?" She gave Esme, who was standing right next to her, a withering look. "Do I have something on my face?"
Everyone was staring at her. What was wrong with these assholes?
"You're crying," Esme said gently.
Oh. Leah touched the skin under her eyes with her fingertips. Tears. Yeah. That would explain the knot in her throat. She scoffed and shook her head. "Someone has to," she said, and pushed herself up to her feet, not even knowing if her legs would be able to carry her weight. They were. They always were. "I'm going out to see the boys, and you are not gonna stop me or follow me," she said, her voice monotonous, and slowly walked out of that wretched place.
As she went past the line of trees and into the forest, she reached into her jeans' pocket and pulled out Irina's phone. No more werewolves would die. No, she would see to it that her people would suffer no more losses on behalf of the goddamn Cullens. She called the number in question. This time, it only rang once.
"Leah? What's the matter?"
"They killed two of my friends," she whispered, leaning against a tree and covering her eyes with her free hand. "Two little boys who were stupid enough to go against a freshly refuelled Jasper Whitlock. All that bastard needed was an excuse to go on a killing spree, and Jared and Embry gave him the perfect one. They're dead. He snapped their necks. They're gone. They were alive an hour ago, and now they're just gone." Wasn't it sad that a people-eating vampire with a British accent she'd only just met was the only person she could talk to honestly, right now? Yes. Yes, it fucking was.
A little silence ensued.
Finally, he said, "I'm sorry," quietly, guardedly.
"Are you?" Fresh tears squeezed through her lashes and tumbled down her prominent cheekbones. Even though she was sniffling, she had to chuckle wryly. "Whatever. Listen, I'm calling you because our little plans just got thrown out the window. Sam's gonna find out, and tomorrow at dawn, he'll get every wolf here and smite these bastards."
"Why dawn?"
She leaned her head back against the tree and took in a lungful of the lush, green smell of the forest. "Because it'll be dark before he manages to organise an attack that has any chance of succeeding, and attacking in the dark would give the vamps an advantage."
"Oh." He sounded genuinely surprised. Maybe werewolves in his part of the world had night-vision. Not that it mattered. "Where are you?"
"On my way to the boys. They just left them there." She pressed her lips together, closed her eyes again, inhaled deeply. "They left them there to rot – Creepula, Spineless Wonder, and your little Slovakian friend."
"You can't go back to the Cullen house," he said, after mulling it all over for a moment. "You're too riled up. They might catch you, and you do not want to be caught as an enemy agent whilst the dhampir is around – believe me."
"What do you suggest I do? Team up with you?"
"Yes," he said simply, not hesitating. "That's exactly what I'm suggesting."
This was so fucked up. "Maybe I should go back to Sam."
"And get pulled into a fight you know you won't be able to go through with once you telepathically link with your alpha?"
Standing around and doing nothing was annoying. She pushed herself off the tree and started walking at a brisk pace. "The fact that you know everything is almost as annoying as the fact that you're right," she said, and felt like punching something. "Fine. Have it your way. Where do I go?"
"Charlie Swan's house."
"Not such a great idea, pal. The more they get exposed to all this supernatural bullshit, the greater the risk that they'll find out the truth. I'm pretty sure you don't give a damn about them, but I care about every human life, and I won't let you just dismiss them as collateral damage, you hear me? I won't."
"We'll be careful – I promise. You should be, too. Come here immediately. Don't stop by the co…I mean, your friends."
Her stomach lurched. More tears threatened to burst through the dam. She bit them back furiously. "I have to."
"No, Leah," he said with quiet insistence. The obvious compassion in his voice (didn't even matter if it was an act or not) was almost enough to break her walls. "It's too dangerous and you know it. Please don't do something rash. Keep your head. I assume you want to prevent further Quileute fatalities?"
Through clenched teeth, she said, "You assume correctly." This guy was a bit of a know-it-all, wasn't he? Not to mention a smart-ass. The worst part really was that again, he was right.
"If you get caught by either side, you will be in grave danger. You'll also likely compromise the plan. My way prevents more wolves from dying. Please be smart about this. You have absolutely no reason to believe me, but I want to prevent loss of life, as well."
The urge to just smash the phone against the nearest tree and scream in frustration almost overwhelmed her. "Fine. I'm coming to you."
"Excellent. Do you want me to meet you halfway?"
She shook her head, feeling silly because he could obviously not see this. "Absolutely not. Just…stay where you are. I'll be there in no time." Without waiting for a reply, she disconnected the call and stuffed the phone into her pocket again, before taking off her clothes and phasing. There was no getting away from this awful house and these awful people quickly enough.
2 Bella didn't stay for the big debrief. She immediately headed upstairs, threw her bloody clothes on the tiles, and got under the shower. Her skin, her hair, her entire body was sticky with blood. She was reeling from all the things that had happened this afternoon. Being responsible for those four dead campers had nearly caused her to snap. Now, though, with even more blood on her hands (oh, God, glorious warm living blood), she felt fine. No, better than fine – she felt at peace. Her body was working perfectly. Her senses were so sharp, it was a joy to look at her surroundings, to listen to the world, to breathe in the scent of everything. Not ever, in all her life – human or vampire – had she ever felt this thoroughly satisfied.
There was a metaphor somewhere in there she didn't care much about.
Inadvertently, the image of Jasper getting rid of the drained bodies popped up before her mind's eye, fresh and clear and in high definition. She'd never seen anything like this, like him. It was the blood, of course, but still. After three months of blindness, after the shock of her first vampiric sight, contemplating a thing of pure beauty was overwhelming. Watching him snap those werewolves' necks had been impressive, too. Oh, had that been impressive.
Hot water thundered down on her. She just stood there, revelling in the sensation, not breathing, not moving, eyes closed. God, she had been so utterly useless during that short fight. Useless. Paralysed. What good did her new-born strength do if all she managed was to sit there, too stunned to even blink? Had she been unwilling to do something because the other two vampires were already handling it? Had it been because she'd known those kids? Was she only a coward? Maybe all of the above. As a human, she'd never questioned herself like this, but her new existence left her little choice but to constantly ask questions. She was a murderer. She was a monster. Why should she care about anything? Did she even care? Did this high she was riding make it impossible for her to feel human, to even try it?
She turned off the water, grabbed the big, fluffy towel from the rack right outside the huge stall, wrapped herself in it, and stepped out to find her partner in crime (brother-in-law) standing in the doorframe, leaning sideways against it. "Jasper."
He was clean. His hair was wet. "Feeling better?"
"Yes. I shouldn't, but yes."
"No remorse?"
She shook her head. "This is all so strange to me. I feel…more, but I can't bring myself to feel bad, to actually feel bad about what I've done. I know that I should, but I can't. It's all so strange. I don't even know how to explain this."
"You got a better grasp on yourself now, and you don't want to feel bad," he said, smiling. "It may not be pretty, but it is simple. So" – He ambled inside the bathroom, hands stuffed in the pockets of his clean cargo trousers – "now that you got over the shock of two of our enemies croaking it, maybe you won't freeze tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" She was aware that she was dripping water all over the place, but didn't care. Caring about anything but the instant gratification of her base impulses seemed like science fiction to her, now. "Oh. Sam."
"Oh, yes, Sam. This is a good-news-bad-news kind of situation: on one hand, this party's about to get started, I am prepared, and two of our opponents have been removed from the equation. On the other hand, only three of us are fuelled up on living human blood. The rest, except for Carlisle, will drink the stuff from the bag."
"But…weren't Edward and the others going to-"
"Too risky. No. We'll have to deal with all this crap the way we are now." He tilted his head slightly to the side, never taking his eyes off of her. His expression was level. "Vampires have an unfortunate tendency to just freeze to the spot when stressed out, but we can't have that, Bella. Tomorrow, you'll have to get off your ass and actually do something. Standing uselessly in the background won't do, unless you want to be responsible for the rest of us dying."
"I already told you that I don't want that," she said. For a moment, they just both stood there staring at each other. When she realised that she was pretty much mesmerised by how pleasant it was to look at his face and not only see the scars, but think them beautiful, she broke off eye-contact and looked down at her feet. At least she couldn't get red in the face anymore. Everything was off by a lightyear, but the weirdest part of it was that it felt really, really great. "I should be feeling bad. I know that in just two days, I've done so many wrong things, so many evil things, that I possibly even kick-started all of our deaths, but…I can't."
"Don't. I don't want you to feel bad about yourself, to ask yourself difficult questions about right and wrong, to wallow in guilt. Where's the fun in that?"
Still scrutinising her naked (smooth, white, flawless) feet, she frowned. "Is that what this is all about? Fun?"
"Might as well be. You're a vampire. You're an undead, soulless, reanimated monster who needs living creatures' blood to survive, and who gets a very intense kick out of killing. If you can't have fun with that, what's the point of living at all? And don't start whining about the nature of your existence again. I won't have it."
Despite herself, she had to chortle. "Remember when you tried to eat me during my birthday party?"
"Oh, yes. I could've controlled myself, but I was hungry and didn't really feel like holding back," he said, and slowly walked up to her, so that she could stare at his booted feet instead of her naked ones. "In case you were wondering why I didn't lose it at the ballet studio during the whole James fiasco. You were very appetising, then, too, but there's always a time and a place to, uh…indulge my viler impulses. That was neither."
"My point was actually going to be this: I never thought I'd bond with you, of all people." She made herself raise her head and face him again. The dark-red, deep colour of his eyes was so much more appealing than that weird yellow. "Turns out Edward is right: I really do suck as a vampire. I kill humans left and right, but am completely useless on the battlefield."
"Well, getting rid of two little wolf boys doesn't truly count as a battle," he said, smirking. "Don't feel bad about them, either. They attacked us. It was self-defence."
"You would have killed them anyway." There was no doubt in her voice.
"Well, I am a complete psychopath," he said lightly, and laughed when he saw the dumbstruck expression she must be wearing as she blinked at him dully. "What? How's that even remotely a surprise to you? You knew it already."
"I…" She trailed off and shook her head. "But…didn't you…I mean…when you met Alice…"
"Reform?" he said, arching an eyebrow. "I thought I was meant to, but now I know that I was living a lie, that I was pretending to be something I'm not. A self-fulfilling prophecy does not destiny make, to put it into purple prose. My patience for this malarkey has officially ended." When she just kept gawping at him, at a loss, he said, "Let me show you something," took her by the shoulders, turned her around, and led her to the big medicine cabinet mirror atop one of the white marble sinks. "Look at yourself."
"I can't," she whispered, staring obstinately down into the sink.
"None of that, now. Look." When she still didn't, he squeezed her shoulders harshly. "If you're worried about flipping out and whatnot, don't. You won't, and even if you did, you don't stand a chance against me."
With a great deal of hesitation, she raised her face and met her own eyes in her reflection. "God."
She was perfect the way nothing in nature was supposed to be: symmetrical, flawless, immaculate. A doll. Not Bella. Not human. Alien. Alien, but not a hideous, revolting monster. She watched her clear red eyes grow wide. The horror she'd felt at not knowing herself? Of having disappeared? Gone. Her body was light as a feather and not a fortress, but a tool. Yes, Bella was dead. This new being was a parody of what she'd used to be, and maybe it was an unholy monstrosity, but that no longer fazed her. All that human blood, it tethered her inside her body, it made her see, hear, comprehend. It made her feel. There was no more humanity and probably no more soul, but there was something there beyond an endless nightmare.
Perhaps it was time to give up and just have fun with it. Memories of her parents tried to surface, but she brushed them off almost angrily. No time for that, now. No time. No room. No room for pain and loss and sorrow and guilt.
God, this was more than glorious. It was beyond orgasmic.
"She's beautiful," she whispered, scrutinising that heart-shaped, thin, smooth face, the round eyes (no longer almond-shaped, no longer closely set together) and almost straight eyebrows, the high forehead, the plump and dark-red lips, the narrow nose.
"You are," he said, almost smiling, his voice trembling oh so subtly. "The dull little girl you were is gone forever. You're a monster, Bella: strong and fast and deadly and devoid of everything that once made you human. Don't shoot yourself in the foot by forcing yourself to cling to useless notions of morality and guilt. I promise you that you'll enjoy it."
She looked him in the eye through the mirror. "Be good for goodness's sake, my mom always says."
Leaning in, he whispered, "We're so much above that," directly in her ear, barely softening his grip on her shoulders. "You told me you wanted to live. You want us to live. That won't happen if you hamper yourself by insisting that you should feel bad for every drop of spilled blood. Just let go of all that. Be who you are. The time for guilt is gone."
"I feel a lot of things right now, but" – Slowly, she shook her head – "I can't make much sense of any of it. Nothing of what I thought I felt is there, anymore."
"It'll all start making sense very soon," he said, turned her around to face him again, but didn't step back. They were almost nose to chin like this. "You're gonna have to fight tomorrow. You'll kill people – people you know. People you once cared about. Either you do this, or you die. Do you understand that?" He pinched her chin between his index and thumb and forced her to look up into his eyes.
She nodded curtly. "Yes."
He cracked a smile, said, "Good. That's all I wanted to hear," let go of her, and ambled away, leaving her to look after him in silent bewilderment.
3 Leah knocked on Chief Swan's door feeling like a total doofus, but also strangely light-headed. That sensation of end-times she'd had only this morning, before the talk with Sam? It was back with a vengeance. Everything was upside-down. The world was about to crack. Something was going to give, and that was a fact. A fairy-tale ending where everyone got exactly what they wanted without having to work for it, without sacrifice, was not in the cards. More likely, this whole disaster would end like Hamlet: everybody died. The end.
The door was opened from the inside. She found herself face to face with Yuppie Vamp.
"Leah! I'm so glad you made it," he said, his voice and expression casual, as if she'd told him she wasn't sure if she'd be able to attend his birthday party. "Come on in. Please."
Warily, she went inside the house and tried not to jump when he closed the door behind her with something of a bang. "Where are Charlie and his ex?"
"Working, trying to find dirt on the Cullens," he said, walked past her taking care not to touch her, and headed toward what she could see was the kitchen. "Please, follow me. I'll make you something to eat. You must be very hungry."
"You're not a mind-reader, are you?" She still followed him, though.
"No, but I suppose that today having played out the way it has, you probably didn't even think about eating." In the kitchen, he motioned to the one of the chairs by the table. "Please, have a seat."
Not even hesitating, anymore, and too detached from herself to be weirded out, she pulled a chair and plopped herself on it. She watched him speculatively look into the refrigerator. "Gonna raid Charlie's food supply?"
"They're letting me stay with them for the nonce, which is very kind of them, so no. I actually went grocery shopping."
The mere notion of a sparklepire trawling the aisles of a supermarket with a shopping cart, checking prices and looking for the best organic potatoes, was so absurd, she couldn't help but giggle. He gave her a confused look, and she shook her head. "Ignore me. I think a fuse blew in my mind. My brain has officially collapsed in on itself."
"Very well," he said, and nodded. "Is there anything you don't eat?"
"No. Dish it up and I'll eat it. It's probably gonna be my last meal, anyway."
"Oh," he said, grabbed some rib-eye steak out of the fridge, and started heating up olive oil in a frying pan. "You mean, once your ex-group catches onto your defection, your alpha will order you to come back?"
"There'll be hell to pay," she said, sounding giddy and dreamy and not at all like herself. Yup, a fuse had very clearly blown. Also, she was light-headed and slightly nauseous. When the smell of sizzling meat hit her nostrils, her stomach grumbled loudly. "If I don't phase, he can't telepathically order me to do anything. If he shows up here, however, and alpha-orders me to my face, I won't be able to resist."
"He won't know you're here, and even if he does find out, he won't make it out of Cullen territory in time." After seasoning the frying meat, he turned around to look at her. A little frown was creasing his forehead. "You're right to be worried, though. Already so much has gone wrong. My people won't be here soon enough."
She rested her elbows on the table-top and her chin on her hands. "Sam's gonna attack them full-force tomorrow morning. He has to. He doesn't know, however, that of all people, Jasper has boosted his talents with a lot of human blood. That creepy fucker's really dangerous, and he loves killing more than anything. Even if they end up taking him out, he'll murder a number of them, first. I can't let that happen, but I don't know what to do to stop it. My hands are tied."
"You can call Mister Uley and ask him to keep to the three-day-schedule, offering our assistance in return for his patience." He turned around to tend to the steaks, again.
"I can do that, but it won't work. He'll be furious, out for revenge, and, well" – She snorted wry laughter – "he fucking hates vampires – all of them. Vampires are the reason he turned into a wolf, that he imprinted. They're responsible for his entire life being turned on its head. They're responsible for all our lives being upturned, and now they've" – She chewed on the inside of her lower lips and closed her eyes for a few seconds – "now they've killed two of the boys. There's no way Sam will settle for any sort of compromise. Revenge will be the only thing he'll be after, and he knows that this is an iron that has to be struck while hot. The wolves can't afford hesitation."
"Not just them," he said, grabbed a plate, slapped the steaks on it, and handed it to her, along with some cutlery. "Here you go." He pulled up a chair and joined her.
"Thanks." Until now, she hadn't realised how truly ravenous she was. This meat smelled like paradise. Okay, having a yuppie emo-fringe vamp cook for her was all kinds of weird, but what the hell. She dug in. "Mm. This is nice."
A little smile curved up the corners of his mouth. "Thank you." For a few minutes, he just watched her eating. "You're positive it'll come to battle?"
She chewed, swallowed, wiped her mouth with the handkerchief she pulled from her pocket. "Yeah. No way around it. Jared and Embry are…" The words got stuck in her throat. She grabbed the knife and fork tightly, relishing the feeling of the warmed steel in her palms. At least that was tangible and real. Everything else just felt so…she didn't even know. Removed from her – that's what it was. She was removed from it all. "Jared and Embry are dead. He didn't see a way out this morning. Imagine how he'll feel now. I'll call him, but he won't budge. He won't want your help, either. He won't care that you're after the same thing he is. He hates all of your kind, politics be damned."
"Understandable, but regrettable," he said, leaning back in his chair and pulling the sleeves of his sweater and jacket over his hands. "You and I have two options now: we can either sit back and wait, or we can join the battle."
"We," she echoed pointedly, put her cutlery down, and crossed her arms. "I thought I was gonna cop-buddy comedy with Bella, but it turns out you're the good cop in this ensemble. I was gonna say that stranger things have been known to happen, but that would be a big, fat lie." That put a slight smile on his face, but he said nothing. "Tell you the truth, sunny Jim, I got no idea what to do. I want to stop a battle from happening, because no matter who wins, I lose. It's probably super selfish, but I don't want any of my friends to die. Two already have, and that's more than I can stomach. I don't think I could take it if I lost anyone else."
"We're all selfish, then, if we do anything to help people we love, because we're always trying to avoid our own pain along with theirs," he said, looked at her earnestly for a moment, and then cracked a broad, radiant smile.
She blinked at him. "What's funny about that?"
"Me. I'm funny, or rather silly, going all Obi-Wan Kenobi on you. That just sounded so" – He wrinkled his nose – "lecturing. I'm sorry; I have a tendency to be a little scholarly on philosophical issues like love and soul and destiny and everything to do with it."
Before she knew it, she snickered, and said, "Nah, it's fine. You sounded more like you were trying to make me feel better."
"It's the second time today I've made you laugh, too," he said.
For a minute or so, they just sat there in silence, studying each other's expressions.
"How old are you?" she said, at length.
"Mentally? Twelve," he said, deadpan, and then snickered. "Sorry. I'm about a thousand years old. I don't recall the precise date of my death."
Her eyes grew wide. "Wow. Here I am, sitting in a kitchen with a thousand-year-old vampire, cracking Star Wars jokes. This can't be really happening."
"At least now you know why I'm able to produce an edible meal for you: I've had a lot of time to practice my cooking."
"Mm," she made, nodded, and scratched her nose, before facing him again. "Are you sure that your friends aren't gonna make it in time?"
"Yes. They'll be here tomorrow afternoon, if not later. International travel unfortunately takes time."
"And here I was, thinking you people were super-fast."
He made a face. "We're vampires, not X-Men."
She leaned back, looked blankly up at the whitish kitchen ceiling, closed her eyes, and massaged her temples with her fingertips. Her head was aching dully. "This is all so convoluted. I should tell you that our favourite axe-crazy bastard, Jasper the murderous asshole, tackled me in the woods and told me that he wants to play on our – I mean, your team." When she faced Demetri again, she had to snort laughter at the dumbfounded expression on his face. "It's true. There's something about his power or his natural psychopathy or whatever that makes him immune to the demon spawn's quest for world domination. He knows that the Cullen coven is doomed and wants to survive. It's what he told me, at least."
"I…" Demetri trailed off, closed his mouth, opened it again, closed it again, and shrugged. "I did not see that coming, but…all right." He leaned forward a little, squinting. "Are you absolutely sure about that?"
Chuckling without a trace of humour, she said, "Positive. Our boy Jasper is a true survivor, one has to give him that."
Clearly not an idiot, he of course picked up on the vitriol in her voice. "You want to kill him."
She straightened her posture, flattened her palms on the table, and returned his look squarely, saying, "I will kill him. You can count on that."
For a moment, he said nothing in reply. At length, though, he got to his feet in a fluid, deliberately slow motion, gathered her plate and cutlery, and to it to the sink to wash it all. "All right. Until then, though, you do realise that we now have an advantage on our side."
"How?" She started drumming on the table-top. "Sure, he doesn't have a single fuck to give about any of the Cullens, but he doesn't want to die. He'll fight the wolves and kill as many as he can because that's what he does best: murder people to save his own ass. Sticking with the Cullens is his best bet, because Sam won't care about vampiric allegiances. He'll know that Jasper is the one that killed the boys."
"I had a deal with Mister Black," Demetri said, efficiently washing the plate and cutlery and drying them off. "We wouldn't stand in the way of the pack's justice, and they'd let us take the dhampir. The dynamics have now shifted, but the deal is basically still the same: the wolves get their revenge, we get the child. If the wolves can look past their rage and grief for a moment, they'll understand that if they and my people co-operate fully, then we'll all get what we want. If they don't, more of them will die."
"It depends on Sam and on Jasper, mostly," she said, watching him put the dishes away and mop up spilled water from the kitchen counter by the stainless-steel sink. "Sam would have to agree to work with leeches. Creepula would have to agree to use his powers to calm everyone down instead of egging them on, and frankly, I don't see any of that happening. I mean, I know we all have to work together, and I want to rip that fucker's goddamn head off."
"I can't speak for any of you, but I can tell you this much: vampires have a hard time breaking the habit, and if a vampire is used to killing his way out of a predicament, then that'll be his go-to response," he said, turning around and leaning backwards against the counter, watching her impassively. "There will be a battle, as you said, which means that there will be more bloodshed. We have the opportunity to not only minimise the damage, but to shape the outcome to our advantage. The key to this is getting Sam to hold off his rampage of revenge until my people get here, as well as making use of Jasper's offer to side with us. Your hatred of him is irrelevant right now; we need him to succeed. I need your help. We need his. If we – if you can pull this off, none of your friends will die."
Crossing her arms atop the table, she said, "I'll try. I don't think it will do much good, but I'll try. Maybe I can sell Sam on the point that with three less wolves on his side and a souped-up Jasper on the Cullens', the wolves have no chance of making it out alive."
He arched an eyebrow. "Three?"
She pointed at herself. "I'm out for the count, as much as I hate it. I can't take one step onto the battlefield without allowing Jacob to force me to fight Sam's pack."
A very small, very subtle smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "I may have a bit of a solution for that."
This time, it was her eyebrows that shot up almost to her hairline. "A bit of a solution?"
"Yes. It's better than nothing, in any case, and it'll enable you to take an active part in solving everyone's problems. You don't strike me as the type of person who stays at home and lets others fight your battles for you."
"I'm not; you're right. I'll be happy to do whatever it takes in order to help, but, uh" – Her throat constricted, and she felt a weird, unpleasant shiver slither down her spine – "something tells me that I'm not gonna like this."
His subtle little smile turned into a certified smirk. "Something tells me that you're absolutely right about that."