The Unwanted Imprint

Chapter 33

Jacob had waited until Nichole had disappeared with Aro before he ran to Seth's side. "Emmett, I'm gonna need both you and Jared to help me get Seth into the house. Emmett!"

Emmett was still staring in the direction that Nichole and Aro had gone, and the look on his face wasn't something that Jacob could easily describe. There were so many emotions all jumbled together on the vampire's face. Despair, anger, sadness, hopelessness.

Jacob did the only thing that he knew could bring Emmett back to reality, he punched him. "Emmett, you gotta focus here. We gotta get Seth inside and get him taken care of, and after that, we can group together with your family and figure out a way to get Nichole back."

Emmett blinked before he nodded his head, wordlessly helping the boys to get Seth inside of the house. They laid Seth on the couch, and Emily started to tend to his injuries immediately. She assured the boys that he was in good hands, and that they should go to the Cullen house so that they could inform Carlisle about what had happened.

Jared went with the two boys, because right now he was as invested with things as the other two were. Plus, something told him that Jacob wasn't going to go along with whatever plan it was that Carlisle was going to come up with, and someone had to keep the hotheaded boy from killing himself.

As it turned out, Jared had been right. "We need to take our time with this," Carlisle said when the others had told him what had happened. "We need to plan accordingly. If Aro has any indication that we're coming, and coming in force, then he won't hesitate to kill Nichole, useful as she might be to him."

"Useful?" Jacob asked. "I thought that this was all some plot to get to you."

"And that very well may be, but we also have to consider that Aro may have figured out Nichole's little power, and has plans to use it to further his own devices. I imagine that he's taken her back to Italy with him."

"We're going to get her back, right? So what's the plan?"

Carlisle shook his head. "Honestly, I don't know right now, Jacob. Aro has a lot of vampires under his command, more then we would be able to handle if it came down to a fight, even if we had the help of you and Jared. We would be outnumbered severely, it's not a fight that we would win. No, if we want to get Nichole out, then we're going to have to sneak her out of there somehow, and once we do that, we would have to leave Forks, or else Aro would know how to find her again. But where Nichole is concerned, it's not Aro that I'm worried about, it's Jane."

"Who the hell is Jane?"

"One of Aro's members, one that he trusts immensely. Jane has a power of her own, she can just look at you and make you feel severe pain. Jane is a very jealous individual, so I'm worried that she may do something to hurt Nichole. Aro won't do anything to Nichole so long as she does everything that he requests of her, but if Jane feels like Nichole is threatening her position, then there's no telling what she's going to do."

"Okay, so then we get Jane out of the picture first." Jacob said. "If all she has to do to get you down is look at you, then how do we get past her?"

"That might prove to be a challenge. Nichole will be fine for right now, Jane wouldn't do anything in the presence of Aro,but there's no telling what she might do behind closed doors." He looked between Jacob and Jared. "I know why you are here Jacob, but what about your friend here?"

Jared bit his lip. "Our duty is to protect the human residents of Forks. Besides that, Nichole got me to see that you guys aren't that bad after all. I know that you might not want my help, but I'm willing to offer it."

"We're going to need all of the help that we can get." Carlisle replied. "Your help would be greatly appreciated, Jared, thank you."

Jared nodded his head. "Of course. If you want, I can try and get some of the others to join us. Sam won't actively encourage the others to join, but I don't think that he would stop anyone from coming, either. I know that Seth would gladly come along, and I think that Emily would be able to convince Leah and a few of the others to come along. Really the only one that we would have a problem with would be Paul."

Emmett let out a scoff. "Yeah, I would rather not have the wolf that's threatened to kill my sister on multiple occasions along for the ride."

"So it's settled then." Carlisle said. "Jared, I want you to try and round up as many of your friends as you can in the next twenty-four hours. I know that the Cairo clan will help us, Benjamin especially. And with his power of being able to control the elements, he will be very handy indeed."

"Is twenty-four hours going to be too long?" Jacob asked worriedly, and Carlisle shook his head. "I honestly don't know Jacob, but we need others to help us, because if it's just our little group that goes in, we'll all wind up dead by the end of the day. At least if we have more hands on deck, then we might have a little bit of a chance here." He placed a hand on Jacob's shoulder. "You can stay the night here if you wish. Nichole has a comfortable bed. Of course, I would understand if you wanted to go back to the reservation as well."

Jacob hesitated for a moment. "Actually...would you mind if I stayed here?"

"Of course not."

Once Jared had left, Carlisle showed Jacob to Nichole's room. Jacob could smell her everywhere, and he actually found the scent to be extremely comforting.

"We'll get her back, Jacob." Carlisle said. "And for the record...Nichole liked you even before she was your imprint."

Jacob looked at him in surprise. "What?"

"I could see it in her eyes after the first time that you two had met. Her eyes would light up every time that your name was mentioned. She was so excited to work on her school project with you, even though she was trying to hide her feelings from the rest of us."

Jacob smiled a bit. "I tried to deny my feelings after I first shifted because of who her family was, because of you guys, but I realize now that there's no fighting the feelings that I have for her, and I've also learned that it doesn't matter who your family is or where you come from, love...it always finds a way."

Carlisle chuckled at that. "I couldn't put it better myself. It might be a bit early to say this, but welcome to the family. Try and get some sleep, alright?"

After Carlisle had left, Jacob got under Nichole's blankets, sighing softly as he breathed in her scent. "Don't worry Nichole." He whispered. "I'm going to get you back if it's the last thing that I do."

A/N: I'm back guys! Sorry that it took so long.For those of you that don't know, I broke my leg last month and had to get surgery, they wound up putting in plates and rods and the whole shebang, and that's why I was on somewhat of a hiatus. But my leg is healing nicely. I have staples in instead of stitches, but those are going to be coming out next week hopefully, and then physical therapy is going to start, which I already know is going to hurt like hell. I don't know if I'll be able to stick to my normal schedule yet, but I'll try to update as often as I can!