Our Battle Cry

Jacob's POV

Earlier that night...

She ran. She just ran away. I don't get it. I don't know what hurts more, the fact that she apologized, or that she rejected me. My imprint rejected me. I looked over in the direction of where she went and saw Embry and Jared staring at me with worried expressions.

"Dude, what happened?" Embry asked once I was standing next to them.

"I don't… know. Everything was fine, we were getting along—"

"We could tell," Jared interrupted with a smirk.

"Anyway, the next thing I know she's running off apologizing. I don't get her!" I said while running my hands through my hair.

"Maybe you should talk to Sam or Emily. They seem to know her better then everyone here," Embry said. He grabbed my shoulder and started pushing me in the direction of Sam's house. "Come on, we're needed for official pack duty stuff."

When we were far enough in the forest where no one could see us we stripped and phased. It felt refreshing to be a wolf again.

"Finally, does this mean that we can get off of patrol now?" Seth asked.

"No. Sam said something about wanting you guys to go check with the bloodsuckers to see if anything new has showed up" Jared told him while replaying Sam's message.

I wasn't paying attention. I started to think about what had happened back there. Where did I screw up?

"Do you really want to know the answer to that?" Leah asked me.

"Not really Leah," I replied.

"It was the fact that she clearly isn't ready for another relationship. You can tell by how she acts when she's alone with you guys," Leah thought. I could imagine her smug face.

"What do you mean?" Embry thought/asked.

"Well, it's obvious to anyone that she recently got out of a relationship that ended badly, so she doesn't want a new one."

"Then how come none of us noticed?" Seth thought to his sister.

"I meant any female." I couldn't hear her thoughts anymore which meant that she phased back to being a human.

"Seth, go to the leeches and check okay? We'll get the border." I told him.It was times like these when I was glad that I was Beta. We were running the border and the guys were having a stupid conversation when we heard a scream. It wasn't just anyone's scream too. Something in me told me that it was Aria.

"Come on! Seth stay at the leeches house in case we need to give messages okay?" I told him.

"Yes boss." Was his answer.

Once we were close to the house, we phased back and pulled our shorts on. I was the first one into the house. I ran upstairs with Embry on my tail. Jared stayed downstairs to make sure that everyone else was okay. When I reached Aria's room I could see Emily and Sam already there. Emily was looking sad and worried. I looked at her. She was passed out on her bed, but she was breathing. Seeing that alone slowed down my heart rate.

"Is she okay?" I asked Sam while moving more into the room.

"Yeah, she seems to have just passed out while looking out her window," he said. He was looking out it to see if he could get a glimpse of what was out there that scared her.

"So, she won't need to go see Dr. Bloodsucker?" Embry asked.

"No, she'll be fine once she wakes up," Sam replied. "There's nothing out there. What would have scared her so much that she fainted?" he mumbled to himself.

"It must have been something. Aria doesn't scream, let alone faint, for just any reason" Emily told us while looking at Aria.

"Umm… we have Seth waiting at their house in case we needed them…" Embry said while rubbing the back of his neck.

"Okay, I'll go tell him to patrol again; I want both of you to rest up. You'll be watching Aria from now on almost 24/7. Paul and Jared will patrol with him," he was talking as he started walking down the stairs. We followed after him and once he left the house we went and sat down on the couch.

"Hey man, do you want me to talk to her? Maybe find out what I can to help you?" Embry asked me. He was looking at my profile. I couldn't decide if I wanted his help or not.

"Yeah man, that'd be great." I told him. When I turned to face him, he was smiling at me. "What?"

"You really like her huh?"

"Well duh, she's my imprint. Of course I like her."

"No, I mean that you like her from watching her. I've seen how when you're both in the room together you sit and watch her, and smile when she does. It's more than just the imprint working here," he told me. I couldn't help but blush a little when he mentioned me watching her. I thought that nobody had noticed that.

"Like what Em? Some mystical magical mumbo jumbo? That stuff doesn't exist," I told him while waving my hand.

"Dude, we're werewolves. Anything could be real. There could be faeries out there trying to put you two together!" He exclaimed.

I raised my eyebrow at him and gave him a look that said 'really?'

"Okay, so maybe not faeries. But I swear it's something else too. Cause the imprint is there, but so is something else. I can almost sense it."

"Okay Spiderman. Let's go home and sleep. So tomorrow you can talk to her right?" I asked while looking at him with a hopeful expression.

"Yeah man. And until I find out, or you understand what ever is going on with you two. Just take things slowly. Remember, one step, then the next. Go slow." With that we went our separate ways and headed home.