"Conquer,butdon'ttriumph."

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

'Oh God, now I'm in your head,' Jacob whined as we phased. 'Oh my God.'

'Christ Sam, I didn't know you were so bendy,' Quil offered, sounding more intrigued than anything else. I didn't even have it in me to be upset by the inadvertent peep show I was giving. Hell, if anything I was proud.

'Dogs can lick their own dicks, why should you all be any different?' Leah replied with a yip, as she raced forward, her teeth sinking into the vampire's heel. Her rush of satisfaction coursed through us all, leaving the pack giddy and blood thirsty. 'I'm glad Seth isn't phased, or I'd have to kick your ass.'

With the metallic sound of torn vampire echoing in the air, Jake and I raced toward the beach, and our pack. I laughed, tamping back some of the worst of what was flashing through my mind. I couldn't stop it; Red was still fresh on my mind and naked in my bed. 'Sorry.' It probably didn't help matters that I reeked of her.

'You're not sorry,' Paul said with a snort. 'And you do reek. Never would have pegged Bella as a super-soaker.'

Like it had been plucked from my very mind, I couldn't squash the memory of her coming all over my hand fast enough. Jake groaned, a whine escaping his throat as we hit the beach, just in time to see our pack corner the vampire against the base of a high, shore-side cliff. We'd struck luck and hit low-tide, water rising barely past our paws. Her only chance was to get past us, a hearty pack of seven. It was hardly a chance at all.

'Hey, but that would have been good to confuse the leech,' Jared commented, cutting the leech off again as she made her escape. His teeth sank into her thigh and I felt my mouth water in anticipation of ripping her apart. 'So points for forward-thinking. You should have tried it ages ago!"

'Yeah I doubt that's what was forward about Sam's thinking,' Embry cut in dryly, before I could show them just how I had done Red before. 'Now get your heads in the game.'

The game, it seemed, was pin the vampire to the rocks. We had her circled, and her only escape was up. But here the stone had no purchase for her, worn smooth by waves and weather. She was snarling and spitting, venom glinting in moonlight. With the storm still blowing hard over the Pacific Ocean, and wind at our backs, I imagined our own returned snarls looked something like smiles. My mood had infected the pack, leaving them reckless and feral and happy about it.

The rain poured down upon us, near-monsoon winds whipping through our fur, and still we never wavered, we never stopped. There wasn't a force in this world beside Godly intervention that could have pulled us back. This was what we were made for. This was what we had been fighting for all these past weeks. We wanted the leech dead, and the feeling, the desperation to have it done, echoed between us, resonating and multiplying 'til we were foaming at the mouth. We'd been turned into feral, beastly versions of ourselves because of this bitch, limited down to our most basic needs. We wanted our lives back, even the fucked-up furry ones. We were more a pack in that moment than we had ever been, melding seemingly into one being with seven bodies.

This was one of the vampires who had spiked the changes in my pack. Before her, it had been enough that just I had phased. Then her clan had come, terrorizing and killing.She was the one who had caused them to turn. It was never the Cullen's, they were never a threat. This vampire, like her dead clan, was the threat. She had to die.

She did this. She did this. She did this. Those were the words that looped through our mind, as we closed in on her.

My last cognitive thought was this:

"Her head is mine."

It wasn't a battle; hell, it was barely even a fight. The chase had been the hardest part and we had ended that against the cliff. After such a long hunt, it was anticlimactic to say the least, leaving us both relieved and disappointed. Still, for the night, the job was done.

But for all that the leech was dead, we were more keyed-up than usual. Victory left us heady, with the taste of dead blood still in our mouth. We headed for my cabin, each in varying states of undress, not that it mattered at one in the morning. Red met us on the porch, holding a pair of my shorts in hand. She launched herself into my arms, promise broken as she was fully dressed. I didn't care. "You're okay," she choked, glassy-eyed. "All of you?"

"All of us," I confirmed, with what I was sure was an absolutely insufferable grin. It didn't matter, as it was matched six-fold by my pack. We'd earned it. Setting her down, I pulled on the shorts. I kept her close to me with an arm looped tight around her waist. "I have something for you," I explained, nodding to Jacob.

Even now knowing that this plan was possibly not thought out to its fullest, I wouldn't change what I had done. Red puked when she saw Victoria's head hanging by its ginger hair from Jacob's hand, but the offering had been made.

"God," Red breathed, still bent in half, hands braced on her knees. She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her shirt and made a disgusted little face. "God, sorry. I'm still a little drunk." She looked up at the head, its mouth snapping mindlessly and weak, and winced. "I don't know what protocol is here. Do I pat you on the head and tell you good job? You're not going to leave that on my doorstep, you know, like cats do sometimes, right?"

The comment was made without any condescension, and that in itself spoke volumes at how far Red had grown. "You get to do the honors," I explained, even as Jacob fished a lighter out of his pocket. "We figure you should have a hand in it, as part of our pack."

She took the lighter, following at my side as the pack headed for the very same clearing I had my ass handed to me not so long ago. "You really see me as a part of this?" she asked, loud enough for everyone's benefit. "Why?"

"You're mine," I answered, without even thinking on it. Basic instincts demanded I make that known, apparently.

Even I could feel the instant tension in the air as the pack waited for her to refuse me. Instead, she took my hand in hers and shrugged. "Guess I am," she said, looking the head blankly. "But I still don't get it."

"It isn't even just your thing with Sam," Leah cut in, frowning as she fought to find the right words. "It's...look, don't think that us accepting you has anything to do with Sam, because it doesn't. You could turn him down tomorrow, and we'd still think of you as our own." True though it was, I gave her a scathing look. I didn't need anyone putting ideas into Red's head. "What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't bank on Sam. I think...I think you're worried that we'll always see you as an extension of him, but you're wrong. You're a sister to us now. That, even before you're Sam's...whatever."

No one refuted her claims, and I watched from the corner of my eye as Red's mouth pulled up into a thoughtful half-smile. "What do I do?" she asked, as Jacob tossed the leech's head at the center of the clearing.

"Go for the hair," Paul offered, pointing to the bloody mass. "Its covered in her blood, so it should go up easy. Light it up in the middle, and just...back away. It'll burn her out."

Doing as Paul instructed, Bella lit the flame with one flick of the lighter. It caught the dark blood matting the leech's hair like lighter fluid, the little flame of fire racing up the red curls as if they were a fuse. The leech never stopped hissing, mindless and zombie-like, as it frothed at the mouth and burned up slowly. The skin across her cheek stretched and melted, leaving gaping, open holes in her face.

Red buried her face in my chest, and I let her, holding her there tightly. That I could do so here for all the world to see, if by world I meant my pack, thrilled me. It would seem that the kick in the ass we needed came in the form of alcohol. Would that all problems were so easily solved, I might have busted out the bottle earlier on. Red was mine now, though I hardly thought it was the end of all our issues.

So much was still left undone, unsaid and unheard, but she'd accepted me on some level, and at the moment, that was all I needed. With sickly-sweet smoke filling the air and burning my eyes, I watched a chapter in all our lives close.

But as this wasn't the end, where one chapter is finished, another begins.

Sleep did not come easy for either of us, as we lay in bed curled around each other. She'd forced me onto one of the kitchen stools as soon as we returned to the cabin, easing my arm into a sling. It laid pillowed against my stomach now, the perfect place for my fingers to catch her curls, from where she laid her head on my other shoulder.

"I don't know what to do now," she confessed, tilting her head to look up at me. "I feel like my life was on pause here, for these last few weeks."

"You don't have to stay with my mother any more," I hedged, wondering if she could feel my heart beating harder in my chest.

"I know," Red smiled, a peek of teeth behind her pale lips. "Dad and I can finally go home."

Derailed, it took me a moment to respond. "What?" That hadn't been where I'd intended this conversation to go at all, but as always, Red had her own agenda.

"Charlie and I," she repeated. "It's safe, we can go home. Your mother is awesome, but she's got the girls. She doesn't-"

"I meant you could stay here," I cut her off rudely. "With me. Here." 'Here' being the key word. I couldn't imagine having her anywhere else. What the hell had just happened?

"Sam," she said softly, her eyes sad. I held my breath and wondered what the fuck had gone wrong in the last ten minutes. "I have to get on with my life. I can't stay on the Rez."

"Of course you can!" I stuttered. "Why couldn't you? I'm chief and I say so," I added, petulantly. "Red..."

"I'm not leaving you," she told me, as if sensing my unease. "Look, I realize about half our fighting these last few weeks has been epic foreplay, but did you really think we'd fuck and move in together?" At my silence, she laughed. "You did! Sam, I'm nineteen."

It was an excellent point and one I didn't care for.

Pressing on, she sighed. "I'm not ready for that. Hell, I've just come to terms that I'm ready for...for you. Just because we're...we're us now doesn't mean I'm ready to shack up, get married and start squeezing out pups. I had dreams once and...and I guess now that the Cullen drama is behind me, I can figure out how to get back to them."

"...it wouldn't have to be right now," I said after a pause. "I just...I don't know. You're right." She was, and that sucked. She'd given me an inch and I was going for the mile.

I was asking too much.

"I know," she said with a smile too reminiscent of my mothers. "We know a lot about each other Sam; how to get under each other's skin, how to push each other's buttons. But we don't know the basics 'cause we went and skipped a big part in our...our relationship. I don't know your birthday or your favorite color or-"

"Red," I cut off, and she gave me a 'what?' kind of look. "Red is my favorite color."

She blushed, and laughed. "Of course it is. But do you understand what I'm saying?"

I did, and while it was a good idea - a great idea, really - I felt more impatient for having her than I did when she wasn't mine. "You want to date?"

"Yeah maybe," Red shrugged. "Or maybe I just want to try being with you. It's not like if I leave, I'm not coming back. I love the Rez; my family is here. Plus, I'm still studying with the guys, and working on the journals. And Paul and I have anger management-"

"You're going to anger management with Paul?" There was no way to keep the incredulity out of my voice, so I didn't even bother to attempt it. "You got Paul to take anger management classes?" It was probably the more prominent question.

Snorting, Red shook her head. "Actually it was his idea. He asked me to come with him, thought we could both use a little help. Haven't you noticed? He's actually doing better than I am."

I hadn't noticed, but it didn't make it any less true. Paul was much more level-headed these days, and it had shown in his hunting. He was calmer, but no less calculating. He hadn't flown off the handle at a scent for weeks. Whatever he'd been doing, he was a better wolf for it. Huh.

"How was he hiding it?" I muttered. "I should have known."

"Well, he told you we were studying for class," Red said. It was true; every Wednesday evening at four to six, Red and Paul studied. "It wasn't exactly a lie."

It occurred to me that Paul had helped Red. If he had done it for me, that was fine, but I had a feeling he'd done it for her. Paul knew better than anyone what it was like to be ruled by your emotions. He probably understood Red's anger issues and inability to let go better than I ever could. He'd helped her.

Paul was getting a raise. And like...a week off. And a promotion.

"Plus," Red continued on. "We still have the third punishment. I think that dating me is bias enough. I don't think I could live with you without...you know, finishing the last one."

"The last one being my personal reparation," I confirmed, and she nodded, throwing her naked thigh up over my own leg. "You know, you did just save an Elder-"

"No," she cut me off, covering my mouth with her hand. I nipped at her fingers and smiled. "I did that because I wanted to, because I could. I don't want that to be a reparation. Give me something real. I want to do something for the Rez, or for you...anything you want. Except moving in with you," she tacked on at the end, giving me a look.

I laughed, an idea forming in my mind. "Do you think you could live here one day? On the Rez, I mean?" With me, I added internally. I wouldn't blame her if she never wanted it. Red had dreams that were bigger than Forks, how could I expect her to tie herself down to the Rez?

"I can't imagine ending up anywhere else," she replied quietly.

tbc