The Consequences {Jacob Black}

Chapter CIV

At least Jake had finally listened to me. I sat myself in the house, stretching out on the couch and watching some stupid cooking show. I could hear snarling and fighting off in the distance. Sounds like that conversation with Sam was going great. I wouldn't let myself be bothered by it. Jake was a big wolf that would handle things himself.

Two hours later, I was just wishing that he would handle them a little sooner. I had finished watching T.V., pretty sure that I couldn't handle another thirty minutes with Rachel Ray. Why did people have to be so damn bubbly? Jake should have been home by now. There was no reason why this should take so long. I boiled the water and poured it into the large bowl that we had always used for cleaning, adding some vinegar and grabbing some cleaning towels. If I had nothing better to do...

On my hands and knees, I began scrubbing at the floor. Maybe Jake was right. Maybe I would have turned out this way if I had lived with my mom. Neither one of my parents were a obsessive cleaner. I don't know where the trait came from, why I felt the need to clean whenever I was worried or nervous or upset. But it was there. It was the one thing that I did every time I was the least bit stressed. I hummed to myself, The Sound of Music playing in my head as I cleaned.

"What are you doing? You just swept yesterday." Jake's gruff voice startled me. I jumped, spilling the rest of my vinegar water over the hallway floor.

"Jumpy?" I reached behind me and grabbed a few dry towels, dabbing at the floor until it was almost dry.

"Where have you been?" I snapped at him. "You told me you'd be right home."

"Were you worried?" he laughed.

"No shit, Sherlock. You tell me that you will be right home and then you're gone for three hours. All the while, there is fighting and growling and barking and howling and you didn't even call me," I snapped.

"Good Lord, woman; what is wrong with you?" he asked.

I rested my head in my hands, avoiding his eye. "You and I never fight. I don't like it," I whispered. "And I know that you're sorry about what you said, but hearing it just made me wonder if... if maybe we got this wrong."

He was by my side in the blink of an eye, pulling my face out of my palms.

"You don't want the imprint?" he whispered heartbrokenly.

I nearly laughed. Nearly. And then I remembered that this wasn't something that we could laugh about.

"Jake, I want the imprint. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just worried about us, is all. You and I fight about everything. Since we started dating it's been better and then everything exploded today. I was just worried that maybe you realized that I'm a little hard headed."

He chuckled at me and kissed my forehead. "I already knew that you were hard headed, Annie. That's not a surprise. I wasn't mad because you were being stubborn; I was mad because I thought that you were defending your sister, trying to put her before you. Again." He kissed my cheeks, lingering closer to my lips. "I know what I'm getting with you, Annie; just like you know what you're getting with me. We know everything about each other. And yes, we're going to fight. Like you said, we fight about everything. We also work everything out and one of us will always admit that we're wrong."

His lips tapped the tip of my nose gently. "Do you remember how you said that you want this to be as much of a real relationship as possible?" I nodded. "That's what this is, Annie. This is real part of the imprint. We fight, we make up, we learn from it, and then we repeat the cycle. It's what normal people do in their normal relationships. I want to be with you. I don't want to fight with anyone else. And I definitely don't want to make up with anyone else. I love you, Annie."

Before I could really say anything else, he kissed me. It was sweet, just his mouth on mine. There was a gentle tugging on my bottom lip, his teeth nipping at the lip. I licked his bottom lip, begging him to do more, but he wouldn't, he didn't. I tried to kiss him faster, to force him to react the way that I wanted him to, but he wouldn't. I hand't even realized that we were moving until I felt the soft pillows beneath my head.

I pulled at his shorts, fingers brushing over the button. Jake chuckled against my lips and pushed my hands away. He gripped my wrists and pinned them over my head. He broke away from my lips, his mouth moving over my jaw.

"Here's the thing I need you to understand," he whispered, his mouth on top of my collarbone. "I love you more than life itself. And no matter what happens, you are always going to be my number one priority."

"What are you talking about?" I managed breathlessly. Jake's soft and warm mouth traveled down my sternum a little ways, but still he did nothing more. I felt him move back up.

"I'm talking about you and I. Because sex is great, Annie, but nothing will compare to what it feels like to just get to talk to you, to make sure that you know that I love you," he whispered, moving up to my chin again. My nails dug into his shoulders as he caught my mouth within his. He was right; sex was great but I loved talk to him. So why weren't we talking now? I pulled away enough to look into his eyes. He was hiding something.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" He found the soft spot behind my ear that made me moan and shiver. I resolved to keep my head, to remember that there was something that he was hiding from me.

"You're not telling me something," I said, grabbing his face between my hands and pulling him to me.

"What's going on Jake? Why were you gone so long?"

He sighed and pushed up so that he was sitting next to me instead of lying atop me.

"I went to talk to Sam about not killing Bella. Because I know that you're right, Annie. I really do. Sam doesn't agree with me. He tried to order me to kill her." My eyes widened and I sat up alongside him. I was sitting slightly behind him, my hand resting on his strong, broad shoulders.

"I did something Annie, something I didn't want to do." What the hell could he be talking about? He didn't kill Sam; there's no way he would do that. "I stepped up."

The three words were hanging between us, but Jake didn't offer ay more. He stepped up to what? He told Sam exactly what he was thinking? He -

"You're Alpha?" He nodded, his eyes still confused. "So that's what the fight was? You and Sam fighting for dominance." He affirmed it again. "What's wrong with this? This is what you are supposed to be Jake."

"There are two packs, Annie."

"What?"

"Sam refused to step down. We fought; I thought that I would win and that Sam would step down. But it wasn't what he wanted to do. We split off in two packs, each of us an Alpha. The guys... The guys don't know yet, Annie. Leah does; she split off with me. Now the guys have to pick."

There was something more, something Jake didn't want to talk about. He wasn't one to talk about his feelings. Well, feelings that didn't pertain to me. But I knew Jake, better than I knew myself. I knew the consequences of pushing him; he would shut down and get angry. So I sat and waited patiently for him to answer my unasked question.

"What if Sam's right, you know? What if I'm not ready to be Alpha? I mean, the guys will go with their guts. Maybe I'm not good enough. The guys won't choose me, you know?"

I tried not to laugh because it would be inappropriate. "You remember how we talked about the things that are engrained in us? You know, how I was afraid that I would turn out just like Bella if I had gone and lived with my mother." He nodded, his eyes narrowed. I crawled over him so that I was sitting in his lap. "There are certain things that are hardwired into us and being an Alpha is that for you. You know what you're doing, even if you don't realize it." He didn't look completely convinced.

"Leah joined you," I whispered. "And she'll say that it's because she wanted to get away from Sam, but really, it's because you are the rightful Alpha." He didn't say anything. "No matter what happens, I'll be right here, Jake. If it's just you and Leah for the rest of our lives, then that's what it is. But everything will work out."

He didn't say anything else, just pulled me into a tight hug. His heart was hammering in his chest, worried about everything that could go wrong. What he didn't realize was that he shouldn't be concerned. He was the rightful Alpha and I was proud of him for accepting that.