A/N: To the guest who asked about ass kicking - first, thank you, your review made me smile. I'm glad you don't mind the fluff while waiting for the ass kicking:) This story isn't anywhere near as dark as others on this site, but is definitely darker than my other story. There are a couple more chapters of this group adjusting to being a true family, and then the wolves, Edward, and the elders come into play in Chapter 25. I wanted to give all the Whitlocks a little bit of peace post-Italy.
Thanks for reading and an extra thank you to everyone taking a few moments to leave feedback:)
The New Recruit
Jasper, Peter, and Charlotte had been more than happy to leave the construction details for Seth's bedroom to Esme, who was a genius when it came to architecture and design. Because of the layout of the back cabin and the fact that the exterior walls were made up of logs, she found a way to reconfigure the space so they didn't actually need to build out any further. Both bedrooms were large, so they knocked down the wall between the two and put up two walls to divide the space into three bedrooms instead. One of the interior walls of the bathroom adjoined the large living room, so they just repositioned that wall a little to increase the size of the bathroom just enough to accommodate a new vanity with double-sinks.
They'd done a lot of work the evening before and through the night while Bella was sleeping, and Esme left the rest in Jasper, Peter, and Emmett's hands the next morning while the ladies drove back to town to do some furniture shopping.
It was a fun project for everyone, and Bella found herself actually enjoying the shopping aspect of it, knowing she was helping create a space for their newest family member. It also helped give her some ideas about how she and Jasper could rearrange their own space to make a nursery for their little one.
By the time they got back home, the construction work was complete. While most everything could be done at vamp speed, waiting for paint to dry wasn't one of them, so Esme had quickly popped back in to the hardware store to pick up a few industrial fans to speed things along.
Bella and Jasper were just finishing up her dinner dishes when the rest of their family came trooping in. "Finished?" she asked with a smile.
"Yes, and damn does Esme do some amazing work," Charlotte laughed. "Those bookcases she found were a perfect fit for the shorter wall in Leah's room and with the way they're painted, they look like custom built-ins for our little wolfie reader."
Bella smiled and nodded. "She's very good at making a house a home, and making each room of that home a perfect reflection of the person who lives in it."
Jasper smiled at Esme's emotions, knowing she'd be blushing if she could, then took Bella's hand and started pulling her out of the room. "Let's go put our pajamas on, I seem to remember promising you some hot chocolate in front of the fire while we wait for them to arrive."
An hour later, everyone was crowded around four Scrabble boards laid out to make one huge board. With how competitive vamps were, the game felt a little too cutthroat for Bella, so she was curled against Jasper's side, occasionally pointing to one of his tiles but mostly content to watch the others.
Emmett put down X-E-N-O in front of Charlotte's 'phobia' and did some loud and enthusiastic gloating, making Bella laugh. "Take that, suckers! X on a triple-letter and that N right there on a triple-word! That's a hundred and twenty points! Who's the Scrabble master now, Jasper?" he laughed.
Jasper picked up one of the zillion useless Os on his tile stand and threw it at Emmett's face. "You're not the master if you're cheating, asshole," he snapped, trying to hide his smile.
"How am I cheating?" Emmett asked a little incredulously.
Jasper laughed and shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "But you are. I'm sure of it."
"Don't be a dick to my husband just because he's smarter than you, dear brother," Rosalie snarked and threw a tile at him.
Bella laughed at her ridiculous family as they all started trying to pelt each other with tiles. When everyone stopped and turned to look out the front windows, she hopped up with a smile. "Are they here?"
Jasper nodded and stood up, then laughed as he cautioned her to maybe put on her coat and boots before running out the door. Remembering that it was about twenty degrees and snowy outside, Bella skidded to a stop on the hardwood floor and made a quick detour to the closet.
"That's why you're the brains of this little mateship of ours," she laughed.
"You're the beauty, so I suppose that's only fair," he shrugged.
Bella looked at him with a smile. "We're quite a killer combo between the two of us, huh? Good looks and a quick mind?"
"Yep. We're the perfect package," Jasper laughed as he helped hold his mate steady while she crammed her feet into her boots.
Peter rolled his eyes as he and Charlotte joined them by the door. "And humble about it. What's not to love?"
"Nothing," Jasper shrugged. "Nothing at all."
"You are somethin' else," Charlotte laughed as she shoved him out the front door.
Bella followed them outside and bounced on her toes a little to try and keep warm as she waited for the truck to come to a stop. When she realized Rosalie, Emmett, and Esme hadn't followed them out, she looked up at Jasper. "Why aren't they coming out?"
"To not crowd Seth," he answered with a smile. "Meeting six vampires at once is a lot for a new wolf. If he wants to meet them, they'll join us."
Bella nodded her understanding, then jumped down the front steps when her wolf family got out of the truck. "Welcome home!" she shouted as she hugged Paul and Leah. Then she looked at the boy who she'd only met once before, though he was considerably smaller then, and held her hand out. "Hey Seth, I'm Bella. We met last—"
Bella cut off with a laugh when Seth stepped forward to hug her. "Why were you giving me a handshake when these lesser wolves got hugs?" he asked with a wide grin.
"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable by throwing myself at you," she laughed.
"Lesser wolves?" Leah smiled. "You think we're the lesser wolves? You may have grown a lot, kid, but we're still taller."
Seth shrugged, the same smile firmly in place. "I'm sweeter and more adorable than you and Paul combined, which makes up for any minimal height advantage you guys have."
Leah shrugged. "Can't argue with that. Sweet and adorable aren't adjectives that have ever been used to describe me. Or Paul."
"Hey!" Paul laughed. "I'm sure I had a cute phase at some point in my life… a long ass time ago, admittedly."
Hearing Peter's chuckle, all four of them turned to the porch and Bella smiled. "Seth, this is Jasper, Peter, and Charlotte Whitlock," she said, and all three vamps smiled and waved at their names.
Seth surprised everyone, with the exception of Leah, by walking right up on the porch to shake their hands. "Thank you, all of you, for giving my sister a home."
"It's been our pleasure," Jasper smiled. "We're glad she and Paul joined our little tribe."
Seth smiled again, though there were the faintest traces of sadness and bitterness in him that Jasper understood all too well. "I'm grateful she's found a tribe, a family, who sees how wonderful she is," he said, then easily shook off his negativity. "Isn't your family bigger than this? Are the rest of them inside?"
"They are," Charlotte smiled. "They didn't want to overwhelm you."
"Pfft," Seth waved his hand dismissively. "I'm fine, I want to meet everyone who's helped put that smile back on my sister's face."
"Inside or outside?" Jasper asked Paul and Leah.
Leah rolled her eyes. "Inside's fine. The kid's so happy and well-adjusted that he'll take all this perfectly in stride."
And so they all trooped inside to introduce their newest recruit to the rest of his new family. Seth wasn't small by any means, but he was smaller than Leah and Paul, and that combined with his sunny smile and the dimples in his cheeks made him look just as sweet and adorable as he claimed to be. Being newly sixteen, he still had a little bit of boy left in his face that his fellow wolves had lost before they'd started phasing.
Once they were all seated again, Leah explained that Seth had somehow been part of their pack from the moment he phased. None of them really understood it, but before they'd hit the road to drive the rest of the way home, they'd found a sufficiently wooded area where they all shifted to their wolf forms and found they were all mentally connected.
"Turning into a werewolf was the biggest shock of my life, but thank god I'm in Leah and Paul's pack and not Jake's," Seth smiled.
"No shit it was a shock," Paul laughed. "Finding out vampires and werewolves are real was wild, but finding out I was one of those mythical creatures was a complete mindfuck," he said, and Leah and Seth nodded their agreement.
Then Seth noticed Jasper giving them a weird look. "What?"
"Who told y'all you were werewolves?" Jasper asked.
Leah looked at him a moment. "Sam. The elders."
"Of course they did," Jasper rolled his eyes. "Y'all aren't werewolves. You're shapeshifters who happen to take the form of a wolf. You're no more similar to true werewolves than vampires are to zombies."
Leah's eyebrows shot up. "Seriously?"
"Yeah," he nodded. "Traditional werewolves only phase during a full moon. And when they're in their wolf form, they're completely wolf, not a trace of humanity left. When y'all are wolves, you're still completely yourselves just in a different body."
"Wait, so if vampires, shapeshifters, and traditional werewolves are a thing, what else is?" Bella asked. "Are witches real? Mermaids?"
"What is a witch but someone with magical powers?" Emmett smiled. "Just in this room we've got two vamps with magical powers."
"Are you sayin' me and Peter are witches?" Jasper laughed.
"Bitches would be more accurate, I'd think," Rosalie said dryly, then laughed and ducked out of the way when both Whitlock men threw pillows at her. "See? Bitches."
"What's your gift, Peter?" Leah asked. "We know about Jasper's but we didn't know you had one, too."
Peter shrugged a little uncomfortably. "I don't really know what to call it. I never have. Super fuckin' selective precognition maybe? I occasionally get 'nudges of intuition' as Jasper calls them. Not on a regular basis, and not about anything in particular either. I can get five in a week or go years without ever gettin' any."
"It's how Jasper knew to go to Italy," Charlotte added.
"So you can't go looking for information, it just kinda finds you?" Paul asked.
Peter nodded. "Yep. It's why I don't really consider myself gifted in the way Jasper is."
"Yeah, yeah, Peter and Jasper are great. But mermaids? Can we go back to that please?" Bella asked.
Jasper smiled as he poked her in the side, making her squeal with laughter. "So dismissive of your mate, huh? If you're not careful you're gonna hurt my feelings," he laughed, then tucked her back under his arm. "If mermaids are real, it'll be news to me. I've never met one or met anyone else who has."
Bella rolled her eyes with a smile. "Do you ask everyone you meet if they know any mermaids? If not, that doesn't help me."
"Ask Aro," Rosalie suggested. "If anyone in our world knows, it'll be him."
"Good thinking, I'll email him tomorrow," Bella nodded as she yawned. "Alright, as lovely as it is spending time with all of you, and as happy as I am to have you wonderful wolves back here with us, I'm exhausted so I'll bid you all goodnight."
Jasper scooped her up in his arms and hauled himself to his feet, making Bella laugh. "I do have legs, Whitlock. You don't have to cart me around everywhere."
"I like carrying you, but alright. Have it your way," he shrugged and dropped her on the couch.
Bella shoved her hair out of her face and glared playfully at her mate, then climbed to her feet on the couch cushion and launched herself at him. When he caught her with a laugh, she smiled. "I didn't say you couldn't cart me around everywhere, just that you didn't have to."
"Good to know," Jasper laughed and headed for the stairs. "Night, y'all."
"Goodnight!" their whole mixed-up family chorused back, all five vamps and three wolves watching them go with smiles on their faces.
Seth looked around the room and his smile grew. This odd little group had already given the sister he loved so much a place where she belonged and never wanted her to be anyone but exactly who she was. No one told her to let the past go or to stop being a bitch or to move on. They just happily accepted her as is. If for no other reason than that, Seth knew this was a group of people he could easily come to love.
Hearing hammering outside the next morning, Bella pulled on her boots and coat and took her mug of tea out on the front porch, where she found her mate building… something.
"Whatcha doin'?" she asked curiously.
Jasper looked up and brushed away the loose curls hanging in his eyes. "Making a couple outdoor changing rooms. Leah and Paul have been tying clothes to their legs when they phase, but with the snow here, everything gets wet and dirty," he explained. "Their bedrooms don't have their own outside doors, so I'm making one for outside their cabin and one for outside ours. That way they can come and go as wolves without ruining their clothes or giving anyone an eyeful of a naked human. They deserve the same dignity as anyone else," he shrugged.
Jasper had spent part of his night trying to come up with a way for the wolves to have just as much freedom to come and go as the vampires did, without having to give up any of their dignity. With Seth joining their pack, Jasper wanted to spare Leah the discomfort of her little brother seeing her naked on the regular.
He'd gone back to the lumber and hardware store early enough to be the first one in the door when they opened and walked through trying to find something that would work. He'd eventually chosen a large, wooden outdoor storage shed that he could reconfigure to fit their needs, including removing one of the walls so the front was open. No point in having a door if the wolves had no hands to open it.
The shed was just tall enough for the wolves to walk into in their wolf forms, but he wasn't sure if that would make them feel too claustrophobic so he made sure he could remove the roof and finish the edges if they'd prefer it that way. All he cared about was that the walls were tall enough to cover Leah when she was in her human form. He did want it to be long enough that the wolves could walk all the way inside, though, so he was combining two of the sheds into one to give them enough room.
After loading four of the kits and some additional lumber onto a large pallet cart, he'd picked up two kits for large metal cubbies that had drawers for folded clothes and hooks to hang things. If the top of the changing rooms were going to be open to the elements, he wanted something the wolves could put their clothes in to keep them dry.
As he walked back through the store to check out, he smiled when he saw panels of faux stone siding that looked surprisingly real, even with his vamp vision. After doing some quick math, he loaded the right amount on top of the rest of his purchases. The stone looked similar to the foundation of the cabins, what was in the entryway of the main cabin, and the huge stone fireplace in the living room, and Esme would be thrilled if he was not just making the outdoor rooms less of an eyesore, but tying them in to the original design of the house as well.
Bella smiled at Jasper from her spot on the porch. They both knew Leah had hated that the wolves in Jacob's pack had seen her naked so often. It was a little less awful for her once it was just her and Paul, but Bella imagined Leah would be uncomfortable with her little brother seeing her naked all the time.
Seeing the size of the room he was working on, she asked a question she'd never thought to ask before. The night her dad was killed it had registered that the wolves were big, but she'd been too panicked and too focused on her dad to notice anything other than that they were bigger than normal wolves.
"Just how big are the wolves?"
"Big," Jasper laughed. "Really big. Like horse-sized big."
"Whoa," Bella breathed, then shook off her surprise. "So you're building something big enough that their wolf can fit in?"
"Yeah, it'll be open in the front so they can walk in easily as wolves, and I'm gonna set a big clothes locker on the back wall so they can all keep some clothes on hand. That way they can always come to the main house as wolves and have something to change into before coming inside."
"Like a supernatural locker room," Bella said with a smile, making Jasper laugh as he nodded. "Can I help?"
"Of course," he smiled. "How are you with a screwdriver?"
"I mean, I can use one if that's what you're asking," Bella laughed.
The clothes lockers that Jasper had found still needed to be assembled, so Bella put her mug on the porch railing and Jasper set her up with everything she needed to put one together. It was pretty easy work, but Bella still felt a nice sense of accomplishment when she got it done.
As she stood up to grab her tea, her stomach rolled and she quickly moved to the railing and threw up over the side.
Jasper felt that brief moment of panic in her that typically signaled she was about to be sick and flashed up on the porch just in time to hold her hair away from her face.
"Bleuch," Bella grumbled when she was finished and wiped her mouth
"You done?" he asked quietly. At Bella's nod, he grabbed her mug and helped her walk inside. Once she'd been divested of her outerwear, he got her settled on the couch and grabbed her a glass of water, then started making her a fresh cup of tea. When he brought the water to her, he helped her sit up to take a few sips, then sat on the floor by her head. "That's the first time in days you've been sick."
"I think I've waited too long to eat. I was making my tea when I heard you hammering and then lost track of time when I started helping."
Jasper leaned in to kiss her forehead. "Let me grab your tea and I'll make you some toast. I've already got some berries washed, do you want some of those while I work on your toast?"
When Bella nodded and closed her eyes, letting him feel her gratitude, he smiled and gave her another quick kiss, then went back to the kitchen. Only a moment later he was back and set her mug and a bowl of cut up strawberries on the coffee table for her. "Want some eggs with your toast?"
Bella hauled herself up so she was sitting and nodded. "Sure. Thank you."
"Of course."
Because omelettes were one of Bella's preferred pregnancy foods, they'd gotten in the habit of keeping cut up vegetables in the refrigerator to make life easier, along with huge tubs of baby spinach. Jasper pulled out spinach, broccoli, and asparagus and got to work making his mate breakfast.
Leah, Paul, and Seth came in the door just as Jasper was transferring her omelette to a plate with her toast.
"You cook?" Seth asked in surprise as he walked in the kitchen.
"No, this is about the limit of what I can do," Jasper laughed. "Toast, scrambled eggs, and omelettes. Though I'm killer at heating up soup and cutting up fruit."
"What's in the eggs?" he asked curiously as he pointed at the green bits.
"Chopped asparagus, broccoli, and spinach. Green vegetables are good for the baby," he smiled.
"Oh damn!" Seth said as he spun around and made a beeline to Bella. "I forgot about that last night. Congratulations, Bella," he said as he leaned down to give her a hug. "And you too, Jasper," he added as he sat down. "I hear you're gonna be the daddy."
"I am," Jasper smiled and handed Bella her plate, then grabbed a gift-wrapped package off the counter and tossed it to their newest recruit. "Here, this is from us."
Seth's face split into a huge grin as he tore into the package, then he grinned a little wider when he held up the little green onesie that read 'Can I call you Uncle Seth?'
When they'd learned Seth was joining their family they'd been grateful for Jasper's tendency to be overly prepared for most things, because they had an extra onesie.
"Really?" Seth laughed excitedly.
Bella had a mouthful of food, so she just nodded with a smile, while Jasper laughed at the amount of happiness in the wolf.
"Welcome to the family, kid."