(Sam POV)
{Damn Jacob, for ignoring my orders. I told him to leave the Cullens alone and not start anything over a girl who has clearly made her decision time and time again. Does he really not care that his rash actions could lead to war and the death of his pack mates?}
My thoughts naturally bled into the pack mind. It was rewarding to hear that they all thought the same way. The only slightly different voice was Seth. His hero worship of the leech Edward, whom he fought the leaders of the newborn Coven with, made the rest of the pack keep a distance from him.
Jacob must have finally shifted because his voice suddenly broke into the pack mind. Before I could register any clear thought from him, I used the Alpha voice. {"JACOB, YOU WILL COME HERE NOW! NO DETOURS OR LOOPHOLES. STAND BEFORE YOUR ALPHA IMMEDIATELY!!!"}
Jacob didn't reply, but I could see in his mind the forest flashing past as he ran towards me. Good, he was finally listening. Then his thoughts started to break into my awareness. Bella's name, Bella's smell, Bella's dying, Bella's choice. It was all tangled with rage at Edward, rage at the Cullens, rage at himself for being useless. The same grief he'd carried since she chose the bloodsuckers.
{"She's dying. She's dying and I can't stop it."} Kept flashing through the front of his mind.
I felt the instinctive pull of the pack react to it…Paul's spike of anger, Jared's flash of good, let her learn, Embry's confusion turning sharp as he tried to find something solid to hate. Even Seth's mind fluttered with panic.
I forced the pack still before it could become a stampede of emotion. My own thoughts froze on one thought.
Bella's pregnant.
That thought landed and everything inside me went cold.
Pregnant. Not metaphorically. Not rumor. Not a human girl gaining weight. Pregnant, and the Cullens were letting it happen.
Jacob's mind jumped, spiraling the way it did when he didn't want to look at the center of the pain. He tried to drown the truth in details, in blame.
{"Edward did this. He did this to her. He's killing her. She chose him and now she's dying for it and I can't even…"}
Then another thread…new, wrong, dangerous.
{"And Leah. Leah's pregnant too."}
That one didn't hit me cold. It hit me furious.
Leah was ours. She was Quileute. She was pack…whether she wanted to be or not. And Jacob's thoughts showed it in flashes, like pictures he couldn't stop replaying.
Leah eating meat that wasn't cooked. Leah craving it. Leah's body changing fast.
{"Raw. She's eating it raw. Like it's normal."} Paul's thoughts flared.
Jacob's grief tried to twist it into a story where everything was unfair to him.
{"Thomas is there. Of course he is. Thomas gets everything. Leah gets to be happy and Bella…Bella gets…"}
I didn't care about Jacob's jealous ache. I cared about what his mind was accidentally handing me.
Two pregnancies.
Two unknowns.
I saw it the way the Elders had taught me to see it: not as one event, but as a widening crack.
Bella…human…pregnant with something that had Vampire's blood in it. A thing that was already making her drink blood.
Blood. Human blood.
A violation, even if in Jacob's memory Carlisle called it "medical." Even if the Cullens tried to wrap it in clean words.
And Leah…wolf…pregnant and craving raw meat.
Maybe it was nothing.
Or maybe it was the first step down the same road.
If Bella's baby could force the need for blood into her body… what would Leah's do? What would Thomas's blood do?
Jacob's misery kept talking, kept begging for someone to fix what couldn't be fixed.
{"She's going to die. He's going to let her die. He wants to die with her…he said it. He said…"}
That was another problem. Edward's weakness wasn't just pathetic; it was dangerous. A vampire willing to throw away control in grief was the kind of vampire that could start an indiscriminate slaughter.
I pictured it in one clean line:
Bella dies. Edward breaks. The Cullens lose their restraint. The tribe pays for it.
And now, with Leah tied to them, we would pay first.
The pack's anger stirred again…responding to my fear before I could lock it down.
Paul wanted blood. Jared wanted a fight. Embry wanted certainty. Quil wanted someone else to decide what was right.
And Seth…
Seth's mind was the worst of it. Not because it was violent. Because it was torn.
Leah's brother. His loyalty. His familial love.
His fear of losing her.
I felt the old instinct rise in me, the same instinct that had kept us alive through vampires and treaties and mistakes:
Remove the unknown.
Remove the threat before it becomes bigger.
I didn't want to think it. I didn't want to be that Alpha.
But I could already see the alternative: waiting until it was too late and burying bodies we couldn't afford to bury.
So I did what I'd done a hundred times in emergencies.
I reached for the pack with my will…hard, absolute.
We move. Now.
It was an order in the shape of thought. It should have snapped them into line the way it always did.
It snapped some of them.
Paul surged into agreement like he'd been waiting for permission.
Jared hesitated but followed.
Embry went with the current because it was easier than resisting.
Quil's fear folded into compliance.
Jacob's response was to question. {"What? Why? You want to attack?"} I could feel him rethinking the pack's reaction. {"NO! She is no danger to us. We don't need to do this."}
Then Seth, {"NOO!!! You cannot be serious. You can't ask this of me!"}
What my mind forced me to do… Broke my heart.
{"SILENCE. We WILL attack the Cullen house… Now, before they can ready themselves. This danger to the Tribe CANNOT stand!"}
I let the Alpha echo drop from my voice, {"Seth, Jacob… You two will not enter the house. You don't have to take part in…that. But we need you to occupy the other Vampires. The rest of you… If you have a clear shot on either…objective. Take it.
The order hung in the pack mind like a blade.
For a heartbeat, everything went silent, not calm, not peaceful. The kind of silence right before an explosion.
Paul moved first, because Paul always did. His thoughts were a hot, eager line: Finally. Jared and Embry surged behind him, not as hungry for violence, but certain enough to follow their Alpha and his decisions.
Quil hesitated, fear and loyalty tangled, then he too fell in.
And Jacob?
Jacob hit my command like it was a wall.
{"No,"} he sent, and the word wasn't loud, but it was solid. A stake driven into the ground. {"Sam, no. This isn't…"}
I pushed again. Harder. The Alpha voice wasn't just volume; it was will.
{"MOVE."}
It should have worked the way it always worked.
Jacob's mind buckled…just for a fraction.
And then something in him snapped back.
Not defiance.
Not rebellion.
A click, like a lock being turned from the inside.
Then his thoughts slipped from the pack mind. I could still feel a connection to Jacob, but it was more like talking to Thomas now. Just words, none of the thoughts or feelings you get in the pack mind.
{"Jake… What have you done?"}
{"EPHRAIM BLACK'S GRANDSON WAS NOT BORN TO FOLLOW LEVI ULEY'S"}
My lips instinctively pulled back from my teeth in anger. A packless Alpha now stood before me. A challenger?
Trying to keep my instincts in check, {"So…what, you belong to a Coven now? You will leave the tribe over a girl that has never and will never choose you? I saw your thoughts, Jacob. She will choose a slow, painful, hopeless death rather than be with you."}
Okay, that was low, but the Alpha anger was making this a challenge.
I saw the hurt in his eyes as my words hit him. Looking up at him, I wondered when he had became bigger than me.
{"I will be where I belong, Sam. And right now, that is between you and the Cullens. You have let fear push you and the pack down a road you will never come back from, even if you do survive. Do you not realize that you just Alpha ordered Seth to take part in killing his sister?"}
Okay, that hurt, but Jacob had no idea how hard it was to lead and make decisions for the many.
{"You don't understand, Jacob."}
{"I understand just fine, Sam. What you intend is murder, plain and simple."}
The word hit like a slap.
Murder.
As if I hadn't spent years telling myself this was protection. As if I hadn't spent nights staring at the ceiling of Emily's house listening to the ocean and thinking about every way vampires could tear through our people if we ever got sloppy.
{"They're bringing an unknown into our territory,"} I snapped. {"Bella's carrying something that needs blood…human blood. That's not a choice we can ignore."}
Jacob's jaw tightened.
{"Bella didn't choose that,"} he sent. {"And Leah didn't choose this either."}
I felt it then…Seth.
Not just his fear.
His refusal.
Even if he couldn't hear Jacob, he could hear me and my reactions to what was said.
It rose in the pack mind like a tide, sudden and bright and furious, and it wasn't aimed at the Cullens.
It was aimed at me.
{"NO,"} Seth's voice hit the bond like a howl. {"NO. You don't get to use me for that. Not Leah. Not Thomas."}
I pushed, instinctively.
{"Seth…"}
And Seth's bond shattered.
It wasn't like Jacob's clean break, his Alpha snapping into place like a door locking. Seth's separation was messier, emotional, but it still held. The pack mind didn't own him anymore.
I felt it then… Jacob was no longer packless, he had just gained a member.
{"Don't do this, Sam. You can lead the pack better than this."}
Jacob turned his back on me and ran back the way he came, Seth only a few paces behind him.
With them warning the Cullens, I knew any attack was doomed.
{"We head back, the Elders need to know of this."}
Not long after we were safely behind the treaty lines, I felt Thomas reach for me…that Alpha-to-Alpha pressure, the same way he'd spoken to me before.
I refused to answer. Told myself it was because I needed the Elders' direction before anything else.
I didn't let myself examine the sharp twist in my gut at his touch.
After we dressed and shifted back to human, Jared came up to me with his phone in hand, face pale under his normal skin tone.
"I left the Cullen phone with Kim while we were shifted. She just sent this—it popped up on it."
I took the phone. And I understood the look in Jared's eyes.
[You have thirty minutes to meet me at the training clearing. Anyone not there, I will hunt down and kill. This includes the Elders and all imprinted mates. I don't hold children responsible for your decisions, so Quil's imprint is excluded. You wanted it this way… Now feel the consequences of your actions. Thomas.]