Leah thought she knew pain when Sam, the love of her life, left her for her cousin Emily. Or when her father died and, despite everyone's insistence to the contrary, she knew it was all her fault. Phasing, imprinting, all it brought was pain.
The evidence used to be in every apologetic look Sam and Emily gave her, then it was the way her mother could never quite meet her eyes for years, and now, Seth.
When Leah heard Annaliese hit the ground, she thought she could bear her brother's pain, too. But the weight of her brother's wrath and anguish was suffocating. Mixed with her own fear when his thoughts faded out, the knowledge that he and Annaliese – that she and Embry – might not make it out of this one. It was too much.
When the coyotes carted them up and over their shoulders and tossed them over the fence, Leah did not move. Not that the poison flooding her system would have let her anyway.
The relief was fleeting. There was no way those coyotes would let them walk away without a fight. Dropping them outside of the compound was a placeholder. She knew it. She'd smelled their fear and hysteria before those big ones had snuck up on them, but she'd been too worried about Seth – too focused on his muffled thoughts and not her own surroundings.
"Leah, you gotta let me look at the wound."
That pipsqueak of a coyote, Yara, manhandled Leah onto her side. Embry locked eyes with her, the gravity of their situation peered back at her.
He nodded to reassure her, unable to speak. She clenched her jaw. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't – Embry blinked, and Leah felt the tears leak down the side of her face. She exhaled and shut her eyes. If they made it out of this, she refused to phase again. She wouldn't let Jacob or the Cullens pull her back into supernatural shit anymore. She would just be human.
Leah opened her eyes to watch Embry, who watched her with the same sadness. He knew.
"It smells like…" Leah winced as Yara stuck her nose to Leah's side and inhaled sharply. "Bella somethin'. Zel kept a jar of it in her trunk."
"Belladonna," Edward said as he knelt over her and Embry.
Seth might have been friends with the golden-eyed vamps, but Leah preferred to keep her distance. Especially this one, who liked to poke his nose in people's thoughts. Edward frowned and his cold fingers gingerly examined the wound.
Leah bit back the growl. Not for the first time, she wished she'd just stayed in Seattle.
"The would is healing," Edward said with a sigh. "Albeit rather slowly. Alice, can you see anything now?"
The wind rushed around them and then the chirp of the littlest vampire hit her ears. "They'll be fine in a few minutes."
Those minutes felt like hours but soon, Leah could move her fingers and toes. Pin pricks raced along her body as the feeling returned and she snarled, kicking up to her feet.
"Whoa, LeeLee, take it slow."
Embry groaned and sat upright on the ground, his head between his legs. Leah exhaled through a rush of nausea and stuffed the discomfort to the back of her mind where it belonged. She hated how much his simple request affected her. He spoke with kindness like he always did, and it soured in her chest.
"What are we waiting for? Let's kill that bitch!" Leah snapped, ignoring him. She turned and staggered toward the chain link fence only to be thrown backward by some invisible force.
"We tried that already." River stared down at her, face blank.
Now you tell me, she thought, bitter and rose to her feet again.
Jacob glared down the hill at them. "Why didn't they wait?" he asked no one. "What the hell was he thinking?"
Leah opened her mouth to set him straight, but Harlen beat her to it. "He was tryna keep you safe." The less gruff of the two brothers, Harlen stood with his arms crossed and brow pinched together in concentration. "There was no way to know Zel was gonna stab 'em in the back like that. Annie was like a kid to that old biddy. Without Zel, they could've won. Folks were backin' down."
"That doesn't change — "
"— Instead of getting' pissy about him defying your orders, you ought to come up with a plan."
Leah held back a bitter laugh. Wate had said the quiet part out loud. Seth was still alive, she knew that much, and here Jacob was on an ego trip.
She surveyed the hill on which they all stood, half in wolf form, half standing amongst the Cullens – all but Esme, Carlisle, and Renesmee, who remained in Victoria.
Because of Seth, they'd come to fight, and Leah had to credit them for it. Still, as she peered over the fence and squinted beyond the tops of tents, desperate for the sound of her brother's voice, Leah realized how little she knew about their situation. Annaliese had given them the Cliff Notes version, but Leah couldn't shake the feeling that they were missing something important. Regardless, she did know one thing: Zel was going to die today.
Leah kicked at a large rock and sent it flying toward the fence in frustration, where it shot through the tops of tents like a bullet.
She paused and picked up a stick, then threw it in the same direction. It soared several feet over the barbed top and hit the ground on the other side.
"Throwing things isn't going to…"
Leah was, painfully, scaling the nearest tree before Jacob's pessimistic ass could finish that sentence. She didn't know how high that freaky force field went or how it got there, but the stick had fared just fine.
She grit her teeth as she dangled by one hand from a limb and swung herself toward the top of the fence. Leah landed on her back with a huff. Fucking poison, she cursed as she pulled herself to her feet. She shook off the shock to her body and analyzed her limbs. She didn't have full range quite yet, but it was enough.
"Well?" she prompted to the shocked faces of her pack and the Cullens. "The hell are we waiting for? Let's go."
She didn't wait for them but, as she turned and marched toward the clearing, she heard each of them hit the ground behind her. Leah smiled and slowed her power jog to a slow creep around the back of the farthest tents.
As she edged closer to the concentrated coyote scent, she saw them congregated around a single spot, all on their knees. Waiting. Despite their proximity, only two of the coyotes looked up on their arrival. The two that'd caught her and Embry off guard. The reason she couldn't phase and tear into them like she wanted.
Leah's muscles wound tight, aching to shift so she could rip those jerks to shreds. She pushed the air in her lungs out slowly through her nose and narrowed her eyes on the tent. The coyote guards froze in their spots and, finally, the other coyotes turned, too. Their eyes bulged, ready to flee.
Leah rose to full height, gaining confidence in their show of numbers. Though the coyotes had them outnumbered, even the guards knew they were outmatched against their peculiar band wolves, coyotes, and vampires.
"We're here for my brother and Annaliese. Try anything and all of you die."
She ignored the surprise from behind her and hoped none of her pack let it show on their faces. She wasn't here to negotiate.
The guards scowled and moved aside, parting their kneeling kin like the Red Sea. The flaps of the tent they surrounded opened and Zel stepped out.
A tremor split down her spine. Her wolf wasn't coming out. Fine, she glared. For Seth, Leah had no qualms with taking the bitch out as a human.
"Patience really ain't y'all's strong suit, is it?"
Zel raked her with a disapproving stare and held the tent open.
"Gon' 'head," was all she said. Leah looked over her shoulder. Jacob shook his head. Still, Embry came to her side despite it and took her hand in his. She nodded and the two of them entered the tent, unsure of their own fate and Seth's.
Leah fell toward the straw pallet just inside the tent. Seth lay motionless, a cloth draped over his lower half. Knife wounds dotted his torso and arms, but they didn't bleed. Instead, damp clumps of herbs had been patted around them. After a long moment, Seth's chest rose and fell again so slowly she might have missed it.
"Yeah, he's aight." Zel said behind them. "If I didn't hit 'im with that poison, he'd have killed any and every body in his way."
"And he should for what you did." Leah growled. "And for what they allowed."
Zel didn't argue and Leah swore she saw the woman's eyes go misty. Zel stepped around her and passed them both bottles of water.
Embry glared and knocked them out of Zel's hands, sending them scattering across the ground. "You think we're going to trust you? You got Annie killed, poisoned us and Seth, and have the blood of all those bodies piled outside on your hands."
Leah glowered. "You've got some nerve, lady."
Zel cleared her throat. "Aight, suit yourself then." She left them there and moved to the two other bodies in her tent, one unmoving and the other paralyzed by the same poison she'd hit them with.
Two tall and broad men stood between them. Leah wracked her brain for the shorter of the two, recognition gnawing at the edges of her mind. Where had she seen him before…?
It clicked. "Silas," she breathed.
His head snapped in her direction and Embry's hand tightened around hers. They both recognized the look and felt the rush of fear flooding their system. She didn't want to imprint. Recent events aside, she was decently satisfied with life – and as soon as she found a supernatural therapist, maybe she'd actually get over her past.
Leah turned her gaze to Embry, whose pulse had become erratic. They were happy in whatever weird limbo they'd created. She looked back at Silas and, relieved, realized her world hadn't tilted on its axis.
"What is this?" Leah asked, bringing them both back to what mattered.
Embry released her hand brushed past Zel. "Annie's dead," he confirmed. The taller coyote-shifter growled low in his throat and Embry scowled. "Please. If you cared about her, you'd have stopped her friend," he hissed the word in Zel's direction, "from walking into that clearing."
"I don't know that lady anymore 'an I know you," The shifter snarled. "But what I do know is she's the only one that can fix this shit show."
Silas nodded. "He's right."
Embry bristled at the adoring look Silas cast toward Leah and tightened his fists. He was in no shape to fight, not really, but that didn't stop the surge of jealousy. He turned his attention to Zel, who drew strange shapes on Annie's fur with a black paste that smelled like ash. She did the same to Damian.
"Grab your daddy's hand," Zel ordered Silas, who complied without question. She held his free one and looked at Caleb. Zel held out her other hand to him. The tall coyote-shifter nodded and, wary, took the woman's hand. "Grab hold of Annie for me."
Caleb and Silas both snarled as Zel's hands tightened around their own, her nails growing into talons that dug into their flesh deep enough to draw blood. "Careful," she warned at the murderous glint in their eyes.
Cursing, Caleb placed his uninjured hand on Annaliese's still chest. On instinct, Embry moved as far from them as the tent would allow and braced himself in front of Leah.
"This might sting a lil' bit," Zel said, a split second before light flooded the tent so bright it rendered Embry and Leah blind.
Embry hissed and stumbled back. Leah's hands wrapped around him as he fell against her.
Caleb and Silas shouted a moment before they hit the ground. More people rushed into the tent, gasping at the searing light.
Leah and Embry squinted as the light faded around them almost as quickly as it had appeared. Both men knelt on the dirt floor, pale and sweating.
Zel shuddered as the massive gray coyote transformed beneath Silas's hand until only Damian's human form lay there, curled into himself and muttering. Silas dropped his hold on his father and tried to pull himself to his feet.
All eyes fell on Zel as she approached Annaliese's body. No one moved. No one breathed.
"C'mon, baby girl," Zel said quietly. If Leah didn't know any better, she'd think the old woman was crying. "You gotta wake up now."
Minutes ticked by, holding everyone still as they waited.
Leah saw it first – the slight lift of Annaliese's ribcage before she shot up, gasping out a startled howl before her body shifted human and she collapsed again.
Zel crumped against the table, wrapping Annaliese in her arms. As the woman wept, smiling, the lines on her face deepened. Transfixed, Leah watched the woman's toned, lean form soften in on itself as Zel aged before her very eyes.
In mere seconds, it was as if decades had passed until Zel released Annaliese and fell onto a milk crate, as frail as Leah had ever seen a human look. And she was. Leah couldn't smell a trace of coyote in her.
Zel wheezed out a small and relieved laugh. "Hoo," the woman cried. "Thank the Lord. Oh," Zel wiped sweat from her brow and rested her shoulder against whatever stack of stuff was closest. "It's been a long, long, long time comin'."
Leah glanced around the tent, waiting for someone to explain what the fuck she'd just witnessed.
Instead, Yara pushed past all of them and pulled Annaliese into her arms.
"Let her sleep, YaYa. Ain't every day you die and come back, trust me."
Yara glared. "She didn't have to die if you'd've just stayed out the way, Zel. What the hell?"
Zel looked away from the wide-eyed coyote and Leah smelled the shame roll off the woman, confused.
Whatever, Leah thought. As much as she liked Annaliese, there was only one shapeshifter Leah cared about right now. She crawled back to her brother's side and measured his pulse. It had taken a single stab wound to knock her and Embry on their ass, and Seth had at least five dotted across his body.
"He's stronger than you give him credit for," Zel huffed. "I don't want Annie's wolf dead any more than I meant for –" Zel choked on the words. " – YaYa, go look in that trunk and get the green bottle for 'em."
Yara didn't move, but the blonde woman that had thrown Leah into the dirt did. Leah stared at the woman who held out a green glass bottle, the long, tapered neck pointed in her direction.
"A cure," Zel said. "I know my word don't mean much to you, but I swear it'll fix him up faster than any poultice or letting him heal on 'is own."
Leah glared. If the woman was wrong, there would be no salvation. Pack or no pack, Annaliese or no Annaliese, there would be consequences.
Zel nodded as if she heard Leah's thoughts and agreed. Leah snatched the bottle from the blonde guard and lifted the tight silver latch on the stopper to give the contents a whiff. Leah gagged.
"I ain't say it would taste good. You two take one swallow today and tomorrow. Annie's wolf gon' need about three."
Leah narrowed her eyes at the mysterious liquid before tipping it to her lips, much to Embry's and her pack's shock. "What the hell, LeeLee?" He snapped, kneeling next to her. "You don't what's in that shit."
Leah spluttered as the liquid ran down her throat and pushed the bottle back into the blonde guard's hands.
Embry's snarl sent the guard stumbling backward until Leah shook her head and grabbed his arm.
"I'm okay, Em," she said, coughing. "It's fine. Just wait before you drink any of it. Let's see what happens." She squinted against the bittersweet after taste. "It's not like I was going to let you two do it first."
He rolled his eyes. Yara, who still held Annaliese in her arms, spoke from where she sat on the ground. "If you're so sorry, why did you get in the way, Zel?" Yara didn't bother to wipe the tears or betrayal from her face. "We trusted you."
Zel cleared her throat, opened her mouth to speak, and closed it again. A thousand emotions flitted across the woman's weathered face before she nodded. "Annie's as much a child to me as the rest of you," she said solemnly. "In more ways than y'all even know. But some things just have to happen –"
"—In what world does it make sense Annie had to die? For what," Yara snapped, "So you could stop shapeshifting? You coulda done that on your own, Zel."
Zel shook her head. "No, baby girl, I –" Her words broke off into a coughing fit. Leah watched the woman clutch at her chest, sensed the truth approaching faster than Zel could get the words out. "I couldn't." She wheezed out a sad laugh. "Y'all always asked 'Why, Zel?', 'Why we gotta be like this?'"
Yara's face twisted in confusion. "I don't get it, Zel."
Silas's shoulders fell, his jaw slack. "Mama Delta."
The coyotes' head snapped in his direction before their eyes flickered, suspicious, back to Zel. Zel wiped at her mouth with a scrap of fabric and tucked it away in her fist. Leah didn't need to see it to know there was blood.
"Nawh, but pretty damn close," Zel said. "If I'd've known the ole heifer was a witch, I probably would've stayed out her bed. But that was a very long time ago, and I've made peace with my maker."
"Can someone explain what's happening?"
Jacob stood near the opening of the tent next to Edward, whose presence Leah realized, added to the pungent undercurrent of fear in the room. Edward shook his head. "She's blocking me out," he said.
Zel gave Edward a scathing once-over. "You should know better than to poke around in people's heads," she said. Even withered as she was, Leah felt a surge of danger. "But I've seen things like you and I killed 'em for less."
Edward scowled.
Jacob spoke. "This is the first time we've met someone like you, so you'll have to excuse our questions. It's not every day someone's brought back to life."
Zel raised an eyebrow and cut a look at Edward. "I don't owe anyone in this room an explanation 'cept Annie. But," she paused as another fit of coughing seized her lungs. "Ah," she let her head drop. "I just don't know if I'm gon' make it 'til she wakes up."
Yara glanced at Seth who still lay unconscious behind Leah and turned her eyes to Harlen and Wate. Leah watched their unspoken words and turned her head.
"Everyone out," Wate said as he and Harlen forced everyone toward the opening of the tent. Jacob motioned for her and Embry to follow. Embry met her eyes and she nodded, releasing his hand.
Leah, however, stayed put. She'd let Seth run off without her once and he'd nearly died. So, as the tent cleared out, Leah remained motionless until only Zel, Yara, Caleb, and her remained. Damian had passed out somewhere between Zel's coughing fits and lay in a pitiful heap on the ground.
Yara glared in his direction. "What about him?"
"Human. He can't hurt anybody anymore," Zel answered with a wheeze. "Mama Delta is what the town knew her as, but to me she was just Della, and she was my friend. I never said I was a good person, even back then, but I guess she saw somethin' worthwhile in me." Zel reached for one of the water bottles on the ground.
Caleb darted to hand it to her before she fell from the crate.
After a drink, Zel tried to straighten her shoulders before giving up. "You could say I was jealous; I don't even remember what the reason was, but I took her ole man and she took what made me human."
"But you could shapeshift," Yara countered. "In the stories you told, Mama Delta turned her lover into an animal. Permanently."
Zel nodded. "Her husband got the worst of it. He was as regular a dog as there ever was, but because it was me, Della had had enough. Hunters killed him not too long after the curse took to him, but I fled and, in my desperation to get away, I was suddenly on two legs again. But it didn't last. It never did."
Yara smoothed the hair from Annaliese's face. "I don't care about how you got here. I wanna know why you got Annie killed."
Zel shook her head. "I ain't mean to, I swear I didn't," Zel answered, weak. "By time Silas got here with Caleb, I got to the front as fast as I could on two legs. That was the only way she was gon' hear me in that state, trust me, I been there, and I know. I only meant for her to stop so that I could take Damian's shiftin' from him."
"What?" Leah and Caleb chorused, shocked.
Zel nodded. "I needed somebody of his blood to do it. Between Della and the couple other conjure folk I ran into in my time, I picked up a couple things. Tends to happen when you live as long as me."
"Then why send Silas after me? Why not just kill Damian if you were so powerful?"
Zel looked away from them. "I thought about it a few times, but he was too suspicious of me and so were the few children he sired. They only tolerated me being here because I could heal folks in case of emergencies. You can't exactly take people like us to the doctor. But then he picked Annie as his next mate. At first, he treated her decent enough, but it ain't take long for his true colors to come back out. So, we used their closeness a couple times to try and do it but…"
Leah and Yara both felt the heaviness of her silence. They'd seen Annaliese's memories as much as they all had. Annaliese had put everything on full display for any shapeshifter close enough to hear.
"Then she imprinted on a wolf, Damian's worst nightmare was coming true, and he tried to kill Val's boy because he was the first of Damian's children to go against him." Zel shook her head. "Val ain't shit, but she brought Silas to me in time to heal him. He didn't want me to kill his daddy, so I had to come up with another plan." Zel watched Caleb process and carried on. "I didn't think Annie was comin' back. I told her not to. You were a back-up plan. I knew a lot of folks here were loyal to Annie, not Damian. If it were in her blood, I thought maybe you could come in and give them an alpha worth following."
Caleb staggered back. "What? So, you could've gotten me killed on a what-if?"
Zel stared at him as stoically as she could. "I told you; I never said I was a good person. All I cared about was this pack and the couple a' innocent people here who needed an alternative."
"Why didn't you step up once the pack started breaking up?" Leah asked, not bothering to hide the accusation. "You were afraid, weren't you?"
Zel turned her eyes on Leah. "You don't know the terror Damian created. And I ain't here to lead anyone. I am tired of carryin' the weight of my pain and mistakes. I can't carry anyone else's."
Leah sat back on her heels. That, at least, they had in common.
"How did you even know about him?" Yara said. "Annie thought this whole time she'd killed her brother."
Zel shook her head. "As long as I been alive, I ain't seen this curse skip one sibling and not take the other yet."
"Then why –"
Zel held up a hand. "Just tell Annie that I'm sorry," she said quietly. "And that her brother is the reason she's breathin'. He's of her blood, he saved her, I was just the go-between. Tell her she needs to let go of that burden she's been carryin' and – and –" Zel gasped and clutched at her chest.
She rose unsteadily to her feet and shuffled out of the tent. No one followed her and, after several minutes, the crush of leaves under slow and clumsy human feet hit her ears and, somehow, Leah knew. Zel had gone to die alone and in peace.
A/N: We still have a few things left to explore with Seth and Annie, and I can't wait! If you're enjoying the story, feel free to leave a review and follow along.
