22 - Surprise
After a week of not being able to get any sleep at the dorm I finally I broke down and spent the night at Phila's place. On Friday night I headed straight to her apartment after I got off of work, Phil promised to meed me there in the morning. I did not feel too bad about crashing at Phila's place since I had been given an open invitation - plus it was much more quiet.
Catching up on a week's worth of sleep meant that I woke up later than usual, it was not a pleasant awakening because I was not smelling breakfast. Maybe Phil was not here yet, but no, I could hear him talking to Phila in his deep voice. "It should not take too long if we leave early tomorrow. A couple of days tops."
"I will remember to pack the big guns this time." Phila answered him, I could hear the reluctance in her voice.
"At least it is winter there, so it won't be blisteringly hot." Phil told her in a cajoling tone. Sounded like phil was planning another trip, he had never really clarified where he went when he disappeared for days at a time last Fall - somehow I doubted that Phila would need to take guns when they went to LA. While there might be some parts of Los Angeles that required you to be packing heat so to speak I did not think that was where Phil and his partner travelled. Jasper had mentioned trips overseas that were not exactly tourist locations, that might be where Phil was going now.
He must have heard my stomping down the hall because all talk ceased until I walked into Phila's kitchen.
"Morning Princess," he said giving me the full dimpled smile. They were sitting around her small table drinking what smelled like tea. "Are you ready to go?"
Since I was still wearing my pajamas, I did not bother to answer his question. "Where is my promised food?" I complained not even attempting to be polite, Phil should know by now that I was not a morning person.
"If you want your breakfast you will have to get dressed and come with me to the island," he told me with a friendly smile.
Grumbling under my breath about broken promises I went back to the spare bedroom to put on some clothes, Phila let me keep a few spare clothes in the closet so I grabbed a couple of those before heading to the shower. If I was going to have to get dressed I might as well get cleaned up.
The jump to the island was not as disconcerting as the first time I had done it. The snow was still thick on the ground, but it looked like they had not added anymore since last time I had been here.
The ancient forest was still deeply frozen solid, there were no signs of the trees coming back to life anytime soon. I had been so distracted by the towering trees around us that it took me a while to notice that Phil was going the wrong way. I sighed and contemplated telling him he had managed to get lost, again. I was mentally debating whether it would be faster to tell him outright that he was lost, or if I should be more subtle in my attempts to redirect him. The problem was that I had not been paying attention and was a little bit lost as well; I wasted a few minutes trying to figure out the fastest way to my breakfast.
"Here we are," Phil told me as we entered a large clearing. Ahead of us was what they called the main house. It really was a gigantic four story compound that had started out much smaller but over the millennia had gone through several additions. This is where they kept their clinic, some facilities to do pretty hard core experiments, as well as garages full of vehicles in various states of assembly. They might not drive the vehicles on the island but sometimes they would bring them back here to fix them up or add various upgrades.
I had been inside the garage portion of the building but never beyond that, Jake spent a lot of time here and was trying to learn how to put some of the more exotic cars together. I followed Phil wondering what was so important that we were putting it before food?
"Just one stop and I promise all your food wishes will be fulfilled." Phil told me as we went down a hall I had not seen before. This part of the house reminded me of those old British mansions you see on TV, I kept expect a butler to pop our of the woodwork and tell us to be on our way. There were strange and ancient looking tapestries hanging on the walls as well as various urns sitting on tables that could have been considered works of art just by themselves. Phil led me to a set of large double doors that had been intricately carved. "Ladies first," he told me with a small bow as he pulled the door open for me.
I rolled my eyes before entering the somewhat dark room. The lights immediately turned on with a loud, "SURPRISE!"
There was a big banner across the room that said Happy Birthday Princess. "You jerk," I mumbled underneath my breath while trying to not look as embarrassed as I felt. "You got it wrong, it is not my birthday today."
Phil quickly corrected me, "actually if you take into account the fact that you spent two weeks here you are indeed was twenty years old today." He was such a tricky man.
"Happy birthday, Leah," my brother told me after giving me a quick hug.
My entire pack was in on the surprise, all the Cullens except Rosalie had come as well. There were also several members of the family who I had met before, including Aunt Jazz who turned out to be Kendrick's mother. She was a very tall woman, she looked like she could kick ass but was actually a big sweetheart. Jake had taken a liking to her, or more accurately he had fallen in love with her garage full of bikes and cars. Aunt Jazz was by education a mechanical engineer and according to Jake actually was a professor of engineering in some college overseas. Her impressive credentials were not what made her so attractive, not that would have been the fact that her hobby was racing motorcycles. Phil had admitted to me that it had been his Aunt Jazz that taught him how to ride a bike - that had certainly explained a great deal about his driving style.
Fortunately for Phil's well being my embarrassed mood disappeared as soon as I saw the table loaded with insane amounts of food. The breakfast he had promised me turned out to be more of a brunch filled with enough food to feed a small army. From the way the guys were eyeing the food I knew my pack was looking forward to trying to consume everything in sight. It would be a challenge, someone had prepared for wolf guests and had gone overboard in the proportions.
"Everyone it is time to open presents," Alice said with a great deal too much enthusiasm after everyone who actually ate food had several goes at the table. She was more excited about this than I was.
By opening presents she did not mean actually taking the wrapping paper off of anything, most of my gifts were too big to wrap. My birthday surprise had been organized to the point where even my gifts were coordinated. Someone had decided that my rooms at Phil's house were too empty and so most of my presents were "room warming stuff". I am not talking some candles and a couple of potted plants. My gifts included large pieces of furniture including bookshelves, a new couch and matching side tables, as well as a desk with a comfy chair to match. Alice and Aunt Katie had gifted me a new wardrobe that had already been installed in the room; they would probably pass out if they saw what I wore to school. At least Aunt Katie would, since she was actually capable of fainting.
After the presents came the cake, a large creation made mostly of cream and cherries. Like the banner above me, the cake too said Happy Birthday Princess, I was never going to escape that nickname now. Someone blinded me with the flash from a camera while I blew out all twenty candles. After that little bit of time in the limelight I was allowed to disappear again. I was not expected to be the hostess of the occasion, everyone seemed to fend for themselves. I managed to corner my brother to ask how he was doing. We had not spoken since he had called to tell me he was back home.
"Don't worry about it Leah, I am fine now. This was just a lesson, I will wait to imprint before I start dating again." He told me with a smile. "It was probably partially my fault, I was not really committed to being her boyfriend. It is hard to do so when I could find my mate at any point and have to break up with Jill." Sometimes I thought Seth was far older than he looked.
I was on my way back to the cake, more than half of the cake remained and it would be a crime to let that tasty treat go to waste. I had even picked out the corned piece with the extra creamy icing when my path to the dessert was blocked; it was fortunate that I had already eaten because this person was risking her life standing between me and my food. She was a small, plain little thing, with brown hair and these strange golden colored eyes that were too big for her face. She looked up at me, her large eyes making what should have been an ordinary face become far more striking. She was dressed in a basic pair of dark blue jeans combined with a cable knit sweater.
"Happy Birthday Leah," she said in a quiet voice. She looked so diminutive I felt guilty just considering pushing her out of my way.
"Thank you, um..." I was trying to fish around for her name, but I could not recall ever meeting her before. I looked around and saw Phil with a concerned frown on his face trying to make his way towards me. He was well aware of how much I loved food, and wanted to make sure that the petite woman in front of me would remain unhurt.
The small woman noticed what Phil was doing as well, she made a face at him and gave a small shake of her head. It surprised me when Phil acquiesced to her order with merely a deferential bow in her direction. Maybe Phil's intent had been to protect me from her, and not vice versa like I originally thought.
"I apologize, we have not been properly introduced. My name is Bee, it is a pleasure to meet you." She had a very slight accent that would have not been obvious had I not concentrated so hard on her words. Phil backing down respectfully just because she shook her head raised red flags in my mind. This little woman was far more important than her appearance would indicate.
"It is very nice to meet you too, Bee." I replied as politely as possible.
"I was going to get you a Bob, but my daughter suggested that you would not need it very much longer." She told me as she bend down to pick up a large wrapped box I had not noticed earlier.
I put my plate down with a sigh, knowing my second piece of cake would have to wait. The box was large, and wrapped in this two toned silver paper that was so pretty I was reluctant to tear through it.
"Well go ahead, rip it open," Bee told me as she watched me hesitate.
Bee's present for me was a very large and fluffy quilt, the colors were green and cream. Inside each panel there was a flower, green material had been used for it's leaves but the flowers themselves looked to be stitched by hand.
"White heather and clover for luck, people always underestimate the power of luck," Bee told me as I stared at the quilt. When she pointed it out, I noticed that each intersection of the green fabric had little four leaf clovers. This had taken some serious work, I did not know if I should accept something this intricate.
She smiled at me and huge dimples appeared on in each cheek, that was when I finally realized she might be related to Phil. "Do you like it?" she asked quietly.
"Oh yes of course, thank you." I had been speechless while contemplating how much work had actually gone into making this quilt for me. I was beginning to wonder who she was.
"Now you can go back to your cake," she gave me a wink, making me believe that she had known all the dangers involved in getting in between me and food. After carefully placing my quilt back in the box, I picked up my discarded plate before heading back to my birthday cake.
Phil joined me as I cut an extra large piece. "How are you?" He sounded a little nervous.
"Fine, by the way who the heck was that?" I asked him in a low whisper.
"That was Berenike, my grandmother." He told me with an apologetic smile, "she can be a little rough on people at times."
"Your grandmother?" I asked amazed, looking over at the small woman who was currently speaking with Esme. She sure as heck did not look like anyone's grandmother. "Wait a minute was she not one of the people who verbally kicked the Volturi in the nuts?" I could not reconcile that falling apart old skeleton, with this pink cheeked little woman.
"She has a really good glamour for those special occasions," Phil explained as he followed me back to a table.
"I still don't fully understand why you guys do it?" What was the point of getting all dressed up like corpses.
"Several reasons, the main one is to stay hidden. If the Volturi or any other vampire knew what we actually looked like it would make living amongst the humans a lot more difficult. When you are constantly watching your back against vampire attacks it makes fitting in a little harder."
"So this way you get to come out and scare the crap out of the Leech Princes and then disappear back into the mist - they don't know where you go, or when you could come back," this family was sort of the vampire boogyman, but I still did not understand why they went to the lengths which they did? "Why include the zombies? Why not just have Berenike show up and throw around a few fireballs - which I assume you all can."
"The Volturi tend to covet everything, if they knew that Bee is young and can throw fireballs and jump and keep people out of their minds they might get a little..." Phil searched for the right word.
"Jealous?" I asked, but it was more of a rhetorical question. The Volturi were envious of anyone that they saw with power.
"More like willing to accumulate, I am sure they were trying to figure out if they could collect the newest member of the guardians." Phil told me with a shrug, the Volturi's need to hoard things with power was not a secret.
"You mean clumsy girl? Melissa." Now that Phil mentioned it I could recall how Aro had looked at her, trying to asses her potential.
"I hope you know she is nothing like that," Phil explained with a smile. "Now tell me birthday girl, how do you like your party?"
Phil's dimples reminded me of Bee's own large craters, "I am sure it is the age difference - if you are two thousand years old I don't want to know how old your grandmother is - but what the heck is this Bob she was talking about getting for me?" I was curious as to what it actually was.
"A Bob?" Phil asked his face suddenly blank of all emotions, "a nickname for Robbert?"
"No, your grandmother was considering giving me a Bob, but then she decided I would not need one. So what the hell is a Bob?" I asked a Phil who suddenly could not meet my eye.
"Well, Bob is an acronym for battery operated boyfriend," Phil's voice came out a little strangled sounding, but he had turned away from me so I could not see his expression.
"What is a battery operated..." that was when it finally dawned on me. His grandmother had considered getting me a vibrator, seriously was there not anyone out there that did not know about my lack of a sex life?
Phil glanced back at me and as soon as he saw the shocked look on my face he could not contain his laughter any more. I instantly decided that Aunt Jazz looked really lonely across the room and needed some company.
It was late afternoon when I finally made it to Phil's house. Several people were kind enough to help transport my presents back to Phil's house. Alice and Aunt Katie's gift of clothes was already in the enormous closet of my room. Despite of its carvernous size they had somehow managed to pack it full of clothes, it could take me years to go through everything - they had gone seriously overboard.
After everyone finally left it was nice to finally have some absolute peace and quiet, no more pack members, no more family telling you about the sex toys they wanted to buy for you, and no more teenage girls talking in their awful high pitched voices.
"I have one more present for you." Phil told me when he found me downstairs in the kitchen getting a drink of water.
"Don't you think I have enough presents?" I said with a laugh. They really took birthdays seriously in this family.
"It is because this is your twentieth, that is a very significant birthday in our family. We are not allowed off the island after our twentieth birthday, usually our powers 'kick in' and we are obligated to stay away from humans until we get them fully under control." He shrugged his shoulders by way of explanation, like it was not a big deal that people that I met less than a year ago were giving me presents that cost a fortune. Not that money seemed to matter much to immortals, they all seemed to amass the stuff.
"Woah you are actually volunteering something about yourself and I have not had to pull it out of you?" I pretended to be shocked, but he was not bothered by my poor acting abilities.
"This is not actually a proper present. It is more like returning something that was already yours." Cryptic Phil was back, I had been worried for a moment.
Curiosity flooded me as he put a folded piece of paper in my hand. There was something thick in the middle. I paused for a moment considering his words, what property of mine could he possibly be returning to me?
I put the small package on the counter before gently unfolding the flaps of paper to reveal my present from Phil. It took me a moment to recognize it, and then I was rendered speechless. It was my grandmother's necklace, the one I thought was destroyed - a casualty of the Volturi invasion.
"I found it in pieces just outside the cabin, it took me a while to find the parts and put it all together again." I heard the words rushing out of his mouth, almost like he was uncertain about my reaction. "I mean it is yours, is it not?"
I still could think of a million ways to tell how how much I loved the gift but for some reason my mouth refused to work. I threw my arms around his neck to give him a hug instead of using words. He put his arms around my waist as if he was about to return the embrace but then his body immediately stiffened. While the family was very physically affectionate towards each other, often kissing and hugging when they met, Phil had never behaved like that towards me.
I swiftly pulled back to look at his face, ready to apologize for I don't know what exactly. Was I being too touchy-feely? My apology was instantly forgotten as I glanced up at Phil.
His eyes were purple, he was staring at something far away - I was willing to bet he did not see the wall behind me.
I had been told there was pretty much nothing you could do when he was seeing something, he was usually totally distracted by the vision. But it was hard for me to do just stand there and do nothing. His arms were loose around my hips, frozen in the position he had place them before the vision hit him. The fact that he was not even blinking worried me, I put my hands on his either side of his cheeks and rubbed the smooth surface a little bit to try to get his attention, "Phil, can you hear me?"
Unfortunately he did not answer, he was still consumed by whatever the spirit inside was showing him.
"Leah?" He finally said after what seemed like an hour but was probably no more than a a minute. His tone was questioning, almost desperate sounding - his eyes were still the deep unseeing purple. He placed his hands on top of mine that were still resting on his cheeks. I thought he was going to pull them away but to my surprise he held them closer to his face, keeping my hands still while he rubbed his face against them.
"Phil are you all right?" I was still not used to these visions that would take a hold of him. Not that they were all that frequent, I had only seen him do this two times and in both instances Phila had been there to handle it.
"Leah?" He said again this time his voice was laced with more fear than I had ever heard.
"I am right here." I tried to reassure him as I looked into his eyes, they were searching around blindly. One of his hands moved down my body before settling on the small curve of my waist. Before I could even begin to contemplate what he was doing he pulled me flush against his hard body.
"Leah," he said in a soft voice, this time my name was a caress. To say I was surprised by the embrace was an understatement, but that was nothing compared to how I felt when his mouth came crashing down on mine a moment later. I opened my mouth, maybe to protest maybe to encourage his kiss. My brain function deteriorated as soon as his lips had touched mine. His scent was much stronger when we were this close, the smell of citrus and sage was something I would always associate with Phil.
Phil decided slightly open mouth was an invitation because his tongue suddenly pushed its was into my mouth. That was the point where all brain function shut down and my body decided it just wanted to feel. In the back of my mind a small voice pointed out that there was something to be said for experience, Sam had never kissed me like this. Though this was not a kiss, it was more of a claiming; his mouth moved roughly over mine, his tongue determined to explore every inch of the inside of my mouth. As I pushed my tongue against his I tasted cherries, cream and the essence of Phil.
He used his hand on my lower back to pull me even closer to him, while his other hand was entangled in my hair as he tilted my head so that our mouths could fit together better. As he wrapped his body around me I noticed the temperature difference between us, Phil's normally cooler skin was now hot against mine and I could not help but soak in some of his warmth. I had gone from worried to fully aroused, tingles erupted across my entire body. Almost instinctively I moved my hands from his face to his shoulders, this way I could pull myself up higher to meet his kiss with an assault of my own. Phil seemed to get the right idea as his hand went my lower back down to cup my ass, while he lifted me up closer he never broke contact with my mouth. He continued his assault, there was an almost bruising quality to his kiss but I did not mind.
This was a Phil that I had never met before, all his civilized veneer was gone leaving behind this brutal primitive man whose every frenzied lick against the delicate flesh inside of my cheek was bringing me to the heights of arousal I had never reached before. I rubbed my body against his and felt parts of me clench, my mind decided to come back only to go through memories of what could be done with a willing man. From the large "impression" he was leaving against me I could tell Phil was a very willing man. My body was totally ready to oblige any and every one of those plans.
I don't know how long we would have continued or how far it would have gone had we not heard the front door open and close loudly.
Phil stiffened for a moment, well the parts that were not already really, really hard and he pulled away from me. I considered using my wolf strength to pull him back, and screw the consequences. Instead I silently cursed the person who had interrupted.
By the time I opened my eyes he was a few yards away from me, he was rubbing his closed eyes like he wanted to erase whatever he had seen.
"Sorry about that." He said with a casual voice, but it was not really effective considering how hard he was breathing. The large bulge in the front of his jeans was another indicator that his calm voice was just for show.
"I added an elastic string when I put your necklace together again, it should not break if you phase while wearing it again." He continued, like he had not just taken me to the brink and left me wanting.
"Oh I see that you gave her the necklace. He has been working furiously to try to get it back together again before your birthday." Phila said, I don't know how she did not notice the tension in the room. "What is the matter are you getting another headache?"
"No, just a bad vision," Phil said, he had stopped rubbing his eyes but he still had not opened them.
"What did you see?" Phila asked curiously. "Oh come on why do you have to be such a little bitch when it comes to sharing your visions?"
Phil opened his eyes, they were the beautiful light green again - just the way ai liked them. There was still some heat left in them from our embrace but they were mostly filled with fear. "You were dead, something killed you." He said with absolute terror written all over his face as he looked straight at me.
A/N: All right see I keep my promises. There was a kiss. I am making no promises about the next chapter being up tomorrow. I have to go shopping for a new pair of jeans, my old ones are so torn up I can no longer even pretend that the holes are deliberate. So I am off to go shopping for jeans, this activity is sure to put me in a depressed mood. Let us just say that unfortunately I do not have werewolf metabolism. Stupid cheesecake... why do you have to be so tasty? Oh and homemade cinnamon rolls, and chocolate, and these really tasty white chocolate macademia nut cookies. Oh and the trick to making really good whipped cream is to mix in cream cheese, it makes is so much yummier that way.
All right time to move away from my constant failed attempts to eat right. Did you guys like Bee, Phil's grandmother offering to get her a vibrator? And what did you guys think about the kiss? Too much? Too little?
ABarbie story: Heehee, it is fun to drive people crazy, don't worry Leah will figure it out soon enough. So did you guess who exactly will be kissing? Glad you liked the college life description, I kind of moved over some of the grosser parts I remember people doing - aka wearing a dirty shirt inside out makes it instantly clean (NOT!). I am deliberately trying to not be too descriptive of UW, since I have never actually been there. The whole part about professors hitting everyone with assignments all at the same time is actually true, and they also sit around plotting test questions to try to mess you up (I have experience with this, I used to help make up the evil questions to help separate the boys from the men.)
Twilighter: What do you mean you are leaving me? ...goes over to a corner to cry... joking, I am going to be a little more busy in the upcoming weeks so you might have to get used to less frequent updates.
Connect2tjb: I think it is funny how impatient you are, especially since you know what is coming. I have been working on trying to get my lemons more lemony what do you think?
Ms animegoddess: Glad you liked Josefine's form of revenge, I was kind of mean to Leah, giving her the normal life she wanted but making her realize that normal is not always all that it is cracked up to be. Ryan will make another appearance, or at least he will be mentioned, but it is not in a way that you will expect. Peter might be back to annoy Leah, but I don't know if he will fit in anywhere as of yet. By the way was that enough romance for you?
Keither Serenity: I am sorry that you had to go through a bad break-up, hold your little horses regarding Jill. Unfortunately we have not seen the last of her and there will be some long term consequences. I don't think I can let Leah go to an all night kegger (spelling?) I am pretty sure if anything happened to her Phil would manage to jump out of the computer and kick my ass.