twenty-six.

(Leah)

Sundown is less than an hour away, but Leah pays no heed to the fading light. She continues her hike, exhilarated and excited, keenly aware of Jacob's every move behind her.

It's out of pity when she eventually pauses for a moment; he has been trying — rather unsuccessfully — to coax her back to sandy shores from the moment she jumped up onto the rocks, his voice pitching with panic every time her feet step just a little too close to the edge of the breakwater.

If she carries on much longer, he will undoubtedly sweep her over his shoulder and bolt in the opposite direction. Honestly — it's the only reason she's taunted him for as far as she has.

Balancing precariously on uneven footing now, she points a finger towards where the orange-red horizon has cast its fire glow over the Salish Sea. They've almost reached the exact spot she likes to hang her legs over the wall and turn her back to the world behind — where there's nothing to be seen except for the open stretch of water beyond. Pillar Point is just one of her many favourite places in Washington, in the whole world, but she has never shared it with anyone else before. Has never had anyone she wanted to share it with.

Until now.

Her skin tingles from the briny wind that has tangled her hair as she throws a mile-wide grin over her shoulder.

"Look," she says, gleeful. "Do you like it?"

"Love it," he replies through gritted teeth, more sarcastic than enthusiastic, his face taut with anxiety. "Now let's go back. Please."

Her laugh is loud enough to frighten the crying gulls into the sky. The desire she feels to be as strong as a wolf is all-consuming, but it is in this moment that she feels as free as the birds above. "Stop worrying so much. Come on!"

"I will when you stop being an idiot! Get back now!" he yells — just at exactly the same time she pretends to wobble a little too far to the left, and she bursts into laughter again when he almost trips over the salt-stained rocks in his hurry to catch her.

"You're not funny," he grumbles, trying to keep an eye on both her and his feet as he manoeuvres himself over the rocks. "You're going to hurt yourself."

"No, I'm not. You're here," she says, laughing still as she daringly sets off again.

Jacob grumbles underneath his breath, words muffled by the breeze, but still he follows. He keeps his hands outstretched, prepared to catch her should she fall, and it warms her healed heart enough that she slows down enough to remain within his reach until they reach the end of the breakwater and finally sit.

"You're so dangerous," he complains, dropping down beside her. He drapes an arm over her shoulder, keeping her close — keeping her safe, away from the dangers only an imprinted wolf can see.

But he is still unhappy with her. "You did that on purpose."

Leah leans her head back against his arm and beams up at him, unabashed and unapologetic. "Sorry."

"Liar." His snort is flat, though his expression has softened somewhat, and she knows she is forgiven already. "Don't do it again."

She cranes her neck over his shoulder. The few people on the beach are mere specks behind them. "You know we've gotta go back the way we came, right?"

"I'm carrying you," he announces resolutely, following her line of sight with no small amount of horror.

Leah rolls her eyes to high heaven and back. "I can walk, Jake."

"You can complain about sexism once your feet are on even ground again."

"Oh, stop having a cow," she teases. "Is this what it's going to be like every time there's a bit of danger? Because I hate to break it to you, but I've been told there's a vampire on the loose."

He grunts. "Don't remind me."

She just grins, easy and natural like the gentle waves underneath her boots.

So far, they've done a pretty good job of avoiding the obvious. What they have discussed has been very careful, borderline hypothetical, skirting around the real reason why she has sought him out. And it doesn't seem like he's picked up on anything she's actually said that has already revealed the choice she's made.

It's easier to tease him, easier to laugh. No matter what they're doing, whether it's finding Quil or finding Sam or hiking, or just being together, Leah always finds herself having such a good time with Jacob that it's hard to willingly steer them off-course. This could very easily crash and burn around her regardless of what she chooses — what she has chosen. Nothing in her world has ever proven certain.

But at this point, she knows that she's doing him more harm than good by delaying what needs to be said. What she needs to say and what he needs to hear.

"What's all this about, Leah?" he asks her before she can get the words out. His gaze has turned hot above her head. Burning, again. She doesn't have to look up at him to know what she will find. "Why here?"

"I like this place," she says, thumping heart louder than her voice.

"Is that it?"

"Do you think we'd be here, right now, if things were different?" she asks instead of replying. She's not ready yet— just a few more minutes, a little while longer of normality . . . "That we'd be doing the same things, sitting in the same places . . ."

"If all the supernatural shit didn't exist?" he asks, and she smiles slightly. He remembers.

('Maybe it's just shown me what could have always been there,' he'd said that day. 'These last couple weeks with you, all we've done together, I'm pretty sure I'd want you even if all the supernatural stuff didn't exist.'

'If all the supernatural stuff didn't exist,' she'd replied, 'then I'd still be with Sam. And you . . .'

'Maybe. Maybe not.')

"Even if it did," she says this time. "Except you hadn't imprinted and you were still . . . free."

"Why wouldn't I imprint on you?" he asks, frowning, offended at the idea.

"Maybe imprinting doesn't exist," she suggests casually, willing him to play along, to understand, "or maybe the right person hasn't come along yet, I don't know."

He blinks, entirely oblivious. "But there isn't anyone else." Because in his world, there is certainty. Far more than there has ever been in hers.

Leah rolls her eyes. "Humour me."

Jacob scratches the back of his head with his free hand, out of his depth. "I don't know," he says. "I think . . . Yeah, we could have been, if that's what you're asking. Very easily. Whether we would have . . . I have no idea. You're kinda scary sometimes. I probably would have been too frightened to make a move."

Her smile turns wry. He's caught on, finally playing her game. "So it would have been up to me to ask you out, I suppose?"

"I like strong women," he jokes, except it actually comes out sounding more like a question, and she can't help but snort. Jacob even manages to return her smile. "I would have said yes, though, if you had." A beat. "Would you have?"

Leah opens her mouth. Hesitates.

Except, there's not much to consider. Jacob has always been a good kid, she thinks. And she's always thought of him as just that — a kid. He's Rach and Beck's baby brother, owning all of their best traits, all of their mother's kindness and their father's devotion for the tribe. He can be slightly temperamental at times, sure, but then so can she — only he has an excuse for it because his hormones are probably all messed up from being forced to literally explode out of his skin, whilst she can't even confidently claim puberty anymore.

And, well — shit, it's not as if she's blind or anything. Jacob is not just a good kid through and through, he's also a good-looking kid. And he certainly doesn't look like a kid anymore.

If the world had given the two of them a chance, Leah is sure she would have gotten over any reservations eventually. About their small age difference, about having watched each other grow up . . . It's easy between them now. Easier than it has ever been. They are opposite in so many ways and yet they match. What's to say it really would have been any different if he hadn't imprinted? It's not like the damn thing has rewritten who she is.

Maybe it's just shown me what could have always been there . . .

"Yes," she answers honestly. Probably. Most likely. Eventually.

Definitely.

He straightens his back, almost preening at the answer he receives; his eyes light up against the almost-darkened sky, and she is sure that he even puffs his chest a little bit. "Really?"

Boys.

"Sure," she replies. "If things were — you know, normal, and we weren't still so . . ." So hung up on other people, she wants to say — but that's wrong, because she's not hung up on Sam and she is trying her hardest to believe that he's not hung up on Bella.

Who knows. Maybe Jake is trying to believe the same thing about her.

"Yeah," he agrees, like he knows exactly what she's thinking. (She hopes he doesn't.) "This feels pretty normal, though." And as if to emphasise his point, he draws her in impossibly closer underneath his arm.

"Yeah," she echoes softly.

"Leah . . ."

She hears everything with that breath. And she knows that it's now — she has to do it now. He has been far more patient with her than she deserves, but he won't wait any longer.

"Yeah," she says quietly again, pulling her legs in and tucking her knees close to her chest. "I know."

The arm holding her tenses, the body against hers suddenly rigid, and she thinks he might have stopped breathing altogether. Until he says, unable to conceal his fear, "It's bad, isn't it."

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"So you . . . I mean . . . You've decided, then."

Leah looks up at him. "I'm not here to tell you no, Jake." And at the reignited hope which flares in his eyes, the happiness stretching across his cheeks, she adds quickly, "But I don't think I can tell you what to do, either."

He's not surprised. A little self-satisfied with himself, too; he expected this of her. But hope lingers. "I thought as much."

"I can't. That you're supposed to just be okay with whatever I say . . . It doesn't sit right. It's wrong. But I don't want to cause you pain, either. I don't think I can."

"It hurts," he says, understanding washing over his face. "Hurting each other. When I first told you about this — about Sam and Emily, and you . . ." Jacob trails off, but Leah knows they are both remembering that day. She has to wrap her arms around her knees to stop herself from shuddering. "I was nearly sick, too."

He had known why, though. Had known why that much pain affected him so badly.

Leah wonders if she reacted that way for the same reason. Because it hadn't been wholly about Sam and Emily, the way she'd broken down. She sees it with renewed perspective now. Now that she knows.

Hindsight, she scoffs silently.

"It would be the same even if I ran in the other direction screaming, wouldn't it?" She curses herself for wanting to lean into his blazing heat at the idea of running, of willingly parting herself from him. Her whole body protests at the very thought. "It wouldn't go away — that feeling. We'd end up here no matter what I told you."

She could fight it. That part comes easy, the fighting, and always has. But she's not foolish enough to believe that she's strong enough to keep it up for the rest of her life. She'd break, eventually. She knows it.

She could fight it. She just doesn't want to.

"That doesn't mean you just have to accept this, Leah." He swallows thickly, and his next words are pained. Forced. He drops his arm. "If you don't want it, then — maybe — maybe we could work something out. Work around it. It's not inevitable."

"Is that something you want to try?" she challenges, though the heat she has mastered is lacking. "I was under the impression you wanted this."

He doesn't answer.

"Do you want this, Jake?" Leah asks plainly. He nods. "Will you be in pain if I reject your imprint? With a chance that I might be, too?" He nods, and so does she. "Right. So how can I tell you no, then?"

"But you can. It doesn't matter about me, it's what you want."

"I won't make you suffer."

"You shouldn't have to—" he continues to protest.

"You keep thinking that there's this other decision to make, but there's not!" she snaps, aggravated at his disbelief in her choice. "It will hurt, Jacob, and I am sick of it — I am just sick to death of being so goddamn miserable all the time. Have you actually considered that I might want to be here? That it's not out of pity, or that I'm not doing this to be all self-sacrificing just so I can save your feelings?"

"You . . . want?"

"Yes. I know I'm not so good with the whole speaking from the heart thing, but I thought you'd have at least figured this out by now. We were friends before, weren't we? Family? Why not now?"

He is dumbstruck.

"Finally piecing it together, are you?" Leah shakes her head, half exasperated, half amused. He's told her exactly what he's wanted — her, twice now — and yet he's still prepared to fight it. Because he truly believes that what he wants, that his opinion and his choice in this isn't worth a dime. Because he believes she doesn't want him in return.

One day, she will convince him otherwise. She realised early on that he has only been focused on the two very worst outcomes he can think of: that she will submit — and only because she feels she has been cornered between two fires; not because she wants to — or that she will outright reject him and leave him for dust.

It takes him a while to look back over the afternoon and ponder all she has said to him, to pick out certain comments she has made along the way, to read between the blurring lines. Not once has she ever told him no.

She waits for it to dawn upon him. To really hit him.

And when it does . . .

Jacob blinks, stunned. "You want to be here."

It's suddenly difficult to keep her own breath steady, an effort to crack the pure awe and the raw intensity bleeding out of him as he bows his head down ever closer to hers. So close that his breath skitters against her cheek.

She nods.

"You're sure?"

"Being stuck with you — that's not so bad," she manages to breathe, still fighting to keep her voice calm and even, because damn her if she spills the contents of her heart to him anymore than she already has. How is it so easy for him to make her anger just vanish like that?

"No. It's not so bad."

Leah hears the smile in his voice and swallows thickly around the rising emotion in her throat, but the action is enough to be able to finally break the building tension. It is who they are. "Could have been worse."

His chuckle masks their entwined crippling relief, but from who exactly it comes from she doesn't know. Maybe both of them. "How so?"

"I could have gotten Paul. Or God forbid, Embry." She bites back a smirk towards the now-dark sea before her. "I'd have headaches for the rest of my life."

Jake presses his forehead against her shoulder, his own shaking with laughter. Still in relief — and joy, too.

"Quil," he reminds her.

"Hmm — maybe. I'd probably kill him in the end, though."

"I don't think he'd mind so much," Jacob says, chin lifting to rest upon her shoulder instead. His arms snake around her waist at the same time without thought, just because he knows he can, because he knows that she won't pull away. Everything has snapped into place for him — and for her.

"No?"

"No," he agrees easily, no hint of jealousy in his tone. "He'd probably enjoy it, coming from you."

"Hmm," she hums again. "Quil, the secret masochist. Who'd have thought. It's always the quiet ones."

Jacob chuckles in her ear. "Gross. I did not need that image."

Leah turns her head and meets him dead-on, their noses almost brushing. She grins wickedly. "Bet you'd enjoy it, too."

Everything she sees tells her that yes, he would. That whatever it is she throws at him, he will not baulk.

And for some reason, that means everything.

A while later, the piggyback ride Jacob offers her to the shoreline is the result of a compromise: she refuses to be carried bridal-style, and he refuses to let her stumble back across the wet rocks in the dark on her own two feet.

"You could just hold onto my hand," she argues half-heartedly from behind him, her slight exasperation entirely put-upon as her hands reach over his shoulder blades. "You know, like a normal person."

Jacob hoists her up in one fluid motion without warning, fingers curling into the backs of her thighs. Her breath catches, and she knows he hears it. Knows that he is smiling as he says, "If I didn't know better, I'd say that you were scared."

She locks her arms and legs around him, trying not to focus on how his hands are close to cupping her ass whilst also pretending that her heart isn't beating out right out of her chest.

"Scared," she ridicules. It's a vain attempt, she knows.

"I am," he admits, staring into the quiet dark. The last of the orange rays have faded, though it can't be much past six in the evening, and there are no lights emitting from the beach houses. The darkness seems to stretch before them, endless and inviting.

The day feels like it has barely begun. She doesn't want it to end. Not just yet.

"Why?" She tilts her head to better see his face that is now level with her own. And when he turns to meet her probing eyes over his shoulder, he looks a little sheepish.

"What? I'm not going to fall — not unless you drop me."

His hold on her tightens, indignant and maybe offended. "I wouldn't."

"So there's nothing to be worried about."

"Isn't there?"

He looks so unconvinced, so unhappy with himself that it tears at her, and she instinctively finds herself leaning into him. Her nose pokes the side of his cheek, her forehead pushing against his temple, braver than she has been since getting into the car. "Don't be scared."

Jacob returns the soothing pressure, sighing deeply. "I can't help it. You saw how I was when you got too close to the edge, when you pretended to—" He takes another shuddering lungful of air, releases it slower than before. "Fucking scared me. Scares me. All the time."

"I'm sorry," she says quietly, more meaningfully this time as genuine guilt begins to work its way in. She had recognised that compulsive need of his to keep her safe at all costs, no matter how small or ridiculous, and she had laughed in his face.

"Don't be." He pulls away, shaking his head — at himself. "If I was less mental, I would have laughed. Honestly, it's fine."

Her remorse eases, turning rueful. "Well. It was funny. And it's exactly not your fault your sense of humour has dried up."

Jacob chokes a strained laugh, torn between amusement and stress, and he starts walking back towards the beach. His strides are light and careful, and his hold on her does not ease up but she doesn't mind it so much; she accepted this when she accepted the imprint — this intense connection between them that they are still learning to navigate.

She doesn't resent it.

"I am sorry," she presses. "I wanted to make this easier for you, not harder."

"It's not you," he promises earnestly. "I just need to get a better handle on it."

Leah frowns. "That doesn't seem fair. I mean, you always talk like I'm the one getting the shit end of the deal but you're the one who has to go through all this . . ."

"It's just different now, that's all. I wasn't joking when I said I'd go crazy. Don't get me wrong, I was kind of losing it already. This morning . . . S'pose that's why I went and . . . Anyway." Jake clears his throat, banishing the words. "It's just different," he says again, "but I'll get used to it. It'll be fine."

But he wouldn't have to get used to it, not if he hadn't been working himself up to another outcome . . .

It's her own fault, for dragging it out so long. For pretending like she had a choice at all. No, she doesn't resent it, really she doesn't — she wants this, but still she curses herself for being so goddamned stubborn.

"What can I do?"

"Be patient with me, please. Going off the other guys' experiences, I expect I'll be a bit annoying while everything settles down. So . . . sorry, in advance. I'd like to think that I can keep my head screwed on a bit more than they can around their mates, but I'll still probably have a hard time letting you out of my sight for a few days," he says apologetically.

"That doesn't seem so bad. We have the bonfire on Saturday, right? It'll be me who won't be letting you out of my sight."

There's no 'probably' about it for her; there is no chance in burning hell that she is going to sit with — with them.

Jacob hums. "That'll make it easier. You being around the pack so early on might get a little — uhm, well, dicey to be honest. Jared nearly took a whole chunk out of Paul when he introduced Kim for the first time . . . Not that I cared. Still. It would have been far worse if you'd told me no, so at least there's that. Silver linings, right?"

He says it so easily, shrugging as if his ordeal means nothing at all. Again, thinking that he does not matter — that his wants and needs do not matter. And it's really starting to grate.

"How bad?" she asks softly. "How bad would it have been for you?"

His nails dig in through her jeans as he grips her thighs harder. "I don't want to think about it."

She lets the question go before the anxiety riding its way up her spine can hold her captive. The emotion belongs wholly to her — to her half of the imprint — and it takes a long minute of holding herself closer against Jacob's solid warmth before she's able to shake her agitation off entirely, to stop imagining what might have been.

It's a long minute before he relaxes, too. She wonders if he is imagining the same thing.

By the time they're breathing in sync, calm and centred again, Jacob skips off the breakwater and back down onto the sand. Leah automatically loosens her arms around his neck—

A hand flies up and holds her wrist captive. "Where are you going?"

Familiar indignation rises, although (for what might be the first time in her whole life) she makes a conscious effort to pull it back in. "I can take care of myself, you know. That involves walking unaided."

"You're rolling your eyes, aren't you?" He twists round and catches her in the act — but at least he is smiling again, so she can't be too annoyed with him. "Knew it."

She rolls them again, if only so she can be rewarded with another sunny smile. "When you said annoying . . ."

His expression morphs seamlessly into a grin of impudence. "You can't say you weren't warned."

She pokes her tongue out at him, pointedly ignoring any smug or triumphant looks when she loops her arms back around his neck and not-so-grudgingly allows him to continue on to the car.

(Jacob)

In spite of the unrelenting terror he feels, there is euphoria too. It pumps in his veins, fuelling his every step to the point he could be walking on air and wouldn't even notice.

It'll last for the rest of the month, this feeling. Maybe even his whole life. But he'll take it — every howl of fear and possessiveness and desire from his wolf, every wave of elation that sends his knees wobbling — because she is here, and she is with him. Because she wants to be here with him, and she has chosen him.

Leah presses her warm cheek against ear, and he knows that she is smiling again, too. Neither of them can seem to stop, and if they do it is not for long.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Your dad," she says. And hearing his confused silence, she explains, "He, uh — welcomed me into the family, earlier."

Unsurprised at his father's forwardness, Jacob scoffs. "He's likely been dying to say that since he found out. Pay no attention to him."

"No, I liked it," she insists, and the pure sincerity in her voice leaves Jacob wanting to kiss her. Again. "It was . . . nice. I mean, you guys have always been family, but it's like you said. It's different now, isn't it? It felt different, anyway. Like something new."

His fingers twitch against her jeans, unable to care less about remembering to rein in his possession. "We're not kids anymore."

Leah cocks her head, angling her broad smile directly at him, radiant and so beautiful he stops breathing for a second or two. "Aren't we? I'm not so sure Rach and Beck will feel the same, when they find out."

"Good thing they can't find out then," he retorts, thinking of Rachel's temper especially.

"Well, we'll have to tell them something." Leah settles back against him, tilting her head against his and shifting her ankles against his hips. "I do talk to them still. Sometimes, anyway, when they're not so busy. But even if I don't tell them, then you know as well as I do that Billy will let something purposefully slip."

"He'll only do it to see if they'd come home."

She sighs, a little forlorn. She misses the twins as much as he does; he feels the pang of longing in his gut as if it were his own. "I don't care what he tells them if it means we can see them."

"Even if he says we're — y'know. Dating?"

"S'pose that's what we'll have to tell everyone else who doesn't know the truth," she replies, unconcerned, and Jacob tries his damned hardest to not let his elation show at that. "But your sisters are going to think I've corrupted you or something. God knows what I'd say if someone two or three years older than Seth started showing interest."

"Big whoop," he drawls. "Three years."

"Seth is fourteen, Jake," she admonishes.

"That's different. You're eighteen — you're an adult."

"I'm nearly nineteen."

"And I'm nearly seventeen. In like . . . ten months." He squeezes her leg. "I thought we went over this. It's really not a big deal."

Leah groans quietly in his ear, probably rolling her eyes yet again and wholly unaware of the shivers cascading over the back of his neck at the sound. "You're impossible."

"You're learning, at least."

"Shut up, Jacob," she says, but she laughs as she does, and it sounds kind of fond. He totally counts that as a win.

The Rabbit's dash reads eight-thirteen when he parks it at the end of the Clearwaters' drive and sees Seth step out of the front door, almost as though he has been waiting for them.

The kid has filled out some since he phased — two weeks ago, now — but he still looks odd in his new body, still wiry and gangly and uncoordinated as he lopes down the path towards the car.

At a glance, he could almost be mistaken for one of the older members of the pack, his muscles purposefully on show and his chest puffed out . . . That is, until Jacob studies the boy's face some more and it becomes noticeable that Seth is struggling to keep a hard mask in place. Like he's putting on an act, and trying his best to not let it slip.

Leah stares at her brother. "What in the name of . . . Who the hell is he pretending to be?"

Jacob realises what is about to happen, chuckling under his breath. "I think I'm finally about to get the Talk."

There hadn't been much conversation back in the forest, back when the kid had taken it upon himself to deliver that rucksack of food and water. During all of his three visits, Seth had simply joined him in silence until it was his turn to patrol again — returning the favour, Jacob had realised afterwards, for when he had sat with him all those times at the cave, waiting until he was ready.

Leah unbuckles her seatbelt and opens her door with a dramatic sigh, swinging her legs out. She looks up at her brother. "Are you really doing this?"

"Yep," is all she receives by way of a reply.

He crosses his arms over his chest and waits for Jacob to get out of the car, who struggles to refrain from smirking when they face each other half a minute later and Leah comes to stand at his side.

Seth's gaze flickers between them. "You two sorted things out?"

Jacob nods. Beside him, Leah covers her laugh with a poorly feigned cough that only turns more forceful when he nudges her shoulder in reprimand. If she loses it, then he knows he will not be far behind her. And Seth is trying so hard.

The kid jerks his chin up in some semblance of a nod. "Right. So now that you two are . . ." He frowns a little, looking unsurely between them. "Uh. Are you?"

Leah reaches for Jacob's hand at the same time he reaches for hers, as if to say yes, we are.

Seth's eyes go wide with excitement, the act of the protective sibling suddenly dropped. "Really? You are?"

Jacob's grin shines on her brother — their brother — until Seth remembers himself. It's almost comical how quickly clears his throat and sets his back straight.

"I mean . . . Fine. Great. Leah, can you give us a minute?"

She finally gives in to her laughter. "No way. I want to see this."

Heat suffuses the kid's face, his pride in danger of being bruised, but he manages to keep in character. Jacob thinks it's kind of admirable.

"One minute," Seth says, staring her down. The silent please tacked onto the end of the sentence couldn't be louder than if he'd actually said it.

"Honestly," she sighs, but apparently she's willing to indulge him, and she squeezes Jacob's fingers before untangling them.

He is fighting his own amusement when she suddenly stretches up on her toes and kisses the underside of his jaw, which is about as far as her lips can reach, and says, "Be good," in the sweetest voice before skipping into the house. As if it's the most normal thing in the world. As if she just hasn't . . .

Her stares after her, frozen.

When the door shuts and he turns back to Seth, gaping, the kid has dropped all pretence and is practically bouncing on his feet with glee.

He punches Jacob's arm, beaming. "I'm happy for you, man."

"Uh—"

"If she asks," Seth continues cheerfully, "I threatened to hurt you if you hurt her. And then you said something like, 'She doesn't need anyone to defend her honour,' — because she likes that stuff — and then we agreed we had an understanding and left it there, yeah?"

"Uh," says Jacob again, feeling dumber by the minute. "Sure."

"Thanks." He looks relieved. "I owe you one."

Little punk. "You weren't actually going to give me a speech, were you?"

Seth's eyeroll is the exact same as his sister's. "Come on, I'm not stupid. The guys would rib me for days if I even tried." He slings an arm over his shoulder, eyes glinting with his usual boyish playfulness. "I better warn you that Mom's got her own speech planned, though, in case you plan on coming in."

Jacob gulps.

And indeed, the first chance Sue gets — when Leah is upstairs changing, and Seth is sprawled out in front of the television in the next room — she puts her hands on her hips and looks at him with a glint of fire-tempered steel in her eyes, the likes of which he has not seen before Harry died.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you what happens if she gets hurt, Jacob. Imprint or not. Because once she's done with you, there won't be many pieces left for me to break. But so help me God, I'll still try."

Jacob wills himself to stand tall and hold the woman's gaze. The Clearwater women have always scared the living shit out of him, but he'll be damned if he cowers now. "Yes, ma'am."

Sue nods, satisfied. Then she breaks into a smile. "Good. Now, I'm kind of behind on dinner but if you'd like to stay then you better call Billy and invite him too. Tell him I said no arguments. You know he doesn't eat right unless he's backed into a corner."

"Yes, ma'am," he says again.

From where she is undoubtedly at the top of the stairs and straining her ears to eavesdrop, Jacob swears that he hears Leah laugh.

Indulgent, optional A/N (February 2021): With every chapter, this story continues to grow and grow in my head (and I keep trying to can the author's notes, but it's impossible and far easier to communicate). Mostly because of the invaluable insight you leave in your reviews/comments, but also when you share with me what you would love to happen: bonding time with Seth, more romance, more angst, appearances from the twins, more time with Embry and Quil . . . even Leah phasing eventually. And because this is the biggest fanservice I will ever write, you can absolutely bet that 90% of these wishes will eventually be granted.

Which begs the question . . . What would you rather? One big story in the same place (the wordcount will surely be *huge* one day), or splitting it into a sequel? I think it could work both ways.

Lastly, whilst this story isn't a masterpiece in so many ways, it is my biggest labour of love to date (I could have wrapped it up by now, probably, but there is so much I want to cover) and I read every single word you leave me. Sometimes several times over. Therefore another round of thanks is in order . . .

Thank you so much SF, Aunt Bran, Sentinel (if I could imprint on anyone, it would be you), scifiromance (you are the kindest reviewer I've ever had), CatTheWall (you can take the girl out of Blackwater but not the Blackwater out of the girl — or something), Lemonmelons, gabumafu (you improved my WEEK, darling) chemistrykim, Babaksmiles, Austwigirl (never change), InesSL, PastOneonta (your ability to analyse every detail is truly out of this world), brankel, marce-cc, RoseGoldCrystal, Sunshine-Midnight, angelacorus (gracias), 1tinac, all the Guests (if I could message you, I would), Leticia, CrazyWithABook, rocklesson, marsolino, echo, Beauty Eclipsed, LicitySuperFan, Clura, Odeveca, dreamsarereallywishes . . . and that's only half of the FF crew. You're all top bananas.