With a furious crash, Newborns smashed through the ramshackle roof and started to drop to the hard wooden floor. The roof of the warehouse was made up of corrugated metal and slate; materials I had no power over. One by one, my enchantments became irrelevant as they slammed through our ceiling and landed on the stacks of crates or amongst us on the floor. The first few were utterly destroyed as vampire or werewolf fell upon them, but there were so many. So many.

The Newborn King had been surrounded by a circle of his slaves, ready to throw themselves at anything that came at him. My attention though, was personal.

How had he done it? The wall around Jacob's mind was still solid; I could feel the power I was using to maintain it. However, through the solid wall of protection, now looking for it, I could feel the tiny little hole. Like an injection, the Newborn King had slowly but surely made his way past my protections. It was too late now though to wonder how, but what to do.

Jacob's massive wolf-form lunged at me as three newborns landed on Jared's flank, pulling him away from our personal battle. On some level, I almost appreciated it. If Jacob and I were to fight, nobody else had a place in it. On the edge of my senses I could feel the others fighting; Charlie flitting around opponents like he was dancing, Chris was furiously attacking anyone that came near Jeremy whilst Ian lashed out from the shadows here and there. The Cullens were phenomenal; even Esme was a bitter shade of beautiful and she wove through the warehouse leaving a wake of newborn carnage.

Jacob snapped at me again, almost half heartedly. I took a quick step back, power still running through me, pulsing into muscle and sinew. I looked hard into Jacob's eyes and tried to pull the chocolate gaze back into the now hard and empty depths. I didn't know what I was doing, but for a second I saw the familiar gaze and hopeful glance.

We would leave this together, like I promised.

Then it was gone. Like metal shutters that slam over a shop front, I was left with nothing but someone else dressed as my other half.

With no pause or warning, Jacob was lashing at my throat. His movements were clumsy, but powerful and deadly. The Newborn King wasn't used to fighting as a wolf, which gave me an edge, but one that I couldn't use. As much as I tried, I couldn't break through the King's control of Jacob. Every second that I tried and failed, another newborn crashed through the ceiling to attack my pack or our allies.

I tried again, Jacob's claws slashing at my shoulder. The King's control was too strong for me to contend with in battle, but I could not defend myself and my pack whilst I fought with Jacob.

I slammed a powered hand forward, knocking his paw away from my throat. His blow went wide, but caught my left thigh. Ryan howled into the sky and his pain echoed around the unnatural walls of the warehouse. I felt his blood running over his skin as if it were mine, his sorrow at failing his pack as his will started to falter. We were losing.

It wasn't a thud, like the beat of the Earth, but a steady hum.

I moved to the side quickly as Jacob's maw lunged for me again.

Power pulsed through me and muscle and sinew responded. Too quickly for a human body, I snapped to the side inches away from Jacob's teeth. Again they snapped towards me as I rolled into a crouch. A few sharp steps forward and I landed a few heavy punches to Jacob's side and the joints in his front legs. He yelped in pain and backed a few steps backward, but superior healing was on his side. A few seconds later he was starting to circle me like I hadn't nearly just broken his knees.

Again he was on me. So fast that I'm sure even the vampires lost track of the specifics, we were a blur of teeth, pain and blood.

Jacob never caught me with his teeth, although my shoulder and side were running with blood from unexpected slashes from his claws.

Another couple of newborns came through the roof ready for battle. The sea called with a slow hum.

Jeremy's heart was beating slowly, starting to get quieter in the thrum of battle.

The hum pulsed power through my skin.

Jacob lunged again, almost in slow motion. This was the power of the sea, time and thought was my play thing, and I would lose nothing I valued if it was my master.

I watched Jacob get closer and closer, it was a curiosity. I examined the hairs on his face and his jaws as the distance between us disappeared. I'm sure it looked like I moved at the last moment, but in truth I simply walked around him as he snapped at my face.

The sea was running through me and everything around me was so slow I could have thought it all dead. The twists and turns of the gray wind pulled from the most unlikely of things. Suddenly, the negative space had become so much more prominent. The empty space, the nothing that filled in the gaps between creatures and objects, friends and enemies, the dead and living had become more important that the things that defined it.

The dull gray threads that connected all living things span in a frenzied tapestry. The vampires spooled threads of knotted fibres around them. So alive and affecting the living, but not quiet there meant the threads, fate or destiny, whatever the word, smattered around them like bungled sewing. The threads around Jeremy were slowly starting to change. Old lines were starting to draw away and join the flow of the world and the dark gray vines of death were starting to pull slowly at his heels. My gaze passed quickly over Jeremy and settled on the vibrant, pulsing cord of threads that linked the Newborn King to Jacob.

Jacob was turning to face me, inch by inch as if the air was pressing against him. I didn't care for the love sick teenager and I'd never really cared for the selfish notion of imprinting. But what I didn't stand for was someone taking what was mine.

Nobody would take what was mine.

The cords shone in the Grey like a bright white line twisting through the monochrome. It took little more than a second to unravel the delicate strands that gave the cord its strength. The wolf wheeled round to snarl at the King, in the end it was his own will that snapped the weakened cords. The King staggered back, the kickback from his control being broken knocked him back against the doorway of the office behind him.

Time snapped back to normal, the chaos of the scene whirling around in a pattern of blood and death. Jacob was like lightning, up the stairs and his huge maw around the Newborn King's torso in less than a heartbeat. Jacob jumped down off the narrow balcony and landed in the space below. The newborn vampires had all stopped, looking around in confusion and panic. The werewolves and vampires had taken advantage of their confusion and many newborns were lost in those few brief moments. Once their senses returned, the rest bolted for the covered doors and windows, most being ripped apart as they struggled with the fading enchantment that was still pulsing through the wood.

Jacob savagely shook the King from side to side. With a strange sound, like cement being ground together, the top half of the King's torso, neck and head fell to the ground. From the other side of Jacob's muzzle, the lower half of his body thudded to the floor. Jacob shook his head once more and let the chunk of chest cavity slide across the floor.

With the vampire who tried to take what was mine slain, I had no further interest in the people here. I could hear the sea calling me and I wanted to explore its depths and discover the power that waited for me.

One of the human-wolves jumped in front of me, pointing manically over my shoulder and shouting at me. The words and discordant chaos made no sense under the sound of the oceans hum. I couldn't make out the words of the creature in front of me, nor did I care enough to try. A few tendrils of the ocean wrapped around their mind and they quickly forgot me, disappearing passed me and leaving my exit unmolested.

The wooden crates and palates that had been used to bar the doors and windows and been partially absorbed into the old frame of the warehouse. Power coalesced around me, it flowed up and down my body like a never ending wave. Powerful and cold, I smiled as the chill pushed away the heat of the battle that had built up in the warehouse. I stared up at the wooden wall that blocked my way.

Nothing would hold me.

The power crashed forwards from me in a tidal wave. Gray power slammed the side of the warehouse, knocking the door and a large amount of the wall around it out onto the sandy clearing outside the warehouse. I smiled at the destruction and quietly revelled in the anticipation of learning the strength of my power.

The salt breeze greeted me as I stepped through the destroyed doorway. I could feel the molecules of salt on my skin as the breeze blew them across the coast; scrubbing away the taint of my old life and power.

Hands spun me around to look upon a scared face and chocolate eyes. I sighed with frustration and felt for the tendrils of the ocean's power. His hands, so hot, cupped my jaw line and cheeks, pulling my gaze to his.

The song of the ocean was still all I could hear, all I wanted to hear. There was something about his gaze though, that made me listen harder. Ever so quietly beneath the ocean's hum, I could put words to his frantic attempts.

'Come back! This isn't you!'

Any sympathy I might have had for the creature evaporated. How dare he presume to know me. I had the power of oceans at my call, I could feel the ancient waters rolling through my blood. I had as much in common with this creature than he did with an insect.

Power and ice snapped at the hands that were holding my face. He jumped back as if stung, not looking at his ice-nipped hands, but had the gall to stare into my eyes. Whatever he saw there chilled him and he took a few unsteady steps back.

I turned from his stricken face and turned again towards the ocean. There was a line of man-made buildings between me and it. So insignificant were they compared to the vastness of the sea, they may has well have been a simple stepping stone. Chocolate eyes and hot skin completely forgotten, there was only a lingering scent of an unknown spice flittering on the periphery of my thoughts, out of place with the salty brine and cold of my new domain.

One step, two steps, three. I felt the power building and my steps quickening as I headed as the crow flies for the ocean.

A hot pressure squeezed my arm and yanked me backwards off my feet. Hands spun me around and a hot wall of flesh stopped me from falling to the sand. Once more, chocolate eyes met mine, this time his hands held mine to my side.

He would regret his stupidity. I didn't need my arms to call the ocean, I was the ocean. I felt its power uncoil within me as I stared through his chest at his beating heart. The power threaded through our bodies towards the pulsing muscle, a path of cold following his doom.

'Come back to me.' His words seemed to cut through the hum. 'Come back to me, please!' The hum of the sea distorted his voice, making it sound older than I remembered it being, and sounding lighter. It didn't fit the human-wolf that was stood in front of me.

I went rigid at the sight that was waiting over his shoulder. Nanna, in her light blue skirt and pink cardigan was stood on the sand, looking at me with such sad eyes.

'Come back to me.' She begged. I looked at Jacob again.

'Come back to me.' His words echoing hers, or was it the other way around. His hot lips pressed against mine and an invasive heat threaded through the cold that shielded me from the world of mortals.

There was a flash of a memory, laughing over tea, bergamot scented the air. Another memory, lying together at a cliff top with the sunset as a blanket. Another memory, although this one hadn't happened yet, the two of us cooking for a bustling household, small children running around our feet.

The heat of his body sank through mine, like it had so many times before. The ocean pulled back and the Yipping Puppy yapped power at it, with the Old Dog standing over his shoulder. The past few minutes, for that's all the time that had actually passed, slammed into me. Jacob and I fighting, the power of the ocean destroying the King's control, my falling for the ocean's temptation, Nanna calling to me.

'Nanna.' I muttered, looking over Jacob's shoulder. I could still smell the lavender, but seperated from the power of the ocean, I couldn't see her ghostly figure. Instead I could see into the warehouse, two packs and a coven of vampires huddled around a prone figure.

'Jeremy?' I whispered. The memory of the spike of wood sticking out of his side sent so much adrenaline running through me I was a little dizzy.

'Jeremy!' I pulled out of Jacob's grasp and flew across the sand to the warehouse.

'Move!' I shouted at the group. 'Get out of my way!' I shoved at someone's hot shoulder.

I dropped my Jeremy's human form.

'No, no, no.' I muttered. He'd shifted with the spike still inside him. Carlisle had managed to pull it free before it did more damage, but the bleeding had been phenomenal. Carlisle was applying pressure to the wound and had managed to use tiny bits of vampire blood to seal some arteries without Jeremy's body rejecting it.

I lay next to Jeremy, as simply as if we were lying on the grass outside our Oregon house, talking about herb craft like we'd done so many times before. I felt his gentle breath on my face, Carlisle's hands pressed firmly on the side of his abdomen.

'Hold on Jer, I'm coming.' I whispered, and rested my forehead on his.

Panicked whispers disappeared, as did the warehouse that everybody was stood in. The floor beneath me became nothing. My world was now simply Jeremy. I dove into the works of his body, braced for the overwhelming response to the injuries he would be fighting, but there was almost nothing. His body had lost the fight, the last few pieces of strength he had he used to open his eyes. A wave of electrical impulses, normally insubstantial, waved through his lungs, oesophagus and throat.

'Bye. Sorry.' He croaked.

No. The Yipping Puppy wasn't bounding around kicking out power, it was sitting, waiting. Power flowed through me with a solid purpose of determination; he was not going to die. We were going to save him. The Puppy's power moved quickly with the brightness of the life of the Earth, beautiful and powerful. Riding its passage, the Old Dog's power threaded through it, slower but deeper, the power of an unforgiving world.

I grasped at Jeremy's mind; come on, stay with me. The power wove itself around every sinew, bone and piece of cartilage in a complex tapestry. I couldn't replace the blood that he'd lost, but my tapestry could serve its function for a short time. Once the web of power in Jeremy was complete, it should have been the hardest job completed, but the wounds were so grave the pull on the power was incredible. I could feel the Puppy starting to tire and without it, the Old Dog's power was harder to pull on.

The complex web of power within his body glimmered like strands of silver and emerald green. They sparkled and shone, radiating power where his body needed help. The base of his spine though was oddly devoid of light. Pushing forward, my mind swimming through the sparkling construct of energy and light I made it to the circle of darkness. The spike had pierced his side and cut straight through his spine: bone, cartilage and nerves.

A werewolf should recover from a wound like this over time, but Jeremy was so close to death, I wasn't sure what would happen. I mustered the Puppy for one final push, the Old Dog my cavalry. A shining column of energy, radiance and memory flashed into being. I fed the demand for energy and awoke the sleeping cells that remembered how the body used to be. Regeneration wasn't a human trait, yet, but it could be awakened and painstakingly fed.

After what felt like days and running a marathon, the basic nerve cord was repaired and enough cartilage and bone surrounded it too keep it safe and heal.

My concentration was diverted by a flare of impulses pulled me to the wound at his side. I'd pushed too much power at his spine, and his wound hadn't healed properly. Skin and muscle had knitted together, but blood was still pooling inside him.

A minor concern: the Puppy pulled together the offending arteries and held them with power whilst his body healed them naturally, with a little bit of help from me and the two sources of power.

With a deep feeling of relief, I started to reach out for my own body. Wiggle my toes and eyebrows, twitch my fingers.

Signals from Jeremy's brain started to slow. The surge of panic and energy threw me straight back into his body and I headed straight for his mind. His body was partially healed, but we were too slow, we were too late. His brain was dying.

If I hadn't given into the sea, if only Jacob was quicker, if only Jared had made him wait behind, if only none of this had ever happened.

I leapt into his fading consciousness. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had to keep him going, see if I could pull him back.

I slammed into his memory, hitting everything that still seemed responsive:

A grizzled man in his forties, scars on his face and alcohol on his breath smacked me around the face with the back of his hand. Broken glass was on the floor and blood was dripping from my nose.

Running through a wood; the silhouette of an angry man and a shot gun spurring my flight.

A werewolf, Chris, helped me walk with a sprained ankle towards the Oregon house.

I saw myself, knelt on the grass pointing at different plants I'd collected and talking about them.

A select few herbs, crushed and mixed into a small pillow that was then hand sown. It was rested close to my own sleeping head whilst Ryan held me whilst I suffered my oblivion whilst he healed.

On a body I had forgotten about, I felt a tear run down my cheek. Death could not be avoided forever, but today, he'd have to wait.

The Puppy had a little energy left in him, and knowing my intent, rallied to his master. With everything I had left, I pulled at the Old Dog, using every bit of willpower and Puppy-power that I had. The Old Dog's power came slowly at first, but soon it was flowing like a stream of tree sap, treacle in colour. The entity that was my power yipped and without any calling of my own, used the last bits of his power to cement the conduit through me to Jeremy.

The Old Dog's power was too much for me, and I felt my body seize as it was no longer able to carry so much power. The last parts of the Puppy's power kept it flowing, and the condensed power of the Old Dog filled Jeremy's broken body with promise.

As the immense power of the Old Dog slowly destroyed the simple conduit the Puppy had built, I felt Jeremy's slow heart beat flutter, missing a beat once, then twice.

I'd sworn that he would not die, and I'd be damned if he did. I looked into my soul and saw the waves of energy that still resided there.

I made the waves of green pulse into a single pin-point of light. I placed it carefully at the centre of his heart, and spoke a Word.

I threaded the Word through the Old Dog's power, and linked it with a heart that was so close to mine and hoped that that would be enough.

Then, nothing but oblivion.

-x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—

I wish we could have been at the house in Oregon, that was where we should be. I'd never felt quite the same way about the Oregon forests as I did those of Washington, but Oregon was our home.

Miriam had recovered from her wounds quickly, but her face was ashen and sad, tears still traced their way down her cheeks and her black dress was such a contrast to her pale skin. Jack was stood behind her, his sure and steady hands on her shoulders. He couldn't take his eyes of Jeremy's prone body though. Jeremy was lying on the sofa in the middle of the room with death pale skin.

Jared came down the stairs in a simple black suit and walked over to Jeremy's body. He rested his hand on Jeremy's shoulder, then looked up at Chris.

'It's time we said good bye.' Jared said quietly. Chris' jaw was set and his eyes determined, his nod was a quick, jerky movement. He walked over to the coach and looked down at Jeremy.

'Sorry kid.' He whispered.

I stood at the bottom of the sofa, looking down at Jeremy. I heard the back door open and a few seconds later, Jacob and Sam walked into the living room wearing their dark suits. Jacob's eyes were dark with lack of sleep and his eyes seemed hollow.

'We're glad you could come.' Jared said. He nodded at Jacob, although he didn't seem to notice.

Jacob took a few steps towards me before pausing, gathering himself for the service. I smiled at him and nodded my encouragement. He took a moment to gather himself, then carried on walking, his broad frame stepping towards me, then straight through me.

Miriam bent down and kissed Jeremy on the forehead. 'We'll be back soon.' She whispered, his ragged breathing sustained by the Word I'd placed in Jacob's heart.

The werewolves made their way out of the lodge through the front door and down the small porch stairs. The Cullens were waiting outside, on the other side of a tall pyre.

My body was laid on top of the wooden pyre. I had to hand it to myself, I didn't look bad dead.

The line of werewolves formed a semi-circle around the pyre. Jared walked to the end where my head was laid.

'There were many, many things we didn't know about you,' he started, 'so we chose to say goodbye to you how we would any other member of our pack.'

Ian put his arm around his brother whilst he quietly sobbed into his hands.

'You always spoke about the strengths of the individuals making the strength of the pack. I was its strength, Jeremy its innocence, Chris its life, Miriam its love. Then you my friend, you were a soul, our heart. We'll be a different pack without you.' He raised his arm to his left, and Chris took his position.

'Well, our first meeting we tried to kill each other, so our relationship could only have gotten better.' He laughed.

The smell of cut wood and evergreen was overridden by lavender. I didn't turn to see, but I knew Nanna was just behind my shoulder.

'A beautiful service.' She said. All I could look at was Jacob's face. Stood in the line to give his final words. The shadows of his eyes were dark and ate into his lively colour. His eyes were empty, missing the fury of the wolf or the chocolate sparkle of humour I remembered.

'I can't leave like this.' I muttered, more to Jacob than Nanna.

'You've done more than anyone could have asked. You gave your life to save Jeremy, he survived and will be healthy soon. I am so proud of you.' Her voice carried on the wind.

'But look at him.' I said, looking at Jacob, his turn to speak was coming up.

'He'll heal.' She said.

'No, he won't.' I whispered.

'You don't know that.'

'Yes, I do.' I said. 'I know, because he is me, and only death will stop me from feeling like I want to die.'

Nanna didn't say anything then, just rested her hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently. We both watched Jacob, the last to take his place at the head of the pyre.

He stood there in silence for a minute, maybe two. Without speaking, he picked up the burning torch that was held in a bracket by his side. As he lifted it high, Esme and Alice started singing. They were permitted to attend the funeral as friends, but as they were not pack, they were forbidden to speak. They sang no words, only sounds, but never have I felt such sorrow or thanks. I felt a spark of power I didn't know I had flitter into the wind, picking up their song and winding it around the forest.

'Goodbye.' Jacob whispered, and dropped the burning torch on the waiting pyre. The flames quickly caught and spread and within minutes, all were stood before a burning wooden brazier holding fleeting moments of memory that would be precious for the span of lifetimes.

Edward and Jared leapt forward and grabbed Jacob. He'd tried to jump onto the burning pyre and fought the two holding him back, desperately trying to be with his mate.

I stared at my body burning on the pyre, a weirder feeling I couldn't imagine. I wanted to say my own goodbye and so I did. With a smile, I watched as the flames burnt a beautiful orange, then turn into a dark green. Burning a gentle emerald, Jacob calmed and stared at the flames, entranced whilst the colour reflected in the eyes of my pack. Slowly, it died down and the bottle green collapsed into the oranges and yellows of the flickering fire.

'Goodbye.' I whispered. Jacob knelt by the fire and wouldn't move for hours. The fire built and flared into the sky, slowly the vampires then werewolves retreated to their homes. Embers burnt out in the night sky, stars shone down on us and still Jacob stayed, kneeling on the ground, looking at my ashes and burnt bones.

'Nanna?' I whispered.

'I'm with you, let him rest.' She said.

I felt her power run through mine and with it, I took to the air. Gliding through the air, I picked up my remains, and with a phenomenal amount of power I could only channel as I had no body to burn, I coalesced in front of Jacob.

'Hey' I whispered to him. He look up at me and took a few horrified steps back. Couldn't say I blamed him, I could only manage a semi-translucent image, and I was holding the remnants of my skeleton to help me form it. He could see my burnt skeleton through my transparent skin.

'Sorry I couldn't get dressed up.' I muttered, looking at the ground. How ludicrous was it that I was worried he didn't think I was attractive?

To say the pause was pregnant didn't quiet some it up, eventually he broke the silence. 'Take me with you.'

'What?' I gasped.

'There's no point me living if I can't do it with you, take me with you!' he begged. He tried to grab my arms, but they disappeared as he knocked my arm bones to the ground.

'You need to live.' I said, meeting his eye.

'I can't!' He argued.

'This isn't a discussion Jacob. You will live, you will thrive, you will love again and you will kick ass when needed, am I understood?!' I bellowed as best I could when you were talking through the veil of life and death.

He got down on one knee and held his hands out. I placed a re-formed arm and hand in his.

'I never got to ask, but if you could, would you?' He paused, not sad, but nervous.

'Jacob! Are you asking me to marry you?' I laughed.

'Weirder things have happened.' He said, smiling for the first time in days.

'No, I don't think they have.' I laughed. 'I would have said yes. Yes, Jacob.' He sighed with relief and let his hands fall to his sides.

'But it's pointless. I should have burned with you.' I flew around his side and picked his gaze up from the floor.

'I don't have long, Jacob, but listen to me. You will live, you will love and you will kick ass. That's an order.' Jacob smiled at me, but shook his head. He gently raised my ghostly hands in his and brought them to his mouth. As I felt the heat from his lips burn through my insubstantial body, the balance of life and death pulled me back through its borders.

'I love you.' His voice was carried to me on winds scented with lavender.

'I won't leave you!' I cried, then the veil between his world and ours snapped shut. I could see him, but never touch him, smell him or comfort him.

But I stayed.

Months swam by, maybe even a year or two, I don't know. All I remember is Jacob wasting away. His tribe were at a loss as to what to do, I was there when an Elder told his father to let him die, nobody could recover from losing their imprint. He might get up, move around, but Jacob died when his mate burnt on the pyre. Said Elder was ejected from the Black household with all due prejudice.

The months carried on, and Jacob wasted away. His beautiful russet skin lost its shine and his deep brown eyes lost their shimmer. He stopped leaving the house and he stopped shifting so much that the ghost of my mind couldn't recall the gleam of his russet fur.

My pack came back at Sam's request. Jeremy sat at his bedside for three days without sleeping, talking nonstop of his memories of me, and when he ran out, he kept on talking about nothing. Miriam had to walk him out of his room.

Jared sat at his bedside, he never spoke, he just simply held his hand and prayed. For a few moments his ex-wife kept me company in the ether, trying to offer some comfort from our place in the 'elsewhere'.

Bella took his place. She cried and sobbed into his shoulder, calling his name like he was a lost child. On one of the nights that she left, I sat at the foot of his bed, watching him.

'This will do you no good.' Her voice called, as it always did now. Nanna was trying to get me to 'move on', or to 'let go'. I didn't want to do either, existence was existence and what I had to exist for was lying on this bed.

Nanna let out a huff of frustration.

'Really child! What are you planning to do, sit and watch him go through life!'

'I want to see him be happy, and smile and love again. I want him to be happy and to be happy for him.' I whispered.

'It's not going to happen.' My Nan said. 'You only get one imprint, and you were his.'

I turned and stared at her in horror. 'What?'

'I'm sorry, child.' She said.

'You have to be wrong, he can't be like this!' I cried.

'He may recover, but he will never be what he was. I did everything I could to make sure this didn't happen. I'm sorry.' She said, tears in her eyes.

'Please Nanna, there must be something.' I cried, tugging at the insubstantial folds of her cardigan and skirt.

'Listen to me, little one, you can't-' she stopped mid-sentance, listening to the wind. 'Well, I'll be.' She muttered.

'What's happened?' I asked, still hopeful.

'Victory.' She laughed. 'Victory in the most unlikely of places.'

'I don't understand.' I whined. Her wrinkled face just smiled and me. She rested an old hand on the side of my face and a tear finally made its way down her cheek.

'And you won't, not for many, many years.'

'I don't understand? Nanna!' The "thump" of the Earth had pulsed power into her and I could feel it vibrating through the world. Threads I didn't know could exist shimmered into reality, not the threads of nature like I was used to, but these were threads of "what was" the threads of fate or destiny.

'Nanna,' I whispered through the winds that had started to whirl around me in our world. 'I'm scared.'

'I'm proud of you, little one.' Her voice drifted to me on a gentle breeze of lavender through a tumultuous gale of the unknown. Slowly, it picked me up and the agents of time started pulling my memories apart.

I watched the world reform as if I was never in it. The forests I had travelled in, the animals that had carried my mind, the grass I had stepped on, even the pack mates I had loved unknowingly lent their power to the spell my Nanna was weaving from the grave.

A memory: Chris was running through the forest and encountered my young self, we quickly came to blows...

No, no we didn't. Chris was running through the forest, and then, kept running. He never met me.

Ryan was attacked and badly hurt in the Oregon forest, but he recovered by himself.

Negotiations with the Uley pack were difficult, but Jack's calm voice soothed tempers before they flared.

Jacob met my pack to deal with the crisis of the newborns and their king, but he never imprinted.

Time and events unrolled before me without me ever in them. Eventually, I saw Jacob healthy and hale, running the forests like the past few weeks had never happened.

'They won't remember you,' Nanna said, 'and Jacob will carry on like he never met you.'

With nobody to remember me, my insubstantial body had started to dissolve.

'He will live and love as any other teenage wolf, until he meets his imprint.' Nanna said with a smile.

'I was his imprint,' I said sadly, 'he can't have two.'

'And he won't,' she said smiling, with wisdom and kindness in her eyes the ocean never had. 'The ocean has power, my child, but not love.' She said. 'The ocean never knew anything of love, but the Earth does and you will see your imprint again.'

'I don't understand!' I cried. Wind that shouldn't exist had picked up in a frightening force around me.

'Reincarnation my sweet one!' She cried over the screaming winds. 'Jacob will love you again!'

'But I could be anywhere! Anything!' I screamed. I wasn't going to leave him, my own power started thrashing out in tendrils against the spiritual wind, trying to anchor me to the spirit world.

'Calm, child.' Nan's power reached through the hurricane that held me and rested her calm hands on my shoulders. 'I've found somewhere for you to be.'

'Where, I don't want to leave Nanna?' I said.

She simply smiled at me with kind, green eyes and chuckled.

'Bella's about to conceive.' Her chuckle was a full laugh that you wouldn't believe an Octogenarian could imagine.

The last bit of the wind picked my spirit up and started its journey into the unknown.

The distance into the unknown would have been terrible, if not for the lavender that carried me on its wings.

See you soon, Jacob. See you soon.

-x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x

I hope you have all enjoyed reading as much as I have writing. This story was very much unplanned but turned into something I have really enjoyed.

I don't know whether you have noticed, but throughout the story I have done my best to leave Alex's appearance up to the reader. Apart from green eyes, there were no definite physical descriptions to the point I haven't actually (I hope) said if Alex is male or female.

I'd be really interested to know what Alex looked like to you!