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Chapter 167

Foreign Native Americans

Edward

With Jake, I had withdrawn somewhat so that Leah would not feel that we were watching her. Even with my gift, I tried to leave her alone as much as possible. To maintain their privacy. The two of them ran more as background flickers without me listening or paying any special attention to them. I had only sent a message to Bella that Leah was feeling better, but that I didn't know when we would be back.

A plausible explanation, without having to lie to Marcus, didn't occur to me, so I didn't call.

While I leaned indecisively against a tree, Jake tried to let stones skip elegantly over the water.

He did not particularly succeed. Rather, he threw them angrily into the water.

"What exactly is making you so angry?", I asked him.

"Are you happy with the situation?" he on the other hand asked contemptuously.

"But it's no use getting upset about it. It's done and no one can do anything about it," I replied calmly. "Just think about how happy you are with Becky. Are you going to deny Leah that just because you think of Marcus as your brother and are afraid of losing him as such?"

"Are you telling me now that you don't have the same fear?" he turned to me snottily.

I sighed.

Jake was absolutely right. Our family was perfect the way it was. I didn't want to part with Marcus away and replace him with a Nanuk. But I was not alone with my opinion this time, like back then, when I was against Marcus. Jake was on my side, if one could speak of sides here, and even Leah and Nanuk themselves opposed against their supernatural fate. However, I had quickly realized that it was useless to strike back against this power of the wolves. It was at the exact moment when he had threatened Tom with death if he came too close to Leah again. It had been his absolute seriousness. He had trembled with anger, even more than I had myself, when Tom had hit Leah, even though this had actually been more of a reflex. But Nanuk had also realized that she could manage without help. As soon as I had put aside my inner rejection, I had seen that Nanuk was quite a passable fellow after all. Akai looked up to him with admiration and Tom also had honest respect for Nanuk. He seemed, as far as I could tell from his previous thoughts so far, to be a decent and open-minded contemporary. But Jake's thoughts were not yet ready could be accept Nanuk. He knew from his own feelings that he shouldn't blame Leah, but the fact that we were betraying Marcus right now didn't suit him at all.

"So, are they making out and undressing yet?" asked Jake casually, cattily.

I smiled at my son's jealousy, but actually took a closer mental look at the jetty in front of the hut. About three hundred meters to the left of us.

"No," I said.

Jake paused, holding a stone so large and misshapen that he could never leap above the surface of the water. Not even if he had the gift to influence the elements.

"What? No?" asked Jake, befuddled.

"No. They are sitting together at the end of the jetty, just holding each other by one hand and talking," I explained.

"About what?"

I listened for a moment and then focused more closely as I caught the mood from both of them. I was surprised.

"Leah was just telling Nanuk about Christmas. How she got the ring from Marcus."

"And Nanuk is trembling with jealousy!", Jake thought he could tell.

"No, not at all. He's enthusiastic about it."

"Huh ...?", Jake didn't understand the world anymore and dropped the stone.

On his little toe, on which he had neither shoes nor socks. He immediately held it and hopped through the area, cursing, until he toppled into the remains of some snow.

Chuckling at the sight of him, I immediately sat with him and cooled his 'war wound'.

Judging by my son's nagging and his expert opinion, the toe was probably beyond saving.

"It reassures Nanuk that his concerns about Marcus were apparently unfounded. That he's not an asshole. Giving a girl a ring, even if it's just a friendship ring, is a very expressive gesture with a lot of love behind it. Nanuk is very pleased that Leah has a boy who doesn't shy away from the meaning of this gesture, even though they've only been together a few months. That Marcus must already be very sure with Leah. That Leah is clearly extraordinarily happy and passionately in love," I explained.

"And that doesn't bother him one bit?"

"No. As I said, he's happy about it."

Jake considered my words and I listened very carefully.

It didn't fit for him. Even if the basics were different for him and Becky, they had been together since his imprinting, there had been a certain physical attraction from the beginning that simply could not be explained away. Well, Leah and Nanuk did not know each other so far, nevertheless they should at least be in each other's arms while they got to know each other now.

"Nanuk is just telling her about his marriage proposal, and they are both in a very boisterous mood. No jealousy, no resentment. They're both happy for each other," I interjected into his musings.

My son looked at me with wide eyes and in his head it worked so fast that I could hardly follow.

Countless little moments between Becky and him. He recapitulated his feelings about it, his desires and inclinations.

"That's it!" he exclaimed after a moment. "The luck of the other!" he simply declared. "Maybe we can keep Marcus after all," my son chuckled, and we headed off to the imprinted.

It took me a moment to get his words and thoughts down to a common denominator.

On the way back to Leah and Nanuk, I continued to watch them a little more closely.

Jake's idea could really work. I didn't pick up any passionate thoughts from either of them. They were happy, just like they were sitting together now.

That's how Jake pitched his idea.

Nanuk and Leah were ready to clutch at that straw together, but they had to tell Marcus and Kate about it. There was no way around that for me. Without sincerity toward their partners, they only fueled mistrust.

We would run to Nanuk's family first.

Unlike my twins, I also heard Akai's and Tom's voice in Nanuk's mind.

Akai had already turned a few times in the afternoon to look for his brother. But now Kate was about to call the police, so Akai and Tom wanted to search for him. Kate was seemingly completely confused. Nanuk had been gone for hours, but no one but her seemed significantly perturbed about it. Akai had had a hunch that may well have had something to do with Leah and had merely provided his parents with the explanation that it had to do with the wolves. With that, his parents and grandparents, who apparently lived in the same house, had been reassured. In order not to shock his family too much, Akai should already prepare them gently for the fact that he brought a vampire home. The way he thought about it, I just felt like a little pet that he had found and would want to take in, of which he would first have to convince his parents.

I smirked a little at that.

My chuckles died, however, when Tom recognized Leah over Nanuk's thoughts.

'There's that hottie again!' thought the latter.

A low growl escaped me, which was much clearer in Nanuk's mind.

The two disappeared from Nanuk's thoughts.

To distract himself from what awaited him shortly, Nanuk challenged my daughter.

'Bad mistake,' Jake and I thought together. Leah never let something like that sit on her!

But it was surprisingly pleasant to watch the two of them as they squabbled through the forest. They seemed so familiar, so playful, as if they had known each other for a very long time. Their thoughts were free, and they let themselves go completely.

Smiling frugally, I watched her until I approached foreign human thoughts.

I knew who I was hearing without ever having seen or heard her. The worrying thoughts were clue enough for me.

"Kate is standing at the edge of the garden looking out for Nanuk!", I said to Jake, but this garden was closer than I expected it to be.

'Leah, Nanuk. That's enough', Jake thought quickly, but unfortunately this warning came too late.

Leah and Nanuk leaped over a small slope, whereby they wanted to push each other out of the safe pre-planned trajectory. Hugging each other tightly and intertwining, they rolled across the forest ground, laughing heartily when Jake's warning reached them. They phased back, but just stayed lying there. Even though they didn't form a conscious thought, the same thing was going through their minds.

Feeling each other like this, experiencing the cozy warmth of each other from head to toe, seeing the joyful laughter on each other's face, both of them liked it very much and would love to keep this feeling.

"Nanuk!" however, Kate interrupted the cosiness between the involuntarily imprinted.

The voice shot both of them through their bodies like a lightning bolt.

"Kate!", Nanuk immediately recognized his fiancée and was truly startled to find her out here.

He had forgotten all about her in the last few minutes, but I also saw that she usually waited for Nanuk in the house. She was afraid of the big wolves. Even before Nanuk fully grasped the situation, that he was just lying naked on the ground with another girl, which seemed anything but unpleasant to him, Kate turned around. She was overwhelmed with the scene as a whole. But she understood quite well that her wolfish fiancé was amusing himself with another woman – whatever this amusing exactly looked like.

Fighting against tears, she stormed back into the house.

"Dude, you screwed that up pretty bad!", Akai approached, already throwing a towel at his brother.

Immediately Nanuk followed his fiancée.

Meanwhile, Tom had also arrived at the edge of the forest and was grinning unconcealed.

I did not like this boy. He was rude, overbearing, and quarrelsome. And immature!

He went straight for my unclothed daughter, with the picture that presented itself burned into him.

"Run!", I murmured to Jake to shield his sister from those insatiable stares.

I myself strove for humanness and therefore bridged the last stretch rather slowly.

In addition, Jake had more mass to shield Leah. And more threatening-looking teeth, which Jake knew how to use very convincingly!

At last I came over the slope and caught sight of the five Native Americans inside the house.

Their thoughts got jumbled, as did their restrained whispering, so I didn't follow anyone in particular for now.

Surprise because of the female wolf, dismay because of a present vampire, sorrow because of Kate and Nanuk, embarrassment because of Tom, curiosity because of the overall situation.

This was to be taken in summary from the Native Americans. Among them an older couple. They had to be about seventy years old, and I suspected they were the grandparents of Akai and Nanuk. The man showed no emotion in his face, but his eyes appeared indignant. The woman at his side, on the other hand, looked quite even-tempered. Both already with gray hair and both wore it long and open. As it was once the tradition of some Native American tribes.

Next to them stood a woman who seemed more confused. She kept looking in the direction Nanuk and Kate had run, but also at us. Probably the mother of the young wolves. A man in front of her, her presumed spouse, shielded her somewhat.

From me. The enemy.

They would both have to be in their mid-forties. Next to them, another man of the same age.

But my attention was on my daughter, who was feeling very uncomfortable.

She felt Tom's gazes on her, even though Jake was now in the way for direct eye contact. She had crouched down a bit to cover her nakedness with the towel.

As quickly as I could I was with her.

Gratefully, my princess looked up at me as I handed her her tracksuit top.

Underwear was overrated as long as she could just cover herself quickly.

Meanwhile, Tom imagined that if he were in Nanuk's place, he would dump Kate. He would grab this horny bitch and then give it to her so ri ...

"If you continue to have such inappropriate and shameless thoughts about my daughter, I will shatter every bone in your body!", I growled over Jake's back and had to pull myself together not to put it into action right away. Lucky for him, my son was standing in my way.

"I'm sorry! His thoughts and wishful thinking sometimes get the better of him," Akai laughed and gave his friend a huge slap to the back of the neck.

And he laughed at his friend!

I took from his thoughts that Tom also as a wolf constantly had such mental lapses and got properly on the nerves of the brothers with it. Tom had obviously not yet experienced sex and his hormones in this regard apparently went a little crazy from time to time.

I concentrated. Forced myself to rest. Breathed deeply.

Tom is just an immature lout!, I admonished myself.

"Idiot! Can't you pull yourself together just once when you see a pretty girl?! Especially in front of him?! Edward is serious about his threat and we're not going to stop him if you keep this up!"

Akai had already been very likeable to me on Saturday. He was a bit like Jake, but also like Emmett. With a hint of Alice about him. An always cheerful nature that tended towards lightheartedness. The latter had already explained themself to me on Saturday. Akai was allowed to be carefree. He had a big brother on whom he could always rely.

"Thank goodness you did not imprinted on that one!", I whispered sullenly, though. I would not endure a day, with these thoughts!

Just at that moment, my little daughter toppled over behind me in shock.

The sheer horror was written all over her face.

I smirked because of this reaction and helped her up from the ground.

"So now I have to be grateful?" pondered Leah, offended.

"At least a little bit," I smiled, which rubbed off on Leah a tiny bit and she commented on it with a kiss on my cheek.

From the house, I heard a collective mental surprised 'Oh!' in doing so.

"Come on in then, I'll introduce you to our family," Akai said after my children were dressed in the essentials.

This constant dressing and undressing were annoying to my twins, so I put Leah's underwear and socks in my pants pocket and held only her shoes. Jake didn't even have such things with him. Why would she put this on if we were going to run back home again a little later?

The Native Americans moved away from the window, wanting in no way to get closer to the blood drinker than they had to.

I respected that, after all, they did not know me. So I stayed outside on the terrace while Akai led the twins into the house.

I was also still carrying Nanuk's leather bag with his clothes.

A very functional designed bag but of high-quality craftsmanship. Handmade. Quite as new and Nanuk's initials were branded on the strap. On Saturday, I had listened unabashedly to the thoughts of the three unknown wolves, the whole encounter. In that respect, I knew that Nanuk's grandmother had made the bags for the wolves. She could be proud of this work.

They watched me very closely as I carefully put down Nanuk's belongings. But then, when they realized that I would not enter and even moved away a little, the eyes went to Jake and Leah. Primarily on Leah, since with them no female wolves existed.

"This are Jake and Leah Black. As you saw, wolves. We met them by chance in the forest on Saturday," Akai explained.

One listened to him only casually, while one appraised the foreign wolves.

I smiled.

It was a grandparental/parental curiosity that Bella and I had already displayed on Saturday.

"Good evening," Jake said tentatively, which Leah repeated almost as tentatively.

My children held each other by one hand. They granted each other support. They were afflicted by a certain childlike anxiety, which was certainly only due to the unusual situation. There was no real danger, about what my children were nevertheless also conscious.

"You bring a blood drinker here?" a voice boomed indignantly through the room.

The oldest present said it quite calmly and without raising his voice, but the anger in it was unambiguous.

He stared at me.

"This is Edward Stone. More or less the stepfather of the two," Akai said.

This time, a collective choked "What?!" rang out.

Akai positioned himself behind the man.

"This is my grandfather Amarok. If you can still speak of a tribe here, he is the chief of the Pequawket people," Akai told us.

I nodded in greeting and smiled to myself.

Amarok. This family had really thought about their first names. Amarok translated means 'Mythical Wolf'. Well, with Akai, they had probably been a bit wrong about the meaning of his name. Or it would still show whether he would do justice to his name 'The Wise'.

"And Grandpa. Get to know him first. He may be a vampire, but he's actually quite all right!"

"Why are you here?", Amarok asked me directly.

"Stepfather?" the two women present murmured questioningly to each other.

"I don't want to harm any of you. I do not hunt people. With the mother of the twins I have tied the bond, as they say in your tribe. I am only here to assist my children," I said equanimously.

"No humans? I've never heard of there being blood drinkers who don't drink blood!" questioned Amarok.

"Forgive me, please, but I didn't say that. Of course I feed on blood. There is no other nutrition for our kind. But my family and I only hunt animals."

"Now that that's settled ...", Akai elatedly interrupted the interrogation. "My Grandma Shanti," Akai took a step further, putting an arm around the older woman's shoulders and giving her a suggested kiss on the cheek.

Shanti = peace, tranquility and the absence of all disturbances and confusion. After this first impression, the name fit perfectly.

She smiled in a friendly manner and seemed unprejudiced.

I recognized Akai's gray eyes in hers. And a dimple in her smile. It only appeared on the left side of both of them.

The two seemed to have a particular connection. I heard the mutual respect and love.

Akai walked on, stepping behind the younger Native American couple, where the man seemed to want to protect his spouse from me.

"These are our parents. Chaske and Susan Latham."

They nodded politely, but cautiously, in my direction, yet interested and friendly to my children.

Chaske meant 'Firstborn Son'. I could tell by facial features and gestures who was related to whom, but it was just as easy to tell by Susan's name that she had married into this family. Susan was clearly Native American, but apparently her family had no weakness for traditional names. What had my angel called it on Saturday at Tom's? Refreshingly boring.

"And my dad," Tom threw himself into the armchair behind the last Native American.

Unseemly. He took away his father's place to sit.

"I have one older sister who has been in labor three times since Christmas. False alarm each time. But that's the reason why my ma is not here at the moment," he still explained.

"Why didn't you tell us you encountered other blood wolves?" asked Tom's father, whose face I had trouble interpreting.

His thoughts were calm, sorting through the information at hand.

"This is going to be a longer story. I guess we should wait for Nanuk for that," Akai suggested.

I heard Nanuk arguing with Kate upstairs. While he was putting on sweatpants and a T-shirt - yes, this wolf also renounced underwear, since he would take it off again later anyway - he tried to persuade Kate to come back downstairs with him. There he would explain who these wolves were and what they had to do with them. But Kate demanded explanations immediately. All she had in mind was this image of how she had seen Nanuk and Leah earlier. She nervously turned her engagement ring on her finger. She wondered if she still wanted or was allowed to wear it. Whether it was still due to her. Leah heard it too, even if she didn't understand the individual words, and it hurt her to know Nanuk was unhappy. My poor little princess. I would so much like to take her in my arms and comfort her, but I didn't want to appear disrespectful to the Native Americans and keep the distance that they wished.

Now that everyone was introduced down here, Susan walked up to my twins and pointed to one of the couches.

"Please, have a seat. Can I offer you something?" she asked attentively.

"Ma. They are wolves!" stated Akai from an armchair.

Susan looked at the two, smiled, and withdrew the question as she disappeared down a hallway.

She would prepare that which was usual for her own children, only more of it.

In the living room one began to talk with the twins.

Restrained and only, so that not further so an oppressive silence prevailed. Although one was nevertheless also curious about these wolves. Since when they were wolves, from which Native Americans they descended, since when it gave with them the blood wolves, and so on.

They obediently answered, and the mood became a bit more relaxed, as the strangers could make out parallels, although the Quileute used different terms.

Tom's father came out onto the terrace with a pack of cigarettes in his hand.

I politely backed away a little so he wouldn't feel bothered by me. We didn't speak a word to each other, and he tried to ignore me.

Susan came back into the living room with a huge tray.

"So you're pretty much always hungry, too, right?" asked Jake as the tray stood right in front of him.

Sandwiches piled up on a plate, surrounded by beverages and muffins.

"Um ... yep ...!" said Akai and took hold.

So did Jake, Tom, and Leah.

The rest of the Native Americans laughed at the pronounced appetite.

So that seemed to be the same for all wolves then. This information had a ... calming effect on all present.

"You guys are insatiable!", I interjected from outside and smirked.

Leah looked around at me.

She asked in her mind if that was why I had let myself get carried away with a comment, because I noticed a change in mood. On her, the laughter because of the appetite seemed calm and also somehow liberating.

I nodded.

The mood was much more relaxed than before.

You could feed an entire city block on what the kids have been eating since Christmas!, Tom's father thought, chuckling.

"Or even small countries," I interjected in a whisper to his thoughts. I had no intention of keeping my gift a secret. My goal was to build a foundation of trust between our families, as our children were inevitably connected with each other. This trust was not to be built on half-truths or withholdings.

"Yes, there you have ..." he began laughing and interrupted himself when he realized he hadn't said anything at all. He eyed me and took a drag on his cigarette. "They say that there are blood drinkers who have special abilities!" he then stated matter-of-factly, almost entirely without emotion.

"I can confirm that," I said with a friendly smile.

The corners of my counterpart's mouth twitched a little, but he forbade himself to smile.

The subject interested him because of the new pack, among which was his son, but it was not his destiny to deal with such things. Besides, now was certainly not a good time for it. That they had brought Jake and Leah here, along with a vampire, would have a reason. He gave that a higher priority.

"You were never part of the Spirit Warriors?", I asked after a moment.

"No. That task has passed our generation by. At that time, Chaske and I were offended that we would not enqueued between the big wolves. Then, when we met our wives, we were happy about it ... After our sons were born, we prayed that they would also be spared. We hoped that the blood drinkers had all been eliminated by now. Not that we ever really believed that, but parents' wishes sometimes would have little to do with reality," he mused, smiling at his own conscious naiveté in this regard.

He shook his head at this, stubbed out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray, and rejoined the others.

I viewed my children.

Yes, I knew the simple-mindedness of parents. In my own little world, Jake and Leah would never really grow up and remain forever as they are now. So would Ced and, of course, Becky and Marcus. Everything should stay the way it was. But one of the reasons it wouldn't stay that way, which is why the first change had already happened, came into the living room just now. Nanuk and Kate.

They entered the room holding hands.

Now I saw Kate for the first time with my own eyes.

She was definitely not a Native American. More than a head shorter than Nanuk, which was to be expected considering his height. Slender, but by no means gracile or fragile. Dark blond hair long and wavy. She was undoubtedly pretty, but certainly would not stand out in a crowd of young ladies. If it were not her expressive eyes. An interesting color. Dark green, you could almost call it turquoise. And those eyes sprayed flashes of lightning. To Leah.

Leah couldn't tear her gaze away from those interlocked hands.

Something in her was happy. About the fact that they had apparently gotten along. That Nanuk was no longer sad. Something else in her was still wondering how appropriate this joy was and how her own fingers would feel between those of Nanuk. She was so torn in her feelings that it tore my heart apart.

Jake nudged her so that she lifted her eyes.

Leah came to the same conclusion I did.

Kate was very pretty, smaller than Leah and with her overall appearance she definitely seemed like pleasant company if her eyes weren't flashing at her. But she could not blame her for that. After all, she had been lying naked with her fiancé at the edge of the garden.

Neither of us could interpret Nanuk's gaze.

He looked neither excited nor sad. However, I had access to his thoughts.

Like Leah, he was confused. His fingers lay tightly around Kate's. The woman he wanted to marry because he loved her. Never had he questioned that step. So many things had happened to the two of them that had only strengthened their affection. Beautiful things. Vacations together. They had secretly slipped out at night to meet. They had fallen asleep in the drive-in theater and were woken up the next morning by the police because their parents were missing them. But their relationship had also been through blows of fate. Kate's grandmother had died. A girl had tried to break them up in a deceitful way. A joint visit to Kate's gynecologist when she feared she was pregnant. At sixteen. It had only been a small cyst, however. But now, looking into Leah's eyes, he doubted his years-long relationship with Kate. Wondered to himself why fate sent him this beautiful spirited yet loving girl. To destroy everything he believed in. The kiss with her had been so consuming, as if they were meant for each other. Oh yes, they were, according to unanimous opinion, he thought cynically. He knew instinctively, with Leah, everything would be easy, no matter what there was to overcome. A fight in the supernatural world or a fight in the human world. Everything. Except his current situation.

He shook off the thoughts and led Kate with a firm step to the twins, who promptly rose politely.

"Kate, this are Leah and Jake Black. They are twins," Nanuk introduced my children.

They shook hands one after the other.

I noticed Kate holding Leah's convulsively, squeezing her tighter than she should have. But Leah passed it over.

Kate would have plenty of reasons to be mad at her, of all people.

"Hello, Kate. It's nice to meet you," my little one replied, smiling a little in doing so.

Not a polite phrase, she really meant it. Maybe Kate would help her bring about her emotional chaos. Nanuk hoped for the same when he met Marcus later. They both really wanted to cling to that little spark of hope Jake had provided them. I wasn't sure yet if they had a realistic chance of doing so. Time would tell.

"And this is Edward. The father of the two," Nanuk continued, waving me into the house.

He didn't understand at all why I stood so apart outside in general.

I still took just a small step forward to meet her in a friendly manner, but would not enter the house without permission from the master of the house, and that was not Nanuk.

"Your what?" however, Kate turned to Nanuk in confusion.

"No!" rang out simultaneously from the back row, where people were jumping up from their seats.

"No blood drinker will enter my house!" added Amarok hostilely.

Kate took a step back when she heard that designation.

The scene divided briefly.

Nanuk hugged his fiancée from behind, gently pushing her in my direction, but remaining at what seemed to her a safe distance. Right by her ear he whispered to her that nothing would happen to her, that my appearance was not my age, that they would not have brought me if I were a danger, that Nanuk would watch over her.

So Kate bridged the last two steps on her own, trusted her fiancé, and tentatively shook my hand, whereby I smiled charmingly at her.

During this small first gesture of getting to know each other, however, the living room had not fallen silent.

"Grandpa, trust your grandson for once. Edward is really all right!", Akai tried to clarify, chewing with pleasure.

"How can I trust him when he brings our mortal enemy into our home!"

Akai rolled his eyes and continued eating his muffin.

"I'm sure there's a reason they brought Edmund here," Shanti tried to put the minds at ease.

"Edward!" my children interjected, which made me smile while I had still been holding Kate's hand, which I now let go.

"I trust him!" stated Nanuk unequivocally, looking over Kate into my eyes.

He really did. He hadn't explicitly thought about how he felt about me as a vampire until now, but he truly did. He surprised not only me with it, but also himself.

"You're too young to know what you're doing, boy!" commented Nanuk's father.

He looked disappointedly and lecturingly at his son.

Nanuk looked pained and squinted his eyes. He ran his hands through his chin-length hair and let it lie on the back of his neck while he turned away from his family.

It annoyed him. He was no longer a child. And until two weeks ago, until he had become a wolf, this had also not been questioned. But since then everyone meant to tell him what he had to do. Above all his father and grandfather.

Leah also sensed his anger.

More than anyone else in the room. She felt with him.

Without consciously doing so, she moved closer to Nanuk. She gently placed a hand on his heart, whereupon they looked at each other for a moment as if they were somewhere else entirely.

Kate watched this touch suspiciously, but Shanti's eyes twitched.

The realization flashed in her gray eyes, and she smiled understandingly before her gaze shifted worryingly to Kate.

Nanuk became calm through Leah and now faced his family more confidently again.

"Do you know that you are contradicting yourselves. I did not choose what I am now. Since Christmas you have been telling me what my duty is. What burden lies on my shoulders and what responsibility. You tell me that I was born to carry this responsibility. But you also tell me that I will be able to handle it. That I will always know what to do and that I should trust my instincts. And yet you don't seem to believe a word of it yourselves!"

"All right, Nanuk. What is the basis of your trust?" his mother asked placatingly.

"And now don't come at us with any instinct or feeling!" his father grumbled in advance, though.

"Leah trusts him!" stated Nanuk.

The male Native Americans in the background smiled derisively.

"And to what extent should that be enough for us?" his grandfather asked.

Nanuk slumped his shoulders as he grazed Kate apologetically with his eyes, but turned further to Leah. He took her hands in his, which Kate watched very suspiciously, but very closely.

"Leah and I are connected by the bond!" proclaimed Nanuk.

The Native Americans fell back into their seats in silence.

Except Shanti. She was already sitting there in a relaxed posture.

It was unmistakable that this statement told them something.

"Well, finally it's out," Tom grinned.

"What kind of bond?" asked Kate.

Nanuk took one deep breath in and out as he looked Leah in the eyes.

Drawing from them the strength he needed ... for the confession that lay ahead of him right now.

Leah wanted to hug him, but she limited it to giving his hands an encouraging squeeze.

He turned cumbersomely to Kate and put his hands to her cheeks.

"Kate, I ... I love you! ... But in our legends it is said that the pack leaders do not choose their wives by themselves, but that providence will bring the right one to us. I thought it was superstition. Because I already had you. You are the right one, otherwise I wouldn't want to marry you soon ... But on Saturday I found out that it is not superstition. Our legends are true. When we met them by chance in the forest ... It was a curious situation that Akai and Tom found themselves in. They tracked Edward. When they came upon him, he was apparently sucking dry a defenseless woman. In fact, they seemed to have just kissed. In addition, two young humans, who turned out to be the same kind of wolves we were, came to the defense of this vampire. I joined them a little later, had only watched the scene through their minds and was thinking what this meant ... And then I looked into Leah's eyes ... It was as if I had been struck by lightning. Everything that had lasted in my life until then became unimportant. Slipped into the background. Behind Leah. And by that, unfortunately, I really mean everything. Not only that my human life in general has become meaningless to me. This feeling does not even stop at my human relationships. My parents or grandparents, Akai, the pack ... I am supernaturally bound to Leah. No one is above Leah. Not even you ... Not even myself," Nanuk tried to explain.

I saw how Kate's eyes moved frantically from side to side, how she breathed shallowly and pressed, how her pulse frequency increased.

I quickly stepped behind her and gently placed a cool hand on the back of her neck.

"Kate's circulation is going a little crazy right now," I said in a whisper as Nanuk looked at me in irritation.

"He's a doctor," Leah added just as quietly.

Nanuk nodded barely noticeably and looked anxiously toward his Kate again.

Leah's statement was not accurate, I was well aware of that, but a detailed exposition of my medical qualifications would go too far at the moment. No one got het up at my gesture.

It puzzled me, so I listened into the heads of our hosts.

The bond was sacred to the Native Americans of the Pequawkets, as I now witnessed in Amarok's thoughts. He himself was linked with his Shanti by this bond and with this connection Nanuk had just risen to the chief of his tribe. Nanuk stood thus now over them. In the case of Leah, they were still considering, but apparently this applied to her as well, since she was also a wolf. No one questioned their ability to judge right now. I could not make out the backgrounds of this statement, however, so far. This explained to me the immediate silence of the Native Americans when Nanuk had pronounced it. They were still processing the change in the balance of power, about which they had not told the children so far.

"Why didn't you tell us?" asked Nanuk's mother first, though.

He was still standing together with Kate, holding her face, and they looked at each other.

Leah didn't quite know how she felt about seeing the two of them like that.

"We both felt the change, but we both didn't want to acknowledge it. We wanted to forget this encounter. Not to let any powers dictate to us our lives and to go on living normally as before. I love you, Kate. Really, I do. That hasn't changed. And Leah has a boyfriend she doesn't want to lose either," Nanuk said calmly.

"If you're ... I mean ... she's ...?" mumbled Kate unintelligibly.

"She wonders why you are here now together. And why you arrived out there very familiar with each other, although you decided to ignore this bond," I explained her thoughts so quietly that only active wolves understood.

"Only today do we know that we cannot ignore what has happened to us. No matter how much we want to. On Saturday I was still fine, but yesterday you were already asking me what was wrong with me. I couldn't explain it to you because I didn't really know myself. My thoughts circled around Leah. How she was doing and what she might be doing. Trivial stuff. With those thoughts, however, came a burning in my insides. A painful burning that got worse with every hour. Although it was said that we could no longer get sick, I thought exactly that. I couldn't move a bit and doubled over in pain. That pain today brought me back to where I met Leah. Leah felt the same way. Edward and Jake brought her to me ... Our plan to just stay out of each other's way as if we had never met sounded so simple, but the bond is stronger than we want to admit ... I need Leah in my life," Nanuk continued.

It wasn't hard to see that Kate couldn't do much with these words. Had her circulation slowly calmed down, her adrenaline immediately shot up and took her lungs and heart with it.

"Does that mean you're asking my permission to cheat on me with her?" asked Kate angrily, tearing herself away from both of us and flailing around wildly with her arms.

Furious, she came to a stop right in front of Leah.

"It's not like that!", Leah tried to tell her. "I love my boyfriend, just like Nanuk loves you. We don't want to lose either of you, but we can't ignore each other anymore."

"I need some fresh air!" sighed Kate, turning to the terrace and walking out.

Nanuk and Leah went after her with a jacket.

They began to tell her in detail what had happened since Saturday, but also what straw Jake had handed them.

In the meantime, I sent Jake out with them.

Since he was affected by it himself, he might be able to explain it to her a little better.

Meanwhile I told those in the living room, the idea what Jake had come with and that they were submitted it to Kate straight away.

"Um ... since Nanuk is otherwise occupied, surely I can have his sandwich," Akai meanwhile hummed and hawed.

General amused eye-rolling was the answer and Akai took hold.

"I can't imagine that working," Amarok looked at his Shanti.

Very much love was in their mutual look.

"None of us know if it can work," I mused, looking anxiously at my children. "May I ask you a question?", I spoke after a moment and turned to the Native Americans.

"First, explain to us how you fit into this story. After all, you are a vampire," but Shanti kindly asked me to sit down.

She smiled charmingly. And was curious.

"It's like I said before," I said, but I could already hear that a short explanation would not be enough for anyone here.

I had been introduced as father, which no one could or would quite believe. But since our children were connected, they wanted to know a little more in depth who they were dealing with in my person.

To that extent, I began a somewhat more detailed answer.

"Bella, the twins' mother, is my one true soul mate. We met when she was only seventeen years young ...", so I began to tell.

How we fell in love, how I left her, the long painful years of separation, and how I met Jake and Leah on the first day of school in Saco.

"... Meeting Bella here again - as an adult beautiful and consolidated woman - changed my life once again. She took me back and gave me her love anew. But this time I would not make the same mistake as I did so many years ago. I will stay with her ... as long as she wants me. I will make her one of our own to spend eternity with Bella. And before you comment, I want you to know that I have the twins' permission for this and, in fact, will not do it unless and until Bella specifically requests it of her own accord. In doing so, I have no intention of reminding her of this possibility," I ended after some time, during which Kate in the garden slowly understood the problem as such and was quite quiet.

Akai and Tom were also outside with the teenagers by now, so I only had adults sitting in front of me.

Tom and Akai had been a little bored by my story since they had already heard it to some extent on Saturday.

"So you're going to kill a human!" stated Chaske irreconcilably.

"Bite, to be exact!" interjected Tom's father.

"Bite. Kill. Whatever you prefer to call it. To me, it's splitting hairs. Personally, I consider the transformation to be murder," I shrugged.

"You're just saying that? Without feeling guilty in any way?" asked Shanti.

"Only outwardly. At the thought of doing this to Bella one day, everything inside me squirms. However, I have no choice. I have given my word to Bella that I will do it. I will not be able to exist one day without my fiancée. I will not survive another separation from my angel ...", I said.

I got up from the sofa and looked emotionally through the window at my twins.

"The same goes for my children. They are Bella's flesh and blood. This mere assumption was enough for me to feel connected to them in the beginning. But four months have passed since then. A lot has happened in that time. Bella owns my heart, but not just her alone anymore. Leah and Jake. They are our children. They have grown up without a father, but have let me into their lives as such. I love them both and would give my life for them!" In my mind, I happily added that fate seemed to be kind to us, as Bella and I had even had a child together.

But I kept this information to myself for the time being, in order not to shock those present unnecessarily and not to fill the evening with further questions about my person.

Reverent silence dominated the room as I turned back to the Native Americans.

"Will you allow me to ask a question in my turn now?", I asked politely.

"Of course, Edward. You've been very open with us. You're of course due that," Susan nodded in my direction.

"Well, for that, first of all, I would like to apologize to you ... I can read minds. I hadn't mentioned that before. I am sorry that I have already violated your privacy.
Ignoring what I hear is unfortunately only a very limited possibility for me in such a small circle," I said sincerely.

"So it's true. Blood drinkers have special abilities," Chaske stated with interest instead of complaining about my unauthorized intrusion into his head.

"Yes, but this is not to be considered ordinary even among our peers. When we begin this life, we take with us particularly distinctive qualities. Something like physical or mental strength, goodness, speed, alertness. But beyond that there are the most different supernatural gifts that our kind can have, however I don't know if there are different vampires with the same abilities. In my family, besides me, there is an empath and a clairvoyant," I explained.

This they found generally very interesting and already started to ask more questions, but it was Shanti who remembered that I had actually wanted to ask a question.

"You'll certainly have a chance to squeeze Edward about it. Besides, this is a topic that should be of interest to the wolves, not you old men!" she determined with a stern amused expression, which the addressed men commented with an angry snort.

But they were silent, and Shanti made a prompting gesture in my direction.

"I know that you told Nanuk, Akai, and Tom about the bond. In addition, I heard from all of you earlier that Nanuk has been elevated to chief in your tribe now that he has been granted this bond. That makes me question why Kate generally didn't know about it, and the kids nothing about the fact that it changes the tribal hierarchy," I inquired.

This really surprised me, since the wolves had obviously been told everything they needed to know on the first night of their transformation.

"To the first question ...," Susan began to say. "Kate was in the woods with us the first time the kids phased. She saw it and had something of a nervous breakdown over it. To that extent, she spent the night in bed and only heard all about it from Nanuk the next day. However, he left out everything that concerned the magic bond. He didn't believe that it was true and thought it was hokum."

"That also leads us to the answer to the second question. Nanuk freaked out when we told him about the bond," Chaske interjected.

"The thing is, we all love Kate very much and we want to include her in our family just as much. They have been happy and in love together for so long and she is such a magical girl. But we have advised Nanuk to cancel or at least postpone the wedding," Shanti explained.

"Wasn't that hint perhaps a bit too hasty? The imprint did not compulsorily have to hit him after all," I pondered. I guess I would have gone a little crazy in Nanuk's place. It inevitably conveyed the impression that they wanted to get rid of Kate.

"Oh sure. He is the Alpha wolf," said Amarok.

"And?", I asked irritated.

"ALL Alpha wolves are ... imprinted, as it is called with you. The term, by the way, I like much better than our bond. Is somehow more accurate," said Tom's father.

"It is said that only the lead wolves are affected by this power so that they can bear the burden and responsibility of being a tribal leader. That only through this bond they gain the mental and emotional strength necessary for this, which requires the leadership of the tribe," explained Amarok.

Was it so? If this was really true - regardless of the tribe - Leah would never have had a choice. Even if years had passed, she had married Marcus, they had children together - one day she could have met Nanuk. And what would have happened then? I disliked that already in the basic idea.

"I am not sure if all pack leaders imprinted among the Quileute. Jacob Black did not, however this could be due to his age. That he simply hadn't met his soulmate before his young death. However, it is definitely not only the Alpha wolves have imprinted," I said.

"With us it has always been like this. The blood wolves have been around for centuries, and every single leader of the wolves was connected to his wife by the magical bond," Shanti explained, holding her husband's hand.

A wolf with whom she was connected.

"In any case, we then didn't get around to telling Nanuk what other consequence the bond would have for him if it got a hold of him. If we tried to bring it up again, he just disappeared," Susan said.

"By your advice that he should postpone or cancel the wedding, all he probably saw on this subject was that you don't want Kate in your family. Maybe already for a longer time, and the reaction of the wolf gene would come to you to it just as explanation, in order to prevent the marriage", I considered.

Embarrassed silence.

Feelings of guilt sought their way to the surface.

"I have to admit, that I didn't even think that Nanuk might take it that way," Chaske muttered to himself.

"He must think that we have never liked Kate," Shanti stated to herself.

"But it's not like that!", Susan tried to justify herself.

I smiled.

"Well, you don't have to explain that to me, you have to explain it to your son!", I pointed to the outside.

The young people sat together on a bench at the opposite end of the garden.

Their conversation would apparently not last too much longer. Kate smiled tentatively, truly trying to grasp it, but finding it difficult. She resolved to just let the next few days come to her with an open mind. To wait and see what Leah and Nanuk's plan would look like in practice. It didn't particularly suit her, but she found the twins quite nice, all things considered. More Jake, though, than Leah.

"We should leave soon. It's almost eleven o'clock and we also have to inform Marcus about the situation," I reflected.

"And what kind of fellow is this Marcus?" asked Chaske, somewhat brusquely.

I smiled again.

He asked himself whether Marcus was good enough for Leah, for whom he now felt somewhat responsible through the connection to his eldest son. I found it quite remarkable what far-reaching changes of thought were brought about by the fact that Nanuk was now the chief of the tribe.

"He's a decent young man who may have a bit of an excitingly past, but his intentions are completely honorable," I explained briefly.

I caught Jake's gaze in the garden and tapped my wristwatch reminiscently.

He nodded. A little caught.

They had lost all track of time out there chatting, but immediately came into the house.

Akai and Tom were first reminded of bed, after all, tomorrow was school for the two. One said goodbye verbosely and friendly, until the next reunion.

That there would be someone, that one had invited me expressly to introduce at the next opportunity Bella personally, had surprised me however then nevertheless. The plan that Nanuk would accompany us home had apparently not changed.

He and Kate stood a little to the side. Kate's arms slowly slid around his neck, they hugged each other tightly and kissed devotedly.

I watched Leah during this.

She looked away.

She couldn't look at that. But she was happy. Kind of. For Nanuk.

The walk home through the woods was not nearly as enjoyable as the walk here.

Leah and Nanuk maintained an appropriate distance from each other without appearing entirely aloof.

Apparently, getting to know the woman who belonged to Nanuk had really helped Leah.

The three wolves had found an innocuous topic to talk about in their minds.

That the spring semester at the college had officially begun, but the first two weeks were primarily events for first-year students.

I could confirm this. When we studied, we also didn't start attending lectures until two to three weeks after the semester began. Until then, you really didn't miss anything.

It took us about twenty minutes for the distance to our house and there was still light shining in the living room.

Except for Ced, however, no one was awake. He sat between Marcus and Bella on the sofa, dissatisfied about the so apathetic company. In this respect, my son beamed at me enthusiastically and stretched his arms out to me excitedly when I entered the house before the children and thus saved Ced from sheer boredom.

I picked him up when all of a sudden maternal instincts came to light. Bella had a hand on our baby's legs, but when that touch was no longer there, Bella bolted upright.

I quickly bent over so that her sweet lips collided with mine.

Completely irritated, my angel stared at me, but then sighed in reassurance.

"Where were you so long?", I heard immediately.

In stereo! Ced mentally and Bella spoke it out. Yes, this child was indeed descended from my angel.

"We brought a visitor," I said quietly so as not to wake Marcus and pointed to the terrace.

Thank you for reading!