Mary had seen a lot of weird shit in the last week.
She had watched two people shift into wolves. Learned about the existence of Vampires. Werewolves. Leah had even casually thrown in that sirens and mermaids were real too, but at that point, Mary was sure she was being fucked with. Leah's poker face wasn't that good.
(She hadn't ruled out Bigfoot. Yet.)
She had gone so deep down the rabbit hole she was reconsidering every book, movie, and conspiracy theory she had ever laughed at.
Life had gotten weird.
Paper Shoots was warm and welcoming, a stark contrast to the crisp air outside. Between the corridor of bookshelves forming little warren-like passageways, she could smell the scent of roasted coffee beans and pastry. It should have felt normal. Safe.
It didn't.
Not when she was sitting in a café with two werewolves—wolf-shifters, rather—her best friend, and said best friend's vampire girlfriend.
Leah hadn't spoken since they walked in, glaring at Tanya with an alarming amount of determination.
Mary knew the basics. Jake and Leah had told her about the Quileute legends, the history with the cold ones, the reason their shifting gene had reawakened after so long. The Cullens presence alone had been enough to change everything.
She just hadn't realized how deep that prejudice ran.
Leah's whole body was taut, shoulders squared like she was preparing for a fight that hadn't started yet.
Mary didn't know what to do about that.
And honestly? She was trying her best not to think too much about Jake. The… imprint was still something she was coming to terms with. It felt like there were expectations. She shoved those thoughts aside for now.
Instead, she leaned forward, breaking the thick silence.
"Okay," she said, fingers drumming against her mug. "How exactly did we get here?"
Bella exhaled, rubbing her temples. "That's… a long story."
Mary raised an eyebrow. "Good thing we're not going anywhere."
Tanya smirked slightly, her arm resting along the back of Bella's chair, looking perfectly unbothered. "You mean your friend didn't tell you?" Her gaze flicked between Jake and Mary, amusement obvious.
Bella's eyes narrowed. That caught her attention. She looked between Jake, Leah, and Tanya, something sharp slotting into place in her mind.
"I'm missing something here." Bella's voice turned flat. She shot Tanya a look. "And you seem to be delighting in not telling me."
Tanya hummed, leaning over to tuck a rogue curl behind Bella's ear. "Aw, honey," she cooed, saccharine-sweet. "You know I'd tell you… with a little convincing. It's been a lonely few nights."
Bella snorted. "I had a paper due. You knew this. It's worth like a third of my grade," she complained, but scooted toward Tanya anyway, leaning into her shoulder.
Jake tensed at the casual display of affection. His hands curled into fists against the table, his jaw tightening.
"It's not the leech's place to explain," he finally snapped. "But I guess it's not a surprise that you don't remember. You only ever paid attention to what you wanted to hear."
Leah scoffed. "Like we believed it at the time," she muttered. "They were just ghost stories."
Bella's head tilted. "What ghost stories?"
Jake exhaled sharply. "The same ones I told you about at the beach." His gaze sharpened. "The cold ones. And the ones who protect against them."
Bella froze.
Her fingers twitched against the table. "The protectors? Wait…."
Leah lifted her mug in salute. "Got there in the end, Swan."
Bella blinked. "You're werewolves?"
Jake's jaw tightened. "Not werewolves. Shape-shifters."
Bella stared, fascinated. "How does it work? Is it like… a turning situation? Or—"
Jake and Leah exchanged glances before launching into the explanation.
A gene. A trigger. The Cullens had been the catalyst, their presence awakening something dormant in the tribe's bloodline. Sam, then the others in his gang. Jake afterwards, once all his friends had gone first. Leah, the only female wolf, had shifted later. There was an Alpha, a pack bond, telepathic links—too much information to process all at once.
Bella's expression shifted between curiosity and awe, trying to take it all in.
Tanya, meanwhile, looked unimpressed. "I've only met one other clan of shifters, but I didn't know the mechanism behind it. So you shift when there are vampires around. Not exactly the most efficient defense system."
Jake scowled. "We were doing fine before you and your kind showed up."
Tanya just smiled, entirely unbothered. "Sure you were."
Mary, for her part, had stopped contributing. She was watching. Absorbing. Not just the tension, but the words.
And then, softly, Bella spoke.
"I understand why you hate them." She exhaled, gaze distant. "I've been afraid of them too."
Jake scoffed. "Then you got yourself a pet bloodsucker and decided it was worth it?"
Bella flinched.
Tanya's expression darkened. "Watch your tone."
Bella touched Tanya's arm, a silent plea for restraint, before looking back at Jake. "You don't know what you're talking about."
Jake bristled. "Then tell me."
Bella hesitated. Then, she did.
She told them about Forks. About the Cullens. About Edward.
About getting ensnared by a boy who was unlike anyone else, who made her feel special in a way she had never known before.
She told them about falling in love.
About gaining a family—people who had taken her in, made her feel like she belonged, like she was enough.
And then she told them about losing them.
About being alone in the woods, abandoned without a second thought. About the way it had hollowed her out, left her gasping for breath, struggling to function.
Jake and Leah listened. Really listened.
Mary, who had known none of this story, still sat stiffly, hands clenched in her lap.
Tanya… Tanya simply held her.
Her fingers traced slow, grounding circles against Bella's back, offering silent comfort.
When Bella finally stopped speaking, the weight of her words settled over the table.
Leah exhaled sharply, rubbing her temple. "That's fucked up."
Jake didn't speak.
He looked down at his hands, fingers flexing against the table, like he was grappling with something too big to name.
Mary's gaze was unreadable.
Finally, Jake exhaled, looking up. His voice was quieter now. "And you're… happy now?"
Bella blinked. She glanced at Tanya—at her mate, at the life she was building, at the warmth in her chest that had nothing to do with biology and everything to do with belonging.
She didn't even need to think about her answer.
"Yes."
Jake studied her for a long moment.
Then, finally—"Okay."
It wasn't everything.
But it was a start.
When the conversation began circling back on itself, Tanya excused herself to pay for the table. Mary wandered off to check if they had a copy of a novel she had been meaning to read, and Jake followed right after her.
Which left Bella and Leah. Alone.
Leah quirked an eyebrow at Bella. The two of them had never really spent time together one-on-one. Their interactions in the past had been brief—Bella had been just one of the younger kids running around, and Leah, always older, had been distant, her sharp edges keeping everyone at arm's length.
Now, though, there was no buffer.
"So, you and the blonde leech?" Leah asked, her voice blunt as ever. "How did that happen? Got tired of boys after getting ditched?"
The words were provocative, but the tone… the tone made the difference. Leah wasn't mocking her. She sounded like she genuinely wanted to understand.
"Tanya," Bella corrected sharply, narrowing her eyes as she tried to emulate her mate's signature glare. "Her name is Tanya."
Leah raised both hands in a mock surrender. "Alright, alright."
Bella sighed, her expression softening. "Honestly? Even without the soulmate stuff, I think it still would have been her for me." She turned toward the window, watching snowflakes drift lazily against the glass. "You ever meet someone and just… click? Like suddenly all the love songs make sense? Like you catch yourself picturing wedding bells and happily ever afters before you even realize it?"
Leah went still. Her jaw clenched. And when she spoke, her voice was tight, controlled. "Yeah."
Bella hesitated. There was history there—pain, too much of it—but she was smart enough to leave it alone. Instead, she just nodded, offering Leah the space to let go of whatever tension had crept into her posture.
It took a moment, but eventually, Leah exhaled, rolling her shoulders back like she was physically shaking off whatever memory Bella had stirred up.
"What did you mean, soulmate stuff?" Leah asked after a beat.
A customer browsing the shelves walked past them, and Bella took a second to gauge how much she could say.
"Well, it's a… thing," Bella started vaguely, glancing toward the counter where Tanya was still waiting. She looked back at Leah, hoping she would understand the unspoken words. A vampire thing.
Leah nodded, so Bella continued. "You meet, and it's like—something shifts. It's instant. I guess Shakespeare wasn't wrong about the whole 'eyes being the window to the soul' thing." Her lips tipped up at the corners, something soft settling in her expression.
Leah, surprisingly, looked rapt by the explanation.
"We have something like that too," Leah admitted. "But it only ever happens one way—men imprinting on women. That's what we call it - imprinting. The council thought it was some biological fail-safe to keep the gene going. Breeding purposes or whatever."
Bella blinked. Then her brain caught up.
She remembered what Leah had said in her apartment.
"Jake and Mary?" she whispered.
Leah sighed. "Yeah."
Bella's stomach turned. "Mary has a serious boyfriend. They were planning to move in together after she finished uni." Her voice was quiet, uncertain. She didn't know where Mary and Jake were at the moment, and it felt a little wrong to talk about them like this, but she had to say it.
Leah just waved a dismissive hand. "It doesn't have to be romantic. The Elders got a lot of things wrong." She rolled her eyes. "They thought no women could shift either. And yet, here I am."
Bella relaxed slightly. "So, what does it mean then?"
"Imprints can be anything," Leah explained. "A best friend. A sibling. A protector. Whatever the person needs."
Bella exhaled. "Okay, that's… good. But it's not like that with your so-called competition, by the way. What I feel? There's no way this isn't romantic."
Leah's brows pulled together. "Wait. What do you mean, what you feel? Imprinting is one-sided. We feel it. They don't."
Bella tilted her head. "Well, that's another difference then."
Before Leah could press further, Bella caught sight of Tanya returning, Mary trailing behind her with a paper bag clutched in her hands—clearly, she'd found her book.
As they all exited the café, Tanya casually extended an invitation. "Why don't you three come to the house on Friday? Meet the family properly."
Bella knew this wasn't just a social call. Tanya had mentioned earlier that it was better to let the relationships settle before dropping the bombshell about Victoria.
For now, they would play it slow.
But Bella had a feeling that wouldn't last for long.
With a few waves, everyone split off—Mary heading to work, Jake and Leah back to their hotel, and Bella and Tanya making their way to Tanya's SUV, a sleek, black machine with tinted windows that gleamed under the dim Denali light.
Just as Bella reached for the handle, Tanya turned to her, a look on her face that made Bella pause.
She arched a brow but said nothing, giving Tanya the space to gather her thoughts. It took a moment—Tanya fiddled with Bella's jacket, brushing off specks of snow, smoothing the collar, as if the small, idle touches could steady whatever was running through her mind.
"I heard you talking to Leah," Tanya said finally, her voice careful.
Bella snorted. "Yeah, figured. There's no keeping secrets around you vampires."
It had taken some adjustment at first—being intimate in the Denali house, knowing that everyone could hear everything, smell everything—but she had come to accept it, in the same way she had come to accept everything about Tanya's world.
Tanya didn't laugh, didn't tease her in return. Instead, her fingers lingered on Bella's lapels, her expression unreadable. "Did you mean everything you said?"
Bella frowned, trying to pinpoint exactly what Tanya was referring to. "What part?"
Tanya hesitated. Then, softly—vulnerable in a way Bella rarely saw—she asked, "Do you really think about wedding bells? About us being married?"
The sheer, open hope on Tanya's face stole the breath from Bella's lungs.
"Oh, honey," Bella murmured, her chest tightening, cupping Tanya's cheeks with both hands. "Of course I do. I just can't decide if one of us is wearing a suit, or if we both get to wear dresses."
Tanya let out a shaky breath—half laugh, half sob—and then she was kissing Bella, pressing frantic, desperate, worshipping kisses across her face, her temple, her lips.
"Goddess, I love you," she breathed, eyes wet, voice thick with emotion.
Bella smiled against her lips. "Yeah, you do."
Tanya laughed again, a sound so bright and full that Bella thought she could live off the warmth of it for the rest of her life.
"I want that too," Tanya admitted, brushing their noses together. "I want that so bad."
She reached past Bella, opening the back door of the SUV, and before Bella could protest, she was being gently pulled inside, guided onto the backseat until Tanya was settled over her.
And then Tanya was kissing her again—deep, slow, reverent. Like she was trying to commit every inch of Bella to memory, like she already had and just wanted to make sure she never forgot. Bella responded in kind, fingers threading into soft blonde waves, sighing as cool hands traced down her sides.
After several breathless minutes of lips and hands, Tanya finally pulled back, exhaling heavily, pressing one last lingering kiss to the corner of Bella's mouth.
"As much as I'd love to keep you here all night," Tanya murmured, voice like silk, "we should take this home."
Bella chuckled, smoothing a hand down Tanya's back before sliding back into her seat. As Tanya climbed in beside her, starting the engine, Bella reached out, resting a hand on Tanya's thigh, giving it a slow, deliberate squeeze.
"So," Bella said casually, a teasing lilt to her voice. "I get to propose first, right?"
Tanya nearly swerved off the road.