A/N: For whatever reason, despite nearly being done with this chapter for the longest time, I just couldn't come up with a way to end it. Sorry about that, and sorry for the short chapter too. Anyways, as always I love to know what you guys think, thanks for the patience, and stay awesome you amazing bitches. I love ninety nine percent of you.

Chapter 24

Bella hadn't meant to wander away from her pack. It was just that something out there had caught her attention and couldn't be ignored. At first, Bella wondered if she imagined it. She had to have been, surely. After all, there was no way a random vampire would be stupid enough to wander so close to a pack of wolves, even if those wolves were drunk. Plus, the scent was so faint, it was almost unnoticeable.

Yet her instincts were telling her it wasn't Bella's imagination. The alarm bells weren't ringing in her head like they should, probably because of the alcohol, but the wolf inside of her was insistent.

There was a vampire out there, a vampire much too close. A vampire watching them.

Bella had planned on alerting her pack to the threat, but then she saw it; a strange flame among the trees. It was strangely alluring, and Bella forgot all about alerting her pack. Somehow she knew they weren't in danger, that the vampire was only there for her.

Before she knew it, she was following the flame through the trees, searching for the source. She didn't know what the urgency was; only that she just had to find the source. Had to find the vampire.

Next thing the alpha knew, she was alone, far from her packmates.

Then the vampire appeared.

Pale skin, bright red eyes, flaming red hair. Even with her relaxed, unaggressive stance, everything about the woman screamed danger. Just laying eyes on the woman was enough to snap Bella out of whatever daze she had been in.

Bella didn't know what she had been thinking before; she had to have lost her mind. After all, just looking at the vampire, Bella knew that this woman was a threat, and a very, very dangerous one.

Threat. Danger. Protect pack. Kill leech. Bella's lips skimmed back from her teeth as she faced the threat, poised to spring and take her down in a human heartbeat.

"You don't want to do that, pup," the woman warned, and her voice was smoky, husky. Just like a fire. As if the woman embodied a living flame. The woman then glanced at Bella's hand, nose wrinkling in disgust at the giant bottle of alcohol she found there. Was this bitch judging her, or just disgusted by the smell?

"You're on my territory, leech. You brought this on yourself," Bella snarled. "I'll kill you for threatening my pack."

The woman rolled her eyes. Something about the way she looked at Bella, as if exasperated by Bella's behavior, rubbed the shifter the wrong way. Made the wolf angrier, but also more confused. "I didn't threaten anyone. I'm simply here to talk to you."

"Like hell!" Before Bella could lunge, another scent caught her attention. A second vampire was approaching. In her alcohol induced daze, Bella didn't recognize it, and turned to face the new threat.

That's when Irina appeared from the trees, frowning with a perplexed look on her face when she caught sight of Bella. "What are you doing out here by yourself?"

"I'm not…" Bella glanced over to where the other vampire was, only to find she had disappeared. Bella quickly sniffed the air, only to find her scent gone as well. Not just faded, but truly and completely gone. As if the leech had never been there in the first place. Fuck, was Bella losing it? "What the hell are you doing here? You're on my territory! You're breaking the treaty by being here!" And Bella definitely didn't need that complicated shit on her plate.

Irina arched her eyebrow at the shifter. "Actually, I'm still on Cullen territory. The border line is right there." She gestured to the line of trees between them, and Bella realized that the border line was indeed right in front of her face. Damn it, that was embarrassing, and Bella decided to hide that embarrassment by taking a long swig from her bottle. For whatever reason, Irina didn't call Bella out on her stupidity, and Bella was still too drunk to know if she should be grateful or not. "If you must know what I'm doing here, however, I just finished hunting some nearby deer. Now, why are you out here alone?" It was clear that the alpha was swaying on her feet, and she absolutely reeked of alcohol.. Regardless of Bella's reasoning, something had certainly happened, and it was only right for Irina to tell Tanya and Rosalie about the encounter. She doubted they would like hearing about it, however.

"I'm partying, what's it to you?" Bella demanded, using arrogance to hide her own confusion.

"Alone?" Yes, Tanya and Rosalie were definitely going to be upset to hear about this.

"No, with my pack! I'm not some sad sack of shit to party alone in the woods. I have bitches!" Bella took another long drink of her bottle.

"So where are they, exactly?" Clearly, the pack wasn't here. Was Bella lying about this? Ugh, if so, she was making things more complicated for Irina. She wasn't sure how she'd be able to spin this in anyone's favor if the alpha was truly lying.

"They're at the bonfire, obviously."

"Is that so?" Irina asked, and Bella replied with such a strong nod of her head that she nearly fell over. "Then why aren't you with them?"

A look came over Bella's face, and it was clear as day to Irina that something troubling had happened to the alpha. However, Bella still wasn't sure if she hallucinated what happened or not, and the last thing she needed was to be thought of as someone even crazier than everyone already believed. Her drunk mind struggled to come up with a proper explanation that might actually make sense, and she covered her pathetic attempt at subterfuge by taking another long drink of alcohol.

"You really should slow down with the drinking. From what I've seen so far, I can confidently say you're already compromised enough just by being you." Irina had meant it with serious concern, but realized too late how her words might sound to the alpha. Before Bella could get too upset, they were interrupted by yelling. Both looked over in time to see Jacob, Collin, Cass, Leah, and Sam running toward them.

"Bella! We look away for five seconds, and you disappear on us? The hell were you thinking!" Jacob shouted, and the relief in his voice as he came to Bella's side made the alpha slightly guilty. "Seriously, the hell? You're lucky Cass noticed so fast!" He didn't say anything more, but the fact that he eyed Irina warily was telling enough. It wasn't out of a hatred or fear of vampires, rather just Bella meeting anyone alone who he didn't know enough to trust completely. "What are you doing out here with her?"

"I'm a badass, you're welcome," Cass said proudly, before Bella could think of an answer. She also looked over at Irina, but in her eyes was nothing but curiosity. "Did you abandon us for a quickie? Not that I can blame you with someone that hot." She took a sniff of the air and wrinkled her nose. "She smells a little...off...for my taste, but you do you."

"She's a vampire, Cass. That's what you're smelling." Leah eyed Irina, but quickly dismissed her to check Bella out for any visible wounds.

"Shit, seriously? Damn, talk about a turn off," Cass complained. "My fantasies are crumbling fast, this sucks. Next you're going to tell me that lake monsters don't exist, aren't you?"

"Nobody answer her," Sam said as he rubbed his temples. "Please. We've only been running with her for five minutes, but I've already learned that explaining anything to her only makes things worse. She never shuts up once she gets going."

"Excuse me for having questions!"

"Those were supposed to be questions?" Collin asked in surprise, making Cass huff and glare at him.

Finally, Bella came up with a proper explanation. "She was hunting, I was pissing, she decided to try and be a voyeur."

"Excuse me?" Irina demanded in disbelief, and when all of the shifters gave Irina a look like they actually believed Bella's obvious lie, she glared at them all. "While I was hunting, I smelled her, and her scent was nearly overpowered by the alcohol she consumed. I only approached because she's my sister's mate and I don't want to be the one to tell her that her mate nearly died because of drunken stupidity."

"That does make more sense. This vampire does seem like the sane mom type among all of the new vamps. Even if she was a perverted voyeur, she doesn't really seem to have the balls to try and do shit to Bella," Jacob admitted.

"Our mother figure is actually Carmen, one of our two coven mates who you haven't met yet, but thank you." Irina frowned as the rest of Jacob's words sunk in. "I think."

Leah let out a low growl of frustration. "So that means I had to tie Rachel to a tree because our alpha wandered too far away to pee. Great. You owe me one for this, Bella."

"Not my fault you fucked up," Bella grumbled. She took another drink and nearly fell over, but Jacob and Collin were there to steady her. Irina couldn't stop her sigh at the sight.

"Let's get you back, Bella," Sam said.

For a moment, Bella almost said no. She wanted to spend more time around Irina. Not because Bella enjoyed basically being mothered, but because of Irina's connection to Tanya and Rosalie. But then she realized how weird that was, and felt kind of pathetic for considering it. Plus, she still wasn't sure about what was going on with her head, and the alcohol induced hallucination she had.

"Fuck it, yeah, let's go back. I'm gonna get so fucking hammered that hammers are going to be embarrassed."

"Ooh, sounds fun. I want to try!" Cass said as she excitedly followed.

"Please, Cass, don't encourage her."

"Suck it, Sam." Cass turned to wave briefly at Irina. "See you, mommy vamp!"

"Never call me that again," Irina hissed, but the girl didn't seem to even hear her. Great, just what Irina needed to deal with.

Collin sighed. "She's already had alcohol. Nothing can stop her now."

Bella let out a loud laugh, and Irina watched as the shifters all disappeared into the trees. Only when she could no longer hear them did she take her phone out of her pocket and dial Tanya's number.

"Tanya, something happened," Irina said immediately.

"Irina, is everything alright?" was Tanya's reply. Of course, seeing as Irina had only left the house to hunt less than a half hour ago while also sticking close to home, it was only natural for Tanya to get concerned to get a call from her. Irina's choice of words obviously didn't help matters. Oh well.

"Sort of. I just ran into Bella."

Irina hadn't even finished saying Bella's name before she heard the sound of Rosalie blurring to Tanya's side and kicking someone-Emmett, given the way he complained about Rosalie making him lose as Kate cheered-out of the seat next to her.

"Is she okay? And what do you mean, ran into her? You didn't hurt her somehow, did you?" Rosalie demanded before Tanya could say a word.

"You and I both know that wouldn't happen. This is Irina we're talking to, not Kate," Tanya said soothingly.

"Hey!" came Kate's indignant cry.

Rosalie sighed. "True. Irina isn't stupid enough to try to hurt Bella and potentially break the treaty like Kate was."

"For the last time! We were training and Bella said it wouldn't count!" Kate's indignant cry made Irina roll her eyes, and she was sure Tanya had a similar reaction. Rosalie, of course, wasn't one to stop at just an eye roll; the hiss Rosalie gave Kate could be heard loud and clear across the phone.

"Oh, it counted for something alright," Rosalie growled.

Knowing it was only seconds before Rosalie potentially attacked Kate, Tanya asked, "So what happened, Irina? Is Bella alright?" It was enough to make everyone quiet, and Irina knew that she once again had every vampire in hearing range's undivided attention.

Irina knew better than to drag it out, if only for her coven leader and Rosalie's sanity. "She's fine, from what I can tell. However, she's also very drunk."

"What?" came Tanya's surprised reply. "Shifters can get drunk?

"Apparently. However, I do believe it takes quite a bit of alcohol, judging by how the smell of alcohol was so strong it overpowered her wet dog scent completely. I didn't even realize it was her at first."

"That idiot…" Rosalie hissed under her breath. "Carlisle! Do you know if shifters can get drunk?" Whatever response she got only upset the younger blonde, because Irina could hear her stomping through the house seconds later. "Of all the things she could do...how irresponsible can she get? What part of her thought it was a good idea to mix alcohol with her dumb mutt temper? Just when I think she can't be any more of a dumbass…"

"Where did you see her?" Irina was quick to answer Tanya's question, especially with the intensity in Tanya's voice. While she wanted to add a little snark or mention how much trouble their little alpha was, she kept it to herself. She wasn't about to bring down Tanya or Rosalie's wrath, not when they were in such close hearing range and probably going a little crazy knowing their mate was stupidly drunk.

"Thank you for telling us, Irina. Rosalie and I are going to go check on her now."

"Of course." Irina had barely gotten the words out before Tanya hung up, and the youngest Denali sister let out a loud sigh. She had always been quite the romantic and spent her entire vampiric existence longing for her mate, but seeing her strong coven leader and the ice queen Rosalie struggle, it put everything into focus for her in a way stories never did. Even with the mating bond, it clearly wasn't all rainbows and romance.

At least one thing made Irina feel better; while she hadn't met them yet, Irina was sure her own mate couldn't be anywhere near as complicated as Bella Black.