Breaking Dawn (Twilight #4)(53)
I braced myself. No.
Sam snarled and stopped pacing in front of me. He stared into my eyes and a deep growl slid between his teeth.
Yes,the Alpha decreed, his double voice blistering with the heat of his authority. There are no loopholes tonight. You, Jacob, are going to fight the Cullens with us. You, with Quil and Embry, will take care of Jasper and Emmett. You are obligated to protect the tribe. That is why you exist. You willperform this obligation.
My shoulders hunched as the edict crushed me. My legs collapsed, and I was on my belly under him.
No member of the pack could refuse the Alpha.
11. THE TWO THINGS AT THE VERY TOP OF MY THINGS-I-
Sam started moving the others into formation while i was still on the ground. Embry and Quil were at my sides, waiting for me to recover and take the point.
I could feel the drive, the need, to get on my feet and lead them. The compulsion grew, and I fought it uselessly, cringing on the ground where I was.
Embry whined quietly in my ear. He didn't want to think the words, afraid that he would bring me to Sam's attention again. I felt his wordless plea for me to get up, for me to get this over with and be done with it.
There was fear in the pack, not so much for self but for the whole. We couldn't imagine that we would all make it out alive tonight. Which brothers would we lose? Which minds would leave us forever? Which grieving families would we be consoling in the morning?
My mind began to work with theirs, to think in unison, as we dealt with these fears. Automatically, I pushed up from the ground and shook out my coat.
Embry and Quil huffed in relief. Quil touched his nose to my side once.
Their minds were filled with our challenge, our assignment. We remembered together the nights we'd watched the Cullens practicing for the fight with the newborns. Emmett Cullen was strongest, but Jasper would be the bigger problem. He moved like a lightning strike - power and speed and death rolled into one. How many centuries' experience did he have? Enough that all the other Cullens looked to him for guidance.
take point, if you want flank, Quil offered. There was more excitement in his mind than most of the others. When Quil had watched Jasper's instruction those nights, he'd been dying to test his skill against the vampire's. For him, this would be a contest. Even knowing it was his life on the line, he saw it that way. Paul was like that, too, and the kids who had never been in battle, Collin and Brady. Seth probably
would've been the same - if the opponents were not his friends.
Jake?Quil nudged me. How do you want to roll?
I just shook my head, t couldn't concentrate - the compulsion to follow orders felt like puppet strings hooked intoall of my muscles. One foot forward, now another.
Seth was dragging behind Collin and Brady - Leah had assumed point there. She ignored Seth while planning with the others, and I could see that she'd rather leave him out of the fight.There was a maternal edge to her feelings for her younger brother. She wished Sam would send him home. Seth didn't register Leah's doubts. He was adjusting to the puppet strings, too.
Maybe if you stopped resisting...,Embry whispered.
Just focus on our part. The big ones. We can take them down. We own them!Quil was working himself up - like a pep talk before a big game.
I could see how easy it would be - to think about nothing more than my part. It wasn't hard to imaging attacking Jasper and Emmett. We'd been close to that before. I'd thought of them as enemies for a very long time. I could do that now again.
I just had to forget that they were protecting the same thing I would protect. I had to forget the reason why I might want them to win....
Jake,Embry warned. Keep your head in the game.
My feet moved sluggishly, pulling against the drag of the strings.
There's no point fighting it,Embry whispered again.
He was right. I would end up doing what Sam wanted, if he was willing to push it. And he was. Obviously.
There was a good reason for the Alpha's authority. Even a pack as strong as ours wasn't much of a force without a leader. We had to move together, to think together, in order to be effective. And that required the body to have a head.
So what if Sam was wrong now? There was nothing anyone could do. No one could dispute his decision.
Except.
And there it was - a thought I'd never, never wanted to have. But now, with my legs all tied up in strings, I recognized the exception with relief - more than relief, with a fierce joy.
No one could dispute the Alpha's decision - except for me.
I hadn't earned anything. But there were things that had been born in me, things that I'd left unclaimed.
I'd never wanted to lead the pack. I didn't want to do it now. I didn't want the responsibility for all our fates resting on my shoulders. Sam was better at that than I would ever be.
But he was wrong tonight.
And I had not been born to kneel to him.
The bonds fell off my body the second that I embraced my birthright.
I could feel it gathering in me, both a freedomand also a strange, hollow power.Hollow because an Alpha's power came from his pack, and I had no pack. For a second, loneliness overwhelmed me.
I had no pack now.
But I was straight and strong as I walked to where Sam stood, planning with Paul and Jared. He turned at the sound of my advance, and his black eyes narrowed.
A/o, I told him again.
He heard it right away, heard the choice that I'd made in the sound of the Alpha voice in my thoughts.